Can one disprove Jesus' resurrection?

[tsig]

We're not talking about natural processes. We're talking about magic a miracle.

How can we possibly know that a miracle didn't happen two thousand years ago?

They aren't happening now and the same physical rules were in place then as now.

 

[Brian-M]

They aren't happening now and the same physical rules were in place then as now.

That's the whole thing about miracles. They're rare exemptions to the physical rules. You can't prove that they're not happening now, let alone on one specific occasion with no verifiable eyewitness accounts a couple of thousand years ago.

It's the same way that you can't prove that magic fairies don't exist now, and you certainly can't disprove a claim that a magic fairy regularly visited Isaac Newton when he was a young child. (Of course, nobody is making that claim. But if they did, you couldn't disprove it.)

 

[barehl]

With that in mind, are there still more proofs that the Resurrection didn't occur?

I think we should go right to the source. First they did not recognize him.

Luke 24:15-16
As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.
As soon as they did recognize him, he vanished.

Luke 24:30-31
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.
So then he appears to the eleven remaining disciples:

Luke 24:36
While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you."

They know him so they'll be happy to see him:

Luke 24:37
They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost.

Well, okay, maybe they are superstitious. He just needs to show them that he is solid:

Luke 24:38-40
He said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." When he had said this, he showed them his hands and feet.

Okay, that should do it. Now they'll believe:

Luke 24:41
And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement
So, the people who knew him didn't believe it. Seems like counter-proof to me.

 

[Leumas]

That's the whole thing about miracles. They're rare exemptions to the physical rules. You can't prove that they're not happening now, let alone on one specific occasion with no verifiable eyewitness accounts a couple of thousand years ago.

It's the same way that you can't prove that magic fairies don't exist now, and you certainly can't disprove a claim that a magic fairy regularly visited Isaac Newton when he was a young child. (Of course, nobody is making that claim. But if they did, you couldn't disprove it.)

But the very same people who vehemently demand 100% certainty that biblical magic was not real would laugh at and dismiss anyone who demands 100% certainty that fairies are not real or even other gods and claims for their magic.

So why all this special pleading for Jesus' sake?

I have my own hypothesis for why.... it is an attempt to assuage their throbbing pangs of a chronic cognitive dissonance on so many levels and variations touching their inner psyches.

Much like children who are driven to tears and dismay after discovering the extent of the duplicity of their society and parents in deceiving them for so long and in so many ways with the Santa fable.

They are desperate to prove that it is not all a big hoax like all the other woo they are increasingly beginning to realize is claptrap.

So they carry on ferociously debating against the fictiveness of the Jesus fables postulating tenuous modicums of possible likelihood of perhaps maybe something approaching a near similarity to some kind of similitude of a real person or an amalgam persona who they begrudgingly and with extreme consternation concede might maybe possibly not have had anything magical about him, but could have been a xenophobic zealously benighted fanatically religious Rabbi or terrorist or freedom fighter or old-new-age hippie or cult leader according to one's own wishful thinking for what one needs this Jesus to be.

 

[Craig B]

Its like job and the whale(fish sorry,can you believe Christians correct you on that,cos like that's the problem with that story) it didn't happen you can't live inside a fish,its not about proving negatives,its just impossible.

The Christians could correct that, because it was Jonah, not Job. But we can correct the Christians too. According to the Authorised Version, the Book of Jonah calls the creature a fish, but Jesus in Matthew calls it a whale.

Jonah 1:17 Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
Matthew 12:40 for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

 

[skeptichaggis]

Your right i thought it was Jonah, then convinced myself it was job. The claim that the ressurection is "magic" and can't be 100% disproved because magic would be outside normal rules of evidence, is I believe a perfect example of weasel words. The claim that we can't disprove Newton or pastuer or any other historical figure being visited by magic fairies is bogus.
We can't go back in time, but we can look at the fact that comparative anatomy,molecular biology and paleontology clearly indicate that a flying foot tall humanoid never existed anytime and certainly not in the days of wee dutch king billy.
The claim that the supernatural can circumvent rules of evidence, even just to the point of leaving a window crack of a chance open demeans us as a thinking species. Therefore I conclude(I understand some may disagree) that when a specific supernatural claim,especially of the magnitude of the ressurection or mohhamed splitting the moon are made we can definitely say they are 100% disproved.

 

[Mudcat]

Jesus had supposedly been dead and buried for three days and nights. I don't care what the Christians say, you aren't coming back from that.

