The Resurrection of Jesus Christ (Part 2)

[Call_of_the_Wild]

The authorship of the Gospels



So now that I’ve successfully made a case for and defended the historical evidence supporting Jesus of Nazareth’s existence in human history…now I will make the case for the internal evidence for his existence…which is the reliability of the Gospels. While making a case for the reliability of these four books, it would appear that one question immediately arise…


The authorship of the Gospels: Who wrote them?

So how do we know who wrote the books? Well, we what we have is testimony from the early church, men that were second generation apostles. The authorship of the books were uniform, unanimous according to the early Church, and there is no evidence of any competitors of authorship, no bickering, and no quarrelling over who wrote the books.


It seems that the authors of the books were a given. If the early Church were so hell bent on giving “credibility” to the Christian faith and wanted to give potential converts more reasons to join the gang based on authorship, why would the early Church attribute names of the books (particularly the Gospels, in this case) to less respected men? Luke and Mark weren’t even disciples of Jesus. Luke was a friend of Paul and Mark was a friend of Peter. Why not attribute the books to Peter and Paul, instead of their friends? Peter and Paul’s named carried more weight than Luke and Mark’s, right? Or why not attribute some of the Gospels to Philip, or James..as their names also carried more weight than Luke and Mark’s? The answer is simple. The early Church simply “told it like it is”, as there wouldn’t be any significant reason to attribute authorship to these less respected individuals if it wasn’t for the fact that these men actually wrote the books. There is nothing far-fetched about it, no reason to lie.


So what is the testimony of members of the church regarding this?
Irenaeus was an early Church father and bishop and he said regarding the Gospels…

“Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus.”


Now granted, Ireaneus wrote this around 180AD, over 100 years after the latest Gospel was written..but notice he said that the book(s) were “handed down” to them. So from the time that it was written, it was handed down to believers. And this is nothing special, considering we still have things like Declaration of Independence and many other “sacred” and or vastly important documents or books in history that has survived through time.


Again, it is worth reiterating that there were no other competitors to the authorship of the books in question. None. No paper trail of bickering. It isn’t so hard to believe that of all 12 disciples, at least 2 of them wrote Gospels considering the Messiah..and if that isn’t so difficult to believe, it is even less difficult to believe that two of the disciples friends wrote Gospels according to what their teacher told them concerning Jesus.

That, and also considering the fact that if any skeptic wants to make such a fuss about it, then in that case we should be skeptical about each and everything that was ever written in antiquity, unless people are just prejudice against the Bible for obvious reasons.

It also amazes me is how people of modern day, they are thousands of years removed from the scene, and probably thousands of miles away from the location, yet they will claim things like “this guy was wrong”, when speaking about someone like Papias, for example. Papias and Ireaneus were a lot closer to the scene than most modern day “historians”, or “scholars” when it comes to geographical location, and they were certainly a lot closer to the scene when it comes to TIME. Scholars of today can say “we know he was mistaken based on evidence X”. Well, I am sure Papias or anyone else of that time could say, “Well, I know I was right based on evidence Y”….these men were a lot closer to the scene in terms of location, time, and their relationships regarding the events in question, so I am compelled to believe them as opposed to any person alive today that is at the very least 2,000 years removed from the matter.

So, in closing, what we have is an early Church, some of which who were students of the apostles themselves, who got their information from a long tradition of religious folks that carefully passed on information in the form of creeds, sayings, oracles, books, etc...and apparently, the Gospels were no exception, as Ireaneus indicates.

I rest my case.

 

[Bunyip]

The authorship of the Gospels



So now that I’ve successfully made a case for and defended the historical evidence supporting Jesus of Nazareth’s existence in human history…

When did you do that? Was that on another forum?

Now I will make the case for the internal evidence for his existence…which is the reliability of the Gospels. While making a case for the reliability of these four books, it would appear that one question immediately arise…

The authorship of the Gospels: Who wrote them?

