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The hallucination hypothesis doesn't explain the post crucifixion appearances of Jesus to His disciples. He appeared to them both individually and in groups on multiple occasions over a forty day period in which He spoke to them, had conversations with them, ate with them, and invited them to touch Him.
Also, Paul who later saw the resurrected Jesus had not been heart broken over Jesus' death. He had been an enemy of Christianity. Paul saw the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus road, and the men who were with Paul saw the light that accompanied the appearance of Jesus to Paul, as well as heard the voice of Jesus but which they could only make out as a sound. Therefore, Paul did not have a subjective experience, but had an experience that to some extent was also experienced by the men who were with him.
Craig L. Blomberg, Professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, and who holds a Ph.D in New Testament from Aberdeen University in Scottland, writes,
''Mass hallucinations have never elsewhere occurred over a forty day period (Acts 1:3), in different places, to more than five hundred people (1 Cor 15:6) who are known to be defeated in outlook and not ecpecting anything miraculous to happen (John 20:19). It is far more common, therefore among scholarly skepticism to promote the idea that the Gospel stories of the resurrection are primarily legendary.''
Jesus and the Gospels, An Introduction and Survey, Craig L. Blomberg, p. 410
However, as I pointed out in post #12, The Gospel of John identifies the writer of that Gospel account as the disciple whom Jesus loved, who had leaned against Jesus' breast at the Last Supper. And so while the Gospel of John wasn't written until somewhere around A.D. 95, it was written by an eyewitness to Jesus' life, death, and resurrection.
Here is a link to a paper by, at the time, Ph.D student J. J. Johnson on the subject of whether the resurrection appearances of Jesus were hallucinations.
It is titled, ''Were the Resurrection Appearances Hallucinations? Some Psychiatric and Psychological Considerations''
Jesus' resurrection appearances were not hallucinations.
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The hallucination hypothesis doesn't explain the post crucifixion appearances of Jesus to His disciples.
As usual, Mike, the problem with your assertion is that you've got zero evidence to back the statement.
1. NOTHING outside the biased gospels and epistles mentions Jesus or the apostles or Paul within 60 years of Jesus' crucifixion. The historical record is blank. So there is zero evidence from secular scholars who were not Christian that any resurrection ever occurred or that a resurrected Jesus appeared to anybody. This fact cannot be avoided:
There is ZERO evidence in the secular historical record for a Jesus, a resurrected Jesus or him appearing to 12 apostles.
So we can put the hallucination hypothesis completely aside. Without corroboration outside the sacred biased texts the issue of mass hallucination doesn't even arise if you cannot prove a Jesus or 12 apostles even existed. Again, there's simply no secular historical record of him.
Overcome that one problem and we can talk reasonably about whether or not the apostles were seeing Jesus or an illusion.
Just name one secular historian out of the roughly 300 present who were writing history of the time who were contemporary with Jesus or within 50 years after his death who mentions him.
Here's something a lot of Christians don't think about. Mark and Luke state that Jesus' fame spread all over the surrounding area. Tens of thousands of people were turning out to see him and yet not a single Roman record from the time mentions Jesus, not even his crucifixion.
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This news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding country.
Luke 7:17
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And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.
The problem is that the men who wrote the current version of the NT bible were in no way "eye-witnesses." Experts say, even if we had originals, they were written some 100-200 years AFTER the death of Christ.
Wrong as we have MS from the late 1st century so those experts aren't ... experts.
The originals were not written 200 years after the death of Christ. At the end of the Gospel of John (21:20-24) the writer is identified as the beloved disciple who leaned upon the breast of Jesus at the last supper. The words, ''This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things,'' in verse 24 refer to ''the disciple whom Jesus loved'' in verse 20. And the Gospel of John was one of the last of the New Testament letters to have been written, probably somewhere around A.D. 95.
