Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!hou5f!orion!houca!hogpc!houxm!mhuxa!mhb5b!princeton!levy
From: levy@princeton.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: A burden both ways
Message-ID: <188@princeto.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-Jun-83 00:02:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: princeto.188
Posted: Sat Jun 11 00:02:30 1983
Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jun-83 11:54:14 EDT
Lines: 39

Byron raises some points to counter Larry Bickerford's long article.  Some are
valid and some are not.

(1), (3) and (4) are actually the same argument.  It says that the only
accounts of the crucifixion and resurrection are in the NT, and the latter
is not a reliable document.

The first part is true.  The second is more or less void: what we are trying
to establish is exactly the reliability (or lack thereof) of the NT (or at
least of these accounts).  I find the theory that the apostles made up the
story of the resurrection on purpose very hard to believe, since, as Larry
points out, they had nothing to gain from it, and were in fact being perse-
cuted for preaching it.  Besides the apostles wrote many things in the NT which
were not flattering to any of them or to the church -- they were truthful in
the small things, so this argues  for truthfulness in the big ones.

On the other hand, if they were convinced of the resurrection but it
did not take place, it must have been quite a hallucination.  (The not-quite-
dead hypothesis I find impossible to even entertain, although it has been
sometimes advocated since the gnostics in the first century -- not, as Larry
says, since 1768.)

Now how many people can we be sure think they saw Jesus alive after the
crucifixion?  In spite of Byron's paragraph (2), at least two people left
first-hand accounts -- Matthew and John.  THE GOSPELS OF MATTHEW AND JOHN
ARE NOT HEARSAY TESTIMONY, much less "reconstructed hearsay":  The two apostles
were there and wrote what they remembered from the facts.  Whether they
remember well or not is another matter, already discussed.

Finally, I take Byron's paragraph (5) to mean that no historical event is
provable.  While in my opinion *nothing* is 100% provable, I do believe
factual historical accounts unless there is something to contradict them.
Why not believe Tacitus, or Josephus, or Herodotus?

"I have no problem believing what I believe on basis of faith alone."  I
don't either.  But some people attack believers because of this attitude,
and in any case our faith has to be coherent with reality.  So I think there
is room for apologetics, and the more so since those who do *not* believe
are quite vocal spreading their unbelief!...