Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrection?

[arnoldo]

. . . (2) Even if "after three days" is meant literally as we would normally count it now, there are still two more reasonable explanations: (A) The resurrection was in fact on a predicted fourth "day" because there was an extra night-day cycle during the crucifixion; (B) there were two Sabbath days during this four day period, and the Crucifixion was on a Thursday.. . .

. . .Two Sabbath days within a four days period! I never heard of that ever happening. Please provide evidence. . .

The Feast of Unleavened Bread (Hag HaMatzah) is a high sabbath day. A high sabbath in Hebrew is called a shabbaton. During Passover, there is an extra sabbath besides the weekly sabbath. These sabbaths are called high sabbaths. The high sabbath of Unleavened Bread can be seen in John 19:31.

[rakovsky]

Bernard,

You appear entrenched in your position that the use of the term "meta" (after/with in Greek) can only mean "after" 3 days in the strictest sense following exactly 24 hours, not a flexible one in common speech like "With three days' sail you will reach your destination," which could allow a third day arrival.

I believe there are simple answers to your objections, like your proposal above that since decay sets in on the 4th day that there must be a 4th day resurrection (as I've answered on the link below). But we've spent three pages discussing this one topic. So it deserves it's own thread. I recommend that you move your posts to that thread and reserve any further discussions on it for this new thread I created.

Can Jesus' rising "meta" three days match a 3rd day rising?
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1975

[Diogenes the Cynic]

The strongest reason to doubt a literal resurrection is that it's physically impossible for dead bodies to come back to life.

Et sepultus resurrexit; certum est, quia impossibile

This quote has never made sense to me. It's on about the same level as "I know you are but what am I."

[Adam]

That no one would have believed it, therefore the evidence must have been so strong that they proclaimed Jesus had risen from the dead. ECREE!

[Diogenes the Cynic]

Lots of people would have believed it. People will believe anything.

[Adam]

I thought you were asking a question, not making a pronouncement.

[Bernard Muller]

Posting relocated

Cordially, Bernard

[rakovsky]

My computer crashed for a while. But I am back!
"with three days" as in "... and they will kill him; and when he is killed, WITH three days he will rise." (Mk 9:31 RSV)
Why would Jesus indicate a period of three days is needed in order to resurrect? (as a three days' sail is required to reach destination). Would it take several days of effort for God in order to complete a resurrection?

.........

Cordially, Bernard

^
Bernard,

I created a special thread to discuss the "meta three days" side topic on. I request that you and others continue your detailed discussion of it there:

Can Jesus' rising "meta" three days match a 3rd day rising?
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1975

[rakovsky]

St. Augustine, in his discussion on discrepancies in the resurrection accounts, made some interesting observations. He mentioned the difference between Mark saying that the apostles did not believe the two travelers about Jesus' resurrection and Luke saying that the apostles openly announced that Peter had seen Jesus. Augustine also noticed that Mark didn't explain how the Emmaus travelers recognized Jesus, and Augustine concludes that this means that the evangelists sometimes left out details, and that the missing details sometimes led people to wrongly think there were unresolvable discrepancies:

But again, we must remark that Mc states that “they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them:”310 whereas Lc tells us that these others were already saying that the Lord was risen indeed, and had appeared unto Simon. Is not the explanation, however, simply this, that there were some of them there who refused to credit what was related?

Moreover, to whom can it fail to be clear that Mc has just omitted certain matters which are fully set forth in Luke’s narrative,—that is to say, the subjects of the conversation which Jesus had with them before He recognised them, and the manner in which they came to know Him in the breaking of the bread? For, after recording how He appeared to them in another form, as they went towards a country-seat, Mc has immediately appended the sentence, “And they went and told it unto the residue: neither believed they them;” as if men could tell of a person whom they had not recognised, or as if those to whom He had appeared only in another form could know Him! Without doubt, therefore, Mc has simply given us no explanation of the way in which they came to know Him, so as to be able to report the same to others. And this, then, is a thing which deserves to be imprinted on our memory, in order that we may accustom ourselves to keep in view the habit which these evangelists have of passing over those matters which they do not put on record, and of connecting the facts which they do relate in such a manner that, among those who fail to give due consideration to the usage referred to, nothing proves itself a more fruitful source of misapprehension than this, leading them to imagine the existence of discrepancies in the sacred writers.

http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerusonline/en/caj.htm#ey

[Adam]

Augustine got it wrong. Luke 24:34 does NOT specify that "Peter" saw Jesus, but that "Simon" did. Simon was the writer of Proto-Luke, the son of Cleopas the other traveler to Emmaus. The minority reading makes this clearer, so Origen was not fooled like Augustine much later was after the Catholic commitment to Peter as the first Pope.