The Evidence Skeptics would like to see for the Resurrection Claim

[Gary]

No, because there are subtle hints and clues of problematic elements throughout the gospel works that we would expect to have been edited or described differently if that was the case, which suggests they were recording history as it happened. There are also a slew of missing subject matter we read from the epistles that wasn't addressed by Jesus, which suggests Jesus never addressed such issues (as these church issues came subsequent to his death and resurrection) and that they were being true to the actual sayings of Jesus.

There are many assumptions in your statement, my friend.

Again, I don't think that the author of Mark made up his entire book. I think there is a core story that he believed was historically true. I don't believe that there was any intention by any of the gospel authors to deceive anyone. What I am saying is that anytime an oral story is passed around long enough, embellishments, deletions, and alterations are made to the story. I believe that there is enough evidence for one to believe that there was an historical Jesus in the early first century who preached a coming kingdom of God, repentance, and pacifism. I believe that he was seen as a prophet and a miracle worker.

What I don't accept as historical fact is that he walked on water, turned water into wine, fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fishes, healed blindness and leprosy, and raised the dead. We have zero evidence to prove these specific miracles happened.

Your other assumption: You assume that Jesus authorized Paul to teach that eating Kosher was no longer necessary; that women must keep silent in the church; that homosexuality is morally equivalent to murder, etc. For all we know, these are Paul's inventions.

[seanD]

There are many assumptions in your statement, my friend.

Again, I don't think that the author of Mark made up his entire book. What I am saying is that anytime an oral story is passed around long enough, embellishments, deletions, and alterations are made to the story. I believe that there is enough evidence for one to believe that there was an historical Jesus in the early first century who preached a coming kingdom of God, repentance, and pacifism. I believe that he was seen as a prophet and a miracle worker.

What I don't accept as historical fact is that he walked on water, turned water into wine, fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fishes, healed blindness and leprosy, and raised the dead. We have zero evidence to prove these specific miracles happened.

Your other assumption: You assume that Jesus authorized Paul to teach that eating Kosher was no longer necessary; that women must keep silent in the church; that homosexuality is morally equivalent to murder, etc. For all we know, these are Paul's inventions.

What I had pointed out about editing also works for embellishment, not just invention from pure scratch. In fact, embellishment is the exemplification of this problem, because if they were embellishing (i.e. adding things that weren't true), they were clearly redacting the stories as they saw fit and was most convenient to their evangelism purposes. And I think you misunderstood my latter argument. Let's say I wrote a story about a man that had founded a church that was already established some 50 years after. It would be odd if the man didn't address any of the church issues that had occurred in the church during that 50 year period if I was fabricating the story. What better way than to use the founder himself to address these issues in order to stamp authority on how the issues should be treated. In fact, there are things Jesus said and taught that would have worked against evangelism during that time (i.e. things he said about Gentiles). This would suggest that I"m not making things up about the man but keeping true to what he actually said and taught, which is directly contrary to an argument of fabrication and especially embellishment.

[Gary]

What I had pointed out about editing also works for embellishment, not just invention from pure scratch. In fact, embellishment is the exemplification of this problem, because if they were embellishing (i.e. adding things that weren't true), they were clearly redacting the stories as they saw fit and was most convenient to their evangelism purposes. And I think you misunderstood my latter argument. Let's say I wrote a story about a man that had founded a church that was already established some 50 years after. It would be odd if the man didn't address any of the church issues that had occurred in the church during that 50 year period if I was fabricating the story. What better way than to use the founder himself to address these issues in order to stamp authority on how the issues should be treated. In fact, there are things Jesus said and taught that would have worked against evangelism during that time (i.e. things he said about Gentiles). This would suggest that I"m not making things up about the man but keeping true to what he actually said and taught, which is directly contrary to an argument of fabrication and especially embellishment.

Your theory is certainly possible, but the problem is, we just don't know. For all we know, Paul was a very sincere man but significantly afflicted with mental illness. Therefore, his teachings came from his troubled mind, not from "internal revelations" from a god, as he claimed. If someone today claimed to have seen a talking bright light on a dark desert highway, and then claimed to have spent a couple of years in a desert receiving private revelations in his head from this talking bright light, and then announced to the world that he had been chosen by this talking bright light to be a missionary to the Gentiles, we would all probably encourage this person to admit himself to a local mental health facility.

I know that this statement seems offensive to Christians, but that is how many skeptics view Paul.

[One Bad Pig]

Yawn. Yet another of your periodic rants which have nothing to do with the post to which you're ostensibly replying.

Seriously, folks. If Jesus really loved the entire world he would have done everything possible to make sure that every human being on the planet knows that he is alive and well and that he is the all-mighty Ruler of the Universe. He would clearly tell each one of us, in person, that he loves us but we must believe in him as our Lord to avoid eternal punishment.

But he didn't do that, did he?

Nope. He declined to dance to the whims of an angry skeptic. Shocking, I know.

