Christian: 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 were good evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead, I personally would still be a Christian. The problem is, the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus 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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End of post.
Escaping Christian Fundamentalism 
Extreme skepticism combined with subjectivism renders anything impossible to convince the victim of anything he or she doesn’t want to believe. At least you acknowledge that He existed in human form… Why you hate Him is another topic.
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I believe Jesus the man was one of the greatest humanists in human history, right up there with Gandhi and Martin Luther King. My hope is that one day Christianity will be a humanistic movement, following the humanistic teachings of Jesus, while abandoning all the supernatural nonsense.
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Gary, what would you consider “good evidence” for the resurrection?
Pax.
Lee.
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Multiple contemporary, non-Christian sources claiming that Jesus was seen alive again after his execution and seen levitating into the clouds.
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GARY: Multiple contemporary, non-Christian sources claiming that Jesus was seen alive again after his execution and seen levitating into the clouds.
LEE: We have multiple, ancient, independent, non-Christian sources reporting that Jesus’ followers claimed he was resurrected.
The fact that we have multiple, ancient, independent Christian sources for the resurrection is actually much more significant than you skeptics are aware.
But I gather you want a letter from Pilate to Caesar claiming that Pilate saw Jesus alive three days later? But in that case wouldn’t you just argue that Pilate had a “heavenly vision” which he mistook for Jesus?
I submit that because of your prior commitment to materialism no evidence for the resurrection would be good enough.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: We have multiple, ancient, independent, non-Christian sources reporting that Jesus’ followers claimed he was resurrected.
Gary: We have multiple, contemporary non-Catholic sources which report hundreds of Catholic Christians claiming that the Virgin Mary has appeared to them. So what!
What evidence would you require to believe that Mohammad flew above Jerusalem on a winged horse for several hours?
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GARY: Gary: We have multiple, contemporary non-Catholic sources which report hundreds of Catholic Christians claiming that the Virgin Mary has appeared to them. So what!
LEE: At the very least, multiple, independent non-Christian sources is evidence that Jesus earliest followers at least believed he was still alive. You’d then have to ask how and why they made these claims. Just as non-Catholic reports of Fatima would be evidence that lots of Catholics at least believed they’d seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary.
Does it prove that they really saw the Virgin? No, obviously not. But it’s circumstantial evidence that a multitude of people saw something.
Pax.
Lee.
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I believe that the disciples sincerely believed the dead Jesus appeared to them. I do not believe they were lying. However, thousands of people throughout history have claimed to have seen dead people. So what. You don’t believe all these claims do you?
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GARY: Do you believe it is possible that the first eyewitnesses to appearances of Jesus after his death explained the appearances by believing that God has raised Jesus from the dead in the same sense that Old Testament prophets had (allegedly) raised people from the dead?
LEE: No. Because the Messiah was NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE, therefore wouldn’t NEED resurretion.
They would not make the leap you’re making because if Jesus claims to be the Messiah, then gets killed, it’s proof that he isn’t the Messiah. The Sanhedrin had decided that Jesus was a dangerous false teacher; God would not raise such an imposter from the dead.
If cognitive dissonance had affected them, it would’ve made them insist that he wasn’t really dead in the first place.
I can’t say this any plainer.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: They would not make the leap you’re making because if Jesus claims to be the Messiah, then gets killed, it’s proof that he isn’t the Messiah. The Sanhedrin had decided that Jesus was a dangerous false teacher; God would not raise such an imposter from the dead.
Gary: So you are saying that it is absolutely impossible for any first century messianic Jew to believe that the true Messiah could be killed and then raised from the dead by God to destroy the Romans and establish the New Kingdom? Absolutely impossible??
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“They would not make the leap you’re making …” Oh this is rich! Coming from a believer, no less. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
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(Yawn) Apples to oranges….again.
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No one is disputing that ‘Jesus’ followers claimed he was resurrected’. Saying there are multiple sources saying that this is what early Christians claimed is pushing it however.
What there aren’t are ‘multiple, independent’ eye-witness reports of the physically Risen Christ. There’s not a single one, in fact.
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Any assumption that Christ having been seen and handled only by believers after His resurrection is akin to the level of a conspiracy theory, all of which, without corroborating evidence for support after this many centuries, rests in the graveyard of assumed conspiracies.
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One great evidence for me is that, how can Christianity not be possibly toppled by such wild claim. Why would anyone even die for “alleged sightings of a dead person”?
The group of disciples died for this cause, this is just against human nature if resurrection is a lie. Human are selfish, comfort-seeking and care nothing about higher cause, especially a group of people with little educational background.
His disciples would need such foresight for humanity, that they conjured up a lie, and died for this lie so that humanity can progress. Before they were persecuted to death, they uttered out a smirk, thinking that, “Wow, humanity would finally progress with this cause we die for.” That’s such a crazy determination that they can pull this off.
This is too complicated of a story to make up. If someone is indeed this greatest novelist with such a brilliant mind, and has the gut to live this out, perhaps he is probably God.
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I agree. Most people would not die for a lie. But tens of thousands of people have died for mistaken beliefs. Question: Is it possible for someone to believe a dead person has appeared to him when in reality the dead person was an illusion or vivid dream?
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GARY: I agree. Most people would not die for a lie. But tens of thousands of people have died for mistaken beliefs. Question: Is it possible for someone to believe a dead person has appeared to him when in reality the dead person was an illusion or vivid dream?
LEE: It’s possible, but as I keep saying, it isn’t likely. Not in this case. Gary you’re still not thinking like a first-century, Second Temple Messianic Jew.
Because, as I keep saying, none of Jesus’ disciples was expecting a resurrection; they expected Messiah to liberate Israel from Roman bondage, rebuild the Temple, then reign from Jerusalem as the new David. Thus, if they were going to somehow “mass-hallucinate” anything at all, it would not have been that he’d been resurrected, but that he had never been killed in the first place, but was indeed, still alive, waiting for the right moment to strike at Rome. As I’ve insisted to you dozens of times, if you’re an ancient Messianic Jew and your erstwhile Messiah gets killed by the Romans, that’s all the proof you need that he wasn’t the Messiah, that in fact you’ve backed the wrong horse; what you do then is either choose another Messiah, or you disband, go home, and hope the Romans don’t get you, too. The last thing you do is hallucinate appearances of your fake Messiah which you then go around blabbing about in the crowded Temple precincts to anyone who’ll listen.
And if he were really and still dead, all the authorities would’ve had to do was produce Jesus’ corpse. Round up Jesus; followers, take ’em to the tomb and show ’em the body (or later the ossuary).
Pax.
Lee.
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Do you believe it is possible that the first eyewitnesses to appearances of Jesus after his death explained the appearances by believing that God has raised Jesus from the dead in the same sense that Old Testament prophets had (allegedly) raised people from the dead? The idea Jesus had been resurrected as the first fruits of the general resurrection of the righteous dead did not cross their minds, for the reasons you have presented.
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GARY: So you are saying that it is absolutely impossible for any first century messianic Jew to believe that the true Messiah could be killed and then raised from the dead by God to destroy the Romans and establish the New Kingdom? Absolutely impossible??
LEE: History works on probabilities, not certainties. I’m saying that, historically speaking, it’s so improbable that it may as well be impossible. Because no Second Temple Messianic Jewish Movement on record had that belief about Messiah. Messiah was supposed to vanquish Rome and then reign as King: that’s how God’s kingdom would come to earth. Until after Jesus’ resurrection and the birth of the Church, no Jews on record read the Messianic prophecies in any other way, as can be seen from looking at the 6 or so Messianic movements on either side of Jesus chronologically. None of these other groups jumped to the idea that their Messiah had been resurrected.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: History works on probabilities, not certainties. I’m saying that, historically speaking, it’s so improbable that it may as well be impossible.
Gary: So you admit that it is possible.
Lee: None of these other groups jumped to the idea that their Messiah had been resurrected.
Gary: None of these other groups had an empty grave.
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GARY: So you admit that it is possible.
LEE: Gary, you’re like the proverbial broken record!
Possible and probable are two different things. It’s possible that Elvis Presley was the second gunman on the grassy knoll in Dealy Plaza who assassinated JFK; but how probable is that?
GARY: None of these other groups had an empty grave.
LEE: That’s the crux, isn’t it? How to explain the empty tomb.
Your alternative explanation seeks to explain the empty tomb, only without an actual resurrection having taken place. Yet your theory is just not plausible based upon everything we know about Second Temple Messianic Jewish movements.
The only way you wind up with an empty tomb is if the resurrection actually happened, or if someone stole his body. Unless we’re to seriously consider the possibility that the disciples mass-hallucinated an empty tomb?
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Possible and probable are two different things. It’s possible that Elvis Presley was the second gunman on the grassy knoll in Dealy Plaza who assassinated JFK; but how probable is that?
Gary: You may believe that it is improbable that circa one hundred and twenty first century messianic Jews would come to believe that their executed leader was the messiah based solely on the fact that his grave was found empty and that some of them believed the dead man had appeared to them, but I assure you that 6,000,000,000 non-Christians living in the world today, theists and non-theists, believe it is very probable.
Lee: The only way you wind up with an empty tomb is if the resurrection actually happened, or if someone stole his body.
Gary: Thousands upon thousands of graves have been found empty in human history. What has been the usual cause? Answer: Someone or something moved the body.
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Experts estimate there were 4.5 million Jews in the first century. The Bible tells us that the early church consisted of 120 messianic Jews prior to Pentecost. This means that, at the inception of the Church, .002% of first century Jews believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead and that he was the promised Jewish Messiah. So Lee is right. The overwhelming majority of first century messianic Jews did reject Jesus as the messiah because they didn’t believe that the Messiah would be killed. But a tiny fraction of Jews did believe!
Lee says this is impossible unless a supernatural event occurred. He says it is so implausible it is essentially impossible. But I say that the early Church evolved in the same manner that most cults and sects evolve: They take an established belief from the mother religion and give it a new twist.
I believe that Lee’s biases in favor of Christianity cloud his views on probability.
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GARY: Lee says this is impossible unless a supernatural event occurred. He says it is so implausible it is essentially impossible. But I say that the early Church evolved in the same manner that most cults and sects evolve: They take an established belief from the mother religion and give it a new twist.
LEE: As I’ve said a hundred times across two forums, the early church did just that–they gave resurrection a “new twist” by moving it from the periphery of Judaism to the center of Christianity; removing any of the figurative elements (in which initially national Israel was figuratively resurrected from a figurative, spiritual death by YHWH) to insist that it involved anyone who followed Jesus and not just Jewish the martyrs, being bodily resurrected at the end of time; but insisted that Jesus had already been resurrected, first, ahead of everyone else, in the middle of history, and *not at the end with everyone else. There were others, but these are the main ones.
The only thing that could plausibly cause the early church to “shift” it’s views on resurrection in this way is if they at least believed that Jesus of Nazareth had been resurrected from the dead. And to get to that belief would take more than an empty tomb by itself.
NT Wright addresses all of this in The Resurrection of the Son of God. Are you sure you’ve read it?
GARY: I believe that Lee’s biases in favor of Christianity cloud his views on probability.
LEE: I believe that Gary’s prior commitment to materialism clouds his objectivity, forcing him to grasp at unlikely theories in order to preserve his skepticism.
Pax.
Lee.
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IMO, anyone who has experienced Christianity and then abandoned it based on personal and/or scholastic studies is far more adept at recognizing its fallacies and failures.
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Lee: The only thing that could plausibly cause the early church to “shift” it’s views on resurrection in this way is if they at least believed that Jesus of Nazareth had been resurrected from the dead. And to get to that belief would take more than an empty tomb by itself.
Gary: Assumption. You cannot know with 100% certainty what would cause another human being to believe something.
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GARY: You may believe that it is improbable that circa one hundred and twenty first century messianic Jews would come to believe that their executed leader was the messiah based solely on the fact that his grave was found empty and that some of them believed the dead man had appeared to them, but I assure you that 6,000,000,000 non-Christians living in the world today, theists and non-theists, believe it is very probable.
LEE: Gary, you’re still thinking like a 21st century Western skeptic, and not a first-century Jewish skeptic.
If those 6 million non-Christians were first century Messianic Jews who had been taught for 300 years that Messiah would be and do certain things which Jesus DID NOT DO! then it would take more than a “heavenly vision” or just an empty tomb to persuade them that he was the Messiah; seeing him raised from the dead three days later and actually sharing a meal with him would have caused them to rethink their earlier messianic assumptions, but this wouldn’t happen merely because the tomb was empty. Seeing an empty tomb WOULD NOT cause them to immediately jump to resurrection. Meeting in him alive and in the flesh would do that.
As for pagans, the idea of any kind of bodily resurrection, here or hereafter, temporary or permanent, was absurd to many, and downright offensive to many others.
Pax.
Lee.
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LEE: Gary, you’re still thinking like a 21st century Western skeptic, and not a first-century Jewish skeptic.
Gary: Are you a first century Jew, Lee? No. Are you even Jewish, Lee? No. The fact is that modern Jews are not surprised that a handful of first century Galilean Jewish peasants believed that their messianic leader was the messiah even after his death. Jews believe it is very probable that the Resurrection Belief began due to natural causes. So why in the world should we accept you or any other Christian as the final authority on what Jews believe??
Lee: Seeing an empty tomb WOULD NOT cause them to immediately jump to resurrection. Meeting in him alive and in the flesh would do that.
Gary: How do you know?? You don’t! You are making an assumption based on a generalization. VERY weak evidence upon which to build your entire worldview! As I have often said, Christianity is a house of cards held together by the glue of assumptions.
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Lee: As for pagans, the idea of any kind of bodily resurrection, here or hereafter, temporary or permanent, was absurd to many, and downright offensive to many others.
Gary: Yet thousands of “pagans” did believe this story, didn’t they? So many believed that by the end of the first century the Christian Church was overwhelmingly “pagan” (Gentile). And none of these Gentiles saw a resurrected body, did they? Not one. Yet all these pagans, whom you insist would scoff at the idea of a resurrection, believed based solely on someone telling them that someone else had seen an “appearance” of a resurrected person. So much for your assumptions about what first century people would and would not believe!
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GARY: So why in the world should we accept you or any other Christian as the final authority on what Jews believe??
LEE: I could (and have) ask the same of you (didn’t get an answer); but I’ll say again that modern scholars know enough about Second Temple Messianic Judaism to say with some degree of certainty, that they didn’t reason like 21st century skeptics. Look up Jewish Messianic expectations in Jewish academics like Frederickson; Levine; Maccoby; or Vermes if you refuse to believe me.
GARY: Gary: How do you know?? You don’t!
LEE: I “know” because, yet again, I’ve read academic histories of Second Temple Jewish Messianic Movements. We know enough about these groups and how they thought for any reasonably well-read person to see that your theory is implausible.
