EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST A Challenge for Skeptics (A Long Read)

Bring to you ^ | Peter Kreeft

[kosta50]

Wouldn't it be great if we had another source to corroborate the resurrection of Jesus and stories in the NT? We do! It is called the Book of Mormon

You must be joking, right? :)

[Alan2]

You must be joking, right? :)

Of course not. What better evidence is there for the resurrection of Jesus than his appearance to the people here on the American continent? Read what it says:

7 Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him. 8 And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards heaven; and behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them. 9 And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying: 10 Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world. 11 And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning. 12 And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the earth; for they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them after his ascension into heaven. 13 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto them saying: 14 Arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that I am the God of Israel, and the God of the whole dearth, and have been slain for the sins of the world.

[wendy1946]

So I ask again, how would the Romans have caught, held, and re-cruficied a body that could simply disappear out of their hands and appear elsewhere???

Better question: How could a body which could simply disappear out of their hands and appear elsewhere be corporeal? The basic answer is that it wasn't, even though the experience was sufficiently real.

[Godzilla]

Wouldn't it be great if we had another source to corroborate the resurrection of Jesus and stories in the NT? We do! It is called the Book of Mormon
You must be joking, right? :)

Why? Alan2 is only applying the same standard of proof you outlined. What makes you faith better than his in regards to 'scripture'.

[Wonder Warthog]

"How could a body which could simply disappear out of their hands and appear elsewhere be corporeal? The basic answer is that it wasn't, even though the experience was sufficiently real."

Uh, because He is God?? And can thus do things impossible to Man. The corporeal reality of Christ's risen body is one of THE key teachings of the Gospel, referred to specifically in multiple places, yet that same corporeal reality does all of those miraculous things.

After all, He made the substance of loaves and fishes appear out of nothing (as He did the universe itself). Mere translocation would be "child's play" tricks next to either of those.

[kosta50]

Why? Alan2 is only applying the same standard of proof you outlined. What makes you faith better than his in regards to 'scripture'

The standard of proof of this thread (read the article!) is precisely that the standard of proof is not the scripture. Unfortunately, the author reverts to quoting scripture immediately after setting the standard to the contrary!

Scripture is what a believer considers scripture. It's tangential on an a priori human acceptance of something as scripture. That's why scripture cannot be a proof.

[Godzilla]

The standard of proof of this thread (read the article!) is precisely that the standard of proof is not the scripture. Unfortunately, the author reverts to quoting scripture immediately after setting the standard to the contrary!

The author does not rule out the evidence presented in the scriptures (read first paragraph of article).

Scripture is what a believer considers scripture. It's tangential on an a priori human acceptance of something as scripture. That's why scripture cannot be a proof.

So anything can be scripture. You can go around and believe any two bit book is inspired - even one written in 1830 - is the word of God. God preserved His Word.

[wendy1946]

That might be good enough for most people, some of us need a bit more than that, i.e. HOW he did it. Again the starting point for that discussion is Julian Jaynes, and “Origin of Consciousness”. All of the evidence I’ve ever seen indicates that God operates entirely within the laws of physics and that, if you want violations of mathematical and physical wholesale laws, you need to be talking to the evolosers since they specialize in that sort of thing.

[BlueMoose]

http://atlah.org/atlahworldwide/?p=1160

[Alan2]

The standard of proof of this thread (read the article!) is precisely that the standard of proof is not the scripture.

The author uses Biblical scripture as evidence for the resurrection of Christ. I am using Book of Mormon scripture as a different source to support evidence for the resurrection of Christ.

The Bible is the word of God and should be believed. The author list a few reasons why we should believe it.

The Book of Mormon is also the word of God and should be believed. However, the evidence that supports the Book of Mormon as the word of God is different from the evidence that supports the Bible as the word of God.

There are 3 witnesses that saw the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated, they saw the angle Moroni, and they heard the voice of God declaring that the Book of Mormon was true. There are an additional 8 witnesses that saw the gold plates. The more evidence there is from different sources, the more likely the conclusion will be that Jesus was in fact Physically Resurrected.

[wendy1946]

The world knows for a certain fact that at least one of the primary documents of the LDS church i.e. the so-called ‘book of Abraham’, is a transparent fraud and that the actual document which it claims to be derived from is a formula for brewing beer. The question is, given that, why should anybody take the book of Mormon seriously??

[Skooz]

bump for later

[Alan2]

The world knows for a certain fact that at least one of the primary documents of the LDS church i.e. the so-called ‘book of Abraham’, is a transparent fraud and that the actual document which it claims to be derived from is a formula for brewing beer.

Your facts are not facts. The Book of Breathings is not the Book of Abraham. The papyrus fragments from the Metropolitan Museum of Art are different from the long roll of manuscript that contained the Book of Abraham.

[Wonder Warthog]

"That might be good enough for most people, some of us need a bit more than that, i.e. HOW he did it. Again the starting point for that discussion is Julian Jaynes, and “Origin of Consciousness”. All of the evidence I’ve ever seen indicates that God operates entirely within the laws of physics and that, if you want violations of mathematical and physical wholesale laws, you need to be talking to the evolosers since they specialize in that sort of thing."

I read James' stuff years ago. Pure malarkey. There is zero evidence for the "bicameral mind" evolution of consciousness. God operates within the laws of physics except when he chooses not to. That's why such cases are miracles.

[Godzilla]

Your facts are not facts. The Book of Breathings is not the Book of Abraham. The papyrus fragments from the Metropolitan Museum of Art are different from the long roll of manuscript that contained the Book of Abraham.

Sorry to hear you try to say this. Hor's breathing permit (the papyri from the Met aka Sensen Papyri) is the origin of the boa. For starters, Facsimile #1 which Smith specifically said this was attached to the scroll at its beginning.

