Lógos Sokratikós

Why do Christian apologists give it? Because they do when they can!

Is the policy to give extrabiblical evidence when they have it and when they don't, complain?

Just a quick search of "BIBLICAL + EVIDENCE" in Google will show that Christians are as interested as anybody, or perhaps even more so: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q...=f&oq=&aqi=g10

Why do Christians of several denominations devote so much time, energy and money to biblical archeology? Why not stick to just the text, however murky, full of holes (mysteries, things not said, incomplete depictions, etc) and contradictory it may be? Well, because the question for evidence is legitimate.

Self-Mutation

The evidence all this is true is the Gospels themselves. I don't know how one can read all the letters of the New Testament, the book of Acts, and the Gospels, and Paul's letters and say with a straight face "Yep, all this is fiction. Nothing happened. Nothing was going on in that first century."

Cmon, Who's foolin' who here?

And the Book of Mormon is a joke because Jesus says many will come in his name and deceive many people. How can Joseph Smith be considered anything but a deceiver? :huh:

Tom Sawyer

Well yes, things were going on.

From another point of view, think of Gone With the Wind. There are numerous other sources which confirm the social system described in the book, the various Civil War battles, the names of cities and geography, etc. None of that, however, is an indication that Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara are real people. All the things that they did never happened, despite the novel's accurate description of other things that happened while they were doing those things.

There isn't a valid reason to assume that the Jesus story is anything other than a fictional novel which takes place in a real setting.

Self-Mutation

But the persons who authored the new testament didn't say it was fiction. Otherwise, nobody would believe it and you wouldn't have chuch fathers defending the faith as early as 100 AD. Most people would be writing phrases such as "Yeah, that Christianity is such a stupid crock o' crap. Rising and dying savior give me a break."

Roger Pearse

Because what we are hearing is a subsection of a longer argument, I think. It is unfortunate that the full argument is rarely made, since frankly without it those atheists who go down this route run the risk of being considered to be arguing from convenience -- ignore this, ignore that, ignore anything inconvenient -- and this charge is indeed made and in some cases indeed justified.

I will have a go at the full argument, but of course I welcome corrections! This is what *I* think it is.

1. We want to find out what if anything happened at the start of Christian origins in the early first century.
2. We can ignore all Christian texts on the basis that they are written by Christians who are or may be biased. Only texts written by pagans or Jews can be considered unlikely to be biased towards Christianity.
3. We can ignore all non-Christian texts, if we can find any excuse to suppose Christian influence, or construct any speculation which would suggest that they are inauthentic.
4. Therefore no evidence about Christian origins exists.
5. Therefore Christian accounts of their own origins are untrue.
6. Therefore Christianity is untrue.

and in the case of the intellectually dead:

7. Therefore Jesus never existed.

I hope we can all see that every stage of the argument after #1 has some horrible fallacy in it, and that the whole argument looks very like a rationalisation of a desired conclusion.

I think that the reason why #2 and #3 alone are stated, and the rest insinuated, is firstly that the atheists who make it haven't actually got the argument clear in their minds themselves. But they make this part of it, because it sounds reasonable since everyone wants unbiased evidence, and so the demand for it (as a pretext to ignore data) sounds impressive to themselves and others while involving them in negligible effort.

As Vinnie has remarked, the way you actually do any kind of historical investigation is to gather all the evidence, and see what it says. Finding reasons to ignore bits is NOT what you do. If I wanted to know about Mani, I certainly wouldn't ignore Manichaean sources (nor, indeed, anti-Manichaean sources). On the contrary; they are liable to be very well informed.

I wonder if I may say that I have never, myself, seen why some atheists adopt this argument? Surely it is liable to discredit them? There can be no real doubt that some chap with a beard on a soapbox was going around at the time saying "I am the way," and that this kicked the whole thing off. Why? Because that's how all human movements tend to start, as all of us know.

Whether his claims about himself, and his friends claims about him, are actually true is quite a different question, of course. But that the account that the Christians give of their origins is substantially correct seems beyond question to me, since that is how such movements tend to arise. The attempts to manufacture alternatives seem rather shabby, and do atheism no favours whatever.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

jakejonesiv

The world of the NT is only the real world superficially; it is a fictional construct in which impossible things are imagined to happen routinely. In what sense can Jesus be human, who even before the alleged resurrection walks on water (Mark 6:49), reads minds, and cannot be grasped by his enemies (Luke 4:29-30)?

The very idea of a "Historical Jesus", a Jesus stripped of all divinity and pre-existence, concieved as mere man whose mission had failed, is an idea that the Church Fathers would have rebelled against with all vigor. This is a conceit of the "Quest for the Historical Jesus" movements. Are we on now on the third or fourth quest?

The Jesus of the early Christians was not conceived of as a human failure. He pre-existed in heaven in some sense. He ascended as surely as he descended. He rose as surely as he died. He was glorified as surely as he was humbled. This is the language of faith, it is the world of myth.

Whether this was deemed to have occured in the heavens or on the surface of the earth, it is a mythical construct. The world that Jesus descended to is not our world. It is an imaginary construct similar to our world, but that is dominated by spirits, and has a cosmology completely at odds with science. Fantastic events are reported as common place. It is over this framework that the alleged deeds of Gospel Jesus are accreted. We do well to doubt it and demand external confirmation.

Jake Jones IV

Loomis

Why get all hypothetical about it?

Wouldn’t it be better if we could discuss a specific issue?

Instead of talking about “talking about it” let’s actually just talk about it.

Show us an actual example of where you think “atheists” are guilty of ignoring evidence in New Testament. Let’s take a look.

After all, that’s what this forum is all about.

Right?

This forum is not about finding fault with hypothetical atheists who ignore hypothetical evidence to support a hypothetical assertion.

Right?

jakejonesiv

We are not reading history texts. The NT authors were writing religous propaganda to convert and build up the membership of their respective sects. "but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name." John 20:31.

Decypher

Well the Hebrew Bible says that there may well be false prophets who will come to test the Jews. So I guess Jesus is a joke then...

Kapyong

Gday,

Not "begging the question" at all.
I don't think you know what that phrase means.

"Atheists"?
Is everyone who disagrees with you an "atheist"?

It's not a football game SM, plenty of non-atheists ask exactly the same questions - I am not an atheist, I question the NT.


It HAS been explained over and over, at length, in detail, here and in other places.

Why don't YOU trust the Hindu scriptures?
Why don't YOU trust the Quran?
Why don't YOU trust the Greek myths about Hercules?
Hmmm?

It's the same reason.

Scientology has "writings and mentioning" anout Xenu.
So, do you believe in Xenu?
Why not?


What nonsense. No-one says that.


Sure.
And Ron Hubbard wrote about Xenu.
Greeks wrote about Hercules.
Hindus wrote about Krishna.

The Gospels were written by anonymous people who never met Jesus.
We do not have ONE authentic claim to have met a historical Jesus.

How do you explain that, SM?

NOT ONE Christian (or anyone else) ever claimed to have met Jesus personally (not counting the forged 2 Peter.)



K.