ercatli

I said "the Gospels contain history", which is a specific statement, not a generalisation. You said (my emphasis) "You give that impression every time", which is a generalisation. Your statement adds nothing to the discussion and is in error.

Well I wonder about credibility. Although I have the references, you appear to not have checked them out, but instead made comments which, unfortunately, are erroneous. The von Wahlde paper doesn't mention just the one location you refer to, but 20, and finds 16 of the 20 definitely confirm the historical accuracy of John's locations, and only two are still in doubt (p583). Von Wahlde concludes:

[The archaeology] "demonstrates the full extent of the accuracy and the detail of the Evangelist's knowledge." "J Louis Martyn spoke of the Gospel as a two-tiered document that attempted both to speak of the historical ministry of Jesus and also to address the concerns of the later community. ..... But little by little scholars are getting a clearer picture of what is historical, accurate and specific in the Gospel and what is genuinely late, anachronistic and symbolic. As a result of such studies, we are coming to see that the Gospel is indeed a mixture of early and late, but as our knowledge gains in precision, we will thereby be able to understand more clearly and more precisely exactly what is early and what is late.... The topographical references .... are entirely historical. Rather the Gospel represents a mixture of traditions some of which are quite accurate, detailed and historical, and others that are late, developed and anachronistic to the ministry. While the Gospel represents two distinct historical periods, this is not the work of a single author. .... The contribution of archaeology to the study of Johannine traditions has been invaluable ...."

That larger quote contains the smaller quote I gave before. I have not misrepresented this and you have falsely accused me.

Yep, we are agreed. But note, I said: "Can you show me an "expert" who has demonstrated a case why they cannot happen". I did not actually make any miracle claim, only a claim that you couldn't prove that they cannot happen. You have pointed out that they do not normally happen, a point that I agree with. But so far I was right - you have not demonstrated that they cannot happen. Perhaps instead of "roll eyes", you could try to provide the demonstration?? That is, if you want to be evidence based.

I have quoted leading scholars to the effect that the gospels are good historical sources by the standards of the day. That doesn't mean they are perfect, but that they are sufficient to analyse by the normal historical methods. e.g. the combination of half a dozen independent sources relatively close to the events allows them to draw some quite clear conclusions and reject others. Of course there are those who demur at this conclusion, just as there are others who think many more clear conclusions can be drawn, but what I said is somewhere in the middle of the range of opinion. And so far, you have not shown otherwise, just made a few unsubstantiated assertions.

I'll make one final point. I found this a rather nasty post to respond to, because it was very adversarial, and kept calling me names. We are both human beings, looking to know the truth. I would much rather discuss with you as a friend (like the OP said), rather than have to address what seems more like sniping than the sharing of thoughtful viewpoints. Would it be possible to change our tone do you think? I'll try. Will you?

Thanks again.

ercatli

Neil, I'm sorry I have disappointed you. I have already explained that I am answering comments from many different people, one by one, and it is difficult to keep track of them all. I also asked you some questions which you didn't answer (as far as I remember), and I thought we had agreed not to go back to either your questions or mine.

BTW, I don't see your comments here as "unfriendly", but I appreciate you making clear your "friendly manner".

I looked at those posts of yours again, and I will try to pick up a few points. But it is made difficult by your not really answering the OP in clear way, so all I have is what appear to me as random questions and comments without a context. So I will try to gather things together a bit.

I understand your agnosticism, and I have no real wish to argue against it. I asked you to suggest to me why I shouldn't believe, but the fact that you feel unable to draw conclusions from the evidence doesn't really change anything for me because the scholars (in the main) are able to draw conclusions. I don't feel your questions "hit at the very foundations of my beliefs" because I have valid answers for all of them (in my view) - in some cases I have given them, in some not.

Most of your early questions concerned historical method - how scholars know. I didn't answer these because (as I said at the time) I was sure you already knew. But since you are asking for answers, let me do a very quick summary.

1. Methods of historical study are very well established. A good summary is on Wikipedia. These methods enable historians to answer, as well as they can, questions about fraud, etc that you have raised.

2. Even before Schweitzer's "The Quest of the Historical Jesus", and certainly since, NT scholars have tried to apply these methods, as appropriate, to their work. Many books (e.g. MA Powell's "The Jesus Debate" and M Bockmuehl's "Cambridge Companion to Jesus") outline the methods used, the set of criteria and principles which they consider most appropriate for their study.

3. Using these methods, the scholars conclude that Jesus existed and that we can know certain things about him - the lists vary, but they have some basic things in common. Thus, as much as we can "know" any history, we can know some things about Jesus.

