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

[six7s]

Facts 8,11,12,13,and 14 would not be analogous to your point.

Also there is an element that disputes John is the author. I've brought in a website earlier that blah blah blah

Is this 'International Year of Pissing Around and Pretending there are no Unanswered Questions'?

 

[Lothian]

The site you sited also lists 59 highly detailed facts written by John. Here are 15 of those 59 listed:

Ignoring what would have been common knowledge facts 1,3,4,5,6,7

The remaining facts split into two categories.

An unlikely event 2,8,11,12,13,14 or a likely event 9,10,15.

The unlikely events are taken to be true because they are unlikely and the likely events are taken to be true because they are likely.

Following that rule of thumb the whole bible story must be true. Watch how easy it is to do a Geisler on your rebuttlal of the truth of Mormonism.


Doc -the Mormon religion believes God exists in "human form" on or near the planet or star Kolob

God existing in a human form is highly likely. That we are created in his image makes sense.
God living on or near Kolob is an unlikely invention and would not be made up.

 

[joobz]

Is this 'International Year of Pissing Around and Pretending there are no Unanswered Questions'?

Well,
DOC is playing a game of "Maybe it'll go away".

In this game, you ignore all question and points that you are unable to answer in hopes that everyone will forget about the points that were raised.

This is typically linked to the "asked and answered" gambit, which is where DOC will act that he already answered the question and that the insistance that the question be answered is an unreasonable request.

 

[DOC]

Actually, you are right, I did learn a few things from you.
But then, three new things in 650 plus posts make for a very poor batting average,...

There is a lot more than those three, and I think you know that.

 

[catbasket]

DOC, there are some questions we want you to answer and we know you know that. That you refuse to answer speaks volumes.

 

[zooterkin]

Well, while we're reviewing missed opportunities, here are some other questions you missed, DOC:

Actually the Mark verse in the "Revised Standard Version" translation you used makes it quite unclear and in my opinion even misrepresents the verse in the part I bolded. I noticed you didn't use the King James version. Mathew 13 verse 10 - 16 makes it clearer. I'll bring in as time permits.

Bring it in? You are aware that that most of the versions of the bible are available online, aren't you? See http://www.biblegateway.com/ for example.

Why do you view the KJV as authoritative? It does have arguably some of the best prose in the English language, but I don't know it is regarded as the most accurate translation. You do know the bible wasn't written in English originally, don't you?

And they weren't deliberately kept in the dark in this verse. They were in the dark because of their own dull minds as Isaiah foretold. This is shown in Matthew Chapter 13 verse 14.

So, you believe* in prophecy; how does that work, then? Is that one of your pieces of evidence for the New Testament being true?

* Typo in original fixed

 

[DOC]

Joobz quote:

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?

--------------

DOC: I assume this question has to do mainly with slavery which I've responded to at least 20 times? I have nothing further to say on this. If those 20 or so responses don't satisfy you then go to another thread or start your own thread in this area.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4574964#post4574964

 

[joobz]

Evidence for why we know the New testament writers were Bat-poop Insane

Reason #1

The New Testament Writers Included Embarrassing Details About Themselves.

For example some passages portray the disciples as dim-witted, uncaring, and cowards. Only a crazy person would show themselves as fools and morons.

Reason #2

The New Testament Writers Included Embarrassing Details and Difficult Sayings of Jesus.

For example in one passage someone call Jesus a drunkard, and in another He was called demon-possessed, another a deceiver. Only a crazy person would follow a leader who was known to be a drunken demon-possessed crazy person.

Reason #3

The NT Writers Left in Very Demanding Sayings of Jesus.

For example: (Matthew 5:28) "I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart".

Only a crazy person would think that thoughts are worthy of punishment.


Reason #9

The New Testament Writers Describe Miracles Like Other Historical Events: With Simple, Unembellished Accounts.

Only crazy people have a hard time seperating reality from imagination. To accept fantastical events as real is a clear sign of delusional thinking, the halmark of the bat-poop insane.

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 .

Crazy people who become crazy later in life, often abandon long held love and tradition in favor of some delusion. This fixation can become so strong that the individual will undergo severe self-sacrifice and subject themselves to pain unimagined merely to maintain thier delusion. Whether it is a belief in speaking to god, that they are god, that they can talk to dogs or see aleins. These people are very likely willing to give up thier lives because their beliefs are so strongly felt.

 

[DOC]

So, you believe* in prophecy; how does that work, then? Is that one of your pieces of evidence for the New Testament being true?

