Christs death or not really?

1835 is the period where writers doubted Moses existence, no Egyptian escape, no crossing of the Red Sea, no collapse of Egypt’s economy with everybody leaving, no Abraham, no Genesis…you get the picture.

This was a period where they asked - what really happened? The answer they came up with was it was written in captivity to bolster their history and identity. Like Strauss, they valued the material quite apart from ‘happenedness.’

How important for faith is the happenedness of the reported events including the resurrection? Struss would say my faith is strong even if it didn’t physically happen, the gospel still have value.

I’m pretty sure they still doubt this.

What value the gospel has IF it didnt actually happened? Cant really understand you sorry

Nick,

I feel that I must say something. Perhaps it would be more appropriate in a private message, but witnesses, I feel, are important. If I am in the wrong, I am more than happy to accept any rebuke from the moderators.

I, and perhaps others though I will not speak for them, perceive you as being incredibly snide in posts of yours. I’ve seen it more than once and passed over it, but I feel that someone should say something. If you still claim to be a Christian (you may not), then I believe I must rebuke you. If you want, I will give you the Scriptures that state that such behavior is not befitting a Christian. I would kindly suggest that you act kinder and think more carefully about how you phrase your statements, please.

And even if you are not a Christian, being snide is not really appropriate for this forum. “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” It is at the top. There are other non-believers here and they do not behave in this manner. Please consider following their example.

Thank you.

-Joshua W.

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Criticism accepted Joshua and thank you. No im not Christian anymore. As for beign snide ,sometimes yeah i might get out of hand which i will aknowledge that. But sometimes i just dont see it like it.

We have moderators for this though. Thanks again for the reminder (sometimes i am a bit snide which i might not realise it way after ).

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Thank you. That was a very gracious response from you. And you’re right, we do have moderators. It’s one of the reasons I considered just not saying anything at all. I’m not here to be your judge.

I’m sorry you’re not a Christian anymore. :frowning: Perhaps, one day, that will be different, though.

Take care!
-Joshua W.

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All good im fine with criticism.

Well it didnt worked out in the end. God just wasnt for me i guess. Maybe he didnt want to be part of my life so thats why he left. At least thats how i saw it. I just dont feel him anymore if you get me

I know we’ve talked privately from time to time, and I have enjoyed our conversations.

I don’t believe that God wasn’t for you. Jesus, who is God, is for everyone. I wouldn’t say that He left. Mayhap it was something that was changing within you. Just something for you to think about. I’m sure you think it won’t do much good, but I shall pray for you, that God might reveal Himself to you in some way that just clicks inside of you. Whether that’s through science, through testimony, through these forums, through a miracle–whatever form it takes.

I think that some of the others here have made some most excellent points. I hope that you will re-read and reconsider them.

Take care of yourself, Nick. I may not always be consistent on Biologos, but you are on my mind often. I hope you are well.
-Joshua W.

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It means some liberal theologians from that era didn’t care if the events were real or not but looked at the theological message being delivered. They used various critical theories etc.

Mind you, some people today treat Genesis the same way as myth, no real, not literal just a story but the theological message of Sin, Satan, the Fall, creation, God comes through which is important.

There are some things that simply require faith in order for it to all come together. That’s upsetting to many people because they don’t want faith, they want evidence. They don’t want to trust in God, they want to see God. The same is for the resurrection. To believe in the resurrection in this modern era, and even for those who did witnessed it themselves in the first century, requires faith.

Without faith the reasons to believe are just not good enough on their own.

Did Jesus raise up from the dead after three days and angels , these supernatural beings, pushed the rock out of way presumably. I think so. But I also think it requires faith. But here are a few reasons that help me believe.

  1. I believe that the Tanakh clearly points towards A messiah and I think that Jesus best fits the bill.

  2. I think that based off of how christianity grew from just a handful of guys to 31% of the world is testimony to this. Not just for the whole growth, but how it grew during the first century in the face of persecution. For centuries christians were predominantly poor. To have a title of authority within the body did not mean power snd riches, but that you served and served with a target on your back.

  3. The earliest manuscripts of Mark ends with the women screaming. Later copies were edited with a better ending. Short of the writers being horror lovers, the ending was bad. Jesus as a zombie scaring the women who fled. That’s not the ending you use to reach crowds. But that’s what the original ending seemed to have been. So they would have ended it that way presumably because they believe it to be real.

I ask for clarification, were you a Christian who examined various texts from scholars on the writngs of the NT, and came to your conclusions? Or is there other additional factors that caused you to conclude that you are (no longer/or not) a Christian?

There are both . Personal and textuals reasons

Well if they deny that Jesus ressurected then whats the point? I mean it doesnt make sense to me to say that even though some take that or this as never happened and still believe in it. I mean yeah if its for Genesis or some other book which is open to interpetation then ok that argument holds. But in my opinion it doesnt make sense when we are talking about the core message of Christianity. Maybe im missing something?

