Odd. Jesus performed all his greatest miracles in public…except his post-resurrection appearances. Not one single post-resurrection appearance occurred in public. Why was that?
Turning water into wine in Cana: public!
Healing the paralytic let down through the roof: public!
The raising from the dead of the widow’s son in Nain: public!
Casting demons into a herd of pigs: public!
The raising from the dead of Jairus’ daughter: public!
The feeding of the five thousand: public!
The raising of Lazarus from the dead: public!
The reattachment of the high priest’s servant’s ear: public!
Yet when Jesus performed his greatest miracles—raising himself from the dead, appearing to individuals and groups in a glorified heavenly (supernatural) body, and later ascending into the clouds–he chose to do these miracles in private. Believers only. The Gospels do not mention one single non-believer being included in any post-resurrection appearances prior to Jesus’ ascension into heaven. Why?
The Apostle Peter tells us in Acts chapter 2 the purpose of Jesus’ miracles: “Fellow Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— “
If Jesus (and God) really wanted to attest to the veracity of Jesus’ claims about himself, why didn’t Jesus make a post-resurrection appearance in the Temple? Why didn’t Jesus make a post-resurrection appearance in front of the Sanhedrin? Why didn’t Jesus make a post-resurrection appearance to Pilate…or to Caesar himself?? Not one single appearance of the resurrected Jesus in public to non-believers! Jesus’ post resurrection appearances were limited to believers, and a few years later, to one vision-prone (mentally unstable?) rabbi. Why??
Answer: Because these post-death appearances only happened in the wild imaginations and vivid dreams of his disciples!
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End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
Gary, thanks for the invite to venture outside my “bubble.”
I have a few points about your post above.
Firstly, before Jesus’ resurrection, nobody in the small band of Jesus followers expected him to to die. The would-be Messiah dying, according to the conventional theological wisdom, invalidated his claims to be the Messiah. Remember–these people were first century, Second Temple Messianic Jews. They had been taught for 300 years or more that when Messiah came he would perform miracles, liberate Israel from bondage (in this case Rome), restore/cleanse/rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem, then reestablish the Davidic monarchy and reign from Jerusalem as a priest-king. Jesus only really did two of those things–the healings and cleansing the Temple. Nobody was expecting Jesus to die. A dead Messiah was not the Messiah.
So there were no “believers” in Jesus’ resurrection before the (alleged) fact.
The gospels portray the eleven disciples as clueless; even after the women insist that they’ve found the tomb empty and actually met him alive again the men accuse the women of being out of their minds for making such an absurd claim. Which raises another point: the presence of the women in the gospel resurrection narratives. No ancient Messianic Jew wishing to invent a resurrection of its crucified Messiah would then deliberately invent women as the first witnesses to its central miracle. But to paraphrase NT Wright, there the women are, front and center in the four gospels. It doesn’t matter how many or who they were–though they ALL have Mary Magdalene there–the very fact that ANY women are named as witnesses almost guarantees that this story wasn’t made up.
As we established several months ago in Dr. Anderson’s blog, cognitive dissonance can’t explain the disciples’ belief that Jesus had been resurrected because, despite veiled references to it by Jesus himself in the gospels prior to his death, none of them were expecting a resurrection.
The standard belief was that all YHWH’s faithful would resurrect together at the inauguration of the new creation–NOT that ONE MAN would resurrect in the MIDDLE of space-time history.
And, the early church shifted bodily resurrection from a peripheral belief of Judaism which initially functioned within a controlling narrative about Israel’s exile and restoration, and about the suffering and vindication of its martyrs, to it’s central belief, in which one man was resurrected in the middle of history, ahead of everyone else. Thus the early church made resurrection it’s “main event,” with Jesus as the “first-fruits” of the resurrection.
So these people were expecting a very “this-worldly” Messiah along the lines of Simon Bar Kochba (only successful) and NOT an ethereal vision of his ghost, less still for one man to be resurrected ahead of everyone else, in the midst of history.
If cognitive dissonance had kicked in they would’ve insisted, not that he was dead and resurrected, but that he wasn’t really dead after all, only hiding, waiting for a better chance to strike at Rome. Kinda like a Messianic version of Elvis.
I know that’s a lot to digest and respond to, so I’ll save the second half of my response for later.
Pax.
Lee.
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Dear Readers: I invited Lee (a Christian) here to my blog from Joel Anderson’s blog to check out how his views play in a non-Christian environment. I will refrain from responding to his comments myself (as he and I have chatted frequently on these topics) and allow other skeptics to respond. Please be civil. Lee is my guest.
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Here’s Part II of my response to Gary’s post above.
Furthermore, as I’ve said repeatedly in Dr. A’s forum, Koine GK had a religious vocabulary for dreams and visions, none of which is used to describe the appearances of Jesus to the eleven, Paul, and 500 other witnesses; Paul here was basically reassuring readers/hearers of his letter that they could check with these eyewitnesses, most of whom were still living as of AD 55. Five hundred eyewitnesses. How much more “public” could it get?
Without the resurrection the Jesus Movement would’ve splintered as, in the ancient world of Messianic Judaism, if your Messiah gets plastered by the Romans–and you manage to stay alive–you either find a new Messiah or you disband and go home. The one thing you DON’T do is claim that you’ve seen a “heavenly vision” of your Messiah ascending to the clouds which proves to you that he’s, in some vague, hazy, ethereal sense, still alive. To a Jew “dead” was “dead.” If you’re seeing ghost, the guy’s still dead. And Messianic Judaism had no room for disembodied spirits.
Because, again, a dead Messiah is NOT a Messiah.
So if they were simply making this stuff up, why go so wildly off book?
If you’re a Second Temple Messianic Jew faking a religion around Jesus you hope to sell to other Second Temple Messianic Jews you don’t kill off your Messiah.
If you’re a pagan faking a religion around Jesus you hope to sell to other pagans, you don’t insist that Jesus was bodily raised from the dead as the inauguration of a brand new embodied humanity in a recreated space-time universe. No, if you’re a pagan faking a religion around Jesus you come up with one of the early variants of Christian Gnosticism, like, say, Marcionism.
