Talk:Resurrection of Jesus

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This article has been merged from Resurrection of Jesus, Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus and Death of Jesus in September 2006, those pages now redirect here.

Contents 1 Archives 2 Nothing about the men who were crucified with Jesus? 3 FICTION TAG 4 Earliest mention of resurrection 4.1 Regarding inclusion of "The historicity of Jesus is disputed" 5 Error 6 Sentence 7 Unsourced statements removed 8 Requested Move 8.1 Very little on Crucifixion in this article 9 The Stab Wound 10 Apparent non sequitur 11 Anointing the body

[edit] Archives

For earlier discussion, see:

• Talk:Resurrection of Jesus Christ/Archive 1
• Talk:Resurrection of Jesus Christ/Archive 2
• Talk:Death and Resurrection of Jesus/Archive 1
• Talk:Death and resurrection of Jesus/Archive 2
• Talk:Death and resurrection of Jesus/Archive 3

[edit] Nothing about the men who were crucified with Jesus?

I would have thought there should be some mention of the two men who were crucified with Jesus at some point in the article. Robski 04:33, 29 June 2007 (GMT)

If you can source it to a reliable source other than the bible, you are welcome to add it--Sefringle^Talk 03:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the requirement for sourcing outside the Bible, most of Christian theology depends on the bible as its primary source, often the only source. I would recommend however that it be sourced inline as "according to (chapter and verse) Jesus was _____ " rather than as a footnote, per WP:RS we can only use sources that are reliable when stating something as fact, otherwise it should be stated as opinion according to X. So regardless of it's verifiable historicity, millions of Christians hold as a tenet of faith that there were 2 other men crucified with Jesus, and that faith is primarily based on the writings in the New Testament. We don't say whether it is right or wrong or historical or mythical, we just say X says Jesus was killed and lives again or whatever. No need for source outside the Bible in my opinion, within the above constraints... User:Pedant 19:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FICTION TAG

I believe I have made edits which obviate the need for the 'treats in-universe events as real' tag... which I think should be reserved for actual works of fiction, and had no business here. Fiction is different from a widely-held belief which is a major component of a widespread major religion. However, I respect the intent of the tag, and made some changes. I'm not 'bold' enough to remove the tag unilaterally, would someone else look over the article and remove it if appropriate? Thanks everyone for your diligence and hard work on this difficult and controversial article!!! User:Pedant 19:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Earliest mention of resurrection

According to the wikipedia articles on Jesus, and New Testament, and a couple websites I've found. I can only assume what this section is referring to by "Christian creeds" are the First Epistle to the Corinthians (53-57AD), where it is cryptically mentioned that "Jesus appeared" or the Gospel of Mark (70AD), which breaks off with the women finding an empty crypt, leaving whether he was alive an open question. Of course, later writings and additions, written as the Christian church began to flesh-out its dogma, contain many more references to post-resurrection Jesus. johnpseudo 00:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

It sure is frustrating that Roy Brumback doesn't care to discuss my edit and instead wants to edit war. johnpseudo 14:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

War? Not really, I did give you reasons for my changes. All I did was remove the infidels reference as that's not any kind of scholarly site, and as I said it's redundant to say "if he existed", since you can't have died if you haven't lived. I left in you're info about the creeds being later, but restored the other opinion about them being earlier, which is cited info from a scholarly book, even if over 50 years old. I have read similar statements in more contempory books, I'll try to find them if you wish. Roy Brumback 14:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Infidels not a scholarly source", We don't need a very strong reference to support the fact that disputes exist on the Historicity of Jesus, we just need an example. And the "If he existed" quote is a clarifier of the dispute of whether he was resurrected, not if he died. Obviously, if he existed, he died. But it is both disputed that he resurrected AND if he existed at all. This is important, because it clarifies the degree to which the historical record of Jesus is in question.

Re: "scholarly book"/"few years" vs. "two decades". The problem here is that we need to raise our standards as to where this fact should come from. There must be authoritative sources on the basic timeline of the death and first mention of resurrection of Jesus. We could list "scholarly" papers all day long that disagree, but there must be some reputable organization or encyclopedia that has determined a consensus. johnpseudo 16:48, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

	Latest possible date of Jesus's death	Earliest possible New Testament writing
Columbia Encyclopedia	36AD	50AD
World Encyclopedia	29AD	45AD
Encarta Encyclopedia	29AD	50AD

