my challenge to isjesusalive.com

Today I sent the following challenge to the person or persons who post to the isjesusalive.com website:

my challenge to Timothy and Lydia McGrew

 I posted the following in the comment section to a YouTube video wherein Dr. McClatchie interviews Dr. Lydia McGrew and Dr. Timothy McGrew, here.

Barry Jones

if Lydia McGrew denies that her ceaseless loquaciousness constitutes the sin of word-wrangling which Paul prohibited in 2nd Timothy 2:14, will Lydia provide a few examples of fictional dialogue which she thinks DO constitute the sin of word-wrangling?  The Greek term merely means to fight over words, and since Paul left this unqualified in the context, I'm not seeing an academic basis to object to the interpretation which says it was precisely what we routinely see in modern scholarly Christian apologetics, that Paul was calling "word-wrangling.  That might be a fatal blow to Christianity, but so what?  There are arguments that are fatal to Mormonism, does that justify the Mormon to insist those arguments are false?

How does Lydia McGrew reconcile her undeniably mouthy nature, with those Proverbs that leave no logically possible room for mouthy people to be free of foolishness?

Proverbs10:19When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.

Proverbs 18:2 A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.

Will Lydia argue that in the social context of the Proverbs author, speaking thousands of words literally every day was normal, therefore, because Lydia doesn't speak thousands of words everyday, she's under the limit?

What would you do if you found out that reasonableness can sometimes exist even where accurate belief doesn't (e.g., you think other Christians are wrong in their eschatology, but you refuse to call them unreasonable)?  Would you become open to the possibility that resurrection skeptics might be reasonable even if their basis for skepticism is inaccurate belief?

How long does god want me to study the differences between Christian and non-Christian scholars on the resurrection of Jesus (e.g., McGrew v. Licona;  Ehrman v. W.L. Craig) before God will demand that I start drawing ultimate conclusions?  If you don't know, don't you forfeit the right to balk if I answer those questions for myself in a way you don't like?  

What rule of historiography requires those investigating ancient truth claims to believe the declarations first and not assume fraud or error until the declaration can be proven to contradict other known realities.  Don't say "Aristotle's Dictum", Josh McDowell was lying about that, it never existed, and it is never even mentioned by non-Christian historians.  And since when do Christian apologists recommend unbelievers follow the advice of pagan idolater?  But if there is no such rule of historiography, then it must be reasonable to conclude that skeptics are not violating any rule of historiography if they choose to completely disregard any and all forms of bible study.

Suppose God wanted me to study 1st Corinthians 15 starting tomorrow at noon my time zone.  What can I reasonably expect him to do to alert me to this aspect of his will?  A stranger bringing up that chapter in conversation?  A bible hits my windshield and it is opened to 1st Cor. 15?  What exactly, and how do you know God would act that way to get my attention?  How do you know when my failure to notice God's attempts to get my attention become unreasonableness on my part?  Will god alert me to this part of his will with the same obvious undeniability that the neighbor does when he says "hello"?

If it be true that not even spiritually alive people can correctly figure out biblical matters, wouldn't you have to be a scorching stupid fool to pretend that you expect spiritually dead atheists to do better at discerning biblical truth?  Or did I forget that Lydia McGrew violates 1st Cor. 2:15 by objecting like an atheist and saying "Being spiritually alive has zilch to do with it."   http://whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2017/10/on_some_examples_in_plutarch.html

Posted by Lydia | November 14, 2017 5:15 PM

What is unreasonable about my demand that if God wants my attention, he stop being silent and start doing miracles?  I've already contacted the apologists like Craig Keener who hawk modern day miracles the most, with an offer to give me the one modern miracle they think is most impervious to falsification, and I'm getting no answers.  https://turchisrong.blogspot.com/2017/12/my-questions-to-dr-craig-keener.html

Lydia will say I would deny God even if he did a miracle, but that's not true.  I've disagreed with my bosses in the last 20 years, and personally hated some of them, but I still performed whatever lawful task they asked of me because I respected the fact that they were rightfully in a position of power over me.  So it wouldn't matter if I 'hated god', that does not justify you to dogmatically conclude that surely God would be wasting his time doing a miracle for me.  You actually don't know that, and there's plenty of evidence in your bible to the contrary.  Paul was more antagonistic toward Christianity than most modern atheist bible skeptic trolls, but Lydia must confess that God's miracle convinced Paul to change his mind.  Have fun pretending that you "know" that God views the conversion of Paul as a "special exception" which "doesn't normally apply".  You don't know that.  It could just as easily be that we never see  confirmation of conversions similar to Paul's because Paul's conversion story is fiction in the first place.

If it is reasonable to require that the more you entrust yourself to somebody else's care, the more strict the tests of authentication their claims to trustworthiness must pass, then what is unreasonable with the skeptical argument that says because my decision to accept Christ will affect where I spend eternity, the proofs for the trustworthiness of the bible must pass the strictest possible tests of authenticity?   My guess is you'd confess to losing that particular debate, since too many Christian  scholars deny the apostolic authorship of the gospels to pretend that they have any reasonable chance of passing the "strictest possible" authentication tests.  When I demand that Matthew appear to me and confess to his authorship of Matthew, is that stupid because I'm asking for a miracle of the sort the bible says happened (Matthew 17:3, Acts 16:9), or is it stupid because Lydia McGrew agrees with skeptics that we all know miracles are too unlikely to justify asking god to do them? 

Would a skeptic be stupid to make sure his book was historically reliable, while doing nothing about the fact that thousands of people disagree on how to correctly interpret it?  Then what shall we say of a god who makes sure his bible is demonstrably historically reliable, but does nothing to provide them a demonstrably correct interpretive key?  All Christian scholars admit the relevance of grammar, immediate context, larger context, social context and genre, yet apparently, when you employee these just as much as the next Christian scholar, you cannot avoid arriving at interpretations they disagree with.  What's wrong with the skeptical theory that God wants people to believe the bible is historically reliable, but doesn't want Christians to obey 1st Cor. 1:10?  It doesn't matter if it contradicts the bible, it sure does look like it is supported by obvious reality...unless you  insist that the only reason other Christians disagree with your interpretations of the bible is because they are not sincere in asking God to guide them.

If "god's ways are mysterious" doesn't sound convincing to you when a Calvinist or a Sabellian uses it to get away from a problem created by their theology, why should I find that excuse compelling when YOU use it to get away from a problem created by YOUR theology?  Is it written in the stars that sacramentalism is the right form of Christianity?

Is it reasonable to infer from the fact that Lydia McGrew and Mike Licona disagree on how to argue the resurrection, that one of these people is not as receptive to the Holy Spirit as the bible says they should be?  Or does Lydia deny that the Holy Spirit enlightens those who walk in the light of Christ?  If God has his reasons for refusing to enlighten some of his sincere followers, then how could you ever pretend that a skeptic's false understanding of the bible is unreasonable?  

Can it be reasonable for a skeptic to agree with the Christian scholarly majority that Mark was the earliest of the canonical gospels to be published?  Can it be reasonable for the skeptic to agree with the Christian scholarly majority that authentic Markan text ends at 16:8.  If so, then how could it possibly be unreasonable for the skeptic to draw the inference that the earliest gospel never said anybody actually saw the risen Christ?  How could the skeptic be unreasonable to draw the further inference that the stories of resurrection eyewitnesses in the later 3 gospels are the result of fictional embellishment with the passing of time?

 

The non-reliability of eyewitness testimony, a rebuttal to Paul Price

This is my reply to an article by Paul Price and promoted by J. Warner Wallace entitled:

Countering the Assault on Eyewitnesses

by Paul Price

Published: 10 November 2020 (GMT+10)Wikimedia Commons

In our opinion, the cause of justice is not served by suggesting otherwise.”The majority of the focus for the many articles and papers documenting the alleged unreliability of eyewitness testimony is on cherry-picked examples where the witnesses have been tampered with and/or memories have been contaminated.

What you miss are the study's admissions that justify skepticism toward the resurrection narratives in the gospels, for example:

A good illustration of how contamination can reduce the reliability of information obtained from a police interview comes from an archival police study of 29 people who witnessed the murder of Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh (Granhag, Ask, Rebelius, Öhman, & Giolla, 2013). In this case, only 58% of the reported attributes were correct, as corroborated by CCTV. According to the authors, the most likely explanation for the poor performance was memory contamination that occurred because the witnesses were gathered together before being interviewed, and they discussed the event. These findings underscore the fact that our claims about the surprisingly high reliability of eyewitness memory pertain to tests of memory that are conducted before memory contamination... (Wixted, Laura, et al, pp. 330-331)

Did the original eyewitnesses to Jesus' resurrection discuss it with each other before they reported it in the canonical gospels?  Obviously yes.  So your own source-study would require that the resurrection narratives,  including Paul's "eyewitness" testimony,  constitute "contaminated" testimony.

Demolishing Triablogue: Jason Engwer fails to show that Jesus' brother James ever became a Christian in the first place

 This is my reply to Jason Engwer's attempt to bolster the notion Jesus' brother James believed Jesus rose from the dead. 

The Gospels' Agreement About James And Corroboration Of Other Sources In a post yesterday, I discussed agreements among the early sources regarding the apostles. Some evidence that's often neglected in that context is what the gospels tell us about Jesus' brother James. I've discussed their material on him elsewhere. Something I don't believe I've discussed here before, though, and it's something that doesn't seem to get much attention in general, is James' position in the lists of Jesus' siblings in Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3. Notice that the two lists are different, and there are some differences in the surrounding context, so it's not just a matter of Matthew's copying Mark, Mark's copying Matthew, or both's copying some other source. What I want to focus on here, though is how they list the names of Jesus' brothers in a different order, yet agree in putting James first. As I've mentioned before, the order in which names appear in a list can be determined by a wide variety of factors. James could be listed first because he was the oldest brother of Jesus. Or it could be because he was the most prominent for whatever other reasons. Or it could be both. Maybe James was the most prominent, which was partly because he was the oldest and partly because of one or more other factors. Whatever the cause of his being listed first in both documents, that's consistent with his prominence elsewhere.

