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garfunklestein · 8 years ago

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On Bethesda’s Creators Club

Alright, so this is a half rant and half explanation (with the knowledge I currently have on Creator’s Club, which I’ll be short handing out to “CC”). Anything I list is subject to change as the program rolls out this summer. For a few points, hopefully they are changed. Currently, people are spreading a shit ton of misinformation about it. If you wanna be angry and direct your rage at Bethesda, that’s absolutely fine - we need to call out companies when we think they’re doing something unethical, shady, or anti-consumer, as well as expect change from it - but at least let it be an informed rage, not blind and led by internet hearsay.

(Skip until the next notice if you already know about the paid mods fiasco years back)

A little bit of backstory and context here - a few years back, Bethesda and Valve tried out paid mods. On the Skyrim Steam Workshop, modders who were checked out and given the green light by Bethesda could put up their mods (both new and pre-existing, taking them down from other free modding platforms if they wished), and put them on a new section of the workshop for sale. They could range anywhere from $0.99 (US) to $3.99, as I remember. A few I can recall were a fishing mod from Chesko, some weapon packs (pretty lame and comically overpriced), and I think Frostfall, a hardcore survival mod, and more. The modders would get paid (a rather paltry percentage) of every sale, and Bethesda and Valve would pocket the rest. Pushback against this was almost universal, though the reasons varied.

Some inherently disagreed with the concept of charging money for mods, as it goes against the spirit of modding (something I agree with, to a point), as well as taking down previously free mods from sites like the Nexus only to turn around and slap a price label on them. Then there were those who thought the mods were DRASTICALLY overpriced – to the point of being insulting (also me). Lastly, there were those who didn’t inherently push against the concept of paid mods, but disliked how little the mod authors were being paid for their work, with most of the profit going directly back to Bethesda and Valve (I’m all over the place, but I also saw the argument there, too). Within a couple of days of non-stop death threats and the most inflammatory response they could have imagined, Bethesda backed out and shut it down, apologizing and probably trying to push Fallout 4 out the door A.S.A.P. to help people forget about it. Valve, surprisingly, was adamant. They admitted it was a mistake, but doubled down that they’d like to try it again sometime. It was a mess all around. I think the pushback was good, and the genuine discussion (not the mindless and disgusting vitriol spewed, like death threats to Bethesda and Valve employees over a game) was good, and more or less needed to happen. But it’s looking like we’ll be having more of that discussion now and in the near future.

(If you skipped, read on from here)

Well, now Bethesda’s coming back with it. Kind of. It’s a very different situation, and one that I’m skeptical of, but at least seems much better than their first attempt at it.

At their press conference Sunday night, Bethesda revealed what they called “Creator’s Club”, a new program for their website/modding service Beth.net, for both Fallout 4 and Skyrim Special Edition. As you might know, mods are now available on both PS4 and Xbox One through Beth.net. The way they framed the program was confusing and left more questions than answers. They seriously shot themselves in the foot with a damn Gauss Rifle by not elaborating more on it. You have to go to their website and read their FAQ to get the details you want, and the internet’s already started the misinformation wagon. It’ll take a miracle for it not to be dead in the water by the time it comes out just due to sheer internet outrage culture.

Lemme go over a few points of the program and how it’s different than the paid mods fiasco. Or at least, what I’m getting from their FAQ. Do have a healthy level of skepticism, and be ready to call them out if they don’t hold up to their promises.

· The way it works, is you’ll be able to pull up the store front in game, and browse their selection of mods, and be able to purchase them with a digital currency known as “Credits” (I will ignore this name and continuously call them Bethesda Bucks). Packs of this currency can be bought through the Xbox Live Store, PSN, and Steam. Once you buy a “mod” (?), and activate it in-game, it will instantly be applied. No having to exit the game to apply it. Does this mean a large set of updates will be needed to keep the content available? Is it similar to on-disc DLC?

· They’re not taking in hundreds upon hundreds of amateur modders to reupload old content of theirs onto the program. This is much more like a job application. They specified they’re basically looking to make a smaller dev team, and want professional artists, programmers, designers, and more. They’ll also be looking for the best modders in the community with a history of quality mods to join the team, and you’ll have to send in a resume alongside previous work in a portfolio for them to judge.

