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

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Wow! PnP&Zs is for Real! Wow2!

(at first I assumed it was merely H being funny)
 
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kurious_kathy said:
Easter says that you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there.
Clarence W. Hall, Christian journalist and writer
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That is not dead which can eternal lie./And with strange aeons even death may die.

--H. P. Lovecraft,
American Horror Author (1890-1937).

Maybe Yoshua Ben Yosef was the son of a God... an Outer God.

Old Wizard Yosef: " Let me tell ye suthin - some day yew folks'll hear a child o' Miram's a-callin' its father's name on the top o' Skull Hill!'
 
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Ichneumonwasp said:
In the context of Mark's gospel it makes perfect sense. The disciples -- you know those guys who are portrayed as blithering idiots -- have scattered to the four winds leaving behind the women followers alone. Peter has denied Jesus three times, then we have a story of another Simon doing the right thing and carrying the cross. The disciples do not do the right thing. They do not bury Jesus' body. It is left to a good man, who follows Jewish law to do the right thing and bury him -- in fact, one who was expressly stated to be a Sanhedrin member, all of whom voted against Jesus.

It is a literary device to show just how little the disciples understood because that is the theme of this book -- that no one knew who Jesus was. A crucified criminal was not supposed to be the Messiah, so Mark has his work cut out for him to demonstrate that he was. He uses the disciples as a way to show how no one -- not even his closest followers -- suspected that Jesus was the Messiah. Even when Peter recognizes that he is the Messiah he immediately screws it up and he never acts like he is the Messiah.

It wouldn't have made sense for a Sanhedrin member -- especially one who voted against Jesus -- to bury him, yes. It makes perfect sense as part of a story with a theme. This is a story with a theme.
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(boldness added)

So if none of the apostles knew Jesus was the Messiah and they understood very little as you say; and all but one of them wouldn't even take the time to support him during his crucifixion; or give him a proper burial, then what caused them to suddenly change course and boldly preach the gospel in a dangerous occupied territory to the point that 11 of 12 of them were martyred (according to Wiki).

The only thing I can think of that would cause such a change of course would be to see someone you knew had been crucified was now suddenly very much alive and well.
 
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DOC said:
So if none of the apostles knew Jesus was the Messiah and they understood very little as you say; and all but one of them wouldn't even take the time to support him during his crucifixion; or give him a proper burial, then what caused them to suddenly change course and boldly preach the gospel in a dangerous occupied territory to the point that 11 or 12 of them were martyred (according to Wiki).

The only thing I can think of that would cause such a change of course would be to see someone you knew had been crucified was now suddenly very much alive and well.
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Er, DOC, note the words before and after the section you bolded. The fact that a literary device has been used to imply something, as part of a narrative, does not mean that what it implies is true, or supported by any actual evidence.
 
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Mojo said:
Er, DOC, note the words before and after the section you bolded. The fact that a literary device has been used to imply something, as part of a narrative, does not mean that what it implies is true, or supported by any actual evidence.
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So then I would assume that you believe that these "historical" figures probably died for a literary device:

* Saint Stephen, Protomartyr, was stoned c. 34 A.D.
* James the Great (Son of Zebedee) was beheaded in 44 A.D.
* Philip the Apostle was crucified in 54 A.D.
* Matthew the Evangelist killed with a halberd in 60 A.D.
* James the Just, beaten to death with a club after being crucified and stoned.
* Matthias was stoned and beheaded.
* Saint Andrew, St. Peter's brother, was crucified.
* Saint Mark was dragged in the streets until his death
* Saint Peter, crucified upside-down.
* Apostle Paul, beheaded in Rome.
* Saint Jude was crucified.
* Saint Bartholomew flayed alive and crucified.
* Thomas the Apostle was killed with a spear.
* Luke the Evangelist was hung.
* Simon the Zealot was crucified in 74 A.D.

(Note: John the Evangelist according to legend was cooked in boiling hot oil but survived. He was the only one of the original twelve Apostles who was not martyred).

From Wiki's article: List of the Christian martyrs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_martyrs
 
DOC said:
(boldness added)
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DOC, instead responding to some randomly selected post from 4 months ago, why not actually adress the question that was posed to you most recently.

L the Detective said:
DOC, correct me where I'm wrong. You're saying that the Bible is "the most moral teaching ever known to man", but also that it can't be taken at face value, and you need to remember that some morals in the Bible are only correct for their time, or that Jesus needed to make some moral concessions in order to get his overall point across.

Is this what you think?
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That is typically the proper way a conversation is handled. Otherwise, You give the impression that you are actively trying to avoid answering the question.
 
DOC said:
(boldness added)

So if none of the apostles knew Jesus was the Messiah and they understood very little as you say; and all but one of them wouldn't even take the time to support him during his crucifixion; or give him a proper burial, then what caused them to suddenly change course and boldly preach the gospel in a dangerous occupied territory to the point that 11 or 12 of them were martyred (according to Wiki).

The only thing I can think of that would cause such a change of course would be to see someone you knew had been crucified was now suddenly very much alive and well.
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DOC,

Perhaps your inability to comprehend any other possibility is a sign of your own limitations? Many others have not only proposed other explanations but actually backed them up with facts and arguments. I refer you to the very large literature on Historical Jesus research.

Can you comprehend the difference between the theme of a written text and the reality of what happened?

The theme of the written text of Mark -- a book written probably by a gentile convert in Rome and very obviously not by John Mark as popularly ascribed -- is that none of the disciples understood that Jesus was the Messiah. There is even a nice parallel within the text to drive the point home -- Simon (Peter) denies Jesus three times while Simon (of Cyrene -- who never met the man before that instant) carries his cross for him.

