Freethought & Rationalism Archive

JTurtle · 03-17-2004, 04:09 PM

From William Lane Craig:

Quote:

{snip}
1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. The interval of time between the events themselves and recording of them in the gospels is too short to have allowed the memory of what had or had not actually happened to be erased.

2. The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends." Tales like those of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill or contemporary urban legends like the "vanishing hitchhiker" rarely concern actual historical individuals and are thus not analogous to the gospel narratives.

3. The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable. In an oral culture like that of first century Palestine the ability to memorize and retain large tracts of oral tradition was a highly prized and highly developed skill. From the earliest age children in the home, elementary school, and the synagogue were taught to memorize faithfully sacred tradition. The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

4. There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision. Since those who had seen and heard Jesus continued to live and the tradition about Jesus remained under the supervision of the apostles, these factors would act as a natural check on tendencies to elaborate the facts in a direction contrary to that preserved by those who had known Jesus.

5. The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability. Again I only have time to look at one example: Luke. Luke was the author of a two-part work: the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. These are really one work and are separated in our Bibles only because the church grouped the gospels together in the New Testament. Luke is the gospel writer who writes most self-consciously as an historian. In the preface to this work he writes:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed.

This preface is written in classical Greek terminology such as was used by Greek historians; after this Luke switches to a more common Greek. But he has put his reader on alert that he can write, should he wish to, like the learned historian. He speaks of his lengthy investigation of the story he’s about to tell and assures us that it is based on eyewitness information and is accordingly the truth.

This is just a little sample of the evidence out there that suggests that the New Testement documents, including the gospels, are reliable documents. Although many skeptics today believe that the NT documents are unreliable until proven true, I believe that there is better evidence to suggest that the NT documents are RELIABLE until proven wrong.

I am looking forward to hearing your response's........love

Jonathan

*****FYI, not all of the information on here is from me. Some of it is taken from the work of a certain Christian apologist, and more of the information can be found
here. *****

Edited for copyright purposes. The rest of the much longer article can be found at the above link.

funinspace · 03-17-2004, 04:45 PM

Quote:

Here is a little example, Paul in his letters hands on information concerning Jesus about his teaching, his Last Supper, his betrayal, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection appearances. Paul’s letters were written even before the gospels, and some of his information, for example, what he passes on in his first letter to the Corinthian church about the resurrection appearances, has been dated to within five years after Jesus’s death.

This is all pretty much the same old drivel, but it seams even other apologists diverge with this 5 year idea (not that I am endorsing the site):

http://www.kolumbus.fi/hjussila/rsla/Paul/paul08.html
At the end of Galatians 1 and at the beginning of chapter 2 Paul gives a general account of the initial stages of his ministry: "I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days -- Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. -- Fourteen years later I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and set before them the Gospel that I preach among the Gentiles."

If Paul's conversion was in the year 32, he worked "a long time" in Damascus, then he went off for a short visit to Jerusalem, he was "three years in Arabia" and in Syria and Cilicia so long that only "fourteen years later" did he visit Jerusalem again. Evidently these fourteen years must be counted from Paul's conversion experience. Thus 32 + 14 plus the "long time" in Damascus, that is, perhaps almost a whole year would point to the year 47 A.D., when his first missionary journey is often placed. These approximate estimates make one ask where Paul had worked in those "intermediate years".

Not enough time for building legends? Man you really should get out more.

DK

Mageth · 03-17-2004, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JTurtle
*****FYI, not all of the information on here is from me. Some of it is taken from the work of a certain Christian apologist, and more of the information can be found
here. *****

Fine and dandy, but I think it would be proper for you to clearly indicate which parts are yours and which belong to others. Say, by placing the words of others within:

Quote:

quotes.

Yannis (J'ohn) · 03-17-2004, 05:17 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JTurtle
The Jewish historian Josephus is especially interesting. In the pages of his works you can read about New Testament people like the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, King Herod, John the Baptist, even Jesus himself and his brother James.

Many if not most scholars support that the mention of Jesus in the writings of Josephus was a forgery, exactly for the purpose of affirming the historicity and impact of Jesus on his era.

Quote:

1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. The interval of time between the events themselves and recording of them in the gospels is too short to have allowed the memory of what had or had not actually happened to be erased.

