The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part Deux)

[YahwehIsTheWay]

I'm normally no fan of apologetics. To me, if your faith is so weak that you need to turn to the likes of Strobel and WL Craig to shore up your conviction, then don't expect to be moving about any mountains any time soon. Mustard seed wouldn't describe the scale here. More like the faith the size of an electron. But I digress.

I just don't want to leave such important work of preaching to the heathen trash whose hearts our loving Lord has filled with a strong delusion so that they're not going to believe it anyway because they're destined to be the Lord's objects of wrath on Judgment Day (praise the sweet name of Jesus that it's you guys and not me) to some buffoon who can't even get around to the topic after nearly 50 pages of posts.

So with no further adieu, here we go.

1. Would They Die For A Lie?
Let's begin with this gem, which is my favorite because there's absolutely no history of crazy religious nuts dying for their beliefs unless those beliefs really are true.


OK, Muslim suicide bombers don't count because they're brainwashed.


Modern cults don't count because they're just crazy.

But the early Christians, they knew The Truth (and don't forget to capitalize the T) so clearly that's different.

The early Christians were persecuted by the Romans. We know this because of all the video footage captured by Hollywood, recordings that had been miraculously preserved for 2000 years.




So with such powerful folklore, how can anyone deny our mythology?

And if you're still not convinced, I have several more arguments that you've probably heard already...

[Whateverist]

That does it. I BELIEVE! I BELIEVE! Now the eyes of my eyes are open. Now the ears of my ears can hear. Hallelujah! All glory to .. me. What, you thought I was going to say Yahwey? No way. However I thought the citation of Hollywood footage was a step in the right direction. You just have more work to do.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

...and I can shovel in even more evidence for Jesus...

2. Look at All These Fulfilled Prophecies!
Jesus, we must remember, didn't just claim to be the Son of God ...or God incarnate ...or a separate person from and yet part of the same substance as God, or... excuse me, I need to consult my definition of the Trinity once again...





OK, Jesus didn't just claim to be something-or-other-related-to-God-somehow-need-to-pray-on-that-later. He backed it up with powerful deeds. He fulfilled many prophecies in the Bible. We know this because the Bible tells us that he did. So that's how we can be confident that the Bible is true when the Bible tells us that he's the something-or-other-of-God because the Bible then tells us that he proved it to be true.

Even atheists have admired my logic as being well rounded.



So what are the odds then? What are the odds that a character in a story would fulfill all the prophecies related to us in the story and do so successfully as the story unfolds?

Checkmate, atheists!

...let's see what's next in the canned apologetics pantry...

[dyresand]

I'm normally no fan of apologetics. To me, if your faith is so weak that you need to turn to the likes of Strobel and WL Craig to shore up your conviction, then don't expect to be moving about any mountains any time soon. Mustard seed wouldn't describe the scale here. More like the faith the size of an electron. But I digress.

I just don't want to leave such important work of preaching to the heathen trash whose hearts our loving Lord has filled with a strong delusion so that they're not going to believe it anyway because they're destined to be the Lord's objects of wrath on Judgment Day (praise the sweet name of Jesus that it's you guys and not me) to some buffoon who can't even get around to the topic after nearly 50 pages of posts.

So with no further adieu, here we go.

1. Would They Die For A Lie?
Let's begin with this gem, which is my favorite because there's absolutely no history of crazy religious nuts dying for their beliefs unless those beliefs really are true.


OK, Muslim suicide bombers don't count because they're brainwashed.


Modern cults don't count because they're just crazy.

But the early Christians, they knew The Truth (and don't forget to capitalize the T) so clearly that's different.

The early Christians were persecuted by the Romans. We know this because of all the video footage captured by Hollywood, recordings that had been miraculously preserved for 2000 years.




So with such powerful folklore, how can anyone deny our mythology?

And if you're still not convinced, I have several more arguments that you've probably heard already...

.....you guys worship the same fucking god that the muslims, and Islamists, Catholics, various other insano judo christian god followers follow. you worship the same terrible god who does the same terrible things except he is okay with people killing other people and being martyrs
and sacrificing them selves by blowing them selves up with a eternal reward to 72 virgins.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

3. Hey Nobody Said It Wasn't True.
If Jesus hadn't really risen from the dead, surely there would have been people around at that time who would have said so. After all, it's well known that the ancient world was full of Fact Checking Commandos that would have jumped upon any rabbi scribbling something incorrect, pinned him to the ground and cried "FALSE!" The fact that we have no records of this ever happening proves that Jesus must have risen from the dead 2-3 days after the crucifixion, depending on which Gospel you read, and then risen into the sky to be with his father on that same day (Luke 24:51), eight days later (John 20:26) or 40 days later (Acts 1:3).

Look, the details aren't important. It definitely happened. Stop nit picking you heathen trash!

We know this because we have no writings of any skeptic who lived at that time who denied Jesus had risen from the dead.



Furthermore, we have no writings of any skeptic for the next thousand years or so who denied that Jesus had risen from the dead.



Even the writings of early critics of Christianity, like those of Celsus or Thallus, only come to us as they are preserved in the writings of early Christian apologists, who had quoted these scoffers for refutation. Obviously, the works of these skeptics were so inconsequential that no one thought them worthy of preservation. So we can assume they said nothing to refute the divinity and resurrection of Jesus.

Now I know what some of you heathen trash are thinking, "Just because we don't have the writings of skeptics of Christianity doesn't mean they didn't exist." Well, allow me to shatter your faith by showing you that we have indeed preserved a written record of early skeptics who believed that Jesus wasn't a flesh-and-blood person:

1 John 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

So such things have been preserved, in the Bible itself. And yet the works of Celsus and Thallus are not mentioned in the Bible. Ah ha!

