The Evidence Skeptics would like to see for the Resurrection Claim

[Tassman]

Well it was argued that if someone did come back from the dead - those who do not believe the holy scriptures still would not be persuaded (Luke 16:31).

Jesus argued that is why some Jews of His day did not believe His words (John 5:46). Jesus even made the claim those who are of truth would hear/accept what He said (John 18:37).

[psstein]

You are assuming that the reason that Paul never mentions ANY of Jesus' miracles is due to him being in a high context society. This certainly seems to be a possible explanation, and I am more than willing to admit that this MIGHT be the explanation for Paul's complete silence on Jesus' miracle claims, parables, sermons, and most other deeds of his life. But could you admit that it is also possible that the reason that Paul never mentions any of these details is because he had never heard of them (nor had Peter and James, with whom Paul says he met with in Jerusalem for fourteen days, heard of many or all of these stories as told in the Gospel of Mark)?

Yes, it's possible.

Which is more likely: that an oral culture operates as an oral culture would, or that these stories are magically made up and nobody says anything about them.

Again, you don't seem to understand genre. The gospels are a form of Greco-Roman biography. The Pauline Epistles are decidedly not biography. These are the same stupid remarks that people like Doherty and Lataster make, but think they're saying something profound.

[psstein]

Isn't the following possible, guys?

The author of Mark is a Gentile Christian living in Antioch or Rome who had never stepped foot in Palestine; never knew Jesus; and had never met any of the Eleven or Paul. He was a devout Christian who wanted to spread the Good News of Jesus...as he knew it, based on the legends circulating about Jesus at the time in his region of the world.

In circa 75 AD, "Mark" writes a book about Jesus. It isn't meant to be a historical biography. It is meant as a first century version of a Jack Chick gospel tract with exciting stories and devious supernatural beings and spectacular supernatural events all for the purpose of extolling the virtues of Jesus of Nazareth. This is why Paul never mentions any of Jesus' miracles in any of his epistles: Because no one on earth in the 50's and 60's AD had ever heard of any miracles by Jesus!

Once "Mark" had invented Jesus performing miracles, subsequent "gospel" authors repeated his miracle claims and added new ones of their own invention!

Maybe there originally were no miracles, folks. Maybe the only original miracle was the resurrection, and this miracle belief arose not because of an empty tomb (another concept never mentioned by.

The miracle tradition predates the gospel tradition. Maurice Casey's The Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel demonstrates that an earlier Aramaic source was used by Mark in the composition of his gospel.

Also, Mark was decidedly at least vaguely connected to Palestine. I don't buy the argument that Mark doesn't know what he's talking about in geography. Most people in antiquity didn't travel from 50 miles where they were born. People like Pilate and Paul were exceptions.

[Adrift]

You didn't have to wrap a quote tag around my entire post in order to answer this part.

Now, can you care to cite them [the Jesus Seminar] on this? Crossan holds a view of miracles that preclude them from ever being considered, I don't think I've ever seen him way in on the evidence regarding miracles, he simple dismisses the reality of them, and considers alternative accounts of Christ instead.

Believe it or not, Crossan regularly labels Jesus a healer, exorcist, and a worker of nature miracles. Crossan recognizes (as do most NT scholars) that Jesus was considered to have these abilities by his followers, and even by his opponents (the Talmud considers Jesus a sorcerer, and magic worker who led Jews away in apostasy, but also that people had healed in his name). If pushed, Crossan will likely offer the explanation that Jesus' healing ability was historically symbolic or ideological, but he curiously offers the following in The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant,

Source: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant by John Dominic Crossan

Jesus was both an exorcist and a healer: I take 121 Beelzebul Controversy [1/2], 110 A Leper Cured [1/2], 127 Sickness and Sin [1/2], and 129 Blind Man Healed [1/2] as not only typically but actually historical. His vision of the Kingdom was but an ecstatic dream without immediate social repercussions, were it not for those exorcisms and healings. Those latter were what the Kingdom looked like at the level of political reality.

© Copyright Original Source

Crossan never goes on to explain the mechanics of these events, but does believe that something did happen.

Ehrman also points out in his The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, "Whatever you think about the philosophical possibility of miracles of healing, it's clear that Jesus was widely reputed to have done them."

