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Who do you think Jesus was
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sensibleken wrote: »who are all those guys drinking yard glasses? hardcore!
The White Party popped into my mind when I saw that pic.
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Which Biblical scholars and historians? I think that is an important question to ask.
It is an important question to ask and I will link to the primary sources as I deal with each text individually.We also have fragments from before the Codex Vaticanus or the Codex Sinaticus which are the earliest full manuscripts. So we can in part determine some texts earlier.
Yes, and as I have commented in my last post the earliest of these is the Rylands P52 which can only be dated to 117-138CE.This ignores writings from contemporaries of John such as Polycarp who was said to have witnessed John writing his Gospel. When we speak of "majorities" we need to show how we are determining this.
Scholars do not ignore evidence. They do, however, ignore assertions. Just because someone claims something does not make it viable evidence. To make some use of your "why would they do that" argument, why would a biblical scholar like Raymond Brown, who also happens to be a Catholic priest, ignore evidence like Polycarp if it were valid since it would reinforce something he already holds true.Work it backwards. Paul makes clear mention of Luke's presence with him in his letter to the Colossians and to Timothy. We can see that Luke in Acts also confirms a large proportion of the journey that Paul had been on. We can determine that it is probable that this is actually a reliable account of the new Christian communities. Then what we have to do is to read both Luke and Acts. What similarities do we find? Do these make it more plausible both that Luke and Acts have the same author and indeed is Luke's writing in Acts convincing enough to place him as a contemporary of Paul in his churches.
Ok, I think that my statement in my last post might have been somewhat misleading. There is substantial evidence to suggest that the author of Acts and Luke is the same person. There is considerable doubt, however, that that person is Luke the physician. There are a large number of scholars who maintain that Luke is the author but an equally large number who maintain that he is not. In fact, the theories surrounding authorship of Luke suggest that it may have been Luke, it may have been an anonymous author, it may have been a female author or it may be a redacted compilation. Without clear agreement either way, the most honest position is that the author is unknown.
However, the consensus holds that even if it had been Luke, the account is not an eyewitness testimony to the events that it depicts and is at best a retold version of Mark's Gospel with some extra commentary.
A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus; Meier, J.P.
You are wrong in respect to the dating of Matthew, we have fragments from 50AD.
Actually, no, I'm not. Carsten Thiede's analysis of the Magdalen Papyrus P64 has been refuted by other biblical scholars showing that he draws conclusions which are not supported by the evidence. There is no solid research to indicate that the current consensus on the age (c.200CE) of P64 is wrong.
The Date of the Magdalen Papyrus of Matthew (P. Magd. GR.17 = P64): A response to C.P. Thiede.
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Head/P64TB.htm
On a side note, alarm bells should go off in your head when you think that a site called biblefacts.org which contains vast swathes of creationist bull**** and links to Answers in Genesis and (weirdly) Debka is a reliable place to find information.This isn't true. Peter's Epistles and John's Epistles also very clearly refer to the Resurrection. Indeed one of my favourite passages from 1 Peter in part is this:
Yes, those epistles also refer to the resurrection but they also were not written by those who they're claimed to be. The first clue is in the Bible itself where Peter and John are described as illiterate.
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.
Acts 4:13
Biblical scholars agree firstly that 1 Peter and 2 Peter were not written by the same author.
Old Testament in the New, Moysie, S.
http://books.google.ca/books?id=TCSOK_Q4D1sC&pg=PA116#v=onepage&q&f=false
The authorship of 2 Peter is not in dispute. The overwhelming consensus is that it was not written by the apostle Peter.
Second Peter: Introduction, Argument, Outline; Wallace, D.
http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20031209164253/http://www.bible.org/docs/soapbox/2petotl.htm
As for 1st Peter, the majority scholarly consensus is that 1 Peter is pseudoepigraphal. The reason for this is the assumed weight and authority that a document written by Peter would have. However, the omission of the Petrine epistles from some of the earliest canons such as the Muratorian Canon in 170CE raises questions about its authenticity.
An Introduction to the New Testament; Brown, R.L.; p.722
Oxford Bible Commentary; Eve, E.; p.1263
The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings.; Ehrman, Bart D.
Sorry I don't have any online links but you can get them on Amazon if you want.
As for the Johannine epistles, it's pretty much the same story. There is evidence to suggest that the same author wrote the epistles as wrote the fourth Gospel but the consensus is clear that the author is not John the Apostle.
