There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the New Testament

[Trailblazer]

Was Bahaullah the only "eye-witness" of his messages? Did he hear them, or did he think them?

Baha'u'llah heard the voice of God through the Holy Spirit and He wrote down what He heard.
Sometimes there were some eyewitnesses who were with Him as He wrote.

“So prolific was this period, that during the first two years after His return from His retirement, according to the testimony of Nabíl, who was at that time living in Baghdád, the unrecorded verses that streamed from His lips averaged, in a single day and night, the equivalent of the Qur’án! As to those verses which He either dictated or wrote Himself, their number was no less remarkable than either the wealth of material they contained, or the diversity of subjects to which they referred.........A certain Muḥammad Karím, a native of Shíráz, who had been a witness to the rapidity and the manner in which the Báb had penned the verses with which He was inspired, has left the following testimony to posterity, after attaining, during those days, the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, and beholding with his own eyes what he himself had considered to be the only proof of the mission of the Promised One: “I bear witness that the verses revealed by Bahá’u’lláh were superior, in the rapidity with which they were penned, in the ease with which they flowed, in their lucidity, their profundity and sweetness to those which I, myself saw pour from the pen of the Báb when in His presence. Had Bahá’u’lláh no other claim to greatness, this were sufficient, in the eyes of the world and its people, that He produced such verses as have streamed this day from His pen.” (God Passes By. pp. 137-138)

Bahá'í Reference Library - God Passes By, Pages 127-150

 

[Trailblazer]

What the speaker in the video says is completely unfounded allegation. It's so vapid I didn't even want to wade into the mire. I believe I can prove it's false. Would it make a difference if I did? Probably not. These kinds of debates are usually a beauty in the eyes of the beholder kind of thing.

Go ahead and try to prove what he said was false. Otherwise you should not make the claim.

 

[Watchmen]

Christians, in an attempt to give some credibility to their beliefs, often claim that the New Testament is "eyewitness testimony" when it is clearly not that. It is hearsay at best. In a court of law the NT would be rejected as a source.

Unless it wasn’t being offered for the truth of the matter asserted or if an exception to the rule against hearsay applied.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

For some reason your opinion had more weight when I thought you were married, but now it just sounds, well...sad.

All the best to you.

Your weird ad hominem is noted.
What me being married or not has to do with anything here, is a mystery

 

[blü 2]

There was a time when Stalin, Mao, or Hitler, could snap their fingers and end the life of anyone under their authority. We hope for something better in a God. We hope for a God whose omnipotence is guarded by grace, mercy, and respect for the freewill of the creatures he's created. We hope God's omnipotence is made impotent in the presence of his Salvation. We hope the right hand of God keeps the left hand of God in the dark when Salvation is being purchased beneath the very nose of God's downright ornery omnipotence/Gevurah.
John

We can have any kind of God we care to imagine ─ omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, eternal, infinite &c &c &c &c ─ but it will remain purely imaginary, purely conceptual. In the real world gods never appear, never say, never do, but they continue to appeal to a great many people. It seems to me they're matters for anthropology.

 

[1213]

Not to mention that it is logically fallacious.

Please explain why.

 

[1213]

...because the evidence shows that there were no eyewitnesses to Jesus.
...

Please tell what evidence?

 

[1213]

Which accounts purport to be from eyewitnesses... i.e. that actually describe themselves as such?

The Gospel of Luke specifically says that it is not an eyewitness account:

It basically says it is a collection of eyewitness accounts. "Now many have undertaken to compile an account of the thingsthat have been fulfilled among us, 2 like the accounts passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning.". So, yes, Luke is not himself an eyewitness, only like a recorder, he wrote down the accounts of eyewitnesses, at least if we believe what is said in the Bible.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Please explain why.

Argument from ignorance / incredulity

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It basically says it is a collection of eyewitness accounts. "Now many have undertaken to compile an account of the thingsthat have been fulfilled among us, 2 like the accounts passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning.". So, yes, Luke is not himself an eyewitness, only like a recorder, he wrote down the accounts of eyewitnesses, at least if we believe what is said in the Bible.

So "I met a guy who knows a guy who spoke with a guy who claim to have seen...."

