Are Jesus' Resurrection Appearances a Later Mythological Development?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
- Alex O’Connor is one of the most interesting and thoughtful atheists on the Internet. I always enjoy watching his stuff. While I’ve learned a lot from watching his videos, I think there are two significant problems in what he says.
First, the idea that resurrection appearances are merely the product of mythological development over time is significantly undermined by an early creed found in First Corinthians 15. While First Corinthians was written early 50’s (which pre-dates Mark’s Gospel), it contains an early oral creed that likely goes back to within 5 years of the death of Jesus. Granted, these appearances read more like a shopping list than elaborate stories. My point is, there are five different appearances (plus Paul) recorded before Mark writes his Gospel. This historical fact does not fit well with the idea that resurrection appearances are the result of mythological development over time as you move further away from the source.
So, that’s the first problem. Here's the second problem. Alex is wrong about the moral lesson in John’s Gospel. Alex says John’s Gospel culminates with the story of Doubting Thomas to communicate the moral lesson to believe without evidence.
However, that’s not what the account is about. This account isn’t against evidence for faith. In fact, this account is part of the evidence for faith. It’s ironic that people pick the story of doubting Thomas to show that evidence and belief are at odds since John includes the story for one simple reason: to provide evidence for belief. As John says, “These are written so you would believe.”
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As soon as he said that I was yelling " 1st Corinthians 15!" Lol. But honestly, the saddest part is that this atheist knows the Bible better than most Christians 😔
What better way to twist it
@@acts-me8xr I believe he means 'what better way to twist the gospel than by learning the ins and outs of it first?'
@@andrewgilbertson5672 That would be correct
He doesn't really know the bible. He misrepresents the bible as we saw in that video.
why is it sad?
Great reaction! Another point that is less apologetic, but more theological: Alex says '[Thomas] doesn't believe it is the risen Christ and Jesus says: "Come and touch my wounds".' But that's not what the text says. Thomas didn't believe the witness of the other disciples, he didn't believe their report. But as soon as he sees the risen Christ, Thomas believes, right after Christ says 'touch my wounds', without any description of Thomas looking and feeling His wounds.
Exactly.
Thank you!
But how do you know that STORY is anything other than a allegory about the virtue of blind faith?
@@colinmatts Read verse 30 and 31
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
You don’t have BLIND faith, his miracles were witnessed by his disciples, and they actually happened for a reason, that they might believe. So it’s not an allegory.
@@Godsambassador3 Wrong. The people of the place and time of Christ were detailed record keepers. We have written records of historical events, govt. officials, prominent people, healers, plays, the weather, recipes etc. etc. Yet God himself visited this place and thousands supposedly knew it and witnessed it and there's not one piece of contemporaneous evidence that it happened. Not one person who lived through it left a piece of jewelry or a carving or a writing on papyrus or even a song of the event. God visited earth and supposedly thousands of people saw God but nobody cared.
Only people 400 hundred years later on a different continent speaking a different language thought to memorialize the event.
Great points. Aquinas' view of faith was belief based on credible testimony. This is how most of our beliefs are formed (including scientific and historical) and there is nothing illicit about it.
Faith is belief based on spiritual conviction not facts & one man's creditable testimony is another man's vague description "and 500 brethren saw him" Paul never physically met Jesus, he couldn't have given a description of him if asked & it was year's after the resurrection that we find Paul claiming he met with Jesus on the road to Damascus. With respect that's not credible testimony, the Gospels contradict each other & the Corinthians account doesn't mention the three women who were supposedly at the tomb.I'm not trying to be disrespectful but I'm genuinely shocked at the quality & amount of evidence there actually is. I'd assumed that the Gospels would be in locked step & that at least some of the 500 had left a record of their identity & what they'd seen.
What's "credible" about a man coming back from the dead. There is no testimony by the way
@@johnmichaelson9173there are 0 contradictions found in the Bible
There is not one identified piece of testimony from anyone who ever knew Jesus or even heard him preach
@@colinmatts Bra all the deciples knew him we have historians confirming that each of the deciples were real and knew him
EXACTLY! 1 Corinthians 15 is what I ALWAYS reference as confirming eyewitness, historical evidence.
why aren't in a dictionary definition for sarcasm😄
Here's something Mr. B could've mentioned: the ascension of Jesus, with His eyewitnesses on Mount Olives with Him, and other eyewitnesses below the mountain watching this amazing event was foreshadowed in the Old Testament. In Exodus, Moses, Aaron, his sons and a selected few others saw a vision of Jehovah and ate a meal with Him on Mount Sanai. Meanwhile, there were eyewitnesses at the bottom seeing smoke of this miraculous event. The Bible is 100% accurate and truthful.
But it doesn't confirm eyewitness, historical evidence. It's a "creed". That just means it's what some people believed. There is NO eyewitness testimony from anyone who ever had any interaction with Jesus before or after his death
@@Tonyanevangelist There's NO eyewitness testimony to Jesus's so called ascension. It may not be so much "foreshadowing" as it is writers matching THEIR story to earlier scriptures which they would have known very well
@@colinmattsNice that you want to diminish eye-witness accounts by your “mays” and “woulds”.
But eye-witness accounts are way more based;)
You're one of the few TH-camrs that I decide to contribute to. Thanks for all the thoughtful responses!
How do you know it's the truth?
He also completely disregards the book of Acts, which talks about Jesus appearing to people and ascending into heaven in front of a crowd
True, but Luke wrote Acts after he wrote his Gospel, so it's still a comparatively later witness.
You're confusing two different time gaps. Firstly there's the gap between two events in the story, and secondly there is the gap between the event and when it is written down. The gap between Jesus being crucified and ascending into heaven _in the story of Acts_ may be just a few days or weeks. However, the gap between the timing of these (alleged) events and them being written down is decades. The second gap is the important one that Alex is talking about
This was a clip from a podcast, it seems unreasonable for him to give every painstaking detail and distinction to someone who doesn't read the bible.
@@weedlol ?? If you're referring to Alex, he does read the Bible. He just doesn't agree with it.
@@isheworthy I was referring to Chris, the host
The great NT scholar James DG Dunn (not a Christian) has dated the Corinthian creed to within _six months_ of the Crucifixion.
And the Roman historian A. N. Sherwin-White has stated that it takes at least two generations (@80 years) for a legend to arise _and displace a core of historical facts._
Like the empty tomb for example.
How could the disciples have claimed that Jesus had risen from the dead when a 20-minute walk to a sealed tomb would have disproved it?
And the earliest reaction we have from the Jews who opposed the disciples was the story that they stole the body (Mt. 28:13).
Which means that the tomb _was_ empty and even the disciples’ enemies knew it!
And since the disciples were preaching a risen Christ and making thousands of converts within _two months_ of the Crucifixion (on Pentecost), Alex’s theory of legendary development is impossible and incredible.
