Resurrection a Fiction?

Hi,

I know that if the resurrection has good evidence for it then it proves alot. But is there any reason to believe the resurrection happened?

I've read about the resurrection having to have happened because the disciples wouldn't have died for a lie which I agree with and I don't think the disciples would have lied anyway.

But is it possible that the disciples could have been mistaken about the tomb being empty and then the visions of Jesus could have been added later on, but never actually happened? Maybe the romans moved Jesus' body for some reason or the disciples thought an empty tomb which wasn't Jesus' was Jesus'.

Maybe even the empty tomb and visions of the risen Jesus were just dramatic retellings of the disciples realising that maybe Jesus was right and is alive in 'heaven' now?

Is it even possible that when people who never met Jesus heard about his death then wrote a more dramatic version of his life and ended up being followed? Is there any good reason for thinking the disciples of Jesus died for the gospel?

Sorry there are alot of questions there,

Darknova

darknova said:

Hi,

I know that if the resurrection has good evidence for it then it proves alot. But is there any reason to believe the resurrection happened?

I've read about the resurrection having to have happened because the disciples wouldn't have died for a lie which I agree with and I don't think the disciples would have lied anyway.

But is it possible that the disciples could have been mistaken about the tomb being empty and then the visions of Jesus could have been added later on, but never actually happened? Maybe the romans moved Jesus' body for some reason or the disciples thought an empty tomb which wasn't Jesus' was Jesus'.

Maybe even the empty tomb and visions of the risen Jesus were just dramatic retellings of the disciples realising that maybe Jesus was right and is alive in 'heaven' now?

Is it even possible that when people who never met Jesus heard about his death then wrote a more dramatic version of his life and ended up being followed? Is there any good reason for thinking the disciples of Jesus died for the gospel?

Sorry there are alot of questions there,

Darknova

Click to expand...

I would do some more reading on this subject.

http://www.reasonableanswers.org/12-Eyewitnesses-of-the-resurrection.html
http://www.ucg.org/bible/jesus-resurrection/

www.TheBibleProofBook.com, (you will need acrobat reader for this), read The Evidence That Demands A Verdict by Josh McDowell a former agnostic- (its overwhelming circumstantial evidence of bible) and Examine the Evidence by Muncaster a former athiest/The Case for Christ and The Real Jesus by Lee Strobel a former athiest. www.equip.org (articles), http://www.gotquestions.org/,
http://christiananswers.net/
http://equip.org/articles/a-defense-of-sola-scriptura
http://equip.org/articles/bible-reliability

Darknova-

The tomb where Jesus' body was laid following his death was a tomb originally built to house the body of Joseph of Arimathea. That implies that its exact location was recorded so that following his death those responsible for his entombment would know where to take his body for its initial phase. And what do I mean by that?

The Scripture states that Jesus was put in a tomb that had never been used. What we need to understand is that there were two phases to a burial during this timeframe. The initial phase consisted of the people putting a body in its tomb for approximately one year. When that year expired, they returned to the tomb to collect the skeleton. The second phase was their removing the skeleton from the tomb, and placing it in an ossuary box. After that, the tomb was ready to hold another body, or bodies, depending on its size.

As was stated in another message on this thread, Jesus' death and resurrection were attested to by St. Paul circa 55 AD, well within the lifetimes of the original apostles, disciples and relatives of Jesus Christ. He had spoken with the eyewitnesses to the resurrection while he was in Jerusalem, and in all likelihood had gone to the tomb himself. He definitely would have known how to verify that it was indeed Joseph of Arimathea's tomb, and in all probability would have been able to access the records for himself. His statement concerning his research is to be found in Scripture:

Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance; that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. (I Corinthians 15:1-8,NIV)

Some ultra-liberal scholars have put forth the theory that the gospels were written by others many years after the event. But those scholars cannot give a valid answer to St. Paul's telling that the resurrection had indeed happened. His death is known to have occurred under Nero, whom secular history records as having died himself no later than 68 AD. So St, Paul's lifetime is too close to the original happenings for a legend to have developed, which is what they argue happened, but only after about 50 years had passed.

Also, there are valid arguments for dating the gospels well within the lifetimes of the apostles. This is called 'early dating' as opposed to 'late datinig'. It is believed by some, including myself, that the three synoptic gospels, as well as Acts of the Apostles, were all completed prior to St. Paul's death circa 64 AD. This puts the recording of the events of Jesus' life as having been done while those who knew him were still alive.

You can find arguments for this early dating on this website:

www.christiancadre.org/topics/dating_nt.html

God bless-

darknova said:

Hi,

I know that if the resurrection has good evidence for it then it proves alot. But is there any reason to believe the resurrection happened?

I've read about the resurrection having to have happened because the disciples wouldn't have died for a lie which I agree with and I don't think the disciples would have lied anyway.

But is it possible that the disciples could have been mistaken about the tomb being empty and then the visions of Jesus could have been added later on, but never actually happened? Maybe the romans moved Jesus' body for some reason or the disciples thought an empty tomb which wasn't Jesus' was Jesus'.

Maybe even the empty tomb and visions of the risen Jesus were just dramatic retellings of the disciples realising that maybe Jesus was right and is alive in 'heaven' now?

Is it even possible that when people who never met Jesus heard about his death then wrote a more dramatic version of his life and ended up being followed? Is there any good reason for thinking the disciples of Jesus died for the gospel?

Sorry there are alot of questions there,

Darknova

Click to expand...

