Atheist conclusions about the historicity of the resurrection

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Cypress

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Atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann evaluated every reference to Jesus' resurrection in the New Testament, as well as apocryphal literature. Through this approach, he offers a reconstruction of the probable course of events as well as the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on the cross, the burial of his body, his reported resurrection on the third day, and subsequent appearances to various disciples.

The Christian faith Luedemann concludes ultimately stems from hallucinations of Peter and the other disciples, both men and women.

From a modern perspective this leads to the inescapable conclusion that the primary witnesses to Jesus' resurrection were victims of self-deception.

In conclusion, he asks whether in light of the nonhistoricity of Jesus' resurrection, thinking people today can legitimately and in good conscience still call themselves Christians.



https://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Christ-Historical-Inquiry/dp/1591022452
https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800627928/The-Resurrection-of-Jesus
 
Cypress said:
Atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann evaluated every reference to Jesus' resurrection in the New Testament, as well as apocryphal literature. Through this approach, he offers a reconstruction of the probable course of events as well as the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on the cross, the burial of his body, his reported resurrection on the third day, and subsequent appearances to various disciples.

The Christian faith Luedemann concludes ultimately stems from hallucinations of Peter and the other disciples, both men and women.

From a modern perspective this leads to the inescapable conclusion that the primary witnesses to Jesus' resurrection were victims of self-deception.

In conclusion, he asks whether in light of the nonhistoricity of Jesus' resurrection, thinking people today can legitimately and in good conscience still call themselves Christians.



https://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Christ-Historical-Inquiry/dp/1591022452
https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800627928/The-Resurrection-of-Jesus
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Fuckk uou in satans rectum
 
ZenMode said:
@Cypress Lots of people claim to "see" their dead relatives/friends. Of all the "this makes no sense" things associated with the resurrection, this might be the least weird. :laugh:
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The only weakness I see in the 'everybody was hallucinating' theory is the sheer number that were reported to have supposedly seen Jesus after the crucifixion. I can easily believe an individual person have hallucinations. Dozens are a little more problematic.

Still, I'm taking it seriously as a hypothesis.
 
Cypress said:
The only weakness I see in the 'everybody was hallucinating' theory is the sheer number that were reported to have supposedly seen Jesus after the crucifixion. I can easily believe an individual person have hallucinations. Dozens are a little more problematic.

Still, I'm taking it seriously as a hypothesis.
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The problem is we don't know if any of the Biblical stories are even true. I mean, we know that Genesis story is made up because it would be literally impossible for any human to be there to document it. It's also highly likely that all of the stories of Jesus' childhood are made up.
 
ZenMode said:
The problem is we don't know if any of the Biblical stories are even true. I mean, we know that Genesis story is made up because it would be literally impossible for any human to be there to document it. It's also highly likely that all of the stories of Jesus' childhood are made up.
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Sure, it's possible everybody was lying. People never choose to die for what they know is a lie though, so the martyrdom of the apostles doesn't support a coordinated conspiracy to lie.

Given how many independent sources we have attesting to the resurrection, most reputable historians think the apostles actually believed they saw Jesus after the crucifixion. The question is whether or not they were mentally ill or hallucinating.

A college or good high school education teaches one to respect literary style, and read in that context.

Genesis doesn't present itself as narrative history. The most common interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is that it represents Hebrew poetry.

The Gospel crucifixion and resurrection acounts and Paul's epistles purport to contain at least some passages that are supposed to be narrative history.
 
Cypress said:
Sure, it's possible everybody was lying. People never choose to die for what they know is a lie though, so the martyrdom of the apostles doesn't support a coordinated conspiracy to lie.

Given how many independent sources we have attesting to the resurrection, most reputable historians think the apostles actually believed they saw Jesus after the crucifixion. The question is whether or not they were mentally ill or hallucinating.

A college or good high school education teaches one to respect literary style, and read in that context.

Genesis doesn't present itself as narrative history. The most common interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2 is that it represents Hebrew poetry.

The Gospel crucifixion and resurrection acounts and Paul's epistles purport to contain at least some passages that are supposed to be narrative history.
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What I'm saying is we have no idea if any of the gospel stories are even real. We have no idea if anyone actually believed they saw Jesus alive after his death or were they all just stories made up to convince people that Jesus was divine.
 