4. That provides a common historical basis for us all, from which we can all draw conclusions if we wish. Some go no further than that bare historical minimum; some go a little further but still don't believe in Jesus; others, such as myself, go quite a bit further and believe in Jesus as well as accepting the historical evidence about him. This is a matter of judgment, and we all make it, one way or another.

So that's it in a nutshell. It's pretty standard and pretty basic. Is that enough of an answer for you?

No, I have no idea what would happen if I found reason to change my beliefs. But what I can say here is that no-one has come even close to providing an argument that could do that. Few seem to have really tried to do it. I was not specific about what line of "attack" people might take, and people have chosen to concentrate on the historical Jesus, not philosophy or experience or anything else, and most have given what amounts to only mild verbal abuse, suppositions and assertions. I don't think anyone has put down a clear argument in simple propositions. So I feel even more confident than I did before that the historical Jesus is not going to be an issue that causes me problems.

And what about you. Could you cope with accepting the consensus of scholars that Jesus did indeed exist and we can know some clear things about him?

I hope I have gone a bit of the way to answering your comments. Perhaps you could address the OP now and summarise why you think I shouldn't believe rathe rather than offer only partial and indirect arguments?

Thanks.

ercatli

G'day GG, that's a pretty good summary. And that is pretty much how it is with my belief in Jesus, except of course that the judgment is not quite so obvious.

Why cannot it be both faith-based and rational? That's how I see it.

My belief is that the human Jesus told the truth, not very different from believing that the human girl represented herself honestly. So rationally, I believe what he said and did and what they tell us about him being special.

"Just" is a little word but a big concept. How can it be "just" (i.e. no more than) a leap if it is based on history and reason?

Historians use the "historical method" to draw conclusions that are as valid as they can make them. They have drawn conclusions, recognising all the difficulties, and they are generally quite conservative. You haven't given me any reason to doubt they know their work.

When the consensus of scientists concludes the evidence points to evolution by natural selection, we accept what they say, even though there are a few scientists who disagree. When the consensus of scientists says the data point to human induced global warming being a threat, most of us accept what they say, even though a few scientists remain sceptics. When the consensus of historians tells us their conclusions on dating and use of megalithic monuments in Britain, we generally accept their expertise and their conclusions, even though some may be modified in the future. So when the consensus of scholars tell us about the historical Jesus, why wouldn't we similarly accept their lowest common denominator conclusions, even though there are some sceptics? I can think of only one reason why we wouldn't. But regardless, I will do the same for Jesus as I do for evolution, climate change and West Kennet Long Barrow. That seems consistent to me, whereas the view you are expressing looks inconsistent.

Yes, but I have just gone further :huh: - it is hard to stop. I'll leave it up to you.

Thanks and best wishes.

bacht

Have the laws of physics changed in the last two or three thousand years? Have the patterns of organic development and decay changed?

Supernaturalism by definition is above or beyond or a violation of naturalism, the observable properties and behaviour of matter and energy. There's no reason to believe that these patterns have changed within the span of written history. There could be other dimensions, universes etc that follow other natural laws, but they aren't supernatural within themselves.

There's no magic, no miracles, no immortal soul imo. Everything that lives eventually dies, from microbes up to dinosaurs. You could call this a statement of "faith" but this is incorrect, it's a summary of critical observation from scientists and plain common sense.

What is there to learn from metaphysics or the paranormal? Why waste time grasping at ghosts and angels? Why not simply acknowledge the tremendous imagination we possess, and the universal fear of suffering and death?

btw Kohelet agrees with me: once you die that's it, game over, no overtime.

aa5874

So, you have now admitted that you believe that Jesus was conceived through the Holy Ghost of God and the Virgin Mary, the Word who was God, and was with God, that walked on water, transfigured, resurrected and ascended through the clouds.

It would appear that your belief does not require any historians OR experts at all. You may have been using experts and historians as smoke-screens. Your belief is simply FAITH-BASED or that Jesus will REWARD you with ETERNAL life in HEAVEN when you die.

Amaleq13

So far, we have one piece of archaeological evidence supporting an early source for one specific reference and an unsupported assertion that others exist. It continues to be misleading that this should be used to say anything substantive about the entire text.

You generalize every time you go from the specific evidence of accuracy to the conclusion that the Gospels are generally reliable for history. You've done this throughout the discussion starting with the OP:
That you accept the NT as generally reliable is certainly implied by your statement above. That you include within that general reliability, "most of the main teaching about Jesus" is also certainly implied. The evidence of the 7 pools neither establishes nor supports the general reliability of the NT just as it neither establishes nor supports "most of the main teaching about Jesus". The evidence that the authors of John accurately described 20 locations neither establishes nor supports the general reliability of the NT just as it neither establishes nor supports "most of the main teaching about Jesus".

