[/quote]Winston wrote:That's a long discussion. Go to the links I posted above for more info. Yes people are easily deluded. Look at all the cults today. Christianity was a cult back then. It was probably created to control and pacify the Jews, who were becoming aggressive and militarialistic back then. See the film "Caesar's Messiah" that I posted about in another thread.If you doubt the existence of the eleven Apostles and Paul, then where did all the churches across Hellenic Asia and in Rome come from? Did people just wake up one morning and DECIDE it would be a good idea to abandon accepted religion, get ostracized, get tortured to death?
No it's not a long discussion. Answer the question.
No I'm not going to read a library of hogwash academic-whore fashionista links. I've known more professors than you ever will, and I know how they publish hogwash i order to break through the clutter, make a buck and get promoted. If there's something credible, quote it.
Cult, eh? Is THAT your answer? Men and women were mutilated, boiled in oil, crucified, grilled... and didn't crack or deny Jesus... because SOMEONE BRAINWASHED THEM?
So who did the brainwashing? Could it be..... JESUS?
Winston wrote:Why is the Bible historical record to you? No historian thinks that unless he's a Christian.The Bible IS the historical record. There is LOTS of family history about episodes in his youth - the Nativity, the Flight to Egypt, Presentation at the Temple, the Finding at the Temple, reading Scripture in the Synagogue, the Wedding at Canae.
How many youths under 30 in ancient Israel have ANY of their activities written down?
Most historians ARE Christians, Winston. And HAVE been, for the last millennium and a half. Deal with it.
No need to listen to Bible-thumping street preachers, though. They make it sound like the Bible descended from heaven, carried by angels. Not so. The Bible is just the stuff that people wrote down, a lot of it just chronicles events as people experienced them.
It's a collection of ancient books. Often colored by a point of view. Just like anything people wrote down.
That's what history is. Stuff that happened, that someone wrote down.
In the early days after Jesus, there WERE many other records of Jesus circulating, for example the Gospel of Mary. Church Fathers didn't include them in the Bible, which as you point out wasn't collected and standardized for over a century after Jesus's crucifixion, death and resurrection.
NEWS FLASH TO WINSTON: Jesus didn't even begin preaching till "about 30 years of age". That would put it about 30 A.D., give or take (years weren't numbered back then, at least not by Romans). And he wasn't famous when he started, known in his hometown only as "the carpenter's son", as the Bible relates. He was famous in Jerusalem only in the last days (or perhaps months) of his life. He was STILL nobody important to Herod and Pontius Pilate when he was brought before them for trial. His movement had not reached beyond the immediate area of Galilee and Judaea AT ALL. So why would Roman historians have taken any notice of him so early?Winston wrote:There were 40 historians in the Roman Empire during 0 to 30AD. None of them mention Jesus or his resurrection. If the resurrection occurred, surely someone would have reported it in the news back then?Winston, no one was keeping a blog of daily activities back then. What we have written down was only what was first recounted orally, and it was recounted orally only because the teller thought it important or worthy or even amusing.
Now you're waffling. He existed or he didn't exist? This thread started off with you saying there was no evidence he existed. If you think he existed, we can close the thread. You've come around!Winston wrote: See those links I posted above. There are many other arguments that scholars have that Jesus probably didn't exist.
I don't know if he existed or not. But the evidence isn't as strong as you think. Non-religious historians, such as those in the Jesus Seminar, maintain that Jesus probably existed but the historical Jesus and the Jesus in the Gospels aren't the same.
Josephus, for example, is the most famous Jewish historian, our main source for information about the destruction of Jerusalem that soon followed. He mentions Jesus clearly.Winston wrote:
What are "normal historians"? Christian historians with no bias? LOL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josephus_on_Jesus
You really missed the point. I didnt mean there are a lot of COPIES of the Bible. Let me explain this slowly. I was referring to the fact that the existence of Jesus is mentioned as historical fact in a GREATER NUMBER OF SEPARATE PUBLICATIONS than would be true for Alexander the Great.Winston wrote:That's a HORRIBLE argument. Just because there are many copies of the Bible, doesn't mean there are more historical records for Jesus than Alexander the Great. Terrible argument. Terrible. I can't believe you fell for such weak propaganda from Evangelists like Josh McDowell.I believe I DID compare him, actually. In fact, if you do a search, you will find a lot MORE records of Jesus than of Alexander. Go ahead, and tell me what you find.You can't compare Alexander the Great. There are many historical records of his existence at the time of his existence. But you can't say the same for Jesus.
