vtiola

To claim Jesus resurrected is a bold claim, especially since Jesus was a public figure who received a public execution within a very hostile and skeptical environment.

Let me illustrate with two scenarios. For the purposes of this example, let's say I'm from a small town and both scenarios involve me making a claim to a miraculous event.

Scenario 1:

I tell the people in my town that all of Israel's modern day enemies (Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc.) just miraculously got wiped out by hail stones and fire from heaven. Yes, that is a bold claim.

Scenario 2:

I tell the people in my small town that the Sheriff they all... (read more)

By mocking, disbelieving, dismissing, and hating the Bible and the God it declares, you are only reacting exactly the way He said you will react. I'm not shocked when I see this type of stubborn unbelief because it is foretold.

...the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. - Romans 8:7

This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. - John 3:19

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not

It's possible that someone can be convinced that what they are writing is from God (which a few people have done). The difference that I see with other religious texts and the Bible is that the Bible does not shy away from naming real people, dates, and places. If I were to fabricate a lie I will steer away from mentioning identifiable people, places, and dates in fear of emboldening my audience to call out my BS. The more specific I am the easier it becomes to discredit my claims.

Look, ancient people were just as skeptical as people are today. They also had a BS meter like we... (read more)

You could look for the body- but, canonically, the body was given to one of Jesus's followers (Joseph of Arimathea; see Matthew 27:57 and John 19:38 for descriptions of him as a disciple of Jesus), so we have no idea where the body is, besides his claim to have put it in a tomb. Even if he's being honest, there are certainly other ways for the body to have vanished- for example, the Jewish Toledot Yeshu claims that a gardener named Juda stole the body.

All alternative explanations to what happened to Jesus' body really point to the fact that his enemies were unsuccessfully scattering to explain the resurrection away, since they couldn't... (read 447 more words →)

Scenario 1 is still the bolder claim. Egypt wasn't that far away from Isreal and any member of the village could have actually gone to Egypt. Jerusalem Isreal to Giza Egypt would be about a 2 week travel on foot. Tel-Aviv Isreal to Alexandria Egypt would be about a 3 day boat ride with biblical technology. Yeah, it's kind of annoying to travel that far, but ancient traders did that all the time to trade goods.

At least you are giving them some credit. It really wasn't that easy to fool people with "fabricated" events involving prominent cities and countries. News traveled through trade as well; one way people verified info... (read 710 more words →)

The Roman Empire did have libraries. Thus, the New Testament doesn't claim big, showy, large-scale geopolitical miracles as the Old Testament routinely did. Instead the New Testament claims smaller miracles…

Here you are making the claim that Old Testament miracles were bolder and more daring than New Testament ones because the Old Testament writers felt they could get away with a lot more because they knew that their contemporaries lacked the means to verify or discredit their claims. You imply that if not for the fact the Romans were better record keepers, the New Testament would be filled with more outlandish passages about God obliterating whole nations (i.e, Rome) or... (read 533 more words →)

It's their word against that of the disciples; you have no reason to believe one side or the other, side from the fact that resurrections are so improbable.

There are ways to test oral testimonies and eye witness accounts for truthfulness and our courts do it all the time. There are lots of reasons to believe the Gospel writers over the other side. The late Simon Greenleaf, a skeptic at one point and also one of the founding members of Harvard Law School, wrote an essay on why the Gospel writers should be taken as innocent of deception if given a fair trial.

Here's the essay if you wish to... (read 431 more words →)

Like I mentioned earlier, there's probably ample evidence for the events recorded in the book of Exodus. The evidence that currently supports the Exodus account is likely being misunderstood or ignored by mainstream historians and archeologists. A minority voice within the field of Egyptology, Dr. David Rohl's makes a compelling case against the traditional ancient Egyptian chronology. A majority of Egyptologists acknowledge that there are major problems with the traditional chronology but they reject Rohl's alternative chronology (which is expected when people are set in their ways). I think Rohl is on to something with his chronology.

Outside of mainstream Egyptology, David Down proposes a 500 year reduction in the... (read more)