Why favor natural explanations over supernatural ones for the resurrection?

[AgnosticBoy]

I often hear skeptics of the resurrection assert that any natural explanation is more probable than a supernatural explanation. Some even go as far as coming up with theories or details that are not even mentioned in the story, like Jesus's body being stolen or that Jesus had a look alike. Perhaps the disciples also assisted in stealing the body. I question this standard or assertion.

What is the justification for favoring the natural explanations? Is it simply that scientists have only accounted for natural or physical phenomenon? In my view, evidence is evidence. If evidence points to a supernatural explanation, one that simply posits a violation of the laws of nature, then that should be the more probable explanation. It doesn't matter if that evidence goes against pre-existing knowledge.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 13:

...
For instance, the documented case of a 66 year old man who was pronounced dead by medical professionals and then spontaneously became alive again ten minutes later.

That case, at least by definition, falsifies your second statement. You can of course shift the goal posts by fudging the definition of death. You can argue in a circle that he must not have been dead or the physicians must have made a mistake because dead people always stay dead. Whatever you may counter argue the fact remains your statement, as it stands, is false. Since the statement is false, it need not be explained.

I gotta say, this whole 'Lazarus Syndrome' seems to support resurrection, however...
I reject any notion that arguing here is "shifting the goalposts".
Dead is, by definition, dead. It is independent of a doctor's declarations, cept maybe in the courts.
That ain't shifting the goalposts, that's stating the definition. What we have in the aforementioned medical case is doctors declaring something that doesn't comport to the definition. That's as factual a statement right there as we're apt to find.

Were there any measurements made of gases and processes found to accompany death? If so, we seek those measurements and such for analysis here.

Death is not dependent on the declarations of humans or machines. It is the final act, before decomposition, that any living entity will undergo.

As for the first explanation, it doesn’t explain:

1. The followers of Jesus sincere belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. So sincere that they were willing to preach the resurrection in the face of persecution.

There's also folks who hold the sincere believe the 2020 US election was 'stolen', up to the point they engaged, openly and for all to see, in seditious acts trying to prevent the government from doing it's duty regarding counting electors, and all such as that.


Oh, and that whole flying airplanes into buildings full of innocent people.

2. The conversion of Paul who sincerely believed he encountered the risen Christ.

I suffer from auditory hallucinations if I don't take my meds every day. Data indicates that in folks like myself, these sounds are being produced inside the brain, such that they are indistinguishable from those produced by an external stimulus. source

Schizophrenia is such a cruel hoax on the mind.

3. James, the brother of Jesus, change from sceptic prior to the resurrection to a leader in the church after the resurrection.

It's not so unusual for kinfolks to pick up the torch.

I'm reminded of Eric Hovind

4. The evidence itself which implies it was not made up.

Lacking details, I really can't comment too much here, cept to note that fancy tales and fables are known things.

...
2. The evidence from the early church fathers who understood the story as history.

If I understood the Easter Bunny to be history, how come we gotta color all them eggs?

Belief is not fact.

...
Okay, let’s start with the premise God exists.
...

If we're gonna do that, we might as well start with the premise so does the Easter Bunny.

My understanding is that C&A does not accept this premise, but I'm no mod.
See, this is what happens when we try to play along with so many bibler's 'apologetics'.
We play along to where facts and logic have become so buried, not even God himself can raise em up from their ignominious death.

[Goose]

Unfortunately for Christian apologists, the only evidence we have in favor of a supernatural resurrection is a story about a supernatural resurrection.

Given the premise the supernatural exists, I don’t see why that puts Christians in an unfortunate position when we consider that evidence you mention stacks up fairly well when compared to the evidence for other events from ancient history.

Actually, it doesn't. The mentioned evidence, much of which is contradictory (principally four different versions),

comes from a single source which wasn't penned by anyone contemporary with the event. Whereas evidence for other events in ancient history typically have multiple contemporary sources, which generally do support one another.


.

You mean like the evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar?

