The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part Deux)

[vorlon13]

This is useful too:


1 Corinthians 14:33 King James Version (KJV)

33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.




And when I use that verse, I usually append: "Confusion is Joseph Smith's job"

[YahwehIsTheWay]

Would you divulge your other identity? Or did you already and I missed it?

It's the link in my sig, in the interest of being completely transparent that this is a parody and not a sock puppet.

[Thumpalumpacus]

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1. No first century secular evidence whatsoever exists to support the actuality of Yeshua ben Yosef.

In the words of Bart Ehrman (who himself believes the stories were built on a historical kernel):

“What sorts of things do pagan authors from the time of Jesus have to say about him? Nothing. As odd as it may seem, there is no mention of Jesus at all by any of his pagan contemporaries. There are no birth records, no trial transcripts, no death certificates; there are no expressions of interest, no heated slanders, no passing references – nothing. In fact, if we broaden our field of concern to the years after his death – even if we include the entire first century of the Common Era – there is not so much as a solitary reference to Jesus in any non-Christian, non-Jewish source of any kind. I should stress that we do have a large number of documents from the time – the writings of poets, philosophers, historians, scientists, and government officials, for example, not to mention the large collection of surviving inscriptions on stone and private letters and legal documents on papyrus. In none of this vast array of surviving writings is Jesus’ name ever so much as mentioned.” (pp. 56-57)

2. The earliest New Testament writers seem ignorant of the details of Jesus’ life, which become more crystalized in later texts.

Paul seems unaware of any virgin birth, for example. No wise men, no star in the east, no miracles. Historians have long puzzled over the “Silence of Paul” on the most basic biographical facts and teachings of Jesus. Paul fails to cite Jesus’ authority precisely when it would make his case. What’s more, he never calls the twelve apostles Jesus’ disciples; in fact, he never says Jesus HAD disciples –or a ministry, or did miracles, or gave teachings. He virtually refuses to disclose any other biographical detail, and the few cryptic hints he offers aren’t just vague, but contradict the gospels. The leaders of the early Christian movement in Jerusalem like Peter and James are supposedly Jesus’ own followers and family; but Paul dismisses them as nobodies and repeatedly opposes them for not being true Christians!

Liberal theologian Marcus Borg suggests that people read the books of the New Testament in chronological order to see how early Christianity unfolded.

Placing the Gospels after Paul makes it clear that as written documents they are not the source of early Christianity but its product. The Gospel — the good news — of and about Jesus existed before the Gospels. They are the products of early Christian communities several decades after Jesus’ historical life and tell us how those communities saw his significance in their historical context.

3. Even the New Testament stories don’t claim to be first-hand accounts.

We now know that the four gospels were assigned the names of the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, not written by them. To make matter sketchier, the name designations happened sometime in second century, around 100 years or more after Christianity supposedly began.

For a variety of reasons, the practice of pseudonymous writing was common at the time and many contemporary documents are “signed” by famous figures. The same is true of the New Testament epistles except for a handful of letters from Paul (6 out of 13) which are broadly thought to be genuine. But even the gospel stories don’t actually say, “I was there.” Rather, they claim the existence of other witnesses, a phenomenon familiar to anyone who has heard the phrase, my aunt knew someone who . . . .

4. The gospels, our only accounts of a historical Jesus, contradict each other.

If you think you know the Jesus story pretty well, I suggest that you pause at this point to test yourself with the 20 question quizat ExChristian.net.

The gospel of Mark is thought to be the earliest existing “life of Jesus,” and linguistic analysis suggests that Luke and Matthew both simply reworked Mark and added their own corrections and new material. But they contradict each other and, to an even greater degree contradict the much later gospel of John, because they were written with different objectives for different audiences. The incompatible Easter stories offer one example of how much the stories disagree.

5. Modern scholars who claim to have uncovered the real historical Jesus depict wildly different persons.

They include a cynic philosopher, charismatic Hasid, liberal Pharisee, conservative rabbi, Zealot revolutionary, nonviolent pacifist to borrow from a much longer list assembled by Price. In his words (pp. 15-16), “The historical Jesus (if there was one) might well have been a messianic king, or a progressive Pharisee, or a Galilean shaman, or a magus, or a Hellenistic sage. But he cannot very well have been all of them at the same time.” John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar grumbles that “the stunning diversity is an academic embarrassment.

