More on the gospels.

[bluehillside Retd.]

But considering Christianity is a world religion what makes non adherence of a small country (who have perhaps the most entrenched position of national chosenness) significant for it.

Ooh - survivorship bias makes an ever-welcome return I see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

[ProfessorDavey]

But considering Christianity is a world religion what makes non adherence of a small country (who have perhaps the most entrenched position of national chosenness) significant for it.

It is a world religion now, it wasn't then. The point is (and remains) that Christianity failed to persuade the eyewitnesses (those living in the place and at the time where the events purportedly happened) that it was true.

That Christianity had the good luck to have acquired a great PR person (Paul, also not an eye witness) along the way it rather irrelevant. You might be able to persuade people in far off lands and decades later of myths (has happened all the time), but if you cannot persuade the people around at the time, that is very, very telling.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The bottom line is that unlike Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam and Sikhism, Christianity failed to take root where it arose. It's claims weren't sufficient to persuade the people who were alive at the time, and living in the place where the purported events happened. To put it bluntly, the eye witnesses were not persuaded in any meaningful numbers.

Wasn't Buddha an Indian Prince?

There were Jewish Christians and they got chucked out.

All you've done here is look at a unique feature and massaged it into significance. It isn't...and it certainly isn't a ''bottom'' line.

[ProfessorDavey]

learly the vast majority did not witness this so there must be more to Christianity than an empirical sensual approach.

But according to the gospels the resurrected Jesus appeared to 500 people in one place - given the fairly small population at the time you'd attract most of the population of Jerusalem if each of those people told their immediate family and friend of this 'astonishing' occurrence. Yet they were largely totally unmoved by this 'miracle' - so either dead people wandering around alive again was a common thing back then so nothing to write home about or ... whisper it quietly ... it never happened.

[ProfessorDavey]

There were Jewish Christians and they got chucked out.

All new religions are likely to be seen as a threat to the established order - yet the other major religions were still able to take root and establish themselves where they arose - the people living in the place and time were persuaded - unlike christianity.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It is a world religion now, it wasn't then. The point is (and remains) that Christianity failed to persuade the eyewitnesses (those living in the place and at the time where the events purportedly happened) that it was true.

An eyewitness is usually someone who sees the events................ are you saying that the resurrection was seen by all the Jews?

Your thesis is thus flawed from the get go.

Your sentiment also contradicts Gordon and Hillside who state that those living in the place and at the time were gullible and would buy anything.

Well we can see that jewish christianity was one of many sects and Christians were accepted in the synagogues. However foreigners would have been among their number and doctrinal differences would have become different and then the whole thing...the whole religious milieu was upset by the destruction of the temple.


None of this history appears in your amazing account where eyewitness supposedly number everybody and they don't believe there eyes.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But according to the gospels the resurrected Jesus appeared to 500 people in one place - given the fairly small population at the time you'd attract most of the population of Jerusalem if each of those people told their immediate family and friend of this 'astonishing' occurrence. Yet they were largely totally unmoved by this 'miracle' - so either dead people wandering around alive again was a common thing back then so nothing to write home about or ... whisper it quietly ... it never happened.

I disagree, I suspect a lot of family and friends would think they were having their legs pulled.
You seem to be ignoring the parts of the New Testament which talk about large numbers joining the ranks of the believers.

500 at once what's that? The audience of a small regional cinema in the forties on a good day?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

All new religions are likely to be seen as a threat to the established order - yet the other major religions were still able to take root and establish themselves where they arose - the people living in the place and time were persuaded - unlike christianity.

Then you should be able to recount the location of the establishment of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sihkism, Islam, Judaism to within what? fifty miles and show that it prospered there...…….but even if you manage that, how is that significant?

[jeremyp]

In 2000 years' time, if no further lunar landings are attempted, all people will have as evidence is some documentation and video recording. Will that be enough for them to believe we landed a man on the moon?

