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

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Hokulele said:
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.
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Opinions, not fact. And he also says until shown otherwise, so he wasn't wrong.

Hokulele said:
2) Matthew isn't the earliest gospel, that would be Mark.
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Opinions, not fact.

Hokulele said:
3) The author of the gospel of John is not the same person as the author of Revelation.
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Opinion, not fact.

And even if all the above are true they they have nothing to do with the rules of evidence which was Greenleaf's specialty. And why don't you give the page numbers of the quotes like you're supposed to do.
 
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pakeha said:
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.
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Thanks Pakeha, I already read his wiki entry...but who is Simon Greenleaf?
 
paximperium said:
...but who is Simon Greenleaf?
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From article "Simon Greenleaf":

Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853), the famous Royall Professor of Law at Harvard, succeeded Justice Joseph Story as the Dane Professor of Law. To the efforts of Story and Greenleaf is to be ascribed the rise of the Harvard Law School to its eminent position among the legal schools of the Unites States. - Wilbur Smith, Therefore Stand: Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House). Willard Cantelon, New Money or None? (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1979), p. 243-245.

Greenleaf produced a work entitled" A Treatise On the Law of Evidence, still considered to be the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure. Chief Justice Fuller of the United States Supreme Court described Greenleaf by saying, "He is the highest authority in our courts." - Irwin H. Linton, A Lawyer Examines the Bible: A Defense of the Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), p. 36. Willard Cantelon, New Money or None? (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1979), p. 244.

http://michaelnewdow.com/SimonGreenleaf.htm
 
DOC said:
From article "Simon Greenleaf":

Simon Greenleaf (1783-1853), the famous Royall Professor of Law at Harvard, succeeded Justice Joseph Story as the Dane Professor of Law. To the efforts of Story and Greenleaf is to be ascribed the rise of the Harvard Law School to its eminent position among the legal schools of the Unites States. - Wilbur Smith, Therefore Stand: Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House). Willard Cantelon, New Money or None? (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1979), p. 243-245.

Greenleaf produced a work entitled" A Treatise On the Law of Evidence, still considered to be the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure. Chief Justice Fuller of the United States Supreme Court described Greenleaf by saying, "He is the highest authority in our courts." - Irwin H. Linton, A Lawyer Examines the Bible: A Defense of the Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), p. 36. Willard Cantelon, New Money or None? (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1979), p. 244.

http://michaelnewdow.com/SimonGreenleaf.htm
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So he is a very old dead lawyer who specailised in evidence for the legal system.

If he found any "Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth" perhaps you could share it. It would be novel to have some evidence in this thread.
 
I thought it was great when DOC asked Hokulele for the source and a link to the cited passages posted up.

In any case, the long deceased Greenleaf only writes up his views on the Gospel writers' testimony in the chapter entitled "Preliminary Observations", 68-69 pages worth.
The rest of the book is simply a concordance between the 4 Gospels.

Was this really the best you could come up with, DOC?
A defence based on really but really outdated analysis of the NT, one which I find strangely mirrored in that Geisler list?
In fact, DOC, one could argue Geisler simply took Greenleaf's Preliminary
Observations and passed them on as his own.
The resemblances are very striking, indeed, as DOC already knows, since he's obviously read what he's urged upon us.
 
pakeha said:
I thought it was great when DOC asked Hokulele for the source and a link to the cited passages posted up.

In any case, the long deceased Greenleaf only writes up his views on the Gospel writers' testimony in the chapter entitled "Preliminary Observations", 68-69 pages worth.
The rest of the book is simply a concordance between the 4 Gospels.

Was this really the best you could come up with, DOC?
A defence based on really but really outdated analysis of the NT, one which I find strangely mirrored in that Geisler list?
In fact, DOC, one could argue Geisler simply took Greenleaf's Preliminary
Observations and passed them on as his own.
The resemblances are very striking, indeed, as DOC already knows, since he's obviously read what he's urged upon us.
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That explains it. So Geisler plagiari...opps, I mean "summarized" Greenleaf's arguments? No wonder DOC likes it so much.
 
DOC said:
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.
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Interesting. The most significant event in the history of the human species is no more memorable than an annual sporting event.

And DIVINE INSPIRATION can't manage to straighten the accounts out. Apparently GOD couldn't remember whether it had been one or two, men or angels, standing or sitting, inside or outside.
 
