Gym Debate: The Gospels Are Sufficient Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus. (blackapologist vs. the_eliot_one)

**Kelp** · June 19th 2008, 07:39 AM

Gym Debate Notice:

This debate thread is open to debate the following issue:

The Gospels Are Sufficient Evidence to Prove the Resurrection of Jesus
the_eliot_one will be defending the negative and blackapologist will be defending the affirmative. This debate will begin as soon as blackapologist makes his first post. The debate will last 4 rounds.

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Spectator commentary is welcome here.

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**blackapologist** · June 20th 2008, 02:25 AM

I didn't exactly want the topic to be that the Gospels alone could prove the resurrection. I wanted it to be on the accuracy of the Gospels. So, it's more like the Gospel accounts of the resurrection are accurate, not that they prove the resurrection.

Anyway, To prove the resurrection, it must be a given that Jesus existed. Since that is another topic I won't get into that, especially since the_eliot_one agrees that Jesus was a man that existed on planet earth, in Israel, 1st century AD.

Now we can bring up this question, was Jesus crucified? This following quote comes from the Sanhedrin.

Babylonian Sanhedrin 43A

And it was taught: On the eve of the Passover Yeshua [the Nazarene] was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come and plead on his behalf." And since nothing was brought forward in his favor, he was hanged on the eve of Passover." (BT. Sanhedrin 43a.)

http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-..._and_Jesus.htm

We get a number of important things from this quote.

1) There was a man named Jesus (Yeshua). The significant part though is that most references to "Yeshuas" in the Talmud say "Yeshua ben Pandira" or "Yeshua ben Yosef" or whatever. I don't know much about Hebrew, but I do know that "ben" translates as "son of"
Since Jesus claimed to be the Son of God when Pilate asked him, it would make sense for the writers of the Talmud to not believe him, and record him in the book as "Yeshua ben nobody" which is what we have here.

2) He was crucified. Yeah, yeah, it says "hanged", but this refers to crucifixion. The methods of criminal punishment back then in the Roman Empire were slavery, stoning, or cricifixion. hanging is a reference to crucifixion. Paul even references the death of Jesus as hanging in Galatians 3:13.

3) The reasons for his execution was the same as in the Gospels. Not in the same exact wording, but for the same ideas. In the above quote, one reason is "enticing Israel to apostasy." In the Gospel account of Luke, Pilate says, "You brought me this man as one who was inciting the people to rebellion" Luke 23:14. This has the same idea as leading them to apostasy, so there is a correlation with the gospels and secular documents.

The other reason given in the Talmud was sorcery. The Pharisees accuse Jesus of doing his miracles by satan (which is essentially sorcery) in Matthew 12:24. It is highly possible that one of the many witnesses that came forward accused him of this same sorcery. Mark 14:56 tells us that many people testified against Jesus.

4) Nothing was brought in his favor, just like in the Gospel accounts.

5) The crucifixion happened in the same general time as it says in the Gospels, which is close to passover, and before passover.

Now it seems as if we have documents that line up with secular history in the Gospels.

But now, the ridiculous claims, the darkness during the crucifixion, the earthquake, etc.

I won't waste any more time with this, but Glenn Miller wrote an essay on this subject at

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/jrthal.html

Now, if you followed the above link and read the essay, you would probably note that now we have Gospel accounts that really line up with secular history. But my opponent will not have to follow that link, it's just something extra.

Now, for the resurrection.

We have some extremes here. Either Jesus was resurrected, or he wasn't. If Jesus wasn't resurrected from the dead, then I am wasting my time being a Christian going to church every sunday.

If Jesus wasn't resurrected, then Christianity is the biggest lie and fraud in history. If Jesus wasn't resurrected, then the apostles converted most of the Roman empire on a fraud. a hoax. a lie. If Jesus wasn't resurrected, Paul says "our preaching is useless and so is your faith" 1 Corinthians 15:14

If Christ had not been resurrected, then Saul, who was a great enemy of the Church, was converted by his own desire to do so, knowing that he would be persecuted. I believe that the conversion of Saul is great evidence for the resurrection.

Let's look at the fact. Saul, who was a Jew that persecuted the early followers of Jesus, became a follower of Jesus, am I correct? According to the Bible, it was the result of seeing and experiencing the resurrected Christ. But according to the other side of the argument, this vision was false, and was probably a hallucination.

The problem is that other people witnessed the light fall around Paul, and Paul ended up being blind for three days, on this hallucination.

If the event did not happen, then Saul converted by his own choice, to willingly be persecuted for something that he would have known to have been false. Even after he had all that power.

On top of the conversion of Saul, there is the fact that the tomb was empty.

There would have been no grounds for Christianity to start in Jerusalem, had the Tomb not been empty. Thus, birthing the Jewish argument against the resurrection, which was that the disciples stole the body of Jesus.
But if the disciples had stolen the body of Jesus, they would have went out into the world knowingly preaching a lie, and willingly being persecuted and executed for something they knew for certain was false.

