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

[Jackalope]

Oh boy... guys... let's just let him have one tiny piece of the chicken.
OK, Majesty, I agree it is possible that there was a person, let's call him Jesus, who existed and was a sort of spiritual leader.

I also believe that this is possible, and perhaps the argument ought to proceed with that point taken for granted, simply for sake of argument (to see where it goes).

That however, doesn't in any way alter my opinion of the argument as presented.

[Cyberman]

We can probably allow that for argument purposes, just so we can move on, but it's far from being established; which was the whole point of this thread. We mustn't lose sight of that.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[pocaracas]

Yeah, well...There certainly are Christians now. And there were Christians in the second century A.D.
At some point, there must have been a big bang of Christians.
The existence of Christians does not necessarily entail the existence of the Christ.
But that is what most of these sources brought forth by HM tell us: Christians exist.
The ones that seem to provide information about the man himself also seem to have been tampered in some copying process necessary for the preservation of the text.

Even so, the historical Jesus is a possibility and it's perhaps likely.

Either that, or I just can't wait for part 2.

[DeistPaladin]

As for citing Ehrman,

By the way, as much as Ehrman has become the posterboy for the historists, he is not a historian but a theologian. His doctorate is in "divinity".

As far as I'm concerned, his doctorate may as well be in voodoo magic.

But he is clearly an expert in the Bible. I'm always happy to read his research on the development of scripture and the history of Christianity. But when it comes to "refuting" the mythicists, all he seems to be able to say (paraphrased for brevity) is STOOOPID MYTHERZZZZ!

[His_Majesty]

[FatAndFaithless]

So why keep repeating it endlessly.

[Esquilax]

If most of the historians involved in this discussion aren't christians, doesn't that give you a little hint as to the parts of the Jesus story they don't accept as true?

No.

Yes, you loon. What it tells you is that they don't accept the specific religious claims about Jesus as true; the miracles, the divinity, the resurrection, if they accepted all of that then all of the historians would be christians. There's no rational reason to have looked at the evidence, seen in there that the son of the christian god once existed and did all those things, and come out the other side without being a christian.

What it tells you is that all of those historians, since you seem desperate to argue from history, do not accept that any Jesus there happened to be was indeed as the bible details him to be. Your argument is entirely fallacious, but if we accept it as true then it justifies the first part of your claim, but disproves the claim you're ultimately trying to make.

Oh, I am not saying that because the popular vote gives Jesus' existence the nod, that therefore it is true. I am saying that guys that are actually historians, who are on both sides of the coin, all believe that Jesus' existence is most plausible based on the evidence as a whole.

Don't blame me

And as everyone else continues to tell you, your baseless assertions carry absolutely no weight with any of us. Not only have you proven yourself to be an intensely dishonest braggart of a man, but "X number of people in authority believe it, therefore it's true," without citations as to that number, or the content of the evidence that led them to that conclusion, is merely an argument from authority.

So we have no reason to trust what you've presented to us, and what you have presented is a fallacy until it's fleshed out. Business as usual for you, I guess.

I am just stating facts, my man. Facts

No, facts can be demonstrated. If you can't show it, you don't know it, and you've dodged and danced around every request for a citation, on every topic you discuss, since coming here. You've said a lot of words, but you're one of the more content-light apologists I've ever seen.

Not to mention, you just dodged what I asked, again, instead of addressing the very real issues with the position you've chosen.

How do you know that the sources are contemporary??? Going RIGHT back to what you were told, right? ROFLOL No way out of that one.

There are numerous ways to date sources that don't rely on the actual date on the script, as has been mentioned before. But more importantly, and as seems to be the norm for you, you've either missed the boat on the actual argument, or have erected a strawman. Because the issue here is that all of the references to Jesus you've produced have necessarily been second hand accounts, as none of the writers were ever alive when Jesus was. They may report what other people believed at the time, but with no indication as to who the sources that they were getting their information from were, we have no method by which to fact check them. Original writings can be traced to historical eras by many means, but none of those work on second hand accounts; they only tell us when the accounts of those accounts were written.

I know you rely almost exclusively on oversimplified strawmen and inaccurate laymen's understandings of complex fields of study, and since you're a completely dishonest ass you'll most likely be unwilling to relinquish those despicable lies in the face of a blunt correction, but are you seriously telling me that you can't see the difference between a historical source and that source's source? We have methods to date Josephus and what have you, but we've already established that those are not contemporary, in that the man they're writing about was long dead before they were even born. And so you're forced to rely upon the people they heard about Jesus from, insisting that those were contemporaries so it's fine. But we don't know who those "contemporaries" were, nor do we have any writing in their hand with which to determine their own historical setting. We only have your baseless claim that these nameless, anonymous sources were contemporary, when all that we know with any degree of certainty shows that the people actually doing the writing were not.

No doubt you'll want to get back to your strawmen now, but I've laid out my case. If you persist with what you were saying before, all you'll have demonstrated is that you don't understand, or are willfully misinterpreting, the difference between "I saw X" and "A friend of a friend saw X"

Right, because there aren't many arguments that most atheists that are in a particular field of study will agree with me on...and this is regarding a religous figure...so yeah, I will continue to point it out.

And I am doing so without saying or implying that just because they are on my side, it is true.

So, you're aware that your arguments are logically invalid, but are continuing to use them anyway? Interesting that you'll just come out and admit that as though it were okay.

[Minimalist]

all of the references to Jesus you've produced have necessarily been second hand accounts, as none of the writers were ever alive when Jesus was.

Unavoidable, Esq as there are no first-hand references. Period. The authors of the gospels never even claim to be primary sources. "Paul," even if he was not a mere construct of Marcion, only has a hallucination of the godboy. In this, even though they were consummate bullshit artists, they are more honest than fundie shitheads like h-m.

[Jenny A]