The testimony of the NT writers

[Kenny]

I explained to @Kenny that apologetic sites are not historical sites.

Dodge..

They quote historical information.

It would be like me saying the information you are giving isn't historical because you aren't a historical site.

We both know it is because of your bias.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Dodge..

They quote historical information.

It would be like me saying the information you are giving isn't historical because you aren't a historical site.

We both know it is because of your bias.

Nope. You really have no idea what a dodge is. You can't use biased liars for jesus sites to defend your position if you want to claim that the Bible is historically correct. You need unbiased history sites,like I used.

You were the one that used a bias site. I even quoted where your site owned up to that fact.

 

[Kenny]

Nope. You really have no idea what a dodge is. You can't use biased liars for jesus sites to defend your position if you want to claim that the Bible is historically correct. You need unbiased history sites,like I used.

You were the one that used a bias site. I even quoted where your site owned up to that fact.

LOL... nope.

You will have to support "biased liars" - with more than just they believe the Bible is true. What quoted material is a lie?

You bias is shooowing!

 

[wellwisher]

Talking about the apostles someone said:
... and I answered:


If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, would its authenticity be more widely accepted? I think it would.

Then, what is the criterion by which the testimony of first-century Christians who wrote the NT is dismissed as true, while other testimonies of old times are considered more seriously?

Is it religious prejudice and discrimination?

One of the many problems, for the founding fathers, in compiling the NT, was the original Christianity, that had a direct connection to the living Jesus, was not accepted by the powers to be; Jews or Rome. It was blaspheme against the Jews and called the religion of the slaves, which created political problems for Rome, less they have a slave rebellion. It was not about clan snob appeal, but for the poor and oppressed of all races.

After the death of Jesus, the faithful were rounded up and killed. St. Paul who was originally a card carrying Jew, did his part rounding up the faithful. He would have a change of heart and he too would be killed in Rome after his testimony to the Roman Senate; Romans. Soon after the death of Jesus all written mention of Christianity was censored and purged, like the Left did on Twitter, reinforced by fake news. All the 12 Apostles except John were tortured and executed. The Apostles were not sitting at desks, writing. But they were trying to tend to the flock during a genocide, until they met their own ends.

My guess is John, who was the only original Apostle not killed, wrote the only original book of the NT; Revelations. The first would become the last in the NT. John was taken prisoner and banished to the Island of Patmos, where it lived a life sentence until an old age; 80's. There he had a vision and wrote Revelations.

If you ever read Revelations, it is very dark, esoteric and written like a puzzle/mystery. If you compare this to the rest of the New Testament, the rest of the NT is lighter, more relaxed, sequential, and more hopeful. The totally contrary style of Revelations, suggests it may have been the only original that was not censored and purged, by Rome. If was written under stress in a very stressful time. It sort of a scary puzzle, and may have been seen by Rome, as a deterrent about the future; Israel would be captured and destroyed.

My guess is all the original written works; pre 30 AD, were censored and purged. That time had it own version of shadow banding and censorship, worse then on on Twitter, to get rid of the truth and hope and to allow the lie to lead. The stories of the lighter and brighter days of the living Jesus, were retained only by word of mouth, to avoid any written incriminating evidence, during the years of insanity and genocide.

As the political climate became less Fascist; second century, some people started to compile the oral traditions into the New Testament. Unlike the originals that had been purged, the oral traditions after a century often added some embellishments or gaps. They placed Revelations at the very end, and ignored the genocide, so the message of Jesus and the NT, would be one of hope. The NT was not about sour grapes, but love even your deadly enemy.

It was this hope, that would some day allow Christianity to merge with Rome in the 4th century AD. The Religion of slaves would some day rule the world as a theocracy. It still appeals to the poor of the world, since it is the still the Religion of the slaves; blessed are the poor. It is not the religion of intellectual snobs and con artists. They who are stuck in the glory days of their ancestors, who thought censorship, propaganda and genocide could change the future.

 

[Subduction Zone]

LOL... nope.

You will have to support "biased liars" - with more than just they believe the Bible is true. What quoted material is a lie?

You bias is shooowing!

Bias against that people openly lie is wrong? Being biased against people that openly say that their minds are closed is wrong? You either missed what I quoted from your source or did not understand it. Your source made itself worthless.

That you cannot or will not understand this is your problem not mine. And you were told ahead of time that in a debate like this that those are not reliable sources. An honest interlocutor would have at least tried to understand why such sources are worthless. Why didn't you act properly?

 

[Subduction Zone]

One of the many problems, for the founding fathers, in compiling the NT, was the original Christianity, that had a direct connection to the living Jesus, was not accepted by the powers to be; Jews or Rome. It was blaspheme against the Jews and called the religion of the slaves, which created political problems for Rome, less they have a slave rebellion. It was not about clan snob appeal, but for the poor and oppressed of all races.

