sidewinder

It is doubted by many scholars, even some Christian scholars, whether Jesus ever claimed to be Yahweh. In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus seems to differentiate between himself and Yahweh. I agree that Jesus saw himself as a prophet of Yahweh and he seemed to believe that he had a "close" relationship with Yahweh. But it seems likely that Jesus would never have claimed to be Yahweh because he would've considered it to be blasphemous. Most scholars are reluctant to rely on the Gospel of John for any actual words of Jesus because the writer used such high christology. As a result, the Jesus in John is much different than the Jesus in the Synoptics. The writer of John was may have been making the claim that Jesus was Yahweh incarnate but the writer is interpreting Jesus and not using the words of Jesus himself. Even with the Gospel of John in the Christian community (written around 90-100 CE), Jesus was never considered to be Yahweh incarnate until the early Catholic church voted him to be Yahweh incarnate in the 4th century.

David Bowden

We'll see.

Well, they couldn't very well have been included in the canon if they said anything else, could they?

You'll note that the Book of Mormon doesn't include writings claiming that Joseph Smith was making it all up. Internal consistency in a text is no guarantee of its truth. If it were, every well-written novel, play, or religious text would be true, and we know better than than to follow that reasoning.

No, it's testimonial, and it's not confirmation of a fact, but rather it's an assertion of a belief held by the writers. Homer and Aeschylus testify to Helen's abduction, Agamemnon's murder and the intervention of the Olympian gods in human affairs, and they wrote in different times and places. Does this mean we also have evidence of the Olympian gods, or the verification of Helen or Agamemnon's biographies? Accepting your criteria and applying it consistently would allow us to believe in a lot more than Christianity.

And let's look at those diverse sources:

Paul, the earliest writer, does not claim to have seen Jesus during His period of ministry; he didn't witness the resurrection, and speaks of Christ in language compatible with a form of mystical revelation of God's "Wisdom" - completely in accordance with the Jewish Gnostics of Alexandria (the later Christian gnostics claimed Paul as their founder). At best, Paul's testimony concerning the historicity of the resurrection is hearsay from other disciples.

Mark's gospel doesn't include the resurrection. Matthew, Luke/Acts and John were written well after Mark, by anonymous authors, well outside the "20 years" in your timeframe. James does not mention the crucifixion or resurrection or any information on life of Jesus, and the other catholic letters are of dubious origin. And nobody claims Revelation was an early writing.

So the early testimony simply vaporizes under reasonable scrutiny. Any special pleading Christianity makes with regard to this has to be applied fairly to non-Christian traditions, and as I've mentioned, that sort of reasoning opens the floodgates: belief in just about any religion's claims can be 'justified,' if belief in Christianity's can.

If I invent a "fact" and set it in the past, does it become an undisputed Fact if nobody from that past time had written to dispute my "fact", or is it still just testimony? Please take seriously the still-valid criticism that Christianity's claims were projected back on a setting in which they did not in fact occur.

Also, Christianity did become the official religion of Rome, and not only did Christian leaders destroy writings that undermined the new state religion, they engaged in creative rewriting of early church history. Eusebius, the first church historian, is notorious for being unashamedly dishonest. Now, these are Facts. We can verify them. The facts that we can verify don't encourage us to believe that earlier Christian chroniclers wrote with more integrity.

BTW, you frequently use "facts" when you mean "testimony" (do you do this when you're engaged in legal work also?) This betrays an assumption that the NT is authoritative, which you told us wouldn't characterize your post.

If I'm not mistaken, every existing nonChristian religion has also grown and flourished shortly after its founding. Consistently applying your reasoning would imply that all religions that grew and flourished are more likely to be true; I think you would agree that your reasoning here backfires if you apply it evenly.

Been there, done that; see above for debunking.

The weakness of this argument is exposed when you exercise consistent reasoning: "Allah claims to be the one true God. Certainly, the Koran reports that he did." Is a religious document self-proving? You yourself said that you would not assume so. If you're going to change your standard for the NT, change it for the Koran, at least.

Of course, books have been written - have you read any that disagree with your position? In the forums, we expect concise and valid reasoning. We await your response to our analysis of your original post.

For the last 200 years or so, Bible scholarship, by believers and unbelievers alike, has indeed come up with a variety of ways to interpret the testimony handed down by the church. Conservative Evangelical Christian apologists largely ignore any theological interpretations that don't mesh with their dogma, but really you shouldn't dismiss all the developments since the NT was written.

Looking forward to your reply,
Wanderer

WJ

Finch!

Good post! Someone said:

"But one has to ask a bigger question. If the christian god existed (with the corollary that belief, by some means, were ethically compelled), why would it bury its evidence two thousand years in the past? Why not make that that evidence obvious to everyone? If belief through faith were more important, then why leave evidence at all?

