The virgin birth story. Should we believe it?

notachance · Post by **notachance** » Mon Aug 22, 2011 10:27 pm

Claim 1: Jesus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 2: Krishna was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 3: Buddha was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 4: Mitra was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 5: Marduk was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 6: Horus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 7: Notachance NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 8: Perseus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 9: Theseus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 10: Dionyus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 11: Hercules was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 12: Pan was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 13: Ion was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 14: Romulus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 15: Asclepius was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 16: Helen was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 17: Alexander the Great was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 18: Augustus was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 19: Zarathustra was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 20: Huitzilopochtli was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 21: Pharaoh Amenkept III was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 22: The sun God Ra was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 23: Genghis Khan was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 24: Melanippe was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 25: Auge was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 26: Attis was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 27: Antiope was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Claim 28: Auge was NOT conceived in a normal man-and-woman-have-sex way
Author of claim: Unknown
Date claim was made: Unknown
Empirical evidence in support of claim: None

Questions for debate:
Is there any good reason to take all of these claims seriously?

Is there are any good reasons to take half of them seriously, but not the other half?

Is there any good reason to take one of them seriously, but take all the other ones not seriously?

If you had a personal religious experience in which a voice in your head told you that Genghis Khan was born of a virgin, would you believe it? If not, why not?

Composer · Post by **Composer** » Tue Sep 27, 2011 9:54 pm

catalyst wrote:
Composer wrote:
catalyst wrote:
Composer wrote:[font=Arial]But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, [though] thou be little among the thousands of Judah, [yet] out of thee shall he come forth unto me [that is] to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth [have been] from of old, from everlasting. {everlasting: Heb. the days of eternity} (Micah 5:2) KJV Story book

Why were there NO High Priests, nor Sadducees, nor Pharisees in attendence at Bethlehem IF the birth of this highly anticipated and prophesied ' Jewish Messiah ' was to be born in Bethlehem according to the well-known prophecy of Micah 5:2, known well enough that simple shepherds were aware (apparently?).

Also, interestingly enough to read Micah 5:2, Bethlehem Ephratah is a clan and not actually a PLACE (as in: town, city, village..etc).

Hmm!, where did you get that from, you provided no legitimate evidence?

The Tanakh

Michah - Micah - Chapter 5

1. And you, Bethlehem Ephrathah-you should have been the lowest of the clans of Judah-from you [he] shall emerge for Me, to be a ruler over Israel; and his origin is from of old, from days of yore.

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo ... pter-5.htm

This is also backed up by verses in 1 Chronicles 2:

50. These were the sons of Caleb the son of Hur, the firstborn of Ephrathah: Shobal the father of Kirjath-Jearim.
51. Salma the father of Bethlehem, Hareph the father of Beth-Gader.
52. And Shobal the father of Kirjath-Jearim, who ruled over half the Menuhoth, had sons.
53. And the families of Kirjath-Jearim: the Jithrites, and the Puthites, and the Shumathites, and the Mishrathites; from these came the Zorathites and the Eshtaolites.
54. The sons of Salma: Bethlehem, and the Netophathites, Atroth Beth-Joab, and half the Manahtites, [and] the Zorathites.
55. And the families of scholars, those who dwelt with Jabez: Tirathites, Shimathites, Suchathites; they are the Kinites, who were descended from Hammath, the father of the house of Rechab.

composer wrote:
Conversely, the following sources state: e.g. -

Ephratah was the ancient name of Bethlehem Judah during the time of Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes. There was much history in this location, Jacob buried his beloved Rachel near the gate at Bethlehem, it also was the home of Ruth and the birthplace of king David, and of course "David's greater son" the Lord Jesus Christ. Bethlehem means the House of Bread, and the land was inherited by the tribe of Judah, the messianic tribe. (Source: http://www.bible-history.com/sketches/i ... ratah.html (My Emphasis))

Frankly, considering how many christians throughout the history have fabricated info in an attempt to support their chose cause, it does not surprise me that bible-history.com would make such a claim. I also have no doubt that they also claim that Josephus in Antiquities also was referring to "Jesus of Nazareth" when he mentioned the name, Jesus. In actuality, the ancient name of Bethlehem was Beit Lahama, originally settled by the Canaanites and named after one of their gods: Lahama. They even built a temple in this god's honour way back, on the mount where there "Church of the Nativity" is now located, which BTW was commissioned to be done in the 4th century CE by Constantines mama, Helena. The original "nativity" church was completed in 333CE but was destroyed and then rebuilt around 565 CE.Strange isn' that an strange that an event alleged to have happened circa 6BCE - 10BCE, had not grabbed enough attention, perhaps not thought worthy enough to even "comemmorate" until some CENTURIES later. Also interesting that Nazareth had not been mentioned AT ALL in ANY OT texts. Joshua 19 for example mentions ,a whole heap of places, within near spitting distance of where Nazareth is now, but again.. no Nazareth. Likewise no historians or geographers of the (c) time mention it. Josephus for example (born c. 37CE),lived part of his life in a town called Japha, just one mile southwest of where Nazareth NOW is, but didn't mention Nazareth either, despite mentioning at least 40 Galillean towns, villages, cities in his writings. I personally find that odd, considering this place was supposedly an IMPORTANT locale

Nazareth had no mention in geography OR history at all, until the 4th century, and surprise surprise...it appears to have stemmed from Helena and Constantine, which it seems MUCH of the whole "nativity" concept, was born.

composer wrote:

Strong's renders Micha 5:2
BDB/Thayers # 672
0672 'Ephraath {ef-rawth'} or 'Ephrathah {ef-raw'-thaw}
from 06509;;
AV - Ephrath 5, Ephratah 5; 10
Ephrath or Ephratah = "ash-heap: place of fruitfulness"
n pr loc
1) a place near Bethel where Rachel died and was buried
2) another name for Bethlehemn pr f
3) wife of Caleb [/font]
Strong's has been wrong before multiple times, hence bringing out "stronger strong's", in the claim to rectify the glaringly obvious flaws. Funnily enough, the "stronger" strong's still holds many of its original errors. *shrug* What it did get right it seems, as per the tanakh at least, is that Ephrathah was Caleb's wife (his second wife anyway ).

It seems the more research done and the findings from this research on the DSS; the more Strong's is WRONG.

Composer wrote:
&

Shepherds allegedly ' made it known abroad ' after their visit to see the babe Jesus, so the Jews would undoubetdly have also been informed or made aware, but there is no record of them even bothering to see for themselves. That proves again, that the whole incident is spurious. - And when they had seen [it], they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. 18 And all they that heard [it] wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. (Luke 2:17 - 18) KJV story book

Having seen and, they published around the declaration that having been told to them concerning the little child this. Luke 2:18 And all those having heard wondered about those having been told by the shepherds to them. (Luke 2:17 - 18) EMPHATIC DIAGLOTT (LHS) story book

And having seen it, they published THAT DECLARATION which had been SPOKEN to them about this CHILD. 18 And All THOSE HAVING HEARD, wondered at the THINGS RELATED to them by the SHEPHERDS. (Luke 2:17 - 18) EMPHATIC DIAGLOTT (RHS) story book

Hence you other conclusions are likewise currently in serious doubt as to their legitimacy?

Well, considering the information I have included above is from the tanakh as to bethlehem and it quite obviously being determined to refer to a CLAN rather than a PLACE, then frankly, I reckon the original Hebrew writings hold much more water, when translated into english by fluent speakers of Hebrew.

As to Luke...... it appears that no one.. whether abroad or LOCALS knew of anything regarding to the events the writings of Luke prattled on about. Such info is no where BUT biblical account. Gee, even Mark nor John (supposedly Jesus' cousin) didn't have ONE WORD to say on it. Re John.... considering Jesus' "virgin" mum was the one to supposedly pass onto Elizabeth, that she was preggers with John, ( message left at the same time to pass on when Gabe's came to tell Mary that "God" was gonna supernaturally rape her so she could have "jesus") there would have AT LEAST been "talk" amongst family as to the "miracles" surrounding, not ONLY John's but also Jesus' birth.. But....NADA from John at all!

For the record too, from memory, I don't believe that Paul even talked of any "virgin birth" in Bethlehem NOR mentioned Nazareth in any way, shape or form. One would think that if "jesus christ" visited Paul in a vision, even after a smack to the head..... and his "vision" was REAL, that "jesus christ" would have clued him in.

There are other things I would perhaps like to add or even reiterate, but I don't have time now and also, there are a couple of other comments on other threads I still have to reply to. I look forward to your reply, Composer.

Catalyst

Hello notachance, I appreciate your not wanting your OP distracted from but the Bethlehem-Ephratah discussion I honestly believe is a necessary portion of it. I hope you agree and then I can continue after concerning other points confirming the bible Story book virgin birth another baseless and fraudulent bible Story book claim!