"consistent with"?  Gee, what lawyer can't show that his lying client's testimony is "consistent with" other facts?  You need to show that your theory has greater probability than the theory you disagree with.   

He's prominent in Acts, much more prominent than the other siblings listed with him in Matthew 13 and Mark 6.

No, the only "James" who is "prominent" in Acts is the James of Acts 15 and Acts 21, neither of which express or imply he is the brother of Jesus...while two of the original 12 disciples of Jesus were named "James" and thus make better candidates.  Especially given that you can't even show that Jesus' brother James ever even became a Christian in the first place.  Inerrantist Christian scholar T. George is far less impressed with Galatians 1:19 than you are:

George, T. (2001, c1994). New American Commentary, Vol. 30: Galatians. On p. 74 he says: 

1:19 Paul claimed that he saw none of the other apostles except James, the brother of Jesus. The expression is ambiguous in Greek, so we cannot be sure whether Paul meant to include James among the other apostles. Did he mean: “The only other apostle I saw was James,” or “I saw no other apostle, although I did see James”? Probably he meant something like this: “During my sojourn with Peter, I saw none of the other apostles, unless you count James, the Lord’s brother.”

Engwer continues:

He's the only sibling of Jesus mentioned by name in the resurrection appearances discussed in 1 Corinthians 15.

What makes you think the unqualified "James" in 1st Corinthians 15 is specifically the brother of Jesus, when in fact there were two different Jameses among the original 12 apostles, who would be better candidates, especially given that you cannot even show James ever became a Christian to begin with? 

He's the only brother of Jesus mentioned in Galatians 1-2

No, the James of 1:19 is not clearly equated with the apostles, as inerrantist Christian scholars admit, supra, and the "James" of Galatians 2 is unqualified in context, and the mere fact that the brother James was mentioned in the prior chapter by no means "requires" that the unqualified James mentioned in ch. 2 is the same person. 

and the only one named anywhere in Paul's letters. Jude identifies himself in connection with James (Jude 1),

Brother to which James?  He doesn't say, and the most we can reasonably infer is that he was probably talking about a James who was some type of church leader.  And the two Jameses among the original 12 apostles certainly qualify for that position far more than Jesus' brother of the same name.

but James sees no need to appeal to a relationship with any of his brothers in his letter.

And you don't know which James wrote that letter, so your theories and why he doesn't state any biological relation to Jesus are nothing that could possibly threaten the reasonableness of the skeptical position that says the James who wrote that book is too obscure to justify dogmatic pronouncements about his identity. 

This sort of greater prominence James had, in comparison to his brothers, is corroborated by the passages in Matthew 13 and Mark 6.

No, they merely mention James first, and you admitted that could just as easily be due to his being older, but now, you shove all that aside and blindly insist his being mentioned first can only imply he was a Christian leader. 

Several years ago, I wrote an article addressing why the gospels don't include any reference to the resurrection appearance to James. I said that the best explanation for their not including the appearance to James is a desire to be consistent with their previous focus on Jesus' earliest followers and a desire to honor those earliest disciples.

A better theory for that silence is that Jesus' brother James never saw a risen Christ, a theory you could prove wrong from the bible or Josephus, which means the theory must remain reasonable. 

You can read the article just linked for a further discussion of that subject and others that are related. I want to note here, though, that since one of the gospels that doesn't include the appearance to James is Luke, there's an implication that Luke wanted to honor Jesus' earliest disciples above individuals like James in the manner I just described. That's significant in light of the fact that some people deny that Luke viewed James as an unbeliever during Jesus' public ministry. I've argued that Luke 8:19-21 probably alludes to his unbelieving status.

I prefer, as do most conservative apologists, John 7:5 and Mark 3:21 to document Jesus' brother James thinking Jesus' miracles were fake. And let's not forget the bizarre Mark 6, where the people of his own hometown are angry for his doing a miracle, and he admits even those of his own household were his "enemies".  Your 'explanation' for why his family members didn't believe in him before the crucifixion, is utterly laughable...they were too blinded by their hope in a military messiah to appreciate the obvious ramifications of Jesus' miracles! LOL. 

But even if we didn't have that passage, or even if my view of it is wrong, I think the absence of any reference to the resurrection appearance to him is best explained if he was an unbeliever in the relevant timeframe.

Agreed.  Now you need to explain what's so unreasonable about the skeptical theory that says the reason James was an unbeliever during Jesus' pre-cross ministry, is because he didn't think Jesus' miracles were genuinely supernatural.  That theory is obviously reasonable, and similarly explains why lots of Christians stop following "faith-healers".  It's not like you know enough about this brother of Jesus to "prove" that he held any "military messiah" hope, or that if he did, held it so strongly that he blinded himself to obvious reality.

And if he did blind himself to obvious reality, that constitutes a legitimate impeachment of his general credibility, which cannot be erased merely by screaming that he became a believer.  Peter was stupid during his time with Jesus and even afterward, apparently.

Even if I'm wrong about both of these matters, the meaning of the Luke 8 passage and the absence of the appearance to James, there has to be some reason why all of the gospels don't mention that appearance. And that's further common ground they have about James.

In light of inerrantist Christian scholar's unlikely admissions about the ambiguity of Galatians 1:19, I say Mark 3:21 and John 7:5 not only tell us THAT this James was an unbeliever during Jesus' public ministry, but they support the inference that he probably didn't find Jesus' miracles' to be genuinely supernatural.

James Patrick Holding: Libelous according to his own website domain provider InMotion Hosting

Recently i sent the following email to the company hosting the website that Holding had used to libel me, InMotion Hosting, the website that forms a large part of the current libel lawsuit:
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request for removal of a libelous website you are hosting
Barry Jones <barryjoneswhat@gmail.com>
Thu, Jul 16, 3:43 PM
to quality, abuse, legal

Hello,

Your Acceptable Use Policy prohibits your customers from posting libelous information to the websites you host:

from https://www.inmotionhosting.com/acceptable-use-policy

4. Prohibited Uses

---c. Utilize the Services in connection with any tortious or actionable activity. Without limiting the general application of this rule, Customers and Users may not:
Utilize the Services to publish or disseminate information that (A) constitutes slander, libel or defamation, (B) publicizes the personal information or likeness of a person without that person’s consent or (C) otherwise violates the privacy rights of any person. Utilize the Services to threaten persons with bodily harm, to make harassing or abusive statements or messages, or to solicit the performance of acts or services that are illegal under applicable law.

Before that, you said:

The Acceptable Use Policy below defines the actions which IMH considers to be abusive, and thus, strictly prohibited. The examples named in this list are non-exclusive, and are provided solely for guidance to IMH customers. If you are unsure whether any contemplated use or action is permitted, please send mail to abuse@InMotionHosting.com and we will assist you. Please note that the actions listed below are also not permitted from other Internet Service Providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by IMH, or connected via the IMH network. Furthermore, such services may not be advertised via deceptive marketing policies, as defined by the Federal Trade Commission Deception Policy Statement.

So one reasonable interpretation of this would be that you will remove any content from any website you host, if you feel that content to be libelous. What else is implied by the phrase "strictly prohibited"?

My name is Christian Doscher. I am suing James Patrick Holding for libel.
Doscher v. Holding, Florida Middle District, 6:19-cv-01322

My prior lawsuit against him proceeded upon many of the same facts published at the same website:
Doscher v. Apologetics Afield, et al, 6:19-cv-00076

That suit is currently being appealed. 11th Circuit: Doscher v. Apologetics Afield, et al, Case No. 20-10736-

The vast bulk of Mr. Holding's libelous statements are found on a website you host:

http://www.lawsuitagainstjamespatrickholding.com/

I initiated the latest lawsuit with a 170-page complaint, see attached. All of the statements about me on that website are libelous either in direct fashion, or by juxtaposition, or by failure to disclose relevant facts thus giving a defamatory impression. You can tell from reading the site that Mr. Holding has perused Court records to gratify his insatiable appetite for spite. While I have not yet sought the sealing of my prior court records, Holding's use of these judicial records is contrary to the Courts' intent:

from Giuffre v. Maxwell, 325 F. Supp. 3d 428, 440 (Dist. Court, SD New York 2018):

Every court has supervisory power over its own records and files, and access has been denied where court files might have become a vehicle for improper purposes" such as using records "to gratify spite or promote scandals" or where files might serve "as reservoirs of libelous statements for press consumption." Nixon v. Warner Commc'ns, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 598, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978); see also Amodeo II, 71 F.3d at 1051 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) ("Courts have long declined to allow public access simply to cater to a morbid craving for that which is sensational and impure.").

It appears from your own articles that your company tends to be "Christian" or to view Christianity favorably:

https://www.inmotionhosting.com/employment/latest-news/imh-gives-back

Jesus said slander is a sin that comes from the heart:

19 "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 "These are the things which defile the man; (Matt. 15:19-20 NAU)

The apostle Paul required you to disassociate yourself from any so-called Christian 'brother' who engages in the sin of "reviling":

11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler-- not even to eat with such a one.
12 For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?
13 But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES. (1 Cor. 5:11-13 NAU)

This is a request that you remove the website http://www.lawsuitagainstjamespatrickholding.com/ from public access until this suit is resolved.

