In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?

[Vicki Q]

This isn't a good tangent to get lost on, but...the virgin birth thing is independent of the parthenos issue. Luke has a virgin birth without using that passage and anyway what Matthew is saying is, “This passage in Isaiah 7 has now come true”, rather than inserting any virgin reference which no-one at any stage saw anyway. He's retrospectively pointing to a highly apocalyptic section of the OT. Which links nicely to...

Also, the passage in question is so ambiguous that of course you could apply it to any important Jewish individual who ended up dying if you really wanted to interpret it in that way...Because then, anyone could go back to the Old Testament and reinterpret its passages in any way they see fit in accordance with their own current beliefs that they already hold.

I think we're at some sort of consensus. The gist of what I'm saying is that the disciples were able to go back to the passage and identify post-event what it was about, while remaining very firmly within reasonable interpretative limits.

None of these passages straightforwardly talk about a Messiah that is meant to die for our sins and then be risen from the dead by the power of God.

I meant prophecy of the general resurrection, not Messainic. The Messianic came as a massive surprise to the disciples, as the Gospels are at pains to point out.
To be clear, I'm not using miraculous fulfilment of prophecy as evidence of truth. Other Xians do, I know.

Different situational factors will contribute to differences in outcomes

The key important situational factor was exactly the same for all the failed movements. Failed Messiah= fake Messiah. It's a basic definition that can't be got around.

Doesn't this remind you of how the cult that was researched by Festinger justified their failed prophecies?

No, because the cult were trying to explain something that didn't happen. The disciples were banging on loudly and clearly about something that did happen. They were celebrating success, not failure.

They had to change things around to get their faith going. The Messiah failed to deliver from the Romans, so the belief of deliverance had to change to be more spiritual, and the belief that the Messiah has risen served as a positive trigger to do so.

But why would they want to do that? He's failed. Time to go home. If all Jesus did was wander round saying he was the Messiah, with absolutely no evidence of that, and then died, what is there left to believe in?


Look, if the Resurrection were a normal historical event, we wouldn't be having any discussion about whether it happened. The historical evidence is utterly overwhelming, and the alternatives needing to be so desperately contrived, that anyone proposing them would be laughed off the stage.

But it can't have happened, because dead humans don't come back to life. End of. Theory and evidence are clear on that. So the Resurrection didn't happen.

Thing is, we're not talking about a human exactly. Can God take on human form? I don't see why not. Could this 'human-God' die, and what next? Good evidence, as we have, says “yes”, and death isn't the end for him.

If one starts by slamming the door on the existence of God, then that will also be the inevitable conclusion. But if the door is left open a little, then the arguments against vanish, and we're left with some very, very solid History.