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

[DeistPaladin]

Two things leap out at me with your posts that I feel the need to take issue with more than any of your other assertions:

1. Stop comparing Jesus to non-supernatural characters from history like Alexander the Great (or fill in Socrates or Julius Caesar or whoever...). Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Mundane claims require less evidence. The miracle working godman is held to a higher standard.

2. Your claims of the dates of authorship for the Gospels are fringy even by apologetic standards. Scholars date Mark to no earlier than 70 CE because of the "little apocalypse" reference in chapter 13 (or the destruction of the temple). Even apologists largely agree with this date with a few fringe apologists like yourselves who seem to pull mid-first century dates out of the air. The others came after Mark.

[The Reality Salesman01]

[ThomM]

[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."

[Aractus]

2. Your claims of the dates of authorship for the Gospels are fringy even by apologetic standards. Scholars date Mark to no earlier than 70 CE because of the "little apocalypse" reference in chapter 13 (or the destruction of the temple). Even apologists largely agree with this date with a few fringe apologists like yourselves who seem to pull mid-first century dates out of the air. The others came after Mark.

Okay, I'll address this because it's an easy point. I agree that Luke is the last of the synoptic gospels to have been written. Almost all scholars agree with this. So I work backwards from Luke. Almost all scholars, even those who are sceptical that "Luke" is the author, believe that Luke-Acts is written by the same author. The book of Acts makes it clear that the author is a companion of Paul (even more clear via Paul's letters if it is indeed Luke). Paul and Peter by all accounts (via early church records) are martyred in the mid 60's AD, and most scholars agree with this. We actually don't know how either of them died, however most people are taught that Peter is crucified upside-down and that Paul is beheaded. As I've mentioned earlier I believe it's most likely that they were both beheaded.

Therefore there's virtually no chance that Acts could have been written after 67 AD. What's more important is that it seems to end in AD 61, for instance this allows it to end with Paul under house arrest and other events that point to that time. Even if Luke was written only 1 month before Acts, that would still make it AD 61 at the latest.

Working back from here, we get to AD 53-58 being the most probable dates that Mark/Matthew were written. However, I then ask the question of whether the Gospel of the Hebrews was written before, or after Matthew. Although most scholars place it later than Matthew (shock horror, look at what I just admitted), I have yet to see any compelling argument as to why are more rudimentarily work was written after the Gospel.

I'm also deeply concerned that if Matthew was written in 53 AD then why is he writing to a Jewish audience, and not a Greek audience? I have as of yet seen no explanation as to how this would be possible.

So what I think, personally, is that Matthew and Mark were written sometime around 45 AD (or even as early as 39 AD) and that Mark predates Matthew by about 2 years.

I have "pulled" nothing out of the air.

The evidence is there for anyone to examine and come to their own conclusions, and I have come to mine. Although I may still change my mind, I already have in the past! So I can't be closed minded, if that was the case I wouldn't be saying now that Matthew was written before 50 AD.

---

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.

I don't understand how you could not have a response to such a straight forward question regarding something that is so central to your life. You don't seem sure about what it would take to make your belief falsifiable.

Really? I gave you a completely straightforward answer. Inscriptions can be forged, just about anything can be forged.

There have been people that cut/tore blank leaves out of ancient books and then wrote on them using specially formulated period-accurate ink in the correct script (following no-doubt years of practising), with charcoal (ash) mixed in the ink in case it should ever be carbon-dated.

Surely you would expect me to be sceptical of new works until proven?

What evidence would it take to satisfy you that they were actually the bones of Christ? You haven't answered my question.

You're right, I didn't. Because just as the James ossuary, I'd be sceptical as to whether the inscription on the Ossuary is really 100% authentic. So yes, to be honest, I do think you would have to have more than the Ossuary inscription alone.

If you could never know-or if there would be no way for you to know-that they were the bones of Christ, then your belief isn't falsifiable. If your belief isn't falsifiable the do you really believe on the basis of evidence?

Incorrect, you ignored the crust of my response to you.

Yes I do not think that it's very likely, even if Jesus was an ordinary mortal man, that his bones would ever be found.

But as I said before, your argument rests on the claims that the gospels were written after AD 70, or were tampered with, and that's the kind of evidence I expect you to produce.