I strongly suggest you read the attached Complaint in full before you respond. All of the trifles you might have about ways to spin the website's statements so that they are not necessarily libelous, are false. Holding has no immunity, he cannot use the "opinion" defense, he cannot prove the "truth" of the libels, the libelous statements actually are false in every way that case law says statements can be libelous, and the suit was filed within Florida's two-year statute of limitations. The only reason my prior identical libel lawsuit against Holding didn't go to trial was because the judge falsely accused me of failing to follow the rules, an order that is currently being appealed (but the order of dismissal was "without prejudice" thus allowing me to file the same case again). So not even the prior dismissal can possibly suggest the current suit lacks merit.

Rest assured, Mr. Holding's website contains properly actionable libel, and no trifle of law is going to save him this time. You could not possibly do anything bad, and you could only do good, by removing that website from public access until this case is resolved.

I will be happy to answer any question you might have about the possible truth of the statements. You can become better informed of the best arguments thereto by contacting Mr. Holding's lawyer Scott A. Livingston at:

slivingston@cplspa.com
201 East Pine Street Suite 445 Orlando, Florida 32801
Phone: 407-647-7887

Thank you for your understanding.

Christian Doscher
barryjoneswhat@gmail.com
Attachments area





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This was InMotion Hosting's reply:

-------------------------------------------------------------------

[IMH Legal] #3187: Update to 'request for removal of a libelous website you are hosting'

Inbox

x

InMotion Hosting Legal Admin Team <legal-trac@inmotionhosting.com>

Tue, Jul 21, 4:32 AM

to

[External] Hello, We have reviewed the account and have confirmed that the material or materials listed in the complaint were still present.  

The account has now been suspended. 

At this time we have closed this complaint. 

Our office hours are from 9 AM to 9 PM, Monday through Friday, Eastern time. If you have additional questions or concerns you may respond to this message and we will address those matters. Your correspondence will be responded to in the order that it was received so please allow 1-2 business days to receive your response. Best Regards,InMotion Hosting Legal Admin Team

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The "Complaint" with which I've started the new libel lawsuit against Holding (the one which convinced InMotion Hosting that Holding had violated their terms of service, is 170 pages long, and conclusively proves that Holding has committed perjury in Court at least 10 times, as well as shows that all comments about me which Holding uploaded to that website and elsewhere, were indeed libelous "per se".  Download Complaint here.

Maybe the world's smartest Christian apologist can now "explain" why InMotion Hosting's law firm are "dumbasses" or "idiots" or "morons" for finding his excuses unpersuasive, you know, the epithets that he hurls against anybody else who dare to disagree with his stupid pretentious trifling bullshit.

Or maybe you should ask him whether he plans to make good on his previous threat to simply move the content on the website to another domain, should the first domain remove the material in question.

Or maybe you should ask him how you can be sure your donations to him aren't being used to pay his lawyer to fight this lawsuit.  But read the downloaded Complaint, supra, first, as Holding appears to the be type that will lie about his finances when he thinks he won't get caught.

you can contact Holding at tektonics.org, or his email jphold@att.net

Demolishing Triablogue: Jason Engwer's errors on the zombie-resurrection of Matthew 27:52

This is my reply to an article by Jason Engwer of Triablogue entitled

A Bad Argument Against The Resurrection That's Often Repeated

Monday, January 26, 2009

The January 17 edition of the "Unbelievable?" radio program featured a debate between two New Testament scholars, Michael Bird and James Crossley. Bird is a Christian, and Crossley is an agnostic. They debated two topics, whether Jesus viewed Himself as God and the resurrection.
Near the end of the program, Crossley brought up the common objection from Matthew 27:52-53 (start listening at the fourteenth minute of the second hour). Supposedly, the raising of the dead referred to in that passage is historically unlikely, since the other gospels don't mention it and Josephus doesn't mention it, for example.

I would argue that the more today's Christians say the claim of a resurrected Christ would have been laughed off by 1st century people, the more likely the NT authors would have been to mention such zombie-resurrection, since ever little bit of evidence would thus be supremely important.  The argument from silence is routinely allowed in American courts of law, an argument that I used against Dr. Timothy McGrew, see here (search for "omission").

Bird gave a poor response, referring to the passage as "tricky",

That's not poor, numerous Christian scholars have admitted the problems in this zombie-resurrection story, the most prominent of which is probably Michael Licona, one of the most capable defenders of Jesus' resurrection currently on the market.  The following quote is pertinent since Licona has a major agenda to prove Jesus' resurrection to be a real historical event, which means he likely started out believing the historicity of this zombie-resurrection story and was convinced by the evidence to reluctantly admit that Matthew had no trouble mixing fiction with historical truth when telling the story of Jesus' own resurrection:

To me, “special effects” is a more plausible understanding of how Matthew likely intended for his readers to interpret the saints raised at Jesus's death. (in answer to Bart Ehrman, see here)

See his comment to the same effect in his "Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historigraphical Approach", here.

Two pages later Licona revealingly admits:

If some or all of the phenomena reported at Jesus’ death are poetic devices, we may rightly ask whether Jesus’ resurrection is not more of the same (see here)

So apparently, grouping Jesus' resurrection in with the fictional tales Matthew surrounded it with, is nowhere near "unreasonable".  Licona's position is deemed by many conservative Christian scholars as consistent with the doctrine of inerrancy.  See here.

William Lane Craig, an inerrantist and evangelical Christian scholar popular for making strong arguments for Jesus' resurrection, denies the historicity of this zombie-resurrection:

Dr. Miller’s interpretation of this passage strikes me as quite persuasive, and probably only a few conservative scholars would treat the story as historical.

Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up? 

Paul Copan, Ed., (Baker Academic, 1999) p. 164-165

N.T. Wright, also a conservative Christian scholar, says:

N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 3 of Christian Origins and the

Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), p. 633 ff.

Perhaps we should keep in mind that because N.T. Wright is a popular Christian scholar, he has his reputation in mind as he refuses to do what normally people normally do, and scoff at such fairytale madness as fiction.  By pretending the zombie resurrection story could possibly be historically literal, he avoids the otherwise inevitable inference that Matthew also used fiction to construct his story of Jesus' own resurrection.

In the Word Biblical Commentary, Evangelical D. A. Hagner quotes a lengthy bit from Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 1976:

This is a difficult and much discussed passage. A straightforward historical reading of these verses must face difficulties beyond those already mentioned. For example, there is the question of the nature of the bodies of the resurrected saints. Do these saints have what may be called new-order resurrection bodies, i.e., permanent bodies not subject to decay, or are they resuscitated bodies (like that of Lazarus) that later died again? (Could they have new-order resurrection bodies before Jesus, “the first-fruits of the dead” [1 Cor 15:20], did?) Related to this is the further question about what happened to these saints after they made their appearance in Jerusalem. (Were they raptured to heaven and, if so, when? Did they remain on the earth and, if so, where?) Furthermore, why is such a spectacular event “seen by many”—surely of great apologetic significance—referred to only here in the NT and not at all outside the NT? A further question concerns the basis on which this number of saints and these particular saints, and no others, were raised from the dead (was it arbitrary or do unknown criteria come into play?).

A surprising number of commentators sidestep the historical question altogether. Those who do raise it can be found to use terms such as “puzzling,” “strange,” “mysterious.” Stalwart commentators known for their conservatism are given to hesitance here: A. B. Bruce: “We seem here to be in the region of Christian legend” (The Expositor’s Greek Testament, ed. W. R. Nicoll [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1897] 332); A. Plummer: “a tradition with a legendary element in it” (402); W.Grundmann: “mythic-legendary” (562). Even those disposed to accept the historicity of the passage can indicate a degree of discomfort: R. T. France: “its character as ‘sober history’ (i.e. what a cine-camera might have recorded) can only be, in the absence of corroborative evidence, a matter of faith, not of objective demonstration. It was, in any case, a unique occurrence and is not to be judged by the canons of ‘normal’ experience” (401); L. Morris: “Since there are no other records of these appearances, it appears to be impossible to say anything about them. But Matthew is surely giving expression to his conviction that Jesus is Lord over both the living and the dead” (725); C.Blomberg: “All kinds of historical questions remain unanswered about both events [the tearing of the temple curtain and the raising of the saints], but their significance clearly lies in the theology Matthew wishes to convey” (421).

The question of the historicity of the event described in the present passage remains problematic. We should not, of course, rule out a priori that Matthew may be recording historical events in these verses. If God raised Jesus from the dead, he surely can have raised a number of saints prior to the time of the general resurrection. The question here, however, is one of historical plausibility. It is not in principle that difficult for one whose view of reality permits it (i.e., who has a biblical view of reality) to believe in the historicity of this event. The problem is that the event makes little historical sense, whereas what does make sense is the theological point that is being made. The various difficulties mentioned above together with the obvious symbolic-apocalyptic character of the language (e.g., darkness, earthquake, opening of tombs, resurrection) raise the strong possibility that Matthew in these verses is making a theological point rather than simply relating history. This hardly means that the evangelist, or those before him with whom the tradition may have originated, is necessarily inventing all the exceptional events in his narrative (pace R. E. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1137–40). More likely, here as in the birth narratives a historical core of events, such as the darkness and the earthquake, has given rise to a degree of elaboration in the passing on of the tradition. This elaboration extends the original events and in so doing draws out the theological significance of the death of Jesus. Theology and a historical core of events are by no means mutually exclusive. See Lange, who concludes: “We must learn the alphabet of the language in which the evangelists—and the Spirit which they promote—have tried to make the ‘kernel of the matter’ accessible to us” (54–55).

