In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?

[Vicki Q]

The standard non-Christian Jewish interpretation is still that Isaiah 53 is about a nation and never a person. There are three other such passages pointing to the Servant as a nation, if you look at these passages within their context.

To repeat: applied to Jesus it is about a nation. That nation is embodied in an individual. Not wishing to go off on a tangent but Jesus is seen as acting as Israel  to do what Israel could not do but had to do. In any case the link gives very clear cases where Jewish non-Christians have applied it to an individual.

But purportedly important Messianic events (such as the Resurrection) aren't contained anywhere in the OT. Doesn't this serve as some evidence against what you're saying?

Resurrection: Daniel 12 Isaiah 26 Hosea 6. Although clues were there in the OT, the idea that an individual would be bodily resurrected before the general resurrection was completely new to C1 Judaism; this raises the fascinating question of where it came from...

The belief kept going because they sincerely believed it and they were successful enough to keep it going.

What did they believe? That he was the Messiah? But he had comprehensively failed at everything. Why on earth would they believe he had succeeded?

I'm not sure what's remarkable about the inauguration of the KoG when there's no evidence this has happened, just Christians believing the KoG has been inaugurated.

Josephus etc- The KoG was absolutely massive in C1 Judaism. You couldn't miss it. As you say, there is no evidence it's happened. So what on earth could convince them it had been inaugurated when quite obviously it hadn't?

Early Christians concluded that death had been defeated because they had concluded that Jesus must have risen.

How? Why? It makes no sense.

Tim addresses how this could have been possible by appealing to common human psychology. He does so near the end of the article

The cognitive dissonance explanation thing has come and definitely gone in academic scholarship.

Tangentially, Festinger's methodology was painfully flawed. Up to a third of the cult were researchers, with all the interference questions that raises. Also, the cult collapsed when the cognitive dissonance became unsupportable. But let's leave all that.

Firstly, none of the other fake dead Messiah followers attempted to keep their man going. Historically we know they ran. Fast. There was nothing to keep going anyway- their man was a fake. There is no hint of any kind of cognitive dissonance in similar groups. Then why was Jesus different?

Fatally for TO'Ns theory, Festinger's studies were about how a group reacts when prophecy fails. But the disciples were saying the prophecy had succeeded. Beyond any success they could have imagined.

The KoG wasn't about taking over a patch of Middle East land, but about God taking back the world. All humanity could share in the promise to Abraham, not just one group of people. The whole universe had been won from the Bad Stuff, not just a military campaign against the Romans.

Whereas Festinger's study concluded that new contradictory material can fail to displace old beliefs, the disciples were saying their beliefs had utterly changed. They weren't like confused 1945 Japanese citizens thinking they'd won, refusing to believe the enemy propaganda. They were like the 1943 Italian forces who one month were fighting with the Nazis, then changed around and fought against them.

They embraced a total change of thinking, not ran away from it.

Again, what could have caused this utter turnaround?



I'm going to struggle to reply quickly over the next few weeks. I say this not to end the discussion, but because I'd like to continue it; I'll post when I can. Keep an eye open...