Thinking to Believe

Part 2 of harmonizing the resurrection accounts. Still establishing the foundation  for harmonization by looking at how the ancients recorded history. Explained how differences in words and events can be explained. Started looking at Mike Licona's work on compositional devices. 

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Skeptics point to so-called contradictions in the Gospel accounts as reasons to doubt their claims that Jesus rose from the dead. I'll spend several episodes harmonizing the resurrection accounts in the Gospels, but in this episode I begin to lay the foundation for how we should think about so-called contradictions and what's really at stake. 

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Covered more objections to the resurrection of Jesus, including
-- Why didn't Jesus' disciples always recognize Him after His resurrection?
-- Why did the apostles wait so long to proclaim Jesus' resurrection?
-- If the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is so good, why do only Christians believe it?
-- Didn't Jesus tell Thomas he wasn't blessed precisely because he required evidence for the resurrection?
-- Isn't evidence for the resurrection opposed to faith?

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I address more questions and objections:
-- Was Jesus' "appearance" to Paul truly a resurrection appearance?
-- Jews did not bury crucified victims. Jesus was left in an open tomb and most likely eaten by dogs/birds.
-- Jesus’ Body Would have been Unrecognizable
-- Why Didn’t Jesus Appear to Unbelievers?
-- The Doctrine of Resurrection was a Later Doctrine
-- How did Mark know what the women saw at the tomb if they did not say anything to anyone? 
--Why were the unbelieving Jews anticipating a resurrection of Jesus, but not the apostles?

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I address the following questions and objections:
o   When Did Jesus Rise from the Dead?
o   Where is Jesus’ body now?
o   It’s difficult to know what’s true about history. 
o   The ancients were just gullible and easily accepted miracle claims
o   The Resurrection is Not a Historical Conclusion
o   Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence, and you haven't provided extraordinary evidence.

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I continue my examination of non-miraculous explanations for the historical facts including the spiritual resurrection theory, deification theory, wish fulfillment theory, and more. Then, I argue that the resurrection hypothesis is the best explanation for the historical data. 

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Now that we've established the historical facts, all that remains is to determine what best explains them. The explanation offered by Jesus' disciples was that Jesus was raised from the dead. Non-Christians, atheists, and anti-supernaturalists do not want to accept that explanation, so they have proposed a great number of alternative, non-miraculous explanations. I'll examine those alternative theories over the next two episodes. In this episode I examine the theft hypothesis, the switcheroo hypothesis, the apparent death theory, the hallucination theory, the wrong tomb theory, and the copycat of pagan mythology theory. 

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I cover the four remaining historical facts that I'll argue are best explained by Jesus' resurrection from the dead:

5. The conversion of James
6. The conversion of Paul
7. The changed behavior of the disciples
8. The origin of the disciples' belief in the resurrection

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Not only did the disciples discover Jesus' tomb to be empty, but Jesus also appeared in the flesh to various individuals and groups at different times and in different locations. I explore the reasons historians are convinced that the disciples had some sort of experience of Jesus after His death. I also harmonize all of the various resurrection appearances recorded in the gospels and 1 Corinthians, ordering them chronologically. 

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Parler: @thinkingtobelieve

I present six lines of evidence in favor of the historicity of the empty tomb, and explain why this historical fact is significant in the case for the resurrection of Jesus. 

Web: ThinkingtoBelieve.com
Email: [email protected]
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Twitter & Gettr: @thinking2believ
Truth: @ThinkingToBelieve
Parler: @thinkingtobelieve