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| Author | Topic: Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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ICANT Member  Posts: 6769 From: SSC Joined: Member Rating: 1.5 |
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Raphael Member (Idle past 484 days)  Posts: 173 From: Southern California, United States Joined: |
PaulK writes: I'd say that the evidence, properly considered is against it. Care to produce your evidence? So when responding to a question like this we need to, first off, define what exactly we're talking about when it comes to the terms we're using. Really, this conversation is, at the most basic level, a conversation about epistemology. I will come back to this later. Some books I will be quoting from throughout: - Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels, Michael Grant (1977)- The Reason For God, Timothy Keller (2014) - Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism, Greenlee (1993) Anyway. We're speaking of the term "evidence." Technically, evidence is (according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary: 1) the available body of facts or information indicating whether a belief or proposition is true or valid. and 2) one who bears witness; especially : one who voluntarily confesses a crime and testifies for the prosecution against his accomplices On the one hand, evidence is a collection of things we know, things when, gathered into a collective, point to a conclusion. And secondly, evidence is defined as a witness, aka, someone who can corroborate the evidence with a testimony of experience. Now, this is difficult when approaching the story of Jesus. To quote the historian Michael Grant, quote: In the same book (which I do recommend) Grant mentions that attempting to reconstruct "what really happened" is always a well known snare when studying history, because it is beyond the power of humans beings to actually be objective. We can't prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what we think happened actually happened, no matter how certain. The book is excellent because Grant acknowledges that to even attempt to approach a study like this one must set aside their own belief/unbelief. They are irrelevant. What we're looking for is evidence. Is there enough to make a case? I say all this to say it it still up to the hearer to decide whether or not to accept the conclusion the evidence points to. Below, I will present a few things that I believe are the strongest pieces of evidence for the person and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I will attempt to doubt my convictions/presuppositions for the time being, so will not assume I have proven anything until the conclusion. I respectfully ask that you try do the same 
Outline:I. Evidence for the Historicity & Validity Of the New Testament II. The Resurrection: The Women, The 500, Terminology III. Conclusions I. Evidence for the Historicity & Validity Of the New Testament My first reason for believing in the story of Jesus is the amount of physical evidence we have for the legitimacy of the New Testament, in comparison with how much real evidence we have for other historical people and documents. There are currently 5,686 Greek manuscripts (copies, not autographs/originals) in existence today for the New Testament. That is an overwhelming amount when you consider that we have 7 copies of Plato's earliest works (also copies, not autographs). We have 8 copies of Suetonius. 20 copies of Tacitus. 49 copies of Aristotle. Also, the amount of time between the original documents and the first/earliest copies is interesting to see. The earliest copy of Plato we have dates 1,200 years between his original and the first copy. The earliest copy of Suetonius dates 800 years between his original and the first copy. The earliest copy of Tacitus dates 1,000 years between the original and first copy. Aristotle? 1,400 years. The earliest copy of manuscripts used in what would become the NT date approximately 100 years between the original and first copy. The papyri mss, some of the earliest sources we have, (we have 98 of them) all come from between the second-fourth centuries. The Chester Beatty papyri specifically, containing much of the Gospels, Acts, all the Pauline Epistles, and Revelation all date from the third century. P52, a small fragment containing parts of four verses in John 18, is the oldest known fragment we have of the NT, and it dates from the first half of the second century (100-150AD). This would have been, at the most, only 130 years after the death of Jesus. Keep in mind this is only a copy, not one of the originals, the autographs. Some might say "but there are so many inconsistencies in those manuscripts that it doesn't matter," but that is just simply an assumption. 90% of inconsistencies in the NT are grammar, punctuation, and minor details. There are inconsistencies. I admit this. It is not black and white, and there do exist things to wrestle with. Unfortunately, many who doubt the validity of the Bible just don't understand how manuscripts were originally made, copied, preserved and compiled, so they just make assumptions while being totally uneducated about the process. While the classics of the time were copied by professional scribes, the earliest copies of the NT were probably done by Christians in their homes or gatherings who were not professionally trained, and no corrector (as was customary) was employed to check the copyist's work. This is due to a few reasons: 1) Since the message of the gospel was of paramount importance, more emphasis was put on the message and meaning rather than such matters as word order and punctuation that did not affect the meaning. 2) Christianity, an unofficial (at times illegal) and often persecuted religion simply did not have the luxury the classics had of establishing an official edition of its books with which copies could be compared and edited for pinpoint accuracy. 