To be a good architect, one has to not only pay attention to details, but must have an understanding of how the components in the whole work to create a unity. A space that would otherwise look plain, begins to have depth, texture, and feeling when detail is added to it. There are things however where the problem is in the detail, and that is where we are going today with the story of Jesus.
Many apologists contend with St. Paul in 1 Corinthians thus
12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.
It is evident from this passage that even then there were skeptics who did not buy the story of Paul for he wouldn’t be defending it as he does in v12. In v13, if the bible is to believed, I can only say St. Paul had not read 2 Kings 4:32-37
32 When Elisha came into the house, there was the child, lying dead on his bed. 33 He went in therefore, shut the door behind the two of them, and prayed to the Lord. 34 And he went up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth, his eyes on his eyes, and his hands on his hands; and he stretched himself out on the child, and the flesh of the child became warm. 35 He returned and walked back and forth in the house, and again went up and stretched himself out on him; then the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 36 And he called Gehazi and said, “Call this Shunammite woman.” So he called her. And when she came in to him, he said, “Pick up your son.”37 So she went in, fell at his feet, and bowed to the ground; then she picked up her son and went out.
from where it is evident that people were actually raised from the dead, that is if the bible is to believed. And in the NT we have two stories of Jesus raising people from the dead one is of Jairus son and of Lazarus[Jn 11:1-45] so the question that Paul is raising in his letter would have been a moot one especially because we would expect that these resurrections were known. You know a coming back to the land of the living is not a so so story, but one that would draw both local and international press.
The second matter of detail that relates to the story of Jesus from my point of view is twofold. Christians claim that Jesus was fully god, then it is expected that he knew he would rise from the dead, I mean a few verses earlier before he had raised some losers from the land of the dead, why wouldn’t he do it to himself. So please tell, how does god committing suicide knowing he will get through with it something special. Maybe I miss something here that others see, please help me.
Three if the bible is to believed, apologists claim there are many prophecies regarding Jesus crucifixion and resurrection in the bible. If this is the case, then it is no longer any special news. Everyone who believes in the narrative already expect him to die and resurrect, in fact I contend it would be news if he didn’t resurrect.
Lastly Paul is arguing by appealing to emotion, he must have known then that for those who believed, the story couldn’t be otherwise as he told it. It would be ambitious on anyone’s part to expect St. Paul to write that Jesus didn’t resurrect, I mean he is the one creating the narrative. What else would you expect?
One can go ahead and claim that people writing in the 2nd Century mention Jesus. Whatever their names, one would be hard pressed to convince me they are not repeating a narrative that has been doing its rounds.
In conclusion, whenever I contend that the resurrection of Jesus, if he did live and this happened, means very little, at least to me, not because there were similar resurrection narratives in the middle east at that time, no, but because the bible in both the old and new testaments have a few narratives of resurrection even though nobody says whether these fellows so raised do die again or live forever and are still here with us and because, the bible believers claim in many places that this was already written in scripture, it is something they were expecting and lastly because the main character claims to be god.
This is then my proposal, the christians and their apologists should drop the divinity story and say this Jesus guy was a random magician, chosen by their god as a human sacrifice to redeem other magicians and we go on with life.
This, friends is how I see it.
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On the incredibility of the resurrection story
The NT is full of contradicting and bending the OT; however, a few years ago when I was doing research on the death penalty for a high school presentation, I found in a book written by a theologian that christians are not free to interpret the OT, but that they had to read it through the lens of the NT. (I apologize for the long sentence.)
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And so w r t the death penalty what were your conclusions?
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In my presentation, I was arguing for the reintroduction of the death penalty (in the Netherlands we abolished DP back in 1870), however I only made used of secular arguments.
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Do you still think it should be reintroduced?
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In principle, I still support the death penalty in certain circumstances. Although I see also a lot of problems with it. If we look that the USA, we see a thorough corrupt justice system (which is one of the reasons why I oppose common law), which increases the risk of wrongful conviction and wrongful executions.
My main reason for supporting the death penalty, is that I believe it is a more humane method of removing dangerous criminals from society than putting them in jail for life. Prison has been described as a kind of torture; and many persons sentenced to life prefer death to living in a small cell, knowing that they will never be released.
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I live in the U.S. and have always thought we should give the convicted a choice between prison and death. I also thought the choice should be offered every few years. This would probably be seen as assissted suicide which for someone is seen as immoral by the same people who support the death penalty by and large.
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Giving people the choice between voluntary execution or prison, is acceptable to me. Well, I also believe that assisted suicide should be legal.
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Am just not sure how many people will agree to the accused being given these options. I believe assisted suicide should be legal and no one should be arrested for attempting to take their own lives.
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Arresting people for harming themselves is wasting police capacity; only if such act is also a danger for others the government should interfere with people harming themselves, otherwise we should let them go.
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I too think that assisted suicide should be legal. I hope I didn’t imply otherwise.
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You were very clear on that without a doubt!
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That’s a great idea. I think it could work.
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I too have several problems with the death penalty chiefly being that as a way of punishment I don’t know what it achieves unless the aim is to remove the particular offender permanently from the general population.
Most prison systems do not try to rehabilitate those incarcerated and in such a scenario then if a guy opts for assisted suicide than to spend a lifetime in jail, so be it. In this case however, it is no longer death penalty because the person concerned asks for it.
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That is a tough lens to read through but when you think of it, the bible is a book of human and animal sacrifice through and through. That theologian I guess knew what the christians would find in the OT and for that reason discouraged them from going there!
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I don’t know his true motivations, but you might be right.
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My theory: Paul caught wind of the Judean crisis cultists spinning their metafictional tale and doing what any good business savvy, travelling salesman (charlatan) does, he repackaged it and started selling the story (as something real) to the Jewish diaspora (refugees) who lapped it up. I really think its as simple as that. Post the Roman-Jewish wars of C.E 66-135 the northern audiences were primed to believe something miraculous had happened back in their homelands.
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I could see that.
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The simplest explanations are often the correct ones.
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Paul appears to be the master salesman who works for a big shot advertising agency and comes selling you something you really don’t need with the promise it is the one you have been lacking!
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Maybe we should start focusing on this salesman? I must admit, i know very little about him
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Other than knowing that he[or whoever used that moniker] wrote majority of the books in the NT, his claim about the many travels he did and his conversion which he writes about, I don’t know much about him either. It should be an interesting study. I think it is possible to get scholarly material on him.
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An excellent interpretation of the entire supposedly resurrection incident, my Nairobi brother. I’m not equipped to offer any thoughts as I am among those who remain unconvinced of the validity of any volume written and rewritten centuries after the fact. If the source isn’t credible, then it isn’t a reference resource. Much love and naked hugs!
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Thanks my friend. I agree with you, though there is need to point out to these bible thumpers the absurdity with some of their beliefs in the hope they are willing to listen to us.
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It is just a matter of repeating it over and over and over and over. It got so tiresome that finally everybody just agreed to let the poor guy and die and rise as many times as he wanted.
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They have been killing him every year, I mean he should come down and say men, I have had enough of those, could you please do something else, like live your lives!
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[…] Magatuku’s blog is fast-flowing stream of thought-provoking posts and fascinating comments. But I was more than a little surprised to find one such comment indicating carefully considered support for the death penalty. Shudder me horrors! […]
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What a beautiful endorsement for my blog friend. Thank you 😛
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