Originally Posted by John Kesler

My best guess is that Peter had a vision of the "risen" Jesus, told other apostles, and soon the idea that Jesus had risen from the dead snowballed. In Luke's account of the resurrection (chapter 24), there is no appearance to women at the tomb. Instead, the first appearance may have been to Peter, because when Cleopas and his companion on the Emmaus road report that they saw Jesus, they are told that, "The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon" (v:34). This tradition that Simon/Cephas/Peter first saw Jesus is contained in 1 Corinthians 15:5 which says that Jesus, "appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve," again with no resurrection appearances at the tomb mentioned (contra Matthew and John).

Originally Posted by Pervy

Mythical Jesus proponents don't say that Jesus didn't exist because Santa Claus doesn't exist. They merely use Santa Claus as an example. In my opinion, a better example would be King Arthur - someone whom most people simply assume to be historical but whom on closer inspection isn't (at least in the popularly recognisable form).



Until Newton, Aristotlean physics were presented as truth by reputable people in both secular and sacred historical writings. We now know that they aren't true.

Until Einstein, Newtonian physics were presented as truth by reputable people in both secular and sacred historical writings. We now know that they aren't true either.

Just because everyone assumes something is true, doesn't make it true.



Which 'reputable witnesses'? All we have are anonymous writings of people who never actually claim in those writings that they are eyewitnesses - and which were written anything up to 100 years after the alleged events.

Besides, your "99.5% textually pure" figure - apart from being laughably false, as demonstrated by looking at the differences between different translations in use today - would only demonstrate that today's stories are the same as the stories from about 1800 years ago, and give no indication whether or not those original stories were true.



The gospels appear to have been written to give a pseudo-biographical account formed out of midrash to an existing mythical character.

The intention of the writers appears from the text to be literary in character, rather than historical.



So do the stories about Sherlock Holmes. After all, I have visited Baker Street in London, and seen it for myself. Similarly, there are lots of historical references outside of the Sherlock Holmes stories about a certain "Queeen Victoria" of England who was apparently alive at the time. The stories are also uncannily accurate in their portrayal of the historical, cultural, religious and political context of late 19th century Britain.

As you can see, such incidental details give no indication of the truth of a story.

Besides, the Gospels are full of historical and cultural mistakes.



So if the fact that we have no evidence that reindeer can fly adds to the irrationality of the Santa Claus story, why does the fact that we have no evidence that people can walk on water or rise from the dead after three days not equally add to the irrationality of the Jesus story?



The Gospels were not written by people who "knew Jesus personally". They were written by unknown authors about a century after the alleged events took place. Please provide some kind of evidence to back up your claim that you know who the authors were.



Which makes it telling that the Bible admonishes Christians to "believe like a child" rather than "think like an adult"...

Anyway, neither of them can be reasonably supported to exist.



For a Christian to accept Jesus's existence based on the Bible demonstrates the inability for the Christian to destinguish between historical verifiable documents and known constructed statements of religious belief.

Neither Jesus nor Santa are actual historical figures.



Please give us some of these sources - any of them. There are no reliable sources that prove this.



There is much more historical evidence of Genghis Kahn's existence than of Jesus's. As for Socrates - he may be historical or he may not be. Thankfully, I don't have people trying to run my life for me or run my country for me based on their assumptions that he was historical.



That site is a joke. It presents documents that are known to be pseudoepigraphical propaganda and presents them as if they were solid historical records.



Okay, let's look at it in detail...



Since no other writer writing anywhere else in the world at that time mentions this darkness, why should we believe that there was a darkness that covered the Earth? Don't you think that at least someone would have recorded it?



So, Thallus wrote about an eclipse, and Julius Africanus writes 150 years later that - contrary to what Thallus writes - the "darkness that covered the whole world" can't have been an eclipse.

In other words, Thallus is talking about an eclipse visible from Samaria. He is not talking about a darkness covering the whole world - and Julius demonstrates that Thallus's eclipse cannot be the Biblical darkness.

This leaves us with precisely zero records of a darkness covering the whole world.



Yes. We know that there was a localised eclipse in the area around this time. However, we have zero evidence of a global darkness. That Phlegon records the local eclipse is completely irrelevant.



