In what way is the Resurrection the best explanation?

[GrandizerII]

Non-Christians Jews would disagree, and many interpret the suffering servant passage to be referring to a nation, not a particular person.

It's both the nation and an individual. What's going on here is termed 'sociological representation', in which a person or group represents a group. The England rugby team will represent the nation in the final; David represented Israel in the stand-off with Goliath; and Jesus represented the nation of Israel on the cross. The identification made by the Early Church, although strikingly new, was a more than possible reading within conventional Judaism.

I'm not convinced. IMO, a better explanation is this: The disciples came to believe that the Messiah did not come to provide physical/earthly salvation but a spiritual one, then through confirmation bias, went back through the Old Testament to find passages they could locate that could be reinterpreted in light of their new beliefs. They were able to find select passages like Isaiah 53 that could be reinterpreted in that light, but the fact that there are no passages in the Old Testament clearly prophesying that the Messiah would become the ultimate lamb to be sacrificed for all our sins is telling. There's not even a passage in the OT that specifically says the Messiah would die and then be resurrected.

Again, the non-Christian Jews (from what I've read) don't accept that Isaiah 53 is about a person, let alone a Messiah.

If I understand you correctly, we're getting somewhere now. There are those who try to explain the rise of Xianity, with the belief set it has, in a way that requires that the Early Church actually didn't believe in the Resurrection. For reasons I've outlined they would be better looking elsewhere for an explanation, as the evidence here is overwhelming. So given the belief, what caused it?

We don't know. That's the point I'm trying to get people to understand. Incredibly biased sources, and scant/undocumented relevant details in contemporary "neutral" records, means we can't really convincingly speculate what exactly happened. At the same time, we can still offer potential accounts of what might have happened, in spite of the lack of evidence and relevant details, but we can't really confirm any of them because the sources are lacking, and we only have very biased sources that aren't convincingly accurate historically and were clearly written with a theological agenda.

So arguing it must be the Resurrection is jumping the gun big time.

Except these are pretty much vague terms that don't make for good prophecies, and  <snip> These are Christian beliefs that we do not hold.

The question I'm asking is not 'have these occurred?', but 'What caused the Early Church to believe they had occurred?'. They are very different questions.

What caused the early Church to adopt these beliefs is the framework that allowed them to hold to these beliefs and that gave them good theological reasons to hold to them.

Whether the sources are evangelistically biased or not, they do tell us very reliably what the Early Church believed.

Vicki, come on, you're intelligent enough to know what's wrong with this statement.

The vanishing of the body (explanation mentioned in the OP) is necessary but not sufficient to explain the rise of Xianity with the actual belief set it had. They, like you, would have been aware of numerous possible alternative explanations.

I'm sure they were aware of numerous possible alternatives, and they came up with good apologetics as a result. But this doesn't mean the Resurrection happened.

Feel free to summarise the book, and we'll see how it all goes.

I already sort of did earlier. According to Bart and other NT scholars, Jesus was an apocalyptic figure who preached the imminent coming of an earthly kingdom. This didn't happen, so eventually it got spiritualized instead, and we see hints of this in the Gospels.

That said, if I remember correctly (since it's been ages ago) Bart Ehrman doesn't directly address how the Resurrection belief came to be (in the book I'm referring to), but Bart (and other scholars) nevertheless do provide clear C1 contexts in which such a belief could have been possible without the Resurrection actually happening.

But if you want something more concrete, here's Tim O'Neil addressing the Resurrection specifically:

https://www.quora.com/What-evidence-is-t...m-ONeill-1

The alternatives just don't make sense.

I don't think that's the issue. They do make sense. The question is where's the overwhelming evidence favoring the Resurrection over every other naturalistic explanation? I just don't happen to see it.