He came to earth in secret; preached his life and death message in riddles;

Not really in secret; and his method was in accordance with prophecy and the cultural milieu into which he was born.

never performed indisputable miracles in front of notable skeptics such as a king, governor, or high priest;

He performed plenty of miracles in front of representatives of his culture's leaders. And those who were healed of leprosy were sent to the temple to demonstrate their cure to the priests.

and then allegedly performed the greatest miracle in history---a resurrection---but only appeared afterwards to his followers in secret locations and to one bipolar rabbi on a dark, desert highway.

Your gratuitous ad hominem rather undermines your pretense of objectivity. And the shore of the Sea of Galilee (not to mention the appearance to 500 at once) would not be a "secret location."

Wake up, folks. This is a tall tale from the ancient Middle East. Educated people should not believe this story and definitely should not base their entire lives upon it.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that tall tales don't tend to turn sinners into saints.

[seanD]

Your theory is certainly possible, but the problem is, we just don't know. For all we know, Paul was a very sincere man but significantly afflicted with mental illness. Therefore, his teachings came from his troubled mind, not from "internal revelations" from a god, as he claimed. If someone today claimed to have seen a talking bright light on a dark desert highway, and then claimed to have spent a couple of years in a desert receiving private revelations in his head from this talking bright light, and then announced to the world that he had been chosen by this talking bright light to be a missionary to the Gentiles, we would all probably encourage this person to admit himself to a local mental health facility.

I know that this statement seems offensive to Christians, but that is how many skeptics view Paul.

To the contrary, we know these were common issues in the church among the apostles. We know this because Luke addresses many of these issues in Acts that we find in the epistles of Paul. Yet Luke never addresses theses issues with authority on the lips of the man himself in his gospel. Strange if embellishment is as common as you say. And in spite of what you think about Paul (which is pretty amusing), he was still very much connected to the initial disciples and the main churches at Jerusalem, Rome and all the other significant churches scattered throughout the Mediterranean, thus he was obviously describing issues that would have been common issues at that time, issues that certainly the other gospels writers would have been privy to aside from Luke.

[psstein]

So you admit that "Mark" did not receive his information about Jesus directly from the Apostle Peter, as most conservative evangelical Christians believe.

More evidence that the Gospels are not eyewitness testimony.

And who were these Aramaic sources? How trustworthy of sources were they? Did they claim to be eyewitnesses to any of the stories? Isn't it possible that if there were earlier Aramaic sources for Mark, that these Aramaic stories were the oral legends that had evolved over the decades after 30 AD? And contrary to what Nick will say, Christians cannot prove that oral legends in the first century did not evolve and that new embellished information was not added, as has happened for centuries and millennia when a shocking news event is passed from mouth to mouth over an extended period of time.

No, I don't subscribe to "Mark took everything from Peter." I think that Mark heard Peter preach and relates a significant amount of his material. There are clearly pre-existing sources behind the Gospel of Mark (e.g. the Passion Narrative and the Synoptic Apocalypse). I think the Aramaic source may include those parts.

Casey argues that the Aramaic source did come from an eyewitness; he actually dates Mark to the early 40s!

[Adrift]

Note: I never said that there is no evidence that people in the first century believed Jesus to have performed miracles. What I said is that we have no evidence of the SPECIFIC miracles mentioned in the Gospels. For all we know the specific miracles mentioned in the gospels are fictitious miracle stories. Jesus may have performed "miracles" similar to the "miracles" that your local Pentecostal pastor can perform today, such as healing migraine headaches and casting out "demons", but walking on water, healing leprosy, and raising the dead, I don't buy it. If these miracles had occurred, the Jews and Romans would have recorded it. They didn't.

Think about this, folks: In the Gospel of John, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead and all of Palestine, including the Sanhedrin hear about it. And this miracle didn't happen in secret where it could be denied. The Sanhedrin, according to the author of John, even threatened to kill Lazarus! According to the author of John, the Sanhedrin was so furious over this miracle that this is why they arrested Jesus.

Can you imagine the reaction of the Romans, in particular, Pilate, to the news that the Jews have a man who has the power to raise the dead! Yet when Pilate interviews Jesus prior to sentencing him to death, the raising of Lazarus, the alleged cause for Jesus' arrest, is never mentioned! Are you kidding me! The man has just brought back to life a FOUR DAY DEAD stinking corpse, in front of a crowd of witnesses, an event confirmed by the Jewish authorities, and Pilate doesn't mention this little detail???

The
Lazarus
miracle
is
a
tall
tale!

And if the Lazarus miracle is a theological embellishment, if Matthew's story of dead people roaming the streets of Jerusalem is a theological embellishment, if Matthew's story of guards at the tomb is a theological embellishment, if the story of Jesus predicting he will be in the grave three days and three nights is a theological embellishment, why isn't it very possible that most or all of the miracle stories and prophecies in the Gospels are theological embellishments?

This post doesn't really interact with the post you replied to. I have no idea what you're on about, or what argument you think you're answering.

[Gary]

Yawn. Yet another of your periodic rants which have nothing to do with the post to which you're ostensibly replying.

Nope. He declined to dance to the whims of an angry skeptic. Shocking, I know.

