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

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DOC said:
Yes some bad things were wrongly done in the name of Jesus but there is no doubt in my mind that this world would be a much more terrible place to live in if he never came to this planet.
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That's because you are a man of faith. Please stop confusing faith and proof. They are mutually exclusive. Once you accept your faith as faith, you will learn that you are not testifying in a productive manner.

If your goal is to convince people to love Jesus, you are going about it atrociously, so atrociously that you may be doing your cause more harm than good.

If your goal is to test your own faith, you are also doing badly because you are not listening to what people are writing and not understanding why your arguments are falling on deaf ears.

If you want to preach then preach about your faith (but not here, as that violates the Code of Conduct). But don't preach your faith under the guise of a poorly constructed argument. That would be like a Buddhist joining a Bible study group for the sole purpose of getting people to become Buddhists by misrepresenting the Bible as a Buddhist text. Anybody who studies the Bible would see right through that ploy.

You're trying to proselytize to critical thinkers by gussying up the Bible as some sort of logical proof. But the authors of the Bible (whoever they may be) never intended the Bible to be used in such a manner. And critical thinkers can easily see what you're doing.

Go read the apologists that people have complimented. C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas. They are good writers and eloquent advocates of their faith. but what they didn't do is try to force a round peg into a square hole. None of them tried to prove the Bible was literally true. They either accepted it is an axiom, or accepted the uncertainty as a matter of faith.

You're not doing yourself or Christianity any favors by continuing on this path you've set for yourself. You've let your pride and ego get the better of you by continuing this fruitless journey for so long.
 
DOC said:
Yes, Jesus so loved slavery, and he was so happy that his ancestors (the Jews) spent 400 years as slaves in Egypt and Babylon. I bet he wished they were slaves for 800 -- that would have made him twice as happy.
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And Jesus so hated slavery that he denounced it's evil by stating rules by which slave and slave master should behave.
 
Luke "the physican" and historical accuracy

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Luke "the physican" and his historical accuracy

Ichneumonwasp said:
Here they are
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Read pages "256 to 260" on this. And finish at the sentence where Geisler says all 35 miracles were told with the same unembellished level-headed narrative. Now I think we know why Sir William Mitchell Ramsay classifies Luke as one of the world's great historians.
 
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DOC said:
Read pages "256 to 260" on this. And finish at the sentence where Geisler says all 35 miracles were told with the same unembellished level-head narrative. Now I think we know why Sir William Ramsay classifies Luke as one of the world's great historians.
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Doc,

Is it the 19th century Chemist Sir William Ramsay who is convinced that Luke is a great Historian based on his geographical knowledge?

There is also this outstanding question.

Luke 4 describes the devil and Jesus going up a mountain. Luke was not there. That gives two options. Jesus thought he could see all his father's kingdoms (is that the same as his own?) or the bible authors made bits up. Which are you going for?
 
DOC said:
Read pages "256 to 260" on this. And finish at the sentence where Geisler says all 35 miracles were told with the same unembellished level-headed narrative. Now I think we know why Sir William Mitchell Ramsay classifies Luke as one of the world's great historians.
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I'm confused as to why this makes luke an amazing historian?

Do you honestly believe that people at the time wouldn't know the best way to get to Greece?
Or the language spoken in a nearby city?
Or the travel habits of the time?
 
joobz said:
I'm confused as to why this makes luke an amazing historian?

Do you honestly believe that people at the time wouldn't know the best way to get to Greece?
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Peesh o' pish! Just saddle up and ride one of the Four Horses of the Acropolis
 
Since I am positive that DOC will never read the links, books, and other resources posted by others here, I would like to post an excerpt from an interview that is relevant to this whole "Luke as a historian" bit of nonsense.

Washington Post said:
For the next 12 years, he [Bart Ehrman] studied at Moody [Bible Institute, a pillar of conservative Christianity], at Wheaton College (another Christian institution in Illinois) and finally at Princeton Theological Seminary. He found he had a gift for languages. His specialty was the ancient texts that tried to explain what actually happened to Jesus Christ, and how the world's largest religion grew into being after his execution.

What he found there began to frighten him.

The Bible simply wasn't error-free. The mistakes grew exponentially as he traced translations through the centuries. There are some 5,700 ancient Greek manuscripts that are the basis of the modern versions of the New Testament, and scholars have uncovered more than 200,000 differences in those texts.

"Put it this way: There are more variances among our manuscripts than there are words in the New Testament," Ehrman summarizes.

Most of these are inconsequential errors in grammar or metaphor. But others are profound. The last 12 verses of the Gospel of Mark appear to have been added to the text years later -- and these are the only verses in that book that show Christ reappearing after his death.

