The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Regina]

My honest opinion is that Jesus probably did exist.

However, it goes without saying that the story of his life is wildly exaggerated and blown out of proportion.

I think there was probably a man in Judea who rose up against Roman rule in a pacifistic manner, a Gandhi-like figure if you will. He probably became venerated by his band of followers, and quickly this pacifist turned into some holy "son of God" and out of that the miracles and resurrection story came about.

If Jesus existed, that's who I think he was and how it happened

[robvalue]

Long post!

---

OK Randy, this is the second time you've brought up an exact same argument that I already addressed and debunked. This means I can only conclude you are either just messing with us, or you're hoping to repeat yourself endlessly until we give up argueing so you can declare victory. You're trying to use the courtroom analogy for the third time now, after I ripped it to shreds twice. And you brought up that McVeigh guy, after I posted information about what other evidence there was and asked you to show me how there was only hearsay evidence against him. You ignored me and continued anyway.

Here is the problem, in my opinion. I think you don't believe in Christianity for any of these reasons. What we have here are rationalisations. You already believe in Christianity before we even start the discussion, for other reasons. Maybe they are emotional reasons. Maybe indoctrination. Maybe personal experiences. Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with what we're discussing. The ease with which you slip between the bible being the claim and then talking like you've actually seen evidence of God stoning false prophets to death gives this up.

Maybe it would be better if you told us the real reasons you believe in Christianity. Because it's become very clear to everyone here that it's not due to simply analyzing the bible. You may have convinced yourself of that, but I'm afraid I don't believe it.

It would be like me trying to make the case Lord of the Rings actually happened. I'd say, "Well, Aragorn killed like 1,000 orcs by this point in the story! So I think he's not your average guy, so when he says the ring of power needs to be destroyed, we should listen to him!" What I have done is exactly what you're doing, assuming the story is true to try and prove the story is true. When called out on this, I fall back on "What I know about Aragorn", which is what points to the fact that I have other reasons to believe the story other than just reading it. Maybe I think I've really met Aragorn, maybe I had a powerful dream about it. Maybe everyone has always told me he is real. Do you see the comparison?

So would you be prepared to share the real reasons you believe? The things that convince you. I would guess you have had personal experiences which count far more than words on a page.

If I'm being presumptious, I apologize. You know better than me, I'm only trying to assess the situation. But if there are no other reasons, that leaves you trying to make this case without referring to what you "know" about God and Jesus etc.

Regarding God: according to the bible, he used to actually talk to people directly. He had no problem doing this. He even walked around the earth where he could be clearly seen. If God was walking around, there would be no argument from me that he is real. If I could hear him talking to everyone, I would believe he was real. I wouldn't necessarily believe he is exactly as described in the bible or any other book, but at least I'd know we're actually dealing with something existent. What you are saying is that my determination to not believe in God is more powerful than god's ability to provide evidence. I think you flatter me too much. I'm open minded. Provide me evidence, and I'll change my mind. But just pointing to a book and telling me it's true is not new evidence, it's still the claim. If you communicate with God, maybe you could ask him why he's unable or unwilling to convince atheists he even exists, or to convince other theists they are worshipping the wrong God. He used to get real angry about that, false gods! Now he does nothing, he even lets people run around killing in a false god's name. (This is putting forward the hypothetical consequences of believing Yahweh is real.)

Yeah, the bible is a book of atrocities. When I referred to Jesus telling people to murder someone, you said "It's still murder". Well, God orders not just individual murders but the deaths of whole towns right down to the babies and and animals. Is that "still murder" or is it OK because God ordered it?

I think for this to go anywhere, we need you to do some introspection and share with us your real reasons. Because if you're not messing with us, you've already run out of arguments and are repeating ones I've already addressed.

I can see you making real efforts to engage with us, and I appreciate that. But if you repeat yourself again, going back over things we already debunked, then I'm going to have to leave the discussion. I made my challenge informally back on page 2, then much more formally later. It hasn't been met, in my opinion.

---

[Wyrd of Gawd]

It was the custom for the father to take a piece of cloth and stick it up the girl's vagina.  If it came out bloody she was a virgin.   Evidently it was done just before the girl got married.  The father then kept the bloody rag as evidence that the girl was a virgin, at least she was when he stuck the rag in her.  The procedure is in the Bible.

Deuteronomy 22:17 = https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/De...my%2022:17

Hardly accurate.  All sorts of things that are not penetration will rupture a hymen.  I did it myself climbing on a jungle gym at seven or so.  Scared both me and my Mom for rather different reasons.  I thought I was internally injured.  She thought I'd been raped. And you can get pregnant from a guy ejaculating outside the vagina without penetration.

And the Bible doesn't mention either Mary's Dad, or Joseph testing.  Joseph apparently believes it because an angel told him so.

It is a Jewish fairy tale and the Bible says that a person shouldn't believe in them.  But that was the established procedure that they all agreed to follow.  It doesn't have to make logical sense in 2015 America. 

