Zone1 Scientist Explains Why He Believes in the Resurrection of Christ

[ding]

That's rubbish. Those writings were "recorded" many decades later by those who weren't eyewitnesses. Not even Paul was an eyewitness if you want to try to fall back on that fake apostle.

How do you explain the existence of the 24,000 written manuscripts? How do you explain the non-Christian historians recording the first Christians worshipped Jesus as God? What's your explanation?

 

[Paradoxical#1]

How do you explain the existence of the 24,000 written manuscripts? How do you explain the non-Christian historians recording the first Christians worshipped Jesus as God? What's your explanation?

Who in the world ever asserted that the Heaven's Gate people didn't worship Jesus on a spaceship orbiting the Halle Bopp comet?

 

[ding]

Who in the world ever asserted that the Heaven's Gate people didn't worship Jesus on a spaceship orbiting the Halle Bopp comet?

How do you explain the existence of the 24,000 written manuscripts? How do you explain the non-Christian historians recording the first Christians worshipped Jesus as God? What's your explanation?

 

[Meriweather]

Did you know that the Jewish perception of resurrection was altered by the first Christians based upon what they witnessed from their encounters with the risen Christ?

The Christian Mutation of Second Temple Judaism

Wright’s second and more extensive argument for the historicity of the resurrection appearances stems from several Christian mutations of the Jewish doctrine of resurrection prevalent at the time of Jesus (Second-Temple Judaism). He shows through a study of the New Testament (particularly the Letters of Paul and the Gospel narratives of the resurrection appearances) that Christianity changed the dominant Jewish view of “resurrection” in five major ways:

1. The Jewish picture of resurrection was a return to the same kind of bodily life as the one experienced before death (except in a new world with the righteous). Christian views always entailed transformation into a very different kind of life – incorruptible, glorious, and spiritual while still maintaining embodiment.35 The Christian view is so different from the Jewish one that Paul has to develop a new term to speak about it – “body spiritual” (soma pneumatikon). In 1 Corinthians 15:44-46 he makes every effort to distinguish the Christian doctrine from the Jewish one: “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body,and there is a spiritual body…..However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual.”

2. In Second Temple Judaism, no one was expected to rise from the dead before the initiation of the final age by Yahweh, however Christians claimed that this occurred with Jesus.36

3. No one connected the Messiah to the resurrection or the Jewish doctrine of resurrection to the Messiah prior to Christianity: “There are no traditions about a Messiah being raised to life: most Jews of this period hoped for resurrection, many Jews of this period hoped for a Messiah, but nobody put those two hopes together until the early Christians did so.”37

4. For the Jewish people, the eschatological age was in the future; for Christians the eschatological age had already arrived (and would be completed in the future).38

5. The doctrine of resurrection is central to the earliest writings of Christianity (e.g., all 9 of the early kerygmas), central to the writings of Paul39 and all the Gospel writers,40 and is the interconnecting theme among early Christian doctrines. The doctrine of the resurrection grounds Christology, particularly the doctrine of Christ’s glorification and, in part, the doctrine of Christ’s divinity; it grounds the Christian doctrine of soteriology – “for if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised” (1Cor 15:16); it shows God’s vindication of Jesus’ teaching; it grounds Christian eschatology; and is, in every respect, central to all other doctrines.

Second Temple Judaism does not place the resurrection in any such central role, and does not use it as an interconnecting theme for its doctrines. It is almost secondary in importance to other doctrines concerned with the law and prayer.

So what could explain this radical change? The preaching of Jesus? This is not tenable because Jesus does not put the resurrection at the center of His doctrine, but rather the arrival of the kingdom. Furthermore, He does not connect the resurrection to His Messiahship, and He certainly does not talk about the resurrection being transformed embodiment (or spiritual embodiment, or glorified embodiment), which is evident in the early Christian doctrine. The obvious explanation would be that the many witnesses (e.g., Peter, the Twelve, the 500 disciples, James, the early missionaries to the Gentile Church, and Paul himself) saw the risen Jesus in a transformed embodied state (manifesting at once a spiritual transformation which had the appearance of divine glory and power, and some form of embodiment which was continuous with Jesus’ embodiment in His ministry). This would easily explain all five of the above-mentioned mutations.

While bits and pieces of this has been taught to me over the years, but never so concise and well put together as Wright's account. Thank you for sharing this!

 

[ding]

While bits and pieces of this has been taught to me over the years, but never so concise and well put together as Wright's account. Thank you for sharing this!

Yeah, it's really strong evidence for the historical account of the resurrection. The more I am learning it's that it was the resurrection which changed everything. Even though many witnessed the miracles performed by Christ, they still had their doubts. We know this because of how they acted when Jesus was arrested. They fled. They hid. They were scared. But after the resurrection all of that changed.

 

[Donald H]

Most Catholics (who go to Catholic school) learn that in elementary school, along with literature styles men used to present the Word of God. Written by mankind, inspired by God, about accounts of God in our midst.

Then the bible isn't the word of the god after all.

Intelligent Christians always knew that it couldn't be!

Intelligent Catholics are heavily involved in trying to convince the flock to accept their church's amendments.

They're having some success but they're also faced with stubbornness by some of the flock to hold to Genesis and tradition. Which side will overcome? Will it have to become two opposing churches yet again?