It seems to me the consensus dates are 29AD and 50AD. Other dates could be mentioned, but to give them equal prominence to these dates would give them undue weight. johnpseudo 17:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Those are articles about when the actual New Testament books were written, not when a oral creed that they may contain was composed, which is the issue. I'm pretty sure most historians think stories about Jesus began circulating during his life and immediately following his death (and resurrection :) ) You're questioning the books reliability, why? Old isn't a good enough reason. I don't actually have the book so I can't say whether it is good or not, but it does seem to be an actual scholarly book on the issue, and as I said, I've read similar stuff from books written within the last 15 years, which I'll get back to you on. There actually is no real dispute among historians about the existence of Jesus, no matter how much Jesus-mythers want it to be so. There are examples of people disputing anything you can think of, but you need actual scholars giving good reasons to doubt the reliability of the Gospel accounts of his death and resurrection, and infidels isn't that. Roy Brumback 22:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The passage in question concerns "The earliest records" of Jesus's death and resurrection. A record is something that provides permanent evidence of something, not an unrecorded creed that may have been spoken/sung at one point in time. The earliest records of the death and resurrection of Jesus are in the New Testament, of which the earliest portion was written at least 21 years after the death of Jesus. Even then, whether Paul was referring to the resurrection of Jesus is arguable. I don't need to dispute the "reliability" of one source to recognize that its disagreement with most other, mainsteam, reliable sources. One book, which neither of us have read, written by someone with ambiguous credentials, is hardly a replacement for the agreement of most major modern-day encyclopedias. johnpseudo 23:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding inclusion of "The historicity of Jesus is disputed"

If you want to clarify the statement to suggest that, for instance, "modern scholarly support in the relevant fields is very limited", as Jesus myth hypothesis does, that's fine with me. Deleting it entirely is not offering a Neutral point-of-view. johnpseudo 23:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Limited? It's practically non-existant. And the section in dispute isn't about written records, it's about oral creeds and how early they were formed, and none of those articles contradict what is the cited info about that. Almost all scholars in this area believe the much of the Gospels and Paul's quotation of creeds came from oral sources, which would of course originate earlier than the books that contain them. If you want to change the word "record" to perhaps "information" or something like it, that sounds fine, as I'll agree an oral source might not be called a record (although my memory certainly "records" information which I then can pass on by speech). Roy Brumback 09:12, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

My point is that, when scholars "believe" that creeds were spoken concerning Jesus during those twenty years, they're just speculating. Paul could have begun telling stories immediately after Jesus's death (which would seem the most likely), or he could have waited twenty years and write it directly from memory. But because there's no record, it's anyone's guess. The section is titled "Records". I don't know how you can construe that to include anything that is not recorded. I really don't think we should change the entire title of the section to "Information" or "Theories". We should just state that the earliest any of these creeds were recorded was at least a couple decades after Jesus's death. johnpseudo 16:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

In response to your edit summary (which I wish you would put here): "Rv. We can certainly say what various scholars have concluded about the issue, and many have concluded that. Are you saying we can't tell people what various scholars think about it?" We certainly cannot put what scholars have concluded about the issue if their conclusion is irrelevant to the matter at hand, which is the record of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The record simply does not support the date of the earliest creeds being "a few years" after the death of Jesus. As I've said above, without any record of the creeds before 51 AD, such claims are speculation. johnpseudo 14:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I think in the timescale we are talking about twenty years could be considered "a few". 199.71.183.2 17:15, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

True, it's short either way (like us writing about what happened in the 80's for instance). Roy Brumback 17:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

In your opinion. Most scholars on the issue think those creeds are pretty early, and we can certainly put that in. Do you really assert that we can not include what many, perhaps, the majority of scholars on the issue conclude about it? Roy Brumback 17:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Consider the Q gospel for instance. We don't really know that Q existed, but most scholars believe Matthew and Luke contain it, and thus that is preceeds those books, and have various opinions about when it was written. If we can say what scholars think about that, why not that they also believe those creeds in Paul's letters come from earlier then the time of Paul's writing them, and that many of them think it comes from just a few years after Jesus' death (and resurrection :) ). All were doing is telling people what they think, not endorsing it as the truth. Roy Brumback 17:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

The opinion of scholars on this topic should of course be included in the proper place. But that would be in places like Authorship of the Pauline epistles, First Epistle to the Corinthians, Creed#Christian_creeds and such. The reason it doesn't belong here is because it is not relevant to "the issue" of the record of Jesus's death and resurrection. The account of a historian is not evidence in and of itself, it's merely an interpretation of the evidence. johnpseudo 18:29, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

So we can't have interpretations about the evidence in the article? How are creeds about Jesus' death and resurrection and when they were composed not relevant to an article about the death and resurrection of Jesus? Roy Brumback 20:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Error

