"The first thing that I thought when I read this blog post was that a minimal facts approach to establishing the historicity of the Resurrection doesn’t need to have the empty tomb as one of the facts. Dr. Michael Licona’s excellent book on the historicity of the Resurrection has made that clear to me. So, even if Dr. Ehrman’s objections are compelling reasons to doubt the historicity of the women’s discovery of an empty tomb, it does nothing to substantially damage the case for the Resurrection itself."
He is literally saying that reasons to doubt the historicity of the women's discovery of the empty tomb do *nothing substantial to damage the case for the resurrection"???
I mean...wow. If the various stories of the women's discovery of the empty tomb are ahistorically made up and inserted into the Gospels, the Gospels are *significantly* unreliable. Those are pretty important stories. And there are different ones in John and the Synoptics. If they are literally made up and inserted in there, these whole incidents, that casts *enormous* doubt on the Gospels.
This is an example of just how extreme minimal facts enthusiasts get in their desire to strip things down. They literally believe that "the" case for the resurrection is *so* detached from the historical reliability of the Gospels that they literally raise quite casually the idea that entire Gospel narratives connected *directly* with the resurrection are *completely invented* and then say that it doesn't matter and would do nothing to damage substantially the case for the resurrection.
"The first thing that I thought when I read this blog post was that a minimal facts approach to establishing the historicity of the Resurrection doesn’t need to have the empty tomb as one of the facts. Dr. Michael Licona’s excellent book on the historicity of the Resurrection has made that clear to me. So, even if Dr. Ehrman’s objections are compelling reasons to doubt the historicity of the women’s discovery of an empty tomb, it does nothing to substantially damage the case for the Resurrection itself."
ReplyDeleteHe is literally saying that reasons to doubt the historicity of the women's discovery of the empty tomb do *nothing substantial to damage the case for the resurrection"???
I mean...wow. If the various stories of the women's discovery of the empty tomb are ahistorically made up and inserted into the Gospels, the Gospels are *significantly* unreliable. Those are pretty important stories. And there are different ones in John and the Synoptics. If they are literally made up and inserted in there, these whole incidents, that casts *enormous* doubt on the Gospels.
This is an example of just how extreme minimal facts enthusiasts get in their desire to strip things down. They literally believe that "the" case for the resurrection is *so* detached from the historical reliability of the Gospels that they literally raise quite casually the idea that entire Gospel narratives connected *directly* with the resurrection are *completely invented* and then say that it doesn't matter and would do nothing to damage substantially the case for the resurrection.