I gave a lot of evidence for my proposed date of Acts. Where’s yours? There are plenty of scholars to be had on all sides. They disagree on dates because it’s not a science experiment where you follow the protocol and achieve the same result to verify a repeatable phenomenon. Instead, we have to decide what is most reasonable based on historical, textual, and situational evidence. I gave my set of evidence. It’s not perfect. I’m not an archaeologist or historian. But it’s discussion-worthy evidence. What information would you provide as consideration?
THE BIBLE IS HEARSAY - NO ORIGINALA MANUSCRIPTS - NO FIRST HAND ACCOUNTS
information received from other people that one cannot adequately substantiate; rumor.
“according to hearsay, Bob had managed to break his arm”
Merriam-Webster has an excellent definition of what hearsay is: “… evidence based not on a witness’s personal knowledge but on another’s statement not made under oath.” In American courts, hearsay is often not allowed in as evidence to prove the truth of what is testified to. Another definition spells it out clearly:
Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered to prove the truth of whatever it asserts. Hearsay evidence is often inadmissible at trial. However, many exclusions and exceptions exist. For something to be hearsay, it does not matter whether the statement was oral or written. Generally speaking, hearsay cannot be used as evidence at trial.
Wrong. You have no first hand accounts. Paul never met Jesus. You have a blank first century with no accounts contemporary to the live of the Jesus character. NONE. The bible is a book of stories written by followers. You have no corroborating evidence at all.
Regardless of Acts or when it was written. it is a story and not a first hand accout 20 years after the death of this person supposedly to be a savior. Hearsay! Not admissible in court. End of story. You have no good evidence for your claim.
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Here’s some for putting it even later…
Tyson, Joseph B., (April 2011). “When and Why Was the Acts of the Apostles Written?”, in: The Bible and Interpretation: “…A growing number of scholars prefer a late date for the composition of Acts, i.e., c. 110-120 CE. Three factors support such a date. First, Acts seems to be unknown before the last half of the second century. Second, compelling arguments can be made that the author of Acts was acquainted with some materials written by Josephus, who completed his Antiquities of the Jews in 93-94 CE…Third, recent studies have revised the judgment that the author of Acts was unaware of the Pauline letters.”
@christianapologist, how long after the resurrection was the ascension?
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No eyewitnesses, not one, no facts - none, beyond some scant evidence for a quite common execution of someone with a pretty common name. Repeating this false claim doesn’t evidence it.
The earliest copy of the gospels was written decades after the alleged death of Jesus, and written anonymously, there are no eyewitnesses, only claims. Even if you had them, no one could objectively lend any credence to bare claims for supernatural magic, especially from an epoch of extreme ignorance and superstition.
The Spiderman films are set in New York and many of the facts about the city are accurate, this doesn’t of course make Spiderman real.
That’s a begging the question fallacy, that the maths might make it possible, does not in any way objectively evidence that anyone witnessed anything, and again why would bare claims from people woefully ignorant of the natural world, from an epoch of extreme superstition to have witnessed magic, they can neither evidence is possible nor explain at all be compelling reason to believe the claim? Do you believe all such claims from all other religions?
Claims, there is no evidence for any eyewitnesses. FYI if I were on a jury and someone made a bare claim to have witness magic they could nether evidence or explain, I would not believe that claim.
No, the argument merely indicates that unevidenced claim to have witnessed magic are worthless, and we know it is possible for people to lie, exaggerate, be deceived etc etc., as an objective fact, we have no objective evidence anything supernatural is even possible.
Monetary gain represents motive, but one need not demonstrate any of the claims are a hoax in order to disbelieve them, and again it is an objective fact that the Christian religion has been involved in hoaxes and chicanery, yet we have no objective evidence at all that any deity or anything supernatural is even possible. Your hypothetical trial is going very badly.
No indeed, but it does objectively demonstrate it is possible, which is more than you or any theist has been able to do for the existence of any deity or anything supernatural.
The Roman Catholic Church is obscenely rich, and has been amassing wealth and power from the start.
We have no evidence for any of that, only some that someone with a pretty common name was crucified. I have explained the gospels are anonymous hearsay, the earliest dates to decades after the events they purport to describe, and the names were assigned arbitrarily over three and a half centuries later to lend them some gravitas.
