Truth of resurrection and death of the apostles (for Willowtree)

The authors of the Gospels may not have been eyewitnesses though.It is by no mens certain that Matthew Levi wrote Matthew's Gospel. Mark was not an eyewitness, Luke freely acknowledges that he wasn't an eyewitness, and John's Gospel is far too late to have been an apostle.Technically, no one witnessed the resurection of Jesus, they may have seen him 'die', then they may have seen him alive, but no one saw him rising from the dead.Brian.

The main parts of the story are accurate. The stone was rolled away. Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to the apostles. The stories were told by four different people. They were retold and retold in the oral tradition at the time. When they were written down sometime later there may have been a few facts that were different but these didn't change the main fact. Jesus rose from the dead.If you were to do any type of experiment were you do something and then ask four witnesses about it you will probably get four similar, but not exact stories. I do it all the time in my class. I do an experiment and then ask the students what they saw. THey are always right on the main facts, but there are always differences in what they say they saw. If the stories were exactly, word for word, the same you would be sitting here arguing that they were obviously copied.
The main facts are still the same. If two people told me about a fish that one of them caught and one said it was 12 lbs and the other said it was 15 lbs. I would never say they didn't catch a fish because the stories were different.

So, basically: "they got the gist of it, honest"?As I said in the other thread, they can't agree who saw it, when they saw it, whether or not there was a big thumping rock in the way when they saw it, who else was there, whether the other people were angels or just dudes, whether these angel/dudes entered the tomb or not, whether or not the people who saw it told anyone, who Jesus first spoke to after being resurrected, whether or not Mary even recognized him, whether or not Mary even saw him, what instructions Jesus gave his disciples upon returning, where the disciples saw him for the first time after his resurrection, and how many of the disciples were there when Jesus appeared.But other than that, their account is 100% accurate.You'll excuse me if the story doesn't sound all that reliable to me.

A couple months ago, I had the discovery channel on while I was fixing dinner. They had a demonstration of memory on it. They informed a test group that they were going to be doing a study on people's memory with a nature walk, and told them to pay attention to what they were being taught. They were sent out with a "guide" in a preselected region of wilderness, and the guide proceeded to tell them bits of information about the different plants that they passed.However, the main point of the exercise they had set up in advance: they scattered strange looking scraps of metal across one location, put up caution tape, and had a person wearing a military uniform guarding the location inside the tape, to make it look like a UFO or some sort of top secret project had crashed. When they came to it, the "guide" told the people that he wasn't sure what to happen - when he had come the day before to setup the route, he was harassed by the military, and told not to come near the area; he diverted the group into a different direction.The people then continued on their walk, and left when it concluded.A month or so later, they were brought back in, and asked questions about the walk. When the subject of the "crash site" came up, it was amazing how much people's stories changed from what actually happened. Some people were convinced that there were two soldiers; one was even convinced that a soldier had fired at them, and she had pulled another person out of the way. When asked about how certain they were about their memories, everyone was quite confident.Many people picture human memory as being like a video camera; actually, every time you remember a thought, your mind only has bits and pieces of it "written down". It makes up the in-betweens every time you remember something. The older the memory, the less you have kept about it, and the more your mind makes up.Things get worse when you play a game of "telephone" over a long period of time, as likely happened with the gospels. And they get even worse when diverging lines of memory re-merge. And they get even worse when the parties involved have an intense need for events to be as "impressive" as possible.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 12-08-2003]

You are right in saying no one saw him rising from the dead. All four texts say that. But if you saw him die, and then saw him alive again, then obviously he arose from the dead.

Hi,But did anyone see him die?How did they know he was dead?If he was dead, how did they know that the Jesus walking around after this was the same Jesus that died?Didn't a couple of his friends walk the raod to Emmaus and not recognise 'Jesus'.Was Thomas his twin?Brian.

Actually the women were the eye witnesses, not the writers. The writers were retelling the story they heard from the women and then recounting their own experiences. As Rei said in post 34 if you play a game of "telephone" people will then differ on some of the details. Anyway those details are not the important part of the story. If you gave these four accounts to a police officer as eye witness testimony they would be able to pick out the parts that really happened from the smaller details that were not consistent.From the four accounts you could tell1. Jesus was not in the tomb
2. The very large stone had been rolled away
3. At least one angel appeared to the eye witnesses and said "jesus is risen"
4. Jesus appeared to the apostles at a later time.And these are the important parts of the story!! It doesn't matter if one author thought two women were at the tomb and one thought three were there. They got the important part of the story right.

