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

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Hokulele said:
Ah, so you acknowledge that they weren't eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry and were working from hearsay.

Got it.
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The gospel of John and the Gospel of Matthew have been attributed to the apostles John and Matthew for 2000 years. If they were apostles they were eyewitnesses and weren't writing from hearsay

Gospel writer Mark was an associate of the main apostle Peter.

And as we already know Gospel writer Luke has been called one of the worlds great historians by Sir William Mitchell Ramsay.
 
DOC said:
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And as we already know Gospel writer Luke has been called one of the worlds great historians by Sir William Mitchell Ramsay.
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.
And now we go back to page 1.
And it's not even New Years.
 
DOC said:
And as we already know Gospel writer Luke has been called one of the worlds great historians by Sir William Mitchell Ramsay.
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We also know Sir William Mitchell Ramsay said there is no evidence for the essential parts of the Christian fable and that the only way to believe it is through faith.

This thread however is about evidence, you have yet to provide any.
 
amb said:
DOC, this is for you. It's an answer to a question to Bishop John Shelby Spong from a christian such as yourself.
It starts...........Quote.

Dear Charles,

Thank you for your question, which is perfect for the column that goes out on Christmas Eve. There is no doubt that most people have literalized the images that Matthew and Luke have in their birth stories of Jesus (See Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2), but I do believe it is quite clear that neither Matthew nor Luke thought of them as literal events. The great majority of biblical scholars share that perspective..
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I doubt you have a source for the bolded sentence. And John Spong is a former bishop in the Episcopal (Anglican) Church.
 
Lothian said:
We also know Sir William Mitchell Ramsay said there is no evidence for the essential parts of the Christian fable and that the only way to believe it is through faith.

This thread however is about evidence, you have yet to provide any.
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The first sentence is false, as well as the second.
 
DOC said:
The first sentence is false, as well as the second.
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Wrong.


The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament - Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1915)


"The truth of the historical surroundings in which Luke's narrative places the birth of Jesus does not prove the supreme facts, which give human and divine value to the birth are true."

"We know that Luke was right in the external facts, because the records have disclosed the whole system of the census ; but as to the inner facts, the birth and the divine nature of Jesus, there can (as said above) beno historical reasoning, for those are a matter of faith, of intuition, and of the individual human being's experience and inner life."

"The surrounding facts are matter of history, and can be discussed and proved by historical evidence. The essential facts of the narrative are not susceptible of discussion on historical principles, and do not condescend to be tested by historical evidence"

As I Said "Sir William Mitchell Ramsay said there is no evidence for the essential parts of the Christian fable and that the only way to believe it is through faith."

If I hadn't quoted the above 8 times before in this thread (search Lothian & Essential if you do not believe me) I would accept you are just ignorant of the author you continuously misquote. However, the fact that you continue to repeat lies leads me, and I am sure others, to the conclusion that it is not just ignorance that makes you lie. As you repeatedly ask, I am happy to leave your words out there for all to see.
 
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DOC said:
No, and the US whose official national motto is "In God We Trust" shows that. But some would say the US has been declining lately. There seems to be a parallel with that and the decline of the importance of religion in the US. And we know what happened to the former atheist Soviet Union. Ironically Christianity is growing in China.

But all of this is another thread.
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Poor China, and "In God We Trust" wasn't put on the one dollar bill until 1957, because people what to show that we have a so-called god, which one, I don't know, there are so many different chuches and temples that all say they have the right one.

Paul

:) :) :)

And of course, you have the right one too.
 
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DOC said:
The gospel of John and the Gospel of Matthew have been attributed to the apostles John and Matthew for 2000 years. If they were apostles they were eyewitnesses and weren't writing from hearsay.
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As was the gospel of Thomas. Yet, for some reason the church calls that one heresy and the others aren't. Funny, don't you think?
why not take ALL the gospels attributed to his contemporaries as witness testimonies?

I wonder......
 
DOC said:
But there is evidence for it as was already posted.
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Wow, DOC, you convinced me. The mistake I've been making was thinking that you would be presenting a logical argument. However, you've been trying to support christianity through shear stubborness. I mean, jesus has to be lord for you to be so stubbornly illogical for so long.
 
DOC said:
six7s said:
DOC said:
... the NT was a threat to the Roman empire (as history definitely shows).
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Definitely? :confused:

Really?

If so, please do tell where I need to look to see such evidence

TYIA :)

Oh... and puhlease... resist the urge to quote any more of that inane lying-for-jesus waffle you pretend is evidence... y'know... the sort of stuff that routinely FAILS under the merest whiff of critical thought
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St. Peter's square, right in the middle of the extinct Roman empire would be a good place to look.
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Please note: plucking crap out of your arse doesn't qualify as evidence in support of your delusions
 
DOC said:
Ironically Christianity is growing in China.
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As is Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and just about every other religion you can name.

So are you saying that any sort of religiosity will help a country be prosperous?

