Why the state must stop funding faith schools

[Hope]

The gospels aren't dismissed solely because they were written decades after the alleged events.

But it is the most commonly-used explanation for dismissal, jeremy.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

2. Please also ensure that these examples contain supernatural claims.

As I have been saying Gordon is dressing up his philosophical point in the raiments of so called historical study.

History has nothing to say about the theology, Jesus is reported himself to have dismissed attaching too much to miracles But the sticking point is the seeing of Christ in the experience of the resurrection.

The circumstances are that those reporting on the resurrection believe they saw it.
You must concede therefore that they saw something, interpreted it as something which you can't, but reported what they saw. or that they were lying. You have gone straight to the ''lie'' because of your beliefs and prejudices.

Which brings me to your request to talk about you specially pleading.

Take Derren Brown's or Dynamo's tricks. What do you make of those did people see something.....I bet you agree with that in the affirmative. Did it look as if the impossible had happened......I bet you agree in the affirmative.......and yet here you are specially pleading that nothing....nothing happened, that they did not see anything. That they could not possibly have seen anything.

Well you may say.....It is all a Darren Brownesque illusion. Only if Brown or Dynamo or Troy submitted themselves for crucifixion and death and then resurrection without the magic of television would we be able to confirm that.

[Gordon]

But it is the most commonly-used explanation for dismissal, jeremy.

No it isn't - the core objection is the nature of what is being claimed in the NT as being fact.

The gap in time between the events and the NT record being made, given human fallibility, just adds an additional concern.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And you've no doubt got a list of examples rather than just this vague assertion, right?

It's not a vague assertion. We know that people go on about new testament evidence to be invalid because they are not first hand accounts or thatthey are written decades after the event but most history books are not written first hand or within two decades of the events.

[Hope]

The trouble with the mythicists is that there isn't much evidence that Jesus morphed into God man at a later date since the evidence is of communities believing in the Gospel accounts and christology within two decades in the epistles.

Except that the epistles suggest that some such communities existed even before the epistles were written - so suggesting that they had been in existence for some time.  For instance, the book of Galations, the earliest of the accepted Pauline epistles and dated to between 45 and 55 AD starts off -

Paul an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brethren who are with me,

To the churches of Galatia:

3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father; 5 to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
There Is No Other Gospel

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

(Revised Standard Version)

The two sections I've bolded indicate that Paul was writing to groups of Christians who had already been in existence for some time - long enough to gather together in a worshipping set-up and who were already beginning to fall away from the teachings they had originally heard, teachings that Paul was determined to reinforce.

There is no evidence of anyone thinking that Jesus wasn't a real person until a decades AND decades later.  If you are prepared to accept that and yet quibble over the first couple of decades after then you are a bigger purveyor of Humbug than even I took you for.

I would disagree that

There is no evidence of anyone thinking that Jesus wasn't a real person until a decades AND decades later.

.  Galations - written no more than 20 years and possibly as soon as 10 years after the events - refers to the concept as something that the Christians in Galatia had already been taught.

If Galatia - in what is now modern day Turkey and somewhere around the area of Ankara - had already heard the message within 10 years of the events, is it likely that the message wouldn't have been even better known in the place it started - Jerusalem and Judea?

Extraneous [/quote] isolated!!

[Hope]

No it isn't - the core objection is the nature of what is being claimed in the NT as being fact.

The gap in time between the events and the NT record being made, given human fallibility, just adds an additional concern.

Sorry, Gordon, but having been involved in this virtual debate for nigh on 15 years now, not to mention all the years of face2face debate before that, the most common objection I have met is that the NT material dates from 'many decades' after the events and that that therefore casts doubt on the veracity of the claims made in them.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Except that the epistles suggest that some such communities existed even before the epistles were written - so suggesting that they had been in existence for some time.  For instance, the book of Galations, the earliest of the accepted Pauline epistles and dated to between 45 and 55 AD starts off -
(Revised Standard Version)

The two sections I've bolded indicate that Paul was writing to groups of Christians who had already been in existence for some time - long enough to gather together in a worshipping set-up and who were already beginning to fall away from the teachings they had originally heard, teachings that Paul was determined to reinforce.
I would disagree that .  Galations - written no more than 20 years and possibly as soon as 10 years after the events - refers to the concept as something that the Christians in Galatia had already been taught.

If Galatia - in what is now modern day Turkey and somewhere around the area of Ankara - had already heard the message within 10 years of the events, is it likely that the message wouldn't have been even better known in the place it started - Jerusalem and Judea?

I think you've got your wires crossed Hope I frequently point out that although the epistles are a couple of decades after the event they point to well established Christian communities.

Just stick to one bottle before mid day in future.

[Gordon]

As I have been saying Gordon is dressing up his philosophical point in the raiments of so called historical study.