I could use the same argument and say that because there are so many copies of Star Wars in the world, that there are more records of Star Wars being real, than there are for you being real. lol
See how bad of an argument that is?
What happens here is that you find God hard to believe in, so you assume the Bible is therefore fraudulent. Because if YOU can't wrap your mind around something, then whoever says it is so, must be a fraud, dadgummit. You assume some cabal of schemers or fiction-writers made the Gospels up. But now, you are left with the fact tha all the great minds of the last two millennia, and yes, all the historians, Christian or otherwise, have all agreed that there was a famous teacher in Galilee named Jesus who was opposed by Jewish authorities, and was crucified by the Romans. Many historians and others who call him Jesus of Nazareth, rather than Jesus Christ, because they doubt His divinity. Just as I refer to "Buddha" as Siddartha Gautama (when I remember to do so). But I do not doubt that a real guy existed, taught, and started what we call Buddhism. Just as no serious historian doubts that Jesus existed and taught.
Are you smoking dope? That was MY point. I guess sarcasm is lost on you. There IS no copyright date on these old documents. Dating them is an art, it is not exact.What? The US didn't even exist in 70AD. Again, bad argument.You go by the U.S. copyright date on those parchments, do you?Winston wrote: All writings that mention him start at around 70AD.
For example, some debunker-type scholars will even assume that a book of prophecy which came tru, HAD to be written after the events it predicts - because the prdiction is too accurate. I personally would admit the possibiliy that someone would have written a dire prophecy of warning "ex post facto", in other words after a terrible event, in order to make apoint... but these "scholars" just assume that that's how it had to be, with no evidence except there own disbelief in Divine foresight. They are assuming what they ought to be proving.
Winston if you're argument is that the Gospels didn't get written down in their current form before 70 A.D. I would agree with you.Winston wrote: The Gospels have been dated by all historians at 70-90AD. These people did years of scholarly work. All you do is listen to propaganda of Christian apologists.
Sorry but there is no evidence that they existed before then. Deal with it.
Books were rare in those days, and the early Church grew without a New Testament. For example the Book of the Acts of the Apostles, written by Dr. Luke, recounts a lot of the stuff the Eleven and Paul did over a period at least couple of decades after the Resurrection. I think most scholars put te Crucifixion around 33A.D. (30 A.D. + 3 years of ministry = 33 A.D.) Then add my personal guesstimate of two decades of the Book of Acts and you come to around 53 A.D. Yet still no Gospels mentioned in the Book of Acts.
The Apostles were talking and preaching about Jesus and the Kingdom of Heaven, not circulating a finished Bible.
Paul was circulating letters, and so were some others, but these had not yet been gathered into one volume.
"Acts" mentions a conflict between Paul and Peter, and Paul mentions this separately in his letters. From a different point of view. Those letters are what historians would call "original source material". They did finally get included in the Bible.
I don't think was even standardized till like 150 AD, and it is still different in the Ethiopian, Armenian and other Churches (we included a few more Old Testament books).
BTW the last book in the Bible is Revelation, written by John, living in exile up in the Crimea after surviving torture. John was a young man or older teen when he was one of the Twelve Apostles. I think he was around 90 years old when he wrote "Revelation", so that would put it around 100 A.D. or later. So no way could the whole Bible have been around even in 70 A.D.
He had already written the Gospel of John. Which is interesting, because although it agrees with the other Gospels in some places, it has a totally different point of view. It's clear that whover wrote it had been one of the Twelve, but had probably not even read he other Gospels. Each Gospel was an independent booklet that began circulating to spread the Good News. They became necessary when the immediate participants were getting old. After all that's when people usually write down their memories.
