Are There Credible Witnesses to the Resurrection, Part II

[bhsmte]

Sure, for now, but in your Godless paradigm, it's all an illusion that's fading into nothingness, forever. No lasting reason to strive to be good and avoid being evil, not least since both concepts are fading illusions anyway.

If you personally can find no reason to strive for good without a god, than by all means keep believing. Not everyone needs a god to strive for good, which is something you cant seem to wrap your head around.

 

[Chriliman]

If you personally can find no reason to strive for good without a god, than by all means keep believing. Not everyone needs a god to strive for good, which is something you cant seem to wrap your head around.

I will keep believing and it's because I have attempted to strive for good apart from God in the past and found myself in a horrible place of regret and sorrow, so yes, I'll keep my faith in God where I find peace.

 

[StTruth]

I will keep believing and it's because I have attempted to strive for good apart from God in the past and found myself in a horrible place of regret and sorrow, so yes, I'll keep my faith in God where I find peace.

That's good. You should keep the faith. I am keeping my faith too. I'm still in school so that is easy. But I'm not sure if I will keep my faith when I'm a working adult. Right now I'm still an altar boy in my church. But I have grown to realise that there is no logic in religion. There are too many serious contradictions that make it impossible for me to intellectually accept my faith. But as my vicar says, the faith is for the heart, not the mind. My heart is still with God. I love God and I love everything my church stands for. But I know there is a huge chasm between reality and truth on the one hand and faith on the other. But my heart still chooses faith. At least for now.

Cheers,

St Truth

 

[bhsmte]

I will keep believing and it's because I have attempted to strive for good apart from God in the past and found myself in a horrible place of regret and sorrow, so yes, I'll keep my faith in God where I find peace.

Whatever works for you. The reality is, what works for you, doesnt mean it works or is needed for everyone.

 

[Chriliman]

That's good. You should keep the faith. I am keeping my faith too. I'm still in school so that is easy. But I'm not sure if I will keep my faith when I'm a working adult. Right now I'm still an altar boy in my church. But I have grown to realise that there is no logic in religion. There are too many serious contradictions that make it impossible for me to intellectually accept my faith. But as my vicar says, the faith is for the heart, not the mind. My heart is still with God. I love God and I love everything my church stands for. But I know there is a huge chasm between reality and truth on the one hand and faith on the other. But my heart still chooses faith. At least for now.

Cheers,

St Truth

I feel your struggle, but does it really make logical sense to say a perfect God would teach contradictory things for us to follow? I don't think so, I think it's far more likely that what we perceive as contradictions in what God teaches is really a reflection of our own lack of understanding. This realization can actually bolster our faith in God, faith that you will eventually fully understand as you are fully understood by God, faith that he can perfectly teach you what is true over time by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Keep the faith brother!

 

[StTruth]

I feel your struggle, but does it really make logical sense to say a perfect God would teach contradictory things for us to follow? I don't think so, I think it's far more likely that what we perceive as contradictions in what God teaches is really a reflection of our own lack of understanding. This realization can actually bolster our faith in God, faith that you will eventually fully understand as you are fully understood by God, faith that he can perfectly teach you what is true over time by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Keep the faith brother!

Hi Chriliman,

Thanks for your response. I don't think it's a perfect God who teaches contradictory things for us to follow. It's more fundamental than that. It's God Himself who is in a web of contradictions that must lead a person to decide that He doesn't exist or He does not have the attributes Christianity claims he has. One good example is every single baby that dies in pain is a negation of the existence of a kind God. And our Christian God MUST be kind and loving or Christianity is as good as false. This is a very serious contradiction that cannot be resolved. My vicar says I should lock it up in a file as "The Problem of Suffering" and don't think about it any more. That's dumb. It's sweeping problems under the carpet of faith. We need to resolve it. Does God exist? If he does, is he really loving? He can only be loving if he is UNABLE to help humanity eg the dying babies. If he is able, his failure to help MUST mean he's unloving and monstrous.

We Christians can't have it both ways although we always pretend we can.

