@WhoAreYou, your resources are problematic. Therefore, your arguments are lacking. Please provide more substantive data.
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Please show your work.
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This is a mess. @WhoAreYou has copied and pasted from the demonstrably dishonest and delusional William Lane Craig.
Here is WLC misquoting Sherwin-White:
āThis factor is typically neglected in New Testament scholarship, as A. N. Sherwin-White points out in Roman Law and Roman Society tn the New Testament . Professor Sherwin-White is not a theologian; he is an eminent historian of Roman and Greek times, roughly contemporaneous with the NT. According to Professor Sherwin-White, the sources for Roman history are usually biased and removed at least one or two generations or even centuries from the events they record. Yet, he says, historians reconstruct with confidence what really happened. He chastises NT critics for not realizing what invaluable sources they have in the gospels. The writings of Herodotus furnish a test case for the rate of legendary accumulation, and the tests show that even two generations is too short a time span to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical facts. When Professor Sherwin-White turns to the gospels, he states for these to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be āunbelievableā; more generations are needed.
(Contemporary Scholarship and the Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ)
And here is what Sherwin-White actually said:
ā Herodotus enables us to test the tempo of myth-making, and the tests suggest that even two generations are too short a span to allow the mythical tendency to prevail over the hard historic core of the oral tradition.ā
He never uses the word āunbelievableā or the term āwipe outā. There are many other mischaracterizations as well as outright distortions. This is on top of the fact that much effort was expended to locate a mouldy source for this nonsense.
For a complete refutation of this dishonest and intellectually insulting nonsense by WLC and others regarding Sherwin-White, here is Richard Carrier:
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/16272
This is more of the dishonesty and laziness on regular display by apologists that āpoof into existenceā hereinā¦
Edit ( oh look, a diamond in a goatās ass)
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I do not, nor have I ever feared or been remotely concerned even, over my own inevitable demise. I believe I explained this to you, when you made this offer of magic balm? It is redundantā¦since my mood cannot change from entirely unconcerned to more unconcerned. However not to be churlish, thanks for the offer of the aforementioned magic balm.
The real debrid servers went down yesterday, and my streaming service went with it, does that count? My nephew on a visit came around today and sorted it anyway, lest you be overly concerned I am as we speak watching The Verdict with Paul Newman in faultless HD.
Richard Carrier is neutral? Please apply the same standard to your arguments or donāt use double standards.
The gospels contain no historical facts, theyāre anonymous unevidenced hearsay. You have an uncanny knack of ignoring what people post, and rolling on with your own agenda.
Hereās a salient quote with a citation:
āNo, Mr. Christian, A.N. Sherwin-White Didnāt Say That. And Even What He Did Say Was Wrong.ā
Please note, the historical method doesnāt peddle magic and superstition. This important distinction always seems to evade religious apologists who knows why?
They are not historical documents, they are anonymous hearsay.
Pul never met Jesus, and didnāt write a word about him until long after he is alleged to have died, again hearsay accounts. I note again you have grasped one point and ignored your irrational claims and my questions? My patience is not limitless.
Nonsense, an unevidenced claim in a book, and then another unevidenced claim something happened that matches the previous unevidenced claim, this is poor stuff indeed. However for the sake of argument, lets assume a claim is properly evidenced, and unequivocal and unambiguous (they never are but hey ho), now lets further assume sufficient objective evidence that claim occurred exactly as described, and there is no explanation for this.
What you have is something you canāt explain, nothing more. To assert otherwise is the very definition of an argumentum ad ignorantiam fallacy.
None of those are facts, they are unevidenced anonymous hearsay, though there is some scant evidence for the crucifixion, however this type of execution was too commonplace to be of any real significance, and certainly would not evidence any supernatural claims for magic even were it established as sound historical fact.
Claimed, and claimed using anonymous hearsay, magic is ārecordedā in the Harry Potter books, so fucking what?
Precisely so, and no historian is claiming Alexander the Great performed magic either. A distinction inexplicably lost on many religious apologists, when peddling their snake oil.
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Glad you understand that much at least. He is a very well respected historian, his work does not use the bias of religious faith, so yes. he is neutral. Too often apologists cite credible historians, but dishonestly cite their subjective religious beliefs, as if this is the same as their historical work, when it quite obviously is not, as it does not satisfy the basic requirements of the historical method.
Now, have you managed to think of any objective evidence for any deity you can demonstrate yet? You seem very reluctant to answer this question.
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- Please demonstrate how Carrier is incorrect.
- He is an historian without the prejudices borne from belief in that which cannot be shown to be accurate.
- Now that weāve dealt with your deflection, perhaps youāll proceed with the debate
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Butā¦ā¦according to the stories, the Jesus character didnāt fulfill all the prophecies.
How do you reconcile that?
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Good one, intentional irony? Heās not here for debate, by his own admission. Not that we needed that admission of course.
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Why is everyone whoās responded to this clown still being so nice? How many posts/responses does it take until itās time to politely inform him(?) that heās just another christian idiot who believes in fairy tales?
Itās becoming monotonous reading his replies, itās just more of the same.
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Speaking for myself, I donāt believe that itās always someoneās fault for being an idiot.
I need people to be patient with me because Iām autistic, and a lot of people confuse my autism with stupidity.
I was just trying to be equitable.
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If you find reading posts in the DEBATE room to be monotonous, then donāt read them.
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Speak for yourselves, Iām enjoying this. Let the games continue!!! I cherish a good lopsided dual!!!
Besides I need something to read on my lunch break.
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After reading the first 150+ responses from both sides of the argument without anything new/different being said, what else should someone think?
I didnāt say you should think differently. I suggested that if you find it monotonous, quit reading it.
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Agreed. Every court needs a jester or two. Now we have one. He is only here to entertain and be practice for future debates.
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Please name any author who wrote about Alexander the great who met him.
I guess you can sit here and play that card all you want and bring up historical figure after historical figure and discredit everything about them just so you can have your āgotcha momentā on the Gospel Jesus who has even less evidence supporting what little existence he had. I bet you donāt believe in the existence of George Washington or Abraham Lincoln either. Maybe we can just bullshit and say all historians are liars too. Think that ship will sail?
Callisthenes of Olynthus
Ptolemy I Soter
Aristobulus of Cassandreia
Onesicritus of Astypalaia
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