Originally posted here.



Here is the passage in New Revised Standard Version (NRSV):

1 Cor. 15:3-7

3 For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, 4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sistersc at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died.d 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. 8 Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

c Gk brothers
d Gk fallen asleep

I note several things:

1. Paul has the story about the resurrection by hearsay only.
2. He refers a lot to prophetic scripture that was fulfilled in Jesus. I have seen Jewish writings that refute any such prophecies for the Messiah.
3. He uses the word "appeared" for every single situation. This seems more like a phantom than the later accounts in the gospels.

Peregrinus Proteus (c. 95-165 AD)

Several years ago I did some research and I found the story about the Passing of Peregrinus, written ca 165-180 AD by Lucian of Samosata. This story tells about a Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus who proved his faith in much the same way that the Muslim suicide bombers do today. He cremated himself on a funeral pyre. Lucian thinks he did it for glory and mocks him. Lucian also mocks his followers who piously proclaim to have seen supernatural events following Proteus's death. One such event was the man's resurrection.

A "gray-haired man" whose "face inspired confidence" told him that he had seen the dead man cheerfully walking in the Portico of Seven Voices (temple of some sort, I guess), dressed in "white raiment," and "wearing a garland of wild olive" (Verse 40). Garlands of wild olive were the symbol of ultimate victory in ancient Greece.

Peregrinus Proteus is believed to have been a historical person. See wikipedia article. Lucian got the resurrection account from a reputable source (gray hair=respectable age or wisdom as opposed to "folly of youth" or "impressionable youth," "face inspired confidence"). Yet Lucian himself had just returned from the funeral pyre.

He had secretly released a vulture while there. (It seems the vulture was sacred for the Greeks in the way that the dove was sacred for the early Christians, i.e. dove settles on Jesus' head after baptism.) Not only did the elderly man testify that he had seen the resurrected Proteus; he swore that he had also seen his soul ascend to heaven out of the funeral pyre in the form of a vulture. In other words, he was there and he had seen it--all of it--and he was willing to swear on it. Here is the quote:



The "Thing To Do"

So much for the veracity of testimonies of people who wanted to believe in the resurrections of their favourite sage, prophet, or philosopher. It was the thing to do. Likewise, if you were a such a leader, it was the thing to do to get yourself killed by foul means or fair. Proteus failed to get himself killed other than by his own hand. Jesus managed to get himself executed as a criminal. Christian theology claims that Jesus chose this route, that he was ordained since before the foundation of the earth (note the implication of a flat earth), that he offered himself, i.e. behold, here is my body.

Can we trust the accounts of those scattered five hundred willing Christians, some of whom were already dead at the time of Paul's writing?

It has been argued that martyrdom was the easy--and only--way out from under Roman rule.

*I copied this from an article in Post 26 on effective lying.

The following lengthy quote is from Robert Price's online book Beyond Born Again, Section II-- The Evangelical Apologists: Are They Reliable? Chapter 6: Guarding An Empty Tomb, p. 78. It names a number of other individuals of the ancient world who were said to have resurrected and/or ascended to heaven after death.



Footnote 4: Michael Green, "Jesus in the New Testament," in Green (ed.), The Truth of God Incarnate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 36.

If Christians don't accept that these individuals rose from the dead and ascended to heaven, why do they think their own stories about Jesus' resurrection and ascension are true? In other words, what makes their stories more true than these stories? Or why do they expect atheists to believe their stories rather than these other stories?