Are the gospels reliable historical documents? // YES

[leroy]

Luke's Nativity tale for example. Any student of the Bible should know that at the very least.

And how does that refute any of the 3 points in the OP?

Sure Luke had one (or few) details wrong vs hundreds of details corrrect.......therefore the text is a reliable historical document.


All ancient historians made mistakes, but we don't simply drop all the documents.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Would you cite which other religious text that has points 1 and 2?

Your source does not appear to have it. Why ask such a question?

"1 the authors intended to report what actually happened"

Did they now? And even if they did how would they know? They were not eyewitnesses. The stories were written over a generation since the event. It appears that even if they wanted to that they did not have reliable sources.


"
2 The authors had access to reliable sources."

This is an unjustified assumption on your part. You need to support this claim with valid evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

And how does that refute any of the 3 points in the OP?

Sure Luke had one (or few) details wrong vs hundreds of details corrrect.......therefore the text is a reliable historical document.


All ancient historians made mistakes, but we don't simply drop all the documents.

How do you know this? The only thing that I have heard that Luke got right were some of the geographical facts. Those are not historical facts. A person that traveled the region could know those and not know the recent history at all.

 

[leroy]

Projection, again. I noticed a huge flaw in the OP. So have others. I no longer bother explaining your errors to you since you never acknowledge them. I will simply point them out.

Ok just to be clear:

1 you asserted without justification that the OP has errors. And you won't explain why.

Anything that you would like to add? ...No?....then stop trolling

 

[leroy]

The gospels evolved from likely a shorter written biography and oral stories of Jesus, and yes as i all ancient religions 'a foundation of socio-cultural philosophical material circulating at time , as if they were social media type memes.'

The early known gospels show additions and editing in the different documents.

Sooooo which of the 3 points in the OP would you reject and why?

 

[McBell]

Sooooo which of the 3 points in the OP would you reject and why?

All of them.
Post #10, which you completely ignored.

 

[leroy]

Your source does not appear to have it. Why ask such a question?

"1 the authors intended to report what actually happened"

Did they now? And even if they did how would they know? They were not eyewitnesses. The stories were written over a generation since the event. It appears that even if they wanted to that they did not have reliable sources.


"
2 The authors had access to reliable sources."

This is an unjustified assumption on your part. You need to support this claim with valid evidence.

Ok so you grant point 1

Point 2 was justified in the OP.

The evidence is that the authors had hundreds of geografical, historical, democratic, and political correct.....only someone with access to good sources would have known all those details

 

[Tiberius]

And how does that refute any of the 3 points in the OP?

Sure Luke had one (or few) details wrong vs hundreds of details corrrect.......therefore the text is a reliable historical document.


All ancient historians made mistakes, but we don't simply drop all the documents.

One might as well say that sure, there could be mistakes in episodes of Star Trek, but that doesn't mean there can't be hundreds of details correct, so we are justified in believing that Klingons are real.

 

[leroy]

That's as sad as it is silly/


You pretend to know who authored the gospels. You don't.


Not knowing the authors, you know even less about their sources.


3a is a bogus claim.
3b is a bogus claim.
3c is laughable irrespective of its worthless premise,

i.e., even an honest effort drawing upon reliable sources can produce unreliable results.​

You don't need to know who the author was in order to know that;

1 The author intended to report what actually happened.

2 the author had access to good sources.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ok just to be clear:

1 you asserted without justification that the OP has errors. And you won't explain why.

Anything that you would like to add? ...No?....then stop trolling

Wrong again. I have justification. You are merely in no position to demand it. If you cleaned up your act then I would gladly explain further. In fact I could not help myself and I did.

 

[leroy]

One might as well say that sure, there could be mistakes in episodes of Star Trek, but that doesn't mean there can't be hundreds of details correct, so we are justified in believing that Klingons are real.

The authors of star trek didn't intended to report real histoy , srar trek fails at point 1

 

[Subduction Zone]

Ok so you grant point 1

Nope, I did not. In fact there is evidence against that.

Point 2 was justified in the OP.

The evidence is that the authors had hundreds of geografical, historical, democratic, and political correct.....only someone with access to good sources would have known all those details[/QUOTE

That is not justification. You need to do better than that. Anyone living in that time and place could get that data. That does not help in regard to the Jesus story.

You are 0 for 2.

 

[Tiberius]

1 the authors intended to report what actually happened

Given the literary genera of the text (Greco roman biography) and the fact that the gosspels are fool of embarrassing details* it seems probable that point 1 is true

Embarrassing details mean that the story is more likely to be true, since if someone made it up they wouldn't want to cause embarrassment?

By that logic, Babylon 5 is a true account of actual events, since Lennier's abandonment of Sheridan in Objects At Rest was embarrassing and wouldn't have been included if it was all made up.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The authors of star trek didn't intended to report real histoy , srar trek fails at point 1

Whoosh!

When you make posts like this where it appear that you deliberately misunderstand others it makes it so that others do not want to explain your errors to you.

 

[leroy]

Wrong again. I have justification. .

No you don't, you are just trolling.

 

[leroy]

Whoosh!

When you make posts like this where it appear that you deliberately misunderstand others it makes it so that others do not want to explain your errors to you.

The reason why you don't want to explain my errors is because you don't want to abandon your "save space" .

By explaining my supposed errors you would have to take the risk of being wrong and being corrected. ...... You prefer to keep your "arguments" vague and ambiguous so that nobody can correct you.

 

[epronovost]

As many have already mentionned and anbody with cursory knowledge of Ancient Rome and Judea knows, the Gospels aren't historical text nor are they reliable historical text. The authors are unknown as are the sources of those authors. There are no corroboration of the events of the Gospels outside of an off mention in Tacitus of a man named Jesus, crucified by Pontius Pilate, being the first leader of the Christians. The Gospels themselves contain several historical and geographical innacuracies and contradict each other on several points. The idea of presenting the writtings of unkown authors based on unknown sources without outside corroboration and with several key errors in datation and geography as an accurate historical source is simply ridiculous.

The Gospels are legends and myths that are probably based on a true story but is about as accurate as the movie Braveheart is when it comes to Scottish history or the legend of King Arthur about the history of 6th centry Britain.

 

[leroy]

Embarrassing details mean that the story is more likely to be true, since if someone made it up they wouldn't want to cause embarrassment?

By that logic, Babylon 5 is a true account of actual events, since Lennier's abandonment of Sheridan in Objects At Rest was embarrassing and wouldn't have been included if it was all made up.

Not familiar with Babylon 5 sorry.


What the criteria of embarrassment says is that if a testimony has details that go against the purpose that the author has, then those details are likely to be true......and the author is likely to be honest.

 

[Subduction Zone]

No you don't, you are just trolling.

.Oh my, let's not break the rules here. No, I even gave you some of them. As usual at best you did not understand them.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not familiar with Babylon 5 sorry.


What the criteria of embarrassment says is that if a testimony has details that go against the purpose that the author has, then those details are likely to be true......and the author is likely to be honest.

It appears to be more the mark of a good story teller. And not a particularly great one.