When were the Gospels written? And by whom?

[juliamajor]

Well- if you really want to be accurate most of the histories of the ancient past are second and third hand accounts.many are centuries or more beyond the time. Are we to disbelieve everything they wrote? Scholars (Bible particularly) are always looking for the better truer text- the one closest to the time. but In a recent article in An archaeology magazine one scholar wondered why older accounts should be truer? Don’t we know more about G. Washington and Lincoln then their contemporaries ? Don’t we know more about Pearl Harbor?.
I don’t no why the writings of a Strabo, Aurelius Victor, Plutarch are to me more trusted then non- secular accounts. Besides St Paul wrote his earliest epistles about 10 yrs after Christ. The first thorough account of Alexander the Great was written hundreds of years later, after his death.So why trust any of those? they were probably distorted by GreeK and Macedonian nationalists- how reliable can they be ?

 

[buffalo]

Well- if you really want to be accurate most of the histories of the ancient past are second and third hand accounts.many are centuries or more beyond the time. Are we to disbelieve everything they wrote? Scholars (Bible particularly) are always looking for the better truer text- the one closest to the time. but In a recent article in An archaeology magazine one scholar wondered why older accounts should be truer? Don’t we know more about G. Washington and Lincoln then their contemporaries ? Don’t we know more about Pearl Harbor?.
I don’t no why the writings of a Strabo, Aurelius Victor, Plutarch are to me more trusted then non- secular accounts. Besides St Paul wrote his earliest epistles about 10 yrs after Christ. The first thorough account of Alexander the Great was written hundreds of years later, after his death.So why trust any of those? they were probably distorted by GreeK and Macedonian nationalists- how reliable can they be ?

One has to factor in Pentecost.

 

[Belloc_Fan]

I’ll stop right here.

The 12 disciples, and their names are different throughout the gospels. The 4 gospels “disagree” as to the names of the disciples. The modern scholars have accepted this, and are trying to interpret what it means.

It is usually referred to, NOT as human beings, but as the 12 tribes of Israel. It’s not a personal reference at all.

A person in this day and age, simply cannot make a statment(My religion comes from the original disciples, of god) and get away with it.

Cheers

One more thing, which I forgot before.

If the 12 aren’t real, and are just a symbol for a thing in the past (instead of the converse), doesn’t that undercut your whole thesis, that the Gospel of Thomas is authentic? I mean, given that the “Gospel” claims to be “the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas recorded.” And without disciples, how do you account for the numerous references to them, even within the “Gospel of Thomas”? And without disciples, how are there even secret traditions to be passed on? Who is He passing them on to?

 

[patrick457]

Hi guys, I hope this is the right section for my question. I was speaking with someone at my university the other day who made quite a few claims that threw me a little. Basically he said that the Gospels were not written until at least 40-100 years after Jesus, and that they were definitley NOT written by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

How could he know?

Furthermore, he said that in early Christianity there were numerous other Gospels (the so-called Gnostic gospels) that were not included in the Bible and hidden by the Church because they showed that Jesus was just an ordinary man, a prophet and nothing else.

Hogwash. Has he even read more than one Gnostic gospel?
It is my experience that many Gnostic scriptures depict Jesus as less human than He was in the canonical four Gospels. He is a sort of ‘divine-guru’ who just spends His time babbling about obscure mystic stuff that would only be understood by those who had gnosis.

I can see why the early Christians preferred the canonical Gospels: the Jesus of the four Gospels is much more easy to understand (and dare I say, more ‘human’) than the fantastic super guru Jesus of many Gnostic writing.

As for what the Gnostics believed about Jesus, it usually varies (since Gnosticism is not a single, homogeneous sect, but rather different groups who believe a few things in common called under a single blanket term). Some believe that Jesus was an embodiment of the supreme being who became incarnate to bring gnosis to the earth (i.e. a spiritual being who dwelt in the human Jesus). Others (such as the Mandaeans) believe that He was a false messiah who perverted the teachings of John the Baptist, who is especially revered in Mandaeism.

Here’s a link to Gnostic writings. At least read them (if you can stand long passages of various mystic exposition), compare them to the canonical Gospels, and judge for yourself whether the Gnostic Jesus is more believable or ‘human’ than the Biblical one.

