Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Longhorn]

All this typing and all this effort. And for what?

Look at it from a perspective, Randy.

There is a being, who is all-powerful,  all-knowing and all-present. It created humans and cares deeply about what they believe about it, so much that it decides what to do with them after death depending on that. It has been interfering with human lives for centuries. It even went down to earth itself, as a human.

And you're struggling to provide something that isn't even evidence for it.

How can you believe in the face of such a disproportionately underwhelming, if not entirely absent evidence for something that should be the easiest thing to prove?

This has been explained MULTIPLE times.

<once more with feeling>

God is not struggling to reveal himself to you nor am I struggling to show you what evidence we do have. You're struggling to accept it. That's all.

If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.

It's just that simple.

Uh huh.

Like he had no problem doing before the invention of cameras. Straight up smiting people, too.

Just another weak excuse. The fact that you need to make it makes your god even less plausible.

[Jenny A]

This has been explained MULTIPLE times.

<once more with feeling>

God is not struggling to reveal himself to you nor am I struggling to show you what evidence we do have. You're struggling to accept it. That's all.

If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.

It's just that simple.

Sorry, but that's the snake rattle of the charlatan.  It's the fall back to most unprovable supernatural phenomenon--if you don't want it or won't accept it, it won't appear for you.  Every medium who claims to speak to the dead, or read your mind does it.  Skeptic and camera shy claims, are nothing more than hot air.

Before you get hot under the collar, I'm not suggesting you are lying about your beliefs, only that the excuse you offer is used by people who do, because it's the excuse of very last resort when trying to prove the unprovable.

[Crossless2.0]

Right. The claim that Yahweh would interfere with our precious free will if he provided unambiguous evidence of his existence is the last resort of scoundrels and apologists. The Bible is crammed with alleged examples of God doing just that, and it is telling that his latter-day followers have to resort to such silly arguments to avoid acknowledging his blinding and deafening absence from the scene.

We don't "struggle" to accept his existence. We struggle to keep straight faces when other adults resort to such empty and transparently stupid arguments in lieu of actual evidence.

[Thumpalumpacus]

If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.

As if threatening sinners with Hell isn't interfering with free will.

Laughably childish.

[Crossless2.0]

If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.

As if threatening sinners with Hell isn't interfering with free will.

Laughably childish.

Oh, but the Potter and the Potter's clay . . . um, shepherd and flock . . . uh, free will . . .

*Head explodes*

It must be terrible to exist in such a state of denial and cognitive dissonance.

[Pizza]

But wouldn't a resurrection or any revelation from a god interfere with the free will of the witnesses of it by this line of reasoning? What a cop out.

[pocaracas]

But wouldn't a resurrection or any revelation from a god interfere with the free will of the witnesses of it by this line of reasoning? What a cop out.

[Jenny A]

Jesus died by crucifixion  He certainly was crucified, but he was determined dead after a fairly short time for a crucifixion.  It's possible, though unlikely he wasn't dead.  But the likelihood of his not being dead is considerably higher that that he rose from the dead. Many people have been pronounced dead and woken up in the morgue.  

No, Jenny. The Romans were professional soldiers with LOTS of experience crucifying people. Jesus died on the cross, and hanging your coat on this peg looks like mere denial - not rational evaluation of the evidence.

Hang my hat on it?  Read the part in bold.  But the possibility is far from mere denial.  Modern doctors mistakenly pronounce the living dead with some regularity (I see you deleted my link about this  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree...kolkiewicz) what could possibly make the average Roman soldier better identifying death?

Jesus' disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them.  Your evidence is primarily Paul in I Corinthians 15. 


I don't think "received" means anything like spoken to in this context.  That he "received" the information does not mean he had it from the apostles lips.

This is incorrect. Paul is using formal language of the rabbinic schools here. Students "received" from their teachers. Since Paul was a student of Gamaliel in one of the two great Rabbinic schools in Jerusalem, he would have been very careful to use precise wording with regard to teaching that came to him from his "master".