Cheers,

St Truth

 

[Chriliman]

Hi Chriliman,

Thanks for your response. I don't think it's a perfect God who teaches contradictory things for us to follow. It's more fundamental than that. It's God Himself who is in a web of contradictions that must lead a person to decide that He doesn't exist or He does not have the attributes Christianity claims he has. One good example is every single baby that dies in pain is a negation of the existence of a kind God. And our Christian God MUST be kind and loving or Christianity is as good as false. This is a very serious contradiction that cannot be resolved. My vicar says I should lock it up in a file as "The Problem of Suffering" and don't think about it any more. That's dumb. It's sweeping problems under the carpet of faith. We need to resolve it. Does God exist? If he does, is he really loving? He can only be loving if he is UNABLE to help humanity eg the dying babies. If he is able, his failure to help MUST mean he's unloving and monstrous.

We Christians can't have it both ways although we always pretend we can.

Cheers,

St Truth

Jesus suffered unjust torture and death for us. The way I cope with unjust suffering, like in your baby scenario, is to think of Jesus bearing it all in order to bring justice and peace to all. This means Jesus is suffering with that baby and with anyone else who suffers and dies. Our hope is in Him to bring us through it and set things right. There will be suffering and death in this life, due to evil, but there also will be justice and peace in the end, thanks to Jesus. Otherwise there is no hope that the awful suffering of babies will ever be stopped and put to rights. It's our calling to be in this world of evil and be a part of bringing in God's kingdom of justice and peace.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss further.

 

[StTruth]

Jesus suffered unjust torture and death for us. The way I cope with unjust suffering, like in your baby scenario, is to think of Jesus bearing it all in order to bring justice and peace to all. This means Jesus is suffering with that baby and with anyone else who suffers and dies. Our hope is in Him to bring us through it and set things right. There will be suffering and death in this life, due to evil, but there also will be justice and peace in the end, thanks to Jesus. Otherwise there is no hope that the awful suffering of babies will ever be stopped and put to rights. It's our calling to be in this world of evil and be a part of bringing in God's kingdom of justice and peace.

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss further.

Thanks for your reply.

But there is something incorrect about what you say. I've heard it many times before that when we are suffering, Jesus weeps with us. Hence you say when we see a baby dying of hunger and disease and is writhing in pain and suffering, Jesus is suffering with it. We know there are 20 babies dying every hour of hunger. This is actually totally illogical and wrong. It's an appeal to our human emotion but when we apply our minds, we know it's rubbish.

Jesus should only weep and suffer with the baby if Jesus is powerless to do anything to help the baby. Supposing I see a baby playing near a pail of water and it falls into the pail of water. I can very easily pull the baby out of the pail and save it. But I don't. Instead I sit next to the pail and watch the baby struggling for breath. Every time it surfaces for a gulp of air, it screams in fear and pain. Its head then goes under the water again. But I continue to sit beside the pail and I weep for the baby. I look devastated and I weep buckets but I continue to sit there and not help the baby.

If I did all that, would you not think of me as the most evil monster around? I could easily have pulled the baby out of the pail but I did not. Think about this whenever you say Jesus suffers with someone or weeps with someone.

Cheers,

St Truth

 

[Chriliman]

Thanks for your reply.

But there is something incorrect about what you say. I've heard it many times before that when we are suffering, Jesus weeps with us. Hence you say when we see a baby dying of hunger and disease and is writhing in pain and suffering, Jesus is suffering with it. We know there are 20 babies dying every hour of hunger. This is actually totally illogical and wrong. It's an appeal to our human emotion but when we apply our minds, we know it's rubbish.

Jesus should only weep and suffer with the baby if Jesus is powerless to do anything to help the baby. Supposing I see a baby playing near a pail of water and it falls into the pail of water. I can very easily pull the baby out of the pail and save it. But I don't. Instead I sit next to the pail and watch the baby struggling for breath. Every time it surfaces for a gulp of air, it screams in fear and pain. Its head then goes under the water again. But I continue to sit beside the pail and I weep for the baby. I look devastated and I weep buckets but I continue to sit there and not help the baby.

