THE CASE FOR CHRIST STRETCHES TRUTH TO MAKE IT SEEM JESUS PROBABLY DID RISE FROM THE DEAD
STROBEL’S LIE
The creed that Paul has in 1 Corinthians 15 indicates that the early Church had
a creed saying that Jesus rose and appeared to five hundred which puts the
testimony very close to Jesus’ resurrection so it should be taken seriously.
THE TRUTH:
The creed could have been written the year previous to the epistle for all we
know. Maybe its first appearance was in that epistle? And it is hard to imagine
Christians reciting the evidence for the resurrection in detail all the time. So
it wouldn’t be much of a creed. If they were reciting all the time then why did
Paul have to quote the creed? It might have been a creed one of Paul’s disciples
personally used and not a public creed. Plus it may not have been a creed at
all. The Case for Christ wastes ink on the “creed” when the fact is that it does
not help reinforce the case for the resurrection and the historicity of the
Christian story at all. Again speculation is put forward as evidence in this
dishonest and twisted book.
STROBEL’S LIE:
Chapter 11 on the medical evidence for the death of Jesus concludes that Jesus’
crucifixion had to have been fatal. The book also says that soldiers were put to
death if a criminal survived an execution attempt so Jesus must have died and
they would have made sure of it.
THE TRUTH:
Pilate didn’t think so for he was reportedly shocked at Jesus dying so soon
according to the gospel of Mark. So we are take the word of Christians who were
not acquainted with exactly how Jesus was nailed and how serious his injuries
his were and who were not even there above the word of a man, Pilate, who would
have been position to judge if Jesus should have died and who thought he
shouldn’t have died! The arrogance is horrific especially when the book admits
that Pilate thought Jesus died too fast (page 192). Rome did not execute
soldiers who made a genuine mistake. And how do you know the soldiers weren’t
executed anyway? Freak events were acknowledged meaning a person might not die
though there is a 99 per cent chance that they should.
Strobel has a nerve to say that the soldiers would have made sure Jesus was dead
in case they would be executed if they failed to kill him. He would say, “I
agree with the gospel of Matthew that the soldiers at the tomb admitted to
sceptics that the body miraculously disappeared knowing they could have been
accused of lying and executed, the penalty for being careless on duty. They knew
their hearers wouldn’t believe them. Despite the threat of death, they took
money from the Jews to say that they slept on duty and the apostles stole the
body.”
STROBEL’S LIE:
The whipping left Jesus very critically ill and his struggle on the cross led to
cardiac arrest.
THE TRUTH:
The book resorts to speculation to prove that the crucifixion of Jesus was
fatal. We don’t know for sure how bad the whipping Jesus got was. We don’t know
exactly how he was crucified or if his death was due to a cardiac arrest. He
could have revived after the gospels said he died for the time of death could
have been misremembered.
STROBEL’S LIE:
John’s testimony that Jesus was pierced in the side proves that Jesus was dead.
THE TRUTH:
The gospeller thought by the Church to be John the Apostle talks as if he was
the first to mention this piercing for he says he saw it and his testimony is
true as if he is trying to convince the Church. Yet he was so dishonest he could
not give his name – only false witnesses give testimony and never put their
names to it. What had he to hide for had he really been at the cross everybody
would have known about his being there anyway and who he was? The only thing he
had to hide was his lack of integrity. The Case for Christ says the Bible needs
two witnesses but there is only one for this stabbing.
Besides, it is the blood and the water coming from Jesus not the death that the
witness seeks to verify by saying that Jesus was stabbed on the cross.
STROBEL’S LIE:
Joseph of Arimathea who buried Jesus was a real person for the Christians would
have been unlikely to invent him for they would not have liked the Jewish
leadership who had Jesus nailed to the cross for he was a member.
THE TRUTH:
Why not when they said he was innocent of what the rest had done? He makes the
rest of them look worse not better.
STROBEL’S LIE:
The apostles went to their deaths attesting to the resurrection.
THE TRUTH:
For all we know the Church could have got rid of them by accusing them of
capital crimes so that their doubts about the resurrection would have been
silenced. Christians manipulate minds to make them mistake assumptions for
facts. The apostles could have died disbelieving in the resurrection. For the
Christians to have the right to use the argument, they would have to establish
that the apostles got a choice between execution if they kept true to Jesus and
their lives if they renounced him. This they cannot do for the accounts of the
apostles deaths are legendary .
STROBEL’S LIE:
Professor Flew’s failure to impress people with his arguments against the
resurrection in a public debate is evidence that the case for it is very strong.
