Nuclear Testimony

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

I've made the point that I don't defend "God" as a teleological position of itself, but what I defend is my faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and the glories which followed. If God didn't resurrect Jesus from the dead on the third day, then I've fallen prey to a hoax and God's existence (or not) becomes moot point to me. Likewise, if Jesus actually rose from the dead, then the answer's settled to my satisfaction.

John 20:17 Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

I say that if Jesus rose from the dead, then God is not only real but is known.

Okay, then, where's the proof of Jesus' resurrection? Where's the evidence? I will provide my reasoning. I've already established (to my satisfaction) that most scholars, Christian and not, have adduced the existence of a man Jesus, and a man Paul. There is simply too much secondary literature around the nascent Christian movement in the centuries that followed. Something happened there. If Jesus were an absolute 100% literary fabrication it would be quite impressive. Easier to explain that a bunch of people (like Paul) were convinced of Jesus' Messiah-ship and went around and gained converts and established various congregations.

Pliny the Younger, for example, writes of the Christians in the year 112-113 CE. And Pliny is attested by other witnesses, and he's no Christian!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_..._on_Christians

So for a group following a non-existent person to be that widespread and established in 80 years is less plausible than that someone - Jesus - actually existed. Likewise we have 'Paul' attested in epistle and Acts, and most objective viewers think that he, or someone quite like him, existed - how else could the faith be spread so far and so firmly? Easier to imagine a Saul the Pharisee from Tarsus being converted and becoming Paul the Apostle to the gentiles, as documented in the NT, than: A) he was a purely literary creation; and B) some other un-named person(s) did all that heavy lifting and proselytized so widely and successfully.

Like I said earlier, there are secondary apologetic Christian witnesses like Clement, Irenaeus, Polycarp all testifying of each other and of Paul and the Twelve. And of course Paul and the Twelve testify of the resurrection. So to imagine that all of this was manufactured whole-cloth some centuries later is less plausible than that the faith, and the faithful, actually existed.

But I'd like to focus in on one apostle: Peter. Did he exist, or was he merely a literary creation? If he was drawn out in so much detail and it's all lies, I am very impressed -- I've been taken by a hoax but I daresay it's a good one. You have four Gospels, you have the Acts, and you have the letters of Paul, and the letters of Peter. All fake.... wow, very good. I've been snookered by the forgery of all time. My bad.

Or, Peter actually existed. And Peter, of course, testified to Christ's resurrection.

Now I come to this: it is easier for me to believe in the existence of Peter the Galilean fisherman than to believe that he was a made-up literary creation. And he testifies that he saw Jesus alive from the dead. Now, that is not in and of itself "evidence" per se, which is why it's called faith. And if someone doesn't believe then they obviously have their reasons. But I believe, and confess, and attempt to live my life as if it were true. I take the NT, in toto, and the secondary literature, such as Pliny, Josephus, Polycarp, Irenaeus, etc and see enough "witness" that I believe.

Others feel comfortable with "no God" or a different God, well I'm fine with that.

My problem is : I wasn't there. For all I know, as some has claimed, Jesus had a twin.

[aron]

Originally Posted by awareness

My problem is : I wasn't there. For all I know, as some has claimed, Jesus had a twin.

Or, he got carried off in a space-ship and is returning on the Halle-Bop Comet. Oops, sorry, someone tried that.

Seriously, the great mass of literature is well established. That's why I stay away from people like Witness Lee, who don't have any peers to vet their ideas. You really don't have to be that obscure to follow Jesus. Everything is in plain sight. "Nothing has been done in a corner" said Paul. ~Acts 26:26. Obscurantism is not attractive spirituality. Don't let people pull you into dark holes.

[awareness]

Originally Posted by aron

Or, he got carried off in a space-ship and is returning on the Halle-Bop Comet. Oops, sorry, someone tried that.

Well where did he go after the cloud? If he broke into the speed of light he wouldn't be out of the Milky Way galaxy yet. So where did he go? It was easy in their minds back then. Heaven was just above the dome over the flat earth. Maybe that was just a literary device ; Legend if you will.

Originally Posted by aron

Seriously, the great mass of literature is well established.

Yes, tons of literature. Not just the Dead Sea Scrolls, but other finds, like the Nag Hammadi finds. We finally get to hear from the Gnostic's themselves, and just from the early church fathers. We get a peak into how they thought back then, and believed. And more importantly, a look into their fantastical imaginations ... which reflect upon how the gospel writers thought ... and upon the writer of the book of Revelation. It's all similar.

Originally Posted by aron

That's why I stay away from people like Witness Lee, . . .

Same for the church fathers. Why should we lean on their authority :

"As early as the second century, Justin Martyr first advanced a theology that saw both Christianity and Platonic philosophy as aspiring toward the same transcendent God, with the Logos signifying at once the divine mind, human reason, and the redemptive Christ who fulfills both the Judaic and Hellenic historical traditions."
~~Tarnas, Richard. Passion of the Western Mind (Kindle Locations 2876-2879). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Originally Posted by aron

Don't let people pull you into dark holes.

It's the rabbit holes that I try to avoid.