Cypress said:
Atheist New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann evaluated every reference to Jesus' resurrection in the New Testament, as well as apocryphal literature. Through this approach, he offers a reconstruction of the probable course of events as well as the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on the cross, the burial of his body, his reported resurrection on the third day, and subsequent appearances to various disciples.

The Christian faith Luedemann concludes ultimately stems from hallucinations of Peter and the other disciples, both men and women.

From a modern perspective this leads to the inescapable conclusion that the primary witnesses to Jesus' resurrection were victims of self-deception.

In conclusion, he asks whether in light of the nonhistoricity of Jesus' resurrection, thinking people today can legitimately and in good conscience still call themselves Christians.



https://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Christ-Historical-Inquiry/dp/1591022452
https://www.fortresspress.com/store/product/9780800627928/The-Resurrection-of-Jesus
Click to expand...



Arianism is nothing new.

they are still christians.

the Catholic church and the nicene Creed do not define christianity.

  1. Arianism - Wikipedia​



    https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Arianism

    Arianism also teaches that God is eternal, was never a man, and could not incarnate as a man; in contrast, the LDS Church teaches that "God Himself is an exalted man, perfected, enthroned, and supreme." [127] Whereas Arianism denies that humans can become gods, the LDS Church affirms that humans can become gods through exaltation. [128]
  2. britannica.com

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    Arianism | Definition, History, & Controversy | Britannica​


    https://www.britannica.com › topic › Arianism
    Mar 17, 2025Arianism, in Christianity, the Christological (concerning the doctrine of Christ) position that Jesus, as the Son of God, was created by God.It was proposed early in the 4th century by the Alexandrian presbyter Arius and was popular throughout much of the Eastern and Western Roman empires, even after it was denounced as a heresy by the Council of Nicaea (325).
    Author:The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
  3. gotquestions.org

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    What is Arianism? - GotQuestions.org​


    https://www.gotquestions.org › arianism.html
    Arianism is the heresy that denies the eternal and divine nature of Jesus Christ, claiming that He is a created being. Learn the biblical refutation of Arianism and its modern forms, such as Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.
 
ZenMode said:
What I'm saying is we have no idea if any of the gospel stories are even real. We have no idea if anyone actually believed they saw Jesus alive after his death or were they all just stories made up to convince people that Jesus was divine.
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The noteworthy thing here is that even a respected atheist New Testament scholar won't take up the torch of saying everyone was lying about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. He thinks there is enough reliable historicity to say something really did happen, the disciples really did believe they saw Jesus after the crucifixion, and it does requires an explanation - in this case, hallucinations and self delusion.

I've never heard any respected scholar of antiquity say the evidence points to the crucifixion and resurrection being a fabricated story that was introduced to the oral and written tradition as a legendary tale decades later.
 
Judea was a backwater, so not exactly on the global empire radar, hence Christianity was mostly a local affair, and Orthodox Jews like to pretend anything they don't like just doesn't exist, and don't discuss it or record much of it. Unfortunately for the Orthodox Babylonian cultists more than enough Jews who weren't stooges of the Temple cultists were around to document the rise and spread it outside Jerusalem and Judea. Most of the original sources were of course Jewish, and the Christian sect, being Jewish itself, preached from the temples and synagogues early on, until the Establishment Jews murdered them and banned them.
 
Cypress said:
The noteworthy thing here is that even a respected atheist New Testament scholar won't take up the torch of saying everyone was lying about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. He thinks there is enough reliable historicity to say something really did happen, the disciples really did believe they saw Jesus after the crucifixion, and it does requires an explanation - in this case, hallucinations and self delusion.

I've never heard any respected scholar of antiquity say the evidence points to the crucifixion and resurrection being a fabricated story that was introduced to the oral and written tradition as a legendary tale decades later.
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The only NT writings we have, where we actually know who wrote them, were written by Paul. We don't know who wrote any of the gospels or any of the books that were claimed to have been written by Paul, but weren't. We know that the stories written about Jesus childhood were made up to give legitimatecy to the claims being made about him. If the gospel writers didn't.ake up stories about seeing Jesus after his crucifixion, then the story just got modified/made up somewhere up stream from the writers.
 