Certainly this dilemma (and all the others) can be rationalized, but the rationalizations are themselves suspect: It appears that you are constructing your rational thought around acceptance of the proposition, rather than accepting the proposition on the basis of rational thought."
--------------------end quote

Agreed it certainly can be rationalized. It can be rationalized in the form of contradiction, which logically exists. (1+1=1 exists, but is it wrong in all possible worlds?)

Beyond this, the determinist would simply answer that it was God's plan to manifest himself (in Christianity) in that manner. Why was he killed? Why didn't he manifest physically subsequent to the resurrection? Destiny or reality, in human nature,(we get angry when people tell us certain things-ethically)is perhaps the question. I know I (we all) can say things to a group of people and get a similar fatal reaction!

To answer the questions (some that I have time for) though,(ie Why not make that that evidence obvious to everyone? If belief through faith were more important, then why leave evidence at all?)

The obviousness or lack thereof had to do with volitional existence-choice. Physical-ness of God, in part, was manifest so that subsequent to the passion, other's who did not witness it could read about it and can believe/be saved through faith. Just as any other 'rationalized' part of history.

Walrus
--------
Truth is Subjectivity

CX

I don't want to sound uncharitable, but you are going to have to do much better than this to cut it around here.


It seems to me that 1, 3 & 4 are fairly commonplace throughout human history. Rather it is 2 and 5 that would be of considerable import were they demonstrated to be true. The first problem I see is your dating of NT texts.

Although the earliest Pauline letters date to within 20-30 years of the supposed date of Jesus' crucifixion, Paul says literally nothing corroborable about the Historical Jesus. In fact he seems strikingly uninterested in the earthly Jesus. The earliest account of Jesus' life is generally dated by biblical scholars around 70 CE a good 35 or 40 years (that's 2 generations, bunky) after the crucifixion and not, evidentally, known by church fathers until well into the 2nd century.

Even if we date the gospels much earlier, the only remaining evidence of what objections were to the gospel are in the refutations written by church fathers. How do we know people who had been there didn't say, "Hey! That isn't what happened! I was there." We can't. We do know that by the 4th century the church was engaged in a wholesale destruction of heretics and heretical texts.

Kassiana

Kass:
Considering that the Talmud was written at least 200 years after Jesus supposedly died, how is it evidence of anything other than hearsay circa 200-300 CE? Considering that Josephus, in what we presume are non-interpolated passages, does not confirm the New Testament mythological Jesus' existence, much less claim any of the specific miracles claimed for him in the New Testament, how does he support your claims?

Synaesthesia

"So with respect to items (3) claiming to be God and (5) resurrection we must focus on the witness of the NT"

"I will make reference to the Christian bible. I will not assume its authority or that it is self-proving."

"Finally, did Christ claim to be God. Certainly, the NT reports that he did (John 8:58)."

"I will make reference to the Christian bible. I will not assume its authority or that it is self-proving."

"The remaining propositions largely rest on the authenticty and accuracy of the NT."

"I will make reference to the Christian bible. I will not assume its authority or that it is self-proving."

"You may chose not to believe them but their written accounts are evidence of the fact in question."

"I will make reference to the Christian bible. I will not assume its authority or that it is self-proving."

Therefore the Christian God exists, QED.

Samhain

"Sticking feathers up your ass does not make you a chicken."

[ March 25, 2002: Message edited by: Samhain ]</p>

Malaclypse the Younger

This is a good example of the difference between fact and conclusion. There is a whole chain of evidence between what is fact, and what is conclusion.

There exists a manuscript that contains words in Greek which mean, (more or less), "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus answered, 'before Abraham was born, I am!'" The existence of this manuscript is a fact. Anyone with eyes can verify the existence of this manuscript for himself.

This manuscript has particular physical characteristics. These characteristics are fact. Again, these characteristics can be verified by anyone with eyes to see.

We have (presumably) an account of the discovery of this manuscript, by the archaologist or historian who discovered it. The existence of this account is a fact. Anyone can read this account and verify it.

These are the facts.

From these facts, we can draw some conclusions.

One is that the ink was set to paper on this manuscript (IIRC) ca. 400 CE.

To draw this conclusion, we must make some assumptions. Since none of us actually remembers seeing the actual ink applied to this manuscript, we must assume that the laws of physics apply uniformly, so that we can interpret physical dating tests and to be able to interpret the physical circumstances of its discovery.

We must of course also establish a reason to trust the discoverer. Is he trustworthy? Does he appear to tell us everything he knows? Is he biased? Does he have a reason to lie? Is is account consistent with facts he could not have faked? Again, (AFAIK) we can probably draw the conclusion that he is honest and is accurately reporting the circumstances of this manuscripts discovery.

