Did the Resurrection really happen?

by thinker 77 Replies latest watchtower bible

FetterFree Annie

To the District Overbeer:
Tell that to the Branch Dividians,the followers of Jim Jones, Heaven's Gate members, Charlie Manson's victims, oh but wait....they're all dead aren't they? Just when you thought it was safe to be in a cult!
Yeah, they're all dead!! And why did they die?
Although there were murmerings of drug induced stupors, especially with regard to the Jim Jones cult in Guyana, for the most part they died because they were deceived! In the same way many are deceived by the WT organisation.
Let's compare the early Christian martyrs and members of these cults
All of them, except of course, Charles Manson's victims, were brainwashed by a charismatic leader claiming 'new light' on widely accepted doctrines. (I supposed one could say that Jesus also claimed 'new light')
They lived in communes or compounds, isolated from the rest of society and were discouraged from maintaining family relationships. (That's putting it mildly!)
Jesus' diciples, however, remained in the community even after their 'leader/founder ' had gone away. They did not isolate themselves in a religous commune, but continued to pray and worship in the temple. Acts 3:1
Members of the cults you mentioned committed suicide. They were not martyred for their faith.
Unlike the early christians, they were not told to renounce all or be put to a tortuous death. They were not made to look into the eyes of a ferocious lion before it tore them apart in a Roman arena.
For some of them it would have been a simple thing to reverse the death sentence. All they had to say was, "We have no king but Ceasar!" and the lion would have someone else for dinner.
But they did not and thence they were killed.
Would they have done that for a lie? Would they had done that had they not seen the risen Christ?
Matthew was slain in Ethiopia
Mark dragged through the streets until dead
Peter and Simeon were crucified
Andrew crucified
James beheaded
Philip was crucified
Bartholomew flayed alive
Thomas pierced with lances
James, the less, thrown from the temple and stoned to death
Jude shot to death with arrows
Paul was boiled in hot oil and beheaded
Thinker: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to taint everyone with the same brush.
Saint Satan: What we have on that site you mentioned are a series of book reviews. There's no indication that Gordon Stein Phd ever engaged Josh McDowell in a debate of the issues. It's very easy to tear someone to shreds behind their back.
There is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death. Prov 14:12
JanH

To say that the resurrection is an historical event is ludicruous. It is sad that religious people with more or less valid creditentials try to argue from authority that their faith in the resurrection is based on a sober source-critical analysis. Fundamentalists argue that the Bible should be exepmt from historical analysis, which makes their claim to base their faith on credible scholarship pure hypocrisy.
Josh Mcdowell is clearly one of the most dishonest fundamentalust apologists there are, and saying that is saying very much indeed. His "arguments" posted here are so utterly confused they do not merit a serious response. Any person can read it for themselves and see it is nothing but handwaving. If anyone wants more, a solid debunking can be found on the website SS referred to.
Fact is, eyewitness accounts to a resurrected Christ has not left us any first-hand testimonies. No NT author makes a credible claim to have met Jesus personally, not before his death, and even less after. The spurious letters attributed to Peter and John have no historical value for what happened in 1st century Palestine.
The only person who tells us that Jesus had been resurrected and he had met him personally, was Paul. But that was in one of his many visions. Clearly his conversion story is more a case for a psychiatrist than a historian.
Paul is insisting he hardly had any contact with the Jerusalem congregation at all, and there was no love lost between Peter and James (the brother of Jesus) on one side and Paul on the other. When Paul refers to 500 eye witnesses, this is merely hearsay about hearsay. Distant in space and time, such claims can just as well have been taken out of thin air. Today, there are hundreds of eyewitnesses today to Bigfoot, Elvis and UFOs. Most people don't find these very credible.
What is most important to realize is that the claim about a resurrection is a statement about a supernatural event. It is an extraordinary event. And, the rule everybody follows in their day-to-day lives -- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, applies to the resurrection story.
The so-called evidence Christians put forth would be marginally credible even if it was about a commonplace, natural event. As evidence for a supernatural event of the highest order, it totally falls flat.
Whatever happened in 1st century Palestine, did not induce any wye witnesses to write it down so we could read about it today. Only later were "testimonies" created, and then by people having third hand (or worse) knowledge about what had allegedly happened. Knowing the totally superstitious spirit of the 1st century world, it is hard to take any of this seriously.
The resurrection accounts are hopelessly self contradictory and have little or no historical value. Mark lets us know that the women did not tell anyone about what has happened, which obviously was an excuse for not being able to bring forth their testimonies. Later gospels changed this story, having the women talk endlessly about it, and thus bringing down the credibility of both the gospels and the alleged women.
In a fanatical religious sect, having been an eye witness to the resurrected Jesus obviously gave an increased social status. This explains how more and more members stood forth for every year claiming to have seen Jesus. Too bad these tales are totally self contradictory, as they can't aven agree in what part of the country the resurrected Jesus appeared.
One interesting example can be found in Lu 24:13ff. Here we finds a story about two unnamed disciples having a conversation with a man they did not recognize. Only afterwards did they convince themselves this was really Jesus. The grapevine and the gospel author embellished this story to attempt to add some credibility to it. We find similar traces in most of the resurreection motifs. The zealous gospel author tries to make a convincing story and at the same time account fo the countless stories and fables about a resurrected Jesus that existed in the sect.
This it is that modern Christians are found grasping for straws. In impressive-looking lists we find countless 2nd and 3rd century authors that simply acknowledges that yes, the Christians in that time believed a man called Jesus, who was executed, was later resurrected. This confirms gullibility only.
- Jan
--
- "How do you write women so well?" - "I think of a man and I take away reason and accountability." (Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets")
FetterFree Annie