F. F. Bruce, (1910-1990), Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England comments,
Here we have a plain statement that the beloved disciple is the real author of the Gospel. Even if the words 'who wrote these things' do not mean that his hand held the pen, any more than the language of John 19:19 means that Pilate with his own hand wrote the inscription which was fixed to the cross, they do point to him as the guarantor of the record. 'These things' cannot be confined to the narrative of chapter 21; indeed, since chapter 21 has the nature of an epilogue, they may refer more directly to the preceding chapters than to this. The claim then, is that the witness to the truth of this Gospel is one who was in close touch with all that is described in it.
The Gospel of John, F. F. Bruce, p. 409
Dr. Edwin A. Blum writes,
The fourth Gospel ends with information about its composition. The beloved disciple is identified as the author (cf. comments on ''Authorship'' in the Introduction). The first sentence in verse 24 may have been someone other than John, but the wording sounds Johannine (cf. 19:35). These things most likely refer to the entire Gospel. The words, We know that his testimony is true, were probably written by someone other than John. They are an endorsement, perhaps by the Ephesian church, or a testimony from the early church as a whole. They were certainly in a position to know the facts better than any generation since then.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament, An Exposition of the Scriptures by Dallas Seminary Faculty, p. 346
As for our current version of the Bible, New Testament textual critics state that what we have is around 99 percent accurate to the original text. You might ask how can we know that since we don't have the originals with which to compare them. If we had the originals there would be no need for textual criticism which by comparing all the extant manuscript copies can recover most of the original text by identifying and filtering out what was not in the originals. In other words, what was in the original text can be found among the many extant manuscript copies. The goal of textual criticism is to identify the original text by comparing the copies and identifying the variants thus leaving the original text. We will probably never have 100 percent accuracy, but again, textual critics say we have around 99 percent accuracy.
While New Testament textual criticism which deals with the issue of the degree of accuracy with which the original New Testament text has been transmitted down through the ages does not really concern the issue of whether what was originally written is true, before the issue of whether what was originally written is true can be addressed it must first be determined if we can know what was originally written. Though we don't have the original autographs, can we determine to what degree the original New Testament text has accurately been transmitted through the manuscript copies which are extant.
Regarding the issue of New Testament textual reliability (is what we have now what they wrote then), here is what the experts, the textual critics who have studied the matter say.
Gary Habermas comments;
The textual purity of the New Testament is rarely questioned in scholarship. It is well established and agreed among almost all who have ever seriously studied the ancient texts that the text is virtually the same as what was originally written. Even critical scholars question very few words in the New Testament, and those words do not affect doctrinal issues.
[Habermas, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus, p.85]
Most New Testament textual critics (scholars who study and compare the New Testament documents) maintain that the New Testament text is extremely reliable. Though there are an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 textual variants, the vast majority are absolutely meaningless and affect nothing. Many of them are not even translatable from Greek into English. A textual variant is simply a lack of uniformity of wording among the manuscripts regarding a particular word, sentence, or paragraph. These variants fall into the following categories.
1.) Spelling differences and nonsense errors. This category is by far the majority of the variants.
One of the most common textual variants involves the 'movable nu.' This is a nu - 'ν'. In English, it is the letter 'n.' In Greek the nu - 'ν' can occur at the end of certain words which precede a word that begins with a vowel. Whether a scribe used the nu or not is similar to saying 'a' or 'an'. 'An apple', or 'a apple.' Not using it when he should have just means the scribe was careless or couldn't spell. But it doesn't affect the meaning.
A nonsense error is a mistake on the part of a scribe which in context obviously makes no sense and when compared with other manuscripts can be easily seen to not be the original wording.
2.) Minor variations that have no affect on translations or that involve the use of synonyms. This category of variant does not involve spelling or nonsense readings, but which also don't affect translation. For example, The Greek may or may not use the definite article with a proper name, whereas the English does not. Luke 2:16 in Greek says 'the Mary' - τήν τε Μαριὰμ (both the Mary) καὶ τὸν Ἰωσὴφ (and the Joseph). So 'Mary' or 'the Mary' would be variants which affect nothing. And in English we simply translate it as 'Mary.'
