(December 31, 2013 at 11:54 pm)là bạn điên Wrote: The Bible is an appalling historical document and is reliable for almost nothing.

Perhaps you'd like to explain what the more reliable historical documents from this time are? Specifically the ones that we are surer of of their original wording, if you don't mind.

(January 1, 2014 at 12:09 am)Aractus Wrote:

(December 31, 2013 at 11:26 pm)Zen Badger Wrote: Show me the miracles.

Honestly Zen, why can't you respond with your smoking gun proof that everything I said has already been disproved - show me.

Do I have to go through this again?

The bible is not evidence, it is the claim. Therefore not admissible.

Josephus merely makes reference to the brother of someone called James being called Jesus. Even if it wasn't considered a forgery it is only evidence that someone called James had a brother called Jesus. Not that the son of god walked the earth.

Tacticus only makes reference to the followers of a self proclaimed messiah( or chrestos). No more convincing than writing about Mormons proves that Joseph Smith read golden tablets in a hat.

And so on and forth. These "proofs" might be convincing to you and your fellow sheep. But not to us.

Now granted, there might have really been an itinerant Jewish carpenter turned preacher that got his stupid ass nailed to a cross for being a pest.

But SO FUCKING WHAT?

Without evidence for the miracles or the resurrection it doesn't mean a fucking thing.

(December 31, 2013 at 11:24 pm)Minimalist Wrote:

Quote:I take issue with anyone who refers to themselves as a 'scholar' they are serious published academics or they aren't.

I'll tell you what. The moment your opinion matters I'll let you know.

Really? Thats nice for you.

Aye.

Quote:Either Jesus rose from the dead or he didn’t. If he did, then Christianity becomes plausible; if he did not, then it is sheer nonsense.

H. L. Mencken

(January 1, 2014 at 12:11 am)Aractus Wrote:

(December 31, 2013 at 11:54 pm)là bạn điên Wrote: The Bible is an appalling historical document and is reliable for almost nothing.

Perhaps you'd like to explain what the more reliable historical documents from this time are? Specifically the ones that we are surer of of their original wording, if you don't mind.

I am assuming that you have no idea of the difference between primary and secondary evidence so ill explain it.

Primary evidence is actual artifact. Secondary evidence is Narrative. Here is an example.

Le'ts take an imaginary battle from 1500 CE We have reports that x number of people were there. These change from person to person and from how long afterwards the events happened so they aren't very reliable. This is secondary evidence.

However lets say we find stack of bills for provisions and munitions and a book of accounts. this is primary evidence, it will give us a far better idea of how many people were there.

The Gospels are at best very poor primary evidence based on testimony, probably second hand, from decades before.

a Good analogy would be a court case. Witness testimony is considered to be the worst evidence. Indeed courts in the UK will only accept narrative from notes if the notes were written within 24 hours and they don't accept hearsay and yet you believe 30 year old memories (at best) and hearsay are actually good evidence

(January 1, 2014 at 12:24 am)Zen Badger Wrote: The bible is not evidence, it is the claim. Therefore not admissible.

Wow, resounding circular logic.

The New Testament is a stack of evidence, and some of it is universally accepted as fact. Ie, that Jesus lived, that he called disciples, that he was baptized and that he died by crucifixion. There are no contradicting accounts on any of these from the time of the NT material, or even from any time in the 2nd century.

So the very fact that you've decided to disregard something as having evidence is your own stupidity nothing more.

Quote:Josephus merely makes reference to the brother of someone called James being called Jesus. Even if it wasn't considered a forgery it is only evidence that someone called James had a brother called Jesus. Not that the son of god walked the earth.

Stop making straw man arguments. It is the consensus view that he mentions James of Jerusalem, and not just some "random person named James".

Quote:Tacticus only makes reference to the followers of a self proclaimed messiah( or chrestos). No more convincing than writing about Mormons proves that Joseph Smith read golden tablets in a hat.

It proves that Christianity didn't start in the second century, again, stop making straw man arguments.

Quote:And so on and forth. These "proofs" might be convincing to you and your fellow sheep. But not to us.

I'm talking about facts accepted by all serious scholars, regardless of their faith.

Now why don't you hurry up and prove the claim you made before, please.

(January 1, 2014 at 1:49 am)Aractus Wrote:

(January 1, 2014 at 12:24 am)Zen Badger Wrote: The bible is not evidence, it is the claim. Therefore not admissible.

Wow, resounding circular logic.

