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  • #16
    Originally posted by seanD View Post
    Would not fit with the rest of Jesus' life? Sure it would. Throwing fireballs and riding dragons? No, but we have Jesus walking on water in one work, sweating blood and ascending into heaven in another work, divine proclamations about Jesus from heaven, glowing like an angelic being and surrounded by past prophets in all three works. The spectacle of Jesus' majesty and divinity is illustrated throughout the works.
    I guess it depends on what you mean by the "fantastic "mythology" we would expect of an ancient world". What we see in the post-resurrection accounts is of a similar style to the earlier miracles.

    Jesus' divine proclamations:

    Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[b] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

    Jesus ascending to heaven

    Luke 24:50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. 51 While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

    Jesus getting past (or through?) locked doors.

    19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews,[c] Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

    Jesus providing food:

    6 He said to them, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish.

    And of course the author of Matthew has the dead saints walking around:

    Matthew 27:52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

    Do these count as the "fantastic "mythology" we would expect of an ancient world?" or not, seanD. You tell me, and we can work on from there.
    We also see at least the theology of spectacle in 1 Peter 3:19-20.
    I do not get what your point is about these verses:

    1 Peter 3:19 in which[c] he went and proclaimed[d] to the spirits in prison, 20 because[e] they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.
    The later Christian apocryphal works, like the gospel of Peter and the gospel of Bartholomew, also understood the necessity of the resurrection spectacle and followed patterns we would expect of Christian fictional works. And this is even more so if these were based off of hallucinations, as mentioned earlier. Proving he was resurrected flesh didn't negate the spectacle we see in Luke, or the angel ascending out of heaven and terrifying the guards that we see in Matthew.
    What we see is a progression of spectacle, from Paul's account of some sightings and Mark's allusion to a sighting in Galilee to the later gospels, when Jesus has become physically resurrected, walking around Jerusalem, performing low key miracles, and then on to the more fanciful of the Questions of Bartholomew (the Gospel of Peter resembles that of Mark in its account as far as I can see).

    I take your point about proving he was resurrected flesh. If Jesus was physically resurrected it is reasonable that he would want to establish that. However, it is also reasonable to suppose that the early Christians would want to establish that too, and so might be tempted to embellish the narrative to make that clear. The fact is that we do not know either way.
    My Blog: http://oncreationism.blogspot.co.uk/

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    • #17
      Originally posted by seanD View Post
      And yet it isn't in any of the four gospels that illustrate the resurrection scene. Why is that?
      Probably the same reason why only Matthew mentions resurrected saints.

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by The Pixie View Post
        I guess it depends on what you mean by the "fantastic "mythology" we would expect of an ancient world". What we see in the post-resurrection accounts is of a similar style to the earlier miracles.

        Jesus' divine proclamations:

        Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[b] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."

        Jesus ascending to heaven

        Luke 24:50 Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. 51 While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.

        Jesus getting past (or through?) locked doors.

        19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews,[c] Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

        Jesus providing food:

        6 He said to them, "Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some." So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish.

        And of course the author of Matthew has the dead saints walking around:

        Matthew 27:52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

        Do these count as the "fantastic "mythology" we would expect of an ancient world?" or not, seanD. You tell me, and we can work on from there.

        I do not get what your point is about these verses:

        1 Peter 3:19 in which[c] he went and proclaimed[d] to the spirits in prison, 20 because[e] they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

        What we see is a progression of spectacle, from Paul's account of some sightings and Mark's allusion to a sighting in Galilee to the later gospels, when Jesus has become physically resurrected, walking around Jerusalem, performing low key miracles, and then on to the more fanciful of the Questions of Bartholomew (the Gospel of Peter resembles that of Mark in its account as far as I can see).

        I take your point about proving he was resurrected flesh. If Jesus was physically resurrected it is reasonable that he would want to establish that. However, it is also reasonable to suppose that the early Christians would want to establish that too, and so might be tempted to embellish the narrative to make that clear. The fact is that we do not know either way.
        What I meant is visual spectacle of the actual resurrection. We see the spectacle of Jesus’ miracles and the fact he is the divine Son of God illustrated throughout the gospels (which you assume was made up mythology), but we don’t see a visual of the actual resurrection miracle itself, such as the gospel of Peter mentioning Jesus comes out of the tomb as tall as a skyscraper accompanied by a talking cross or the visual of when he descends into hell in the gospel of Bartholomew. An explanation for this is because no eyewitness actually saw the resurrection occur or how it occurred, thus they were staying true to what eyewitnesses conveyed to them (as per Luke 1).

