Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

[Skeptic Guy]

These are all reasons to believe the NT authors wrote what they believed was true, but it is not evidence that it was true.

Or they were fairly decent at writing fiction. There's many a good novel with a flawed protagonist(s).

 

[I Ratant]

The apostles did see the resurrected Christ.

.
So they are said to have said.

 

[joobz]

Literary terms like "tragic flaw" and "tragic hero" even come to us from Greek mythology. Gee, weren't the gospels written in Greek? How curious that writers should use literary concepts as old as literature itself.

Exactly.

This is why I find Geisler to be rather inept. This is such a blatantly stupid logical argument to make, that it makes me wonder what he is indeed qualified for.

Apologists should at least be schooled in self-consistent logic. He's failed even that.

I can't imagine Chesterton, Aquinis, Caroll enjoying the idea that they would be lumped together with such a hack.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

on them as time permits.

Reason #1

The New Testament Writers Included Embarrassing Details About Themselves.

For example some passages portray the disciples as dim-witted, uncaring, and cowards.

The gospel writers were not the disciples, nor were they eye-witnesses to the events they described. The Pauline scriptures are bereft of accounts of the life of Jesus.

Reason #10

The New Testament Writers Abandoned Their Long Held Sacred Beliefs and Practices, Adopted New Ones, And Did Not Deny Their Testimony Under Persecution Or Threat Of Death

Again, you seem to be talking about Paul who did not contribute to the accounts of Jesus' life. You definitely cannot make this statement about the gospel writers. The gospel writers were not any of the disciples described in the gospels or eyewitnesses to any of the events.

The traditional biographies of the rest of the lives of the disciples were invented long afterwards. (And besides that, the disciples were not the authors of the New Testament.)

 

[Wowbagger]

How come there are no writings about Jesus from the time he was supposed to have lived? Not even from Pontious Pilate?

Why was everything about him written long after his death?

 

[billydkid]

I wonder which "writers" they are referring to. The supposed authors or the people who translated, assembled, edited, invented or kept or discarded or added their own special interpretations to the letters and books.

 

[six7s]

Oh dear, oh dear...

Teh stoopid... it burnz

Please list the post numbers of the at least 24 posts that have completely destroyed the claim made in post #1.

1

It's good to see that their logical reasoning is of the same standard as their scientific theories.

2

These are all reasons to believe the NT authors wrote what they believed was true, but it is not evidence that it was true.

3

Ok. Your premises and the conclusion are not connected.

4

This is not, strictly speaking, evidence; It's just a series of observations concerning the New Testament's coherency.

And given the process of translation, and the time that has passed since it was written, I doubt that present standards can be applied.

5

If these are the "TOP" reasons, Christian Apolegetics are sadly still pathetic.
All of these so called reasons are just reasons why the writers "believed" what they wrote was true, NOT a single thing about what being written about is true.

If you use these absurd criteria, the Koran and whole host of other religious texts must be true as well.

6

Demonstrate that you are not a false prophet.

7

More realistically this was to portray themselves as being inferior to Jesus. Hardly anyone would have believed in Christ's story if they portrayed themselves as being Christ's superiors.

Where are these embarrassing details at? No seriously you stated that we would see embarrassing details about Jesus not the opinions of non-believers with a stake in maintaining the current social order. Now maybe if you included a story from one of the non-canon Gospels about Jesus as a child in which he became alarmed at another child who accidentally bumped him in which he proceeded to use his powers to strike the other child dead and return him to life we'd have something juicy to sink our teeth into.

Jesus' message of peace and love is hardly "difficult" when compared to his father's all to oft calls of genocide and religious murder or miniscule demands such as not mixing fibers or crops.

Yes; that's exactly what the bible says. "Yeah you know how the Romans crucified that guy Jesus? Yeah well he came back to life. Crazy I know I mean yeah its just crazy...so Paul buddy has your sister said anything about me yet? I mean no offense but she could su...hey you're not still writing this are you?"

Totally unlike people who leave behind their old religions today and join dangerous new cults that have them kill themselves to hitch a ride on a UFO or stab a group of people to death and write on the walls in their victims’ blood.

8

DOC, how is it that you've been posting here since January of 2007 and you don't know what the words "evidence" and "know" mean?

9

How is any of this evidence? It's just some blokes opinion. At least the bible is useful in one respect: that it seperates people who don't know what the word "evidence" means from those who do.

10

It also mentions a talking snake at one point...

11

It's really not. The Resurrection is extremely unlikely, as unlikely as Jesus giving birth to a diplodocus.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If an Elvis obsessive saw The King looking like a hobo, would his unflattering description mean that he had actually seen Elvis?

