Gym Debate: Did Jesus Rise Physically from the Dead? (Sea of Red vs. Kabane52)

**Kelp** · December 30th 2008, 07:08 AM

Gym Debate Notice:

This debate thread is open to debate the following issue:

Jesus Rose Physically from the Dead.
Kabane52 will be defending the affirmative and Sea of Red will be defending the negative. This debate will begin as soon as Kabane makes his first post. The debate will last 5 rounds.

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Spectator commentary is welcome here.

If you are up and unable to meet your deadline please contact a moderator ASAP.
Please do not edit your post after this notice is posted.
If you are not a participant please feel free to participate in the commentary thread noted in the first post of this debate.

**Kabane52** · December 30th 2008, 01:35 PM

This is my second debate here on the resurrection, and I’d like to first thank theologyweb for hosting this debate and Sea of Red for participating in this debate. My burden is to prove that Jesus rose physically from the dead. This case will be largely drawn from my debate with hamandcheese. Let’s get crackin’.

I want to first give the negative and readers a roadmap of my case. I will first be establishing the crucifixion of Jesus. After this, I will establish the empty tomb of Jesus. After this, I will take out the stolen body theory. Following this, I will establish the essential appearances of the risen Christ. And finally, I will devote a rather large portion to an attack on the hallucination theory.
First, the crucifixion. The crucifixion is an extremely well attested fact. It is confirmed both in biblical and extrabiblical sources. It is confirmed by Paul

(1 Corinthians 1:23) but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, .

Mark

(Mark 15:23-24) And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. .

Matthew

(Matthew 27:31) And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. .

Luke

(Luke 23:33) And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

John

(John 19:18) There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.

And for extrabiblical attestation we have:

Flavius Josephus

(Antiquities 18.3.3) And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross

Cornelius Tacitus

(Annals 15.44) Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.

The evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus is overwhelming. So overwhelming, in fact, that AE Harvey states that "It would be no exaggeration to say that this event is better attested, and supported by a more impressive array of evidence, than any other event of comparable importance of which we have knowledge from the ancient world." .

The Empty Tomb

Now, I will establish that the tomb of Jesus was in fact empty. This enjoys explicit attestation from the four Christian gospels as well as implicit attestation in the First Corinthians 15creed that I will discuss later.

Mark

(Mark 16:2-6) And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back--it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.

Matthew

(Matthew 28:1-7) Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you."

Luke

(Luke 24:1-3) But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

John

(John 20:1-7) Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.

Apparent contradictions in these narratives will be harmonized as they come up in the negative's arguments. But let me first state that any divergences (not necessarily discrepancies) demonstrate that each attestation of the empty tomb within the gospels is independent.

Now, let me explain how the empty tomb is implicitly attested by the 1 Corinthians 15creed (hereafter 1C15C)

The 1C15C is an early creed of the church that was probably formulated one to five years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Therefore, this creed is extremely early and hence free of legendary material.

The part relevant to the empty tomb reads like this:

(1 Corinthians 15:3-4) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

Christ died, was buried, and rose. If Christ died, was buried, and physically rose, then it follows that the grave was empty, since one cannot physically rise and at the same time leave your body behind. Since first century Jews believed in a physical resurrection, and Paul was a first century Jew, the burden is on the negative (if he wishes to take that path) to demonstrate that Paul believed that Jesus left his physical body behind.

The Theft Theory

Now I will demonstrate the improbability of theft by eliminating first the disciples of Jesus, next by eliminating the Jews and finally by eliminating occultists

The Disciples of Jesus

It is occasionally argued that the disciples of Jesus stole the body. However, if they had stolen the body, they would have known Christianity was a lie and preached such a lie until their deaths. They went knowingly and willingly to their graves (except John, who died a natural death), which demonstrates that they did not steal the body of Christ.

The Jews

This is almost never argued, but nevertheless has appeared from time to time. If the Jews stole the body, they could have easily accessed it and shown it publicly when the apostles began to preach the resurrection of Jesus. Them showing this would not be a story that would die out for a few days. It would be the ultimate refutation of Christianity, and the Jews would have appealed to it for a long, long time. Instead, we have them blaming the empty tomb on the theft of the disciples, an option we have already refuted.