The New Testament is a stack of evidence, and some of it is universally accepted as fact. Ie, that Jesus lived, that he called disciples, that he was baptized and that he died by crucifixion. There are no contradicting accounts on any of these from the time of the NT material, or even from any time in the 2nd century.

So the very fact that you've decided to disregard something as having evidence is your own stupidity nothing more.

Quote:Josephus merely makes reference to the brother of someone called James being called Jesus. Even if it wasn't considered a forgery it is only evidence that someone called James had a brother called Jesus. Not that the son of god walked the earth.

Stop making straw man arguments. It is the consensus view that he mentions James of Jerusalem, and not just some "random person named James".

Quote:Tacticus only makes reference to the followers of a self proclaimed messiah( or chrestos). No more convincing than writing about Mormons proves that Joseph Smith read golden tablets in a hat.

It proves that Christianity didn't start in the second century, again, stop making straw man arguments.

Quote:And so on and forth. These "proofs" might be convincing to you and your fellow sheep. But not to us.

I'm talking about facts accepted by all serious scholars, regardless of their faith.

Now why don't you hurry up and prove the claim you made before, please.

Let me reiterate....
Even if it was true that someone called Jesus existed, it means fuck all without the resurrection. And you have no proof of that at all.

Quote:Wow, resounding circular logic.

No, simple fact, Danny. Your bible is a pile of shit. When examined against archaeological evidence it is found to be seriously deficient. Sorry, but now you can get on with your life and forget about fucking jesus.

You can thank me later.

If there was a Jesus, than by God(please excuse the cliche') he had a dark tone of skin.
THATS A FACT JACK!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORIICgi-0GI

(January 1, 2014 at 1:05 am)là bạn điên Wrote: I am assuming that you have no idea of the difference between primary and secondary evidence so ill explain it.

Primary evidence is actual artifact. Secondary evidence is Narrative. Here is an example.

Le'ts take an imaginary battle from 1500 CE We have reports that x number of people were there. These change from person to person and from how long afterwards the events happened so they aren't very reliable. This is secondary evidence.

However lets say we find stack of bills for provisions and munitions and a book of accounts. this is primary evidence, it will give us a far better idea of how many people were there.

The Gospels are at best very poor primary evidence based on testimony, probably second hand, from decades before.

a Good analogy would be a court case. Witness testimony is considered to be the worst evidence. Indeed courts in the UK will only accept narrative from notes if the notes were written within 24 hours and they don't accept hearsay and yet you believe 30 year old memories (at best) and hearsay are actually good evidence

The Gospel of John is written by an eyewitness. The Epistle of James is written by the brother of Jesus, another eyewitness. I don't expect either of those points to convince you, much less would I expect you to believe 1/2 Peter is written by Peter.

Luke-Acts is written by Luke - or at the very least a single author (concensus view), and he is a companion of Pual. More than half of the events recorded in Acts happened at the time of the author's involvement in the church and many of them were witnessed by him.

Paul is the undisputed author of 7 Epistles, but he's the author of a total of 13-14 Epistles. Paul is an early church leader, he knew the apostles personally and he knew James and the family of Jesus, and he knew other early church leaders.

So for those 9 books you have no recourse to say that they are bad quality evidence at all based on the authorship criteria.

Scholars don't stop with that criteria, they look at far more things than you have bothered to list. Luke obviously made use of the Gospel of Mark believing it to be a reliable source.

Here's some examples...

Luke-John bound together:



Further evidence that Luke-Acts is written by the one author comes from Codex Bezae, which contains all the gospels and acts, and has an anti-Semitic strain found only in Luke-Acts. Thus the strain has to go back to a copy that was made containing only Luke-Acts bound together. Since all four gospels were bound together by the middle of the second century, it's believed that you can't date the inception of this "corrupted" copy of Luke-Acts after that. Thus the Luke-Acts component was a separate codex bound together and written no later than mid 2nd century.

Sceptics like yourself believe that John was written in the second century, or at the very earliest in the AD 90's. Yet there are more early manuscripts for John dating to the second century than for any other gospel, and one that may even date to the first century (but likely dates to the early 2nd century). The most important of these is this one:


(Papyrus 66)

It is near-complete. Like all early manuscripts, it contains the nomina sacra, which itself is strong evidence of canonization. It has the title "Gospel according to John" as is found on every copy - every one (this is true for all the Gospels). But you know what's interesting is the sceptics say this gospel had to have been written no earlier than the very late first century, they say it's written after all the other Gospels - yet the manuscript evidence is the reverse and we have more early copies of John than any other Gospel, so what evidence is this based on?