TomboyMom

According to the mainstream consensus of Modern biblical scholarship, the New Testament does not contain a single eye-witness account of any aspect of Jesus' life, death, or resurrection, although it says it does. (In the same way that Moby Dick says it is an eyewitness account, when it is actually a work of fiction.) It was entirely written by people who lived decades after Jesus' death, and did not themselves ever set eyes on him, from Paul on through the gospels.

Patriot7

What do you mean by that? Is that your opinion? Or are you referring to a meeting of modern biblical scholars that flew under the radar of virtually every website, publication and mainstream media outlet where "modern mainstream" biblical scholars all agreed that the New Testament was a fraud? Are you suggesting that scholars, who by nature debate and argue actually agreed on something monumental like this? (on anything for that matter?:funny: ) Please post your reference!! How did you get the inside scoop? This is BIG news!! Have you told CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Drudgereport, Breitbart, Fox? They would love to break a story like this!!

Diogenes the Cynic

It is a fact that NT scholars are virtually unanimous in the conclusion that the New Testament does not contain a single eyewitness account of Jesus. This consensus is based on overwhelming evidence, not opinion. It is only a small minority of religious conservatives who still try to cling to 2nd century authorship traditions and they do so based on faith rather than methodology.

Patriot7

This is a fact? Virtually unanimous? All scholars? This is NOT your opinion? Please post your source! This is big news!!

buckshot23

Who said he had to know about it?
I fail to see why this would be the case. It is a matter of one account having more information than the other.
I fail to see how this is an analog. (I am not going to have an authorship debate with you at this time)
Not ad hoc at all. I agree it is a subjective determination if one finds the explanation or possible harmonizations as plausible. You have made your determination and I'm fine with that it is your decision.

Diogenes the Cynic

So now you're shifting your argument from claiming that he just decided Jesus' first appearnace was not important enough to write about to suggesting he just didn't know about it? Where did he get the rest of his information and why didn't all his careful research (according to him) turn up the first appearance?
No, it's a matter of the same event being alleged to have occurred at two different times and then trying to reconcile them by saying the event happened twice.
Read it again. It's not that obscure. The same event is alleged by two different people (neither of which who was a witness or who ever met a witness) to have happened at two different times. The apology is to claim that the event happened twice. Ridiculous.
I wasn't trying to start one, but if you believe the Gospels contain eyewitness accounts, I don't blame you for ducking a debate about it.
Of course it's ad hoc. There is no reason at all to even attempt to harmonize them unless you have a pre-existing desire for the accounts to agree with each other.

RUmike

You are obviously incredibly unfamiliar with all modern biblical scholarship. Simply read a college-level introduction to the New Testament. Any of them will do just fine.

Diogenes the Cynic

Yes, it's a fact.
Yep.
I didn't say ALL. As I said, there is still a conservative, Christian fringe but they are not taken seriously and their positions are based on faith rather than demonstrated evidence.
Nope.
Open up any introductory text book. I would also suggest that you spend a little time at Peter Kirby's Early Christian Writings site to familiarize yourself with some of the scholarship.
No, it's quite old news, actually. This has been the consensus for decades. You mock surprise is only exposing your own lack of education.

Sven

Oops. It wasn't Holding/Turkel, but Jason Gastrich.

But I think you can excuse my error - it's difficult to tell who uses the worse arguments.

Anyway, here's the link: http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=72745

Dargo

You could pick a really great example and use Forrest Gump. This movie tells the story of a man who lived an extraordinary life and met numerous real historical figures like JFK, LBJ, and Lennon. If the story of Forrest Gump is nothing but a lie, why haven't the families of any of these people debunked it? Unlike the Bible, the story of Forrest Gump's life contains no errors or contradictions. It must be true then.