We can be certain of NO resurrection - A Response

[Crossless2.0]

Could have been worse. Could have been Esperanto.

[Nay_Sayer]

Dead is dead. period. You have my sympathies randy, Religious has rotted that last remnants of grey matter you may have had.

[GrandizerII]

Dead is dead. period.  You have my sympathies randy, Religious has rotted that last remnants of grey matter you may have had.

Yet he's still alive. So maybe resurrection is possible after all.

[Minimalist]

Since we know that these so-called gospels were written in Greek, by Greek speakers and not a bunch of illiterate fishermen, it makes sense that when they needed to create a character they picked one from their own culture rather than the one they were purportedly writing about.

You do realize that Greek was a universal language, much like English is today. If your purpose was to spread the gospel, you'd write it in a language everyone could understand.

No you are wrong.  Greek was the language of the educated.  Kindly don't try to con yourself that a bunch of Galilean peasants ran around speaking Greek.  They spoke Aramaic and in all likelihood were illiterate in that, too.  In antiquity few people could read/write.  And even among those who could a miniscule percentage could handle advanced texts or philosophy and history.  Sure, Roman soldiers were taught enough Latin to read the duty rosters.  Someone had to clean the latrines.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yet he's still alive. So maybe resurrection is possible after all.

Prove it.

Oh, wait, you can't.

Cue the threats of Hell for not buying your bullshit.

[Aractus]

You do realize that Greek was a universal language, much like English is today. If your purpose was to spread the gospel, you'd write it in a language everyone could understand.

Correct, and it was much easier to understand in written form than Hebrew. So even native Hebrew or Aramaic speakers could find reading Greek easier.

Most Old Testament scholars would find it an impossible task to translate English into Hebrew - and they have enough trouble translating Hebrew into English. Any New Testament scholar could translate English to Greek and back again without problem though.

The Romans controlled the entire region, so to suggest the Jewish people couldn't understand Greek is disingenuous.

[Randy Carson]

In the next paragraph of his blog post, Baxter opines:

Here’s another problem – several New Testament authors never mention the resurrection of Jesus. Paul never once mentions a physical, bodily, resurrection. He never mentions the empty tomb either.

Now, I had planned to write a response this this particular assertion...but quite honestly, the subject has been addressed quite capably by many others at various websites. Here in one example:

It has been supposed that Paul’s Damascus road experience was essentially different from the experience of the other apostles. His experience has been held to be mystical and subjective, while theirs was physical and objective. Furthermore, it is argued, Paul says nothing about the tomb being empty.

Paul, however, does not differentiate his experience from the rest of the apostles, other than in its timing. He was not with them at the beginning. He says “he appeared to Peter … he appeared to James … and last of all he appeared also to me”. Previously he had asked. “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (1 Corinthians 9:1). He says nothing to imply that his experience was essentially different from theirs.

While he does not refer to the tomb being empty, it is implicit in the creed. Firstly, the creed describes the progression “died … buried … raised … appeared”. Whilst modern people might be tempted to separate these meanings, a first century Jew would only have believed that the sentence implied a continuity. What was dead was buried, what was dead and buried was raised, and what was dead, buried and raised also appeared. The clear implication of this creed is that Jesus underwent a bodily resurrection.

Secondly, the creed is emphatic that something happened “on the third day”. That event, we are told, is that Jesus “was raised”. The appearances, which followed, continued over several weeks.

Thirdly, we need to imagine how Paul and Peter spent their time when they spent 15 days together in Jerusalem. We have already noted that Paul went there “to investigate”. Did they not retrace Christ’s final journey? Did they not pause for prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane or stand where the cross had stood? Did Peter not show him the tomb where he and John had discovered the grave clothes? This, of course, is speculation. But Paul wanted to clarify the facts – and 15 days in a small city is a long time. There are therefore very good reasons to believe that Paul was fully aware that the tomb was empty.

Source:
The Resurrection of Jesus and the Witness of Paul
by Peter May
http://www.bethinking.org/did-jesus-rise...ss-of-paul

About the Author
Peter May served on the General Synod of the Church of England from 1985 to 2010 and was Chair of the UCCF Trust Board from  2003 to 2010. He is a retired GP.

From this, we see that 1) Paul did speak of the physical resurrection of Jesus in 1 Cor 15, and 2) Paul's meetings in Jerusalem with the apostles would have provided him with an opportunity to investigate (Gr. historeo) (cf. Gal. 1:18-19) the full details of the empty tomb. Additionally, I think it is more than reasonable to assume that prior to his conversion, Paul would have been fully aware of the believers' claim of resurrection as well as the counter-claim that the disciples stole the body put forward by the Jews in response. In fact, he would have advocated that stolen body theory himself during the 2-3 year period that he was persecuting the early Church.

The claim that the body had been stolen coupled with the fact that his own conversion was brought about by his meeting the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus (which convinced him that the body obviously had not been stolen), leave no doubt that Paul believed the tomb was empty.

Baxter is simply wrong.

[Randy Carson]

<dramatic pause before springing the trap>

So, if we can accept the existence of the historical Pontius Pilate based upon the writings of Josephus, Tacitus and a few others, we can accept the existence of the historical Jesus based upon the writings of those same authors.

Game. Set. Match.

Goodnight, Min. Pleasant dreams.

