There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the New Testament

[Jayhawker Soule]

Since there are so many scholars with so many different opinions, what is a person truly interested in the correct answer to do?

Perhaps

1. evaluate the arguments,
2. avoid labelling your beliefs as "more than evident" relevant truths.

 

[Brian2]

Your claims of evidence is personal and subjective to justify your own beliefs.

I cannot make up evidence. I can point to what is already there, and yes it is what justifies my beliefs as it also justifies the beliefs of billions of people.

That is how evidence is defined by the English definition. Itis not an error it is a problem that you are defining evidence to fit your own argument, which is based on a matter of subjective belief and faith.

The claims of miracles and the supernatural are there in the Bible, I am not making them, I am pointing to them.

The demands reflect your claims of evidence and when you define evidence to suit your own argument for the existence of the supernatural and miracles. This type of argument only works for those that already believe as you do.

The demands are for evidence for the evidence.
How is my definition of evidence wrong?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I cannot make up evidence. I can point to what is already there, and yes it is what justifies my beliefs as it also justifies the beliefs of billions of people.



The claims of miracles and the supernatural are there in the Bible, I am not making them, I am pointing to them.



The demands are for evidence for the evidence.
How is my definition of evidence wrong?

The Bible is the claim. It is not the evidence. If you want to use it as evidence you would need to demonstrate that it is reliable.

 

[Brian2]

First, internal contents of any ancient literature cannot justify certainty without independent evidence, We lack independent sources to justify certainty.

At present nothing "wins" as convincing, without independent evidence regardless. No tricks here.

Your arguments only offer certainty for those that believe as you do.

Yes if you want certainty then religious faith is not the place you should be seeking it. Even science does not say that it offers certainty.
However the demand is for more certainty to be given or people will not and cannot and should not believe.

 

[Brian2]

"We" is not a problem. There is other reason for doubt that the author was really a companion of Paul - the Acts of Apostles (by the same author as the gospel of Luke) frequently contradict the Pauline letters.

I hear that said, that the Acts of the Apostles contradict the Pauline letters. I have never been shown where and how this conclusion was arrived at.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I hear that said, that the Acts of the Apostles contradict the Pauline letters. I have never been shown where and how this conclusion was arrived at.

I'm very lazy tonight. Here are four instances that ChatGPT threw out where the Book of Acts appears to contradict Paul's epistles:

Paul’s Conversion (Acts 9:7 vs. Galatians 1:16)
Acts describes Paul as consulting with others after his conversion (Acts 9:19-26), while in Galatians 1:16-17, Paul claims he did not consult anyone.

Paul’s Apostleship (Acts 9:26-27 vs. Galatians 1:1)
Acts suggests Paul was recognized as an apostle by other apostles in Jerusalem, while Paul asserts in Galatians that his apostleship came directly from Jesus, not from human recognition.

The Law and Gentiles (Acts 15:20 vs. Galatians 2:11-14)
In Acts 15, a council imposes certain laws on Gentiles, but in Galatians 2, Paul strongly opposes any requirement for Gentiles to follow Jewish law, including rebuking Peter.

Paul’s Visits to Jerusalem (Acts 11:30 vs. Galatians 2:1)
Acts records multiple visits of Paul to Jerusalem, but Galatians 2:1 suggests he only went to Jerusalem once after 14 years for a significant meeting.

 

[Muffled]

We haven't really started talking about reliability yet. So far, this has just been about whether the Gospels are eyewitness accounts. They aren't.

But if you want to talk about reliability, we can. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable to begin with and it becomes more unreliable over time.

Think about the eyewitness accounts cited by other religions. You don't consider those to be reliable, right?

I believe you have no evidence that they aren't.

I believe that is wrong. However not everyone claiming to be an eyewitness is. In the Hadiths there are several people making a false claim.

 

[Muffled]

Yes, Baha'u'llah offered eternal life.

“O My servants! Whoso hath tasted of this Fountain hath attained unto everlasting Life, and whoso hath refused to drink therefrom is even as the dead. Say: O ye workers of iniquity! Covetousness hath hindered you from giving a hearing ear unto the sweet voice of Him Who is the All-Sufficing. Wash it away from your hearts, that His Divine secret may be made known unto you. Behold Him manifest and resplendent as the sun in all its glory.”

Bahá'í Reference Library - Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Pages 167-169

“The Book of God is wide open, and His Word is summoning mankind unto Him. No more than a mere handful, however, hath been found willing to cleave to His Cause, or to become the instruments for its promotion. These few have been endued with the Divine Elixir that can, alone, transmute into purest gold the dross of the world, and have been empowered to administer the infallible remedy for all the ills that afflict the children of men. No man can obtain everlasting life, unless he embraceth the truth of this inestimable, this wondrous, and sublime Revelation.”

