Empty Tomb Puzzle

[Godscreated]

The disciples all 12 died horrible deaths, for what, a lie, by no means. Some of the twelve would have given up the lie before death, so the twelve must have know the truth of the resurrection. HE IS RISEN.

Bear in mind, it is not just the Apostles whom are supposed to have seen Jesus risen. 1 Corinthians 15:6 claims 500 saw the rising Jesus, Matthew 28:17 points out the doubt many had (how you can doubt a shining rising Jesus is somewhat of a mystery).
By the time Peter was addressing the believersn Acts 1:15 only 120 were left.

So out of 500, almost 75% of those who "saw" Jesus rising, didn't believe it was any such thing, and not proof of his resurrection.
A small percentage who believes that what they saw was in fact the rising of Jesus which evidently wasn't that convincing is hardly solid testimony.

Jesus appeared to 500 people during the 40 days after the resurrection to the ascending. The event in Acts 1:15 was on a single day after the ascending, this does not mean that the other 380 had turned from the way. Your misrepresentation of what scriptures say is no more than a ploy to deceive.

In order for your argument to carry any weight, each disciple had to die in a manner that allowed them to escape death by claiming it was all just a big "hoax".
Being a believer and dying, does not mean you died for a lie.

Well, certainly not Peter. Nero blamed the christians for the burning of Rome and their personal beliefs made no difference to their deaths. Recanting the basis of the belief, in the resurrection isn't likely to save them from the wrath of Nero, he was killing them in revenge.
So how did Peter die for his beliefs? He didn't.

Nero used the christians as scapegoat they did not burn Rome. Peter said in the scriptures that his death was near. Peter was jailed and beaten also, he had many chances to deny the resurrection, if it were not true. This shows that Peter died for the truth.

Now the disciples were religious leaders of the Christian movement. During the persecution of the Christians, "would not die for a lie" simply ignores the fact that they would be targeted for death as leaders of a rebellious belief system. I very much doubt a roman legionnaire sent to arrest them would have turned away because they recanted, it would be meaningless. Orders are orders, and they are marked for death

James the son of Zebedee, was killed by Herod Agrippa, not a roman solider. As I said above, Peter said his death was near, Paul also made the same statement. Even though Paul was not one of the 12 he spent much time with them, and more than likely would found out the lie if it were true. Paul also imprisoned many christians as Saul, why would a man turn from the stature he enjoyed, and suffer through the life of a christian.

For this argument "they would not die for a lie" to work, you need to show, that the resurrection of Jesus was a sufficiently impressive event to convince. It wasn't, only the diehards apparently were, which makes Christianity nothing more than a cult of gullibility gotten out of control.

Secondly, you need to show how each apostle died. But we have no facts here, no history, not even biblical support.

The argument is a smokescreen, pretending to knowledge you cannot possess about the facts of the situation.

500 saw and believed, you mean to tell me if you saw a friend who had been dead, walking around alive and well, you would not be convinced he was risen. The diehards as you call them were the ones Christ revealed Himself to, why would He reveal Himself to people who would not know Him.
By the way why haven't you addressed the second part of my statement, why didn't the Jewish priest just open the tomb and show everyone the body was still in the tomb?

---

---

Anyone can be a disciple, but there were only 12 apostles. I suspect that each of the Gospels were not necessarily penned by the actual apostles, since simple fishermen would not have to learn to read or write. Pure speculation on my part, but I image each apostle having their own band of believers and each of the gospel accounts come out of those separate communities.

---

---

This sounds reasonable. That means all we have is hearsay.. That throws open the door to a whole bunch of theories about how these stories originated.

---

---

In the Swedenborg tradition the 'revealed' texts have an inner spiritual meaning. The two fish and five loaves of barley are symbols for the type of instruction that Jesus 'fed' to the crowd. What I'm trying to say is this. Whether what happened that day was a miracle or not does not matter to me. Belief in miracles does not by itself cultivate lasting faith. Conviction comes from receiving instruction and applying it to life. As such the miraculous events are not so much 'evidence' of divinity but object lessons.

---

---

Hmm this resonates strongly with me. I used to think like this as well I think but the influence of my 'literal reading' Christian friends made it hard to know how I really should look at scripture.

---

No one can prove or disprove for certain the writers of the gospels are who they say they are.

Naming the gospels after 100 years or whatever the figure is doesn't really help their case. There is too much room for error.

and you did not answer my question about dying for a lie.

So the apologetic argument goes like this: Jesus was either a lunatic or telling the truth. Well what about the 3rd option? He never existed. No one had to die for a lie because there's no evidence that proves Jesus or his Apostles for that matter.

You can not disprove Christ and His apostles, I know that's not your burden, it does not matter, the fact remains that no one can disprove Christ and His apostles. No the apologetic does not go like that, the OT and NT mesh together well, showing us Christ is who He said He was.