And if the (as you put it “anonymous”) authors of the gospels were making all this up, why make themselves look so ridiculous by portraying themselves as clueless and unwilling to believe Jesus was resurrected? And why embarrass themselves further by having women witnesses who saw the resurrected Jesus before they did?
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: No ancient Messianic Jew wishing to invent a resurrection of its crucified Messiah would then deliberately invent women as the first witnesses to its central miracle.
Gary: I don’t think the Resurrection Belief was invented out of whole cloth. I suspect that it developed due to one key factor: an empty tomb. An empty tomb triggered speculation as to why it was empty. The first assumption was that someone had moved the body. But one or more disciples began to suggest that maybe God had raised Jesus from the dead. The possibility reignited a sliver of hope that the New Kingdom would still come to pass; their hopes were not dashed after all. This new hope triggered vivid dreams, trances, false sightings, and illusions (seeing a bright light and thinking it was an appearance of Jesus). Eventually a “risen from the dead” Jesus became a “resurrected” Jesus, as the first fruits of the general resurrection, and voila…the Resurrection Belief is born!
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Gary, as I said in Dr. Anderson’s forum, that scenario might sound plausible at first, but when you carefully consider the issues I raised in my first post above, it falls apart.
Because as I said, in Second Temple Messianic Judaism, if your Messiah dies it PROVES that he wasn’t your Messiah after all. THE. KINGDOM. ISN’T. COMING. BECAUSE. HE. WAS. NOT. THE. MESSIAH. PERIOD. END. OF. STORY.
So none of the disciples were very likely to think of a resurrection as a second option because the Messiah dying in the first place isn’t what was supposed to happen. At all. Ever.
The two disciples who meet the resurrected Yeshua on the road to Emmaus give us a very informative look at what the thinking of the Jesus Movement was at that time:
“He [Jesus] was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel [the Messiah]. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.” (Lk 24:19-25, NIV)
Did you catch the highlighted sentence?: “But we had hoped he was the one who was going to redeem Israel.”
So these two men basically say that they had all hoped Jesus was the Messiah, but then the Romans executed him. And now some of their women were telling the incredible story that that very morning they had spoken with angels who told them he was alive; but when when a few of them went to his tomb it was empty, but Jesus was nowhere to be found!
Thus in the minds of these two disciples, the kingdom was not about to come to pass because Jesus was DEAD. Period. End of story. For them Plan B would’ve been to either convince Jesus’ brother James to take over the movement (which they didn’t do) or to scatter and go home, which they did. Had cognitive dissonance set in, it would[‘ve caused them to insist that the Romans hadn’t really executed Jesus in the first place, and Jesus was just waiting for a better chance to start his messianic rebellion and make war on Caesarea.
As for “risen from the dead” and “resurrected” these two phrases are identical and mean exactly the same thing; you’re basically saying “So a “risen from the dead Jesus” became a “risen from the dead” Jesus. Or “So a “resurrected” Jesus became a “resurrected” Jesus.” Neither of which makes any grammatical sense, because, again they’re both identical.
It’s like saying, “My cousin used to be really fat, but now he’s just really overweight.” You’re saying the exact same thing in slightly different words.
In the Koine GK of the NT, “resurrection” always means a dead body coming back to life.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: So none of the disciples were very likely to think of a resurrection as a second option because the Messiah dying in the first place isn’t what was supposed to happen. At all. Ever.
Gary: I don’t believe the followers of Jesus thought of resurrection as a second option. As I said, the first option was that someone had moved the body. The second option was that God had raised Jesus from the dead. It was this option that triggered the vivid dreams, trances, illusions, and false sightings. But after a while the disciples had to ask themselves: “Why doesn’t Jesus stick around after his appearances if he has been raised from the dead?” Cognitive dissonance very much wanted to keep their hopes alive, so it found another THIRD option: God had resurrected Jesus from the dead as the first fruits of the general resurrection, and temporarily taken him to heaven; the general resurrection of all the righteous dead will begin at any minute. Sell everything you have and move to Jerusalem: Jesus is returning from heaven to establish the Kingdom! The End is near!
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Gary, you’re not seeing my point. More to the point, you aren’t thinking like a first century Second Temple Messianic Jew.
From the standpoint of his disciples if Jesus got executed by Rome that was all the proof they needed that they had backed the wrong horse.
It makes no difference whether resurrection is your second, third or fourth option, because it wasn’t an option. There were no options if Jesus got executed other than picking a new Messiah or going home; they chose the latter.
Had cognitive dissonance really kicked in, it would’ve had them insisting that Jesus wasn’t really dead in the first place. That he was just waiting for the right moment to start the battle.
They didn’t say that. As the Emmaus disciples confirm, they had hoped he was the Messiah–until the Romans executed him. Thus, upon discovering the tomb empty they naturally assumed that someone had stolen the body; by this point none of them were clinging to some desperate hope that God would still be able to sort everything out after all, because God allowing Jesus to be executed was proof that he was NOT God’s Anointed, after all. Thus, if the Kingdom was to come, it would not be through Jesus. Because to them, he was a dead impostor.
I don’t know how to say it any plainer.
Pax.
Lee.
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You are making the assumption that no first century Jew would ever come to the conclusion that one person had been resurrected from the dead based solely on an empty grave combined with visions/vivid dreams/illusions/and false sightings of the dead person in question. Assumptions are not facts. I agree with you that most Jews would reject such a claim…and they did! 99.9% of all first century Jews rejected Jesus as the messiah and rejected the disciples’ claim that a resurrected Jesus had appeared to them. The fact that less than 1% of a group of people fell for a new interpretation of “resurrection” is not surprising to most non-Christians, including most Jews. It is only conservative Christians who find this possible explanation for the Resurrection Belief unfathomable. So who is being irrational, here?
Your entire worldview is based on an assumption; a generalization, Lee.
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GARY: You are making the assumption that no first century Jew would ever come to the conclusion that one person had been resurrected from the dead based solely on an empty grave combined with visions/vivid dreams/illusions/and false sightings of the dead person in question.