· Currently existing mods on other sites such as the Nexus, Steam Workshop, and Beth.net itself will not be taken down or ported to CC. They’re looking to make entirely new exclusive content, and no pre-existing mods may be put into the program.

· There’s already “a number” of Bethesda employees and developers on the team to help create the content. While they will no doubt be there for supervising purposes, the FAQ also claims they’ll be working with the newly hired Creators to make new projects. They claim all content will be compatible with the base game and other mods, go through localization, and quality assurance (granted, Bethesda’s QA).

· This is less a point of explanation, but a question I feel needs posing, and its own point. Are these even mods? I mean, we did see a “pack” that added Dwarven Armor to Mudcrabs (ugh), but depending on what else is made, is it less modding, than it is DLC? Or “mini-DLC”? It is being curated by Bethesda’s devs, and these “modders” are less modders and more part-time to maybe even full time employees. If a quest mod for Skyrim is made, will it be checked and have consultation from the ES lore team? Will it have voice acting from Bethesda’s pool of voice actors? There’s way too many questions right now, and Bethesda needs to clarify if it’s coming out so soon.

That’s all that I could gather from their FAQ. Do keep an ear out for any changes, and hold Bethesda to their word. So, go forth with this info, and have this discussion – on paid mods, on what a mod is, or what DLC is, if this is against the spirit of modding, or not. It’s one we as an industry, and as a large collective community, need to have. Personally, I’m going to wait and see CC for myself, then make my judgement. I’m not inherently against the idea of a side development team continuously making content for Fallout 4 and Skyrim, provided it is good content, and is fairly priced. I just really, really hope the selection of content (dear god I’ve had to say content so much in this almost borderline essay) isn’t indicative of the quality and selection we’ll be getting when the program goes live. I really, really hope it isn’t, because there’s honest potential to this to get larger and better projects out the door with proper funding.

Thanks for sticking through this jumbled mess of writing, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

(If you’re a modder especially, thank you for your work and making these communities such fantastic places. Keep it up, and keep improving!)

#Bethesda #Creator's Club #Mods #Modding #Fallout #Skyrim #Rants

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inthefellclutch-blog · 8 years ago

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Resurrection Considered: The Second Fact

Image Credit: Bernard Gagnon [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This post continues the series that considers Habermas and Licona’s The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus. In the previous post I looked at the history of Jesus’s crucifixion, aiming to understand what we can know with any degree of certainty. We conceded their first fact (that Jesus died by crucifixion), but aimed to add some context to make sense of it a little more, and of the events that followed. The second fact that Habermas and Licona adduce is that “Jesus’s disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them”, and it is to this that we now turn.

Here is a point that is far more central to the faith than the crucifixion, and we will need to go into it in more detail. In its raw format, their “fact” is too broad and the various terms (”disciples”, “rose” and “appeared”) are not well enough defined. My contention will be that a handful of early Christians had visions, similar to Paul’s Damascus road experience. This was an experience that they believed was of a spiritual body, but is essentially no different from a vision or hallucination. There was no external referent associated with it, no empty tomb, and no resurrected physical body, which had most likely been left to rot. For these first Christians, Jesus was raised to heaven at his death, perhaps even deified at his death, and made a number of brief visits from heaven in the form of a vision (or something indistinguishable from a vision). These few early experiences evolved with time as the stories spread among the early Christians, until a more physical resurrection story was recorded in the Gospels.

If resurrection is central to Christianity, we need to be absolutely precise about what this means, to whom and when. It turns out that our currently accepted orthodoxy was not delivered in a monolithic structure in the Bible, and the Bible itself can be used to support this, if viewed honestly.

But first, I will briefly mention the evidence that Habermas and Licona present to support their fact. This will help us refine their fact so we know what we are arguing about. In other words, rather than using their fact directly, I will use their evidence and any facts that are supported by it.

Evidence for the second fact

The authors break their argument down into two main lines. Firstly that “they claimed it”, and secondly that “they believed it”.