Then there are variants among the Greek manuscripts resulting from the fact that Greek is an inflectional language which means that when writing something the same thing can be said using different word order since the subject is always in the nominative case and the direct object is always in the accusative case. In Greek, the subject and object are not determined by word order as in English, but by the case ending.
Variants are also the result of using synonyms. A scribe of a particular manuscript might use the noun 'Jesus' instead of the pronoun 'He.' For instance, in Matthew 4:18, 12:25; Mark 2:15, 10:52; and Luke 24:36 the Byzantine manuscript text type tends to use the name 'Jesus' while the Alexandrian manuscripts say 'He.' While this affects translation, whether 'Jesus' or 'He' is used, the referent is still Jesus.
Another variant might involve an addition such as a passage saying 'Christ Jesus' instead of 'Jesus'. In Acts 19:4, the Alexandrian manuscripts have 'Jesus' while the Byzantine manuscripts have 'Christ Jesus.' Obviously Jesus is the Christ, and so whether or not a particular passage says 'Christ Jesus' or simply 'Jesus' doesn't affect the meaning.
3.) Differences that affect the meaning, but are not viable (that is, there is no chance of them going back to the original autographs.) As an example, I quote Dan Wallace in an interview.
For example, in Luke 6:22, the ESV reads, “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!” But one manuscript from the 10th/11th century (codex 2882) lacks the words “on account of the Son of Man.” That’s a very meaningful variant since it seems to say that a person is blessed when he is persecuted, regardless of his allegiance to Christ. Yet it is only in one manuscript, and a relatively late one at that. It has no chance of reflecting the wording of the original text, since all the other manuscripts are against it, including quite a few that are much, much earlier.
4.) Differences that affect the meaning, and are viable. This last category involves only about 1 percent or less of the varients. These variants affect the meaning of the text to some degree, but not in any major way.
For instance, in Romans 5:1, did Paul write, ''We have peace'' (ἔχομεν - echomen), or did he write, ''let us have peace'' (ἔχωμεν - echōmen)? The difference in the two words is one letter. Regardless of which of the two reading is correct, they don't contradict what the Bible teaches. If Paul was saying that we have peace with God he was referring to the believer's positional status with God in Christ Jesus. If he was saying ''let us have peace with God'' then he was simply urging believers to realize that peace.
The largest textual variant in the New Testament involves Mark 16:9-20. Did Mark intend to end his gospel account at verse 8 or did the last part of that chapter get lost somehow? Scholars debate that question. But verses 9-20 are generally believed not to have been the original reading. Even so, that reading doesn't really affect any cardinal doctrine. The apostles did cast out demons, and did speak in tongues [v. 17]. As well, they did lay hands on the sick and heal them [v.18].
As for picking up snakes and drinking poison, while nowhere in the New Testament are these practices reported as happening, Eusebius tells of a tradition in which a man drank poison but was unharmed.
Church History Book 3.39.9
8. But it is fitting to subjoin to the words of Papias which have been quoted, other passages from his works in which he relates some other wonderful events which he claims to have received from tradition.
9. That Philip the apostle dwelt at Hierapolis with his daughters has been already stated. But it must be noted here that Papias, their contemporary, says that he heard a wonderful tale from the daughters of Philip. For he relates that in his time one rose from the dead. And he tells another wonderful story of Justus, surnamed Barsabbas: that he drank a deadly poison, and yet, by the grace of the Lord, suffered no harm. CHURCH FATHERS: Church History, Book III (Eusebius)
As well, this could be referring to being compelled to pick up snakes and drink poison rather than to the voluntary practice of them. And it could be restricted to the apostolic period of the Church-age. Regardless, no cardinal doctrine of the Christian faith is affected by this variant.
So what do the textual critics say about the reliability of the New Testament?
F. F. Bruce (1910-1990) was Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, England. He stated...
Fortunately, if the great number of MSS increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice. [The New Testament Documents; Are They Reliable?, F.F. Bruce, pgs. 14-15.]
