Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I guess written eyewitness documentation doesn't cut it for you.
Speaking as a former police officer, detective sergeant, private investigator and paralegal working in both criminal and civil cases, no, eyewitness accounts that are 100% contradictory do not cut it.
Investigating such claims, evidence exists that Jesus did not die.
There is sufficient evidence to show that Jesus was drugged with an opiate -- naturally growing in the region --- causing decreased respiratory and heart rates, making Jesus appear to be dead, when in fact he wasn't.
Removed and spirited away, Jesus was given atropine --- made by grinding up the roots of any of the various members of the Nightshade Family that grow naturally and plentiful in the region. In addition to being a stimulant, atropine causes blood vessels to expand.
The fact that Jesus refuses to appear before any of his critics, detractors or accusers is telling, indeed.
Jesus never appears before Pilate, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, or any others critics or accusers.
He only appears before people whom he trusts.
With good reason....if Jesus appears before the Pharisees, they would have run him through with a sword or spear for any number of reasons, including proving to themselves that Jesus really was dead.
Unable to remain in the region, Jesus flees to the East via Damascus.
Yes indeed, Mircera. I very much liked that theory myself, once. And still do. IF...If..there is any element of factuality in the crucifixion account, there was (despite the astonishingly poor and irrelevant argument against a 'conspiracy' by lane - Craig) clearly a conspiracy.
The disciples were hiding, the women were kept away. The crowds and mockers had gone and only the soldiers plus a couple of others were hanging around. Two of the others were the disciples Arimathea and Nicodemus, at least. And, given some disagreement, it appears that Jesus refused the wine until a few hours later, when he was of course, still very much alive. The wine was given (either by Arimathea or by a soldier helping him out) and Jesus conks out immediately.
The women are kept back while Arimathea drapes Jesus in a sheet and pops him into the handy tomb.
Come Sunday morning, he is gone. And Arimathea and Nicodemus are nowhere to be found.
That, is all the elements of a conspiracy.
But of course, I am far from sure whether there is very much factuality in the story. Jesus was crucified, yes. For the charge as written - sedition. The empty tomb and Arimathea being involved and the women kept from doing the final rites looks persuasive as I cannot see the point and it is (potentially) a hint as skullduggery going on. So if it isn't true, I can't think why those elements are there.
So, while I have doubts Mircea, even if one does credit the Crucifixion account as coherent at base (the resurrection accounts are not coherent anywhere after the empty tomb on Sunday) they hint at surviving death, not resurrecting from death.
I'm aware that the Bible states that Jesus rose from the dead, but is there any other evidence or suggestions out there that suggest this is true?
According to Paul, there were hundreds of firsthand eye witnesses that Jesus had risen from the dead, etc.
Quote:
1 Corinthians 15:6
5 and that he appeared to Cephas,[b] and then to the Twelve.
6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.
7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles,
8 and last of all he appeared to me also
So the New Testament mentions hundreds of witnesses who saw, heard, spoke with and interacted with Jesus Christ after his verified death (that's what stabbing him in the side with a spear was all about). It would seem highly unlikely that a fledgling religious movement, one that was hated and attacked on all sides, could have survived for long bandying about a claim to hundreds of firsthand witnesses to something that was completely made up.
Now there are those who believe that the New Testament is a complete fabrication, start to finish. Those folks aren't going to care what the New Testament says on the matter obviously. So minus the New Testament, there isn't a lot of evidence of the resurrection. It cannot be proven beyond all doubt that Jesus of Nazareth even existed. Then again, it cannot be proven beyond all doubt that Ghengis Khan actually existed. No matter how much direct or indirect proof claiming that X certain person was real you can find, it can always be dismissed and discredited by simply broadening the scope and scale of the conspiracy theory -- the one claiming that it was all completely made up.
When it comes to Jesus' resurrection, you either accept the New Testament as a credible account to some degree or another or you do not. You also have the early Church fathers. But there is no scientific evidence of the resurrection. We do not even know with absolute certainty where Christ was buried. If we knew that, we'd at least know where the resurrection actually happened. Science might at least have a starting point if we at least knew that much, but we don't.
I love it here and I enjoy posting, but it is sometimes wearyingly depressing to argue a case and then find a post plonkingly asserting discredited claims yet again, from either not bothering to read the earlier posts or dismissing them out of hand without a shred of argument.
To repeat - the sightings of Jesus mentioned by Paul are all in the head, which is where he saw Jesus.
