RE: In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?
October 25, 2019 at 6:53 pm
(This post was last modified: October 25, 2019 at 7:29 pm by GrandizerII.)
(October 25, 2019 at 12:47 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: Usually this involved getting the Romans out, but something about a suffering servant and (perhaps) resurrection were lurking. The claims of Judeo-Xianity were consistent with the broad stream of interpretation, but were highly innovative within it. That needs explanation.
According to Bart Ehrman, the suffering servant and resurrection ideas were artifacts of what the disciples observed while also wanting to continue to believe Jesus was the Messiah. They weren't products of some divine creativity.
https://ehrmanblog.org/jesus-the-suffering-messiah/
Quote:And, very importantly, what the early church proclaimed was not any kind of failure that needed explaining away, but a great stonking success. What had been promised had been delivered, but so much more. Not occupying a patch of land in the Middle East, but a claim on the World. The promise to Abraham to be a blessing to the nations fulfilled as a final redemption. This was the claim right from the start, back before Paul's wrote about it, and even before Damascus, being that Jesus had inaugurated the Kingdom.
Perhaps you should state here what the promise was exactly. You're referring to the Genesis promises to Abraham, aren't you? If so, you'll see that the promise hasn't exactly been delivered if we take a good look at the wording within context.
Quote:Why bother saving it? He's dead, he didn't liberate Israel, so beyond doubt he's not the Messiah. By definition. Moving on ASAP was universal and routine procedure for the followers of dead wannabe Messiahs in C1 Israel.
Maybe so, but different circumstances and different observations will yield different outcomes. If you read what scholars have to say, there are good explanations for why this occurred without having to appeal to the divine as an explanation.
Quote:I'm not sure what alternatives you're proposing. If it's 'this is all made up from scratch and evolved massively over time', could you point me to the evidence for that claim.
The evidence (if we can call it that) is the same evidence you rely on. This is also a bit of a mischaracterizing of what I actually suggested in the OP.
Note, though, that ultimately there is no good evidence. The sources we have, as you said earlier, are biased. And yet even with these biases, there are indications in the earlier sources that Christianity wasn't what it's generally like now or even a few decades after its onset.
