Johnny Skeptic

I cut and pasted what you said to a thread at http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...63#post6394663 that is titled "The disciples' postmortem experiences" and replied to what you said in my post #13.

Johnny Skeptic

But was Peter writing for himself, or was someone else writing for him using his name? If the latter was the case, perhaps the writings were intended to be literary fiction, or were innocent but inaccurate revelations.

Regarding the writers of all other religious books, do you have any grounds for thinking that all of them claimed to have witnessed things that they knew they had not witnessed? If not, how do you evaluate who saw what, and who wrote about what?

andrewcriddle

I thought we were discussing the possibility that Mark actually listened to Peter's preaching, not the status of works purporting to be written by Peter.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

If Mark listened to Peter's preaching, what did he hear Peter preach that he (Mark) wrote about? We don't know. We only know that someone posing as Peter wrote certain Scriptures. Actually, the same goes for Mark since we do not know who the author of Mark was.

The issue that I am the most interested in is where Mark and his sources got their information from regarding Jesus' post-resurrection appearances. If Jesus did not make any post-resurrection appearances, especially in group settings, it doesn't matter very much whether or not Mark heard Peter preach.

Who besides Peter, and possibly John, claimed firsthand that they saw Jesus after he rose from the dead?

Johnny Skeptic

But that does not matter very much since the first century Christian church was very small. Is was not very difficult to convince a few ancient people that all kinds of outlandish things were true. Even today, many people believe that men have not landed on the moon, and some people believe that the earth is flat.

According to Rodney Stark in "The Rise of Christianity," there were only approximately 7,530 Christians in the entire world in 100 A.D. In the article "The Impossible Faith," Christian apologist James Holding quotes well-known Christian Bible scholar N.T. Wright as saying "This subversive belief in Jesus' Lordship, over against that of Caesar, was held in the teeth of the fact that Caesar had demonstrated his superior power in the obvious way, by having Jesus crucified. But the truly extraordinary thing is that this belief was held by a tiny group who, for the first two or three generations at least, could hardly have mounted a riot in a village, let alone a revolution in an empire."

If Jesus did not perform miracles, and did not rise from the dead, it is not surprising that the first century Christian church was so small since most local people would have immediately discredited claims that Jesus performed miracles.

andrewcriddle

Since the original text of Mark does not describe post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, the question of Mark's source for such appearances doesn't really arise.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

Ok, then I request that we have some discussions in a thread at http://freeratio.org/showthread.php?...06#post6396306 that it titled "The disciples' post-mortem experiences." In that thread, please provide whatever evidence you have regarding where Matthew got his evidence from regarding the disciples' post-mortem experiences.