Concerning Bethlehem-Ephratah, I have researched further and discovered far, far, far more legitimate evidence supporting and reinforcing my case than the little evidence weakly supporting at best my current Satan/adversary named ' catalyst '. -

1. Source: http://www.israelect.com/reference/Will ... trines.htm

2. Holman Bible Dictionary (Source: http://www.studylight.org/dic/hbd/view.cgi?number=T898)

BETHLEHEM-EPHRATAH
(KJV) or BETHLEHEM-EPHRATHAH (NAS, NIV, NRSV) used by Micah 5:2 , (Composer's RED) that of Jesse, David's father (1 Samuel 17:12).

Apart from that, I believe we appear to agree that the biblical Story book is just that, a Story book and such events as the virgin birth of a jesus born of a god(s) Luke 1:35 is just an external Story book fictional event.

I again do not wish to change Topics but will mention in passing, that the so called claim that the trinitarian father of this fictional child was ' god the father person '(apparently)is another proven trinitarian lie, because Luke 1:35 states according to trinitarian hypothetical ideology, that it had to have been their alleged ' holy-spirit person ' (I believe the bible supports Mary was forcibly raped by it & Joseph, intimidated & coersed) and thus the literal trinitarian alleged father was NOT their ' god the father person '.

WinePusher · Post by **WinePusher** » Wed Sep 28, 2011 8:19 am

fredonly wrote:I took exception with your statement that the idea that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses makes "utterly no sense at all" because it sounds dismissive. Some very intelligent and knowledgeable scholars, including someone you respect, believes it DOES make sense. Although I agree you don't need to take their word for it, it is a bit disingenuous to cavalierly dismiss their reasoning. They have good reasons for drawing this conclusion. You can only hope to have better reasons for drawing a different conclusion.

Objectively, it will boil down to evaluating the evidence and determining what is the best explanation for the evidence. We may never agree on what is the best explanation, but we can perhaps identify the specific assumptions or interpretations upon which we disagree.

I know you did. And I know Brown agrees with you. As far as I can tell from reading your post, the sad state of affairs is that Brown merely asserts it as truth, he does not offer evidential justification for it. You have tried offering justification for it, but as I've been saying your reasons are simply absurd. Why can't you see that? If we were to only look at this situation at the surface, the obvious explanation would be that the disciples of Jesus took it upon themselves to write written biographies of his life in order to persuade their audience of a truth that they themselves came to recognize by their first hand experience of Jesus. But because you are what you are, an agnostic, that explanation does not sit well with your worldview.

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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:Iâ€™ve never heard anyone suggest that â€œeyewitnessâ€� meant something different in a historical context than in any other context. Honestly, it sounds to me like your broadening the term to fit your needs. The following is from a book on Historiography, from the chapter on Source Criticism:

Howell_and_Prevenier wrote:â€¦the chief elements of source criticism as traditionally practiced [are]:â€¦5. Authorial authority: With what authority does the author of a source, perhaps a newspaper reporter or a compiler of facts about a nineteenth-century harvest, speak? Was he an eyewitness to the events he describes or did he participate in the design of the system for collecting the information? Was he even alive when the events he records are meant to have taken place? Is his information second, or third, or fourth hand? â€¦Understandably, authors are usually reluctant to acknowledge that they do not have such firsthand knowledge, for the revelation diminishes their authority. And rightly so, for the greater the number of intermediaries between the original telling of an event and the version that our source contains, the more chance there is of distortions. Historians thus make strenuous efforts to locate the truly firsthand reports of an event to trace the relationship of other existing versions of the report to that original record.
[emphasis added by fredonly]
--From Reliable Sources â€“ An Introduction to the Historical Method, Martha Howell & Walter Prevenier
Nothing here even remotely refutes my argument..

You seem to be overlooking this key point, so I'll repeat it: the number of intermediaries between the original telling of an event and the version that our source contains, the more chance there is of distortions. Jesus conception and birth are EVENTS. You are arguing in this debate that this specific, implausible event actually occurred, so this element of the historical method is directly applicable.
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winepusher wrote: If the Gospels were written by the individuals whose names they bear, then they all are considered the testimonies of eyewitnesses and the entirety of their contents are also considered the products of eyewitnesses.

In a generic way, this is true. However when critically evaluating a sourceâ€™s information, to potentially use it to support a historical hypothesis, it is appropriate to evaluate the eyewitness testimony. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... s_evidence, see item 2: How well could the author observe the thing he reports? Were his senses equal to the observation? Was his physical location suitable to sight, hearing, touch? Did he have the proper social ability to observe: did he understand the language, have other expertise required (e.g., law, military); was he not being intimidated by his wife or the secret police?

Do you reject the historical method ? Do you reject just portions of it? Do you feel the Bible should be exempt, since itâ€™s the word of God? If you are using some alternate standard, please provide the source that describes it.
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winepusher wrote: For the sake of clarification, I'll reiterate my argument. Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses to Jesus, and while Mark and Luke were not they received their information from eyewitnesses. The absurdity in your position is that even if this premise was historically true, these four accounts would not qualify as eyewitness accounts because these four individuals failed to be physically and visually present at every single event listed in the Gospels. That is a modern, legal understanding of the term and it is not congruent with Ancient History because it would disqualify a written account as an eyewitness account simply because the eyewitness who wrote it failed to physically see every single item mentioned in the account. And under both your distorted definition and my definition, there is no eyewitness testimony available for the virgin birth narrative. So you and others should stop putting words in my mouth. .

The position you call "absurd" and "distorted" are the objective standards of modern historical research! This is not me inserting a legalism, or attempting to unfairly evaluate the gospels in an unfair or unique manner. I'm calling for objective analysis, which you are rejecting through a fallacious special pleading. If your position is based on fideism, then admit it and we can leave it at that. But if you're attempting to show that there is a sound historical basis for accepting the virginal conception/birth â€“ then you have no choice but to accept the modern standards of historiography. Make up your mind which it is.

In case you have an idealistic view of ancient history, consider this:

Breisach wrote: Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chapter3: The Limits of Greek Historiography, p33-34] --
History as scholarship was known to few people. History as political narrative or local story had a somewhat greater public appeal. History as dramatic account â€“ serious or frivolous-received the major share of attention. ..The historians who dramatized their accounts, told anecdotes, and did not shy away from trivia to enhance the human interest wanted history to offer its listeners and readers mimesis, an imitation of reality which, like drama, "involved" them by stirring up their emotions, even passionsâ€¦Long prevented from joining philosophy in interpreting human life, and never perceiving history as the attempt to reconstruct the past for the love of truth alone, historians utilized the techniques of drama in order to evoke emotions, convey a lesson or two, and above all entertain. He quotes from one ancient historian (Polybius) condemning the practices of other historians:
Though their subjects are simple and without complications, they seek the name and reputation of historians not from the truth of their facts, but the number of their books, and accordingly they are obliged to give petty affairs an air of importance, and fill out and give rhetorical flourishes to what was originally expressed briefly; dress up actions and achievementsâ€¦and are not at all satisfied with me for giving a more truthful relation of such events as they really occurred...Polybius, The Histories

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WinePusher wrote: My argument from the outset has been that we know of the virgin birth of Jesus from individuals who were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, and although the specific mode of transmission is unknown (meaning that we don't know who exactly told Matthew and Luke) we do know that they derived the information from two disconnected sources. These facts alone grant the narrative an enormous amount of credence.

What is the basis for saying â€œwe knowâ€� Matthew and Luke derived their information about the virginal conception and birth from two different sources. I agree it is possible, but it seems a severe overstatement to say â€œwe knowâ€� this. At best, you can state that itâ€™s a hypothesis that is a better explanation than the alternatives. Letâ€™s consider some alternative hypotheses about the sources used by Matthew and Luke.

Facts to be dealt with:1) the presence of 2 propositions in common between the two nativity stories (virginal conception; born in Bethlehem); 2) at least one of the Nativity stories is not true with regard to the other details (because the two stories conflict with one another).

Hypothesis 1: A single source had the common information â€“ the 2 propositions and nothing more. Luke and Matthew received this and each wove these propositions into narratives that they each constructed.

Hypothesis 2M: Matthew received a full nativity narrative, Luke received just a sketch with the 3 common points. Luke expanded these points into his narrative of his own making.

Hypothesis 2L: Luke received a full nativity narrative, Matthew received just a sketch with the 3 common points. Matthew expanded these points into his narrative of his own making.

Hypothesis 1 is the better explanation. There is evidence that Matthew and Luke had 2 common sources (Mark and Q). Such information could certainly be in Q. Thereâ€™s no reason to assume yet another common source (principle of parsimony). The other hypotheses require more distinct sources.