Occultists

If the negative wishes to take this option to promote the stolen body theory, he must provide evidence for the existence of such a group in or near Jerusalem at the time period of the crucifixion of Jesus. He must also demonstrate that such occultists were in the practice of making off with entire bodies instead of just cutting off pieces of bodies, which is what necromancers of that time period (who did NOT exist in Jerusalem) would do.

We have established that Jesus was died and that his tomb was found empty. We have established that the body of Jesus was not stolen. We now continue to the appearances.

The Appearances of the Risen Christ

After his death, Jesus appeared to both his followers and to Skeptics. We will begin with the central attestation of the appearances, found in the 1C15C:

(1 Corinthians 15:3-7) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Paul adds a personal appendix at the end of the creed:

(1 Corinthians 15:8) Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

So we have an appearance to Peter (called Cephas), The Disciples, 500, James (a former skeptic of Jesus), and Paul (another former skeptic of Jesus)

Our first consideration deals with the fact that these were group appearances. In the 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 creed, it states that Jesus appeared to the twelve. This is a group appearance. Though this consideration alone does not rule out a group appearance, it does make three criteria necessary.

Let me quote Anomalous Psychology by Zuzne and Jones, page 135.
It is expectation that plays the coordinating role in collective hallucination. Although the subject matter of individual hallucinations has virtually no limits, the topics of collective hallucinations are limited to certain categories. ?These categories are determined, first, by the kinds of ideas that a group of people may get excited about as a group, for emotional excitement is a prerequisite of collective hallucinations…Second, the categories are limited by the fact that all participants in the hallucination must be informed beforehand, at least concerning the broad outlines of the phenomenon that will constitute the collective hallucination.

So we have three criteria. Expectation, excitement, and being informed beforehand. We will see if the resurrection fulfills these criteria by looking at the accounts we have of the event.

First. Expectation.

We can clearly see that the disciples were unsure of what Jesus meant when he said he would rise from the dead.
(Mark 9:9-10) And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

(Mark 9:31-32) for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise." But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him

(Luke 18:33-34) And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise." But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

And what I think is most powerful,

(John 20:9) for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

Even when looking in the tomb, they didn’t believe it! How can we possibly derive “expectation” from data like this?

We can see that from the data that is in our hands, no evidence of expectation exists, and plenty of contrary evidence exists. Criterion one is not fulfilled. Already the hallucination theory has failed.

Let us continue on to criterion two. Excitement.

There is absolutely no evidence that after the crucifixion of Christ, that the disciples were excited. But let’s take a look at when the women inform the disciples of the resurrection.

(Luke 24:10-11) Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

Idle tale? The one place prior to the appearances where we expect the apostles to be most excited, they aren’t excited at all! They don’t even consider the testimony of the women! We’ll discuss the women in more detail, because I believe they are a deathblow to the hallucination theory.

With that, we can move onto our third and final criterion. Being informed beforehand. Is this fulfilled? Absolutely not! When they had the appearances, they still doubted!

(Matthew 28:16-17) Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

They didn’t even recognize him when they saw him!

(John 21:4) Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

(Luke 24:15-16) While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

So criterion three fails as well. All three criteria fail here. Now let us discuss the women. It is often said by Skeptics and atheists , that the appearances to the apostles were sparked by the women telling them of the angels. Now we have already seen that the disciples didn’t believe the women, but for the sake of argument, let’s say they accepted the testimony of the women without question. Then we have to answer the obvious question.

How the heck did the women see the angels? They went to the tomb to spice Jesus’ body, not to hear of resurrection. That was probably what they least expected! Applying the three criteria here, we find that we have another solid appearance, though here by angels rather than Jesus. So trying to explain the appearances to the apostles with the women creates an even bigger problem.

We can now continue to our two other appearances. The appearance to Paul and the appearance to James. Both of these appearances are appearances to Skeptics, which lends them even more credibility. Let’s look at some of the explanations of the appearances to Paul and James.

