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The Resurrection is it provable?

Venni_Vetti_Vecci

The Sun Does Not Rise In Hell
The vast majority of historians who specialize in Biblical studies do not consider the Gospels to be anything except a mythology created from Greek/Persian theology.

Dr Carrier:
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.

That is nonsense.

First of all, Carrier is wrong. The vast majority of scholars (fundamentalist or not) agree that Jesus of Nazareth existed.

Bart Ehrman is a non-fundamentalist scholar, and he believes in the historical Jesus.

Second, Richard Carrier got absolutely DESTROYED by William Lane Craig in their debate on the Resurrection. It was a complete and utter annihilation and I actually felt sorry for Carrier.

It was a terrible loss and performance by someone you hold in such high regard.

No. We aren’t interested in that.

When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death. Consequently, I will here disregard fundamentalists and apologists as having no honest part in this debate, any more than they do on evolution or cosmology or anything else they cannot be honest about even to themselves.
Historicity Big and Small: How Historians Try to Rescue Jesus • Richard Carrier

Well, I can just as easily disregard skeptics and critics as having no honest part in this debate...because it is one thing to reject the claim that Jesus is the risen Messiah, but to reject the idea that Jesus of Nazareth even existed is beyond the realm of healthy skepticism, it is down right dishonest and academically radical.

Luke is not a historian. Again, Carrier
"So we know Luke is making a lot of things up in order to deliberately sell a fake history, for purposes of winning an argument against doubters (both within and without Christianity, as his opponents included, for example, Christians with very different ideas about the nature of the resurrection).
This already warns us not to trust anything he has added to the story found in Mark and Matthew: we should assume it is, like those, a convenient fabrication invented for some purpose, unless we can find sufficient evidence to believe otherwise. .....
despite his pretense at being a historian, preface and all, Luke's methods are demonstrably nonhistorical: he is not doing research, weighing facts, checking them against independent sources, and writing down what he thinks most likely happened.He is simply producing an expanded and redacted literary hybird of a couple of previous religious novels (Matthew and Mark), each itself even more obviously constructed according to literary conventions rather than historiographical.
Unlike other historians of even his own era, Luke never names his sources or explains why we are to trust them (or why he did), or how he chose what to include or exclude. In fact Luke does not even declare any critical method at all, but rather insists he slavishly followed what was handed to him - yet another claim we know to be a lie (since we have two of his sources and can confirm he freely altered then to suit his own agenda)."

First off, your appealing to Carrier means nothing.

I can just as easily provide quotes and insights from my sources who depict Luke as a credible historian.

So please, stop it with the Carrier stuff.

Pascals Wager. Debunked. I can say the same about every version of the underworld and religion. Allah sounds pretty scary. Yet you are not worried.

Atheism sounds very scary too.

"When you die, nothing happens".

Yup. That is indeed a scary concept.

In Biblical times the average life span was 38 yeras.

Ohhh, so when Jesus died around age 33, he wasn't too far off from that dreadful age of 38, huh?

Yeah, ok.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
So, basically speaking, you simply choose modern liberal scholars to those that were closest to the event.

Next you will be saying "Modern youth believe that the Holocaust was a ruse therefore it was".

You didn't debunk my position and until you do, you are on a faulty foundation no matter how you flower it with an abundance of words and analogies.
There.weee arguably no scholars at those early times. And he has kept showing you that very early Christians were not referring to the same books that we call call the Gospels today.


But I do like how.you use the word " liberal " as a synonym for "honest".
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
.


Actually you showed that you were indeed making statements out of ignorance. (As he mentioned)

You really don't know if it was originally in Greek. Irenaeus actually makes evidence of a Hebraic Matthew.

Then by that poor standard you and he both have been arguing out of ignorance as well.

And yes, Irenaeus could be said to show that the person Matthew wrote some recollections in Hebrew. But any scholar that understands the two languages can tell you that the Gospel of Matthew was written in Greek. Especially when some of the events that they remember do not appear in Matthew.

You are in a lose lose situation when you use Irenaeus. Either he was a very poor scholar that got what was in Matthew incredibly wrong or he was referring to a different work altogether. One actually written by Matthew, but in Hebrew.
 

