Debate with a Christian

[Mudhammam]

We are talking about the four ancient biographies of Jesus, not the entire compilation of sixty six books written over a period of approximately 1500 years.

This needs to be kept in mind.

Yep.

I challenge you to name one account that parallels the accounts we are given in the gospels of a Jewish carpenter who lived during the Second-Temple period who performed a ministry of miracle working and exorcisms who was betrayed into the hands of a Roman Prefect by His own people, crucified, died, was buried, and rose from the dead on the third day.

In other words, you want me to pull another Jesus Christ out of history? How about the confessions of early Christian apologists like Tertullian, Firmicus, Maternus, and Justin Martyr, who admit that there were earlier pagan versions of the Gospel events, including dying and rising gods, and insisted that these were actually fabricated by the devil before they happened to Jesus! How about Herodotus the Halicarnassian, who interviewed numerous eyewitnesses following the Persian Wars when he compiled his book about it. What were some of the claims people made? Well, the temple of Delphi magically defended itself with animated armaments and lightning bolts, a flood-tide wiped out an entire Persian contingent after the image of Poseidon was desecrated, a horse gave birth to a rabbit, and a whole town witnessed a mass resurrection of fish! How about the omens that apparently accompanied the destruction of Jerusalem that Josephus records (and which the Gospels probably also borrowed from):
1. “Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year.”
2. “On the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the alter and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour.”
3. “A heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple.”
4. “The eastern gate of the inner [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night.”

Wait, it gets better. Josephus gives us a final omen:
"There was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!” ….Certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say anything for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before… Hereupon our rulers… brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!” And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? And whence he came? And why he uttered such words? He made no manner of reply to what he said, but still did not leave off his melancholy duty, till Albinus took him to be a madman, and dismissed him.” (The Wars of the Jews, Book VI, chapter 5, v. 3)

Sound familiar? Plenty more examples could be given of miracle workers and other prophets that had larger followings than Jesus (some even mentioned in the New Testament but discredited as false teachers). The authors of the Gospels largely borrowed their language in describing events surrounding Jesus' life and death from Old Testament apocalyptic imagery. Nothing historically insignificant here if you realize that is how larger-than-life figures were depicted.

I challenge you to name one account that could be said to parallel the above. Since you say there are tons, you should not have a hard time doing this.

All I have do is offer events of similar spectacle to show that the New Testament is not particularly unique, nor substantiated any more so than ancient or modern miracle workers who even acquire large followings to this very day. These claims have no basis in any verified fact and as I said, brain studies largely account for how people experience these very un-supernatural altered states of consciousness.

Even the most skeptical critics cannot deny that the historical Jesus carried out a ministry of miracle-working and exorcism. Rudolf Bultmann, one of the most skeptical scholars this century has seen, wrote back in 1926:

... there can be no doubt that Jesus did such deeds, which were, in his and his contemporaries’ understanding, miracles, that is, deeds that were the result of supernatural, divine causality. Doubtless he healed the sick and cast out demons. - Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus (Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek, 1926), p. 159.

Who cares? You must be highly impressed with the likes of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Sathya Sai Baba, Deepok Chopra, and other Transcendental Meditation movements that feature all these things Jesus did and have amassed millions of gullible followers.

I want you to give me an example of one person who died from being crucified and afterwards had a spear thrust through their side who then several days later came back to life on their own.

I challenge you right here and now to provide one instance where this has happened via natural means. With our current understanding of cell necrosis, this is naturally impossible. And please do not mention anything about a NDE because dying from being scourged and then crucified is not the same as a person experiencing a near death experience.

The only alleged eyewitness of the crucifixion was apparently the apostle John and his Gospel was written some 60-70 years later with the help of other Christians. Granting Jesus existed, a point I don't dispute, who ever claimed he didn't actually die? Of course he did.

I do not know. Nor is it even material to the discussion of whether or not the gospels are reliable biographies of Jesus.

Sure it does. The fact that Christian scholars agree that the Bible is true is no more relevant to me than Muslim scholars who agree that everything written in the Quran is true. If you seek objective analysis from those who have no commitment to the historical accuracy of the Gospels or claim emotional highs that they attribute to a holy spirit living inside them, you'll hardly find consensus over what is actually historically reliable in almost everything written in the Gospels.

Who cares? My views on UFO's are immaterial to whether or not the gospels are reliable biographies of Jesus's life. Bringing them up is a red herring.

It's relevant because it demonstrates that your uncritical methodology for determining fact from fiction (on the basis of hearsay? Alleged eyewitnesses? Really?) pretty much allows for any and every single bizarre phenomenon to be explained by the unjustified interpretation of the events that experiencers relate.

Not necessarily. Would you like me to explain why?

Because extraordinary claims that don't have extraordinary evidence are always better explained by the ordinary evidence at hand, in which case the events cease to appear extraordinary. Research into psychology and neuroscience, along with sociology, how religions develop, how cultures interpret events, etc. are the relevant topics we can and should dig into when discussing the reliability of the New Testament claims.

You mean games philosophers play irrespective of their theological beliefs or lack thereof.

Not necessarily.

Dismissing syllogisms as "games" is to dismiss logic and reasoning as "games". If this is your response to the philosophical arguments for the existence of God, then either you really do not appreciate philosophy, logic and reasoning, or you have nothing better to object with. Either way, you fail.

I'm guessing you haven't looked at the general philosophical arguments for God hard enough.

Two very different concepts my friend. They are not synonymous.

It doesn't affect my point. Christianity meets neither.

Say what you will, Jesus's empty tomb must be explained. The resurrection hypothesis given the background information, is the most probable.

How do you know it was really empty? How do you know Jesus had a tomb? How do you know the body wasn't moved? Or maybe Jesus' corpse was fed to dogs as John Dominic Crossan has suggested. Again, your only evidence arises out of the Christian evangelical tracts that were being passed around decades later, i.e. the Gospels. Gee, I wonder what they claimed?

The historical method leaves room for us to infer whatever the evidence leads us to infer. With regards to fire breathing dragons, orcs, and fairies, I cannot think of any historical evidence that would compel me to accept their existence.

But big foot, aliens arriving in UFOs, miracle workers of all faiths, psychic abilities, the loctus monster, the list goes on, these all pass your criteria for "critical examination."

This is a red herring. It simply is irrelevant to whether or not the gospels are reliable biographies of Jesus's life.

Not at all. A genuine resurrection, along with the other miracles, would have been the most widely reported event of that time. Unfortunately we have zilch for the first forty years, with the exception of Christianity's foremost adherent and missionary, Paul. You have to give account for this, collaborated by all the data from the time, more than I have to account for an empty tomb, which is only spoken of in Christian evangelical literature (surprise, surprise).