If you’ve discussed the resurrection with Christians before, then you’re probably familiar with the above argument. Since first century Jews didn’t believe in a bodily resurrection like Jesus’s, then they’re no way the disciples would have believed it without actually witnessing it for themselves. William Lane Craig has used this argument several times:
He made the case again in a 2005 debate at California State University. At the 29 minute mark, he says that Jews like the Pharisees believed in a resurrection that would happen to everyone at the end of time. They never believed that an individual could have a bodily resurrection within the course of human history.
But recently, while I was reading Crossan’s The Historical Jesus, he pointed out something that I hadn’t thought of before. It turns out that there are a couple of New Testament passages that really throw a wrench in Craig’s claim. For instance, Mark 6:14-16 says:
King Herod heard of it, for Jesus’ name had become known. Some said, “John the Baptist has been raised from the dead. That is why these miraculous powers are at work in him.” But others said, “He is Elijah.” And others said, “He is a prophet, like one of the prophets of old.” But when Herod heard of it, he said, “John, whom I beheaded, has been raised.”
Here, we have a number of people who are ready to believe that Jesus is actually a resurrected John the Baptist, Elijah, or some other prophet from antiquity. And we find similar passages in both Matthew and Luke as well. So now we have a problem. Either Craig’s argument is totally false, and the idea of a bodily resurrection from the dead is something that people in Jesus’s time were ready to believe with virtually no evidence, or the writers of the synoptic gospels were lying or mistaken. Either way, it illustrates how an actual resurrection is the least likely explanation for the resurrection story.
If you’d like to read about other issues with the resurrection, you can check out this article.
Finding Truth 
Supposedly….after his resurrection…Jesus didn’t need to eat, but he ate broiled fish anyway. Very weird.
It seems to me that it was more important for the authors of these stories to prove that the “raised” Jesus was a real flesh and blood body and not a ghost. They don’t seem interested in proving his body was “immortal”. For all we know, the earliest Christians didn’t see Jesus’ “raised” body as any different from Lazarus’ “raised” body, the only difference being that Jesus’ “raising” was a sign that he was the Messiah. The alleged appearances of Jesus proved to the emotionally devastated and ghost-seeing disciples (Sea of Galilee) that Jesus was the messiah and that they would soon reign with Jesus, sitting on twelve thrones, ruling over the re-established Davidic Monarchy in the New Israel.
From the little evidence we do have, I will bet it is very possible that the original “raised from the dead” stories about Jesus did NOT include an Ascension (it is only mentioned by one gospel author, and he admits he was not an eyewitness.) So it is quite possible that the truth is that Jesus lived on, appearing here, and appearing there, for many years, and then when he died the SECOND time, as all “raised” people do…God carried his body to an unknown location and buried him…kind of like with Moses. And that is why Papias, in the second century, believed that Jesus lived on into his 50’s after his “raising”!!
Maybe the author of John never meant any of his miracle stories, or God-cooking-fish stories, to be taken literally. Maybe they were told for theological purposes only, not meant to be seen as historical events.And since we don’t know what his purpose for telling these stories was (no one else in the Bible tells about this cooking-fish-story), we should chalk it up to a theological story, not an historical story.
But we will never know for sure why he wrote these stories because no one knows who wrote this book! *****So the mature, rational thing to do is to NOT believe a tall, supernatural-laden tale until there is evidence to support its veracity.*****
We don’t believe stories about Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster on the basis of poor evidence, so why should we believe it about a man who lived twenty centuries ago who allegedly walked on water, turned water into wine…and cooked fish on the shore of the Sea of Tiberius after he had just received his shiny, brand-spanking-new, superhero, I-can-cook-fish-by-just-wiggling-my-nose body?
It
is
a
tall
tale!
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@Lane
Nope. People like unklee need to be shown for what they truly are.
His approach is manipulative, and condescending. He is the Cherry Picker par excellence.
And contrary to what he believes, he is willfully ignorant almost to the point of being disingenuous.
Engage him about Moses and the Exodus and the impact it should have on his beloved Jesus of
NazarethNowhere.See if you can get a straight answer to the archaeological problems and the fact the biblical character, Yeshua actually believes he was a real historical person?
Fifty bucks says you he will blow you off with the theological two step – that;s if he even engages you.
And if he does …. boy oh boy you are one ‘Favored Son’, let me tell you.
He touts the biblical scholarly ‘consensus’ ticket like its a mantra given him by Yahweh, yet he has nothing to say ( of any worth) regarding the consensus over the historical fiction of the Pentateuch or the archaeological consensus regarding the Egyptian captivity, Exodus and conquest.
Do you know how long we have all heard his ”minimum facts” bullshit?
What facts for christsake? There are no frakking ”facts” about the resurrection – other than the fact it is simply a story.
And while the others are more tentative in their approach dealing with him, I could care less.
He tailors his arguments and responses to ensure his game plan is hardly disrupted at all. You will note he will never engage me any more.
You should read one of his posts – Nazareth revisited, I think it is called.
