1/20/01
Paul wrote:
>-----Original Message-----
>From: PHSEELY@aol.com [mailto:PHSEELY@aol.com]
>Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 12:22 AM
>Glenn wrote,
>
><< If God didn't reveal the historical resurrection, then Christianity is
> false. Thus, God MUST reveal history in Scripture or we are simply deluded
> in our beliefs.
> >>
>In the NT there is an inordinate amount of stress upon the eye-witness
>character of the gospel accounts; and the resurrection is part of the
>testimony of those eye-witnesses (Luke 24:46-48; Acts 2:32; 3:15; 5:30-32,
>etc.). When the fact of the bodily resurrection of Christ was challenged
at
>Corinth, Paul did say the resurrection was "according to the Scriptures"
but
>be built his case for the resurrection far more on the eye-witnesses (1Cor
>15).
>
>The historical fact of the resurrection, the history qua history, is never
>based in the biblical accounts on a claim of revelation. If it were, it
>would remove the resurrection from the possibility of falsification,
putting
>it in a realm above history so that our faith would have no basis except in
>our faith itself. If you want to set up the Christian faith so that it
rests
>solely upon subjectivity, say that the resurrection of Christ rests upon
>revelation alone. Is that what you are trying to do? (-:
We agree that one can't remove Christianity from falsification. But today
how do we 'falsify' the resurrection???? Can we cross-examine the
eyewitnesses? Can we do a forensic investigation of the cross (one has been
able to purchase pieces of the true cross for Millennia in Jerusalem
implying that the cross was very, very large)? Can we test the DNA on the
Shroud of Turin and compare it with Jesus's DNA? Tell me what PHYSICAL
evidence I can use today to verify the resurrection apart from writings
(which themselves are copies of earlier documents)
What I am saying is what I have always said. The events in scripture
(especially the resurrection) must be historically true. If they aren't
historically true, we are deluded. In that sense, from our modern
perspective where we can't verify Paul's claims about eye-witnesses, we must
rely on the Scriptural account in order for us to believe the resurrection.
We have no eyewitnesses that we can cross examine today. We are in the
position of having this revealed to us via Paul. Because of this
epistemological limitation, we must depend upon the eye-witness testimony
for our faith, which is a very good way to do things, but we can't dismiss
the fact that from our perspective, this is a non-verifiable event which
depends upon the veracity of the eye-witnesses.
The trust of eye-witness testimony is not 100%. How many people each year
are convicted of crimes they didn't do because of faulty eye-witness
testimony? And people can delude themselves. I was deluded by myself as a
YEC to believe the impossible. I went to church for years with a normal guy
with wife and kids, only to learn during the Branch Davidian episode, that
when he was a young-man, he had deluded himself into believing that he was a
new Messiah. And you know what? He had gathered a few followers also who
believed that he was someone special--just like David Koresh did.
Eye-witness testimony isn't all it is cracked up to be.
So from our perspective, how do we 'verify' our beliefs (knowing that they
can never be totally verified)? We can't use the Exodus as there is little
evidence of it. We can't use Abram's existence because there is no physical
evidence of his existence left. We can't use creation itself (as the YECs
try to do) because there is no way to differentiate creation by God from a
Big Bang event of naturalistic origins ala Alan Guth.
This dilemma is why I place more emphasis on the flood. Such an event should
have left evidence of itself. If it can be forensically verified then by
implication the validity of the Scripture is verified.
But if as many here want to do, we make the flood nothing but allegory or a
nice theological story, there is precious little I can find that can
actually be verified about the Bible, which then DOES, as you say, mean that
"our faith would have no basis except in >our faith itself."
And that is why I fight the view that you and others promulgate about early
Genesis etc. Early Genesis (the flood in particular) is about the only thing
that even has a prayer of actually being verifiable. If you can lay out a
means of verifying any other event which can be verified from this modern
point of view, then I will gladly listen. But be specific, and don't talk
about the 'great theological Truths' of the Bible--I can't verify great
theological truths.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
>
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