It can be proven that Jesus rose from the dead

Thanks back at you PhiloChristos for agreeing to 4000 characters and engaging in an excellent debate. While I’m still not convinced that resurrection is the only explanation for the continuance of Jesus’ movement that makes sense, I appreciate that many people believe it is an excellent and elegant one. Add to this an experience of the power of any particular person’s experience of Christianity in their own life, and I can see why the story has the power that it does. Jesus didn’t die on cross I stand by this as a possibility. We know so little about the physical details of Jesus’ crucifixion. As stated in The Journal of the Royal Medical Society, crucifixion was meant to be a slow, painful, humiliating death. People sometimes suffered for days.[1] Pro makes too many assumptions about something from 2000 years ago that is very poorly documented in its particulars. Pro also, IMHO, assumes too much about the disciples’ belief that Jesus was fully recovered in order to be considered resurrected. If somehow Jesus was removed from the cross apparently dead, but in fact alive, and recovered enough to eat and preach some time later, wouldn’t they have considered him resurrected? This is clearly possible. That the apostles say Jesus was arisen to immortality is without question. That they believed he was so arisen is pure speculation on their mental states. Many other myths and magical stories have been passed down through the centuries. We cannot conclusively say that this isn’t another. Deception, Exaggeration and Embellishment To say that deception is completely implausible, strains credulity. The stories we have of Jesus’ life and death were all created well after his death and after a new religion had been founded. How do we know what purpose the several apostles have in telling the story the way they did? That a half dozen founders of a religion stretched the truth a bit is not at all implausible to my way of thinking. There are dozens of religions with dozens of miraculous stories. All of them can’t be true. Isn’t it possible, and many who follow Jesus in fact believe this, that his story and message was amazing enough to follow and risk one’s life for even without the miracles? Survival after crucifixion even for several months is amazing. Also, many people who have had nothing to go on but the word of others concerning Jesus’ crucifixion have given their lives to great suffering based only on that. Alternate explanations Contrary to Pro’s claim, the alternative suggested here does account for enough parts of the picture to be credible to those who have not already made up their mind. We must remember that this picture is VERY sketchy in terms of particulars. The story that we have relies on after the fact, second and third hand accounts. Where are the first hand, independent contemporary accounts on the details that would establish the miracle that Pro (and hundreds of millions of other folks, admittedly) claims to substantiate? Obviously neither of us has convinced the other, which no sane person would have expected going into this, of course. It is my opinion that Pro has not proved that Jesus rose from being medically dead to ascend to heaven. Those who did not believe there was enough evidence before, will still hold that opinion. I thank PhiloChristos very much for the debate, and respect his opinions and beliefs, though I don’t share them. 1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...