Challenge to atheists: I find your lack of faith disturbing!

[Aractus]

So why is there no room for error in the books now comprising the Bible? How could you possibly prove this to anyone?

That's easy. They weren't contemporary; they were writing about events that took place 100-200 years prior.

The purpose is quite obviously stated. People were doubting the second coming of Christ would ever occur because it had been so long delayed, evidently delayed past the generation Peter belonged to as they say, “He promised to come, didn't he? Where is he? Our ancestors have already died, but everything is still the same as it was since the creation of the world!”

Okay, we're going to have to agree to disagree here. While it is true that it is a theme of Peter's letters, it belongs within the context of reminding Christians that this earth is temporary and mortal and will pass away, just as we will pass away. This is in complete contrast to what Jehovah Witnesses believe, for instance, they believe this Earth will last an eternity.

First, the vast differences in style and content between John and the synoptic gospels preclude any possibility that they are both reasonably accurate records of the same person's life and teachings. Virtually all biblical scholars believe that the synoptics present the more authentic account.

No, virtually all believe they present an earlier account, I don't know where you're getting "more accurate". The Gospel of John is the only gospel to have been written by one of the original 12 disciples.

There was a time in the past that the vast majority of scholars did believe that the gospel was written by someone else in the 2nd century, but that theory is no longer very strong because of the discovery of the Qumran scrolls, and the St John Fragment. The St John's Fragment reliably dates to the first half of the 2nd century, and is from a codex and not a scroll. How much literature did you find on codices in the 2nd century? Barely any - except for Christian literature, and especially scriptures. So this is very strong evidence that by the 1st half of the second century it had been accepted as scripture.

Second, I did not quite say that Jesus believed the world would end in his lifetime. In Matthew 24:34 he says: "Remember that all these things will happen before the people now living have all died." People now living presumably includes Peter. This passage does not refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE as it speaks of the signs in the heavens (the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, stars will fall, and people will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds.) C.S. Lewis called it the most embarrassing verse in the Bible with good reason. It places Jesus in the long line of people from the author of Daniel to Harold Camping who predicted the end of the world and nothing happened. Mark and Luke give the same pronouncement in the parallel passages. If you want another example, there is Luke 9:27 where he says: "Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God." When I was in seminary, we were told that this prophecy referred to the Transfiguration of Jesus (he glows like he's gone radioactive) which is the next event narrated. With all the respect I can muster now, I would say this explanation is utter bullshit. What would be the point of saying that some of the people here will not taste death before something happens 8 days hence?

Well that's not the explanation I've heard. Most modern scholars would combine it with the statement I highlighted earlier "destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days", if that's taken literally, as the Jews at the time took the Holy's of Holy to be a literal place where the presence of God dwelt, then there really is no further explanation needed than this:

1 Tim 2:5-7: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

The date given for this papyrus is 175 - 225 CE, which is an awful lot of decades after the death of someone who you claim was producing his magnum opus ca 50 CE. In any case, finding Luke and John bound together does nothing to establish the infallibility of either.

No, I claim Luke wrote his gospel c. 60-61 AD. It is bound together with other Christian literature well less than 200 years after it is written - and unless you really think that we discovered the first ever copy made of them bound together, then it means that we can safely presume that it existed sometime prior to the date it was found. Meaning that it could have been bound together with John c. 150-200 AD (and that's more probable than going solely by the age of the manuscript that we have).

That's only a number of decades - not centuries.

Get real. Luke says nothing about a two-year gap. His words are, "When Joseph and Mary had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth." That is right after the purification rites mentioned above, they go back to Nazareth. The next event mentioned in the life of Jesus is 12 years later when he goes to the Temple as a boy.

What so Luke didn't have a copy of Matthew's Gospel then? What about the double-tradition, the synoptic problem, etc? I know you'll probably say, no he didn't use Matthew and he only had "Q" and Mark. Well if that's the case, then a. why is there not a shred of evidence that this mythical and very important "Q" work ever existed as a single written entity? And b. Matthew was still written before Luke, the overwhelming majority of scholars believe this, so if it was written before Luke, and Luke had a copy of Mark - why wouldn't he have a copy of Matthew?

Here's a clue - Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience. He spends more time focusing on details that would be important to Jewish Christians who know the Law well. Luke spends way less time on that, and there's no way it can be put down to chance or coincidence. The fact is that Matthew had to have been writing early enough that there was still a large enough proportion of Jews converting to Christianity, whereas Luke is writing at a time when the majority of converts are gentiles. What's interesting is that scholars - including the more liberal ones - believe that by 40 AD the majority of converts were Greeks and not Jews!

