Overwhelming Evidence Says He Is Risen

As nearly all scholars of antiquity admit about the New Testament documents: "there are more manuscripts, earlier manuscripts, better copied manuscripts, and manuscripts written by more people who were closer to the events than for any other piece of ancient history." Now Chuck did not make a case for the reliability of the New Testament documents, either for lack of time or space, because it is no small feat. But if you choose not to see them as valid then we really "have no hope for any reliable knowledge of ancient happenings" because all other works of antiquity have weaker cases of authenticity... i.e. Homer's Odyssey or Caesar's Gallic Wars. (quoted material by Norman Giesler)

Chuck's argument here does not ultimately prove his point. If some of the apostles turned away from their faith, then we'd have a serious problem, but at least that they convincingly lived their lives for it is cause for us to investigate further. If you think the New Testament documents are reliable, then there are many other arguments that lend themselves to credibility of the resurrection. Resurrection here is defined as a supernatural event, done by God.

1) Paul's conversion, who was a former terrorist to Christians
2) James conversion - Jesus' own brother
3) The empty tomb as admitted by the Jewish authorities and the Roman guards
4) the empty tomb as reported by a group of his female followers (this is the embarrassment criterion: a new movement wouldn't be started by the testimony of "uncredible" witnesses, since women's testimony was not valid in a Jewish court of law in 1st century Palestine).
5) The post-resurrection appearances to the women, the apostles, 100s of others.
6) Jesus own prediction of his death and resurrection
7) According to the Jewish Talmud, on Yom Kippur (the Day of atonement) there were 3 signs the Jews looked for to know if God accepted their annual sacrifice. After Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, those signs turn up consistently negative for the next 40 years, until the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. Why? The final sacrifice was already made - Jesus on the cross.
8) The Old Testament (again a long case which space does not permit) makes many predictions about the messiah, or Yeshua (Jesus), including his death and resurrection.
9) Other ancient sources speak of Christ and Christianity: Tacitus, Flavius Josephus, Suetonius, Thallus, Pliny the Younger, Emperor Trajan, Hadrian, Lucian of Somosata, Mara Bar-Serapion, Phlegon, the Jewish Talmud, and a few more. From these sources, we can see Jesus’ life of virtue, his miracles and divinity, his death and resurrection, and the growth and persecution of the early church.

To those who would say the 4 gospels are full of contradictions I would say to you find 4 biographies of Abraham Lincoln and see how well they mimic each other on each and every point of Lincoln's life. The discrepancies between the 4 gospels are only apparent, which serious and honest scholarship can resolve.

To those who would say other newly discovered gospels shed new light on the original 4, or that other ancient personalities performed miracles and were resurrected, again the documentation is not as strong as those supporting the case for Jesus.

To those of you who don’t believe in miracles. Please tell me, how did the big bang happen? How does something come from nothing? One of those ancient Greek philosophers (Aristotle?) defined nothing as “that which rocks dream about” That the universe is here, especially with it’s finely tuned physical constants and properties is a miracle. That there is life in the universe is what I would call a statistical miracle. And furthermore, science is inadequate to tell us what happened before a certain point of the big bang. So both religion and modern science have a non-scientific starting point. Starting to sound like they are both ultimately belief systems to me.

For more on the subject of the resurrection I suggest the book by Gary Habermas and Mike Licona - The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus.

Might there be some bias on my account? Sure. EVERYONE has bias. Everyone brings their life experience, good and bad, to the table of worldviews, and it heavily influences what you believe about the truth. One thing is for certain, if it were not for the intellectual case for Christianity, I would not believe in any religion except atheism.

"People will give their lives for something they believe to be true. They will never give their lives for something they know to be false."

Which of course says nothing about the actual truth value of the belief.

What was your case again?

There is no evidence that the Bible is an authoritative text or that any of it is historically accurate. You believe because you want to believe. Period.

Evidence is not a 2000 year old book written by middle eastern sheepherders. There's as much "evidence" for Jesus as there is evidence of fairies and leprechauns.

You can prove the testimony of the apostles and their circumstances as much as you can prove there are talking snakes and donkeys.

Mr. Colson, who knows but God may have decided to have 11 Apostles for the reason you have documented. The larger the number of people who know something the more likely that the secret will be compromised. I agree with you that when 11 people are involved it is impossible to keep them all lying when they are being tortured and are scattered all over the place. If it was a lie, then one of them would have cracked.

If one rejects the concept that Mohamed is the penultimate prophet of God then one should not believe one's self a Muslim. If doubts that self perfection is possible one should probably not be a Buddhist. Likewise if one doubts the Bodily resurrection of Christ as portrayed by the Bible one should not consider oneself a Christian.

