The Historical Reliability of the New Testament

[nihilistcat]

Do catholics still whip themselves in to pay penance for their sins, because they perceive our human form (especially our sexuality) to be repulsive? Oh wait, isn't the new spin, sexuality is great as long as you accept their subjugating and misogynistic take on it, and while they still believe in penance (and there's still this weird underlying homoerotic purity fetish) ... they stopped whipping themselves (cause, well, I assume even catholics aren't that stupid anymore)?

So I guess my real question is ... why does catholicism hate our biological form so much? I can see wanting better (I'd love to be a cyborg), but I still like the human form? 

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Even the Bible says not to pay any attention to Jewish fairy tales.  We know that the New Testament is not historically accurate because it contains a lot of scenes in which there were no independent witnesses.  Therefore the writers could not have known about those incidents and what was said during those times.

How do you know there were no independent witnesses?

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Who was with Jesus and Satan when they were in the wilderness?  

Did anyone see Jesus pray in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36)?

[Jenny A]

How do you know there were no independent witnesses?

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Who was with Jesus and Satan when they were in the wilderness?  

Did anyone see Jesus pray in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36)?

And how could anyone but Mary possibly have known she was a virgin?

[Lemonvariable72]

Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning.
-- Robert Green Ingersoll

Kind of telling that ingersoll spoke in the 19th century, and yet there is still is no good refutation of his arguments.

[Mudhammam]

Ah, but Nestor, I'm not buying into your assertion that the authors used Jesus as their mouthpiece.

However, let's pursue this for a moment. You've read the thread and know my positions, but I need to know yours.

1. Who are the authors of the gospels?
2. When were they written approximately?
3. What was their motivation for writing?

Mark - Unknown, 65 - 75 AD
Matthew - Unknown, 75 - 90 AD
Luke - Possibly someone named Luke who knew Paul, 75 - 90 AD
John - Someone in the "Johannine community," a network of churches in Asia Minor, 90 - 100 AD

I usually go with a dating that is somewhere in the middle of conservative and liberal scholars, as that seems to be a safe bet considering the arguments for and against earlier or later dates.

While all of the questions you posed admit of only speculative guesses, determining motivation is probably the most uncertain, but I see the purpose of the Gospels as primarily setting forth the theological ideas circulating amongst the early churches, with an eye to the virtuous life as embodied by the ideal godly man, whom they believed was exemplified by Jesus. Like myths that came before them, they use allegories and miraculous signs to convey their beliefs about the relation between man and deity, with a sort of Herodotean view of history, employing a narrative structure as a means to express their conceptions of truth in a manner that the average first-century listener will remember when the story is being read in front of a private audience.

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I should also note that Mark is almost certainly the earliest, as all of the other Gospels (with the greatest exception in John) adhere to a similar format and often expound on ideas in that gospel, Matthew and Luke borrowing entire sections as well as mirroring each other to a substantial degree that one must have either been correcting the other's work (such as in placement or ordering of events and sayings) or they were both using an earlier common source (the Q hypothesis).

[Minimalist]

Who was with Jesus and Satan when they were in the wilderness?  

Did anyone see Jesus pray in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36)?

And how could anyone but Mary possibly have known she was a virgin?

As an old college prof of mine once said "it wasn't the finger of god that touched her!"

[Cyberman]

Whatever God does will be used against him by those who reject Him.

Poor thing. You'll have me in tears in a minute.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Who was with Jesus and Satan when they were in the wilderness?  

Did anyone see Jesus pray in Gethsemane (Matthew 26:36)?

And how could anyone but Mary possibly have known she was a virgin?

It was the custom for the father to take a piece of cloth and stick it up the girl's vagina.  If it came out bloody she was a virgin.   Evidently it was done just before the girl got married.  The father then kept the bloody rag as evidence that the girl was a virgin, at least she was when he stuck the rag in her.  The procedure is in the Bible.

Deuteronomy 22:17 = https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/De...my%2022:17

[Ravenshire]

Whatever God does will be used against him by those who reject Him.

Poor thing. You'll have me in tears in a minute.

Isn't amazing they way christers will misrepresent a comment by a prominent atheist then use it as evidence for their claims?

[Jenny A]

And how could anyone but Mary possibly have known she was a virgin?

It was the custom for the father to take a piece of cloth and stick it up the girl's vagina.  If it came out bloody she was a virgin.   Evidently it was done just before the girl got married.  The father then kept the bloody rag as evidence that the girl was a virgin, at least she was when he stuck the rag in her.  The procedure is in the Bible.

Deuteronomy 22:17 = https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/De...my%2022:17

Hardly accurate.  All sorts of things that are not penetration will rupture a hymen.  I did it myself climbing on a jungle gym at seven or so.  Scared both me and my Mom for rather different reasons.  I thought I was internally injured.  She thought I'd been raped. And you can get pregnant from a guy ejaculating outside the vagina without penetration.

And the Bible doesn't mention either Mary's Dad, or Joseph testing.  Joseph apparently believes it because an angel told him so.