There is NO Historical Evidence for Jesus

[joelr]

IMOP and FWIW from the Urantia revelation:

PREVIOUS WRITTEN RECORDS​

121:8.1 As far as possible, consistent with our mandate, we have endeavored to utilize and to some extent co-ordinate the existing records having to do with the life of Jesus on Urantia. Although we have enjoyed access to the lost record of the Apostle Andrew and have benefited from the collaboration of a vast host of celestial beings who were on earth during the times of Michael's bestowal (notably his now Personalized Adjuster), it has been our purpose also to make use of the so-called Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

121:8.2 These New Testament records had their origin in the following circumstances:


121:8.3 1. The Gospel by Mark. John Mark wrote the earliest (excepting the notes of Andrew, briefest, and most simple record of Jesus' life. He presented the Master as a minister, as man among men. Although Mark was a lad lingering about many of the scenes which he depicts, his record is in reality the Gospel according to Simon Peter. He was early associated with Peter; later with Paul. Mark wrote this record at the instigation of Peter and on the earnest petition of the church at Rome. Knowing how consistently the Master refused to write out his teachings when on earth and in the flesh, Mark, like the apostles and other leading disciples, was hesitant to put them in writing. But Peter felt the church at Rome required the assistance of such a written narrative, and Mark consented to undertake its preparation. He made many notes before Peter died in A.D. 67, and in accordance with the outline approved by Peter and for the church at Rome, he began his writing soon after Peter's death. The Gospel was completed near the end of A.D. 68. Mark wrote entirely from his own memory and Peter's memory. The record has since been considerably changed, numerous passages having been taken out and some later matter added at the end to replace the latter one fifth of the original Gospel, which was lost from the first manuscript before it was ever copied. This record by Mark, in conjunction with Andrew's and Matthew's notes, was the written basis of all subsequent Gospel narratives which sought to portray the life and teachings of Jesus.

121:8.4 2. The Gospel of Matthew. The so-called Gospel according to Matthew is the record of the Master's life which was written for the edification of Jewish Christians. The author of this record constantly seeks to show in Jesus' life that much which he did was that "it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet." Matthew's Gospel portrays Jesus as a son of David, picturing him as showing great respect for the law and the prophets.

121:8.5 The Apostle Matthew did not write this Gospel. It was written by Isador, one of his disciples, who had as a help in his work not only Matthew's personal remembrance of these events but also a certain record which the latter had made of the sayings of Jesus directly after the crucifixion. This record by Matthew was written in Aramaic; Isador wrote in Greek. There was no intent to deceive in accrediting the production to Matthew. It was the custom in those days for pupils thus to honor their teachers.

121:8.6 Matthew's original record was edited and added to in A.D. 40 just before he left Jerusalem to engage in evangelistic preaching. It was a private record, the last copy having been destroyed in the burning of a Syrian monastery in A.D. 416.
121:8.7 Isador escaped from Jerusalem in A.D. 70 after the investment of the city by the armies of Titus, taking with him to Pella a copy of Matthew's notes. In the year 71, while living at Pella, Isador wrote the Gospel according to Matthew. He also had with him the first four fifths of Mark's narrative.

121:8.8 3. The Gospel by Luke. Luke, the physician of Antioch in Pisidia, was a gentile convert of Paul, and he wrote quite a different story of the Master's life. He began to follow Paul and learn of the life and teachings of Jesus in A.D. 47. Luke preserves much of the "grace of the Lord Jesus Christ" in his record as he gathered up these facts from Paul and others. Luke presents the Master as "the friend of publicans and sinners." He did not formulate his many notes into the Gospel until after Paul's death. Luke wrote in the year 82 in Achaia. He planned three books dealing with the history of Christ and Christianity but died in A.D. 90 just before he finished the second of these works, the "Acts of the Apostles."
121:8.9 As material for the compilation of his Gospel, Luke first depended upon the story of Jesus' life as Paul had related it to him. Luke's Gospel is, therefore, in some ways the Gospel according to Paul. But Luke had other sources of information. He not only interviewed scores of eyewitnesses to the numerous episodes of Jesus' life which he records, but he also had with him a copy of Mark's Gospel, that is, the first four fifths, Isador's narrative, and a brief record made in the year A.D. 78 at Antioch by a believer named Cedes. Luke also had a mutilated and much-edited copy of some notes purported to have been made by the Apostle Andrew.

