Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Longhorn]

Just out of curiosity and not because you didn't rspond to my post-do you have me on ignore, Randy?

[Randy Carson]

The problem with this argument is even if you could establish your "minimal facts" , as fact, they don't point to anybody rising from the dead.

The Minimal Facts are:

1. Jesus died by crucifixion
2. Jesus' disciples believed that He rose and appeared to them
3. Saul, the persecutor of the Church, was suddenly changed
4. James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, was suddenly changed
5. Jesus' tomb was found to be empty

Not a single one of these has to do with a person rising from the dead.

Given this set of facts, the resurrection is the best probable explanation of them, IMO.

However, you disagree. So, what is your theory about what happened?

[Randy Carson]

Jenny-

Mark was not written 70 years later. If that were the case, it would have been after the turn of the century.

No one accepts that date. You shouldn't either. Mark was written very early as I have shown in another thread.

Maybe one reason why you are having a hard time finally coming to a faith position is that you are working with bad data.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Mark was written about the year 70, that's about 40 years after Jesus was crucified.   

Ah. That's very different and not what you posted previously, when you wrote:

"That would be the claim yes. But it's not proof of anything. It's an account written 70 years later by who knows who. "

That was probably just a slip. No problem.

To put that into perspective, that's 20 years after Paul wrote his letters.  And more to the point, way too late to be a first hand account, certainly way to late to depend upon for the details.  Not to mention that the book reads like what it is, a theological tale, not a historically accurate one. 

Mathew and Luke really were written in the 80 and 90s.  That is 60 to 70 years after the crucifixion and one of your minimal "facts" depends upon them.  That is that the disciples believed that they had seen Jesus resurrected.  Mark won't get you there because he ends with the empty tomb.

I also disagree with the dating of AD 70 for Mark, etc. I have posted my reasons in the other thread.

However, Mark DOES have a character in his "story" declare, "He is risen!" (Mk 15:7) So, Mark clearly knows of and preaches the resurrection. He was not a disciple or an eye-witness, so he got this information from someone else - Peter. Consequently, we are right back to the disciples believed that they had seen Jesus resurrected.

But don't forget: I'm not relying on the NT for that information. This is coming from extra-biblical sources.

John may [emphasis added] have been written as late as 110.

So take the gospels as gospel and what you have is garbage in garbage out.

May? It was closer to AD 95. Why would you insist upon a later date? (We both know the reason for that, don't we?)

Take another sip of the kool-aid, Jenny. Carrier and others will make sure there's plenty.

[Randy Carson]

Just out of curiosity and not because you didn't rspond to my post-do you have me on ignore, Randy?

No. Which post #? Sorry.

[Randy Carson]

Modern biologists know more about biology, but they aren't any more capable of recognizing a dead body when they see one than Jesus' contemporaries were. In fact, come to think of it, there is one fact recorded in the gospel of John that your modern science can explain...and that proves John was actually telling the truth.

When the Roman soldier pierced Jesus' side, John records:

31 Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32 The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. 33 But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 35 The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36 These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken,” 37 and, as another scripture says, “They will look on the one they have pierced.”

It turns out, this little detail which would have made NO SENSE to John or his readers, is very factual. People in Jesus' day would not have been able to explain why "blood and water" flowed from Jesus' side, but modern medical experts can. Can you?

So, modern science can tell us why that happened to a crucified body...
Could the person relating that detail be drawing from one of the multiple such crucifixions he witnessed?
The killing of a criminal was seen as a sort of a sport, so everyone would go out to see it.... This practice went on until the 1700's, or even 1800's, in Europe.

John was a youth...a teenager. Why would you automatically assume that John saw lots of crucifixions? But more importantly, Jesus' crucifixion was unique. It was more common for the Romans to break the legs so that the person could not raise and lower himself to breathe if they wanted to speed things along. In the absence of this (which was a mercy), crucifixions lasted for days. And that was what made crucifixion such a powerful motivational punishment. But death was by asphyxiation...not by a lance wound.

