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

[DOC]

...And Christianity certainly did not only expand by peaceful means. What would you call the Battle of the Milvian Bridge^WP, the massacre of Saxon pagan nobility by Charlemagne in Verden or the Crusades?

I'm talking about the first 300 years of its growth. It was by peaceful means unlike Islam. That is very hard to explain in the Roman Empire where people (as Peter Kreeft says in my earlier link) were getting mocked, hated, sneered and jeered at, exiled, deprived of property and reputation and rights, imprisoned, whipped, tortured, clubbed to a pulp, beheaded, crucified, boiled in oil, sawed in pieces, fed to lions, and cut to ribbons by gladiators.

 

[Toke]

So if a religion have success in spite of prosecution it must be true, like Falung Gong?

 

[Moss]

That doesn't have any bearing on whether or not the NT writers told the truth. It only says that people found the ideas of the various flavours of early christianity appealing. But then again the Romans also found the Mithraic Mysteries appealing.

 

[Elizabeth I]

What profit did the liars get out of their lie?

Once again I feel compelled to point out that believing something that later turns out not to be true does not necessarily make you a liar. It just makes you mistaken. I wish you would give up this strawman that anybody in this thread thinks the apostles, or the writers of the New Testament, or the early Christians were liars. All we are saying is that they believed something that turned out not to be true.

Sometimes people say that you are lying but that's a different matter entirely, and no one accuses of you of lying about your belief - only of lying for it.

 

[DOC]

From the Article "Miracles" by Peter Kreeft

"If Jesus did not really rise from the dead, three questions are unanswerable: Who moved the stone? Who got the body? and Who started the Resurrection myth and why? What profit did the liars get out of their lie?

I will tell you what they got out of it. They got mocked, hated, sneered and jeered at, exiled, deprived of property and reputation and rights, imprisoned, whipped, tortured, clubbed to a pulp, beheaded, crucified, boiled in oil, sawed in pieces, fed to lions, and cut to ribbons by gladiators If the miracle of the Resurrection did not really happen, then an even more incredible miracle happened: twelve Jewish fishermen invented the world's biggest lie for no reason at all and died for it with joy, as did millions of others. This myth, this lie, this elaborate practical joke transformed lives, gave despairing souls a reason to live and selfish souls a reason to die, gave cynics joy and libertines conscience, put martyrs in the hymns and hymns in the martyrs — all for no reason. A fantastic con job, a myth, a joke."

http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re0021.html

And Thomas Jefferson also got something out of this alleged lie -- He got the motivation to cut out about 900 verses of this alleged lie out of the bible with a razor and paste them in a book and say they were the most moral and sublime teachings ever preached to humanity.

 

[Moss]

And Thomas Jefferson also got something out of this alleged lie -- He got the motivation to cut out about 900 verses of this alleged lie out of the bible with a razor and paste them in a book and say they were the most moral and sublime teachings ever preached to humanity.

A cynic might point out that he tried to salvage the worthwhile parts from the dross.

 

[joobz]

And Thomas Jefferson also got something out of this alleged lie -- He got the motivation to cut out about 900 verses of this alleged lie out of the bible with a razor and paste them in a book and say they were the most moral and sublime teachings ever preached to humanity.

As he said, there were diamonds in the dung hill.

Again, I have no clue how you can be happy that Jefferson would call the bible a piece of poop.

 

[Lucian]

And Thomas Jefferson also got something out of this alleged lie -- He got the motivation to cut out about 900 verses of this alleged lie out of the bible with a razor and paste them in a book and say they were the most moral and sublime teachings ever preached to humanity.

Ahem! Since you clearly missed Her Majesty's subtle use of color, font size and clear reasoning, I thought I'd repeat it.

Once again I feel compelled to point out that believing something that later turns out not to be true does not necessarily make you a liar. It just makes you mistaken. I wish you would give up this strawman that anybody in this thread thinks the apostles, or the writers of the New Testament, or the early Christians were liars. All we are saying is that they believed something that turned out not to be true.

Sometimes people say that you are lying but that's a different matter entirely, and no one accuses of you of lying about your belief - only of lying for it.

 

[Elizabeth I]

And Thomas Jefferson also got something out of this alleged lie -- He got the motivation to cut out about 900 verses of this alleged lie out of the bible with a razor and paste them in a book and say they were the most moral and sublime teachings ever preached to humanity.

...and has been pointed out to you repeatedly, none of what he cut out and pasted included the magical bits.

Are you unable to read or simply dense?

ETA: I notice you mention the razor repeatedly. Do you think the razor has some significance?

 

[John Jones]

And if you believe the NT writers told the truth as I have been giving evidence for throughout this thread (e.g. post 11054 and the links in post 12307) then what he said is perfectly accurate.

Umm.

You're supposed to be providing that evidence, not assuming that it exists.

