Does the Resurrection have to be Provable?

[historic salve]

What? That's ridiculous. What are you going to suggest, Magic? I don’t' see how anyone in the 21st century could believe such an "alternate explanation" such as Magic. You're just rationalizing. It's much more credible to believe that some Man-god came to earth because he had to sacrifice himself, to himself so that he could forgive humans for behaving just the way that he created them. Shortly thereafter, he flew towards the Andromeda Galaxy. He's probably there by now.

If you want to be taken seriously, don't repeat the 2000 year old canards that Sea is dumb enough to repeat.

A friendly suggestion.

[nickcopernicus]

I did not do that. I pointed out that the resurrection justified Jesus.

Nick:
Okay. Then where is the claim that Jesus is god substantiated if not from the resurrection?

historic salve:
This means that the work Jesus did and any claims he may have made were verified with tangible evidence.

Nick:
Emphasis mine. False. It only validated his claim that if they "tore down this temple, he would rebuild it in 3 days." Nothing more. His resurrection of Lazarus and healing of the sick simply demonstrated that like the Prophet Elijah, he was a powerful, high-level Cleric.....Not a man-god. It also did not validate any metaphysical, theological, or historical claims that he made. If Jesus was literate, he could read all the prophecies.....That weakens any claims that the prophecies were genuine.

At the end of the day, if we validate all his miraculous works, he just becomes a high level mage/cleric who was good at fortune telling....Not the creator of a 26-billion-light year-across- universe, could do "anything" knew "everything" and was "morally perfect." I'm afraid there's no logical connection between the two. The evidential connection is tenuous at best. There is nothing that Jesus allegedly did that could not be accomplished with enough technology.

historic salve:
What could be more tangible than God himself overturning the death sentence wrongly imposed by the Jewish court? Nothing could.

Nick:
Perhaps if he broadcasted the entire scenario in Hi-Def 1080p in the sky so the entire world (those outside) could see it?

historical salve:
You've missed my point, I'm afraid. Since I believe in the general resurrection, obviously being raised from the dead (outside a given social context) doesn't make one a god.

Nick:
Mostly . However, the social context in no way makes a logical connection.

historic salve:
But we are not considering all the data if we look at the resurrection of Jesus outside its social context. The data indicates, again, that the resurrection justified Jesus.

Nick:
AFAICT, just because one raises one self from the dead does not necessarily justify one. If I were rightly accused of committing a heinous crime (blasphemy was considered one at the time), and I resurrected from the dead afterward, that would not justify my actions. Analogously, you assume that god resurrected Jesus from the dead. By assuming a god, you beg the question.

historic salve:
Obviously if Jesus had never claimed to be divine, then the resurrection would have marked him out as Messiah and Lord, but not God.

Nick:
Please correct me if I'm wrong. Are you claiming that by Jesus claiming to be god and resurrecting from the dead, he was therefore god?

historical salve:
Jesus' resurrection does require God's existence (Sea's ridiculous alien and magical hypotheses notwithstanding), specifically the God of Israel.

Nick:
False. It does not requre the power of a god........just the power sufficent to ressurect one from the dead. It most certainly DOES NOT require the work of an 0-3 being.....yours or otherwise.
The jump from "someone powerful or smart enough to ressurect someone from the dead" to "MY O-3" being is not a logical one.

historic salve:
You made a specific statement about the title "Son of God" and assumed that it entails divinity. I provided examples showing that it does not entail divinity in every context.

Nick:
When I said "son of god" I was referring to the alleged "only begotten son" mentioned in John 3:16


Cheers,

Nick

[nickcopernicus]

If you want to be taken seriously, don't repeat the 2000 year old canards that Sea is dumb enough to repeat.

A friendly suggestion.

Nick:
That's how I see it. You are free to disagree....but that seems to be the gist of the story. Is any part of the bolded portion wrong?

Cheers,

Nick

[Seasanctuary]

This is quite simple. There are two reasons a person cannot come to the Christian faith because of the resurrection:

* There is insufficient evidence to show the resurrection happened beyond a reasonable doubt.

* Even a true resurrection could have been caused by non-divine things (or a differently purposed divine cause), once we're going beyond naturalism and human science anyway. It would have been interpreted within the local religious context even if that context were not the cause.

Yes, historical belief in resurrection can be explained in the orthodox Christian way. No, this is not the only possible explanation. Until it IS the only possible explanation, it is not a compelling reason to start to accept Christian creed. Once you have started to accept Christian creed, then it certainly is the best fit. Of course it is.