You are assuming that the gospels were written within the lifetime of people that had come in contact with Jesus, and, more importantly, you're assuming that they were written in the general area where Jesus (supposedly at least) acted.

Quote:

2. The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends." Tales like those of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill or contemporary urban legends like the "vanishing hitchhiker" rarely concern actual historical individuals and are thus not analogous to the gospel narratives.

Fine. Then I hope you also believe that the sister of Alexander the Great drank water of immortality and became a mermaid.

Quote:

3. The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable. In an oral culture like that of first century Palestine the ability to memorize and retain large tracts of oral tradition was a highly prized and highly developed skill. From the earliest age children in the home, elementary school, and the synagogue were taught to memorize faithfully sacred tradition. The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

Here you are assuming that the gospels were written by Jews.

Quote:

4. There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision. Since those who had seen and heard Jesus continued to live and the tradition about Jesus remained under the supervision of the apostles, these factors would act as a natural check on tendencies to elaborate the facts in a direction contrary to that preserved by those who had known Jesus.

Again, you are assuming that the authors of the gospel wrote them while under the direct surveillance of people who had communicated with Jesus in person

Quote:

5. [I]The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability.{/I]

Do they? I haven't read any other works of theirs. Could you mention some to me?

Oh, and, before I draw this to a close, let me highlight a reason why the gospels should be assumed to be "guilty until proven innocent":
Because zealots are ready to support anything in order to make their faith grow stronger. The authors of the gospels had in mind the spreading of the beliefs of Christianity. They were ready to fill the gospels with lies if that would make them more popular.

Ask Eusebius.

SBS

Mageth · 03-17-2004, 05:19 PM

BTW, since most of your post is Craig's work, I think it's proper to respond by posting:

http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ty/craig.shtml

Mageth · 03-17-2004, 05:23 PM

Oh, and at the bottom of the page from which most of the information in the OP was copied, there are the following statements:

Copyright (C) William Lane Craig. All Rights Reserved.

copyright © 1995-2004 Leadership U. All rights reserved.

http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...discover2.html

If you did not get permission from Craig and Leadership U., I'm afraid you (and this site) are in danger of copyright violation.

Thus, note that I've reported the OP to the moderators.

rlogan · 03-17-2004, 05:26 PM

Has it occurred to you that if the Gospels record absurdities and are self-contradictory that these are valid reasons to challenge them as historical documents?

If you are reading along in a purported biography of Abraham Lincoln and he's raising people from the dead, walking on water, feeding the Northern army with a can of tuna fish, turning water into Mountain Dew, healing lepers, and coming back to life after being shot at Ford Theatre -

Would you say it was history?

If one Biography says he was born ten years later than the other, and neither one of them will say when he died, would you say they are reliable? How about three completely different versions of his murder? Three different lineages?

capnkirk · 03-17-2004, 05:28 PM

JTurtle, JTurtle,

If you are arguing for a Historical Jesus Christ, you will either be completely ignored, or eaten alive by some of the Great White Sharks that swim these waters. If you are expecting to convince anyone here that you are right, forget it. There are more genuine Biblical scholars on this forum than most universities have on their faculty staffs, and with them, your faith will avail you nothing. I hope you have more to offer than that.

There ARE some here that argue for a historical Jesus who was an exclusively human Jewish messianic candidate; I personally lean that direction. Most of the others will drown you in documentation that points strongly to a purely mythical Jesus. Perhaps you can prepare yourself by reading through another thread on this forum titled "Earl Doherty".

I personally am not interested in entering into a debate with you because so much that you think you know is wrong, and I have my doubts that someone that writes an OP as long as yours is likely to give an inch.

Just to give you a taste of what is coming, I will address just this one point. You said, "The Jewish historian Josephus is especially interesting. In the pages of his works you can read about...even Jesus himself and his brother James." There are precisely two references to Jesus in Josephus, and most scholars now agree that they are interpolations inserted by others at a later date, and that there is no way to tell what, if anything, was there beforehand. The Doherty thread spends a lot of time discussing James the Just, and whether the references to his being Jesus' brother are literal or figurative.

LOL,

This is capnkirk...

Mageth · 03-17-2004, 05:32 PM

If you are arguing for a Historical Jesus Christ, you will either be completely ignored, or eaten alive by some of the Great White Sharks that swim these waters.