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Well, fuck! I’m just not needed any more. LOL
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You seem to miss the irony. ALL CAPS or repeating that you think I’m wrong doesn’t give any evidence for your claim. I’ll try again…
Why do you think the biblical texts are not contemporary to eyewitnesses? Give evidence.
Mine is given: Acts does not mention the temple destruction, death of James, or death of Paul. The temple was destroyed in AD 70. James was killed in AD 62. So I’m saying Acts came before AD 62 because it doesn’t mention these very significant events. I grant it’s not ironclad, nothing is in antiquity. Let’s weigh the information I’ve provided with some from you, but you’ll have to put something on your end of the scale. Otherwise, it’s like I’m playing teeter-totter by myself. Not very interesting.
Your logical progression:
@christianapologist is wrong because…
I said so.
I used capital letters.
Try again. Maybe this will help…
YOUR CLAIM:
YOUR EVIDENCE:
[empty cavern of misapplied definitions, capital letters, and repeated presupposition]
My points about the demonic haunted house were only intended to demonstrate the nature of hoaxes . . . not a specific argument that “Christianity is false,” and was not intended to “prove” or “disprove” the religion.
The main disagreement that we seem to have is that someone who claims something is the one obligated to show evidence for the claim . . . not the interloucutor (or audience) to disprove the claim.
Otherwise, I could claim that leprechauns live in my garden, and it’s up to my audience to prove me wrong rather than me showing reasons why I believe leprechauns are living in my garden.
By some criteria, leprechauns are a lot more plausible than God.
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Bro, did you read the article? It lays out evidence/reasons for three different perspectives on the date of the Book of Acts: early (exactly what I laid out), middle, or late (what you copied and pasted). It does not make a case for late dates only. Shall I paste the sentences supporting my view from your article? Ok…
“The range of proposed dates for Acts is quite wide, from c. 60 CE-150 CE. Within this range of dates, three are prominent in the scholarly literature: an early, an intermediate, and a late date.”
“Some scholars prefer an early date, i.e., the early 60’s of the first century. It is believed that Paul’s arrival in Rome, described in Acts 28, must have occurred between 58-60 CE. But the author of Acts, who wrote that Paul went to Rome to be tried before the emperor, provided us with no description of the trial or its outcome. Why so? Perhaps because the book was written before the trial took place.”
“The significance of an early date for Acts lies in the apparent advantage it gives to the historian of this period. If the author was a companion of Paul, who accompanied him on some of his travels, then those sections of Acts that deal with Paul may be regarded as eye-witness reports…”
And, here’s a response to the “late date” arguments made in the article:
-
“Acts seems to be unknown before the last half of the second century.”
This is really vague… “unknown” to whom? Christianity was a small, persecuted movement within Judaism in the beginning. Its original writings by eyewitnesses would most certainly remain unknown to ruling parties in Rome, for example, until it gained enough momentum that they had to respond to it. -
“the author of Acts was acquainted with… Josephus…”
I would be really interested to hear if someone can provide what evidence indicates this claim. It could be a good point for a later date if substantiated. -
“recent studies have revised the judgment that the author of Acts was unaware of the Pauline letters.”
I would agree that the author knew some of Paul’s letters. Some of them were written before Acts and the author of Acts traveled with Paul–he may have been there while they were written!
"Paul’s letters date even earlier than the four canonical Gospels. Interestingly, there is today considerable scholarly consensus that Paul was indeed the author of many of the Pauline epistles and that they date very early. The so-called undisputed epistles include 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, and Romans. These all date to the early to mid-50s.
What’s interesting is that Paul provides a great number of details about the life and teaching of Jesus, all being proclaimed within about twenty years of the life of Jesus—easily within the lifetimes of the eyewitnesses."
Paul Gould, Travis Dickinson, and Keith Loftin, Stand Firm: Apologetics and the Brilliance of the Gospel (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2018), 76–77.
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LOL: Hit them in the head with the facts and they just ask for more. LOL
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Ok. So your story about a hoax in this thread was just a tangent. Got it. We now covered the nature of hoaxes, which you do not intend to apply to Christianity in any way… except you did when you said this…
…and this…
I’m not seeing consistency on this @Kevin_Levites
How about responding to the dating of the Book of Acts and the specific ways I have tried to show we have eyewitness testimony and eyewitnesses could have testified against these writings since they were contemporary? I didn’t have that information earlier when you first responded. Now it’s out there to be evaluated.