Damn, DOC. Why haven't you figured this out yet?

 

[John Jones]

I'm talking about the first 300 years of its growth. It was by peaceful means unlike Islam. ... .

This is not a thread about Islam.

 

[Waterman]

No, but they did kill thousands a year in human sacrifice:

From the article Aztec Sacrifice:

"Human sacrifice was practised to some extent by many peoples in Mesoamerica (and for that matter, around the world) for many centuries. But it was Aztec sacrifice that really took the ritual to new heights. How many people were sacrificed by the Aztecs? We don't know how many were sacrificed over the years - it's possible that some accounts are exaggerated - but it was probably thousands each year - tens of thousands or more all together. Some estimates claim 20,000 a year.

The Aztecs had 18 months in one cycle, and for each of the 18 months there was ritual sacrifice. The victim would be painted as a part of the ritual, they would be placed on a slab where their heart would be removed and held up to the sun. The body would be thrown down the stairs of the temple/pyramid.

The body would be disposed of in various ways, such as feeding animals at the zoo or putting on display (the heads)."

http://www.aztec-history.com/aztec-sacrifice.html

The barbarity of the Aztec practice of human sacrific has no bearing on whether or not the NT is true. While many died as human sacrific a significant portion of the entire population of central and south america died as a direct result of the arrival of the Spanish, some through direct action who viewed themselves as suprior but most died by diseases brought by the spanish (and thier priests).

 

[Lucian]

...and has been pointed out to you repeatedly, none of what he cut out and pasted included the magical bits.

Are you unable to read or simply dense?

ETA: I notice you mention the razor repeatedly. Do you think the razor has some significance?

I think he's cleverly encouraging us to take a sharp cutting tool to our bibles and desecrate them as Jefferson did. This whole "evidence" thing is just a ruse.

 

[X]

DOC, please define "evidence".

I feel that perhaps what your definition differs from ours.
In which case, we will continue to talk past one another, with you bringing in Geisler et al and persecution and Jefferson, and the rest of us calling those arguments idiotic.

 

[DOC]

Once again I feel compelled to point out that believing something that later turns out not to be true does not necessarily make you a liar.

This argument does not apply to this issue because you have not presented any proof of what you are basically saying -- that the Resurrection was not true.

It just makes you mistaken.

How can you be mistaken about something like the Resurrection that has not been proven true or false.

I wish you would give up this strawman that anybody in this thread thinks the apostles, or the writers of the New Testament, or the early Christians were liars.

Joobz says Luke lied -- that makes Luke a liar according to Joobz doesn't it?

And Simon implies Mark and John might have lied.

All we are saying is that they believed something that turned out not to be true.

What exactly are you talking about. You can't be talking about the Resurrection (which is the main focal point of Christianity) because you have no proof it turned out not to be true.

 

[DOC]

DOC, please define "evidence".

I feel that perhaps what your definition differs from ours.

Read post 13.

 

[joobz]

Read post 13.

then, not even by your definition have you presented evidence. In fact, your actions have driven people away from christianity. What is that evidence of?

 

[DOC]

So if a religion have success in spite of prosecution it must be true, like Falung Gong?

No, but all those martyrs dying so soon to the reported resurrection (which is an event in history and not just a philosophy) adds more weight to be put on the scale of evidence. And that's what this thread is about -- evidence -- not my opinion or belief.

 

[DOC]

then, not even by your definition have you presented evidence...

Explain?

 

[Brainache]

No, but all those martyrs dying so soon to the reported resurrection (which is an event in history and not just a philosophy) adds more weight to be put on the scale of evidence. And that's what this thread is about -- evidence -- not my opinion or belief.

I thought that the persecution of early Christians was something that only happened under a couple of Emporers. For a long while they were left unmolested and treated as just one of many mystic cults that existed in Rome at the time. Their problems only started when they started insisting that they were the only true faith and started mocking the other faiths around them.

Of course I could be wrong about this.

I just looked it up and found this on Wiki, make of it what you will:

On a more social, practical level, Christians were distrusted in part because of the secret and misunderstood nature of their worship. Words like "love feast" and talk of "eating Christ's flesh" sounded understandably suspicious to the pagans, and Christians were suspected of cannibalism, incest, orgies, and all sorts of immorality.[7]

According to H. B. Workman, the average Christian was not much affected by the persecutions; rather, Christian “extremists” would have been singled out as disruptive. Persecution of Christians acquired increasing significance in the writings of the Church Fathers during the 3rd and 4th centuries, on the eve of Christian hegemony.[8]

The Roman persecutions were generally sporadic, localized, and dependent on the political climate and disposition of each emperor. Imperial decrees against Christians were often directed against church property, the Scriptures, or clergy only. Everett Ferguson estimated that more Christians have been killed for religious reasons in the last 50 years than in the church's first 300 years.[9]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire