The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Esquilax]

Seriously, is there a Christian scholar whom I could have trotted out that would have maintained my credibility? Be honest.

Blomberg? Hahn? Evans? Licona? Ratziinger? Von Balthasar?

You tell me which Christians you read and respect, and I'll try to include some of their thoughts in my posts, okay?

Look, WLC is a particular problem because he's outed himself as a presuppositionalist multiple times; he's literally said that he will continue to believe in the historical accuracy of the christian bible even if he were to be taken back in time to be an eyewitness to it all not happening. He's said he will continue to believe in spite of all evidence, and has in fact also stated that reason itself should be disregarded where it conflicts with the gospel.

It should be pretty clear why anything that man says, just by dint of these adopted positions, is inherently untrustworthy, and frankly, you shouldn't want those kinds of sentiments to be representative of your argument here either.

[Randy Carson]

There is absolutely no question about the fact that the Luke who wrote Luke-Acts is the same person as the travelling companion of Paul.

Okay, look: you cannot keep asserting that. You are ridiculously overstating and exaggerating your position, but when I've specifically shown you that there are at least three schools of thought on this issue in another thread, and you keep going on like I hadn't said a word of that, then you are also actively lying, because you have been shown clearly that there is this question within the scholarly community. You really think just trundling through as though nobody has presented anything to you is an honest or effective way to go about this?

Then again, maybe you do, because I've witnessed a hell of a lot of ridiculous shit from you since I last posted; from poisoning the well by characterizing those who disagree with you as "angry, bitter and hurt," lowering yourself to the utterly inane "why are you angry at god?" strawman, and more recently outright copy/pasting stuff you'd said to me, word for word, as a reply to Jormungandr.

... In fact, as a mod, I actually need to ask: are you actually writing any of what you're saying yourself? Because that bit about Eusebius and Papias is a carbon copy of something you said to me in a different thread, and if you're copy/pasting your responses from elsewhere then we may have a problem here.

I have most of my arguments concerning basic Christianity stored as Word files so that I can reference them as needed in this forum or others.

I don't feel I need to re-invent the wheel every time someone asks a question I've answered dozens of times in the past.

So, if I don't cite a website or book, then it's original material that I wrote. Per the rules, I am citing all other material.

[Minimalist]

Seriously, is there a Christian scholar whom I could have trotted out that would have maintained my credibility? Be honest.

Probably not because the problem that you, and they themselves, define themselves as "xtian scholars."  They have a predetermined bias to substantiate the bullshit they have spent their whole lives studying.

I don't care about your fucking bible, apostles, epistles, or church histories.  Everytime I demand evidence for any of your shit ( and the muslims are the same, btw) all I ever get is ultimately the pious blather which was written down by later believers and that don't count for shit.

I'll accept that they "believed" it.  So what.  People believe lots of stupid shit. Belief means nothing.

[Randy Carson]

Seriously, is there a Christian scholar whom I could have trotted out that would have maintained my credibility? Be honest.

Blomberg? Hahn? Evans? Licona? Ratziinger? Von Balthasar?

You tell me which Christians you read and respect, and I'll try to include some of their thoughts in my posts, okay?

Look, WLC is a particular problem because he's outed himself as a presuppositionalist multiple times; he's literally said that he will continue to believe in the historical accuracy of the christian bible even if he were to be taken back in time to be an eyewitness to it all not happening. He's said he will continue to believe in spite of all evidence, and has in fact also stated that reason itself should be disregarded where it conflicts with the gospel.

It should be pretty clear why anything that man says, just by dint of these adopted positions, is inherently untrustworthy, and frankly, you shouldn't want those kinds of sentiments to be representative of your argument here either.

You have a link for this, I presume? Or should I just take your word for it? Hey, I'm the first to drop a bad source if it brings my argument into question.

But you didn't suggest any acceptable Christian scholars...

---

I'll accept that they "believed" it.  So what.  People believe lots of stupid shit. Belief means nothing.

Great!

