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

[MerryAtheist]

We have letters written by men who lived with Jesus Christ the last three years of his life, and who wrote that he rose from the dead. We have the historical record of Luke who provided many names and dates and places that coincide with the events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. We have eyewitness accounts of many New Testament authors; one of whom records that Jesus was seen by a crowd of more than 500 people after his resurrection. We have the witness of martyrs who claimed to have seen Jesus after his resurrection and who chose death over denying that Jesus was their Lord, when all that they needed to say to save them was, “Caesar is Lord.” Need i say more?

It is highly improbable that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses. The earliest manuscripts don’t even name the authors, that is a later contrivance of the Church.

All the “evidence” you claim is contained in propaganda documents that cannot be verified. There is little more to say.

Believing the stories is all about faith, pure and simple. You have that faith. I don’t.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

I myself am extremely fond of Plato’s dialogs of Socrates. No college ancient history or philosophy professor would listen to a student who claimed Socrates never said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Yet there are only 7 extant ancient copies of Plato’s works. ONLY 7.

BTW, the time gap between Plato’s death and the earliest ancient manuscript of his work is 1,300 years.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

It is highly improbable that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses. The earliest manuscripts don’t even name the authors, that is a later contrivance of the Church.

All the “evidence” you claim is contained in propaganda documents that cannot be verified. There is little more to say.

Believing the stories is all about faith, pure and simple. You have that faith. I don’t.

My faith is actually different than that of some. It is based on historical evidence. I would not accept what i now know is true without it.

Merry, before we go on lobbing one grenade after another at each other, please answer me just two questions.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

They are not questions that it would take a rocket scientist to answer. They are questions any child could answer. I’m just curious what you will say.

 

[Mirdath]

Sorry. I don’t understand. What do you mean by “independent verification”?

Other writers, other historians, and the ability to walk across France and see the effects of his campaigns. Jesus lived and died, and might as well never have existed in the first place if not for his followers; Julius lived and died, and left his mark all across the face of Europe.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Other writers, other historians, and the ability to walk across France and see the effects of his campaigns. Jesus lived and died, and might as well never have existed in the first place if not for his followers; Julius lived and died, and left his mark all across the face of Europe.

Julius Caesar, if we can believe his writings, had many who would without hesitation fall on their swords rather than fail him. But, yes Mir, there are independent witnesses. What about Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James and the other authors of the New Testament? They each wrote independently of one another. Why do you discount their accounts?

 

[estesbob]

He was a Catholic priest appointed to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, president of the Catholic Biblical Association, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Society of New Testament Studies. He has 24 honorary doctorates. Google is your friend.

Not to be confused with the football player.

But the question is why should we accept his findings? Being that just abour everyone over the last 2,000 years disagrees with him it appears you are cherry picking your sources.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

He was a Catholic priest appointed to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, president of the Catholic Biblical Association, the Society of Biblical Literature, and the Society of New Testament Studies. He has 24 honorary doctorates. Google is your friend. …

I suppose he was an ex-Catholic priest by his quotes. It raises red flags that he would have an axe to grind. I doubt that the Vatican would agree that 95% of scholars believe that the New Testament authors were not eyewitnesses.

Do you have any non-bias sources?

 

[estesbob]

It is highly improbable that the gospels were written by eyewitnesses. The earliest manuscripts don’t even name the authors, that is a later contrivance of the Church.

And you source for this is?

All the “evidence” you claim is contained in propaganda documents that cannot be verified. There is little more to say.

Actually you havent said much of anyhthing all other than we should believe what you say on faith.

Believing the stories is all about faith, pure and simple. You have that faith. I don’t.

You have to ignore 2,000 years of scholarship, writings and teachings, Give me one good reason why anyone should believe you over all those who went before us?

 

[MerryAtheist]

They are not questions that it would take a rocket scientist to answer. They are questions any child could answer. I’m just curious what you will say.

Since you haven’t asked the questions yet, let me give you my answers in advance:

1. Not since I was 12
2. Vicki

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

And you source for this is?

Believing the stories is all about faith, pure and simple. You have that faith. I don’t.

