What Josephus wrote. "About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."

Now this is contained in every extant manuscript. It has not been shown to be a later addition. It has been conjectured, but not proven.

Tacitus wrote, "Therefore, to stop the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue." That does not prove the resurrection, but does strongly hints that it was widely believed (" the pernicious superstition"), and shows clearly that about thirty years after the resurrection, the Gospel had not only spread as far as Rome, but had a large number of adherents who were willing to do a horrible death rather than recant. And the question must be asked, why would they have done so if the dead body of Jesus was laying in a tomb outside of Jerusalem?

As to why I would include the NT, it is an historical document in it's own right. There is no good reason to discount it and many good reasons to accept it.

This is what Pliny said. "They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food–but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.” In singing hymns to Christ as, "to a god", they clearly believed He still lived.

It does not simply show that people "believed" something. It shows that they believed it so strongly they were willing to lose everything, including their lives, to keep that belief.

Paul said there were more than five hundred witnesses to the resurrection, most still alive at the time he wrote that. It would have been a very simple undertaking for the Jews, who hated the idea of the resurrection, to have contradicted the story from the outset simply by displaying the dead body of Jesus. Wonder why they didn't?

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

What Josephus wrote. "About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Christ. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared."

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Josephus, a Jew, would not have said Christ was the Messiah. The language in the passage is too Christian. In another manuscript the words "They said" are found before "He appeared". "They said" is reportage, not agreement.

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Tacitus wrote, "Therefore, to stop the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits and punished in the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue."

That does not prove the resurrection, but does strongly hints that it was widely believed (" the pernicious superstition")

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I agree with you that it does not prove the resurrection. Your claim was that it was evidence of the resurrection. Btw, the "pernicious superstition" could mean simply Christianity, not necessarily the resurrection.

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As to why I would include the NT, it is an historical document in it's own right. There is no good reason to discount it and many good reasons to accept it.

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I did not say to discount it. I said it cannot be used to prove a remarkable event like the resurrection simply by saying so. There is much history in the NT. I never denied that.

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This is what Pliny said. "They were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a god, and bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to any wicked deeds, but never to commit any fraud, theft or adultery, never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they should be called upon to deliver it up; after which it was their custom to separate, and then reassemble to partake of food–but food of an ordinary and innocent kind.” In singing hymns to Christ as, "to a god", they clearly believed He still lived.

It does not simply show that people "believed" something. It shows that they believed it so strongly they were willing to lose everything, including their lives, to keep that belief.

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That is true of their strong belief. It is NOT true as evidence of the resurrection.

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Paul said there were more than five hundred witnesses to the resurrection, most still alive at the time he wrote that. It would have been a very simple undertaking for the Jews, who hated the idea of the resurrection, to have contradicted the story from the outset simply by displaying the dead body of Jesus. Wonder why they didn't?

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I don't know why some Jews did not contradict the story. Maybe some Jews did contradict it, but that is no longer remembered. In any case, it's hardly evidence for the resurrection.

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Josephus, a Jew, would not have said Christ was the Messiah. The language in the passage is too Christian. In another manuscript the words "They said" are found before "He appeared". "They said" is reportage, not agreement.

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The surviving manuscripts disagree with you. Josephus, by the time he wrote in Rome, was a Jew more in name than by religious commitment. And "reportage" is exactly what we are looking for. It's what Luke did for much of Acts.

The rest of your comments can be answered by the concept of circumstantial evidence. I think it would be safe to say that it is, by far, the primary means of establishing history. How do we know Washington crossed the Delaware and won the Battle of Trenton? Video? Photographs? Ballistics? No, it is by circumstantial evidence that is so overwhelming that the only reasonable inference (which is what comes from circumstantial evidence) that can be drawn is that both events happened. The same is true of the Resurrection.

What kind of evidence are you looking for?

If the "pernicious superstition" referred to by Tacitus was not the resurrection, then what else could it have been?

