Sheshbazzar

Again Adam.
Adam. Do you really and truly believe that there really was a 'voice from heaven glorifying Jebus..' saying;

"I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again."
The people therefore, that stood by, and heard, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake to him."(John 12:28-29) ?

This is a significant question in this context, as your further arguments concerning your Nicodemus figure (now unfortunately missing from this thread- destroying the context) are based upon some alleged change in the Nicodemus' views which you are evidently attempting to posit came about via means of the reality of this particular supernatural event having actually taken place just as it is reported in John 12:28-29.
It must be established with all certainty what your personal beliefs are with regards to the actuality of this alleged miraculous voice from heaven, to assess the credibility of your further arguments vis. Nicodemus's' alleged 'changing perspective'.
As your rationale as presented seems to hinge upon this miraculous voice from heaven being the impetus behind this alleged 'changing perspective'.
Do tell us more about this 'voice speaking from heaven'.



.

Adam

My answer is in my Significance of John thread, Post #19:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=307897

Sheshbazzar

And my reply to your 'answer' is in Post #20 of the same thread.

The same will apply in this thread as well as any others that you may start or contribute to.

Kapyong

Typical apologetics ...

Post slabs of preaching, then simply answer all questions with :
see my previous post X, or post Y....

But we never get real evidence, or real answers.
A totally worthless thread with no evidence for any eye-witnesses.
Just preaching of faithful beliefs.

K.

Adam

If you are referring to my reply in Post #202, apparently you failed to notice Toto's move in #200 of posts to my Significance of John thread:
Some posts have been moved to this thread
I saw no sense in fielding responses to that post #19 in both threads, when it clearly should be only in the other thread. Vorkosigan posted here in this thread apparently in error. See there posts #7, 11, 12, 13, and 16.
If your complaint is with this Gospel Eyewitnesses thread in general, you have not followed it very closely. Several of the eyewitnesses who wrote about Jesus, I have claimed here were my original ideas in whole (Simon and John Mark), in part (Nicodemus), or in application to a more limited scope than is traditionally taught (John and Peter). Nor have I been just preaching faithful beliefs about Matthew or Andrew, either. That makes you zero for seven.

Kapyong

Gday,

In fact, it's a particular interest of mine, I was quite interested in your post. Until I saw it was just preaching.

Here is my summary of the eye-witness claims :


So, let's examine the evidence -
How many :
identifiable people
claimed to have met Jesus
in authentic writing
?

Paul
Paul never met a historical Jesus, and never claimed to.
He did claim to have had revelations "thru Christ" etc.
He did claim to have had a vision of Christ.
And others (Acts) claim Paul had a vision of Christ.

It is worth noting that Paul does not place Iesous Christos in history :
No places - Paul never mentions Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Calvary, etc.
No dates - Paul never places Iesous Christos in time.
No names - Paul never mentions Mary, Joseph, Pilate, Judas, Nicodemus, Lazarus etc.
No miracles - Paul never mentions the miracles/healings of Jesus
No trial/tomb - Paul never mentions the trial or the empty tomb etc.
Paul's Christos is a heavenly being, not a historical person.

the 500
Paul claims 500 others had a vision of Christ. The Gospels do not mention that, no other writer mentions that, and we have no names or evidence for any of the 500. Even IF it happened - they had a VISION like Paul - nothing historical.

G.Mark
The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus. According to traditon, Mark was a secretary of Peter and never met Jesus. This Gospel, like all of them, started out as an un-named book.

G.Matthew
The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus. According to tradition it was written by an apostle - but it never says so, and it mentions Matthew without the slightest hint that HE was writing it.

G.Luke
The author of this book never identifies himself, and never claims to have met Jesus. According to tradition it was written by a follower of Paul.

G.John
According to tradition this Gospel was written by the apostle John, and the last chapter says :

"This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true."

This is part of a chapter that was added to the Gospels, and it is clearly someone else making a claim for the book. It most certainly does not even come close to specific claim that anyone personally met Jesus.

Jude
This letter contains no claim to have met Jesus.

Johanines
1 John contains this passage :

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. 3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4We write this to make our[a] joy complete."

Some believers assert this is a claim to have met Jesus.
What did he see and hear? He certainly never says it was Jesus. He just had a spiritual experience and wants to tell everyone about it - "God is light". Nothing here about any historical Jesus at all.

James
There is no claim to have met Jesus in this letter - supposedly from Jesus' BROTHER ! Yet it contains NOTHING anywhere about a historical Jesus, even where we would expect it. It is clear this writer had never even HEARD of a historical Jesus.

