I terms of Paul’s visions I wonder if a regimen of spiradone or some other anti psychotic may have changed the course of christianity? Or why, when Jesus appeared he didn’t give him a story that would hold water and would cover some of the events Cog pointed out. It seems that Pauls visions didn’t serve the cause very well.
As an aside christianapologist’s last post was number 69 in this thread this is 83 I’ve heard of “kicking a guy when he’s down” but not “kicking a guy when he’s gone”. AWW the internet is a wonderous thing by making the impossible easy.
@Cognostic Your entire list is a misunderstanding of genre. The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were evangelistic biography (so to speak). They told the account of the life, teaching, and actions of Jesus arranged in ways meant to persuade the reader to respond. The Book of Acts gives a historical account of the growth of the early Christian church. Paul wrote letters. They were written to specific churches and addressed specific questions, issues, and relationships.
Even with the above being said, Paul does know some things you claim he doesn’t. He talked with eyewitnesses to the resurrection, for example. In fact, he would know of #5-14 by talking with one man: Peter. Did they meet and talk? Yes! So Paul talked with a man physically present for #5-14, but didn’t write about these events because he was writing letters, not biographies.
#15: Paul did not think the Jews crucified Jesus, but that they persuaded the Romans to crucify him. #16: Paul’s theology and references to Jesus are consistent with the Gospels. #17: Strange statement. Are you implying that you believe Jesus was a spirit without a body?
#1-4: I don’t have anything to add here. I agree that Paul does not write about these events in biographical detail. He makes theological references to biographical events as it makes sense for the purposes of his letter (if the church had a question or debate on the topic).
I would respond with where I started: there are no ironclad cases for dates. Scholars have different evidence to support their theories. We should weigh the evidence for each and decide what is the most reasonable conclusion.
Would you take me up on this: write out the evidence behind your doubts?
Let’s weigh it alongside what I wrote: Acts came before 62 AD due to the lack of mention of the death of James and the destruction of the temple. I also made a case for why I think Acts would include those events if they had already occurred at the time of writing.
I’m really surprised by the lack of evidence being provided by all of you who disagree with me.
I provided my historical evidence for the Biblical documents including eyewitness testimony. Evaluate the evidence. Share counter-evidence of your own. That’s debate.
The names are fake, the gospel authorship is unknown, and the gospels are anonymous hearsay - by definition.
Entirely unknown, no matter how many times you ignore this fact.
That is a claim, there is no objective evidence for any resurrection or any eyewitnesses, and again unevidenced claims to have “witnessed” supernatural magic would be worthless anyway, especially from an epoch of extreme ignorance and superstition.
You owe me an irony meter.
You have not provided any objective evidence anyone witnessed anything, and again claims to have witnessed supernatural magic are not objective evidence, and again this would be especially the case during an epoch of ignorance and superstition.
I am extremely dubious that the supernatural can be objectively evidenced by any historical facts, and beyond some scant evidence that someone with a common name met a fairly common end, all you have are unevidenced hearsay claims, from unknown unauthored gospel myths.
Actually, you’re the one making the claims about the accuracy and historical autheticity of the bible. So the burden of evidence is on you, not on the doubters.
Note that he also carefully avoided my reply to his claims. Merely restating unevidenced theological claims is not evidence of anything except either overweening arrogance or a depth of gullibility I don’t care to plumb.
I put evidence on the “scale of reason” and the rest of you left your side unoccupied. The scale tips in my direction, unless you have something to offer.
My side of the scale:
Acts purports to be a historical account
Acts does not include the death of James (AD 62) or the destruction of the temple (AD 70)
Acts records many historically accurate details (see references to governing authorities)
Acts records Stephen’s martyrdom, so it would likely include James’ if it had already occurred
Acts records significant cultural events, so it would likely include the temple destruction
Therefore, Acts was written before AD 62
Your side of the scale:
I don’t have to say anything because I’m the doubter
One article (that supports my argument equally with the mid and late dating of Acts)
And once again as in all the biblical texts we do not have an original to compare. We have texts P8 and P29, both are fragments and date from the 4th Century CE.
What additions and deletions and editing was carried out in the 250 plus years since the first copy (as you claim) and the late 4th Century CE is anyones’ guess.
Nope, this is called an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
So what, this does not objectively evidence any deity or anything supernatural.
So do Spiderman movies, this doesn’t make Spiderman real.
" Acts was written in Greek, presumably by St. Luke the Evangelist. The Gospel According to Luke concludes where Acts begins, namely, with Christ’s Ascension into heaven. Acts was apparently written in Rome, perhaps between 70 and 90 ce , though some think a slightly earlier date is also possible."
“Traditionally, the author is believed to be Luke the Evangelist, a doctor who travelled with Paul the Apostle. It is usually dated to around 80–90 AD, although some scholars suggest 110–120 AD.”
I have pointed you to eyewitness accounts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts (the authors thereof and their interviews with eyewitnesses). I have made a case for why Acts, in particular, was written during the lifetime of eyewitnesses.
As I see it, you’re not actually considering the evidence. You have already decided that it is a logical impossibility that something supernatural could occur. Based on that presupposition, you say that eyewitnesses to something supernatural cannot count as evidence.
By this reasoning, we never could have discovered disease-causing bacteria. Your logic would have called it “supernatural magic” for someone to get sick from something impossible to see with the eyes. If someone responded by saying, “I saw the bacteria” your logic would respond: “Impossible, that’s supernatural magic” rather than investigating further to see if/how the claim might be true.
