Have you tried reading the NT in the correct order?

[Alien]

As explained many times before, I see it as the best explanation for the empty tomb (after Jesus was killed by crucifixion), for people as individuals and groups on about a dozen known occurrences being convinced that they met him right as ninepence in the following days and for the start of the Christian church by a bunch of previously dispirited, defeated people.

How do you know that the 'empty tomb' aspect of this story isn't pure fiction?

Because all the authorities had to do do disprove it was point people to Jesus' body in the tomb if it was not empty.

It is that simple.

You are assuming that the 'empty tomb' element was an issue at the time of the alleged resurrection: but that the tomb was empty and that the body of Jesus was there at all are claims and not facts. So, how to you know that this isn't just a later addition by Jesus supporters at the time the story was first written down decades later?

After all propaganda is a risk, and if you can't acknowledge this then you are indulging in special pleading that those early Christians/NT writers were immune from human artifice in support of their cause.

If there is a risk that it isn't true at all, and there is this risk, then your challenge to 'explain' these claims is spurious since your challenge involves assuming that claims are facts, and I'd say that such assumptions are unjustified.

It wasn't "first written down decades later". Even Dan Barker dates the resurrection appearances "creed" from 1 Corinthians 15 from about 2 years after Jesus' crucifixion, though Paul is quoting it something like 18 years or so after the resurrection. I gather people like Ludemann and Ehrman date it 2-5 years after the crucifixion.

[Alien]

As explained many times before, I see it as the best explanation for the empty tomb (after Jesus was killed by crucifixion), for people as individuals and groups on about a dozen known occurrences being convinced that they met him right as ninepence in the following days and for the start of the Christian church by a bunch of previously dispirited, defeated people.

How do you know that the 'empty tomb' aspect of this story isn't pure fiction?

Because all the authorities had to do do disprove it was point people to Jesus' body in the tomb if it was not empty.

It is that simple.

Of course, Alan, it's very simple.  The authorities not explaining a missing corpse is far less probable than that the corpse came back to life and walked out on his own.  It's so simple - if you happen to have confirmation bias.

This is incorrect. You have given an explanation for just one of the things which needs explaining. Why won't you explain the whole lot?

What's that then, the chance of people making up stories ... lying ... the stories being told over and over again and being misquoted before they were written down - any of those less likely than a dead man walking?

You have not answered my question. Why don't you explain the whole lot?

[Alien]

What's that then, the chance of people making up stories ... lying ... the stories being told over and over again and being misquoted before they were written down - any of those less likely than a dead man walking?

Quite! Every intelligent person nowadays knows perfectly well that truly dead people don't come back to life. They also know how swiftly daft rumours can spread through a population.

You don't need to have the brain of Einstein to see which is the most likely.

OK, Len. Let's see if you can come up with a plausible explanation for the empty tomb and the alleged meetings of Jesus with individuals and groups and the start of the Christian church from a bunch of previously badly dispirited people.

Hint: sound bites do not count as an explanation.

[Alien]

As explained many times before, I see it as the best explanation for the empty tomb (after Jesus was killed by crucifixion), for people as individuals and groups on about a dozen known occurrences being convinced that they met him right as ninepence in the following days and for the start of the Christian church by a bunch of previously dispirited, defeated people.

How do you know that the 'empty tomb' aspect of this story isn't pure fiction?

Because all the authorities had to do do disprove it was point people to Jesus' body in the tomb if it was not empty.

It is that simple.

So I suppose that means in opposition to that, all Jesus had to do was show himself to the authorities, proving it right?

Or his half-brother, James, who previously thought Jesus was off his head? Why did James become the leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem?

[Hope]

Do I really need to answer the first point. Hope, or are you mixing me up with the Alien?

Well, since what you quote comes in a reply I made to one of your posts -

Why do you imagine the authorities were interested in whether or not Jesus' followers were putting the story around that their leader had returned from the dead?  I expect they treated them like any other sect's nutters!

I don't think I'm confusing you with anyone.  So, answer please.

As for the rest of your post, its amazing just how much many people believe about events from long before Jesus' time using no more than '3rd hand accounts' often written many decades, perhaps even centuries after the events.

