eheffa

Hello all,

I realize that this is my first posting so I do feel obliged to introduce myself before I ask my question.

After many bouts of doubt in the past, I have recently come to the conclusion that the Jesus of the gospels is likely a fiction. I have spent most of my life as a committed and pretty vocal defender of the Christian faith but I have also felt compelled by the ideal that one must always value truth over dogma. Conveniently, the truth was always founded in the person of Jesus... But, as I approach my 50th birthday I am discovering that the apologetic arguments for the gospels' historicity and accuracy are seemingly very tenuous. I have read a lot recently & to make a long story short feel that I no longer believe that the Bible is a reliable source of wisdom or insight into the person of god or indeed even ethics. I am prepared to be proven wrong in this assessment but so far I am finding the writings of the skeptics are far more convincing than those of the apologists. Like Sam Harris or Michael Onfray, I am becoming convinced that blind faith is just that: Blind & of little intrinsic value. My sympathies are definitely leaning in the atheist direction

In making my thoughts known to my family & friends who are still believers, I am compelled by their distress to consider any evidence for the gospel veracity that they present. After telling my family that I have little use for Josh McDowell's or Lee Strobel's manipulative half-truths and fallacious arguments, I have been given a few books by NT Wright (He is new to me).

I have been reading his book "Simply Christian - Why Christianity Makes Sense (or via: amazon.co.uk)" and finding the arguments he makes to be quite uncompelling and not supported by any references or outside sources but he makes the following statement that the Gospel of Thomas was written in the second half of second century - "in other words, seventy to a hundred years after the time when the four canonical gospels were in widespread use across the early church." (p. 97)

This in a nutshell, has been a standard argument of apologists i.e. that the early church (60 - 150 CE) was intimately familiar with the canonical gospels and used them as their authoritative guide to the collective understanding of the historical Jesus (HJ). Furthermore, the early church supposedly held the gospels in high esteem as the writings of first person eyewitnesses who were martyred for there refusal to recant their stories.

Having read much of Earl Doherty, Robert M Price & Bart Ehrman as well as Richard Carrier I see a compelling refutation of this idea but I am not sure whether this is due to a desire to refuse or overlook documents which would otherwise affirm the idea that the early 1st century church was unaware of the gospels or even the HJ.

Where do authors like Wright et al get the idea that the early church used or was even aware of the gospels and the HJ? Are there any existing documents to support such a view or has this just been the stuff of wishful thinking and convenient legend?

I guess I should trust the veracity of the skeptic camp's research but can anyone here speak to this issue to help me put these questions to rest?

Thank you for reading this far.

I appreciate any constructive responses or suggestions for further reading.

-evan
(victoria, bc, canada)

judge

Well you will never get perfect evidence of the integrity of the gospels and as you can see for yourself christian apologists don't do a great job (at times anyway). But what does this have to do with atheism?

Either god exists and you are unaware of it or god does not exist. Seek the truth , and damn the consequences.

spin

Yo eheffa!

Welcome to Dogfights (or should that be Catfights?) Incorporated.

You'll find all shades of views on the questions you raise here. You'll find an attempted debate on the historicity of Jesus slowly unfolding here and a peanut gallery for the debate here.

There are people who support:

1. a historical Jesus,
2. a mythical Jesus,
3. a fictional Jesus,
4. Jesuses who sorta got dragged into tradition by various other means, and
5. no view of Jesus as there's not enough evidence.

We chew up and spit out Doherty, Price, Wells, McDowell, Strobel, and whoever else we decide to get opinionated about.

Some people doubt the existence of Nazareth. A few have even thought that christianity was a Roman hoax.

This is now probably your biggest hassle. If it weren't for the people you're attached to life would be a lot simpler. I'd hope that the best way to deal with it at least for a while if it is a new situation for them, is to put them off until they get used to the idea that this is not a whim on your part. Then, they might have to accept you as you are and deal with your ideas. But logic is never a religionist's tool.

People will believe what they want, but when asked for evidence of such ideas, naturally you'll find them nice but lacking evidence.

Historical Jesus research is usually a case of getting rid of the bits that offend you and trying to make reasonable hypotheses to explain what's left. The case almost always goes: anything else seems unreasonable. Yeah, sure.

No, don't trust anyone -- well, anyone except me, of course.

Enjoy the in-fighting.


spin

youngalexander

Very welcome to IIDB - where rational confusion reigns!
As spin has already sed, trust no one (especially not spin). However, adopt the skeptical edict

follow the evidence :devil1:

dog-on

The earliest reference to the canonical gospels, that I am aware of would be Irenaeus of Lyons after 175ad.

You can read his writings here:
Irenaeus of Lyons


Justin makes references to the "memoirs" of the apostles, but does not refer to names like Mark, Mathew, Luke and John.

Of course, one of Spin's cats (or dogs) may feel compelled to correct my assertion, but then again, that's life.

Welcome, (by the way, I am surrounded by ardent religionists in my daily life as well, I just tell them to put up, or shut up (not really in those exact words )... they just shut up and pray for my eternal soul, I guess)..

Roger Pearse

And perhaps we could have some examination of what system of beliefs and values will be adopted instead? Conformity to societal values?

dog-on

Kinda thought that was what religions have always done anyway...

reniaa

As one of the few christians on this site more by accident than anything else :S, I wonder have you joined it to confirm your new athiest viewpoints because if you have you will get plenty of that!

This is not the site to get boths sides of the arguement.

Is our blind faith so blind? The gospels do exist and outside sources have confirmed the existance of people mentioned in the new testament i.e pontious pilate and herod to name a couple. But you seem to want a book saying I read the gospels they were great?

I have at times striped my belief right back to does God even exist? but I found the alternatives equally nebulous and based on a different type of faith but still faith.

Toto

Welcome to the fray. The idea that the early church relied on the gospels has no support that I know of, other than the wishful thinking of later Christians.

They get there by deciding that the gospel of Mark was written about 70 CE. There is no good reason for this - it can't be dated before then, since it refers to the destruction of the Temple, and it seems that Christian apologists favor the earliest plausible date, and others have just gone along because they have no strong objections. They then assume that if it was written at that time, that it was based on earlier oral legends (there is no evidence for this) and that it was used by the early Christians (again no evidence, except that both the author of Luke and Matthew rewrote it).

NT Wright is otherwise known as the Bishop of Durham. He has a big fan on these boards named Stephen Carr, who is always quoting his choicer words. :devil1:

I would just like to note that "Simply Christian" is endorsed by Ann Rice of vampire fame.

Newton's Cat

Whoever started Christianity was definitely very familiar with the works of Josephus Flavius.