	Nicolaus of Damascus	Plutarch	Suetonius
1. Which senators were the attackers?	Tullius Cimber, Servilius Casca, Cassius Longinus, Decimus Brutus, Marcus Brutus, Minucius, and Rubrius	Only Tullius, a Casca (which one?), a Brutus (which one?)	Only Tillius Cimber, a Casca (which one?), Marcus Brutus
2. How many senators were involved in the conspiracy?	more than 80	no mention	more than 60
3. What did Caesar say when a Casca grabbed his toga?	Caesar didn’t say anything	"Accursed Casca, what does thou?"	"Why, this is violence!"
4. Where on Caesar’s body did the first blow land?	the left shoulder	the neck	below the throat
5. Did Caesar speak at the first blow or not?	No	Yes. "Accursed Casca, what does thou?"	No. “he uttered not a word”
6. Which Casca struck the first blow?	Servilius Casca	unknown Casca	unknown Casca
7. What did Casca say to his brother?	we aren’t told	"Brother, help!"	Casca doesn’t say anything to his brother
8. Was Caesar able to stand to defend himself?	yes	yes	no
9. How many times was Caesar stabbed?	35	23	23
10. Which was the fatal blow?	no mention	no mention	the 2nd in the breast
11. What did Ceasar say to Brutus?	nothing	nothing	"You too, my child?"
12. Where did Caesar finally die?	before a statue of Pompey	at the pedestal of Pompey	in his chair
13. Where was Brutus stabbed?	the hand	no mention	no mention
14. Where was Ceasar’s body taken?	through the forum	no mention	straight home

Nicolaus of Damascus, Life of August
https://www.csun.edu/~hcfll004/nicolaus.html

Plutarch, Life of Caesar
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... esar*.html

Suetonius, Life of Caesar
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... lius*.html

All one need do is open each narrative in one’s browser and read them side by side so to speak. There are numerous contradictions between the accounts. The above is my short list.

I will further add:

1. Not one of these three authors was a witnesses to the assassination of Caesar.

2. All three of these authors write their respective accounts decades after (Plutarch and Suetonius write over a century later).

3. All three biographies are, strictly speaking, just as anonymous as the Gospels are claimed to be in that they do not internally claim authorship.

4. Plutarch and Suetonius agree against Nicolaus on a number of very specific details (e.g. number of stab wounds). This implies they are working from the same source material (or using one another) and therefore cannot be said to be literally independent.

So it would seem the narrative evidence for the resurrection, at least compared to the noteworthy assassination of Julius Caesar, stacks up pretty well in as much as it doesn’t seem to be worse. I will leave it to you to prove your assertion,

“Whereas evidence for other events in ancient history typically have multiple contemporary sources, which generally do support one another.”

Good luck with that.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 22:

You mean like the evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar?
[presents data regarding Caesar's death]

"Ya dont believe my feller woked him up from the dead, dadgummit, but here these folks disagree on how is it, Caesar done died".

Why cant so many Christians just fess up and admit that resurrection claims are a whole order of different from claims of how is it, somebody died?

We're just not being told so much how to act and think because ol Caesar there, he died him however it is he died.

But that Christian bunch there, we're told we gotta believe this, or behave that, or else we're us off to the fiery furnaces of Hell.

As relates to the OP, it's my contention that regardless of differing accounts regarding Caesar's death, that tells us a slim litlle bit on how a dead man can just hop him right on back up and head him on into town.

This is, I contend, nothing moren bait and switch 'apologetics', where it conflates disgreements regarding one man's death, with the outrageous, sense assaulting claims of a dead man getting him all zombified and taking his dead self a stroll.

[Difflugia]

You mean like the evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar?

Just so we're clear, the evidence you're describing is of the specific details about the assassination, not whether it happened at all. While these are the earliest extant, detailed descriptions of the event itself, there are more and earlier sources that reference the assassination as a matter of fact. Most notably, Cicero was not only alive at the time of the assassination, but we have a number of letters and orations from both before and after Caesar's death, including a letter written in April of AD 44 to Cicero's friend Atticus a month or so after the murder occurred that mentions it.

So it would seem the narrative evidence for the resurrection, at least compared to the noteworthy assassination of Julius Caesar, stacks up pretty well in as much as it doesn’t seem to be worse.

It's worth contrasting here the opinions of historians about the resurrection against opinions about the crucifixion based on similar narrative evidence. It would seem that the threshold for believability is much lower for evidence of a mundane event than for a supernatural one. If you can find another supernatural event which historians accept as historical despite a similar level of evidence for the resurrection, that would offer much more for your argument.

