I wonder if you have the courage to meet my challenge. Comments have been added at http://www.theism.net/authors/zjordan/emailbag_files/holzmail.htmInteresting:Not surprizing that you are scurrying away from this one. [..] Quit beating around the bush and dancing in circles.
BH: you may not be a good example of "an atheist having long-term experience with both side's arguments who later converted to Christianity purely because of comparing those arguments.Fine, I'll not bother you with further questions about your experience as an atheist.GZJ: For the sake of argument let us consider I was an extremely poorly learned atheist with an I.Q. of about 70. After converting, my ignorance quantum leaped and my I.Q dropped to 20. Now, about that resurrection thingy. . .
BH: I'm sorry if these questions about your witness make you uncomfortable.I'm glad to hear that the antecedent of my conditional statement is not satisfied.GZJ: You, Sir, do not have the power to make me uncomfortable
BH: I'm trying to resist debating you, because I want to focus my critiques against the best Christian arguments extant, and as good as you may think yours are, they aren't the best. :-) I agree with your Rules 1 and 5, but (as demonstrated above) your ability to apply Rules 2 and 3 is questionable. And of course, you might consider my stated purpose to be a violation of Rule 4.On the contrary, the historicity of the resurrection is central to these parts of my polemical oeuvre:GZJ: Indeed, it is clear that you avoid debating the issue of Christ's resurrection.
GZJ: No, you post the full text at Your site,
GZJ: Do you agree that (NT) scholars are individuals whose works are read, used, and learned from by academia, not pop readership? Also, they are fully studied in the archaeology, languages, anthropology, and history pertaining to New Testament times?NT scholars indeed are characterized much more by their academic work than by their popularizations, and they usually have the expertise you cite (although "fully studied" implies some unspecified standard of fullness). I respect (and often cite) the secular peer-reviewed professional scholarly consensus, especially as reflected in reference texts. And I reserve the right not to demonstrate the truth of propositions that are asserted as uncontroversial by that scholarly consensus.
The historical scholarly consensus indeed agrees with your proposition
A that Jesus existed, and even goes beyond your proposition B to assert
that he not only "faced" crucifixion but died thereby. However, your C
"there is no body" goes somewhat beyond the consensus in its present-tense
implication that in the days and weeks after Easter there was an actual
missing-body problem noted by the relevant disciples. (I think there's
a fair probability that crucial disciples so noted such a problem, but
that probability simply does not rise to the level of confidence historians
have in Jesus' existence and death by crucifixion.) Similarly, your D "disciples
saw something" again exceeds what scholars would agree is the uncontroversial
consensus -- that, at minimum, some disciples had powerful post-crucifixion
experiences that came to be interpreted as manifestations and even visions
of a risen Jesus.