The first of these is stated baldly: “Jesus’ disciples claimed he rose from the dead and appeared to them.” They support this with Paul’s testimony; the oral traditions of the church (which appear in various creeds in the Bible); and the written works of the early church.

The second line is tied to the willingness to suffer for their beliefs, which suggests that they really believed it to be true. They refer to Paul and Peter, who according to later tradition were martyred, as well as the general willingness to risk persecution shown by the early church.

Resurrection Experiences: Exaltation

It is important to distinguish between the visions of Jesus and the physical resurrection appearances. This distinction is often blurred, and indeed that is the case in Licona and Habermas’s book in general, and this fact in particular. If the stories can be seen as an evolution from one to the other, many mysteries in the Bible make far more sense, as we shall see. In the initial conception of Jesus’s resurrection, Jesus was exalted to heaven at his death. From here he came back to see some of his followers. Certainly nothing more than this is claimed in Paul’s Damascus road experience, for example.

A significant difference between these two conceptions relates to how quickly Jesus went to heaven after he died. In the first, vision-based conception, it is immediate, since Jesus appears from heaven; in the second, physical conception, it is after some period of time during which Jesus’s corpse lies in a tomb and is then reanimated. Is there evidence in the Bible that some of the earliest authors believed the former, and that this tradition held on even in stories written by authors who were in the second camp? Let me go through the relevant verses, which are easily understood in this way, and hard to understand if the orthodox view is imposed upon them.

Luke 23:43 has Jesus say to the penitent thief: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.” Mark and Matthew both have the thieves join in with the mocking of Jesus, so only Luke relates this story, but this verse is striking for implying that Jesus will go straight to heaven. The fact that the story has a fable-like quality to it, and almost certainly did not happen is not relevant. We are here looking for early Christian tales that tell us what they believed and this, read naturally, tells us that they believed Jesus would go straight to heaven upon his death.

Acts is written by the author of Luke, and relates a large number of sermons by Paul and Peter. The language quoted in these sermons is indistinguishable, which is odd since that Peter was an uneducated, Aramaic fisherman, and Paul a highly educated Jew. But actually it is widely acknowledged that the sermons are written by the author of Luke, as was common practice at the time. In any event, it is believed that some of the sermons that Luke relates include earlier creeds and traditions, with which Luke himself may not even agree.

Acts 2:14-42 relates a sermon by Peter. Peter refers to Psalm 16 where David says “you will not let your holy one see decay.” Peter notes that “David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day.” But he fails to score the obvious rhetorical point by mentioning Jesus’s tomb (we will return to this in a later chapter), and instead says (vv 31-33):

he [David] spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, ...

Note how this appears to identify God raising Jesus to life with exalting him to the right hand of God.

It goes on in verse 36: “God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” This is an extraordinary verse, since it states that God made Jesus into the Messiah at his crucifixion. Current orthodoxy is that Jesus is eternal, not created, and certainly not made into the Messiah at any point in the proceedings.

Acts 5:30-31: “The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead - whom you killed by hanging him on a cross. God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might bring Israel to repentance and forgive their sins.” Note again the now unorthodox hierarchy of God above Jesus. This was to be overturned only gradually over the course of the next 400 years. And note also that Jesus goes from death to exaltation at the right hand of God, with no intervening period on Earth.

Acts 7:33: “[God has done what he promised] by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: ‘You are my son; today I have become your father.’” The implication of the word “today” here is that Jesus became God’s son at his resurrection, rather like David became God’s son at his coronation (the original meaning of Psalm 2).

So far, we have only considered the writing of Luke, who clearly believed in a physical resurrection and believed that Jesus was God from the time of his birth, so it is remarkable that he preserves these traditions. This strongly attests that the early Christian views of Jesus’s resurrection were very different from what Christians now believe, but the criterion of embarrassment. We now look at the earliest Christian writing, which supports this view even more clearly since the authors held it.

Paul, writing in Ephesians 1:20: “[God] raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.” Again, nothing between death and heaven.

Paul and Timothy, writing in Philippians 2:8-9 (almost certainly quoting an earlier creed): “[Jesus] humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place”. Again, God is exalting him because of his death (note the word “therefore”). And again, there is no indication that there was a period of time between his death and his exaltation into heaven.

