The Resurrection - History or Invention ?

[whiffey]

Most people today would accept Caesar's account of his invasion of Britain - why not indeed ?

Yet many or most people today will utterly reject the accounts of the resurrection of Christ.

Why is this ?

[Cobra2]

Shud this not be in History & myths....its far too boring for B&S...can we stik to chatty threads on here

[B00]

Probably because the Roman invasion doesn't have a religion attached to it, if it did there'd be disbelievers there too.

Whilst im not a church goer, I strongly believe there's something else out there, and yes if push comes to shove i'd say I believe in God.

[whiffey]

Hi Cobra, sod off :)

The section is called Body and Soul.

You know all the mantras, if you don't like it, ignore it, yadayada.

[B00]

I thought you were sticking to Sports Cobra?

Whiffey is entitled to ask such a quesation as this on B&S- or perhaps you believe that everyone should stick to where they are having their hair cut or making suggestive comments to each other?

[Cobra2]

it was a joke

[Pippa68]

Even I saw cobras post as a joke!

What is it with peeps at the moment? ho hum...sorry whiffey, I agree with BOO. Non religious people tend to go with a history they are more comfortable with ~ which is fine by me..each to their own :o)

[whiffey]

Yes, Cobra's answer was a joke, but just for once in my silly life the question is serious.

I tried to start on this theme in a thread that got deleted, I've merely started it again.

So, seriously, why are the Gospel accounts less reliable that Caesar's Gallic Wars ?

[Le Chat]

Possibly because it defies our human concept of logic. The invasion of Britain may well be flawed but people died and that is possible...However, Jesus dying and then coming back again is not in our normal range of everyday experiences, so can be dismissed as not being true or being exaggerated fantasy by non believers.
Also, there are many other "scrolls" or biblical accounts of that time which were not included in the bible, that contradict many of the books that are contained within. So really, it all comes down to a matter of faith, which is the basis of most religions anyway.

[whiffey]

Le Chat,

Can you show me where the accounts of the resurrection in the Gospels have been rebutted, and why those rebuttals are more worthy of belief.

This is not a question of human logic, but documentary fact.

Why would anyone write (4) packs of lies and then die for them ?

[jno]

you might like this:

http://www.skepticalchristian.com/necessityofe xtraordinaryevidence.htm

[Lonnie]

An excellent link, but its something that can't be proved or disproved, (Blind Faith), generally speaking though, if your a Believing Christian, you must believe in the resurrection, no-one else has to.

[whiffey]

Thanks, excellent so far, but my major point is, why will the man on the street believe in the writings of Caesar but not of the Gospel writers ?

Are they liars because they wrote about something humanly improbable ?

I am not looking for whether or not people are Christian or whatever, just why the Gospel writings are dismissed out of hand as pish.

Did Caesar invade Britain - yes everyone will cry

Did Christ rise from the dead - no everyone will cry

But what is the documentary difference ?

[noxlumos]

There are NO contemporary accounts of anything to do with Christ and however well established an oral history is, by the time anything came to be written down there had to be some elements of Chinese whispers so I don't believe what we read are the true facts and as people say it's all a matter of faith, some have it and some don't.

[whiffey]

tonyted, yours is mere pub piffle, dismissed, nothing to base it on except modern day enlightened wisdom. Rant, no evidence.

noxlumos, does the dating of the New Testament to a few decades after Christ necessarily invalidate it ?

Somebody wrote that stuff, I want to know why. You may say it's all bollox, but I want to know why it is bollox whereas Caesar, Virgil, JOSEPHUS, or Shakespeare, is not.

[Drusilla1S]

Caesar had the foresight to write his own books, Jesus relied on biographers who had been playing Chinese whispers.

[whiffey]

Drusilla, how do we know Caesar wrote them ?

[Drusilla1S]

I did actually try and write a long and thoughtful answer to this question Whiffey, but the blasted AB system only seems interested in short, flippant answers today.

Caesar published the Gallic Wars in his lifetime and endorsing the end product helped get them accepted as fact. Personally, I think Caesar and Tacitus are too biased in favour of Roman ideals to be considered wholly reliable as historical fact.

[jno]

if someone tells me a postage stamp costs 30p, I'll believe him. If he says it costs �30, I won't. One accords with my experience, one doesn't. That's not so strange.

Shakespeare wrote fiction, so he's perhaps not the biblical parallel you're looking for?

[whiffey]

Thanks Drusilla, I know what you mean about long answers failing today, and maybe I'll give up my thesis anyway, but it still intrigues (and infuriates) me that it was ok for Caesar to invade Britain, but not for Christ to rise from the dead. The documentary evidence is there - for both.