Bruce Metzger (1914-2007) was one of the most highly regarded scholars of Greek, New Testament, and New Testament Textual Criticism. He served on the board of the American Bible Society and United Bible Societies and was a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. He commented...
But the amount of evidence for the text of the New Testament , whether derived from manuscripts, early versions, or patristic quotations is so much greater than that available for any ancient classical author that the necessity of resorting to emendation is reduced to the smallest dimensions. [The Text of the New Testament, Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration, Fourth Edition, Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman, pg. 230]
Daniel B. Wallace (PhD, Dallas Theological Seminary) is professor of New Testament Studies. He is a member of the Society of New Testament Studies, the Institute for Biblical Research, and has consulted on several Bible translations. He made these comments...
To sum up the evidence on the number of variants, there are a lot of variants because there are a lot of manuscripts. Even in the early centuries, the text of the NT is found in a sufficient number of MSS, versions, and writings of the church fathers to give us the essentials of the original text. [Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament, Daniel B. Wallace, pg. 40]
Even Bart D. Ehrman who puts a skeptical spin on things when writing for the general public made the following statement in a college textbook as quoted by Dan Wallace in 'Revisiting the Corruption of the New Testament' on pg. 24...
"In spite of these remarkable differences, scholars are convinced that we can reconstruct the original words of the New Testament with reasonable (although probably not 100 percent) accuracy."
Ehrman wrote that in a college textbook called 'The New Testament: A Historical Introduction To the Early Christian Writings', 3rd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pg. 481.
In an article by Dan Wallace, he wrote...
'Though textual criticism cannot yet produce certainty about the exact wording of the original, this uncertainty affects only about two percent of the text. And in that two percent support always exists for what the original said--never is one left with mere conjecture. In other words it is not that only 90 percent of the original text exists in the extant Greek manuscripts--rather, 110 percent exists. Textual criticism is not involved in reinventing the original; it is involved in discarding the spurious, in burning the dross to get to the gold.' [The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?
Study By: Daniel B. Wallace The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical? | Bible.org - Worlds Largest Bible Study Site
The following quotes are from the book 'Reinventing Jesus', 2006, by J. Ed Komoszewski, M. James Sawyer, and Daniel B. Wallace.
''Since the earliest texts that we have agree substantially with the later ones, if we were to project backward to the original, the changes from the original text to the earliest copies would be miniscule.'' [p. 55]
''The reality is that, although most of the text of the New Testament is not in dispute, some passages are.'' [p. 61]
''As we look at the materials and methods of textual criticism in the succeeding chapters, we will see that there are solid reasons for regarding the manuscripts of the New Testament as substantially correct in representing the original text.'' [p.70]
''As we saw in the last chapter, only a very small percentage of the New Testament is in doubt.'' [p. 73]
''For the vast majority of the textual variants, there is simply no difficulty determining the original wording.'' [p. 83]
New Testament textual criticism then is a very important endeavor as it demonstrates the reliability of our New Testament text.
Most difficult to reconstruct the ORIGINAL text when NONE exists....
I believe what is meant is they are able to TRANSLATE the majority of ancient words correctly.
As for Bart, since he has said and written that the majority of the NT has been altered on some way, it is unlikely he would give it a stamp of approval and call it 95% AUTHENTIC.
Just shows that how one chooses to interpret the data will determine how skewed their understanding of it will be.
The very idea that the lack of ORIGINALS prove the copies are 99% accurate is just plain silly.
I might as well say the idea that I am missing all my teeth proves I my teeth are good.
Pliny the Younger (about 61-113C.E.) This Roman author and administrator in Bithynia (modern Turkey) wrote to Roman Emperor Trajan about how to deal with the Christians in that province. Pliny said that he tried to force Christians to recant, executing any who refused to do so. He explained: “Those who ... repeated after me an invocation to the [pagan] Gods, and offered adoration, with wine and frankincense, to your image ... and who finally cursed Christ ... , I thought it proper to discharge.”—Pliny—Letters, BookX, XCVI.
