Reading Time: 7 minutes With Easter not far away, I thought it would be instructional to examine the Easter story in some detail, and how the four Gospels seem to contradict one another on crucial details, and whether the different accounts can be harmonized. This situation inspired Dan Barker, a former evangelical Christian preacher, to issue a challenge to […]
Empty tomb
Posted inReligion
Guest article: The improbable vs. the impossible, or Will the real Jesus please rise up?
Reading Time: 12 minutes The empty tomb is a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and to many Christians, proof of Christian beliefs. Could the story of Jesus Christ be as empty as the tomb? The following is a look at the unacknowledged dual narratives contained in the gospels.
Posted inReligion
Why Matthew’s guards at Jesus’ tomb are so important
Reading Time: 5 minutes I’ve written before on why the guards at the tomb of Jesus, included only in the Gospel of Matthew, are almost certainly invented by the author of that Gospel. Today I will tell you how they fit into a larger narrative construction of the Jesus story, and that their invention tells us an awful lot […]
Posted inReligion
The “Empty Tomb” & The “Minimal Facts” argument
Reading Time: 6 minutes Here is another guest piece by the inimitable David Austin, this time on the topic of the Empty Tomb. The “Empty Tomb” & The “Minimal Facts” argument The “Empty Tomb” claim has been the mainstay of Christian apologists’ arguments for a long time. The apologists love to say, whenever the resurrection is challenged by a […]
Posted inHistory
Is the “Empty Tomb” Narrative Historical?
Reading Time: 6 minutes In the closing stages of writing my latest book, The Resurrection: A Critical Examination of the Easter Story [UK] (please grab yourself a copy!), I had a few test readers. One was David Austin, down in Australia, who has provided a few guest articles for your delectation. Here is another one – thanks muchly to him: Is […]
Posted inHistory
The Door to the Empty Tomb
Reading Time: 2 minutes Here is a short little section regarding the tomb itself, that Jesus supposedly rose from death from, that I am working on for my book on the Resurrection: Before I go on, I would like to quickly discuss the tomb itself. Or, more pertinently, the stone that supposedly enclosed it. I have already discussed the […]
Posted inPsychology
Motivated Reasoning and the Resurrection
Reading Time: 2 minutes Luke Breuer reminded me of the old canard of motivated reasoning today (on Bert’s piece on freethought), and it’s a thing that is utterly foundational to beliefs and worldviews. At the end of the day, we are thoroughly psychological creatures. As you may know, I am writing a book on the Resurrection. I was thinking […]
Posted inHistory
The Huge Importance of the Empty Tomb to Christians
Reading Time: 3 minutes We know from Paul’s writings and from pretty much every other mainstream Christian that the Resurrection is massively important to anyone professing faith in Christianity. Without belief in the death and rising of Jesus, you get no atonement and no real point to Jesus living, and therefore to Christ and therefore of Christianity. Okay, that […]
Posted inHistory
The Resurrection Debunked: Naturalistic Explanations
Reading Time: 8 minutes As mentioned in my previous posts, it is that time of year that the historicity of the Easter accounts gets analysed by us skeptics. And found wanting. Very wanting. There are three aspects to the debunking of the Resurrection: 1) The Gospels are not reliable sources of information; they are poor quality evidence 2) The claims of […]
Posted inUncategorized
Responding to the Minimal Facts Argument for the Resurrection (2 of 2)
Reading Time: 5 minutes Let’s consider the remaining facts in the Minimal Facts argument of Gary Habermas.