Pages

Saturday, April 27, 2019

Debating a tape recorder

Had a marathon impromptu debate with someone who denies the Resurrection on Facebook. Because Facebook exchanges are choppy, I did some reformatting to tighten the flow. 

Tyler 
It supposedly was being applied to other apocalyptic prophets like Jesus i.e. John the Baptist according to Mark 6:14-16.
This is interesting because both figures were contemporary, had disciples, preached a similar message, shared the same socio-cultural background, and people were claiming they had both risen from the dead after their unjust executions. Is this just a coincidence or does it show that the idea was being applied to other prophet type figures during the time of Jesus?

Hays 
Returning from the grave (i.e. ghost) is a different concept from a resurrection, in the technical sense.

Tyler 
The claim about John is "raised from the dead" - γγερται κ νεκρν which is the same claim in verbatim Greek used about Jesus. Are you saying that Greek phrase can just mean "a ghost returning from a grave"? If so, then how do you know that wasn't the original belief about Jesus' resurrection?

Hays 
i) The doctrine of the physical resurrection of Christ isn't merely based on a particular phrase, but entire episodes in Luke and John (as well as 1 Cor 15) which accentuate the physicality of the resurrection in the case of Jesus. And I don't grant your dichotomy between original belief about his resurrection and the NT record.

ii) Moreover, in reading historical narratives, it's important to distinguish between statements by the narrator that express the editorial viewpoint of the narrator and the narrator quoting what other people say (in this case, Herod the tetrarch), which the narrator may or may not endorse.

Tyler  
Well, according to the account "other people" were making the claim. It says Herod and "some others" which would most likely be people who knew or followed John the Baptist. Unless of course, the New Testament is just wrong about that? So it just seems interesting that we have a similar prophet type figure being claimed to have "risen from the dead" after his execution (just like the claim we have for Jesus). This seems to demonstrate that the concept of a single dying and rising prophet figure was around at the exact same time and in the same cultural background as Jesus' ministry. 
Luke and John were the last gospels to be written and yes they do "accentuate" the physical resurrection of Jesus. However, it doesn't follow that was the original view nor does it follow that the authors were narrating actual history. 
Paul only gives evidence for visions of Jesus or "spiritually experiencing" Christ. The physical resurrection involving touching a resurrected corpse develops later.

Hays 
i) You have yet to absorb the significance of the distinction between a narrator and people he quotes. That hardly means "the NT is just wrong about that". It does means the narrator doesn't necessarily endorse everything he quotes or how it's worded. 

That's a pretty elementary distinction, you know. Take a journalist who quotes a statement by a politician. It can be a verbatim quote. That doesn't mean the journalist necessary shares the viewpoint of the politician. 

ii) There's no reason to think Luke was written later than Matthew. I think both were written in the 60s. For that matter, I think John was probably written in the 60s. In any event, it's arguable that Luke's account is based on eyewitnesses he interviewed while the Johannine narrator is an eyewitness in his own right.

iii) You seem to be channeling Richard Carrier. The word for "vision" doesn't imply a psychological phenomenon rather than a physical phenomenon. That owes more to the connotations of the English synonym. It's just a word for appearance. Jesus appeared to Paul. The fact that it was luminous no more makes it psychological than the Transfiguration.

iv) And in any event, my reference was to 1 Cor 15, not Acts 9. I wasn't referring to Paul's experience, but Paul's appeal to eyewitnesses as well as his discussion of the glorified body.


Tyler 
i) Your imagined "distinction" is a red herring. It doesn't matter if the narrator "believed" John the Baptist had been resurrected or not. That just misses the point. The narrator is endorsing this episode as an actual historical event, meaning he's saying John's resurrection was claimed by others, right? Or is the Word of God wrong about that? 
ii) Most scholars date Luke/Acts after 85 CE. The author shows explicit knowledge of the Temple's destruction in Lk. 19:43-44 and 21:20-24. He alters Mark's ambiguous prediction to be an exact description of the Roman siege. Luke copies Mark's gospel verbatim but changes some things and even according to church tradition, the author of Mark wasn't an eyewitness. Luke never names his other sources, contrary to historical works of the time. He also delays the Parousia, edits out Mark's imminent predictions, which shows considerable time had passed. According to Irenaeus, Mark wrote *after* Peter and Paul's deaths which would have been mid 60's thereby further supporting the hypothesis that Luke was written post 70. The narrator in John makes a third person claim about the story being from an eyewitness. That's hardly the same thing as verified eyewitness testimony. Besides, the internal evidence contradicts that this came from an actual eyewitness. John was clearly written after 90 CE after Christianity had split from Judaism. It's too theologically removed from the synoptics to be historical, contains anachronisms, and is obviously anti-semitic "the Jews" is used 71 times. Kind of strange considering Jesus and his followers were Jewish! 
Paul is the earliest and only firsthand source written by someone who claims to have "seen" Jesus. Firsthand sources trump secondhand or worse hearsay when doing history.
iii) You assert "Jesus appeared to Paul." Well, I'm willing to grant that Paul sincerely believed he thought he saw Jesus but his testimony immediately becomes suspect once the appearance is called a "vision" since visions are more likely to be false or mistaken rather than having anything to do with reality. 
Jesus was located in heaven when he "appeared" to Paul. Paul makes no distinction in the earliest list of eyewitnesses - 1 Cor 15:5-8 which means you can't claim the appearances to the others were more physical. The Transfiguration is also called a "vision" in Mt. 17:9. When something is labeled a "vision" that's because the author wanted to *distinguish* it from a normal seeing with the eyes. Why else would they use the word for "vision"? Paul's own words are "God revealed His Son in me" - Gal. 1:16. Since this experience happened to Paul while Jesus was *located in heaven,* it follows that when Paul says "Jesus appeared to them and appeared to me, too" in 1 Cor 15:5-8, a plausible understanding is that Paul was just saying Jesus spiritually appeared to everyone from heaven as well. He makes no distinction in regards to their nature, quality, or type which means in order to conclude the appearances were different, you have to read your own bias into the text (which is based on your commitment to the later sources which are not firsthand).
iv) A "spiritual body" located in heaven as far as I can tell. Paul gives no evidence of Jesus' resurrected body walking around on earth or being experienced in a way that wasn't a vision/revelation.

Hays 
i) You're repeatedly confused. The narrator is reporting the existence of a rumor, which doesn't mean he endorses the rumor. To say there was a rumor to that effect doesn't imply that the rumor is true, from the narrator's perspective. An utterly elementary distinction.

ii) Doing a headcount of scholarly opinion isn't evidence for what they believe. That's a fallacious argument from authority. Mere scholarly opinion doesn't constitute evidence. Their opinions are only as good as the arguments they provide in support of their opinions.

iii) Luke quotes stock siege warfare imagery, which would be more familiar to his gentile audience). Language that may well be modeled on LXX descriptions. 

iv) Why would Luke name his sources? Most of his informants wouldn't be famous people, recognizable to the average reader. Moreover, naming his informants might expose some of them to persecution.

v) According to Acts 12:12, Mark's hometown was Jerusalem, and Mark was an early disciple, so he had ample opportunity to witness the public ministry of Christ firsthand.

vi) You'll have to be more specific about how Luke delays the Parousia.

vii) Does your appeal to Irenaeus mean you accept what the early church fathers say about the authorship of the four gospels?

viii) Third-person reportage is a stock convention in ancient literature even when the narrator is an eyewitness. Are you unaware of that?

ix) Actually, John's Gospel is notable for its archeological accuracy. 

x) His Gospel is no more anti-semitic than OT denunciations of stiff-necked Israel. 

xi) You were the one who did a bait-n-switch. I referred to 1 Cor 15, and you changed the subject to Paul's conversion. 

xii) The testimony in 1 Cor 5-8 can't be collective hallucinations. Since, by definition, a hallucination has no external stimulus, two (or more) people can't have the same hallucination inasmuch as there's nothing in common to cause it. 

xiii) If you bother to consult a standard Greek lexicon like BDAG, it will document that orao is a neutral word that can, depending on context, denote natural perception or supernatural perception. You keep trading on the connotations of the English word, which is semantically fallacious.

xiv) You're oblivious to the context of the Transfiguration account. They didn't see Jesus in a vision. They hiked up a mountain with Jesus, where they witnessed him become luminous. 

xv) Jesus ascended to heaven. That's physical. According to Acts 1, a physical Jesus levitated to a certain altitude, then the Shekinah took him to heaven. Nothing visionary about it.

xvi) Likewise, you're confused about Paul's terminology. "Spiritual body" doesn't mean a body composed of spiritual stuff but a body empowered by God's spirit. Scholars have documented that by reference to parallel material.

xvii) Btw, as the argument from undesigned coincidences demonstrates, Matthew and Luke have information independent of Mark even when narrating the same events.

xviii) In addition, even Mark 16 records the empty tomb and the Resurrection. But if it was just a psychological vision or ghost, the corpse of Jesus would still be in the tomb.

xix) Finally, it's highly probably that the Gospel titles are original. That alone establishes authorship.

Tyler  
Discussion has gotten a little long for my taste. Let's stick to the original point. Mark says a rumor of John the Baptist being resurrected existed. It is irrelevant if the author believed "the rumor was true." He reports people making the claim which, necessarily means the claim was made by Herod and "some others." You're trying to wiggle out of the historicity of the event but you can't because Mark (The Word of God) reports it as having happened. 
This is important because if people were claiming that John the Baptist had been "raised from the dead" after his execution then we can see why the followers of Jesus would claim the same thing about their executed leader. 

The idea obviously existed in the same cultural background that both John and Jesus shared with their followers - 1st century apocalyptic Judaism. Otherwise it would make no sense to claim John the Baptist had been raised. So is it just a coincidence that we have the claims of two contemporary Jewish apocalyptic preachers being raised from the dead after their executions?

Hays 
i) You are persistently confused on the issue. The historicity of what event? The fact that a claim was made? Or the fact that the claim is true? Those are hardly equivalent. Mark doesn't report that John the Baptist rose from the dead. The narrator doesn't report it as having happened. Rather, what happened is a rumor that arose following the Baptist's death. 

ii) By definition, any postmortem appearance would have to be after the decedent died. Nothing striking about that.

iii) You manufacture an artificial parallel by classifying Jesus and John the Baptist under the generic rubric of "Jewish apocalyptic preachers". But that's a highly reductionistic and selective characterization of Jesus in the Gospels. The Gospels present him as far more than just a "Jewish apocalyptic preacher" like the Baptist.

Tyler  
Just for fun I would like to see Steve Hays show legendary growth to be implausible then replace it with a better explanation that explains why every consecutive report grows in fantastic detail or includes an amazing story not mentioned in the previous reports. Watch how experiencing the Risen Jesus evolves in chronological order. Scholarly consensus dating places the documents as follows: (when debating history, the consensus is relevant. You don't just get to handwave that away.)
Paul c. 50 CE - is the only firsthand report. He says the Risen Jesus "appeared" φθη (1 Cor 15:5-8) and was experienced through "visions" and "revelations" - 2 Cor 12:1. The appearance to Paul was a vision/revelation *from heaven* - Gal. 1:12-16, Acts 26:19 (not a physical encounter with a revived corpse) and he makes no distinction between what he "saw" and what the others "saw" in 1 Cor 15:5-8. This shows that early Christians accepted visions as Resurrection "appearances." Paul nowhere gives any evidence of the Risen Christ being experienced in a more "physical" way which means you have to necessarily read in the *assumption* that the appearances were physical, from a later source that Paul nowhere corroborates. He had a chance to mention the empty tomb in 1 Cor 15 when it would have greatly helped his argument but doesn't. Paul's order of appearances: Peter, the twelve, the 500, James, all the apostles, Paul. No location is mentioned.
Mark c. 70 CE - introduces the empty tomb but has no appearance report. Predicts Jesus will be "seen" in Galilee. The original ends at 16:8 where the women leave and tell no one. Mark's order of appearances: Not applicable. 
Matthew c. 80 CE - has the women tell the disciples, contradicting Mark's ending, has some women grab Jesus' feet, then has an appearance in Galilee which "some doubt" - Mt. 28:17. Matthew also adds a descending angel, great earthquake, and a zombie apocalypse to spice things up. If these things actually happened then it's hard to believe the other gospel authors left them out, let alone any other contemporary source from the time period. Matthew's order of appearances: Two women, eleven disciples. The appearance to the women takes place near the tomb in Jerusalem while the appearance to the disciples happens on a mountain in Galilee.
Luke 85-95 CE - has the women immediately tell the disciples, contradicting Mark. Jesus appears in Jerusalem, not Galilee, contradicting Matthew's depiction and Mark's prediction. He appears to two people on the Emmaus Road who don't recognize him at first. Jesus then vanishes and suddenly appears to the disciples. This time Jesus is "not a spirit" but a "flesh and bone" body that gets inspected, eats fish, then floats to heaven while all the disciples watch - conspicuously missing from all the earlier reports. Acts adds the otherwise unattested claim that Jesus appeared over a period of 40 days. Luke's order of appearances: Two on the Emmaus Road, Peter, rest of the eleven disciples. All appearances happen in Jerusalem. 
John 90-110 CE - Jesus can now walk through walls and has the Doubting Thomas story where Jesus gets poked. Jesus is also basically God in this gospel which represents another astonishing development. John's order of appearances: Mary Magdalene, eleven disciples, the disciples again plus Thomas, then to seven disciples. In John 20 the appearances happen in Jerusalem and in John 21 they happen near the Sea of Galilee on a fishing trip.
As you can see, these reports are inconsistent with one another and represent growth that's better explained as legendary accretion rather than actual history. If these were actual historical reports that were based on eyewitness testimony then we would expect more consistency than we actually get. None of the resurrection reports in the gospels even match Paul's appearance chronology in 1 Cor 15:5-8 and the later sources have amazing stories that are drastically different from and nowhere even mentioned in the earliest reports. The story evolves from Paul's spiritual/mystical Christ all the way up to literally touching a resurrected corpse that flies to heaven! So upon critically examining the evidence we can see the clear linear development that Christianity started with spiritual visionary experiences and evolved to the ever-changing physical encounters in the gospels (which are not firsthand reports).

Hays 
i) Once more, scholarly consensus is irrelevant to history. Scholarly consensus isn't evidence. It just means many scholars of a particular generation think alike. And that often shifts from one generation to another. Academic fads are a commonplace of the guild. Groupthink is a commonplace of the guild. Your standard is anti-intellectual.
You then recycle your claims about Paul, which I refuted. You don't engage the counterargument.

ii) I don't grant your relative chronology. But let's play along with that for argument's sake. Do the Gospels reflect progressive legendary embellishment? 
Mark doesn't describe the Resurrection, but he reports the fact that Jesus rose from the dead. And the empty tomb in Mark makes no sense unless Jesus was physically restored to life. 

Matthew and Luke have virgin birth accounts, John's Gospel doesn't. Matthew has the "zombie apocalypse" as well as prodigies (e.g. Star of Bethlehem, darkness at noon, earthquake) missing from Luke and John. John has no exorcism accounts, unlike the Synoptics. John reports far fewer miracles than the Synoptics.  Likewise, Matthew has revelatory dreams, not reported in Luke and John. Matthew and Luke have angelic apparitions, not reported in John. The Synoptics have a diabolical temptation scene, not reported in John. The Synoptics have the Transfiguration, not reported in John. 

So there's no linear trajectory of legendary embellishment. You create that illusion by cherry-picking examples while omitting contrary evidence.

iii) Jesus is God Incarnate in the Synoptics Gospels as well as John's Gospel. Read Bauckham, Gathercole et al. 

iv) We have almost no other sources from that time and place. 

v) Naturally the Gospels include many details not found in 1 Cor 15 since Paul was writing a letter, not a biography. 

vi) It is not inconsistent for two or more accounts to cover some of the same ground while having material unique to each. That's no different than firsthand accounts of the Civil War by Grant and Sherman, or firsthand accounts of WWII by Eisenhower and Churchill.

Tyler
Exactly. Which demonstrates the *concept* of a *single* dying and rising apocalyptic preacher existed *before* the death of Jesus in the same socio-cultural context. Coincidence? Or do we have the beginnings of a pattern?

Hays
The concept of a dying and rising messiah occurs in Isa 53. Coincidence–or prophetic fulfillment?

Tyler
There would be no such rumor if this idea/concept did not exist.

Hays
The concept of ghosts that return from the grave to avenge their killers already existed. That's what Herod Antipas feared. That's the socio-cultural context for Herod's anxiety.

Tyler
and we can now see why the followers of Jesus would be eager to apply the concept to him after his death.

Hays
No, they wouldn't be eager to cast Jesus as a vengeful ghost. 

Tyler
then it's plausible the claim about Jesus started as just a rumor as well.

Hays
Aside from your equivocations, it's also not plausible if you study what the records actually says. 

Tyler
They were similar contemporaries who preached a similar message and had disciples/followers who claimed they both had 'risen from the dead' after their executions. Those parallels are quite striking.

Hays
Feel free to provide documentation. 

Tyler
No it is not. When the consensus of experts agree on one thing then that needs to be taken into account. It's the same for any other academic discipline.

Hays
i) To begin with, your criterion is self-refuting. You're pedaling a mythicist reconstruction that reflects fringe scholarship. So you need to make up your mind what your standard is. You can't play both sides of the fence. 

ii) In addition, there's the question of what constitutes an "expert". Many Bible scholars are just workaday plodders of no particular intellectual distinction. They mimic their professors in grad school to make the grade and get glowing letters of reference. They rubber-stamp the current academic fads to get hired, get promoted, get published. 
The intelligent way to assess scholarship is not to consider what most scholars believe, but to consider what the best scholars believe. Who are the most intellectually gifted scholars? Which ones do original research and break new ground? Which ones reexamine the conventional wisdom? It always comes down to the quality of the supporting arguments, and not the decibel level of the echo chamber.

Tyler
Where does Paul say the Risen Jesus was: a. experienced in a way that was not a vision

Hays
You're recycling the semantic fallacy I repeatedly corrected you on. 

Tyler
b. gives evidence of the Risen Christ on earth?

Hays
Because he cites earthbound eyewitnesses. 

Tyer
But no appearance report in the original account.

Hays
i) That's an exercise in misdirection. Mark reports the empty tomb and the fact of the Resurrection.

ii) Also, for whatever reason (maybe he was running out of space on his scroll), Mark gives a very compressed account.

Tyler
You're just using a red herring by diverting to irrelevant details. I'm specifically talking about the events surrounding the RESURRECTION of Jesus and how Jesus is said to have been experienced.

Hays
To the contrary, you are straining to filter out evidence contrary to your conjecture. If the Gospel writers are prone to increasing legendary accretion, then we'd expect a general pattern. But there is no general pattern to that effect. Percentage wise, Mark has the most miracles, Matthew and Luke fewer, and John still fewer. That's at variance with your conjecture.

Tyler
Firsthand sources are preferred over secondhand or worse ones.

Hays
Not necessarily. Compare an autobiography, which is a single firsthand source (the autobiographer) to a biography in which the biographer interviews multiple friends and family members.

Tyer
Moreover, the gospels are not necessarily reporting history. That is something which you have to prove.

Hays
The burden of proof is a two-way street. And it's not as if there's a dearth of material on the historicity of the Gospels. Take the recent monograph by Peter Williams, Can We Trust the Gospels? 

Tyler
The problem is the data is consistent with a legend growing in the telling per my comparison above. Now you need to show that to be implausible then explain why each account gets more fantastic over time while maintaining a more plausible historical hypothesis. Good luck!

Hays
The only reason you default to legendary embellishment is if you assume that reports of supernatural events must be legendary since naturalism is a given.

Tyler 
This is a red herring. Also, there is no resurrection claim in Isa 53. 

Hays
Sure there is: Isa 53:11. If you need more, consult Motyer's commentary. 

Tyler
The original context was about the nation of Israel - Isa 49:3.

Hays
The original context is the redemption of Israel by the Suffering Servant. 

Tyler
Haha! So being "raised from the dead" can just mean that a ghost had returned in first century Judaism? Gosh, tell all those apologists that the claim of Jesus' resurrection necessarily entailing his own corpse had been revived that they're just wrong about that!

Hays
Responding to you is like talking to a tape recorder. Your modus operandi is to push the rewind button, then push the replay button. You constantly repeat your talking-points without acknowledging and engaging the counterargument.  

Tyler
Does the account say it was the "ghost" of John the Baptist? The claim is the exact same Greek used about Jesus in the earliest preaching - γήγερται κ νεκρν. I suppose one could interpret it as John's ghost coming back in Jesus' body but you then must admit that a "resurrection" in first century Judaism could have different natures and take more than one form. Your pick.

Hays
Another example of you in tape-recorder mode. I already addressed that counter. I realize that since you have such thin arguments to begin with, you bottom out very quickly and resort to recyling your oft-refuted objections.

