You just have to honestly ask yourself the following questions - Is the story of the resurrection likely to be storytelling, much like what is found in any religion, old or modern. Do the stories resemble previous mythologies of dying and rising gods? Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy? Did adherents to the cult have an interest in promoting Christianity? Are there parallels with modern religions that can be seen to form from the most unlikely and far fetched stories. Or. . was this the creator of the universe that needed to be killed to satisfy himself that sufficient sacrifice had been made for the sins of all humanity and if so, did it make any difference to human nature, war, abuse and equality? I think the answer is plainly obvious, it is storytelling telling and exaggeration in the extreme and bears every hallmark of the claims of any other religion!
a. y "Is the story of the resurrection likely to be storytelling, much like what is found in any religion, old or modern." No. InspiringPhilosophy's video on the historical evidence for the Resurrection (search that and you should find it) argues, if I'm not mistaken, that the "mythic theory" explains *none* of seven facts related to the Resurrection adequately. "Do the stories resemble previous mythologies of dying and rising gods?" No. IP, Tektonics, and other sources have great rebuttals to alleged pagan myths which Christianity is said to be copied from. "Did adherents to the cult have an interest in promoting Christianity?" No. Christianity was persecuted (to various degrees in various times and places) in the Roman Empire, and people became Christians at great cost in terms of worldly goods. The motive to make stuff up to make a religion one knows to be false look true wasn't there. If you intended to make a more modest claim (that people fudged stuff to make Christianity look better, even though they believed it to be true), there are still some problems with that view (off the top of my head, "undesigned coincidences", as well as details such as women finding the empty tomb, go against such an idea). "... was this the creator of the universe that needed to be killed to satisfy himself that sufficient sacrifice had been made for the sins of all humanity..." Christ needed to be killed to satisfy the justice of God, yes. Sin and its effects (suffering and death) are against the perfect will of God. The only way human suffering and death can be reconciled to the perfect will of God is for God to will suffering and death on Himself (willing suffering on another would contradict His perfectly-loving nature) in a human nature (the divine nature is impassible). If an instance of human suffering and death is then unified with Christ's suffering and death, it can be reconciled to God's will without God compromising His nature. "...and if so, did it make any difference to human nature, war, abuse and equality?" A view of the atonement such as the one above doesn't require one to believe that suffering and death were eliminated after Christ's death and resurrection. No, evil is still what it is; the "difference" (that also applies throughout human history, including before Christ's death) is that it can now be reconciled to God's will, and a greater good can be drawn from it.
Ask yourself honestly, why are any of these questions pertinent? How would I know, and how would I know the answers anyway? Unbelievers have no answer to these questions of historic method.
Unfortunately in the case of Jesus and his followers we appear to be dealing with a group who believed the world's final judgment was fast approaching, and that kind of "end times enthusiasm" can warp one's perspective and make it imperative that one gain converts. In regards to stories of the resurrection of Jesus we have only documents by believers. So the question that one must ask is what kind of minimal experiences or minimal psychological nudges or minimal historical events might have catalyzed a belief in Jesus' having been raised? And we can't answer that question. Today's Christian apologists seek to blend together all the resurrection stories in the NT, no matter how early or late, and interpret Paul's "spiritual body" references and "appearance" statements as though they equaled statements in the last two gospels, Luke-Acts and John that have Jesus declaring he is "not a spirit" at all, eating fish, inviting people to touch him. Yet Paul says "flesh and blood" shall not inherit the kingdom of God: edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2008/05/no-stomach-for-nt-wright-but-what-about.html Also, the alleged resurrection appearance to Paul was not of a bodily resurrected Jesus if you accept as in Luke-Acts that the bodily resurrected Jesus had already ascended into heaven. Yet Paul places his experience on par with other people to whom Jesus "appeared" in 1 Cor 15. Even the words allegedly spoken by the resurrected Jesus increase over time since Paul makes no mention of Jesus doing much more than "appearing" in 1 Cor. 15, and Mark ends his Gospel with a promise of an appearance in Galilee and no meetings with Jesus before then in Jerusalem, and Matthew only has a few post-resurrection words, while Luke-Acts has Jesus say many words, even teaching his disciples for seven weeks after having been raised (where are these lost teachings from beyond the grave? forgotten?), but per Acts such alleged teaching excursions for weeks by a physically resurrected Jesus were only seen and heard by disciples. And John also has many alleged words spoken by the raised Jesus. So the number of words spoken by Jesus after his death kept increasing over time from Paul and Mark to later written Gospels and Acts: edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2013/03/carnival-of-questions-for-resurrection.html Also, a top New Testament textual scholar in the U.S. who is also of conservative persuasion, Dan Wallace, has admitted: “As remarkable as it may sound, most biblical scholars are not Christians. I don’t know the exact numbers, but my guess is that between 60% and 80% of the members of SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) do not believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, or that he was bodily raised from the dead.” Also from Dan Wallace: “In one of our annual two-day meetings about ten years ago, we got to discussing theological liberalism during lunch. Now before you think that this was a time for bashing liberals, you need to realize that most of the scholars on this committee were theologically liberal. And one of them casually mentioned that, as far as he was aware, 100% of all theological liberals came from an evangelical or fundamentalist background. I thought his numbers were a tad high since I had once met a liberal scholar who did not come from such a background. I’d give it 99%. Whether it’s 99%, 100%, or only 75%, the fact is that overwhelmingly, theological liberals do not start their academic study of the scriptures as theological liberals. They become liberal somewhere along the road.” [The quotations above are part of another leaver’s multi-part testimony on his blog, The Reluctant Skeptic]
A lot of Babinski's claims are suspect, if not fallacious. First, the ad hominem psychological criticism that the audience of Jesus and his followers were eschatologically motivated is moot. For one thing, all people whatsoever are religiously motivated; everyone has beliefs about death, the human race, and our future that constitute an eschatology of some kind (e.g., Graham Oppy borrows the term). Someone could just as easily cite the eschatology of a given unbeliever as an ad hominem criticism of their own beliefs and reports about Jesus, the Gospel accounts, etc. Summarily put, the issue is that these cheap motivational objections are always self-refuting in principle. If they would apply, they'd apply to everyone, disqualifying anyone's eschatological perspective as superstition, including any that disagree with Christianity. For another thing, the comment that an eschatology, or "enthusiasm" about it, "can warp one's perspective" smuggles in the claim in question, namely, that Christianity is false. If Jesus is God, the Bible His word, etc., and so Christian eschatology is true, then how could enthusiasm about it be expected to "warp one's perspective"? We would expect just the opposite, a *renewal* of one's perspective! It is only reasonable to expect perspectival warping to be motivated by *false* beliefs - the eschatology is flawed and so Christianity is, at bottom, false. In this way, the Babinski's ad hominem criticism turns out to be a rhetorical strategy to distract us from its question begging assumption: Christianity is false. Second, the wild interpretation of Paul that he denies a fleshly resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:50 is largely unargued in Babinski's comment. The only support provided are two non-sequitars. One is that because Jesus is not abiding on Earth, he cannot appear physically to Paul. At best, that would be like claiming John Doe cannot appear bodily to an American because he happens to have a home in Europe. Babinski's blunder is worse considering Jesus is omnipotent God in Pauline theology, and so has less obstacles to an earthly visitation than a European traveling to the Americas. The other non-sequitar is the inference that because Jesus allegedly says less in Paul's reports than in Mark's, Matthew's, or Luke's, these are lost teachings. This is interesting speculation for fiction written in the historic fantasy genre, but it's not a serious argument. Reporting less does not equal reporting the nonexistence/non-occurance of more. Against Babinski's interpretation of Paul's inheritance quote, a quick read through the surrounding verses and argumentative context illuminates the fact Paul aims to distinguish an old "mortal" life-form from "immortal," not a physical body from an immaterial Greek soul concept. (Pick up any Reformed commentator on the subject.) In the mean time, there are plenty of Pauline citations demonstrating his belief in a physical resurrection, as for example his exhortation to the Thessalonians to look forward to meeting Jesus spatiotemporally. Throughout the New Testament, the diction used for the resurrection uses physical description and never makes any effort to "spiritualize" the matter; so with Paul in 1 Cor 15. Third, Babinski's language about the Biblical accounts of Christ's visitation is perhaps... shall we say, warped by modernist enthusiasm? Says he, "Today's Christian apologists. . .blend together all the resurrection stories in the NT, no matter how early or late, and interpret Paul's. . .references and 'appearance' statements [the same way.]" Their's is hardly a case of "blending" if the Biblical texts are divinely inspired by one Author (through Luke or Paul) and thus express one unified Christology. This incredulous rhetoric is null by simply observing its force is parasitic on the denial of the Christianity of "today's Christian apologists." This is the second case of rhetorical flourish that distracts us from question begging assumptions. One can only hope something in his blogs was more intelligent.
This video definitely deserves to be included in my "Evidence" playlist.
You just have to honestly ask yourself the following questions -
Is the story of the resurrection likely to be storytelling, much like what is found in any religion, old or modern.