So how do we know who wrote the books? Well, we what we have is testimony from the early church, men that were second generation apostles. The authorship of the books were uniform, unanimous according to the early Church, and there is no evidence of any competitors of authorship, no bickering, and no quarrelling over who wrote the books.


It seems that the authors of the books were a given. If the early Church were so hell bent on giving “credibility” to the Christian faith and wanted to give potential converts more reasons to join the gang based on authorship, why would the early Church attribute names of the books (particularly the Gospels, in this case) to less respected men? Luke and Mark weren’t even disciples of Jesus. Luke was a friend of Paul and Mark was a friend of Peter. Why not attribute the books to Peter and Paul, instead of their friends? Peter and Paul’s named carried more weight than Luke and Mark’s, right? Or why not attribute some of the Gospels to Philip, or James..as their names also carried more weight than Luke and Mark’s? The answer is simple. The early Church simply “told it like it is”, as there wouldn’t be any significant reason to attribute authorship to these less respected individuals if it wasn’t for the fact that these men actually wrote the books. There is nothing far-fetched about it, no reason to lie.


So what is the testimony of members of the church regarding this?
Irenaeus was an early Church father and bishop and he said regarding the Gospels…

“Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus.”


Now granted, Ireaneus wrote this around 180AD, over 100 years after the latest Gospel was written..but notice he said that the book(s) were “handed down” to them. So from the time that it was written, it was handed down to believers. And this is nothing special, considering we still have things like Declaration of Independence and many other “sacred” and or vastly important documents or books in history that has survived through time.


Again, it is worth reiterating that there were no other competitors to the authorship of the books in question. None. No paper trail of bickering. It isn’t so hard to believe that of all 12 disciples, at least 2 of them wrote Gospels considering the Messiah..and if that isn’t so difficult to believe, it is even less difficult to believe that two of the disciples friends wrote Gospels according to what their teacher told them concerning Jesus.

That, and also considering the fact that if any skeptic wants to make such a fuss about it, then in that case we should be skeptical about each and everything that was ever written in antiquity, unless people are just prejudice against the Bible for obvious reasons.

It also amazes me is how people of modern day, they are thousands of years removed from the scene, and probably thousands of miles away from the location, yet they will claim things like “this guy was wrong”, when speaking about someone like Papias, for example. Papias and Ireaneus were a lot closer to the scene than most modern day “historians”, or “scholars” when it comes to geographical location, and they were certainly a lot closer to the scene when it comes to TIME. Scholars of today can say “we know he was mistaken based on evidence X”. Well, I am sure Papias or anyone else of that time could say, “Well, I know I was right based on evidence Y”….these men were a lot closer to the scene in terms of location, time, and their relationships regarding the events in question, so I am compelled to believe them as opposed to any person alive today that is at the very least 2,000 years removed from the matter.

So, in closing, what we have is an early Church, some of which who were students of the apostles themselves, who got their information from a long tradition of religious folks that carefully passed on information in the form of creeds, sayings, oracles, books, etc...and apparently, the Gospels were no exception, as Ireaneus indicates.

I rest my case.

 

[Desert Snake]

I think they were authored by the people they are attributed to. I think those were 'scribes' even if followers of Jesus ,and scribes would have always been around the religious leader taking notes, albeit in different parchment types or slightly after the fact, or compiling witness testimony. They wold have most likely been written in whatever language was convenient for the writers, probably Hebrew or Aramaic, or both. Later these 'notes' and writings were gathered and translated/compiled into a collection of writings, without much ado as to recording that because it was so common and the nature of scribal copying the accepted norm, the later compilers were not concerned with the idea that far later some people would 'doubt' the authorship etc.

 

[Bunyip]

I think they were authored by the people they are attributed to. I think those were 'scribes' even if followers of Jesus ,and scribes would have always been around the religious leader taking notes, albeit in different parchment types or slightly after the fact, or compiling witness testimony. They wold have most likely been written in whatever language was convenient for the writers, probably Hebrew or Aramaic, or both. Later these 'notes' and writings were gathered and translated/compiled into a collection of writings, without much ado as to recording that because it was so common and the nature of scribal copying the accepted norm, the later compilers were not concerned with the idea that far later some people would 'doubt' the authorship etc.

