I know how strong the desire for an afterlife can be. When it became analogous to the desire for a flying car, I got over it.

But, though I respect the attempt to make me true to myself, I am being entirely honest when I claim this to be the reason “why I’m a Christian”.
I became a Christian in year 11. Long, long before that I was a skeptic and free-thinker (the bookshelf of kid-level books with titles like ‘Can the Bible be trusted?’
My first memory of anything spiritual was lying on my bed hoping, wishing that there was no God – because the prospect of ‘nothing’ after death seemed infinitely more sweet to me than even the slimmest possibility of Hell. I certainly had no ulterior motive to believe in God – quite the opposite.
More-over, I have come out of a Christian tradition called Cessationism which expects to see very little (if any) of the supernatural, and places very low emphasis on subjective experiene and emotions – so I (A) had no real spiritual experiences to draw on, and (B) wouldn’t have relied on them much if I had.
(I’ve since been convinced that this theological position is wrong, and the reason we see so little of the supernatural is (A) we have so little faith, (B) we ask for so little, and (C) we look for so little)

So I was not your typical church kid. (Or maybe I was, and the stereo-type is wrong.)

Yet as I investigated throughout high school I could not escape it. There was no rational basis for attacking it, and no lack of rational basis for believing it.
From then it was just a matter of whether I was willing to submit my life to Jesus as Lord – again, not exactly the situation in which one deludes themself into believing in God.
Eventually (and I wish it were sooner) I made that choice.

I remain, actually, a skeptic, and a free-thinker. Skepticism is not a conclusion about the world, it’s an approach to investigating it – an approach that I’ve taken.
Most of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity I have questioned, or are still questioning. It makes me a less-sure Christian and ultimately I want to become more certain – but only more certain of truth, there is no point becoming more certain of falsehood.

I’m still challenged by many questions – as I grow, the questions get harder (currently the questions have outgrown my intellect, which is frustrating). But they have never been unanswerable.

It was evidence like this that persuaded me before I was Christian and brought about my conversion, and its evidence like this that continues to persuade me today.

Regarding 1, believe me, you can fathom it if I can. There is a simple reason to lie in the face of all that discouragement: it would help. Balance the possible blemish on Jesus’ legacy (which only the first chroniclers would know) with the looming prospect that there would BE no legacy.

I hadn’t actually asserted with any authority that the apostles or anyone else directly involved committed fraud. In my dialogue with Phil/Reasoning Out Loud on ATA, an apparently more likely scenario surfaced where someone else fooled them too. It even worked within Gary Habermas’ “accepted” premises. But let’s look at the apostle/disciple fraud scenario anyway.

The idea that Jesus was a great moral teacher works for my view too, you know. If any of it is to be believed, he inspired incredible altruism in those who listened to him. (There’s a group called Atheists for Jesus that loves the man for this alone.)

It’s self-evident that his teachings go farther with the perceived backing of a deity, as Jesus himself would have realised whether or not he thought it was true. If one soon-forgotten lie could discourage fraud everywhere, it would be a temptation that Jesus was suddenly not there to help the others resist. As they demonstrated on many occasions, they weren’t perfect even when Jesus was around. Even if they were already committed Jewish theists and believed in punishment for all dishonesty, it would seem like a sacrifice of their own integrity for that of others.

About 2, I’m sure you do want evidence for these explanations. It’s not likely forthcoming, as every non-actual-resurrection scenario still produces sincere documents like the Gospels. Plausibility does not require it anyway; all that means is appearance of truth or reason. That makes it entirely subjective, and the fact that you haven’t found my alternate explanations plausible (yet) doesn’t mean I can’t, shouldn’t, or don’t. I do, and I’m not alone.

I’m not interested in questioning the evidence you’ve presented right now, because it doesn’t hurt my case. It’s all aimed at showing how quickly the legend spread. Just how long WOULD it take for a group of self-confessed cowards to invent a legend – if they thought their own survival depended on it? Not long. Their Messiah was dead, the Romans still held sway, and their following had turned on them as soon as the Romans had Jesus in custody. A resurrection story would at least get some ex-followers on side, and they could hash out details once the noose was loosened. The effort put into Jesus’ downfall would actually work in favour of the legend if it were suddenly negated. If they believed, mistakenly or not, that it really had happened, the extra sincerity would help. Maybe some or all died for it later. If they believed, fine. If not, they were stuck with the desperate commitment they made in the early days, and were caught between the heathen and their own lot.

Regarding Abraham, I’d rather readers clicked my name for my full response, where discussion is ongoing to some extent. Chucky’s summary here is a bit brief.

