Opus1,

I am aware of Christ's prophecies of the destruction of the temple. That is why I carefully said that it is never once mentioned as a PAST fact--not to mention that the propehcies show absolutely no sign of being ex eventu frauds.

I didn't see a single instance in your post of citing a source for a specific fact, so I think that we are both guilty.

1984 is a cold war book about "Big Brother" and a nosy world government, right?

What does that have to do with the gospels?

Josephus records that James (the brother of Jesus, I believe) was stoned to death at the hands of Ananias the high priest.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, Origen records that Jesus was crucified head downward.

Harrold Mattingly, in his history text (which I believe is a university textbook) "Roman Imperial Civilization", writes, "The apostles, St. Peter and St. Paul, sealed their witnesses with their blood."

Joseph McCabe, in his "The Story of Religious Controversy" writes, "In short, the learned and pious historian covers the first century of the Christian era, in which, according to bs and common belief, there were two general and fierce persecutions; and he does not leave a single martyr's crown (EXCEPT THOSE OF PETER AND PAUL, WHOM HE DARE NOT CHALLENGE) undamaged. And it is much the same in the second century. He throws serious doubt on or dilutes away the stories of four out of five of the martyrs mentioned in his text." -- (caps mine).

Gosh golly gee. If this is all about Strobel, then you should've just checked out this thread here in this very forum, matt. The best part is the link posted by Kosh to Earl Doherty's criticism of Case for Christ.

Read 'em and, as they say, weep.

Matt,

I hope you learned a valuable lesson. It isn't good to just parrot evangelical apologists blindly--especially apologists that aren't experts in the field. Strobel is a reporter, not a historian. It's not that his work should be disregarded for that reason, but one should be wary of these sources.

Did you read the book?

Hello Matt,

I think that a person's position on who wrote the gospels is one of the most critical issues as to their faith. As soon as you accept the idea that the gospels were written by who they are attributed to, then you are almost forced to accept the idea that they contain large amounts of historical material. This is something most atheists here are not prepared to do and as a result you will find that they are extremely unwilling to consider the idea of traditional authorship of the gospels.

I have also read and much enjoyed The Case for Christ. I found that it made several good arguments in favour of traditional authorship of the gospels, many of which I see you have summerised here. You must remember though that there is always another side to the coin. Strobel only interviews Christian scholars - he does not present an alternative viewpoint. So there are some answers to the points raised in the book. But in my opinion they are not always sufficient and hence my belief in the traditional authorship of the Gospels.

-Tercel

I'm unsure about this, but I've heard that ALL gospel manuscripts are titled "The Gospel according to XXX" or something similar. Can somebody please confirm, deny or clarify this?

Really? Papias, who we know was the Bishop of Hierapolis in 130AD and who was a disciple of John the Apostle tells us straight out that Mark the companion of Peter wrote the Gospel of Mark and that Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew in Hebrew.

Whether or not the gospels contain "large amounts" of historical material - that really isn't the issue, is it?

I mean, many ancient texts contain "large amounts of history". So what. Unfortunately, they also contain utter nonsense, legends, and superstitions that are interwoven with the factual history. Beowulf is an example of this. So is the Greenland Lay of Atli. And the Iliad. Even Herodotus contained some utter nonsense.

So just because the gospels might have gotten the location of Jerusalem correct, or have correctly recorded the name of a particular governor - - that sort of thing does not validate the key claims of the gospels. If it did, then we'd have to accept all the other ancient texts as 100% factual as well.

Opus1

On gospel authorship: (from another post of mine)

Here's what E.P. Sanders has to say about the gospel accounts, including some choice words about your "confirming" testimonies:

We do not know who wrote the gospels.... Present evidence indicates that the gospels remained untitled until the second half of the second century....The gospels as we have them were quoted in the first half of the second century, but always anonymously (as far as we can tell from surviving evidence). Names suddenly appear about the year 180. By then there were a lot of gospels, not just our four, and the Christians had to decide which ones were authoritative. This was a major issue, on which there were very substantial differences of opinion....(emphasis mine)

(Sanders recounts the story of the battles that shaped the New Testament, which most fundamentalists would prefer didn't exist.)

To members of the winning party (those who wanted four and only four gospels), it was important to be able to attribute the 'right' gospels to people who, historically, were closely connected with Jesus or his greatest apostles.

(Sanders then describes how early Christians inferred authorship based upon clues. For example, the fourth gospel doesn't mention John by name, but it does mention a "beloved disciple." Since John was a key disciple, this must be him.)

The second-century acamedic/detective work was quite shrewed....The conclusions of second-century Christians about names, however, were a lot firmer than the evidence warrants....Why was our gospel not immediately attributed to John? The most probably answer is that the attribution was made quite late and was a guess rather than a well-established tradition.

It is unlikely that Christians knew the names of the authors of the gospels for a period of a hundred years or so, but did not mention them in any of the surviving literature (which is quite substantial). It is also intrinsically probable that the gospels were headed only 'the gospel [good news] about Jesus Christ' or something of the sort, and did not give the names of their authors.

(Sanders then states that anonymous works in the ancient world "implicitly claimed complete knowledge and reliability" in the sense that a text with a named author did not.)

On the destruction of the temple:

Where exactly would we expect the gospel authors to mention this? Everyone knew that the temple had been destroyed. All the events in the gospels takes place before it does. What should we expect the gospel authors to say? "And, by the way, just in case you didn't know, the temple really did get destroyed, just like Jesus predicted!"

Even assuming Jesus' prophecies to be legitimate (which I do not think is an unreasonable assumption), why would any author need to mention explicitly to his audience that they came true?

On martyrdom of the apostles:

Matt, you really need to check your sources more carefully. Yes, Josephus records that James was stoned to death. Do you know why he was stoned to death? No, you don't, because you relied upon some apologetic pulp instead of going to the original text. Here's what Josephus writes in his Antiquities, vol. 20, chp. 9, sct. 1:

"Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned, but.. as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king (Agrippa II), desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act no more, for what he had already done was not to be justified; .... whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus,... on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest.."

Notice that James is accused of breaking the law, not of claiming the resurrection of Jesus. And notice that the people got so upset, that the procurator and the king themselves agreed to get rid of the new high priest. Clearly, Christian persecution could not have been very common (or popular), if the death of a single Christian could cause such an uproar.

I assume you mean Peter, not Jesus, was crucified upside down. The earliest references we have to either Peter or Paul is by Clement, who is far from clear. Our next source is Tertullian, who provides no evidence or source, and states in the same sentence that John was thrown into boiling oil but escaped unhurt. Clearly, Tertullian's testimony is unreliable, and he proves himself quite gullible. If rumors exist of John escaping boiling oil unharmed, and if Tertullian believed such rumors, then isn't it also possible he fell victim to equally false rumors of Peter's crucifixion? And most importantly, nowhere does anyone say that Peter died a martyr for proclaiming the resurrection.

Mattingly is an historian, who may believe the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, just as you do. This is a very poor argument from authority, and again makes no reference to the resurrection.

McCabe is another argument from authority, which means nothing to me.

Here's a very detailed article on the early Christian martyrs. The evidence is quite lacking. I'm not denying the possibility that certain early Christian leaders were martyred. In fact, it's highly likely that some were. But the evidence is so vague and often contradictory that it's tough to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Considering that this is evidence meant to convince me of the reality of a supernatural event, I find it even less powerful.