I'm no expert on prophecy but this PHd. says about 2000 prophecies have been fulfilled in the bible. If you have few months you might do some research on it.

http://www.reasons.org/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-reliability-bible

 

[L The Detective]

Joobz quote:

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?

--------------

DOC: I assume this question has to do mainly with slavery which I've responded to at least 20 times? I have nothing further to say on this. If those 20 or so responses don't satisfy you then go to another thread or start your own thread in this area.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4574964#post4574964

They don't satisfy me because you were never clear about what your position was, which is the point of this question... to try to get you to be clear. Just answer the question directly, please. If you won't do that, I have no interest in talking to you about anything else.

 

[Mashuna]

I'm no expert on prophecy but this PHd. says about 2000 prophecies have been fulfilled in the bible. If you have few months you might do some research on it.

http://www.reasons.org/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-reliability-bible

No need - there's already a thread open here.

Examples in the thread show how the writers tailored their accounts to ensure that they fulfilled the OT prophecies. Here's a great example from Hok:

The best single example to use to demonstrate what the posters are talking about is the bit about riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. This is lifted directly from Zechariah (I don't have access to the exact passage at the moment, but can look it up later). In it, the prophet states that the messiah will be riding "an ass, and a colt, the foal of an ass". Most of the Gospel riders correctly interpreted this to mean a single, young, male donkey, the repetition simply being a poetic device.

Matthew, however, reads the original prophecy literally and invents rodeo Jesus where he is supposedly riding both animals (although I doubt at the same time). Seeing this type of discrepency highlights how the Gospel writers deliberately included prophecy into their accounts, even though it might not have matched reality very well (being written decades after the original events).

 

[joobz]

I'm no expert on prophecy but this PHd. says about 2000 prophecies have been fulfilled in the bible. If you have few months you might do some research on it.

http://www.reasons.org/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-reliability-bible

Oh Goodie. You presented that source again.

I love the statistics on it. Here's an example of how they came up with their numbers.

*The estimates of probability included herein come from a group of secular research scientists. As an example of their method of estimation, consider their calculations for this first prophecy cited:

• Since the Messiah's ministry could conceivably begin in any one of about 5000 years, there is, then, one chance in about 5000 that his ministry could begin in 26 A.D.
• Since the Messiah is God in human form, the possibility of his being killed is considerably low, say less than one chance in 10.
• Relative to the second destruction of Jerusalem, this execution has roughly an even chance of occurring before or after that event, that is, one chance in 2.

Hence, the probability of chance fulfillment for this prophecy is 1 in 5000 x 10 x 2, which is 1 in 100,000, or 1 in 105.

Let see the type of statistics used by this group.
Point 1. Ignoring the randomly selected 5000 year limit, this statistic insinuates that he would consider all 4999 years as a failure and 1 year as a hit. Even in his argument he says that " ..the start of Christ's ministry is set by most historians at about 26 A.D." Are we to assume then, that if it turned out that the ministry actually started in 25 AD, that we could call this a false prophecy? Or would the numbers be adjusted to still allow it to be a hit? I think we all know the answer to that...

Point 2. My favorite is the second bolded one. "Ehh... Jesus is like a super hero, so he's gonna have like eh 10% chance of being killed..." But Beyond that, There was no reason to assume that the Messiah was going to be god. So this is just silly wrong.

Point 3. This is probably the closest to an acceptable assumption. Except that it assumes equal probability before and after destruction. really, since all people knew of the Messiah Prophecy, the error of Jesus' time was inundated with Messiahs. As such, the probability for a religion to start based upon the messiah prophecy prior to the fall is much much greater than after. But still. Are we to assume that the Fall of Jerusalem is the 70 AD time or some future time that has not yet occurred? Remember Jerusalem is a city again.


So in the end, the statistics presented are nothing more than post hoc rationalizations with numbers attributed to them. It's a dishonest form of statistics and one that doesn't prove anything but the bias of the individuals using them.

 

[joobz]

Joobz quote:

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?

--------------

DOC: I assume this question has to do mainly with slavery which I've responded to at least 20 times? I have nothing further to say on this. If those 20 or so responses don't satisfy you then go to another thread or start your own thread in this area.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4574964#post4574964

As an educator, if I give an exam where 70% of the students miss a question, that's an indication of my failing to teach that point. It isn't an indication of the failing of the students.

Similarly, If you have multiple people asking the same question, then it's clear that you haven't addressed it yet.
As L says:

They don't satisfy me because you were never clear about what your position was, which is the point of this question... to try to get you to be clear. Just answer the question directly, please. If you won't do that, I have no interest in talking to you about anything else.

either Jesus is the most moral entity or he wasn't. If he was, why was he cool with slavery? If he wasn't cool with slavery, why didn't he say so? It can't be because he didn't want to change the times, because his ministry was exactly that. To change the norms.

 

[DOC]

No need - there's already a thread open here.

Examples in the thread show how the writers tailored their accounts to ensure that they fulfilled the OT prophecies. Here's a great example from Hok:

And I guess the writer's also tailored the words of Christ. So these liars and deceivers (as you imply) were able to create the most moral and sublime teachings (at least according to Thomas Jefferson) the world has ever known. These liars and deceivers must have been pretty smart to come up with teachings greater than Aristotle and Plato. Not only that but theses liars and deceivers (as you imply) who were brilliant enough to created these great sublime and moral teachings were then stupid enough to risk their lives preaching the gospel, a gospel they knew was made up. And 3 of these liars and deceivers eventually got martyred for preaching stuff they knew was false. You know -- something just doesn't make sense about yours and Hok's "tailored their account" theory.

 

[Mashuna]

And I guess the writer's also tailored the words of Christ. So these liars and deceivers (as you imply) were able to create the most moral and sublime teachings (at least according to Thomas Jefferson) the world has ever known. These liars and deceivers must have been pretty smart to come up with teachings greater than Aristotle and Plato. Not only that but theses liars and deceivers (as you imply) who were brilliant enough to created these great sublime and moral teachings were then stupid enough to risk their lives preaching the gospel, a gospel they knew was made up. And 3 of these liars and deceivers eventually got martyred for preaching stuff they knew was false. You know -- something just doesn't make sense about yours and Hok's "tailored their account" theory.

Do you normally have this much of a problem with your reading comprehension? Or did you just ignore the actual examples in the thread to make up your own imaginary argument?

 

[Lothian]

So these liars and deceivers (as you imply) were able to create the most moral and sublime teachings (at least according to Thomas Jefferson) the world has ever known.

Never mind the slave owning Jefferson. Which is more moral in your opinion? Equaility between the sexes as taught in Sikhism or the Christian view where the man is more important.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

And I guess the writer's also tailored the words of Christ. So these liars and deceivers (as you imply) were able to create the most moral and sublime teachings (at least according to Thomas Jefferson) the world has ever known. These liars and deceivers must have been pretty smart to come up with teachings greater than Aristotle and Plato. Not only that but theses liars and deceivers (as you imply) who were brilliant enough to created these great sublime and moral teachings were then stupid enough to risk their lives preaching the gospel, a gospel they knew was made up. And 3 of these liars and deceivers eventually got martyred for preaching stuff they knew was false. You know -- something just doesn't make sense about yours and Hok's "tailored their account" theory.

Can you please show me where Hok or any one else suggests that the writers of what are now the books of the New Testament were liars or deceivers.

Their intent was to promote the faith. That is how the books were written.

What they were not is historians in the modern sense of that word. They were not interested in exactly what happened when, but in what it all meant. As Greediguts pointed out there are significant differences between what Luke says about Paul and what Paul says about Paul in his letters. The accounts do not reconcile.

If you want to argue that this makes the author of Luke a liar, then go for it. he certainly spun the information in a particular way.

And please, can you give up on the legendary accounts of the martyrs? You do know those are primarily legends and/or come from apochryphal sources? Or do you accept everything that was written in the Acts of Thomas and Acts of Paul and Acts of John?

No one that I know of has argued that the apostles preached what they thought was a lie.

 

[DOC]

Do you normally have this much of a problem with your reading comprehension? Or did you just ignore the actual examples in the thread to make up your own imaginary argument?

What examples, the quote you gave doesn't include the verse of Zachariah or the verse of Matthew?

 

[DOC]

What they were not is historians in the modern sense of that word. They were not interested in exactly what happened when, but in what it all meant. As Greediguts pointed out there are significant differences between what Luke says about Paul and what Paul says about Paul in his letters. The accounts do not reconcile.

Another post with no examples or sources.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

Another post with no examples or sources.

You know, if you don't know your own Holy Book well enough to understand the references, then there is no help for you. This has all been laid out and discussed in detail for you. Do you really need me to go back and repeat the problems between what Luke says about Paul and what Paul says about Paul?

When did Paul go to Jerusalem after his conversion experience? Where did this conversion experience occur? Was Paul well-known in Jerusalem or a relative stranger? What exactly happened to Paul and what did he see, hear, etc. -- according to him? Did the Christian community in Jersalem know him or not? Was he raised there or not?