Mageth

OK, what "non-miraculous" reasons are there for becoming a Chrisitian? Isn't the very essence of Christianity the miraculous claims of Jesus' death and resurrection, the claims of Jesus as the Christ, and as the Son of God, sent to die for the sins of the world? Do you think one can become a Christian without accepting some form of that "miraclulous claim"?

bfniii

you might want to check this out:
http://archives.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/...lood.finds.ap/

i asked why the Bible is considered to be untrustworthy because it records miraculous events. people trust other sources of information that record miraculous events.

i disagree with that conclusion. we have little to no other historical records from that time. however, there is a proponderance of Biblical records. if the Bible were unreliable, it wouldn't have been worth preserving by peoples of the time when it was written or shortly thereafter. also, there would be evidence of refutation in non-biblical works.

several claims of mormons have been shown to be untrue.

the miracles are not the basis for christianity. they are a part of the whole though.

i don't think the Bible is evidence of miracles in the sense that you put it. it contains documentation of miraculous events. consequently, judging the reliability of the Bible on the miracles alone is well, a very bad argument. there is no reason to doubt the reliability of the Bible when it "got some other things right", doesn't contradict other historical writings and isn't refuted by other historical writings.

manuscript evidence
manuscript reliability

and what if what was available in the second century was written during the lifetimes of eyewitnesses to the incredible stories? that would seem to be validation, wouldn't you agree?

textual comparison to other works of antiquity

but that would be another aspect lending credence to the veracity of the Bible, would it not?

internal evidence

internal consistency and accuracy is a commonly used exegetical tool.

external evidence

how about the article i provided earlier? that's one example.

Mageth

Umm, so what? That site describes a discovery that may be evidence for some ancient, catastrophic, but local, flood, on which various flood myths were based. Indeed, earlier flood myths from the region, possibly based on the flooding of the Black Sea in antiquity, were apparently used as a basis for the flood myth we find in the Bible. Bottom line: even with the information on that site (which, note, is speculative, not conclusive), my statement still stands: The Biblical Flood account is a myth, a myth which may be based on a real, but much less spectacular, historical flood. In fact, that site, if anything, supports the claim that the Biblical Flood account is a myth, by providing evidence of a plausible, real flood on which the Biblical Flood myth was based.

Again, CNN is not, and is not claimed to be, a "historical document". Apples and oranges. In any case, I evaluate stories I hear reported on CNN for credibility; I do not accept every story as factual just because CNN reports it. Do you? If I hear CNN report on some "miracle" or other, I do not accept the account as truly "miraculous" or credible just because CNN reports it, or because I know that some stories that CNN reports are credible. Nor do I accept every story as reported in the Bible as historically accurate just because the Bible reports it. To accept any story reported in the Bible as "historically accurate" or "credible" requires, for me, more than just the Bible, quite a bit more for the more incredible stories.

What?

There is? Oh, you mean the Bible. The Bible verifies the incredible accounts in the Bible. I see now.

"Biblical records" do not, and cannot, by themselves, corroborate the Bible.

You mean like, say, the Book of Mormon wasn't worth preserving?

Understand this: the Bible, Old and New Testament, was written as a religious text, and not as a reliable historical document. You've made that fundamental confusion throughout this thread.

You've made that claim, and it's been shown multiple times why that claim is seriously flawed. Bottom line: the lack of direct refutations of the claims in the Bible (concurrent with or soon after the events described in the Bible) does not corroborate or in any way make more credible the incredible, fantastical stories in the Bible.

The irony is strong in this one.

Newsflash: Christ's virgin birth, divinity, death, and subsequent resurrection and ascention into Heaven are not the basis for Christianity! More at 11!

You misunderstand my point. I was criticizing what seems to be your claim, the claim that the Bible is historically accurate on some points, and therefore the incredible stories in the bible are (more) credible. The one does not follow from the other. Just because the Bible got Pilate right, and Jerusalem existed at the time, etc etc, does not make the Gospel crucifixion and resurrection accounts, or any of the other incredible stories, any more credible.

I'm not judging the overall reliability of the Bible, or the reliability of the Bible on certain accounts, on the miracles alone. I'm merely addressing the reliability of the Bible on the "miraculous" accounts. You seem to be arguing that the Bible is reliable on some accounts, and therefore it should be judged reliable on all accounts. Now that is a very bad argument.

Claiming the stories of miraculous events are "documentation" is, well, quite a stretch. They're stories of miraculous events, and I see no reason to believe, outside of faith, that they are actually "documentation" of real, historical events.

All that shows, if anything, is that the Bible is reliable on the things it got right. None of the things you mention validate or corroborate the incredible, fantastical claims of the Bible. Again, the absense of refutations of Biblical claims in other historical writings is not evidence that the Biblical claims are true or credible.