[Ionian_Tradition]

You're correct, of course, that the preponderance of empirical data we have available suggests that dead human beings will almost certainly remain dead. However, we should be clear that this preponderance of data is not, in itself, sufficient grounds for dismissing the resurrection of Jesus (specifically) out of hand.

No? What about other claims, like that two-thirds of all cars are made by leprechauns. We have lots of evidence to the contrary, but is it reasonable to dismiss that claim out of hand?

If it happened to be the case that a sizable majority of human beings living today (many of whom seem to be, in all other respects, reasonably sober/rational individuals) honestly believed that two-thirds of all cars were manufactured by leprechauns, then I believe it would be prudent, at the very least, to refrain from dismissing the belief out of hand without first considering what evidence there might be in support of such an extraordinary claim. This would be doubly so if, in addition to the majority living today, a sizeable portion of (now deceased) human beings held to this same extraordinary claim throughout a significant portion of recorded history.

Nor does such evidence, necessarily, vitiate the historical evidence that we do have which supports the claim that Jesus rose from the dead.

So far, the only evidence I know of is a story that he did. Is there more than that?

The improbable conversions of both enemies and skeptics of Jesus within a 5 year period of his execution would be one piece of evidence. The disciples willfully choosing to imperil themselves (at the hands of both the Romans and Jewish authorities) by continuing to evangelize in the very same city/region Jesus was put to death for purported crimes of blasphemy and sedition (within weeks of his crucifixion) is another. One noteworthy piece of evidence lies in the fact that an early oral tradition of the resurrection account can be dated back to within 5-10 years after Jesus' death, which lends support to the notion that early accounts of the resurrection were most likely not the product of legendary or mythological development. Finally, as a piece of indirect evidence, we might consider the truly astounding fact that the mighty Roman Empire, which executed Jesus (an itinerate Jewish prophet from a cultural backwater called Galilee) in the manner of a common slave, and which went on to raise the Jewish Holy City to the ground in the revolt of 70AD, would (in the span of a few hundred years) come to venerate this same Jewish prophet as a God...and not only this, but would begin casting down millennia worth of pagan religious tradition in reverence to this obscure Jewish man once tried and slain as an enemy of the State.

Now I'm sure apologists would have more to say on this point, and could likely provide greater evidence than the sample I've provided here. Be that as it may, I feel it is worth addressing your criticism of so called "stories" as a viable piece of evidence. While hard empirical evidence may be your personal preference, it would be an error to assume that written and verbal attestation is not an admissible piece of evidence in support of a given claim (particularly those of the historical variety). On the contrary, many accepted historical claims rest solely upon the evidential support provided by written/verbal testimony (e.g. The existence of the hanging gardens of Babylon, the contents and infrastructure of the Library of Alexandria circa the third century BC, the fact that Hannibal used African War Elephants to cross the Alps, etc). Granted, attestation is not always the most powerful form of evidence, and there are times when empirical evidence is to be preferred. Never the less, we are not within our rational rights to dismiss it outright or to ignore the pivotal role testimonial evidence plays in the reconstruction of historical events.

After all, the resurrection of Jesus is, essentially, a claim to the miraculous and therefore we might expect, by definition, that the probability of such a thing occurring is exceedingly low and lacking strong empirical support. If empirical evidence supporting bodily resurrection were, in fact, abundant (as you seem to suggest it ought to be), then the claim Jesus rose from the dead would ultimately cease to be what it is, a claim to the miraculous.

Sure, but a lack of evidence is a lack of evidence. We wouldn't expect much evidence for invisible horses that don't eat or make noise and avoid people, but that's not itself a reason to believe in them.

It is by no means clear that we completely lack evidence for the resurrection. Aside from the testimony of literal millions claiming to have personally encountered the risen Jesus, the apologetic literature is replete with claims of evidence and argument in favor of the resurrection. As near as I can tell, you've not dealt with these apart from noting that bodily resurrection is not a common occurrence.

In truth, the evidence you've appealed to regarding the observed behavior of human corpses is only a problem for the resurrection claim if we assume a priori (and without logical merit) that miraculous events simply never occur.

No. The lack of logical merit lies in claiming that because anything's possible, a specific story that is implausible for a number of independent reasons is nevertheless true, despite (or, indeed, because of) the lack of evidence.