 

[Garrette]

This may be taken as a lighthearted post, but I assure you I mean it seriously. I have read most of the first page of the thread and skimmed the remainder. It strikes me that the real response to the question "Can you disprove Jesus' resurrection" is simply the following:

"I have already done so. Can you disprove that I have?"

 

[Garrette]

Jesus had supposedly been dead and buried for three days and nights. I don't care what the Christians say, you aren't coming back from that.

That is, of course, one of the many issues. How burial on Friday evening and resurrection on Sunday morning becomes three days and three nights is beyond me.

 

[skeptichaggis]

Thing is if a christian asked me this I would point out the onus of proof is on the Christian to prove the ressurection not for me to disprove it. I wouldn't even bother pointing out ad someone above does that you don't come back from a three day decomposition party. What would be the point. Your talking to a guy who believes in talking snakes.

 

[skeptichaggis]

That is, of course, one of the many issues. How burial on Friday evening and resurrection on Sunday morning becomes three days and three nights is beyond me.

That's your problem,really,cos you know the whole being executed thing is what does it for me. I mean he was crucified ,had a spear thrust in his torso and before that had been beaten and flogged.
The mainstay of the ressurection claim is that he was dead,dead,dead and rotted for three days-oh sorry from Friday to sunday-then miraculously revived. Christians don't claim the romans just thought he was dead and he wasn't. That would make the whole thing moot in their eyes. They are adamant he was dead.
It did not happen,total guarantee, the ressurection is made up just like the hobbit but a lot less fun.

 

[JoeMorgue]

This conversation just proves you can't disprove anything when one side gets to invoke magic.

 

[Garrette]

That's your problem,

No, since I do not share the faith. The inconsistencies are no problem at all for me.

really,cos you know the whole being executed thing is what does it for me. I mean he was crucified ,had a spear thrust in his torso and before that had been beaten and flogged.
The mainstay of the ressurection claim is that he was dead,dead,dead and rotted for three days-oh sorry from Friday to sunday-then miraculously revived. Christians don't claim the romans just thought he was dead and he wasn't. That would make the whole thing moot in their eyes. They are adamant he was dead.

It might. If they choose to believe an internally contradictory book, it makes little difference to me. If they present that belief as if it were fact, I begin to notice. If they suggest their belief is valid because no one has disproven it, I notice more.

It did not happen,total guarantee, the ressurection is made up just like the hobbit but a lot less fun.

I agree.

 

[skeptichaggis]

This conversation just proves you can't disprove anything when one side gets to invoke magic.

That's a load of rubbish,just cos some imbecile makes a magic claim does not mean it is the least bit valid. I don't get it when people say I'm as sure as is possible that magic is not real buuut just maybe it is.
Magic is not real. Harry potter is not real. Gandalf is made up. Just because some similar claims are in old texts does not mean they are more real.
I am aware there is a bit of devils advocate in some opposing points of veiw ,and posters above who disagree are not saying that the ressurection happened.

 

[Tassman]

We're not talking about natural processes. We're talking about magic a miracle.

How can we possibly know that a miracle didn't happen two thousand years ago?

Well you can't prove it didn't happen but is it likely? Of course not! The laws of nature remain unchanged even if the gullibility of a credulous era has.

 

[Leumas]

That's a load of rubbish,just cos some imbecile makes a magic claim does not mean it is the least bit valid. I don't get it when people say I'm as sure as is possible that magic is not real buuut just maybe it is.
Magic is not real. Harry potter is not real. Gandalf is made up. Just because some similar claims are in old texts does not mean they are more real.
I am aware there is a bit of devils advocate in some opposing points of veiw ,and posters above who disagree are not saying that the ressurection happened.

Well you can't prove it didn't happen but is it likely? Of course not! The laws of nature remain unchanged even if the gullibility of a credulous era has.

 

[Mudcat]

That is, of course, one of the many issues. How burial on Friday evening and resurrection on Sunday morning becomes three days and three nights is beyond me.

I'm not sure if that span of time really helps the resurrection narrative or not. I strongly suspect it doesn't, though.

 

[rakovsky]

That is, of course, one of the many issues. How burial on Friday evening and resurrection on Sunday morning becomes three days and three nights is beyond me.

Hello, Garrette.

