what would be an actually good reason to believe in a god.

[Baruch]

Talmud ... Jerusalem Talmud is 300 years earlier than the Babylonian Talmud.  However the references are to Jewish opposition to Jewish Christians (traitors) and against Gentile Christians (damn Gentiles).  Jewish people never honestly acknowledge (except as casuistry to defend Judaism) even the history of Jesus, let alone the theology.  And most modern Jews deny the existence of Biblical miracles anyway.  Christians shouldn't expect support from Jews, except for Nutty-Yahoo.

[Mike Cl]

Kaleb--You admit Paul existed. So what is your take on him? Do you think he experienced what he experienced or he made up his portion?

Me--Yeah, Paul existed.  And he was the first writer of the NT; but he was not any eyewitness to the life of jesus.  Did he experience what he experienced?  Of course he did.  But he interpreted what he experienced and then the future christians interpret his interpretation of his experience.  Did he lie?  Don't think so.  Try this as an experiment.  Read the NT in the order in which the books were written.  You would then read Paul first (the accepted real Paul) , then Mark, Matthew, Luke/Acts and then John.  You will get a different picture of jesus.  Paul does not give us any biographical data for him and treats him more as an ethereal entity who visits earth and not a flesh and blood person.  He is a gnostic more than a christian.  If you read carefully, you will notice that in his letters, Paul does not quote what jesus said about various arguments, when that would have been the thing a person would do who is trying to win people over to his (and jesus') way of thinking.  Odd, don't you think?

Kaleb--As for the other disciples there is not a lot of evidence outside the Bible. But if these were ordinary men from no where, anyone of influence wouldn't care about them why would they write about them. The Jews were trying to shut them up along with everyone else.

Me--You do realize that all of the disciples were Jews?  There were no christians then.  You seem to forget that all these men were chosen by god to play the roles they played.  He created them and he created all that followed and all that came before.  So, if that is the case and god wants his word to spread, he would not keep them secret, would he???  So, it matters not who these people were.  They should have been able to make the world know what was going on and who was doing the 'going on' stuff.  Instead we end up with men who are from a little known area of the world, speaking Aramaic or Hebrew and not Greek.  When have men who did not write anything about the personification of god on earth, who was teaching a 'revolutionary' message, and doing unique and unheard of acts.  Does that sound reasonable to you?  And the fact there were no women involved in this--doesn't that seem a bit odd? 

  Kaleb-- James was real. He thought Jesus was crazy then he saw the resurrected Christ and became a follower. He was executed for his belief. Why would he die for a known lie?

Me--How do you know James was real?  And you do realize that James (and Jesus/Joshua) was a popular name?  So, which James?  Donald Trump is a known and acknowledged liar; would some of his followers die for him?  Yeah, they would.  So, does that then, make Trump truthful?  Because somebody dies for an idea/ideal does not make that idea/ideal truthful or even good.

Kaleb--  I agree the Bible did not drop out of the sky a finished product. It is a collection of books put into one book. All the New Testament books speak the same message so if we had 100 more books in their would it matter. We know what the Gospel is and the basic things God expects of us as followers of Christ.

Me--If you know the bible did not drop out of the sky a finished product, do you know the history of it; how it was formed?  It is a fun study.  No, all of the NT does not speak the same message.  As for adding another 100 writings, well, if I remember correctly, there is a mention of at least another 85 gospels that were left on the cutting room floor.  Not all have been found, but some have.  Have you read another of those gospels that were rejected?  Try it and see what difference it makes.  If all christians know what god expects then why are there literally thousands and thousands of different sects of christianity?  Christians don't agree with other christians  believe.  For example, aren't there several proper ways to be baptized? 

Kaleb--   You said Paul's writings had stuff added and removed several times. Where did you receive this info? I'm not saying there isn't any I am legitimately curious.

Me--Yes I did.  I will make a posting later giving more details.

   


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[Simon Moon]

Matthew? John?


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Matthew is 92% copied from Mark. An eyewitness would not have to copy another author. It wasn't until 150 CE that Matthew was attributed to this Gospel as the author, even though there is nothing in the Gospel itself to hint it was authored by Matthew. It was originally written in Greek. None of the alleged apostles would have spoken or written Greek.