Further, I have no knowledge of Greek, but I have read that in 1 Co. 15, even the style of the passage changes from that which is commonly attributed to Paul; IOW, he is repeating something that he learned VERBATIM rather than expressing it freely in his own words.

This won't work for you, Jenny.

You just made my point.  He received and regurgitated a teaching in a set formula.  That's not how people who've talked to and questioned witness talk.  And it's clearly wrong in at least one detail.  Since when did Jesus appear to Judas?  

In fact, he makes it clear in Galatians that for three years after his conversion the only apostles he saw were Peter and James:

Galatians 1:18-20

As he wrote Galatians after Corinthians, I don't see how Corinthians can be used to claim he talked to the disciples personally.  He must mean something else.  Second hand news is all he could have had.  Further, Paul said Jesus appeared to the twelve, a rather odd statement in light of Judas don't you think?  Obviously, he didn't speak to Judas who is supposed have killed himself.

No, Jenny. In Galatians, Paul is telling is the chronology of events related to his conversion and subsequent years. IOW, he tells us in Galatians precisely when he most likely "received" the proto-creed that he recited from memory in 1 Co. 15.

If what he received was formula, which is what you are saying, then it really doesn't matter.  He may as well have "received" the gospel of Mark.

For the rest you refer to the oral tradition of the church, which only slightly better than nothing.

Then you really ought to do some reading on just how solid that oral tradition was.

It's only slightly better than nothing because we don't really have it and it's hard to textually criticize or weigh what we don't really have.

"He is Risen!" (Mark 15:7)

You can't get past that, can you?

You mean Mark 16:6?  Sure, a young man dressed in white (who they apparently don't know from Adam) says to the women, "he is risen."  This is the smoking gun?  Really?

Clement was born too late, about the year Jesus died, and Irenaeus is even later. 

Doh! More bad ideas. Clement was known to both Peter and Paul and is mentioned by Paul in Philippians 4:3. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp who heard all of the gospel directly from John.

No just pointing out how far out on the time line Clement and Iranaeus are.

But supposing they did believe they'd seen Jesus resurrected?  A ridiculous number of people think they've abducted by aliens.  Simple eyewitness testimony is insufficient to prove such a claim.  And in this case, not only can we not cross-examine the disciples about their experience, but we only have third, fourth, or more news of it.

And a ridiculous number saw Jesus, too. Over 500 actually. But we can examine the written statements that they paid in blood for.

Exactly, and why are the alien abductees less credible?  And dying for your beliefs is only evidence of your belief, not the truth of your belief.  If I believed everything people are willing to die for I'd be a Muslim.

Really, Jenny. No value? A sworn enemy of the Church who approved the stoning of Stephen and was throwing Christians in jail suddenly becomes the Church's greatest evangelist and all you have is "no probative value"?

That's gotta be gnawing at you.

Gnawing?    No, I can't say any of your arguments keep me up at night.  

This was posted by Contarini at Catholic Answers in my identical thread on this subject; when I read it, I thought of you:

If these were fictional accounts, it would be the easiest thing in the world to have Jesus appearing directly to the male disciples, instead of this weird two-step process in which first the women discover the tomb, and _then_ Jesus starts appearing to people (just to whom, and in what order, varies from one source to another).

Sure, the point might be to reinforce the theme of Jesus doing the opposite of what he would be expected to do, and yes, there's plenty of OT precedent for that. But it isn't, as far as I know, a theme that anyone particularly emphasized except where reality forced them to. From a skeptical point of view, this common Biblical theme would be an attempt to adjust to disappointed expectations. We think that if YHWH is a powerful god and has made a covenant with us, then the city will never falls. The city falls. Oops! That shows that YHWH is even more powerful than we thought--so powerful that even the Babylonians are instruments in his cosmic plan.

