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

Status
Not open for further replies.
amb said:
You don't like my new avatar? :) It's more 'me', plus I needed a new one, Jennifer was getting a little stale, plus I promised that any new avatar would be less sexually explicit and to stop newbies from thinking I'm an edible female.
Click to expand...

Obviously you must be true to yourself, and I'd missed on the promise.
Still.
Jennifer came disturbingly close to being a proof of the existence of ID.
So perhaps it's all for the best.
 
Doc says, re the contradictions: "We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened. Describing different details is normal with eyewitness accounts."

At last, a concession! The New T. is just a series of accounts, all hearsay evidence, written well after the fact, and based on word of mouth accounts.

Hearsay evidence, to be compelling, must be backed up by physical evidence.

It's not divinely inspired. It's no more inerrant than some jock's recollection of a game he saw a year ago. If it were divinely inspired it would have no contradictions.

It's like the Mormon bible. There were originally gold tablets covered with hieroglyphics and this was seen by the divinely inspired Joe Smith; but the angel took them back, which is why unfortunately Joe Smith has no physical evidence to back up his claim.

And when he was a kid, the dog often ate his homework, too. Bad dog!
 
Simon39759 said:
So; by your account, that means that the New Testament, far from being the inherent word of God, is faulty contradicting memories written years after the facts.
Click to expand...

Actually there is nothing in the NT that seems like a contradiction that can't be explained.
 
Last edited:
Hokulele said:
It is amazing how none of your sources lived within the past 100 years.

Why are you unable to cite modern sources for your claims?
Click to expand...

This argument make no sense. If something is wrong with what Simon Greenleaf says in his book then explain why. The "well his book is not recent so it can't be true" argument is not logical.
 
DOC said:
Actually there is nothing in the NT that seems like a contradiction that can't be explained.
Click to expand...

Interesting.
Over how many threads has DOC asserted this?
And failed, at least til now, to live up to the claim?
 
DOC said:
This argument make no sense. If something is wrong with what Simon Greenleaf says in his book then explain why. The "well his book is not recent so it can't be true" argument is not logical.
Click to expand...


The two main problems with your antique sources is that research has moved on past what was known back in the 1800's and people of Greenleaf's time are well-known for their prejudices and biases which taint their work. For example, from your Greenleaf book:

Simon Greenleaf said:
Western and Southern Africa and Polynesia are, to this day, the abodes of frightful idolatry, cannibalism, and cruelty; and the aborigines of both the Americas are examples of the depths of superstition to which the human mind may be debased.
Click to expand...


Patently false and racist. Much of the rest of the work is equally patronizing and clumsy in its logic.
 
Just for fun, more wrongness from Greenleaf:

Simon Greenleaf said:
That the books of the Old Testament, as we now have them, are genuine; that they existed in the time of our Savior, and were commonly received and referred to among the Jews, as the sacred books of their religion; and that the text of the Four Evangelists has been handed down to us in the state in which it was originally written, that is, without having been materially corrupted or falsified, either by heretics or Christians; are facts which we are entitled to assume as true, until the contrary is shown.
Click to expand...

Simon Greenleaf said:
He [Matthew] is generally allowed to have written first, of all the evangelists; but whether in the Hebrew or the Greek language, or in both, the learned are not agreed, nor is it material to our purpose to inquire; the genuineness of our present Greek gospel being sustained by satisfactory evidence. The precise time when he wrote is also uncertain, the several dates given to it among learned men, varying from A.D. 37 to A.D. 64.
Click to expand...

Simon Greenleaf said:
Thence he [the author of the Gospel of John] was banished, in Domitian's reign, to the isle of Patmos, where he wrote his Revelation.
Click to expand...


Those were just a few of the factual errors made, which modern scholarship have since corrected.

Again, DOC, why are you unable to cite modern sources for your claims?
 
Hokulele said:
Just for fun, more wrongness from Greenleaf:








Those were just a few of the factual errors made, which modern scholarship have since corrected.
Again, DOC, why are you unable to cite modern sources for your claims?
Click to expand...

I see some passages but what are the exact errors you are talking about? And what are the page numbers of your quotes?
Why didn't you give the website from which you got these?
 
Last edited:
DOC said:
I see some passages but what are the exact errors you are talking about?
Click to expand...


1) The texts have not come down in the state(s) in which they were originally written. See the appended ending of Mark as an example.

2) Matthew isn't the earliest gospel, that would be Mark.

3) The author of the gospel of John is not the same person as the author of Revelation.


ETA: To your question you edited in after the fact, I got these from the book by Simon Greenleaf you cited. You are the one who brought it in as support for your argument. Did you even bother to read it before offering it up here? All of these quotes are from the very first chapter.
 
Last edited:
babbits said:
Doc says, re the contradictions: "We've been through this all before. If you have 4 people watch the Super Bowl and then ask them a year later to describe the game. You will get 4 different accounts of the game. Most probably won't even remember the score. That doesn't mean the Super Bowl never happened. Describing different details is normal with eyewitness accounts."

At last, a concession! The New T. is just a series of accounts, all hearsay evidence, written well after the fact, and based on word of mouth accounts.

Hearsay evidence, to be compelling, must be backed up by physical evidence.

It's not divinely inspired. It's no more inerrant than some jock's recollection of a game he saw a year ago. If it were divinely inspired it would have no contradictions.

It's like the Mormon bible. There were originally gold tablets covered with hieroglyphics and this was seen by the divinely inspired Joe Smith; but the angel took them back, which is why unfortunately Joe Smith has no physical evidence to back up his claim.

And when he was a kid, the dog often ate his homework, too. Bad dog!
Click to expand...

Yes, but this is not the Superbowl or a game of Soccer, or even a smash where people get the details wrong. I was a victim of that just recently.
This N/T is claimed to be the word of god. Or at least inspired by him/her/it.
There should not be the contradictions and outright lies that we find in this god inspired book.
 
hi, paximperium.
For your reading pleasure:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...Greenleaf&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=es&lr=lang_en

Great work, Hokulele.

added: Is this an entirely 'new' source for DOC or is it one that's been recycled from other threads? Although it is, of course, absolutely fascinating to read apologetics from the first half of the 19th century, surely the archeological findings of the past 160 years make this more an intellectual exercise than anything else.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

Back
Top Bottom