Jesus was beaten so badly prior to crucifixion (because Pilate did not expect Barrabas to be released), that he was already in very bad shape before reaching Calvary. He died quickly, his legs were not broken, but his side WAS pierced.

Why would John have ever seen this before?

[Easy Guns]

 All I want is corroborating evidence from sciences for dead people resurrecting. Ex. scientists recreating the circumstances and resurrecting people who have been dead for days. That or modern unbiased researchers seeing dead people resurrecting after days on a fairly regular basis. That would make a resurrection in ancient times more likely.

He says the Christian god did it, which is another way of saying a resurrection happened. It's not a matter of god or not god, it's resurrection happened or not (theistic example, a god didn't do it because it didn't get done in the first place).

I'm confused.

You atheists are quick to point out that there are other accounts of other people coming back to life...I think the last poster cited something in India, IIRC.

So, if there are numerous instances of resurrections occurring, why would Jesus' resurrection be so difficult to accept?

Or are you going to tell all these other forum members to sit down and be quiet?

'Cause y'all can't have it both ways...

I think the point is that any Tom, Dick or Harry can write a fun story about super mystical things.

Just because someone wrote a nice story, doesn't mean anything in that story actually happened.

Unless you believe that your Jesus wasn't the only performer of miracles and there have been many gods running around doing fantastic things?

Either they're all credible, or none of them are. You can't have it both ways, Randy.

[Randy Carson]

So, I can take Homer's word that Hercules was truly the son of Zeus and a very beautiful mortal woman?
Or maybe I should only accept the part where Hercules was invincible?
Or maybe I should focus on Achilles?

If you wish to, you can.

However, before you begin, you might ask yourself whether any of the professionals who have tenured positions at the major universities around the globe are asking these same questions in the way that they're asking questions about the historical Jesus.

If not, I think you will have the field all to yourself.

[Randy Carson]

I'm confused.

You atheists are quick to point out that there are other accounts of other people coming back to life...I think the last poster cited something in India, IIRC.

So, if there are numerous instances of resurrections occurring, why would Jesus' resurrection be so difficult to accept?

Or are you going to tell all these other forum members to sit down and be quiet?

'Cause y'all can't have it both ways...

I think the point is that any Tom, Dick or Harry can write a fun story about super mystical things.

Just because someone wrote a nice story, doesn't mean anything in that story actually happened.

Unless you believe that your Jesus wasn't the only performer of miracles and there have been many gods running around doing fantastic things?

Either they're all credible, or none of them are. You can't have it both ways, Randy.

Let me get this straight...you're arguing that stories from Greek mythology are JUST AS CREDIBLE as the New Testament?

[IATIA]

So, I can take Homer's word that Hercules was truly the son of Zeus and a very beautiful mortal woman?
Or maybe I should only accept the part where Hercules was invincible?
Or maybe I should focus on Achilles?

If you wish to, you can.

However, before you begin, you might ask yourself whether any of the professionals who have tenured positions at the major universities around the globe are asking these same questions in the way that they're asking questions about the historical Jesus.

If not, I think you will have the field all to yourself.

These 'professionals' are just as biased as any theist. They have already decided what they believe before researching. pocaracas has a valid point, but today's theists just ignore the fact that their religion is just plagiarism of of the older religions.

[Randy Carson]

If you wish to, you can.

However, before you begin, you might ask yourself whether any of the professionals who have tenured positions at the major universities around the globe are asking these same questions in the way that they're asking questions about the historical Jesus.

If not, I think you will have the field all to yourself.

These 'professionals' are just as biased as any theist.  They have already decided what they believe before researching.  pocaracas has a valid point, but today's theists just ignore the fact that their religion is just a plagiarism of of the older religions.

Would that be true of the atheist and agnostic scholars of the NT, also?