Quoting Jesus

[jeremyp]

There is enough evidence from the disciples' testimony for someone to believe.

Can you point to any testimony that is unambiguously from the disciples of Jesus?

[ProfessorDavey]

Can you point to any testimony that is unambiguously from the disciples of Jesus?

Or from any other direct witness to the events.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

Or from any other direct witness to the events.

Or from witnesses who would have been close enough to be sure of what they saw, for example by examining the body.

Or from a medical specialist somehow able to ascertain that for example he wasn’t actually witnessing a deep coma.

Or from a witness who actually said, “Jesus was clinically dead” rather than, say, “Jesus looked to me from my vantage point as if he was dead”.

Or from a historian able to eliminate even the possibility of the story changing in the re-telling, especially given its remarkable similarity to resurrection stories from many religious beliefs that preceded it (the syncretism problem).

Or from someone with, say, both DNA technology and the access to use it so as significantly to reduce the risk of mistaken identity.

Or from…

…well you get the idea. So many possible naturalistic explanations, and yet such certainty that the answer was an actual resurrection.

If not for personal faith on the matter, how come?

[Spud]

Spud,

Misdiagnosing clinical death would have had nothing to do with "human nature" and everything to do with the comparatively crude techniques and tools available at the time.

What reasoning or evidence do you have unequivocally to discount that possibility?

Hi Bluehillside,

If you say that Jesus wasn't dead, then the claim that on Easter Sunday he was fully recovered (He couldn't have walked to Emmaus with two of them having been flogged and crucified three days earlier) must be false. However, lies have been dismissed due to (1) the honesty displayed in the New Testament accounts and (2) their refusal under torture to deny their claims.

[Shaker]

Hi Bluehillside,

If you say that Jesus wasn't dead, then the claim that on Easter Sunday he was fully recovered (He couldn't have walked to Emmaus with two of them having been flogged and crucified three days earlier) must be false. However, lies have been dismissed due to (1) the honesty displayed in the New Testament accounts and (2) their refusal under torture to deny their claims.

(1) Using the Bible to prove the Bible - nope, sorry, won't wash, chummy;

(2) Which demonstrates only strength of belief, not truth of the thing believed in.

Since these points have been covered before I can only assume that you're either not reading or not understanding the responses made to you and, like Alan Burns, are merely stuck on repeat mode.

If you find your way out of it and have something non-fallacious to offer, let us know.

[floo]

Hi Bluehillside,

If you say that Jesus wasn't dead, then the claim that on Easter Sunday he was fully recovered (He couldn't have walked to Emmaus with two of them having been flogged and crucified three days earlier) must be false. However, lies have been dismissed due to (1) the honesty displayed in the New Testament accounts and (2) their refusal under torture to deny their claims.

How do you know the NT accounts are honest?

As I have said before Islamic suicide bombers are happy to die for their faith, which I take it you don't believe in?

[bluehillside Retd.]

Hi Spud,

If you say that Jesus wasn't dead, then the claim that on Easter Sunday he was fully recovered (He couldn't have walked to Emmaus with two of them having been flogged and crucified three days earlier) must be false.

Why? What specialist knowledge do you have about, say, recovery from coma that would lead you to that conclusion? How for example would you know that he couldn’t have come round one day after the event, then spent a couple of days getting his strength back?

All that’s necessary here is to show that Jesus wasn’t necessarily dead because reports of a witness account said that he was – a simple thing to do. How probable any one of the various naturalistic alternatives to a resurrection might be is debatable, but you have to concede that one or more of them is at least possible.

And when you do that, then any claim of reason-based certainty fails. That’s the point: say “I think it more likely than not that Jesus was resurrected” if you want to but you have not basis for certainty.   

However, lies have been dismissed due to (1) the honesty displayed in the New Testament accounts and (2) their refusal under torture to deny their claims.

First that doesn’t exclude at least the possibility of lying at all. Lots of people have died under torture for their beliefs.

Second though, lying is just one of the options. “Jesus looked dead to me” is all that would have been necessary for the germ of the story to take root, and the life it took on after that need not have involved that being a lie for it to be mistaken nonetheless. In other words, that the statement may have been honestly made tells you nothing at all about whether it was correct.   

[Owlswing]

Hi Bluehillside,

If you say that Jesus wasn't dead, then the claim that on Easter Sunday he was fully recovered (He couldn't have walked to Emmaus with two of them having been flogged and crucified three days earlier) must be false. However, lies have been dismissed due to (1) the honesty displayed in the New Testament accounts and (2) their refusal under torture to deny their claims.

Spud

By what evidence do you claim "the honesty displayed in the NT"?