" it takes at least two generations (@80 years) for a legend to arise and displace a core of historical facts."
I guess Alexander must have been the son of Amon-Zeus as he claimed. Vespasian must have been a miracle worker as reported by his contemporaries Tacitus and Suetonius. And Justinian must have been a sleepless demon whose head and face sometimes disappeared as reported by his court historian Procopius.
"How could the disciples have claimed that Jesus had risen from the dead when a 20-minute walk to a sealed tomb would have disproved it?"
They didn't, Paul, the earliest source says people are resurrected in pneumatic bodies without flesh.
@@tomasrocha6139 your first two examples are powerful and influential rulers advancing incredible claims about themselves either personally or through surrogates. No one was going to argue with the person claiming to be a miracle-working demigod when doing so could get that person killed.
Your third example is a disgruntled courtesan slandering their former patron. It's doubtful any more of the population then would have seriously believed that Justinian was a sleepless demon than currently believe the Democrats are extracting adrenochrome from children in secret satanic rituals.
Paul never claimed that resurrection from the dead is not bodily. In fact, to do so would have upended centuries of Jewish understanding of what death and resurrection are. As early as the book of Job (possibly the oldest of the books of the Bible and definitely among the earliest), the expectation of a physical resurrection is firmly established: yet in my flesh shall I see God (Job 19:26). Paul, being a Pharisee, was well aware of this. We know especially well that he was intimately familiar with and believed the Old Testament teaching on death and resurrection because, when he was taken by the Jewish authorities, he declared "I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question" (Acts 23:6).
As little as five years after the death of Christ, large numbers of people believed He was the Son of God, had performed miracles during His ministry, had risen from the dead bodily, and had appeared to hundreds of people. Not a single contemporary counter-argument against Christianity denied the fact of Christ's miracles (instead attributing them to the work of demons) or denied that the tomb was empty (rather, it was suggested that the body had been stolen). The claimed eyewitnesses to Christ's death and resurrection, who were all in a position to know if what they said was true or false, all chose death, most of them by very unpleasant means, rather than to admit they were lying.
@Romans-un8nx So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
- 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, NIV
What difference does it make how soon after the crucifixion a "creed" emerged? A "creed" is just what some people believed.
"And the Roman historian A. N. Sherwin-White has stated that it takes at least two generations (@80 years) for a legend to arise and displace a core of historical facts." This is nonsense. A myth or untruth can be spread and be believed for centuries before the truth of an event emerges. It happens all the time in history.
What empty tomb? The one in the story?
You are using the gospel to prove the gospel. That's circular reasoning.
How do you know the disciples were preaching within two months? Because that's what the story says? But even if they were preaching withing two months, how does that make what they were preaching true?
@@tomasrocha6139 Nothing Paul says (even 1 Cor. 15: 42-44) refutes the resurrection of the body. Paul simply explains it is not a corrupted, weak body as exists right now. He speaks of the resurrected body being in glory, but also describes terrestrial bodies as having their own kind of glory in the same passage. He also mentions the body will be changed, transformed. Not discarded or abandoned. This is consistent with the Gospels, and Acts. Post-resurrection, Jesus appears both physically and spiritually, as a new kind of being. He is unrecognizable until he wishes to be (the road to Emmaus), can appear in a locked room with the disciples and disappear just as suddenly, can rise and vanish into the sky in his ascension, but also has real holes in his hands and feet that he invites Thomas to feel. He eats physical bread and drinks physical wine with the disciples. Paul is saying that the resurrection is not just a "redo" of this life, like some kind of reincarnation or do-over. He is saying it is a new kind of existence, one that transcends *simply* a physical component, into the spiritual.
Part of the confusion of this passage comes from a modern, post-Gnostic, Greek-influenced idea of spirituality and physicality. One where a "person" is a soul, merely housed in a body, and that spiritual things are wholly separate from physical things. That spirits are higher and more pure than base physical flesh. These concepts are foreign, Hellenized philosophies to ancient Jews (Paul, even as a Roman citizen in a mostly Hellenized world, was still a Pharisee and Jewish scholar with a Jewish background). If we read the passage as an ancient world Jew, rather than with a post-Gnostic Western mindset, the meaning is much clearer. But even the apostle Peter says Paul's words can be confusing to those uneducated (meaning not raised with a Jewish understanding) in 2 Peter 3:16, so it is of course forgivable to miss Paul's point on a first pass.
Alex O’Connor is calm, soft-spoken, articulate, effete, convincing to those who haven’t done any study themselves, but ultimately, not as logically sound as he seems.
How so?
Good response, thank you. Alex reasons like a seeker. He has skeptical questions, but is early in his journey in finding answers to them.
Very good point here, brother. It also says, blessed are those who have ‘not yet’ seen and yet believe. Meaning, they will see, they just haven’t yet but God is faithful and they are able to trust God before anything happens and that in and of itself is God given faith.
" blessed are those who have ‘not yet’ seen and yet believe" How can you not see that this is just a crude appeal to blind faith and make it a virtue?
@@colinmattsIf you read the verse in context. Jesus had just revealed Himself to Thomas who was in unbelief. So, it’s not like God doesn’t reveal Himself to people or show “proof” at different times. What Jesus is saying is that faith makes you well when dark times come. That being said, there are plenty of other scriptures that point to the Christian not having blind faith. For example:
“The people here were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, since they welcomed the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.”
Acts 17:11 HCSB
These people were receiving the word of God by someone’s preaching and then went to line it up with scripture to see if these things were true.
If you want to see God’s word come to life. I would suggest you apply it to your life and see for yourself.
@@pmpcvii The Thomas STORY is a direct attempt to make BLIND FAITH a virtue. That's obvious.
How do you know what's in ACTS is the "word of God"? How did they know?
I used to be a Christian until I discovered that I had no good reason for believing the gospels were true. That's what I "saw for myself"
@@colinmatts there’s plenty of evidence to believe the gospels are the word of God. I don’t think that’s your issue though. I don’t think evidence would do it for you. You either believe or you don’t. Evidence won’t give you belief spiritually speaking. Faith will, and then evidence will back it. If it is an evidence issue, then you need to look closely at the history because you are either ignoring evidence and history itself or you’ve never heard of any or been told of any. I’m happy to provide but if your response will be sheer skepticism then I don’t see the point in having a discussion. Because you will be trying to attack my arguments instead of listening.
I think if you look at the context alone of Thomas and his encounter with Jesus, if you’re honest, you will see that Jesus was not saying that there would never be evidence provided, just that faith would keep Him well when he didn’t feel God’s presence or had doubts. If you want me to blunt about you, I can be really blunt, and you’d probably agree, I might be wrong though. Let me know.
