Merged Topic - Historical Reliability of the Gospels

[Unbeliever]

I just don't have time to read all that, so let me just say this:

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane.

[hrdlr110]

LOL! That coming from you is precious!!!!!!!

I was thinking the same thing!!!! LoL

[trdsf]

The gospels were written very early. (Before AD 70)

Not proven.  Possible, certainly, but not proven.  The oldest known fragment is dated to somewhere between 100 and 250CE -- it has not been reliably dated any narrower than that.  That's a lot of time, even in a non-technological age.  And the oldest complete NT is dated to the middle 300s.

The gospels were written by eyewitnesses (Matthew, John) or by those who had access to them (Mark, Luke).

The authors are not known with certainty.  You are free to believe that these are the authors, but it is not proven.

The gospels were written by men who intended to write accurate history.

This is simple and pure nonsense.  They do not agree on the sequence of events of the nativity (if they address it at all), the events of ministry of Jesus, the sequence of events of the crucifixion, and the events after the alleged resurrection.  The best you can hope for here is to assert one of them is correct, but then why bother with the other three -- to say nothing of figuring out which one has the right order, the right events.

It sounds more like fanfic to me, than four historians.

The gospels were written by former skeptics who had become convinced that Jesus was God. (This is not bias...this is conviction.)

You can say that they were convinced by the alleged ministry of Jesus, but it's a stretch to call them converted skeptics -- especially if you mean skeptic in the modern sense.  They were all believers in one form of mysticism or another; none were atheists or agnostics.

The gospels were judged to be accurate by living witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.

See above re: four contradictory accounts.  And in any case, eyewitness testimony is the least reliable.  If you want to convince a skeptic (skeptic in the modern sense, not the sloppy way you used it above), you need an incontrovertible and repeatable observation, not "some guy said so".

The gospels have been preserved to an astonishingly high degree of accuracy which can be demonstrated by textual criticism. (We KNOW what the authors wrote.)

No, we don't.  We don't have the original copies.  Unless you've read the Codex Sinaiticus in the original Greek, you've only ever read translations of translations of translations of translations of translations of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies.  And even the Codex is itself a copy/translation of a copy/translation of a copy/translation of unknown degree.  The King James, for example, was explicitly a political translation of an earlier translation, written in such a way to favor and disfavor various factions of English Protestantism -- and funny how the favored factions were also the ones who supported James (and vice versa).

Bluntly put, when you say IS and KNOW, you're lying.  Not deliberately -- I don't doubt that you believe it to be true.

But it is absolutely not settled fact.

[Randy Carson]

And yet you fail to consider why most Christians are only Christians because they were raised that way, while most atheists are not atheists because they were raised that way. It's because the stories of the Bible are so ridiculous that the only way a religion centered around it could survive is through indoctrination. The few who are converted from other religious backgrounds are not enough to support the religion.

Are there Christians who were raised by atheist parents who later converted? Yep. Smart people, too...not just idiots.

A girl is raped by her pastor, the girl realizes that there is no God to protect her, and that the people who claim to represent him are no better--if not worse--than the general population. The trauma leads to realization, which leads to change. You don't see people leaving atheism because some atheist abused them, do you? That's because atheism doesn't make some BS claim about a God who watches over and protects them.

Your scenario is flawed because it is based upon a poor presumption. In actual fact, Christianity does not make the claim that God will protect everyone from all harm.

If you think that option 2 is easier and more convenient, you're a fucking idiot.

EDIT: Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I do not appreciate people telling me that I took the easy way out. My life from 16-24 years of age was centered around church. I was the most devout young man you could find. The most important thing in my life was making my heavenly father proud, but as circumstances in my life grew more and more challenging, it became painfully obvious that God was not listening to my cries for help. The other believers I consulted told me that God was allowing me to suffer so that I could grow, but I knew that my faith was breaking. If your God exists, he knew what I needed for my faith to survive, and yet he chose to withhold it from me. Such a god is not worthy of my praise. And now that I can see beyond the programming I was fed from an early age, I can see all the problems with the Bible and Christianity that my faith blinded me to. Now I can see that the very idea of a perfectly good, omnipotent, omniscient god in a world this imperfect is laughably ridiculous.

Giving up on my faith was not easy. I still feel a longing to return to my old life, to forget what history taught me so that I could feel at peace again. I can't tell my parents what's going on, or else they'd cut my off from my younger sister. There is nothing easy about giving up your faith.