John was not written until after 93 CE. It is anonymous. John, the brother of James, was killed by Herod Agrippa in 44 CE, 50 years before the Gospel of John was written. The oldest fragment of John is from 125 CE, and  does not include the final chapter.

One of the biggest problems with John is that, even though it was written later, it contains more details than earlier written gospels. Eyewitness, historical writing does not do that. Details don't increase when more time has passed from original events.

[Baruch]

Hagiography behind the oldest synoptic gospel ...

Mark was with Paul and Barnabas in what is now Turkey, but he abandoned Paul's mission.  Supposedly he ended up going to Rome with Peter instead ... and got gospel notes from Peter, before Peter was martyred during the Nero persecutions after the Great Fire.  Meanwhile Paul went from Caesarea to Rome, was released with a slap on the wrist, went to Spain to preach, and on the way back thru Rome was arrested again for sedition.  In the climate of the Neronian persecutions being seditious or Jewish or both wouldn't recommend you to the authorities.  Paul was supposedly martyred in Rome around the same time as Peter.  Then Mark, escaped to Alexandria, with the notes he took of Peter's preaching ... and founded the first Christian church in Egypt.

Not that I believe any of that, but that is the traditional story/explanation behind Mark's gospel ... which was edited at least once (to add a further expansion about the resurrection, in the original version it ends with the empty tomb and the women fleeing in panic).  It was written in Greek, and for a Gentile audience.  But Alexandria was the second biggest population of Jews in the world at that time.  Clement of Alexandria ... writing 100 years later, confirms that story, but says that the gospel came in more than one version, the exoteric version and the esoteric version (in a disputed letter).

[Kaleb5000]

Matthew is 92% copied from Mark. An eyewitness would not have to copy another author. It wasn't until 150 CE that Matthew was attributed to this Gospel as the author, even though there is nothing in the Gospel itself to hint it was authored by Matthew. It was originally written in Greek. None of the alleged apostles would have spoken or written Greek.

John was not written until after 93 CE. It is anonymous. John, the brother of James, was killed by Herod Agrippa in 44 CE, 50 years before the Gospel of John was written. The oldest fragment of John is from 125 CE, and  does not include the final chapter.

One of the biggest problems with John is that, even though it was written later, it contains more details than earlier written gospels. Eyewitness, historical writing does not do that. Details don't increase when more time has passed from original events.

   How do you explain your date of 93 ad?  Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 ad which none of the New Testament speaks of. Which leads me to believe and a lot of others that it was written prior to that time period.


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[Mike Cl]

   How do you explain your date of 93 ad?  Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 ad which none of the New Testament speaks of. Which leads me to believe and a lot of others that it was written prior to that time period.


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I have read the arguments for an early Mark (prior to 70) and a later Mark.  I tend to land on the later Mark.  The following is a snippet from one site that gives some of the arguments for the later Mark:

We have an old thread that covers this here. The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple is taken as the biggest point in favor of a post-70 date.
As usual, /u/arquebus_x and /u/brojangles cover the high points (additions in brackets):
While it's true that Jerusalem didn't get properly sacked until 70, it was pretty clear right from the start that Jerusalem would have to fall if Rome was going to prevail. It was too heavily defended to be ignored. The siege took 7 months. At any point during that process, someone might have said, "Yup, all of this is probably going to come down."
Also, there was factional fighting in and around the Temple as far back as 68 CE. The idea that the Temple could be destroyed was not far-fetched.
So this might actually be a case of "foretelling" in a literary sense, where you have a writer making an educated guess about what's probably right around the corner.
So I for one am not convinced that the reference to the destruction of the Temple in 13:1-3 is a reference to a past event. I'm in the minority, however, and it's not a hill I'm prepared to die on. I simply find the post-Markan versions of the "apocalypse" (Matthew and Luke) to be more compelling as post-War retellings of a Markan mid-War description.
/u/brojangles picks up here:
Some other reasons are the anti-Jewish, anti-Petrine, Roman-apologetic polemic, which describe post-70 (or later) divisions between Paulinists and Jewish-Christians, Jesus saying there would be false prophets and "false Christs" anticipating schisms, heretical sects and possibly Gnostics. The mention that Christians would be "beaten in the Synagogues" which was a post-70 phenomenon.
The rending of the Temple veil is likely an allusion to the damaged veil that the Romans took from the Temple and displayed in Rome after 70.
Mark uses Latinisms which indicate a Roman provenance. [ Latinisms in Mark’s Gospel ]
Mark's story of the Gerasene demoniac sounds like an allusion to the Roman 10th Legion, which is the Legion that sieged and destroyed Jersualem, had a pig (a boar) for its emblem and was stationed near Gerasa for a while after 70.
In addition to all tis, I think a case can be made that Mark makes use of Josephus' Jewish War. In particular Josephus' passage about Jesus ben Ananius which is at least strikingly similar to Mark's description of Jesus before Pilate. I think it's too close to be a coincidence, but others' mileage may vary. [Comparison of Mark and Josephus's Jesuses here]
For a bullet pointed list instead, /u/zeichman really went the extra mile:
To summarize a number of arguments:
1) Mark 13:1-2 describes the destruction of the temple with far greater accuracy and specificity than generic discourse on the temple's fall (contrast, e.g., 1 Kgs 9:8; 1 En. 90.28-30; Josephus J.W. 6.300-309).
2) Mark 13:14 seems to refer to Vespasian, despite occasional arguments for the zealot Eleazar or the Emperor Gaius. The citation of the Danielic vision in Mark 13:14 parallels Josephus citation of Daniel's prophecy of the temple's fall in A.J. 10.276.
3) The fact that the various portents enumerated in Mark 13 are prompted by the question in Mark 13:1-2 as to WHEN the temple buildings will fall. In so doing, Mark explicitly encourages the reader to understand everything that follows in light of the temple's fall.
4) This is a more complex argument that isn't always easy to articulate. But Mark 14:57-58 and 15:29 slanderously attribute to Jesus the claim that he will destroy the temple and raise it again in three days. What is striking is that the controversy is over Jesus' role in bringing about the destruction -NOT whether or not the temple will actually fall. This assumes that the temple's fall was not a matter of controversy in Mark's context.
5) Another complex argument, but Eric Stewart has written a book arguing that Mark configures Jewish space away from the temple and synagogues and instead onto Jesus. Words that were normally used to describe activity related to those sites (e.g., language of gathering, ritualized activities) are relocated onto Jesus. Stewart contends that this is ultimately language of replacement. Though Stewart does not explicitly connect this with Markan dating, its relevance is obvious.
6) The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12) is an obvious allegory regarding the punishment of Jews for their rejection of Jesus. What is interesting is that the parallel in the Gospel of Thomas 65 (which is much more primitive than Mark's) omits any reference to punishment. This suggest the allegorization is part of Markan redaction.
7) The cursing of the fig tree links the notion of an unproductive fig tree and its destruction to an unproductive temple and its (eventual) destruction.
8) The tearing of the temple veil upon Jesus' death assumes some kind of divine causality that portends the entire temple's eventual destruction.
9) There are a few references that only make sense after the Jewish War. For instance the language of legion in Mark 5:1-20 only works after the War, since before the War the military in Palestine and the Decapolis was not legionary. As an analogy, a story wherein a demon named “Spetsnaz” is exorcized from a Crimean denizen should strike the reader as anachronistic in its politics if depicted as occurring in 2010; one would assume the story had been written after the Russian annexation of Crimea in February 2014, in which the aforementioned special forces were active.

[Kaleb5000]

I'm doing this from my phone so forgive me. I can't quote like your doing or at least I can't figure it out.

  Luke wrote acts and was a witness with Paul for much of his journey.

Many of Paul's letter are to churches or saints within a region which means his writings are to existing Christians.

Yes I do know the disciples are Jewish. But the Jewish leadership were trying to silence them. You said they were Jewish and Gods chosen. I believe the fact they threw all this away for Jesus gives more credibility for Jesus. If they were already chosen then why would they need to leave the Jewish religion.? Something they took very seriously.

    I believe the fact that God uses common men instead of people with much influence goes right along with what we see in the Bible and how God worked up to that point. God prefers to use ordinary men or even underdogs. Clearly it did not hinder the rapid spread of Christianity during those days.

How do I know the man who wrote James was Jesus brother the same one who was a martyr. Well I guess I did not see it with my own eyes there for I can't tell you with 100% certainty but there is enough evidence and I have no reason to believe otherwise. No evidence saying he is not or he was lying in other words.