[Alien]

Sadfly enough for you, every intelligent person nowadays knows perfectly well that truly dead people have been known to come back to life, and medical records have shown this.  It even has a name - Lazurus syndrome.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_syndrome

It is clear that the criteria for declaring a person dead are faulty, and should be revised. If a person is dead, they don't come back to life.

Unless there is a God and God raises that person from the dead. QED.

[Shaker]

Sadfly enough for you, every intelligent person nowadays knows perfectly well that truly dead people have been known to come back to life, and medical records have shown this.  It even has a name - Lazurus syndrome.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_syndrome

It is clear that the criteria for declaring a person dead are faulty, and should be revised. If a person is dead, they don't come back to life.

Unless there is a God and God raises that person from the dead. QED.

You appear not to know what QED means, even assuming you know what it stands for.

[Gordon]

You are still assuming these claims are facts.

In exactly the same way that you are assuming that they aren't. 

Tell me, how long after the event was the CLAIM that Paul preached about the resurrection 40 days after the event actually recorded in the NT documentation? How do you know the claims about what Paul is alleged to have said isn't part of later post-hoc propaganda?

Paul wrote about the resurrection claims in his letters, and the earliest of those would have been Galations.  Scholars generally date the authorship of that as between 45 and 55 AD.  In other words, the earliest written record we have of the crucifixion and resurrection events could have been authored within 10-12 years of the event.  It is clear that Galations was written to a congregation that had been in existence for some time.  Whether it had been established by Paul or by someone else, perhaps earlier than Paul's entry into the process, we don't know, but clearly the Gospel had been being preached verbally for some years before Paul or nyone else wrote any of it down.

As for the 40 days, remember that all the dates surrounding the crucifixion, resurrection and what is called Pentecost by the church all fit in with important festivals in the Jewish calendar.  The dates weren't simply dates plucked out of the air at random.

I'm not - I'm saying that a claim is exactly that: as in not being historical facts.

So, what is said in the NT about 'days' are claims that as you concede were recorded a minimum of a decade after the event, or possibly later since the precise dates aren't known.

There is still the obvious risk of propaganda in these post-hoc accounts written by Jesus supporters  decade or more later, so how have you excluded the possibility that, for example, these bits about Paul may not be true (in full or in part)?

[Alien]

Sadfly enough for you, every intelligent person nowadays knows perfectly well that truly dead people have been known to come back to life, and medical records have shown this.  It even has a name - Lazurus syndrome.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_syndrome

It is clear that the criteria for declaring a person dead are faulty, and should be revised. If a person is dead, they don't come back to life.

Unless there is a God and God raises that person from the dead. QED.

You appear not to know what QED means, even assuming you know what it stands for.

Yes, thanks. Quod erat demonstrandum. Do you know what it stands for and means?

[Shaker]

Yes, thanks. Quod erat demonstrandum. Do you know what it stands for

Er, you've just written it out 

and means?

I do indeed. Which is why your use of it was/is incorrect.

[Andy]

As explained many times before, I see it as the best explanation for the empty tomb (after Jesus was killed by crucifixion), for people as individuals and groups on about a dozen known occurrences being convinced that they met him right as ninepence in the following days and for the start of the Christian church by a bunch of previously dispirited, defeated people.

How do you know that the 'empty tomb' aspect of this story isn't pure fiction?

Because all the authorities had to do do disprove it was point people to Jesus' body in the tomb if it was not empty.

It is that simple.

So I suppose that means in opposition to that, all Jesus had to do was show himself to the authorities, proving it right?

Or his half-brother, James, who previously thought Jesus was off his head? Why did James become the leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem?

You were talking about the authorities. I was simply making a parallel with that.

[Gordon]

OK, Len. Let's see if you can come up with a plausible explanation for the empty tomb and the alleged meetings of Jesus with individuals and groups and the start of the Christian church from a bunch of previously badly dispirited people.

Hint: sound bites do not count as an explanation.

Hint - if the empty tomb or Jesus meeting people claims aren't known to be actually true then asking others to 'explain' them is a silly and unfair challenge. You need to verify these claims first (as opposed to you believing them on a personal basis).

