Quoting Jesus

[floo]

deleted

[Sebastian Toe]

The gospels were written along time after Jesus died, I don't see how it is possible for even those who knew Jesus in person to have been able to quote him word for word years later. I very much doubt they wrote them down at the time he was actually supposed to have said those things. What Jesus actually said and the meaning of his words, could have been very different to what the gospels quoted him as saying.

How many of us could quote accurately word for word something which was said to us last week, for instance? The game of Chinese whispers makes my point well, a sentence which is passed down the line is nothing like it was when it started out.

Do you remember  what your old granny used to say to you when she was trying to put the fear of God in to you?

[ad_orientem]

The gospels were written along time after Jesus died, I don't see how it is possible for even those who knew Jesus in person to have been able to quote him word for word years later. I very much doubt they wrote them down at the time he was actually supposed to have said those things. What Jesus actually said and the meaning of his words, could have been very different to what the gospels quoted him as saying.

How many of us could quote accurately word for word something which was said to us last week, for instance? The game of Chinese whispers makes my point well, a sentence which is passed down the line is nothing like it was when it started out.

That's cos you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, innit!

[Shaker]

That's cos you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, innit!

*yawn* Jackanory is still going, is it?

[ProfessorDavey]

That's cos you don't believe in the Holy Spirit, innit!

Ooo - I can feel a good old fashioned circular argument coming on.

[Shaker]

The 'Searching for God' thread is thataway 

[Owlswing]

The 'Searching for God' thread is thataway 

Stop searching - he is hiding behind the sofa with his X-Box!

[Spud]

When you need to recall what someone has said, it helps if you've understood it. They couldn't have written it down immediately because they didn't understand it; they make it quite clear that they didn't. Eg John 14-16.

[Spud]

The first gospel was written by someone who would have known how to record details accurately. (Levi the tax collector). For some time after the ascension, the disciples were together as a group, and would have drawn up accounts of the events (Luke 1:1).

[trippymonkey]

Just exactly how old IS the oldest piece of Biblical scripture we have. ??

Is it nearly 2 thousand years old ?!?!!?

[ProfessorDavey]

The first gospel was written by someone who would have known how to record details accurately.

How do you know - there is certainly no evidence for that as there is precious little even close to being contemporary. And, of course, we have no way of knowing whether what was written is accurate.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The gospels were written along time after Jesus died, I don't see how it is possible for even those who knew Jesus in person to have been able to quote him word for word years later. I very much doubt they wrote them down at the time he was actually supposed to have said those things. What Jesus actually said and the meaning of his words, could have been very different to what the gospels quoted him as saying.

How many of us could quote accurately word for word something which was said to us last week, for instance? The game of Chinese whispers makes my point well, a sentence which is passed down the line is nothing like it was when it started out.

People who normally accept distance in time between event and the writing of history imho  can start special pleading when it comes to Christian history.

[ProfessorDavey]

For some time after the ascension, the disciples were together as a group, and would have drawn up accounts of the events (Luke 1:1).

I thought the conventional view was that they rapidly scattered to a range of places where they preached about Jesus. So by the time the first records we have were written they were mostly dead and hadn't been together for perhaps 30 or more years.

And even had they been together, why would you think that would result in an accurate account. I think that is extremely unlikely as they were sadly neutral were they. If you want an accurate account of a football match you don't ask a fanatical and passionate supporter of one team, totally caught up in the emotion of the match. For that person it was the clearest penalty in the world and the ref was blind for not giving it. No - you ask a dispassionate neutral, or if there isn't one better to get accounts from the supporters of both sides.

The bible is the equivalent of an account written by fanatical and passionate supporters of one team only, with no balancing view available whatsoever. It is partial and biased and therefore should be read with that is mind.

[ProfessorDavey]

A story I was told many times as a child by family members about a deceased relative now turns out to have been a work of fiction. We have recently found authentic documentary evidence, which is very different to the story my family had believed to be true, even though the event had only taken place two years previously.

I have a similar story about one of my relatives (a sea-going farmer!) who died when the ship he was on sank and his role in saving a young woman. The fiction was even reported in a New York newspaper - the story was hugely embellished creating a much better news story, but it wasn't true.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

A story I was told many times as a child by family members about a deceased relative now turns out to have been a work of fiction. We have recently found authentic documentary evidence, which is very different to the story my family had believed to be true, even though the event had only taken place two years previously.

I'm sure that can happen although your post is sketchy on the circumstances. It cannot be denied that the letters of the NT encourage verification...The 500 witnesses.

[ad_orientem]

What the heck has that got to do with anything?

It has everthing to do with it. Because you don't believe in the Holy Spirit you do not trust the gospel accounts. Neither do you believe that the Holy Spirit protected them from all error.

[ProfessorDavey]

The 500 witnesses.

Which is just about the clearest indication that what is written is a pack of lies.

If there really were 500 witness of a dead guy suddenly not being dead anymore, do you not think that at least a few of those 500 people would have noted it, recorded it, reported it. Yet we have not one iota of contemporaneous evidence from any of those 500 (many of whom would have been evidential gold dust as they would not have been partial) that they saw a dead man alive again.

Or maybe seeing dead people alive again was commonplace back in those days.

[ProfessorDavey]

It has everthing to do with it. Because you don't believe in the Holy Spirit you do not trust the gospel accounts. Neither do you believe that the Holy Spirit protected them from all error.

Oh no - circular argument alert.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which is just about the clearest indication that what is written is a pack of lies.

If there really were 500 witness of a dead guy suddenly not being dead anymore, do you not think that at least a few of those 500 people would have noted it, recorded it, reported it. Yet we have not one iota of contemporaneous evidence from any of those 500 (many of whom would have been evidential gold dust as they would not have been partial) that they saw a dead man alive again.

Or maybe seeing dead people alive again was commonplace back in those days.

Pack of lies, really How so?

Comparatively little is extant in ancient history...any ancient history.

[ad_orientem]

Floo being absurd again. I should have known better.

Anyway, my point was that of course you don't believe the gospel accounts are accurate because you don't believe in the Holy Spirit. Don't get your knickers in a twist, dear!

[Shaker]

"There is no evidence that the HS is anymore than a figment of the human imagination."

is hardly getting any form of underwear in a twist, is it now?

[ad_orientem]

Oh no - circular argument alert.

There's nothing circular about it. You either believe in the Holy Spirit or not. If you do then it's possible to believe that he protected the scriptures from error; if you don't, then obviously you don't believe it's possible. It's as simple as that. I would have thought that was blindingly obvious.

[Shaker]

There's nothing circular about it.

Er, yes there is ...

I would have thought that was blindingly obvious.

I would have thought that about Floo's post.

[ad_orientem]

"There is no evidence that the HS is anymore than a figment of the human imagination."

is hardly getting any form of underwear in a twist, is it now?

It was in reference to nonce priests.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

not the sort of folk with whom decent people would wish to associate!

Now were coming to it, the true destination of the New Atheist project?