Jan you write an interesting diatribe. In it though, is nothing of substance discounting the historial resurrection of Jesus.
Fact is, eyewitness accounts to a resurrected Christ has not left us any first-hand testimonies.
and
Whatever happened in 1st century Palestine, did not induce any wye witnesses to write it down so we could read about it today
It's there in the Gospels and they forgot to write you personally! Shame!!
Paul is insisting he hardly had any contact with the Jerusalem congregation at all, and there was no love lost between Peter and James (the brother of Jesus) on one side and Paul on the other. When Paul refers to 500 eye witnesses, this is merely hearsay about hearsay.
Where did you read this, Jan? Scripture reference please.
This it is that modern Christians are found grasping for straws. In impressive-looking lists we find countless 2nd and 3rd century authors that simply acknowledges that yes, the Christians in that time believed a man called Jesus, who was executed, was later resurrected. This confirms gullibility only.

Here you are mistaken once again! I'm not grasping for straws, and looking around, I don't see any of my brothers and sisters in Christ doing any grasping either. Also, we are not gullible!
Gullible would be if we accepted your drivel as fact.

Fundamentalists argue that the Bible should be exepmt from historical analysis, which makes their claim to base their faith on credible scholarship pure hypocrisy.
This is absolutely untrue! Again and again archeology has proved the Bible to be historically correct. Jan, where did you get that from?
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit. Prov 26:5
PointBlank

Did the Resurrection really happen?
Yes.
There have been witnesses of Christ's resurrection in every generation since the first century. And it is no less so today.
SixofNine

Also, we are not gullible!
You might want to just go ahead and concede that one, considering the alternatives.
Mr Bean

Yes SS. I've read these links and... thanks!;-P
"It should not be lost on us that Thomas was depicted as no less righteous for refusing to believe so wild a claim without physical proof. We have as much right, and ought to follow his example. He got to see and feel the wounds before believing, and so should we. I haven't, so I can't be expected to believe it.[41] And this leads me to one final reason why I don't buy the resurrection story. No wise or compassionate God would demand this from us. Such a god would not leave us so poorly informed about something so important.[42] If we have a message for someone that is urgently vital for their survival, and we have any compassion, that compassion will compel us to communicate that message clearly and with every necessary proof--not ambiguously, not through unreliable mediaries presenting no real evidence. Conversely, if we see something incredible, we do not attack or punish audiences who don't believe us, we don't even expect them to believe--unless and until we can present decisive proof.
There is a heroic legend in the technology community about the man who invented elevator safety brakes. He claimed that any elevator fitted with his brakes, even if all the cables broke, would be safely and swiftly stopped by his new invention. No one trusted it. Did he get angry or indignant? No. He simply put himself in an elevator, ordered the cables cut, and proved to the world, by risking his own life, that his brakes worked.[43] This is the very principle that has delivered us from superstition to science. Any claim can be made about a drug, but people are rightly wary of swallowing anything that hasn't been thoroughly tested and re-tested and tested again. Since I have no such proofs regarding the resurrection story, I'm not going to swallow it, and it would be cruel, even for a god, to expect otherwise of me. So I can reason rightly that a god of all humankind would not appear in one tiny backwater of the Earth, in a backward time, revealing himself to a tiny unknown few, and then expect the billions of the rest of us to take their word for it, and not even their word, but the word of some unnamed person many times removed."
JanH. Friend of Kent? We know each other from 1995! ;D
I have started to have so many problems with the Bible.
First were Jesus’ prophecies. His prophecies are clear proof that
he had no slightest idea about today realities and technologies. Also, the message of Christ and messages of his followers, especially apostle Paul’ seems to be two different things.
Prophecies of Gordon Scallion or Sollogs are more precise and...as unreliable as Jesus'. The destruction of Jerusalem was written clearly after the event and other prophecies are so general that we can match them to almost any event in our history.
More research I do, worse it looks for the Christ and for the Bible. :(
I think men at 21 Century do need a little more than the Bible full of not very well documented stories.
I’m sure of one thing. If God, Creator, ET whoever He is, will want us to know something very important and vital to our salvation, He will find an easy way to give us this information. And than we will have not slightest doubts, who is an author of such message and what message is all about.
Peace...
RWC

