A Follow Up on Antonin Scalia and Matthew Archbold

So The Apostles Faked the Resurrection? Really?
The lives (and deaths) of the Apostles prove that Christ really did rise from the dead.
Matthew Archbold | Sep. 12, 2016
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/matthew-archbold/so-the-apostles-faked-the-ressurection-really

Now, Justice Scalia is here quoted as saying:

"The 'wise' do not believe in the resurrection of the dead. It is really quite absurd [to them]. The Ascension had to be made up by groveling enthusiasts as part of their plan to get themselves martyred."

Matthew Archbold continues this line by examplifying:

(1) Simon-Peter was martyred in Rome. Peter, it is believed, asked to be crucified upside down, because he didn't feel himself worthy to be crucified in the same manner as Jesus.

Does that sound like someone who made up a story? If so, he was really sticking to it, huh?

... (2) Andrew ... (3) James the Greater [after returning from Western Hispania, I might add] ... (4) Philip ... (5) Bartholomew ... (6) Thomas ... (7) Matthew ... James the Less [not one of the Twelve, but fosterbrother of God] ... (8) And Simon the Canaanite was crucified.

Now, can you realistically argue that it's even remotely possible that the apostles invented the resurrection?

There are two things Matthew Archbold forgets.

The graver issue is this, after mentioning James the Less, he adds:

(who let's face it, had to deal with constantly being called "the less" his whole life)

C'mon, is it really that traumatising to be called Jimmy Shorty while the other Jimmy is called Jimmy Longshanks? That is what "the greater" and "the lesser" actually mean. Christ had two James, one was taller and one was shorter. (And a third, see below.)

The less important thing is that Richard Carrier would have an objection ready.

How do we know that Simon-Peter, Andrew, James the Greater, Philip, Batholomew, Thomas, Matthew, Simon the Canaanite, not to mention (looking up most) (9) Jude Thaddaeus and (looking up the rest) (10) James ("son of Alphaeus" - not identic to James the Less), (11) (not needing to look up) Matthias who replaced Judas the Traitor, not to mention (12) St John, who despite living to old age and laying himself peacefully in his grave had before been boiled in oil and only miraculously survived even existed?

Because of the tradition of the Church.

Same as I know Jefferson and Washington existed because of the tradition of US, same as I know Caesar and Augustus and before them Romulus, Numa, Ancius Martius, sorry, Tullius Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquin the Old, Servius Tullius and Tarquin the Haughty existed because of the tradition of Rome. Same as I know Odin, Thor and Frey were in the region of Uppsala (which Frey founded) because of Swedish/Norse tradition.

Of course, traditions are more trustworthy the more bearers of them can be cited.

The basics of this is that, if the twelve apostles didn't exist, even more people had to conspire to invent them and invent how this that or the other had met them and been ordained by them - we are talking the generation of Clement of Rome, Ignace of Antioch, Polycarp, Irenaeus of Lyons, Papias.

Each seeming to be part of a larger Christendom than St Paul when he founded Churches had seen with his eyes. And of St Paul, even Richard Carrier does not quite doubt the historicity. Nor, I presume, that of St Barnabas, his codisciple under Gamaliel (whose historicity Richard Carrier hardly doubts either), nor perhaps even of St Narn, the first bishop of Bergamo, ordained by St Barnabas? Or St Prosdocimus of Padua, ordinaed by Saint Peter?

But suppose these were all no more real than the seven Chronicles of that other (non-Italian) Narnia, how abut the generation after that, which remembers both these and the first generation which had seen Jesus walking on the shores of Lake Genesareth?

I think at least that generation would be attested to even Richard Carrier's satisfaction by men like Celsus or Proclus and such.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Nanterre UL
St Eugene I of Toledo*
15.XI.2016

* Eodem die natalis sancti Eugenii, Episcopi Toletani et Martyris; qui fuit beati Dionysii Areopagitae discipulus, et in territorio Parisiensi, consummato martyrii cursu, beatae passionis coronam percepit a Domino. Ipsius autem corpus Toletum, in Hispania, postea fuit translatum.