In this thread I’ll post some arguments that caused me to doubt the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I’ll post them in smaller segments than some other posts of mine, so that you can digest them better. I know there are other threads discussing this issue, but I have not taken the time to look at them, so far.

Most of my arguments will not be new to educated Christians, but they have a great deal of force with me, and I suspect they will with others.

So here are some preliminary things to take note before I proceed.

I have already posted my ex-Christian testimony, which described my deconversion to some extent, at
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh....php?p=1109507.

The most influential books in my ex-Christian testimony are Henri Blocher’s In The Beginning, (IVP press, 1984), Howard Van Till’s, The Fourth Day, (Eerdman's, 1986), Conrad Hyers The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science (John Knox Press, 1984), and Ronald F. Youngblood, ed, The Genesis Debate (Baker Books, 1990). There were others, but from that moment on I thought of the opening chapters of the Bible as non-historical. Notice: these books are all written by people claiming to be Christians, at the time they were written, and in Youngblood's book, all of the authors claimed to believe in inerrancy!

The problem of Cain was the clincher for me. On the problem of Cain see: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...highlight=Cain, post #24

So with this firmly in my mind I was open to the possibility that other things in the Bible were non-historical in nature.

I took to heart Hume’s critique of miracles and began questioning the miracles in the Bible. See this thread for a discussion on that issue:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=56630

I began to question the nature of historical knowledge as a guide to truth:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=56632

I began questioning things like the virgin birth:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=56824

and whether the Bible was the word of God:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=56633

and whether the God in the Bible describes a good God who exists:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=56805

and whether it’s possible for God to be incarnate:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=57180

and why Jesus suffered on the cross:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=56638

and even why people disagree on religious questions:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...t=57251&page=2
posts #19 & 26.

and I concluded that this universe is religiously ambiguous:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=57073

One of the last things I doubted was the bodily resurrection of Jesus, partly because my teacher, Bill Craig, is one of the leading defenders of this and he had persuaded me that it really happened. But eventually the progression of my thought led me to doubt that too.

My position on evaluating religious claims is the same as Christian philosopher/theologians William Abraham and Basic Mitchell, as set forth below:

“Religious belief-systems can be rationally evaluated, although conclusive proof of such systems is impossible.” [See Wm. Abraham, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, (Prentice-Hall, 1985, pp. 104-113, and Basil Mitchell, The Justification of Religious Belief, (Oxford University Press, 1981)]. Religious beliefs should be assessed only as a complete belief system, or world-view, never in stark isolation. “A world view is a set of assumptions or presuppositions which we hold about the basic make-up of our world.” -James Sire, in The Universe Next Door. “A world-view is a way of viewing or interpreting all of reality--a world-view is like a set of colored glasses.” –Norman Geisler, in Worlds Apart, Baker Books, 1989. A more (or less) consistent set of assumptions or presuppositions forms a world-view. Basic presuppositions answer questions about the nature of God, the world, human beings, our destiny, ethics, history, etc. A.N. Whitehead: “some assumptions appear so obvious that people do not know that they are assuming because no other way of putting things has ever occurred to them.” Science and the Modern World (p. 49).

“It should be clear that “evaluating world-views will never be based on probabilistic arguments, since one cannot simply isolate one presupposition for evaluation. The case must be cumulative--a case must be built slowly.” It is based upon cumulative case type arguments like “jurisprudence, literary exegesis, history, philosophy, and science.” “One must be well educated in the relevant moral, aesthetic, or spiritual possibilities.” But, “mastering all the relevant data and warrants needed to exercise the required personal judgment seems remote and impractical…This is surely beyond the capabilities of most ordinary mortals.” “One simply has to proceed, often in an ad hoc fashion, and work through the issues as honestly and rigorously as possible.” – William Abraham.

According to Wm. Abraham: “The different pieces of evidence taken in isolation are defective, but taken together they reinforce one another and add up to a substantial case. What is vital to realize is that there is no formal calculus into which all the evidence can be fitted and assessed. There is an irreducible element of personal judgment, which weighs up the evidence taken as a whole.”

So while I am not considered a scholar on any of the issues I write about, I will quote from those who are considered scholars. If my arguments are considered defective in some areas, then refer to the works I quote from.

