Reading Time: 2 minutes Can we really know what happened? Ok you could say the disciples had some kind of experience, the strong view amongst critical scholars that reject the resurrection is that the something happened but we can’t know what. A few points to address this issue 1. This response is a rejection Read more…
Reading Time: 4 minutes Are there discrepancies amongst the resurrection accounts? Critics often tend to accuse the gospel writers of not even being able to agree with each other. Were there 1,2. Or three women who visited the tomb? One or two angels at the tomb? Did they see the angel before they told Read more…
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s important to cover biased testimony as this is probably one that will come up pretty quickly in conversation. Critics will say that all we have are testimonies by Christians! Who surely transferred their personal biases and traditions into their writings! Therefore, we must suspect what is communicated here must Read more…
Reading Time: 4 minutes This I nickname the boom argument, why didn’t Jesus have more boom? If Jesus performed all these miracles, then why isn’t he mentioned much beyond a few Christian sources? Why isn’t he mentioned by non-Christians in the first century of rising from the dead? Surely a risen Jesus would have Read more…
Reading Time: 5 minutes What if we combine some of the theories we’ve looked at together? What if: Someone other than the disciples stole the body (Fraud 2) Peter experienced the hallucinated Jesus (A non-personal Hallucination of Jesus) Peter subsequently deluded the disciples into believing that they saw him as well (Delusion theory) Paul Read more…
Reading Time: 4 minutes An epiphany is a sudden perception of reality caused by an intuitive breakthrough. For example suppose you were brought up in a family with atheist parents and have been an atheist since childhood. One night you’re looking up at the stars and say to yourself how could all of this Read more…
Reading Time: 2 minutes Did Paul convert to Christianity to lead the church in one of the most prominent positions? Well we know Paul was moving up Jewish leadership very quickly. Perhaps it wasn’t fast enough for him? Perhaps he would establish the Christian church would be filled with pride and empowered if he Read more…
Reading Time: < 1 minute What if Paul changed his mind out of sympathy? We can imagine a Nazi soldier feeling remorse for the Holocaust victim and perhaps converting to Judaism out of admiration? Just perhaps as Paul might feel remorse for his actions against Stephen. There are several problems with this theory 1. There’s Read more…
Reading Time: 4 minutes This is a psychological problem in which a person experiences symptoms or deficits to one’s senses that are not intentionally produced and may have neurological origins. Typical symptoms: Blindness, paralysis, loss of voice, pain, uncontrolled vomiting, tics and seizures. Was Paul’s conversion from Judaism to Christianity a result of some Read more…
Reading Time: 5 minutes To avoid the huge pitfalls of hallucination theory it is common for critics to claim the appearances were a type of vision. They claim these visions are no more credible than visions in other writings. What does the term vision mean? Firstly, get the critic to define what they mean Read more…