"Although ancient traditions attributed to the Apostle John the Fourth Gospel, the Book of Revelation, and the three Epistles of John, modern scholars believe that he wrote none of them."
Understanding the Bible; Harris, S.L.; p.355
The whole Gospel in the early church is hinged fundamentally on the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead and there is an abundance of textual evidence to say that this is the case.
Yes, I agree the church hinges on the Resurrection of Jesus, but the evidence does not support the Resurrection. No amount of textual evidence is going to be sufficient to prove the resurrection. It doesn't matter if one person said it or 1 million people. An assertion is still an assertion. If you're going to claim the occurrence of a physical event then you need physical evidence.There is an abundance of indicatory evidence too, if we just look to the history of the early church it becomes an absurdity without a Resurrection event.
I agree. In fact I think most atheists would agree that the church looks absurd without a resurrection event. However, the evidence says otherwise. If you have indicatory evidence, which for the moment I am going to assume is something other than documentary evidence, then please provide it.I also agree that just because Paul mentions that there are 500 witnesses doesn't mean that there were. Why the heck would you invite such scrutiny if you knew it to be false though? Why write it? If you wanted to keep skepticism at bay you wouldn't. The simple answer is that Christianityseems to be a faith that encourages people to investigate its truth for themselves rather than blindly trusting in human authorities. To me as a Christian to know this is refreshing.
You're straying dangerously close to an argument from ignorance here, Jakkass. Just because you can't imagine why someone would invite such scrutiny doesn't automatically prove the veracity of Paul's statement. Paul's comment in 1 Corinthians 15 (which you have already acknowledged isn't a historical account) is just a wild assertion. He provides no evidence, nor do you to back up his claim of 500 witnesses.What benefit is there to the Apostles in concocting such a story? King Mob mentioned the Vatican in a facetious manner, but in all seriousness one couldn't argue that Paul or the other Apostles benefited from this financially. So why else would you do it?
Again with the proto-argument from ignorance. Are you seriously claiming that because you can't see a reason for concocting such a story that it must be true? I've already given a reason for concocting such a story in my last post but if you want another fine. Michael Shermer once said in an interview, smart people are very good at rationalising things they came to believe in for non-smart reasons. I think that this mentality is at least as plausible a factor in this as anything else. The resurrection is a means to lend the Jesus character a certain authenticity on a religious level. It's perfectly well to say that Jesus preached this and healed this person but any other religion can say the same. If you want other people to believe what you do, what better way to do it than say that he rose from the dead.
Secondly, there is a solid argument to be made here that the resurrection of Jesus story was created to fit better with other mythologies. We already know from the amount of comparative mythological evidence available that Christianity is best described in mythological terms as a syncretic mythology in that it is built by incorporating themes, iconography and stories from other mythologies. We are all familiar with at least some of the stories. They can be both textual parallels as in the birth of Moses:
"And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi. So the woman conceived and bore a son. And when she saw that he was a beautiful child, she hid him three months. But when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river's bank."
Exodus 2:1-3
compared to that of Horus:
"The battle between the two resulted in the death of Osiris, but before he died Osiris had impregnated his wife, Isis, goddess of wisdom and beauty. Isis in turn gave birth to Horus, the falcon-headed god of kingship. When Seth learned that his brother Osiris’s offspring had been born, he sought to kill the baby Horus. Isis prepared a basket of reeds to hide him in the marshland of the Nile Delta, where she suckled him and protected him, along with the watchful eye of her sister, Nephthys, from the snakes, scorpions and other dangerous creatures until he grew and prospered.
They can also be iconographical:
Anyway, with regard to Jesus, the theme of a birth-death-rebirth deity is quite old and quite well-worn in mythological terms. You have Dionysus, Asclepius and Orpheus in the Greek pantheon, Mithras in Persian mythology, Krishna in Hinduism, Odin in Norse mythology, Osiris in Egyptian mythology, Tammuz in Sumerian mythology and Zalmoxis in Dacian mythology.
Thus it can be argued that the resurrection of Jesus is not a literal event, but a mythological theme which was repackaged in the late first century to communicate the message of Jesus in a way which would have been most familiar to the non-Christians of the time.
The fact that the Christian church has chosen to interpret it as a literal event is unfortunate and sad.0 -
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I don't care what you say, remember you will see its consequences .Isn't it a sin for you to post a picture of Mohammad?
Oh sorry, my mistake. That that was Mohammad raping is 9 year old wife.
What is "Truth" dead one. Did I just insult Mohammad, or did Mohammd just insult me? Who knows, science can't tell us.
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