aChristian

Papias and Polycarp were alive at the time and they provide historical accounts. You don’t have to be a historian to report what you saw. Eusebius was a historian and he quotes them. As far as the burden of proof, you seem to be missing the point. The point you are arguing is analogous to saying that George Washington never crossed the Delaware. I pointed out that the history supports my position and the burden of proof is on you to show that your invented history (with no accounts from the period in question) is true and that the people who lived then and wrote it down are wrong. Admittedly there is less evidence from antiquity than there is from more recent history, but there is plenty to establish the traditional account. The burden of proof is on you to show your National Enquirer view of history is correct and the traditional view is wrong. You have yet to produce a witness to support your point of view. All that you have done is point out parts in the story that you don’t understand. Plenty of reasonable explanations have been given for the points that you raise, but you don’t accept them because you don’t like the way it happened. The scholars that back your view do the same thing that you do. They don’t have any accounts to support their pretend ‘history’, they just try to find any little detail that will discredit the accounts of the people who were there. As far as the names of good scholars, as opposed to the bad scholarship that you read, you can look on the faculties of conservative schools. From the past Robert Wilson comes to mind, who disproved the documentary hypothesis for the Old Testament. Unger, Archer, and Montgomery come to mind. There are plenty of others and you can find them if you are willing to leave your insulated world.
By the way, for what it’s worth, I have read Eusebius cover to cover at least once and I think twice.

You make so many factual errors that are dependent on your trust in the liberal scholarship that it would probably be better to focus on one point at a time. How about this one.
John 9:22 says synagogue (singular) and John 9:22 is the evidence to the contrary that you ask for. It doesn’t say they were kicked out of all synagogues world wide. An eyewitness (John) tells us what happen in Jerusalem around 32 AD and the fact that there were later explusions does not contradict the eyewitness testimony. Now what evidence to the contrary do you have?

You and everyone reading this know what liberal and conservative scholarship are. However, if you want to use different terms, you need to read good scholarship instead of the bad scholars you have been reading.
You miss the point. The history (Papias, Eusebius, etc.) says John wrote it. You need to prove they were wrong and you need to explain (with some sort of witness from the time) how the whole church came to believe otherwise. I have seen no proof that they were wrong nor have I ever heard a credible explanation of how everyone got the history so wrong.

Oh?!? Do you have a witness from the time who was familiar with the writing of the book and recorded this somewhere or is this more of your pretend ‘history’.

The author relates details that an eyewitness would know. He does not have to give a list of acquaintances to prove that he knew Peter. Just because he doesn’t say, “I knew Peter� in the book doesn’t mean he didn’t know him. He possibly knew many of the apostles and everyone at the time knew that he knew them and thus it was redundant to say, “I knew Peter�. On top of all of that, we have a voice from history that says Peter related the events to Mark.

This whole paragraph is nonsense. The author is not hostile to Peter or any of the apostles, he just accurately relates the history, including the apostles’ sins. Your attempt to prove someone didn’t write something because they didn’t put something in that you expect to see there is not proof that they didn’t write it, especially since the people who lived then knew he wrote it and said so.

You are attempting to say that if someone writes with a certain style, they cannot be an eyewitness to something??? That is just plain stupid.

How do you know Peter didn’t know Greek, a well known language throughout the the world at the time?

I’ll bet the errors are yours. You just don’t know enough about what was going on to understand certain statements. In the past, the liberals have made claims of errors, only to have their claims disproved by new finds.

Ever heard of prophecy? Your presupposition that the supernatural is impossible has slanted many of your conclusions. This presupposition is really naïve. There is incontrovertible evidence for miracles occurring today and you can’t hide behind centuries of time the way you try to when dealing with the history that you don’t like.

There are plenty if you take the time to look for them. However, I suspect (but hope otherwise) that anyone who disagrees with your views will be labeled a fundy apologist no matter how many years he has studied the matters.

You're just wrong here.

It is obvious from your responses that you do care and that you do want the traditional history to be wrong. If it is correct, you have a God to answer to. I'll tell you this though. He loves you and it will be a joy to know him if you take the opportunity he has given you. It is also very enjoyable to be able to honestly investigate history or any other matter. When you know the truth, it sets you free to honestly examine anything that interests you without fear.

aChristian

I agree that we are off the topic. Try the websites for Moody Bible Institute and Dallas Theological School as a starter for conservative scholars. As I mentioned in another response, Unger, Archer, Robert Wilson, Allis, and Montgomery come to mind. These are older scholars (Wilson is dead), but here are younger scholars as well. If you start at those websites, I'm sure you can find them.

