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One on One Debate: Did Jesus Exist?

SheikhHorusFromTheSky

Active Member
This debate is only reserved for my and 1robin. The question is: Did Jesus Christ exist? 1robin will take the proponent side; I will take the opposing side.

The rules are:

No swearing
No ridicule
No using emotions (meaning using any of the icons also)
You must give sources
Please stay on topic
All arguments must be clean and intellectual (meaning that it must be at least mature)

The limit is 100 posts. After that, anyone who wants to commentate can do so.

1robin goes first.
 
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1robin

Christian/Baptist
This debate is only reserved for my and 1robin. The question is: Did Jesus Christ exist? 1robin will take the proponent side; I will take the opposing side.

The rules are:

No swearing
No ridicule
No using emotions (meaning using any of the icons also)
You must give sources
Please stay on topic
All arguments must be clean and intellectual (meaning that it must be at least mature)

The limit is 100 posts. After that, anyone who wants to commentate can do so.

1robin goes first.
Man, I am really hung up in a specific thread. I will be there most of the day but I will throw something at you to chew on in the meantime. I will of course give info concerning textual quantity for Christ but first we need to establish the more important quality.

Two of if not the two greatest experts on testimony and evidence in human history are Simon Green and Lord Lyndhurst. One co-founded the greatest law school on earth and wrote the texts used to examine testimony and evidence in federal courts. The other is the only human in history to occupy every high court office in the greatest empire in history (English empire0. They both say the same things so I will give one link to a very famous paper on the reliability of the Gospels.
Testimony of the Evangelists by Simon Greenleaf

I hesitate to give you that much (especially after complaints by me concerning time) to read but it is a pivotal work on the subject and a good place to examine how testimony and evidence is evaluated. No one could have a better teacher than Greenleaf. Read as much as you wish but at least skim the methodology. I will check back in as soon as I can.
 

SheikhHorusFromTheSky

Active Member
Here's my take on it.

All of four of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were written about several years after Jesus' death. Here's the chronology of the dating of the Gospels.

Mark - Approx. 70 CE
Matthew and Luke - 80-85 CE
John - 90 CE

These dates are assigned by Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman.
Vridar » How the Gospels are most commonly dated (and why?)

So what does this mean? Well, it could probably disprove the Testimony of the Evangelists as being of just faith-based. After all, it gives no datings of the Gospels, nor does it see the numerous contradictions that are in the Gospels.

One of the contradictions is the genealogies that are in Matthew and Luke. Matthew says that Jesus directly descended through David, while Luke says that he has relatives of the Levites. Here's in fact a genealogy contradiction between Matthew and Luke.

Birthing a God - The Genealogy of Luke examined

Also, Matthew's gospel leans toward Messianic Jewish; while Mark and Luke doesn't have any traces of Messianic Judaism. As for John, it is completely all over the place with trying to tie Greek philosophy (using the Logos) into the Jesus Christ tale.

Also, in Mark, the oldest gospel, there is no mention of the virgin birth, or any of the tales of Herod or Jesus going to Egypt. If you want to learn more, click to here.

The Gospel of Matthew, the Fraud!

Plus, if Jesus existed, then why is there no mention of Nazareth in any of the 1st century literature, let alone a person named Jesus (unless if you're looking at accounts after his life)?

Nazareth – The Town that Theology Built
 

SheikhHorusFromTheSky

Active Member
Now looking at the link you gave me. One thing that made me suspicious is that it does not use any other sources, other than the Gospels, which have been proven to have contradictions, and have been written after the time of Jesus. It also says that Matthew was the first to write down the tales of Jesus, when in reality it was Mark that was the oldest Gospel. It doesn't really matter, because they were all written after Jesus' supposed death. So they can't really be considered historical accounts unfortunately.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Now looking at the link you gave me. One thing that made me suspicious is that it does not use any other sources, other than the Gospels, which have been proven to have contradictions, and have been written after the time of Jesus. It also says that Matthew was the first to write down the tales of Jesus, when in reality it was Mark that was the oldest Gospel. It doesn't really matter, because they were all written after Jesus' supposed death. So they can't really be considered historical accounts unfortunately.
I told you I had little time yesterday. I have less today than at anytime in the last two months. The lab I work in has multiple instruments down and I have two other very long posters that I have spent all morning trying to get to follow simplistic arguments to no avail. Let me add a few comments on this post and I will go back and fully respond to everything you posted here as soon as possible.