Finally, Hayesy, I don’t think you’re being entirely honest with yourself. You referred back to your material here as “Why I’m a Christian”. Did you know much of it before you were a Christian? I doubt it. You’re a Christian in the first place not because of evidence like this, but because of the spiritual experiences you’ve occasionally alluded to and other very simple things. Stuff like the above, whether or not it’s accurate, is probably rationalising after the fact. I’m just happy you still feel the need to rationalise at all. If I’m wrong and you began as a committed skeptic and freethinker, let me know.

I don’t hate you, good gravy no. I’m glad you’ve chosen to hold forth.

I like what heyesy said: “I want positive evidence of this supposedly plausible explanation. Or even evidence that suggests we can’t trust the New Testament to be a faithful recording of events.”

For those who missed it: God’s promises to Abraham. The major was response that it was a self-fulfilling prophesy. Apparently because Abraham and his decendants wanted it to come true, that’s why it did come true. I found that totally unsatisfying. It is an extremely unlikely event (assuming God doesn’t exist) regardless of whether Abraham and his decendants wanted it to happen or not. Nomadic goat herders are limited in their power. It’s kind of like claiming that a prediction of winning the lottery is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Just because you want it to happen doesn’t change the fact that it’s extremely unlikely.

In any event, I will stop hijacking thecrazyaustralian’s blog – cool though it is I like his style, and I’ll be back

Reading the prophecies, I’m happy that Jews for example, have a different explanation. What I’m not happy is that their explanation is the best one. Anyhow have fun all

Good night

Welcome Chucky! Thanks for your comments!

You’re both right. It’s true that the truth or otherwise of those Islamic prophecies does not affect the truth of the Messianic prophecies, but also that it is difficult for atheism if they are true.

Regarding the Jewish apologetics, you’re right SmartLX – they show that “don’t have to be an atheist or even to doubt the Old Testament to doubt that Jesus was the Messiah”. They show this and no more.
They don’t show that it’s impossible to prove from the Old Testament that Jesus is the messiah… all they show is that some people who believe the Old Testament don’t believe he was the messiah (or that there was such a person promised). I’m sure you are, sadly, all too familiar with people who refuse to be convinced of something in the face of much evidence. Their existence does not mean that it cannot be proved, just that they will not be. (Using ‘will’ in 2 senses here)

I’d say you could show from the Old Testament that their interpretation is wrong. And the Samaritan woman in John 4 seems to have an expectation of ‘a messiah’. Likewise with Peter’s confession that Jesus is ‘the Christ’.

“what positive evidence can I be expected to provide to contradict the argument that the real divinity of Jesus is the only plausible reason why he appears to have fulfilled the Messianic prophecies?”
It’s true that you don’t need to provide positive evidence that Jesus does *not* fulfil messianic prophecies if you can instead explain them away. (Though – this is subject to this comment.)

However, there are 2 problems with your explanations:

1. They are not plausible.
“If his followers and/or chroniclers thought more people would listen to his teachings about life if they thought he was divine, that’s one reason to convince them that he was. Or even if they honestly thought he was divine but wanted to emphasise the point for outsiders, over and above the other self-declared Messiahs of the time.”
You’re talking about the disciples of a person widely recognised as the greatest moral teacher of all time (and if not the greatest, at least a remarkable one), who called his disciples to radical standards of integrity. Disciples who wrote (according to you) substantial sections of their biographies themselves, and thus must have at least remembered, if not themselves created, these teachings. Disciples who were convinced (apparently) of the truth of these teachings (or why record them?). Disciples who (apparently) believed that Jesus was divine and would hold them to this standard. Disciples who knew that Jesus called Satan the father of lies (John 8:44), and disciples who themselves command against it (Colossians 3:9). Disciples who knew of the Old Testament’s many commands against lying. Disciples who knew that in God there is no falsehood (Num 23:19; 1 Sam 15:29; Rom 3:4; Titus 1:2; Heb 6:18).

You have men from this background using falsehoods to promote the teaching “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one. “

That I cannot fathom.
To suggest that these men would engage in fraud to promote the teachings of a man who condemned it, this is absurd!

Moreover, you haven’t convinced me that it’s even rational for them to want to fabricate facts to fulfill requirements. Why would they think he is the messiah if they are so conscious of his shortcomings as to fabricate facts as evidence? This doesn’t even make sense on it’s own – and it raises the further uncomfortable question for you of what exactly Jesus did that was so astonishing to make them abandon their faithfulness to the Old Testament (which they still quote repeatedly throughout their writings)?

What you propose is that they honestly thought he was divine without his doing any miracles, or that he was messianic without fulfilling prophecies, and then you have them engaging in condemned practice to justify the spread of that which condemns it!

And then you call it plausible?

If I was speaking this, my tone would be friendly and loving, but incredulous.