I love that your always calm and collected and never bash anyone on the emotional side ... keep it up MR B
One of your best. Allow me to add that Thomas had the exact same visual evidence as the other apostles, but doubted the evidence. I think it is safe to speculate that was because everything he knew told him dead bodies don't come back to life. His preconceptions (world view) not oly damaged his faith but his ability to recognize truth when he had evidence for it.
That's actually not true. And it's not true what Alex said either.
The other disciples saw Jesus Thomas didn't. Thomas made the claim that he wouldn't believe unless he put his finger in the nail prints and his hand in His side before he ever saw the risen Jesus. When Jesus comes in and talks to Tomas He says come put your finger in my hands and your hand in my side and be not faithless but believing" Thomas answers and says my Lord and my God, and Jesus said "you believe because you have seen". It does not say anywhere that Thomas put his finger in Jesus' hands nor that he put his hand in His side. It says he saw and believed.
None of the disciples believed the women's report.
Then Jesus appeared to the 10, and they all believed. When they told Thomas, he didn't believe them. Then Jesus appeared to all 11, whereafter Thomas did believe. So Thomas wasn't doubting any more than the other disciples were.
This is just wrong. Thomas did not have visual evidence that the others had; he wasn’t there the first time Jesus appeared.
Furthermore, the other disciples didn’t believe either, until they actually saw the risen Christ. And like Thomas, when they saw, they believed.
Imagine if God could just fix all of that.
@@bbgun061
Iʼm told that women were not considered credible witnesses in that culture. But Thomas had the testimony of 10 of his male friends. Yet he refused to believe because he was toting feelings for being “left out.”
What Jesus said to him amounts to saying, “You should have believed the testimony of your friends.”
I quite dont understand the argument of Alex because there is actually post resurrection appearances on Mark. Am I missing something?
He assumes Mark's gospel doesn't include the longer ending (all the material after 16:8...because the longer ending isn't found in the earliest manuscripts).
With the earliest manuscripts, the story ends with the women being afraid and saying nothing, but I think this is an important point made for the reader/hearer of this gospel - knowing now what you've heard/read from Jesus, how will you respond? Will you and share the good news about the resurrection, or flee and not stand with the Messiah as his disciples did when he was imprisoned.
For most scholars, the Gospel of Mark ends at 16:8. Many Bibles include a note here saying 16:9-20 is only found in much later manuscripts. Red Pen Logic is doing good to point out that there was resurrection proof in 1 Corinthians, which was written before even the Gospel of Mark 👍
@@bradgarrett5786 I know you are just stating the opinion of scholars, but 16:7 states:
"But go, tell His disciples and Peter that He is going before you into Galilee. There you will see Him, even as He told you."
So even in the version ending at 16:8, the Gospel of Mark still affirms post-resurrection appearances of Christ.
I think the thing you're missing is you don't realize you're charitably giving Alex O'Connor too much credit by assuming he has read the Bible and is knowledgeable about it on his own account, rather than repeating what scholars and skeptics say about it.
@@matthewbenson2387Don’t the saints also rise from the dead in Mark? It’s not like Mark is a non-supernatural gospel.
Faith = trust
We do not have a blind faith. We have trust in God based on much strong evidence as well as God working on our hearts/minds, giving us "eyes to see and ears to hear" the truth of God's Word.
I love your passion for defending the Truth. A truth brother in Christ you are!
How do you know it's the "truth"?
@@colinmatts Because i read my bible. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God.... God.....became flesh (Jesus the second person of the trinity) etc. .......
JOHN 1 full chapter is a must read. Enjoy.
@@charlesarbuckle7958 How do you know the bible is true?
@@charlesarbuckle7958 How do you know the bible is true?
@@colinmattsjesus actually existed and he actually died now tell me this why would jesus die for a lie? Same with the other apostles
Yeah, he kinda all ignores that in some of Paul’s letters, (if I’m remembering correctly) Paul actually says something along the lines of “Jesus appeared to a ton of people, and in fact, they’re mostly still alive; *if you don’t believe me go ask them* ”
Yes. His letters are definitive grounding for how we figured out which gospels were most legitimate. There's a ton of uninspired early Church documentation that's unambiguous about a lot of this (Clement, etc) too. This is easily the strangest argument from lapsed Christians and atheists.
I once dunked a basketball on Shaq. 1000 people were there and witnessed it. Go ask them.
@@alp5088he actually refenced specific people but go off,I guess 🤷🏾♂️
@Conquest...
OP is referencing the 500, but ignore the self-serving mention of Cephas, James, the "500," and the "Twelve" apostles even if Judas was already dead and Mathias hadn't replaced him yet, i guess 😉
@@alp5088 There is no real reason to assume op is referencing only the 500 instead of everyone Paul mentioned, and matthias was chosen shortly after, and it's the title he had at the time it was being written.
Notice that the early creed from 1 Cor 15, says 'according to scripture' , 'according to scripture' seems to imply that written accounts already existed at that time which Paul was referencing.
Hebrew scripture.
I think when the New Testament refers to ‘scripture’ it’s most of the time talking about the Old Testament, but it’s an interesting observation nonetheless.
They’re probably referring to Isaiah and the likes, about the Christs prophecies that Jeshua fulfilled in his death and resurrection
"According to scripture" here should be translated "As predicted by scripture" or "In accordance with prophecy."
We don't see any NT documents being called scripture until well into the second century. Paul's point is that His resurrection fits with the OT's teaching of a future general resurrection and hints of the Messiah's resurrection (eg Psalms saying David's successor would not be lost to death), making Christ resurrecting a perfectly acceptable thing for contemporary Jews to believe.
Two more things: one, Mark definitely includes post-resurrection appearances. He was probably excluding Mark 16:9 onward because it doesn't agree with his narrative and he has an excuse to. Two, all the evidence that "proves" Mark was written _first_ can also be used to "prove" Mark was written *_last._*
YESSS Thank you for responding to Alex.
I've been watching a lot of Gary Habermas on the evidence of the resurrection of Christ ...really good stuff. Would like to see Alex and Gary discuss the evidence
Habermas has NO evidence for the resurrection. His minimul facts case ifn't based on facts
Hi! As someone from a Soviet culture (now an immigrant in the USA) I believe that the resurrection was staged by the Romans, as explained in a popular book where I'm from - "The Gospel of Afranius"; like many others, I read it in childhood and never thought about this question again - until coming to the USA and noticing a stark contrast in the discussion of this question. What's wrong with that explanation? Also, I believe matter is eternal - it can only move and change but not appear from nowhere - seems like common sense to me, but apparently not here in the US, what's wrong with that?
it's really the No 1 rule in a discussion: Read the whole passage. Often critics are just picking individual verses without looking at the context or the following verses. My teacher once called this "Quarry exegesis" (it sounds better in my language), because they go to the text with a pickaxe and try to cut singular sentences out.
Is he suggesting Thomas didn't show signs of doubt before?
