Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Jenny A]

When you actually demonstrate that the above are facts, it will be a live question. 

Jenny, these are facts that professional NT scholars accept...even those who are skeptics. Now, you can continue to deny them if you like, but these are not the issues that keep the "big boys" up at night. They are accepted as "facts" by the vast majority of NT scholars. In light of that, perhaps YOU might provide some scholarship which shows why we should NOT accept them.

Only two of the items on your list are accepted by the majority of biblical historians:

Almost all scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed,[8][9][10][11] but scholars differ on the historicity of specific episodes described in the Biblical accounts of Jesus,[12] and the only two events subject to "almost universal assent" are that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist and was crucified by the order of the Roman Prefect Pontius Pilate.[13][14][15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical...he_Gospels

That Paul was first against and then for the Christian movement I'll grant you.

But I will not grant you that Jesus was buried in a tomb.  There is much scholarly disagreement on that point:

N. T. Wright notes that the burial of Christ is part of the earliest gospel traditions.[18] John A.T. Robinson states that the burial of Jesus in the tomb is one of the earliest and best-attested facts about Jesus."[19] Rudolf Bultmann described the basic story as 'an historical account which creates no impression of being a legend'.[20]

John Dominic Crossan, however, suggests that Jesus' body was eaten by dogs as it hung on the cross so that there was nothing left to bury.[21] Martin Hengel argued that Jesus was buried in disgrace as an executed criminal who died a shameful death, a view widely accepted in scholarly literature.[20]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burial_of_Jesus

It is highly improbable that the Roman's would have allowed the burial of anyone crucified by them.

It would be more likely that one hundred men got together and conspired to make up the resurrection and Paul was one of the conspirators than that there was a resurrection. 

1. Conspiracy Theory.

But there are much better explanations than that beginning with the fact that people do hallucinate and they are more likely to do so under stress.   And there are precedents for mass hallucinations.

2. Hallucination Theory.

And many people really do believe that they were abducted by aliens, saw their dead mother, etc.,  etc.  So Paul and the disciples are easily explained.  They are either liars or mistaken.

Okay. 1 & 2. Both of these theories have solid refutations which I will post later today.

People suddenly adopt all sorts of beliefs including atheism.  James suddenly did.  So?

But why, Jenny? James was a skeptic for three years...Jesus walked on water, healed the sick, raised the dead...allegedly. But none of that moved James to believe that Jesus was anything special. And then something changed. Scripture records that James saw Jesus after the resurrection. Scholars accept that as a known fact.

But you know better. So, what is your explanation for James' conversion?

The empty tomb is laughably easy to explain.  Someone took the body away.  And that is the conclusion that any rational person looking at an empty tomb would reach.

Laughably? We'll see who's laughing once the evidence is examined.

So, who was it, Jenny? Who took the body? You're chuckling, so you must have a theory....

The point is not that anyone can show what happened other than resurrection but rather that there is insufficient evidence that resurrection happened.  All of the things I suggested including the highly unlikely event of a hundred men entering into an elaborate conspiracy are less unlikely than resurrection.  It isn't necessary to prove any of them to demonstrate that the resurrection is more unlikely in this case because all of those things have demonstrably happened somewhere to some one and all are physically possible.   Mass hallucination have happened.  The British managed an enormous conspiracy called Fortitude South during WWII.  I'm sure I can come up with others.   People have stolen bodies both to properly bury them and to dishonor them, and to create the impression that the person is still alive.  

Resurrections have never been demonstrated.  Not once.