outhouse
Atheistically
That is exactly why no modern apologist have tried.
They understand the impending failure.
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Did Jesus actually exist as a historical figure?
- Thread starter leibowde84
- Start date
That is exactly why no modern apologist have tried.
They understand the impending failure.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
You are all good, buddy.
outhouse
Atheistically
Even if they were eyewitnesses, It would still be out of context in authentication of the document/s.
remember
. It does not automatically lead to admission of the substance of the document irrespective of its credibility
leibowde84
Veteran Member
They made explicit erroneous assumptions that would be easily dismissed today. Namely, that we know who wrote the Gospels. If you read his argument, it is completely based on this erroneous assumption. We truly do no know who wrote the Gospels. Because of this, Greenleaf's argument falls apart.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
There is no "The bible". There are only manuscripts (thousands upon thousands of them). For you to have a point not one manuscript of each Gospel would meet that criteria. Again, men who not only were among the best trained to know but actually wrote the rules and texts by which the issue is decided consider the NT reliable. However if you are talking about biblical reliability in general then no text of any kind in ancient history is even in second place. Even critics like Ehrman believe the textual reliability of the bible is extraordinary.
Most of these differences are completely immaterial and insignificant; in fact most of the
changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or
ideology. Far and away the most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple—
slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders
of one sort or another when scribes made intentional changes, sometimes their motives
were as pure as the driven snow. And so we must rest content knowing that getting back
to the earliest attainable version is the best we can do, whether or not we have reached
back to the “original” text. This oldest form of the text is no doubt closely (very closely)
related to what the author originally wrote, and so it is the basis for our interpretation of
his teaching.
The gentleman that I’m quoting is Bart Ehrman in Misquoting Jesus. [audience laughter]
1. Out of thousands of manuscripts there are hundreds that meet the qualifications of the ancient document rules.
2. If your talking about textual reliability in general then even the critics disagree with you. The is routinely claimed to be between 95% accurate (even by critics) and 99.5% accurate (by theologians).
leibowde84
Veteran Member
You are fighting your own argument with Ehrman's quote. He admits that we cannot get back to the original text, but we have a text that is very closely related to what the original authors wrote. The problem is that we do not know who wrote the Gospels, so even if we had the original, we wouldn't know who wrote it or whether that person would have had any authority to speak for Jesus. Greenleaf just skipped the problem by assuming that the Gospels were written by the men they were named after, but that is a HUGE assumption.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
1. I have my reasons for not wanting to debate that person even if (and I do not recall) he did make a valid point.
2. I gave you the criteria by which ancient documents gain admissibility and the bible meets every one. I did not type the word authenticity.
3. You have no idea who wrote the Gospels. The earliest (which is almost always the best) sources recorded that eyewitnesses did write portions of the NT. Your opinion may be that they are wrong but I consider Greenleaf and the early church fathers in far better positions to know than you and so my opinion is the opposite. 100 biblical scholars worked on the NIV bible and they also concluded the traditional authors were the true authors (with the possible exception of Hebrews). The difference is that my faith is claimed to be an opinion and your faith is claimed to be knowledge which you cannot possibly have.
12/05/1783 - 10/06/1853 :: Simon Greenleaf
... clearly a cutting edge authority on hearsay and eyewitness testimony. 
outhouse
Atheistically
And nothing survives from that time period.
YOUR talking about what later apologist thought, and their original words no longer exist, and these traditions are coming from hundreds of years after.
EVEN if they were original, they were to far removed from the events to offer any historicity what so ever.
As it stands the authors are unknown.
You don't have a leg to stand on here.
outhouse
Atheistically
No it does not.
You took it out of context, and have no idea what your even debating here.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
1. The certainty of authorship is not among the qualifications of the ancient document law. Greenleaf does assume traditional authorship but his argument does not depend on it.
2. In most cases the earlier the sources the better. The earliest sources (the church fathers) claimed the traditional authors wrote the Gospels. No information you can possibly have can overturn the earliest sources.
3. The historical accuracy of a document has nothing what so ever to do with who the author is. An eyewitness can be wrong while a person who only heard of an event can be accurate.
No one can be certain who wrote the Gospels. You have your opinion, and I have my opinion based on reasonable evidence and arguments. What we can reliably know is that the biblical text is highly accurate and that it qualifies under ancient document rules. That is far more than necessary to justify faith. Your original question was whether Jesus was a historical figure. No one can say for certain but a majority those best trained to know (NT historians) not only agree he is historical but also agree on several historical events.
