Non-Christian accounts of Jesus's miracles

Fallen Seraph

Does anyone know where I could find some non-Christian accounts of Jesus's miracles exist or where I could find them (preferably not on a website run by christians) ?

Akrasia

Fallen Seraph wrote:

Does anyone know where I could find some non-Christian accounts of Jesus's miracles exist or where I could find them (preferably not on a website run by christians) ?

if you mean first hand accounts, there aren't any.

panda100

Well Luke was a doctor and wasnt any sort of disciple or apostle of Jesus.His book is a first hand account from a man off high standidng in the commuity at the time,he was a doctor, and he was wrote his book from an outsiders point of view.Well this is what I can remember from GSCE religous studies....am i correct?

Akrasia

well, Luke, was a follower of Paul, who was an apostle of Christ, so it's not accurate to describe him as an independent observer.
He never even met Jesus, his gospel was written around 60 years after Jesus died so none of what he wrote was a primary first hand evidence

Zombrex

Fallen Seraph wrote:

Does anyone know where I could find some non-Christian accounts of Jesus's miracles exist or where I could find them (preferably not on a website run by christians) ?

There are very few non-Christian accounts of Jesus or the movement around him (the "Christians" meaning followers of the Messiah). AFAIK there are no independent accounts of the resurrection or any of the other "miricles" Jesus is supposed to have performed.

Some have claimed the Luke was an historian ahead of being a Christian so his accounts should be accurate. But at the best Luke was told the story of Jesus by Paul while Paul was in prision, Paul who himself never meet the living Jesus. Other theories claim the gosspel is simply a loose copy of the gosspel of Mark

BrianCalgary

Jewish tradition talks about Jesus being a healer and miracle worker, even though they are equated with sorcery.

I'm looking for you. FF Bruce has a book called Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament. I'm going to try and get my hands on this book.

Excelsior

Akrasia wrote:

well, Luke, was a follower of Paul, who was an apostle of Christ, so it's not accurate to describe him as an independent observer.
He never even met Jesus, his gospel was written around 60 years after Jesus died so none of what he wrote was a primary first hand evidence

Luke has never been dated to 95AD. Depending on whether you are talking to a Quelle Scholar or not, Luke is dated between 65 and 75AD. Within a generation of Jesus. Within the natural lifetime of Jesus. Like a history book written based on eye-witness accounts of the 1966 World Cup or the election of Liam Cosgrave's government in the 70s.

Zombrex

Excelsior wrote:

Luke has never been dated to 95AD. Depending on whether you are talking to a Quelle Scholar or not, Luke is dated between 65 and 75AD. Within a generation of Jesus. Within the natural lifetime of Jesus. Like a history book written based on eye-witness accounts of the 1966 World Cup or the election of Liam Cosgrave's government in the 70s.

But it wasn't, wasn't it was written based on Paul's teaching from prision, and Paul never meet Jesus (well while he was alive).

Also if you were writing a book on Englands 1966 victory would you write an entire book solely on the accounts of 4 Germans 40 years after the match? Would you consider that book particularly accurate?

BrianCalgary

Wicknight wrote:

But it wasn't, wasn't it was written based on Paul's teaching from prision, and Paul never meet Jesus (well while he was alive).

Also if you were writing a book on Englands 1966 victory would you write an entire book solely on the accounts of 4 Germans 40 years after the match? Would you consider that book particularly accurate?

I would. Because all the events would be verifiable by any of the English who watche dthe match and by newspaper accounts.

In Ancient days part of the deal was correcting the storyteller on his facts as he told the story.

Luke starts of as such:
Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also for me to write an orderly account for you most excellent Theopholis. (NIV)

If what he then proceeded to write was not a true account, then noone would have bought into it and there would not have been copies available nor acceptance of the writings. It was costly to produce a copy, and would not have been worth the price for a fictional account of something as important as this.

Zombrex

BrianCalgary wrote:

I would. Because all the events would be verifiable by any of the English who watche dthe match and by newspaper accounts.

Exactly, those are preciesely the type of things we don't have when talking about Jesus and his followers, ie other accounts of Jesus' miracles from people who were not his followers or who didn't join the early religion.

BrianCalgary wrote:

In Ancient days part of the deal was correcting the storyteller on his facts as he told the story.

Who would correct him? Who is going to say to Paul as he describes the life of Jesus to Luke in a prision "Hold on a sec, I was at the resurrection of Jesus 50 years ago, and I destinctly remember 5 big Roman men moving the bolder out of the way and holding Jesus up and making him dance like a puppet"

BrianCalgary wrote:

If what he then proceeded to write was not a true account, then noone would have bought into it

Well for a start that isn't true, as the teachings of thousands of religions and cults that have clearly nonsense at their heart will tell us. Human nature is such that we believe what we want to believe, not necessarily what is logical or even true.

But more importantly, I am not sure who you are expecting to stand up and say "No that's not how it happened". These books and letters where written decades after the events they descibe, often miles away from where the events were supposed to happen.

A modern self-regulating record system like Wikipedia is constantly running into problems of accuracy in articles, and this is a system with the internet to instantly link millions of people together to be constantly reviewing and updating articles. The idea that back then the people who knew a different version of a story handed down for decades would just be a round to point out the mistakes Luke or the other gosspel writer would be making is just nonsense.

Scofflaw

BrianCalgary wrote:

If what he then proceeded to write was not a true account, then noone would have bought into it and there would not have been copies available nor acceptance of the writings.

Cough...Scientology...cough cough.


cordially,
Scofflaw

Dirk Gently

To the O.P.
There was a documentary recently on channel 4 with a scientific explanation focusing on natural environmental phenomenon for all the miracles allegedly preformed by Jesus.

I realise that you may be looking for ancient non-Christian commentary on the subject but just thought this might be of some interest to you.

I can’t remember the name of the documentary but if you do a search on channel 4 website you might find some reference to it. Sorry for being so vague.

Excelsior

Wicknight wrote:

But it wasn't, wasn't it was written based on Paul's teaching from prision, and Paul never meet Jesus (well while he was alive).

Pick up a copy of Luke. Read it. Tell me what parts seem to be based on recorded interviews with Paul?

Now pick up the sequel, The Acts. Read it. Tell me what parts of the book that detail Luke's attendance at these reputed Acts align with your utterly preposterous theory that he wrote based on jailhouse interviews with Paul.

Now pick up the Pauline corpus. Read it. Paul cites Luke as his fellow traveller, meeting and greeting, eating and worshipping with all the big players of the early movement and thousands of little guys whose names have been forgotten by history. Are we to understand that was Paul supernaturally claiming Luke was with him 20 years before he actually met Luke in prison in Rome?

