MERGED: The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 1) & (Part 2)

[Jenny A]

The question is, how do you know who was the first President?? Regardless of what answer you give, you are relying on what you were told from someone else.

Yes, but who, said George Washington was the first president? When did they say it? On what did they rely for their knowledge? Did they state it as a fact or as merely gossip or something others believe in? Did they have a reason to lie or exaggerate. Did others also say it, or is there just one person who said George Washington was the first president?

Should all references to George Washington begin twenty years after his death and only refer to what a certain political party believed about him, we might wonder if he had ever lived or if he were merely a national myth.

But, in the case of George Washington, many people and many documents attest to his presidency. There are not only contemporary writings about him, but also by him, and official documents carrying his signature. The references to George Washington are not only written by U.S. patriots but also by foreigners and not only by his proponents but by those few who opposed his government. And they include references to his military career, political career, children, and married life.

Now compare the cherry tree myth. The first mention of this rather odd tale in which a six year old George is naughty enough to cut down a cherry tree but truthful enough to admit it is in 1800, in a single book, published three years after the grown-up George's death by Parson Mason Weems. Biographies immediately following Weem's do not include the cherry tree. So, given the oddity of the story the vast majority of historians have dismissed it. I was all set to dismiss it too, but in looking I some more evidence.

Even the cherry tree story might be proven IF we look at who said what and when and what their sources were. Weems was both a contemporary and a friend of Washington's. Second, Weems didn't say that George chopped the tree down, he said that he barked it. We know that Weems lived near the Washingtons and had access to his friends, neighbors, and relatives. Weems says a cousin of George's told Weems the story, and yes George had nearby cousins of the appropriate age to know and tell such a story. On the other hand Weems said himself that he was writing his biography through a moral filter to educate other in morality so he might have embellished the story on accepted as true what another writer might not. Conclusion? Perhaps the cherry tree story is partially true. But it is certainly not true that Washington cut it down as so many grade school history texts have declared. http://carlanthonyonline.com/2012/02/20/...tree-tale/

Notice that in partially changing my mind about the cherry tree I paid attention to who said it, what he knew, and what he actually said. Given another witness, not interested in telling George Washington as a moral tale, and I'd believe the barking story absolutely.

Now in the case of Jesus, none of your references is to a contemporary of Jesus. None of them tells you what his sources are. All of the stories are obviously second hand. Three of them merely report what Christians believed. That, is much closer to the cherry tree and a long shot from the kind of proof backing George Washington's presidency.