His arse was handed to him on a plate by some bloke called Bernard, and when he finally had no answer left he cut the thread off but still managed to leave stating something along the lines that if Bernard was not prepared to accept what the ”experts” say then there was no point in continuing dialogue.
Very similar to what he did on this thread and as far as memory serves almost every occasion he pops over to Nate’s blog.
Again … stick around long enough and you will learn.
Ark
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Sorry I’m just now seeing these. Lane, for what it’s worth, I completely agree with you! I’m given grief about it too, from time to time, but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. Glad to have someone else on here that sees it the same way. 🙂
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But Ark, I think it’s okay to just let the drama play out without attacking him over it. First, I’m not prepared to say that unkleE is disingenuous about anything he says. In fact, I think he’s usually very sincere about it. But even if we leave that aside, if his arguments are so problematic, then I think most objective readers will be able to see that, especially if our responses deal with his arguments and not his character.
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Hold that thought as long as you can —
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He lived across the street. I chased him home with a baseball bat, but his mother wouldn’t let me kill him. (A very narrow-minded attitude on her part, if I do say so myself!)
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“It seems to me that it was more important for the authors of these stories to prove that the “raised” Jesus was a real flesh and blood body and not a ghost.
Exactly.
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If all else fails, Lane, listen to Ark!
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The boy was a year older and a head taller. You can irritate me all day, even get on my last nerve and you’re perfectly safe, but you don’t want to make me angry – you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.
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i’m totally freaking out.
some of you may remember me having a panic about my sister sending her troubled 14yr old son to an out of state “Christian” boarding school. well, I just found out where he is:
http://teenchallengeusa.blogspot.com/
i’m horrified and can’t sleep over this.
that poor child
and he doesn’t get out until December.
this is terrible!!!!!!!!!! I don’t know what to do. I can now send him mail, but it all has to be “approved” by assholes calling themselves christians.
it’s really making me sick. i’m seriously disturbed by thinking what he is having to endure.
help me.
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I wish I could, Pauli, but the truth is, at his age, there is nothing you can do except attempt to reason with your sister. You have no legal standing, and even CPS won’t interfere, due to the religious factor.
To add fuel to the flames, I ran across this documentary:
http://freedocumentaries.org/documentary/jesus-camp
The good news is that due to the negative publicity generated by the above documentary, the ‘Jesus Camp’ was closed.
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And continue to communicate with him, but hold back that temper of yours or you’ll find yourself on a blacklist, and that won’t help your nephew. You might look into the legal requirements in his state for emancipation, and once he’s out, consider trying to help him break free – legally – from his parents, but for now, just give him all of the support you can. Yeah, I know, it’s frustrating to feel so helpless, but not everything can be fixed.
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Does anyone but me find it strange that, according to Genesis, Yahweh created the entire Universe for the Jews, his Chosen People —
— yet of all of the religions in the world, Judaism comprises only 0.22 of 1 per cent?
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And on top of this Arch, every time Yahweh gave them land, they still had to kill the people who occupied the land in order to receive Yahweh’s gift.
That would be like me giving you a Bentley, but you still had to kill the original owner in order to receive my gift. 🙂
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Psychologist Eric Berne, in his book, “Games People Play,” had a name for that – he called that game, ‘Let’s You and Him Fight‘.
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@arch
All the more making the Jews even more special! In any case isn’t it written that most will perish and only very few will be saved?
In fact, revelations say only 144k will be saved. I mean you can take it as a metaphor where 144k is not 144k
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Out of the billions and billions of humans who have ever lived, this god created an entire universe, had a 13-year old virgin impregnated, had his son murdered in agony, to save 144 thousand? Sounds like a piss-poor plan to me.
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Really sorry, Paulie… that’s an awfully messed up situation. I think arch’s advice is probably about the best anyone could give.
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@Nate
You’re pulling my leg, Nate, right?
What do you think he does to you every time he drops one of his sugary- not-so -sweet comments on one of your posts?
Do you truly think he is showing you any respect?
He is not interested in your – or anyone else’s POV, if it in anyway clashes with his own. He’s merely here to rubbish your deconversion – in a nice gentlemanly scholarly fashion (sic) and try to show you that you really know Jack S*** and that you were never a real Christian no matter the nonsense you had to put up with and still do.
Besides, when it comes to hypocrisy and hypocrites of this nature, I don’t do ”nice.’ And every approach is part of the drama!
Failing this , of course, he might really be a closet atheist. Won’t be the first one, either.
🙂
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I’ll bet there was someone who said exactly the same thing about Tomas Torquemada.
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thanks arch, I saw jesus camp, and when my sister told me she had sent him away, I referenced that movie, but she insisted it isn’t like that. well, now that I know where he is, it is exaclty like jesus camp.
i’m just going to write him nice little letters and hope for the best.
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He’ll need all of the support he can get.
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Off-topic, granted, but I found this article fascinating: http://www.theworldweekly.com/reader/view/magazine/2015-01-22/the-battle-for-islam/3090?UA-38783225-1
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Also off-topic
Chanced upon this:
http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/the-strange-ending-of-the-gospel-of-mark-and-why-it-makes-all-the-difference/
The commentator Gary, is that our Gary?
Sounds like you though.
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