Zone1 Common Figure of Speech/Colloquial Language?

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Right, because it was and is the Jewish belief that God communicates to people through dreams and visions so the disciples 'seeing' Jesus in a dream after the crucifixion convinced them that Jesus survived a horrible death and was alive and well, unaffected by death, and living in the eternal realm of God, the reward of the righteous.

That's why they lost their fear of death.

Which is why it was a really big deal when Jesus performed all of those miracles.

 

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The doctrine of the resurrection is central to Christianit

I am not saying there is no resurrection I am saying there are two resurrections from two deaths. The first is from the tomb of false religion or the grave of worldly pursuits. The second resurrection is from the death of the body.

Those who take part in the first resurrection cannot be harmed by the 2nd death, the death of the physical body.

That's the good news of the Gospels.

the resurrection was never about the resumption of a former existence. It is about the entry into a new existence.

Hence, "Behold a new creature."

 

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I am not saying there is no resurrection I am saying there are two resurrections from two deaths. The first is from the tomb of false religion or the grave of worldly pursuits. The second resurrection is from the death of the body.

Those who take part in the first resurrection cannot be harmed by the 2nd death, the death of the physical body.

The risen Christ appeared to a variety of individuals and groups, with accounts in the Bible describing appearances to at least eight different groups of people over a 40-day period. While the Bible details specific instances, it does not explicitly state that these were the only appearances.

Here's a breakdown of some of the groups Jesus appeared to:

• Mary Magdalene: She was the first person to see the resurrected Jesus.
  
  
• Other women at the tomb: Other women who had come to the tomb also witnessed the risen Christ.
  
  
• Two disciples on the road to Emmaus: Jesus walked and talked with them, revealing himself later.
  
  
• The eleven apostles: They saw Jesus in the upper room and later on a mountain in Galilee.
  
  
• More than 500 brethren: One scripture passage mentions Jesus appearing to over 500 people at once.
  
  
• James, the brother of Jesus: This was a special appearance to his half-brother, who was initially a skeptic.
  
  
• Seven disciples on the Sea of Galilee: Jesus appeared to them while they were fishing.
  
  
• Apostle Paul: Paul himself claims to have seen the risen Christ.

 

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Here's a breakdown of some of the groups Jesus appeared to:

IN DREAMS. He still is "appearing" to many people in this way.

Maybe not you (I'm sure that Jesus has his reasons) but thems the breaks!

 

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IN DREAMS. He still is "appearing" to many people in this way.

Maybe not you (I'm sure that Jesus has his reasons) but thems the breaks!

In all Jesus appeared a dozen different times over forty days to more than 515 individuals. He appeared to women and to men, He appeared to individuals and to groups, He appeared indoors and outdoors, He appeared to people who were skeptics and people who were believers, He appeared to people who were hardhearted and people who were tenderhearted. And He talked with people, He ate with people, He even invited Thomas - the skeptic, the doubter - to put his finger in the nail holes in His hands, put his hand in the spear wound in His side - to see and touch the evidence himself. Then what was Thomas's reaction? To say, "My Lord and my God!" He became convinced by the evidence that Jesus had returned from the dead. And what does history tell us about Thomas? He spent the rest of his life declaring Jesus did return from the dead, He is the Son of God, even to the point of being put to death for his faith in southern India.

 

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In all Jesus appeared a dozen different times over forty days to more than 515 individuals. He appeared to women and to men, He appeared to individuals and to groups, He appeared indoors and outdoors, He appeared to people who were skeptics and people who were believers, He appeared to people who were hardhearted and people who were tenderhearted. And He talked with people, He ate with people, He even invited Thomas - the skeptic, the doubter - to put his finger in the nail holes in His hands, put his hand in the spear wound in His side - to see and touch the evidence himself. Then what was Thomas's reaction? To say, "My Lord and my God!" He became convinced by the evidence that Jesus had returned from the dead. And what does history tell us about Thomas? He spent the rest of his life declaring Jesus did return from the dead, He is the Son of God, even to the point of being put to death for his faith in southern India.

Great tale!

I can't wait to you get to the part where with a loud trumpet blast and Jesus returns from behind a cloud in the sky and like a thief in the night gets away clean with all of Satans human possessions before the devil wakes up.

