Historical Evidence of the events of the NT

Owen · 06-11-2007 10:15pm #1

BrianCalgary wrote: »

There is no question in anyones mind regarding the miracles perfermed by Christ, His resurrection and virgin birth. And I find it very offensive that you would poopoo these events as superstition and wacky when the historical evidence of such happenings are quite clear.

Could you provide actual evidence of there being a Virgin Birth, or a Ressurection please? And not quotes from the Bible. I don't think there's any historical evidence at all.

BrianCalgary · 06-11-2007 10:32pm

ned78 wrote: »

Could you provide actual evidence of there being a Virgin Birth, or a Ressurection please? And not quotes from the Bible. I don't think there's any historical evidence at all.

Please explain why you disallow the utilisation of the Bible as historical evidence?

Owen · 06-11-2007 10:35pm

Because it's a heavily biased and in my opinion, exaggerated account of a very uneducated and easily swayed time of humanity. For example, if I write a book about my talking frog, and then try to convince you I have a talking frog by showing you my 'evidence'/book, you're hardly going to believe it.

Evidence of a virgin birth, would involve finding mary's corpse, and if by some miracle her flesh was preserved, a hymen would be actual evidence. A book with a nice story isn't.

robindch · 06-11-2007 11:09pm

brian wrote:

Please explain why you disallow the utilisation of the Bible as historical evidence?

I don't disallow it as historical evidence, I just don't claim that it's perfect and accurate in every respect as you claim yourself. And one does have to ask oneself Hume's brutally direct question -- what's more likely: a man stayed alive when he died, or somebody wrote a story (later accepted as true) in which a man is said to have stayed alive when he died?

I've read chunks of the NT in the original Greek, I've read the infinitely more poetic KJV translations of it, and I've read substantial amounts of other contemporary authors in Greek, Latin and English. And I've come to exactly the same conclusion as the christian, and far more rigorous, Bart Ehrman has: namely, that the documents that we have today cannot be trusted either to be faithful copies of the originals and they cannot be trusted to be accurate accounts of the events which are alleged to have taken place.

Scofflaw · 06-11-2007 11:26pm

ned78 wrote: »

Evidence of a virgin birth, would involve finding mary's corpse, and if by some miracle her flesh was preserved, a hymen would be actual evidence.

Of course, in that case they'd also need to find the scar from her Caesarian section.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw · 06-11-2007 11:28pm

robindch wrote: »

I don't disallow it as historical evidence, I just don't claim that it's perfect and accurate in every respect as you claim yourself. And one does have to ask oneself Hume's brutally direct question -- what's more likely: a man stayed alive when he died, or somebody wrote a story (later accepted as true) in which a man is said to have stayed alive when he died?

I've read chunks of the NT in the original Greek, I've read the infinitely more poetic KJV translations of it, and I've read substantial amounts of other contemporary authors in Greek, Latin and English. And I've come to exactly the same conclusion as the christian, and far more rigorous, Bart Ehrman has: namely, that the documents that we have today cannot be trusted either to be faithful copies of the originals and they cannot be trusted to be accurate accounts of the events which are alleged to have taken place.

Or to put it another way, of course the Bible is admissible as evidence, but like any other ancient source it cannot be taken at face value.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Owen · 06-11-2007 11:29pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Of course, in that case they'd also need to find the scar from her Caesarian section.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Indeed, but it was meant as an extreme example to show what evidence actually is, as opposed to a book full of stories being interpreted as evidence.

Scofflaw · 06-11-2007 11:44pm

ned78 wrote: »

Indeed, but it was meant as an extreme example to show what evidence actually is, as opposed to a book full of stories being interpreted as evidence.

Well, it is evidence. It just isn't conclusive, definitive, or even possible to understand or assess without a lot of expert training.

Put it this way: a note describing a murder, and purporting to be written by an eye-witness, is certainly evidence, and undoubtedly admissible - the question is, is it genuine, truthful, accurate, etc.