More early Christian writing is contained in Hebrews (the author is unknown). Consider Hebrews 10:12: “But when this priest [Jesus] had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God”. Again, there is no intervening period on earth: death to heaven.

Paul’s views on the resurrection body are also striking when seen in the light of modern orthodoxy, though they are perfectly aligned with the Damascus road experience. 1 Corinthians 15:50 states baldly “that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”. This is in the context of the resurrection body, and follows the list of witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus earlier in the chapter. Paul believes in a spiritual body as distinct from a physical one, and it is this that appears in the resurrection.

Paul, writing in Romans 1:4 states an early belief. The statement is remarkable: “[Jesus] through the Spirit of holiness was appointed the Son of God in power by his resurrection from the dead”. So Jesus became the Son of God at his resurrection? Again, not the orthodox view anymore.

So early beliefs expressed in the Bible are compatible with the view that Jesus was raised by God straight to heaven. In many cases this seems to imply that Jesus became divine at this moment. This is in accordance with the notion of martyrdom, which sees death as the defining moment. In some cases, these traditions are preserved by authors who do not hold to them, which is striking evidence that they were prevalent in the early church.

Resurrection Experiences: Visions of Paul

Paul is uniformly regarded as the best and earliest witness of the resurrection. There are a number of passages that are relevant. 1 Corinthians 15 is a list of appearances, widely believed to be part of an earlier creed that Paul has adapted. It is a simple statement that Christ “appeared” (ὤφθη (ōphthē) - we will have reason to come back to this Greek word soon) to a list of people. It starts with Cephas (understood to be Peter), then the twelve, then 500 brothers and sisters at the same time, then to James, then to all the apostles and finally to Paul. There are a number of features that need to be emphasized here.

Paul refers to the appearance to himself “as to one abnormally born”, but explains that this is because he persecuted the church. In other words, Paul sees his own experience as equivalent to the other witnesses. Paul sees himself as an apostle, apparently because he saw the risen Lord. 1 Corinthians 9:1 “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” To be blunt, the answer to the last question is no, at least by our current understanding of the resurrection. But Paul clearly believes the answer to be yes. The Damascus road experiences are described in Acts 9 and Acts 22. There are some discrepancies in the stories, but, whatever else we can say about them, these stories are not a witness of the reanimated body of Jesus of Nazareth.

Secondly, note that Paul refers to brothers and sisters, and says “last of all he appeared to me also”. The “last of all” suggests that he is trying to present an exhaustive list, but this list does not include Mary Magdalene, the first to see Jesus in two of the Gospel accounts. A common excuse is that Paul skips this because of sexism, but Paul refers to brothers and sisters in this passage. A more natural explanation is that the tradition of the tomb and the women had not yet arisen. We will come back to this when we discuss the tomb, but for now note that Paul does not refer to the tomb in any of his writings.

Thirdly, note that Jesus appears to “the twelve”, not “the eleven” of the Gospels. It beggars belief that a creedal statement would be careless with the number, so what can this be? Paul never mentions Judas in his writings. Paul also distinguishes between “the twelve” and “all the apostles”, which makes some sense since Paul counts himself among the apostles, but is in conflict with a common understanding of today. There are several other apostles mentioned in Acts, Romans and 1 Corinthians. The makes the passage somewhat unclear.

So the passage is a list, with no specific location or description, though it does use the word “appeared”, which is more naturally understood as a vision, or an appearance from heaven. And this kind of appearance is in line with the understanding of the resurrection of the earliest Christian writings. Paul himself is also somewhat prone to visions (see 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 and Galations 1:12).

Resurrection Experiences: Visions of Simon Peter (Cephas)

The two named characters in Paul’s creed (1 Corinthians 15) are Cephas (normally understood to be Peter) and James (there are three to choose from and it is not specified, but it is often taken to be James the brother of Jesus). What do we know of them? Peter wrote 1 Peter but does not describe the resurrection appearance there. 2 Peter is regarded as having been written by someone else, and in any event does not describe any such experience.

While he does not describe his experience in his letter, he does have a reference to Jesus’s resurrection as an analogue to baptism. 1 Peter 3:21-22: “It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand”. Again, this is most naturally understood in the context of Jesus’s resurrection taking him straight to heaven; he does not describe any interim phase down on earth.