1. That paper is an exhaustive legal evaluation of the Gospels as documents. I can give similar papers from histories greatest historians and they may cover what Greenleaf's legal evaluation left out. It was not a work meant to fully examine it's historical claims. It was more along the lines of what a court would do to establish reliability of a witness. Did you know the Bible is a modern primary archeological resource even with secular scholars? It routinely proves true even when large groups of historians claim it is wrong. A classic example is a museum now full of artifacts that the secular scholars said never existed but the Bible said did. I think it was the Moabites.
2. The Gospels are 4 accounts. For that period of time that is more than most claims have. The very accurate Peloponnesian war is one man's account. The Quran is one man's account, the Gallic wars is one mans account about himself. In those times writing was rare and so was literacy. Having more than one competent account is a luxury for that time frame. The Bible gathered together 4 and put then in one collection that it considered apostolic. However there is much more.
3. There exist texts of al kinds that record events concerning Christ. For example the Gospel of Thomas, etc... as with most of them they are not apostolic but do add much confirmation.
4. There are also over 40 extra biblical authors of a historical nature that mention either Jesus, the virtual instantaneous explosion of a Christianity and Christ's teachings it was based on, one even mentions the darkness that occurred when Christ was dying.

I have spent years debating 'supposed contradictions and have found even few potential possibilities for any. The claims made by atheists or Muslims in general are based in ignorance and their rabid resistance to allow very simplistic explanations like cultural language use present in every text ever written or apocalyptic literary styles made hyperbolic on purpose. I would have to have a contradiction to evaluate before I could even think about granting they exist in our case. Before we get into that please review any of the several dozen Gospel harmony sites as they go step by step and cross reference everything. Almost all claims of contradiction soon disappear after those sites are reviewed. There are a few but a very small few possibilities of any actual contradictions. I will add a footnote about what I can concede upfront at the end.

Mathew is first in order but not date. I think you assumed that. They are not arranged by the chronological order of documentation. I once knew why they are in that order but it escapes me.

Last even if they were not written at the time Christ lived that would not make them inaccurate or the least non historic. It almost never occurred that any history was written at the very moment it was occurring. In the Bible's case those stories existed as oral tradition and written from the moment the events occurred. Not only that but as Luke tells us up front he went around interviewing eyewitnesses and cross examining people. His book has been called the earliest perfect history. Greenleaf gave along with dozens and dozens more a very very telling point about testimony. If those apostles were lying then why did they do these three things alone.

1. Why did they spend a lifetime suffering and in some case dying for what they knew was a lie without any Earthly gain at all?
2. Why did they choose to go through the vastly more difficult (empirically) claim of stating Christ rose spiritually if lying. No one expected him to. They could have much easier claimed he spiritually rose. Instead their claims would have been nullified by the producing of the body. Not even the Roman's who guarded the tomb could do so. It has never been found.
3. Why did they claim that every person who wished to be a Christian must experience God directly if there were no God to experience? They could have done what other faiths have said: To simply agree with them and they are one. Christianity based on experiencing a God who was not there should have died in the cradle. It exploded even when persecuted by the greatest empires on Earth instead.

You mentioned somewhere whether Jesus existed. The overwhelming consensus of NT scholars on every side are three historical facts.

1. Jesus appeared on the historical scene with an unprecedented sense of divine authority (could be false but he existed and had it).
2. He was crucified by the Romans and died (there are even roman records that mention it).
3. The tomb was found empty.
That is what historians are wiling to claim is true.

For every claim here I could have given 50 or more just like them and I think you may can tell why I need large amounts of time to debate.

My concessions. The Bible has scribal errors. Between 5% and .5% depending on what scholar is asked. They mostly concern numbers in the OT and one entire chapter at the end of Mathew. Even the biggest atheist scholar admits not one affects core doctrine and they are all known and indicated in all major modern bible's.

I am sure some contradictions exist but it is less that 1% of what are claimed and I know of none specifically.

I can provide many of histories scholars who point out we have more than enough evidence many times over to justify faith but not quite enough to prove every claim in the Bible but it does have 25,000 plus historical corroborations.

Demand links as needed I just did not have time. I will get far more detailed and comprehensive as soon as possible but maybe this will keep you buy for a bit. I type for 30 minutes and feel like I have not even gotten started.
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Here's my take on it.

All of four of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, were written about several years after Jesus' death. Here's the chronology of the dating of the Gospels.

Mark - Approx. 70 CE
Matthew and Luke - 80-85 CE
John - 90 CE

These dates are assigned by Biblical scholar Bart Ehrman.
Vridar » How the Gospels are most commonly dated (and why?)
Ehrman is a good scholar. He is a literal conservative but I am fine with those dates. I would add Paul is within a dozen years and oral tradition existed in a hundred Churches from day one and other writings as well. The apostles say specifically that other writing were used to compose their accounts and we have many other texts from the period plus historical documents. I do not see a problem here. Most works of the time survive in texts dating from many hundred years later yet are taught in schools as true.

