[net.religion] Who rose from the dead?

rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (10/25/84)

> Did Mohammed rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Jesus Christ did.
> [KEN NICHOLS]

To which a Muslim might reply:

Did Jesus rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Mohammed did.

Of course, to someone like Ken (or the Muslim), the difference between the
two statements is obvious:  HIS (Ken's or the Muslim's, respectively, assuming
a male Muslim) statement is OBVIOUSLY the correct one.  How does HE know
this?  It's based on found inner knowledge and personal experience?  Ask why
the "other HE"'s statement is incorrect, each HE would say:  "What he thinks
he believes is simply based on incorrect assumptions and faulty reasoning,
whereas what *I* believe is really true."

So much for the veracity of subjectively obtained "knowledge".

> My pastor is an ex-catholic, and he can tell you that the things above could
> have been true.  He saw things such as these in the Catholic Church

Nothing like unbiased opinion and objective knowledge in forming opinions
about the universe...  :-(
-- 
Now I've lost my train of thought. I'll have to catch the bus of thought.
			Rich Rosen    pyuxd!rlr

lab@qubix.UUCP (Q-Bick) (10/30/84)

> > [KEN NICHOLS]
> > Did Mohammed rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Jesus Christ did.

> [Rich Rosen]
> To which a Muslim might reply:
> Did Jesus rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Mohammed did.

I doubt it. I rather think that a Muslim could take you to Mohammed's
grave, and tell you the body is still there.
-- 
		The Ice Floe of Larry Bickford
		{amd,decwrl,sun,idi,ittvax}!qubix!lab

You can't settle the issue until you've settled how to settle the issue.

rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) (11/02/84)

>>> [KEN NICHOLS]
>>> Did Mohammed rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Jesus Christ did.

>>[Rich Rosen]
>>To which a Muslim might reply:
>>Did Jesus rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Mohammed did.

> I doubt it. I rather think that a Muslim could take you to Mohammed's
> grave, and tell you the body is still there.  [BICKFORD]

My recollection was that Mohammed was supposed to have ascended into heaven
from the rock that is now the site of the Dome of the Rock.  I'm no expert
so I could be mistaken about Islamic beliefs.

But, more importantly, the actual example chosen in the analogy is
irrelevant.  Let's say we were discussing the comparison between Jesus and
Whoopy Franqueezi, the nephew of Ubizmo who was sent to earth to give
Ubizmo's message, who drank some Mexican water, and who rose from the dead
while he was still alive.  "Did Whoopy rise from the dead?  No, I don't
think so.  Jesus did."  "Did Jesus rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.
Whoopy did."

You may say "Ahh, but you're just making that Ubizmo stuff up as you go along!"
("How dare you think that!!")  Does having made-up things already written down
in advance make it more correct that making it up as you go along?

Did Jesus rise from the dead?  Or do some documents simply *say* that Jesus
rose from the dead?
-- 
"If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy!"     Rich Rosen  pyuxd!rlr

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (11/03/84)

Rich, are you really trying to tell us that Islam claims that Mohammed rose
from the dead, and that this is a central feature of their religion?  I
have never heard of such a claim, and I really seriously doubt that there
is one.

If you plan to base your argument on such a gross misrepresentation, you
can't really expect us to take it seriously.


Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe

ken@qantel.UUCP (Ken Nichols@ex6193) (11/05/84)

Rich says,

> Did Jesus rise from the dead?  Or do some documents simply *say* that Jesus
> rose from the dead?

Most of human history is written down in documents.  I guess we can't believe
any of those documents either.  So we must not know anything about history.  Why
study it then?  Why try to learn from past mistakes in history?  It could all
be a lie.

As far as I know, the Bible is the most historicaly acurate, and well documented
books on the earth.  If it doesn't have any credibility, then either does any 
other historical document.
--
Ken

reza@ihuxb.UUCP (Reza Taheri) (11/05/84)

Charley Wingate (umcp-cs!mangoe) says:

> Rich, are you really trying to tell us that Islam claims that Mohammed rose
> from the dead, and that this is a central feature of their religion?  I
> have never heard of such a claim, and I really seriously doubt that there
> is one.