He then started bringing up all the Da Vinci Code nonsense, but also claimed that things such as the Resurection, Trinity, Christmas etc were just incorporated from older religions and added to Christianity.

While there is no denying that some customs practiced during Christmas or Easter (Christmas Trees or colored eggs for instance) have non-Christian origins, if your friend claims that elements of Christianity are just borrowed from pagan sources, he’ll have to reconsider.

Did Christianity take things from Mithraism? No.
What about Egyptian religion? Once again, no.
What about the Druids? Nuh-uh.
Is Kersey Graves’ The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors (written in 1885!) to be taken as fact? Definitely not.

 

[Todd_Easton]

Anyone got any explanations or information on this as my knowledge in this area is a bit sketchy!

A fairly recent (1965) dogmatic decree by the official teachers of the Catholic faith (the Catholic bishops gathered at the Second Vatican Council) said that the gospels were written by “apostles and apostolic men,” which would be consistant with the traditional understanding that the first and fourth gospels (Matthew and John) were written by apostles and the second and third gospels (Mark and Luke) were written by men who associated with the apostles. (Vatican II, Dei Verbum)

 

[Belloc_Fan]

A fairly recent (1965) dogmatic decree by the official teachers of the Catholic faith (the Catholic bishops gathered at the Second Vatican Council) said that the gospels were written by “apostles and apostolic men,” which would be consistant with the traditional understanding that the first and fourth gospels (Matthew and John) were written by apostles and the second and third gospels (Mark and Luke) were written by men who associated with the apostles. (Vatican II, Dei Verbum)

Pope Benedict XVI seems to suggest (in Jesus of Nazareth) that it was one of John’s disciples, not John himself, who wrote his Gospel.

 

[Sam_Maloney]

The only arguement against early written gospels is that we haven’t found them.

That doesn’t mean there weren’t any.

The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD-- 30 to 40 years after the resurection-- was the most important event in the Jewish world for the better part of a thousand years, and it isn’t referenced in the Gospels at all, not even in an ‘I told you so’ sort of context.

To me, that speaks at least as loudly for an early written gospel as the lack of written copies speak to a late one.

Regardless, don’t let a few years either way shake your faith…

 

[turtleoompa]

Hello!
This is what I have learned. All the writings in the Bible were written before 100 ad. The Bishops at a council got together and decided everything must be before 100 ad because it is at the time the last apostle was still around (John). Mathew and John could have been written by more than one person (people that were close to them) as well as themselves. John wrote some of his own as well as the Acts. Luke wrote his own ( for Paul) and Mark wrote his own (for Peter). Any other writings such as the gnostics were written too late and John was not around to verify. Most of the New Testament was passed down thru oral tradition(they had this down to a science) until it could be written down. They could have started some of the writings 30 yrs after the Christ.Not sure.Even then they had to keep rewriting because the scrolls could deteriate. When the bishops got together in the 300’s they also looked at what everyone else had been reading in their churches and all the stuff that was common in everyone’s readings they put in the bible.This is what I have learned in a nutshell, correct me if I left out something. I’m not real good at remembering things. I too am learning more about the history of my faith. Good question!

 

[Belloc_Fan]

Hello!
This is what I have learned. All the writings in the Bible were written before 100 ad. The Bishops at a council got together and decided everything must be before 100 ad because it is at the time the last apostle was still around (John). Mathew and John could have been written by more than one person (people that were close to them) as well as themselves. John wrote some of his own as well as the Acts. Luke wrote his own ( for Paul) and Mark wrote his own (for Peter). Any other writings such as the gnostics were written too late and John was not around to verify. Most of the New Testament was passed down thru oral tradition(they had this down to a science) until it could be written down. They could have started some of the writings 30 yrs after the Christ.Not sure.Even then they had to keep rewriting because the scrolls could deteriate. When the bishops got together in the 300’s they also looked at what everyone else had been reading in their churches and all the stuff that was common in everyone’s readings they put in the bible.This is what I have learned in a nutshell, correct me if I left out something. I’m not real good at remembering things. I too am learning more about the history of my faith. Good question!

Luke wrote Acts. Otherwise, it looks great!

