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Are the gospels reliable historical documents? // YES

leroy

Well-Known Member
The John gospel states that Jesus' brothers are not believers.
More on my favor.


Why would someone invent a story that "harms " Christianity?

The fact that the brothers where not believers makes the virgin birth harder to accept, so why making up the claim that the brothers where not believers?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
More on my favor.


Why would someone invent a story that "harms " Christianity?

The fact that the brothers where not believers makes the virgin birth harder to accept, so why making up the claim that the brothers where not believers?
How does that harm Christianity? It does not appear to bother any Christians that I know of.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
How does that harm Christianity? It does not appear to bother any Christians that I know of.
John 7:5 tells us that even Jesus’ brothers did not believe in him. This is a difficult saying since one would presume that they would have better knowledge of who Christ was than anyone else. Yet on more than one occasion, we are told of their disassociation with him, even to the point that they thought he “lost his mind” and needed to be restrained (Mark 3:21).Eight Reasons Why the Gospels are Embarrassing


It doesn’t harm Christianity as we know it today, but it would have been an embarrassing detail for early Christians.

It also makes the virgin birth less likely to be true; I mean if your brother was born from a virgin you would likely conclude that there is something divine about your brother.

The source that I provided above explains the criteria f embarrassment, so please read and learn about it before answering with a straw man as you usually do.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
It doesn’t harm Christianity as we know it today, but it would have been an embarrassing detail for early Christians.

It also makes the virgin birth less likely to be true; I mean if your brother was born from a virgin you would likely conclude that there is something divine about your brother.

The source that I provided above explains the criteria f embarrassment, so please read and learn about it before answering with a straw man as you usually do.
I hear that claim but it really does not make any sense at all. It is what one should file under "Silly arguments for Jesus".

And please, do not accuse others of making strawman arguments. We all know that is your sin. You can do better.

EDIT: And the virgin birth myths have been refuted a long time ago. Neither Luke nor Matthew has any reliability for those tall tales.

To being with, they relied upon a mistranslation of a passage of the Torah.
 

lukethethird

unknown member
More on my favor.


Why would someone invent a story that "harms " Christianity?

The fact that the brothers where not believers makes the virgin birth harder to accept, so why making up the claim that the brothers where not believers?
Johns gospel does not contain a birth narrative.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Well I know it´s not your style, but if you ever feel like supporting the assertion please let me know
Watch the false accusations. You lost the right to demand explanations. Others still can.

Why is it too much to expect proper debating techniques from you? Right now there is no point in trying to help you. You will simply deny anything that you disagree with without supporting your claims yourself.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
WHICH FALSE ACCUSATIONS?
You implied that I do not support my claims. That is not true. You know it is not true because I frequently do support my claims. I even support them sometimes for you. You merely lost the ability to demand support and this was explained to you multiple times.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
You implied that I do not support my claims. That is not true. You know it is not true because I frequently do support my claims. I even support them sometimes for you. You merely lost the ability to demand support and this was explained to you multiple times.

No based on my experience you don’t tend to support your claims………… (yes soemtiem syou do, but usually you don’t)

This includes your most recent claim


hear that claim but it really does not make any sense at all. It is what one should file under "Silly arguments for Jesus". post784
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
No based on my experience you don’t tend to support your claims………… (yes soemtiem syou do, but usually you don’t)

This includes your most recent claim
That is due to you continually forgetting why you can no longer demand evidence. When evidence is presented to you it first must be acknowledged. Then you have two choices, refute it or accept it.
 

rational experiences

Veteran Member
If a human is a spiritual teacher who dies then who continued to verbalise the meaning as a read from data,?

It always owned a teacher who qualified to interpret.

Reason.

Should destruction sacrifice of life have occurred.

No.

Anyone reasoning common sense would then say against holiness of life is its contradiction. It's sacrifice.

Detailing sacrifice does not make the detail correct. It states the opposite as it is in fact not God. Origin and natural.

The reason to argue over information.
A reader who infers intelligence says this claim as they read. Not true to God.

The data fake as it never should have occurred is telling the truth. Humans who own aware realisation therefore quote this reasoning.

Claiming it never occurred is lying.

Immaculate says we live due to its balanced womb interaction with sacrificed spirit body. Presence natural light.

A human truth. I live in light.

Removal of a body mass spirit gas should not have occurred sacrificed life. It was taken down from its heavens.

As the sacrifice teaching natural light of God.

Science once taught basic human understanding in sciences termed it religion and not science.

Science very technical

Using human symbolism is lying but also teaching in the same context.

Human female mother owned immaculate support in her bio life. A balanced life owning sacrificed body balanced with immaculate body. Not a lie. Sacrificed spirit saves our life. Light.

Light gas falling entered body removed ovary health. RA fallout. Radiation attack. Gases above us should not enter water oxygen baptized life.

