Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Christian Topic => Topic started by: Spud on March 28, 2019, 11:18:35 AM
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There are many small details in the gospels which are either the hallmarks of authentic eyewitness accounts, or are invented to make the stories more convincing.
C.S. Lewis in his 1950 essay, "What are we to make of Jesus Christ?" wrote,
"the art of inventing little irrelevant details to make an imaginary scene more convincing is a purely modern art." He says, "There is nothing [like the fourth gospel], even in modern literature, until about a hundred years ago when the realistic novel came into existence."
http://merecslewis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/what-are-we-to-make-of-resurrection-of.html
I thought I'd check to see if this is correct. Can anyone refute Lewis' statement?
Just come across some interesting examples from a talk by Cold Case Christianity author, J Warner Wallace on YouTube.
First are the gospel accounts of the feeding of the 5,000. Matthew and Mark do not tell us where this took place, exactly. John says it was on the far side of the Sea of Galilee. Only Luke tells us that it was at a town called Bethsaida (Lk 9:10).
John gives us another detail: Jesus asks Philip where they can go to buy bread for the people (Jn 6:5). John has already told us that Philip was from the town of Bethsaida (Jn 1:44). But without Luke's additional information about the location, we wouldn't know why it made sense for Jesus to ask Philip in particular this question. Philip would know where they could go for food.
Second is the accounts of the soldiers beating Jesus. Matthew and Luke tell us that during the trial at the high priest's house, Jesus was asked to prophesy who it was had hit him:
Matthew 26:67-68 Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. 68Others slapped him and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?”
Luke 22:63-65 The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. 64They blindfolded him and demanded, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” 65And they said many other insulting things to him.
Only Luke explains that they had blindfolded Jesus, hence the demand to prophesy which of them had hit him. He and Matthew use different words to describe the beating, the only phrase they share in common being "prophesy...who hit you". So apparently they used independent eyewitnesses.
That one version doesn't make sense without the other is characteristic of real eyewitness accounts, in which one confusing statement is frequently clarified by another witness, according to Wallace, himself a detective.
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Spud,
Just come across some interesting examples from a talk by Cold Case Christianity author, J Warner Wallace on YouTube.
First are the gospel accounts of the feeding of the 5,000. Matthew and Mark do not tell us where this took place, exactly. John says it was on the far side of the Sea of Galilee. Only Luke tells us that it was at a town called Bethsaida (Lk 9:10).
John gives us another detail: Jesus asks Philip where they can go to buy bread for the people (Jn 6:5). John has already told us that Philip was from the town of Bethsaida (Jn 1:44). But without Luke's additional information about the location, we wouldn't know why it made sense for Jesus to ask Philip in particular this question. Philip would know where they could go for food.
Second is the accounts of the soldiers beating Jesus. Matthew and Luke tell us that during the trial at the high priest's house, Jesus was asked to prophesy who it was had hit him:
Matthew 26:67-68 Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. 68Others slapped him and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?”
Luke 22:63-65 The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. 64They blindfolded him and demanded, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” 65And they said many other insulting things to him.
Only Luke explains that they had blindfolded Jesus, hence the demand to prophesy which of them had hit him. He and Matthew use different words to describe the beating, the only phrase they share in common being "prophesy...who hit you". So apparently they used independent eyewitnesses.
That one version doesn't make sense without the other is characteristic of real eyewitness accounts, in which one confusing statement is frequently clarified by another witness, according to Wallace, himself a detective.
You've tried this before Spud - "The different versions of the story don't match, therefore it must be true!". Inconsistencies and discrepancies and contradictions are also what you'd expect if stories aren't true, or if they have a germ of truth and are corrupted through numerous re-tellings (the Chinese whispers effect). A mystic but mortal Jesus for example could have been bigged up into something else as each author embellished along the way.
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Just come across some interesting examples from a talk by Cold Case Christianity author, J Warner Wallace on YouTube.
First are the gospel accounts of the feeding of the 5,000. Matthew and Mark do not tell us where this took place, exactly. John says it was on the far side of the Sea of Galilee. Only Luke tells us that it was at a town called Bethsaida (Lk 9:10).
John gives us another detail: Jesus asks Philip where they can go to buy bread for the people (Jn 6:5). John has already told us that Philip was from the town of Bethsaida (Jn 1:44). But without Luke's additional information about the location, we wouldn't know why it made sense for Jesus to ask Philip in particular this question. Philip would know where they could go for food.
Second is the accounts of the soldiers beating Jesus. Matthew and Luke tell us that during the trial at the high priest's house, Jesus was asked to prophesy who it was had hit him:
Matthew 26:67-68 Then they spit in his face and struck him with their fists. 68Others slapped him and said, “Prophesy to us, Messiah. Who hit you?”
Luke 22:63-65 The men who were guarding Jesus began mocking and beating him. 64They blindfolded him and demanded, “Prophesy! Who hit you?” 65And they said many other insulting things to him.
Only Luke explains that they had blindfolded Jesus, hence the demand to prophesy which of them had hit him. He and Matthew use different words to describe the beating, the only phrase they share in common being "prophesy...who hit you". So apparently they used independent eyewitnesses.
That one version doesn't make sense without the other is characteristic of real eyewitness accounts, in which one confusing statement is frequently clarified by another witness, according to Wallace, himself a detective.
Eye witness accounts are very dubious. I have mentioned many times the Angel of Mons fairy tale, which some soldiers claimed to have seen, when in reality it was a story not an actual event.
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Spud,
You've tried this before Spud - "The different versions of the story don't match, therefore it must be true!". Inconsistencies and discrepancies and contradictions are also what you'd expect if stories aren't true, or if they have a germ of truth and are corrupted through numerous re-tellings (the Chinese whispers effect). A mystic but mortal Jesus for example could have been bigged up into something else as each author embellished along the way.
I thank the right honourable gentleman for his reply. Sorry for not replying back earlier, I'm a bit slow with this stuff.
Yes, we had a long discussion before. I don't think I've ever said that discrepancies etc prove the gospels to be true, only perhaps that they are typical of eyewitness accounts, since witnesses see things from different angles and perspectives. It's true that discrepancies can also indicate accounts are false or embellished, though, as you say.
My argument here is that one gospel can corroborate another - seemingly unintentionally. This seems to be evidence against the possibility of corruption through numerous retelling.
The book of Acts makes no mention of the deaths of Peter or Paul, or of the siege ovJerusalem or its destruction. This makes it unlikely that Acts was written later than AD 60. So the gospel of Luke must be even earlier. This doesn't leave much time for the stories of miracles to develop into legends. And John was an eyewitness, and Mark used Peter's eyewitness accounts, according to the early church leaders
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Hi Spud,
I thank the right honourable gentleman for his reply. Sorry for not replying back earlier, I'm a bit slow with this stuff.
Yes, we had a long discussion before. I don't think I've ever said that discrepancies etc prove the gospels to be true, only perhaps that they are typical of eyewitness accounts, since witnesses see things from different angles and perspectives. It's true that discrepancies can also indicate accounts are false or embellished, though, as you say.
My argument here is that one gospel can corroborate another - seemingly unintentionally. This seems to be evidence against the possibility of corruption through numerous retelling.
The book of Acts makes no mention of the deaths of Peter or Paul, or of the siege ovJerusalem or its destruction. This makes it unlikely that Acts was written later than AD 60. So the gospel of Luke must be even earlier. This doesn't leave much time for the stories of miracles to develop into legends. And John was an eyewitness, and Mark used Peter's eyewitness accounts, according to the early church leaders Paul also quotes bits of Luke in Corinthians and Timothy, indicating an early date for Luke.