Cause hes the one that told Jesus he wanted to go see Lazarath after he died " Well, lets go die with him then." Having zero faith.
Great! Love how you are generous, gracious and give props where due, and go after the arguments themselves. That’s how to do it! 1 Pet. 3:15, Col 4:6… Keep it up!!
Alex O Conner, finally. I was waiting for you to do a response to this.
The historical reliability of Luke and Paul’s would like a word with Alex.
Your responses are always enriching to listen to. Thanks for providing the community with even more intellectual firepower. 👏 ❤
comforting, not enriching or enlightening in any way
@@T-BUG-gj7mx arguing against her comment doesn't negate her opinion; rather, it just makes you look bored.
@@T-BUG-gj7mx You're just picking a fight at this point.
@@bigblick101 same logic apply to you, +ignorant on the academic consensus, +ignorant to the level influence your mythical book plays in real_life issues
@@bigblick101 and yes, it IS boring
Depends what you mean by 'later' - Paul talks about 500 witnesses and is clearly quoting a tradition, probably around 50AD, so is 15 years 'later'. Paul's account of who saw the risen Christ first does differe considerablly with the Gospel accounts.
Wow! Awesome mic drop moment. I like Alex's stuff as well, you can tell he tries to be very fair and really tries to understand arguments from worldviews counter to his own. Thanks Mr. B for some excellent rebuttals to this objection.
Thanks for this video, Mr B!
I have no idea why he would make that claim considering Jesus himself said it would happen in Mark 10
Mark 10:33-34 NIV
[33] “We are going up to Jerusalem,” he said, “and the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will hand him over to the Gentiles, [34] who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise.”
The writier of Mark SAID Jesus said it
@@colinmatts that's the point. This argument is only about the timing of when people started to claim Jesus was resurrected. It is not dissecting if those claims are true or not: just the timeline on when people believed it.
So if they're writing that Jesus claimed he was going to be resurrected on the third day in the earliest gospel account (according to the argument), then they clearly had a category for that event and it was something - invented or not - the earliest account found important in Jesus' teaching.
So the fact that it's present, valid claim or not, is a refutation of the argument that the resurrection was an idea added at a later time.
Responding to his arguments is a great idea.
responding to a straw-man is not
@@T-BUG-gj7mx I'm basically encouraging him to continue his work. If you want to give an argument, state it instead of just naming a fallacy and nothing else.
Remember too, that people often critique Mark because they question whether he was an eyewitness, but don’t question John, because it’s pretty certain he WAS an eyewitness.
You can’t have it both ways. Either John is more trustworthy or not. Christians however are consistent: they’re both trustworthy.
If I'm not mistaken, Mark was a disciple of Peter and is believed to be writing Peter's account of what happened. I know that's not written in the gospel itself, but what I've read in church history.
Most Christians view John as an eyewitness (myself included). Scholars have different views, but most of them unfortunately throw Church tradition out the window entirely, even with no evidence to the contrary. Plenty of scholars see John as much-later, theological fan-fiction. It's unfortunate, because the view that John as an eyewitness dictated his gospel to his disciples/scribe to fill the gaps he felt the synoptic gospels left, makes much more sense.
Alot of the argument against John is sustained by things Jesus saying being great Greek but unable to fit as nicely into Aramaic - same with portions of Matthew. It somewhat ignores the geographical context, where Galilee is a fringe/border region between Jews and Gentiles/Greeks in the Decapolis. Most people would probably have been bilingual - like Poland or practically any country or province in close proximity to a different language. Dr. Peter J. Williams has some fantastic lectures where he posits that the Sermon on the Mount was originally delivered by Jesus in Greek. Some of Jesus' disciples have entirely Greek names with no Jewish equivalent - Andrew, for example, in all four gospels.
There's also scholars who claim Lazarus was also "a John" and wrote the gospel, but I see too many problems with that theory for it to sustain itself. Most Jews would take a Greek or Roman name for their "other name" - Simon Peter, Saul Paul, etc. - Lazarus/Eleazar and John/Jochanan are both Hebrew names - so it's odd for someone to do so (though it appears Matthew may also have carried the name Levi, but this may be an indicator he was a Levite who became a tax collector).
There's no way the 4th Gospel was written by John as he was an unlettered fisherman (Acts 4:13, The First Apology Chapter 39).
@@tomasrocha6139 "they perceived them to be uneducated" does not mean "they were illiterate". John was the son of Zebedee, who was successful enough as a fisherman to have hired help (present when Jesus recruits John and James in Mark). The fishing industry in Galilee was famous and exported far and wide, including to the Decapolis, which was a very Hellenized area. So it's likely John and James knew Greek, and were literate.
What the Jewish leaders are perceiving is that the men weren't university-level educated, like Saul/Paul. All Jewish boys learned Scripture (at minimum, orally) as part of their childhood education, but what the Jewish leadership is perceiving is that the disciples of Jesus weren't theologians, members of the Sanhedrin, educated in Hellenic universities or advanced Jewish schools such as for the scribes and lawyers.
To conflate their perception with illiteracy is simply that, an incorrect conflation, as it's rather unlikely Zebedee would have built up his mini fishing empire with hired help, and not have educated his sons to carry on his success (when father apprenticing a son to one day take over the family business was the standard model at the time).
Greek was also a much more common language in the area than it's often given credit. We have Greek inscriptions from around the Temple Mount warning Gentiles not to enter under pain of death - we haven't found any Aramaic or Latin ones. We have an Aramaic inscription for the "place of the trumpeter" in the Temple precinct, as well as ossuary inscriptions, so I'm not contending Aramaic wasn't used. Jewish literacy rates were also higher than the rest of the Roman Empire as they valued it for Scripture reading - and had Greek Scriptures for those of whom it was a first language.
@@joelmcleay most scholars agree that the Gospel writer is John. There are a few who argue otherwise, like Bart Ehrman. But while some points are worthy of considering and exploring, most of the points you make are reasons to suspect the John, the writer of Revelation. Not John, the writer of the Gospel. But no, John the Beloved is generally accepted in scholarly circles as the Gospel writer.
I think the fact that Jesus tells Thomas that «blessed is he who belives wtihout seeing» is a rebuke, because he should have belived the testimony of his brethren the apostles.
Furthermore, we would expect to see development in all aspects of the resurrection accounts. Luke says 5+ women were present, but John just mentions Mary. John also has fewer miracles in his Gospel where Mark and Matthew have more. Each author is writing to a different audience and emphasizing different themes. Unlike the Gospel of Peter, which has much more development and reads far more fanatical than what scripture reads. The accounts all agree on the center message yet have different details. There is nothing to be concerned about.