GARY: You are making an assumption based on a generalization. VERY weak evidence upon which to build your entire worldview! As I have often said, Christianity is a house of cards held together by the glue of assumptions.
LEE: This from a modern skeptic who expects first century Jewish skeptics to think the way he does.
Talk about “VERY weak evidence?” and “a house of cards held together by the glue of assumptions”!
I wish you could read yourself the way I do, Gary.
Pax.
Lee.
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Sorry, but I’ll go with Jewish experts about what ancient Jews believed, not biased Christians like yourself and the evangelical/fundamentalist Protestant Christian scholars you listen to.
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GARY: Assumption. You cannot know with 100% certainty what would cause another human being to believe something.
LEE: Gary, for like the zillionth time, NOTHING in history is ever 100% certain! For that matter, nothing in life is 100% certain.
I can’t be 100% certain that Elvis Presley died in 1977. But just the same I’m not really expecting to meet him at Graceland the next time I go to Memphis.
We know enough about how Second Temple Messianic Jews thought to rule out the idea of one such group automatically jumping to the explanation of resurrection based solely on an empty tomb.
Pax.
Lee.
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Who is “we”? Almost all Jewish scholars and historians say you are wrong. Why should we believe your biased Christian experts and not Jewish experts?
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Here is what Jews say about the origin of the Resurrection Belief:
But what about the disciples? Why were they so devoted to Jesus if they did not have their faith substantiated by an actual resurrection?
The problem with this argument is that the devotion of the disciples preceded the resurrection story. It seems that the devotion to their leader produced the resurrection story and not the other way around. The way the Christian Scriptures describe the devotion of Jesus’ disciples it would almost be surprising if there were no resurrection story. Does this mean that the disciples were preaching a deliberate lie? Not necessarily. There is no way of knowing today at what point in time was it that the resurrection story came to be accepted by the followers of Jesus. It is possible that it took years for the story to develop until it was actually believed in a literal sense. It may have started with reports of visions, which over the course of time came to be spoken of as actual sightings. This would explain the manifold contradictions in the Christian scriptures. It would also explain why the early Christians did not maintain a tradition concerning the concrete occurrences of Jesus’ reappearance. If indeed Jesus did reappear in a physical sense it would make sense that the physical details of the event should have been recorded. These include the noting of the precise location at which these reappearances took place. We should have the early Church pointing to a particular physical spot and saying, that this is where the most important event in world history took place. But no record exists of such a claim. This lends weight to the theory that the resurrection story began with a series of emotional visions.
Even if we were to assume that the original disciples believed that Jesus was resurrected in a physical sense, still, we must take into consideration the simple fact that these people would not demand the same standard of evidence that an unbiased person would require before believing a resurrection story. There are many scenarios that would have the disciples believe that their leader is resurrected which are more plausible than an actual resurrection. There could have been an empty grave. It is doubtful if his loyal followers would have required more evidence than an empty grave before preaching and believing that an actual resurrection took place.
Source: https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/resurrection
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Bingo!
Dear Reader: Twenty first century Jews believe it is entirely plausible that the first century Jewish disciples of Jesus would believe their messiah-pretender had been resurrected from the dead based solely on an empty grave.
So who should we believe about the beliefs and thinking of first century Jews? Jews or Christians? I’ll go with Jews!
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GARY: Gary: Yet thousands of “pagans” did believe this story, didn’t they? So many believed that by the end of the first century the Christian Church was overwhelmingly “pagan” (Gentile).
LEE: But NOT based on the empty tomb or even the resurrection alone. A lot more went into the typical pagan conversion that these tenets, central though they both are. Paul’s apologetics speech before the Areopagus at Athens in Acts Acts 17 is a good example.
There Paul met a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who had observed Paul discussing Jesus and the resurrection with Jews and God-fearing Greeks in the marketplace. Assuming Paul was talking nonsense they asked him to explain himself (he was actually brought before a kind of religious court to decide whether his views were a threat to public order and decency); notice what Paul doesn’t do here: he doesn’t begin with the Jewish idea of the Messiah or of resurrection of the body. No, he starts out by noting an image devoted to “the Unknown God” and then begins to explain to them how this “Unknown God” is actually the God who was Jesus incarnate. Again, if you’ll notice carefully he did not start off with a speech about either Jesus’ resurrection of the empty tomb: that came later. When they heard his arguments for Jesus’ resurrection and the resurrection of believers, some (understandably from a pagan standpoint) sneered, whiled others asked him to keep talking.
Before Paul could convince these Epicureans (who thought that if the gods or a god existed they/he were a long way off and not terribly interested in what humans got up to on earth) and Stoics (who were pantheists yet believed in a logos or rational, logical principal behind the universe), to believe in the Jewish concept of a Messiah and resurrection of the body, he first had to get them to see that belief in one eternal, uncreated god was rational.
Luke presents a brief overview of what Paul said and not a “play-by-play” report.
Pax.
Lee.
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That’s a lot of explaining. Your original assertion was that Gentiles would not buy a resurrected body claim.
Bottom line, millions of Gentiles over the last 20 centuries have believed in a resurrection without seeing a resurrected body.
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GARY: That’s a lot of explaining. Your original assertion was that Gentiles would not buy a resurrected body claim.
Bottom line, millions of Gentiles over the last 20 centuries have believed in a resurrection without seeing a resurrected body.
LEE: Gary, you are a master of obfuscation. You aren’t paying any attention to anything I’m saying.
I feel like Michael Palin trying to reason with John Cleese in Monty Python’s “The Argument Sketch.”
Pax.
Lee.
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Do you or do you not believe it is POSSIBLE (no matter how improbable) that approximately 100 first century Jews believed that their executed messiah-claiming leader was raised from the dead based upon his tomb being found empty?
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GARY: Twenty first century Jews believe it is entirely plausible that the first century Jewish disciples of Jesus would believe their messiah-pretender had been resurrected from the dead based solely on an empty grave.
LEE: I’m afraid I’m going to need you to cite a modern Jewish authority (Orthodox, Conservative or Reformed) who argues for this position. If they do, they are not very well-read on First Century, Second Temple Messianic Jewish expectations about what Messiah was supposed to do/be. Indeed, the chief reason most Jews ancient and modern, reject(ed) Jesus as the Messiah is because he did not fit the standard Jewish interpretations of the Messianic prophecies in scripture.
Also, many modern Reformed Jews are non-observant and assume that modern Rabbinic Judaism is synonymous with ancient Judaism however such is not the case. I have Reformed Jewish friends who don’t seem to know the difference between orthodox Second Temple Judaism and modern orthodox Rabbinic Judaism.
Pax.
Lee.
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Baloney. Christians have been using this trope against Jews for 2,000 years:
Today’s Jews don’t know the original beliefs of Judaism. Anyone who spends some time studying first century Judaism (like Christian scholars and apologists have done so thoroughly) will recognize that Christianity is true and modern Judaism is false. Today’s Jews are stubborn, stiff-necked or just plain indifferent to the massive evidence proving Christianity is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecies.
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Okay, Gary, there are a number of problems with this article. For one thing, Ysroel Blumenthal or whoever wrote it for Jews for Judaism is making many of the same fallacies you are. The author is obviously not aware of the many nuances inherent in Second Temple Messianic Jewish theology, especially concerning resurrection. Just being Jewish doesn’t make him or his website an expert on ancient Second Temple Judaism (which as I’ve noted is a lot different than modern Rabbinic Judaism, esp. Reformed Judaism).
To begin with, the article claims that the disciples’ devotion to Jesus predisposed them to believe in Jesus’ resurrection, and that all the evidence they’d have required was an empty tomb. This is problematic for a couple of big reasons. In the first place, as I keep pointing out, none of Jesus’ original followers expected him to be resurrected, because none of them expected him to die: when the women claim that he has been raised, the men tell them they’re out of their minds. and refuse to believe it. Thomas is depicted as refusing to believe until he can actually see and touch Jesus. To me that doesn’t sound like they were predisposed to believe in a resurrection.
Prof. Amy-Jill Levine is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University as well as an observant Jew. Regarding Jewish expectations of the Messiah she writes:
Despite Paul’s insistence that Jesus ‘was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’ (I Cor. 15;4), no Jewish source, outside those associated with the followers of Jesus, shows any expectation that the messiah would be killed and after three days rise.” (The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus,* p. 56)
Levine does concede the possibility that some Jews could’ve believed Jesus was a martyr, but not the messiah; Jesus, they might reason, could’ve been resurrected by God in the same way the Maccabean martyrs expected to be resurrected. However, for most Jews at the time:
The problem was not the claim that Jesus had been raised; the problem was that he alone had been raised. Although many expected the messiah would bring about a resurrection, a single resurrection did not prove messianic identity. (p. 61)
And the Jews for Judaism “Resurrection” article offers most of the standard “go-to” alternative theories to explain away the resurrection:
They went to the wrong tomb. As if the tomb of a famous public official such as Joseph of Arimathea would be impossible for locals to find, even at night. And the fact that Jesus had to be buried in a borrowed tomb, rather than by his family in their family tomb would’ve been a source of embarrassment for the evangelists writing the gospels. Where was Jesus’ family when he was executed? The gospels portray his family as thinking Jesus was out of his mind for claiming the things he claimed, and, further that at his execution everyone but his mother and John had jumped ship and deserted him. Two more really embarrassing items, and yet the gospel authors record these, too, knowing they could potentially damage Jesus’ and their credibility.
Somebody sole his body. Which the NT records the Sanhedrin as attempting to bribe the Roman guards into saying,
So much time had passed between Jesus’ alleged resurrection and the time the gospels were written that people might’ve forgotten where Joseph’s tomb had been in the first. That incorrectly assumes the stories about the resurrection in the gospels were very late, rather than very early, as modern scholarship has demonstrated; and further that no one locally would’ve remembered where Joseph’s tomb was. Not a likely scenario considering stories of the resurrection were circulating a mere 3-5 years after Jesus’ death and Paul cites them for the first time in ca. AD 55 (at least 10 years before the first gospel was written).
How do we know his opponents didn’t actually dig up Jesus’ all-too-dead body but that the Catholic Church has covered it up for the past 2,000 years? What’s that? Did somebody say The Da Vinci Code? I can’t believe the article made this argument with a straight face.
These are too outrageous to spend further time on. They take more faith to believe than the resurrection itself.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: These [alternative, natural explanations for the Resurrection Belief] are too outrageous to spend further time on. They take more faith to believe than the resurrection itself.
Gary: Only Christians believe this. I wonder why? (Hint: bias!)
But you have already admitted that these natural alternative explanations for the Resurrection Belief are possible. That is all I need. Thank you. I will never convince you that they are plausible until you come to the realization that your belief that the ghost of this dead man living in your heart is a silly, irrational delusion.
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GARY: But you have already admitted that these natural alternative explanations for the Resurrection Belief are possible. That is all I need. Thank you. I will never convince you that they are plausible until you come to the realization that your belief that the ghost of this dead man living in your heart is a silly, irrational delusion.
LEE: Gary, I’m starting to think you’re the “irrational delusion.” When you deliberately and continually (mis-) characterize Christian beliefs the way you do to purposely make them sound as ridiculous as possible (“your belief that the ghost of this dead man living in your heart is a silly, irrational delusion”), and attempt to put words in our mouths, it just makes you look desperate. Why can’t you be as willing to seriously debate these issues as Nan seems to be? I can reason with her, but trying to reason with you, is, again, like Michael Palin trying to reason with John Cleese in “The Argument Sketch.”
You apparently think that if you keep repeating the same two or three arguments, all the while insisting you’re right and every Christian believer is an idiot because YOU say so, we’ll all eventually “see the light” (figuratively speaking of course, because there’s no real light to see, unless we, like Paul hallucinate one) and become skeptics like you.
Not gonna happen my, friend. I need evidence not hyperbole.
Pax.
Lee.
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What evidence would you require to stop believing that Jesus was resurrected? Let’s start there.
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GARY: What evidence would you require to stop believing that Jesus was resurrected? Let’s start there.
The body. Where are Jesus’ remains? Show me the remains and I’ll stop believing. That or produce persuasive historical evidence that the Jewish and Roman authorities displayed Jesus’ corpse to deflect belief in his resurrection then had it reburied somewhere.
What won’t convince me to stop believing are speculative alternative explanations like yours.
Pax.
Lee.
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If someone had moved the body and reburied it in some secret location, how could authorities display a body?
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Or better yet … what if the entire fiasco never happened? Christians are sooo gullible.
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NAN: Or better yet … what if the entire fiasco never happened? Christians are sooo gullible.
LEE: This is the kind of sarcastic rhetoric skeptics typically resort to when they don’t really have a better argument. An appeal, not to the facts or evidence, but to peoples’ emotiuons.
I thought I was going to get some actual stimulating debate here.
Pax.
Lee.
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The apostle Paul says his Damascus Road experience was a “vision”. You say it wasn’t. I recommend we believe the apostle and not you!
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Hmmm. Must have hit a bit close to home.
Lee, what I see in you and others who attempt to defend your faith is a surety that what you have been taught (and read) is the “real thing.” Gary, and many of us who frequent his blog, simply do not see it the same way — and the “evidence” you present is simply too weak and too controversial to convince us of its authenticity. (And yes, in many instances, it demonstrates a certain gullibility.)
I’m quite certain that nothing I (nor others here on Gary’s blog) will say is going to change your thinking … it’s far too embedded in your psyche. Nevertheless, based on our own personal sense of liberation, we would be remiss not to speak out.
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NAN: Lee, what I see in you and others who attempt to defend your faith is a surety that what you have been taught (and read) is the “real thing.” Gary, and many of us who frequent his blog, simply do not see it the same way — and the “evidence” you present is simply too weak and too controversial to convince us of its authenticity. (And yes, in many instances, it demonstrates a certain gullibility.)
LEE: I get that you personally don’t find the evidence compelling, however lots of intellectuals do. Alister McGrath, for example, is an Oxford molecular physicist as well as a priest in the Anglican Church. He’s written a number of scientific and theological treatises. I could name a hundred other Christian intellectuals off the top of my head but here’s one more: the man who first proposed the Big Bang Theory was a Belgian Roman Catholic Monsignor named Georges Lemaître (1894-1966), who just also happened to be a Jesuit astronomer, physicist and two-time Nobel Prize nominee (so the idea that science and faith are or ever were incompatible is a myth).
What could be viewed as objectionable is the routine skeptical (mis)characterization of all Christians as “gullible” and “biased.” As if no skeptic was ever biased or gullible? But I’ve met skeptics who argued that their skepticism somehow protected them from any kind of bias!
Gary seems to think that all Evangelical Christian NT scholars are simply hacks who write books to get a paycheck. And anything that he hasn’t read is automatically suspect, esp. if it in any way supports orthodox Christianity.
