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The Case For Christ - A defence of Lee Strobel's 1998 apologetic book

 
 
 
Lion IRC said:
At no point have I claimed that every part of every Gospel is ALL direct, personal eyewitness testimony. Strobel doesn't assert this either.

I don't have to defend against straw arguments like;
"Luke couldn't possibly have been an eyewitness to the birth of Jesus because..."
"Matthew wasn't out in the desert watching satan try to tempt Jesus because..."

I don't claim they were.

I argue that the Gospel accounts are a collation of three types of testimony;
1. The writer's own personal recollection
2. The reporting of other's eyewitness testimony
3. Divine revelation

And I will keep hammering the point that the pseudonymous authorship of 'Mark' actually prevents bible skeptics from claiming knowledge about the (non-eyewitness) identity of that same writer.

You don't know who he was? Well, how do you know he wasn't a witness to ANY of the events in the book of Mark?
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The same way I know he wasn't a terminator, sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor's distant ancestor.

It's possible only in the extreme sense that anything not completely and comprehensively disproven is possible. But a sane person wouldn't give it the slightest credence, without some seriously solid independent evidence - and we have none.
 
It is a demonstrated fact that eyewitnesses of the same event can report conflicting observations.

As time passes from an even we humans fill in the blanks.
 
When one guy claims that many people came out of their graves (MT 27) and walked around Jerusalem and were seen "by many people' -- and three other narrators omit the story entirely, which means they didn't hear of it -- then I conclude we have some tale-spinnin' goin' on. And because this zombie stuff is integral to the climactic event, which is supposed to grab us all and change our lives -- I find it unpersuasive. The very same objection applies to only one gospel recounting the raising up of Lazarus. Again, Christian apologists on the anti-Mormon scene go on at great lengths on the absurdities and contradictions in Mormon scripture. When their own Easter narrative is found to be in garbled order, we start to hear all kinds of special pleading about eyewitnesses and the time span that legend-building supposedly requires. If a deity actually did manifest to Bronze Age people, then he left a creaky account of himself, and twenty centuries have changed our understanding of religious narratives (and our tolerance of the ancients' moral codes with respect to women, gays, capital punishment, enslavement, genocide, tolerance of 'others', et alii)... Mankind has invented too many clashing theologies, and too many defunct deities. (If you're claiming that the Bible God is the 'one true god', then you still have man as the uncontested creator of thousands of deities... which reflects on all deities.)
 
The other day someone told me about a morbidly obese woman who came to the ER to be treated. She smelled horribly. Upon treating her they found a long dead decomposing kitten in one of the folds of her flesh. You see, she was so fat, so terribly fat, and because of that fact the story is so very believable, don't you think?

I chalked the story up to the human affinity for urban legends and gossip, recognized the source as being a person who tells such tales on a regular basis, and thanked my ancestors that I possess a good filter for separating fact from fiction whenever I hear such tales.

The greatest story ever told is really the greatest urban legend ever told, spelled G-O-D. The Strobes is simply continuing in a long, profitable tradition.
 
steve_bank said:
It is a demonstrated fact that eyewitnesses of the same event can report conflicting observations.
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They are not necessarily mis-reporting the "same" event.
They are truthfully reporting their differing perspectives.


Witness A - I saw the sun set.
Witness B - I saw the sun rise.
Witness C - I saw the earth rotating.

"Conflicting" observations?

We see the laughable bible skeptics claiming there's a contradiction when one witness says Jesus' robe was scarlet and another witness says it was purple. They claim it's a contradiction when one witness says Jesus' supporters were standind near the foot of The Cross and another witness says those same women were standing afar. :rolleyes:
 
ideologyhunter said:
When one guy claims that many people came out of their graves (MT 27) and walked around Jerusalem and were seen "by many people' -- and three other narrators omit the story entirely, which means they didn't hear of it
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No. It doesn't 'mean' they didn't hear of it.
It means they didn't write about it.
Do you know about the ad populam fallacy?

Three Gospels say the sky turned dark. WOW. Must be true.
 
Um..."the sky turned dark" versus FUCKING DEAD PEOPLE ARE WALKING AROUND TOWN?? I think I can spot which one is the lead in those two stories. BTW, imagine all the ancillary issues there would be if 'Matthew' (aka Anonymous) hadn't pulled a zombie story out of his kiester.... Did the dead folks eventually settle down, creep back to their graves, and rebury themselves? Did some of them live for years, and then have to die all over again? In that case, did they tend their own gravesites for sentimental reasons? Did some of them return to families who were already tired of their shit and had no intentions of putting up with them again? Did those zombies start a support group? Did Paul write an uncanonical Letter to the Zombies, urging them to greater hygiene to eliminate that 'gravey' aura? Did zombies have strange food requests, like, I don't know, living flesh? Did they have to sit apart from everyone else at temple? Did physicians refuse to treat them, on the grounds that A, your coverage has lapsed and B, you're fucking DEAD as far as I see it. And, as the Bible tells us, 'many people' saw them...was there was no scribe connected to the Sanhedrin or Pilate's regime who might have left a written record? No, course not, that's why Zombie History is so sketchy. No one thinks to write down their zombie encounters, because it's such a garden-variety event. Makes sense. As Onan would say, this is a mighty sticky subject.
 