Based on other facts, facts that we have at hand now and can directly perceive--e.g. other existing manuscripts, fragments dated earlier, textual analysis, etc.--we can conclude that this manuscript is a copy, of unknown accuracy, of a document that was composed ca. 120 CE. We might also conclude that at least this verse was accurately copied.

We can thus conclude that someone (whom we will arbitrarily label "John") wrote down a claim that someone named Jesus said, "before Abraham was born, I am!" This conclusion is probably true.

But now, we wish to determine if it is true that someone named Jesus actually existed and actually said, "before Abraham was born, I am!"

There are several possibilities, John is:

• truthful: Someone named Jesus actually said, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
• simply lying
• misinformed or misremembers
• exaggerating
• speaking metaphorically
• writing a work of fiction

These are merely the a priori possibilities. I am not claiming that John is indeed a liar (nor that we have evidence to show that), merely that it is logically possible that he is lying.

And again, we can try to solve this problem in a number of ways. Did anyone know John? Was he trustworthy? Are there independent accounts (which John could not have, naturalistically speaking, influenced) which make the same statement? There is much evidence which might exist to compel us to rationally believe that some actual person name Jesus actually said, "before Abraham was born, I am!"

Let's assume for the sake of argument that we can indeed rationally believe that someone named Jesus actually did say this.

Thus we now we have to evaluate this statement. It it trivially obvious that any nondivine person can utter the words, "before Abraham was born, I am!"

It is possible that Jesus was:

• telling the truth: it is true indeed that "before Abraham was born, I am!"
• lying
• exaggerating
• wholly or partially deluded
• speaking metaphorically
• just bullshitting

Again, we have to look at the other evidence available, under assumptions of naturalism, to distinguish between these possibilities.

We have layered conclusion upon conclusion upon conclusion upon fact. And the facts (the historical facts) are scanty, and the conclusions uncertain.

However, there's a more fundamental issue, which I've alluded to above. To even say anything basic about this manuscript, to draw any conclusions, we must assume that naturalism is true, and supernaturalism is false. If we do not make this assumption, then no idea is "more plausible" than another. If supernaturalism is true, this document (and all corroborating "evidence") might have been magicked into existence last Thursday, including the memories of having examined it earlier; such a conclusion is, if supernaturalism is true, equally "plausible" to the conclusion that the manuscript does indeed date from ca. 400 CE. and accurately represents the words of Jesus.

By definition then, any conclusions that we draw indirectly from conclusions about the manuscript cannot, by definition lead us to the conclusion of supernaturalism, because such a finding would be internally contradictory. If we are to conclude supernaturalism, it can (in theory) be concluded only directly from the facts actually available to us. And the mere existence of an ancient manuscript, with nothing in it that could not have been written if naturalism were true, cannot lead us to conclude supernaturalism.

Tercel

Of all your amusing arguments ever, this one probably takes the cake.

Let me get this straight: You're arguing that we cannot assume a moderately orderly world without assuming naturalism. I see...

You know, the early scientists come to mind... the ones who thought that science could succeed because they believed the universe to be an orderly creation of an intelligent being. The ones that thought that a divine creator would make a consistent and orderly universe. The ones that thought that there would be discernable underlying order in the universe that they could discover by "thinking God's thoughts after him".

I mean, it's not as if they believed in God... no... not at all. And of course they had to assume naturalism for their science to be valid... of course...

Christian theism implies consistency and discernable orderliness in the universe. Your assertion that an assumption of naturalism is required to draw coherent conclusions is hence blatently false.

Naturalism by contrast does not necessarily imply any such thing. Whether the universe itself is orderly as opposed to chaotic is not in itself implied simply because the supernatural does not exist. True, it removes the possibility of supernatural beings playing havoc, however: That there exist coherant, orderly and consistent physical laws is not an implication of Naturalism - it is completely incidental to it.
Robert Koons argues that Naturalism is, in fact incompatable with Scientific Realism <a href="http://leaderu.com/offices/koons/docs/natreal.html" target="_blank">here</a>. I am not entirely sure I completely agree: I think some form of naturalism could plausibly be held in the face of Science. However naturalism certainly has nothing to claim or gain in the areas of science or an orderly universe, and demanding we assume naturalism like you do is patently absurd.

Tercel

Jayhawker Soule

... except for a world flood, raining plagues down upon Egypt, parting a sea, stopping the sun and moon for half a day, whale tails, cameo appearances by the ever popular giant, cockatrice, and unicorn, and a resurrection or two. The truly consistent feature is cruel punishment: you can't be sure about the sun, but 'God help you' if you "pisseth against the wall".