Exactly the same questions arise with the Bible - but it is still evidence.

cordially,
Scofflaw

philologos · 07-11-2007 8:09am

Theres proof of his existence and crucifixion in Josephus' Jewish Antiquities.

Zombrex · 07-11-2007 10:26am

Jakkass wrote: »

Theres proof of his existence and crucifixion in Josephus' Jewish Antiquities.

There is? Really? "Proof"?

Can we see it?

Dave! · 07-11-2007 12:03pm

I'd also like to see it, but even if there is evidence that he existed and was crucified -- what's the significance of that? To me that just says that a bloke existed, caused the Romans a bit of grief, and was crucified for his troubles, just like many others.

I've said before that I'm willing to countenance the notion that Jesus existed, tried to reform the Jewish teachings, was poorly received by the authorities, and was killed. That's not an unreasonable or unlikely series of events. It's also possible that a cult should develop around this man, and when you throw in a few myths and stories, he suddenly becomes divine.

Still, I'm not sure that even that is supported by unbiased historical analysis.

djpbarry · 07-11-2007 12:08pm

DaveMcG wrote: »

I'd also like to see it, but even if there is evidence that he existed and was crucified -- what's the significance of that? To me that just says that a bloke existed, caused the Romans a bit of grief, and was crucified for his troubles, just like many others.

I've said before that I'm willing to countenance the notion that Jesus existed, tried to reform the Jewish teachings, was poorly received by the authorities, and was killed. That's not an unreasonable or unlikely series of events. It's also possible that a cult should develop around this man, and when you throw in a few myths and stories, he suddenly becomes divine.

Still, I'm not sure that even that is supported by unbiased historical analysis.

Agreed.

JimiTime · 07-11-2007 12:48pm

just out of curiosity. If for arguements sake, I as a Christian, showed you a sign like say, I made a blind man see, or made a paraplegic walk through Holy spirit, I.E. I said see, and he saw, or i said walk and he walked. Assuming that it was genuine. Would you then be baptised, and follow Christ? Actually I think I'll take this to the A&A forum.

Zombrex · 07-11-2007 12:51pm

JimiTime wrote: »

just out of curiosity. If for arguements sake, I as a Christian, showed you a sign like say, I made a blind man see, or made a paraplegic walk through Holy spirit, I.E. I said see, and he saw, or i said walk and he walked. Assuming that it was genuine. Would you then be baptised, and follow Christ? Actually I think I'll take this to the A&A forum.

No.

But I would be impressed.

My first question is "how did you do that?" followed closely by "what exactly did you do?"

I don't mean that in a skeptical way, I would be genuinely interested in what actually happened.

Scofflaw · 07-11-2007 12:53pm

JimiTime wrote: »

just out of curiosity. If for arguements sake, I as a Christian, showed you a sign like say, I made a blind man see, or made a paraplegic walk through Holy spirit, I.E. I said see, and he saw, or i said walk and he walked. Assuming that it was genuine. Would you then be baptised, and follow Christ?

Hmm. I'd need several other randomly chosen Christians to perform similar miracles, because otherwise I might as well just proclaim you as the next Messiah.

Assuming you could do that, then personally, no. If such powers were available through Christ, then the utter failure of Christ to do anything about the enormous misery found around the world and throughout history would argue that He was a deity at best negligent, at worst sadistic.

cordially,
Scofflaw

JimiTime · 07-11-2007 1:04pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Hmm. I'd need several other randomly chosen Christians to perform similar miracles, because otherwise I might as well just proclaim you as the next Messiah.

Assuming you could do that, then personally, no. If such powers were available through Christ, then the utter failure of Christ to do anything about the enormous misery found around the world and throughout history would argue that He was a deity at best negligent, at worst sadistic.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Believe it or not, you prompted me to ask this question:) I remember on occasion you said that even if there was conclusive evidence, you'd still reject God, worship wise.

LaVidaLoca · 07-11-2007 1:12pm

there isnt any historical evidence for this, nor could there possibly be. We dont even have evidence that any of these people even existed, never mind the intricate workings of their reproductive organs.

However, the one thing we do know , as that there were hundreds of cult religions around at the time of the invention of Christianity that also had Virgin Births as a part of their central mythology (and resurrections too)

Its pretty safe to say that Christianity took what seems to be a pretty popular idea, and made it part of it's central mythology.

Christianity is kind of a "Greatest Hits Of Religion" anyway: Most of it's big stories were talken from other religions around at the time. That's why it's proved to be so popular.

The virgin birth idea, appeals to the inherent fear many men have for the female body: The idea that a woman could be a mother without ever having (yuck) had sex.

andy1249 · 07-11-2007 1:14pm

Well , being firmly on the fence here and not jumping on either side ,

I am pretty sure that there is proof that the whole " Virgin" concept is the result of a mistranslation of the original Aramaic descriptive noun for either a woman or an unmarried woman , given that the terms unmarried woman and virgin would have been interchangable at that time.

This is listed in a huge amount of sources , so that , I would definitely take as fact. That it was never listed in any of the original sources of biblical text that she was a virgin , that it is just a mistranslation which has been zealously indoctrinated into the faith.

Scofflaw · 07-11-2007 1:18pm

JimiTime wrote: »

Believe it or not, you prompted me to ask this question:) I remember on occasion you said that even if there was conclusive evidence, you'd still reject God, worship wise.

Good idea for a thread (I see you've started one in A&A). Yes, I'm afraid I rejected God first, while still accepting His existence, then concluded that His existence was extraordinarily unlikely, then decided that if I rejected Him, and if He probably didn't exist anyway, I might as well be an atheist. I still think that His existence or non-existence is completely unprovable, and the idea that we've explained everything without reference to God is palpable nonsense.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Zombrex · 07-11-2007 1:28pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

and the idea that we've explained everything without reference to God is palpable nonsense.

What did we explain with reference to God?

Scofflaw · 07-11-2007 5:48pm

Wicknight wrote: »

Scofflaw wrote:

and the idea that we've explained everything without reference to God is palpable nonsense.

What did we explain with reference to God?

Sorry, there's probably room for a comma in there - in other words, the belief that we've explained scientifically (hence, without reference to God) everything that can be explained is palpable nonsense.

We therefore do not know what limits we might encounter, either by virtue of what the rest of the Universe contains (and let's face it, we have directly experienced essentially none of it) or by virtue of what greater scientific understanding might reveal.

So, true, we have not yet had to explain anything with reference to God, but to argue that that shows we will never need to explain anything with reference to God is clearly a belief statement.

cordially,
Scofflaw

robindch · 07-11-2007 5:49pm

Jakkass wrote:

Theres proof of his existence and crucifixion in Josephus' Jewish Antiquities.

You're referring to the Testimonium Flavianum from Josephus' Antiquitates Judaicae. The Wikipedia article on this gives a useful overview of why few people accept this as genuine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus

To summarise, it fails standard textual consistency tests as it uses words + constructions not used elsewhere in Josephus; it's a strangely 'christian' comment to include for a jew to make; it's very similar to comments that Eusebius made, and it's not referred to by other (relatively) contemporary authors.

And even all 100 words of the testimony were incontrovertibly known to have been written by Josephus, it's still not convincing evidence. Jesus had been dead for several years by the time Josephus was born, so he must have heard the story from somebody else and did not witness the events he describes.

Zombrex · 07-11-2007 8:37pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

Sorry, there's probably room for a comma in there - in other words, the belief that we've explained scientifically (hence, without reference to God) everything that can be explained is palpable nonsense.

We therefore do not know what limits we might encounter, either by virtue of what the rest of the Universe contains (and let's face it, we have directly experienced essentially none of it) or by virtue of what greater scientific understanding might reveal.

So, true, we have not yet had to explain anything with reference to God, but to argue that that shows we will never need to explain anything with reference to God is clearly a belief statement.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Thanks, I understand what you are saying, and of course agree

Fanny Cradock · 07-11-2007 9:33pm

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

there isnt any historical evidence for this, nor could there possibly be. We dont even have evidence that any of these people even existed, never mind the intricate workings of their reproductive organs.

However, the one thing we do know , as that there were hundreds of cult religions around at the time of the invention of Christianity that also had Virgin Births as a part of their central mythology (and resurrections too)

Its pretty safe to say that Christianity took what seems to be a pretty popular idea, and made it part of it's central mythology.

Christianity is kind of a "Greatest Hits Of Religion" anyway: Most of it's big stories were talken from other religions around at the time. That's why it's proved to be so popular.

The virgin birth idea, appeals to the inherent fear many men have for the female body: The idea that a woman could be a mother without ever having (yuck) had sex.

Done to death...

That claim has been made so many times that I've lost count at this stage. I've yet to see anyone make a decent stab at it bar the ganeral vague accusations. What you are doing here is mixing falsehoods with some Freudian nonsense and coming up with a pile o horse apples.

Dave! · 08-11-2007 12:27am

What's a pile o horse apples? That many religious figures are born or conceived by "unconventional" methods? Or LaVidaLoca's reasoning for this?

robindch · 08-11-2007 12:06pm

Fanny Craddock wrote:

That claim has been made so many times that I've lost count at this stage.

It's come up a few times alright, but christians have a tendency to rubbish the claim, rather than respond to it.

And it's not some Freudian nonsense either. All the Abrahamic religions require people to believe that sex, menstruation, childbirth and just about everything female is ritually impure. It should surprise nobody that the deity's messenger is supposed to have been delivered by a ritually pure woman.

djpbarry · 08-11-2007 12:11pm

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

What you are doing here is mixing falsehoods with some Freudian nonsense and coming up with a pile o horse apples.

Seems like a reasonable claim to me. Specifically, what falsehoods are you referring to?

PDN · 08-11-2007 6:17pm

robindch wrote: »

All the Abrahamic religions require people to believe that sex, menstruation, childbirth and just about everything female is ritually impure.

I am delighted that Robin no longer considers my church to be an Abrahamic religion.

robindch · 08-11-2007 7:04pm

PDN wrote:

I am delighted that Robin no longer considers my church to be an Abrahamic religion.

I should, of course, have written the following:

robindch wrote:

All the Abrahamic religions originally required people to believe that sex, menstruation, childbirth and just about everything female is ritually impure.

The context was the origin of the religions, not their current forms, and this wasn't clear from my post. Thanks for pointing this out.

As PDN implies, as society has evolved, so too have the Abrahamic religions and the spectrum of belief extends from where they once were (and beyond) to the bright, sunlit uplands where males and females have equal rights.

But some places move more slowly than others:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/21/at_texas_theological_school_the_role_of_the_godly_woman_101/

Excelsior · 08-11-2007 7:26pm

The OP doesn't seem to have a problem with the, let's call it day-to-day stuff in the NT, like the idea that there was a fifth gate in Jerusalem or that there was a hill in Athens called after the god Mars.

S/he makes this query about the events in the NT that it calls "signs and wonders". We often call them miracles. I'd love to know from the OP, what kind of evidence might convince them of such events in any context and then specifically, what might convince them that these events had happened in antiquity.

djpbarry · 08-11-2007 7:31pm

robindch wrote: »

But some places move more slowly than others:

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/21/at_texas_theological_school_the_role_of_the_godly_woman_101/

Scary stuff. And people say Islam is chauvinistic...

Excelsior wrote: »

I'd love to know from the OP, what kind of evidence might convince them of such events in any context and then specifically, what might convince them that these events had happened in antiquity.

Archaeological evidence would be a good start.

Historical Evidence of the events of the NT

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