History has nothing to say about the theology, Jesus is reported himself to have dismissed attaching too much to miracles But the sticking point is the seeing of Christ in the experience of the resurrection.ote]

The circumstances are that those reporting on the resurrection believe they saw it.

So, we are dealing with wholly subjective accounts and since people are known to be fallible then we need to be cautious.

You must concede therefore that they saw something, interpreted it as something which you can't, but reported what they saw. or that they were lying. You have gone straight to the ''lie'' because of your beliefs and prejudices.

Depends on what the say the saw surely? If I claim to have seen an aeroplane flying overhead this morning (and I have) then I could be lying, but the lie is believable since it fits with how reality normally operates. However, if I claim that I saw a kangaroo fly past my window then I am either grossly mistaken or I am lying - and I'd say seeing flying kangaroos anywhere (and not specifically in Scotland) is about as believable as the claimed resurrection of Jesus.

Which brings me to your request to talk about you specially pleading.

Take Derren Brown's or Dynamo's tricks. What do you make of those did people see something.....I bet you agree with that in the affirmative. Did it look as if the impossible had happened......I bet you agree in the affirmative.......and yet here you are specially pleading that nothing....nothing happened, that they did not see anything. That they could not possibly have seen anything.

Well you may say.....It is all a Darren Brownesque illusion. Only if Brown or Dynamo or Troy submitted themselves for crucifixion and death and then resurrection without the magic of television would we be able to confirm that.

I'm not saying it was a contrived trick at all - so be careful around all that straw.

I'm suggesting that if Jesus really was killed then he stayed dead and there is a much simpler explanation for claims that he didn't stay dead and that the resurrection didn't happen at all: which is that this element is most likely fictitious propaganda - no props, magic wands or rabbits popping out of hats.

[Gordon]

Sorry, Gordon, but having been involved in this virtual debate for nigh on 15 years now, not to mention all the years of face2face debate before that, the most common objection I have met is that the NT material dates from 'many decades' after the events and that that therefore casts doubt on the veracity of the claims made in them.

Then you have misunderstood.

If it were the case that the main objection was the delay in reporting then someone like me would need to concede that if some new account of the resurrection popped up that was dated to the week of the alleged death and resurrection of Jesus then I would be more likely to take the resurrection claim seriously - wrong!

They delay in reporting, combined with the possible iases of those doing the reporting, is just an additional risk in terms of mistake, exaggeration or lies creeping in.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

So, we are dealing with wholly subjective accounts and since people are known to be fallible then we need to be cautious.

Depends on what the say the saw surely? If I claim to have seen an aeroplane flying overhead this morning (and I have) then I could be lying, but the lie is believable since it fits with how reality normally operates. However, if I claim that I saw a kangaroo fly past my window then I am either grossly mistaken or I am lying - and I'd say seeing flying kangaroos anywhere (and not specifically in Scotland) is about as believable as the claimed resurrection of Jesus.

I'm not saying it was a contrived trick at all - so be careful around all that straw.

I'm suggesting that if Jesus really was killed then he stayed dead and there is a much simpler explanation for claims that he didn't stay dead and that the resurrection didn't happen at all: which is that this element is most likely fictitious propaganda - no props, magic wands or rabbits popping out of hats.

It's a case of who and how fallible you want them to be Gordon. As I pointed out to you there seem to be an awful lot of people who were well aware that these things don't happen, were down to earth hairy arsed artisanal types, what about the doubting Thomas accounts........................

Demonstrate fictitious propaganda. Which could be easily countered.

So far your argument depends on sweeping ideas which are staple conspiracy theorists resorts. Fallability, gullibility, propaganda all of which vaguely explain the biggest conspiracy in history...............The G Files oooooooeeeeeeeoooooooo.

[Hope]

So, we are dealing with wholly subjective accounts and since people are known to be fallible then we need to be cautious.

Couldn't agree with you more, Gordon.

Depends on what the say the saw surely? If I claim to have seen an aeroplane flying overhead this morning (and I have) then I could be lying, but the lie is believable since it fits with how reality normally operates. However, if I claim that I saw a kangaroo fly past my window then I am either grossly mistaken or I am lying - and I'd say seeing flying kangaroos anywhere (and not specifically in Scotland) is about as believable as the claimed resurrection of Jesus.

It also depends on what such people expected to see.  The Gospels make it pretty clear that the disciples scattered after the crucifixion, many returning to their pre-Jesus jobs.  This isn't the behaviour of people who were expecting something amazing, but the behaviour of people whose raison d'etre for the last few years had been destroyed.  Furthermore, the very fact that the news of Jesus' resurrection was brought by a woman is made so much of - someone whose word was of very little value in that society - makes it even less likely to have been just made up.

