Racer X

The argument points out its own gaping hole - "in the absence of circumstances which generate suspicion." In other words, the credibility of a witness depends on its consistency with other evidence, common experience, and common sense.

Witness claim: An otherwise normal human being becomes the first and only person in the history of the world to die - REALLY die - and then rise from the dead after 3 days. And the reason this is possible is because this particular person is actually a diety.

If a witness made that claim today about.... hey, pick any person you want not named Jesus, no jury would believe him. In fact, no jury would get to hear him because no lawyer would have him testify. Rather than assuming the credibility of this witness, most people would question his honesty or sanity.

HRG

1. What "eyewitness testimony" ?

2. Claiming a violation of well-established natural regularities makes a witness automatically not credible.

3. Eyewitnessing a specific miracle is self-contradictory, because the connection between an event and our perceptions depend on the absence of miracles.

Otherwise. how would one know that the photons which one's eyes had absorbed were not miraculously generated or deflected, that the cones and rods of the retina were not miraculously made to fire etc. The admission of the supernatural as an explanation cuts the connection between our perceptions and reality.

HRG

The empty tomb is as much evidence for the resurrection as the lack of copper wires in the Pyramids is evidence that the old Egyptians already had wireless telephones.

Regards, HRG.

Funkytrip

Never knew that this would be my first post...

The picture is photoshopped
He cut out himself sitting from another photo, you can still see the dark lines around it hehe.

But the point is clear. Give this photo to a pro and he can make it so even a high zoom rate won't reveal it is photoshopped.

post tenebras lux

then kindly explain the shadows his arms are making on the walls.

He was flying. Simple.

PS Welcome to IIDB Funkytrip - I hope you enjoy it here.

TomboyMom

the reason that I say your title doesn't match your post is that your title says "skeptics can't dispute", but your post says "consensus of modern scholarship". So a more accurate title would have been "Ten statements about Jesus that most modern scholars agree on."

Nothing written for a couple decades after his death. I believe that most modern scholars believe that Paul wrote his first letters around 50-60 C.E. So nothing was written for at least 2 decades. I believe that you are saying that Paul's letters contain some creeds and hymns from before that time. I am not qualified to comment, but my point is that they were not written down until then.


I don't know what ideas were present, but nothing was written until years afterward.

Galatians 1 and 2

At least 20 years after Jesus' death.

I am not qualified to comment on what happened. I am not taking issues with the ten "facts" themselves, but only with your statement that the consensus of modern scholarship accepts them as true. They do not. I believe I have stated what the consensus of modern scholarship does assert. For example, you state (1) that Jesus' body was placed in a tomb. (2) Most modern scholars agree that this is a fact. I am not qualified to comment on whether the underlying statement is true, but most modern scholars do not agree. Thus, your statement that the consensus of modern scholarship accepts this fact is false. Same for the statement that Jesus was crucified; I believe the consensus is merely that he was executed, not by what means. So I am not qualified to argue with you about what facts the evidence supports; I am merely pointing out that your statement that the consensus of modern scholarship accepts them as true is itself false.

I don't know whether this is true, but I believe that it is not the consensus position of most modern scholars.

TomboyMom

As I have repeated several times now, I really know very little of this subject myself. However, I have had the opportunity to ask members of this forum what the mainstream, consensus of modern scholarship is on that issue. I don't know, they may have misled me, but I doubt it, as they had no axe to grind. (See sticky above.) So I am not asserting anything about what actually happened, only describing the consensus of modern scholarship as it has been relayed to me. My understanding is that most scholars believe that the first writing about Jesus was Paul's epistles, and that they were written 50-60 C.E. Do you disagree that this is what most scholars believe? Does anyone else reading this thread?

Again, I reiterate that I am not maintaining anything at all about what Paul did or did not know, or whether there ever was such a person. I am just saying that most modern scholars assert that Paul knew or wrote very little about Jesus' life until just before his death.

No, not at all. I know very little about this subject. However, my understanding is that most scholars in this field believe that the first gospels we have now were written after Paul, and certainly well after Jesus died. I believe that it is accepted without any substantial controversy that none of the apostles were alive at the same time as Jesus, and that nothing in the new testament is first person, eye-witness testimony. Do you disagree that this is the consensus of modern scholarship?

As I keep saying, my understanding is that mainstream current scholarship does not accept these accounts as factual.

Is personal invective really necessary? If you disagree with anything I am saying, I invite you to say so and why. If you cannot do so without resorting to petty insinuations, I prefer to discuss the subject without your participation.

TomboyMom

Are you asserting that we should believe that the bible was written by eye-witnesses because it says so? Is this typical of your standard of scholarship and reasoning? Need I point out the flaw in this reasoning? Have you read Moby Dick?

Richbee

Each gosel account, should be taken as an independent account, and yes, with the exception of Luke, taken as an eyewitness account.

In the case of Peter, his words stand for themselves. Nearly 50% of all history is recorded by only one eyewitness.

Now, there was some questions about who wrote the Gospel accounts?

Irenaeus, around 180 on Matthew, Mark, Luke and John:

"Matthew published his gospel among the Hebrews in their own tongue, when Peter and Paul were preaching the gospel in Rome and founding the church there. After their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself handed down to us in writing the substance of Peter's preaching. Luke, the follower of Paul, set down in a book the gospel preached by his teacher. Then John, the disciple of the Lord, who leaned on his breast [John 13:25;21:20], himself produced his gospel, when he was living in Ephesus in Asia. (Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 3.3.4)

Sven

Apart from this, there's the "slight" problem that it does not even say so. The gospels are anonymous.