If hypothesis 2M is true, then we should assume â€œMâ€� contained a complete nativity narrative (one that is possibly true).; L contained just the two sketchy propositions which Luke weaved into a narrative. But this begs the question of where L received the sketchy information from â€“ it implies yet another source, making this hypothesis less parsimonious in terms of number of assumed sources. In addition, why would one assume Matthew is more trustworthy than Luke in his reporting? Since we know ONE story is fictional, thereâ€™s no particular reason to assume the OTHER is factual, other than wishful thinking.

Exactly the same argument can be made against hypothesis 2L.

Feel free to offer additional hypotheses, or provide new defenses for the above ones.
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WinePusher wrote:
But the part of your source that is worthy of discussion is this: 'And rightly so, for the greater the number of intermediaries between the original telling of an event and the version that our source contains, the more chance there is of distortions.' While that is true, it is not relevant if my premise is correct. If my premise is correct then no intermediaries would exist because they would have been written down from memory.

How can you possibly suggest that there was no intermediary, when the ONLY person with direct knowledge of the alleged virginal conception is Mary? Even if Mary told the evangelist directly, the evangelist is secondary to the one and only eyewitness. And the problem with THIS assumption is that there is no evidence that this occurred, it is an ad hoc rationalization for the a priori assumption that the virginal conception is true; it is not a deduction from the evidence.

Winepusher wrote:What you fail to recognize if that even though the Gospels were written decades after the fact, they were written down within living memory of the facts.

Sure, some people were alive that had seen Jesus during the period of time the Gospels were written. This would be relevant if the Gospels were written in Aramaic in Palestine. Even had they been, it is Greek versions that came down to us, and were in circulation in the Greek speaking world. How do Aramaic speakers control the content of the stories circulating in Greek?
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WinePusher wrote:The individual comes to know of the event by the spread of information through the society. I'll go back to my previous example. There were only a handful of people physically present at the assassination of Julius Caesar, but due to the cataclysmic nature of the event the information spread and others became informed.

You've already described some key differences: a "handful of people" were physically present at Ceasar's assassination, while only one person was present at the conception. The "cataclysmic" nature of the event would naturally result in the news spreading about the killing; a conception is not noteworthy.

WinePusher wrote:These people still qualify as 'eye-witnesses' to the death of Caesar even though they were not physically present.

That's not true! Only those present were actually eyewitnesses. The historians of the time tell us there were 40 conspirators; 21 of them are named (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassinat ... nspirators).

But although the historians who record the event weren't eyewitnesses, the large number that were involved provide a plausible basis for the information becoming well known. And of course, it had immediate political impact on the empire.

Who was present when Jesus' zygote appeared within Mary's womb? Who was watching her before that to ensure she was a virgin? There is no plausible source for this information. The conception of Jesus by a peasant woman was an everyday, trivial matter.

WinePusher wrote: And no disciples were near the vicinity of Mary when the conception occurred since they themselves were either not born yet, or children. I am contending that the Evangelists Matthew and Luke were eye-witnesses to the ministry of Jesus Christ and they would have received information about the virgin birth during that duration.

From WHOM could they have received this? There is no credible evidence of any chain of custody of the information, so it is complete hearsay â€“ hearsay about an implausible event.

WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham makes the argument that the Gospels are derived from eyewitness testimony. He does not conclude that they CONSIST OF eyewitness testimony. This is an important distinction, in general, but especially so in the case of the virginal conception hypothesis.
Where does Bauckham say this? .

Here's a summary comment, toward the end of the book:

Bauckham wrote:Page 472: In one case, we have argued, an eyewitness has authored his own Gospelâ€¦Not being eyewitnesses themselves, the other Gospel writers are less theologically ambitious.â€�

In his study, Bauckham tested the evidence â€“ trying to make the case for the Gospels being eyewitness accounts. The evidence against the synoptics was so strong that even he couldnâ€™t deny the fact that they were clearly not written by eyewitnesses. He does decide that John is an eyewitness, but itâ€™s not the disciple John, the son of Zebedee. He identifies the evangelist as John the Elder.

Iâ€™ll add that Bauckham is up front about his starting pointâ€�

Bauckham wrote:I suggest that we need to recover the sense in which the Gospels are testimonyâ€¦Trusting testimony is not an irrational act of faith that leaves critical rationality aside; it is, on the contrary, the rationally appropriate way of responding to authentic testimony. Gospels understood as testimony are the entirely appropriate means of access to the historical reality of Jesus.

Bauckham is an apologist, who begins with his assumption that the Gospels represent testimony, and identifies support for this assumption. He does not, however, consider the broad alternatives. He never questions the plausibility aspects of the alleged â€œtestimony,â€� nor consider alternative (more plausiblie) explanations as to what is behind the stories. When discussing John, he ignores the evidence that (for example) Raymond Brown utilizes, that lead Brown to conclude the Gospel was the product of a community (multiple authors)â€“ and that it is more of a community history than a historical account of Jesus. If Brown is even partly right, then Bauckham must be wrong. For Bauckham to be right, he needs to provide alternate explanations for the narrative breaks and mixed messages that Brown identifies.

winepusher wrote:This assessment is only true for Mark and Luke, if they actually wrote their Gospels they would have derived the information from actual eyewitnesses. Luke's sources are unknown, but Mark's source is clear. It was Peter.

It is erroneous to call it â€œclearâ€� that Peter was Mark's source. There is exactly one tenuous bit of evidence that Mark had personally gotten his information from Peterâ€™s preaching: a brief comment by Papias. We discussed this a good bit in the Resurrection Contradictions debate. Papiasâ€™ testimony in this regard is highly suspect.

winepusher wrote: The book you cite devotes pages to the idea that Mark is simply channeling Peter in his Gospel, and if the Two-Sourced-Hypothesis is actually true the Petrine Perspective in Mark would still remain in tact, making at least one of the four Gospels a genuine eyewitness account.

Bauckham identifies some components of Mark that are consistent with the notion that this Gospel is, in some sense, derived from Peter's teaching. He counts the number of references to Peter, and more significantly, he interprets the way Peter is depicted. He notes that other scholars have suggested that Peter is portrayed negatively; but Bauckham casts this is in a broader context, suggesting that the portrayal is consistent with a Petrine self-denigration from humility.

While it may be true that Mark is somehow derived from a Petrine perspective, somewhere in its lineage, there is not a strong case to conclude that Mark received it directly from Peter. Other scholars have suggested that the role depicted of Peter is simply consistent with the established fact that Peter was a recognized leader of the "Christian" church â€“ one of the "pillars" of whom Paul spoke. But you seem to ignore the qualifications and cast away all other possibilities, since you "know" Mark's source was Peter. Such â€œknowledgeâ€� can only be fideism. It is an objective fact that we cannot know who wrote the Gospel, nor can we know what relationship the author may have had with the disciple Peter, or anyone else. The past is lost to us. Itâ€™s all hypothesis, with very little hard data to support it.
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WinePusher wrote:

WinePusher wrote:The basic idea is correct. The Evangelists wanted to convey a persona about Jesus and also wanted their readers to accept it. The problem is, why does this matter?
fredonly wrote:It matters because the ancient biographers make up details to convey their view of the subjectâ€™s character, so being of the genre â€œancient biographyâ€� does not imply any specific stories are true.
No, you're stretching it when you say a biographer would go so far as to make up stories just to fit their perception of the individual. That undermines my argument that the perception a biographer has is derived from the facts of the subjects life..

I'm not stretching it at all, I'm relating to you what has been observed by historians, it's a common characteristic of ancient biographies. See my above quote from Breisach.

Consider Alexander the Great. One of the original sources of information about him was from Callisthenes, a relative and companion of Alexander. We don't have his original work, but it was a source used by later historians. What has come down to us, through these later historians, is that Callisthenesâ€¦

Breisach wrote:â€¦ seems not to have hesitated to depict Alexander as the hero favored by the gods: one whose ancestry even may lead back to Zeus and Achilles.

A purported descent from Zeus seems to me to be a virtually identical level of embellishment to a descent from Yahweh. And in the example I give, there is an established chain of evidence, from a contemporary and companion of Alexander. This is a chain of evidence that is historically more credible than you have regarding the alleged virginal conception/birth of Jesus. And yet, no one today believes Alexander is really descended from Zeus.
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:If the evangelist himself did not witness the events he is portraying, then he can only report what he thinks he heard about the event. Every link in the chain, from observer to evangelist, presents an opportunity for distortion of the alleged historical facts â€“ as described above in my quote from the Howell & Prevenier book on the Historical Method.
I understand that but it is only true if your theory of authorship is correct. If my theory is correct then what you have written is irrelevant because there would be no opportunity for distortion because there would exist no intermediaries.