He's not really arguing at all; he's posting William Lane Craig's arguments. I suspect that JTurtle, if he tried to argue on his own, would be eaten by the minnows.

graymouser · 03-17-2004, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by JTurtle
When looking at Jesus, it is foolish to deny that a historical Jesus existed.

"When looking at Odysseus, it is foolish to deny that a historical Odysseyus existed." Please substantiate exactly why - mythicism of the substantiating works aside - these statements are different.

Quote:

The New Testament documents are the most important historical sources for Jesus of Nazareth.

Luke is the only source that claims to be a history, and it is not well corroborated. However, yes, there are people who we now primarily through hagiographic writings. However, the amount of actual data taken from hagiography in good historiography is far less than 100%. Any hagiographic document must necessarily be considered biased.

Quote:

However, there are also many other sources OUTSIDE of the gospels that mention Jesus. He’s referred to in pagan, Jewish, and Christian writings outside the New Testament.

A spurious reference in Josephus aside, none for about a century.

Quote:

The Jewish historian Josephus is especially interesting. In the pages of his works you can read about New Testament people like the high priests Annas and Caiaphas, the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, King Herod, John the Baptist, even Jesus himself and his brother James.

You were right up until the last part; it is definite that the passage about Jesus himself - the "Testimonium Flavium" - is a forgery, because Josephus considered Vespasian to be the Messiah.

That aside, this does not imply that the Gospels were true, because a different - equally explanatory - hypothesis would be that the individuals writing the Gospels had access to Josephus' works.

Quote:

There have also been interesting archaeological discoveries as well bearing on the gospels. For example, in 1961 the first archaeological evidence concerning Pilate was unearthed in the town of Caesarea; it was an inscription of a dedication bearing Pilate’s name and title. Even more recently, in 1990 the actual tomb of Caiaphas, the high priest who presided over Jesus’s trial, was discovered south of Jerusalem.

So the Gospel authors knew that Pilate was prelate (though they mislabelled him as procurator) at the time when they were writing, and that Caiaphas was high priest. This does not corroborate the unique information given in them.

Quote:

According to Luke Johnson, a New Testament scholar at Emory University, "Even the most critical historian can confidently assert that a Jew named Jesus worked as a teacher and wonder-worker in Palestine during the reign of Tiberius, was executed by crucifixion under the prefect Pontius Pilate and continued to have followers after his death." For more information on this feel free to check up on it, here is the reference: Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996), p. 123. So any reliable historian will tell you this.

Ipse dixit. There's no argument presented here.

Quote:

Still, if one wants any details about Jesus’s life and teachings, one must turn to the New Testament. The question then becomes: how historically reliable are the New Testament documents?

Now, given that the NT was canonized around the 380s, what reason is there to believe that only the four gospels currently considered canonical are to be believed? What disqualifies, say, the documents that were found at Nag Hammadi as being authoritative? Please present thorough argumentation without begging the question.

Quote:

Let us look at the burden of proof shall we? Should we assume that the gospels are reliable unless they are proven to be unreliable? Or should we assume the gospels are unreliable unless they are proven to be reliable? Are they innocent until proven guilty or guilty until proven innocent? Sceptical scholars almost always assume that the gospels are guilty until proven innocent, that is, they assume that the gospels are unreliable unless and until they are proven to be correct concerning some particular fact. BUT, here are 5 reasons why we should assume the gospels are RELIABLE until proven wrong:

In historiography, you try to piece together the truth. You don't assume the veracity of any document 100%. Ever. You look for corroborating sources and archaeological evidence; you look for the source's bias and try to winnow it out entirely. You don't accept anything prima facie.

Quote:

1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. The interval of time between the events themselves and recording of them in the gospels is too short to have allowed the memory of what had or had not actually happened to be erased.

This betrays a complete misunderstanding of human thought processes and nature. Go to www.snopes.com and look at the myths that get passed around and accepted as true in the information age when everybody is literate and well-connected and the average Joe has the world's greatest ever database of knowledge at his or her fingertips.

Then look back at the age you're dealing with: a time of widespread illiteracy, superstition, and legend. It is not only impossible, it is probable that such legends would spread. More fantastical things spread about people during their lives, much less afterward.

Quote:

2. The gospels are not analogous to folk tales or contemporary "urban legends." Tales like those of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill or contemporary urban legends like the "vanishing hitchhiker" rarely concern actual historical individuals and are thus not analogous to the gospel narratives.