If I did all that, would you not think of me as the most evil monster around? I could easily have pulled the baby out of the pail but I did not. Think about this whenever you say Jesus suffers with someone or weeps with someone.

Cheers,

St Truth

These hypotheticals are easy to think of but we know in reality Jesus is capable of healing the sick and raising the dead. There is a distinction though, he healed physical ailments and raised physically dead people like Lazarus, but his real work is in healing spiritual ailments and raising the spiritually dead. He does this in order to prepare this earth for the full establishment of God's kingdom on earth, which is still ongoing and when done, everything will be made new and true justice and peace will happen for all creation.

At this point, I will continue to be obedient in what he's given me to carry out and resist the temptation of accusing Him of not doing enough when I know I don't know everything.

 

[StTruth]

These hypotheticals are easy to think of but we know in reality Jesus is capable of healing the sick and raising the dead. There is a distinction though, he healed physical ailments and raised physically dead people like Lazarus, but his real work is in healing spiritual ailments and raising the spiritually dead. He does this in order to prepare this earth for the full establishment of God's kingdom on earth, which is still ongoing and when done, everything will be made new and true justice and peace will happen for all creation.

This does not answer the problem of suffering at all. God's ability to heal the sick and to help babies dying of hunger to pull babies out of pails of water only begs the question - is he loving and merciful? Because if he is able to help these babies and he does nothing, he can't even remotely be considered a decent being, far less loving and merciful.

At this point, I will continue to be obedient in what he's given me to carry out and resist the temptation of accusing Him of not doing enough when I know I don't know everything.

This problem of suffering which doesn't seem capable of ever being resolved is a serious problem for any thinking person. It's the reason Bart Ehrman lost his faith and it's the reason Sir David Attenborough is unable to accept the existence of a benign God. To continue to be obedient does not solve anything. Because if this paradox in God's nature remains unsolved, you have to consider the possibility that he does not exist unless you are able to constantly suspend your mental faculty and not address your mind to it. Because obedience means nothing if at the end of it all, we are merely being obedient to something that doesn't even exist. Of course it's my greatest wish that God is real but no amount of wishing something can make it real when it's not. This is something I must recognise as I enter the cusp of adulthood.

Cheers

St Truth

 

[Chriliman]

This does not answer the problem of suffering at all. God's ability to heal the sick and to help babies dying of hunger to pull babies out of pails of water only begs the question - is he loving and merciful? Because if he is able to help these babies and he does nothing, he can't even remotely be considered a decent being, far less loving and merciful.



This problem of suffering which doesn't seem capable of ever being resolved is a serious problem for any thinking person. It's the reason Bart Ehrman lost his faith and it's the reason Sir David Attenborough is unable to accept the existence of a benign God. To continue to be obedient does not solve anything. Because if this paradox in God's nature remains unsolved, you have to consider the possibility that he does not exist unless you are able to constantly suspend your mental faculty and not address your mind to it. Because obedience means nothing if at the end of it all, we are merely being obedient to something that doesn't even exist. Of course it's my greatest wish that God is real but no amount of wishing something can make it real when it's not. This is something I must recognise as I enter the cusp of adulthood.

Cheers

St Truth

There's also the possibility that the suffering and death happens for reasons that we're currently unable to understand. Jesus said in John 12:24 " truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." Of course he was talking about himself, but this also shows suffering and death is a part of what God does in order to produce more life.

 

[hedrick]

My assessment of the evidence is as follows:

* Shortly after Jesus death, Christians had experiences that they interpreted as the presence of the resurrected Jesus. Paul reports his, and refers to many others. I think the whole of Christianity as we see it in the NT is based on this. Nothing in Paul refers to a physical resurrection, nor do I think it’s 100% clear that the existence of Christianity depends upon this.

Not everyone agrees with this. N T Wright has a moderately convincing argument that no one in that culture would have believed what Paul refers to if the tomb hadn’t been empty. But arguments based on what we think someone in a very different culture could or could not have believed have a significant probability of error. So although he may be right, I don’t think we can be sure of it.

