The Resurrection of Jesus is historically probable

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
reply to post by bibledefender

 

Just out of interest how do we know for a fact that Paul was a prosecutor and then changed to a believer. Is there any actually recorded evidence that is not religious text.

Acouple of things here. One is you are committing a genetic fallacy. Just because the text in question is religious in nature, doesn't automatically mean it is in error. Second, what I am referring to is not miraculous. People change religions. Paul himself, in letters that he himself wrote, stated as such. We are trying to find out is why he changed, why the disciples came to believe in the resurrection, why James suddenly changed, why was the tomb empty. According to historical methodology, the theory that explains the facts without ad hoc reasoning, is the one that probably happened.

reply to post by bibledefender


Is it a fact that Paul converted though?

You must put this through proper scientific procedure.

The Bible says Paul was a prosecutor who converted, now you need some corresponding evidence to corroborate that. Not something derived from the Bible but an actual record from when Paul was alive.

Going back to people who are just surviving today, they tend to be in the third world and have poor education, these people also tend to be religious. I guess people suffering need hope, something to believe in no matter how wrong it may be.

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
reply to post by bibledefender

 

Is it a fact that Paul converted though?

You must put this through proper scientific procedure.

The Bible says Paul was a prosecutor who converted, now you need some corresponding evidence to corroborate that. Not something derived from the Bible but an actual record from when Paul was alive.

Going back to people who are just surviving today, they tend to be in the third world and have poor education, these people also tend to be religious. I guess people suffering need hope, something to believe in no matter how wrong it may be.

Um a couple of things. Scientific procedure requires repeatability. You cannot do that with history. Prove, using the scientific method that Abraham Lincoln was President. You cannot. Second, what we do have is the Bible. No one, not even the most die hard skeptic doubts that at the very least, it is an ancient document. So, we have an ancient document, written by the man himself stating that at one time he was a prosecutor and then changed. We also have Acts, with also documents that at one time he was prosecuting the church, then converted. So, we have two independent sources, written close to the events, by people that were in a position to know. That is what historians drool over. Again scholarship is in consensus that Paul wrote 1 Cor and Galatians etc. So, the documents DO come from the one that was there. Third, again you are commiting a genetic fallacy. You seem to imply that because it is in the bible, it automatically false. Fourth, in order to disprove the claim that Paul converted, what you need is e v i d e n c e that he didn't convert. Not just empty claims based upon a logical fallacy.

reply to post by bibledefender


I do apologise, I guess because the Bible is so absolutely crammed full of false statements and nonsense that when something is written that may actually be true it is hard to take it seriously.

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
reply to post by bibledefender

 

I do apologise, I guess because the Bible is so absolutely crammed full of false statements and nonsense that when something is written that may actually be true it is hard to take it seriously.

Again, lets assume for a second that there are false statements in the bible. Does it mean that what Paul said is false? You seem to be making a-priori statements with no historical evidence to back your position. So do you or do you not have historical e v i d e n c e that shows that Paul didn't convert as he himself states?

reply to post by bibledefender


I think an error with people who live their life trying to figure out a book that has so many stories written by so many people is they get stuck on specifics.

The Bible in its entirety from my point of view is a story of mankind and his struggles with himself, others and God.

It's our story, but it's not something to get hooked on from word to word because the fact is the conversion from the different languages to English was extremely hard. Words matter! They can make or break a relationship, can they not?

Read the Bible like a book, decipher and then come away with what you think the book conveys. It's that simple, but when one tries to figure it out ...all on its own..... With the inspired words of man, know that God shows himself to each and every one of us whether you read the Bible or not.

Where do you think inspiration comes from?

Also, for the believer, KNOW that Gods word is everywhere in every one of us.

Where did religions and science come from? The roots are in our philosophers who saw more than what we are taught today in main stream religion.

Originally posted by bibledefender

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
reply to post by bibledefender

 

I do apologise, I guess because the Bible is so absolutely crammed full of false statements and nonsense that when something is written that may actually be true it is hard to take it seriously.

Again, lets assume for a second that there are false statements in the bible. Does it mean that what Paul said is false? You seem to be making a-priori statements with no historical evidence to back your position. So do you or do you not have historical e v i d e n c e that shows that Paul didn't convert as he himself states?

Paul's own words convict him! He directly contradicts Jesus on numerous occasions and completely usurps his role as "father" of the church. In my opinion Paul is the Antichrist that Jesus warned of. It's surprising how fast that prophecy was fulfilled!

I don't believe for one minute that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. That was added later and embellished in to a fantastic "my God is better than your God" theme.

The fact is, one doesn't need to believe in the resurrection, the virgin birth or many of the supposed miracles in the bible to follow the teachings of Jesus, and live a godly life.

Now I never said that you put forth the theft theory. However you did put forth what Erhman said and adjusted it a little.

Ehrman's theory which I simplified wasn't a fraud theory, either.

However, it still remains, why did he give up being a Pharisee

There is nothing in the record that Paul ever stopped being a Pharisee. Jewish Christians generally didn't stop being Jews, but rather became Chrisitians as well as Jews. Jews await a Messiah. Christian Jews thought Jesus was the Messiah whom the Jews were awaiting.