   FYI, Islam does not claim that Mohammad rose from the dead.  But the
Shi'ite sect of Islam (the minority sect living mostly in Iran, Iraq, and
Jordan) claims something similar about their 12th (and last) Imam.  He
disappeared (died) and re-appeared again and was in communication with a
small circle of his followers.  Finally he disappeared for good and
will come back again to save the world from an anti-christ-like figure
and will lead the world to Judgement Day.

   The point is not to say that the Shi'ite claim is any more (or less)
valid than the Christian claim, it is only to say that it exists.

H. Reza Taheri
...!ihnp4!ihuxb!reza
(312)-979-7473

js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) (11/06/84)

> > Did Jesus rise from the dead?  Or do some documents simply *say* that Jesus
> > rose from the dead?
> 
> Most of human history is written down in documents.  I guess we can't believe
> any of those documents either.  So we must not know anything about history.  Why
> study it then?  Why try to learn from past mistakes in history?  It could all
> be a lie.

    Not too bad of a question.  Why believe in Ceasar and not in Christ?  Well,
first of all, I'll grant that it seems likely that someone named Jesus did 
exist.  It's much easier to believe that such and such a Roman emporer did
something mundane than it is to believe that someone walked on water ( or 
insert your favorite miracle.)  Also, there were several hundred years of
human history where a very politically powerful entity, which had a vested
interest in maintaining the divinity of christ, and which was known to be
totally unscrupulous (remember the crusades?), was the main repository of the
records which survive today.  Is it any wonder that we doubt the accuracy of
those records?

Jeff Sonntag
ihnp4!mhuxl!mhuxt!js2j

mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) (11/07/84)

[Ken Nichols]
> As far as I know, the Bible is the most historicaly acurate, and well
> documented books on the earth.  If it doesn't have any credibility, then
> either does any other historical document.

Judging from your first sentence, you must be VERY proud of your ignorance. :-)

Credibility of a document comes from support from independent sources.  And
beware of the fallacy of composition.  If one or more parts of something are
true, that doesn't mean the whole thing is true.  Consider the hypothetical
O'Haran religion of the year 4000 AD.  Their sacred text is "Gone with the
Wind".  There is an enormous amount of corroborative evidence for the book.
The revolutionary war took place, with many of the historical figures of the
period mentioned in the book.  But did Rhett really exist?  He MUST have
really left Scarlet, because there is no burial ground with their bodies
side-by-side, as was the custom.

You HAVE to look elsewhere to establish credibility of a historical document.
The only property a historical document can have intrinsically is consistancy.
Without bringing up whether the bible is consistant, consistancy does NOT
imply accuracy, honesty, truth, or credibility.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh

dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois) (11/08/84)

> > Did Mohammed rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Jesus Christ did.
> > [KEN NICHOLS]
> 
> To which a Muslim might reply:
> 
> Did Jesus rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Mohammed did.
> > [Rich Rosen]

Do Muslims say that Mohammed rose from the dead?
-- 
Paul DuBois		{allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois

arnold@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Ken Arnold%UCB) (11/08/84)

In article <289@qantel.UUCP> ken@qantel.UUCP (Ken Nichols@ex6193) writes:
>
>Rich says,
>
>> Did Jesus rise from the dead?  Or do some documents simply *say* that Jesus
>> rose from the dead?
>
>Most of human history is written down in documents.  I guess we can't
>believe any of those documents either.  So we must not know anything
>about history.  Why study it then?  Why try to learn from past mistakes
>in history?  It could all be a lie.
>
>As far as I know, the Bible is the most historicaly acurate, and well
>documented books on the earth.  If it doesn't have any credibility,
>then either does any other historical document.
>--
>Ken

If this is as far as you know about history or historical study, remind
me not to take your history course.

