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

[Gandalfs Beard]

How can you have empirical evidence of a the corpse that has never been found.

Arguing for he Prosecution now? That's precisely the point.

The same could be said for Julius Caesar, we have no bones, no ashes, no signature for him -- just some statues like we have of Zeus, and some coins that have an image like we have an image of an eagle holding some arrows and olive leaves on our money.

No...the same could not be said for Caesar, for whom there is a wealth of evidence from multiple and independent CONTEMPORARY sources.

Contemporary Witnesses to Caesar:

Cicero:
Orations and Letters provide eyewitness evidence of Caesar

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) was almost an exact contemporary of Julius Caesar.

In Caesar's struggle with Pompey, Cicero, governor of Cilicia, sided with Pompey but was subsequently pardoned by Caesar.

In March of 44 BC Cicero was a witness to Caesar's murder, though he was not a part of the conspiracy.

Following the assassination, Cicero made a series of speeches known as the "Philippics" which called on the Senate to support Octavian against Mark Antony. Cicero's "Second Phillipics" was an eulogy of Caesar's conquest of Gaul.

Unfortunately for Cicero Octavian reached a temporary rapprochement with Antony, who then ordered Cicero's murder.

Among some 900 preserved letters to and from Cicero are correspondence both about and with Caesar.

"... if Caesar does lose his head all the same, Pompey feels only the deepest contempt for him, trusting in his own and the state's troops ..."

– Cicero to Atticus, 7.8, 50BC.

Sallust:

Caius Sallust (86-34 BC) tribune, provincial governor and supporter of Caesar. His testimony is in a history "Bellum Catalinae".

Nepos:

Cornelius Nepos (c100-24 BC): "Life of Atticus".

Catullus:

Gaius Valerius Catullus (c84-54 BC): "Carmina".

Asinius Pollio:

Gaius Asinius Pollio (76 BC-4 AD) was an ally of Caesar and founder of the first public library in Rome. He was a source used by Plutarch.

Virgil:

Virgil (70BC-17AD): "Aeneid".

Ovid:

Ovidius Naso (43BC-17AD): "Metamorphoses".

Extant Letters –

From Caesar to Balbus; to Oppius; to Cicero.

From Cicero to Caesar; to Basilius; to Atticus; to Matius; to members of Cicero's own family.

From Sallust to Caesar.

-Some of the Statues of Caesar date from his own time, carved by his contemporaries. Coins dating to the year of his death bear his likeness, as do coins from the period when Caesar became Pontifex Maximus (63 BC when Caesar was 37). Other Archeological evidence of historical Rome from the period.
-Caesar literally wrote some of his own commentaries on the events of his day. The evidence of Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain and Gaul, in his own writing and confirmed by archaeological evidence in the regions involved.

For Jesus: The Gospels--not written by contemporaries, not written literally by God, no writings by Jesus himself, no extant verification from independent contemporary sources, no contemporary archaeological artifacts bearing his likeness, no letters between Jesus and others, no evidence of Miracles or the Resurrection, and--as you mentioned--no corpse.

NO CONTEST.

GB

 

[Gandalfs Beard]

For the record I have blocked Akhenaten. I asked him not to do something but he continues to do it. I believe this is the first person I've blocked in over 3 years on this system. I might unblock him in a month or so.

OH NO! Poor Akhenaten, what will he do? Oh the shame!

That's almost as threatening as AAAlfie setting me to #2 on his ignore list (I'm aiming for #1 ).

I guess some people really CAN'T handle the Truth! Ironic eh!

GB

 

[amb]

For the first few decades of the century, all we have is this statement from Mark's gospel.[I quote]
1Cor. 15:3......For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried.
[End quote]
Notice there is no resurrection tale, no betrayal tale. The lack of almost any detail is chilling to say the least. All the things that make christians worship Jesus was not developed until at least 40 years after the supposed death of this Yeshua.
It reminds one of the birth of most myths such as William Tell for example, or Robin Hood, or even a comic book hero such as Superman.
There is precious little evidence that Jesus even existed as a historical person. All we have to go on are the gospels and Paul's epistles. All other evidence outside of these sources cannot be used according to such renown historians as Bart D. Ehrman because of the hearsay factor. By the time Josephus wrote his Antiquities for example, the story of Yeshua could have already been accepted as a tradition by then. all he did is repeat what was accepted as tradition at the end of the century when he put quill to parchment. As it is, he got Pilate's rank wrong, what else did he get wrong?

 

[WanderingSkeptic]

For the record I have blocked Akhenaten. I asked him not to do something but he continues to do it. I believe this is the first person I've blocked in over 3 years on this system. I might unblock him in a month or so.

This strikes me as the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la, I'm not listening" ... if you wish to preach ... fair enough, start a new thread called "I wish to preach to you about why I believe in a myth" or something similar ... if you however wish to have a debate with folks who hold a different view, unlock and learn ...

Yes, folks will drive you nuts, and you in turn will drive them nuts ... so what, welcome to the JREF forum ... my guidance to you is this, if somebody ticks you off, throwing your toys out of the pram and blocking them, looses you a lot of credibility ... so go cool off, count to 10, unblock and show us you can be grown up about this ...

[Why, do i get a funny feeling I'm about to be blocked ]

 

[Toke]

It reminds one of the birth of most myths such as William Tell for example, or Robin Hood, or even a comic book hero such as Superman.