Acts 10:9-23 describes a vision that happens to Peter. He hears a voice that comes from “the Lord” and sees unclean food descending from heaven. This event is obviously after the establishment of Christianity, but it is not described as in any way odd. It is simply taken at face value that Peter had another vision of the Lord.

Peter is also present at the transfiguration, related in Mark 9:2-13 and parallels in Matthew 17:1-13 and Luke 9:28-36. Here we are told that Peter, James and John see Elijah and Moses appearing and talking to Jesus. There are clouds and voices from heaven, and then suddenly Jesus is alone again. Peter is described as having a more active role during this experience. Taken together, these experiences may suggest a propensity for visions more than anything, but none of the authors question their ability to recognize ancient characters from the Bible or comment on this experience as out of the ordinary.

A final and perhaps the most interesting experience is related in Luke 24:34. Jesus has met up with Cleopas and another unnamed person on the road to Emmaus, but is unrecognized by them. Jesus has specifically not appeared to the women (Luke 24:24 “but they did not see Jesus” - this contradicts Matthew 28:9: “Suddenly Jesus met them”). The two from the road return to Jerusalem where they find the Eleven (not Paul’s Twelve), who are saying: “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon” (24:34; Simon is taken to mean Simon Peter or Cephas). This appearance is not described anywhere else, but it is intriguing, particularly for its use of the word “appeared” (ὤφθη (ōphthē)).

Even in English, the word appeared can have different meanings depending on the context, but the natural mental image in this verse is more of the Damascus road experience than it is a physical meeting. The Greek word “ὤφθη” occurs 18 times in the New Testament. In occurs in the transfiguration, when “there appeared before them Elijah and Moses” (Mark 9:4); there are no other occurrences in Matthew and Mark. It occurs twice in Luke, when an angel appears to Zechariah (Luke 1:11) and to Jesus (Luke 22:42). And, of course, Jesus “appeared to Simon” (Luke 24:34). There are no other uses in the Gospels, so in every case it refers to a vision.

All of the remaining cases in the rest of the New Testament are similarly visionary in nature. There is one exception in Acts 7:26, where Moses appeared to the two fighting Israelites, but all the other cases are angels or the God of glory or visions of people who are not there or other things of that nature.

So Peter has at least two visions, taken at face value by the early Christians. He is singled out by the author of Luke and by Paul for having had Jesus “appear” to him, where this word almost always means divine visitation. And he seems to hold to the view that Jesus was raised to heaven. Again, this is striking evidence of the early beliefs of the Christian church, specifically that Jesus appeared in something akin to a vision, and possibly this happened first of all to Peter.

Resurrection Experiences: Visions of James

We are not told much about James, and there are several of them which adds to the confusion. Paul says that Jesus “appeared” to James (1 Corinthians 15:7), but does not say which one.

There are three main Jameses, though others are mentioned in the Bible. Two disciples of Jesus are listed: James the Son of Zebedee and the brother of John is the main one, and is sometimes called James the greater. This is the James who is present at the transfiguration (Mark 5:37) and is probably the James killed by Herod in Acts 12:2 in around 44 CE (”James, the brother of John”). James the son of Alphaeus, features only four times in the New Testament, each time as a name in a list of disciples.

There is a James who is listed as a brother of Jesus in Mark 6:3. Separately, there is a skeptical brother of Jesus (John 7:5). Catholics, who have a theological reason to believe that Mary remained a virgin (despite Matthew 1:25 gainsaying that view), reject the idea that Jesus had actual brothers and suggest that it is a cousin. Most evangelicals have latched onto the idea that James was a skeptical brother who became a firm supporter because of the appearance listed by Paul. This appearance would then not be mentioned in the Gospel accounts. The Gospels do not single out an appearance to any particular James, as he only appears in a group.

In any event, there is a James who leads the church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13), who is traditionally called the brother of Jesus. We will return to this, but clearly there is a great deal of speculation and uncertainty around this key piece of evidence. There is also the book of James, but the author of this is simply unknown. The book of James mentions neither the death nor the resurrection of Jesus.