LEE: No. That is categorically not what I am saying: I am saying that no Messianic Jew would ever come to the conclusion that one person had been resurrected from the dead because if the would-be Messiah was dead that PROVED that he wasn’t the Messiah. Set aside for a moment the empty tomb and later appearances.
That Jesus died was, for them, proof that he wasn’t the Messiah. And, to them, dead Messianic-wannabes with delusions of grandeur do not raise from the dead. Period.
Pax.
Lee.
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So then why did some first century Jews in Asia Minor (according to Paul) believe in the resurrection of Jesus simply by reading the Hebrew Scriptures? If “no Messianic Jew would ever come to the conclusion that one person had been resurrected from the dead…” is correct, these first century Jews would never arrive at that conclusion by reading Scripture.
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Lee: “risen from the dead” and “resurrected” these two phrases are identical and mean exactly the same thing;
Gary: Was Jairus’ daughter raised from the dead or resurrected from the dead? Was Lazarus raised from the dead or resurrected from the dead? Now, I don’t believe that either of these events really happened, but it does show that first century Jews believed that someone could return from the dead as either “raised” or “resurrected”. The disciples may have initially believed that God had raised Jesus back to life as God had allegedly done three times in the Old Testament; the resurrection belief developed later when Jesus didn’t stick around after his appearances.
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Gary, “raised from the dead” and “resurrected” mean EXACTLY the same thing: Coming back to bodily life after you’ve been clinically dead for some time.
If you won’t believe me maybe you’ll believe Webster’s Dictionary:
resurrection
noun
res·ur·rec·tion ˌre-zə-ˈrek-shən
Synonyms of resurrection
1
a
capitalized : the rising of Christ from the dead
b
often capitalized : the rising again to life of all the human dead before the final judgment
c
the state of one risen from the dead
(https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/resurrection)
Pax.
Lee.
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I don’t care what a dictionary says, we are talking about what Christians believe, and most Trinitarian Christians do NOT believe that “raised from the dead” and “resurrected from the dead” are one and the same; that they are synonymous:
“When a dead person comes back to life they are said to be “raised from the dead.” But the person who was “raised from the dead,” will physically die again one day. When a person is “resurrected,” they are also “raised from the dead.” But the difference between being “raised from the dead” and “resurrected,” is that when a person is “resurrected” they will never physically die again. We know this is true because Jesus said in Luke 20:35–36:”
“But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”
Source: http://www.bccmnm.org/webpages/Raised_From_the_Dead_and_Resurrected.html
In addition, according to Trinitarian Christians, a “raised from the dead” person only has his original body, a body that can become ill and will eventually die a second time. A person who has been resurrected from the dead has his original body, but it has been transformed into an eternal, heavenly body with heavenly (supernatural) capabilities.
So a raised from the dead body and a resurrected body are very, very different…according to Trinitarian Christians.
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I’m not sure why you are making a big deal about this. I am not claiming that the disciples did not claim that Jesus was resurrected. They very much did. The question is: Why??
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Gary, I’ve been a Trinitarian Christian since 1981 and still am one. 42 years! I have a library of 200-300 books in my library on theology and early church history alone. Thus, I think I have a better grasp than you do as to what we Trinitarians actually believe.
In my whole 53 years of life in church I’ve never heard anyone make the kind distinction between “resurrection” and “raised from the dead” that you do.
Would you agree that most Trinitarian Christians consider Strong’s Greek Lexicon an authoritative source? Because according to Strong’s GK lexicon, the same word anastasis, is interchangeably translated both raised and resurrected in the NT, both of Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter and Jesus:
New Testament (Greek) for “Raised” and “Resurrection”
G386 ἀνάστασις anastasis resurrection, rising again, that should rise, raised to life again
G386 ἀνάστασις anastasis resurrection, rising again, that should rise, raised to life again
(https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria=Raised&t=NIV&lexcSt=1#s=s_lexiconc)
That this is true can be easily seen from the NT itself:
“As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”
(Mt.17:9, NIV)
“They came out of the tombs after Jesus’ resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared to many people.” (MT. 27:53, NIV)
“Meanwhile a large crowd of Jews found out that Jesus was there and came, not only because of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.” (John 12:9 NIV)
“This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.” (John 21:14, NIV)
“Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay.” (Acts 2:37, NIV)
“They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.” (Acts 4:2, NIV)
” . . . then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.” (Acts 4:10, NIV)
“With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all.” (Acts 4:33, NIV)
“For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him.” (Rom. 6:9, NIV)
Or are you going to say that the editors of Strong’s don’t really know what Trinitarian Christianity believes?
Pax.
Lee.
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I don’t know why we are debating this. Do you believe that Jairus’ daughter was resurrected or (simply) raised from the dead?
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I think we should skip this issue and concentrate on the issue of whether or not first century Jews were capable of believing that one dead person could be resurrected. According to Paul, some Jews in Asia Minor did believe just that!
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GARY: I think we should skip this issue and concentrate on the issue of whether or not first century Jews were capable of believing that one dead person could be resurrected. According to Paul, some Jews in Asia Minor did believe just that!
LEE: Are you sure you’ve read Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God? Because he defines resurrection exactly the wat I’ve done.
Because we can’t have a fruitful, accurate discussion until we’re clear on what the terms mean. And as I demonstrated beyond any question the English phrases “resurrection” and “raised” mean the same thing; both are translations of the GK word anastasis, which, when used in Paul or the gospels always refers to a dead body coming to life again. I cited no less than Strong’s, a recognized authority among we “Trinitarian Christians.” Our church library has a copy.
So whether Paul or the gospels says “raised from the dead” or “resurrection” they’re both talking about a dead person raised to bodily life again.
You’re right in that Lazarus and Jairus’ daughter were raised from the dead but would one day die again, and that Jesus was raised from the dead and would never die again, as he reigns at God’s right hand as an embodied human being, the “Word made Flesh.” But the same term–anastasis–is used to describe both of these raisings from the dead.
Pax.
Lee.
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I agree.
So what about the fact that some Jews in Asia Minor did believe, according to Paul, in one man’s resurrection from the dead based on reading the Hebrew Scriptures? Doesn’t that disprove your claim that “no Messianic Jew would ever come to the conclusion that one person had been resurrected from the dead…” ?
