By Mano Singham
One the one hand, you may have the holding-hands-and-singing-kumbaya phenomenon. This ecumenical approach seeks to find commonalities in religions and to emphasize the things that all religions share, such as that in every major religion one can find some version of the Golden Rule, to act towards others as one would want them to act towards you, and so on. This group of people tends to suppress those things in their religious texts that highlight differences with, or preach intolerance of, other religions.
The other is the "My religion is better than yours" or "My religion is right, yours is wrong" approach, taken by those seeking to either convert the other person or by people pursuing a political agenda. Such people are so convinced of the rightness of their own religion that they are often completely ignorant of even the most basic tenets of other faiths, having just a caricatured view of only those parts that they think puts the other in a bad light. So, for example, the anti-Muslim bigots in America can often quote those parts of the Koran that seem to call for violent action against infidels while ignoring those parts that are more tolerant.
But while it is understandable why the former group has decided for political reasons not to compare the relative merits of their respective religions, what is interesting is that even in the latter case, they do not try to argue, on the basis of evidence, why one religion might be superior to another. One can see why. After all, how can you rationally argue that Judaism (to pick a religion at random) is better than Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or whatever? What possible data could you produce? They rarely use evidence because introducing the notion of evidence immediately shows the weakness of their own religion. Would it make any sense for a Christian and a Muslim and a Jew to argue about the merits of the evidence for Jesus rising from the dead compared with that for Mohammed to ride on a winged horse or for Joshua stopping the sun in its tracks? To do so risks making all of them skeptics because it would become immediately apparent that the claims of each religion are all absurd and unsupported.
Instead, the appeal for religious allegiance is almost always based on emotional or moral grounds, that one religion provides greater emotional satisfaction or rewards (material and spiritual) than the other or conforms more closely with current societal values. For example, it is hard to see a majority of Americans embracing orthodox Islam or Judaism, irrespective of the theological merits of those religions, simply because of their absurd and unconscionable restrictions on the role of women. Most women will simply not go along.
When religions try to convert people to another faith, it is almost always on the basis of some sort of emotional appeal. Fundamentalist Christian evangelists have a two-pronged strategy to making converts: first scare the daylights out of people by declaring them to be sinners destined for the fires of everlasting hell, and then promise them an escape from such torments if they accept Jesus as their personal lord and savior.
This is why it must be disconcerting for a religious person to have such discussions with an atheist. Atheists believe that god does not exist not because the idea of nonexistence is appealing or satisfies some emotional need, but simply because the idea of believing in something for which there is zero evidence strikes them as an absurd thing to do. To convince an atheist, you need to provide evidence for god, and this mode of persuasion is foreign to religious believers.
To bring the discussion back to a form they are familiar with, religious people try to assert that atheism is also a 'belief'. They try to argue that since atheists cannot prove that god does not exist, then assuming so must make it a belief. This tactic puts them back into a more familiar discussion mode, since it is arguing for one belief versus another, and the argument can then be made on the basis of emotional appeals, by asking which belief is more satisfying.
This is, of course, a false argument. Believing in the nonexistence of an entity because of the lack of any evidence for it is not equivalent to believing in the existence of an entity despite the lack of evidence for it. The former is a rational belief while the latter is irrational.
This is not to say that emotions do not play any role. Human beings are emotional animals. But for anyone with a logical or scientific attitude towards life, holding rational beliefs is far more emotionally satisfying than clinging on to irrational ones.
The crucial difference in the emotional responses is this: Religious people believe in irrational things because it makes them feel good. Atheists feel good because they believe in rational things.
When religions meet
“Would it make any sense for a Christian to argue about the merits of the evidence for Jesus rising from the dead . . . because it would become immediately apparent that the claims . . . are all absurd and unsupported.”
Absolutely none of what you’re about to read has anything to do with the Bible being inspired or infallible or any other trappings of religion. These are historical facts attested to by the vast majority of secular, atheist and Christian historical scholars. While there will always be those on the lunatic fringe who attempt to deny historical facts (eg. holocaust), to deny that there is extra Biblical factually accurate information regarding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus requires that you be either profoundly ignorant or a determined liar and most importantly, you must lie to yourself about what is factually and historically true. There is absolutely no sustainable reason for the following historical events to have occurred unless the essential facts of Jesus death and resurrection are true.
