No I'm not, I said there is a good chance the youngest apostle (John) was a teenager when he traveled with Jesus.
So Jesus was not only gay but a child molester?
1. Archaeology confirms the use of stone water jars in New Testament times (John 2:6).
As they had done for several hundred years and kept right on doing for several more hundred years. The only thing that it proves is that the writers lived within a few centuries of Jesus, but we already knew that.
2. Given the early Christian tendency towards asceticism, the wine miracle is an unlikely invention (John 2:8).
No. Simply, no.
a) First of all, the wine was commonplace and not associated with luxury.
b) Christians did not invent the rite, the ritual existed in
many older traditions and the Christian adopted it.
c) Orgininally the tradition was about the 'wine of David' not the blood of the Christ, it is a later explanation that Christian made up to justify their tradition. In both case, only wine would have worked, the metaphor relying on the dark-red colour of the wine, reminiscent of that of blood. Suggesting it could be replaced by water is just plain silly.
3. Archaeology confirms the proper place of Jacob's Well (John 4:6).
WHAT?
The only location we have about the well in the new testament is that it is around the city of Tell Balata. Any well within a few miles of the city would have fit the description just as well.
In fact, this location is not very logical. We know that Jesus rested there on his way to the city. It seems strange to rest while within less than a hundred yards of your destination.
The well was already a Jewish tradition. People were familiar with it. If somebody write a story about visiting Paris and mention the Eiffel tower, it's hardly a proof of great insight.
Everyone knows that the Eiffel tower is in Paris, just like
every Jews knew about the well of Jacob in Tell Balata.
4. Josephus (Wars of the Jews 2.232) confirms there was significant hostility between Jews and Samaritans during Jesus' time (John 4:9).
And a few centuries before. And after. cf point 1.
5. "Come down" accurately describes the topography of western Galilee. (There=s a significant elevation drop from Cana to Capernaum.) (John 4:46, 49, 51).11
Ok; so the writer knew about the basic topology of the region.
6. "Went up" accurately describes the ascent to Jerusalem (5:1).
Same thing, except that most Jews should be familiar with the topography of Jerusalem. It was their holy city after all. And one that had been 'in the news' just a few years ago.
7. Archaeology confirms the proper location and description of the five colonnades at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:2). (Excavations between 1914 and
1938 uncovered that pool and found it to be just as John described it. Since that structure did not exist after the Romans destroyed the city in A.D. 70, it=s unlikely any later non-eyewitness could have described it in such vivid detail. Moreover, John says that this structure Ais in Jerusalem,@ implying that he=s writing before 70.)
Actually... no
it's the exact other way around:
Archaeologically, the reference to five porticos is not yet fully understood, as the only applicable structure found in the pools themselves has three porticos rather than five. The closest alternative match is to the five colonnades of the asclepieion itself[23]; Origen, writing in the 3rd century, claims to have seen the five porticos, but since the site was by then Hadrian's construction, this must refer to the 2nd century version of the Asclepieion[13], requiring the authorship of the Gospel of John to be dated after 130.
8. Jesus' own testimony being invalid without the Father is an unlikely Christian invention (5:31); a later redactor would be eager to highlight Jesus= divinity and would probably make his witness self-authenticating.
That's retarded apologetics. When you ask somebody to prove his allegations, by definition, his own testimony is not enough.
9. The crowds wanting to make Jesus king reflects the well-known nationalist fervor of early first-century Israel (6:15).
a) When, exactly, does the crowd want to make him king? I remember it being an accusation, not to have actually happened.
b) It only prove that the writer was familiar with the 1st century situation in the region. Considering they just had fought a war about it, most people in the Eastern Mediterranean would be.
It's about as impressive as an American today being aware of the occupation of Iraq.
10. Sudden and severe squalls are common on the Sea of Galilee (6:18).
As in the Eastern Mediterranean or just about any body of water in the region. It's not something so unique to the Sea of Galilee that the writers would not have been familiar with the concept.
11._?Christ's command to eat his flesh and drink his blood would not be made up (6:53).
Except that it was. By pagans. A long time before Christ.
12. The rejection of Jesus by many of his disciples is also an unlikely invention (6:66).
Not really. It actually fit the theme of the story very well.
13. The two predominant opinions of Jesus, one that Jesus was a Agood man@ and the other that he Adeceives people,@ would not be the two choices John would have made up (7:12); a later Christian writer would have probably inserted the opinion that Jesus was God.
Which help illustrating the fact the early Christian did not believe in the concept of a divine Jesus and that the myth build up over time.
14. The charge of Jesus being demon-possessed is an unlikely invention (7:20).
Why? How so?
In fact, demon-possession seems to have been the go-to diagnostic for just about everything in firt century Jewish culture; from mental illness to acne to haemorrhoids...
15. The use of ASamaritan@ to slander Jesus befits the hostility between Jews and Samaritans (8:48).
cf. point 4.
So, all this 'evidence' only suggest that the writer was Jewish or at least very familiar with Jewish culture and lived around the first century. Modern scholars, already know that and their estimate are, if anything, more precise.
If anything, it push the writing back to after 130AD which is hardly the objective of the apologetic...