Yes, the silence of God would have been on my list of reasons people become atheists. It is an inscrutable mystery as to why He allows us to go through these dark times.

I'm confident that He has never left your side and that He still loves you. Nor is He surprised by your current view of Him. But He's not done with you yet.

[Randy Carson]

Because everything that exists is natural.  There is no supernatural.  There is no magic.  Therefore there are not now and never have been miracles.

Can you prove this, Mike?

[Randy Carson]

I know that the Ent women disappeared because the back of my book has a collection of random lore written by Tolkien for his own personal reference. He was EXTREMELY thorough when creating his fictional world. Heck, he even created a whole language just for the elf characters of his world to speak. Not everything made it into his books.

So you have a book. But the author is dead, so you can't ask him any clarifying questions.

Despite all that, you believe the book's account to be true.



I don't buy it, Blackleaf. Call me an Ent Wife Mythicist, but I don't think there is any evidence that the Ent Wives ever existed, and some fairy tale recorded in an old book isn't convincing. I think Tolkien made the whole thing up. His son never witnessed the existence of the Ent Wives, either. This is just a conspiracy.

[Mike Cl]

Can you prove this, Mike?

Can you prove otherwise?

[Blackleaf]

So you have a book. But the author is dead, so you can't ask him any clarifying questions.

Despite all that, you believe the book's account to be true.



I don't buy it, Blackleaf. Call me an Ent Wife Mythicist, but I don't think there is any evidence that the Ent Wives ever existed, and some fairy tale recorded in an old book isn't convincing. I think Tolkien made the whole thing up. His son never witnessed the existence of the Ent Wives, either. This is just a conspiracy.

I don't see how your argument does anything but discredit your own faith. Both the Bible and the LotR books are fiction. As you said, his son never witnessed the existence of Ent wives. That's because they were made up for the fictional world that Tolkien created. In the same way, the Bible's stories were not written by eyewitnesses, but by people making up stories. The difference, however, is that the Bible had countless authors, which resulted in a predictable number of inconsistencies, while LotR had one author plus his son who patched up the leftovers and had a much more consistent story.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Now, we're finally getting somewhere. If Jesus really existed, if he wrote a book, if we had that original autograph...it wouldn't matter to you.

And why is that, Baruch?

All that wouldn't prove divinity.

[Blackleaf]

Are there Christians who were raised by atheist parents who later converted? Yep. Smart people, too...not just idiots.

Smart people who didn't care about the facts. Christianity is based on belief, not facts. Hell, many Christians consider the lack of facts to be essential to faith, and is their excuse for why God refuses to show himself: because when he would, it wouldn't be faith any more. Of course, God didn't care about faith when he showed himself to Moses or Job or Jesus' disciples or all the other people he supposedly directly interacted with...

Your scenario is flawed because it is based upon a poor presumption. In actual fact, Christianity does not make the claim that God will protect everyone from all harm.

No. It makes the claim that God is watching over us, silently watching as his people are raped, murdered, and abused while he has the power to stop it.

Yes, the silence of God would have been on my list of reasons people become atheists. It is an inscrutable mystery as to why He allows us to go through these dark times.

I'm confident that He has never left your side and that He still loves you. Nor is He surprised by your current view of Him. But He's not done with you yet.

You're dodging again. Which is the more convenient option, 1 or 2?

Option 1: Do your sin in secret, don't put yourself through the emotional rollercoaster that is deconversion so you can justify it. Use religion to justify yourself instead, because God forgives and no sinner has the right to judge you.

Option 2: Give up your religion, which a considerable portion of your life has been devoted to. Give up a major source of emotional support, both the imaginary God you pray to and the congregation that gives you a sense of belonging. Give up your hope for an afterlife, and the sense that your life has a purpose. All so that you can sleep with your (insert gender of your preference here)friend.

[Randy Carson]

That might work with the flock in church but not here. There was no mention of a Jesus (there were hundreds of them at the time, it was a common name) until about 45 CE. That's about 15 years after his alleged death. That's like reading about Prince's death in 2031 as breaking news.

The death of Prince may be a "news" item to you and me, but the closest associates of Prince would have learned of his death immediately. And while it is common for us to write about things like the death a famous person today, that was not the case in antiquity.