* For the empty tomb, we have something between one and two sources, Mark and John. Matthew and Luke follow Mark. I’m inclined to think that John is fairly independent on his history, but not everyone agrees. I'm being a bit conservative here. I doubt that the communities in which Matthew and Luke developed would have believed in the empty tomb without more support than Mark, but still, the accounts in those Gospels are clearly from Mark. The fact that John has a heavy layer of theological interpretation doesn’t necessarily make the status of the underlying history that he reports any less credible than Mark’s. Current assessments of John’s history are a bit more positive than in the mid 20th Cent.

My conclusion is that the resurrection in the Pauline sense is well supported. However not everyone will accept the experiences on which it is based as objective.

For the physical resurrection we depend upon Mark and probably John. To me the question is whether it’s likely that the experience of the resurrected Jesus (however you assess it) would have resulted in the assumption that Jesus must have been resurrected physically even though he hadn't been, and is it plausible that such as story would have been believed by 65 AD. Although it’s not a slam-dunk, I think the answer is no. That is, I think Mark and John go back to some kind of actual reports. Might those reports be wrong? Someone stole the body, it was in the wrong tomb, etc. It’s certainly not impossible, but it seems unlikely.

So I think an experience of the resurrected Jesus has pretty much 100% chance of having happened, and the physical resurrection is less than 100% but more than 50%. I will say, however, that other Christians that I respect don't think the empty tomb is historically accurate.

 

[bhsmte]

My assessment of the evidence is as follows:

* Shortly after Jesus death, Christians had experiences that they interpreted as the presence of the resurrected Jesus. Paul reports his, and refers to many others. I think the whole of Christianity as we see it in the NT is based on this. Nothing in Paul refers to a physical resurrection, nor do I think it’s 100% clear that the existence of Christianity depends upon this.

Not everyone agrees with this. N T Wright has a moderately convincing argument that no one in that culture would have believed what Paul refers to if the tomb hadn’t been empty. But arguments based on what we think someone in a very different culture could or could not have believed have a significant probability of error. So although he may be right, I don’t think we can be sure of it.

* For the empty tomb, we have something between one and two sources, Mark and John. Matthew and Luke follow Mark. I’m inclined to think that John is fairly independent on his history, but not everyone agrees. I'm being a bit conservative here. I doubt that the communities in which Matthew and Luke developed would have believed in the empty tomb without more support than Mark, but still, the accounts in those Gospels are clearly from Mark. The fact that John has a heavy layer of theological interpretation doesn’t necessarily make the status of the underlying history that he reports any less credible than Mark’s. Current assessments of John’s history are a bit more positive than in the mid 20th Cent.

My conclusion is that the resurrection in the Pauline sense is well supported. However not everyone will accept the experiences on which it is based as objective.

For the physical resurrection we depend upon Mark and probably John. To me the question is whether it’s likely that the experience of the resurrected Jesus (however you assess it) would have resulted in the assumption that Jesus must have been resurrected physically even though he hadn't been, and is it plausible that such as story would have been believed by 65 AD. Although it’s not a slam-dunk, I think the answer is no. That is, I think Mark and John go back to some kind of actual reports. Might those reports be wrong? Someone stole the body, it was in the wrong tomb, etc. It’s certainly not impossible, but it seems unlikely.

So I think an experience of the resurrected Jesus has pretty much 100% chance of having happened, and the physical resurrection is less than 100% but more than 50%. I will say, however, that other Christians that I respect don't think the empty tomb is historically accurate.

Well thought out post.

Curious, how do you conclude, the physical resurrection is at least 50% accurate? People can claim to experience many things and they can also write many things, which of course does not mean they are reality. Also, many verses were added to Mark I believe, literally hundreds of years after the oldest copies existed.

 

[StTruth]

suffering and death is a part of what God does in order to produce more life.

Do you really believe that?