No worries. The problem here though isn’t with the possible fact of eyewitness accounts. Grant for now that there were people who saw some things. How then should we get from what they saw to the narratives they then put together about what actually happened? If I go to a magic show I “see” a woman sawn in half, and a bit later I “see” her joined together. That’s a miracle then right?
Except of course it isn’t because what I “witnessed” told me nothing about what actually happened. “Bisected then stuck together again” isn’t something I witnessed at all – it’s a narrative I developed to make sense of what I thought I saw.
Now situate that not in a 21st century magic performance but in a credulous, illiterate, pre-rationalist world in which miracles were commonplace explanations for the otherwise inexplicable.
Now consider the embellishing effect of re-telling of stories. The distortions happen at an exponential rate because as each new part is added that becomes the established story to which the next embellishment is added. It’s a well understood phenomenon, which why in one room with just a few people the original message in a game of Chinese whispers will be completely distorted even when the it was written just minutes before. And moreover that happens when the participants have no deliberate desire to distort at all.
Now consider what would happen if the re-telling happened over large distance and large periods of time and were shared by people keen to big up whichever miracle story they happened to favour.
Can you see now why the gospels might be reasonable records of, say, how many bales of hay it cost to buy a camel, but are as good as worthless as evidence for genuine miracles?
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Can you see now why the gospels might be reasonable records of, say, how many bales of hay it cost to buy a camel, but are as good as worthless as evidence for genuine miracles?
I can see why you would think that, yes. I think what I'll do is have a look for more examples like those in the OP. Facebook I think has apologetics forums which might help. Thanks for providing a skeptic's perspective. :)
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Spud,
I can see why you would think that, yes. I think what I'll do is have a look for more examples like those in the OP. Facebook I think has apologetics forums which might help. Thanks for providing a skeptic's perspective. :)
No worries. You can look for more examples if you wish to, though no amount of them will address the central issue I mapped out: discrepant or congruent stories can't tell you anything about the validity of the explanatory narratives the eyewitnesses and re-tellers came up with.
You're a skeptic too by the way - you'd never for example buy a used car from me based on evidence of the quality of that in the gospels for miracles, but you suspend that skepticism when it concerns your faith beliefs.
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If I go to a magic show I “see” a woman sawn in half, and a bit later I “see” her joined together. That’s a miracle then right?
Now situate that not in a 21st century magic performance but in a credulous, illiterate, pre-rationalist world in which miracles were commonplace explanations for the otherwise inexplicable.
First of all... A woman sawn in half is not a 21 st century magic performance.
As far as we know it is a 19th century trick.
A resurrection show played out in a community of multinationals and multifaiths (rather than an audience who start out knowing that a magician is not for LEGAL REASONS GOING TO SAW A WOMAN IN HALF) probably is a 21st century magic performance worthy of a Dynamo, David Blaine, Derren Brown and of course channel 4 with all the illusionary power that has at it's disposal. Jesus as Derren Brown? Sounds a bit like applying known modern phenomenon to historical situations.
Secondly, that people have probably always had difficulty with the notion of resurrection is clear. The early Christians report that it is, in their day and age, unbelieveable. In fact in the biblical resurrection accounts there are reports that
disciples didn't believe what they were seeing.
Your argument about a credulous world is therefore suspect......and historically illiterate.
Miracles at two a penny is more descriptive of the medieval times I would suggest.
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First of all... A woman sawn in half is not a 21 st century magic performance.
As far as we know it is a 19th century trick.
A resurrection show played out in a community of multinationals and multifaiths (rather than an audience who start out knowing that a magician is not for LEGAL REASONS GOING TO SAW A WOMAN IN HALF) probably is a 21st century magic performance worthy of a Dynamo, David Blaine, Derren Brown and of course channel 4 with all the illusionary power that has at it's disposal. Jesus as Derren Brown? Sounds a bit like applying known modern phenomenon to historical situations.
Secondly, that people have probably always had difficulty with the notion of resurrection is clear. The early Christians report that it is, in their day and age, unbelieveable. In fact in the biblical resurrection accounts there are reports that
disciples didn't believe what they were seeing.
Your argument about a credulous world is therefore suspect......and historically illiterate.
Miracles at two a penny is more descriptive of the medieval times I would suggest.
Ah, the ever-welcome return of Vlad missing the point entirely...
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Ah, the ever-welcome return of Vlad missing the point entirely...
Even in the unlikely event that I have. Flagging up an historically illiterate
new atheist attempt to bludge through a modern take on the past has to be eminently worthwhile.
You're welcome.
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Even in the unlikely event that I have. Flagging up an historically illiterate
new atheist attempt to bludge through a modern take on the past has to be eminently worthwhile.
Reminds me of the old joke: "He born just a whisker from being good looking...
...unfortunately, after that he just kept going."
I know that metaphors, similes, analogies etc pass you by entirely but would it kill you just this once at least to try to keep up?
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I know that metaphors, similes, analogies etc pass you by entirely but would it kill you just this once at least to try to keep up?
Oh yes?.....and your statement ''a credulous, illiterate, pre-rationalist world'' is a metaphor for what?
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Oh yes?.....and your statement ''a credulous, illiterate, pre-rationalist world'' is a metaphor for what?
So that's a "no" then. Try again if ever the meaning of "analogy" sinks in though...
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Spud,
No worries. You can look for more examples if you wish to, though no amount of them will address the central issue I mapped out: discrepant or congruent stories can't tell you anything about the validity of the explanatory narratives the eyewitnesses and re-tellers came up with.
You're a skeptic too by the way - you'd never for example buy a used car from me based on evidence of the quality of that in the gospels for miracles, but you suspend that skepticism when it concerns your faith beliefs.
The last time I bought a car, the garage had to replace the starter motor and was glad to see the back of me. They had overpriced the car and I made sure I got my money's worth . Although I test drove it, I still had to trust their word that it was in good working order. The gospels offer an answer to the question we all ask, "what's after death?" and like with any purchase, if we want the product we have to trust the evangelist.
Yep, lots of things seemingly don't add up, such as the genealogies of Jesus or the Easter timelines. I think what Wallace is saying however is that based on his experience of solving murder crimes, the gospels can be trusted. This is saying something because convicting someone of murder can't be taken lightly, as the defendant's own life is at stake (in some countries).
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Spud,
The last time I bought a car, the garage had to replace the starter motor and was glad to see the back of me. They had overpriced the car and I made sure I got my money's worth . Although I test drove it, I still had to trust their word that it was in good working order.
Yup. Now imagine that I was selling you my car that I claimed to run for 1,000 miles on a teaspoon of Marmite. “How do I know this is true?” you might ask, and my answer would be that it’s written in a book that says that someone about 30 years ago and a long way away saw it happen, and he told his mate (because it wasn’t thought important enough at the time to write down), and he told his mate and so on multiple times, and then the story was finally written down and then translated a couple of times too. Oh, and the first bloke who saw it happened to live in a place where stories about helicopters running on gravy and submarines running on thimbles of honey were believed to be true too.
All good so far? Great, I’ll take a bank transfer payment please…
The gospels offer an answer to the question we all ask, "what's after death?" and like with any purchase, if we want the product we have to trust the evangelist.
Why? If I were to evangelise for the answer being that you’d end up running a celestial McDonalds on the exit junction for Atlantis serving truck-driving ghosts would you trust me too?
Why not?
Yep, lots of things seemingly don't add up, such as the genealogies of Jesus or the Easter timelines. I think what Wallace is saying however is that based on his experience of solving murder crimes, the gospels can be trusted. This is saying something because convicting someone of murder can't be taken lightly, as the defendant's own life is at stake (in some countries).