• Michael Grant, a historian and an expert on ancient classical civilization, noted: “If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.”
• Rudolf Bultmann, a professor of New Testament studies, stated: “The doubt as to whether Jesus really existed is unfounded and not worth refutation. No sane person can doubt that Jesus stands as founder behind the historical movement whose first distinct stage is represented by the oldest Palestinian community [of Christians].”
• Will Durant, a historian, writer, and philosopher, wrote: “That a few simple men [the Gospel writers] should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels.”
• Albert Einstein, a German-born Jewish physicist, asserted: “I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene.” When asked if he viewed Jesus as a historical person, he responded: “Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” .
It was known and accepted even by his opponents
The Talmud
This collection of Jewish rabbinic writings, dating from the third to the sixth centuries C.E., shows that even Jesus’ enemies affirmed his existence. One passage says that on “the Passover Yeshu [Jesus] the Nazarean was hanged,” which is historically correct. (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a, Munich Codex; see John 19:14-16.) Another states: “May we produce no son or pupil who disgraces himself in public like the Nazarene”—a title often applied to Jesus.—Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth 17b, footnote, Munich Codex; see Luke 18:37.
Wrong as we have MS from the late 1st century so those experts aren't ... experts.
Manuscript COPIES......and I believe there are NO copies in their entirety?
The earliest manuscript of a New Testament text is a business-card-sized fragment from the Gospel of John, Rylands Library Papyrus P52, which may be as early as the first half of the 2nd century.
When we go out two centuries from the original writings (300 AD), there are at least 48 manuscripts
Wrong as we have MS from the late 1st century so those experts aren't ... experts.
OMG, the naivety is almost unbearable at times. The earliest manuscript we have is a credit-card sized FRAGMENT of John called P 52 that dates to the first half of the 2nd century:
Pliny the Younger(about 61-113C.E.) This Roman author and administrator in Bithynia (modern Turkey) wrote to Roman Emperor Trajan about how to deal with the Christians in that province. Pliny said that he tried to force Christians to recant, executing any who refused to do so. He explained: “Those who ... repeated after me an invocation to the [pagan] Gods, and offered adoration, with wine and frankincense, to your image ... and who finally cursed Christ ... , I thought it proper to discharge.”—Pliny—Letters, BookX, XCVI.
Oh stop it will you! All you are providing evidence for is that Christians existed. Nobody is doubting that.
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The Talmud
This collection of Jewish rabbinic writings, dating from the third to the sixth centuries C.E., shows that even Jesus’ enemies affirmed his existence. One passage says that on “the Passover Yeshu [Jesus] the Nazarean was hanged,” which is historically correct. (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 43a, Munich Codex; see John 19:14-16.) Another states: “May we produce no son or pupil who disgraces himself in public like the Nazarene”—a title often applied to Jesus.—Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth 17b, footnote, Munich Codex; see Luke 18:37.
The Talmud also says that Jesus
* learnt black magic in Egypt
* was a bastard son of Roman soldier
* was conceived during menstruation
* had 5 disciples
* was stoned to death in Lydda
It also says that Mary was a wh*re.
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Originally Posted by thrillobyte
OMG, the naivety is almost unbearable at times.
Indeed it is.
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The deceit and deception constantly posted here by Christians at times makes me dizzy.
I have always been puzzled as to why, if Christianity is true, Christians have to tell so many lies.
Oh stop it will you! All you are providing evidence for is that Christians existed. Nobody is doubting that.
The Talmud also says that Jesus
* learnt black magic in Egypt
* was a bastard son of Roman soldier
* was conceived during menstruation
* had 5 disciples
* was stoned to death in Lydda
It also says that Mary was a wh*re.
Indeed it is.
I have always been puzzled as to why, if Christianity is true, Christians have to tell so many lies.
You're not the only one. Jump to 5:35 of this short video and listen to the question the guy asks. Takes only 10 seconds:
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