121:8.10 4. The Gospel of John. The Gospel according to John relates much of Jesus' work in Judea and around Jerusalem which is not contained in the other records. This is the so-called Gospel according to John the son of Zebedee, and though John did not write it, he did inspire it. Since its first writing it has several times been edited to make it appear to have been written by John himself. When this record was made, John had the other Gospels, and he saw that much had been omitted; accordingly, in the year A.D. 101 he encouraged his associate, Nathan, a Greek Jew from Caesarea, to begin the writing. John supplied his material from memory and by reference to the three records already in existence. He had no written records of his own. The Epistle known as "First John" was written by John himself as a covering letter for the work which Nathan executed under his direction.

121:8.11 All these writers presented honest pictures of Jesus as they saw, remembered, or had learned of him, and as their concepts of these distant events were affected by their subsequent espousal of Paul's theology of Christianity. And these records, imperfect as they are, have been sufficient to change the course of the history of Urantia for almost two thousand years." Urantia Book 1955

And the Quran is changing the course of history as well and is continuing to change lives today in a huge way. That doesn't mean it's all true.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

I've never used the word exemplary to describe the historical Jesus. I only said extraordinary. In other words, he had to have stood out amongst his peers in some way to inspire the mythologies about him.

I disagree that Jesus had to be outstanding in any way to end up the central character of a religion created by others. He just needed to be in the right place at the right time.

I use the word exemplary because Christians claim and assume that the life of Jesus was exemplary, and that we should follow that example and be Christlike, and I challenge that claim. Jesus should have been more like Carl Sagan or Jimmy Carter and done something that actually made lives better or advanced human understanding.

So when Christians are telling you Jesus lived an exemplary life, this is the Jesus of Faith, not the historical Jesus.

Look at that sentence. When Christians tell me that Jesus lived an exemplary life, they're not talking about the actual life lived, but rather, one they conjured up with faith. I can't disagree with that, but these believers don't have a concept of an actual Jesus versus a mythical one. There's only the son of God on earth, and obviously, if he's that, he must be special and that must shine through in his life, and people go to the Gospels to see what they believe Jesus actually did and said, which is a lot of confusion and bad advice by my reckoning as explained.

Here you and I are discussing whether loving enemies (or, elsewhere, believing by faith, or being meek, or turning the other cheek) is good advice. You think it is. To me, it is obviously bad advice, so I can only conclude that you have accepted these claims uncritically and now attempt to defend them without supporting evidence. Your loving-enemies argument has been that harboring vitriol harms the self, which assumes that that which is not love soul-diminishing is hatred.

It seems you want him specifically to be nothing but an ordinary, run of the mill holy man with nothing special or unique about him compared to others. I simply can't see that rationally.

That's what I see. And you haven't provided counterexamples. Your principle argument seems to be that Jesus must have been special to become the central figure of a new religion. I dare say that there were other people crucified with him that could have been mythologized similarly, and others in the audience as well along with thousands or millions around us today. I'll bet it could be done with your life. Have you been basically kind and decent all your life? Did you do decent work that helped others? Did you obey the law? Were you a good neighbor and member of your community? Were you charitable? Did you coach or foster children or take in foreign exchange students? Did you raise children to be good people and good citizens? I'll bet you were all of those things. Now if you were convicted of a capital crime and martyred, others could start a religion about you. You were born of a virgin, lived a pious life, dedicated your life to god's obedience to god's will and promoting religion to people like me, your words are all over the Internet, so we have our scripture, you changed water into wine, walked on water, turned fishes into loaves, fulfilled messianic prophecy, were martyred and then resurrected. If it hadn't already been done, it could be done now with you. Or me. I don't consider myself exemplary, just honest, decent, and constructive - like you and Jesus and millions or billions of other people.