 

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Great tale!

I can't wait to you get to the part where with a loud trumpet blast Jesus returns from behind a cloud in the sky like a thief in the night gets away clean with all of Satans human possessions before anyone wakes up.

The most famous kerygma (very early proclamation about Jesus by the apostolic church) concerned with the resurrection is found in 1Corinthians 15: 3-8.

That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. He appeared also to me.
(1Cor. 15:3-8)

 

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That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures

Jesus died to do away with sins by teaching the only right way to understand and comply with the Divine commands that fulfills the promise of abundant blessings and eternal life in the sanctuary of God on earth which lifted the burden of the Law, which is "the curse" for noncompliance, effectively ending "death" for all who ate his flesh, (the body of his teaching), and drank his blood, accepted that teaching and acted on it. 1 John 3:4-10

"No one who does not do what is right is righteous." "The sinner has not seen and does not know him."

Life is in the blood, in the doing.

Sinner.

He appeared also to me

Fascinating! Please tell me if Jesus appeared to you in a dream or were you on drugs hallucinating? What did he do and tell you? Did you eat fish with him? Did he pop into and out of a locked room? Did you poke his wounds?

 

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Jesus died to do away with sins by teaching the only right way to understand and comply with the Divine commands that fulfills the promise of abundant blessings and eternal life in the sanctuary of God on earth which lifted the burden of the Law, which is the death for noncompliance, effectively ending death for all who ate his flesh, the body of his teaching, and drank his blood, accepted that teaching and acted on it. 1 John 3:4-10

"No one who does not do what is right is righteous."

Life is in the blood, in the doing.



Fascinating! Please tell me if Jesus appeared to you in a dream or were you on drugs hallucinating? What did he do and tell you? Did you eat fish with him? Did he pop into and out of a locked room? Did you poke his wounds?

Immediately after the 1Corinthians 15 kerygma (with its list of witnesses), Paul presents an interesting dilemma which could apply to all the witnesses in that list:

First side of the dilemma: …if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are also found to be false witnesses of God because we witnessed before God that He raised Christ…

The other side of the dilemma: If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied. …Why am I in peril every hour? …I die every day! What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die” (1Cor 15:14-32).

If we look at this passage carefully, we can see the makings of a classical dilemma which has the objective of verifying the witness value not only of Paul, but also of the Twelve, the 500, James, and the “other apostles.” From a legal perspective, the most objective way of validating a witness’ testimony is to show that that witness has “everything to lose, and nothing to gain.” From the opposite perspective, a witness who has everything to gain and nothing to lose may be telling the truth, but there is no extrinsic way of validating this. Indeed, there is a haunting suspicion that the witness may be acting in his own self-interest. A better witness would be one who had nothing to gain or lose, for at least he would not be acting in his own self-interest. But the best witness would be one who had everything to lose (and nothing to gain) because this witness would be acting against his own self-interest, which is a disposition which most of us want desperately to avoid. I believe that Paul is trying to show that not only he, but also the others in the list of witnesses, are in this category, and therefore deserve to be ranked among the best possible witnesses.

 

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Yawn. I gave you a chance to testify about your experience of Jesus appearing to you, yet you chose to copy and paste. Fascinating! Where is your faith?

1) [If, on the one hand, we believe in God, and] if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are also found to be false witnesses of God because we witnessed of God that He raised Christ….

2) [If on the other hand, we do not believe in God, and] if for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are, of all men, most to be pitied. …If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

The first part of the dilemma assumes that Paul (and the other witnesses) believes in God. If Paul truly believes in God, He does not want to bear false witness before God, because this would not only disappoint the Lord whom He adores, but also might, in fact, jeopardize his salvation. This problem is compounded by the fact that his false testimony would be leading hundreds, if not thousands of people astray, which would not only be a colossal waste of his ministry and time (“our preaching is in vain”), but also a colossal waste of the time and lives of the people he is affecting by his false testimony (“your faith is in vain”). If Paul really does believe in God, why would he waste his life, waste the faith of believers, lead them to apostasy, bear false witness, and risk his salvation? This does not seem to be commensurate with someone of genuine faith (or common sense).