It becomes increasingly difficult for people to continue arguing against books they aren't even familiar with.

Wicknight wrote:

Also if you were writing a book on Englands 1966 victory would you write an entire book solely on the accounts of 4 Germans 40 years after the match? Would you consider that book particularly accurate?

I can only surmise that blind faith and prejudiced historiagraphy produce this statement. That Luke spanned the Mediterranean visiting churches and meeting with witnesses can't be doubted just by the level of cross referencing. Did you pick the idea of 4 randomly or is this some obscure theory floating around websites? Panda was way off base when s/he claimed that Luke wasn't a believer (and in fantasy land when s/he argues that he wasn't biased since everyone is biased) but you are equally off base suggesting that the 2 accounts he meticulously collected are invalid historical sources.

Excelsior

Wicknight wrote:

Exactly, those are preciesely the type of things we don't have when talking about Jesus and his followers, ie other accounts of Jesus' miracles from people who were not his followers or who didn't join the early religion.

It is an unusual approach to history, I'll give you that. Discredit any opinion that can't be challenged by evidence. It takes a bit of warping to get my mind around the idea of why the Gospels should be distrusted because we have to wait 250 years until we start getting robust attacks on their credibility.

Wicknight wrote:

Who would correct him? Who is going to say to Paul as he describes the life of Jesus to Luke in a prision "Hold on a sec, I was at the resurrection of Jesus 50 years ago, and I destinctly remember 5 big Roman men moving the bolder out of the way and holding Jesus up and making him dance like a puppet"

Let us remember that this is a historical question. Historically, the Jesus movement was posing one of the largest challenges to Roman rule in Judea since it had begun a hundred years previous at the downfall of the Macabbean monarchy. Jesus was put to death by the Romans because there were about a million Jews gathered (as there was at every Passover) in Jerusalem to celebrate the saving hand of their God in their national life and the hope that this hand would intervene again. He arrives in the city on the back of a massive upswell of rural support (you might remember Palm Sunday from your youth) and by the end of the week he hangs on a Cross for the crime of sedition. Jesus was not a small fry. He was a major challenge. That Pilate would appoint a group of men to protect the tomb is proof enough of that.

Now if the Resurrection was in fact a fraud, you would have to explain:
a) How Jesus was alive after crucifixtion
b) How he escaped the tomb
c) How did so many people see him
d) Who was responsible for all this

Wicknight wrote:

Well for a start that isn't true, as the teachings of thousands of religions and cults that have clearly nonsense at their heart will tell us. Human nature is such that we believe what we want to believe, not necessarily what is logical or even true.

Granted. But the thing about Jesus is that his teaching isn't nonsense and it isn't a rehashing of generally accepted ideas. Jesus is most clearly different from other great moral teachers like Ghandi, Buddha, Mohammed or even Nietszche in that he based all this teaching on his own self. Christianity isn't in the same category as Scientology or Aum or Rael.

Wicknight wrote:

But more importantly, I am not sure who you are expecting to stand up and say "No that's not how it happened". These books and letters where written decades after the events they descibe, often miles away from where the events were supposed to happen.

I would expect the 3 struggling power bases of Judaism to challenge the accounts full force. The holiness and lay mobilisation movement of the Pharisees who competed against the mainstream teachers and Rabbis who sought to exalt Torah to sacramental status who cometed against the elite Saduccees who advocated a quite modern Judaism free of nasty ideas like life after death or social equality. Judaism was a highly literate religion which lost the most in the rise of the Jesus movement. Where are they responses to Resurrection? They are in 250AD and onwards. How did they attack the Christians in the early years? As liberal traitors who watered down the core of Judaism. Not as liars who hoaxed a Resurrection.

The Romans put him to death and the Romans were busy spending men and money putting down a huge rebellion in Judea around the time Luke was being written. While this Palestinian rebellion wasn't directly connected to the Jesus movement, it is undoubted that the Resurrection teaching of the followers of The Way would have exerted a huge cultural pressure on the Saduccean movement within Judaism. If Rome declared this Nazarene a con-artist, they would undermine a major plank of the religious movement that was seeking to expel them from the land. No such response came. Instead Roman responses to Christianity centre around the idea that their God could die.

The first recorded fragments of the New Testament are scraps of the 1st Letter to Thessalonika dated to within 8 years of the Resurrection. Interestingly, the fragment reads, "God raised him from the dead". (1 Thess 1:10) The eye-witnesses to Jesus were all alive by the time Mark was written. Most would have still been alive for Luke and Matthew. Youngsters would have been getting old when the apostle John came out of retirement to write his Gospel. And many New Testament scholars postulate an earlier Gospel than Mark which is called Q. The idea that the distance in years or miles between events and records makes the New Testament invalid evidence is again, spurious.

Wicknight wrote:

A modern self-regulating record system like Wikipedia is constantly running into problems of accuracy in articles, and this is a system with the internet to instantly link millions of people together to be constantly reviewing and updating articles. The idea that back then the people who knew a different version of a story handed down for decades would just be a round to point out the mistakes Luke or the other gosspel writer would be making is just nonsense.

To compare Wikipedia to the Gospels is sheer nonsense. If I throw up a career summation of Ben Folds, do you think I am taking the care and consideration I would take if I was writing an account of my belief that God had become a man in the form of a Palestinian carpenter and had somehow begun the regeneration of everything by dying on a Cross. The analogy police are on their way to your premises Wicknight.

Zombrex

Excelsior wrote:

Discredit any opinion that can't be challenged by evidence.

I'm not discrediting anything. I'm not saying it is wrong, I'm saying you don't know it is accurate either. There is very little to back up anything presented in the gospels, apart from faith. Which should be all a Christian needs. But the claim that the gospels are historically accurate description of the events they describe cannot be shown. They might be, but there is no serious historical evidence they are.

Excelsior wrote:

It takes a bit of warping to get my mind around the idea of why the Gospels should be distrusted because we have to wait 250 years until we start getting robust attacks on their credibility.

That is rather silly logic. Because something is not discredited doesn't mean it is accurate.

Excelsior wrote:

Historically, the Jesus movement was posing one of the largest challenges to Roman rule in Judea since it had begun a hundred years previous at the downfall of the Macabbean monarchy.

Well it is debateable if they realised that at the time, but we will assume it accurate ...

Excelsior wrote:

That Pilate would appoint a group of men to protect the tomb is proof enough of that.

