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They also agree that what he wrote, as a creed, goes back almost to the cross itself. So what difference does it make if it's in Mark or not?

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Plus, there is still some debate about whether Mark is actually the earliest Gospel.

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Paul's testimony about the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15 was written before Mark, as even atheist scholars agree.

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Also, you seem to be asserting that a partial report is a false report, in regards to the differing resurrection accounts. That's simply not necessarily true.

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Originally Posted by harvey1


That's not true. Tatian wrote a harmony of the Gospels around the 150's. Probably within a few decades of when the latter NT documents were written.

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Peace is the opposite of fear.

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Hey, Paul, according to the NT, told the Pharisees to go ask the 500 what they saw.

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Originally Posted by general_knox


I sense a lot of fear in you...!

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Originally Posted by skunker


I'm no expert, but I believe Paul tells the Pharisees to go ask the 500 people what they saw. He basically said, if you don't believe me, go ask them! Why would he say that if it wasn't true?

^d Gk fallen asleep

I note several things:

1. Paul has the story about the resurrection by hearsay only.
   
2. He refers a lot to prophetic scripture that was fulfilled in Jesus. I have seen Jewish writings that refute any such prophecies for the Messiah.
   
3. He uses the word "appeared" for every single situation. This seems more like a phantom than the later accounts in the gospels.
   

Several years ago I did some research and I found the story about the Passing of Peregrinus, written ca 165-180 AD by Lucian of Samosata. This story tells about a Cynic philosopher Peregrinus Proteus who proved his faith in much the same way that the Muslim suicide bombers do today. He cremated himself on a funeral pyre. Lucian thinks he did it for glory and mocks him. Lucian also mocks his followers who piously proclaim to have seen supernatural events following Proteus's death. One such event was the man's resurrection.

A "gray-haired man" whose "face inspired confidence" told him that he had seen the dead man cheerfully walking in the Portico of Seven Voices (temple of some sort, I guess), dressed in "white raiment," and "wearing a garland of wild olive" (Verse 40). Garlands of wild olive were the symbol of ultimate victory in ancient Greece.

Peregrinus Proteus is believed to have been a historical person. See wikipedia article. Lucian got the resurrection account from a reputable source (gray hair=respectable age or wisdom as opposed to "folly of youth" or "impressionable youth," "face inspired confidence"). Yet Lucian himself had just returned from the funeral pyre.

He had secretly released a vulture while there. (It seems the vulture was sacred for the Greeks in the way that the dove was sacred for the early Christians, i.e. dove settles on Jesus' head after baptism.) Not only did the elderly man testify that he had seen the resurrected Proteus; he swore that he had also seen his soul ascend to heaven out of the funeral pyre in the form of a vulture. In other words, he was there and he had seen it--all of it--and he was willing to swear on it. Here is the quote:



So much for the veracity of testimonies of people who wanted to believe in the resurrections of their favourite sage, prophet, or philosopher. It was the thing to do. Likewise, if you were a such a leader, it was the thing to do to get yourself killed by foul means or fair. Proteus failed to get himself killed other than by his own hand. Jesus managed to get himself executed as a criminal. Christian theology claims that Jesus chose this route, that he was ordained since before the foundation of the earth (note the implication of a flat earth), that he offered himself, i.e. behold, here is my body.

Can we trust the accounts of those scattered five hundred willing Christians, some of whom were already dead at the time of Paul's writing?

It has been argued that martyrdom was the easy--and only--way out from under Roman rule.

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Originally Posted by rsmartin
How does this fit together? You say Tatian was writing a around 150, "probably a few decades after the latter [last?] NT documents were written." But are we not told the NT was written in the first century AD? 150 is more than "a few decades" later. Fifty years is best part of the human life span, esp. for that time period. Maybe I forgot some dates from my NT course. That's a distinct posibility....