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The risen Christ appeared to . . . whom, exactly?

TimCallahan

Philosopher
T
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
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According to Mark, he appeared to nobody. The only evidence of the Resurrection, according to Mark was the empty tomb.

Matthew says he first met Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" as they were coming from the tomb to tell the disciples the tomb was empty and the stone had been rolled away by an angel. Some time later, the 11 disciples (Judas having already hanged himself) met Jesus on a mountain in Galilee, where the Savior had told the women he would meet them.

Luke says Jesus appeared first to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Then he appeared to the 11 disciples (Judas having already burst open at the middle and spilled his guts into a field) in Jerusalem, where he tells the disciples to stay.

John says he first appeared to Mary Magdalene alone, then to all the disciples but Thomas in a locked room in Jerusalem, then eight days later in the same room to the disciples, including Thomas. Still later, he appeared to the disciples when they were fishing in the sea (actually lake) of Galilee, where for some unknown reason they had returned to their earlier profession of fishing.

Paul in 1 Cor. 15:5 - 8 (if it really was Paul's writing) says he appeared first to Cephas (Peter), then to the 12 (Judas too?), then to over 500 brethren at one time, then to James, then to all the apostles, then, finally, to Paul. Considering that Paul's seeing Jesus was likely visionary, were the others likewise visions?

So, here's my question to edge, Paul Bethke and other believers on this forum: How do you reconcile these mutually contradictory testimonies?
 
TimCallahan said:
According to Mark, he appeared to nobody. The only evidence of the Resurrection, according to Mark was the empty tomb.

Matthew says he first met Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" as they were coming from the tomb to tell the disciples the tomb was empty and the stone had been rolled away by an angel. Some time later, the 11 disciples (Judas having already hanged himself) met Jesus on a mountain in Galilee, where the Savior had told the women he would meet them.

Luke says Jesus appeared first to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Then he appeared to the 11 disciples (Judas having already burst open at the middle and spilled his guts into a field) in Jerusalem, where he tells the disciples to stay.

John says he first appeared to Mary Magdalene alone, then to all the disciples but Thomas in a locked room in Jerusalem, then eight days later in the same room to the disciples, including Thomas. Still later, he appeared to the disciples when they were fishing in the sea (actually lake) of Galilee, where for some unknown reason they had returned to their earlier profession of fishing.

Paul in 1 Cor. 15:5 - 8 (if it really was Paul's writing) says he appeared first to Cephas (Peter), then to the 12 (Judas too?), then to over 500 brethren at one time, then to James, then to all the apostles, then, finally, to Paul. Considering that Paul's seeing Jesus was likely visionary, were the others likewise visions?

So, here's my question to edge, Paul Bethke and other believers on this forum: How do you reconcile these mutually contradictory testimonies?
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By calling them the synoptic gospels,one of the biggest jokes in religion.
 
I think you give them too much credit even in awarding the title of biggest joke that easily. Don't forget that the NT includes such strong competitors for that title as:

1. Paul

Paul rants and rambles across huge letters, and never manages to give a simple and straight answer or make any sense. Even an objection about his collecting donation money for some unnamed churches, could be solved in a paragraph by just saying, "Geesh, I'll get you a receipt that I forwarded the whole sum" or such, but Paul rambles across more than a dozen pages (quite literally) before he's done with the topic, and managed to say only irrelevant nonsense. It's one huge RL example of an actual Chewbacca defense.

His logic on other topics is even more bizarre. About the Law alone he has an incoherent position that goes in circles between it's good, but we don't have to do what it says, but it's still good because it keeps crooks and criminals straight, but we still don't need to hold it because Christ is enough, but it's good, but it's a curse from which Christ saves us, but it's still good, but we uphold it by believing in Christ instead of doing what it says. No, literally. That's a condensed version from more than one epistle, but that's actual arguments done by Paul.

Either Paul is the most genius liar in history, in fact, so genius that still nobody can figure out how something that stupidly nonsensical actually worked, or he's genuinely schizophrenic.

At other times he pulls arguments of the caliber of, I kid you not, "it must be true, because if it isn't true then our faith is in vain and we won't get saved!" (No ####, Sherlock?;))

And Paul himself is aware that other people find his ramblings retarded, which just causes him to do more retarded ramblings boiling down to "yeah, but we'll be saved and the wise won't, SO THERE!"

Add to that the fact that he writes huge epistles about Jesus Christ, and yet manages to never relay any details of the Christ, or sayings of the Christ (well, except the Eucharist), or a place, or a time, or even a single deed. He never mentions even having previously said anything of the kind. He never makes references like, dunno, "remember that parable of Jesus I already told you about" or "turn to page 3 of that gospel I gave you and you'll see I'm right" or anything. He never shows any interest in finding out about anything about Jesus from that supposed group in Jerusalem that included Peter and James, and in fact even insists that they had nothing to add to his info coming from just that hallucination of his, and that he's not relaying anything he got from humans. He's a complete fanboy of Jesus... who shows no interest in learning or relaying anything about Jesus. It's like meeting an Eminem fan who rants for hours about Eminem and yet isn't even interested in telling or learning anything about the singer. WTH?

Add the fact that he's talking to Jesus more than once. He actually for example got a rationale from Jesus for why Paul gets to keep a chronic pain. (But apparently not anything more substantial, of interest to humanity or something.)

Paul may well be a genuine paranoid schizophrenic. And it would make for a pretty surrealistic joke if the biggest religion in history is the result of a crazy guy's delusional ramblings.

And, at any rate, Paul's logic is so bad, that if it were a (16 page) board post, it would be the kind where you don't even know where to start with pointing out what's wrong with it. It's the kind that would get Poe's law invoked, because surely nobody could actually write that much nonsense in all seriousness. I.e., it has a pretty good claim to being indistinguishable from a joke or parody on the theme of apocalyptic nutcase cults.
 
2. The Pseudepigraphic Epistles

There are no two ways about these, they're simply forgeries for personal gain or to further a personal agenda. (E.g., to exclude women from power.) Some people explicitly wrote letters and signed them as Paul, to give some church, or some guy,or some faction, some support by Paul himself who was by now long dead.

Such forgeries are still quoted in support of some moral point or another, even though those who write them are the last people on Earth who could claim a right to give anyone morals. Which is a pretty damn big joke, if anyone asks me.

3. John

Imagine that someone came on this board and purported to give you the history of Muhammad and the Islam, but then it turned out he's telling you the story of Snow White. John is that big a Poe candidate.

John actually jettisons almost everything from the previous sources -- that's in fact why his is not called a synoptic gospel -- and proceeds to just tell his own surrealistic story instead. He keeps very few elements and even those are changed substantially, and mostly invents his own Christology, miracles, etc. He makes no effort to expand or correct the previous sources or anything, but mostly just ignores them and invents his own Jesus fanfic as he'd like the story to be.

4. Revelation

The weirdest hours-long acid trip described in writing, featuring dragons, the landing of a Moon-sized Borg cube, a weird mutant Jesus with a sword poking out of his mouth, and an author who seems obsessed with Jesus's feet.

Yet every year millions of people wait for Jesus to come take them to heavens, pretty much based on that acid trip. If that's not a big joke, I don't know what is.
 
5. Acts

I kept the best joke for last, because it may well be the best. And because it actually brings us around to an answer to Tim's question.

Acts is purportedly written by the same Luke who wrote the Gospel Of Luke. And there is actually a good chance that they are indeed the same person. It even starts with a page connecting it to the end of the Gospel too.

Yet if you actually pay attention to what it says, and if it's the same guy writing both, then Acts is the equivalent of OJ Simpson's "If I did it, this is how". Acts actually paints some events of the early church in a way that pretty much excludes any resurrection, or even a recent Jesus.

For a start, almost everyone who ever knew Jesus except a couple of apostles, simply disappears from history and is never heard of ever again. Mary, Joseph, James, etc, simply disappear and nobody ever even mentions them again. Acts mentions for example
James the son of Zebedee and brother of John, but there is no mention of James the son of Joseph and brother of Jesus. There are some mentions of James without some qualifier, but really no indication that any of them had any relationship to Jesus or anything. You'd think it would be an important thing to mention.

The funnier things is that Acts doesn't have even the apostles anyone else even remember that there was a resurrected Jesus or even a missing body or anything like that, as soon as they have to plead their case in court. Neither the courts nor the accused pleading for his very life (and at least one, Stephen, is actually stoned, Peter is almost condemned to death, Paul himself is under serious threat of just that) seem to remember that anyone actually resurrected, or there was even a missing body or anything. The most they claim is that only the Christians know about some resurrection from the Holy Spirit. Stephen, the guy who actually does get stoned after making the worst and most offensive legal defense in history before Jack Thompson (he actually basically accused the judges of being felons, which few people before Jack Thompson tried again), even claims to see Jesus in heavens right there in court, but doesn't make a defense as simple as, "hey, I know these guys who spent 40 days with him, so I'm not making it up that he rose, ok?" Paul himself claims no more than that Jesus is some talking light in the sky, and was propecised already.