If Jesus didn’t die on the cross:
Why would Josephus, Matthew, Tacitus, Mark, Lucian of Samosata, Dr. Luke, Mara Bar-Serapion, John, The Babylonion Talmud and John Dominic Crossan of the “Jesus Seminar” all attest that Jesus’ crucifixion is historical fact? And why would that be when all but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are non Christians?
If Jesus didn’t die on the cross, why would these historians and scholars write that He did? Why would they simply invent these stories? There was/is absolutely nothing of earthly value to be gained by concocting this as a lie.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
. Why do we have multiple, independent, extra Biblical sources attesting to the risen Jesus?
. Why do we have virtually unanimous modern historical scholarship agreeing that the disciples truly believed they saw Jesus alive after His death on the cross.
. Why would atheist historian and New Testament critic Gerd Ludemann say, “It may be taken as historically certain that Peter and the disciples had experiences after Jesus’ death in which Jesus appeared to them as the risen Christ.”
. Why would atheist historian Paula Fredriksen say, “I don’t know what they saw, but as a historian I know they believed they saw Jesus.”
. Why would highly critical New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann agree that historical criticism can establish “the fact that the first disciples came to believe in the resurrection and that they thought they had seen the risen Jesus."
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this doesn’t make sense. Why would the enemies of Christianity affirm the historical facts regarding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus if the evidence isn’t accurate and compelling?
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
. Why would all the disciples, plus hundreds and hundreds of others believe that they saw Him alive? . Why would they say that they spoke with Him?
. Why would they say that they ate with Him at various times and various places?
. If none of that is true, why would they be willing to die for making up the lie of seeing Jesus alive? There was absolutely nothing of earthly value to be gained, and everything to lose by concocting the supposed lies about Jesus life, death and resurrection. Remember these people didn’t believe someone else’s lie. Over the centuries many people have died for believing someone else’s lies. But if THESE people died for a lie, it was THEIR lie! They died for saying they saw Jesus alive again after His death. Liars simply do not make martyrs of themselves.
Without the resurrection being historical fact, their willingness to die for the “truth” doesn’t make any sense.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why do we have Paul’s testimony about His encounter with Jesus and why do we have his radical transformation in character from a persecutor of the Church and a killer of Christians to the greatest missionary that the Christian Church has ever seen? Remember, Paul:
. Was a rabid sceptic when Jesus appeared to him.
. Was an enemy of the Church when Jesus appeared to him.
This is not like most conversions whereby the person reads or hears something that persuades h/her to change. Paul’s evidence for the risen Jesus was first hand and so convincing that he endured years of hardship, persecution and rejection for proclaiming the risen Lord, before finally being beheaded by Nero in 64AD.
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this change in Paul’s character doesn’t make any sense. He had absolutely nothing of earthly value to gain, and everything to lose by concocting a story of meeting Jesus while on His way to persecute the Church.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
. Why in the world would Jesus’ brothers James and Jude go to their deaths proclaiming that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead?
. Why would they claim that they had seen Him?
. Why would they confess that Jesus is the Lord God, Messiah?
James’ and Jude’s conversions were a drastic change from thinking their Brother was insane and an embarrassment to the family.
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this change in the beliefs of Jesus’ siblings doesn’t make any sense. They had absolutely nothing of earthly value to gain and everything to lose if what they said about Jesus appearing to them after His death was not true.
Remember, Both Paul and James were sceptics at the time that Jesus appeared to them. Why would they become His followers if His resurrection wasn't historical fact?
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why was His tomb empty?
. Jesus’ enemies were the ones to confirm that the body was missing by proposing that the disciples stole it.
. The disciples didn’t have the power nor the inclination to steal His body. They were hiding behind locked doors. . Jesus’ enemies had no reason to steal the body and every reason to keep it right where it was. They posted an armed guard, and sealed the tomb with the Governor’s seal to make sure that nothing happened to the body.