12

Then, as many former 1M$ challenge applicants describe their superpowers unembellished as embarrassingly simple, with no practical application whatsoever (e.g., quoting from memory here: Being able to correctly pick one bottle out of ten in a year, being able to very slightly influence the movement of a pendulum already in motion, make the flame of a candle tremble slightly, etc) their powers are actually true?

If they were bluffing, they would of course have invented something just a little more spectacular, something people would maybe pay money to learn about? Like waterwalking, raising dead, curing of deadly diseases and stuff?

13

Let's take on number one first.

It was primarily the author of Mark who characterized the disciples as dim. First, Mark (even if he were the author of this gospel, and there is no contemporary evidence to support that claim -- only a much later ascription)was not a witness of these events, and he was not a disciple. He certainly didn't characterize himself as dim. Second, the characterization of the disciples as somewhat dim was a literary device to help argue the point of that gospel -- that no human knew that Jesus was the Messiah.

The other prime example of a dim or faithless disciple is the characterization of Thomas in John's gospel. This was another rhetorical device used to argue that those who believe without sticking their hands into Jesus' wounds are superior.

Number one cannot even be used as evidence that the gospel writers believed the information to be true. It can be used as evidence of how they wrote their confessional pieces.

14

OK, now let's take on number 9. The way of writing about miracles does nothing to prove their correctness or incorrectness, but the real issue, especially as it relates to the first gospel written (Mark), is that many of the miracles are written specifically to show that no one understands who Jesus is (which, again, is the theme of that gospel). Not only do many of the miracles display a literary character (the blind man gradually learning to see immediately before Peter finally recognizes that Jesus is the Messiah; Jesus walking on water -- like a ghost -- in a long section that repeatedly mentions the Spirit in oblique terms; the miracle of the loaves to which Jesus tells the disciples "do you not yet understand about the bread..."; etc.), they are also most definitely not all portrayed in a matter of fact way (the Transfiguration). Many of these miracles (probably not all) have a clear literary character, and were very likely metaphors rather than actual occurrences, even in the mind of the author.

Another example is in John's gospel -- the first miracle is the turning of water into wine; the last thing that happens to Jesus while alive is that he is given vinegar (wine), then the soldiers try to see if he is dead and poke his side from which pours water and blood. The miracles are not relayed in a matter of fact manner. They are highly literary.

As has been mentioned frequently, so did David Koresh. I suspect that Marshall Applewhite and Jim Jones would have done the same. Countless people have died for their beliefs. That is not proof of the truth. It is proof of certainty. There is a large difference between certainty and truth.

15

I just wanted to add, that the first so called "evidence" relies on an assumption that the authors of The New Testament were Christ's disciples when in fact there is little evidence in support of this claim.

16

No they contain opinions. What is embarrassment is an opinion. As is what is a demanding saying or what stylistic similarities exist. However this misses the point.

Even habitual liars tell the truth at times. I presume that this is portrayed not as evidence that occasionally The New Testament strays from fiction but rather evidence the whole New Testament is to be believed as a factual record.

Your best ever reasons list does not do this.
It is only an opinion that revealing facts that could be considered embarrassing means that the Story of Jonah and Noah must be true and that there were 7 headed dragons.

What you have provided does not evidence these events.

17

Bart Ehrman's books, notably "Misquoting Jesus", detail the problems with approaching the NT as any sort of historical record.
First, none of the writers of the four Canonical Gospels were witnesses to the events. These documents were the product of an oral tradition that had already gone on for at minimum 40 years or so.
The four Canonical Gospels were cherry-picked from over a hundred "Gospels" known to historians as the ones which best represented what the early church wanted to portray as it's "Canon".
They were all subject to editing and redaction over many years to become more in line with the changing view of evolving Christian theology.

Finally, the problems involved in the transcription of these documents are well known; the earliest are of particularly poor quality

We are not looking at the original documents in any case. The original "writers" (transcribers of oral history) are unknown to history. The original documents do not exist. At the very earliest, we are still looking at copies of copies of copies.

18

Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers did not tell the truth:

In Matt. 16:28 Jesus said, “There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."

19

If these folks were telling the truth, then why do their stories share a striking resemblance to previously popular pagan myths?

20

Gosh, in Greek and Roman mythology, all of their heros and even their gods were deeply flawed. They were petty, cowardly, greedy etc. All of this is reflected in the myths, e.g. Hercules killed his wife.

So, using DOC's unassailable logic, the Greek/Roman myths are even more true than the Gospels, since the mark of truth is that the stories are not slick advertising.

Gosh, this forum is SO educational.

21

I think what DOC fails too realize ... Sorry, one of the many things DOC fails to realize is his examples show a god pretending to be as frail as a human.

This is deception on a grand scale, synonymous with Zeus' ****ing adventures, culminating in the great con of an immortal pretending to die.

A grand deceiver to be despised - Not worshipped.

