The testimony of the NT writers

[Kenny]

Yes the gospels do provide a Reason, namely Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body………so there is an explanation for why Jesus was treated differently

Will you admit you mistake???????????????? No

Not on his life would he admit his mistake.

 

[lukethethird]

We have three people which were witnesses (Matthew, Mark and John). One who spoke to the witnesses, Luke. One who preached and talked to the witnesses, Paul

That would pretty much stand up in a court.

That wouldn't hold up at all. None of the gospel writers attest to witnesses, you don't have a case.

 

[Kenny]

That wouldn't hold up at all. None of the gospel writers attest to witnesses, you don't have a case.

That's because you don't want a case. (As you have intimated)

But those who were their disciples attest to who wrote it. (I'm sorry if they didn't follow modern day western culture, history canceling, thought.)

You probably wanted it on a MP4 too.

 

[lukethethird]

That's because you don't want a case. (As you have intimated)

But those who were their disciples attest to who wrote it. (I'm sorry if they didn't follow modern day western culture, history canceling, thought.)

You probably wanted it on a MP4 too.

No they don't attest to who wrote it. Matthew and Luke are not independent accounts and therefore not eyewitness accounts, they are both based on Mark, and to a lesser extent so is John. That is easy to prove in court, the plagiarism is evidence of that.

 

[Kenny]

No they don't attest to who wrote it. Matthew and Luke are not independent accounts and therefore not eyewitness accounts, they are both based on Mark, and to a lesser extent so is John. That is easy to prove in court, the plagiarism is evidence of that.

At least that is your viewpoint. But you are still in Western Thought as you read a 2000 year old Eastern Culture. You might want to read up on it. Wrong court of law too

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not on his life would he admit his mistake.

Oh my, what mistake? You do not seem to know the difference between a claim and an explanation either.

Why would the Romans have done this? And then if he was so important that they had to put a guard around his tomb why didn't they do the much more common act of leaving his body up as a message? The punishment of leaving a body up was not a punishment against the crucified person. He was already dead. It was to convince others not to follow in that person's footsteps. Your story is full of self-contradictions. You have no valid explanation of why he was taken down.


Did you ever stop to think that the gospel stories might be wrong? It could have been a Jewish crucifixion. By their standard he had already committed blasphemy. The Jews would have followed their own laws about bodies. They would have taken him down for the Sabbath. The Romans would have laughed at that request. Perhaps just part of your story was wrong.

 

[lukethethird]

At least that is your viewpoint. But you are still in Western Thought as you read a 2000 year old Eastern Culture. You might want to read up on it. Wrong court of law too

It's not a viewpoint, it's an observation, Matthew and Luke copied Mark. Do you understand what plagiarism is?

 

[Subduction Zone]

It's not a viewpoint, it's an observation, Matthew and Luke copied Mark. Do you understand what plagiarism is?

Some Christians cannot own up to even the smallest of errors in the Bible, they seem to have an attitude of "It's all true or none of it is true". But since certain parts are easily refutable they end up refuting their own religion with that stance/

 

[lukethethird]

Some Christians cannot own up to even the smallest of errors in the Bible, they seem to have an attitude of "It's all true or none of it is true". But since certain parts are easily refutable they end up refuting their own religion with that stance/

Most Christians are just told to believe that it's all true. Some end up on a discussion forum trying to tell those that can think for themselves that they are suppose to believe as well.

 

[danieldemol]

Not a strawman at all. It just goes to show that 40 doesn't make a difference and much more so if you are talking about it for 40 years. (like Spanish) -

I believe a set of claims that i personally have no way of verifying and which mostly refer to repetition are not evidence that the once off things that Jesus is alleged to have said were remembered accurately after 40 years.

Yes. And you are going down the same rabbit whole as the others. Let me translate, "nothing you say will ever convince me"... which I have no problem with. I really am not trying to convince you, rather just showing how faulty your position is.

That's not my position, my position is how do we know Clement of Rome is the same Clement you quoted from the scriptures considering the author of that scripture was not even scholarly enough to anticipate the need to distinguish between multiple possible Clements?

We have three people which were witnesses (Matthew, Mark and John). One who spoke to the witnesses, Luke.