. The first proclamations of the empty tomb were made right there in Jerusalem where Jesus was murdered and buried. The tomb could have been easily checked out.
If the resurrection isn’t historical fact, how is it that the tomb was empty with no sound explanation other than the resurrection?
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why do the ancient documents written by Jesus’ followers make the “mistake” of saying that women (who at the time were seen as lower than animals and not capable of telling the truth) were the ones who discovered the empty tomb and encountered the risen Lord. If it wasn’t true, if the disciples were trying to convince others of a lie, if the resurrection wasn’t historical fact, why would the writers invent the testimony of women to say that it was true?
If the resurrection isn’t historical fact, it doesn’t make any sense that His followers would do that.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why did Josephus, Hegesippus and Clement of Alexandria all non Christians and all historians write about Jesus’ brother James, his leadership in the Jerusalem Church and his martyrdom for proclaiming Jesus as risen Lord and Saviour?
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this doesn’t make any sense. People don’t just destroy their careers and reputations by writing lies. They would only write these things if the evidence convinced them that it was accurate.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why do we have an early oral tradition that dates from the first or second year after Jesus’ death attesting to the fact of Him rising from the dead.
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this doesn’t make any sense. There is no hint of legend or exaggeration in this oral tradition. And these people had their lives to lose by repeating it. Why would they do that if it wasn’t true?
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why do we have the written works of the early Church with hymns, poetry and creeds, stemming from the early oral history telling about Jesus rise from the dead?
Without the resurrection being historical fact, we simply wouldn't have this.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why do we have the Christian Church? Paul told early Christians, “If Jesus did not rise from the dead, your faith is worthless.”
Without the resurrection being historical fact there wouldn’t be any Christianity. Yet here it is today, over 2 billion strong.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
How did Paul know what He knew about Jesus prior to any contact with the apostles and why would they accept Paul as one of their own based on what he was teaching about Jesus? Without the resurrection being historical fact, and without Jesus appearing to Paul and teaching Paul about Himself, this doesn’t make any sense.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why do we have the four ancient biographies of Jesus, one of them by historian and physician Luke who got his information from eyewitnesses all affirming the resurrection of Jesus? Why would they tell Luke that these things happened if they weren’t true? They paid for that "lie" with their lives.
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this doesn’t make any sense.
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
Why do we have Clement of Rome, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Polycarp and others, all saying that they had been taught by the apostles that Jesus had risen from the dead. And THEN, all of these men were themselves martyred based on the believability of what the disciples had told them. These were not ignorant, gullible men. Yet the evidence made sense to them.
Without the resurrection being historical fact, how could that happen?
If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead:
What would account for the disciple’s radical transformation from fearful and cowardly men who denied Jesus and who ran away from Him during His trial, to bold individuals who were so confident of the truth of what they saw and heard regarding His resurrection, that they were willing to undergo years of persecution as well as torture and death rather than change their story. Without the resurrection, this change in character doesn’t make any sense.
If the accounts of what the disciples taught weren’t true:
. Why was it that Polycarp wrote of the endurance under torture of Paul, Ignatius, Zosimus, and Rufus for their belief in the risen Christ?
. Why was it that Ignatius also wrote of the suffering and death of the apostles?
. Why was it that Polycarp and Ignatius were both martyred?
. Why would they be willing to die in such a manner if the accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection weren’t accurate?
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this doesn’t make any sense.
If the accounts of what the disciples taught weren’t true:
Why would we have confirming accounts of the disciples teaching and deaths in Roman public records called “Lives of the Caesars.”
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this doesn’t make any sense.
If the accounts of what the disciples taught weren’t true:
Why would Origen write, “Jesus, who has both risen AND led His disciples to believe in His resurrection and so thoroughly persuaded them of its truth that they showed to all men by their suffering how they were able to laugh at life’s troubles beholding to life eternal and a resurrection clearly demonstrated to them in word and deed by this one Jesus.”
Without the resurrection being historical fact, it doesn’t make any sense that Origen would write that.
