I would prefer to get that insight by reading. If you will just summarize what in that video you would find compelling (or, more to the point, what you think I might find compelling), that would be fine.
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Totally legitimate.
Yes there are other explanations. This alone does not seem enough.
The wide cultural context and personality range and scale of these experiences appears to be unique. We are talking about some easily explained as a single person fabricating evidence.
For example, Friends of mine had dreams of Jesus that led them here when they were in the Middle East, before they hay even met a Chrsitian or heard of Jesus. We similar sorts of things in a large range of cultural contexts. This at the very least should raise questions.
I must say that @John_Harshman and @swamidass are raising the tough questions regarding the resurrection and any evidence that might be available for it. I’ll add my thoughts and look forward to how this all develops!
This looks to be a good place to jump in having skimmed the rest of this thread and NOT read any of supplemental articles or watched any of the extra videos provided!
My take on the historical apologetic task is that it establishes the likelihood that Jesus was dead, put into a tomb, and then was seen with, walked with, ate with his disciples and non-disciples three days later. The inference to the best explanation of the observations, walking, eating, etc… is that Jesus was raised from the dead. As has been rightly asked, how could one adequately establish the likelihood of such event(s)?
The assumption needing corroboration is that the four Gospels are historical eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. If they can be established as reliable historical witness, then they can be counted as evidence to the claim that a resurrection occurred. It still goes against all our normal intuitions about dead people, but there would be trustworthy testimonial evidence that it happened. I take this process to be different in degree, not kind, to certain fields of scientific research such as the current debate over what wiped out the dinosaurs. If we can arrive at an inference to the best explanation or epistemological ordering regarding what killed off the dinosaurs, then we surely can do it for the resurrection. Is the resurrection the best explanation or most likely explanation of Jesus dying, laid in a tomb, and doing alive people things three day later?
If you accept the inference pattern in the paleontology case, then we can/ought admit it in the resurrection case. Would this not clear the apologist of the charge that they simply assume the Gospel’s truth? Could not the apologist say they are doing something more like paleontology where they have a certain historical hypothesis and are attempting to “test” it against known historical data points?
@nwrickert has rightly called into question the reliability of the Gospels as eyewitness history. He can jump in with those specific arguments, but I’ll leave this sit for now as I go and teach.
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No, because if the “known historical data points” are the gospels, that’s an assumption that the gospels are true. Given that assumption, one would have to jump through all sorts of hoops to deny the resurrection. Of course it’s been done — Jesus falls into a coma that’s mistaken for death, etc. But we aren’t talking about that sort of thing here. If by “known historical data points” you aren’t talking about the gospels, then you’ve lost me.
I don’t think that is the assumption here.
How is it possible that a person in the modern world had never heard of Jesus? I’m skeptical of this skeletal account.
Then I don’t know what Philosurfer is saying.
These have to be established, not assumed to be true. I was more interested in the inference pattern, then we can discuss whether the data points are good or bad.
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Or does it appear that way only because you have not looked at examples in other religions?
I watched the Habermas video during a similar discussion a while back. To me, it’s not a compelling historical case. There are the known mentions in the various biblical and other texts, and a whole lot of extrapolation done to make them into more than that. To me, it has to be taken on faith that it happened. It’s never going to do anyone any good to say it’s a likely explanation to whatever degree. Too much is riding on it. If it turns out one day that Alexander was a hoax no one’s life is going to be changed.
What gets me is even if we could jump all those hurdles and show that it absolutely happened, what’s the actual significance? As we used to say back in NYC, “what’s that supposed to prove”. To me, it screams of a cultic device and not a way that an all-powerful entity would interact with us. But maybe that’s not relevant here
If we establish that the gospels are entirely true, then resurrection emerges as true by definition. If we establish that parts of the gospels are true, then it depends on which parts. Supposing we accept death, burial, the empty tomb, later meetings with apostles and others. Well, if we accept all those things, resurrection becomes the only logical option. It does seem to me that in order to accept such an explanation, the evidence supporting each of those steps must be very good.
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Mine would. I would have to lose all confidence in evidence, and that would destroy not only history as a science but the basis of science itself. Big shock to my world view.
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Point taken. My point is that the life of Alexander itself does not have significance beyond the historical, in the way that the life of Jesus does.
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One might contend that without Alexander there would be no Christianity, if we view Greek ideas or Hellenized Jews (say, Saul of Tarsus) as essential elements in its origin. Which we probably should. Judaea as a backwater bit of the Persian Empire probably wouldn’t support any of it.
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My impression as well is that the mixing of Hellenic and Judaic cultures was essential. That’s going a bit deep though 
I don’t think anyone is worshiping Alexander as a god anywhere, even if I did see The Man Who Would Be King
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… and that one didn’t end so well… 
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Yeah, it is asking a lot and a difficult task, as each little variable needs to be scrutinized.
I would resist, however, the statement that resurrection becomes the “only logical option”. Due to the historical nature of the explanation, alternative accounts of what happened will always be available. The sticking point will always be which explanation(s) best fit the evidence we have. I claim, that the resurrection IS the best explanation (using the Gospels as evidence which I have not established) but the evidence never gives me a certainty of one. It is always a sifting of evidence between the likelihoods of different hypotheses.
In fact, much like the dinosaur case, further archeological finds might cause serious reflection on whether the resurrection explanation IS the best. This is what I take to be the force of what Josh mentioned at some point regarding 1 Cor. 15:14, “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” I understand this verse to be positively establishing the fundamental thesis of Christianity as testable in a way that is very “scientific” in nature – show me the body or show me that the texts are corrupt and I’d agree that my faith is in vain.
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Alternatively, that verse might be seen as applying psychological pressure to persuade people to believe the resurrection.
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Neil: I think that Paul is clearly defending the resurrection vs. persuading people to believe.
If Paul’s motivation was a ruse, then his entire motivation for travelling the known world only to be tortured, imprisoned, and decaptitated, was to get people to believe something that he did not believe. If Paul believed, it is because he met Jesus. This is the same for the apostles.
What I am saying is certainly not 100% proof that Jesus was resurrected, but it is certainly the most likely explanation in terms of human nature. If Jesus was not raised from the dead, Paul is just another crazy person who died because of a lie. This is not a palatable option to me.
Does anyone claim that Paul actually met Jesus, physically? He had a vision on the road to Damascus. And Mohammed flew to Jerusalem from which he ascended to heaven. What’s the difference? And Joseph Smith found some golden plates, for which he was later martyred.
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