You’re still missing the point. There could have been no miracles at all and the Gospels would still look just as they do now. All a detective could do would be to decide whether or not he thought they authors were honest. Even if they were all as honest as the day is long though, that would tell you nothing at all about whether they were honestly mistaken. Take an Amazonian tribesman to a magic show for example and he would honestly record that he saw a woman sawn in two and joined together again. And if he told his pals back home, and if they told each other, and if those people told some other tribes, and if eventually it was written down, and if then it was translated a couple of times, and if then your detective looked at the various written accounts he’d also think the authors along the way to be honest. That does not though mean that a woman must have been sawn in two and put together again.
And that’s the problem with Gospel “truth” about supposed miracles.
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BHS,
My car doesn't need petrol either, but it only goes downhill.
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Blue
With regards to the natives of the a Amazon seeing a woman sawn in half etc, has this not already been shown to be true based on the people who were around the US troops in WWII seeing planes drop food etc. I think when the Americans left they build crude communication huts to try to get food flown in. They did not understand what was happening and tried to emulate it
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Hi BR,
With regards to the natives of the a Amazon seeing a woman sawn in half etc, has this not already been shown to be true based on the people who were around the US troops in WWII seeing planes drop food etc. I think when the Americans left they build crude communication huts to try to get food flown in. They did not understand what was happening and tried to emulate it
Yes - cargo cults: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
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Hi BR,
With regards to the natives of the a Amazon seeing a woman sawn in half etc, has this not already been shown to be true based on the people who were around the US troops in WWII seeing planes drop food etc. I think when the Americans left they build crude communication huts to try to get food flown in. They did not understand what was happening and tried to emulate it
Yes - cargo cults: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
This shows that people can misunderstand what they are seeing and build and incorrect belief about it.
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Hi BR,
With regards to the natives of the a Amazon seeing a woman sawn in half etc, has this not already been shown to be true based on the people who were around the US troops in WWII seeing planes drop food etc. I think when the Americans left they build crude communication huts to try to get food flown in. They did not understand what was happening and tried to emulate it
Yes - cargo cults: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult
The woman sawn in half...….having been dismissed as a suitable metaphor a few posts back now finds herself recycled and transported to the amazon.
Is such an attempted rescue chivalry or desperation?
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Vlad,
The woman sawn in half...….having been dismissed as a suitable metaphor a few posts back now finds herself recycled and transported to the amazon.
Is such an attempted rescue chivalry or desperation?
Maybe if you tried to stop lying just for five minutes or so and built up from there? It was only "dismissed" because you don't understand the word analogy. In actuality it was no re dismissed than the needle in a haystack analogy would be if someone couldn't show you an actual haystack.
Try the not lying for five minutes thing - you never know, it might actually work.
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Spud,
Yup. Now imagine that I was selling you my car that I claimed to run for 1,000 miles on a teaspoon of Marmite. “How do I know this is true?” you might ask, and my answer would be that it’s written in a book that says that someone about 30 years ago and a long way away saw it happen, and he told his mate (because it wasn’t thought important enough at the time to write down), and he told his mate and so on multiple times, and then the story was finally written down and then translated a couple of times too. Oh, and the first bloke who saw it happened to live in a place where stories about helicopters running on gravy and submarines running on thimbles of honey were believed to be true too.
All good so far? Great, I’ll take a bank transfer payment please…
Why? If I were to evangelise for the answer being that you’d end up running a celestial McDonalds on the exit junction for Atlantis serving truck-driving ghosts would you trust me too?
Why not?
I think we all trust some form answer to the question of life after death. It depends on whether we believe in the supernatural or not.
You’re still missing the point. There could have been no miracles at all and the Gospels would still look just as they do now. All a detective could do would be to decide whether or not he thought they authors were honest. Even if they were all as honest as the day is long though, that would tell you nothing at all about whether they were honestly mistaken. Take an Amazonian tribesman to a magic show for example and he would honestly record that he saw a woman sawn in two and joined together again. And if he told his pals back home, and if they told each other, and if those people told some other tribes, and if eventually it was written down, and if then it was translated a couple of times, and if then your detective looked at the various written accounts he’d also think the authors along the way to be honest. That does not though mean that a woman must have been sawn in two and put together again.
And that’s the problem with Gospel “truth” about supposed miracles.
A point of order. I agree that an Amazonian tribesman may be more likely to believe the woman being sawn in half trick to be magic than someone from a developed country. Presumably though, all people have a built-in knowledge of the concept of optical illusion. I went to a kids magic show as a boy where the magician pulled a bunch of flowers out of a rubber ring, which my Dad guessed was the kind you find in the roller of a hoover. So we went out to buy one, me hoping I could magic up some flowers for Mum. Very disappointed when it didn't work, but that was my initiation to the idea that 'magic' is illusion.
Wouldn't the tribesman know that there ought to be blood gushing out, and guess it was actually an illusion?
The gospels report that Jesus was really dead, so countering the idea that they are primitive fishermen mistaking fake death for actual death.
So it's just the resurrection that is in question. John provides evidence that the Jesus they saw wasn't an illusion, saying that they touched and ate with him.
In the end, with respect to their non-miraculous aspects, the gospels prove to be reliable eyewitness documents, in my opinion. A separate analysis is needed to get to accepting the miracles, which is based on my perception of the universe and whether I can accept the existence of God or not.
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I think we all trust some form answer to the question of life after death. It depends on whether we believe in the supernatural or not.
A point of order. I agree that an Amazonian tribesman may be more likely to believe the woman being sawn in half trick to be magic than someone from a developed country. Presumably though, all people have a built-in knowledge of the concept of optical illusion. I went to a kids magic show as a boy where the magician pulled a bunch of flowers out of a rubber ring, which my Dad guessed was the kind you find in the roller of a hoover. So we went out to buy one, me hoping I could magic up some flowers for Mum. Very disappointed when it didn't work, but that was my initiation to the idea that 'magic' is illusion.
Wouldn't the tribesman know that there ought to be blood gushing out, and guess it was actually an illusion?
The gospels report that Jesus was really dead, so countering the idea that they are primitive fishermen mistaking fake death for actual death.
So it's just the resurrection that is in question. John provides evidence that the Jesus they saw wasn't an illusion, saying that they touched and ate with him.
In the end, with respect to their non-miraculous aspects, the gospels prove to be reliable eyewitness documents, in my opinion. A separate analysis is needed to get to accepting the miracles, which is based on my perception of the universe and whether I can accept the existence of God or not.
In what way are they eye witness accounts?
We do not even know who wrote the gospels
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Presumably though, all people have a built-in knowledge of the concept of optical illusion. I went to a kids magic show as a boy where the magician pulled a bunch of flowers out of a rubber ring, which my Dad guessed was the kind you find in the roller of a hoover. So we went out to buy one, me hoping I could magic up some flowers for Mum. Very disappointed when it didn't work, but that was my initiation to the idea that 'magic' is illusion.
So what you are saying is that your built-in knowledge of the concept of optical illusion failed you. Doesn't that suggest to you that it doesn't exist?
Wouldn't the tribesman know that there ought to be blood gushing out, and guess it was actually an illusion?
I think that would depend on how you presented it to them. People have an immense ability to believe things that, logically, can't be true, if they really want to believe in them. How else do you explain the religions that exist but that are not Christianity?
The gospels report that Jesus was really dead, so countering the idea that they are primitive fishermen mistaking fake death for actual death.
Even if they were fishermen, what makes you think they were primitive?
So it's just the resurrection that is in question. John provides evidence that the Jesus they saw wasn't an illusion, saying that they touched and ate with him.
