When one makes a claim, the person making the claim has a burden of proof. So someone claiming that the Resurrection occurred has the burden of prove if they want to show it. Otherwise, the claim remains unproven, lacking a sufficient basis for belief. However, this does not necessarily mean that the claim is incorrect.
For example, imagine that a 17th century world traveler claimed that he saw a large land lizard with deadly saliva in the region of Indonesia, where he also found plants that trap animals as big as birds and rats to eat. Now, that traveler might describe what he saw, but so long as he did not actually bring back any specimens and no one else confirmed his reports, a scholar could have been very skeptical. Scientists could rightly state that he/she did not do enough to prove his/her very unusual claim, and that the world traveler could be a sensationalist who misportrayed what/he she saw.
Now in reality, such unusual creatures do exist as the explorer described, and the mere fact that he failed to prove them to his colleagues didn't mean that they did not exist. Thus, simply because a claimant failed to meet his burden of proof doesn't mean necessarily that something doesn't exist.
This leads me to ask my main question:
Can one not only effectively question proofs of Jesus' resurrection, but also "prove a negative" and disprove that event?
To give another example, the Mormons claim that the Native Americans came from the ancient Israelites. For a long time this idea had a certain currency outside Mormon circles of the time. However, now with effective DNA research, that Mormon claim can be successfully disproved.
To return to the question about Christianity, are there actually strong proofs that successfully prove that the Resurrection was not just extremely scientifically unlikely/miraculous, but also clearly did not happen?
The main reason I can think of to disprove it is the one I mentioned in passing above- scientific unlikelihood. Actually, I think it might happen that people who have been dead for a short period of time come back to life/resuscitate. Usually in such cases the physicians say that the victims did not have an identifiable sign of life. But perhaps the person's life was simply so weak that it was not detected and thus the person actually remained alive the whole time they were thought to be alive.
But the main miracles go beyond just resuscitation after clinical death to include virgin birth and Ascension. As for those cases, it's outside of our knowledge of science and our experience in the world that people are born of virgins and visibly ascend after death. I suppose that theoretically a virgin could conceive but it's next to impossible. And I suppose that ghosts exist and can be seen by people, but it would be even more unlikely for multiple people to watch them at length ascend to the sky.
Thus, from a purely scientific standpoint, these events are next to impossible. Yet for believers, the justification is made that God can do anything, and so they look to signs like ancient prophecies (Psalm 22) that God would perform resurrection. Still, scientific unlikelihood is a major objection.
With that in mind, are there still more proofs that the Resurrection didn't occur?
For example, imagine that a 17th century world traveler claimed that he saw a large land lizard with deadly saliva in the region of Indonesia, where he also found plants that trap animals as big as birds and rats to eat. Now, that traveler might describe what he saw, but so long as he did not actually bring back any specimens and no one else confirmed his reports, a scholar could have been very skeptical. Scientists could rightly state that he/she did not do enough to prove his/her very unusual claim, and that the world traveler could be a sensationalist who misportrayed what/he she saw.
Now in reality, such unusual creatures do exist as the explorer described, and the mere fact that he failed to prove them to his colleagues didn't mean that they did not exist. Thus, simply because a claimant failed to meet his burden of proof doesn't mean necessarily that something doesn't exist.
This leads me to ask my main question:
Can one not only effectively question proofs of Jesus' resurrection, but also "prove a negative" and disprove that event?
To give another example, the Mormons claim that the Native Americans came from the ancient Israelites. For a long time this idea had a certain currency outside Mormon circles of the time. However, now with effective DNA research, that Mormon claim can be successfully disproved.
To return to the question about Christianity, are there actually strong proofs that successfully prove that the Resurrection was not just extremely scientifically unlikely/miraculous, but also clearly did not happen?
The main reason I can think of to disprove it is the one I mentioned in passing above- scientific unlikelihood. Actually, I think it might happen that people who have been dead for a short period of time come back to life/resuscitate. Usually in such cases the physicians say that the victims did not have an identifiable sign of life. But perhaps the person's life was simply so weak that it was not detected and thus the person actually remained alive the whole time they were thought to be alive.
But the main miracles go beyond just resuscitation after clinical death to include virgin birth and Ascension. As for those cases, it's outside of our knowledge of science and our experience in the world that people are born of virgins and visibly ascend after death. I suppose that theoretically a virgin could conceive but it's next to impossible. And I suppose that ghosts exist and can be seen by people, but it would be even more unlikely for multiple people to watch them at length ascend to the sky.
Thus, from a purely scientific standpoint, these events are next to impossible. Yet for believers, the justification is made that God can do anything, and so they look to signs like ancient prophecies (Psalm 22) that God would perform resurrection. Still, scientific unlikelihood is a major objection.
With that in mind, are there still more proofs that the Resurrection didn't occur?