This has been the most interesting thread in a long time. The arguments against the resurrection are always the same. The ones I find the most unbelievable are those like Mr. Bean who claim that if there was a God who had a plan for salvation he surely would have made it easier to understand and more clear so that no one could refute it. This line of thinkng is not only illogical, it ignores the evidence that exists. The message of Salvation is very easy to understand and to believe. God sent his son to take our place and to die for us in forgiveness of our sins. All we have to do is believe it. He has given us everything we need to believe, we simply need to make the choice to open up to the evidence. It is not a blind faith, but a faith based upon evidence that is looked at objectively can only lead to one conclusion.
Jesus came to the Earth at a time when there were no T.V.'s, radios, or means of mass communication. The story of his life past the way all other biographies were passed at that time, by word of mouth and ultimately in writing. At the time, no one would have questioned being told orally about Jesus for a time before it was written down. The fact that his biographies are so close in time to his actual life is in reality an exception rather than the rule for ancient biographies. Yet despite this, people today question the process and say that because it was done in such a manner it can't be reliable. In other words, we would do it differnetly today, so it can't be trusted. The true test would be to compare the Gospels and other early writings about Jesus to other biographies of the same time period and see how they stand up.
In addition, you can't discount the test that the audience would have placed upon those who were relating the events. The Jewish people were trained and in fact it was a large part of their culture to tell stories of past events orally. Their oral tradition to pass on historical events is remarkable. They would have questioned any account that could not stand up. And they would have questioned these accounts that were being preached in their oral form even before they were written down.
Also, the letter of Paul to the Corinthians, which was written before the Gospels, shows that the early church was already believing in a resurrected Christ. See 1 Corintians 15:8
To say that God should have done something different or spread his message at a different time or place is incrediably presumptious. If you don't believe the message he has already sent, what makes you think you would believe it a different way? What different words could he give you to make things different? Tell me how who would want to have heard the message and what it would take for you to believe and we will see if that message has not already been given.
The arguments aginst the resurrection are never really an attack on the evidence that exists to show that it is unreliable or that the events didn't happen that way, they are really simply a list of speculations and unfounded presumptions in an attempt to raise questions or justify not believing the evidence that exists. For example, the idea that Jesus may have simply revived from a state that they thought was death. I would suggest that if you think that is possible, go without food and water for a day and night, have someone who hates you strike you on the back with a leather strap with imbedded nails thirty nine times, be slapped and punched multiple times, have a crown of thorns jammed on your head, carry a heavy crosstimber througha town and up a hill, have a person spread your arms out a nail a spike through your hands or wrist, have a person cross your feet and nail a spike through them and hang you up for hours and then to make sure you are dead stab you with a spear. Then see if you merely assumed to be dead so that you can revive.
Theere is no account of historians of their day writing that the story was being spread about a crucified Jesus who was said to have risen, yet people checked the tomb and his body was still there, or yet the people who were spreading the story were proven to be crazy or unreliable. No other historian has said that the accounts of Paeter, Luke, Paul or the others were investigated at the time they were written and proven to be false. To use the same logic as the skeptics, don't you think if that had happened, there would be some evidence of it?.
From my studies the best book on the ressurection that I have read is Lee Strobel's A Case for Christ. I would highly reccommend it.
God's blessings to you all.
Mr Bean

The ones I find the most unbelievable are those like Mr. Bean who claim that if there was a God who had a plan for salvation he surely would have made it easier to understand and more clear so that no one could refute it. This line of thinkng is not only illogical, it ignores the evidence that exists. The message of Salvation is very easy to understand and to believe. God sent his son to take our place and to die for us in forgiveness of our sins. All we have to do is believe it. He has given us everything we need to believe, we simply need to make the choice to open up to the evidence. It is not a blind faith, but a faith based upon evidence that is looked at objectively can only lead to one conclusion.