You mean it is written in the Gospel of John. It's written in the Harry Potter books that you can fly on a broomstick and even play team sports on them. We do not know who wrote John, we do not know his source for the post resurrection stories. We know there is no independent corroborating source for any of his post resurrection stories and we know he was writing for an audience in a fledgling religion full of people who wanted to believe that Jesus' execution wasn't the end of him.
In the end, with respect to their non-miraculous aspects, the gospels prove to be reliable eyewitness documents, in my opinion.
There's nothing in any of the gospels that make them look like eye witness documents. There are, for example, no first hand accounts. Whereas there is evidence of large scale copying from Mark to the others.
Your best argument for them being eye witness documents is that they are like real eye witness accounts in the sense that they are unreliable like real eye witness accounts. Your argument is self defeating, if true.
A separate analysis is needed to get to accepting the miracles, which is based on my perception of the universe and whether I can accept the existence of God or not.
That is a circular argument.
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I think we all trust some form answer to the question of life after death. It depends on whether we believe in the supernatural or not.
A point of order. I agree that an Amazonian tribesman may be more likely to believe the woman being sawn in half trick to be magic than someone from a developed country. Presumably though, all people have a built-in knowledge of the concept of optical illusion. I went to a kids magic show as a boy where the magician pulled a bunch of flowers out of a rubber ring, which my Dad guessed was the kind you find in the roller of a hoover. So we went out to buy one, me hoping I could magic up some flowers for Mum. Very disappointed when it didn't work, but that was my initiation to the idea that 'magic' is illusion.
Wouldn't the tribesman know that there ought to be blood gushing out, and guess it was actually an illusion?
The gospels report that Jesus was really dead, so countering the idea that they are primitive fishermen mistaking fake death for actual death.
So it's just the resurrection that is in question. John provides evidence that the Jesus they saw wasn't an illusion, saying that they touched and ate with him.
In the end, with respect to their non-miraculous aspects, the gospels prove to be reliable eyewitness documents, in my opinion. A separate analysis is needed to get to accepting the miracles, which is based on my perception of the universe and whether I can accept the existence of God or not.
The gospels state many less than credible things, which should be taken with a large container of salt until there is evidence to substantiate them.
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I think it’s worth remembering that attitudes towards communication, evidence, story telling, belief and their relative values would all have been radically different in first century Palestine than they are today. We see everything through a post-enlightenment lens.
All I'm saying is that interrogating the gospels as if they were created within a modern context is asking a bit much of them. The authors and, if you like, eyewitnesses that contributed the accounts of Jesus' life that the gospels contain would have had a totally different understanding to us of how to transmit information, what content mattered and how it would be understood by others who heard or read it.
An eyewitness to a crime reporting something to the police in the modern age comes at it within the context of our culture. The bias they use to communicate information in a certain way will be influenced by all sorts of things - what it means to be talking to the police, the expectations of how that information will be used, their awareness of the social contract to which they live in their society, how articulate they are etc. etc. It’s almost immeasurable.
A first century Palestinian with a passion for a new and exciting religious movement who sets out to share the stories that have inspired their belief with others will be more concerned with including details and events that contrast it with the current cultural context and will choose to do it in terms that will convince people of that age. I don't have a fucking clue what it was like to be making my way as a citizen of first century Palestine, the politics, the boredom, the societal currents and pressures that influenced any kind of cultural change.
It’s not fair to probe the accounts these people made of something they clearly felt was important, because they didn't write them for us and could not possible conceive of how to write something that would work as a convincing thesis in the 21st century. Why should they? they were just trying to do the best they could for their own time... probably. I don't know, I never met them.
Trying to scrutinise the gospels for 'hard' evidence or fact from a perspective 2000 years after they were written will only highlight their limitations, ultimately undermining them. Which is a shame, because even as an unbeliever I can read and enjoy them and the powerful stories and ideas they contain.
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Spud,
I think we all trust some form answer to the question of life after death. It depends on whether we believe in the supernatural or not.
You are of course free to trust anything you like. The problem with that though is that your trust has no more epistemological value for others than anyone else’s trust in anything else. Worse yet, even if you do believe in “the supernatural” there’s a bewildering variety of supernatural options for you to guess at in any case.
A point of order. I agree that an Amazonian tribesman may be more likely to believe the woman being sawn in half trick to be magic than someone from a developed country. Presumably though, all people have a built-in knowledge of the concept of optical illusion. I went to a kids magic show as a boy where the magician pulled a bunch of flowers out of a rubber ring, which my Dad guessed was the kind you find in the roller of a hoover. So we went out to buy one, me hoping I could magic up some flowers for Mum. Very disappointed when it didn't work, but that was my initiation to the idea that 'magic' is illusion.
Wouldn't the tribesman know that there ought to be blood gushing out, and guess it was actually an illusion?
The gospels report that Jesus was really dead, so countering the idea that they are primitive fishermen mistaking fake death for actual death.
So it's just the resurrection that is in question. John provides evidence that the Jesus they saw wasn't an illusion, saying that they touched and ate with him.
That’s a Vlad-scale missing of the point. The point here is that there are various explanations for, for example, what appeared to be a resurrection that don’t involve a resurrection at all. The explanation “resurrection” may have been genuinely believed, but it wasn’t what was “witnessed”. You can’t witness an explanation. You can witness an event, but the explanation for it is an abstract – it’s a narrative that makes sense for the witness to process what he saw, but it cannot be a “thing” that’s witnessed in its own right. Do you remember an advert for the Guardian a while back that showed a thuggish-looking skinhead type rushing toward a woman with a pushchair and shoving her? What you witnessed was the event – the explanation that he was attacking her was a narrative that made sense of it but it didn’t exist on the screen.
Of course in the next shot you saw some collapsing scaffolding, so the explanation then became that he was saving her from being crushed. See? Someone could honestly have “witnessed” an attack and after many re-tellings and several translations it could have been written down that way. That though would tell you nothing at all about the actual explanation.
And that’s the problem with your detective story. No matter how sincere he found the authors to be, you’d still be entirely in the dark about the accuracy or otherwise of their explanations.
In the end, with respect to their non-miraculous aspects, the gospels prove to be reliable eyewitness documents, in my opinion.
They’re not eyewitness accounts at all. An eyewitness account would be an account by the person who did the witnessing. What they actually are is accounts by people other than the eyewitnesses who were some considerable distance away from the eyewitnesses in geography, time and language.
A separate analysis is needed to get to accepting the miracles, which is based on my perception of the universe and whether I can accept the existence of God or not.
How on earth would you propose going about verifying a miracle? Of course if you believe in a god then you can believe in any related miracle story from any tradition that takes your fancy, be it resurrections, ascending on winged horses or anything else but that provides no reason at all for others to think you to be right about that.
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Spud,
You are of course free to trust anything you like. The problem with that though is that your trust has no more epistemological value for others than anyone else’s trust in anything else. Worse yet, even if you do believe in “the supernatural” there’s a bewildering variety of supernatural options for you to guess at in any case.
I'm not going to trust an answer that isn't backed up with evidence.
That’s a Vlad-scale missing of the point. The point here is that there are various explanations for, for example, what appeared to be a resurrection that don’t involve a resurrection at all. The explanation “resurrection” may have been genuinely believed, but it wasn’t what was “witnessed”. You can’t witness an explanation. You can witness an event, but the explanation for it is an abstract – it’s a narrative that makes sense for the witness to process what he saw, but it cannot be a “thing” that’s witnessed in its own right. Do you remember an advert for the Guardian a while back that showed a thuggish-looking skinhead type rushing toward a woman with a pushchair and shoving her? What you witnessed was the event – the explanation that he was attacking her was a narrative that made sense of it but it didn’t exist on the screen.