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

The surviving manuscripts disagree with you. Josephus, by the time he wrote in Rome, was a Jew more in name than by religious commitment. And "reportage" is exactly what we are looking for. It's what Luke did for much of Acts.

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When Josephus wrote the passage in question he was a Jew. As a Jew, he never would have referred to Jesus as the Messiah. "Reportage" in this case is heresay. You cannot expect heresay to be evidence of a resurrection. For those interested, the problem is discussed at length at Testimonium Flavianum. However one looks at it, it is definitely NOT evidence of resurrection.

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The rest of your comments can be answered by the concept of circumstantial evidence.

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You are helping my position. Circumstantial evidence is indirect evidence, NOT direct evidence. Washington crossing the Delaware is insignificant in any scheme of history. The resurrection of a man is an incredibly miraculous event that may be unique in human history and therefore requires much, much more than circumstantial evidence.

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The same is true of the Resurrection.

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By "the same is true of the Resurrection", you are referring to the proof of circumstantial evidence. As I have explained above, the required evidence for proof of a resurrection is far greater than what you offered.

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What kind of evidence are you looking for?

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That is YOUR concern, not mine. You have claimed evidence for the resurrection. What you have cited as evidence is nothing more than circumstantial and lacking in proof.

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If the "pernicious superstition" referred to by Tacitus was not the resurrection, then what else could it have been?

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Easy. Christianity fits perfectly.

When you claim there is evidence for the resurrection, and not being able to offer proof of such evidence, you are undermining faith in Christianity. I don't think that's your intent, but it is the effect.

The Josephus passage is suspect, and doesn't appear in some manuscripts. See Edwin Yamauchi, "Josephus and the Scriptures" in Fides et Historia 1960.

We don't need Josephus anyway. There's enough in the gospels and Acts to establish the probability that it happened.
1. He was dead.
2. Nobody expected him to rise, when he told his boys he would they didn't get it.
3. He was in a sealed, guarded tomb.
4. Days later the tomb was found empty and the guards had no explanation.
5. The disciples were in despair. They had nothing left, their leader was dead, and they were preparing to go back to their lives. They did not expect a resurrection.
6. Some time after the disappearance of the body, multiple people claimed to have had direct personal contact with the risen Jesus.
7. Saul's conversion was the unlikeliest event in the whole story, and he attributed it to a direct encounter with the risen Jesus.
8. James, Jesus' brother, didn't believe in him until after a post-resurrection appearance, whereupon he became a leader in the Jerusalem group.
9. The despairing clowns who had lost everything suddenly became the boldest proclaimers on the planet, willing to give up their lives for what they said happened. Since these were in direct contact with Jesus from the beginning, it's doubtful that liars would make martyrs. SOMETHING happened to them. Mass hallucination isn't a thing and neither is a mass hysteria where everybody sees and experiences exactly the same thing. Something objectively life-changing happened to these people. To date, there is no better explanation.
10. The efforts by the Jewish leadership to suppress the message says they knew something real happened, as well, but it threatened their power so they tried to squelch it, to the point of killing people. If the body had been moved, all they had to do was go get it, parade it through the streets of Jerusalem, and that would be the end of it. They didn't. They didn't even try, nobody asked about the body or any of the rest. They knew.

Put it all together and you have a strong historical case for a unique, one-time resurrection event.

Please note that this stuff isn't mine. I'm indebted to Dr. Gary Habermas for the material.

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That is YOUR concern, not mine. You have claimed evidence for the resurrection. What you have cited as evidence is nothing more than circumstantial and lacking in proof.

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But as has been pointed out, circumstantial evidence is all that is available for most historical events. Many a criminal has been convicted on circumstantial evidence. If you reject CE, then you reject practically all of history. That's why I asked what kind of evidence would satisfy you.

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If the "pernicious superstition" referred to by Tacitus was not the resurrection, then what else could it have been?