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It basically says it is a collection of eyewitness accounts. "Now many have undertaken to compile an account of the thingsthat have been fulfilled among us, 2 like the accounts passed on to us by those who were eyewitnesses and servants of the word from the beginning.". So, yes, Luke is not himself an eyewitness, only like a recorder, he wrote down the accounts of eyewitnesses, at least if we believe what is said in the Bible.

Read it carefully.

The author says that the eyewitness accounts were "passed on to us" - i.e. the group to which the author belongs - not "passed on to me" - i.e. the author personally... IOW, not only was the author of Luke not an eyewitness, but he didn't have direct access to any eyewitnesses.

He may have believed the accounts to be correct and the chain of retelling to be reliable, but we're still talking about at least third-hand accounts even if what the author says here is entirely true.

 

[Kenny]

No, it is called "being honest". A concept that far too many believers do not seem to understand. Liars for Jesus may comfort you, but you were not going to leave Christianity no matter what. They do little if any good and may even drive away believers on the cusp. When a person sees that a belief can only be defended by dishonest techniques that tends to turn off people that are asking serious questions.

Once again, scholars get in trouble if they lie or use fallacious arguments. That is perfectly okay in the realm of apologetics. As long as they hold to the party line. There is no party line in scholarship. Only the rule that one has to use reliable evidence and rational arguments.

No… it’s called “being blinded”. Many unbelievers are blinded by the reality of truth and substituting it their own philosophies and even doctrine of demons.

Once again, pseudo-scholars lie or use fallacious arguments.

 

[John D. Brey]

We can have any kind of God we care to imagine ─ omnipotent, omniscient, perfect, eternal, infinite &c &c &c &c ─ but it will remain purely imaginary, purely conceptual.

Berkeley did say, to be, is to be conceived or perceived, i.e., reality itself is a conceptual phenomenon. The physicist John Wheeler said reality is a participatory phenomenon. Nothing is, until it's perceived, conceived, conceptualized. God included.

In the real world

Schopenhauer said the limits our thoughts are the limits of our world. The reality of our world, the boundaries that circumscribe our world, are conceptual, personal, and real. If God isn't a conceptual, personal, real, part of our world that's our own fault.

gods never appear, never say, never do, but they continue to appeal to a great many people. It seems to me they're matters for anthropology.

Anthropology is the study of man. Since Christ is incarnate, since God is man, yes, anthropology is a full subset of theology.



John

 

[SkepticThinker]

Start again: what evidence?

It's inconclusive. That's all I need to demonstrate. Case dismissed ... unresolved.

Plaintiff is liable for costs

I've given it to you three times now.

I've seen no reason to believe that John's is an eyewitness account. You certainly haven't given one.

Therefore, there's no reason to believe it is.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Excellent! To believe in Jesus. Now if a person believes in

This went down like this:

Anyone who believes in Jesus is a Christian.

You: The Bible does not say that. How about you though. Do you believe in Jesus?

You said the Bible "does not say that."
It does.
I just showed you it does.

What do you believe about Jesus specifically? You are not a Muslim because -- you believe in that which the one you say is a messenger said. You believe all roads lead to God? Do you believe that there are false prophets or messengers?

 

[Trailblazer]

Please tell what evidence?

He explained that in the video.

 

[Sumadji]

I've given it to you three times now.

I've seen no reason to believe that John's is an eyewitness account. You certainly haven't given one.

Your evidence is not conclusive.

The gospels are compiled from multiple earlier sources.

It's going off the subject of direct eye witnesses, but there is a whole study of the New Testament sources by scholars who lecture at prestigious universities and read Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and have spent decades studying original documents.

Bart Ehrman writes:
We have four narrative accounts of Jesus’ life and death, written by different people at different times and in different places, based on numerous sources that no longer survive. Jesus was not invented by Mark. He was also known to Matthew, Luke, and John, and to the sources which they used (Q, M, L, and the various sources of John).

All of this was within the first century.

This is not to mention sources from outside the New Testament that know that Jesus was a historical figure – for example, 1 Clement and the documents that make up the Didache. Or — need I say it? – every other author of the New Testament (there are sixteen NT authors altogether, so twelve who did not write Gospels), none of whom knew any of the Gospels (except for the author of 1, 2, and 3 John who may have known the fourth Gospel).

By my count that’s something like twenty-five authors, not counting the authors of the sources (another six or seven) on which the Gospels were based (and the sources on which the book of Acts was based, which were different again).

