Posted on 01/31/2006 9:37:58 AM PST by SirLinksalot
This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. The Jesus trial Posted: January 31, 2006 1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Joseph Farah
If it wasn't so sad, you'd have to laugh at the Italian trial in which a Catholic priest is being sued by an atheist for deceiving people into thinking Jesus was an actual historical figure.
Of course, there is far more reason to believe Jesus actually walked the face of the Earth than there is to believe Socrates did. We not only have the biblical accounts of His life, but, for those who require them, extra-biblical ones from Roman historians Tacitus and Josephus.
But that really misses the point.
Simon Greenleaf, one of the principal founders of the Harvard Law School, was a skeptic like the Italian atheist. He set out from a scholarly and legal perspective to make a much narrower point – disprove Jesus was the Son of God and that He rose from the dead through a careful investigation of the Gospel witnesses.
But he came to the conclusion that the witnesses were reliable, and that the Resurrection actually happened.
"The great truths which the apostles declared, were that Christ had risen from the dead, and that only through repentance from sin, and faith in him, could men hope for salvation," wrote Greenleaf.
Greenleaf explained that the apostles had absolutely no motive for fabrication – and every human motive to recant their stories. But they did not.
"It would also have been irreconcilable with the fact that they were good men," Greenleaf continued.
Greenleaf concluded: "Either the men of Galilee were men of superlative wisdom, and extensive knowledge and experience, and of deeper skill in the arts of deception, than any and all others, before or after them, or they have truly stated the astonishing things which they saw and heard."
I agree.
Yet it seems the more learned we supposedly become, the more difficult it is for some to see the Truth.
What do you think? Were the apostles ordinary men who witnessed the extraordinary? Or were they extraordinary men who gave their own lives for the strange purpose of deceiving others?
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a nationally syndicated columnist with Creators Syndicate. His latest book is "Taking America Back." He also edits the weekly online intelligence newsletter Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin, in which he utilizes his sources developed over 30 years in the news business. |
And the writer was so creative to spin several tales about the followers being depressed over his death when they actually knew the body had been swiped yet the writer didn't notice this apparent discrepancy.
Or was it done by lone person who kept it all a secret and wanted others to believe he had died?
> But you are sure it creates a dillema?
When does it not? When one is interested in facts, not supposition, not wishful thinking... hard data is infinitely more valuable than unsubstantiated hearsay or anecdotal tales. Otherwise I'd buy into alien abductions and liberal politics.
> Begging to differ, the *next* day was the day after the body was prepared to be placed into the tomb, and that *next* day was the Jewish Sabbath.
Yes. As I said, they had two days to pick from. Day 1 was the day the body was supposedly entombed. Day 2 was the day the soldiers supposedly showed up.
> or else they would have had to touch and move a dead body on the Jewish Sabbath.
Amazing what some people will do for a political movement.
I'd recommend you read either
1. Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ", or
2. Anything by William Lane Craig about the Resurrection.
If your questions about the validity of the accounts are still unanswered OR you find these scholars to be inaccurate, then I would be more that happy to devote all the time needed to ascertain what really happened. As it is, I believe history is on the side of the Resurrection occurring.
Now, before you dismiss the sources I've cited, your should note they are heavily based in reliable history (see: footnotes for Strobel and Craig's general credibility among even atheist scholars).
I haven't heard of "Mormoni" angles, but I remember learning about Obtuse, Acute and Right angles in school. :-)
I believe that you want hard data. Unfortunately you are using soft data to claim a dilemma exists. In one breath you call into question the credibility of the author's depiction of events and in the next breath you claim the authors depiction of events is full and complete (as to the "next day" issue). You seem to want to give the author credibility when it seemingly raises doubt and simultaneously call the author biased and deceitfull. How does your logic work when its seems circular?
> I'd recommend you read either
> 1. Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ"...
I started to, but the arguements used were so atrocious (as in: logically weak and circular) that I gave up in less than 20 pages. It was, as they say, built on a foundation of sand. It was actually rather sad.
> In one breath you call into question the credibility of the author's depiction of events and in the next breath you claim the authors depiction of events is full and complete (as to the "next day" issue).
Hold up. The second is part of the first.
Secondly: I was using the plot hole to point out that modern people claiming swipign the body is "impossible" is in fact false. Here are your choices:
1) The account is accurate, and the tomb was unguarded for perhaps 24 hours
2) The account is not accurate, and thus the whole thing is in question.
> You seem to want to give the author credibility when it seemingly raises doubt and simultaneously call the author biased and deceitfull.
