Cold-Case Christianity

[Nihilist Virus]

Has anyone read this book by J. Warner Wallace?  I have a former HS friend turned religious fundie who is hell bent on converting me, and in the interest of a fair debate I told him I’d read it. I’m expecting the usual apologetics rundown of lowering the standards for evidence so we can include alleged eyewitness testimony, but I was just curious if anyone here had suffered through it so I can prepare myself for the pain. Thanks, loves! ❤️

I haven't read his books but I did read a small article he wrote. He thinks there is enough evidence to conclude that the gospels were not anonymous and were written by the traditionally credited authors. So that should give you an idea of what level of person you're dealing with.

What it will probably boil down to are two of the most dishonest arguments in Christianity:

1. Why die for a lie?

2. Paul.

"Why die for a lie?" is a lie. Even if we accept everything in the Bible and early church tradition as true, we still don't have a person who claims to have seen the resurrection, was arrested, was given the chance to recant and go free, but instead accepted execution (possibly torture first).  No such person exists.

Peter was executed but we have no transcripts from that.  Tradition holds that he was fleeing and then Jesus appeared to him and told him to turn himself in. But even then, how do we know how the interrogation went?  Instead of the ol' Christian wet dream, "Deny Christ and go free, or you will die," it very well could've been more like, "You are guilty of sedition and we will torture you until you admit it." And then if Peter proclaims his Christianity and is executed, that looks great for Christians. Or who knows, maybe he denied Christ. Wouldn't be the first time Peter did that anyway.  We simply don't know, and apologists disguise their speculation as fact.

The reality is that Peter was most likely executed by Nero as a token gesture to appease the people because he blamed Christians for the fire of Rome.

James is also said to have been killed by Herod in the book of Acts but no indication is given that he had the chance to recant and go free. There's not even an indication he saw it coming.

The remaining disciples were martyred according to Christian documents which were rejected from the canon.  Talk about having your cake and eating it, too.  They reject the document but cherry pick certain events that they would like to believe are true. Still, as far as I know, none of those disciples refused an offer to go free and then were executed.

The earliest martyr I know of who refused the chance to recant and go free was Polycarp, but he was not a witness of the resurrection as he wasn't even born when it supposedly happened.



As for Paul, he was not a witness for the resurrection. Period.  His experience on the road to Damascus is not evidence of the resurrection.  Jesus remained on the earth for 40 days, then ascended to heaven.  Gone.  The appearance to Paul was spiritual. The book of Acts even goes out of its way to relay that Paul was having a different experience than his companions.  Dead people can appear in spiritual form.  Saul (King Saul from the Old Testament, not Pre-Paul Saul) conjured the spirit of Samuel the prophet. He certainly did not consider that to be evidence that Samuel had risen from the dead.

A quick note.  "40 days" or "40 years" appears often in the Bible because it is an idiom meaning "a long time." So the resurrected Jesus remained on earth for "a long time" but we still know the order of events: after Jesus ascended was Pentecost (which means 50 days, so maybe it was meant to be a literal 40 days), then the martyr of Stephen where Pre-Paul Saul was watching.  So Pre-Paul Saul never saw the resurrected Jesus.  What he saw would be no different than if you saw Jesus now, and each are equally zero evidence for the resurrection.