Freestinker wrote:

"Newsflash for Chuck (or should I call you George), believing it still doesn't make it true!"

It is worse than that. SEEING it doesn't make it true. Many people have seen UFOs but I doubt that what they saw are actually extraterrestrial craft. I can't be sure, but I doubt it. People are often mistaken about what they see.

And worse: REMEMBERING it doesn't make it true. With most people it is not difficult to implant a false memory.

And worse yet: EXPERIENCING it doesn't make it true. Many people believe they have been kidnapped by aliens aboard UFOs, but again, I doubt it. People testifying in court have often been convinced they experienced more prosaic experiences which, it turned out based on testimony of others or physical evidence, they could not have experienced.

In short, just because a person believes something to be true with all his heart -- even enough to die for it -- that is no proof it is actually true. Objective, physical evidence is the only reliable proof that an event took place in the real world. Of course it is unreasonable for us to demand evidence of an event that reportedly occurred thousands of years ago. On the other hand, it is unreasonable to suppose that the laws of nature were violated on this one occasion, thousands of years ago. So on balance, without opprobrium or hostility toward the claimants (and the people who believe them today), I am forced to conclude that it did not happen.

Frankly, I have never understood why anyone would want to live forever, or why anyone thinks it would be a good idea. I am inclined to sympathize with the Buddhist craving for extinction as an escape from suffering. In any case, I am sure that nothing is eternal. The Universe itself will end, and our species will surely go extinct long before that happens. Any philosophy or religion that denies this or pretends otherwise is fatuous in my opinion. As Bertrand Russell put it:

". . . all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruin -- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand."

That certainty is a good thing, not a bad thing.
People who do not see what is good about the Universal Time Limit seem insufficiently mature to me. Immortality in individuals or species would take away the meaning of life, and it would be the death of creativity.

"People will give their lives for something they believe to be true. They will never give their lives for something they know to be false."

That's a false dichotomy with assumptions that have little or no basis. We cannot assume that the New Testament is correct about the words and actions of Jesus or of the apostles. Colson ignores other possibilities, such as the Gospels' authors being wrong and not knowing it.

Mr Mark,

Yes, but the Bible says that Al Gore invented the Internet. So... it's really moot isn't it?

Mavaddat sez:

"There is overwhelming evidence of Jesus' resurrection like there is overwhelming evidence of Al Gore inventing the Internet."

The difference is that while the Bible avers that Jesus was resurrected, Al Gore never claimed that he "invented the internet."

Wow!

The last time I heard such "overwhelming evidence" was when Colin Powell was spouting his lies at the UN about Saddam and the (imaginary) WMD.

At first, I thought that this was just another pathetic Chuck Colson apology for Jesus, but I now think there's something else going on here. Chuck uses the word" evidence" to describe what is - at best - a legend or - most likely - a myth.

Chuck is busy degrading the word evidence by equating it with myth.

So, what are we all to think of the "evidence" that was presented to convict Chuck of his Watergate crimes? Hmm? Perhaps, that evidence was just as mythical as is Biblical evidence.

Conclusion: Jesus rose from the dead, and Chuck was innocent of all those crimes!

There is overwhelming evidence of Jesus' resurrection like there is overwhelming evidence of Al Gore inventing the Internet.

Nice try, Chuckie.

As a believing Mormon, I hate to side with the atheists, but...

Mr. Colson, that's pretty weak.

I suppose by your same logic Mormon founder Joseph Smith's story of gold plates is also true.

Let's break it down. Three honorable men signed a statement that angel came down out of heaven and showed the gold plates to them and they got to handle the plates. They also claim the voice of God told them tell everyone about it.

The statement is right inside the front cover of every book of Mormon published today. Signed Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris. All three men left the Mormon church for one reason or another. But none of them ever denied that signed statement. In fact, they went to their graves defending it.

Then you've got the testimony of eight witnesses who did not see an angel, but nonetheless handled the gold plates.

Then Joseph Smith himself gave his testimonial of the whole thing, as did his wife Emma, and other members of his family.

Am I supposed to conclude from all that that the Book of Mormon really did come from gold plates given to Joseph Smith by an angel?

Now, as it so happens, I do conclude that. But somehow, I doubt you are willing to give my witnesses the same weight you are willing to give your witnesses. Please explain to me why the attacks your own counter-cult ministries have made on the Book of Mormon witnesses do not equally apply to your vaunted apostolic witnesses. Care to share with me what the difference is?

I believe in my faith. I believe in the truth of the Book of Mormon. I also happen to believe in the truth of Christ's resurrection. But I'd be pretty deluded to call the hard evidence for either account "overwhelming."