What is the earliest record we have of Alexander the Great? It came 400 years later. What is the earliest record we have of Julius Caesar? Suetonius and Plutarch wrote 100 years later. So, having so many accounts of the life of Jesus written within a few years of his life is unparalleled in ancient history.

But it really doesn't matter if a Jesus existed or not. He was a Jew preaching Mosaic law to the Jews. No divinity, that's why his crucifixion was explained as sacrifice to forgive our sins. Which is of course complete nonsense if you think about that even a little bit. A omnipotent deity sends his son (who is also himself and a ghost) into certain death to forgive our sins. That is the only way to explain the torture death of a mortal human. The question arises: what was accomplished? What changed? Why did this god not forgive us in the first place? The absurdity of it all makes it plausible says Tertullian. That's probably the most sensible explanation I have read. Doesn't make it true in any case.

Well, I can't fault you for not understanding - only for not trying to understand. But your "no divinity" assertion is just that - an assertion and your own personal opinion.

[Randy Carson]

Randy, you say: "Start with the OP of this thread. Let me know whether my case for early dating of the gospels is beyond a reasonable doubt.

One step at a time, Mike. One step at a time."

My reply:

A chronological New Testament sequences the documents very differently. Its order is based on contemporary mainstream biblical scholarship. Though there is uncertainty about dating some of the documents, there is a scholarly consensus about the basic framework.
It begins with seven letters attributed to Paul, all from the 50s. The first Gospel is Mark (not Matthew), written around 70. Revelation is not last, but almost in the middle, written in the 90s. Twelve documents follow Revelation, with II Peter the last, written as late as near the middle of the second century.
A chronological New Testament is not only about sequence, but also about chronological context â€" the context-in-time, the historical context in which each document was written. Words have their meaning within their temporal contexts, in the New Testament and the Bible as a whole.
Seeing and reading the New Testament in chronological sequence matters for historical reasons. It illuminates Christian origins. Much becomes apparent:
ï,·Beginning with seven of Paul’s letters illustrates that there were vibrant Christian communities spread throughout the Roman Empire before there were written Gospels. His letters provide a “window” into the life of very early Christian communities.
ï,·Placing the Gospels after Paul makes it clear that as written documents they are not the source of early Christianity but its product. The Gospel â€" the good news â€" of and about Jesus existed before the Gospels. They are the products of early Christian communities several decades after Jesus’ historical life and tell us how those communities saw his significance in their historical context.
ï,·Reading the Gospels in chronological order beginning with Mark demonstrates that early Christian understandings of Jesus and his significance developed. As Matthew and Luke used Mark as a source, they not only added to Mark but often modified Mark.
ï,·Seeing John separated from the other Gospels and relatively late in the New Testament makes it clear how different his Gospel is. In consistently metaphorical and symbolic language, it is primarily “witness” or “testimony” to what Jesus had become in the life and thought of John’s community.
ï,·Realizing that many of the documents are from the late first and early second centuries allows us to glimpse developments in early Christianity in its third and fourth generations. In general, they reflect a trajectory that moves from the radicalism of Jesus and Paul to increasing accommodation with the cultural conventions of the time.
Awareness of the above matters not just for historical reasons but also for Christian reasons. American Christianity today is deeply divided. At the heart of the division, especially among Protestants, is two very different ways of seeing the Bible and the New Testament. About half of American Protestants belong to churches that teach that the Bible is the inerrant “Word of God” and “inspired by God.”


So, no, your push for an 'early' bible does not cut it.
(BTW, this was copied from the Huffington Post--I did not write the above--but I have suggested just such a reorganization of the bible for decades now.)

Yeah, we know books of the NT are not listed in chronological order. This is not a problem.

But I never pushed for an "early Bible". I pushed for early dating of the Gospels, and you have not actually explained line-by-line why my reasoning is incorrect.

The reason the early dating is so significant is that in order for the gospels to be eyewitness testimony, the authors had to actually be present to the events they describe.

The OP gives the logic and evidence for believing that the gospels were written early enough to have been ACTUAL EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY and not fairy tales made up much later.

Two pieces are in place:

1. The texts we have are accurate.
2. The texts were written early enough to have been authored by actual eyewitnesses.

Still to come:

Did the authors actually intend to write reliable history, or were they just indulging in a bit of "fan fiction"?