Yes, they do. This is entirely possible and probable - you're just assuming that it's not because it supports your thesis. Urban legends spread about modern and historical figures all the time.

Second, you're assuming the historicity of Jesus, which is very much questionable - and even proponents of an HJ admit that he would've been very minor. A minor figure can be quite good if you want to start inventing a religion from scratch.

Quote:

3. The Jewish transmission of sacred traditions was highly developed and reliable. In an oral culture like that of first century Palestine the ability to memorize and retain large tracts of oral tradition was a highly prized and highly developed skill. From the earliest age children in the home, elementary school, and the synagogue were taught to memorize faithfully sacred tradition. The disciples would have exercised similar care with the teachings of Jesus.

Please demonstrate this in some - any - way. At all. And in that context, explain the significant differences between the Septuagint (LXX) and the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible.

Quote:

4. There were significant restraints on the embellishment of traditions about Jesus, such as the presence of eyewitnesses and the apostles’ supervision. Since those who had seen and heard Jesus continued to live and the tradition about Jesus remained under the supervision of the apostles, these factors would act as a natural check on tendencies to elaborate the facts in a direction contrary to that preserved by those who had known Jesus.

Can you attest independently any apostles except James and Paul? Or this supervision of which you speak? Nobody quoted the Gospels during the lifetimes of the apostles; how can you prove that there was no redaction from the death of the last apostle to the first actual records (a time that would've been over a century and a half)?

Quote:

5. The Gospel writers have a proven track record of historical reliability.

Do they? There's no outside attestation for the events of the Gospels, I'm afraid. And the character of Pontius Pilate is drawn very differently from the known man, who made something of a hobby of taunting his Jewish subjects.

Quote:

Due to lack of time, we will only look at the first point for now.

1. There was insufficient time for legendary influences to expunge the historical facts. No modern scholar thinks of the gospels as bald-faced lies, the result of a massive conspiracy.

www.joeatwill.com

The Flavian Hypothesis holds exactly what you say no one thinks. Sorry, but you're wrong.

Quote:

The only place you find such conspiracy theories of history is in sensationalist, popular literature or former propaganda from behind the Iron Curtain.

Nice ad hominem against anyone who'd doubt this.

Quote:

Despite this, ever since the time of D. F. Strauss, sceptical scholars have explained away the gospels as legends. Like the child’s game of broken telephone, as the stories about Jesus were passed on over the decades, they got muddled and exaggerated and mythologized until the original facts were all but lost. The Jewish peasant carpenter was transformed into the divine Son of God.

Not necessarily. Mystery cult theorists hold the opposite - the divine Son of God was transformed into a Jewish peasant carpenter.

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One of the major problems with the legend hypothesis, however, which is almost never addressed by sceptical critics, is that the time between Jesus’s death and the writing of the gospels is just too short for this to happen.

Not necessarily.

Quote:

This point has been well-explained by A. N. Sherwin-White in his book Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament [A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), pp. 188-91.]. Professor Sherwin-White is not a theologian; he is a professional historian of times prior to and contemporaneous with Jesus. According to Sherwin-White, the sources for Roman and Greek history are usually biased and removed one or two generations or even centuries from the events they record. Yet, he says, historians reconstruct with confidence the course of Roman and Greek history.

At times. There are numerous eyewitness accounts - like Julius Caesar's Bellum Gallicum or Josephus' Bellum Judaicum. However, yes, there are strong biases; this is the cause of far more headaches and work in historiography than you can imagine.

Quote:

For example, the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than 400 years after Alexander’s death, and yet classical historians still consider them to be trustworthy.

Arrian's Anabasis and Plutarch's account are not taken prima facie, which is what the Christian wants us to do with the Gospels. Every detail is fact-checked against archaeology and the other sources, and still there are dozens of competing interpretations of Alexander.

You also underestimate the fact that most of the literature of the ancient world has been lost. For instance, Arrian (and Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius Rufus, and Diodorous Siculus) based his account of Alexander on a variety of original sources, including the official journal of the campaign, and accounts written by people who were actually present - like Ptolemy. They didn't just magick their accounts up from oral history.

Christians should actually study ancient history instead of just believing it.

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When Professor Sherwin-White turns to the gospels, he states that for the gospels to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be "unbelievable." More generations would be needed.

Ipse dixit and entirely unsubstantiated.