Of course in the next shot you saw some collapsing scaffolding, so the explanation then became that he was saving her from being crushed. See? Someone could honestly have “witnessed” an attack and after many re-tellings and several translations it could have been written down that way. That though would tell you nothing at all about the actual explanation.
And that’s the problem with your detective story. No matter how sincere he found the authors to be, you’d still be entirely in the dark about the accuracy or otherwise of their explanations.
So the story is that someone pushed a woman with a pushchair. The explanation is to save her life. Jesus died and rose again (the story) but it turns out he did it to make people think he is a god to be worshipped.
Well, that could be a possible explanation (aside from, "to save us from our sin"). Whatever the explanation, the author has told us what he saw: that is, the same person who died by crucifixion was seen alive three days later.
They’re not eyewitness accounts at all. An eyewitness account would be an account by the person who did the witnessing. What they actually are is accounts by people other than the eyewitnesses who were some considerable distance away from the eyewitnesses in geography, time and language.
If an eyewitness can't write, or at least doesn't have A-Level theology, then he would recount his story to someone who can, and that is apparently what happened with the gospels. Also, the accounts by one of the church fathers, who knew John, do not conflict with John's own gospel account. Meaning that little or no change occurred across a generation.
How on earth would you propose going about verifying a miracle? Of course if you believe in a god then you can believe in any related miracle story from any tradition that takes your fancy, be it resurrections, ascending on winged horses or anything else but that provides no reason at all for others to think you to be right about that.
Multiple witnesses?
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Multiple witnesses claim to have seen the, Angel of Mons, which was only a story created by a journalist.
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I'm not going to trust an answer that isn't backed up with evidence.
Like the answer the gospels give tor the question "did Jesus rise from the dead?"
If an eyewitness can't write, or at least doesn't have A-Level theology, then he would recount his story to someone who can, and that is apparently what happened with the gospels.
How long was the chain of people from the eye witness to the3 person who wrote the gospel? What steps did the gospel writer take to ensure that the eye witness account was true and not distorted in any way?
Also, the accounts by one of the church fathers, who knew John, do not conflict with John's own gospel account. Meaning that little or no change occurred across a generation.
Which church father? How do you know that this alleged church father knew the John that wrote the gospel as opposed to some other John?
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Like the answer the gospels give tor the question "did Jesus rise from the dead?"
How long was the chain of people from the eye witness to the3 person who wrote the gospel? What steps did the gospel writer take to ensure that the eye witness account was true and not distorted in any way?
Which church father? How do you know that this alleged church father knew the John that wrote the gospel as opposed to some other John?
Apparently Ignatius, AD 35-107, knew the apostle John. In his letter to the Ephesians he mentions the virgin birth, and "God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life." Obviously this is doctrine put forward by the gospels. The supernatural bits were there from the start, not added later as you'd expect with legends.
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There's nothing in any of the gospels that make them look like eye witness documents. There are, for example, no first hand accounts. Whereas there is evidence of large scale copying from Mark to the others.
Your best argument for them being eye witness documents is that they are like real eye witness accounts in the sense that they are unreliable like real eye witness accounts. Your argument is self defeating, if true.
That is a circular argument.
I think there were earlier written accounts which the gospels drew from. Eg John 21:24 "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down."
Or Luke 1:1 "Many have undertaken to draw up an account ofthe things that have been fulfilled among us".
The argument in this thread is that they compliment each other.
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Multiple witnesses claim to have seen the, Angel of Mons, which was only a story created by a journalist.
No mention of these sightings was found in any official accounts of the event.
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No mention of these sightings was found in any official accounts of the event.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons
What about those who claimed to have seen Mary the woman who gave birth to Jesus?
No way can the gospels be termed as official accounts of the time Jesus was strutting his stuff on Earth.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_of_Mons
Thanks. So it was completely fictitious, then? I wasn't sure. The big difference is that Arthur Machen, the author of the story, immediately admitted that it was imaginary and that he hadn't intended to create a hoax. According to tradition, all the apostles except John were martyred and none admitted to have made up the gospel stories.
What about those who claimed to have seen Mary the woman who gave birth to Jesus?
These are supposed sightings of ghosts, none of which involve the ghost sitting and eating fish and chips with them.
No way can the gospels be termed as official accounts of the time Jesus was strutting his stuff on Earth.
Luke is as much an official account as Arthur Machen's would have been if it was true. See his introduction. Mark too announces "the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" which is up with Roman announcements of victory in battle - also referred to as good news (citation needed)
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Thanks. So it was completely fictitious, then? I wasn't sure. The big difference is that Arthur Machen, the author of the story, immediately admitted that it was imaginary and that he hadn't intended to create a hoax. According to tradition, all the apostles except John were martyred and none admitted to have made up the gospel stories.
These are supposed sightings of ghosts, none of which involve the ghost sitting and eating fish and chips with them.
Luke is as much an official account as Arthur Machen's would have been if it was true. See his introduction. Mark too announces "the gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" which is up with Roman announcements of victory in battle - also referred to as good news (citation needed)
The gospels where written well after the very human Jesus was dead and gone, so none of the less than credible things attributed to the guy should be taken seriously, unless there is evidence to support them, which there isn't.
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Spud,
I'm not going to trust an answer that isn't backed up with evidence.
Except we know that the evidence – accounts written long after the events by people who weren’t there in the context of societies where rational explanations were rare and miracle stories were commonplace – is weak at best, especially as it concerns a supposedly supernatural explanation when the quaity of evidence would have to be extraordinary. Besides, what need have you then of “faith” if you think that you have evidence?
So the story is that someone pushed a woman with a pushchair. The explanation is to save her life. Jesus died and rose again (the story) but it turns out he did it to make people think he is a god to be worshipped.
Well, that could be a possible explanation (aside from, "to save us from our sin").
There are lots of possible explanations that don’t involve a miracle. Which if any of them is correct isn’t though the point – rather the point is to find a method to eliminate them all if you want to be certain about a miracle being the only possible explanation.
Whatever the explanation, the author has told us what he saw: that is, the same person who died by crucifixion was seen alive three days later.
You’ve missed the point again. Even allowing for a witness having his words faithfully reported long after the event, what he saw and his explanation for it are not the same thing. He may well have seen what he interpreted to be one person alive, dead for a bit, then alive again but an interpretation is an explanatory narrative, and you can’t “witness” an explanation. Person A would have the interpretation “thug attacking woman”; person B would have the explanation “hero saving woman from scaffolding”. Both A and B though would have witnessed the same event.
If an eyewitness can't write, or at least doesn't have A-Level theology, then he would recount his story to someone who can, and that is apparently what happened with the gospels. Also, the accounts by one of the church fathers, who knew John, do not conflict with John's own gospel account. Meaning that little or no change occurred across a generation.
The theology bit is irrelevant, and besides he’d have told it to someone who told it to someone who told it to someone etc multiple time before it was eventually written down maybe 20 – 30 years later, probably in a different language. That’d be a remarkable feat of accurate repeated memory given how corrupted messages become even in a game of Chinese whispers, and besides STILL all you’d have is an account of what the witness thought he saw – ie, his explanation for it.
Multiple witnesses?
First, you’d only have the one witness account of there even being multiple witnesses. Second you’d have no way of knowing whether the other witnesses had the same interpretation of the event or different interpretations entirely (for all you know witness A said “miracle” and witness B said, “there’s old Jesus doing his party trick again”. Guess which one would have been written down?). Third, there were supposedly multiple witnesses to lots of other miracles too (Mohammed ascending on a winged horse for example) that you think to be as daft as I think your miracle story to be daft. You can’t just cite multiple witnesses as relevant when it suits and discount it when it doesn’t.