ZenMode said:
The only NT writings we have, where we actually know who wrote them, were written by Paul. We don't know who wrote any of the gospels or any of the books that were claimed to have been written by Paul, but weren't. We know that the stories written about Jesus childhood were made up to give legitimatecy to the claims being made about him. If the gospel writers didn't.ake up stories about seeing Jesus after his crucifixion, then the story just got modified/made up somewhere up stream from the writers.
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Mark and Luke were obscure low-ranking Christians, and there is no propaganda value in attributing canonical Gospels to them.

If you wanted to give gospels the air of authority, you would name them after disciples.

There is reasonably good circumstantial historical evidence that the Greek version of Gospel of Matthew is loosely based on a compilation of things Jesus said and did written in Hebrew by Matthew.

Not everything in Herodotus is reliably historical. Historians are paid salaries to mine the historically reliable testimony from ancient literature. The Jesus birth narratives are not multipely attested to in the gospels and therefore of lower historical reliability.

There is widespread agreement among professional scholars of antiquity that the number of independent attestations of the crucifixion and the visions of Jesus after the crucifixion make them reliable historically, and the only thing we're missing is an explanation - were they hallucinating, were they mentally ill, or something else?
 
Cypress said:
Mark and Luke were obscure low-ranking Christians, and there is no propaganda value in attributing canonical Gospels to them.

If you wanted to give gospels the air of authority, you would name them after disciples.

There is reasonably good circumstantial historical evidence that the Greek version of Gospel of Matthew is loosely based on a compilation of things Jesus said and did written in Hebrew by Matthew.

Not everything in Herodotus is reliably historical. Historians are paid salaries to mine the historically reliable testimony from ancient literature. The Jesus birth narratives are not multipely attested to in the gospels and therefore of lower historical reliability.

There is widespread agreement among professional scholars of antiquity that the number of independent attestations of the crucifixion and the visions of Jesus after the crucifixion make them reliable historically, and the only thing we're missing is an explanation - were they hallucinating, were they mentally ill, or something else?
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To clarify, I'm not saying that the gospel writers were lying. The gospel writers never met Jesus and we're probably only relaying oral stories that they heard from somebody else, who her goes from somebody else, who heard those stories from somebody else etc.

Neither did Paul, by his own admission, ever meet Jesus before the crucifixion. So could Paul have been hallucinating? Sure? Maybe he was just so intense of a believer that his mind started playing tricks on him.

Other than Paul, it's certainly seems like this is just a series of stories that gets progressively exaggerated.
 
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ZenMode said:
To clarify, I'm not saying that the gospel writers were lying. The gospel writers never met Jesus and we're probably only relaying oral stories that they heard from somebody else, who her goes from somebody else, who heard those stories from somebody else etc.
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Luke and Mark interviewed the eye witness.
Paul interviewed the eyewitness.
Mathew was written at a time some of the eyewitness, or people who knew the eyewitnesses were alive. They were in a position to challenge the author if he completely fabricated everything.
ZenMode said:
Neither did Paul, by his own admission, ever meet Jesus before the crucifixion. So could Paul have been hallucinating? Sure? Maybe he was just so intense of a believer that his mind started playing tricks on him.

Other than Paul, it's certainly seems like this is just a series of stories that gets progressively exaggerated.
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Paul knew the disciples Peter and John, and he knew Jesus' brother James.
They were in a position to challenge him if everything he was writing about Jesus were complete fabrications.

The question is not whether there are embellishments, hyperbole, exaggerations, mythical stories in the New Testament. There clearly are.

What seems to be historically reliable is that a Galilean Jewish rabbi was arrested and crucified by Roman authorities, and his disciples came to believe they saw him after the crucifixion.

It doesn't make atheists look good to say this is just a later legend, a coordinated conspiracy fabricated over many carafes of wine in a tavern. The balance of evidence doesn't support the case that everyone was lying.

Reputable scholars of antiquity accept that there is sufficient evidence to believe the crucifixion story is reliable, and what is left for us to explain is why the disciples came to believe they saw Jesus after the crucifixion. The atheist New Testament scholar I posted in the OP is making an attempt to explain it.
 
