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

[Jenny A]

The story of the Gospels were told by eyewitnesses, how whether those eyewitnesses were the actual authors (which I believe at least one was), or the authors were friends of the eyewitnesses, either way, an eyewitness had its hand in it.

Just setting aside for the moment that the Gospels were written too late for any eyewitnesses to have had anything to do with them, they could possibly have involved eyewitnesses. Take Mary's virginity. Who besides Mary could possibly be sure of that, let alone witness it? Then there is the temptation of Jesus by the Devil. That was just Jesus and the Devil, there were no witnesses. What about the "take the cup away from me" dialogue with god? The disciples were asleep. Who were the witnesses? How about the thieves on the crosses? Who could have heard that conversation? Jesus and the thieves all died. What about the women who found the empty tomb and told no one. That, in case you didn't get it is one one. It's legend. It tells what no eyewitness would no because there was no eyewitness.

The central belief in Christianity was already viral well before it was written about. It doesn't matter how much you cling on to the whole "written decades later" factor, I will continue to point out to you that it doesn't matter how long it took for the story to go on paper, as long as the belief was already spread.

There was a belief certainly. There was also a belief in a number of other gods and other impossible things. So? We tell legend from fact in part by how long it takes to show up in writing and how it is told. The Gospels look like legend not fact by that standard. Or do you believe in Romulus and Remus. I don't.

Again, as I pointed out to you...a point that you conveniently ignored..I mean, it would have been nice for you to have at least address the point that I made....the fact that you continue to say that the reports are not in "the style of history...which is nonsense considering the fact that we have Matt 2:1 stating shit like "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the TIME OF King Herod".....do you see that? "During the time".

Time = history.

Luke 2:1 "In those days...."

In those days = periods of time...which = history.

No. It happened pre-revolution when George cut down the cherry tree. Mentioning time or even era does not make it the work of a historian. Historians evaluate sources and don't conclude all sources are equally valid. Herodotus the Greek ( 484–425 BC), perhaps the very first historian, recognized the difference between hearsay and fact and that some sources are better than others. History has never looked back (pun intended).

If your critique is the fact that nothing was written down about an event, and the explanation to why it wasn't written down was because people COULDN'T WRITE...I would think that is a good reason why it wasn't written down.

I don't agree that there weren't people who probably would have written it down. But that doesn't matter. The point is that they didn't and so we don't have that evidence. Explaining why we don't have it isn't evidence that anything happened. It does not make the thing itself more likely.
If people can't write, it doesn't make it anymore likely that they would have seen something they couldn't have written about. It doesn't make it less likely. It's irrelevant to whether the thing happened.

What does that have to do with how fast Christianity spread? You claimed it spread rapidly, I present evidence that we don't know that it did. You respond, well Jerusalem was still Jewish. WTF?

WTF? Your quote was "Had there been that many converts in Jerusalem, it would have been the first Christian city, since there probably were no more than twenty thousand inhabitants at this time"

And I said JERUSALEM WAS STILL PREDOMINATELY A JEWISH POPULATION.

And you are right, we are talking about how fast Christianity spread...and as I said previously, a point that you still didn't address yet: Paul was writing to the Church in Corinth around 20 years after the cross...and Corinth is almost 2,000 miles from Jerusalem by road, where the belief originated. That is the equivalent to traveling from Phoenix, AZ to Detroit, MI...long before cars and airplanes...and long before the internet, television, and social media to spread the word.

So it traveled fast, far, and wide.

http://www.distance-cities.com/search?fr...%2C+Israel

The events that are supposed to have caused all the talk and belief were supposed to have happened in Jerusalem. Yet it remained as you say, Jewish. Damning that.

BTW Good job lying about distance. Corinth is less than nine hundred miles from Jerusalem. By road it was about 1,200 miles. Exaggerate much? And Paul traveled there from Jerusalem on foot according to your bible. So? He established churches. How many Christians were there? And why do distant churches prove anything about what happened in Jerusalem?