The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[DeistPaladin]

Point #1
Since you admittedly missed the discussion an "only skimmed" the thread, then you do not realize that my statement which you quoted above was NOT the summation of my defense of Christianity but a specific response to a specific poster.

The "die-for-a-lie" point (as you call it) is one of the pieces of evidence in support the the HRotNT, but not the apex or summation of the argument. Keep that in mind.

Point #2
All of my OP was written by me and NOT copy and pasted. Don't be rude.

Right, as I said, there are variations on that theme. There's also the Trilemma "Liar, Lunatic or Lord" argument as well. There's also the "empty tomb" argument, which I like to call the "look, nothing!" argument. The variations all revolve around "Here's the NT, *insert fallacious argument here*, therefore Jesus". While there are many variations on that theme, what they all have in common is being long on fallacious reasoning and short on any shred of evidence. 
And while you may not have literally copied and pasted the argument, they are certainly not yours and they are not new. 

Gee, I don't recall offering much in the way of defense of the resurrection in this thread at all. Tangentially, perhaps. 

Yeah, and Donald Trump has a full head of hair. Everyone knows this is precisely what you have argued for (the whole point of bringing up the die-for-a-lie argument) and are trying to ultimately "prove". You're not fooling anyone into thinking you're just here to discuss Bart Ehrman's Historical Jesus. 

On the one hand, deniers such as yourself like to point out that LOTS of people have been raised from the dead. 

Who are these "deniers"? I know of no one that argues against the resurrection by pointing out that "lots of people have been raised from the dead". I know of no one who has been raised from the dead. Near death, perhaps. If people have been brought back from flat lining in the brain activity (I'm not a medical doctor so maybe so) it is only with modern medical science, which doesn't really apply to anything that happened 2,000 years ago. I'm keen to know what this argument is exactly and whether it's another straw-skeptic position that the likes of Lee Strobel are fond of. 

On the other hand, if resurrection does not and has not EVER occurred, then I should pay no attention to the members of this forum who like to trot out the claims of Horus and others who have allegedly been raised from the dead, right?

Now this argument I understand but clearly you didn't. No skeptic argues that Horus really did rise from the dead. The point is that other religions make claims too with just as much evidence as the miracles of your Jesus. As skeptics, we reject all these claims. You reject theirs but, by process of special pleading, think your's is the real deal. 

Precisely because they were willing to die for what they knew - not what they believed. That doesn't happen in your typical murder trial.

Oh where to begin?

First, there are many other problems with eye-witness accounts aside from the eye-witness knowingly lying. Memory isn't nearly as flawless as we like to think it is. We often remember things as we want to remember them. Some seem to have more trouble with this than others. Bias can skew memory more and more over time. Perceptions can be similarly distorted by emotions and bias. We often see what we want to see and remember what we want to remember. 

Tales get better with the telling, too, and certainly did with the Gospel accounts (just a little taste of my cross-examination to come). Have you ever read the Gospels in the order in which they were written? Mark, then Matthew and Luke and finally John? Did you notice how Jesus gets more and more powerful, more confident, more commanding with each version? Did you notice how John the Baptist sinks lower and lower on his knees until finally he's little more than Jesus' cheer-leader? 

Second, people do die for lies. 

Third, you can't use folklore to prove mythology. 

Sorry. Until I am allowed to link and post stuff like this, I'm not going to view or respond because I cannot respond in kind. Forum rules and all that. You understand, I'm sure.

Then just read this summary: eye-witness testimony is virtually worthless in science. 

I'm special pleading? You spent several minutes typing up examples of the most outrageous nut-jobs in recent memory who were willing to die for their causes then accuse ME of special pleading? Do you find David Koresh to be a typical example of the kind of person you would expect to meet every day? Seriously?

Um, no. I used him as an example of someone who died for a lie. 

"But he was just a crazy cultist!" you protest, "But Paul knew the Truth." (with a capital T)

This is special pleading in its purest form with a dash of circular reasoning. Christianity is true and therefore Paul wasn't a crazy cultist like David Koresh because he was following the Truth? 

Aside from your special pleading that the founders of Christianity weren't anything like these crazy cultists of modern times, what do you base this distinction on? 

Nope. Just facts. Historical evidence. Stuff like that.