It says in this article that no historian had ever recorded the darkness. If you read the Case for Christ it sights one. Sorry to bug everybody! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.225.39.176 (talk) 13:46, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sentence

"...the death and resurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much of Christian doctrine and theology depend..." This seems too strongly worded. "depend" seems to imply some sort of logical dependency, like much of the belief system would fall apart if the events were not true, or perhaps just were not emphasized. While people may make sourcable claims that this is true, I think it's hard to say that it is actually true. I recommend this phrase be removed as POV, or reworded and moved to a later place in the article. i.e. "Most theologians (or most Christians? many Christians?) claim (or believe) that the death and ressurrection of Jesus are two core events on which much...depend." There is also a problem with saying "The body of Christian belief". What is "Christian belief"? Which groups are you including and excluding? Based on my experience of Christianity, there are many, many groups within Christianity for whom the death and resurrection are important, but for which the rest of the faith does not "depend" on them. Cazort 22:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

That seems very strange to me. I can't imagine any form of Christianity whose belief doesn't depend on the Resurrection. (Though I wouldn't separate the death and resurrection as "two core events"; rather I'd say Jesus' death-and-resurrection is the core event on which Christian doctrine and theology depends.) Christianity without the Resurrection would be pointless - why would anyone worship a dead God? —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 19:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unsourced statements removed

I have removed the following statements as they have been tagged "citation needed" for several months:

• A few scholars, however, believe that the statement is original but misplaced, feeling it should follow John 20:11, though Bruce disagrees, arguing that since it presents itself as an explanation of a prior passage, it makes the link to the currently preceding text clear.
• Thomas' experience would mutually exclude the vision hypothesis, that Jesus appeared as a vision to various followers as either a divine vision or a hallucination. (See the article on Gary Habermas' work.)
• One point on which some consensus is reached by Apologist and Skeptical factions of biblical scholars and historians is that the disciples would have thought they had met the resurrected Jesus.
• None of the Talmudic Yeshu accounts are in any way flattering, or refer to any supernatural abilities, and many refer to people named Yeshu who lived in time periods significantly before or after the lifetime of Jesus.
• The Gospel of Barnabus generally conforms to the Islamic interpretation of Christian origins and is considered by the majority of academics to be late, pseudepigraphical and a pious fraud.

If anyone can find sources for any of these statements, feel free to re-add them. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 18:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested Move

[edit] Very little on Crucifixion in this article

This article has been renamed from Death and resurrection of Jesus to Resurrection of Jesus as the result of a move request.

[edit] The Stab Wound

"The Gospel of John says that a soldier pierced Jesus' side, causing the flow of blood and water."

...

"This flow of water suggests fatal heart trauma required to release pericardial fluid. Without pericardial fluid, the heart may become bruised over time (due to friction between the heart and the pericardium). (The pericardial fluid is not required for the heart to function; it merely acts as a lubricant.) Roman soldiers were trained with such diligence that it is not logical to assume that someone could have survived a piercing in this region of the body."

With this information, is it possible to determine more specifically where Jesus was stabbed, rather than just 'His side'? --Is this fact...? 17:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Apparent non sequitur

There is an apparent non sequitur in the "Resurrection of Jesus" sub-section of the "Critical analysis" section:

Some skeptics claim that the corpse of Jesus was either reburied or stolen. However, no non-Christian sources written at the time specifically mention the death or resurrection of Jesus.

Huh? As it's currently written, the second sentence looks like it is meant to argue against the first sentence, but really it argues against the resurrection itself. Also, the first sentence is a bit of a misstatement of the skeptics' position. This might be better:

Some skeptics have argued that the corpse of Jesus may have been reburied or stolen instead. Also, no non-Christian sources written at the time specifically mention the death or resurrection of Jesus.

This version also avoids the use of the word "claim", as recommended by Wikipedia:Words to avoid. Any objections to that version? -- HiEv 04:11, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, there were no objections so I changed it. -- HiEv 06:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Anointing the body

I know that this may be original research and not a thing that should take place here, but... Look at the *anointment* element in the so-called "resurrection" puzzle. If women were actually to go to the tomb of Jesus to *ANOINT* his body, it means, that: 1. they would consider him dead (nobody anoints the body of a living human, at least as I know), 2. they would have planned to enter the tomb, 3. they would have to somehow open (or at least plan to open) the tomb and remove this horribly heavy, 2-ton weighing boulder, 4. they would have to either:

a. sneak at the guards,
b. bribe the guards,
c. kill the guards(???),
d. have the guards' permission to enter, eg. on the account that their duty ended with the end of Sabbath and they would stop to denny entry to the tomb 

to anybody (or even help him/her with openzing the tomb on a request)

