Have you tried reading the NT in the correct order?

[floo]

Some of the more extreme theists on this forum seem to be away with the fairies, or so besotted by their own rightness they fail so see how daft their comments really are!

[Gordon]

Of course the two of you are going to disagree because your pre-existing ideas don't permit you to allow the consideration that naturalistic evidence isn't the sole form of evidence in this aspect of life.

Naturalistic evidence is all we have though.

If you are claiming that there is another form of evidence, call it non-naturalistic evidence, then feel free to outline this evidence and the methodology used to identify and describe it so that it can be seen to be mutually exclusive from anything naturalistic.

I'm not sure how many times we've done this debate over the last 6 months, let alone the life of this forum. It is partly why I have often stated that we are actually talking about live from two radically different perspectives neither of which are compatible in terms of debate.

Nope - you are assuming/asserting that there is this other 'life' perspective but you haven't described this beyond your personal feeling that there is an undetermined 'something': and you can't have a meaningful debate about something that seems to be no more than woolly personal conviction on your part.

[jeremyp]

If you are claiming that there is another form of evidence, call it non-naturalistic evidence, then feel free to outline this evidence and the methodology used to identify and describe it so that it can be seen to be mutually exclusive from anything naturalistic.

Don't hold your breath.  He's been asked this many times before and he has never succeeded in doing anything except dissemble.

Personally, I don't like this idea of labelling evidence "naturalistic".  It's a tactic used to try to pretend that I will only accept certain narrowly defined kinds of evidence. In fact, I'll accept any kind of evidence whatsoever as long as I can, in principle, verify it.   

[Alien]

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.

Yes, sorry, you were indeed. We do have specific mentions of Jesus not being in the tomb in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John though.

Mt 28:5, 6: But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
Mk 16:5, 6: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.
Lk 24:2, 3:  And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body.
Jn 20:2-7: So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.

No hint of Jesus' body still being there that I can see.

I quite agree that the resurrection accounts are independent.  Each author made up his own.

Assertion in need of some evidence.

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.

So no commonality.... apart from the empty tomb, angels/men, women visiting the tomb and so on?

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.

And why did the disciples who visited the tomb think they saw angels/men, why did individuals and groups get convinced they met and spoke and sometimes ate with Jesus? Why the start of the Christian church from a bunch of previously dispirited, defeated disciples?

Your explanation needs to cover all the facts, not just bits. Surely you see that?

The account of James' martyrdom comes from Josephus.

Really?  Josephus was an eye witness, was he? 

I didn't claim he was. I was replying to your, "You can't claim that all these people getting martyred is evidence for your story being true when the accounts of martyrdom come from the same story you are trying to prove."

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.

Correct, I am not. Dionysius, according to Wikipedia, lived around 171 AD, so that would be about 110 years after Peter and Paul were martyred (if they were martyred). Do you have any good reason to think he was wrong, bearing in mind he was living in the same city and headed up the church there?

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

Well Tacitus says Jesus was executed.  That's about it.

Yes, that is why I wrote, "We also have an account of Jesus' death in Tacitus".

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 didn't claim he did (my post being a bit vague here), but he does write, "(Christianity a) most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judæa, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome." I wonder why that happened? Why do you think it happened?

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.

Yes, they would have died because they were Christians. If they knew that the resurrection was all a hoax, why would they have stuck around there and get killed or suffer all the previous stuff they suffered, details of Paul's suffering being available in his writings and Acts?

[Alien]

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?

So Christianity didn't start until about 53 AD? There was no preaching of the gospel till then? There were no Christians in Jerusalem until at least 53 AD?

Really?

[jjohnjil]

I do not have to come up with a plausible scenario for something that there is not a shred of evidence that it ever took place!

Sorry to disappoint you jj but, as has been pointed out on numerous occasions, there is a considerable body of documentation providing evidence for the events having taken place.  You may choose to dismiss this, but to say that 'there is not a shred of evidence' is a lie. 

As for why they would lie ... you should get out more, people lie all the time, there is even a career in it, called politics!  If there is an agenda to follow, lies will follow as night follows day, Alan, I thought anyone over the age of ten would know that!

And what would the agenda have been?

... even with all today's expertise, anything over about 25 minutes would mean he had snuffed it for good!  And you quibble about it being 48 and not 72 hours! 

... and you manage to dismiss medically acknowledged events in this sweeping misgeneralisation.  If anyone has an agenda that will lead people to lie, it is people like you.

You're unbelievable!

Thakfully, you and your ilk aren't.  Such nay-saying has been going on for some 2000 years, so your's is no better than any of the other unsuccessful attemptees.