Assuming Pilate did appoint a group of men to protect the tomb, it would be a sign that Pilate considered Jesus and his followers a threat, and he was concerned that Jesus would be turned into a martyar.

Excelsior wrote:

a) How Jesus was alive after crucifixtion

How do you know he was?

Excelsior wrote:

b) How he escaped the tomb

How do you know he did?

Excelsior wrote:

c) How did so many people see him

Who saw him and how were their accounts recorded?

Excelsior wrote:

d) Who was responsible for all this

Very good question. I don't know, neither do you.

Excelsior wrote:

Granted. But the thing about Jesus is that his teaching isn't nonsense and it isn't a rehashing of generally accepted ideas.

To a scientologist the idea that we are inhabited with the souls of a long dead alien civilisation isn't nonsense either.

It is rather arrogant to dismiss all other religions as nonsense but believe that your religion actually make sense. It makes sense to you, but not to a lot of people.

"Nonsense" is a relative idea when talking about religion.

Excelsior wrote:

In that he based all this teaching on his own self. Christianity isn't in the same category as Scientology or Aum or Rael.

There are literally thousands of religions and cults that have a belief system based around a central figure to which the religion is based around following. That is nothing new or unique to Christianity.

Excelsior wrote:

Where are they responses to Resurrection? They are in 250AD and onwards. How did they attack the Christians in the early years? As liberal traitors who watered down the core of Judaism. Not as liars who hoaxed a Resurrection.

Like I said that isn't proof either way that the resurrection took place.

It is non-historical reasoning to assume that because there are no records of Jews pointing out to Christians that "actually no your messiah didn't rise from the dead" that means he actually did. Historically it is complete nonsense reasoning.

For a start who would be in a position ot know what really happened at the resurrection?

Secondly, you don't know that Jews didn't accuse the Christians of following a hoax. We just know of no records of that (I assume, I'm taking your word on that).

Excelsior wrote:

No such response came. Instead Roman responses to Christianity centre around the idea that their God could die.

How would they prove he didn't rise from the dead?

Excelsior wrote:

The idea that the distance in years or miles between events and records makes the New Testament invalid evidence is again, spurious.

Like I said, I'm not saying it didn't happen they way it is described. I'm point out we don't know.

What is spurious is that rather ridiculous idea that if anyone knew it wasn't real they would have been able to edit or stop the distribution of the New Testemant texts. And therefore because they didn't that must mean that the resurrection must have happened the way it is described. That is a, historically at least, a ridiculous assumption.

How many people have written books, published news letters and websites that describe Scientology as a nonsense cult based on the rambling ideas of a drunk drugged up second rate sci-fi writer? Has that stop the CoS? Have all Scientologists gone "Your right, it is all nonsense?"

Excelsior wrote:

To compare Wikipedia to the Gospels is sheer nonsense. If I throw up a career summation of Ben Folds, do you think I am taking the care and consideration I would take if I was writing an account of my belief that God

Thats the point, I don't know. I don't know if what you wrote about Ben Folds 5 is accurate or completely made up. I don't know if you researched it for months or made it all up on the toliet.

Likewise with the gospels, you don't know. The idea that it sounds accurate is not an reason to accept it at face value. There are plenty of Wikipedia articles that sound athoritive but are in fact very inaccurate.

Why do you assume the Gospel of Luke is accurate? Because the author says it is? Because the writing sounds accurate?

Even if Luke set out to write the most accurate description he could it is still not a case that the book should be taken face value. People make mistakes, people get things wrong. People slant things to their own perspective. The gospels are after all religious texts.

Excelsior

Let us imagine that some Ancient enjoyed a realisation of dramatic, profound truth. Is there any way an account of this realisation could be passed to you Wicknight today or are you simply oppossed to the idea of truth-dissemination from the ancient era out of philosophical grounds?

Zombrex

Excelsior wrote:

Let us imagine that some Ancient enjoyed a realisation of dramatic, profound truth. Is there any way an account of this realisation could be passed to you Wicknight today or are you simply oppossed to the idea of truth-dissemination from the ancient era out of philosophical grounds?

The more independent sources you would have to more I would believe in it. So far you have none, so yes its a little hard to accept.

At the present the Christian religion has very weak historical evidence of the resurrection, or of the other mircles performed by Jesus. Even the Biblical evidence and accounts are rather weak. Its not like Jesus walked up to the Roman lords in front of hundreds of Jews and Romans and said "oh you are so screwed now!".

Even by the religions own accounts no one witness the resurrection itself. It isn't described in the Bible at all, and no one is reported to have seen it.

The Bible details that 2 people saw a man in the tomb of Jesus after the resurrection. Even within the Bible accounts of what happened vary.

After that you have a handful of people who claim to have seen Jesus over the 40 days after the resurrection. As far as I know none of these people were not already followers of Jesus or became followers afterward. To you that might be evidence of the power of Jesus, but from a historical point of view it makes what they claim to have seen harder to blindly accept as historical fact. It is not uncommon for followers of religions to claim special place within that religion or cult by claiming to have witnessed something extraordinary. With any religion you will get followers who claim to have seen or experienced miraculous events, but it doesn't mean they actually did. Without independent account we cannot know.

If there is some over whelming evidence for the resurrection, or the other mircles, that I'm missing Excelsior please tell me. To me there is no stronger evidence for the Christian mircle of the resurrection than there is for a whole load of other religions that claim a history of mircles or miraculous events.

Excelsior

Wicknight wrote:

The more independent sources you would have to more I would believe in it. So far you have none, so yes its a little hard to accept.

Independent sources don't exist.

Elsewhere you seem to argue for a radical historical skepticism that I can wholeheartedly respect. But then you call for something called an independent source. I can't reconcile the two.

The arguments you have cited about the Biblical text are tremendously flawed but crucially, what difference does it make if a text written 15 years after the Resurrection by a man responsible for killing Christians claims that 500 people saw the Risen Jesus if 1 Corinthians is disregarded as "non independent". Your a priori assumption that testimonies of a remarkable, supernatural event made by purported eye-witnesses must be treated with extreme skepticism renders all discussion invalid.

I think that is what has happened in my previous posts as I try to lay out social and cultural context for Jesus' mission and you respond with the equivalent of "Says who?" Don't misunderstand me. I understand that your response is completely consistent with your interpretation of what you see as flimsy evidence. But for me, your ultra radical position leaves you in a kind of historical nihilism that demands an impartial voice that simply can't exist.

One final thing:

Wicknight wrote:

It is rather arrogant to dismiss all other religions as nonsense but believe that your religion actually make sense.

