Jesus was a good man but his biographers got it wrong?

[Socrates4Jesus]

Is the whole of ancient history
lost,
entombed by myth and mystery?

Can we to exhume
**fabled bones **
from fact?

Has the Truth long decayed
to dust of incredulity . . .

**or is He risen, **
alive
and intact?

 

[Mirdath]

If the sources were opposed to the teachings of Jesus, then why would they write about the miracles? They would not want to give credence to someone whose teachings they oppose.

To condemn Jesus as a satanic agent, in the case of the Jews; or, for the Greeks and Romans, they were polytheists anyway – it wouldn’t matter to them.

I repeat, it is ONLY biblical writings that people do the opposite and make internal evidence primary. The only reason they do this is to deny that the writings were made by eyewitnesses near the time the event took place.

Wrong. Any old manuscript gets this treatment.

If God exists, then we would expect to have miracles.

I don’t see any happening; therefore I find reason to doubt a source for these nonexistent miracles.

Socrates4Jesus:

I agree it is provable that light a wave; i believe it is provable that light is made up of particles; scientists have no idea how light can be both. My point was that it is not irrational to believe in a mystery–to apprehend that something is true (because the evidence demonstrates its validity) without comprehending how it can be true (because there is no cognitive explanation for its validity).

A scientist can just point to the double-slit and photoelectric experiments and say ‘try it yourself’. There is no such validation for religion.

If you are going to reject Christ, you have to reject the Caesars, Alexander the Great, Socrates, and in fact every figure from antiquity. As i demonstrated, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the most well documented event in all ancient history. To be consistent, then, you must deny anything that scholars claim about the lives of men and women nearly 2,000 years ago. You will be at odds with the vast majority of the learned, but you will at least avoid hypocrisy.

I don’t deny that any of them lived or died. I deny that one particular man recovered from death – in fact, I deny that any of them came back from the dead!

Moreover, to say, “What Caesar did was possible and repeatable; what Jesus did was not!” is not a way of avoiding inconsistency. For if God exists, it makes sense that his entering time and space would be something spectacular. We would expect him to do what nobody else before or since has been able to do, because only he could do it.

Yet I can prove that Caesar was a man; can you prove that Jesus was God? Only by appealing to the very miracles and resurrection that is in question! In terms of inconsistency, you’re far worse off than I, for the only way to show the divinity of Jesus is to show that he did the impossible, and the only way to show that he did the impossible is to show that he was divine. You’re trapped in a circle.

If you step in my shoes for a moment, do you at least begin to see why i believe what i believe? Do you in some small way understand why i’m not being irrational or unreasonable?

No, I really don’t, except for the possibility that it makes you feel better about your mortality. Faith is irrational; I don’t see why there’s a problem with that – plenty of the things we do and think are irrational.

I regret i’m going to be traveling for the next week. It has been good discussing this with you and wish we had more time to take it easy and thoughtfully.

I’ll leave you in the capable hands of the others, here. Good searching! May we both draw closer to the Truth!

Have fun!

 

[clmowry]

I thought I killed the cow of “wouldn’t die for a lie” early on before he ate all the metaphorical grass of my limited time to be here on CAF for the weekend.

Moo I say to you who brings this up again. It’s not that I personally don’t accept and believe the validity of this claim, but that it’s a useless debating tool. I need a “flying Rhinocerous with a Cimatar in both hands” kind of argument, not a cow.

Moo but no Thank Moo.

So what’s the point of your arguments and the original question?

Your real point is that the gospels can’t be trusted.

If that’s the case why should we even believe he was a nice guy.

“Historically”, outside of the gospel and the witness of the Apostels, he was a criminal executed by the romans, nothing more.

The best someone taking your position could say about Chirst is that some of the myths made up by Christians make for a nice fairy tale.

Chuck

 

[dcdurel]

To condemn Jesus as a satanic agent, in the case of the Jews; or, for the Greeks and Romans, they were polytheists anyway – it wouldn’t matter to them.

The Jews considered Jesus to be a prophet at best, a satanic agent at best. Either way, why would they promote His miracles amoung Christians who they hated. They had no reason to promote Him. They were persecuting the Christians.

Wrong. Any old manuscript gets this treatment.

