The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[robvalue]

I see, thanks

I don't usually like discussing motivations of historical figures (real or in dispute) because I consider it a really unreliable way to get to the truth.

But let me play devil's arse hole anyway, if we're going to bring motivation into it: why would people die for the truth?

Most people would say that something they knew was true was actually false if it meant not being killed. I hope we can agree on that. So what would be the motivation for refusing to "admit" you are wrong, if your life is on the line?

To me, this implies that people's perceptions of your "belief" (true or professed) is more important than whether or not it is actually true. Because if something is evidently true, or well known to be true, then someone "admitting" under torture that it isn't true won't make any difference. If Stephen Hawking "admitted" that actually there is no sun, because he was being tortured until he said that, no one would change their beliefs based on this.

So my conclusion is that they thought one of the following:

1) They knew their version of events was false, but they felt it was very important to protect that fact. Maybe they felt it would be in everyone's best interests to share this false belief, for the greater good. Maybe there were further threats or implications involved in admitting it was false, so even if they knew it was false, they would not say so.

2) They thought it was true, but they felt that the only way anyone else would ever believe the story is if they stuck to it. This suggests to me that the only way to the "truth" of christianity is literally through the accounts of these few people. Clearly they didn't think the truth was self evident. So even now, the only way we have to truth is their testimony.

Well, that was fun. Like I say, I don't take this kind of discussion too seriously, even when it works out in my favour.