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

[Jenny A]

No, you didn't provide any such thing. You provided a group of texts, some forged and all non-contemporary.

One was forged...and as far as contemporary, Paul was contemporary...and those "texts" confirm what the contemporary source in Paul said...that Jesus existed.

Not contemporary and not a witness, but if you'd actually present Paul, we might discuss him.

Saying these texts are good evidence because a majority of people/historians/martians/PHDs say so is a fallacy. A majority of doctors once believed disease was called by bad smells. They were experts. So?

You just realized you've just shot the entire genre of history in the ass with that statement, right?

Why yes I do. ---Not to mention the first couple generations of biblical archeologists whose findings the new crop of trained archeologists on the ground now are disproving right and left. The controversy about Jesus is just beginning, but it's beginning because actual historians are looking at the evidence rather than just assuming.

Uh uh. A man with preconceived and dearly held beliefs about an issue is unlikely to objectively analyze that issue. Theologians and apologists (is that one catagory or two?) are definitionaly believers. They look at the texts within the context of belief and objectively.

Nonsense. I have no desire to be a Muslim and I think the entire Islamic religion is one big bootleg version of Christianity. I don't believe in the Muslim God Allah at all.

But I have no problem believing that Mohammed, the "prophet", existed. I am not a Muslim and I don't give two shits about Islam, so you can't say that I have any preconceived notions or biases in favor of Islam or Mohammed. The question is, where does the historical evidence point??

And I have no problem with believing in a historical Jesus. But Craig, says that even if presented with personal uncontroversial eyewitness evidence that Jesus wasn't resurrected that he would still have faith and believe he was resurrected. That's bias in the extreme. So no I wouldn't trust him to evaluate evidence about Jesus. Obviously he isn't interested in evidence. And that intellectually dishonest bias towards the NT is why theologically trained scholars aren't that good at assessing evidence, though few are as extremely biased as Craig.

The point is, whether Christian or non-Christian, if you look at the evidence for Jesus OVERALL, you should be able to, at the very least, determine that Jesus the man existed.

I'm looking at that evidence, and no I don't see the proof. I do see that the existence of a man named Josiah who preached is more likely than not though I don't see proof I'd bet my life on or even proof I'd bet my net worth on. I strongly suspect that the Jesus in the Bible is an amalgamation of at least two prophets one a moral philosopher and the other an apocalyptic preacher. That's more likely than a single man. But I still wouldn't bet my life on it.

If you are going to quote me, quote me. Don't remove the substance of what I said.

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I said that a man who is so wrapped up in believing in Jesus that he would believe in the resurrection even if he went back in time and saw that it did not happen, is not a historian with regard to Jesus. William Lane Craig is not a historian. He is an apologist of the most absurd form, nothing more.

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Point?

Because misquoting is intellectually dishonest.

How did the question of God's existence creep in here. We are talking about whether a man who would still believe in the resurrection even if he had absolute proof of the contrary is fit to make a scholarly determination about the existence of Jesus. He is not.

Because, even if Jesus' existence was proven to be false, the traditional arguments theists use for God would still stand. That is the only point I was making.

None of the arguments for the existence of god hold water. But, they don't get better or worse with the existence or non existence of Jesus. Only Christianity falls if Jesus were not real. So? Why interject the larger question of god into the historicity of Jesus?

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[quote='Parkers Tan' pid='807437' dateline='1417401862']

Unfortunately for your point, not one of them demonstrates that the "vast majority of historians" think anything at all, because 12 historians is not a "vast majority".


Clearly, you don't understand that only a poll conducted on an objective basis could support your claim of a "vast majority" supporting your position.

Fuck all, I feel even more sorry for your teachers than I had earlier. You're clearly a dense brick.


How else are you going to demonstrate a "vast majority"?


And again, none of that supports your actual claim, but you're too prideful, stupid, or dishonest to disavow your claim.

Which is it?


And what you're really saying here is that you have no support for your claim, which is my point.

Thank you for your confession.


... all twelve of them, what a majority ...


Ooh, well that certainly speaks for the historians of the world. You're right, twelve is a supernumerary (that means "sufficient", in fancy English) majority to qualify as "overwhelming".


... which do not support the claim you've made, but don't have the honesty to redact.


That's what thinking gets you when you're not practiced at it.


Fourth time: those don't support your claim, but you're not honest enough to admit it.


What you've provided doesn't support your claim, and that is what I've asked for. Keep whiffing, kid. You'll learn from this discussion to never, ever overstep your evidence.

Then again, maybe you won't. You don't strike me as terribly keen.


All twelve of them? Stop the presses.


You haven't supported your claim.

It is you losing credibility, not me.

And let's face it, that's a loss you can ill afford.

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Losing credibility?

Lost any he may have had long ago.

I'm trying to be nice. He needs it.

I don't know about that. We have Christians here who I'd like to be much nicer to and am in non-debate threads. But H-M doesn't even notice it when his butt gets kicked. And he doesn't appear to have any niceness of his own.