Diogenes the Cynic

No, sorry, they don't. The gospels are fictions written by non-witnesses. They do not provide any reliable information as to what any hypothetical HJ or his direct followers actually thought or said or did.
A requirement for what? I don't understand your question. The fact that neither he, nor anyone who knew him left any written record makes it impossible to know what he actually thought or said.
Every bit of reading and research I've ever done. It's a thread unto itself to go book by book and debate this but I'd be more than happy to do it if you'd like. Or you could just do a board search for "traditional authorship gospels."

The very short answer is that all the traditionally ascribed apostoloc authorships in the NT come from 2nd century tradition and are assigned to anonymous books which are clearly not written by witnesses. This post is going to be War and Peace as it is without having to go into all the reasons why, and as I said, I'd be overjoyed to start a separate thread about it but for the purposes of this thread let me just say that the vast majority of contemporary scholarship does not accept any book in the NT as authentically apostolic or as an eyewitness account.
The Bible is wrong, and it's a circular argument anyway. The first Empty Tomb story was invented by Mark. The fact that his story makes fictional claims about the disciples does not make those claims historical.
The Gospels are fiction.
Wrong. Written by an anonymous Christian copying Mark and Q and making creative use of the Septuagint. GMatt was not actually written by the apostle of that name. That's a second century attribution stemming from an erroneous claim made by Papias.
Yeah, it pretty much does mean they didn't know where he was. They had no reason to hang around or care where the body was dumped, if it was dumped at all. It may have been left on the cross to rot.

And what are you suggesting the Romans should have denied?
Not contemporary.
No, I am not advocating ANY "account." I am saying the Gospel accounts are fiction but I am not replacing them with anything. I have not advocated a "version of historical" events other than to point out that yours are based on fictions. If you want to prove something happened, the burden is still on you.

As I said before, I'd be ecstatic to start a new thread explaining why the Gospels are not reliable history and are no written by witnesses. Are you interested?
What information do you think was available? There was no computer data base. All of Pilate's records were gone. What were they supposed to look at.

I also think you have a very exaggerated view of the significance of early Christianity. You seem to think the Jews of the diaspora should have had some reason to care that some fringe cult of converted Gentiles was worshipping a "resurrected" God-Messiah. Other than expelling them from the synagogues as heretics what other concern should there have been for Judaism with regard to such a cult?
What kind of "memory" or testimony do you believe could have been presented to disprove the "resurrection" of a crucified nobody criminal a half century or better before? What was somebody going to say, that they DIDN"T see a resurrection? What does that prove. Even if some creaky old codger had actually managed to survive the war and get out of Palestine and then just happen to overhear somebody preaching about Ho Christos in Asia Minor somewhere, there is no reason that he should know who the hell Jesus was or anything about him.

Even if someone DID stand up and say, "hey, I was there. I remember that guy. He didn't come back from the dead. His body was on that cross for like a month." What then? Somebody says he was a witness and that the Christians are all wet. What was supposed to happen? Were all the Christians all over the Roman Empire supposed to just fold up their tents? Is there any reason anyone would have written it down or paid any mind to the codger at all.

In short, how do you know that the story WASN'T contested by witnesses? Why would it be recorded if it was?
What list? Do you imagine that everyone in every city had some sort of list of every person ever crucified in every backwater province of the Roman Empire?