Not really in secret; and his method was in accordance with prophecy and the cultural milieu into which he was born.
He performed plenty of miracles in front of representatives of his culture's leaders. And those who were healed of leprosy were sent to the temple to demonstrate their cure to the priests.

Your gratuitous ad hominem rather undermines your pretense of objectivity. And the shore of the Sea of Galilee (not to mention the appearance to 500 at once) would not be a "secret location."

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that tall tales don't tend to turn sinners into saints.

Tall tales don't tend to turn "sinners" into believers??? Tell that to the followers of Buddha and Mohammad.

[Leonhard]

"faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

I don't see the word "evidence" anywhere in that passage of the Bible.

It doesn't have to. You can certainly have evidence for things you have faith in. I don't see anything in that bible quotation that contradicts it. It actually supports it. Hope is always the expectation of some desirable state of affairs, that one can achieve.

[Gary]

To the contrary, we know these were common issues in the church among the apostles. We know this because Luke addresses many of these issues in Acts that we find in the epistles of Paul. Yet Luke never addresses theses issues with authority on the lips of the man himself in his gospel. Strange if embellishment is as common as you say. And in spite of what you think about Paul (which is pretty amusing), he was still very much connected to the initial disciples and the main churches at Jerusalem, Rome and all the other significant churches scattered throughout the Mediterranean, thus he was obviously describing issues that would have been common issues at that time, issues that certainly the other gospels writers would have been privy to aside from Luke.

Do all scholars believe that Paul and the Church in Jerusalem saw eye to eye? I don't think so. I think it is quite possible that James and the Church in Jerusalem saw Paul as preaching his own new version of the "Way" and eventually parted ways with him. I can't prove it, but neither can you prove this position is wrong. None of us today can know for sure the eventual status of the relationship between Paul and the Jerusalem Church.

The anonymous author of Acts and Luke is thought by many scholars to have been a Pauline disciple. It is therefore not surprising that he paints Paul in a good light (and Peter in a negative light).

[Gary]

No, I don't subscribe to "Mark took everything from Peter." I think that Mark heard Peter preach and relates a significant amount of his material. There are clearly pre-existing sources behind the Gospel of Mark (e.g. the Passion Narrative and the Synoptic Apocalypse). I think the Aramaic source may include those parts.

Casey argues that the Aramaic source did come from an eyewitness; he actually dates Mark to the early 40s!

Well, then your scholar's opinion is "fringe scholarship" as only a few fundamentalist/evangelical scholars believe that Mark was written that early. But once again I must point out the shaky claim that Christians have for eyewitness testimony in the Gospels. Mark was not an eyewitness. We are now told that he did not receive all his information from an eyewitness, Peter, but from other unknown Aramaic sources who "were" allegedly eyewitnesses.

It is amazing how desperate Christians are to keep this ancient tale stitched together.

Spin. Pure, wishful-thinking, spin.

[Gary]

This post doesn't really interact with the post you replied to. I have no idea what you're on about, or what argument you think you're answering.

If my positions and comments are as bad as you say they are then why do you keep following me to MY posts, Drifty? If my positions are as bad as you claim, no Christian is going to fall for them. So why don't you do yourself a favor and go comment on some other post?

[seanD]

Do all scholars believe that Paul and the Church in Jerusalem saw eye to eye? I don't think so. I think it is quite possible that James and the Church in Jerusalem saw Paul as preaching his own new version of the "Way" and eventually parted ways with him. I can't prove it, but neither can you prove this position is wrong. None of us today can know for sure the eventual status of the relationship between Paul and the Jerusalem Church.

The anonymous author of Acts and Luke is thought by many scholars to have been a Pauline disciple. It is therefore not surprising that he paints Paul in a good light (and Peter in a negative light).

Dude, you're apparently not understanding where I'm coming from. The fact there was controversy over these issues is all the more reason we would expect these issues to be addressed by Jesus if they were embellishing his sayings. And if they were embellishing the stories, his sayings would have been the primary result of such embellishment. Two reasons we can imagine would have been the reason to embellish the stories from an evangelistic perspective: to establish the divine theology surrounding Jesus by illustrating his amazing feats, and to establish sound church doctrine (oi doctrine that was controversial at the time) by his authority in his sayings. If we assume Luke sided with Paul, then he could have used Jesus to address the myriad number of issues in favor of Paul's teachings, or vice versa. It doesn't matter who they were siding with, what matters is that Jesus doesn't address any of these issues which would have been the ideal way to solve them if they were embellishing the works as you believe they were. This supports the belief that they kept the Jesus traditions pure from embellishment which explains why these stories don't at all reflect these church issues, why they're indifferent to these issues and, in some cases, seem to even contradict the agenda of evangelism at the time.

[One Bad Pig]

Well, then your scholar's opinion is "fringe scholarship" as only a few fundamentalist/evangelical scholars believe that Mark was written that early.

Casey is most certainly not "fundamentalist/evangelical." If you had any idea of actual scholarship, you'd know this. Heck, if you actually read psstein's posts carefully, you'd know this.

[One Bad Pig]

Tall tales don't tend to turn "sinners" into believers??? Tell that to the followers of Buddha and Mohammad.

That's not what I'm arguing. Try again?