Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrection?

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
John Kesler
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by John Kesler »

Adam wrote:
John Kesler wrote: There's no end to the how-it-could-have-been "explanations" one can posit, and in nearly two decades of discussing the Bible on the Internet, I have seen many. To argue that Matthew's Jesus, and an angel, said on resurrection morning to go to Galilee, and that there is where the apostles would meet Jesus, but that Jesus changed his mind and made two Jerusalem appearances a week apart, plus an appearance by the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee before the predicted appearance on a mountain in Galilee, strains credibility.
John K., your own understanding of the gospels would seem to lead to understanding the conundrum here. You acknowledge (as I do) politics here, that Peter and his followers wrote gMark and gMatthew--so Matthew 28, John 21, and Mark 16:1-8 represent this version, lacking any appearances to the apostles in Jerusalem. The Johannine party is behind Luke 24, Mark 16:9-20 (later), and John 20. They seemed to talk right past each other. Yet in my presentation of it both derive from the same (but separately evolving) Proto-Gospel.
Understanding why some contradictions exist is still an acknowledgment that the texts are contradictory. As the resurrection accounts stand, they cannot reasonably be harmonized, something that you and I discussed before: http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... 612&page=3.
theterminator
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by theterminator »

If a friend (eg. Carl) sends another friend to ask you and your other friends to meet him in another city, but then stops by your house that day and then again eight days later before your big meeting, this does not make you wrong if you say: "(Carl) sent a friend to tell me to meet him in another city, where I went with my friends and met him".

Matthew's account would be like Carl's instructions to meet him in the city and like your account of that appointed meeting




10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.





before the news reached the disciples about dead jesus' come back, no disciples saw dead jesus


then if we imagine, the women report to the disciples about dead jesus' come back

women say:

"go to galilee , there you will see jesus"


i don't see where in matthew the disciples disobeyed the instruction because the text says

"moreover"

wouldn't this "moreover" refer to what was already said in verse 10 about the instruction to go?




the moreover would be referring to what had already been said in verse 10 about instructions to go? so where is there indication in matthew that there were previous meetings before verse 16?


if matthew is speaking the truth, why is he using deception in how he is telling the story?

why does he connect 16 with verse 10 when there were meetings between the two verses?
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Adam
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by Adam »

Hey, the Laws of Physics change every century. Heard of Descartes? Newton? Einstein? Max Planck? Currently too many changes to name them all, but start with String Theory and Dark Matter.
Adam
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by Adam »

John Kesler wrote: Understanding why some contradictions exist is still an acknowledgment that the texts are contradictory. As the resurrection accounts stand, they cannot reasonably be harmonized, something that you and I discussed before: http://bcharchive.org/2/thearchives/sho ... 612&page=3.
Thanks so much, John,
For tracking down our prior correspondence. You seem to imply now that I lost the debate, but it seems to end irresolutely with me defending my position.

What you are leaving out it what members here would find crucial. Though I took upon myself (successfully, in my opinion) Dan Barkers's Easter Challenge), I conceded that Mark 16:9-20 was impossible to bring into full reconciliation, but I demanded that Barker would need to allow that evasion (though he wouldn't, he's not fair). Along the way I admitted anyway that however good a job I might or might not have done, I MYSELF don't believe me because I don't believe in Biblical inerrancy in the first place (or havn't anyway, since 1992 when I apostasized from the Roman Catholic Church). For those whose weaker faith demands that they believe the full (whatever that means) Bible, I have stood by them as regards my own specialty, the gospels. (Does anyone really WANT to believe in Leviticus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges etc? Boggles my mind.)
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rakovsky
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by rakovsky »

Adam wrote:
John Kesler wrote: There's no end to the how-it-could-have-been "explanations" one can posit, and in nearly two decades of discussing the Bible on the Internet, I have seen many. To argue that Matthew's Jesus, and an angel, said on resurrection morning to go to Galilee, and that there is where the apostles would meet Jesus, but that Jesus changed his mind and made two Jerusalem appearances a week apart, plus an appearance by the Sea of Tiberias in Galilee before the predicted appearance on a mountain in Galilee, strains credibility.
John K., your own understanding of the gospels would seem to lead to understanding the conundrum here. You acknowledge (as I do) politics here, that Peter and his followers wrote gMark and gMatthew--so Matthew 28, John 21, and Mark 16:1-8 represent this version, lacking any appearances to the apostles in Jerusalem. The Johannine party is behind Luke 24, Mark 16:9-20 (later), and John 20. They seemed to talk right past each other. Yet in my presentation of it both derive from the same (but separately evolving) Proto-Gospel.
Adam,

This is pretty interesting how your proposed this concept.
I understand that -
A) Galilee: Matthew 28, John 21, and Mark 16:1-8
B) Jerusalem: Luke 24, Mark 16:9-20 (later), and John 20.

However, even those accounts do not agree with the others of their own version perfectly. In Matthew 28, the first appearance mentioned is on the Mount, at which point Jesus gives the commission to them. In John 21, Jesus seems to first see them by the water. I suppose that it was Sea of Tiberias and private meeting with Peter first, and then the Mount second with them all gathered.