There is no absence of logical merit in stating what is objectively true, viz. bodily resurrection is not, a priori, impossible. As for the evidence supporting such a claim, I have provided some, no doubt Christian apologist who specialize in this particular topic could provide more if you're inclined to explore the literature. Given the gravity of the particular claim in question, as well as the truly astounding measure of anecdotal testimony (both past and present) regarding its veracity, I would humbly suggest that it is at least worth looking into with objectivity and a prudent measure of open-mindedness.

For most contemporary apologists, the resurrection accounts are not treated as a set of scientific propositions regarding a commonly observed regularity in nature for which we have copious amounts of empirical evidence. Instead, apologists will approach the resurrection accounts (as extraordinary as they are) in an abductive fashion by treating the resurrection as an explanatory hypothesis which, if successful, provides the best explanation for a set of generally attested historical facts surrounding the early development of 1st century Christianity.

If it did so, that might be something and I'd be interested in seeing your list of "generally attested historical facts," but so far, we just have the story. I'm pretty sure that the "best explanation" for a story about a dead guy coming back to life isn't an actual dead guy coming back to life.

In fact, the Gospel authors likely encountered a number of better answers and retconned the Gospels to make sure they told the right story. That's why we recognize things like Matthew's addition of the guards ("the disciples stole the body" is infinitely more likely than "a dead guy came back to life") and John's spear in Jesus' side ("he wasn't quite dead" is infinitely more likely than "a dead guy came back to life") as polemics against plot holes already apparent in the first century.

For the list of generally attested historical facts, Dr. Gary Habermas provides a list of 6 in his work on the subject which is worth consideration.

As for the core resurrection narrative being retconned over time, this is improbable given that 1 Corinthians 15 provides us with a complete resurrection account which predates the first written gospel (Mark) by roughly 10-15 years. The scholarly consensus, as I understand it, is that an oral tradition regarding the bodily resurrection of Jesus was in circulation within just a few years of his execution.

[Goose]

Given the premise the supernatural exists, I don’t see why that puts Christians in an unfortunate position when we consider that evidence you mention stacks up fairly well when compared to the evidence for other events from ancient history.

Whether that's true or not, I don't know of any "evidence for other events from ancient history" that would trump modern scientific data.

40Ar/39Ar Dating into the Historical Realm: Calibration Against Pliny the Younger

What scientific data do you have against the supernatural claim God raised Jesus from the dead?

This is just the beginning of a grand slippery slope from "let's give historical documents the benefit of the doubt" to "there is a god that brings people back to life."

I guess it’s a good thing I’m not making that argument then.

There's lots of evidence against resurrections (either natural or supernatural), like the overwhelming evidence that dead people stay dead.

This is confused. Either that or you are trying to knock down a strawman. That dead people tend to stay dead is evidence against a natural resurrection. It’s not evidence against a supernatural resurrection. Or more specifically against the claim that: God raised Jesus from the dead.

Whether we posit that resurrections are natural or supernatural, none have been witnessed, despite tens of millions of opportunities to do so.

You’re Begging the Question here. And your counter here is irrelevant to my point.

That's neither confused nor addressing a straw man.

What’s confused is attempting to use the laws of nature (dead people tend to stay dead) as evidence against the supernatural claim God raised Jesus from the dead. In doing so you fallaciously assume the supernatural is subject to the laws of natural when by definition the supernatural operates outside the laws of nature. You can tell me over and over how many millions and billions of people have died and stayed dead but it wouldn’t matter one iota to the claim God raised Jesus from the dead. Now if the claim were that Jesus rose from the dead naturally then appealing to the laws of nature would have merit and be evidence against that claim. But that’s not the claim. Which is why I accused you of attempting to set ablaze a big fat strawman by citing the laws of nature as evidence against the natural and supernatural. I don’t know how much simpler I can make than that.

You, on the other hand, are attempting to lay the groundwork for the special pleading that acts of gods defy statistical analysis.

Not that they defy statistical analysis but that they defy the natural. If you think the premise that God raised Jesus from the dead is a case of a Special Pleading fallacy it makes me think you don’t know what a Special Pleading fallacy is.

Since the overall explanation must be consistent with as much of the evidence as possible, we have to find one that explains both "existence of a story about a resurrection" and "no dead person has ever been verified to become alive again."

As for your second statement here it presupposes Jesus was not verified to be alive by those who knew him.

If they did, then they neglected to publish it in a peer-reviewed journal.

I’m just spit balling here but, perhaps that’s because peer-reviewed journals did not exist at the time?