The disciples didn't anticipate the resurrection so wouldn't have been pre-creating the stories that they then shared with  the Jews in Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival.

I'm suggesting that if Jesus really was killed then he stayed dead and there is a much simpler explanation for claims that he didn't stay dead and that the resurrection didn't happen at all: which is that this element is most likely fictitious propaganda - no props, magic wands or rabbits popping out of hats.

People have been trying to come up with the 'much simpler explanation' for 20-odd centuries, Gordon.  Are you going to break that deadlock with some amazing discovery?

[jeremyp]

Whilst it is true that Jesus and his group weren't the only Jewish Messianic splinter group, all the others were politico-military in nature

Firstly, how do you know that, secondly, so what?

However, we also know that the disciples began their public preaching within a month or so of the resurrection - in the centre of Jerusalem and at the height of a Jewish religious festival, with a reported 3000 conversions on that first day of preaching.

The only source for this is Acts which is a late unreliable document.

Furthermore in spite of this alleged huge conversion, other sources remain silent. Either nobody else noticed it going on or later Christians suppressed their accounts.

This wasn't some minor sect which the authorities ignored

And yet the lack of any documents from these authorities leads us to the probable conclusion that it was a minor sect that the authorities ignored.

because we are also told that they started to persecute the groups thgat were orming - hence Saul's trip to Damascus, during which he was converted.

Where's the evidence that Saul was anything more than a leader of a lynch mob?

Yet, if it was the Jews who produced the body, it would have been the Jews who preserved the information, as they have doe with huge amounts of other documentation.

And Jewish sources remain silent on the subject of Jesus. Why do you think this means anything other than they had the perception that there was nothing to care about?

 

Furthermore, whilst "For a long period in European history, Christians were the sole custodians of the preservation of written documents" this didn't even begin to be the case until the 5th or 6th century AD, if not later

But it did happen.

where is the reference in the older documentation that exists, to the effect that the Jews had produced this evidence - or are you saying that the later Christians had gone though every document and scrubbed this reference?  If so, do you have any evidence to this effect?

So you dig yourself an even deeper hole. It seems more and more likely that the "authorities" never wrote anything about Jesus which simply destroys your claim that Christianity had a huge impact int the 30's and 40's.

In point of fact, there are gaps in several historical documents - not necessarily Jewish - covering the period that includes Jesus' alleged resurrection. These seem a little suspicious.

The proiblem with this argument is that this is exactly what the Jewish authorities would have been trying to combat.  They wouldn't have wanted a story that the God that they worshipped had come to earth in the form of a human being

You do realise that this was not an uncommon meme in the Greco-Roman World of which Palestine was part. It's absurd to think they cared about yet another minor cult with yet another resurrection myth.

[Gordon]

It's a case of who and how fallible you want them to be Gordon. As I pointed out to you there seem to be an awful lot of people who were well aware that these things don't happen, were down to earth hairy arsed artisanal types, what about the doubting Thomas accounts........................

I'd love to respond to this point, Vlad, but sadly I've no idea what your point is.

Demonstrate fictitious propaganda. Which could be easily countered.

Certainly - Bill Clinton: 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'

So far your argument depends on sweeping ideas which are staple conspiracy theorists resorts. Fallability, gullibility, propaganda all of which vaguely explain the biggest conspiracy in history...............The G Files oooooooeeeeeeeoooooooo.

Not really - I'm just asking you guys what steps you have taken to assess the risk of mistakes or lies in the NT accounts: do date I've yet to see a response that actually addressed these risks.

[jeremyp]

But it is the most commonly-used explanation for dismissal, jeremy.

No it isn't. The mot commonly used explanation is that they contain supernatural bullshit.

Serious people who actually think about it note it as one of a set of reasons that together show the gospels as not historically accurate.

[jeremyp]

Sorry, Gordon, but having been involved in this virtual debate for nigh on 15 years now,

And you seem to have learned nothing in those 15 years.

the most common objection I have met is that the NT material dates from 'many decades' after the events and that that therefore casts doubt on the veracity of the claims made in them.

But nobody would seriously put it up as the only argument. If the only problem with the gospels is that they were written 30-40 years after the event, it wouldn't be a problem. However, there are many problems of which this is one. Misrepresenting the sceptical position in the way you do is dishonest.

[Gordon]

It also depends on what such people expected to see.  The Gospels make it pretty clear that the disciples scattered after the crucifixion, many returning to their pre-Jesus jobs.  This isn't the behaviour of people who were expecting something amazing, but the behaviour of people whose raison d'etre for the last few years had been destroyed.  Furthermore, the very fact that the news of Jesus' resurrection was brought by a woman is made so much of - someone whose word was of very little value in that society - makes it even less likely to have been just made up.