The TRUTH that HUMAN BEINGS were CREATED by the CREATOR to LIVE and EXIST on EARTH FOREVER
are clearly
OFFENSIVE and UNACCEPTABLE
to
Jehovah's Witnesses, SDAs, Mormons, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Born Again Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, fanatics of all kinds of Religions, and Atheists
who
are all obviously hurt and angered by the BIBLICAL TRUTHS that -
1. lowly, ordinary, kind, and respectful persons on earth who willingly submit to the authority of Jesus Christ in their obedience to what's written in Matthew 28: 18
will
definitely be honored and rewarded by the Creator with ETERNAL LIFE and existence on earth without sufferings, pains, griefs, sickness, and death as written in Revelation 21: 3, 4
2. the teachings of Jesus Christ about the "Kingdom of God" and "Resurrection of the Dead" written in Luke 4: 43 and John 11: 25, 26
are the guarantee
that
loving, kind, considerate, and respectful persons on earth
who
died recently and thousands of years ago like Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Job, Naomi, Ruth, King David, Jesus Christ's Followers and disciples, and many others
will
all be RESURRECTED back to life in the right and proper time so they can happily and abundantly live and exist on earth forever as submissive and obedient subjects of the "KINGDOM of GOD"
and fully enjoy the eternal love, kindness, goodness, generosities, compassions, favors, and blessings of the Creator and his Christ for eternity
under the loving and kind rulership, guidance, and protection of Jesus Christ as the Creator's Chosen King and Ruler of the heavens and the earth as written in Revelation 11: 15.
Do you know why your chanel is not growing up!!! There is reason!!! Pray to God your channel will grow up!?
The same people who say “the gospels were written so long after Jesus’ death, therefore can’t be trusted as true” also don’t dispute the accounts of Alexander…written hundreds of years after his death.
or they even believe in 4.5 billion years old universe and that humans developed out of nothing by pure coincidence.
Both claims presented by OP and first comment haven thoroughly refuted. Just don't stop at your presuppositions.
No historian takes the divine origins of Alexander seriously. There is a mountain of evidence outside of written word proving Alexander's life and his impact. Real evidence not 2nd hand hearsay.
Did anyone claim Alexander rose from the dead?
@@colinmatts It’s not about the claim, it’s about the trustworthiness of the source related to the distance to the time of action.
Mr. B, this is a call for help. I am a wavering Christian and I would like to know why God allows only one path to Heaven and all other paths or walks of life are locked away and there is punishment for them. If I confess and know Jesus, but I do something else with my life (I.E follow different teachings you may find are good, becoming very good at a talent and using that to become written into history, and overall technically doing good things without them directly leading people to God) does that mean I have to suffer eternal Damnation? Why? If my father told me to go to college and I went to Trade School instead, is it just for him to punish me for the rest of my life?
It's funny that Alex O'Conner claims that the resurrection of Christ was added later when early Christians were greatly persecuted because of their claim that Christ was risen from the dead and was worshipped as God.
Evidence outside of the bible?
@@vladtheemailer3223 You can look at the book of Taictus, Suetonius or Josephus.
Vlad, if the Bible weren’t compiled into the religious text used today and it was still separate documents I bet you would accept it because it’s repeated over and over again within those historical documents that this claim killed many Christian’s.
Also yes there is extra biblical documentation, you can find it for yourself if you look for it.
@@bikesrcool_1958 Extra biblical sources are scant. What we see in the bible is Apotheosis.
@@vladtheemailer3223 There is a slew of 1st and 2nd century Roman historians who have confirmed this. Flavius Josephus, Seutonius, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, and others.
As always, good work brother!
Red Pen God Bless you, brother, you rock! I was just doubting a lot of things in Christianity, and wondering even if it were true! Can you please respond to Alex more and can you make more videos on eastern religions like hinduism because it seems to me that that religion in particular has a lot of history and a lot going on and it seems to me that it is very complex and sophisticated, I need help understanding how Christianity is true against a religion like that! It seems to me that apologetics is lacking in the eastern religion compartment of things. Thanks man! Love the work you are doing! God Bless!
Hinduism is difficult to deal with because it is not unified. Hindus believe whatever, frankly, it's nearly a case-by-case basis. Buddhism is not as bad, but still a mess because it has many sects and conflicting philosophies/teachings. The only things Hinduism has that is consistent throughout is the dharma concept and reincarnation. For Buddhism, the only commonality is reincarnation and non-attachment.
Either way, both require you to save yourself (Nirvana or Enlightenment), whereas Christianity teaches that you cannot save yourself, only God can save you by forgiving your sins, and that occurs only through Christ.
@@droe2570 Hey D Roe, first off, thank you for your reply, I need a lot of help figuring things out and being able to defend my faith in Jesus reasonably. Your reply means a whole ton to me, thanks man! Now, I completely agree with you and through that lens, it is rather easy for us to refute hinduism. Now, with that given, it’s still hard to convince them because it’s almost too easy to believe in Jesus to be saved instead of karma and reincarnation. Now, my question lies more in the historical evidence for hinduism and its case for bringing inventions and advanced contributions to the world. The vedas are known for discussing advanced surgeries way before science did and yoga positions that help your health tremendously and science is starting to discover its effects right now (tho yoga has some questionable roots ☠) and hinduism is the oldest religion in the world. Hinduism also has a lot of contributions to astronomy as well. The historical evidence for some of the stories in hinduism is also pretty strong. With all that said, though it doesn’t necessarily make hinduism true, the evidence for it seems pretty strong and it has made some important contributions. So, here I am, kind of lost not knowing how to refute hinduism, I really need help. Brother, I appreciate you taking your time to read this and May God Bless ya!
@@mad547s8 Well, a lot of your Hinduism claims here are rather overstated. That said, none of it means that the spiritual constructs of Hinduism are true. We can say true things about the world and also say false things about the world. If someone says some things about reality that happen to be accurate, this is not evidence that everything that person says about everything is accurate. Each claim must be taken on its own. One of Hinduism's greatest failures is its own internal inconsistencies and practices (take, for instance, the wide variety of creation myths).
At any rate, all religions in the world teach that salvation must be earned through actions of various kinds (only Christ teaches the opposite of this). They all ignore sin and pretend that somehow doing evil is ignored if you do enough good. Its as if a doctor who saves many people's lives should not be prosecuted when we learn he is also a serial killer. This seems, to me, the most obvious problem with all these religions. How can you be perfect if you are corrupt? Time does not make your corruption disappear, it does not erase the sins you have committed. These moral crimes demand justice, and a world without justice can only be an evil world.
@@mad547s8important contribution is a bad case for any faith or tradition, Islam made great contribution does that mean I’m supposed to listen to their prophet... hell no
The replier is correct they’re far too divided for any Christian apologist to study and refute every single point. I’ve never heard of the evidence fore Hinduism, but here Alex theory of “legendary development” can be applied if there’s no evidence for a trustworthy manuscripts or oral tradition
@@user-jy6hd9uw8h Hey man thanks for the reply! I do understand what you are saying. Tbh with ya i am so confused because there are many contradictions in hinduism, yet there is also so much going for it! God Bless
Is he saying post resurrection of Jesus witness by over 500 is a historical fact?