But there is another option a skeptic has, which is that the Jews stole the body, which makes absolutely no sense, because when the disciples started to preach, the Jewish authority could have just showed everybody the body of Jesus and said, "OK, everybody just go home now. This Jesus guy wasn't resurrected, nor was he the Messiah. Everybody can go home now," which didn't happen.

So, tell me the_eliot_one, what happened to the body of Jesus?

**Kelp** · June 24th 2008, 05:30 AM

Moderated By: Kelp

Just a reminder. This is the_eliot_one's last day to post a reply. If you need more time, eliot, PM me and blackapologist today and ask for an extention. If he agrees, I'll grant it. Otherwise, you forfeit the debate.

***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publically complain or whine, please take it to the Psychotherapy Room unless told otherwise.

**Kelp** · June 25th 2008, 04:31 AM

Moderated By: Kelp

Since the_eliot_one's delay was not due to negligence on his part, we have decided to give him five more days from this point to post his response.

***If you wish to take issue with this notice DO NOT do so in this thread.***
Contact the forum moderator or an administrator in Private Message or email instead. If you feel you must publically complain or whine, please take it to the Psychotherapy Room unless told otherwise.

**the_eliot_one** · June 27th 2008, 12:20 PM

Sorry about the large delay, everything decided to go wrong at once, Murphy’s Law and all that

I have only briefly scanned blackapologist’s post as I wish to save physically responding to his post for my first rebuttal. But I will answer the matter of debate technicalities that seemed to come up in both the start of his post and our commentary thread. I specified the gospels to ensure that it was the gospel account of the resurrection we were talking about and that being affirmed. Paul’s letters and the like can be used as evidence for the resurrection being as the gospels record them for example. I simply left the title as that as you seemed to not contest it when I sent you a PM of what I thought the debate would entail.

I agree that it is not unreasonable and quite well grounded that the crucifixion occurred so the primary focus of this debate will be what happened after that. The occurrence of the empty tomb, why this could have happened, the “sleeping” guards of the tomb idea, the debate will be mainly focused on these sorts of facts. I see my opponent has quoted the Sanhedrin in order to prove the crucifixion, while it will only be semantics I disagree this is a reference to the biblical Jesus for reasons I will post in my first rebuttal. But regardless enough waffling on my part now to get to the true issue.

The ressurection of Jesus

While I do not dogmatically hold to any one explanation of why there was an empty tomb recorded I do believe there are a great deal more probable explanations than a resurrection, and in the gospels there is clear evidence of the story becoming gradually more hyperbolic. We start with Mark, a story which originally ended with the women leaving an empty tomb having simply been told by a man in white that Christ had risen. We then go on to get witnesses to him afterwards, doubting Thomas, saints rising from the graves, an earthquake scaring guards that didn’t exist in Mark etc. etc. As time went back, so too did the grandeur of the stories.

As such, given Paul’s letters contain very little detail on the resurrection itself it reasonable to assume that the story is grander in the gospels than it was in real life. It is simply more probable that the disciples were wrong than that the laws of biology were temporarily unwritten so that Jesus could have risen from the dead. What happened to his body? Well it’s entirely possible it was damaged and decomposed beyond recognition by the time the Pharisees noticed that Jesus’ followers were preaching his resurrection. Especially as in the early stages they did not stay in Jerusalem but spread out all over the Roman Empire. It’s not exactly that easy to transport bodies round large distances and to show them to all these new followers, many of whom wouldn’t have known what Jesus looked like anyway having never met him.

Then we go on to the matter of his first followers who came to believe he had bodily resurrected from the dead, why should this have happened? It is important to remember at this point just how much these people had invested in Jesus being the true son of God and bringing them in to a new era. They owned next to nothing, they had sacrificed their careers, and for some at least, their families (Luke 9:59-62 reveals Jesus’ high price in testing some of his followers in whether or not they truly wanted to join him. This verse coupled with the later verse of Luke14:26, is a testimony to how many abandoned their family). They had invested everything they had in Jesus, and he had gotten himself killed, and some at least of his followers (most notably Peter) would have already had to deny they ever knew him to protect themselves from sharing his fate immediately.

As such they were greatly emotionally invested in this, and if he didn’t come back (as they had been promised he would by him many times), they had lost everything. Given the nature of group psychology and the fallibility of the human mind, it is hardly an unreasonable stretch of the imagination that if one of them thought they saw him and told the others, it is entirely possible that they could well have started seeing him as well. While perhaps not to go so far as to say it was a hallucination, merely a few cases of mistaken identity. This is, most certainly a more reasonable explanation than that the biologically impossible occurred. I mean take a modern equivalent, hundreds and hundreds of people far less invested than the disciples were at this point have seen, been abducted by or otherwise encountered a multitude of UFOs, aliens and various other tenuous claims. Their stories often match up despite even less chance to collaborate than those telling the story of the resurrection would have done, but their claims are simply absurd. The fact is any reasonable position is skeptical of these sorts of things.

**blackapologist** · June 30th 2008, 01:02 AM

Originally posted by the_eliot_one

Sorry about the large delay, everything decided to go wrong at once, Murphy’s Law and all that

It's OK.