        But one of the flaws in your argument (there are a couple but I'll focus on this one first) is your premise that there is a "progression" from Paul. What makes you believe Paul's account is an early resurrection progression?
        Last edited by seanD; 01-08-2015, 01:20 PM.

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        • #19
          Originally posted by seanD View Post
          What I meant is visual spectacle of the actual resurrection. We see the spectacle of Jesus’ miracles and the fact he is the divine Son of God illustrated throughout the gospels (which you assume was made up mythology), but we don’t see a visual of the actual resurrection miracle itself, such as the gospel of Peter mentioning Jesus comes out of the tomb as tall as a skyscraper accompanied by a talking cross or the visual of when he descends into hell in the gospel of Bartholomew. An explanation for this is because no eyewitness actually saw the resurrection occur or how it occurred, thus they were staying true to what eyewitnesses conveyed to them (as per Luke 1).

          But one of the flaws in your argument (there are a couple but I'll focus on this one first) is your premise that there is a "progression" from Paul. What makes you believe Paul's account is an early resurrection progression?
          Ah I see. Yes, the spectacle of the resurrection is missing, and that is indeed a curious ommission (but how then do we know Jesus rose on the third day? he could have risen on the first day, but was not seen until the third). You make a good point there.

          With regards to Paul, I will accept there is no real progression from Paul to Mark. The progression is seen more clearly in the gospel accounts.
          My Blog: http://oncreationism.blogspot.co.uk/

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by The Pixie View Post
            Ah I see. Yes, the spectacle of the resurrection is missing, and that is indeed a curious ommission (but how then do we know Jesus rose on the third day? he could have risen on the first day, but was not seen until the third). You make a good point there.

            With regards to Paul, I will accept there is no real progression from Paul to Mark. The progression is seen more clearly in the gospel accounts.
            They knew it was the third day because the angel or Jesus himself presumably told them; the Jews that lied about it and the guards that told them about it confirmed it happened on the third day? I don't see this as a problem.

            The omission of the resurrection spectacle because they were being true to the eyewitness accounts is contrary to your belief they were embellishing the material with fictional imagery themselves, was my point. The reason I’m focusing on your belief of a progression is that this seems to be the primary premise to your argument (in fact, you’re presupposing it in your argument as fact). So since you agree there is no progression from Paul, let’s move on to the gospels. I’ll offer reasons why I don’t believe the gospels show a progression the way you think they do (i.e. from Mark to John) in other areas of its theology (in fact, show the opposite of Mark to John in this regard), but first; why do you believe the gospels are a progression aside from the presupposition that the resurrection accounts are a progression?
            Last edited by seanD; 01-08-2015, 03:45 PM.

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
              The Resurrection accounts seem extremely diverse.

              It seems that the original text of the Gospel of Mark had no account of Jesus' Resurrection appearances, at all. Matthew says that the resurrected Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary," then immediately went to Galilee where Jesus appeared to all eleven disciples at the same time. According to Luke, the resurrected Jesus first appeared to Cleopas and another man on the way to Emmaus, then appeared to the eleven disciples all at once in Jerusalem, and then he flew off into the sky. In John's Gospel, Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene alone, then to all of the disciples in Jerusalem where Jesus infuses them with the Holy Spirit, then again a week later where he proves he's not a ghost by showing off his wounds, and at least once more to seven disciples by the Sea of Tiberias where Jesus miracled an enormous catch of fish. Paul tells the Corinthians that Jesus appeared first to Peter, then to the Twelve, then to 500 people at once, then to James, then to all of the apostles, and finally to Paul. Finally, the interpolated Longer Ending of Mark says that Jesus first appeared to Mary Magdalene, then to two disciples walking into the country, then to all eleven disciples where he claims that belief in him will give people superpowers, after which he flew off into the sky.