We have ONE claim that 500 people saw Jesus.
We don't have 500 separate claims.
How did thomas write a gospel 100-200 years after he died?
"As time goes on" ... They were all written around the same period.
Paul speaks of an earlier Gospel before Mark, this Gospel is lost likely written by Andrew in the late 40s AD who was a follower of John The Baptizer. I believe Mark was based on a incompleate copy of this earliest Gospel which explains Mark's abrupt ending.
also there is the early sermon in Acts 10 which says "We are witnesses of all the things that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He be revealed not to all the people, but to witnesses who had been chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. and He ordered us to preach to the people, and to testify solemnly that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead."
True, but Acts was written by Luke after he wrote his Gospel, so it's still a comparatively late witness.
yes Acts was relatively later but the sermon quoted in Acts is much earlier.
@@LukeBowman08 there's no way to know if Luke is going off a transcript of that sermon or just memories though.
@@thadofalltrades why would it be a problem if he was going off of memory. there likely wasn't a manuscript for this sermon, but if this sermon was being repeated and seems like bedrock for the Gospel's Resurrection appearances then it seems plausible to think that he remembered the sermon.
@@LukeBowman08 it's just a criteria thing. The claim Alex is making is that they made stuff up, why not that sermon? Without a tangible source, like 1 Corinthian 15, it's not his evidence against a mythology claim. 1 Corinthians 15 strengthens the likelihood that the sermon really occurred.
This is why we can't just take one small bit and treat it like it engulfs the whole thing
Amazing that you have responded to alex o connor's claims! this was really interesting to watch.
Lol, one question destroys that atheist thought process:
Why do you think Mark was written first?
We don't actually know it was earliest, and some say it was Matthew, but for those that think it was earliest, part of that is it being short and not including much of an ending. So... the resurrection story was added later because we know the earliest gospel didn't have it. And we know that gospel is the earliest because it doesn't have the resurrection story.
You failed.
@@vladtheemailer3223?
In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul does not differentiate between his vision of Jesus and what the others saw. It does not confirm that others saw Jesus walking around after being crucified. Those stories come later in the gospels. All it does is tell us that others claimed to see what Paul saw, which was not the Jesus walking around in the gospels.
The TRUTH that HUMAN BEINGS were CREATED by the CREATOR to LIVE and EXIST on EARTH FOREVER
are clearly
OFFENSIVE and UNACCEPTABLE
to
Jehovah's Witnesses, SDAs, Mormons, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Born Again Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, fanatics of all kinds of Religions, and Atheists
who
are all obviously hurt and angered by the BIBLICAL TRUTHS that -
1. lowly, ordinary, kind, and respectful persons on earth who willingly submit to the authority of Jesus Christ in their obedience to what's written in Matthew 28: 18
will
definitely be honored and rewarded by the Creator with ETERNAL LIFE and existence on earth without sufferings, pains, griefs, sickness, and death as written in Revelation 21: 3, 4
2. the teachings of Jesus Christ about the "Kingdom of God" and "Resurrection of the Dead" written in Luke 4: 43 and John 11: 25, 26
are the guarantee
that
loving, kind, considerate, and respectful persons on earth
who
died recently and thousands of years ago like Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Job, Naomi, Ruth, King David, Jesus Christ's Followers and disciples, and many others
will
all be RESURRECTED back to life in the right and proper time so they can happily and abundantly live and exist on earth forever as submissive and obedient subjects of the "KINGDOM of GOD"
and fully enjoy the eternal love, kindness, goodness, generosities, compassions, favors, and blessings of the Creator and his Christ for eternity
under the loving and kind rulership, guidance, and protection of Jesus Christ as the Creator's Chosen King and Ruler of the heavens and the earth as written in Revelation 11: 15.
The mythological developments of the resurrection came about 150 AD
Would you elaborate?
But none of the accounts are 1st person, except for Paul. Significant.
It's an account of personal testimonies. Until one has evidence which denies the validity of that testimony, it stands. Of course, part of this is why the Law of Witnesses was created as well. If the testimony of one is weak, the testimony of 2 or 3 is stronger, and the testimony of hundreds is the strongest of all.
I’ll say again; I LOVE X 10000000000 the Red Pen Logic x CosmicSkeptic crossover!!!
Man, I really appreciate your content. May God continue to richly bless you!
Atheist always speak on Christ without experiencing Christ... when you get revelation, the scripture reads differently... let the Holy spirit remove the heart of stone for a heart of flesh...
In Alex's more recent video 'Every Argument For Atheism', his current position is not that Jesus progressively becomes more divine, but that more evidence is provided for his divinity as the bible goes on. He also addresses Paul's account in 1 Corinthians 15 and points out that 'seeing 500 people' does not equal '500 separate written eye witness accounts'.
Alex also points out Paul's account in Acts 9:3 never actually sees a physical resurrection, he sees a bright light, not the fleshy Jesus himself. So the mythological development idea still seems plausible.
So if Corinthians was written before that book, was is it deliberately written out of place instead of a chronological order?
1 Corinthians is what’s considered a Pauline epistle.
The New Testament is categorized as follows:
The Gospels:
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
Acts of the Apostles:
Acts
Pauline Epistle’s:
Romans
1 Corinthians
2 Corinthians
Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
2 Timothy
Titus
Philemon
General Epistles:
Hebrews
James
1 Peter
2 Peter
1 John
2 John
3 John
Jude
Revelation
Isn’t Alex’s point that the “blessed those who don’t see and believe” statement is talking about no physical evidence? You can count the account of Thomas as evidence, sure, but isn’t the point that no one after that point in history will be able to “see and believe” ? It’s not about evidence as a whole, its about physical/visual evidence. So I don’t see how that contradicts Alex’s point about the gospel promoting having faith even if there’s a lack of evidence.
Mr Bʼs proint is that eyewitness testimony _IS_ evidence.
Most of the evidence in courtroom trials is eyewitness testimony. To dismiss this as “no evidence” is to invalidate most of what we consider knowledge.
@@Crich_Leslie I’ve watched quite a few trials and it is a large stretch to say eyewitness testimony is “most of the evidence”. And it’s important to state even when eyewitness testimony is presented, it isn’t held to a high standard unless it’s corroborated by an uninterested 3rd party, or video/audio evidence. Most people accept the resurrection with a lackluster standard of evidence. If it was the same standard of evidence we used in the courts, there would be so many wrongful convictions
Mark doesn't talk about Jesus' birth either, but obviously He was born
This short part is from 'the ugly decline of morality in the digital age'. A few minutes later, at 1:18:37, he specifically quotes 1 corinthians 15 and the 500 as the earliest source of appearances. In this few seconds that you showed he was specifically talking about the gospels. Why did you show him as if he didnt know about 1 corinthians 15 and as if he was talking generally?