Most scholars seem to think that the gospels contain very little that is historically reliable (see Ellegard, The Myth about Jesus. Evans, Life of Jesus research and the eclipse of mythology. Talbert, What is a Gospel. Sanders, The Historical figure of Jesus. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament).

The gospels were not attributed to any of the apostles until the 2nd century. Few modern scholars believe that any of the gospels are of known authorship, or were written by any of the apostles.

 

[Desert Snake]

The NT is a RELIGIOUS text, not an academic study of a Jewish Rabbi, the writings convey the RELIGIOUS beliefs associated with Jesus/Esu/Isa/Yeshua worship, hence the beginning with the Magi, and the description of Yeshu's Spirit being different from our 'man' spirits, the writings are instructional unto the beliefs of "Christians" or Jesus worshippers, and are not primarily an 'apologetic' justifying the role of Yeshu in Jewish and Roman society, that being the primary concern, we are expected to, (if following the religion), understand that we are not putting up the narrative against 'proveable' historical records, but learning about the faith.

 

[Bunyip]

:thud:

The NT is a RELIGIOUS text, not an academic study of a Jewish Rabbi, the writings convey the RELIGIOUS beliefs associated with Jesus/Esu/Isa/Yeshua worship, hence the beginning with the Magi, and the description of Yeshu's Spirit being different from our 'man' spirits, the writings are instructional unto the beliefs of "Christians" or Jesus worshippers, and are not primarily an 'apologetic' justifying the role of Yeshu in Jewish and Roman society, that being the primary concern, we are expected to, (if following the religion), understand that we are not putting up the narrative against 'proveable' historical records, but learning about the faith.

Read the OP, COTW claims to have established historicity and is moving on to attempt to make an 'internal case for his existence' using the gospels.

You said that you believe that the gospels were written by the people they are attributed to - I was simply pointing out that is not the case.

 

[Desert Snake]

Most scholars seem to think that the gospels contain very little that is historically reliable (see Ellegard, The Myth about Jesus. Evans, Life of Jesus research and the eclipse of mythology. Talbert, What is a Gospel. Sanders, The Historical figure of Jesus. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament).

The gospels were not attributed to any of the apostles until the 2nd century. Few modern scholars believe that any of the gospels are of known authorship, or were written by any of the apostles.

This is great, but the text is a religious study, not historical, primarily, that is where the confusion seems to be. We are not reading a historical document, we are reading religious beliefs compiled from earlier sources describing 'Christian'(Jesus worshippers) beliefs and practices. the 'vehicle' of such instructional religious teachings puts us in a 'historical' framework, but the theology is a matter of faith/worship, and transcends the mundane area of said authorship. A clue to this is that many of the earliest Christians were non-Jewish, this indicating a religious figure outside the scope of 'Jewish Messiah', although there may be inferences of 'specific' teachings to Israelites (that's geographical), Jesus is also said to have had non-Jewish followers, an indication that the religion was not 'closed-off' historically to those wishing to convert.

 

[Desert Snake]

:thud:

Read the OP, COTW claims to have established historicity and is moving on to attempt to make an 'internal case for his existence' using the gospels.

You said that you believe that the gospels were written by the people they are attributed to - I was simply pointing out that is not the case.

You were pointing out that we don't 'know' who wrote the Gospels, that's fine, but it doesn't mean he's incorrect, just believes differently from you.

If we employ high skepticism to authorship always, we end up with many texts of unKNOWN authorship.
I think that there is also possibility of earlier compilations etc, I don't think this is black and white. Remember, Jesus seemed not only to be closely associated with the Essenes, but as the Title suggests 'Jesus the Nazarene', there may be an inference that He was teaching beliefs similar to those of these groups, so it's not as if you can easily place some timeline of "Jewish Rabbi/heretic" lol and assume some made up story written later by Paul.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

When did you do that? Was that on another forum?