If you're just correcting my grammar, I suppose it would be more correct to say we have no verified verifications. That takes care of your speculative verifications.

I’m not merely correcting your grammar. I’m pointing out a presupposition you hold. Your response seems to be to shift the goal posts to a standard that cannot be met even in principle and further allows you an escape by a kind of infinite regress of demands for verification – we have no verification of the verified verifications...

In any case, the statement that "no dead person has ever been verified to become alive again" isn’t particularly difficult to falsify since you’ve made a universal statement. Thus I need only a single counter example even though there are several.

For instance, the documented case of a 66 year old man who was pronounced dead by medical professionals and then spontaneously became alive again ten minutes later.

That case, at least by definition, falsifies your second statement. You can of course shift the goal posts by fudging the definition of death. You can argue in a circle that he must not have been dead or the physicians must have made a mistake because dead people always stay dead. Whatever you may counter argue the fact remains your statement, as it stands, is false. Since the statement is false, it need not be explained.

Word games? Color me surprised. Considering that you're using what most people would consider an incorrect declaration of death and subsequent revival to mean a literal death and resurrection ("by definition," you said), I don't think I'm the one fudging definitions or moving goalposts.

You’re assuming most people would think that. And it’s irrelevant that you might think it was an incorrect declaration of death. Or are you a qualified medical professional? Were you present? In the narrative of events the medical journal explicitly says the man was pronounced dead at 0617.

”Because of the patient’s complete lack of response and the apparent deterioration by end-tidal CO2, the attending surgeon and anesthesiologist mutually agreed to discontinue the resuscitation. The patient was pronounced dead at 0617.

With cessation of the resuscitation, the IV medications and infusions were discontinued. The monitors were turned off, and the ventilator was disconnected although the endotracheal tube was left in situ. The surgeon stayed at the operating table, using the opportunity to teach residents and students. At 0627, 10 min after the pronounced death of the patient, the surgeon announced that he had begun to feel a pulse in the proximal aorta above the level of the aortic cross-clamp. ”

The man met all the criteria to be declared dead by two well qualified medical professionals (a surgeon and an anesthesiologist). He subsequently and spontaneously returned to life. There’s no mention or subsequent evidence of an incorrect declaration of death. The case occurred in a modern medical facility with modern medical equipment. The case is documented in a peer reviewed medical journal. If that isn’t sufficient to falsify the premise "no dead person has ever been verified to become alive again" then I don’t know what is.

I'm aware that people have been mistakenly declared dead, so I'll admit that you do have a point and I was being sloppy. I was thinking, perhaps circularly, of "dead" meaning only those few that weren't mistakenly declared so.

I gave you one. Like I predicted you’re circularly assuming, without evidence, he was mistakenly declared dead because dead people stay dead. You’re attempting to inoculate yourself from falsification. Anyone who was declared dead but came back to life wasn’t really dead because dead people stay dead. They were mistakenly declared dead.

At the same time, though ill-defined, I was choosing a meaning for death that nonetheless allows the story of Jesus to be meaningful.

My introducing the case example was only to falsify the premise "no dead person has ever been verified to become alive again." It was not introduced as evidence for Jesus’ resurrection.

So rather than assume that we're all working from a common and meaningful set of definitions of "death" and "resurrection," go ahead and define them for the discussion that you want to have.

The discussion I want to have is around which is the best explanation for the resurrection. No need for special definitions. The standard ones will do fine. Death and Resurrection.

Two explanations that fit that criterion rise to the top of our list. Together, they completely outweigh and overshadow whatever distant contender may lie in third place.

• Parts of the story are historical, but the part about the resurrection is made up.
• The story is completely made up.

As for the first explanation, it doesn’t explain:

1. The followers of Jesus sincere belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. So sincere that they were willing to preach the resurrection in the face of persecution.

I don't have to explain that. The only thing I have to counter is your implied assertion that stories of followers of Jesus preaching in the face of persecution somehow falsifies a made-up resurrection. Even if we assume that the stories are necessarily true, real people have and continue to believe in and die for false things all the time. Joseph Smith is a prime example. If followers of Jesus preaching amid persecution proves that Jesus was resurrected, then we have the same level of proof that the angel Moroni told Joseph Smith where to find the Golden Plates.