I always thought that Jesus says that blessed are those who believe without evidence is two fold. One, those who will believe in the future will not have the evidence like Thomas was given and so they will fall on faith even more. Second, if you believe because someone shows you miracles then you may only believe because of something physical or material, but if you believe because the Gospel makes sense of the world and you agree with its moral teachings then your belief is on stronger grounds.
It seems that many in these comments are using the word “evidence” when they mean “proof”.
As courts of law show, the testimony of witnesses - which Thomas had - IS evidence.
I think Jesusʼ lesson is that we need to recognize the validity of eywitness testimony - because we recognize it in all other walks of life - and not unreasonably demand proof when we have sufficient evidence in the testimony of reliable witnesses.
I think this is your best video yet. Alex falls into the trap of treating the canonical gospels as being the chronological dispensation of the story of Christ. As you noted, Paul’s writings predate the Gospels, and contain evidence of the resurrection some 40-50 years before John’s book was written.
Actually, Paul says nothing about a tomb. That detail appeared later as the myth was elaborated upon.
Great rebuttal!
Well said Mr B. God bless your ministry.
The four Gospels are team effort, each provides a perspective based on what each of the Apostles has experienced. We shouldn't expect them to be duplicates of one account verbatim. This isn't some individual scientific paper written by a group. Afterall, Luke wasn't even an original Disciple, he travelled to Israel to investigate the claims made about Jesus.
Most often, the wording is from a third person such as, "He went on to [place]. There, a man approached and asked..." Nehemiah, however wrote from a first person narrative, "I went out at night so that no one would know what I was doing".
"We shouldn't expect them to be duplicates of one account verbatim" Look up the synoptic problem, there are many verses that match up almost exactly verbatim
The gospels are anonymous hearsay stories. Why would anyone believe they are true?
Is t it obvious the gospels are eyewitness testimonies and most testimonies are going to have different details?
I do believe. I'm just not sure why. The bible is a nearly unintelligible mess that even believers much smarter than me can't agree on large important parts of. Every single day, I am astonished that this is God's plan to share information about Himself.
Half my daily bible readings end in frustration, confusion, and anger. There are so many things in the bible that we have to wonder, why are we being told this? What does that even mean? but then the clear things that we would like to see aren't even there. Jesus said a lot of things encrypted in some kind of confusing parables so people wouldn't understand. It seams very unfair of God to communicate in such an unclear way.
Yes, Lord, when you say absurd confusing things like I have to be born again, or I should eat your flesh and drink your blood, it definitely makes me want to leave, but there is no where else to go. You have the keys.
If a regular person acted this way, I wouldn't put up with it. Unless they were my only ride home and they had the only car keys, but that sounds kind of like blackmail.
The LIES, FALSE CLAIM and TEACHINGS of ATHEISTS and CHRISTIANS against the CREATOR
Atheists
who are boasting and claiming that the Creator is worthless, useless, and undeserving to be honored and respected as the True and Sovereign GOD
and
Jehovah's Witnesses, SDAs, Mormons, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Born Again Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, and fanatics of all kinds of Religions
who
trick and deceive their own families and neighbors to believe their LIES and false teachings and doctrines about "hellfire", "immortality of the souls", "afterlife", "Armageddon", "rapture", and "reincarnation"
will
definitely bring themselves and their own families and neighbors nothing but dishonor, disgrace, shame and ETERNAL DEATHS.
The TRUTH that HUMAN BEINGS were CREATED by the CREATOR to LIVE and EXIST on EARTH FOREVER
are clearly
OFFENSIVE and UNACCEPTABLE
to
Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, fanatics of all kinds of Religions, and Atheists
who
are obviously hurt and angered by the BIBLICAL TRUTHS that -
1. the teaching of Jesus Christ about the "Kingdom of God" written in Luke 4: 43
will
definitely bring honor and the Creator's favor and reward of ETERNAL LIFE and existence on earth without sufferings, pains, griefs, sickness, and death as written in Revelation 21: 3, 4
to
lowly, ordinary, kind, considerate, and respectful persons on earth
who
willingly submit to the authority of Jesus Christ in their obedience to what's written in Matthew 28: 18.
2. the teaching of Jesus Christ about the "Resurrection of the Dead" written in John 11: 25, 26
is the guarantee
that
loving, kind, considerate, and respectful persons on earth
who
died recently and thousands of years ago like Abel, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Job, Naomi, Ruth, King David, Jesus Christ's Followers and disciples, and many others
will
all be RESURRECTED back to life in the right and proper time so they can happily and abundantly live and exist on earth forever as submissive and obedient subjects of the "KINGDOM of GOD"
and fully enjoy the eternal love, kindness, goodness, generosities, compassions, favors, and blessings of the Creator and his Christ for eternity
under the loving and kind rulership, guidance, and protection of Jesus Christ as the Creator's Chosen King and Ruler of the heavens and the earth as written in Revelation 11: 15.
Best post ever.
Beautiful. I need to listen to this over and over again
Strange that Alex would say something like this, considering how well-versed he should be in this history.
Also, it's funny that that's the moral lesson that he thinks is being taught. It's like he's clamping his hands over his ears, asking to receive evidence, and when he can't hear it, says "See? They ask us to believe without seeing! They ask us to believe without evidence!" as if the evidence were not forthcoming.
I understand this isn't the only reason Alex is an atheist, not even the primary one. But it seems disingenuous, the way he puts this argument forward. Like he has some more legitimate, but less convincing reason to be doubtful of the validity of the resurrection appearances, but just wants to make a rhetorical point.
Yeah, it’s like Psalm 137 where people just took a sad Psalm into some kind of murderous gotcha 😅
In no way does the creed undermine the claim that post resurrection appearances were a product of mythologal development. The creed is fully compatible with that hypothesis.
Got anything else, RPL?
So how do you think the face of evil looks? Red and with horns?
There is high christology in Mark in the first few verses, quoting the old testament. This is an old and decades outdated idea. Additionally, The order of writing the gospels is still debatable. There is evidence in John that his Gospel is written before 70 a.d. instead of 100 a.d. some Oxford prof is currently publishing about it.
Its strange the clzosest canonical gospel didnt mention all that stuff from corinthians
In John, he wrote that it was just before the passover that they had the last supper, but the other books say it was the first day of the passover, what is the answer to that? I heard it from someone, and this channel is my go-to for disproving goofy athiest stuff
I need a chronological Bible.
Where can I get that hat?
Yes yes yes! Thank you Lord.