As for John being arrogant, I think you misunderstand him. I believe that he called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved, not because he was claiming an exalted position in Jesus' estimation, but because he was writing as an old man now. He had seen God's love for him over his lifetime and also knew his own sin and unworthiness. I think that he called himself the one whom Jesus loved out of amazement that God knew him and what he was like and still loved him like he did. I believe that he called himself that name in appreciation to God for His love for him.

As far as "and this", he is obviously referring to himself in the third person.

aChristian

As I mentioned in my other response, you can start by going to the websites for Dallas Theological Seminary and Moody Bible Institute. As for the burden of proof, a claim is being made that the traditional history is wrong even though it was written by people who appear to be reliable and who were in the position to know. That's like saying President Lincoln died of natural causes at age 85 while having no sources to support your conclusion. I am just saying the traditional history is correct and the invention of history by current liberal scholars without any evidence to support their wild claims is wrong. The burden of proof is with them. They need to find a source or two.

Vorkosigan

Which websites at those two places should we look on? Can you give us something specific.

Mark's hostility to the disciples of Jesus is well-known, aChristian. Ted Weeden, probably the Dean of Mark scholars:

• "Why is it--- given the inescapable evidence in the Pauline correspondence and the Gospel of Thomas of apostle attacking apostle in the early church --- why is it, I ask rhetorically, that when it is clear there were cases where an apostle sought to undermine the authority of another apostle, and even defame him, that interpreters of Mark have such a difficult time believing that anyone could write a Gospel with the intention of carrying out a vendetta against Peter and the rest of the disciples known, as "the Twelve" - a vendetta whose sole unvarnished purpose was to discredit, defame and characterize Peter and the others as apostates? Why is that so difficult to imagine, when the same thing was going on in Corinth and in the Thomistic tradition years before Mark even thought about writing a Gospel? Why is it that so many Markan interpreters refuse to recognize or accept the possibility that --- by his demeaning portrait of the disciples and refusal to grant them a resurrection appearance (as does Matthew, Luke and John), in which Jesus specifically commissioned them to be apostles --- Mark is engaging in an attack upon the apostolic authority of the Twelve, much the same as Paul and his opponents endeavor to undermine the apostolic authority of each other in Corinth?"

He also notes:

• "In fact Paul makes no explicit reference or even the slightest allusive hint of any disaffection upon the part of any one in the inner-circle of Jesus' followers."
  
  "Likewise, there is no reference or allusion to a Petrine denial in any other pre-Synoptic tradition. Not a trace of it can be found in Q. And nothing in the Gospel of Thomas would lead one to believe that any of the tradition(s) behind that Gospel knew of Peter denying Jesus. Had the author of Thomas known of the denial, he could have used it as sufficient cause alone for the elevation of Thomas over Peter in GTh. 13. For in that saying it is clear that what is at stake is that the author is trying to prove that Thomas, rather than Peter or Matthew, is Jesus' most trusted confidant and most favored disciple."
  
  "To pursue support for my position further: if such a Petrine denial is historical, then I find it quite strange that nowhere in the NT is there any reference to Peter ever offering a *mea culpa* and receiving forgiveness for his denial. It is particularly striking that in none of the resurrection-appearance stories is there any suggestion that Peter offers or has offered a *mea culpa* and is forgiven by the risen Jesus."

The scenes between Jesus and his disciples in Mark are fictions designed to teach some theological or political point. None of them occurred in real life.

aChristian, let me show you how the gospel of Mark works:

First, it is constructed out of the Old Testament. Brodie, write in The Crucial Bridge, notes how it parallels the OT tales of Elijah.

19 And he goeth thence, and findeth Elisha son of Shaphat, and he is plowing; twelve yoke [are] before him, and he [is] with the twelfth; and Elijah passeth over unto him, and casteth his robe upon him,
20 and he forsaketh the oxen, and runneth after Elijah, and saith, `Let me give a kiss, I pray thee, to my father and to my mother, and I go after thee.' And he saith to him, `Go, turn back, for what have I done to thee?'
21 And he turneth back from after him, and taketh the yoke of oxen, and sacrificeth it, and with instruments of the oxen he hath boiled their flesh, and giveth to the people, and they eat, and he riseth, and goeth after Elijah, and serveth him.(YLT)

Note the parallels, listed in Brodie (2000, p91):

*the action begins with a caller...and with motion toward those to be called;
*those called are working (plowing/fishing);
*the call, whether by gesture (Elijah) or word (Jesus) is brief;
*later, the means of livelihood are variously destroyed or mended, the plow is destroyed, but the nets are mended -- a typical inversion of images...;
*after further movement, there is a leave-taking of home;
*there is also a leave-taking of other workers;
*finally, those who are called follow the caller.