3) The earliest Christians believed that Christ's return was very immanant, therefore they would not necessarily have been concerned with acutely preserving their books and making sure they were perfectly accurate for following centuries. In conclusion, we readily accept that historical persons like Plato and Tacitus existed, but doubt the validity of the NT, when there is far more, and more valid, evidence for the New Testament. Surely a copy of a manuscript found dating 1,200 years between it and the original is, at the very least, just as likely to contain errors, embellishment, and truth-stretching than one with a few hundred years between it and the original. Moreover, it would be suspicious to accept the validity of documents like Plato and Suetonius and reject the NT simply because of perceived inconsistencies when the inconsistencies that do exist are understandable and do not affect the overarching goal and theme of the whole at all. II. The Resurrection The second piece of evidence for why I believe in a supernatural God, the God of scripture, is the resurrection. For me, this is where the argument hinges the most. if Jesus was who He said He was (One with God), and the resurrection happened, it matters. Before I give my reasons I have to state, outright, this cannot be proven. If it could, we wouldn't be having this discussion currently. But, keeping in mind what we layed out above about the nature of evidence, that evidence is not only the sum of materials produced, but also the sum of witnesses and the testimony of said witnesses. There is evidence. Let's investigate. A. The Women At this point, as I have read the posts above, this point has for the most part been beaten to death. However I will add my take because I think it does add some things of value. For context, below is the account of the Resurrection in Luke. I use Luke because, unlike the other gospels, Luke states from the get-go that he has compiled all the evidence, and created a narrative, and his purpose is "... that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught" (Luke 1:1-4). Luke does borrow from Mark, and of course he would, since Mark would have been one of the sources he consulted when crafting his account. There are also differences between this account of the resurrection and others, as there would be in any situation where different witnesses give their testimony from different perspectives. If they were all exactly the same, it would be quite suspicious. At any rate, I will stick to the basic outline and not use anything that may have been added later.
quote: Now what needs to be pointed out is this entire story hinges on the testimony of 3, perhaps 4 women. This has been stated already by Faith, and GDR (my thanks ). However, what needs to be talked about is how this story would have spread. All the disciples are Jewish. There are only a handful, if any, non-Jewish Christians in existence at this point, and in reality, the movement, or "Way," of Yeshua should have just ended here. As those above have already pointed out, in Jewish culture, a woman's testimony was not acceptable as a witness in court, and would not even have been taken too seriously by hearers. What I'm trying to get at is this: if this story is not true, the author is building into the story something that would have made hearers doubt the validity of it. There is absolutely no reason to craft a persuasive "Messiah" story that is based on the testimony of women. In fact, Jewish hearers of such a story would simply dismiss it as nonsense and chalk it up with all the other "resurrected Messiah" stories that had been told before. So why did the story spread? What possible reason would the author have to hinge his story on the witness of women, when he could have easily had someone like Joseph of Arimathea, or Nicodemus - both wealthy males and one being a pharisee and having a voice in the temple - as the main witnesses? How persuasive it would have been to have the testimony of a pharisee like Nicodemus, saying, "Jesus is alive, I saw him!" in the temple! A story like that would have spread like wildfire. In Tim Keller's, The Reason for God (Which I highly recommend!!!) he touches on this issue. He mentions that this is what historians look for when trying to judge the historicity of a document or not. Are there details which serve no purpose? Are there characters, like Joanna in the above account, who are mentioned for no reason? Fiction authors do not include people for a split second without any development, and then go nowhere with them. Rather, people are mentioned like this because the author knows that the reader will know who they are from a first name basis. The letter of Luke/Acts is a personal letter to a man named Theophilus, so this makes sense. In conclusion, considering the evidence, it is far more likely that this story is the retelling of an accurate account rather than a fictitious one. If it were fictitious, it simply would not have spread, because it wouldn't have been taken seriously. The only logical explanation is that it was true, and thus was too incredible to ignore. B. The 500 In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul, in writing to the church in Corinth, includes this list of people who Christ appeared to after His resurrection:
quote: Notice what I have bolded. Paul claims here that Jesus appeared to over 500 people simultaneously, meaning that they all saw Him and were witnesses to this. The reason Paul wrote this is to affirm to the church in Corinth that the resurrection happened, and that there are still witnesses. So what is the significance of this? Most scholars date the writing of 1 Corinthians to around 53-57AD. (from The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. The more conservative scholars date it at around 70AD. This is a mere 20 years-at the most, 40 years-after the death of Jesus. So again, what is the significance of this? The significance is: for such a FANTASTICAL story to spread, there HAD to have been witnesses, or it just would have gone absolutely nowhere. In the gospels, we learn that Jesus appeared to a few; Mary, the main 12, and a few other apostles. But here in 1 Corinthians we have an account of Paul claiming in a public letter to a church community that there are over 500 people who all saw the risen Christ at the same time, and that MOST are still living! What he's doing here is basically challenging anyone who doubts the story to ask one of these people for confirmation. It simply does not make sense that Paul would make such a huge claim without the reality to back it up. What this says to us is that there was a HUGE body of living people during the very beginning of the church who actually saw the resurrected Christ, in a group setting where it could be confirmed by the majority, and who could be questioned by doubting non-believers who wanted proof. This, for me, is almost greater proof for the resurrection than the women. Jesus was a ragtag homeless rabbi, hated by his own people, with an incredibly tiny following when you compare it to other messianic characters before him who actually attempted revolutions. His closest friends (all but 1) abandoned him at his death, some betraying him and others fleeing for their lives. "Christianity" as we know it should have gone nowhere, friend. But it didn't. It grew. And then it exploded. Why? Because of hundreds of people, carrying a massive joy, and the good news, the GOSPEL, that "Jesus is alive, and I have seen Him."  .