How do you know the NT accounts are "honest"?

My guess is that you claim honesty because your whole belief system is based upon a claim that the NT is honest and the whole edifice comes crashing down in a pile of s**t if it is not so honest!

At the present moment the posibilities relating to the 'honesty' of the NT accounts range from 100% true to 100% fiction; with fiction, at the moment, being the most likely.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Owls.

By what evidence do you claim "the honesty displayed in the NT"?

How do you know the NT accounts are "honest"?

My guess is that you claim honesty because your whole belief system is based upon a claim that the NT is honest and the whole edifice comes crashing down in a pile of s**t if it is not so honest!

At the present moment the posibilities relating to the 'honesty' of the NT accounts range from 100% true to 100% fiction; with fiction, at the moment, being the most likely.

I think the honesty issue is a secondary or even a tertiary one in any case (as is tilting at straw man of conspiracy). Even if a contemporary witness had said, “he looked dead to me” and even if those words were repeated accurately decades later and through many re-tellings, that would still tell you nothing about whether the original observation was correctly made. That’s the point: not whether a witness said what he thought he saw, but that he had no definitive way of knowing whether what he thought he saw was what actually happened.

And on such a foundation of sand has 2,000 years of faith-based certainty been built. 

[Gordon]

Hi Bluehillside,

If you say that Jesus wasn't dead, then the claim that on Easter Sunday he was fully recovered (He couldn't have walked to Emmaus with two of them having been flogged and crucified three days earlier) must be false.

It could be false, Spud: have you considered that possibility?

However, lies have been dismissed due to (1) the honesty displayed in the New Testament accounts and (2) their refusal under torture to deny their claims.

Nope: people are fallible and can be misled, Spud, even if they are sincere in their beliefs, and that some suffered for them doesn't substantiate the details of what they believed.

[jeremyp]

Spud,

Or from witnesses who would have been close enough to be sure of what they saw, for example by examining the body.

Or from a medical specialist somehow able to ascertain that for example he wasn’t actually witnessing a deep coma.

Or from a witness who actually said, “Jesus was clinically dead” rather than, say, “Jesus looked to me from my vantage point as if he was dead”.

Or from a historian able to eliminate even the possibility of the story changing in the re-telling, especially given its remarkable similarity to resurrection stories from many religious beliefs that preceded it (the syncretism problem).

Or from someone with, say, both DNA technology and the access to use it so as significantly to reduce the risk of mistaken identity.

Or from…

…well you get the idea. So many possible naturalistic explanations, and yet such certainty that the answer was an actual resurrection.

If not for personal faith on the matter, how come?

Let's not overcomplicate things. Spud specifically mentioned disciples' testimonies, so let's start with that.

[jeremyp]

Hi Bluehillside,

If you say that Jesus wasn't dead, then the claim that on Easter Sunday he was fully recovered (He couldn't have walked to Emmaus with two of them having been flogged and crucified three days earlier) must be false.

Agree with that. Jesus was, of course dead, the story is false.

However, lies have been dismissed due to (1) the honesty displayed in the New Testament accounts

What honesty is that? How do you quantify the honesty of stories written by unknown authors years after the events?

and (2) their refusal under torture to deny their claims.

Whose refusal under torture to deny their claims? What evidence do you have that anybody did that?

Also, still waiting for this disciple testimony.

[Spud]

Agree with that. Jesus was, of course dead, the story is false.
What honesty is that? How do you quantify the honesty of stories written by unknown authors years after the events?
Whose refusal under torture to deny their claims? What evidence do you have that anybody did that?

Also, still waiting for this disciple testimony.

Good. The idea that he didn't die is silly.
See post 300. You could probably open the pages of the gospels at random and find an example of their honesty. Example, John 4:32 where they are rebutted by Jesus. This rebuttal is a continual feature of the accounts, and stresses the disciples' lack of understanding or faith.

Can you point to any testimony that is unambiguously from the disciples of Jesus?

You seem happy with the reliability of material that doesn't claim anything supernatural, such as that Jesus died. John ran faster than Peter to the tomb. Or Mark 4:36, where they cross the lake and Jesus calms a storm. There is an eyewitness detail added - there were other boats with them.

[Gordon]

Good. The idea that he didn't die is silly.

Possible, although it isn't certain he was crucified in the first place, but the problem bit isn't that he died but the claim that he didn't stay dead.
 

See post 300. You could probably open the pages of the gospels at random and find an example of their honesty. Example, John 4:32 where they are rebutted by Jesus. This rebuttal is a continual feature of the accounts, and stresses the disciples' lack of understanding or faith.You seem happy with the reliability of material that doesn't claim anything supernatural, such as that Jesus died. John ran faster than Peter to the tomb. Or Mark 4:36, where they cross the lake and Jesus calms a storm. There is an eyewitness detail added - there were other boats with them.