By the way oppressed and/or dispirited people are known to start movements but this doesn't mean that what they start is factually justified.

[Alien]

Yes, thanks. Quod erat demonstrandum. Do you know what it stands for

Er, you've just written it out 

and means?

I do indeed. Which is why your use of it was/is incorrect.

Indeed. Alien comes a cropper.

[Hope]

What's that then, the chance of people making up stories ... lying ... the stories being told over and over again and being misquoted before they were written down - any of those less likely than a dead man walking?

There are three questions here, jj - though you may not be aware that you have asked 3.  Firstly, there is sufficient discepancy amongst the 3 Synoptic Gospels - for instance - to suggest that the stories weren't 'made up'.  If they had been, those making them up would have made sure that they matched far better. 

Secondly, research has shown that in a culture like 1st Century Palestine, oral tradition was far more important to the masses than the literary tradition that we now rely in.  As such, 'stories being told over and over again and being misquoted before they were written down' was pretty unusual.  "Stories being told over and over again before they were written down" would certainly have been the case, but the 'misquoting' element you seem to assume would have happened, wasn't. 

Thirdly, there is the question of whether we have a 'man walking' or something else?  You and others like you want to take it as read that what is is being talkked about is a normal human being.  As such, as your questions and assertions simply conform to and confirm your existing bias.  You are simply unable to countenance the possibility that there is a broader aspect to reality than just the physical.  That is why, in the past, I have pointed out that folk like you are blinkered and see reality in fewer dimensions that it actually exists in.

As I pointed out in a previous response - to Gordon, iirc - questions and assertions that you and co. make on this matter actually reinforce this broader understanding of reality.

[Alien]

As explained many times before, I see it as the best explanation for the empty tomb (after Jesus was killed by crucifixion), for people as individuals and groups on about a dozen known occurrences being convinced that they met him right as ninepence in the following days and for the start of the Christian church by a bunch of previously dispirited, defeated people.

How do you know that the 'empty tomb' aspect of this story isn't pure fiction?

Because all the authorities had to do do disprove it was point people to Jesus' body in the tomb if it was not empty.

It is that simple.

So I suppose that means in opposition to that, all Jesus had to do was show himself to the authorities, proving it right?

Or his half-brother, James, who previously thought Jesus was off his head? Why did James become the leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem?

You were talking about the authorities. I was simply making a parallel with that.

Indeed. Alien comes a cropper part 2.

What do you think the authorities would have thought if they had indeed seen Jesus after his crucifixion? Do you think they would have fallen at his feet in worship, come up with some far-fetched scheme about him not really having died or something else?

[Alien]

OK, Len. Let's see if you can come up with a plausible explanation for the empty tomb and the alleged meetings of Jesus with individuals and groups and the start of the Christian church from a bunch of previously badly dispirited people.

Hint: sound bites do not count as an explanation.

Hint - if the empty tomb or Jesus meeting people claims aren't known to be actually true then asking others to 'explain' them is a silly and unfair challenge. You need to verify these claims first (as opposed to you believing them on a personal basis).

By the way oppressed and/or dispirited people are known to start movements but this doesn't mean that what they start is factually justified.

You misunderstand what I have written there. I spoke of "alleged meetings of Jesus with individuals and groups". There seems little doubt (to the impartial observer, I would suggest) that those people involved on those dozen or so occasions genuinely believed they had met and sometimes eaten with the risen Jesus. My request to you is to give a good explanation as to why they were so convinced.

[jjohnjil]

As explained many times before, I see it as the best explanation for the empty tomb (after Jesus was killed by crucifixion), for people as individuals and groups on about a dozen known occurrences being convinced that they met him right as ninepence in the following days and for the start of the Christian church by a bunch of previously dispirited, defeated people.

How do you know that the 'empty tomb' aspect of this story isn't pure fiction?

Because all the authorities had to do do disprove it was point people to Jesus' body in the tomb if it was not empty.

It is that simple.

Of course, Alan, it's very simple.  The authorities not explaining a missing corpse is far less probable than that the corpse came back to life and walked out on his own.  It's so simple - if you happen to have confirmation bias.

