The Case For Christ, Chapter 4

CFC Chapter 4

Is there an incident in your life in which you doubted someone’s story until he or she offered corroborating evidence? How is that experience similar to learning about the kind of corroborative evidence that Yamauchi presented?

Yes. And my experience is not similar to this story at all.  

Yamauchi's corroborating evidence consists of:

-Josephus (born 4 years after Jesus’ alleged death and resurrection) whose work Yamauchi admits was corrupted by “interpolations.”

-Tacitus and Pliny the Younger, who add nothing to the conversation except that Christians existed and were persecuted in Ancient Rome about 100 years after Jesus’ alleged death and resurrection.

-Thallus, who wrote in 52 AD that a total eclipse occurred in 33 AD. (He doesn’t mention if there were dead saints walking around Jerusalem, though)

-Paul, who Strobel admits “never met Jesus prior to Jesus’ death,” but whose accounts can be considered reliable because they are in line with what the Gospels say, which Yamauchi admits were written after Paul’s letters.

Yeah, me too.

2. What do you consider to be the most persuasive corroboration that Yamauchi talked about? Why?

None of the above. See previous answer.

3. Ancient sources say that early Christians clung to their beliefs rather than disavow them in the face of torture. Why do you think they had such strongly held convictions?

For the same reason that early Mormons who personally knew Joseph Smith were willing to suffer and die for him.

For the same reason that millions of Germans were willing to die for Adolf Hitler.

For the same reason that Jews persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition were willing to suffer and die for their beliefs.

For the same reason Buddhist monks in South Vietnam were willing to commit ritual suicide in protest of the Diem regime.

For the same reason that radical extremist Muslims are willing to die (and kill) for what they believe.

The willingness to suffer and die for what a person believes to be true does not validate that belief. Period.

These people all sincerely believed in the things they were (and are) willing to suffer and die for.  

I don’t doubt the sincerity of their beliefs one bit.

I adamantly doubt the truth of what they believe.