Therefore, if women actually entered the tomb or planned it, it must have been open and unguarded (or guarded, but the guards would let them pass). And if it was opened or unguarded, body might have been easily stolen, or just legitimately moved to another grave (after all, the one of Joseph of Arimathea wasn't the proper one; it was just "temporary" place for the corpse of Jesus). There's no place for anything supernatural there. The body might have been just moved to another grave and the legend of resurrection might have arosen. Not the deliberate lie, but a legend, same like the Jewish legends of Honi the circle drawer, Babylonian legends of the miracles of Gods (see Gilgamesh), Roman legends about their ceasars, etc. The ancient world was full of legends and myths. Critto (talk) 16:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Therefore, the question of the guards unfulfilling their duty must somehow be resolved. Also, what would happen to the guards if Jesus has actually resurrected? Would their commanders believe them that they were overpowered by a Deity, angels, deamons, spirits, etc? Would they avoild the punishment (death penalty) for breaking the orders? would there be any difference then if they just unfulfilled their duty, eg. by sleeping or being bribed?Critto (talk) 16:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Yep. Looks like WP:SYN to me. Get a reliable source or it's just pointless speculation that isn't fit for the article. -- HiEv 07:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

it's not my point to include this statement in the article (I've done this by mistake and moved it into the talk section), but to raise some serious questions (in the wikipedia "workshop") about resurrection chronology etc. that may interest people studying the question. There probably are scholars who specialize in these issues, if you know any please include them; I'm no expert here, having read only some works of critics (eg. Bart Ehrman) and some of apologetes (eg. Bill Craig), and also some disputes about Shroud of Turin.

Anyway, the articles on Jesus look terribly biased towards the apologist stance. The one about Stolen body hypothesis seems to be the gravest example, while this one is the second. All naturalistic explanations (eg. vision hypothesis, swoon hypothesis, stolen body hypothesis, etc.) are heavily criticised in the proper wiki articles, only resurrection seems to be unchallenged.

Religious belief in resurrection is fine with me (though I don't share it), but it must be mentioned that it's PURELY UNSCIENTIFIC and based on faith. Science knows no example of resurrection and no natural laws of physics, chemistry etc. seem to support such a possibility.

Therefore, if wikipedia is to be treated as serious, scientific source, the texts in question must be changed and MAY NOT look like they are considering resurrection the most plausible hypothesis and not the faith-based supposition it IS. It would be laughable, pseudoscientific and unserious to claim otherwise.

Finally, all speculations about such a possibility or about "God himself being resurrected" (science knows NO God, Goddess, Deities, demons, devils, angels etc. and existence of such beings has never been proven) belong to the realms of mythology and theology at best, or to the pseudoscience at worst (if the theories are made to "look like they are scientific"). Critto (talk) 15:55, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is NOT a science encyclopedia. Articles must reflect the academic and WP:RS reporting of the subject, whether these souces are 'scientific' or not. ^rossnixon 02:31, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Not a science encyclopedia? So what? Does it mean that we suspend the laws of nature here and present the ideas that defy known laws of physics, chemistry etc. (resurrection of the dead clearly is such a case) as ever possible to happen? More: as the hypotheses more plausible than the naturalistic ones? And left unchallenged, while the latter (naturalistic) are always containing the criticism section here? How can sources claiming that "miracles actually happened" be ever considered as "academic" and "reliable"? Wikipedia itself will NEVER be considered reliable as long as such cases exist.

True, it's OK to present the apologetic views about resurrection of Jesus here as they exist in the biblical scholar community, given that many scholars are practising Christians. It's also OK to present the debate here, and not only about resurrection, but eg. about animism or validity of Hindu beliefs, too. However, miracles can NEVER be presented as plausible explanations, when compared with naturalistic ones, PERIOD. For the same reason as creationism and intelligent design aren't considered as equal to evolutionism by the scientific community; and the wikipedia articles on the topics clearly state that the theories are considered pseudoscientific or simply faith-based and non-scientific at all.

