Three Perfectly Reasonable Natural Explanations for the Empty Tomb

explain.

Perhaps I should reverberate what I said by saying: resurrection is possible unless you can show that the supernatural does not exist. I say this because, is it not the supernatural that would allow something like the resurrection to occur? If the supernatural possibly exists, then resurrection is possible. That is how I see it at least.

you think they are good enough sources to justify a resurrection? how could that possibly be? We're not sure who wrote them, they contradict each other, they were written decades after the event, the earliest copies we have are from like 150 years after the event

In addition with the first hand reports in Paul and the Beloved Disciple's letters? Yes.

I think we do know who wrote them, except Matthew. Most people will tell you that most scholars think that the Gospel authors are unknown, but simply is not true for the Gospels, except gMatthew and gJohn (except perhaps the "first edition").

There are some contradictions, yes. I dispute the significance of them, however. Many of them can be traced to typical practices seen in ancient Greco-Roman biographies.

Yes, they were written decades after. But they used sources written early and are derived from eyewitnesses, or were written by them (the first edition to the Gospel of John).

the earliest copies we have are from like 150 years after the event.

Which is amazing for ancient standards...

Would you accept similar evidence for some other claim? 4 people tell you they were abducted by aliens 20 years ago. They kinda contradict each other and it seems like some of them are using the exact same wording in some parts, which is weird. It means either they coordinated it or they're copying off each other in parts, or copying off some other source.

You'd believe them?

And the gospels are worse, we don't even know who wrote them.

This depends on many things. Do aliens exist? Maybe. Do alien abductions happen? Maybe (probably not though, though I can't rule them out). Since alien abductions don't actually entail anything miraculous necessarily, this is a bad example. As we have it though, there are more than 4 witnesses. Way more. Keep in mind that testimonial evidence is not equal in all cases as well.

Remember, the disciples were claiming the empty tomb in Jerusalem shortly after the fact for everyone to go and see (for example, the "first edition to John" was written in Jerusalem. Likewise, the creed of 1 Cor 15:3b-5 originated in Jerusalem.). The empty tomb was an established fact in Jerusalem (likely supported by the invented tradition picked up in Matt 28:11-15). There was evidence for people to go and see. There isn't anything like that with alien abductions. Nor do you have a Paul like conversion scenario as far as I see it with any of these alien abduction stories.

As far as I'm aware, Paul wasn't there. Yes? He just had a vision. Okay.

Other religions have that too.

Paul claimed to have seen Jesus bodily with ocular vision, just like the other apostles (though for Paul, it was post-ascension as opposed to pre-ascension for the other apostles). Paul knowingly contrasted subjective experiences to ocular seeing in 2 Cor 12:1-4 and 1 Cor 15:8. Comparing claimed bodily experiences with a human being to a claimed vision is comparing apples to oranges, especially in the Jewish context which these claims arose in.

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