Christians seem to be having faith in the NT authors

[rikuoamero]

A thought has occurred to me and it's something that I just can't ignore.
Instead of believing in Jesus, or having faith in Jesus, what seems to me to be far more likely the truth is that Christians are believing in, or having faith, in the authors of the documents of the New Testament.
Is this really the case? What I see happening is that Christians believe Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, and will cite for example Gospel Matthew or Luke.
Translated, modern Christians believe the anonymous authors of Gospel Luke and Matthew, and assume, though it is not stated in the text, that the authors of Matthew/Luke got their knowledge of a virgin birth from Mary herself.

So question for discussion
Do Christians (tend to) have a faith in the authors of the books of the New Testament, one that strengthens belief in the claims in the texts beyond what ordinary empirical or historical investigations would claim are justified?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 7 by Don McIntosh]

In a sense, yes. The New Testament, like Jesus himself, speaks with a certain authority. But that certainly doesn't mean its claims are not empirically or historically justified.

Is this authority separate to empirical/historical?

[rikuoamero]

Like DI, I've been saying this for years. No one actually believes in Jesus and his miraculous deeds directly, because they simply can't do so. No one has had that opportunity for thousands of years. What they actually believe in is what long dead and likely anonymous writers had to say when writing their stories. It has never gotten traction when I point this out, so better luck to you, bud.

To bjs, no. Your faith most certainly IS in the apostles and writings ABOUT Jesus. You have no other source.

This seems to me too to be what the Christians are doing. bjs mentions a Holy Spirit...but if we take the Bible off the table, pretend it doesn't exist and has never existed, what can bjs give for a person in a null hypothesis state of mind?
Nothing, from what I can see. There's nothing on the table. So what caused bjs to believe the myriad claims, such as Jesus was born of a virgin mother, or died and resurrected? What was the initial impetus? Did the Holy Spirit tell him this? If so, why bother with the Bible at all, and instead do that for each and every human?

[For_The_Kingdom]

I've been saying this for decades. It's impossible to place our faith in Jesus since we have absolutely nothing from Jesus. No writings, or anything.

We don't have writings from King Tut, either. I guess he was never Pharaoh. SMH.

All that exists are the hearsay rumors of the New Testament. Period.

All that exists are writings from either the apostles, or friends of the apostles. Period.

Therefore all we can possibly do is place our faith in the authors of those rumors. That's it. Period.

Or we can apply the historical method to it and see if it stands up to scrutiny..which in this case, it does.

It's actually impossible to place our faith in Jesus

Yet, there are over a billion Christians in the world who place their faith in Jesus. Seems very possible to me.

when all we have is hearsay rumors that have been told about the man.

Yet, virtually all scholars on both sides (the right and the left) accept the historicity of Jesus.

We can't even know if the quotes attributed to Jesus were ever spoken by Jesus.

How do we know any quotes attributed to any person of antiquity?

Christians are taught (at least some of us most certainly were) that the Gospels themselves were the inspired word of God.

Facts. Christians are "taught" certain things that you don't necessarily agree with. But then again, evolutionists are "taught" certain things that I don't necessarily agree with.

No robbery with fair exchange.

In other words, God supposedly guided and told the authors of the Gospels what to write.

Something like that.

And therefore the Gospels are not supposed to be just hearsay rumors, but rather they are supposed to be the inspired, guided, and protected, "Word of God".

This is the idea that Christians are indoctrinated with.

There is a certain stigma that the word "indoctrinated" comes with...and that stigma is that believers are brainwashed, deluded, deceived, etc.

Which is fine. But then again, in science classrooms all across the world, students are also being "indoctrinated". They are being brainwashed, deluded, deceived and taught to believe certain concepts like evolution and abiogenesis.

Again. No robbery with fair exchange.

This is why Christendom is anxious to indoctrinate young children because it requires a someone naive attitude to accept this without question. Children are extremely vulnerable to accepting theological claims that come from religious authorities and especially from their own parents.

^Textbook genetic fallacy.

But anyone rational skeptical adult hearing these theological claims isn't likely to buy into such obvious nonsense.

Right, because only the unbelievers are the rational, logical thinkers..right?

But yes, you are absolutely right. It's impossible to place our faith in Jesus since we have nothing at all that came directly from him.

"So, we should only place our faith in someone if we have something directly coming from that someone."

Non sequitur.

All anyone can do is place their faith in hearsay rumors about Jesus.

What if we don't believe it to be hearsay rumors?

By the way the latter cannot possibly be true. If there were a God who was inspiring, guiding and PROTECTING his earthly doctrines he would have never permitted so many false offshoots being created. (i.e. the continuation of Judaism, Islam, and even false denominations of Christianity).

How do you know what God would do??