Venni_Vetti_Vecci

The Sun Does Not Rise In Hell
Jesus is a Hellenistic savior deity. Resurrection is from Persian theology. During the 2nd Temple Period both cultures occupied Israel and their theology was borrowed by Hebrew thinkers.

First off, that is nonsense.

How can Jesus be a Hellenistic savior deity, when the book of Isaiah prophesizes about Jesus, which was some 400 years before the Hellenistic period even began.

Makes no sense.

"Historically, the unique features of Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism,[5] messianism, belief in free will and judgement after death, conception of heaven, hell, angels, and demons, among other concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including the Abrahamic religions "

Newsflash: Judaism predates Zoroastrianism.

This is from Mary Boyce's work on the Persian religion. Revelations was originally a Persian myth (~1600 B.C.) and was used by Judaism.

"Arising initially in Zoroastrianism, apocalypticism was developed more fully in Judaic, Christian, and Islamic eschatological speculation.[1][4][5][6][7]"
Apocalypticism - Wikipedia

As usual, the skeptic focuses on the similarities, with very little (of any) focus on the differences.

Modern scholars have the advantage of seeing the larger picture.

The larger picture of what? The closer you are to the time of the event in question, the closer you are to the truth.

That is why the telephone game is an excellent example of how these things typically works.

Biblical historicity didn't start until fairly recently. There were just theologians who assumed it was the word of God.

This is the genetic fallacy.

In that case, those who aren't theologians will assume that it isn't the word of God.

See how that works? That is why you can't logically disregard a proposition based on where it origins.

The church downplayed connections to other religions. 2nd century apologists admitted Jesus was like all Greek demigods only because Satan made it look that way to fool Christians. I quoted Justin Maryter saying this above.
We didn't know the OT was all Mesopotamian mythology until modern times -

Nonsense. Christianity is monotheism. Greek mythologies are polytheism.

Besides that, of all the many religions and deities that have ever existed, there will be some similarities.

Christianity is the only religion which teaches that salvation is faith in one man, Jesus Christ.

Matthew copied 97% of Mark into his Gospel.

Matthew has almost double the chapters of Mark, including the full post-mortem appearance narrative that Mark lacks.

That is enough to make his account unique enough to be considered independent.

All historians say there is more than enough evidence that they were all written in Greek.

No, they don't.

Unless, they have access to the lost original manuscripts, then they don't know anything.

Sure, they may have their reasons, just like Papias had his reasons for concluding that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew.

How are their assessments more virtuous than Papias? They aren't.

But there was no early church. Christianity was at least 50% Gnostic with all sorts of different theologies.

Nonsense.

Paul was writing to early Christian congregations as early as the 50's CE...and Paul himself was an early church leader.

The early church leaders, however, are typically referring to the early leaders who stepped to the plate after the original apostles had died off.

The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org
evidence Matthew copied Mark (in Greek)

It is funny that skeptics use this "synoptic problem".

It is a catch 22...because on one hand, the synoptics can't be trusted because there was too much copying and plagiarizing going on.

But on the other hand, once one Gospel differs from the other, then they can't be trusted because they contradict each other.

Hahahaha.

The Gospels can't win, damned if they do, and damned if they don't.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
So, basically speaking, you simply choose modern liberal scholars to those that were closest to the event.

No. I choose what any historian has to say because they look at all of the evidence and facts and show the actual true picture. As I demonstrated historicity is a new field because people did not have access to all of the information. Some was still buried, information was controlled by the church but now we can see and analyze all of the text, understand how it compares to other religions and other fiction and historical information.
On no point of study does this religion appear to be any more real than Islam, or any Greek religion.

Now as to closest to the event we have many examples that those people were completely wrong when it comes to the big picture.
Iraneus had different scripture and is not a historian. He is a theologian who assumed the scripture was really from a deity.
He also didn't know some of the Epistles were forged by the church at a later date. He thought Matthew was first, had no idea Matthew copied from Mark and had zero of the modern advanced analysis on all scripture.
He also didn't know Mark was sourcing the OT heavily as well as Paul. He didn't know Jesus scored as high as King Arthur on the Rank-Ragalin mythotype scale. He didn't know any of the theology was syncretic and assumed it started with Christianity.