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I just looked up the resurrection story in the first gospel written, the Gospel of Mark. The verb “anastasis” is not used.
See here: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/mark/16.htm
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If early Christianity was mostly made up of women, the poor, and slaves, women discovering the empty tomb may not have been quite as embarrassing to them as it is made out to be by later writers once Christianity had become mainstream. Just like stories that made Peter look bad by denying Jesus 3 times would not necessarily be embarrassing for groups of Paul’s followers who perhaps didn’t like Peter and the Judaizers, and changed or added to to some manuscripts to put Peter in a bad light. Acts tries to smooth it over, but from Paul’s letters we know there was conflict.
Another way it may not be embarrassing is that the women are merely messengers. Jesus treats them like mere servants and errand runners whose job it is to go tell the men, who will then come and confirm the empty tomb. Even if it were children playing and discovering the empty tomb, then going and telling the men would also not be embarrassing, because the story ultimately has men doing the confirmation and followup. There would be no need for them to testify or swear to anything because the women are merely instruments to get the men to the tomb. No embarrassment there.
How important is the criterion of embarrassment in historical studies? It only seems to be used in the realm of biblical studies, with not many examples in other historical fields, probably because secular historians are not committed converting others to the stories they research.
Here are a couple interesting blog posts on this topic from Bob Seidensticker whose blog I have followed for more than 10 years (used to be on Pathos until they decided to get rid of skeptic non christian blogs).
https://onlysky.media/bseidensticker/women-at-the-tomb-are-weak-evidence-for-the-resurrection/
https://onlysky.media/bseidensticker/embarrassing-misuse-of-the-criterion-of-embarrassment/
I don’t know the back story to your interaction with Gary, but have you discussed the problem of who wrote the Gospels? If they were not written by actual eyewitnesses (which seems to be the view of most non evangelical scholars), but instead by later Christians who were compiling traditions, then many things are suspect, or more so than eyewitness recollection many years after the fact.
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So you concede my point as to raised/resurrection meaning the same thing?
As for whether individual Jews could believe Jesus was raised from the dead or resurrected ahead of everyone else; they could upon hearing the testimony of the apostles that Jesus was raised by God and hearing it expounded from their Septuagints.
But before that? No. Because Messianic Judaism had everyone being raised at the same time, together, and not one man–even the Messiah–ahead of everyone else. And it was certainly not a tenet of Messianic Judaism that the Messiah would die. Suffer? Maybe. Different groups disagreed on that. But die by execution? No.
That’s why I keep saying that none of Jesus’ followers expected him to be raised from the dead because none of them them expected him to be execute; when he was executed they initially took this as proof that they’d back the wrong horse.
Without the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus all you’re left with is an empty tomb, which, by itself, as NT Wright correctly says, is not enough to keep the Jesus Movement going, because yet again, nobody other than Jesus was expecting him to die or be raised. Had none of this happened, there would’ve been no message for the Bereans to check against their Torah scrolls in the first place.
A dead, resurrected Messiah was not on anyone’s radar before it happened.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: As for whether individual Jews could believe Jesus was raised from the dead or resurrected ahead of everyone else; they could upon hearing the testimony of the apostles that Jesus was raised by God and hearing it expounded from their Septuagints.
Gary: So you agree that a first century Jew could believe that one person had been resurrected from the dead simply by hearing another Jew claim that a resurrected person had appeared to him (they didn’t personally need to see a resurrected body to believe in an individual resurrection)?
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Okay, you found an occurrence of risen where anastasis isn’t used. Fine. I guess I skipped one. However, look at the definition:
egeiró: to waken, to raise up
Original Word: ἐγείρω
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: egeiró
Phonetic Spelling: (eg-i’-ro)
Definition: to waken, to raise up
Usage: (a) I wake, arouse, (b) I raise up.
“To waken, to raise up.” The same as anastasis.
Pax.
Lee.
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Actually, the Resurrection Story in Matthew doesn’t use “anastasis” either:
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/matthew/28.htm
I believe that the disciples of Jesus came to believe that he had been resurrected very shortly after his death. How soon, we can’t say for sure. Did some of them originally believe that Jesus had only been brought back to life again (the same human body that would one day die again) and not resurrected (a heavenly body that would never die again), I have no idea. I am only suggesting that it is possible.
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GARY: Actually, the Resurrection Story in Matthew doesn’t use “anastasis” either:
LEE: It doesn’t make any difference. Egeiró means “to raise up.” You’ve still got a resurrection. A Rose by any other name smells just as sweet.
GARY: I believe that the disciples of Jesus came to believe that he had been resurrected very shortly after his death. How soon, we can’t say for sure. Did some of them originally believe that Jesus had only been brought back to life again (the same human body that would one day die again) and not resurrected (a heavenly body that would never die again), I have no idea. I am only suggesting that it is possible.
LEE: According to the gospels and Acts, they saw Jesus in the flesh three days later, talked to him, touched him, and actually ate a meal with him. Then they saw him ascend to heaven as a human being in that same resurrected body. That argues against a “temporary” resurrection.
Pax.
Lee.
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Nope. In Christian theology, someone who has been resurrected has also been raised from the dead, but someone can be raised from the dead and not be resurrected (the widow of Nain’s son, Jairus’ daughter, Lazarus, etc.).
If you don’t believe me, ask Joel Anderson.
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GARY: So you are saying that no first century Jew would come up with the concept of a dead but then resurrected messiah unless they had actually see a resurrected body.
LEE: What I’m actually saying a little more involved that this.
GARY: This is pure speculation, Lee. It is an assumption; a generalization.
LEE: Your scenario based on an alleged “trance” of Peter is even more of an assumption, one based totally on speculation.
GARY: It would be like saying that no nineteenth century American Protestant would ever come up with the idea that an angel had appeared to one man in upper New York state with a new testament from God, because such a concept had never been heard of before in the United States.