Do the stories resemble previous mythologies of dying and rising gods?
Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy?
Did adherents to the cult have an interest in promoting Christianity?
Are there parallels with modern religions that can be seen to form from the most unlikely and far fetched stories.
Or. . was this the creator of the universe that needed to be killed to satisfy himself that sufficient sacrifice had been made for the sins of all humanity and if so, did it make any difference to human nature, war, abuse and equality?
I think the answer is plainly obvious, it is storytelling telling and exaggeration in the extreme and bears every hallmark of the claims of any other religion!
a. y
"Is the story of the resurrection likely to be storytelling, much like what is found in any religion, old or modern."
No. InspiringPhilosophy's video on the historical evidence for the Resurrection (search that and you should find it) argues, if I'm not mistaken, that the "mythic theory" explains *none* of seven facts related to the Resurrection adequately.
"Do the stories resemble previous mythologies of dying and rising gods?"
No. IP, Tektonics, and other sources have great rebuttals to alleged pagan myths which Christianity is said to be copied from.
"Did adherents to the cult have an interest in promoting Christianity?"
No. Christianity was persecuted (to various degrees in various times and places) in the Roman Empire, and people became Christians at great cost in terms of worldly goods. The motive to make stuff up to make a religion one knows to be false look true wasn't there. If you intended to make a more modest claim (that people fudged stuff to make Christianity look better, even though they believed it to be true), there are still some problems with that view (off the top of my head, "undesigned coincidences", as well as details such as women finding the empty tomb, go against such an idea).
"... was this the creator of the universe that needed to be killed to satisfy himself that sufficient sacrifice had been made for the sins of all humanity..."
Christ needed to be killed to satisfy the justice of God, yes. Sin and its effects (suffering and death) are against the perfect will of God. The only way human suffering and death can be reconciled to the perfect will of God is for God to will suffering and death on Himself (willing suffering on another would contradict His perfectly-loving nature) in a human nature (the divine nature is impassible). If an instance of human suffering and death is then unified with Christ's suffering and death, it can be reconciled to God's will without God compromising His nature.
"...and if so, did it make any difference to human nature, war, abuse and equality?"
A view of the atonement such as the one above doesn't require one to believe that suffering and death were eliminated after Christ's death and resurrection. No, evil is still what it is; the "difference" (that also applies throughout human history, including before Christ's death) is that it can now be reconciled to God's will, and a greater good can be drawn from it.
Wow you're right, we've never thought of those questions. Way to go.
@borrowed tomb Sarcasm
L0l0p0p0
00llllllll00000000
Ask yourself honestly, why are any of these questions pertinent? How would I know, and how would I know the answers anyway?
Unbelievers have no answer to these questions of historic method.
Unfortunately in the case of Jesus and his followers we appear to be dealing with a group who believed the world's final judgment was fast approaching, and that kind of "end times enthusiasm" can warp one's perspective and make it imperative that one gain converts. In regards to stories of the resurrection of Jesus we have only documents by believers. So the question that one must ask is what kind of minimal experiences or minimal psychological nudges or minimal historical events might have catalyzed a belief in Jesus' having been raised? And we can't answer that question. Today's Christian apologists seek to blend together all the resurrection stories in the NT, no matter how early or late, and interpret Paul's "spiritual body" references and "appearance" statements as though they equaled statements in the last two gospels, Luke-Acts and John that have Jesus declaring he is "not a spirit" at all, eating fish, inviting people to touch him. Yet Paul says "flesh and blood" shall not inherit the kingdom of God: edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2008/05/no-stomach-for-nt-wright-but-what-about.html
Also, the alleged resurrection appearance to Paul was not of a bodily resurrected Jesus if you accept as in Luke-Acts that the bodily resurrected Jesus had already ascended into heaven. Yet Paul places his experience on par with other people to whom Jesus "appeared" in 1 Cor 15. Even the words allegedly spoken by the resurrected Jesus increase over time since Paul makes no mention of Jesus doing much more than "appearing" in 1 Cor. 15, and Mark ends his Gospel with a promise of an appearance in Galilee and no meetings with Jesus before then in Jerusalem, and Matthew only has a few post-resurrection words, while Luke-Acts has Jesus say many words, even teaching his disciples for seven weeks after having been raised (where are these lost teachings from beyond the grave? forgotten?), but per Acts such alleged teaching excursions for weeks by a physically resurrected Jesus were only seen and heard by disciples. And John also has many alleged words spoken by the raised Jesus. So the number of words spoken by Jesus after his death kept increasing over time from Paul and Mark to later written Gospels and Acts: edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2013/03/carnival-of-questions-for-resurrection.html
Also, a top New Testament textual scholar in the U.S. who is also of conservative persuasion, Dan Wallace, has admitted:
“As remarkable as it may sound, most biblical scholars are not Christians. I don’t know the exact numbers, but my guess is that between 60% and 80% of the members of SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) do not believe that Jesus’ death paid for our sins, or that he was bodily raised from the dead.”
Also from Dan Wallace:
“In one of our annual two-day meetings about ten years ago, we got to discussing theological liberalism during lunch. Now before you think that this was a time for bashing liberals, you need to realize that most of the scholars on this committee were theologically liberal. And one of them casually mentioned that, as far as he was aware, 100% of all theological liberals came from an evangelical or fundamentalist background. I thought his numbers were a tad high since I had once met a liberal scholar who did not come from such a background. I’d give it 99%. Whether it’s 99%, 100%, or only 75%, the fact is that overwhelmingly, theological liberals do not start their academic study of the scriptures as theological liberals. They become liberal somewhere along the road.” [The quotations above are part of another leaver’s multi-part testimony on his blog, The Reluctant Skeptic]
A lot of Babinski's claims are suspect, if not fallacious. First, the ad hominem psychological criticism that the audience of Jesus and his followers were eschatologically motivated is moot. For one thing, all people whatsoever are religiously motivated; everyone has beliefs about death, the human race, and our future that constitute an eschatology of some kind (e.g., Graham Oppy borrows the term). Someone could just as easily cite the eschatology of a given unbeliever as an ad hominem criticism of their own beliefs and reports about Jesus, the Gospel accounts, etc. Summarily put, the issue is that these cheap motivational objections are always self-refuting in principle. If they would apply, they'd apply to everyone, disqualifying anyone's eschatological perspective as superstition, including any that disagree with Christianity.
For another thing, the comment that an eschatology, or "enthusiasm" about it, "can warp one's perspective" smuggles in the claim in question, namely, that Christianity is false. If Jesus is God, the Bible His word, etc., and so Christian eschatology is true, then how could enthusiasm about it be expected to "warp one's perspective"? We would expect just the opposite, a *renewal* of one's perspective! It is only reasonable to expect perspectival warping to be motivated by *false* beliefs - the eschatology is flawed and so Christianity is, at bottom, false. In this way, the Babinski's ad hominem criticism turns out to be a rhetorical strategy to distract us from its question begging assumption: Christianity is false.
Second, the wild interpretation of Paul that he denies a fleshly resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:50 is largely unargued in Babinski's comment. The only support provided are two non-sequitars. One is that because Jesus is not abiding on Earth, he cannot appear physically to Paul. At best, that would be like claiming John Doe cannot appear bodily to an American because he happens to have a home in Europe. Babinski's blunder is worse considering Jesus is omnipotent God in Pauline theology, and so has less obstacles to an earthly visitation than a European traveling to the Americas.
The other non-sequitar is the inference that because Jesus allegedly says less in Paul's reports than in Mark's, Matthew's, or Luke's, these are lost teachings. This is interesting speculation for fiction written in the historic fantasy genre, but it's not a serious argument. Reporting less does not equal reporting the nonexistence/non-occurance of more.
Against Babinski's interpretation of Paul's inheritance quote, a quick read through the surrounding verses and argumentative context illuminates the fact Paul aims to distinguish an old "mortal" life-form from "immortal," not a physical body from an immaterial Greek soul concept. (Pick up any Reformed commentator on the subject.) In the mean time, there are plenty of Pauline citations demonstrating his belief in a physical resurrection, as for example his exhortation to the Thessalonians to look forward to meeting Jesus spatiotemporally. Throughout the New Testament, the diction used for the resurrection uses physical description and never makes any effort to "spiritualize" the matter; so with Paul in 1 Cor 15.
Third, Babinski's language about the Biblical accounts of Christ's visitation is perhaps... shall we say, warped by modernist enthusiasm? Says he, "Today's Christian apologists. . .blend together all the resurrection stories in the NT, no matter how early or late, and interpret Paul's. . .references and 'appearance' statements [the same way.]" Their's is hardly a case of "blending" if the Biblical texts are divinely inspired by one Author (through Luke or Paul) and thus express one unified Christology. This incredulous rhetoric is null by simply observing its force is parasitic on the denial of the Christianity of "today's Christian apologists." This is the second case of rhetorical flourish that distracts us from question begging assumptions. One can only hope something in his blogs was more intelligent.