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

[Hokulele]

I agree here, seeing a resurrected man would make motivated and enthusiastic speakers even out of fishermen.

Yes, but there is no evidence that they saw such, and plenty of evidence of other things that make people gifted speakers. So for you to assume that is the reason is speculation.

I didn't say "solely"...

It was certainly implied.

...and bottom line is the Greek and Roman gods are on the ash heap of history and Christianity is still going strong 2000 years later.

So what? How does that support your case at all? There are plenty of "dead" religions, and plenty of "live" ones much older that christianity.

 

[Lothian]

Do you have first hand knowledge that Julius Caesar existed.

I not only know he existed I have eaten his salad.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Do you have first hand knowledge that Julius Caesar existed.

What do you count as firsthand knowledge?

I'm not Masuna, but yes, I do have such knowledge. I have read the words he wrote about the Gallic Wars. I have personally seen coins with his likeness in a travelling museum show. I have read Plutarch's life of Caesar. Would you like more evidence?

 

[paximperium]

How about the evidence that a small group of scared apostles in a distant province who knew their leader was crucified and they would likely be next if they didn't keep quiet were able to cause the extinction of the Roman and Greek gods and eventually convert the Roman emperor -- with no radio, no TV, no newpapers, and no modern transportation. Doesn't that historical evidence seem to make one think that the apostles might have seen exactly what the four gospels said they saw.

Great, another shift in your claim, AGAIN. First it was Christianity existed because of these non-Christian texts to, Christianity is real because Christians are real, AGAIN.

No, because despite your continued claims, you don't have this evidence.

I've noticed the gradual change in your claim. The self evidence is that it proves that Christianity existed nothing more, nothing less. It is nothing more than continued dishonesty to claim that they are important in discussion concerning your claims in the opening.

If you will concede this point, that these Non-Christian sources are irrelevant to your claim that Jesus existed or add anything to your claim of divinity, I withdraw my claim that you are a liar and will apologize.

Will you do the honest thing? I wonder?

You keep making this claim to a story as if it were fact. Blindly repeating this statement does not make you right, just really dishonest.

 

[paximperium]

Do you have first hand knowledge that Julius Caesar existed.

Yes.
I have physical evidence of his existence in form of statues and coins created during his lifetime.

I have multiple accounts from multiple sources of his existence.

No historian takes the propaganda written by the Romans at face value. They actually back it up by other means such as archeological and other historical sources.

We don't have to suspend disbelief to believe that a Roman leader conquered most of Europe. He didn't claim he was god, nor did he perform magic or miracles. He actually did things.

Hey, let's say he was made up. Let's say he was a Roman fairytale that never ever existed.

So?

 

[arthwollipot]

I didn't say "solely" and bottom line is the Greek and Roman gods are on the ash heap of history and Christianity is still going strong 2000 years later.

Oh, so you've never heard of Hellenic Reconstructionalism?

 

[paximperium]

Oh, so you've never heard of Hellenic Reconstructionalism?

Hinduism...4000+years therefore they must be right.
Buddhism...3000years therefore they must be right.
Zoroastrianism even older than Christianity, therefore they must be right.

 

[marksman]

BY definition, Judaism has to be older than Christianity and it's still actively practiced. This argument from antiquity places Christianity somewhere around fifth place after Hinduism, Judaism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism

 

[joobz]

I agree here, seeing a resurrected man would make motivated and enthusiastic speakers even out of fishermen.

We have no evidence that they say a resurrected man. All we have is hearsay.
Further, I just talked to god and he told me that these guys never saw any one resurrected and he has never resurrected anyone. Jesus was just a guy. He also says that he appreciates your efforts but says that you are simply wrong about the whole jesus thing.

...Are you going to call god a liar?

 

[six7s]

Further, I just talked to god and he told me that these guys never saw any one resurrected and he has never resurrected anyone. Jesus was just a guy. He also says that he appreciates your efforts but says that you are simply wrong about the whole jesus thing.

...Are you going to call god a liar?

This just in:

from: SkyDaddy <bigguy@thebigGmail.com>
to: six7s@thelittlegmail.com
date: Sat, Nov 1, 2008 at 7:59 PM
subject: JREF thread - Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.
mailed-by: wtf.thebigGmail.com

Hey Dude,

How's it hangin'?

As you know, I was booted off the forums (they said I was a sock-puppet of some Hawai'ian chick) so I can't reply to Joobz's post directly, and I was wondering if you could do me a favour...

Please tell Joobz that my boy IS real... just none too bright, went down to your place *way* too _early_ and generally screwed things up big time...

Kids, huh?

Cheers
SkyDaddy

PS
Oh yeah... almost forgot! Tell Joobz that was an imposter he was talking to; we're traced the call to a cyber café in some me-less place called Denmark

 

[Filippo Lippi]

"Me-less place"

*applauds*

 

[zooterkin]

As you know, I was booted off the forums (they said I was a sock-puppet of some Hawai'ian chick) so I can't reply to Joobz's post directly, and I was wondering if you could do me a favour...

Please tell Joobz that my boy IS real... just none too bright, went down to your place *way* too _early_ and generally screwed things up big time...

Kids, huh?

Cheers
SkyDaddy

Reported for posting messages from a banned member

 

[DOC]

I have physical evidence of his {Caesar's} existence in form of statues and coins created during his lifetime.

There are statues of Greek and Roman gods. Does that mean you have physical evidence of them. Also, I've heard there is no known signature of Julius Caesar. That seems odd. You would think a signature of the supposed first Roman emperor would be a collector's item. This could be a definite argument he never existed. And a person can put anything they want on a coin. One could argue it is hearsay that he ever existed.