To me is almost sounds like there is a motivation to minimize him like that, because to not minimize him might give credence to the supernatural Jesus?

Yes, my motivation is antitheistic. I consider Christianity to be a net societal harm posing as a force for good. It's a distraction from actual good roll models and better values. It opposes humanism, which has elevated the human condition by replacing faith with reason and received moral values with utilitarian moral intuitions. It presently opposes the church in its effort to transform America into a Christian theocracy, where women are incubators for the church, and LGBTQ persecuted because some small people in places of power believe that abortion and homosexuality offend Jesus. This is what Christianity actually is and does. It is NOT generating good people. The more of that religion people imbibe - the more zealous they are for it and open to its de facto values - the worse for them and those around them.

I'd like to see more challenging of the claims of the religious questioned on these threads and in the culture at large. Back up these claims if they are correct and can be justified with evidence and sound argument. Show me that meekness is blessed. Show me that not planning for the future is wisdom. Show me that the church actually is a charitable organization rather than a self-licking ice cream cone accumulating money like a business and receiving undeserved tax breaks. Show me how the church is a net benefit to society when it teaches bigotry to our neighbors who go into its churches and listen to what passes for love in Christianity. Explain to me why turning the other cheek isn't the worst possible choice when first smitten in the one. I say you can't do any of those things, so prove me wrong if I am.

These are among the many false claims of this religion, which poses as a people builder, but is actually an impediment to the expression of a better culture for developing moral and intellectual excellence and optimal societal opportunity for the greatest number, where the Golden Rule is more than lip service.

 

[Thrillobyte]

It is more complex than this, but yes you certainly do see projections of the human ego in the face or the image of God. Anthropomorphisms can extend beyond simply metaphoric language, such as the 'hand of God, or the 'eye of the Lord,' to actual human egoic attributes, such as jealousy, anger, rage, etc. Some authors meant it figuratively, some meant it literally. And then afterwards, you have some who may interpret it metaphorically, or some who may interpret that literally.

What you have really are different sets of eyes seeing the Divine through different lenses. Some see something beyond themselves to aspire towards, growing beyond the ego into selflessness. Others see the ideal Ego, the superhuman who can conquer and rule over others, the "chosen ones". In their case it's a about power and hierarchical domination.

In one case, God is about reaching for the sun to break free from the world to experience Liberation or Freedom. In the other it's about bringing the sun down to earth to dominate it and control it in their own image: "In the beginning, man created God in his own image".


I'm quite sure it did occur to them. That's why you have the Apostle Paul evolving that image of God to be inclusive, as opposed to exclusive as it had been: "There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus," Gal. 3:28. You see even misogyny is rejected in Paul's Christ.

In reality, the view of God in the Bible is evolving, along with the level of consciousness of human beings who are seeing beyond love defined as those of your own tribe, to include those of other religions, those of other cultures and beliefs, regardless of gender, etc. Now, in practice do Christians actually embody these principles? No, a lot of it is still ethnocentric otherism. But the teachings do set the bar to the higher order principle of inclusiveness, regardless of how well Christians actually live up to these.

But it's actually not all one thing. There are as many diverse and competing voices within it, as you find in any religion or religious discussions. Same as what you see today, even here on RF. Think of the Bible like the RF site, in a way.

Sure, because humans are humans and are all at different developmental stages. The more mature stages are more inclusive. The less mature stages are more exclusive, where love only extends to those who look and act just like you.

That in my opinion is what the teachings of Jesus were about getting people to look beyond, and see the other as an extension of yourself, not just the stranger, but even those you call your enemies. That's higher order love, appealing to earlier stage love to grow beyond its own comfort zones.

The same can been said of religion in general today. It can show what is both beautiful and ugly about us as humans. But the OT as I said, is not a univocal singular text. It includes all of these voices, both beautiful and cruel.

