English: Isaac Newton Dansk: Sir Isaac Newton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Allow me to debunk the mother of all “conspiracy theories” that says the disciples of Jesus Christ master-minded a hoax for the centuries to beat all hoaxes of all time.
One thing is that often “skeptics” make the same mistake that believing Christians often make. Many of them don’t bother with evidence, despite that fact that the very New Testament tells them to learn the evidence.
Simon Greanleaf, once known as the father of the rules of evidence, was the Dean of the Harvard Law School, one day declared he didn’t believe in the silly Resurrection story. A student challenged him to apply his own rule of checking the evidence before declaring confidence in something. He did and the result was “The Testimony of the Evangelists“, the subtitle declaring his newfound faith.
In Acts Paul shared the evidence in every testimony of his faith to rulers and kings, and eventually the Emperor. The New Testament has him debunking the accusation of fable, pointing out the fact of 500 witnesses. The gospels are a record of Thomas’ own testimony as to the evidence, and more blessed are those who must check the evidence of historical fact and logic, not just a thrust through the side.
Roman guards that fell asleep on the job or would allow the disciples to steal the body would be executed on the spot. How can the disciples steal the body right under their nose? Those Roman soldiers went to the priests instead of their commander for that very reason, and that’s why the priests took on the task of dealing with their commanders. That’s evidence that the HIGH PRIESTS KNEW he had risen from the dead too. Their cover story went into the Talmud, by the way, Jesus’ enemies confirm his miracles in the Talmud, claiming they were witchcraft of Beelzebub, like the Bible says.
The description of Jesus’ medical symptoms after the beatings, the sword thrust in the side, the blood and water, etc, confirmed by medical doctors today as accurately describing what the reaction would be to what he went through, including the death while still on the cross.a
The first witnesses to the resurrection were women, something culturally counter-intuitive at the time. Any hoax or made-up fable, even one that “evolved”, would have had men being the first ones to bear the news, not women.
THE REFERENCES TO SKEPTICS AND MOCKERS in the last days refers to those who REFUSE TO BELIEVE THE EVIDENCE.
God says this:
“Prove me now herewith”
“Concerning the works of my hands, command thou me”.
He commands believers to “have an answer” for those who question our faith. That means we must learn the facts that validate the faith.
The faith of Hebrews 11 describes a “fact-based” faith. We have learned so much to count on God’s Word to be true, that it surpasses everything else. So much evidence piles up. A spontaneous universe with dozens of precisely calibrated universal constants, and that cultivates spontaneous bio-generation of life, with its enormously programmed digital coded language and interpretation machinery, and saying nobody designed it, now THAT is truly BLIND faith.
THE END-TIMES HAS NOT ALWAYS BEEN LIKE ITS SKEPTICS SAY.
Isaac Newton said it’s not for that time. Paul wrote 2Thessalonians 2 to DEBUNK the any-minute hysteria. For THEN. He said wait, the Antichrist comes first. (Contrary to the mythical Left Behind series fiction)
For two thousand years, Bible scholars said it “the End” would not happen until israel was reestablished as a nation. That’s only one reason so many evangelicals get their theology all screwed up and think God wants them to support the political and secular nation of Israel so much. Christian Zionists are as confused as some of the Jews.
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