To Shepherdless
What are these
"numerous lines of historical evidence" and "several lines of
historical evidence"? Outside of the bible, the only mention of a
resurrection I am aware of , is a brief reference in the Testimonium Flavianum
(by Josephus), which when translated reads something like:
Cornelius
Tactitus {54 AD -117AD] Annals 15.44
[Some words adjusted to modern English for clarity].
But all human
efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiation of the gods,
did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an
order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and
inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations,
called Chrestians by the populace. Christ, from whom the name had its origin,
suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one
of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most destructive superstition, thus checked
for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the
evil, but even in the capital, where all things hideous and shameful from every
part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest
was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an
immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of setting fire to
the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to
their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and
perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to
serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his
gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he
mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car.
Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there
arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public
good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.
Pliny the Younger
was a lawyer, author, and magistrate of Ancient Rome 61-113 AD
In a letter he
wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan around 112 AD.
“They asserted,
however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they
were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn
to Christ as to a god,”
So the reference
to a resurrection seems to be an addition by Chritian apologists in around the
4th century. Therefore the only written evidence of a resurrection is in the
bible alone.
I should point
out:
a missing body
doesn't necessarily mean a resurrection;
True, but notice
this, it is one thing to claim a resurrection in a far away land, that took
place centuries ago, and it is another thing to claim a resurrection in the
same town that not only the death occurred but also the burial, within a year
of the event and not have been proven wrong. Notice all that had to have
produced was a corpse, any corpse would have suffice after several days, but
the movement was not quenched in Jerusalem but thrived there.
Mary Magdeline
seeing Jesus on the Sunday morning but not recognizing him raises serious
credibility issues right there (same issue applies to the
"appearance" on the road to Emmaus);
In that cultural
setting women had no credibility. If the Gospel accounts are embellishments why
record this.If I was embellishing I would have excluded this account. Read the Gnostic accounts and you will see how over time the
accounts are embellished and sensationalized. This points out the honesty of
the writer.
of the 11 to 13
mentioned appearances, all but one was an appearance to a small private group
(often the same group) or just an individual; the
only public appearance mentioned (see 1 Cor 15:6) is not referred to in the 4
gospels or Acts. Further, if such a public appearance occurred, why are some
apostles still doubting the resurrection afterwards (see eg Matthew 28:17) ;
Your argument lacks chronological order. The appearance
recorded in 1 Cor 15:6 happened after the recording in Mt. Now the question,
why would the Apostles doubt.
Jews expected
resurrection for the righteous at the end of days but not for anybody before
that.
Jews had no conception of the Messiah who, instead of
triumphing over Israel's enemies, would be shamefully executed by them as a
criminal. A Messiah who failed to deliver and to reign, who was defeated,
humiliated, and slain by His enemies is a contradiction in terms. Nowhere do
Jewish text speak of such an assignment. Therefore, it's difficult to over
emphasize what a disaster the crucifixion was for the disciples’ faith. Jesus
death on the cross spelled the humiliating end for any hopes they had entertained
that He was the Messiah.
Saul/Paul
wouldn't have known what Jesus looked like.
Why would Paul
know what Jesus looked like, according to the narratives they never met.
There have been
many more documented sightings of Elvis, leprechauns etc. Even accepting the
bible as accurate, apart from the supposed appearance to Paul, it is all
second-hand accounts.
Now immediately we confront the
problem. Since Jesus Himself didn't leave behind any writings of His own, we
are dependent upon the records of others for
knowing what Jesus said and did.
Now the situation isn't unusual for
figures of antiquity. But while the situation isn't unusual it does raise the
question, how do we know that these records are accurate? Maybe Jesus'
followers said that He said and did certain things that He really did not. In
particular, since the early Christians believe that Jesus was God, maybe they
made up sayings and stories about how Jesus claimed to be divine. So we should
not be surprised that Jesus in the Gospels makes claims and does things
implying His divinity. Maybe the historical Jesus who really lived was very
different from the divine figure we read about in the Gospels. How can we tell
if these records are historically accurate?
The writings contained in the New
Testament can be scrutinized using the same historical criteria that we use in
investigating other sources of ancient history.
Now the first thing we need to do
in order to conduct a historical investigation of Jesus is to assemble our
sources. Jesus of Nazareth is referred to in the range of ancient sources
inside and outside the New Testament, including Christian, Roman, and Jewish
sources. This is really quite extraordinary when you reflect on how obscure a
figure Jesus was. He had at the most a three-year public life as a Galilean
preacher. Yet we have far more information about Jesus than we do for most
major figures of antiquity. The most important of these historical sources have
been collected into the New Testament. References to Jesus outside the New
Testament tend to confirm what we read in the Gospels. But they do not really
tell us anything new. Therefore the focus of our investigation must be upon the
documents found in the New Testament.
Historians are treating the New
Testament just like any other collection of ancient documents and investigating
whether these documents are historically reliable.
The church chose only the earliest
sources, which were closest to Jesus and the original disciples, to include in
the New Testament and left out the later, secondary accounts like the forged
apocryphal Gospels, which everyone knew were fakes. So from the very nature of
the case, the best historical sources were included in the New Testament.
People who insist on evidence taken
only from writings outside the New Testament do not understand what they're
asking us to do. They're demanding that we ignore the earliest, primary sources
about Jesus in favor of sources that are later, secondary, and less reliable,
which is just crazy as historical methodology.
(William Craig)
And why didn't
Jesus just walk into Jerusalem on the Sunday morning and just yell: "Ha
ha, I am back!" I think I know why.
Hundreds of
miracles over three years including bringing people back from the dead did not
convince them, you think Jesus walking into Jerusalem would have? I doubt it.