You were the one who brought up the the socio-cultural context of Herod's anxiety. That would be fear of punitive ghosts that exact revenge on their killers. That's the social-cultural background for such anxieties. Indeed, it's a cross-cultural phenomenon. 

Tyler
How much more close of an association can you get?

Hays
What about Jesus is an exorcist and the Baptist is not. Jesus is a healer and the Baptist is not. Jesus performs nature miracles, unlike the Baptist. Jesus assumes divine prerogatives like forgiving sin, unlike the Baptist. Jesus is God Incarnate and the Baptist is not. 

Tyler
I'm talking about actual PhD's who have a degree in the relevant fields.

Hays
It' revealing that you fail to comprehend how that's entirely consistent with what I said. 

Tyler
What's more important are the *reasons* why they believe which I quoted some above but you hand-waved away with contrived excuses. 

Hays
It's amusing to see you emulate the behavior your accuse your opponent of committing. I provided arguments for why their reasons are bogus. Instead of making any effort to refute my arguments, you're the one who takes refuge in rhetorical hand-waving. 

Tyler
By "vision" I mean a spiritual encounter or revelation from heaven per what Paul himself describes in Gal. 1:16 "God revealed His Son in me." Paul did not meet the physically resurrected Jesus in person. He had a "vision/revelation" of him from heaven. Paul places this experience in parallel with the "appearances" to the others in 1 Cor 15:5-8 while using the same verb (ophthe) as if to equate them. He makes no distinction regarding their nature. It follows that early Christians accepted subjective spiritual encounters from heaven as *Resurrection appearances.* Since this is the only example Paul gives of "experiencing Christ" in the only firsthand source we have, then that means you are necessarily reading in the unsupported assumption that the other "appearances" were different or more "physical."

Hays
Once again, this is you in tape recorder mode. I already responded to your fallacious argument. Repetition doesn't make it less fallacious. 

Tyler
Non-sequitur. Since Paul uses his vision of Jesus as a resurrection appearance it follows that other Christians could have claimed their visions or shared mass ecstatic worship experiences counted as a "resurrection appearance." He basically says "Jesus appeared (ophthe) to them and appeared (ophthe) to me, too." No distinction is made and the appearance to Paul took place while Jesus was located in heaven. Where does Paul say "Jesus appeared to them physically on earth before ascending to heaven then he appeared to me in a vision only?" THAT distinction is never made.

Hays
I already explained how mass hallucination is incoherent. Your prerecorded responses do nothing to advance the argument. 

Tyler
Prove your assertion. 

Hays
I already did. 

Tyler
You are just diverting attention away from the resurrection narratives. Once you pay attention to the resurrection narratives (per my actual argument, not the strawman against which you're arguing) then it's plain to see that the story gets more fantastic over time which is *exactly* what we'd expect from legendary embellishment. You need to show this interpretation of the data to be implausible.

Hays
Once more, this is you stuck in tape recorder mode. 

Tyler
Was my argument about the "number of miracles"? No, so this is just a strawman.

Hays
I'm explaining what's wrong with your argument. 

Tyler
This assumes that's what the gospel authors were actually doing but, of course, you know, that is disputed. 

Hays
No, it doesn't assume that. It simply provides a counterexample to your hasty generalization. I'm showing that your principle is demonstrably false. 

Tyler
Paul is the earliest and only *undisputed* firsthand Christian source we have, therefore per proper historical methodology, he is providing the most accurate picture of early Christian beliefs. He is the only verified account we have from someone who met Peter and James. 

Hays
That's anti-intellectual. Anything can be disputed. Take 9/11 Truthers. The fact that something is disputed is not self-warranting. 

Tyler
More importantly he is the only source we have by someone saying "I saw Jesus" in the first person, but the appearance to him came from heaven in the manner of a personal revelation which he seems to equate with the "appearances" of the others in 1 Cor 15:5-8.

Hays
Yet again, this is you in permanent tape recorder mode. Are you unaware of the fact that third-person narration is a stock convention in ancient literature even when the narrator is a firsthand observer? I already pointed that out to you. You had no comeback. 

Tyler
Again, I'm still waiting on you to show the hypothesis to be implausible. 

Hays
To begin with, your validation is not my yardstick. I write for the benefit of lurkers. You're just a foil. And I've given multiple reasons for why your argument is leaking like a sieve. Unless you have something new to say, it's not possible for me to have a constructive exchange with a tape recorder. 

Tyler
"There is no clear reference to a resurrection here nor is there even any resurrection terminology. It's very vague. You're just reading in things that aren't there." 

Hays
i) In Scripture, light is a common metaphor for life.

ii) In addition, Isa 53:11 piggybacks on v10, which talks Yahweh restoring the suffering servant to life. For additional discussion, see Motyer, pp440-41. 

Tyler
"But even if it were the case that Scripture predicted a dying and rising Messiah then that gives even more reason to think the disciples of John and Jesus were eager to apply this concept to them! If it was an expectation based on their understanding of Scripture then voila! Jesus and John were killed so Aha! They must be the Resurrected Messiah Scripture tells us about." 

Hays
Mark 6:14-16 never attributes the rumor to disciples of John the Baptist. 

Tyler
"Ask a Jewish scholar". 

Hays
i) You can't be serious. Modern-day Jews don't have privileged access to the meaning of the OT. They stand at the same distance from the ancient text as modern-day gentiles. They don't have any esoteric sources of knowledge unavailable to gentile scholar. 

ii) You also create a false dichotomy. What about messianic Jews like Michael Brown, Meredith Kline, D. S. Margoliouth, Charles Lee Feinberg, David Noel Freedman, &c.? 

Tyler
"The "Suffering Servant" is Israel. It says so right in the preceding context in 49:3 - "You are my Servant, Israel." The author just uses the singular pronoun to refer to the collective nation of Israel."

Hays
i) To begin with, the syntax is ambiguous. Rather than linking "Israel" with "servant" in the preceding clause, it may link with the succeeding clause: "Israel, in you I will glorify myself". And that's more consistent with the grammatical pause. Cf. G. Smith, Isaiah 40-66, 345-46.

ii) However, even if Yahweh gives messiah the name of Israel, that's because messiah acts vicariously on behalf of Israel. If you bother to read the verse in context, the messiah isn't identical to Israel because he is sent to Israel to redeem Israel. That's conceded even by more liberal commentators like Childs and Goldingay. 

Tyler
"You haven't given a counter argument. The concept of a single dying and rising prophet figure existed before Jesus' death and was being applied to another similar Jesus type figure around the same time. Therefore, we now have a plausible explanation for the origin of the Resurrection belief about Jesus which doesn't necessarily entail Jesus actually being raised from the dead. Go ahead and give a "counter argument" to that instead of casting a net of red herrings."

Hays
To the contrary, it's wildly implausible to suppose the resurrection belief originated in rumors about the Baptist returning from the grave to haunt Herod. 

Tyler
"Vindictive ghosts that had been "raised from the dead" which is the exact same claim we find about Jesus...ok sure. Where are you getting this idea from?" 

Hays
You're unable to follow the argument. The claim is not that ghosts have been raised from the dead but that, in reference to John the Baptist, "raised from the dead" is idiomatic for a wraith who will wreak vengeance on his killer. 

Tyler
"Again, it must be quite a coincidence that we have the followers of two apocalyptic sects claiming that their leaders had both "risen from the dead" after their executions."

Hays
There's nothing in Mk 6 about followers of the Baptist claiming that he rose from the dead. And if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, his disciples would certainly be in a position to know that. 

Tyler
"This stuff doesn't just come out of nowhere. Obviously, the idea existed and was being passed around at the time." 

Hays
Yes, the notion of avenging spirits is culturally diverse

Tyler
"Or, what Mark says in chapter 6 could just be misreporting…"

Hays
You keep making the same mistake. My explanation doesn't impugn the accuracy of Mark's account. 

Tyler
"As for Luke 19:43-44 and 21:20-24 you said that he was just employing "stock language." Well, it's quite convenient when this "stock language" is almost an exact description of what happened during the Roman siege of Jerusalem."

Hays
In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus predicts the fall of Jerusalem? Who'd be the agent? The Romans, naturally. And how would the Romans attack a fortified city like Jerusalem? Using siege warfare tactics, naturally. 

Tyler
"Based on these passages alone, one can't claim Luke dates to before 70 because we are all limited to the same background knowledge i.e. the claims in the gospels themselves. You don't actually *know* that Luke was just employing stock language and writing before the Fall because since what he says *also* matches the Roman siege, all else being equal, it is just as likely that Luke was writing *after* the fact. So at best, it's just a stalemate. You can't actually claim with any confidence that Luke was writing before the Fall of Jerusalem since we'd expect the same data he gives *after* the Fall because it is consistent with what we'd expect from someone who had direct knowledge of the event."

Hays
You're confused. I didn't cite the Olivet discourse to date Luke. You were the one who trotted that out. I'd use a different argument for dating Luke. I'm discussing the Olivet discourse because you think that's significant for dating, and as I explained, your inference is invalid. 

Tyler
"As for the delay of the Parousia, in Paul and Mark the Parousia is imminent. Paul thinks it will happen in his lifetime - 1 Thess 4:15, 1 Cor 15:51. Luke rewrites Mark 14:62 in Lk. 22.69.

Hays
That's a string of misinterpretations. For correctives, read Edwards (270) and Nolland (3:1110) on Luke, Thiselton (1293-95) on 1 Corinthians, as well as Beale (140-41), Fee (175-76), Shogren (184-5), and Weima (323-25) on 1 Thessalonians.

Tyler
"There's also the claim in Luke 1:1 that he was drawing upon "many accounts" which one would think would take considerable time to accrue and be published."

Hays
Mark's Gospel may be as early as the 40s. 

Tyler
"I'm still looking for that refutation. You basically just tried to downplay the role of the word "vision" and just claim it was a real world physical appearance. Um, no. You need to show that some ancient man's vision/revelation from heaven actually had anything to do with reality. Go ahead please. I'll wait."

Hays
i) This is another example of your anti-intellectualism. I pointed out, which is easily documentable, the Greek word-group has a neutral meaning. That's not "downplaying" the role of the word but correcting your inaccurate appeal.

ii) In addition to that equivocation, you equivocate over the sense of the word "heaven". Sometimes it means the abode of God/saints/angels, and sometimes it simply means "the sky". In the Damascus road conversion, it's a Christophany from the sky, not "heaven" in the theological sense. 

Tyler
"A mass ecstatic worship experience (mass hysteria) happens all the time in church. Are you prepared to let you pastor know that his congregation is just hallucinating?" 

Hays
I don't attend church services characterized by mass hysteria. 

Tyler
"Plenty of people claim to have "felt the presence" of Jesus without actually seeing him. This happens when groups of people are praying, singing, or speaking in tongues together." 

Hays
i) The setting of the Damascus road conversion isn't a Pentecostal church service. 

ii) The description includes audition as well as "vision". Jesus speaking to him. 

Tyler
"The verb Paul uses φθη (ōphthē) can account for this type of experience since it doesn't necessarily mean a physical seeing with the eye."

Hays
The argument was never that it necessarily means physical sight. The problem is that you act like it has a uniform meaning as a technical term for a psychological vision. 

Tyler
"Like when Jesus turns water into wine? That's only attested in John, so, this would still be consistent with legendary embellishment."

Hays
Different biographies of the same individual contain unique anecdotes. That doesn't entail or even presume legendary embellishment. The only reason you reach for that category is because you think reported miracles are by definition legendary, given your commitment to naturalism. 

Tyler
"Yes it does. Otherwise why say that the biographers interviewed friends and eyewitnesses? You were trying to provide an analogy for the gospels. Firsthand sources are the preferred type of testimony for history. Everything else is secondary."

Hays
You're unable to think clearly about the issue. You dismissed secondhand information as inferior to firsthand information. I explained to you why that's not necessarily the case. If, say, a WWII vet writes an account of his personal experience in theater, the author is an eyewitness. If, by contrast, a WWII historian interviews WWII vets, that is secondhand information in relation to the historian. He wasn't there, unlike a memoir. That, however, doesn't automatically make his account less reliable. Indeed, interviewing multiple witnesses can make it more reliable, even though it's secondhand information for the historian. 

Tyler
"Have you discovered another firsthand source written by someone who claimed to have seen Jesus? Or are you only left with third person person claims written by non-eyewitnesses which grow in the telling?"

Hays
Loaded questions. 

Tyler
"Then why didn't Paul use it or the author of 1,2,3 John?" 

Hays
You're being arbitrary. The ancient literary convention of third-person narrative when the writer is a firsthand observer doesn't rule out first-person narration. Both modes of narration were used in ancient writings. 

Tyler
"Even if that were the case it still doesn't necessarily follow that the third person narration in the gospels is reporting actual facts. You still have to demonstrate that since all you're left with is third person narration which could go either way. Moreover, I'm familiar with ancient literature and historians often interject themselves in the first person. The gospel authors never do this. You'd literally have no reason to think these were eyewitness reports if you weren't committed to them by faith."

Hays
Actually, the Gospel of John contains many editorial asides in which he inserts himself into the narrative to explain something to the reader. Mark does that on occasion as well. 

Tyler
"But Paul had a vision from heaven and concluded that Jesus had been resurrected. He did not receive it from any man but rather from a revelation of Jesus Christ himself (who was located in heaven) - Gal. 1:12-16. Obviously, all it took to believe a resurrection had occurred was to have a subjective vision. Can you please give arguments for why we should take ancient claims of "visions" seriously? Your response seems to miss the point of my post. Just because things were claimed to have been "seen" it doesn't necessarily follow that these were objective physical encounters that had anything to do with reality. This equally applies to when Paul says he had "seen" Jesus. Also, how do you know the earliest view wasn't that Jesus was just "raised" straight to heaven? That seems consistent with what Paul tells us since he gives no evidence of the Resurrected Jesus on earth.
And the *context* is that Paul was saying Jesus "appeared" from heaven. That, by definition, is a spiritual appearance, not a physical encounter with a revived corpse on earth. Moreover, Paul uses the aorist passive form φθη which is used more frequently in the Greek Old Testament and New Testament to refer to visions or "heavenly appearances." It's also used in Aelius Aristides’ Sacred Tales to refer to a dream vision of Asclepius. I'm not doing anything fallacious here at all. If you would like to explain exactly what you mean I will be happy to clarify." 

Hays
i) Once again, you're equivocating over the word "heaven". "Heaven" can mean the "sky" or the abode of God and his retinue. Acts 9,22,26 describe a theophany/Christophany consisting of blinding light from the sky, accompanied by the voice of Jesus speaking to Paul. 

ii) Likewise, if you bothered to consult standard lexicons (e.g. BDAG, EDNT), the word-group doesn't mean "subjective vision". Rather, they can denote natural vision or they can
denote sightings or visions that originate from God, where God enables the observer to see something that's ordinarily hidden from human view. To become visible, let it be seen. It sometimes refers to psychological visions (e.g. the Apocalypse), but that's determined by context rather than the sense of the word. 

Tyler
"That's from the author of Luke/Acts, not Paul. The Ascension is not mentioned in Paul, Mark, or Matthew. I'm not disputing that the author of Luke/Acts didn't think the resurrection was physical. I'm arguing that this was a later development."

Hays
Missing the point of the comparison. The point, rather, is that something can be seen from the sky or be supernaturally luminous but still physical. 

Tyler
"Big leap to a resurrection there." 

Hays
Not for a prophet who talks about the resurrection of the body (Isa 26:19). 

Tyler
"What about "life" in heaven for instance?"

Hays
"Length of days" suggests something earthly. For a good monograph on this passage, see John Barry, The Resurrected Servant in Isaiah (IVP 2012). 

Tyler
"Yeah, "prolong his days" is saying he will "have a long life" not be resurrected." 

Hays
You're completely missing the flow of the action. Prolonging his days comes after his suffering and death. Even a rather liberal scholar like Childs admits that there's a reversal of fortunes. But in context, that must be postmortem. 

Tyler
"In other words, the collective Israel will produce many offspring and live a long time. It's not about resurrection at all." 

Hays
Collective Israel is not the agent in Isa 52-53. 

Tyler
"Of course, Isa 53:10 contradicts the Jesus story since he died childless and quite young. This shows the "prophecies" of Jesus had to be cherry picked".

Hays
Are you unaware of the fact that in Scripture, one's seed can be metaphorical? 

Tyler
"Who were the "others" that were saying this then? Obviously, it had to be people who knew or followed John the Baptist." 

Hays
He was a local celebrity. He was known to thousands or tens of thousands. A circle of disciples. A wider circle of Jews who underwent the baptism of repentance. Plus many curious onlookers. Plus his adversaries. Many candidates for who might have initiated the rumor. 

Tyler
"I've already given the evidence he was seen as a Messianic figure and that his sect lived on after his death." 

Hays
He didn't meet the criteria for the messiah and he didn't found a sect. 

Tyler
"We have a good inference then that these beliefs would have come from his followers."

Hays
His close followers knew that he was still dead. So your claim is self-refuting. 

Tyler
"Isaiah 41:8, 44:1, 44:2, 44:21, 45:4, 48:20, 49:3 all identify the "Servant" as Israel." 

Hays
i) So having lost the original argument, you move the goalpost. 

ii) Adding verses doesn't change the issue. I already addressed that under my second point. Try something new that hasn't been refuted before. 

Tyler
"Why would the author just suddenly change subjects to something other than Israel?" 

Hays
Since Isaiah repeatedly describes the suffering servant in individualistic terms, he didn't suddenly change the subject. He didn't change the subject at all. It was always centered on the actions of an individual redeemer. 

Tyler
"Isa 55:7 says there is no Messiah required for forgiveness. That comes from God alone."

Hays
Messiah is Yahweh Incarnate. 

Tyler
"I never said it "originated" with John the Baptist. Obviously, the idea existed before this episode, otherwise claiming he had "risen from the dead" would make no sense."

Hays
A belated qualification on your part. 

Tyler
"The response is to Jesus and his disciples casting out demons and healing people. That's what prompts Herod and "some others" to say "John the baptist has been raised from the dead; and for this reason these powers are at work in him.” 

Hays
That's not the only thing prompting Herod to say it. Herod is afraid that the Baptist has returned from the grave to exact retribution on his killer (Herod). 

Tyler
"Some even claim Jesus is the Risen John - Mk. 8:27-28." 

Hays
Which is incoherent since they were contemporaries. So why do you lay so much weight on these urban legends? 

Tyler
"I see nothing at all about a "wraith" seeking vengeance." 

Hays
I don't care what you see or don't see. You're not the goalpost. You then push the rewind/replay button, as if that hasn't been rebutted before. 

Tyler
"Why didn't John's disciples try to squash the resurrection claim about him? According to Mk. 6:29 they knew where his body was buried."

Hays
They didn't write a biography. His ministry died with him. Unlike Jesus, he didn't have a second act. 

Tyler
"So being "raised from the dead" also had the connotation of an avenging spirit coming back to life. I'll keep that in mind when researching the origin of the resurrection belief about Jesus."

Hays
Is that supposed to be cute? If you go back and reread what I said, it was a qualified statement. The meaning of the phrase is context-dependent. 

Tyler
"How come the "siege warfare tactics" aren't mentioned in the earlier accounts attributed to Jesus from Mk. 13 and Mt. 24? Did they just miss all that stuff?" 

Hays
Luke is writing with a gentile audience in mind, so he quotes what is more accessible to the target audience. 

Tyler
"All I'm saying is that it's suspiciously convenient when Jesus' words all of a sudden match so closely to the actual events which is consistent with the author having knowledge that it already took place. You can't just make the leap and confidently claim "Luke was familiar with Roman siege tactics and therefore *was definitely* writing before the event." That's ridiculous since we'd expect the same result from an author writing AFTER the event who had knowledge of it. Luke's editorial work differs from that of Mark 13 and Mt. 24 in such a way that makes Jesus' reference far more explicit. He uses the word for "insurrections" καταστασία in Lk. 21:9 which is most likely reference to the Jewish revolt which preceded the war. Describes Jerusalem being "surrounded by (Gentile) armies" "setting up ramparts" and "prisoners being taken captive" all of which are missing from Mk. 13 and Mt. 24. Luke's Jesus seemed to have access to the Roman Warfare Handbook!" 

Hays
It's amusing how uninformed you are. My explanation doesn't originate with me. It's not even a conservative explanation. It's been propounded by liberal scholars. For instance:

"Jerusalem had been "compassed by armies" and captured by these Roman invaders more than once already…Every particle of Luke's prediction not provided by Mark was furnished by familiar and oft-quoted Old Testament passages," C. C. Torrey, The Composition and Date of Acts (Harvard 1916), 69-70. 

Are you unfamiliar with Pompey's siege of Jerusalem in 63 BC? Same place, same tactics. 

Tyler
"So the "stock language" can still be used alongside the author writing after the fact. Those two aren't mutually exclusive. These passages alone are enough to prevent anyone from claiming pre 70 dating because the description is consistent with having knowledge of the siege as a past event." 

