Disciples weren't lying because they were tortured
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And AGAIN, you are sneaking back to the idea that the gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. We know that isn't the case. Get that into your head.
There are multiple sources which say they were authored by these men. The evidence you offered in rebuttal were quotes from Wikipedia. What evidence do you have to back the statements you said?
30 seconds of research would have lead you to academic sources that reflect what I said, here is what I found in 30 seconds:
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~jcu/4-7lecture.pdf
http://users.iems.northwestern.edu/~hazen/McDowellRebuttal.html
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/jesusqanda.html
And to make matters worse: you already agreed there are no contemporary sources for the life of Jesus! If the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; they would be contemporary sources...
We you said something that is contemporary, I thought you meant something that was written at the time, or 10-15 years within the event. I believe that two of the gospels (Matthew and John) were eyewitnesses to Jesus. If you believe that to be contemporary, then I believe it is. Sorry for the confusion on my part.
The problems that the above websites offer, what I seem to see (I didn't have time to read every word) are:
1. The supposed lack of contemporary sources
2. Matthew and Luke copying Mark
Please add anything else if you think I missed something.
OK so you didn't like the results of 30 seconds of research. This represents about 5 minutes:
nb4dismisssource
1. What do you mean by 'Historical Analysis', and why is it needed in retelling a story?
2. "Their aim was to confirm Christian faith" - How does this make the gospels non-eyewitness accounts?
3. "Scholars generally agree that the Gospels were written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus." - Again, how does this negate testimony?
UnKnown:
Come on! Every serious scholar knows that the Gospels are not historical narratives. Luke and Matthew get most of their material from Mark when they should have been saying, "Boys and girls, this is how it happened." Mark, himself, is unfamiliar with Palestine and his book appears to be a collection of stories and sayings that have been cobbled together for doctrinal reasons. Read any Bible handbook that doesn't try to sneak Daniel back into the age of Nebuchadnezzar and you will likely get a scholarly account.
Oh yes! Do get a copy of The New Oxford Annotated Bible from which Nyarlathotep was quoting. It's loaded with serious, scholarly notes and essays!
WE don't have any information in support of this assertion either. Do you have evidence that there were disciples or that they were prosecuted or persecuted or prosciuttoed??
MCD,
Are you saying that early Christians weren't persecuted, some to the point of death? If so that is a very big case of historical revisionism.
[quote]1. " His "disciples" were designed as the Greek Chorus by the mythmakers who created them.". Any proof of this?
2. Read Tacitus. Me and "Watchmen" are currently arguing over whether Tacitus is reliable in this forum. And I think there is some stuff from Josephus, although I'm not sure.
3. "People can be wrong and still believe they are telling the truth." I mentioned this statement, although word-for-word, above. The difference between people now not lying about what they believe and people back then, is that people back then were eyewitnesses to what they believe, not just reading or hearing about it.[/quote]
#1 - There is no evidence for any recognizable jesus from the first century. What you are proposing is that the Merry Men could exist without Robin Hood. Totally silly.
#2. Of course I have read Tacitus. I have also read Sulpicius Severus. I have also read Candida Moss' "The Myth of Persecution."
You should, too. You'd learn a lot. In On The Historicity of Jesus, Richard Carrier shows how all that is necessary for the (much) later interpolation
"They key line here is 'Christ, the author of this name, was executed by
the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius'. This is the first-ever
reference to a historical Jesus outside the NT, dating to around 116 CE (very
near our cut-off date for usable evidence). 100
If the passage is authentic. I elsewhere demonstrate (following the arguments
of scholars before me who have argued the same) that this line is
probably an interpolation, and that Tacitus in fact originally described
not the Christians being scapegoated for the fire, but followers of the Jew- ·
ish instigator Chrestus first suppressed under Claudius (as reported by
Suetonius: see §1 1).
Pg 344."
#3 - You are asserting that there were eye-witnesses but you do so with no evidence to back you up. As already noted, there is not a single first century source for your godboy. Barring actual evidence - and by that I do not mean xtian wet dreams - the claims made by modern apologists on behalf of these alleged witnesses must be dismissed. Dismissed with the same fervor as you will doubtlessly dismiss the claims of Mormon "witnesses" for whom we actually have names.