LEE: I don’t know how much you’ve read about Mormon origins but I’ve read quite a bit. And when Joseph Smith first invented Mormonism, save for the BOM, it was just another Evangelical Protestant millennial sect, no different fundamentally from the Millerites of two years later. An angelic visitation wouldn’t have been unthinkable to many Protestants in 1820s America. Certainly the “conversion experiences” of frontier Calvinists made room for dreams and visions. Such dreams and visions were mainstream in European and frontier American Presbyterian and Baptist Churches.
In the beginning in Mormonism there was no polytheism; no multiple “spiritual wives”; and no baptism for the dead; no Danites; no moving to the Promised Land in Missouri. These things only evolved gradually, after Smith already had a following. The only thing that set Smith’s group apart in the beginning from other Protestant Millennial sects, was the BOM.
GARY: Human beings come up with unique, bizarre tales all the time! Your position is silly. First century Jews already believed in the concept of “resurrection”, the disciples of Jesus simply gave it a new twist. That is what new sects do: they give a new twist to an established belief in the mother religion.
LEE: They don’t go that far off book when they’re just starting out; not by design. What other Messianic Movement in history do you know of which went that far off book starting out? Nobody before (or after!) Jesus ever claimed to have a new “twist” on who/what Messiah would do/be. Everyone understood, based upon the standard interpretation of the relevant Jewish texts, that the Messiah was supposed to do certain specific things.
GARY: Peter had another one of his trances.
LEE: Another trance? How do you know he any traces prior to this? What evidence is there for this? Talk about sheer speculation.
GARY: In this trance, Jesus appears to him and tells him that God has resurrected him from the dead as the first fruits of the general resurrection. He will soon return from heaven to establish the New Kingdom. “Sell all you have. Move to Jerusalem. Fast and pray. The End is near.”
LEE: Except, as every Messianic Jew knew full-well, that isn’t how the Messiah was supposed to begin his kingdom. So if, and that’s a big “if,” Peter had such a “trance” he would then have had to convince his fellow-Messianic Jews that his trance was valid.
So this whole scenario is wildly subjective and speculative.
GARY: Can I prove this is what happened? No. Can you prove it didn’t happen? No!
LEE: Can I prove that the clandestine government group Majestic 12 assassinated John F. Kennedy in November of 1963 because he knew too much about the alien bodies retrieved from the alien spacecraft which crashed at Roswell, Mew Mexico, in 1947 and which by 1963 were being stored at Area 51? No. But you can’t prove MJ-12 didn’t kill him!
But this isn’t how academic history works. Science studies the repeatable; history studies–not the possible–but the plausible.
Pax.
Lee.
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Bottom line: Can you agree that it is possible, however implausible you may believe that possibility to be, that the Resurrection Belief began with one of the disciples experiencing a vivid dream, trance (day dream), or hallucination in which Jesus appears to him, telling him that he had been resurrected from the dead?
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GARY: Bottom line: Can you agree that it is possible, however implausible you may believe that possibility to be, that the Resurrection Belief began with one of the disciples experiencing a vivid dream, trance (day dream), or hallucination in which Jesus appears to him, telling him that he had been resurrected from the dead?
LEE: On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the most likely, I’d rate the possibility at a one, because of all the previous reasons I’ve outlined above.
But again, it’s only desperate skeptics that deal in such remote possibilities; whereas history deals with probabilities.
Pax.
Lee.
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If only atheists believed that a vivid dream, trance, illusion, or hallucination was the probable source of the early Christian Resurrection Belief, then I would agree with you that this explanation is remote (very implausible), but the fact is that most non-Christian theists also believe that one of these natural explanations is more probable than a literal resurrection.
How do you explain that, Lee?
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GARY: Nope. In Christian theology, someone who has been resurrected has also been raised from the dead, but someone can be raised from the dead and not be resurrected (the widow of Nain’s son, Jairus’ daughter, Lazarus, etc.).
If you don’t believe me, ask Joel Anderson.
LEE: I don’t have to ask Joel Anderson, NT Wright, Craig Evans, CS Lewis, Pope Francis or anyone else. Being resurrected and being raised from the dead are identical.
I showed you from Strong’s last week how these phrases are used interchangeably in the Gospels and Paul.
I’m not sure exactly where you’re getting a lot of your information from, but If you’re gonna critique Christianity you really should limit yourself to criticizing what we actually believe. As I said, I’ve been a “Trinitarian” Christian for over 40 years; thus I think I have a pretty good grasp of what we believe about resurrection.
Pax.
Lee.
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Was Lazarus raised from the dead, resurrected from the dead, or both?
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GARY: Was Lazarus raised from the dead, resurrected from the dead, or both?
LEE: Yes.
The exact same thing which happened to Lazarus happened to Jesus, the only differences being that God did it, Jesus would not die again, and his body was somehow transformed or “glorified”: it was still; physical, but, for example, could pass through walls.
Thus When certain Protestant groups distinguish between the two they’re only doing so to remind people that Jesus’ raising from the dead/resurrection differed from Lazarus’ in these particular ways. But they’re both resurrections and raisings from the dead.
But there’s no article in any creed, Catholic/Orthodox or Protestant I’ve ever read, that splits such kinds of hairs.
So you’re splitting these particular hairs in this particular case to make an argument that no Protestant would actually make.
If it were otherwise, I think I would’ve gotten the memo.
Pax.
Lee.
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So you are saying that Lazarus was resurrected? Wow. I guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of Christians will disagree with you.
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Lee: “According to the gospels and Acts, they saw Jesus in the flesh three days later, talked to him, touched him, and actually ate a meal with him.
Do you believe everything you read, Lee?
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GARY: Lee: “According to the gospels and Acts, they saw Jesus in the flesh three days later, talked to him, touched him, and actually ate a meal with him.
Do you believe everything you read, Lee?
LEE: We’ve been over this. The gospels and Acts go to great pains to reassure readers that Jesus was raised from the dead as an embodied human being and ascended to heaven as an embodied human being; they did this, partly to counter pagan notions that Jesus had only seemed to be an embodied human, but couldn’t really have been because matter and spirit were incompatible. (That’s the reason John in the prologue of I John stresses at Jesus was a real, embodied, human being and not a Docetic “spirit-being.”)
Because I believe the gospels and Acts are reliable for lots of other intellectual reasons, in this one case, I do believe what I’ve read.
