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

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six7s said:
I think that, rather than missing something, you were merely suckered by DOC into being distracted by something that is completely and utterly irrelevant... sorta like Luke
Woo is the path to the ignorance. Woo leads to irrelevancies. Irrelevancies lead to nonsense. Nonsense leads to delusions​
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The Farce is strong with this one.
 
DOC said:
So you think it is completely irrelevant that professional historians turn to a historian who wrote 450 years after Alexander the Great's death to get most of their information about Alexander (who did the extraordinary thing of capturing much of the known world). I would disagree, I think it is very relevant because it shows that (in comparison) there is plenty of historical information on the life of Jesus when we compare it to the standards set by professional historians.
You might not want to believe in Jesus because you don't believe in miracles but you can't use a lack of history as a reason. If you do then you should also demand that Alexander the Great be removed from history books for lack of contemporary evidence.
You might not care about Alexander the Great but our history departments in colleges certainly do.
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We have deal with your equivalence fallacy already:
-We have lost the primary sources about Alexander but the historians that reported about Alexander had them. These sources were destroyed between now and the date these historians wrote about. No such thing for Jesus.
-We have many, many, many evidences about Alexander's life in addition to the historian accounts: coins, statuary, maps and a remodeling of entire empires and the establishment of dynasties. No such things for Jesus.
-Historians DO reject the supernatural superstition that cropped up around Alexander's life: his visit to the Amazon, his taming of Bucephalos... Just like most historians agrees that some wandering proto-rabbi named Jesus might have lived during the first century.

We have gone over this before, ignoring it and pretending the argument was never debunked is just one more illustration of you bad faith, one that 'stands on its own'.
 
DOC said:
So you think it is completely irrelevant that professional historians turn to a historian who wrote 450 years after Alexander the Great's death to get most of their information about Alexander (who did the extraordinary thing of capturing much of the known world). I would disagree, I think it is very relevant because it shows that (in comparison) there is plenty of historical information on the life of Jesus when we compare it to the standards set by professional historians.

You might not want to believe in Jesus because you don't believe in miracles but you can't use a lack of history as a reason. If you do then you should also demand that Alexander the Great be removed from history books for lack of contemporary evidence.

You might not care about Alexander the Great but our history departments in colleges certainly do.
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The existence (or not) of Alexander the Great is completely irrelevant to whether or not the NT writers were telling the truth, no matter how you try to twist the matter.

At the very least, two wrong don't make a right.

My belief (or not) in Jesus is also completely irrelevant.

Are you at all capable of staying on topic?
 
DOC said:
No, I refuted that people who believe in Christianity are not fruitcakes by pointing out that 42 or 43 US presidents publicly claimed to be Christian, you brought up GWB. Sounds like you could be appealing to the fact that GWB is unpopular with most skeptics on this system.
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Which 1 or 2 presidents are you allowing did not believe in Christianity?
 
Sorry about posting the same thing over and over, but hey! Doc does it too.

The issue is not to prove that Jesus existed. Personally, I think there could well have been not just one, but many who claimed to be the messiah. Just as there have been many who wanted to become Christian popes.

Or to become the leaders of religious cults.

The issue is the claim that Jesus was resurrected: became alive again, which would prove that he possessed superhuman powers. Without that, the whole claim that he was the son of a god - and a god - is empty.

There are two accounts:

1. the disciples' accounts: he was seen alive after his crucifixion by his disciples

2. the account of the priests and the pharisees, who said that the disciples would steal the body to make it seem that a resurrection had taken place, so he should order a guard on the tomb.

In the morning, the tomb was empty. The soldiers said they had fallen asleep.

Two theories to explain it, both outlined in Matthew :

1 - a miraculous one -- that the god had risen from the dead

2 - a naturalistic one -- that the disciples had stolen the body so that the cult could continue, even though Jesus was dead.

When faced with en event that could have a naturalistic explanation or a supernatural explanation, I go with the naturalistic one.

One of the miracles of the Muslim founder, Mohammed:

Narrated Zy'ad Alharth Alsade'y , may God be blessed with him , " I accompanied the prophet on one of his travels , he said to me: "Do you have water ?" I said "yes but too little to suffice you ." He said " pour it down in a bowel and bring it to me ." I did what he ordered me to do and I brought him the bowel , the prophet put the palm of his hand in the bowel and I saw a fountain of water spouting among every two of his fingers . The prophet said if it weren't for my shyness from God , I would store water and then he said to me " Call my companions to take as much water as they like " .

The naturalistic explanation would be that the 'believers' were in a heightened state, and perceived or very much exaggerated the quantity of water that Mohammed 'miraculously' produced.

Much like the believers at Fatima, many of whom saw the sun miraculously spin in the heavens, approach the earth heating it and drying wet clothing, etc. Yet in other parts of the world (and even in Fatima itself) many other people saw nothing unusual. Remember: there's only one sun.

Miracle by another cult leader: In the book Helter Skelter, the author narrates a story he heard from Charles Manson's fanatical followers, that he had caused a jeep to fly through the air.

