Lower Nubia wrote:Geneviev wrote:Then what is the evidence? I have been looking for it and haven't found it. Yeah? I would die for the Beatles. That doesn't make Ringo God.
Foolishness, too? Goodness, if I could blindly believe in this, I would. I assure you of that.
I don't see how this is so difficult. The Christian faith is founded on the Resurrection of Christ. So when we have records of His death and then appearance's several days later, what else could you need? You want to witness it? Why isn't the testimony of those men worthy? All objections involve loose hypotheses, which do not get a free pass into the realm of critical thought. Such a claim must also be backed by relevant evidence.
Yet we have multiple testimony of followers, eyewitness, writing and practices in a dynamic totally hostile to the message of Christ. A totally hostile dynamic is not mere persecution, the very mind of the Jew and gentile would be hostile: Resurrection was impossible and scorned by Roman's and Greek's, who saw the flesh as 'undesirable'. That a man could be God? The embodiment of the demiurge could be so near? That a man executed using the socially crippling, shameful and dishonourable practice of crucifixion could gain a vast amount of followers who would then be persecuted from the very standard of their leader, by society and then also, occasionally under state sanction? That Christ's message which usurped Roman authority in the realms of the family; placing the original subjugation of the wife to the husband, into a controlled respect relation? This ties into the more classless proclamations such as in Galatians, but Roman society was built on these hierarchies it would of be revolutionary thinking - not a good idea if you want followers. The fact that a man on no standing from Galilee (the back end of the Roman Empire) could have social prominence? The fact that the eyewitness for the resurrection, and the empty tomb were women, who held no such testimonial power in the Empire? That Christ stated he "knew not the day or hour", but in this time a deity presented himself as knowledgeable and respectful, such a statement would be devastating for the christian - how could God be so ignorant? How could the Jews have been so pathetic at uncovering such a deception:
"And it came to pass, that he went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. And the Pharisees said unto him, Behold, why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?"
If they followed them to the cornfields, why not to the burial, how would the Pharisee's who followed Christ, in the context of a non-private society, be unable to "fact check" the Christians claims of an empty tomb or dead Christ? How could the Christian scriptures get away with such proclamations of kings, prefectures and religious leader's statements if they were falsely attributed? It would be easy to refute, yet the powers of the day didn't proclaim them as fraudulent.
There are loads of these questions. Each no doubt could have a minuscule naturalist explanation, yet there are lots of these questions, each one requiring unlikely explanations, but as the unlikely builds up for each one, you have to wonder: its survival and execution was miraculous!
All of this makes the Resurrection quite plausible, to assume the Resurrection had not occurred, yet the movement had been successful, would be somewhat untenuous. The whole christian position was built on the supposition that Christ would die and be resurrected and that the Temples would fall. All three had to happen, yet only the Resurrection is countered, but that too is reasonable.
To say that the Resurrection is proven, is bold, but to say that the Resurrection did not occur, is just as bold. Holding to the Resurrection is reasonable and plausible, which makes it perfect event for the faith-loyalty dynamic required in the New Testament. Just enough to make it reasonable, but not lacking to make it utterly deniable.
It's unlikely that there even was a tomb to begin with. Those executed by crucifixion were rarely, if ever, removed from the crosses. Some apostles might have experienced a group hallucination and their account was sexed up later by Paul the arch-heretic to make it seem more credible.