Resurrection Experiences: Physical

It is clear from the above that none of the evidence from the early church writing requires anything more than a vision of the resurrected Christ. Paul never claims anything more than this, though he clearly sees his claims as equivalent to the other early church witnesses (1 Corinthians 9:1, 15:7). If this remained the basis of Christianity, it is perhaps doubtful that it would have grown as much as it has. Although Mormonism, Islam and Scientology are based on similar visions, so perhaps I am expecting too much rationality from early followers who were clearly accepting of the visions of their leaders. And similar trust is placed in leaders of the church to this day: just watch a televangelist fleecing his flock and marvel that they have become millionaires based on what they can supposedly see.

In any event, Christianity shifted from a belief that Jesus was exalted to heaven by God and appeared from there to several followers, to a belief that his resurrection was physical. The early Christians were Jewish, while the Gospels were written in a Greco-Roman culture, and perhaps this explains it. Or perhaps the evolution resulted from an ostentatious fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy (which was often not prophetic writing at all). This would not have to be fraud: a sincere believer would naturally assume that if the Old Testament said it would happen, then it must have happened.

Examples of such ostentatious fulfilment include Isaiah 53:9 (“He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death”) which led to the story that Jesus was laid in a rich man’s tomb. Or Psalm 16:10 (“You will not let your holy one see decay”) which came to mean not just that Jesus was resurrected, but that his physical body was resurrected. We know that these stories are explicitly fulfilled in the corresponding New Testament stories because the writers tell us so.

So let us look at the physical resurrection accounts related in the Bible in more detail. Mark, the first Gospel to be written, does not include such an account. Mark 16:9-20 is not in the earliest manuscripts and is not believed to be written by Mark for textual reasons too. John 21 is also widely considered to have been a later addition. Note how final John 20:30-31 is ( “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”) John 21 appears to have been added to patch the discrepancy between Matthew’s appearances in Galilee and Luke’s appearances in Jerusalem. We will not consider these two passages here.

A point made by Bart Ehrman in How Jesus Became God is the ubiquitous theme of doubt in these stories. Every single resurrection appearance is surrounded by doubt. Almost as if someone were trying to convince themselves of its veracity. In some cases, Jesus goes unrecognized. Another point is how widely discrepant the stories are. A third is how the stories appear to be evolving more and more physicality: this does not happen in a completely linear fashion, since the Gospels were simply recording traditions that existed at the time (they were not eye-witness accounts). I will point these out as we go through the relevant verses.

We will return to the details of the tomb in a later chapter, so here we will start with the appearances or lack thereof to the women who visit the tomb. There is no agreement on which women go to visit: Mark 16:1 has three women; Matthew 28:1 has two; Luke 24:10 has at least five; John 20:1 has only one.

Anyway, Matthew 28:1 has Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary” go to look at the tomb. They only intend to look at it, because Matthew, alone of the Gospels, has introduced the improbable story of the guards which means they cannot be intending to anoint the body as in the other three Gospels. An angel rolls back the stone and sits on it, but this is only to verify that Jesus is not there. The other Gospels have the stone already rolled away, and the implication is that this was necessary to allow Jesus out. So in Matthew, Jesus could escape the tomb without opening it.

Suddenly Jesus meets them and they clasp his feet (Matthew 24:9). This conflicts with Mark (where they leave the tomb without seeing anyone), Luke 24:24 where we are explicitly told that they did not see Jesus at the tomb, and Paul (1 Corinthians 15) where his use of the words “last of all” suggest he is giving an exhaustive list. The clasping of Jesus’s feet also clashes with John 20:17, where Mary is told by Jesus: “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” How she is meant to hold on to Jesus after he has ascended is not made clear.

Matthew 28:16-17 says: “Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. Whey they saw him, they worshipped him; but some doubted.” They doubted? This does not make for a very convincing witness.

Luke does not have Jesus appearing to the women, but they report the empty tomb to the apostles (Luke 24:10). This conflicts with Mark 16:8, where they “said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.” Wells (Cutting Jesus Down to Size) believes that this is because Mark is introducing the story of the women and the tomb for the first time, and needs to explain why it was not more widely known. Later Gospels “correct” this because of course the story is well known by then. And how do the apostles respond? Luke 24:11: “But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.” Again the theme of doubt.

