Fine detail in the gospels: made up or not?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Which principles do you think which people are applying consistently?

People lie
People are mistaken
People see mirages
People have frontal lobe epilepsy........for starters.
Oh and the favourite "Not trusting anything written 20 years after an event".

[Nearly Sane]

People lie
People are mistaken
People see mirages
People have frontal lobe epilepsy........for starters.
Oh and the favourite "Not trusting anything written 20 years after an event".

Those are a set of statements - not principles and I have no idea what you think isn't being applied consistently.

[Stranger]

People lie
People are mistaken
People see mirages
People have frontal lobe epilepsy........for starters.
Oh and the favourite "Not trusting anything written 20 years after an event".

This is a particularly puzzling 'argument', even from you Vlad. The first four are true and are always a danger in any account. The last is an exaggeration but we do need to treat accounts written long after the events with even more caution - and that applies to everything as well.

[jeremyp]

Oh and the favourite "Not trusting anything written 20 years after an event".

Ask somebody you know to relate an event that happened to them twenty years ago and then write it down. Do you think your written account would be a completely accurate description? Then add a couple more people in the chain. Do you still think your account would be accurate?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Ask somebody you know to relate an event that happened to them twenty years ago and then write it down. Do you think your written account would be a completely accurate description? Then add a couple more people in the chain. Do you still think your account would be accurate?

That's all very well Jeremy but do you consistently apply your doubts?
For a lot of peopleIMV the answer to that would be in the negative.
By the way I think a lot of people could?

[jeremyp]

That's all very well Jeremy but do you consistently apply your doubts?

I certainly do as far as the gospels are concerned.

[Stranger]

That's all very well Jeremy but do you consistently apply your doubts?
For a lot of peopleIMV the answer to that would be in the negative.

How about an example of somebody not being consistent about it - rather than empty accusations?

[jeremyp]

How about an example of somebody not being consistent about it - rather than empty accusations?

It's not important. It doesn't matter whether I consistently apply the same arguments to other areas. This topic is about the gospels and whether my points are valid as applied to them. Vlad's post was a typical attempt to distract from the emptiness of his own arguments.

[Spud]

The Iliad is fiction.

How do you know it wasn't based on historical events?

Neither could the supernatural events described in the Gospels.

Of course they could. We might not have evidence to prove it but there still could have been people around to confirm the miracles.

Which eye witnesses were still alive when each of the gospels were written. The time period in question is ~70CE to ~90CE. Give evidence for your claims.

I don't know. Those details aren't given. That their names are given suggests that they were at least known to some readers, which suggests that your time period is off.

Where is your evidence that any of these people were still alive when the gospels were written.

5,000 people witnessed the death and resurrection of Gerald my pet hamster. You need to start worshipping him now.

Have you got the names and addresses of a few of them please.

[Spud]

No. It was merely one I assumed you might have heard of.

.... look up Aristophanes and Virgil.

Thanks
That's just what I was after.

[jeremyp]

How do you know it wasn't based on historical events?

Doesn't matter whether it is based on fact or not, it is fiction. Either that or Zeus is the true God.

Of course they could. We might not have evidence to prove it but there still could have been people around to confirm the miracles.

Not really. The gospels were not written by eye witnesses, nor did they have easy access to eye witnesses. Don't forget that the journey required to interrogate eye witnesses - assuming they were still alive - would have been long and hazardous.

I don't know. Those details aren't given.

So you claim there were eye witnesses still alive when the gospels were written  but you can cite no evidence that these alleged eye witnesses existed. Your claim is therefore void and your argument has collapsed.

That their names are given suggests that they were at least known to some readers which suggests that your time period is off.

There's a difference between "known to" and "known of". I know of Winston Churchill and you might cite him in a book about World War 2, but that doesn't mean he was alive when I was born.

Have you got the names and addresses of a few of them please.

Aha. So you agree having more details than just there were x number of them is important. Please hold your Bible to the same standards of evidence as you are trying to hold me to here.

[ProfessorDavey]

That's all very well Jeremy but do you consistently apply your doubts?

Jeremy will answer that for himself.

But for me there is a fundamental principle that needs to be recognised - namely that where you are being asked to belief something, the level of incredulity that is in the claim is critical to the requirement for evidence.

So imagine if someone made a claim that a red car passed them on a zebra crossing, and that claim only came to light 50 years after the event. Now the 'radio silence' between the event and its reporting would certainly lead to a degree of scepticism, but the unremarkable nature of the claim might lead us to conclude 'fine, if you say so' - effectively a nominal acceptance because, frankly accepting or rejecting the claim has no ramifications.

Take another example - someone claimed that an alien spaceship passed them on a zebra crossing, abducted them and returned them a day later. And that now certain people can have special powers but only if they accept the story as true. And, again only reported 50 years after the event. Well now the claim is extraordinary and therefore a shrugging 'if you say so' will not do - there needs to serious evidence to back up that extraordinary claim or my scepticism will lead me to reject it until or unless that evidence is forthcoming.

