Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.
- Thread starter DOC
- Start date
-
- Tags
- bible evidence new testament
- Status
Well Jesus Christ was not invisible, and his words were recorded on 24,000 manuscripts compared to 7 manuscripts for Plato. And most historians believe he existed.
Some other reasons to believe are:
1) the amazing and original words of Christ himself -- words that motivated T. Jefferson (a prolific reader in multiple languages) to cut those words out of the bible and make a book with them and say they were the most moral and sublime teachings he ever read.
2) the life changing power of the Gospel that gets people off drugs, turns peoples marriages around, and gives many people a reason to live and hope. I've seen countless testimonies on TV about this "real" life changing power.
3) the current "unproven" life from non-life scientific theory.
4) the absurdity of the current mainline scientific theory that all the 100 billion galaxies in the known universe (including all of its matter and space) came from something smaller than an atom and this all happened by unintelligent random forces.
5) the fact that the cowardly apostles who wouldn't even attend Christ's crucifixion, or stay awake with him for one hour when he needed them, or who (like Peter) did things like denying Christ to a lone woman 3 times, suddenly became bold evangelists willing to lay down their lives (11 or 12 actually did) and travel all over the known world with great hardships to themselves for their belief.
6)the unexplained empty tomb
7) the numerous fulfilled prophesies of the Old Testament.
8) the unparalleled growth by peaceful means in the brutal Roman empire with no modern transportation or communications.
Elizabeth I
Philosopher
You say Jesus Christ was not invisible. Many well-educated people say Jesus never existed. And weren't most of those 24,000 manuscripts just copies of each other? A little dishonest, that argument of yours. Meant to mislead the casual reader into thinking there were 24,000 separate, independent accounts of the same events? Tsk, tsk.
Additionally, define "most historians." Sounds, again, like just your opinion.
But you always conveniently forget that Jefferson neglected to include the supernatural elements of the Bible in his version of it. So all that means is that Jefferson agreed with the morality of some of the Bible, not that everything in it was the literal truth or that it actually happened.
Mm-hm. And I've seen many people turn their lives around through sheer will-power and the desire to make something better of themselves.
So?
Huh?
You say it's absurd. A lot of other people, better educated, and I would even daresay more intelligent, than you, say otherwise. And they can show evidence for what they say. Give me some evidence. Where's the math that supports your theory, for example?
This story comes ONLY from your Bible and has no supporting evidence to authenticate it.
There are lots of empty tombs around the world. I bet there were even some other empty tombs in Israel at the time you say these events took place. Do they all prove the existence of the invisible and inaudible God?
Name one that's not after-the-fact or special pleading, and that is supported by something more than what-it-says-in-the-Bible.
Again, that is your description of events. Others have given other descriptions.
You still have not told me why I should believe in your invisible, inaudible God any more than anyone else's. After all, the Muslims have Allah, who is just invisible and inaudible as your God. They have Mohammed, who told us what Allah said to him - and only to him (so we can't prove he didn't.) What Allah said was written down in the Quran, so they have a holy book, too. They have real live geographical places where they say actual events in the life of Mohammed took place - Mecca, where Mohammed proclaimed the truth of Islam; the city of Medina and the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (Mosque of the Prophet), where Mohammed is buried; and the Dome of the Rock, which marks the spot where Mohammed ascended into heaven.
And many sources indicate that Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. So maybe their invisible, inaudible god is righter than your invisible, inaudible god.
Once you give in to magical thinking, there's no place to stop. Anything is possible, anything is justified.
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
Lothian
should be banned
eccles
Critical Thinker
- Joined
- Aug 4, 2009
- Messages
- 374
Adolf Hitler on Christianity: Quotes from Hitler Expressing Christian Faith
This suprised me. I don't know where this Matt Brudage dug them up from but here we go:
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/tp/AdolfHitlerChristian.htm
I'll just c & p the most significant ones:
"2. Adolf Hitler: I am a Catholic
I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.
- Adolf Hitler, to General Gerhard Engel, 1941
7. Adolf Hitler: Christians Should Deal with Atheistic Jews
And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11
(I have "Mein Kampf, I must look at that)
9. Adolf Hitler: Fascism is Closer to Christianity than Liberalism or Marxism
The fact that the Curia is now making its peace with Fascism shows that the Vatican trusts the new political realities far more than did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms. ...The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy ...proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity than those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism...
- Adolf Hitler in an article in the Völkischer Beobachter, February 29, 1929, on the new Lateran Treaty between Mussolini's fascist government and the Vatican
--------------------------------------------
Then how about Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Puis XII) and his agreement with Hitler to keep Hitler from stopping state tax handouts to the Roman Catholic Church:
The Reichskonkordat was an integral part of four concordats Pacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States. The state concordats were necessary, because the German federalist Weimar constitution gave the German states authority in the area of education and culture and thus diminished the authority of the churches in these areas; this diminution of church authority was a primary concern of the Vatican. As Bavarian Nuncio, Pacelli negotiated successfully with the Bavarian authorities in 1925. He expected the concordat with Catholic Bavaria to be the model for the rest of Germany.[39] Prussia showed interest in negotiations only after the Bavarian concordat. However, Pacelli obtained less favorable conditions for the Church in the Prussian concordat of 1929, which excluded educational issues. A concordat with the German state of Baden was completed by Pacelli in 1932, after he had moved to Rome. There he also negotiated a concordat with Austria in 1933.[40] A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten year period 1922–1932.[41]
The Reichskonkordat, signed on 20 July 1933, between Germany and the Holy See, while thus a part of an overall Vatican policy, was controversial from its beginning. It remains the most important of Pacelli's concordats. It is debated, not because of its content, which is still valid today, but because of its timing. A national concordat with Germany was one of Pacelli's main objectives as secretary of state, because he had hoped to strengthen the legal position of the Church. Pacelli, who knew German conditions well, emphasized (1) protection for Catholic associations (§31), (2) freedom for education and Catholic schools, and, (3) freedom for publications.[42]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII
Robert
This suprised me. I don't know where this Matt Brudage dug them up from but here we go:
http://atheism.about.com/od/adolfhitlernazigermany/tp/AdolfHitlerChristian.htm
I'll just c & p the most significant ones:
"2. Adolf Hitler: I am a Catholic
I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so.
- Adolf Hitler, to General Gerhard Engel, 1941
7. Adolf Hitler: Christians Should Deal with Atheistic Jews
And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God; because then, as always, they used religion as a means of advancing their commercial interests. But at that time Christ was nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews; whereas our modern Christians enter into party politics and when elections are being held they debase themselves to beg for Jewish votes. They even enter into political intrigues with the atheistic Jewish parties against the interests of their own Christian nation.
- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1 Chapter 11
(I have "Mein Kampf, I must look at that)
9. Adolf Hitler: Fascism is Closer to Christianity than Liberalism or Marxism
The fact that the Curia is now making its peace with Fascism shows that the Vatican trusts the new political realities far more than did the former liberal democracy with which it could not come to terms. ...The fact that the Catholic Church has come to an agreement with Fascist Italy ...proves beyond doubt that the Fascist world of ideas is closer to Christianity than those of Jewish liberalism or even atheistic Marxism...
- Adolf Hitler in an article in the Völkischer Beobachter, February 29, 1929, on the new Lateran Treaty between Mussolini's fascist government and the Vatican
--------------------------------------------
Then how about Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Puis XII) and his agreement with Hitler to keep Hitler from stopping state tax handouts to the Roman Catholic Church:
The Reichskonkordat was an integral part of four concordats Pacelli concluded on behalf of the Vatican with German States. The state concordats were necessary, because the German federalist Weimar constitution gave the German states authority in the area of education and culture and thus diminished the authority of the churches in these areas; this diminution of church authority was a primary concern of the Vatican. As Bavarian Nuncio, Pacelli negotiated successfully with the Bavarian authorities in 1925. He expected the concordat with Catholic Bavaria to be the model for the rest of Germany.[39] Prussia showed interest in negotiations only after the Bavarian concordat. However, Pacelli obtained less favorable conditions for the Church in the Prussian concordat of 1929, which excluded educational issues. A concordat with the German state of Baden was completed by Pacelli in 1932, after he had moved to Rome. There he also negotiated a concordat with Austria in 1933.[40] A total of 16 concordats and treaties with European states had been concluded in the ten year period 1922–1932.[41]
The Reichskonkordat, signed on 20 July 1933, between Germany and the Holy See, while thus a part of an overall Vatican policy, was controversial from its beginning. It remains the most important of Pacelli's concordats. It is debated, not because of its content, which is still valid today, but because of its timing. A national concordat with Germany was one of Pacelli's main objectives as secretary of state, because he had hoped to strengthen the legal position of the Church. Pacelli, who knew German conditions well, emphasized (1) protection for Catholic associations (§31), (2) freedom for education and Catholic schools, and, (3) freedom for publications.[42]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII
RobertCleon
King of the Pod People
joobz
Tergiversator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2006
- Messages
- 17,998
Hitler was Evil.
As was Torquemada.
RoboTimbo
Hostile Nanobacon
Shouldn't any talk of your god and absolute morality be confined to the slavery thread?
Here's a link. It seems you've lost yours.
joobz
Tergiversator
- Joined
- Aug 31, 2006
- Messages
- 17,998
I'm glad someone else was bothered by that.
I found his statement to be completely anti-american.
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 12,331
I have to agree with you there, Hokulele.
That along with the 'lots of pages' objection.
It is fascinating to see that DOC, once Josh's source was actually posted up (no thanks to him, by the by), abandoned that line of argument to go for 'Hitler' 'morality' justifications.
What about Sir William Ramsay's appreciation of Luke's senstitive handling of Paula, the slave girl, then.
Where are the considerations DOC has mentioned which are evidence for the trustworthiness of Luke as an historian in Sir Willaiam Ramsay's book?
Perhaps the subject is embarrassing for DOC, since his prime source for Luke's accuracy is a delightful little period piece written in 1915.
pakeha
Penultimate Amazing
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 12,331
I'm impressed DOC didn't mention the translation 'in the bible' he on about is the KJV, and ONLY the KJV. All other translations say slave.
As does Sir William Ramsay, oddly enough.
Come on, DOC.
Isn't it obvious Josh McDowell has led you up the garden path with his reference to Sir William Ramsay?
And with that phoney 24,000 manuscript statement?
We've shown DOC again and again why it's phoney, dishonest and completely misleading. We've gone to the point of actually reading up on the subject, something DOC is apparently loathe to do.
I've asked DOC again and again:
Is the Risen Lord served by lies and misdirection?
Perhaps my disgust with this dishonesty is fired by DOC's evident reliance on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum
Godwin's Law rides again, eh, DOC?
Mojo
Mostly harmless
If you look carefully, you will see that the post describing Christ's moral relativism and attitude to slavery was made from your account:
There might have been a possibility that joobz had somehow got hold of your password and posted that, but that would appear to be ruled out by your having cited the very same post as your answer to joobz's questions about Christ's attitude to slavery.
Perhaps you are confusing yourself with joobz?
Last edited:
Mojo
Mostly harmless
Well, there was an edition of the KJV that omitted the word "not" from Exodus 20:14, so why can't he have one that omits it from Exodus 20:16?
Mojo
Mostly harmless
- Status