Easy. Christianity fits perfectly.

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Not really. The worship of a long dead Savior would hardly have been compelling. What "superstition" would be needed to worship a dead man?

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I'm indebted to Dr. Gary Habermas for the material.

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His "minimal facts" argument is very good.

Tacitus on the Christians

"Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular."

"pernicious [mischievous] superstition" = Christianity

https://www.livius.org/sources/conte...he-christians/

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Originally Posted by dwashbur

We don't need Josephus anyway. There's enough in the gospels and Acts to establish the probability that it happened.

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That may be true but the discussion here was that there is proof of evidence that the resurrection happened. You have changed the terms to indicate "probability".

The problem with your items 1 through 8 is that they each originate in the NT, a book(s) that is the only record of the resurrection and that clearly is written for believers to begin with. Such a miraculous, unique, one-time occurrence requires more than the testimony of those who are the originators of the claim.

The fervor shown in item 9 is not all that uncommon. Humans have been known to give their lives for reasons far less than a resurrection.

Item 10 implies that the Jewish leadership was aware of the resurrection - "They knew". That can be dismissed without comment. Even if you meant something different, it is hardly proof or probability of the resurrection.

I believe that the resurrection is a matter of faith. Trying to prove it as a certainty is an exercise in futility. If probability is required to support the faith of a Christian, then believe as necessary.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

But as has been pointed out, circumstantial evidence is all that is available for most historical events. Many a criminal has been convicted on circumstantial evidence. If you reject CE, then you reject practically all of history. That's why I asked what kind of evidence would satisfy you.

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My answer was, and is, that circumstantial evidence is not enough for such a rare event as the resurrection from death. Comparing it to "most historical events" is a problem since it is absolutely unique in human history, not remotely like most historical events.

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The worship of a long dead Savior would hardly have been compelling. What "superstition" would be needed to worship a dead man?

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We know for a fact from extra-Biblical records that the Christians were despised for many reasons. The Romans saw Christianity as a superstition, a way to demean and justify their treatment of Christians. This is all well-documented, from Nero to Constantine, the latter being the champion of the new religion.

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His "minimal facts" argument is very good.

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See my reply to DW on this matter.

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My answer was, and is, that circumstantial evidence is not enough for such a rare event as the resurrection from death. Comparing it to "most historical events" is a problem since it is absolutely unique in human history, not remotely like most historical events.

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The only logical answer for the evidence presented is that the resurrection took place. There is no other logical answer.

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We know for a fact from extra-Biblical records that the Christians were despised for many reasons. The Romans saw Christianity as a superstition, a way to demean and justify their treatment of Christians. This is all well-documented, from Nero to Constantine, the latter being the champion of the new religion.

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Fair enough, but it remains true that a religion based on an obviously dead man would not have gotten very far. It is completely obvious that it was a resurrection based faith.

I'd still like to know what evidence you would accept?

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

The only logical answer for the evidence presented is that the resurrection took place. There is no other logical answer.

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No offense but I don't think you understand what logic is. For starters, you are assuming, without proof, that the events described are actual occurrences. That remains to be seen, regardless of what you or I may believe. Saying something is so doesn't make it so. Your premise is defective.

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The worship of a long dead Savior would hardly have been compelling. What "superstition" would be needed to worship a dead man?

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I don't know what you mean by saying this again.

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Fair enough, but it remains true that a religion based on an obviously dead man would not have gotten very far.

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Buddhism is based on a dead man and is a major world religion older than Christianity. The ancient Egyptians believed in gods that not only were not dead, they never even existed and that religion lasted thousands of years, longer than Christianity.

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It is completely obvious that it was a resurrection based faith.

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No one here has denied that the resurrection is, and was, a basis for the faith of Christians. I don't know why you posted that.

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I'd still like to know what evidence you would accept?

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I already answered that. The claim for evidence is your thing, not mine.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

I'd still like to know what evidence you would accept?