And I may not be able to answer all objections to what I write in this particular thread, either. You surely know that every position has its problems. My problem is to deal with the resurrection evidence. The Christian problems are multifaceted, as mentioned in my earlier posts. The bottom line is that I would rather evaluate the truth of Christianity from reason and logic, rather than historical claims, because reason and logic are the only things I grasp today. I never experienced the history of the past. Historical claims, or Logic? Well logic wins hands down, for me.

If I have a problem with the evidence for the resurrection, in your minds, then just answer the post I started: “Four Conceptual Problems With An Incarnate God,” as but one example of the many threads I started earlier: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=57180 Explaining the incarnation would be your problem, and it’s a logical one, not a historical one. Every religious viewpoint has its problems. I just think my viewpoint has fewer problems, that’s all.

Even if Jesus did rise bodily from the dead, that doesn’t prove that he’s God, or that the Christian interpretation of his life and death are correct. Jewish theologian Pinchas Lapide in The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish Perspective (Augsburg, 1983), accepts that Jesus rose from the dead, but still denies Christianity in favor of Judaism.

Now if this were a discussion of which baseball team in the history of that sport was the very best one, baseball fans would disagree. Some of them would get heated over it, too! The reason isn’t because their eternal destiny was at stake, so much as people have firmly held opinions and they don’t want to be wrong. But how much more would the debate be a heated one if it was something in court over your rich Uncle’s last will and testament, and whether he cut you out of it? And how still much more would it get heated if it were over your eternal destiny? And that’s what this discussion/debate will be about. Because if Jesus did not raise from the dead your faith is in vain.

So I expect naysayers, and those who will ridicule. But just remember, ridiculing someone’s views does not answer them, sometimes it’s a desperate effort to get someone off of the subject.

Let me start by asking you about a possibility. Let’s say you meet a sincere, well dressed friendly person who seems to enjoy life very much, who’s very intelligent, and very caring, and very religious. After being convinced of his or her sincerity he or she proceeds to tell you the following story of his religious belief:

I am a missionary/disciple from Iran. For the past few years I was a disciple of a man named Achmed, who was born of a virgin, preached a message of love and forgiveness to Muslims, and did many miracles, but he was tortured and then killed by the authorities for sedition. But I swear he arose from the dead and now has ascended into heaven to be with his Father-God and his other brother, Jesus. Ya see, God has many sons, not just one, and this particular Son of God died for the sins of the rest of the world, those who will not believe. He would proceed to show you that the Bible does in fact speak of many “sons of God” (Job and the Psalms), and he would use double-fulfillment type prophetic statements in the Bible to show that this man fulfilled the same passages that Jesus did, and he would use a lot of allegory, “pesher” and “midrash” type interpretations, like the N.T writers did to show that Achmed was the Son of God, too. And although the Bible says Jesus was a final revelation to man, it was meant to man in that day, not to men in our day. [Or, hypothetically it could be a story of Jesus’ second return in Iran, it doesn’t matter what the story is, so much as it is a claim to a miraculous person who did miracles].

Now there are no pictures of Achmed, nor any video, either. Just this man’s word. And you cannot check out his story, either, since you cannot go there, because Iranian authorities won’t allow it.

You would be in the same position as most all of the Roman world who listened to Paul, because like you, they could not check out such a story either. But they believed it. Would you? What would it take for you to believe it? How open would you be to considering it? Pretty skeptical, eh? Why? Because you are in reality a modern person, as opposed to ancient superstitious person, after all? You might even share some of the same world-view assumptions of this missionary friend, and yet you would still be skeptical.

Today we can check some of the story of the resurrected Jesus out, but not all of it, because we are separated in history by two thousand years. I am skeptical of the Christian claim, just as you are skeptical of Achmed’s story told above. Neither story fits with the other things we believe, so we begin by being skeptical, both you and I, each for our respective stories.

What if this missionary told you to have an open mind, “don’t be skeptical, but believe,” or “pray this prayer with faith and you’ll know for sure.” Then you’d feel just like I do when Christians approach me that way. The truth is, skepticism is a virtue. We should approach such stories with a large measure of skepticism.

If you’ve seen my thread: Can We Today Believe In Miracles?” http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ad.php?t=56630 then you’d know why we should begin with a measure of skepticism. I’ll say it this way, in order for me to believe that a miracle happened in the past (or present) then the evidence should be such that it would “require” a supernatural miraculous intervention. Anything less than that would leave room for a great deal of doubt.