Hays
You're logically challenged. You were the one who appealed to this passage to prove a post-70 date for Luke. All that's required to neutralize your claim is to demonstrate that the description is consistent with a pre-70 date. I don't have to prove that it's inconsistent with a post-70 date. I only have to show that your prooftext fails to establish what you require to make your case. 

Tyler
"This would have to conclusively be refuted in order to even start to argue for pre 70 dating." 

Hays
Which scholars like Torrey have done. 

Tyler
"Showing explicit knowledge of the event is evidence it was written AFTER the event." 

Hays
Which begs the question. 

Tyler
"Paul explicitly counts himself as one of the "we" who will still be alive at Christ's return. Any other interpretation is just distorting the text. Paul believed Jesus would return within his lifetime, at least when these passage were written, but Paul was obviously wrong. And I see you have no counter to the places where Luke alters Mark and delays the Parousia."

Hays
You're the mirror-image of the me-and-my-Bible backwoods fundy. Although a person can learn a lot from just reading the Bible by himself (although even that's misleading because he relies on the scholarship of translators), it's foolish to think your individual impressions are definitive. It's wise to compare your impressions with the impressions of other readers–especially commentators who specialize on particular books of the Bible. By ignoring the exegetical literature, you overlook alternative interpretations that wouldn't occur to you. Commentators aren't infallible, and they often disagree with each other. It comes down to the quality of the exegetical arguments they adduce in support of their interpretations. But it's hubristic as well as a recipe for self-delusion to think you can just wing it, that you never need to check your layman's interpretations against more expert exegesis. 

Tyler
"Not according to Irenaeus." 

Hays
As I mentioned once before, does that mean you also accept what the church fathers say about the authorship of the Gospels? 

Tyler
"Paul was writing in the late 40s and 50s. How come no mention of this gospel?" 

Hays
Why would he mention Mark's Gospel? This coming from the same guy who just told me: "Let's see it. I have a feeling we are going to see some arguments from silence."

Tyler
"Luke refers to "many accounts." Mark is just ONE account." 

Hays
Which doesn't mean Luke is alluding to written accounts. Much of his information would be based on oral history. 

Tyler
"No, the words for "vision" are not neutral. Those refer to experiences which take place in someone's mind. Otherwise, it makes no sense to use the word "vision" at all. Obviously, by employing the word for "vision" one wants to DISTINGUISH it from a physical sighting. "Visions" in the Jewish context are usually revelations from or in heaven. The word for "vision" in the NT horama/optasia is used for Paul's "vision" of the Macedonian man at night, a "vision" of angels in Luke, Paul's reference to "visions and revelations" of the Lord - 2 Cor 12:1 (was he talking about meeting the physically resurrected Jesus on earth there? Obviously, not), Paul's "heavenly vision" - Acts 26:19 and the Transfiguration scene (Mt. 17:9). These are not meant to be a normal physical sensory experience. Rather, these are meant to be understood as revelations from heaven.
As for ophthe in 1 Cor 15:5-8, while it's use is neutral prima facie, we have the inference that the resurrection appearance to Paul was a vision (from heaven) and so, by definition, is employing the verb in the spiritual sense."

Hays
Your amateurish analysis doesn't concern me. I pointed you to standard lexical resources. Educate yourself. 

Tyler
"So Paul saw the physically resurrected Jesus in the sky? Jesus descended?The Second Coming has already happened?" 

Hays
Another one of your confused statements. The Second Coming is a term of art. It's not about Jesus visiting particular individuals, but Jesus returning as the eschatological judge to preside over the Day of Judgment. 

Tyler
"Sorry, Jesus was located in heaven when he "appeared" to Paul. That's why it's called a VISION which other people present in the narrative do not see or hear properly. Only Paul "sees" Jesus, the others "saw no one" - Acts 9:7."

Hays
His traveling companions sensed something as well, but God controlled their perception of the event. 

Tyler
"Well, I went to a Pentecostal service over Easter and can vouch that almost every single person "felt the presence" of Christ. My point still stands. A mass ecstatic worship experience in the 1st century could have counted as a "resurrection appearance" of Christ." 

Hays
It doesn't stand at all. Paul says he saw a blinding light from the sky, as well as an audible voice addressing him in intelligible sentences. Hardly equivalent to "felt the presence of Christ". 

Tyler
"This counters your "hallucination" straw man."

Hays
i) It's funny that you get so agitated over my use of the word "hallucination". To begin with, those who deny the Resurrection routinely appeal to mass hallucination. That's on your side of the argument.

ii) In addition, a hallucination is standardly defined as "a sensation or sensory perception that a person experiences in the absence of a relevant external stimulus. That is, a person experiences something that doesn’t really exist (except in their mind)."

How's that different from how you are (mis-)using "vision"? 

Tyler
"According to the author of Acts. All Paul says in his firsthand material is "God revealed His Son in me" - Gal. 1:16. Does that sound like an objective physical encounter with a revived corpse?"

Hays
Yet another one of your confusions is failure to distinguish between the Damascus Road experience and the revelation of the Gospel to Paul. The latter concerns theological interpretation. 

Tyler
"Since the "appearance" to Paul is maintained by both his own letters and a later report to be a "vision" (which took place while Jesus was believed to be in heaven) then the burden of proof is on you to argue that this was a real world physical encounter." 

Hays
You're the only who relies on a lop-sided, uninformed definition of "vision" in NT Greek. 

Tyler
"What other "visions" from history outside of the Jewish/Christian tradition do you accept as actually having anything to do with reality?"

Hays
Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

Tom Doyle, DREAMS and VISIONS: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World?

David Garrison, A Wind In The House Of Islam: How God Is Drawing Muslims Around The World To Faith In Jesus Christ 

Tyler
"Oh, and John doesn't mention the Transfiguration because that contradicts his Christology. In John, Jesus is already pre-existent and Divine. He has no need of a Transfiguration to enjoy a higher status."

Hays
And yet another one of your confusions. The Transfiguration manifests the deity of Christ–it doesn't confer a higher status. 

Tyler
"But again, in the case of the New Testament, only Paul claims to have met Peter and James. We don't actually have good evidence that any of the gospel authors actually interviewed these people." 

Hays
Eyewitnesses like Matthew, Mark, and John don't need to interview people the way Luke does, although they can supplement their firsthand observations by consulting other eyewitnesses. 

Tyler
"Paul gives internal firsthand reports which are, by definition, more reliable than unverified hearsay which is further impeached by the tales growing in chronological order." 

Hays
This is you stuck in tape recorder mode. 

Tyler
"Moreover, the narrator in the case of the gospels isn't necessarily the author but could be an invention of the author."

Hays
Which fails to explain the archeological accuracy of the accounts. 

Tyler
"But are these other third person narratives claimed to be based on eyewitness testimony like the gospels are?"

Hays
Hecataeus of Miletus, Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius, Julius Caesar, Josephus. For details, read Rod Elledge, "Illeism in Classical Antiquity", Use of the Third Person for Self-Reference by Jesus and Yahweh: A Study of Illeism in the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Its Implications for Christology (T&T Clark 2017), chap. 2.  

Tyler
"As for John, the "eyewitness" claim is disputed as it's only mentioned in the later attached appendix." 

Hays
No, that's not the only place it's mentioned. 

Tyler
"Even according to Church tradition, Mark wasn't an eyewitness but I'd be interested in seeing your references."

Hays
I already explained that to you. 

Tyler
"I'm sorry. I'm missing the reference where Acts says Jesus descended to the sky. Where is that? Again, the whole reason it's called a "heavenly vision" is because Jesus has gone to heaven and "appeared" to Paul from there. There is no New Testament source which says Jesus teleported from heaven to earth and back. The standard Orthodox chronology has Jesus raised physically to the earth, then he ascends to heaven, then he appears in a VISION to Paul. It is a vision from heaven. God "reveals" Jesus to Paul from heaven. Jesus does not come down to the sky and there is no need to do that since God has the power to reveal Jesus from wherever he wants!"

Hays
You keep leaning on what "heaven" means. But if you bother to consult standard lexicons like BDAG or Louw & Nida, it will document that the word means several things. One meaning is "heaven' in the transcendent sense. Another is "sky" in the mundane sense. It can also be used a pious circumlocution for "God". And the adjective mirrors the noun. 

Tyler
"Strong's Number 3770 Greek Dictionary of the New Testament Online Bible with Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, Thayer's Lexicon, Etymology, Translations Definitions Meanings & Key Word Studies - Lexiconcordance.com"

Hays
Resorting to Strong's concordance and Thayer's antiquated lexicon is so amateurish. I've referred you to scholarly resources in Greek lexicography. 

Tyler
"The problem is Paul, in our earliest source…"

Hays
One of your many problems is your confusion about "earliest sources". A later source may be just as reliable or more reliable than an early source. It depends on the quality of the testimonial evidence. Is it within living memory? Is it by a trustworthy informant? 

Tyler
"The exaltation Christology in the earliest Christian kerygma has Jesus raised straight to heaven. The chronological creed in 1 Cor 15:3-8 makes no reference to a separate and distinct ascension. Phil 2:8-9 goes straight from his death to his exaltation without mentioning a separate resurrection event. A plausible understanding of this early passage is that the resurrection/exaltation were conflated. It was a "resurrection to heaven." Rom. 8:34 and Eph. 1:20 do not mention a stopover on earth. The logical sequence is Jesus died--->was raised--->to heaven. Without your knowledge of the Luke/Acts chronology you'd have no reason to interpret "raised" otherwise. Jesus was "raised" to heaven and "spiritually appeared" from there. That explains why Paul equates his experience with the others without making a distinction." 

Hays
That's another rookie blunder, where you fail to draw basic genre distinctions. Pastoral letters naturally lack most of the biographical details in the Gospels or Acts. 

Tyler
"There is also and interesting example in Codex Bobiensis in Mark where Jesus' resurrection is conflated with the ascension to heaven. They both happen simultaneously. Mark 16:4"

Hays
Oh, gosh. Now you're restoring to a scribal interpolation in a single manuscript. And a Latin translation to boot! Not to mention that deciphering that text requires conjectural emendations. How desperate can you get? 

You're a repetitious waste of time. You've outlived your value even as a foil. I think I'll move one. 

93 comments:

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcZzlPGnKdU

    Talk about sticking to your guns. Vision totally only means subjective experience, no matter what people who study Greek have to say about the word we translate into vision!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When is the last time you had a "vision" which other people standing around can corroborate? When is the last time a friend of yours had one and you saw exactly the same thing? Are there any other vision claims outside the Bible which you take seriously?

      Paul says "God revealed His Son in me" - Gal. 1:16 which is an obvious reference to a subjective spiritual encounter, not a physical encounter with a revived corpse that could actually be touched. The later story in Acts says it was a "vision from heaven" only involving a "bright light" and a "voice" from heaven (which are modeled after the visions in the OT) and which other people present do not see or hear properly. The vision of Jesus is only granted to Paul, making it subjective by definition. Acts 26:16 says "I appeared to you (Paul)" not the others. So the fact that the appearance to Paul is labeled a vision is a priori evidence for a subjective experience, due to how the word is normally used/employed (just look at all the other instances in the Bible where people are said to have experienced visions) but even a posteriori, when looking at what the appearance to Paul is described as, it's still subjective. People normally conflate the "light" and the "voice" with it being an objective experience but that's not the vision of Jesus, which was only granted to Paul alone per the text.

      Delete
    2. Tyler Workman wrote:

      "The later story in Acts says it was a 'vision from heaven' only involving a 'bright light' and a 'voice' from heaven (which are modeled after the visions in the OT) and which other people present do not see or hear properly. The vision of Jesus is only granted to Paul, making it subjective by definition….So the fact that the appearance to Paul is labeled a vision is a priori evidence for a subjective experience, due to how the word is normally used/employed (just look at all the other instances in the Bible where people are said to have experienced visions) but even a posteriori, when looking at what the appearance to Paul is described as, it's still subjective. People normally conflate the 'light' and the 'voice' with it being an objective experience but that's not the vision of Jesus, which was only granted to Paul alone per the text."

      You initially say that the light and voice are part of a vision, then you say that the fact that something "is labeled a vision is a priori evidence for a subjective experience". But if the light and voice were perceived by the people with Paul, then the light and voice weren't subjective in any relevant sense. By your own standards, then, a vision doesn't have to be subjective, and the vision in question wasn't subjective. Acts 26:19 includes the voice Paul heard (the one he was obedient to) as part of the vision. We know that the voice wasn't subjective, so it follows that the vision wasn't subjective.

      And subjectivity isn't proven by the failure of the people with Paul to perceive something. Paul's companions wouldn't have to see Jesus' body in order for his body to be an objective entity.

      The failure of the people with Paul to see Jesus is consistent with both the presence and the absence of a body of Jesus. The body could be present, yet concealed by the light and/or other factors involved. Given that a voice is heard, the presence of Jesus' body makes more sense than its absence, since a physical voice is better explained as coming from a physical body. Furthermore, the accounts we're considering here come from Acts, and all of the other resurrection appearances in Luke and Acts are physical ones. You're isolating the fact that Paul's companions didn't see Jesus from that fact's surrounding context. The surrounding context suggests that they failed to see Jesus because of one or more concealing factors involved, not because of an absence of a body. You're isolating one segment of the evidence and disregarding the rest in an attempt to justify your preferred conclusion.

      In Paul's writings, as well as in early Christianity more broadly, resurrection appearances were thought to have come to an end in the earliest years of the religion, even though visions of Jesus like what you have in mind continued. The two aren't the same.

      Even if we were to accept your notion of a subjective appearance of Jesus to Paul, that appearance was accompanied by objective light, an objective voice, and other physical and verifiable manifestations (Paul's blindness, the ability he acquired to perform miracles, the supernatural knowledge Ananias was given about what happened, etc.). If you want us to see the other resurrection witnesses as having had experiences highly similar to the one Paul had, then should we associate those other witnesses' experiences with the same sort of objective and physical evidence?

      Delete
    3. Jason Engwar can you please explain how seeing a "bright light" and hearing a "voice from heaven" support the notion that a person's corpse had been physically resurrected?

      No physical person is actually seen in the whole report. Rather, Jesus communicates to Paul from heaven. Jesus' body isn't actually there unless you've discovered some other source which says it was.

      Delete
    4. Tyler,

      One problem is you're so hyperfocused on the apostle Paul's Damascus Road vision of Jesus while at the same time ignoring everything else said about Jesus' resurrection in the NT.

      Delete
    5. Can you guys answer the questions? When was the last time someone said "I had a vision" and you actually believed them? What other ancient sources outside of Judaism and Christianity do you believe when they say people had visions?

      Also, how does a bright light and a voice from heaven lend credence to the claim that a physical resurrection had occurred?

      I already compared the NT sources of the resurrection claim and my comparison shows that the data is consistent with legendary embellishment. This has only been met with desperate red herrings and strawman arguments i.e. "the number of miracles doesn't grow." - LOL!

      Delete
    6. Tyler,

      I don't know why you keep expecting people to respond to your subject changes and questions while you keep ignoring so much of what they've already said.

      When I made my comments about the light and voice perceived by Paul and his companions, I was responding to some comments you had made about visions and subjectivity. Instead of addressing that context, you're now changing the subject to whether the light and voice are adequate to justify "the notion that a person's corpse had been physically resurrected".

      They don't have to be adequate to that end, and I didn't suggest that they are. I've discussed other factors that are relevant (other details in the passages about the appearance to Paul, what Acts says elsewhere about the resurrection, the empty tomb, what Paul's letters tell us, etc.). I've demonstrated that the passages in Acts don't refer to the sort of subjective experience you claimed they refer to. I've noted some physical components of the experience that suggest that Jesus appeared physically. I've also noted that the surrounding context in Acts and elsewhere refers to physical evidence of a physical resurrection. Both Acts and the letters of Paul refer to a resurrection appearance to Paul, so we know how Paul perceived the experience and how it was perceived in early Christian circles. And I've provided evidence that Paul, like ancient Judaism and early Christianity in general, defined the concept of resurrection in physical terms. The body that died rises.

      In addition to the objectivity and physicality of what Paul experienced on the road to Damascus, he knew about the empty tomb, the other resurrection appearances, what Christians were claiming about the resurrection, etc. In other words, the road to Damascus experience happened in a larger context. And that context was accompanied by the later context of what came after Paul's conversion. He had further evidence that something supernatural was occurring (his exchange with Ananias, the restoration of his sight, his acquisition of the ability to perform miracles, etc.). The supernatural experiences Paul had after his conversion suggest that what he experienced on the road to Damascus was a resurrection appearance. I've already discussed the significance of Ananias' comments, for example, in which he refers to Paul as a witness in the same sort of terms that are applied to the other apostles in Acts when addressing their role as resurrection witnesses. Even if Paul's experience on the road to Damascus hadn't been adequate to justify the conclusion that he'd seen the resurrected Jesus, the larger contexts that came before and after that experience would justify it.

      But, as I said before, it's not as though you've been arguing that Paul's experience on the road to Damascus was objective, physical, and supernatural, but didn't involve a resurrection appearance. Rather, you've been suggesting that Paul's experience was subjective, non-physical, and natural. And you've been shown to be wrong about that.

      Delete
    7. Tyler writes:

      "No physical person is actually seen in the whole report. Rather, Jesus communicates to Paul from heaven. Jesus' body isn't actually there unless you've discovered some other source which says it was."

      Acts tells us that Paul saw Jesus (9:27, 22:14), and he says the same in his letters (1 Corinthians 9:1, 15:8). Even if we define heaven in this context as you're defining it, the fact that the light and vision came from heaven doesn't suggest that Jesus was in heaven at the time Paul saw him. To the contrary, it makes more sense for somebody seen on earth to have been on earth at the time. Even though the light is said to have come from heaven, it shines around Paul and his companions and blinds him, so the light couldn't have strictly been in heaven in the manner in which you're defining that term. As I noted before, what Paul saw is grouped with what he heard (Acts 22:15), and the evidence suggests that the hearing was of an objective, physical nature. Since the seeing is grouped with the hearing, it's likely that the seeing was of the same nature rather than the different nature you're suggesting. We're told that the voice came from Jesus' mouth (22:14), which we'd normally interpret as a reference to a physical body, unless there's sufficient contextual evidence to overturn that conclusion. Not only is there not such contextual evidence in this case, but the previous reports of the empty tomb, other resurrection appearances, etc. give us reason to think of an appearance of Jesus on earth in physical terms. An appearance need not be physical, but a physical appearance makes more sense in this context.

      Delete
    8. Unknown aka Tyler Workman

      "Can you guys answer the questions?"

      Can you respond to the answers we've already given to you over and over again rather than pretending like we haven't responded to you?

      "When was the last time someone said "I had a vision" and you actually believed them?"

      Some are more credible than others:

      "Visions of Jesus"

      "Muslim dreams and visions"

      "What other ancient sources outside of Judaism and Christianity do you believe when they say people had visions?"

      Why do they have to be ancient sources rather than more recent or modern sources?

      As far as "ancient sources outside of Judaism and Christianity", I have read some credible accounts of the night hag or old hag across various cultures. You can Google for starters.

      "Also, how does a bright light and a voice from heaven lend credence to the claim that a physical resurrection had occurred?"

      That's not all that happened. For example, the risen Jesus also spoke to Paul (Acts 9). Paul asked "Who are you?" And Jesus replied "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting". That's fairly clear to Paul who at the time didn't believe Jesus had been risen let alone that Jesus is who he claimed to be.

      "I already compared the NT sources of the resurrection claim and my comparison shows that the data is consistent with legendary embellishment. This has only been met with desperate red herrings and strawman arguments i.e. "the number of miracles doesn't grow." - LOL!"

      An assertion desperately seeking an argument.

      Delete
    9. "That's not all that happened. For example, the risen Jesus also spoke to Paul (Acts 9). Paul asked "Who are you?" And Jesus replied "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting". That's fairly clear to Paul who at the time didn't believe Jesus had been risen let alone that Jesus is who he claimed to be."

      And how does hearing Jesus' voice from heaven support the belief that he had been physically resurrected?

      "An assertion desperately seeking an argument."

      Paul only gives evidence of visions of Jesus. Do Paul, Mark, or Matthew mention the Ascension or Doubting Thomas story? No, which is why the data is consistent with a legend evolving and why you guys would rather not acknowledge that this is a plausible explanation of the data.

      Delete
    10. Tyler

      "And how does hearing Jesus' voice from heaven support the belief that he had been physically resurrected?"

      If Jesus was still dead, he couldn't speak.

      "Paul only gives evidence of visions of Jesus. Do Paul, Mark, or Matthew mention the Ascension or Doubting Thomas story? No, which is why the data is consistent with a legend evolving and why you guys would rather not acknowledge that this is a plausible explanation of the data."

      I think you mean your highly selective use of the data (where you cherry pick data that fit your theory and ignore data that don't fit your theory) is consistent with a legend evolving. By contrast, see a book like The Jesus Legend by Paul Eddy and Greg Boyd.