So what does this mean? Well, it could probably disprove the Testimony of the Evangelists as being of just faith-based. After all, it gives no datings of the Gospels, nor does it see the numerous contradictions that are in the Gospels.
The Gospels are not primarily faith based. They are eyewitness based.

One of the contradictions is the genealogies that are in Matthew and Luke. Matthew says that Jesus directly descended through David, while Luke says that he has relatives of the Levites. Here's in fact a genealogy contradiction between Matthew and Luke.

Birthing a God - The Genealogy of Luke examined
This is a very common mistake by Bible critics. Hebrew genealogy's are very complex. Some exclude women, some only give patriarchs, some give everyone, some skip people to provide groups of 14. In this case both are true. The Gospels writers gave genealogies for different reasons. One to illustrate kingship and the other to illustrate that the curse on David's line did not apply to Christ because Christ was a legal descendant but not a biological descendant of David. Therefor he had legal right to the Throne but did not share David's curse placed on his seed. This is actually one of the most impressive issues concerning Christ and I can give you links to very exhaustive papers on it with the trees and where everyone fits if you wish. Also the first thing the Jews would have done if they could is fault Christ's claims to the throne. They never even tried because they had the genealogical records on hand and knew he had rights to it.



Also, Matthew's gospel leans toward Messianic Jewish; while Mark and Luke doesn't have any traces of Messianic Judaism. As for John, it is completely all over the place with trying to tie Greek philosophy (using the Logos) into the Jesus Christ tale.
That is exactly what was intended. Each writer had a separate purpose and audience they were trying to reach and so accented different details. This is well known and conceded by all sides.



Also, in Mark, the oldest gospel, there is no mention of the virgin birth, or any of the tales of Herod or Jesus going to Egypt. If you want to learn more, click to here.

The Gospel of Matthew, the Fraud!
That is called an argument from silence fallacy. No argument can be made concerning what something does not say. As I said the writers had different purposes and covered different aspects. It is what historians hope for. If they had all been the same less evidence would have been provided. They would all say the same exact thing and far less of it and then they would yell they copied each other and they want more.

Plus, if Jesus existed, then why is there no mention of Nazareth in any of the 1st century literature, let alone a person named Jesus (unless if you're looking at accounts after his life)?

Nazareth – The Town that Theology Built
Israel was a very minor frontier of a huge Roman empire. Most people were illiterate and could not have affording writing material anyway. four accounts is more than 95% of historical claims of the period. Especially for a rabbi wandering the streets of a minor ANE society. However there are many texts that mention Christ from that era. Many that were hostile to him or from other faiths. I can give you a list if you wish.

I have a doctors appointment today so will be out.
 

SheikhHorusFromTheSky

Active Member
Ehrman is a good scholar. He is a literal conservative but I am fine with those dates. I would add Paul is within a dozen years and oral tradition existed in a hundred Churches from day one and other writings as well. The apostles say specifically that other writing were used to compose their accounts and we have many other texts from the period plus historical documents. I do not see a problem here. Most works of the time survive in texts dating from many hundred years later yet are taught in schools as true.

The Gospels are not primarily faith based. They are eyewitness based.

This is a very common mistake by Bible critics. Hebrew genealogy's are very complex. Some exclude women, some only give patriarchs, some give everyone, some skip people to provide groups of 14. In this case both are true. The Gospels writers gave genealogies for different reasons. One to illustrate kingship and the other to illustrate that the curse on David's line did not apply to Christ because Christ was a legal descendant but not a biological descendant of David. Therefor he had legal right to the Throne but did not share David's curse placed on his seed. This is actually one of the most impressive issues concerning Christ and I can give you links to very exhaustive papers on it with the trees and where everyone fits if you wish. Also the first thing the Jews would have done if they could is fault Christ's claims to the throne. They never even tried because they had the genealogical records on hand and knew he had rights to it.



That is exactly what was intended. Each writer had a separate purpose and audience they were trying to reach and so accented different details. This is well known and conceded by all sides.



That is called an argument from silence fallacy. No argument can be made concerning what something does not say. As I said the writers had different purposes and covered different aspects. It is what historians hope for. If they had all been the same less evidence would have been provided. They would all say the same exact thing and far less of it and then they would yell they copied each other and they want more.