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Hillside
I think you may be making the rookie error of telescoping Juaism and in fact all religious relports of miracles into Jesus ministry.
Also as someone has said philosophy is footnotes to Plato so unless you equate atheism with reason then your chronological snobbery is ill founded....hang on though.....you do.
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The gospels where written well after the very human Jesus was dead and gone, so none of the less than credible things attributed to the guy should be taken seriously, unless there is evidence to support them, which there isn't.
So you might accept the credible bits like Jesus teaching from a boat, but not the less than credible bits like walking on water? Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Your claim about the gospels being written well after Jesus was around is based on the assumption that the prophecy in them could not be predictive.
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So you might accept the credible bits like Jesus teaching from a boat, but not the less than credible bits like walking on water? Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Your claim about being written well after Jesus was around is based on the assumption that the prophecy of the temple's destruction must could not have been written much before the event. Strangely though the latter isn't mentioned in Acts, which contains much historical detail relevant to the church yet omits the Jewish war. So it appears to have been written well before the Jewish wars, yet the book before it (Luke) predicts these events.
Spud
Unless you have a basis to exclude the risks of mistake, exaggeration, bias and lies (propaganda in the cause of Jesus) then all you have are anecdotes of doubtful veracity and uncertain provenance to the extent that the stories concerning Jesus in the NT are indistinguishable from fiction.
So unless you have a basis to exclude theses risks all you have is your personal conviction that these stories are true - so; have you a basis to exclude these risks that is independent of your own preferences and biases?
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Gordon,
Yes. Mistakes, exaggeration, bias and lies have been excluded.
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Gordon,
Yes. Mistakes, exaggeration, bias and lies have been excluded.
How: by what method?
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Apparently Ignatius, AD 35-107, knew the apostle John.
How do you know he knew John the Apostle? How do you know the John he knew (assuming he did know a John) was the one who wrote the gosdel
In his letter to the Ephesians he mentions the virgin birth, and "God Himself being manifested in human form for the renewal of eternal life." Obviously this is doctrine put forward by the gospels. The supernatural bits were there from the start, not added later as you'd expect with legends.
The letter to the Ephesians was written very near the end of his life. This makes it contemporary with or after the gospels. If Ignatius had read Matthew or Luke, he would have known of the Virgin Birth claim from them which makes him not an independent source.
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So you might accept the credible bits like Jesus teaching from a boat, but not the less than credible bits like walking on water? Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Your claim about the gospels being written well after Jesus was around is based on the assumption that the prophecy in them could not be predictive.
NO NO NO
I do not believe he was seen walking on water, so the simplest explanation is that it did not happen.
How have you ruled out this false claim?
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Gordon,
Yes. Mistakes, exaggeration, bias and lies have been excluded.
WOW just WOW.
Please explain how you have managed this.
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I think there were earlier written accounts which the gospels drew from. Eg John 21:24 "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down."
Or Luke 1:1 "Many have undertaken to draw up an account ofthe things that have been fulfilled among us".
The argument in this thread is that they compliment each other.
Luke's gospel is most likely based on Mark and either Matthew or a document - now lost - that Matthew also relied on. There's also an argument. John also may have known the Synoptics and shows signs of having been edited from the original version. If there were any earlier documents, they have failed to survive and speculation as to their content is just that.
Even if there were earlier written texts, it doesn't prove anything. The Angels of Mons story went from a published work of fiction to being something many people really believed to be true in a matter of months.
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Since Gordon is proposing that mistakes were made he needs to outline what mistakes were made.
Suggesting it then ordering others to state the mistake is mindgaming imho.
So G. Where do you think mistakes were likely to have been made?
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Since Gordon is proposing that mistakes were made he needs to outline what mistakes were made.
Suggesting it then ordering others to state the mistake is mindgaming imho.
So G. Where do you think mistakes were likely to have been made?
This is not the case.
Because mistakes are possible and Spud claims they did not take place, he needs to explain how he could possibly know this.
Spud has the burden of proof as he says mistakes were not made.
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Since Gordon is proposing that mistakes were made he needs to outline what mistakes were made.
Suggesting it then ordering others to state the mistake is mindgaming imho.
So G. Where do you think mistakes were likely to have been made?
No idea, since all I've done is point out that there are risks associated with accounts and that those taking such accounts seriously have the burden of explaining how they addressed these risks and by what methods they did so.
If they can't then taking these accounts seriously doesn't seem like a sensible position to adopt: but Spud says he has addressed these risks so I've asked him to explain how he did this.
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No idea,
So what do you think put the inotion into your head?
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So what do you think put the inotion into your head?
Because they are possible if not downright common.
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Would you say that error is more common than accuracy.
I dont think I would.
Saying that something is common without a context is meaningless imho.
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Would you say that error is more common than accuracy.
I dont think I would.
Saying that something is common without a context is meaningless imho.
Spud made the claim and has the burden of proof.
It's very simple.
We all know that he cannot justify his claim, so it can be dismissed
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Spud made the claim and has the burden of proof.
It's very simple.
We all know that he cannot justify his claim, so it can be dismissed
If it is a historical claim you have an equal burden to justify your alternative history as no history cannot possibly be the default.
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If it is a historical claim you have an equal burden to justify your alternative history as no history cannot possibly be the default.
Untrue.
We just have to note the weakness.
We make no positive claim just raise questions.
Spud on the other hand has made a claim that means he has the burden of proof
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Untrue.
We just have to note the weakness.
We make no positive claim just raise questions.
Spud on the other hand has made a claim that means he has the burden of proof
The weakness in what? Spuds claim, whatever that is? Your default position?
If for example no God is the default position in another debate then the implication is the universe is self driving and self necessary....although what actual evidence there is for that I know not.
Again.....if Spuds claim is wrong what is the correct history?
I wonder whether your evasion here is if you own the implied alternative position you have to explain it.....
If you are claiming no history then clearly that isnt an option and you should commit yourself to a more useful purpose.
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So what do you think put the inotion into your head?
Try reading what I actually said and not what you imagine I said.
Humans are fallible, so they make mistakes, and human artifice is also a factor in that some humans can seek to deceive: these are risks in relation to all human accounts about anything, and history is littered with examples of both. Therefore anyone advancing the cause of anecdotal accounts of uncertain providence, and especially where there has been a considerable passage of time since the alleged events, would in my view need to consider these risks if the anecdotes in question are to be distinguished from fiction.
I'm simply asking Spud by what means he has assessed the risks of mistake, exaggeration, bias and lies in the NT accounts of Jesus - the burden of proof here is his, and not mine.
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The weakness in what? Spuds claim, whatever that is? Your default position?
If for example no God is the default position in another debate then the implication is the universe is self driving and self necessary....although what actual evidence there is for that I know not.
Again.....if Spuds claim is wrong what is the correct history?
I wonder whether your evasion here is if you own the implied alternative position you have to explain it.....
If you are claiming no history then clearly that isnt an option and you should commit yourself to a more useful purpose.
I am not making any claim, I am simply asking that the person making the claim provide the evidence.
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Spud,
Gordon,
Yes. Mistakes, exaggeration, bias and lies have been excluded.
That's an astonishing claim. How on earth do you think that's been done?
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So you might accept the credible bits like Jesus teaching from a boat, but not the less than credible bits like walking on water? Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Your claim about the gospels being written well after Jesus was around is based on the assumption that the prophecy in them could not be predictive.
The most credible explanation is that he didn't walk on water.
I think the gospel writers created the life of Jesus to fit in with ancient so call 'prophesies'.
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Spud,
Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Did you mean to say that? I can think of several non-miraculous possible explanations for the story without even trying. How would you propose to eliminate them even as possibilities?