Still let's look at what some people who were alive close to the actual time who were not completely blinded by belief had to say,

Pliny - investigated Christianity around 112 and called it a "harmless superstition"

Jewish leaders and members - around the entire time, besides a few converts they were confident
Jesus was not the Messiah.

All historians - report there are people who believe in the Gospel stories. No confirmation of anything
2nd century Christians

Christians - 2nd century Christians had no idea what was actually true. The first canon is lost forever and had completely different theology regarding OT Yahweh as a different deity. This suggests there was no actual truth but myths based on a messiah theme. The canon that arose and was made official wasn't until almost the 4th century.

In the middle of the second century, the Christian communities of Rome, for example, were divided between followers of Marcion, Montanism, and the gnostic teachings of Valentinus.


This is your "closest to the event". The reality is it's a complete mess and being called a superstition by historical writers.

The Christian apologetics for this mess is that GOD made sure that at the council of Nicea and others the correct GHospels were chosen.
Obviously a bunch of superstitious woo, but from the Christian perspective these. 4 Gospels would be the most true. This means modern historians are working on the most true documents.

So this thing about early scholars (they were only theologians) is actually worse for the argument.

Oh, early apologists were also around near the time, Firmicus Maternus, Tertullian and Justin Martyr, all admit Jesus is just like all the other Greek demigods. Remember, the thing you said was "garbage".
So actually that has been debunked. Not garbage, totally real.


"
Early apologists admited similarities and blamed them on Satan.

Even allowing for these caveats, it is clear that substantial ideological and ritual similarities did exist. In fact they were sufficiently obvious to the early Christian apologists that they felt obliged to offer some explanation for them, particularly since, to their embarrassment, it was clear that the Mystery rituals predated their own. The most common explanation, offered by many Christian apologists including Firmicus Maternus, Tertullian and Justin Martyr, was that demons had deliberately prefigured Christian sacraments in order to lead people astray. This explanation has sufficed for Christians over countless centuries, and indeed scholastic bias towards the assumed uniqueness, primacy and superiority of Christianity is one of the major methodological pitfalls encountered by those engaged in the comparative study of Christianity and the Mysteries. Many Christian scholars have been so certain that Christianity alone, of all the world’s religions, is an original and unique revelation that at times it seems that they might almost prefer the “demonic intervention” explanation to the unthinkable possibility that Christianity was influenced by its philosophical and theological environs........
The Relationship between Hellenistic Mystery Religions and Early Christianity:
A Case Study using Baptism and Eucharist
Jennifer Uzzell



Next you will be saying "Modern youth believe that the Holocaust was a ruse therefore it was".

You're really falling apart here. Holocaust denial is a conspiracy theory that all historians have ridiculous amounts of evidence to debunk. Just like Christianity can be shown to be a syncretic mythology that is fiction.

I use papers, books, quotes from PhDs and generally source anything given. Because in order to understand what is actually true evidence is needed. Evidence that can be verified and agreed upon by scholars. Your response now is to say I'll be following conspiracy theories? Are you that desperate



You didn't debunk my position and until you do, you are on a faulty foundation no matter how you flower it with an abundance of words and analogies.

This makes no sense? If someone claimed they believed in Horus or Santa Clause or a Roswell alien crash you cannot debunk that completely. However you can show the evidence that it's extremely unlikely. That it's almost entirely copied from older theology. This has been demonstrated. We can continue to demonstrate that.
We can analyze the writing and show sources, which has been done a bit. We can show Mark was the source for the other Gospels. That was shown. Not one of those arguments were debunked. Not one of any arguments were debunked. (When a Harvard PhD says Jesus was (exactly like) a Greek demigod, saying "garbage" isn't debunking anything"). The source that YOU said you liked Briticannica gave a rundown of Hellenism and it was exactly NT theology. You didn't make an argument? What position are you even talking about? You believe a story, that position? I can't debunk the fact that someone believes a story? Is Luke a good historian? No, that has been debunked.
Is it reasonable to believe? No.