Jesus appears to be an effect, not a cause, of Christianity. Paul and the rest of the first generation of Christians searched the Septuagint translation of Hebrew scriptures to create a Mystery Faith for the Jews, complete with pagan rituals like a Lord’s Supper, Gnostic terms in his letters, and a personal savior god to rival those in their neighbors’ longstanding Egyptian, Persian, Hellenistic and Roman traditions.

In a soon-to-be-released follow up to Nailed, entitled Jesus: Mything in Action, Fitzgerald argues that the many competing versions proposed by secular scholars are just as problematic as any “Jesus of Faith:”

Even if one accepts that there was a real Jesus of Nazareth, the question has little practical meaning: Regardless of whether or not a first century rabbi called Yeshua ben Yosef lived, the “historical Jesus” figures so patiently excavated and re-assembled by secular scholars are themselves fictions.

We may never know for certain what put Christian history in motion. Only time (or perhaps time travel) will tell.

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[YahwehIsTheWay]

I found this amazing book that will turn you into an atheist.

The key to avoid that is you must believe all the Bible, every bit.

This includes the parts that contradict one another. If Jesus is born before 4 BCE (Matthew) and after 6 CE (Luke) and yet was almost 50 years old at the time he started his ministry in 27 CE (John), well, that's just a miracle that shows you how powerful our Lord is. He's just all over the time stream, able to be different places at once and able to be contradictory things at once. Most apologists try to explain away the contradictions. I embrace them. They show off what an awesome god we serve.

This also includes the parts that make no sense. Ours is not to question the mind of the Lord. If the Lord needs to come down to earth to make himself his own human sacrifice as the only means to convince himself to forgive us all for a fact that an ancestor of ours had eaten a magic fruit, well, that's how it's done then.

This also includes the morally bankrupt parts of the Bible. If we're supposed to stone disobedient little children in the public square, then that's what we're supposed to do.

Unless this book is wrong.

[Minimalist]

Unless this book is wrong.

Uh-oh. Is that an admission?

[vorlon13]

Christian apologetics being merely a warmup exercise for Mormon apologetics. Dems the big leagues sonny, boy !!!

[robvalue]

The book is certainly not suitable for children, it contains graphic descriptions of some of the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity.

It's called "Because I Believe- Let's Evaluate." Some later editions use an abbreviated title. Most Christians have likely seen the book already and assumed what it says, without checking it out properly for themselves.

Yes the book puts forward many obvious contradictions, you really would have to completely ignore them if you wanted to still believe. It highlights it by sometimes switching from one version of a story to another, and even shows how some important people die twice and in different ways.

I don't think a book could ever be written to be more convincing for the atheist position.

[Minimalist]

Indeed. One of the themes emerging in Carrier's book on the godboy is that it is the fuckups in the story which most undermine the historicity claims. For an actual person the proponents of the story seem to have only a foggy idea of basic facts.

1. They don't know when he was born.

2. They don't know when he died.

3. They don't know how old he was at death.

You'd expect believers to take better care of their godboy's story.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

I don't think a book could ever be written to be more convincing for the atheist position.

That's because you're reading it was all those facts and logic and stuff. A True Christian ™ remains convinced because, as Pastor Deacon Fred has said, "We don't need facts when we got Jesus; an open mind is the Devil's playground."

Lest you think that ridiculous, just listen to what mainstream Christian apologist W.L. Craig had to say about the "witness of the Holy Spirit" and how this allows him to believe no matter what the facts say:





According to Craig, the Holy Spirit offers Christians like him a "...self authenticating means of knowing Christianity is true wholly apart from the evidence."

Amen brother Craig!

Now some may translate the above quote as a "circular and contrived thought process to believe in a pre-conceived notion independent of what reality shows to be true" but those people are Satanists, you have to understand.

Oh Glory!

[robvalue]

You're right, logic is just not holy, I'll stop using it and believe everything I am told. I'll have to make sure I'm only told Christian stuff though, or I'll be a real confused theist.

And don't tell me two contradictory unfalsifiable statements, as I'll have to believe they're both true...