It has further been shown that Smith's hand written MS of the BoA had the hieroglyphic characters with what those characters translated out to be. They are found in the same sequence on the papyrus as the MS.

Facsimile #2 is also linked to the Met Papyrus. An early rendering — perhaps the first — of this hypocephalus is included below. Note the clear indication of a swath of missing papyrus extending from the center to the northeast section of the drawing.

Smith fixed this by copying symbols from Hôr's Breathing Permit and putting them into the gaps

It is clear to real Egyptologist that the insertions are spurious - the writing on the original hydrocephalus is in hieroglyphic, while the insertions are in hieratic (as is the text on the sensen papyri). Also from Smith's annotations of facsimile #2, figure 7 is identified as "Represents God sitting upon his throne, revealing through the heavens the grand Key-words of the Priesthood; as also, the sign of the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the form of a dove."

Real egyptologists recognize this common feature of hydrocephalus' as representing the ithyphallic egyptian god Min about to have sex with ithyphallic snake which represents Atum (smith misidentified this feature as a dove - perhaps due to damage of the original). That portion is upside-down and immediately adjacent to the text identified as copied from line 4 in the above image.

Finally, facsimile #3, when translated by real egyptologists, is a continuation of the breathing permit of Hor and based upon the abundance of similar papyri (form letter type prayers) it would have been at the left end of the papyri (egypt reads from right to left) nearly all of the papyrus is present. Smith's writing, the facsimiles and the 'restorations' are all from the same papyri. Denial is not a river in egypt Alan.

[GonzoII]

Related: Testimony of the Evangelists - by Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853)

[kosta50]

The author does not rule out the evidence presented in the scriptures (read first paragraph of article)

Then he is contradicting himself (which he does anyway), because he writes "We do not need to presuppose that the New Testament is infallible, or divinely inspired or even true." He merely argues that we need to axcknolwedge the existence of the New Testament.

So anything can be scripture

That's correct. To you Koran may not be scripture because you choose not to believe it is. To a Jews, the New Testament and a Book of Mormon is as good as toilet paper. To a Christian, the book of Mormon and in fact the whole LDS is a cult and its 'holy' books as good as something satanic. To a Hindu, all the monotheistic scriptures are interesting but incomplete.

You can go around and believe any two bit book is inspired - even one written in 1830 - is the word of God. God preserved His Word

That's pretty much how it works. How do you know the books are 'inspired?' How do you know what God is? Simple: whatever you make it to be. There were hundreds of versions of the current NT and hundreds of additional manuscripts, all pretending to be "inspired" apostolic writings, such as the Apocalypse of Peter, etc. which never made it into the agreed-upo Bible.

In every case, the book selection was a human choice, or so it seems. None of the NT authors says he were guided by the Holy Spirit in his writings.

[kosta50]

The author uses Biblical scripture as evidence for the resurrection of Christ

Based on what criteria?

I am using Book of Mormon scripture as a different source to support evidence for the resurrection of Christ

I could use Grimm's fairy tales as evidence of the existence of the Red Riding Hood. How do you know the BOM is "scripture?"

The Bible is the word of God and should be believed

How do you know that? How would you recognize anything from God? Do you know what God is? If you don't, how can you know what is from God?

The Book of Mormon is also the word of God and should be believed

Nonsense. You have no proof that it is a word of God and more than the Koran has.

There are 3 witnesses that saw the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated

That is a heavily sanitized story...

There are an additional 8 witnesses that saw the gold plates.

So what? That may be evidence that they saw the plates. It's not the evidence that the plates are the word of God. The Bible is an objective truth (it exists as a book, as an object) but that doesn't mean it's infallible or inspired. It simply attests to its existence.

[wendy1946]

Aside from phony documents, the other thing which separates I-slam and Mormonism from normal Christianity (or Judaism for that matter) is the belief in prophets and prophesy in our own age of the world. Prophets, oracles, and a number of other related practices intended to communicate with the spirit realm all stopped working prior to the time of Alexander and Zechariah refers to prophets as unclean spirits and goes so far as to recommend that parents kill children who persist in trying to use their minds that way:

ZEC 13:2 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will cut off the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more be remembered: and also I will cause the prophets and the unclean spirit to pass out of the land.

ZEC 13:3 And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the LORD: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.

ZEC 13:4 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the prophets shall be ashamed every one of his vision, when he hath prophesied; neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive:

ZEC 13:5 But he shall say, I am no prophet, I am an husbandman; for man taught me to keep cattle from my youth.

All of those practices involved static electricity and trance states like hypnosis and they all stopped working at some point when the planet's ability to support such things collapsed somehow or other. Again static electricity in large quantities was involved and at least two versions of such practices involved electrostatic DEVICES i.e. pyramids and primitive capacitors (the "ark" of the covenant) and presumably those things being inanimate required no trance states since they had no consciousness to overcome to begin with.

Greek city states ran on information from the oracles for centuries and then, like prophets, the information they came back with turned into mush.

Those guys (the last generation of would-be prophets) of course were at least trying to do something believable; Joseph Smith and Muhammed were ordinary con men.

[wendy1946]

There are 3 witnesses that saw the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated, they saw the angle Moroni, and they heard the voice of God declaring that the Book of Mormon was true. There are an additional 8 witnesses that saw the gold plates.

How many of those "witnesses" paid any sort of a price that men should believe them, i.e. went to their deaths rather than deny having seen them? I mean, we know that all of Jesus' original disciples and a number of others died proclaiming what they had seen.

Other than that, God DID in fact give us a way to translate hieroglyphs in the 1800s, and that means is known as the Rosetta Stone...