Everything you say pretty much points up to the fact that whatever we know about the Judeo-Christian god as exemplified in the Bible has been made up by men. The god of the Bible is a fiction, isn't he? I'm not talking about some powerful entity who may or may not be running this universe, I'm talking about the Yahweh--originally a minor god in the pantheon of Canaanite gods that the Hebrews adopted to be their god. The Hebrew/Jewish writers imbued Yahweh with all the traits and attributes that they imagined/desired their god to be and wrote him in that fashion. So what we know of the god of the Jews as revealed in the Bible is that he is a completely made-up character.

 

[Audie]

Everything you say pretty much points up to the fact that whatever we know about the Judeo-Christian god as exemplified in the Bible has been made up by men. The god of the Bible is a fiction, isn't he? I'm not talking about some powerful entity who may or may not be running this universe, I'm talking about the Yahweh--originally a minor god in the pantheon of Canaanite gods that the Hebrews adopted to be their god. The Hebrew/Jewish writers imbued Yahweh with all the traits and attributes that they imagined/desired their god to be and wrote him in that fashion. So what we know of the god of the Jews as revealed in the Bible is that he is a completely made-up character.

There was no god who flooded the world.
That character is fiction.

 

[Windwalker]

Everything you say pretty much points up to the fact that whatever we know about the Judeo-Christian god as exemplified in the Bible has been made up by men. The god of the Bible is a fiction, isn't he?

That's a bit of a gross oversimplification of things. First, taking a giant step backwards to looking at humanity as a whole and the way the human mind works, everything we tell ourselves about reality is a story we overlay upon it in order to conceive of it and think about it.

That's a fiction as well, even if it has some actual reference in experience. Whatever we think about whatever thing it is we are thinking about, is a mental construction of what we think that thing is, constructed of the symbols of language and stories of our current cultures.

So likewise whatever humans may have conceived of God is, is a mental construct as well. Today in the modern age, humans generally use more scientific and rational constructs to conceive of reality, wheas in the past it was more mythological constructs. But make no mistake, both are still constructs. It's just that those constructs are more sophisticated fictions.

So yes, the images of God in the Bible, or any religion for that matter, are constructs or fictions. That does not mean however that those fictions were not pointing to some tangible reality, just as 'dark matter' points to something tangible as well. But 'dark matter' is just a fiction. We simply call 'whatever that is' by some name using words we think approximate its perceived reality to us.

I'm not talking about some powerful entity who may or may not be running this universe, I'm talking about the Yahweh--originally a minor god in the pantheon of Canaanite gods that the Hebrews adopted to be their god.

How they imaged what God was, took on the flavor of the systems of language and thought of the day. The symbols of deities they were familiar with were utilized in telling the story of how they were conceiving of their idea of God, in contrast with the other gods of other tribal deities.

What I see is a gradual realization of a single God, where YHWH become the chief deity, and then eventually the only deity, and then eventually the universal God all people everywhere. Man's ideas of God evolved as his own consciousness itself evolved.

The Hebrew/Jewish writers imbued Yahweh with all the traits and attributes that they imagined/desired their god to be and wrote him in that fashion. So what we know of the god of the Jews as revealed in the Bible is that he is a completely made-up character.

I would not say a "completely made-up charter". I would say a evolving symbolic representation of Ultimate Reality utilizing the symbols and language of the culture of the day. Just like today, we use the language of science and technologies to evolve our symbolic representation of Ultimate Reality to fit our culture. It's all the same process, just different degrees of sophistication is all.

So I'd no more feel it's appropriate to say it was a "completely made up character", then science is completely made up too. In a sense though, both actually are.

 

[lukethethird]

That's a bit of a gross oversimplification of things. First, taking a giant step backwards to looking at humanity as a whole and the way the human mind works, everything we tell ourselves about reality is a story we overlay upon it in order to conceive of it and think about it.