Don't be sorry, Hope, you haven't disappointed me one bit!  If you had agreed with me I would have been truly shocked, because you and your ilk are like blind men in a maze, desperately trying to hang on to something - anything - because of your dread of being dead for eternity!

As for the rest of your reply to my post, I think others have covered it so I won't waste my time repeating all the reasons I can dismiss your 'good' evidence.

[Gordon]

We do have specific mentions of Jesus not being in the tomb in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John though.

Mt 28:5, 6: But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
Mk 16:5, 6: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.
Lk 24:2, 3:  And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body.
Jn 20:2-7: So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.

No hint of Jesus' body still being there that I can see.

You are still assuming that all these claims are facts - how do you know that they aren't fiction: you may choose to accept them on a personal basis but they still remain claims and not facts. After all the whole 'empty tomb' aspect is the type of detail that someone concocting a story to maintain the reputation of the recently dead Jesus as being divine might add in for effect: a definite risk, people being what they are.

Yes, they would have died because they were Christians. If they knew that the resurrection was all a hoax, why would they have stuck around there and get killed or suffer all the previous stuff they suffered, details of Paul's suffering being available in his writings and Acts?

You still aren't getting this, Alan. Nobody is claiming that these early Christians knew that the resurrection was a hoax - I'd expect that they were just as sincere as you are in their Christian beliefs - the point here is that their preparedness to die doesn't mean that the story they sincerely believed is necessarily true.

[Alien]

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.

1 Corinthians 15:3-8

For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, (Peter) and then to the Twelve.
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.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.

We have no record of Paul being present at the crucifixion, so we can't count him as a witness to that. We do have him claiming to have met the risen Jesus on the Road to Damascus. This appearance is a bit different to the other accounts in that Jesus had already ascended to heaven, but this does seem to be written as something other than a vision as other people heard something to (Acts does not say whether they saw the bright light which flashed around Paul). What do you think convinced the Christian-chasing/hating Saul to become a follower of Jesus Christ?

[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.

Even so, how do you know that the empty tomb isn't a fictional element added in later?

After all is someone wanted to create a fictional narrative to 'up the ante' with regard to Jesus being divine after he was killed and inconveniently, for them, remained dead, then 'but the body disappeared from the tomb and later on he had a pint with Frank and Neil' is surely to sort of element that would the job nicely, and impress the gullible. 

As it stands the 'empty tomb' is just a claim and not a historical fact, and you are failing to recognise this when you frequently challenge people to 'explain' it. Your challenge assumes there was an empty tomb that once contained the body of Jesus - but if this aspect of the story isn't historically true and is fiction, which is a risk, then your challenge to others is worthless.

You need to get from claims to facts (since we are talking tombs and dead people here) before explanations are demanded of others - but since we are stuck at claims, and bearing in mind what this story seeks to establish (that Jesus was divine, was dead and was resurrected), then the most likely explanation is that some or all of this story is fictional propaganda.

After several years of discussing this with you on and off I don't see you ever coming to the conclusion that Jesus did die and was raised from the dead. I'm still unsure why you bold and italicise the word "know" each time you post to me. However, I would really appreciate it if you did try to come up with something which accounts for Jesus being killed by crucifixion, the empty tomb (as recorded by the four canonical gospels and assumed by Paul since he spoke of Jesus' bodily resurrection), people on a dozen or so occasions both as individuals and groups meeting and sometimes eating with what they were convinced was the risen Jesus and the start of the Christian church from a bunch of previously dispirited and defeated disciples. If you don't believe the tomb was empty, what is your plausible scenario for why the four gospel writers and Paul thought it was?

Will you do that for me one day? Please. You see the reason I keep asking you is that I have yet to see any non-Christian on this board give a plausible scenario. True you can explain away individual bits of the accounts on their own, but I don't remember anyone even trying to come up with a plausible overall scenario.

[Alien]

You need to come up with a plausible scenario of how it all happened. If you cannot do that, you have not provided an alternative explanation. For example, you have not explained why they would lie, how long you think it was between "events" (whatever they are), who might have misquoted whom and why. Heck, man, you don't even have the correct number of hours even roughly. Jesus was dead less than 48 hours (Friday afternoon to before first light Sunday).

You are doing it again, Alan, in challenging people to 'to come up with a plausible scenario of how it all happened' as 'alternative explanation' - you are presuming that it 'happened' as described in the NT.

That it didn't 'happen' at all is a plausible scenario that both fits known human behaviour and neatly disposes of all the various elements of the story (empty tomb etc): in that they didn't 'happen' at all.