[snowtracks]

The Apostle John was exiled to the island of Patmos by the Romans, where he received from God the visions that comprise the book of Revelation. Before writing those revelations, Christ, post resurrected, visited John and said:  -     I am he that lives, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys of Hades and of death. -  Rev 1:18.
After reading that verse, people will then have anecdotal evidence (within themselves) of what was read is right and truthful.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's probably sillier to believe that than it is to believe in a magic book. I'd love to hear other peoples opinions.

Whomever wrote revelation didn't write the gospel of john, and this was recognized by proto christian authority before there was an early church. Before the beliefs we call christian were codified. However, because of the popularity and theological utility of both stories, as well as the imagined pedigree of the apostolic author..both were included and attributed to him in spite of this.

Additionally, neither revelation or john, were written by john the apostle.

So..as above, is it sillier to believe that a god inspired a story...or that a rural fisherman who wrote no stories...wrote two stories...that were definitely written by separate authors?

It's always the little hidden miracles behind the miracle beliefs that amuse me most. Snows over here crediting Cletus for other peoples books, Vicki thinks a missing body led to the NT and beliefs she holds.

[LastPoet]

It's probably sillier to believe that than it is to believe in a magic book.  I'd love to hear other peoples opinions.

Whomever wrote revelation didn't write the gospel of john, and this was recognized by proto christian authority before there was an early church.  Before the beliefs we call christian were codified.  However,  because of the popularity and theological utility of both stories, as well as the imagined pedigree of the apostolic author..both were included and attributed to him in spite of this.

Additionally, neither revelation or john, were written by john the apostle.

So..as above, is it sillier to believe that a god inspired a story...or that a rural fisherman who wrote no stories...wrote two stories...that were definitely written by separate authors?

It's always the little hidden miracles behind the miracle beliefs that amuse me most.  Snows over here crediting Cletus for other peoples books, Vicki thinks a missing body led to the NT and beliefs she holds.

In times were the literacy was far shorter than today, and hearsay was their internet.

[The Grand Nudger]

They still knew bullshit when they heard it, that doesn't take any book learnin lol. We can say that people were less literate.....but there are more literate christians alive today than dead illiterate ones.

It's never been the case that christians or anyone else weren't aware of how much bs their story is riddled with. That's what all that schism and reformation and buddy jesus and simply jesus and just love and relationships with god and whatever other taglines they come up with next are all about.

The earliest mention of christians is very literally a pagan roman official calling them superstitious idiots. Christianity's founding documents are (allegedly) one soap box nutball taking the other soap box nutballs to task for getting everything wrong.

The explanation for christian beliefs in past is remarkably similar to their explanation today. The earlist christians became christian just like Vicki or Snow did..by having it inflicted upon them from a position of authority or leverage.

The notion that a missing body, or a resurrection (or even illiteracy), is an explanation for those beliefs is as unserious an exploration of the subject as one could imagine. Christ actually being resurrected wouldn't have lead to christian beliefs, and we know this. We know this by reference to the actual history of the religion but we can know this conceptually without that -by reference to their own beliefs.

In magic book, people who saw miracles happen in front of their faces....in the ot and the nt..didn't fall to their knees. That wasn't enough to create a belief in them that would require an explanation. As ever, gods ability to fail is about as omni as it gets. The actual existence of the christian god and his actually doing miracles would have little to nothing to tell us about the reasons christians held or hold the beliefs they do then or now. This is due to the fact that the subject of christain belief..is people, not gods, regardless of whether or not there are gods.

[Vicki Q]

They were able to find select passages like Isaiah 53 that could be reinterpreted in that light, but the fact that there are no passages in the Old Testament clearly prophesying that the Messiah would become the ultimate lamb to be sacrificed for all our sins is telling. There's not even a passage in the OT that specifically says the Messiah would die and then be resurrected.

That's Jewish apocalyptic prophecy for you. It's a jigsaw puzzle you do after the events have given you the picture to work towards.

Again, the non-Christian Jews (from what I've read) don't accept that Isaiah 53 is about a person, let alone a Messiah.

