Swammerdami
Squadron Leader
You did Bump it -- all that was needed was to Reply. (All that's needed on THIS message-board. Some boards discourage or disallow replying to a thread that has gone dormant for a long while.)Hi Swammerdami, it took me two years and 34 blog posts, but I finally finished the Habermas book. You asked me to bump the thread and summarize Habermas's best arguments...but I'd rather just provide a link to the final post, which does summarize his arguments:This seems quite reasonable to me. I'm curious to know what evidence Habermas presents. (Though not curious enough to read the book or even Google for more info. My To-Do list ia already very long.) My guess is that Habermas has no argument strong enough for me to seek a rebuttal, but it would be exciting if this guess proved to be wrong. After you do read the book, please bump this thread and summarize Habermas' best arguments.
Many (or perhaps most) Infidels doubt that Jesus of Nazareth even existed, so I doubt if there's much interest here in entertaining — even if just to refute — claims that that nonexistent Jesus was resurrected!
https://www.theformofthefourth.com/...inary-claim-backed-by-extraordinary-evidence/
Thanks again for your previous reply.
P.S.: Don't know how to bump the thread!
I am glad you took the time to study and reply. I find your comments more reasonable than those who say that Jesus was pure myth, or that, even if historic he was a "nobody" interchangeable with any other convenient crucifixee.
The main reason I do not relieve in the Resurrection will seem trite, and like specious arithmetic, but here goes:
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I go even further and say that "VERY extraordinary claims require VERY extraordinary evidence."
Science rejects the idea of a physical Resurrection; let's simplify that rejection to say the odds are a billion-to-one against. It IS possible for people to come out of coma, but NOT if their legs are broken to force their demise yet John 19:33 tells us that the soldiers seeing "that he was dead already, they brake not his legs." (An odd detail?) They did however pierce his side with a spear. But no Christian claims that the Crucifixion left Jesus comatose but not quite dead, so we need not consider the
Swoon hypothesis.Now suppose that the case for physical Resurrection is so strong, that all other possibilities sum to only a one-in-a-million chance. Million-to-one; billion-to-one; if we accept these numbers then probability arithmetic leads to only a one-in-a-thousand chance of an actual Resurrection. The extraordinary evidence is not extraordinary enough to make the VERY extraordinary claim.
If you are prepared to accept the Christian message, and that Jesus did other impossible things, e.g. turning water into wine, then I will not try to dissuade you. Regard this post as an explanation of why *I* do not believe.
(1)
Perhaps the most important verse in the New Testament is this:
Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:14 said:
The earliest copies of Mark omit 16:9-20. In other words, this earliest biography of Jesus omits any mention of any specific post-Crucifixion sighting. How can this be? Are Paul and Mark even talking about the same Jesus?
Paul's Epistle and Mark's Gospel were each written very early, but there's no evidence that Mark had read Paul, or vice versa. Just the opposite in fact.
(2)
In #23, Habermas-Licona argue that Hallucination is not a plausible explanation for the post-Resurrection sightings:
- Why would Paul hallucinate, given he had no emotional investment in Christianity?
- Was the empty tomb also hallucinated?
- Hallucinations are individual occurrences; it’s not possible for one person to induce a hallucination in someone else
- Doesn’t explain why authorities did not simply produce the body and send everybody home
- Doesn’t explain why they sometimes had trouble recognizing Jesus (Luke 24:13-31, John 20:15, John 21:4) (this argument comes from C. S. Lewis), nor why the hallucinated Jesus did not issue the great awesome long-awaited glorious call to arms against the Roman intruders (see AD 70).
(3)
Finally I refer to Resurrection: Myth or Reality by the Right Reverend John Shelby Spong. Spong believes that the Resurrection was spiritual, not physical; that Simon Peter did not see a physical Jesus, but rather imagined Jesus ascending into Heaven -- that that ascent into Heaven by an eternal Jesus WAS the Resurrection. And that Peter's spiritual awakening occurred several MONTHS after the Crucifixion.
I will not try to summarize Spong's ideas, but in the Gospel accounts the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday), Cleansing of the Temple, Story of the Fig Tree, Last Supper, Betrayal, Crucifixion, Resurrection are all condensed into an 8-day period. In Spong's view there were at least TWO separate visits to Jerusalem by the earliest Christians. The Crucifixion took place near Passover, but Palm Sunday and some of the other events took place several months later during the Feast of Tabernacles. He provides a large number of parallels between that Feast and the events of Palm Sunday, etc. Rather than immediately seeing a Resurrected Jesus, Simon Peter returned to Galilee, grieving for his dead Messiah; finally understands the spiritual Resurrection; and shares this good news with the other disciples. Throughout the book, Spong emphasizes that the Gospels were written with the midrash technique, where chronologies can be rearranged.
I don't know what to make of Spong's theory but there do seem to be strong circumstantial links between the Palm Sunday of the Gospels and the Feast of Tabernacles. (For starters, the peculiar parable of the out-of-season fig tree might make more sense.)
In the New Testament, the Feast of Tabernacles seems to be mentioned only once: in John beginning with Chapter 7; and Spong connects that part of John to his theory. As I say, I will NOT attempt to summarize Spong, but he does mention the John:7:5 "For neither did his brethren believe in him" that Habermas-Licona cite in #20 as evidence that James the Just became a Christian only after witnessing the Resurrected Jesus. According to Spong, the "brethren" here are the early Christians generally, during the several months between the Crucifixion and Simon Peter's good news