… we’re talking about thirty or so independent sources that know there was a man Jesus? These sources are not all living in the same village someplace so they are egging each other on. They didn’t compare notes. They are independent of one another and are scattered throughout the Mediterranean. They each have heard about the man Jesus from their own sources of information, which heard about him from their own sources of information.

Ehrman is not a Christian. He is agnostic. I realize this post is not directly on topic as regards gospel eye witness testimony. But it is to demonstrate that there are deep waters

 

[SkepticThinker]

Your evidence is not conclusive.

All the evidence we have points to it not being an eyewitness account.

You've shown nothing to indicate that it is an eyewitness account.

So, barring further evidence, I see no reason to call it an eyewitness account. Do you have one?
If you don't, then we're on the same page.

The gospels are compiled from multiple earlier sources.

Sources we don't have any can't say much about.

It's going off the subject of direct eye witnesses, but there is a whole study of the New Testament sources by scholars who lecture at prestigious universities and read Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic and have spent decades studying original documents.

Again, I heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who witnessed it is NOT an eyewitness account.
It's hearsay. It's a game of Telephone.

Bart Ehrman writes:
We have four narrative accounts of Jesus’ life and death, written by different people at different times and in different places, based on numerous sources that no longer survive. Jesus was not invented by Mark. He was also known to Matthew, Luke, and John, and to the sources which they used (Q, M, L, and the various sources of John).

All of this was within the first century.

This is not to mention sources from outside the New Testament that know that Jesus was a historical figure – for example, 1 Clement and the documents that make up the Didache. Or — need I say it? – every other author of the New Testament (there are sixteen NT authors altogether, so twelve who did not write Gospels), none of whom knew any of the Gospels (except for the author of 1, 2, and 3 John who may have known the fourth Gospel).

Irrelevant to the point under discussion.

Here's what he has to say about "eyewitness accounts:"

"But onto my point. Even though there may well have been eyewitnesses alive some 35-40 years after Jesus’ death, there is no guarantee – or, I would argue, no reason to think – that any of them were consulted by the authors of the Gospels when writing their accounts. The eyewitnesses would have been Aramaic speaking peasants almost entirely from rural Galilee. Mark was a highly educated, Greek speaking Christian living in an urban area outside of Palestine (Rome?), who never traveled, probably, to Galilee. So the existence of eyewitnesses would not have much if any effect on his Gospel.

The same is true, even more so, with the later Gospels. Luke begins his Gospel by saying that eyewitnesses started passing along the oral traditions he had heard (Luke 1:1-4), but he never indicates that he had ever talked to one. He has simply heard stories that had been around from the days of the eyewitnesses. And if the standard dating of his Gospel – and Matthew’s – is correct, they were writing about 50 years or more after Jesus’ death. John’s Gospel was even later.

My sense is that most of the eyewitnesses (and who knows how many there were?! Hundreds? Probably not. Dozens?) had died before the Gospels were written; those that survived were carrying on their lives in rural Galilee or Jerusalem. And the Gospel writers, who never say they consulted any of them, probably never did consult with any of them. The Gospels are based on oral traditions that had been in circulation – and changed as a result – for decades before the Gospel writers had even heard them.

And as anyone knows who has been subject to oral traditions – this would include all of us – the stories told about a person can change absolutely overnight! It happens all the time. What happens, then, to stories in circulation for 40 or 50 years, in different countries, told in different languages, among people who never laid an eye on an eyewitness or on anyone else who had? My sense is that the stories get changed, often a lot; and many of the stories simply get made up. It’s just the way it happens And it can be shown to have happened with the Gospels, since the same story is often told in very different ways. Every historian will tell you: evidence matters!"

Eyewitnesses and the Gospels: A Blast From the Past | The Bart Ehrman Blog

Five years ago today I received and answered this question on the blog. I thought it would make a nice break from my current discussion of my change of faith, a topic to which I'll return tomorrow. For now, here's a blast from the past...

ehrmanblog.org

By my count that’s something like twenty-five authors, not counting the authors of the sources (another six or seven) on which the Gospels were based (and the sources on which the book of Acts was based, which were different again).

… we’re talking about thirty or so independent sources that know there was a man Jesus? These sources are not all living in the same village someplace so they are egging each other on. They didn’t compare notes. They are independent of one another and are scattered throughout the Mediterranean. They each have heard about the man Jesus from their own sources of information, which heard about him from their own sources of information.