The problem here is that Christians want the resurrection to be all of these things. I'm sure some people do become Christians and cite the evidence as proof that brought them in. But it merely evidence, not compelling evidence.

So to any outsider who sees the obvious truth that resurrection evidence is not proof, your insistence to the contrary is damaging to your cause. You get caught misrepresenting or being unable to understand the situation outside of your own Christian assumptions. I always assume the latter because I believe most Christians to be entirely earnest.

[Soyeong]

Honestly Soyeong, if indeed your trustworthy friend was Jesus, and you were living in the ANE and you just missed take off, but caught a glimpse of his face, I'd agree with you. But the bible is not my "trustworthy friend".......nor is it yours. It’s just an anthology of text that you choose for some reason or another (perhaps the way you were taught?) chose to believe. You don’t' even know who wrote most of it...neither do I.

Ok…read what I said earlier in this thread and tell me you understand it:

If for the sake of argument, Jesus did everything recorded in the Bible, including fulfilling many prophecies, performing miracles, raising himself from the dead, and claiming to be God, he could be lying, so it doesn’t prove God exists, but I see no reasonable reason to doubt it.

You don’t get what I’m saying because you keep saying that it doesn’t prove that God exist. I agree with you that the Resurrection does not prove Jesus is God…so what? If for the sake of argument the Bible is true concerning what Jesus did, then there is still no reasonable reason to doubt that the Resurrection means that God exists, similar to the inductive argument that there is no reasonable reason to doubt that the sun will rise tomorrow. We can discuss whether the Bible is a “trustworthy friend” later, but for the time being I’m just trying to address your argument.

[historic salve]

Okay. Then where is the claim that Jesus is god substantiated if not from the resurrection?

It's substantiated because of Jesus' testimony about himself, for one. You can argue that these words were put into Jesus' mouth, but then you have to explain why the high Christological traditions started so early, and why they started among monotheistic/henotheistic Jews in the first place. Anyway, the Evangelists and Paul have all sorts of clever ways of talking about Jesus' divinity, but I'm not sure we want to get too far afield in a thread about the resurrection.

Emphasis mine. False. It only validated his claim that if they "tore down this temple, he would rebuild it in 3 days." Nothing more.

"Any claims" may have been overreaching. God doesn't have to sanction everything one says or does simply to give one a place of honor, but it's unthinkable for Jesus to be resurrected if he committed blasphemy or another serious sin. (As a Christian, I believe Jesus was sinless. I'm speaking hypothetically).

Elijah and Enoch were said to have been taken up to heaven. However, the resurrection was an even higher honor. Jesus' ascension was only half the story. The other half, as I already noted, was that Jesus was said to have exercised authority as the Messiah and Lord. Even Elijah and Enoch, as esteemed as they were, couldn't lay claim to those two titles. Clearly Jesus is more than just some prophet that God takes an interest in.

His resurrection of Lazarus and healing of the sick simply demonstrated that like the Prophet Elijah, he was a powerful, high-level Cleric.....Not a man-god. It also did not validate any metaphysical, theological, or historical claims that he made. If Jesus was literate, he could read all the prophecies.....That weakens any claims that the prophecies were genuine.

Many of the miracles that Jesus performed were indicative of the type of ministry he had. Obviously many of them only point to his Messiahship, not his divinity. But some of them do. The healing of the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12 is accompanied by a forgiveness of his sins, something only God can do. Jesus was claiming to give the man something (i.e., forgiveness) he could only get at the Temple, where the presence of God resided.

As for Jesus being literate, that's irrelevant. Jesus demonstrated a familiarity with Scripture on many different occasions (e.g., Mat 22:31-32; Mark 12:26; Mark 13:14; Luke 4:4, 8, 12; Luke 20:42-44; John 15:25) and even still, many details of his life did not fit neatly into the Messianic expectations.

At the end of the day, if we validate all his miraculous works, he just becomes a high level mage/cleric who was good at fortune telling....Not the creator of a 26-billion-light year-across- universe, could do "anything" knew "everything" and was "morally perfect." I'm afraid there's no logical connection between the two. The evidential connection is tenuous at best. There is nothing that Jesus allegedly did that could not be accomplished with enough technology.

I'm really scratching my head here. I haven't said that all the miracles evidence his divinity, and I don't think any intelligent Christian would. See above.

Perhaps if he broadcasted the entire scenario in Hi-Def 1080p in the sky so the entire world (those outside) could see it?