THE TRUTH:
No. It only means that Flew hadn’t the cleverness or the time to use the right
arguments or was not prepared right or the audience was too biased against him.
Refuting Flew does not amount providing evidence for the resurrection. We will
not be taken for fools, Christians. It is totally dishonest for the wily Strobel
to argue this way when he gives us no evidence that the people who were
unimpressed were bright enough to understand what Flew was saying and were
unbiased. He does not even tell us that there was no chance that Flew might not
have got the chance to express himself fully and properly.
Flew should have dwelt more on the fact that even the
gospels do not say why Jesus't tomb was empty. Jesus could have been
stolen or removed in secret and still risen.
STROBEL’S LIE:
The seeming contradictions in the gospels make the story more believable not
less for they show there is a historical core to what was said.
THE TRUTH:
You cannot take statements off the witnesses whose tales allegedly made up the
gospels and have a later interview to get them to explain their contradictions
so Christians who hold that there is no error in the Bible at all are only
assuming that there are no conflicts and what use is that?
It is mistaken to say that contradictions or seeming contradictions demonstrate
that there is a historical core when Luke says the women found the stone rolled
back and Matthew says they came to the tomb before it was moved. That is a very
serious conflict and means that the story fails to cohere at the main points –
at the core. If the tomb was open and nobody about the body could have been
stolen after the tomb was opened by people other than the ones who opened the
tomb.
STROBEL’S LIE:
Jesus could not have escaped from the tomb or have been easily stolen for the
tomb was very secure with a large stone that rolled into place through a grove.
THE TRUTH:
Despite the tombs in the Valley of Hinnom having small openings and stones
sealing them this silly book tells lies in pretending that there was only one
way Jesus’ tomb could have been set out though there were as many variations as
tombs and that though there is nothing in the gospels that tell us that the tomb
was that secure. Some tombs had the design the Christians have in mind but not
all.
STROBEL’S LIE:
Chapter 12 realising that there is no point in wondering if the body could have
been taken from the tomb unless it is established that it was put in the tomb in
the first place tries to show that he was really buried.
THE TRUTH:
The chapter never faces the possibility that Jesus could have been switched with
a shroud filled with sand which was emptied out in the tomb so that just the
cloths were left in the tomb and everybody else was certain the body was in the
tomb.
The book argues that the view that the first believers went to the wrong tomb in
their distraught confused state is incorrect for the hostile Jewish authorities
knew where the tomb was and would soon have fixed any mistake. And especially if
the authorities got wind of a resurrection story. But why would they for the
resurrection was not proclaimed to the public until 40 days after? And
incompetence could have led to the Jewish authorities being wrong about the
tomb.
Think about this. Some go to the wrong tomb and think Jesus has been taken away
and they feel encouraged to claim that he rose for he appeared to them. It is
not said that any of the witnesses visited the tomb after that fateful morning.
One or two disciples could have removed the body from the real tomb to keep the
hoax going. This prevented anybody realising that the people who found the tomb
empty went to the wrong tomb. It is totally ridiculous that the gospels say the
apostles at the time were in hiding and yet that they ran to the tomb when they
heard it was empty!
STROBEL’S LIE:
It is argued that since the Jews never said that there were no guards at the
tomb of Jesus that there were guards. This indicates that Jesus was not stolen
for they were there to guard the tomb.
THE TRUTH:
Incredible. We don’t have enough material available from the Jews of the period
to know what they were saying. Even if there had been no guards there would have
been some Jews who had not much interest in the affair who were inaccurately
saying they were and the apostles tricked them and stole the body. So Matthew’s
saying the Jews saying this happened has no evidential value for we don’t know
why he said it. There is no doubt that the guards cannot help the Christian’s
case for this reason which makes their case considerably weaker than their
conjuring tricks with facts and logic can make it look.
STROBEL’S LIE:
Curiously the book says that an empty grave itself does not prove a resurrection
and brags that even the Jews and Romans never maintained that Jesus’ body was
still in the tomb which is impressive evidence that it was missing.
THE TRUTH:
Apparitions contradict one another which is why the Roman Catholic Church has
selected only a handful out of thousands as real manifestations from Heaven.
Strobel will deny these visions for they contradict his salvation by faith only
philosophy which contradicts the Catholic gospel. So The Case for Christ is
really just saying that Christianity is proven true by some apparitions which is
a very weak and biased position – I mean why these apparitions and not others?
Only Matthew says the Jews and the soldiers said the body was not in the tomb.