That's a fiction as well, even if it has some actual reference in experience. Whatever we think about whatever thing it is we are thinking about, is a mental construction of what we think that thing is, constructed of the symbols of language and stories of our current cultures.

So likewise whatever humans may have conceived of God is, is a mental construct as well. Today in the modern age, humans generally use more scientific and rational constructs to conceive of reality, wheas in the past it was more mythological constructs. But make no mistake, both are still constructs. It's just that those constructs are more sophisticated fictions.

So yes, the images of God in the Bible, or any religion for that matter, are constructs or fictions. That does not mean however that those fictions were not pointing to some tangible reality, just as 'dark matter' points to something tangible as well. But 'dark matter' is just a fiction. We simply call 'whatever that is' by some name using words we think approximate its perceived reality to us.


How they imaged what God was, took on the flavor of the systems of language and thought of the day. The symbols of deities they were familiar with were utilized in telling the story of how they were conceiving of their idea of God, in contrast with the other gods of other tribal deities.

What I see is a gradual realization of a single God, where YHWH become the chief deity, and then eventually the only deity, and then eventually the universal God all people everywhere. Man's ideas of God evolved as his own consciousness itself evolved.

I would not say a "completely made-up charter". I would say a evolving symbolic representation of Ultimate Reality utilizing the symbols and language of the culture of the day. Just like today, we use the language of science and technologies to evolve our symbolic representation of Ultimate Reality to fit our culture. It's all the same process, just different degrees of sophistication is all.

So I'd no more feel it's appropriate to say it was a "completely made up character", then science is completely made up too. In a sense though, both actually are.

Rubbish, you're just misrepresenting science to prop up notions of invisible gods.

 

[Windwalker]

Rubbish, you're just misrepresenting science to prop up notions of invisible gods.

Pure rubbish.

 

[lukethethird]

Rubbish

You try to put science, the study of what is observed, on a level playing field with story telling of invisible gods that give you a warm and fuzzy when you read them, which tells us more about you than anything else. On a thread called There is No Historical Evidence for Jesus no less because you want to make this thread about you and how you perceive your invisible god that you read about in stories.

 

[Windwalker]

You try to put science, the study of what is observed, on a level playing field with story telling of invisible gods that give you a warm and fuzzy when you read them, which tells us more about you than anything else. On a thread called There is No Historical Evidence for Jesus no less because you want to make this thread about you and how you perceive your invisible god that you read about in stories.

Again, rubbish. You simply do not understand what I am talking about, and it frightens you that your idea of reality is a construct as well. You actually have no idea what I believe, evidenced in your comment imaging I believe in "invisible gods", and "warm fuzzy feelings". Pure rubbish.

Do you not understand how that we use language and symbols to represent reality? Science is just a different kind of symbolic representation. Myth is also symbolic representation. But here's the ironic little secret. When you are the one using the symbols, they are reality to you.

Your ideas of reality, they way you talk about it, and how you relate yourself to your ideas as reality itself, is identical to how they did in the past framing reality in terms of the gods. We all think what we think is reality, is what reality really is. You're no different than they were in believing that way about their ways of thinking. They assume how they thought about reality was reality, as much a you assume the same today.

It's the same mental processes. The only thing that is different is the nature of the symbols. Rather than being magical symbols, they are scientific symbols, technical symbols. But the human mind still interfaces with the real world, though symbolic representation, nonetheless.

All of reality, is a mediated reality for all humans. If we thinking about reality, we are doing so using mental constructs made of our language symbols, words, and terms, and stories, or myths. It's a cognitive reality. It's just how the human mind works. Do you deny the science behind this?

 

[lukethethird]

Again, rubbish. You simply do not understand what I am talking about, and it frightens you that your idea of reality is a construct as well. You actually have no idea what I believe, evidenced in your comment imaging I believe in "invisible gods".

Do you not understand how that we use language and symbols to represent reality? Science is just a different kind of symbolic representation. Myth is also symbolic representation. But here's the ironic little secret. When you are the one using the symbols, they are reality to you. You're ideas of reality, they way you talk about it, and how you relate yourself to your ideas as reality itself, is identical to how they did in the past framing reality in terms of the gods.