After the death of Jesus, the faithful were rounded up and killed. St. Paul who was originally a card carrying Jew, did his part rounding up the faithful. He would have a change of heart and he too would be killed in Rome after his testimony to the Roman Senate; Romans. Soon after the death of Jesus all written mention of Christianity was censored and purged, like the Left did on Twitter, reinforced by fake news. All the 12 Apostles except John were tortured and executed. The Apostles were not sitting at desks, writing. But they were trying to tend to the flock during a genocide, until they met their own ends.

My guess is John, who was the only original Apostle not killed, wrote the only original book of the NT; Revelations. The first would become the last in the NT. John was taken prisoner and banished to the Island of Patmos, where it lived a life sentence until an old age; 80's. There he had a vision and wrote Revelations.

If you ever read Revelations, it is very dark, esoteric and written like a puzzle/mystery. If you compare this to the rest of the New Testament, the rest of the NT is lighter, more relaxed, sequential, and more hopeful. The totally contrary style of Revelations, suggests it may have been the only original that was not censored and purged, by Rome. If was written under stress in a very stressful time. It sort of a scary puzzle, and may have been seen by Rome, as a deterrent about the future; Israel would be captured and destroyed.

My guess is all the original written works; pre 30 AD, were censored and purged. That time had it own version of shadow banding and censorship, worse then on on Twitter, to get rid of the truth and hope and to allow the lie to lead. The stories of the lighter and brighter days of the living Jesus, were retained only by word of mouth, to avoid any written incriminating evidence, during the years of insanity and genocide.

As the political climate became less Fascist; second century, some people started to compile the oral traditions into the New Testament. Unlike the originals that had been purged, the oral traditions after a century often added some embellishments or gaps. They placed Revelations at the very end, and ignored the genocide, so the message of Jesus and the NT, would be one of hope. The NT was not about sour grapes, but love even your deadly enemy.

It was this hope, that would some day allow Christianity to merge with Rome in the 4th century AD. The Religion of slaves would some day rule the world as a theocracy. It still appeals to the poor of the world, since it is the still the Religion of the slaves; blessed are the poor. It is not the religion of intellectual snobs and con artists. They who are stuck in the glory days of their ancestors, who thought censorship, propaganda and genocide could change the future.

Do you have any evidence for any of this? Or is it just a fantasy of yours?

 

[Redemptionsong]

By looking at the evidence and seeing whose claims are supported better.

Do you realize that all four of the Gospels are anonymous?

No, they are not anonymous. The writers names were passed down in an unbroken tradition from the apostles.

Let's begin with John's Gospel and read what Peter says in John 21:24: 'This is the disciple [John] which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.'

So we have Peter witnessing to John's Gospel at the end of John's Gospel.

All the Gospels were completed before John's death, so how is it possible that John did not know the writers of all the Gospels?

If people researched this information with care and diligence, they would soon see that the unbroken nature of scripture makes it a reliable testimony to the truth.

 

[lukethethird]

LOL... nope.

You will have to support "biased liars" - with more than just they believe the Bible is true. What quoted material is a lie?

You bias is shooowing!

Do you ever ask yourself why the authorship of these epistles are in doubt?

 

[Redemptionsong]

Talking about the apostles someone said:
... and I answered:


If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, would its authenticity be more widely accepted? I think it would.

Then, what is the criterion by which the testimony of first-century Christians who wrote the NT is dismissed as true, while other testimonies of old times are considered more seriously?

Is it religious prejudice and discrimination?

I think you are right to raise the issue of reliable testimony. Scholarly scepticism, from the likes of Rabbi Tovia Singer, are being used as the doorway to attack the foundations of the Christian faith.

Sadly, many of the great scholars who dealt with these issues head on are no longer with us, but their writings are, and they need to be resurrected.

I believe it is possible to show, through scripture alone, that the late dating of the Gospels is inaccurate. It is also possible to show, from the history of the Church, that there is an unbroken Christian witness that links to the first apostles.

Do not be disheartened by those who claim to know better than Jesus. He said, 'scripture cannot be broken', and whilst he may have been referring at the time to the Tanakh, his words apply to the NT as the fulfilment of prophecy.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No, they are not anonymous. The writers names were passed down in an unbroken tradition from the apostles.

Let's begin with John's Gospel and read what Peter says in John 21:24: 'This is the disciple [John] which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.'

So we have Peter witnessing to John's Gospel at the end of John's Gospel.

All the Gospels were completed before John's death, so how is it possible that John did not know the writers of all the Gospels?

If people researched this information with care and diligence, they would soon see that the unbroken nature of scripture makes it a reliable testimony to the truth.

I doubt if you can find a valid source that supports that belief.

And once again you are denying Acts when you claim that Peter wrote the epistles with his name on them.

