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

[zooterkin]

Roman Senator/Historian Tacitus talks of a Christian superstition. Notice at the end the kinds of punishment they endured for this so called superstition:


"Therefore, to put an end to the rumor Nero created a diversion and subjected to the most extra-ordinary tortures those hated for their abominations by the common people called Christians. The originator of this name (was) Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontinus Pilate. Repressed for the time being, the deadly superstition broke out again not only in Judea, the original source of the evil, but also in the city (Rome), where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and become popular. So an arrest was made of all who confessed; then on the basis of their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of arson as for hatred of the human race." (Tacitus, Annales, 15, 44)

Tacitus continues:
"Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames. These served to illuminate the night when daylight failed. Nero had thrown open the gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or drove about in a chariot. Hence, even for crimnals who deserved extreme and examplary punishment there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but glut one man's cruelty, that they were being punished."

http://users.drew.edu/ddoughty/christianorigins/persecutions/tacitus.html

ETA:

And from Early Christian Writings website

"Suetonius also makes mention of Nero's persecution in 16.2:

"Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition."

Notably, unlike Tacitus, Suetonius does not associate this punishment with the fire that swept Rome."

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/suetonius.html

How many of these martyred Christians were eye-witnesses to the resurrection? Because you've told us that they don't count as evidence otherwise.


ETA: Oh, and your post completely fails to address Lothian's question (which was essentially the same as what I'm asking now).

 

[Akhenaten]

Roman Senator/Historian Tacitus talks of a Christian superstition.

Which is all it's ever been.

We know this because of a complete lack of evidence that the New Testament writers told the truth.

 

[Akhenaten]

That is your opinion, my opinion (from what we all know now) it is evidence that Nero like to torture people who believed Christ rose from the dead and also people who lived in Rome, 700 miles or so from the place where Christ allegedly rose from the dead 31 years earlier.

Opinions and allegations, DOC. Some hearsay and rumour. And some things that have just been made up out of whole cloth.

Not one whit of evidence.

That's very fast growth in a time period where being a Christian could get you tortured and killed.

So could being a Carthaginian or a Gaul. Is this evidence that the religions of Carthage and Gaul are true?

If not, why not?

It seems logical to conclude something very big must have happened to be driving all of this in an age with no modern transportation or communication.

It doesn't seem even remotely logical to conclude such a thing.

You have been told this thousands of times.

 

[kedo1981]

The whole "people don't die for what they know is a lie" meme needs to be retired.
Two words "suicide bombers", they think it's the truth (their beliefs) but one religion or another has to be a lie right.

 

[Akhenaten]

This is evidence that Nero liked to torture people who believed in an "evil" Superstition, and nothing more.

GB

That is your opinion . . .

No, DOC. It is evidence.

It's already trumped your opinion thousands of times in this thread and will continiue to do so.

The only way for you to give any weight at all to your own opinions is to provide some evidence in support of them, and clearly you have failed to do this.

 

[Akhenaten]

The whole "people don't die for what they know is a lie" meme needs to be retired.
Two words "suicide bombers", they think it's the truth (their beliefs) but one religion or another has to be a lie right.

DOC has been told this hundreds upon hundreds of times. He is deaf to advice that continued presentation of arguments like this in place of evidence is in complete denial of what everyone else refers to as logic.

 

[WanderingSkeptic]

Looking at this thread ... its a great example of right-to left-thinking ... start with the assumption of your hold book being right ... then work back looking for stuff to confirm your belief ... logic, reason and facts be dammed ...

 

[Lothian]

That is your opinion, my opinion (from what we all know now) it is evidence that Nero liked to torture people who believed Christ rose from the dead and also people who lived in Rome, 1400 miles or so from the place where Christ allegedly rose from the dead 31 years earlier. That's very fast growth in a time period where being a Christian could get you tortured and killed. It seems logical to conclude something very big must have happened to be driving all of this in an age with no modern transportation or communication.

I didn't ask about Nero I asked for evidence outside the NT that anyone saw the resurected Christ. Your reply did not answer the question.