Ah so a gish gallop it is.

One who preached and talked to the witnesses, Paul

Who never met Jesus and all of whom's information is second hand and who is known to have had disagreements with the witnesses.

That would pretty much stand up in a court.

Only in Texas lol

Oh, I would believe it was miraculous in nature but not from God. Like Pharaoh magicians who performed some of the miracles that God performed through Moses.

Well if you accept that as a miracle you have lower standards of evidence than I do, but laying that aside I think it gives you even bigger problems. If Satan can appear as an angel of light and opponents to God can do genuine miracles I dont believe there are any guarantees that Jesus isn't a demon.

Again, I'm not trying to convince anyone in this thread that there are miracles. It isn't the subject matter.

I disagree, the topic is the reliability of the gospels. If miracles don't occur or can't be known to occur then the gospels which are chock full of stories of miracles are either unreliable or of unknown reliability. I believe in neither case can we establish the gospels as having been of known reliability.

Historical... not going to go through the effort again.

I dont believe you have gone through sufficient effort to demonstrate their historical reliability the first time.

In my opinion.

 

[Kenny]

It's not a viewpoint, it's an observation, Matthew and Luke copied Mark. Do you understand what plagiarism is?

Do you understand the culture of that time, how oral tradition started and the history of plagiarism?

 

[Kenny]

[QUOTE="danieldemol, post: 8023197, member: 29492". I believe in neither case can we establish the gospels as having been of known reliability.


I dont believe you have gone through sufficient effort to demonstrate their historical reliability the first time.

In my opinion.[/QUOTE]
Which is why you aren't a believer and I am.

I am not trying to convince you of anything. That is up to the reader and the one who is seeking. (If you aren't seeking that is fine too).

There are thousands and millions of people who are very intelligent and came to a different conclusion than you (as there are thousands and millions of intelligent people who came to your conclusion). So each of us look at the same evidence and come to different conclusion.

Didn't want to take the time to answer irrelevancy. IMHO.

 

[danieldemol]

Didn't want to take the time to answer irrelevancy. IMHO.

I'm not sure why you would consider a central refutation of the idea that the gospels can be known to be reliable to be irrelevant to the subject of the reliability of the gospels.

As to their being intelligent people who believe in the gospels, sure, there are also intelligent people who believe for example in the Bhagavad Gita or in the Quran.

Since the Gospels, the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita clearly contradict one another it seems likely that merely being the possessor of intelligence is not enough to guarantee an outcome best aligned with all available evidence.

Rather we must apply that intelligence to our own traditions critically.
That i believe will give us a much higher degree of agreement than is possible by merely being the possessor of intelligence but not applying it to our own cultural stories.

In my opinion.

 

[Kenny]

As to their being intelligent people who believe in the gospels, sure, there are also intelligent people who believe for example in the Bhagavad Gita or in the Quran.

Since the Gospels, the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita clearly contradict one another it seems likely that merely being the possessor of intelligence is not enough to guarantee an outcome best aligned with all available evidence.

Rather we must apply that intelligence to our own traditions critically.
That i believe will give us a much higher degree of agreement than is possible by merely being the possessor of intelligence but not applying it to our own cultural stories.

I have no problem with your position

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Not on his life would he admit his mistake.

But he didn't make a mistake. He rejected the claim that Jesus' body would be treated differently because the Gospels claim a man named Joseph of Arimathea asked for the body. More hearsay. A reason also needs to be provided for why that request would be respected. Who was Joseph to Pilate? How would he even get an audience with Pilate? Where is Aramathea, and how is that identification of a person? Did only one Joseph come from there? Bob of Chicago thinks not. Mark of Long Beach said so in a letter.

Apparently, legends sprung up about this guy demonstrating why this process should not be trusted:

• "The legend that Joseph was given the responsibility of keeping the Holy Grail was the product of Robert de Boron, who essentially expanded upon stories from Acts of Pilate." Joseph of Arimathea - Wikipedia

• "According to legend, Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury with the Holy Grail and thrust his staff into Wearyall Hill, which then grew into the original thorn tree." Glastonbury Thorn - Wikipedia

This is mythogenesis (mythopoeia). We see these legends evolving over time if there are records of what people were saying along the way. The Jesus story is a prime example. The legend evolves through the Gospels and beyond as we saw above with the addition of the Holy Grail to the story.