Unless the author personally witnessed an event, then there are intermediaries. You continue to blur the "eyewitness" distinction, vaguely suggesting that a companion of Jesus would have knowledge of anything about him that is written in a Gospel. It simply doesnâ€™t work.
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WinePusher wrote:

WinePusher wrote:For example: Suetonius portrays the character of Nero as that of a musician and a lover of arts. The persona Suetonius creates is based upon the fact that Nero played music and performed. Similarly, the Evangelists convey the character of Jesus as Divine, a Savior, and a Healer. The persona the Evangelists create is based upon the fact that Jesus did miraculous things that indicated his divinity.
fredonly wrote:IFJesus actually did truly miraculous things , then sure, this would have resulted in these being reported. But did he? What evidence is there of this?
You actually, and probably unintentionally, articulated the 'evidence' better than I could have. You say that the goal of the Ancient Biographer was to convey his perception of the person whom he writes about. We both agree about the perception the Evangelists had about Jesus and that it was their goal to emphasis this perception. But you fail to explain how the perception is formed in the first place. I offered my explanation which you did not refute. The perception an Ancient Biographer creates is the result of the facts surrounding the persons life. To say that the Evangelists created a perception about the messianic and divine nature of Jesus without actually experiencing anything that would indicate his divine nature is a problematic assertion. So, the evidence is the perception itself. The perception of Jesus, created by the Evangelists, indicates his divine and miraculous nature.

N. T. Wright wrote about other messianic figures, to highlight the differences with the Jesus movement. There is also a key similarity: a number of people were perceived as Messiahs. Therefore you canâ€™t possibly deny that the perception that someone is a Messiah doesnâ€™t imply he IS a messiah. Wouldnâ€™t their (false) perceptions also be based on their eyewitness observations?

A perception is an internalized cognitive construct. Sure, it's built up from sensory input, what is seen and heard, directly and indirectly, but it is processed through the paradigms of a world view. A Keynesian economist and a classical (supply-side) economist perceive different economic patterns in the same set of economic data. More directly to the present topic, a person whose world view is based on supernaturalism will perceive a faith healing differently from a medical researcher familiar with the placebo effect.

I previously gave you my general hypothesis about how the view of Jesus developed. Let me review this. Jesus probably performed faith healings and exorcisms, acts that are known to have efficacy for purely natural reasons (placebo effect). Jesus also taught a theological ethic, and prophesied the coming of an eschatological kingdom. From the perspective of a credulous supernaturalist, a 1st century Jew, this would be perceived by some as demonstrating a closeness to God. Of course, not everyone perceived him this way, else he wouldn't have been executed. Enough people did perceive him this way that his movement continued in an evolved form. (The fact that he was not universally recognized as godly or divine suggests the wondrousness of his acts werenâ€™t as clear-cut as you seem to assume).

I suggest this is the basis for the exalted image of Jesus, an image that became grander and more exalted over time. It had to become grand enough to compensate for the fact of Jesus' execution as a common criminal.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:It is completely uncontroversial to suggest that Jesus preached an eschatology, an apocalyptic message.
I never said he didn't. I said that this made up only a minor part of his overall teachings, and whenever he spoke of it he spoke in ambiguity.

Funny thing about prophecies, they always seem to be ambiguous â€“ only able to be understood after the alleged fulfillment. How do you know this was only a minor part of his teachings? A lot of scholars think it to have been the central focus of his teachings.
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WinePusher wrote:
Whenever he spoke of the end of days, he spoke in mystery. The only thing he made clear was that no one, not even himself, would know when the end of days was. The apocalypse was only a minor part of his teachings, the bulk of what he taught revolved around social and relational issues.
fredonly wrote:N. T. Wright and Bart Ehrman agree on this (just to name two scholars). Regarding the alleged mystery of it: how do you know what Jesus actually said? I can anticipate your answer: because the Gospels say so. Your entire case is built around the assumption that the Gospels are trustworthy, accurate, historical accounts. If you BEGIN with this assumption, you canâ€™t possibly PROVE that they are accurate, historical accounts because this is circular.
I grow tired of these trivial rebuttals, fredonly. Yes, my position is that sections of the Gospels are undisputed facts and I assume that they are undisputed facts in this thread. That position is based upon Biblical Scholarship, not personal convictions. It shouldn't surprise you that there are items within in the Gospels that are undisputed by Biblical Scholars, so you are not justified to say that my position is based upon empty assumptions. They aren't assumptions, they're historical facts. The Jesus Seminar, the embodiment of extremely liberal New Testament Scholarship, has determined that two apocalyptic parables/sayings of Jesus, the Wedding Dinner and the Hidden Pearl, are probably true sayings made by the Historical Jesus. That should be good enough for you. And what I find even more troubling is that you're objecting to the authenticity of a saying of Jesus, not an event attributed to him. The consensus of scholarly opinion on the sayings of Jesus are far more conclusive than the consensus of scholarly opinion on the acts and events of Jesus.

â€œUndisputedâ€� is a bit strong, but I certainly agree that there are passages (a small number) that are widely accepted as historical, and I fully accept this scholarship. When I asked, â€œhow do you know what Jesus actually said?â€� I was referring to the fact that it is impossible to know the full context and intent of Jesusâ€™ teaching; I wasnot denying the validity of deriving SOME historical sayings. It is an overstatement to insist that his eschatological teaching was minor; many scholars think it was central to his message based specifically on the sayings of Jesus that they consider historical.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:My set of scenarios is based only on plausible assumptions, whereas your very specific scenario is based on a number of implausible assumptions (there is a creator of the universe, this creator continues to exist and intervenes in the natural world from time to time in miraculous ways, this creator singled out the Jews to be his â€œchosen people,â€� Jesus is God, â€¦ if any of these are NOT assumptions of yours, then provide your rational argument in support of each one (and get prepared for a lengthy debate on each one).
lol what a perfect example of a false burden. My burden of proof is not to prove every single assertion or event I believe, it is only to prove the root assertion and event which I believe. You've committed an elementary logical mistake:

P1: If the God of the Christian Bible exists, then Jesus of Nazareth is God, The Jewish people are God's chosen people, Jesus was born of a virgin, Jesus rose from the dead, the universe was the product of Intelligent Design, etc.
P2: The God of the Christian Bible exists.
Conclusion: Jesus of Nazareth is God, The Jewish people are God's chosen people, Jesus was born of a virgin, Jesus rose from the dead, the universe was the product of Intelligent Design, etc.

So, my only burden of proof is to prove that the God of the Christian Bible exists. The other assertions and events logically flow from this premise and do not need to be proven individually. I am speaking in abstract terms though. It is interesting to debate each assertion individually and weigh the evidence as we're doing here, but ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, the only claim that needs to be proven by Christians is the the Christian God exists and the other claims necessarily flow from it.

I see, so you think you can more easily prove the more general assertion that the God of the Christian Bible exists, without first needing to prove the individual propositions that this entails. This seems like a pretty tall order. Please give me your argument.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:-After his death, some of his followers wished to carry on Jesus teaching. We donâ€™t know exactly what they taught, but they may have had post mortem visions of Jesus or perhaps they didnâ€™t find Jesusâ€™ body where they expected it to be and jumped to a happy conclusion.
WinePusher wrote:This is one of those gaps I was talking about. Even though they lack any motivation to do so, and even though the circumstantial evidence of social persecution by the Jews and physical persecution by the Romans should have deterred them, they still 'wished' to carry on the teachings of Jesus? Please explain yourself fredonly.
fredonly wrote:Your filling in THIS gap with a nice apologetic portrait that suggests that the earliest Christians, particularly the direct disciples of Jesus, were under near constant persecution â€“ and yet bravely risked their lives to spread the â€œgood news.â€� The only problem with this is that it is not supported by the historical evidence. There is no direct historical record of the social context in which the Gospels were composed- so it is invalid to utilize an apologetic invention to make your case. There is no record that suggests the evangelists (whoever they were, and wherever they wrote) personally suffered persecution or lived in fear, nor is there credible, objective evidence that any of the disciples died for their beliefs.
So you've basically thrown out all the history we know about the first century in a few sentences. What we know about persecutions does not come from the Gospels, in fact it doesn't really even come from the New Testament. We read about persecutions in Acts, but our sources of information come from extrabiblical sources. The infamous Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, all direct testimonies to the persecution and marginalization of Christians.