Check out Wikipedia for counterexamples, but I must stress Isaiah 53 applies to both a nation and a person acting on behalf of the nation.

Incredibly biased sources, and scant/undocumented relevant details in contemporary "neutral" records, means we can't really convincingly speculate what exactly happened.

Whether the sources are evangelistically biased or not, they do tell us very reliably what the Early Church believed.

Vicki, come on, you're intelligent enough to know what's wrong with this statement.

Yes, nothing is wrong with the statement.
If you want to know what the Liberal Democrats believe, you read their manifesto. Sure it's very biased towards the LDs, but it tells you very accurately what they believe.
If you want to know what C1 Jews believed, read Josephus. Sure it's very biased towards C1 Jews, but it tells you very accurately what they believed.
If you want to know what the Early Xians believed, read the NT. Sure it's very biased towards Early Xianity, but it tells you very accurately what they believed.

Bart...But if you want something more concrete, here's Tim O'Neil addressing the Resurrection specifically:

Could you unpack the Bart Ehrman explanation a little, please?

As for T.O'N piece, (BTW a lot of what follows also applies to your earlier construction and I think BE as well):

There are a significant number of  errors in this and it would take too long to deal with them all. From Mark “generally dated to after 70 AD” (e.g. Wikipedia, Britannica and the actual consensus have <70); through his inexplicable misunderstanding of Tom Wright on the 'Resurrection as inauguration of the KoG' vs 'purely return from the dead miracles' (hopefully careful readers of this thread will know the very clear difference!); to his use of the 'spiritual bodies' argument (he's read Tom Wright on what the words mean, why is this still happening?).

More importantly he's missing what Paul is saying. In 1 Cor 15 Paul uses the non-physical word for appearances because that's exactly what Damascus Road was. Paul is writing 1 Cor 15 to establish his status as a Resurrection witness, which gave him special status within the Early Church. As such, he has carefully chosen a word that covers all appearances in the list he wants to be on.

All sense of ambiguity vanishes in his use of anastasis and egeiro which are only used of non-bodily resurrection. Furthermore, the C1 Jewish conception of Resurrection that Paul talks about at length involves physical bodies. Therefore the 'evolution' to a full blown uncontroversial and physical Resurrection must have taken place long before Paul wrote at around...the time of the Resurrection. So no evolution. Just an event.

However the much repeated problem still hasn't been resolved. 
He doesn't explain why the disciples kept the whole thing going, let alone proclaimed that Everything Has Changed.
He doesn't get us from the dead wannabe Messiah waste man to the Pauline embodiment of God who has inaugurated the KoG.
He doesn't explain why the Earliest Church concluded that death had been defeated. Seeing a vision of someone who's died is a pretty conclusive indication that they're still very dead. But the disciples were clear on this- Jesus was alive!

So given the belief, what caused it?

We don't know. That's the point I'm trying to get people to understand.
At the same time, we can still offer potential accounts of what might have happened, in spite of the lack of evidence and relevant details,

But none of the accounts put forward are plausible. Given centuries of high powered scholarship has failed to come up with a sensible alternative, perhaps the time has come to say the disciples actually knew what they were talking about?

[The Grand Nudger]

OFC centuries of high powered scholarship have come up with sensible alternatives...and remember..we're discussing sensible alternatives...to magic.

There's an entire field of study devoted to it. Anthropology.

[GrandizerII]

That's Jewish apocalyptic prophecy for you. It's a jigsaw puzzle you do after the events have given you the picture to work towards.

But purportedly important Messianic events (such as the Resurrection) aren't contained anywhere in the OT. Doesn't this serve as some evidence against what you're saying?

Again, the non-Christian Jews (from what I've read) don't accept that Isaiah 53 is about a person, let alone a Messiah.

Check out Wikipedia for counterexamples, but I must stress Isaiah 53 applies to both a nation and a person acting on behalf of the nation.