And that is where many Christian apologists play a deeply disingenuous game. The notion that because there are certain things in the bible that are of the 'fine, if you say so' variety, that therefore we should accept all that is in there. And the presence of little details that seem plausible, or even can be proved to be correct, makes no difference whatsoever as to scepticism over the extraordinary claims - just as were the alien abduction story to claim that the weather was bright and sunny on that particular day, and that to be true, wouldn't make one iota of difference in accepting the alien abduction to be true without extraordinary evidence.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Jeremy will answer that for himself.

But for me there is a fundamental principle that needs to be recognised - namely that where you are being asked to belief something, the level of incredulity that is in the claim is critical to the requirement for evidence.

So imagine if someone made a claim that a red car passed them on a zebra crossing, and that claim only came to light 50 years after the event. Now the 'radio silence' between the event and its reporting would certainly lead to a degree of scepticism, but the unremarkable nature of the claim might lead us to conclude 'fine, if you say so' - effectively a nominal acceptance because, frankly accepting or rejecting the claim has no ramifications.

Take another example - someone claimed that an alien spaceship passed them on a zebra crossing, abducted them and returned them a day later. And that now certain people can have special powers but only if they accept the story as true. And, again only reported 50 years after the event. Well now the claim is extraordinary and therefore a shrugging 'if you say so' will not do - there needs to serious evidence to back up that extraordinary claim or my scepticism will lead me to reject it until or unless that evidence is forthcoming.

And that is where many Christian apologists play a deeply disingenuous game. The notion that because there are certain things in the bible that are of the 'fine, if you say so' variety, that therefore we should accept all that is in there. And the presence of little details that seem plausible, or even can be proved to be correct, makes no difference whatsoever as to scepticism over the extraordinary claims - just as were the alien abduction story to claim that the weather was bright and sunny on that particular day, and that to be true, wouldn't make one iota of difference in accepting the alien abduction to be true without extraordinary evidence.

To equate Christianity with alien spaceships and abduction shows an extremely partial grasp of what is being "apologised".

Christianity is a two parter. It's an anthropology showing what we are like and what our needs and depths are and what God has done about it. An alien encounter is a pale abbreviation of what we are being called to.

[ProfessorDavey]

To equate Christianity with alien spaceships and abduction shows an extremely partial grasp of what is being "apologised".

Christianity is a two parter. It's an anthropology showing what we are like and what our needs and depths are and what God has done about it. An alien encounter is a pale abbreviation of what we are being called to.

Nope - unless you come from a perspective of already believing, and therefore not being objective, the claim that a man died and came back to life and was god is not more or less plausible than my alien abduction story. That you see them as fundamentally different is special pleading in the extreme.

You will note that I deliberately included an anthropological 'redemption' type element to my story, so I had actually addressed your second point before you had even raised it.

[Gordon]

To equate Christianity with alien spaceships and abduction shows an extremely partial grasp of what is being "apologised".

As usual you miss the point: which is that some claims are inherently trivial whether they are true or false compared with other claims that definitely aren't trivial - it is the difference between saying 'Jesus was partial to marmalade on his toast' and 'Jesus was dead and then wasn't'.

Do you get it now?

[ProfessorDavey]

As usual you miss the point: which is that some claims are inherently trivial whether they are true or false compared with other claims that definitely aren't trivial - it is the difference between saying 'Jesus was partial to marmalade on his toast' and 'Jesus was dead and then wasn't'.

Do you get it now?

It isn't rocket science is it?

I sometimes wonder whether Vlad really doesn't get it, or whether he fully recognises how weak his arguments are but refuses to admit it.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Of everyone on this forum Dicky has perhaps the fullest and therefore the least caricature view of Christianity.
Of the rest the central point of Christianity are the miracles. That misses that Christianity is also an anthropology. A framework in which mans depths and needs can be explored. Naturalism however merely provides cold facts about material and the scientism which most posters suffer from provides the necessary faith component that a personal fact and material quotient will be satisfied.
 In short then you are wrong to caricature Christianity. Someone will also chime in and say what about religion x or y, yes what about them? They are often caricatured as well as a kind of Christianity.But what do they know about them and what business do they have decrying Christianity as not understanding them when they detest those religions as well?

[Gordon]

Of everyone on this forum Dicky has perhaps the fullest and therefore the least caricature view of Christianity.
Of the rest the central point of Christianity are the miracles. That misses that Christianity is also an anthropology. A framework in which mans depths and needs can be explored. Naturalism however merely provides cold facts about material and the scientism which most posters suffer from provides the necessary faith component that a personal fact and material quotient will be satisfied.
 In short then you are wrong to caricature Christianity. Someone will also chime in and say what about religion x or y, yes what about them? They are often caricatured as well as a kind of Christianity.But what do you know about them and what business do you have decrying Christianity as not understanding them when you detest those religions as well?

In which you again miss the point: there are no doubt many accounts of people whose conduct was inspiring or influential, including those for whom religion was part of their motivation, but still within the scope of what some humans can do and achieve - but no miracles.

