Arguments for the Existence of God

First, let me take the time to thank Con for his timely acceptance of this debate. I will be defending the Pro case for the historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus of Christ. Unlike most theistic arguments, this argument is SPECIFICALLY geared towards Christianity, and if it is true, then it becomes apparent as to exactly "which" God exists. Before I dive into the argument, let me first address Con's question of "How is resurrection possible?" Well, if a Supreme Being (omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent) exists, then it is within the power of such a being to allow human beings to resurrect from the dead. So the answer is "Resurrections are possible, because God exists". Now, I have independent arguments (the other 4 arguments mentioned in round one) which allows me to conclude that a Supreme Being exists, but right now, I will be using an argument based on history, the history of a man named Jesus... But before we talk specifically about the Resurrection, lets first establish whether or not Jesus of Nazareth existed in the first place. We have at least 5 ancient external biblical sources which refers to Jesus... 1. Josephus (Jewish Historian) 2. Tacitus (Roman senator/historian) 3. Pliny the Younger (Magistrate of Ancient Rome) 4. Lucian of Samosta (Greek satirist) 5. Mara bar Sarapion (Roman philosopher) These are 5 independent, external-biblical, non-Christian sources, and 3 of those sources mention Jesus by name /title (Josephus, Tacitus, Pliny the Younger), with the other two mentioning him indirectly. That, followed by four independent biographies of Jesus' life, as depicted in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), are reasons why the majority of all historians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was a real historical figure, which is a fact that even skeptics like Richard Carrier and Bart Ehrman agree with. Next, I will make a case that all Gospels were written during the lifetime of the disciples, and were authored by either the disciples of Jesus (Matthew, John), or friends of the disciples (Mark, Luke). It was the unanimous testimony of the Early Church that the men whose Gospel's bears their name, wrote the book. The authorship of the Gospel's were never in dispute, as we don't have a history of the Early Church quarreling about who wrote the Gospels. A case can be made that the Gospels were all written before 70AD. Why can we draw this conclusion? Because that is when the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed (not just the temple, but the entire city). This was a significant event in the history of Judaism, as the temple was a religiously sacred place where the high priest would make sacrifices for sins, perform rituals, etc"and the destruction of the temple would have been equivalent to the World Trade Center destruction in the United States. What makes it even more significant is the fact that nowhere in the Gospels is the destruction of the temple mentioned. Why is this significant? Because Jesus predicted that the temple would be destroyed, that"s why"in 3 of the 4 Gospels, Jesus predicts it (Matt 24:1-2, Mark 13:1-2, Luke 21:-6). Now if anyone is familiar with the Gospels, they would know that the authors would not hesitate to let readers know whenever a prophecy was being fulfilled. How many times have we seen "Jesus did X so that prophecy Y was fulfilled", or "This happened so that the prophecy X was fulfilled". Those prophecy fulfillments are useful as they would demonstrate the foreknowledge of God. So why wouldn"t the fulfillment of this particular prophecy be mentioned in ANY of the Gospels if the temple had been destroyed after Jesus predicted it would be? Because the event hadn"t happened yet, that is why. And not only that, but there are areas throughout the NT were the author is speaking as if the temple was still up and in business, which can be discussed later if need be. So all Gospels cannot be said to post-date 70AD"so 70AD is a starting point, and we can just work backwards from there. We can start from the book of Acts, which is the "part 2" to Luke. If Acts was part 2, and Luke was part 1, that would mean that Luke was written prior to Acts. In the book of Acts, Paul is still alive"he was still waiting for trial and his martyrdom is not mentioned, which is something that the author would want to mention if the book was written AFTER Paul had been martyred, considering the last third of the book was about the trials and tribulations of Paul, so how can you not include his death? Especially when the deaths of Stephen and James are mentioned? Why? Because Paul was still living when the book was written, that is why. Paul is said to have been martyred about 67AD"so Acts was written prior to 67AD, which would mean that Luke had to have been written prior to 67AD, as the book couldn"t have preceded Acts. Since Luke allegedly used Mark as a source (as did Matthew), Mark"s Gospel