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Evidence means proof. Faith is not based on evidence, but on spiritual apprehension/understanding.

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I already answered that. The claim for evidence is your thing, not mine.

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You just did an end-run around the question. It remains unanswered.

As to the rest, you are right that saying something is so doesn't make it so. No one has suggested that. So I'm not sure what you are after. Events of history have been put forward in abundance, events which, as all circumstantial evidence does, calls for inferring some answers, and that is where logic comes in.

I do appreciate the calm discussion.

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The resurrection of a man is an incredibly miraculous event that may be unique in human history and therefore requires much, much more than circumstantial evidence.

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This is you setting forth a requirement, so I assume you have some idea of what is needed. If it requires, "much, much more than circumstantial evidence," then what would that be? Perhaps this is not you, but I'm convinced that Jesus could walk up to many people in His glory and shake hands with them, show them His scars, and they would still walk away and not believe. For them, there is no sufficient evidence.

But as I said, I’m not saying that’s you.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

I'm convinced that Jesus could walk up to many people in His glory and shake hands with them, show them His scars, and they would still walk away and not believe. For them, there is no sufficient evidence.

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Read Mitch Albom's new book, The Stranger in the Lifeboat.

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from Athos
I already answered that. The claim for evidence is your thing, not mine.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

You just did an end-run around the question. It remains unanswered.

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YOU are the one claiming evidence, not me. I don't know why you are blaming me for something I never claimed - if that is what an end-run is.

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As to the rest, you are right that saying something is so doesn't make it so. No one has suggested that. So I'm not sure what you are after.

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When you claim something to be true that cannot be proved, you are saying that your claim makes it so. Yes, you are suggesting that in this particular case.

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Events of history have been put forward in abundance, events which, as all circumstantial evidence does, calls for inferring some answers, and that is where logic comes in.

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No, that is not logic. It can be persuasion, it can be opinion, it can be hoped for - but it is not logic. My best advice to you is to google "logic" and learn what constitutes logic. An inference is a conclusion based on a premise which is true. You have not proven your premise to be true. You believe it, as many do, but not proven it. I think you have admitted that.

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If it requires, "much, much more than circumstantial evidence," then what would that be?

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That is up to you to discover whatever that may be, and then present it here. I think you are way over-complicating this. It's just a matter of your evidence to support your claim. Asking others for evidence for what are claiming is not how it works.

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Perhaps this is not you, but I'm convinced that Jesus could walk up to many people in His glory and shake hands with them, show them His scars, and they would still walk away and not believe. For them, there is no sufficient evidence.

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Even if there are those who will not believe any evidence, that does not relieve you of presenting evidence to support your claim.

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When you claim something to be true that cannot be proved,

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That would include practically all of ancient history.

You want to see, "...much, much more than circumstantial evidence," but you don't know what that would be? I find the evidence to be overwhelming, but you don't. Each to his own. I guess we'll just leave it there.

Once again, there is no agreement found. That's why I am questioning all of this. It is fruitless. But we were civil, and I do appreciate that.

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Originally Posted by jlisenbe

That would include practically all of ancient history.

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I have no idea why you are saying that.

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You want to see, "...much, much more than circumstantial evidence," but you don't know what that would be? I find the evidence to be overwhelming, but you don't. Each to his own. I guess we'll just leave it there.

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I'm happy to leave it there. But I insist on you NOT misquoting me. I never said I "don't know what that would be". What I DID say was the job of providing evidence falls on you since you are the one who is making the claim. Misquoting your opposition is NOT a valid discussion technique.

You are free to find your position "overwhelming" but, as I have explained in detail, it is not evidence.

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Once again, there is no agreement found. That's why I am questioning all of this. It is fruitless.

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Lack of agreement does not mean the discussion has been fruitless. It only means one side has not agreed with the other. It can be quite fruitful when the truth has been displayed.

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I have no idea why you are saying that.

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Because practically all of ancient history is established by circumstantial evidence.