Personally, Gary and lots of other skeptics come across to me as so desperate not to believe, that they close their minds to any evidence which would undermine their skepticism, all the while vigorously protesting that they’re free of bias. They cherry-pick scholars who agree with them (Bart Ehrman would be the skeptics’ patron saint if you guys had one) and categorically refuse to read scholars outside their comfort zone. Other scholars are biased but not their scholars! And rather than honestly engage in dialogue with believers, they deflect by casting aspersions on our integrity, mental acuity and/or honesty. I’m not a psychologist but to me that screams “defense mechanism” (when someone refuses to engage with the arguments but instead casts aspersions on the person making them that says way more about them than it does the person they’re criticizing. Politicians do this all the time.)
Personally I find the whole thing fascinating.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee, what evidence do you have that Matthew was a tax collector?
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Notice that Lee doesn’t want to answer this question. Why? Because Lee knows that Bauckham doesn’t believe that Mark’s Levi and Matthew’s Matthew are the same person. And if that is the case, we have no mention of Matthew being a tax collector except in the Gospel of Matthew—the very story which Bauckham believes is a fictional invention by the author of Matthew! So why does Bauckham claim to still know that Matthew was a tax collector? Answer: Catholic Church tradition!
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however lots of intellectuals do. Nice left-handed insult …
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Just because a lot of “intellectuals” believe the supernatural claims of Christianity does not make such belief rational. Does Lee think Muslim supernatural claims (Mohammad flying above Jerusalem on a winged horse, for example) are rational and therefore justified just because hundreds of thousands of very intelligent Muslim engineers, scientists, doctors, and attorneys believe these beliefs are rational?
Of course not!
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GARY: Who is “we”? Almost all Jewish scholars and historians say you are wrong. Why should we believe your biased Christian experts and not Jewish experts?
LEE: Here’s an academic Jewish expert again:
Prof. Amy-Jill Levine is E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University as well as an observant Jew. Regarding Jewish expectations of the Messiah she writes:
Despite Paul’s insistence that Jesus ‘was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures’ (I Cor. 15;4), no Jewish source, outside those associated with the followers of Jesus, shows any expectation that the messiah would be killed and after three days rise.” (The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus, p. 56)
Levine does concede the possibility that some Jews could’ve believed Jesus was a martyr, but not the messiah; Jesus, they might reason, could’ve been resurrected by God in the same way the Maccabean martyrs expected to be resurrected. However, for most Jews at the time:
The problem was not the claim that Jesus had been raised; the problem was that he alone had been raised. Although many expected the messiah would bring about a resurrection, a single resurrection did not prove messianic identity. (p. 61)
Pax.
Lee.
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Exactly! And that is why 99.9% of Jews from the first century to the present have rejected Jesus as the messiah. He did not meet the qualifications of the Messiah. Jill-Levine never says in your quote that it is IMPOSSIBLE that any first century messianic Jew would come to this belief, only that most wouldn’t. You are reading something into her words that isn’t there. (Something Christians are famous for doing to Jewish authors!)
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GARY: Exactly! And that is why 99.9% of Jews from the first century to the present have rejected Jesus as the messiah. He did not meet the qualifications of the Messiah. Jill-Levine never says in your quote that it is IMPOSSIBLE that any first century messianic Jew would come to this belief, only that most wouldn’t. You are reading something into her words that isn’t there. (Something Christians are famous for doing to Jewish authors!)
LEE: Okay, you got me. “Uncle!”
I concede the terrible, awful, damning-for-Christian-faith argument that, hypothetically, theoretically, possibly, one guy or at most two, just may, possibly have bucked centuries of Messianic Jewish expectations and, against ALL odds and received wisdom, despite everything his rabbi taught him at synagogue, come to believe that a would-be messiah condemned by the Sanhedrin as a false teacher and executed by Rome as political terrorist, was resurrected solely upon the fact that his tomb was empty, thereby not only standing centuries of Messianic Jewish theology on it’s head–all based on a brain-freeze–but also starting what eventually became a global, worldwide religion with millions of adherents.
This book oughta sell more copies than Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code put together.
Pax.
Lee.
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Thank you for admitting that it is possible that the early (Jewish) Christians believed Jesus had been resurrected based solely on finding his empty tomb. That is probably as close as we are going to get on this issue. I believe our views on probability are hopelessly irreconcilable. I have appreciated your respectful and thoughtful discussion.
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GARY: Thank you for admitting that it is possible that the early (Jewish) Christians believed Jesus had been resurrected based solely on finding his empty tomb. That is probably as close as we are going to get on this issue. I believe our views on probability are hopelessly irreconcilable. I have appreciated your respectful and thoughtful discussion.
LEE; Gary, you do understand what tongue-in-cheek means, don’t you? Because what you claim was an “admission” is far from it. It was silly, very tongue-in-cheek sarcasm.
The odds against anything even remotely close to what I posted happening are like a billion to one.
What does someone admitting there’s a one in a billion chance that Jesus’ followers could’ve possibly jumped to the wrong conclusion based solely on his empty tomb do to advance your argument against the resurrection happening in actual space-time?
It would be like you admitting there’s a one in a billion chance that Jesus really was resurrected. That would hardly be a ringing endorsement for the resurrection from you!
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: It would be like you admitting there’s a one in a billion chance that Jesus really was resurrected. That would hardly be a ringing endorsement for the resurrection from you!
Gary: In the minds of most non-supernaturalists like myself, no matter how improbable a natural explanation might be, a supernatural resurrection is infinitely more improbable. That is why you and I will never come to agreement on probabilities. Your worldview biases you in favor of a supernatural explanation and my worldview biases me in favor of a natural explanation.
What I would encourage you to consider is the fact that so many theists in the world, who do believe in the supernatural, also consider a natural explanation for the Resurrection Belief to be more probable than a literal resurrection. If billions of theists also believe that a natural explanation is more probable to explain the development of the Resurrection Belief, isn’t that strong evidence that Christians are biased on this issue?
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GARY: Gary: In the minds of most non-supernaturalists like myself, no matter how improbable a natural explanation might be, a supernatural resurrection is infinitely more improbable. That is why you and I will never come to agreement on probabilities. Your worldview biases you in favor of a supernatural explanation and my worldview biases me in favor of a natural explanation.
LEE: Yes, it comes down to worldviews. You are a materialist, and if your materialist worldview is right, the supernatural doesn’t exist.
But what if materialism if false, and there really is an “unseen realm” (to use Dr. Heiser’s phrase)? That’s a different ballgame entirely.
GARY: What I would encourage you to consider is the fact that so many theists in the world, who do believe in the supernatural, also consider a natural explanation for the Resurrection Belief to be more probable than a literal resurrection. If billions of theists also believe that a natural explanation is more probable to explain the development of the Resurrection Belief, isn’t that strong evidence that Christians are biased on this issue?
LEE: Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary. . . . we’ve been over this a hundred times!
Non-Christian theists do not believe in Jesus’ resurrection because they do not accept the claims that Christianity makes about Jesus. For example, yet again, observant Jews, while having no problem with the concept of resurrection itself, don’t believe Jesus was resurrected because they believe he was a false messiah. Why don’t they believe he was the messiah? Because he did not fulfill the OT prophecies the way anybody expected, such as being killed and then resurrecting alone, in the middle of history, ahead of everyone else.
Muslims don’t believe in the resurrection because Muslims don’t believe Isa, or Jesus, as a prophet of Allah, could be killed.
So of course non-Christian theists would look for alternate, naturalistic explanations: if they believed in Jesus’ resurrection they’d be Christians!
Pax.
Lee.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Non-Christian theists do not believe in Jesus’ resurrection because they do not accept the claims that Christianity makes about Jesus.
Gary: The majority of the world’s theists don’t believe there is sufficient evidence to believe as historical fact that Jesus was seen alive again after his crucifixion. That is the point I am making. One does not need to believe in resurrection to believe that a particular individual has been spotted by a large crowd. The evidence for the alleged appearances is very poor. That is why no public university history textbook lists the post-execution sightings of Jesus as historical facts.
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GARY: The majority of the world’s theists don’t believe there is sufficient evidence to believe as historical fact that Jesus was seen alive again after his crucifixion. That is the point I am making.
LEE: Peter in Acts 2 says that Jesus’ resurrection is proof from God that he was/is the Jewish Messiah. But Jews and Muslims do not believe Jesus was the messiah for other, significant reasons, so of course they’re going to offer naturalistic explanations to explain away this decidedly Christian theological statement that Jesus was resurrected.
GARY: One does not need to believe in resurrection to believe that a particular individual has been spotted by a large crowd. The evidence for the alleged appearances is very poor. That is why no public university history textbook lists the post-execution sightings of Jesus as historical facts.
LEE: If you saw the “particular individual” executed, then three days later you share a meal with him, you probably do hafta fall back on resurrection.
As for the evidence for the post-resurrection appearances, a closer examination shows it to be a little better than might be supposed at first glance. We’ve been through all of it before but your predisposition to materialism won’t allow you to seriously consider it.
Pax.
lEE.
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Lee: If you saw the “particular individual” executed, then three days later you share a meal with him, you probably do hafta fall back on resurrection.
Gary: Please provide ONE undisputed eyewitness testimony of anyone claiming that he or she sat down and ate a meal with Jesus three days after his public execution. You can’t. And that is a big problem for you. All the stories about people allegedly eating a meal or touching Jesus three days after his execution are anonymous, with many scholars believing that they were not written by eyewitnesses, but by non-eyewitnesses writing many decades after the death of Jesus. Now, you and other Christians can claim that you know that they are eyewitness accounts, but that does not change the fact that the authorship and eyewitness status of these stories are DISPUTED. Disputed eyewitness testimony is not strong evidence.
Question: Where was the first appearance of Jesus after his execution? To whom did he appear? What location? How many days after his execution?
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GARY: Please provide ONE undisputed eyewitness testimony of anyone claiming that he or she sat down and ate a meal with Jesus three days after his public execution. You can’t. And that is a big problem for you. All the stories about people allegedly eating a meal or touching Jesus three days after his execution are anonymous, with many scholars believing that they were not written by eyewitnesses,, but by non-eyewitnesses writing many decades after the death of Jesus.
LEE: Actually the consensus is that the gospels date from bet. ca. 60-65 and 100 AD, but that the oral tradition behind the resurrection narratives dates to a mere 3-5 years after Jesus’ death. As I said to you in Dr. Anderson’s forum, this is not enough time for a legend to develop. The Members of the Early High Christology Club such as Richard Bauckham, the Late Martin Hengel and the late Larry Hurtado have convincingly demonstrated that the church had a very early and very high Christology.
As for the gospels being anonymous, we have very early attribution to the traditional authors. And if they truly were anonymous, why is it that no other authors were ever put forward? Why is it, across the Roman Empire from Byzantium to Alexandria the shortest gospel was universally attributed to Mark, while the gospel with a prologue that references the Logos was universally attributed to John? Why don’t we see 2nd or 3rd c. copies of Mark from Syria attributed to John or 3rd c. copies of Matthew from Antioch attributed to Bartholomew?
GARY: Now, you and other Christians can claim that you know that they are eyewitness accounts, but that does not change the fact that the authorship and eyewitness status of these stories are DISPUTED. Disputed eyewitness testimony is not strong evidence.
LEE: As I’ve just noted above, there’s compelling evidence for the traditional authorship of all four gospels. But even if they are anonymous? So what? Anonymous doesn’t necessarily equal wrong. Christianity doesn’t suddenly collapse just because the gospels may be anonymous. The theory I lean toward is that the tradition behind each of the gospels dates back to either Matthew, Mark, Luke or John; whoever wrote the different gospels faithfully preserved the tradition of each evangelist.
No. If you really want anonymous gospels with no claim to authenticity you want the so-called Gnostic Gospels, which really are very late and very anonymous.
Pax.
Lee.
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Assumptions and biased evangelical scholarship. That is all you have. Rumors and legends can devlop in days. Ask the QAnon people.
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GARY: I believe that this hope for something better in the afterlife is why many Christians refuse to even consider the evidence that clearly indicates that Christianity’s claims are far-fetched and irrational. Without the hope of eternal reward, what are they left with??
LEE: Gary, lots more of us have studied the evidence for Christianity and found it compelling than you seem to be aware of. I could list a hundred intellectuals just off the top of my head if I thought about it.
I could ask you what’s so compelling about materialism? If matter is all there is, then life is a cosmic accident with no purpose save the purely subjective meaning human beings assign it in their effort to assign purpose to a purpose-less existence.
Materialism forces me to accept that life has no meaning, but then, contrary to this assertion, pretend as if it does have meaning after all.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: I could ask you what’s so compelling about materialism?
Gary: If materialism is all there is, it doesn’t matter if it is compelling. We are not having a competition for who can create the prettiest, most comforting afterlife story, Lee. I, at least, seek the truth, regardless of how cold and harsh it may be.
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When, where, and to whom was the first appearance of the resurrected Jesus, Lord God, Creator of the universe?
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Lee, you asked Gary … But what if materialism if false, and there really is an “unseen realm”. And I thought to myself … how long does the materialist have to wait before the “unseen” suddenly becomes the “seen”?
Imagination is “something that you think exists or is true, although in fact it is not real or true.” I think most all of us will admit that imagination can be a wonderful thing! Children, especially, thrive on imagination. But even your idol Paul tells us: When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
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The imagination, fantasy, is the only hope of some people, in particular the world’s very poor. I think that is why Christianity was so popular. No matter how bad this life is, Christianity promises that the next life will be full of treasure, happiness, and reward. That is very attractive to people who have no other hope.
I believe that this hope for something better in the afterlife is why many Christians refuse to even consider the evidence that clearly indicates that Christianity’s claims are far-fetched and irrational. Without the hope of eternal reward, what are they left with??
Happily, life is just as fulfilling without supernatural belief, but one must recover from the initial shock of losing that source of comfort.
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GARY: The imagination, fantasy, is the only hope of some people, in particular the world’s very poor. I think that is why Christianity was so popular. No matter how bad this life is, Christianity promises that the next life will be full of treasure, happiness, and reward. That is very attractive to people who have no other hope.
LEE: It is a misunderstanding to argue that Christianity is all about the next life.
Christianity has just as much to say about this life as it does the next life, in fact it has much more to say about this life. Remember Jesus prayed God’s will to be done “on earth, as it is in heaven.” Paul says that baptized Christians are new creations and that God’s Spirit “gives life” to our “mortal bodies” *here and in the hereafter. Christianity, based on earlier Judaism, promises that human beings will be bodily resurrected into a new creation, which both Jesus and Paul says has already begun with Jesus’ resurrection.
The gospels insist that Jesus incarnated, died and was buried in actual space-time history. It is thus a VERY “this-worldly” belief system.
That’s why Easter is all about life and new creation.
And as I’ve said, there were a lot more, educated, middle-class members of the early church. The early Church Fathers like Irenaeus, Justin, Augustine, et. al. were not poor. We know that some of the women who bankrolled Jesus’ ministry were not poor.