I once saw a terrible video of a street lynching. The victim was a ten-year-old boy who was caught by a mob which accused him of having tried to kidnap a child. There was a journalist there who was trying to defend the boy. He told them it was a false accusation. They asked him to produce the child that this boy was supposed to have tried to kidnap. Of course they couldn't because it was a false accusation. As the reporter explained, street lynchings usually happen when someone shouts an accusation at someone vulnerable and others join in. Soon, the crime the poor victim was supposed to have committed becomes something even more heinous than what it started out to be. Anyway, the mob wanted blood. They pushed the journalist away and tied up the boy. They then started the fire and threw the boy in. He jumped out screaming in pain but they beat him repeatedly and threw him in the fire again. The boy shouted some words in English and it was then that I realised that he was a Christian. He spoke a mixture of Indian and English but words such as 'Oh God! WHy is this happening to me' and 'Jesus please save me. You know I'm innocent' could be heard. They kept burning him until his skin had all peeled off. Someone poured more fluid on him and continued to set him on fire. He kept screaming and crying and my heart froze every time he shouted the name of Jesus.

I stopped the video and i realised I was crying. The comments at the bottom of the video said that the boy died only after hours of torture. I turned off my MacBook and went to bed but I couldn't sleep. I couldn't say my prayers either. That video I saw was the most poignant indictment on God that I had ever seen. I tried to pray but I couldn't. In the end, I did pray and these were all the words that I could utter to God:

'God, if you really do exist, you should be in Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors.'

But I got over it. Like most Christians, we forgive God ever so readily and we go back to worshipping him and praising his name. It's easy to forget all the horrors others face because God loves us and everything seems to be hunky dory for us. After all, God must love us because we don't live in such horrible and dangerous places. It's easy to be complacent and to be inward-looking and egotistical. Yes, even I who am none other than...

St Truth

 

[hedrick]

Curious, how do you conclude, the physical resurrection is at least 50% accurate? People can claim to experience many things and they can also write many things, which of course does not mean they are reality. Also, many verses were added to Mark I believe, literally hundreds of years after the oldest copies existed.

I’m not sure I can say much more than I did. It’s a judgment call, obviously, based on questions like

* How likely is it that people would have believed that Jesus was resurrected, if his body was in the grave. This is more complex than it sounds, because it depends upon 1st Cent Jewish ideas of what resurrection meant. It’s a different idea than ghost or vision, but how different? N T Wright has a well-known analysis. I don’t think it’s as air-tight as he does, but I do think it’s evidence.

* How accurate are the resurrection accounts in the Gospels? The reason this is an issue is that we know 1st Cent writers of all kinds describe miracles that almost certainly didn’t happen. This is sort of the reverse of the previous question. If the accounts aren’t historical, they are almost certainly the result of assuming that if Jesus appeared in resurrected form, he must have left his tomb empty. How likely is that? I think it's unlikely at the date of Mark's authorship in that culture.

There are alternatives to all of this, but I think there’s a reasonable chance that the empty tomb is historical. However in my opinion, Christianity doesn’t absolutely require it. I think it is based on the resurrection experiences. It’s a judgement call whether those require an empty tomb.

No, verses weren't added to Mark hundreds of years later. The additional endings probably originated in the 2nd Cent. But there's no reason to think that this is true for the empty tomb, and no scholar that I know has suggested that. Indeed the whole structure of Mark is normally understood as an account of Jesus' death and resurrection with a long prolog.

Since Matthew and Luke's accounts are based on Mark's, Mark's had to have been there before Matthew and Luke were written.

 

[bhsmte]

I’m not sure I can say much more than I did. It’s a judgment call, obviously, based on questions like

* How likely is it that people would have believed that Jesus was resurrected, if his body was in the grave. This is more complex than it sounds, because it depends upon 1st Cent Jewish ideas of what resurrection meant. It’s a different idea than ghost or vision, but how different? N T Wright has a well-known analysis. I don’t think it’s as air-tight as he does, but I do think it’s evidence.

* How accurate are the resurrection accounts in the Gospels? The reason this is an issue is that we know 1st Cent writers of all kinds describe miracles that almost certainly didn’t happen. This is sort of the reverse of the previous question. If the accounts aren’t historical, they are almost certainly the result of assuming that if Jesus appeared in resurrected form, he must have left his tomb empty. How likely is that? I think it's unlikely at the date of Mark's authorship in that culture.

