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

It's evident that one of my opponent's major criticisms is his belief about the sincerity of the disciple's belief in Jesus' resurrection. By exposing the relevancy of this claim, I can effectively dismantle the rest of his argument. To support my opponent's argument would be sociological suicide. ==================== The Empty Tomb ==================== I want to thank my opponent for clearing that up - it makes much more sense given his revelation. First and foremost, I want to make clear that for the purposes of this debate I will accept the claim that Jesus was killed and buried. I did give a side note about challenging all the details of your position, but it was simply food for thought - there is no need to expand on this. If you actually read the sentence, I added the coordinating conjunction "but" to denote an exception. It would be a waste of time to reply to retorts you made about this dead point. 1. The sincerity of the believers "If the disciples were lying, then all one would have to do is produce a body from the tomb and Christianity would have been aborted in the womb...The apostles died for something that they KNEW to be true or false. So, is my opponent saying that they were liars? The question remains, WHY did they come to believe in something as to willingly die for? My opponent hasn't answered that question." ----> The reason I cited other well documented examples of people believing and dying for idiotic beliefs is to point out that humanity can believe in utterly idiotic beliefs, whether they were manipulated or simply naive. In fact, the Indian guru I cited is quite an impressive example given that many of his feats are similar to the ones Jesus performed -- this, coupled with the relatively poor and underdeveloped conditions the majority of his followers live in create a clear analogy to the historic Jesus. Essentially, it doesn't matter why the disciples believed Jesus was divine. Sure, we can both agree that they wholeheartedly believed and died for Jesus' cause, but this does NOT indicate a reliable reason to then conclude Jesus resurrected. If this was so, by your own token of reasoning we would have to believe aliens existed (and that the world we live in is actually destroyed - it'd be interesting how you would explain we are still living). Given this point, a majority of my opponent's case crumbles. He can't rely on the ardent sincerity of the apostles to reinforce his case. In fact, in many ways it can weaken his position by demonstrating the tendency for humans to believe in false claims without rational caution (I'd highly doubt reason was a popular tool back then). Sure, he can cite James or Paul as examples of people even less likely to believe in Jesus' divinity but this proves nothing -- again, these are simply examples of people who we would think are much less likely to believe. And yet, in stark contrast are examples of many people believing in the most idiotic ideas conceivable. ==================== Further reasons to doubt ==================== 1. Vulnerability of oral traditions My opponent utilizes a Jewish phrase to pin down the accuracy of Paul's statements. This is quite the interesting claim, but it doesn't do much to move away from my point. Traditional oral phrases can likely survive for quite some time, given that the focus is on repeating them verbatim. Memorizing a certain prayer or saying has a large focus on memorizing it's words, for that is the main appeal of it. However, repeating actual stories or accounts is somewhat different. While it should be obvious that remembering what actually happened is important, people often overlook that - or it get's confused in the process. 2. The weight of eyewitness testimonies in supernatural matters My opponent professes confusion, finding it "puzzling" given that any historian would welcome eyewitness testimonies. Well of course, but are historians primarily dealing with supernatural issues? I'd doubt that. Instead, what you are claiming is something that will be of quite monumental scientific and philosophical consequence. I find it highly suspect that such a spectacular event would be supported simply by eye-witness testimonies, especially in the light of human culpability.