Look at the stories of Jesus in the Gospels that didn't make canon. Have you seen the Gospel of Peter? In it, Jesus leaves the grave and begins expanding to gigantic proportion. There's also a gigantic talking cross in that one. If it had been included in canon, you would be teaching it to your congregation as fact, correct? Or would you tell them resurrection from the dead happened, but the expansion of Jesus didn't?

What a great opportunity for somebody to claim that Peter was anticipating the Big Bang with this expansion beginning with the release of Jesus (T=0). It actually makes more sense that ascension, which is directed, and would vary according to the position of the earth relative to the fixed stars at the time of launch. For example, if the constellation Cassiopia were directly on Jesus' zenith at the time, is that where heaven is? This expansion exit actually makes for a better story. It infuses Jesus into everything, everywhere, all at once - still here now - and not wandering through space.

That's because you don't want a case. (As you have intimated) But those who were their disciples attest to who wrote it. (I'm sorry if they didn't follow modern day western culture, history canceling, thought.)

Modern standards for belief pertain to old ideas as well as modern one. You seem to want to the offer a lower standard for belief because the source is ancient

There are thousands and millions of people who are very intelligent and came to a different conclusion than you

That doesn't matter at all to the critical thinker. All that matters is how they came to a particular conclusion, and whether their belief is justified by critical analysis.

So each of us look at the same evidence and come to different conclusion.

Yes, but what you keep failing to note is that there is only one way to come to sound conclusions using any given evidence, and other beliefs arrived at by other paths don't matter to the empiricist. Not all opinions are equal. Do you think otherwise? If you do - and I believe that many do - then you unaware of what critical thinking is and what it can do. Such people are apparently unaware that a process exists which generates answers that are correct and that can be known to be correct by those able to evaluate arguments for soundness. The evidence for this is everywhere. We see it in these threads whenever we read, "That's just your opinion" in response to such a conclusion. It's as outrageous as a student who hasn't learned what arithmetic is and can do rejecting the output of an addition problem from a skilled and accurate adder with the same hand waving dismissal.

I only became aware of how prevalent this is during the pandemic, when I saw that comment here and elsewhere regarding vaccines. There are no sure things, but the data clearly supports the idea that all eligible candidates should receive the vaccine. Still, "That's just your opinion" was the continual chorus from so many people that I became convinced that they only knew of one way to come to opinions - faith, which is guessing (insufficiently justified belief). And then I realized that much of the Dunning-Kruger crowd don't have an overinflated view of their own ability, but an underestimation of the abilities other possess for lack of awareness that this other and better way of knowing exists. It's little different. One case is the very definition of arrogance, the other of ignorance and might be the position of a humble but uniformed person.

 

[pearl]

Did you ever stop to think that the gospel stories might be wrong?

The key here is to understand that these 'stories' are all written decades post the D/R, and present the faith of the early Christians and how to relate this faith to future generations. And they did so by applying to Jesus what they interpreted to be messianic texts from Scripture. Its not really a question of 'right or wrong' but through faith its a question of a literary style predominant of the time.

 

[metis]

I think that it is very easy to forget that the ancient Asian authors of thousands of years ago were not into objective reporting but subjective reporting. When one reads literature from that lengthy time period, a literalistic interpretation misses so much, including so many of the various forms of symbolism that are used accompanied by enhancement with love religious and political figures. Interpreting the Creation Accounts is just one example.

OTOH, neither does it make much sense to go to the opposite extreme and say all is symbolic and nothing is real. Trying to figure out which was real, which was enhanced, and which was symbolic can be quite a bugger. Thus, with me, the approach is "Whatever happened, happened." and move on to which lessons with these myths can be derived from what we read? Needless to say, it's an imperfect art.

 

[lukethethird]

Do you understand the culture of that time, how oral tradition started and the history of plagiarism?

Tell me all about it.

 

[Kenny]

Tell me all about it.

So you don't? Applying modern western thought with Eastern thought and culture?

 

[lukethethird]

So you don't? Applying modern western thought with Eastern thought and culture?

Go on.