Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[WesOlsen]

WesOlsen Wrote: . Paul, 55CE - In 1 corinthians we're already 25 years removed from the events described, and we've got a letter to the Corinthians, living 1500 miles away. The resurrection story here is comparatively straightforward: No earthquakes, no wailing women, no ascension in to the clouds. We've got a paragraph in which jesus appeared to the round figure of 500 people, some other random folk and then "last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me". There's convenient. Barker even comments on the use of the wording in the resurrection; Jesus woke up, he was not resurrected.
. Mark, 70CE - 15 years on (40 years from the events, basically everyone from that epoch is dead at this point). We don't know who wrote Mark, and there is only 8 verses here for describing the most miraculous event in christian history. There's now a bloke in a white garment (an angel?) this time. No preachings of a risen christ, no ascension still, no earthquakes. Mary Magdeline and Salome were knocking about this time though.
. Mathew, 80CE - 50 years on and this time there's a monster earthquake, a huge moving stone, and Mary Magdeline and someone else called Mary. There's a definite angel this time.
. Luke, 85CE - Now we've got two angels AND an ascension finally. We've also got Mary Magdeline, Joanna, another Mary and another woman???
. Peter, 85CE - Soldiers and a crowd watched the stone roll itself away, but no earthquake this time. Two angels swoop down, then a third angel character appears, and then a flying and TALKING cross (I have to chuckle when I type that bit).
. John, 90CE earliest - Angels again, a fish miracle, an ascension, and some closing words of objective historians wisdom "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples [too many to fit in a book he says in another verse]. But these are written, that ye might believe that jesus is the christ; the son of god, and that believing ye might have life through his name". No propaganda there.

Provide references, and reasoning for your dating. I've already done this, just asking you to provide the same level of information.

Oh yawn. Very well, I'm actually borrowing heavily from Dan Barker as already mentioned, from his book "Godless" which is half autobiographical account of his years as a fundamentalist preacher, and subsequent lapse of faith and turn to reason, then second half is a logical breakdown of bible contradictions, dating etc and other factors that led him to question his faith. He himself sources a great many individuals and institutions. On this occasion he's sourced the Westar institute primarily, which as I mentioned in the previous post launched a jesus seminar lasting from about 1985-93 I believe. It's also undertaken a lot of other research. Members all have a PHD in religious studies minimum typically, and i'm positive that there were over 70 of the afore mentioned academics involved in the project, who themselves sourced a great many works (too many for me to list here). It's worth stressing that it's a historical institute rather than a religious one, so i'm sure you'll find it hostile to your religious dogma.

It's worth stressing however, that even if these dates are wrong and we lend more generous dating, shaving a few years off each, just to play it in to your hands a little more, then the chronological order is almost certainly still the same. Even if these accounts were written a year apart, the contents cannot be disputed. Again I challenge you to offer any sort of rational explanation as to why the stories differ so radically, and how the bible can possibly be the word of god if the word of god involves punishing the human race with a drove of conflicting stories? If you don't accept anything in the above chronoligical description, or think that updated information displaces the existing information, please use the same point format to list what you believe is the correct resurrection order, and more importantly list the exact details (who, what, when and where) as I have done, but with the correct characters. Again I also want you to tell me:

. Who was Joseph's dad?

. How come nobody other than Matthew talks about the huge 'kill the firstborn' operation launched by Herod, which would have required enormous coordination and manpower?

. Who was present at the tomb, and was the rock already rolled away?

. After his resurrection, how many people did Jesus have some banter with, and how long was he mooching about before he flew in to heaven?

And again I assert that if this is indeed the true word of god, embodied in a million and one parchments in all good bookstores, then how on earth are non-christians supposed to make sense of it if not even christians can decode the vague, muddled, contradictory and morally bankrupt bed-time stories that are presented to us, in the form of religious propaganda by a handful of Jesus cheerleaders? To say that there is nothing at fault here is to say that black is blue. The bible is 95% quack.