Are there still liberal Mormons?

[Gadianton]

I'm pretty sure the rise of "the witnesses" as the flagship piece of evidence the old guard talks about, archeology having failed fabulously, tracks the evangelical community fascination with the witnesses of the empty tomb, which likewise became a thing because what else they got?

I don't think it's Dan's worst play for that reason. If, having no persuasion one way or another prior to learning about it, you one day read the gospel accounts of the empty tomb and think, wow, how could all of those witnesses be wrong? The resurrection must have happened! The same person likewise may be convinced by the Book of Mormon Witnesses. Both arguments really exist to serve members who already believe, but Dan at least has a good implicit point that if you're one of those evangelicals in awe of the empty tomb, which you should be, then you ought to take the Book of Mormon witnesses a little more seriously.

[ceeboo]

If you don’t like the robust and open challenge that your views and opinions receive here, then perhaps the Celestial Forum might be more to your liking. If you espouse the idea that raping women, and killing children, is acceptable if God does it, you’re going to receive some fairly clear push back on that in this arena. You’re going to have your facts checked, your assertions examined. Robustly. Don’t like it? No problem, there’s the more genteel Celestial Forum as an option. Perhaps more people should use the Celestial Forum for the threads they are choosing to start in this forum.

My opinion written above about this board has nothing to do with "robust challenges" I will face, or being "fact checked" concerning the horrific and grimy realities described in Old Testament scripture. While very serious and thoughtful discussions surrounding these deeply troubling and complex events can happen, I have zero confidence that they could happen on this board, and more specifically, with you. I don't say that as an attempt to dismiss your view, I say that as someone who has a fair amount of experience in discussing such things and understanding what is required, form all participants, to even begin discussing topics that can surely be as uncomfortable and/or jarring as these.

What I did say that I don't like Is the gang mugging that occurs far too often on this board.

[Physics Guy]

I've never heard mainstream Christians argue that the Gospel accounts are strong evidence for the Resurrection just on their face. The arguments I've seen have been either (1) that if Jesus hadn't really risen then anti-Christian authorities could have squashed his movement by producing his body, but they didn't, or else (2) that the accounts just read more like honest statements by people really involved than like myths made up afterwards.

I kind of agree with (2), and count it fairly heavily in the early Christians' favour to show that they at least thought they were being honest. What I note is that something like half of the Gospel accounts about Jesus post-Resurrection are ambiguous. Some of them really kind of read as though the people involved were just confused. Like, I can totally imagine some random traveler on the road to Emmaus chatting with these guys about theology and having supper together but then getting freaked out and leaving when they suddenly decided that he must have been their dead Messiah. The famous noli me tangere scene with Mary Magdalene could really have been the gardener likewise getting freaked out.

In both Gospel accounts, the text itself emphasises that the witnesses didn't initially recognize Jesus. And this awkward admission has been faithfully preserved through the centuries. It's hard to see why they would have included this undermining detail for any other reason than that the people who circulated the accounts felt obliged to repeat exactly what they'd received, warts and all. This makes me more inclined to trust that they did pass on what they'd received, and didn't just make up things that fit their agenda. At the same time, these awkward details do seem like indications that the encounters with the risen Jesus maybe weren't exactly normal experiences in which the participants' impressions were reliably accurate.

Yeah, it's about the same level of confusion that you would expect if Jesus really did rise again. It's also the kind of confusion that would fit if he didn't, but his followers really wanted to think that he did, and then some kind of somewhat but not so much unusual accident happened, about exactly where the dead body went. So it's kind of a wash. If you're somehow already inclined, from Jesus's recorded words and your understanding of the world, to think that he might have risen from the dead, then the Gospel accounts are consistent with that. If you're not so inclined, then the Gospel accounts hardly amount to such weighty evidence as to make you reconsider that inclination.

If you don't have any preconceptions at all, from any kind of resonance between the purported teachings of Jesus and your own thoughts about ultimate reality or something, then by no means whatever do these Iron Age texts provide enough evidence to make you think seriously about whether a crucified person rose from the dead. They're garbled ancient accounts with unclear provenance, attesting to an unthinkably unlikely event. Unless you have reasons to revise the a priori chances dramatically in this particular case, the a priori chances that someone actually rose from the dead are so enormously low that they far outweigh the unlikelihood of even quite unlikely flukes involving weird shenanigans with Jesus's body or unlikely events with the propagation of stories.

I myself do feel that I have some such kind of resonance, enough to revise my a priori probabilities in this particular case, to the point where I actually do allow a non-negligible chance that Jesus physically rose from the dead. It's a hard kind of case to quantify, a sort of "What is the matrix?" question. What is reality like? Does God ever do things like that?

It doesn't matter so much to me. The parts of Christianity that seem important to me don't actually seem to depend much on whether Jesus physically rose from the dead. The issue is just one of style. Does God ever indulge in that kind of magic realism? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know, but I don't rule it out.

I think the (1) argument is misplaced. It seems to assume a government focus on suppressing Christianity that probably didn't happen until decades later, and an idea about how government propaganda might work that probably wasn't relevant until centuries later.

Either way, though, I haven't heard mainstream Christians place so much weight on eyewitness testimony recorded at least decades later.

[I Have Questions]

If someone is going to claim a bloke in the Middle East came back from the dead, I’m going to need more than third hand iron-age hearsay from generations after the event supposedly happened.

