Pluralist,

Yes I think we have the general drift of what your disbelief is based on. Although its not as you said against what someone propose, but what several people claim they saw.

Most non-believers take what is given and simply state they don’t believe, a spirit of anti-Christ on the other hand is determined to convince people God’s testimony isn’t true.

As this is a Christian forum I assume most of us want to move on the things of God.

There is an idea that denying something is a matter of faith set against someone who proposes something. A person who proposes, for example, that there is a God has to have faith in that, but just because someone proposes something doesn't mean the person for whom this is no concern has to also have faith in denial.

The material in the Bible is not eyewitness testimony to the extent that it claims it is. This is a matter of scholarship over a long period, whether there is a pendulum swing in one direction or the other. Given its clearly mythic basis, in what it observes, and in its writing, it is for the people who say it is eyewitness testimony to have the leap of faith whereas others can, if it concerns them, subject it to the rules of doing history, science and so on. It is not a matter of faith to deny the existence of the resurrection, it simply has no place other than in faith. The Bible itself is not evidence, nor draws on anything other than cultural interpretations. I do not need faith in this denial.

Pluralist,

First of all the things witnessed in the NT were claimed as eyewitness accounts by the people who claimed they witnessed them, for someone like yourself who wasn’t there, your opinion is a serious faith in unbelief.

I fully accept your reasons why you don’t believe what is written, it is a matter of faith in after all, but the Bible tells believers scoffers will think it is foolishness, so it wont convince believers except that the Biblical account is even more convincing. LOL.

Most villagers assume, at least in their most magnanimous states, that we are discussing, not persons, but ideas. Few, if any, of these independent minds seem to be deciding questions by blindly choosing (or blindly opposing) the answers backed by the persons with the weightiest credentials. To the contrary, the blogosphere generally, and this forum in particular, seems to invite conversation with a certain clarity and 'democracy' of argument. So there is no harm in acknowledging one's formative influences, whatever they happen to be, but it would unwise to expect villagers to think better (or worse) of an argument merely because of them. Their fathers, after all, were evangelicals.

First of all, half these things were not witnessed in the first place, and then, those that were, were put into a meaningful package, and what matters is the meaningful package. Culture - the 'sacred canopy' we live under - can mean that we see things with integrity that, it turns out after a cultural turn, would not have been true at all. So much is so for those who believed in the supernatural, in the last days, or in things like numbers in texts (as they did), or traditions.

Pluralist,

Of people who are highly qualified in all kinds of fields, some believe the Biblical testimony and some do not. High qualification makes no difference to faith which is spiritual. We can see that in the NT itself, Luke was a physician, Peter a fisherman. Some Pharisees like Nicodemus were open to the truth, most weren’t. I could go on.

For me who was not there at the time, either the NT writers are telling the truth, or they are making it up or they are deceived. I think for you, from what you are saying, it is that they are deceived. I think it is the truth they witnessed.    

I'm not trying to convince myself, rather I'd need convincing the other way and I am not. This business of pressing the case for eyewitness material is not new. I've looked at it, and it doesn't make sense set against even making a straight reading of the material. But I did also do the work involved in a sociology of religion Ph.D and an MA in Theology, so it's not as if the obvious passed me by.

Pluralist,

Are you trying to convince yourself? The community as eyewitnesses including the NT writers record the ascension and resurrection. They saw it as amazing and out of the ordinary, that’s why they wrote about it. That you don’t believe they saw it is up to you even with the reasoning for your doubt, but as Christians here we are interested in it and the what it means.

BYTW many ordinary people hear the news today and believe, as do extraordinary people. 

David W

I think that the inconsistencies are described as the synoptic problem. That is who wrote which books under the name of whom, alongside the issue of having Jewish Roman Greek and Born again Christian recollections. (not too different from us lot on here then lol). But as we know Some words in Hebrew do not exist in Greek or Italian or English.  It is quite a big study all on its own and i have an outline or summary of the issues, but i have not studied it in depth, thats what we need Richard Baukham for!!

But i think on a simpler level as most of the Bishops and retired Bishops and Clergy on here will tell you it is a little like Salisbury cathedral, if you look out of one window you get one view and if you look out of another window you get a completely different view but the window is still a window it just sits in a different place. That is how inconsistencies occur. There is the corporate fact of what is seen, then there is the individual experience of the corporate fact, then we have the redaction issue, how each person reports what they saw which will in some way be defined by how they felt about what they saw. The mind has a way of recalling things of memory which are most significant at the time. I have a terrible memory but i have a lot of important significant recollections, it would be impossible to reconstruct the space and time aspect, even if i could reconstruct the actual events of the time. This is how i suggest the inconsistencies occur.

Hope i have not confused you again David W.You know how it is it all makes sense until someone else reconstructs it, again a little like the recollection of the Ascension and the disciples.

Angela

I'd suggest nobody saw an ascension, but that it is put in for effect and explanation, and at best resurrection is a term used for apparent encounters in situations of bereavement/ expectation.

But in any case, being an eyewitness isn't enough. Let's imagine a common belief today (it has to be imagined) that cars and lorries moving as fast as they do will one day lead to an almighty pile up the length of the overcrowded motorways. Imagine further that the view in groups of people is that the manufacturers are wrong to have vehicles capable of moving so quickly. Then they ask their writers to make reports about ongoing accidents drawing on the stories going around about accidents thirty years ago when vehicles became powerful, particularly from group members. Then what comes is the story of some factories building these vehicles and the accidents they had, and their obvious causes, and not only that but stranger stories of loved ones seen after fatalities telling the 'reasons' to the still living. The writers craft these into stories and clearly the stories include elements of eyewitness accounts of accidents and tragedies, and they are written so they get worse and worse. But that eyewitness element is hardly what is important. What is important is the group mentality regarding accidents and the future, all of which they blame in the past through some oddly remembered accounts of how these vehicles were developed.

When someone outside the group looks at these matters, they see it rather more on the level. There might be a problem over safety, but this is being dealt with (one reason why vehicles are being driven faster - people's sense of safety within), and accidents are unfortunately inevitable and probable on a rational basis.

So an ordinary, today sort of person, looks at a Jesus of Nazareth as a last days preacher and healer, and sees nothing much compared with someone in the community for whom he represents the crux of things.

WaterAngel,

Rregarding your point,  

"Eye witness may be determined by what a person want to see or hear, "  But the NT is several eyewitnesses who all saw the same. What "inconsistency in recollection".?

I have read Richard Bauchams book now, I find myself simply agreeing with most of what he says, i will put it in simpler terms, but i agree with his point that, Eye Witness and Testimony are closely aligned. It does not lesson the accuracy if people recall the events differently, it simply increases the size of the picture of a living witness.

It could indeed be argued that the differences in recollections, prove that the events happened, it is simply the logistics of timing and position that alters the recollection. The tradition of the time is bound to effect the form in which it is shared and people are bound to perceive what they hear and read or see in accordance with what their core expectation is, IE are they expecting to prove a witness right or wrong.

Eye witness may be determined by what a person want to see or hear, a bit like double meanings, negative and positive slants on a particular event, inconsistencies in recollections can be put down to missing one tiny part of an event, that part can be left out when testifying. I am not sure if fact and testimony are the same thing, because of the inconsistency in recollection. The fact of an actual effect may be correct, but the finer points may be different, but alongside this the overall effect will be irrefutable. IE the resurrection happened but how that is experienced is down to the individual. The witness was in the fact that the body disappeared, and the witness of those who saw the Ascension.

Angela