Your "plausible scenario" needs to include why four gospel writers and other NT writers were convinced Jesus had been raised and that there was an empty tomb. Yes, people do lie, but why would this lot lie? If you think they were merely mistaken, how did they make that mistake? Please answer my questions.

[Nearly Sane]

You need to come up with a plausible scenario of how it all happened. If you cannot do that, you have not provided an alternative explanation. For example, you have not explained why they would lie, how long you think it was between "events" (whatever they are), who might have misquoted whom and why. Heck, man, you don't even have the correct number of hours even roughly. Jesus was dead less than 48 hours (Friday afternoon to before first light Sunday).

You are doing it again, Alan, in challenging people to 'to come up with a plausible scenario of how it all happened' as 'alternative explanation' - you are presuming that it 'happened' as described in the NT.

That it didn't 'happen' at all is a plausible scenario that both fits known human behaviour and neatly disposes of all the various elements of the story (empty tomb etc): in that they didn't 'happen' at all.

Your "plausible scenario" needs to include why four gospel writers and other NT writers were convinced Jesus had been raised and that there was an empty tomb. Yes, people do lie, but why would this lot lie? If you think they were merely mistaken, how did they make that mistake? Please answer my questions.

I'll take shifting the burden of proof for a thousand, Alex.

[Alien]

So if it is "fictional propaganda", where would it have come from? Who might have produced it? When might they have produced it? Why might they have produced it? How did they manage to convince the authors of the four canonical gospels and people like Paul that it was all true?

Come on, Gordon, you are being too vague.

Easy peasy - propaganda comes from people with an agenda, Alan, in support of a cause,  other people or even themselves and their personal interests. In addition, in that place, culture and time a religious narrative laced with miracles would go down rather well.   

So, in more recent times when an American president assured us he 'did not have sex with that woman', or the UK Chancellor reassures us that the latest Budget is designed to 'benefit hard-working people' (or some similarly patronising expression), do we; a) believe them without question, or b) do we consider whether there might be another agendas at play or that perhaps mistake, lies or exaggeration may be involved.

You seem unable to countenance that early Christians were perhaps just as fallible as, say, Bill Clinton.

So if this was propaganda, what was the motive of people like:

James, Jesus half-brother, whom Josephus tells us was himself later killed by the Jewish authorities.
Paul, who changed from Christian-hater to dedicated follower of Jesus who endured beatings, imprisonments, at least one shipwreck and, eventually, death.
Peter, ex-fisherman, who was also martyred.

Motive?

[Alien]

You need to come up with a plausible scenario of how it all happened.

This really is laughable.  Your "plausible" explanation is a dead man coming alive again.  Do you understand what the word means?

Yes. I do note your ambiguity though. A "dead man coming alive again" would normally mean a man coming to life again naturally. Is that what you mean? If not, why put it ambiguously?

[Alien]

You are doing it again, Alan, in challenging people to 'to come up with a plausible scenario of how it all happened' as 'alternative explanation' - you are presuming that it 'happened' as described in the NT.

That it didn't 'happen' at all is a plausible scenario that both fits known human behaviour and neatly disposes of all the various elements of the story (empty tomb etc): in that they didn't 'happen' at all.

And let me emphasise again, Alan's own explanation - Jesus coming back to life - is itself totally implausible.  Why do we have to provide a plausible explanation when he doesn't?

Why is my explanation implausible? Why do you have to provide a plausible explanation? Do demonstrate that you have thought it through. So far you have not demonstrated that (IMO).

[Alien]

And let me emphasise again, Alan's own explanation - Jesus coming back to life - is itself totally implausible.  Why do we have to provide a plausible explanation when he doesn't?

The plausible explanation we need you to give is why, if Jesus was God in human form, he couldn't have come back to life?  Simply saying that you don't believe that there is a God, or some such reason, isn't a plausible explanation.

Because if he was "God" in human form, then he had the ability to feel none of the pain and suffering a human would have felt. All he had to do was put on a good performance.

Yes, that is much more plausible.

Yes, he would have had that ability, but why do you think he would fake it?

[Andy]

Will you do that for me one day? Please. You see the reason I keep asking you is that I have yet to see any non-Christian on this board give a plausible scenario. True you can explain away individual bits of the accounts on their own, but I don't remember anyone even trying to come up with a plausible overall scenario.

A god made it all up.

[Alien]

This is not a difficult point to follow. Usually.

It is when your ability to reason is handicapped by humbug.

Ad hominem.

[Alien]

...

Trying to specify a correct number of hours for the period of Jesus' death is singularly inappropriate when the whole crucifixion-to-ascension narrative is so replete with contradictions over time-periods. Luke himself seems confused over the days that Jesus spent on earth after he was 'resurrected'.

