Evidence for resurection

[Believer69]

I just wanted to know the evidence or if there is any for these key things:
Jesus' resurection
Jesus' virgin birth
Jesus' existed 2000 years ago.

And if these are all true how does this prove that he is the son of god? Couldnt it just prove he was the messiah a phrophet, not divine.

 

[ebia]

I just wanted to know the evidence or if there is any for these key things:
Jesus' resurection
Jesus' virgin birth
Jesus' existed 2000 years ago.

And if these are all true how does this prove that he is the son of god? Couldnt it just prove he was the messiah a phrophet, not divine.

Taking them backwards:
Every serious historian accepts that Jesus existed. Even Richard Dawkins can't find one to cite that doesn't.

None outside taking Matthew & Luke at face value. But (a) virgin birth isn't central to Christianity - no important thinking hangs on it, (b) it wasn't expected and (c) it gives an outrageous hostage to fortune as Matthew's account realizes and the early church had to contend with. So it does beg the question why would they have made it up.
Of course neither of those proves Jesus to be divine.

Resurrection in the next post

 

[ebia]

Resurrection needs an 800 page book to do properly. If you want to read on it's called "Resurrection of the Son of God", NT Wright, SPCK/Fortress

Resurrection means bodily coming to new physical life after death. The Greeks thought this impossible and had stories to say so. Some Jews thought it impossible. Others - including the Pharisees - thought is was something that would happen universally at the end of the age. Nobody thought it could happen, let alone expected it to happen, to an individual "here and now". Nobody expected it to happen to the messiah because the messiah was not supposed to die.

When Jesus was crucified we know what should have happened from looking at the deaths of other would-be messiahs in history. Either his followers slink of home in dispare. Or they decide that his son or brother (in this case it would be James) was actually the messiah after all.

But neither of those happens in this case.

Instead they start telling of Jesus resurrection. Not only that, they make that so central that everything else depends upon it. That rapid change of thinking at such a fundamental level, and out if kilter with surrounding beliefs, is truly exceptional.

There are at least 5 independent accounts of the resurrection. Pauls is datable to around 53 Ad at the latest - only 20 years after the event. While the gospels were written a little later than that there are very good reasons for thinking they were fixed before that. Again they look extreamely odd if they are made up - nobody would invent women being the witnesses for instance.

The resurrection doesn't prove Jesus to be divine. But it does vindicate his claim to be doing what YHWH promised he would do in person and gradually the very earliest Christians concluded that Jesus being more literally son-of-god than first imagined made more and more sense of what had happened.

 

[drich0150]

I just wanted to know the evidence or if there is any for these key things:
Jesus' resurection
Jesus' virgin birth
Jesus' existed 2000 years ago.

And if these are all true how does this prove that he is the son of god? Couldnt it just prove he was the messiah a phrophet, not divine.

Why would God do all of this for someone who is going against His devine Plan?

 

[AlexBP]

Jesus Christ has saved my soul and the souls of countless others. He speaks to me and has a relationship with me, and does the same for countless others. If He did not exist, He would not be able to do these things. If He had died and remained dead, He would not be able to do these things. Hence Jesus Christ existed and resurrected from the dead.

 

[lesliedellow]

I just wanted to know the evidence or if there is any for these key things:
Jesus' resurection
Jesus' virgin birth
Jesus' existed 2000 years ago.

And if these are all true how does this prove that he is the son of god? Couldnt it just prove he was the messiah a phrophet, not divine.

As to whether Jesus existed, I would say that can be established beyond all reasonable doubt. To take just one example, which belongs to a class of arguments known as the Principle of Dissimilarity:

1.) In the New Testament it is recorded that Jesus was baptised by John the Baptist.

2.) That is something the Church is extremely unlikely to have made up.

3.) Why? Because the early Church wanted to present Jesus as the "main man," so to speak, and his baptism by John suggests that he might have been a disciple of John. The gospel writers show every sign of wanting to play down the significance of the Baptism, and John omits it altogether.

4.) So, if it wasn't made up, it must have been a historical event, which clearly implies that Jesus existed.



As to the Resurrection, it seems to me that, if it didn't happen, we are left with a historical puzzle. Namely, out of the half dozen or so putative messiahs in first century Palestine, why is only one of them remembered 2,000 years later, with approximately 2 billion followers, whilst all the others have been long since forgotten by almost everybody?



I am agnostic about the virgin birth. It may be historical, or it may be there to serve a theological purpose (to emphasise Jesus' unique origin in God.)

 

[Believer69]

Thankyou all for these interesting responses.

 

[joey_downunder]

This is a good place to start if you want to learn about the evidence that Jesus existed. http://www.tektonics.org/jesusexisthub.html