This is a tangent, but an interesting one. Yes, this is a very good question. The answer is that in ancient Jewish counting, as the Talmud explains, a part of a day was counted as a full 24 hour period (there is a Talmudic verse on this). The phrase "a day and a night" meant one such period. In addition, the 24 hour period of an ancient Jewish day started at sunset (eg. 6 PM). So for example Jesus was in the tomb starting on Friday in the daytime which is counted for the 24 hour period beginning on what we today would count as 6 PM on Thursday. So when it says that Jonah was in the whale 3 days and three nights it means 3 24 hour periods.

In fact, there are several cases in the Old Testament, when a person (Esther 4:16 was one such example) went through 3 of these 24 hour periods and it was stated in similar terms, even though if you calculated it, the person in the Old Testament story did not go through three actual 12 hour daylight days or three nights when each was counted alone. (eg. Esther didn't fast for three days or three nights if daylight days or nights are counted separately). I looked into this ancient "figure of speech" a lot, because I know that it doesn't sound right in modern terms and people ask questions about that all the time.

Yes I know it sounds weird and like a miscalculation, and it's a common objection, but that miscalculation was an ancient figure of speech that can be found in the Old Testament more than once.

 

[rakovsky]

Craig4 and Ladewig made good points.

Craig4 asked:

I will vote in the poll if the OP explains why this resurrection thingy is not an affirmative claim. If the resurrection happened, produce evidence.

Actually, I agree that the claim of Jesus' resurrection is an affirmative claim and it's the burden of its proponents to produce evidence like you asked. However, nonetheless in this poll I asked whether it was possible to disprove this claim, and in doing so I didn't even presume that the proponents had proved a prima facie case. So two of the answers that you could make would be to say that you don't need to because it hasn't been proven at all in your opinion in the first place, or that you can't disprove it since that would be proving a negative.

In any case, Ladewig made a piece of good advice when he suggested a poll option like "Other" or "Planet X". Would the administrator allow me to edit the poll to allow those choices?

 

[Leumas]

Craig4 and Ladewig made good points.

Craig4 asked:

Actually, I agree that the claim of Jesus' resurrection is an affirmative claim and it's the burden of its proponents to produce evidence like you asked. However, nonetheless in this poll I asked whether it was possible to disprove this claim, and in doing so I didn't even presume that the proponents had proved a prima facie case. So two of the answers that you could make would be to say that you don't need to because it hasn't been proven at all in your opinion in the first place, or that you can't disprove it since that would be proving a negative.
....

Yes... such as the claimants to the event were only reporting anecdotes of hearsay of hearsay of anecdotes

Which one of the disciples had god-like oversight powers to be able to observe the Devil's and Jesus' actions and conversations?




Which one of the NOT YET DISCIPLES was there at Jesus' baptism?

Did you read the NT? Did you read how every one of the disciples did not even know who Jesus was when he came to recruit them into his cult?

Did you read the NT? Which one of the disciples saw GOD SPEAKING FROM THE SKY to Jesus and tell him that he is his son and yet later had doubts about who Jesus was... was it Thomas?




So the disciples who have not been born yet were present during the rape session of Mary and saw that it was the Holy Spook indeed who impregnated her?

Some of the disciples could have participated with the very same dream that Joseph had?

While Jesus and John B were inside their mothers' wombs one of the disciples was watching and recording word for word what they said to each other and how the fetus John B was so moved by the presence of the fetus Jesus?

Mary telling the disciples that Jesus is the bastard son of the Holy Casper regardless of how gullible the disciples were does not make the disciples or the gospel writers eyewitnesses to the claim.

Besides the NT does not say that Mary told them that that is what happened… the NT as is written tells the story as if it is what happened… it does not say Mary claimed this… it says this IS what happened.

Mary telling them that Jesus is the result of an adultery and rape session with a phantasmal manifestation of YHWH and given what she had at stake in defending herself is a very doubtable claim.

The disciples later reporting it as if it is what happened without any hint of how it is a claimed report makes it a misleading hearsay of an anecdote at least if not a lie .... and people much later reporting to the people who later reported to the people who wrote the gospels makes it repeated compounded hearsay on top of hearsay on top of an incredible anecdote.

People in the 21st century pathetically and credulously repeating and believing and gullibly defending the fabulous compounded hearsay on top of hearsay of incredible anecdotes is nothing but a humongous shame and insult to rationality and logic and sanity and intelligence.





