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

[Akhenaten]

Where were you when a fellow skeptic repeated the same slavery theme (actually servants) 40 or 50 times?

We were all right here DOC, watching you flounder about playing exactly the same semantic game with the slave/servant thing and ultimately claiming that being beaten was no worse than sunburn.

Comedy gold.

Is there an echo in here?

 

[Mojo]

And in which post was my post discredited?

Try looking at the posts which followed it.

 

[joobz]

Where were you when a fellow skeptic trotted out slavery (actually servants) 40 or 50 times?

That's true. Why, in a thread about evidence, would a skeptic mention the fact that Jesus condoned slavery?

 

[DOC]

You are wrong of course. I know you don't care about being factually wrong, and I strongly suspect you'll never read that post or acknowledge its existence, but, nevertheless, you are wrong and terribly ignorant of the history of your own sacred text...

Actually I am right and the evidence is your own words below. You are saying the gospels are too similar which was my point, whereas welshdean made a long post complaining how the gospels are too different. Skeptics need to say once and for all are they too different or are they too similar, you can't have it both ways.

Here is the thing, have you heard about the documentary hypothesis? Basically, both Matthew and Luke contains many long stretches that are literally lifted from Mark, word for words. Let me be clear here, not just the overall story, but the exact wording.
To give you an idea, out of Mark's 673 verses, more than 380 are copied word for word by Luke. This is not a coincidence, both Luke and Matthew purposely copied Mark

.

So what, I wouldn't be surprised if Luke had the gospel Mark right in front of him (along with many other sources) when he wrote his gospel, that's what historians and journalists do, they gather as many written sources as they can and then "add" to it what they learned or witnessed on their own. Even Luke admitted he examined many sources in the opening verses of his gospel. This is no secret you discovered, Luke admits it. But I notice you neglected to point out from your source that Luke had 520 verses in his gospel that were peculiar to Luke's gospel only -- that's what makes it different and unique from Mark. Luke is giving us 520 verses that you can't find in Mark.

And yet, they are differences...
In some cases, the reasons are easy to see. For example, Mark eroneously calls Herod 'King' while Matthew, in some instances (such as Matthew 14:1, correct the verse and uses Herod's correct title of 'Tetrarch'.

Much ado about nothing.

In other the correction is more fundamental. Matthew and Luke are not just correcting what they think is incorrect or clumsy wording, they are correcting what they see are factual mistakes or shortcoming.
For example, the Markian tradition makes no mention of Jesus' birth. But, the church tradition Matthew comes from had such a story. Either the story had grown locally, or it became popular after Mark's writing.
At any rate, when Matthew sits down to copy Mark's gospel, the story seems to him to lack the beginning he is now familiar with, and so, he adds it...

Being an apostle, I'm sure he does have things to add, so what.

Similarly, the story, at some point, Mark does not seem aware of Jesus' apparition to Mary Magdalena or to the eleven apostles... So, he complete the text...
And Mark also seem unaware of many saying of Jesus (from the so-called Q hypothesis) so Matthew put these in...

So what, being an apostle Matthew probably would know whether or not what Q wrote is accurate.

On the other hand just because Matthew was an apostle, that doesn't mean he heard every word Christ ever said or saw every miracle Christ performed, or new everything about Christ's life before Christ started his public ministry. And you neglected to say in your post that there are 300 verses in Matthew that are not in any of the other gospels.

Later again, it is Luke's turn to gather both of the previous Gospels...

Once again, so what, Luke told us he studied many accounts, and remember there are 520 verses peculiar to Luke only.

By then, the tradition has evolved even a little bit further... Or he learned it from just a little bit different version of the church.
Matthew seems a bit closer from what Luke remembers, so he mostly uses this account, but still, there are part where he too seems mistaken, so Luke corrects these too...

This is not very clear as to what exactly you are talking about.

So, you see, the idea the the synoptic both copy and contradict each others is not, actually paradoxical at all...

Well I just think skeptics are making a big deal out of similarities when people like Luke are just being good historians or as in the case of Matthew possibly copying some things they know are accurate. And as I said before I think it is much ado about nothing to complain about differences like one writer calling Herod a King and one calling him a tetrarch.

That's stupid. On two counts.
First of all, he, guess what, this sequence is not actually share by the Gospels.
The appearance of the angels and then of the risen Christ was not part of the original Markian tradition... The Gospel was modified later...