I'm with the atheists on this one. Nice try, but I'm not buying it.

Mr. Colson,

Could you please provide some of this 'overwhelming evidence?' Because I don't see any of it. From what I take of your post, it seems that 11 people sticking to their story counts as overwhelming evidence. If that is the case, then absolutely nothing bad happened at the last bachelor party I attended, and we certainly didn't go to a strip club. Since we've all stuck to our story, it must be true, right?

But, I guess my key argument against you is provided in your very own post:

"People will give their lives for something they believe to be true. "

Notice the last part: "believe to be true." Not true, just believed to be true. There is a big difference there. Many people have died defending what they believe to be true, only to have that view found to be false later on.

Also, the fact that many of the documents that you are relying on were written decades after the events occurred, there was probably some talking amongst the disciples as to what they would write down. Of course, the centuries upon centuries of edits that went into our current iteration of the Bible could also have something to do with the uncanny ability of 11 people to completely agree on something.

Just because the apostles stuck to their guns longer than you and your friends did, does not make the story true. It is not evidence that points to the truth. It is only 11 interconnected views that we don't even know to be truly written by the apostles anyways.

http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary

Keith,

It's called "faith" my friend.

Have you never witnessed or read about a person overcoming a fatal medical condition in such a way that doctor's have no explanation for their recovery? Do the doctor's pronounce the person dead anyway because their life defies logic?

Whether you are of a religious persuasion or not, there are many moments in life that cannot be explained.

To: HOW TO GET RiD OF GOVERNMENT CHAPLAINS & PRiSON INDUSTRIES/MINISTRIES,

Why do insist on posting nonsense, hateful and ridiculous posts on this website. Nobody listens or hears your words. We all have the right to freedom of speech, but would you please make sense and stop taking up space on this website.

This column would be absolutely STunning if it came from a man presumed to be sane.

I KNOW it's true, because the bible tells me so?????

Uh, would you say that again.

IN the first and second centuries, various Christians argued about whether the REsurrection was literal or metaphorical, and the Gospels themselves state the story with varying degrees of certitude. And the Gospels were written many years after Christ died, and Paul never met the man.

Did Colson ever hear of Hearsay? Legends?

Does he think we readers are idiots?

BGone:

If you would like to read the history surrounding the origin of the notion of man's resurrection on earth its on the web at http://www.hoax-buster.org That used to be his second page. And, a demonstration of what we get when technical people get involved in democratic processes like history where what happened is determined by the vote of experts.

P.S. Chuck,

Normally I have no interest in raining on people's holy days. I am not anti-theist or anti-Christian. I haven't uttered a word amid the long list of responses to Anne Rice's conversion to Christianity.

But both your post and that of Cal Thomas is written in such a way as to insult the *persons* of anyone who doesn't believe as you do.

That's when response becomes warranted.

Chuck,

Your argument is terribly weak.

People have chosen to die for false beliefs throughout history.

Remember People's Temple? Heaven's Gate? Waco?

Why do Mormons continue to hang on to their faith, when the history of the LDS Church is so much more historically accessible to be challenged? How can Mormons hang on, when Christian bookstores carry literally *racks* of books attacking the LDS Church?

They do so because the ability of people to believe a myth (if it is a myth) is overwhelming.

Your legend -- and I mean this in no insulting manner -- is no different.

http://churchstatewall.typepad.com/

Chuck makes a solid point about the reliable testimony of the apostles and presents it well. I can't say the same for most of the harsh and juvenile comments on here trying to refute his testimony. The credible voice is easily separated from the tripe.

What evidence? I do not believe the resurrection was literal. But I believe in its meaning.

Indeed.....
The evidence is truly overwhelming!
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>
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,
This is the best logical argument I have ever seen in support of resurrection. Simply incontrovertible!



That should shut up all the atheists! Howzthat?

First of all, people can call themselves whatever they like.

Secondly, your claim of "overwhelming evidence" is completely unsubstaiated by the facts. You've got absolutely zero hard evidence to support your claim, only distant hearsay translated and re-translated several times over.

Ever hear of "The Telephone Game"? It's fun and educational!

But I guess in your world, it's not a lie if you believe it ...

Newsflash for Chuck (or should I call you George), believing it still doesn't make it true!

On second thought, I guess it would only be like that if I only had this one book's word that the event even happened, and didn't have any other evidence that a Gordon Liddy existed or was involved at all, and the book was written several hundred years after the event was alleged to have occurred. So no, it's not like that at all.

Um, this may be obvious . . . but don't we only have their word on how they did or did not act? Isn't your argument kind of like me saying I have 100% certainty about what happened in the Watergate scandal because I read G. Gordon Liddy's book?