Glenn Morton wrote:
> 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.
N.B. The following is not just a reset of our standard debate.
I find your argument in the last 3 paragraphs strange for at least a
couple of reasons. First, verifying the flood story in Genesis in the sense you
speak of proves very little about the truth of Scripture as a whole. The Bible
is a collection of writings by different people spread over 1000+ years, and the
fact that a couple of its chapters give information about something that really
happened tells us nothing about the truth of its many other accounts. I would
think that there are very few skeptics who are committed to the position that
_everything_ in the Bible is false. They can easily say, "Even a blind pig
finds an acorn once in awhile."
Second, there certainly is historical evidence for some biblical
material - e.g., inscriptions & archaeological remains relating to the kings of
Judah & Israel & the destruction of Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate, &c. So if it's
crucial to have _one_ historical anchor, there are less debatable things to
choose than the flood.
A different point: We're not quite as dependent on Paul as you suggest
for evidence supporting the resurrection. While they written some time after
Paul's epistles, the accounts of the empty tomb and of Jesus' Easter appearances
in the gospels can't be entirely discounted by historians.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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