For people who actually take time to read them, rather than pretending to know what they think, it's common knowledge that scholars will point out in their academic work that Jesus was a miracle worker without offering explanations for those miracles. Actual talk about the reality of the miraculous is theological. Historians typically don't make theological judgement calls in their academic work (though they might express their opinions in their popular works).

So, for example, liberal Christian Marcus Borg of the Jesus Seminar states in his short article, The Mighty Deeds of Jesus, "More than 80% of the members of the Jesus Seminar, often viewed as a liberal and skeptical group, believe Jesus performed healings and exorcisms. Among other biblical scholars, the percentage would be as high or higher." Borg, who doubts the historical veracity of nature miracles (non-healing miracles), does believe that Jesus historically cured people and did exorcisms,

[Leonhard]

As I said, medicine and science have never confirmed the existence of the supernatural or confirmed the veracity of one single miracle claim.

Since science and medicine explicitly and implicitly by methodology limit themselves to conclusions about natural phenomenons, I don't think they could verify a miracle even if all the stars in the sky alligned to spell out "This is God: Verily a miracle has just a occured"

This isn't a problem though, since science and medicine, while good and useful in these kinds of studies, aren't the ultimate source of human truth.

I haven't seen one for which a natural explanation is impossible.

Then you're taking the David Hume approach which is to say, while you in principle admit the possibility of the supernatural, you could never verify it no matter what kind of evidence you recieved, so you'd keep on denying it. Hume was very explicit that nothing could convince him that a miracle had occured, no matter what.

Would it be better to simply state that your Faith's supernatural claims must be believed by faith, not evidence?

This is a bit confused.

First of all, I believe no evidence can show that Christ rose from the dead with certainty, even though I can show that this a sounder conclusion than any natural conclusion, with all the others ranging somewhere between incredible adhoc, or ridiculous. If a person was convinced on account of the evidence for Christ's ressurection, I wouldn't say he was forced to the conclusion, however he wouldn't be irrational in any sense of the word either. On the other hand, I do think naturalists responses to the evidence aren't terrible rational or good.

I can't envision evidence that would forcefully compel a person to belief in Christ. At least not of a kind you could be martyred with. That's why I said that God gives faith by supernatural inspiration to people who are open to it. That way its also not just high and mighty phd wielding people who come to faith (people usually chuck full of themselves), its also little old grandma who came to church after her husband died.

I also don't think you understand what the word faith means here. To a Christian faith means trust, not merely believing without having evidence. You can have faith in someone, trusting in His authority, and still have good reasons for doing so. Reason and faith are compatible, and one doesn't exclude the other. There is nothing in real genunine science and philosophy or in orthodox faith that can be in contradiction.

[Leonhard]

Thank you for the correction Adrift, though I really do seem to recall that he considered Christ's healings simple social in nature. Its possible I might have mixed him up with another person from the Jesus Seminar.

[37818]

Hmm. The Holy Scriptures cited were OT by accounts of arguments recorded in the NT. Explain how that makes the later arguments not true?

Besides most scholars consider Luke was written c. 50 years after the event, not by eyewitnesses and was largely lifted from Mark in any event.

So that opinion is not the opinion held by most born of God Christian scholars. And that type of dessenting opinion does not in and of itself invalidate those arguments.

So? It is my understanding that that John who was the eyewitness wrote that account.

[Adrift]

Thank you for the correction Adrift, though I really do seem to recall that he considered Christ's healings simple social in nature. Its possible I might have mixed him up with another person from the Jesus Seminar.

No, you're right. He does seem to believe that for all of Jesus' other miracles. It seems to be just these four that he believes are historically real, and that he hasn't offered a mechanic for.

[Adrift]

So that opinion is not the opinion held by most born of God Christian scholars.

I think you'll find that that's probably not the case. Most scholars, even Christian scholars, will not offer a pre-70 date.

[Gary]

Yes, it's possible.

Which is more likely: that an oral culture operates as an oral culture would, or that these stories are magically made up and nobody says anything about them.

Again, you don't seem to understand genre. The gospels are a form of Greco-Roman biography. The Pauline Epistles are decidedly not biography. These are the same stupid remarks that people like Doherty and Lataster make, but think they're saying something profound.