The problem with some of the Jesus stories is, of course, the miracle stuff.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

As usual you miss the point: which is that some claims are inherently trivial whether they are true or false compared with other claims that definitely aren't trivial - it is the difference between saying 'Jesus was partial to marmalade on his toast' and 'Jesus was dead and then wasn't'.

Do you get it now?

But now I'm asking myself whether I'm in debate with someone with a working understanding of Christianity, a framework rather than a caricature or merely someone who doesn't believe that anywhere or at anytime death can be reversed by a sufficiently able agency.

[ProfessorDavey]

That misses that Christianity is also an anthropology. A framework in which mans depths and needs can be explored. Naturalism however merely provides cold facts about material and the scientism which most posters suffer from provides the necessary faith component that a personal fact and material quotient will be satisfied.

I don't think anyone denies that the bible contains all sorts of stories that help us understand and think about human nature and how we interact with each other - the arthropology as you call it. But in this respect the bible is far from unique. Indeed there are countless myths, legends, parables, fairy stories, works of fiction and of fact that do exactly the same - some are far older than the bible and the tradition continues to this day.

The bible is just one of many in this respect - not very unique in its message, nor, actually in its narrative.

And your point about naturalism is bonkers - do you really think that a naturalismist refuses to find meaning in the works of Shakespeare because his plays are either complete fiction or not completely factually accurate. Of course not - Shakespeares plays ad their interpretation lies entirely in the world of naturalism - there is no supernatural element.

[floo]

I don't think anyone denies that the bible contains all sorts of stories that help us understand and think about human nature and how we interact with each other - the arthropology as you call it. But in this respect the bible is far from unique. Indeed there are countless myths, legends, parables, fairy stories, works of fiction and of fact that do exactly the same - some are far older than the bible and the tradition continues to this day.

The bible is just one of many in this respect - not very unique in its message, nor, actually in its narrative.

And your point about naturalism is bonkers - do you really think that a naturalismist refuses to find meaning in the works of Shakespeare because his plays are either complete fiction or not completely factually accurate. Of course not - Shakespeares plays ad their interpretation lies entirely in the world of naturalism - there is no supernatural element.

Good post.

[Gordon]

But now I'm asking myself whether I'm in debate with someone with a working understanding of Christianity, a framework rather than a caricature or merely someone who doesn't believe that anywhere or at anytime death can be reversed by a sufficiently able agency.

You've moved effortless from what Christians 'understand' from anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance, and the seemingly yet to be assessed risks of mistakes or lies figuring in these accounts, straight to death being reversible via some 'able agency'.

I'd like to think you'll see the problems in your (lack of) reasoning here - but I suspect you won't.

[ProfessorDavey]

You've moved effortless from what Christians 'understand' from anecdotal accounts of uncertain provenance, and the seemingly yet to be assessed risks of mistakes or lies figuring in these accounts, straight to death being reversible via some 'able agency'.

I'd like to think you'll see the problems in your (lack of) reasoning here - but I suspect you won't.

Exactly - if we are asked to believe what is in the bible is literally true then we need evidence to back that up - particularly for the extraordinary claims.

If we are being asked to see the bible as providing a list of stories and parables that help us understand human nature and relationships then whether it is true or not in a literal sense is irrelevant. We are all more than happy to accept complete works of fiction (e.g. the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime to pluck one randomly from the air) and fictional works, closely based on historical people and factual events (e.g. Macbeth, to pluck another randomly from the air) as telling us 'truths' about human nature and interactions.

The problem with Christianity is that it wants us to believe literal truth (there really was a dog with a fork stuck in him; Lady Macbeth really did compulsively try to remove a blood spot) which, to my mind, actually devalues the power of the stories, as we need then to fixate on the veracity of the claim of literal truth rather than what the story tells us in a non-literal sense.

Where the claims are fanciful then the problem gets worse. The story of Icharus tells us something valuable about human nature - it tells us a non-literal truth. The story is completely devalued if we start to fixate on whether Icharus really did make wings and really did fly.

[Maeght]

Since this discussion is about whether fine details of the bible are made up or not I would take from any post which talks about a framework of deeper meaning in Christianity that the poster is suggesting that details were made up to support that framework. I that what was meant?

[jeremyp]

To equate Christianity with alien spaceships and abduction shows an extremely partial grasp of what is being "apologised".

To claim that Christianity cannot be compared with alien spaceships and abductions shows an extremely partial grasp of reality.

Christianity is a two parter. It's an anthropology showing what we are like

Gullible fools for the most part?

The problem with claiming Christianity as "anthropology" is that its conclusions have no supporting evidence.

and what our needs and depths are and what God has done about it.

Who cares what a figment of your imagination has done about anything?

An alien encounter is a pale abbreviation of what we are being called to.

That's just your wishful thinking. You keep telling yourself that your fantasy is better than the fantasies of alien abductees, if it makes you feel better.