More People Believe in Elvis
Jun. 12th, 2007 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
le_bebna_kamniToday while I was pondering an interesting Jesus-related historical question I ran across another of the typical sites trying to prove that the Jesus resurrection story happened exactly as the Bible told it. A common and overused argument relies on two facts:
According to Fox News, 25 years after Elvis's reported death, 8% of Americans believe that Elvis is still alive, and 11% are unsure. That's 19% (almost 1 out of 5 people) that aren't completely convinced that Elvis is dead. To put this in perspective, by A.D. 100 (about 70 years after Jesus's death) there were an estimated 1 million Christians in the Roman empire, out of a population of 181 million*. That's only .6% of the population that were convinced Jesus wasn't dead.
Still don't believe me? Well how about this evidence:
Reading the four Gospels shows that there are less than 20 people credited either by name or as part of "the eleven" who saw the resurrected Jesus. A generous interpretation of John might yield an estimate of 50 people who saw Jesus before he ascended**. Given that The Elvis Sighting Bulletin Board is up to 688 sightings now, I think it's clear that Elvis must be alive.
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*From Google Answers.
**This assumes that there were people who followed Jesus who did not see him resurrected. If we want to be skeptical and say that no one believed without seeing, we can cap the number of eye-witnesses to at most 120 (Acts 1:15).
1) the eye-witness accounts: i.e., people actually saw Jesus resurrected, therefore it must really have happened.Based on these two assumptions, I would like to share a startling revelation I just had today:
2) so many people believed it. If it weren't true, wouldn't someone have set them straight?
Elvis Lives!
According to Fox News, 25 years after Elvis's reported death, 8% of Americans believe that Elvis is still alive, and 11% are unsure. That's 19% (almost 1 out of 5 people) that aren't completely convinced that Elvis is dead. To put this in perspective, by A.D. 100 (about 70 years after Jesus's death) there were an estimated 1 million Christians in the Roman empire, out of a population of 181 million*. That's only .6% of the population that were convinced Jesus wasn't dead.
Still don't believe me? Well how about this evidence:
Reading the four Gospels shows that there are less than 20 people credited either by name or as part of "the eleven" who saw the resurrected Jesus. A generous interpretation of John might yield an estimate of 50 people who saw Jesus before he ascended**. Given that The Elvis Sighting Bulletin Board is up to 688 sightings now, I think it's clear that Elvis must be alive.
________________________________________________
*From Google Answers.
**This assumes that there were people who followed Jesus who did not see him resurrected. If we want to be skeptical and say that no one believed without seeing, we can cap the number of eye-witnesses to at most 120 (Acts 1:15).
