In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?

[GrandizerII]

No, he doesn't. He states what the women reported hearing from that man in the tomb, but nowhere in the passage does it say that they did witness the risen Christ. Early Mark simply reported what the women were told. It took Later Mark and the other Gospel authors to state that people did see the risen Christ.

No early Mark ends at verse 8: “And he said to them, “Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.” 8 And they went out and fled from the tomb, for trembling and astonishment had seized them, and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Mark indicates the disciples saw the resurrected Christ, he just does not narrate that account, even in its early form.

Where? Reread verse 8. It says the women didn't tell anyone about what the man in the tomb told them ...

Yes, they truly believed. It wasn't an insincere belief.  

Yes they believed it truly, as fervently and earnestly as anyone could believe anything. The truly believed that Christ Resurrected, lighting the fire and commitment of the early christian movement. This is not a disillusioned belief, but one that came back after the death and resurrection more alive more impassioned to who Christ was that before. I can see why Christ was so appalling to many before his death, why he had the following he did, I can follow all that myself, and see the allure of his being, but how can anyone come from that scene of living tragedy, not disillusioned? How can the fire of hope survive as it did, without being real?

That's what you passionately believe, fine. But it still doesn't make for a strong case for the Resurrection.

Millerism managed to survive through SDA. Just as how Messianic Jesusism managed to survive through later Christian church.

Not really, Miller is hardly even acknowledged by the SDA. If you look at their beliefs on their official website, they’re almost indistinguishable from generic evangelical beliefs, with some additional peculiarities, like Saturday worship. There’s no mention of Millers failed prophecies, or any reinterpretations of the date he indicated etc… All that appears to have been an embarrassment, to be irradiated from memory.

Um, Ellen G. White followed on from Miller by spiritualizing what he said, exactly how Jesus' second coming ended up being spiritualized by the early church ...

[Acrobat]

Where? Reread verse 8. It says the women didn't tell anyone about what the man in the tomb told them …

The writer of Mark indicated that the resurrected Christ was going before Peter and the Disciples, in verse 8. Indicating that writer acknowledged the disciples encounter with the resurrected Christ. He chose not to narrate this event, and closes with the Man telling the women this, and the women being terrified of reporting this encounter.

That's what you passionately believe, fine. But it still doesn't make for a strong case for the Resurrection.

A strong enough case for who? It’s a strong enough case for me to believe it, but the fact it’s not a strong enough case for you to believe is not really my problem is it? You probably don’t believe a variety of things I strongly do believe, but that doesn’t change anything for me.

I can only say why I strongly believe something. And unless you have some strong enough basis for me to consider other ways, than I’ll continue to believe what I do.

Um, Ellen G. White followed on from Miller by spiritualizing what he said, exactly how Jesus' second coming ended up being spiritualized by the early church ...

There’s no spiritualized version of the Miller’s failed end time predication date, that’s a part of the SDA churches beliefs. The SDA church has no official position on anything concerning that failed prophecy date. You won’t find any mention of Miller on their official site either. The may have kept some parts of Miller’s views, via Ellen G White, but the spiritualized version of Oct 22, 1844 isn’t one of them.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I don't think it needs to be in chapter and verse.  It's simply an alternative, prosaic explanation for one of the myths in the Gospel narrative.

Boru

which is refuted in the whole narrative with the addition of the roman soldiers who's lives depended on Christ being in that tomb. That's what makes it a strawman. 1/3 of the original telling was omitted and this new one put in it's place which makes it easier to believe the 'natural explanation.'

Well, natural explanations are always to be preferred.   In fact, Grandizer's scenario goes a long way towards understanding the myth of the Resurrection.  If the body had been moved, Jesus' followers might have accepted that he was resurrected and went back to Heaven.  All the fiddly bits about people seeing him later on could have been grafted onto that original belief.

Boru

[Succubus]

...Now, if we start from a position where this is possible, such as with a belief in an existence of God that could make such things possible, then why the resurrection might be the best explanation makes more sense.

This is the very excellent BBC documentary The Hidden Life Of The Cell. 'A' cell that is, one cell.
Now when that cell dies you explain to me just how god can reverse this process. Name the force or combination of forces god uses to bring this cell back to life. And not just this one cell, the thirty trillion cells in the human body and this must all happen simultaneously.

There's seem to be no real motivation for making this story up.

You display a real lack of imagination. What is the net worth of the Vatican?

[Acrobat]

Now when that cell dies you explain to me just how god can reverse this process. Name the force or combination of forces god uses to bring this cell back to life. And not just this one cell, the thirty trillion cells in the human body and this must all happen simultaneously.

Don’t know, don’t care either.

[Abaddon_ire]

Now when that cell dies you explain to me just how god can reverse this process. Name the force or combination of forces god uses to bring this cell back to life. And not just this one cell, the thirty trillion cells in the human body and this must all happen simultaneously.

Don’t know, don’t care either.

That's your problem. You simply don't care what crap you believe so long as you believe it.

No reason, no justification, not thought, no understanding, nothing. You just don't care. Couldn't give a shit.

That is your failure as a human being. Nobody else's. Just yours and yours alone.

[Acrobat]

Don’t know, don’t care either.

That's your problem. You simply don't care what crap you believe so long as you believe it.

No reason, no justification, not thought, no understanding, nothing. You just don't care. Couldn't give a shit.

That is your failure as a human being. Nobody else's. Just yours and yours alone.

I only care about questions that are relevant. Ask me who won the football game last night, and I’d give you the same response.

[GrandizerII]

Where? Reread verse 8. It says the women didn't tell anyone about what the man in the tomb told them …

The writer of Mark indicated that the resurrected Christ was going before Peter and the Disciples, in verse 8. Indicating that writer acknowledged the disciples encounter with the resurrected Christ. He chose not to narrate this event, and closes with the Man telling the women this, and the women being terrified of reporting this encounter.

No, Acrobat, the text doesn't really say that at all. You could argue, I guess, that the disciples did end up seeing Jesus, but this isn't acknowledged in the text. In fact, verse 8 says that the women witnesses didn't mention what they saw to anyone.

That's what you passionately believe, fine. But it still doesn't make for a strong case for the Resurrection.

A strong enough case for who? It’s a strong enough case for me to believe it, but the fact it’s not a strong enough case for you to believe is not really my problem is it? You probably don’t believe a variety of things I strongly do believe, but that doesn’t change anything for me.

I can only say why I strongly believe something. And unless you have some strong enough basis for me to consider other ways, than I’ll continue to believe what I do.

Your insistence, however, on your belief being true has no bearing on whether it is true or not.

Um, Ellen G. White followed on from Miller by spiritualizing what he said, exactly how Jesus' second coming ended up being spiritualized by the early church ...

There’s no spiritualized version of the Miller’s failed end time predication date, that’s a part of the SDA churches beliefs. The SDA church has no official position on anything concerning that failed prophecy date. You won’t find any mention of Miller on their official site either.  The may have kept some parts of Miller’s views, via Ellen G White, but the spiritualized version of Oct 22, 1844 isn’t one of them.

You must not have looked hard enough.

https://www.ellengwhitetruth.com/life-ti...ppointment

Obviously Jesus did not return in 1844. But the error was not in the Millerite message — that is, not an error in computation or the date, but an error in the nature of the event. For several years, the intensity had been building but without great emotional expressions. For most Millerites, it was a time of searching the heart and confession of sin.

[Anomalocaris]

I think the belief in a risen Jesus is better explained by potential naturalistic explanations than by a potential supernatural one, and you don't even need to argue the Gospels are complete myths to come up with a naturalistic explanation that's more compelling than a miracle case. One example: Joseph of Arimathea ended up moving Jesus' body to a private place during the night, in the hope that it would make things easier for the Messiah to come back to life and fulfill the expectations that he was supposed to meet. When that didn't happen, Jesus' body nevertheless stayed there and was never moved back to the original tomb. Joseph also decided not to let anyone know about this, so when rumors spread that Jesus had risen, he chose not to say anything about it.

Or it may be he decided to lie to the other disciples and have them believe Jesus rose from the dead (he or one of his men could have been the "angel" in the empty tomb when the women came to visit Jesus' body). Perhaps to spark some strong faith-based rebellion against the Romans.

Too many necessary information withheld from us so that one cannot really make any confident case for what triggered the Christ faith, but the point is the case for the Resurrection is just damn weak.

The explanation that is most naturalistic, and by an extremely vast distance the most likely to be true, is there were a lot of both liars and fantasists involved from the very beginning, whenever that was.    I don't care to flesh out the precise scenario of who lied to whom under what circumstances for what purpose.   If I did that for every piece of bullshit, my life would have zero useful time available for anything else.

---

The writer of Mark indicated that the resurrected Christ was going before Peter and the Disciples, in verse 8. Indicating that writer acknowledged the disciples encounter with the resurrected Christ. He chose not to narrate this event, and closes with the Man telling the women this, and the women being terrified of reporting this encounter.



A strong enough case for who? It’s a strong enough case for me to believe it, but the fact it’s not a strong enough case for you to believe is not really my problem is it? You probably don’t believe a variety of things I strongly do believe, but that doesn’t change anything for me.

I can only say why I strongly believe something. And unless you have some strong enough basis for me to consider other ways, than I’ll continue to believe what I do.


There’s no spiritualized version of the Miller’s failed end time predication date, that’s a part of the SDA churches beliefs. The SDA church has no official position on anything concerning that failed prophecy date. You won’t find any mention of Miller on their official site either.  The may have kept some parts of Miller’s views, via Ellen G White, but the spiritualized version of Oct 22, 1844 isn’t one of them.

Don't know, don't care

[The Grand Nudger]

I'm over here giggling at the idea of a naturalistic explanation for an explicitly supernatural event, in a fictional narrative.

Category failure.  The natural explanation™ is that it's in the story as an important detail to the plot, lol.