I side, therefore, with such recent commentators as Gundry, Senior (Passion of Jesus), Gnilka, Bruner, Harrington, D. R. A. Hare (Matthew, Interpretation [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1993]), and R. E. Brown (Death of the Messiah) in concluding that the rising of the saints from the tombs in this passage is a piece of theology set forth as history. Sabourin is probably correct when he writes: “Matthew took for historical facts popular reports of what would have taken place at the time of Jesus. He used these stories to convey his own theological message” (919; so too R. E. Brown, Death of the Messiah, 1138). It is obvious that by the inclusion of this material Matthew wanted to draw out the theological significance of the death (and resurrection) of Jesus. That significance is found in the establishing of the basis of the future resurrection of the saints. We may thus regard the passage as a piece of realized and historicized apocalyptic depending on OT motifs found in such passages as Isa 26:19; Dan 12:2; and especially Ezek 37:12–14 (though Monasterio, Riebl, Gnilka, and others probably speculate too much in concluding Matthew’s dependence on a Jewish apocalyptic text oriented to Ezek 37; contrast Maisch who opts for Matthean composition). Ezek 37:12–14 is apposite: “Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from from your graves, O my people … And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you out of your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live … ” For the importance of Ezek 37:1–14 in the synagogue at Passover time, see Grassi (cf. Hill, IBS 7 [1985] 76–87).

R. E. Brown (Death of the Messiah) is probably correct when he concludes that Matthew wants to communicate that the death and resurrection of Jesus mark “the beginning of the last times” (so too Maisch; Senior, CBQ 38 [1976] 312–29; Hill, IBS 7 [1985] 76–87; pace Witherup, who, however, correctly sees that a salvation-historical turning point has been reached in Matthew’s narrative). Already in the events accompanying the death of Jesus Matthew finds the anticipation of the good news of the conquering of death itself and hence of the reality of resurrection for the people of God. The death of Jesus as well as the resurrection of Jesus is gospel, for that death is life-giving (Senior, CBQ 38 [1976] 312–29).

Hagner, D. A. (2002). Vol. 33B: Word Biblical Commentary : Matthew 14-28. 

Word Biblical Commentary (Page 850). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.

Engwer continues, saying Michael Bird was:

failing to make some good points he could have made, and concluding that the passage isn't referring to a historical event.

Bird is a conservative evangelical Christian scholar who has offered rebuttal to Bart Ehrman.  Bird's admissions are going to justify amateur skeptics to dismiss John's gospel and walk on, even such admissions so something less for professional skeptics who attack fundamentalism...like me.

He suggested that other scholars consider the passage difficult to explain as well, citing the example of N.T. Wright.

How many conservative Christian scholar admissions to Matthew's mixing fiction and truth together in his resurrection narrative, does it take before the average skeptic can be "reasonable" to accept these admissions and conclude that Matthew's resurrection testimony is unworthy of serious historical merit?  What will you do next?  Scream that there is some type of conspiracy among conservative Christian scholars to lead the church into liberalism?  LOL.  That's YOUR problem.

In the past, I've discussed the use of this passage by other critics of Christianity, such as Richard Carrier, an atheist, and Nadir Ahmed, a Muslim. In debates on the resurrection, opponents of William Craig, such as Robert Miller and Hector Avalos, have repeatedly raised this issue in some form. Crossley refers to the objection as "classic". It shouldn't be a classic, though, and Christians shouldn't consider it as difficult as Bird does. See here.
Some points to keep in mind:
- The passage doesn't tell us whether resuscitation or resurrection is involved.

But beacuse the context is Jesus' own alleged "resurrection", we aren't violating any rules of historigraphy or hermeneutics by interpreting the rising of the saints as "resurrection".  You may try to pontificate how "absurd" it would be for such risen Saints to never die again, but that's only absurd for a Christian apologist hell-bent on getting rid of as much stupid crap in the NT as he possibly an without compromising his own position.  Skeptics see nothing particularly infeasible about an author like Matthew making wild assertions that lead to what modern people would consider "absurd".

- As the gospel accounts of resuscitations and Jesus' resurrection illustrate, we don't have reason to expect a raised body to look significantly different from a body prior to death.

You are blindly assuming the people Jesus raised from the dead were merely "resucitated" and died later.  Read John 11, "resurrection" and the immorality that it allegedly implies is all over that story.  OF course i could be wrong, after all, nobody ever said the historical details in the gospels were correctly supportive of all the theological beliefs Paul had.  And when you say the people whom Jesus raised from the dead later died a second time, YOU are arguing from silence. 

- Sometimes critics suggest that the raised individuals would have been naked, would have been wearing deteriorated clothing, would have been similar to zombies, etc.

I wouldn't argue that.

But as I wrote in response to one such critic in my article linked above, "The concept that God would raise people from the dead, but leave them with no clothing or deteriorated clothing, is ridiculous. It’s consistent with the imagery somebody might get from a horror movie, but it’s absurd in a first-century Jewish context. People wouldn’t have been walking around nude,

Then apparently you forgot about Isaiah's running around nude in Israel for a few years because he was such an attention-whore:

 1 In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it,
 2 at that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, "Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet." And he did so, going naked and barefoot.
 3 And the LORD said, "Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and token against Egypt and Cush,
 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.
 5 "Then they will be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their boast.
 6 "So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, 'Behold, such is our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and we, how shall we escape?'" (Isa. 20:1-6 NAU)

Some commentators trifle that this was only partial nudity, but the immediate context (i.e., bare buttocks, v. 4) renders reasonable the "full nudity" interpretation.  Indeed, when you see Egyptian reliefs of prisoners being marched around, they are usually naked.

and assuming that bodies would be restored without restored clothing is dubious.

If you are a modern day American trying desperately to reconcile everything in the bible with American notions of common sense, then yes.

Did Jesus have to travel nude for a while, looking for clothing, after His resurrection?

A question obviously not directed to skeptics but only Christians.

Does God raise a person, but then leave him on his own to find some clothing to wear?

Did Adam and Eve have clothing before they ate the forbidden fruit?  God likes nudity even if you don't. Maybe I could give a sermon entitled "Paradise Restored:  Heaven is a Nudist colony".

Did God also leave people buried in the ground or inside a sealed tomb, without any further assistance, after reviving them?

A question obviously not directed to atheists or skeptics, but only to thsoe who think 'god' exists.

Did Jesus have to move the stone in front of His grave Himself?

Is there anything about that theory that would contradict anything in the NT resurrection narratives?

...the gospel of Matthew was written in the context of first-century Israel. We know how other resuscitations and resurrections were viewed in that context.

You also have an apostle Paul who does a rather mouthy bad job in 1st Corinthians 15 of saying "the body that dies is the same body that rises".

We know what they thought of public nudity.

Which is precisely why Isaiah's nudity would have been a very effective attention-getter.

We know that angels who took on human form were clothed, for example.

No, only bible-believing Christians "know" any such thing.  Such tales could just as easily be fable.

The first-century Jewish context of Matthew's gospel doesn't lead us to view Matthew 27 in light of a modern horror movie.

Mike Licona would agree.

What leads you to view it as something more like a horror movie is your desire to criticize the passage....

Which can only mean that you don't give a fuck about Licona's scholarly justifications for viewing the passage as a zombie-resurrection.  What else are you going to allege about Licona's motives?

You don't ignore the implications of a context just because the text doesn't spell out every implication.

Agreed.  But if the text doesn't spell out every implication, YOU stand a legitimate chance of losing a debate about what was implied, if the inference can be objectively sustained, or shown

What does a term like 'raised' mean in a first-century Jewish context? Does it imply a zombie who walks around in the nude with a partially decomposed body?

You may as well pretend that 1st century Jewish views on woman were operative also for the original Christians.

If a historian refers to what Abraham Lincoln ate for dinner one day, then doesn't make any further references to meals until he's discussing a day in Lincoln's life twenty years later, do you assume that the historian thinks that no meals were eaten between those two dates?

No, not if the historian excludes miracles from the accounts.  But when you introduce miracles, then suddenly, a theory that somebody went without food for 25 years doesn't seem less plausible than a theory that they rose from the dead.

Or do you take into account factors such as what the historian would have known about the human need to eat more often, the fact that historians are often selective in what they do and don't mention, etc.?...

Once again, what humans "need" to eat is only important to a historian who stays away from miracles.  Otherwise, he can easily imply by silence that the character didn't eat for 25 years, since the believing audience would simply and automatically conclude "god did it".

Yes, historians are often selective in what they do and don't mention.  And it is precisely what they choose to mention and what they choose to exclude that allow us to make "reasonable" deductions about what they meant.

Given that so many other Jewish and Christian documents imply that God provides such things [clothing] (angels in human form are clothed, the risen Jesus is clothed, etc.), and given other factors such as ancient views of public nudity, the idea that risen people would be left naked is less likely.

I ultimately agree.  I'm just showing the reasonableness of the skeptic, since your objections, supra, are obviously intended to be answered by Christians, not skeptics.

Why is clothing people who are without clothes, by no fault of their own, 'ridiculous'? I would say that your concept that God sends these people into first-century Israel in the nude is what's ridiculous."

But God sent Isaiah nude into Israel for 3 years, see above.

- We aren't told how many people were raised or how many knew of the event.

We are told "many" such bodies arose (Matthew 27:52), and its anybody's guess as to how exactly many.  But even if it was merely 5, this would have been no less cause for startle and uproar than if 5 of your dead relatives came knocking on your door. 