I feel a need to clarify this. I have never dismissed all other religions as nonsense. I am quite happy to declare that there are nonsense religions but I have a very high regard for others. This is evident from what I wrote:

Excelsior wrote:

...from other great moral teachers like Ghandi, Buddha, Mohammed or even Nietszche...

Zombrex

Excelsior wrote:

Elsewhere you seem to argue for a radical historical skepticism that I can wholeheartedly respect. But then you call for something called an independent source. I can't reconcile the two.

Thats exactly how you reconcile the two.

In history it is the historians job to be skeptical of all records, especially records like religious records, and especially those the claim to explain fantastic events, until he/she is able to verify the accounta with accounts from those outside the religion/cult/organisation/whatever with nothing to gain by making it up (ie independent).

Excelsior I would imagine you would hold this standard to anything else to do with other religions. You don't accept L. Ron Hubbards writing at face value. You (I imagine since you are not a Muslim I think) don't accept the Quar'an at face value.

Excelsior wrote:

Your a priori assumption that testimonies of a remarkable, supernatural event made by purported eye-witnesses must be treated with extreme skepticism renders all discussion invalid.

No, like I said if you had non-Christian account from Roman soldiers or Jews describing their eyewitnesss accounts of the resurrection or any of the reapperance of Jesus over the next 40 days that would be much stronger evidence that it actuall happened.

Excelsior wrote:

I think that is what has happened in my previous posts as I try to lay out social and cultural context for Jesus' mission and you respond with the equivalent of "Says who?"

I did because it is rather nonsensitcal, from a historical point of view, to use the Bible as evidence of the truth behind the Christian religion. Would you use Hubbards "Scientology, The Fundamentals of Thought" as evidence that the CoS was on to something real?

Excelsior wrote:

But for me, your ultra radical position leaves you in a kind of historical nihilism that demands an impartial voice that simply can't exist.

Of course it can exist, a whole lot of history can be verified by different sources.

And even if it can't that doesn't really matter from a historical point of view. The Bible is still a historical important document.

The only thing you can't do is say from a historical point of view that the events described in the Bible are particularly accurate. We simply don't know they are.

But then that doesn't really matter to a historican, an historian takes what value he can out of historical articles, no more.

It only matters to a Christian who is trying to go further and use the Bible as historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ. It simply isn't.

Excelsior wrote:

I feel a need to clarify this. I have never dismissed all other religions as nonsense. I am quite happy to declare that there are nonsense religions but I have a very high regard for others. This is evident from what I wrote:

Well as I said, that is just your personal opinion, influenced by your particular faith. Likewise to a person inside a "nonsense" religion it isn't nonsense at all, it makes perfect sense to them.

You cannot use the "sense" of Christianity as historical evidence that things lke the resurrection actually happened. Apologies if you weren't, but that seemed to be what you were doing.

The fact that Christianity had lots of followers in the early days is not evidence for the accuracy of the Bible.

The fact that the Jews and Romans did not attempt to prove the resurrection didn't happen (we don't know they didn't, and I'm not sure how they would have anyway) is not evidence for the accuracy of the Bible

These are all assumption (pretty wild assumptions at that) and certainly not evidence for anything

Akrasia

Excelsior wrote:

Independent sources don't exist.

yes they do. Independent sources mean sources independent of each other. Eg, two strangers who see something and then describe the events without ever conferring with one another and 'getting their stories straight.'

The problem with the bible is, all the secondary sources are only repeating the evidence of a few primary sources and they are conferring with one another and basing their stories on the stories of others. the secondary sources are generally all part of the same 'club' and their stories are dependent on what other members of their club have told them.

Excelsior

Wicknight wrote:

Thats exactly how you reconcile the two.

You have just written a sentence opposite to mine. You haven't actually answered my problems. There are no such things as independent accounts. Your definition of independent isn't valid. Its also fanciful.

Wicknight wrote:

In history it is the historians job to be skeptical of all records, especially records like religious records, and especially those the claim to explain fantastic events, until he/she is able to verify the accounta with accounts from those outside the religion/cult/organisation/whatever with nothing to gain by making it up (ie independent).

The first test you'd make on an ancient claim is manuscript evidence. "The Bible is filled with errors" is the common misconception and to test that the tradition we have now has any bearing on the ideas circulating at the time we would need to find the manuscripts of that time. With the Bible, this has happened.

There are more than 5300 known Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. There are 10,000 latin manuscripts and 9300 early portions of the New Testament. In all we have about 24000 extant copies of New Testament portions. It is blindingly obvious that the claims of Christianity were the most shocking and promulgated writings of the Ancient era. There is nothing that compares with the widespread reading and expensive copying that we see with the New Testament. That people would be willing to sit down and make papyri or parchment copies at all says a lot about an obscure off-shoot of Judaism created by a carpenter who they claim is a God and who died on a Cross but came back to life after life after death.

To be skeptical of the text of the New Testament books is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity for no documents of the ancient era are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament. I am sure you have seen the side by side comparisons before. Caesar's writings have 10 extant manuscripts which are 1000 years distant from him. Plato has 7, 1200 years distant.. Thucydides has 8 but they are 1300 years distant. Tacitus has 20 but he is 1000 years distant. Seuetonius is 800 years distant with its 8 copies. The Iliad was the most popular myth (and probably still is today if you take modern interpretations) and it has 643 copies where the earliest is 500 years after Homer's life. Then we have the New Testament with her 24000 copies with the earliest discovered fragments 25-50 years after the events.

There is no body of ancient literature in the which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament. We know it was what was said at the time and we know that it made an unimaginable impact.

Secondly you'd look at external evidence. Perhaps these texts are like Scientology- a big hoodwink. (But like a Scientology that sweeps the whole of the known world instead of convincing a couple of hundred thousand people in the USA and handfuls elsewhere) You'd want to see if the authors were who they claim they were. You test this by seeing how seamless they are with what we know of the culture they came from. Luke is the guy at pains to always mention where it happened and who was the boss. The classic case is his mentioning of the famine in Acts 11:28. This was in doubt at one point. Some critics said that this was an example of the Acts 2 style mythologising that I refer to below where the Christian schemers wrote something to make themselves look good that never happened. Josephus mentions it though. The famine did take place in Judea under the reign of Claudius. The most famous case is the Pool at Bethesda in John 5 but I think I cited that elsewhere in this thread.

But aside from these famous sensational examples, it couldn't be doubted but that Luke was a Greek approaching a strange world of Judaism that he would never be absorbed into. He is a perfectly belieavable doctor following his passionate belief into tricky situations. John, and Matthew especially but also John Mark are all excellent insights into the 2nd Temple Judaism that dominated their cultural background. Then there is Paul who is the arch referencer to culture around him. All of these writers are validated by examinations of external references made in their text- be they political or geograhical, religious or cultural. They are convincing as people immersed in the culture they were meant to be immersed in.

