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The Words of Jesus.

leroy

Well-Known Member
I am indeed skeptical of any words attributed to people in ancient history, particularly when an original manuscript does not exist. Are you not?
Well sure skeptical in the sense that I am not 100% sure.

But the authors of the NT seemed to be very well informed and honest people, so why not trusting them?
 

74x12

Well-Known Member
Often in debates people write "Jesus says" or "Jesus tells us" but as far as I can see in the bible the only things Jesus wrote are,
"




"
Everything else is what someone else tells us about what Jesus said, often many years after his death and from people who never met him. How much importance do you give to "he said" "she said" in your normal life outside religion?
So you think but we believe Jesus really said it all.
 

Justanatheist

Well-Known Member
I wouldn't know how to say it any more plainly.

I don't know if you really can't understand rather simple grammatical constructions or you just want to argue. In either case, there's not much more I can say.
Yes I think we are done, you appear incapable of being civil. Another fine representative of your god.
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
Often in debates people write "Jesus says" or "Jesus tells us" but as far as I can see in the bible the only things Jesus wrote are,
"




"
Everything else is what someone else tells us about what Jesus said, often many years after his death and from people who never met him. How much importance do you give to "he said" "she said" in your normal life outside religion?
Well, since I believe the Bible to be divinely inspired I don't have that problem.
 

rrobs

Well-Known Member
Yes I think we are done, you appear incapable of being civil. Another fine representative of your god.
I really don't know how to way what I said more plainly. I was being quite sincere and did not try to be uncivil.

Maybe you could be more specific about what it was you didn't understand. I'll try to clarify if I can.
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
We do not know who wrote the NT.
So what?

Whoever wrote them where very well informed. We know this because they got most of the historical, geographical, political and demographical data correct.

And they were also honest because the NT is fool of embarrassing information, (information that made Christianity less credible)
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Respectfully, how would you know? Are they well informed on what you independently know to be true or articulate about what they say to be true?
Most of the verifiable information in the NT is true, so why not giving it the benefit of the doubt in things that we can’t verify ?



]Again, based on what criteria?
Because the gospels had embarrassing information, Jesus had limited knowledge, Jesus had a shameful death, woman where the chief witnesses of the empty tomb, Jesus was buried by a Jews Sanhedrin … all this information was embarrassing from the point if view of the early Christians,

If they weren’t be honest authors they would have omitted those details.
 

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
There is evidence in the Gospels that Jesus could read and Matthew was a tax collector who would have had a command of reading. Luke and Paul could obviously read and the letter of Paul went to people who could read. There are discoveries which show that Jews did teach reading to their children.
James and John the sons of Zebedee were children of a wealthy man who owned a fishing fleet, they could have been able to read as Zebedee would have also.
Even Peter it seems had a large house and so was not just a poor illiterate peasant.
It was Jesus turn to read the scriptures in the synagogue when He went to where He lived. That seems to indicate that others also had turns to read.
Here is a link about it if you are interested. To assume that hardly anyone could read or write in those days is not scholarly imo but that is what many sceptical scholars do it seems.
Were Jesus' Disciples Illiterate Peasants?
These are possibilities but then as author biographer of Jesus says, "is it conceivable that as a poor peasant from the backwoods of Galilee, who grew up a woodworker, a day laborer really, an artisan, in a village that was so small and so poor that it didn't have any roads, or bathhouses or synagogues, and its name did not appear on any maps, could he have nevertheless been so well educated that he could not only read and write but debate the scriptures, is that possible? Sure. But is it likely? No. It's the job of the historian to talk about what is most likely."

Was Jesus Illiterate? Author Reza Aslan Thinks So
 

leroy

Well-Known Member
Most of the verifiable information in the Wizard of Oz is true.
Why didn’t you quote my complete argument?

1 The authors of the Gosples where well informed because most of the verifiable information is true

2 the authors where honest, they honestly and sincerely tried to report what they thought was true. we know this because they texts are full of embarasinng details.

The author of the wizard of Oz didn’t intend to report what really happened, his intend was to write science fiction.

You can only trust a document if both “1” And “2” are meat.
 

Jayhawker Soule

-- untitled --
Premium Member
Why didn’t you quote my complete argument?
Because the first bit of nonsense rendered the rest of it garbage. So, for example, ...

1 The authors of the Gosples where well informed because most of the verifiable information is true
This claim wobbles somewhere between incoherent and idiotic. But let's tru out you masterful logic:

It is now Friday evening in my area. The weather is relatively warm and tomorrow is expected to be more so. There will be a full moon tonight, which which means that we're entering the 15th of the Hebrew month of Av. The saucer recently departed, and my Venusian friends left a particularly nice bottle of wine for Shabbat.

^ Every single bit of verifiable information is true! Therefore?
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
Often in debates people write "Jesus says" or "Jesus tells us" but as far as I can see in the bible the only things Jesus wrote are,
"




"
Everything else is what someone else tells us about what Jesus said, often many years after his death and from people who never met him. How much importance do you give to "he said" "she said" in your normal life outside religion?