The references to "many" in these two verses don't tell us much, since different numbers can be associated with such a term in different contexts. The many of Matthew 7:13 surely is a far larger number than the many of Matthew 8:30, for example. Many in the context of the judgment of mankind would be a much larger number than many in the context of a herd of pigs. Matthew 27 is set in a local context, the general vicinity of Jerusalem, and involves an event that's unusual enough for smaller numbers to constitute "many".

Except that they were rising from ground that was considered "the" cemetery (Golgatha), where we would naturally expect more than 100 bodies to be buried. 

- The fact that the raised individuals appeared to many in Matthew 27:53 doesn't demonstrate that all of those many understood what they had seen at that time or later.

Just like if I said I went roller-skating, that doesn't prove that I was implying that gravity continued holding me to earth the way it did before the skating.

- We aren't told whether any of the witnesses to the event were non-Christians and remained non-Christians afterward.

Probably because the account is, as Licona says, fiction.  The dramatic goal can be achieved without mentioning every detail.

- Historians accept many historical accounts that come from only one source.

But that doesn't place the skeptic under any intellectual obligation to do the same.  Historians naturally hate to lose ANY source that might possibly be historically valuable, that's why they don't just toss single accounts in the trash. But journalists usually insist on having independent corroboration before they go foward with a story, probably because more often than not, stories based on one single source have a greater tendency to prove inaccurate.

Perhaps this is where you suddenly discover how "unreasonable" it is for non-historians to insist on independent corroboration?

- The gospels refer to other individuals who were raised by Jesus. If the event of Matthew 27 is a resuscitation, then it's another manifestation of a miracle performed multiple times previously and reported by multiple sources. If the event is a resurrection, then it's not so similar to those previous events, but still has some similarity.

Except that 2nd century Clement of Alexandria, in his Stomata, chapter VI, thought it "plain" that the risen bodies were 'translated to a better state':

If, then, He preached only to the Jews, who wanted the knowledge and faith of the Saviour, it is plain that, since God is no respecter of persons, the apostles also, as here, so there preached the Gospel to those of the heathen who were ready for conversion. And it is well said by the Shepherd, "They went down with them therefore into the water, and again ascended. But these descended alive, and again ascended alive. But those who had fallen asleep, descended dead, but ascended alive." Further the Gospel says, "that many bodies of those that slept arose,"--plainly as having been translated to a better state. 

Should we care what the early church fathers believed?  Engwer continues:

- Matthew only mentions the event briefly, which undermines the critic's assumption that anybody who believed in the event would have thought so highly of it as to be sure to mention it in our extant literature.

Supporting the skeptical conclusion that even somebody like Matthew recognizes the value of keeping fiction to a minimum.  The fictional character of the zombie resurrection story in Matthew is very likely the reason other authors gave it no attention.

Matthew mentions it, as he mentions many other things, but he doesn't seem to have thought that it deserves as much attention as critics suggest.

If you plan to lie in your testimony, best to make the lie as short as possible.  Giving more and more dettails just enables the prosecutor to get lucky and find something he can positively disprove.  Ambiguity is the word of the day for all professional liars, just ask any attorney.

- Some Christians writing shortly after the gospel of Matthew was composed (Clement of Rome, Polycarp, etc.) didn't comment on the event of Matthew 27, even when they were discussing the topic of resurrection.

When you friend tells wild unlikely tales, you tend to avoid becoming involved.

We know that it was common for the Christians of that time to interpret the gospels in a highly historical manner (see, for example, here, here, and here), so it seems unlikely that they didn't comment upon this passage as a result of viewing it as non-historical.

I don't see your point:  the early fathers probably thought the zombie resurrection tale was straight history.  But as yo probably know, the early church fathers provide interesting quips about this or that, but their credulity was high.  And many of the surviving fathers were against gnostic forms of Christianity, requiring that they take as physical historical fact nearly everything in the gospels.  One  prominent exception was Origen.  Papias and his talking grapes is probably another.

Apparently, these early Christians, writing shortly after the time when Matthew's gospel was composed, didn't think that mentioning the event of Matthew 27 was as important as some modern critics suggest.

When you friend tells wild unlikely tales, you tend to avoid becoming involved.

- The claim that no other early Christian sources mention the event depends on the assumption that some passages referring to the raising of the dead don't have this event in mind. But there are some early passages that may refer to it (Ignatius, Letter To The Magnesians, 9; Quadratus, in Eusebius, Church History, 4:3). And both passages just cited include information not mentioned in Matthew's gospel, so neither seems to merely be repeating what he read in Matthew.

You don't win a history debate with a "may" or a possibility.  You have to turn that into some degree of probability.  You haven't done that.

Ignatius says:

If, therefore, those who were brought up in the ancient order of things have come to the possession of a new hope, no longer observing the Sabbath, but living in the observance of the Lord's Day, on which also our life has sprung up again by Him and by His death — whom some deny, by which mystery we have obtained faith, and therefore endure, that we may be found the disciples of Jesus Christ, our only Master — how shall we be able to live apart from Him, whose disciples the prophets themselves in the Spirit did wait for Him as their Teacher? And therefore He whom they rightly waited for, having come, raised them from the dead. Matthew 27:52

This merely gets you in trouble, since he doesn't qualify how many such prophets, which makes it reasonable to interpret Ignatius as intending for ALL of the prophets, whom he thought waited for Jesus, were raised from the dead.  You can thank Ignatius for expanding your "many" into about 20.

But there is a more direct reference in Ignatius' Epistle to the Trallians, if one will allow that it is authentic:

He did in reality both eat and drink. He was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate. He really, and not merely in appearance, was crucified, and died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. By those in heaven I mean such as are possessed of incorporeal natures; by those on earth, the Jews and Romans, and such persons as were present at that time when the Lord was crucified; and by those under the earth, the multitude that arose along with the Lord. For says the Scripture, “Many bodies of the saints that slept arose,” their graves being opened. He descended, indeed, into Hades alone, but He arose accompanied by a multitude; and rent asunder that means of separation which had existed from the beginning of the world, and cast down its partition-wall.

Roberts, A., Donaldson, J., & Coxe, A. C. (1997). The Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol.I : Translations of the writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325. The apostolic fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.

Perhaps Engwer didn't give this more direct reference because it shows an early church father thinking that the zombie tale is saying those dead saints "arose along with" Jesus...which would make Jesus' resurrection a bit more susceptible to notice by other ancient authors.  Or maybe Engwer would trifle that he thinks this "longer recension" is not authentically from Ignatius.

Jerome in Letter 60 To Heliodorus is quoting the passage, but says "heavenly" Jerusalem (i.e., he might have meant that he took Matthew to be saying the risen saints appeared unto many in the "heavenly" Jerusalem, not the earthly Jerusalem):

Even if Lazarus is seen in Abraham’s bosom and in a place of refreshment, still the lower regions cannot be compared with the kingdom of heaven. Before Christ’s coming Abraham is in the lower regions: after Christ’s coming the robber is in paradise. And therefore at His rising again “many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and were seen in the heavenly Jerusalem.”1813 Then was fulfilled the saying: “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.”1814 John the Baptist cries in the desert: “repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”1815 For “from the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.”1816 The flaming sword that keeps the way of paradise and the cherubim that are stationed at its doors1817 are alike quenched and unloosed by the blood of Christ.1818 It is not surprising that this should be promised us in the resurrection: for as many of us as living in the flesh do not live after the flesh,1819 have our citizenship in heaven,1820 and while we are still here on earth we are told that “the kingdom of heaven is within us.”1821 4. Moreover before the resurrection of Christ God was “known in Judah” only and “His name was great in Israel” alone.1822 And they who knew Him were despite their knowledge dragged down to hell. Where in those days were the inhabitants of the globe from India to Britain, from the frozen zone of the North to the burning heat of the Atlantic ocean? Where were the countless peoples of the world? Where the great multitudes?

Schaff, P. (1997). The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers Second Series Vol. VI. 

Jerome: Letters and Select Works. Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems.

Quadratus says:

“But the works of our Savior were always present, for they were genuine:- those that were healed, and those that were raised from the dead, who were seen not only when they were healed and when they were raised, but were also always present; and not merely while the Savior was on earth, but also after his death, they were alive for quite a while, so that some of them lived even to our day.” Such then was Quadratus.

In the context, "Savior was on earth" seems to require that the people Quadratus had in mind were those that Jesus raised from the dead before the crucifixion.  And indeed, the gospels say before Jesus died, he had gone around "healing" people and raising some from the dead.

- Non-Christian sources were writing in particular genres. To expect a Roman source to mention the event of Matthew 27, simply because he was writing around the time when the event would have occurred, doesn't make sense.

Under your own theory that says the zombies consisted of two resuscitated corpses who could have simply disappeared two seconds after saying hi to some people in Jerusalem, then yes.

George Bush's presidency was historically significant, but we wouldn't expect it to be discussed in a contemporary gardening magazine or book about motorcycles.

But we'd expect important scandalous events and reports of same to be found in ancient historians whose purpose was to document such things.  Perhaps there's a reason why we find such things in Tacitus and Josephus.

An ancient writer who composed poetry or wrote about Roman politics shouldn't be expected to discuss Christian miracles in such a work.

Sort of like "an ancient Hebrew writer who composed Psalm 16:10 shouldn't be expected to discuss Jesus' resurrection".

Ignorant skeptics sometimes make the mistake of acting as if the timing of an author is all that's relevant when considering whether he should have mentioned Jesus, Christian miracles, or something else related to Christianity, as if genre is irrelevant. As J.P. Holding put it, "Do books on public speaking today go off topic to mention Jesus?...Again, Jesus didn't lead any Roman armies, so where would he fit here [the writings of Appian]?...Pausanias -- a Greek traveler and geographer of the second century who wrote a ten-volume work called Descriptions of Greece. Check your travel guidebooks for Greece for mentions of Jewish miracle workers in a different country!"

