Would people actually travel to Jerusalem to find the truth? How long was the trip? Since we do not have first century manuscripts, a later redactor could just add this to make it look as if people could ask the witnesses, and in fact they didn’t.
Response to resurrection witnesses:
1. Halucenation like UFO sightings. Or group pressure (everyone else is seeing Jesus, so am I)
Against the Resurrection
Naturalistic theories of how the first Christians came to believe Jesus was raised from the dead:
he survived
This is highly unlikely
corpse was misplaced
corpse was stolen
belief arose solely from epiphanies (as dreams, hallucinations, or inspirations from scripture).
Some reasons that people reject the resurrection story
the evidence is insufficient to warrant belief in this case
even survival (mistaken as a resurrection), despite being the least probable unmiraculous explanation, is more probable than a miracle
some evidence suggests the original conception of the resurrection of Jesus was spiritual in nature and did not involve his flesh (contrary to what some of the Gospels struggle to claim).
As David Hume once said, why do such things not happen now? Is it a coincidence that the very time when these things no longer happen is the same time that we have the means and methods to check them in the light of science and careful investigation?
For the Resurrection
he claim that the early Christian communities read back into Jesus’ teachings their own concerns and controversies won’t withstand scrutiny. For a few different reasons:
- Many of the controversial issues in the Epistles aren’t even mentioned in the Gospels (circumcision, speaking in tongues, eating meat offered to idols, etc.).
- Matthew, Mark, and Luke offer a portrait of Jesus within one generation of his death. Note the case of Acts, which was likely written before Paul’s death (A.D. 64), which means that Luke’s gospel was written earlier than this and that Mark, which Luke follows, was written even earlier.
- First-century Palestinian Jews were concerned about accurately preserving tradition, and this concern is reflected in the epistles – for example, themes from the Sermon on the Mount are reflected in James and the tradition of the last supper is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11.
- The gospels do not reflect a fabrication. There is a simplicity to them, making fabrications unlikely. (Note the women as witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection despite their lower societal status, or the ‘embarrassing’ points that would probably be deleted if the Gospel stories or sayings were fabricated – Jesus’ baptism by John, his ignorance of the time of his own return, his not doing miracles in some places).
- Why invent so many miracle stories, when most Jews expected a political deliverer as Messiah, not a wonder-worker?
Thirdly, the gospels – primarily Mark, Matthew, and Luke – offer a portrait of Jesus within one generation of his death, which tends to ensure the accurate transmission of the Jesus-tradition.
Fourthly, the simple unsophisticated nature of the Gospels attests to their reliability rather than to their being fabrications.
In summary, to say that someone writes with evangelistic or apologetical purpose doesn’t mean that what is written is unreliable. Passion or zeal – as with the Holocaust survivors – need not entail distortion of data. And you can point out places where the Gospels show themselves to be reliable historically and archeologically. This lends credibility to what cannot be directly verified – Jesus’ claims and deeds.