Pax.
Lee.
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But most early Christians, for the first 300 years, were poor. That is what most experts say, except evangelicals, who are hopelessly biased.
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NAN: Darwinian evolution cannot explain where mind or consciousness come from. — But YOU and other believers CAN, right?
LEE: I intend no hubris when I say this, but I think we have a better answer than materialists, who so far have come up with a big fat goose egg. Is it really so illogical to at least consider the God hypothesis? If God is basically mind is it so strange that he could be responsible for the human mind?
NAN: I find it interesting that you continually quote others to validate your claims/beliefs.
LEE: I kinda find it interesting that more skeptics and atheists don’t. I do so in order to demonstrate that I’m not just riffing, pulling statements out of thin air, not just making stuff up. Maybe it’s my background as a historian and a librarian. We like sources. For example, when I said to you that case studies have been done which have proven that oral societies could and still do accurately preserve oral tradition essentially unchanged for several generations, and that the societies which produced the NT were just such societies, I can back it up with actual source material.
NAN: If each of us had the time, energy, and interest, I’m sure we could also find articles, books, theses, websites, etc. that would wipe out every claim you make.
LEE: By all means, if you have sources that invalidate mine, I’d love to see ’em. Because Nan, if you’re going to pooh-pooh 2,000 years of theistic belief and continually accuse Christians, esp. Evangelical Christians like me, of basically being weak-minded idiots (you didn’t say that but Gary and others have said that to me) who believe a fairy-tale, then I kinda think it behooves you to show us some evidence. On my job as a public historian, anybody can tell me I’m wrong; but do they have actual evidence to prove it?
Because the truth/falsity of Christianity is an extremely important topic we’re discussing and not just who won the Super-Bowl, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is: are you?
NAN: But, IMO, the bottom line becomes …
“WHY must the bible story be “explained”?
LEE: Why did you write a book trying to “explain” that the bible story is a myth?
One reason the bible story should be explained is because you, Gary and other skeptics keep trying to “de-convert” the rest of us! And because orthodox Christianity has never been a religion that demanded believers check their brains at the door, (get ready, ’cause I’m gonna reference some authors again) as the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, Copernicus, Galileo, CS Lewis, Sir Isaac Newton, Dr. Francis Collins, Dr. Alistair McGrath, Dr. John Lennox, Dr. William L. Craig, Prof. NT Wright, Dr. James Hannam, Eric Metaxas, Dr. Stephen Meyer and a whole host of other Christians who are scientists and intellectuals should demonstrate. So skeptics like Gary can disagree with Christianity all day long, but he can’t label us lazy goofs who’ll believe anything.
Pax.
Lee.
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” … materialists, who so far have come up with a big fat goose egg.” Funny … but I would say the same about religionists. 😈
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GARY: But most early Christians, for the first 300 years, were poor. That is what most experts say, except evangelicals, who are hopelessly biased.
LEE: I can’t believe you can write this stuff with a straight face.
No skeptic could ever be hopelessly biased?
The late Prof. Rodney Stark was NOT an Evangelical Christian, or indeed any kind of Christian, and yet his research discovered many more middle-class, at least functionally literate, members of the early Church. It wasn’t all poor by a longshot. That was an exaggeration.
Pax.
Lee.
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Gary: most early Christians, for the first 300 years, were poor.
Lee: It wasn’t all poor by a longshot.
Gary: Do you have a reading problem, Lee, or are you deliberately strawmanning me?
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The fact that Christians cannot provide a consistent account of Jesus’ first post-death appearance is strong evidence that the resurrection stories are LEGENDS. And your claim that legends took hundreds of years to develop in the first century is preposterous evangelical apologetics. If legends can begin in days in the 21st century the same could have occurred in the 1st century. Stop listening to biased minority scholarship. Accept consensus expert opinion on all issues! There is no expert consensus which states that in the first century legends took hundreds of years to develop.
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2023/03/23/the-first-appearance-of-the-resurrected-jesus-where-when-and-to-whom/
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OMG! That is the most outlandish thing I’ve ever heard/read! The ENTIRE promise of Christianity is what happens to you when this life is finished. Perhaps YOU get joy and satisfaction out of the things you mentioned, but I can guarantee you the majority of believers are in it for the AFTERLIFE!
Sheesh! I still can’t get over what you just wrote!
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NAN: OMG! That is the most outlandish thing I’ve ever heard/read! The ENTIRE promise of Christianity is what happens to you when this life is finished. Perhaps YOU get joy and satisfaction out of the things you mentioned, but I can guarantee you the majority of believers are in it for the AFTERLIFE!
LEE: Nan, I know this is what you were taught, just like I was, but it’s not what the Bible actually teaches. The idea that the goal of Christianity is for disembodied spirits to “go to heaven” when they die is a holdover from Platonism, not orthodox Christianity. I can name a dozen recent books by top-name Evangelical scholars and pastors who write exactly what I have below. Alexander Campbell, who was one of the founders of my denomination believed this as well. If you’ve read CS Lewis you know he taught it as well. So did JRR Tolkien.
It actually goes back to Judaism. Isaiah 65: 17 and 66: 22 talk about YHWH creating “new heavens and new earth.”
John, in Revelation 21 fleshes out what that “new heavens and new earth” will look like:
“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”
In other words, heaven and earth will fully and finally intersect and God will come to earth.
Paul, in Romans 8:18-23 says:
“I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its enslavement to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning together as it suffers together the pains of labor, and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
I know you don’t like Paul however his theology is foundational here, as he insists that all of creation will be renewed, set free, recreated, which Paul ties to “the redemption of our bodies.” And Paul insists that Jesus was the first-fruit of that new creation, but that Christians are also “new creations.” Jesus himself in the gospels said that he came that “they may have life, and that more abundantly.”*
Thus according to Jesus, Paul, Peter and the other NT writers, the afterlife beings now. Jesus repeatedly says in the gospels that the kingdom has come, but not fully. It is “now” but also “not yet.”
The early Church Fathers taught this same belief in new creation, as evidenced from this brief passage from Irenaeus’ (ca. 130-202) Against Heresies:
‘”It is fitting, therefore, that the creation itself, being restored to its primeval condition, should without restraint be under the dominion of the righteous; and the apostle has made this plain in the Epistle to the Romans, when he thus speaks: “For the expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature has been subjected to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; since the creature itself shall also be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.” (Against Heresies 5.32.1)
Pax.
Lee.
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For me, your entire response was wrapped up in your opening remark: I can name a dozen recent books …. You do realize, I hope, that the authors of every book you’ve read is simply expressing his/her personal interpretation of scripture. Further, the fact that you list the ones you do is evidence that they agree with your own core beliefs.
And no … my perspective isn’t “what I was taught.” Every human on this earth fears death — which is why every religion offers some sort of “after life.”
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NAN: Lee, you asked Gary … But what if materialism if false, and there really is an “unseen realm”. And I thought to myself … how long does the materialist have to wait before the “unseen” suddenly becomes the “seen”?
LEE: That depends upon your definition of “seen.”
As I argued to Gary earlier, the existence of the mind and human consciousness is a huge problem for the materialist because naturalistic Darwinian evolution cannot explain where mind or consciousness come from.
As Leon Wieseltier in his 2006 New York Times article “The God Genome” astutely recognized, “If reason is a product of natural selection, then how much confidence can we have in a rational argument for natural selection? Evolutionary biology cannot invoke the power of reason even as it destroys it.”
Materialism mistakenly assumes that anything which can’t be quantified in a laboratory doesn’t really exist. Yet again, you can’t see your mind, but I take it that you believe it exists, right?
As for faith, you and Gary take lots of things on faith every day, without even being consciously aware of them.
Pax.
Lee.
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Darwinian evolution cannot explain where mind or consciousness come from. — But YOU and other believers CAN, right?
I find it interesting that you continually quote others to validate your claims/beliefs. If each of us had the time, energy, and interest, I’m sure we could also find articles, books, theses, websites, etc. that would wipe out every claim you make. But, IMO, the bottom line becomes … WHY must the bible story be “explained”?
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When you write that book, autograph a copy for me, please.
Pax.
Lee.
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GARY: The fact that Christians cannot provide a consistent account of Jesus’ first post-death appearance is strong evidence that the resurrection stories are LEGENDS.
LEE: Actually the fact that the gospel accounts of the resurrection don’t harmonize in every respect is good evidence that they aren’t later fabrications, because if the disciples were faking all of this why wouldn’t they make sure the stories dovetailed perfectly?
Of course if the stories did dovetail perfectly you’d be accusing the four evangelists of collusion, of getting together to cook up a story.
No, as any judge will tell you, if two or more witnesses’ stories harmonize perfectly, they’ve probably cooked up their testimony ahead of time.
Plus, the fact that these so-called “legends” mention real people and real places argue against their being mere myths. They’re waay too detailed for the typical Greco-Roman myths and legends which were circulating at the time.
And finally, as I’ve noted a hundred times, the presence of the women as the first witnesses to the resurrection argues strongly that the stories aren’t fabrications.
The gospel accounts of the resurrection read like the reports of an amazing event which the people involved hadn’t expected to happen and hadn’t had time to process and think about yet. In the gospels you don’t get the kind of careful, deliberate theological reflection on what Jesus’ death and resurrection signified that you do in Paul, because the evangelists are telling these stories they way the early church first experienced them.
LEE: And your claim that legends took hundreds of years to develop in the first century is preposterous evangelical apologetics. If legends can begin in days in the 21st century the same could have occurred in the 1st century. Stop listening to biased minority scholarship. Accept consensus expert opinion on all issues! There is no expert consensus which states that in the first century legends took hundreds of years to develop.
LEE: Gary, you have got to stop thinking like a 21st century skeptic.
Do some reading on Alexander the Great. It took nearly 300 years for his biography to get layered with that kind of myth and legend.
Pax.
Lee.
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You are getting a false representation of what Sherwin-White said from Lee Strobel and William Lane Craig! More evidence that evangelical scholars and apologists cannot be trusted!
“Christian apologists often cite Sherwin-White as if he proposed some empirically established process whereby fact and myth fight it out in the oral tradition with myth needing several generations in which to subdue its opponent. Sherwin-White’s example, however, suggests that each person in the oral tradition makes up his own mind whether he prefers the legendary version of events or the true one. If enough people are interested in the true version of events to preserve it and pass it on, it will be accessible after several generations even if the mythological version proves quite popular. That’s a far cry from some inviolable principle that the true version will always survive within the oral tradition for some definable period of years.
In the case of the gospels, the questions remains (1) whether anyone was interested enough in the historical Jesus to preserve and pass on accurate information and (2) whether the evangelists were sufficiently interested in recovering that Jesus rather than reporting myths that furthered their theological agendas. It is certainly possible that the answer to both questions is yes, but Sherwin-White’s musings don’t support Craig’s insistence that there must recoverable historical information in the gospels.
I often get into debates about whether Irenaeus actually had any basis in 180 A.D. for attributing authorship of the canonical gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Invariably, someone will argue that there must have been some factual basis for these names or someone who knew the truth would have corrected Irenaeus If such errors are so easily resolved, how come nothing has deterred Craig from repeating his misstatements for so many years? I see no reason to think that second century believers would have been any more diligent in pointing out Irenaeus’ errors than today’s believers are in pointing out Craig’s. Nor can I see any reason to believe that Irenaeus would have been any more conscientious in his fact checking than Craig.”
Source: https://youcallthisculture.blogspot.com/search/label/A.N.%20Sherwin-White
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NAN: For me, your entire response was wrapped up in your opening remark: I can name a dozen recent books …. You do realize, I hope, that the authors of every book you’ve read is simply expressing his/her personal interpretation of scripture. Further, the fact that you list the ones you do is evidence that they agree with your own core beliefs.
LEE: Not everybody’s personal interpretation of scripture is always right.
Gary says, “go with the consensus.” Well, I listed these particular authors because they represent the consensus. These authors represent the modern mainstream Evangelical Christian consensus on the subject. I noted Alexander Campbell and cited Irenaeus of Lyons to demonstrate that belief in bodily resurrection in a new heavens and new earth isn’t a recent innovation, but goes back through the early church to both Jesus and Paul, which is why I cited Romans 8:18-23. Read any major mainstream NT commentary on Romans written in the past 50 years and I can almost guarantee you it will back me up on this. Or consult a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It, too, teaches the idea of bodily resurrection and new creation. My own pastor holds these views.
So I listed these authors because they represent the modern consensus and because I think they most accurately handle the data.
You can actually track historically how belief in an embodied resurrection into a new creation gave way to the Platonic views most of of use were taught.
NAN: And no … my perspective isn’t “what I was taught.” Every human on this earth fears death — which is why every religion offers some sort of “after life.”
LEE: What I mean is that you were taught the same Platonic nonsense about “heaven” that I was. Everybody wants an afterlife; the question is, what kind of an afterlife does the bible promise? The “pie-in-the-sky” disembodied souls going to “heaven” view is not and never was official Jewish or church teaching.
Pax.
Lee.
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Why do you refuse to answer my question: Please tells us about Jesus’ first post-resurrection appearance. Where, when, and to whom?
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snicker … he probably hasn’t found the answer in any of the books he’s read,
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Well, it is obvious he only reads evangelical scholarship (propaganda).
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GARY: Why do you refuse to answer my question: Please tells us about Jesus’ first post-resurrection appearance. Where, when, and to whom?
NAN: snicker … he probably hasn’t found the answer in any of the books he’s read,
LEE: For all practical purposes “when, where and to whom” Jesus first appeared doesn’t matter.
The gospels record that Jesus of Nazareth was bodily raised from the dead; as Johnny Carson used, to say, “If you buy the premise, you buy the bit,” thus if you can accept that Jesus was raised from the dead, to then object to it based on who saw him first and where is just silly, and is totally missing the forest for the trees.
The main focus of the resurrection narratives is not who saw him first, when, and where but that Jesus was resurrected. To obsesses over minutiae is to miss the whole point.
You and Gary seem to want to take the gospel authors to task for not writing history like a modern, 21st century historian would, thereby answering all questions and tying everything up neatly in a bow. But is that fair? We might as well accuse Thucydides of being a slipshod historian when it comes to the Peloponnesian War because he doesn’t answer every question a modern historian would ask. In other words, you have to judge the gospels by what was accepted historiography in* their day, *not yours.
And as I’ve argued ad nauseum to Gary, since nobody in Jesus’ band was expecting a resurrection, let alone a death preceding that resurrection, it strains credulity to think that Jesus’ disciples would purposely invent or hallucinate an event totally at odds with what they’d been taught for 300 years to expect, one that that was calculated to turn observant Jews off. And yet insisted that this what happened, knowing people (Jews and pagans) would find the very idea ludicrous.