Checkmate atheists!

...and let's see, here's another can. Where's my can opener? ...

---

...you worship the same terrible god who does the same terrible things except he is okay with people killing other people and being martyrs ...

Yes. ...and?

[dyresand]

1. No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef.

In the words of Bart Ehrman (who himself believes the stories were built on a historical kernel):

“What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references – nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death – even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era – there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress that we do have a large number of documents from the time – the writings of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus’ name ever so much as mentioned.” (pp. 56-57)

2. The earliest New Testament writers seem ignorant of the details of Jesus’ life, which become more crystalized in later texts.

Paul seems unaware of any virgin birth, for example. No wise men, no star in the east, no miracles. Historians have long puzzled over the “Silence of Paul” on the most basic biographical facts and teachings of Jesus. Paul fails to cite Jesus’ authority precisely when it would make his case. What’s more, he never calls the twelve apostles Jesus’ disciples; in fact, he never says Jesus HAD disciples –or a ministry, or did miracles, or gave teachings. He virtually refuses to disclose any other biographical detail, and the few cryptic hints he offers aren’t just vague, but contradict the gospels. The leaders of the early Christian movement in Jerusalem like Peter and James are supposedly Jesus’ own followers and family; but Paul dismisses them as nobodies and repeatedly opposes them for not being true Christians!

Liberal theologian Marcus Borg suggests that people read the books of the New Testament in chronological order to see how early Christianity unfolded.

Placing the Gospels after Paul makes it clear that as written documents they are not the source of early Christianity but its product. The Gospel — the good news — of and about Jesus existed before the Gospels. They are the products of early Christian communities several decades after Jesus’ historical life and tell us how those communities saw his significance in their historical context.

3. Even the New Testament stories don’t claim to be first-hand accounts.

We now know that the four gospels were assigned the names of the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, not written by them. To make matter sketchier, the name designations happened sometime in second century, around 100 years or more after Christianity supposedly began.

For a variety of reasons, the practice of pseudonymous writing was common at the time and many contemporary documents are “signed” by famous figures. The same is true of the New Testament epistles except for a handful of letters from Paul (6 out of 13) which are broadly thought to be genuine. But even the gospel stories don’t actually say, “I was there.” Rather, they claim the existence of other witnesses, a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has heard the phrase, my aunt knew someone who . . . .

4. The gospels, our only accounts of a historical Jesus, contradict each other.

If you think you know the Jesus story pretty well, I suggest that you pause at this point to test yourself with the 20 question quizat ExChristian.net.

The gospel of Mark is thought to be the earliest existing “life of Jesus,” and linguistic analysis suggests that Luke and Matthew both simply reworked Mark and added their own corrections and new material. But they contradict each other and, to an even greater degree contradict the much later gospel of John, because they were written with different objectives for different audiences. The incompatible Easter stories offer one example of how much the stories disagree.

5. Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons.

They include a cynic philosopher, charismatic Hasid, liberal Pharisee, conservative rabbi, Zealot revolutionary, nonviolent pacifist to borrow from a much longer list assembled by Price. In his words (pp. 15-16), “The historical Jesus (if there was one) might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage. But he cannot very well have been all of them at the same time.” John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar grumbles that “the stunning diversity is an academic embarrassment.

Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity. Paul and the rest of the first generation of Christians searched the Septuagint translation of Hebrew scriptures to create a Mystery Faith for the Jews, complete with pagan rituals like a Lord’s Supper, Gnostic terms in his letters, and a personal savior god to rival those in their neighbors’ longstanding Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman traditions.

In a soon-to-be-released follow up to Nailed, entitled Jesus: Mything in Action, Fitzgerald argues that the many competing versions proposed by secular scholars are just as problematic as any “Jesus of Faith:”

Even if one accepts that there was a real Jesus of Nazareth, the question has little practical meaning: Regardless of whether or not a first century rabbi called Yeshua ben Yosef lived, the “historical Jesus” figures so patiently excavated and re-assembled by secular scholars are themselves fictions.

We may never know for certain what put Christian history in motion. Only time (or perhaps time travel) will tell.

[Jackalope]

[YahwehIsTheWay]

5. Too Soon For A Lie.

The resurrection is related to us in the historical documents...





...we know as the Gospel accounts much too quickly to be dismissed as legend or myth. The Gospels were penned just 40 years (or at least 40 years) after the events.

I mean, who ever heard of a man dying and then being seen alive by his most devoted fans within years of his death?



Checkmate once again, atheists!

...Moving on...

---

6. C'mon, Look At All The Stuff That Is Real!

The Gospels mention Jerusalem. That's a real city.
The Gospels mention Pilate. He's a real governor.
The Gospels mention Rome. That was a real empire.
The Gospels mention Jesus. ...

What part of this progression escapes you?



...quickly moving on...

[Exian]

Nuh-uh

*C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER!!!*

[YahwehIsTheWay]

7. Look! Nothing!

They found an empty hole that we assume was the grave of Jesus. In fact, we found two such empty holes. Three if you count the one James Cameron discovered.

The point is, how does a presumed tomb become empty? Nothing doesn't just get there by itself. We have to start inventing other preposterous stories to account for what's not there, creating a false dilemma so we can work back to the desired conclusion. Well, you may not have to do this but I certainly do.

So explain to me, oh knowledgeable skeptic, how nothing got there. Nothing doesn't just get there by itself, does it?

So eliminating all the other possible explanations, like the body was stolen, Jesus survived the crucifixion and escaped the tomb, we don't have the right location or "look, it's just a damn hole in the wall", we're left with the simplest explanation that Jesus rose from the dead and flew up into the sky to be with his Heavenly father!





Ready to embrace the one true religion yet?

If not, I've got plenty more shoveling to do...