   How do you know if any ancient historical figures were real?

    Someone dying for Donald Trump would be insanity unless they were trying to save his life. Donald Trump is man. Jesus is God and the source of our salvation and the disciples knew this to be fact because they saw with their own eyes. That's why they would die for him.

   These other Gospels you speak of. Do they speak of the Gospel? The same Gospel that is themed throughout the Bible.
     Is it possible the early church fathers thought the other Gospels had legitimate problems?
    Is it also possible the other Gospels were redundant and were not close followers of Jesus?

   Christians do have different beliefs based on the way they interpret the Bible. They cherry pic verses and read out of context and run with it rather then read it in context and look else where in scripture.
    Christians however believe in the Gospel.   And a active trust in him brings us salvation.

It seems Paul had a perfect understanding of who Jesus was.

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authoritiesâ€"all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.”
‭‭Colossians‬ ‭1:15-23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Every baptism in the Bible involved total immersion and the individual chose to follow Jesus. Any other form of Baptism is not baptism.




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[Kaleb5000]

The Talmud's supposed references to Jesus are a matter of debate, and are not universally accepted. From Wikipedia:

"Bart Ehrman, and separately Mark Allan Powell, state that the Talmud references are quite late (hundreds of years) and give no historically reliable information about the teachings or actions of Jesus during his life."

"Scholars debate whether the Talmud provides any evidence of Jesus as a historical individual. Van Voorst (2000) describes this as a spectrum of opinion:

"On one side stand Johann Maier (1978) and those broadly sympathetic to his conclusions such as John P. Meier and Jacob Neusner. Maier discounts accounts with no mention of the name Jesus, and further discounts those that do mention Jesus by name, such as Sanh. 43a and 107b, as later medieval changes.[48] Arguments against the current form of Talmudic references to Jesus being evidence of a historical individual include contextual evidence, such as chronological inconsistencies, for example the original contexts of accounts in the Tosefta and Talmud take place in different historical periods. Maier also views that the tradition first seen in the writings of Celsus can not be regarded as a reliable reference to the historical Jesus."

Furthermore, if Jesus were a real historical figure, who was attracting followers from all over, who had a reputation for performing miracles such as healing the sick and raising the dead, there would have been many people writing about it. Instead, we have people who weren't even alive in Jesus' lifetime writing about him, who were Christians themselves and hardly unbiased. And we have the Babylonian Talmud, which was put together at around the year 500 AD. Even the evidence that does exist is incredibly weak.

If some one is biased does that mean they are not capable of telling the truth?


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[Kaleb5000]

I have read the arguments for an early Mark (prior to 70) and a later Mark.  I tend to land on the later Mark.  The following is a snippet from one site that gives some of the arguments for the later Mark:

We have an old thread that covers this here. The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple is taken as the biggest point in favor of a post-70 date.
As usual, /u/arquebus_x and /u/brojangles cover the high points (additions in brackets):
While it's true that Jerusalem didn't get properly sacked until 70, it was pretty clear right from the start that Jerusalem would have to fall if Rome was going to prevail. It was too heavily defended to be ignored. The siege took 7 months. At any point during that process, someone might have said, "Yup, all of this is probably going to come down."
Also, there was factional fighting in and around the Temple as far back as 68 CE. The idea that the Temple could be destroyed was not far-fetched.
So this might actually be a case of "foretelling" in a literary sense, where you have a writer making an educated guess about what's probably right around the corner.
So I for one am not convinced that the reference to the destruction of the Temple in 13:1-3 is a reference to a past event. I'm in the minority, however, and it's not a hill I'm prepared to die on. I simply find the post-Markan versions of the "apocalypse" (Matthew and Luke) to be more compelling as post-War retellings of a Markan mid-War description.
/u/brojangles picks up here:
Some other reasons are the anti-Jewish, anti-Petrine, Roman-apologetic polemic, which describe post-70 (or later) divisions between Paulinists and Jewish-Christians, Jesus saying there would be false prophets and "false Christs" anticipating schisms, heretical sects and possibly Gnostics. The mention that Christians would be "beaten in the Synagogues" which was a post-70 phenomenon.
The rending of the Temple veil is likely an allusion to the damaged veil that the Romans took from the Temple and displayed in Rome after 70.
Mark uses Latinisms which indicate a Roman provenance. [ Latinisms in Mark’s Gospel ]
Mark's story of the Gerasene demoniac sounds like an allusion to the Roman 10th Legion, which is the Legion that sieged and destroyed Jersualem, had a pig (a boar) for its emblem and was stationed near Gerasa for a while after 70.
In addition to all tis, I think a case can be made that Mark makes use of Josephus' Jewish War. In particular Josephus' passage about Jesus ben Ananius which is at least strikingly similar to Mark's description of Jesus before Pilate. I think it's too close to be a coincidence, but others' mileage may vary. [Comparison of Mark and Josephus's Jesuses here]
For a bullet pointed list instead, /u/zeichman really went the extra mile:
To summarize a number of arguments:
1) Mark 13:1-2 describes the destruction of the temple with far greater accuracy and specificity than generic discourse on the temple's fall (contrast, e.g., 1 Kgs 9:8; 1 En. 90.28-30; Josephus J.W. 6.300-309).
2) Mark 13:14 seems to refer to Vespasian, despite occasional arguments for the zealot Eleazar or the Emperor Gaius. The citation of the Danielic vision in Mark 13:14 parallels Josephus citation of Daniel's prophecy of the temple's fall in A.J. 10.276.
3) The fact that the various portents enumerated in Mark 13 are prompted by the question in Mark 13:1-2 as to WHEN the temple buildings will fall. In so doing, Mark explicitly encourages the reader to understand everything that follows in light of the temple's fall.
4) This is a more complex argument that isn't always easy to articulate. But Mark 14:57-58 and 15:29 slanderously attribute to Jesus the claim that he will destroy the temple and raise it again in three days. What is striking is that the controversy is over Jesus' role in bringing about the destruction -NOT whether or not the temple will actually fall. This assumes that the temple's fall was not a matter of controversy in Mark's context.
5) Another complex argument, but Eric Stewart has written a book arguing that Mark configures Jewish space away from the temple and synagogues and instead onto Jesus. Words that were normally used to describe activity related to those sites (e.g., language of gathering, ritualized activities) are relocated onto Jesus. Stewart contends that this is ultimately language of replacement. Though Stewart does not explicitly connect this with Markan dating, its relevance is obvious.
6) The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12) is an obvious allegory regarding the punishment of Jews for their rejection of Jesus. What is interesting is that the parallel in the Gospel of Thomas 65 (which is much more primitive than Mark's) omits any reference to punishment. This suggest the allegorization is part of Markan redaction.
7) The cursing of the fig tree links the notion of an unproductive fig tree and its destruction to an unproductive temple and its (eventual) destruction.
8) The tearing of the temple veil upon Jesus' death assumes some kind of divine causality that portends the entire temple's eventual destruction.
9) There are a few references that only make sense after the Jewish War. For instance the language of legion in Mark 5:1-20 only works after the War, since before the War the military in Palestine and the Decapolis was not legionary. As an analogy, a story wherein a demon named “Spetsnaz” is exorcized from a Crimean denizen should strike the reader as anachronistic in its politics if depicted as occurring in 2010; one would assume the story had been written after the Russian annexation of Crimea in February 2014, in which the aforementioned special forces were active.

  None of that was convincing at all. I believe who ever wrote some of that is not reading Mark correctly. Especially Mark 13:1-2.

  Jesus was not talking about actual destruction of the temple. He was basically saying everything the temple stood for will be destroyed and he will raise himself up in three days which is the new covenant.

   The Jews took him literally.

But let's forget Mark. What about every single other book in the New Testament? No mention of this major event that lasted a while.


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[Hijiri Byakuren]

I'm doing this from my phone so forgive me. I can't quote like your doing or at least I can't figure it out.

To be fair, I really hate the way he handles quotes, too. Protip for @Mike Cl: Cutting up a post with the

quote

tags is much more readable than the format you've been using.

[Mr.Obvious]

Back on track: Actually wanting to rape and murder and pillage and enslave and ... and having God being the only thing that keeps you from that life of 'sin' and 'wickedness' seems like a good reason for me for that someone to believe in a God.

