(July 25, 2018 at 10:25 am)SteveII Wrote:(July 25, 2018 at 9:21 am)Succubus Wrote: Ok I'll bite, what documents are you referring to?
Bart Ehrman (an atheist) and respected NT scholar believes we have in the NT pretty much what was written. These documents are first century. They have been discussed since the second century in an unbroken chain. Take your pick: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com
THere is mountains of work done on every one of them. Read. Then get back to me and tell me how Christianity is not unique (with references of course).
Actually Ehrman is widely criticized for his defense of historicity of Jesus by the expert critics who pointed many errors and shortcomings he made – in particular Richard Carrier
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/1794
In particular to those supposed documents that Ehrman claims exist this is what Carrier writes
Quote:Mistake #2: Ehrman actually says (and I can’t believe it, but these are his exact words):and so on
With respect to Jesus, we have numerous, independent accounts of his life in the sources lying behind the Gospels (and the writings of Paul) — sources that originated in Jesus’ native tongue Aramaic and that can be dated to within just a year or two of his life (before the religion moved to convert pagans in droves). Historical sources like that are pretty astounding for an ancient figure of any kind.
He actually says we have such sources. We do not. That is simply a plain, straight-up falsehood. I can only suppose he means Q or some hypothesized sources behind the creedal statements in Paul or the sermons in Acts, but none of those sources exist, and are purely hypothetical. In fact, barely more than conjectural. There is serious debate in the academic community as to whether Q even existed; and even among those who believe it did, there is serious debate about whether it comes from Aramaic or in fact Greek sources or whether it’s one source or several or whether it even goes back to Jesus at all. The background to the creeds and sermons are even more conjectural (the creeds might go back to Aramaic sources, but none attest to a historical Jesus in the required sense of the term; and the sermons almost certainly do not go back to Aramaic sources, but are literary constructions of the author of Acts, writing in a Semitized Greek heavily influenced by the Septuagint; see Proving History, pp. 184-86 and Richard Pervo’s The Mystery of Acts, just for starters).
So what Aramaic sources do we “have,” Dr. Ehrman? Do tell. And on what basis do you conclude they were written down “within just a year or two of his life”? How can you be so precise?
https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/10035
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"