This is certainly not scholarly consensus. Even though this cases aren´t addressed in topics of resurrection studies as most important data, they´re definetely not dismissed as “invented”, but rather as perspective. An example from Gary Habermas was, that when you´re talking to your Professor in university, you probably cannot recall if there were 3 or 5 other students in this room, because the exact number didn´t matter. Also, not a small minority, but around 2/3 of scholars today believe in the empty tomb, and those who do, say, that women discovered it. This is not enough for the “minimal facts approach”, but far from a dismissed position.
Don´t build up that dichotomy, that´has been addressed by enough people in the field. Linguistic differences point to a different understanding. Augustine already addressed this in the 4th century. My favourite example from this forum explains this perfectly, in my opinion:
Bart Ehrman and even Gerd Lüdemann would agree that the disciples believed to have seen the risen Jesus. The latter one said in the past that we have to see the (apparent) experiences of the apostles with Jesus after the crucifixion as historical, and if you knew which background Lüdemann has , you´d know that this really is something.
Of course, if we´d only have Paul, it would be a good case, but not different to the many spiritual experiences that people have with God until today. But combined with the witnesses who saw the risen body and added to the fact, that Paul recognized Jesus as who he is, this is strong evidence. Without the eyewitnesses of the risen body, Christianity would have a weak case and probably wouldn´t convince me.
This is just speculation and no scholar would subscribe to this. It seems also very unlikely to me, that, if this were the case, the seen light would be able to show his wounds. The one time where there obviously was “just” a light, in the Damascus experience, its clearly described that way. This leads to the conclusion that the experiences in the other cases, were of other form.
Let´s be clear at first. The decision, for me is not Christianity or Agnosticism, if there would suddenly come up some unexpected data, that shows, that the resurrection story is a lie, I´d still be a theist, since we have enough, strongly supported cases of miracles throughout human history and until today. Also, saying “how to know the one true God?” is already setting up a wrong premise. I don´t think that anyone here would say, that we fully know/understand Gods nature and I believe it´s arrogant and almost blasphemical to think we could ever do. Christianity offers a perspective, since it claims, that Jesus was Gods representative on earth, we could know God, but only through him. Also I don´t think that Islam and certainly not Judaism are worshipping a different God, but I think in case of the first, it is from a wrong perspective. Sikhs are very similar. And I recently had a conversation with a Hinduist. He sais that, taking it strictly, Hinduism is monotheistic, since the worshipped beings are solely spirits “descending” (I don´t quite understand that part) from the one God Brahma, who himself is unpersonal. In this cases, to judge it fairly, we would need to analyse to proposed evidences, which are given to support the belief. Sure, if we have the spiritual expereiences, they are always altered through the cultural glasses which are available. But I could agree with the notion, that what a Hindu calls spirit, and we angels, are ultimately the same. Therefor I don´t rule out any claim of other religions out a priori.
Again, look at the data, and, if available, the historical-critcal analysis. The reason why I´m not a muslim is, that the claims are different, we don´t have a mere prophet here, but Gods representative and the evidence for him, his actions and his resurrections are strong. Therefor Christianity is enough for me, because there is no way to escalate it further, we have someone who defeated death ultimately. Craig Keener gives many examples of miracles in his books, over pretty much all cultures, which is why I absolutely accept it, that if an Indian got healed miracolously, it wasn´t Jesus but Krishna/any other spirit or just God himself. But this depends on the cultural perspective applicated, and those perspectives are what should be analysed to figure out, if they´re reasonable or not. And this lead to conclusions, e.g that it is more rational to assume that in my experiences I saw Jesus, rather than Zeus, because from earlier analysis, we could conclude, that there is enough evidence to say, that he existed, worked miracles and rose from the dead, nothing is available for Zeus.
Isn´t this something, where one could apply Occams razor? I always wanted to do that…
But let´s again have look n the resurrection, the backbone of Christianity. If it´s true, Christianity is true, if it´s false, Christianity is false. One thing you can see among sceptical scholarship is, that you rarely, if even occurring at all, see any professional scholar trying to come up with an alternative naturalistic explanation which comes around the resurrection and still explains the following events. Hasn´t worked at all, and nowadays the common answer of the sceptical scholars, is that there has to be something else, which they don´t know, but nothing is proposed anymore. One could be a bit malicious of course and say, that this shows perfectly that our decisions are not solely factual, but very much influenced by emotions.
Or with other words, if it looks like a duck, moves like a duck and quacks like a duck, what is it?
Perfect way to summarize. Doubt is not the opposite of faith, and we don´t confirm our faith only for once until the end of time, but over and over again.
That very much depends. Every scientist or persona on the street can confirm you, after reflecting what they´re doing, that a significant part of they´re work a relying on presuppositions, which ultimately rely on faith. And to connect Jesus to the universal truth claims, the fascinating thing is, that although Christianity has so many different forms, every direction is similar or even the same in its cores. Jesus was the son of God/God himself in human form/representative on earth, died on the cross, rose on the third day in bodily/spiritual form, the disciples saw him. We differ on the perspective of e.g. creation (how exactly?), original sin(how, when, isn´t it rather an original blessing?), image of God(morality?, consciousness?, literally?), but the roots are the same. And I don´t think it matters at the end if I call the being God/Jesus and you Allah or Krishna or Jehova.
Or the way I´d put it, I can discuss this with my friends in university, I say God, one says spirit, a third force, another one intelligence, and ultimately it leads to the same, don´t you think?
I don´t think you meant that faith relies on no facts or evidence here, so I did not address it.
I let this stand here and would even support it , but I´d add that, if your claim has quality, witnesses or something similar, then it has a point. The mentioned book from Craig Keener “Miracles” addresses this in an outstanding way.
I´d use this phrase when I want to describe, that I believe that the new Testament describes real events, which shows God reality and his wellmeaning towards us.