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

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25 pages, 1218 posts in this thread, and DOC proves again and again to be nothing but a self-serving sophistry machine. I'm done with this troll.
 
There was no error in what I said, I was talking about the gospel of Luke, and now that one of the other 90 posters in this thread has discovered that the historical figure John did indeed see the spirit descend on Christ, I still maintain that Christ could have been seeing the devil in the spirit. I don't believe Christ and the devil physically walked through the streets of Jerusalem to get to the temple, do you.
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Why not? You seem to believe that Christ quite literally physically rose from the dead. Given that, what's the problem with his physically walking with the devil? Talk about "cafeteria Christianity." It's "in the spirit" when you think that supports your argument and "physically" when you think that's the best way to go.

Do you have the faintest clue as to the meaning of the word consistency? Do you have any idea how silly you make yourself look?
 
Elizabeth I said:
Why not? You seem to believe that Christ quite literally physically rose from the dead. Given that, what's the problem with his physically walking with the devil? Talk about "cafeteria Christianity." It's "in the spirit" when you think that supports your argument and "physically" when you think that's the best way to go.

Do you have the faintest clue as to the meaning of the word consistency? Do you have any idea how silly you make yourself look?
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I was going to make the exact same point, but you said it much better than I could.

DOC,
You ignored my question:
Do you believe the movie JFK by Oliver Stone is Historically accurate?
 
DOC said:
There was no error in what I said, I was talking about the gospel of Luke, and now that one of the other 90 posters in this thread has discovered that the historical figure John did indeed see the spirit descend on Christ,
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So, which account is correct, the one in Luke, or the one in John? If it's the one according to John, then surely it is odd that Luke does not say so if John (the Baptist) in fact did see and hear what was happening to Jesus.

ETA: and it's hardly a 'discovery' that there's an account of the same thing, with differences, in John. Once again, you're left looking foolish because you apparently haven't even read the scripture that you're arguing for and from. It takes some nerve to insist that something you don't know the contents of must be true.

Oh, and one more point, but I don't want you to think you got away with this one; even if John the Baptist is a historical figure, we have not learnt that he 'did indeed' see anything, only that one of the people writing about him years after the event claims that he did. We don't know where the gospel writer (whoever he may have been) heard the story.
 
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DOC, you should familiarize yourself with modern textual criticism of the Bible. You should look up the Quelle theories and the postulation that Mark was written first and the other Gospels either copied large portions from him or from whatever it was he was using as a source. You also might be interested in the latest scholarship regarding the Gospel of Thomas found in the Nag Hammadi library.
 
Sefarst said:
DOC, you should familiarize yourself with modern textual criticism of the Bible. You should look up the Quelle theories and the postulation that Mark was written first and the other Gospels either copied large portions from him or from whatever it was he was using as a source. You also might be interested in the latest scholarship regarding the Gospel of Thomas found in the Nag Hammadi library.
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Why should he? He is obviously proudly ignorant and has stated that he hasn't even completely read the whole Bible even once. His beliefs and dogma are not going to be changed by silly things like what's written in the Bible or actual Biblical scholarship or history.

If anyone is interested:
Q-Document: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_document
 
paximperium said:
Why should he? He is obviously proudly ignorant and has stated that he hasn't even completely read the whole Bible even once. His beliefs and dogma are not going to be changed by silly things like what's written in the Bible or actual Biblical scholarship or history.
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At the very least, it would allow him to present a coherent argument for WHY he is picking and choosing which parts of the Bible to take seriously and which to not. Cafeteria Christianity has been around for a while, the difference is just that the good cafeteria Christians can provide scholarly reasons for why they are picking and choosing which parts they believe and which they don't. DOC's problem is that he's picking and choosing based solely on the ground that he doesn't like some parts but he likes others.

At the very least, we can lead this horse to water. Point him in the direction of places like earlychristianwritings.com, the Quelle, and the Jesus Seminar.

For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_Seminar
 
Elizabeth I said:
Why not? You seem to believe that Christ quite literally physically rose from the dead. Given that, what's the problem with his physically walking with the devil?
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No problem, but now that I think of it, Christ could perform miracles, so if he wanted to see all the nations of the world from a mountain top he certainly could. He could walk on water and raise the dead and feed 5000 from 5 loaves and 2 fish so what's the problem with seeing all the nations of the world if he wanted to. The same with the temple, if he wanted to be transported to the top of the temple in a second he could do it if he wanted to.
 