1. That he claimed to have unprecedented divine authority.
2. That he practiced a ministry of exorcism and apocalyptic prophecy.
3. That he was crucified.
4. That he was baptized by John.
5. That his tomb was found empty.
I have already provided the sources for these claims if you need them but this is common knowledge.
He is also the most textually attested figure in ancient history.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
I never said we could go back to the original so I am not fighting anything. I have always said we can have high confidence that modern bibles accurately reflect the originals. That is what even the critics agree with. BTW Greenleaf explained himself very well. He said he could not cover every avenue related to biblical accuracy. He said up front what he was granting and why he was doing so. Regardless the book of John for example is no less or more accurate whether John wrote it or not. Authorship is a huge issue but historical accuracy simply does not depend on it at all. I can defend the traditional authors but the issue at hand was reliability not authorship.
outhouse
Atheistically
Ridiculous.
The text themselves do that, by the blatant contradictions and different Christology.
Sever ignorance is generally why apologist like Greeny fail. He was an ignorant apologist who knew nothing of biblical history which has evolved forward since HIS horse and wagon days
outhouse
Atheistically
How honest is that???????
But you don't know what your talking about, and have no idea what the different levels of uncertainty are in this field.
YOU sources a link that said "MOST" not all and not 100% original. So we know the ending of Mark was redacted from its original ending. And the gospels Luke and Matthew plagiarized the gospel attributed to Mark.
There is also a debate in which some are not sure if Marcion redacted Luke, or if he repeated a shorter version of Luke. Now I think it was redacted, but this is an example of how lost you are debating topics you know nothing about.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I never claimed to have any knowledge. I merely pointed out the lack of certainty associated with the authors of the Gospels. And, please keep in mind that many lawyers have written criticisms of Greenleaf's opinion, showing that Greenleaf's assumptions were misplaced.
In regards to the ancient document rule, the Bible actually does not meet the requirements, imho. While I think that Greenleaf was a great legal mind, his opinion is of no greater value than the other legal minds that have disagreed with is argument.
Greenleaf rested his argument on the Gospels originally being eye-witness testimony. If this was true and was verified, I would agree with his position. But, we do not know that to be true. There is plenty of evidence for that assumption, but just as much against it. Ehrman does not hold that the Gospels were written by the men they are named for, so I'm fairly confident he would agree that there is no eye-witness testimony included. Thus, at the very best, this is 2 levels of hearsay. Under the law, each level of hearsay must be exceptions to the hearsay rule.
1. The author was writing down information passed from another person who may or may not have been an eye-witness observer. Greenleaf passes over this, as many people at that time had no issue believing that the Gospels were written by the men they were named after. Today, that is not a fair assumption to make, and a judge would be required to make substantiation of authorship necessary. What you have provided is no where close to achieving this. It might lead one to believe that the belief that the Apostles wrote the Gospels is plausible, but it certainly doesn't prove it.
2. Greenleaf claims to show that the Apostles (again assuming that they wrote, which is a huge stretch) had no reason to lie, and acted as if they weren't. Now, this is definitely unreasonable. There are many many many people who die for things that they believe that end up being false. There are many people who proselytize for things that end up being false. There are many people who hold to their beliefs and die because of them. Finally, there are a ton of people who have died for beliefs that they know to be false. Thus, it seems unreasonable to assume that the Apostles (again assuming that they had something to do with the writing of the Gospels) had no reason to lie or elaborate on the words of Jesus. Don't you think it is completely reasonable to assume the possibility that the Gospel writers added to the words of Jesus in order to clarify or strengthen his words? I sure do, and I'm sure a judge would feel that is is reasonable to think so.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Here is an excerpt from one such article criticizing Montgomery's assumptions which erroneously made up the backbone of his legal argument. I think this points out what my issues are with this line of reasoning.
The New Testament writings, however, do not even have that good a claim to authenticity, and Montgomery's claims are by no means established:
"1) their texts have been transmitted accurately..." On the contrary, there are no original texts of any New Testament document, but only copies, which differ among themselves. How can one assert anything with certainty about what the text said when it was written, if later copies differ? Granted, Bible scholars (usually those same "critics" which evangelical Christians love to impugn) have been able to make fairly intelligent guesses about what the original texts said probably said, but any doubts about their accuracy make Montgomery's assumption untenable. However, for the sake of getting on with the discussion, let us assume that the New Testament texts have been established to the extent that scholars agree as to what the original words of the texts were.
"2) [New Testament writings] claim to be primary source documents, and 'ring true as such'"
On the contrary, only the epistles can lay any claim to being primary source documents. However, even the epistles are not primary source documents for the miraculous events that Christian claims are based on. Montgomery seems not to understand what a "primary source document" is, either in a historical or a legal sense. A "primary source document" is a contemporary record made by someone with direct knowledge of the fact written. It may be a letter, a diary, a business or government record. For example, if we had Peter's original diary, containing the entry "This evening we were all seated at supper, and Jesus walked in! We all thought he was dead! We were stunned! ..." then that would be a primary source document tending to support a post-crucifixion appearance. But we do not have such documents. Note that later recollections, or reports of the recollections of others, are not "primary source documents," and that is the most that can be claimed for the gospels or the Book of Acts.
Letters are "primary source documents" only as to those matters which they report that are contemporary events and within the direct knowledge of the writer. Paul's accounts of arriving in a certain town, of meeting so-and-so that day, of losing his coat (2 Timothy 4:13) are all primary sources, but any statement in a letter which is not contemporary or not the writer's own direct knowledge (such as Paul's mentioning of the appearance to the five hundred) cannot be considered primary source material.
The "ring true" test, being extremely subjective, is not evidentiary because it is not objective. Nor is it even a valid subjective test: I have hundreds of historical novels in my library, fictionalized accounts of historical events, and all of them "ring true." However, they are to a large extent fiction, the product of the author's imagination. The people, the conversations, the details of the events - all are fiction. And yet, they certainly "ring true."
"3) their claimed authorship and dates are 'backed up by such solid extrinsic testimony as that of the second-century writer Papias, a student of John the Evangelist, who was told by him that the first three Gospels were indeed written by their traditional authors'..."
Montgomery overstates his case extremely here. If he were being completely honest, he would say that the claimed authorship of the the gospels and of quite a few of the epistles are still the subject of debate among Bible scholars. Why doesn't he admit this? In fact, the authorship of 2 Peter is generally acknowledged to be an anonymous writer of the second century, and not Simon Peter the Apostle. To put it bluntly, it is a forgery. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has long been acknowledged not to be Paul, as many pious Christians assume, but someone whose identity is completely unknown.
The testimony of Papias is the earliest authority for the authorship of the Apostles, but it is scarcely "solid." We do not even have Papias' direct testimony, since his writings are lost. Our information about Papias' testimony comes only by way of Eusebius, who wrote in the fourth century, and who portrays Papias as being somewhat gullible. The "John" of whom Papias was a student was more likely John Presbyter than John the Evangelist (or John the Apostle, if they can be proven identical). In short, the "solid" evidence is not as solid as Montgomery would like us to believe.
Montgomery continues: "...The 'ancient documents' rule can be applied to them, which makes their 'competence' such as 'would be established in any court of law,'" according to Simon Greenleaf, "the greatest nineteenth century authority on the law of evidence."
Here is one of the grossest misrepresentations in the entire article, and Montgomery repeats it later. The "ancient documents" rule in English (and American) Common Law developed in order to allow a document, under certain circumstances, to be introduced into evidence without requiring that a witness testify to its authenticity. Ordinarily, documents which a party wishes to introduce into evidence must be proven to be "authentic" before they can be placed before the court. This requires (usually very brief) testimony from some witness who is knowledgeable about the document. The bookkeeper is asked, for example: "Is this document a page from your company ledger?" "Yes." "Is that ledger maintained in the ordinary course of business?" "Yes." "Were these entries made at the time of the transactions they purport to record?" "Yes." The document has thus been "authenticated" and can be used as evidence.
All authorities on the rules of evidence emphasize that authenticating a document does not guarantee the truthfulness or accuracy of its contents. Authentication merely shows where the document came from and when it was created.
The "ancient documents rule" developed to deal with the problem arising when documents contained useful information, but there was no longer any witness around to authenticate them, because the documents were old. The rule under common law is discussed at length in 29 American Jurisprudence 2d, "Evidence," section 1201, where the requirements are listed in order for a party to present an otherwise unauthenticated document under the "ancient documents" rule: the document must 1) be over 30 years old; 2) be produced from proper custody (i.e., the chain of custody must be shown); 3) its authenticity must be corroborated by the circumstances; 4) copies of the document may be admissible if properly authenticated, but then the proof that the writer signed the original must be made.
The great modern encyclopedic authority on the law of evidence, Wigmore on Evidence, (cited hereafter as "Wigmore," and available in any county law library) gives the same requirements, section 2137ff.
The New Testament writings satisfy only the first requirement: they are over 30 years old. On all other requirements they fail completely.
I question even whether the gospels even qualify as "documents" as the term is used in this rule. A document is a physical thing, a writing usually on paper, usually in someone's handwriting, but perhaps produced by printing. It is the document itself, not its content, which must pass the ancient documents test. What "documents" would the Christians present to the court as evidence? The documents to which this rule would apply would have to be the actual original manuscripts of the evangelists, which, of course, no longer exist. Shall we accept copies? Then we must insist, as stated above, that evidence prove that the writer signed the original, which cannot be proven. But, in fact, we do not have copies. We have only copies of copies of copies that have gone through no one knows how many hands. And we do not know whose hands. Thus, one of the primary requirements of the ancient documents rule is not fulfilled: we cannot establish the gospels' "provenance."
The fact that they are copies of copies makes them inadmissible, as discussed at Wigmore, section 2143, where the general conclusion is reached that "..[copies] must fail [both] the custody and appearance test," citing as only one example the case of Carter vs. Wood 103 Va 68, 48 SE 553 (1904), where a copy of a deed was not admitted to evidence where it was not shown that the person making the copy had adequately tested the genuineness of the original.
The "appearance" test requires that the document must show no suspicious signs of tampering or alteration (Wigmore, section 2140). Mere "age will not sanctify earmarks of fraud," citing Hill vs. Nisbet58 Ga 586, 589. The copies we have definitely do not appear to be free of tampering. On the contrary, they show multiple evidences of tampering, altering, deleting, inserting. It does not matter, in applying the "free of tampering" test that the tampering does not affect the fundamental import. If it appears that the document has been tampered with, the document does not pass the test.
Furthermore, as 29 Am Jur 2d says (section 1202), the "ancient documents" rule is a rule of authentication only, not a rule for admissibility. Its purpose is only to dispense with authentication by a witness. Wigmore in section 2145a says that the "ancient documents rule"..
"... deals only with the authentication of the document. Whether the contents are material, or whether any statements of assertion contained in them are admissible for any purpose, should depend on different principles." [emphasis added]
Wigmore emphasizes (section 12) that "Admissibility falls short of proof or demonstration."
Critique of John Warwick Montgomery's Arguments
outhouse
Atheistically
That is correct.
Its contradictions in Christology to the others leaves it on its own.
And since it was written at a minimum of 3 different parts and possible time periods, with changing themes, its not helping you.
Gospel of John - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Gospel of John was written in Greek by an anonymous author
Bart D. Ehrman, however, does not think the gospel claims to have been written by direct witnesses to the reported events
Although some notable New Testament scholars affirm traditional Johannine scholarship,[20][21] the majority do not believe that John or one of the Apostles wrote it,[22][23][24][25][26][27] and trace it instead to a "Johannine community" which traced its traditions to John; the gospel itself shows signs of having been composed in three "layers", reaching its final form about 90–100 AD.
the majority do not believe that John or one of the Apostles wrote it
The differences between the Synoptics and John were acknowledged in the early Church.[106] Around AD 200, Clement of Alexandria noted that John's gospel was a "spiritual gospel", distinct from the Synoptics.
According to the majority viewpoint for most of the 20th century, Jesus' teaching in John is largely irreconcilable with that found in the synoptics, and perhaps most scholars consider the Synoptic Gospels to be more accurate representations of the teaching of the historical Jesus.[109]
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Here is another critique of the claims you have expressed, which seem to point out everything that causes me to doubt. Also, it notes that most of the skeptical arguments have come about within the past 20-30 years. This is why I feel that scholars taking this issue on before the 1990s are ignorant to a lot of the developments of this era:
The historicity of some NT teachings of Jesus is also currently debated among biblical scholars. The "quest for the historical Jesus" began as early as the 18th century, and has continued to this day. The most notable recent scholarship came in the 1980s and 1990s with the work of J. D. Crossan,[48] James D. G. Dunn,[49] John P. Meier,[50] E. P. Sanders[51] and N. T. Wright[52] being the most widely read and discussed. The earliest New Testament texts which refer to Jesus, Paul's letters, are usually dated in the 50s CE. Since Paul records very little of Jesus' life and activities, these are of little help in determining facts about the life of Jesus, although they may contain references to information given to Paul from the eyewitnesses of Jesus.[53]
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has shed light into the context of 1st century Judea, noting the diversity of Jewish belief as well as shared expectations and teachings. For example the expectation of the coming messiah, the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount and much else of the early Christian movement are found to have existed within apocalyptic Judaism of the period.[54] This has had the effect of centering Early Christianity much more within its Jewish roots than was previously the case. It is now recognised that Rabbinical Judaism and Early Christianity are only two of the many strands which survived until the Jewish revolt of 66 to 70 CE,[55][56] see also Split of early Christianity and Judaism.