The argument is not that the followers sincere belief in the resurrection in the face of persecution falsifies a made up resurrection, although it makes it problematic to maintain that premise. The argument is that a made up resurrection does not explain it. Or at least if it does, it doesn’t explain it with the same force as the resurrection since people aren’t generally willing to endure persecution and the threat of death to maintain something they know to be made up. You’re counter here misses that point entirely. Joseph Smith is irrelevant to that point. We may very well have good evidence for Mormonism. Even if we had better evidence for Mormonism it’s irrelevant.

2. The conversion of Paul who sincerely believed he encountered the risen Christ.

There are people now that sincerely believe they have encountered the risen Christ.

Irrelevant. Your explanation that it was made up doesn’t explain Paul’s conversion. You need an entirely ad hoc explanation to account for it.

3. James, the brother of Jesus, change from sceptic prior to the resurrection to a leader in the church after the resurrection.

James, called "brother of the Lord" by Paul (Gal 1:19), whatever he meant by that (1Co 9:5), may have been the same James that Mark called "James the less" and who John may have included in the brothers (John never mentions James by name) that didn't believe in him (7:5). One of these may be the same James that was spoken of (without other qualification) in Acts after James son of John (presumably the same person as James son of Alphaeus, but it's not clear) was killed.

You can attempt to muddy the water but nothing here over turns the premises that get us to the conclusion James changed.

1. Jesus’ brothers were skeptical prior to the resurrection (Mark 3:21, 31; 6:3-4; John7:5).

2. James was the brother of Jesus (Gal 1:19, Mark 6:3)

3. James, the brother of Jesus, was skeptical prior to the resurrection (from 1&2).

4. James, the brother of Jesus, became a leader in the church after the resurrection (Acts 15:12-21, Gal 1:19).

5. James, the brother of Jesus, changed from sceptic prior to the resurrection to a leader in the church after the resurrection (from 3&4).

I'm sure that's what you meant, but it seems an odd oversight for someone so pedantic about our definitions earlier.

Yeah, that’s what I meant and you apparently knew exactly who and what I meant.

Anyway, if we assume all of that, including that the Gospels are not made up (what your argument is trying to prove, by the way), then your evidence of the resurrection is that without it, you're incredulous that James would have a change of heart after his brother's execution.

Once again missing the point. That God raised Jesus from the dead and appeared to James explains his change powerfully. A made up resurrection doesn’t. You need yet another ad hoc explanation for James change from sceptic of his brother to leader in the church his brother founded.

4. The evidence itself which implies it was not made up.

The existence of a story implies that the story wasn't made up? Show your work.

No problem.

1. The genre the Gospels most closely align with, ancient biography, and the genre of letters (Pauline) implies they were an attempt to record history, not fiction.

2. The explicit words in the Gospels and Paul which imply it was not made up (Luke 1:1-4; John 21:24; 1 Cor 15 3:5, etc).

3. The church fathers understood the resurrection and the Gospels as not made up.

2. The evidence from the early church fathers who understood the story as history.

It doesn't explain why they believed what they did, but unless they were witnesses themselves to the resurrection, it doesn't matter; if they didn't see it, the resurrection is just part of the story that they believed. That they believed it is the same level of evidence that any religion has going for it.

Missing the point, again. That the story was completely made up doesn’t explain why the church fathers understood the story as history whereas God raised Jesus from the dead does explain it. You need another explanation for why the story was made up but the followers of the followers of Jesus understood it was not made up.

3. The evidence from Tacitus which support parts of the narrative (e.g. Jesus was crucified under Pilate).[/indent]

The evidence from Tacitus is that Christians thought Jesus was crucified under Pilate. We knew that already.

Your argument here assumes Tacitus would take the word of Christians and only Christians. A group of people he says were “hated for their abominations.” A group he explicitly calls “a most mischievous superstition” and “evil”. Tacitus further implies Christianity was “hideous and shameful.” It’s implausible that Christians were his source given that 1) he doesn’t state Christians were his source and 2) the evidence from Tacitus himself implies he did not trust Christians. The bottom line, “the story is completely made up” doesn’t explain how Tacitus came to record some of the details as history.

How on earth you think either of those two explanations you gave “completely outweigh and overshadow” the explanation that God raised Jesus from the dead, which explains a far wider set of evidence, is quite beyond me.

Because your inference from the "far wider set of evidence" conflicts with the observation that dead people don't come back to life.

