SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
I offer you the challenge. Give me the name of a single secular historian who mentions even 1 of the apostles. Until you can my thesis statement stands.
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There's Not An Iota Of Evidence The Apostles Existed
- Thread starter SeekingAllTruth
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I offer you the challenge. Give me the name of a single secular historian who mentions even 1 of the apostles. Until you can my thesis statement stands.
SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
Go ahead. name one. You can't can you. I knew it.
oldbadger
Skanky Old Mongrel!
Still clamouring for attention?
Let me tell you why I won't give you any time, about all this... I believe that your claims are not true, your OP is an impost and your denials are ignorant.
Whilst you claim to be in total denial of a real Jesus you (at the same time) try to convince us that you are an 'Agnostic Deist'. Trust me when I tell you that agnostics aren't mythers, they just don't know what to believe. The mythers are extremist atheistic denialists in my experience. Your OP makes you look like a myther, imo.
So you don't know much about your claimed title, either.
The passage from Josephus about James ("where he describes James as 'brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ") is evidence for the existence of both Jesus and James, but it's also evidence that the claims of Christianity are false.
While you slide from "evidence" to "proof" with naive abandon, "my thesis" suggests an adolescent hubris that mars the effect. I suggest that you get over yourself and learn that proof is best consigned to the the domains of math, law, and liquor.Produce some secular evidence or proof whatever nomenclature you prefer for the apostles, if you're able.Until you can my thesis stands.
Kelly of the Phoenix
Well-Known Member
But God can’t be just if it rains on the good and bad alike. It’s just lazy and cruel to the innocent.
SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
If you don't have any proof just admit it, Jay. Don't hide behind smokescreens. Once moreWhile you slide from "evidence" to "proof" with naive abandon, "my thesis" suggests an adolescent hubris that mars the effect. I suggest that you get over yourself and learn that proof is best consigned to the the domains of math, law, and liquor.
Produce some secular proof for the apostles, if you're able.
Until you can my thesis stands.
SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
Still clamouring for attention?
Let me tell you why I won't give you any time, about all this... I believe that your claims are not true, your OP is an impost and your denials are ignorant.
Whilst you claim to be in total denial of a real Jesus you (at the same time) try to convince us that you are an 'Agnostic Deist'. Trust me when I tell you that agnostics aren't mythers, they just don't know what to believe. The mythers are extremist atheistic denialists in my experience. Your OP makes you look like a myther, imo.
So you don't know much about your claimed title, either.
Produce some secular evidence or proof whatever nomenclature you prefer for the apostles.
It's a simple request, badger. Until you can my thesis stands.There's not an iota of secular proof for the existence of the apostles.PruePhillip
Well-Known Member
Maybe God could bring drought to the wicked, but not the good?
Jesus enraged his compatriots with just this argument - that it was
Israel, not just individuals, who had gone off the rails.
With the destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus warned his followers to
flee when an opportune moment arrives as the city will be under
siege. That moment came with General Gallus' unexplained and
sudden retreat from the city just as it was about to fall. His legion
was destroyed in the retreat and the city was opened as the Jews
celebrated. The city was closed again within the day as it sunk in
what was now going to happen to Israel.
So there are times when God destroyed whole populations and
times when he saved individuals.
Congratulations!If you don't have any proof just admit it, Jay. Don't hide behind smokescreens. Once more
Produce some secular proof for the apostles, if you're able.
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
Sorry, but to being with, many of the apostles left written records, such as James, Peter, Paul... They are also written about in other church writings of the first and second century. Yes, I'm sorry, but we have far more evidence of the apostles than other people in history that are simply taken for granted.I bristle when I hear Christians say, "All the apostles were willing to die for their faith in Jesus." It has become such a cliche like the other one, "There's more evidence for Jesus than there is for Julius Caesar" and my favorite--"Jesus Christ is the most well-attested figure in history." Do these people read anything beside the Bible?
I watched a debate between Sean MacDowell and Paulogia the other day. Paulogia is a former Christian who saw the light and left Christianity. He now runs a popular skeptic website on YouTube. Sean, son of infamous apologist, Josh MacDowell wrote a book on the fate of the apostles which is the go-to source in the Christian community to prove the apostles all were martyred. I was floored when MacDowell said and this is a quote at 17:31 of the video below:
MacDowell: "For my case it doesn't even matter that any of them died actually as martyrs. I had this conversation with William lane Craig and he said, 'You don't have to prove any of them died as martyrs'.