Pax.
Lee.
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GARY: Gary: So you agree that a first century Jew could believe that one person had been resurrected from the dead simply by hearing another Jew claim that a resurrected person had appeared to him(they didn’t personally need to see a resurrected body to believe in an individual resurrection)?
LEE: Arrgghh. No, Gary. Something caused Jesus’ initial followers to become convinced that, despite his shameful death as an enemy of the state, he truly was the promised Messiah. Nothing but them actually seeing him alive, in the flesh, would do that.
They wouldn’t have thought to do any of that ahead of time.
And it isn’t like the Bereans, or anybody, else, simply took Paul’s word for it. Paul cold testify that he, too, had met the resurrected/raised/no longer clinically dead, but clinically alive again Jesus. That, accompanied by his showing them in their Bibles how it was all there all along, plus the miracles he was able to perform, all contributed towards their belief. It wasn’t a “one and done” scenario at all.
Pax.
Lee.
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So you are saying that no first century Jew would come up with the concept of a dead but then resurrected messiah unless they had actually see a resurrected body. This is pure speculation, Lee. It is an assumption; a generalization.
It would be like saying that no nineteenth century American Protestant would ever come up with the idea that an angel had appeared to one man in upper New York state with a new testament from God, because such a concept had never been heard of before in the United States.
Human beings come up with unique, bizarre tales all the time! Your position is silly. First century Jews already believed in the concept of “resurrection”, the disciples of Jesus simply gave it a new twist. That is what new sects do: they give a new twist to an established belief in the mother religion.
It is entirely possible that the Resurrection Belief started due to the following scenario:
Peter had another one of his trances. In this trance, Jesus appears to him and tells him that God has resurrected him from the dead as the first fruits of the general resurrection. He will soon return from heaven to establish the New Kingdom. “Sell all you have. Move to Jerusalem. Fast and pray. The End is near.”
Can I prove this is what happened? No. Can you prove it didn’t happen? No!
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GARY: So you are saying that Lazarus was resurrected? Wow. I guarantee you that the overwhelming majority of Christians will disagree with you.
LEE: Gary, did the translators of the New American Standard Bile of 1995 in any way represent “the majority of Christians?” Because look carefully at their section heading for the Lazarus incident:
*The Death and Resurrection of Lazarus
11 Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 It was the Mary who anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. 3 So the sisters sent word to Him, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” 4 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was. 7 Then after this He said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8 The disciples *said to Him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?” 9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” 11 This He said, and after that He *said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.” 12 The disciples then said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will [a]recover.” 13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He was speaking of [b]literal sleep. 14 So Jesus then said to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe; but let us go to him.” 16 Therefore Thomas, who is called [c]Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+11&version=NASB1995
Unless you’re prepared to say the NASV translators weren’t real “Trinitarian” Christians?
This whole argument is silly.
Pax.
Lee.
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Odd. So obviously some Christians do believe that “raised from the dead” and “resurrected” mean the same thing. You win! But I will bet most Christians see a big distinction between the two phrases.
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GARY: Odd. So obviously some Christians do believe that “raised from the dead” and “resurrected” mean the same thing. You win! But I will bet most Christians see a big distinction between the two phrases.
LEE: Gary I am “most Christians,” and I’m telling you none of us makes the distinction you’re making. What will it take to convince you that if a distinction is made it is only in the sense of differentiating Lazarus’ “temporary” resurrection by Jesus from Jesus’ “permanent” resurrection by God, however both are cases of a clinically dead body being brought back to life again. Thus a resurrection is sill a raising from the dead.
You’re splitting hairs nobody else splits just to prop up an alternate explanation to explain away the resurrection appearances.
Pax.
Lee.
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I don’t need a “raised from the dead but not resurrected from the dead” explanation to propose numerous alternative natural explanations for the early Christian resurrection belief. Even most non-Christian theists such as Jews and Muslims believe that there are numerous plausible natural explanations for the development of the Resurrection Belief. It is only Christians who see a literal resurrection as the only plausible explanation. Doesn’t that strongly indicate a bias on the part of Christians??
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GARY: Doesn’t that strongly indicate a bias on the part of Christians??
LEE: No. It strongly indicates a bias on the part of skeptics such as yourself who keep pushing these improbable, unlikely “naturalistic” explanations. As I said in Dr. A’s blog, the alternative theories take more faith to believe than the resurrection accounts.
The tenacity with which you have clung to your “resurrection is different than raised from the dead” theory in two different forums is all the evidence I need to show me a skeptic so desperate to shore up his unbelief that it forces him to make irrational arguments like that.
Only if your presuppose a purely materialistic universe which somehow came into existence without a first cause, a universe therefore with no possibility of the supernatural, does the resurrection look untenable.
Jews, at least Orthodox Jews, don’t object to resurrection itself, only to Jesus’ resurrection, because they do not accept him as the Jewish Messiah.
Muslims object to the resurrection based upon their belief that, as one of Allah’s prophets, Jesus could not be killed, thus, if he can’t be killed, there’s no resurrection (it’s also possible that early Muslims formulating the tenets of Islam based their views of Jesus on 5th c. Gnostic Christians who denied the death and resurrection of Jesus on dualist grounds).
Pax.
Lee.
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So you are saying that the majority of Jews have a bias and this is why 99.9% of Jews in the first century and for the last 2,000 years have rejected the Resurrection Story as fiction or a lie?
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GARY: So you are saying that the majority of Jews have a bias and this is why 99.9% of Jews in the first century and for the last 2,000 years have rejected the Resurrection Story as fiction or a lie?
LEE: No. . . . what I said is that because Jews do not accept Jesus as Messiah, they necessarily do not therefore accept his resurrection. Orthodox Jews have no problem with resurrection, only with Jesus’ resurrection.
Pax.
Lee.
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If the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus is so good, as you assert, then why did the overwhelming majority of first century Jews reject the Resurrection Story as false?
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GARY: If the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus is so good, as you assert, then why did the overwhelming majority of first century Jews reject the Resurrection Story as false?