III. Conclusions There are other details I could go into. But I won't at this time, because of the admittedly harsh reality that no matter what I say, no matter how intellectually persuasive I am in this post, only YOU can decide for yourself what you will believe. In his book, The Reason for God Tim Keller spends his entire first chapter (and really the entire first half of the book) explaining how every person decides on a set of beliefs. Every argument is logically fallible. Perhaps your faith is science, in a "all "truth" must be scientifically proven," scientism sort of way. That is a faith, for there are still, and always will be, unexplainables in the universe. Perhaps your faith is atheism, the belief that there is no god. For there is no way for anyone to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt whether there is or is not a god. Therefore it is faith. I could go on. I could mention the time I felt God spoke directly into my brain, or the going-on hundreds of times I have prayed for a specific need/amount of money and God has miraculously answered, down to the very cent. I could mention the girl I know who was constantly oppressed by visible demonic entities, who would wake with unexplainable marks on her body. But I won't at this time, because again, YOU decide. As for me, Jesus is alive, and I have seen Him I hope my arguments have seemed open-minded, and cogent. It is up to you now to answer some hard questions:
- How do you account for the story of the resurrection being taken seriously in a culture that deems the witness of women irrelevant? - How do you account for Paul's PUBLIC claim that 500 people, simultaneously, witnessed the risen Jesus Christ and therefore could be consulted for corroboration of his story? If you do not accept my arguments for either of the above, - How do you account for the growth of the Christian church in general had neither of these phenomenon occurred? Keep in mind 1) I am acutely aware of early Christian history so will cogently refute assumptions or incorrect generalizations about the climate and occurrences of the time period, and 2) a "we don't know" answer is insufficient if I have cogently given the most logically possible explanation. I look forward to your response Regards!- Raph
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
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PaulK Member Posts: 17825 Joined: Member Rating: 2.2 |
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Raphael Member (Idle past 484 days) Posts: 173 From: Southern California, United States Joined:
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PaulK writes: There is not a lot of physical evidence for the Gospel's reliability This is where I expected you to go, based on previous conversations with you here  . First, this is a misleading statement simply because there isn't a lot of physical evidence for the reliability of many ancient documents. In fact, less. Second, your bias for physical evidence is shown here when, in reality, testimonial evidence is almost equally as valid, especially when it is impossible to procure physical evidence.
The number of manuscripts is only evidence for transmission, not that the original text was accurate. And even that is hampered by the fact that most are relatively late and the early manuscripts are often just fragments. This is a logical fallacy, an argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio). We cannot assume the originals are not accurate simply because we don't know. "We don't know" is the furthest we could go. The amount of manuscripts is significant because we can create a stronger approximation of what the originals would be than if we had less. We do this with Plato, Caesar, Aristotle, so why the stretch when doing the same thing with scripture?
Moreover Christians would be more concerned with passing on their doctrines than accurate history. And the stories that they told and believed almost certainly drifted away from the original history. This is an incorrect assumption about the nature of early Christianity. There were no "doctrines" in the first century. There was no "Church." There were churches. In fact, this point is so significant that the historian Justo Gonzalez, in The Story of Christianity, writes "it would be more accurate to speak of "Christianities," (P.70), rather than any movement united in theology and doctrine. Therefore, while being an appealing idea, the assumption that Christians would have some "agenda" to pass on their doctrines is simply not true, since no organized group decided upon any orthodoxy until at least a hundred years later. So on what grounds do you assume the stories drifted away from the original histories? Where is the evidence? Unfortunately this is only an assumption friend.
