Any Evidence For A Historical Jesus?

[radorth]

Does it really need to be said that this is the biggest crock of shit from the apologist side? Let me ask, do you know what word was substituted throughout the Old Testament whenever Yahweh appeared? The word was Adonai which just so happens to be translated as LORD. What was written was James the brother of Yahweh. Where is your historical idiocy now?

Yeesh. That's kinda scary. A legalistic atheist.

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I said I didn't know when all the non canonical gospels, etc were written, that I'm not a scholar in such areas. As for your question on the subject of contradictions between the manuscripts, are you referring to contradictions between the books (Synoptic vs. Johnnine Gospels) or are you referring to contradictions between one version of Matthew vs. another?

Let's simplify the issue a little. I am interested in specific contradictions between the earliest known manuscripts. That is by far the most useful discussion. And BTW the non-cananocal Gospels were virtually all written later than the canonical Gospels. Canon critics have a terrible habit of ignoring this fact and leading their listeners to believe the assemblers of the Bible randomly picked the books regardless of their age. That is just not so.

If the former, the contradictions are legion, as I mentioned earlier with my example of the Synoptic Jesus vs. John's Jesus. From the bloodline to the resurrection account, the story of Jesus is irreconcilable. If the latter, I've already given some significant examples, such as Mark 16.

Highly intelligent people, including agnostic historians, disagree with everything except the addition at the end of Mark

Argument from authority is not the same thing as citing sources and their research.

Well that's a thin line but I will grant that upon re-reading it.

Does Ehrman ever point out that you can reconstruct 90 % the NT from the writings of second century Christians?

Source please? I'd not heard this before. Or is this a bare assertion?

Oh gosh, this is practically common knowledge. The early Christian writers are walking New Testaments. Have you read any of them?

Considering that Biblical scholars doubt the authenticity of half of Paul's alleged epistles, I think there's reason to express doubts.

That's one of those vague statements that will just get us into arguing about what qualifies one as a "Biblical scholar." You surely know that.

Do you dispute that interpolation and pseudo-epigraphy are serious problems with ancient religious scriptures?

If its less than 10-20% which is what my "real Biblical scholars" say, I absolutely dispute it. If two Gospels are half true, you should become a Christian immediately. You could save a lot of bandwidth and air polution, no? Why do you think "false in one part false in all" is a logical fallacy? And a serious one. It means you can die in your sins finding meaningless discrepencies, and saying you can therefore doubt everything. You will never find out if there are nine gifts of the Spirit, or experience one. You will never find out what the" rivers of living water" Jesus promised to those who belive feels like. Right? You are too busy pointing fingers and talking about what Christians disagree on to figure out what the truth is yourself, you see. You are unlikely to employ "the greatest system of morals, ancient or modern" as Jefferson called Jesus' teachings, and see what they can do for you and all the world, for that matter. Anyway you guys are supposed to be the logical ones, and if a Christian can see major fallacies, how logical is the average unbeliever?

And by the way, I find discrepencies you probably haven't seen yourself. But then I study it more probably. I could give you a list but it might slow your spiritual progress further.

on why Marcion promoted the works of Paul and used Paul as his primary prophet. Had Marcion not read the epistles of Paul to know that Jesus was born of a woman, of the seed of David? Or was Marcion hoping no one else would read the works of Paul?

I don't see any point in the question. All the Gospel writers, other epistle writers and Paul believed in the ressurrection of Christ, and salvation through faith in him. The only major issue between them had to do with how to view the law as a Christian, (a works vs faith issue) and this they finally resolved after great controversy. Why should I care what some heretic said, or even if he was one?

I find it very strange and wonder if the problems of pseudo-epigraphy and interpolation which abounded at that time might serve to explain the mystery. Or would you prefer to believe one of the two options I outlined in the previous paragraph?

False dichotomy? You decide. You are the most familiar with logical fallacies, you seem to think. I offered a perfectlly rational third way of looking at the problem I think.

There was no "THE" Gospel. Frankly, there isn't a THE Gospel even today. Even with the modern NT, the story is an irreconcilable mess.

Or it appears so to those looking for problems. I don't need even half of it to be true to benefit from it's relatively infinite wisdom, which is what all the founders believed precisely by the way. John Locke , probably way smarter than us, sees nothing to doubt in the NT

Back then, there were many more versions of the story and many wild variations of "Christianity".

Yeah, written in the second century or later for the most part. That's the biggest problem with your argument. You have no documents written coincident with the NT canon manuscripts to help prove your case. But then you don't think the earliest manuscripts carry much authority apparently. In fact you don't even have one of the thousands of apostate Christians saying any NT writer or ms was a fraud. So you just find what you can, from whatever later source and claim the Christians were in total disagreement. Actually the NT says what their major disagreements were and at least one was the biggest problem the church had, and still has really

The "Q" Gospel is a hypothetical document, a supposed "source" for the later authors. Show me proof it really existed.

My God man, half the critics of the NT rely on its existence to bolster their imaginary cases!!! I could care less.

You asked for an example and I gave you two. And I'm not a Bible scholar. And while it doesn't suggest every word if false, it does effectively sink claims of "perfectly preserved".

Fundies like to claim that. It's nonsense, and just shows how fragile and theoretical their faith is. But then it's easy to shoot down such claims, much easier than figuring it out for yourself. That would be a lot of work I find very few unbleievers willing to do, and it would mean changing your worldview, or at least letting it float for a time.

As for Mark stopping with the empty tomb, and calling that evidence Jesus wasn't risen is a clear argument from silence. Even the lowly Radorth knows that.