 

[Shredderbeam]

Yes…there are other gospels, and Yes the official books of the bible were chosen by a group of people AND YES, they are
2nd/3rd hand accounts of an historical event, hence their discrepancies.(You can find a lot of information on this, it isn’t difficult to find)

This is perhaps the central problem I have with Christianity. How do you know that these books are accurate? How can you accept somebody’s word for it on such a momentous issue?

 

[turtleoompa]

Thankyou Belloc!

 

[Belloc_Fan]

This is perhaps the central problem I have with Christianity. How do you know that these books are accurate? How can you accept somebody’s word for it on such a momentous issue?

This is a good question. This answer is based loosely off of the one Karl Keating gives in Fundamentalism and Catholicism:
(A) First, determine that the Bible describes actual events: there was a man named Jesus Christ who claimed to be God (you don’t have to even determine it’s the word of God, infallible, etc. - just that it’s not a legendary tale). Almost all scholars, regardless of faith, have come to the conclusion that there was a Jesus of Nazareth, that He said at least the bulk of what the Gospels record, and that His followers recorded what He said. You can confirm this historically - accounts external to the New Testament (Tacitus and Suetonius offer short, early accounts) lay out that lots of Christians went to their death for their faith in this man. People may die for a false prophet (although probably not one which they know to be false), but they won’t die for a person they know doesn’t exist. Not a lot of martyrs for Johnny Appleseed or Beowulf.

(B) Jesus was telling the truth when He claimed He was God:
First, there’s what C.S. Lewis called this argument the “Lord, liar, or lunatic” argument. Jesus claimed to be God, and lots of people went to their death defending this claim, not least of all Jesus Himself. Yet He demonstrably wasn’t insane or massively evil - His message is too lucid, coherent, pure, good, and too far ahead of its time to have been those things. The fact that non-Christians try and turn Jesus into the one thing He clearly wasn’t - a mere “moral teacher” - is evidence of the inherent validity of His message. That the bearer of this unique message claimed to be God should be taken seriously. Concluding He was Jesus is certainly the most consistent was of resolving this trilemma.

Second, He started a religion (a) without writing (or “finding”) a Holy Book [it was written by his followers], (b) while renouncing violence as a tool of evangelism (see Matthew 26:52), (c) without claiming special moral latitude be given Him [lots of religious leaders get to take extra wives, or have concubines: Jesus never even married]. Compare this features with those of basically any other major religion. His ministry dealt in no small part with the fact He knew (and fully accepted) that He was going to be killed by the government. If nothing else, Christianity is so odd it seems almost naive. To think a religion founded in such a way would continue for 6 months after the death of the founder is silly: but it’s lasted 2000 years, and has roughly 2 billion living self-proclaimed members right now.

Conversely, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Jude, James, and Peter all wrote letters claiming the same thing, and none of them even pretended to be God, the founder of the new religion, or anything else. (Paul wasn’t even a follower of Jesus during Jesus’ life on Earth: he was actual a public opponent, believing it to be a heresy, before seeing Jesus on the road to Damascus – he can’t even be pushed into some “crazy disciple” category, because he wasn’t ever a disciple). Typically, when a person has a “revelation from God” to help start a new religion (as Paul claims to have had), it’s a new religion they’re conveniently at the middle of: these men discovered they were supposed to deliver Jesus’ message, with little in it for themselves but poverty, constant work, lifelong suffering, and eventual martyrdom. But the Apostles lived all of this (joyfully!) to spread this message in the face of adversity. Oh yeah: and these disciples were pious Jews, raised to believe that Hell awaited those who lied (particularly on matters like these).

Third, Jesus fulfilled literally hundreds of Old Testament prophesies. Paul cites dozens of Old Testament passages in Romans alone to demonstrate that Jesus was prophesied. There was to be a child born to a Virgin in Bethlehem during a certain time window: Judaism proves Christianity true. Almost all of these predictions (like place and time of birth) were outside of Jesus’ control - He couldn’t have even rigged the game. Most dramatically is the prophetic Psalm 22, which declares that “they have pierced my hands and my feet” (Psalm 22:16) in its description of the speaker’s dying. The Psalm was written centuries before crucifixion (virtually the only mode of death to include piercing the hands and feet) was even created by the Persians; and we know that the Romans would later use this to kill political prisoners. These sorts of prophecies would be just too bizarre to have all occurred spontaneously.