It entered by burning.

Male life owned presence by healthy female ovary. Human. Correct teaching. Ova.

Medical science detail not occult nuclear reference.

Medical onus occult science combined information as a teaching.

Nuclear science is not medical.

Hence teach it as it was once inferred is telling the truth. Reading it for status is lying.

We were told man human in science self idolized himself as a creator when he is just an equal human. Why equal man woman status was stated. As man defining creator human self idolized man self whilst living female given a serving role.

In theme we serve the master or Satan is a man human scientist elite teaching.

And not an equal life role.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
That is due to you continually forgetting why you can no longer demand evidence. When evidence is presented to you it first must be acknowledged. Then you have two choices, refute it or accept it.

Then you have two choices, refute it or accept it

Can you quote a single example where I didn't refute nor accept any evidence that was presented to me? ......no you can't


.....
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
So there was an other James, who also had a brother named Jesus and who also was stoned to death because he did something that the Jewish leaders didn’t like. ? Sounds like an amazing coincidence to me.

The James describes in Josephus was stoned to death just like the brother of Jesus as can be confirmed by other surces……….so ether this is the same James, or we are facing another amazing coincidence.

Wait, what amazing coincidence? In the Josephus passage in Antiquities he was reporting on Jesus Ben Damneus. You don't seem to be aware of how history is done. It's more like science than religion. In religion things are set in stone, that's it. In science new findings come up. Why you insist on not allowing the scientific/historical method to be properly applied to this text is strange?
The latest studies conclude the James passage is flawed and not what it appears to be.
A short summary is:

"Among the things we have confirmed now is that all surviving manuscripts of the Antiquities derive from the last manuscript of it produced at the Christian library of Caesarea between 220 and 320 A.D.
, the same manuscript used and quoted by Eusebius, the first Christian in history to notice either passage being in the Antiquities of Josephus. That means we have no access to any earlier version of the text (we do not know what the text looked like prior to 230 A.D.), and we have access to no version of the text untouched by Eusebius (no other manuscript in any other library ever on earth produced any copies that survive to today). That must be taken into account.

The latest research collectively establishes that both references to Jesus were probably added to the manuscripts of Josephus at the Library of Caesarea after their first custodian, Origen—who had no knowledge of either passage—but by the time of their last custodian, Eusebius—who is the first to find them there. The long passage (the Testimonium Flavianum) was almost certainly added deliberately; the later passage about James probably had the phrase “the one called Christ” (just three words in Greek) added to it accidentally, and was not originally about the Christian James, but someone else. On why we should conclude thus I’ll explain shortly."

So it's become very questionable as evidence. How hard is that?

As I said before, this is too much effort to try to deny the obvious “Jesus had a biological brother named James”
Too much effort....? What? Deny the ob....huh??!
I get it, you have a belief and if something can help support this belief then you would prefer it left alone. Unfortunately that isn't how science or history is done. Unless you want things that are not true.
For centuries scholars who were Christians decided to assume it was true. Now people are allowed to question documents. It's their JOB?! It's isn't "too much effort"?

Some historians want to prove historicity so they also have an invested interest to show this document is correct. Recent studies do not support that. The only "too much effort" here is that you won't accept that scholarship has raised legitimite doubts about this passage. That's what they are paid to do???

Some of the issues with the James passage. It's a complex study with many points, as historians like to do.


  • If Josephus had written this passage as about the persecution of Christians, he would have explained things, as is his style consistently in all his historical writing; only a Christian would just assume all those obscure things were already known to the reader (like what a “Christ” was; that James was a Christian; that Jews sought to kill Christians; and why, we must then suppose, the Jewish elite and Roman authorities opposed the killing of James if he was a Christian).
  • The words tou legomenou christou, “the [one] called Christ,” is for these and many other reasons most likely a marginal note (by Origen or Pamphilus, or another scribe or scholar in the same Library of Caesarea), expressing belief rather than fact (possibly trying to find the passage Origen claimed he’d seen here but mistakenly saw instead in Hegesippus).
  • That marginal note was then accidentally interpolated into the manuscript produced or used by Eusebius (which would have been a copy of the one used by Origen), a very common form of scribal error.
  • Possibly by replacing ton tou damnaiou, “the son of Damneus,” in the same place. That same line is repeated at the end of the story. Repetition of that identical phrase a few lines after may have led a scribe to suspect the marginal note was correcting a dittograph (an accidental duplication caused by a previous scribe skipping some lines by mistake, starting at the “wrong” Jesus in the story). But more likely, that duplication is exactly what Josephus meant: Ananus is punished for killing the brother of Jesus ben Damneus by being deposed and replaced by Jesus ben Damneus.
All arguments against interpolation in print to date have assumed the entire passage was interpolated (not just the one phrase) and that it was deliberate (instead of accidental or conjectural). Consequently, none of those opinions is citeable. Because they have not taken into account this alternative theory of the evidence or the evidence in support of it.