              So, here we have five different documents which give five entirely different accounts of Jesus resurrection appearances. No two of them say the same thing. How could you possibly justify the claim that they are not that diverse?

              Why would you expect that? Which other ancient accounts of seemingly miraculous events lead you to believe that all ancient accounts based on mass hallucinations would vary so widely and bear such grandiose special effects?
              It seems as though one reason you reject the Resurrection as history is that the accounts are "extremely" diverse. The opposite of that is 4 accounts are actually one, first appearing, account followed by copycat accounts. Perhaps the latter ones have different wording but still give the same details. Would the first document be more believable then? Or, the following accounts are simply declarations like, "I also got the same story from my personally interviewing 45 eyewitnesses as did Mark." Would his account then be more believable?
              The greater number of laws . . . , the more thieves . . . there will be. ---- Lao-Tzu

              [T]he truth I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance -— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by Truthseeker View Post
                It seems as though one reason you reject the Resurrection as history is that the accounts are "extremely" diverse.
                That's actually not a reason that I reject the historicity of the Resurrection. SeanD had made the claim that the accounts of the resurrected Jesus' appearances were not very diverse. I was simply rebutting this claim by pointing out that they are, in fact, very diverse. Indeed, no two of them are the same.
                "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
                  That's actually not a reason that I reject the historicity of the Resurrection. SeanD had made the claim that the accounts of the resurrected Jesus' appearances were not very diverse. I was simply rebutting this claim by pointing out that they are, in fact, very diverse. Indeed, no two of them are the same.
                  Diverse in what we would expect if multiple eyewitnesses were involved. But there are independent similarities that we would also expect if it was a legitimate eyewitness account. For example, the fact that Peter is first to arrive at the tomb is an independent similarity between the gospel of Luke and John, yet the fact one indicates someone else is with him is the "diversity" we would expect between different eyewitnesses.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Originally posted by seanD View Post
                    Diverse in what we would expect if multiple eyewitnesses were involved. But there are independent similarities that we would also expect if it was a legitimate eyewitness account. For example, the fact that Peter is first to arrive at the tomb is an independent similarity between the gospel of Luke and John, yet the fact one indicates someone else is with him is the "diversity" we would expect between different eyewitnesses.
                    It seems incredibly disingenuous, to me, to pick out a single bit of similarity-- one which isn't even related to the Resurrection appearances-- while ignoring the massive amounts of dissimilarity in the actual accounts of the Resurrection appearances.
                    "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                    --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
                      It seems incredibly disingenuous, to me, to pick out a single bit of similarity-- one which isn't even related to the Resurrection appearances-- while ignoring the massive amounts of dissimilarity in the actual accounts of the Resurrection appearances.
                      I'm not following you. Luke 24:12 and John 20:3 are part of the resurrection story. I was using it as just one example.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Originally posted by johngalt1 View Post
                        How should I respond? Any suggestions?
                        You need to nail his assumptions to the ground. He is assuming his beliefs are default and than making others jump though hoops, he is not willing to jump through himself. You need to pull the rug out from under him and ask him to prove his assumption that nature is all that exist is true before you can get anywhere. Where is his evidence that a 'naturalistic explanation' is ALWAYS more probable? Is that something he's tested or assumed?
                        "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                        GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Here is a perfect example of somebody who doesn't know what he is talking about.

                          Originally posted by The Pixie View Post
                          The resurrection is a long way from being established, and to pin your argument on it may not have been a good move.

                          Most Biblical scholars consider Mark to be the first gospel written, and that was about 40 years after the event, and not by an eye witness (even assuming Mark was the author). The others were likely to have been written after all the eye witnesses were dead. The first writing we have is from Paul, and all he saw was a bright light that talked. He offers no indication that anyone else saw anything more substantial than that. A rather more likely scenario than the disciples smuggling out the body is that Mark just made up the empty tomb, and contrived it being found by two women who never told anyone about it to explain why up until then no one had known the tomb was empty (and it is notable that Paul does not mention the empty tomb).