LEE: Probably most of them probably never gave it serious thought. So I suppose it was a kind of bias, built-in, which often makes people so certain what they’ve been taught is the truth that they never seriously question it. There are some who study the evidence and don’t find it compelling the way lots of others do.
One thing I do know is that most people’s conversions aren’t as simplistic as you seem to think. I’ve read enough conversion accounts (Justin, Augustine, Lewis, Collins, Strobel, Craig, McGrath, Flew) and talked with enough former skeptics who’re now believers to know that not everyone converts based upon a warm fuzzy feeling. They certainly don’t stay with the faith for such a shallow reason.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Probably most of them [first century Jews] probably never gave it [the Resurrection Story] serious thought.
Gary: The Bible states in the Gospel of John that after Lazarus was raised from the dead, the pharisees complained that “the whole world” had gone after Jesus. The Bible also claims that a “large crowd” greeted Jesus upon his entry into Jerusalem just prior to his arrest, proclaiming him as the new King of Israel…but yet a few days later when his tomb was found empty and stories about his miraculous resurrection circulated, they didn’t give it serious thought???
Is that really what you are claiming, Lee??
Come on. If the Bible is accurate about the state of affairs in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ death, the entire Jewish nation was fixated on the activities of this man. Yet you claim they didn’t give the Resurrection claim serious thought. That does not seem rational, Lee.
Why did 99.9% of first century Jews reject Jesus and the stories of his miraculous resurrection from the dead? Answer: Because they thought the disciples were either nut cases or liars? Please admit the truth, Lee.
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GARY: The Bible states in the Gospel of John that after Lazarus was raised from the dead, the pharisees complained that “the whole world” had gone after Jesus.
LEE The gospels also present the Jewish establishment as claiming that Jesus’ miracles were due to Beelzebub, in other words, demonic power. So no one doubted his ability to due miracles, only where his power to do them came from.
GARY: The Bible also claims that a “large crowd” greeted Jesus upon his entry into Jerusalem just prior to his arrest, proclaiming him as the new King of Israel…but yet a few days later when his tomb was found empty and stories about his miraculous resurrection circulated, they didn’t give it serious thought???
LEE: Because, as I keep having to remind you, none of them expected the Messiah to die. In their minds the King of the Jews was supposed to raise an army, storm the Antonia Fortress and then march on Caesarea. Instead, Jesus surrendered (without even a fight) and then got executed. To these people a dead Messiah was not really the Messiah.
Pax.
Lee.
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I agree. Jews were not expecting a dead messiah. But that has nothing to do with the claims that he had been resurrected and that people had seen and touched his body. They (first century Jews) could reject his status as messiah and still believe that he had been raised from the dead if the evidence was good. So why did 99.9% of first century Jews reject these resurrection claims as silly nonsense or lies?
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GARY: I agree. Jews were not expecting a dead messiah. But that has nothing to do with the claims that he had been resurrected and that people had seen and touched his body. They could still reject his status as messiah and believe that he had been raised from the dead. So why did 99.9% of first century Jews reject these resurrection claims as silly nonsense or lies?
LEE: Because in Second Temple Judaism resurrection was reserved for all of YHWH’s faithful at the end of history, not for one man in the middle of history.
And in their minds Jesus was a criminal and an impostor; The Talmud references a figure many believe to be Jesus:
“On the eve of Passover, Jesus the Nazarene was hanged and a herald went forth before him forty days heralding, ‘Jesus the Nazarene is going forth to be stoned because he practiced sorcery and instigated and seduced Israel to idolatry. Whoever knows anything in defense may come and state it.'”
In Matthew 22: 24, after performing an exorcism:
“When the Pharisees heard this, they said, ‘This man can force demons out of people only with the help of Beelzebul, the ruler of demons.'”
Assuming the first reference is to Jesus (and its contested, but many experts believe it refers to Jesus of Nazareth), and considering that at least some Pharisees accused Jesus of being in league with the Devil, can you understand now why so many Jews would reject Jesus and any claims made by/on his behalf?
Pax.
Lee.
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GARY: Come on. If the Bible is accurate about the state of affairs in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ death, the entire Jewish nation was fixated on the activities of this man. Yet you claim they didn’t give the Resurrection claim serious thought. That does not seem rational, Lee.
LEE: Yet again, when Jesus got executed by Pontius Pilate’s Roman executioners *this was PROOF to any observant Jew that Jesus had been a PHONY, and not the real Messiah. To their way of thinking, why would God even bother to raise an imposter and a criminal, a political terrorist with delusions of grandeur, from the dead? That seems an ENTRIELY rational question to ask from the standpoint of an orthodox, observant Jew. Nobody was expecting Jesus to be resurrected, not even his closest disciples. So why would Jesus’ enemies of all people take accounts of his resurrection seriously?
Pax.
Lee.
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Even if Jews viewed Jesus as a phony after this death, how often in first century Jerusalem did Jews hear about a grave which had been sealed and guarded by Roman soldiers (according to the author of Matthew) being found empty? How often did people in first century Jerusalem claim to have seen a resurrected body??
To claim that most first century Jews didn’t care about these very extraordinary claims is preposterous and yet another assumption.
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GARY: To claim that most first century Jews didn’t care about these very extraordinary claims is preposterous and yet another assumption.
LEE: Why would any self-respecting orthodox Jew put any stock in the tales that an executed criminal had been resurrected, when the conventional wisdom said that such things simply did not and could not happen? Nice people who follow Torah get resurrected, not executed criminals, and certainly not in the middle of space-time history.
It would be like asking why mainstream Christians didn’t/don’t take seriously the extraordinary claims of David Koresh to be God’s anointed prophet seeking to reestablish the Davidic monarchy in Israel.
Pax.
Lee.
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Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions = the glue that holds together the Christian supernatural tall tale.
Virgin births, water walking, and corpse resurrections: Silly and ridiculous!
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GARY: Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions = the glue that holds together the Christian supernatural tall tale.
LEE: Gary, if you’re as well-read as your biography lets on, you should already know this stuff. It’s technically an assumption, however it’s an informed assumption based upon everything we know about first-century, Second Temple Messianic Judaism. You list Wright’s book The Resurrection of the Son of God in your bibliography but from everything you keep saying I’m not sure you’ve ever actually read it.
