Why aren't you a Christian?

[Reasonable_Jeff]

Good questions.

I am not a Muslim/Sikh because the Quran doesn't not match the historical information we have regarding Jesus of Nazareth. The Quran teaches that Jesus was nailed to a cross and crucified. History says he was.

The Gospels said he was. The Romans didn't record it and contemporary historians didn't notice it. The Gospels are not unbiased.

Great point, you are absolutely correct.

I am not a Hindu or Atheist because of the compelling amount of reliable information regarding Jesus Christ and his resurrection.

Plenty of historians opine that Yeshua, the founder of Christianity, was a real person, based entirely on textual considerations internal to the Gospels and I'm inclined to agree that probability leans slightly that way. Your 'historians' shrink down to 'Christian apologists' when it comes to the resurrection. The oldest copy of the earliest Gospel (Mark) doesn't even describe a resurrection.

I truthfully haven't read a broad enough spectrum of NT scholars writings yet to be able to comment one way or another on your "historians shrink down to Christian apologists" comment. That very well may be.

Also you are 100% correct about the earliest copy of Mark not recording the resurrection. However, if that really was the end of the story that would be the end of the Jesus movement.

Jesus was not the first Jew who thought he was the Messiah and who had a movement. But the fact is a first century Jews understanding of the Messiah was that the Messiah would rise to a glorious military victory in which Jews would no longer be subjugated by foreign authority and the Jewish theocracy would be reinstated.

If you were a first century Jew following a person you believed to be the Messiah, and instead of being a victorious warrior king he is arrested, beaten near to death, had the skin ripped off of his back with whippings, had his beard torn out of his face, mocked, spit on, stripped naked and crucified.....you would not conclude that the man you have been following was the Messiah.

It would literally take a miracle for a first century Jew to believe that Jesus really was the Messiah after seeing him crucified.

In the Jewish mind death on a tree literally meant that God had cursed you (it's in the Hebrew Bible).

If the resurrection would not have taken place, there would be no Christian movement.

Jacob Kremer, a New Testament critic who has specialized in the study of the resurrection say, "By far most scholar hold firmly to the reliability fo the biblical statements about the empty tomb."

I don't gather why they should,

Should what? I didn't follow here...

the biblical account is the one in question, and there are no corroborating outside sources. Even if true, the conclusion one should reasonably reach on hearing a tomb is empty is that the body is missing, not that there was a miraculous resurrection.

I 100% agree with you. No one would conclude that a resurrection had occur. Especially not a first century Jew.

Jews believe in a resurrection at the end of the world. The righteous to eternal life, the unrighteous to eternal damnation.

They would have no concept of someone being resurrected without of the end of the world occurring.

It would take something jarring and radical like Jesus actual resurrection for this to be the story that the disciples ended up telling.

Side note: In Christian theology resurrection means that you have risen from the grave to a glorified body never to die again. Revivification means that you have been resuscitated but will still die again.

Gary Habermas did a survey of over 2,200 publications on the resurrection in English, French, and German since 1975 and found that 75 percent of scholars accepted the historicity of the discovery of Jesus empty tomb.

Wouldn't you think that aligns very closely with the number of scholars who already believed in the empty tomb?

Truthfully I don't know. It's very possible. I do know that just because you are a NT scholar does not mean that you actually believe it. John Shelby Spong for example.

Even Jewish scholars such as Pinchas Lapide and Geza Veres have declared themselves convinced on the basis of the evidence that Jesus' tomb was found empty.

What evidence? The only evidence is that the Gospels said so. The Gospels ARE the claim that the tomb was empty.

Yup, you are right. But here we are not saying "it's true because it's in the Bible." Rather these gospel texts are evaluated like any other historical document. It is assumed that there are errors and we must use techniques to analyze the documents to determine what may be fact and what may be fiction. Some signs that increase the probability that a recorded incident may be historical are:

1. historical fit: the incident fits in with known historical facts of the time and place

2. independent , early sources.