That's an opinion and other scholars have different opinions. Why are you talking like it is a fact? And the bottom line is that Mark does report that the tomb was empty and that is not contested.

 

[carlitos]

Where were you when a fellow skeptic trotted out slavery (actually servants) 40 or 50 times?

And in which post was my post discredited?

You have a lot of nerve telling a lie in one line, and asking about your posts being discredited in the next. That is a lie and you are a liar. Lying makes the baby Jesus cry. Bearing false witness on a Sunday, I'd keep my eyes open for lightning if I were you.

 

[carlitos]

honest answer please

And the bottom line is that Mark does report that the tomb was empty and that is not contested.

That's a good question, DOC. Let me ask it of you instead. Do you feel that empty tombs are evidence that the person who should be inside it has risen from the dead?

No special pleading now. YES or NO, DOC?

Let's assume that "the tomb" was empty. Are empty tombs evidence that someone was resurrected? A simple yes or no would do.

 

[Aitch]

Let's assume that "the tomb" was empty. Are empty tombs evidence that someone was resurrected? A simple yes or no would do.

Well, Burke and Hare an their colleagues emptied a few tombs (or graves, at any rate); and they were called Resurrection Men...

 

[joobz]

Actually I am right and the evidence is your own words below. You are saying the gospels are too similar which was my point, whereas welshdean made a long post complaining how the gospels are too different. Skeptics need to say once and for all are they too different or are they too similar, you can't have it both ways.

DOC,
1.) the point isn't that the stories are "similar". It's that verses were examples of blatant plagiarism.
2.) Parts that aren't plagiarized diverge in nonsensical ways. Ways that are not amendable to "different witnesses will have different views" argument. For instance, (like the tomb stories) divergence in things like the number of suspects and their location and the witnesses who saw them are thingsthat would destroy a court case. Yet here, you claim these are "minor" points.

These two points are not mutually exclusive.

 

[RoboTimbo]

Skeptics DOC needs to say once and for all are they too different or are they too similar is an empty tomb evidence of resurrection, you can't have it both ways.

YES or NO, DOC?

 

[zooterkin]

Where were you when a fellow skeptic trotted out slavery (actually servants) 40 or 50 times?

I was here, watching you evade and ignore the questions you were being asked, and refusing to acknowledge the factual points being presented.

And in which post was my post discredited?

In which posts in this thread are your posts not discredited? Your posts stand for themselves, and most people reading them can see that they discredit themselves, but you need it pointed out to you. As suggested already, why don't you read the responses to the posts of yours I quoted from 2008 and 2009?

Where in the bible does it say that Christians should worship on Sunday?

 

[Simon39759]

Duplicate!

 

[Simon39759]

You are wrong of course. I know you don't care about being factually wrong, and I strongly suspect you'll never read that post or acknowledge its existence, but, nevertheless, you are wrong and terribly ignorant of the history of your own sacred text...

Actually I am right and the evidence is your own words below. You are saying the gospels are too similar which was my point, whereas welshdean made a long post complaining how the gospels are too different. Skeptics need to say once and for all are they too different or are they too similar, you can't have it both ways.

Of course you can, as explained below.
You answered to the rest of the post, so you have read it and have no excuse to pretend keep pretending that the plagiarism and critical differences are mutually exclusive.

Ps: Thanks for reading that post, you are still willfully ignorant and full of misunderstanding, but at least you are reading disagreeing argument, that's one step toward open-mindedness, one would think...

Here is the thing, have you heard about the documentary hypothesis? Basically, both Matthew and Luke contains many long stretches that are literally lifted from Mark, word for words. Let me be clear here, not just the overall story, but the exact wording.
To give you an idea, out of Mark's 673 verses, more than 380 are copied word for word by Luke. This is not a coincidence, both Luke and Matthew purposely copied Mark

.

So what, I wouldn't be surprised if Luke had the gospel Mark right in front of him (along with many other sources) when he wrote his gospel, that's what historians and journalists do, they gather as many written sources as they can and then "add" to it what they learned or witnessed on their own. Even Luke admitted he examined many sources in the opening verses of his gospel. This is no secret you discovered, Luke admits it. But I notice you neglected to point out from your source that Luke had 520 verses in his gospel that were peculiar to Luke's gospel only -- that's what makes it different and unique from Mark. Luke is giving us 520 verses that you can't find in Mark.

