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

[Gandalfs Beard]

Fair Enough DOC. You did at long last respond to Waterman's post, albeit ineptly (what else is new?). How about responding to this one:

DOC, I honestly can't say that every point you've ever made on this thread has been "debunked" in and of itself.

But the fact is, there is NO Empirical Evidence that can prove the existence of a particular Hebrew Deity. Therefore there is NO Empirical Evidence that Jesus "Christ" was the Earthly Vessel of that particular Hebrew Deity. Therefore there is NO Empirical Evidence that the writers and editors of the Gospels (whoever they might have been) were telling whatever "Truth" that YOU interpreted the Gospels to mean.

Even in the decades after Jesus allegedly lived, there were at least 3 main interpretations of the Gospels and other texts expunged from the Bible, including an interpretation that excluded Jesus' Divinity (as espoused by Arius and his followers until the Nicene Conference).

Ergo, no matter how you slice it, EVERY argument you have made to further the thesis "Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth" is invalidated. That's LOGIC for you.

Now Empiricism isn't the "Be-all and End-all" of Reality (depending on the definition of Reality), But Empiricism is what counts when one goes about claiming that they can "Prove" something. And DOC, that's something you clearly have no leg to stand on.

You should have called this thread "All the lame reasons I personally believe the NT writers told the truth as I personally interpret the NT."

That would be accurate, and perhaps once so clearly stated you would see your claim as the tautology it is, and finally realize that you can't prove anything with circular reasoning.

GB

 

[NavyPack]

I already did:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=6010320#post6010320

If you don't like my response then so be it.

That post is a response to Waterman's in the same way that "burnt jelly bean" is an response to the question, "How did you come to grips w/ your parents divorce?".

I sadly suspect you still have not read the entirety of that post. You seemed to just grabbed some text at the beginning and a list and made irrelevant comments. Really, b/c he didn't include the word "helpful" in his definition, which made absolutely no difference to the meaning conveyed, you can ignore it completely? As if to, (clutch pearls & swoon)dodge actually giving it a serious answer!

Are you just in the rope-a-dope mode now?

Are you saving your energy, by not actually reading, well, anything?

How many time have you brought in a link, to only be later shown to have not even read the entire webpage you bring in to bolster your arguments.

So, you obviously spent little to no time carefully considering anyone else's opinions/posts; then don't bother to do any actual research for your own.

Hell, you haven't even read the bible!

I'm not delusional enough to expect a response to this, it's more just exasperation on my part, but what exactly are you doing here?

Is the negative attention of anonymous internet forumites really that addictive?

I personally love these type threads, due to the other members of the forum bringing up great points, sources, evidence, & scholarship. But when I try to empathize w/ you, I'm just baffled.

Is that what you've been going for this whole time?

 

[Waterman]

DOC, I wonder if you would take a little time to answer Waterman's post:

I already did:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=6010320#post6010320

If you don't like my response then so be it.

To paraphrase you: to provide a response is not necessarily providing an answer.

And regarding you response I have attended to that as well pointing out the major failings of that post as well and how you actually fail to provide any definitive statement on your opinion on whether my points have merit or not. That response is provided below with a few deletions for brevity. I have bolded the points where I have requested clarification on your position because it is not clear from your response.

In reading through DOC’s arguments (and yes I am one of those that has read every post) It appears that there is some fundamental difference in how the two sides are using the term evidence in the context of this discussion.

Per DOC’s usage in post 13, Evidence is something that is used to arrive as a determination or decision.

Strawman -- you didn't repeat the definition in post 13. Here is the definition of evidence according to answers.com:

"A thing or things "helpful" in forming a conclusion or judgment"

Why did you leave out the word helpful?

Why does the word helpful matter in this instance. I never claimed it was a quote. How has the meaning changed?

He has turned this definition around in that ANYTHING that is used to arrive at a decision or determination is to be considered Evidence.

No I haven't

I have pointed out that based on your postings that it appears that you consider anything that is used to help you arrive at the decision to be evidence. If this is not true then please clarify what you consider evidence and what is not.

Per this definition anything considered becomes evidence:
Facts (irrelevant and relevant)
Quotes (and misquotes)
Logical Arguments
Fallacious Logical Arguments (especially if you don’t recognize the fallacy)
Statistics (both correctly applied and misapplied)
Opinions of Famous People
Untruths (either unknown to the presenter or not)
Speculation and Conjecture
Inspirational thoughts / ideas
Tradition

People do and often use all of these to help make decisions. However that does NOT mean that they rise to what the majority of the posters of this board consider to be GOOD EVIDENCE....