Finally, as I keep saying, the fact that women were cited as the first witnesses to the resurrection is very strong evidence that they weren’t just making this stuff up.
Pax.
Lee.
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Now you are contradicting yourself. If the early Christians had a significant percentage of educated, middle and upper class members, they should have written down the date and details of the greatest event in human history! If they were all uneducated, illiterate country bumpkins then maybe we can forgive their inability to remember this event. So which is it? You can’t have it both ways.
Just admit it, Lee: Nothing is going to convince you that your comforting superstition is false.
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GARY: Now you are contradicting yourself. If the early Christians had a significant percentage of educated, middle and upper class members, they should have written down the date and details of the greatest event in human history! If they were all uneducated, illiterate country bumpkins then maybe we can forgive their inability to remember this event. So which is it? You can’t have it both ways.
LEE: Gary can you really not understand that the approach the ancients took to writing history is much different than ours? You cannot hold ancient laymen guilty for not writing like modern historians!
As for the “date and the details,” they give us those, or enough to satisfy 1st century readers. You just hafta pay attention. We know the date or the approximate date based on the reign of Herod, the administration of Pilate, and the tenure of Caiaphas as High Priest. We’ve thus got a much better date for Jesus’ execution than we do for lots of other. more modern, historical events.
Pax.
Lee.
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I didn’t ask about the date of the crucifixion. I asked about the details of Jesus’ first alleged post-death appearance. Where did it occur? When did it occur? To whom did it occur? The fact that the first appearance listed in each Gospel and the Early Creed is different is strong evidence that the appearance stories are legendary.
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GARY: I didn’t ask about the date of the crucifixion. I asked about the details of Jesus’ first alleged post-death appearance. Where did it occur? When did it occur? To whom did it occur? The fact that the first appearance listed in each Gospel and the Early Creed is different is strong evidence that the appearance stories are legendary.
LEE: You didn’t answer my question; are you aware that the approach to history of ancient authors was much different from our modern approach?
Pax.
Lee.
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It is complete nonsense to suggest that educated Romans could remember the birth dates and death dates of their emperors but educated Christians could not remember the details of the first appearance of their resurrected Lord and Savior, the Creator God of the universe.
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Lee: the fact that women were cited as the first witnesses to the resurrection is very strong evidence that they weren’t just making this stuff up.
Gary: You are confusing legend with myth. I am not claiming that the Gospels are myths. I am claiming that they are legends: some truth mixed with a lot of fiction. It is entirely possible that the empty tomb was found by women.
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2023/03/24/christian-apologists-distort-sherwin-whites-statements-on-legendary-development-in-antiquity/
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No, I don’t “want to take the gospel authors to task”. What disturbs me is that so many seem to think/feel the Bible itself needs to be “interpreted.” As I wrote in the closing of my first chapter (on the bible):
“To truly understand the Bible, it needs to be read through the eyes of the culture for which it was originally written. Trying to project back into its pages later developments and/or interpretations frequently misconstrues the meaning and message the authors sought to convey. Bible readers of today live in circumstances that could not have been imagined by the original writers.”
What I found time and again in my book research was personal opinion by various individuals in their attempts to substantiate –or refute — what various scriptures meant. Certainly this is a common approach but, IMO, to use it as validation (one way or the other) to “prove” the bible accomplishes little.
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Jesus (as he is known via the NT) was not “official Jewish” teaching either.
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These authors represent the modern mainstream Evangelical Christian consensus on the subject.
Ha! That is exactly your problem. Evangelical scholars and historians such as Michael Licona, Ricard Bauckham, Gary Habermas, and William Lane Craig are hopelessly biased. I could care less what the consensus of EVANGELICAL scholars is. I suggest your get out of your evangelical bubble. Have you ever read Roman Catholic scholar Raymond Brown’s “The Death of the Messiah”?
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GARY: Ha! That is exactly your problem. Evangelical scholars and historians such as Michael Licona, Ricard Bauckham, Gary Habermas, and William Lane Craig are hopelessly biased. I could care less what the consensus of EVANGELICAL scholars is. I suggest your get out of your evangelical bubble. Have you ever read Roman Catholic scholar Raymond Brown’s “The Death of the Messiah”?
LEE: Gary your stock answer is that Evangelical scholars because they’re Evangelical scholars are biased. You should have that slogan printed on tee-shirts and towels.
This is the great skeptic argument that will topple 2,000 of Christian theology?
You haven’t yet conclusively demonstrated the bias of any of them yet. Just sayin’ it’s so don’t make it so.
As for Fr. Brown, I am reading his Birth of the Messiah but I don’t have his Death of the Messiah. What makes Richard Bauckham biased but not Raymond Brown?
I have, however, read NT Wright’s The Resurrection of the Son of God, which dialogues with every major Protestant, Catholic and secular scholar on the resurrection. You claim to have read (you cite it in your bibliography) but I wouldn’t know you’d read it from any of your comments.
Pax.
Lee.
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I respect NT Wright’s research. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I did not detect blatant bias in the “Resurrection of the Son of God” when I read it. His approach was reasoned and rational. His basic premise was that he doubted that any first century Jew, Roman, or Greek would invent a single person’s resurrection out of thin air. Only seeing a resurrected body would have convinced them of this. But unlike you, he doesn’t say it is impossible.
Richard Bauckham’s methodology is not reasoned and rational. He assumes that first century Jews would never allow their oral traditions to be embellished. He assumes that when a character is named in a given story within the Gospels, that that person was designated by the early Church to maintain the accuracy of that story until the evangelists wrote them down. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions with no good evidence to support them. However, after making those assumptions, he goes on to contradict himself by presenting examples in the Gospel of Matthew which he believes the author of this Gospel (who he does not believe was the apostle Matthew) invented out of thin air!
Raymond Brown does not contradict himself. He is consistently reasonable and rational. He supports the traditional Christian view if the evidence supports it and rejects the traditional Christian view if the evidence does not support it. That is the kind of scholarship I respect, regardless of whether or not the scholar is Christian or not. I reject the scholarship of Bauckham and Licona for the same reason I reject the scholarship of Robert Price (atheist mythicist): bias!
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GARY: Richard Bauckham’s methodology is not reasoned and rational. He assumes that first century Jews would never allow their oral traditions to be embellished. He assumes that when a character is named in a given story within the Gospels, that that person was designated by the early Church to maintain the accuracy of that story until the evangelists wrote them down. Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions with no good evidence to support them. However, after making those assumptions, he goes on to contradict himself by presenting examples in the Gospel of Matthew which he believes the author of this Gospel (who he does not believe was the apostle Matthew) invented out of thin air!
LEE: Gary, you do know that NT Wright gave Bauckham’s book Jesus and the Eyewitnesses a ringing endorsement, don’t you? No? You should if you’ve read it. But let me remind you what Wright said. This is his blurb from the book-jacket:
“The question of whether the Gospels are based on eyewitness accounts has long been controversial. Richard Bauckham, in a characteristic tour de force, draws on his unparalleled knowledge of the world of the first Christians to argue not only that the Gospels do indeed contain eyewitness testimony but that their first readers would certainly have recognized them as such. This book is a remarkable piece of detective work, resulting in a fresh and vivid approach to dozens, perhaps hundreds, of well-known problems and passages.”
Did you catch that? Wright called Bauckham’s book a “remarkable piece of detective work” and a “tour de force.”
Pax.
Lee.
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I don’t care what Wright says about someone else. Wright has never made such silly, unfounded claims in his own books.
Christians can’t tell us the details of the first Jesus appearance because the appearance stories in the Gospels do not detail historical events. They are theological inventions. That doesn’t mean that no one claimed to have received an appearance of Jesus. I believe that they probably did. But the details of these alleged sightings are lost. So for all we know, all these sightings involved bright lights…and that is all.
Protest all you want, but it is entirely possible that every Jesus sighting involved people seeing bright lights and thinking it was an appearance of the divine. I can’t prove this is the case but you cannot prove it is not.
We will have to agree to disagree, my Christian friend. 🙂
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GARY: I don’t care what Wright says about someone else. Wright has never made such silly, unfounded claims in his own books.
LEE: Statements like this are why it’s really hard to take you seriously.
“Unfounded!” Really! Have you even read the book? I’m not sure you have. I’d send you mine if I thought you’d read it.
Pax.
Lee.
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You are so thoroughly brainwashed, my friend. You cannot see how illogical you really are. It is very sad.
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GARY: Protest all you want, but it is entirely possible that every Jesus sighting involved people seeing bright lights and thinking it was an appearance of the divine. I can’t prove this is the case but you cannot prove it is not.
LEE: And again, I can’t prove that Elvis shot JFK but you can’t prove he didn’t, so that makes Elvis a good suspect to be the second gunman on the grassy knoll?
Pax.
Lee.
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It is much more plausible that Elvis was the second gunman on the grassy knoll than that a first century delusional Jewish peasant is the resurrected from the dead creator of the universe.
Your thinking is delusional, my friend. I am not going to debate you any further on any subject upon which the majority of experts have not reached a consensus. Give me consensus expert opinion and we can talk, but don’t give me any more consensus evangelical opinion. I’m not interested in their biased opinions.
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GARY: Give me consensus expert opinion and we can talk, but don’t give me any more consensus evangelical opinion. I’m not interested in their biased opinions.
LEE: A consensus can be wrong. It was once the consensus that outer space was filled with “luminiferous ether” but now we know space is a vacuum.
Pax.
Lee.
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Your mindset is that of poorly educated conspiracy theorists. Most university educated people in the West accept consensus expert opinion on all issues about which they themselves are not experts. Period.
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GARY: Your mindset is that of poorly educated conspiracy theorists. Most university educated people in the West accept consensus expert opinion on all issues about which they themselves are not experts. Period.
LEE: I go with the majority consensus when I think, based on the evidence, that it’s right. Otherwise I’ve never been one to let an “expert” do my thinking for me, unless he/she’s my doctor, IT guy, or auto mechanic.
As I said, majorities are often wrong. Besides, the majority of practicing academic NT scholars are nowhere near as schizophrenic about the reliability of the gospels as you are. The idea that all or most Evangelical scholars are biased hacks only out to earn a paycheck (for example, Richard Bauckham) is just silly.
Total objectivity is both impossible and unnecessary.
Pax..
Lee.
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What would happen to your life if you abandoned Christianity? Would it affect your personal relationships?
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GARY: Christians can’t tell us the details of the first Jesus appearance because the appearance stories in the Gospels do not detail historical events.
LEE: Gary, you’re holding the ancient evangelists guilty for not writing like modern historians; this isn’t fair and severely weakens your case against the reliability of the resurrection accounts
To keep insisting that Mark (or whoever), writing in ca. 65-70, should’ve answered every objection a 21st century skeptic would raise is silly.
You might as well hold medieval physicians guilty for not curing the plague because they didn’t understand germ theory.
Pax.
Lee.
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Baloney.
Even many Christian scholars question the historicity of the Appearance Stories. So it isn’t just me and my anti-supernatural biases.
Please present a reliable, trust-worthy source which states that there is scholarly consensus that legends could not develop in Antiquity until hundreds of years after the event in question, and then we can talk. Don’t bother quoting Lee Strobel and William Lane Craig’s distorted interpretation of Sherwin-White’s research.
https://lutherwasnotbornagaincom.wordpress.com/2023/03/24/christian-apologists-distort-sherwin-whites-statements-on-legendary-development-in-antiquity/
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GARY: Please present a reliable, trust-worthy source which states that there is scholarly consensus that legends could not develop in Antiquity until hundreds of years after the event in question, and then we can talk.
LEE: I didn’t say no legends could develop quickly in antiquity; what I said was, that for the kinds of legends you claim the gospels invented regarding Jesus (miracles; resurrection; etc.) to develop takes several centuries. A case in point being the legends which accrued to the biography of Alexander the Great.
Richard Baukham, the late Martin Hengel and the late Larry Hurtado all published material demonstrating that the “legends” about Jesus such as his being God incarnate and his resurrection began circulating very early; the academic consensus is that the creedal statement Paul cites in I Corinthians 15:3-7 regarding the resurrection began circulating within just a few years of Jesus’ death. So within a mere 5-8 years, after Jesus’ death, the early church was worshipping him as God and claiming he was resurrected.
If you don’t believe me, look it up. You’re the well-read skeptic, after all. ; )
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Richard Baukham, the late Martin Hengel and the late Larry Hurtado all published material demonstrating that the “legends” about Jesus such as his being God incarnate and his resurrection began circulating very early; the academic consensus is that the creedal statement Paul cites in I Corinthians 15:3-7 regarding the resurrection began circulating within just a few years of Jesus’ death. So within a mere 5-8 years, after Jesus’ death, the early church was worshipping him as God and claiming he was resurrected.
Gary: I am not questioning if the early Christians believed that Jesus had been resurrected. I am not questioning that some of Jesus’ disciples believed that he had appeared to them (in some fashion). What I question is the historicity of the detailed Appearance Stories found only in Matthew, Luke, and John.
I am asserting that these stories are quite possibly legendary: stories that contain some truth and some fiction. For instance, consider the hypothetical scenario in which one of the disciples had a vivid day dream of Jesus while traveling on the Emmaus Road and this vivid daydream eventually developed into the Emmaus Road appearance to two disciples who eventually eat lunch with Jesus. Can you agree that this is at least possible?
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GARY: I am asserting that these stories are quite possibly legendary: stories that contain some truth and some fiction. For instance, consider the hypothetical scenario in which one of the disciples had a vivid day dream of Jesus while traveling on the Emmaus Road and this vivid daydream eventually developed into the Emmaus Road appearance to two disciples who eventually eat lunch with Jesus. Can you agree that this is at least possible?
LEE: Yes, but about as probable as me voting for Joe Biden. Which is to say, not very.
But what does your side “win” if I acknowledge the possible, but very low probability that the Emmaus Road disciples hallucinated Jesus? It’s again, like admitting it’s possible that Elvis was the second gunman on the grassy knoll; it’s so improbable that no serious student of the JFK assassination would seriously consider it.
The Emmaus disciples (like the rest of Jesus’ disciples) are portrayed in this account as clueless and ignorant about Jesus’ death and resurrection; why would the early church purposely record a story which made these people look foolish for not recognizing Jesus and especially not believing he’d been resurrected?
And you still haven’t answered what would cause their minds to jump from “death: he obviously wasn’t the messiah, let’s all go home and hope we don’t get killed, too” to “death: none of us expected it but he must’ve been resurrected, now let’s take on the Jewish and Roman authorities.” What would convince them to even consider a resurrection under these conditions? Don’t people normally hallucinate something they’re already predisposed to believe in, rather than something they never believed in or expected?
