aChristian

We have the writings of Polycarp, John's disciple, Clement of Rome, and Papias who probably also knew John. There are more, just read the church fathers. They knew the people who lived then, some of whom like John were eyewitnesses and many of whom knew the eyewitnesses.

You are misunderstanding my point. What I have found when reading the arguements on this forum is the people claim great knowledge about the historical events, down to great detail when they claim to have found a mistake in the gospel accounts. Reasonable explanations have been given that explain all the known facts and remove the contradiction. In response the typical member here claims intimate knowledge of all the details of the history being disputed and claims to be so sure of their own historical infallibility that the otherwise reasonable explanation cannot possibly be true. This is in spite of the fact that excellent historians have agreed that the explanation is valid. Then when a claim is made for the traditional history that has many witnesses, they claim we know nothing about the times. An example is Quirinius. I have heard the people claim Quirinius could not have possibly had any political influence during the time of the census, as if they have Quirinius' diary. I see these responses as unreasonable, blinded by their desire of what they want the history to be.

After you have established the historicity of the rest of the gospel record, namely the resurrection, it logically follows that God revealed the words that no one else could know. The NT claims to be of divine origin.

You are missing the obvious.

The names I listed are good enough although there are others. As I said above, the people I listed knew the eyewitnesses. The eyewitnesses obviously vouched for the historical accuracy of the gospels (which contain eyewitness testimony) and they were in a position to know. They also knew people who knew the eyewitnesses.

You make a common mistake, that ancient people were stupid and modern people are smart. It really boils down more to honesty and wisdom. Pride goeth before a fall.

I've already answered this above. Divine revelation is one of the possible explanations. Fiction is another. The evidence favors divine revelation.

There were unbelievers and false prophets during the apostles' time. They just didn't have any credibility with the church which had the apostles eyewitness evidence and confirmation by miracles.

The resurrection of Jesus supported by eyewitness testimony, prophecy, miracles, etc.

Not sure, I have read several conjectures. The Q theory as a basis for the gospels doesn't seem to fit the facts. The church fathers seem to indicate that each wrote independently, although they knew each other and all were present at the events they are writing about so some overlap is expected.

Read my comment above.

I've read the gospels many times and I haven't seen an attack yet.

Try Institute for Creation Research for the flood and any good conservative commentary or introduction for the exodus. I have read Archer's OT intro and it is pretty good.

This is humorous coming from someone who believes in form criticism.

Look it up on some conservative websites or some conservative books. You can find them if you really want to know.

You seem to think that there are huge differences between the editions. There are not. I've read estimates by textual scholars that we know 99.9% of the text accurately. That's pretty accurate. Most of the differences are minor variations such as word order, which is especially unimportant in Greek.

No. After you have established the resurrection and from that the diety of Jesus, and from that the reliability of what he told his followers, and from that the entire Bible, you can use passages in the Bible to shed light on inspiration and how it happened. If you read Peter's letter you will see that he knew Paul's writings were divinely inspired, on par with the OT. This is how divine inspiration has always worked, Daniel knew Jeremiah was God's word and realized the seventy years of captivity were almost over.

I think I am open-minded. I just think the evidence is overwhelmingly in favor of Christianity. And yes, you are probably right, sadly many who call themselves Christians do not fulfill the Biblical requirements and that is what counts.
That was a long post!

aChristian

Read my comments in an earlier post. Once you have established the resurrection, you can deduce the truth of Christianity and then use God's revelation (the Bible) to learn about how it came to be. As I noted above, in the scripture we have examples showing God's people immediately recognized what was inspired scripture (Peter on Paul, Daniel on Jeremiah). Just because Christians argued about it later does not mean that God did not keep them on track. They ended up affirming what the early church already knew. Doctrinal disputes were the same. Many Christians held to false doctrines in church history, but you can see how God led the church to the correct conclusions in agreement with this written word.

No. 2 Peter is divinely inspired.

No.

Yes

No.

Yes

No

I don't have an earlier list, but you can find much scripture quoted in Clement, Ignatius, and other early writers. They also distinguish between their own writings and scripture, assigning a high view to the scriptures.

Don't have to, the history backs me up. However, as I said above, after you have established the resurrection through studying the history, you can get from there to the truth of the NT and from there learn about how inspiration works.

Amaleq13

Please do not allow a tangent on "The Flood" to develop. Discussion of that subject belongs in E/C.

Thanks,

Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

aChristian

I skimmed through the article and found several points that were weak in my opinion. From the evidence I have examined, the sedimentary rocks are from the flood and the common interpretation by most geologists has big holes in it. Go to ICR for more info. The evidence is clear to the honest inquirer.

aChristian

Agreed. We are already veering pretty far off from Dinner with a fundamentalist. As long as the moderator allows it I guess we can continue discussing the topics we have brought up. At least they are related to Biblical History and Criticism.

Godless Wonder

Ok, new thread over here The Flood. Again.

Jack the Bodiless

...What "first census"?

History confirms that Quirinius became governor of Syria in 6 AD, and history confirms that the "great census" was ALSO in 6 AD.
Travellers need to return HOME, yes. Even nowadays, if I was on holiday in Scotland during an election, I could not vote there. But there was no requirement to return to your BIRTHPLACE.
We have no testimony from eyewitnesses.
We have no testimony from people who "knew Jesus and witnessed his miracle and resurrection". And the gnostics didn't consider the others to be "Christians" either. Christians have been accusing rival Christians of being "not true Christians" for two thousand years.
...Except that he didn't, of course. You then go on to arbitrarily reject many of the books accepted by the largest Christian denomination of all, the Roman Catholic Church. You have also arbitrarily rejected books accepted as true by many of the same "Church fathers" who were eyewitnesses (oops, er, knew someone who had a cousin who spoke to a man in a bar who claimed to have overheard someone who claimed to have a grandfather who saw Jesus).

Antlerman

Greetings. This is my first post here.

I'm curious from the above statement if you could show where Paul actually "said" the resurrection was a "historical fact", in those words as you just stated? There are those who see Paul's view of the resurrection as taking place solely within the transcendent eternal realm. Not to argue that specific point of view here, but your statement that says Paul calls the resurrection a "historical fact" is something that is not there in that clear of a form as you just stated. In may be possible to infer he was thinking that way, but that subject is debatable because it is not nearly as explicit as you just stated.

If you are going to hang the validity of Bible history via the agency of divine inspiration, and seek to establish that inspiration on the “historical fact� of the resurrection, I think you may find that foundation less then rock solid.

Also, I would like to ask if you feel that all people who refer to mythologies in historical contexts always believed it was actual history, like saying "when Poseidon got angry at Ulysses over the blinding of his son Polyphemus?" Is it not in the least possible that some of the earliest Christians likewise, being of non-Jewish tradition understood them as legends to tell a greater tale, or those that wrote of Jesus used myth as a vehicle to tell about the hero of their faith? This is not an uncommon thing historically as far as I know.

Amaleq13

Just to clarify, Luke's requirement is even more ridiculous than a return to one's birthplace. According to his story, Joseph was required to journey to the hometown of his ancient ancestor where he clearly did not own any property because he had to look for someplace to stay. The examples aChristian offers continue to be popular with some apologists despite the fact that they clearly do not support Luke's census. Requiring Joseph to return to his own home would be consistent with that evidence but that is not the requirement Luke's author describes. That require is impractical and unrealistic to the point of idiocy in addition to being contrary to the very evidence offered.

Bogie

Like me, for example...:thumbs: ...but not for those reasons. My reason: to help people find a bridge out of the superstitious mindset.