It has beeen said that the Apostle Paul was guilty, and experienced a guilt hallucination.

This is absolute nonsense. There is no evidence that Paul felt bad about persecuting Christians. By this reasoning, anyone who kills Christians is so guilty that they may experience a vision of Jesus. By this logic, Osama Bin Laden is a very guilty man!

It sometimes is argued that the disciples persuaded James of the plausibility of the resurrection. But I want to illustrate the absurdity of this argument by the following situation:

You have never believed your brother was the messiah, and then suddenly after he is crucified, further backing up James' belief, he hallucinates the risen Jesus because people who he didn't regard as credible in the first place urged him to?

I now want to move in for my final argument against group hallucinations. In the first century, the Jews were the only people who believed resurrection was possible. But they did not believe that anyone would rise from the dead before a general resurrection at the end of time. However, they did believe that someone’s body could be taken up into heaven, an assumption into heaven. Remember that the disciples were Jews.

So they would have believed that no resurrection would happen before then. So after the crucifixion, they are grieving horribly. Their alleged messiah was just shamed terribly, eliminating any honor he had during his ministry. Their brain has a hallucination. What is the content of this hallucination? They see Jesus up in heaven. He had been assumed into heaven, but would not walk the Earth again until the general resurrection. IF they had hallucinated, that is what they would have seen, but most definitely not resurrection.

An interesting note comes from the Gospel of John. Let’s look.

(John 20:6-9) Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

So Simon and John go into the tomb. Simon doesn’t believe, but John does believe. But neither of them understands that Jesus rose from the dead. Huh? What kind of sense does that make? It means that when John saw the empty tomb, he concluded that Jesus had been assumed into heaven. He DID NOT think of resurrection, as the concept of resurrection before the general resurrection was unthinkable. This destroys the hallucination theory, as it clearly shows that a hallucination of resurrection makes absolutely no senses in the context of first century Judaism.

So what I’ve shown is that first, the apostles could not have experienced a group hallucination of Jesus. Second, I’ve shown that Paul and James could not have experienced a hallucination of Jesus. Third, I’ve shown that if a hallucination had taken place, it would have been a hallucination of Jesus’ assumption into heaven rather than of his bodily resurrection from the dead.

So what has been demonstrated in my opening statement is several facts.

First. Jesus was crucified
Second. Jesus' tomb was empty
Third. His body was not stolen by the Jews, the disciples, or occultists.
Fourth. Jesus appeared to the disciples and two skeptics, James and Paul.
Fifth. The appearances were not hallucinations

The explanation with the most explanatory power is the resurrection. Jesus was crucified, and his tomb was empty because Jesus had risen from the dead. There was no thievery involved. Skeptics and former believers alike saw the risen Jesus because Jesus had risen from the dead, and no hallucination was involved.

The burden of the negative is to provide an alternative explanation that has more explanatory power than the resurrection of Jesus Christ or that my facts are in error.

Thank you very much.

**Sea of red** · January 2nd 2009, 03:59 AM

This my first debate at Tweb on this topic. I would like to thank Tweb for hosting this debate and to Kabane for participating.
Best of luck Kabane.

! Lets get started.I'll keep it short and sweet.As we go along I'll go into greater detail on certain issues.If there is something that I have forgotten let me know.I'm just getting to the meat of your arguments instead of posting extremely long replies.

First, the crucifixion. The crucifixion is an extremely well attested fact. It is confirmed both in biblical and extrabiblical sources. It is confirmed by Paul

(1 Corinthians 1:23) but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, .

Mark

(Mark 15:23-24) And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. .

Matthew

(Matthew 27:31) And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. .

Luke

(Luke 23:33) And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

John

(John 19:18) There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.

And for extrabiblical attestation we have:

Flavius Josephus

(Antiquities 18.3.3) And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross

Cornelius Tacitus

(Annals 15.44) Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.

The evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus is overwhelming. So overwhelming, in fact, that AE Harvey states that "It would be no exaggeration to say that this event is better attested, and supported by a more impressive array of evidence, than any other event of comparable importance of which we have knowledge from the ancient world." .