Now I know what you're going to say - wouldn't that mean that Matthew has to have been written prior to 40 AD? This is a problem that I'm still undecided how is solved best. For a while I believed the best explanation is that if Matthew is written 5-6 years prior to Mark, however that leaves me with the inescapable question of why Mark would leave out details that are relevant to gentiles along with the details more relevant to Jews.

This is what I think. The Gospel of the Hebrews was the earlier work that paved the way to the Gospel according to Matthew. It did not have the genealogy, nor the nativity of Jesus, and rather it began with his baptism. Jerome said he translated the work into Greek and Latin, and by all accounts it was originally written in Aramaic and not Greek. The Gospel according to Matthew is a later and more polished/complete version, written in the 50's AD and both it and GotH were based upon Mark and further testimony by one (or more) of the apostles.

This does mean that Mark could not have been written any later than 45 AD, and probably had to have been written by 40 AD. Scholars typically believe the earliest date Mark could have been written is around 53 AD, if true this would simply have to mean that Matthew had to have been written first, because there is no other way to explain the attention to the Jewish law which he gives in his Gospel.

But there is way too much conflicting information to be able to date it firmly. For instance, Irenaeus in the second century wrote that John Mark wrote the gospel after both Peter and Paul had died - this would make it 65 AD or later, but if that's the case why does the book of Acts end in the present while Paul (a companion of his) and Peter are still alive? And even more problematic, as I've said a number of times now, is why is there so much Jewish detail in Matthew if it's written after AD 65?

I do not think there is much point in pursuing this discussion further. The sticking point is biblical inerrancy. I can understand how you came to believe in it; I once did myself. However, my eyes were opened as I studied the Bible intensively. It is riddled with inconsistencies which get explained away only by the most laughable arguments. I will make only two points about this.

Well I'll only make one point. If there are so many inconsistencies, as you and others claim, then how come there aren't consistent problems with other external historical information? Sure, it's one thing to claim that maybe a few verses here or there are "questionable", and it's fair enough because not all 5,800 manuscripts agree 100% - they agree about 98%, and about 99.5% when you discard irrelevant inconsistencies (like "Christ Jesus" versus "Jesus Christ" etc). But when all is said and done, over the last 200 years we've discovered mountains of external evidence that only supports the NT chronology, and virtually nothing that discredits it.

The Bible is filled with stories of events which violate natural law, events which we never see, such as raising the dead or changing water into wine. In our society the Bible is the only book with these unbelievable stories which is taught as credible. When we learn a bit more, we find that it was written in a credulous age and hundreds of other books retail the same kind of "miracles" such as virgin births (Alexander the Great) and God-men (Alexander and Caesar) and raising the dead (Apollonius of Tyana). There is no reason to give the Bible greater credence than the other superstitious productions of that age.

True, but they don't include the death and resurrection of Christ - which is so far not disproven with any other external evidence, at all.

People like to claim as you do that the authors of the Bible are too near the events to be mistaken or lying.

I don't like the phrase "people like me", please don't use it.

And also, it's not what I claim. I simply claim that the writings are contemporary, and are very well (but not perfectly) preserved from their original version. For some books this is very easily proven, and for others it isn't.

When I hear people make some of the claims you've made, I find many simply untenable to begin with. Like Luke's census. Well according to external sources, there's only one known census under Quirinius, correct me if I'm wrong? He was governor of Syria for six years, from 6 - 12AD:

"In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria."

Well how could that possibly make sense if there was only one which he could have been talking about, what would "first" have to do with anything? I know we've been over it a thousand times, but I don't find it credible that Luke doesn't know that there was only one census under Quirinius. And if he's making it up as he goes along, how come he gets so many other facts right?

Well, Albert was raised as a non-observant Jew, and later in life, when he was a famous scientist, he specifically repudiated any belief in a personal God.

Yes, but he also said "Science without Religion Is Lame, Religion without Science Is Blind". He also hated Quantum Physics so much that he refused to believe that General Relativity may also be incomplete. He is the fundamental proof that scientists are not generally "unbiased", though they might like to believe they are.

So if people are so ready to lie for Jesus in our sophisticated, scientifically-knowledgeable age, why would it not happen in that credulous era when the New Testament was written?

Because those "lies" are actually rumours, and probably were never intended to be deceptive and came along the way of Chinese Whispers.

I used to get Robert Young and Thomas Young mixed up (because they have the same name, and they were both incredible linguists).

Either that or some people are just douches.