The naturalistic explanation is that they were hallucinating due to drugs, or lying to draw more followers into the cult.

So Doc would have to give actual proof that Jesus was resurrected. Not just the hearsay accounts of his followers, which is what the New Testament offers.

It is all the New Testament offers.

But remember: "Exceptional claims demand exceptional evidence."

And the claims of disciples are not exceptional evidence. They are as common as dirt.
 
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Um, did Randi ever pull that nonsense video on Nazareth not existing? It was embarrassing. :(

cj x
 
Niggle said:
The existence (or not) of Alexander the Great is completely irrelevant to whether or not the NT writers were telling the truth, no matter how you try to twist the matter.
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Not really because skeptics are complaining that the NT writers can't be believed because they wrote decades after Christ's death.

I have shown that almost all of our info about Alexander the Great (who did very extraordinary things) comes from historians who lived over 400 years after his death.

This shows us that 400 year old historical evidence can be very important in our educational system. And thus this fact decreases the value of the skeptics argument that the writings about Christ were decades after his life. And if we have decreased the value of the skeptic argument against the truthfulness of the NT it is only common sense that we have helped the argument for its truthfulness.
 
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DOC said:
Not really because skeptics are complaining that the NT writers can't be believed because they wrote decades after Christ's death.
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That's only one "complaint" among the many made in this thread. You have yet to provide evidence for even the existence of the NT writers, most of whom aren't talked about anywhere BUT the Bible.

DOC said:
I have shown that almost all of our info about Alexander the Great (who did very extraordinary things) comes from historians who lived over 400 years after his death.
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No, you haven't. You've brought up a couple of those 400-year-later historians. You haven't even touched the other types of evidence for Alex's existence. And while he did do extraordinary things, none of them were physically impossible (like rising from the dead).

DOC said:
This shows us that 400 year old historical evidence can be very important in our educational system.
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Since you haven't shown us that value, no, you haven't. Historical evidence of considerably greater age is used all the time in our educational system. The difference is that it's corroborated multiple times by multiple sources, not just by itself. And none of it violates the known laws of physics. Like it or not, the Bible is NOT a history book. The fact that some of it does, indeed, match up with known history is more coincidence than design. It was never meant to be a history book, any more than it was meant to be a medical text book.

DOC said:
And thus this fact decreases the value of the skeptics argument that the writings about Christ were decades after his life. And if we have decreased the value of the skeptic argument against the truthfulness of the NT it is only common sense that we have helped the argument for its truthfulness.
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See above. No, it doesn't. And even if it had, proving one argument wrong does NOT automatically make the opposite side of the argument right. They could easily both be wrong. You've been told this before. Sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting "La-la-la-I-can't-hear-you!" at the top of your lungs STILL doesn't make you right.

And you wouldn't know common sense if it bit you in a sensitive area. Your "common sense" has so far allowed you to ignore huge areas of several different scientific disciplines, simply because they disagree with your preferred doctrine. The attitude is all too common in this country (US), but it's still not sensible. Millions of wrongs still don't make a right.

Stop derailing your own thread ranting about Alexander the Great. You keep carping at us about being off topic. Well, you've strayed from your proposed OP more often than anyone else here. Care to get back to it?
 
DOC said:
I have shown that almost all of our info about Alexander the Great (who did very extraordinary things) comes from historians who lived over 400 years after his death.
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DOC, please quit posting off-topic bollocks


DOC said:
I have shown that almost all of our info about Alexander the Great (who did very extraordinary things) comes from historians who lived over 400 years after his death.
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So what?

Like ALL of the crap you have posted to date, this does NOT count as 'evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth'

DOC said:
This shows us that 400 year old historical evidence can be very important in our educational system.
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In your deluded dreams, maybe

Please describe the subjects in your educational system that are influenced in any way by any records of Alexander

DOC said:
And if we have decreased the value of the skeptic argument against the truthfulness of the NT it is only common sense that we have helped the argument for its truthfulness.
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The only "argument against the truthfulness of the NT" is that its bollocks; something you have not only done NOTHING to refute, but also reinforced to the point where you could be be canonised as St Poe, patron saint of the terminally deluded

Anyhoo...

Enuff of this off-topic tangent

Do you have any 'evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth'?
 
<Sigh>....ok, one more time - if people insisted that everything we think we know about Alexander is exactly true and insisted that we live our lives by his values and insisted that Alexander's values be forced into our legal system and if we should be (and are!) killed for not following his rules and etc etc then YES!!! I would insist on more evidence.

Now I am assuming based on my general knowledge and what posters here are saying that there is actually very good evidence for Alexander's existance, but so what? If you were to disprove the existance/deeds of Alexander/Caeser/Socrates/Washington then fine, I don't care and no-one is dogmatically saying that history happened exactly the way the stories say it did. Now please present any evidence that the NT is accurate/true enough to warrent the special attention it enjoys.

To those more knowledgable about standards of historical evidence and logic, have I completely missed the point?

Edit: lol'd at the dune references.
 
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