It's a good job it's just an imagined story and we don't have to actually deal with this thoroughly despicable creature he calls a god.

.

22

Told what they thought was the truth, at best.

And more likely, the writers weren't disciples at all, but just people who re-edited writings they came across, finding them useful to gain donations to buy things.

Seriously.

We have all the time in the world. People have been expounding for over 2000 years now. Please expound away!

And thanks to Wayback Machines, your words will be recorded for all eternity! Think how awesome that is!

But the alternate theory, that the writers weren't the disciples, also explains this. Which is more likely, that a real disciple of a real, magical being, existed, or some writer stumbled across earlier writings and verbal traditions and re-cast it with his own embellishments.

Well, let's accept this at face value. Doesn't that they include apparently ludicrous things like raising the dead and walking on water suggest the story is fictional by this very standard?

And did the writer call Jesus those things, portraying him as such, or did the writer merely report that someone else, mistakenly, called Jesus as such?

You want to expound, please list the passages.

I find that a God who's such a busybody as to want to throw someone into Hell because he or she cranked one off to Lindsay or Refurbished Britney or one of our fine, local skepchicks, to be quite the oddball.

Don't you?

You really propose a God who doesn't want you to...enjoy physical attraction and sexual activity in a consentual context?

And, if so, is that a desired situation? Personally, if God existed and is as you suggest, I'd go looking for a wishing fish or ring or genii to make Yahweh disappear and replace Him with a party animal.

I.e. let them steamroller you so you can be their servants, and, if you're lucky, you'll ingratiate yourself enough you can work in the house. WTF ever, Jesus.

Ironic, given these stories did make life easier for themselves as they stood atop a growing empire of donations. Oh, sure, some got the axe as their groups slammed into other political and religious groups and they fought for dominance. Nothing unusual there.

How does this compare to other ancient writings from other, false, religions?

I'll hold my breath waiting for the answer. No cherry picking!

They were power hungry wannabees who found an alternative to gain money and control, and switched to it. Thousands, if not millions, had done that over the preceeding millenia.

That's kind of how "memes" work -- they evolve and become more seductive, "reproducing" by spreading to more people. They get altered to become even more seductive, avoiding philosophical difficulties that might cause them to lose ground.

A modern example is the concept that Hell, as traditionally described, a lake of lava where you are thrown and float around in indescribable agony for all eternity, wailing and gnashing your teeth, began to be considered completely nasty for relatively minor crimes like refusing to believe in Jesus, God, The Holy Spirit, swiping a gumball, or taking a weiner up the butt.

Who wants to worship such a God? Nobody. So the meme started altering itself. Now "Hell" is just "being cut off from God for all eternity".

So, have at it.

23

The New Testament writeres didn't include any details about themselves. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are not mentioned in any of the gospels.

But even if true, this would in no way imaginable constitute evidence the writers were telling the truth. The author of "A Million Little Pieces" included embarassing details about himself in that book. Turned out most of it wasn't true, including many of the embarassing details.

24

Actually, Hok, you can't even make that statement. It could be an example out great storytelling.

I'm reminded of Stephen King's Series, The Dark Tower.

In the story(I'm going off of memory here, so exacting details may be off), Stephen King had his main characters meet up with himself. He had written them into his life arround the time he was writing Cujo. During that time, Stephen King was becoming(or was) an alcoholic and a pill popper. He included these hard truths about himself in the story. He didn't hold back and was extremely critical of himself, painting it as he really was.

However, this was entirely a fictional meeting. The people were entirely fictional. His inclusion of himself was used as a plot device to explain some aspects of the stories which tended to intercolate into other books of his.

In fact, all of the evidences that DOC gave as proof are simply examples of good story telling. And the examples of people dying for their beliefs. Well, heaven's gate example proves that that isn't a valid argument either.

DOC, I'm led to believe that you don't read much, otherwise you would have read many stories which include much of the very things you've just given as proof of something.

Indeed, I've lost even more respect for Norman Geisler. His arguments are rather sophomoric.

If you can't do that then you should retract the statement.

If you can't answer the responses to your lame-arsed and wholly illogical delusion-supporting 'arguments', you should refrain from starting threads

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Oh dear, oh dear...

Teh stoopid... it burnz

I feel slighted. You left out mine pointing out that the authors of the New Testament are NOT the disciples. My comment didn't appear until page 4, though, so I guess I have to wait in line. . . .

 

[FireGarden]

six7s,
Thanks for wearing out the scroll button on my mouse!

 

[joobz]

I can't help but wonder what reasons #4,5,6,7, and 8 were. If reasons #1,2,3,9, and 10 were the ones DOC thought were good, what form did the others take?


reason #4
The bible tells us it's true. So, um, it's got that going for it.