Seriously? What Christians? There were no Christians yet… at that time they were still a handful of peripatetic beggars and filthy jobless hobos going around begging and telling people the world is about to end. Much like many of the crazy people we see on street corners and parks in big cities like New York and London and Paris and Athens and Istanbul and Los Angeles etc.

And what is a "SOLDIER sympathetic to Christians" doing still soldiering in the service of a despotic tyrant? Why was he not hoboing around with Jesus?

A SOLDIER sympathetic to the yet nonexistent Christianity who is GREEDY and COWARDLY and pathetic enough to still be soldiering in a despot’s army telling the disciples what could have been fabricated stuff to curry favors or even deceive does not make the disciples or the gospel writers eyewitnesses to the claim.

Besides the NT does not say that an unnamed nice soldier told them that that is what happened… The NT as is written tells the story as if it is what happened… it does not say a soldier still working for a despot despite being a nice soldier claimed this... it says this IS what happened.

A soldier telling them what could have been a fabricated tall tale to gain favor or even mislead and the disciples later reporting it as if it is what happened without any hint of how it is a claimed report makes it a misleading hearsay of an anecdote at least if not a lie .... and people much later reporting to the people who later reported to the people who wrote the gospels makes it repeated compounded hearsay on top of hearsay on top of an anecdote.

People in the 21st century pathetically and credulously repeating and believing and gullibly defending the fabulous compounded hearsay on top of hearsay of incredible anecdotes is nothing but a humongous shame and insult to rationality and logic and sanity and intelligence.

You do know that Luke was not a disciple...right?

Luke 1:1-4

1:1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,
1:2 Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;
1:3 It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write unto thee in order, most excellent Theophilus,
1:4 That thou mightest know the certainty of those things, wherein thou hast been instructed.​

Notice how Luke does not claim that he was a witness himself... nor does he even say that he was there at the time.

He claims to have "perfect understanding" of what has been "set forth" by those people who have been "delivered" those "facts" which THEY BELIEVE and those "facts" have been "delivered" to them from those who were witnesses.

So Luke is saying that he was not a witness and he says he was not a disciple. He also is saying that he did not talk to the disciples or witnesses himself.

He only says that he has a "perfect understanding" of those early "facts" and thus wishes to write his own EXPLICATION of the accounts that "they delivered them unto us" so that Theophilus can understand them more clearly.

Yet there is not a single verse in Luke’s god-spiel that says "so and so said this is what happened" or "it was claimed that this occurred" or "so and so said this and I have these proofs for it" or "it was wrongly claimed this and that which I have verified to have been not true because of the following".

Instead he just writes his god-spiel as if he were there and he were telling us pure facts that he knew for sure first hand were true.

For example

Luke 1:5

1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea Long long ago in a land far far away, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.​

Does this sound like a REPORT or a TALE?

In the stuff below… how does Luke know that an angel did in fact appear to Zacharias? Which of the so called witnesses was in the temple with Zacharias to verify the “fact”? Could Zacharias have been fibbing? Could he have been delusional?

How did Luke verify the veracity of the TALE even if it had been handed down by the so called witnesses which Luke only knows about from the people the alleged witnesses purportedly told it to?

It is quite obvious that the “witnesses” were not even born by that time.

So the “witnesses” were only reporting a TALE they heard from other people… and Luke heard those tales from people who claim the witnesses told them… so Luke was reporting HEARSAY UPON HEARSAY UPON HEARSAY and making it appear as if it is pure fact which he claims he had “perfect understanding” of and he wants Theophilus to believe it too as if it were real true facts.

Which of the “witnesses” was there to transcribe the details of the “he said and he answered” between Zacharias and Gabriel?

So the purported witnesses are alleged to have heard the claimed tale and to have supposedly retold it to the people who claim to have heard it from the so called witnesses and from there Luke managed to get a "perfect understanding" of these anecdotes of hearsay of anecdotes of hearsay.

How did those “witnesses” get into the head of Zacharias to know he was troubled? How did they get into the heads of the multitude to verify that they did in fact think Zacharias had seen a vision?

Does all this sound more like a LITERARY TALE… much like a writer of a story like say Beewolf or King Arthur and Merlin would tell us what went through the head of Arthur or what Merlin told Arthur?

Luke 1:11-23

1:11 And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense.
1:12 And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him.
1:13 But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.

1:18 And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.
1:19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings.

1:22 And when he came out, he could not speak unto them: and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple: for he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless.
1:23 And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.​