Who does? The author of an anonymous gospel story, that's who.
When the sources are at best third-hand hearsay and fanfic, how can you apply the 'historical method'?
Yes, and the pauline epistles were neither.
They are indeed intended to be read out, but this draws very little away from the potential historical value, if anything. We can still conclude that Paul had a follower called Timothy, can we not? We can still conclude that Paul visited Corinth twice, and that there was disorder in the church, can we not?
Correct, they do. This is why I do not think Paul spent much, if any, time with Luke. This is one of the things which strengthens the Timothy point.
Of course it is useful. You have brought up reasons why the texts are difficult and cannot be accepted at face value. I am not suggesting that no work needs to be done in extracting the likely facts, but this doesn't mean the sources are useless.
I don't understand this. Why are the letters not evidence for some of the things I have mentioned? Also the thread does deal with the early church. The authors in the NT make many claims about the early church.
Right. Exactly what faith in the church would be affirmed by, say Acts 18:12-18? An unimportant story in which Jews are angry at Paul and nothing at all happens, but which uses the correct terminology (proconsul) for the politician involved?
I don't get why likely isn't good enough. I am unable to say "definitely" just as I am unable to say this about practically all ancient history. Is the John the Baptist case not one in which it the NT writers probably told the truth in some part?
No no I don't think that the L source has any bearing on the validity of some of the NT claims. I cannot even remember why it was brought up. As I've said though, the evidence comes from applying the historical method to the sources available.
1 - fixed.
Can you rectify these two statements?
Correct. Can we refer to him (or her) as Luke though, for the sake of ease?
That's why it is useful to sift the sources into their likely constituent parts. What probably had origin in Mark, what probably had origin in Q, what probably had origin in L, where the infancy narratives came from, which stories Paul was aware of, etc. Using any one gospel is not very good practice, and I doubt anyone would be comfortable with saying that evidence from one gospel alone would be enough to warrant belief in a story.
I don't think they're fiction for many reasons. The cross-source agreement, and presentation of history, of the gospels, is enough for me. With Acts, there is a fair amount of historical accuracy in the less important stories. With the Pauline epistles, they are letters to the early church communities, so will likely have some historic worth.
We expect that sort of ridiculous conflation from him, so it's not so shocking, coming from him. The two statements do not contradict each other. 1) Luke believed he had an eyewitness (or was willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt.) 2) He actually did not.
You really ARE worse than DOC!
One with evidence.
YOU are cherry picking. And History is not a method; history is what we have when we have multiple available sources (not in a compilation) and physical evidence.
GB
1 - fixed.
2 - Your opinion regarding the eyewitness is noted. Now, do you have any evidence to share?
3 - Careful with missing the question mark on that last post; it's a "DOC" tell.
You raise an intersting point there, phelix.
But, ultimately, it's just speculation.
In relation to this particular thread, yes, they are useless.
A good point.
How would I know?
In some part?
That would be acceptable if those sources even came up to the standard required to apply the historical method.
Cherry picking can be easily shown up by presenting the information which I have left out, which would contradict the stances I adopt. I am more than willing to discuss all of the NT, if you wish me to demonstrate the consistency in my approach, but finding some facts to likely be true, and some to likely be false is not cherry picking. It's the natural result from the historical method.
Fine.
Not fine. No one here is asking for evidence of belief. We have like 500 pages of that. How about evidence of authorship, or evidence of the alleged eyewitness? Or evidence that the stories told in Luke are, you know, true?
This topic is to ascertain the truth of the gospels. Please start contributing. Evidence need not contain your opinions as to how some author developed his story. Your musings, as interesting as you may find them, are not evidence for the truth of the gospel accounts.
when it's clear that what you are doing is not historical method but EXEGESIS. The two are not equivalent. The problem with focusing on the life and acts of Jesus is that we cannot establish very much at all. The thread will have lingered on this point because apologists will defend it, and atheists will have fun swiping at the low-hanging fruit. The thread though is about whether the New Testament writers told the truth. Sometimes they did, and the letters of Paul play a big part of that.
Do you think the references provided to support the claim that Paul had a disciple called Timothy do not constitute evidence? It's speculation because the conclusion is not definite, but we still have two pieces of evidence that lead to the conclusion that Paul probably had a disciple called Timothy.
Howso useless? It is from the NT writers alone that we know John the Baptist worked in the river Jordan. The NT writers were probably telling the truth here.
This is now interesting, and I wonder if you will send Pythagoras to touch like two other people in this thread have. Would you be willing to say that all our sources for Pythagoras do not meet the required standard?
In that particular line of the conversation, none of this was requested or even warranted. We don't know the authorship. I think the evidence actually rules against the eyewitness. The stories from the alleged eyewitness I don't think there is much sway one way or the other as to their truth.
Hey, people started grilling me on the sources for Luke, so I've replied with what much of critical history has to say about the matter. As I've said, the evidence for truth in the gospel accounts simply comes from critical historical analysis of the sources.
And here's where I start looking for "how." And not finding an answer.phelix said:
So the cross-source agreement, and presentation of history, of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, should convince you that Gandolf is real. Great. Super logic there. You don't seem to get the Gone with the Wind or other examples. I wonder why? Again, how did you determine that these books were non-fiction so that you could apply (your interpretation of) the historical method?phelix said:
And HOW did you rule those things out please? How? My question was how, in case you missed it. How?phelix said:
You do not understand the fallacy of special pleading, I'm afraid. Here's a good summary. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/special-pleading.htmlphelix said:
