Book Plunge: Can Christians Prove The Resurrection?

[Gary]

I'm not kicking anyone out. Anyone can say whatever they want. But I'm only going to engage Stein.

[Gary]

Stein,

We agree that the earliest Christians believed that they had "seen" Jesus alive again after his crucifixion. I do not believe that anyone made this up. I believe that these people were very sincere in their belief of a "resurrection". But the question is: What did they actually see? Did they see a bright light, similar to Paul? Did they see an apparition similar to what many Catholics even today claim to see of the Virgin Mary? I believe that Paul sincerely believed that five hundred people saw Jesus at the same time in the same place....but what did they see exactly??

Answer: We don't know! We have no known eyewitness testimony other than Paul's and he specifically says that all he saw was a talking bright light...in a vision! Did the five hundred in the First Corinthians 15 Creed only see a bright light that they assumed was Jesus? We don't know! We don't know because we have no eyewitness testimony. All we have is hearsay.

Without any eyewitness statements, all we can say is that someone or "someones" thought they had seen Jesus...in some fashion.

[One Bad Pig]

I'm not kicking anyone out. Anyone can say whatever they want. But I'm only going to engage Stein.

Run away, brave Sir Robin.

[jpholding]

You are not a scholar. You are a foul-mouthed fundamentalist, Florida preacher whose reputation on the internet would shame any other Christian. I have no interest in addressing you or your silly theory any further. The fact that no respected NT scholar uses your theory to any major extent to verify the Resurrection is proof that it is utter fundamentalist nonsense.

chicken.jpg

Good boy, run like a coward. Here's my "reputation" small fry:

http://www.tektonics.org/jpholding.html

How many million-copy selling books and peer reviewed journal articles have cited YOUR work, moron?

Oh, as for anyone using "my" theory:

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Scandals...sap_bc?ie=UTF8

Nice heaping plate of crow for the chicken!

[Gary]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]13395[/ATTACH]

Good boy, run like a coward. Here's my "reputation" small fry:

http://www.tektonics.org/jpholding.html

How many million-copy selling books and peer reviewed journal articles have cited YOUR work, moron?

Oh, as for anyone using "my" theory:

http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Scandals...sap_bc?ie=UTF8

Nice heaping plate of crow for the chicken!

You may have a "reputation" on Tektonics but on the internet you have the reputation of being a foul-mouthed fundamentalist who prefers to debate with non-stop, condescending, personal insults rather than civil discussion and debate. Your internet reputation is no better than that of a foul-mouthed junior high school bully.

I'm not biting.

If you do a google search for the name JP Holding, this is the first thing that pops up:

James Patrick Holding (born 1968, real name Robert Turkel, usually referred to as J. P. Holding) is an ex-prison librarian[1], cartoonist, and Christian apologist known best for founding and managing Tekton Education and Apologetic Ministries.

Contents [hide]
1 About J. P.
2 Tekton Ministry Website
3 Books
4 Views
5 Youtube 5.1 Interactions with other YouTubers

6 See also
7 External links
8 Footnotes


[edit] About J. P.

J. P. Holding is a Christian minister who lives in Florida with his wife and a rescued poodle.[2] He earned a Master's degree in library science and describes himself as "trained to look things up and answer questions."[3] Amongst laypeople this is also known as "typing a question in to Google."

Even though he is a Christian, he claims he does not set out to convert people.[4] Instead, he claims, he is presenting facts and clearing up misunderstandings, such as biblical contradictions and scientific errors. He claims to be explaining the history of Judaism and Christianity in a cultural context, however it is unclear when reading his articles what this context is, since it is not mainstream academic nor mainstream revisionist Christian. He claims he doesn't have to resort to pseudohistory or logical fallacies, but again, this is not borne out in the articles from his website. His answers are his own, and they may or may not be useful for someone who is questioning his or her Christianity, but they do not resolve any of the known conflicts in the Bible any better than other apologetic writers have done.[5]


Enough said.

[jpholding]

You may have a "reputation" on Tektonics but on the internet you have the reputation of being a foul-mouthed fundamentalist who prefers to debate with non-stop, condescending, personal insults rather than civil discussion and debate. Your internet reputation is no better than that of a foul-mouthed junior high school bully.

I'm not biting.

If you do a google search for the name JP Holding, this is the first thing that pops up:.

Oh wow, the moron thinks "RationalWiki" is a reliable source -- a page written by disgruntled 13 year old atheists who deconverted because God didn't heal their acne! It's like Gary citing himself as an authority!

Take any excuse you can to run like a little girl, chicken boy -- you'll need them!

[Apologiaphoenix]

JPH. Don't forget to tag him in the name thread for being another victim.