I have only briefly scanned blackapologist’s post as I wish to save physically responding to his post for my first rebuttal. But I will answer the matter of debate technicalities that seemed to come up in both the start of his post and our commentary thread. I specified the gospels to ensure that it was the gospel account of the resurrection we were talking about and that being affirmed. Paul’s letters and the like can be used as evidence for the resurrection being as the gospels record them for example. I simply left the title as that as you seemed to not contest it when I sent you a PM of what I thought the debate would entail.

True, but by the time I read it, this debate thread was opened, but still, it's OK, the title doesn't matter.

The ressurection of Jesus

While I do not dogmatically hold to any one explanation of why there was an empty tomb recorded I do believe there are a great deal more probable explanations than a resurrection, and in the gospels there is clear evidence of the story becoming gradually more hyperbolic. We start with Mark, a story which originally ended with the women leaving an empty tomb having simply been told by a man in white that Christ had risen. We then go on to get witnesses to him afterwards, doubting Thomas, saints rising from the graves, an earthquake scaring guards that didn’t exist in Mark etc. etc. As time went back, so too did the grandeur of the stories.

The fact that there are slightly varying stories in no way takes away the validity of the resurrection. The gospels were written in the same general area of time, so we don't have a developing changing story here, we have four accounts written a few decades after the event, and the stories have slight variations. One event is common in all the accounts, which is the resurrection.

As such, given Paul’s letters contain very little detail on the resurrection itself it reasonable to assume that the story is grander in the gospels than it was in real life.

But Paul wasn't writing to inform people on how the resurrection happened and whatnot, Paul was writing to the early churches to help them with their individual struggles. The very fact that Paul was even writing these letters makes it reasonable to assume that the resurrection was as great as it was in the gospels as in real life, because Paul once persecuted the Christians, but was converted by witnessing the resurrected Christ. This is obviously a radical change, and needs some sort of explination. I have already stated and will state later why it is unreasonable to assume that it happened without the resurrection.

It is simply more probable that the disciples were wrong than that the laws of biology were temporarily unwritten so that Jesus could have risen from the dead. What happened to his body? Well it’s entirely possible it was damaged and decomposed beyond recognition by the time the Pharisees noticed that Jesus’ followers were preaching his resurrection.

I don't know what possibly could have caused Jesus' body to decompose in that short of a time. On top of this happening, the tomb would not have been empty, if it had simply been disfigured beyond recognition. If the disfigured body had been in the tomb where Jesus had been buried, it would have been reasonable to assume that it was Jesus.

Especially as in the early stages they did not stay in Jerusalem but spread out all over the Roman Empire. It’s not exactly that easy to transport bodies round large distances and to show them to all these new followers, many of whom wouldn’t have known what Jesus looked like anyway having never met him.

No, actually, they started out preaching in Jerusalem.

Then we go on to the matter of his first followers who came to believe he had bodily resurrected from the dead, why should this have happened? It is important to remember at this point just how much these people had invested in Jesus being the true son of God and bringing them in to a new era. They owned next to nothing, they had sacrificed their careers, and for some at least, their families (Luke 9:59-62 reveals Jesus’ high price in testing some of his followers in whether or not they truly wanted to join him. This verse coupled with the later verse of Luke14:26, is a testimony to how many abandoned their family). They had invested everything they had in Jesus, and he had gotten himself killed, and some at least of his followers (most notably Peter) would have already had to deny they ever knew him to protect themselves from sharing his fate immediately.

Paul, on the other hand had nothing to lose by not believing in Jesus' resurrection, why did he decide to give up his power to go be persecuted with the other disciples?

As such they were greatly emotionally invested in this, and if he didn’t come back (as they had been promised he would by him many times), they had lost everything. Given the nature of group psychology and the fallibility of the human mind, it is hardly an unreasonable stretch of the imagination that if one of them thought they saw him and told the others, it is entirely possible that they could well have started seeing him as well. While perhaps not to go so far as to say it was a hallucination, merely a few cases of mistaken identity. This is, most certainly a more reasonable explanation than that the biologically impossible occurred. I mean take a modern equivalent, hundreds and hundreds of people far less invested than the disciples were at this point have seen, been abducted by or otherwise encountered a multitude of UFOs, aliens and various other tenuous claims. Their stories often match up despite even less chance to collaborate than those telling the story of the resurrection would have done, but their claims are simply absurd. The fact is any reasonable position is skeptical of these sorts of things.

To say a claim is simply absurd is not enough to dismiss it.

And, no, we don't have all of them emotionally invested in Christ, we have Paul, who actually would have gained more had he not converted. Obviously, he wasn't mistaken. Wth what he would have lost to believe in Christ Jesus and the resurrection was great, so he probably would have made every excuse to not believe. He even said in Corinthians, as I stated before, that if there is no resurrection, then it's all worthless. He said if there were no resurrection, that his faith was worthless. I think he was pretty sure of the event.

**the_eliot_one** · July 3rd 2008, 07:11 AM