Please do back that up with some evidence, preferably new stuff, i.e. not the same stuff as the last time this was discussed.

Reducing everything to the basic details of the earliest two accounts - St Paul and Mark - you haven't much to go on. St Paul (in Phillippians) simply implies that Jesus was 'taken up into God' and that afterwards some vision came to him. Mark says very little (in the shortened genuine version of his gospel) apart from the disciples being informed "He is not here, he is risen and is going before you into Galilee".

Yes, feel free to ignore some of the evidence (no, I'm not referring to stuff after Mark 16:.

Further details, by other evangelists, I suggest owe more than a little to romantic imagination.

Suggest all you like, but personally I'd prefer some evidence.

No doubt the disciples were inspired to believe something about Christ's presence in there lives.

"No doubt"? Why? How?

Belief is a great force for good or evil - there is no need for any verifiable reality behind the belief itself for people to be inspired to do extraordinary things. And sometimes one heartily wishes they were not so inspired.

So how does that statement, true in itself, help us determine whether God did raise Jesus from the dead?

[Alien]

More "if God, why not?" <face palm>

And your explanation that disproves the argument would be?

That's a huge amount of fail packed into a very small sentence.

(A) You have put something forward that is unfalsifaiable by any method we have, so raising the question of 'disproving' it is pointless.

What about logic and reasoning?

(b) If God can do everything -- there is nothing God cannot do - is circular

This is incorrect for the God we Christians claim exists.

(C) An explanation isn't something that ever disproves an argument,

Not sure of your point here. Please elucidate.

[Alien]

...

Alan

I do not have to come up with a plausible scenario for something that there is not a shred of evidence that it ever took place!

This is incorrect. You may argue that there is insufficient evidence to correctly come to the conclusion that Jesus was indeed raised from the dead, but there is evidence. There is evidence in the various accounts in the NT documents. You may not think it sufficient, but it is evidence.

As for why they would lie ... you should get out more, people lie all the time, there is even a career in it, called politics!  If there is an agenda to follow, lies will follow as night follows day, Alan, I thought anyone over the age of ten would know that!

Why would they lie? Try and think it through? Some of them suffered greatly for holding this view and some were killed because they held this view. Your attempted explanation does not seem valid to me. You, presumably, disagree, so maybe we will have to agree to disagree.

You argue about silly little details like how long he was supposed to have been dead for before coming alive again - I don't care if it was 48 hours or 48 years, even with all today's expertise, anything over about 25 minutes would mean he had snuffed it for good!  And you quibble about it being 48 and not 72 hours! 

You're unbelievable!

I agree that whether it was 72 hours or 48 or whatever, but my point was that you had launched into this argument without thinking it through and your miscalculation of the duration might be an indication of that. If you hadn't thought about the length of time, why should anyone think you had thought about the rest of it properly.

[Alien]

We may have done the debate many times but you are still failing to grasp the point. History is methodologically naturalistic, you are being asked for a method that covers the supernatural. You have been asked for it many many many times. You have not provided it, therefore your talk of evidence is spurious.

Who are you talking to, please? Using Quote would make it clearer.

[Alien]

And, of course, as pointed out many many times, evidence in the historical methodology is naturalistic, therefore even claiming this to be evidence, is incorrect.

Yep - this has indeed been pointed out regularly, but tends to be ignored.

This thread, more than others recently, seems to have highlighted just how detached from reality theism is. We hear Christians tell of the so-called 'Trinity', but I'd say that a more blindingly obvious 'Trinity' is the mix of fallacies that are regularly trotted out - my top three candidates for this Trinity would be;

1. Incredulity, where some here seem to be almost overwhelmed by incredulity to the point of being pathologically gullible.

2. Ignorance, such as the science deniers.

3. Tradition/Authority (in various permutations), such as those who regard the Bible as inerrant or who regard religious traditions, holy books and the rituals of religious observance as being sufficient confirmation the truth of religious claims.

Mind you, there are probably a few more fallacies jockeying for position, such as the relativist (its true for me) and survivor fallacies.

How about sticking to the subject and answering the questions I've asked, please?

[Alien]

We do have specific mentions of Jesus not being in the tomb in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John though.

Mt 28:5, 6: But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
Mk 16:5, 6: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.
Lk 24:2, 3:  And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body.
Jn 20:2-7: So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.

No hint of Jesus' body still being there that I can see.