Most modern scholars hold that the canonical Gospel accounts were written between 70 and 100 or 110 CE,[16] four to eight decades after the crucifixion, although based on earlier traditions and texts, such as "Q", Logia or sayings gospels, the passion account or other earlier literature (See List of Gospels). Some scholars argue that these accounts were compiled by witnesses[57][58] although this view is disputed by other scholars.[59] There are also secular references to Jesus, although they are few and quite late. Almost all historical critics agree, however, that a historical figure named Jesus taught throughout the Galilean countryside c. 30 CE, was believed by his followers to have performed supernatural acts, and was sentenced to death by the Romans, possibly for insurrection.[60]
Many scholars have pointed out, that the Gospel of Mark shows signs of a lack of knowledge of geographical, political and religious matters in Judea in the time of Jesus. Thus, today the most common opinion is, that the author is unknown and both geographically and historically at a distance to the narrated events[61][62][63][64] although opinion varies and scholars such as Craig Blomberg accept the more traditional view.[65] The use of expressions that may be described as awkward and rustic cause the Gospel of Mark to appear somewhat unlettered or even crude.[66] This may be attributed to the influence that Saint Peter, a fisherman, is suggested to have on the writing of Mark.[67] The writers of the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke used Mark as a source, with changes and improvement to peculiarities and crudities in Mark.[66]
The absence of evidence of Jesus' life before his meeting with John the Baptist has led to many speculations. It would seem that part of the explanation may lie in the early conflict between Paul and the Desposyni Ebionim, led by James the Just, supposedly the brother of Jesus, that led to Gospel passages critical of Jesus' family.[68]
The historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles, the primary source for the Apostolic Age, is a major issue for biblical scholars and historians of Early Christianity.
While some biblical scholars view the Book of Acts as being extremely accurate and corroborated by archaeology, others view the work as being inaccurate and in conflict with the Pauline epistles. Acts portrays Paul as more in line with Jewish Christianity, while the Pauline epistles record more conflict, such as the Incident at Antioch, see also Paul the Apostle and Judaism.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
In order for a given statement in an ancient document to be admissible to prove the truth of the matter asserted, the statement must either be within the personal knowledge of the author or qualify under a separate exception to the hearsay rule. For each level of hearsay present within the document, the party offering the hearsay evidence must demonstrate that an exception to the hearsay rule applies.
1. How can a writing be "authenticated" if we don't even know who claims to have written it? All we have with the Gospels is who they were named for (or in appreciation of, as many books were named at that time).
2. There are at least 2 levels of hearsay present in the Gospels. Greenleaf and Montgomery failed to move past the first level. Obviously enough, the ancient document rule does not say that, once a collection of writings is found to be admissible, but was written by multiple people, in no way means that its contents are all admissible. Thus, each Gospel would be under different scrutiny, as you suggested. Also, as previously stated, each level of hearsay would have to qualify under a different rule to be heard by the court. Each Gospel would have to be admitted independently. And, each level of hearsay would have to be addressed. So, if we get past the Ancient Document Rule, how do we get passed the second level ... that the writer (who we don't know) had the opportunity and experience to know that what he was writing was accurate. How do you get past this dilemma? In other words, how can we show that the mystery writer had 1st hand knowledge of the events in the NT, and, short of that, what hearsay exception (remember, ancient document rule can't be used for specific statements) would you use to surpass this?
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Authorship might not have a necessary correlation with accuracy, but the Ancient Document Rule surely does. There is a requirement to know what the source of a writing is in order to authenticate it. All pieces of evidence must be authenticated.