His mother, mary Magdalene, The centurion who stabbed him, and probably many of the disciples since the place of execution was a very public place. If you understand crucifixion you would have no doubts about his death. Jesus was beaten severely and then nailed to a cross. The way you die on a cross is by suffocation. When you can no longer support your weight with your legs your shoulders come out of their sockets, and you can no longer breath under your own weight. This is why they broke the legs of the two thieves so they would die rapidly. But for further proof remember the centurion plunged his spear into Jesus side and into his heart.You must remember these centurions would be killed if a prisoner escaped or was not executed. There is no way they were going to take Jesus down from the cross until he was dead. When Jesus appeared to the disciples he let them put their hand in the nail prints and the wound in his side.Our resurrected bodies will not be the same as our human bodies. Jesus looked enough like himself that they recognized him eventually, but enough different that these two didn’t recognize him at first. Especially since they thought he was dead and wouldn’t have been looking for him anyway.Why would you think Thomas was his twin?

Hi, thanks for the quick reply.Of the eyewitnesses you provide we have no direct testimony of any of them.I understand crucifixion very well, it was a well used Roman punishment for political criminals.The few hours that jesus spent on the cross is a remarkably short time, three days would have been about the expected time.Does the Bible say the spear went into his heart?They didnt take Jesus off the cross because he was dead, they done it because the Sabbath was approaching.I know the doubting Thomas narrative, but there is no way to verify this at all.The road to Emmaus is simply unbelievable, it smacks of folk lore rather than historicity.The theory that Thomas was Jesus twin was doing the rounds a while ago. Since Thomas means 'Twin', it was thought that he was mistaken for Jesus after the alleged resurrection, Da Vinci's last supper has Jesus twin sitting at his left hand: Brian.

No, the women were characters in in variants of a story. Really? Where in the Synoptics did you read of these conversations? Or did you simply make it up?

I believe the text clearly states that the women were the ones who went to the tomb and were the witnesses that it was empty. I don’t know why that is hard to see. They saw it with their eyes, therefore they are eye witnesses. They were not the ones who wrote it down or the books would have been called Mary, The other Mary, Salome, and Joanna. Therefore the writers of the gospel were retelling what the eye witnesses said. Where do you not read of these conversations? They are described in all four Gospels. Or do you suppose that when it says they tell his disciples that it’s describing something other than a conversation.

Not surprising. Women were not even allowed to be witness in court during these times and probably were not educated enough to write. But the Gospels still indicate that women were eyewitnesses and came back and told the others. This actually helps validate that it is true because women were considered of such little importance that had it been written much later, the writers would have certainly said that the disciples found the empty tomb. Not really considering the torture he had gone through. He was beaten once, and then scourged by Pilate. The Gospels then say he was unable to carry his cross because of the beating. Most could carry the cross. And the crucifixion started at 9:00 am and he died on the sixth watch, which would have been 6 hours. If you were beaten that severely you would not be able to stand up for long to breath.John also says that Jesus was left on the cross until they broke the legs of the thieves. So he was left there after he died. Not specifically but the fact that he was stabbed in the side and blood and water came out, suggests that the spear pierced the pericardium of the heart. There are several web sites which give a medical description of the crucifixion. They left him up long enough to break the legs of the two thieves, make sure they were dead, and pierce Jesus side with a spear. He would have been hanging in a position which would have been impossible to breath for some time. I definitely wouldn’t call Da Vinci an eye witness. This is his interprettion.