Speaking of "words and analogies" just saying "faulty foundation" is exactly that. Everything I said has been backed up to zero arguments. In one case the first apologists backed me up. The counter argument is just denial.
 
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joelr

Well-Known Member
That is nonsense.

First of all, Carrier is wrong. The vast majority of scholars (fundamentalist or not) agree that Jesus of Nazareth existed.

You are off to a bad start. That isn't what Carrier said. Please read carefully:
"we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. "

The Gospel Jesus. The vast majority of histoorians believe the Gospel narratives are a mythical narrative for many reasons. Yes some believe Jesus was a real Rabbi. Carrier and Lataster have peer-reviewed work favoring mythicism but that doesn't matter. The savior demigod is what is myth. And a theistic God.

Bart Ehrman is a non-fundamentalist scholar, and he believes in the historical Jesus.

Second, Richard Carrier got absolutely DESTROYED by William Lane Craig in their debate on the Resurrection. It was a complete and utter annihilation and I actually felt sorry for Carrier.

It was a terrible loss and performance by someone you hold in such high regard.


Yes Ehrman is for historicity Carrier is for mythicism. Both believe the Gospels are fiction.

I have seen this debate. Carrier gave the scholarship to most of WLC points but did not get to them all. There was no. loss? Nothing WLC said was anything Carrier couldn't or hasn't debunked at some point. WLC just denies historical information.
Please point to a section where Carrier actually couldn't answer to any nonsense apologetics WLC brought up. all apologetics has been heard over and over by real scholars and it's a joke.

Well, I can just as easily disregard skeptics and critics as having no honest part in this debate...because it is one thing to reject the claim that Jesus is the risen Messiah, but to reject the idea that Jesus of Nazareth even existed is beyond the realm of healthy skepticism, it is down right dishonest and academically radical.

Mythicism isn't important for this debate. However Carrier (and Lataster) wrote a 700 pg scholarly monograph with hundreds of sources and footnotes. So he backs up his ideas with EVIDENCE.

First off, your appealing to Carrier means nothing.

I can just as easily provide quotes and insights from my sources who depict Luke as a credible historian.

So please, stop it with the Carrier stuff.

Sure if you have a historian who is a PhD and has peer-reviewed work go for it. Theologians do not study history and they do not know what makes a good historian, especially what a historian from 1-2 A.D. would look like. Biblical historians study all historians from the period and region.
A theologian saying "Luke was a great historian because he says so" isn't demonstrating anything.

There is a long chapter on Luke, his sources, his use of other sources to create his narrative. I just posted a small sample. But just these issues need to be addressed to begin.
""So we know Luke is making a lot of things up in order to deliberately sell a fake history, for purposes of winning an argument against doubters (both within and without Christianity, as his opponents included, for example, Christians with very different ideas about the nature of the resurrection).
This already warns us not to trust anything he has added to the story found in Mark and Matthew: we should assume it is, like those, a convenient fabrication invented for some purpose, unless we can find sufficient evidence to believe otherwise. .....
despite his pretense at being a historian, preface and all, Luke's methods are demonstrably nonhistorical: he is not doing research, weighing facts, checking them against independent sources, and writing down what he thinks most likely happened.He is simply producing an expanded and redacted literary hybird of a couple of previous religious novels (Matthew and Mark), each itself even more obviously constructed according to literary conventions rather than historiographical.
Unlike other historians of even his own era, Luke never names his sources or explains why we are to trust them (or why he did), or how he chose what to include or exclude. In fact Luke does not even declare any critical method at all, but rather insists he slavishly followed what was handed to him - yet another claim we know to be a lie (since we have two of his sources and can confirm he freely altered then to suit his own agenda)."

So no I will not stop with historical knowledge because this is how scripture is analyzed to see how it actually compares, what sources were used, is it written like fiction.... Theology is interested in "what did God mean". Great but Islamic theologians will say that the Quran is the actual word of God.
Hindu theologians will say their scripture is the word of Krishna. Clearly this is not a good method to find the actual truth.



Atheism sounds very scary too.

"When you die, nothing happens".

Yup. That is indeed a scary concept.

It is scary. That doesn't make Horus real. It doesn't make the Quran real. It doesn't make the NT real either.