      Delete
  2. Steve's patience would make Job envious!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Regarding Isaiah 53, see my recent treatment of the first three Servant Songs for a refutation of the notion that chapter 53 or any of the earlier Servant Songs is referring to Israel or a remnant of the nation as the Servant.

    We have archeological, Pauline, and other evidence for early Christian interest in Jesus' burial site in connection with his resurrection, which is best explained if the earliest Christian view of the resurrection involved the physical raising of the body that died. See here.

    Both the early Jewish and the early Gentile opponents of Christianity acknowledge the historicity of the empty tomb. It's possible that they all accepted a late Christian claim that was against the interests of those non-Christians who accepted it. But that's unlikely. If the earliest Christians and non-Christians agreed that Jesus' body remained in the tomb, and Christians held that view for the first few decades of Christianity, it's unlikely that the empty tomb would have become so widely accepted among Christianity's opponents.

    On the dating of Luke (and Acts), see here. Tyler is rejecting weightier evidence in favor of less substantial evidence that supports his preferred conclusion.

    On how well 1 Corinthians 15 aligns with the gospels and Acts and the significance of that alignment, see here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, his argument about the Suffering Servant is so illogical. The principle of vicarious atonement is that one agent represents the many. So the messiah represents "Israel". He acts in a representative capacity for the nation.

      Delete
    2. Again, read any Jewish scholar's exegesis of the text. The whole background context of Second Isaiah (chapters 40-55) were written in the wake of the Babylonian Exile. Some Jews died, others persevered and will live a long life. The context still makes sense if referring to Israel as a nation. I still maintain there is no resurrection claim in Isaiah 53:10-11. Moreover, how can an eternal being be said to "prolong his days?" That doesn't make any sense. There is no evidence that Isaiah 53 was interpreted as a "messianic prophecy" until the Jesus sect got their pesky little hands on it.

      Delete
    3. "Again, read any Jewish scholar's exegesis of the text"

      I'm familiar with various Jewish scholars' exegesis of Isaiah (e.g. ArtScroll). I don't find them convincing in comparison to scholars like Gary V. Smith and Alec Motyer. I also excerpted a section of Smith's commentary on Isaiah for you.

      Delete
    4. How does an already eternal being "prolong his days"?

      Delete
    5. Unknown aka Tyler Workman

      "How does an already eternal being 'prolong his days'"?

      The phrase "prolong [one's] days" may be a standard Hebraic blessing. If so, then it's a blessing for the suffering servant. For example, compare with Deut 4:1, 4:40, 5:16, 6:2, 11:8-9, 30:15-20.

      Delete
    6. Tyler writes:

      "Again, read any Jewish scholar's exegesis of the text."

      I interact with Jewish scholarship in the articles I linked on Isaiah. And the other sources we've cited interact with Jewish scholarship. You then repeat some arguments that have already been addressed in the material I linked and in the sources we've cited. You keep offering objections that have already been answered.

      You go on:

      "Moreover, how can an eternal being be said to 'prolong his days?'"

      Because physical life is being addressed. The reference to the prolonging of days came just after references to the physical death of the Servant. Christians don't claim that Jesus' physical life has been eternal.

      Given how poorly you seem to understand the Bible and even some of the most basic Christian beliefs, why are you participating in this sort of discussion?

      Delete
    7. God Incarnate is a composite being: eternal qua deity but temporal qua humanity.

      Delete
  4. 1 Timothy 5:18 is relevant as well. The passage probably cites Luke's gospel as scripture, thus implying agreement with what Luke says about the resurrection. See here. Even if 1 Timothy is attributed to an author other than Paul, it still reflects early Christian belief and what was believed by people who thought highly of Paul in particular. The association of Paul with Luke's gospel so early makes more sense if Paul held views like those in the gospel of Luke. If Paul's beliefs differed as much from Luke's as Tyler suggests, then 1 Timothy 5:18 and other early connections between Paul and Luke make less sense.

    Regarding Irenaeus' comments on the dating of Mark, see pages 35-41 in R.T. France's commentary on that gospel (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2002). It's unlikely that Irenaeus dated Mark after the death of Peter and Paul, as France explains.

    The gospel of John claims to be written by an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus, so Paul isn't the only New Testament author to make that claim. See Charles Hill's research on John 21:24 discussed here. Tyler doesn't support the notion that 21:24 is a later addition to the gospel. Its originality makes more sense of the passage and the gospel as a whole, as Hill explains. Besides, even if 21:24 were a later addition, it would still constitute an early source identifying the author of the earlier chapters as an eyewitness. Furthermore, since apostleship involves seeing the risen Jesus (Acts 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 9:1), the Petrine documents are claiming to be written by an eyewitness of the resurrected Jesus when they claim to be written by an apostle. So, contrary to what Tyler claims, the Pauline documents aren't the only New Testament documents claiming to be written by a resurrection witness.

    For a brief refutation of the idea that the earliest Christians misdated Jesus' second coming, see here.

    ReplyDelete
  5. On the notion that the gospel authors would have mentioned certain events if they were aware of those events, see here.

    If the Christianity of the first few decades was as different from later Christianity as Tyler suggests, then why do the early opponents of Christianity seem unaware of that difference (e.g., the arguments found in Justin Martyr's Dialogue With Trypho and Origen's Against Celsus)? Why do they, instead, offer so much corroboration of what Christians were claiming (see here for some examples)? Think of how incompetent the early opponents of Christianity would have to have been if hypotheses like Tyler's were true.

    And given Tyler's unreasonableness and lack of documentation for so many of his claims, I wouldn't assume that something is a consensus of modern scholarship just because Tyler says so.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Early opponents?" You mean ones from the Second Century or later who were thereby responding to the gospel claims and not actually "early" opponents at all?

      Delete
    2. Tyler Workman wrote:

      "You mean ones from the Second Century or later who were thereby responding to the gospel claims and not actually 'early' opponents at all?"

      I've referred to Christianity's opponents from the first century onward. Which century is in view varies from one context to another. But even when the opponents in question are from the second century or later, they're likely to have been substantially influenced by previous generations. For example, if there's widespread agreement among Christians, heretics, Jews, and pagans in the second century that Jesus' tomb was found empty shortly after his body was placed there, we can ask whether the historicity of the empty tomb or its non-historicity makes better sense of that situation. First-century sources are more valuable than second-century ones, all other factors being equal, but having less value isn't the same as having no value. For reasons I explain in my empty tomb articles linked above, it's highly unlikely that an early belief that Jesus' body remained in the tomb preceded the widespread belief in an empty tomb that we see in the early sources.

      If the Christianity of the first few decades was as different than later Christianity as you suggest, then Christianity's opponents would easily have noticed that contrast and would have had a lot of incentive to preserve that information and bring it up in their disputes with Christians. Not only do the early opponents of Christianity not argue the way you do, but they even corroborate much of what you reject.

      Delete
    3. "I've referred to Christianity's opponents from the first century onward."

      There aren't any that corroborate any of the gospel claims. The mention of the Jews in Matthew is just a reference to them addressing the *Markan CLAIM* of an empty tomb. Mark was written and circulating BEFORE Matthew composed, giving time for Jews to hear the *story/rumor* of an empty tomb and making their own counter claim to explain it away - "the disciples must have just stolen the body." This, unfortunately, doesn't provide any evidence that there was an actual verified empty tomb because it's just the Jews responding to what would have been a rumor to them.

      It turns out there were other stories in antiquity where graves, resting places and tombs are left empty. The theme employed in the Jesus story is the "missing body" or vanishing/disappearance motif. Since what we have is an established literary motif then, as such, it is equally expected the author of Mark would write such a narrative employing the motif as he would write such a narrative because it actually happened. Given this fact and that we have no independent attestation of the story (Matthew and Luke copied Mark and John probably was aware of the Markan narrative), the presence of the story in Mark simply isn't evidence for the story's historicity.

      "The theme of empty tombs was a familiar one in the ancient world. Aristeas disappeared from his temporary place of entombment (the fuller's shop) and later appeared as a raven and as a phantom in Herodotus's version. He received the honor due the gods and sacrifices in other accounts. Cleomedes, presumably still alive, disappeared from the chest he had hidden in and was honored as a hero with sacrifices. Many years after his death, Numa's body had disappeared, although there is no evidence he underwent an apotheosis. Alcmene's body disappeared from her bier. Zalmoxis, by the artifice of living underground, appeared three years after people thought he had died. He promised his followers some kind of immortal life resembling either resurrection or metemsomatosis.....Although Romulus was not buried (in most traditions) his body disappeared, and he was honored as the god Quirinus after appearing to Julius Proculus. Callirhoe apparently died and her lover Chaereas discovered her empty tomb with the stones moved away from the entrance. Inside he found no corpse. He assumed she had been translated to the gods.....Philinnion disappeared from her tomb, walked the earth as a revenant, and her corpse was later found in her lover's bedroom. Lucian's Antigonus (in his Lover of Lies) asserts: 'For I know someone who rose twenty days after he was buried.' Proclus included three stories of Naumachius of Epirus who described three individuals that returned to life after various periods in their tombs (none months, fifteen days, and three days). They appeared either lying on their tombs or standing up. Polyidus raised Minos's son Glaucus from the dead after being placed in the son's tomb. The Ptolemaic-Roman temple in Dendera vividly depicts the bodily resurrection of Osiris in his tomb. There are numerous translation accounts of heroes in which their bodies disappear when they were either alive or dead, including: Achilles (in the Aethiopis), Aeneas, Amphiaraus (under the earth), Apollonius of Tyana, Basileia, Belus, Branchus, Bormus, Ganymede, Hamilcar, and Semiramus." - John Granger Cook, Empty Tomb, Resurrection, Apotheosis p. 598-599.

      "An extremely interesting example is the Greek novel Callirhoe by Chariton which may date to before 62 CE due to a possible mention by Persius "To them I recommend the morning's play-bill and after lunch Callirhoe" - (1,134)

      Just as in the gospels, in Chariton's story, there is "the sequence of dawn, visit to the grave, finding the stone removed, fear, inspection of the empty grave, disbelief, and again visit to the grave."

      Delete
    4. Tyler,

      You've copied and pasted some material from another web site about alleged parallels to Christianity in antiquity without indicating that you were using somebody else's material. Unless you're the one who wrote that material originally, why are you using somebody else's material and presenting it as your own?

      Besides, it's off the topic I was addressing. I'm not running down every rabbit trail you bring up.

      Your comments about Jesus' tomb assume that the empty tomb claim came from Mark, a position I've already argued against in my posts linked above. And your explanation of why the Jews corroborated the empty tomb doesn't make sense. If no empty tomb had been claimed in the earliest decades, the most likely Jewish response to a late empty tomb claim wouldn't be to corroborate it. Rather, they could have responded by saying that the Christians originally didn't claim an empty tomb, that the lateness of the claim is suspicious, that they (non-Christian Jews) have no reason to believe that the tomb was empty, etc. Your suggestion that they corroborated such a significant Christian claim just because they wanted a response to a rumor that arose so long after Jesus' death is absurd. They didn't need to offer that sort of corroboration of Christianity in order to have a response to the empty tomb claim. They didn't even have to claim to know that the tomb wasn't empty. Just responding with agnosticism would have been better, from a Jewish perspective, than the response you're suggesting.

      Delete
    5. "You've copied and pasted some material from another web site about alleged parallels to Christianity in antiquity without indicating that you were using somebody else's material. Unless you're the one who wrote that material originally, why are you using somebody else's material and presenting it as your own?"

      This is my own work. I've used it elsewhere. The point stands. Since we are dealing with an identifiable literary theme - missing body, then it is equally expected the author of Mark would simply employ the motif as he would be actually reporting history. Given this fact and that we have no independent attestation of the story (Matthew and Luke copied Mark and John probably was aware of the Markan narrative), the presence of the story in Mark simply isn't evidence for the story's historicity.

      "Your comments about Jesus' tomb assume that the empty tomb claim came from Mark, a position I've already argued against in my posts linked above. And your explanation of why the Jews corroborated the empty tomb doesn't make sense. If no empty tomb had been claimed in the earliest decades, the most likely Jewish response to a late empty tomb claim wouldn't be to corroborate it. Rather, they could have responded by saying that the Christians originally didn't claim an empty tomb, that the lateness of the claim is suspicious,"

      Most scholars date Mark around the year 70. There is no confirmed evidence of it existing in any narrative form before Mark's gospel. An earlier passion narrative didn't necessarily contain the "empty tomb" story. That could have been combined later.

      If Mark wrote around 70 in Rome (as according to tradition) then that's an entire generation removed and an entirely different location from Jerusalem. There would most likely have been no original Jews around or anyone who could have confirmed or refuted an empty tomb since we are now in ROME around the year 70. So, the story in Mark was circulating around 70, then Matthew composed later around 80 (according to most scholars) giving plenty of time for the story to have made its way to Jews (living after 80 and therefore not privy to what happened circa 30 CE in Jerusalem) giving them time to make their own counter claim. Of course they'd have to respond with something like "oh the disciples must have just stolen the body." There would have been no one left living who would have known there wasn't any empty tomb in the first place.

      This refutes your argument.

      Delete
    6. Tyler wrote:

      "Since we are dealing with an identifiable literary theme - missing body, then it is equally expected the author of Mark would simply employ the motif as he would be actually reporting history. Given this fact and that we have no independent attestation of the story (Matthew and Luke copied Mark and John probably was aware of the Markan narrative), the presence of the story in Mark simply isn't evidence for the story's historicity."

      Many literary themes occur both in fiction and non-fiction, in both unhistorical and historical accounts. Saying that something is a common theme in unhistorical accounts doesn't tell you whether it's unhistorical in a particular case. You have to examine the details involved in the account under consideration.

      Matthew and Luke have material on the empty tomb that isn't found in Mark, and John's being "aware of" Mark's account doesn't suggest that what John reported is dependent on Mark. Furthermore, I've already linked some posts in which I argue for evidence for the empty tomb in pre-Markan sources and post-Markan sources who are unlikely to have been dependent on Mark.

      Delete
    7. Tyler wrote:

      "Most scholars date Mark around the year 70."

      I've already linked my articles arguing for earlier dating of the Synoptics.

      And your appeal to scholarly majorities isn't based on any consistent standard I'm aware of. You usually don't cite any scholarship to support your conclusions, much less do you cite a scholarly majority for each of your claims. Yet, you act as though we should accept something like the dating of Mark based on a scholarly majority.

      You write:

      "Of course they'd have to respond with something like 'oh the disciples must have just stolen the body.' There would have been no one left living who would have known there wasn't any empty tomb in the first place."

      As I explained before, the Jewish opponents of Christianity would have had multiple ways to respond to the empty tomb claim without corroborating it. They could have even used the claim against Christians by pointing out that their claim of an empty tomb contradicted what they said previously and/or was a late claim. And Jewish agnosticism about the empty tomb would have made more sense than affirming the empty tomb if the claim that the tomb was empty was a late one.

      As I note in one of my posts on the empty tomb, the fact that the disciples are accused of stealing the body suggests that the Jewish acknowledgement of the empty tomb originated earlier rather than later. The notion that the disciples were so insincere lost its effectiveness with the passing of time, as those disciples experienced the suffering and martyrdom they went through in later years. The Jewish argument makes more sense earlier than later.

      When Mark began circulating, there would have been some Jews still alive who had been alive at the time of Jesus' death. And there would have been many still alive who lived through a large enough portion of the pre-Markan period to know what was being said about Jesus' resurrection, the empty tomb, etc. before Mark's gospel was published. The scenario you're proposing is highly unlikely.

      Delete
  6. Amazing. 500 people see the risen Christ. That's not enough for him!

    Imagine 500 people file into Court all saying the same thing. That's what we call compelling evidence.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The appearance to the 500 is a claim, not actual evidence. Obviously, none of the gospel authors thought it worth mentioning which tells you how important they thought it was! You would have to show that it wasn't just a mass ecstatic worship experience like at a Pentecostal service. The Greek word for "appeared" ὤφθη doesn't necessarily mean a "physical seeing with the eyes." It can just mean that a large group of people "felt the presence" of Jesus, like people claim all the time in church.

      The same verb ὤφθη is used in the Greek Septuagint to refer to visions and dreams.

      1 Kings 3:5
      At Gibeon the Lord appeared (ὤφθη) to Solomon during the night in a dream...

      2 Samuel 22:11
      He rode on a cherub, and flew; he was seen (ὤφθη) upon the wings of the wind.

      Daniel 8:1
      ...a vision appeared (ὤφθη) to me...

      Delete
    2. Tyler Workman wrote:

      "The appearance to the 500 is a claim, not actual evidence."

      We judge historical claims by the relevant internal and external evidence. If Polybius, Josephus, or Tacitus tells us that something happened, it's not sufficient to respond by saying that what's reported is "a claim, not actual evidence". It's likewise insufficient to respond that way to what Paul reports.

      Regarding the reliability of what Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, see the comments section of the thread here.

      You write:

      "Obviously, none of the gospel authors thought it worth mentioning which tells you how important they thought it was!"

      I address that issue in the comments section of the thread linked above. And for more about how the appearance to more than five hundred relates to the gospels, see here.

      Furthermore, importance alone wouldn't determine what a gospel author did or didn't include in his gospel. Luke thought the appearance to Paul was important, and he surely thought the appearance to James was important, but he doesn't discuss the former until the book of Acts (due to chronology and/or other factors, since importance wasn't the only factor determining what he addressed in his gospel), and the latter isn't discussed by Luke at all. Given James' prominence in Acts, it would be absurd to suggest Luke didn't think the appearance to him (or his conversion experience more broadly) was important in any context. See my post here concerning why the gospel writers would leave out something like the appearance to James.

      It's simplistic to reason that the appearance to more than five hundred must not have been of much importance to the gospel authors, since they don't explicitly include it in their gospels. See here. The appearance to more than five hundred can be important in some contexts, like modern disputes about hallucination hypotheses, yet have been of lesser importance in a first-century context in which such hypotheses weren't as common, for example. Importance is often relative, and it's not the same as historicity. An event can be historical, yet be of little importance in one or more contexts.

      Delete
    3. Tyler

      "The appearance to the 500 is a claim, not actual evidence. Obviously, none of the gospel authors thought it worth mentioning which tells you how important they thought it was! You would have to show that it wasn't just a mass ecstatic worship experience like at a Pentecostal service. The Greek word for "appeared" ὤφθη doesn't necessarily mean a "physical seeing with the eyes." It can just mean that a large group of people "felt the presence" of Jesus, like people claim all the time in church."

      1. Steve already dealt with this exact same objection in this very post - and now Jason deals with your objection here.

      This is how it should work: you present an argument, Steve and now Jason offer a reasonable counterargument, you offer a reasonable counter-counterargument, etc.

      Instead, this is what you've done: you present an argument, Steve and now Jason offer a reasonable counterargument, you repeat your original argument.

      2. You're committing a word fallacy in your citation and use of ὤφθη. As if the same word can't mean different things in different contexts.

      3. Not to mention, though the Septuagint OT is an important source, there are likewise (more recent) Hebrew texts of the OT that should also be consulted (Masoretic).

      Delete
    4. "We judge historical claims by the relevant internal and external evidence. If Polybius, Josephus, or Tacitus tells us that something happened, it's not sufficient to respond by saying that what's reported is "a claim, not actual evidence". It's likewise insufficient to respond that way to what Paul reports."

      There is no external evidence for the appearance to the 500. This could be a later scribal error. The Greek word for 500 and Pentecost are very similar so, originally, it could have just been a reference to what people experienced at Pentecost. John Chrysostom thought this event happened after the Ascension because the Greek “more than (ἐπάνω) five hundred” could actually be translated “above five hundred,” as in “above in the sky.”

      Lastly, it could have been nothing more than a reference to a mass ecstatic worship experience like people have in church today. It doesn't follow that 500 people actually saw Jesus with their eyes. The verb ὤφθη (ophthe), as demonstrated, does not necessarily imply a physical appearance.

      "1. Steve already dealt with this exact same objection in this very post - and now Jason deals with your objection here"

      I'd like to see you actually explain how Steve "dealt with it." I bet you can't.

      "Instead, this is what you've done: you present an argument, Steve and now Jason offer a reasonable counterargument, you repeat your original argument."

      No, Steve and others are just refusing to acknowledge the obvious fact that "vision" claims don't necessarily have anything to do with reality. Now, that I've demonstrated that a plausible explanation of 1 Cor 15:5-8 is referencing "spiritually experiencing" the Risen Christ from heaven, then now, it's your turn to overturn that interpretation and also prove that "visions from heaven" necessarily have anything to do with reality. Good luck with that!

      "2. You're committing a word fallacy in your citation and use of ὤφθη. As if the same word can't mean different things in different contexts."

      Paul uses it to mean "vision" in 1 Cor 15:8 and places it right alongside the other apostle's visions. That's the context bucko!