Personally, I think it’s clear: Josephus never mentioned Christ here, either. And again, I think this would be readily admitted by any expert…were this not Christ we were talking about.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
The issue is not that Mark invented brothers and a family, the issue is that he happened to invent the exact name that would cause confusion,

It didn't create confusion. At least not until the Josephus scribal errors but that is way later.
The argument is somewhat explained 1/2 way down the article under "The James Reference"
Josephus on Jesus? Why You Can't Cite Opinions Before 2014 • Richard Carrier

To understand one thing that is wrong first the T.F. text is explained to compare it to the Antiquities passage.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
More on my favor.


Why would someone invent a story that "harms " Christianity?

The fact that the brothers where not believers makes the virgin birth harder to accept, so why making up the claim that the brothers where not believers?


Christian scholars interpret this as Joseph having previous children, or whatever apologetics suits them.
It isn't embarrassing it creates tension in a story. How many fictional narratives have you seen where the hero is denied in some way and then at the end everyone believes them.

As historian Bart Ehrman points out there isn't a virgin birth in John and he wasn't aware that that myth was being used for Jesus.
Yet another case of history demonstrating something that is counter to what they taught us in church.

"
I have pointed out that our earliest Gospel, Mark, not only is lacking a story of the virgin birth but also tells a story that seems to run precisely counter to the idea that Jesus’ mother knew that his birth was miraculous, unlike the later Gospels of Matthew and Luke. It is striking to note that even though these two later Gospels know about a virgin birth, our latest canonical Gospel, John, does not know about it. This was not a doctrine that everyone knew about – even toward the end of the first century.

Casual readers of John often assume that it presupposes the virgin birth (it never says anything about it, one way or the other) because they themselves are familiar with the idea, and think that John must be as well. So they typically read the virgin birth into an account that in fact completely lacks it."
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Wait, what amazing coincidence? In the Josephus passage in Antiquities he was reporting on Jesus Ben Damneus. You don't seem to be aware of how history is done. It's more like science than religion. In religion things are set in stone, that's it. In science new findings come up. Why you insist on not allowing the scientific/historical method to be properly applied to this text is strange?
The latest studies conclude the James passage is flawed and not what it appears to be.
A short summary is:
he was reporting on Jesus Ben Damneus
There is zero evidence for that


Besides I already provided a reply; namely that the James in Josephus was stoned to death in Jerusalem just like James the brother of Jesus (as has been confirmed by other sources) implying that they were both the same person. ……… it would be quote a coincidence that both have the same name, both have a brother named Jesus, and both were stoned to death within the same time frame in Jerusalem






"Among the things we have confirmed now is that all surviving manuscripts of the Antiquities derive from the last manuscript of it produced at the Christian library of Caesarea between 220 and 320 A.D.
, the same manuscript used and quoted by Eusebius, the first Christian in history to notice either passage being in the Antiquities of Josephus. That means we have no access to any earlier version of the text (we do not know what the text looked like prior to 230 A.D.), and we have access to no version of the text untouched by Eusebius (no other manuscript in any other library ever on earth produced any copies that survive to today). That must be taken into account.

The latest research collectively establishes that both references to Jesus were probably added to the manuscripts of Josephus at the Library of Caesarea after their first custodian, Origen—who had no knowledge of either passage—but by the time of their last custodian, Eusebius—who is the first to find them there. The long passage (the Testimonium Flavianum) was almost certainly added deliberately; the later passage about James probably had the phrase “the one called Christ” (just three words in Greek) added to it accidentally, and was not originally about the Christian James, but someone else. On why we should conclude thus I’ll explain shortly."

So it's become very questionable as evidence. How hard is that?


Too much effort....? What? Deny the ob....huh??!
I get it, you have a belief and if something can help support this belief then you would prefer it left alone. Unfortunately that isn't how science or history is done. Unless you want things that are not true.
For centuries scholars who were Christians decided to assume it was true. Now people are allowed to question documents. It's their JOB?! It's isn't "too much effort"?

Some historians want to prove historicity so they also have an invested interest to show this document is correct. Recent studies do not support that. The only "too much effort" here is that you won't accept that scholarship has raised legitimite doubts about this passage. That's what they are paid to do???

Some of the issues with the James passage. It's a complex study with many points, as historians like to do.


