muon

It's very frustrating, I know, but you should also be careful. The Bible probably wasn't written several generations after Jesus. Certain letters of Paul probably DO date within 30 years of the crucifiction, and the Gospels range from 70 AD to 100 AD or so---at most 2 generations. There are perhaps some odd books in the New testament that could be as late as three generations. These dates are all mainstream consensus. If you're insisting to them that none of the New Testament is earlier than "several generations", they're probably writing you off as uninformed, which may be part of why they won't listen.

Remember, friends ... when having discussions like this, Christians a predisposed to write you off anyway. It's CRITICAL to get the facts right, and be able to back up any statement, else they'll seize on any excuse you give them to tune you out.

(Of course, you will find some writers who dispute the dates, and a few more who think Jesus never existed in the first place. Advocating the last position is a sure way to get Christians to dismiss you---the whole idea is more than their brains can process.)

Kevin

There's nothing uninformed about what he said; you're just using a nonstandard conception of the term "generation." One of my great-grandmothers is still alive, but that doesn't mean there's been no new generations in my family since 1910. In fact, for her to be my great-grandmother, there had to be three subsequent generations. And that's what the term generation measures: the time it takes, generally, for people to form the next generation. If we label it twenty years, the estimated halfway point in the life expectancy of the average person in the Roman Empire during that period, for example, then Mark was written four generations after Jesus' death and John was written six generations after Jesus' death. And the Gospels are the relevant factor in discussion here. The reason people look at the dating of the parts of the Bible compared to when Jesus died is to, in part, use it as a tool to assess the probable biographical information about Jesus. Paul's letters don't contain it, although they do contain some interesting information on the running of the early church.

If I have any criticism, it's that he missed an excellent opportunity. Luke states upfront that it is hearsay: "Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word..." (Lk. 1:1-2). There should be no question about it being written by an eyewitness if the text clearly indicates it wasn't. Here's one case where it can be taken at face value, because if the author was an eyewitness, he'd exploit the cachet that came with it.

FSX

The major point was that they were arguing that the bible contains eye-witness testimony, written directly by those witnesses. They do not think any of the books were written from 70-100AD, they think they were written earlier, within the lifetime of those witnesses. So they cannot be writing me off because my estimate doesn't match the consensus, because they don't even know the correct consensus.

How horribly true. To give an example of the bible being wrong, I said that the bible stated that christwould return within the lifetime of his followers. They asked me for the bible verse, and I told them I didn't know it offhand and I needed to look it up. The moment I said I had to look it up, they knew I was just making it up; it was clear from their body language that they had no doubt I was just lying or misinformed. I found the passage, thanks to the helpful people in BC&H, and they couldn't really explain it, but that didn't actually bother them. One of them thought it referred to some story in revalation (I think he said) about people having flame-tongues over their heads, and speaking in tongues. How that fits with the verse I have no idea, but he said he wasn't real sure about it anyway and obviously didn't have a problem with not knowing what the verse was "supposed" to mean anyway, so I let it go.

Yeah I don't really think Jesus ever existed either (though I admit that the stories being partially based on a real guy wouldn't surprise me), but it never even occured to me to try and argue that with them. Someone who believes the bible is literally true isn't going to buy for a second that Jesus never existed. I did at least get them to admit that the Bible is only evidence for Gods existence once you believe He exists. They tried the whole argument from the Bible nonsense and I at least got them to see how circular that is. They just fell back to the "I know because I have a personal relationship with God" thing. No arguing with that. At least they didn't try to tell me that I should believe because of that. They just told me they'd pray for me. Which didn't really bother me. I'm sure it'll make them feel better if they pray about me, and it sure won't affect me any, so why not, ya know?

muon

Sorry, I'm not following your math. Take Mark (70 AD). 70AD-30AD = 40 years = 2 generations. How do you get 4?

Knurd

I'm not sure which verses you were using, but Matthew 24 is very apocalyptic. In verse three the disciples are asking for the signs of his comming and of the end of the world. If Jesus had taught his disciples that his return was 2000+ years in the future, they would not have bothered to ask. They expected it in their lifetimes and wanted to know what to look for. And verse 34 says, "this generation shall not pass away till all these things be filfilled." Okay.

I think your christian friend was using Acts Chapter 2 when God filled eveyone with the holy spirit and they spoke in tongues, etc. Your friend is trying to say that this empowering of the church with the HP is the coming of the kingdom of god. This doesn't match Matthew 24 at all, and I bet the other gospels dont' match either.

Kevin

A basic editing error.

Yes, I did mean to say two to three, although back the the concept of generation was probably even shorter than that. I changed that, since I realized I couldn't source the article I read estimating the time between generations back in Biblical times, and forgot to redo the math.

All the same, I think one can confidently dispute the claim that 100 CE represents "at most two generations" from the time of Jesus' crucifixion.

Face

Discussion of when the Bible was written split from here.

lenrek

Very interesting...

Reading from this thread and a book that I have, there seems to be a (strong?) possibility that Jesus was simply a fictional character!

This really throw my perception of Jesus upside-down...