If the accounts of what the disciples taught weren’t true:
Why do we have Eusebius, Dionysius of Corinth, Tertullian, Hegesibous, Josephus, Clement of Alexandria, all of these sources, Christian and non Christian alike affirming the disciples willingness to die for what they believed to be true.
Without the resurrection being historical fact, it doesn’t make any sense that these many and varied individuals would make this stuff up.
If the accounts of what the disciples taught weren’t true:
. Why is it that Luke writes that Jesus spent about 40 days with the disciples after He rose from the dead, and
. Why can it be further calculated that about 50-55 days after His death, Jesus’ followers started proclaiming His resurrection, and
. Why did Tacitus, an enemy of Christianity, write “Jesus’ execution by Pontius Pilot checked, for the moment, the Christian movement but it then broke out with force not only in Judea but even in Rome.”
. Why would these accounts, one from a follower of Jesus and one from a secular historian and enemy of Christianity be so similar unless they’re true?
Without the resurrection being historical fact, this doesn’t make any sense.
Absolutely none of what I’ve just written has anything to do with the Bible being inspired or infallible or any other trappings of religion. These are historical facts attested to by the vast majority of secular, atheist and Christian historical scholars. While there will always be those on the lunatic fringe who attempt to deny historical facts (eg. holocaust) to deny that there is extra Biblical factually accurate information regarding the life, death and resurrection of Jesus requires that you be either profoundly ignorant or a determined liar and most importantly, you must lie to yourself about what is factually and historically true. There is absolutely no sustainable reason for the above historical events to have occurred unless the essential facts of Jesus death and resurrection are true.
If Jesus did in fact supernaturally rise from the dead, then what He taught about being the Son of God and about the existence of Creator God must also be true. The evidence for the resurrection of Jesus demands a verdict. With the evidence so overwhelmingly pointing to the fact of His resurrection, one can do three things:
. Submit to Jesus as Lord and Saviour - Or
. Lie to yourself that none of this proves anything - Or
. Say to yourself, “I don’t care if God is real, I’m going to live my life, my way.”
Mass delusion
Makarios's argument is interesting.
There is no question that a lot of people share in the belief of a risen Jesus. But why would that make it true? If that is the basis measuring truth, then all the myths of Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Moonies, etc. must be also all true, since vast numbers of people believe them too. Does Makarios believe them too? If not, why not?
The fact that people are willing to die for their beliefs is not unusual. Look at the followers of Jim Jones, or the Heaven's Gate cult, or David Koresh. One should never underestimate the power of delusion or the desire to believe to distort people's minds. This is what makes personal testimonies, unsupported by corroborating empirical evidence, so unreliable.
Mano Singham
Paul was right
Paul was right when he said: "If Jesus did not rise from the dead, your faith is worthless."
If you don't see how a religion like Christianity could have arisen without any genuine miracles, I have three words for you: Sathya Sai Baba - look him up.
Now that we have the internet we can observe how religions form.
Regards,
Pythagoras
When Religions Meet
Makarios,
You people are like obnoxious used car salesmen; you just don't stop beating a dead horse. Are YOU aware of the fact that every major religion has the same sort of apologetic nonsense that you relate in your post: a barrage of "facts" which turn out to be nothing more than anecdotes which lend "street cred" to the plausibilty of a specific imaginary friend. Are YOU aware that any Muslim, Hindu, or Jew to name a few can do EXACTLY the same thing as you to support belief in their imaginary friend?
So who are we to believe, Makarios? All religious minded claim these "historical facts" as support; so how come YOU are right and the Muslims/Hindus/fill-in-the-blank are wrong? How about this: you are all wrong. You make a big deal about "historical facts" yet the abundance of historical facts shows that most of what you as a Christian believe has been fabricated. No need to claim that about all the other religions, you already know that their "facts" are suspect, yours are the only TRUE facts. No reason to believe those other apologists; they can't even see that they are just plain wrong, isn't that correct Makarios? I'll just bet you get all excited every time a new "Search for Noah's Ark" program comes on the air with "new" and "relevatory" evidence. These shows have been going on for DECADES. Where is the ark, brother? Yeah, I know, it's the political regime in Turkey, the Muslim one that would have everything to gain by showing off Noah's Ark to the world and validating their scriptures; they are the one's suppressing things, right? But still no ark. We can read a license plate from space, had a born again administration for 8 years, where are the satellite pictures of Noah's Ark? Don't tell me that born-again Bush is covering that up?