"I don't understand it. What stops you from killing and stealing? I know if I didn't have God, I would kill and steal every chance I get, because God is the only reason I don't do those things."
- Source: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20111110180935AAGEEPz (Poster seems trolly, but I've heard this uttered in earnest before.)

Yeah, then I'm glad you're convinced you're watched 24/7 by someone with the power to burn you in a lake of fire for all eternity.

[Kaleb5000]

I have read the arguments for an early Mark (prior to 70) and a later Mark.  I tend to land on the later Mark.  The following is a snippet from one site that gives some of the arguments for the later Mark:

We have an old thread that covers this here. The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple is taken as the biggest point in favor of a post-70 date.
As usual, /u/arquebus_x and /u/brojangles cover the high points (additions in brackets):
While it's true that Jerusalem didn't get properly sacked until 70, it was pretty clear right from the start that Jerusalem would have to fall if Rome was going to prevail. It was too heavily defended to be ignored. The siege took 7 months. At any point during that process, someone might have said, "Yup, all of this is probably going to come down."
Also, there was factional fighting in and around the Temple as far back as 68 CE. The idea that the Temple could be destroyed was not far-fetched.
So this might actually be a case of "foretelling" in a literary sense, where you have a writer making an educated guess about what's probably right around the corner.
So I for one am not convinced that the reference to the destruction of the Temple in 13:1-3 is a reference to a past event. I'm in the minority, however, and it's not a hill I'm prepared to die on. I simply find the post-Markan versions of the "apocalypse" (Matthew and Luke) to be more compelling as post-War retellings of a Markan mid-War description.
/u/brojangles picks up here:
Some other reasons are the anti-Jewish, anti-Petrine, Roman-apologetic polemic, which describe post-70 (or later) divisions between Paulinists and Jewish-Christians, Jesus saying there would be false prophets and "false Christs" anticipating schisms, heretical sects and possibly Gnostics. The mention that Christians would be "beaten in the Synagogues" which was a post-70 phenomenon.
The rending of the Temple veil is likely an allusion to the damaged veil that the Romans took from the Temple and displayed in Rome after 70.
Mark uses Latinisms which indicate a Roman provenance. [ Latinisms in Mark’s Gospel ]
Mark's story of the Gerasene demoniac sounds like an allusion to the Roman 10th Legion, which is the Legion that sieged and destroyed Jersualem, had a pig (a boar) for its emblem and was stationed near Gerasa for a while after 70.
In addition to all tis, I think a case can be made that Mark makes use of Josephus' Jewish War. In particular Josephus' passage about Jesus ben Ananius which is at least strikingly similar to Mark's description of Jesus before Pilate. I think it's too close to be a coincidence, but others' mileage may vary. [Comparison of Mark and Josephus's Jesuses here]
For a bullet pointed list instead, /u/zeichman really went the extra mile:
To summarize a number of arguments:
1) Mark 13:1-2 describes the destruction of the temple with far greater accuracy and specificity than generic discourse on the temple's fall (contrast, e.g., 1 Kgs 9:8; 1 En. 90.28-30; Josephus J.W. 6.300-309).
2) Mark 13:14 seems to refer to Vespasian, despite occasional arguments for the zealot Eleazar or the Emperor Gaius. The citation of the Danielic vision in Mark 13:14 parallels Josephus citation of Daniel's prophecy of the temple's fall in A.J. 10.276.
3) The fact that the various portents enumerated in Mark 13 are prompted by the question in Mark 13:1-2 as to WHEN the temple buildings will fall. In so doing, Mark explicitly encourages the reader to understand everything that follows in light of the temple's fall.
4) This is a more complex argument that isn't always easy to articulate. But Mark 14:57-58 and 15:29 slanderously attribute to Jesus the claim that he will destroy the temple and raise it again in three days. What is striking is that the controversy is over Jesus' role in bringing about the destruction -NOT whether or not the temple will actually fall. This assumes that the temple's fall was not a matter of controversy in Mark's context.
5) Another complex argument, but Eric Stewart has written a book arguing that Mark configures Jewish space away from the temple and synagogues and instead onto Jesus. Words that were normally used to describe activity related to those sites (e.g., language of gathering, ritualized activities) are relocated onto Jesus. Stewart contends that this is ultimately language of replacement. Though Stewart does not explicitly connect this with Markan dating, its relevance is obvious.
6) The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12) is an obvious allegory regarding the punishment of Jews for their rejection of Jesus. What is interesting is that the parallel in the Gospel of Thomas 65 (which is much more primitive than Mark's) omits any reference to punishment. This suggest the allegorization is part of Markan redaction.
7) The cursing of the fig tree links the notion of an unproductive fig tree and its destruction to an unproductive temple and its (eventual) destruction.
8) The tearing of the temple veil upon Jesus' death assumes some kind of divine causality that portends the entire temple's eventual destruction.
9) There are a few references that only make sense after the Jewish War. For instance the language of legion in Mark 5:1-20 only works after the War, since before the War the military in Palestine and the Decapolis was not legionary. As an analogy, a story wherein a demon named “Spetsnaz” is exorcized from a Crimean denizen should strike the reader as anachronistic in its politics if depicted as occurring in 2010; one would assume the story had been written after the Russian annexation of Crimea in February 2014, in which the aforementioned special forces were active.