3. embarrassment

4. dissimiliarity: the incident is unlike earlier jewish ideas and/or unlike later christian ideas

5. Coherence: the incident fits in with facts already established about Jesus

The gospels actually do quite well under these test which is why a lot of scholars believe they are in fact historical.

How do you find something THIS sketchy so convincing?

Because of how early the sources are. Paul's writings circulated before the gospels were written and there is a section of his letter to the church in corinth that goes.

1 Corinthians 15:3–5 (ESV) — 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

NT scholars believe that this is an oral tradition that can be tracked back as early as 5 years after the death of Jesus.

Also the Passion story in Mark (the story of his crucification) is believed to be an oral tradition that can be tracked back as early as 7 years after the death of Jesus.

Then we have the NT author Luke recording Pauls sermon in Antioch where he essentially says the same things.

Acts 13:28–31 (ESV) — 28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30 But God raised him from the dead, 31 and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.

According to Professor Sherwin-White, "The confirmation of historicity in Acts is overwhelming. Any attempt to reject its historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd."

A.N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 189

Jeff, you make it sound like you tried to be as objective as possible, waited until you had done years of study, and then picked the religion you regarded as most historically accurate.

You are right, that is not how things happened chronologically.

It was (I am going to sound looney but bear with me) when I experienced the Holy Spirit that I gave my life to Christ. I began the book of Romans an unbeliever, I felt like God was really speaking to me through it, by the time I finished it I had asked God to take my broken life and redeem it.

Since that experience I have continued to study on a quest to determine truth.

Here's what I think: you were raised to believe and you are biased in favor of continuing to believe.

We are all biased in our beliefs, it is not possible to be completely un-biased. You would have had to have been raised in a vacuum.

That being said, I did reject the religion all the way up until 3 years ago. That's when I started searching.

You accept what supports your beliefs and reject what does not.

Yes and no.

I've had to do a lot of soul searching on this journey. I was raised Seventh-Day Adventist. I was actually a fourth or fifth generous Adventist. When I started wanting to look into whether or not this Jesus stuff had any merit (I initially was searching in order to disprove it) I came to the realization that I had actually been raised in a cult and my entire family is stuck in it too (SDA's [depending on the church, it's a mixed bag] are a cult....like Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses).

Because of what I found in the Bible my wife and I have left the family religion and joined a non-denominational church that teaches the Bible....(SDA's believe in the Bible and a prophet like Mormons and JW's)

I have made life/family altering decisions in the past based on what my studies have found and will continue to do so in the future.....there's a lot of "friends" that have just stopped talking with us because we've left the SDA church.

I do not believe that if you had found that only 45% of scholars accepted the empty tomb story, you would have thrown up your hands and called it quits with Christianity.

You are correct. At this point the only way I would give up Christianity is if I had been completely convinced that Jesus had never existed.....which Stimbo is actively trying to do lol....I will check out that site when I get some time Stimbo!

You'll seem more reasonable if you avoid being disengenuous about your reasons for believing. I think your heart is in the right place, but you need to be straightforward with us if you really want a productive discussion.

I am trying my best to be as open as possible with you guys. One of the things I respect most about agnostics/atheists is that they don't put up with crap......although I would assume that there are some reading this right now that feel I am in fact full of crap, which is fine.

Thank you Mister Agenda for your honest thoughts and reasons regarding your current worldview. I appreciate you.

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I meant to mention that the admin in question, Ken Humphreys, is also the owner and author of the parent site, JesusNeverExisted.com and optional but recommended book thereof. Of late he's been bitten by the Spielberg bug; several of his videos can be found around here, with more in the pipeline.

Here's the video of the debate, subject: "The Resurrection: Historical Fact or Religious Invention?"





So, might we expect you to pop in sometime? There's always a fresh brew in the pot. Tell 'em I sent you.

Hey Stimbo, I will absolutely check out the website and watch the debate (I actually really enjoy watching debates). However, since I am investing some time into this, will you also humor me and check out my blog?

It's http://www.morethanmorality.blogspot.com

There aren't a lot of citations to my writings, it's mostly scripture which probably won't hold much weight with you....but give a few articles a read over =D