"But nobody denied it at the time!"

[fta]

We often hear Xian apologists saying variations on the theme of "The Resurrection must have happened because nobody denied it at the time!"
I have an idea I've seen an article or essay refuting this silly claim, but I can't recall where. Any suggestions?

 

[Janice Rael]

I would need to see that sort of argument in context before being sure I knew what to look for.

 

[fta]

I would need to see that sort of argument in context before being sure I knew what to look for.

I was debating with an Xian who assured me that "If the Resurrection went to a court case, the judge would rule in favor of it". When I laughed in his face, he argued that "Nobody challenged or denied the truth of the Gospels and/or the Resurrection accounts in the first century." So, a go-to article or essay refuting the latter statement would come in handy.

 

[Janice Rael]

Maybe someone else here has come across this argument. Sorry.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

We often hear Xian apologists saying variations on the theme of "The Resurrection must have happened because nobody denied it at the time!"
I have an idea I've seen an article or essay refuting this silly claim, but I can't recall where. Any suggestions?

Possibly Origen's Reply To Celsus, Contra Celsus

 

[abaddon]

We often hear Xian apologists saying variations on the theme of "The Resurrection must have happened because nobody denied it at the time!"
I have an idea I've seen an article or essay refuting this silly claim, but I can't recall where. Any suggestions?

You're talking about the notion that the apostles would sooner say "ok nevermind" when faced with martyrdom, than willingly die, if they didn't witness the resurrection?

I haven't found a handy dandy article. But maybe, if this is the idea the fellow was advocating, we can refute it here?

The idea discounts how people will invest deeply into a belief. The resurrection is so central to their religion that Christians want to invest as deeply as the alleged "witnesses" presumably did. So they need those witnesses to seem beyond doubting.

For one of 1000's possible examples of how being deeply invested in un-evidenced belief can make people willing to die, Heaven's Gate cultists killed themselves even after looking for their spaceship in the comet's tail and not finding it. They blamed the telescope as faulty in preference to recanting a belief that they themselves had falsified! Feeling destined for something wondrous, feeling part of something bigger than themselves, mattered more than just continuing to breathe, eat, shit and all the other mundane crap of merely material survival.

Many Christians think that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead then they're doomed to spiritual death. They don't get to go to heaven... So if invested in a belief like that, they sure as fuck will willingly die. It's rather the point of religion... to have a cause and thus a meaning in life that's bigger than one's self. The belief in Jesus's resurrection changes their quality of life, from feeling meaningless and doomed, to feeling purposeful and even immortal. Once the leap of faith has happened, a choice between "shall I go on eating and shitting, eating and shitting, for no particularly good reason?" versus "shall my stupid life be redeemed so that I might live forever in glory?" isn't such a tough choice.

 

[fta]

Possibly Origen's Reply To Celsus, Contra Celsus

Celsus wrote in the late 2nd century CE, I believe, and Origen wrote his rebuttal in the 3rd century. Apologists will argue that "nobody challenged the truth of the Resurrection in the first century".

 

[DBT]

If establishing the truth requires evidence and people have believed in things that are not necessarily true, "nobody denied it at the time" doesn't appear to qualify as evidence.

 

[Spacetime Inhabitant]

We often hear Xian apologists saying variations on the theme of "The Resurrection must have happened because nobody denied it at the time!"
I have an idea I've seen an article or essay refuting this silly claim, but I can't recall where. Any suggestions?

Nobody denied it at the time (apart from the obvious reason of it didn't happen and therefore nothing to deny) because nobody at that time would know about it, even if it had actually happened, because the Bible wasn't written until decades and centuries later (various of its books written 50 or more years later, and not compiled into one book until over 300 years later).
If a village in any nation was razed nobody in any other nation would know about it unless a witness (probably one of the soldiers who did it) told someone else, and even then not many people in the world would know about it.
So its a combination of no mass communication, illiteracy, disinterest, and ignorance of most events in the world due to distance and intervening terrain such as oceans and seas. Also, of course, as with today some news would be suppressed for political reasons or re-interpreted.

Dan McClellan on you tube, a Biblical scholar, refutes much of what apologists claim, so maybe you could check his videos or ask him.

 

[Politesse]

Skeptics routinely challenge the historicity of the Biblical events based on a paucity of contemporary documents describing them. But if GMark is too late to count as a plausible eyewitness account, then Origen is really too late.

 

[aupmanyav]

In Indian mythology, Nachiketa was the one who was resurrected.

Upanishads

upanishads.org.in

Nachiketa and Yama, the Lord of Death (Dialogue)

 

[fta]

Nachiketa

When I pointed out "pagan" parallels to the fundy apologist, he said they were inspired by Satan.

 

[DBT]

People at the time don't necessarily feel the need to deny something that did not happen, they just live their lives regardless.

There was no shortage of holy men, belief in gods, miracles and wonders.

It is the believer who makes the claim.

 

[Swammerdami]

Some of these "arguments" would dissipate if people would remember how laborious it was to prepare Cyperus papyrus for writing, and that many of the people who could afford prepared papyrus could neither read nor write.

"Say, are you that fellow Luke who's been writing anecdotes about the Messiah?"​

-- "You came to the right place, son. I'll make you your own copy now. One folio per shekel. Any favorite anecdote you want copied?"​

"No, I came to sell information, not to buy it. I want the world to know that I ate two whole mushrooms and smoked a giant reefer and I still never saw no Jesus with holes in his hands!"​

-- "That's what we journalists call 'Dog bites man', son. If you're serious about a career in journalism I suggest you try again. Make it 3 or 4 mushrooms next time."​

 

[aupmanyav]

When I pointed out "pagan" parallels to the fundy apologist, he said they were inspired by Satan

But at least I do not claim the Nachiketa story to be true. It is just for putting across a point. I do not believe in existence of any Gods or life-after death.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Nobody denied it at the time (apart from the obvious reason of it didn't happen and therefore nothing to deny) because nobody at that time would know about it, even if it had actually happened, because the Bible wasn't written until decades and centuries later (various of its books written 50 or more years later, and not compiled into one book until over 300 years later).
If a village in any nation was razed nobody in any other nation would know about it unless a witness (probably one of the soldiers who did it) told someone else, and even then not many people in the world would know about it.
So its a combination of no mass communication, illiteracy, disinterest, and ignorance of most events in the world due to distance and intervening terrain such as oceans and seas. Also, of course, as with today some news would be suppressed for political reasons or re-interpreted.

Well said. The Christians should also be asked, how could the resurrection of Lazarus be found only in the last gospel to be written? John says that Lazarus died only two miles from Jerusalem, that many Judeans came out to comfort the two sisters, and that many of them saw the miracle occur. Some of them hurried back to Jerusalem to tell the high priests about it. Given all that, how could the most dramatic miracle performed by Jesus before his execution not be the cornerstone event in all four gospels, instead of being MIA in the synoptics? How could it not be commented on by everyone who took a pen to paper when the event was current? However they rationalize that omission, their reasons should counteract the business about no one back in the day denying the resurrection of Jesus. It's another strong indication that the gospels show the accretion of a myth narrative, which by the time John writes has fully prepared the believers for Jesus as the eternal Word of God. (It always floors me to see how the Jesus in John is so utterly distinct from the Jesus in the other gospels -- the long, metaphorical speeches, the total absence of parables, the lack of reluctance in declaring his supernatural identity. This doesn't seem to bother the believers. Hard to imagine how it can be overlooked by their pastors, who deal with these texts as their life's work. There must be a lot of compartmentalization going on in Jesusland.)