(August 14, 2015 at 9:54 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: So, yeah, I'm willing to accept, for argument's sake, that the apostles were real people because their existence is immaterial to the matter at hand. We don't know how they died, or what threats they lived under while alive (if they were indeed alive), so the standard apologist wish casting and psychoanalysis of straw men still doesn't get him anywhere.
The "matter at hand" is whether these "real people" conspired with regard to what they reported:
1. that Jesus was crucified, dead and buried,
2. that Jesus appeared to them alive again after his death
3. that Paul, the persecutor of the early Church, was converted
4. that James, the unbelieving brother of Jesus, was converted
3. that Jesus' tomb was found empty.
The Conspiracy Theory states that the apostles agreed to lie about all of these points.
Do you believe that this theory is the best explanation for the five points listed above?
If not, what is?