You have to ignore 2,000 years of scholarship, writings and teachings, Give me one good reason why anyone should believe you over all those who went before us?

Do not be too hard on Merry, Estesbob. It is difficult to defend the position that one knows, without a doubt, that there is no God.

Mir is the more reasonable skeptic. Since he calls himself an agnostic, he does not take the irrational position that he knows there is not God. Instead he says, “I don’t know. Prove it that God is!”

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Since you haven’t asked the questions yet, let me give you my answers in advance:

1. Not since I was 12
2. Vicki

LOL! Wrong questions! I don’t know you well enough to ask anything so personal.

The 1st question is:

In all the scholarly journals and research in all the libraries and databases and Web servers in all the world, what percentage of all this information do you know and understand–perhaps as much as 0.0001%?

 

[estesbob]

.

Mir is the more reasonable skeptic. Since he calls himself an agnostic, he does not take the irrational position that he knows there is not God. Instead he says, “I don’t know. Prove it that God is!”

I beleive Mirdath is a “she” . I think this is a good definition of an agnostic:

Swears they aint no heaven and
prays there aint no hell

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

I beleive Mirdath is a “she” . I think this is a good definition of an agnostic:

Swears they aint no heaven and
prays there aint no hell

Then i shall apologize to her for mistaking her for a hairy ape like myself!

I actually admire agnostics and was one myself for many years.

 

[MerryAtheist]

And you source for this is?

Mark:
“Nothing in the Gospel identifies its author by name, since the label “according to Mark” was added later.”

Daniel J. Harrington, S.J. “Introduction to the Gospel of Mark,”
New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, Inc., New Jersey, 1990, pg.596 (section 2)​

Mathew:
“The Gospel early acquired prestige non only because of its intrinsic merits (e.g. the Sermon on the Mount, chaps. 5-7) but because it bore the name of an apostle (mentioned 9:9; 10:3). But, since the author of the final Gk text seems to have copied with modifications the whole Gospel of Mark, it is now commonly thought that it is improbable that in its present form it is the work of an eyewitness apostle.”

Benedict T. Viviano, O.P., “Introduction to the Gospel of Matthew,”
New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, Inc., New Jersey, 1990, pg. 630 (section 2)​

Luke:
Luke was a companion of Paul and not an eyewitness to the life of Jesus. I’m surprised you didn’t know that. Source: the Bible.

John:
“The ‘writing down’ of the Johannine traditions was clearly part of the ongoing life of the community. It may have been the result of a ‘Johannine school’ of disciples of the Beloved Disciple and teachers within the Johannin churches. There is sufficient unity in the literary composition and the narrated point of view in the Gospel to justify the claim that a single individual was responsible for the structure of the gospel narrative. But the importance of the community’s history of faith in shaping the Johannine tradition makes preoccupation with a single Johannine author inappropriate today…”

“…Finally, modern exegetes observe that the developments in christology and the realized eschatology of the Fourth Gospel are well beyond what would be likely for a Galilean fisherman.”

Pheme Perkins, “Introduction to the Gospel According to John,”
New Jerome Biblical Commentary, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1990, pg. 946 (section 12)​

In case you were wondering, The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (where I sourced this information) is an authoritative compendium of modern biblical scholarship of the community of Roman Catholic sholars. It bears the Nihil Obstat of the following:
Raymond E. Brown, S.S.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.
Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm
Censores Deputati (not sure what this latin phrase means, but I include it for anyone who cares)

And it bears the Imprimatur of
Reverend William J. Kane
Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Washington, November 15, 1988

So to re-cap - these are Catholic Scholars writing with the Approval of the Church presenting current scholarly information about the authorship of the Gospels. You are of course free to have your own opinions, no matter how uninformed they may be.

 

[MerryAtheist]

LOL! Wrong questions! I don’t know you well enough to ask anything so personal.

The 1st question is:

In all the scholarly journals and research in all the libraries and databases and Web servers in all the world, what percentage of all this information do you know and understand–perhaps as much as 0.0001%?