That closes off another atheist argument: that the apostles were lying intentionally. Thus, the collusion objection can be marked off the list of legitimate reasons to reject Christianity.

That list is getting shorter and shorter.

What's left, Min?
[/quote]

[Cyberman]

Seriously, is there a Christian scholar whom I could have trotted out that would have maintained my credibility? Be honest.

Blomberg? Hahn? Evans? Licona? Ratziinger? Von Balthasar?

You tell me which Christians you read and respect, and I'll try to include some of their thoughts in my posts, okay?

What, you want us to make your case for you?

[Esquilax]

You have a link for this, I presume? Or should I just take your word for it? Hey, I'm the first to drop a bad source if it brings my argument into question.

Several: Here's one with references to Craig's own books.  Here's Craig himself, asserting that "god exists because I know god exists, so screw your evidence!" is a reasonable justification for belief. And here's WLC, on video, stating that the only valid use of reason is in support of the gospel only:





It's not that WLC is a bad source, it's that he's not even a source at all: he's just a bilge pump spewing christian propaganda wrapped in ten dollar words.

But you didn't suggest any acceptable Christian scholars..

---

Maybe that's because I accept positions based on the evidence supporting them, rather than the person asserting them.

[The Grand Nudger]

People who believe in things deeply -still- lie about those things.  It's called pious fraud amigo.   Meh, in any case, people reject your claims not because of brilliant argumentation on either end, they simply don't believe you.  I guess you'll have to resolve that first?

[Simon Moon]

Look, WLC is a particular problem because he's outed himself as a presuppositionalist multiple times; he's literally said that he will continue to believe in the historical accuracy of the christian bible even if he were to be taken back in time to be an eyewitness to it all not happening. He's said he will continue to believe in spite of all evidence, and has in fact also stated that reason itself should be disregarded where it conflicts with the gospel.

It should be pretty clear why anything that man says, just by dint of these adopted positions, is inherently untrustworthy, and frankly, you shouldn't want those kinds of sentiments to be representative of your argument here either.

You have a link for this, I presume? Or should I just take your word for it? Hey, I'm the first to drop a bad source if it brings my argument into question.

Mark Smith  posed the following scenario to Craig:

Dr. Craig, for the sake of argument let’s pretend that a time machine gets built. You and I hop in it, and travel back to the day before Easter, 33 AD. We park it outside the tomb of Jesus. We wait. Easter morning rolls around, and nothing happens. We continue to wait. After several weeks of waiting, Mark Smithstill nothing happens. There is no resurrection – Jesus is quietly rotting away in the tomb.

Smith then asked Craig if he would then deny Christianity, having seen with his own eyes that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Smith writes:

He told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian.

In 2007, Zachary Moore decided to try again. Craig confirmed that that no evidence could overturn his “inner witness of the Holy Spirit.”

[Ravenshire]

Seriously, is there a Christian scholar whom I could have trotted out that would have maintained my credibility? Be honest.

Blomberg? Hahn? Evans? Licona? Ratziinger? Von Balthasar?

You tell me which Christians you read and respect, and I'll try to include some of their thoughts in my posts, okay?

Seriously, any of those listed above would have been better than WLC.

[Simon Moon]

Look, WLC is a particular problem because he's outed himself as a presuppositionalist multiple times; he's literally said that he will continue to believe in the historical accuracy of the christian bible even if he were to be taken back in time to be an eyewitness to it all not happening. He's said he will continue to believe in spite of all evidence, and has in fact also stated that reason itself should be disregarded where it conflicts with the gospel.

It should be pretty clear why anything that man says, just by dint of these adopted positions, is inherently untrustworthy, and frankly, you shouldn't want those kinds of sentiments to be representative of your argument here either.

You have a link for this, I presume? Or should I just take your word for it? Hey, I'm the first to drop a bad source if it brings my argument into question.

So, now that Esquilax and I have both posted a video and quotes from WLC showing himself to be an intellectually dishonest dirtbag, will you still continue to use him as a reference?

Let's see how intellectually honest you are.