The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[Foxaèr]

After all, if god is so great, he does not need theists to defend him. If he is so great, he should be able to stand fine on his own.

The fact that god needs theists to defend him automatically means that god is not worthy. And that which is not worthy is not worth an apology.

[Mudhammam]

You might as well put your eye back in, because there won't be any.

Indeed. Unfortunately for Randy, I have heard nothing here that I haven't heard hundreds of times before. I suspect the same is true for everyone.

I'm not picking on Randy in particular here, but I wonder why God would send apologists out to try and convince atheists on a forum but not give them anything new to work with? He is setting them up to fail by just endlessly heating up the same bag of rice that we refused to eat the last 10 times it was offered to us. And presumably, he knows they will fail too.

Maybe it's an exercise for Randy to determine whether or not his odd mixture of faith and pseudo-logic are really as satisfying as his local priest makes them sound.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Mark was one of Paul's disciples.  So Paul was Mark's source.

If you're going to argue with Christians, you may find some familiarity with the Bible helpful.

1 Peter 5:13
She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark.

IOW, Peter says, "The church in Rome sends greetings and so does my disciple, Mark."

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First off OP your stuff is getting unreadable it is butt condense it. 

Let's start with the big elephant in the room.

Sorry, I don't watch videos. Make your own arguments.

Next the other big elephant. 

I don't have a video for this so bear in mind its only a bit of reading.
okay so let's give god his famous powers.
1. all knowing
2. all powerful 
3. all intrusive and has everything

Free will goes out the window if he is all knowing and the fact being is he made us with those decisions.

All intrusive? When was that assigned as an attribute of God? And you have not disproven that God exists by your "argument" here. An all-powerful God can and has given us free will.

But this is the topic of another thread. So, take it somewhere else.

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As it says in Acts 12:25 =https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Acts%2012:25
and in Acts 13:5 = https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Acts%2013:5
And in Acts 15:36-38 =https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...rsion=NKJV

Do you have anything that shows Mark tagging along after Peter?  It seems that he was a Saul (Paul) and Barnabas flunky until he got lazy and quit.

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[Mudhammam]

If you're going to argue with Christians, you may find some familiarity with the Bible helpful.

1 Peter 5:13
She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark.

IOW, Peter says, "The church in Rome sends greetings and so does my disciple, Mark."

Hmm... likewise... here's a thought...

If you're going to argue with unbelievers, you may find some familiarity with actual historians helpful.

The absence of influence from the language of the Hebrew Bible or the Targumim on the one hand, and the clear influence of the LXX on the other, show that the author was at home in Greek rather than Semitic culture, and such is likely not to have been the case with Simon Peter.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com

[dyresand]

After all, if god is so great, he does not need theists to defend him.  If he is so great, he should be able to stand fine on his own.  

The fact that god needs theists to defend him automatically means that god is not worthy.  And that which is not worthy is not worth an apology.

Pretty much this should give it away for another reason for theists to say fuck god 

[downbeatplumb]

This is assuming it wasn't a case of him not being dead in the first place,

Swoon Theory. Refuted definitively in the 19th century and discarded by scholars today.

So they had the death certificate and the relevant qualifications of the Dr who looked at Jesus, the dental records confirming that it was in fact jesus and the medical records showing what tests were undertaken to confirm death?

I would need all these and possibly more to definitively refute him not being dead.

[Randy Carson]

II.B.1. – Who Wrote the Gospels?

While the historical reliability of the New Testament is not dependent upon knowing with certainty who the authors of the gospels were, 

Actually, yes, it is. If the authors are unknown, it damages the credibility of what is supposed to be an eye-witness account. 

Uh...no. All that matters is that we determine whether the authors wrote early, had access to inside information, desired to write accurate history and did so. If that was done by an actual apostle, then so much the better.

it is indisputable that if the gospels can be shown to be written by eyewitnesses or by men who had access to eyewitnesses, the argument for the reliability of the New Testament as a whole is greatly advanced.

Actually, no. Eye-witness testimony is the weakest evidence in a court of law and of no value whatsoever in science. Furthermore, this statement conflates eye-witness testimony with hearsay testimony (reporting what someone else heard or saw), the latter being totally inadmissible in a court of law. [/quote]

So, which is it, DP?

Is it really critical that the gospels be written by an eye-witness as you first said? Or is it that "Eye-witness testimony is the weakest evidence" as you have just said?

If eye-witness testimony is the weakest, then it shouldn't really matter who those weak witnesses were, should it?

But this is another example of you trying to have it both ways.

Now to be fair, I gave you quite a bit of time when I responded - no, destroyed - your "Occam's Razor" post(s).

You had your chance. Now, you need to let the other children have a turn.

[The Grand Nudger]

Randy......you wrote that.....not DP......did you not read your copy paste or do you not remember your own words? #548 buddy........It's -your opinion- that eyewitness testimony is critical.

You did manage to get it right, though, by the end - when it comes to eye witness testimony, it doesn't matter who's giving it - it's unreliable regardless.

I missed your comments about courts of law earlier, btw. The courts allow expert testimony not because their being an expert makes the defenses or the prosecutions case, and not because their being experts makes them right. That they are experts in a field lends no further credibility to either side..in and of itself. They are there to provide a quality -explanation- for a particular conclusion (and this is why both sides might end up with experts who reach contradictory conclusions - and this is why the disparity between which expert's testimony made the better case does not rely on which one has a Masters, and which has the PHD)...which is what you should be providing now. Not really sure what the operation of a court has to do with this, tbh, in any case. Are you looking to sue us?

[Minimalist]

Uh...no. All that matters is that we determine whether the authors wrote early, had access to inside information, desired to write accurate history and did so. If that was done by an actual apostle, then so much the better.

Of course, that's impossible if you have no clue who the fuck they were.

[IATIA]

Eyewitness testimony?

Let’s first consider whether the gospels contain purely eyewitness testimony. This is surprisingly common, even though the claim can basically be dismissed immediately. Let’s think about what takes place in these gospels. Two of them start before Jesus was born. Were the writers there? Do they know what Joseph dreamed? Were the authors in the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus went off alone to pray? Were all four writers present throughout the whole life and ministry of Jesus? It’s pretty clear though that none of them could possibly have seen all of this. So, one should at least grant that they cannot contain only eyewitness accounts.

Think you are a good eyewitness?