This thread is about evidence the NT accounts are true. If you don't have any evidence outside the NT of people claiming to have seen the resurested Jesus say so, so we can move on.

 

[joobz]

That is your opinion, my opinion (from what we all know now) it is evidence that Nero liked to torture people who believed Christ rose from the dead and also people who lived in Rome, 1400 miles or so from the place where Christ allegedly rose from the dead 31 years earlier. That's very fast growth in a time period where being a Christian could get you tortured and killed. It seems logical to conclude something very big must have happened to be driving all of this in an age with no modern transportation or communication.

scientology started 50 years ago and has >8 million members.

 

[paximperium]

I'd be happy if he could point to one eyewitness of this Jesus character who wrote anything down, even in the NT.

Has DOC answered this yet?

 

[kmortis]

Peter was actually called Simon... Jeebus gave him the 'nickname' Peter - see Matthew 16:15-18

Peter = rock (as in petrified)

Ok, so, did Simon actually exist? To my mind, you absolutely need a Jesus, Peter and Paul to make all this work. Jesus can be an almagamation of people, so long as there was at least one Jesus that the legends can be hung on. I've already covered him in an earlier post.

Paul, IIRC, there's some historisty for. I'll assume his existance for the time being.

Simon Peter, on the other hand, do we have any good evidence for his existance? Paul refers to Peter in Galations, is there any extra-biblical accounts?

 

[Elizabeth I]

The whole "people don't die for what they know is a lie" meme needs to be retired.
Two words "suicide bombers", they think it's the truth (their beliefs) but one religion or another has to be a lie right.

Or both religions could be. (I just mention this because doc tried to use the principle of mutual exclusivity argument [or whatever he called it] as evidence that the New Testament was true and I don't want him to think he sees an opening to start it up again.)

 

[Simon39759]

No one else saw the angel who supposedly gave Joseph Smith the tablets.

Actually, 8 persons did that left a written statement. So, much more solid evidences than the NT has.

Roman Senator/Historian Tacitus talks of a Christian superstition. Notice at the end the kinds of punishment they endured for this so called superstition:
"Therefore, to put an end to the rumor Nero created a diversion and subjected to the most extra-ordinary tortures those hated for their abominations by the common people called Christians. The originator of this name (was) Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontinus Pilate. Repressed for the time being, the deadly superstition broke out again not only in Judea, the original source of the evil, but also in the city (Rome), where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and become popular. So an arrest was made of all who confessed; then on the basis of their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of arson as for hatred of the human race." (Tacitus, Annales, 15, 44)
Tacitus continues:
"Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames. These served to illuminate the night when daylight failed. Nero had thrown open the gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or drove about in a chariot. Hence, even for crimnals who deserved extreme and examplary punishment there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but glut one man's cruelty, that they were being punished."
http://users.drew.edu/ddoughty/christianorigins/persecutions/tacitus.html
ETA:
And from Early Christian Writings website
"Suetonius also makes mention of Nero's persecution in 16.2:
"Punishment by Nero was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition."
Notably, unlike Tacitus, Suetonius does not associate this punishment with the fire that swept Rome."
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/suetonius.html

You will notice that the persecution happend in the sixties, long before Chritianity diverged from Judaism.
Interestingly, it is quite likely that Nero's persecution targeted Christians and Jews alike and were later misinterpreted by historians...

 

[tsig]

Which is all it's ever been.

We know this because of a complete lack of evidence that the New Testament writers told the truth.

I'm sure the New Testament writers told the truth as they knew it. Their beliefs say nothing about what actually happened.

 

[tsig]

So the evidence that the New Testament writers told the truth is the fact that this thread is long?

delete

 

[Wolrab]

Man, oh man! Doc took advantage of the threads' downtime to, like, totally retool his arguments. Aw3s0m3 pwnage! Way to bring it back to page one Doc!

 

[tsig]

Or, in other words, the evidence that the New Testament writers told the truth, is that so many people have so many good counter-arguments. Which does make as much sense as a lot of other things in this thread.

