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

[WesOlsen]

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

Quantity does not equal truth, as a proper historian will rightfully point out. The earliest fragment of a copy (John) dates to around 125 CE. Bart Ehram correctly points out that there are more variations amongst the original copies then there are words within them. The historical legend building takes place in such chronological harmony that every serious scholar has already pointed out the glaringly obvious snowball effect of myth, as opposed to reality.

Dan Barker puts it bluntly and more than adequately than anyone else i've read with his investigation of the famed resurrection, one of the core elements to the christian story:

. Paul, 55CE - In 1 corinthians we're already 25 years removed from the events described, and we've got a letter to the Corinthians, living 1500 miles away. The resurrection story here is comparatively straightforward: No earthquakes, no wailing women, no ascension in to the clouds. We've got a paragraph in which jesus appeared to the round figure of 500 people, some other random folk and then "last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me". There's convenient. Barker even comments on the use of the wording in the resurrection; Jesus woke up, he was not resurrected.
. Mark, 70CE - 15 years on (40 years from the events, basically everyone from that epoch is dead at this point). We don't know who wrote Mark, and there is only 8 verses here for describing the most miraculous event in christian history. There's now a bloke in a white garment (an angel?) this time. No preachings of a risen christ, no ascension still, no earthquakes. Mary Magdeline and Salome were knocking about this time though.
. Mathew, 80CE - 50 years on and this time there's a monster earthquake, a huge moving stone, and Mary Magdeline and someone else called Mary. There's a definite angel this time.
. Luke, 85CE - Now we've got two angels AND an ascension finally. We've also got Mary Magdeline, Joanna, another Mary and another woman???
. Peter, 85CE - Soldiers and a crowd watched the stone roll itself away, but no earthquake this time. Two angels swoop down, then a third angel character appears, and then a flying and TALKING cross (I have to chuckle when I type that bit).
. John, 90CE earliest - Angels again, a fish miracle, an ascension, and some closing words of objective historians wisdom "And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples [too many to fit in a book he says in another verse]. But these are written, that ye might believe that jesus is the christ; the son of god, and that believing ye might have life through his name". No propaganda there.

In fact all of it is religious propaganda, but not even remotely consistent in the storytelling. The ascension doesn't even appear until 85CE.

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?

4th actually. It was worth mentioning because it's the first one that most christian nuts pull out the sack, and is evidence of christian tampering.

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?

So what? Even if there were no historians in the world, the NT itself is so riddled with inconsistencies, myth snowballing, propaganda and profoundly paradoxical logic that even a camel could see it shouldn't be taken at 100% face value.

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).

Oh believe me the onus is very much on you. The bible is rammed full of failed prophecys that were all predicted by the prophets (presumably via god). The one I hear a lot is Cyrus' war path. As for Jerusalem, Micah 3:12 "predicted" it as well. Was Jesus talking to 4 pals or a huge audience here? Who is Mark writing for here, and about whom? The roman advance on the temple? The temple is flattened in 70CE approx, around the time Mark was writing. This is a prophecy if you believe Mark's propaganda, for everyone else it was either underway or already part of history. That's a really, really, really rubbish prophecy.

Quote: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.

We're talking contemporary historians here. Mark qualifies as a historian according to your criteria. The huge vulnerability to the academic rigour of contemporary Hostoricity is from supernatural guff akin to the stuff that you peddle. Historians have to work on the basis that the natural order of things has always maintained, because there is no rational reason to think otherwise, and that if they must accept one supernatural event in one context, then they must suddenly consider all supernatural events to ever have been described. You would use the same criteria to dismiss Mayan gods, the Vedas and Nordic paganism but are perfectly happy to concede that the laws of the universe can be temporarily suspended to suit your narrow christian dogma. Historians can either play by the rules, or they can abandon reason alltogether. History would be worthless if historians took literally every deity and every supernatural event ever written in to history. We would learn nothing and would still look to biblical scholars and church leaders for "knowledge" and "wisdom", god forbid. Most historians don't rule out supernatural events intentionally, they just shunt them to the very bottom of the plausibility list where they belong. You do not apply your hisorical rigour consistently, you cherry pick when it suits you and reject so much. You talk so much of evidence yet shunt so much of it to the side. Your historicity is more like elasticity - bending and stretching where appropriate, contracting and breaking completely when not.

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.

That's really fucking dumb in which case. Why on earth would you need to explain to grown men that fruit trees won't bare fruit out of season? This is after the agricultural revolution here. If Jesus is telling a fruit tree to fuck off and die for the crime of not fruiting out of season, then he's a weapon's grade window licker. Stories like this don't even qualify as examples or morals, they're just really inane.

Questions again:

. Who was Joseph's dad?

. How come nobody other than Matthew talks about the huge 'kill the firstborn' operation launched by Herod, which would have required enormous coordination and manpower?

. Who was present at the tomb, and was the rock already rolled away?

. After his resurrection, how many people did Jesus have some banter with, and how long was he mooching about before he flew in to heaven?

. Given your dedication to historic academic rigour, and your emphasis on really reading that stuff thoroughly, are you not convinced of any number of other creation myths? And while we're at it, why don't you dedicate the same amount of time to reading balanced sources on related topics, such as journals on genetic science, fossil records and everything else that shows humans don't tend to live to the age of 200 and 32 years, or that humans, whilst a little bit aquatic (well, we can swim any way), don't walk on water, etc....

Here's a closing statement sourced by Barker, taken from The acts of Jesus: What did jesus really do? By Funk et al (70+ bible scholars at the Westar institute)

"The five scholars that report appearences (MAtthew, Luke, John, Peter and Hebrews) go their seperate ways when they are no re-writing Mark. Their reports cannot be reconciled to each other. Hard historical evidence is sparse."