If you want to believe that nonsense, go right ahead. Besides, what is the big thing about facts anyway? Aren't you supposed to take your religious views by faith? Scientists and atheists are the ones that believe in facts, not you. Gee, it does really help your arguments to be able to produce facts to support your case. Sounds like you are getting converted to our way of looking and understanding the world in spite of yourself, heheheh. Now, if we can get you to understand what makes something a fact, that would be real progress. Right now, "fact" is just a magic word to you; it actually means something but you haven't grasped that nuance quite yet. But we have high hopes for you, unless of course you plagerized your entire post from Josh McDowell. ;)
Cheers,
Rich
Imagine how great things will be when you actually start
I stumbled onto this website
I stumbled onto this website while doing some research on my own. I was raised in a Christian family, but as I got older I decided that I wanted to find things out for myself rather than just believe what someone told me every Sunday. The thing is that the people who do believe in the resurrection seem to have a lot more evidence to back up their side. True, no one was actually at the tomb and saw Jesus rise from the dead and there was not a doctor present at the time of his resurrection to verify it was him and he was alive, but there is plenty of evidence that he appeared to people other than his disciples after his death. Isn’t the Big Bang Theory and the theroy of evolution based on evidence and not fact true fact. I came here looking for facts to disprove the resurrection, but it seems the people who do not support it have more theories than people who believe. The person who wrote in the blog before me is talking about scientific fact, but in my studies I have seen that in science you do not disprove theories by just simply saying "that can't be true" you research and look for facts. By simply saying “that can’t be true” it seems like people are taking the easy way out. You are correct there is no one that can say that Judaism, Hinduism or any other religion is right or wrong, because religions are based on faith and as far as I know no one here is God or has seen God It seems like there is a lot more evidence to support the resurrection than to disprove it.
resurrectional evidence?
Dear agwood 75,
This looks like a rather provincial discussion: The religion you stem from is a loud one, one with lots of truth claims, but, on a global scale, it's just one of roughly a thousand - all claiming absolute truth, and all with a manifest evidence problem.
Tales of resurrection are rather common in the myth business - see Orpheus & Euridike, not to mention the occasional Elvis. Many religions claim resurrection of the flesh, but differ in as far as they always believe in their own, and deny all the others' resurrections. .
Well, the only argument against any body's resurrection from the grave is that it does not happen, never. And you know that as well as I do, that's why you call Jesus' or Lazarus' resurrection a "miracle" - an exemption of the laws of physic, or nature.
All evidence for that claim is based on hearsay testimony by people who later held powerful positions in Christianity.
Let's pretend you're a juror in court. The DA claims the defendant killed a Mr J. Doe by pure will power while dining in a restaurant 200 miles away from the crime scene. The witnesses - all heirs to Mr. Doe's fortune and life insurance - testify they heard a waiter's remark that the defendant muttered a curse against Mr. Doe at the precise moment of the latter's death. The waiter is no longer available.
Would you say "Guilty?"
Resurrection
agwood75
I disagree with your claim that there is a lot of evidence for the resurrection, but I will ignore that for now. My other problem is one that I regard as worse.
When we consider a claim we should not just consider the amount of evidence, but how extreme the claim is. Some claims are very plausible, and need little evidence. Some are less plausible and need more evidence. Some are very implausible and need a lot of evidence. Some are so implausible that the amount of evidence would need to be huge - much more than you would normally get, for example, in a court of law. This is the mistake made by Christians when they claim that "the evidence for the resurrection would easily be enough to convict in a murder case." - At least one lawyer has written a very flawed book making this kind of argument - and he fails to take account of the fact that whether or not there is enough evidence for the resurrection that it would normally be nough to be regarded as "proof" in court is irrelevant. The resurrection is much more implausible than any type of claim routinely tested in court. Legal standards and ideas of "amounts of evidence" have been devised to deal with relatively mundane claims such as "Fred stabbed John". Attempting to apply them for a resurrection utterly ignores the much greater requirement for evidence.