Nope. It only records that Julius Africanus believed in 220CE that darkness had covered the Earth 190 years previously - despite the fact that there are no contemporary records of it - and that he believes it was not the eclipse that Thallus recorded.



Nope. Since we have no record of darkness, there is no need for a cause.



Nope. Julius simply assumes that a darkness happened when the author of the Gospel of Matthew says it did. For sources to agree, you need more than one of them...



Nope. What it means is that there is absolutely no evidence to support Matthew's claim that the entire world was plunged into darkness for a couple of hours.



Yet strangely, no-one else who was alive from 30-35CE mentions an unexpected worldwide 2-hour darkness - almost as if it never happened. Spooky, that.



We have already established that there could not have been an eclipse at that time.



No. You don't appear to understand your sources. This is Julius Africanus's statement, not Thallus's.



Agreed. There was no eclipse or any other darkness. The author of the Gospel of Matthew made it up.



Agreed. This is basic astronomy.



Agreed. There was no eclipse or any other darkness. The author of the Gospel of Matthew made it up.



No. It means that either a supernatural darkness occured over the Earth or no darkness occured over the Earth. Given that no-one else anywhere on the planet recorded a supernatural darkness, then any rational person would go for the second of those possibilities.



Only according to one person who wrote a midrashic pseudo-biography nearly 100 years after the alleged event. No-one who was alive at the time recorded it - they only recorded a normal and mundane eclipse, which we have already eliminated as a candidate for the alleged darkness.



Nope. No evidence of darkness, no evidence of a universal response, no evidence of a creator, no evidence of a death.



Nope. the eclipse happened. From a scientific point of view we can see that it was a perfectly natural occurance. We can also see that it was at the wrong time of the lunar month to be the darkness that the Gospel talks about, only local, and too short in duration (the eclipse lasted 10 mins, the alleged darkness lasted 2 hours) to be the alleged incident that the author of the Gospel of Matthew refers to.



Except that you still haven't provided even a scrap of evidence that Christ even existed - never mind died and got resurrection.



There wasn't one - unless you include the naturalistic theory that it never happened and the story was written later.



Now that, at least, is something we can agree on.



You know, I'd like someone to build an ark to the dimensions listed in Genesis and sail it on the ocean for half a year and prove it's a valid theory if they really believe that it is.



Rubbish. Firstly, there is no evidence that the disciples were all martyred outside the myths of the Catholic church. Secondly, if you believe that people would not die for a lie then I assume you fully support Islam because it's adherants wouldn't die for a lie either.



No it wasn't. By Strobel's own admission he was an alcoholic who was converted because of the emotional support that he got from his Christian wife. His stories about an academic search for the "truth" behind the Bible are merely apologetic propaganda.

Originally Posted by hughmcjr

All that you really have done in this long winded response to overcomer is basically say the opposite or contradict without one shred of proof. You have not offered a rational argument, but simply offered contradiction which invalidates everything you have posted.

Originally Posted by hughmcjr

All that you really have done in this long winded response to overcomer is basically say the opposite or contradict without one shred of proof.

Originally Posted by Pervy

Far from being "long winded", my post was failry minimalist - with only a sentence or two summarising each problem with Overcomer's post. Even so, it still took me over 1,300 words and an hour of my time to point out what was wrong with Overcomer's 30 seconds worth of copying and pasting someone elses work.

Had I included supporting arguments, evidence and further proof for every one of my statements it would have required something on the order of a small book.

However, I can back up everything I said - so pick any one of my statements and ask me to elaborate on it, and I will. In detail.



Whereas you have dismissed my entire post with a couple of one-liners.

Address some of the things I said - any of them - and I will defend them vigorously. If you are unwilling or unable to address the things I said then I'm afraid that your hand-waving dismissal of them counts for nothing.

Originally Posted by hughmcjr

Yes, I have dismissed it your entire post as that is my point, as it is simple errroneous contradiction. Really , truly that is all you have done, just as I am doing now with you, but you can't or don't want to see it. If my hand waving counts for nothing it is simply in response to what appears to be empty contradictions. It is blatantly apparent that you took word for word what he said and again just said the opposite almost like you were doing just that, playing devil's advocate, saying the opposite just for it's own sake and nothing more.