Reason #5
It's really old and, um, people still read it. So you know. It's read and, well, that means that it's good.

Reason #6
Tapioca...maybe?

Reason #7
So, I was talking to these people, and they were like all, "the bible's true" and I was all "Ya, you know, it is and stuff."...

Reason #8
There's no proof that the authors didn't tell the truth. So, you can't accuse them of lying can you? No, I didn't think so. People are innoncent til they are proven guilty and you can't prove they were lying so they are innoncent so the bible is true! Ha!

 

[six7s]

six7s,
Thanks for wearing out the scroll button on my mouse!

There ought to be a Page Down button or similar on your keyboard... and Ctrl + End (or similar) is your friend

How would Jesus navigate through such train wrecks?

 

[Ladewig]

Well, why should he? We're not his market, we're his guinea pigs.

But if your theory is true than DOC is wasting his time. He proposes an argument with hopes of modifying it, several posters illustrate the flaws in the argument, and DOC continues to defend the original argument. If he were simply trying out arguments, why would he continue to engage in that time-wasting final step?

 

[X]

You would think DOC would learn not to demand somebody quote posts.

It never ends well for him.


The trouble is, not all of the posts explicitly address the popints DOC made. This might make it tempting for someone to claim that they don't really disprove anything.

Of course, hirsoty alone disproves the New Testament quite well.

 

[sackett]

Updoc? What's updoc?

But if your theory is true than DOC is wasting his time. He proposes an argument with hopes of modifying it, several posters illustrate the flaws in the argument, and DOC continues to defend the original argument. If he were simply trying out arguments, why would he continue to engage in that time-wasting final step?

All right already! So Doc's dumber than I thought! That means that I'm dumber than I thought! I'm dumber than you, okay?



I just want to know what's up, Doc.

 

[Robin]

Please list the post numbers of the at least 24 posts that have completely destroyed the claim made in post #1. If you can't do that then you should retract the statement.

They would be the ones without "DOC" in the top left hand corner.

 

[kmortis]

Still no response to my query regarding the martyrs of non-Christian faiths?

DOC has long evaded this issue and this suggests to me that he is fully aware of the problems associated with claiming that martyrdom somehow establishes the truth of the martyr's beliefs. Yet I expect that he will continue to periodically claim that Christianity is validated by the fact that people have been willing to die for it.

Oo oo I know this one. Don't tell me...um..."special pleading"? DOC is asking us to accept his argument because a god, who by definition is outside natural law, makes things so. Therefore, anything he touches is special and anything that is "just from man" (e.g. Hinduism and Hindu martyrs) isn't. Therefore, by the special power of god, Christianity is right and the rest are wrong. Did I get it right, Foster? Did I? Can I has a Bozo Button now?

 

[kmortis]

Yeah, Gilgamesh was a real dick.

Literary terms like "tragic flaw" and "tragic hero" even come to us from Greek mythology. Gee, weren't the gospels written in Greek? How curious that writers should use literary concepts as old as literature itself.

Wasn't Mark supposed to have been one of Paul's sidekicks?

If so, how is his account, even if accepted at face value, considered "eyewitness"? If he was a Pauline hanger-on, that wasn't until after Jesus kicked the bucket.

And Luke was not an apostle either.

Matt and John were the only two attributed authors that were supposed to have "been there".

 

[kmortis]

Reason #6
Tapioca...maybe?

Naa...a Wastem!

 

[kmortis]

But if your theory is true than DOC is wasting his time. He proposes an argument with hopes of modifying it, several posters illustrate the flaws in the argument, and DOC continues to defend the original argument. If he were simply trying out arguments, why would he continue to engage in that time-wasting final step?

You would think DOC would learn not to demand somebody quote posts.

It never ends well for him.

I take this as evidence that the FSM is real and loves us all. He wants everyone to stop and partake of the Holy Sacrament of Cannoli. Find your nearest Italian deli and purchase the Cannoli (preferably the chocolate chip variety) and eat of it, for it is his body (nono...too Jewish)...mascarpone cheese wrapped in a tasty cookie like substance. Then drink of the cappuccino, for it is a frothy coffee beverage. And you will find that it is good. Or at least a lot better than the dessicated remains of a 0th century Jew.

 

[Kthulhut Fhtagn]

I take this as evidence that the FSM is real and loves us all. He wants everyone to stop and partake of the Holy Sacrament of Cannoli. Find your nearest Italian deli and purchase the Cannoli (preferably the chocolate chip variety) and eat of it, for it is his body (nono...too Jewish)...mascarpone cheese wrapped in a tasty cookie like substance. Then drink of the cappuccino, for it is a frothy coffee beverage. And you will find that it is good. Or at least a lot better than the dessicated remains of a 0th century Jew.

That paragraph is so awesome I wish I had room to signaturize it.