The above is a strawman -- you use a definition that I never used and argue against it.

So then you agree with my general assessment about what qualifies as good evidence and what qualifies as bad, invalid or non- evidence? Or do you disagree I can’t really tell your position, it would be easy to speculate but I don’t want to be accused of setting up more strawmen, please let me know.

These types of general statements are just a fancy way of not letting the posts stand for themselves, and attack the messenger in a broad sweeping manner that would probably take a couple of hours to properly respond to, and why take all that time just to repeat the posts I've already posted. Translation - just let the posts and responses to those posts stand for themselves. All you've done in your lengthy post is voice a wide sweeping opinion and it misrepresents my stance.

<snip>

Fourth If I have misrepresented your stance please enlighten me in what way. So far the only thing that you have specifically said I got wrong was that I omitted the word ‘helpful’.

"Anything that can be considered" is not evidence -- and I've never said it was evidence, or believe that.

I never claimed that you said that nor was that a quote. I concluded that based on your posting history and what you cite in support of your argument. You seem to say that you want to clarify you position. Lets start with any easy one.

Is the opinion of a famous person ‘Evidence’ of the truth of a position.

My position is NO. <snip>

 

[Lothian]

Fallacy watch

I've already talked about how important oral tradition was in that era of little literacy and no paper in passing on historical information and how we have just scratched the surface on this topic of oral tradition. One rabbi, I've already mentioned, said Oral tradition was more important than written history concerning the Torah.

http://www.aish.com/jl/48943186.html

In the book "Misquoting Truth (a guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman)" by Timothy Jones, Jones talks of how a consistent oral account of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus emerged shortly after he died. He states this oral history can be found in the writings of Paul. Paul reminds the Corinthians of the truths that he had proclaimed to them 3 years earlier around A.D. 50. Jones says there are clues that show how quickly an oral account emerged and how consistent the tradition stayed as it was circulated.

1 Corinthians 15:3-7

For I handed over to you what I also received.
That the Messiah died on behalf of our sins according to the Sriptures,
And that he was buried,
And that he rose on the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that he was seen by Cephas,
then the Twelve;
then, he was seen
by more than five hundred brothers at once;...
then, he was seen by James,
then by all the apostles.

Here is what Jones says on page 91:

"So, how can scholars know that these words actually come from an early oral history? In the first place, Paul introduced this summation with two Greek words that clearly indicated it was oral tradition. These two words were "paradidomi" ("handed over" in my translation above) and "paralambano" ("received"). Ancient readers understood these two words -- when used together -- to imply that the writer was quoting words that he or she intended to become oral tradition. In this way, Paul clearly informed the Corinthians that he was about to pass on oral tradition."

Jones goes on and says there are clues in the text that suggest where and when the tradition began. I'll try to talk about that later as time permits.

Correct me if I am wrong, my Latin is even worse than my knowledge of fallacies, but the reference to oral tradition appears to be an example of A dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid. Jones's claims of similarities in Paul is a sign that the texts are true is Affirming the Consequent.
Paul may have wanted to pass on an story orally but to claim that is evidence the story is true is a Non Sequitur:

Cleon has pointed out that you committed the Fallacy of Misplaced Concretion in reporting Rabbi Kaplan.

Apart from those listed above the whole post is a Red Herring. It is not evidence the NT writers told the truth.


Note. Sorry I have lost my master check list. Who picked five fallacies in the sweep?

 

[six7s]

Re: New Important Info about Oral Tradition.

In the book "Misquoting Truth (a guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman)" by Timothy Jones, Jones talks of how a consistent oral account of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus emerged shortly after he died. He states this oral history can be found in the writings of Paul. <circularReasoningSnipped/>

So freakin' what?!?!?

I, for one, don't give a flying fork if there are oral accounts of the crucification and resurrection that are consistent... I want evidence that they accurately describe the actual, verifiable truth about what actually happened

You got any?

Please note:
As long as you persist with pretending that your feeble attempt to dismiss Waterman's post was anything other than a futile waste of bandwidth, your incredibly low credibility will continue to plummet

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

So freakin' what?!?!?