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Say a notorious and worldwide respected Archaeologist calimed: "We've found Jesus' bones in an ancient tomb in Israel"

(Which would mean Jesus didn't ascend to heaven and the myth would be exposed as such)

Wouldn't you want to know how he knew they were the bones of Christ?

What sort of answer would satisfy you?

I mean, what would he have to say to you to convince you that they were indeed the bones of Christ?

Well, considering that neither I nor just about anyone else is convinced that the James ossuary is 100% genuine (although it may be, but I don't know), I can't imagine that it would be an easy thing to prove.

But I don't think that's the type of evidence that would be likely to come forward if the gospel is false. There is plenty of other evidence you'd expect would be more likely to see. For instance, written records of his final burial place, or an earlier copy of a gospel that has something else in place of the resurrection, etc. Atheists keep claiming that it was inserted in there in the 2nd century, if this is true there should be surviving copies that have a completely contradictory account!

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Say a notorious and worldwide respected Archaeologist calimed: "We've found Jesus' bones in an ancient tomb in Israel"

(Which would mean Jesus didn't ascend to heaven and the myth would be exposed as such)

Wouldn't you want to know how he knew they were the bones of Christ?

What sort of answer would satisfy you?

I mean, what would he have to say to you to convince you that they were indeed the bones of Christ?

Well, considering that neither I nor just about anyone else is convinced that the James ossuary is 100% genuine (although it may be, but I don't know), I can't imagine that it would be an easy thing to prove.

But I don't think that's the type of evidence that would be likely to come forward if the gospel is false. There is plenty of other evidence you'd expect would be more likely to see. For instance, written records of his final burial place, or an earlier copy of a gospel that has something else in place of the resurrection, etc. Atheists keep claiming that it was inserted in there in the 2nd century, if this is true there should be surviving copies that have a completely contradictory account!

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Ok I shan't post a rush-response this time. You can re-read my post and pretend I didn't use a few jockular phrases if you like, but you haven't addressed the Islamic question I put to you at all.

And you didn't address my question relating to your claims that "many modern editions of the bible underwent heavy modification throughout the last 1000 years by various bodies"??

The floor's all yours on this one, what exactly do you mean by it, and why should it concern me?

We have contemporary writings for a great many historical characters outside of the new testament, from many corners of the globe. The new testament isn't unique in that sense at all.

It is unique in the sense that there are 5,800 copies of it.

There is a paragraph from Josephus from approx 95 CE, which most secular scholars now believe is bogus.

Yes, and that's because 1. we don't actually have a complete copy of his work, and 2. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the earliest copies that we have of his works are from the 10th or 11th centuries, correct?

Many are convinced that the relevant writings of the messianic jew Flavius Josephus to be either completely fabricated or heavily edited (Josephus would not refer to Jesus as Christ or Truth if clearly he did not believe him to be such, and indeed remained a messianic jew).

You're talking about like 2 sentences in Antiquities which I haven't even made reference too, nor did I ever claim they are his original writings...

Even though your objectivity is indeed highly questionable, as is that of the authors of the new testement, you are still prepared to readily assert both the importance of historical investigation AND the certainty of all the supernatural elements of these historical stories. Most secular scholars, who agree that Jesus probably existed, are however not convinced that the new testement is infallible.

No, but they are convinced of certain things, such as that Jesus did live, that he called disciples, that he died on a cross, that he was baptised by John the Baptist, that Paul wrote at least the majority of the epistles bearing his name, and that Luke (a companion of Paul) wrote Luke-Acts.

They disagree over the authorship of Matthew, Mark, the Pastoral Epistles, John, 1-3 John, 1-2 Peter, Revelation, Jude.

So what?

The onus of proof isn't on me. Jesus predicts the destruction of Jerusalem in all three synoptic gospels, and does so in different ways too (ie more than once). More liberal scholars claim that these verses had to have been inserted (but can offer absolutely no evidence), or that the gospels had to have been written after AD 70 (this causes huge problems, especially for Matthew which is written for a Jewish and not a Greek audience).

You on the other hand take it at 100% face value. This is strange as any serious historian, emphasising the importance of reading a range of sources to arrive at an objective and rational conclusion, would not take the new testement at 100% face value.

Oh please. Historians believed for over 2,000 years that slaves built the pyramids because Herodotus wrote that down in the 5th century BC. If that's not taking something at "face value", I don't know what is.

. Why did Jesus smite a fig tree for the crime of bearing no fruit?

You want me to provide you with Bible lessons? Well.... It's an example to his disciples, it was out of season, and therefore of course had no figs. "Curse" is really not the best modern translation, nor is "smite", he literally tells it to die, comes back later and it's dead.