  Also Frank Turek and Norman Geisler say in " I don't have enough faith to be an atheist"

   " Luke records the deaths of two Christian martyrs Steven and James the brother of John, but his account ends with two of its primary leaders Paul and James the brother of Jesus still living. Acts ends abruptly with Paul under house arrest in the Rome and there's no mention of James having died we know from Clement of Rome, writing in the first century, and from other early church fathers that Paul was executed sometime during the reign of Nero, which ended in A.D. 68. And we know from Josephus that James was killed in 62 so we can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the book of acts was written before 62.


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[Blackleaf]

If some one is biased does that mean they are not capable of telling the truth?

It means they have an agenda. Convincing people of the religion is the goal of Christianity, so of course the few Christians literate enough to write are going to do just that. What you need for credible evidence are writings from Jesus' contemporaries who were not members of his following. Hell, if you could even find anything from his followers who saw him in person, your sources would be more credible.

The Gospels do not count as such because of reasons others have mentioned. Only one of the four Gospels, John, had an author's name attached to it, and it was supposedly written by someone gathering information after Jesus' death. And unfortunately, the "go ask the people still alive" argument used to build its credibility no longer works, if it ever did.

[trdsf]

Thanks for your Input. Could you explain in what way the Gospels are inconsistent? Headed to work so it may be a bit before I get back to you.

If you really want to play the ignorant and innocent game, fine, but you've just demonstrated that you have not actually read the gospels, if you genuinely think they're free from contradictions.

Let's start with the big one, the earthquake and zombie jamboree that Matthew said happened at the moment Jeshua bar-Joseph died, and that somehow Mark, Luke and John all missed:

⁵¹And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
⁵²And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
⁵³And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

One would think that would be considered a reasonably noteworthy event.  Even if Luke, Mark and John failed to see any of the walking, talking dead, the idea that they missed an earthquake timed at the precise moment of Jeshua's decease is ludicrous.

You have a choice.  Either Matthew is right, or the other three are.  It is not possible to reconcile these accounts so that they're all four consistent.  At least one book of the New Testament must be factually inaccurate, and that leaves you with either a book to be interpreted but not taken literally, or a deliberate embrace of falsehood if you insist on literality.

And if one book is inaccurate, why not another?  Why not all of them?

And needless to say, this is far from the only contradiction.  The gospels fail to agree on most details of the Jeshua narrative.

[Kaleb5000]

It means they have an agenda. Convincing people of the religion is the goal of Christianity, so of course the few Christians literate enough to write are going to do just that. What you need for credible evidence are writings from Jesus' contemporaries who were not members of his following. Hell, if you could even find anything from his followers who saw him in person, your sources would be more credible.

The Gospels do not count as such because of reasons others have mentioned. Only one of the four Gospels, John, had an author's name attached to it, and it was supposedly written by someone gathering information after Jesus' death. And unfortunately, the "go ask the people still alive" argument used to build its credibility no longer works, if it ever did.

  Atheist authors have a agenda and are biased. Does it mean they to are making it all up. Or are they telling absolute truth.

   There are writings referencing Jesus outside his followers I have shared that already.

   What would be acceptable from his followers who have seen him?

“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of lifeâ€" the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to usâ€" that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭1:1-3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
‭‭2 Peter‬ ‭1:16‬ ‭ESV‬‬




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