Ohhh, so when Jesus died around age 33, he wasn't too far off from that dreadful age of 38, huh?

Yeah, ok.

Weird response? Jesus was a character in the highly fictitious Gospels. Probably not a demigod.
Anyways, yes that was the lifespan, 38 years according to several historians who work on the period.


Life Expectancy in Ancient Rome

There is little firm information about the collective lives of those who lived in the first centuries BC and the first centuries AD, but the conjecture is that the average life span was about 35 years.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
First off, that is nonsense.

How can Jesus be a Hellenistic savior deity, when the book of Isaiah prophesizes about Jesus, which was some 400 years before the Hellenistic period even began.

Makes no sense.


"Isaiah was one of the most popular works among Jews in the Second Temple period (c. 515 BCE – 70 CE)"

Isaiah was written in several parts, the last during the 2nd Temple Period. This period was when th eOT was revised and canonized.

"The Deutero-Isaian part of the book describes how God will make Jerusalem the centre of his worldwide rule through a royal saviour (a messiah) who will destroy the oppressor (Babylon); this messiah is the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who is merely the agent who brings about Yahweh's kingship."
Book of Isaiah - Wikipedia

The Persian King. So when the Persians invaded Israel in 500 B.C. the Hebrews were greatly influenced by their myths. Messianic world saviors were one of the myths.

"Historically, the unique features of Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism,[5] messianism, belief in free will and judgement after death, conception of heaven, hell, angels, and demons, among other concepts, may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including the Abrahamic religions "

Now to the leading scholar on the Persians, Mary Boyce. Look her up. From her work:

"
Belief in a world Saviour

An important theological development during the dark ages of 'the faith concerned the growth of beliefs about the Saoshyant or coming Saviour. Passages in the Gathas suggest that Zoroaster was filled with a sense that the end of the world was imminent, and that Ahura Mazda had entrusted him with revealed truth in order to rouse mankind for their vital part in the final struggle. Yet he must have realized that he would not himself live to see Frasho-kereti; and he seems to have taught that after him there would come 'the man who is better than a good man' (Y 43.3), the Saoshyant. The literal meaning of Saoshyant is 'one who will bring benefit' ; and it is he who will lead humanity in the last battle against evil.c and so there is no betrayal, in this development of belief in the Saoshyant, of Zoroaster's own teachings about the part which mankind has to play in the great cosmic struggle. The Saoshyant is thought of as being accompanied, like kings and heroes, by Khvarenah, and it is in Yasht r 9 that the extant Avesta has most to tell of him. Khvarenah, it is said there (vv. 89, 92, 93), 'will accompany the victorious Saoshyant ... so that he may restore 9 existence .... When Astvat-ereta comes out from the Lake K;tsaoya, messenger of Mazda Ahura ... then he will drive the Drug out from the world of Asha.' This glorious moment was longed for by the faithful, and the hope of it was to be their strength and comfort in times of adversity.


Messianic world saviors who were virgin born, taken from the Persians.

Hellenism came later. The NT is completely Hellenistic, everything in it is from Hellenism. I can detail all of the Hellenistic concepts that entered Judaism (and all the religions in the area)

The Hellenistic World: The World of Alexander the Great

Hellenistic thought is evident in the narratives which make up the books of the Bible as the Hebrew Scriptures were revised and canonized during the Second Temple Period (c.515 BCE-70 CE), the latter part of which was during the Hellenic Period of the region. The gospels and epistles of the Christian New Testament were written in Greek and draw on Greek philosophy and religion as, for example, in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in which the word becomes flesh, a Platonic concept.






Newsflash: Judaism predates Zoroastrianism.

The OT began it's writing in 600 B.C. The Israelites began as a people around 1200.

Mary Boyce:

"The language of the Gathas is archaic, and close to that of the Rigveda (whose composition has been assigned to about 1 700 B. c. onwards); and the picture of the world to be gained from them is correspon,dingly ancient, that of a Stone Age society. Some allowance may have to be made for literary conservatism; and it is also possible that the 'Avestan' people (as Zoroaster's own tribe is called for want of a better name) were poor or isolated, and so not rapidly influenced by the developments of the Bronze Age. It is only possible therefore to hazard a reasoned conjecture that Zoroaster lived some time between 1 700 and 1 500 B.C"

The Persian myths were fully formed by the 2nd Temple Period. It impacted ideas on Satan, Revelation, messianic figures, God vs Satan and more.