Let us start with an old example.  Julius Ceaser's autobiography is
merely a book.  Standing alone, there is no particular reason to
believe even the broadest facts, such as his invasion of Gaul.
However, we have other evidence that J. C. did, in fact, invade Gaul.
We have corroborating texts from both allies and enemies, we have
extant monuments, we have expectable consequences (such as French being
a Latin-derived language, or evidence of subsequent Roman rule of
Gaul).  In short, if you were to claim that J.C. did NOT invade Gaul,
you would have to explain all this in a way which is more probable than
the current explaination.

Since the questions of authenticity have been directed towards the New
Testament, please either come up with the equivalent of the above
extra-Biblical sources or stop saying it is historicaly acurate and
well documented.

If you seriously wish to support your statement that it is THE most
historically accurate, etc., book, I highly recommend that you read,
say, Jaworski's or Dean's Watergate books, Gibbon's "Decline and Fall
of the Roman Empire", or, maybe, the Oxford English Dictionary, to name
a few.  A much higher percentage of specific statements are referenced
to indpendent texts in these (and most modern history) books than the
Bible.

		Ken Arnold

chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui) (11/08/84)

In article <289@qantel.UUCP> ken@qantel.UUCP (Ken Nichols@ex6193) writes:

>Most of human history is written down in documents.  I guess we can't believe
>any of those documents either.  So we must not know anything about history.  Why
>study it then?  Why try to learn from past mistakes in history?  It could all
>be a lie.
>
>As far as I know, the Bible is the most historicaly acurate, and well documented
>books on the earth.  If it doesn't have any credibility, then either does any 
>other historical document.

One MAJOR problem is the there is no real corrborating evidence for the
Bible. In most circumstance you can find multiple independent versions of
the same story in history, or in latter history there will be newspaper
accounts, film, radio, TV or even Usenet articles that allow researchers to
attempt to piece together an unbiased and objective account. In the case of
the Bible, all you have is the Bible-- there is no corroborating proof that
helps prove its objectivity except the faith of those who believe it. Which
doesn't, of course, make it wrong, just harder to PROVE it is right.

I've been studying the Greek and Roman pantheons recently. I find it
interesting that for every major myth in those pantheons we can find at
least two and sometimes half a dozen authors that tell that story
including scholars such as Ovid, Virgil, Euripedes, etc... That tells me
that there is a MUCH greater chance for the Greek myths to be unbiased
truth than the Bible. Anyone want to go sacrifice a lamb? (This, BTW, is a
joke. An honest to GLOS joke. Please don't take this seriously. much)

chuq
-- 
From the Department of Bistromatics:                   Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui  nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

  I'd know those eyes from a million years away....

vek@allegra.UUCP (Van E. Kelly) (11/08/84)

In article <344@mhuxt.UUCP> version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site allegra.UUCP version B 2.10.2 9/3/84; site mhuxt.UUCP allegra!ulysses!mhuxj!mhuxr!mhuxv!mhuxt!js2j js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) writes:
>> > Did Jesus rise from the dead?  Or do some documents simply *say* that Jesus
>> > rose from the dead?
>
>  Not too bad of a question.  Why believe in Ceasar and not in Christ?  Well,
>first of all, I'll grant that it seems likely that someone named Jesus did 
>exist.  It's much easier to believe that such and such a Roman emporer did
>something mundane than it is to believe that someone walked on water ( or 
>insert your favorite miracle.)  Also, there were several hundred years of
>human history where a very politically powerful entity, which had a vested
>interest in maintaining the divinity of christ, and which was known to be
>totally unscrupulous (remember the crusades?), was the main repository of the
>records which survive today.  Is it any wonder that we doubt the accuracy of
>those records?
>
>Jeff Sonntag
>ihnp4!mhuxl!mhuxt!js2j

Just a minute here.  Not to put down your honest skepticism, but I suggest you
might want to look into a little more of the history and preservation of the
N.T. mss.  While it is true that groups within the Church of Rome during the 
Middle Ages did a fair amount of fancy footwork with manuscripts, (as Erasmus
found out the hard way) the primary mss. for modern N.T. research date from 
well before that period, as Jeff Gillette has recently pointed out.  Also,
the influence of Rome outside the European continent proper (both political 
and theological) was somewhat spottier than you suggest, and not all the
mss. in question are European.