Oh no..on this forum..and u should know since you were one of the individuals I gave an intellectual spanking to in not only this subject, but others as well.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

Most scholars seem to think that the gospels contain very little that is historically reliable (see Ellegard, The Myth about Jesus. Evans, Life of Jesus research and the eclipse of mythology. Talbert, What is a Gospel. Sanders, The Historical figure of Jesus. Grant, A Historical Introduction to the New Testament).

The gospels were not attributed to any of the apostles until the 2nd century. Few modern scholars believe that any of the gospels are of known authorship, or were written by any of the apostles.

Again, that was kinda my point...how can scholars living over 2,000 years later be in a better position to know the "facts" more so than a person living 100 years later?? It blows my mind to think that a person living 2,000 years after the fact would have more credibilty than someone living 100 years after the fact...reporting about the SAME event...laughable.

 

[Sapiens]

The authorship of the Gospels



So now that I’ve successfully made a case for and defended the historical evidence supporting Jesus of Nazareth’s existence in human history…now I will make the case for the internal evidence for his existence…which is the reliability of the Gospels. While making a case for the reliability of these four books, it would appear that one question immediately arise…

I guess that happened in another time, in another universe? It sure looked to me like you abysmally failed to meet your claim.

The authorship of the Gospels: Who wrote them?

So how do we know who wrote the books? Well, we what we have is testimony from the early church, men that were second generation apostles. The authorship of the books were uniform, unanimous according to the early Church, and there is no evidence of any competitors of authorship, no bickering, and no quarrelling over who wrote the books.


It seems that the authors of the books were a given. If the early Church were so hell bent on giving “credibility” to the Christian faith and wanted to give potential converts more reasons to join the gang based on authorship, why would the early Church attribute names of the books (particularly the Gospels, in this case) to less respected men? Luke and Mark weren’t even disciples of Jesus. Luke was a friend of Paul and Mark was a friend of Peter. Why not attribute the books to Peter and Paul, instead of their friends? Peter and Paul’s named carried more weight than Luke and Mark’s, right? Or why not attribute some of the Gospels to Philip, or James..as their names also carried more weight than Luke and Mark’s? The answer is simple. The early Church simply “told it like it is”, as there wouldn’t be any significant reason to attribute authorship to these less respected individuals if it wasn’t for the fact that these men actually wrote the books. There is nothing far-fetched about it, no reason to lie.


So what is the testimony of members of the church regarding this?
Irenaeus was an early Church father and bishop and he said regarding the Gospels…

“Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus.”


Now granted, Ireaneus wrote this around 180AD, over 100 years after the latest Gospel was written..but notice he said that the book(s) were “handed down” to them. So from the time that it was written, it was handed down to believers. And this is nothing special, considering we still have things like Declaration of Independence and many other “sacred” and or vastly important documents or books in history that has survived through time.


Again, it is worth reiterating that there were no other competitors to the authorship of the books in question. None. No paper trail of bickering. It isn’t so hard to believe that of all 12 disciples, at least 2 of them wrote Gospels considering the Messiah..and if that isn’t so difficult to believe, it is even less difficult to believe that two of the disciples friends wrote Gospels according to what their teacher told them concerning Jesus.

That, and also considering the fact that if any skeptic wants to make such a fuss about it, then in that case we should be skeptical about each and everything that was ever written in antiquity, unless people are just prejudice against the Bible for obvious reasons.

It also amazes me is how people of modern day, they are thousands of years removed from the scene, and probably thousands of miles away from the location, yet they will claim things like “this guy was wrong”, when speaking about someone like Papias, for example. Papias and Ireaneus were a lot closer to the scene than most modern day “historians”, or “scholars” when it comes to geographical location, and they were certainly a lot closer to the scene when it comes to TIME. Scholars of today can say “we know he was mistaken based on evidence X”. Well, I am sure Papias or anyone else of that time could say, “Well, I know I was right based on evidence Y”….these men were a lot closer to the scene in terms of location, time, and their relationships regarding the events in question, so I am compelled to believe them as opposed to any person alive today that is at the very least 2,000 years removed from the matter.