Irrelevant for the aforementioned reasons. 1) the laws of nature don’t disprove the supernatural, 2) the supernatural is not subject to the natural, 3) I’ve already shown that premise false with a documented case example and, last but not least, 3) it begs the question.

Now, I know that you've defined "death" and "resurrection" such that they present a much lower bar than before, but the other side of that same coin is that your evidence is now correspondingly weaker. We now have to believe, for example, that James' change of heart and Paul's conversion were because Jesus looked dead, but got better after he rested for a while.

Nah. We don’t have to believe that.

Nobody has to show any favoritism to natural occurrences over supernatural ones. Based on the evidence we have, those are still the two most likely explanations even if we start with the premise that gods are real.

Okay, let’s start with the premise God exists. Given that premise go ahead and prove your two explanations are more likely than God raised Jesus from the dead.

We have no cases of people returning from death (subject to your future definition, of course).

Begging the question again. Either you don’t realize these kinds of statements beg the question or you just don’t care. Besides I’ve shown that false as a universal statement with the documented case example.

Even if gods are real, they apparently don't do that often enough for us to count.

Irrelevant. The claim isn’t that God is routinely raising people from the dead.

On the other hand, we have lots of made up stories. We know they're real and have such a wide gamut of examples that we don't have to quibble about whether a story is a story or what "made up" means. If I have a story about a guy coming back from the dead, the safest bet is that the story's made up.

Therefore the safest bet is the peer reviewed medical journal Anesthesia & Analgesia made up the story of a guy coming back to life from being dead.

[Goose]

Given the premise the supernatural exists,....

Why should we accept that premise, or the premise that God exists?

Allow me to answer your question with a question in keeping with the theme of the OP. If a supernatural explanation was the best explanation of the evidence in terms of scope and explanatory power why shouldn’t we accept it?

Before we can consider the story of the resurrection of Jesus by God as possible, surely we have to firmly establish those premises.

Why? Is there something impossible about God raising Jesus from the dead?

1. Whatever is not logically impossible is possible.

2. That God raised Jesus from the dead is not logically impossible.

3. Therefore, that God raised Jesus from the dead is possible.

Without them there are many plausible natural explanations to consider.

Well, even with them there would still be natural explanations. Some people seem to prefer natural explanations because they are natural explanations. Some people prefer the best explanation regardless of whether it’s a natural one or a supernatural one. Which of those people are more open minded?

[Goose]

You mean like the evidence for the assassination of Julius Caesar?

Just so we're clear, the evidence you're describing is of the specific details about the assassination, not whether it happened at all.

What are you suggesting here? That the accounts are not evidence in favor of it having happened? And just so we are clear, do you accept the presence of contradictions in the accounts of Caesar’s assassination as evidence that the assassination was made up? Yes or no?

While these are the earliest extant, detailed descriptions of the event itself,...

And let’s not forget these descriptions come down to us having been written decades after the assassination (in the case of Plutarch and Suetonius over a century later) in anonymous works not all of which were literally independent.

...there are more and earlier sources that reference the assassination as a matter of fact.

Sure there are mentions in other sources like Cicero and a couple brief mentions in Paterculus’ Roman History (written after c. 30 AD) for example. So there are some earlier mentions from some biased Roman sources. Tell me what you think that proves.

Most notably, Cicero was not only alive at the time of the assassination, but we have a number of letters and orations from both before and after Caesar's death, including a letter written in April of AD 44[sic] to Cicero's friend Atticus a month or so after the murder occurred that mentions it.

Firstly, I think you meant 44 BC, not 44 AD. Cicero died in 43 BC.

Secondly, are you referring to one of these letters? If you are, I’m not sure why you would think one of the letters addressed to Atticus in April of 44 is notable when the letters to Atticus in April of 44 say nothing explicitly about Caesar’s assassination. Perhaps you meant the letter to Brutus in July of 43?

”After the death of Caesar and your ever memorable Ides of March, Brutus, you have not forgotten what I said had been omitted by you and your colleagues, and what a heavy cloud I declared to be hanging over the Republic.”

From that brief mention it’s difficult to see Cicero attesting to a grand senatorial plot to assassinate Caesar. It’s just as easily interpreted as Cicero simply mentioning that Caesar had died and that Brutus did something memorable on the Ides of March which was also a Roman religious day at the time.

