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Certainly I take the gospel accounts and Acts at face value. I believe them to be historically reliable and truthful in their presentation of Jesus' ministry, His death and His resurrection.
Only Mark ends his gospel account with the empty tomb. Matthew, Luke and John all provide post resurrection details concerning Jesus.
Matthew records the fact that the chief priests and the Pharisees asked Pilate to secure the tomb until the third day because they knew that Jesus had said that He would rise on the third day. They did not believe that He would, but they were afraid that Jesus' disciples would steal and hide the body in order to claim that Jesus had risen (Matthew 27:62-66). This in no way suggests that the body was taken out of the tomb. It only relates the fears of the Pharisees that the body might be stolen by Jesus' disciples. But since the tomb was secured by a Roman guard and the tomb sealed, the disciples couldn't have stolen the body even if they had wanted to.
You seem to subscribe to the swoon theory. The theory that Jesus wasn't really dead but only appeared to be and later recovered. That theory has no basis whatsoever. The spear thrust by one of the Roman guards (John 19:34) was to make sure that He was dead. The Romans ensured that those who were crucified were dead before removing the body from the cross.
Paul's comment that on one occasion Jesus appeared to more than 500 people is for the purpose of establishing His resurrection. The passage is 1 Corinthians 15:4-8 in which Paul states that Jesus appeared to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve, then to more than five hundred, then to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all to Paul. We know from Luke 24:36-42 that Jesus' post resurrection appearance to the apostles was a bodily resurrection. Now, in Paul's case, while He saw Jesus in a vision rather than bodily, it nevertheless was a post resurrection appearance of Jesus. And as stated, while the men who were with Paul on the Damascus road did not see Christ, they did see the light that manifested from Jesus' appearance to Paul and they heard a voice but could not understand it. Therefore Paul's experience was not an illusion but was a real event.
The Christian faith stands or falls on the death and resurrection of Jesus. If Jesus did not bodily rise from the grave in resurrection then Christianity is false. As Paul stated,
1 Cor. 15:14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. 15] Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. 16] For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; 17] and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. 18] Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 19] If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.
But the apostles testify that Jesus did rise from the grave and that He appeared to many. And it is a historical fact that from the beginning, right after the resurrection of Christ, 50 days after to be precise, the church began and experienced rapid growth. If there had been no resurrection that would not have been the case.
While in your opinion the historical evidence does not stand up to scrutiny, and you are entitled to your opinion, there are very, very many down through the last two thousand years who disagree with that opinion. Christianity has its roots in historical events which took place in Jerusalem some two thousand years ago.
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Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
Sorry. Your appeal to numbers gets you nothing.
I'm not trying to 'get' anything. I have simply stated the facts. While many people are unable to accept the supernatural and the miraculous and so cannot accept the fact that Jesus is who He claimed to be, and that He was resurrected, there are many people through out the centuries that do not have an anti-supernatural presupposition and have accepted the gospel accounts as historical fact.
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I appeal to the very gospels you cherry -pick to support your preferred belief.
If referring to the very verses and passages that specifically deal with the issue at hand is cherry-picking, then so be it. When discussing a subject it is only logical to reference the appropriate verses that address that subject.
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I have already debunked your appeal to Paul saying that Jesus appeared to Peter and how this contradicts the Gospels unless it is an imaginary appearance.
While I'm sure you believe you have debunked what I said, you have not. Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 15:4-8 to which I referred in post #68 in no way contradicts the gospel accounts. What you said which you think debunks what I said was;
'Paul's remark about a lot of people seeing Jesus does not prove a bodily resurrection. He saw Jesus in the spirit - that his, in his head. He went to heaven in a dream and talked with him (II Corinthians 12.2. he is surely talking about his own experience). Thus he is talking about spiritual or in-the -head appearances to those people, which explains why he 'First appeared' to Simon, which is of course not what the resurrection accounts say. Other than Luke who (taking the cue from Paul, I am convinced) wangles in a claim that Jesus appeared to Simon (Luke 24.34) but can tell us nothing about it.'
I was too tired last night to really examine what you said, but looking at it again this morning I see that you are mistakenly linking Paul's Damascus road experience described in Acts 9:3-8; 22:6-11; 26:12-18 with the experience that he described in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4. These are two entirely different events in Paul's life. As shown in the Acts passages, the men who were with Paul were aware of the light and the voice that accompanied Paul's vision though they could not see Jesus or recognize what Jesus was saying to Paul. Jesus' voice was perceived simply as a sound by them. The event Paul referred to in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 however in which he was caught up to heaven may (or may not) refer to the time when Paul was dragged outside the city (Lystra) and stoned and left for dead. This is described in Acts 14:19 and is also mentioned in 2 Cor. 11:25.
