burning flames

1. The Bible is the most accurate history book in the world. Everything we know about history comes from written documentation we find. Such documents are considered accurate when there's other documents that back up it's claims. What we know about Julius Caesar, Socrates, Plato, etc. are written documents we found about them, with maybe 10 other documents to back it up. Most were dated to be written hundreds of years after the person's life.

The Bible has thousands of historical documents backing up the accounts of the Old Testament, and New Testament. In fact, the documents about Jesus and the New Testament were written within 50 years of his death, and were circulated throughout Christians while the EYE WITNESSES of Jesus were around. So if they were not accurate, people would know. Now eye witnesses is an important thing, in a court of law. I can't think of any other historical document that was written and circulated by and during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses of the event. Plus the documents are very consistent with each other too.

2. The Bible was written over 2,000 years (from the Old to the New Testaments). There are books written at different times. There are prophecies in some books that were fulfilled generations after they were written, and just like it says. There are hundreds of prophecies in the Old Testament that not only were very specific, but were fulfilled just how it said.

Also there are about 200 prophecies about the Messiah that were all fulfilled by Jesus. Prophecies like: his heritage, where he would be born, when he would be born, what he would do, how people would react to him, when he would die, how he would die, etc. Some prophecies about his death were written hundreds of years before crucifixion was even invented. And the prophecies about the messiah were accurate to-the-day.

There's no way man could prophecies so accurately unless they were influenced by the almighty God, who exists outside of time. Plus no other religion in the world has prophecies like the Bible.

3. All of Jesus's disciples (except for John) died horrible deaths for proclaiming that Jesus was resurrected from the dead. The disciples knew Jesus the best. One by one, they suffered and died instead of denouncing Jesus and the Resurrection. Now, who would willingly give up their life for something if they knew it was a lie? If Jesus never was resurrected like they said he was, why would so many of his followers die for the sake of saying he was? Many other of the people Jesus appeared to after the resurrection died too.

cajela

No.

*Goes for popcorn, settles in*

bilby

Not one of your three assertions is correct.

Roland

The problem with the "history" in the Bible is that none of it was written by an author we can even identify (except maybe Paul, though his writings are hardly "historical" in nature). Real historians like Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny etc. not only identified themselves as the authors but often cited the sources they used for their information.

Even later, 2nd Century apologists like Justin and Irenaeus did that, but not the writers of the Bible. (The gospels and Acts aren't even written as histories; they're written as NARRATIVES).

hatsoff

The Bible is not a book of history, but of myth. It is rejected for the same reason that historians reject the Illiad or Odyssey. That the Bible contains kernels of truth which are believable and sometimes even corroborated by more reliable sources is not license to embrace the remainder without skepticism. Its general theme focuses on the supernatural, which we know by precedent to be the products of human imagination.

As for prophecy, it is tempting to interpret them supernaturally, but close inspection never fails to reveal a sufficient natural explanation for all apparent fulfillment. The Biblical authors and modern apologists use a wide variety of methods to give false impressions, but perhaps the two most commonly-employed tools for Biblical prophecy are shoehorning (misinterpreting the original predictive passage) and invented fulfillment (claiming a prophecy was fulfilled when in fact it was not). This is not without precedent; the claims of other religions and even secular prophets demonstrate striking similarities.

Finally, with regard for Apostolic martyrs, without accurate records from the time it is impossible to explain with precision the situations of their deaths. However, there are several possible explanations for the fantastic reports of the martyrdoms: Namely, they may have mistakenly but honestly believed in Jesus Resurrection; another possibility is that the reports are simply inaccurate, and that they either did recant (but too late) or were not martyred at all.

Now, I can imagine you may not find my response very satisfying. I cannot give definitive explanations for all that you've mentioned, because we just don't have enough evidence concerning the topics. It's tempting to embrace a worldview which claims to give you such answers--but wholly unwarranted. Admitting ignorance may leave you with an uncomfortable feeling, it is much more appropriate than accepting religious fiat.

figuer

Perhaps someone with more patience and knowabout can indicate to this fellow the threads where each one of those silly propositions has been refuted ad nauseam.