Ehrman is not a Christian. He is agnostic. I realize this post is not directly on topic as regards gospel eye witness testimony. But it is to demonstrate that there are deep waters

See the above post for a relevant Ehrman quote.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No… it’s called “being blinded”. Many unbelievers are blinded by the reality of truth and substituting it their own philosophies and even doctrine of demons.

Once again, pseudo-scholars lie or use fallacious arguments.

You are only describing yourself again. You use lying pseudoscholars. Real scholars have to properly support their claims. Just as real scientists have to support their claims. That is why apologists do not tend to publish in peer reviewed journals. Not only are they too easily shown to be wrong by just the reviewers. If they did actually get past the first step of peer review, and that is getting published, just as in the sciences, other experts in the field would check out their claims and refute them if they were wrong. There is no peer review in apologetics. As long as one seems to make a good case for Jesus it is accepted, even if it does not quite match the arguments of others.

That is why you lost the challenge to show that I was wrong about the two birth years of Jesus in the Bible. The historical evidence supported my views. All that you could find was the work of those willing to lie for Jesus. You could not find any scholars.

And just as real scientists do not think that the work in creationist journals is worth their time to refute, real scholars ignore apologetics too. If they enter into a debate it is done academically.

 

[Sumadji]

All the evidence we have points to it not being an eyewitness account.

You've shown nothing to indicate that it is an eyewitness account.

So, barring further evidence, I see no reason to call it an eyewitness account. Do you have one?
If you don't, then we're on the same page.



Sources we don't have any can't say much about.

Again, I heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy who witnessed it is NOT an eyewitness account.
It's hearsay. It's a game of Telephone.


Irrelevant to the point under discussion.

Here's what he has to say about "eyewitness accounts:"

"But onto my point. Even though there may well have been eyewitnesses alive some 35-40 years after Jesus’ death, there is no guarantee – or, I would argue, no reason to think – that any of them were consulted by the authors of the Gospels when writing their accounts. The eyewitnesses would have been Aramaic speaking peasants almost entirely from rural Galilee. Mark was a highly educated, Greek speaking Christian living in an urban area outside of Palestine (Rome?), who never traveled, probably, to Galilee. So the existence of eyewitnesses would not have much if any effect on his Gospel.

The same is true, even more so, with the later Gospels. Luke begins his Gospel by saying that eyewitnesses started passing along the oral traditions he had heard (Luke 1:1-4), but he never indicates that he had ever talked to one. He has simply heard stories that had been around from the days of the eyewitnesses. And if the standard dating of his Gospel – and Matthew’s – is correct, they were writing about 50 years or more after Jesus’ death. John’s Gospel was even later.

My sense is that most of the eyewitnesses (and who knows how many there were?! Hundreds? Probably not. Dozens?) had died before the Gospels were written; those that survived were carrying on their lives in rural Galilee or Jerusalem. And the Gospel writers, who never say they consulted any of them, probably never did consult with any of them. The Gospels are based on oral traditions that had been in circulation – and changed as a result – for decades before the Gospel writers had even heard them.

And as anyone knows who has been subject to oral traditions – this would include all of us – the stories told about a person can change absolutely overnight! It happens all the time. What happens, then, to stories in circulation for 40 or 50 years, in different countries, told in different languages, among people who never laid an eye on an eyewitness or on anyone else who had? My sense is that the stories get changed, often a lot; and many of the stories simply get made up. It’s just the way it happens And it can be shown to have happened with the Gospels, since the same story is often told in very different ways. Every historian will tell you: evidence matters!"

Eyewitnesses and the Gospels: A Blast From the Past | The Bart Ehrman Blog

Five years ago today I received and answered this question on the blog. I thought it would make a nice break from my current discussion of my change of faith, a topic to which I'll return tomorrow. For now, here's a blast from the past...

ehrmanblog.org

See the above post for a relevant Ehrman quote.

Fair enough. Thank you.

To take it on a step: regardless of eye-witness accounts ...

If the purpose is to dismiss the gospels, or the power and influence of Jesus, it's not sufficient, imo. There's a common thread from multiple independent sources.

Regarding the earlier Q, M and L sources, and those of John and Acts, they are accepted by scholars who know the subject well?