You have to remember that the idea of someone being resurrected was seen as at least as impossible in that world as this. Nobody was expecting it; a resurrection like that was not part of any belief system kicking around in that world. And, contrary to modern arogant assumptions about the ancient world people did not easily make major shifts in their life-after-death understandings. When Jesus was crucified that would be the ultimate proof that he was not the messiah - that is why the Romans crucified would-be-messiahs in the first place. Something really dramatic had to happen to change people's thinking. An empty tomb has too many obvious explanations for that to be enough. Visionary experiences would not do it - they had lots of language and explanation for talking about visionary experiences. And remember these stories were set in the form we have them probably within 20 years of it happening; all the signs are that the resurrection stories are the earliest parts of the gospels they occur in to be fixed. Additionally none of them look like the sort of story you would make up if you were going to - they aren't reconcilled, the gospel accounts all rely on women's testimony (which makes them a laughing stock in that world), and Paul's has 500 witnesses you can go and ask.

No-one has come up with a satifisfactory alternative explanation for the resurrection stories and the central, foundational, universal, place they have in all of the earliest church's thinking except that the resurrection happened. All the alternative explanations have huge problems.

If you're interested, NT Wright has written an 800 page historical scholarly volume on exactly this - Resurrection of the Son of God.

Jesus' resurrection wasn't just physical. Lazarus' resurrection was just physical. Jesus' resurrection was both physical and spiritual.

Jpark said:

Jesus' resurrection wasn't just physical. Lazarus' resurrection was just physical. Jesus' resurrection was both physical and spiritual.

Click to expand...

There is a difference, but I don't think that's the best way of expressing it.

You've got a few hypotheses there. So I suggest you look at all the evidence (the resurrection accounts in the Bible) and test each hypothesis.
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
1 Corinthians

darknova said:

Hi,

I know that if the resurrection has good evidence for it then it proves alot. But is there any reason to believe the resurrection happened?

I've read about the resurrection having to have happened because the disciples wouldn't have died for a lie which I agree with and I don't think the disciples would have lied anyway.

But is it possible that the disciples could have been mistaken about the tomb being empty and then the visions of Jesus could have been added later on, but never actually happened? Maybe the romans moved Jesus' body for some reason or the disciples thought an empty tomb which wasn't Jesus' was Jesus'.

Maybe even the empty tomb and visions of the risen Jesus were just dramatic retellings of the disciples realising that maybe Jesus was right and is alive in 'heaven' now?

Is it even possible that when people who never met Jesus heard about his death then wrote a more dramatic version of his life and ended up being followed? Is there any good reason for thinking the disciples of Jesus died for the gospel?

Sorry there are alot of questions there,

Darknova

Click to expand...

OK. Let's say that the disciples were wrong. Let's say that they were so overcome with grief at the loss of their Lord and friend that they simply made up the story about the empty tomb as a kind of emotional defense mechanism.

In fact, let's go one step further. Let's say that the 500 witnesses who saw Jesus didn't actually see Jesus, but were a part of a phenomenon of mass halluncination based on group think, a heightened sense of expectation, and hyper-suggestability similar to the emotional defense mechanism made up by the disciples.

So what about the Romans?

The LAST thing the Romans wanted would be an empty tomb. Remember, they were trying to put down the Christians for fear that Christianity would become a threat to the political powers that be in Rome. It would have been unthinkable for them to move the body and give the people the impression that Jesus rose from the grave, thus creating even more reason for Roman citizens to convert to Christianity.

So why suggest that they would have done this?

In fact, the most obvious thing they could have done that would have put the final nail in the Christ-myth (er, so to speak) would be to take the body and put it on public display and announce, "Here is your Christ! Here is your Messiah! He is a mere man and now He is dead! Christ is dead! Caesar lives! Hail Caesar! Your fantasy is over, Christians! Renounce your allegience to Christ and pledge your allegiance to Rome and you may live!"

Christianity would have come to an instant and complete halt.

But they did not do this. Why?

Why, instead, did they claim that they did not know what happened to the body? In fact, why did they feel the need to agree to create a conspiracy against the disciples to claim that the disciples stole the body?

The Romans did not have the body! The disciples could not and would not have stolen the body. What happened to the body is now up to you to explain.

I like all these posts, but to me the real evidence is His ongoing Life NOW. It also seems to me that the role of His Priesthood NOW is the most neglected part of Christianity.

I wonder what the OP knows about this?

ebia said:

If you're interested, NT Wright has written an 800 page historical scholarly volume on exactly this - Resurrection of the Son of God.

Click to expand...

Was this before or after Wright became apostate?

John_Galt said:

Was this before or after Wright became apostate?

Click to expand...

Tom Wright is not apostate. Unless apostate means "says something I disagree with".

ebia said:

Tom Wright is not apostate. Unless apostate means "says something I disagree with".

Click to expand...

NT Wright is a heretic. Was he always? No. Is he now? Yes.

No he is not.

ebia said:

No he is not.

Click to expand...

If you believe that someone can deny the Biblical doctrine of imputed righteousness and still be orthodox, then you're welcome to that opinion. I, and the PCA, who voted to censure Wright and very nearly voted to excommunicate him due to his many Unbiblical doctrinal views, choose to disagree with you.

While the PCA's official statement has been removed, it is addressed here:

http://adrianwarnock.com/2007/04/the-pca-considering-excluding-followers-of-n-t-wright/

I am posting this only so that you know that many have seen serious errors in Wright's theology, not to argue with you about it. I will no longer discuss it in this thread.

John_Galt said:

If you believe that someone can deny the Biblical doctrine of imputed righteousness and still be orthodox, then you're welcome to that opinion.

Click to expand...

Yes I do.

I, and the PCA, who voted to censure Wright and very nearly voted to excommunicate him due to his many Unbiblical doctrinal views, choose to disagree with you.

Click to expand...