You are most certainly engaging in the logical fallacy of hasty generalization and you have done so since your OP.

How many of those 16 indicate an early source as with the 7 pools?
That aside, it wouldn't matter if every single location mentioned in the texts could be confirmed as accurate. It is still a logically fallacious hasty generalization to extend that accuracy to any other portion of the text. Surely you understand that establishing there really is a Jerusalem says nothing about whether a story depicted in Jerusalem actually happened. Establishing that there really were 7 pools in Bethesda only allows one to conclude that one of the authors had a source informing them of this fact. It tells us nothing about the historical accuracy of any narrative involving that fact. To think otherwise is, as I've pointed out, to engage in a logical fallacy. That scholars might engage in such a fallacy should not be surprising as it is typically included in any list of common logical errors.

And I have pointed out that this is not necessary in order to quite rationally reject any such claim. The burden rests with anyone making such an extraordinary claim to support it with significant evidence. The absence of such evidence is sufficient, in and of itself, to reject the claim.

Yes and I have pointed out that they appear to be engaging in the same fallacy. At some point, you are going to have to do the work of bringing the specific evidence to the discussion so that we might examine what, exactly, that evidence will support. Hand-waving and empty generalizations just aren't going to cut it.

Your scholars claim there are "half a dozen independent sources relatively close to the events"? You need to read more scholars. That the earliest Gospel was written approximately 40 years after the events described is a speculative possibility. Matthew and Luke are nearly unanimously recognized by scholars as dependent upon Mark. Many scholars have argued that John has such a dependence as well. Many scholars have also argued for Markan dependence on or influence from Paul's letters.

What are these "half a dozen independent sources relatively close to the events"?

Where have you been called a name? Your argument has been critiqued and found wanting. Save the martyr act for someone more credulous. You either know more than you suggest by your posts (ie disingenuous) or you are simply taking what you've been told certain scholars claim without actually checking the veracity of the claims, yourself.

Steven Carr

Of course, it does not imply an early source at all.

The idea seems to be that if somebody mentions something that was destroyed, then he had to be writing before it was destroyed.

But he could easily have written after the destruction, relying on knowledge or sources that had survived the destruction.

But I can already hear Erclati scoffing at the idea that a pre 70AD source managed to survive for later people to read. Those people had no pre 70 AD sources to use, he will doubtless say.

Steven Carr

'The evidence that the authors of John accurately described 20 locations ....'

So where was Arimathea? Erclati is bluffing, but we can all see that he only has a hand with a 10 high.

Doug Shaver

How do you know that?

It's a serious question. Exactly what is your evidence that the author (a) knew that the events never really happened and (b) did not expect any of her readers to believe the events had really happened?

show_no_mercy

I thought I would just make one grand post outlining why the gospel narratives are not historically reliable.

1. None of the gospels were written by eyewitnesses (they were written in third person). This is the conclusion of a vast majority of NT scholars. The earliest witness to gospels with names attached to them comes from Irenaeus c. 175 CE. The earliest witness to any gospel narrative period is Marcion c. 135. No one prior to Irenaeus says "the gospel according to Matthew" or any other such similar phrase.

Even if they were written by eyewitnesses, eyewitness testimony is dishearteningly unreliable.

2. Matthew and Luke are not independent accounts. They are reimaged versions of Mark, since the authors did not like Mark's low (adoptionist/separatist) Christology. Why would an eyewitness (supposedly Matthew) copy almost verbatim huge swaths of a non-eyewitness (Mark) in his gospel? (for Luke, "Theophilus" was also the name of a Christian in the late 2nd century who appears to not know about the Jesus story - so it makes sense that it would be addressed to him [Theophilus, to Autolycus]).

3. Mark has John the Baptist doing baptisms specifically for the cleansing of sin. Josephus has John the Baptist specifically not doing baptisms to cleanse someone of sin, "but for the purification of the body; supposing still that the soul was thoroughly purified beforehand by righteousness" (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 18.5.2).

4. Mark has Jesus being insanely popular, drawing insane crowds everywhere he goes and renowned all throughout Galilee and Judea. Jesus' popularity of this magnitude is not corroborated by any other contemporary Jewish writer (Photius, Bibliotheca 33). Jesus' popularity seems to be a plot device.

5. Mark has Jesus being stalked by the Pharisees everywhere he goes, implying that the Pharisees were the ruling class of Jews prior to 70 CE. The ruling class of Jews during Jesus' lifetime were the Sadducees, the Pharisees didn't gain power until the fall of the temple. Meaning that this is a post-70 conflict between Christians and Jews projected into the past.