It's the same mental processes. The only thing that is different is the nature of the symbols. Rather than being magical symbols, they are scientific symbols, technical symbols. But the human mind still interfaces with the real world, though symbolic representation, nonetheless.

All of reality, is a mediated reality for all humans. If we think about it, we are doing so using mental constructs made of our language symbols, words, and terms, and stories, or myths. It's just how the human mind works. Do you deny the science behind this?

Your little constructs don't put god stories on the same level playing field as science no matter how you try to frame it. I don't have any idea what you believe and I don't mind keeping it that way, besides, it's off topic.

 

[Windwalker]

Your little constructs don't put god stories on the same level playing field as science no matter how you try to frame it. I don't have any idea what you believe and I don't mind keeping it that way, besides, it's off topic.

They are not "my little constructs". This is well studied information about how the human mind works. And I did not say a thing about the gods being at the same level as science. Find anything I said that said that. You can't. That is totally a fiction fabricated by your own fears and projections.

I was very clear and specifically stated that our language of science was more sophisticated. But did you bother to try to actual understand what I said? No. You just lept to your fears about not having the real truth as you assume you do.

What is comparable to the mythological worldviews of the past and you today, is that you are equally unaware that that your ideas of reality is not what reality actually is. What is comparable is that they are both systems of mediating reality symbolically. What is comparable is that they are not real reality.

We can talk about reality using scientific symbols, but we can also talk about reality using mythological symbols. Both say something about reality and our experience of it. To me, both have their different strengths. But the only way I can do this is because I don't mistake the finger pointing at the moon, as the moon itself.

And yes, this absolutely has to do with the historical Jesus. You just don't understand how, that's all. If you had read my other posts to others, you'd understand that connection. It has to do with the confluence of the secular, historical Jesus and the theological Jesus of faith. These are different areas of understandings, but they intersect with each other.

 

[dybmh]

What is the point of praying? God’s will shall be done no matter what. He doesn’t need our permission or anything.

With the website disruptions, my reply to your question got wiped out. But here it is again. I actually answered this in a later post which hopfully you have gotten to and read by now. But in case you didn't.

There are 2 points in praying:

1) Requesting that God's will be done on earth as it is heaven. Yes, God's will is always done, but on earth it is often indirect and takes many twists and turns. In heaven it is direct. So the request is that God's will be done quickly and easily without any thing which would be considered an obstacle or interference.

2) In communion the supplicant gains a better understanding of God's will.

 

[Sgt. Pepper]

And the Quran is changing the course of history as well and is continuing to change lives today in a huge way. That doesn't mean it's all true.

Hello, Joel. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write your posts on refuting the Bible. I know that writing these posts takes a significant amount of time, so I appreciate your efforts. I think that your posts are excellent, and they have reaffirmed my own beliefs about the Bible and the biblical God.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Because you know what hundreds of millions of Christians are experiencing all over the world. *eye-rolls

But you don’t either

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

But clearly something extraordinary did. And the evidence is the story and it's legacy.

Clearly Vulture unsuccessfully tried to steal the sun. The evidence is the story and the fact that its feathers were burned off its head.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

My God, dym, your indignity and outrage are palpable. Why so much anger coming from a Jewish person? This is all about Christianity.

Sounds like Prager.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

For instance, you will find parallels between the teachings of the Buddha and the teachings of the Christ, or between Jesus and the teachings of India

Hinduism got on Hellenic cultural radar after Alexander went to India, centuries before Jesus.

 

[lukethethird]

They are not "my little constructs". This is well studied information about how the human mind works. And I did not say a thing about the gods being at the same level as science. Find anything I said that said that. You can't. That is totally a fiction fabricated by your own fears and projections.

I was very clear and specifically stated that our language of science was more sophisticated. But did you bother to try to actual understand what I said? No. You just lept to your fears about not having the real truth as you assume you do.