The standard non-Christian Jewish interpretation is still that Isaiah 53 is about a nation and never a person. There are three other such passages pointing to the Servant as a nation, if you look at these passages within their context.

I get as a Christian you interpret it as applying to a person, but the problem here is that Isaiah 53 doesn't specifically point to Jesus and the specific events around him even if it was about a particular person.

Incredibly biased sources, and scant/undocumented relevant details in contemporary "neutral" records, means we can't really convincingly speculate what exactly happened.

Vicki, come on, you're intelligent enough to know what's wrong with this statement.

Yes, nothing is wrong with the statement.
If you want to know what the Liberal Democrats believe, you read their manifesto. Sure it's very biased towards the LDs, but it tells you very accurately what they believe.
If you want to know what C1 Jews believed, read Josephus. Sure it's very biased towards C1 Jews, but it tells you very accurately what they believed.
If you want to know what the Early Xians believed, read the NT. Sure it's very biased towards Early Xianity, but it tells you very accurately what they believed.

Ok, I get the part in italics, but nevertheless the fact that they are biased sources means they are going to give you their preferred interpretations in light of these biases. C1 Christians writings weren't meant to be taken as objective sources of history, rather they were meant to be documents promoting particular theological beliefs with some backstories to them.

Could you unpack the Bart Ehrman explanation a little, please?

Don't worry about him. I've only read a couple books by him, and in those books he doesn't address the Resurrection head on. And when he does, from what I've read in articles by him, he doesn't go as far as I do with my OP (I'm actually being rather generous to Christians with my OP). My point in bringing him up is that he does provide a clear context in which the Resurrection belief could have come up, but since this is more fully tackled in Tim O'Neill's post, let's focus on that instead.

However the much repeated problem still hasn't been resolved. 
He doesn't explain why the disciples kept the whole thing going, let alone proclaimed that Everything Has Changed.
He doesn't get us from the dead wannabe Messiah waste man to the Pauline embodiment of God who has inaugurated the KoG.
He doesn't explain why the Earliest Church concluded that death had been defeated. Seeing a vision of someone who's died is a pretty conclusive indication that they're still very dead. But the disciples were clear on this- Jesus was alive!

The belief kept going because they sincerely believed it and they were successful enough to keep it going.

I'm not sure what's remarkable about the inauguration of the KoG when there's no evidence this has happened, just Christians believing the KoG has been inaugurated.

Early Christians concluded that death had been defeated because they had concluded that Jesus must have risen. Tim addresses how this could have been possible by appealing to common human psychology. He does so near the end of the article.

We don't know. That's the point I'm trying to get people to understand.
At the same time, we can still offer potential accounts of what might have happened, in spite of the lack of evidence and relevant details,

But none of the accounts put forward are plausible. Given centuries of high powered scholarship has failed to come up with a sensible alternative, perhaps the time has come to say the disciples actually knew what they were talking about?

I really don't see how many of these accounts put forward aren't plausible, but I get how it wouldn't be in your best interests to agree with me on this.

[Vicki Q]

The standard non-Christian Jewish interpretation is still that Isaiah 53 is about a nation and never a person. There are three other such passages pointing to the Servant as a nation, if you look at these passages within their context.

To repeat: applied to Jesus it is about a nation. That nation is embodied in an individual. Not wishing to go off on a tangent but Jesus is seen as acting as Israel  to do what Israel could not do but had to do. In any case the link gives very clear cases where Jewish non-Christians have applied it to an individual.

But purportedly important Messianic events (such as the Resurrection) aren't contained anywhere in the OT. Doesn't this serve as some evidence against what you're saying?

Resurrection: Daniel 12 Isaiah 26 Hosea 6. Although clues were there in the OT, the idea that an individual would be bodily resurrected before the general resurrection was completely new to C1 Judaism; this raises the fascinating question of where it came from...

The belief kept going because they sincerely believed it and they were successful enough to keep it going.

