We can be certain of NO resurrection - A Response

[Nay_Sayer]

duplicate, delete

[Aractus]

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.

---

Ok Randy. So your response is that he makes a reference to it in a creed he quotes, which by your own admission is a creed? It's just like people quoting the Nicene Creed today - doesn't mean they actually witnessed the supposed transfiguration, does it?

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.

Paul doesn't mention an empty tomb. All he says in the 1 Cor 15 creed he recites is that Jesus is raised.

As I pointed out to you earlier there are TWO different versions of Paul's conversion in the Bible. One written by Paul himself - where he doesn't say that he met the risen Jesus at all - and the other a hearsay account in Acts 9.

I didn't say the body was stolen from the tomb. I do not know what happened after Jesus was supposedly laid in it, but there are many possibilities - including the family taking it for reburial, Joseph moving it out of his tomb for reasons known only to him, or the disciples simply going to the wrong tomb since the family or family member they talked to put them in the wrong direction.

The first written accounts of the resurrection are in Luke and Matthew. Mark does not mention it. As you would be well aware I do advocate for the view that Matt/Luke were written c. 60AD which is towards the end of Paul's writings. You'd also be aware that I'm keen to pint out that the Epistle of James is written early - before 50AD in my opinion. That means the first accounts we know about (with reasonable confidence) come from James, Paul, and Mark.  Even with later dating of the gospels this is true. So Paul does not need to know about the resurrection theory since he doesn't make reference to it and it doesn't appear until after his epistles.

That makes you wrong, obviously.

[Randy Carson]

Randy still thinks that if he argues against enough fringe theories and plain old straw-men, we will somehow forget, that his god doesn't exist. Good luck with that. Even if you managed to undermine every mythical Jebus theory, or even if you proved existence of an empty tomb - you'd still be nowhere closer to proving resurrection, or divinity of Jebus - or indeed existence of any god in the first place.

All this is just busy-work, to keep yourself from reflecting upon the fact that you're a grown-ass man, who not only believes in fairy-tales, but also has invested way more time and energy in rationalizing those beliefs, than even the vast majority of religious people would consider reasonable.

Way to waste your life, Carson. You could have learned something useful by now, instead of being your imaginary friend's bottom-b**ch.

One step at a time, Homeless.

First, we all get on the same page that Jesus of Nazareth actually existed. Aractus agrees with this, but there are some lunatic-fringe types in this forum, and they deserve to get solid answers to their questions, too.

As for the rest, I'm spending my time discussing something that I believe in. You, however, are spending YOUR time discussing something that you apparently don't believe in.

Which one of us is "wasting" his life?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Or, in the alternative:

1. Jesus existed and was executed by Rome for claiming to be a Jewish messiah (and thus anti-Roman "rebel leader").
2. The followers of this man who claimed to be the arrival of the Messiah, the leader of the Jewish freedom movement, could not accept that God would send the Messiah only to let him die, so they claim he's coming back soon. This story gets embellished as retold and repeated.
3. The very first things written about him were 15 years later, at a minimum (Pauline epistles).
4. The gospels weren't written for twenty years (or more) after his death.
5. There was plenty of time within the first year after his death, let alone the 14-19 years after that, to come up with a few stories about the Messiah being actually more than a failed "mere human", in which time the ministry of Jesus stories became slowly embellished by the small group of disciples (and Paul) as they spread the word, and by the time they were written down (probably by others), a semi-coherent whole had coagulated (helped by later editing, and the excising of the less-coherent versions, by the early orthodox church bishops) that expressed a version of the teachings of those "eyewitnesses" that in only the barest details matched what had actually happened, two decades before.
6. Later Christians would not only accept the coagulated version as a factual narrative of what actually happened, but would use those gospels-that-survived-the-Council-of-Nicea versions' similarities to one another to "prove" that eyewitnesses (who just couldn't be later believers writing down the coagulated story as they recall it being retold and reshaped and retold by aged disciples who actually were eyewitnesses, once upon a time, before they started embellishing the "he is returning 'soon' to lead the Jews to freedom" story until he became God Incarnate!) wrote down the story accurately.
7. The versions kept being retold-and-coagulated into cohesive but highly-altered forms so much that, by the time we pass the Jewish Revolt and get to books like the gospel of John and Revelation, the tone has changed significantly (compared to the Synoptics) but not so significantly that the average Christian even notices the striking difference between Mark and John, clearly showing an evolving story/fable.

IOW, it does not follow that one's opinion of the gospels must be "I think these guys may have been telling the truth" for any of the reasons that are commonly stated, and the whole thing about the empty grave is static that assumes a great deal that can neither be assumed logically, nor can other plausible alternatives be excluded. It's wishful thinking and suppositionalism at its finest.

[Randy Carson]

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

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:

Ok Randy. So your response is that he makes a reference to it in a creed he quotes, which by your own admission is a creed? It's just like people quoting the Nicene Creed today - doesn't mean they actually witnessed the supposed transfiguration, does it?

Yes, Paul TEACHES the Creed that he learned in Jerusalem from the mouths of the Apostles around AD 35 to those in Corinth for whom he had pastoral responsibility.

NO ONE witnessed the resurrection. But MANY people saw the risen Jesus...and Paul was one of them as he testifies.

The Nicene Creed does not mention the transfiguration.

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.

Paul doesn't mention an empty tomb. All he says in the 1 Cor 15 creed he recites is that Jesus is raised.

What does "raised" mean, Daniel?

If Jesus was still in the tomb, how did he appear to all those people mentioned in 1 Cor 15?