And we know that the William Tell story is a cheap rip-off of the story of Harald Bluetooth's hirdman (Palna)Toke. [/nitpick].

 

[Cactus Wren]

Fox, I know you mean well, and I know you're on the side of the skeptics, but ...

I mean people if we stop to think logically about the situation here... it really can make sense.

I'll give you time to think about it.

... nobody makes friends, or allies, by saying, "The only reason you're questioning my assertions is because you're not thinking. As soon as you start to think, you'll realize that of course I'm right."

 

[Mojo]

This strikes me as the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la, I'm not listening" ...

Most of DOC's 2,031 posts in this thread are the equivalent of that, given that they are references to, or repetitions of, earlier posts of his that have already been debunked.

 

[DOC]

Balderdash!
a) They called it a 'superstition'.
b) Account of miracles were a dime a dozen, all the emperors were rumored to have magical powers...
c) Neither Tacitus nor Seutonius are 'the Roman'. Even if they were able to magically predict the importance Christianity would acquire in the following centuries, there is no reason to believe they would have lied about it.



But Tacitus and Seutonius were not enemies of the Christians...

They didn't have to lie about it, all they had to do was call it a superstition and they would have kept many of the people in the dark about what Christianity was.

And if Tacitus wasn't an enemy of Christianity why did he call it mischievous and evil and imply it was hideous and shameful.

Wiki on Tacitus on Christ

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

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

 

[GeeMack]

And if Tacitus wasn't an enemy of Christianity why did he call it mischievous and evil and imply it was hideous and shameful.

You don't have to be an enemy of something to offer an honest, objective assessment of it. Again your attempt at logic fails, DOC.

 

[John Jones]

They didn't have to lie about it, all they had to do was call it a superstition and they would have kept many of the people in the dark about what Christianity was.

And if Tacitus wasn't an enemy of Christianity why did he call it mischievous and evil and imply it was hideous and shameful.

Wiki on Tacitus on Christ

Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

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

It's not evidence that the new testament authors were telling the truth,

 

[DOC]

Doc... you are, without doubt, one of the most deliberately historically ignorant people I've ever come across, online or anywhere else.

You just got blocked until Sept 1.

 

[Mojo]

You just got blocked until Sept 1.

Would you care to address the rest of that post, which explained why he considers you to be "one of the most deliberately historically ignorant people [he has] ever come across"?

 

[DOC]

No, that is not the case. We have copies of books written by Caesar

How do you know he wrote them?

we have the remains of buildings built upon his command with the concomitant inscriptions,

we have the contemporary letters by Cicero telling us about the machinations involved during the end of the Republic, we have the physical evidence of the countries conquered by Caesar.

It's pretty clear that he existed...

So we have all of this but not one signature? And no bones, no ashes?

 

[DOC]

Well woo-hoo for you little matyr boy. You asked him not to use the word 'derail'.

Perhaps if you hadn't insisted on derailing your own thread, you might not have to have done so. If you had any honesty - and you don't - you would have blocked yourself for your pathetic persistence in posting debunked nonsense.

Sorry, but I'm not going to read posts like this anymore without blocking the author. I'll unblock you Sept 1.

 

[DOC]

Yes, it is derailing.
If you check the title of the tread you will see that you are supposed to give evidence for the truth of the NT.
Continuing to bring claims about the supposed merit of your religion is not it.

If you can show the principles have extremely high merit compared to other principles of the day and other religions, in my opinion that is evidence they could have come from a perfect being (aka God).

For example Hinduism has the caste system and Islam believes to kill your enemy like the 10 humanitarians/Christians who were killed in Afganistan two days ago. Whereas the bible says the meek shall inherit the earth, the least shall be the greatest, and love your enemy. It would seem to me that the latter has more merit and thus would seem to more likely come from a perfect God and thus this would be evidence according to the definition of evidence in post #13.

 

[GeeMack]

It's not evidence that the new testament authors were telling the truth,

Nope. In fact it's evidence that within a century of the onset of the Christian cult, it was recognized as the bogus, wasteful superstition that so many of us still know it today.

 

[WanderingSkeptic]

You just got blocked until Sept 1.

Keep adding more and more folks to your block list and you will soon find yourself in here alone all by yourself!!!! ... this is not a great way to have a debate.

 

[WanderingSkeptic]

How do you know he wrote them?





So we have all of this but not one signature? And no bones, no ashes?

You are in splendid isolation on this one ... you would be very hard pressed to find one single credible historian who doubts the reality of Ceaser

 

[WanderingSkeptic]

Sorry, but I'm not going to read posts like this anymore without blocking the author. I'll unblock you Sept 1.

And another one bites the dust ... roll-up roll-up, who wants to be next

 

[Mojo]

If you can show the principles have extremely high merit compared to other principles of the day and other religions, in my opinion that is evidence they could have come from a perfect being (aka God).

Your opinion is not worth much, in my opinion. Even if "the principles have extremely high merit compared to other principles of the day and other religions", this is not evidence that they come from a perfect being, or that such a being exists. And even if it was evidence for the existence of a supreme being it would still not be "Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth," so you are once again off-topic, and derailing your own thread.

For example Hinduism has the caste system...

...and Christ condoned slavery, according to the NT. Of course, we have no evidence that the NT is true.