Roland

2). The problem with using prophecy as proof is twofold: first, many of the so-called "prophecies" aren't prophecies at all, just random quotes ripped out of context and made to look like prophecies.

Second, events can be made up to fit so-called prophecies very easily. The messiah has to be born in Bethlehem? Fine, let's say Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Done, fulfilled prophecy. That was simple enough.

3). No concrete evidence these people ever even existed let alone died in the way you describe.

Chris Weimer

This isn't true.

We do?

Paul, Q, and barely Mark, but the last being much more removed. And no full document was written by "eyewitnesses". I'm not sure where you got that idea from.

You don't read much then, do you? There are thousands of historical documents written in the lifetime of the events they describe by eyewitnesses. The Gallic Wars was documented by Julius Caesar himself, not to mention the thousands of inscriptions that don't suffer human errors of transmission.

1000 at the very most.

Which "prophecies" are you referring to?

They were?

Have you done the comparisons yourself?

Evidence please?

Many men all over the world give up their lives for causes. Who said it had to be a lie? Perhaps they died for other reasons. You have no evidence that they died because they thought Jesus rose from the dead.

More baloney.

Agemegos

Not at all. Different parts of it even contradict one another on simple substantial points. It can't possibly be an accurate history of any set of events.

Then take into account that it 'records' a number of preposterous events, such as a world-wide flood drowning everybody at a time when the Chinese and Egyptian civilisations show no discontinuity from before to after.

No it doesn't. What documents there are covering any part of the period contradict it either explicitly or implicitly.

Early versions of Mark may be that old. The other gospels are definitely later.

The letters of Paul are that old, but very few eyewitnesses to anything that Jesus may have done would still have been around when the gospels started being widely circulated.

Predicated on a false premise.

True but irrelevant. We don't have eyewitnesses. We have unsigned documents that have obviously been altered, which don't even claim to have been written by eye witnesses. A John le Carré novel is better evidence than that.

Think harder. Thucydides Pelopennesian War and Xenophon's Anabasis, not to mention Julius Caesar's Gallic War's and Civil War were written by participants.

No they aren't. One gospel claims that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod the Great, another claims that he was born while Quirinius was governor of Syria--occasions that were a minimum of ten years apart. One gospel says that his parents lived in Nazareth, another implies that they had a house in Bethlehem. One says that his parents took him from Bethlehem directly to Jerusalem, another says that they took him directly to Egypt to get him away for Jerusalem. They give three completely different accounts of his last words. And that's without even starting on the discrepant accounts in the Old Testament, or discrepancies between the gospels as to the course of Jesus's relationship with John the Baptist, ministry, trial, and execution.

It shows. Also, there are books and parts of books writeen by different authors who obviously had opposite political agendas.

Actually, no. Most of these supposed prophecies are simple statements taken out of context and misinterpreted, and some of them required a lot of weaselling, distortion, and downright lies to make them come off.

Nope. The messiah was prophesied to be a descendant of King David in the direct line father to son. Jesus wasn't that. The messiah was prophesied to restore a Jewish kingdom with its capital at Jerusalem. Jesus didn't. The other supposed prophecies are all either vague or not really prophecies at all.

The Gospel of John is particularly laughable on the subject of prophecies, since its author seems to have made up events in Jesus's life (not elsewhere attested) to represent him as fulfilling 'prophecies' from the Old Testament that, when read in context, were plainly never meant to be prophecies in the first place.

Nope. The Bible's record on prophecies is not better than a carnie Tarot-reader.

Simply untrue. Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, and Rastafarianism are counter-examples.

According to legend only.

You know about the Jonestown massacre? Ever heard of the Raelians?

Same reason that people have willingly died for other religions.

Everyone dies.

And by the way, the Bible did prophesy a second coming of Jesus that would occur before the people then living had died.

cajela

To those who don't venture out of this forum: do try to be nice to burning flames. As I understand it from bf's GRD & Lounge, he is struggling with deconversion & often posts things that he has been told by preachers etc - but it's not to proselytise, it's to do reality & sanity tests.

(I hope I'm representing you fairly with that, burning flames, but I've seen people pound on you for your supposed Xianity elsewhere.)