(September 15, 2019 at 6:24 am)Grandizer Wrote: I think the belief in a risen Jesus is better explained by potential naturalistic explanations than by a potential supernatural one
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Too many necessary information withheld from us so that one cannot really make any confident case for what triggered the Christ faith, but the point is the case for the Resurrection is just damn weak.
It's the case that the vanishing of Jesus' body is a necessary condition for the rise of the early church from within Judaism, with the belief set that they had.
However, it's not a sufficient one.
So we have to account for the arrival, from within C1 Judaism, of a branch which believed that the long awaited Kingdom of God had been inaugurated; that death had been defeated; that resurrection (a fringe element within Judaism) was a thing and completely innovatively was in two parts; that the universe, humanity and God's people had been freed; that the promise to Abraham had been completed; and that the forgiveness and exile of God's people had been enacted.
Quite a dynamite set of claims.
We have clear historical evidence, albeit biased, as to the reasons that the early church gave for this belief set. The resurrection is the best explanation for the rise of the early church, with the belief set they had.