What did they believe? That he was the Messiah? But he had comprehensively failed at everything. Why on earth would they believe he had succeeded?

I'm not sure what's remarkable about the inauguration of the KoG when there's no evidence this has happened, just Christians believing the KoG has been inaugurated.

Josephus etc- The KoG was absolutely massive in C1 Judaism. You couldn't miss it. As you say, there is no evidence it's happened. So what on earth could convince them it had been inaugurated when quite obviously it hadn't?

Early Christians concluded that death had been defeated because they had concluded that Jesus must have risen.

How? Why? It makes no sense.

Tim addresses how this could have been possible by appealing to common human psychology. He does so near the end of the article

The cognitive dissonance explanation thing has come and definitely gone in academic scholarship.

Tangentially, Festinger's methodology was painfully flawed. Up to a third of the cult were researchers, with all the interference questions that raises. Also, the cult collapsed when the cognitive dissonance became unsupportable. But let's leave all that.

Firstly, none of the other fake dead Messiah followers attempted to keep their man going. Historically we know they ran. Fast. There was nothing to keep going anyway- their man was a fake. There is no hint of any kind of cognitive dissonance in similar groups. Then why was Jesus different?

Fatally for TO'Ns theory, Festinger's studies were about how a group reacts when prophecy fails. But the disciples were saying the prophecy had succeeded. Beyond any success they could have imagined.

The KoG wasn't about taking over a patch of Middle East land, but about God taking back the world. All humanity could share in the promise to Abraham, not just one group of people. The whole universe had been won from the Bad Stuff, not just a military campaign against the Romans.

Whereas Festinger's study concluded that new contradictory material can fail to displace old beliefs, the disciples were saying their beliefs had utterly changed. They weren't like confused 1945 Japanese citizens thinking they'd won, refusing to believe the enemy propaganda. They were like the 1943 Italian forces who one month were fighting with the Nazis, then changed around and fought against them.

They embraced a total change of thinking, not ran away from it.

Again, what could have caused this utter turnaround?



I'm going to struggle to reply quickly over the next few weeks. I say this not to end the discussion, but because I'd like to continue it; I'll post when I can. Keep an eye open...

[GrandizerII]

The standard non-Christian Jewish interpretation is still that Isaiah 53 is about a nation and never a person. There are three other such passages pointing to the Servant as a nation, if you look at these passages within their context.

To repeat: applied to Jesus it is about a nation. That nation is embodied in an individual. Not wishing to go off on a tangent but Jesus is seen as acting as Israel  to do what Israel could not do but had to do. In any case the link gives very clear cases where Jewish non-Christians have applied it to an individual.

But it's not the standard interpretation among non-Christian Jews, and those interpretations that are applied to individuals seem a bit strange, as they're not even about a Messiah (for the most part).

Also, the passage in question is so ambiguous that of course you could apply it to any important Jewish individual who ended up dying if you really wanted to interpret it in that way. I don't think you've made a good case against the confirmation bias argument yet.

But what I keep pondering is why not make these prophecies precise, specific, and clear as the sun on what exactly they're pointing to? If a prophecy doesn't fulfill such criteria, it's not really a good prophecy, it's a bad one. Because then, anyone could go back to the Old Testament and reinterpret its passages in any way they see fit in accordance with their own current beliefs that they already hold.

But purportedly important Messianic events (such as the Resurrection) aren't contained anywhere in the OT. Doesn't this serve as some evidence against what you're saying?

Resurrection: Daniel 12 Isaiah 26 Hosea 6. Although clues were there in the OT, the idea that an individual would be bodily resurrected before the general resurrection was completely new to C1 Judaism; this raises the fascinating question of where it came from...

Clues. That's part of the problem there, Vicki. None of these passages straightforwardly talk about a Messiah that is meant to die for our sins and then be risen from the dead by the power of God.

Daniel 12 isn't about a Messiah, and if it was about a Messiah (and Michael is supposed to be that Messiah), it doesn't say that such a Messiah will die and then rise from the dead.