I, for one, don't give a flying fork if there are oral accounts of the crucification and resurrection that are consistent... I want evidence that they accurately describe the actual, verifiable truth about what actually happened

You got any?

Please note:
As long as you persist with pretending that your feeble attempt to dismiss Waterman's post was anything other than a futile waste of bandwidth, your incredibly low credibility will continue to plummet

Is that even possible? Isn't there an Absolute Zero for credibility?

 

[Lothian]

Is that even possible? Isn't there an Absolute Zero for credibility?

He is not at the bottom yet. He could still post a link to a racist site. Wait.....

 

[carlitos]

"So, how can scholars know that these words actually come from an early oral history? In the first place, Paul introduced this summation with two Greek words that clearly indicated it was oral tradition. These two words were "paradidomi" ("handed over" in my translation above) and "paralambano" ("received"). Ancient readers understood these two words -- when used together -- to imply that the writer was quoting words that he or she intended to become oral tradition.

My irony meter, it assploded! Why the **** are we discussing the original *********** Greek now, exactly? DOC, you wasted about 500 posts telling us to ignore the original Greek word "doulos." Are you insane?

ETA - **** ******* ****. This filter works great.

 

[joobz]

One rabbi, I've already mentioned, said Oral tradition was more important than written history concerning the Torah.

Because it's easy to adjust an oral story to fit the times. The moment you write something down, you are beholden to the text.

For instance, if christianity was still based by oral tradition, we would likely no longer have stories of Jesus condoning the beating of slaves/servants.

"So, how can scholars know that these words actually come from an early oral history? In the first place, Paul introduced this summation with two Greek words that clearly indicated it was oral tradition. These two words were "paradidomi" ("handed over" in my translation above) and "paralambano" ("received"). Ancient readers understood these two words -- when used together -- to imply that the writer was quoting words that he or she intended to become oral tradition. In this way, Paul clearly informed the Corinthians that he was about to pass on oral tradition."

Did you mean to prove the bible was not a reliable source?
Because that is what you just did.

Jones goes on and says there are clues in the text that suggest where and when the tradition began. I'll try to talk about that later as time permits.

doesn't matter when hearsay started. It's still hearsay.

 

[John Jones]

I personally love these type threads, due to the other members of the forum bringing up great points, sources, evidence, & scholarship.

Agreed. This is my favorite thread for the reasons you stated.

 

[Simon39759]

So freakin' what?!?!?

I, for one, don't give a flying fork if there are oral accounts of the crucification and resurrection that are consistent... I want evidence that they accurately describe the actual, verifiable truth about what actually happened

You got any?

Please note:
As long as you persist with pretending that your feeble attempt to dismiss Waterman's post was anything other than a futile waste of bandwidth, your incredibly low credibility will continue to plummet

Of course the account is consistent.
Three out of four Gospels came from the region Paul was active in. In all likelihood, Paul founded the churches that wrote these synoptic gospels.
Of course these accounts will be mostly consistent; they got it from the same source: Paul.
Paul's version is most probably the last common ancestor in these four versions.

My irony meter, it assploded! Why the **** are we discussing the original *********** Greek now, exactly? DOC, you wasted about 500 posts telling us to ignore the original Greek word "doulos." Are you insane?

ETA - **** ******* ****. This filter works great.

Indeed, good catch... Funny, isn't it?

 

[DOC]

...In the book "Misquoting Truth (a guide to the Fallacies of Bart Ehrman)" by Timothy Jones, Jones talks of how a consistent oral account of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus emerged shortly after he died. He states this oral history can be found in the writings of Paul...

So freakin' what?!?!?

I, for one, don't give a flying fork if there are oral accounts of the crucification and resurrection that are consistent...

You (not being a biblical scholar) might not care 2000 years later, but all the people alive shortly after the death of the famous Jesus' would certainly care if the oral history going around such as this from 1 Corinthians 15: 4-7 sounded inaccurate.

And that he was buried,
And that he rose on the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that he was seen by Cephas,
then the Twelve;
then, he was seen
by more than five hundred brothers at once;...
then, he was seen by James,
then by all the apostles.