So, in closing, what we have is an early Church, some of which who were students of the apostles themselves, who got their information from a long tradition of religious folks that carefully passed on information in the form of creeds, sayings, oracles, books, etc...and apparently, the Gospels were no exception, as Ireaneus indicates.

I rest my case.

Actually you did not just rest your case, you buried it, six foot under, no hope of resurrection.

 

[Bunyip]

Oh no..on this forum..and u should know since you were one of the individuals I gave an intellectual spanking to in not only this subject, but others as well.

No, flinging out a few misconceptions and then running off is hardly an 'intellectual spanking'.

 

[Bunyip]

Again, that was kinda my point...how can scholars living over 2,000 years later be in a better position to know the "facts" more so than a person living 100 years later?? It blows my mind to think that a person living 2,000 years after the fact would have more credibilty than someone living 100 years after the fact...reporting about the SAME event...laughable.

How was that supposed to make sense? You can not speak to the people living 2000 years ago - and so have no possible way of knowing what they saw.

 

[fantome profane]

No, flinging out a few misconceptions and then running off is hardly an 'intellectual spanking'.

You are absolutely right, Cotw did not "prove" anything. Frankly I thought my arguments on the subject were much better than his, And I don't claim that have proven the historicity of Jesus.

But let's let him go on anyway. As bad as you think his arguments for the existence of Jesus were, wait until he tries to argue for the resurrection. I want to see those arguments.

 

[fantome profane]

Given what we know about literacy rates in first century Palestine I think it is extremely unlikely that either Mark, Matthew or John would have known how to write. And exponentially unlikely that they would have know how to write eloquently in Greek, a language the didn't even speak. It is possible that Luke would have been able to write, but there is no convincing evidence that he was the author of the Gospel that bares his name. Even if he was he is not a witness to the crucifixion or to the mythical resurrection.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

The authorship of the Gospels



So now that I’ve successfully made a case for and defended the historical evidence supporting Jesus of Nazareth’s existence in human history…now I will make the case for the internal evidence for his existence…which is the reliability of the Gospels. While making a case for the reliability of these four books, it would appear that one question immediately arise…


The authorship of the Gospels: Who wrote them?

So how do we know who wrote the books? Well, we what we have is testimony from the early church, men that were second generation apostles. The authorship of the books were uniform, unanimous according to the early Church, and there is no evidence of any competitors of authorship, no bickering, and no quarrelling over who wrote the books.


It seems that the authors of the books were a given. If the early Church were so hell bent on giving “credibility” to the Christian faith and wanted to give potential converts more reasons to join the gang based on authorship, why would the early Church attribute names of the books (particularly the Gospels, in this case) to less respected men? Luke and Mark weren’t even disciples of Jesus. Luke was a friend of Paul and Mark was a friend of Peter. Why not attribute the books to Peter and Paul, instead of their friends? Peter and Paul’s named carried more weight than Luke and Mark’s, right? Or why not attribute some of the Gospels to Philip, or James..as their names also carried more weight than Luke and Mark’s? The answer is simple. The early Church simply “told it like it is”, as there wouldn’t be any significant reason to attribute authorship to these less respected individuals if it wasn’t for the fact that these men actually wrote the books. There is nothing far-fetched about it, no reason to lie.


So what is the testimony of members of the church regarding this?
Irenaeus was an early Church father and bishop and he said regarding the Gospels…

“Matthew published his own Gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the Gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter’s preaching. Luke the follower of Paul, set down in a book the Gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who leaned on his breast, himself produced his Gospel while he was living at Ephesus.”


Now granted, Ireaneus wrote this around 180AD, over 100 years after the latest Gospel was written..but notice he said that the book(s) were “handed down” to them. So from the time that it was written, it was handed down to believers. And this is nothing special, considering we still have things like Declaration of Independence and many other “sacred” and or vastly important documents or books in history that has survived through time.


