Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

Fuck, Jesus could've existed, performed miracles AND risen from the dead for all I care, and that still wouldn't prove any fucker named Yahweh to exist.

But the bible says so.    

It does.

But people knew of God long before the Bible was ever written, so there's that.

[IATIA]

Mary was informed - not commanded, and she consented to God's plan just as He in His foreknowledge knew she would. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

Yeah, I'm sure. "I am the god that will send you to hell to be tormented for all of eternity. Will you comply?"

[Randy Carson]

Jesus spoke of this attitude...

Alright, rev. Carson.

Please explain how someone rising from the dead proves Yahweh to exist.

Tell you what...I need to post Fact #5 and then we can really mix it up, okay?

(And you know I keep my promises to you especially, Nemo!)

[Longhorn]

No, I didn't say that God "can't reveal himself". In the passage that you just quoted, I said, "If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will."

"More overt" does not mean "can't".

So he did violate our free will. Great.

Or are you going to say killing Uzzah isn't a 'more overt gesture'?

Mary was informed - not commanded, and she consented to God's plan just as He in His foreknowledge knew she would. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

Oh gee! 'You will be impregnated now'? You're right, she was clearly in the position to say no.

[Longhorn]

Alright, rev. Carson.

Please explain how someone rising from the dead proves Yahweh to exist.

Tell you what...I need to post Fact #5 and then we can really mix it up, okay?

(And you know I keep my promises to you especially, Nemo!)

K. You still owe me an explanation of your reasoning in arriving from 'a creator' to 'Yahweh' to 'Christian Yahweh' to 'Catholic Yahweh'. But that can wait

And lol @ Nemo

[Redbeard The Pink]

How will your next fact change anything when we've already established (whether or not you like it or believe it) that the rest of your "facts" are unsupported assertions and that your argument is inherently fallacious at every point and on every level? Is there something different about this last fact? My wizard magic tells me there is not.

[Pizza]

I'm guessing he's just going to reassert " Jesus' tomb was found to be empty" when he has no sources external to the narrative he wishes to support as true.

[Randy Carson]

Fact #5: The Tomb Was Empty

Habermas and Licona acknowledge that Fact #5 is not accepted by New Testament scholars to the same degree as the first four facts. However, Habermas' research suggests that Fact #5 does have the support of a majority of these scholars for the following three reasons.

The Jerusalem Factor

Jesus was publicly executed in Jerusalem. His post-resurrection appearances and the empty tomb were first proclaimed there rather than in a small village in Galilee. The significance of this is that it would have been impossible for Christianity to get off the ground in Jerusalem if the body was still in the tomb. His enemies would only have to produce the body and put it on public display in order for the hoax to be shattered. There is nothing but silence in the Jewish and Roman writings regarding anyone retrieving the body of Jesus from the tomb. Celsus, the second-century critic of Christianity, would have leapt at the chance to discredit the Church if such a story or rumor was available to him. Anything but an empty tomb would have been a devastating blow to the resurrection account.

Enemy Attestation

The scriptures attest to the empty tomb, but so do Jesus’ enemies, albeit indirectly. The gospels record that the Jews claimed that Jesus’ disciples stole the body—thus admitting that they tomb was empty. This is recorded by multiple independent sources (Mt. 28:12-13, Justin Martyr, Trypho 108, Tertullian, De Spectacullis 30). The theft of the body (and thus the empty tomb) is the only opposing theory offered by Jesus’ enemies.

The Testimony of Women

The gospel message spread by the early Church hangs upon the resurrection of Jesus. As Paul noted,

1 Corinthians 15
13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

And yet, the gospels are clear that the empty tomb was discovered not by Peter, James and John, the “pillars” of the Church but by Mary Magdalene and one or more other women. Thus, women are the primary or first witnesses of the empty tomb. In our day, this would pose no problem, but for the Jews and the Romans, this fact created enormous difficulties for the disciples seeking to spread the gospel message because in that culture and era, women had no legal standing whatsoever. In his work, the Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus states plainly:

But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex, nor let servants be admitted to give testimony on account of the ignobility of their soul; since it is probable that they may not speak the truth, either out of hope of gain, or fear of punishment. (Josephus, Antiquities, 4.8.15)

Both the Talmud and the Roman historian, Suetonius, express similar negativity toward the testimony of women. As a result, the idea that the disciples concocted a fanciful story about Jesus rising from the dead and then placing that story into the mouths of women whose testimony would not be received favorably by the very audiences that the disciples were hoping to persuade is unlikely.

The empty tomb of Jesus is, therefore, well-evidenced for historical certainty. Former Oxford University church historian, William Wand writes, “All the strictly historical evidence we have is in favor of [the empty tomb], and those scholars who reject it ought to recognize that they do so on some other ground than that of scientific history.”

The empty tomb does not, by itself, provide evidence for the resurrection of Jesus because other theories may explain the cause of the empty tomb. However, taken together with the beliefs of the disciples, as well as Paul and James, that they had seen the risen Jesus, the empty tomb provides powerful support in favor of the resurrection.

[Randy Carson]

Mary was informed - not commanded, and she consented to God's plan just as He in His foreknowledge knew she would. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”

Oh gee! 'You will be impregnated now'? You're right, she was clearly in the position to say no.

It's not that she was or was not in a position to say no. God already knew that Mary would say yes.

So, He didn't ask, and He didn't command. He simply explained His plan as He knew it would unfold. And as He knew she would, Mary consented.

[pocaracas]

You know, Randy... This women thing really gets to me.
Learn about Livia, Augustus' wife.
Learn about Nefertiti and Cleopatra, of Egypt.

How could such women become as great as they have, if the culture was so against them as you wish to depict it?


Or the culture in Israel was that different from the civilized Rome and Egypt? And it was among the uncivilized that your god chose to make himself known, huh? What a way to make itself known!


On another point of view, all we have is a tale that a guy was crucified, entombed and then that tomb was find empty... couldn't the empty tomb thing be an embellishment?
Consider the possibility that the Romans just tossed the body to rot, as min says they did all the time. And a few decades later, some people show up claiming that the tomb of a long crucified person had been found empty... How would the Romans respond if not with a "fuck off", which would not deny the claim nor would it prevent it from spreading.
It all comes back to the fact that this claim showed up decades after the alleged fact.
It's not history.
Your Jesus, the one that got crucified, could have been the teacher... And that would have happened decades before it allegedly did, rendering the claims more than a century too late.