Surely there would people saying: "Hey, what is this, this oral history never happened to the famous Jesus"... Remember we know Paul was giving out this oral history that he received (at an earlier time) in A.D. 50, 17 years after the crucifixion of the famous Jesus. This would be like people going around today and saying Michael Jackson has been raised from the dead and almost no one questioning it and just accepting it as truthful oral history and then be willing to be martyred for that recent oral history.

I want evidence that they accurately describe the actual, verifiable truth about what actually happened

So did doubting Thomas, the same doubting Thomas that ended up preaching in India.

Do you got any?

Yes, I've already listed some in post 13104

 

[Akhenaten]

Stop lying, DOC!​

 

[Elizabeth I]

I want evidence that they accurately describe the actual, verifiable truth about what actually happened

So did doubting Thomas, the same doubting Thomas that ended up preaching in India.

The story goes that Thomas got his evidence. Why hasn't anybody else in the past 2,000 years gotten any evidence?

Could it be because the story about Thomas is like the others - just a story?

 

[six7s]

You're citing post 13,104?!?!?



Despite so much practice, you really are a crap LIAR

Post #11054

Here is information from it, along with some minor additions.

There are over 5000 New Testament manuscripts in existence compared to 7 manuscripts for Plato and 20 for famous Roman Historian Tacitus.

Respected archaeologist Sir William Mitchell Ramsay called gospel writer Luke a great historian

<liesSnipped/>

PhD. in astrophysics Dr. Hugh Ross claims there are about 2000 fulfilled prophecies in the Bible.

http://www.reasons.org/fulfilled-prophecy-evidence-reliability-bible

Every scrap of that drivel has been effectively debunked numerous times, DOC, and you know it.

Now, can you point out a single other poster in this thread who supports your position?

Referencing one of your own posts in your usual dishonest manner will of course simply add to your failure, so feel free to do so.

And the seasons, they go round and round

 

[eccles]

Nothing in the Bible can be verified

I have not been here for a while. I was in Melbourne, Australia last March for the Global Atheist Convention - a huge success. The Church leaders are getting worried. Regular Church attendences are about 9%.

About the worst book of fiction ever written is the "Holy" Bible. Most of Paul's Epistles are filled with interpolations. Saul/Paul never knew Jesus, nor heard what He is alleged to have said. I thoroughly recommend reading "he Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus", Arthur Drews on line:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Witnesses_to_the_Historicity_of_Jesus

I am reading it now and have nearly finished the Chapters about Paul.
"Misquoting Jesus", Bart Ehrlman is also an excellent work.

Oral Tradition is worthless as far as history is concerned. How about the oral tradition around King Arthur and Robin Hood. There might have been men with those names, but the fables about them are no different from the fables of one Jeshua bar Joseph.

There are NO original authored manuscripts of any of the Scriptures. Nobody knows who wrote any of the books of the bible. The names of the evangalists are attributions made later by early Church Fathers.

Anyone here who still believes that silly bible after all I have pointed out has had his brain poisoned by Religion.

RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING. Christopher Hitchens.

 

[John Jones]

The title of this thread is "Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

It's not about New Testament indulgers in oral tradition, DOC.

 

[eccles]

You (not being a biblical scholar) might not care 2000 years later, but all the people alive shortly after the death of the famous Jesus' would certainly care if the oral history going around such as this from 1 Corinthians 15: 4-7 sounded inaccurate.

And that he was buried,
And that he rose on the third day according to the Scriptures,
and that he was seen by Cephas,
then the Twelve;
then, he was seen
by more than five hundred brothers at once;...
then, he was seen by James,
then by all the apostles.

Surely there would people saying: "Hey, what is this, this oral history never happened to the famous Jesus"... Remember we know Paul was giving out this oral history that he received (at an earlier time) in A.D. 50, 17 years after the crucifixion of the famous Jesus. This would be like people going around today and saying Michael Jackson has been raised from the dead and almost no one questioning it and just accepting it as truthful oral history and then be willing to be martyred for that recent oral history.




So did doubting Thomas, the same doubting Thomas that ended up preaching in India.



Yes, I've already listed some in post 13104

Jesus was seen recently leaving a McDonalds with Elvis and Whacko Jacko.

 

[John Jones]

Jesus just left Chicago and he's bound for New Orleans.

 

[eccles]

Jesus just left Chicago and he's bound for New Orleans.

Jesus is flying from Tel Aviv to Cairo on an El Al flight, the pilot being Pontius the Pilot.