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Ichneumonwasp said:
Here they are
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Earlier I talked about how Luke (author of the Gospel of Luke) had been called one of the world's greatest historians by a famous archaeologist. And the support for this can be seen on the above (here they are) website (see pages 256 - 260). This website discusses the book cited in post #1.

But Luke isn't the only Gospel writer who paid meticulous attention to detail. John, the man given credit for writing the Gospel of John for 2000 years (and an apostle), also gave very detailed information in his gospel. Pages 263 - 268 in the above (here they are) website gives 59 highly detailed facts listed in John.

For example #39 talks of the father in law of the high priest Caiphus, and #42 gives the name of a relative of the high priest who got his ear cut off. Why would someone who made up the story go into such fine detail about relatives and other facts.

Remember, this same John who goes into minute details, is the same John who said John the Baptist (who was quite famous at the time) saw the Spirit descend down on Christ. Since John the Baptist was so well known and popular this could totally destroy the other John's whole gospel story if it was not true. And since John the Baptist was so well known it would definitely raise eyebrows if no one ever heard about the fact that John the Baptist saw the Spirit in the form of a dove descend on Christ at his baptism.

So both John and Luke have proven themselves as Gospel writers who are quite meticulous with the facts.
 
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DOC said:
John, the man given credit for writing the Gospel of John for 2000 years...
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That's a long time to be writing. Has he finished it yet?

Oh, I see - you're claiming that he has been given credit for 2,000 years for writing John's Gospel. That would mean that he wrote it over 2,000 years ago, in which case he must have made most or all of it up.
 
DOC said:
But Luke isn't the only Gospel writer who paid meticulous attention to detail. John, the man given credit for writing the Gospel of John for 2000 years (and an apostle), also gave very detailed information in his gospel.
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In any case, the fact that John was believed for a long time to have written the Gospel of John does not mean that he actually wrote it, unless you happen to be Kumar:
710457bfee3d0ad4.jpg
 
DOC said:
So both John and Luke have proven themselves as Gospel writers who are quite meticulous with the facts.
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Wow! Just like J. R. R. Tolkien!

ETA: details are not the same as facts.
 
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I challenge you DOC to write three messages of wisdom from the bible.
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There is wisdom in the Bible. That, and beautiful passages.

Doesn't change the fact that it's also full of nonsense.
 
DOC said:
So both John and Luke have proven themselves as Gospel writers who are quite meticulous with the facts.
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John 19:19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS

Luke 23:38 And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.


So Doc has proven himself as a Christian Apologist who is not meticulous with the facts
 
Hokulele said:
These are all reasons to believe the NT authors wrote what they believed was true, but it is not evidence that it was true.
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I have never read one of DOC's threads before, so I thought I would. Kokulele's point is absolutely true. However DOC is correct about the criterion of embarrassment which we use in Biblical Criticism ot try and establish early and authentic pericope.

Hey, I'm going to read all of this thread! :)

cj x
 
DOC said:
No problem, but now that I think of it, Christ could perform miracles, so if he wanted to see all the nations of the world from a mountain top he certainly could. He could walk on water and raise the dead and feed 5000 from 5 loaves and 2 fish so what's the problem with seeing all the nations of the world if he wanted to. The same with the temple, if he wanted to be transported to the top of the temple in a second he could do it if he wanted to.
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Yup.
Hence, we are at an impasse.
There are clear, undeniable logical inconsistencies in the bible. Things we know to be impossible physically.

Since no rational explaination exists, You are forced to explain this stuff away by claiming "magic."

Since we have no evidence for the magic, the ressurection, and who actually wrote the bible books, you must have faith that all these things are possible and accurate.

Hence, it is quite clear that faith is required in Christianity but not atheism.


Thank you for helping us demonstrate how simply absurdly that premise is.
 
paximperium said:
Why should he? He is obviously proudly ignorant and has stated that he hasn't even completely read the whole Bible even once. His beliefs and dogma are not going to be changed by silly things like what's written in the Bible or actual Biblical scholarship or history.

If anyone is interested:
Q-Document: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_document
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Note that the Q hypothesis is extremely interesting, but that it relates primarily to material in Matt, Mark and Luke. The Johannine sources are another huge and complex question...

cj x
 
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