Likewise James?

Like what? We have no account of why James joined the movement, nor any compasrison of his views before and after he joined, nor any account of what events persuaded him to drop his obections to his brother's ministry. Lots of brothers reconcile in spirit when one of them dies.

So, when Paul says that Jesus was resurrected, he means physically.

Luke says Paul saw a light in the sky, not a human body on Earth, nor does Paul say in his own surviving work that he ever encountered Jesus in a human body. When Paul discusses his theories about the general resurrection to come, he imagines some pneuma body, that has some attributes in common with physical bodies, and some differences.

For example, his traveling companions also saw light, heard the voice.

Putting aside that we don't have their statements, and that what they saw or heard differs in the two times it comes up in Acts, the companions aren't reported to have seen Jesus in a human body, nor to have associated their experience with Jesus.

However, he didn't expect a resurrection to happen in the middle of history.

Paul believed that he lived at the beginning of the end of days, with Jesus being the "first fruits" of the general resurrection. That would be similar to other Chrisitans of the first generations.

Paul DID make radical change in his views, for he considered Jesus God, and that he did resurrect physically.

There is no evidence that Paul considered Jesus to be the equal of the God of the Hebrew Bible. Paul believed that Jesus was resurrected, apparently with a pneuma body, whose "physicality" is more a question for philosophers than historians.. Pharisees believed that God could and would resurrect the righteous. Paul went from believing God would to believing that God did. Paul's evidence for that was that he saw a light in the sky, and heard a voice, which was explained to him by Ananias of Damascus.

So now you have to come up with something that accounts for that as well, that is ad hoc reasoning, because now you are piling one theory on top of another theory in order to explain the facts.

The physical resurrection of Jesus fails to account for how his body moves through walls, cannot be recognized by people who knew Jesus, sometimes is experienced as a disembodied voice, and flies. Subjective visions of the actually living account for all of that quite well. You haven't presented any explanation of those aspects of the problem at all.

The resurrection is not ad hoc since it answers all of the facts at hand without piling one on top of another in order to explain the facts

The resurrection hypothesis is exactly ad hoc for the reason explained in my previous post.

Originally posted by bibledefender
Prove, using the scientific method that Abraham Lincoln was President. You cannot.

Umm sure I can.

Photograph of Abraham Lincoln. Verifiable proof. Not hearsay.



Which pretty much matches the $5 bill.

Plus the laws he enacted with his signature on the bills, records in the congressional library, copies Of the Gettysburg address... I can go on... They all point to him being president. There are hundreds, if not thousands of documents, photos, portraits, etc documenting this.

You have 1 source.

And as for Paul converting, it's like an alcoholic deciding to go sober. Or a straightedge deciding to drink. There could have been a million reasons, and the one he tells you may or may not be the correct reason, or even true, for that matter.

Fourth, in order to disprove the claim that Paul converted, what you need is e v i d e n c e that he didn't convert. Not just empty claims based upon a logical fallacy.

And that would be proving a negative. You have to prove he did, using sources other than what people believe to be his own. Perhaps he was a liar?

reply to post by mkmasn


Thank you for proving the fact that Lincoln was president.

That was one of the most ridiculous arguments for the bible I have ever heard and you easily dismissed it. Well done.

It's amazing how ludicrous the arguments of religious people are when it becomes clear to everybody else that religion is nonsense.

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
reply to post by mkmasn

 

Thank you for proving the fact that Lincoln was president.

That was one of the most ridiculous arguments for the bible I have ever heard and you easily dismissed it. Well done.

It's amazing how ludicrous the arguments of religious people are when it becomes clear to everybody else that religion is nonsense.

I don't think religion is nonsense, I think that believing the bible is the literal word of God is nonsense. God didn't create the world in 6 days, unless you take the 6 days as a metaphorical 6 days... So in the very first chapter of the bible, we can assume it to be a metaphorical spiritual book.

The four Gospels can't be taken word for word literally, otherwise there are contradictions. You have to realize they each saw things differently and experienced the spiritual awakening differently.

I was speaking with one of my troops about Christianity in the desert. He was evangelical baptist born again or something like that... He claimed Billy Graham was a better comparison to Jesus than Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He claimed Catholics were not Christians. He told me I couldn't take certain parts from different beliefs and smash them together... I told him that's exactly what he was doing with Christianity. He never read the whole bible, just the passages he learned in Church. I told him he should read the whole thing before believing what it says. That's an a priori belief. Haha.

reply to post by mkmasn


I have to admit i'm positive that religion is nonsense.

It seems very convenient to me that every time the bible is incorrect then that part has to be taken as metaphorical. Why can't it just be taken as what it is, completely incorrect.

Also if so much is then metaphorical why not go the whole hog and call the religion metaphorical. It would make much more sense to say look we know there is no god but this book gives us a guide on how we want to live. I could accept the bible as a self help book but not a religion.

Greetings, mkmasn

Not to interrupt your conversation with the other poster, but just to comment on some points you raise.