Huh?
The question is "Did the apostles die as martyrs" and MacDowell and Craig are saying they don't have to prove the apostles died as martyrs--all they have to do is demonstrate that it's plausible that the apostles could have died as martyrs given the fact that they were apostles of Jesus and believed in him. Did we just warp to another universe where up is down and black is white?????????
Back to reality. Let's start with this:
There not an iota of evidence in the historical record for the apostles even existing.
Nine of them are not even mentioned by name in the Bible post-gospels. Not a single historian mentions them.
Justine Martyr doesn't even mention the nine (excluding Peter, John, and James). For all intents and purposes the apostles were never real--just figments of the gospel writers' imaginations.
And yet here's MacDowell writing a book making a case they died as martyrs for their faith but then saying, "I don't have to prove they died as martyrs for their faith."
Does 2 + 2 equal 22 in the world of Christianity?
joelr
Well-Known Member
Paul is considered a real person. The rest are written about only in the gospels or people writing about what the gospels say.
PhD Carrier:
11. “Paul met Jesus’ brother James, and Jesus’ disciple Peter”
Paul never mentions anyone being a disciple. The word “disciple” is unknown to Paul. He only knows Peter as an apostle, and only knows apostles as those who received revelations of Jesus (Gal. 1; 1 Cor. 9:1; Rom. 16:25-26). And Paul only ever refers to baptized Christians as brothers of the Lord (Rom. 8:29). He shows no awareness of Jesus having biological brothers (OHJ, pp. 108 and ch. 11.10).
5. “The disciples’ deaths.”
There are no reliable sources for the disciples’ deaths. We have, at most, some ridiculous and late legends, based on no identifiable sources. We do not in fact know why or when they died. Or what they died for. This whole argument is therefore hosed from top to bottom.
10. “The Apostle Paul’s epistles”
Bishop’s only use of these is that Paul mentions Jesus was buried (Paul actually does not specify a tomb burial, although the type of burial doesn’t matter). But people got buried in outer space (OHJ, pp. 194-97 & 563) in the Jewish cosmology Paul adopted (e.g. 2 Cor. 12). So where was this burial? Paul never says. The first time anyone ever heard of it occurring on earth, is that same one source: Mark. Written a lifetime after the fact. By authors unknown. Crafting a patently mythical hagiography (OHJ, ch. 10.4).
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I stand by what I said.
Mathews 7
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Even one who believes with confidence that he/she is saved, on that day, can be told straight to his/her face, "You evildoer!"
Are you sure you really want to gamble right now?
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Depends on what the question is.
If the question is about "life lessons", then yes. Then again, that makes the religion itself rather irrelevant as well, as you can find "life lessons" in just about mythology. That is, after all, what mythology is mostly about.
However, if the question is "what is actually true", then no. Then the "message" takes a backseat and what becomes important is who said what and when and how and why and if there even was a "who" in the first place.
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Which isn't surprising off course, seeing humanity's obsession with the number 12.
It appears everywhere, including most religions.
12 (number) - Wikipedia
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
He's primarily asking for your opinion.
If you consider it dishonest or not that people try to push assumptions and faith based claims as if they were facts.
The correct answer is "yes", btw.
Spirit of Light
Be who ever you want
I realized i can not speak for other people or other faiths than the one i hold. Speaking for others would be false speech
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
Only to the extent of those oral traditions being plausible and fitting with what is known from better sources.
For example, when "oral tradition" of the aztecs speaks about how Quetzalcoatl (or whoever their prefered god was) came down from the heavens to oversee the human sacrifices... I don't think any historian would take that seriously even though we know for a fact that human sacrifice to appease the gods was common place in that culture.
Does the appearance of just a quetzalcoatl claim conflict with anything we know about the aztecs? No.
Do you honestly think historians would take it seriously? Off course you don't.
Now let's look at Alexander The Great. There's little tangible evidence of him.
Much of it is "oral tradition". Here's the thing though: it's oral tradition that can be cross referenced from various independent sources. And with actual places and events for which there IS tangible evidence.
There's nothing like that for early christianity.
All we have there, is the biased word of believers who had an agenda of spreading "the faith".
TagliatelliMonster
Veteran Member
No.
First, he's not contemporary with jesus at all.
Second, he's talking about christians and what christians believe.
It would be like you claiming to have seen a flying pink elephant and me then writing about said elephant.