                          My advise, then, would be to admit defeat.
                          Most of ancient history, was recorded decades later too. By that logic, we can't know all of ancient history. Thanks for undermining all of history, to keep your doubts.
                          "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                          GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by Enjolras View Post
                            I believe your friend is correct: The resurrection, as a miracle, is the least likely explanation by definition. Also, mass hallucinations do in fact occur. As Bart Ehrman has pointed out, "dozens of Roman senators claimed that King Romulus was snatched up into heaven from their midst," and thousands of Roman Catholics claim the Blessed Virgin Mary has appeared to them alive.
                            Here, let me refute these examples of yours:

                            Did these dozens of Roman senators face a horrible death, by their belief that King Romulus was snatched up into heaven, while in their midst? Yes or no?
                            Has the Virgin Mary, appeared to dozens, all at once, and everybody recorded the exact same experiences, based on the encounter? Yes or no?

                            Have fun trying to refute this.

                            Ehrman also argues in his book "How Jesus Became God," that the burial story of Jesus is highly problematic. It may be that Jesus was left on the cross where his body decomposed and served as food for scavenging animals. This is what usually happened to victims of crucifixion. Within a few days the body would have been unrecognizable, so the idea of the Romans producing it to 'disprove' the resurrection would have been pointless.
                            Too bad we found the ankle bone, of a victim of crucifixion, in a burial box, eh? Sorry, it only takes one example of a body being taken off a cross after death, to refute the idea that bodies were not taken off the cross, so if we accept the story that Jesus body was taken off the cross, than all the Romans or Jews would of had to do was go to the tomb and show the body was still there. Besides, as I pointed out above, the disciples faced horrible deaths and painful executions, for saying Jesus rose from the dead, so why lie about it? Here is just a short list:

                            Peter was crucified upside down.
                            Matthew was nailed to the ground and beheaded.
                            James was beheaded.

                            Yep, sounds like a great way to live, doesn't it? "Hey guys, let us start this religion where we will be killed and tortured, in horrible ways, for us saying that this dead guy rose from the dead, so who is with me!" Yeah, I'm sure that one would have gone over well.

                            The point your friend made about the resurrection being inadequate to prove the truth of Christianity is also correct. Imagine I could prove to you that a guy named Bob Smith rose from the dead in, say 1742. Would that mean that everything Bob said about himself or reality was therefore true? Would it mean his diaries were infallible? As far as I can see, it would just mean something very strange happened to Bob.
                            So what explanation do you have?
                            "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                            GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by Boxing Pythagoras View Post
                              That's actually not a reason that I reject the historicity of the Resurrection. SeanD had made the claim that the accounts of the resurrected Jesus' appearances were not very diverse. I was simply rebutting this claim by pointing out that they are, in fact, very diverse. Indeed, no two of them are the same.
                              Are they contradictory or complementary? If anything, if they really happened, we would want them to be different, to report different details, to have different writing methods, etc because that is what we expect to find when we are looking for truthful claims. If they were all the same, than we would know something is up.
                              "The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
                              GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by seanD View Post
                                I'm not following you. Luke 24:12 and John 20:3 are part of the resurrection story. I was using it as just one example.
                                Luke 24:12 and John 20:3 are not a part of the narratives which are explained by the 'mass hallucination' hypothesis. They are a part of the empty tomb narrative. The Resurrection appearances are what the 'mass hallucination' hypothesis is meant to explain. Those narratives are extremely different, with no two being alike. For example, none of the gospel authors mention the mysterious appearance to the 500 which Paul references in 1 Cor 15, nor does anyone but Paul seem to think that Peter was the first person to witness the Resurrected Jesus. Matthew tells us that the Resurrected Jesus' first appearance is to all the disciples in Galilee, while Luke tells it is to just two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and John says that it is to Mary Magdalene at the tomb.

                                The simple fact of the matter is that the Resurrection appearance narratives have far more dissimilarities than they have similarities.
                                "[Mathematics] is the revealer of every genuine truth, for it knows every hidden secret, and bears the key to every subtlety of letters; whoever, then, has the effrontery to pursue physics while neglecting mathematics should know from the start he will never make his entry through the portals of wisdom."
                                --Thomas Bradwardine, De Continuo (c. 1325)

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