6. Mark has Jesus go to Gerasa to evict the demon "Legion" from someone and into a herd of pigs, where they stampede into the sea. Gerasa is about 30 miles from the Sea of Galilee so it would have taken over an hour for them to run that far.

7. Mark says that the Pharisees and "all the Jews" had to wash their hands before eating. This only applied to priests.

8. Mark has Jesus clear out the temple of the money changers and singlehandedly preventing anyone from bringing any merchandise through the temple court. The temple wasn't just some run of the mill temple, it was also a military fortress. There's no way he would have been able to do this singlehandedly without being immediately arrested (or without a lot help, which would have looked like an insurrection).

9. Mark has Jesus call Daniel a prophet. Daniel is not a prophet according to Judaism, as he wrote (c. 165 BCE) after the time period that prophecy had ended.

10. Mark has the Sanhedrin giving Jesus a trial on a Friday night, during Passover. Trials could only be held on Mondays or Thursdays, not at night, and definitely not on high holy days like Passover. Mark also has the Sanhedrin convicting Jesus for claiming to be the messiah. Claiming to be the messiah is in no way blasphemy.

11. Mark has Pilate give Jesus a fair trial. Pilate was actually known for executing troublemakers without trial, as he was impatient and hot-headed (Philo, Embassy of Gaius 38.301-303). Not only that, but Pilate presumably gave Barabbas a fair trial as well. Pilate then releases one prisoner because it was a Jewish holiday. Pilate actually had no respect for Jewish customs and almost started a rebellion due to his disrespect. Mark then has Pilate being afraid of the Jewish mob (who for some reason have done a complete 180 in how they view Jesus), when in actuality Pilate had no qualms about assassinating a mob of complaining Jews (Josephus, Antiquities... 18.3.2). Pilate was eventually recalled back to Rome for massacring a bunch of unarmed Samaritans who were following a messiah claimant on Mt. Gerizim.

12. Barabbas is Aramaic for "son of the father". It just so happens that Jesus -- the supposedly real son of the father -- meets his polar opposite and his opposite is released, which seems to mimic the scapegoat ceremony of Leviticus 16, where one goat is released and the other goat is sacrificed for sin (some manuscripts of Matthew actually have Barabbas' given name as "Jesus").

13. The entire crucifixion scene quotes numerous times from Psalm 22. The Psalms are not prophetic, thus these lines must have been purposefully lifted from that Psalm.

14. All four canonical gospels have emphatically conflicting Easter narratives; consider the Easter Challenge. There's also no tradition of any "empty tomb" prior to Mark's gospel. And most common tombs did not have circular stones in front of them that could be "rolled away" (16:3) prior to 70 CE.

15. For some reason all throughout Mark, only demons, the reader, and people who are not named know that Jesus is the messiah. Everyone who is "known" doesn't know. This makese sense as literature or entertainment, not history.

16. John, who according to tradition, was the son of Zebedee and apostle, was a fisherman. Fishermen in antiquity weren't widely known for their literacy. John calls Jesus "the Word":
Oh wait, that's not from John's gospel... that's from Philo's "Who is the Heir of Divine Things". How could an illiterate Aramaic speaking fisherman from the first century read Philo's work (in Greek, not Aramaic), and say that Jesus was Philo's "Logos", who Philo himself reappropriated from the Stoics?

17. John has Christians being kicked out of synagoges during Jesus' lifetime. This doesn't actually happen until after the council of Jamnia c. 90 CE.

18. John has Jesus being seen as "the messiah" for a group of Samaritans on Mt. Gerizim. The Samaritans reject Davidic authority and thus would not have seen a Jew as their messiah (Jews destroyed their temple on Mt. Gerizim c. 110 BCE).

19. John has Jesus philosophizing about his own awesomeness in long winded discourses throughout this gospel, which is contrary to the shorter speeches in the synoptics. There's no way anyone who was a witness to any historical Jesus c. 33 would have remembered these long speeches for nearly 70 years. Thus they must be an invention of the author.

20. John has Jesus claim to be god himself, and the only way towards salvation. This would have gotten Jesus arrested and stoned immediately for claiming equality with YHWH. The Jews almost went to war with Rome c. 41 because Caligula declared himself a god in the flesh and wanted a statue of himself erected in the temple. And Jesus claiming that he's the only way towards salvation would have been nonsense to Jews while the sacrificial system was still functioning.

21. John has Jesus say "your law" when refering to the laws of Moses as though he's not Jewish.

All in all, the gospels read like entertainment or theology, not history. I would like to know what methodology ercatli uses to determine which parts of the gospels are history and which ones aren't, since he admits that the gospels aren't 100% history.