As I said, I don't question the right to possess and observe religious beliefs here or their religious validity, as they are unfalsifaible at all; it's fine with me to believe in resurrection, deities, faeries, deamons, ancestor spirits, etc, but not to present the apologetic theories about them as "scientific" or the same or more plausible than scientific ones. If eg. stealing of Christ body is hardly probable, resurrection of Christ himself is totally and clearly impossible, with probability equal to 0 (zero). Critto (talk) 15:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry man, you're wrong. A body resurrecting from the dead is not impossible, just improbable. There certainly is a probability amplitude for your atoms to move back to a configuration they were in when you were alive, since death is just the atoms moving to a configuration which no longer works they way it used to (i.e. a bullet pushing your atoms in your heart apart so they no longer function like a heart). This probability is of course very small, but it is not zero.

such differences are purely philosophical and do not matter when you are to assess the PLAUSIBILITY of each hypothesis in a set of few. In such a case PROBABILITY is what matters, based on naturalistic observations. There could be a really small probability that a missing child was abducted and eaten by a werewolf or ghoul, but the chances are in practice none, since we never observed each of those creatures or laws that allow their existence (eg. shapeshifting, walking of dead body, etc). When other hypotheses exist (eg. running away from home, being kidnapped by criminal, being hit by a car, drowning, etc), it should not be taken into account, given our knowledge of the laws of nature that exclude existence of werewolves. The same applies to other miraculous cases, as resurrection of Jesus.

And them you beg the question by saying resurrection of the dead is impossible, why? The only scientific answer is that we've never seen it (confirmed it by an experiment).

it is impossible because it defies known laws of nature (physics, chemistry, biology). If we observed resurrection that indeed, it would be real. But if we observed fairies, goblins or vampires, they would also be real, and nobody takes this such a possibility into account, because it's improbable. Especially the accounts of alleged witnesses, claimed solely in the book that is central to the religion based on the belief in the event, are not enough as a body of evidence. Christian apologetes of resurrection don't take into account that people in these times were superstitious (many are even now) and believed in many things that are now proven to be false. For them the accounts, coupled by the supposition that people who new Jesus somehow were "too stupid" or "too honest" to lie, are enough to admit the supernatural event which sole occurence would defy the laws of nature. That's another reason why resurrection of Jesus alone is improbable and then the hypothesis claiming it is implausible for explaining anything.

But if Jesus did rise from the dead, then obviously its not impossible, as something that happens is possible by definition. So your argument now is I don't believe Paul and others' claim to have seen the resurrected Jesus. Fine, but don't pawn off your beliefs as science. Like when you say miracle explanations are out of bounds. Only if your religion is naturalism. Science itself does not favor naturalism over supernaturalism automatically. That's not science, that's naturalism.

naturalism is not religion, but abstaining from any references to beliefs, faith and other unprovable bodies of ideas. Naturalism is one of the most essential elements of the scientific method, as any observation must be verifiable to be scientific. And we must be able to check this using known laws of nature or discovering new ones. Nothing like that ever happens here.

Science is testing your ideas using experiments, that's all. If one were to experimentally prove the supernatural, then they would scientifically be real, so science is clearly capable of admitting supernatural things as long as there is experimental evidence for it. If you really hold supernatural explanations are out of bounds scientifically, they what would you say if someone say brought a ghost (really, a real ghost) down to the physics lab at Oxford or Stanford or wherever, and the scientists could check him out and confirm he is indeed a ghost, then wouldn't that scientifically prove the existence of ghosts, which you seem to label as supernatural, so obviously supernatural things are not out of scientific bounds.

You might then say that fine, supernatural things could be allowed by science, but there is no experimental evidence for them, so we don't admit them as real. That's true, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Otherwise we could conclude extraterrestrials are not real as there is no verifiable experimental evidence for them, but most scientists believe in aliens don't they?Roy Brumback (talk) 16:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

First, beliefs of scientists are NOT science, because as a private person, scientist has a right to believe what he/she wants into.

Second, existence of extraterriesterials would not defy the laws of nature, as we have 100% proof that life can exist and it's compatible with laws of nature. Therefore, the question would be whether it could arise anywhere outside of Earth, and if yes, if it can develop into thinking beings able to create a civilization. We also have a precedent here in our own (human) existence, as well as existence of all other living organisms (plants, bacteria, mushrooms, animals, etc).

On the other hand, in the case of ghosts, spirits, deities, deamons, faeries etc. there are neither laws of nature that would support their existence, nor any reliable observances of such (that could become a basis for insight and research into their nature, that would result in forming hypotheses and arguing their validity). We know no "substance" that could enable existence of spirits. There is nothing to reduce into the smaller parts, so reductionism fails here, and with reductionism fails scientific method. Sure, one can believe in existence of ghosts and try to prove it, but again, knowing no ghosts, nor any laws that govern their alleged existence, form, etc. we can't make a plausible hypotheses trying to explain anything with the workings of ghosts. The same applies for other mythological creatures and events. Critto (talk) 19:10, 26 May 2008 (UTC)