The Historical Jesus

[Sheldon]

Hello h3311inac311...

Can you demonstrate any objective evidence for any deity, or that any deity is possible? 

You seem to be ignoring that question? 

Do you know that the canonical gospel are anonymous, no one knows who wrote them, and the earliest of them dates to decades after the events they purport to describe. Tha names, Matthew Mark Luke and John were assigned arbitrarily over 3 centuries later, in an attempt to lend the gospel myths some gravitas. 

Not one contemporary word was written about the Jesus character, and thus there are no eyewitness accounts to anything outside of the unevidenced claims in the hearsay of the gospel myths. 

The difference in the genealogies is a contradiction, they cannot both be true.
It's in the bible, I am not researching this for you, if you want to ignore this contradiction that's up to you, but it is a well known fact among biblical scholars. 

The two accounts have them living in different places??

Yes it clearly is "Matthew says that Jesus' family fled to Egypt after the birth and moved to Nazareth only after the death of Herod. Luke says they were living in Nazareth all along and returned there immediately after Jesus was circumcised." Those accounts axiomatically contradict each other. 

The quote explains specifically how the chronology of events in Luke contradicts the chronological events in Mathew, it can't be made any clearer??

The most efficacious way to determine truth is the amount of objective evidence that support a claim, we have none for the any deity, or that a deity is even possible.

I wasn't planning on making this topic about "is God real" or "how do you know the Hebrew God is real" so that's why I've been ignoring that aspect of the discussion.

Well as I said originally, why would I care if he existed? Since assuming you could demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt he was real, there would still be no objective reason to believe he was anything but human. You clearly must care about the distinction, as you claim to be a Christian. 

If I'm being honest I don't know the process by which we got the names of the Gospel writers, 

Of course you do, I just gave it to you? More surprising is that as a Christian you did not know that the canonical gospel myths are all anonymous or unauthored, or that the names Matthew Mark Luke and John were assigned arbitrarily over three centuries later, at the first council of Nicaea. You've also had plenty of time to Google that as well. 

I'm not sure how knowing the name of the person who wrote something affects the credibility of what they wrote.

"Historical method"
Source criticism:

1. When was the source, written or unwritten, produced (date)?
   
   
2. Where was it produced (localization)?
   
   
3. By whom was it produced (authorship)?
   
   
4. From what pre-existing material was it produced (analysis)?
   
   
5. In what original form was it produced (integrity)?
   
   
6. What is the evidential value of its contents (credibility)?
   

Does that help you understand why it's relevant? See specifically point 3...

Okay so there goes all of ancient history.

That's a pretty dishonest false equivalence fallacy, Jesus historicity is substantially less well evidenced than (for example) Alexander the Great, if you don't care, then why on earth did you start a thread asking the question?

Sorry but someone writing a whole biography about someone's life less than a century after they died was actually pretty rare back then.

Oh dear...Alexander the Great (for one example) had contemporary biographers, for example Callisthenes; Alexander's generals Ptolemy and Nearchus; Aristobulus, a junior officer on the campaigns; and Onesicritus, Alexander's chief helmsman, there are artifacts with his likeness on them, a bust of Alexander made by Lysippus that is in the Louvre Museum in Paris, was said at the time to be an accurate likeness. 

As for early mentions of Jesus we have the James Ossuary which is dated to around 70 AD

It's authenticity is dubious, do you ever fact check your claims? CITATION "The lack of transparency with the IAA's findings have deterred international experts from giving their opinions on the authenticity of the ossuary."

Beyond that we also have Jesus mentioned in the Talmud.

Do we? "Most Talmudic stories which figure around an individual named "Yeshu" are framed in time periods which do not synchronize with one other, nor do they align with the scholarly consensus of Jesus' lifetime, with chronological discrepancies sometimes amounting to as much as a century before or after the accepted dates of Jesus' birth and death."

I must say that seems tenuous to me. 

1) How many parents do you have?

The gospel myths contain two wildly deferring genealogies, that is a fact. Your question has no relevance to that fact?

2) Can you name one of these Biblical scholars?

Just fact check it yourself, you're capable of that surely? There is a consensus among biblical scholars, that the gospel myths aforenamed, give contradictory dates for the birth of the Jesus character.

3) Again I'm still not seeing the contradiction here.

Sheldon: The two accounts have them living in different places??

Both stories can be true at the same time. 

The gospel myths have them living in entirely different places at corresponding times. if you want to ignore this then why ask for contradictions? 

Sheldon: "Matthew says that Jesus' family fled to Egypt after the birth and moved to Nazareth only after the death of Herod. Luke says they were living in Nazareth all along and returned there immediately after Jesus was circumcised." Those accounts axiomatically contradict each other. 

No, Luke simply doesn't mention that Jesus was taken to Egypt after being circumcised. It is certainly not an axiomatic contradiction as you say. Both accounts can be true at the same time.

Matthew 2:13–45, 19-21, said "after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary took baby Jesus to EGYPT" whereas Luke 2:21–22, 39–40, said, "after the birth of Jesus, Joseph and Mary took baby Jesus to NAZARETH" How can it be simultaneously true they fled to two different countries? 
I note you didn't address this contradiction at all:
"Luke knows nothing of Herod's slaughter of the innocents or of a flight to Egypt. In fact, by Luke's chronology, Herod was already dead when Jesus was born."

I am not surprised, as you seem to be using dishonest hand waving when you're spoon fed the very contradictions you asked for. 
I note this went without response as well...

I think we have every reason to believe in the Historical Jesus, but beyond that we have the witness of the apostles, men who were willing to die for their risen King.

Seldon: I don't agree, the evidence he existed at all is scant at best, and there are no witnesses, only claims by anonymous authors, made decades after the events they purport to describe? Not one word was written about Jesus until decades after he was alleged to have died. The fact a man is willing to die for a belief tells us absolutely nothing about the truth of that belief, that is axiomatic, or you would have to accept all the claims by adherents of other religions who willingly died for them.

Quelle surprise...

[Belacqua]

More surprising is that as a Christian you did not know that the canonical gospel myths are all anonymous or unauthored, or that the names Matthew Mark Luke and John were assigned arbitrarily over three centuries later, at the first council of Nicaea. You've also had plenty of time to Google that as well. 

If you follow the link you've given, and then scroll down to the section labelled "Misconceptions," you'll see this:

Misconceptions

Biblical canon

Main article: Development of the Christian Biblical canon

There is no record of any discussion of the biblical canon at the council.[85] The development of the biblical canon was nearly complete (with exceptions known as the Antilegomena, written texts whose authenticity or value is disputed) by the time the Muratorian fragment was written.[86] The main source of the idea that the canon was created at the Council of Nicaea seems to be Voltaire, who popularised a story that the canon was determined by placing all the competing books on an altar during the Council and then keeping the ones that did not fall off. The original source of this "fictitious anecdote" is the Synodicon Vetus,[87] a pseudo-historical account of early Church councils from 887.[88]

So the source you've provided indicates that what you've said is false. The biblical canon was almost completely developed before the time of the Council, and the names of the gospel writers had long been established. 

This is not to say that each gospel was written by the person named in the title. Only that the traditional attributions happened much earlier. 

Here is the link to the main Wikipedia article on the formation of the gospels:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_c...ian_canons

Here is an academic, non-partisan history of how the gospels were developed and used by the early Christians. I'm linking to the study guide, but if you listen to the whole course it's very helpful:

https://yalebiblestudy.org/courses/forma...udy-guide/

[Sheldon]

So the source you've provided indicates that what you've said is false. 

All the original copies of the canonical gospels were unauthored.

[Belacqua]

So the source you've provided indicates that what you've said is false. 

Are you saying the canonical gospels were not anonymous?

I'm saying that this sentence:

the names Matthew Mark Luke and John were assigned arbitrarily over three centuries later, at the first council of Nicaea.

is false.

[Sheldon]

Are you saying the canonical gospels were not anonymous?

I'm saying that this sentence:

the names Matthew Mark Luke and John were assigned arbitrarily over three centuries later, at the first council of Nicaea.

is false.

The earliest they were assigned was in the 2nd century, though there is some dispute, so this doesn't change the fact that they were unauthored, or that they were written decades after the events they purport to describe.

[Belacqua]

I'm saying that this sentence:


is false.