Also, the ones who accuse someone of killing Jesus, strangely make no mention of the Romans. Repeatedly the Jews are accused of killing Jesus, and in all sorts of ways that don't really rhyme with the gospels. Stephen for example claims that the Jews killed Jesus by just their own disobeying the Law. (Which in itself is also a position hard to reconcile with Paul. I mean between the Law being that important, and it being something to start ignoring if you're a Christian, there's a bit of a gap.)

His case gets IIRC before no less than 4 different Roman governors, yet nobody seems to have any idea what this guy is talking about. Even the Jews who seem hell-bent on getting Paul executed, don't ever try to implicate him in a case of a missing corpse, or in proclaiming someone living as God and King, which after all is the supposed charge that got Jsus nailed. Why doesn't anyone use it against Paul, if that's what he's preaching?

Even the Jewish courts -- for whom Paul is supposed to have hunted Christians, like some religious 007 agent and one-man army, remember? -- don't seem to have the foggiest about what this Christianity thing is, or WTH he's really preaching. I mean, at one point the Pharisees actually think that Paul is persecuted for the Pharisee belief in a resurrection in the end times.

And so on.

Even the miracles of Jesus or associated with Jesus's death, seem completely forgotten. The court trying Peter is worried about his talking about his own healing some bum, but neither they, nor other such courts, remember anything about the much more surrealistic stuff attributed to Jesus by the gospels. And it's not just that they don't remember it, but it doesn't even seem like Peter is mentioning them either, because the injunction he gets is just about talking about his own faith healing services. Nobody thinks to forbid him to talk about the greater miracles of Jesus, presumably because he isn't.

Basically if the same Luke wrote this as the Luke who wrote the gospel, this is the "making of Christianity" DVD. Or the "and now here's how it actually started" addendum. It pretty much answers the question of why the resurrection accounts differ, by showing you a start of the church where nobody actually remembers a bodily resurrection, or claims an actual bodily resurrection ever happened, or anything. Again, even the apostles can't make a better claim in court than that they know it from the Holy Spirit, or that they're hallucinating a Jesus in heaven while giving their testimony in court.

And that such a "making of" supplement actually made it into the Bible, is a pretty good joke by itself IMHO.
 
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TimCallahan said:
According to Mark, he appeared to nobody. The only evidence of the Resurrection, according to Mark was the empty tomb.

Matthew says he first met Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" as they were coming from the tomb to tell the disciples the tomb was empty and the stone had been rolled away by an angel. Some time later, the 11 disciples (Judas having already hanged himself) met Jesus on a mountain in Galilee, where the Savior had told the women he would meet them.

Luke says Jesus appeared first to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Then he appeared to the 11 disciples (Judas having already burst open at the middle and spilled his guts into a field) in Jerusalem, where he tells the disciples to stay.

John says he first appeared to Mary Magdalene alone, then to all the disciples but Thomas in a locked room in Jerusalem, then eight days later in the same room to the disciples, including Thomas. Still later, he appeared to the disciples when they were fishing in the sea (actually lake) of Galilee, where for some unknown reason they had returned to their earlier profession of fishing.

Paul in 1 Cor. 15:5 - 8 (if it really was Paul's writing) says he appeared first to Cephas (Peter), then to the 12 (Judas too?), then to over 500 brethren at one time, then to James, then to all the apostles, then, finally, to Paul. Considering that Paul's seeing Jesus was likely visionary, were the others likewise visions?

So, here's my question to edge, Paul Bethke and other believers on this forum: How do you reconcile these mutually contradictory testimonies?
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lolz, don't worry your pretty little head..... you..... wouldn't be able to recognize him if he was standing in front of you.

And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
 
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Jake Dale said:
lolz, don't worry your pretty little head. you wouldn't see him if he was standing in front of you.

And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
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So no answer for the contradictions, then.

Such smug arrogance while ignoring the thrust of the question is quite common in my experience among believers who profess certainty while possessing little knowledge of their faith.

Of course, such smugness is also sometimes found in non-believers, but in those cases it is usually based on an admission of limited knowledge as opposed to the believer's claim of ultimate knowing.
 