Finally and crucially, our skepticism has been tested enough to consider the internal claims of the Christian texts. Here you and I begin to converge. Your radical historiagraphy is in conflict with my more contemporary hermuenetic (a wise amateur like myself mimics my teachers) on the first two tests. But when it comes to whether or not the truth content of Christianity is valid, but of us, I am sure, approach it with hyper skepticism.

For me, the person of Jesus and the very real experience I have had of him have led me and continue to lead me to live as a Christian. Test 1 and 2, the things that we have talked about in this thread do not lead to steamrolling over 3. I am not trying to prove the Resurrection by history. My position would better be described as, "The Resurrection has to make sense historically if you are going to consider it as sensible theology". Tests 1 and 2 don't compel you to believe 3, but you can't really claim to believe 3 if 1 and 2 (which are different kinds of tests) are unbelievable.

Wicknight wrote:

Excelsior I would imagine you would hold this standard to anything else to do with other religions. You don't accept L. Ron Hubbards writing at face value. You (I imagine since you are not a Muslim I think) don't accept the Quar'an at face value.

The implication here is that I accept the New Testament at face value. Its as if you think I was raised a Christian in some Bible Bashing Research Island and that until you brought up these issues I had never sat down and said, "Why do I take this stuff seriously?" Most people on this forum would agree that for whatever numerous faults I have, I do give fair hearing to the counter-claims presented to my faith.

I don't accept Hubbard's writing at face value. Many obvious factors account for that. I don't accept the Koran at face value. But I approach it entirely differently to Dianetics. Internal consistency is the major benchmark by which anyone judges any text.

Wicknight wrote:

No, like I said if you had non-Christian account from Roman soldiers or Jews describing their eyewitnesss accounts of the resurrection or any of the reapperance of Jesus over the next 40 days that would be much stronger evidence that it actuall happened.

I said above it is a fanciful claim and I hope to elaborate on that here. Investigating as a skeptical historian you would analyse major defeaters to the claims of the Christians and failing to find them you might hypothetically consider a universe where this Jesus character had risen. The goal of both the Jewish leaders and the Romans would be to supress the rumours of this world-turning event. The skeptic in you disappears when you hope that a Roman lawyer or a Jewish historian would sit down and widely publish an account of the strangely compelling arguments that were being made by the Gallileans.

Later though, 20 years and on, you start getting accounts of the Christian movement as it spread. Josephus is the most famous example. Thallus, Suetonius, Tacitus and the famous Pliny represent the more well known Roman historians who refer to the clear belief among many that the Christ had been Jesus.

Wicknight wrote:

I did because it is rather nonsensitcal, from a historical point of view, to use the Bible as evidence of the truth behind the Christian religion. Would you use Hubbards "Scientology, The Fundamentals of Thought" as evidence that the CoS was on to something real?

Here is a strange thing I observed when first reading the New Testament. The authors are depicted in a bad light all the time. (Peter's denial, their slowness to understand Jesus' mission, John and Peter's "lightning brothers" arrogance and many more) Another thing I can't help but notice is how much of the New Testament deals with the cost of following Jesus. Jesus speaks about how difficult it will be to follow his path all the time. Then the Epistles layer it on thick as well. Finally, 10 of the 11 Apostles are recorded as being martyred. John, it seems, died in exile. His successor at the church of Smyrna, Polycarp, died on the stake. Peter was crucified upside down. Thomas was torn in half.

Compare this to Scientology. I have never spent much time reading the turgid pages of Dianetics but Hubbard died a wealthy man living in classic despot granduer with his floating palace and his willing young ladies. If the Apostles wanted to make a cushy life through their fabrication of a belief system how do you rationalise:
a) Most crucially, the shockingly complete and brand new interpretation of Judaism that these farmers came up with
b) Their willingness to depict themselves as (literally at times) idiots who are unqualified to lead
c) Their willingness to live lives of extreme harshness spread out across the known world and each face their own deaths without once repenting of their foolishness.

If anything is clear from the Gospels and the Acts, it is that the apostles are sincere. They may have been deceived, if you like, but they were not deceivers. Hypocrites and martyrs are not made of the same stuff. This is utterly different to Hubbard. And this paragraph is rendered meaningless by your historical assumptions.:)


(Sorry for the typo littered text. Blame Saturday morning sloppiness)

Excelsior

Wicknight wrote:

Of course it can exist, a whole lot of history can be verified by different sources.

Let me rephrase that as ancient history. Sorry for the inaccuracy.

Wicknight wrote:

And even if it can't that doesn't really matter from a historical point of view. The Bible is still a historical important document.

In what sense? If the New Testament texts can't be trusted as a credible testimonial accounts of the things that happened to the authors and their communities, how can we accept it on issues of the life of the community. If we can't trust Paul's conversion recounted in Acts (which involves the Risen Jesus) then how can we trust descriptions of church life like in Acts 2?

Furthermore, what parts of the Bible? There are some parts of the Bible which are rich poetic texts and describing them as "historical" in any sense seems to me to miss the point. There are some parts which are a unique genre called Apocolypic writings and calling that "historical" would be deeply troubling. These kinds of blanket statements suggest to me that you just are not familiar with the text you spend so much energy disregarding.

Wicknight wrote:

The only thing you can't do is say from a historical point of view that the events described in the Bible are particularly accurate. We simply don't know they are.

And all the historians who do that are....?

Wicknight wrote:

It only matters to a Christian who is trying to go further and use the Bible as historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ. It simply isn't.

Once again, you demonstrate a sloppy understanding of the core aspects of Christianity. Unlike Scientology or Judaism, Hinduism or Rael, Christianity stands or falls on a historical event. The authorial intent of the Gospel writers is consciously to leave a record of the things that had happened and were happening. "It simply isn't" is a weak argument.