You are still assuming that all these claims are facts - how do you know that they aren't fiction: you may choose to accept them on a personal basis but they still remain claims and not facts. After all the whole 'empty tomb' aspect is the type of detail that someone concocting a story to maintain the reputation of the recently dead Jesus as being divine might add in for effect: a definite risk, people being what they are.

Yes, they would have died because they were Christians. If they knew that the resurrection was all a hoax, why would they have stuck around there and get killed or suffer all the previous stuff they suffered, details of Paul's suffering being available in his writings and Acts?

You still aren't getting this, Alan. Nobody is claiming that these early Christians knew that the resurrection was a hoax - I'd expect that they were just as sincere as you are in their Christian beliefs - the point here is that their preparedness to die doesn't mean that the story they sincerely believed is necessarily true.

So, I ask yet again, what is the explanation for all that went on? Why do we have various writers in the NT saying these things? You say no-one is claiming they knew it was a hoax, so do you mean they were just mistaken? If so, how did they make that mistake? How did they mistakenly come to be convinced that people on a dozen or so occasions were themselves convinced, in groups and as individual, that they had met with the risen Jesus and sometimes even eaten with them? How did they mistakenly come to believe that the tomb was empty? Why didn't the authorities just point out Jesus' rotting body in the tomb? Why did Saul make such a radical change to his life and become a fervent follower of Jesus, suffering imprisonments, beatings, at least one shipwreck and finally death? What mistake did he make to get so caught up?

Come on, Gordon, at least give it a try, please.

[Alien]

You need to come up with a plausible scenario of how it all happened. If you cannot do that, you have not provided an alternative explanation. For example, you have not explained why they would lie, how long you think it was between "events" (whatever they are), who might have misquoted whom and why. Heck, man, you don't even have the correct number of hours even roughly. Jesus was dead less than 48 hours (Friday afternoon to before first light Sunday).

You are doing it again, Alan, in challenging people to 'to come up with a plausible scenario of how it all happened' as 'alternative explanation' - you are presuming that it 'happened' as described in the NT.

That it didn't 'happen' at all is a plausible scenario that both fits known human behaviour and neatly disposes of all the various elements of the story (empty tomb etc): in that they didn't 'happen' at all.

Your "plausible scenario" needs to include why four gospel writers and other NT writers were convinced Jesus had been raised and that there was an empty tomb. Yes, people do lie, but why would this lot lie? If you think they were merely mistaken, how did they make that mistake? Please answer my questions.

I'll take shifting the burden of proof for a thousand, Alex.

We Christians have provided one explanation. Your lot won't even try, but just keep chucking out sound bites.

Any chance you can provide a plausible explanation for the whole thing?

Thought not.

[Leonard James]

We do have specific mentions of Jesus not being in the tomb in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John though.

Mt 28:5, 6: But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid; for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
Mk 16:5, 6: And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe; and they were amazed. And he said to them, "Do not be amazed; you seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.
Lk 24:2, 3:  And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body.
Jn 20:2-7: So she ran, and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Peter then came out with the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first; and stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; he saw the linen cloths lying, and the napkin, which had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths but rolled up in a place by itself.

No hint of Jesus' body still being there that I can see.

You are still assuming that all these claims are facts - how do you know that they aren't fiction: you may choose to accept them on a personal basis but they still remain claims and not facts. After all the whole 'empty tomb' aspect is the type of detail that someone concocting a story to maintain the reputation of the recently dead Jesus as being divine might add in for effect: a definite risk, people being what they are.

Yes, they would have died because they were Christians. If they knew that the resurrection was all a hoax, why would they have stuck around there and get killed or suffer all the previous stuff they suffered, details of Paul's suffering being available in his writings and Acts?

You still aren't getting this, Alan. Nobody is claiming that these early Christians knew that the resurrection was a hoax - I'd expect that they were just as sincere as you are in their Christian beliefs - the point here is that their preparedness to die doesn't mean that the story they sincerely believed is necessarily true.

So, I ask yet again, what is the explanation for all that went on? Why do we have various writers in the NT saying these things? You say no-one is claiming they knew it was a hoax, so do you mean they were just mistaken? If so, how did they make that mistake? How did they mistakenly come to be convinced that people on a dozen or so occasions were themselves convinced, in groups and as individual, that they had met with the risen Jesus and sometimes even eaten with them? How did they mistakenly come to believe that the tomb was empty? Why didn't the authorities just point out Jesus' rotting body in the tomb? Why did Saul make such a radical change to his life and become a fervent follower of Jesus, suffering imprisonments, beatings, at least one shipwreck and finally death? What mistake did he make to get so caught up?

Come on, Gordon, at least give it a try, please.

Rumour and self-delusion are the answer to all your questions.