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Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?

Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?

  • Yes.

    Votes: 34 40.5%

  • No, because you generally cannot prove a negative and it happened too long ago to do so now.

    Votes: 50 59.5%
  • Total voters
    84
  • Poll closed .
rakovsky said:
... 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.
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But not sceptical in the same way as contemplating a report that a dead person had revived after three days.

The European scholar would be familiar with smaller lizards, reptiles secreting poison, and plants that consume insects. The Indonesia report would have consisted of scaled up versions of familiar things; all natural, none miraculous. A report of a dead person wakening up, on the other hand, would have been rejected as impossible, or as an illusion - the person really awoke from a coma - or it would have been believed through faith as a miracle.

This is entirely different from the lizard example.
 
rakovsky said:
[...snip...]

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?
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If one of your premises is that scientifically "next to impossible" is not enough, then no, there are no "more proofs" that it didn't happen. If there were, they would only serve to make it scientifically even nexter to impossible.
 
devnull said:
which kinda destroys the whole "died for our sins" thing I guess.....
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Was this just a construct that was raised (no pun intended) after the fact to account for something that was beyond their understanding, or did the writers know (or figure out) what happened and took advantage of the ignorance of the masses?
 
smartcooky said:
Was this just a construct that was raised (no pun intended) after the fact to account for something that was beyond their understanding, or did the writers know (or figure out) what happened and took advantage of the ignorance of the masses?
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Some one, some the other, probably.
 
it seems fairly obvious to me that there probably was some guy named Jesus. or jeshua, or even more likely a few of them that wandered around claiming to be the messiah. IIRR there was a surfeit of them at the time. possibly he even said things like love thy neighbour etc....however, just as in preachers today, this does NOT make you the son of god... and certainly doesn't get you a resurrection..
 
mikado said:
it seems fairly obvious to me that there probably was some guy named Jesus. or jeshua, or even more likely a few of them that wandered around claiming to be the messiah. IIRR there was a surfeit of them at the time. possibly he even said things like love thy neighbour etc....however, just as in preachers today, this does NOT make you the son of god... and certainly doesn't get you a resurrection..
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What about Brian? Oh yes, of course, he's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy!!
 
I think that the bigger problem is that the resurrection is actually pretty irrelevant, once you think about it. Not only miracles happened even in the bible without being backed by God (e.g., the Pharaoh's priests perform their own miracles, without having God's favour), but even in the Gospels someone puts forward the hypothesis that Jesus is using Satan's power to perform exorcisms. And, frankly, Jesus's answer, namely that Satan wouldn't work against his own demons, 'cause then he'd weaken himself, is extra weak sauce.

So can you disprove that Jesus was some guy resurrected by Satan, to test the faith of Yahweh's flock? I mean, even Christian theology (cf, for example, Augustine) allows that Satan can work miracles and cause transformations, just not permanent ones. Permanent is the privilege of God. But Jesus doesn't stay resurrected for ever. It's a resurrection that lasts only 40 days, which is temporary enough to be allowable for Satan even by Christian theology.

Can you disprove that it was Ba'al, who wanted to subvert this upstart god Yahweh?

Can you disprove that it was all illusions that a bored Loki did as a prank?

Can you disprove that it was a vampire, who never really died the final death, because it wasn't staked and stuffed with garlic?

Can you disprove that he wasn't raised by some necromancer raising a lot of undead, or otherwise get caught in some larger resurrection event that wasn't caused by HIM? According to Matthew, the whole cemeteries around Jerusalem were having the dead raising for like two days straight before Jesus himself raised too. He's definitely not patient zero there, so to speak.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

Thing is, even if I were to grant that he existed and the resurrection actually happened, that doesn't prove that he was the son of God or even working for God at all.
 
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Aepervius said:
"resurrections" actually do happen even nowadays, people waking up after being put in the fridge. I am pretty sure we also have evidence for some tombs that people died in them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_being_buried_alive

"Before the advent of modern medicine, the fear was not entirely irrational. Throughout history, there have been numerous cases of people being buried alive by accident. In 1905, the English reformer William Tebb collected accounts of premature burial. He found 219 cases of near live burial, 149 actual live burials, 10 cases of live dissection and 2 cases of awakening while being embalmed"

As you can see, it is not a stretch to think after being put in a cold tomb the guy woke up for a short time, then somebody heard it, was found in it, then he died shortly after.

Frankly the problem is not resurrection as it is not as dis-believable as one might think (it is more like resuscitation) the problem is the supernatural claim. And to disprove those : good luck.
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Interesting. But in fact, these people were not actually dead, someone mistook them for dead. Hence, not a "resurrection". If a competent doctor had examined them, he probably would have concluded that they were alive. There would have been no rigor mortis for example. If you put a small mirror in front of their mouth and nose, it would have fogged. Some test could have proven they were still alive, if someone had thought to perform the test and had the proper equipment. At what point is it that we can say that a person is "not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead"? Is it after rigor mortis sets in? I don't think anyone comes back after that, but I'm just a layman here.