also had to predate 67AD. So at BEST, all Gospels can be said to have been written between 59-66AD. Due to the temple incident not being mentioned in John as well, his Gospel can also be said to have been written prior to 70AD, and it is generally believed that his Gospel was the last of those written. The Apostle Peter was martyred in 64AD, so the Gospel of Mark cannot exceed that year, since Peter was the source of Mark's information..so again, all Gospels can be said to have been written prior to 70AD. This doesn't even include the Epistles of Paul, which scholars all agree were written before any of the Gospels...which was between the late 40's to mid 50'sAD (some in the 60's). So in conclusion, all Gospels and Epistles can be said to have been written prior to 70AD, which would be at best 25-30 years after the cross, which was STILL within the lifetime of the original disciples. Now I will make the case for Jesus" burial and empty tomb. As previously mentioned, we have 5 external biblical sources testify to Jesus" actual existence, and 4 of these sources also testify to his crucifixion. So Jesus" crucifixion has been historically attested by at least 8 sources of antiquity...4 non-Christians, and 4 Christians. The Gospels all state that Jesus" body was buried in a tomb by Joseph of Arimathea, Paul later corroborates this burial in one of his Epistles. There isn"t anything odd or unusual about this, because typically when someone dies, they are usually BURIED, either in a tomb, or a grave. So no real issues here, unless there is more closed-mind spewage that someone wants to"spew. All Gospels state that Jesus" tomb was discovered empty by his women followers. Now there are a couple things worth mentioning here" 1. In that culture at that time, the testimony of women was not considered "valid". The Jewish Talmud states "Sooner let the words of the law be burnt than delivered to women" and also "Any evidence which a woman gives is not valid""and even Josephus once said "But let not the testimony of women be admitted, on account of the levity and boldness of their sex". That was the attitude towards women during that time, take it how you want to take it. The fact that the empty tomb was discovered by women, and not the "mighty" 12 disciples, shows a genuine and honesty towards the account, and the only way to explain this narrative is that the authors simply told the story how it is, regardless of how embarrassing the details may have been. Not to mention the narrative shows how ignorant the disciples were, since it isn"t as if they knew that the tomb would be empty based on them piecing together the information Jesus gave them regarding his Resurrection. They weren"t expecting the tomb to be empty. 2. The whole Resurrection account starts in Jerusalem..and the spread of the good word started from Jerusalem. It would be hard to get Christianity off of the ground if you are claiming that Jesus rose PHYSICALLY from the dead if his body still lay in the tomb. Christianity wouldn"t have even BEGAN to get started if Jesus" tomb wasn"t empty, because all the authorities would have had to do was go to the tomb and point out the fact that the disciples were full of CRAP, because the body is "right there". 3. Justin Martyr and Tertullian, both were prominent members of the early Church in the second century, and they both mentioned the fact that as Matthew stated, the "word on the street" was that the disciples stole the body, and Tertullian even mentioned that it even went from "the disciples stole the body" to "the gardener stole the body". There would be no reason to claim that ANYONE stole the body if the tomb had not been empty. The book of Matthew is the only Gospel that has this "rumor", but then again, why would Matthew mention this if he knew the tomb was occupied? Makes no sense. So I think I've made a case that Jesus was crucified and buried, and that for some reason, his tomb became vacant, and in order to explain away this vacancy, the disciples were accused of stealing the body, which is something that would not be mentioned if there wasn"t a vacant tomb in the first place. Finally, I will point why the origins of the disciples belief is best explained by what they believed to be the post-mortem appearances of Jesus. Tacitus stated in his account of Jesus that a "mysterious superstition" originated in the aftermath of his death. This non-Christian account harmonizes with the Gospels and letters of Paul, which (more) explicitly states the same thing. Tacitus' statement also harmonizes with what Paul wrote in 1Corin 15:3-7, at which passes down a creed to the Church that he himself received from the original disciples of Jesus. Scholars believe that Paul received this creed within 5 years of the crucifixion, so the belief in the Resurrection was very early. In closing, I have two questions for Con: 1. Did the disciples believe that Jesus appeared to them? and if yes 2. How will he explain the origins of their belief? I've made my case.