You know there is a document called the Doctrina Jacobi which was written around 536 AD and notes that "there has arisen a new prophet among the Saracens." For a number of reasons no muslim in his right mind would attempt to use this as any sort of basis for Mohammed but the point is that we have actual evidence that someone thought there was a religious component to what was going on in Palestine in the early 6th century. We don't even have that for your boy. If only Pliny, while writing back to Trajan had said something along the lines of "Domini, you won't believe this but these fucking fools actually worship some guy who we crucified 80 years ago in Jerusalem! Ain't that a hoot?" But he didn't. Pliny knows nothing of the jesus story and indeed neither he, nor Suetonius nor Tacitus knows the name "jesus" at all. For that we must wait until the late second century when the Greco-Roman writer Celsus speaks of "jesus." and none too fondly!
Lets look at Jesus from the perspective of someone living in Rome. A random bloke is claiming to be a god. This is happening in the (quite literal) corner of the Roman empire by a people who are nigh-constantly rebelling. Then after 3.5 years he dies. 12 people claim to see him alive. Is this something a Roman historian, who would normally write official happenings done by officials in Rome about would write about? They may have also heard that he has done miracles, but unlike today, magic was something quite often talked about, its not significant. What was spread back then, especially in the poor place of Israel-Palestine in 1st century AD, was word of mouth.
1. There are no contemporary accounts or mentions of Jesus. There should be, so clearly no Jesus existed:
But our sources for anyone in the ancient world are scarce and rarely are they contemporaneous—they are usually written decades or even centuries after the fact. Worse still, the more obscure and humble in origin the person is, the less likely that there will be any documentation about them or even a fleeting reference to them at all. or example, few people in the ancient world were as prominent, influential, significant and famous as the Carthaginian general Hannibal. He came close to crushing the Roman Republic, was one of the greatest generals of all time and was famed throughout the ancient world for centuries after his death down to today. Yet how many contemporary mentions of Hannibal do we have? Zero. We have none. So if someone as famous and significant as Hannibal has no surviving contemporary references to him in our sources, does it really make sense to base an argument about the existence or non-existence of a Galilean peasant preacher on the lack of contemporary references to him?
2. The ancient writer X should have mentioned this Jesus, yet he doesn't do so. This silence shows that no Jesus existed.
There is only one writer of the time who had any interest in such figures, who also had little interest for Roman and Greek writers. He was the Jewish historian Josephus, who is our sole source for virtually all of the Jewish preachers, prophets, faith healers, and Messianic claimants of this time. If there is any writer who should mention Jesus, it's Josephus. And he mentions Jesus. Twice, in fact. Now, his work HAS been tampered with. But what has been tampered with is his description of Jesus, but not his actual mention of him
3. The earliest Christian traditions (Pauline Letters) make no mention of a historical Jesus and clearly worshiped a purely heavenly, mythic-style being.
Since many people who read Mythicist arguments have never actually read the letters of Paul, this one sounds convincing as well. Except it simply isn't true. While Paul was writing letters about matters of doctrine and disputes and so wasn't giving a basic lesson in who Jesus was in any of this letters, he does make references to Jesus' earthly life in many places. He says Jesus was born as a human, of a human mother, and born a Jew (Galatians 4:4). He repeats that he had a "human nature" and that he was a human descendant of King David (Romans 1:3). He refers to teachings Jesus made during his earthly ministry on divorce (1 Cor. 7:10), on preachers (1 Cor. 9:14) and on the coming apocalypse (1 Thess. 4:15). He mentions how he was executed by earthly rulers (1 Cor. 2:8) and that he died and was buried (1 Cor 15:3-4). And he says he had an earthly, physical brother called James who Paul himself had met (Galatians 1:19).
The above 3 paragraphs are found on this website, and is authored by an atheist historian: http://www.strangenotions.com/an-atheist-historian-examines-the-evidence...
Polybius was a contemporary of Hannibal, and worse still Sosylus of Lacedaemon actually knew Hannibal well and accompanied him on one of his campaigns! Ridiculous!
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Have you already forgotten about the other events that (supposedly) took place during the death of Jesus? Like the zombies walking around in Jerusalem? Yeah, I think that would have gotten mentioned by all of the historians living in the region at the time (and there were several). Somehow, they ALL missed it!
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You know what is really odd? 100% of the Christian's I've talked to in my life that admit there is no contemporary sources for Jesus, immediately retorted that historical figure X also has no contemporary sources; and 100% of those historical figures they suggested (reflexively?) actually do have contemporary sources. Isn't that weird?
1. Hannibal: I didn't know that thanks. I'm assuming that what your are saying is true, I found that information on a website that was authored by an atheist, I assumed what he was saying was true. I apologize for the inconvenience. Rebuttal: This was someone who led the attack against (debatably) the greatest empire ever. Jesus was a hippie in the middle of nowhere.
2. Zombies:
a. We have limited accounts from the first century about the middle east.
b.. It says 'many'. It could mean 10-1000.
c. "They...appeared to many people". It doesn't mean they were recognized. Jesus, after his resurrection, walked and talked with two apostles for a while. They didn't recognize him until he left. Just because other people saw them, doesn't mean other people recognized them. Also, when the crowds are exposed to a miracle, it is recorded something like, "The crowds were amazed". Not here
d. After Lazarus came back, the Teachers of the Law went of to plot on how to kill him because many people went off to believe in Jesus after Lazarus' resurrection. The Teachers of the Law also paid soldiers to keep quiet about Jesus coming back to life. Do you think they would also put the resurrection of others if they actually have had occurred?
3. "Isn't that weird?": Your assuming that it is weird because Jesus didn't have contemporary source, but the apostles did. Well, whom had the greater direct effect on Rome, Jesus or the apostles?
I'll let you in on a little secret: I don't think anyone here cares that X was said by an atheist. Stupid statements are stupid no matter who makes them.
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Either you can produce an account of the zombies in Jerusalem or you can't; I don't care about your excuses.
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Again, you are assuming the story is true, to establish that the story is true. Funny how you can't seem to resist doing this.
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That is not at all what I was saying. I was saying it is odd that 100% of the Christians I have talked to that meet the criteria; IMMEDIATELY retorted with wildly inaccurate statements claiming that there are no contemporary sources for X (the only difference in your case is you were the first to mention Hannibal, normally they say Julius Caesar, but I have heard others). It is almost as if they (and you) don't care about the truth of your claims; and that they are just reflex actions. What is also funny is that you responded to that observation with what seems like another reflex action.
1. "I'll let you in on a little secret: I don't think anyone here cares that X was said by an atheist. Stupid statements are stupid no matter who makes them." - I said this so the author I sited it from couldn't be accused of religious bias.
2. I can't. What I said, "We have limited accounts from the first century about the middle east." and other were reasons why it was not recorded.
3. I am suggesting that the heads of the Jewish religion had reason to subjugate resurrection.
4. The site where I found Hannibal said there were no contemporary sources for Hannibal. Him being an atheist, I saw no reason for him to be wrong.
Nyarlathotep:
A letter writer for the local paper once did that very thing! My next letter, also published, left him firmly attached to a cross! (He was alleging that Jesus was as historical as Julius Caesar!)
Right! Hannibal was just a new twist to this very old (and nonsensical) claim.
"But our sources for anyone in the ancient world are scarce and rarely are they contemporaneous—they are usually written decades or even centuries after the fact. Worse still, the more obscure and humble in origin the person is, the less likely that there will be any documentation about them or even a fleeting reference to them at all. "
And once again we are treated to the GREAT XTIAN PARADOX. They will tell is that their godboy was so famous and important that the whole province was aflame with the multitudes of his followers who lined the streets in a ripoff of a Roman triumph and so scared the shit out of the powers that existed that they had to break every rule in their own fucking book to hold a trial on fucking passover! But, at the very same time, he was so insignificant that no one noticed him or any of his bullshit magic tricks.