No, Gary, your hypothesis reads like the desperate attempt of a skeptic who’s admitted he’s compelled to follow the scholarly consensus that the tomb really was empty, yet cannot bring himself to consider resurrection as the best explanation. You’re thus forced to offer these possible but extremely unlikely counter-explanations. And I sincerely mean it when I say that you really do sound desperate here.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: But what does your side “win” if I acknowledge the possible, but very low probability that the Emmaus Road disciples hallucinated Jesus?
Gary: If you can admit that a natural explanation is possible for every supernatural claim in your belief system, this is the first step in the process of realizing that supernatural claims are highly improbable.
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GARY: If you can admit that a natural explanation is possible for every supernatural claim in your belief system, this is the first step in the process of realizing that supernatural claims are highly improbable.
LEE: Gary, you aren’t seeing what I’m saying. I’m saying your natural alternative explanations, while possible, are actually more improbable than the gospels’ supernatural explanations. So no, it isn’t the first step to some kind of rational worldview; your argument above is irrational.
Again, it’s theoretically possible that the CIA hired Elvis Presley to assassinate JFK, thus framing Lee Harvey Oswald, but how likely is it?
So just saying something’s possible means nothing. History doesn’t operate on the possible, but the probable.
Because I don’t have a prior commitment to materialism I haven’t painted myself into a corner the way you have.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee. I said the same exact things when I was a devout Christian. Deconversion is a long process. You are only at the beginning.
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Natural explanations are MORE IMPROBABLE than supernatural explanations????!!!??
Oh. My. Gawd.
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Lee: The Emmaus disciples (like the rest of Jesus’ disciples) are portrayed in this account as clueless and ignorant about Jesus’ death and resurrection; why would the early church purposely record a story which made these people look foolish for not recognizing Jesus and especially not believing he’d been resurrected?
Gary: Most legends have a kernel of truth to them. Remember, a legend is very different from a myth. A myth is 100% fiction, a legend is a core of truth mixed with a lot of fiction. It is entirely possible that a disciple or two disciples of Jesus were on the Emmaus Road when a bright light suddenly appeared to them. Maybe at first they ignored it, but only after the light was gone did they “realize” it was an appearance of a divine spirit. Then with legendary development, as the story was told and retold over decades, the light became a visible person and the appearance extended to include a lunch of bread and wine.
Lee: No, Gary, your hypothesis reads like the desperate attempt of a skeptic who’s admitted he’s compelled to follow the scholarly consensus that the tomb really was empty, yet cannot bring himself to consider resurrection as the best explanation. You’re thus forced to offer these possible but extremely unlikely counter-explanations. And I sincerely mean it when I say that you really do sound desperate here.
Gary: I only sound desperate to you and other Christians. Most of the world’s Jews agree with me. Why do you think that is, Lee?
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GARY: Remember, a legend is very different from a myth. A myth is 100% fiction, a legend is a core of truth mixed with a lot of fiction. It is entirely possible that a disciple or two disciples of Jesus were on the Emmaus Road when a bright light suddenly appeared to them. Maybe at first they ignored it, but only after the light was gone did they “realize” it was an appearance of a divine spirit. Then with legendary development, as the story was told and retold over decades, the light became a visible person and the appearance extended to include a lunch of bread and wine.
LEE: First off, your definition of myth is off. According to Webster’s online, the definition of myth is:
“a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon”
Webster’s defines legend as:
“a story coming down from the past; especially : one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable.”
Secondly, these men ate a meal with Jesus: how many people do you know who’ve ever eaten a meal with a “bright light” which turned out to be a ghost?
Besides which, as I keeping having to remind you, these disciples were not predisposed to see lights, or ghosts, let alone resurrected messiahs.
If they hallucinated anything it would’ve been that Jesus has escaped from the Romans before they could execute him and was waiting on his chance to make war on them.
GARY: I only sound desperate to you and other Christians. Most of the world’s Jews agree with me. Why do you think that is, Lee?
LEE: Because as I keep saying, and saying (and saying), Orthodox Jews don’t believe the resurrection, despite being theists, because they believe that Yeshua was a false teacher who sought to lead Israel astray, thus, such a *false prophet could not be resurrected by God; it should thus come as no surprise to* anyone that Jews prefer natural explanations for his alleged resurrection. The Talmud argued that Jesus practiced sorcery thus was not likely to be on YHWH’s “first to be raised from the dead,” list.”
Of all the modern=day Jewish sects only the Messianic “Jews for Jesus” accept Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Secondly, these men ate a meal with Jesus: how many people do you know who’ve ever eaten a meal with a “bright light” which turned out to be a ghost?
Gary: So the “story” says. Just because an ancient tale says X doesn’t mean X really happened. You are being naive and gullible, my friend.
Lee: Of all the modern=day Jewish sects only the Messianic “Jews for Jesus” accept Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
Gary: Jews for Jesus are not Jews, according to Jews. Jews say Jesus was a fraud. Jews say the Resurrection Story has very plausible, natural explanations. Stop making up ad hoc excuses for not accepting the truth.
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GARY: Gary: Jews for Jesus are not Jews, according to Jews. Jews say Jesus was a fraud. Jews say the Resurrection Story has very plausible, natural explanations. Stop making up ad hoc excuses for not accepting the truth.
LEE: Were the Sadducees Jews? Because they only accepted the Torah and not the rest of what we call the Old Testament, the Writings and the Prophets, and, furthermore, rejected any idea of an afterlife and colluded with the Romans? The Sadducees would argue that the Pharisees were apostate for believing in the Writings and the Prophets as well as the idea of a Messiah.
Were the Essenes Jews? Because they believed that all of mainstream, institutional Judaism was apostate, thus refused to offer sacrifices in the Temple. These guys argued that everyone but them were apostate.
Was Philo of Alexandria Jewish, seeing as how he attempted to harmonize Platonic philosophy with Judaism?
And just who decides anyway?
Pax.
Lee.
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Would you consider the story of Matthew’s calling by Jesus as one of the Twelve an important oral tradition?
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Gary, you’re like a broken record. Whether Bauckham agrees that the tradition of Matthew’s calling is genuine or not has no bearing on my overall argument.
Maybe I’ll read that chapter again and maybe I’ll post something on it.
But again, it doesn’t affect my overall argument.
Pax.
Lee.
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Oh yes it does! It has a great deal of bearing on your claim that first century Jews did not allow fictional material into their oral traditions. You are appealing to Bauckham as your principal authority on this issue. Yet, Bauckham says that the author of Matthew invented the apostle Matthew’s calling to be an apostle, totally blowing a huge hole in your argument. Fictional material exists in the Gospels, according to Richard Bauckham!
But of course you don’t want to talk about it!
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Are the Jehovah Witnesses Christians? Are the Mormons Christians? Are the Muslims Christians? And just who decides anyway?
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Curious … since the Jewish people were actually the first “God-fearers” and had been given a pretty explicit description of what their Messiah would be, why do you think they rejected Yeshua? Why would they be swayed by Paul and his gang to believe that his “vision” was more accurate than what Yahweh had given them?
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NAN: Curious … since the Jewish people were actually the first “God-fearers” and had been given a pretty explicit description of what their Messiah would be, why do you think they rejected Yeshua? Why would they be swayed by Paul and his gang to believe that his “vision” was more accurate than what Yahweh had given them?
LEE: A better question would be what caused Sha’ul of Tarusus, a conservative, Shammaite Pharisee not above using violence to safeguard Judaism from the heretic Yeshua, what would cause him to sign on with the very sect he had been trying zealously to eradicate?
Further, what caused Jesus’ brother/half-brother James to convert? The gospels portray James and the rest of Jesus’ family as believing he “was out of his mind” (Mk 3:21). So how do you explain James’ conversion, such that Josephus and other chroniclers tells us he was martyred.
Pax.
Lee.
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No … not a better question, but to answer: Paul had a “vision” — and that’s all he needed (same as some believers today) — and it seems James had one as well. And boy! Those visions will really get you!
Now … answer my question.
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Lee has been cornered. Good job.
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NAN: No … not a better question, but to answer: Paul had a “vision” — and that’s all he needed (same as some believers today) — and it seems James had one as well. And boy! Those visions will really get you!
LEE: .Arguing that the Shammaite Pharisee Saul of Tarsus had a 350 degree turnaround based solely upon some nebulous “vision” of a “heavenly light” doesn’t fit the facts.
Jews had a religious vocabulary for dreams and visions which neither Luke nor Paul use to describe what Saul saw and heard. Talking lights? Besides which, Pharisees in particular were interested in the Messiah, who was decidedly not supposed to be a “vision,” but a flesh-and-blood person who would vindicate Israel. A “heavenly light” leading the armies of Israel against the Roman garrison at Caesarea?
NAN: Now … answer my question.
LEE: Yes mam! Which one, the one about whether the Watchtower, LDS Church and Islam are Christian?
Okay. Firstly, I don’t know why you included Muslims in your list, seeing as how they aren’t Christians by anyone’s definition (although they hold Jesus to be a prophet he wasn’t crucified and resurrected because a prophet of Allah can’t be killed).
As for Mormons and JWs they “broadly” fall under the umbrella of “Christian,” because they hold to some of the basic tenets however since the LDS Church is polytheistic and the Watchtower doesn’t believe in the Trinity , that classifies them as heterodox.
Thus, all the groups I referenced earlier are broadly speaking, Jewish.
Pax.
Lee.
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“With this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests, 13 when at midday along the road, Your Excellency,[c] I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions. 14 When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew[d] language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’ 15 I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. 16 But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me[e] and to those in which I will appear to you. 17 I will rescue you from your people and from the gentiles—to whom I am sending you 18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’
19 “After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision
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I see Gary has adequately responded to your claim related to Paul’s vision. And I’d like to point out that his response is from the BIBLE, which is the core essence of Christian belief — NOT the various apologists that find such joy in “interpreting” the Word.
Oh yes . I figured that would be your reply related to who is Christian and who isn’t. I find it interesting that you (and others) believe you have the authority to determine this.
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Lee: And you still haven’t answered what would cause their minds to jump from “death: he obviously wasn’t the messiah, let’s all go home and hope we don’t get killed, too” to “death: none of us expected it but he must’ve been resurrected, now let’s take on the Jewish and Roman authorities.” What would convince them to even consider a resurrection under these conditions? Don’t people normally hallucinate something they’re already predisposed to believe in, rather than something they never believed in or expected?
Gary: Resurrection was a Jewish concept. Why would a small group of first century messianic Jews come to believe that their a dead messiah pretender was still the messiah, and a resurrected messiah at that? Answer: An empty tomb, perceived appearances, mixed with cognitive dissonance. You don’t believe the jump to “resurrection” is plausible but modern Jews say it is. I will go with the opinion of modern Jews over your opinion, Lee.
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GARY: Resurrection was a Jewish concept. Why would a small group of first century messianic Jews come to believe that their a dead messiah pretender was still the messiah, and a resurrected messiah at that? An empty tomb, perceived appearances, mixed with cognitive dissonance. You don’t believe the jump to “resurrection” is plausible but modern Jews say it is. I will go with the opinion of modern Jews over your opinion, Lee.
LEE: As I initially pointed out last week after you posted that article by “modern Jews,” there are lots of mistakes and false assumptions in that article. Just because a “modern Jew” claims to be an expert on first century, Second Temple Messianic resurrection beliefs does not make him/her one. However I cited Prof. Amy-Jill Levine, who is both an observant Jews and an expert on Second Temple Messianic Jewish beliefs on resurrection, says your hypothesis is extremely unlikely.
A. An empty tomb would only cause these people to theorize that Jesus’ body had either been moved or stolen. And the gospels posit Jesus’ disciples arguing that his body was moved (the women) and the Sanhedrin attempting to bribe the Roman guards into claiming it’d been stolen by the disciples. So according to the gospels, on Easter morning nobody at first knew where his body was.
B. None of Jesus’ disciples were expecting Jesus to “appear” to them in any fashion, thus you need to explain how/why an empty tomb would automatically cause them to go from A to B in this case.
C. “Cognitive dissonance” would have caused them to hallucinate that Jesus had escaped from the Romans before he could be executed and was just waiting for his chance to strike. It would not cause them to hallucinate anything they weren’t predisposed to believe already.
Pax.
Lee..
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Your arguments are desperate and irrational. How would your life change if you had to admit that Christianity is false? Dramatically, I would bet. You are too emotionally invested in this issue, Lee, to be rational.
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GARY: Oh yes it does! It has a great deal of bearing on your claim that first century Jews did not allow fictional material into their oral traditions. You are appealing to Bauckham as your principal authority on this issue. Yet, Bauckham says that the author of Matthew invented the apostle Matthew’s calling to be an apostle, totally blowing a huge hole in your argument. Fictional material exists in the Gospels, according to Richard Bauckham!
LEE: I did not cite Baukham as my “principal authority” on oral tradition. I cited several anthropologists and NT scholars whose case studies Eddy & Boyd cite in their book (including Baukham, whom they cite numerous times and who wrote a very positive blub for the book).
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Nobody, least of all, me, is saying that ancient Jews never circulated rumors or spread inaccurate information. What I am saying, what everyone, including NT scholar, [Richard] Bauckham would agree with, is that important oral tradition was passed on accurately.
Gary: Now you are saying you are not using Bauckham as an authority on this subject?? Are you delirious or just lying? Bauckham statements on the calling of Matthew clearly demonstrates that your position is BS!
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Gary, you’re making more out of this than is warranted.
All Bauckham is saying is that whoever wrote the gospel of Matthew knew that Matthew was a tax collector but himself didn’t know the precise details of Matthew’s call by Jesus thus “borrowed” the call of Levi from MK’s account of the tax collector Levi’s calling, which he felt was generic enough to fit Matthew as well.
However Bauckham need not be right here. He himself admits his view is just a theory, albeit one he thinks is the most plausible. But it’s possible that Levi was Matthew’s original name and that like Simon, who was given the name Cephas, or “Rock” by Jesus, Levi was given the name Matthew by Jesus.
Regardless, Bauckham still believes that the gospels fairly accurately recorded oral history which was passed on by eyewitnesses. His theory regarding Matthew’s call doesn’t invalidate the argument that overall, oral societies like the one which produced the gospels were accurately able to pass on sacred tradition. It doesn’t mean they were infallible, just that, more often than not, especially in the Jewish context, they got it right.
Now it’s time for you to tell me how I’m completely wrong in everything I just said. Cue Gary:
Wait for it . . .
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Regardless, Bauckham still believes that the gospels fairly accurately recorded oral history which was passed on by eyewitnesses.
Gary: Ok, so now you have downgraded your position from very accurately preserved to fairly accurately preserved. Excellent. Now we are making headway! You have admitted that some embellishments exist in the Gospels. Excellent!
Are you aware that most scholars believe that the Story of the Woman Caught in Adultery was not in the original gospel? Someone, probably a scribe, added this entire story to the Gospel. It is entirely possible that this story is 100% fiction. Is adding an entire story to the original gospel another example of “fairly accurately” maintaining the integrity of the original??