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How many times do you think you can ignore those facts before you are accused of mendacity?
No it was analogous, and it objectively evidences the fact that those who champion superstition have dealt in chicanery and hoaxes. Can You provide any objective evidence that a deity or anything supernatural is possible? Each time this goes unanswered is a large clue as to that answer…
Third hand hearsay, hmm.
Oh dear, and this evidences eyewitness how? Even if you did have claims by people to have “witnessed magic” from an epoch of extreme ignorance and superstition, so what? How many religions have identical claims?
Appeal to authority fallacy, people’s subjective religious beliefs are not objective evidence.
I don’t think you know what contemporary means, but there are no contemporary accounts of anything about the Jesus character, not one word was written while he was alive.
You seem to be ignoring facts you don’t like, now why would that be?
Just as you ignored this response to your earlier claims.
And this…
And this…
And this…
I won’t labour the point any further, but your credibility takes a hit every time you roll past arguments challenging yours as if they haven’t been offered, and move on to a new raft of claims…
FYI:
“The earliest possible date for Luke-Acts is around 62 AD, the time of Paul’s imprisonment in Rome,[14] but most scholars date the work to 80–90 AD on the grounds that it uses Mark as a source, looks back on the destruction of Jerusalem, and does not show any awareness of the letters of Paul (which began circulating late in the first century); if it does show awareness of the Pauline epistles, and also of the work of the Jewish historian Josephus, as some believe, then a date in the early 2nd century is possible.”
Maybe contemporary doesn’t mean what you think it means?
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Don’t ever call me that again!
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Thank you very much for seeing my point. I sometimes have problems communicating because of my autism . . . and the answers I get from Christianpologist makes me wonder if I’m communicating well.
So thank you again.
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Surely the mere fact that there exist substantive doubts about the timeline for the texts in question, counts as a black mark against their purported provenance?
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I was waiting for that, I almost felt guilty waiting for the sword of Damocles to fall.
I’m pretty sure everyone did, religious apologists seems to have straw man fallacies drilled into them.
Seriously if you had never mentioned it, I’d not have known.
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Lets be factual here, by his own admission “Paul” whoever he was, never encountered the jesus figure in the flesh.
Everything Paul wrote in his epistles was from his dreams or visions. He was a gnostic schismatic who made up his own version of the jewish messanaic stories espoused by some jews and gentiles who had converted to judaism. He was writing some 25 - 40 years after the supposed death of the jesus figure and inspired entirely by hearsay.
If the accounts were to be believed, “Paul” was in fact, declared apostate by James (who some claim to be the half brother of the jesus figure) from the Upper Temple. That alone sabotages any credibility the writer of the Epistles may have had, never mind the psychotic episodes that inspired his writings. .
Relying on the epistles to prove the existence of an anonymous fan fiction writer whose dates vary from the mid 1st to mid 2cnd century is pathetic at best, or the very definition of gullibility.
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Woah! Anyone can claim anything mun… 
Ok, you’re dead to me know.
Errr, Jesus never died, not properly, he was resurrected, learn the basics dude…
Fnarrr, who listens to apostates mun?
H-E-R-E-S-Y…
Oh their gawwwd…narrow is the path, and easy the way sunny Jim…you’ll change your ways when old Nick is prodding your brown starfish with a hot poker, yesssssirrr…
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Oh Shelley, you are always one to remind me of my failings…I shall consume a large cold pint of locally made lager in your honour at lunchtime.
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I’ve just finished a cheap Aussie Shiraz (they’re the best, and fuck those snail snuckers), 
now on to some Vodka. Big day tomorrow, Wales playing England in Twickers in the 6N…eye am noyvous…to put it mildly…
Oh, and if that doesn’t address the thread OP sufficiently I don’t know what to say… 
Since eyeaman an atheist, and eyewuz being honest…tadah! 
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Not if all you are looking for is validation fo theistic belief, obviously, but clearly you know this, whereas people selling snake oil either don’t or can’t…
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