If there is doubt in any small measure, then I can reasonably reject such an event as miraculous. So this burden of proof is on the Christian, just like the burden of proof is on the hypothetical missionary friend mentioned above. I just don’t think requiring Christians to have the burden of proof is unreasonable at all here. After all, a miracle would be such a very very rare event, it would have to have some overwhelming evidence on it’s behalf for reasonable people should believe it. That is to say, if I lose this debate/discussion by a 80% to 20% ratio in the minds of the readers, then I still win, because it will take a higher percentage than that to win this debate. The evidence for such a miracle must be simply overwhelming.

Okay so far?

So with this firmly in my mind I was open to the possibility that other things in the Bible were non-historical in nature.

Hi D J. I look forward to seeing the responses to the resurrection especially. Sorry to see you just didn't stick with the Bible instead of "outside historical" sources. As Paul said, we have to be "spiritual" and read the Book through the heart, not the "flesh".

Paul's main message was Christ crucified and a "stumbling block/stone", so if He was not crucified and risen, then we might as well just throw out all of Paul's epistles and the rest of the Bible. Paul's letters are difficult in places, especially when he is describing the nature of the resurrection of the dead. I won't be participating in this discussion for certain reasons. Blessings.

1 corin 1:22 For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; 23 but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness,

1 corin 2:12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. 13 These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

What a load of crud. The fact that Hume was your inspiration should have been enough for me to know that you're wasting my time yet I kept on reading.

Originally posted by Doubting John

I am a missionary/disciple from Iran. For the past few years I was a disciple of a man named Achmed, who was born of a virgin, preached a message of love and forgiveness to Muslims, and did many miracles, but he was tortured and then killed by the authorities for sedition. But I swear he arose from the dead and now has ascended into heaven to be with his Father-God and his other brother, Jesus. Ya see, God has many sons, not just one, and this particular Son of God died for the sins of the rest of the world, those who will not believe. He would proceed to show you that the Bible does in fact speak of many “sons of God” (Job and the Psalms),

Which are angels and thus this is not a requirement for divinity. Jesus's claim to divinity is a lot more than just him calling himself "son of god".

and he would use double-fulfillment type prophetic statements in the Bible to show that this man fulfilled the same passages that Jesus did, and he would use a lot of allegory, “pesher” and “midrash” type interpretations, like the N.T writers did to show that Achmed was the Son of God, too. And although the Bible says Jesus was a final revelation to man, it was meant to man in that day, not to men in our day. [Or, hypothetically it could be a story of Jesus’ second return in Iran, it doesn’t matter what the story is, so much as it is a claim to a miraculous person who did miracles].

Now there are no pictures of Achmed, nor any video, either. Just this man’s word. And you cannot check out his story, either, since you cannot go there, because Iranian authorities won’t allow it.

If there is no way for me to verify this in any way, shape or form except by listening to one guy I would not believe it. Not because he is lying but because:

1. God has only one son as far as his divinity is concerned. The man would be going against the idea that Jesus is God's "only begotten son"
2. This second son of God came for the rest of the world, not the Christians so his divinity is of no concern to me to begin with.

You would be in the same position as most all of the Roman world who listened to Paul, because like you, they could not check out such a story either.

Wrong. Plenty of them could. And what of the jews? They are the ones who jumpstarted Christianity. There is no record of anybody verifying Paul's claims and complaining about them.

But they believed it. Would you? What would it take for you to believe it? How open would you be to considering it? Pretty skeptical, eh? Why? Because you are in reality a modern person, as opposed to ancient superstitious person, after all? You might even share some of the same world-view assumptions of this missionary friend, and yet you would still be skeptical.

I'll just let JP tear you to pieces for your ignorance regarding ancient people. They were no more "superstitious" than you are.