You seem to want to do neither... neither recognize the doubt nor recognize the bias.
So, which is it: the tomb was unguarded, or the Gospels are untrustworthy? You decide.
An account of the Haun's Mill Massacre
Evidences in the Proof of The Book of Mormon
An exerpt:
They were insulted by mobs, their houses torn down or burned, their goods destroyed and fields of grain laid waste, some of them were cast into dungeons and there kept for months loaded with chains.Yea more -- some of them were shot; others had their brains dashed out; others were whipped to death; others were cut in pieces with swords knives, corn-cutters, &c., while the whole society, at one time amounting to about 12,000 souls, were banished from the State of Missouri and driven two hundred miles from their lands, houses, homes and property, in the winter season, and this by the order of the executive of Missouri, one of the free and independent states of this boasted republic.
-- Evidences in the Proof of The Book of Mormon by C.B. Thompson, 1841
...Book of Mormon refers to an earlier civilization in North American for which no proof at all exists...
Just so your assertions do not go unchallenged. :-)
This is what Judas believed and why he betrayed Jesus
Jesus said to love your enemy. He also said render unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's. Jesus never mentioned anything about overthrowing the Romans.
(it was left unguraded for the first day or so)?
It was not left unguarded as Caiaphas requested from the Roman governor that it be guarded so Jesus'disciples could not remove the body and claiming he came back to life and thus fulfilling the prophecy.
If the account is accurate and the tomb was emptied before the guards got there then the author lied by omission. If he lied by omission how can we trust he told the truth about a 24 hour delay?
If the account is not accurate, then how do you jump to the conclusion that the tomb was emptied before hand? Do you really think there is enough evidence to assume the guards stood before an empty tomb and were dumb enough not to check its contents before guarding it?
You seem to want to do neither... neither recognize the doubt nor recognize the bias.
I'm willing to do either but I am not willing to apply one standard to one statement and another standard to another statement as it may appeal to me as you seem to be doing.
So, which is it: the tomb was unguarded, or the Gospels are untrustworthy? You decide.,
Your bias blinds you from seeing that both can be true and the gospels are still trustworthy. Your problem is they are only trustworthy for you when they create what you perceive as a dilemma and untrustworthy when they proclaim what you disagree with.
No. Day 1, as you "claim" didn't "start" until about 4pm but before 6pm - therefore not enough time. Day 2, as you claim, wouldn't have allotted much time to remove a body - not in Jerusalem and NOT on the Sabbath. Need I remind you even the diciples couldn't pick corn on the Sabbath without scrutiny? how moreso moving a body?
You pose good, logical questions - for sure, but the period of time of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection were all closely scrutinized. Sure there was a period of the tomb being unguarded - there was also a time of shock and dismay from his closest followers - the King was dead. That wouldn't have been any opportune moment for deceit. It just doesn't work that way - especially knowing the one who betrayed him committed suicide.
It takes a great deal more supposition and wishful thinking to believe Jesus is a fiction. Yet you seem gung-ho to do it.
I believe that Jesus is no more or less fictional than Apollonius of Tyana, and no more or less divine. The evidence is at the same level.
> If the account is accurate and the tomb was emptied before the guards got there then the author lied by omission. If he lied by omission how can we trust he told the truth about a 24 hour delay?
Or trust him about anything, including miracles.
> If the account is not accurate, then how do you jump to the conclusion that the tomb was emptied before hand?
Again, sigh, I'll point out that that's not my point. I was responding to the obvious incorrectness of claiming the body-snatching to be "impossible."
You have no point worth answering. You are arguing that a secular court should make a ruling regarding a religious doctrine. That's not a point. That's a pointless fantasy. Or pointless fantaticism. I don't know you, so I don't know which it is in your case. Nor do I care. Since the whole question is as ridiculous as it is pointless.
> Need I remind you even the diciples couldn't pick corn on the Sabbath without scrutiny? how moreso moving a body?
Amazing what peopel will do for religion. Need I remind you that the same JEws who believed that Thou Shallt Not Murder was a Commandment straight from God would happily wipe out entire regions of men, women and children?
> especially knowing the one who betrayed him committed suicide.
And who was that? The Judas who was apparently still around when Jesus came back?
1 Corinthians 15:5-8 (King James Version)
5 And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve:
6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
7 After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles.
Who were the "twelve?"
I'm not really interested in Apollonius and it's not the topic.
I would however be interested in your theory about how it came to be accepted that the man referred to as Jesus existed in that time and place and was crucified by the Romans.
In your view, what must have transpired to make this the commonly accepted view of historical fact?
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