Statements by Jesus are attested by numerous disciples. Their statements were written into the bible over a hundred years after all of them were dead.

So, by divine psychic insight, their statements were added to the bible.

The various errors of the bible, overlooked, result in the statements that the bible is flawless and perfect, just like God.

For example:

Genesis 1:25 and Genesis 2:18 say that man was created before and after animals (contradictions).

Thus, the bible is self-contradictory and theists assert that it is perfect just as God is.

Could it be that theists lie? But that is a lie for God, so it doesn't count.

For centuries, anyone who pointed out errors in the bible would be severely tortured then killed.

Theists assert that God is loving and good. Does a loving God sentence people to burn in the fires of hell for all eternity if they don't worship him? Does a loving God permit His church to severely torture people in his name?

We don't even know if any of the disciples ever existed.
 

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
There is evidence in the Gospels that Jesus could read and Matthew was a tax collector who would have had a command of reading. Luke and Paul could obviously read and the letter of Paul went to people who could read. There are discoveries which show that Jews did teach reading to their children.
James and John the sons of Zebedee were children of a wealthy man who owned a fishing fleet, they could have been able to read as Zebedee would have also.
Even Peter it seems had a large house and so was not just a poor illiterate peasant.
It was Jesus turn to read the scriptures in the synagogue when He went to where He lived. That seems to indicate that others also had turns to read.
Here is a link about it if you are interested. To assume that hardly anyone could read or write in those days is not scholarly imo but that is what many sceptical scholars do it seems.
Were Jesus' Disciples Illiterate Peasants?

Hmm.....there are people named James, Peter, Paul, John, etc. who are alive today. OMG.....that means that the bible is true (because those names exist).

Could the various names be from other people? If we found an historic text that spoke of John, could it be the right John or the wrong John? John is a very common name.

We might get a magic wand (wooden stick with a rubber plunger attached to one end), and insist that it can unclog a John as proof of divine right. (Well, it contains the name John).
 

Justanatheist

Well-Known Member
I really don't know how to way what I said more plainly. I was being quite sincere and did not try to be uncivil.

Maybe you could be more specific about what it was you didn't understand. I'll try to clarify if I can.
Right lets assume I have no knowledge of your god and I read the bible,
Bottom line: if you take the Bible as being authored, not by 25 or so different people over the course of 1,500 years or so, but as coming straight from God then you can be sure that what the Bible claims Jesus said he actually said.
What reason would I believe that the Bible is authored by a god?
 

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Often in debates people write "Jesus says" or "Jesus tells us" but as far as I can see in the bible the only things Jesus wrote are,
"
"
Everything else is what someone else tells us about what Jesus said, often many years after his death and from people who never met him. How much importance do you give to "he said" "she said" in your normal life outside religion?
There may not have been an historical Jesus at all; but there was a tradition around the early first century that he existed. Projects like the Jesus Forum (which used the grading system of probability red, pink, gray, black that Crossan refers to below), or Crossan's The Historical Jesus, have failed to distinguish sayings of Jesus and sayings merely attributed to Jesus beyond 'more likely in my opinion' to 'less likely in my opinion'.

Crossan, indeed, closes his book with these words ─

This book, then, is a scholarly reconstruction of the historical Jesus. And if one were to accept its formal methods and even their material investments, one could surely offer divergent interpretative conclusions about the reconstructable historical Jesus. But one cannot dismiss it or the search for the historical Jesus as mere reconstruction, as if reconstruction invalidated somehow the entire project. Because there is only reconstruction. For a believing Christian both the life of the Word of God and the text of the Word of God are alike a graded process of historical reconstruction, be it red, pink, gray, black or A, B, C, D. If you cannot believe in something produced by reconstruction, you may have nothing left to believe in.​
 

Justanatheist

Well-Known Member
There may not have been an historical Jesus at all; but there was a tradition around the early first century that he existed. Projects like the Jesus Forum (which used the grading system of probability red, pink, gray, black that Crossan refers to below), or Crossan's The Historical Jesus, have failed to distinguish sayings of Jesus and sayings merely attributed to Jesus beyond 'more likely in my opinion' to 'less likely in my opinion'.

Crossan, indeed, closes his book with these words ─

This book, then, is a scholarly reconstruction of the historical Jesus. And if one were to accept its formal methods and even their material investments, one could surely offer divergent interpretative conclusions about the reconstructable historical Jesus. But one cannot dismiss it or the search for the historical Jesus as mere reconstruction, as if reconstruction invalidated somehow the entire project. Because there is only reconstruction. For a believing Christian both the life of the Word of God and the text of the Word of God are alike a graded process of historical reconstruction, be it red, pink, gray, black or A, B, C, D. If you cannot believe in something produced by reconstruction, you may have nothing left to believe in.​
Had to look up Crossan (he looks like Father Ted) it never ceases to amaze me how little we actually know about Jesus. I take the mainstream historical view that he probably existed and I am interested in Crossan view that he might not of been an apocalyptic preacher.
 
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