(cont.)

 

[Belloc_Fan]

Fourth, there was a massive amount of eyewitness testimony. As St. Paul said about King Agrippa, “I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner.” (Acts 26:26). This was a huge historical event. Paul reports that Jesus was resurrected and appeared to **over 500 people at once **(1 Corinthians 15:6), and that many of these people were still alive at the time of writing. This is a bold claim. He’s not saying, “we have 500 people who believe the way that I do” - he’s saying “500 people saw a dead man resurrected.” And he’s mentioning that many of them are still alive so that skeptics can test this claim. Even though we can’t test this claim today, the fact that he made this claim and wasn’t instantly disproven suggests that there were a huge number of eyewitnesses claiming the same thing (and as Paul noted in the surrounding text, many of these eyewitnesses saw Jesus at different times, which discounts the silly theories like mass hallucination).

Fifth, had the numerous opponents of Christianity decided to prove it wrong, they needed only to present the dead body of Christ. That they didn’t suggests that they couldn’t; that they couldn’t suggests the validity of the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection.

Sixth, within a few hundred years, Christianity, this mostly peaceful offshoot of a tiny “tribal” religion (Judaism) *converted * the Roman Empire, including the Emperor himself. The sheer power of their message carried itself. While other religions spread by the sword, this one spread by the Word.

(C) Jesus established a Church Guided by the Holy Spirit: So the primary source documents, Christian and non, lay out a powerful case that Jesus is Lord. If this is true, we can trust Him when He establishes a Church and says that the gates of Hell will not overcome it (Matthew 16:17-19), and when He promises the Holy Spirit (also God) to guide the Church into “all Truth” (John 16:13).

(D)** The Church says that Tradition and Scripture are Infallible: ** For example, “Therefore both sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same devotion and reverence.” (Dei Verbum). [Obviously, this is just one of numerous reaffirmations of this principle, and a recent one, at that]. The Church also said which accounts weren’t reliable, which is how we know (for example) that the Gnostic “gospels” aren’t reliable.

(E) **Scripture Affirms Itself: **Once you accept Scripture as being “God-Breathed,” you can believe the various authors in what they say about themselves, each other, and the events being described.

Hopefully, this helps!

 

[juliamajor]

One has to factor in Pentecost.

what?

 

[Shredderbeam]

quote=Belloc Fan First, determine that the Bible describes actual events: there was a man named Jesus Christ who claimed to be God (you don’t have to even determine it’s the word of God, infallible, etc. - just that it’s not a legendary tale). Almost all scholars, regardless of faith, have come to the conclusion that there was a Jesus of Nazareth, that He said at least the bulk of what the Gospels record, and that His followers recorded what He said. You can confirm this historically - accounts external to the New Testament (Tacitus and Suetonius offer short, early accounts) lay out that lots of Christians went to their death for their faith in this man. People may die for a false prophet (although probably not one which they know to be false), but they won’t die for a person they know doesn’t exist. Not a lot of martyrs for Johnny Appleseed or Beowulf.
[/quote]

Ok, there was probably a Jesus.

Tacitus and Suetonius both lived after the time of Jesus. They are not first-hand witnesses.

quote=Belloc Fan Jesus was telling the truth when He claimed He was God:
First, there’s what C.S. Lewis called this argument the “Lord, liar, or lunatic” argument. Jesus claimed to be God, and lots of people went to their death defending this claim, not least of all Jesus Himself. Yet He demonstrably wasn’t insane or massively evil - His message is too lucid, coherent, pure, good, and too far ahead of its time to have been those things. The fact that non-Christians try and turn Jesus into the one thing He clearly wasn’t - a mere “moral teacher” - is evidence of the inherent validity of His message. That the bearer of this unique message claimed to be God should be taken seriously. Concluding He was Jesus is certainly the most consistent was of resolving this trilemma.
[/quote]

Well first, I hate to see the “false trilemma” logical fallacy used.
I don’t see why he couldn’t have been insane (note that insane does not necessarily mean seizing, spouting gibberish, etc.). All it takes is a man who feels divinely inspired and has the courage to preach.
Belloc Fan:

Second, He started a religion (a) without writing (or “finding”) a Holy Book [it was written by his followers], (b) while renouncing violence as a tool of evangelism (see Matthew 26:52), (c) without claiming special moral latitude be given Him [lots of religious leaders get to take extra wives, or have concubines: Jesus never even married]. Compare this features with those of basically any other major religion. His ministry dealt in no small part with the fact He knew (and fully accepted) that He was going to be killed by the government. If nothing else, Christianity is so odd it seems almost naive. To think a religion founded in such a way would continue for 6 months after the death of the founder is silly: but it’s lasted 2000 years, and has roughly 2 billion living self-proclaimed members right now.

He didn’t abuse the power he received, as far we know - great! As far as I’m aware, neither did Buddha.
Belloc Fan:

Conversely, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Jude, James, and Peter all wrote letters claiming the same thing, and none of them even pretended to be God, the founder of the new religion, or anything else. (Paul wasn’t even a follower of Jesus during Jesus’ life on Earth: he was actual a public opponent, believing it to be a heresy, before seeing Jesus on the road to Damascus – he can’t even be pushed into some “crazy disciple” category, because he wasn’t ever a disciple). Typically, when a person has a “revelation from God” to help start a new religion (as Paul claims to have had), it’s a new religion they’re conveniently at the middle of: these men discovered they were supposed to deliver Jesus’ message, with little in it for themselves but poverty, constant work, lifelong suffering, and eventual martyrdom. But the Apostles lived all of this (joyfully!) to spread this message in the face of adversity. Oh yeah: and these disciples were pious Jews, raised to believe that Hell awaited those who lied (particularly on matters like these).

So these men sequentially (more or less) wrote letters saying the same thing. Ok, that’s great testimonial evidence, but it’s not conclusive. I cannot accept their word for it, given that men have been known to lie or make mistakes before.
Belloc Fan:

Third, Jesus fulfilled literally hundreds of Old Testament prophesies. Paul cites dozens of Old Testament passages in Romans alone to demonstrate that Jesus was prophesied. There was to be a child born to a Virgin in Bethlehem during a certain time window: Judaism proves Christianity true. Almost all of these predictions (like place and time of birth) were outside of Jesus’ control - He couldn’t have even rigged the game. Most dramatically is the prophetic Psalm 22, which declares that “they have pierced my hands and my feet” (Psalm 22:16) in its description of the speaker’s dying. The Psalm was written centuries before crucifixion (virtually the only mode of death to include piercing the hands and feet) was even created by the Persians; and we know that the Romans would later use this to kill political prisoners. These sorts of prophecies would be just too bizarre to have all occurred spontaneously.

(cont.)

I don’t know that Mary was a virgin.

Lots of people, I am assuming, came from Bethlehem.

I did a quick bit of research into “they have pierced my hands and feet”, and I found that the translation is a tad ambiguous: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_have_pierced_my_hands_and_my_feet

Apparently the original meaning was “like a lion they are at my hands and feet”, which is a bit different.

 

[Shredderbeam]

Belloc Fan:

 Fourth, there was a massive amount of eyewitness testimony. As St. Paul said about King Agrippa, "I am convinced that none of this has escaped his notice, because it was not done in a corner." (Acts 26:26). This was a huge historical event. Paul reports that Jesus was resurrected and appeared to **over 500 people at once **(1 Corinthians 15:6), and that many of these people were still alive at the time of writing. This is a bold claim. He's not saying, "we have 500 people who believe the way that I do" - he's saying "500 people saw a dead man resurrected." And he's mentioning that many of them are still alive *so that skeptics can test this claim.* Even though we can't test this claim today, the fact that he made this claim and wasn't instantly disproven suggests that there were a huge number of eyewitnesses claiming the same thing (and as Paul noted in the surrounding text, many of these eyewitnesses saw Jesus at different times, which discounts the silly theories like mass hallucination).

Mass hallucination, I agree, is unlikely. However, you may have heard of a type of social pressure game, the name of which I cannot pin down. It involves a teacher showing a classroom a short, medium, and long stick, then holding up one stick and asking them to identify it. The entire class is in on it apart from one unsuspecting student, so when the teacher holds up, say, the long stick, the entire class says it’s the medium, and usually, the lone student will go along. I am not claiming that that alone is responsible for the mass visions of Jesus, but perhaps it helped hurry along a few more “eyewitnesses”.

