Why Must We "Believe In Our Hearts" God Raised Jesus??

[Snowball7]

Eusebius, don't listen to "Tired of the Nonsense" re: Roman/Jewish guards at the Tomb.
Since the very beginning everyone understood the guards to be Roman. Many Romans
became Christians who participated in the Crucifixion and afterward. Here is a decent
little summary to read. It makes a number of valid points, but nowhere near the full monte.
Bottom line, the Sanhedrin wouldn't have asked Pilate for a group of guards to stand watch
if they wanted to guard it themselves. Pilate also had every reason to place his own guards
there to keep the peace which was disrupted. I'm sure he was more than a little curious
about his wife's warning concerning Christ.
Nowhere in Jewish tradition or writings was it maintained
that the guards were Jewish temple guards. They were busy watching the temple itself
where other events occurred.

[Tired of the Nonsense]

Originally Posted by Snowball7

Eusebius, don't listen to "Tired of the Nonsense" re: Roman/Jewish guards at the Tomb.
Since the very beginning everyone understood the guards to be Roman. Many Romans
became Christians who participated in the Crucifixion and afterward. Here is a decent
little summary to read. It makes a number of valid points, but nowhere near the full monte.
Bottom line, the Sanhedrin wouldn't have asked Pilate for a group of guards to stand watch
if they wanted to guard it themselves. Pilate also had every reason to place his own guards
there to keep the peace which was disrupted. I'm sure he was more than a little curious
about his wife's warning concerning Christ.
Nowhere in Jewish tradition or writings was it maintained
that the guards were Jewish temple guards. They were busy watching the temple itself
where other events occurred.

It might be worth noting that NO ONE ELSE AT ALL has any "tradition" of guards of any nationality being present at Joseph's tomb. This entire story is found only in Gospel Matthew and no where else. It is also worth noting that the Temple Police served at the pleasure of the chief priests, and would have gone where ever they were ordered to go. A squad of Temple Police, serving as personal bodyguards for the high priests, would have been already right at hand, since protocol would have demanded it in keeping with their stature. It was to these "guards" or "watch" that Pilate was referring.

[David in Christ]

Originally Posted by thrillobyte

I'm puzzled by Paul's words,






I don't get the bolded part from a logical POV. That's like saying, "If you love her in your heart" and we all know love cannot be forced. One can show outward feelings of love toward a person without actually loving them "with all your heart". In the same way, one can profess to believe and even want to believe but being able to do so in one's heart is a product of conditioning over a lifetime and things like evaluating the research that says "Yea or Nay". How about saying, "Sure, I believe" without actually believing in my heart because I am incapable of doing it?


I used to believe in my heart once that God raised Jesus. I suppose I never really stopped to think about it. This was before the Internet when all the writings and research by skeptical scholars became available.


After reading what they had to say I had to admit to myself that while anything is possible, "Sure it's possible God raised Jesus" it was the lack of concrete evidence and not the words of anonymous writers 50-100 years later who weren't even there to see it, that just made it impossible for me to believe "in my heart" that Jesus actually raised bodily from the dead. "Possible, but not probable", being a deist who believes that God respects natural law and allows it to operate fully. I think it's equally probable that the disciples believed they saw Christ, but again the belief will always be a matter of faith and not any hard evidence.


So am I damned because I would acknowledge Jesus and say "Yes, it's possible God raised him, but I have to go with the evidence that indicates He did not"?

MMMM.... you raised a good question. Why try to force love? It should be there from one's testimony yes. In which way though do they try to force love?