I have multiple accounts from multiple sources of his {Caesar's} existence.

There are 14,000 full or partial manuscripts that say Christ lived, Whereas there is only 7 manuscripts of Plato's works. Historians Tacitus and Josephus mention Christ.

 

[DOC]

We have no evidence that they say a resurrected man. All we have is hearsay.
Further, I just talked to god and he told me that these guys never saw any one resurrected and he has never resurrected anyone. Jesus was just a guy. He also says that he appreciates your efforts but says that you are simply wrong about the whole jesus thing.

...Are you going to call god a liar?

So you have personal knowledge and proof that God exists because you have talked to him.

 

[Lothian]

There are 14,000 full or partial manuscripts that say Christ lived, Whereas there is only 7 manuscripts of Plato's works. Historians Tacitus and Josephus mention Christ.

Excellent, I am sure that one of them will tell us if the New testament writers told the truth. I look forward to your evidence.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

There are statues of Greek and Roman gods. Does that mean you have physical evidence of them. Also, I've heard there is no known signature of Julius Caesar. That seems odd. You would think a signature of the supposed first Roman emperor would be a collector's item. This could be a definite argument he never existed. And a person can put anything they want on a coin. One could argue it is hearsay that he ever existed.

1. Julius Caesar was not the first Roman emperor.
2. No, coins were not stamped with just anything in the ancient world.
3. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we have the signature of nearly anyone in the ancient world. What do you think would survive that long? The works that we have are copies of copies of copies. The only signatures of which I am aware are on pottery which tends to last longer than parchment or papyrus. (With this one I have to ask: are you playing a game or are you really this ignorant of history?)
4. We have some of Gaius Julius Caesar's own writings. How can it be hearsay when we have works from his own hand? By your reasoning it is hearsay that anyone existed, ever, so history is worthless (which, by the way, makes a historical religion like Christianity worthless while the other religions can continue just fine). You might want to rethink your plan of attack.

There are 14,000 full or partial manuscripts that say Christ lived, Whereas there is only 7 manuscripts of Plato's works. Historians Tacitus and Josephus mention Christ.

What difference does that make? That is evidence that people in the Middle Ages thought Christianity was important, which is no surprise to anyone, not evidence that what is written is true. The issue is whether or not he was resurrected, not whether or not he existed. Where is the non-Christian evidence of the resurrection? Tacitus certainly doesn't supply it. Nor does Seutonius. Nor does Josephus, unless you want to make the unsupportable claim that the Testimonium Flavium is from Josephus' own hand, in contradiction to the evidence that he remained a practicing Jew until his death.

 

[DOC]

There are 14,000 full or partial manuscripts that say Christ lived, Whereas there is only 7 manuscripts of Plato's works. Historians Tacitus and Josephus mention Christ.

Excellent, I am sure that one of them will tell us if the New testament writers told the truth. I look forward to your evidence.

You might not have read the 10 reasons Norman Geisler gave. 5 of them were in post #1. Of course I didn't go into the detail he did for each reason. His chapter on the 10 reasons was 21 pages long.

Here is one of several explanations he gives for reason #5. Why would the NT writer's say Christ was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (one of the members of the Sanhedrin). The Sanhedrin was the group that called for Jesus' death. Why portray a member of the Sanhedrin (an enemy of Christianity) in good light. This doesn't make sense especially if the story was made up. It would be easy to verify if it was true or not.

 

[DOC]

...3. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think we have the signature of nearly anyone in the ancient world. What do you think would survive that long? The works that we have are copies of copies of copies...

This argument would help to explain why the Gospels have no signatures.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

You might not have read the 10 reasons Norman Geisler gave. 5 of them were in post #1. Of course I didn't go into the detail he did for each reason. His chapter on the 10 reasons was 21 pages long.

Here is one of several explanations he gives for reason #5. Why would the NT writer's say Christ was buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (one of the members of the Sanhedrin). The Sanhedrin was the group that called for Jesus' death. Why portray a member of the Sanhedrin (an enemy of Christianity) in good light. This doesn't make sense especially if the story was made up. It would be easy to verify if it was true or not.

Actually it makes perfect sense, since Joseph was portrayed as one who believed. The same was true of Nicodemus in John's gospel -- he sticks up for Jesus later in the work after their earlier conversation.

The reason behind having him put into a tomb -- and it had to be someone well enough off to have a tomb -- was to counter the ready claim that he was never buried, so that the resurrection story could even be possible. Crucified criminals were generally left for the dogs to eat or put into a mass grave. Their bodies were not released to their families or to strangers.

Joseph would have to have been rich and powerful in the story to explain how he could have pulled off the feat of getting the body of a crucified criminal in the first place. So he would have to be, for story purposes, in the Jewish elite.

This has to be one of the weakest arguments in the entire work unless the rest are that bad. I saw some of them. His arguments are pretty weak in general.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

This argument would help to explain why the Gospels have no signatures.

The argument is not necessary to explain why the gospels have no signatures. No one argues about the gospels having no signatures. The issue with the gospels is that they are written anonymously. No one mentions within the work that he wrote any of them. In ancient histories, authors did not sign the works (we don't think -- but we don't have original copies of anything from that time period), they announced, usually in the first sentence, who wrote the piece. This was not always the case -- Sallust didn't and I don't recall Plutarch mentioning himself by name -- but it was clearly true of Gaius Caesar in the Gallic Wars and in The Civil War (as well as Herodotus and Thucydides).