The evaluations of Tacitus and Suetonious and so on are not based solely on the existing manuscripts. Knowledge of the authors, their sources, their methods - and their biases - are far more important. The Gospels have very little there. This is exactly the kind of conclusion that is not sufficient, since it basically says "we can't know for sure the original history, therefore the copies probably can't be trusted" without offering any alternative. This is a logical fallacy, an appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam). We can't say "because we're not 100% sure about the originals, we can't draw conclusions about the copies," because if we do that with scripture we have to do that with Plato, Suetonius, Tacitus, because we have no originals from them either. And of course older works which we have even less evidence for, like Lucretius, Pliny, Demosthenes, and Herodotus would be in the same boat as well.
The only thing that depends on the women's story is the discovery of the empty tomb. Even if I did not believe that that is better explained by that story being a late addition, it would still be less important than the post-resurrection appearances. A missing body is simply not good evidence for a resurrection It's not. All four women have a mystical experience:
quote: This section of the story was not a late addition. This is the story they went back and told the apostles. Why was this story to be believed, and not dismissed as the fantasies of grief-stricken women? I agree that this story is not as significant as the post-resurrection appearances, but it is not as simple as a missing body.
The claim that the whole thing depends on the testimony of women is a clear falsehood. That is not quite what I was getting at. The point of this is that Jewish readers of the resurrection story would have totally dismissed it because women are depicted as the very first witnesses to the resurrection. Jewish readers would have stopped reading and said, exactly as you have, "so you believe the ramblings of women who did not even see the risen Yeshua, but claim to have spoken to shiny men? Nonsense." The Apostles and early Christians did not believe the gospel was even available to any Gentile (see Acts 10), so therefore their main audience would have been Jews at this time. The story should have gone nowhere, because there is a roadblock to the audience built into the story. Even in telling the story orally, the apostles would have been mocked because women are depicted as the first witnesses.
The appearance to the 500 also has little value as evidence. We have almost no information on it at all. It does not even recognisably appear in the Gospels or Acts. I personally suspect it was simple pareidolia. Nothing that is said contradicts that, and people "see" Jesus in that even now. Another argument from ignorance here. We cannot assume the appearance to the 500 has little value because of the information we don't have. . We only work based on what we know, not the other way around. Since we don't know when this appearance happened, it makes sense that it would not appear in the Gospels or Acts, and logically must have happened after these accounts were written. At the same time, it must have happened relatively soon to their writing, since 1 Corinthians was written approx. 55 AD.
The witnesses are in no way identified so there is little risk even in inventing the whole thing This is admittedly troubling, and I do see this hurting the argument. However this does offer the best explanation for the rapid growth of early Christianity instead of dismissal from hearers. The sort of "time-period bias" we have today seems to make us think a "superstitious" ancient people accepted things without proof, when this is simply not the case. Also, there is simply no proof that this was an interpolation, as only a tiny minority of scholars believe this. Therefore, in response:
the idea of the resurrection rests in the testimony of men, not women. All the named witnesses in 1 Corinthians 15 are men. - As the audience of early christianity were all Jews, it remains a fact that built within the account is a roadblock to its plausibility a creator of a fictitious story would not have included if he wanted it taken seriously.
even if we trust the story of 500 witnesses, despite the problems it is too lacking in detail to provide real evidence of a resurrection - We cannot draw conclusions from what we don't know. You have failed to sufficiently given an explanation for why the early church grew so fast if these witnesses did not exist (discounting other witnesses, such as Cleopas, and Paul himself, who also witnessed the risen Christ).
And finally, the growth if the Christian church had very little to do with the evidence you've produced. Nor should we expect it to depend on the truth of the story. The Mormons have been quite successful despite the fact that their (new) scriptures are 19th century fabrications, claimed to be translations of ancient doctrines. Unfortunately, most scholars agree that these things did have a large role to play within the early growth of the Christian church. Your argument seems to, again, be appealing to the "we don't know" factor, rather than offering alternatives. Mentioning the Mormons here makes sense, but it leaves out huge factors like the cultural norms of Mormonism, which includes control, indoctrination, seclusion, and community isolation. These things were not characteristic of early Christianity.
In summary, nothing you have offered is good evidence for the resurrection, even the parts that are true. Unfortunately friend, almost all of these arguments are based on the fallacious appeal to ignorance. We can compare this debate to the one about origins (bringing it full circle EvC style! ). We cannot assume the universe was not created by some sort of God, because science tells us that we simply do not know, and cannot know. In the same way, we cannot doubt the validity of the NT simply because we are not 100% certain of the believeability of the events within the originals. In fact, this seems to be more of a personal belief issue than an issue of evidence. So in conclusion, my appeal remains: I have known the risen Christ I choose to believe this. What will you choose to believe? Regards! - Raph
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