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GARY: Are you aware that most scholars believe that the Story of the Woman Caught in Adultery was not in the original gospel?
LEE: Gary, this isn’t news to anyone (expect maybe one or two skeptics)! Most modern Bible translations, such as the NRSV (which is the trans. I normally use), will tell you it’s a textual variant in the footnotes:
8.11 The most ancient authorities lack 7.53–8.11; other authorities add the passage here or after 7.36 or after 21.25 or after Luke 21.38, with variations of text; some mark the passage as doubtful. (NRSV at John 8)
The early Church Fathers knew it was a textual variant 1200 years ago and it didn’t bother them, either.
So what? Accurately transmitting oral tradition and recording said tradition in a gospel or letter are two different endeavors. The argument here is the reliability of oral tradition. That story could very well be accurate oral tradition which some scribe felt
John notes that at the end of his gospel that he didn’t include every saying or action of about Jesus that he could have. The gospels obviously edit and arrange their materials.
Just because these verses may not have been in John’s original gospel, doesn’t mean the event itself never happened. It reads very like something that could’ve happened.
Pax.
Lee.
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The point is that someone added a story to the original oral narrative about Jesus and the Church had no problem with it. If someone can add a potentially fictional story to a written text, how much more easy would it be to add a fictional story to an oral tradition.
You claim that first century peoples accurately maintained their oral traditions. Yet your only proof is a couple of modern studies whose impartiality is questionable. We have EVIDENCE from the first century that Christians had no problem adding fictitious stories to their tradition (John’s Story of the Woman Caught in Adultery). If a scribe can add a story to the Gospel of John, and the Church accepts it as Holy Scripture, why couldn’t the author of John have invented the stories of Lazarus and Doubting Thomas?
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GARY: The point is that someone added a story to the original oral narrative about Jesus and the Church had no problem with it. If someone can add a potentially fictional story to a written text, how much more easy would it be to add a fictional story to an oral tradition.
LEE: We don’t know this is what happened. It’s only one scholar’s theory–one who, in every other particular you write off as an evangelical hack. But on this issue he’s suddenly the vaunted expert simply because he agrees with you!
GARY: Yet your only proof is a couple of modern studies whose impartiality is questionable.
LEE: Do you ever actually read anything anyone else says?
Because the studies Eddy & Boyd cite by: Thorleif Boman; Leander Keck; Joanna Dewey; Lauri Honko; Egbert Bakker; Jo Miles Foley; Paul Ricouer; Jens Schroeter; John Niles; Peter Botha; Stephen Hultgen; Richard Dorson; Patrick Pender-Cudlip; Joseph Miller; Annikki Kaivola-Bregenhoj hardly constitute just “a couple of modern studies.”
And you don’t know that these scholars’ impartiality is questionable. You’ve never even heard of most of these people. You only say that because they support a position you don’t. Anyone who disagrees with you has “questionable integrity.”
Honestly man, I wish you could see/hear yourself.
Pax.
Lee.
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How do you know that Matthew was a tax collector?
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GARY: The point is that someone added a story to the original oral narrative about Jesus and the Church had no problem with it.
LEE: The early church fathers recognized the story was not in every copy of John they possessed however it had a long tradition of being accepted by the 5th century when Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine cited it.
Many modern Evangelical Christians believe the text is noncanonical thus should not be preached. My best friend is a pastor in San Francisco and he won’t preach from it because of it’s “murky” status.
That being said, as I noted above, the story doesn’t violate anything else in scripture and certainly sounds like something Jesus could’ve said. And as I’ll note below, it has a long tradition in the church and may be authentic oral tradition.
GARY: If someone can add a potentially fictional story to a written text, how much more easy would it be to add a fictional story to an oral tradition.
You claim that first century peoples accurately maintained their oral traditions. Yet your only proof is a couple of modern studies whose impartiality is questionable. We have EVIDENCE from the first century that Christians had no problem adding fictitious stories to their tradition (John’s Story of the Woman Caught in Adultery).
LEE: Gary, first off, this isn’t a first century problem. The earliest appearance of this episode in copies of the NT dates to the Greek-Latin Codex Bezae of ca. 400 AD; so if it was added, it was added long after the first century. Long after the original NT eyewitnesses and tradents had died. So you can’t blame the original first-century eyewitnesses and tradents for some anonymous scribe(s) adding this story 300 years later. You probably will anyway, but there’s no cause to do so.
that being said, the 3rd c. AD Didascalia Apostolorum references this story so it may well represent early oral tradition that wound up being included in later copies of John.
GARY: If a scribe can add a story to the Gospel of John, and the Church accepts it as Holy Scripture, why couldn’t the author of John have invented the stories of Lazarus and Doubting Thomas?
LEE: I’ll tackle “doubting Thomas” first. That story most likely wasn’t made up because it violates the embarrassment criterion of historiography. This rule states that normally people don’t purposely tell lies or make up stories that could damage their credibility. So why would the author of John purposely create a story, which portrayed Thomas (and all the other disciples) in such a bad light by a) not understanding Jesus’ predictions of his impending death and resurrection b) doubting his resurrection until they could actually see and touch him?
As for the Lazarus story it is firmly grounded in history, referencing real people and places. Were this a lie, all critics would’ve had to do was ask around; Bethany wasn’t that big a place, after all, and everyone there would know whether Lazarus was still dead or not.
Pax.
Lee.
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The Gospel of John was not written until near the end of the first century. Where was it written and first circulated? If it were written in Rome or Asia Minor, when would it have arrived to the Christians living in Bethany?? Who knows. But by that time, circa 110 CE, everyone alive during the lifetime of Jesus would probably be dead. So there would be no one to fact check this story.
The assumption that no embellishments to the Jesus Story would have been allowed due to eyewitnesses fact-checking the Gospels is baseless and silly.
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GARY: The Gospel of John was not written until near the end of the first century. Where was it written and first circulated? If it were written in Rome or Asia Minor, when would it have arrived to the Christians living in Bethany?? Who knows. But by that time, circa 110 CE, everyone alive during the lifetime of Jesus would probably be dead. So there would be no one to fact check this story.
LEE: “Where?”; When?”; “If”; “Who knows?; Probably”
That’s a lot of uncertainties there, my friend.
Bauckham makes a compelling case that eyewitnesses (John and Aristion) were still alive during the time of Papias. Regardless, a mere 80 years is plenty of time for people to remember significant historical events. A mere 80 years isn’t enough time for people, especially in a culture with safeguards in place to ensure the passing down of accurate history, to completely forget. People alive when JFK was shot–60 years ago!–can still remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. And we’re not as good at remembering as the ancients were!
Pax.
Lee.
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“Where?”; When?”; “If”; “Who knows?; Probably”
Sounds very much like most discussions between believers and non-believers.
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I am more than willing to agree that it is certainly possible that people living 60 years after Jesus’ death could remember events during his lifetime, and if some of those eyewitnesses had observed Lazarus’ “resurrection”, they would be able to fact-check the Gospels.
But can you agree that it is possible that: 1.) All eyewitnesses to the events in Jesus’ life were dead by 100 CE. (There had been a devastating war in Palestine in the last half of the first century. Tens of thousands of people were killed. 2.) Even if there were eyewitnesses available to fact-check the Gospels, no one ever gave them the opportunity to do so. 3.) Even if eyewitnesses did fact-check the Gospels, the Church was not willing to amend the Gospels because the stories served a more important purpose than relaying accurate history: they stirred people to believe!
Bottom line: Can you admit that it is possible that many of the stories in the Gospels contain significant embellishments (fiction), regardless of how improbable you believe this possibility to be?
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GARY: But can you agree that it is possible that: 1.) All eyewitnesses to the events in Jesus’ life were dead by 100 CE. (There had been a devastating war in Palestine in the last half of the first century. Tens of thousands of people were killed. 2.)
LEE: Some eyewitnesses? Yes. All eyewitnesses? No. Because many Christians lived in the Diaspora, not in Palestine.
GARY: Even if eyewitnesses did fact-check the Gospels, the Church was not willing to amend the Gospels because the stories served a more important purpose than relaying accurate history: they stirred people to believe!
LEE: This is pure conjecture. You’re making an unfounded assumption that evangelism and factual reporting are mutually exclusive. And you’re only making this unfounded assumption because it’s the gospels and not any other source.
Just because the gospels’ primary purpose was to “sir people to believe,” doesn’t mean they weren’t interested in reporting the facts. One big reason is because all four gospels, Paul and the rest of the NT insist that these events happened in actual, space-time history.
When you compare the Greco-Roman myths to the stories in the gospels they look nothing alike. Unlike the pagan myths, the gospel stories are firmly grounded in actual history.
Thus, evangelism and factual reporting are not mutually exclusive.
GARY: Bottom line: Can you admit that it is possible that many of the stories in the Gospels contain significant embellishments (fiction), regardless of how improbable you believe this possibility to be?
LEE: Even if I did, so what? That doesn’t make it any more likely to have happened. How does atheism score any points if admit this remote, unlikely possibility?
You’re certainly not scoring it any points by doggedly pushing me to; as I keep saying, continually doing so just makes you look desperate to disprove the reliability of the gospels at any cost.
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Unlike the pagan myths, the gospel stories are firmly grounded in actual history.
Gary: Name one detailed story in the Gospels which historians believe is an historically factual account.
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GARY: Name one detailed story in the Gospels which historians believe is an historically factual account.
LEE: As Bauckham writes in Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, “Historical rigor does not consist in fundamental skepticism toward historical testimony but in fundamental trust along with testing by critical questioning.”
This goes for all of history, including the gospels.
Why would the Gospels include actual historical events (the Passover, the Festival of Tabernacles, etc,), and historical individuals with high-ranking positions (Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas the high priest, Caesar Augustus, Tiberius Caesar) if they were writing mythology?
Legends or aren’t concerned with real-life details. In this case, the events and names in the gospels would have been easily subject to verification during the first century. Thus, the gospel authors meant to root their narratives in history.
In his prologue Luke tells us (or rather, Theophilus) that he’s attempting to write a factual narrative:
“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.”
Luke’s prologue is similar to historical prologues written by Greco-Roman and Jewish historians such as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Josephus. Luke uses diēgēsis, the Greek word for “narrative.” Greco-Roman authors typically used this word to specify “the writing of history.”
Several archaeological finds corroborate the reliability of the gospels:
The nineteenth-century discovery of the Pool of Bethesda mentioned in John 5.
The 1961 discovery in Caesarea of an inscription with Pontius Pilate’s name.
The 1961 discovery in Caesarea Maritima of a third-century mosaic that had the name “Nazareth” in it, the first known ancient nonbiblical reference.
Coins bearing the names of the Herodian dynasty: Herod the king, Herod the tetrarch of Galilee (who had John the Baptist murdered), Herod Agrippa I (who killed James Zebedee), and Herod Agrippa II (before whom Paul testified).
The 1990 discovery of an ossuary that had the Aramaic words “Joseph son of Caiaphas” inscribed on it.
The ossuary discovered near Jerusalem in 1968 that contained the bones of a first-century man who had been crucified, details of which confirm the Gospel narratives of Jesus’ crucifixion.
Pax.
Lee.
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We need to come to agreement about our definitions. Here are my definitions of myth and legend:
Myths, legends and folktales are all kinds of allegorical stories which were originally shared in spoken form. Myths are stories that are passed down about how or why something came to be. Legends are designed to teach a lesson about a real person in history, with some facts dramatically changed: King Arthur is an example of a legend. Although many historians agree that he existed as a Romano-British leader between the 5th and 6th century, stories about him pulling his sword Excalibur from a stone and so on are purely legends.
I do not believe that Jesus is a myth. I believe that he was a real person. However, I believe the detailed stories found in the Gospels may well be legends. They could be historical but since we do not have any non-Christian corroborating evidence for these alleged events, I am skeptical.
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Lee, Roman Britain was an oral culture. Do you believe as fact that King Arthur pulled a sword from a stone since that it is what the oral tradition states?
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NAN: I see Gary has adequately responded to your claim related to Paul’s vision. And I’d like to point out that his response is from the BIBLE, which is the core essence of Christian belief — NOT the various apologists that find such joy in “interpreting” the Word.
LEE: He didn’t “adequately respond” at all. There’s a big difference between the text and an interpretation of the text; they aren’t the same. Responsible Christians don’t just “recite” scripture at people. Any intelligent Christian knows that a text must be interpreted correctly.
Everyone interprets what they read every day of their lives every time they read (or hear for that matter) something.
Really, Nan, this is Christianity 101.
Notice carefully the words I’ve highlighted:
“I heard a VOICE saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’ “I asked, ‘WHO ARE YOU, LORD?’ THE LORD ANSWERED, ‘I AM JESUS WHOM YOU ARE PERSECUTING.'”*
How many sane people who see “lights in the sky” go on to have a conversation with them and call them “Lord”? Furthermore, the “lights” *talk back! In Hebrew, telling Saul “they” are Jesus!” That’s *some “vision”!
Saul was convinced that this “heavenly vision” was in some real sense a manifestation of Jesus. It would take more than some “lights in the sky” to convince a dedicated Shammaite Pharisee
NAN: Oh yes . I figured that would be your reply related to who is Christian and who isn’t. I find it interesting that you (and others) believe you have the authority to determine this.
LEE: So a member of a vegetarian club who eats cheeseburgers for lunch twice a week should still be called a vegetarian? It’d be wrong for the vegetarian club to insist that only people who do not eat meat actually have the status of vegetarian?
Pax.
Lee.
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Lee: Saul was convinced that this “heavenly vision” was in some real sense a manifestation of Jesus. It would take more than some “lights in the sky” to convince a dedicated Shammaite Pharisee
Gary: Paul himself said that he saw lights and heard voices in a “vision”. I know you don’t like that evidence but it is evidence from the first century. I think we should accept Paul’s word and reject you and your desperate attempts to concoct an alternative interpretation of what Paul said. You sound like Bill Clinton who when caught in a lie tried to claim that “is” does not always mean “is”.
“Vision” means vision. Period.
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GARY: Gary: Paul himself said that he saw lights and heard voices in a “vision”. I know you don’t like that evidence but it is evidence from the first century. I think we should accept Paul’s word and reject you and your desperate attempts to concoct an alternative interpretation of what Paul said.
LEE: I am accepting Paul’s word for who he saw and spoke to, because Paul claims in I Corinthians 15: 7: “Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.”
In verse 4 Paul notes that “he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.” So whatever the 12 saw, Paul saw (because he uses the same word translated “appeared” for all of them), and the gospels tell us they saw the bodily resurrected Jesus.
And what I really “don’t like” is desperate skeptics trying to dumb down a text of scripture by interpreting it literally in order to make fun of it.
If you have evidence that all it would take to convince a dedicated Shammaite Pharisee that a false teacher executed as a political terrorist really was the messiah was a “heavenly vision” or a “bright light” then show it to me.