This is incorrect. You have given an explanation for just one of the things which needs explaining. Why won't you explain the whole lot?

What's that then, the chance of people making up stories ... lying ... the stories being told over and over again and being misquoted before they were written down - any of those less likely than a dead man walking?

You have not answered my question. Why don't you explain the whole lot?

I did - lies, misquotes, too long between events and their telling ... all far more likely than that a guy who had been dead for 72 hours returned to life!

[Hope]

I'm not - I'm saying that a claim is exactly that: as in being historical facts.

So, what is said in the NT about 'days' are claims that as you concede were recorded a minimum of a decade after the event, or possibly later since the precise dates aren't known.

Unfortunately for your argument, the dates would have been known. The Jewish calandar is pretty rigid and would have been recorded at the time.  As such, that kind of record is probably only hours or days after the events.

There is still the obvious risk of propaganda in these post-hoc accounts written by Jesus supporters  decade or more later, so how have you excluded the possibility that, for example, these bits about Paul may not be true (in full or in part)?

Have you considered that the 'post-hoc accounts written by Jesus supporters  decade or more later' (sic) repeat what Paul states in his own letters which pre-date other NT documents  These weren't ideas that were conjured up out of thin air.  They would have been facts gleaned from existing documentation. 

I'm sorry to highlight this again, but the more and more you go about the 'propaganda' idea, the thinner and thinner your argument gets because you use more and more ideas that simply aren't borne out historically.

[Andy]

As explained many times before, I see it as the best explanation for the empty tomb (after Jesus was killed by crucifixion), for people as individuals and groups on about a dozen known occurrences being convinced that they met him right as ninepence in the following days and for the start of the Christian church by a bunch of previously dispirited, defeated people.

How do you know that the 'empty tomb' aspect of this story isn't pure fiction?

Because all the authorities had to do do disprove it was point people to Jesus' body in the tomb if it was not empty.

It is that simple.

So I suppose that means in opposition to that, all Jesus had to do was show himself to the authorities, proving it right?

Or his half-brother, James, who previously thought Jesus was off his head? Why did James become the leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem?

You were talking about the authorities. I was simply making a parallel with that.

Indeed. Alien comes a cropper part 2.

What do you think the authorities would have thought if they had indeed seen Jesus after his crucifixion? Do you think they would have fallen at his feet in worship, come up with some far-fetched scheme about him not really having died or something else?

No idea. All I will say, as I said before to Hope, is that if they did think he was the genuine article, then I would've expected them to make a record of it. This is all ifs and buts, though.

[Gordon]

OK, Len. Let's see if you can come up with a plausible explanation for the empty tomb and the alleged meetings of Jesus with individuals and groups and the start of the Christian church from a bunch of previously badly dispirited people.

Hint: sound bites do not count as an explanation.

Hint - if the empty tomb or Jesus meeting people claims aren't known to be actually true then asking others to 'explain' them is a silly and unfair challenge. You need to verify these claims first (as opposed to you believing them on a personal basis).

By the way oppressed and/or dispirited people are known to start movements but this doesn't mean that what they start is factually justified.

You misunderstand what I have written there. I spoke of "alleged meetings of Jesus with individuals and groups". There seems little doubt (to the impartial observer, I would suggest) that those people involved on those dozen or so occasions genuinely believed they had met and sometimes eaten with the risen Jesus. My request to you is to give a good explanation as to why they were so convinced.

What I'm saying, and you aren't getting, is that you are asking me to explain a claim by assuming that this claim is an explainable fact. However, if the claim is fictional propaganda - which is a risk - then a possible explanation is that these encounters didn't happen.

So, before asking me to explain you need to demonstrate these claims are facts and not lies.

[jeremyp]

This is incorrect. The accounts of the resurrection in the four canonical gospels seem to be independent of each other.

I was talking about the empty tomb part, not the resurrection part. I quite agree that the resurrection accounts are independent.  Each author made up his own.

You yourself have argued that they are incompatible with each other, because they speak of different people going to the tomb at different times and speak of different people seeing Jesus at different times. I agree that much in the Synoptics is not independent, but the resurrection accounts do seem to be independent.