Do you have any evidence for any of your claims?

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

If the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, would its authenticity be more widely accepted? I think it would. what is the criterion by which the testimony of first-century Christians who wrote the NT is dismissed as true, while other testimonies of old times are considered more seriously?

What is that asking? What does authenticity mean here? That the author was who he claims to be? That the content of his writing is factual? The degree to which something ought to be believed is commensurate with the quality and quantity of supporting evidence for that belief, which includes its likelihood. Extraordinary claims and beliefs require much more. So, yeah, I can believe that there probably was a peripatetic rabbi wandering the Levant and preaching in the first century with a group of devotees. The miracles are rejected. The individual stories are questionable unless corroborated externally. Was Jesus actually betrayed by Judas? Who knows? Was he crucified? Maybe. Did he revivify in three days? There is no reason to believe that including so-called eyewitness testimony in scripture or martyrs dying for that belief.

What if there is another group's critical thinking criticizing yours?

There is only one critical thinking. You need to get from evidence to sound conclusion, which is done by avoiding logical fallacy. And all experienced critical thinkers are on the same page about how that is done. That is why dialectic is possible. Two or more experienced critical thinkers can always resolve their differences of opinion about what evidence implies. That's how peer review works.

Many posters on RF seem to be unaware that critical thinking is a prescribed and proscribed process, like addition. There aren't multiple correct answers to an addition problem. Consider your comment. There aren't multiple groups of adders using different rules and coming to correct sums, and anybody who thinks that somebody else's sum is "just their opinion" doesn't understand that adding isn't subjective, and probably won't pass a math class.

I love it when anti-religious and atheists people create religion forums with predetermined agendas... They always project themselves as if they are the majority, that believers have no rational thinking and that science belongs to atheists.

So I guess you had no agenda when you decided to start this thread? Of course not. We all have agendas.

You're welcome to science, but not your own science like the creationists, at least not in critical thinking circles. And a god belief is irrational. Holding one might be rational if it comforts, but there is no sound argument that ends, "therefore God."

@ChristineM I was trying to be sweet

Do you think anybody believes that? You're gaslighting - attempting to reshape her reality, trying to get her to doubt her own judgment. She didn't buy it, either.

can you tell me what you would considerate "supernatural"?

Nothing. The word has no meaning. If it exists and can interact with nature, it's another part of nature, even if it was previously unsuspected. The word is used to imply that that is where nonexistent things reside. The reason that they are indistinguishable from the nonexistent is because they are in this other realm. If I wanted to claim that Santa or Superman actually exist to people who know that there is no evidence for that, I could just say that they're in the supernatural realm, and they're off-limits to science, which can only examine the natural realm. I could also triumphantly throw in there that you can't prove me wrong, which I would hope you understood to mean that I have grounds for that belief until you can disprove it.

Only fanatic atheists form internet dismiss those testimonies, scholars accept them (or critique them) in the same way they would accept secular sources

Am I one of those fanatic atheists, Leroy? See my first paragraph in this post.

It makes it clear that Jesus was worshiped as God. Not just another rabbi.

Why should that matter to the skeptic?

intelligent people read the same material and come to different conclusion. I see it at just two critical thinkers looking at the same evidence but arriving at different conclusions. One isn't better than the other.

If one is following the rules of critical thinking and the other is not, and they come to different conclusions, one is right and the other wrong. Skilled critical thinkers look at the same evidence and come to the same conclusions, because they use the same method. See my second comment above. There is a world of people never trained in this skill, who appear to not know what it is and what it can do - the "that's just your opinion" set, who claim to be critical thinkers as well as they commit logical fallacy after fallacy. No, when the reasoning is valid, the conclusion is sound, meaning correct, and therefore both demonstrably true and unfalsifiable. Did you see any of the debating between pro-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers in mid-2021? What you had were people who couldn't interpret the data arguing with those who could, telling them, "that's just your opinion" and claiming to be critical thinkers, but just came to a different conclusion. It doesn't work like that.

No one says you have to receive it as "reliable". Likewise, there is no reliable source of information that says we shouldn't either.

Sure there is. Scripture is full of internal contradiction, moral errors, and errors in history and science. That makes it unreliable.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No, they are not anonymous. The writers names were passed down in an unbroken tradition from the apostles.

Let's begin with John's Gospel and read what Peter says in John 21:24: 'This is the disciple [John] which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.'

So we have Peter witnessing to John's Gospel at the end of John's Gospel.

All the Gospels were completed before John's death, so how is it possible that John did not know the writers of all the Gospels?

If people researched this information with care and diligence, they would soon see that the unbroken nature of scripture makes it a reliable testimony to the truth.

It does not say "[John]" in the original You or someone else added that. At no point does John actually say that it was written by John the apostle. And the date of its writing makes

And you do not have Peter witnessing to that. Peter was illiterate according to the Bible. You can't have him both classically trained in Koine Greek and illiterate.