No they don’t. There is not a single secular writing in which internal evidence is given primary consideration over external evidence, when present, for determining authorship.
It is only done for biblical writings in order to try to prove that they were not written by eyewitnesses. That is the sole reason.

I don’t see any happening; therefore I find reason to doubt a source for these nonexistent miracles.

Again, the bests scientists in the world say that someone had to create the universe from nothing. Therefore we must accept the possibilities of miracles today. To reject miracles, before hand, when reading the scriptures is simply not scientific nor is it objective.

The real reason people don’t accept miracles is because they don’t accept God. The real reason the don’t accept God is because they don’t like one or more of His teachings. So they rationalize and claim they have no proof.
But, that’s the the way God made it. He doesn’t make His existance overwhelming, otherwise we would not have much free will. He makes His existance knowable, for those who want to do good and seek the truth.
Every unbeliever knows that it is because he rejects one or more of God’s teachings that he does not seek the truth. And on judgment day, all this will be made clear to them.

 

[Mirdath]

The Jews considered Jesus to be a prophet at best, a satanic agent at best. Either way, why would they promote His miracles amoung Christians who they hated. They had no reason to promote Him. They were persecuting the Christians.

They could at least have the decency to record his diabolical works as a warning for others, no?

No they don’t. There is not a single secular writing in which internal evidence is given primary consideration over external evidence, when present, for determining authorship.
It is only done for biblical writings in order to try to prove that they were not written by eyewitnesses. That is the sole reason.

How do you think we dated Aristophanes’ satires? By the copyright date?

To reject miracles, before hand, when reading the scriptures is simply not scientific nor is it objective.

How is rejecting the nonsensical not objective? I reject the idea that someone can just disobey the laws of physics, and why should I not?

But, that’s the the way God made it. He doesn’t make His existance overwhelming, otherwise we would not have much free will. He makes His existance knowable, for those who want to do good and seek the truth.

And what does this do for me? I have sought, and have not found; I have asked, and I have not received; I have knocked, and found I was only knocking on a wall.

Every unbeliever knows that it is because he rejects one or more of God’s teachings that he does not seek the truth. And on judgment day, all this will be made clear to them.

Do not presume you know why anyone believes or does not. You are wrong. My disagreements with Catholic morality are incidental; the reason I left the Church is that I do not believe.

 

[PinoyCatholic]

"Modernism… would have us believe that the Misunderstood Sage of Nazareth was both a profoundly wise rabbi and the dumbest cluck in human history. It proposes that a deeply spiritual man who saw through human souls like glass was incapable of noticing that his chosen disciples were people not even moderately competent at remembering a handful of his words and deeds. It also asserts that this devout Jew’s love of the one true God of Israel so inspired these witless witnesses with devotion to their Master that they ran off the instant he was dead to blaspheme all he held dear. Modernism asks us to swallow the notion that these paragons of stupidity remained as stupid as ever for the rest of their lives, yet nonetheless managed to construct a militant, well-organized, theologically-sophisticated community capable of disturbing the Roman peace within twenty years of its founding and noticeable enough to invite Neronian persecution within thirty years. This impressive church, says modernism, was set in motion by a Galilean enigma whose few garbled phrases the New Testament writers, in their intense devotion to his memory, cannot for the life of them remember or even paraphrase, much less understand.

But it is preposterous to say the entire apostolic community could simultaneously be this stupid and this brilliant, this forgetful and this obsessed with tradition, this unimaginative and this capable of flamboyantly inflating a rabbi whom even they couldn’t remember into the Incarnate God of Israel, then how much more preposterous was my Pagan Creep theory? For it demanded I believe exactly the same thing of the apostles and their disciples.

Indeed, it demanded the apostles had to have been twelve times more grotesquely incompetent than the already fabulously incompetent Jesus of modernism. It meant believing that everywhere the apostles went they - all of them - appointed successors who perverted their teaching on a dozen subjects as badly as modernism said the apostles had perverted Christ’s. It meant that for sixty years of blood, sweat, and toil, the apostles made thousands of disciples so stupid that they could not grasp the most elementary teachings of their faith. It meant believing that their churches - all of them in north, south, east, and west - paganized Christianity (and paganized it everywhere in the same way) the instant the apostles died. It meant believing that these churches, together with their overseers who had been handpicked by the apostles, were constantly engaged in a schizophrenic campaign of deliberate pagan perversion of the Faith while simultaneously dying in droves for the purity of that Faith. It meant believing that the immediate successors to the apostles (and the flocks they shepherded) were both martyrs against all pagan compromise and punctilious preservers of Scripture, and yet simultaneously secret devotees of Mithra, Isis, and the mystery cults. It meant believing that in some fantastic fashion quite unparalleled in history, this outburst of amnesia, heresy, and schizophrenia (beginning well before the death of the Apostle John and spanning the length and breadth of the Roman Empire) managed to completely pervert the Faith once given to the saints without one of those saints taking any notice at all - the very same saints who were willing to be burned alive for Christ rather than offer a tiny pinch of incense to Caesar."