And we know with certainty that all the Christian demoninations cannot simultaneously be true as many of them rebuke each other. JW's, for example, rebuke the Catholic Church as the "Whore of Babylon".

Irrelevant to the discussion.

[Don McIntosh]

Give me a miracle story from 2000 years ago that's empirically justified as having occurred.

Okay, I'll go with the resurrection of Jesus. To borrow from W.L. Craig's "minimal facts" approach, there are four accepted (mostly non-controversial among scholars) historical observations that together lend strong support to the bodily resurrection of Jesus:

1. Jesus' burial.
2. The discovery of his empty tomb.
3. The post-mortem appearances to the disciples (or if you prefer, their sworn belief that they had seen Jesus resurrected).
4. The origin of Christianity (the birth and growth of the early church on the preaching of the resurrection, in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus was crucified).

I would add:

5. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus.

Granted, none of this is "empirical" in a strict positivist sense, but hardly anything is.

[Inigo Montoya]

[Replying to post 14 by Don McIntosh]

Your last sentence is enough rebuttal to your own rebuttal for me to leave it alone.

There are no means to empirically verify the Gospel miracle claims. Enough said.

You want to believe Craig or Habermas, who in turn have no choice but to believe in these ancient authors, so be it. People believe in all kinds of things. You don't however get to say these magical events are historically or empirically justified without means to demonstrate it.

[Inigo Montoya]

[Replying to post 13 by For_The_Kingdom]

FotK,

I will give you whatever tokens I have and permanently retire from this forum if you'll quit thinking that attacking science and defending magic are the same thing.

[rikuoamero]

Give me a miracle story from 2000 years ago that's empirically justified as having occurred.

Okay, I'll go with the resurrection of Jesus. To borrow from W.L. Craig's "minimal facts" approach, there are four accepted (mostly non-controversial among scholars) historical observations that together lend strong support to the bodily resurrection of Jesus:

1. Jesus' burial.
2. The discovery of his empty tomb.
3. The post-mortem appearances to the disciples (or if you prefer, their sworn belief that they had seen Jesus resurrected).
4. The origin of Christianity (the birth and growth of the early church on the preaching of the resurrection, in Jerusalem, the very place where Jesus was crucified).

I would add:

5. The conversion of Saul of Tarsus.

Granted, none of this is "empirical" in a strict positivist sense, but hardly anything is.

I don't think you understand what empirical would entail. For one, do we, as in people alive today, have Jesus's tomb to investigate?

[bjs]

This seems to me too to be what the Christians are doing. bjs mentions a Holy Spirit...but if we take the Bible off the table, pretend it doesn't exist and has never existed, what can bjs give for a person in a null hypothesis state of mind?

It is possible that you have misunderstood me. I am not saying that the Holy Spirit reveals to me that the Bible is true. Rather, I am saying that having already come to faith God, that faith lead me to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit inspired the scriptures.

At any rate, I find it odd that non-Christians are boasting that “I have been saying that for years.� Christians have been saying it for centuries! Christianity has always been based on the teachings of the Apostles, and Christians have said so from the beginning.

If we remove faith (and therefore the Holy Spirit) from the issue, then we are left with the issue of if we can trust the Apostles.

Here, for instance, I find it reasonable to conclude based on empirical evidence that the Gospel of Luke was written by the physician Luke. Luke was a sometimes traveling companion of Paul, which is what the author of Luke/Acts claimed he was.

It is reasonable to conclude that Luke got his information about the virgin birth from Mary, or from those who knew Mary, and that he believed that what he was recording was historically accurate.

Now if we agree with Luke that his writings are historically accurate or not is an issue of faith no matter which side of that issue we land on.

[Inigo Montoya]

[Replying to post 18 by bjs]

What is the empirical* evidence that the so called Gospel of Luke was written by a physician and companion to Paul and Jesus named Luke that doesn't make Riku's point?

*based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 18 by bjs]

I don't think you understand what empirical means.

It is reasonable to conclude that Luke got his information about the virgin birth from Mary, or from those who knew Mary, and that he believed that what he was recording was historically accurate.

And beyond that, do you have anything to offer? It may be reasonable in your mind to conclude, but is that a fact? Does the author of Gospel Luke (whom I am not prepared at this time to identify as Luke) actually say that his source is Mary, or that his sources knew Mary?
In terms of credibility, of what worth is a document that says "I talked to eyewitnesses" but does not name them?
Would you believe me if I said "I talked to eyewitnesses and according to them, Trump was born of a virgin mother"?

It is possible that you have misunderstood me. I am not saying that the Holy Spirit reveals to me that the Bible is true. Rather, I am saying that having already come to faith God, that faith lead me to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit inspired the scriptures.

So a Holy Spirit is not required to believe that the Bible is true. One can "come to faith in God" without any contact from, or interaction with, God/Jesus/HS?