 

[Redemptionsong]

I doubt if you can find a valid source that supports that belief.

And once again you are denying Acts when you claim that Peter wrote the epistles with his name on them.

Do you have any evidence for any of your claims?

John Mark is mentioned in Acts 12:12. Peter went to the household of Mark after his imprisonment by Herod. The household knew of Peter's predicament and had been praying for him. This demonstrates the close association between the two men.

Of course, Peter also wrote epistles that bear his own name.

 

[Kenny]

Bias against that people openly lie is wrong? Being biased against people that openly say that their minds are closed is wrong? You either missed what I quoted from your source or did not understand it. Your source made itself worthless.

That you cannot or will not understand this is your problem not mine. And you were told ahead of time that in a debate like this that those are not reliable sources. An honest interlocutor would have at least tried to understand why such sources are worthless. Why didn't you act properly?

Another dodge.

You threw out all of the information just because your bias didn't like the source. So, when a donkey doesn't move because he knows that a train is coming that will kill you, you whip the poor animals because you "didn't like the source."



Reminds me of Balaam.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Another dodge.

You threw out all of the information just because your bias didn't like the source. So, when a donkey doesn't move because he knows that a train is coming that will kill you, you whip the poor animals because you "didn't like the source."



Reminds me of Balaam.

No, I quoted from that site. Too bad you couldn't understand why that quote made your site worthless.

Bias had nothing to do with it.

Do you have the ability to reason properly?

 

[Redemptionsong]

It does not say "[John]" in the original You or someone else added that. At no point does John actually say that it was written by John the apostle. And the date of its writing makes

And you do not have Peter witnessing to that. Peter was illiterate according to the Bible. You can't have him both classically trained in Koine Greek and illiterate.

If you read the passage in John 21:24 in context it is quite clear that John 'testified' and 'wrote these things'! You're trying to deny the very words that confront you in the text.

 

[Subduction Zone]

John Mark is mentioned in Acts 12:12. Peter went to the household of Mark after his imprisonment by Herod. The household knew of Peter's predicament and had been praying for him. This demonstrates the close association between the two men.

Of course, Peter also wrote epistles that bear his own name.

So what? There were apostles. No one has denied that. There is no evidence that they wrote anything that became part of the Bible.

 

[Kenny]

Do you ever ask yourself why the authorship of these epistles are in doubt?

I reviewed both sides of the coin unlike @Subduction Zone regardless of the source. After consideration, I found that those who lived closest to the event as well as the information given, had the greater weight...

as have a myriad of people!

In more recent events, atheist Cold Case investigator J. Warner Wallace set out to investigate it within his expertise and became a Christian. I doubt he had any bias.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

don't present proves of anything

You mentioned that Spanish was your native tongue. Your English is very good - better than my Spanish - but I believe that you would like to make it better if you can, so I've taken the liberty to make a couple of corrections. The right word there is proofs, at least in American English. I can't be sure that there aren't English speaking countries that use proves for proofs.

And I live in a Spanish-speaking country, and get knocks from time to time from local Testigos de Jehová. I enjoy speaking with them, but last time, they got tired of me and left. The problem was that they were stymied when I didn't agree that the world was going to hell in a basket. They looked as if they had never heard that before, and didn't know what to say next, so they moved on. Other people try to dive them off, but imagine having the Witnesses effectively being the ones to slam the door shut. And that was four years ago, and they haven't come back. Should I be offended? I feel like the altar boy rejected by the priests.

the datation of the books of Isaiah

Dating, not datation.

with the premises: "God does not exist" and "the miracles are impossible", there is the same fundamentalism in the other direction. All your world would fall without those undemostrated premises.

Not at all. My position, agnostic atheism, doesn't include either of those, and is quite sound.

What you don't see is that Christians received from Jesus the mission of spreading their faith. There were thousands of opportunities to refute the facts they were telling about Jesus and his sayings and actions.

Did you expect those refutations to be written down by those promoting the religion and preserved for posterity?

You would have to prove that.

There is no burden of proof with somebody operating under the influence of a faith-based confirmation bias. Teaching is a cooperative effort and requires a student who is able and willing to consider an argument open-mindedly and dispassionately, and able to recognize and be convinced by a compelling argument. This is why the critical thinkers and faith-based thinkers can't change one another's minds. They have different criteria for belief. One can't be moved by a sound argument, and the other can't be moved without one.

 

[Kenny]

No, I quoted from that site. Too bad you couldn't understand why that quote made your site worthless.

Bias had nothing to do with it.

Do you have the ability to reason properly?

Yes, I was blind at one point but now I see, I was lost but now I am found.

And I will live happily ever after. Incidentally, God believe in you (in light of my signature) even if you don't.