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Cypress said:
Luke and Mark interviewed the eye witness.
Paul interviewed the eyewitness.
Mathew was written at a time some of the eyewitness, or people who knew the eyewitnesses were alive. They were in a position to challenge the author if he completely fabricated everything.

Paul knew the disciples Peter and John, and he knew Jesus' brother James.
They were in a position to challenge him if everything he was writing about Jesus were complete fabrications.

The question is not whether there are embellishments, hyperbole, exaggerations, mythical stories in the New Testament. There clearly are.

What seems to be historically reliable is that a Galilean Jewish rabbi was arrested and crucified by Roman authorities, and his disciples came to believe they saw him after the crucifixion.

It doesn't make atheists look good to say this is just a later legend, a coordinated conspiracy fabricated over many carafes of wine in a tavern. The balance of evidence doesn't support the case that everyone was lying.

Reputable scholars of antiquity accept that there is sufficient evidence to believe the crucifixion story is reliable, and what is left for us to explain is why the disciples came to believe they saw Jesus after the crucifixion.
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"It doesn't make atheists look good to say this is just a later legend, fabricated over many carafes of wine in a tavern. The balance of evidence doesn't support the case that everyone was lying."

Whether it was a hallucination, exaggeration or whatever, it doesn't really matter. A dead body can't come back to live. The brain and all organs have long since died and become unusable, so nobody saw the deceased Jesus.
 
ZenMode said:
"It doesn't make atheists look good to say this is just a later legend, fabricated over many carafes of wine in a tavern. The balance of evidence doesn't support the case that everyone was lying."

Whether it was a hallucination, exaggeration or whatever, it doesn't really matter. A dead body can't come back to live. The brain and all organs have long since died and become unusable, so nobody saw the deceased Jesus.
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Good, so we agree the disciples genuinely believed they saw Jesus after the crucifixion, and were willing to die for that belief. The only thing needing explaining is why they believed that.

That is real progress, because many message board atheists have tried to convince me that all of it just lies and fabrications made up decades later.

My theory is that Jesus didn't die on the cross, but was comatose and mistaken for being dead when he was taken down.
 
Cypress said:
Good, so we agree the disciples genuinely believed they saw Jesus after the crucifixion, and were willing to die for that belief. The only thing needing explaining is why they believed that.
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Yes. I believe that somebody, at some point, like with Paul could have believed they saw Jesus. People today, after the death of a loved one, believe they see them. The brain is a powerful and deceitful thing.
That is real progress, because many message board atheists have tried to convince me that all of it just lies and fabrications made up decades later.

My theory is that Jesus didn't die on the cross, but was comatose and mistaken for being dead when he was taken down.
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I could have been lies and fabrications. If someone genuinely believes they saw something, you can interview them about their hallucination and, if they truly believe they saw xxx, they'll appear convincing, right?

All of the alien abductions can't be lies. I'm sure there are a decent percentage of people who truly believe they were abducted by aliens.
 
ZenMode said:
Yes. I believe that somebody, at some point, like with Paul could have believed they saw Jesus. People today, after the death of a loved one, believe they see them. The brain is a powerful and deceitful thing.

I could have been lies and fabrications. If someone genuinely believes they saw something, you can interview them about their hallucination and, if they truly believe they saw xxx, they'll appear convincing, right?

All of the alien abductions can't be lies. I'm sure there are a decent percentage of people who truly believe they were abducted by aliens.
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Right. People aren't lying when they genuinely hallucinate. They genuinely believe it.

So the argument that the resurrection account is based on intentional fabrications and lies doesn't hold water. Even reputable scholars of antiquity don't buy that.

Next, you are on thin ice trying to explain how dozens of people all had the same hallucination. Seems highly improbable.

My theory fits the accepted historical accounts, but doesn't require either mass hallucinations nor the supernatural.
 
They were recording oral histories from witnesses, so they wouldn't be lost via persecutions and deaths. and could be spread around the Empire, pretty basic stuff throughout Jewish history. Much of their theology was historically transmitted, same with a lot of other cultures around the world. Apparently some think that just because there was no Kinko's Copies and Microsoft Word software the sources are not valid, but mainly we know they make such claims because they want to rewrite it all to suit themselves and they have make up a fake history to do so, after these stupid efforts to discredit the real history.
 
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