Bahá'í Reference Library - Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Pages 183-184

I believe those offers are bogus. That is what happens when you rely on a relgious philosopher insead of God

 

[Muffled]

Strange stuff... She asked me why Baha'is get dragged into all these threads, and then she answers you with quotes from her religion, the Baha'i Faith.

I don't think when a Born-Again Christian talks about Eternal life, it is the same thing a Baha'i is talking about.

As I've been told many times... I am lost in my sin. And there's only one way to get my sins forgiven. And that is by accepting Jesus... that he died on the Cross to pay the penalty for my sins. If I don't? Christians tell me I will be cast into hell.

Baha'is don't teach that, and I really doubt they believe that. For them we all have eternal life. The better we are, the closer to God we will be.

Actually that sounds much better.

But... if that's true, then Christianity is wrong and has been wrong from the very beginning when they first started believing these stories that were allegedly not even written by eyewitnesses.

How far is wishful thinking going to get You?

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I believe you have no evidence that they aren't.

I believe that is wrong. However not everyone claiming to be an eyewitness is. In the Hadiths there are several people making a false claim.

You are missing his very good point. Even when someone IS an eye witness, their memory is not very reliable. When DNA testing became a thing, a LOT of people in prison, some of them on death row, were released when the DNA proved that they were innocent. The verdicts had been based on EYE WITNESS accounts.

The problem is that human memory can be altered by suggestions and leading questions and many other things, sometimes just a little, and sometimes a whole awful lot.

Just last week, I discovered that one of my own memories had been altered. I was discussing one of the scariest movies I had ever seen: The Changeling. In my memory, it was an old black and white classic horror movie, like maybe from the 1950s. After the conversation was over, I thought it would be fun to rewatch. But I couldn't find an old black and white by that name. I finally DID find the movie (and watched it! ), but it was NOT a black and white. It was a 1980 movie. Honestly, I would have SWORN it was black and white.

I'm sure you are familiar with the police procedure where a witness is given a photo array or a lineup to see if they can identify the perp. The problem here is that human biology has a certain innate bias. The witness ASSUMES that the perp WILL BE one of the photos or person in the line up. Thus, when the actual criminal is NOT there, the witness will often pick the person most similar to what they saw. THEN the face of the person they chose replaces the original memory. And so they will go into the courtroom and testify with incredible confidence that the defendant is the person they saw, when in fact he is not.

Even the vocabulary that is chosen for a question or statement can subtly alter a memory. A popular experiment demonstrating this used questions about a car accident, but using different word that would reflect the speed of the car: "smashed," "hit," or "collided." This subtle change in phrasing significantly altered their recollections. The estimation of the speed for "smashed" was a good deal higher than for "collided."

 

[Trailblazer]

I believe those offers are bogus. That is what happens when you rely on a relgious philosopher insead of God

I believe those offers are genuine. That is what happens when you rely on a Messenger of God who speaks for God.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I believe you have no evidence that they aren't.

Could you clarify this for me?

 

[Brian2]

I'm very lazy tonight. Here are four instances that ChatGPT threw out where the Book of Acts appears to contradict Paul's epistles:

Paul’s Conversion (Acts 9:7 vs. Galatians 1:16)
Acts describes Paul as consulting with others after his conversion (Acts 9:19-26), while in Galatians 1:16-17, Paul claims he did not consult anyone.

Acts 9:7 and Gal 1:16 are not about the same thing.

Paul’s Apostleship (Acts 9:26-27 vs. Galatians 1:1)
Acts suggests Paul was recognized as an apostle by other apostles in Jerusalem, while Paul asserts in Galatians that his apostleship came directly from Jesus, not from human recognition.

Apostleship came directly from Jesus but recognised by also by those in Jerusalem. No contradiction there.

The Law and Gentiles (Acts 15:20 vs. Galatians 2:11-14)
In Acts 15, a council imposes certain laws on Gentiles, but in Galatians 2, Paul strongly opposes any requirement for Gentiles to follow Jewish law, including rebuking Peter.

Obeying the law was decided to not be a requirement for being a Christian.
The Council gave guidelines however (not a law) so that the Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians might mingle freely. The Jews did not like mingling with the Gentiles in those days it seems.

Paul’s Visits to Jerusalem (Acts 11:30 vs. Galatians 2:1)
Acts records multiple visits of Paul to Jerusalem, but Galatians 2:1 suggests he only went to Jerusalem once after 14 years for a significant meeting.

Went to Jerusalem after 14 years but went also at other times after that. No contradiction.
ChatGPT does not make a good theologian.
It might repeat what Bible critics say, but they don't make good theologians either.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Obeying the law was decided to not be a requirement for being a Christian.