You are making several assumptions.

Many Christians assume that the Gospels were written in Palestine, or at least very early on distributed in Palestine, and immediately available to the Eleven and other eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus. We have zero proof of any of this. Scholars believe that the first Gospel was written circa 65-75 AD in Rome or Antioch. Scholars do not believe it was written in Palestine.

Let's pick a middle date for the writing of Mark, 70 AD. How many of the Eleven were still alive in 70 AD? How many other eyewitnesses to the crucifixion were alive in 70 AD? Answer: We don't know. Possibly many. Possibly none. If the average disciple was 20-30 years old in 30 AD, they would be 60-70 years old in 70 AD. If the average life span in the first century was 70-75 years of age, many witnesses would have been near the end of their life span in 70 AD.

But what happened in Palestine in 65-70 AD? Answer: The Jewish-Roman wars. Many tens of thousands were killed. Many others fled to the east. So how many elderly eyewitnesses were left to review "Mark's" gospel in 70 AD?

But there is another problem. If Mark wrote his gospel in 70 AD, how soon did copies of this gospel reach Palestine? If Mark wrote in Rome, it might have taken several years for a copy to reach Palestine where the eyewitnesses lived. It is possible that a copy of Mark did not reach Palestine for 10-20 years! How many eyewitness were still alive at that time?

And I am not saying that the author of Mark fabricated the entire story of Jesus. I am simply saying that some of the story, in particular the miracle stories, may not have been written as biographical stories, but as theological stories, similar to Matthew's story of dead people roaming the streets of Jerusalem. They were written for theological purposes and people of that time period would have understood that.

I fully realize that Paul is not writing biographies in his epistles. But it is very odd that Paul rarely mentions any facts about the historical Jesus. You would think that Paul would say something like this, "As our Lord said when he raised Lazarus from the dead...". Other than a repetition of the Lord's Supper Words of Institution, I can't think of any other time when Paul does this. It is odd, that's all. I'm not saying it is definite evidence that Paul had never heard the stories that would later be written in the Gospels, but the overwhelming silence about Jesus in Paul's epistles is strange and not just to me. Ehrman and Crossan see this silence as strange.

[Gary]

The miracle tradition predates the gospel tradition. Maurice Casey's The Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel demonstrates that an earlier Aramaic source was used by Mark in the composition of his gospel.

Also, Mark was decidedly at least vaguely connected to Palestine. I don't buy the argument that Mark doesn't know what he's talking about in geography. Most people in antiquity didn't travel from 50 miles where they were born. People like Pilate and Paul were exceptions.

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.

[Gary]

The miracle tradition predates the gospel tradition. Maurice Casey's The Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel demonstrates that an earlier Aramaic source was used by Mark in the composition of his gospel.

Also, Mark was decidedly at least vaguely connected to Palestine. I don't buy the argument that Mark doesn't know what he's talking about in geography. Most people in antiquity didn't travel from 50 miles where they were born. People like Pilate and Paul were exceptions.

I didn't argue that Mark is not vaguely connected to Palestine. What I argued is that the Gospel of Mark was not written in Palestine and therefore it would have taken time for a copy of this gospel to reach any eyewitnesses living in Palestine.

[Gary]

Believe it or not, Crossan regularly labels Jesus a healer, exorcist, and a worker of nature miracles. Crossan recognizes (as do most NT scholars) that Jesus was considered to have these abilities by his followers, and even by his opponents (the Talmud considers Jesus a sorcerer, and magic worker who led Jews away in apostasy, but also that people had healed in his name). If pushed, Crossan will likely offer the explanation that Jesus' healing ability was historically symbolic or ideological, but he curiously offers the following in The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant,

Source: The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant by John Dominic Crossan

Jesus was both an exorcist and a healer: I take 121 Beelzebul Controversy [1/2], 110 A Leper Cured [1/2], 127 Sickness and Sin [1/2], and 129 Blind Man Healed [1/2] as not only typically but actually historical. His vision of the Kingdom was but an ecstatic dream without immediate social repercussions, were it not for those exorcisms and healings. Those latter were what the Kingdom looked like at the level of political reality.