I second Jeff Gillette's recommendation of Metzger's book as an 
excellent source on this subject.  Somewhat more accessible (though more
definitely "slanted" to a conservative viewpoint) is F.F. Bruce's little
paperback "The N.T. Documents -- Are They Reliable?", and also his
"Jesus and Christian Origins Outside The New Testament", available at most
well-stocked religious bookstores and church libraries.  Among the "popular" 
treatments of these subjects, these have the virtue of at least being 
"unsensationalistic" -- not trying to rewrite history to fit the latest 
(half-baked) theories.  

Van Kelly
(allegra!vek)
AT&T Bell Labs
Murray Hill, N.J.
MH3d418

The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect
those of my employer, in case anyone thought they did.

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (11/09/84)

[Ken Nichols]
>> As far as I know, the Bible is the most historicaly acurate, and well
>> documented books on the earth.  If it doesn't have any credibility, then
>> either does any other historical document.

Nonsense.  The bible isn't history at all; it's a statement of theology.
There is precious little outside verification of ANYTHING in the Hebrew
Bible, and huge tracts of it (for instance, the entire Book of Job) are
clearly just stories intended to illustrate some point about man's relation
to God.  It's quite clear that anything which represents itself as having
occurred before the reign of David was either made up out of whole cloth or
was passed on as oral tradition for many centuries.

THe New Testament is just as bad.  Much foolishness written about the Gospels
starts with the premise that they are biographical.  More nonsense.  The
ease with which Matthew and Luke rearrange and elaborate upon Mark's text
belies any notion that the authors thought of their works as biographies.
The Acts of the Apostles is full of evidence that Luke bundled a number of
Paul's visits to a location into one or two.  We also mustn't forget to
note that stylistic evidence in the letters attributed to Paul indicates a
number of authors.

The Bible way be an impotant religious document, but history it ain't.

Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe

Ubi caritas et amor, deus ibi est.

mat@hou4b.UUCP (Mark Terribile) (11/10/84)

>>As far as I know, the Bible is the most historicaly acurate, and well
>>documented books on the earth.  If it doesn't have any credibility, then
>>either does any other historical document.

>One MAJOR problem is the there is no real corrborating evidence for the
>Bible. In most circumstance you can find multiple independent versions of
>the same story in history, or in latter history there will be newspaper

	. . .

>interesting that for every major myth in those pantheons we can find at
>least two and sometimes half a dozen authors that tell that story
>including scholars such as Ovid, Virgil, Euripedes, etc... That tells me

An article in National Geographic a couple of years ago (Dec 82, I think)
pointed out that the account in Exodus explains Moses leading his people
into the desert rather than along the coast to avoid running into the
Egyptians again.  This puzzled Biblical scholars AND archeologists ...
who were the Jews going to run into?  The article then described the finding
of Egyptian fortresses along the coastal route -- fortresses that would
have had large armed garrisons.  JUST EXACTLY THE REASON THAT MOSES LED
HIS FOLLOWERS INTO THE DESERT!

The Bible (both Jewish and as ammended by Christians) represents the most
studied, researched and preserved work of mankind.  It should not be surprising
that those events for which evidence is discovered are eventually found to
have been described correctly.

The preservation of the Jewish Bible and the cultural integrity of Judaism
through several millenia is one of the wonders of history.  Where are the
Romans of Imperial Rome -- where are their writings?  Where are the writings
from the interior of Africa?  Only in India and regions of China do we
find anything near the cultural continuity and preservation.