Anyway, others on this thread have provided various refutations for your point here. Namely, there are other historical writings which are not in sync with the Bible. For example, there are no recordations or other evidence of the story of Moses or the Exodus in Egyptian history or elsewhere that I know of that agree with the Biblical accounts of those events. There were also early Christian writings that claimed the "resurrection" was not a physical resurrection. And there are many Flood myths, some which predate the Biblical version of that myth, and all of which disagree with the Biblical account in multiple elements.

No, it is not "validation" of an event if the account of the event was recorded during the lifetime of alleged eyewitnesses to the event, especially seeing as the accounts we have were not actually recorded by eyewitnesses, and the accounts we have record some rather incredible events. Why should it be? Something else is needed to validate the account.

You are assuming that there were eyewitnesses to the "incredible stories", which assumes that the incredible stories are true. That, I'm afraid must be accepted on faith, and is simply not verifiable or supportable through historical methods or arguments, as you've been trying to do.

And there are no surviving copies of NT manuscripts that would have been available during the lifetimes of eyewitnesses. Other methods have been used to date the Gospels and other books of the NT. As said earlier, Paul's authentic letters were written during his lifetime, obviously, and Paul, notably, does not record the miraculous stories of Jesus' life, only referring to the resurrection for which he had only second-hand knowledge, as he was of course not an eyewitness himself to the alleged events in Jesus' life and death.

The Gospels were, as far as we can tell, not written by eyewitnesses either. Mark and Luke don't even claim to be written by eyewitnesses. John was written so late that it's highly unlikely that it was written by an eyewitness. Matthew was largely based on Mark, and includes some rather fantastical and incredible stuff not found in the other Gospels; Matthew was big on embellishment. None, apparently, were written by whom they say they were written.

textual comparison to other works of antiquity

No, it would not, particularly not to the incredible claims in the Bible. Why would it be?

All internal consistency shows is that a document is internally consistent. It does not verify the claims made in the document. I'm not sure what "accuracy" you're referring to. Are you referring to "accuracy" in that the Bible gets some names, places and dates right? Again, all that shows is that the Bible gets some names and places right. Others, it gets quite wrong. Works of fiction do that (get names, places and dates right) all the time, and are often internally consistent as well. None of which verifies the stories in the works of fiction.

Dealt with. The Biblical Flood story remains a myth. The possibility that Ballard et al discovered what may be a catastrophic ancient flood on which the Biblical story may have been based (or, rather, its precursors may have been based) does not make the Biblical Flood story any less a myth.

newtype_alpha

Indeed, Christians were one of many sects traveling around propagating their religion. The same historians who fail to mention the Christians also fail to mention the Zoroastrians, the Essenes, the Gnostics (Christian or otherwise) the cult of Mithra, the revivalist cult of Enki, and a number of other oddball religious sects. The ones who did mention these religious groups also made passing reference to Christians.

Incidentally, none of these historians would have been able to speak to any of the eyewitnesses themselves, for that matter most of them would not even have had access to the epistles that mention the "day of pencaost" in the first place. Acts itself is contradictory in other ways, mainly regarding the death of Judas and the ammount of time Jesus spent on Earth before ascending into heaven. But again, we're assuming any of the historians had any interest in Christianity whatsoever or any knowledge of it other than a passing familiarity. After all, how much time have modern historians devoted to refuting the urben legend about tained holloween candy?


Who were the women who discovered Jesus' tomb opened?
Matthew: Mary Magdalene and the other Mary (28:1)
Mark: Mary Magdalene, the mother of James, and Salome (16:1
Luke: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and other women (24:10)
John: Mary Magdalene (20:1)

Was the tomb open when they arrived?
Matthew: No (28:2)
Mark: Yes (16:4)
Luke: Yes (24:2)
John: Yes (20:1)

Who was at the tomb when they arrived?
Matthew: One angel (28:2-7)
Mark: One young man (16:5)
Luke: Two men (24:4)
John: Two angels (20:12)

When Mary returned from the tomb, did she know Jesus had been resurrected?
Matthew: Yes (28:7-8)
Mark: Yes (16:10,11)
Luke: Yes (24:6-9,23)
John: No (20:2)

After the women, to whom did Jesus first appear?
Matthew: Eleven disciples (28:16)
Mark: Two disciples in the country, later to eleven (16:12,14)
Luke: Two disciples in Emmaus, later to eleven (24:13,36)
John: Ten disciples (Judas and Thomas were absent) (20:19, 24)
Paul: First to Cephas (Peter), then to the twelve. (Twelve? Judas was dead). (I Corinthians 15:5)