Wicknight wrote:

You cannot use the "sense" of Christianity as historical evidence that things lke the resurrection actually happened. Apologies if you weren't, but that seemed to be what you were doing.The fact that Christianity had lots of followers in the early days is not evidence for the accuracy of the Bible. The fact that the Jews and Romans did not attempt to prove the resurrection didn't happen (we don't know they didn't, and I'm not sure how they would have anyway) is not evidence for the accuracy of the Bible

An evidentialist approach like the one you take to life requires "evidence" of a certain kind that simply can't be applied to certain questions- for example, ancient historical events or philosophical assumptions. While your approach seems to work well in lots of areas, its major drawback is that it is philosophical assumption that would deny any philosophical assumption on evidential grounds. All this is to say that I do not intend to prove the Resurrection in any sense of the word. But I will approach it as what it is: a historical claim. As with any historical argument (as recent or as distant as you please) proof is not an option (I think this is something your hyper-skepticism is over-reachcing for) but full arguments can be made and compete against each other. I hope I have briefly outlined to some degree in this thread the arguments that lead me to accept the New Testament as credible witness.

But fundamentally, that acceptance is a matter of faith. To you, that is a meaningless sentence. "Sure we can believe anything". I think for you, accepting Christianity on faith is in no way different to accepting Scientology on faith. The problem is that your evidentialist worldview is a faith assumption which you don't even acknowledge (Atheism is not a belief).

Excelsior

Akrasia wrote:

yes they do. Independent sources mean sources independent of each other. Eg, two strangers who see something and then describe the events without ever conferring with one another and 'getting their stories straight.'

Was I not debating with you a while ago where you brought up the fact that in one account of the Resurrection there were 2 angels and in the other only 1?

akrasia wrote:

The problem with the bible is, all the secondary sources are only repeating the evidence of a few primary sources and they are conferring with one another and basing their stories on the stories of others. the secondary sources are generally all part of the same 'club' and their stories are dependent on what other members of their club have told them.

The problem with all history, in fact all cultural artefacts of any era is, all are repeating and assuming the evidence of other texts, often just a few key primary sources. In any discipline you choose authors are conferring with one another and basing their interpretations on the discoveries, theories and stories of others. In any given cultural domain, be it a broad academic subject like sociology or a narrower and more informal region like American Adultmation from the 1990s, the products of any given writer is dependent to a basic degree on what other members of the exchange have already said.

The Bible (again I presume you mean New Testament) has a couple of fairly massive debating partners. Most obviously is the already at that point 2000 year old Jewish tradition, from the very earliest it expresses itself in terms robbed from the Roman hegemony and it relies on the testimonies of what it calls 500 witnesses to a remarkable event. It is constantly in conflict with the contemporary Judaism and with the various political and religious strands of Rome and towards the end it goes head to head with the Gnostic parasites robbing their history and turning it into fable. Whatever you believe about the truth claims of the Christians, you cannot call their documents insular.

Furthermore, there is no such thing as an independent source. On any given topic we will bring assumptions and prejudices that are in many cases blind to us. In the specific sense that Wicknight proposes, a Roman or Jewish account would by definition be as tainted (as Wicknight defines tainted) as the Christian accounts since they had a huge amount to gain from an end to the Jesus movement.

Wibbs

Note to self, Lovely bloke that he is, do not get into an argument with Excelsior on the history of the Christian faith. I mean if an able opponent like Wickers is having trouble with the bugger...

I'd have to say it's all an ecumenical matter(I know, I know tired references to Fr Ted are sooo last year). Ok light relief over, I've pulled up a chair and gotten some popcorn so back to the fray with the pair of ya.

Zombrex

Excelsior wrote:

You have just written a sentence opposite to mine. You haven't actually answered my problems. There are no such things as independent accounts. Your definition of independent isn't valid. Its also fanciful.

As Akrasia points out there are independent accounts. Accounts which are independent of the religion or independent of the people the Bible claim witnessed Jesus after he was killed.

Any person who was not part, or did not become part of, Christian religion or a follower of Jesus but who witnessed and recorded Jesus walking around after he was supposed to be dead would be an independent source.

Hell, any person who was not part of the group of Jesus's followers at the time of his death but who witnessed and recorded seeing Jesus walking around after he was supposed to be dead would be an independent source.

There are plently of possible independent sources.

Excelsior wrote:

The first test you'd make on an ancient claim is manuscript evidence. "The Bible is filled with errors" is the common misconception and to test that the tradition we have now has any bearing on the ideas circulating at the time we would need to find the manuscripts of that time. With the Bible, this has happened.

Er, ok.

Excelsior wrote:

It is blindingly obvious that the claims of Christianity were the most shocking and promulgated writings of the Ancient era There is nothing that compares with the widespread reading and expensive copying that we see with the New Testament.

That has absolutely nothing to do with their accuracy in describing the event of Jesus's life or mircles.

You of all people should know that just because a lot of people believe something doesn't mean it is true? If that were the case we would all probably be Muslims.

Excelsior wrote:

That people would be willing to sit down and make papyri or parchment copies at all says a lot about an obscure off-shoot of Judaism created by a carpenter who they claim is a God and who died on a Cross but came back to life after life after death.

It does "say a lot" ... it doesn't say anything about the accuracy of the Bible stories.

Excelsior wrote:

There is no body of ancient literature in the which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament.

Because you can copy something very well a million times doesn't have anything to do with the accuracy of what is written.

How many copies of L. Ron Hubbards CoS books are there in current print. How many copies of the Quar'an are there?

As far as I know no one holds up the stories of Homer and says "This actually happened exactly like this". These texts are used as a window into the detail of the world in which they were written. So is the Bible. They give us detail about the customs of the people, small things like how food was prepared, how people dressed and behaved. The military and legal structures of the time.

The Bible is a valuable historical document, it details a world of nearly 2000 years ago, and as you said details it quite well since it is doubtful that much has been changed or added from when it was first written.

But what you cannot do is say that it accurately describes real events, such as the resurrection and reappearence of Jesus. We simply do not know that, from a historical point of view.

Excelsior wrote:

(But like a Scientology that sweeps the whole of the known world instead of convincing a couple of hundred thousand people in the USA and handfuls elsewhere)

Seriously Excelsior you have to get out of the idea that because Christianity spread it is some how a more truthful religion. I have no idea how you can seriously claim that, it is nonsense. There are hundreds of different reasons why Christianity spread the way it did, and very few of them can be put down to the divity of the word of God.

Excelsior wrote:

You test this by seeing how seamless they are with what we know of the culture they came from.

No you don't that is nonsense. Of course they are going to be seamless, what other culture would they write about.

Unless the bible was really written in China the authors would have no problem writing accurately about everyday life in 0 C.E Middle East even if they were making the entire events up, which I'm not claiming their were

Excelsior wrote:

Luke is the guy at pains to always mention where it happened and who was the boss.

And do we have anything to back up his account? As I said before, just because something sounds authentic doesn't mean it is.

