Good questions Doug.
If as you say Jesus said that a person only needed to believe in him, he is not saying "Believe that I am going to be killed and raised from the dead". Correct me if I am wrong, but I think that the synoptists speak of obtaining salvation and eternal life in terms of obedience and good works (sheep-goats, etc.). Do the Gospel writers relate salvation to Jesus' resurrection?
Jesus death & resurrection are inseparable. One is the price, the other is the proof. Right from the introduction we see the issue of Salvation. Matt 1:21 states that Mary “will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
The Jewish people, with fifteen centuries of history lessons on how to wash away sins ( animal blood), knew that the wages of sin was death. To save a person from their sins was synonymous with saving someone from judgement in their minds.
The name Jesus is not just spoken but interpreted: it means YHWH saves. That is the proverbial "very definition" of the man Jesus and his purpose. John the Baptist introduced him as "the [sacrificial] lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He was born for the purpose of sacrificial death.... Born to die a death he didn't deserve to pay a debt he didn't owe.
In 20:28, he says “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” This echos Hosea 13: 14 - I WILL RANSOM THEM FROM THE POWER OF THE GRAVE; I WILL REDEEM THEM FROM DEATH
In John 6 Jesus is clear about the role of belief AND his death.
said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.... And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day....Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.... I am the living bread which came down from heaven... and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.
Clearly Jesus related Salvation to his death and links to the proof of the resurrection
John 10: 17 - I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.
You wrote:
Paul was the earliest chronologically. Neither he nor any of the Gospel writers had either seen or heard Jesus, and they wrote decades after the "Jesus-event", relying on oral tradition - not facts.
Acts 10:
even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.
Eye-Witness Testimony isn't facts? It is some of the strongest evidence allowed in court.
There is no need for a Creator for reason and logic to exist
Perhaps it is more accurate to say that if God doesn't exist, you would have no earthly idea if your reason and logic was reasonable or logical at all. This the ultimate betrayal of materialism.
For instance, a person may invite you to a picnic next Thursday and say that they "know" that it will be good weather. When you arrive on Thursday, the same person declares, "see I told you that I knew that the weather would be nice today".
Just because the materialist's logic "worked" on that day, there is no reason to believe that the logic would work on any other given day, time or place, like the weather. Why, because supposedly chance and randomness birthed it. Randomness, like the weather is constantly changing. But this is not how the materialists speaks about his logic.
Instead , they rely on the biblical model of stable, reliable unchanging logic and practicality, even while claiming randomness to be its author. This is illogical. You expect logic to be the same in China the same as it is in Europe or Antarctica. This is the ultimate tattle-tale of the "unbelievers" logic. Even if you were to find truth or logic, you would not be able to "know" for certain because of the self-imposed idolatry of chance. The most you could say is that it worked on this day or that.
Christians don't have this problem. We have sound reason to claim that logic should or ought to be the same everywhere, regardless of circumstance (weather) because God is its author.
Knowledge ultimately suffers the same fate as morals in a materialistic worldview that I described in an earlier post on this thread.
Hope I didn't step on any toes.
Anyone up for a picnic next Thursday? I "know" that it won't rain that day.