[Randy Carson]

The Bible is definitely earlier than Gutenberg ;-)  Unsupported hypotheses in general won't push the date much earlier than 200 CE ... where we have substantial manuscripts in Greek.  Even so, it is only of interest to textual critics, which Randy rejects.

The earliest manuscript is a small fragment (about the size of a credit card) of John 18. It has been dated at about AD 150. That's only slightly more than 50 years from the time John actually wrote.

The OP lays out the timeline working back from the destruction of the Temple in AD 70.

[Mike Cl]

Yeah, we know books of the NT are not listed in chronological order. This is not a problem.

But I never pushed for an "early Bible". I pushed for early dating of the Gospels, and you have not actually explained line-by-line why my reasoning is incorrect.

The reason the early dating is so significant is that in order for the gospels to be eyewitness testimony, the authors had to actually be present to the events they describe.

The OP gives the logic and evidence for believing that the gospels were written early enough to have been ACTUAL EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY and not fairy tales made up much later.

Two pieces are in place:

1. The texts we have are accurate.
2. The texts were written early enough to have been authored by actual eyewitnesses.

Still to come:

Did the authors actually intend to write reliable history, or were they just indulging in a bit of "fan fiction"?

You do seem to think your belief establish  facts.  If you believe it, then it is so.  And if you can find others who agree with you, then they are experts and help you establish your belief as a fact--in your mind only.  You are so blinded by your irrational need to believe this fiction that you will go to any lengths to keep your belief. 

You have not established, nor has anybody else, that the text of the NT is accurate.  That would be impossible since we don't have a single autograph to check back to.  And there is no consensus about the dates when these essays were written.  Nor has it ever been established who wrote them.  Since we do not know when they were written nor who wrote them (with the exception of Paul's actual writings), how would you know what they intended?  Facts have been presented to you but they don't fit into your belief system so they are not facts.   

[Randy Carson]

History is not a court of law.  Science does not use the same standards as our court systems.  And if it did, science would quickly become a whole lot less useful. 

Of course not. I'm tempted to laugh at the fact that you even bothered to state such an obvious point.

But let me ask you this: Can any court of law repeat a murder in the courtroom the same way it happened on the street? Nope. Sure, science can repeat an experiment more than once in a lab, but history is not like that.

Do you know how many innocent people are behind bars?  Do you know how many guilty people get off on technicalities?  Are you aware that the way our court systems are set up the "facts" of any given case take a DISTANT SECOND to who is better at arguing?  Why do you think it's so expensive to get a good lawyer?  Will a good lawyer bring better facts to the court room?  No.  A good lawyer is simply better at arguing, better at twisting reality, better at distorting the facts to get the outcome he wants.  There is a reason science isn't modeled after our court system, much as you might wish it were.

True but irrelevant.

As we have firmly established prior to this, you have NO eyewitness accounts until you can convince a great majority (95% is the standard) of scholars and historians that you do.  And not only have they not been convinced that you are right, they HAVE been convinced that you are wrong.  YOU HAVE NO EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS!

There are written accounts from Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. Bart Ehrman actually cites six more reliable sources of information about Jesus.

And that's the second most popular thing that believers in various nuttery want to use, eyewitness accounts.  Because if someone claims they saw something then it's true without fail, right?  Just ask David Koresh!  Hey, a couple of years ago I read an eyewitness account from a doctor in India who said, FOR THE SECOND TIME IN HIS CAREER, that he confirmed some magic guy there had not eaten or drank anything for about 40 years!  That's not only an eyewitness account, that's an eyewitness account from a PROFESSIONAL!  That guy knows what he's talking about, so magic MUST be real!  And Trickle-Down Economics works, too!  There are LOTS of Republican eyewitness accounts to attest to that!  Step one, give rich people more money.  Step two, ?????  Step three, PROFIT!

Rants like this are not especially compelling, IMO.

Look, people go into court every day and listen to eyewitness accounts. These accounts are deemed so reliable by our judicial system that life and death verdicts are based upon them. But SOME eyewitnesses are judged to be UNRELIABLE. The jury does NOT believe the testimony that they give.

So, we can make judgments about which eyewitnesses we believe to be truthful and which ones are not. If you don't want to believe the guy from India, I won't blame you without substantial corroboration.

Christianity has compelling evidence and strong corroboration.