One of the problems with your approach is that, when you set the evidential bar so low, you can't just put it there for the miracle stories you happen to favour but not for miracle stories you don't buy. It's a one size fits all deal - set the bar at floor level for your miracles and it's set just as low for any other miracle stories too.
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So you might accept the credible bits like Jesus teaching from a boat, but not the less than credible bits like walking on water? Well, since all the natural explanations for being seen walking on water can be eliminated, the only explanation left is that he did actually walk on water.
Your claim about the gospels being written well after Jesus was around is based on the assumption that the prophecy in them could not be predictive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycncqy7S66E
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enki,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycncqy7S66E
As it ticks all of Spud's evidence tests that must be a kosher miracle too then!
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Of course Jesus could have been a magician, it doesn't take much to take people in.
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How: by what method?
If I tried to be unbiased I might unknowingly be unsuccessful, so by talking to you guys I get a balanced view of the possible causes of error. Yet all the arguments you use are dealt with in the Bible or elsewhere.
For example, Jeremy says "how do you know Ignatius knew John?" so I google that question and find that although there's no direct evidence that he did, the theme of some of his letters was the same as one of John's letters. See 2 John v.7, which is about those who were not acknowledging Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh (ie they claimed Jesus only seemed to exist). Ignatius deals with this heresy in his epistle to the Trallians:
"Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with(18) Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and did eat and drink. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead, His Father quickening Him, even as after the same manner His Father will so raise up us who believe in Him by Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not possess the true life."
More pertinent to Jeremy's question is that Polycarp is mentioned in a writing by his disciple Irenaeus, who says that Polycarp was taught by John and some of the other apostles:
"Polycarp was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ..." (Against Heresies 3:3:4)
Hope that answers yours and Jeremy's questions.
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If I tried to be unbiased I might unknowingly be unsuccessful, so by talking to you guys I get a balanced view of the possible causes of error. Yet all the arguments you use are dealt with in the Bible or elsewhere.
For example, Jeremy says "how do you know Ignatius knew John?" so I google that question and find that although there's no direct evidence that he did, the theme of some of his letters was the same as one of John's letters. See 2 John v.7, which is about those who were not acknowledging Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh (ie they claimed Jesus only seemed to exist). Ignatius deals with this heresy in his epistle to the Trallians:
"Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with(18) Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and did eat and drink. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead, His Father quickening Him, even as after the same manner His Father will so raise up us who believe in Him by Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not possess the true life."
More pertinent to Jeremy's question is that Polycarp is mentioned in a writing by his disciple Irenaeus, who says that Polycarp was taught by John and some of the other apostles:
"Polycarp was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ..." (Against Heresies 3:3:4)
Hope that answers yours and Jeremy's questions.
The Harry Potter books deal with questions about Voldemort etc, but that doesn't make them credible, anymore than what is stated in the Bible about Jesus is credible.
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Spud,
If I tried to be unbiased I might unknowingly be unsuccessful, so by talking to you guys I get a balanced view of the possible causes of error. Yet all the arguments you use are dealt with in the Bible or elsewhere.
They can't be answered in the Bible because that would be circular reasoning - "the Bible is true because it says so in the Bible".
For example, Jeremy says "how do you know Ignatius knew John?" so I google that question and find that although there's no direct evidence that he did, the theme of some of his letters was the same as one of John's letters. See 2 John v.7, which is about those who were not acknowledging Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh (ie they claimed Jesus only seemed to exist). Ignatius deals with this heresy in his epistle to the Trallians:
"Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with(18) Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and did eat and drink. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead, His Father quickening Him, even as after the same manner His Father will so raise up us who believe in Him by Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not possess the true life."
Which still tells you nothing whatever about whether the person saying a resurrection to be the explanation was right about that. Even if you had some means of eliminating being made up, exaggerated, misunderstood in the many retellings etc (and you haven't) you'd still have no way to eliminate honest mistake.
More pertinent to Jeremy's question is that Polycarp is mentioned in a writing by his disciple Irenaeus, who says that Polycarp was taught by John and some of the other apostles:
"Polycarp was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ..." (Against Heresies 3:3:4)
Hope that answers yours and Jeremy's questions.
Not even close - see above.
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If I tried to be unbiased I might unknowingly be unsuccessful, so by talking to you guys I get a balanced view of the possible causes of error. Yet all the arguments you use are dealt with in the Bible or elsewhere.
How do you know that these arguments you refer to in the Bible are free of mistakes, exaggeration, bias or lies? That the Bible is true because the Bible says it is true is circular - you must surely know this.
For example, Jeremy says "how do you know Ignatius knew John?" so I google that question and find that although there's no direct evidence that he did, the theme of some of his letters was the same as one of John's letters. See 2 John v.7, which is about those who were not acknowledging Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh (ie they claimed Jesus only seemed to exist). Ignatius deals with this heresy in his epistle to the Trallians:
"Stop your ears, therefore, when any one speaks to you at variance with(18) Jesus Christ, who was descended from David, and was also of Mary; who was truly born, and did eat and drink. He was truly persecuted under Pontius Pilate; He was truly crucified, and [truly] died, in the sight of beings in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth. He was also truly raised from the dead, His Father quickening Him, even as after the same manner His Father will so raise up us who believe in Him by Christ Jesus, apart from whom we do not possess the true life."
More pertinent to Jeremy's question is that Polycarp is mentioned in a writing by his disciple Irenaeus, who says that Polycarp was taught by John and some of the other apostles:
"Polycarp was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ..." (Against Heresies 3:3:4)
Hope that answers yours and Jeremy's questions.
All you've shown is that you have no method to address the risks I've raised with you, and as such the stuff you mention above could well be wrong in some way, or be outright lies: you have decided to accept these accounts on the basis of your personal faith but I'm sure, if you think about it, you must also accept that if you can't exclude the possibility that they are wrong or untrue then your personal faith could be misplaced.
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Guys. The Bible interprets itself because it is a collection of books by different authors. I could refer you to the cold case Christianity website which has lots of relevent stuff on eliminating the possibility of mistakes, lies, bias etc. But I didn't start the thread to address all those issues, more to encourage people to look at the ways in which the gospels corroborate each other. Happily I think I've found another one similar to the two examples in he op.
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Gordon and Bluehillside shaking hands with the NPF here.
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The Harry Potter books deal with questions about Voldemort etc, but that doesn't make them credible, anymore than what is stated in the Bible about Jesus is credible.
Harry Potter books are proven books of fiction with acknowledge authorship...…...a bit like the flying spaghetti monster.
Mind you any assembly that can get inadequate nerdy antitheist inadequates in the company of others is possibly a goodthing.
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Gordon and Bluehillside shaking hands with the NPF here.
Nope: our position is very different, and you've just confirmed that you don't understand the NPF (or fallacies in general for that matter).
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Nope: our position is very different, and you've just confirmed that you don't understand the NPF (or fallacies in general for that matter).
No Gordon you are saying that Spud cannot prove there are mistakes etc. therefore there might be.....I believe Hillside says there most certainly are. Therefore you are at least shaking hands with an NPF...…..History is not I think your strong suit.
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No Gordon you are saying that Spud cannot prove there are mistakes etc. therefore there might be.....I believe Hillside says there most certainly are. Therefore you are at least shaking hands with an NPF...…..History is not I think your strong suit.
Spud has claimed that there are no errors and he has ruled them all out.
He now has the burden of proof
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No Gordon you are saying that Spud cannot prove there are mistakes etc. therefore there might be.....I believe Hillside says there most certainly are. Therefore you are at least shaking hands with an NPF...…..History is not I think your strong suit.
Utterly wrong: do you ever read for comprehension?