Further, in John 20 there are two visits in Jerusalem, but in Luke 24, all the eleven are gathered on the first visit.
In John 20, Thomas is missing on the first appearance. Why? Where is he? Maybe he was in Galilee by the seashore? If so, maybe the account of Thomas in Galilee has some merit.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
Adam
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by Adam »

What's your point?
The Dan Barker Easter Challenge was not to derive the most sensible possible explanation for everything that happened, but just to find tenability for all the events squeezed in somehow.
Possible inconsistencies may exist, but nothing to upset someone like me not committed to inerrancy and verbal inspiration.
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rakovsky
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by rakovsky »

Bernard,
Matthew wrote that the pharisees said that Jesus said that He would resurrect after three days and that the pharisees concluded that the guards should only be posted for Saturday and Sunday (the third day). If Matthew was making up this story about the guards being posted only for three days (ie. not being posted for "after three days"), then he could just as easily have instead alter the text into saying that the pharisees heard Jesus say that the resurrection would be in three days. Why needlessly preserve the term "after" if it presented such an obvious conflict?
All the narratives (4 gospels and Paul) narrate a third day resurrection, even Mark's references to the "temple" not made with hands being rebuilt with a three days' period. It is very hard to base so much on a single word like "after", which can also mean "with" and was used to mean "in" in the TaNaKh.

So your hypothesis is that Jesus originally said "after" in the full, literal meaning as we take it today, and that this therefore conflicts with narratives of the third day resurrection. Why would they create a new narrative of a third day resurrection if all along Jesus and the apostles like in "original" Mark had always said it was "after three days"? Scholars often say that Mark up to Chp. 16 verse 8 is original. But even in that original version, the women still went there on the morning of Day 3 (Sunday) and found the tomb empty.

It just seems like piling too much onto a single word with debated multiple meanings that doesn't fit the multiply repeated 3rd day narratives. If we heard explicit references elsewhere to a "fourth" day resurrection, and not just the disputed use of the word "meta" (after or with), there would be a stronger case to be made.

Even traditional Christians don't demand Biblical absolute "inerrancy".

Marl 8:31, your main verse of focus says:
"And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again."
What you need to ask here is "After three days of what
?" Naturally, it's three days of this experience of suffering that included rejection and killing.
The first day can be Thurday, when the elders rejected Him and Judas betrayed Him as they asked, Friday is the crucifixion, and then Saturday is the burial. After three days of that, he resurrected on Sunday. You can count the darkening of the sun on Friday as an extra night/day cycle if you need to. The answer of Theophilact the Bulgarian was that the counting started at the last supper.

For example, if "our coach had us do intense exercises every day starting on Monday, running every day, and then he even had us do one set of 100 pushups on friday, after five days of this (the intense exercises) we were exhausted", then naturally it means that we were exhausted on Saturday. We don't have to wait another five days after the series of daily exercizes ended to be exhausted, nor do we start the count on Friday when the pushups happened. Even if you don't mention on what day the pushups happened, the count still begins on Monday, not Friday.

Likewise, in Jesus' case, Mark 8:31 does not mean after three days have passed after the killing occurred He would rise, but after three days of suffering and rejection He would rise.

Basically, in understanding literature you need to look for harmonization, and it's only when harmonization can't happen that you are stuck with a contradiction. If there is a real way to reasonably or arguably interpret the text, then it's not a fatal flaw.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
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arnoldo
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by arnoldo »

rakovsky wrote: Basically, in understanding literature you need to look for harmonization, and it's only when harmonization can't happen that you are stuck with a contradiction. If there is a real way to reasonably or arguably interpret the text, then it's not a fatal flaw.
If there were 100% harmonization in these accounts would it prove anything? It may seem counterintuitive, but Anthony Le Donne has an interesting hypothesis that these apparent discrepancies are valuable to interpret the text, rendering it not a fatal flaw.
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rakovsky
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by rakovsky »

I get a sense that Matthew is pulling my leg when he talks about Herod's order to kill the infants in Bethlehem, or about the angel coming down to roll the stone away, but I don't know how to prove it. In Herod's case we don't have a record elsewhere of such an order, but he could have made and then removed the order.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
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rakovsky
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Re: Strongest, most direct evidence to doubt the Resurrectio

Post by rakovsky »

arnoldo wrote:
rakovsky wrote: Basically, in understanding literature you need to look for harmonization, and it's only when harmonization can't happen that you are stuck with a contradiction. If there is a real way to reasonably or arguably interpret the text, then it's not a fatal flaw.
If there were 100% harmonization in these accounts would it prove anything? It may seem counterintuitive, but Anthony Le Donne has an interesting hypothesis that these apparent discrepancies are valuable to interpret the text, rendering it not a fatal flaw.
I agree. It is normal for people's accounts of past experiences to differ in some ways or to have small mistakes or unclear areas. If everything was 100% perfect, it would suggest more editing with the text to "correct" it.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
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