That's the source. Now the structure:

And passing along by the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the sea; for they were fishermen.

And going on a little farther, he saw James the son of Zeb'edee and John his brother, who were in their boat mending the nets.

And Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men."

And immediately he called them;

And immediately they left their nets and followed him.

and they left their father Zeb'edee in the boat with the hired servants, and followed him.

See? The passage consists of two parallel structures in ABCABC format. Actually, the calling of Levi has the same structure too.

Now, given that both the fine structure and the story itself are constructions of the author, what reason is there to believe that this person was a witness to these events? Why would an eyewitness need to make parallels? The only person who needs to create out of parallels is one who is writing fiction.

The reality is that the Gospel of Mark was constructed by paralleling off of the Old Testament. If you scope out my Commentary

http://users2.ev1.net/%7Eturton/GMark/GMark01.html

You can see how it was put together.

Vorksigan

pharoah

Could you provide details of or post a link for these miracles?

adzzy

you know, they have an archaeological discovery that Pontius Pilate was a prefect not a procurator?

http://www.bible-history.com/empires/pilate.html

It's housed at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and for those that don't know much about Roman history, like say the 2nd half of that website I linked, a procurator is an equestrian (2nd class aristocrat civillian), whilst a prefect is a military rank, you can not ever be both.

The last of the prefect governors was 41AD (followed by the Herod Agrippa short period) and from 44AD it was procurators, It makes sense that Jospehus and Tacitus would make the mistakes, as Josephus was 4 when the prefect governors ended (and I'm not sure he could even speak latin to tell the difference anyway) and Tacitus was born some 14 years later, unfortunately as the above link points out, Pontius Pilate knew his own rank.

One would suppose if the bible was the literal word of God, he would probably know the difference between a procurator and a prefect, even if a lot of the jews didn't.

Roland

This is the typical apologist's response - that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John just happened to include different things in their gospels - but, looked at closely, that argument doesn't hold any water.

If Matthew, Mark and John (Mark by way of Peter) were all based on eyewitness accounts, why do Matthew's and Peter's recollections match up so closely to one another, but John's don't? If there were only two gospels then I might say this argument had some validity, but there is no way to explain how these three gospels fall out the way they do and still claim that they were all eyewitness accounts. And why did Luke adhere so closely to Matthew and Peter's recollections and not John's? Where was Luke getting his information? If they were all followers and observers of Jesus and they all sat down to write independent accounts, the gospels would never have come out this way. It defies all logic.

You mean to tell me that Matthew, Mark (by way of Peter) and, later, Luke didn't think that Jesus' saying "I am the way the truth and the life" was worth recording?????????? Or any of his other amazing "I am" speeches for that matter? It would be like three out of four biographers of John Kennedy somehow neglecting to record him saying "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country" or three biographers of Martin Luther King Jr. failing to include the "I Have a Dream" speech in their biographical accounts. it's lucidrous. If Jesus really said all those things John claims he said, certainly one of the other three would have thought to include at least some of them.

Jack the Bodiless

Unfortunately, that comment is followed by:
Dallas Theological Seminary is NOT a home of "good scholarship". They are a fundamentalist organization with a restrictive employment policy, they will not hire anyone who isn't committed to belief in Biblical inerrancy (regardless of the evidence).

And I sure hope that "Archer" isn't referring to Gleason Archer, the notoriously inept fundie apologist...

Sparrow

I went to the site you linked. It shows a photograph of a stone inscription. It's hard to make out from the photograph; I don't know if it's easier with the actual artifact. The inscription is listed to read:

Line One: TIBERIEUM,,
Line Two: (PON) TIUS
Line Three: (PRAEF) ECTUS IUDA (EAE)

My question about these lines is how can we be certain that the parts listed above in parentheses are what was actually inscribed and not just a guess?

One could also suppose then that he would have given an accurate history of the life of jesus instead of conflicting accounts.

adzzy

If you look closer at the actual inscription it has most of his given name also, Pilat being quite visible. (it's more visible in the picture than the TIUS)

It was an amphitheatre.

The roman method was

Building name
Your name
Your title and region

procurator is something like procuraea

There's usually some other jargon like we do, but the region generally always follows (like 99999 out of 100000) the title, if it wasn't it would read like this

Elizabeth, Queen of (insert something nonsensical) England

We even today use a similar method for building dedication, guess why ><