      Delete
    5. Tyler

      "There is no external evidence for the appearance to the 500."

      Why does there need to be "external" evidence when the NT itself constitutes evidence?

      "This could be a later scribal error."

      Based on what?

      "The Greek word for 500 and Pentecost are very similar so, originally, it could have just been a reference to what people experienced at Pentecost."

      Ah, based on your numerology. How low can you go. I guess pretty low!

      "John Chrysostom thought this event happened after the Ascension because the Greek “more than (ἐπάνω) five hundred” could actually be translated “above five hundred,” as in “above in the sky.”"

      Chyrsostom's interpretation reflects his limitations, to put it nicely.

      "Lastly, it could have been nothing more than a reference to a mass ecstatic worship experience like people have in church today. It doesn't follow that 500 people actually saw Jesus with their eyes. The verb ὤφθη (ophthe), as demonstrated, does not necessarily imply a physical appearance."

      Steve already addressed this in his post. Once again, you keep repeating yourself. As Steve pointed out, you're a "tape recorder". Or as I might say, you're a strange loop.

      "I'd like to see you actually explain how Steve "dealt with it." I bet you can't."

      That's easy: just re-read what Steve wrote! Oh, but based on your constant repeating the same thing over and over again: I bet you can't re-read. :)

      "No, Steve and others are just refusing to acknowledge the obvious fact that "vision" claims don't necessarily have anything to do with reality. Now, that I've demonstrated that a plausible explanation of 1 Cor 15:5-8 is referencing "spiritually experiencing" the Risen Christ from heaven,"

      Saying so doesn't make it so.

      "then now, it's your turn to overturn that interpretation and also prove that "visions from heaven" necessarily have anything to do with reality. Good luck with that!"

      My turn to do what? To argue against something you haven't proven?

      "Paul uses it to mean "vision" in 1 Cor 15:8 and places it right alongside the other apostle's visions. That's the context bucko!"

      An assertion without argumentation, bucko! :)

      Delete
    6. //That's easy: just re-read what Steve wrote! Oh, but based on your constant repeating the same thing over and over again: I bet you can't re-read. :)//

      His entire approach, as well as yours evidently, is to ignore the subjective interpretation of ancient "vision" claims. His entire response is basically asserting the "visions" of Jesus were objective real world occurrences when the terminology and descriptions from Paul actually do not support that assumption. Here's a clue. If a word like "vision" or "revelation" can and usually does make reference to a subjective experience, then in order to claim, instead, that these experiences actually had anything to do with reality, you have to give arguments and evidence which overthrow the already low prior probability.

      I've already compared the resurrection reports in chronological order. Steve replied to a strawman and instead referred to the "number of miracles" mentioned in each account. Ha! How dishonest can you get? The resurrection tales evolve in the telling and there has been no good response to that one.

      Delete
    7. "His entire approach, as well as yours evidently, is to ignore the subjective interpretation of ancient "vision" claims."

      See what I wrote below under "TL;DR".

      "His entire response is basically asserting the "visions" of Jesus were objective real world occurrences when the terminology and descriptions from Paul actually do not support that assumption."

      So you keep saying. But saying so doesn't make it so.

      "Here's a clue. If a word like "vision" or "revelation" can and usually does make reference to a subjective experience, then in order to claim, instead, that these experiences actually had anything to do with reality, you have to give arguments and evidence which overthrow the already low prior probability."

      Here's a better clue: You can't take a Merriam-Webster definition of a word and expect it to apply to any and all cases in the NT. That's not an intelligent way to operate.

      "I've already compared the resurrection reports in chronological order."

      So are you Tyler Workman? Is "Unknown" a different account of yours?

      "Steve replied to a strawman and instead referred to the "number of miracles" mentioned in each account. Ha! How dishonest can you get? The resurrection tales evolve in the telling and there has been no good response to that one."

      The problem is there have been plenty of good responses, but you're not listening.

      Delete
    8. Where does Paul provide a distinction in regards to the nature of the appearances or describe the Resurrected Christ being experienced in a way that WAS NOT a vision or a revelation?

      Pretending the usual usage of "vision" being a subjective experience doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't being employed in this context.

      Delete
    9. Unknown aka Tyler Workman

      "Where does Paul provide a distinction in regards to the nature of the appearances"

      I already responded to this. Why should I keep responding to your repetitious claims?

      "or describe the Resurrected Christ being experienced in a way that WAS NOT a vision or a revelation?"

      See the Gospels in the NT.

      "Pretending the usual usage of "vision" being a subjective experience doesn't mean it doesn't exist or isn't being employed in this context."

      Your argument depends on this extremely wooden "definition". Hence you pigheadedly refuse to consider anything else.

      Delete
    10. "An assertion without argumentation, bucko! :)"

      Ok then.

      1. Paul says Jesus appeared to him - 1 Cor 15:8.
      2. The appearance to Paul was a vision/revelation from heaven - Gal. 1:16 cf. Acts 26:19.
      3. Paul includes his vision of Jesus in the list of resurrection appearances - 1 Cor 15:5-8.
      4. Therefore, visions or revelations from heaven counted as resurrection appearances.

      How's that?


      "See the Gospels in the NT."

      I said where does PAUL, the earliest and only firsthand source, give evidence of the Risen Christ being experienced in a way that was not a vision.
      Paul didn't write the gospels or Acts. Your answer is a tacit admission that Paul himself, the earliest and only firsthand source, gives no evidence for your view.

      Delete
    11. Unknown aka Tyler Workman

      "Therefore, visions or revelations from heaven counted as resurrection appearances. How's that?"

      Just you repeating yourself...again. Suppose I grant what you said. Your argument still wouldn't work.

      That is, even if (arguendo) Paul's vision counts as a "resurrection appearance", it doesn't follow that other "resurrection appearances" of Jesus are "visions".

      "I said where does PAUL,"

      I don't care what you said, because what you said is stupid. There's no good reason to limit the argument for Jesus' resurrection to Paul alone rather than to the entire NT and indeed Bible.

      "the earliest"

      So you think Paul was the earliest source of the resurrection of Jesus?

      "and only firsthand source"

      And you think Paul was the "only firsthand source" for the resurrection of Jesus? So much for the other apostles!

      "give evidence of the Risen Christ being experienced in a way that was not a vision."

      Paul asks (rhetorically) in 1 Cor 9:1: "Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" Therefore, using your logic, the Koine ἑώρακα is translated as "seen", which refers to physical sight, so this means Paul must have physically "seen" the risen Jesus! See how easy that was! ;)

      "Paul didn't write the gospels or Acts. Your answer is a tacit admission that Paul himself, the earliest and only firsthand source, gives no evidence for your view."

      For one thing, I don't grant your unargued assumption that Paul was either "the earliest" or "only firsthand" source.

      True, Paul didn't write the Gospels or Acts, but he knew those who did. In fact, Luke reports he traveled with Paul. Hence Paul knew Luke.

      Likewise Paul knew the apostle Peter. See Galatians and the Petrine letters.

      Paul also knew John Mark who wrote the Gospel of Mark. See Acts 13.

      And so on and so forth.

      Delete
    12. Tyler wrote:

      "This could be a later scribal error. The Greek word for 500 and Pentecost are very similar so, originally, it could have just been a reference to what people experienced at Pentecost."

      Saying that something "could be" a scribal error doesn't give us reason to think it's probably a scribal error. And citing Pentecost in the context of the 1 Corinthians 15 passage, which is about appearances of the resurrected Christ, wouldn't make sense. Furthermore, I don't know how you justify your selective appeals to the historicity of Acts. You'll appeal to something like Acts 26:19 or Pentecost when you want to, yet dismiss sources like Acts and the gospels as radically unreliable at other points. What's the consistent standard that justifies that sort of usage of Acts?

      You continue:

      "Lastly, it could have been nothing more than a reference to a mass ecstatic worship experience like people have in church today. It doesn't follow that 500 people actually saw Jesus with their eyes. The verb ὤφθη (ophthe), as demonstrated, does not necessarily imply a physical appearance."

      The context is resurrection appearances in a setting in which the resurrection is defined as the raising of the body that died. That's a physical context in which physical sight makes more sense than seeing something only in your mind. And, as I explained before, Paul and the early Christians in general said that the resurrection appearances ended shortly after Jesus' death. Visions of the sort you're referring to continued, but resurrection appearances didn't. They're not the same. That distinction was being made from the earliest years of Christianity onward, and you keep ignoring it.

      Furthermore, the vast majority of Christians don't have experiences that they consider appearances of the risen Christ or even a vision of Christ in their mind. People who claim such experiences are a small percentage of the population. The idea that such a large percentage of the earliest Christians, including all of Christianity's most prominent leaders and some of its enemies, like James and Paul, were mistakenly thinking they saw Jesus risen from the dead doesn't make sense. Not only are the percentages problematic for your position, but so is the difference in contexts. People like the women at the tomb, the Twelve, and enemies like James and Paul weren't living in some equivalent of a Pentecostal church service.

      Delete
    13. "That is, even if (arguendo) Paul's vision counts as a "resurrection appearance", it doesn't follow that other "resurrection appearances" of Jesus are "visions"."

      Paul makes no distinction or gives any evidence for anything more physical which means you have to READ IN THE UNWARRANTED ASSUMPTION THAT THE OTHER APPEARANCES WERE DIFFERENT.

      Here:

      1. Paul basically says "Jesus appeared (ὤφθη) to them and appeared (ὤφθη) to me too" - 1 Cor 15:5-8.
      2. Paul uses the same verb ὤφθη for each "appearance" in the list and makes no distinction regarding the nature, quality, or type (consistent with saying they were the same).
      3. The appearance to Paul was "vision" or "revelation" from heaven - Gal. 1:16.
      4. Paul never gives any evidence of the Risen Christ being experienced in a more physical way than a vision or a revelation (which means you necessarily have to read that assumption into his testimony).
      5. Therefore, the inference to the best explanation (without prematurely reading in later developed stories which are not firsthand), is that Paul was saying Jesus spiritually appeared from heaven to the others as well.

      This argument refutes Orthodox Christianity because if the "appearances" were originally understood to be spiritual "visions" from heaven then the later gospel stories are false.

      "I don't care what you said, because what you said is stupid."

      Ha! And there we have quite an admission. You're not even interested in responding to the arguments I'm actually making. Rather, you prefer to respond to your own preferred version. That says a lot.

      "So you think Paul was the earliest source of the resurrection of Jesus?"

      1 Cor 15:5-8 is the earliest reference to the resurrection eyewitnesses, yes.

      "And you think Paul was the "only firsthand source" for the resurrection of Jesus? So much for the other apostles!"

      You have no other firsthand claim by an apostle who says "Jesus appeared to me." Paul is the only source we have written by someone who claimed to have "seen" Jesus firsthand.

      Delete
    14. "Paul asks (rhetorically) in 1 Cor 9:1: "Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?" Therefore, using your logic, the Koine ἑώρακα is translated as "seen", which refers to physical sight, so this means Paul must have physically "seen" the risen Jesus! See how easy that was! ;)"

      Paul "sees" Jesus in a vision though so this probably wasn't a physical seeing. Compare what Paul says to other NT passages where things were claimed to have been "seen."

      Mark 1:9-11 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

      Luke 10:18 He replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

      Acts 7:55-56 "But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

      Acts 10:9-10 "He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners."

      John 1:32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him."

      Did Jesus, Stephen, Peter and John really "see" these things? If other people were standing there would they have seen these things to? This proves that just because something was claimed to have been "seen" in the New Testament it does not necessarily follow that these were objective real world sightings at all.

      "For one thing, I don't grant your unargued assumption that Paul was either "the earliest" or "only firsthand" source."

      Well, have you discovered another one that makes an earlier reference to the resurrection than 1 Cor 15? You should let all the scholars know about your amazing groundbreaking discovery!

      "In fact, Luke reports he traveled with Paul."

      He does? Or are you just using the disputed "we" passages in Acts? In other words, a poor inference.

      "Likewise Paul knew the apostle Peter."

      Which is why it's strange that Paul gives no evidence of an empty tomb, discarded grave clothes, people eating with and touching Jesus post resurrection or watching his corpse fly to heaven. Did Peter and James just forget to tell hi about all that stuff? All we have is a good inference that Peter had a "vision" of Jesus too per Paul's testimony in 1 Cor 15:5-8.

      Delete
    15. "This argument refutes Orthodox Christianity because if the "appearances" were originally understood to be spiritual "visions" from heaven then the later gospel stories are false."

      This "argument" is the same "argument" you've been peddling ever since you first debated Steve. Now, Steve, Jason, and others have already countered your "argument" again and again. However, all you keep doing is saying we didn't counter your argument, then you repeat your argument again. If you can repeat your argument, then we can repeat our counterargument. At least until you actually engage our counterargument. But considering your track record that will probably never happen. All you'll do is deny we countered your argument, then repeat your argument. Again and again and again. And all this proves is you're on auto loop aka a tape recorder, as Steve pointed out in the very title of this post.

      "Ha! And there we have quite an admission. You're not even interested in responding to the arguments I'm actually making. Rather, you prefer to respond to your own preferred version. That says a lot."

      Ha! And there we have quite an admission. You lack basic reading comprehension, you don't read what's said in context, and you jump to conclusions. That says a lot. After all, if it you commit these fallacies against a comparatively lesser point like mine, how much more likely are you to commit these fallacies when it comes to reading the Bible!

      "1 Cor 15:5-8 is the earliest reference to the resurrection eyewitnesses, yes."

      1. You're talking about the NT mss. I'm referring to the earliest Christians in general.

      The existence of Christians who believed in the risen Jesus predates the existence of the NT. Indeed, the firsthand eyewitness testimonies of the disciples who saw the risen Jesus (e.g. the women, Peter, John) predate the existence of the NT.

      The disciples composed the NT at a later point in time. However, that doesn't mean their belief in Jesus' resurrection came at the same time as when they wrote the NT. Their belief in the risen Jesus predates the composition of the NT.

      So you're neglecting the formation of the traditions about the risen Jesus which were originally formed by the disciples of Jesus and others who encountered Jesus. Those who witnessed Jesus in the flesh and the events surrounding Jesus. Those who remembered what Jesus taught.

      2. As far as the NT mss, it's arguable the Gospel of Mark dates as early as the 40s. If so, Mark would predate 1 Corinthians which dates to the 50s. And Mark cites Jesus' resurrection (Mk 16:6).

      "You have no other firsthand claim by an apostle who says "Jesus appeared to me." Paul is the only source we have written by someone who claimed to have "seen" Jesus firsthand."

      What's needed isn't someone saying (verbatim) "Jesus appeared to me". What's needed is belief that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. That belief among Christians existed prior to the NT's composition. And that belief in the risen Jesus wasn't originally based on Paul, but it was originally based on the firsthand eyewitness testimonies of those who saw the risen Jesus (e.g. the women, Peter, John). See Richard Bauckham's work (e.g. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses), see Larry Hurtado's work (e.g. At the Origins of Christian Worship: The Context and Character of Earliest Christian Devotion, The Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity), see Paul Rhodes Eddy's and Gregory Boyd's work (e.g. The Jesus Legend), etc.


      Delete
    16. "Paul "sees" Jesus in a vision though so this probably wasn't a physical seeing."

      Ah, but not if we use your logic, which is precisely what I was doing! Based on your logic, this "sees" should be considered in its "primary" sense, i.e., physical sight.

      However, if, as you now say, "physical sight" could be "vision", then, based on your logic, "vision" could likewise be "physical sight". Hence what Paul "saw" in his "vision" on the Damascus road was a physical sight of the risen Jesus! ;)

      "Compare what Paul says to other NT passages where things were claimed to have been "seen.""

      The other NT passages you cite are from the Gospels and Acts. These weren't written by Paul. After all, based on your logic, it's best to define the primary meaning of a word based on how the person himself used it, not based on how other people used it. ;)

      "He does?"

      Yes, Luke does travel with Paul.

      "Or are you just using the disputed "we" passages in Acts? In other words, a poor inference."

      1. You don't give any reasons why the "we" passages in Acts are disputed. In other words, an assertion without an argument.

      2. By contrast, see Craig Keener's four volume commentary on Acts. In particular, see volume 3, pp 2350-2374. Keener discusses the use of the first person plural in Acts vis-a-vis self-referential first person styles in 1st century writing which indicate they were present at the events. Keener not only argues that Luke was present in the "we" passages in Acts, but Keener further concludes that Luke was arguably present with Paul in other events in Acts he narrates but in which he doesn't speak in the first person plural.

      3. As for broader issues involving the historicity of Acts, see Jonathan McLatchie's interview with Keener.

      Delete
    17. "Which is why it's strange that Paul gives no evidence of an empty tomb, discarded grave clothes, people eating with and touching Jesus post resurrection or watching his corpse fly to heaven."

      At best, this is a failed argument from silence.

      "Did Peter and James just forget to tell hi about all that stuff? All we have is a good inference that Peter had a "vision" of Jesus too per Paul's testimony in 1 Cor 15:5-8."

      See what I wrote to you below in my "summary post".


      Delete
  7. Tyler

    "Well, according to the account "other people" were making the claim. It says Herod and "some others" which would most likely be people who knew or followed John the Baptist. Unless of course, the New Testament is just wrong about that?"

    Some early manuscripts say it was Herod who said this, not "other people" or "some others". Just look at the footnote to Mark 6:14 in a translation of the Bible like the ESV, NIV, CSB, NRSV, etc.

    "Ask a Jewish scholar".

    Another Messianic Jew worth mentioning in this context is Michael Rydelnik who wrote The Messianic Hope: Is the Hebrew Bible Really Messianic?.

    "The concept of a single dying and rising prophet figure existed before Jesus' death and was being applied to another similar Jesus type figure around the same time. Therefore, we now have a plausible explanation for the origin of the Resurrection belief about Jesus which doesn't necessarily entail Jesus actually being raised from the dead."

    "Some even claim Jesus is the Risen John - Mk. 8:27-28."


    The ancient Egyptians had "resurrected" gods they worshipped. Israel spent hundreds of years in Egypt. Likewise so did Mary and Joseph with Jesus when they fled from Herod the Great. Therefore Jesus' resurrection was all make-believe! A just-so story!

    Herod and Herodias attempting to murder (then murdering) John the Baptist are like Ahab and Jezebel attempting to murder Elijah. Jesus identified John the Baptist as "Elijah". Therefore John the Baptist was the physical reincarnation of Elijah!

    Evidently this is the kind of fallacious line of reasoning that passes for an "argument" in Tyler's mind. He'd make a great chef with his tired and true recipe for success in debate: mix in some far-fetched circumstantial evidence with some farther-fetched hasty generalizations, jump to a few conclusions, ignore any and all evidence to the contrary, et voilà - Tyler fait l'andouille!

    "Isaiah 41:8, 44:1, 44:2, 44:21, 45:4, 48:20, 49:3 all identify the "Servant" as Israel."

    Just to add to the verses on Isaiah. Isa 53:9 says: "And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death". I guess it was just coincidence that Jesus died with two thieves and was laid to rest in the new tomb of a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea (Mt 27:57, 60).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Just to add to the verses on Isaiah. Isa 53:9 says: "And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death". I guess it was just coincidence that Jesus died with two thieves and was laid to rest in the new tomb of a rich man named Joseph of Arimathea (Mt 27:57, 60)."

      It's hardly a coincidence when the authors were mining the Old Testament and just writing Jesus into the narrative.

      Delete
    2. Tyler Workman wrote:

      "It's hardly a coincidence when the authors were mining the Old Testament and just writing Jesus into the narrative."

      You're ignoring all of the evidence for the association of Joseph of Arimathea with Jesus' burial (the unlikelihood of fabricating it for various reasons; the easy access the early Christians had to information about Jesus' burial; the interest they show in his burial from the earliest years of Christianity onward; multiple attestation; the absence of a competing account; the evidence for the reliability of the sources who reported the account, especially Luke; etc.). And the only reason you cite for rejecting the account is an unsubstantiated accusation that the authors in question were "mining the Old Testament and just writing Jesus into the narrative". Isaiah also refers to the existence of the earth and the existence of Jews in the Suffering Servant passage, but we don't conclude that the early Christians must have been making up the existence of the earth and first-century Jews because their existence would fulfill the prophecy. (I'm not denying that we have more evidence for the existence of the earth and Jews at that time than we have for Jesus' association with a rich man in the context of his burial. Rather, I'm using more obvious examples to make a point about something less obvious.) If you want us to reject Jesus' association with a rich man in his burial, you need to do more than accuse the authors in question of writing Jesus into the Old Testament. The burial by Joseph of Arimathea is widely accepted by modern scholars, and not just conservatives.