We have the discovery of the tomb in which the stories have some common elements but with inconsistency of detail and then we have the resurrection accounts where there are no common elements.  I think it is telling that the commonality ends with Mark's gospel.  The obvious explanation for that is that each of the other three writers was embellishing Mark's gospel and then made up resurrection stuff to fill in the bits after the end of it.

The idea that there even was an empty tomb is somewhat tenuous, but possible I guess.  There are many reasons why tombs have been found to be empty, grave robbing, body snatching, moving for legitimate reasons etc.

If it was not empty, all the authorities had to do was show Jesus' body in the tomb. So, no, not tenuous.

As for why it was empty, you need to come up with a better explanation of all the evidence, not just bits and pieces using mutually incompatible or ad hoc explanations.

Frankly I don't believe the empty tomb ever existed, but here is an explanation: Joseph of Arimathea moved the body on Saturday night to the common grave where it belonged and he didn't tell any of Jesus' followers what he had done. 

The account of James' martyrdom comes from Josephus.

Really?  Josephus was an eye witness, was he? 

The account of Peter's and Paul's come from Dionysius, bishop of Corinth (as recorded by Eusebius).

So not even second hand.  Dionysius is firmly a second century figure.  You can't possibly be claiming he saw Peter and Paul executed.

We also have an account of Jesus' death in Tacitus.

Well Tacitus says Jesus was executed.  That's about it.  He doesn't say the body went missing from the tomb.  He doesn't say there were accounts of Jesus being spotted alive again. 

I honestly don't know why you think Tacitus helps your case.  If anything, by giving Nero's motive as "needing a scapegoat for the Great Fire" he destroys the idea that Peter and Paul died for their faith; they died for Nero's political expediency.

[jeremyp]

Because all the authorities had to do do disprove it was point people to Jesus' body in the tomb if it was not empty.

It is that simple.

How do you disprove a story that isn't going to surface for another twenty years?

[jeremyp]

Paul wrote about the resurrection claims in his letters, and the earliest of those would have been Galations.  Scholars generally date the authorship of that as between 45 and 55 AD.  In other words, the earliest written record we have of the crucifixion and resurrection events could have been authored within 10-12 years of the event.

Sorry, I must have missed it.  Where in Paul's letters is his account of the crucifixion?  Where in his letters is his account of the resurrection?  Yes he says Christ was executed.  Yes he says various people saw Christ after his death, but there is no account of the empty tomb.  There is no account of Jesus eating and drinking with people after his death.  There is no account of Jesus travelling to Emmaus, Galilee or ascending into heaven. 

[Andy]

Sadfly enough for you, every intelligent person nowadays knows perfectly well that truly dead people have been known to come back to life, and medical records have shown this.  It even has a name - Lazurus syndrome.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_syndrome

It is clear that the criteria for declaring a person dead are faulty, and should be revised. If a person is dead, they don't come back to life.

Unless there is a God and God raises that person from the dead. QED.

I really don't know why you keep trying to push this line, as it just kills your argument - the old "If God, why not?" pish. It's like trying to play top trumps when everybody holds the exact same omnipotence card.

[Shaker]

Sadfly enough for you, every intelligent person nowadays knows perfectly well that truly dead people have been known to come back to life, and medical records have shown this.  It even has a name - Lazurus syndrome.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazarus_syndrome

It is clear that the criteria for declaring a person dead are faulty, and should be revised. If a person is dead, they don't come back to life.

Unless there is a God and God raises that person from the dead. QED.

I really don't know why you keep trying to push this line, as it just kills your argument - the old "If God, why not?" pish. It's like trying to play top trumps when everybody holds the exact same omnipotence card.

Exactly, Andy. If you invent out of thin air a magic entity who can do magic things, then by definition it can do anything you define it to be able to do - the Tolkiens and the Rowlings of the world earned fame and in the latter case especially great fortune by doing just that. It's embarrassingly tautological - magic entity can do magic may be impeccable logically but it says nothing.

These were writers of fiction, though; those who try to palm us off with these ludicrous fish stories allege that their magic character is real (somehow, in some vague wavy-handy, never quite fully specified or defined way) and actually exists (ditto), so we're entitled to demand the same standards of evidence as we normally employ.