Now, I am sure you will disagree with this, but on what aspect would you like to disagree? I can make some suggestions:
1. You could tell me that I am wrong about the idea that different claims have different degree of plausibility and say that all claims are the same.
2. You could tell me that claims with different degrees of plausibility do not need different amounts of evidence: an implausible claim needs as much evidence as a plausible one. Basically, I fundamentally misunderstood the relationship between evidence and claims.
3. You could say that the resurrection claim is not an implausible claim at all. It needs no more evidence that claims routinely tested in court beacuse it is just as plausible.
4. You could say that the resurrection claim is more implausible than claims in court tend to be, but not all that much more implausible - so although it needs more evidence than would usually be available, it is not all that much more - and we have such evidence.
5. You could say that the resurrection claim is hyper-implausible, but that the evidence available for it is so great that it is adequate for such an implausible claim.
Could I suggest, if you are still around, that you tell us which of these most closely matches your position, or if none of them do, could you explain why and what your position is? (If agwood is not around here, maybe some other Christian would like to answer so that we might understand?)
If you are going to ask what an "implausible" claim is when I say that implausible claims need more evidence, we could leave this tautological for now: we could say that implausible claims need more evidence and implausible claims are ones that need more evidence. I suggest that I do not need to define "implausible" further, because all of us will have an idea of what it means, and will be able to think of examples of implausible claims. We may consider an implausible claim "extreme" or "over complicated" or something like that but none of this matters - I am seeing if there is common ground between you and other people here about some claims that we would informally consider implausible.
(Actually - I am getting an idea for an article from that list so people may see more of this later.)
One comment
In response to: "People don’t just destroy their careers and reputations by writing lies. They would only write these things if the evidence convinced them that it was accurate."
But people DO destroy their careers and reputations writing lies. History -- ancient and recent -- is littered with people who fabricated stories for a variety of reasons. This is not only a specious argument, it's unnecessary. There are many points you make that are valid and point to the fact of Jesus' life and crucifixion—certainly a woman's testimony (while more valuable in a Jewish culture than you apparently suppose) would not be the choice of someone fabricating a story of an empty tomb.
BUT, having said that, the problem with the gospels is that the oldest versions of the oldest gospel (Mark) do not contain the verses that record the Lord being seen in a resurrected physical body. And the later additions record the appearance as if it were the most mundane event in the world. There is no surprise, no awe, no excitement which, even 40 years after the fact, you might expect. (I'd be pretty excited, wouldn't you?) The oddly distant narrator simply says: "Now when He rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom He had cast seven demons." It's almost as if the seven demon bag was more impressive than the resurrection. And it sounds as if the Lord just got out of bed early on the first day of the week.
It was this sort of human inconsistency that made me read more closely references to resurrection in the gospels and the earlier epistles of Paul. The apostle Paul, of course, says that Christ was entombed a "living being" and raised a "life-giving spirit". That He was sown "a natural body" and raised "a spiritual body" (I Corinthians 15) In trying to square this with what my church had taught, I had to consider the idea that the dogma of a physical resurrection evolved because ... well, because we humans lack imagination. It is difficult for us, I suppose, to conceive of anything more to be desired (or more impressive) than the resurrection of a physical body. And perhaps it also came about because we so fear the unknown.
I don't know about you, but I find the idea that we are "sown" materially and "raised" spiritually entirely fascinating.
“Scientific knowledge is the highest attainment upon the human plane, for science is the discoverer of realities." — Sir Abdu'l-Baha Abbas, Promulgation of Universal Peace
Makarios' Sermon - an afterthought.
I finally had the time to read all of Makarios's post. What made it so difficult to read is the constantly repetitious structure of the text, there's a certain rhythm to it, like a sermon or a hypnotic suggestion.
It all starts with the frank claim that the vast majority of historical scholars attests the crucification and resurrection of one Jesus Christ as a fact.