Originally posted by Doubting John

I am a missionary/disciple from Iran. For the past few years I was a disciple of a man named Achmed, who was born of a virgin, preached a message of love and forgiveness to Muslims, and did many miracles, but he was tortured and then killed by the authorities for sedition. But I swear he arose from the dead and now has ascended into heaven to be with his Father-God and his other brother, Jesus. Ya see, God has many sons, not just one, and this particular Son of God died for the sins of the rest of the world, those who will not believe. He would proceed to show you that the Bible does in fact speak of many “sons of God” (Job and the Psalms), and he would use double-fulfillment type prophetic statements in the Bible to show that this man fulfilled the same passages that Jesus did, and he would use a lot of allegory, “pesher” and “midrash” type interpretations, like the N.T writers did to show that Achmed was the Son of God, too. And although the Bible says Jesus was a final revelation to man, it was meant to man in that day, not to men in our day. [Or, hypothetically it could be a story of Jesus’ second return in Iran, it doesn’t matter what the story is, so much as it is a claim to a miraculous person who did miracles].

Just to nitpick some. This doesn't quite work. Who was expecting a messiah at this time ? The Jew's quite clearly where in the 1st Century. Not quite who they got, but the Messiah was clearly expected by Jew's at the time. This is just a historical reality.

So your story is deficent in one very critical parallel.

Jason

According to Wm. Abraham: “The different pieces of evidence taken in isolation are defective, but taken together they reinforce one another and add up to a substantial case. What is vital to realize is that there is no formal calculus into which all the evidence can be fitted and assessed. There is an irreducible element of personal judgment, which weighs up the evidence taken as a whole.”

So while I am not considered a scholar on any of the issues I write about, I will quote from those who are considered scholars. If my arguments are considered defective in some areas, then refer to the works I quote from.

Hi D J. Why not quote from your own reading of the scriptures and question them from your own reading of them?
Key in "bible scholars" in google and see what you come up with.

Results 1 - 10 of about 1,790,000 for biblescholars.

Originally posted by Doubting John

One of the last things I doubted was the bodily resurrection of Jesus, partly because my teacher, Bill Craig, is one of the leading defenders of this and he had persuaded me that it really happened. But eventually the progression of my thought led me to doubt that too.

hello John,

the foundation of Christianity is the resurrection of Christ, it begins at the resurrection, not eveything else you doubted ....for Christianity is Christ, a relationship with Him....CHRIST Is All Now. "If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile you are still in your sins." (1 corinthians 15:17).

C.S. Lewis didn't believe that the bible was inerrant but he believed in the resurrection of Christ - he is forgiven, justified, abiding in eternal life. However perhaps there is someone who unlike C.S. Lewis believes in the inerrancy of the bible and in God but has not placed personal faith in the resurrection of Chirst - that person is abiding in the wrath of God, eternally damned. "For You believe that there is one God. That's fine! Even the demons believe that and tremble with fear." The question is the same that Pontious Pilate asked in matthew 27:22, "what am i to do with Jesus." The question is what am i to do with Jesus not what am i going to do with genesis 1:1. Genesis 1:1 doesn't save anyone only the crucified and risen Christ saves and he came to save sinners - like you.....like me.

You know that faith only rests on facts and the fact is this "but now Christ is risen" (1 corinthians 15:20). The question is this , what are YOU going to do with this Person called Jesus?

in His love

steve

For the record,

Remember that DJ has continued to ignore responses I made to his repeated-constantly-on-numerous-threads nonsense like this back in the "Honest Doubter" thread in Gen. Theistics 101.

Johnny Skeptic Jr., so it seems.

Let me start off by saying that there was an awful lot you expect people to read before they get to the heart of your post. A lot of that could be spun off into another thread. I think you'd get a lot more bites if you were more succinct. Yes, I understand that belief systems are built upon each other in a brick by brick fashion, but lets deal with a brick in a thread, not the entire wall.

Originally posted by Doubting John

Let me start by asking you about a possibility. Let’s say you meet a sincere, well dressed friendly person who seems to enjoy life very much, who’s very intelligent, and very caring, and very religious. After being convinced of his or her sincerity he or she proceeds to tell you the following story of his religious belief:

I am a missionary/disciple from Iran. For the past few years I was a disciple of a man named Achmed, who was born of a virgin, preached a message of love and forgiveness to Muslims, and did many miracles, but he was tortured and then killed by the authorities for sedition. But I swear he arose from the dead and now has ascended into heaven to be with his Father-God and his other brother, Jesus. Ya see, God has many sons, not just one, and this particular Son of God died for the sins of the rest of the world, those who will not believe. He would proceed to show you that the Bible does in fact speak of many “sons of God” (Job and the Psalms), and he would use double-fulfillment type prophetic statements in the Bible to show that this man fulfilled the same passages that Jesus did, and he would use a lot of allegory, “pesher” and “midrash” type interpretations, like the N.T writers did to show that Achmed was the Son of God, too. And although the Bible says Jesus was a final revelation to man, it was meant to man in that day, not to men in our day. [Or, hypothetically it could be a story of Jesus’ second return in Iran, it doesn’t matter what the story is, so much as it is a claim to a miraculous person who did miracles].