[ceeboo]

If someone is going to claim a bloke in the Middle East came back from the dead, I’m going to need more than third hand iron-age hearsay from generations after the event supposedly happened.

If someone is going to claim that the body of evidence surrounding the resurrection of Jesus is third hand iron-age hearsay from generations after the supposed event, I am going to need a lot more than some random bloke on a message board saying so.

[Marcus]

I'm pretty sure the rise of "the witnesses" as the flagship piece of evidence the old guard talks about, archeology having failed fabulously, tracks the evangelical community fascination with the witnesses of the empty tomb, which likewise became a thing because what else they got?

I don't think it's Dan's worst play for that reason. If, having no persuasion one way or another prior to learning about it, you one day read the gospel accounts of the empty tomb and think, wow, how could all of those witnesses be wrong? The resurrection must have happened! The same person likewise may be convinced by the Book of Mormon Witnesses. Both arguments really exist to serve members who already believe, but Dan at least has a good implicit point that if you're one of those evangelicals in awe of the empty tomb, which you should be, then you ought to take the Book of Mormon witnesses a little more seriously.

It fits in well with his arguments about near death experiences as well.

But as you noted, it's just reinforcing those who already believe, because why else would a story from someone simply be accepted? As corroboration, possibly. As evidence, no. Or, as ihq put it:

If someone is going to claim a bloke in the Middle East came back from the dead, I’m going to need more than third hand iron-age hearsay from generations after the event supposedly happened.

Indeed. It hasn't been my experience that Christians argue evidence and proof over belief the way LDS apologists do. Other believers seem content to believe, but the Mormons insist on arguing that they have proof. It seems self-defeating.

[drumdude]

I agree. It dovetails very nicely with his argument that something must have happened with Jesus’ death and reported resurrection.

It’s a much better apologetic than NHM!

[malkie]

I agree. It dovetails very nicely with his argument that something must have happened with Jesus’ death and reported resurrection.

It’s a much better apologetic than NHM!

Is NHM still considered to be the best textual and historical evidence for the Book of Mormon? I seem to recall the time when it was being bruited as such.

[Gadianton]

I kind of agree with (2), and count it fairly heavily in the early Christians' favour to show that they at least thought they were being honest.

You could say the same about Bob Lazar's testimony of flying saucers at Area 51. What made Bob so compelling (to people other than me, for instance) is that he knows how to play the part of a credible witness. He gave the perfect walkthrough of a guy encountering a great mystery that unfolded as business-as-usual in a government facility. Where others often have a good start, the fish story gets away from them as they seek attention. Bob still got plenty of attention -- by avoiding attention and carefully selecting opportunities to make a reveal. Someone on this thread suggested that someone else write a timeline down to keep their experiences consistent, and he's done a good job of that.

I think my bottom line here is that to the degree you take it seriously, it's only because you were raised Christian of some kind. Are there any other accounts in historical lore that serve as evidence for a miracle? Have you met any non-Christian background physicists who have looked at the gospels and said, you know what, these folks seem like they're telling the truth, maybe Jesus was resurrected because I can't think of how else to explain it.

I can acknowledge the point that Smith failed to pull off a Bob Lazar. Things could have been done very differently if the point was to sound matter-of-fact. But, I don't think this is a severe enough break for me to say that Dan isn't justified in seizing the opportunity of "eye witness" apologetics.

[Res Ipsa]

I've never heard mainstream Christians argue that the Gospel accounts are strong evidence for the Resurrection just on their face. The arguments I've seen have been either (1) that if Jesus hadn't really risen then anti-Christian authorities could have squashed his movement by producing his body, but they didn't, or else (2) that the accounts just read more like honest statements by people really involved than like myths made up afterwards.

I kind of agree with (2), and count it fairly heavily in the early Christians' favour to show that they at least thought they were being honest. What I note is that something like half of the Gospel accounts about Jesus post-Resurrection are ambiguous. Some of them really kind of read as though the people involved were just confused. Like, I can totally imagine some random traveler on the road to Emmaus chatting with these guys about theology and having supper together but then getting freaked out and leaving when they suddenly decided that he must have been their dead Messiah. The famous noli me tangere scene with Mary Magdalene could really have been the gardener likewise getting freaked out. In both Gospel accounts, the text itself emphasises that the witnesses didn't initially recognize Jesus.

Yeah, it's about the same level of confusion that you would expect if Jesus really did rise again. It's also the kind of confusion that would fit if he didn't, but his followers really wanted to think that he did, and then some kind of somewhat but not so much unusual accident happened, about exactly where the dead body went. So it's kind of a wash. If you're somehow already inclined, from Jesus's recorded words and your understanding of the world, to think that he might have risen from the dead, then the Gospel accounts are consistent with that. If you're not so inclined, then the Gospel accounts hardly amount to such weighty evidence as to make you reconsider that inclination.

I think the (1) argument is misplaced. It seems to assume a government focus on suppressing Christianity that probably didn't happen until decades later, and an idea about how government propaganda might work that probably wasn't relevant until centuries later.

Either way, though, I haven't heard mainstream Christians place so much weight on eyewitness testimony recorded at least decades later.

Lee Strobel (The Case for Christ) and William Lane Craig come to mind.