A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
He is just factually wrong about certain things that are critical. First, the Gospel of Mark does include the resurrection of Christ, but he's ignoring it because its not an "appearance", that is, we don't see the disciples interacting directly with Jesus, only the angels, and thats if you ignore the latter part of Mark 16 because you think it was added later, which is a debatable point. Nevertheless, the resurrection is absolutely attested in Mark, its not like they didn't have it and it was a later invention. The resurrection was there from the very beginning. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the very last verse of the shorter ending of Mark constitutes an "appearance" where it says "Jesus himself also sent out through them. . ." But even if you ignore BOTH endings, the idea that the resurrection is absent from the book of Mark is absolutely absurd. The point of course, is a bait and switch, a shell game. He's wanting people to infer from the statement that there are "no post-ressurection appearances of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark" that there is no evidence of the resurrection and that early Christians/contemporaries of Jesus death hadn't even conceived of a resurrection. If you call him out on it, he'll probably waffle and concede the point, but leave the misleading statements as is because they're "technically" accurate so he can still claim he didn't say anything wrong.
Concerning Thomas, I think he gets a worse reputation than he deserves. The disciples didn't believe the women either when they were told and went to check for themselves, and yet Thomas gets the reputation of 'doubter'. Even more than that, when Jesus said these things to him in the closed room, Thomas immediately exclaims "My Lord and my God". He didn't actually need to put his hands in the holes to believe, Jesus said as much "Because you have seen me," which linguistically could just represent observation and could reasonably include the actions of testing him out, but given the other parts of the sentence is an unlikely or forced interpretation.
I've been working on puzzles with my wife lately and sometimes we'll find a piece that almost fits perfectly, or sometimes even perfectly just to later discover it was still in the wrong place. This is what he's doing, he's got an image in his head of how it actually happened(the development hypothesis) and he takes the puzzle pieces(facts found in the Gospels) and makes them fit because they seem to be close to what he's looking for. The problem is they don't actually fit, and he doesn't notice because they make the image he's looking for, but he never took the time to compare to the box and see if his image matches the original design.
Wonderful
And, we don't have the ending for Mark, so we don't know what it contained.
Further away from the source? John?! Did you read the opening to John? He was a disciple who went to the tomb. he is as close to the source as humanly possible.
It’s a silly argument, hundreds and hundreds of people saw him post resurrection, the idea that three of the gospels talking about it and one not somehow indicates that that it didn’t happen is nonsensical. These aren’t arguments these are somebody trying to put something in your head that doesn’t even make sense. It’s not like those gospels were written chronologically like one guy wrote his and then the next guy read that and wrote his own. They were written independently. Matthew was aimed mainly for the Jews who were kind of there for the resurrection part so probably probably didn’t need to talk about it a lot to them.
We have claims of hundreds of witnesses. Mark and Luke copy parts of Matthew.
How do you know?
I find it ‘funny’, how the Jesus skeptic will move the goal posts to suit their ‘argument du jour’.
On one hand they will blow right past any acknowledgment of the gospels, epistles and Acts as any form of historical reference whatsoever calling them all an invention, and then in this kind of argument, they will then use the gospels as historical references to be relied upon, as long as it supports their argument of course.
Arguing against them, is like arguing against a flat earther and conspiracy theorist.
Atheism is a belief in search of a rationale. It is not arrived at after years of careful, methodical and objective research and study. This is why their complaints are all over the place: frequently illogical, ignore historical and other forms of evidence, and so on.
False. One, a gross generalization of skeptics.
Two, who doubts the historical parts of the Bible? You're not suggesting one should take the Miracle claims on face value or because the bible said so?
@@alp5088 "who doubts the historical parts of the Bible?
Gaslighting or clueless? We have a long history of the bible being questioned as historically accurate, and many times the bible has proven itself the most reliable ancient document in existence. Still, there are many "skeptics" who outright deny any historical value the bible possesses. The Hittites. Sodom, and many other peoples and places, rulers, etc. have been outright denied as having existed, but so many of these things have been discovered over the decades. Many supposed historical errors have been proven true, because the default "skeptic" position is to simply deny any value to the bible whatsoever.
The gospels, epistles and Acts are CLAIMS. Claims are NOT evidence
@@colinmatts That's reductive. We do not treat eye-witness testimony as mere claims but as evidence, as well. Biographies are also not treated as mere claims, nor do we treat historical accounts as mere claims.
This does not mean that all such artifacts are treated as true or are true, but reducing them to "claims" and leaving it at that is dishonest and anti-scholastic. It's an anti-intellectual move so you can dismiss evidence by simply re-categorizing it.
Where do I get the hat?
Does the gospel of Mark contain no post resurrection appearances? That’s just false, right?
Nope. That is correct.
The story of Jona is not added unto later after Jesus but comes hundreds of years before Jesus as a precursor to the resurrection of Christ.
I love your videos, God bless you. Please keep doing this.
I think that the gospels not being exactly alike is what makes them true
Can you react more to Alex o Connor? I find myself in trouble with his vide
there is no vibe, there is only your brain and logic
@@T-BUG-gj7mx I meant vid, as in videos. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding
Amazing breakdown, I really appreciate the wisdom, praise the Lord🙏
Great response
A problem I find with the mythological embellishment theory is in the mention of "He appeared to James". This is a small line that gets no attention. I want to know about Jesus' appearance to His own brother, -you know, the guy who doubted Jesus during His ministry, but later became the first priest of the church in Jerusalem, and was martyred for his faith. What was this appearance like that convinced Doubting James of his brother's lordship?
If the Gospels were just making up stories, this would have definitely been a tasty one to embellish. And yet, nothing. Paul's passing mention "He appeared to James" is the only thing we have to link James' rejection to his martyrdom.
What's very suspicious to me about the bible is that is does NOT AT ALL comport to the reality we experience
Try reading Ecclesiastes, I think you'll be surprised how close it hits home.
Talking snakes and donkeys are NOT a thing
Mark does have the post resurrection appearance.
It's just that the ivory tower, big headed, critical text wizards have alakazam'd the longer ending of Mark away because faithless men were complaining about scripture they don't believe to start with.
Leave scripture alone and you won't give ammo to unbelievers.
This fact is so detrimental to that whole line of reasoning I'm surprised that such seemingly intelligent people believe it, or at least don't try to account for it.
What does he mean by "The Gospel of Mark (...) contains no resurrection appearances"?
What about:
"Now when he was risen early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told them that had been with him, as they mourned and wept. And they, when they heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, disbelieved. And after these things he was manifested in another form unto two of them, as they walked, on their way into the country. And they went away and told it unto the rest: neither believed they them. And afterward he was manifested unto the eleven themselves as they sat at meat; and he upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them that had seen him after he was risen." - Mark 16:9-4?
It’s still believing without seeing to those that weren’t there , surely and I do believe by the way .
Even apart from 1 Corinthians 15, which I didn't know off the top of my head. It seems far too quick for legends to arise since even John is thought to be written less than 80 years after Jesus death, Matthew and Luke within 60 years. That doesn't seem like enough time for it to be purely legendary
I vote for Matthew being earliest