I didn't ask Spud to 'prove there are [no, which I think you meant to say] mistakes', so I suggest you read back. I simply asked him if he had checked that there were none, and if so how he did so: and that is a reasonable question to ask of anyone who is supporting the claims of ancient anecdotal accounts.
You really do need to think a little more about what people are actually saying before posting responses that you get wrong.
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Utterly wrong: do you ever read for comprehension?
I didn't ask Spud to 'prove there are [no, which I think you meant to say] mistakes', so I suggest you read back. I simply asked him if he had checked that there were none, and if so how he did so: and that is a reasonable question to ask of anyone who is supporting the claims of ancient anecdotal accounts.
You really do need to think a little more about what people are actually saying before posting responses that you get wrong.
Chronological snobbery?
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Chronological snobbery?
Nope: just highlighting your failure to comprehend what I actually said combined with your lack of understanding of what constitutes the NPF.
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Nope: just highlighting your failure to comprehend what I actually said combined with your lack of understanding of what constitutes the NPF.
You could have stopped at 'comprehend', then copy to clipboard, then paste for every reply to Vlad!
Saves a whole lot of otherwise wasted effort, IMO!
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For example, Jeremy says "how do you know Ignatius knew John?" so I google that question and find that although there's no direct evidence that he did, the theme of some of his letters was the same as one of John's letters. See 2 John v.7, which is about those who were not acknowledging Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh (ie they claimed Jesus only seemed to exist).
That’s not the same John as wrote the gospel. Furthermore, knowing John’s writing is not the same as knowing the man himself.
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No Gordon you are saying that Spud cannot prove there are mistakes etc. therefore there might be.....I believe Hillside says there most certainly are. Therefore you are at least shaking hands with an NPF...…..History is not I think your strong suit.
No the reasons why we assume there are mistakes in the Bible are twofold.
The Bible is a collection of works written by humans. Many of the books in it were preceded by years of oral transmission. Of course there are mistakes in the Bible. Furthermore, one of Spud’s arguments that the Gospels are sourced by eye witness accounts depends on the assertion that eye witness accounts often have discrepancies with each other (and what actually happened, but Spud conveniently ignores that).
Secondly, we know that the Bible contains mistakes because we can see them. A Christian scholar - John Mills went through all the manuscripts of the New Testament he could lay his hands on and found over three hundred disagreements in the text. Go through the manuscripts we have today and there is more than one disagreement per word. Most of them are pretty minor but there are some significant problems like the disagreement between Matthew and Luke on the nativity. Also the additions to the end of Mark and the fabrication of the story of the adulterous woman in John.
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You could have stopped at 'comprehend', then copy to clipboard, then paste for every reply to Vlad!
Saves a whole lot of otherwise wasted effort, IMO!
No
You started to talk about ancient texts as though that was significant .That is the fallacy of chronological snobbery.
Hillside and yourself have both committed this by talk of issues with being ancient and bronze age and incorrect information regarding attitudes of the time to ressurrection.
There is obviously no one who witness this event alive to day but it is considtent with Jesus still being around to personally relate to us.
Where it has specified possible mistake your objections are down to what you believe.
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No
You started to talk about ancient texts as though that was significant .That is the fallacy of chronological snobbery.
You're replying to Seb but I suspect this is aimed at me: I've argued that the risks associated with anecdotal accounts apply to all such accounts. For example, the police accounts of the Hillsborough disaster contained mistakes and lies, and as recently as last week the jury at the trial of the police commander couldn't agree on a verdict - and this is just 30 years after the event.
Hillside and yourself have both committed this by talk of issues with being ancient and bronze age and incorrect information regarding attitudes of the time to ressurrection.
Of course attitudes to miracle claims have changed over the last 2,000 years, and especially given the religious culture of that place in those times - but that is the problem of those who take the resurrection claim seriously but who, it seems, are seemingly reluctant to consider that the accounts they rely on could be flawed.
There is obviously no one who witness this event alive to day but it is considtent with Jesus still being around to personally relate to us.
Obviously, but then again Jesus isn't around today either (having been dead for around 2,000 years or so).
Where it has specified possible mistake your objections are down to what you believe.
Nope: I hold no beliefs on this, but I do recognise that the risks of human fallibility and human error are ubiquitous in the affairs of people, to the extent that if there has been no attempt to address these risks then the only sensible option is to simply disregard whatever the claims is since it cannot be a serious proposition is these risks remain. So far as I can see these risks remain in relation to the Jesus stories in the NT.
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Spud,
Guys. The Bible interprets itself because it is a collection of books by different authors.
Doesn’t work. If it was a collection of books by different authors each of whom were reporting different eyewitness accounts that much at least would suggest that the explanation “resurrection” was more widespread among the crowd than would have been the case if just one or a very tiny number believed it. As it is though, the various books draw on the same sources (often each other), so the repetition of the same story adds nothing to is veracity.
I could refer you to the cold case Christianity website which has lots of relevent stuff on eliminating the possibility of mistakes, lies, bias etc.
As eliminating any of these things but especially honest mistake would be impossible, could you at least tell us how they attempt to do it then?
But I didn't start the thread to address all those issues, more to encourage people to look at the ways in which the gospels corroborate each other. Happily I think I've found another one similar to the two examples in he op.
As indeed various other multiple texts in supposedly holy texts corroborate each other, only from different faith beliefs entirely. Which is just what you’d expect if the explanation “miracle” was sufficient for someone who lived in a place and time when such explanations were commonplace, who couldn’t write it down, whose account was repeated and translated frequently with the attendant risk of corruption of the prior versions, and whose story happened to be picked by a Roman emperor to mollify the uppity locals so caught the wind and survived. None of which though would suggest that a kosher miracle actually happened.
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Incidentally Spud, I just had a look at the Cold Case Christianity website you referenced a while back. It’s the project of an evangelist and former detective called J Warner Wallace, and I notice that some of the arguments he tries are the same ones you try here that are then falsified by myself and others.
I didn’t read the whole thing but I picked more or less at random some of the quick answers pieces he does and found them all to be logically wrong. I’d caution you against relying on him for support.
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Of course attitudes to miracle claims have changed over the last 2,000 years, and especially given the religious culture of that place in those times
Yes Gordon, and I believed that too when I knew precious little about the bible or the history of the first century and wasn't particularly bothered and happy with a folk understanding of humanity and swallowed the Progress shit, hook, line and sinker.
In my defence though I was not a public atheist on media trying to undermine religion and therefore had little obligation to get my facts right.
The popular non acceptance of resurrection is covered in the Gospel of John where Thomas meets the resurrected Christ and still thinks it is a stunt and Paul has to answer popular disbelief in the epistles.
Was resurrection a staple of the old testament No. In fact in the OT stories of the supernatural were probably understood to be exceptional and hardly day to day.
There still needs to be a facing up to chronological snobbery with casually dismissive statements about old books, ancient texts and bronze age goat herders who probably had more thinking and reflection time than many a modern jobsworth concerned about his newsfeed and what kind of fucking toasted panini he's going to get from Pret.
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You could have stopped at 'comprehend', then copy to clipboard, then paste for every reply to Vlad!
Saves a whole lot of otherwise wasted effort, IMO!
Yes I find paste useful everytime antitheistic comedy is mentioned.
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No
You started to talk about ancient texts as though that was significant .That is the fallacy of chronological snobbery.
Hillside and yourself have both committed this by talk of issues with being ancient and bronze age and incorrect information regarding attitudes of the time to ressurrection.
There is obviously no one who witness this event alive to day but it is considtent with Jesus still being around to personally relate to us.
Where it has specified possible mistake your objections are down to what you believe.
::)
QED!
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Moderator:
Posts that were a clear derail, in that they were comments targeted at a member and not this topic, have been removed.