Except that the NT repeatedly says "large crowds" followed Jesus, including entire cities stampeding each other just to get near him (Mark 1:45).  Stop forgetting about the extreme popularity that your own bible requires you to impart to Jesus.

As Craig Keener notes, "Without immediate political repercussions, it is not surprising that the earliest Jesus movement does not spring quickly into the purview of Rome’s historians; even Herod the Great finds little space in Dio Cassius (49.22.6; 54.9.3). Josephus happily compares Herodotus’s neglect of Judea (Apion 1.60-65) with his neglect of Rome (Apion 1.66)." (A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999], p. 64, n. 205)

I don't really push the "why didn't ancient secular historians mention the zombies" anyway, so I don't really care if you have to deal with other skeptics who argue differently than I do.  I'd advise the idiot skeptics to stop saying scandalous things, since the easier it is to refute, the more likely the stupid Christian will draw the hasty generalization that "skepticism" is "wrong".  We need to cast off the uncertain arguments and stick solely to the best possible arguments.

Critics of Matthew 27 sometimes mention Josephus and suggest that there are other relevant sources, but don't name them. They ought to be specific about who should have mentioned this event in Matthew 27 and where they should have mentioned it. I suspect that many of these people don't have anybody specific in mind other than Josephus, and they probably haven't given much thought to their citation of that one source.

Irrelevant to me, I wouldn't expect others to worry about gospel fiction.

- The idea that a non-Christian source would have a compelling desire to report such an event so favorable to Christianity is dubious and is an assumption I've never seen any critic justify. A source like Josephus might discuss such an event, but he also might prefer to avoid discussing it.

Which is why skeptics are better off not pushing that argument too much.  There are ways of justifying skepticism that fuck you up, it's not like all skepticism is rooted in fallacies.

- Josephus and other early non-Christian sources refer to Jesus' performance of apparent miracles. Sometimes they discuss specific miracles, and sometimes they don't. They may refer to Jesus as a sorcerer or magician or refer to Him as empowered by Satan, but not go into detail about the activity that led them to that conclusion. Why should we expect the event of Matthew 27 to be singled out for discussion?

We wouldn't if Matthew's original audience took the zombie resurrection part as edifying fiction only.

I would further argue that we don't even know whether Matthew intended all that he said to be made known to non-Christians.  There were, after all, "secret" teachings Jesus allegedly reserved only for his disciples.

How does the critic know that a reference to Jesus as a sorcerer or magician, for example, doesn't include an acknowledgement of the event of Matthew 27 along with other miracles? If a historical figure has a reputation as a miracle worker, then discussing individual miracles is one way to discuss his activity, but it isn't the only way. The more miracles there are associated with an individual, the less significant one miracle, such as the one of Matthew 27, may seem.

Irrelevant to me.

- As an example of some of the points above, consider the apostle Paul. He doesn't say much about his miracles, and he's often vague when he does discuss them (2 Corinthians 12:12).

Probably because any professional liar knows that if you go on and on about your alleged miraculous ability, you'll end up saying something that can be positively falsified.  Like any lawyer will tell you, your chances of successfully convincing a jury of yoru story increase if you keep your testimony to a minimum.

Luke goes into more detail, as we'd expect in the genre and historical context in which he was writing, but he doesn't go off on a tangent to address Paul's miracles in his gospel.

If you assume Luke thought Acts was something different than 'gospel'.

Rather, he discusses those miracles several chapters into Acts, in the proper chronological place, and even at that point he's selective in what he discusses. Later Christian sources who discuss Paul and accept the book of Acts often don't mention Paul's miracles or address them in a more vague manner than Luke does. Early non-Christian sources say little or nothing about Paul, even long after his letters began widely circulating. Origen makes a specific point of criticizing Celsus for ignoring Paul (Against Celsus, 1:63, 5:64).

Sounds like Origen was a smart guy, whose conclusions about gospel "facts" cannot be lightly dismissed as the raving of a heretic trying to get away from "truth".

The early enemies of Christianity, especially those who were Jewish, would have had difficulty with a prominent enemy of Christianity who converted to the religion on the basis of seeing the risen Christ.

Especially if that prominent enemy never converted, but only pretended to, due to his mental illness and need to be an attention-whore.  Like Paul.

Even less problematic religious leaders of that time, such as Gamaliel and John the Baptist, aren't mentioned much in our extant sources. Gentiles wouldn't have had much interest in discussing Jewish religious leaders, much as Jews wouldn't have had much interest in discussing a Gentile who was reputed as a miracle worker, such as Apollonius of Tyana.

- Sometimes it's suggested that if a Christian doesn't think this passage is describing a historical event, then he shouldn't interpret the accounts of Jesus' resurrection as references to a historical event either.

Mike Licona said that problem arises naturally, see above.

But the accounts of Jesus' resurrection are far more numerous,

No, the only eyewitness sources are Matthew, John and Paul, everything else in the NT mentioning his resurrection is either hearsay, vision or the author is not claiming to be an eyewitness of it.  The apostolic authorship of Matthew and John is easily discounted, and Paul's credibility problems would justify a 5,000 page monograph spread over a 10-volume series.  If you were on trial for murder and the only witness against you was somebody claiming to having seen you pull the trigger while the witness was flying physically up into heaven by non-physical means (2nd Corinthians 12:1-4), you would not ask the judge to allow a jury instruction saying they can consider the viability of a supernatural explanation...you'd be asking the judge to drop the charges for lack of evidence, since no jury could possibly find you guilty on the basis of such obvious delusion.

As far as numerosity, most Christian scholars take Mark as earliest, and also think authentic Mark stops at 16:8, and also think that the later Synoptic authors borrowed extensively from Mark, hence, it is reasonable for the skeptic to conclude that the earliest form of the gospel never said a risen Christ actually appeared to anybody, justifying a further inference that the only reason the later gospels say he did, is because of legendary embellishment.  That is, the later versions merely derive from and add to Mark's earlier account, they are not "independent".  So Jesus rose from the dead because of 3 first-hand easily impeached witnesses and a shitload of endlessly questionable hearsay?  FUCK YOU.

come from more sources,

No, same answer.  Of course you're going to get "more sources" when you start embellishing the original story. What's too bad for you is that Christianity did not deem the testimony of most of the original apostles worthy of preserving, despite the reasonable inference that as original apostles, you'd think the later generations would revere such testimony as of the greatest importance.

and are more detailed.

Reasonably construed as adding legendary embellishments to Mark's earlier less detailed account.  Let's just say Matthew and Luke denied Mark's "sufficiency" as scripture.

I disagree with Christians who interpret Matthew 27 as something other than a reference to a historical raising of the dead in first-century Israel. But those who hold that position are making a judgment about a brief passage in one source, a passage that isn't addressed much by other early sources. We don't have anything close to the level of evidence for the historicity of that passage as we have for the historicity of the accounts of Jesus' resurrection.

Not if I have anything to say about it.  Your evidence for the historicity of Jesus' resurrection is so poor and likely false or embellished, skeptics are perfectly reasonable to reject the hypothesis.  And I say this after having extensively reviewed the work of Licona, Habermas and W.C. Craig.  You lose.  Skeptics are not unreasonable.

If somebody thinks that the evidence for the historicity of Matthew 27 is insignificant enough to be overcome by other factors, it doesn't therefore follow that the same is true of the accounts of Jesus' resurrection.

Agreed.

- The gospel of Matthew is just one source among others that are relevant to the historicity of Jesus' resurrection. Even if we were to conclude that this passage in Matthew 27 undermines the testimony of that gospel, its testimony can be diminished without being eliminated.

But in practical life, you cannot accuse as unreasonable the person who moves immediately from "diminished" to "eliminated".  And if you were on trial for murder and you were only able to "diminish" but not "eliminate" testimony hostile to your alibi, you know perfectly well you'd be trying to persuade the jury to move immediately from "diminished" to "eliminated" anyway.   You cannot avoid the obvious reasonableness of justifying one's rejection of testimony because it has been "diminished".

And we still have other sources that give us information relevant to the resurrection of Christ.

All of which can be reasonably rejected on the basis of legend, vision, hearsay, lying and impeached credibility or contradiction.

Why Triablogue's endlessly trifling bullshit cannot possibly matter

Triablogue's Jason Engwer puts a shitload of effort into trying to prove that the Enfield Poltergeist was real.

He does this so that he can then prove atheism wrong.

But as I've noted before, my skepticism of Jesus' resurrection renders the alleged wrongness of atheism irrelevant.

Even supposing atheism is wrong, that doesn't mean "atheist is in trouble with the Christian god".

All it means is that a god exists.

Since 

a) the apostle Paul said Jesus' failure to rise from the dead would turn Christians into false witnesses who are still in their sins (1st Cor. 15:15), and

b) I continue beating down the way Engwer, Hays, Licona, Habermas and W.L. Craig interpret the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, 

it really doesn't matter if a god exists, the fact that I am reasonable to deduce this god is not the Christian god creates the stark possibility that the Christians are in just as much trouble with this god for misrepresenting him, as they think atheists are for denying his basic existence.

Before you can leap from "you are wrong" to "you are unreasonable", you have to show that the being wrong is more likely to lead to some type of disaster.  But if the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is as unpersuasive and weak as I claim, the best the apologists could possibly be left with is that there is some "god" out there, so that atheists remain wrong even if it be reasonable to deny Jesus rose from the dead.

At that point, whether that god even cares whether anybody misrepresents him or denies him, would be forever open to blind speculation, except for trifling Christians who would automatically default to the OT god upon discovery that the NT is bullshit.