Iâ€™m not throwing out history, you are distorting it. In the Resurrection Contradictions debate, I wrote at length about the fact that persecutions were sporadic and localized. There was no empire-wide pogrom to exterminate Christians; Christianity was not illegal. I do agree that there was SOME persecution, and that some people suffered because of their tenacity at being true to their faith, such as the Christians Pliny wrote about who refused to give tribute to the gods. Focusing exclusively on these persecuted people, and the fact that some of them died for their faith, what conclusions do you draw from this? The conclusion I draw is that these people held strong beliefs. I fail to see how that is relevant to your case. Muslim extremist suicide bombers die for their faith â€“ belief does not imply truth. Iâ€™ve said from the beginning that I believe there was sincerity among the early Christians every step of the way.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:As a reminder, we discussed the alleged Roman persecutions of Christians in the Resurrection Contradictions debate. The historical record shows that in the 1st 3 centuries, such persecutions were sporadic, neither empire-wide, nor perpetual. In the 1st century, the only recorded Roman persecution of Christians was Neroâ€™s, limited to the Christians in Rome, and was due to Neroâ€™s scapegoating them for the fires.
The fundamental question that needs to be answered is were the persecutions so minor that they would not have deterred Christians from spreading their message. Everything else is irrelevant. You managed to downsize the overall numbers and timespan of Roman persecutions, but it still doesn't prove that Christians would not have been deterred from evangelizing. Everything points us to the conclusion that the persecutions were so prevalent that they would have deterred Christians from evangelizing, but despite this Christians still evangelized.

What does it mean to say the persecutions were â€œso prevalentâ€� that they would have deterred? You appear to have the idea that the spread of Christianity was miraculous, and youâ€™re trying to construe the data to support this preconception. The historical record does not support your contention. If you think it does, then start posting some references outside of the Bible and martyrologies. If your only source is martyrologies then be prepared to defend their historicity.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:Social persecution by Jews occurred, but avoid exaggerating it. James was killed for heresy in the year 62, 30 years after Jesus execution. There is no record of Peter having been persecuted; legend has it that he was killed in Rome in the later stages of his life. If true, this would be tied to the Neroâ€™s persecution; at best this means Peter was killed because he happened to be Christian in a place and time where they were being scapegoated. James and Peter were â€œpillarsâ€� of the Jerusalem church, and clearly survived a good 30 years after Jesusâ€™ execution, a sufficient amount of time for them (and probably others) to preach their interpretation of Jesusâ€™ teaching.
Peter was imprisoned by Agrippa 1 and James was killed by Agrippa 1, a Jewish King. You are understating the facts when you merely say the Jews socially persecuted Christians. They physically persecuted Christians, and couple that with Roman persecution there would exist every reason to deter Christians from evangelizing.

The only source Iâ€™m aware of that indicates Peter was imprisoned was the historically problematic Acts of the Apostles. According to Acts, Peter was imprisoned by Herod, not Agrippa. Itâ€™s part of a far-fetched story that includes his rescue by an angel. Are you insisting this story is historical? Is there any extra-biblical evidence Peter was arrested? Why exactly did Herod arrest him? Were demands made of Peter to renounce his belief in the divinity of Jesus? How did he really get out? Is the history portrayed in Acts credible? I discussed in great detail in the Resurrection Contradictions debate some of the historical problems with Acts.

Regarding James, Josephus reports his death (by Ananus) as a judicial murder, during a period of lax imperial oversight. Josephus reports that this murder was objected to by other fair-minded, law-abiding members of the community which led to their successful petition to Agrippa for Ananusâ€™ removal. You are reading a martyrdom into this political event.
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:-Regardless of how the â€œresurrectionâ€� idea developed, it became linked to Jesus apocalyptic teaching and became the seed of the theologies that subsequently developed. This is the root of the revolution that turned the religion of Jesus into the religion ABOUT Jesus â€“ the religion we see in the epistles of Paul (who wrote practically nothing about the actual teachings of Jesus, but wrote a great deal about the meaning he perceived in Jesus death and resurrection).
WinePusher wrote:You make an interesting point. But the message of Jesus was ultimately about salvation (you even acknowledge that with your quote from Brown). Jesus explicitly implied that salvation would be achieved for mankind by his death and resurrection. Paul simply expounds upon this concept in his epistles, and is therefore consistent with what Jesus taught, not inconsistent.
fredonly wrote:You are again making the assumption that the Gospel accounts are accurate historical records of Jesus teachings. Did Jesus REALLY teach that he would die for all mankind and rise from the dead? That is not a historically plausible assumption. It ASSUMES Jesus was divine, or at least in close connection to God. The more plausible assumption is that the evangelist who wrote it (or the tradents who passed along this information) inserted this â€œprophecyâ€� of Jesusâ€™. If the evangelist himself believed that Jesus was divine, that he died for our sins, and rose from the dead, then it is imminently plausible to assume that he might make such an insertion. This hypothesis relies on no implausible assumptions, as does your interpretation of the data. You really are stuck with a circular argument: you have to assume the Bible is true in order to prove it is true.
You've completely forgotten what you initial point was. From what I understand, your point was that Early Christians, namely Paul, misconstrued the religion into a religion about Jesus rather than a religion of Jesus. You are trying to say that Paul perverts Christianity into something it was not meant to be and he justifies it by basing it upon the resurrection. I countered by saying that both Paul and Jesus focused on the salvation found in the death and resurrection of Jesus and how this would be the basis for Christianity. Jesus himself says that his claims of divinity would be vindicated by his resurrection from the dead. So there is nothing inconsistent with what Jesus taught and what Paul taught. And like I said earlier, some things are within the New Testament are undisputed among Scholars. The people that would dispute them cling to their belief despite what Scholarly opinion says and are no different than creationists who cling to their beliefs despite what scientists say. Both of these types of people are willfully ignorant.

Youâ€™re overplaying the fact that there are some widely accepted New Testament passages. This is a very small subset of the New Testament, and includes no statements associated with Jesus making claims of divinity. The only explicit statements of divinity in the Gospels are in the Gospel of John, written a good 60 years after Jesusâ€™ death. This Gospel presents an image of Jesus quite different from the synoptics, especially the oldest (Mark). The better explanation for the appearance of these statements was that it is the result of an evolved theology by the community which produced the Gospel.
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WinePusher wrote:
WinePusher wrote:I have a problem with that last part. What we have are two descriptions of the character of Jesus, one description lies within the Canonical Gospels and the other lies within the Gnostic Gospels. An ongoing problem for contemporary New Testament Scholarship has been figuring out why the description in the Canonical Gospels is the true standard while the one in the Gnostic Gospels is the false standard. How is this determined? â€¦.
fredonly wrote:There are two problems with this: First of all, there are different depictions of Jesus even within the canonical Gospels. Christian harmonization of these disparate views is fine apologetics to help the believer accept accounts that are prima facie inconsistent, but does not cut it as valid historical methodology.
No, there are not. There are no major different depictions of Jesus within the Canonical Gospels. This is another thing I hear atheists constantly regurgitate without any detailed justification. All the Gospels parallel eachother when it comes to their ultimate message and all the Gospels converge on the Resurrection. Every single Gospel has an unadulterated resurrection narrative.

Scholarly analysis recognizes differences in the depictions, even though you donâ€™t. As discussed above, only the Gospel of John portrays Jesus as a clearly divine entity. Only John has Jesus saying that he is the â€œbread of life,â€� â€œlight of the world,â€� â€œthe good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep,â€� and â€œthe way, the truth, and the life.â€� Only John identifies Jesus as the â€œWord of Godâ€� â€œthrough whom all things were made.â€� Only John has Jesus making the claim, â€œbefore Abraham was, I am.â€� In the synoptics, Jesus does not speak openly of his identity, in contrast to John where his miracles are called â€œsigns.â€� John doesnâ€™t discuss Jesusâ€™ birth in Bethlehem, his baptism by John the Baptizer, or his time in the wilderness being tempted by the Devil. The Johanine Jesus does not proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God , nor does he tell parables. It omits the Lordâ€™s supper, his prayers in Gethsemane, and thereâ€™s not a word about a trial before the Sanhedrin or finding him guilty of blasphemy.

Regarding Jesusâ€™ â€œultimate messageâ€� as depicted in the Gospel, the challenge is to extract the historical from the theological. It is clear that the evangelists believed in the Resurrection, and that this was THEIR joint ultimate message. It is challenging to extract Jesus message from amidst the layers of theology and kerygma. That, of course, is what the search for the historical Jesus is all about. Conservative apologists donâ€™t like it, because this results in a Jesus without the theological trappings â€“ not the Christ of their Christianity. Are you willing to look at it with this level of objectivity?
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:Secondly, you present a false dichotomy between Gnosticism and Orthodox Christianity. Christianity was far more diverse than this. There were the Ebionites and Nazarenes who did not consider Jesus divine (some scholars have proposed that these were the original Christians, and included James and Peter). There were adoptionists who believed God â€œadoptedâ€� Jesus when he was baptized; there were docetists who believed Jesus divine, but not truly human. Donâ€™t forget the Judaizers, whom Paul encountered and which appear to have included Cephas and James (Ebionites and Judaizers are not mutually exclusive categories).
Not necessarily. What we know today as Orthodox Christianity and Gnosticism were the two major competitors in the ancient world. You're correct that other groups existed but they were minor. Example: What did Orthodox Christian Ireneus primarily devote his Against Heresy towards? The answer is Gnostic Christianity.