Also, we do not have testimony from all of these people, we seem to have the word of a few that the witnesses are numerous and valid.
Belloc Fan:

Fifth, had the numerous opponents of Christianity decided to prove it wrong, they needed only to present the dead body of Christ. That they didn’t suggests that they couldn’t; that they couldn’t suggests the validity of the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection.

Well, for such a momentous issue I wouldn’t really convert based on the lack of a body - there of course remains the logical possibilities of a lost/stolen body.
Belloc Fan:

Sixth, within a few hundred years, Christianity, this mostly peaceful offshoot of a tiny “tribal” religion (Judaism) *converted * the Roman Empire, including the Emperor himself. The sheer power of their message carried itself. While other religions spread by the sword, this one spread by the Word.

It had a great message, to be sure, but from an atheistic viewpoint, that speaks to human psychology.

quote=Belloc Fan **Scripture Affirms Itself: **Once you accept Scripture as being “God-Breathed,” you can believe the various authors in what they say about themselves, each other, and the events being described.
[/quote]

Given that the original documents were divinely inspired, then yes, I would agree that all following ones would be correct, and I could logically follow the chain of authority from Jesus to the current Pope.

 

[buffalo]

what?

When the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles. they were infused with knowledge that they did not have before. They spoke to the crowd and each heard them in their own language.

This is the stamp of accurracy.

 

[Belloc_Fan]

Ok, there was probably a Jesus.

Tacitus and Suetonius both lived after the time of Jesus. They are not first-hand witnesses.

That’s true. My point with A was just to establish the preliminary stuff: that true or false, the Bible isn’t a mythology. There’s a school of modern thought which tries to read it allegorically, but it’s a massive deviation from the text. The proof is overwhelming that there was a Jesus, and that the Bible is (more or less) an accurate representation of what He said. I think the level of reliability rises from “more or less” to “absolute” when it’s accepted that the Bible is the Word of God, but I think that necessarily comes after accepting Christ Himself first. The only thing A is trying to establish is that the New Testament isn’t that conspiracy worked up long after, etc. People (including the authors) really believed this stuff, rightly or wrongly. I’m just laying the groundwork with this point.

Well first, I hate to see the “false trilemma” logical fallacy used.

What fourth option? And I find it uniquely compelling in the case of Jesus. The usual argument against is something like, “a person can have a sane and honest belief in a mistaken fact,” but that doesn’t really work coherently regarding someone claiming to be God. Presumably no one sane thinks they’re God just b/c somebody told them - I don’t see much room for “mistaken fact” which isn’t covered by “lunatic.”

I don’t see why he couldn’t have been insane (note that insane does not necessarily mean seizing, spouting gibberish, etc.). All it takes is a man who feels divinely inspired and has the courage to preach.

Not just “feels divinely inspired” (the New Testament writers fit that bill), but “claims to be God Himself,” and uses the Old Testament terms for God, which were considered too sacred for mere mortals to use.

The point is that a lunatic of the level of mistaking themselves (and only themselves - we’re not talking about some guru) as God is *rather *insane - maybe not “seizing,” but definitely “spouting gibberish.” And it’s quite a stretch to assume that the same person can be that insane and still be such a cogent moral teacher as to earn the respect of even non-Christians.

He didn’t abuse the power he received, as far we know - great! As far as I’m aware, neither did Buddha.

Buddha didn’t claim to be God. He was a (pretty) good moralist. Jesus was a good moralist, and saying He was God: it seems to me much more coherent to say “Jesus was thoroughly Good - He was a good moralist *because *He was God.” To accept the “liar” part of the trilemma, you’d have to say “Jesus devoted His life to helping others, but He simultaneously was misleading them to damnation, and He ultimately went to His death to not have to admit lying.”

So these men sequentially (more or less) wrote letters saying the same thing. Ok, that’s great testimonial evidence, but it’s not conclusive. I cannot accept their word for it, given that men have been known to lie or make mistakes before.