God has not done this for any other historical event. It's up to us to learn from history, which is all the more reason to keep the resurrection in our minds at all times, as we keep the Holocaust and other most important historical events in our collective consciousness at all times..

Mostly . However, the social context in no way makes a logical connection.

On the contrary, the social context is all-important. Meaning is tied up in the social context.

AFAICT, just because one raises one self from the dead does not necessarily justify one. If I were rightly accused of committing a heinous crime (blasphemy was considered one at the time), and I resurrected from the dead afterward, that would not justify my actions. Analogously, you assume that god resurrected Jesus from the dead. By assuming a god, you beg the question.

I don't have to assume that God raised Jesus from the dead to say what it would have meant. If Jesus had committed some heinous crime (in your example, blasphemy -- which Jesus DID commit if he claimed to be God and was not) he would not have been resurrected in the first place.

I notice that you said "raise one self." But I'm using the passive voice intentionally. The general view in the NT is that Jesus was raised from the dead by God, an alternative view being that Jesus raised himself. Of course, if Jesus were not God, it would not be possible for him to raise himself. God was always viewed as the agent when the Jews talked about resurrection.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Are you claiming that by Jesus claiming to be god and resurrecting from the dead, he was therefore god?

Correct.

False. It does not requre the power of a god........just the power sufficent to ressurect one from the dead.

What kind of power exists, apart from God, that could possibly do that? If you're seriously (not mockingly) going to suggest magic or aliens as an alternative, then just say that you are. I'll have a few questions for you, in that case.

It most certainly DOES NOT require the work of an 0-3 being.....yours or otherwise.
The jump from "someone powerful or smart enough to ressurect someone from the dead" to "MY O-3" being is not a logical one.

0-3 being?

When I said "son of god" I was referring to the alleged "only begotten son" mentioned in John 3:16

Ok.

[historic salve]

That's how I see it. You are free to disagree....but that seems to be the gist of the story. Is any part of the bolded portion wrong?

God "sacrificing himself to himself" is a caricature of Christianity at best. The only way that the Father could sacrifice himself to himself is if the Father were Incarnated. That childish critique is best directed at Patripassionists, not Trinitarians.

God didn't create humans to sin. We have corrupted ourselves. That is why some "outside intervention" is necessary.

[Alison F]

Seasanctuary/ Carpdm9587- I think it goes without saying that applying formal numerical methods is impossible because of the subjective nature of assigning probability to any situations. Any numbers (or even significance level!!!) I assign would be instantly challengeable. What I can say is that, even allowing for a certain amount of ‘miracles’ happening statistically, and an awareness of human nature to wish to see miracle where there is none, I still find myself thinking there’s got to be more going on than chance. And Carpdm9587, your comment that “people say this a great deal” suggests it is the common experience I would expect it to be if Christianity is correct.

No, there is no single unexplainable event. But strange stuff happens when you pray, in my experience. Prayer works; if I found otherwise, I would switch sides.

[Alison F]

Secondly, we have more than enough information on how First Century Judaism viewed resurrection. It was an idea at the fringes, not believed by everybody, but if you did believe it, you were vaguely expecting that when YHWH creates the Kingdom of God, the faithful dead would be bodily resurrected to join in this Kingdom. We are also have very clear historical information that the earliest belief of the church was that this event had occurred in one instance while history was going on. This comes completely out of the blue. Resurrection leaves the disputed fringes, and becomes the centrepiece of belief. People are now saying they know new stuff about the Resurrection because of something that happened.

The effects of Jesus appearances were so stunning that the earliest Jewish Christians felt compelled to work with radically new ideas about the relationship with Gentiles (What? Allow them into God‘s people- never!); the Kingdom of God (It’s happened? Then how come the Romans still run Israel?); and the Messiah (He died? Then logically he can‘t be the Messiah!).

Now if you think this could have been the creation of a bunch of blokes sitting around a water cooler (a well?), then I admire your ability to believe it.

[Carpedm9587]

Seasanctuary/ Carpdm9587- I think it goes without saying that applying formal numerical methods is impossible because of the subjective nature of assigning probability to any situations. Any numbers (or even significance level!!!) I assign would be instantly challengeable. What I can say is that, even allowing for a certain amount of ‘miracles’ happening statistically, and an awareness of human nature to wish to see miracle where there is none, I still find myself thinking there’s got to be more going on than chance. And Carpdm9587, your comment that “people say this a great deal” suggests it is the common experience I would expect it to be if Christianity is correct.