But according to Deut. 13, even when the prophet does a real miracle, he STILL might be leading people into error, and therefore, such miracle-worker would STILL suffer the wrath of this god.  

That is, according to the OT principle, Jesus' miracle of rising from the dead does NOT end the discussion of whether the OT god approves of him.  But I have yet to see any Christian argument that the OT YHWH approves of Jesus, they rather think his resurrection miracle is the end of the debate.

They also blindly insist that because Jesus uses the divine title, he IS YHWH, a contention that has kept the church divided since even before the Council of Nicaea.

Therefore, the Christians are getting precisely nowhere by wasting such enormous amounts of time trying to prove atheism wrong, or that a spiritual dimension exists, or that physicalism is false.  Atheists don't start becoming unreasonable unless their being in the wrong can be proven to have likely disastrous consequences.  Sure, I might be wrong to say Japan is located in Australia, but unless you could show that this wrongness will likely lead to harmful effects on myself, you are never going to "prove" that I "should" care about being wrong.  

I'm pretty sure that Bigfoot is a hoax and was never anything more than a fairy tale and a man in a monkey suit...but why should I care if that is wrong and the creature is a genuine cryptid?    Does Bigfoot denial have a history of causing skeptics to get the flu more often than the average person?

Because the evidence for Jesus' resurrection is poor, and because the NT doctrine of eternal conscious torment in the afterworld contradicts the OT concept of god's justice, the atheist has no reason to 'worry' about atheism being 'wrong', at worst they will experience nothing more than permanent extinction of consciousness, a fate they already accept.  Pissing off god is about as fearful as pissing off a puppy.

Therefore, trying to prove atheism is wrong is a fruitlessly and purely academic waste of time (i.e., has no serious application to anybody's actual life beyond mere idle intellectual curiosity, and is equal to trying to prove somebody else wrong about whether the Trojan War ever happened).

There's a possibility that angry space aliens will zap you...but how much effort should an atheist put into protecting herself from such disaster?  Maybe always wear a radar-deflecting hat?

There's a possibility that a wild animal will kill the atheist after they walk in the front door of their house, but how much effort should the atheist put into protecting herself from such possible disaster?  Maybe peek in every window before going in the house, or installing motion detectors?  FUCK YOU.

There's a possibility some "god" will roast atheists alive in hell forever, but how much effort should the atheist put into protecting herself from such disaster?  Maybe spend the next 50 years trying to figure out which view of God is correct so they don't end up joining the wrong cult and end up making things worse for themselves by adding the sin of heresy to their existing sin of unbelief?  FUCK YOU.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  in light of god's hiddenness on the one hand, and the Christian apologist's mouthiness on the other, it appears Christian apologists love atheists more than their own god does.  Irony never sucked quite as much as that.

Answering AnoyedPinoy's objections

AnoyedPinoy, ("AP") for whatever reason, cannot resist mistaking quantity for quality, and telling himself that Christianity's truthfulness can be proven because of the trainloads of evidence that it is possible to post onto other people's blogs.

I've warned him for the last time to stop doing this and to limit his replies here to single points...since narrowing the issues down that far works wonders at preventing deceived apologists from wiggling out of an argument.  If you doubt that, ask yourself how many liars are cheerful at the thought of being grilled on the witness stand by an experienced prosecutor.  

For example, while 

"how do you know the bible is the word of God" 

is rather easy for an apologist to tackle,  a more nuanced challenge can cause apologists to have a bad day.  Consider:

"what rule of hermeneutics am I violating when I use Galatians 1:1, 11-12 

to clarify Paul's unqualified "received" in 1st Corinthians 15:3?"

or

"aren't you putting just as much faith in mere human tradition as Roman
Catholics do,when you treat the historical evidence in favor of the Protestant
NT canonas if it revealed God's intentions equally as strongly as biblical evidence?"

I trust that the reader is satisfied that I correctly refute AP on this point:  forcing the questions at issue to be narrowly drawn dramatically increases the probability that the person in error will not be able to save face when their errors are exposed.

However, somebody may fall into the same error AP does, and perhaps think that because AP posted all that crap here, it "refutes" whatever i believe unless I offer a point by point rebuttal.

I now respond to most of AP's assertions.  Hopefully AP will learn to argue more succinctly so that the reader will be more easily enabled to detect which of us is in the wrong:

ANNOYED PINOYNovember 25, 2019 at 9:34 PM
It seems a reoccurring theme in all your blogs is about about "reasonableness".

That's because many prominent Christian apologists, like Frank Turek, overstate their case and insist either
a) the Christian interpretation of something is the only reasonable one, or
b) the atheist viewpoint is unreasonable.

Those apologists are all high on crack.  They don't have a robust understanding of "reasonable", they think it is a synonym for "biblical".  That would most especially be true for the Calvinists, the presuppositionalists and mostly the Van Tilians.  Jeff Durbin and Sye Ten Bruggencate are examples of the latter.  Steve Hays might deny being in the same group, but his fanatical committment to bible inerracy makes it reasonable to lump him into the group anyway.  He's still going to say any concept is crazy unless it harmonizes with the bible.

So, in answer to that I've written the following.
----//If even Calvinists can disagree with each other over what the bible is teaching, then ----apparently learning hermenutics is an exercise in futility. //
That seems to assume that the Bible has to have been written so that every reader would come the exact same conclusions.

No, it only assumes what is plainly obvious, that even if somebody earned advanced degrees in biblical theology, or took a course in "hermeneutics", this does precisely nothing to ensure that the way they interpret the bible is "correct".  They are prevented from babyish errors, perhaps, but that's all. And if you foolishly insist that "bible inerrancy" be used as a herrmeneutic, you further harm the whole purpose of interpretation.

This is a powerful argument, since you refuse to say that the only reason 2 Christians disagree on bible interpretation is because one of them is unsaved or insincere or has unconfessed sin, etc.  You know full well that equally saved, equally sincere, equally smart, equally Christ-walking Christians can disagree with each other, for decades, lifetimes and centuries, about how to interpret something in the bible.  Since at least one such person in every such debate logically has to be in the wrong, they become a supporting evidence that a Christian's attempt to learn hermeneutics will never suffice to make them see actual biblical truth.  If there is any person who actually does have the correct interpretation, they cannot demonstrate they have it.  Apparently, there's nothing more special about the bible than there is in any other similarly ancient piece of theological sophistry:  the meaning of all those other ancient religious tracts can also be endlessly debated.

But God didn't inspire the Bible to be completely understood upon first reading.

I was talking about Christians, who have been reading the bible for years, still disagreeing with each other.  Nobody said anything about correctly interpreting the whole thing at the first reading.

Or even multiple reading throughout a lifetime.

The irony is that many Christians, all of them Arminian to one degree or other, would disagree, and say God always desires the genuinely born-again, sin-confessing, light-walking sincere Christian to correctly understand whatever part of the bible that they ask God to guide their understanding of.  Therefore, while my argument might not faze YOU, a Calvinist, my argument about why this 'god' doesn't do for us today what he allegedly did in biblical times and MAKE us believe either infallibly or with forceful presentation, remains a legitimate rebuttal to the Arminians...who stand a chance of taking my argument, bypassing Calvinism and other modes of Christianity, and going straight to skeptical jail, don't collect $200.

I hope everybody goes to jail.

The subjects involved are too lofty/august/transcendent to exhaust the topics in a single book of any size.

That's funny, I thought Christians had a "holy spirit" who not only "teaches" them (John 14:26) but CAUSES them and others to understand or else do and believe whatever he wants them to do and believe (Exodus 4:21, Numbers 22:35, 38, 1st Kings 22:19-23, Ezra 1:1,  Jeremiah 20:9, Acts 9:3-8, Acts 16:14, Revelation 17:17)?  See especially Ezekiel 38-39, where God characterizes a future army's attack on Israel as the army being a fish on a hook, and god is drawing them against Israel.   If God then chooses whether or not he will cause a person to correctly discern truth, he can hardly blame those whom he wishes to keep ignorant.  But because the biblical answer is "who are you to answer back to god" (Romans 9:20), I'm pretty sure this particular fictional character is merely a sadistic lunatic.

Furthermore, the fact that Christians have disagreed on biblical theology for so many centuries sounds more like a case of the bible making ambiguous statements about unprovable premises, another justification for skeptics to give the bible the middle finger and consider earning a living and raising a family more important than trifling with somebody on the internet about things nobody can ever nail down with any reasonable certainty...like god's "will"...a thing Christians could not be in more disagreement about, despite the presumed authenticity of their salvation, sincerity of purpose, and respect for context, genre and bible "inerrancy".

And contrary to your predictable excuse, no, you don't do anything by invoking god's mysterious ways or "well maybe god...", except demonstrate that you have lost the debate.  Since heretics appeal to such excuses and you find them unpersuasive, logic dictates that YOU not be allowed to benefit from this cop-out either.

Hume said it best:  Commit it to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Morever, it's providentially inspired in such a way that it takes the Spirit of God to understand it, perceive it spiritually and believe it.

That's the same excuse non-Calvinists use to explain the "error" of Calvinism when they are asked how they explain that Calvinists can be true Christains yet adopt that heresy.  Many Arminians insist that Calvinism cannot quality as heterodox, it is purely unorthodox and is worthy dividing fellowship over.  Remember Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel?.  Apparently, "you just aren't spiritual" is a false excuse that could be employed by anybody to get away from having to actually justify their bible-interpretation on the merits.

To those who have spiritual eyes and ears.

How conveniently useless to argumentation: see above.