The second part of the dilemma looks at the consequences of Paul and the other witnesses being unbelievers. Paul is saying that the cost of preaching a false resurrection (without any belief in a God who saves) is simply too high. He and the other witnesses are not only being challenged by Jewish and Roman authorities, they are being actively persecuted. As he puts it, he is dying every day and is being subject to trials with substantial risk of martyrdom.

Why suffer persecution for preaching the resurrection of Jesus if that preaching is false and he does not believe in God, for there would be no hope of a resurrection or being saved by God. He would be suffering persecution for nothing. As he puts it, he may as well, “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow, he will die.”

 

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1) [If,

Okey dokey.

You are full of shit.

Who knew?

 

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Okey dokey. You are full of shit. Who knew?

Paul uses this dilemma to show (in a legal fashion) that he and the other witnesses have everything to lose and nothing to gain by bearing false witness to the resurrection of Christ. Could all of the witnesses within living memory of Christ’s resurrection have been so naïve? If the witnesses lacked authentic motives for preaching the resurrection, they would have had self-interested ones. However, as Paul shows, they could not have had self interested motives, because false preaching of the resurrection would have led either to risking their salvation for undermining God’s will (if they believed in God), or to persecution for nothing (if they did not believe in God and a resurrection). This dilemma supports the likelihood of the witness’ testimony that they had seen the risen Jesus. In view of this we should give Paul the benefit of the doubt – that he was speaking truthfully and with authentic motivations.

 

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Could all of the witnesses within living memory of Christ’s resurrection have been so naïve?

No. They faithfully reported what they saw and heard in dreams. The only naive ones who are the losers who thought that Jesus appeared when they were awake and literally materialized and vanished into thin air.

Some people!

And you religiously addled numbskulls want to rule the world (for Jesus of course)? Over my dead body.

lol

 

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No. They faithfully reported what they saw and heard in dreams. The only naive ones who are the losers who thought that Jesus appeared when they were awake and literally materialized and vanished into thin air.

Some people......

Paul not only believes that he is speaking the truth, but that he is speaking the truth about the Lord he loves (that is, the Lord who has loved him first). He endures persecution not simply because he believes he has a duty to bear witness to the truth about the resurrection, but also because he loves the One about whom he bears witness. If Paul’s love is true, then it can hardly be thought that he is preaching a falsity about his Beloved. As one probes the depths of Paul’s authenticity, integrity, and love, it is very hard to believe that he (and others like him) could deliberately falsify their claim about the resurrection.

 

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Paul not only believes that he is speaking the truth, but that he is speaking the truth about the Lord he loves (that is, the Lord who has loved him first). He endures persecution not simply because he believes he has a duty to bear witness to the truth about the resurrection, but also because he loves the One about whom he bears witness. If Paul’s love is true, then it can hardly be thought that he is preaching a falsity about his Beloved. As one probes the depths of Paul’s authenticity, integrity, and love, it is very hard to believe that he (and others like him) could deliberately falsify their claim about the resurrection.

My dearest little poppet,

It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out.


Affectionately yours,

Uncle Screwtape

 

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My dearest little poppet, It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. Affectionately yours, Uncle Screwtape

N.T. Wright’s Two Arguments for the Historicity of Jesus’ Resurrection

1. The growth of the Christian messianic movement after the public persecution of its messiah (in his volume, Jesus and the Victory of God), and

2. The Christian mutations of Second Temple Judaism’s view of the resurrection (in The Resurrection of the Son of God).

 

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N.T. Wright’s Two Arguments for the Historicity of Jesus’ Resurrection

1. The growth of the Christian messianic movement after the public persecution of its messiah (in his volume, Jesus and the Victory of God), and

2. The Christian mutations of Second Temple Judaism’s view of the resurrection (in The Resurrection of the Son of God).

 

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The Remarkable Rise of Christian Messianism

E. P. Sanders presents the key insight of the messianic argument as follows: What is unique [about Jesus’ claim to bring the kingdom of God] is the result. But, again, we cannot know that the result springs from the uniqueness of the historical Jesus. Without the resurrection, would his disciples have endured longer than did John the Baptist’s?