What is comparable to the mythological worldviews of the past and you today, is that you are equally unaware that that your ideas of reality is not what reality actually is. What is comparable is that they are both systems of mediating reality symbolically. What is comparable is that they are not real reality.

We can talk about reality using scientific symbols, but we can also talk about reality using mythological symbols. Both say something about reality and our experience of it. To me, both have their different strengths. But the only way I can do this is because I don't mistake the finger pointing at the moon, as the moon itself.

And yes, this absolutely has to do with the historical Jesus. You just don't understand how, that's all. If you had read my other posts to others, you'd understand that connection. It has to do with the confluence of the secular, historical Jesus and the theological Jesus of faith. These are different areas of understandings, but they intersect with each other.

Religion concerns personal subjective experiences regurgitated into story book settings, it's entertainment, science removes the subjective experience as much as possible in order to be objective by observing what is the same for everyone and the two are not to be conflated in any way by your little notions of constructs. Your warm and fuzzy new age woo woo constructs aren't cutting it, they only mean something to you, so go knock yourself out.

 

[Windwalker]

Religion concerns personal subjective experiences regurgitated into story book settings, it's entertainment,

This is subjective nonsense.

science removes the subjective experience as much as possible in order to be objective by observing what is the same for everyone and the two are not to be conflated in any way by your little notions of constructs.

Intersubjective reality. Consensus reality. Language is a shared medium. Culture is a shared medium. It's a system of thought itself that we participate in that colorizes our reality. But it is still all a construct nonetheless. This is not debatable. It seems you are trying to see science as God here, existing outside of our subjectivities.

Yes, science as a tool tries to be objective, but even then it is far from perfect. I suppose you are not familiar with Kuhn's paradigms, are you? If you were, you might not be this naive.

Your warm and fuzzy new age woo woo constructs aren't cutting it, they only mean something to you, so go knock yourself out.

Hahaha! Yeah, you are clueless what I am talking about. This all just makes you uncomfortable because it might mean you may not have the real Truth now, in the way you imagine you do, now that you found Science to replace God with. As I said, science is fantastic, but make no mistake, it's just a tool of symbolic representation of reality. Reality is a lot less fixed than you or I could possibly imagine.

 

[leroy]

No, not "anyone". That is an assumption that you need to justify. The date of the Census of Quirinius is known by not just the say so of Josephus.

Well up to this point you haven't shown any other source/evidence apart from josefus

When Quirinius started his census there was a revolt by Judas of Galilee.

Aja and so what? How does that proove that the census was in 6AC? And not in 4BC?

A census was illegal by Jewish laws. That dates back to King David.

So what ? Judea was a suborninate state in 4BC.....romans would have not care about jewsh laws

Third the demand that one go to one's ancestral home to be counted is so idiotic that it is amazing that any apologist would believe the myth.

that is a red harring falacy. Even if you where correct , that has nothing to do with the date of the census.

Okay, so not testable.

Okay, I will grant the existence of that one.

Because all of those, including the existence of John the Baptist are not significant. They are just Spiderman arguments. For example if the Spiderman comics got a historical fact terribly wrong we would know that something was terribly wrong with the story. For example if it claimed that Donald Trump, a real person, was mayor of New York we would know that it was terribly wrong. You are trying to equate minor things being right to major things being wrong. That is not how one judges whether a work is reliable or not.

Care to explain your point about minor a major details (I honestly dont know what you mean)

ABOUT SPIDERMAN
Rembember that my argument had 2 parts

1 the authos of the gospels where well infomed

2 the authors of the gospels reported what they honestly belived happened.


The author of Spideman might have "1" but not number "2" the author is not trying to report what actually happened. This is why spiderman and the gospels are not analogous.

Josephus has 1 and 2 this is why we trust josephus , and we would only reject a claim made by josephus if we have good reasons to do so (josephus has the benefit of the doubt)


So why cant the gospels and acts have the same status that josephus has ?