There was no list. There was, and is, no written record of individuals crucified by Pilate.
Absolutely, when it comes to independent corroboration.
Lack of corroboration is not a textual "contradiction" that can be evaluated for forgery but the possibility of forgery in general is something that is amenable to various kinds of analysis.
No, the anlysis is really pretty solid, and "forger" is not really a big issue for Gospel authorship. There is no scholarly contention that they are "forged" in any sense that the authors were trying to pass themselves off as somebody else. The authors are simply unknown and their traditional attributions of authorship do not hold up to scrutiny.
One obvious example would be that a Jewish historian like Josephus could never call Jesus "the Messiah," without converting to Christianity.
The authorship is layered which mean there was more than one of them. Whether the authorship is "genuine" is rather meaningless. The authors are unknown. If you want to attach the name of a specific author to an anonymous text it is your burden to prove that case.
GJohn incorrectly places the expulsion of Christians from the synagogues within the life of Jesus. This event did not occur until 85 CE.
How does this refute a conclusion of forgery? The only question is how much of it was forged. It is true that reconstructing any possible authentic core to the Testimonium Flavianum would have to be speculative but that doesnt change the fact that at least some of it can be definitively ruled a forgery and the rest is questionable at best.
Sophistry.
They would have to magically be mistaken in the same arcane way.
Yes, necessarily.
He said so.
2nd century tradition.
Really? Who were they and how do you know?
I'm not sure why you think I've contradicted Amaleq. I wasn't dismissing the narrative person as a factor for dismissing eyewiness authorship, I was saying that there are other reasons in addition to narrative person to draw that conclusion.
I can't wait to tell you. Should we start a new thread?

Diogenes the Cynic

Eyewitnesses of what? If nothing happened there was nothing to be a witness of. All you're going to get is someone who doesn't know anything about crucified criminals coming back from the dead.
More sophistry.

If Josephus didn't know about, it didn't happen. Moreover, matthew's "slaughter" is demonstrably contrived from Exodus,
Luke says Jesus went back to Nazareth immediately after he was born. There is no flight to Egypt.
It makes it impossible.
What difference does it make?

rlogan

heh. Our dear bfiniii has clung to the shrill "eyewitness" call for nigh on ten pages without one scintilla of evidence on which eyewitnesses saw what.

CX

Oh sure! Diogenes can use made up words like "precipatated" but you're going to call bfiniii to the carpet for bald assertions?

bfniii

I am not asking anyone to “prove a negative�. I am asking someone to come up with information that would show the biblical account to be in error. An example I used is Jesus of Nazareth competing in a carpentry competition in some other city on the day of the resurrection thus showing the account to be impossible. Do you know of such information?

It’s a mountain of something alright. I’m curious. What do you consider evidence?

I noticed you didn’t answer the question. Besides, I wasn’t referring to the miraculous claims of the bible.

It seems that you’ve misrepresented my position. I believe the original point was in regards to first century claims, not contemporary ones.

Not all of the bible is superstitious. And in regards to “best historical texts�, the bible has traditionally been held in higher regard than any other first century work. once again, you evade the pointed question I ask, which you seem to have a penchant for.

Something skeptical non Christians are prodigious at.

That is clearly a misrepresentation of my position which is that the original charge of needing a precedent for the amnesty part of the crucifixion narrative is unnecessary.

I’m afraid that does not accurately reflect the specifics of the post. That a skeptic needs the precedent in order to believe the story, ameleq acknowledged that that is not the case for everyone.

Another confusion on your part. Ameleq asserted that Christians weren’t making these claims, therefore the burden rests on the claimant. Interestingly enough, even though you seem to be taking up the mantle for ameleq, your support for this claim is noticeably absent. Cat got your tongue?

It was a tongue in cheek example which everyone seemed to get except for you. Here is something you should be able to catch on to: census records show that Jesus of Nazareth was in tyre during the time of the crucifixion, therefore the story can’t possibly be true.

Notice the qualifier “one factor�?

Apparently, it’s not an assumption but a mountain of evidence as you called it.

All that was covered several pages back.

Why not try answering the question asked?

Another evasion. Care to take a shot at the statement I made?

Apparently we’re also covering that here.

I notice that your posts to me have many insults and animosity. Is there something I did to cause you to react that way? I understand we have different beliefs, but that isn’t a reason to resort to insults.

bfniii

i have seen much assumption that the gospel accounts are contradictory, but no one seems to be able to provide a specfic example.

i see that the accounts differ, but that is not a contradiction. they each point out different specifics of the same narrative.

1. whom else should have mentioned the miracles?
2. if they mentioned the miracle, it could be shown that their testimony was either mistaken or later altered.
3. if they did testify to the miracle, would they necessarily be considered independent?

should i?