      And why would you dispute what Epistle of Dude said about Jesus being crucified as an accused criminal with other criminals? Do you deny that Jesus was crucified? Do you deny that he was grouped with other individuals thought to be criminals in that context? Even the vast majority of the most liberal scholars accept the historicity of Jesus' crucifixion, the fact that he was considered a criminal by Roman standards, the fact that he was associated with other criminals in his death, etc. That part of what Epistle of Dude said is accepted by the vast majority of modern scholarship (the same scholarship you appealed to earlier).

      Delete
    3. Tyler

      "It's hardly a coincidence when the authors were mining the Old Testament and just writing Jesus into the narrative."

      Based on what - Tyler's say-so? You're just making an assertion without an argument. Moreover, Jason points out several additional points as well as the fact that your statement doesn't reflect the best modern scholarship. For starters, see Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Beale & Carson, eds.).

      Delete
    4. It simply beggars belief to consider what and how one would need to mine from the OT in order to "write Jesus into the narrative". Not only Isa 53, but many other messianic passages in the OT such as Gen 3, Ps 22, Ps 110, Isa 7, and on and on and on. In addition to Commentary on the NT Use of the OT, I've already mentioned The Messianic Hope: Is the Hebrew Bible Really Messianic?.

      Not to mention we'd need to talk about related issues like motivation, intent, etc.

      Delete
    5. The data fits both hypotheses.

      A. Jesus actually fulfilled scripture and did the things attributed to him.

      B. The gospel authors just composed a fictional narrative about Jesus by using the OT as a guide.

      It's your job to demonstrate hypothesis A more probable than B. Good luck in dong so.

      Delete
    6. Why reinvent the wheel when it's already been done countless times.

      Besides, if you truly cared, if you were arguing in good faith (which you're plainly not), then you could read a work like The Messianic Hope and see for yourself.

      However, you're just here to monologue, not dialogue.

      Delete
  8. Here is how N. T. Wright explains the John the Baptist thing:

    "We should not, I think, regard Herod and his court as the most accurate indicators of mainstream second-Temple Jewish belief; even if it is true that the Pharisees and Herodians made common cause on a couple of occasions, we may assume that they did not sit down and discuss the finer points of proto-rabbinic theology.43 However, there are a couple of points worthy of note. First, this is hardly evidence of a belief in ‘reincarnation’ or ‘transmigration’, the re-embodiment of a dead soul either immediately upon death or at some time thereafter.44 That would normally require the soul to pass into a newborn, or newly conceived, child, whereas Jesus was a fully grown man, of about the same age as John. Second, it is of course clear that Jesus was an embodied human being, walking around and saying and doing things. At this point Herod is on target. ‘Resurrection’ language was not about ghosts, spirits or phantoms; there was plenty of other language for that. It was about bodies. We do not find here any suggestion, apart from the new powers such as being might have, that the body itself had been in any way transformed—or, presumably, that it would not or could not die again.45 Perhaps the simplest explanation for why Herod said what he did—or why someone said that he said it—is the general idea, current at least since the Maccabees and Daniel, that Israel’s god would vindicate a righteous sufferer, and that Herod might well think of John in that way.46" (The Resurrection of the Son of God, pp 413-414).

    Adding a few points, in the spirit of imagining the direction Wright might take in addressing this further:

    1. There was surely a difference in the minds of 1st century Jews between rising from the dead in a resuscitation sense and the sort of rising from the dead which was to occur with the messiah, the return from exile, kingdom of God sense.

    2. If you have a popular prophet, like John, put to death and then hear word of a prophet about the same age preaching a similar message and performing miracles you might think, in passing, that this prophet has risen from the dead. You wouldn't (and John's disciples didn't) then go around proclaiming that this prophet must therefore be the Messiah who was to rule over Israel and had ushered in the kingdom of God.

    3. Thus, there was clearly something very different regarding what Herod and his court remarks in passing regarding John and what the disciples of Jesus came to believe had happened to him.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The bottom line is that Paul doesn't physically "see" the Risen Christ like is said to happen to the disciples in the gospel accounts where Jesus is literally standing in front of them and offering his body to be touched. Paul's experience is called a "revelation" or a "vision from heaven." He did not have a physical face to face encounter with a revived corpse. That is the point. Yet, he still claims that Jesus "appeared" to him. Well, if Paul can have a "revelation" or a "vision from heaven" and claim it counts as a *resurrection appearance* (1 Cor 15:8) then it follows that other early Christians like Peter or James, for instance, could have merely claimed that their subjective revelatory experiences of Jesus from heaven counted as resurrection appearances.

    This undercuts the whole foundation of Orthodox Christianity which maintains that the appearances of Risen Christ were real world objective physical encounters that actually took place. One can't assign someone's subjective "vision" of Jesus to be an objectively witnessed encounter because it's more probable that a "vision" is false or mistaken than actually having anything to do with reality. Just think of all the "vision" claims which you reject. Maximus of Tyre, for example, claims to have seen Asclepius in waking reality, not in a dream. Did he really "see" Asclepius though?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tyler Workman wrote:

      "The bottom line is that Paul doesn't physically 'see' the Risen Christ like is said to happen to the disciples in the gospel accounts where Jesus is literally standing in front of them and offering his body to be touched."

      The risen Christ on the road to Damascus doesn't just offer his body to be examined. He takes the initiative to produce objective and physical evidence: light that was seen by Paul and his companions; blinding Paul; knocking Paul and his companions down; speaking in a way that was audible to Paul and his companions; revealing to Ananias what had occurred to Paul in a situation in which Ananias had no natural way to discern what had happened; removing the blindness by means of Ananias; etc.

      A group of non-Christians who are on their way to Damascus to persecute Christians are poor candidates for imagining the sort of experience under consideration. You keep bringing up the analogy of a Pentecostal church service, but Paul and his companions were on their way to persecute Christians. They weren't participating in a Christian church service.

      Delete
    2. Tyler

      1. Once again, Tyler repeats something that's already been reasonably addressed by Steve and now Jason, but Tyler never registers the counterarguments. Rather, he just does the same thing over and over again, presumably expecting something different to happen. Isn't the definition of insanity supposed to be doing the exact same thing over and over again but expecting a different outcome?

      2. The apostle Paul never claimed in 1 Cor 15:8 that he saw Jesus in the exact same manner as the other apostles did. Yet that doesn't mean Paul didn't have a bona fide and veridical visual and auditory experience of the risen Jesus. Besides, the emphasis is more on Jesus being alive than on the means by which Jesus appeared to people to show he's alive.

      3. Simply consider that one can see the same person in different media. For instance, I can see a person in person, but I can likewise see a person on Skype or FaceTime. If I see a person on FaceTime, it doesn't necessarily mean the person I'm seeing isn't genuinely the same person I know in person. And I'm warranted to believe the person I'm seeing on FaceTime is the same person unless I have good reason to think my eyes are deceiving me.

      4. In short, and to be blunt, the risen Jesus can appear physically to one disciple, while appearing psychologically to another disciple. There's no conflict in the two possibilities.

      Delete
    3. 1. Where has it been "reasonably addressed"? A "vision" is not the same thing as actually seeing a physical person standing in front of you that could be verified by others standing close by. That's why the author of Acts makes sure only Paul "sees" Jesus while the others "see no one" - Acts 9:7. Obviously, if a physical Jesus were present then he would have been seen by all. Rather, Jesus "appears" spiritually from heaven in Paul's mind. It is impossible to actually "see" someone in heaven with your eyeballs. That is an inner spiritual revelation as Paul says in Gal. 1:16 - "God revealed His son in me."

      Since this type of experience qualifies as a "resurrection appearance" and Paul makes no distinction in regards to the nature of the "appearances" to the others, the inference to the best explanation is that Paul was just saying Jesus "spiritually appeared" to the others as well. Per the earliest and only firsthand source, you have no reason to think the appearances to the others were different or more physical. You have to read that presupposition into the text.

      So the problem hasn't been addressed. It's just been ignored. Once we have the vocabulary for "visions" and "revelations" from heaven (the terminology reserved for subjective spiritual experiences) being used as a "resurrection appearance" then it no longer follows that these resurrection appearances necessarily had anything to do with reality. You guys are just basically downplaying it by saying this is no big deal. Well, if it's no big deal then you shouldn't have any problem with the resurrection appearances being called "visions" then instead of actual sightings of the physically resurrected Christ! Oh, but "no, the disciples really saw Christ!" Oh, so you do have a problem with the resurrection appearances being labeled "visions" then?

      2. He uses the same verb ophthe without distinction which is exactly what we would expect if he was saying they were the same or similar type of appearances.

      3. Your Skype analogy fails. We are talking about ancient superstitious people who thought God and angels appeared to them all the time in dream-visions. An ancient Jew wouldn't have made a distinction between a dream at night vs a vision they supposedly had while awake.

      Delete
    4. 4. Paul gives no evidence that Jesus appeared differently to the others and he uses the same verb for each "appearance" as if to equate them. Even reading the entire Pauline corpus he gives no reason to think these appearances were real world physical encounters with a revived corpse. Here are the ways Paul says the Risen Jesus was experienced:

      A. Paul says his experience was an "inner revelation" in Gal. 1:12-16. This happened to Paul while Jesus was located in heaven.

      B. Says Jesus "appeared" ophthe (ὤφθη) when the appearance to Paul came from heaven and he makes no distinction between what the others "saw" - 1 Cor 15:5-8.

      C. He says that the Risen Jesus was experienced through "visions and revelations" in 2 Cor 12:1.

      D. Jesus was "known through revelation and the scriptures" in Rom. 16:25-26.

      E. and his "mystery was made known through revelation" in Eph. 3:3-5.

      Paul's notion of the Risen Jesus seems to be purely spiritual/mystical. "Visions" and "revelations" are the only ways Paul says the Risen Jesus was experienced. He gives no evidence for the Risen Jesus being experienced in a more "physical" way nor does he even give any evidence of the physically Risen Christ being located on earth after the resurrection. This means the apologist is necessarily reading in the unsupported assumption that the appearances were more "physical" from another source that Paul nowhere corroborates. This, necessarily, means that the apologist must be reading it into Paul's testimony. From Paul, there is no evidentiary support for this assumption.

      "In short, and to be blunt, the risen Jesus can appear physically to one disciple, while appearing psychologically to another disciple."

      So, in short, you have no right or reason to read this assumption into the text when Paul gives no support for it. Saying "Jesus can appear" is just pure wishful thinking and speculation on your part. Paul only gives evidence for subjective "spiritual experiences" not physical ones. This means only the spiritual interpretation has evidence, the physical one does not.

      Delete
    5. "Paul makes no distinction in regards to the nature of the "appearances" to the others,"

      Wrong. Paul's Damascus road experience does make distinctions. Such as in what Paul saw and heard vs. what others around him saw him and heard.

      "the inference to the best explanation is that Paul was just saying Jesus "spiritually appeared" to the others as well."

      That's not "inference to the best explanation". Rather, that's a fallacious generalization from one individual (Paul) to others.

      "Per the earliest and only firsthand source, you have no reason to think the appearances to the others were different or more physical. You have to read that presupposition into the text."

      You're overly fixated on Paul's Damascus road experience. You're failing to consider the rest of what the NT says about Jesus' resurrection.

      "Once we have the vocabulary for "visions" and "revelations" from heaven (the terminology reserved for subjective spiritual experiences) being used as a "resurrection appearance""

      You mean, once you brazenly foist your own disagreeable definitions onto others?

      By the way, just because an experience is subjective doesn't necessarily imply the experience isn't veridical.

      "then it no longer follows that these resurrection appearances necessarily had anything to do with reality."

      That's your conclusion based on your false premise.

      "You guys are just basically downplaying it by saying this is no big deal."

      Just putting words in our mouths, I see!

      "Well, if it's no big deal then you shouldn't have any problem with the resurrection appearances being called "visions" then instead of actual sightings of the physically resurrected Christ! Oh, but "no, the disciples really saw Christ!" Oh, so you do have a problem with the resurrection appearances being labeled "visions" then?"

      That's your conclusion based on your false premise.

      "He uses the same verb ophthe without distinction which is exactly what we would expect if he was saying they were the same or similar type of appearances."

      That confuses a word with a concept.

      "We are talking about ancient superstitious people who thought God and angels appeared to them all the time in dream-visions."

      Nice poisoning the well with "superstitious".

      Some ancients were superstitious, some weren't. It's not all that different from today, where some moderns are superstitious (e.g. astrology), while other moderns aren't.

      Anyway, you're wildly ignorant about what the Jews who wrote the NT believed when you say "ancient superstitious people who thought God and angels appeared to them all the time in dream-visions". That's laughably ignorant.

      Delete
    6. "A. Paul says his experience was an "inner revelation" in Gal. 1:12-16."

      "Inner" is your addition.

      "This happened to Paul while Jesus was located in heaven."

      Heaven can mean sky. As we've explained to you countless times, but I guess you have a thick skull.

      "B. Says Jesus "appeared" ophthe (ὤφθη) when the appearance to Paul came from heaven and he makes no distinction between what the others "saw" - 1 Cor 15:5-8.

      1. Again, you're confusing the use of a word with the use of a concept in citing ὤφθη like you do.

      2. Yes, there are distinctions in what Paul saw and heard on the Damascus road vs. what others around him at the same time saw and heard in the same place. That's evident in Acts.

      "C. He says that the Risen Jesus was experienced through "visions and revelations" in 2 Cor 12:1."

      No, that's not what Paul says. Paul is alluding to his own experience. He's describing what happened to him. It was a one-time experience for Paul alone. It's not normative for Christians in general.

      "D. Jesus was "known through revelation and the scriptures" in Rom. 16:25-26."

      Doug Moo in his commentary on these verses in Romans:

      Paul's point is that the gospel is the source of the strengthening. "Preaching of Jesus Christ," which we can paraphrase "preaching about Jesus Christ," is a further definition of "my gospel." And "according to the revelation" could be a third, roughly parallel, description of the same message. But it is better to subordinate this phrase to "preaching," or "gospel and preaching," or, perhaps best, "gospel": the gospel is "in accordance with," "based on," the revelation of the mystery. Paul speaks of the gospel as consisting in the "revelation of the righteousness of God" in his statement of the theme of the letter (1:17). Here he echoes this revelatory concept. Paul has used "mystery" in 11:25, but its application here to the basic content of Paul's gospel and preaching is closer to Paul's use of the term in passages such as 1 Cor. 2:7, Eph. 3:3-9, and Col. 1:26-27.

      The rest of v. 25 and all of v. 26 are taken up with a threefold description of this "mystery." First, Paul says, it was "kept secret for long ages." Here Paul reflects a motif typical in apocalyptic: the hiddenness of God's plan and purposes. This hiddenness, as Paul will make clear in v. 26, does not mean that one could have no knowledge of the content of the mystery. What it means, rather, is that one could not fully understand it nor — and this is the special emphasis — experience it.

      Delete
    7. Following a typical NT salvation-historical scheme, Paul indicates that the mystery that has been "kept secret" has "now been manifested." The "and" that follows this clause suggests that the four prepositional modifiers in the verse all go with the third participle Paul uses to describe the mystery, "made known" at the end of the verse. These last two participles are obviously very close in meaning; perhaps Paul uses both for stylistic reasons (to keep his threefold scheme) or to accentuate the idea. The first of the prepositional phrases describes the means though which the mystery was made known: "through the prophetical writings." Since we would expect the gospel, or the NT, to be the source of this revelation, some scholars think that Paul may allude here to the apostles' writings or to the Scriptures as a whole. But Paul has made sufficiently clear that the mystery of God's work in Christ, while not experienced or understood in its fullness in the OT period, was nevertheless "testified to" by the OT (cf. esp. 1:2; 3:21). "Prophetical writings" will therefore refer to the OT. "According to the command of the eternal God" stresses that it was God's own determination to make known the mystery at the time that he did. The "command" is not any specific historical divine command, but refers to the expression of God's will. The last two prepositional phrases indicate the purpose of the mystery being "made known" — that people might come to believe and obey the gospel — and the object of its being made known — "all the nations." Paul returns for the last time to a theme with which the letter opened (1:5) and to which he has continually returned: the universal applicability of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

      "E. and his "mystery was made known through revelation" in Eph. 3:3-5."

      Much of what Doug Moo said above is relevant here too.

      "Paul's notion of the Risen Jesus seems to be purely spiritual/mystical. "Visions" and "revelations" are the only ways Paul says the Risen Jesus was experienced. He gives no evidence for the Risen Jesus being experienced in a more "physical" way nor does he even give any evidence of the physically Risen Christ being located on earth after the resurrection. This means the apologist is necessarily reading in the unsupported assumption that the appearances were more "physical" from another source that Paul nowhere corroborates. This, necessarily, means that the apologist must be reading it into Paul's testimony. From Paul, there is no evidentiary support for this assumption."

      Here's a far better theory: Tyler is miscontruing these passages to say what he wants them to say rather than to read these passages on their own terms.

      "So, in short, you have no right or reason to read this assumption into the text when Paul gives no support for it. Saying "Jesus can appear" is just pure wishful thinking and speculation on your part. Paul only gives evidence for subjective "spiritual experiences" not physical ones. This means only the spiritual interpretation has evidence, the physical one does not."

      Your false conclusion based on your false premises.

      Delete
    8. TL;DR

      Tyler

      Suppose (arguendo) it's true Paul had a "subjective" experience of the risen Jesus:

      1. Just because Paul's experience of the risen Jesus is subjective doesn't imply it's not veridical.

      2. Just because Paul had a subjective experience of the risen Jesus doesn't imply others didn't have an objective experience of the risen Jesus. You're committing a hasty generalization by attempting to generalize from Paul to others.

      3. You conveniently ignore what the rest of the NT says about Jesus' resurrection.

      Delete
    9. "Wrong. Paul's Damascus road experience does make distinctions. Such as in what Paul saw and heard vs. what others around him saw him and heard."

      No distinction is made in the earliest list - 1 Cor 15:5-8. He basically says "Jesus appeared to them and appeared to me, last of all."

      Well, did Paul meet the physically resurrected Jesus face to face? Nope, he had a vision of him. If Paul can have a vision of Jesus from heaven and claim it was a "resurrection appearance" then it follows that other Christians could ha e done the same.

      //1. Just because Paul's experience of the risen Jesus is subjective doesn't imply it's not veridical.//

      Burden of proof is on you to demonstrate an ancient man's vision was veridical. Appealing to Acts won't help. Paul doesn't corroborate those physical details all he says is that "God revealed His Son in him"- Gal. 1:16 which is obviously not a reference to something physical.

      2. Paul makes no distinction in his firsthand report which means you have no reason to think the appearances to the others were different.

      3. On the contrary, I showed how the nature of the Resurrection evolves over time. Perhaps you missed it or are completely ignoring it on purpose like Steve did.

      Delete
    10. Unknown aka Tyler Workman

      "No distinction is made in the earliest list - 1 Cor 15:5-8. He basically says "Jesus appeared to them and appeared to me, last of all."

      I didn't limit it to 1 Cor 15. I said the Damascus road experience in general.

      "Well, did Paul meet the physically resurrected Jesus face to face? Nope, he had a vision of him."

      These aren't mutually exclusive. It's possible to meet the risen Jesus face to face in a "vision".

      "If Paul can have a vision of Jesus from heaven and claim it was a "resurrection appearance" then it follows that other Christians could ha e done the same."

      You have one argument that you keep repeating ad nauseam: Paul's "vision" of the risen Jesus is a subjective experience, therefore other early Christians' experiences of the risen Jesus could be subjective experiences too. However, as I've already pointed out:

      1. Even if it's true (arguendo) that Paul's vision was a subjective experience that doesn't necessarily mean it's not veridical experience. For example, I can see a spot in my eye that no one else can see, but that doesn't necessarily mean the spot in my eye isn't actually present.

      2. Also, your argument suffers from being a hasty generalization. You're (fallaciously) generalizing from Paul's experience to other Christians' experiences. That's like saying, I see a spot in my eye, therefore everyone else must see spots in their eyes too. No, that'd be false. It's possible for someone to see a spot that's external to their eye (e.g. a spot on a piece of paper right in front of them).

      3. You ignore all the evidence for Jesus' resurrection in the rest of the NT.

      "Burden of proof is on you to demonstrate an ancient man's vision was veridical."

      Burden of proof goes both ways. Besides, it's not like you actually care. It's not like you're arguing in good faith. You're just arguing because you're pigheaded and don't want to admit you're wrong. That's your preregoative, but the longer you keep this up, the more foolish you end up looking. Don't believe me? Just come back to this thread in a month or two, re-read everything, and see who's being more reasonable-minded here.

      "Appealing to Acts won't help. Paul doesn't corroborate those physical details all he says is that "God revealed His Son in him"- Gal. 1:16 which is obviously not a reference to something physical."

      Another point is that Paul wasn't basing his faith solely on his experience seeing the risen Jesus on the Damascus road. That's important, but it's not the only important piece of evidence for Paul's belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Paul had other reasons to believe Jesus is the Messiah (e.g. prophetic fulfillment of various OT passages).

      Delete
    11. Tyler wrote:

      "Obviously, if a physical Jesus were present then he would have been seen by all."