As usual, the skeptic focuses on the similarities, with very little (of any) focus on the differences.

At the end there are not many differences. The OT is Mesopotamian and the NT is Greek/Persian.
The early 2nd century apologists like Martyr even told the people Jesus was so much like all the Greek savior demigods because Satan made it look that way to fool Christians.

Saint Justin Martyr (110-165)
Chapter 69
I continued, “that I am established in the knowledge of and faith in the Scriptures by those counterfeits which he who is called the devil is said to have performed among the Greeks; ....
For when they tell that Bacchus, son of Jupiter, was begotten by [Jupiter’s] intercourse with Semele, and that he was the discoverer of the vine; and when they relate, that being torn in pieces, and having died, he rose again, and ascended to heaven; and when they introduce wine into his mysteries, do I not perceive that [the devil] has imitated the prophecy announced by the patriarch Jacob, and recorded by Moses? And when they tell that Hercules was strong, and travelled over all the world, and was begotten by Jove of Alcmene, and ascended to heaven when he died, do I not perceive that the Scripture which speaks of Christ, ‘strong as a giant to run his race,’ has been in like manner imitated? And when he [the devil] brings forward Æsculapius as the raiser of the dead and healer of all diseases, may I not say that in this matter likewise he has imitated the prophecies about Christ? But since I have not quoted to you such Scripture as tells that Christ will do these things, I must necessarily remind you of one such: from which you can understand, how that to those destitute of a knowledge of God, I mean the Gentiles, who, ‘having eyes, saw not, and having a heart, understood not,’ worshipping the images of wood, [how even to them] Scripture prophesied that they would renounce these [vanities], and hope in this Christ.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
The larger picture of what? The closer you are to the time of the event in question, the closer you are to the truth.


That is why the telephone game is an excellent example of how these things typically works.

Iraneus has a completely different scripture than we have today.

Most Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah.

Pliny called Christians "harmless superstition".

there were 40 Gospels.

The original canon was the Marcionite canon, forever lost to us but the OT Yahweh was a different God.

the 2nd century was completely divided as to what the theology actually was, 50% was Gnostic?


In the middle of the second century, the Christian communities of Rome, for example, were divided between followers of Marcion, Montanism, and the gnostic teachings of Valentinus.


Many groups were dualistic, maintaining that reality was composed into two radically opposing parts: matter, usually seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. Proto-orthodox Christianity, on the other hand, held that both the material and spiritual worlds were created by God and were therefore both good, and that this was represented in the unified divine and human natures of Christ.[63] Trinitarianism held that God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all strictly one being with three hypostases.



No, the belief that closer to the event the truth is better goes 100% against modern Christianity being correct.








This is the genetic fallacy.


In that case, those who aren't theologians will assume that it isn't the word of God.


See how that works? That is why you can't logically disregard a proposition based on where it origins.


Islamic theologians know the Quran is the only true word of God.

Same with Hindu theologians.


So theologians are not looking for what is true. They are ASSUMING their beliefs are true and analyzing what "God" meant.


Historians are not assuming anything. Ehrman was a fundamentalist Christian as many other historians were. Why do you think they got into Biblical history. To gain the ability to show how true their religion is.

They had to face what the actual facts are which do not support any religion as being true.




Matthew has almost double the chapters of Mark, including the full post-mortem appearance narrative that Mark lacks.


That is enough to make his account unique enough to be considered independent.


Matthew copies 98% of Mark Verbatim. The rest is made up which can be demonstrated.


The Synoptic Problem (scholarship from Christian scholars, believers) demonstrates Matthew copied Mark

The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org. there are multiple arguments, none debunked.