Wright expands this insight by noting that it applies not only to the disciples of John the Baptist, but also to the followers of: Judas the Galilean, Simon, Athronges, Eleazar ben Deinaus and Alexander, Menahem, Simon bar Giora, and bar-Kochba himself. Faced with the defeat of their leader, followers of such figures would either be rounded up as well or melt away into the undergrowth.

This did not happen in the early Church. After the public humiliation, persecution, and execution of their messiah, the disciples maintained their identity and did not replace Jesus as the true leader of their community. Instead, the early Church acknowledged that Jesus was raised from the dead, continued to be its leader, and was the fulfillment of the prophecies of Israel. Wright points out that no other messianic movement displayed this behavior:…In not one case do we hear of any group, after the death of its leader, claiming that he was in any sense alive again, and that therefore Israel’s expectation had in some strange way actually come true.

This early community is even stranger still. It actually begins to worship Jesus as Lord, associate Him with divine status, and attribute to Him co-eternity with the Father. This is not only historically unique, but also apologetically unappealing – so much so that the early Church had to pay the ultimate price for it (including separation from the synagogue and even persecution). Additionally, the early Church organized itself into a missionary community that not only went beyond the boundaries of Israel but also to the very frontiers of the Roman Empire, making it one of the most pluralistic religious organizations in the history of religions. With a crucified Messiah as its head, the early Church formed one of the most dynamically expansive communities in history.

 

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The Remarkable Rise of Christian Messianism

Why not talk about something much more important. Like how many days is three days and three nights?

Or what color was George Washingtons white horse?

 

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Why not talk about something more important. Like how many days is three?

Why didn’t the Church follow the patterns of other groups whose leaders had been persecuted? Why did it (uniquely) consider Jesus as its continued leader? Why did it consider Jesus (after the crucifixion) to be the fulfillment of Israel’s destiny? Why did it organize itself so uniquely? Why did it worship Jesus as the Lord and endure persecution for that worship? How did it become one of the most inspired and dynamically expansive missionary organizations in the history of religions with a publicly humiliated and executed “Messiah” as its sole leader?

The answers to these questions requires a cause capable of explaining why Christianity does not follow the pattern of other religions or messianic movements. Why does Christianity pick up momentum from a crucified leader when other messianic movements at the time quickly faded away? Why didn’t Christianity pick out another leader in the face of its leader’s crucifixion, like other messianic movements whose leaders were executed? Above all, why did it become such a powerful Messianic movement capable of threatening the Roman Empire within a few generations after that same empire executed its Messiah?

What kind of cause could explain so many unique phenomena? A powerful one – one capable of overcoming the crucifixion of the movement’s leader, capable of communicating both imminent and transcendent hope (amidst the death of its presumed messiah); one capable of revealing that God’s kingdom had arrived in the world, and capable of providing sufficient momentum to turn a little Jewish sub-cult into an empire-wide – indeed, worldwide religion within a few generations. This powerful cause would seem to be the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in combination with Jesus’ gift of the Holy Spirit which enabled the apostles’ (along with other missionaries) to perform miracles in the name of Jesus. John P. Meier summarizes this unique historical phenomenon as follows:

…[T]here was a notable difference between the long-term impact of the Baptist and that of Jesus. After the Baptist’s death, his followers did not continue to grow into a religious movement that in due time swept the Greco-Roman world. Followers remained, revering the Baptist’s memory and practices. But by the early 2nd century A.D. any cohesive group that could have claimed an organic connection with the historical Baptist seems to have passed from the scene. In contrast, the movement that had begun to sprout up around the historical Jesus continued to grow – amid many sea changes – throughout the 1st century and beyond. Not entirely by coincidence, the post-Easter “Jesus movement” claimed the same sort of ability to work miracles that Jesus had claimed for himself during his lifetime. This continued claim to work miracles may help to explain the continued growth, instead of a tapering off, of the group that emerged from Jesus’ ministry.

If the resurrection appearances and the apostles’ ability to work miracles are not the cause of this uniquely powerful messianic movement (after the humiliation, persecution, and execution of its Messiah), then what other cause would have the same explanatory power? History has left us with a void of realistic alternatives, suggesting that the Christian claim to have seen the risen Jesus is true, and that the early community’s power to perform miracles in Jesus’ name was derived from the risen Jesus Himself.