RWC
The basic question.
Why people in the first century deserved so many evidences? Jesus has performed so many miracles and he was giving irrefutable prove if his origin and his purpose.
Why he didn’t tell them simply to believe him? Than he could jump from the high rock and make that way a valid sacrifice.
As you explained us kindly, these people were more trusting in spoken words than anyone today. So, thy never needed ANY of evidences that we need today.
In cases like ALWAYS lying politicians, scientists, media, lawyers we are so skeptical
today and it is harder and harder to sell a lie to an average person. We have the Internet
And that’s the most powerful weapon against a lie. Media, politician always are forgetting what they have lie about it and just quick jump on the net and here we are.
They can’t recall correctly but… we can!
We can check almost ANYTHING now.
The problem is a simple one. Why I have to be a Bible scholar to believe or not in the Bible? With my Christian experiences and some knowledge of history, does tell me, that religious people were and still are the most dangerous, twisted creatures on the face of the earth!
Few instances: RCC, inquisitions, Reformation, crusades, new cults JW included. All these are enough reason to not trust the Bible because it comes from such sources. RCC had the power to change original writings and they were so dishonest in their past that the Bible today is not the source I’m trusting as the word of God. Sorry, comes from wrong source.
In the world where lie is the way of life (Religion included.), you expect everyone to believe because someone has written something 2000 years ago and even didn’t bothered to sigh the thing up?
Also, according to the Gospel, Pilatus asked: What is the truth? That indicates to me that in Jesus times the lie was as important part of life as is today.
I’m reading often newsgroups and… debate what God’s name is, there is a Trinity, Jesus died on cross or not, Jesus is Jehovah, Archangel Michael etc. etc. are still running as hot as in the first century. What is worse, in all these debates ALL participants usually right. Just check the Bible! ;-P
That’s the sign of very clear message for you?
Just look at the record of Christian nations. Two world wars. Russian revolution. Nuclear
destruction of two Japanese towns, done by the people who claim “In God we trust”
and “God bless America.” More appropriate would be “God (b)less America.”
And now were in dire straits of the third world war and Christians are still the most blood thirsty as they have ever been. And they are telling us; trust in God, Christ and his ransom.
Don’t you think the world needs MUCH more than unclear message written by not well verified writers nearly 2000 years ago?
I would even dare to say, the world need Christ now! He didn’t need Him 2000 years ago. The world does need Christ now or… the world has big chances to get totally perish
in the third world war.
If the world has the Creator or Savior, He is needed urgently NOW!
Peace…
Panda

As ex-Jws have we learned nothing... Oh yeah thats the point isn't it?
As with speaking to our friends and relatives who continue in the Borg we need to have compassion and show human kindness towards our friends who have chosen the cozy path of myths and legends.
Read the Golden Bough, take some anthropology courses. Learn and admit at least to yourself that what you believe is 100% emotional and you will not be able to prove any of it. BUT be happy with your good spiritual feelings, that's fine and I'm glad for you. Be happy.
Historically, Jesus as an individual is no more proveable than Marco Polo.
And if you have faith in a god why not let that be as it may? Let your belief be enough. Why attempt to prove the unproveable.
If you walk by faith you do not walk by sight... you can't have it ways. I wonder that the Christians posting here might not have some doubts of their own. Otherwise why do they feel the need to justify their faith.
I don't care if you believe in little people living
in the toadstool houses or Christ. Why is it so important to you? If you truly believe in a god of love, and god loves everyone then all the athiests will be fine someday... just love us (like god does).
Mr Bean

As ex-Jws have we learned nothing... Oh yeah thats the point isn't it?
You are dead wrong! But… I’m not upset. :D
I'm still searching with an opened mind.
When I was a dub, I believed them for 20 years. Now I need a very solid proof to believe anything. When I’ve left in 1995 even a thought about the Bible being not a word of God was a mission impossible. Now is the different story. Now I’ve learned how powerful is mind control and our urge to believe in SOMETHING.
I think that I have learned to use more my own brain.
I do enjoy my freedom and I have to do some more research just to prove for myself that I didn’t miss anything important so far. However, I’m nearly 100% sure that I have done almost everything to search for God. And… after my 27 years of research, unfortunately I know less about God than I’ve started with.
:(
Peace…

Did the Resurrection really happen?

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