I don't say this lightly, but I don't think you're being sincere. You know that there's absolutely no evidence one could present that would make you change your mind.

No, I repeat myself. If you had an Ossuary, I would be sceptical. I am sceptical that the James ossuary is in fact genuine, I'm on record as saying that, and it would in no way be hypocritical of me to be sceptical of it!!

You say that there is, but that's just verbal behavior. You've created impossible conditions and you're okay with that? That's not the intellectual attitude one has when forming one's beliefs on the basis of evidence.

...

Impossible conditions? It's not my fault that IESOUS would be inscribed upon hundreds if not thousands of period correct ossuaries, and that it'd be a rather simple task to carve in some extra inscriptions that make it appear that your random, bland ossuary contain the bones of somebody important!

If you opened it up, and there was a crown of thorns inside, with crucified bones, and the piece of wood which read "king of the jews", buried in a family plot with James, Joseph and Mary, then yes you would have sufficient evidence. If all you have is the ossuary with an inscription, and that is it, then it's my right to be sceptical.

---

. 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.

Provide references, and reasoning for your dating. I've already done this, just asking you to provide the same level of information.

[The Reality Salesman01]

I don't understand how you could not have a response to such a straight forward question regarding something that is so central to your life. You don't seem sure about what it would take to make your belief falsifiable.

Really? I gave you a completely straightforward answer. Inscriptions can be forged, just about anything can be forged.

You seem to be obsessed with dates as if they prove something. Your responses are becoming more and more lethargic as you go on.

Perhaps you are trying to respond to too many people at once. A self proclaimed skeptic of text such as youself must know that The Bible can be authentically dated, and the things written in it can still be false.

For whatever reason, you have chosen not to be skeptical of this. It is my guess that you have been blinded by confirmation bias and your beliefs are immune to revision.

Your position is indistinguishable from a delusion at this point. I don't think anything constructive will come from this exchange.

Thank you for your time.

[DeistPaladin]

I have "pulled" nothing out of the air.

Actually, I agree. I see what you've done here. You've used folklore, assumed everything about it to be true and then created artificial dates that conform to your assumptions.

As an aside, I especially love the way you can tout scholarly consensus when it suits you and then ignore it or discount it when it doesn't. Scholarly consensus on the dates of authorship, which actually are generous to Christians as they use the earliest possible dates, is Mark around 70 CE and the others came later.

The authorship of the Gospels is actually quite dubious, even among Christian Bible scholars. The NRSV 3rd Edition (Oxford University Press) states in it's introduction of Mark and Luke that their authorship is given by "tradition" and "scholars find little evidence to support this claim". In particular with Luke, "little is known of him" except that he was believed to be a physician traveling with Paul.

But you employ this beautifully backward reasoning to establish your preferred early dates seemingly, judging by your post, in the following manner:

1. ASSUMPTION: The Bible is true
2. ASSUMPTION: The attributed authorship is accurate
3. ASSUMPTION: The folklore about the Bible and its attributed authors are true
4. COROLLARY: The dates couldn't be later than X because otherwise it wouldn't fit with the folklore and we know the folklore is true (see 3).
5. CONCLUSION: Getting the early dates you propose

Let me throw a monkey wrench in some of your assumptions. First, would you agree that ...? :

1. Luke wrote The Gospel According to Luke
2. Luke wrote The Acts of the Apostles

If so, I'd like to ask a few other questions. Would you agree that ...? :

1. The event where the resurrected Jesus, after appearing to his followers, rose up into the sky is a rather important and memorable detail in the story
2. If Luke wrote both books, than both books should agree on that point

Now, when did Jesus rise up into the sky after his resurrection?

Gospel of Luke: On the day of his resurrection

Luke 24:50-51
And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

Acts of the Apostles: 40 days after the resurrection
Acts 1:3-9 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
...And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

I could go into more contradictions between the Gospel of Luke and Acts but that should suffice for now. I look forward to reading the mental contortions you engage into square this circle.

[WesOlsen]

WesOlsen Wrote: . 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.

Provide references, and reasoning for your dating. I've already done this, just asking you to provide the same level of information.