At this point he's already lost me. I accept the fundamental truth of the Gospel pertaining to the final, finished work of Christ and the future advent of his rulership. It's my operating assumption, so that when he says something that is transgressive of that point without an evidence contra that point, i.e., that God has many "sons", that revelation wasn't finished , etc., then I'm going to reject it out of hand; afterall, this isn't an entirely novel tack now is it? Contrary to what many atheists believe, when you become a believer you don't put your brain on a shelf and suddenly accept the word of any huckster or charalatan who offers you a miracle story or a new word from God. That's the reason, afterall, that Jews don't believe Christians, Christians don't believe Muslims, Muslims don't believe Ba Hai's (sp...sorry shunya..), etc.

In each case a standard point of doctrine is established that the believer will not transgress without very serious evidence. I get the point you are trying to make: then why believe any miraculous claims at all? The problem for skeptics is that believers on the whole are just as skeptical of the (un)miraculous claim of non-believers as they are of competing truth schemes. At that is rather formidable problem. When you strip away all the excess verbiage, non-belief is simply another truth scheme competing for the believer; it's simply another claim attempting to find or manufacture such points of evidence as will move the believer to a different base assumption.

You would be in the same position as most all of the Roman world who listened to Paul, because like you, they could not check out such a story either. But they believed it. Would you? What would it take for you to believe it? How open would you be to considering it? Pretty skeptical, eh? Why? Because you are in reality a modern person, as opposed to ancient superstitious person, after all? You might even share some of the same world-view assumptions of this missionary friend, and yet you would still be skeptical.

This paragraph is part of my fundamental problem with non-belief; it proposes a rather patronizing and arrogant pov with regard to a people who carved out civilizations from the cloth of wilderness, invented sciences, mastered engineering and mathematics, forged empires, fashioned artistic masterworks, composed exquisite theologies and philosophies. Nevertheless that skeptic is able to dismiss all this with the condescending verbal flourish of "bronze age tribesmen" or some such, and dismiss 6 millenia of pre-modern achievement and innovation; prefering us instead to think that our ancestors were an unwashed mob of ignorant bassackwards bumpkins who couldn't find their butt with both hands.

You see, despite all evidence to the contrary; things like Pyramids, astronomy, Nichomachean Ethics, or the invention of beer; the skeptic must believe that our ancestors were an unwashed mob of ignorant bassackwards bumpkins who couldn't find their butt with both hands. The skeptic must believe this because how else could they account for the otherwise credulous habit of ancient man believing in fairy tales. If we suddenly realize that maybe, just maybe, that ancient man wasn't the caterwauling burro of a hominid that skeptics make him out to be, we suddenly have to think that maybe, just maybe, they might have been on to something about this "God/s" business. Can't have that, now can we?

What if this missionary told you to have an open mind, “don’t be skeptical, but believe,” or “pray this prayer with faith and you’ll know for sure.” Then you’d feel just like I do when Christians approach me that way. The truth is, skepticism is a virtue. We should approach such stories with a large measure of skepticism.

Rational skepticism, a skepticism founded on logical processes and careful coherent analysis is a virtue. Skepticism that seeks to subvert or distort the intellectual achievements of others is dependent upon a logical fallacy, because it proposes that if the prior believer was somewhat a lesser man than the skeptic, he is therefore credulous and dismissable. It becomes irrational skepticism, and irrational skepticism is a liability. Who knows what some huckster or charalatan will get you to believe.

If there is doubt in any small measure, then I can reasonably reject such an event as miraculous.

That certainly doesn't logically follow. If there is doubt in any small measure, the most reasonable thing you can do is be unable to have certainty. You're not really rejecting it on doubt in any small measure, are you? You rely on theories of our inovative ancestors being an unwashed mob of ignorant bassackwards bumpkins in order to stack the evidential deck. That's not reasonable at all.

fwiw
guaca.