I agree that Jesus probably lived and was crucified So this fact I will allow.

The Empty Tomb

Now, I will establish that the tomb of Jesus was in fact empty. This enjoys explicit attestation from the four Christian gospels as well as implicit attestation in the First Corinthians 15creed that I will discuss later.

Mark

(Mark 16:2-6) And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back--it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.

Matthew

(Matthew 28:1-7) Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you."

Luke

(Luke 24:1-3) But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

John

(John 20:1-7) Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.

Apparent contradictions in these narratives will be harmonized as they come up in the negative's arguments. But let me first state that any divergences (not necessarily discrepancies) demonstrate that each attestation of the empty tomb within the gospels is independent.

Not really.

Mark says that Mary,Mary the mother of James and Salome went to the tomb. Matthew says it was the two Mary's. Luke says it was all the women. John says it was just one Mary. Did these guys just leave women out? Seems like sloppy history to me. But it gets worse. Matthew's earthquake,guards,and Zombies are mentioned not once in the other gospels. Doubting Thomas is found no where but in John. And Jesus' ascension is not mentioned anywhere outside of Luke-Acts. Either these guys have a short memory are they are fabricating data. There is no excuse for leaving out these incredible events. In short,to much legend is found not only in the empty story,but in the gospels themselves. It says a lot that these things have to be harmonized.

Now, let me explain how the empty tomb is implicitly attested by the 1 Corinthians 15creed (hereafter 1C15C)
The 1C15C is an early creed of the church that was probably formulated one to five years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Therefore, this creed is extremely early and hence free of legendary material.
The part relevant to the empty tomb reads like this:
1 Corinthians 15:3-4) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

Christ died, was buried, and rose. If Christ died, was buried, and physically rose, then it follows that the grave was empty, since one cannot physically rise and at the same time leave your body behind. Since first century Jews believed in a physical resurrection, and Paul was a first century Jew, the burden is on the negative (if he wishes to take that path) to demonstrate that Paul believed that Jesus left his physical body behind.

So why didn't Paul say “By the way,this tomb,can still be seen,go check it out if you don't believe me”? If Jesus really had a tomb then why didn't Christians preserve the tradition of where it was at? Would you think that Paul would be the first to start such a tradition. I also think that you're reading things into this creed that you want to be in it. For instance. Why does buried become tomb in your world? Paul could have just easily meant that Jesus pushed the dirt of his body and went into town. I see no reason to read tomb into the text.

The Disciples of Jesus

It is occasionally argued that the disciples of Jesus stole the body. However, if they had stolen the body, they would have known Christianity was a lie and preached such a lie until their deaths. They went knowingly and willingly to their graves (except John, who died a natural death), which demonstrates that they did not steal the body of Christ.

How does that demonstrate anything? Fanatics,lairs,and con men have no problem going down with the ship. Just look at O.J!

The Jews

This is almost never argued, but nevertheless has appeared from time to time. If the Jews stole the body, they could have easily accessed it and shown it publicly when the apostles began to preach the resurrection of Jesus. Them showing this would not be a story that would die out for a few days. It would be the ultimate refutation of Christianity, and the Jews would have appealed to it for a long, long time. Instead, we have them blaming the empty tomb on the theft of the disciples, an option we have already refuted.

I do not believe the Jews stole the body. But I also don't believe that the Jews even addressed early Christianities claims of an empty tomb. For one thing we don't have any thing from the Jews to tell us this. Second,there are no secular historians that speak of this debacle. Matthew is the only one that mentions it,and I must say a guy talking about zombies coming back from the dead(the saints) has zero credibility with me.More sources are needed for me to call this a fact.

The Appearances of the Risen Christ

After his death, Jesus appeared to both his followers and to Skeptics. We will begin with the central attestation of the appearances, found in the 1C15C:

(1 Corinthians 15:3-7) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Paul adds a personal appendix at the end of the creed:

(1 Corinthians 15:8) Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

So we have an appearance to Peter (called Cephas), The Disciples, 500, James (a former skeptic of Jesus), and Paul (another former skeptic of Jesus)

Our first consideration deals with the fact that these were group appearances. In the 1 Corinthians 15:3-7creed, it states that Jesus appeared to the twelve. This is a group appearance. Though this consideration alone does not rule out a group appearance, it does make three criteria necessary.

