If the stories were too exactly aligned, historians and textual critics would say that it is very likely a plagiarized document, and it would lose credibility on that count.

A skeptic will always be able to find a reason not to believe.

A skeptic will always find ancient documents written years after the events in question to be insufficient evidence to believe that A PERSON CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD. I can't believe you honestly think that constitutes "finding a reason not to believe."

So in your opinion, if someone did actually rise from the dead there is no reason for anyone to ever belief it after it happened? Even if it is fact?

Almost. I think someone that actually witnessed a person come back from the dead would have good reason to believe. But that's it. Even then I don't think you could fault such a person for thinking they may have been tricked.

The implication of this is of course that I don't think there is any possible evidence that could convince me to believe in such an event from two thousand years ago.

I don't see how your statement has anything to do with the conversation. We're talking about apparent inconsistencies in the testimonies presented in the gospels. For the particular topic you quoted, there is no inconsistency.

But since you brought it up: Is there *ANY* amount of evidence that can presented to you that would convince you that Jesus being raised from the dead is an historic event? If not, then you merely prove my point for me. If so, be specific about the nature of this evidence.

Edit: Never mind. You already answered.

I was really only responding to the flaw in his example, but unanimous agreement on the part of those who mention the names of people at the tomb would not be very solid grounds for claims of plagiarism.

I must have ESP.

My comment was not based on the discussion, I was just responding to your comment that a skeptic will always find a reason not to believe.

I suppose strictly speaking you are correct, but that reason is always the same one, that I do not find any evidence from 2,000 years ago to be sufficient evidence to believe someone was resurrected.

However I take offense to the tone involved in saying a skeptic will always find a reason not to believe. I think the implication there is that there is some sort of bias I hold where I convince myself not to believe despite sufficient evidence. If that's not your implication then I apologize and this is a non-issue.

Seems like a no-brainer that this falls into the category of things that should require a ridiculous amount of support to be considered legitimate. That people 2000 years ago believed it is not at all convincing to me, considering how common supernatural explanations were at the time.

IMO, someone who claims that the historical facts contained in the Bible make it likely that the resurrection occurred is on only slightly more solid ground than someone who claims that the historical facts contained in the writings of Herodotus make it likely that Croesus was saved from burning at the stake by the appearance of a rainstorm out of nowhere when he cried out for it.

My apologies. I thought you were talking more broadly than that.

BTW - Justin A has yet to produce the evidence for that particular "contradiction."

Yes! This is it exactly.

If you happen to get dealt a royal flush three times in a row in stud, you should never believe it. You should always believe that something fishy is going on. Even if you really were dealt the flushes at random.

This doesn't follow at all. The original statement was about the establishment of fact, and you're questioning the cause of said fact. According to the statement, you should not believe that you were actually dealt a royal flush three times in a row in stud.

Are you referring to the different accounts of who was at the tomb Sunday morning?

No it's exactly the same thing. We have the fact that the Bible says what it says, and we're questioning the cause of what is written in the Bible. I think that it's not reasonable to believe the cause of what is written is that someone was actually resurrected.

Your statement should read, "According to the statement, you should not believe that you were actually randomly dealt a royal flush three times in a row in stud."

Yes. You have to make the case for "massive inconsistencies."

The fact under question is whether Jesus was resurrected, not whether the Bible says that Jesus was resurrected:

Therefore, the analogy does not work.

Attributing cause to a fact is significantly trickier to verify than the fact itself. How would one verify "randomness"?

When you go to verify the fact, you've got 9 people sitting around the table who can all attest to have seen what was claimed. You can call them all liars if you want, or that they somehow rigged the deck, or attribute other motives or CAUSES to their actions. But none of this would change the fact that it happened.

I should not believe that I was legitimately dealt the flushes.

A fact is just an observation. Death is never a fact, it's not directly observable. Even if I observe a person being dragged to a tomb, lying there for a couple of hours, then standing up and brushing himself off, even if his skin went from cyanotic to healthy in those two hours, I haven't observed any fact of his rising from the dead. That can never be a "fact," it can only be a conclusion reached on the basis of the facts.

I only have a minute right now but I will try to get to this tomorrow.


I don't see how this disagrees with me. Yes that's under question, but it is impossible to determine absolutely whether it happened or not. All we have is the evidence. The only possible thing we could have is 2,000 year old written evidence. I cannot conceive of any sort of evidence from that time period that would convince me that the resurrection actually happened.

I think you might be missing the point of the analogy. We are talking about conclusions that we can rationally come to based on evidence. In the Jesus example, the evidence is the Bible, and to some extent the historical context of the times based on what we know from other ancient writings. In the royal flush example, the evidence is that I have been dealt three royal flushes in a row.

Even if the cause of the royal flushes was just a random shuffle and no funny business, a rational person still should not believe that to be the case. Same goes for the Jesus example.

Right. Nothing we can say changes the fact that the Bible says it happened. Nothing we can say changes the fact that we saw three straight royal flushes. That doesn't mean we are justified in believing that we are playing in a fair game or that someone came back to life after being dead for a day and a half.

Question for the Christians ITT: what evidence could convince you that Jesus didn't come back to life?