No, there is no single unexplainable event. But strange stuff happens when you pray, in my experience. Prayer works; if I found otherwise, I would switch sides.

That "people say this all the time," Alison, suggests that a lot of people have the impression that prayer works - but that does not mean it is more likely it does work. It can just as easily mean that people tend to have the same perspective problem: they see their own experience and it seems amazing to them - they lose sight of the broader picture in which what happened to them is perfectly statistically normal.

Even if you tell me that 80% of your prayers are "answered," I would not be surprised - nor would I think it all that odd - or proof that a god answers prayers. If you took a distribution of all of the people who pray, and ask what % of the prayers they pray are "answered," we'd expect there to be a pretty wide distribution, forming a classic bell curve. Out in the six sigma region are a small handful of people who seem to almost always get what they pray for. To them it seems odd. In the large scheme of things, they are perfectly statistically consistent.

Add to that all of the subtle psychological factors at work when people pray, I wouldn't even be surprised if people consistently report "50% answered." In my experience, people tend to make their own realities.

I have yet to hear anyone relate anything that was an answered prayer that in any way required divine intervention, or demonstrated that a god existed. Usually they are perfectly normal circumstances on which people have projected their god.

Michel

[Carpedm9587]

Secondly, we have more than enough information on how First Century Judaism viewed resurrection. It was an idea at the fringes, not believed by everybody, but if you did believe it, you were vaguely expecting that when YHWH creates the Kingdom of God, the faithful dead would be bodily resurrected to join in this Kingdom. We are also have very clear historical information that the earliest belief of the church was that this event had occurred in one instance while history was going on. This comes completely out of the blue. Resurrection leaves the disputed fringes, and becomes the centrepiece of belief. People are now saying they know new stuff about the Resurrection because of something that happened.

The effects of Jesus appearances were so stunning that the earliest Jewish Christians felt compelled to work with radically new ideas about the relationship with Gentiles (What? Allow them into God‘s people- never!); the Kingdom of God (It’s happened? Then how come the Romans still run Israel?); and the Messiah (He died? Then logically he can‘t be the Messiah!).

Now if you think this could have been the creation of a bunch of blokes sitting around a water cooler (a well?), then I admire your ability to believe it.

No - I think that resurrection themes existed long before there was Christianity. That it existed in any form provides a template, or perhaps many templates, on which the active human imagination can work.

I agree that something happened. I disagree that something had to be "someone was resurrected." It could also have been the result of communal theological musings, a flash of insight/inspiration of a strong evangelical personality (like Paul), or even (although I doubt it) the explicit plan of someone with resources and an axe to grind seeking to subvert Judaism.

As I have said before - there are so many variable at play here, the claim by anyone that "X had to be true" or even "X is most likely true" is simply an assertion without adequate foundation. And you know what they say about building houses on sand...

Michel

[Alison F]

Here in the Land of Moderation (UK) you wouldn’t get any 6 sigma prayer claimants. The US may be different…(!!!)

Thinking about it, pretty much all prayer is for things that could happen naturally. A medical condition I have has been better recently, had slipped off my prayer list, and I found myself a few days ago noticing how much worse it had got and wondering why. Later, it occurred to me it had slipped off my prayer list. I’ve restarted prayer, and there’s been a real improvement. Explainable as coincidence or psychosomatic? Yes. But this sort of thing happens often enough to convince me, even given the factors we both agree on, that it’s much more than ‘expected’.

I’ve been giving thought to the Maths one might use for this (futile, but it passes the time). I would go more for skewed normal myself. Bayes would have to be in there somewhere, I think.

A lot of prayer is non-specific (e.g. for Oxfam), and success isn’t quantifiable. So I’m not sure what an 80% success rate would look like. I wonder what a standard deviation of prayer success would be?!?

[Alison F]

There were plenty of resurrection themes around before Christ, and we have enough literature around to have a very good map of them indeed. Outside Judaism, the Jewish idea of bodily resurrection was regarded as vulgar, and wasn’t present. Within Judaism, there was no idea that any bodily resurrection would occur before the general resurrection. Resurrection was intimately linked to national forgiveness of sins, and the restoration of Israel. There were no traditions about Messiahs dying and coming to life. There was no idea about what the resurrection body would look like, or the nature of the continuity with the dead one. Even if you believed in resurrection, you were very light on detail.