Quote:

Here is a little example, Paul in his letters hands on information concerning Jesus about his teaching, his Last Supper, his betrayal, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection appearances. Paul’s letters were written even before the gospels, and some of his information, for example, what he passes on in his first letter to the Corinthian church about the resurrection appearances, has been dated to within five years after Jesus’s death. It just becomes irresponsible to speak of legends in such cases.

Paul-as-mythicist theory completely explains this. So does the Flavian Hypothesis. Sorry.

Quote:

This is just a little sample of the evidence out there that suggests that the New Testement documents, including the gospels, are reliable documents. Although many skeptics today believe that the NT documents are unreliable until proven true, I believe that there is better evidence to suggest that the NT documents are RELIABLE until proven wrong.

I am looking forward to hearing your response's........love

Jonathan

*****FYI, not all of the information on here is from me. Some of it is taken from the work of a certain Christian apologist, and more of the information can be found
here. *****

The evidence - speaking as someone who loves and studies ancient history - is extremely weak. You've shown that you neither understand ancient history nor historical criticism, and your argument relies on ipse dixit statements and faulty assertions about how legends spread.

The evidence for the reliability of the Gospels is extremely weak; the further obvious contradictions finish the job.

-Wayne

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03-17-2004, 05:19 PM	#5
Mageth Contributor Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas Posts: 29,689	BTW, since most of your post is Craig's work, I think it's proper to respond by posting: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ty/craig.shtml

03-17-2004, 05:23 PM	#6
Mageth Contributor Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas Posts: 29,689	Oh, and at the bottom of the page from which most of the information in the OP was copied, there are the following statements: Copyright (C) William Lane Craig. All Rights Reserved. copyright © 1995-2004 Leadership U. All rights reserved. http://www.leaderu.com/offices/billc...discover2.html If you did not get permission from Craig and Leadership U., I'm afraid you (and this site) are in danger of copyright violation. Thus, note that I've reported the OP to the moderators.

03-17-2004, 05:26 PM	#7
rlogan Banned Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Alaska Posts: 9,159	Has it occurred to you that if the Gospels record absurdities and are self-contradictory that these are valid reasons to challenge them as historical documents? If you are reading along in a purported biography of Abraham Lincoln and he's raising people from the dead, walking on water, feeding the Northern army with a can of tuna fish, turning water into Mountain Dew, healing lepers, and coming back to life after being shot at Ford Theatre - Would you say it was history? If one Biography says he was born ten years later than the other, and neither one of them will say when he died, would you say they are reliable? How about three completely different versions of his murder? Three different lineages?

03-17-2004, 05:28 PM	#8
capnkirk Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: where no one has gone before Posts: 735	JTurtle, JTurtle, If you are arguing for a Historical Jesus Christ, you will either be completely ignored, or eaten alive by some of the Great White Sharks that swim these waters. If you are expecting to convince anyone here that you are right, forget it. There are more genuine Biblical scholars on this forum than most universities have on their faculty staffs, and with them, your faith will avail you nothing. I hope you have more to offer than that. There ARE some here that argue for a historical Jesus who was an exclusively human Jewish messianic candidate; I personally lean that direction. Most of the others will drown you in documentation that points strongly to a purely mythical Jesus. Perhaps you can prepare yourself by reading through another thread on this forum titled "Earl Doherty". I personally am not interested in entering into a debate with you because so much that you think you know is wrong, and I have my doubts that someone that writes an OP as long as yours is likely to give an inch. Just to give you a taste of what is coming, I will address just this one point. You said, "The Jewish historian Josephus is especially interesting. In the pages of his works you can read about...even Jesus himself and his brother James." There are precisely two references to Jesus in Josephus, and most scholars now agree that they are interpolations inserted by others at a later date, and that there is no way to tell what, if anything, was there beforehand. The Doherty thread spends a lot of time discussing James the Just, and whether the references to his being Jesus' brother are literal or figurative. LOL, This is capnkirk...

03-17-2004, 05:32 PM	#9
Mageth Contributor Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas Posts: 29,689	If you are arguing for a Historical Jesus Christ, you will either be completely ignored, or eaten alive by some of the Great White Sharks that swim these waters. He's not really arguing at all; he's posting William Lane Craig's arguments. I suspect that JTurtle, if he tried to argue on his own, would be eaten by the minnows.

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