Shutting up MrFreethinker

Freethinker,

I looked over your silly challenge again.
Your evidence pre-supposes the historicity of the Bible, which is not a consensus amongst learned historians.

I have seen no evidence to convince me that any historians without an obvious bias or slant accept any of your 'facts' other than the first one.

The rest are all far more likely to have been caused by mundane or natural occurrences rather than the re-animation of a corpse.

First of all, I'd like to point out that the most LIKELY and fitting explanation is that everything after 'fact one' is a fabrication and extrapolation of events that were never 'documented' until 70 years after they supposedly occurred. In ancient times that's like two lifetimes.
I dispute the notion that oral tradition would have preserved these stories in their exact form.

However, for your sake, I'll offer some alternatives that are far more likely to some of your 'facts'.

"The tomb was empty"

If this is evidence for resurrection, then we must have alot of Egyptian King zombies walking around.
Grave robbery was common.
The guards that were supposedly there could have been added later to add believability to the story.

"Jesus’ disciples were disheartened after he was dead."

How is this evidence for anything? That describes every death ever. I was disheartened after my grandma died - does that mean she's up walking around somewhere?

"However they had experiences that led them to believe that Jesus had physically risen from the dead and appeared to them.They were so convinced they suffered and some were martyred for their belief."

So, they hallucinated. Their fallible human minds lead to incorrect conclusions. Many people have described experiences with dead loved ones. This isn't an isolated experience.
It's even more likely that they lied about it.

As for being martyred for their beliefs, that has nothing to do with how true something is. Muslims are STILL martyring themselves for their beliefs - does that add credibility to their story, to you?
Romans executed many many different people from different cultures for their beliefs. In fact, Romans pretty much killed anyone who wasn't Roman. They needed little excuse.
I fail to see how Romans killing people is evidence of their correctness.


"Paul ,who was a persecutor of Jesus had an experience that led him to convert and believe in the risen Jesus"

So?

Meagan, who was an atheist had an experience that led her to convert and believe in the divinity of Mohammad.

How are personal beliefs evidence of anything?

People convert from one belief system to another on a fairly regular basis. This lends no credence to any of them.

"James, the skeptical brother of Jesus, suddenly converted to Christianity."

See above.

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Seriously, this line of rhetoric is so silly.
I've been avoiding 'taking your challenge' up until now because it pains me to think that I would have to explain these things to someone.

Elvis was a huge fan of fried chicken. Well, he was a huge fan of all food. But his love for chicken was well known, and he had a very special personal recipe for it. However, in different historical biographies of the King, his recipe is slightly different each time. Some say the recipe calls for paprika, some don't. Some call for pepper, some call for mustard. No one can accurately figure out for sure which one was his actual favorite recipe.

My point? Elvis died a mere 30 years ago, and was living an era that was far more well documented. We can't get the details of HIS life straight, and you expect us to believe that we're somehow able to get the exact details of someone who lived 2000 years ago correct?

History is not science or math. It's a scholarly discipline, but we can't apply the same principles to assure us that we've come to correct conclusion. No honest historian will tell you that they can ever be anything but 'pretty sure' about something.
History was jotted down(when it even was jotted down) by the fallible minds of humans. Humans with varying motives and biases and with varying degrees of accuracy. To base the entirety of your faith on documents that weren't put together until 70 years after the death of your supposed messiah seems silly.



Your 'scholar' put together a biased list full of theologians and other heavily biased christian historians.
1400 is not anywhere close to the amount of total historical scholars who exist in the world. It's a tiny, tiny minority. And even if every single historian(and many of them aren't) on that list believes exactly what you said they do(which they likely don't) - they represent nothing more than a fanatical fringe group akin to the intelligent design movement in biology.


There's no consensus amongst historians about the Holocaust. That's all I need to say.