(May 22, 2016 at 9:59 am)Jehanne Wrote: This is not a thread for Jesus mythists, so let's suppose that Jesus of Nazareth existed. Professor Bart Ehrman, in his 2008 debate with William Craig, gave a completely naturalistic explanation of Jesus' supposed "resurrection" from the dead, which I am going to embellish on my own:
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5) In the months and years following Jesus' death, his followers began having visions of the "risen" savior.
6) Later on the letters of Paul were written (the earliest by Paul), and then the Gospels, Mark being the first. After Mark, came Matthew and Luke, and finally, John, with its highly embellished accounts of Jesus' life, and finally, the Gospel of Peter, with even more embellishments than John. It is likely that Mark contains some authentic history of Jesus, the fact that some women went to Jesus' tomb, discovering that it was empty and fleeing because "they were afraid" with Mark clearly ending at 16:8. Later on the ending of Mark was embellished further.
My apologies if these points have been made already, but reading all 39 pages isn't much fun, so I didn't bother.
1) to 4) have some highly challengeable points, but they're not relevant here.
5) Is more serious. Having visions would make perfect sense, as they are well within the C1 Jewish religious culture, are easily explainable without religious claims, and require no substantial evidence.
The problem is, the Early Church were claiming something very different, and indeed were very clear that whatever-the- they had seen, it wasn't visions. Firstly, that the appearances were unambiguously physical in nature. Secondly, that their type and strength required a complete rethink about how vital structures of Judaism needed to change.
Having a vision of someone who died is a pretty good bit of evidence they're still dead. The Early Church claimed Jesus was alive again.
6) can also be challenged. Mark clearly expects the end of the story to be resurrection (8:31; 9:31; 10:33-34). Why the text stops at 16:8 is open to speculation. In any case, Paul's much earlier writings give us in very clear terms the Early Church's belief in a physical resurrection that was the inauguration of the Kingdom of God.