2 Corinthians was written c. A.D. 55. The event Paul describes in 2 Cor. 12:2-4 took place 14 years prior to the writing of 2 Corinthians. That would place the date of that event around A.D. 41. That is many years after Paul's Damascus road encounter with the risen Jesus which took place within about 2 to 3 years or so after Jesus was crucified. Jesus was crucified in A.D.30 or 33. I hold to A.D. 33. Paul's encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus road occurred then no later than A.D. 36.
It is seen therefore that Paul's Damascus road encounter is not related to the event described by Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4.
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Your other arguments simply fiddle the facts. Mathew says that the story of the disciples taking the body was current in his day.
What Matthew says is as follows.
Matthew 27:62 Now on the next day, the day after the preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered together with Pilate, 63] and said, "Sir, we remember that when He was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I am to rise again.' 64] "Therefore, give orders for the grave to be made secure until the third day, otherwise His disciples may come and steal Him away and say to the people, 'He has risen from the dead,' and the last deception will be worse than the first." 65] Pilate said to them, "You have a guard; go, make it as secure as you know how." 66] And they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.
The chief priests and Pharisees were concerned that Jesus' disciples would steal the body and claim that He had risen. From their point of view it was a reasonable assumption.
While the unbelieving Pharisees and the Romans would of necessity have to believe Jesus' body was stolen, the gospel accounts, Acts, and Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 15 attest that Jesus did in fact rise
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It is not just Mathew recording the fears of the Sadducee (not Pharisee) High Priest that the disciples might stage such a trick. The main point against this improbable story is that not one of the other writers even hints at a guard. And in fact it would prevent the removal of the body which would have been done the previous night.
You conclude that the story is improbable due to your presupposition that it is so. However, each of the gospel writers chose what to include and exclude from his account. It cannot be expected that all four writers should include every single detail, or every event that took place. The gospel writers were free to select which details they reported.
And before sealing the tomb, the Roman guards would have checked inside to make sure that Jesus' body was there.
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The spear thrust is also recorded only by John. In fact it is contradicted by Luke because the account of the resurrection has Jesus showing his hands and feet but not his side. he knows nothing of a spear -wound. Nor of Thomas poking his fingers into it or even being absent as he says at 24 33 that the eleven were there. This Thomas and spear -wound story is refuted by the other accounts and Matthew has no appearance of Jesus that evening at al. The disciples pack up and leave for Galilee, rather oddly because Jesus already appeared to the women that morning in a story not recorded by any of the others and denied by Luke who has Cleophas referring to the women finding Jesus' body gone but they did not see him.
As stated above, each of the gospel writers chose which details to include or exclude from his gospel account. The other writers not mentioning the spear thrust while John does, or that only John records Thomas' comment about not believing that Jesus was risen unless he put his hand in Jesus' side, etc. is not contradiction. It is selection of detail. The exclusion of certain details in one gospel account does not refute the mention of those details in another gospel account. The choice on the part of each gospel writer to include or exclude certain details as well as the telescoping or condensing of the details in one gospel account over and against another gospel account can cause apparent but not actual contradictions.
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Don't you see that the resurrection accounts are hopelessly contradictory and absurd and mark doesn't even have one.
Refer to my comment above.
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There is no way you can present this as 'historical evidence'. No more than your airy claim that the "Church" began 50 days after the resurrection (which date nobody can agree on anyway) and experienced 'rapid growth'.
It is indeed historically reliable historical evidence. As shown, what you consider contradictions are simply the choice on the part of the gospel writers to include and exclude certain events and details in their accounts. Or in cases where two or more gospel writers refer to the same event, one writer may choose to go into greater detail than another writer.
The church age began on the day of Pentecost which was fifty days after the resurrection of Christ. Acts 2 records the Holy Spirit filling the disciples at that time. The Book of Acts records the first 30 years or so of the Church-age and indeed shows the rapid growth and spread of the church during that period with thousands at a time believing the gospel message as in Acts 4:4 for example where some five thousand men heard the gospel message and believed it.
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The only reason you do is the one given by Paul and the one that utterly exposes your position.
"If Jesus didn't get up and walk, we are all wrong. Since we cannot possibly be wrong, Jesus must have got up and walked."
You are here referring to Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 15:13-19 but you have completely misrepresented what he said and are presuming to know why I believe the gospel message concerning Christ. The apostles attest to the resurrection of Christ and I believe their testimony. I believe for other reasons as well, but there is no need to go into that.
Each person must decide for himself if the historical evidence is reliable or not. Many have and will continue to conclude that it is not. But many have and will continue to conclude that it is.
Each person must decide for himself if the historical evidence is reliable or not. Many have and will continue to conclude that it is not. But many have and will continue to conclude that it is.
That's the whole crux of this argument Mike.
Mike, If you were to read a fantastical story from an anonymous author eg
"BigFoot hunted and killed and body now stored in freezer"
would you simply take this as fact, or would you try to find other sources that corroborate this story?