Or could it possibly be that the still avowedly atheist government has been (and still is) making good economic decisions?

The rise of christianity and other religions is due to the increases in prosperity and freedom that the country is enjoying, not the other way around.

Not that I expect you to let the facts get in the way of an appeal to emotion.
 
DOC said:
the NT was a threat to the Roman empire (as history definitely shows).
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Leaving aside your unfair comparison about the Christians and the Holocaust, Christianity was not much of a threat against anyone until it became the Roman empire.
Once again, you don't seem to realize the few centuries of overlap there.

The fall of the Roman Empire was not a victory of Christianity against the empire, it was the fall of both against pagan invaders.
Christianity would later survive mostly due to the political need of these invaders to harness some of the waning power from the remaining shadows of the empire...
 
Lothian said:
Wrong.


The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament - Sir William Mitchell Ramsay (1915)


"The truth of the historical surroundings in which Luke's narrative places the birth of Jesus does not prove the supreme facts, which give human and divine value to the birth are true."

"We know that Luke was right in the external facts, because the records have disclosed the whole system of the census ; but as to the inner facts, the birth and the divine nature of Jesus, there can (as said above) beno historical reasoning, for those are a matter of faith, of intuition, and of the individual human being's experience and inner life."

"The surrounding facts are matter of history, and can be discussed and proved by historical evidence. The essential facts of the narrative are not susceptible of discussion on historical principles, and do not condescend to be tested by historical evidence"

As I Said "Sir William Mitchell Ramsay said there is no evidence for the essential parts of the Christian fable and that the only way to believe it is through faith."

If I hadn't quoted the above 8 times before in this thread (search Lothian & Essential if you do not believe me) I would accept you are just ignorant of the author you continuously misquote. However, the fact that you continue to repeat lies leads me, and I am sure others, to the conclusion that it is not just ignorance that makes you lie. As you repeatedly ask, I am happy to leave your words out there for all to see.
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If you did quote the above 8 times I notice you rarely if ever give all of the following:
the source, page number, and URL, where we can read it for some reason. That seems to lead to the conclusion for me anyway that there is cherry picking going on. In other words you don't want people to read his statement in context.

And I was not lying because your statement is false. Ramsay nowhere says

"there is no evidence for the essential parts of the Christian fable and that the only way to believe it is through faith."

those are your words not his.

It might be his opinion (other historians disagree) that "the birth" {I would assume he means this to be the virgin birth) and "divine nature" can not be reasoned reasoned by historical rules or principles, but that doesn't mean there is zero evidence. There are other kinds of evidence. A lack of a body is evidence. A empty tomb is evidence. The tremendous growth of Christianity by peaceful means in a brutal dangerous environment is evidence. 31 Christian sources and 10 non-Christian sources for the life of Christ is evidence. It might not be proof but it is evidence. There is also The Moral Argument, The Cosmological Argument, etc. So there are other evidences besides historical.

We all paraphrase, but your paraphrasing in my opinion did not give an unbiased description of what was said.
 
I see DOC is still quoting his 41 sources that don't say what he thinks they do. *sigh*
 
joobz said:
As was the gospel of Thomas. Yet, for some reason the church calls that one heresy and the others aren't. Funny, don't you think?
why not take ALL the gospels attributed to his contemporaries as witness testimonies?
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Probably for the same reason a low end tabloid that reports aliens voted for Bush is not taken as serious as articles about the election in the Washington Post. They both are contemporary informational papers talking about the same election. But the public as a whole perceives one account is more authoritative than the other.

For example as the book cited in post #1 points out the non-biblical "Gospel of Peter" talks of a walking and talking cross and the heads of people at the tomb reaching up to heaven and beyond. Whereas Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John's, version of the resurrection are matter of fact and almost bland, much like a historical report. The differences are night and day in many cases. The low end tabloids are popular now and it would seem a lot of the gnostic gospels fall into that category. On the other hand that doesn't mean there isn't "some" truth in those non-biblical gnostic gospels just like there is some truth in the low end tabloids.
 
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DOC said:
Probably for the same reason a low end tabloid that reports aliens voted for Bush is not taken as serious as articles about the election in the Washington Post. There both are contemporary informational papers talking about the same election. But the public as a whole perceives one account is more authoritative than the other.
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That is an actual good point.
For example as the book cited in post #1 points out the non-biblical "Gospel of Peter" talks of a walking and talking cross and the heads of people at the tomb reaching up to heaven and beyond. Whereas Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John's, version of the resurrection are matter of fact and almost bland, much like a historical report. The differences are night and day in many cases.
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And back to Special Pleading nonsense again. You just invalidated all the other Gospels that uses all those flowery and pretty languages.
The low end tabloids are popular now and it would seem a lot of the gnostic gospels fall into that category. On the other hand that doesn't mean there isn't "some" truth in those gospels just like there is some truth in the low end tabloids.
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And how do you determine what is truth or nonsense?
 
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