Any Evidence For A Historical Jesus?

[radorth]

Good. I provided two. And I'm not a Biblical scholar.

Those were not contradictions. The law vs faith "contradiction," isn't one as I explained.

Now there's a classic example of the logical fallacy, "Appeal to Authority".

I assumed since you do it, it was OK.

The distinction is that even experts and authorities need to show the evidence as to what convinces them something is true. Presenting evidence or citing research is different from "cause smart guy says so".

Clear?

Well no, not when you say "Biblical scholars agree that......." But I am happy not to make such general statements if you are

The early Christian writers are walking New Testaments. Have you read any of them?

Heard of them, yes. Expert on them? No. I'll leave such things to Min. I'm more concerned with the Bible and Christian mental gymnastics that they employ to make it all coherently work.

Well do you admit you used two logical fallacies to make your theories work? Argument from silence and "false in one part false in all"? You actually stated specifically that the missing Markan witness of the ressurrection casts doubt about it, and you certainly implied (and believe) that if one part is false, it's all suspect. These are mistakes unbelievers like Wells, Durant and Jefferson did not make-- people we both would call great thinkers I assume

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_epi...e_epistles

(Edited) See below post. The links in the article contradict the Wiki writer in your link! What a riot. Some comments are just wrong and clearly biased.

They are not, as evident by their contradictions with what we know of science, history or their lack of agreement with one another.

Well sure if you want to die in your sins over "minutiae" like who rolled the stone away.

If the vaunted WORD OF GOD has flaws in it, on what basis would you presume to know which parts are true and pure revelation and which parts are human error and prejudice?

There you go again. The same way juries sort out the truth. A defendent lies about something and he's automatically guilty? I don't think you get what "false in one part false in all" implies. And I don't think any Gospel writer lied. I think they reported what they heard with integrity and I have no reason to think they did not. Did they hear wrong sometimes? No doubt.

Are you God? Are you an angel? Do you somehow know the mind of God that you can edit out all the errors in the Bible?

No I just know that I have experienced what Jesus promised, after not a few stumbles, and being anything but a Christian seems childish and irrational to me now. Anyone who doubts the grace of the Christian God hasn't met me.

You know what a brain is, right? You know that the brain stores and accesses memories, right? You know that these memories can be lost of the brain is damaged by injury or illness, right? Alzheimer's ring a bell? Amnesia? These are conditions by which memory is lost while the body and brain still lives.

I think that is irrelevant. Having spoken in tongues and visited the third heaven (I believe0 without even seeking either, I know there is a God. But I suppose it was just oxygen starvation.

Just food for thought as you spout all you woo-woo about nine levels of spirit and living water rivers.

You can't make this stuff up, which is what I, Durant, Peck, and so many ex-atheists and ex-agnostics realized. Claiming Paul or anyone else just made up the claims/church experiences in Corinthians is just foolish.

Yeah, because the NT outlawed slavery. Oh, wait, no it didn't. It admonished slaves to obey their masters.

Which does not mean they approved of it. Actually at the same time your man Voltaire was writing that slavery was necessary to the economy, many Quakers and most Methodists were condemning it. The early Christians were enjoined to save their money and buy slaves from docking ships and free them. The abolitionists were all Christians and used the writings of the early fathers to convince everyone else. it is said that William Garrison only read one book, the Bible, and he fought his whole life against slavery, and for women's sufferage.
Here's a thought. He read Jesus' mission statement in Luke 4 and did it. I bet John Locke did too. You are just living off the fat jesus left behind and claiming "Paine did it." He was 80 years behind the Methodists of course. But you wouldn't know any of that because you don't want to.

Wasn't it all Christians leading the Enlightenment, and getting us where we are to begin with? What group of atheists tackled AIDS in Africa as the "fundy" Christians have?

But then, Christianity has never actually been tried by any great numbers, except during those rare "Great Awakenings" as they are called. About one of them, Ben Franklin commented "it was wonderful to see the change soon made in our citizens." I guess his voluminous axioms weren't having much effect. Talk is cheap. That's the proven problem with atheist beliefs. You have to have a police state to go with them because people have no other restraint, no internal policeman.

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I clicked on your link, and then a random sub-link and read this: (emphasis mine)

"Most New Testament scholars believe Paul of Tarsus wrote this letter from Corinth, although information appended to this work in many early manuscripts (e.g., Codices Alexandrinus, Mosquensis, and Angelicus) state that Paul wrote it in Athens[2] after Timothy had returned from Macedonia with news of the state of the church in Thessalonica (Acts 18:1-5; 1 Thes. 3:6). For the most part, the letter is personal in nature, with only the final two chapters spent addressing issues of doctrine, almost as an aside. Paul's main purpose in writing is to encourage and reassure the Christians there. Paul urges them to go on working quietly while waiting in hope for the return of Christ.

[edit] Authenticity:The vast majority of New Testament scholars hold 1 Thessalonians to be authentic, although a number of scholars in the mid-19th century contested its authenticity,"

Obviously whoever wrote the Wikipedial claim in your link is contradicting the links which follow

I guess Wiki is even more biased than I thought.

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Fundies like to claim that. It's nonsense, and just shows how fragile and theoretical their faith is.

It's nonsense to claim the Word of God has no errors? How dare you? And how dare you question my faith when you are the one who is compromising with all those godless scientists and all those scoffing skeptics with their so called logic? It is YOU who are the blasphemer, here! It is YOU who lacks faith since you're obviously so willing to compromise on how accurate the Word is!

Pastor Deacon Fred put it so well when he said, "You know, it's sissy, namby-pamby Christians like you that ruin it for everyone."

We don't say the Bible is sorta-kinda the Word of God! We say it is the Word of God!

We don't pick and choose which parts of the Bible we like, as if the revealed Word were some kind of buffet table!

We don't select the sections of the Bible not yet disputed by the godless scientists, as if running up the white flag and surrendering to all that Satanic secularism!

Make up your mind! It is the Word of God or it isn't.

I have the same opinion of atheists who quote fundy Christians as I do of the latter.

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Yeah im not going to read all the post,

Of course not. You would find out how many logical fallcies atheists regularly use anyway.

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Clicked on another sub-link (randomly) under Deistpaladin's link and read this:

"While there is little doubt among scholars that Paul is the author, there is discussion over whether the Epistle was originally one letter or composed from two or more of Paul's letters."

This is fun actually.

Lesson learned: assume the Wiki primary link writer is a blow-hard and check the facts yourself.