We can be certain of NO resurrection - A Response

[Randy Carson]

In the next paragraph of his blog post, Baxter opines:

Now, I had planned to write a response this this particular assertion...but quite honestly, the subject has been addressed quite capably by many others at various websites. Here in one example:

Ok Randy. So your response is that he makes a reference to it in a creed he quotes, which by your own admission is a creed? It's just like people quoting the Nicene Creed today - doesn't mean they actually witnessed the supposed transfiguration, does it?

Yes, Paul TEACHES the Creed that he learned in Jerusalem from the mouths of the Apostles around AD 35 to those in Corinth for whom he had pastoral responsibility.

NO ONE witnessed the resurrection. But MANY people saw the risen Jesus...and Paul was one of them as he testifies.

The Nicene Creed does not mention the transfiguration.

From this, we see that 1) Paul did speak of the physical resurrection of Jesus in 1 Cor 15, and 2) Paul's meetings in Jerusalem with the apostles would have provided him with an opportunity to investigate (Gr. historeo) (cf. Gal. 1:18-19) the full details of the empty tomb. Additionally, I think it is more than reasonable to assume that prior to his conversion, Paul would have been fully aware of the believers' claim of resurrection as well as the counter-claim that the disciples stole the body put forward by the Jews in response. In fact, he would have advocated that stolen body theory himself during the 2-3 year period that he was persecuting the early Church.

The claim that the body had been stolen coupled with the fact that his own conversion was brought about by his meeting the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus (which convinced him that the body obviously had not been stolen), leave no doubt that Paul believed the tomb was empty.

Baxter is simply wrong.

Paul doesn't mention an empty tomb. All he says in the 1 Cor 15 creed he recites is that Jesus is raised.

What does "raised" mean, Daniel?

If Jesus was still in the tomb, how did he appear to all those people mentioned in 1 Cor 15?

As I pointed out to you earlier there are TWO different versions of Paul's conversion in the Bible. One written by Paul himself - where he doesn't say that he met the risen Jesus at all - and the other a hearsay account in Acts 9.

Hearsay...now there is a word loaded with negative connotations. Paul and Luke traveled together for many years. Luke had set through MANY of Paul's sermons...he knew what Paul taught publicly and what he said privately as they walked along the dusty roads of the middle east on their missionary journeys. So, when Luke says that Paul met Jesus, he knew what he was talking about.

I didn't say the body was stolen from the tomb. I do not know what happened after Jesus was supposedly laid in it, but there are many possibilities - including the family taking it for reburial, Joseph moving it out of his tomb for reasons known only to him, or the disciples simply going to the wrong tomb since the family or family member they talked to put them in the wrong direction.

Since you admit you do not know what happened to the body of Jesus, is resurrection one of the possibilities open to consideration, too?

The first written accounts of the resurrection are in Luke and Matthew. Mark does not mention it. [emphasis added] As you would be well aware I do advocate for the view that Matt/Luke were written c. 60AD which is towards the end of Paul's writings. You'd also be aware that I'm keen to pint out that the Epistle of James is written early - before 50AD in my opinion. That means the first accounts we know about (with reasonable confidence) come from James, Paul, and Mark.  Even with later dating of the gospels this is true. So Paul does not need to know about the resurrection theory since he doesn't make reference to it and it doesn't appear until after his epistles.

That makes you wrong, obviously.

Obviously?

Mark writes, "He is risen" in Mark 16:6. Mark knew of the resurrection.

As for James, why do you suppose that the skeptical brother of Jesus was converted after Jesus' death to the degree that he became the leader of the Church in Jerusalem and a martyr for his faith?