There are alternatives to all of this, but I think there’s a reasonable chance that the empty tomb is historical. However in my opinion, Christianity doesn’t absolutely require it. I think it is based on the resurrection experiences. It’s a judgement call whether those require an empty tomb.

No, verses weren't added to Mark hundreds of years later. The additional endings probably originated in the 2nd Cent. But there's no reason to think that this is true for the empty tomb, and no scholar that I know has suggested that. Indeed the whole structure of Mark is normally understood as an account of Jesus' death and resurrection with a long prolog.

Since Matthew and Luke's accounts are based on Mark's, Mark's had to have been there before Matthew and Luke were written.[/QU

In the earliest and most reliable copies of mark, there is no mention of the virgin birth of jesus or any birth of jesus. It also has no appearances of jesus after his death and it ends much more abruptly compared to matthew, luke and john. This is likely why mark was placed 2nd in order, even though there is little question it was penned first. And mark 16: 9-19 are widely accepted by scholars, as late editions, so mark would mirror the other gospels.

 

[StTruth]

Hi hedrick,

People have complained about my use of colours and so I have decided to use the boring default font and colour.

Thanks again for your most scholastic assessment of the resurrection.

My assessment of the evidence is as follows:

* Shortly after Jesus death, Christians had experiences that they interpreted as the presence of the resurrected Jesus. Paul reports his, and refers to many others. I think the whole of Christianity as we see it in the NT is based on this. Nothing in Paul refers to a physical resurrection, nor do I think it’s 100% clear that the existence of Christianity depends upon this.

Not everyone agrees with this. N T Wright has a moderately convincing argument that no one in that culture would have believed what Paul refers to if the tomb hadn’t been empty. But arguments based on what we think someone in a very different culture could or could not have believed have a significant probability of error. So although he may be right, I don’t think we can be sure of it.

* For the empty tomb, we have something between one and two sources, Mark and John. Matthew and Luke follow Mark. I’m inclined to think that John is fairly independent on his history, but not everyone agrees. I'm being a bit conservative here. I doubt that the communities in which Matthew and Luke developed would have believed in the empty tomb without more support than Mark, but still, the accounts in those Gospels are clearly from Mark. The fact that John has a heavy layer of theological interpretation doesn’t necessarily make the status of the underlying history that he reports any less credible than Mark’s. Current assessments of John’s history are a bit more positive than in the mid 20th Cent.

The issue of the empty tomb is a problematic one. Some scholars have pointed out that the entire idea that a convicted executed criminal could be provided with a tomb is too tall a tale considering what we know of Roman history. In Roman times, all executed criminals had their bodies dumped in a area where such bodies were dumped in. Jesus would not have been in an tomb to begin with. The unlikely story of Jesus being given a tomb by some nobleman is as fanciful as it gets. In Roman times, there was no such liberty even for the body of an executed criminal. They won't set the body free. Jesus' body would have to end up in an unmarked grave together with all the other bodies of the many prisoners executed in those days. Hence, all stories of a tomb for Jesus are not credible. Whether St Paul believed Jesus had a body resurrection is therefore immaterial in the light of this.

My conclusion is that the resurrection in the Pauline sense is well supported. However not everyone will accept the experiences on which it is based as objective.

For the physical resurrection we depend upon Mark and probably John. To me the question is whether it’s likely that the experience of the resurrected Jesus (however you assess it) would have resulted in the assumption that Jesus must have been resurrected physically even though he hadn't been, and is it plausible that such as story would have been believed by 65 AD. Although it’s not a slam-dunk, I think the answer is no. That is, I think Mark and John go back to some kind of actual reports. Might those reports be wrong? Someone stole the body, it was in the wrong tomb, etc. It’s certainly not impossible, but it seems unlikely.

The idea that the disciples stole the body is a 2000-year-old ruse that leads to nowhere. The whole story that Jesus had a lovely tomb and a guard was placed to guard the tomb and the Romans and Jews circulated the story that the disciples stole the body is such a tall tale that shows a fragrant dismissal of Roman law on what happens to the body of an executed criminal that I cannot consider a resurrection (in the midst of so much untruth) to be even remotely likely. There was no tomb to begin with.