Make up your minds.
Hope is a many faceted word. One concerns immortality. To fashion the vehicle for that we have to have an infrastructure in the form of real-world evidence that, conveniently, can and is fabricated from thin air to suit any and all arguments to its opposition. One such work is the bible. There is no doubt that many historical characters and events that are not related to the supernatural are also false, such as King Arthur's Knights Of The Round Table. Great stories, but they do not have much to support factual historicity.
But, hope is still what it is, a work of imagination. If hope cannot be wrought in the factual sense, any argument to qualify its off-spring, such as immortality, is not valid. To offer the argument that imagination is the work of a god is, again, grounded in the imagination and one man's interpretation will always remain distinct as his alone. Why? We still have no tangible evidence of the god he claims gifted it to him. So, his imagination remains his own simple and contrived psychic fashioning of the hope he aspires to. Furthermore, projecting one's imagination as having a foundation in reality will fetch the belly laugh of the nearest person in earshot of the statement, and be immediately dismissed as a loyal companion to lunacy.
Going back, again, to the topic of this thread, there is no evidence that any of the biblical characters were extant as the bible tells us they were. But, if a theist cares to read and many do not out of denial, there is ample information available supporting the lack of historicity for the bible's claims. And, we do know that it was not put to pen until some 100 years after, meaning, contributors to the writing of the bible were far removed from any factual basis the bible hopes to convey.
http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html
http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian_controversy
http://www.bidstrup.com/bible2.htm
"Lets look at Jesus from the perspective of someone living in Rome. A random bloke is claiming to be a god. This is happening in the (quite literal) corner of the Roman empire by a people who are nigh-constantly rebelling."
We don't have to have a random bloke. Such a man is Celsus who wrote:
""Again, if God, like Jupiter in the comedy, should, on awaking from a lengthened slumber, desire to rescue the human race from evil, why did He send this Spirit of which you speak into one corner (of the earth)? He ought to have breathed it alike into many bodies, and have sent them out into all the world. Now the comic poet, to cause laughter in the theatre, wrote that Jupiter, after awakening, despatched Mercury to the Athenians and Lacedaemonians; but do not you think that you have made the Son of God more ridiculous in sending Him to the Jews?"..."
Your history is weak. The people of Judaea petitioned Augustus Caesar to remove Herod's son, Archilaus, as their tetrarch and wished to become a Roman prefecture. Augustus granted the request. The prefect took up residence in Caesarea leaving the Sanheddrin to exercise a fair degree of home rule in Jerusalem. For the rest of Augustus reign and all of Tiberius' the situation in Judaea was quite stable. The shit hit the fan when Caligula became emperor but you guys keep telling us that your godboy was already dead by then. No. The revolts came later and depict a garbled history among the much later gospel writers who could not even understand that Bethlehem and "Nazareth" - if it even existed at the time - were in different countries and the citizens of one would not be expected to participate in a census in the other.
Martyrdom. It works. If they died for their beliefs, there must be something to it, and all that.
If they died for their belief, their beliefs had to be true? Is that your assertion? So the 911 hijackers died for their beliefs. Does that mean there must be something to islam and jihad and 69 virgins and all that?
There is no real evidence that there even were any disciples, and absolutely no information on how, if they did indeed, exist, they died. The writings of Paul mention Peter and James, but no one else, so they were probably real people, but there is nothing anywhere outside of the gospels that they existed. Eusebius of Cesearea, the first historian of the church made up most of the persecutions, which, while they did happen, were local events, done because Christians were thought to be committing incest and cannibalism at their meetings, which were !. illegal, 2 private affairs in private residences, 3. done at night, at which they kissed each other, sacrificing babies and eating the flesh and drinking the blood. The meetings were illegal, because meetings required a permit from the Roman government, when the Roman government would not even give fire brigades a permit to meet, for fear that they were formenting revolution. There were emperors who outlawed Christianity, but left punishments to local authorities who were either too lazy to enforce it, or, as in same cases, Christian showed up at their doorstep demanding to be martyred, .
good site https://www.atheistrepublic.com/
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