I will try to address this issue but I must warn that I am a teacher and I have a student teacher who is just finishing her internship. Therefore I do not have an abundance of free time.There are no listings in the bible of the apostles martyrdom. But I did find a site that had the early church traditions. Now please don’t show me sites which critique the author, I have seen them already. I am just pointing out a sight which discusses many of these early church traditions.
Telnet Communications - High Speed Internet & Home Phone SolutionsI found another site which talks about the historical Jesus. It is a course designed to be used in Sunday school classes but it has some archeological finds and other sources which relate to Jesus outside the Bible.ContentsThe point Christians try to make with the martyrdom of the apostles is not that martyrdom, in and of itself, proves Christianity is real, because you are right many other religions have martyrs. The point is that the apostles were in the unique position of being eye witnesses. I’ll say that again, the apostles were eye witnesses. If you or I died for our beliefs right now we are both dying because of faith. But the apostles had more than faith. They actually knew what they were dying for first hand. That’s the difference!!The real point is that these people showed a great transformation from being cowards who ran when Jesus was arrested, to Men who gave up everything to spread the word of Jesus to the World..The apostles, before the crucifixion thought that Jesus was going to establish his kingdom on Earth right then and they would be a part in his rule here on earth. That’s why many Jewish people don’t believe that Jesus was the Messiah because he was killed and they thought the messiah would set up his kingdom on earth. Even Peter didn’t understand that Jesus had to die to pay the price for our sins. These verses show he didn’t really understand what Jesus had to do at that point and still thought if he was the messiah that he would establish his kingdom then.And when Jesus was arrested the apostles all fell away and Peter even denied that he knew him under oath three times. So at this point they were probably very disillusioned and probably thought they had wasted part of their life on a would be messiah. Also after the crucifixion the apostles were obviously returning to their old lives before Jesus appeared to them in his resurrected form. But once they saw Jesus resurrected, they were transformed and never went back to their old lives. They spent the rest of their lives preaching the Gospel and got nothing from it but ridicule, prison, and beatings as 1 Corinthians points out.. So the points are;
1. The apostles didn’t have faith like the modern day Christians or Muslims or any other religion, They were in the unique position to know for a FACT2. They abandoned Jesus when he was arrested because he didn’t fulfill their idea of a messiah, and then came back after the resurrection.3. They could have, and began to, pick up their old lives and probably make a pretty good living, but they didn’t.4. They spent the rest of their lives, with nothing, wondering from place to place receiving beatings, prison terms, ridicule, and starving, and possibly being martyred.Now why would these obviously rational people before the crucifixion, become so irrational after the resurrection if they were in a position to know for a fact the resurrection was false. The answer is that the resurrection must have been fact.

Your Sunday School teachers list of 'Contemporary Secular Sources' does not include a single contemporary source.Josephus: Jesus died before Josephus was born, and that Josephus' work was forged is well established.Thallus. Is quoted in a work written about 200 years after Jesus died, his reference in only to a sudden darkness, not actually to Jesus.Phlegon. Born about 50 years after Jesus died.Pliny the Younger. Wrote in 112, almost 80 years after Jesus died, hardly contemporary. Records that people worshipped a 'Christ' he doesn't know if their object of worship was ever a real man.Tacitus. Born about 20 years after Jesus died, he never mentions Jesus by name and simply records that some people worshipped a Christ.Seutonius. God knows why people keep using Seutonius, maybe it is because of the nutter that the Sunday School teacher quotes from, Josh Macdowell. But Seutonius uses the word Chrestus which means 'the good', the texts does not say 'Christos'.Bar Serapion. Doesn't even mention Jesus at all, and he was writing 40 years after Jesus died.Your Sunday School teacher is very poor at archaeological research too,Your source says: This is simply untrue, I won't say it is a lie, he repeats a very common error, an error that actually led me to e-mail the Passantino's who also spread this falsehood through their website.They actually did edit the essay, more than likely because a few Christians wrote to them and informed them that they had read my post at this website and that there was indeed ample evidence for Pilate before this find.You will find that Pilate is attested to by Josephus and by Tacitus, this piece of propaganda was made up to make the Bible look impressive.In fact, your source is so poor at researching that he claims that the Tacitus reference is very reliable, and who does the Tacitus quote mention, well guess... But not all the relief that could come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor all the atonements which could be presented to the gods, availed to relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the conflagration, the fire of Rome. Hence to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the guilt, and punished Christians, who were hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate , procurator of Judea in the reign of Tiberius: but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time broke out again, not only through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Strange that he fails to notice this mention of Pilate when he uses the source as proof of Jesus.The sunday school teacher hasn't qualified Sunday School yet.Brian.

I didn't really have time to research the site. I just put it up there so people could look at it because it had archeological mentions of places in the Bible.So Pilate is mentioned outside the Bible and so is Jesus. So what is your point. Just because someone didn't know it was mentioned somewhere else doesn't change the fact that Pilate is mentioned outside the Bible.As for Josephus being forged, I only found one source which said Josephus was thought to have be forged by many historians. They don't mention any of these historians and I found a majority of sources which didn't indicate this. If it is so well established I would like to see more proof.Here is another site I found with archeological discoveries that support the bible. They include dates of the new testiment and other books from antiquity. The new testiment has over 24,000 copies and some date within 30 years of the event. This is far more than any other of the documents.Foolish Faith - Chapter 6: Unparalleled Historicity - Shaking Modern Discoveries