      You still haven't responded to what I said earlier about that subject. The failure of Paul's companions to see Jesus is consistent with Jesus' physical presence. Whether the companions would see Jesus would depend on how much the light concealed Jesus' presence, where everybody was positioned at the time, where they were looking, the topography involved, etc. It's easy to think of multiple scenarios in which Jesus would have been physically present, but not seen by everybody in the area. The fact that Paul was blinded by the light, but the others weren't, may be because he was closer than anybody else. It would make sense that Paul, likely the most prominent member of the group, was walking ahead of or behind the others, and something like a hill or bend would make a difference in what was seen by which individuals. If Paul was walking ahead of the others, for example, he could easily have had more of a sight of what was happening due to seeing over a hill before the others saw what was over the hill or seeing around a bend before they did. Given how easy it is to think of such scenarios and how easily such a scenario could have occurred, your ongoing failure to think of or acknowledge these explanations is ridiculous.

      And I've repeatedly given you documentation that Acts refers to the appearance on the road to Damascus as objective, physical, and involving Jesus' body (Paul's companions experience the light; they experience the voice; the light blinds Paul; the voice is said to come from Jesus' mouth, which is part of a body; the other resurrection appearances in Acts are bodily ones; etc.) I've also documented that the concept of resurrection in both Acts and Paul's letters, as well as early Christianity in general, involved the physical raising of the body that died. I've explained why citing Acts 26:19 and Galatians 1:16 is an insufficient response.

      Delete
    12. There is no physical Jesus in the Acts accounts. Rather, Jesus is located in heaven per the text and "appearing" to Paul in a vision.

      Delete
    13. Tyler wrote:

      "Jesus is located in heaven per the text"

      No, the text doesn't say that. Rather, the text (Acts 9:3) refers to the light being from heaven, which isn't the same as being in heaven, and the text (Acts 26:19) refers to a heavenly vision, which isn't the same as Jesus being in heaven when the vision occurred. An entity doesn't have to be in heaven in order to be heavenly. As I explained to you earlier, the light that's referred to as being from heaven is also referred to as being around Paul and his companions on earth. So, not only does the text not say what you claim it says, but it even contradicts your interpretation.

      On your own understanding of the text, the vision occurs in Paul's mind. Was Paul in heaven at the time? No. The vision, even under your reading, wasn't heavenly in the sense of being in heaven. So, where are you getting the idea that Jesus was in heaven at the time?

      Delete
    14. As I explained to Tyler, not only can the word just as well mean "sky", but it can also function as a pious circumlocution for "God". So a "heavenly" vision can mean a divine vision, i.e. a vision that originates from God. But the location of the effect isn't the same as the cause.

      Delete
    15. Tyler

      "Obviously, if a physical Jesus were present then he would have been seen by all...Jesus is located in heaven per the text."

      Here's a silly analogy that's not entirely analogous (e.g. it's fictitious whereas Paul's experience was veridical) but it more or less gets the point across.

      Luke Skywalker appeared as a force projection to Kylo Ren in the movie Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Physically speaking, Luke Skywalker was on the planet Ahch-To, light-years away from Kylo Ren who was on the planet Crait. However, Luke Skywalker force projected himself so that Kylo Ren saw Luke Skywalker directly in front of him. Kylo Ren saw Luke Skywalker as a force projection, but Luke Skywalker's force projection of himself was only possible because Luke Skywalker was physically alive elsewhere.

      Similarly, even if Jesus was not physically present on the road to Damascus with Paul, that doesn't imply Jesus wasn't physically alive elsewhere. Jesus could have been physically alive elsewhere but "projected" himself to Paul in a veridical vision that Paul experienced on the road to Damascus.

      As Tyler would say: Boom! :)

      Delete
  10. Hey Steve

    "Not for a prophet who talks about the resurrection of the body (Isa 26:19)."

    Second Isaiah ch. 40-55 were written by someone else and the original context of 26:19 may actually be referring to the metaphorical restoration of Israel. That's a mainstream scholarly view anyway. Only later, after Christian interpreters came along did they start claiming it was talking about physical resurrection there.

    "Are you unaware of the fact that in Scripture, one's seed can be metaphorical?"

    No, זֶרַע zera means "literal offspring" but even if it were metaphorical you would have to

    1. Show instances of that in the Hebrew Bible.
    2. Show instances of Second Isaiah doing that.
    3. Make a plausible case that the author was actually using metaphorical "children of Jesus" rather than just the literal offspring of Israel per the actual context.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Second Isaiah ch. 40-55 were written by someone else..."

      1. It's quite a leap to say that different portions of Isaiah were composed at different times to therefore these sections of Isaiah was written by someone else other than Isaiah.

      2. However, playing along with your argument, even if Isaiah was written by different people, so what? It could have been that Isaiah had different disciples who scribed what he spoke. After all, as Isaiah prophesied, he may very well have gained disciples. Disciples who recorded his words.

      3. It could have been that Isaiah was composed by Isaiah and/or his disciples, but at the same time a later author better organized the material. Suppose this is what happened. Even so, that doesn't necessarily impugn the accuracy of Isaiah's words including his prophecies. For example, Steve re-organized your debate with him, but that doesn't mean his re-organization is inaccurate. In fact, it's arguably improved and more accurate for its re-organization.

      4. In any case, there are various compositional theories about Isaiah. Various theories on how Isaiah may or may not have been redacted, how Isaiah may or may not have been designed and structured into literary units, and so on. However, the late and great Isaian scholar Alec Motyer has responded to the best of these theories. See his tome on Isaiah for a start.

      Delete
    2. Tyler

      "the original context of 26:19 may actually be referring to the metaphorical restoration of Israel. That's a mainstream scholarly view anyway. Only later, after Christian interpreters came along did they start claiming it was talking about physical resurrection there."

      1. That's the view of scholars like Hans Wildberger and Daniel Johnson, but that's not the view of the best scholars on Isaiah. For example, I already cited Alec Motyer. Likewise Gary V. Smith.

      2. Likewise, both Elijah and Elisha brought back the dead (e.g. 1 Kgs 17:17-24, 2 Kgs 4:18-37, 2 Kgs 13:20-21). This occurred long before Isaiah. So it's not as if resurrection wasn't known prior to the days of Isaiah.

      Delete
    3. Gary V. Smith writes in his commentary on Isaiah:

      [S]ome view the idea of the resurrection of the dead as simply a metaphor for the restoration of the nation after the exile. At that time God will give them new life, thus this passage refers to the restoration of the nation, not individual resurrection of the dead. This passage is often compared to Ezekiel's vision of the metaphorical revivification of dry bones (37:1-14, see also Hos 6:1-3) and Isaiah's own metaphorical description of God's punishment as “death” (5:13-14) and barrenness (54:1-2) while restoration was pictured as “rising form the dust” (52:1-2) or bearing children (66:7-9). The psalmist offers another metaphorical idea related to resurrection, using the imagery of being brought back to life from Sheol as a picture of being delivered from troubles (Ps 16:10-11; 18:5-6; 49:14-15). These examples indicate that a metaphorical understanding of the revival of the nation from exile is legitimate in some instances, but that does not mean the interpretation must always be metaphorical or national. In the context around this verse there is no explicit mention of the restoration of the nation from exile, so there is no clue that it should be understood metaphorically or nationally in this context. There is no reference in this section to leaving Babylon, going though the desert, returning to the land, the restoration of Davidic rule, rebuilding ruined cities or any of the other themes so commonly associated with the restoration of the nation in other passages.

      Delete
    4. Third, the national interpretation is sometimes derived from the preceding context of the lament in 26:7-18 where the prophet was speaking about “the strong city” (26:2), “the righteous nation” (26:2), “the righteous” (26:7), “the people of the world” (26:9), “the wicked” (26:10), “your people” and “your enemies"(26:11), and “the nation” (26:15), All of these are groups of people, thus, it is argued, God's answer should logically address his restoration of the nation from its distress. This is the strongest evidence that this idea refers to national restoration, but the force of this argument is weakened because the focus in these verses is on the “righteous individuals,” “your people,” or “your enemies,” terms that morally define people, rather than politically defined nations. The prophet even recognizes within his own people that there are some individuals who are righteous (26:7) and some who are not (26:16). Thus the ideas in 26:19-27:1 are not the common set of images employed by Isaiah to describe the restoration of the nation after God's punishment. Instead these verses offer three solutions to Judah's present problems faced when Sennacherib attacked Jerusalem in 701 BC. Isaiah's audience can be assured that (a) “your dead will live” (v. 19); (b) you will need to hide for a while until the heat of God's wrath passes (v. 20); and (c) God will defeat his enemy Leviathan (36:21-27:1). Since 37:3 identifies the historical period when the people were laboring in the pain of child birth with the Assyrian attack by Sennacherib on Judah in 701 BC, the idea of hiding for a while until God's judgment passes (26:20) is quite understandable and applicable to Isaiah's audience. It also makes good sense to describe metaphorically God's defeat of the Assyrians under Sennacherib as his defeat of the serpent Leviathan in 27:1. Bringing the dead back to life is more difficult to explain from this immediate context. R. Martin-Achard thinks the allusion to resurrection here refers to giving life to the faithful Jews who were martyrs during this war against Assyria, but a better possibility might be to connect this promise to the near death experience of King Hezekiah. As a result of Hezekiah's pride, God became angry with him (2 Chr 32:25). The king became sick and soon was at the point of death (38:1). Isaiah announced God's judgment, “you will die, you will not live” (38:1). In deep anguish of soul Hezekiah humbled himself and God caused this dead man “to live” (38:16). Isaiah's promise in 26:19 would then be a theological expression of God's ability to bring an individual condemned to death (Hezekiah) back to new life (not to bring national restoration), a promise that later would have direct application to Hezekiah's situation, if he would trust God. There is no indication that Isaiah was speaking directly to Hezekiah in 26:19-27:1, but the three issues dealt with in these verses answer three vital questions that everyone was asking in 703-701 BC: (a) Will the king die or live? (b) Will Judah be able to survive this Assyrian attack? (c) Will God defeat Judah's enemies?

      Delete
  11. "Messiah is Yahweh Incarnate."

    Citation needed. While you're at it, let's see references where the Messiah or a human being was thought to be God from any Jewish source.

    "Herod is afraid that the Baptist has returned from the grave to exact retribution on his killer (Herod)."

    Chapter and verse that says this please? Or are you just making that up?

    "I don't care what you see or don't see. You're not the goalpost. You then push the rewind/replay button, as if that hasn't been rebutted before."

    When you literally make stuff up to get out of a tight spot and I call you on it, that's not moving the goalposts. That's just asking you to support your assertion. Spot the difference.

    "They didn't write a biography. His ministry died with him. Unlike Jesus, he didn't have a second act."

    In Acts 19 Paul is said to have met some of John's disciples so his ministry didn't die with him. In John 1:20 and 3:28 the author goes out of his way to have John the Baptist deny he was the Messiah which doesn't make sense unless people thought he was. Since John was most likely writing after 90 this means that the claim of John's Messiahship was a current hot topic. The Mandaeans trace their origin to John so there is ample evidence against your claim that his ministry died with him.

    "Luke is writing with a gentile audience in mind, so he quotes what is more accessible to the target audience."

    Mark was writing for gentiles too. He has to explain Jewish hand washing customs that that "Preparation Day" was the "day before the Sabbath." Obviously, a Jewish audience would have no need of these clarifications. Tradition holds that Mark was written in Rome. So you're going to have to come up with a better excuse out of this one.

    "As I mentioned once before, does that mean you also accept what the church fathers say about the authorship of the Gospels?"

    So was Irenaeus wrong about Mark composing after the deaths of Peter and Paul? Because if he wasn't then that sinks your case for dating the gospels early. Taking into account what Irenaeus says about Mark's dating does not commit me to anymore of his claims nor to any of the other church father claims. Each one has to be assessed on it's own merits and weighed against other evidence.

    "Why would he mention Mark's Gospel? This coming from the same guy who just told me: "Let's see it. I have a feeling we are going to see some arguments from silence."

    There's a difference between valid and invalid arguments from silence.

    "Your amateurish analysis doesn't concern me. I pointed you to standard lexical resources. Educate yourself."

    I know more about this than you. You don't get to claim someone's "vision" was a real world encounter. Once we start seeing "visions" included in the earliest list of "resurrection appearances" then the whole faith starts to unravel. I've found the Achilles heel of the Resurrection claim and the fact that all you can say is "look at a Lexicon" shows me that you're not even interested in taking the problem seriously. I've looked at the Lexicon and the context of the visions mentioned in the OT and it just further supports my case.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tyler

      "Citation needed. While you're at it, let's see references where the Messiah or a human being was thought to be God from any Jewish source."

      The New Testament is a Jewish source inasmuch as all its authors were Jews. Luke may have been a gentile convert to Judaism.

      "Chapter and verse that says this please? Or are you just making that up?"

      1. Many people in the 1st century Roman Empire believed ghosts, curses, and other forms of magic could kill the living. For example, Mary Beard writes in her two volume Religions of Rome:

      The enchantment wrought by magic regularly had two major objectives: causing death and instilling love. The classic example of the former is the death of Getmanicus (nephew and adopted son of Tiberius) in Syria in A.D. 19. Germanicus himself believed that he had been given venenum, a belief that was strengthened by the fact that 'in the floor and walls of his house were found remains of human bodies, spells, curses, lead tablets inscribed with the name 'Germanicus', charred and blood-smeared ashes and other devices of witchcraft by which it is believed that living souls can be devoted to the powers below the earth'. Those who accepted Germanicus' explanation of his fatal illness despatched to Rome a woman who was famous in the province as a magician; she, however, died before reaching Rome. The 'discoveries' illustrate features regularly denounced as elements of magical practices: the use of human bodies, lead curse tablets, the associated finds, and the female professional. At the subsequent trial in Rome of the governor of Syria (who was believed to have been behind Germanicus' death), the charge of magic and poisoning...using magic to commit murder remained an offence punishable with the utmost severiry (vol 1, pp 234-5).

      Curses tried to mobilize supernatural power, of the gods, the dead or other infernal beings, against the living. They were composed for three main reasons: to ensure one's way in love (11.5a-b; cf. 11.4); to gain vengeance or justice (cf. 11.5c-d), sometimes against thieves or other malefactors; and to win competitions in theatre and circus. The lead tablets on which the texts were inscribed were placed in various appropriate locations: originally in graves (often of the untimely dead); later in water (wells, springs, rivers), in the house of the target, in sanctuaries, and in stadia (vol 2, p 266).

      Delete
    2. 2. Indeed, many Jews at the time of Jesus believed Jesus was a deceiver and a magician. See the Talmud (Mishnah and Gemara). For example:

      It is taught that Rabbi Eliezer said to the Wise, "Did not Ben Stada [some argue Ben Stada refers to Jesus] bring spells from Egypt in a cut in his flesh? (b. Shabbat 104b)

      [Onkelos, the son of Kalonymos, nephew of the Roman general and emperor Titus, who desired to become a proselyte] called up Balaam [from the dead] by necromancy. He said to him, "Who is honored in this world?" He [Balaam] replied, "Israel." "What about [my] joining them?" He replied, "You shall not seek their peace or their prosperity all your days" (Deut. 23:6). He said to him, "What is your punishment?" He replied, "To be in boiling semen." He called up Jesus [from the dead] by necromancy. He said to him, "Who is honored in this world?" He [Jesus] replied, "Israel." "What about [my] joining them?" He replied, "Seek their good, do not seek their harm. Injuring them is like injuring the apple of your own eye." He said, "What is your punishment?" He replied, "To be in boiling excrement." As a teacher has said, "Everyone who mocks the words of the wise is punished by boiling excrement. (b. Gittin 56b-57a)

      And a teacher has said, "Jesus the Nazarene practiced magic and led Israel astray." (b. Sanhedrin 107b)

      Jesus practiced magic and led Israel astray (b. Sanhedrin 43a; cf. t. Shabbat 11.15; b. Shabbat 104b)

      It was taught: On the day before the Passover they hanged Jesus. A herald went before him for forty days [proclaiming], "He will be stoned, because he practiced magic and enticed Israel to go astray. Let anyone who knows anything in his favor come forward and plead for him." But nothing was found in his favor, and they hanged him on the day before the Passover, (b. Sanhedrin 43a)

      He [Balaam] took up his parable, and said, "Alas, who will live when God does this?" [Num 24:23]. Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish said, "Woe to him who makes himself alive by the name of God!" (b. Sanhédrin 106a)

      Delete
  12. "Another one of your confused statements. The Second Coming is a term of art. It's not about Jesus visiting particular individuals, but Jesus returning as the eschatological judge to preside over the Day of Judgment."

    There is no evidence that Jesus was in the sky.

    "His traveling companions sensed something as well, but God controlled their perception of the event."

    The point is it was not a physical encounter with a revived corpse on the earth that could be touched. Paul thought he had a visionary experience of Jesus from heaven. It therefore follows that other experiences not involving seeing or touching the revived corpse of Jesus could qualify as a "resurrection appearance" in the list of 1 Cor 15:5-8. Boom!

    "It doesn't stand at all. Paul says he saw a blinding light from the sky, as well as an audible voice addressing him in intelligible sentences. Hardly equivalent to "felt the presence of Christ"."

    That's what the author of Acts says, not Paul. The author was modeling this after other visions from the OT - Ezekiel 1 for instance. Paul just says "God revealed His Son in Me" (Gal. 1:16) which most scholars take to be a reference to his conversion experience or, in other words, his resurrection appearance. The genetic link is established in Gal. 1:13 and 1 Cor 15:9 where Paul mentions his former persecution of the church. Paul ceased doing so when Jesus was "revealed" or "appeared" to Paul (which came from heaven). So the description of Gal. 1:16 is the same as 1 Cor 15:8 and he equates what "appeared" to him with what "appeared" to the others by using the same verb without distinction. Ophthe does have the meaning of "feeling the presence" of God/Jesus because it's used in the Septuagint when God or the "glory of" God appeared to people. They "felt His presence" in other words.

    "How's that different from how you are (mis-)using "vision"?"

    I'm placing what "visions" and "revelations" would have been considered in their historical context. Everyday waking reality was totally different for these people who claimed to have visions of God and angels all the time. All that's relevant for this discussion is that a "vision" is not an objective physical encounter with a revived corpse that is literally standing in front of you.

    "Yet another one of your confusions is failure to distinguish between the Damascus Road experience and the revelation of the Gospel to Paul. The latter concerns theological interpretation."

    Wrong. Look at the commentaries. Gal. 1:16 is universally regarded as a reference to Paul's conversion experience. So I don't need to appeal to Acts. I can just use Paul's own words and description of how he says the Risen Christ was experienced.

    "Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

    Tom Doyle, DREAMS and VISIONS: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World?

    David Garrison, A Wind In The House Of Islam: How God Is Drawing Muslims Around The World To Faith In Jesus Christ "

    So more "Christian" visions then, huh? None outside of Christianity are true then. Well, that was kinda my point.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tyler

      "The point is it was not a physical encounter with a revived corpse on the earth that could be touched. Paul thought he had a visionary experience of Jesus from heaven. It therefore follows that other experiences not involving seeing or touching the revived corpse of Jesus could qualify as a "resurrection appearance" in the list of 1 Cor 15:5-8. Boom!"

      This has got to be one of the stupidest objections I've ever heard. Just for starters, even if (arguendo) it's true, you're committing a fallacious generalization from the apostle Paul to others. That is, even if (arguendo) it's true that Paul had a purely psychological vision of Jesus, it doesn't follow that therefore all these other sightings of Jesus are psychological too.

      "So more "Christian" visions then, huh? None outside of Christianity are true then. Well, that was kinda my point."

      At the risk of stating the obvious, many if not most of them were Muslim when they claimed to have seen Jesus and became Christian. There's plenty of reason for a Muslim living in a Muslim nation not to become a Christian including reasons involving suffering and death.

      Delete
  13. "And yet another one of your confusions. The Transfiguration manifests the deity of Christ–it doesn't confer a higher status."

    Again, John had no need for it. Jesus is God's chosen subordinate in all of the synoptics btw. Even in Peter's speech in Acts 2:22 he's referred to as just a "man."

    "You keep leaning on what "heaven" means. But if you bother to consult standard lexicons like BDAG or Louw & Nida, it will document that the word means several things. One meaning is "heaven' in the transcendent sense. Another is "sky" in the mundane sense. It can also be used a pious circumlocution for "God". And the adjective mirrors the noun."

    If the word can mean either heaven OR sky then the burden of proof is on you to show that he meant sky. Just because the word has a secondary meaning, it doesn't follow that the secondary meaning is implied. You have to give actual arguments for that. In Book 2 ch. 1.14 of Eusebius' Church History he understood it to come from heaven - "Galatians 1:1 was appointed an apostle, being made worthy of the call by a vision and by a voice which was uttered in a revelation from heaven."