Luke goes on with the story of the two men walking to Emmaus. Luke 24:15-16: “Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.” This sets up a fable-like narrative where they explain to Jesus about Jesus, who then explains it back to them. They invite him home and Jesus breaks the bread. “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight” (Luke 24:31). This lack of recognition and ability to disappear are also not very persuasive.

The two rush back to Jerusalem to tell the disciples, who are already saying that he “appeared to Simon” as discussed above. While they are talking “Jesus himself stood among them” (Luke 24:36). “They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost” (Luke 24:27). He invites them to touch him and confirm that he has “flesh and bones”. Contrast this with Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15:50: “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God”. Incredibly, the disciples “still did not believe it” (Luke 24:41). The doubt and the evolution of belief are both clear.

Luke has them walk down to Bethany and Jesus ascends to heaven. The ascension is a little odd. Would Jesus really go to all that effort to play into the superstitious beliefs of his followers that heaven was up in the clouds? It seems a little unkind. A more likely explanation is that his followers believed that heaven was in the clouds and so related stories based on this belief. There is no indication of time passing, so apparently, this all happens on the day of the resurrection.

However, Luke gainsays this in Acts. Presumably he heard a different tradition which he preferred. However, Acts does not particularly help the cause, if it is evidence you are seeking. Acts 1:4 tells us that Jesus commanded his disciples not to leave Jerusalem. This seems to give no wiggle room for reconciliation with Matthew. Matthew’s appearance to the disciples is in Galilee; Luke’s is in Jerusalem with a command not to leave Jerusalem and no indication that Jesus was disobeyed.

Acts 1:3 is called “one of the most puzzling verses in all of the New Testament” by Ehrman. It states “After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days”. The proof is specifically to show that he was alive. One wonders how much effort that would take. In the normal course of events not much. But the stories that evolved and were related in the Bible seem to be encased in these extraordinary levels of doubt.

Lastly, we look at John. John relates Jesus’s appearance to Mary, where he refuses to be touched. She also confuses him for the gardener (John 20:14-15). Jesus also appears in a locked room (John 20:19) and shows them his hands and side. The wound in Jesus’s side is only related in John (19:34), and is introduced explicitly to fulfil Zechariah 12:10 (see John 19:37).

However, Thomas famously doubts. He who knows the disciples best tells us that he will not believe them unless he sees it for himself. Our position is not better than Thomas’s. However, Jesus once again appears despite the locked doors and invites Thomas to touch him. Thomas believes, and Jesus says (John 20:29): “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Once again, the themes of the shift from non-physical to physical and of doubt shine through. But here John turns the doubt around, exhorting all later followers that they should try to believe despite a lack of evidence; despite a lack of tangible experience. Paul tells us something similar when he tells us that “the message of the cross is foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:18), which implies that it is not supported by the evidence. This is a significant issue, since modern Christian apologists desperately want evidence. But that kind of healthy skepticism only became important after the scientific revolution five hundred years ago. The Biblical view opposes this directly.

None of this can be taken seriously as evidence for the resurrection. It is plausible that the early disciples believed there was a resurrection, and most likely this was based on some kind of a vision from a small number of people. Perhaps Peter, one of the Jameses and Paul? Maybe Mary Magdalene had one later? But gradually people persuaded themselves that this happened to them. Paul’s conversion happens shortly after he witnesses Stephen having some kind of vision (Acts 7:55-56).

So Habermas and Licona wish us to accept their second fact: “Jesus’s disciples believed that he rose and appeared to them.” This is probably true for some subset of the disciples and for a definition of “rose” that includes exaltation from death to heaven, and a definition of “appeared” that includes a Damascus road type of experience: a vision or an hallucination or something like that. We can therefore accept a very watered-down version of their “fact”. But if we are to take this to be support for the modern idea of Jesus’s physical resurrection then we must reject it, since the original understanding of “rose and appeared” has changed over time so as to be unrecognizable now.

#christianity #atheism #casefortheresurrection #resurrectionconsidered

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