Aside of the gospel authors (who, as he knows, are "interested parties") Makarios cites Josephus, Tacitus, Lukian of Samosata, Mara Bar-Serapion, The Babylonian Talmud and John Dominic Crossan.
1) Josephus' "Testimonium Flavianum", part of the "Antiquitates Judaicae"(93 CZ), by historians is widely believed to be a later addition to the text, most likely by a monk copyist. Josephus was a practicing Jew, actively advertising his belief. It is very unlikely that he'd call someone Messiah.
And Origenes Adamantius, (185-254 CZ) who knew the original text, quotes Josephus as not believing Jesus was the messiah.
2) Tacitus (58 - 116 CZ) refers to "Chrestians", who name themselves after Chrestos, who under Tiberius' reign was executed "by procurator Pontius Pilatus". Interesting enough, Pilatus was not procurator, but praefect, as Tacitus must have known, as in another chapter he reports about changes in the administration of Judaea. Maybe he was citing the "Chrestians", but clearly he did not do any own research on the theme.
3) Lukian of Samosata, (120 - 180 CZ) wrote about the Christians of his time. He is not a witness of crucification or resurrection. He is a witness of what Christians believed in the second century.
4) Mara Ben-Serapion, an Egyptian, in a letter to his son (73 CZ) refers to an unnamed Jewish King, killed by his people. Well...
5) The Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 43a, 2nd century CZ) speaks of a "yeshu" who was hanged on the evening of passover for sorcery.
6) John Dominic Crossan is a religious scholar, not a contemporary witness.
So far the non-Christian witnesses of the crucification. All hearsay, like the gospels, or vague descriptions that may or may not mean anything, or plain monkish forgery, as in Josephus' , maybe even in Tacitus' case.
These are historical facts attested to by the vast majority of secular, atheist and Christian historical scholars.
Not true. Fact is that there is no independent verification of the crucification, and historians are very well aware of that fact. They're scientists, after all...
Next step: Why do we have multiple, independent, extra Biblical sources attesting to the risen Jesus?
Not a single extra Bible source for the resurrection is quoted in the following part.
There aren't any.
What Makarios talks about is the indisputable fact that early Christians believed in the resurrection.
From this point on, no external source is used, it's all quoting scripture. We have no independent verification, not a single letter.
Now come all the "Why-else-should-theys". Hundreds saw the resurrected Jesus, and they were willing to die for what they saw, so it can't be a lie. Were they prosecuted in Jerusalem? How many of those who allegedly saw the resurrected Jesus made it to Rome and into Nero's Circus 31 years later?
That's a constructed yet weak argument.
Same accounts for Bishop James the Just - his relation to Jesus is dubious, and he was executed as the result of an inner-Jewish rivalry.
The rest is just name-calling, all the martyrs who died just to prove that everything they believed in was true. Their deaths prove that there was proselyting going on in Rome. That is a fact, and nobody doubts it.
And, sadly enough, there are always martyrs for strange causes. In our times they wear explosive vests or c4-stuffed backpacks.
Remarkable logics:
. Why is it that Luke writes that Jesus spent about 40 days with the disciples after He rose from the dead, and
. Why can it be further calculated that about 50-55 days after His death, Jesus’ followers started proclaiming His resurrection, and
. Why did Tacitus, an enemy of Christianity, write “Jesus’ execution by Pontius Pilot checked, for the moment, the Christian movement but it then broke out with force not only in Judea but even in Rome.”
. Why would these accounts, one from a follower of Jesus and one from a secular historian and enemy of Christianity be so similar unless they’re true?
The resurrection is said to have happened in 33 CZ. Tacitus writes about Nero and burning Rome in July 64 CZ, 31 years later. The similarity of 55 days and 31 years is indeed stunning.
The text closes with a word by word repetition of the second paragraph of the sermon, in case one forgot it in between the 180+ lines of text, and the interesting theory that if of a couple of claims one is true, then all the others must be true as well, followed by the usual "Repent, or be damned", complemented by a humorous "or live your life".
Well, I do.