2. Evidence
This is slightly different to Chucky’s point. I don’t want positive evidence that Jesus is not the messiah (or whatever). I want positive evidence of this supposedly plausible explanation. Or even evidence that suggests we can’t trust the New Testament to be a faithful recording of events.
Far too often I hear people say “Well it was mistranslated/miscopied/entirely-fabricated-hundreds-of-years-later” and then I ask them “Oh, so you’ve looked into it then?”
“Well, no. But it probably is”

No, no, no. To attack the credibility of a document, it is not enough that you don’t like the implications of its truth. What evidence is there that the New Testament was mistranslated/miscopied/entirely-fabricated-hundreds-of-years-later?
None. In fact there is no archaelogical evidence which controverts any reference – remarkable historical accuracy for people inventing things, don’t you think? We have manuscripts in their original language – a language which has been preserved through the ages. Go read one, see if it has been mis-translated. The gap between event and authorship is within a lifetime – while witnesses could refute them and far too short for legends to spring up. And the gap between date of original composition and earliest extant manuscripts is the shortest for any ancient manuscript by far. There are more early manuscripts than any other ancient document by a factor of at least 10. Cross-manuscript concordance is remarkable. When you combine that with the geographical separation of the locations at which maps are found, you find the same remarkable concordance, indicating a common parent document higher up the tree.
The discovery of a Rotas-Sartor in Pompeii indicates that the teachings of Jesus had reached Pompeii by AD 79. In it is found he famous ‘Alpha and Omega’, the first 2 words of the Lord’s prayer [which, by the way, were surprising to Jews because no-one called God their Father... so possibly significant that these words are chosen, implying 'Son of God?'], and it is translated the “The Great Sower holds in his hand all works; all works the Great Sower holds in his hand.” (See promises in Jeremiah 31:27, Ezekiel 36:9, Hosea 2:23 and especially Jesus’ claim to be the promised sower in Matthew 13:1ff, esp. v37, and also Jesus words in John 4:31-38 in the context of the surrounding messianic discussion.)
So the teachings of Jesus and belief in His preminence (Alpha-and-omega-ness), and Son-of-God-ness had reached Pompeii by AD 79… Just 46 years after His crucifixion.

Is that enough time for these kinds of legends to develop? Consider that you have people living for around 60 years, so a teenager in AD 33 would be still alive at this time.

Wow. I had never done the maths of this before. The person who carved that inscription in Pompeii could have been a teenager when Jesus was alive! And thats even supposing it wasn’t inscribed until the day of the volcano!

And then if you consider this, where even secular scholarship puts the composition of Mark no later than AD 75 (and even as early as AD 50), while letters of Paul were written around AD 49 (Galatians) and AD 51 (1 Thes). The letter of 1 Corinthians is particularly notable because it was written AD 53-57 (source: the infallible wikipedia. At least its not Christian) and yet contains a creed which is pre-Pauline and which is centred on Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. Paul’s conversion was in the same decade as Jesus’ death, and he claims to have received it – which means it originates no more than about 8 years after Jesus’ death, and even as close as 3 (or fewer) years.
So you have this theologically-mature, literarily-recognisable creed declaring that Christ died for our sins, was buried, then rose again and appeared to over 500 people (some of whom are named)!
Its no wonder the creed includes the line “of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep” (v6)!

Well within a decade of Jesus’ horrific death (not great promotional material) you have this creed being spread. It’s no-where near enough time for a band of self-confessed cowards (read the first 5 books of the New Teatament) to have invented a legend to promote their failed leader whom they just watched die. Now consider that for at least the first 40 years of it’s circulation hearers would have been able to ask for eye-witness testimony, and eye-witness counter-evidence would also have been available.
And the headquarters of the early church was not in a far-off land, where inquirers could not have checked it out. The church was based in and spread from Jerusalem, the very place of the alleged resurrection!

(More on the creed.)

My goodness! I’ve never attempted to write it out like this (and even now I have left things out which I find persuasive). And I’m blown away even myself….

But my point is this: you may come up with nice convenient explanations, but to do so you must challenge this evidence. And so I ask: what is your evidence you bring to the table from which you attack the reliability of documents that exceed expectations in every possible element of historical analysis?

In sum, 1 – its not persuasive, and 2 – it flies in the face of all the evidence.

Sorry this has been so long. My law degree hates me, and you probably do too…

ps – a hint: people will respect your arguments even more if you edit them before you send them Here’s how I would have edited yours:
Hey Hayesy, Jesus is proven, the Bible states it time and time again, bang, bang, bang, etc, etc, etc. It‘s all the evidence I need. Pray that others would know this great comforting truth and that they would find rest in Jesus!!!
(Don’t let that discourage you – keep preaching it!)