Some info on Matthew from a historian, this is only some points. He copies Mark, the OT and is writing in a highly structured fictive style. No chance this is history. -


""That Matthew is essentially a redaction of Mark is almost universally agreed. He borrows extensively from Mark (nearly the whole narrative), and frequently duplicates his material verbatim. Matthew added a ridiculous Nativity Narrative (which no reasonable historian should regard as anything but fiction) and a brief but vague resurrection-appearance narrative (to fix what he may have regarded as the unsatisfying ending of Mark), which most historians also doubt is historical, and then revised the material in between, often altering or expanding on the stories Mark had invented, occasionally inventing new ones and adding large sections attributing new teachings to Jesus. (footnotes and sources left out)

.......The material Matthew adds could be wholly fabricated, or could be newly invented historical contexts into which were set what were originally mystically revealed sayings or teachings, or the borrowings of material once written by or about someone else and attributed to Jesus (as in the Eugnostos case we saw earlier). His sources in any case would then be moot. And since we've already seen this is how Mark composed his Gospel, and Matthew simply copies Mark's Gospeland tweaks it and adds to it, we have no good reason to trust he has any more reliable source material than Mark. That Matthew clearly and routinely and even egregiously fabricates narratives (such as his nativity, or hiss absurd redaction of Mark's empty tomb narrative) only further raises the prior probability that this is just what he did everywhere else in his Gospel. We have no particular reason to believe otherwise.


It is generally agreed that Matthew rewrote Mark not only to fix and improve on it but also to reverse it's too Gentile friendly argument....

Matthew comes from a community of Torah-observant Christians and is keen to have Jesus insist that we continue to make all converts remain or become practicing Jews.

Many of Matthew's rewrites reflect this specific need to rewrite Mark. But that Matthew had to do this by rewriting Mark (rather than simply producing his own Gospel) proves that Matthew had no actual independent sources from which to argue his position. He thus had to fabricate what he needed - but not by composing his own text, bur instead simply constructing a better Mark."


Then we get into examples of how Matthew tries to improve Mark but ends up making it into nonsense - riding on two donkeys to literally match Zech 9.9 or destroys Mark's beautiful literary structure by moving events around.


Matthew parallels the baptism of Jesus with the transfiguration of Jesus.

He recrafts the crucifixion narrative to be more of a chiastic literary form (all markers of creating events for a story.

The sermon is organized in triadic structure, far too literary to be casual speech


Richard Carrier, OHJ "The Gospels"


No, they don't.


Unless, they have access to the lost original manuscripts, then they don't know anything.


Sure, they may have their reasons, just like Papias had his reasons for concluding that Matthew was originally written in Hebrew.


How are their assessments more virtuous than Papias? They aren't.


For one Mark was the source for Luke and Matthew, 98% and 85% was copied into each verbatim



[
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
QUOTE="Venni_Vetti_Vecci, post: 7817408, member: 76531"]


Nonsense.



Paul was writing to early Christian congregations as early as the 50's CE...and Paul himself was an early church leader.



The early church leaders, however, are typically referring to the early leaders who stepped to the plate after the original apostles had died off.[/QUOTE]



I'm familiar with the Epistles. Paul saw visions of Jesus. There is no earthly life, family or ANYTHING that Mark had created yet.


But it's known that 50% of early Christianity was Gnostic. I already posted a breakdown of the 2nd century groups. In case you didn't know much of this information comes from the letters of Bishop Irenaeus.


Elain Pagels shows these in her book The Lost Gospels. Irenaeus says it was half Gnostic?



Where do you get your information? Nonsense? Try history?




It is funny that skeptics use this "synoptic problem".



It is a catch 22...because on one hand, the synoptics can't be trusted because there was too much copying and plagiarizing going on.



But on the other hand, once one Gospel differs from the other, then they can't be trusted because they contradict each other.



Hahahaha.



The Gospels can't win, damned if they do, and damned if they don't.




This article is a summary of Robert H. Stein’s The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction.



Robert H. Stein is senior professor emeritus of New Testament interpretation at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.


He is as hardcore Christian as they come.



Yes the Gospels have differences, that has been established. So has the Synoptic Problem and solutions to it. The evidence says Mark is the source. Your issues above have nothing to do with anything?



The Gospels are trusted as fictional narratives about a Hellenized version of Jewish theology.