• By What Authority? by Mark Shae

 

[dcdurel]

They could at least have the decency to record his diabolical works as a warning for others, no?

Why would they want to give Him more publicity if they hated him and if many were already believing in Him and if ? Why would they want more to believe in somebody they rejected?

How do you think we dated Aristophanes’ satires? By the copyright date?

How do you know they were written by Aristophanes at all? How do you even know Aristohanes wrote anything, except by external evidence, the witness of history? The only reason we know that he wrote anything is because of external evidence, the testamony of those who lived during his time, the witness of history.

The fact is that ALL secular writings have the authorship determined FIRST AND PRIMARILY by external evidence when is is available. It is only if there is no external evidence that internal evidence is used as the last resort. The ONLY reason some writers determine the authorship of the Gospels PRIMARILY by internal evidemce is SOLELY to try to date them way past the time of the events that took place to that these writers could say that a later generation made up the events. That is the ONLY reason. It is never done that way with secular writings. The introductions to the Gospels in the New American Bible, place primary importance on internal evidence. This is not scientific, not objective, not done in secular writings and it is condemned by the Church. Yet our bishops allow it. Proof again that no one can trust Catholic bishops.

Notice how you denied these facts that all secular writers place primary importance to external evidence when determing authorship, when I first stated this, even though you had no idea how the authorship of secular works was determined. Again that is proof that you have you are against the teachings of Jesus, and because of this you blindly accept anything that can justify your rejection of Him.

How is rejecting the nonsensical not objective? I reject the idea that someone can just disobey the laws of physics, and why should I not?

How is it nonsensical to believe that some being created the universe out of nothing. The best astro-physicists in the world believe this, Einstein included.
Therefore if it is scientific to believe the world can be created out of nothing, then certainly Jesus could perform a few miracles.
Again, your reasoning is not scientific and not logical.

And what does this do for me? I have sought, and have not found; I have asked, and I have not received; I have knocked, and found I was only knocking on a wall.

Sometimes we don’t want to know all the truth, do we?

Do not presume you know why anyone believes or does not. You are wrong. My disagreements with Catholic morality are incidental; the reason

I left the Church is that I do not believe.And the reason you do not believe is because there is at least one teaching you don’t accept, is it not? Do you accept all the Church teaches as good teachings that should all be obeyed?

I will give you credit, at least you are honest enough to leave the Church, as opposed to some who remain within who try to claim that Church teachings come from men and thus they constantly try to change the change Church teachings to fit their desires.

 

[Mirdath]

Why would they want to give Him more publicity if they hated him and if many were already believing in Him and if ? Why would they want more to believe in somebody they rejected?

Why’d the apostles record the actions of Simon Magus? Same deal.

How do you know they were written by Aristophanes at all? How do you even know Aristohanes wrote anything, except by external evidence, the witness of history? The only reason we know that he wrote anything is because of external evidence, the testamony of those who lived during his time, the witness of history.

Okay, sure, true enough – we have independent historical verification of Aristophanes’ plays, don’t we? That’s always preferable and more accurate. No such luck for the gospels

The ONLY reason some writers determine the authorship of the Gospels PRIMARILY by internal evidemce is SOLELY to try to date them way past the time of the events that took place to that these writers could say that a later generation made up the events. That is the ONLY reason.

Funny, you’d think it was because no external source mentions the existence of the gospels and epistles before a certain date. There wasn’t a Times best-sellers list back then.

Not that it matters; I’ve no reason to doubt they were written in the first century.

This is not scientific, not objective, not done in secular writings and it is condemned by the Church. Yet our bishops allow it. Proof again that no one can trust Catholic bishops.