Where did Jesus first appear to the disciples?Matthew: On a mountain in Galilee (60-100 miles away) (28:16-17)
Mark: To two in the country, to eleven "as they sat at meat" (16:12,14)
Luke: In Emmaus (about seven miles away) at evening, to the rest in a room in Jerusalem later that night. (24:31, 36)
John: In a room, at evening (20:19)

What happened at the appearance?
Matthew: Disciples worshipped, some doubted, "Go preach." (28:17-20)
Mark: Jesus reprimanded them, said "Go preach" (16:14-19)
Luke: Christ incognito, vanishing act, materialized out of thin air, reprimand, supper (24:13-51)
John: Passed through solid door, disciples happy, Jesus blesses them, no reprimand (21:19-23)

Where did the ascension take place?
Matthew: No ascension. Book ends on mountain in Galilee
Mark: In or near Jerusalem, after supper (16:19)
Luke: In Bethany, very close to Jerusalem, after supper (24:50-51)
John: No ascension
Paul: No ascension
Acts: Ascended from Mount of Olives (1:9-12)

I could go on... the point is, the resurrection stories and the details surrounding them don't line up with each other, contradict in a number of places, and in fact the gospel of John includes at least one imbelishment that appears to be a shameless self-insert by the author, trying to exagerate his own importance in the story.

Simple analysis of the text suffices in most cases, although it can be argued from common sense that the four gospels we now have in the Bible are at least as accurate as the other 20 or so alternate versions floating around the Early Church after the crucifiction. Nearly all of them contradict, some of them exagerate terribly, some of them are clearly theological tracts converted into story formay by adding dialogue and some crude action scenes tacked on to give some continuity to what was essentially someone's personal theology placed in the mouth of Jesus. (The Gospel of John may have been created this way, as other similar gnostic writings most certainly were; in some cases both formats, both the theological tract and the converted story format are compared.)

How does that make the "rumor theory" unlikely? None of the "alleged witnesses" actually wrote the gospels, in fact the only one who is thought to have written one was Peter and his version was considered so heretical no one believed he was the actual author. Luke was not one of the original twelve desciples nor did he witness the crucifiction. The Gospel of John has been dated to some time after the destruction of the Jewish Temple so obviously, the writer of that one had never met Jesus either. Paul was not a witness, but he seems highly familiar with the resurrection story. Mark and Mathew were not witneses either, and there is internal evidence in the text so suggest that Mark mainly drew on Luke for a source while Mathew probably compiled his gospel from other "mini-gospels" or protogospels floating around of the time.


And the other "historically accurate document" would be....?

Surely not the document that estimates the number of fighting men in Israel at 1.57 million people (1 Chronicles 21:5) and then not even including women and children, during the reign of King David (about 1100 BC). :huh: Surely not the document that claims that King Herod ordered a massive wave of infanticide that even his greatest critics never mention. Surely not the document that can't make up its mind where and how Jesus met his very first desciples.


But someone has. Just because the Bible or anyone else does not directly refute this, does that mean there is evidence for it being true?


There's an entire sect of Christianity called "preterists," who believe Jesus did return during the lifetime of his followers exactly as he predicted he would. They seem to have a far more accurate understanding of scriptures than more orthodox Christians, mainly because they don't fall victim to some of the internal contradictions that tend to pop up. I've also seen them explain, point by point, exactly where and how Christ fullfilled all the prophecies of Revelations.

You'd have to ask the preterists... mainly, though, the fact that the name of Emperor Nero, written in Hebrew and with the characters numeralized, is "666." This, by the way, is not a myth, nor is it accidental, since the book of Revelations was probably written some time shortly before the supposed "return of Christ" was to take place. Even the destruction of the temple is supposedly meant to preceede several other events that historically did follow immediately after the war. Obviously, for details, you'd have to ask a preterist.

newtype_alpha

Nice try, but no dice. Due to the relatively precise numbers given in the Torah, mainly regarding the age of such and such a person when so and so was born and so forth, the approximate date of Noah's flood has been calculated to, at most, 2700 BC. The Epic of Gilgamesh is dated to almost the exact same period, and there is even evidence that parts of Genesis are actually loosely based on popular Gilgamesh mythology. The story of Nimrod and the "Tower of Babel" has been interpretted by at least one historian as "sour grapes," reflecting the rivalry between the nomadic Hebrews and the more urban Sumerians who took great pride in the splendor of the Ziggurrat.

Several other local flood myths have been similarly dated to ancient and not-so-ancient times.

DramaQ

What has that got to do with my point?

Maybe I wasn’t clear. Let me try this way:

No where in all the posts you’ve made have you ONCE ever refuted the idea that the universe was created by a giant purple duck. Since you utterly failed to refute this anywhere – by your logic – you must not disbelieve the claim.

So wow, you really believe the universe was created by a giant purple duck??