I know you don't like watching videos but every time a Christian refers to their folklore and mythology as "historical documents" or "historical evidence", I simply must post this clip from Galaxy Quest. 





No, you have mythology and folklore. Actual historical documentation on Jesus is scant and there's nothing to validate either the supernatural claims attributed to the story of Jesus or the suffering martyrdom of the original disciples and apostles. 

Should be a hoot.

You have my permission to cheat and peek ahead and what's to come. I've already posted a link to my debate with a Christian on "Are the Gospels Based On A True Story?".

Please note how much wiggle room I offered my Christian opponent. 

The topic wasn't "did the resurrection happen?" It was not "Are the Gospels fully accurate as historical accounts". No, the topic was, "is there any reason to think there might have been a true story behind all this stuff?" 

I gave him as much of a sporting chance as I could. Smarter Christian apologists refused to pick up that gauntlet because they knew what was coming. This guy that took the challenge had no clue. 

I spanked him so badly he abandoned the debate. He ran away with his tail tucked between his legs. I almost felt sorry for the poor guy. 

---

Actually, something very much like that has turned up. It's called the Shroud of Turin, and despite the fact that it cannot tell us with certainty that the man on the shroud was Jesus, forensic studies suggest that this man died in a somewhat unusual manner (given that he was crucified) and that these unique details are correspond directly to the accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus.

(And for the high schoolers thinking of jumping in at this point: go and read WHY the carbon-14 dating test performed in 1988 was due to flawed sampling.)

Well, I hope you can prove that. 

No, you don't. 

Word of advice: don't tell other people what they really think. It's a bad sign that you're a demagogue who's not arguing in good faith. I have already told you what evidence I will accept and have been more than patient as I try to explain to you why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. 

Again, reflect on how you respond to three claims of my lunchtime activities, how much evidence you require to accept each one and why your standard of what meets the burden of proof changes with each one:

1. I had lunch with my wife.
   
2. I had lunch with President Obama.
   
3. I had lunch with my deceased father who's back from the dead and feeling much better now. 
   

I've presented this lesson to you three times now and you've ignored it each time. Do your homework. I'm trying to teach you how logic works. 

Me, too, most days. I think God is like that. But every now and then, God shows up. I'm sorry if you have not had that experience. Maybe you should give him permission to do so. He's generally very conscious of overwhelming your free will by His awesome presence.

I'm keen to hear what evidence you can offer that God showed up in your life? Did you happen to capture that moment on some sort of recording? Did God leave behind some sort of artifact that science can examine? Perhaps you've been given the power to heal, just as Jesus promised the faithful would be able to in Mark 16, and you can perform these miracles under medical peer review?

By the way, FYI, I once did offer such an open invitation. I made an offer on YouTube that Satan could collect my soul, free of charge, as long as he showed up personally to collect by the end of the day on 6/6/06 Eastern Standard Time. Not surprisingly, the day came and went uneventfully. Supposedly, he's willing to offer money, sex and fame for that kind of thing. Here I was unable to even give it away. Perhaps my soul is worthless. 

The next year, I made a similar offer on YouTube to Jesus. I would convert to Christianity and spend the rest of my days preaching his Gospel as he saw fit to direct if he would only show up personally to claim me as his willing and devoted servant by the end of the day on 7/7/07 Eastern Standard Time. Once again, no takers. 

I meant in that one unintelligible sentence. Read what you typed again and see if you can figure it out.  

Again, I don't know how to go slower for you. I mapped it out step-by-step on two occasions. You have already failed to meet your burden of proof before I even get started in my rebuttal. 

If you still don't get it, I'm moving on. 

---

Well, I have to admit something...I didn't see this the first time around. I got so caught up in the whole "David Koresh proves the apostles were nuts" thing, that I complete missed this even GREATER stupidity.

No, the point was that crazy cultists arise all the time that die for their own lies and therefore dying for something doesn't prove anything.

Similarly, "people saw Jesus after his execution", even if we are to put any stock in Christian stories at all, proves nothing. Equilax tried to educate you in greater detail on this point so I won't belabor it. 

Try to listen more carefully in the future. I'm trying to be patient with you and explain how logic works. A chorus line of straw men isn't a good sign of your attempts to debate in good faith (no pun intended).