Let's say you did indeed find another similar account of Bigfoot in the freezer.......but you subsequently found out that the second source was the spouse of the original Bigfoot author........ do you simply believe in the story or would you continue to look for independent sources for the story?
That's the problem with almost all the stories in both the Old and New testament, there are hardly any corroborating sources outside of the Bible to give them more weight.
Take for example your belief in what Paul says.......that over 500 people saw the resurrected Jesus.......
where are any accounts of any of the 500 witnesses outside of the Bible?
Josephus and Tacitus don't seem too interested in recording any of the 500 witnesses accounts.......some of whom should still be alive in the days of Josephus and Tacitus.
The resurrected Jesus story is ONLY to be found in the Bible........... and as AREQUIPA rightly points out there seem to be plenty of inconsistencies between accounts in the Bible.
There is simply insufficient evidence to make claim that the resurrection story is historical fact.
Except, you know, the Apostles personally knew him and even if we didn't have records of Jesus' existence (which we do thanks to Tacitus and Josephus), there are records of the Apostles such as their writings in the Bible like the Gospel of John, John's epistles, Peter's epistles, Jude's epistle, James' (called the brother of Jesus) epistle. These were all men who were martyred, in fact 10 of the twelve were martyred. Skinned alive, beheaded, crucified, crucified upside-down, you name it. Do you really think any of these men would have suffered any of these punishments for a lie? Regardless, most modern scholars agree a man named Jesus suffered by the hands of the Sanhedrin and the Romans and the ones that don't can be counted on one hand.
Even Atheists like Ehrman, Stavrakopoulou, and many others say that Jesus existed.
The first part of your post is most likely wrong. Most modern scholars agree that none of the books of the bible were written by anyone that knew Jesus, certainly not the apostles.
No we don't. Historically, we have more going on for the believe that Religion has no basis or facts to substantiate any of the wives tales, or stories being told. Actually, Historically, there is now more evidence that Aliens came to Earth than there is that Jesus did. Sorry....the evidence just isn't there.
There are just too many bad things that happen to claim there is a "God" watching over us, that cares what we do. Even a Zoo Keeper does a better job of watching over his Animals.
Any Religion that accepts a gunman going into a school slaughtering a dozen kids, as "Gods Will" is a very poor example of a Religion.
According to you. But you are no authority. You expect us to take your word over thousands of years of historical evidence?
Mike, If you were to read a fantastical story from an anonymous author eg
"BigFoot hunted and killed and body now stored in freezer"
would you simply take this as fact, or would you try to find other sources that corroborate this story?
The difference between your Big Foot story and that of the bible is that the Bible is corroborated by many witnesses. Over 500 saw Christ ascend into heaven. The author could just wright that if it never occurred. You don't need video to prove something happened. When Christ returns then you will know for sure. Until then, we take it by faith.
The difference between your Big Foot story and that of the bible is that the Bible is corroborated by many witnesses. Over 500 saw Christ ascend into heaven.
As I said in my earlier post........... where are any of the accounts of the 500+ witnesses to be found outside of the Bible.
Writers like Josephus, Tacitus don't make mention of any second or third hand accounts from the alleged 500 witnesses that Paul refers to.
You have to ask yourself too, that if indeed Jesus did rise from the dead then how come he didn't appear in front of King Herod, Pontius Pilate, or Emperor Tiberius?
As I said in my earlier post........... where are any of the accounts of the 500+ witnesses to be found outside of the Bible.
Writers like Josephus, Tacitus don't make mention of any second or third hand accounts from the alleged 500 witnesses that Paul refers to.
You have to ask yourself too, that if indeed Jesus did rise from the dead then how come he didn't appear in front of King Herod, Pontius Pilate, or Emperor Tiberius?
During the last 2,000 years the world over there where the Bible was written has seen famines, whole areas burnt to the ground through warfare, and on and on. We are fortunate to have what we do from that era.
And why would something like Christ ascending into heaven have to be false if neither Josephus or Tacitus never wrote about it? The fact that we DO have ancient writings which are written about it proves it occurred. The historic accounts in the Scriptures are just as valid as any not biblical historical account by Josephus or Tacitus.
Who is to say He didn't appear before them? And why should He appear before them? He walked the earth for 40 days after his resurrection.
The historic accounts in the Scriptures are just as valid as any not biblical historical account by Josephus or Tacitus.
We know the identities of Josephus and Tacitus..........we have no idea who penned the gospels.
We do know that the actual Bible has many translation issues, and has been edited down,added to, and amended to suit the agendas of both the clergy and rulers like Constantine and King James.......... not to mention amended to accommodate Jewish messiah prophecy concerning the line of King David.
Within the gospels you have inconsistencies with the birth of Jesus and the resurrection stories, whatever the Bible lays claim to be, one thing it is not......... is a historical account of any reliability whatsoever.
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