ApostateAbe

Such speculation is necessary because there are some stories in the gospels that can not possibly be eyewitness accounts, unless Jesus wrote the gospels himself. When Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness, they are alone. A bigger problem is when Jesus talks to Pontius Pilate alone and Jesus goes immediately to his death, per the gospel of John. Either Jesus recounts the dialogue after his resurrection or John interviews Pontius Pilate. That is how I would explain the contradictions, but fundies need to think that the New Testament is perfect. Any contradiction can be rationalized away in ten different ways, because it is all historical linguistic evidence, and linguistics and history are filled with subjectivity and ambiguity.

ApostateAbe

The first voter has made his decision, giving the contender 3 points for better arguments and me 3 points for conduct and sources, making it still a tie. This voter is a strong conservative Christian, so that vote is good news for me.

Atheos

Abe, your debate form was excellent. I found myself more than a bit underwhelmed at your opponent's initial argument, especially his appeal to popularity with the claim that your "minority opinion" was akin to a pimple being equated with the overall dermatological condition of an individual. Understandably you didn't have much space to address that faulty reasoning. I couldn't help thinking how it compared to the vast majority opinion that existed in the 16th century about whether or not the sun revolved around our planet. Scholarly consensus can be a useful tool but it's no substitute for actual facts (such as a lone pimple amid several square feet of unblemished skin).

Just a point of constructive criticism if I may be so bold: rather than challenge your opponent by implicating the objectivity of his resources I'd recommend something more like the following:

In my opinion you won the debate handily. I was unimpressed with the tactics, arguments and support your opponent presented. He seemed to have difficulty addressing the actual topic and did little to provide actual evidence of eyewitness sources.

But of course I'm biased, so don't let it go to your head.

ApostateAbe

Thank you, Atheos, that helps.

aa5874

What!!! Jesus and Satan were ALONE.

Tell us about Satan. I mean the "historical Devil".

Are you telling me that SATAN and the "historical Jesus were together on the pinnacle of the Jewish Temple when Satan asked HJ to JUMP?

It is clear that all we have are FOUR Myth fables about a character called Jesus Christ in the NT.

Atheos

Hey, it's real easy for me to quarterback after the play. You did a great job. I just want to be clear that my suggestion was given after being able to see how the defense reacted. Perhaps in the future though this may prove useful as a debate tactic to avoid getting tangled in these irrelevant side-issues.

hjalti

The other guy used 7Q5. icardfacepalm:

Juststeve

Abe:

I'm not sure what to make of your argument concerning miracles. I have personally heard people give eye witness accounts of miracles. I judge the accounts to be mistaken but they were eyewitness accounts nevertheless. Therefore I don't think the presence of miracle claims says very much about whether or not the gospel writers informants were eyewitnesses or not.

For a biblical example take Paul. He describes a personal encounter with the risen Jesus. I take his experience to have been a hallucination but nevertheless his account is as eyewitness as it gets in ancient history. While I agree that the Gospel writers were not eyewitnesses, I do so for reasons unrelated to your point about miracles.

Steve

Atheos

Steve makes a good point. The presence of miracles in the narrative has no bearing on whether the source of that tradition claimed to be an eyewitness of the miracle in question.

To me, a much more relevant debate topic would be something along the lines of "Is it ethical to claim that the four canonical gospels are themselves eyewitness accounts?"

My opinion on this issue is that if you don't have a rigorous chain of custody it is disingenuous (downright dishonest) to assert that these are eyewitness accounts. Not only are the documents themselves internally anonymous but there is absolutely no accounting for how they were originally composed and the level of redaction that went into each one before things settled down.

If the gospel is merely an account of what someone says someone else who claimed to be an eyewitness said then at best they are only hearsay evidence. The fact that they are also completely anonymous only compounds the egregiousness of the "eyewitness" claim.

aa5874

I hope you realize that by arguing that "authors of the four gospels sourced from myths, not directly from eyewitnesses" that you are suggesting that an historical Jesus was not required for the Jesus story.

You have, perhaps inadvertently, provided arguments against the HJ position.