The earliest they were assigned was in the 2nd century

OK, so we agree that the thing about the Council of Nicea was wrong. That's good.

, though there is some dispute

That's true. 

, so this doesn't change the fact that they were unauthored

What does "unauthored" mean? They certainly had authors. People wrote them. (I don't think you want to say that they were revealed by or received from God.)

If you want to say that they were not authored by the individual they get their names from, that's most likely true. The Gospel of Luke was probably not written by Luke. Some of the letters attributed to Paul were written by Paul, and some probably weren't. 

, or that they were written decades after the events they purport to describe.

That's probably true. Although there's some dispute. But "decades" is probably safe.

[The Grand Nudger]

What Paul? A ghost, just like that christ guy he's always babbling about.

[h311inac311]

On the issue of Gospel authorship here I have found a video which summarizes things in a way that is fairly easy to follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7s22DR9gaI

First of all, most histories at this time did not have the author refer to themselves within the body of work itself. At the same time, a work usually wouldn't be accepted if the author couldn't be identified by some other means. This is why the scroll would usually come with another piece of writing attached to it giving information about who the author was (sort of like the address on the outside of an envelope). 

There were early church fathers, such as Papias, who would refuse to acknowledge a writing as scripture if an author could not be identified. He ended up identifying all 4 Gospel writers. We also have some fragmentary manuscripts which identify some of the Gospel authors such as P 66 and P 4. We also have other 2nd century sources such as Clement of Alexandria as well as Irenaeus who both were able to identify all 4 Gospel authors. And, for some reason, all of these sources point to the same 4 names being assigned to the same four Gospels, exactly as our modern Bibles attribute them.

This is all in contrast to the book of Hebrews, the one book of the New Testament for which we do not know the author. Given that this is the case multiple different authors have been speculated about such as Luke, Paul, Barnabas and Clement of Rome.

If the Gospels were anonymous then we would expect there to be a wider amount of speculation around who wrote them. Do you have any evidence in favor of a different author possibly being responsible for writing any one of the 4 Gospels?

[Sheldon]

So; I'm curious about where you guys stand on the reality of Jesus' 1) death, 2) burial, and 3) resurrection.

4) Do you believe that Jesus was a real person? 5) Or do you believe that he was just made up by the disciples? 6) How much of the story do you think is true?

1) If he existed then I think his death is a highly probable outcome. 
2) Anonymous uncorroborated hearsay. 
3) I have no objective reason to believe anything supernatural is possible. 
4) Not enough evidence to be sure. 
5) Why is that an option, what evidence supports this? 
6) There is some scant independent evidence the Roman authorities executed a political prisoner, in a pretty common way (crucifixion), this prisoner is claimed to have had a common enough name.

[Sheldon]

On the issue of Gospel authorship here I have found a video which summarizes things in a way that is fairly easy to follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7s22DR9gaI

Not interested thanks, I know what anonymous means, and I understand the importance of a primary source when validating historical material, as I explained above. 

First of all, most histories at this time did not have the author refer to themselves within the body of work itself. 

1) Not true, I gave you an example above of contemporary biographers for Alexander the Great. 
2) A false equivalence, as historical records are generally not making claims for supernatural magic, from unevidenced deities. 
3) The gospel myths are anonymous hearsay, which is pretty poor evidence for anything beyond the most trivial events. 

There were early church fathers, such as Papias, who would refuse to acknowledge a writing as scripture if an author could not be identified. He ended up identifying all 4 Gospel writers. We also have some fragmentary manuscripts which identify some of the Gospel authors such as P 66 and P 4. We also have other 2nd century sources such as Clement of Alexandria as well as Irenaeus who both were able to identify all 4 Gospel authors. And, for some reason, all of these sources point to the same 4 names being assigned to the same four Gospels, exactly as our modern Bibles attribute them.

The earliest copies are all unauthored, what you're talking about is subjective speculation. 

If the Gospels were anonymous then we would expect there to be a wider amount of speculation around who wrote them. Do you have any evidence in favor of a different author possibly being responsible for writing any one of the 4 Gospels?

There is no if, the earliest copies are all unauthored, this is an accepted fact. Speculating on who might have written them won't change this.