You'd have to stop at "historical Jesus," though, and you couldn't then get to "supernatural divine avatar Jesus," without a whole lot more evidence than is available. I know it's inconvenient, but please do keep in mind the difference between mundane claims and extraordinary ones here.

I mean, there's also that problem where you say you know things about Joseph of Arimathea, and all you did is cite bible verses. Sorry, but "bible says so," is not sufficient justification for a rationally supported knowledge claim.

Esq-

This is fair. We will ultimately have to decide what to do with the accounts of magic.

Consequently, I think it is reasonable to establish several other things first:

1. Jesus existed.
2. The gospels were written early enough to have been authored by eyewitnesses.
3. The gospels WERE written by eyewitnesses or people who had access to them.
4. The gospels are reliable in the minor details that can be verified through internal evidence, external corroboration, archaeological support, etc.

IOW, at some point, one's opinion of the gospels crosses over from incredible to credible. Once you can honestly say, "You know, I think these guys may have been telling the truth", then faith is not far away.

[Randy Carson]

Jesus was not an "only child" Randy. That's just some stupid made up RCC doctrine. His brothers are mentioned by name, and Mark and Matthew both say he also had sisters.

This is a common error resulting from the English translation. So, let's address the perpetual virginity of Mary, shall we?

The Adelphoi of Jesus

Objection 1:  The Bible says that Jesus had brothers. Matthew 13:55 says: ‘Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brethren James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us?’"

The key to Matthew 13:55 is understanding the Greek word for "brethren" (adelphoi) and its feminine counterpart (adelphe). If the Greek words used in this passage connote only siblings, then the Catholic dogma of Mary’s perpetual virginity is false.

However, the word adelphoi has a much broader meaning. It may refer to male relatives that one is not a descendant of and that are not descendant from one (such as a blood brother, step-brother, nephew, uncle, cousin, etc.) or non-relatives such as neighbors, fellow workers, co-religionists, and friends.

Because of this broad usage, we can be sure that the 120 "brothers" in Acts 1:15 did not have the same mother. Neither did Lot and his uncle Abraham, who were called "brothers" (Gen. 11:26-28, 29:15).

The reason relatives were called brothers or sisters was because in Hebrew, there was no word for cousin, nephew, or uncle. So the person was referred to as simply a "brother." Linguistically, this was far easier than calling the person the son of a mother’s sister. Since the New Testament was written in a dialect of Greek that was heavily influenced by the Semitic culture, many of the Hebrew idioms (like "brother" having multiple meanings) intrude into the Greek text. So, the fact that Jesus had adelphoi does not mean that Mary had other children.

Objection 2:  But there was a Greek word for cousin, anepsios. If the brothers of the Lord were really his cousins, why wasn’t that word used?"

It is a misconception that Catholics teach that the brothers were actually cousins. In fact, we can’t tell if any of the "brothers" were cousins. All the Church affirms is that they were not children of Mary. They could have been children of Joseph from a prior marriage. But the specific word for cousin (anepsios) probably would not have been used in Matthew 13:55 unless all the "brothers" were cousins. If even one of them was not a cousin, the more general term "adelphoi" covers the situation. Even if all of them were cousins, the term "brother" could still be used by Matthew to appropriately describe them.

These things were taken for granted by the early Christians, who were familiar with the biblical languages and who knew that Mary was a lifelong virgin. In A.D. 380, Helvidius proposed that Mary had other children because of the "brothers" in Matthew 13:55. He was rebutted by Jerome, who was arguably the greatest biblical scholar of the day. The Protestant reformer John Calvin seconded Jerome: "Helvidius has shown himself too ignorant, in saying that Mary had several sons, because mention is made in some passages to the brothers of Christ" [quoted by Bernard Leeming, Protestants and Our Lady, 9]. Martin Luther agreed with Calvin that Mary was always a virgin, as did Ulrich Zwingli: "I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary" [E. Stakemeier, De Mariologia et Oecumenismo, K. Balic, ed., 456].

You also can't back-up your claim that labourers were poorly paid, can you?

Poorly paid relative to what? Or to whom? Jesus was born in a stable. Where is Joseph's wealth?

At his presentation, Joseph and Mary offered two pigeons:

Luke 2:22-24
22 When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), 24 and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”

This was in keeping with the following passage of the law:

Leviticus 12:8
8 But if she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering. In this way the priest will make atonement for her, and she will be clean.’”

There would have been no reason for Luke to mention the pigeons at all if Mary and Joseph had offered a lamb. Consequently, we can be confident that Luke learned this detail from Mary and included it in his gospel.

Where is Joseph's wealth?

Or that that Joseph wasn't really a carpenter, or that Joseph had died before Jesus, can you?

In brief, the Greek word commonly translated as "carpenter" really mean more of a general day laborer. You can look that up yourself.

As for Joseph dying earlier:

1. Joseph was a widower who married Mary to protect her vow of virginity.
2. Joseph does not appear in the gospels after Jesus was found in the Temple at age 12.
3. Jesus commended his mother into the hands of John. If Joseph was still alive, why did He need to make this provision for her?

Moderator Notice
Randy is mostly quoting and occasionally paraphrasing How to Explain the Perpetual Virginity of Mary By Jason Evert in this post.

[Nay_Sayer]

[snipped]

FSM forgives you for choosing the wrong religion. May you one day accept his noodles into your heart. RAmen.