The kind of absolute certainty and unshakeable historical proof you and other skeptics demand doesn’t exist for any historical event, let alone an extraordinary event like Jesus’ resurrection.
What I’m starting to think is that you make statements like the above when you’ve run out of actual counter-arguments and you can’t come up with anything better to say
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Lee.
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No, I make statements like the above when my interlocuter starts spouting silly nonsense. To say that first century Jews ignored the Christian claim that Jesus had been resurrected simply because Jews had already rejected Jesus as messiah is silly and preposterous. Jews still had to deal with people in their culture claiming that a dead prophet had been resurrected from the dead. Your assertion that they would simply ignore this issue is preposterous.
Modern Jews don’t believe Jesus was resurrected, either, and it has nothing to do with their rejection of him as messiah. It has everything to do with the Resurrection Story being a ridiculous tall tale with pathetic evidence. Just because a group of first century peasants claim they saw a dead guy is NOT good evidence that his brain dead corpse magically exited its grave. It is silly nonsense. You have no good evidence, Lee. That is why you concoct these silly generalizations and assumptions about the thinking and behavior of ancient peoples.
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GARY: No, I make statements like the above when my interlocuter starts spouting silly nonsense. To say that first century Jews ignored the Christian claim that Jesus had been resurrected simply because Jews had already rejected Jesus as messiah is silly and preposterous. Jews still had to deal with people in their culture claiming that a dead prophet had been resurrected from the dead. Your assertion that they would simply ignore this issue is preposterous.
Modern Jews don’t believe Jesus was resurrected, either, and it has nothing to do with their rejection of him as messiah. It has everything to do with the Resurrection Story being a ridiculous tall tale with pathetic evidence.
LEE: Statements like these make it really hard to take anything you say seriously. I can’t decide if you’re having me on or if you actually believe this stuff because you really don’t know any better.
Lots of conservative Jews (there are actually three primary sects within modern Western Rabbinic Judaism who don’t all believe alike) believe in resurrection of the dead, but not in Jesus’ resurrection primarily because they reject the claims that Jesus was the Son of God/Messiah and because they reject the concept of the Trinity. They also object to Jesus because he did not fulfill the OT prophetic scriptures in the way they believe Messiah should.
Gary, you need to read more about what Judaism actually believes rather than what you think its believes, because statements like these make it really hard to take you seriously. Do you even know any Jewish people?
Pax.
Lee.
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Ridiculous. Skip the messiah nonsense. Jews don’t believe the Resurrection Story for the same reason that the rest of the world’s non-Christians reject it: Weak evidence! That is why you won’t find the Resurrection listed as an historical fact in any public university history text book on the planet! It is an ancient supernatural tall tale. No one but indoctrinated Christians like you believe this event happened. Wake up, Lee.
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GARY: Ridiculous. Skip the messiah nonsense. Jews don’t believe the Resurrection Story for the same reason that the rest of the world’s non-Christians reject it: Weak evidence!
LEE: So if there were simply better evidence for Jesus’ resurrection millions of Jews world-wide would suddenly become Christians? Despite their objections to God incarnating as a man, despite their objection to the Trinity? Despite (from a Hasidic/Orthodox perspective) the fact that we don’t keep Kosher? That’s all it would take is better evidence for the resurrection? i wish it were that simple! I think you better put a few of Rodney Stark’s earlier books about the socially/psychology of conversion on your reading list.
You are apparently in sync with modern Jewish sensibilities so tell me, what kind of evidence for Jesus’ resurrection would convince, say, a Hasidic Jew from Poland?
GARY: That is why you won’t find the Resurrection listed as an historical fact in any public university history text book on the planet! It is an ancient supernatural tall tale. No one but indoctrinated Christians like you believe this event happened. Wake up, Lee.
LEE: Gary, you don’t know what indoctrinated really is. Your skepticism smacks waay more of “indoctrination” than critical thinking, only but you’re blind to it. You can’t see the blinders leading you down dark allies. What’s worse is I think you don’t want to take notice of your blinders or remove them. Who’s more foolish, the fool who genuinely cannot see, or the fool who can’t see because he refuses to remove his blinders?
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: So if there were simply better evidence for Jesus’ resurrection millions of Jews world-wide would suddenly become Christians?
Gary: We are not discussing what evidence would be required to convince most Jews to become Christians. We are talking about what evidence would be required to convince most Jews that Jesus was raised from the dead. Most Jews, just like most non-Christians—theists and non-theists—don’t believe Jesus was raised from the dead. Why? Answer: Weak evidence!
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GARY: Gary: We are not discussing what evidence would be required to convince most Jews to become Christians. We are talking about what evidence would be required to convince most Jews that Jesus was raised from the dead. Most Jews, just like most non-Christians—theists and non-theists—don’t believe Jesus was raised from the dead. Why? Answer: Weak evidence!
LEE: Following your logic, if there was good evidence that Jesus was resurrected then it stands to reason–again using your logic–that Jews would convert and become Christians. I mean, why not, right? If there was good evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead it would be good evidence that Christianity was true, right?
So I’m asking you what evidence would convince an observant Jew that Jesus of Nazareth really was raised from the dead?
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Lee.
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Gary: I’m not a mind-reader, Lee. I have no idea what evidence would convince an orthodox Jew or any other human being that another human being has been raised from the dead. My point is that most non-Christians, theists and non-theists, consider the evidence for the Christian claim that Jesus was seen alive again after his public execution as weak. That is why not one single public university history text book mentions the Resurrection as an historical fact.
Lee: If there was good evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead it would be good evidence that Christianity was true, right?
Gary: I agree. If there was good evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead, I personally would still be a Christian. The problem is, the evidence is very weak. Alleged sightings of a dead person by the dead person’s family and friends is not good evidence.
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HA … the disagreement could easily be resolved by both parties admitting that such an event never too place to begin with. 😈
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To do that, this party will need much better arguments than Gary has been able to provide him with.
Pax.
Lee.
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I’m so glad I found you! I’ve been “questioning” since I was young – I’m now 72.
My parents had a serio
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