It is reasonable to believe that the Resurrection of Jesus is a historical event

For purposes outside of this restricted resolution, this is ultimately to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus Christ and the truth of Christianity. As seen by my first round, I seemingly conceded to 4/5 of these historical claims. My reasoning is that these claims have a much simpler explanation than the one my opponent gave - ones that do not point to a resurrection at all. If we were to give a cumulative case for the resurrection of an individual, then we would expect to find at least some significant differences from any other case of alleged divinity. At most, there could be another argument to demonstrate Jesus' resurrection but this is the one in focus and my denial of it will succeed my win for this debate. ==================== Alternative stories ==================== As any good new historian knows, two major components to history is getting the right facts, and having an accurate interpretation. Interpretation is highly important, which is why we tools like the historical method. My case here, then, will be in a similar vein; I will simply provide alternative stories to the one's my opponent has given. I will give a complaint here though: I'm not sure where my opponent's points in his first round completely line up with the ones he has supplied here, most prominently given that one has 5 and the other 6. I want to cover all points but at the same time be concise. I will therefore respond to his points broadly in these following points. 1. Jesus was indeed crucified and buried. An alternative explanation, and one that upon thinking of is quite simple, is that Jesus was a normal man who was made out to be something he isn't. He was "mythologized". It is uncontroversial that ancient Palestine was present to many professed prophets, so the story of Jesus being blown out of proportion isn't too hard to believe (for what reason this was done so, doesn't matter much). Simply because the enemy found an empty tomb does not lead to the conclusion that they too believe Jesus physically resurrected - maybe the just DIDN'T FIND HIS BODY. "There is no historical evidence whatsoever that those who opposed Jesus produced a body" ----> Which is of no significance. I could have actually objected to this on historical factual grounds alone, given compelling reasons due to Romanic traditions (non-burial is considered part of the shame of crucification)[1], but I will demonstrate that even with a similar batch of historical facts I can provide a rational alternative. 2. About the apostle's belief The argument that a group of people whole-heartedly believe in a story that would compel many others to not (for whatever reason, such as being the enemy of the church) is completely unconvincing given humankind's noted history for having a notable percentage of idiots. What about the Branch Davidians[2]? What about the Heaven's Gate Cult[3]? What about the hundreds upon thousands followers of Sathya Sai Baba[4]? ! These are all well known, current-day circumstances of people believing in what is obviously false. If we apply your same reasoning, these followers are believing in something true because of what they believe. .. obviously not. 3. The women A common limitation for the criterion of embarrassment is that it perhaps masks a bigger embarrassment. .. like perhaps Jesus never resurrecting? To aid this point is the fact that there is an inconsistency of how many women were present at the tomb from John, Mark, and Luke. The first cites one, the second cites three, and the third cites many. ==================== Further reasons to doubt ==================== There are more reasons to doubt my opponent's case, here is a short list: 1. Accounts of the resurrection weren't written down until at least several decades after the alleged event. Until then, the story could only have traveled via oral traditions which we know to be VERY SUSPECT at distorted stories. 2. Don't you think a supernatural event would take more than just testimonies of eyewitnesses? ---References--- 1. . http://www.infidels.org... 2. . http://en.wikipedia.org... 3. . http://en.wikipedia.org...'s_Gate_(religious_group) 4. . http://en.wikipedia.org...