So I think an experience of the resurrected Jesus has pretty much 100% chance of having happened, and the physical resurrection is less than 100% but more than 50%. I will say, however, that other Christians that I respect don't think the empty tomb is historically accurate.

Now, let me address the point about 'experiences of the resurrected Jesus'. By this, we must mean experiences that a person says he has and which lead him to conclude that Jesus has resurrected. It cannot mean the experience a person has of an actual resurrection. The latter would be to put the cart before the horse and to assume that the resurrection most certainly took place and we have no evidence for doing that.

This can be looked at in two ways.

First, I'll assume that the disciples actually SAID they had experiences that led them to believe Jesus rose from the dead. We know that people are generally superstitious and we have heard stories of this nature even in the 20th century. For example the claim by thousands of people that they saw the Virgin Mary appearing in Fatima and, I'm sure, countless other places. In the country I'm in now, I have heard claims of people who have seen Buddha appearing in a seated position on a large lotus flower. It may sound hilarious to us that anyone would sit on a large lotus flower but hey, this is serious holy matter to Buddhists in the country I'm in now. Now, project yourself to 2000 years ago in even much more superstitious Palestine and you will know what I mean. Even if the disciples say they saw or experienced the resurrection of our Lord, that can hardly be testimony that would convince anyone today.

Second, the assumption that the disciples SAID they experienced something about Jesus being resurrected is a WRONG assumption to make. We have no evidence that the disciples actually said that. Not at all. We only have very dubious records of the Gospels that make such a claim. The writers of these gospels are anonymous and from the works of experts and scholars in the field, we can almost be certain that these aren't even the apostles but they are probably Hellenistic Christians who could not read the Hebrew Bible and got all their OT quotations laughably wrong from the notorious and badly translated Septuagint. These are the people who long after the event wrote that, 'Hey! yes, the Apostles saw Jesus.' They are not eye witnesses, they never knew Jesus, never saw him but they tell the story of Jesus and his Apostles. There is no record that they have even met the Apostles. It is unlikely they have. We know from Galatians that even St Paul is so reluctant to meet the real Apostles or at least he grudgingly admitted to having met them once and then only Peter and nobody else. So it's perfectly fair to conclude that the Hellenistic Christians from St Paul's churches who wrote these Gospels long after St Paul had died probably didn't know what the Apostles looked like. And they tell us the Apostles saw the resurrected Jesus and we believe them?

May God forgive me if I have aired my thoughts too freely but these are things that have bothered me despite my determination to cling to my faith. I can't help being truthful for I am none other than...

St Truth

 

[StTruth]

Hi again, hedrick,

Thanks for your post. As I have always said, I have respect for everything that you say and I can see that you do try to wrestle with the doubts that any rational person is bound to have and it's very encouraging to see that for you, faith can trump (I was going to say 'reason' but that would attract universal rage on this forum) anything.

Here are my responses to your comments:

I’m not sure I can say much more than I did. It’s a judgment call, obviously, based on questions like

* How likely is it that people would have believed that Jesus was resurrected, if his body was in the grave. This is more complex than it sounds, because it depends upon 1st Cent Jewish ideas of what resurrection meant. It’s a different idea than ghost or vision, but how different? N T Wright has a well-known analysis. I don’t think it’s as air-tight as he does, but I do think it’s evidence.

It's very likely for people to believe in the resurrection even if Jesus' body was in the grave. People don't make it a point to check all their beliefs. The same with Christians today. How many of the billions of Christians who believe in the resurrection story bother to check to see how accurate (or more likely, inaccurate) the gospel accounts are? How many would check to see who wrote these gospels in order to establish their accuracy? How many would check to see if the Gospels were properly translated and transmitted to us? The fact is nobody really does. Very few do. Most people believe without checking.