We have very few of the original writings by the other groups. History is written by the winner; in this case, the losers records werenâ€™t even retained. Most of what we know of Gnosticism and other sects is from polemics written by the proto-orthodox. Such polemics do not allow us to make a balanced assessment, being completely one-sided. They do tell us that multiple sects existed, but they do not tell us what they really believed, nor how widespread they were, so its an overstatement to insist they were â€œminor.â€� We know that ultimately only one sect survived, and one may plausibly assume that one factor in its success was its ability to control doctrine, resulting in a competitive advantage.

There is no real controversy around the fact that each Gospel was written for a different audience, a different community. This means they provide a glimpse into the thoughts of some of the different communities. Other glimpses can be seen in the non-canonical works, each of which were also used in various Christian communities); the polemical writings of the â€œchurch fathersâ€� give us another glimpse. Collectively, these differences imply heterodoxy.

It is orthodox chauvinism (i.e. faith) that assumes proto-orthodoxy was true, and that the others were splinter groups who were misled by heresy. A historical view has to be objective, and observe that various groups existed who possessed varied beliefs.
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WinePusher wrote:
WinePusher wrote:Because the closest source of information to the event would be the standard by which subsequent sources of information would be fact checked against. The canonical Gospels are the closest sources of information to Jesus we have, and because of that later sources of information about Jesus would be fact checked against the canonical Gospels and if they failed to match, the later sources would be thrown out as heretical and false. If a story was consistent with the information found in the canonical gospels, it would be received. If it was inconsistent with the information found in the canonical gospels, it would not be received.
fredonly wrote:Fact checking against the canonical Gospels!? Iâ€™m talking about fact checking by the authors of these canonical Gospels. There is no evidence of any of this. In fact, it appears there was apologetic editing by Matthew and Luke - cleaning up the parts that didn't fit their perceptions, rather than rejecting it as non-factual. This is rewriting history to fit their biases, not fact checking.

I really don't understand what you're saying. The Canonical Gospels would be the standard of Christianity by which you would fact check other versions of Christianity against.

You have contended that the canonical Gospels are historically reliable. I am disputing this by pointing out that the information they contain was not fact checked, as would be done in modern journalistic or historical accounts. The objective of the Gospels was kerygma, not historical accuracy. Luke and Matthew, in copying from Mark, show signs of editing that are associated with theology, not with a devotion to fact.

If factual reporting was the objective, why would Luke add words to a statement made by Jesus, as reported in Mark?
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:But let's look at the standard you suggest. Why wouldnâ€™t this have been applied to the gospel of John? Had it been compared to the synoptics for â€œfact checking,â€� the last of the canonical Gospels wouldnâ€™t have made the cut. It has Jesus ministry starting with, rather than ending with, the cleansing of the Temple; it has Jesus dying on a different day of the week, and it presents a different portrait of Jesus â€“ the highest Christology in the New Testament. So your standard doesn't even work internally.

The only relevant thing in this statement is John's Christology. The manner by which he organizes chronological events in his Gospel is not relevant to his 'portrait' of Jesus. And the Christology found in John is no different than the Christology found in the Synoptics, you can add this to the many other bare assertions you've made throughout this thread.

Raymond Brown sums up the situation in An Introduction to New Testament Christology:

Brown wrote:â€¦most Christians, even if unconsciously, have had their views of Christ massively shaped by John; often they assume Johnâ€™s high Christology to be that of the whole New Testament. In my judgement the uniqueness of John among the Gospels does not receive sufficient attention either in preaching or religious education. On the other hand scholars are very aware of Johanine uniqueness and peculiaritiesâ€¦ (p196)

Brown and other scholars have identified a historical pattern moving from a lower to higher Christology over time:

Brown wrote:â€¦If we date New Testament times from 30 to 130, quite clearly the use of â€œGodâ€� for Jesus becomes frequently attested only in the second half of the period. The chronological context is confirmed by the evidence of the earliest extrabiblical Christian works. At the beginning of the 2d century Ignatius freely speaks of Jesus as Godâ€¦Plinyâ€™s testimonyâ€¦Christians of Asia Minor sang hymns to Christ as to a God. By mid-2d century, Clement states â€œWe must think of Jesus Christ as the Godâ€¦Is this usage a Hellenistic contribution to the theological vocabulary of Christianity? Since we have no evidence that Jesus was called God in the Jerusalem or Palestinian communities of the first two decades of Christianity, the prima facie evidence might suggest Hellenistic originsâ€¦.The Johanine works come from the final years of the century, when the usage of â€œGodâ€� for Jesus has become common. Yet the Fourth Gospel preserves some traditional material about Jesus that has been handed down from a much earlier period before such usage (14:28, 17:3, 20:17, which, prima facie, would not favor equating Jesus with God or putting him on the same level as the Father. (p191-192)

And the viewpoint Brown gives is perfectly consistent with Roman Catholic doctrine:

Brown wrote: The 1964 Instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, â€œThe Historical Truth of the Gospelsâ€� section VIII recognizes that only after Jesus rose from the dead was his divinity clearly perceived. That need not mean that this perception was instantaneous; it took a long time to come to understand the mystery of Jesus and to give it formulation. The Arian dispute shows this clearly. (p190)

Brown discusses the work of liberal scholars:

Brown wrote: [scholarly] liberal analyses of developing Christology [suggests] that titles such as Lord and Son of God were applied to Jesus in a divine sense only in the Christian mission to Greek-speaking gentiles-either they did not exist at an earlier Jewish-Christian stage or were used in a much humbler sense of master and Messiah (anointed king). This speculation gave the impression of a linear development toward a â€œhigher Christology,â€� ----p12-13

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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:You speak of â€œheretical and falseâ€� from an orthodox Christian point of view. But one manâ€™s orthodoxy is another manâ€™s heresy. These terms are purely theological, and presumes that you (or your historical predecessors) KNEW what was true (without possibility of being wrong). A historical view cannot be based on theological assumptions. A proper historical perspective is to recognize that a group of Christians with certain beliefs selected books that were consistent with their beliefs. You would HOPE to be able to provide a historical argument to support your assumption that these â€œorthodoxâ€� Christians knew the truth, but the problem is that there is no historical data that can identify theological â€œtruth.â€�

I've already offered you one way to discern how what we know today as 'orthodox christianity' is true, and it's based in the historical method. The canonical Gospels were the closest written accounts to the events they describe while the gnostic Gospels were written later, after the canonical Gospels. If you have two sources describing the same individual/event differently, you go with the closest source.
.

I agree that the historical method gives greater credence to the oldest source, but that doesnâ€™t make the oldest existing source TRUE. It was written following a period of teaching about Jesus, a teaching that is likely to have evolved over time. The existence of the later non-Canonical books shows that the ideas about Jesus continued to evolve. Iâ€™ve already described how different John is from the synoptics, which is evidence of evolution within the 30 or so years timespan between Mark and John.

But if you are so convinced that this method was employed, then please explain why the Gospel of John was accepted, considering its numerous innovations?
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WinePusher wrote:

WinePusher wrote:This is another gap that I disputed earlier. As of yet I have not gotten an adequate rebuttal to the following: (1)Why would the Disciples of Jesus not be interested in writing down written accounts of his Life and Ministry?
fredonly wrote:Hereâ€™s why:
a) There is a 99% chance that the disciples of Jesus were illiterate. They couldnâ€™t have personally written anything down if they wanted to.
b) 99% of the population to whom they were ministering were also illiterate. It was an oral culture.
c)The disciples believed the kingdom of God would be established in their generation, so they would have had little motivation to leave a written record for future generations.

Illiterate how? Be specific, I'm more inclined to accept the theory of aramaic primacy of the Gospels which would make your objection irrelevant.

Hereâ€™s my basis for calling them illiterate:

Ehrman wrote:In his 1989 book, Ancient Literacy, William Harris, professor of ancient History at Columbia University, did a study of literacy. He argued that in the ancient world, at the very best of times, only about 10% of the population was reasonably literate. By â€œbest of timesâ€� he meant Athens, a center of learning at the height of its intellectual power in the 4th-5th century BCE (the days of Socrates and Plato). The literate were from the upper classes, the social and economic elite, who had the leisure and money to afford an education. Lower class people did not learn how to read, and even fewer learned how to write. Of those who could write, fewer still could compose a complete sentence, and only the most educated could compose an essay. The number that could read, write, and compose within a foreign language would be extremely small indeed.

Catherine Hezser researched literacy in 1st century Palestine ( Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine). She estimates that about 3% of the population could read, and the majority of these would have been in the cities and larger towns. Smaller towns and villages would have a literacy of around 1%. These literate people were, again, always the elite of the upper classes. And those who did learn to read, learned how to read Hebrew â€“ not Greek. There are only 2 known Palestinian literary authors from this period: Josephus and Justus of Tiberius; both were upper class and inordinately well educated.