    Moreover, I'm not even sure it matters since my whole point is that the "appearance" to Paul WAS NOT A PHYSICAL ENCOUNTER WITH A REVIVED CORPSE like the later gospels describe the disciples experiencing. If anybody could just claim "hey Jesus appeared to me in a vision from heaven" then obviously we should be skeptical of the nature of the "appearances" mentioned in 1 Cor 15.

    Lastly, I believe ancients thought heaven was located right past the sky - see Luke's Ascension. But since the advent of modern science we know that to be false. Hence, the Ascension story is necessarily bogus since it relies on an outdated and misconceived cosmology.

    "Resorting to Strong's concordance and Thayer's antiquated lexicon is so amateurish. I've referred you to scholarly resources in Greek lexicography."

    The LSJ and Middle Liddell have "A. [select] heavenly, dwelling in heaven, generally, in or of heaven,"

    Sorry but Jesus was not in the sky. He was in heaven and that is what the text says.

    "That's another rookie blunder, where you fail to draw basic genre distinctions. Pastoral letters naturally lack most of the biographical details in the Gospels or Acts."

    Red herring. Prove that Paul thought the Resurrected Jesus was raised to the earth first and, only later, flew to heaven.

    "Oh, gosh. Now you're restoring to a scribal interpolation in a single manuscript. And a Latin translation to boot! Not to mention that deciphering that text requires conjectural emendations. How desperate can you get?"

    "Since the codex seems to be based on a text that is earlier than Cyprian, the tradition appears to go back to at least the first half of the third century and possibly even the late second century." - John Granger Cook.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tyler keeps appealing to the reference to a vision in Acts 26:19, but the author of Acts also refers to an empty tomb, Jesus eating with his disciples after the resurrection, physical light that Paul and his companions saw, a physical voice that they heard, how that voice came from Jesus' "mouth" (Acts 22:14), etc. Tyler has acknowledged that Paul's companions are said to have heard Jesus' voice, so that the voice wasn't subjective in the sense in which Tyler claims that the appearance of Jesus to Paul was subjective. And Acts 22:15 refers to what Paul saw and heard, placing the two together. That makes more sense if the seeing and hearing were both objective rather than one being subjective and the other objective. The same verse refers to Paul as an appointed witness of the resurrection, just as Acts refers to the other apostles that way, and they experienced the risen Jesus physically.

      Galatians 1:16 tells us that Jesus was revealed in Paul. Does it follow that Jesus didn't physically appear to Paul? No. The presence of the former doesn't prove the absence of the latter. Similarly, in modern contexts we often refer to a variety of factors involved in a person's conversion experience: regeneration, repentance, faith, etc. If an account of a conversion mentions one of those factors without mentioning the others, does it follow that the others weren't involved? No.

      The resurrection is physical in Acts. It's physical in Paul's letters. We'd expect resurrection appearances after a physical resurrection to be of a physical nature. They're described that way in Acts, including in accounts of the appearance to Paul. Anybody who wants us to think that the appearances in 1 Corinthians 15 are non-physical bears the burden of proof. It's an interpretation that contradicts what the surrounding context suggests. Nothing Tyler has argued from Acts 26:19 or Galatians 1:16 even comes close to substantiating his position.

      Delete
    2. Tyler

      "Again, John had no need for it. Jesus is God's chosen subordinate in all of the synoptics btw. Even in Peter's speech in Acts 2:22 he's referred to as just a "man.""

      1. No, that's your eisegesis. Acts 2:22 says Jesus is "a man" but it never says Jeus is "just" a man. That's all you.

      2. Btw, in case you are't aware, Christians believe Jesus is both God and man.

      "If the word can mean either heaven OR sky then the burden of proof is on you to show that he meant sky."

      No, the burden of proof lies on both parties in this case. And in case you aren't aware, "both" includes you.

      "Just because the word has a secondary meaning"

      1. You're just speaking out of your bias. It's not necessarily a "secondary meaning". It could be a primary meaning. For example, the English word "elevate" means to physically raise or lift up an object. But it also can mean to physically raise or lift up a person which is closer to advance or progress a person's status or career or the like. Or it could even mean to raise or lift up one's heart rate or blood pressure as in to "increase". So which one would be primary, which one secondary, which one tertiary? Why does it matter?

      2. In any case, it depends on context too. And the immediate context is the book of Acts.

      "In Book 2 ch. 1.14 of Eusebius' Church History he understood it to come from heaven"

      1. Nice, you're using a 4th century work to justify your intrepretation of a 1st century work.

      2. It'd be far better to exegete Acts 1:1-11 on its own terms and in its own context first. That's what's immediate.

      "my whole point is that the "appearance" to Paul WAS NOT A PHYSICAL ENCOUNTER WITH A REVIVED CORPSE like the later gospels describe the disciples experiencing."

      1. No, the Gospels describe a resurrection, not a "revived corpse". And Paul saw the risen Jesus, which is quite possible for Paul to know even if Jesus didn't appear to Paul in the flesh.

      2. But Steve, Jason, and others have gone over this countless times with you.

      "If anybody could just claim "hey Jesus appeared to me in a vision from heaven" then obviously we should be skeptical of the nature of the "appearances" mentioned in 1 Cor 15."

      If someone claims he saw Jesus appear to him in a vision, then at the very least I'd want to know more. If I receive more information, and I track down this information, and it proves to be accurate, credible, reasonable, and so on, then I might be persuaded.

      "Lastly, I believe ancients thought heaven was located right past the sky - see Luke's Ascension. But since the advent of modern science we know that to be false. Hence, the Ascension story is necessarily bogus since it relies on an outdated and misconceived cosmology."

      1. This is about as dumb as saying the ancients believed the Earth was flat. Some did, some did not. That's because the "ancients" were a diverse group. Some ancients, like some moderns, believed stupid things. Other ancients, like other moderns, did not.

      2. In any case, what the "ancients" believed isn't the primary issue. The primary issue is what Acts is saying about "heaven".

      Delete
    3. "Sorry but Jesus was not in the sky. He was in heaven and that is what the text says."

      1. The Koine Greek word for "heaven" (οὐρανὸν) is translated as "sky" in some English translations. For example, take the New American Standard Bible (NASB) which is considered a more "literal" translation. Acts 1:10-11 in the NASB reads: "And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. They also said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.'"

      Given some English translations translate the word as "sky", this implies "sky" is an acceptable English translation. Or at least that "sky" is not an unacceptable English translation.

      2. Again, you have to exegete the relevant verses in context. In Acts 1:1-11, the word "heaven" (οὐρανὸν) is only used in verses 10-11. The same word "heaven" (οὐρανὸν) is used in other parts of Acts as well as other parts of the NT. Look them up. And read the context of each one.

      "Prove that Paul thought the Resurrected Jesus was raised to the earth first and, only later, flew to heaven."

      There are too many to cite. Take Doug Moo's comments on Rom 1:4 for starters:

      The contrast of "flesh" and "Spirit" is part of Paul's larger salvation-historical framework, in which two "aeons" or eras are set over against one another: the old era, dominated by sin, death, and the flesh, and the new era, characterized by righteousness, life, and the eschatological gift of the Holy Spirit. The third interpretation of the contrast takes its starting point from this framework and is thereby to be preferred. In Jesus' earthly life (his life in "the realm of the flesh"), he was the Davidic seed, the Messiah. But while true and valuable, this does not tell the whole story. For Christians, Jesus is also, in "the realm of the Spirit," the powerful, life-giving Son of God. In Christ the "new era" of redemptive history has begun, and in this new stage of God's plan Jesus reigns as Son of God, powerfully active to bring salvation to all who believe (cf. 1:16). The major objection to this interpretation is that "spirit of holiness" is never used of the Holy Spirit in the NT; indeed, the phrase is found only here in biblical Greek. However, the Semitic-flavored expression may reflect traditional language. As is usual in Paul, the inauguration of this new age is attributed to Christ's resurrection.56

      56 ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, lit. "out of resurrection of dead persons." While the plural νεκρῶν has been taken to indicate the eschatological idea of the general resurrection that Jesus' resurrection initiates (e.g., S.H. Hooke, "The Translation of Romans 1.4," NTS 9 [1962-63], 370-71; Nygren), the plural form is, in fact, usual when describing Jesus' resurrection (cf., e.g., Rom. 4:24). The genitive is partitive: "resurrection from among dead persons."

      ""Since the codex seems to be based on a text that is earlier than Cyprian, the tradition appears to go back to at least the first half of the third century and possibly even the late second century." - John Granger Cook."

      This quotation doesn't help your case.

      Delete
    4. Tyler, let's lay down some ground rules. You've demonstrated ad nauseum that you're unable or unwilling to argue in good faith. You constantly recycle refuted objections. So you won't be allowed to commandeer this blog and use it as your soapbox. I'll respond to your non-repetitive comments, then that's it. Further comment to me from you will be deleted. Go find a new playmate.

      "Second Isaiah ch. 40-55 were written by someone else…"

      I'm not chasing down every new rabbit trail. There are plenty of resources defending the unity of Isaiah.

      "and the original context of 26:19 may actually be referring to the metaphorical restoration of Israel."

      That's debunked by commentators like Oswalt (1:485-88), Motyer (219-20), and Gary Smith (1:451-54).

      "That's a mainstream scholarly view anyway."

      Invalid argument from authority

      "Only later, after Christian interpreters came along did they start claiming it was talking about physical resurrection there."

      Rabbis reinterpreted many texts in opposition to Christianity.

      "No, זֶרַע zera means "literal offspring" but even if it were metaphorical you would have to 1. Show instances of that in the Hebrew Bible."

      The salient issue isn't the meaning of a particular word but existence of the concept. As one commentator notes: "God refers to the Israelites as his spiritual children who are sinful (1:4), for from the beginning Israel was considered a firstborn son of God (Exod 4:21-22)," Gary Smith (2:459n411).

      "2. Show instances of Second Isaiah doing that."

      I don't grant your assumption of multiple authorship. And even if I did, the notion of Israel as Yahweh's metaphorical son was stock OT theology.

      "3. Make a plausible case that the author was actually using metaphorical 'children of Jesus' rather than just the literal offspring of Israel per the actual context."

      No, I only have to show that it's consistent with OT usage and the context of Isaiah.

      "Citation needed. While you're at it, let's see references where the Messiah or a human being was thought to be God from any Jewish source."

      I've gone over that ground with unitarians like Dale Tuggy.

      Delete
    5. "In Acts 19 Paul is said to have met some of John's disciples so his ministry didn't die with him."

      You're equivocating. Naturally his disciples remembered his teaching, but he didn't establish a sect. There was no enduring school of John the Baptist.

      "In John 1:20 and 3:28 the author goes out of his way to have John the Baptist deny he was the Messiah which doesn't make sense unless people thought he was."

      Unresponsive to what I wrote. I said he didn't meet the criteria for the messiah.

      "Since John was most likely writing after 90 this means that the claim of John's Messiahship was a current hot topic."

      Non-sequitur. John's Gospel reviews the public ministry of Christ.

      "The Mandaeans trace their origin to John so there is ample evidence against your claim that his ministry died with him."

      Now you're really getting off into left field.

      "Mark was writing for gentiles too."

      Mark quotes what he knows from the Olivet Discourse. Luke, with his wide variety of informants, has additional sources.

      "So was Irenaeus wrong about Mark composing after the deaths of Peter and Paul?"

      Jason Engwer has already taken issue with your appeal.

      "Because if he wasn't then that sinks your case for dating the gospels early."

      My case never hinged on Irenaeus. You were the one who brought that up, not me.

      "Taking into account what Irenaeus says about Mark's dating does not commit me to anymore of his claims nor to any of the other church father claims. Each one has to be assessed on it's own merits and weighed against other evidence."

      And I can do the same thing.

      "There's a difference between valid and invalid arguments from silence."

      A belated qualification on your part. You then revert to tape recorder mode.

      Delete
    6. "That's what the author of Acts says, not Paul."

      Another rabbit trail. I'm not going to debate the historical accuracy with you. Plenty of resources on that.

      "The author was modeling this after other visions from the OT - Ezekiel 1 for instance. Ophthe does have the meaning of 'feeling the presence" of God/Jesus…'

      That's not the definition of the word. And Ezekiel didn't "feel the presence of God". Rather, he was an eyewitness to a spectacular theophany.

      "because it's used in the Septuagint when God or the 'glory of' God appeared to people. They 'felt His presence' in other words."

      No, the Shekinah/Angel of the Lord was a visible phenomena–that spoke with an audible voice on occasion. You're equivocating and doing a bait-n-switch.

      "Everyday waking reality was totally different for these people who claimed to have visions of God and angels all the time."

      A person can have visions when fully awake. And they didn't claim to see angels "all the time". That's massively hyperbolic.

      "So more "Christian" visions then, huh? None outside of Christianity are true then. Well, that was kinda my point."

      So now you're shifting the goa post. Textbook example of your refusal to argue in good faith. Your original challenge was "What other 'visions' from history outside of the Jewish/Christian tradition do you accept as actually having anything to do with reality?"

      Visions to Muslims fall outside Jewish/Christian tradition. They were Muslims at the time they received these visions, which were instrumental in their subsequent conversion to Christianity.

      "Again, John had no need for it. Jesus is God's chosen subordinate in all of the synoptics btw."

      I'm not going to debate NT Christology with you. I've been over that ground scads of times with unitarians like Dale Tuggy.

      "If the word can mean either heaven OR sky"

      As if that's in doubt.

      "then the burden of proof is on you to show that he meant sky. Just because the word has a secondary meaning, it doesn't follow that the secondary meaning is implied."

      One meaning isn't primary and the other meaning secondary. Words often have more than one sense.

      "You have to give actual arguments for that."

      That's what lexicons are for.

      "In Book 2 ch. 1.14 of Eusebius' Church History…"

      Now you substitute a decoy.

      "Moreover, I'm not even sure it matters…"

      So having lost the original argument, your original argument suddenly doesn't matter.

      You then revert to tape-recorder mode.

      "Lastly, I believe ancients thought heaven was located right past the sky - see Luke's Ascension. But since the advent of modern science we know that to be false. Hence, the Ascension story is necessarily bogus since it relies on an outdated and misconceived cosmology."

      I've addressed that objection on multiple occasions. Try coming up with something new I haven't dealt with before.

      "The LSJ and Middle Liddell have "A. [select] heavenly, dwelling in heaven, generally, in or of heaven," Sorry but Jesus was not in the sky. He was in heaven and that is what the text says."

      That's you trading on connotations of the English word "heaven" from quaint lexicons. But in historic English usage, "heaven" is frequently a synonym for "sky".

      Delete
  14. Tyler uses the expression “by definition” a lot, as if magically making his argument bulletproof

    ReplyDelete
  15. MY SUMMARY POST FOR TYLER WORKMAN

    1. Suppose (arguendo) it's true Paul had a "subjective" experience of the risen Jesus.

    a. Just because Paul's experience of the risen Jesus is "subjective" doesn't imply it's not veridical.

    b. Just because Paul had a subjective experience of the risen Jesus doesn't imply others didn't have an objective experience of the risen Jesus. You're committing a hasty generalization by attempting to generalize from what Paul experienced to what others experienced.

    c. Suppose Paul's "vision" of the risen Jesus counts as a "resurrection appearance". It doesn't follow that other "resurrection appearances" are "visions". You have your wires crossed.

    d. As I keep saying, you conveniently ignore what the rest of the NT says about Jesus' resurrection.

    2. Paul preached the same gospel that the other early disciples preached.

    a. That's evident if you read Paul's letters (e.g. Romans).

    b. Throughout the NT, we see Paul arguing from the OT that Jesus is the Messiah. For example, see As It Is Written: Studying Paul's Use of Scripture (Stanley Porter & Christopher Stanley, eds.).

    c. Likewise Paul knows the other disciples and has met many of them in person (e.g. Mark, Luke, Peter, James). In fact, the disciples (including James who was a leader in Jerusalem) praised God for Paul's missionary work in furthering the gospel (e.g. Acts 21, Gal 1:23-24). This clearly implies the disciples agreed with what Paul was teaching.

    d. Indeed, Paul even had to correct Peter about what the gospel involved (Galatians). Peter eventually agreed with Paul. This likewise implies Paul knew what the gospel was better than even an apostle like Peter at one point.

    e. Moreoever, the apostle Peter - who knew Jesus before and after Jesus' resurrection, including at Jesus' transfiguration (2 Pet 1:16-18) - implicitly calls Paul's letters "Scripture" (2 Pet 3:15-16).

    f. I could easily cite many more examples.

    g. But my main point is that the other disciples - who believed Jesus is God in the flesh, who believed Jesus is the Messiah, who believed Jesus died and rose again - certainly agreed with what Paul was teaching about Jesus. And Paul agreed with what the other disciples taught about the content of the gospel. Hence Paul likewise believed in Jesus' physical death and resurrection.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I better organized all my replies to Tyler into a single post here.

      Delete
    2. Am I allowed to post and respond?

      If Paul, the earliest and only firsthand source by someone who claims to have “seen” Jesus, is consistent in how he says the Risen Christ was experienced (only in visions/revelations) then his testimony automatically takes precedent over the later disputed third person claims. That’s how any historical investigation works. Your only way out of the argument is to appeal to the gospel claims when those sources are disputed! Paul’s the only UNDISPUTED firsthand source.

      I’d like to address some of your counterpoints but I will not waste my time if you’re going to dishonestly censor them like what happened on Triablogue. I set out at least two logical arguments which were not quoted and have since been deleted which is quite frustrating.

      Let’s start with this:

      “If all x are y, it doesn’t necessarily follow that all y are x.”

      I never gave a deductive argument saying they were all “necessarily” the same. All I did was increase the prior probability by establishing that visions counted as “resurrection appearances” (since Paul used his vision as one.) The overall argument is inductive or probabilistic (like all history is) based on what Paul tells us.

      For the relevant purposes here 1 Cor 15:5-8 can be interpreted two different ways:

      A. The appearances were understood to be the same or similar in nature i.e. visions from heaven like Paul had.

      or

      B. The appearances were different as in the earlier disciples physically saw and touched Jesus’ body on earth before his Ascension then Paul only had a vision after the Ascension.

      Now, it is YOUR JOB to show interpretation B more probable than A given ONLY WHAT PAUL SAYS in his firsthand material. Appealing to the later gospels is fallacious because it does not necessarily follow that Paul believed what they would say, – a gospel saying “x” does not necessarily mean Paul believed “x.” (you made this point yourself, I’m just borrowing it). You can’t read Paul through the lens of later authors, whose data and historicity is disputed. You have to let Paul speak for himself then go in order comparing the later data with how it coheres with the earliest firsthand source we have. You then must ask yourself “is this what we’d expect to see from actual history or is this what we’d expect from a legend developing over time?” What hypothesis best explains the data?

      So before all that. Please show interpretation B more probable than A given the data that Paul’s firsthand material presents.

      Delete
  16. Am I allowed to post here or are you just going to continue to censor everything and only respond to selective quotes of me?

    If Paul, the earliest and only firsthand source by someone who claims to have “seen” Jesus, is consistent in how he says the Risen Christ was experienced (visions/revelations) then his testimony automatically takes precedent over the later disputed third person claims. That’s how any historical investigation works. Your only way out of the argument is to appeal to the gospel claims when those sources are disputed! Paul’s the only UNDISPUTED firsthand source.

    I’d like to address some of your counterpoints but I will not waste my time if you’re going to dishonestly censor them. I set out at least two logical arguments which were not quoted and have since been deleted which is quite frustrating.

    Let’s start with this:

    “If all x are y, it doesn’t necessarily follow that all y are x.”

    I never gave a deductive argument saying they were all “necessarily” the same. All I need was increase the prior probability by establishing that visions counted as “resurrection appearances” (since Paul uses his vision as one.) The overall argument is inductive or probabilistic (like all history is) based on what Paul tells us.

    For our relevant purposes here 1 Cor 15:5-8 can be interpreted two different ways:

    A. The appearances were understood to be the same or similar in nature i.e. visions from heaven like Paul had.

    or

    B. The appearances were different as in the earlier disciples physically saw and touched Jesus’ body before his Ascension then Paul only had a vision after the Ascension.

    Now, it is YOUR JOB to show interpretation B more probable than A given ONLY WHAT PAUL SAYS in his firsthand material. Appealing to the later gospels is fallacious because it does not necessarily follow that Paul believed what they would say, – a gospel saying “x” does not necessarily mean Paul believed “x.” (you made this point yourself, I’m just borrowing it). You can’t read Paul through the lens of later authors, whose data and historicity are disputed. You have to let Paul speak for himself then go in order comparing the later data with how it coheres with the earliest firsthand source we have. You then must ask yourself “is this what we’d expect to see from actual history or is this what we’d expect from a legend developing over time?” What hypothesis best explains the data?

    So before all that. Please show interpretation B more probable than A given the data that Paul’s firsthand material presents.

    ReplyDelete