Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

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Oxygen masks. Perhaps they were trying to scare him back to life with a trick or treat mask as well, who knows? Heavenly candy would have been the reward. :p
 
In all seriousness, the story is made up so as to show followers of the superstition that the tomb was empty, see, he has risen. The body is not where it should be. The disappointment of his death was thus changed into a triumph. Thereafter the converts to the new faith grew in leaps and bounds, they were selling hope, a hope that after death if they converted too this religion they to would live again. A more powerful selling point cannot be bought.
 
pakeha said:
...a new life is a great selling point, especially if you're a slave/bondservant.
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Cactus Wren said:
Not in dispute? DOC, it's disputed by the other gospels! The account you give here has Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother Of James and Salome -- very specifically those three -- coming to the tomb. They arrive and find that the stone's been rolled away from the opening, and there's a young man -- ONE young MAN -- sitting inside. And the women were so afraid, they didn't tell anyone about it.

Matthew disputes this in every detail. Matthew says it wasn't those three -- Mary Magdalene, yes, but with her was only "the other Mary". They came to the tomb and there was an earthquake (no other evangelist, and no historical source, mentions an earthquake). And it wasn't a man at all, it was an angel: and he wasn't inside the tomb, he was sitting outside on top of the stone. And far from being afraid to speak about it, the Marys went out and told their friends as soon as they could

No no no no no, says Luke, you're both wrong. There were a whole group: Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James -- Mark was right on that -- but also Joanna and some others. And there wasn't an angel -- there were TWO men, not one, INSIDE the tomb, not outside. And they weren't sitting, they were standing up. Luke disagrees with Mark, though, about whether the women told what had happened.

Then there's John, who doesn't agree with anybody on anything except the presence of Mary Magdalene. His version is that she came by herself and saw the stone rolled away and went and told Peter and someone else. After they'd checked out the scene and gone away, then Mary Magdalene saw two angels -- TWO, not one, and ANGELS, not men -- sitting inside the tomb (not outside, not standing up, and not on top the stone).

Of course, then she stumbled away and managed to look straight at Jesus and think he was the gardener ...
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We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened. Describing different details is normal with eyewitness accounts. Here is what the Catholic Church says about the different accounts as I reported some 60 pages ago in this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4634588#post4634588

ETA

And there are many websites that harmonize the resurrection accounts like this one:

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_tomb.html
 
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DOC said:
We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened. Describing different details is normal with eyewitness accounts. Here is what the Catholic Church says about the different accounts as I reported some 60 pages ago in this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4634588#post4634588

ETA

And there are many websites that harmonize the resurrection accounts like this one:

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_tomb.html
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Biased sources. Do you really think you are going to get the true facts from the Roman Catholic Church? It does know the truth, but it won't let anyone near the Vatican Secret Archives to see the truth. The Roman Catholic Church was founded on a BIG LIE and can't get up the courage to own up to it. It might when the time comes that all it's Churches are empty. Won't take long. Average Mass attendence is about 11%. (Official Statistics in Australia)



Robert
 
DOC said:
We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened. Describing different details is normal with eyewitness accounts. Here is what the Catholic Church says about the different accounts as I reported some 60 pages ago in this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4634588#post4634588
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Yes, you responded with apolegetics and it was soundly laughed at and torned apart. Sorry but your eyewitnesses can't even agree on who won the game, who the team was and even what the game they were playing. In fact none of them were there. They just reported somone elses claim of being at the game.

In other words, not only are they innacurate and contradictory; your eyewitnesses were not even there.
And there are many websites that harmonize the resurrection accounts like this one:

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_tomb.html
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Harmonize? Is that what they call editing and redacting nowadays in apology-ville?
 
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DOC said:
We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened. Describing different details is normal with eyewitness accounts. Here is what the Catholic Church says about the different accounts as I reported some 60 pages ago in this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4634588#post4634588

ETA

And there are many websites that harmonize the resurrection accounts like this one:

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_tomb.html
Click to expand...


I really don't see what this has to do with the NT's inerrancy, DOC.
 
DOC said:
We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened.
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Perhaps, but then it's difficult to call the third person a "great historian" now, isn't it ?
 
DOC said:
We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game.
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yes, but they typically agree on
1.) Who won the game
2.) What the score was
3.) who made key winning plays
4.) how many players were on the field


the tomb accounts can't agree on
1.) was there guards, or weren't there gaurds?
2.) How many people visited the tomb? 1, 2, 3 or 5?
3.) Was the tomb open or closed? One account (matthew) has an angel magiking the tomb open.
4.) Who was at the tomb when the women (or woman) got there? each gospel says something COMPLETELY different. Was there 1 young man inside or was there some gaurds and an angel on the outside or two men inside or two angels on the outside? If these were witnesses to a murder case, the case would be dismissed instantly.
5.) And what do they end up doing? Tell no one like Mark says, which makes it weird to know how WE know they did this, since they didn't tell anyone. Or did the run and tell the disciples? Or did Mary just start crying and the other desciples (who were with her) just go home?



So, DOC, you can pretend that these points are meaningless, but you'd be fooling no one.
 
Belz... said:
Perhaps, but then it's difficult to call the third person a "great historian" now, isn't it ?
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Well, if we accept DOC's apologetic regarding that, it would mean that the bible has mistakes in it.

If the bible has mistakes, it becomes near impossible for us to know which parts are really meant to be "IN THE BIBLE" and which parts are the mistakes.

Maybe Jesus didn't condone slavery afterall, and that was simply a later addition of pro-slavery people.

Maybe Jesus was pro gay rights. Afterall, there's evidence he was against many past laws, why not that one?

Maybe Jesus never claimed to be the son of god and was just a generally good guy with good ideas. But that there were fanatic crazies decades later who decided he should be a god?
 
DOC said:
We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened. Describing different details is normal with eyewitness accounts. Here is what the Catholic Church says about the different accounts as I reported some 60 pages ago in this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4634588#post4634588
ETA
And there are many websites that harmonize the resurrection accounts like this one:
http://www.rationalchristianity.net/jesus_tomb.html
Click to expand...


So; by your account, that means that the New Testament, far from being the inherent word of God, is faulty contradicting memories written years after the facts.
Seems pretty unreliable, then.
 
For anyone interested in a classical historian's analysis of the Bible (OT and NT) I can highly recommend Robin Lane Fox's "The Unauthorized Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible". It's particularly interesting to see how the NT was constructed from a wide variety of texts and variously edited over the early years.
 
DOC said:
We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened. Describing different details is normal with eyewitness accounts.
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True... which is why such accounts are rarely admissible as 'evidence'...

Talking of evidence... ya got any?
 
six7s said:
True... which is why such accounts are rarely admissible as 'evidence'...

Talking of evidence... ya got any?
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Funny thing is that DOC admitted that those stories are "at best" recounts of the women. Meaning that they are nothing but hearsay. The most important part of the christian faith (the resurrection) is only supported by ~1800 year old hear say evidence from texts that are 300 years removed from the event.
 
''For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried.''
1 Cor. 15:3-4a.

This is the totality of the only written story of the crucifixion that christians had until the eight decade ce. 50 years or so after the alleged death of Jesus. Hardly a history you would stake your life on is it?
 
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