Pax.
Lee.
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I will go with Paul’s account. Paul says in Acts chapter 26 that he saw bright lights and heard voices in a “vision”. In his first epistle to the Corinthians, Paul lists other early Christians whom he believes also received appearances of Jesus. Paul uses the same verb to describe their appearance experiences as he does his own. So since Paul says he saw bright lights and heard voices in a “heavenly vision”, we can safely assume that this is what the others saw: bright lights in visions.
Lee: If you have evidence that all it would take to convince a dedicated Shammaite Pharisee that a false teacher executed as a political terrorist really was the messiah was a “heavenly vision” or a “bright light” then show it to me.
Gary: Paul tells us in Acts chapter 26 exactly what would convince a first century pharisee to believe that one particular messiah claimant was the Jewish Messiah: a heavenly vision! Stop trying to reinterpret (distort) Paul’s words. You weren’t there!!!
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NAN: however lots of intellectuals do. Nice left-handed insult …
LEE: No insult was intended. Do you guys go around looking for insults?
My point was that you don’t have to check your brains at the door to be a Christian. The fact that so many intellectuals (scientists; physicians; authors; historians; etc.) are Christians should disabuse any honest person of that idea.
That’s what I meant. In response to your comment that Christians are “sooo gullible.” (But that’s not an insult).
Pax.
Lee.
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NAN: What disturbs me is that so many seem to think/feel the Bible itself needs to be “interpreted.” As I wrote in the closing of my first chapter (on the bible):
“To truly understand the Bible, it needs to be read through the eyes of the culture for which it was originally written. Trying to project back into its pages later developments and/or interpretations frequently misconstrues the meaning and message the authors sought to convey. Bible readers of today live in circumstances that could not have been imagined by the original writers.”
LEE: If this is what you think then I agree with you, and most educated Evangelicals would also agree with you in what you write above.
What you wrote above very eloquently makes the point that the Bible does, in fact, need to be interpreted, for just the reasons you highlighted above.
For that matter, every written source ever produced has to be interpreted. You do this every day when you: read a newspaper or magazine; read the cooking instructions on a box of pasta; drive down the highway and pay attention to the traffic and other road signs.
All “interpretation” means is “the action of explaining the meaning of something.”
Ancient scripture is comprised of writings in many different genres: history; poetry; allegory; apocalyptic; allegory; metaphor; etc.
You can’t interpret the Psalms the same way you interpret I Kings 17. You can’t interpret the apocalyptic prophecies of Matthew 24 and Mark 13 in a literal, wooden, fashion, because apocalyptic literature uses figurative fantastic imagery (bloody moons; falling stars; dragons; beasts and scarlet women) to imbue historical events–such as the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, the focus of Matthew 24 and Mark 13–with their cosmic religious significance.
When translators translate the Hebrew and GK Bibles into English they are also in part interpreting the texts; I have a dear friend who served on the translation committee for the New King James Version who has talked about the translation process.
This is a big issue I have with Gary and other skeptics; he wants to selectively interpret some things in scripture in a wooden, literal sense, in order to make fun of Christianity and people like me who believe it (a six-literal-24-hour-day creation; “heaven” as a literal place “somewhere up there” with gold streets, instead of the promised new heavens and new earth of Rom. 8:18-24 and Rev. 21.) He knows it’s bogus to do this, but does it anyway.
Thus, what Gary is objecting to and making fun of is less authentic, orthodox Christianity and much more a silly caricature or parody of it (though he claims there’s no difference).
If I thought Gary’s version of Christianity was true I probably would quit. But thankfully it isn’t.
Pax.
Lee.
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“If I thought Gary’s version of Christianity was true ,,, But thankfully it isn’t.”
You have absolutely NO WAY to know this for an absolute certainty. Your interpretations are based on your studies (and abundant reading!), just as Gary’s (and many others) are based on their readings and studies.
See … this is the thing about the bible. It can be “interpreted” multiple ways (which it has been since the early centuries) … but unless you lived during those times, it’s simply impossible to know the absolute “true story.”
Add to this the various contradictions in terms and events and writers over the centuries, and you end up with a document that is, at best, a tenuous history of a people who lived many centuries ago.
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There are approximately 200 Christian denominations in the United States alone, each one believing that they have the one true interpretation and understanding of Christian Scripture. They can’t all be right…but they can all be wrong!
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GARY: There are approximately 200 Christian denominations in the United States alone, each one believing that they have the one true interpretation and understanding of Christian Scripture. They can’t all be right…but they can all be wrong!
LEE: As I said to Nan, 99.99% of these denominations agree on the ESSENTIALS of the Christian faith. Basically, all of the major Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant denominations believe in:
The Trinity (the Watchtower is the odd man out here)
The deity of Christ
The death, burial and resurrection
The inspiration of scripture
Sunday as the Lord’s Day (Seventh Day Adventists are the odd man out here)
Baptism
Communion
Spiritual gifts
The Resurrection of the Body of saved believers
An eternity with God
So the doctrinal differences don’t really seem that significant viewed from this angle.
Pax.
Lee.
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HA! Question: How is a sinner “saved”? How does one obtain eternal life?
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GARY: HA! Question: How is a sinner “saved”? How does one obtain eternal life?
LEE: Hmm. . . . let’s see . . . I seem to remember Jesus saying something like “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who does not believe will be condemned.” And Paul saying something about “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Could it really be that simple?
Pax.
Lee.
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That is not what ALL Christians believe.
Baptists believe that calling on the Lord (making an informed, adult decision to believe) is the means of salvation. Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, and Methodists believe that salvation occurs at baptism. An adult decision to believe is not required. Catholics, Orthodox, and Methodists will add that good works must accompany baptism for salvation, while Lutherans will say that good works play no role in salvation but are a natural consequence of one who is a true believer. Presbyterians believe that baptism is the means of salvation but eternal life is only given to the Elect. Presbyterians and most Baptists believe that salvation cannot be lost while most other denominations believe it can.
So the most important doctrine in Christianity (the means of salvation) is exactly the issue that splits Christianity into multiple denominations and sects.
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AHHH, but Gary … doncha’ know? “God is not the author of confusion.” (1 Corinthians 14:33).
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NAN: You have absolutely NO WAY to know this for an absolute certainty. Your interpretations are based on your studies (and abundant reading!), just as Gary’s (and many others) are based on their readings and studies.
LEE: Nan, I don’t know where you guys got the idea that interpreting scripture is a free-for-all. You can’t really believe this because you cited a paragraph out of your book which says scripture should be interpreted according to the author’s original intent so far as that can be ascertained.
If the view you guys have of the early Church is correct, it’s a miracle that it survived more than a half-hour!
NAN: See … this is the thing about the bible. It can be “interpreted” multiple ways (which it has been since the early centuries) … but unless you lived during those times, it’s simply impossible to know the absolute “true story.”
LEE: You don’t have to be an ancient Jew or Greek to understand the Bible, any more than you have to be a Medieval Englishman to understand Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.
Of course nobody understands everything, but you don’t have to be an expert to understand the basic message of the Bible. Since it was written over several centuries to ancient cultures much different than ours we often need a little help to pick up on the nuances, which is where scholars and their work come in.
The Bible has what you might call a “grand narrative,” which just about every Christian denomination on the planet, Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, assents to. Oh sure, Catholics stress the sacraments, Mary and the saints; the Calvinists stress the holiness of God, Lutherans stress sola scriptura, the Charismatics stress spiritual gifts, the Disciples of Christ stress Christian reform and unity; yet at the end of the day we all agree on the fundamental, basic tenets of Christianity. Even the Jehovah’s Witnesses only significantly differ with the rest of us with regards to the Trinity. The only major Protestant denomination that is really out there is the Mormon Church, which is polytheist, unlike the rest of us.
NAN: Add to this the various contradictions in terms and events and writers over the centuries, and you end up with a document that is, at best, a tenuous history of a people who lived many centuries ago.
LEE: Nan you’re making this harder than it has to be. Most of these so-called “contradictions in terms and events and writers over the centuries” are easily explained, at least the important ones, if you pay attention to the author, place, genre, audience, etc.
If anyone told you that interpreting scripture is hopeless they sold you a bill of goods for which you should immediately ask for a refund.
Pax.
Lee.
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GARY: Lee, Roman Britain was an oral culture. Do you believe as fact that King Arthur pulled a sword from a stone since that it is what the oral tradition states?
LEE: Gary, that’s a bad analogy. Because the sword in the stone is a medieval literary invention and not part of the original Arthurian tradition; it was 12th c. French Poet Robert De Boron (fl. ca. 1176-c. 1225) who in his Arthurian poems first referenced the sword in the stone, while Welsh cleric Geoffrey of Monmouth was the first writer to reference the sword Excalibur (which Arthur received from the Lady of the Lake) Thus there were two swords which Hollywood films often conflate.
The first known reference to Arthur or an “Arthur-figure” was the 6th c. British monk, Gildas, in his treatise De Exidio Brittaniae (On the Ruin of Britain), which was basically a polemic against what Gilds saw as widespread immorality in Britain. As such it wasn’t a part of oral tradition. Basically, All the oldest surviving written tradition says is that a figure named Arthur fought twelve successful battles against the invading Saxons.
However many scholars, like Geoffrey Ashe (I’ve met him), believe that a figure which came to be identified with “Arthur” did, in fact, exist, and won twelve successful battles against the Saxons, but they typically won’t commit to more than that.
Pax.
Lee.
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But how do you know that De Boron did not obtain his information from circulating oral traditions which had been in existence for hundreds of years? You don’t.
And what about the oral tradition that the Virgin Mary was assumed into heaven? Should we believe this oral tradition as historical fact?
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There was an oral Christian tradition that the first bishop of Paris, St. Denis, carried his own head to his grave after his decapitation by the Roman governor in the third century (the 200’s). Should we believe this story to be true?
A late 5th-century text established the still-popular tale of St. Denis carrying his own decapitated head post-execution several miles from what’s currently Montmartre to where the Benedictine abbey at Saint Denis currently stands.
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And what about the oral traditions about the third century (200’s) Christian saint, St. Erasmus (Elmo)? Should we believe these stories as historical facts?
The first time he was tortured and imprisoned for his faith, an angel helped Elmo escape. The second time, he was tortured by being sealed into a barrel full of spikes and rolled down a hill, but again an angel healed his wounds and freed him. The third time, he was set on fire and survived, then thrown in prison but escaped. It finally took one more capture, torture, and this time tying his intestines around a pole outside of his body in order to seal the deal on Saint Elmo.
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And what about St. George (third century), the dragon slayer. Should we believe this oral tradition to be fact?
Legends about him as a warrior-saint, dating from the 6th century, became popular and increasingly extravagant. Jacob de Voragine’s Legenda aurea (1265–66; Golden Legend) repeats the story of his rescuing a Libyan king’s daughter from a dragon and then slaying the monster in return for a promise by the king’s subjects to be baptized. George’s slaying of the dragon may be a Christian version of the legend of Perseus, who was said to have rescued Andromeda from a sea monster near Lydda. It is a theme much represented in art, the saint frequently being depicted as a youth wearing knight’s armour with a scarlet cross.
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I LOVE this tall tale! What imaginations early Christians had! Carrying your own head to your grave!!! LOL!
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How about St. Marcarius (4th century), and the oral tradition that he raised a man from the dead?
St. Marcarius, a holy monk living in the deserts of Egypt, encountered a man who didn’t believe in the resurrection of Jesus. In order to convince him, the saint invoked God’s power over a dead man and he was raised back to life. This miracle was spread throughout the Egyptian desert.
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And what about Iranaeus’ claims that people were being raised from the dead in his time (second century)? Should we believe these oral traditions??
According to St. Irenaeus in the early 2nd century, “Some persons that were dead have been raised again and have continued among us many years.” He further added later, speaking against magicians who falsely claimed their ability to raise from the dead, “So far are they from raising the dead, as Our Lord raised them, and as the Apostles did by prayer, and as in the brotherhood oftentimes is done, when the whole church of the place hath begged it with much fasting and prayer, and the spirit of the dead man hath returned and the man hath been given back to the prayers of the saints” (Saints Who Raised the Dead: True Stories of 400 Resurrection Miracles).
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My goodness, Lee. I have presented extensive evidence that people in the first three centuries of the Common Era were just as prone to believe gossip, rumor and legends as people are today! Your assumption that first century people were somehow different is just that: an assumption.
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GARY: My goodness, Lee. I have presented extensive evidence that people in the first three centuries of the Common Era were just as prone to believe gossip, rumor and legends as people are today! Your assumption that first century people were somehow different is just that: an assumption.
LEE: Gary, the oral traditions/history behind the gospels have nothing to do with Irenaeus believing people were resurrected from the dead in the mid-2nd century. For all I know, they may have been raised from the dead; again, it comes down to your worldview. Mine and Irenaeus’ worldview, as theists, allows for people to be occasionally raised from the dead. Yours doesn’t because you’re a materialist.
Yet the way you tell it, Irenaeus was seeing walking corpses every alternate Thursday! Give the man credit for not being a total moron! The man was an erudite, educated, well-read philosopher and theologian, not a two-year-old. The man’s theism does not make him any more gullible than anyone else.
Oral tradition says that ancient cultures such as the ones (first c. Greek and 1st c. Jewish) which produced the NT, esp. the gospels, because 85% of the population was illiterate, and because they put more stock in eyewitness oral tradition, had safeguards in place to make sure important information got accurately recorded and handed down. That is much different from Irenaeus reporting miracles.
The stories of Denys and George are very late hagiography, which almost nobody, even Catholics and Orthodox accept uncritically anymore.
Pax.
Lee.
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Pentecostals believe that people are being raised from the dead TODAY. Do you believe these tall tales too, Lee? My goodness, religious people are gullible.
Lee: Oral tradition says that ancient cultures such as the ones (first c. Greek and 1st c. Jewish) which produced the NT, esp. the gospels, because 85% of the population was illiterate, and because they put more stock in eyewitness oral tradition, had safeguards in place to make sure important information got accurately recorded and handed down. That is much different from Irenaeus reporting miracles.
Gary: Yea, that’s right. Human beings have told WHOPPERS based on their wild imaginations for all of human history…except in the first century…in which they safely guarded their oral traditions with strict accuracy. Don’t be so gullible, Lee. If superstitious Christians in the third century could invent the tall tale that the bishop of Paris carried his own head to his grave, superstitious Christians in the first century were capable of inventing tall tales of seeing a resurrected body eating a broiled fish lunch and walking through locked doors! Your claim that first century people were different than people in all the other centuries of human history is nothing more than an assumption/generalization based on Christian wishful thinking!
Come to your senses, man! The Appearance Stories of the resurrected corpse of Jesus are just as improbable as the story of St. Denis’ corpse carrying it’s own head! Don’t be so gullible!
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