So what? There is no what.
That's just a statement of fact, Matthew read Mark and copied heavily from him. Luke read both and copied from both.
That proves that the various traditions were in contact and influencing each others rather than fully autonomous accounts.
My point here was to explain to you how people know that Matthew and Luke copied Mark.

And yet, they are differences...
In some cases, the reasons are easy to see. For example, Mark eroneously calls Herod 'King' while Matthew, in some instances (such as Matthew 14:1, correct the verse and uses Herod's correct title of 'Tetrarch'.

Much ado about nothing.

Well, doh, that's called an example.

In other the correction is more fundamental. Matthew and Luke are not just correcting what they think is incorrect or clumsy wording, they are correcting what they see are factual mistakes or shortcoming.
For example, the Markian tradition makes no mention of Jesus' birth. But, the church tradition Matthew comes from had such a story. Either the story had grown locally, or it became popular after Mark's writing.
At any rate, when Matthew sits down to copy Mark's gospel, the story seems to him to lack the beginning he is now familiar with, and so, he adds it...

Being an apostle, I'm sure he does have things to add, so what.

Well, of course, he most probably WAS NOT an apostle, we have gone over it before.

But, that's not my point.
My point was that the tradition that produces the Gospel of Matthew disagreed with the Markian tradition on some aspects and that it shows in the Gospel.

Similarly, the story, at some point, Mark does not seem aware of Jesus' apparition to Mary Magdalena or to the eleven apostles... So, he complete the text...
And Mark also seem unaware of many saying of Jesus (from the so-called Q hypothesis) so Matthew put these in...

So what, being an apostle Matthew probably would know whether or not what Q wrote is accurate.

On the other hand just because Matthew was an apostle, that doesn't mean he heard every word Christ ever said or saw every miracle Christ performed, or new everything about Christ's life before Christ started his public ministry. And you neglected to say in your post that there are 300 verses in Matthew that are not in any of the other gospels.

Yes, traditions diverge and evolve. That's the whole point I was making.
The guy that wrote Matthew had heard a slightly different story than the man that wrote Mark.

Later again, it is Luke's turn to gather both of the previous Gospels...

Once again, so what, Luke told us he studied many accounts, and remember there are 520 verses peculiar to Luke only.

By then, the tradition has evolved even a little bit further... Or he learned it from just a little bit different version of the church.
Matthew seems a bit closer from what Luke remembers, so he mostly uses this account, but still, there are part where he too seems mistaken, so Luke corrects these too...

This is not very clear as to what exactly you are talking about.

What's unclear?
Matthew's account is closer chronologically than Mark's so the tradition had evolved closer to what it was when Luke set to write his Gospel (if you want, Matthew was a transitional form of the meme between Mark and Luke).
So Luke mostly goes for Matthew, as it seems more accurate, more similar to the stories he is hearing...

So, you see, the idea the the synoptic both copy and contradict each others is not, actually paradoxical at all...

Well I just think skeptics are making a big deal out of similarities when people like Luke are just being good historians or as in the case of Matthew possibly copying some things they know are accurate. And as I said before I think it is much ado about nothing to complain about differences like one writer calling Herod a King and one calling him a tetrarch.

It's a freaking example of Matthew correcting what he sees as mistake in Mark's writing. That's not an argument, that's an example...

Remember, it started by you pretending that saying that the Gospels are both too similar to be independent accounts and contradictory was a self-contradictory statements.
I showed how it actually was not. The Gospels are both copying each others (and, as such not independent) and contradictory.

That's stupid. On two counts.
First of all, he, guess what, this sequence is not actually share by the Gospels.
The appearance of the angels and then of the risen Christ was not part of the original Markian tradition... The Gospel was modified later...

That's an opinion and other scholars have different opinions. Why are you talking like it is a fact? And the bottom line is that Mark does report that the tomb was empty and that is not contested.

Because the modification is the academic consensus.
I mean, you keep on pretending that the Gospels writers were apostles, a statement that is contradicting the academic consensus, as if it was a fact so you are in a poor spot to complain...

And that the ending is not part of the earlier manuscripts IS a fact...

 

[DOC]

Where were you when a fellow skeptic trotted out slavery (actually servants) 40 or 50 times?

And in which post was my post discredited?

You have a lot of nerve telling a lie in one line, and asking about your posts being discredited in the next. That is a lie and you are a liar. Lying makes the baby Jesus cry. Bearing false witness on a Sunday, I'd keep my eyes open for lightning if I were you.