I have asked what evidence you would accept. You have stated, "As I have explained above, the required evidence for proof of a resurrection is far greater than what you offered." If that is so, then you must have some idea of what that "far greater" evidence would be. Otherwise, how would you know I had not "offered" it, and if I did offer it, how would you know it was the "far greater" evidence you require?

I did NOT misquote you. I never offered, "don't know what that would be," as a quote, so I didn't claim you had said that. It was included in a question (with no quotation marks) you have so far declined to answer other than deflecting it. So I'll simply say again that you must have some idea of what that "far greater" evidence would be. Otherwise, how would you know I had not "offered" it? Can you say what it would be? It seems unreasonable to me for a person to say the evidence offered so far does not reach some standard, but then be unwilling or unable to specify what that standard is.

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You are free to find your position "overwhelming" but, as I have explained in detail, it is not evidence.

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You have agreed that it is circumstantial evidence (post 124) which, as has been established, is what most of history is built upon. So it is unquestionably evidence, a type that is the primary currency of both the detective and the historian and without which most of history would be unaccepted and most crimes would remain unsolved.

Yes, "probability" is a better word than proof, and in historical study it's what we have. You dismiss the gospels because they were written with certain things in mind, but that's a straw man. All history was written with certain things in mind. They were written within the lifetimes of those who were there and purport to be written by people who were there. Simply dismissing them because they include miraculous events isn't good history.

The fervor you describe was out of place here. We know the disciples were despairing. Most were in the process of returning to their day jobs because this whole thing was over. They weren't expecting a resurrection, they were expecting a similar fate because of being associated with Jesus.

Something transformed them. It wasn't just zeal because they didn't have any. As for dismissing 10 out of hand, sorry, can't do that. We have written records saying that they ordered the guards to lie about what happened. Under ordinary circumstances, if those guards had really let someone come steal the body, their lives would have been forfeit. So we know the Jewish leaders understood SOMETHING happened that they couldn't explain. And when the disciples started talking about what did happen, the leaders panicked. They started arresting them, jailing them, killing them, anything to suppress the message.

As as historian that tells me something important. They knew.

Your mileage may vary, but that's how we do history. Add the fact that Caesar's Gallic Wars is accepted as fairly accurate and the manuscripts we have are fairly correct, the ones we have are thousands of years after the fact and there's less than a handful of them. With the NT we have over 5000 manuscripts, parts of manuscripts, bits and pieces, some dating to less than 100 years after the events. So we have good records. The only question is what one does with them.

The historical probability is that the resurrection happened. There have been no truly valid alternatives suggested over 2000 years. There was no time for legend to develop, these men gave their lives for what they said they saw and experienced, and contrary to popular belief, liars do not make martyrs, especially when nobody related to the movement has anything to gain by someone's martyrdom. So they were telling the truth as they knew it.

It happened. Like it or not, it happened. The very rise of the Christian message and the vicious opposition to it, as well as the other evidence, say it happened.

YMMV, but I'm doing history the best I know how. I put it out there and people can do what they want with the evidence. You can lead a person to eternal life, but you can't make them drink of it.

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Quote Originally Posted by jlisenbe View Post
That would include practically all of ancient history.
I have no idea why you are saying that.

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Because it's a fact. We know what little we do about the Sumerians, for example, because of the accident of a fire in a clay tablet library. But we have no idea how much of what we read is true and how much might be someone's Great Sumerian Novel. Ugaritic gives us the story of King KRT who went through all kinds of gyrations to win the hand of Lady HRY, how 'El helped him and all kinds of stuff. Is the story true? Were KRT and HRY real people, and the writer threw in the religious elements? Or is it an epic poem? We don't know, because all we have is the circumstantial evidence of the writings.

This is why doing ancient history is so iffy. If we write off even the vast majority of "circumstantial evidence" we're left with nothing but pretty artifacts that can tell us nothing.