Revelation
No claim to have met Jesus.

the Petrines
2 Peter has this passage :

"1.16 For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount. "

Here we see Peter directly claim to have witnessed Jesus' transfiguration. The ONE and ONLY such direct personal claim in the entire NT.
But -
2 Peter is the very latest and most suspect book in the whole NT - scholars agree it is a forgery, so do many Christians, ancient and modern. A late and deliberate forgery that claims NOT to be based on "cunningly devised fables" - probably in direct response to critics claims. THAT is the one single book that contains a claim to have met Jesus.

Papias
Does not claim to have met Jesus or anyone who had. He did claim to have met Presbyters who told him what some disciples had said. Discusses two books of Matthew and Mark , not called Gospels, not quite like modern Gospels.

Polycarp
Never claimed to have met Jesus or anyone who did. Irenaeus claimed Polycarp met discples who met Jesus

Justin
Never claimed to have met anyone who met Jesus. Discusses UN-NAMED Gospels not quite like ours.

So,
the entire NT contains only ONE specific claim to have met a historical Jesus - from the most suspect forgery in the whole book. There is NOT ONE reliable claim by anyone to have ever met Jesus.


K.

Kapyong

Gday,

I pointed out your post was just CLAIMS, and you respond by saying some of the CLAIMS were personal opinion ?

That's the whole problem - vast slabs of dense hard-to-read text, heavy on faithful preaching, very light on any real historical basis for anything.

Where's the BEEF?
How about one small post summarising your argument for ONE eye-witness? No huge slabs of un-broken text please.


K.

bleubird

Just finished Bart Ehrman's "Misquoting Jesus"
I am going with Bart. Bible history is not taught to most Christians."cause they could not handle it.
amazon link (or via: amazon.co.uk)
Easy read.

Adam

I was particularly responding to your complaint in #204.
"Just preaching of faithful beliefs."
Otherwise, you would have fallen under my policy not to respond to blanket dismissals, as yours seem to be again in your #206 and #207. I don't even see evidence that you have read my posts. Your earlier post in this thread, #33, was just a put-down based on what I said in a mere reply, it seems.
You do have a legitimate complaint in that this thread is primarily my summation of results, rather than underlying argumentation (but see my #144 about Simon). I have a new thread for careful argumentation about the four eyewitnesses in the Gospel of John, titled Significance of John.
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=307897
Throughout this current thread I have provided links to my four articles about sources and eyewitnesses for the Synoptic gospels. They provide argumentation you request, but not the neat summary, which I suppose you would not accept as evidence anyway.
http://megasociety.org/noesis/181.htm#Common

jakejonesiv

Hi Kapyong,

thanks for doing this research. Let’sconsider the text you quote from the epistle of 2 Peter a little more closely. 2 Peter is almost certainly the latest document included in the New Testament.

On the surface it is a proto-orthodox document supporting a literal view of Christianity.


When one begins to dig beneath the surface, we find it contains much older heretical material that has been given a literalist sheen. The original author was surely a Gnostic of some sort as the references to "Gnosis" in 1:3 and the partaking of the divine nature in 1:4 indicate.

The translation of "epoptai" as "eyewitnesses" is misleading. The term never occurs elsewhere in the NT, but is borrowed from the Mysteries. It more accurately refers to high ranking initiates in mystery cults. http://tinyurl.com/m6r946 We can now see the "transfiguration" as a night long hill top ritual "until day dawns and the morning star rises" in a mystery cult in which Christ is manifested to the Epoptai in majestic glory "as to a lamp shining in a dark place." Thus the “historical” event in Mark chapter 9 (and parallels) is derived from a mystical rite.

Compare this with Apuleius, The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses), Book 11:23, when Lucius, after being saved from his assine condition, is initiated into the Mysteries of Isis. He undergoes a nocturnal death experience:

"I approached the confines of death. I trod the threshold of Proserpine; and borne through the elements I returned. At midnight I saw the Sun shining in all his glory. I approached the gods below and the gods above, and I stood beside them, and I worshipped them." 11.23.

Lucian experiences the direct manifestation of the Regina Caeli (Queen of Heaven). Isis promises him "You shall live blessed. You shall live glorious under my guidance; and when you have traveled you full length of time, and you go down into death, there also, on that hidden side of earth, you shall dwell in the Elysian Fields and frequently adore my favors."



Best,
Jake