This is special pleading pure and simple.

The disciples didn't anticipate the resurrection so wouldn't have been pre-creating the stories that they then shared with  the Jews in Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival.

So the story goes, as you tell it.

People have been trying to come up with the 'much simpler explanation' for 20-odd centuries, Gordon.  Are you going to break that deadlock with some amazing discovery?

There is nothing to discover - all you have here is one middle-eastern religious superstition, mixed in with the events and culture of that time and place in antiquity, that is indistinguishable from fiction.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

I'd love to respond to this point, Vlad, but sadly I've no idea what your point is.

Certainly - Bill Clinton: 'I did not have sexual relations with that woman.'

Not really - I'm just asking you guys what steps you have taken to assess the risk of mistakes or lies in the NT accounts: do date I've yet to see a response that actually addressed these risks.

Well if a lie Gordon it is such a whopper it should have been slapped down. It would have to be a one off.
One also has to look at similar claims which have never been anywhere near as successful. In terms of evidence if this is a scam it shouldn't work as extensively as it obviously does.

If you dismiss it as you do Gordon you have to demonstrate why this works and yet the same stunt never worked before or since.

[Outrider]

It's not a vague assertion. We know that people go on about new testament evidence to be invalid because they are not first hand accounts or that they are written decades after the event but most history books are not written first hand or within two decades of the events.

No, we go on about the New Testament because it was first documented well outside the lifespan of the people involved - but claims are made for it that it is first-hand accounts - because there are no contemporary supporting pieces of evidence to support the claims and because it makes supernatural claims without anything like sufficient evidence to support them which people claim are actually true.

The New Testament is treated like every other historical document - it is checked against other contemporary sources, reviewed in light of objective evidence of the physical history, reviewed in light of the cultural understanding of the time and a judgement made on its historical context.

It's not treated as though it were special by historical analsyis, though it is by the people who object to that and want it to be.

There are any number of 'historical' documents that have been rejected after analysis - the Protocols of Zion or whatever that nonsense was called would seem to be the most obvious example.

From my viewpoint I think the concession of the historical mainstream that the New Testament figure of Jesus is probably based on a real person is a hedge against an outright dismissal of the claims as baseless.

O.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

No, we go on about the New Testament because it was first documented well outside the lifespan of the people involved

So you do not accept a date for the first epistles at 45- 55 AD?

Even if you are you automatically either invalidate any histories written at the same distance from the events or special plead that Christian documents must be treated differently.

[Gordon]

Well if a lie Gordon it is such a whopper it should have been slapped down.

Would it? These were credulous times as regards religion.

It would have to be a one off.

Would it? Why?

One also has to look at similar claims which have never been anywhere near as successful. In terms of evidence if this is a scam it shouldn't work as extensively as it obviously does.

What similar claims?

Must be windy where you are, Vlad, since you seem to be flying a kite.

If you dismiss it as you do Gordon you have to demonstrate why this works and yet the same stunt never worked before or since.

Ah - the old switcheroo burden of proof-wise: I'm just asking how you guys have assessed the risk of mistakes or lies in the NT accounts - any chance of an explanation?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Would it? These were credulous times as regards religion.

What similar claims?

Must be windy where you are, Vlad, since you seem to be flying a kite.

Ah - the old switcheroo burden of proof-wise: I'm just asking how you guys have assessed the risk of mistakes or lies in the NT accounts - any chance of an explanation?

No Gordon if you make a positive assertion you need to justify it. If you suggest an alternative history you need to provide it.

The case for an historical Jesus is Good. To treat it as a lie is flawed since as I have told you but you ignored it is the type of scam that doesn't work.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Would it? These were credulous times as regards religion.

Then it would have kept on giving and giving. The roman empire should have had loads of messiahs. There should be at least several messiah based religions. However there is only really one.

[jeremyp]

Then it would have kept on giving and giving. The roman empire should have had loads of messiahs.

Yes, there were hundreds of them. I think Josephus talks about two hundred.

There should be at least several messiah based religions. However there is only really one.

that has survived to the present day.

[Gordon]

No Gordon if you make a positive assertion you need to justify it. If you suggest an alternative history you need to provide it.

The case for an historical Jesus is Good. To treat it as a lie is flawed since as I have told you but you ignored it is the type of scam that doesn't work.

I haven't made a positive claim, Vlad.

I've simply noted that making mistakes and telling lies is known human behaviour and I've asked how you guys have addressed the risks in relation to the NT - so, are you going to evade again or answer?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Yes, there were hundreds of them. I think Josephus talks about two hundred.
that has survived to the present day.

But no evidence that they had anywhere near the same impact. All short lived, unsuccessful scams showing that messiahism didn't work......and probably derivative. All except one.