I would like to see some extra biblical evidence of these events,not just some quoting from Paul. This is a supernatural claim,thus you need some evidence outside of Paul to prove these claims. I am aware that this creed supposedly has historical roots,but I remain unconvinced. For one thing,nobody outside of Paul writes about this stuff. You would think that someone would at least say something about these events,yet the not one peep from any secular historians,which sends up a red flag for me. This is circular reasoning. I have no reason to allow that these events actually happened,other than Paul,and as far as I'm concerned a guy that loved to promote propaganda among the Romans has no credibility. This goes for your whole argument on appearances

With that, we can move onto our third and final criterion. Being informed beforehand. Is this fulfilled? Absolutely not! When they had the appearances, they still doubted!

(Matthew 28:16-17) Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

The part about them doubting is something that was common in ancient literature. A deity making an appearance to his disciples and some of them being skeptical is a common theme. Apollonius Of Tyana to name one.

How the heck did the women see the angels? They went to the tomb to spice Jesus’ body, not to hear of resurrection. That was probably what they least expected! Applying the three criteria here, we find that we have another solid appearance, though here by angels rather than Jesus. So trying to explain the appearances to the apostles with the women creates an even bigger problem.

How do we know that the women actually saw something? Never mind an angel. What's the evidence that this stuff even happened. The gospels? You'll have to find some extra biblical evidence for these events to be taken seriously,I'm not just going to swallow the bibles claims whole. The whole story from front to back about what the disciples did and said is not backed up anywhere outside the bible. Ergo,I remain skeptical.

We can now continue to our two other appearances. The appearance to Paul and the appearance to James. Both of these appearances are appearances to Skeptics, which lends them even more credibility. Let’s look at some of the explanations of the appearances to Paul and James.
It has beeen said that the Apostle Paul was guilty, and experienced a guilt hallucination.
This is absolute nonsense. There is no evidence that Paul felt bad about persecuting Christians. By this reasoning, anyone who kills Christians is so guilty that they may experience a vision of Jesus. By this logic, Osama Bin Laden is a very guilty man!
It sometimes is argued that the disciples persuaded James of the plausibility of the resurrection. But I want to illustrate the absurdity of this argument by the following situation:
You have never believed your brother was the messiah, and then suddenly after he is crucified, further backing up James' belief, he hallucinates the risen Jesus because people who he didn't regard as credible in the first place urged him to?

Paul and James were not skeptics. Paul was merely a former killer of Christians,hardly a skeptic. He was just a non believer that happened to hate Christians. If this is all that's required to be a skeptic then I guess communists are skeptics to huh? James? Well,I hardly know anything about the guy so it's hard to make a judgment call. The only thing I recall reading about James being a skeptic was John saying that he had yet to believe in him. This is really stretching the label of skeptic.

I now want to move in for my final argument against group hallucinations. In the first century, the Jews were the only people who believed resurrection was possible. But they did not believe that anyone would rise from the dead before a general resurrection at the end of time. However, they did believe that someone’s body could be taken up into heaven, an assumption into heaven. Remember that the disciples were Jews.

I would like to see a source for this please. I'll wait before I comment further on this and your psychoanalysis of Peter and John.

So what has been demonstrated in my opening statement is several facts.

First. Jesus was crucified
Second. Jesus' tomb was empty
Third. His body was not stolen by the Jews, the disciples, or occultists.
Fourth. Jesus appeared to the disciples and two skeptics, James and Paul.
Fifth. The appearances were not hallucinations

The explanation with the most explanatory power is the resurrection. Jesus was crucified, and his tomb was empty because Jesus had risen from the dead. There was no thievery involved. Skeptics and former believers alike saw the risen Jesus because Jesus had risen from the dead, and no hallucination was involved.

The burden of the negative is to provide an alternative explanation that has more explanatory power than the resurrection of Jesus Christ or that my facts are in error.

