John123

is anyone here familiar with the islamic chain of narration system? i have been told that if the chain of narration system were to be applied on the bible not even one statement in the bible could be verified.

there are many criticism applied to hadeeth narration but i will only copy and paste 3 :

I. Idraj - This means insertion into a hadeeth which is not part of it,
and further giving no indication of its insertion. In fact, it is
considered camoflauge and deceit by the consensus of authorities.

II. Tadlis - Giving the impression that one has heard a hadeeth from a
particular narrator, because he has met that narrator. Imam Shu'bah
considers this faleshood, and worse than fornication.

III. Irsal - The person before the 'tabi'ee' at the beginning of the
chain is not mentioned.

in your opinion was the chain of narration system a sophisticated method?Muslims tell me that even the orientalists have no problem with the isnad system.

Amaleq13

And that would mean the author is explicitly identifying his account as second-hand at the very least. This is what the majority of scholars acknowledge when they refrain from considering Luke to be an eyewitness account.

It should go without saying that an "eyewitness account" is an account given by an eyewitness and not by someone who claims to have heard an eyewitness account.

Diogenes the Cynic

What makes you think there's anything extraordinary about spawning a worldwide religion? Joseph Smith did the same in less time and with more primary testimony.

And where did you get this claim that "thousands of people" died for a belief in the Gospels during the lifetimes of the authors? Not that it's especially relevant. People have died for all kinds of religious beliefs. Joseph Smith himself was lynched for his claims and never recanted them. What does that prove?
Try Josephus or Tacitus. I don't know what you think it would prove, though. It's funny that you would pick this example since the story of the adulterous woman was not added to the Gospel of John until the Middle Ages.

Odemus

Yes, I'm very familiar with the Bible,theology and doctrine. Those are the grounds on which I eventually rejected my faith. I was never interested in fulfilled prophecy or Biblical archeology finds, or even discrepencies in the relation of events such as different nativity scenes or the chronological sequence of events leading up to Christ's death and ressurection. I rejected Christianity because the concept of god is irrational, implausible, and finally evil, not because I doubted whether 500 people really saw Christ after his supposed ressurection.

Patriot7

That's the way Luke's opening reads isn't it? He's not making the claim that he was there when Gabriel visited Mary. It seems to me the text is explicitely clear that he's giving an accounting of the events to Theophilus of first hand eyewitnesses and not his own experience.

If you say so. That's one way to look at it. Begging the question...but if you say so.

buckshot23

What I do not understand is why the church would choose names like Luke, Mark Mathew for the gospel names if they were inventions of fiction. Why not use Peter? I think the simple answer is that these are the guys who actually wrote them.

wjs3

Patriot7:

I'm new to the boards and have no idea how to quote you, so I apologize if I quote this crudely, but this whole argument began when you said, in response to TomboyMom's assertion about Biblical Scholars:

"What do you mean by that? Is that your opinion? Or are you referring to a meeting of modern biblical scholars that flew under the radar of virtually every website, publication and mainstream media outlet where "modern mainstream" biblical scholars all agreed that the New Testament was a fraud? Are you suggesting that scholars, who by nature debate and argue actually agreed on something monumental like this? (on anything for that matter? ) Please post your reference!! How did you get the inside scoop? This is BIG news!! Have you told CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Drudgereport, Breitbart, Fox? They would love to break a story like this!!"

Well, I thought I'd check and see if it WAS already on CNN, etc.

Check it out. Even the movie reviewers on CNN.Com seem to agree with the opinion here.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movi...ion/index.html

Sorry, you'll have to actually click on the link. Just in case, here's the paragraph of interest, under "Biblical Interpretation":


"So, if you look at "The Passion of the Christ" as a movie -- and not a religious experience -- and the Bible as its source material, the first thing you have to decide is: Is it based on fact or fiction? Or a fictional account of an actual event? It is historical fact that the New Testament is not an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus: it was written over a period of decades, and decades after the fact. So the Bible and the events depicted in it are open to interpetation."


That was just a quick search. I bet there's more. Anyone else want to check CNN.COM, ABC.COM, etc?

So there's no need for TomboyMom or anyone else to tell the news services. Sorry to kill your excitement there. This really isn't news.

WJS3

Diogenes the Cynic

1. Luke does NOT say that he spoke to witnesses and, in fact, pretty much no one in NT scholarship believes that he did. What they believe Luke did was copy from other written sources (which themselves were not written by witnesses) and make some things up out of whole cloth.
2. More importantly, even if Luke had claimed to have personally spoken to witnesses, that would still not make Luke an eyewitness account. What is so hard to understand about that?
This is easy to prove. They are written (which makes them literary) in Greek (which makes them Greek). Which one of those two points do you dispute?

Fortuna

Julian,

OK, sorry about that, 52BCE.

Patriot7,

Well, for Chrissakes, you are the one who just doesn't seem to get it ! And I have yet to see you admit that DTC was correct. (and he was !)

Did not Hesiod and Homer start the Greek religions and beliefs in Apollo through works of literature ?

Have not thousands of Muslims also died for their religion, also started only by the Quran, also little more than a work of literature ?

More recently, Joseph Smith started the Mormon religion in the USA using guess what ? Works of literature !

People will die for lies all the time ! How many Germans and others died for the lies and propoganda of Adolph Hitler ?

What can't you understand here ? People are gullible, they believe what they want to believe, and for all kinds of strange reasons.


Sure, what did you have in mind ? There are hundreds of examples.

So, you don't think that a good writer can write a fictional tale so that it sounds realistic ? Or you don;t think that a writer can't write good, realistic historical fiction ?

How about the descriptions of how Heracles slayed Cerebus ? How about Cupid's travels into Hades to recover his lover Psyche ?

Have you ever read the Illiad or Odessey ?


Let me ask you this. In the synoptic gospels, just after Jesus and Co. have their passover meal, they go to the garden of Gethsemane where Jesus walks away from his followers and begins to pray. The narrator tells us of his prayer, of his sweating blood, but also tells us that he was away from his followers and that they had all fallen asleep. IOW, the narrator tells us that Jesus was alone and his followers were asleep.

Tell me Patriot7, if Jesus was away from his followers, and if they had all fallen asleep as the narrator says, then who was there to record this as actual history ?

Answer that question please !

Again, what is so hard to understand here ?

Patriot7

1Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.[/b] (Ref: Luke 1)

I think Luke is very clear about what he is saying. What's so hard to understand about that? You're not going to get procrustean on me again are you? The text says what it says. The KJV uses the word "beginning" instead of "first". You've got more red herrings then a fish market on good friday.

3Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning,
Do you really think Luke believes he didn't really mean the "beginning", beginning maybe he just meant something else, but wrote the word "beginning". Is that it?

Oh brother...here we go again, with you and your army of scholars that agree with you. An appeal to authority is not an argument! How about I get my scholars together and you get your scholars together and we'll sit down over some red herrings and crow in my scarecrow field and play rock paper scissors until Christ returns?

Come on bud. I want to see if I can do your theory justice. As a qualifier, if I'm not defending your view well you can buttress my arguments. What do you say? I won't ask again.