(September 19, 2012 at 10:40 am)kılıç_mehmet Wrote: My friend, you do not need to be a historian to state that the Gospels lack such reliability. The moslem religion claims that the Gospels have been changed, or written by the church founders, and are false. It all comes down to your faith. I don't know what kind of "historical problems" there are with the four Gospels, as there are historical problems with the Torah, but I'm not certain what really it is that you're looking for. Is it historical accuracy regarding the contents, or just knowledge about whether they were written by the people that they say that wrote it, or by someone else?
Which?
Agreed you don't have to be a historian to poke holes in any historical sources. One doesn't have to be an expert in any subject but can still criticize it. But if one has expertise in said subject, their voice carries more weight. I can criticize the theory of relativity, but I'll just make an ass out of myself, but I could still do it.
There are lots of problems with the Gospels. Everything from who actually wrote them, when they were written, where they were written (makes a big difference when you consider the historical context of the 1st century, Roman Empire), translations, edits, etc. This is not my area of expertise, but the Gospels were written significantly after the death of Christ, if they were written by those who didn't have first hand encounters with Christ then one gets into all the problems regarding oral history, which are many. The best primary source would be a writing from Christ himself (which doesn't exist as far as we know), next best would be from one of his disciples or someone who actually heard Christ speak (extra points if it's backed up by an independent source that this person was there, but I don't believe there are any independent of the bible sources that even support Christ as having been a real person), from there it's just degrees of truth, not the whole truth as it has passed through many different people's filters and interpretations. History is messy, very, very messy, and the farther back you go, the messier it gets.