The references to angels and their messages are so discrepant and demonstrably fiddled, and the appearances of the risen solid Jesus even more so, that these are utterly worthless as firsthand testimony of anything.
I love it here and I enjoy posting, but it is sometimes wearyingly depressing to argue a case and then find a post plonkingly asserting discredited claims yet again, from either not bothering to read the earlier posts or dismissing them out of hand without a shred of argument.
To repeat - the sightings of Jesus mentioned by Paul are all in the head, which is where he saw Jesus.
The references to angels and their messages are so discrepant and demonstrably fiddled, and the appearances of the risen solid Jesus even more so, that these are utterly worthless as firsthand testimony of anything.
Unfortunately, there will always be those who turn away from the truth if it threatens to alter their carefully-constructed (un)reality.
But soldier on, old son! You're doing good work here and it's appreciated by many.
The problem is eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable, for one. Second, there is a dearth of those accounts outside of the bible. And last, all the religions rely on this 'witnesses are proof' concept. Book of Mormon, Quran, Bible, all follow this template. "We have no proof, but our book says people saw it! Thus it is true! You need only believe!" If witnesses make it true, does it mean all of those accounts in the other religion's texts are factually correct? That what they claim happened really happened? If not, why would one believe one account as told in the Bible, but not in the Quran, or vice versa? What makes the witness account you believe more true than that of the other religious text you don't believe?
It is always difficult. For me, it was Sallust's 'Jugurthine war'. Now that reads like reliable history throughout, but when you come to the tale of a Roman Army saved by a miraculous rainfall in the desert after they all prayed to some obscure Numidian God, can we put that down to coincidence or to tall stories?
The question of rejection of supernatural claims simply because they are supernatural is always a tricky one. That is why I argue that the miracles ascribed to Jesus cannot be dismissed because 'such things don't happen', but because we have four separate accounts of the same events which are effectively four witnesses in the court telling the same story.
While witnesses can sometimes remember incorrectly, or be tempted to elaborate a factual story, where they tell quite different stories, nobody could reasonably take it as true, unless they were determined to believe them, no matter what.
There again, when we detect element of word -for- word repetition of the story, we suspect that they are not telling what they saw, but a prepared story that they have learned to repeat, and that also undermines credibility as eyewitnesses, though it does not necessarily invalidate the story itself.
Looking at the Big Picture, by which ought to be meant looking at everything, not just the 'joining the dots' method of picking the hits and ignoring the misses (and I have to say that the skeptic attempts to recover the true life of the real historical Jesus seem to do this(1) it is possible to draw some conclusions about the story - if reasoning analysis of data counts for anything.
And what is there to be seen if you know where to look, are the real reasons not to credit the miracle claims. The stories don't just differ, they roundly contradict, unless you bend over backwards to believe them, or simply refuse to look and reiterate the belief claim, eyes wide shut and fingers jammed firmly in ears.
(1) I have to add more. The method I have read of picking up some gospel saying or event that - with a bit of imaginative interpretation - can make Jesus into a social reformer, or an orthodox rabbi, or a Hasmonean pretender and then placing it into a sort of day in the Life of..narrative to make it seem as though it actually happened is a bit of a trick, like the suggested Nazareth theme -park idea, turning what was never there into an an apparent reality with some made -up models.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 12-17-2013 at 06:09 AM..
I love it here and I enjoy posting, but it is sometimes wearyingly depressing to argue a case and then find a post plonkingly asserting discredited claims yet again, from either not bothering to read the earlier posts or dismissing them out of hand without a shred of argument.
To repeat - the sightings of Jesus mentioned by Paul are all in the head, which is where he saw Jesus.
The references to angels and their messages are so discrepant and demonstrably fiddled, and the appearances of the risen solid Jesus even more so, that these are utterly worthless as firsthand testimony of anything.
For me, it was close observation of psychiatric inpatients during a rotation at the state hospital. I had to observe, analyze and help treat a number of patients who had various DSM III diagnosis (which gives a clue as to how long ago it was)
One particularly interesting case was a man who was much like Paul, he had a rare diagnosis which at the time was called psychogenic fugue, although now we call it a dissociative disorder. He was an ornamental welder by trade, and older man in his 60s who had received a vision of Jesus and proceeded to not only change his occupation (smashing all the graven images he had previously created, but to insist in a change in his nickname as well. For this he ended up committed in a state hospital. Which is where Paul would be if he were alive today, or at least under treatment. Paul Saw Jesus in his head, and Focal seizures explain all of Pauls inspirations. Paul did not see the resurrected Jesus, he saw a hallucination and not knowing any better, used this as an inspiration to oppress others.
