Atheists acknowledging historical Jesus' goodness

[blü 2]

Yeah, but sensory input leads to the 3 different variants of empiricism and how that relates to truth. And we do that differently.

Perhaps the stimulus is empirically perceived, or perhaps it's a dream or mood or notion. The instinctive mental response "a cat did that" is an hypothesis, a guess; "a god did that" is however entirely imaginary.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Perhaps the stimulus is empirically perceived, or perhaps it's a dream or mood or notion. The instinctive mental response "a cat did that" is an hypothesis, a guess; "a god did that" is however entirely imaginary.

I use a different version of empiricism. If you want, I can find it.

 

[Brian2]

But he had no better information than anyone else. With the exception of Paul, the authors of the books and letters of the NT are all unknown, according to historical scholarship going back more than a century.

Well they would know more than the early Church.

We don't know who wrote Mark. We do know that whoever wrote it did so around 75 CE, some 45 years after the traditional date of Jesus' death.

The actual evidence is for a date of authorship in the 50s. 20-30 years after Jesus death, and for Mark a companion of Peter as the author.
The 75CE date come from the presupposition that the prophecy in the gospel is a lie and with that, that all the miracles and resurrection are also wrong.
So the date and lack of authorship point in that direction.
Circular reasoning.
I think that last time this came up between you and me, you ended up saying that of course the supernatural is seen as wrong until it is shown to be correct.
Then I went on to say that by saying that you are saying that evidence for the supernatural (the evidence for the early dating) cannot be accepted until the supernatural is shown to be true. Weird logic from you and other skeptics I know.
Reasonable people accept the early dating evidence and that this is evidence for the supernatural, the prophecy of the Temple destruction. It is your non believing however which is the only evidence you have for a late date and so that the author is not know. And as you probably say, the evidence of faith is not worth anything as evidence.

Yes, but none of them is contemporary, and we're left with what modern scholarship can tell us. And it tells us we don't know any of the authors except Paul.

Not much of history is written by those who were around when things happened.
When it comes to the record in the early church, that is things that have been passed down and recorded. If you want to pretend they were made up, OK, do that.
And we have more than modern scholarship. We have ancient historians and passed down records and we have scholarship over the many centuries.
Modern methods of determining things aren't necessarily so. This can be seen in the late dating methods that just assume things that are probably wrong and then claim that their presumptions and hence dating are right.
Then skeptics come along and read their books and say. "Hey looky here at what modern historians say, they must be right, they are modern."

 

[blü 2]

I use a different version of empiricism. If you want, I can find it.

I'll refrain from putting you to the trouble, kind though your offer is ...