What about the earlier accounts in the Bible ... the ones that could be
considered ``myth''?  Many of them (like the Flood) ARE paralled by religious
accounts of other peoples who lived in the middle east.  And the Creation
account?  It is (so far as I know) unlike any other.  It gives us God creating
``space'', then E/M radiation, then the earth ... .  I would be interested
in knowing (if anyone knows) what the Parsi (Zarathustrians) writings say
about the Creation.

-- 

	from Mole End			Mark Terribile
		(scrape .. dig )	hou4b!mat
    ,..      .,,       ,,,   ..,***_*.

tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (11/12/84)

Actually, Mark, the reason given in the Bible for Moses leading his people
into the desert is NOT that there are Egyptian fortresses elsewhere that
they might run into.  It is that there was this large pillar of fire that
said "Hey!  You guys!  Over here!"
-- 
Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center
ARPA:	Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K
uucp:	Try sending through a gateway such as DECWRL, UCB-VAX, SEISMO,
	or HARVARD -- mailer conventions differ on syntax

"Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are
but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains."
Liber AL, II:9.

mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (11/12/84)

In article <41@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) writes:

>Actually, Mark, the reason given in the Bible for Moses leading his people
>into the desert is NOT that there are Egyptian fortresses elsewhere that
>they might run into.  It is that there was this large pillar of fire that
>said "Hey!  You guys!  Over here!"

The two explanations obviously are contradictory and can both be true.

And besides, everybody knows that pillars of fire ain't stupid.

Charley Wingate

teitz@aecom.UUCP (Eliyahu Teitz) (11/13/84)

> Actually, Mark, the reason given in the Bible for Moses leading his people
> into the desert is NOT that there are Egyptian fortresses elsewhere that
> they might run into.  It is that there was this large pillar of fire that
> said "Hey!  You guys!  Over here!"
> -- 
> Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University Computation Center
> ARPA:	Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K
> uucp:	Try sending through a gateway such as DECWRL, UCB-VAX, SEISMO,
> 	or HARVARD -- mailer conventions differ on syntax
> 
> "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all the sorrows are
> but as shadows; they pass & are done; but there is that which remains."
> Liber AL, II:9.
 Sorry to disagree. The Bible states as the reason: (Exodus, somwhere in the

13th or 14th chapter, Idon't have the source at my side ) that G-D led the
people away from the Philisteens (P'lishtim)because they were too close and
if the Israelites (or Jews, whichever you prefer) saw an army they would
run back to the security of ( their masters in ) Egypt. Therefore, He led
them into the wilderness ( the translation from the original hebrew is not
an exact one but it tells the story ).

					Eliyahu Teitz.


*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***

mounira@garfield.UUCP (Mounira Gad) (12/10/84)

| 
| > > Did Mohammed rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Jesus Christ did.
| > > [KEN NICHOLS]
| > 
| > To which a Muslim might reply:
| > 
| > Did Jesus rise from the dead?  No, I don't think so.  Mohammed did.
| > > [Rich Rosen]
| 
| Do Muslims say that Mohammed rose from the dead?
| -- 
| [Paul DuBois]

     Anyone who would even suggest that muslims believe that Mohammed 
  rose from the dead obviously doesn't have the foggiest notion 
  about what Islam is. Mohammed is believed by muslims to be a 
  prophet -NOT A GOD- who simply had a message for man about 
  how people should live their lives in order to produce maximum
  order on earth.  Also Islam is big on the fact that there is
  only ONE GOD ie. the claim by Mohammed or any of his followers 
  that make him anything more then human (If he had risen from 
  the dead) would go against the basic premise of Islam. One cannot 
  draw a parallel between Islam and Christianity when it comes to 
  the crucial point of why we believe. 
     
     Mounira Gad.

davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel) (12/14/84)

<.......>

Being raised in a Christain church it was made quite clear that Christianity
was superior to other religions because only Jesus had come back from the
dead.  However, after reading "The Autobiography of a Yogi" by Yogananda
I discovered that there are indeed other such claims about ressurection.

FYI
Dave Trissel       {seismo,ctvax,gatech,ihnp4}!ut-sally!oakhill!davet