Found.
Here's the complete text of Greanleaf's "Preliminary Observations" in an easy to read, copyandpaste friendly version:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...f+refuted&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=es&lr=lang_en

On the subject of how to investigate the Gospels, Greenleaf has this to say:
The investigation, moreover, should be pursued with the serious earnestness which becomes the greatness of the subject--a subject fraught with such momentous consequences to man. It should be pursued as in the presence of God, and under the solemn sanctions created by a lively sense of his omniscience, and of our accountability to him for the right use of the faculties which he has bestowed.
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DOC said:
Greenleaf produced a work entitled" A Treatise On the Law of Evidence, still considered to be the greatest single authority on evidence in the entire literature of legal procedure. Chief Justice Fuller of the United States Supreme Court described Greenleaf by saying, "He is the highest authority in our courts." - Irwin H. Linton, A Lawyer Examines the Bible: A Defense of the Faith (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1977), p. 36. Willard Cantelon, New Money or None? (Plainfield, NJ: Logos International, 1979), p. 244.
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Could you please link me to the original source of the quote instead of what is reported by a Mr. Linton in an apolegetics book?
 
DOC said:
And even if all the above are true they they have nothing to do with the rules of evidence which was Greenleaf's specialty. And why don't you give the page numbers of the quotes like you're supposed to do.
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In other words, In your opinion, even if he's wrong, he's still right?

DOC, you've defended slavery, you've defended genocide, you've defended child killing, all in the name of the bible. Now, you are starting to defend a 100 year old defunct writer. IS there no topic you won't abuse?
 
Just to show DOC isn't the only one to use Greenleaf in cogent arguments here's this:
********(name supressed)
Posted July 4, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Permalink
Reply
A scholar is a scholor by definition, just like anyone can be a dad, but it takes someone special to be a father. What a load of manure when Ms. Murdock claims that …”the Jewish godman, many people have believed in a historical, carnalized Krishna.”.

This is sheer speculation with supportive documentation and as a Historian, she presents only conjecture as proof. No citiations, no historical references by authors, nothing.

On His resurrection by questioned, one of the world’s foremost experts in lines of evidence, Simon Greenleaf, an American attorney and jurist (1783-1853) wrote in his book the “Testimony of the Evangelists”; he views the multiple eye-witness accounts of Jesus and His death and resurrection (in the New Testament) as valid lines of evidence that would be admissible in a court of law. They meet or exceed evidential requirements, so much so that Greenleaf saw the “martyrdoms, exponential church growth and the persistent-through-persecution faith of the believers (often, even up to death), as solid as evidence that there can possibly be. And in the legal process, there is no statue of limitations for murder.
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From:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...f+refuted&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=es&lr=lang_en

Anyway.
Nice try, DOC.
And now, how about some evidence for why we know the NT writers told the truth.
 
Of course the N/T writers told the truth as they percieved it. And by adding or subtracting as the case may have been because they believed the magic man was right there behind them guiding their hand. Some theologians may have that excuse, but I think a good portion of the 'good' book is outright fraud.
 
DOC said:
Opinions, not fact. And he also says until shown otherwise, so he wasn't wrong.
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http://bible.org/article/majority-text-and-original-text-are-they-identical

Opinions, not fact.
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http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark-prior.html

Opinion, not fact.
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http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=531&C=569

And even if all the above are true they they have nothing to do with the rules of evidence which was Greenleaf's specialty.
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That is simply your opinion, not a fact.

And why don't you give the page numbers of the quotes like you're supposed to do.
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Why, haven't you read any of that book?
 
paximperium said:
That explains it. So Geisler plagiari...opps, I mean "summarized" Greenleaf's arguments?
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Believe me, Geisler talks about much more than this in his 420 page book cited in post #1 as well as in his other 60 books. For example in his chapter on science he examines the "Cosmic Rebound Theory", Steven Hawkings Imaginary Time, Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle, the Law of Causality, NASA's Robert Jastrow's writings, etc.
 
DOC said:
Believe me, Geisler talks about much more than this in his 420 page book cited in post #1 as well as in his other 60 books. For example in his chapter on science he examines the "Cosmic Rebound Theory", Steven Hawkings Imaginary Time, Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle, the Law of Causality, NASA's Robert Jastrow's writings, etc.
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I found a bit of it.

Admitting to being uncertain is embarrassing for Heisenburg. This proves the truth of his principle.
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