Israel was a very minor frontier of a huge Roman empire. Most people were illiterate and could not have affording writing material anyway. four accounts is more than 95% of historical claims of the period. Especially for a rabbi wandering the streets of a minor ANE society. However there are many texts that mention Christ from that era. Many that were hostile to him or from other faiths. I can give you a list if you wish.

I have a doctors appointment today so will be out.

Do you have more information you would like to bring, or are you done explaining?
 

1robin

Christian/Baptist
Do you have more information you would like to bring, or are you done explaining?
I have no doctor appointment today and it looks like it might be slow at work. If so I will summarize and add a little more in one post then you may reply back with whatever you wish to or with a critique of what I have said. I should have that done in 4 hours.
 

SheikhHorusFromTheSky

Active Member
Alright, here's my response.

Though I now do believe that there could be a possibility of a Jesus Christ character, there is one thing that I would like to point out.

You're saying that the Bible (both Old and New Testament) contains 5% to .5%. That is not true, as this website right here contains over and above 143 contradictions: Biblical Contradictions

Furthermore, there are also tons of later additions especially in the New Testament. This is a fact that's explained by Professor Bart D. Ehrman.
Bible: Later Additions

But as for my other stuff, I do now agree that Jesus did exist, and some of what you've said.

Edit:
Anyways, here's the reason why I changed my mind: http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/resources/151716-my-change-heart-jesus.html

So really in that regard, you have won this debate.
 
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1robin

Christian/Baptist
Alright, here's my response.
Sorry (your name always makes me think of Sickhorsefromthesky) SheikhHorusFromTheSky. I have been hung up most of the day with laboratory instruments that just will not work. I will only respond to your last post for now. I will get serious as soon as I can.

Though I now do believe that there could be a possibility of a Jesus Christ character, there is one thing that I would like to point out.
You do now? Was the exceeding minute % of the data available that I posted cause you to change your mind so quickly?

You're saying that the Bible (both Old and New Testament) contains 5% to .5%. That is not true, as this website right here contains over and above 143 contradictions: Biblical Contradictions
1. The percentage error has nothing to do with contradictions.
2. It only has to do with textual variance.
3. As Ehrman states there are almost 400,000 errors in the entire Biblical tradition. That means counting all categorized manuscripts. There are more than 5700 manuscripts of 750,000 words each in only the Greek and Latin. If you add all the Coptic, Syria tic, Aramaic etc.... the numbers drop even further. You can do the math from this of I can give you a link. Works out to less that 5% of 750,000 words.
4. Ehrman also state there are no errors in essential doctrine.
5. 98% of errors are well known and every modern Bible footnotes them. Many are only possible errors like the last chapt of Mathew but I count them anyway.
6. You mentioned 143 contradictions but did not prove that even 1 actually exists.
7. There are actually more than 143 things claimed to be contradictions but like the few you gave earlier I have never found more than 5 or six that survive any study.
8. If you want I can give you some of the Bible's actual problems but they are few.

I reject all claims of contradiction without them being provided and debated first.

Furthermore, there are also tons of later additions especially in the New Testament. This is a fact that's explained by Professor Bart D. Ehrman.
Bible: Later Additions
Tons is not accurate. There are some (they are included in the 5% that both I AND EHRMAN have stated). However this is the key, virtually all of them are known and indicated in all modern Bibles. If you wish to see an expert on these things debate them. Watch any Dr. James White versus Ehrman (or any other textual scholar) or I can give you the transcript from one. It is only with a Biblical tradition as extraordinarily rich as the Bible's that errors can be reliably known and indicated. Did you know there is no way to know what errors even existed at all for the Quran prior to Uthman? It is the Bible's massive, prolific, and early transmission that makes what errors it contains so well known.



But as for my other stuff, I do now agree that Jesus did exist, and some of what you've said.
I am glad. Just for the heck of it let me compare the Bible to it's closes rivals concerning textual accuracy so you can see the enormous advantage the Bible has.

Author,
Written,
Oldest extant copy,
Span in between date first written and oldest copy in existance,
Number of Copies in existence'

Pliny,
AD 80,
850 A.D.,
750 yrs,


Caesar
100- 44 B.C.
900 A.D.
1,000 yrs.
10

Plato
427-347 B.C.
900 A. D.
1,200 yrs.
7

Aristotle
384-322 B.C.
1100 A. D.1,400 yrs.
37

Sophocles
496-406 B.C.
1000 A.D.
1,400 yrs.
193

Euripides
480-406 B.C.
1100 A.D.
1,500 yrs.
9


Catullus
54 B.C.
1550 A.D.
1,600 yrs.
3


New Testament
48 A. D. (Mark)
130 A.D. (N.T.)
80 yrs.
24,630

That is an easy record to defend.
 
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