Again, it is worth reiterating that there were no other competitors to the authorship of the books in question. None. No paper trail of bickering. It isn’t so hard to believe that of all 12 disciples, at least 2 of them wrote Gospels considering the Messiah..and if that isn’t so difficult to believe, it is even less difficult to believe that two of the disciples friends wrote Gospels according to what their teacher told them concerning Jesus.

That, and also considering the fact that if any skeptic wants to make such a fuss about it, then in that case we should be skeptical about each and everything that was ever written in antiquity, unless people are just prejudice against the Bible for obvious reasons.

It also amazes me is how people of modern day, they are thousands of years removed from the scene, and probably thousands of miles away from the location, yet they will claim things like “this guy was wrong”, when speaking about someone like Papias, for example. Papias and Ireaneus were a lot closer to the scene than most modern day “historians”, or “scholars” when it comes to geographical location, and they were certainly a lot closer to the scene when it comes to TIME. Scholars of today can say “we know he was mistaken based on evidence X”. Well, I am sure Papias or anyone else of that time could say, “Well, I know I was right based on evidence Y”….these men were a lot closer to the scene in terms of location, time, and their relationships regarding the events in question, so I am compelled to believe them as opposed to any person alive today that is at the very least 2,000 years removed from the matter.

So, in closing, what we have is an early Church, some of which who were students of the apostles themselves, who got their information from a long tradition of religious folks that carefully passed on information in the form of creeds, sayings, oracles, books, etc...and apparently, the Gospels were no exception, as Ireaneus indicates.

I rest my case.

You have done nothing to verify that the texts (that were not first hand accounts but written far later) was not subject to the expanding of a legend rather than factual accounts. Especially since there are innacuracies and contradictions within the gospels themselves.

But this changes nothing from your argument. Your first argument is "because the bible said so." and now you've gone from "there is a possibility of a historical figure that could have been Jesus, therefore the bible said so".

You've done nothing to advance your argument other than bible thumping.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

I guess that happened in another time, in another universe? It sure looked to me like you abysmally failed to meet your claim.

I am still waiting on you to make some kind of meaningful post related to any subject matter that is being discussed. It would seem that unless you are arguing in favor of dogs producing non-dogs, you really don't have anything of substance to say.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You can not speak to the people living 2000 years ago - and so have no possible way of knowing what they saw.

Neither can any of those "scholars" that you that you personally named.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You are absolutely right, Cotw did not "prove" anything. Frankly I thought my arguments on the subject were much better than his, And I don't claim that have proven the historicity of Jesus.

First off, no one can "prove" anything regarding antiquity. None of us were there...and the purpose of the post was to state why we (believers in Christ) believe that the authors of the Gospel's were correctly attributed to the individuals that we've come to know as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Nothing more, nothing less.

Second, I admit, this particular argument in part 2 isn't a "knockdown" argument, but nevertheless, it is what we've got...and if you disagree with anything that I've said...then lets hear it.

But let's let him go on anyway. As bad as you think his arguments for the existence of Jesus were, wait until he tries to argue for the resurrection. I want to see those arguments.

Coming to a thread near you.

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

You have done nothing to verify that the texts (that were not first hand accounts but written far later) was not subject to the expanding of a legend rather than factual accounts.

Umm, what?? What are you talking about "texts that were not first hand accounts"? The bottom line is, a second century bishop stated who wrote the BOOKS. That is the fact of the matter. You can disagree with what he said, but the fact of the matter is, he said it, and that is how we've come to know who wrote the Gospels...its not like 2,000 years later we just randomly pulled names out of a hat and whichever name we pulled, thats the name that had the pleasure of being attributed to the biographies of Jesus.

Especially since there are innacuracies and contradictions within the gospels themselves.

Oh really? Name some then.

But this changes nothing from your argument. Your first argument is "because the bible said so." and now you've gone from "there is a possibility of a historical figure that could have been Jesus, therefore the bible said so".

You've done nothing to advance your argument other than bible thumping.

Dudeeee, excuse the language, but what the HELL are you talking about? This particular argument involves the authorship of the bible, and the source that I used was an external source!!!!!

You have some serious reading comprehension problems, Monk.