: : But the resurection is a historical event that can be proved. Refute it. I'm ready for some apologetics.
: Floyd: Easy: : [snip]
: 3) The only people who claim to have had personal contact with Christ after the alleged resurection all stood to benefit considerably from claiming that it happened. They therefore had a strong motive to lie.
: This is not conclusive evidence that the event did not occurr, but it is a powerful circumstantial case, IMHO. Point #2 is, of course, the most important agrument. If you can provide independent evidence of the resurrection, please do so.
: -Floyd
: Piper: I have always found it hard to conceptualise the claim that those who had personal contact with christ would have consciously lied so as to promote their cause. Such actions would have left them as hypocrytes and surely led them to the spiritual void (you cast your response in terms of motivation, so i take it that you mean it to be a conscious decision).
: As to independent evidence, well, aside from a questionable passage in Josephus (Taking my cue from Voltaire: "The Christians, by one of those frauds called pious grossly falsified a passage in Josephus. they attribute to this Jew, so obstinate in his religion, four ridiculously interpolated lines; and at the end of this passage they added: He was the Christ. Come now! if Josephus had heard people talk about so many events against nature, he would not have limited himself to four lines about them in the history of his country!..." etc), i have to agree there is little (But then is that not often the case with history?).
: Nevertheless can not personal experience be used to count as evidence that stands independeant from the facts alleged in the bible. If i claim that the existance of god is self-evident upon reflexion does that not constitute a form of evidencce?
: Piper
Floyd,
One additional comment at this time:
If the Resurrection were lied about because those who did the telling would benefit, what benefit was there for the Roman soldiers who spread the false story that the body was stolen while they slept? Any soldier who admitted to sleeping on duty would be immediately PUT TO DEATH. No benefit there.
For the soldiers to lie in cooperation with both Roman and Jewish officials indicated that they were covering up the truth -- that Christ had indeed risen.
Also, He was seen alive by over 500 people at one time. Did all of those people benefit by sharing some kind of group delusion? I dare say that any gathering of 500 people is going to have some scoffers or other unbelievers who would have spoken up if they didn't believe that the One Whom they saw was Christ.