If you don’t take all the details of credal Christianity seriously, for some I suppose the metaphor of God incarnate is the most true story we could tell ourselves that expresses God’s love. If it’s a true expression of God’s love the account is still true and valuable even if it’s just a story like Adam and Eve expressing universal tropes. Never underestimate the power of a good narrative.

For me God is real and my experiences with him are real. If my theology is mistaken in the end then so be it. I believe Jesus points the way to God and demonstrates God’s love mainly by faith. The resurrection could have been bodily or spiritual to me. The key take away is death is not the end and Jesus still lives on in a resurrected and greater form. To be completely honest, I would find it quite odd if his resurrected body actually had holes in it.

I don’t see Christianity tied down to the necessity of a bodily resurrection. The majority of orthodox Christians accept this for sure. My take is that if death is truly the end though, then I find it inconceivable to imagine how God could be just considering so many people draw very short straws in life and some people abuse others with little or no accountability. That bleak and horrendous world is the universe of atheism. It is unjust and oblivious to humanity and mind-numbingly depressive to think about.

So I do believe Christianity requires an afterlife of some form if we are to believe God is just and his creation is truly good but I’m not anchoring it in the necessity of bodily resurrection. Paul and many earl followers of Jesus clearly thought he had risen and appeared to them. We can’t read their mind but a lot seem to have thought it was a bodily resurrection but we can’t say this was universal or prove beyond any doubt it was the view ca 35CE. Some early communities were charismatic. The transforming and risen Jesus was still with them. What matters is the reality of their experience and any truth it points to.

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Why does it have to be “or”? We are told about Lazarus’s resurrection which appears to have been of his body as it was laid in the tomb and we are told nothing about the other people who were raised by the apostles. Jesus appears to have been raised bodily (ever wonder where He got the new clothes?), hence the holes in His hands and side, capable of eating, etc., but also changed, or spiritual.

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Paul makes this point - I believe that Jesus is risen after He died on the cross as stated in the Gospel. The basis for that belief is the testimony of the disciples who witnessed the risen Christ.

From some of your comments, I get the impression that you may equate this belief with the incredulity of any human dying and then coming back to life. If this is correct, then your conclusion is understandable-none of us can die and come back to life in any way (unless God decides to resurrect us).

It all hinges on the belief that there is a God and Christ is His Son.

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I don’t know one way or another. It clearly goes past the physical world into a spiritual one which I don’t claim to understand. If a dead man could rise from the grave, I doubt fabricating some clothes ex nihilo is a big challenge. I don’t presume Jesus was bodily or spiritually raised or that him wearing clothes presumes bodily. He appeared as he chose to who he chose. Though yes, there certainly has to be a spiritual aspect to it, bodily or not.

Also, we probably interpret the Lazarus narrative differently and when John was written (ca. 100), clearly a strong belief in a bodily resurrection was to be found. Whether or not this goes to 35CE is unknowable based on the available data. We only have Paul’s statements in 1 Cor 15 on this score before Mark (ca.75) and if you accept the Acts (ca. 100) renditions of Paul’s conversion then we have to admit that while Paul considers his appearance to be on par with the others, parts of Acts are very consistent with a more spiritual appearance to him. But I doubt the ancients possessed such a strong spiritual/physical split as some of us do today.

People here i think have misunderstood my whole thread. Its not about whether it was physical or not. Rather that it didnt happened at all. I just raised two possibilites which in my opinion are the most logical to what might have the apostles seen or invented and i just want the conversation rk resolve around them

The visionary example sounds the same as a spiritual example. Unless you’re arguing that the visions were actually just delusions and lies. If you think the vision was real, and thst they were seeing actual supernatural visions of him then it’s really no different from a spiritual one. I don’t think this one follows much logic since it ignores the stones being removed and so on.

That’s why the convo falls not spiritual versus physical. If not physical, then it does raise up the questions about what happened to his body. It’s more of a ghost story.

Another thing to consider is at least a few other times bodies are claimed to have been taken by God. Sometimes with the person alive and sometimes with the person dead.

In the Enoch story it says God took him and it does not seem like he merely died.
In the Torah it says in Deuteronomy 34:4-7 that apparently Moses died and god buried his body somewhere unknown and the people mourned 30 or so days. It goes on to mention that he died despite being healthy. Then in Jude it mentions like similar to part of the “ Assumption of Moses” of Michael and Satan arguing over the body of Moses.
We also read of Elijah being taken away God seemingly still alive.

So it’s possible following those patterns Jesus’s body was taken by God and either buried somewhere unknown or carried off. Then then ghost of Jesus continued to roam the earth a while interacting with his followers and they had individual and group visions of him and he even was able to bring himself into existence in the physical world just like angels ( also considered spiritual beings ) are able to interact with the physical world.

The second view about it changing because of the kingdom I disagree with. I do believe the kingdom of God came in the first century. But just like the Jewish people got wrong then, the kingdom is not a earthly kingdom with an army and walls and so on. It’s the body of believers.

If you want “logical” you will never get it. And I don’t accept this is an “invented” story. The spread of Christianity while under persecution would indicate otherwise.

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