Yes, it's obvious that no one would spend this much time refuting something that was false.

That also proves that Bigfoot, UFO's and ghosts are real.

 

[WanderingSkeptic]

Lets deal with facts ... the oldest fragment of the NT is the P52 fragment ... part of John's gospel dated to AD 125 ... nothing older exists. This strongly points to the gospels not being contemporary ... its as if somebody today for the very first time decided to sit down and write an account of the first world war, and up until now nobody had considered it important enough to bother mentioning. I'm prepared to be persuaded that this is incorrect, but opinion will not cut it, I'll need cold hard facts.

The problem you face with dates is that its all just a best guess ... nothing solid. There is general consensus that none of the Gospels were contemporary ... the very earliest date (from a biasd Christian source is AD 50 for Mark ... but most real scholars are more comfortable with AD 68-73 ... in essence ... what you read was written at the very best guess many decades after the events in question. Can you remember what you had for lunch last Tuesday? No ... so how about what you had for lunch 20 years ago ... could you give an accurate answer? ... yet its the reliability of that period of time we are being asked to lean upon here (at best ... it may in fact be a lot longer).

The only references of Jesus are in the NT gospels ... these are not contemporary and no other contemporary writer bothers to mention him or any of the events. If it was all true then this is very surprising ... take for example

Mathew 27 v51-53
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 52The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people

So lets get this right then ... you have an Earthquake and you also have a crowd of zombies wandering about ... and no contemporary writer bothers to mention it at all ... ever. I can come to only one reasonable conclusion ... we are dealing with fiction.

Now please tell me (with cold hard facts) why I'm incorrect.

 

[zooterkin]

That is your opinion, my opinion (from what we all know now) it is evidence that Nero liked to torture people who believed Christ rose from the dead and also people who lived in Rome, 1400 miles or so from the place where Christ allegedly rose from the dead 31 years earlier.

So, you agree that few, if any, of them were likely to have been eyewitnesses to the resurrection, and therefore their martyrdom can be discounted as evidence, since they can't have known if the resurrection didn't occur.

 

[kmortis]

Lets deal with facts ... the oldest fragment of the NT is the P52 fragment ... part of John's gospel dated to AD 125 ... nothing older exists. This strongly points to the gospels not being contemporary ... its as if somebody today for the very first time decided to sit down and write an account of the first world war, and up until now nobody had considered it important enough to bother mentioning. I'm prepared to be persuaded that this is incorrect, but opinion will not cut it, I'll need cold hard facts.

The problem you face with dates is that its all just a best guess ... nothing solid. There is general consensus that none of the Gospels were contemporary ... the very earliest date (from a biasd Christian source is AD 50 for Mark ... but most real scholars are more comfortable with AD 68-73 ... in essence ... what you read was written at the very best guess many decades after the events in question. Can you remember what you had for lunch last Tuesday? No ... so how about what you had for lunch 20 years ago ... could you give an accurate answer? ... yet its the reliability of that period of time we are being asked to lean upon here (at best ... it may in fact be a lot longer).

The only references of Jesus are in the NT gospels ... these are not contemporary and no other contemporary writer bothers to mention him or any of the events. If it was all true then this is very surprising ... take for example

Mathew 27 v51-53
At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. 52The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. 53They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people

So lets get this right then ... you have an Earthquake and you also have a crowd of zombies wandering about ... and no contemporary writer bothers to mention it at all ... ever. I can come to only one reasonable conclusion ... we are dealing with fiction.

Now please tell me (with cold hard facts) why I'm incorrect.

Which is why I don't have much of a problem seeing the NT, in general and the gospels specifically as accounts of life in Judea in that time period. Some of the factual information is incorrect, but so would an autobiographical account of my elementary school days. Granted, it's way easier for me to fact check than it would have been for a gospel writer.

What they are not good for is accuracy. You simply cannot trust a source that claims such outlandish events when there is not one shread of coroborating evidence.