1)I agree
2)I doubt that Jesus even had a tomb. And the stories surrounding are dripping legend and contradictions.
3)Not much to say.
4)No he did not. The most you've demonstrated is that they saw something,and even then I've shown that is lacking.
5)No you haven't. But I will wait for you to back up some of your claims before commenting further on this.
6)Hardly any facts left huh?

Basically you have no extra biblical sources for any of your facts outside of the first one,which speaks volumes as to how much everyone cared. You NEED some extra biblical sources,because without them your case is paper thin. All you have is Paul which isn't going to cut it. Further,the gospels have some problems that you need to address,some can be answered,while some you're going to have to practically bend over backwards in order to explain away. Many of your facts aren't really facts at all.

You have a lot of work to do.

Right now as it stands.
You haven't proven that Jesus rose from the dead. At best you've proven that some strange events occurred and some people claimed that he was him back from the dead. Hardly a good case. Up there with UFO's. Which I'd be willing to bet you don't take seriously,funny thing is there is more “data” for UFO abductions than the resurrection.

Best wishes. And happy new year to ya!

**Kabane52** · January 2nd 2009, 08:04 PM

Thanks to Sea of Red for the quick reply. Let’s dissect his reply. He grants the crucifixion. Well and good.

Did these guys just leave women out?

Yes. Why not? Why require them to give an exhaustive list of women if it wasn’t essential to the story? If you take three articles today on the same event, then some information will be mentioned in one that isn’t mentioned in the other two. You don’t conclude that therefore that event didn’t happen.

Seems like sloppy history to me.

Unfortunately, the fact that you find it sloppy does not make it so.

Matthew's earthquake,guards,and Zombies are mentioned not once in the other gospels. Doubting Thomas is found no where but in John. And Jesus' ascension is not mentioned anywhere outside of Luke-Acts.

Oh noez? Multiple attestation is a luxury, not a requirement.

Either these guys have a short memory are they are fabricating data

Are you willing to apply this standard to ancient and modern secular works?

There is no excuse for leaving out these incredible events.

There is nothing incredible about an exhaustive list of every woman that went to the tomb. As for the others, space is an adequate reason for their silence. They didn’t have the unlimited writing space that we have today.

So why didn't Paul say “By the way,this tomb,can still be seen,go check it out if you don't believe me”?

He essentially did. Just because your modern mind doesn’t read it as that does not mean that is the situation for the ancients. Declaring that he wasn’t clear enough for 21st century Americans does not prove a darn thing.

If Jesus really had a tomb then why didn't Christians preserve the tradition of where it was at?

Why should they have? And furthermore, the evidence from the empty tomb clearly outweighs this little footnote.

I also think that you're reading things into this creed that you want to be in it. For instance. Why does buried become tomb in your world?

An empty grave if you so please, whatever the grave was like. But it’s pretty much accepted that Jesus was buried in a tomb for several reasons that will be discussed. And if we grant that, this becomes an empty tomb.

How does that demonstrate anything?

Because, at the risk of being social outcasts (something very bad in the ancient world), they totally dropped their previous lives and preached about Jesus’ resurrection till they were killed for believing it. They had nothing to gain by lying, and everything to lose. Furthermore, if they had created this religion themselves, the story they wove was perhaps the worst possible story for the ancient world. Preaching an assumption into heaven and restoration of Jesus’ honor would be much safer for them and would have been far easier to accept.

I also don't believe that the Jews even addressed early Christianities claims of an empty tomb.

The Jewish polemic is preserved in the Gospel of Matthew, as well as in Dialogue with Trypho. It’s rather well attested.

no secular historians that speak of this debacle.

Why is that needed? When did they discuss Christianity in depth at all? Do you expect Josephus to devote a large portion of Antiquities to what was in that time unimportant to secular writers?

Matthew is the only one that mentions it,and I must say a guy talking about zombies coming back from the dead(the saints) has zero credibility with me.

Your personal aversion to the supernatural is not an argument against the historicity of the text.

I would like to see some extra biblical evidence of these events,not just some quoting from Paul.