Diogenes the Cynic

What is the "Day of the resurrection?" Who is "Jesus of Nazareth?"

You do not seem to have a basic grasp of how historical method works. Your question assumes facts not in evidence. There is NO EVIDENCE that "Jesus of Nazareth" ever existed. There is NO EVIDENCE of a "resurrection." If you want to assert these fables are historical, it is your burden and your burden alone to prove it.

Diogenes the Cynic

Here's a few.

1. Contradictory geneologies for Matthew and Luke
2. Luke and Matthew differ on whether Jesus went back to Nazareth after he was born or whether he fled to Egypt,
3. Luke's assertion that Jesus was born during the census of Quirinius (in 6-7 CE) contradicts Matthew's claim that Jesus was born during the reign of Herod who died in 4 BCE. Both claims cannot be true.
4. John's account of the Temple incident occurs at a different time than the synoptics.
5. Matthew and Luke differ as to how many animals Jesus rode into Jerusalem.
6. John's Passover occurs on a different day than the synoptics.
7. All four gospels have different claims for Jesus' last words on the cross (although Matthew and Mark are very close).
8. All four gospels are an absolute mess when it comes to any agreements about the time and place of Jesus' appearances, about witnesses, chronology, number of angels present, etc. I'm rolling this all into one nubered "example," but it's really more like a dozen unto itself.
9. Matthew and Luke (in Acts) have completely different and contradictory accounts of how Judas died.


The above is not a complete list but just some examples off the top of my head.
No. See above. They contradict, they do so often and they do so irreconcilably.
Anybody and everybody. I believe there's a thread on the front page of this forum with a long list of writers who should have been expected to mention such things as the zombie assault on Jerusalem.
Sophistry.
If they did so independently.

The problem for you is not just lack of corroboration but lack of even a single primary claim. There is not a shred of historical evidence that a single human being ever claimed to have seen Jesus risen from the dead.

exile

Well said. When Biblical literalists tell me they don't know of any contradictions in the Bible I wonder (a) have they ever read it or (b) have their noses just got a lot longer

I wouldn't go so far as to say there is no evidence Jesus existed. The existence of Christians in the 1st century BC is evidence (not absolutely convincing) of that. However we know nothing of his actions or words outside the Gospels, and the evidence of the resurrection is of the same order as that for any other so-called miracle connected with religious leaders throughout history - ie hearsay and "personal testimony" which are worthless.

rlogan

Sure. Whatever you say:

Prove it didn't happen. In 19 words instead of four.

Why do you have so little respect for us to think we are this stupid?

I have some good information the easter bunny was on 5th and Dale on the day in question, yes. How anyone could your writing seriously is beyond me.

As someone else indicated, even Charles Manson puts together sentences that have proper grammar. Apparently this is your standard. Form instead of content.


yes, the subtle burden of proof shifting begins, to be followed by the "not everyone believes that..."

*yawn*.

several posters have put contradictions and such up. You excuse whatever is put in front of you and get a lot of enjoyment out of pretending sky fairy myths are as respectable as peer reviewed science literature. So what's the point.

Bring your sky-daddy to the table here, bub. Have him kill me for stating here he is a pile of doody.


Just an expert at evasion. C'mon bfniii - you either believe in these stupid miracles or you don't. So stop being coy and lay it out instead of hiding behind the old "not everyone disbelieves" deceit.

You've spent ten pages with a core thesis that there was eyewitness testimony and have the hubris to demand ridiculous "prove the negative" out of others.

So your "argument" deserves zero respect.



says the "eyewitness testimony" broken record.



No, "we" aren't. You've made the assertion of eyewitness testimony for nearly ten pages without the slightest support for it.

by all means, show us the evidence.

let's see - ten pages of insisting there is eyewitness testimony as the central underpinning of your entire argument and refusing to provide evidence of that.

Alongside incessant "prove the negative" of this bald faced empty assertion.



That kind of argument style deserves contempt, yes. Most especially when it involves sky fairies.