If a massive amount of testimonial evidence isn’t conclusive, I’m sort of at a loss for what historical events you *will *believe in. Most of our history isn’t supported by archeology (I’m not saying they conflict, just that archeology can’t do all that much to prove that Mark Anthony existed, for instance).

These people risked their lives, and more importantly their salvation, to spread this message. There’s no motive to lie. If they’re lying, they’re doing so knowing that they will likely be tortured to death and then go to Hell for eternity.

In law, the admissibility of hearsay evidence has a lot to do with the interest of the original speaker. So, for example, “statements against party interest” (like confessing to a crime) are always admissible, even when said out-of-court. The reason is that there’s no realistic reason to *presume * that a person would confess to a crime that they didn’t commit (in this case, it actually happens sometimes, and for good reason: like threats on their lives). In the Apostles’ and eyewitnesses’ case, there’s an even less believable motive to lie.

I’ve never heard a good rationale for why they would lie. So that switches the gears to delusions. These delusions are more than convincing yourself a medium stick is long. The Apostles claimed to have eaten with the resurrected Jesus, and touched Him to make sure He wasn’t a ghost. Thomas, who wasn’t with the rest the first time, thought it was a delusion, but was there the second time Jesus appeared, and touched His wounds. It’s far-fetched (and to my knowledge, unparalleled in history) for a group of people to all think that they talked to, ate with, and touched a person they knew to be dead. And the Apostles are just the beginning (and arguably, the weakest link for gauging veracity). The numerous eyewitnesses are spread out over a series of appearances. In St. Paul’s case, he wasn’t even part of their group - he was coming to persecute them! I understand the (in my opinion, weak) argument that group-think somehow accounts for this, but it certainly doesn’t account for Paul’s conversion to the religion he was trying to suppress. Delusion really doesn’t fit the bill, either.

(cont. - sorry, I’m sort of long-winded)

 

[Belloc_Fan]

I don’t know that Mary was a virgin.

True. But *Mary *would know, as would her spouse Joseph, (and in the case of non-virginity, whoever she’d previously had relations with). Luke’s Gospel account is almost certainly based off of Mary’s personal testimony, and the first couple chapters are told from essentially her view. But if you were the mother of a delusional good-hearted young man who falsely believed Himself to be God, it seems to would be the reasonable human response to take him aside and let him know the truth. In any event, if Mary weren’t a Virgin (rendering the whole thing an obvious sham), it would be unthinkably cruel to let countless people go to their violent deaths to preserve your dead Son’s delusions.

The claim of Virgin birth doesn’t probably close the book on the question, but it certainly raises the stakes. It’s one thing to be tricked into thinking a medium stick is long, quite another to be tricked into thinking you conceived your Son without losing your Virginity. So to reject the central claims of Christianity, you must say that Jesus was mistaken or lying, and that Mary and Joseph lied, and at least a good chunk of the hundreds of eyewitnesses (remember, the mass delusion thing only works if there are people “in” on it - a classroom full of people doesn’t mistake a stick). There would have to be an incredible number of people who, simultaneously, were doing good works and devoting their lives to spreading Christ’s message (theological as well as moral), while spreading what would be on of the most pernicious lies in history. Remember also that these people were largely pious Jews prior to becoming Christians: they would have to have believed they were condemning themselves and everyone they converted to Hell. I can’t conceive of any possible rationale for this. I genuinely think that (while there’s certainly not 100% proof), the evidence is stronger for this than, say, the evidence that OJ did it (I bet OJ’s jury would agree with me, at least ).

Lots of people, I am assuming, came from Bethlehem.

Yup. But the Old Testament made a ton of predictions. Jesus uniquely fit all of them. No one else (to my knowledge) ever really claimed to. and also born of a virgin in Bethlehem during this time period, had his birth announced by angels, etc. Lots of people claim the former, but nobody I’ve read about has ever been brazen enough to even pretend the latter].

I did a quick bit of research into “they have pierced my hands and feet”, and I found that the translation is a tad ambiguous: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_have_pierced_my_hands_and_my_feet

Apparently the original meaning was “like a lion they are at my hands and feet”, which is a bit different.

