Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

True. I thought we were sort of filling in the blanks. Am I restricted to the five only in this discussion with you? If so, okay.

Yes, having started the thread that way you are.

Okay. But YOU personally need to recognize that although I am willing to have one hand tied behind my back for the purposes of this thread (and no one has laid a glove on me yet despite that), professional scholars do not. And they know, as Ehrman pointed out, that the NT is of significant historical value. therefore, YOU cannot ignore it in the privacy of your own room when you're alone with God.

Yay. Take one step forward.

Hardly.  It's where I began. Next?

I was joking. Sheesh.

Agreed. Pilate would have released Jesus because he knew the Jewish leaders were simply jealous, but he was finally persuaded by the charge of sedition.

I don't think so.  That Pilate executed him for sedition yes.  That he was worried about the jealousy of Jewish leaders?  Probably not.  Romans soldiers and Pilate were not generally in Jerusalem.  They came in during the Passover, because Passover itself was thinly veiled sedition.  The symbolism of Passover was not wasted on the Romans.

The Sanhedrin came in demanding that Jesus be executed. You don't think Pilate was able to get up to speed quickly on the politics?

It's unlikely Pilate would have allowed anyone to bury Jesus because that's not what the Romans did with crucified bodies. 

Always? Everywhere? Every time? Without exception? This is speculation unless you have ancient sources to this effect. I'd love to read anything you may have from Tacitus or someone proving that the Romans NEVER allowed a family to bury a crucified loved one.

Almost without exception. Therefore, the exception would require explaination.

Almost? Gee, God almost never performs miracles defying the laws of physics or biology, either. But sometimes...

But I have a plausible explanation for the exception. You don't have a body on a cross or in a tomb. If Jesus was rotting away on the cross, then on the third day, why did the women even go to the tomb???

And when word of the disciples claims of resurrection got out, why is it that no one pointed out across the Kidron Valley to Jesus' rotting corpse still hanging between two thieves?

Why is that 150 years later, the ONLY charge that was still making the rounds was that the disciples had STOLEN the body? I gave you a plausible explanation as to why Pilate acted as he did. One attested to by an ancient source. All you have is your own speculation as to what Pilate may or may not have done.

Because the Romans didn't much notice Jesus at all for quite some time.  There are few references to Christians early on and none to the "threat" of Jesus.

Heh...the only charge made by the JEWS was that the body was stolen. That's what I'm referring to...not the Romans.

And your "what-ifs" still don't account for Facts 2, 3 & 4, Jenny. Paul hated Christians, applauded the stoning of Stephen and was going from village to village arresting Christians. Why did he suddenly become a believer? And why did James suddenly become a believer?

You have not accounted for these conversions by means of Pilate.

I haven't accounted for alien abductions, Joseph Smith's witnesses, or the ascension of Augustus, or the miracles of Hindu priests either. People believe and claim to believe the oddest things.  And when we can investigate those things they turn out to be false every time.  Therefore when such claims are made and we cannot test them, I see no reason to believe they are true.  No historical document will ever convince me of a miraculous event.

And we can take each of those one at a time at some point in the future, if you like.

But for the purposes of THIS thread, what theory do you propose as an explanation of the five facts?

That's because we do and can know what happened. If not with 100% certitude then with more certainty that you care to admit.

No we really can't.

Yeah, Jenny, we can. People just as smart as you have been looking at the same facts and arguments for 2,000 years. The resurrection is the most plausible explanation of ALL of the facts we know about Jesus.

That's not the voice of a professional historian speaking, is it?

Actually, it's a paraphrase of Ehrman, several of my professors and who know who else, all of them professional historians.  What we can know about the past has limits.  Historians know that.  (Guess my major?)

Limits? Sure. As you well know, history major, our knowledge of the past is all about probabilities.

Jenny, I have Ehrman's Did Jesus Exist? on the desk here as I type. I suspect you have read it since the outline of what you believe about Jesus that you gave previously followed very closely what he said in his introduction.

Ehrman is unambiguous. Jesus existed. We can and do know certain things about him and there are numerous independent sources for this information including the gospels which are historically valuable.