[robvalue]

You want my opinion on the matter? The "Jesus" character in the bible was probably based on several real people at the time. Some of the things may well have happened, at least in some form. But they've got vastly exaggerated over time as the story is passed on.

However, at some point the authors decided this character needs a huge boost, something that's going to make their religion seem legit. They have the OT already, so what did they do? They went through it, and wrote in details to make the Jesus character fit as closely as possible to all the prophecies and such. This leads to absurdities like him riding two beasts at once because Matthew misunderstood the part of the OT he was trying to fulfil.

So there may be kernels of truth in there, but I think the bulk of his story is mythical. It's the default position to start with the assumption he is just a character in a book, and work upwards from there. So we need to validate the things written about him, to see if they are real. The only things we can do this for are a very few events such as the crucifixion, and brief mentions of him in other texts. This may point to a real person/persons underneath the story, but it does not validate the whole story. The clues are there that they tried too hard to "make him fit".

This leaves the rest of his life story looking just like this; a story. If you are interested, I can provide you further information about this. Again, it's a false dichotomy to say either Jesus didn't exist, or he existed and did everything in the bible exactly as written.

I'm not claiming my account is definitely true, or that it can be proved beyond all doubt. It's simply the most likely explanation, in my opinion. The one that requires the least number of assumptions. But regardless of my conspiracy theories, the fact is that almost all of jesus' written life cannot be validated, so should not be taken too seriously.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Paul created the Jesus character after suffering from heat stroke on the road to Damascus to beat up on the members of the Way cult. Paul was the first one to preach about Jesus and he was the first one to write about him. His big draw was that the Jesus character died for people's sins and that if a person believed in Jesus he would gain eternal life.

Paul's disciples wrote stories about the Jesus character so that people could related to him as an actual person. They were able to use metaphors so that they could make Jesus a prophet out of the virgin, Samaria, to the Jews and thereby reunite them as foretold in the Old Testament.

When the rebellion broke out the writers incorporated various exploits of the three main Jewish rebel leaders into the actions of the Jesus character. They were able to tell a political story using the religious framework.

When the English wrote the Bible they changed the names of the major characters as a joke to show that what they were writing was just an elaborate prank.

Today, while billions of people profess to be Christians you would be hard-pressed to find a million or so true believers on the planet. There might be two dozen in America.

[Minimalist]

Of course, Wyrd, you are proceeding from the idea that "paul" is any more real than fucking "jesus."

It's all part of the same bullshit story and none of it is reliable.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Of course, Wyrd, you are proceeding from the idea that "paul" is any more real than fucking "jesus."

It's all part of the same bullshit story and none of it is reliable.

That's true but someone had to invent the story.  There's historical evidence for the Christian cult in the First Century AD so someone created the characters and stories. They might have been altered centuries later when they were written down in their current format but it just didn't pop up by magic.  

[Mudhammam]

Of course, Wyrd, you are proceeding from the idea that "paul" is any more real than fucking "jesus."

It's all part of the same bullshit story and none of it is reliable.

A conversation between Min and Wyrd on biblical history... An event that could only be rivaled in its benefits to the objective and open-minded observer by these two...

---

That's true but someone had to invent the story.  There's historical evidence for the Christian cult in the First Century AD so someone created the characters and stories. They might have been altered centuries later when they were written down in their current format but it just didn't pop up by magic.  

But didn't the English write the Bible in the 14th century and wasn't the Jesus character invented in the 17th?

.... LOL.

[Minimalist]

There's historical evidence for the Christian cult in the First Century AD

Perhaps you can show it to me?  Whenever I ask xtians all I get is a pile of pious bullshit from the bible and that's worthless.

The proto-orthodox seem to have been shaken to their core by the work of Marcion.  Here's Irenaeus on the subject.

http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/i...arcion.htm

Note how Marcion is accused of editing the work of "paul" and the so-called gospels.  Except, until Marcion, there was no canon,  He was the first.  And he scared the shit out of the proto-orthodox with it.

---

Feel free to join in, Nestor....if you have anything relevant to add.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

There's historical evidence for the Christian cult in the First Century AD

Perhaps you can show it to me?  Whenever I ask xtians all I get is a pile of pious bullshit from the bible and that's worthless.

The proto-orthodox seem to have been shaken to their core by the work of Marcion.  Here's Irenaeus on the subject.

http://www.earlychurchtexts.com/public/i...arcion.htm

Note how Marcion is accused of editing the work of "paul" and the so-called gospels.  Except, until Marcion, there was no canon,  He was the first.  And he scared the shit out of the proto-orthodox with it.

---

Feel free to join in, Nestor....if you have anything relevant to add.

I was thinking about the First Century Roman emperors, such as Claudius.  I believe he has a historical record with the Christians as well as a Biblical one.  And I was also thinking about the catacombs but their involvement with Christian burials may start around the Third Century.  

Anyway, your Greek link is written in modern Greek so it's a fraud. That also blows Nestor's link out of the water for the same reason.