(Of course, maybe you never read any claims that there was a giant purple duck. But how do I know that? How do I know what you have and haven’t read? All I know is you haven’t argued AGAINST the Duck.)

Do you automatically believe the claims of ALL old documents? Do you also believe there was really a Robin Hood? Or a Paul Bunyan?

Claims in documents are just claims. Believing them just because someone wrote them (or someone TOLD you to believe them) is making a mighty big assumption.

He doesn’t contradict the Giant Purple Duck, either.

As I understand it, most of what’s left is just what was quoted by Christian apologists in their efforts to defend their position against criticism.

What the…? How on EARTH did you manage to turn my sentence into THAT?

Here it is again - Plain and Simple: CHRISTIANS were in charge of the books over the intervening centuries. Big Shock: Most written material not favorable to Christianity IS GONE!

Uh… Right. There weren’t many books left in Germany that complained about Hitler after 1940, too. It had nothing to do with the fact that such books were all burned. It must have been that no one had any such complaints.

Are you sure you’re replying to MY posts?? Where did CNN come from? Do you think “media� = “television journalism�?

I used the phrase “media bias� with some intended irony. But “media� still accurately describes ancient manuscripts. What’s written on them can be biased. And which ones are kept and which ones are destroyed can be driven by bias.

If we KNOW THEM to be reliable, we don’t have to doubt them. If we have good reason to think they’re not reliable, we should doubt them.

Based on information we have today, we know:

Babies aren’t born to women impregnated supernaturally.
People don’t walk on water.
People don’t come back from the dead.
People can’t read minds.

These are things we’ve figured out over the years that give us a pretty darn good reason to doubt that document.

[Sigh] I only go ‘round the merry-go-round a couple times like this before I get real tired of it.

1) How could “multitudes of people� refute something they NEVER HEARD OF TO BEGIN WITH?
2) Those who did hear of it and refuted it have largely vanished from history because the winners were in charge of the records.

You’re refusal to even acknowledge these possibilities speaks volumes about how interested you really are in delving into this subject.

Cheers,
dq

bfniii

no matter how insignificant the movement was, they were relating their stories to people who weren't insignificant and who had ample means of verifying their credibility.

that sounds great to me. since these events happened with many people present, i would imagine there would be multiple instances of such accounts. so much so that anyone who tried to propagate such foolishness would have been ridiculed.

saul/paul would seem to be an exception to that statement. neither he nor his entourage appear to be christians at the time of his encounter.

this statement stands in opposition to your previous statment that "The acceptance of the Gospels as "canon" was a long and drawn-out process, one fraught with many disputes." attributing the solidification of the NT canon to constantine's conversion is oversimplification.

my point from the beginning is to ask the non-christian the exact same question in reverse. what extrabiblical documentation exists that denies biblical events? if the Bible is corroborated by other historical documents and at the same time not refuted by them, why doubt the claims of the Bible?

now i find this very interesting. what can we trust from antiquity?

i wasn't referring to the miraculous. i was referring to the non-miraculous.

why not? if the source is reliable, why doubt it? we have no reason to. fantastic does not equal false.

if they were untrue, why would people allow the propogation of such falsities? how could someone go around spouting obvious lies without getting discredited?

Vinnie

According to the majority of experts this is not the case. They hold to partial authenticity as do I. Most on this site are of the impression that the references are complete forgeries.

The only even possiboe arguments against a Nazareth birth are the linguistic ones posited by some here and a small minority of shcolars. On historical grounds nazareth is clearly the preferenced choice for several reasons. Bethlehem isn't even a credible option.


Obviously you are not a historian then. Josephus mentions JBap (this is enough) and so do several sets of independent Christian reports like Mark and John's preaching inwhat some deem Q//Matthew//Luke (this is overkill) and the Christian report have a lot of apologetics and tension regarding a person you are claiming was invented out of thin air (it cant get any deader) not even a generation earlier (dead dead dead).

If your response is denying the historicity of of JBap you might as well just not respond.

Vinnie

Vinnie

Dead people don't walk around. Stars don't move around in the sky. Granted their distance they wopuld probably have to travel fast than light to move around the night time sky. Stars just don't behave like this at all.

As we know, Herod has the wicked character that makes it not overly hard to see him murdering children but the account is clearly fiction. Jesus wasj ust another Jewish boy when born. Later legends glorified his birth and gave him infancy narratives.

I agree though if everything that happened in the four gospels is true I expect more detail on Jesus by say Josephus and even Roman historians. But the four gospels contradict and therefore it is meaningless to talk about "the Jesus of the four gospels". There is no such being. There is only a Jewish man somewhere behind them.

Vinnie

Gullwind

Ask Kent Hovind.

All you have to do is ignore the fact that you've been discredited.