SonOfMan #30
Abu Fact 2: He claimed to be a messenger sent from God.
This is not a fact…
False.
The writings of these facts – the Gospels – are comparable with other ancient documents from writers such as Caesar, Tacitus, Thucydides and others, they are all reliable as history.
The Bible alleges that he claimed to be, but there are no writings outside of the inner circle of writers that coincides with these claims
Who else would know and be able to write this at that time?
Abu Fact 3: He did enough to prove that He was such a messenger
The Bible alleges that he proved things, but no other writings outside of the Bible corroborate these claims.
“No writings outside of the Bible corroborate these claims”? That is useless as a statement of reality, as writers come in all and no beliefs and intentions. Even the rationalist historian William Lecky wrote of Jesus “that it may be truly said that the simple record three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers, and all the exhortations of moralists.”
History of European Morals, George Braziller, New York 1955, Vol. II, P 8-9;
Apologetics and Catholic Doctrine, Archbishop Michael Sheehan, revised by Fr Peter Joseph, The Saint Austin Press, 2001, p 123].
Abu Fact 4: Crowds followed Jesus and He had an inner circle to whom he spoke much more.
That’s what is written, but nothing else corroborates this.
When the Gospels were written, as Fr William G Most points out, many people who had seen and heard Jesus himself would have been alive at that time. And Quadratus, an early apologist writing about 123 A.D., tells us that in his day there were still persons around who had been cured or raised from the dead by Jesus – prime witnesses.
Abu Fact 5: He commissioned His followers to continue His teaching and founded His Church.
Maybe so, but the claim out there is that Jesus as the man-god is legend based upon a real man named Jesus. Just because there was a real man named Jesus does not mean he was God, nor does it mean he had divine powers. And since there are no reliable sources that corroborate what the Bible has claimed, we simply don’t know.
The fantasy that the Gospel writers, who lived with the “real” Jesus of Nazareth and died for Him because He proved to them by His miracles and His Resurrection that He is God, is a fiction totally against reason.
Abu Fact 6: Jesus affirmed that God would protect that teaching.
Jesus allegedly said the gates of hell would not prevail. That doesn’t neccessitate that the teachings would be protected and would be kind of a stretch, jump, and hop to say so based on that sentence alone
.
There is no “alleging” – the teaching is factual and Jesus ensured much more of that reality when he specifically founded His Catholic Church on St Peter and the Twelve, for His empowerment was clear in reality and declares and mandates:
All four promises to Peter alone:
“You are Peter and on this rock I will build My Church.” (Mt 16:18)
“The gates of hell will not prevail against it.”(Mt 16:18)
“I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of heaven." (Mt 16:19)
“Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.” (Mt 16:19) [Later, also to the Twelve].
**Sole authority: **
“Strengthen your brethren.” (Lk 22:32)
“Feed My sheep.”(Jn 21:17).
**Abu: So from the reliability of the Gospels as history, we now know that:
- An infallible Church was founded by the Son of God
- That infallible Church teaches that the Bible, as She has given us, is the inspired Word of God. **
This is circular reasoning.
False.
Human beings write books, God does not (Inspiration is not God’s hand moving the pen. It is human beings committing to human words everything God wishes to be known.) Scripture has human authors.