In Christian scholarship Matthew is a creative reinterpretation of Mark. Fundamentalists can believe whatever they want, that is not what evidence supports. It's no different than Islam. The Quran is a book of revelations and to members of the group it's real. To others it's more fiction. Christianity is no different.
 

paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Subduction Zone said:
I am not saying that you are right or wrong. But where is your evidence that there was no crucifixion? I am not a Christian, but I am aware of their evidence for one. If you cannot provide any then I will have to go with the Christians.

Jesus did not die on the Cross, he was delivered from the Cross in near-dead position but very much alive, was laid in the tomb of Joseph Arimathea, treated in it by his friends and when he was somewhat recovered he came out of it, hence the empty tomb. He did not died to start with so there is no question of any sort of resurrection. Right?
To prove the "resurrection" isn't for one necessary to prove that the person (alleged to have been resurrected/risen) had clinically died, in the first place, please, right??

Regards
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Is there any scientific proof or historic proof that Jesus was resurrected and crucified?
There is historical evidence of Joshua or Jesus claiming to be the Christ was crucified for rebellion against Rome and claiming to be the King of the Jews. The historical evidence of much of the NT is weak at best.

There is no scientific evidence to support any miraculous events including the claim of Resurrection.
 

Kenny

Face to face with my Father
Premium Member
Evidence of Jesus from non-Christian sources is third hand and none during the life of Jesus.
And first hand is not acceptable because they are believers in the resurrection
And those who knew the first hand don’t count because they just believed the lie….

Got it.
 

shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
And first hand is not acceptable because they are believers in the resurrection
And those who knew the first hand don’t count because they just believed the lie….

Got it.
No. the assumptions above reflect an unnecessary bias. No, it is not a matter of whether believers lie or not. Are believers who sincerely believe they saw mermaids and Sasquatch liers?

First, It is just a matter of fact there are not any first hand or any records of the life of Jesus during his life. Zip, Nada, negatory, nothing.

Second, ALL written records concerning the life and existence of Jesus mundane or miraculous date more than 50-200 years after the life of Jesus. The non-Christian references are third hand later references and not during the life of Jesus.

Third, like all ancient religions there are numerous miraculous and supernatural claims of events and people, Absolutely none can be historically verified regardless of which religion we consider in history,.

Fourth, even today miraculous and supernatural claims of events and people remain anecdotal and objectively unverifiable.

Fifth, many people over the history of humanity claim to see visions and some times claim they are real miracles and the supernatural. They are not lyers, it simply cannot documented what they saw is true or false. It is simply not objectively verifiable.
 
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shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
Evidence of Jesus from non-Christian sources is third hand and none during the life of Jesus.
It takes a Creative biased imagination to claim that third party references to a miracle represent evidence of anything without documentation when the persons and events took place.

The word right after miracle in the dictionary is mirage.
 
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shunyadragon

shunyadragon
Premium Member
So, basically speaking, you simply choose modern liberal scholars to those that were closest to the event.
We do not have any sources close to the event.
Next you will be saying "Modern youth believe that the Holocaust was a ruse therefore it was".
Yes some modern youth and others deny the Holocaust, but the Holocaust is an extremely well documented event with numerous eyewitness and physical evidence, We have absolutely no evidence of Jesus Christ during his life.
You didn't debunk my position and until you do, you are on a faulty foundation no matter how you flower it with an abundance of words and analogies.

The bottom line is your position is debunked simply by the lack of historical and objective evidence during the life of Jesus.
 
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paarsurrey

Veteran Member
Subduction Zone said:
I am not saying that you are right or wrong. But where is your evidence that there was no crucifixion? I am not a Christian, but I am aware of their evidence for one. If you cannot provide any then I will have to go with the Christians.

Crucifixion (attachment to a cross, either by nailing or tying).

Resurrection (rising from the dead).

I think that you conflated crucifixion and resurrection.
Friend @Clara Tea
Yes, you are right, I never said that Jesus was not put on the Cross, he was put on the Cross, nevertheless he was delivered from the Cross alive in near-dead position.
So, when Jesus did not die a cursed death on the Cross, he never resurrected from the physically, materially and clinically dead, please, Right?

Regards
 
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