Originally posted by jpholding

Remember that DJ has continued to ignore responses I made to his repeated-constantly-on-numerous-threads nonsense like this back in the "Honest Doubter" thread in Gen. Theistics 101.

John has consisently ignored all responses except a select few.

Originally posted by Jedidiah

John has consisently ignored all responses except a select few.

That may be a good sign. Perhaps sitting out on his patio and rereading the Bible instead of posting?

Originally posted by Doubting John

I am a missionary/disciple from Iran. For the past few years I was a disciple of a man named Achmed, who was born of a virgin, preached a message of love and forgiveness to Muslims, and did many miracles, but he was tortured and then killed by the authorities for sedition. But I swear he arose from the dead and now has ascended into heaven to be with his Father-God and his other brother, Jesus. Ya see, God has many sons, not just one, and this particular Son of God died for the sins of the rest of the world, those who will not believe. He would proceed to show you that the Bible does in fact speak of many “sons of God” (Job and the Psalms), and he would use double-fulfillment type prophetic statements in the Bible to show that this man fulfilled the same passages that Jesus did, and he would use a lot of allegory, “pesher” and “midrash” type interpretations, like the N.T writers did to show that Achmed was the Son of God, too. And although the Bible says Jesus was a final revelation to man, it was meant to man in that day, not to men in our day. [Or, hypothetically it could be a story of Jesus’ second return in Iran, it doesn’t matter what the story is, so much as it is a claim to a miraculous person who did miracles].

Have you got a person who persecuted believers of Achmed and after
claiming he witnessed the resurrected Achmed joined that movement? That
is probably the biggest proof for Jesus to me.

Originally posted by Doubting John

If there is doubt in any small measure, then I can reasonably reject such an event as miraculous. So this burden of proof is on the Christian, just like the burden of proof is on the hypothetical missionary friend mentioned above. I just don’t think requiring Christians to have the burden of proof is unreasonable at all here. After all, a miracle would be such a very very rare event, it would have to have some overwhelming evidence on it’s behalf for reasonable people should believe it. That is to say, if I lose this debate/discussion by a 80% to 20% ratio in the minds of the readers, then I still win, because it will take a higher percentage than that to win this debate. The evidence for such a miracle must be simply overwhelming.

Okay so far?

Doubting John, I hope everything is going well for you and your family.

If someone got up out of their casket, walked over to you and spoke to you about their death experience, would you truly believe they were resurrected? I'm pretty sure you would explain this by saying they were declared dead too early, or there was undetectable brain activity which finally spurred them back to consciousness. When you use reason alone, everything MUST have a reasonable explanation, so there is absolutely nothing which could convince you of the resurrection or any other miraculous event.

So, you doubt the story about Achmed, eh? That’s no surprise to me. It’s because you believe other things that cause you to doubt that story. Welcome to my world--you skeptics! Besides, you know how the cults do it. They’ll say things like, Jesus was the “only begotten Son” that is, until Achmed came.

Oh, and let’s just say for the sake of the argument that this missionary friend had been a former persecutor of Achmed’s followers and then claimed to have a vision/revelation that Acmed truly was the Son of God. Before leaving Iran he was subject to persecution too. Oh, that makes a difference to you now, doesn’t it?

To see the relevance of Paul’s conversion see the discussion beginning in post # 9 here:
http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...7&page=1&pp=16

Oh, the above is but one example of how I respond to reasonable posts, too. I just don’t respond to unreasonable ones, JP, that’s all, and I have started too many threads to answer them all, anyway. But this thread will be my focus from here on.

And, if I did see someone rise from a casket after having predicted his resurrection, then of course I’d believe. It’s just that I have never seen this…..have you?

Plus, I’m not looking for certainty, either. But come on, are you saying that if there is just a 50-50 chance, or even 70-30 chance that Jesus rose from the dead, when I have many other problems with miraculous claims and the inherent problems with Christianity, that this should be enough to convince reasonable people? NO! It must be an overwhelming case, not unlike your skepticism regarding Achmed.

If there was a 70-30 chance that Jesus was going to return this week, would that be enough for you to sell everything you have and give to the poor in hopes of converting them, and to wait on a mountain top for him? No? 80-20? It would have to be an overwhelming case, wouldn’t it?

