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Is this potential evidence for the resurrection of Christ?

night912

Well-Known Member
Within seventy years is not contemporaneous.. It is not even close. If half of the Jesus stories were true one would expect at least some contemporaneous mention of him.

So we're back to "If God doesn't do what SZ expects," which subverts "God is a god of miracle surprises" as it is... sigh.

The NT authors kept transmitting stories orally, building converts, and as mortality neared, got scribal help to transmit their stories for posterity. Does that help?

Again (and again and again and again and again) I've also suggested that no one with living memory within the 70 years or FAR less for early NT docs wrote a counter claim of any kind. You've never once responded to that!

Where is the rabbi or Roman who writes, "The hated Christians are now in the thousands, claiming the Jewish Law is unneeded due to their mythical figure. I lived in Jerusalem and Yeshua of Nazareth never traveled the length and breadth of Israel for years, healing thousands or rising from the dead!"

Same argument from opposing sides, argument for the absent of textual evidence. If one dismissed another's argument, then their same argument must also be dismissed.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Same argument from opposing sides, argument for the absent of textual evidence. If one dismissed another's argument, then their same argument must also be dismissed.
Actually no. Extraordinary events tend to get written about. Ordinary ones not so much. It is recorded that there were quite a few "messiahs" at that time. People did not have time to record "Brain is not the Messiah" (even though he declared that more than once). A person preaching to others with converts, just another day in Jerusalem. Someone doing real miracles, not so much. That would tend to get the attention of everyone.
 

night912

Well-Known Member
Actually no. Extraordinary events tend to get written about. Ordinary ones not so much. It is recorded that there were quite a few "messiahs" at that time. People did not have time to record "Brain is not the Messiah" (even though he declared that more than once). A person preaching to others with converts, just another day in Jerusalem. Someone doing real miracles, not so much. That would tend to get the attention of everyone.
I understand the point that you were making. My point point was towards what BilliardsBall responded. If not addressing your point and dismissing it as having no value to the discussion, then BilliardsBall making the same point from the opposite side should be also be treated as such. So one cannot simply put their own argument at a higher value just because it's their own. Otherwise the discussion would be meaningless because opposing points are seen as having no value.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Same argument from opposing sides, argument for the absent of textual evidence. If one dismissed another's argument, then their same argument must also be dismissed.

So it is settled then that arguments for and against
Bigfoot, Atlantis and flying saucers should with
"resurrection" and Elvis sighting,
be dismissed, and, not a minute too soon.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I understand the point that you were making. My point point was towards what BilliardsBall responded. If not addressing your point and dismissing it as having no value to the discussion, then BilliardsBall making the same point from the opposite side should be also be treated as such. So one cannot simply put their own argument at a higher value just because it's their own. Otherwise the discussion would be meaningless because opposing points are seen as having no value.
Unfortunately that level of logic may be beyond him. When he tries to associate the theory of evolution with all sorts of evils just because some people used "Darwinism" as part of the name of their philosophy then by his standards any evils done by a person that claims to be a Christian in any way can be blamed on Christianity. He has a rather strong filter.
 

Spartan

Well-Known Member
So it is settled then that arguments for and against
Bigfoot, Atlantis and flying saucers should with
"resurrection" and Elvis sighting,
be dismissed, and, not a minute too soon.

The Resurrection of Jesus is only dismissed out of ignorance and avoidance of the historical accounts.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
The Resurrection of Jesus is only dismissed out of ignorance and avoidance of the historical accounts.

The thin watery strand of accounts of unknown provenance?
If it were as good as you think there would not be so much
"dismissal".

If "god" were as real as you think, it might have left
a little better evidence trail

Attacking the integrity of people you dont know
is also a mighty thin strand on which to hang
your superiority.


So for dismisser and ignoramuses, you must be thinking
of creationists on the subjects of
deep geological time, and evolution! :D

For lo, the ignorance and avoidance of the vast body of solid
evidence is strong with all the True Believers.

Is not the disproof of the flood story also dismissed
out of ignorance and avoidance?*

Actually, the goddies go further than mere ignorance
and avoidance, as some of them actually have some
little education.

For those, an additional step is needed-intellectual dishonesty.

IF you happen to do any of the above, namely dismiss evolution,
deep time and no-flood, then you have zero to say about
the integrity of others.


*the less grounded among the creationists make up
some wild n wacky tales to explain how the data really
supports flood! My fav is that the water was wafted
to Neptune where you can see it shining to this day!

(it is now functioning as a warning beacon
against incoming rogue angels!).

Others settle for things like flash
frozen mammoths for flood-proof.

Must be something to be a member of a crew like that.
 
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blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Do you not see a disconnect between "All the NT is anonymous, which falsifies" and "Paul didn't even write the books attributed to him, so that falsifies . . ."?
It would be nice if you were to read what I actually wrote, but anyway here's the outline again.

Of the thirteen letters of Paul, only seven pass muster. The other six range from dubious to fake. (I'm not presently persuaded by the challenge to the authenticity of Paul's letters.)