I don't think religion is nonsense,[/quoteion

Me, neither. I am an agnostic. If I thought the question of God could be resolved from first principles, then I wouldn't be. I'd be a theist or an atheist, depending on how the first principles came out.

I think that believing the bible is the literal word of God is nonsense.

Yes, and that's not what the comfortable majority of Christians claim. Protestant fundamentalists, yes, but Protestants of any kind are only about a third of all Christians worldwide. However, Protestants are well represented among English-speaking Christians. I think that creates an illusion of majority status on English-language forums.

The whole point of the New Testament is that it was written by people. It is a historical document, or at least an attempt at history writing. Similarly, the Hebrew Bible is the national epic of the Jewish people. It, too, loses much of its point unless people wrote it.

Mulsims believe that the Koran is literally the words of their God, transmitted verbatim (conveniently, in a language that has no native speakers anymore). That's what makes Islam so different from most Christian denominations and any Jewish inflection.

You have to realize they each saw things differently and experienced the spiritual awakening differently.

And it goes deeper than that. At least one of the four, Luke, says his books are based on research, after the events. He himself didn't claim to see anything. Another, John, makes an ambiguous claim of authority: I think he is saying that he is working from an older writing of an eyewitness, not that he is an eyewitness. I think that much of the purpose of the last chapter is that John's eyewitness died, but people had thought Jesus would return before the man died.

Neither of the other two Gospels explains how the author would know what he is writing about, and neither says why the author is writing at all. I think that that is especially problematic with Matthew, which seems to be a scrapbook of Jesus stories. It isn't clear that this book is being offered for its truth. Much like Revelation, the main reason for thinking that Matthew is at all relevant to any historical question are the decisions made centuries later by canon-compilers.

Finally, you gave good advice to that soldier. Well done.

From the OP

Also if the theory explains the facts more so than alternative theories, then according to historical methods, it probably happened.

No intelligent person processes anything this way. This is illogical nonsense.

A Theory isn't a fact until it is proven the case 100 percent of the time, when it becomes a law. Fact needs no theory. Fact does not involve probability, it is or it isn't, and not a case for grey areas.

All the issues in the Bible are human conjectures and none of these conjectures are facts or proven.

Real historical methods don't have miracles and have to stick to methods of science. Real logic tells that Jesus was just a Man, never a god in any rational sense, and that he never died on the tree, else he would not be seen walking around afterwards.

Facts, in order to be facts, must stick to rational reality and established sciences. None of this illogical process for this OP is valid thinking for a rational mind.

It appears in the Christian world, if you use the word god, it is somehow granted to depart from the rational world and into a world of make believe anything you want.

Christianity in that respect is a serious mental illness. imho

With ANY knowledge that's been handed down and considered ancient whereas we cannot personally verify the authenticity of the literature or authors DECIPHERING comes into play.

If the words go GOOD with the order of nature it's from God and if it doesn't then it's not inspired Word of God.

Each person has their own truth. Their own personal relationship with the creator is different from another but the basis of their knowledge must be deciphered.

Even the Bible has to be deciphered and read over and over again before judgment can be placed on each word.

Just my opinion.

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
reply to post by mkmasn

 

I have to admit i'm positive that religion is nonsense.

It seems very convenient to me that every time the bible is incorrect then that part has to be taken as metaphorical. Why can't it just be taken as what it is, completely incorrect.

Also if so much is then metaphorical why not go the whole hog and call the religion metaphorical. It would make much more sense to say look we know there is no god but this book gives us a guide on how we want to live. I could accept the bible as a self help book but not a religion.

Because some things in the bible are correct. Some of the ideas presented in the bible are correct. Locations keep being shown to be correct. The main theme in the New Testament, treat others as you would be treated, is correct.

You have to make a distinction, though, between the historical accuracies and the spiritual interjection. Some people can, some people can't. For those that can, and remain interested study other, non-christian sources of spirituality as a replacement for or the bible, or to fill in the blanks.

Both ways are correct, as long as you read and understand the key message.

It's not the religion that's screwed up, it's the people in charge of the religion who are screwed up. They count on the fact that some people are followers, sheep in a flock. And they use that to quote the bible to spout their own personal philosophies.

Don't get me wrong, some ministers, preachers, priests, what have you, are good people, and those comments don't apply to them.

reply to post by eight bits


I think we are like-minded on the subject. I lean more towards theism, though... Something started everything... I just call it God.

reply to post by mkmasn


What you don't seem to consider is that there actually may not be a god. If this is true and I strongly believe it is then all religion is wrong.

Originally posted by GafferUK1981
reply to post by mkmasn

 

What you don't seem to consider is that there actually may not be a god. If this is true and I strongly believe it is then all religion is wrong.

edit on 2-9-2012 by GafferUK1981 because: (no reason given)

I've considered there is no God as what Christianity perceives as God... An actual being.

I think of God as what that initial spark was that set everything in motion... The universe wasn't created out of nothing; there was something there before atoms, molecules, dark matter, etc. I call that God.

And if you choose to worship that, it is not wrong. And if you live by the message most religions deliver, that is not wrong.