So, was Jesus Resurrected?

[Puppycow]

So some might say "well we hardly need to discuss this, it can not by definition have occurred". We can not technically know this as an absolute: we do absolutely not know that the sun will come up tomorrow, because we do not absolutely know that the laws of physics for example are immutable, eternal, constant.

Well. This seems unnecessarily agnostic if we are discussing historical events on this planet. Granted, we don't know all things about this universe and certainly not about others, if there are any, but this is a relatively recent event on the scale of natural history and proximate on the scale of spacetime in this universe. Given the lack of a single objectively verifiable "miracle" known to me, I regard the possibility as vanishingly small, essentially negligible. But for the sake of argument I'll set this aside for now.

Of course there may be naturalistic explanations for the Resurrection. In fact there are many. Are any more convincing?

It would seem to violate the law of entropy. Once a body is dead, the process of entropy begins, and very quickly becomes irreversible. This seems to preclude anything short of a miracle.

Of course to Hume, testimony to a miracle only suggests a miracle if the competing explantions are even more unlikely, greater miracles. Therefore I suggest we actually concentrate not on trying to prove the Resurection "true" in some sense, but in seeing how strong the competing hypotheses, (the naturalistic explanations) are. IN other word's let us assume as a default that it was not a miracle, as the miracle will be the hardest possible case to make - let us instead work through logically all the alternatives.

The obvious natural, non-miraculous alternative is that some person or persons made it up, or imagined it.

So where do we start?

I therefore propose we start by looking at the actual "witness statements", and note of course that we have no direct testimony from any of those present as far as I know.

Fine. Do you have any in mind?

 

[Puppycow]

1 Corinthians 15

So, regarding this, there are several possible objections.
1) Paul made it up.
ETA: 1.5) Someone made it up and told Paul or someone made it up and told someone else who told Paul, etc.)
2) It doesn't actually say Jesus appeared in the flesh, does it? Perhaps he appeared in a dream. I've dreamed of departed loved ones and I don't consider that a miracle.
3) Who are the Twelve? Does it include Judas?

 

[Wowbagger]

They never found his body in any of the sites they tried to find it in. So, that's gotta mean something!

 

[HansMustermann]

What if the historical Jesus had a twin? Say, he planned to hang around longer than 40 days after his brother's death but some soldiers were pissed he "survived" the cross and nails, and took to quietly cutting the twin's throat and dumping the body...

Well, the point is that they don't recognize him, not, say, go "dude, how'd you grow a goatee in 3 days?"

 

[Brainache]

What about Matthew 27:52-53?

"And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many"

Looks like Jesus wasn't the only one resurrected.

Is this a scenario for the next version of Left 4 Dead ? -

Why is the resurection so important to Christians?

Why does it add anything to the whole Love, charity, forgiveness message of Jesus? For a long time I've thought that Jesus's message would be a lot more powerful if it was thought to have come from a normal mortal human rather than some supernatural being disguised as a human.

Do Christians need to have an all powerful god standing over them before they'll do the right thing? Can't they see that loving their neighbour is a good thing, that forgiveness is a good thing, that charity is a good thing, without having to believe in all this impossible ancient mystical mumbo jumbo silliness?

This ressurection business always raises this question for me: How does having your son brutally executed by humans induce you to start forgiving humans and letting them back into heaven?

What kind of god only forgives his creations if they shed blood, lots of blood? The answer is fairly obvious to me: A god invented in a brutal bloodthirsty age of illiterate ignorance. I wish I could say that we no longer live in such an age. Oh well I guess we're stuck with it for the foreseeable...

 

[The Platypus]

People need to grow up beyond childish concepts and fear of death... Reality is what it is. Everyone dies, noone ever comes back, noone ever came back. Grow up and cope.

 

[cj.23]

I suggest we do Gandalf instead. At least there we have a single authoritative source.

No we don't? In fact we have pretty much the same set of sources +LOTR +various texts on Tolkien, his Catholicism, and the inklings?

cj x

 

[cj.23]

People need to grow up beyond childish concepts and fear of death... Reality is what it is. Everyone dies, noone ever comes back, noone ever came back. Grow up and cope.

An interesting suggestion, but one which is philosophically indefensible ( See the problem of induction), and the naive realistic perspective also fails to take into account the fact death only appears to apply to some relatively short lived things that have emerged in the last few billions years, a very minor class of phenomena. It is hardly a fundamental, like say Entropy.

cj x

 

[cj.23]

They never found his body in any of the sites they tried to find it in. So, that's gotta mean something!

Yes, it means they never found his body in any of those sites. Nothing more nothing less. But you know that I know. Hey Wowbagger, hows things?

cj x

 

[Undesired Walrus]

I don't know why you'd bother to single out this supernatural story rather than the other countless examples throughout history.

I mean, I could start a thread asking if Kim Jong-Il was really born to double rainbows and birds singing in Human voices, but I'd be laughed out of here.

There just isn't enough evidence in order to seperate this from the other countless miracle claims.

 

[Darat]

I'm off to bed now so I'll respond tomorrow to the various comments I have missed while typing this.

OK, so what is our earliest reference? Was it



It's interesting. Dated normally somewhere in the region of 53 to 57CE, 20 - 30 years after the crucifixion dates generally suggested, the author is Paul, a convert to the new religion (but hey they were all converts by definition).

A few notes from me to get the ball rolling -

...snip...

We could discuss this from the perspective of what we know about "cult" leaders and so on and the fact that Paul is claiming "last dibs" on seeing Jesus would match the type of claims we know such people have and do make. Think of it this way - Paul knew he couldn't get away with claiming to have known Jesus but a non-verifiable last person to have seen the resurrected Jesus - well who could prove he hadn't?

 

[The Platypus]

An interesting suggestion, but one which is philosophically indefensible ( See the problem of induction), and the naive realistic perspective also fails to take into account the fact death only appears to apply to some relatively short lived things that have emerged in the last few billions years, a very minor class of phenomena. It is hardly a fundamental, like say Entropy.

cj x

Philisophical mumbo jumbo doesn't change reality either... We all still die, noone comes back, cope...

 

[Mojo]

There is no physical evidence. In all probability there are no eyewitness accounts. All we have is accounts written, edited, and selected well after the event by people with an agenda.

I'll go along with Tom Paine (and William of Ockham): "Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man should tell a lie?"

 

[dafydd]

OK, why?

cj x

When you're brown bread that it's,game over.

 

[Filippo Lippi]

"Extraordinary claims..." and all that. In the absence of any extraordinary evidence, why waste time combing through doubtful texts trying to find the crumbs of comfort?

 

[Darat]

Well I quite like the premise of the opening post, but I do treat it the same way as I would any discussion about any myth, television programme, novel and so on, which is that its just a bit of fun playing with "what ifs".

 

[H3LL]

Immortal being can't die because they're ... well ...immortal.

If you can't die you can't be "resurrected".

At best the whole myth is one big con.

So Jesus must be an ordinary guy turned into a zombie.



Pass the chainsaw.


GrrrrRRRRRrrrrrrr-r-rr-rr-rr...put.....r-rr-rr-rr-rrrrrraaaaAAaaaar!







.

 

[dogjones]

He hasn't been resurrected yet, but all it will take is a Fat Boy Slim "Neo-Noughties Big Banjo Funky Fusion Mix" and he'll be all over the charts again.

 

[Darat]

The question of the resurrection is open to empirical verification -we simply have to wait for Jesus to turn up again and then we can ask him.

 

[paximperium]

Let's start with something simple. Let's assume Jesus existed. Let's assume he died on the cross via crucification. Who are the eyewitnesses?

We can discuss their claims later.