We don't know who wrote the other books of the NT. They have traditional names like Mark, Matthew and so on, but that tells us very little.

We don't have copies of the original texts of any of the books of the NT.

Bart Erhman has written extensively on these matters eg

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament.1996
Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament. 2003..
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. 2003.
(With Bruce Metzger) The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 2005
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. 2005.
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. 2005.
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). 2009.
Forged: Writing in the Name of God – Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. 2011.
Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. 2012.
Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics.2012.
How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. 2014.
Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior. 2016.​

Unlike you, he argues from textual evidence, and I respectfully suggest that you need to be aware of the very substantial problems he's talking about. Only then will you be in a position to agree or disagree.
I'm going back to Israel next month, praise Jesus, for days and days of exploring archaeological proof of the veracity of the holy scriptures.
But if you find anything that falsifies scriptures, you'll probably destroy the evidence and think you're doing the right thing. Historical truth isn't what you're looking for.
 
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night912

Well-Known Member
The Resurrection of Jesus is only dismissed out of ignorance and avoidance of the historical accounts.
The resurrection of Jesus is only dismissed out of having no sufficient evidence to support it. And that reasoning is only dismissed out of the want for the resurrection of Jesus to be true. Thus, avoiding the possibility that your belief in which you hold dearly, could be wrong.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Please, you can do better than this. Is this massive bit of dishonest mere deflection on your part? Let's drop the personal attacks and try to deal with the facts. We are not talking about what God should have done. We are talking about what was claimed by Christians. Try to learn the difference.

And please, don't try to shift the burden of proof. Rebuttals of unknown loons do not tend to get published. There are far too many of them. Your act of clutching at straws only shows that you know how devastating it is that no one, besides those that drank the Koo-Aid, wrote of the magical feats of Jesus.

THAT is your response to "why were there thousands of converts pursuing NT and apocrypha written by dozens of people EARLY"? "Loons tend not to be rebutted . . . !"

Let us examine your theory, by say, seeing how many hundreds of media cover the loons at Westboro Baptist (about 50 loons at max) or the Neo-Nazi loons, two of whom come to a campus and have thousands protest them, vigorously.

The gospel converts and gospel accounts are early, and no one refuted them, even though belief in Christ led to Jewish excommunication and Roman persecution.

PS. I made no personal attacks other than pointing to the fact that I've mentioned what's in bold above, to you, many, many times, before you "came up with" Jesus and His followers were "unknown loons".
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
Same argument from opposing sides, argument for the absent of textual evidence. If one dismissed another's argument, then their same argument must also be dismissed.

I don't think so, because there is an absence of counter-evidence to dozens of letters written by dozens of writers! (NT, apocrypha)...
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
It would be nice if you were to read what I actually wrote, but anyway here's the outline again.

Of the thirteen letters of Paul, only seven pass muster. The other six range from dubious to fake. (I'm not presently persuaded by the challenge to the authenticity of Paul's letters.)

We don't know who wrote the other books of the NT. They have traditional names like Mark, Matthew and so on, but that tells us very little.

We don't have copies of the original texts of any of the books of the NT.

Bart Erhman has written extensively on these matters eg

The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament.1996
Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make It into the New Testament. 2003..
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. 2003.
(With Bruce Metzger) The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration. 2005
Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. 2005.
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why. 2005.
Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don't Know About Them). 2009.
Forged: Writing in the Name of God – Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are. 2011.
Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth. 2012.
Forgery and Counterforgery: The Use of Literary Deceit in Early Christian Polemics.2012.
How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee. 2014.
Jesus Before the Gospels: How the Earliest Christians Remembered, Changed, and Invented Their Stories of the Savior. 2016.​

Unlike you, he argues from textual evidence, and I respectfully suggest that you need to be aware of the very substantial problems he's talking about. Only then will you be in a position to agree or disagree.
But if you find anything that falsifies scriptures, you'll probably destroy the evidence and think you're doing the right thing. Historical truth isn't what you're looking for.

I'd be pleased if you can avoid the assumptions and ad homs. I studied Metzger extensively in college with a professor who adored him.

The "very substantial problems" claimed by academics in cushy armchairs (don't get me wrong, I know where they're coming from when I speak at academic panels, cushy chairs are lovely) have nothing to do with 2/3 of Earth now following and studying the Christ!
 

night912

Well-Known Member
I'd be pleased if you can avoid the assumptions and ad homs. I studied Metzger extensively in college with a professor who adored him.

The "very substantial problems" claimed by academics in cushy armchairs (don't get me wrong, I know where they're coming from when I speak at academic panels, cushy chairs are lovely) have nothing to do with 2/3 of Earth now following and studying the Christ!
That's an argumentum ad populum fallacy. Mandarin is the most spoken language, but that doesn't mean that it's the best, true, official and/or original language of humans.

How about using a religious example. Is Catholicism the one true denomination of Christianity?
 
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