That means nothing for him saying it doesn’t amount to them saying it. If they
Jews told the soldiers to say the body was stolen and this story was released,
and it was then discovered that the body never left the tomb at all they would
not be able to admit it. They would have to take the body away themselves rather
than be seen as totally incompetent. There is no evidence that the Jews and the
Romans could verify that the body had vanished.
STROBEL’S LIE:
The book says that the appearances of Jesus were real because they were not
hallucinations.
THE TRUTH:
But what about what else they might have been? A look-alike could have
masqueraded as Jesus. The excitement would have made them prone to believe that
he ascended to Heaven. All deceptions like that depend on luck to succeed. The
gospels say the apostles were hiding when Jesus died meaning they could have
been deprived of food which the book admits can cause hallucinations and makes
the mind more susceptible to illusions of other kinds.
STROBEL’S LIE:
Paul would not have lied about the 500+ seeing Jesus after his resurrection for
he would not have said this unless he knew they would back him up.
THE TRUTH:
That is like saying the pope would not lie about Mary being conceived immaculate
for the scholars would not back him up. He has plenty that do despite the fact
that scripture, history, logic and decency and THE Catholic theologian St Thomas
Aquinas and Lee Strobel and Co contradict him.
STROBEL’S LIE:
The book says that the martyrdom of the apostles proves they were telling the
truth about the resurrection because unlike religious fanatics they knew what
they were dying for was undeniable.
THE TRUTH:
There is no evidence that the apostles died for the resurrection. There is no
evidence that they were sure that it happened. We must remember too that with
the threat of eternal punishment the apostles might have felt compelled to
believe and suffer and blind themselves to the real facts. There is no reason to
believe that because the apostles were the ones who would have known if Jesus
rose that they did know. The Case for Christ states that belief in Christianity
is best for us which means that people would not let its being false stop them
believing in it and even cause them to imagine evidence for it's being true even
to the extent of convincing themselves that they had visions of Jesus. The
apostles and the fanatics who died for their faith, both died because of their
own interpretation of the evidence and not because of the evidence itself. If
the apostles were martyrs, they testified to their faith not to the
resurrection. In this they are exactly the same as the religious fanatics.
STROBEL’S LIE:
The apostles died for their faith in the resurrection of Christ for they saw him
and touched him which is different from a Muslim dying for his belief that God
spoke to Muhammad.
THE TRUTH:
If a Muslim would die for something he has not seen then there is no way that
can mean the apostles’ testimony in blood is more credible. The Muslim dies
irrationally for he has no evidence and has not seen what he wants to die for so
why can’t the apostles die for a lie or irrationally believing that they
witnessed a resurrection that never happened? In both cases reason has been
perverted. The apostle might have believed they touched Jesus. They did not die
because they touched him but because they believed they did.
The crucifixion could have been a hoax. Another man could have taken Jesus’
place on the cross which would rule out the resurrection being a sign. The
gospellers may say that Jesus died on the cross but that was only their
interpretation of events. They could have been honest but wrong. Christian faith
is not based on the resurrection but on what men said. It is based on reports
about something not the something itself. Irrationally, the men are considered
to be right just because they made an interpretation for which there is no
evidence for.
Jesus himself claimed that the resurrection was the only
real sign. The Jews asked him for a sign and he said he would give them none but
the sign of Jonah (Luke 11:29,30). Some scholars think this sign was the
resurrection or just the message of repentance. Jonah seems to have risen from
the dead after being swallowed by a fish and he preached repentance. But the
context demands we take sign to mean miracle. So it was the resurrection. Mark
says there will be no sign full stop (Mark 8:12). This means that no evidence
will be given for his resurrection and it must be believed by faith alone.
Christians say Mark was referring to the same talk as in Luke and just
summarised it so there is no contradiction. There is. The words do not agree.
For the resurrection to succeed as a proof of Jesus' authenticity and divine
commission it needs to be something that only an honest God could do. But we
only assume that God alone has the power to raise the dead. Also, if demons or
whatever cannot raise the dead, they can make it look like they can.
It is also curious that the resurrection was not a resuscitation but a return
from death that transmuted Jesus into a totally transformed mode of existence
meaning Jesus had to reveal it in visions.
The resurrection failed to be proof for Jesus. The notion that it is proof is
based on the monstrous and unjustifiable presumption he made that the Devil and
magicians couldn’t duplicate the resurrection visions! Remember Jesus vanishing
from a tomb proves nothing by itself. You would need him to appear to people to
tell them why his body is not in the tomb and that the reason is that he was
raised. So the visions are more important than the missing body. And if visions
can happen without God being behind it, then there is no more to be said!