As for a living Jesus, It was notable that a historic Jesus did have some followers. But Jesus who ? or rather, Which Jesus? The Essene/ Nazarene? The follower of John the Baptist? the mystic? Seems like it is probable that somewhere, sometime, some guy with the name of Jesus got in trouble with the law and was hung up to die as an example....but Jesus was a common name, and stories told from various groups in the Roman times indicate some rather diverse teachings, which would be possible if there were more than one Jesus , each teaching something different.
As mentioned before, and I will explain more of this in the spring, Jesus, a jew, could not have been executed and buried on the Friday as told in Christian mythology. The timeline does not add up ! Also, criminals were not crucified in a few hours and then taken away for burial; they were crucified slowly over a period of days and left up for weeks to rot as an example which would be repeated years later with pirates in the American colonies. "This is what we do to people who cause trouble....watch and learn." could be the sign placed on any crucified victim.
Had Jesus been taken down and buried, and no it could not have happened as described in the gospel mythology, and somehow rose up without any decay, brain damage, or zombiefication, and appeared to some of his followers, then seriously, how fast would word of this travel throughout Rome? Days? hours? Minutes?
Well, if we first hear of it later on in Paul's writings (which we can write off as a neuropsych disorder/symptom), and we know that Paul's writings influenced the gospels (not the other way around) then we can see the place of the Resurrection myth. Of course, the gospels are not literal accounts, but allegorical stories anyway.
From this point of view, the resurrection is either a myth, propagated by Paul, (who should not be taken any more seriously as my mental patient) OR it is an allegorical story for the victory by the hero in a myth that represents the triumph of spirit over the temporal.
Which is why there is NO TOMB to this day. It never existed in reality to begin with. There was no literal coming back from the dead, and there was no empty tomb and there was no burial prior to the Sabbath.
(and the Shroud of Turin is a fake too)
The reason I feel the link between the resurrection story and the apostolic tourist trade does not exist is not because there was no tomb, or there was no cross, but because the link between Jesus' followers and the the new religion was broken, when Paul reinvented it it to suit Gentiles and peddled it to the greeks of Asia minor and achea.
When, after the dust of the Jewish war had settled, some greek Pauling - bred - Christians rolled up looking for the placed where Jesus trod, they had no idea where to look and nobody around to tell them. Even if they had come across an elderly apostle in Antioch or Damascus and asked them about what happened, they would dismiss the response as a Jewish lie.
It is possible that Luke rolled up post war and saw the huge stones (all that was left of the temple) and assumed that there would be 'offerings' left hanging up as he was used to seeing in Roman temples (1) I also think that John might have gone touring and visited Tiberias and Cana, and maybe even Nazareth existed by then - but Sepphoris and Jotapa had long gone, but the new big synagogue at capernaum had been built and of course John could not resist having a typical wrangle going on there (which none of the other gospels, of course, mention). I don't doubt he toured Jerusalem, which still existed, in firmly Roman hands guide book in hand, and he saw the sheep gate and the pool of Bezetha and even read about how the local infirm would dive in every time there was a seismic shimmer. No doubt that gave him the perfect scene for his 'Rise, take up your pallet and walk' (5. 8) as he could not know that, in the synoptic version, the story of the healing of the paralympic (eg. Mark 2. 11) ''rise, take up you pallet and walk) is not only set in a different story but a different place - Capernaum.
Apologists would no doubts say they were different healings, perhaps with a stock phrase that Jesus used. I can only say that, as usual, nobody records both healings, and the similar story appearing in two places, but never together in one gospel, is par for the course.
Of course, when Constantine's old mum arrived in the 3rd century, looking for Actual places and relics, nobody had any idea where anything was (though Bethany probably still existed) and, instead of reading up on the Temple plan and working out that the soldiers had to be on the mount of Olives looking down on Solomon's porch and the temple entrance, she allowed herself to be directed to an old tomb in the city, and in totally the wrong place.
Patron saint of archeology. hah!
(1) Matthew and Mark say 'buildings', but the all say (as per the original synoptic) that not one stone would be left upon another - which isn't true even today, but the writer was heard of the total destruction of the temple.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
