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

Since my opponent has forfeited this round, I thought I'd take the time to clear up somethings that have been bothering me. I'm not going to overwhelm my opponent with material to respond to, so all of this will simply be either clarifications of things that I have already said, or more neutral statements about our methods. I feel my opponent has made the mistake of confusing theories and facts. As I've said before, the only "facts" are that we have documents called Mark, Luke, 1 Corinthians, etc. and that those documents say such and such. When my opponent says that the empty tomb is a "fact" he is simply wrong: it isn't a fact, it is a theory created to explain the facts (the "facts" being the text which attest to an empty tomb) [This is something I brought up in my opening statement]. He doesn't seem to want to acknowledge this or to count it as a hypothetical explanation. However, when I come up with a hypothetical explanation for the empty tomb stories, he wants to say that this counts as an additional assumption in my overall theory, and use that to make my theory seem ad-hoc (or contrived). What is really going on here is the following: we are both taking the facts, drawing inferences from the facts, and then coming up with an over-arching theory to explain those inferences. Here are the facts, and listed below them are some possible explanations: *The report of an empty tomb* could be explained by... (1) An actual empty tomb (2) A literary theme in Mark *The report of Jesus appearing to individuals after death* could be explained by... (1) An actual appearance of Jesus after his death. (2) Grief Hallucinations *The report of the conversion of the once skeptical James* could be explained by... (1) Conversion of a once-skeptical James by overwhelming evidence of a resurrection of Jesus. (2) Conversion of James because he desired power and wanted to be the leader of Jesus' sect. (3) James never actually being skeptical, but reports of skepticism being due to malicious rumors about James. (4) James promoting exaggerated stories of his skepticism in order to make himself seem like someone who was thrust into leadership by God. [1]. NOTE: I will write the reference for this in the comment sections as soon as I am able, which should be within 24 hours. Be sure and read it, it should be interesting to all. *Paul's reported conversion* (which I think we both agree is explained by his actual conversion) could be explained by... (1) Having an actual encounter with Jesus. (2) Having a hallucination brought on by guilt, exhaustion, or by temporal lobe epilepsy, or schizotypal personality. Most of these inferences that we could make would be explained either by (1) An actual resurrection or (2) Christianity simply being a typical cult. For example, an actual empty tomb and actual appearance of Jesus after death would be easily explicable through the over-standing theory resurrection. However, the same is true of my theory: it would explain many of these inferences. It would explain the grief hallucinations, James' conversion, Paul's conversion experience, etc. As I've already explained, if Christianity was a typical cult we could expect them to have hallucinations. If Christianity was a typical cult we might expect it to be something with positions of power that were desired by its members, and we can expect that James would have wanted such a position for himself. My theory gains some explanatory scope in the fact that if Paul suffered temporal lobe epilepsy, then that also explains several other facts, such as Paul's interest in religion, why he never married, his tendency to write long letters, etc. (all of which are tendencies found in those who suffer from epilepsy). My theory does not explain the report of an empty tomb, since the gospel writers employing a literary theme is not explained by the theory that they were a typical cult. So it loses some explanatory scope in that it does not explain one fact. However, the Resurrection theory also has something that it cannot explain: It cannot explain why Jesus did not appear to everyone after his death, whereas my theory does explain that: Christianity, being a typical cult, had not discovered any truth in Jesus. It was wrong. God did not raise Jesus, and so that is why Jesus did not appear to the whole world. He couldn't because he was not a supernatural being. But let's return to the resurrection explanation: if God exists, and he raised Jesus, and he wants everyone to be saved, why didn't he raise Jesus and then have Jesus go and preach to the Native Americans? Why did he let the Native Americans grow up, generation after generation, without knowing the truth? That is the question I'd like my opponent to answer. (It isn't a different question from the one asked above, just a different way of stating it, and I have already asked this once in the debate).