That’s a new one. Way to try to make your argument by discrediting what you’re arguing for :hypno:

Again that is proof that you have you are against the teachings of Jesus, and because of this you blindly accept anything that can justify your rejection of Him.

Don’t try to tell me what I believe and what I’m against. I’m more than willing to let you know, and I at least am right about my positions.

How is it nonsensical to believe that some being created the universe out of nothing. The best astro-physicists in the world believe this, Einstein included.

Some of them; so what?

Therefore if it is scientific to believe the world can be created out of nothing, then certainly Jesus could perform a few miracles.
Again, your reasoning is not scientific and not logical.

It’s pretty okay compared to your two-for-one logical fallacies deal here, false equivalence of primordial creation of the laws of physics to miraculous violation of them and a bad appeal to authority. Einstein was a physicist, not a metaphysicist or theologian; what he thought about God has no bearing on the genius behind relativity.

Sometimes we don’t want to know all the truth, do we?
And the reason you do not believe is because there is at least one teaching you don’t accept, is it not? Do you accept all the Church teaches as good teachings that should all be obeyed?

I will give you credit, at least you are honest enough to leave the Church, as opposed to some who remain within who try to claim that Church teachings come from men and thus they constantly try to change the change Church teachings to fit their desires.

No, I do not accept all Church teachings on morals; but morality is not the reason I left the Church. I could have handled the morality, if bitterly; I left because I realized I did not believe in the Christian God.

 

[dcdurel]

Why’d the apostles record the actions of Simon Magus? Same deal.

The Jews today do not deny that Jesus existed and that some of them helped put Jesus to death. When Gibson’s movie, “The Passion of the Christ” was made, it was objected to by some Jews today, NOT because they denied the basic facts presented in the movie, but because they feared it would stir up hatred against the Jews today. It is only rationalists and athiests who refuse to study history who try to deny that Jesus even existed. The Jews today know good and well that Jesus was part of their history. Perhaps you should read the writings of the early Christians who knew the apostles. Historical writings do exist.

Okay, sure, true enough – we have independent historical verification of Aristophanes’ plays, don’t we? That’s always preferable and more accurate. No such luck for the gospels

 We have lots of historical accounts of who wrote the Gospels.  There are many books that summarize these historical writings, such as "The authenticity of the Sacred Scriptures" and others.  We have  the constant tradition, handed on by those who knew the apostles and learned from them and who were very, very particular that accounts and teachings of the life of Jesus were accurate, because they considered Him to be God Himself.   They did not want the words of men put down as the word of God.  They were very very particular about that.

Funny, you’d think it was because no external source mentions the existence of the gospels and epistles before a certain date. There wasn’t a Times best-sellers list back then.
Not that it matters; I’ve no reason to doubt they were written in the first century.

We have lots of external sources accounting for the authors of the four gospels.
I repeat, even the New American Bible admits the tradition handed down by those who knew the apostles and that continued on till today was that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote these four gospels. That has always been the accepted tradition by everyone. Those who knew the apostles back then had no doubt that they were written in the first century by the apostles and apostolic men.
What the rationalists do, as presented in the New American Bible, and other places, is to try to convince the reader that internal evidence is more accurate, sure, convincing and more scientific and more certain than the tradition. Then they come up with interpretations of that internal evidence that denies the tradition. That is total nonsense. All secular books have their authors determined by tradition, by external evidence, by the witness of history. There is not a secular book in the world in which internal evidence is made more certain, more important, more accepted than the external evidence handed down by tradition. None. The only reason some scholars do the opposite for the four gospels is to try to deny they were written when the eyewitnesses to the events were living. Because if the eyewitnesses to the miracles of Jesus were living and these miracles did not take place, then the persecuters of the Christians,many who were even members of their own families, could have held up the gospel accounts and used them to prove that Christians were liars and frauds.
Christians would have been made into fools and the Christianity would have faded into oblivion. But instead, Christianity grew because the events were accepted by the public. Jesus performed PUBLIC miracles.
Almost everyone in Israel saw or heard of the miracles of Jesus. The Church is not based on events which no one saw like man-made religions. No one saw Allah speaking to Mohammed. No one saw the angel speaking to John Smith, the founder of Mormanism.