[Gary]

Still waiting to talk to someone who has the maturity of an adult...

Stein...are you there?

[psstein]

Stein,

We agree that the earliest Christians believed that they had "seen" Jesus alive again after his crucifixion. I do not believe that anyone made this up. I believe that these people were very sincere in their belief of a "resurrection". But the question is: What did they actually see? Did they see a bright light, similar to Paul? Did they see an apparition similar to what many Catholics even today claim to see of the Virgin Mary? I believe that Paul sincerely believed that five hundred people saw Jesus at the same time in the same place....but what did they see exactly??

Answer: We don't know! We have no known eyewitness testimony other than Paul's and he specifically says that all he saw was a talking bright light...in a vision! Did the five hundred in the First Corinthians 15 Creed only see a bright light that they assumed was Jesus? We don't know! We don't know because we have no eyewitness testimony. All we have is hearsay.

Without any eyewitness statements, all we can say is that someone or "someones" thought they had seen Jesus...in some fashion.

The issue is that whatever appearance they had convinced them that Jesus had risen from the dead and appearing to them. A light doesn't seem sufficient to cause that belief.

You're also rather unfairly stating that "all we have is hearsay." I don't think that's true. I think the eyewitnesses are still involved in the transmission of the oral tradition and are actively preaching. It's a fairly widespread belief that the gospels have eyewitness testimony of a sort behind them. How much is up for debate (Bauckham tends to be overly optimistic about how much we can know about it).

Also, be aware that I don't post particularly regularly here. I jump in when I see something interesting, spend a lot of time for a short period, then tend to fade away. That's largely due to the hectic nature of my real-world life.

[psstein]

Oh wow, the moron thinks "RationalWiki" is a reliable source -- a page written by disgruntled 13 year old atheists who deconverted because God didn't heal their acne! It's like Gary citing himself as an authority!

Take any excuse you can to run like a little girl, chicken boy -- you'll need them!

RationalWiki's "demolition" of the minimal facts made me laugh.

It starts with something about how Paul didn't know that Jesus was crucified.

[Gary]

The issue is that whatever appearance they had convinced them that Jesus had risen from the dead and appearing to them. A light doesn't seem sufficient to cause that belief.

You're also rather unfairly stating that "all we have is hearsay." I don't think that's true. I think the eyewitnesses are still involved in the transmission of the oral tradition and are actively preaching. It's a fairly widespread belief that the gospels have eyewitness testimony of a sort behind them. How much is up for debate (Bauckham tends to be overly optimistic about how much we can know about it).

Also, be aware that I don't post particularly regularly here. I jump in when I see something interesting, spend a lot of time for a short period, then tend to fade away. That's largely due to the hectic nature of my real-world life.

I nor most skeptics doubt the sincerity of the early Christians in their belief that Jesus had appeared to them. The question is: Was this appearance reality or something else? Many, many people throughout history have sincerely believed that they have seen a dead person. No one believes that they all did.

If all Paul saw was a light, in a vision, and he believed, why couldn't this have been what happened to others?

I agree that there may be a core of truth to the appearance traditions, but we just don't know for sure. Maybe it was something such as the following:

One of the disciples had a vivid dream in which Jesus appears to the Eleven in a second story room. Jesus interacts with them verbally. He allows them to touch him. He eats with them. This story spreads among the early Christian churches, and 35-65 years later, there are several stories of appearances, some occur in Galilee and some in an upper room.

The core truth could simply and only be that a disciple had a vivid dream that was as real and literal to him as Joseph's two vivid dreams were real to him; dreams in which both men believed that a supernatural being, with a supernatural body, had truly appeared to them.

[Gary]

Stein,

Look at this passage from the Gospel of Matthew, with a short three word phrase omitted:



This appearance to Joseph by an angel (a supernatural being with a supernatural, visible, body) sounds no different than the appearance-of-Jesus-to-his-disciples stories. The stories are exactly the same except for a three word phrase.

The three word phrase omitted is: in a dream.

[One Bad Pig]

Still waiting to talk to someone who has the maturity of an adult...

Have you considered attaining it yourself first?

[One Bad Pig]

Stein,

Look at this passage from the Gospel of Matthew, with a short three word phrase omitted:



This appearance to Joseph by an angel (a supernatural being with a supernatural, visible, body) sounds no different than the appearance-of-Jesus-to-his-disciples stories. The stories are exactly the same except for a three word phrase.

The three word phrase omitted is: in a dream.

How convenient it is to remove evidence you don't like.

[jpholding]

JPH. Don't forget to tag him in the name thread for being another victim.

Might not be fair, I'm sure he copied and pasted it without reading it.