There was no lie. And anybody can say your post was discredited without giving an explanation.

 

[DOC]

Let's assume that "the tomb" was empty. Are empty tombs evidence that someone was resurrected? A simple yes or no would do.

Yes, in the case of the famous historical Christ who several times predicted he would rise from the dead. It is evidence because an empty tomb increases the likelihood he was right. An empty tomb is not proof but it is definitely evidence because it increases the probability of the resurrection being true over a situation where we had no historical information that the tomb was empty -- this is just common sense.

 

[RoboTimbo]

No special pleading now. YES or NO, DOC?

You missed this bit of instruction, DOC.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Well, it's not like DOC is strictly wrong about that tidbit. If we are to assume there was an empty tomb, then it is true a resurrection was slightly more likely than if the corpse of Jesus had been in that tomb. But of course there are still several equally or more likely explanations, including but not limited to:

-It being a different tomb
-Someone taking the body away
-People not looking very carefully around the tomb
-The body never being there in the first place
-Alien body-disintegrating rays
-Grues
-The visitors being very hungry, and massaging the truth a bit in the story

With this evidence, the probability of all these possibilities is clearly increased. We should look into the Being Eaten By Grues of the Historical Character Jesus Christ. It will be very useful to let people to continue Learning Historical Evidence. (That could be applied in a Court Of Law. Honestly.)

 

[DOC]

DOC,
1.) the point isn't that the stories are "similar". It's that verses were examples of blatant plagiarism.
2.) Parts that aren't plagiarized diverge in nonsensical ways. Ways that are not amendable to "different witnesses will have different views" argument. For instance, (like the tomb stories) divergence in things like the number of suspects and their location and the witnesses who saw them are thingsthat would destroy a court case. Yet here, you claim these are "minor" points.

These two points are not mutually exclusive.

So you want the Gospel writers to worry about footnotes (if they had them at the time) and lawsuits (if they had them at the time) in 1st century Roman occupied Palestine?

And yes they are relatively minor points in the scope of the big picture of Christ's teachings and purpose. And you won't be able to give one alleged discrepancy in the NT that hasn't been logically explained somewhere on the internet.

 

[Simon39759]

So you want the Gospel writers to worry about footnotes (if they had them at the time) and lawsuits (if they had them at the time) in 1st century Roman occupied Palestine?

No, you are attacking a strawman.
We are not saying anything about plagiarism as an illegal activity.
It is just that the fact that the Matthew and Lucian gospels being plagiarized from Mark means that they are variations the same tradition and, as such, they are not independent accounts...

And yes they are relatively minor points in the scope of the big picture of Christ's teachings and purpose. And you won't be able to give one alleged discrepancy in the NT that hasn't been logically explained somewhere on the internet.

Sure, apologetists can explain away anything. Their explication just happen not to make sense:
"Yeah, sure there was a earthquake and a plague of undead, it's just did not seem to warrant mentioning, you know, details...".

 

[Lucian]

Yes, in the case of the famous historical Christ who several times predicted he would rise from the dead. It is evidence because an empty tomb increases the likelihood he was right. An empty tomb is not proof but it is definitely evidence because it increases the probability of the resurrection being true over a situation where we had no historical information that the tomb was empty -- this is just common sense.

Most of the posters in this thread will agree that Jesus was probably a real person; probably everyone will admit that he's famous. You, however, have called him "the famous historical Christ," suggesting that his role as Messiah is a historically accepted fact. I think very few of us would agree with that.

And an empty tomb is evidence that a tomb is empty (of everyone but a variable number of angels). That's it. It's not evidence that the alleged former occupant was taken back to the home planet or that the body had been rendered invisible.

Also, please keep in mind that the evidence for the empty tomb is pretty weak.

 

[joobz]

So you want the Gospel writers to worry about footnotes (if they had them at the time) and lawsuits (if they had them at the time) in 1st century Roman occupied Palestine?

If they were independent accounts, why would there be examples of direct copying? Sort of makes the whole independent sources argument seem nonsensical.

And yes they are relatively minor points in the scope of the big picture of Christ's teachings and purpose.

are you trying to convince me that they are minor points, or yourself?

And you won't be able to give one alleged discrepancy in the NT that hasn't been logically explained somewhere on the internet.

False.