Honestly, not knowing the quantity of all “this” knowledge (which prompts the question “what about that knowledge?”), I could never put a number to what I know and understand. I can only say that the amount I know is very small compared to what there is to know.

 

[MerryAtheist]

Do not be too hard on Merry, Estesbob. It is difficult to defend the position that one knows, without a doubt, that there is no God.

Sigh.

I am an atheist because I have no belief in God, not because I believe there is no God. There is a difference.

I swear I’m gonna have to put this as my signature because it always comes up.

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Here are more ancient authors, their works, the time gap from their deaths to the earliest extant ancient manuscripts, and the number of surviving ancient MSS:

AUTHOR(S) / BOOK / EARLIEST COPIES / TIME GAP / NO. OF COPIES

• Herodotus / History / c. 900 B.C. / 1,350 yrs. / 8
• Thycydides / History / c. A.D. 900 / 1,300 yrs. / 8
• Plato / {various} / c. A.D. 900 / 1,300 yrs. / 7
• Demosthenes / {various} / c. A.D. 1100 / 1,400 yrs. / 200
• Livy / History of Rome / 4th cent. / 400 yrs. / 1 partial
• Livy / History of Rome / 10th cent. / 1,000 yrs. / 19 complete
• Tacitus / Annals / c. A.D. 1100 / 1,000 yrs. / 20
• Pliny Secundus / Natural History / c. A.D. 850 / 750 yrs. / 7

New Testament writers / {various}/ c. A.D.114-325 /50-225 / 5366 (earliest MSS) *

• NT / {fragments} / c. A.D. 114 / 50 yrs. / *
• NT / {various books} / c. A.D. 200 / 100 yrs. / *
• NT / {most of the NT} / c. A.D. 250 / 150 yrs. / *
• NT / {complete NT} / c. A.D. 325 / 225 yrs. / *

 

[Mirdath]

Socrates4Jesus:

Julius Caesar, if we can believe his writings, had many who would without hesitation fall on their swords rather than fail him. But, yes Mir, there are independent witnesses. What about Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James and the other authors of the New Testament? They each wrote independently of one another. Why do you discount their accounts?

Paul is not a witness; he came well after the fact. As for the others, it is obvious that their ideas, ideals, works, and goals influenced each other. They did not each operate in their own separate vacuum, they were friends and followers of the same person.

I do not discount their accounts entirely; as I’ve said before, I have no reason to doubt that the Sermon on the Mount was given, no reason to doubt that the kid got lost in the Temple, and so on and on. I do have substantial reason to doubt that Jesus was God incarnate – this simply defies common sense. Such a thing has never, according to the gospel sources, happened before or since; there is no way for them to prove that the Word descended from heaven into the form of a human being; and the idea of a compound nature both human and divine contradicts the definition of nature as the whole makeup of a person.

If you told me you ate breakfast today, I’d believe you, or at least would not have reason to doubt you. If you told me you ate it on Mars, well, that just won’t fly without something a little more concrete.

Socrates4Jesus:

he

estesbob:

I beleive Mirdath is a “she”

Socrates4Jesus:

Then i shall apologize to her for mistaking her for a hairy ape like myself!

See, this is one of those questions like ‘is there a God?’ If I don’t tell you, you’ll never know unless you meet me in person!

Although you are both certainly entitled to your opinions

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Socrates4Jesus forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cad/viewpost.gif
*LOL! Wrong questions! I don’t know you well enough to ask anything so personal.

The 1st question is:

In all the scholarly journals and research in all the libraries and databases and Web servers in all the world, what percentage of all this information do you know and understand–perhaps as much as 0.0001%?*

Honestly, not knowing the quantity of all “this” knowledge (which prompts the question “what about that knowledge?”), I could never put a number to what I know and understand. I can only say that the amount I know is very small compared to what there is to know.

Yes, and i likely know much less than you! Lets say, then, that you know 0.01% of all the scholarly knowledge in all the world.

Question 2, then, is this:

How are you certain that in the 99.99% of all the knowledge that you know absolutely nothing about that there is no convincing proof that Jesus is God?