© Copyright Original Source

Crossan never goes on to explain the mechanics of these events, but does believe that something did happen.

Ehrman also points out in his The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, "Whatever you think about the philosophical possibility of miracles of healing, it's clear that Jesus was widely reputed to have done them."

For people who actually take time to read them, rather than pretending to know what they think, it's common knowledge that scholars will point out in their academic work that Jesus was a miracle worker without offering explanations for those miracles. Actual talk about the reality of the miraculous is theological. Historians typically don't make theological judgement calls in their academic work (though they might express their opinions in their popular works).

So, for example, liberal Christian Marcus Borg of the Jesus Seminar states in his short article, The Mighty Deeds of Jesus, "More than 80% of the members of the Jesus Seminar, often viewed as a liberal and skeptical group, believe Jesus performed healings and exorcisms. Among other biblical scholars, the percentage would be as high or higher." Borg, who doubts the historical veracity of nature miracles (non-healing miracles), does believe that Jesus historically cured people and did exorcisms,

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?

[Gary]

Since science and medicine explicitly and implicitly by methodology limit themselves to conclusions about natural phenomenons, I don't think they could verify a miracle even if all the stars in the sky alligned to spell out "This is God: Verily a miracle has just a occured"

This isn't a problem though, since science and medicine, while good and useful in these kinds of studies, aren't the ultimate source of human truth.



Then you're taking the David Hume approach which is to say, while you in principle admit the possibility of the supernatural, you could never verify it no matter what kind of evidence you recieved, so you'd keep on denying it. Hume was very explicit that nothing could convince him that a miracle had occured, no matter what.



This is a bit confused.

First of all, I believe no evidence can show that Christ rose from the dead with certainty, even though I can show that this a sounder conclusion than any natural conclusion, with all the others ranging somewhere between incredible adhoc, or ridiculous. If a person was convinced on account of the evidence for Christ's ressurection, I wouldn't say he was forced to the conclusion, however he wouldn't be irrational in any sense of the word either. On the other hand, I do think naturalists responses to the evidence aren't terrible rational or good.

I can't envision evidence that would forcefully compel a person to belief in Christ. At least not of a kind you could be martyred with. That's why I said that God gives faith by supernatural inspiration to people who are open to it. That way its also not just high and mighty phd wielding people who come to faith (people usually chuck full of themselves), its also little old grandma who came to church after her husband died.

I also don't think you understand what the word faith means here. To a Christian faith means trust, not merely believing without having evidence. You can have faith in someone, trusting in His authority, and still have good reasons for doing so. Reason and faith are compatible, and one doesn't exclude the other. There is nothing in real genunine science and philosophy or in orthodox faith that can be in contradiction.

"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.

[seanD]

Isn't the following possible, guys?

The author of Mark is a Gentile Christian living in Antioch or Rome who had never stepped foot in Palestine; never knew Jesus; and had never met any of the Eleven or Paul. He was a devout Christian who wanted to spread the Good News of Jesus...as he knew it, based on the legends circulating about Jesus at the time in his region of the world.

In circa 75 AD, "Mark" writes a book about Jesus. It isn't meant to be a historical biography. It is meant as a first century version of a Jack Chick gospel tract with exciting stories and devious supernatural beings and spectacular supernatural events all for the purpose of extolling the virtues of Jesus of Nazareth. This is why Paul never mentions any of Jesus' miracles in any of his epistles: Because no one on earth in the 50's and 60's AD had ever heard of any miracles by Jesus!

Once "Mark" had invented Jesus performing miracles, subsequent "gospel" authors repeated his miracle claims and added new ones of their own invention!

Maybe there originally were no miracles, folks. Maybe the only original miracle was the resurrection, and this miracle belief arose not because of an empty tomb (another concept never mentioned by Paul) but due to vivid dreams, visions, and trances by a few of the disciples, one of them most likely Peter who is said to have seen a sheet floating in the sky full of animals, during the middle of the day!

This is why miracles never occur today in front of a panel of skeptical experts! Because miracles aren't real. They never were real! The miracles in the Bible were either legendary stories circulated by uneducated peasants, or, they were theological inventions for literary purposes only.

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.