First, as I have said, there was no tomb in the first place. Jesus' body would have been left rotting with all the other executed criminals (and there were many in those days). Even if there had been a tomb, nobody would have checked. It's preposterous to think that 1st century Christians were more sceptical than 21st century Christians and they would have gone to our Lord's tomb (assuming there was a tomb) to check if his body was there.

* How accurate are the resurrection accounts in the Gospels? The reason this is an issue is that we know 1st Cent writers of all kinds describe miracles that almost certainly didn’t happen. This is sort of the reverse of the previous question. If the accounts aren’t historical, they are almost certainly the result of assuming that if Jesus appeared in resurrected form, he must have left his tomb empty. How likely is that? I think it's unlikely at the date of Mark's authorship in that culture.

There are alternatives to all of this, but I think there’s a reasonable chance that the empty tomb is historical. However in my opinion, Christianity doesn’t absolutely require it. I think it is based on the resurrection experiences. It’s a judgement call whether those require an empty tomb.

How accurate are the resurrection accounts in the Gospels? Totally unreliable. I would say even much less reliable than the official Vatican report on the mass sightings of the Blessed Virgin Mary's appearance in Fatima and a hundred other places.

It's very hard to back up the Resurrection as a real event in history. We have very little to go on except our incredibly strong faith. A faith that transcends facts, history, truth and reason. And I say all this in all honesty because I am, there can be no doubt, the one and only...

St Truth

 

[Chriliman]

Do you really believe that?

I once saw a terrible video of a street lynching. The victim was a ten-year-old boy who was caught by a mob which accused him of having tried to kidnap a child. There was a journalist there who was trying to defend the boy. He told them it was a false accusation. They asked him to produce the child that this boy was supposed to have tried to kidnap. Of course they couldn't because it was a false accusation. As the reporter explained, street lynchings usually happen when someone shouts an accusation at someone vulnerable and others join in. Soon, the crime the poor victim was supposed to have committed becomes something even more heinous than what it started out to be. Anyway, the mob wanted blood. They pushed the journalist away and tied up the boy. They then started the fire and threw the boy in. He jumped out screaming in pain but they beat him repeatedly and threw him in the fire again. The boy shouted some words in English and it was then that I realised that he was a Christian. He spoke a mixture of Indian and English but words such as 'Oh God! WHy is this happening to me' and 'Jesus please save me. You know I'm innocent' could be heard. They kept burning him until his skin had all peeled off. Someone poured more fluid on him and continued to set him on fire. He kept screaming and crying and my heart froze every time he shouted the name of Jesus.

I stopped the video and i realised I was crying. The comments at the bottom of the video said that the boy died only after hours of torture. I turned off my MacBook and went to bed but I couldn't sleep. I couldn't say my prayers either. That video I saw was the most poignant indictment on God that I had ever seen. I tried to pray but I couldn't. In the end, I did pray and these were all the words that I could utter to God:

'God, if you really do exist, you should be in Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors.'

But I got over it. Like most Christians, we forgive God ever so readily and we go back to worshipping him and praising his name. It's easy to forget all the horrors others face because God loves us and everything seems to be hunky dory for us. After all, God must love us because we don't live in such horrible and dangerous places. It's easy to be complacent and to be inward-looking and egotistical. Yes, even I who am none other than...

St Truth

I believe God is the victim of injustice and cruelty. Yes, it's horrible, but how does God respond? He raises the victim back to life and brings justice. How exactly does that work? I don't yet fully know, but my hope and faith is in Him who died unjustly and was raised to unending life. I have no other explanation for how pure evil can be dealt with than Jesus. Do you?

 

[hedrick]

In the earliest and most reliable copies of mark, there is no mention of the virgin birth of jesus or any birth of jesus. It also has no appearances of jesus after his death and it ends much more abruptly compared to matthew, luke and john. This is likely why mark was placed 2nd in order, even though there is little question it was penned first. And mark 16: 9-19 are widely accepted by scholars, as late editions, so mark would mirror the other gospels.

I agree that Mark ends abruptly. However it's clear that the author knew about appearance from 16:7. Evidence on the Virgin Mary is different, and is not relevant to this thread.