Some Notes on Some Articles Against the Historical Evidence for Jesus

I'm no history expert, but I don't think the historical arguments work

Here is my general evidence against the resurrection. Aside from the general claim that there are lots of weird historical events and so they shouldn’t ocnvince us of divinity, there are lots of other general problems.

1 All evidence for the resurrection is copies of translations of anonymous hearsay from thousands of years ago while overwhelming evidence proves that eyewitness testimony is unreliable from third parties who were writing at least 3 decades later.  Magic is less likely than flawed thinkers thinking in a way that’s flawed.  

2 We should expect the best evidence possible for the resurrection, if you were a god you would do your best to convince people of the resurrection

3 The evidence may have been altered and in fact there is good evidence that it was altered.  Bart Ehrman explains this here debate linked here.

4 The similarities between the books can be explained by them being written in reference to each other or one being written after the other

5 The gospels all disagree. Paul Carlson points out that Matthew 1:2-17 and Luke 3:23-38 give contradictory genealogies for Joseph and can’t agree on who the father of Joseph is.  Only Matthew and Luke mention the virgin birth, which should have been mentioned by Mark and John to convince the world of Jesus's divinity.  Mark 3:20-21 says Jesus' family tried to take custody of him while Mark 6:4-6 claimed that Jesus complained that he received no honor among his own relatives and his own household.  Matthew 2:1 says Jesus was born during the reign of herod, the great while Luke 2:2 says Jesus was born while Quirinius was governor of Syria, which is contradictory because these events were ten years apart.  Furthermore, matthew says that herod had all male children two years and under put to death, yet historians are convinced that this never occurred.  

6 The gospels are absurd Matthew 4:8 says "the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;"  This is obviously bs, there is no mountain which makes the world visible because the world isn’t flat. 

In Matthew 21:18-21 jesus is hungry and sees a fig tree, but it doesn’t have figs.  He got angry and cursed it and made it never bear fruit again.  It withered and died

In John 14:13-14. Jesus promises: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye ask any thing in my name, I will do it.”

However, anyone who’s prayed knows that they don’t always get what they prayed for.  

Jesus condemns handwashing in Matthew as pompous and pretentious

7 As Richard Carrier argues

A There are parallel false historical claims like the life of Saint Genevieve who had people attest to her divinity

B Gospels were written by religious people who were biased and intended to combat agnosticism

C The gospels are hagiographies—sacred accounts of historical figures which are notoriously unreliable

D No non Christian mentioned the resurrection for decades

E We have not even a single established historian mentioning the event until the 3rd and 4th centuries, and then only by Christian historians.  People who do mention is aren’t historians but are religious zealots. 

F This was an age where magic was commonly believed—people banged on pots during eclipses. 

G Accounts of people dying for beliefs were written later and said Christians were executed—not that recanting would have saved them.  Also admits they were executed for other reasons. 

H Original Christians didn’t believe in a physical resurrection but rather believed in Jesus appearing in visions and dreams

I Visions of god were common in that time

J Paul didn’t report bodily resurrection

K Ending of mark was ended later—original ending was ambiguous and resurrection was added to the end of it later

L Empty tomb for Mark was metaphorical and empty tomb stories were common in fables

M Matthew’s later account was when the story had grown and was not likely telling of a vast dramatic earthquake

N Luke later changed the story and made it more concrete. 

O John comes later when the tale had grown even more

P Plutarch wrote in the second century that resurrection tales were common

These undercut the case dramatically

8 As Fodor argues this can be explained by

A Reburial

1 Jewish laws requires bodies be taken down before evening

2 The gospels say the burial was rushed

3 Criminals were buried in a different location to ordinary jews

4 Jewish and roman authorities wanted to keep public order and so wanted the burial to be private

B Individual hallucinations

Several women followers saw hallucinations

1 They’re common 37% of people say that they experience auditory hallucinations

2 They’re common in religious settings

3 Bereavement hallucinations about one third heard and talked to the deceased

C biases and memory distortion

1 76% of people report seeing non existent film footage

2 “Numerous historical cases are known, including the Westall UFO encounter of 1966, when a flying saucer was seen over a school by a large group of hundreds of people, the many Maritain appearances to often thousands of people (such as Our Lady of Zeitoun in Cairo), reports of seeing angels in the trenches (the Angels of Mons), and mass hysteria such as genital shrinking epidemics in Africa and reports of German air raids in Canada during the First World War.

3 Studies have found that people incorporate testimony of others even false testimony into their memory of events

D Socialization and marginalization of doubt.  This is well-known.  Jehova’s witnesses serve as a parallel case

This better fits the data

1 It doesn’t require invoking god who probably doesn’t exist

2 It explains why Jesus appeared to certain disciples rather than to other people 

3 It explains the empty tomb—why would god resurrect Jesus bodily rather than giving him a new body.  Jesus could have appeared even if he wasn’t resurrected (as some Gnostics believe)

He might have been resurrected without appearing to anyone (per the old copies of Mark)

He might have appeared to anyone else, like the Mesoamericans as the Mormons believe

In order to have the explanatory scope to account for all the facts, therefore, the resurrection hypothesis requires three key assumptions:

4 It doesn’t rely on the assumption that God had a desire or reason to raise Jesus from the dead which is a priori implausible

5 It avoids the assumption that god sent down his son to be sacrificed

6 It avoids trinitarian confusion

7 It explains the data of there being significant historical dispute about whether the evidence is decisive.  If this were Jesus’ single proof of revelation evidence it would be sufficiently decisive and convince qualified historians across the board.