Mark Chancey (Greco-Roman Cluture and the Galilee of Jesus) reports his studies of the archaeological evidence from around 1st centuray Galilee, and concludes that Gentiles (who spoke Greek) in Galilee were almost exclusively located in the two major citiies, Sepphoris and Tiberias. The rest of Galilee was predominantly Jewish. And since most of Galilee was rural, not urban, the vast majority of Jews had no encounters with Gentiles. Greek was not widely spoken in the area, and there would be essentially no reason for an average person to learn it, so the vast majority of the Jews spoke Aramaic and had no facility in Greek.
- Forged

So I have to say that a strong preponderance of evidence suggests that the peasant followers of Jesus were just what I said, illiterate, Aramaic speaking Jews. It is historically implausible to suggest the Disciples learned to read and write in their native language, then learned to read and write in Greek, and then finally learned to compose coherent narratives in this foreign language[/quote]

catalyst · Post by **catalyst** » Fri Sep 30, 2011 10:02 am

Hi Composer,

With respect, I had a look at the links you provided and it seems that for the most part, references concerning the original name of Bethlehem, still cling to STRONG'S as to their reasoning. Nothing however lends to the origin of WHY the city was named Ephratah (Ephrathah) in the first place which is something that I find niggling, considering back then especially, places were usually named after people or gods. (That is why I mentioned Beit Lahama earlier..

) Now, to not want to take away from the original OP, I would be more than happy to explore this with you further on a new thread as I think it is an interesting topic all its own.

Composer wrote:

Apart from that, I believe we appear to agree that the biblical Story book is just that, a Story book and such events as the virgin birth of a jesus born of a god(s) Luke 1:35 is just an external Story book fictional event.

Frankly, to me the bible is just as believable as King Arthur and his Camelot, Harry Potter and his multiple tales. Excellent fiction from fertile minds but nothing more. As to the biblical "jesus of nazareth", himself, I doubt he actually lived at all, period.

Cat.

Composer · Post by **Composer** » Tue Oct 04, 2011 4:03 am

catalyst wrote: Hi Composer,

With respect, I had a look at the links you provided and it seems that for the most part, references concerning the original name of Bethlehem, still cling to STRONG'S as to their reasoning. Nothing however lends to the origin of WHY the city was named Ephratah (Ephrathah) in the first place which is something that I find niggling, considering back then especially, places were usually named after people or gods. (That is why I mentioned Beit Lahama earlier..) Now, to not want to take away from the original OP, I would be more than happy to explore this with you further on a new thread as I think it is an interesting topic all its own.

New Thread, sure if you feel you may have something new to offer?!

Composer wrote:

Apart from that, I believe we appear to agree that the biblical Story book is just that, a Story book and such events as the virgin birth of a jesus born of a god(s) Luke 1:35 is just an external Story book fictional event.

catalyst wrote:
Frankly, to me the bible is just as believable as King Arthur and his Camelot, Harry Potter and his multiple tales. Excellent fiction from fertile minds but nothing more. As to the biblical "jesus of nazareth", himself, I doubt he actually lived at all, period.

Cat.

The name jesus was fairly common then I believe so there were likely many called jesus around but as far as them being a god-person (i.e. a god dressed up to look like man for a short period) I am with you!

Indeed even so called christians themselves actually predominantly believe -

"There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus." (1 Timothy 2:5.)

So Jesus really is a man. This is the undoubted teaching of the New Testament. Now compare that with these words by the former Bishop of Woolwich, Dr. Robinson, in his book, "Honest to God," in a passage where he was explaining how most Christians view Jesus:
"Jesus was not a man born and bred, he was God for a limited period taking part in a charade. He looked like a man, but underneath he was God dressed up - like Father Christmas."

Many church people find the bishop's reference to Father Christmas offensive. Yet apart from that, they agree that this is a fair statement of church teaching. If Jesus was really God, or even a mighty angel who once lived in heaven, then he was never a real man, but a Divine Person dressed up in human flesh. (Source: http://www.god-so-loved-the-world.org/e ... heaven.htm)

WinePusher · Post by **WinePusher** » Wed Nov 02, 2011 1:44 am

Alright fredonly, let's get this debate started again.

Part 1.

fredonly wrote:Hmm. You consider Brownâ€™s work to be excellent Biblical scholarship, and then say that the very views that Brown expresses (that the Gospels are not written by eyewitnesses) makes â€œutterly no sense at all.â€� Sounds like you think he does a great job, except when you donâ€™t like his answer. Please explain. FYI - later on down in this post, I provide a lengthy quotation of Brown that demonstrates this point.

WinePusher wrote:I consider that to much of a simplistic answer. I disagree with Brown's conclusion concerning Gospel authorship, but does that necessitate an overall disapproving opinion of his book? Of course not. You are looking at this specific, and somewhat irrelevant issue, through a broken lense. One can find merit in a book even though the book espouses some opinions that are incompatible with the individuals own worldview.

fredonly wrote:I took exception with your statement that the idea that the Gospels were not written by eyewitnesses makes "utterly no sense at all" because it sounds dismissive. Some very intelligent and knowledgeable scholars, including someone you respect, believes it DOES make sense. Although I agree you don't need to take their word for it, it is a bit disingenuous to cavalierly dismiss their reasoning. They have good reasons for drawing this conclusion. You can only hope to have better reasons for drawing a different conclusion.

I have actually lost respect for Brown after looking through the

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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:Iâ€™ve never heard anyone suggest that â€œeyewitnessâ€� meant something different in a historical context than in any other context. Honestly, it sounds to me like your broadening the term to fit your needs. The following is from a book on Historiography, from the chapter on Source Criticism:

Howell_and_Prevenier wrote:â€¦the chief elements of source criticism as traditionally practiced [are]:â€¦5. Authorial authority: With what authority does the author of a source, perhaps a newspaper reporter or a compiler of facts about a nineteenth-century harvest, speak? Was he an eyewitness to the events he describes or did he participate in the design of the system for collecting the information? Was he even alive when the events he records are meant to have taken place? Is his information second, or third, or fourth hand? â€¦Understandably, authors are usually reluctant to acknowledge that they do not have such firsthand knowledge, for the revelation diminishes their authority. And rightly so, for the greater the number of intermediaries between the original telling of an event and the version that our source contains, the more chance there is of distortions. Historians thus make strenuous efforts to locate the truly firsthand reports of an event to trace the relationship of other existing versions of the report to that original record.
[emphasis added by fredonly]
--From Reliable Sources â€“ An Introduction to the Historical Method, Martha Howell & Walter Prevenier
Nothing here even remotely refutes my argument..

You seem to be overlooking this key point, so I'll repeat it: the number of intermediaries between the original telling of an event and the version that our source contains, the more chance there is of distortions. Jesus conception and birth are EVENTS. You are arguing in this debate that this specific, implausible event actually occurred, so this element of the historical method is directly applicable.
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winepusher wrote: If the Gospels were written by the individuals whose names they bear, then they all are considered the testimonies of eyewitnesses and the entirety of their contents are also considered the products of eyewitnesses.

In a generic way, this is true. However when critically evaluating a sourceâ€™s information, to potentially use it to support a historical hypothesis, it is appropriate to evaluate the eyewitness testimony. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... s_evidence, see item 2: How well could the author observe the thing he reports? Were his senses equal to the observation? Was his physical location suitable to sight, hearing, touch? Did he have the proper social ability to observe: did he understand the language, have other expertise required (e.g., law, military); was he not being intimidated by his wife or the secret police?

Do you reject the historical method ? Do you reject just portions of it? Do you feel the Bible should be exempt, since itâ€™s the word of God? If you are using some alternate standard, please provide the source that describes it.
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winepusher wrote: For the sake of clarification, I'll reiterate my argument. Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses to Jesus, and while Mark and Luke were not they received their information from eyewitnesses. The absurdity in your position is that even if this premise was historically true, these four accounts would not qualify as eyewitness accounts because these four individuals failed to be physically and visually present at every single event listed in the Gospels. That is a modern, legal understanding of the term and it is not congruent with Ancient History because it would disqualify a written account as an eyewitness account simply because the eyewitness who wrote it failed to physically see every single item mentioned in the account. And under both your distorted definition and my definition, there is no eyewitness testimony available for the virgin birth narrative. So you and others should stop putting words in my mouth. .

The position you call "absurd" and "distorted" are the objective standards of modern historical research! This is not me inserting a legalism, or attempting to unfairly evaluate the gospels in an unfair or unique manner. I'm calling for objective analysis, which you are rejecting through a fallacious special pleading. If your position is based on fideism, then admit it and we can leave it at that. But if you're attempting to show that there is a sound historical basis for accepting the virginal conception/birth â€“ then you have no choice but to accept the modern standards of historiography. Make up your mind which it is.

