Reddit mentions of Who Moved the Stone?

To go along with kabas, I too think the only way to say that Christianity is the one true (truest?) religion is to believe that the resurrection happened and then everything else follows. This is an interesting read that follows an atheist's sort of quest to disprove the resurrection. He converted when he could not. I'm not saying that is absolute proof, it's just one person's story and is interesting.
EDIT: Fixed link.

Who Moved the Stone by Frank Morison. Here's an excerpt from the back cover:

>The strangeness of the Resurrection story had captured his attention, and, influenced by skeptic thinkers at the turn of the century, he set out to prove that the story of Christ's Resurrection was only a myth.

It's a fascinating book and comes from a point of view that you may appreciate. Granted, his conclusion is a Christian one but... that's what you're asking for.

edit: looks like it's actually available for free here... it's an old book. Here's a quote from the first chapter I like, and feel sets up the tone of the rest of the book:

>When, as a very young man, I first began seriously to study the life of Christ, I did so with a very definite feeling that, if I may so put it, His history rested on very insecure foundations.

edit 2: I started reading it again for the first time in a long time. I should mention that this book assumes a knowledge of Christianity that many people do not already have. There are references to the Jewish Mishna, many Hebrew laws, and copious Bible verses. Also it was written in the 1920s. When he refers to "the nineties" he's talking about the 1890s. OP sounds like he's pretty well versed in Christianity already, so I still stand by this recommendation.

Great question, only problem is there is way to much to be said about that to give a detailed answer here. This is something you could right volumes of books on (which already exist) so I'll do my best to summarize what I've found. To start we first need to look at the historical reliability of the bible, particularly the gospels. Here we have a number of things we can check.

• First to check is the skeptic claim that the manuscript copies we have now are unreliable. The reason they give is because the bible has been copied over and over again with countless errors being introduced and texts intentionally being altered to fit a particular theology or purpose. However, there is overwhelming evidence to show the copies we have now are accurate representations of what was originally written (99.5% accurate to be precise with the remaining 0.5% having no impact on any of the Christian teachings/doctrines).
  
  
• Next there is plenty of evidence to show the gospels were written relatively early (with the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) being dated within 30 years of Jesus' death. We also have plenty of evidence to show the gospels were in fact written by the authors traditionally ascribed to them (that is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) which means they were written by eye witnesses or close associates of the eye witnesses to the events. The evidence for these two points far outweigh the evidence I've see for alternate theories.
  
  
• Next thing we can check is the large amount of evidence from external 1st century non-christian sources that corroborate many of the events described in the gospels.
  
  
• Not only is there plenty of external evidence for the gospels, but there is also plenty of internal evidence as well. These come from undesigned/unexpected coincidences found within the gospels that corroborate the different gospel narratives. That is details given in different gospels under different contexts that unexpectedly line up and explain things in each other in interesting ways. The most extensive work I'm aware of lists 17 volumes worth of these.
  
  
• From here we need to examine the counterarguments to the previous two points. The first being external evidence that show supposed historical mistakes made in the gospels. The second being to examine the internal inconsistencies/contradictions within the bible. Every single one of these I have looked at has failed to stand of to the evidence and critique with many leaving you almost shocked that people actually present them as arguments.
  
  
• Finally there is plenty of evidence that the resurrection teaching is from extremely early on. Even non-Christian scholars date the earliest reference to this teaching that we have to within 3-5 years of Jesus' death.
  
  Now everything so far is simply setting up the foundation to show the gospels are in fact historically reliable. From examining all the evidence above we see that the gospels and resurrection story were not simply made up and are not merely myths and legends added long after the fact by people far removed from the actual events. From all this evidence we can see the gospels should be trusted at least as much as any other trusted ancient historical writings. From this foundation we can move on to looking specifically at the resurrection.
  
  
• To start we can first example the evidence that Jesus was crucified. From our foundation above and from non-christian 1st century documents we know this to be true and very few scholars challenge this position.
  
  
• Next we can examine a large amount of evidence supporting two important points. The first being that Jesus' tomb was in fact found empty and the second being that the apostles truly believed they saw the risen Jesus.
  
  When coming from the beginning of the foundation to the previous two points (the empty tomb and apostles genuine belief in seeing a risen Jesus) we are left with only on explanation, that Jesus was in fact risen from the dead. I've looked at a number of popular naturalistic explanations, such as:
  
  
• The apostles hallucinated the resurrection appearances
  
  
• they stole the body and lied about the resurrection
  
  
• Jesus never really died. He just appeared dead and woke up later and showed himself to the apostles.
  
  None of these or other natural explanations I've seen explain all the evidence, rather they can only explain bits and pieces leaving them lacking in explanatory power. Now if that wasn't enough there is still one more thing to consider, being the conversion of Paul. Paul began as a persecutor of Christian and somehow became a prominent leader in the early Church. If went from being a well of Jew to enduring severe persecution and hardships for the teaching he once persecuted others for having. According to his own writings it was through his own encounter with a risen Jesus that he became a Christian and his conversion remains one of the greatest evidences for the resurrection.
  
  If you have any more questions feel free to ask. You can also check out some of these sources for more details:
  
  
• historical reliability or the longer series here
  
  *Some books you can read are Who Moved the Stone. The author originally set out to disprove the resurrection but eventually became a believer after examining the evidence. Some other good resources are 7 Truths that changed the world chapters 1-2 and Evidence for God chapters 27, 33-36
  
  In addition you can simply good some of these things looking into both what skeptics and Christian apologists have to say on the issue.

>Multiple (even one other) independent(/disinterested) verifiable source(s) for the supernatural claims?

Apart from "disinterested" (are there disinterested sources?), that's exactly what we do have. For the life, death, and subsequent resurrection appearances of Jesus we have multiple, independent sources. (I'm not sure what you mean by "verifiable" in this context.)

But please don't waste your time replying to me. I won't be able to add to what I just said other than to point you in the direction of other resources:

The Resurrection Argument that Changed a Generation of Scholars (YouTube)

"Who Moved the Stone" by Frank Morison (Amazon)

"Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony" by Richard Bauckham (Amazon)

Unbelievable? 29 Aug 2009 - Richard Bauckham on the Gospels - pt 1 (Radio Podcast)

EDIT

Also this:

The Real Jesus: Paul Maier presents new evidence from history and archaeology

I feel your pain and I was there some years back. I think the most important questions you need to ask are "Who is Jesus?" and "Is Jesus telling the truth?"

I say focus on Jesus because the other questions you are asking will fall in line if you can answer these two questions. And I encourage you not to take these questions lightly but to really wrestle with them. Read different opinions if it will help.

There is a man named Frank Morison who set out to prove Christianity was a myth but the more he delved into the historical texts and asked the questions I encourage you to ask, he ended up becoming a Christian. He documented this in his book "Who Moved the Stone?"

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Moved-Stone-Frank-Morison/dp/0310295610

Also, consider reading Lee Strobel's "The Case for Christ". He was an atheist until his wife converted to Christianity one day which set him to start looking hard at the evidence.

Also, consider listening to the Stand to Reason podcast with Gregory Koukl. He sets out to present clear-thinking Christianity and often debates atheists who call into his show. www.str.org

Hope this helps.