So much for not responding to those who respond to me.

So let’s start.

Did Jesus Bodily Rise From the Dead?

Let’s say that you lived in the time of Jesus and you heard him preach, but you went away totally unconvinced that he was the Messiah for various reasons, including the fact that you believed the Messiah was someone who would throw off Roman rule. Then you learn he was crucified. Later you talk to someone who claims he had risen from the dead, and that several people had seen him too. Would you believe? What if you heard a few reports that these same people were performing miracles in the name of a risen Jesus to show that he gave them this power from on high (Acts 3, 5:12)?

In truth, this is all you have today, by the way, except that you don't even live in their times.

As a modern person, as opposed to an ancient person, would this be enough to convince you? You know of many reports of miracles by Oral Roberts, and assertions by psychics. Do you believe them? There are religious leaders like Joseph Smith who claimed the angel Moroni visited him, and Sun Myung Moon, whose followers believe he is the Messiah. Do you believe them? What would you believe about this Jesus? You are convinced he isn’t the Messiah, remember? That is, you initially have reasons not to believe, not unlike Achmed, or me.

Who knows what you’d believe about Jesus. But we do know that according to the New Testament there were other purported miracle/magic/sorcery workers in Jesus and Paul’s day (Mark 9:38-39; Acts 8:9; 19:13-14; 19:19). It would seem that it wasn’t as difficult to believe in miracles for them back then, as it is for us today.

The curious fact is that while the book of Acts says many people believed, most people in Jesus’ day did not. With very rare exceptions, there is no record that Pilate nor his soldiers, Caiaphas nor the Sanhedrin, King Herod nor his court, nor the mob that yelled, “crucify him” were converted to Christianity because of the weight of evidence for his resurrection. Why is it that the evidence of this miracle did not convince most people in Jesus’ day, but that two millennia later the evidence is supposed to convince us? That's a fair question, isn't it?

The Biblical Record. In order to overcome our modern day inclination not to believe in miracles the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus must be extremely strong, as I've said. Michael Martin (in The Case Against Christianity, (Temple Univ. Press, 1991, p.77) lays down five factors that would affect the reliability and strength of the evidence. “First, if various accounts of an event are consistent, this would tend to increase their evidential weight whereas inconsistencies would tend to lower it.” “Second, eyewitness accounts are generally more reliable than accounts that are second or third hand.” “Third, if the eye-witnesses to some event are known to be reliable and trustworthy, this should increase their evidential worth.” “Fourth, independent testimony that is in agreement should tend to increase our confidence of its reliability; failure of independent confirmation should lower our confidence.” “Finally, if an author’s purpose in writing a document leads us to believe that the document was not a reliable historical account, then this would lower the evidential weight of the document.”

This is fair enough of a challenge, isn’t it?

Originally posted by Doubting John

Oh, and let’s just say for the sake of the argument that this missionary friend had been a former persecutor of Achmed’s followers and then claimed to have a vision/revelation that Acmed truly was the Son of God. Before leaving Iran he was subject to persecution too. Oh, that makes a difference to you now, doesn’t it?

Actually it probably would make a difference to me. But don't you see you
are adding to the deck. You stated your premise in the first post. I
EXPLAINED why it was not convincing enough. So what do you do? You
just add on to your premise. Sorry buddy but I'm not letting you off the
hook that easily.

I showed you why it is unconving enough. I've proved your premise lacking
and if you have to add to the deck then I have proven my point and you've
admitted that your premise is lacking.

This shows that the resurrection is a better attested event over other
claimed miracles. And if you have to add it your premise then you have
just unwittingly admitted that Paul's conversion is strong evidence in
favor of the resurrection.

From this moment onward I refuse to reply to any of your posts for the simple reason that 90% of one is full of garbage that has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand. If you rewrite it without the useless garbage I might reconsider.

Originally posted by ave_maria

When you use reason alone, everything MUST have a reasonable explanation, so there is absolutely nothing which could convince you of the resurrection or any other miraculous event.

You make it sound like the resurrection can't be accepted on grounds of reason when there is actually a very reasonable explanation for it. It just happens to involve the supernatural, which is only a problem if you presuppose the supernatural is impossible.