Don’t try to tell me what I believe and what I’m against. I’m more than willing to let you know, and I at least am right about my positions.

That is the problem right there. When you say you are right about your positions, that makes God wrong. Just as the Church has always taught. Athiesm is a moral problem at its root. It is not a scientific problem.

 

[dcdurel]

It’s pretty okay compared to your two-for-one logical fallacies deal here, false equivalence of primordial creation of the laws of physics to miraculous violation of them and a bad appeal to authority. Einstein was a physicist, not a metaphysicist or theologian; what he thought about God has no bearing on the genius behind relativity.

Scientists have no trouble believing the universe was created, that is, someone was beyond the laws of physics. Someone created the laws of physics. It is simple reasoning. If this creator can be above the laws of physics, then certainly Jesus, who claimed to be God, could perform a few easy miracles, which were not nearly so stupendous as creating the universe. Thus we have no reasonable scientific basis for rejected the four gospels, which were accepted by all, even the eyewitnesses, living at the time of Jesus.

No, I do not accept all Church teachings on morals; but morality is not the reason I left the Church. I could have handled the morality, if bitterly; I left because I realized I did not believe in the Christian God.

One belief leads to the other.

Do you believe Mary existed? Even the Muslims and Jews believe in Mary. Then ask her to pray for you. She has often helped me in the past.

 

[Mirdath]

It is only rationalists and athiests who refuse to study history who try to deny that Jesus even existed. The Jews today know good and well that Jesus was part of their history. Perhaps you should read the writings of the early Christians who knew the apostles. Historical writings do exist.

I have never denied the existence of Jesus of Nazareth. Have you even been reading what I’m saying?

We have lots of external sources accounting for the authors of the four gospels.

Name a few.

Almost everyone in Israel saw or heard of the miracles of Jesus.

So why didn’t the entire nation convert? You’d think that if everyone knew Jesus was a miracle worker, they’d have been less amenable to the Sanhedrin convincing them to shout for Barabbas’ release.

That is the problem right there. When you say you are right about your positions, that makes God wrong. Just as the Church has always taught. Athiesm is a moral problem at its root. It is not a scientific problem.

No, I meant that I know what I think better than you do – so kindly don’t try to tell me what that is, because you have precious little idea.

Scientists have no trouble believing the universe was created, that is, someone was beyond the laws of physics. Someone created the laws of physics. It is simple reasoning.

And all those non-theist scientists? What happened to their doctorates?

If this creator can be above the laws of physics, then certainly Jesus, who claimed to be God, could perform a few easy miracles, which were not nearly so stupendous as creating the universe.

Claiming to be God won’t get you anywhere unless you actually are God. Were Jesus actually God, sure, he probably could perform miracles. If he just claimed to be divine, however… not so much.

Do you believe Mary existed? Even the Muslims and Jews believe in Mary. Then ask her to pray for you. She has often helped me in the past.

I have no reason to doubt that she lived, but right now I think she’s probably taking a dirt nap along with everybody else who’s lived.

 

[jmcrae]

So why didn’t the entire nation convert? You’d think that if everyone knew Jesus was a miracle worker, they’d have been less amenable to the Sanhedrin convincing them to shout for Barabbas’ release.

Because of one mistake - they thought that Jesus was to be a military Messiah.

Imagine a warrior - a general - who can miraculously multiply a child’s lunch to feed five thousand men, their wives, and their children? Such a general would never have to fear his supply lines being cut off.

Imagine further that this general has the ability to raise the dead to life.

Such a general could conquer not only Rome, but the whole world.

What does this mean for the Sanhedrin, who had spent their entire careers compromising with the Romans? (Out of a job - either learn a new trade, or homelessness.)

What does this mean for King Herod, puppet of the Romans? (Probably the death penalty as an enemy collaborator, and homelessness for his wives and children.)

That’s why they needed to get rid of Jesus and protect their status quo - because they believed he could do these things, and they knew that if he did do them, they would be in huge big trouble.

Miserable as life with the Romans was, they had it pretty good compared to what would happen to them if Israel ever actually won a war against anybody.

And all those non-theist scientists? What happened to their doctorates?

You don’t have to be a theist to believe that some mysterious spiritual “force” caused the Universe to emerge from nothing - that’s what my brother believes - he’s a theoretical physicist, and he definitely does not believe in the Christian God.