As I pointed out to you earlier there are TWO different versions of Paul's conversion in the Bible. One written by Paul himself - where he doesn't say that he met the risen Jesus at all - and the other a hearsay account in Acts 9.

Hearsay...now there is a word loaded with negative connotations. Paul and Luke traveled together for many years. Luke had set through MANY of Paul's sermons...he knew what Paul taught publicly and what he said privately as they walked along the dusty roads of the middle east on their missionary journeys. So, when Luke says that Paul met Jesus, he knew what he was talking about.

I didn't say the body was stolen from the tomb. I do not know what happened after Jesus was supposedly laid in it, but there are many possibilities - including the family taking it for reburial, Joseph moving it out of his tomb for reasons known only to him, or the disciples simply going to the wrong tomb since the family or family member they talked to put them in the wrong direction.

Since you admit you do not know what happened to the body of Jesus, is resurrection one of the possibilities open to consideration, too?

The first written accounts of the resurrection are in Luke and Matthew. Mark does not mention it. [emphasis added] As you would be well aware I do advocate for the view that Matt/Luke were written c. 60AD which is towards the end of Paul's writings. You'd also be aware that I'm keen to pint out that the Epistle of James is written early - before 50AD in my opinion. That means the first accounts we know about (with reasonable confidence) come from James, Paul, and Mark.  Even with later dating of the gospels this is true. So Paul does not need to know about the resurrection theory since he doesn't make reference to it and it doesn't appear until after his epistles.

That makes you wrong, obviously.

Obviously?

Mark writes, "He is risen" in Mark 16:6. Mark knew of the resurrection.

As for James, why do you suppose that the skeptical brother of Jesus was converted after Jesus' death to the degree that he became the leader of the Church in Jerusalem and a martyr for his faith?

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Edit to Add: I see Aractus did a good job of explaining why, even if we accept the earliest possible dates of the writings in question, they don't prove what you're claiming, Randy. Nice work, Aractus.

Second Editing: I see Randy still doesn't grasp that people writing "he is risen" doesn't mean that the stories told are eyewitness accounts that thereby imply the full "He was buried in the tomb of Joesph of Arimathea and when we came a few days later to look, he was no longer in the same tomb we saw him buried in and then he appeared and spoke to us and we watched him ascend into heaven, and none of this stuff I'm writing down 20+ years later is an embellishment from the retelling of the original basic version".

[GrandizerII]

As for James, why do you suppose that the skeptical brother of Jesus was converted after Jesus' death to the degree that he became the leader of the Church in Jerusalem and a martyr for his faith?

One possible answer i to do with human psychology. He was led to believe that Jesus was resurrected. This does not mean Jesus actually rose. Delusions happen.

[Randy Carson]

Regarding this whole "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," bit, it might be comforting for those who want to hold beliefs for which there is an absence of evidence, but, well... an absence of evidence is exactly what you would expect to find for a claim that is not true.

So at best, the claim for which you're wheeling out that canard to defend is indistinguishable from an untrue thing; still not something you could be justified in accepting as true. Honestly, it doesn't go as far as you need it to in defending your unevidenced assertions, and one can't help but suspect that if you actually had anything to bring to the table you wouldn't think it as cogent as you seem to.

Not to mention, if you're using that reasoning as a defense of your claim, then you're shifting the burden of proof by requiring that others provide evidence against an assertion that you've just acknowledged has no evidence for it before you'll let go of the claim. So it's either that "absence of evidence..." means nothing and does nothing to further your position, or it's actively a logical fallacy. You might as well just not say it at all, really.

But I don't actually believe there is an absence of evidence. I simply state that for YOUR benefit since YOU believe there is no evidence.

Oh, there IS evidence, alright...lots of it. But not coercive evidence that FORCES you to believe.

[Randy Carson]

So how in the hell do Gentiles get to hitch their wagon onto the Jewish messiah?

That is recounted here:

Acts 10
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=NIV

[Randy Carson]

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.co...bably.html

In the first place we have no idea where the location of the town of Arimathea is, whereas we do know the location of other Biblical cites like Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Capernaum and Damascus. According to Roy W. Hoover, “the location of Arimathea has not (yet) been identified with any assurance; the various ‘possible’ locations are nothing more than pious guesses or conjectures undocumented by any textual or archaeological evidence.”[1] More than likely Hoover means we don’t have any other textual reference to the town in any ancient text apart from those influenced by the Biblical narrative, and there is no archaeology confirming the location of this town.

BTW, Roy Hoover is a bible scholar...one of you xtian clowns.


Secondly, and probably more importantly, one would expect that a member of the Sanhedrin was a jew and a Judaean.  Judea used a patronymic system for naming people; i.e.  X, son of Y.  The practice of naming someone after the town the lived in ( X of Y ) was a Greek thing.   So Joseph of Arimathea does not fit in with all the "Schlomo's sons of Morris" types who would have made up the Sanhedrin.  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.

Frankly the whole fucking story reads like a play with characters entering and exiting.  There were no curtains to ancient plays...not even in Shakespeare's time.  Hence why you see in Shakespeare that there is always a gang of soldiers, or comrades, or friends or relatives who show up to cart the body of the dead hero off the stage.  It would kill the whole thing if after the play ended Hamlet got up and walked off.  So a way had to be found to cart jesus' carcass off the stage and "Joseph of Arimathea" was invented to provide the deus ex machina.

Heh...funny how archaeology keeps finding stuff that proves rather than disproves the Bible, isn't it?

If they find Arimathea (like they have found Sodom and Gomorrah), what will your excuse be then?