But yes, this is how apostle Paul and Jesus thought, so there's no compelling reason to distinguish them from typical cultists and fanatics who employ the same excuse in the effort to facilitate a fallacious-yet-useful "us v them" herd-mentality in their group.  That kind of mentality is intentionally designed to shelter one from the rigors of logic and argumentation.  You don't believe in Jesus because you aren't spiritual.  Quick, easy, and let's get back to saying grace over dinner for 5 hours because the infinite God is worthy of so much more.

Just as Jesus spoke in parables not to elucidate, but to veil His meaning [Mark 4:11ff.; Matt. 13:10ff.; Luke 8:10ff.; John 12:39ff.].

That doesn't get rid of the problem, he also told the disciples to reveal whatever hidden things he formerly told them. Matthew 10:27.  See also Matthew 28:20, the part of the great commission most Christians miss.  So Jesus' intention to veil his teachings before the crucifixion isn't supposed to be used to justify continued veiling after he issued the Great Commission.  But I suppose your presupposition of biblical inerrancy will motivate you to simply combine your theory with something apostle Paul said, and presto, look how many rainbows we can created by drawing with all the crayons in the box at the same time.

And in such a way that as people fallibly read it down through the centuries God's providential plan in & for HIStory unfolds as He predetermined it.

Why should anybody find study of biblical hermeneutics as helping them to figure out how to avoid misinterpreting the bible? After all, you will not credit their getting something right in the bible to their study, you will simply say God predestined them to get it right. If they get something wrong in the bible, you will not credit this to their misunderstanding of hermeneutics, or the limited nature of the evidence, you will conclude God predestined them to get it wrong.  Your problem still exists:  We don't have to worry about anything, ever, because nothing can possibly happen except what God has infallibly predestined...including sin.  That's Calvinism, stripped of all the car-salesman pitch that James White constantly smothers it with.  See Steve Hays' admission that God secretly wills ALL disobedience to his revealed will. Link. Which can only mean that when God gets angry over somebody's sin, he is getting angry that they did exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted, why he wanted and how he wanted.

If any human being secretly willed for his subjects to disobey his revealed will, we'd call that idiot a sadist.  You will say human analogies break down with God, but perhaps they do because god is like every other concept for which human logic is insufficient; both are false theories.  yoru god's allege being "inscrutible" and "incomprehensible" might actually suggest that literally NOTHING about him can be reasonably deduced...whether that threatens your sense of theological security or not.

I've snipped the bible quotations you posted.  Probably because your god infallibly predestined me to...which means I didn't have a choice...which means the only way God could still blame me for failing to deviate from infallible predestination decree is for him to be a sadistic lunatic.

And then you want me to think the only 'true' love is the love from this god?

ANNOYED PINOYNovember 25, 2019 at 9:34 PM
Moreover, it's difficult for ANY document on an important and involved topic to be written in such a way that multiple interpretations are precluded.

Not when you have an all-powerful God who allegedly has the ability to MAKE people believe whatever he wants them to believe. Exodus 4:21, Numbers 22:35, 38, 1st Kings 22:19-23, Ezra 1:1,  Jeremiah 20:9, Acts 9:3-8, Acts 16:14, Revelation 17:17.  Your objection is frivolous; your Calvinist god can make ANYBODY understand ANYTHING he wishes for them to understand.  So the problem of why equally saved equally sincere Christians disagree for centuries on how to interpret biblical phrases remains.  Of course, you offer one solution:  God causes everything, including misunderstanding, but you have to remember that I also preach my skeptical arguments to Arminians, that is:  some of the power of my skeptical arguments draws from presumptions about God that are Arminian (i.e., god wants everybody to get saved and avoid teaching heresy).

Including non-religious documents. Even an error free book on math can be misunderstood by humans.

Not if the author the power to make humans correctly understand it.

Also, other things contribute to differing interpretations like:
level of intelligence/aptitude;
level of education;
knowledge of cultural background;
human traditions and presuppositions brought to the text;
amount of time studying the document. A man who has studied the U.S. Constitution (or the Bible) for 50 years will understand it better than someone who has only studied it for 2 years.;
opportunity and access to resources and available time can hinder people. For example, a simple missionary in the 17th century didn't have access to 21st century Logos Bible software; archaeological and textual discoveries etc.;
degree of sinfulness, rebellion and attitudes brought to the text;

But since as a Calvinist you are forced to believe that all this misunderstanding is ULTIMATELY caused by God's infallible predestining decree, all you are doing with the above is wasting time on secondary causation.  Truth is not served solely by focus on secondary causation.  And once again, my skeptical position speaks mostly to Arminian Christians and their assumption that God wants everybody to get saved and avoid heresy.

As Blaise Pascal wrote in his Pensées:

God predestined me to snip your quote.

ANNOYED PINOYNovember 25, 2019 at 9:35 PM
If the Christian God exists, then it's not reasonable to read the Bible, and to expect it to have been written as if the Christian God were the one on trial.

That IF is so big that I deny its legitimacy.

Rather, it's reasonable to expect it to be inspired as if we're on trial and being judged by our attitude toward the God behind the text and the subjects addressed in the book.

But only "if" the Christian god exists.  That hypothetical is too extreme.
snip

ANNOYED PINOYNovember 25, 2019 at 9:47 PM
And all that sets aside the positive evidence for God and the weakness against belief in the Christian God.
Evidence for God
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2016/12/im-going-to-list-and-summarize-what-i.html
Required reading for atheists
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/11/required-reading-for-atheists.html
Making a case for Christianity
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/12/making-case-for-christianity.html
A case for Christ
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2019/01/a-case-for-christ.html
Common Objections to Christianity from Skeptics
http://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/qa_steve_hays.html
Book Reviews of Recent Atheist Authors by Christian Apologists https://misclane.blogspot.com/2013/09/book-reviews-of-recent-atheist-authors.html

That's old news to me.  But more importantly none of it overcomes my interpretation of the biblical evidence Christians typically cite in favor of the historicity of Jesus' resurrection.

That's important because if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, he was a false prophet at best, and his followers who composed the NT book certainly were false witnesses, which would then mean the only thing you gain by defaulting to the OT YHWH is his calling for your death for having followed a worker of miracles who wasn't preaching the truth.  Deuteronomy 13 and 18.

Hopefully, then, you can understand why I agree with Paul that Christianity's veracity cannot be rescued if Jesus didn't rise from the dead. You lose the resurrection, you lose the significance of Calvinism, debating god's sovereignty, refuting the Arminians, the transcendental argument and your motive to post trainloads of old hat to other people's blogs.

I posted the above things because I'm concerned for your soul.

But only because God infallibly predestined you to care.  If God predestined you to be apathetic toward my soul, you would be.  Hence, Calvinist theology steals the soul out of human compassion by turning everything into robots.  Your caring attitude thus isn't really your own individual creation.  That's not a true friend.

If you are concerned about my soul, you might consider answering my objections to the historicity of Jesus resurrection...like the fact that 1st Corinthians 15:3-4 is not historical evidence of early resurrection belief among the apostles, because it is not a 'creed' in the first place.  And numerous other objections.

Not because I'm trying to overwhelm you with information.

I'm sorry, Mr. Pinoy, but you've demonstrated, at your own blog and here, that you do indeed happily mistake quantity for quality.  You simply do not like being required to limit your replies to singular issues.  I suspect it is because you realize that when the issues are narrowed, it makes it much more difficult for you to escape a rebuttal.  That is exactly what happened when you tried to argue narrowed issues of bible inerrancy with me.

If you wish to prove me wrong, I'll start a new blog piece where I confront you, one point at a time, with my objections to the resurrection of Jesus, and we'll just see how long you last.

I'm just trying to fill in some of the lacunae in your knowledge.

Then God must have infallibly predestined you to be misinformed...the material you linked me to is stuff I already know and stuff I've already rebutted in the draft for my book, not yet published.

And in hopes that you might eventually come to embrace the Savior as your own hope and joy one day.

Except that because Jesus didn't preach hell-fire to Gentiles, I have a very reasonable basis to accuse the later NT authors of expanding his message far beyond what he intended, and therefore, your Jesus probably doesn't concern himself with becoming my daily lord anymore than he concerned himself to be the daily lord of the Gentiles he interacted with.  For example:

 33 And the demons came out of the man and entered the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.
 34 When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they ran away and reported it in the city and out in the country.
 35 The people went out to see what had happened; and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they became frightened.
 36 Those who had seen it reported to them how the man who was demon-possessed had been made well.
 37 And all the people of the country of the Gerasenes and the surrounding district asked Him to leave them, for they were gripped with great fear; and He got into a boat and returned.
 38 But the man from whom the demons had gone out was begging Him that he might accompany Him; but He sent him away, saying,
 39 "Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you." So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.
 (Lk. 8:33-39 NAU)

What I'm not seeing is any sign that Jesus wanted that guy to do what you think Jesus wants today's Gentiles to do:  study the scriptures, or "get saved".  Jesus exorcised the demons out of that man.  That's not evidence that he "got saved".  That man sat at the feet of Jesus.  You have no fucking clue what Jesus and that man talked about.  That's not evidence that he "got saved".  But since in context Jesus wants that man to go away, we can be god-damn sure that Jesus rejects MacArthur's "lordship salvation" doctrine, a doctrine that Calvinists tightly embrace.

The sad fact is that Jesus was nowhere near the loudmouth today's Calvinists are in stuffing the scriptures down the throats of Gentiles, or warning them about hell fire.

So you might consider that the only reason you are concerned for my soul is because you have allowed later NT authors to pervert the original gospel of Jesus.  And of course I assume you know that I designate apostle Paul as a heretic...and I think using bible inerrancy as a hermeneutic does little more than facilitate misunderstanding.