ideologyhunter said:
Um..."the sky turned dark" versus FUCKING DEAD PEOPLE ARE WALKING AROUND TOWN?? I think I can spot which one is the lead in those two stories. BTW, imagine all the ancillary issues there would be if 'Matthew' (aka Anonymous) hadn't pulled a zombie story out of his kiester.... Did the dead folks eventually settle down, creep back to their graves, and rebury themselves? Did some of them live for years, and then have to die all over again? In that case, did they tend their own gravesites for sentimental reasons? Did some of them return to families who were already tired of their shit and had no intentions of putting up with them again? Did those zombies start a support group? Did Paul write an uncanonical Letter to the Zombies, urging them to greater hygiene to eliminate that 'gravey' aura? Did zombies have strange food requests, like, I don't know, living flesh? Did they have to sit apart from everyone else at temple? Did physicians refuse to treat them, on the grounds that A, your coverage has lapsed and B, you're fucking DEAD as far as I see it. And, as the Bible tells us, 'many people' saw them...was there was no scribe connected to the Sanhedrin or Pilate's regime who might have left a written record? No, course not, that's why Zombie History is so sketchy. No one thinks to write down their zombie encounters, because it's such a garden-variety event. Makes sense. As Onan would say, this is a mighty sticky subject.
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Classic. Unfortunately that level of rational thinking does not occur in religious circles.
 
ideologyhunter said:
Um..."the sky turned dark" versus FUCKING DEAD PEOPLE ARE WALKING AROUND TOWN?? I think I can spot which one is the lead in those two stories. BTW, imagine all the ancillary issues there would be if 'Matthew' (aka Anonymous) hadn't pulled a zombie story out of his kiester.... Did the dead folks eventually settle down, creep back to their graves, and rebury themselves? Did some of them live for years, and then have to die all over again? In that case, did they tend their own gravesites for sentimental reasons? Did some of them return to families who were already tired of their shit and had no intentions of putting up with them again? Did those zombies start a support group? Did Paul write an uncanonical Letter to the Zombies, urging them to greater hygiene to eliminate that 'gravey' aura? Did zombies have strange food requests, like, I don't know, living flesh? Did they have to sit apart from everyone else at temple? Did physicians refuse to treat them, on the grounds that A, your coverage has lapsed and B, you're fucking DEAD as far as I see it. And, as the Bible tells us, 'many people' saw them...was there was no scribe connected to the Sanhedrin or Pilate's regime who might have left a written record? No, course not, that's why Zombie History is so sketchy. No one thinks to write down their zombie encounters, because it's such a garden-variety event. Makes sense. As Onan would say, this is a mighty sticky subject.
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Something else that's interesting to me about this passage.


Mt 27:50 - Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.


Never mind that the bolded part gives away the ending--that's just bad writing.

But that sequence of events? Jesus dies. The temple veil splits in two. The mysterious rock-shattering earthquake occurs. The graves open and many people resurrect--all on Friday afternoon.

Then, on Sunday morning, Jesus resurrects--and then the others come out of the graves and wander into town.

I suppose it wouldn't do for Jesus not to be the first to appear to have resurrected, but apparently for a day and a half the zombies stood around waiting for Jesus to blow the whistle so that they could--what? Get something to eat and drink? Relieve themselves? Check in on the family, see if they sold all their old clothes and tools?

What did the resurrected saints do for a day and a half while waiting for Jesus to resurrect, Matthew? You can't just drop side-plots like these into your story without following through.
 
The text leaves it open to us to speculate.

I think the dead saints were taken up to heaven much like the man on the cross next to Jesus who was told that "you will be with me in paradise."

But I don't see the "bad writing" storyline continuity issue you're suggesting.
 
Lion IRC said:
The text leaves it open to us to speculate.

I think the dead saints were taken up to heaven much like the man on the cross next to Jesus who was told that "you will be with me in paradise."

But I don't see the "bad writing" storyline continuity issue you're suggesting.
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Wasn't the guy next to Jesus a convicted thief? Why'd he go to Heaven?
 
Lee Strobel answers that in chapter 6 his book "The Case For Faith"
Hell is voluntary. God doesn't force you to go to heaven.

There is hope of forgiveness and remorse is not a wasted emotion.
 
Lion IRC said:
Lee Strobel answers that in chapter 6 his book "The Case For Faith"
Hell is voluntary. God doesn't force you to go to heaven.

There is hope of forgiveness and remorse is not a wasted emotion.
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Well then, it's lucky the guy got crucified and had the opportunity to contemplate his fate and feel remorse. If he'd just been stabbed or something, it would have been over in an instant and he'd have missed the chance for redemption.

The moral of the story is that you should always make a point of killing people as slowly and painfully as possible. Anything less and you're just being a dick.
 
Lion IRC said:
Lee Strobel answers that in chapter 6 his book "The Case For Faith"
Hell is voluntary. God doesn't force you to go to heaven.

There is hope of forgiveness and remorse is not a wasted emotion.
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Again, Romans 9, God arbitrarily decides to create some people vessels of dishonor, and thus damned. God decides who is elect and who is not elect. And thus damned.
 
Cheerful Charlie said:
Lion IRC said:
#roulette_wheel
No one knows the day or the hour.
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Matthew 16:28
28 Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.


Etc.
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To be fair, at least four of the disciples were Highlanders, so it's not a lie yet. This is why Thomas was so underwhelmed by Jesus coming back from the dead - he'd done that three times himself in the previous week.
 
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