Another critical passage is in 1 John, which explicitly sets out the Holy Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). It is a cornerstone of Christian theology, and this is the only place where it is spelled out in the entire Bible -- but it appears to have been added to the text centuries later, by an unknown scribe.
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Source:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/04/AR2006030401369_pf.html

DOC, if you read some of the textual criticism by current biblical scholars, you will find that Luke did make mistakes, often corrected by later scribes or publishers. If your copy of the book of Luke is currently inerrant in its geography, it is not necessarily due to his skill as a historian, but the skill of his later editors.
 
Hokulele said:
If your copy of the book of Luke is currently inerrant in its geography, it is not necessarily due to his skill as a historian, but the skill of his later editors.
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I still don't get why the claim that Luke is a great historian.

If it is Luke of the bible, he would have been present and therefore merely recounted life as he saw it. Would you call me a great historian if you found a letter where I gave someone the best directions to chicago?

You could only call Luke a great historian(using the arguments being made) if Luke wasn't the Luke of the bible, but merely an author decades to centuries after the fact.
 
joobz said:
I'm confused as to why this makes luke an amazing historian?

Do you honestly believe that people at the time wouldn't know the best way to get to Greece?
Or the language spoken in a nearby city?
Or the travel habits of the time?
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The point of the post was that Luke "the physician" was highly detailed and accurate in his writings as you can see if you read pgs. 256 to 260. (see post 1107) Why would he go from a physician who reports 84 things in pinpoint detail to a loosey goosey fiction writer who makes up miracles of his traveling companion Paul, it doesn't make sense. And then why would he present these made up miracles as fact in a letter to his friend, Theophilus.
 
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DOC said:
When he was talking about the kingdoms of world he was talking about the known world at that time from his likely flat earth perspective.
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paximperium said:
What's your excuse for someone claiming the see nations from on top of a mountain?
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DOC said:
Luke's. I assume Luke did not have knowledge the world was round. And also obviously he did not know how big the world was.
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So, you agree, then, that some of Luke's inaccuracies are the result of not knowing the truth of the world, but merely his perspective of the world at that time. We can dismiss his claim of seeing nations on top of a mountain as flowery misconception because he was supposedly unaware of a spherical earth and it's size.

I'll buy that.


So let me posit the following:
If Luke was prone to such inaccuracies, then why do we trust the statement that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead? If Luke's knowledge of geology was so poor, why do you think his knowledge of medicine would be any better?
 
Hokulele said:
Since I am positive that DOC will never read the links, books, and other resources posted by others here, I would like to post an excerpt from an interview that is relevant to this whole "Luke as a historian" bit of nonsense.



Source:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/04/AR2006030401369_pf.html

DOC, if you read some of the textual criticism by current biblical scholars, you will find that Luke did make mistakes, often corrected by later scribes or publishers. If your copy of the book of Luke is currently inerrant in its geography, it is not necessarily due to his skill as a historian, but the skill of his later editors.
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This post is irrelevant to what we're talking about. Bring in an excerpt from the article that deals with Luke specifically and it will be relevant. I'm talking about Luke and his historical accuracy I don't have time to research these non-Luke matters right now.
 
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DOC said:
This post is irrelevant to what we're talking about. Bring in an excerpt from the article that deals with Luke specifically and it will be relevant. I'm talking about Luke I don't have time to research these non-Luke matters right now.
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Translation: I didn't read your excerpt, nor did I read your article, and since I already know it destroys my argument, I will close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears, and wish myself back to my happy place. La la la la la.


My response: Read the book and actually learn something before you spout additional unsupported drivel.


ETA: An entire paper on an error in Luke. Not that you will read or respond to the points raised.

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-14875477_ITM
 
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DOC said:
The point of the post was that Luke "the physician" was highly detailed and accurate in his writings as you can see if you read pgs. 256 to 260. (see post 1107) Why would he go from a physician who reports 84 things in pinpoint detail to a loosey goosey fiction writer who makes up miracles of his traveling companion Paul, it doesn't make sense. And then why would he present these made up miracles as fact in a letter to his friend, Theophilus.
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Because Luke was not a physician, never there and never existed?

Because someone decided to make his fictional Luke seem intelligent by adding all that accurate padding into the text to make his story seem real?

Because the writer is lying?

Why is the geography of Greece and the known world sooooo real and accurate in the all the stories of the ancient Greek Gods? The Greek gods must be real!!!
 
joobz said:
So, you agree, then, that some of Luke's inaccuracies are the result of not knowing the truth of the world, but merely his perspective of the world at that time. We can dismiss his claim of seeing nations on top of a mountain as flowery misconception because he was supposedly unaware of a spherical earth and it's size.
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You're way off base on this, give me three days and I'll respond to this whole Christ on the mountain verse in Luke.
 
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