Proof of Christianity

[Esquilax]

Oranges and hand grenades...please be aware you're trying to answer a rather different argument here.

Firstly, what the Wikipedia entry doesn't detail is that nearly all of these were given divinised status in the stars, or similar. Not came back and ate fish with their friends.

The point is that the idea of resurrection isn't quite as uncommon as you'd think; that there are different variations just goes to show the creativity that people have. You're saying it's unlikely that people could make up such a story.

I'm saying you should give writers more credit.

The Aristeas one, and the three in the article from Judaism, are more interesting, and more helpful. They illustrate the broader point I've been trying to make (again, in bold in my original post), which is mentioned further down the Wiki article. None of these were single examples of the general resurrection. None of these imply that the Kingdom of God has arrived. None of these would create a radical revision of belief such as the redundancy of central parts of the Torah. Aristeas is vaguely the nearest equivalent event, and to go from an obscure Greek legend to mandating a complete overhaul of Jewish core beliefs is stretching things so far beyond breaking point that not even unbreakable duct tape will prevent it.

Why would the story need to be identical? If enough of the beats correspond to other proposed events in history, doesn't that by definition lessen the staggering act of creativity that you're implying would need to take place if the Jesus resurrection was man made?

Furthermore, there is no evidence at all of the disciples borrowing ideas from Greek literature to alter Jewish doctrine. They certainly weren't borrowing from Greek beliefs (Acts 17:22-34), which is further supported by what we know about anti-Gentile attitudes in C1 Israel (“Romanes eunt domus”, as the slogan goes).

Which just goes to show that such stories are common imaginative fodder, and not so rare as you'd think. Fact is, resurrection stories occur in many cultures; death is a universal fact of life, after all. The desire to transcend it similarly so. Your contention is that this particular story is so weird it must be true, based solely on the fact that the guy walked around some after resurrecting and there were some new religious claims tacked on. Extrapolations on a common cultural touchstone aren't real just because they're uncommon; you'll need to provide more evidence than the fact you think this story is rare.

Yes, but why did this splinter group appear with those beliefs?

I don't know. Does uncommon equal true?