I think this is why the thread is titled “Atheist Dishonesty.” You accuse Christians of presupposition but are blind to your own.
Your counterevidence is to doubt the reliability of the remaining copies of the documents because they could have been tampered with between the original and the copies. This is content that can be evaluated and discussed!
Metzger and Ehrman write that “the textual critic of the New Testament is embarrassed by a wealth of material. Furthermore, the work of many ancient authors has been preserved only in manuscripts that date from the Middle Ages (sometimes the late Middle Ages), far removed from the time at which they lived and wrote. On the contrary, the time between the composition of the books of the New Testament and the earliest extant copies is relatively brief. Instead of a lapse of a millennium or more, as is the case of not a few classical authors, several papyrus manuscripts of portions of the New Testament are extant that were copied within a century or so after the composition of the original documents.” [Metzger, Bruce, and Bart Ehrman. The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005]
My understanding is that Ehrman is not a Christian. So that quote is coming from an atheist/agnostic (?) scholar.
Our hypothetical “changer of the text” would have to act in a relatively short amount of time. Short in the sense that every other work of antiquity has a MUCH larger gap between the original and remaining copies. Possible, but less likely than the work of Tacitus (choose your favorite author) being altered.
Next, many of the New Testament texts were widely circulated. The “changer” would have to track down A LOT of copies…
Daniel Wallace, in his book Reinventing Jesus: “In comparison with the average ancient Greek author, the New Testament copies are well over a thousand times more plentiful. If the average-sized manuscript were two and one-half inches thick, all the copies of the works of an average Greek author would stack up four feet high, while the copies of the New Testament would stack up to over a mile high! This is indeed an embarrassment of riches.”
To be consistent, going with the “someone changed the original text” claim means you can’t trust any writing of antiquity. None have the chops to stand up with the New Testament.
No, you have claimed they contain eyewitness accounts, and others have explained (myself included) that the gospels are anonymous hearsay. Written decades after the events the purport to describe. All you have “presented” is a claim, and it is not supported by any objective evidence.
This does not make the hearsay claims eyewitness accounts. If I write that someone told me they saw a mermaid, 60 years ago, this is not eyewitness testimony. Now if we could substantiate someone claimed to have seen a mermaid, this would be an eyewitness claim, how much credence would you give it?
One more thing you’re wrong about then, and please don’t tell me what I think. Your “evidence” is anonymous hearsay, and dates decades after the events it purports to describe, if this is your standard why don’t you accept identical “evidence” for other religions?
I said it was not objective evidence, and I said why, please don’t misrepresent what I said, use the quote function. If you think unsupported anonymous hearsay claims dated decades after the fact are compelling, why don’t accept that standard for all such claims? Since you are setting a standard that favours your chosen beliefs, it’s doubly dishonest of you to accuse me of bias, given I apply the same standard to all claims, that they be supported by sufficient objective evidence.
That’s a false equivalence, and a straw man fallacy, as I not only made no such claim, the existence of such bacteria is believed precisely because it can be objectively evidenced.
That’s simply a lie, please stop misrepresenting my position, as I have not and never would make any such claims. FYI the assertion something might be true, is semantically identical to the assertion might not be true. If I am to believe something is possible, then it would need to be demonstrated to be so, with sufficient objective evidence.
Can you demonstrate any objective evidence for any deity, or anything supernatural, or that they are even possible?
It was entitled by a troll, trying to bait the atheists here, the OP is pure mendacity, as is your claim here, you are trying to create a poisoning of the well fallacy, and I made no presuppositions.
The gospels are anonymous hearsay, derived from an epoch of extreme ignorance of the natural world, and extreme superstition.
There are no contemporary accounts, and no eyewitness accounts, only claims, dated decades later, from unknown sources.
I was trying to write from your perspective. I consider Acts reliable and accurate, but a doubter might say Acts purports x, y, z. It doesn’t make my evidence irrelevant. Neither would it be irrelevant if I simply misused a word. Do you have a response to my content? This is a distraction from the debate.
I made a pretty clear case for the Book of Acts being written within the lifetimes of eyewitnesses to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Luke wrote his Gospel before Acts, so the same goes for that. I guess you can’t dismiss this without evidence (otherwise you’ll let Hitchens down).
Paul never talked to eyewitnesses of the crucifixion. Paul did not place Jesus on Earth.
scholars such as Dale Martin, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, and Marcus Borg, argue that Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 envisions a heavenly or “spiritual” body which excludes participation of the earthly, mortal body in final salvation. This reading of 1 Corinthians 15 is the basis in turn for a widespread scholarly view of Christian origins in which belief in the resurrection of Jesus’s crucified body from the tomb, such as we see reflected in the gospel accounts, was a later development, unknown to Paul and the earliest Christ followers.
*All Christians were brothers. When Paul meets the ‘brother of Jesus’ the passage in unclear as to an actual brother or a Christian brother and you can not make a claim.
POINT IS: All this shit is debated by scholars well above your intelligence level. You don’t get to pull shit out of your ass and pretend it is true just because you want to believe it to be true. You cannot use the fanciful stories of Paul or of the Gospels to evidence themselves. You are left holding NOTHING. There is no reason to believe anything in the Big Inactuate Book of Lying Embellishments. The book is an anthology of early Christian writings thrown together to perpetuate a religion and nothing more.