Er, why? Why does being in the Bible automatically make a document ineligible for standard historical methodology? The New Testament was compiled after the first century. During the first century, Paul’s epistle to the Corinthians was extra biblical. Would you consider it different then? If not, then what is the specific feature of Paul’s epistles that makes you want to treat them differently? If so, then what changed qualitatively about Paul’s writings after their canonization?

This is a supernatural claim,thus you need some evidence outside of Paul to prove these claims.

Total non-sequitur. There is no connection between your premise and conclusion.

I am aware that this creed supposedly has historical roots,but I remain unconvinced.

It passes all standard criteria of reliability with flying colors. Your personal incredulity is irrelevant to the reliability of the text.

For one thing,nobody outside of Paul writes about this stuff.

About what? The appearances? Matthew, Luke, and John write about them.

You would think that someone would at least say something about these events,yet the not one peep from any secular historians

I would? Why would I? Secular historians were rather uninterested in what was at that time rather unimportant. They were more concerned with the official business of the Roman empire.

as far as I'm concerned a guy that loved to promote propaganda among the Romans has no credibility.

Huh? Propaganda? What is the propaganda to which you refer?

The part about them doubting is something that was common in ancient literature.

Example?

A deity making an appearance to his disciples and some of them being skeptical is a common theme. Apollonius Of Tyana to name one.

Apollonius was not a deity. [I]The Life of Apollonius of Tyana[I] was written at about 200 CE. Third, Apollonius wasn’t killed. He maneuvered his way out of it.

How do we know that the women actually saw something? Never mind an angel.

When I spoke of the appearance to the women, it was in response to the argument that the women’s talk about the angel triggered the appearances to the apostles. You have not made that argument, and therefore that passage is irrelevant to this debate.

What's the evidence that this stuff even happened. The gospels? You'll have to find some extra biblical evidence for these events to be taken seriously,I'm not just going to swallow the bibles claims whole. The whole story from front to back about what the disciples did and said is not backed up anywhere outside the bible. Ergo,I remain skeptical.

It’s ironic for you to talk about being taken seriously when you actually deny the appearances, when the appearances are almost universally accepted in modern historical scholarship. Canonization does not equal disqualification from being treated like any other ancient work.

Paul was merely a former killer of Christians,hardly a skeptic.

Yeah, a killer of Christians probably wasn’t that skeptical of Christianity. /sarcasm

If this is all that's required to be a skeptic then I guess communists are skeptics to huh?

Yes, a communist is a skeptic of Christianity and of capitalism.

James? Well,I hardly know anything about the guy so it's hard to make a judgment call. The only thing I recall reading about James being a skeptic was John saying that he had yet to believe in him. This is really stretching the label of skeptic

Not believing Christian claims=skeptical of Christian claims

I would like to see a source for this please. I'll wait before I comment further on this and your psychoanalysis of Peter and John.

If you would like to claim that a specific resurrection before the general resurrection was in Jewish beliefs, then please provide several examples of it in mainstream pre Christian Jewish writings.

Basically you have no extra biblical sources for any of your facts outside of the first one,which speaks volumes as to how much everyone cared. You NEED some extra biblical sources,because without them your case is paper thin. All you have is Paul which isn't going to cut it. Further,the gospels have some problems that you need to address,some can be answered,while some you're going to have to practically bend over backwards in order to explain away. Many of your facts aren't really facts at all.

Unfortunately for you, you never explained how being canonized made a document unreliable. Declaring that Paul “isn’t going to cut it” for unspecified reasons isn’t going to cut it. Declaring that because something is in the Bible it therefore deserves to be treated differently than other ancient works isn’t going to cut it either.

In conclusion, SeaOfRed is clearly a lower level skeptic who has done little real research other than popular atheist websites. His entire argument rests on the declaration that canonicity equals unreliability, a claim which almost no scholar takes seriously. I see no reason to take it seriously either.

Jesus is risen, and is probably kicking himself for equipping some people with the capacity to spew such illogic.
Thanks to Sea of Red for the quick reply. Let’s dissect his reply. He grants the crucifixion. Well and good.