Excelsior wrote:

He is a perfectly belieavable doctor following his passionate belief into tricky situations. John, and Matthew especially but also John Mark are all excellent insights into the 2nd Temple Judaism that dominated their cultural background. Then there is Paul who is the arch referencer to culture around him.

All these people were in that culture. It is no great mystery that they would record it. You seem amazed at this, but what other culture would they have recorded?

I have no doubt that the people who wrote the Bible were completely immersed in the culture of the time. Of course they were, what other culture would you expect them to be immersed it. But why you think that then the fantastical things they describe are some how validated as accurate just because they get details like what people ate, historical events etc right is beyond me.

As I said in my Tom Cruise example, if Tom Cruise claimed to talk to an alien in the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas, does it verifiy his claim that he did see an alien if you establish there actually is a Palms Hotel in Las Vegas and yes Tom Cruise has stayed there.

Excelsior wrote:

I am not trying to prove the Resurrection by history.

You might not be, but a lot of people are, and to be honest that statement contradicts a lot of what you have been arguing about.

Excelsior wrote:

Later though, 20 years and on, you start getting accounts of the Christian movement as it spread. Josephus is the most famous example. Thallus, Suetonius, Tacitus and the famous Pliny represent the more well known Roman historians who refer to the clear belief among many that the Christ had been Jesus.

I have no doubt that many many people believe this at the time. That is not in issue, exactly because we have a number of accounts from independent sources detailing the early Christian church.

Excelsior wrote:

Another thing I can't help but notice is how much of the New Testament deals with the cost of following Jesus...

If the Apostles wanted to make a cushy life through their fabrication of a belief system how do you rationalise:
a) Most crucially, the shockingly complete and brand new interpretation of Judaism that these farmers came up with
b) Their willingness to depict themselves as (literally at times) idiots who are unqualified to lead
c) Their willingness to live lives of extreme harshness spread out across the known world and each face their own deaths without once repenting of their foolishness.

I don't think I claimed that the Apostles wanted to make a cushy life through their fabrications. I didn't claim that the Apostles were lying. For all we know they truely believed that Jesus had rising from the dead. That is not historical evidence he did.

The Heaven's Gate cult (and example I know people don't like) had members that truely believe they were going to ride a comet to a alien world, so much so they were prepared to kill themselves to do that.

Rising of injury or death for following a religion is not something unique Christianity.

Excelsior wrote:

If anything is clear from the Gospels and the Acts, it is that the apostles are sincere.

If the Bible accounts are accurate then yes it is.

Excelsior wrote:

They may have been deceived, if you like, but they were not deceivers. Hypocrites and martyrs are not made of the same stuff. This is utterly different to Hubbard. And this paragraph is rendered meaningless by your historical assumptions.

Your missing the point Excelsior. I know you don't believe in Hubbards religion. I'm not saying the two religions are exactly the same.

Excelsior

Wicknight wrote:

Any person who was not part, or did not become part of, Christian religion or a follower of Jesus but who witnessed and recorded Jesus walking around after he was supposed to be dead would be an independent source.

Hell, any person who was not part of the group of Jesus's followers at the time of his death but who witnessed and recorded seeing Jesus walking around after he was supposed to be dead would be an independent source.

If anyone saw Jesus alive after life after death, how would they not become followers of his movement. "In 3 days I will rebuild it" is the test he sets for his mission. If, granted a huge if, someone actually did meet him, then you have to explain how they don't become believers in the Resurrection of Jesus. Your independent source cannot exist.

Wicknight wrote:

That has absolutely nothing to do with their accuracy in describing the event of Jesus's life or mircles.

What could attest to accuracy? Imagining that the Gospels might be accurate, how would the Gospels look? What I have laid out (1. Manuscript evidence, 2. External validation, 3. Internal evidence) is the standard operating procedure for any ancient texts' historical assessment.

Wicknight wrote:

How many copies of L. Ron Hubbards CoS books are there in current print. How many copies of the Quar'an are there?

The analogy police will resort to brutality in the face of that one Wick! Seriously, it was a different world in 700Ad and in 1954. I can't help but think you are deliberately missing my point here?

Wicknight wrote:

As far as I know no one holds up the stories of Homer and says "This actually happened exactly like this".

But that is exactly the point! People copied Homer because they enjoyed Homer, like we enjoy our modern Homer Jay. But while no one passed off the Iliad as true, the Gospels were always passed off as true. Both the Illiad and the Gospels give insights into the cultural life in which they are set but the Gospels purport to be a true account of the most remarkable thing that can ever happen.

Wicknight wrote:

The Bible is a valuable historical document, it details a world of nearly 2000 years ago, and as you said details it quite well since it is doubtful that much has been changed or added from when it was first written.

You haven't actually dealt with the issue I have raised. If the New Testament can't be trusted in its portrait of Jesus' Resurrection, what parts of its portrait of Jesus can be trusted? If the hyper skepticism which you approach with above, on issues of accuracy, is consistently applied then you must also mistrust the details that it claims.

Wicknight wrote:

But what you cannot do is say that it accurately describes real events, such as the resurrection and reappearence of Jesus. We simply do not know that, from a historical point of view.

What makes the Resurrection a "real" event and the eating customs of the Phraisees not a "real" event? How can the Resurrection be a "real" event if it didn't happen? I suspect from reading other things you have written that you are expressing a much more consistent picture than what appears but how can we learn historical details from a text that isn't accurate? Especially from an inaccurate text that claims to be historical? We have to throw it out!

Wicknight wrote:

Seriously Excelsior you have to get out of the idea that because Christianity spread it is some how a more truthful religion. I have no idea how you can seriously claim that, it is nonsense. There are hundreds of different reasons why Christianity spread the way it did, and very few of them can be put down to the divity of the word of God.

I am not arguing about why it spread or what that implies. I am arguing exclusively about the historical status of the New Testament. More than any other piece of literature in the Ancient era, the New Testament stands as supreme in the care taken over its accounts. The authors claimed that their accounts were of things that happened. Many others in the 20 years between the events and the first writings of the Gospels came to believe based on factors that were independent of Scripture (since Mark or Q hadn't yet been written) but they started making copies of this text like no text before further attesting to their belief that this document was an account of the most important thing that could ever happen. The final part of my "you gotta consider this stuff" argument is that they took huge care in the copying of this text ensuring that the kinds of mythologising that you see in the apocryphal Gnostic competitors couldn't happen. Once again this speaks clearly of the fact that the by now unprecedented movement (it isn't like anything we have seen- its growth doesn't compare with Communism or Scientology or any other interesting social movements of the modern era) considered this to be the truth.

What is historical evidence? Primary and secondary sources that intend to be truthful accounts and that take the time to be accurate truthful accounts. My previous post (and to a lesser extent the above paragraph) simply try to show how they intended to be historical accounts and in every case that they are compared to outside documents are shown to be accurate and faithful accounts.

I am not expecting you all to accept Jesus as your Lord and Saviour now and drop by the church I'm a member of out in Maynooth tomorrow morning. I am simply trying to argue that it is the best historical source of the ancient era and your skepticism amounts to a historical nihilism.

Wicknight wrote:

No you don't that is nonsense. Of course they are going to be seamless, what other culture would they write about.
Unless the bible was really written in China the authors would have no problem writing accurately about everyday life in 0 C.E Middle East even if they were making the entire events up, which I'm not claiming their were

Let me restate my case in the hope of making it clearer for you. If the Gospels were a late fabrication as is so often claimed, or unworthy for submission as evidence due to the potential for later alterations, then, just like in the Judas Gnostic text unveiled a few weeks ago, there will be glaring incongruities. The seamlessness of the canonical texts suggests strongly that they were contemporanous accounts written by the person who was meant to have written them.

Excelsior

Wicknight wrote:

And do we have anything to back up his account? As I said before, just because something sounds authentic doesn't mean it is.

I really have trouble with keeping the motivation maintained to engage in these debates when I feel like I am bouncing my words off a wall that doesn't want to listen. I cited the most famous and sensational case of Acts 11:28 being validated by Josephus when it was widely doubted. There are lots of other examples in practically every chapter of Luke and Acts that are utterly unsensational because they are just the humdrum references of a meticulous reporter.

Wicknight wrote:

All these people were in that culture. It is no great mystery that they would record it. You seem amazed at this, but what other culture would they have recorded?

Maybe they might have recorded a version of the late 2nd Temple Era as their age in the 2nd or 3rd Century might have imagined it like we see in many of the apocryphal texts if as is often claimed, the Gospels were not contemporaneous.

Wicknight wrote:

As I said in my Tom Cruise example, if Tom Cruise claimed to talk to an alien in the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas, does it verifiy his claim that he did see an alien if you establish there actually is a Palms Hotel in Las Vegas and yes Tom Cruise has stayed there.

At not point in this thread have we dealt with any of the actual content of the New Testament and to an extent I am happy with that because we are discussing historical sources. But here I have to give up and throw my hands in the air at these ludicrous analogies. The content of the Gospel is not similar in anyway to a man claiming to have been abducted by aliens. It is rooted so firmly in the prophecies of the Old Testament that this kind of analogy betrays a fundamental ignorance about what the Gospels actually are.

Wicknight wrote:

You might not be, but a lot of people are, and to be honest that statement contradicts a lot of what you have been arguing about.

I am used to people talking at me when really they are conducting a dialogue with what they imagine an evangelical Christian is. I respectfully propose that it is best to debate me and not the people who have the same tag as me. I couldn't get away with a "Many atheists say all Christians are deluded and so I will argue with you about that..." policy. If it contradicts what I have written than that is down to typos and the off the top of one's head writing that Boards.ie encourages. But I don't think it does contradict what I have written. Rather it contradicts what you assume I am arguing.

Wicknight wrote:

I don't think I claimed that the Apostles wanted to make a cushy life through their fabrications. I didn't claim that the Apostles were lying. For all we know they truely believed that Jesus had rising from the dead. That is not historical evidence he did.

What then is historical evidence? What renders the early Christians invalid as witnesses? You have never actually argued your case (which I understand from your evidentialist approach doesn't seem neccessary because the burden of proof weighs on my shoulders) as to why they are invalid witnesses.

Wicknight wrote:

The Heaven's Gate cult (and example I know people don't like) had members that truely believe they were going to ride a comet to a alien world, so much so they were prepared to kill themselves to do that.

But don't you see the crucial difference. On Palm Sunday, Judas and Peter, John and Thomas were like the Heaven's Cult group. They believed they were in on the ground floor of the Messiah movement that would root Rome out of all Israel and raise the chosen people to their exaltation above the other races.

Then they had their "mass suicide" experience. As their cult leader walked into town he didn't approach the Roman procurator. He went to the Temple and claimed that he was now the Temple. Err, that must have been troubling for the Apostles. The cult leader is starting to go off the plan.

A few days later he hangs cursed on a tree and they slink out of Jerusalem under judgement, humiliation and threat. It is one such escape that is recorded in Luke when Cleopas and his wife, heavy with the mortifying, abject desolation of their foolish hopes return to their home at Emmaus. It is here that it turns out that the leader had spent all his time trying to show them that his victory didn't involve overthrowing Rome or catching a spaceship to heaven but was all about self sacrifice and relationship. It is almost true to say that the Apostles had their hopes shattered on Good Friday and were left with the empty shell of a hollow cult, but one they themselves had created. On Easter Sunday they joined a new cult because of things they couldn't possibly have predicted.

I am rambling here. Its the preacher in me that wants to bore you to death. The Heaven's Gate cult believed it all ended in life after death. But the point is that the Christian story is not like the Heaven's Gate cult because there was a life after life after death that started the whole thing.

Wicknight wrote:

If the Bible accounts are accurate then yes it is.

Your inconsistency again Wicknight. You are definitely suggesting the potential for the New Testament to be a callous manipulation here. Above you decry any such claim. But we agree again because you left out the most important line in the paragraph I wrote:

Your historical assumptions render all this irrelevant.

Excelsior

When engaging in any intellectual endeavour it is important to challenge as much as possible the assumptions we bring to the task. When we approach a question of ancient history we are relying on the interpretations of 2 kinds of evidence- archeological and textual.

Making any historical assessment requires that we approach the evidence at hand. If we approach a question of ancient history with assumptions that would be valid in the case of a modern question, you might find your assumptions to be useless. An example of a useless set of assumptions is one that renders all ancient history unknowable.

I believe that the hyper-skepticism you advance leaves us in a position whereby all history of the ancient world is unrouchable. We must be agnostic on whether Plato was a Platonist or whether Augustus was deified.

The approach I propose is evidentialist to a degree. Call it pragmatic evidentialism. I am not about to wait around until all the pieces I decide in advance must be in place are in place before conclusions are reached. Take the evidence we have and assess it and you quickly see that the New Testament is a remarkable historical phenomenon.

To do otherwise is to leave one in a troubling philosophical wasteland that would have to reject a priori (independent of any atheism or materialism) the idea that God might have reavealed himself to us in the ancient era based on our unwillingness to listen to the voices of the ancient world until they start speaking in terms we can wholeheartedly endorse.