Isaiah 26 doesn't have anything to do with the Messiah. Neither does Hosea 6. And if they are now interpreted as Messianic by Christians (and about the Resurrection of the Messiah), it's because they have been reinterpreted in light of later theological beliefs, not because these passages literally point to a Messiah. Again, we're dealing with the problem of confirmation bias (along with the problem of a failed Messiah) here, something I don't think you have contested very well.

The belief kept going because they sincerely believed it and they were successful enough to keep it going.

What did they believe? That he was the Messiah? But he had comprehensively failed at everything. Why on earth would they believe he had succeeded?

Again, Tim addresses this in his Quora post. I'll discuss your rebuttal to this down below.

I'm not sure what's remarkable about the inauguration of the KoG when there's no evidence this has happened, just Christians believing the KoG has been inaugurated.

Josephus etc- The KoG was absolutely massive in C1 Judaism. You couldn't miss it. As you say, there is no evidence it's happened. So what on earth could convince them it had been inaugurated when quite obviously it hadn't?

The framework that allows for these beliefs. You don't need something to be objectively true in order for you to believe it is true.

Early Christians concluded that death had been defeated because they had concluded that Jesus must have risen.

How? Why? It makes no sense.

It makes sense to me, but this could partly be because I've studied quite a bit of human psychology, having majored in it.

Still, I'm sure you have a very good level of imagination, Vicki. Don't try to limit it and then say no other explanation/account can make sense.

Anyway, more on the psychology bit below.

Tim addresses how this could have been possible by appealing to common human psychology. He does so near the end of the article

The cognitive dissonance explanation thing has come and definitely gone in academic scholarship.

Really? This is news to me.

Tangentially, Festinger's methodology was painfully flawed. Up to a third of the cult were researchers, with all the interference questions that raises.

Well, this is participant observation for you. I'm sure they tried their best to control for interference factors, though.

Also, the cult collapsed when the cognitive dissonance became unsupportable. But let's leave all that.

This is more to do with the various situational factors that can either make or break a cult long-term, but the research wasn't about long-term maintenance of a cult after a failed prophecy. It was about the short-term. So yes, I agree we should put this aside because it's an irrelevant objection.

Firstly, none of the other fake dead Messiah followers attempted to keep their man going. Historically we know they ran. Fast. There was nothing to keep going anyway- their man was a fake. There is no hint of any kind of cognitive dissonance in similar groups. Then why was Jesus different?

Different situational factors will contribute to differences in outcomes. Some religious leaders have historically founded religions ages ago that end up thriving successfully to this day, but most will fail to accomplish such.

Fatally for TO'Ns theory, Festinger's studies were about how a group reacts when prophecy fails. But the disciples were saying the prophecy had succeeded. Beyond any success they could have imagined.

Not according to reality (in my view). The disciples most likely did feel disappointment at the start, probably going through some psychological crisis. We're talking about a Messiah who failed to physically deliver his people after all.

The KoG wasn't about taking over a patch of Middle East land, but about God taking back the world. All humanity could share in the promise to Abraham, not just one group of people. The whole universe had been won from the Bad Stuff, not just a military campaign against the Romans.

Doesn't this remind you of how the cult that was researched by Festinger justified their failed prophecies?

Whereas Festinger's study concluded that new contradictory material can fail to displace old beliefs, the disciples were saying their beliefs had utterly changed. They weren't like confused 1945 Japanese citizens thinking they'd won, refusing to believe the enemy propaganda. They were like the 1943 Italian forces who one month were fighting with the Nazis, then changed around and fought against them.

They embraced a total change of thinking, not ran away from it.

Again, what could have caused this utter turnaround?

I'm not seeing it, sorry. They had to change things around to get their faith going. The Messiah failed to deliver from the Romans, so the belief of deliverance had to change to be more spiritual, and the belief that the Messiah has risen served as a positive trigger to do so.