Steven Carr's First Response to John Twisleton

It seems that the evidence of pious Jews changing their holy day amounts to one mostly Gentile church deciding to collect money for charity on Sunday, and some other references , none of which are connected to a resurrection even in the Bible. John cites Revelation 1:10 for example - ' I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice....'


The loud voice belonged to Jesus. Revelation emphasises that Christians would see Jesus after the alleged resurrection 'in the spirit', and have visions of Jesus, with no reference to seeing a physical body.

Paul himself declares that he had a 'revelation' (the exact same word as in the Book of Revelation).

John does not even attempt to show why the witnesses at Jesus trial were discredited by their testimony not agreeing, while a Lord Chief Justice does not bat an eyelid at Matthew having the disciples go to Galilee, while the anomyous author of Luke has his Jesus give strict instructions that they are never to leave Jerusalem.

Rather than make a fallacious appeal to the authority of a Lord Chief Justice, I think John should ask himself why historians simply dismiss anonymous claims as not evidence, and why no Lord Chief Justice has ever allowed a supernatural claim to be given in evidence in his court. As soon as a Lord Chief Justice talks about his own area of knowledge, he knows better than to admit the possibility of the supernatural.

Perhaps Lord Chief Justices should stick to law, rather than make claims about history that they cannot produce evidence for.

John claims the gospels were handing on eye-witness testimony. He ought to produce evidence for such claims. The Gospels are anonymous works, which never mention any sources, nor give any indication that the authors had sifted out true stories from false.

The Gospel of Mark, for example, has no attempt at chronology, no indication of who the author was, no indication of when he was writing, and no indication of any sources.

It has none of the markers that ancient historians used to indicate to their readers that they were attempting to write history.

Luke and Matthew both used Mark as a source. They never indicate this and they simply changed whatever they wished in Mark to suit their own private theological agendas.

This is all well-known and elementary knowledge about the Bible, and means that the Gospels simply cannot be read as history. It cannot even be shown that the earliest Gospel was ever meant to be taken as history. They are theological tracts.

Luke is the only person who even attempts to claim he writes history, and much of what he writes comes from Greek literature (such as Homer and Euripides). Or he copies from the Greek translation of the Old Testament. Or he copies from the Gospel of Mark.

Luke probably even used Josephus as a source. The one thing we can be sure of is that, unlike every other serious ancient historian, he hid behind a mask of anonymity and never made any attempt to name sources or indicate how he came to know what he claims is fact.

And these 'facts' include such absurdities as the foetus John the Baptist leaping for joy in the womb when the pregnant Mary entered the room, and a claim that a real man from Macedonia appeared to Paul in a trance, and that a real angel appeared to Joseph in a dream.

The reality is that trances are just trances, and people do not teleport across countries to appear in trances. Dreams are just dreams , and angels do not convey real messages from any alleged god in a dream.

I'm sure that if there were a god who wanted to impart information of vital importance to mankind, he would choose better methods than having anonymous authors plagiarise each others work. Perhaps though, God couldn't afford a real historian, like Josephus.

John asks how Jesus could appear to 500 people without it being a physical event?

I can find people who claim that the Virgin Mary appeared to literally millions of people on the side of an office building in Pensacola, Florida. Or that the Prophet Muhammad , or a verse from the Koran, appeared in the seeds of a tomato.

There is nothing to distinguish Paul's claim of Jesus appearing to 500 brethren to recent widespread claims of Jesus appearing on a slice of toast.

The word for 'appeared' in 1 Corinthians 15 is 'ophthe'. Throughout the New Testament this can be, and usually is, used to indicate non-physical appearance.

For example, in Acts 2 ,3, tongues of fire 'ophthe' (appeared) on the disciples heads. I guess their heads must have been physically on fire.

John also makes excuses why Paul never mentions the gospel stories to the Christian converts who scoffed at the idea of a corpse rising.

The obvious reason is that no such stories existed. Paul tells the Corinthians that God will destroy both stomach and food. How could he say that when his heart was allegedly bursting with the news of his Lord and Saviour eating fish?

This is why Paul never mentions any empty tomb. John claims Paul 'implies' an empty tomb.He does not, no more than the claim of the Witch of Endor in 1 Samuel 28:13 that 'I see a divine being coming out of the ground' implies that the body of Samuel had left the tomb. John must produce evidence that Paul believed in an empty tomb, and not simply beg the question. Paul says Jesus became 'a life-giving spirit'.

He never tries to persuade the Jesus-worshippers that a corpse left the ground. His whole approach is to show that their model of a resurrection is mistaken and foolish.