Now the mutation that occurred in this thinking in early Christianity not only provided sure and non-negotiable answers to things not known before the resurrection, but totally changed a lot of the key concepts of Judaism. What was the restoration of Israel, and how did a death obtain forgiveness of sins for God’s people? What would the Messiah do for God’s people? Now a group of first century Jews, sitting down and thinking about their religion would never, never come up with the answers Christianity did.

It’s all very well for a group of geeks to develop Jedi religion as a joke in today’s climate, but that sort of innovation could get you into a lot of trouble in first century Israel. Religion was the glue of your race and your country, as well as the commandment of YHWH. It was life and death business, in a culture where religion and violence were intimately linked. It’s easy to imagine religious creativity going on today, but in C1 Judaism not only was this sort of resurrection/Messiah/YHWH kingdom mutation going to lead to a painful and shortened life, it was, literally, unthinkable.

[Carpedm9587]

Here in the Land of Moderation (UK) you wouldn’t get any 6 sigma prayer claimants. The US may be different…(!!!)

Thinking about it, pretty much all prayer is for things that could happen naturally. A medical condition I have has been better recently, had slipped off my prayer list, and I found myself a few days ago noticing how much worse it had got and wondering why. Later, it occurred to me it had slipped off my prayer list. I’ve restarted prayer, and there’s been a real improvement. Explainable as coincidence or psychosomatic? Yes. But this sort of thing happens often enough to convince me, even given the factors we both agree on, that it’s much more than ‘expected’.

I’ve been giving thought to the Maths one might use for this (futile, but it passes the time). I would go more for skewed normal myself. Bayes would have to be in there somewhere, I think.

A lot of prayer is non-specific (e.g. for Oxfam), and success isn’t quantifiable. So I’m not sure what an 80% success rate would look like. I wonder what a standard deviation of prayer success would be?!?

All interesting questions. I wonder if anyone will ever do a scientific study on these distributions. As I recall there was one done on the efficacy of prayer that showed it to have statistically significant effect, even when the subject was unware of it. Unfortunately, the study did nothing to trace the source of the effectiveness, only to note it's presence.

Michel

[Carpedm9587]

There were plenty of resurrection themes around before Christ, and we have enough literature around to have a very good map of them indeed. Outside Judaism, the Jewish idea of bodily resurrection was regarded as vulgar, and wasn’t present. Within Judaism, there was no idea that any bodily resurrection would occur before the general resurrection. Resurrection was intimately linked to national forgiveness of sins, and the restoration of Israel. There were no traditions about Messiahs dying and coming to life. There was no idea about what the resurrection body would look like, or the nature of the continuity with the dead one. Even if you believed in resurrection, you were very light on detail.

Now the mutation that occurred in this thinking in early Christianity not only provided sure and non-negotiable answers to things not known before the resurrection, but totally changed a lot of the key concepts of Judaism. What was the restoration of Israel, and how did a death obtain forgiveness of sins for God’s people? What would the Messiah do for God’s people? Now a group of first century Jews, sitting down and thinking about their religion would never, never come up with the answers Christianity did.

It’s all very well for a group of geeks to develop Jedi religion as a joke in today’s climate, but that sort of innovation could get you into a lot of trouble in first century Israel. Religion was the glue of your race and your country, as well as the commandment of YHWH. It was life and death business, in a culture where religion and violence were intimately linked. It’s easy to imagine religious creativity going on today, but in C1 Judaism not only was this sort of resurrection/Messiah/YHWH kingdom mutation going to lead to a painful and shortened life, it was, literally, unthinkable.

I've taken the liberty of underscoring what I perceive to be your error, Alison. This statement is simply untrue and unsupportable. It is the same error that TIF makes: that we can make definitive statements about what an individual or small group will do if we know their cultural context. We may be able to make statements about what we would expect they would and would not do. We might be able to cite parallels in other similar groups.

But the human animal has almost infinite creativity. We can't make these statements for the same reason we can't predict the future (apologies to Asimov's Foundation Series): the human creature is too malleable, to unpredictable to know with any degree of certainty what it will do.

The same is true for historical persons when we lack a solid record of what they actually DID do. The life of the early church is opaque to us at best. We have the testimony from decades later looking back through the lens of their own recollection and their oral tradition. We have precious few artifacts. Most of what we DO have dates to the 2nd and 3rd century and beyond.

To claim, on the basis of such evidence, that no person or group of that age in that context would ever, ever have done X is simply unsupportable. Any person, in any age, can do almost anything that is possible to be done, and will do so if there are reasons that seem good to them.

Michel