This theme is prominent because of the experience of the Christian community in Rome. Claudius had expelled "the Jews" from Rome probably because of fights within the Jewish community with the emerging Christian sects or possibly within the Christian community between Jewish Christian and gentile Christian converts -- we know something was afoot because Suetonius refers to it in his Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Acts also recounts a memory of Jewish expulsion from Rome. This was followed by Nero's persecution of the Christians for supposedly setting fires in Rome.

As a result -- it is believed -- people began to fall away from the faith (probably in part because of the local persecutions in Rome and also because the Kingdom of God had not arrived; but primarily because Rome was now attacking Palestine because of Jewish resistance -- the Jewish War that resulted in Temple destruction). Mark was written in this environment in order to tell people that they must hold the faith. Jesus does not appear to anyone after his resurrection in this text -- he's just gone. No one who is scared, no one who denies him, no one who scatters to the four winds will receive his message.

The ultimate point of Mark is that if you want to follow Jesus you must take up your cross with him. You must be willing to suffer the same persecutions and not lose faith.

The other stories about apostles preaching in Acts, the references to Peter in Paul's letters, etc. were all written by other authors for different purposes.

Viturally no one denies that Jesus' followers believed that something miraculous occurred to him after his death -- however they conceived it; and that is not certain by any stretch of the imagination.

The problem you have is in explaining why Mark was written as it was, with that theme. Keep in mind that this book was not written as the events unfolded. This is a carefully constructed piece with stories that illustrate its several themes; in fact, parts of it are constructed almost like an argument -- Jesus has authority, so we get story after story demonstrating his authority over demons, over disease, in his teaching, etc. And it was written nearly forty years after the events that transpired (whatever those were).

Mark is written not as an account about bunnies and flowers popping up because of Jesus; the emphasis is not on the disciples spreading the message after the resurrection. Whoever wrote it explicitly states that he brings the good news, then he goes into great detail showing the miraculous for illustrative purposes (why you should believe that Jesus is who the author says he is), including several exhortations about the spread of the faith (miracle of the loaves, walking on water, etc.). But half-way through the emphasis is on coming death, trial, suffering. The portrayal of the disciples in this text differs from that in John; there is no good way to reconcile the two portraits because the different authors were writing for different purposes. If this were written by an eye-witness reporting history and who wanted to emphasize the resurrection as a glorious event, it wouldn't have been written as it was. The book is about 'suffering-through' and it tells that story for a reason.

These are not historical texts; they weren't even written in the way that we think of historical texts now or the way that 'striclty historical texts' at that time were written. These are faith documents. If you want to make sense of them, stop focusing on the events as events because that is not the point of the texts. If you want to use them as faith documents, then use them as faith documents and believe.
 
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six7s said:
Serious question: How do these two seemingly incongruous statements gel - in your view - DOC?
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Even though Jesus was speaking in ways (parables) that the unenlightened could better understand, his teachings were "still" the most sublime and moral the world has ever known (at least according to Thomas Jefferson).
 
DOC said:
Even though Jesus was speaking in ways (parables) that the unenlightened could better understand, his teachings were "still" the most sublime and moral the world has ever known (at least according to Thomas Jefferson).
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L the Detective said:
DOC, correct me where I'm wrong. You're saying that the Bible is "the most moral teaching ever known to man", but also that it can't be taken at face value, and you need to remember that some morals in the Bible are only correct for their time, or that Jesus needed to make some moral concessions in order to get his overall point across.

Is this what you think?
Click to expand...
 
DOC said:
So then I would assume that you believe that these "historical" figures probably died for a literary device
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Then you would assume wrongly. Which obviously is going to come as a shock to anyone who knows you. :rolleyes:

In any case, why would anyone be prepared to die for a literary device used in a work which had not yet been written? This makes no sense whatsoever.

I'll repeat a question that Ichneumonwasp has just asked you:

Can you comprehend the difference between the theme of a written text and the reality of what happened?
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Mojo said:
I'll repeat a question that Ichneumonwasp has just asked you:
Can you comprehend the difference between the theme of a written text and the reality of what happened?
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Night of the living dead:
Theme-Isolationism and fear of the unrelenting force of mob mentality.
Reailty-Complete fiction. No such thing as zombies.

Zen and the Art of motorcycle Maintainence
Theme-Defining Quality as it pertains to one's life.
Reality-Mixed. Contains trace elements of a personal travel account with a bunch of made up parts to create a story.

The Eight
Theme-a consipricy theory story about a ancient secret that has passed through centuries of history.
Reality- The book uses actual historical people (even obscure ones) as characters, and even includes some large historical events. But the entire story is complete BS.
 
joobz said:
The Eight
Theme-a consipricy theory story about a ancient secret that has passed through centuries of history.
Reality- The book uses actual historical people (even obscure ones) as characters, and even includes some large historical events. But the entire story is complete BS.
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It's also way better than The DaVinci Code.
 
DOC said:
Even though Jesus was speaking in ways (parables) that the unenlightened could better understand, his teachings were "still" the most sublime and moral the world has ever known (at least according to Thomas Jefferson after he cut what he didn't like and edited the rest to his his own ends).
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Fixed it for your DOC. Dodgy of you to leave that out when it was clearly pointed to you earlier, otherwise you would have to agree that you were wrong.

I see you still haven't answered Six7s' question. That's probably wise since, as we've all noticed, only an honest and truthful answer would be an acceptible resolution. That's typically not your MO.

DmKrispin said:
It's also way better than The DaVinci Code.
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Blasphemy. Nothing is better than The Da Vinci Code. Nothing I say!
 
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