Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Pizza]

Produce the corpse? Why would the Romans and Jews care enough? Secondly, a dead body rots.

[Randy Carson]

WRITTEN ROMAN REFERENCES TO JESUS

Pliny the Younger (c AD 112)

In Letter 10 to the Emperor Trajan , Pliny makes a clear reference to the followers of Christ who gathered illegally (due to some restrictions that were in place) to "sing hymns to Christ as to God." Does this remind us of anyone we know?

Tacitus (c. AD 115)

As Bart Ehrman notes:

"...it is obvious in this instance that [Jesus] is the one being referred to and that Tacitus knows some very basic information about him. He was called Christ., he was executed at the order of Pontius Pilate, and this was during the reign of Tiberius. Moreover, this happened in Judea, presumably, since that was where Pilate was the governor and since that was where Jesus' followers originated. All of this confirms information otherwise available from Christian sources...." (Bart Ehrman, Did Jesus Exist?, 55).

Gee, maybe those Christian writings were more reliable than we thought...

[Randy Carson]

Produce the corpse? Why would the Romans and Jews care enough?

To avoid the spread of false rumors.

Matthew 77
62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” 65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

Secondly, a dead body rots.

Not beyond all recognition in less than 72 hours. Jesus wounds, after all, were very unique.

[Minimalist]

Randy prefers simple answers to complex issues.

Simpletons almost always do.

[Crossless2.0]

Paul doesn't seem to speak of a bodily resurrection, and he wrote well after the time when anyone producing a body would have been possible. The Gospel accounts that speak of an alleged bodily resurrection come much later. Who, exactly, would have been breaking his balls circa 31 CE to counter a claim of an empty tomb years -- decades -- before the claim gains currency?

Your Godman leaving the tomb is a later embellishment.

[Bob Kelso]

"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."

How so?

The disciples claimed that they saw Jesus alive.

If the body was still in the tomb, all the Jews (or Romans) had to do was to produce the corpse and Christianity would have ended right then.

Instead, even the Jews acknowledged that the tomb was empty.

(They accused the disciples of stealing the body.)

The level of "evidence" you accept to believe a claim is just fascinating. On another note, can I interest you in a timeshare?

[Jenny A]

Produce the corpse? Why would the Romans and Jews care enough?

To avoid the spread of false rumors.

Matthew 77
62 The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. 63 “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” 65 “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

Mathew is written too late to be taken as good evidence on such odd proceedings.

Secondly, a dead body rots.

Not beyond all recognition in less than 72 hours. Jesus wounds, after all, were very unique.

You are limping around on your worst arguments.  Why on earth would Pilate have cared about guarding the tomb?  If, and it's a big if, he decided to go against all precedent and allow a decent burial would he have cared if the tomb were guarded?  And why would anyone guard it?  The Romans weren't expecting a miracle.  Or a theft.  Why would they?  Pilate was not a Jew.  If he thought there was a possibility there would be claims of resurrection, he would have left that body to rot publicly on the cross.

[Randy Carson]

Paul doesn't seem to speak of a bodily resurrection, and he wrote well after the time when anyone producing a body would have been possible.  The Gospel accounts that speak of an alleged bodily resurrection come much later.  Who, exactly, would have been breaking his balls circa 31 CE to counter a claim of an empty tomb years -- decades -- before the claim gains currency?

Your Godman leaving the tomb is a later embellishment.

Rubbish.

Paul also wrote well within the time frame when hundreds of people who saw Jesus alive were still around. In fact, Paul even does a bit of a throw-down on this very point in his letter to the Corinthians;

1 Corinthians 5:3-8
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.


Paul is saying, "Hey, if you don't believe me, ask them. They saw Him, too!"

And that bit in v. 3, "for what I received" - yeah, that's telling us that this is a proto-creed of the early Church which Paul memorized during his first visit to Jerusalem after his conversion (c. AD 35-36).

So, this means that Paul is claiming that Jesus was appearing to hundreds of people after his resurrection and using a memorized formula learned in Jerusalem less than five years after the actual resurrection.

Later embellishment, my ass.

[Minimalist]

Fucking "paul" is heavily interpolated by later writers...but of course, Randy doesn't read books like that.  The truth really would hurt in his case.

[Crossless2.0]

When I mentioned Paul, I had in mind his report of his own experience of the risen Christ, which is clearly not physical in nature. As for his memorized formula, at the risk of nit-picking, there is nothing there that necessitates an interpretation that he is speaking of a bodily resurrection -- of a person literally walking out of a tomb. It merely states that Jesus was buried and raised on the third day before appearing before a number of witnesses. For all we know, these 'appearances' could have been 'spiritual' in nature as Paul's alleged experience seems to have been. He doesn't really say there was an empty tomb. The empty tomb stories we have are from the Gospels, which come later.