We thought that the return from exile would lead to a glorious restoration, better than anything we had before. Actually it leads to hundreds of years of sort of puttering along, often under pagan domination. Oops! This shows that God's plans are more long-term than we thought, and that there will be a final restoration inaugurated by the Messiah.

We thought that the Messiah would defeat the Romans and set up a glorious kingdom. Oops! the guy we thought was the Messiah got crucified. That shows that God's plan for the world is so profound that he redeems the world by death, and overcomes death by resurrection.

If God did that, we'd think that Jesus would appear to his leading male disciples. Oops! Actually the first report was brought by women. Well, that's just part of the pattern established so far.

My point is that these "oops" moments were consistently imposed from outside.

Yes, it's possible that Mark, seeing the pattern, would invent a story in which women saw the tomb first. But it doesn't seem very likely.

In the end, with the resurrection, we face the old Sherlock Holmes choice: impossible vs. improbable. A lot of us find Sherlock Holmes' answer to be, well, improbable.

It is an attempt to explain disappointments.  It isn't just common to Christianity, but to most religions, because, wait for it, what is promised does not happen. And the explanations really can't include accounts of important people (at least not until they are well dead and gone) because they might discredit your story.  Given time Christians did make up stories about more powerful people.    Like this 4th Century forgery:

---

Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar the emperor, greeting.

Upon Jesus Christ, whose case I had dearly set forth to thee in my last, at length by the will of the people a bitter punishment has been inflicted, myself being in a sort unwilling and rather afraid. A man, by Hercules, so pious and strict, no age has ever had nor will have. But wonderful were the efforts of the people themselves, and the unanimity of all the scribes and chief men and elders, to crucify this ambassador of truth, notwithstanding that their own prophets, and after our manner the sibyls, warned them against it: and supernatural signs appeared while he was hanging, and, in the opinion of philosophers, threatened destruction to the whole world. His disciples are flourishing, in their work and the regulation of their lives not belying their master; yea, in his name most beneficent. Had I not been afraid of the rising of a sedition among the people, who were just on the point of breaking out, perhaps this man would still have been alive to us; although, urged more by fidelity to thy dignity than induced by my own wishes, I did not according to my strength resist that innocent blood free from the whole charge brought against it, but unjustly, through the malignity of men, should be sold and suffer, yet, as the Scriptures signify, to their own destruction. Farewell, 28th March.

https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/...ecnum=1894

---

[KevinM1]

Dumb question: how are Randy's 3rd and 4th facts even relevant to what he's trying to prove? Admittedly, I'm not intimately familiar with all of the Jesus story. I grew up Catholic, but that was more on the cultural side than the religious side. I know Jesus was supposedly killed because he was considered a criminal/upstart, and that he supposedly rose from the grave three days later.

But, why are people's changes of heart even meaningful to the events in question? Yeah, they add to the narrative of the effects Jesus' sacrifice had on people, but why are they relevant to the actual events? The argument presented isn't that Jesus was a good guy, or that his sacrifice changed people's hearts, but that he came back to life after death.

[Crossless2.0]

Dumb question: how are Randy's 3rd and 4th facts even relevant to what he's trying to prove?  Admittedly, I'm not intimately familiar with all of the Jesus story.  I grew up Catholic, but that was more on the cultural side than the religious side.  I know Jesus was supposedly killed because he was considered a criminal/upstart, and that he supposedly rose from the grave three days later.  

But, why are people's changes of heart even meaningful to the events in question?  Yeah, they add to the narrative of the effects Jesus' sacrifice had on people, but why are they relevant to the actual events?  The argument presented isn't that Jesus was a good guy, or that his sacrifice changed people's hearts, but that he came back to life after death.

If you had the thankless task of trying to present an argument for the historicity of the alleged resurrection, you'd probably throw as much shit against the wall as you could, too.  That's all that is really happening here.  Too bad for Randy that none of it sticks, except to his shoes.