Minimalist

Anything that plants a seed of doubt in the minds of people who are spoon-fed this nonsense from birth is a good thing.

That seed has to grow on its own, however.

brettpalmer

I certainly hope so! I just recently posted an article having to do with the New Testament's story of the "Greatest Commandment." I tried hard not to just point out the problem I was describing, but also tried to provide enough evidence to keep critics from merely dismissing it as another "atheist rambling." Not sure if I pulled it off, but that was the intention.

I agree with others here that merely creating a list of Bible discrepancies or contradictions doesn't do any good. You have to anticipate the believer's knee-jerk reaction to the problem you are presenting and then try to answer it giving them nothing to immediately fall back on. If they're going to ignore the problem, at least make them uncomfortable about it!

andrewcriddle

Without going into the details of your article, if there was an original incident of Jesus and a scribe discussing the Greatest Commandment then this discussion occurred in Aramaic and/or Hebrew not Greek.

Hence the Gospel writers having problems translating a Semitic language into Greek is not evidence against authenticity.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

What is evidence for authenticity regarding any particular thing that Jesus said in the Gospels? What is evidence for any particular miracle that Jesus performed? I used the word "particular" because I think that you understand the difficulty in claiming that there is reasonable evidence that Jesus said and did everything that the Gospels say that he said and did.

andrewcriddle

The evidence is the narratives critically examined using criteria such as multiple attestation.

If you mean what is sufficient evidence, then this seems to depend on one's level of prior skepticism.

If one starts off with a strong prejudice against the Gospels as historical sources then one will probably find that little or nothing in the Gospels is sufficient evidence to establish what Jesus said or did. If one starts off from other positions then one's conclusions will differ.


Andrew Criddle

Tommy

The conflicts in the NT are obvious and profound. The two datings of the central prophet's birth vary by 10 or more years. Early versions of one of the gospels neglect to mention any resurrection.

The NT describes such remarkable public events as the massacre of the infants, the dead walking around Jersualem and a resurrcted man appearing to 5000 yet no independent contemporary corroborates any of them.

If one treats the NT like any other historical source then it is impossible not to conclude that key elements of the scheme are fictional.

Johnny Skeptic

Multiple attestation or self-interest? I assume that self-interest is the correct answer. Even if there were ten Gospels instead of four Gospels, if they all said that Jesus said that God will send everyone to hell, surely very few people would be promoting the Bible, most people would hope that it is wrong, and many if not most people who became Christians would be using many arguments against the Bible that skeptics use today. On the other hand, even if there were only two Gospels, there would still be a lot of Christians in the world today.

Aside from the issue of self-interest, the quality of multiple attestations obviously depends upon 1) whether or not the attestations are independent, 2) what sources the attestors used, and 3) how many years after the supposed facts the attestations were written. What are your opinions about those issues?

Since I was raised as a fundamentalist Christian, and was a fundamentalist Christian for over 30 years, and considered skepticism to be ridiculous, my prior skepticism was towards skepticism. The same goes for millions of other former Christians.

This forum is primarily dedicated to biblical scholarship, but from a Christian perspective, there must be something more to it than just scholarship since non-Christian Bible scholars like Elaine Pagels and Bart Ehrman know the Bible much better than 99% of the people in the world do. Ehrman used to be a Christian. If there is more to it than just scholarship, what is it?

I cannot believe that all non-Christian Bible scholars who have died did not honestly search for the truth, and that a loving God would deny entry into heaven to anyone who honestly searches for the truth.

Apparently, secular factors (chance and circumstance) such as geography, family, gender (women tend to accept theism more than men do), age (elderly people tend to give up religion less than younger people do), and the century that a person is born in are major factors regarding why people believe what they believe, not an honest search for the truth. Chance and circumstance do not make a good case for the Bible.

jab

more accurate answer: yep, it does some good

1. induction: it was a major part of my losing the fundamentalist faith in which I was raised.

2. deduction: knowing truth is generally a good thing in and of itself, and making therfore making truth available to ignorance is generally a good thing (though forcing it upon ignorance may not often be a good thing).
it is true that there are internal contradictions and other errors in the Bible; that is a likely good thing to know, and therefore likely a good thing to make available to ignorance (though forcing it upon ignorance may very well not be a good thing).

kennyc

What errors?

:Cheeky:

aa5874

But, in Christian societies the majority of the population are normally taught about Jesus as if he did actually exist as the Son of God, so most people in those Christian societies START off with the strong PREJUDICE for belief in Jesus.

Now, it is multiple attested that Jesus was raised from the dead by almost all of the NT authors.

Regardless of PREJUDICE the resurrection was most likely False.

It was multiple attested that Jesus walked on the sea during a sea-storm.

Regardless of prejudice, this event was likely to be false.

It was multiple attested that Jesus did transfigure.

Regardless of prejudice, the transfiguration was likely to be false.

So, a pattern has emerged. Events that COULD NOT HAVE happened are multiple-attested in the Canon even WITH eyewitnesses.

Surely these witnesses who saw Jesus resurrect ,transfigure walked on water are false witnesses.