Steven Carr

We have writings by Celsus, do we? Why were the writings destroyed by Christians? Because they recorded the apostles recantation?

Are you claiming Celsus had access to first-century eyewitnesses, and so his claims (what remains of them in Origen) are accurate?

Josephus appears hardly to have bothered with Christians.

Notice the direction of the thread.

Somebody claimed that the apostles died in horrible ways for their faith in a resurrection, and that they would not have died for a lie.

When asked to produce the slightest bit of evidence for this, Christians demand that it be disproved , using only works destroyed and tampered with by Christians.

I challenge Tercel to come up with evidence that Peter was crucified in Rome , and that Paul was martyred, and that somebody, somewhere, sometime died for preaching a resurrection.

Steven Carr

Well, perhaps I can refresh your memory.

Thomas doubted before he had seen the risen Jesus, yet Matthew wants to paint the Apostles as people who doubted even after seeing the risen Jesus.

Steven Carr

An amazing statement! Any evidence that the Sadducees were eager to kill people who taught the Resurrection (like Pharisees)?

I remind you of the wise words of Paul in Galatians, where he says circumcision was the issue and that Christian leaders (presumably including James) were prepared to compromise their beliefs to avoid being perseucted for the cross (NB not resurrection ) of Christ.

Kosh

Try and keep it straight, Tercel. It's the "who was called Christ" that is the interpolation, not the "brother of Jesus".

Steven Carr

And I thought only 2 percent of Jews were called James. And the death of this James had apparently caused such an uproar that the High Priest was deposed as a result.

Clearly, Josephus needed to identify to his Roman readers who this James was by his relationship to a common criminal (in his eyes at least), crucified 30 years earlier, about whom we are told that Roman historians took no interest in writing about, because he was so unimportant.

NOGO

If Galileo had died for his belief that the earth moves my admiration for him would have vanished.

Truth does not call for martyrdom.

People who want to die for God's eternal truth are just trying to make something of their miserable lives.

Christians had Jesus as a model. They wanted to be martyred for their faith. Since they also believed that the end of the world was around the corner and that they would resurrect as Jesus did then martyrdom was also a guarantee of success.

The whole NT is an incitation to martyrdom. "The world will hate you because of me" etc.

Tercel

Alledged interpolation. And it's difficult to "keep it straight" since among those who claim interpolation there are various views as to exactly what was interpolated. Some for example would argue that "the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ" is the interpolation which is what I was refering to in the above (but was simply abbreviating due to laziness). If you happen to think that the "who was called Christ" is the interpolation, fine, but I'm not writing out every single possible combination of interpolations for the sake of keeping people happy.

Tercel

~shrugs~ You've had this argument with Peter Kirby before. He covered the evidence pretty thoroughly and you didn't listen, why should I think you'd listen to anything I might say?