Also, it's entirely possible that some of the hardware used to land on the Moon will still exist and the Moon rocks. Plus the "some documentation and video recordings" amount to vastly more than the very meagre documentation on Jesus. Plus putting a man on the Moon is plausible. Dead people coming alive again is not.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Ooh - survivorship bias makes an ever-welcome return I see:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

Are you saying Judaism never survived?

If there is survivorship bias surely Davey is making it by talking about the extinction (or even possibly suggesting the non existence) of a Christian community in Palestine.

But then as he is of your tribe you couldn't possibly criticise him could you?........

[ProfessorDavey]

500 at once what's that? The audience of a small regional cinema in the forties on a good day?

But they weren't watching a film were they - allegedly they were seeing a dead man alive again. Had that actually happened it would have spread like wildfire. Unless dead people coming alive again was as unremarkable as a 1950s B movie in the 1stC ... or ... it never happened.

[Spud]

That's non-sense - we need to consider proximity both in time and geography.

Time - most experts suggest the gospels were written sometime between about 70AD (Mark) and 110AD - John. Given life expectancy in the 1stC (probably only 40-50 assuming you survived childhood) there would be fairly few eye witnesses still alive, even by the time Mark was written.

But you also need to consider geographic proximity - most eye witnesses would have remained in Palestine - but of course Christianity failed to take root there, so the gospels when they arose appeared in places hundreds or thousands of miles away and written in languages alien to those eye witnesses.

Taken together I think the numbers of actual eye witnesses to the purported events in the gospel who actually saw (and could understand) what was actually written in the gospels decades later would have been vanishingly small.

What we do know, however, is that the events purported to have occurred in the gospels were not sufficiently compelling to mean that christianity gained a foothold amongst that community of eye witnesses. That tells you everything you need to know, really.

Paul wrote, in about 53-57 AD,
"3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that He appeared to Cephasa and then to the Twelve. 6After that, He appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8And last of all He appeared to me also, as to one of untimely birth."
Here we have a summary of the death and resurrection accounts from a time when there were still living witnesses. So even if the gospels were written after the last of them had gone, their message had been recorded already.

[ProfessorDavey]

I disagree, I suspect a lot of family and friends would think they were having their legs pulled.

Really - why wouldn't they trust a close family member or friend - particularly as presumably their neighbour or a more distant relative would be saying the same thing.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

But they weren't watching a film were they -

Irrelevent, You were suggesting that 500 witness testimonies should have been large enough to influence the population. I'm just pointing outhow small that number is in even a regional context.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Really - why wouldn't they trust a close family member or friend - particularly as presumably their neighbour or a more distant relative would be saying the same thing.

I'm sure some may have believed the testimony.

Some would have believed it and believed that Jesus was merely a raised prophet

Others would treat it like a leg pull

Others would think family members and friends would have been hoaxed

Some would have disowned family and friends for suggesting something blasphemous

[Spud]

As I said though, I have no idea how even conceptually you could have evidence for a miracle.       

John says he saw the crucifixion, the stabbing afterwards, and the marks these left on the person he saw alive again. He didn't witness the actual miracle but the miracle's fingerprints. For us his account is anecdotal, but it is corroborated by Luke and Matthew. So we have something like a "cold case" from which new evidence can emerge from re-examined archives. "New technical methods developed after the case can be used on the surviving evidence to analyze the causes, often with conclusive results." (Wiki) this is ongoing, as computers can generate information that can confirm details in the accounts, such as (for example) the most common names in first century Palestine.

[jeremyp]

What we do know, however, is that the events purported to have occurred in the gospels were not sufficiently compelling to mean that christianity gained a foothold amongst that community of eye witnesses. That tells you everything you need to know, really.

I think it is debatable as to whether Christianity gained a foothold in Palestine. I think it did.

Paul tells us that there was a Christian church in Jerusalem. He visited it and conversed/argued with its leaders twice. It would have been destroyed along with just about everything else there when the Romans destroyed the place in 70.

70, by the way, is around the earliest date considered to be plausible for any of the gospels. So not only would anybody trying to verify them have to contend with distance in time and physical distance (it took about three months to travel from one end of the empire to the other), but also they would have to contend with the fact that, once they arrived in Jerusalem, they would have found it flattened and its occupants dispersed to who knows where - or slaughtered.

[ProfessorDavey]

Some would have believed it and believed that Jesus was merely a raised prophet

What are you on about - what on earth is a 'raised prophet' - is it a bit like a raised flower bed?!?

[jeremyp]

What are you on about - what on earth is a 'raised prophet' - is it a bit like a raised flower bed?!?

It's a spelling mistake. He means razed.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Just to note that there were no witnesses to a miracle by the way. There were (perhaps) witnesses to someone who appeared to be Jesus appearing to be dead, and there were (perhaps) witnesses to someone who appeared to be Jesus walking around fresh as a daisy three days later. The miracle part though - ie, stopping being dead - would have been in the tomb with a big rock in front of it. So far as I know there was no-one else in there to do any witnessing.

So, at best, what we have is people witnessing the setup and people witnessing the reveal, some of whom then reasoned that there must have been a miracle in between, only no-one saw that bit. And this, oddly, if precisely how a magician works - lots of attention on the setup, quick hiding behind the curtain, clap like fury at the reveal and leave the audience to decide that some magic must have happened behind that inconveniently placed roc - er - curtain.   

Funny that.     

[Walt Zingmatilder]

It's a spelling mistake. He means razed.

No he doesn't razed is when you level something....the opposite of being raised in this case from the dead.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

What are you on about - what on earth is a 'raised prophet' - is it a bit like a raised flower bed?!?

A prophet who has been raised from the dead.

 Easy not to get that, particularly when you have been online for an hour on the topic of resurrection.

[Spud]

Let's unpack that a little. The Muslims are being oppressed and yet they don't give up being Muslims.  That means they surely believe their faith is the true faith. Do you agree with them? If you do, why are you not a Muslim? If you don't, then it should be obvious that people strongly believing something, even to the point of death, is not a good indicator of its truth.

The original point was that a person generally wouldn't die for something that he consciously knew to be untrue. This was to answer the point that the disciples made up their story. If Islamic suicide bombers didn't believe their faith was the true faith, they wouldn't do what they do. So they can't be compared with early Christian martyrs.

[jeremyp]

Just to note that there were no witnesses to a miracle by the way. There were (perhaps) witnesses to someone who appeared to be Jesus appearing to be dead, and there were (perhaps) witnesses to someone who appeared to be Jesus walking around fresh as a daisy three days later. The miracle part though - ie, stopping being dead - would have been in the tomb with a big rock in front of it. So far as I know there was no-one else in there to do any witnessing.

So, at best, what we have is people witnessing the setup and people witnessing the reveal, some of whom then reasoned that there must have been a miracle in between, only no-one saw that bit. And this, oddly, if precisely how a magician works - lots of attention on the setup, quick hiding behind the curtain, clap like fury at the reveal and leave the audience to decide that some magic must have happened behind that inconveniently placed roc - er - curtain.   

Funny that.     

None of the gospels have a description of the actual raising from the dead. Furthermore, if you read what each gospel says about the post resurrection appearances of Jesus, you'll find that all three accounts are different. Mark doesn't have any post resurrection appearances (the original is cut off at 16:8 ) and the other three all disagree about what happened next. In my opinion, all three of Matthew, Luke and John were working from Mark's account and when they got to 16:8 they thought "what? it can't just end there", so they each made up post resurrection stories. Later, some scribe of the New Testament was copying out Mark and thought "what? it can't just end there", so he made up a new ending by précising the other three gospels and tacking it on.

[ProfessorDavey]

A prophet who has been raised from the dead.

So you are claiming that dead people coming alive was a 'nothing to write home about', 'happens all the time' thing in the 1stC are you?

Non-sense of course - but to follow through with your argument (for the sake of humouring you) if dead people coming alive was a common occurrence, why should we consider the dead Jesus coming alive again as anything other than 'well that's what used to happen all the time back in those days'.