TimCallahan said:
So, here's my question to edge, Paul Bethke and other believers on this forum: How do you reconcile these mutually contradictory testimonies?
Click to expand...
The response I normally here to this is something along the lines of:
Well, eyewitness accounts are always inconsistent. If they agreed 100%, one could that they copied the other. however, as they are, their inconsistencies lend to their truthfulness...


My counter point is that there's a difference between inconsistencies and flat out contradictions. I made an analogy of a cop at a crime scene where you had different eye witnesses claiming to see anywhere from 2-4 suspects of varying descriptions in varying locations. And then, come to find that you are only hearing a story of the story as NONE of the people reporting are actually the people who were at the scene.
 
Garrette said:
So no answer for the contradictions, then.

Such smug arrogance while ignoring the thrust of the question is quite common in my experience among believers who profess certainty while possessing little knowledge of their faith.

Of course, such smugness is also sometimes found in non-believers, but in those cases it is usually based on an admission of limited knowledge as opposed to the believer's claim of ultimate knowing.
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Removed breaches of Rule 0 and Rule 10. Be civil and do not swear in your posts; the latter includes changing or omitting letters to get around the auto-censor.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: LashL
 
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Jake Dale said:
Edited by LashL: 
Edited.
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why?
what did Tim post in the OP that was so distasteful? He asked a very reasonable question. If you have a good answer, please share it. I'm interested.
 
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Jake Dale said:
lolz, don't worry your pretty little head..... you..... wouldn't be able to recognize him if he was standing in front of you.

And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
Click to expand...

C,mon the crown of thorns, the holes in the hands and the great bloody wound in the side would all be dead giveaways.
 
I always chuckle when religious followers get angry at you for presenting things from the Bible to them.

It's your book, what are you getting so mad about?
 
Ehrman points out not only the gross inconsistencies of the various NT accounts, but also the fact that numbers of Gospels that didn't make the cut depict the "return" of JC as wholly allegorical.... That he had returned "in spirit" and such.
 
Bikewer said:
Ehrman points out not only the gross inconsistencies of the various NT accounts, but also the fact that numbers of Gospels that didn't make the cut depict the "return" of JC as wholly allegorical.... That he had returned "in spirit" and such.
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While that is correct, and even Paul seems to argue just that, I would say that there wasn't anything allegorical in it. The whole miracle was that Jesus had an afterlife at all. Not an allegory or metaphor of a miracle, but the actual miracle.

It may not seem like much to you, but imagine you're coming from Judaism like Paul was. For the longest time the doctrine was that there is no afterlife at all. You live, you die, game over. And it still was a major sect's point of view by the 1st century CE. So that someone found a way to live on after death, even if in another world, and can make other people keep living too, was one heck of a piece of good news.
 
TimCallahan said:
According to Mark, he appeared to nobody. The only evidence of the Resurrection, according to Mark was the empty tomb.

Matthew says he first met Mary Magdalene and "the other Mary" as they were coming from the tomb to tell the disciples the tomb was empty and the stone had been rolled away by an angel. Some time later, the 11 disciples (Judas having already hanged himself) met Jesus on a mountain in Galilee, where the Savior had told the women he would meet them.

Luke says Jesus appeared first to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Then he appeared to the 11 disciples (Judas having already burst open at the middle and spilled his guts into a field) in Jerusalem, where he tells the disciples to stay.

John says he first appeared to Mary Magdalene alone, then to all the disciples but Thomas in a locked room in Jerusalem, then eight days later in the same room to the disciples, including Thomas. Still later, he appeared to the disciples when they were fishing in the sea (actually lake) of Galilee, where for some unknown reason they had returned to their earlier profession of fishing.

Paul in 1 Cor. 15:5 - 8 (if it really was Paul's writing) says he appeared first to Cephas (Peter), then to the 12 (Judas too?), then to over 500 brethren at one time, then to James, then to all the apostles, then, finally, to Paul. Considering that Paul's seeing Jesus was likely visionary, were the others likewise visions?

So, here's my question to edge, Paul Bethke and other believers on this forum: How do you reconcile these mutually contradictory testimonies?
Click to expand...

We do this with evidences that are allowed today.
Or proof that we are getting that correlates to the evidence at hand and what is written that is not negative but positive in correlations to prophesies by our own loved ones before death.
And in many other ways..:jaw-dropp
 
edge said:
Or proof that we are getting that correlates to the evidence at hand and what is written that is not negative but positive in correlations to prophesies by our own loved ones before death.
Click to expand...


What?
 
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