Clivedurdle

http://www.childrensermons.com/sermons/daniel.htm

(And welcome!)

Johnny Skeptic

You assume that there was big commotion right after Jesus supposedly rose from the dead, but history does not mention that there was such a commotion.

What non-Biblical historical evidence do you have regarding the trial of Jesus, and where Jesus was buried?

In the first century, Christianity was apparently a very small movement. In "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that in 100 A.D., there were 7,530 Christians in the entire world. In chapter 1, Stark mentions a lot of evidence, including archaeological and papyrological evidence, that indicates a very small early Christian church.

Logically, if a God wanted to provide much better evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, he could easily have accomplished that.

andrewcriddle

For a number of these we have no evidence other than Josephus who is in some cases writing many years after the event.
eg for Athronges we have no contemporary witnesses other than Josephus who first mentions Athronges in Jewish War written more than eighty years after the relevant events.

I think it highly probable that Athronges existed but he is by any normal standards less well documented than Jesus.

Andrew Criddle

bacht

hello rwing

You'll find that every statement you make about the New Testament will be challenged here by someone, starting with the assumption that there was a real person Jesus. The general consensus here seems to be that most of the NT story is mythology rather than history. Personally I've lost any belief in the supernatural or miraculous, so that doesn't leave much left over when discussing Jesus, Paul etc.

As a rule the word "fact" is problematic when examing any biblical story, at least for this skeptic. Many believers seem unaware of the verification problems of supporting these stories with non-biblical evidence. History and archeology have not confirmed the cherished tales of Moses, David etc.

spin

Welcome!

I appreciate your statement of faith, but you should understand that it won't mean too much more here than a scientologist's statement of faith.

What most people agree to is not necessarily a reflection of reality. Most people accepted George W. Bush's "facts" about Iraq.

And you should know that there are no facts about the person of Jesus which are considered facts here. Texts may represent the beliefs of the writers, but being written in books doesn't make information true and neither does appealing to what most people accept.

When you talk to someone you cannot operate believing that the person will agree with your assumptions. We tend not to accept assumptions of any flavor, be they christian, atheist, or of other religions. What we will accept is your argument and evidence if they are sufficient to communicate your case.

However, you are not presenting a case here: you are attempting to witness. That is often foreplay for: I don't care what or how you think, I have something important for you, a message that will lose any serious interlocutors you might have hoped to have.

Jesus is a character in a collection of books, unlike Julius Caesar for whom we have evidence that he participated in the real world. This doesn't necessarily mean that Jesus didn't exist, but that you need to show that he did before you can treat him as a participant in the real world. If you cannot do that then your argument involving him and reality will not work.

A scholar in the field knows that the gospels are not independent sources. For example, both Matthew and Luke are based on Mark, meaning that they cannot be taken as primary sources at all, but should be seen as separated by an editorial layer from the narrative of Mark. Mark was a work that shows signs of having been written in Rome for Greek speaking Romans and reflects a certain lack of knowledge about Palestine. These are not very solid sources for information about what happened in the past.

Assumption: resurrection.

It seems that you are assuming that the gospel content you allude to reflects reality. Why exactly?

Your assumptions will be considered flaws in your communication, rendering them of little importance until you can replace the assumptions with evidence.


spin

Toto

Most here would not agree about the "well documented" part.

Or the supposed testimony, some would say.

Facts? We could say "supposed fact" except that there is no evidence that the gospel writers thought they were writing cold hard fact, as opposed to theology.

I see a disconnect here. You seem to believe that a dead man can come back to life, but you accept the totally un-Biblical existence of pathogens.

If you are going to pretend to believe that the Resurrection could have happened, what sort of a body would the resurrected Jesus have? His old beat up deformed body, or a transformed body? Paul believed the latter. This transformed body would not retain all those nasty pathogens of the old body, even if Jesus could shape shift to display wounds or eat fish.

I'm just wondering why this post appeared directly after one that mentioned Poe's Law. :huh: :constern02:

lpetrich

That brings to mind -- why wasn't the precise date of his birth or his crucifixion better remembered? Or at least what years those events happened in?

You'd expect such an important event to make a big enough impression to make JC's disciples remember what year it happened in, like the 20th year of Tiberius Caesar's rule or the 8th year of Pontius Pilate's.

I don't know about Mahavira, but Krishna and the Buddha are first written about some centuries after they lived -- if either of them had lived at all. Krishna and the Buddha both fit Lord Raglan's Mythic Hero profile suspiciously well, though the Buddha less well than Krishna. Of course, Jesus Christ is also a very good fit, so good that some people have claimed that Lord Raglan's profile was invented to discredit his historicity.

Almost as if they various Gospel writers had invented those details independent of each other. Mark, the earliest, has only an empty tomb, and the other Gospel writers added lots of details, including an addition to Mark that described Jesus Christ appearing to his followers at his tomb.

Johnny Skeptic

You assume that there was big commotion right after Jesus supposedly rose from the dead, but history does not mention that there was such a commotion.

What non-Biblical historical evidence do you have regarding the trial of Jesus, and where Jesus was buried?

Why do you assume that the Romans knew where Jesus was buried?

In the first century, Christianity was apparently a very small movement. In "The Rise of Christianity," Rodney Stark estimates that in 100 A.D., there were 7,530 Christians in the entire world. In chapter 1, Stark mentions a lot of evidence, including archaeological and papyrological evidence, that indicates a very small early Christian church.

Logically, if a God wanted to provide much better evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, he could easily have accomplished that.

mountainman

This is an interesting comment Toto. You will allow yourself
to identify that show_no_mercy quotes a parody of the Christian
position as something that was not actually written by a Christian,
yet you appear to dismiss the possibility which I have variously
argued that the new testament apocryphal acts and gospels
could have been parodies of the Christian position, written by
a non-christian (ie: pagan - "Hellenistic") author.

Its as if you can identify this happening in the modern world
but for some reason will not entertain the possibility that the
same thing happened when christianity was foisted on the
Eastern Roman empire along with the New Testament Canon
in the fourth century.

Can you clarify your position?

Toto

show_no_mercy criticized a quote as if it were written by a Christian. I figured that he only did this because he had not followed the link to notice the clearly humorous nature of the site.

I have not "dismissed the possibility" that the apocryphal Acts and gospels were parodies - I just don't see any evidence for it. There is a well known parody of Christianity from that era - Lucian of Samosata's Peregrinus - which does not read anything like the apocrypha. The elements that you think are parody sound like fantasy to me, but not parody.