  • If Josephus had written this passage as about the persecution of Christians, he would have explained things, as is his style consistently in all his historical writing; only a Christian would just assume all those obscure things were already known to the reader (like what a “Christ” was; that James was a Christian; that Jews sought to kill Christians; and why, we must then suppose, the Jewish elite and Roman authorities opposed the killing of James if he was a Christian).
  • The words tou legomenou christou, “the [one] called Christ,” is for these and many other reasons most likely a marginal note (by Origen or Pamphilus, or another scribe or scholar in the same Library of Caesarea), expressing belief rather than fact (possibly trying to find the passage Origen claimed he’d seen here but mistakenly saw instead in Hegesippus).
  • That marginal note was then accidentally interpolated into the manuscript produced or used by Eusebius (which would have been a copy of the one used by Origen), a very common form of scribal error.
  • Possibly by replacing ton tou damnaiou, “the son of Damneus,” in the same place. That same line is repeated at the end of the story. Repetition of that identical phrase a few lines after may have led a scribe to suspect the marginal note was correcting a dittograph (an accidental duplication caused by a previous scribe skipping some lines by mistake, starting at the “wrong” Jesus in the story). But more likely, that duplication is exactly what Josephus meant: Ananus is punished for killing the brother of Jesus ben Damneus by being deposed and replaced by Jesus ben Damneus.

yes there are 2 or 3 historians who disagree but the concensus is that the James in josephus is the brother of Jesus

All arguments against interpolation in print to date have assumed the entire passage was interpolated (not just the one phrase) and that it was deliberate (instead of accidental or conjectural). Consequently, none of those opinions is citeable. Because they have not taken into account this alternative theory of the evidence or the evidence in support of it.
You are changing your original claim; I thought that it was a scribal error , (the word “Christ” was added)

So which one is it?

1 a scribe made an error and labeled Jesus as Christ

2 A scribe added the whole passage





[/Personally, I think it’s clear: Josephus never mentioned Christ here, either. And again, I think this would be readily admitted by any expert…were this not Christ we were talking about.

Experts say that the quote is authentic,
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
It didn't create confusion. At least not until the Josephus scribal errors but that is way later.
The argument is somewhat explained 1/2 way down the article under "The James Reference"
Josephus on Jesus? Why You Can't Cite Opinions Before 2014 • Richard Carrier

To understand one thing that is wrong first the T.F. text is explained to compare it to the Antiquities passage.
The confusion had nothing to do with Josephus.

Supposedly:

1 Paul meant spiritual brother both in Galatians and Corinthians eventhough that is far from clear in the text

2 Then comes Mark and he clearly and unambiguously said that James is the biological brother of Jesus

3 You said that Mark was just inventing random names

So of all the names that Mark could have invented, he invented the exact name (James) that would create the confutions and that would confirm that Paul meant biological brother.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Christian scholars interpret this as Joseph having previous children, or whatever apologetics suits them.
It isn't embarrassing it creates tension in a story. How many fictional narratives have you seen where the hero is denied in some way and then at the end everyone believes them.

But that didn’t happened in any of the gospels, none of the brothers did anything relevant, and non e of the authors claim that at the end they believed in Jesus … from the point of view of the gospels the fact that Jesus had brothers is just a secondary and irrelevant detail.



As historian Bart Ehrman points out there isn't a virgin birth in John and he wasn't aware that that myth was being used for Jesus.
Yet another case of history demonstrating something that is counter to what they taught us in church.
And the fact that the brothers where not believers make the virgin birth less likely to be true. That is the point.

I mean if your brother was born from a virgin, wouldn’t you suppose that there is something “divine” about your brother?


---
The point is that if you are going to fabricate a story where you want to convince everyone that Jesus is God , it would be unlikely that you would fabricate a story where your God was rejected by his own brothers…………People could say ”if not even your brothers believe you why would I believe you”…………this is why the brothers are unlikely to be fabrications but rather an embarrassing fact.

Any myth /fabrication would ether exclude the brothers story or invent a “happy ending” where the brothers repented and followed Jesus, but we don’t see that in the Gospels.
 
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lukethethird

unknown member
But that didn’t happened in any of the gospels, none of the brothers did anything relevant, and non e of the authors claim that at the end they believed in Jesus … from the point of view of the gospels the fact that Jesus had brothers is just a secondary and irrelevant detail.




And the fact that the brothers where not believers make the virgin birth less likely to be true. That is the point.

I mean if your brother was born from a virgin, wouldn’t you suppose that there is something “divine” about your brother?


---
The point is that if you are going to fabricate a story where you want to convince everyone that Jesus is God , it would be unlikely that you would fabricate a story where your God was rejected by his own brothers…………People could say ”if not even your brothers believe you why would I believe you”…………this is why the brothers are unlikely to be fabrications but rather an embarrassing fact.

Any myth /fabrication would ether exclude the brothers story or invent a “happy ending” where the brothers repented and followed Jesus, but we don’t see that in the Gospels.

Matthew and Luke added a virgin birth story to Mark's gospel. Why did they do that?
 
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