No, the Masoretic Text is much later (4th to 10th Century), and the Jewish translators used intentionally unchristian translations of what were being used as the prophetic verses. So they translated the Isaiah 7 prediction of a virgin birth to a birth to a “young woman” (rendering it an unimportant detail). The Greek LXX text is what was used at the time of Christ, and it’s much older. We don’t have the original Hebrew manuscripts. The New Testament writers could read and write Hebrew as well as Greek, and *did *have much older manuscripts - suggesting that such a glaring inconsistency didn’t exist (or someone would have noticed it, since this was a text probably relied upon *particularly * in converting Jews, since they already believed Psalm 22 was the word of God).

 

[Belloc_Fan]

Mass hallucination, I agree, is unlikely. However, you may have heard of a type of social pressure game, the name of which I cannot pin down. It involves a teacher showing a classroom a short, medium, and long stick, then holding up one stick and asking them to identify it. The entire class is in on it apart from one unsuspecting student, so when the teacher holds up, say, the long stick, the entire class says it’s the medium, and usually, the lone student will go along. I am not claiming that that alone is responsible for the mass visions of Jesus, but perhaps it helped hurry along a few more “eyewitnesses”.

The premise of this requires a group of people to be “in on it.” So to accept the social pressure game as credible, you first have to decide that a pretty substantial group of previously devout people were knowingly lying about something as important as salvation. Had one or two students claimed that the stick was medium it wouldn’t have caught on. So you’re right that social pressure, group think, etc., can reduce the number of bad faith actors - and the rest can be written off as mild delusions. But I don’t think there’s a reasonable explanation for even (say) one hundred bad faith actors. And again, it doesn’t account for the myriad appearances. It isn’t like Jesus showed up once, and it was just one-time eyewitness testimony from there on. Jesus appeared often, and frequently to small groups. Paul’s list is nowhere near conclusive. The other Gospel writers include various other people as well.

Second, remember that claiming to see Jesus, especially early on, would be pretty embarrassing. Even if you’re telling the truth, people would laugh at you, think you’re insane, and quite possibly try and kill you for spreading heresy. So I think people would be less likely to just “assume” they saw Jesus because everyone else thought they did. It’s a more important detail than the length of the stick.

Third, there’s no plausible long-stick. You hold up a long-stick and people say it’s medium, and I (for some reason) assume they’re right because they’re *all *saying it. Weird, but understanable. But if the teacher holds up nothing, and people say it’s a medium-stick, I’m not going to be like, “Oh, that’s a medium stick.” So in addition to thinking a large group of people are lying, and that their victims are willing to readily believe something which will be detrimental to their lives if untrue, you also have to have some sort of long-stick. People touched Jesus’ wounds, so the long-stick would have to be (basically) another crucified person who looked enough like Jesus to fool His closest friends. Oh yeah. And could appear in locked rooms.

Also, we do not have testimony from all of these people, we seem to have the word of a few that the witnesses are numerous and valid.

We don’t, that’s true. But they did. And the message continues on only because new people (with the ability to verify to a much greater extent than we have) accepted it, and believed it was true. At the time, there were probably countless more authentic written testimonies of interactions with Christ, etc., but they’re lost to time. All we can say now is that Paul massively upped the ante, and nobody called it a bluff. And to me, that’s pretty good evidence it wasn’t a bluff.

Well, for such a momentous issue I wouldn’t really convert based on the lack of a body - there of course remains the logical possibilities of a lost/stolen body.

There were guards posted outside of Jesus’ tomb. And I think that the lack of the body is simply an overwhelming piece in a puzzle with lots of other strong evidence.

It had a great message, to be sure, but from an atheistic viewpoint, that speaks to human psychology.

It’s message included a pretty thorough denunciation of the Roman Imperial lifestyle: a sexual ethos which was totally against its time (and ours). And it was a walking death warrant.

Given that the original documents were divinely inspired, then yes, I would agree that all following ones would be correct, and I could logically follow the chain of authority from Jesus to the current Pope.

Great! I’ve established my first and last point, then. Somehow, I suspected that that middle “Oh yeah, Jesus is God” part would be hardest. At least you recognize the implications of the claim, if true. It’s an important step.

I really like the way you’re approaching this issue, testing the claims presented. If you do that with an open mind, it’s a good way to develop a strong faith. As long as things stay pleasant like this, I’ll entertain whatever questions or refutations you’ve got, and do my best to answer them.