Chris Weimer

Neither.

aa5874

You appear not to have read or understood Matthew's and Luke's writings about the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ. And, frankly I am totally disappointed on the extremely weak arguments put forward by those who claim Jesus is historic.

Just from a chronological point of view, the authors of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and the epistlles of Paul have created a logistical nightmare. After having botched the time of Jesus Christ's birth, they have also cannot agree on the thieves that were crucified with him, they cannot even agree when Jesus Christ was crucuified.

The entire NT is out of synch with reality, the accuracy and truthfulness of the book is a disaster, to claim Jesus Christ is historic using the NT as a verifiable source is beyond me.

The characters and events of Jesus Christ are fictitious, and any similarity to any person living or dead was deliberate and was the intention of the unknown authors.

aa5874

Questions about the historicity of Jesus Christ is crap!!!

jjramsey

Loaded questions about the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth certainly are.

Some of it is more out of sync than other parts, though.

Here's an exercise. Try explaining Mark 6:1-6 under the provisional assumption that Jesus never existed. Then try explaining Mark 6:1-6 under the provisional assumption that Jesus existed, but that his story was embellished by his followers. See which explanation is simpler. When you do that, maybe using the NT won't be so beyond you.

aa5874

I have read Mark 6:1-6, however I do not make assumptions on a few verses of the NT. I read and compare books of the NT, with other extra-biblical information. Reading a few verses of Mark is not sufficient to come to a conclusion. For all I know, Mark 6:1-6 may have been interpolated.

I have not seen any extra-biblical verifiable evidence that Jesus Christ was an actual person, the Christian Bible is completely untrustworthy, the authors contradict one another both in chronology and events. It is futile to look at 6 verses, when the entire NT cannot be validated.

I have read books where the characters have normal names, the events and places occur in the USA, the characters do no miraculous acts, yet the authors claim that all is fiction. Yet, the NT, which from beginning to end, has major problems with veracity, some claim the main characters, the numerous persons refered as Jesus Christ, one them is historic.

I ask the historicists again, which Jesus Christ is historic?

jjramsey

Yes, but this is not the same thing as reading it critically and figuring out what is the most likely reason for it to be there.

Interpolation is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Seriously though, Mark 6:1-6 would be more likely to be excised than interpolated. Matthew tries to blunt its implications by changing "could do no deed of power there, except ..." to "did few deeds of power." Luke thoroughly mangles it so that there is no hint of failure on Jesus' part. It is not something that an interpolator would likely want to make up about Jesus, since it hardly makes him look good.

Yes, yes, we've heard it before, and these objections are irrelevant to the contention that the Gospels provide an embellished portrait of Jesus.

aa5874

You can not be serious, you have not put forward one iota of substantive evidence or information to support the historicity of Jesus Christ. This is pathetic. Who is Matthew or Luke, who are you talking about? Does Josephus, Marcion, Iranaeus, Tertullian or Hippolytus know these unknown writers?

I repeat again and again, the NT authors are unheard of, no contemporary historian knows them, their writings contradict one another. The unknown, unreliable authors' writings of Jesus Christ are a chronological nightmare.

I am serious, I need information. What evidence do you have that Jesus Christ is historic? Come on!!!

jjramsey

Right. I note the existence of a pericope that looks like an attempt to spin the kind of failure that would happen to a mortal man, and which would be unlikely to be invented. And this is not substantive evidence.

Convenient names for the authors of the gospels of Matthew and Luke. More importantly, they are writers who saw that Mark 6:1-6 was indeed damaging.

Define "chronological nightmare." The birth narratives don't sync well, of course, but their discrepancies is consistent with the authors of the gospels of Matthew and Luke each trying to guestimate the timing of Jesus' birth from relatively better attested dates like the time of his crucifixion. You are not arguing against inerrantists, here.

No, you aren't. If you were serious, you wouldn't be serving this false-in-part, false-in-all nonsense, nor would you so easily surmise that Mark 6:1-6 was an interpolation.

aa5874

How do you know both of them are guessing? You make assumptioms that cannot be validated. The unknown author of Matthew claims that Jesus Christ was born before Herod killed all the babies from 2 yrs and under, in Bethlehem and in the region. Was that a guesstimate? Luke claim he was born during a census. Guesstimate?

If you guessed Jesus is historic, you guessed wrong.

jjramsey

Both the end of Herod's reign and Quirinius' census, though ten years off of each other, are still roughly thirty years back from the about the time that Jesus was supposed to have died. That is consistent with the authors of the gospels of Matthew and Luke trying to find events that happened roughly thirty years back from the about the time of Jesus' death. Of course, how they build their legends from those guestimates is fabrication.

For some odd reason, you seem to think the discrepancies in the birth narratives are the silver bullet against Jesus' historicity, even though they can at least as easily be explained as embellishment.