Saturday, May 15, 2010

Evidence for the Resurrection

What evidence is there for the resurrection?

All Paul says is that Jesus 'appeared'. Where could a physically resurrected Jesus have been hiding in between appearances? If Jesus had been physically resurrected, then he would have been *with* the disciples, not just appearing to them.

And we also have anonymous unsourced documents mentioning loads of people that not even Christians in the first century ever mentioned as having existing.

The cast of characters in the Novels is amazing , considering that virtually none of them appear in letters written by Christians to each other, where nobody ever mentions even having heard of an empty tomb, Judas, Thomas, Lazarus, Bartimaeus, Joseph of Arimathea, Joanna, Salome, Barabbas, Nicodemus etc etc.

If there had been an empty tomb, then for decades Christians would have been hammered by (false in that case) accusations of grave-robbery.

Yet the earliest Novel has no hint of any such accusations and naively says Jesus followers knew they could access the tomb if some big strong men (perhaps fishermen) could be found to roll away the stone.

A later Novel had to change all that by making clear that the tomb had been guarded.

Clearly Mark's Novel had caused Christians to be accused of grave-robbing.

Clearly there had never been any charge of grave-robbing levelled against Christians before Mark's Novel, because the first Novel says the body was just there to be taken if somebody could move the stone.

Nobody in a movement that had been hammered for decades with accusations of grave-robbery would have written like that. Matthew's Novel proves that.

And if there had been no (false) charge of grave-robbing before Mark's Novel, then there could not have been any empty tomb.