That is not quite accurate. The council of Jerusalem determined that Gentile believers in Jesus did not need to become Jews, meaning to be circumcised and come under the law. It never said anything about Jewish believers not needing to observe the Law.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

That is not quite accurate. The council of Jerusalem determined that Gentile believers in Jesus did not need to become Jews, meaning to be circumcised and come under the law. It never said anything about Jewish believers not needing to observe the Law.

I wonder if there was any discussion of splitting hairs, and I'm forced to wonder if the thread has reached the point of diminishing returns.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

ChatGPT does not make a good theologian.
It might repeat what Bible critics say, but they don't make good theologians either.

I'll defer to you concerning ChatGPT.

I'll also suggest that by "good theologians" you mean "those who disagree with me."

 

[Berserk]

Papias (60-130 AD) lived in the age of Jesus' disciples and had access to their eyewitnesses testimony, especially John the Elder and Aristion, who were probably 2 of the 70 disciples Jesus commissioned in Luke 10:1:

"If by chance anyone who had been in attendance on the elders (=Jesus' disciples) arrived, I made enquiries about the words of the elders—what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew or any other of the Lord’s disciples, and whatever Aristion and John the Elder, the Lord’s disciples, were saying. For I did not think that information from the books would profit me as much as information from a living and surviving voice."

Papias' source for Mark's authorship of the Gospel is none other than jesus' disciple, John the Elder:

"The Elder [(ohn) used to say: Mark, in his capacity as Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately as many things as he recalled from memory—though not in an ordered form—of the things either said or done by the Lord. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied him, but later, as I said, Peter, who used to give his teachings in the form of brief uselful anedotes, but had no intention of providing an ordered arrangement of the logia of the Lord. Consequently Mark did nothing wrong when he wrote down some individual items just as he related them from memory. For he made it his one concern not to omit anything he had heard or to falsify anything."

Mark was written in Rome and Justin Martyr of Rome (100-165 AD) independently confirms John the Elder's testimony by referring to Mark as Peter's "memoirs." (Dialogue 106). Peter was preaching topically and thus was not following the sequence of events in Jesus' life. The very fact that Mark is critcized for getting this sequence wrong attests eyewitnesses who still knew what the original sequence was. Matthew and Luke use Mark as one of their primary sources and thus basically follow Mark's order of events. So when you read Mark, yoo are basically reading Peter.

 

[Eli G]

Matthew wrote his gospel before Mark. A note about this biblical book in the Encyclopedia of the JWs Insight says:

Subscriptions, appearing at the end of Matthew’s Gospel in numerous manuscripts (all being later than the tenth century C.E.), say that the account was written about the eighth year after Christ’s ascension (c. 41 C.E.). This would not be at variance with internal evidence.

So we have more than one manuscripts indicating the traditional dating known about this Gospel's writing.

In my opinion, the fact that this gospel was written for a Jewish audience and originally in the Hebrew language is an indication that the acceptance of Gentiles into the Christian community was not yet so widely accepted, so it was written earlier than other writings for Christians with other origin. In fact, it is said that Matthew himself later translated his earlier writing into Greek.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Matthew wrote his gospel before Mark. A note about this biblical book in the Encyclopedia of the JWs Insight says:

So we have more than one manuscripts indicating the traditional dating known about this Gospel's writing.

In my opinion, the fact that this gospel was written for a Jewish audience and originally in the Hebrew language is an indication that the acceptance of Gentiles into the Christian community was not yet so widely accepted, so it was written earlier than other writings for Christians with other origin. In fact, it is said that Matthew himself later translated his earlier writing into Greek.

LOL! The JW's are not scholars. It was not originally written in Hebrew. In fact Matthew did not write it.

 

[Eli G]

About the original Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew, the same Encyclopedia says:

Originally Written in Hebrew.
External evidence to the effect that Matthew originally wrote this Gospel in Hebrew reaches as far back as Papias of Hierapolis, of the second century C.E. Eusebius quoted Papias as stating: “Matthew collected the oracles in the Hebrew language.” (The Ecclesiastical History, III, XXXIX, 16) Early in the third century, Origen made reference to Matthew’s account and, in discussing the four Gospels, is quoted by Eusebius as saying that the “first was written . . . according to Matthew, who was once a tax-collector but afterwards an apostle of Jesus Christ, . . . in the Hebrew language.” (The Ecclesiastical History, VI, XXV, 3-6) The scholar Jerome (of the fourth and fifth centuries C.E.) wrote in his work De viris inlustribus (Concerning Illustrious Men), chapter III, that Matthew “composed a Gospel of Christ in Judaea in the Hebrew language and characters for the benefit of those of the circumcision who had believed. . . . Moreover, the Hebrew itself is preserved to this day in the library at Caesarea, which the martyr Pamphilus so diligently collected.”—Translation from the Latin text edited by E. C. Richardson and published in the series “Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur,” Leipzig, 1896, Vol. 14, pp. 8, 9.