Jesus was Raised From the Dead

For my post I wish to highlight the nature of the historical explanations, why supernatural explanations are not considered academically, and why the presented historical documentation is insufficient to fulfill the extraordinary claim of resurrection.Why supernatural explanations are not considered by academic historiansThe goal of historians is to take the available historical facts (documents), and extrapolate from them the most plausible historical explanation - what most probably happened [1]. For a trivial example, the historical fact of Julius Caesars bust being found on Roman coins is best explained by his status as Emperor. So why are supernatural facts not considered in academic circles? Two reasons. One, supernatural and miraculous explanations, due to their vary nature, can not be the most probable explanation, given that a miracle (by definition) is essentially the least probably explanation.Secondly, supernatural explanations are not considered because they are not academically rigorous. Literally anything can be explained perfectly using supernatural explanations. For example, if we have conflicting records of Genghis Khan's location during his invasion of western Europe, this can be explained by Khan being (supernaturally) in two places at the same time. Or to have a non-historical example, if I remember placing my keys on the bench, cannot find them initially, but find them eventually on my work desk, I could posit a supernatural explanation that my keys teleported from the bench to the desk. This now explains all the historical facts (my memory of the bench and finding it on the desk), and in fact a supernatural explanation will always explain the facts as well as or better than a natural explanation (for instance, I forgot that I had relocated my keys).On the nature of the claimTaking this out of an academic context so that we can consider resurrection, we should acknowledge it is a supernatural, miraculous and extraordinary claim. As such, the amount of evidence we should have for it occurring should be overwhelming before we accept it is being a likely or plausible explanation.So what overhwelming evidence do we actually have? What independent, contemporary accounts can we rely on? The answer is possibly none.IndependenceFor starters, let us consider the Gospel accounts. There are three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke. Unfortunately, the Gospels are not independent documents, and this is known academically as the Synoptic Problem [2], with the most accepted theory being the Two-Source theory, where Mark and the Q source were used for Matthew and Luke. Unfortunately, this means that when considering the documentation claiming resurrection, we cannot consider the Gospels as independent attestation, as the Gospels are not independent of one another.Later additionsThe problems with the Gospel's run deeper though. A particularly damning problem is that the ending of Mark (16:9-20) which attests to the resurrection is not found in the earliest manuscripts, and appears to be a later addition [3][4][5]. From Wikipedia, we have: "The vast majority of contemporary New Testament textual critics (see also Textual criticism) have concluded that neither the longer nor shorter endings were originally part of Mark's Gospel"From the Christian site "gotQuestions?.org", they state:"Although the vast majority of later Greek manuscripts contain Mark 16:9-20, the Gospel of Mark ends at verse 8 in two of the oldest and most respected manuscripts, the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. As the oldest manuscripts are known to be the most accurate because there were fewer generations of copies from the original autographs (i.e., they are much closer in time to the originals), and the oldest manuscripts do not contain vv. 9-20, we can conclude that these verses were added later by scribes." External Sources If we move onto non-Christian sources, I actually wish to use my opponents sources, as I believe they bolster my position. I will cite them again for easy link following. If we take Josephus, and we temporarily allow use of the Testimonium Flavianum even though it is the most conclusive case of tampering and later additions we have in ancient documentation [6], notice the quote my opponent supplies does not say that Jesus rose from the dead, but that the "sect named after him, the Christians, have not died out to this day". This quote says absolutely nothing about a resurrection, simply that the religion continued. Moving onto Mara-Bar Serapion [7], notice again the evidence supplied by Pro says absolutely nothing about resurrection, at all, and only states that their "wise King" was hanged (one might also doubt the credibility of a source that confuses hanging with crucification). Finally, my opponent quotes Celsus. My opponent attempts to reference a work called "History of Rome", which seems odd to me as the only work published by Celsus was The True Word. I find it even more odd that my opponent is going to use Celsus as an affirmative source, as his work "is the earliest known comprehensive attack on Christianity" [8]. In it, Celsus proposes that Jesus did not die on the cross, but was only wounded (as evident in the quote by Pro) [9]. However, Celsus's arguments and ideas were rebutted and dispelled in the third century by Origen. However, I believe I have shown clearly that not a single source provided by pro actually supports the resurrection as a historically accurate in any way. Just as interesting is that none of these historians Pro has quoted were contemporary, they are all second or third century writers, writing long, long after the fact, and in a time when the Gospels were a source of much of their information (again bringing up the independence problem). For example, Celsus's attack on Christianity comes not from witnessing any event himself, but on his reading of the Gospels [10]:"The attack Celsus makes against Christianity is wide-ranging, well-researched, andalmost virtuosic in its thoroughness. On the resurrection, he is gleefully dismissive. Addressing his imagined Christian audience directly, he says of their Jesus that “even though he did not accept the challenge to remove himself from the cross or to escape his persecutors when he was alive, yet he overcame them all by rising from the dead and showing themarks of his punishment, pierced hands and all, to others. But who really saw this? A hysterical woman, as you admit.” The whole affair is beyond ridiculous to Celsus."ConclusionI believe my opponent has successfully shown that Christianity continued to after the death of Jesus, and that Christian literature was indeed commented on in the second and third century by ancient writers. Unfortunately, I believe this says absolutely nothing about whether or not Jesus was resurrected. The extraordinary claim of resurrection should not be convincing in a historical context given the gross lack of independent and contemporary accounts and is far from the overwhelming evidence we are looking for. In my next post, I will show that if we accept the resurrection as probable based on the scant documentation we have, this leads us to accepting massive amounts of supernatural phenomenon based on their accounts.[1] [2] http://en.wikipedia.org...[3] http://www.gotquestions.org...[4] http://en.wikipedia.org...[5] http://www.bible-researcher.com...[6] http://en.wikipedia.org...[7] http://thedevineevidence.com...[8] http://en.wikipedia.org...[9] http://biblehub.com...[10] https://www.academia.edu...;