There’s also implied mentions in Cicero’s Philippics. The second one in particular. Even there, you’ll find Cicero similarly sometimes cryptic and stingy with the details. For such a pivotal and infamous event there's a surprisingly paltry amount of early evidence. Where are all the detailed first hand eyewitness accounts of what was, arguably, the most important event in Roman history which apparently took place in front of the entire senate? Further, to play your game I will muddy the waters and point out that in the 2 Philippic, for example, Cicero explicitly refers to at least two different “Caesars” - Lucius Cæsar (1x) and Caius Cæsar (5x). So a simple mention of Caesar raises the question, which Caesar?

Thirdly, if the appeal to Cicero is meant as a kind of argument along the lines of we have better evidence for the assassination, then I would simply note we have roughly analogous evidence for the resurrection with the letters of Paul. Just as Cicero was alive at the time of the assassination, Paul was likewise alive at the time of the resurrection. Arguing that Cicero’s letters were written much nearer to the event than Paul’s letters would seem to be splitting hairs given they were both contemporaries to their respective events. Further, if we accept 1 Corinthians 15: 3ff as containing elements of an early creedal passage we may have source material that goes back much earlier than Paul’s letter. In any case, if you wish to press it, I can argue Paul is stronger historical evidence by virtue of claiming to be an eyewitness whereas Cicero never makes that claim as far as I’m aware. Rather Cicero seems eager to put distance between himself and the assassination plot (2 Philippic).

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to Goose in post #27]

Therefore the safest bet is the peer reviewed medical journal Anesthesia & Analgesia made up the story of a guy coming back to life from being dead.

The linked article suggests that the decision to declare death was simply premature. At the end of the article are these comments (underline mine):

"In this scenario, the patient is brought to the OR where life support is discontinued and, immediately after a declaration of death, the organ harvesting is begun. Given our demonstrated imperfect ability to absolutely determine irreversibility or a specific “time of death,” the above practice indeed seems problematic. We are not the first to draw an uneasy connection between cases of Lazarus syndrome and organ harvesting practices (17).

In conclusion, we present a case of spontaneous recovery after failed intraoperative CPR (Lazarus syndrome). We suggest that it may be worthwhile to give a brief trial of disconnecting ventilation when the patient is otherwise unresponsive to resuscitation efforts. We concur with previous authors who recommend continued monitoring for 10 minutes after cessation of CPR. And lastly, although a very low end-tidal CO2 has been suggested as an indicator of poor outcome during CPR, and thus as an indicator of when to terminate resuscitation, this may not always be so."

A Wikipedia article has this comment:

"Occurrences of the syndrome are extremely rare, and the causes are not well understood. One hypothesis for the phenomenon is that a chief factor (though not the only one) is the buildup of pressure in the chest as a result of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The relaxation of pressure after resuscitation efforts have ended is thought to allow the heart to expand, triggering the heart's electrical impulses and restarting the heartbeat.[2] Other possible factors are hyperkalemia or high doses of epinephrine."

It appears that "Lazarus Syndrome", although rare, is not a case where it can be concluded, positively, that a person actually was "dead" but came back to life a few minutes later. If something like this happened several hours (or a day) later it would be a lot more credible.

[Purple Knight]

What is the justification for favoring the natural explanations? Is it simply that scientists have only accounted for natural or physical phenomenon? In my view, evidence is evidence. If evidence points to a supernatural explanation, one that simply posits a violation of the laws of nature, then that should be the more probable explanation.

Because people are cowardly little scum-suckers who are most afraid that they don't know everything.

Supernatural just means what we don't understand yet. There's nothing that "goes against the laws of nature" - if more things or spells or phenomena existed there would just be more laws of nature to account for that. That's what the laws of nature mean: They're meant to explain the world we live in.

If magic was literally real and everyone knew Resurrection as a 5th-level divine spell of the healing school, nobody would have this problem, because magic would function according to rules and we would know those rules because we'd all have Player's Handbooks (or, some technical/scientific accounting of how exactly magic worked, lol).

But if people rose from the dead sometimes, even if it was well-documented, but it wasn't well-explained, people would (IMO anyway) either be dismissive of any evidence or simply try not to think or talk about it much. Instead of facing the unknown and having the rare opportunity to discover knowledge and learn these laws of nature, people would run away and avoid, because they are cowards.

Maybe if people weren't cowards we'd have figured out how to turn back death already.