In answer to the OP's question though, speaking only for myself, no, I cannot "prove" it didn't happen, but I don't think I need to "prove" anything. The burden of proof is not on me. It's enough for me to say that it would have required a miracle, and I don't believe in miracles. OR, within the realm of scientific possibly, a situation like the one described by Aepervius occurred, where some observers mistakenly believed he was dead, when in fact he wasn't. That could happen without a miracle, although it's unlikely. But admitting that latter possibility means it wasn't any kind of divine miracle and rather invalidates the whole notion of "he died for our sins" or "he died to save the world".
 
Equally intriguing questions:

Can one disprove leprechauns?

Can one disprove Jack and the Beanstalk?

No, if one allows the possibility of miracles from a deity, than the possibility of these things being true is just as great as the possibility of Jesus's resurrection.

But I don't think I need to disprove any of these. They are all prima facie ridiculous and that's more than enough for me to disbelieve them. YMMV.
 
DLH said:
If you do that you will be confronted with the following questions, which the Bible will address.

1. Jesus existed before he was a man on Earth, as a higher form of intelligent life. Even before the Earth, heaven and universe were created.

2. He had come to Earth in the past as Jehovah God's Word, or spokesman, at various times in the form of various men.

3. Jesus' specific bodily sacrifice was for one time only, and having sacrificed that physical body he couldn't have it back.

4. The angels took that body away.

5. Some of Jesus followers didn't recognize him at first.

The current skeptical criticism of "a zombie on a stick" isn't very accurate.
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First of all, none of those are questions.

Second, we know what sort of claims are to be found in the Bible (or assembled from different elements within it). We also know what claims are found in other sources like the Book Of Mormon, or Dianetics.
 
DLH said:
You would think that when either a believer or a skeptic becomes antiquated with an issue, especially if the issue is important or in question, the proper methodology would be, like the Beroeans, (Acts 17:12-15) to check the facts, as, in this case, given by the Bible. Unfortunately that isn't the case. The Believers believe blind and the skeptics follow their lead.

Most of the responses in this thread so far are a demonstration of that. Set aside for the sake of integrity the intellectually retarded knee jerk reaction and look at the facts as presented in the Bible in order to determine accurate knowledge.

If you do that you will be confronted with the following questions, which the Bible will address.

1. Jesus existed before he was a man on Earth, as a higher form of intelligent life. Even before the Earth, heaven and universe were created.

2. He had come to Earth in the past as Jehovah God's Word, or spokesman, at various times in the form of various men.

3. Jesus' specific bodily sacrifice was for one time only, and having sacrificed that physical body he couldn't have it back.

4. The angels took that body away.

5. Some of Jesus followers didn't recognize him at first.

The current skeptical criticism of "a zombie on a stick" isn't very accurate.
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1) Those aren't questions, they are claims.
2) When you say "the Bible will address", are you suggesting that the proof for the Bible is in the Bible?
 
DLH said:
You would think that when either a believer or a skeptic becomes acquainted with an issue, especially if the issue is important or in question, the proper methodology would be, like the Beroeans, (Acts 17:12-15) to check the facts, as, in this case, given by the Bible. Unfortunately that isn't the case. The Believers believe blind and the skeptics follow their lead.

Most of the responses in this thread so far are a demonstration of that. Set aside for the sake of integrity the intellectually retarded knee jerk reaction and look at the facts as presented in the Bible in order to determine accurate knowledge.

If you do that you will be confronted with the following questions, which the Bible will address.

1. Jesus existed before he was a man on Earth, as a higher form of intelligent life. Even before the Earth, heaven and universe were created.

2. He had come to Earth in the past as Jehovah God's Word, or spokesman, at various times in the form of various men.

3. Jesus' specific bodily sacrifice was for one time only, and having sacrificed that physical body he couldn't have it back.

4. The angels took that body away.

5. Some of Jesus followers didn't recognize him at first.

The current skeptical criticism of "a zombie on a stick" isn't very accurate.
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I put in red why your reasoning fall like a card castle : without good premise you only get a case of GIGO. Your assumption (and premise) is that the bible fact reflect accurately the historical reality. Remove that premise and all your point fall down. Problem is, we know that some passage of the bible do NOT reflect accurately history.
 
It's not just GIGO, which would just raise the issue of whether the argument is sound, it's begging the question, a.k.a., circular reasoning, which moves the issue to the more serious level that the argument isn't even valid. You can't use the veracity of bible as the premise, when the veracity of the bible is actually the conclusion.

Since the bible is the only source for the resurrection, the question of whether the resurrection actually occurred is inherently fully equivalent to whether the source is true about the event.

Same as, dunno, if I were claim to have a sister called Maxine. The question of whether Maxine actually exists is fully equivalent to asking whether I'm not lying about it.

And one can't assume the source to be accurate, in order to prove that the source is accurate. You can't just assume that I'm telling the truth about Maxine, to show that... I'm telling the truth about Maxine. Ditto for the bible and the resurrection.
 
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