Bonus question. What evidence suffices for a reasonable person to disbelieve that Buddha (seeing the Blessed One sees, knowing he knows; he is vision, he is knowledge, he is the Dhamma) pacified rabid tigers through loving-kindness?

I'm feeling like a bit of a party pooper, but this of all subjects is one where I am simply not at all interested in the opinions of a bunch of *******.

This is just an invitation for the people who would normally defer to the experts on matters like biology or medicine to jump in and speculate wildly based upon some "urban myths" they've heard about the origins of the bible, or to quote some crap they found on an (atheist) website that is obviously run by someone with an axe to grind who is not approaching the matter in a scholarly way.

Maybe there is no level playing field where this stuff is assessed and discussed honestly, but I just have to think that any serious scholarly student, be him or her a True Believer or an atheist, would have no choice but to laugh of the ignorance to willingness to offer an opinion and make judgments ratio of the participants of this thread.

Of course I'd love to be proved wrong.

Pletho is obviously the exception, with his unique access to the bible's parity check bit.

Because the analogy deals with "fact" differently than the way "fact" is being dealt with in Speldour's quote. The "fact" in question from Splendour is whether Jesus was raised from the dead, whereas the "fact" in question in the analogy would be some sort of "cause" of Jesus being raised from the dead.

Isn't this true of almost anything? How would you "determine absolutely" that your straight flushes were caused by randomness?

But this is a different standard. Your standard is not whether it happened, but whether you can be convinced that it happened. It's important to note that you've deemed it impossible for you to be convinced, and therefore, you wouldn't be able to believe it even if it were true.

You don't see how the analogy misfires completely? You've just switched from "RANDOMLY" to whether you were actually dealt three royal flushes in a row.

Look, you've switched back again. Now you're talking about believing something about randomness.

Besides, this is a very scary line to be taking. You're saying that one should believe something that is false, simply because what is true is so unlikely, EVEN IF IT'S TRUE.

And here we are back again.

But according to you, we would never be justified in believing it's a fair game even if it is a fair game. This sounds intellectually disingenuous.

What would it take for you to be convinced that NASA never actually landed on the moon? You have to undermine the evidence.

If something were shown to demonstrably undermine the testimony of the gospels, by showing the gospels to be fraudulent documents that did not accurately reflect history. But this is unlikely given that the Bible has revealed so much archaeology in the region, and has continued to prove itself to be accurate.

(Yeah, there's the historical fiction argument, but that's a weak argument on a number of grounds, the most important being that it pre-assumes the Bible is fiction, and then tries to provide an explanation as to why it is fiction, ie AFFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT. Nobody has ever provided a REASON to call it historical fiction except that they don't believe that it happened.)

How do you come to believe ANY events in history?

First, it would take the testimony of contemporary persons who were witnesses to the event. Second, it would take the confirmation of contemporary specialists who can attest to the quality of the witnesses' account of the event. That's probably about it.

(The "zeroth" question to answer is whether the event has significance. If it's just a nice story that has no bearing on the Buddha's message, then the answer to the question doesn't really matter one way or the other.)

Even if it is true that you were legitimately dealt the flushes?

As for the rest of it, there's not really an argument to be had anywhere in it. You've defined "fact" and "death" in such a way that you can't ever be wrong. Since "death" isn't even a fact, the claim of "raised from the dead" is devoid of meaning.

Assuming you're talking mostly about the OT regarding this claim, it has certainly revealed a lot of archaeology, but accurate seems like a bit of a stretch. Off the top of my head I believe that at least 2 or 3 of the cities Joshua was supposed to have conquered were abandoned centuries before the Israelites arrived. The accounts of slavery in Egypt are also very questionable, since the kind of slavery described was never practiced there.

We find several authentic manuscripts as follows:

1. Pontius Pilate - writes to the Roman Senate that, even though they produced the dead body of the criminal, Jesus Christ, His crazy followers continued to preach the resurrection.

2. Letter from Peter to John - in it he states, "guess we fooled'em all this time - let's meet up and divide the donations".

3. Memoirs of Joseph of Arimethia - "After we caught those lying thieves who claimed I donated my tomb to Christ, we crucified them all just like we did Him and threw their worthless caracasses into a common grave, just as we did Him".

This was Hume's position on miracles. Because miracles are so unlikely, any report of them is more likely to be false than that the miracle actually happened. Many have shown how silly this is. Craig has some good stuff on it.

I haven't read it but this is supposed to be a good book on the subject:

http://www.amazon.com/Humes-Abject-F.../dp/0195127382

LOL? Did you misspeak? Of course any report of them is more likely to be false than true.

edit: is your link better than the time you linked to someone showing how silly it is to complain about god of the gaps reasoning?

No, you're not answering my question. I'm not asking: "What would convince you that the NT authors invented Christianity as a hoax?" (I can't imagine what would convince me of that; it's obviously not the case.) I'm asking: "What would convince you that the NT and Christianity---as they stand---are part of a world where Jesus didn't come back to life?"

And to belabour my point...as things stand, the Gospels and Christianity clearly didn't arise from any sort of self-conscious hoax. So you don't need to address that twist.

I wanted to know what suffices for a reasonable person to disbelieve that Buddha could stop raging elephants with his mind. (Or levitate, etc.)