How do know these reports aren't wrong or fabricated? You seem highly predisposed to take them at face value.

[floo]

Good. The idea that he didn't die is silly.
See post 300. You could probably open the pages of the gospels at random and find an example of their honesty. Example, John 4:32 where they are rebutted by Jesus. This rebuttal is a continual feature of the accounts, and stresses the disciples' lack of understanding or faith.You seem happy with the reliability of material that doesn't claim anything supernatural, such as that Jesus died. John ran faster than Peter to the tomb. Or Mark 4:36, where they cross the lake and Jesus calms a storm. There is an eyewitness detail added - there were other boats with them.

Eye witnesses reporting something which is claimed to be supernatural have to be treated sceptically.  I know I have used this illustration many times, but it appears to be a good example, soldiers claimed to see the Angel of Mons during WW1 after a journalist had written it up as a story.

[Shaker]

Good. The idea that he didn't die is silly.

That's Christianity for you.

[bluehillside Retd.]

jeremy,

Let's not overcomplicate things. Spud specifically mentioned disciples' testimonies, so let's start with that.

But that's the point - there are multiple possible explanations for someone being reported to be alive then dead for a bit then alive again, and lying is probably fairly low on the list of those. Whichever way you look at it, even an honest as the day is long witness could have been mistaken - and that's all that's necessary to detonate Spud et al's assertion of certainty.   

[bluehillside Retd.]

Spud,

Good. The idea that he didn't die is silly.

First, why is it silly? Misdiagnosis of death was fairly common before we had the technology to confirm it, even more so when (presumably) all the witness in the crowd would have seen would have been a limp body taken down from a cross. Looking dead and actually being dead are not in other words necessarily the same thing. 

Second, silly or not it's still possible. And if an alternative is possible, you have no basis for certainty about the explanation you prefer.

[DaveM]

Spud,

First, why is it silly? Misdiagnosis of death was fairly common before we had the technology to confirm it, even more so when (presumably) all the witness in the crowd would have seen would have been a limp body taken down from a cross. Looking dead and actually being dead are not in other words necessarily the same thing. 

What the witnesses in the crowd may or may not have seen and may or may not have concluded from what they saw is of no consequence.  Pilate needed confirmation that Jesus was dead before giving permission for the body to be handed over for burial.  This confirmation he obtained from the Centurion tasked with overseeing the crucifixion, who would have been in very close proximity.  He almost certainly would have seen much violent death and many crucifixions.  He also had no emotional involvement in the proceedings.  While this does not eliminate the possibility that he made a mistake it certainly reduces the likelihood substantially.

[Spud]

Spud,

First, why is it silly? Misdiagnosis of death was fairly common before we had the technology to confirm it, even more so when (presumably) all the witness in the crowd would have seen would have been a limp body taken down from a cross. Looking dead and actually being dead are not in other words necessarily the same thing. 

Second, silly or not it's still possible. And if an alternative is possible, you have no basis for certainty about the explanation you prefer.

The reason I said it is silly is because it was a professional soldier who carried it out, and with the express purpose of making sure he was dead, at that.
Besides all of Jeremy's posts are divinely inspired.

[Spud]

jeremy,

But that's the point - there are multiple possible explanations for someone being reported to be alive then dead for a bit then alive again, and lying is probably fairly low on the list of those. Whichever way you look at it, even an honest as the day is long witness could have been mistaken - and that's all that's necessary to detonate Spud et al's assertion of certainty.   

The mistake theory: well they knew it was Jesus who was killed - they'd spent three years with him. Clearly he was dead, and the tomb was empty on the Sunday - they had watched his burial so they would know where the tomb was when they returned. Did they see an apparition? No, it was a real body that could ingest food.
They knew it was him on the Sunday because he showed them his injuries.
So the only remaining possibility is Gordon's suggestion that the apparent honesty displayed in the gospels is fabricated, ie all the admissions of failure to understand, hard heartedness etc.
But that would be equivalent to lies, since they claim it to be a true account. And we have dismissed lies.
It's looking more like a true and accurate story by the day.

[Shaker]

Who has dismissed lies?

[Rhiannon]

Who has dismissed lies?

Spud has, clearly.

[Shaker]

If that was the case surely "We have dismissed lies" should've been "I have dismissed lies"

[Rhiannon]

If that was the case surely "We have dismissed lies" should've been "I have dismissed lies"

I suspect he's not the only one. 'We' appears to include Vlad too.