Oh yawn. Very well, I'm actually borrowing heavily from Dan Barker as already mentioned, from his book "Godless" which is half autobiographical account of his years as a fundamentalist preacher, and subsequent lapse of faith and turn to reason, then second half is a logical breakdown of bible contradictions, dating etc and other factors that led him to question his faith. He himself sources a great many individuals and institutions. On this occasion he's sourced the Westar institute primarily, which as I mentioned in the previous post launched a jesus seminar lasting from about 1985-93 I believe. It's also undertaken a lot of other research. Members all have a PHD in religious studies minimum typically, and i'm positive that there were over 70 of the afore mentioned academics involved in the project, who themselves sourced a great many works (too many for me to list here). It's worth stressing that it's a historical institute rather than a religious one, so i'm sure you'll find it hostile to your religious dogma.

It's worth stressing however, that even if these dates are wrong and we lend more generous dating, shaving a few years off each, just to play it in to your hands a little more, then the chronological order is almost certainly still the same. Even if these accounts were written a year apart, the contents cannot be disputed. Again I challenge you to offer any sort of rational explanation as to why the stories differ so radically, and how the bible can possibly be the word of god if the word of god involves punishing the human race with a drove of conflicting stories? If you don't accept anything in the above chronoligical description, or think that updated information displaces the existing information, please use the same point format to list what you believe is the correct resurrection order, and more importantly list the exact details (who, what, when and where) as I have done, but with the correct characters. Again I also want you to tell me:

. 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?

And again I assert that if this is indeed the true word of god, embodied in a million and one parchments in all good bookstores, then how on earth are non-christians supposed to make sense of it if not even christians can decode the vague, muddled, contradictory and morally bankrupt bed-time stories that are presented to us, in the form of religious propaganda by a handful of Jesus cheerleaders? To say that there is nothing at fault here is to say that black is blue. The bible is 95% quack.

[Godscreated]

1. Luke wrote The Gospel According to Luke
2. Luke wrote The Acts of the Apostles

If so, I'd like to ask a few other questions. Would you agree that ...? :

1. The event where the resurrected Jesus, after appearing to his followers, rose up into the sky is a rather important and memorable detail in the story
2. If Luke wrote both books, than both books should agree on that point

Now, when did Jesus rise up into the sky after his resurrection?

Gospel of Luke: On the day of his resurrection

Luke 24:50-51
And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven.

Acts of the Apostles: 40 days after the resurrection
Acts 1:3-9 To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God:
...And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.

I could go into more contradictions between the Gospel of Luke and Acts but that should suffice for now. I look forward to reading the mental contortions you engage into square this circle.

Picking out one verse in the story want get it, Jesus went to the home of Cleopus and another follower in Emmaus, they arrived after dark and after Jesus disappeared from their midst, they went back to Jerusalem to tell the apostles. This would be day two, your same day theory does not hold up. As far as the rest of the text goes no specific time line is given, but as usual I'm sure you will assume a time line to fit your own ideas no matter how wrong they are.

GC

[DeistPaladin]

Picking out one verse in the story want get it, Jesus went to the home of Cleopus and another follower in Emmaus, they arrived after dark and after Jesus disappeared from their midst, they went back to Jerusalem to tell the apostles. This would be day two, your same day theory does not hold up.

I've re-read the chapter to be sure I didn't miss anything. Here's my reasoning...

Luke 24:13 And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs.
...
24:17-21 And he said unto them, What manner of communications are these that ye have one to another, as ye walk, and are sad? And the one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answering said unto him, Art thou only a stranger in Jerusalem, and hast not known the things which are come to pass there in these days? And he said unto them, What things? And they said unto him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, which was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people: And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this, to day is the third day since these things were done.
...
24:29-30 But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us: for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to tarry with them. And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.
...
24:33 And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,

So, in plain (modern) English:
Early in the morning: Women came to the tomb
Later in the morning: the 11 don't believe them
Afternoon: Journey to Emmaus, confirmation in dialog it was still day 3
Evening: Dinner
Evening: (same hour) running back to other disciples, meeting with Jesus, Jesus blesses them and flies up into the sky

Looks like all in one day to me. I agree it's a pretty packed day but remember Jesus did all four trials in one night (Jews, Pilate, Antipas, back to Pilate).

As far as the rest of the text goes no specific time line is given, but as usual I'm sure you will assume a time line to fit your own ideas no matter how wrong they are.

Do tell, what part of "being seen of them forty days" sounds unspecific to you?