John W. Loftus

Because I am.:wave:

Steven Carr

I guess John's Galatians says Paul claimed Jesus had 'disciples'....

That is the 'textual evidence' that John has.


NO wonder he is not ready to begin a debate yet.

Why did 'Opposing Views' declare him a 'verified expert'?

Steven Carr

SO no 'disciples'. Nobody who had been claimed to have followed Jesus.

Of course, the 'semi-official' history ,Luke/Acts written by somebody trying to give an ordered account never gives one hint that this James had even seen Jesus,let alone been his brother.

dog-on

So how do you get "Paul met with the Jerusalem leaders who were former disciples of Jesus" out of this?

In other words, you are reading other writings into Paul and not dealing with what Paul, himself, has written.

Steven Carr

Huh? I though it was sceptics who did not deal with what was written!

Where does Paul claim anybody had come to faith by seeing Jesus?

John W. Loftus

Carr, we have sparred about this for about a month now. Maybe neither of us are treating the other as respectfully as we did initially. I suppose that's the way it goes sometime when we repeat ourselves. But Paul mentions James and the other Apostles and you wish to say these Apostles were never disciples of a real Jesus? You see, this is what I mean when I say no single piece of evidence supports the belief that Jesus was a real person because no single piece of evidence ever led to that conclusion in the first place. It's the convergence of the evidence. Jesus had disciples who became his "sent ones" or apostles. Again, any single piece of evidence can be doubted if you want to be an extreme skeptic. Skepticism has it easy, doesn't it? Become a historian, okay? Then see if you can write history with that mindset. That's why historians think Jesus existed, because they know how to do history. You don't.

dog-on

Are you asking me?

John W. Loftus

Yes, I suppose you're correct about this. I just explained it to Carr above though. That's what historians do. It's problematic, I admit.

Steven Carr

I'm simply pointing out facts.

You said Paul claimed to have met disciples of Jesus.

He does not. He claims to have met apostles and never even hints that they had followed Jesus.

This is just a fact. Why the fuss?

Are you ready to debate yet? As you said, you have had over a month to begin.

And as you can tell, I am starting to get frustrated with your delays.

Why does Paul claim in Romans 10 that Jews had not heard of Jesus, and they had not had anybody to preach to them, other than Christians who have been sent (and Paul never says Jesus sent them)

Now you say historians have looked at all this.

So tell us what these historians have said about that.

These people know how to do history.

SO what the hell have they said about what Paul says in Romans 10?

Are you EVER going to tell us what historians have done with this evidence.

Steven Carr

I'm asking anybody who wants to examine the evidence.

That appears not to include John, who simply retreats to declaring that there is no debate.