In case you have an idealistic view of ancient history, consider this:

Breisach wrote: Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chapter3: The Limits of Greek Historiography, p33-34] --
History as scholarship was known to few people. History as political narrative or local story had a somewhat greater public appeal. History as dramatic account â€“ serious or frivolous-received the major share of attention. ..The historians who dramatized their accounts, told anecdotes, and did not shy away from trivia to enhance the human interest wanted history to offer its listeners and readers mimesis, an imitation of reality which, like drama, "involved" them by stirring up their emotions, even passionsâ€¦Long prevented from joining philosophy in interpreting human life, and never perceiving history as the attempt to reconstruct the past for the love of truth alone, historians utilized the techniques of drama in order to evoke emotions, convey a lesson or two, and above all entertain. He quotes from one ancient historian (Polybius) condemning the practices of other historians:
Though their subjects are simple and without complications, they seek the name and reputation of historians not from the truth of their facts, but the number of their books, and accordingly they are obliged to give petty affairs an air of importance, and fill out and give rhetorical flourishes to what was originally expressed briefly; dress up actions and achievementsâ€¦and are not at all satisfied with me for giving a more truthful relation of such events as they really occurred...Polybius, The Histories

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WinePusher wrote: My argument from the outset has been that we know of the virgin birth of Jesus from individuals who were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, and although the specific mode of transmission is unknown (meaning that we don't know who exactly told Matthew and Luke) we do know that they derived the information from two disconnected sources. These facts alone grant the narrative an enormous amount of credence.

What is the basis for saying â€œwe knowâ€� Matthew and Luke derived their information about the virginal conception and birth from two different sources. I agree it is possible, but it seems a severe overstatement to say â€œwe knowâ€� this. At best, you can state that itâ€™s a hypothesis that is a better explanation than the alternatives. Letâ€™s consider some alternative hypotheses about the sources used by Matthew and Luke.

Facts to be dealt with:1) the presence of 2 propositions in common between the two nativity stories (virginal conception; born in Bethlehem); 2) at least one of the Nativity stories is not true with regard to the other details (because the two stories conflict with one another).

Hypothesis 1: A single source had the common information â€“ the 2 propositions and nothing more. Luke and Matthew received this and each wove these propositions into narratives that they each constructed.

Hypothesis 2M: Matthew received a full nativity narrative, Luke received just a sketch with the 3 common points. Luke expanded these points into his narrative of his own making.

Hypothesis 2L: Luke received a full nativity narrative, Matthew received just a sketch with the 3 common points. Matthew expanded these points into his narrative of his own making.

Hypothesis 1 is the better explanation. There is evidence that Matthew and Luke had 2 common sources (Mark and Q). Such information could certainly be in Q. Thereâ€™s no reason to assume yet another common source (principle of parsimony). The other hypotheses require more distinct sources.

If hypothesis 2M is true, then we should assume â€œMâ€� contained a complete nativity narrative (one that is possibly true).; L contained just the two sketchy propositions which Luke weaved into a narrative. But this begs the question of where L received the sketchy information from â€“ it implies yet another source, making this hypothesis less parsimonious in terms of number of assumed sources. In addition, why would one assume Matthew is more trustworthy than Luke in his reporting? Since we know ONE story is fictional, thereâ€™s no particular reason to assume the OTHER is factual, other than wishful thinking.

Exactly the same argument can be made against hypothesis 2L.

Feel free to offer additional hypotheses, or provide new defenses for the above ones.
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WinePusher wrote:
But the part of your source that is worthy of discussion is this: 'And rightly so, for the greater the number of intermediaries between the original telling of an event and the version that our source contains, the more chance there is of distortions.' While that is true, it is not relevant if my premise is correct. If my premise is correct then no intermediaries would exist because they would have been written down from memory.

How can you possibly suggest that there was no intermediary, when the ONLY person with direct knowledge of the alleged virginal conception is Mary? Even if Mary told the evangelist directly, the evangelist is secondary to the one and only eyewitness. And the problem with THIS assumption is that there is no evidence that this occurred, it is an ad hoc rationalization for the a priori assumption that the virginal conception is true; it is not a deduction from the evidence.

Winepusher wrote:What you fail to recognize if that even though the Gospels were written decades after the fact, they were written down within living memory of the facts.

Sure, some people were alive that had seen Jesus during the period of time the Gospels were written. This would be relevant if the Gospels were written in Aramaic in Palestine. Even had they been, it is Greek versions that came down to us, and were in circulation in the Greek speaking world. How do Aramaic speakers control the content of the stories circulating in Greek?
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WinePusher wrote:The individual comes to know of the event by the spread of information through the society. I'll go back to my previous example. There were only a handful of people physically present at the assassination of Julius Caesar, but due to the cataclysmic nature of the event the information spread and others became informed.

You've already described some key differences: a "handful of people" were physically present at Ceasar's assassination, while only one person was present at the conception. The "cataclysmic" nature of the event would naturally result in the news spreading about the killing; a conception is not noteworthy.

WinePusher wrote:These people still qualify as 'eye-witnesses' to the death of Caesar even though they were not physically present.

That's not true! Only those present were actually eyewitnesses. The historians of the time tell us there were 40 conspirators; 21 of them are named (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassinat ... nspirators).

But although the historians who record the event weren't eyewitnesses, the large number that were involved provide a plausible basis for the information becoming well known. And of course, it had immediate political impact on the empire.

Who was present when Jesus' zygote appeared within Mary's womb? Who was watching her before that to ensure she was a virgin? There is no plausible source for this information. The conception of Jesus by a peasant woman was an everyday, trivial matter.

WinePusher wrote: And no disciples were near the vicinity of Mary when the conception occurred since they themselves were either not born yet, or children. I am contending that the Evangelists Matthew and Luke were eye-witnesses to the ministry of Jesus Christ and they would have received information about the virgin birth during that duration.

From WHOM could they have received this? There is no credible evidence of any chain of custody of the information, so it is complete hearsay â€“ hearsay about an implausible event.

WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham makes the argument that the Gospels are derived from eyewitness testimony. He does not conclude that they CONSIST OF eyewitness testimony. This is an important distinction, in general, but especially so in the case of the virginal conception hypothesis.
Where does Bauckham say this? .

Here's a summary comment, toward the end of the book:

Bauckham wrote:Page 472: In one case, we have argued, an eyewitness has authored his own Gospelâ€¦Not being eyewitnesses themselves, the other Gospel writers are less theologically ambitious.â€�

In his study, Bauckham tested the evidence â€“ trying to make the case for the Gospels being eyewitness accounts. The evidence against the synoptics was so strong that even he couldnâ€™t deny the fact that they were clearly not written by eyewitnesses. He does decide that John is an eyewitness, but itâ€™s not the disciple John, the son of Zebedee. He identifies the evangelist as John the Elder.

Iâ€™ll add that Bauckham is up front about his starting pointâ€�

Bauckham wrote:I suggest that we need to recover the sense in which the Gospels are testimonyâ€¦Trusting testimony is not an irrational act of faith that leaves critical rationality aside; it is, on the contrary, the rationally appropriate way of responding to authentic testimony. Gospels understood as testimony are the entirely appropriate means of access to the historical reality of Jesus.

Bauckham is an apologist, who begins with his assumption that the Gospels represent testimony, and identifies support for this assumption. He does not, however, consider the broad alternatives. He never questions the plausibility aspects of the alleged â€œtestimony,â€� nor consider alternative (more plausiblie) explanations as to what is behind the stories. When discussing John, he ignores the evidence that (for example) Raymond Brown utilizes, that lead Brown to conclude the Gospel was the product of a community (multiple authors)â€“ and that it is more of a community history than a historical account of Jesus. If Brown is even partly right, then Bauckham must be wrong. For Bauckham to be right, he needs to provide alternate explanations for the narrative breaks and mixed messages that Brown identifies.

winepusher wrote:This assessment is only true for Mark and Luke, if they actually wrote their Gospels they would have derived the information from actual eyewitnesses. Luke's sources are unknown, but Mark's source is clear. It was Peter.

It is erroneous to call it â€œclearâ€� that Peter was Mark's source. There is exactly one tenuous bit of evidence that Mark had personally gotten his information from Peterâ€™s preaching: a brief comment by Papias. We discussed this a good bit in the Resurrection Contradictions debate. Papiasâ€™ testimony in this regard is highly suspect.

winepusher wrote: The book you cite devotes pages to the idea that Mark is simply channeling Peter in his Gospel, and if the Two-Sourced-Hypothesis is actually true the Petrine Perspective in Mark would still remain in tact, making at least one of the four Gospels a genuine eyewitness account.

Bauckham identifies some components of Mark that are consistent with the notion that this Gospel is, in some sense, derived from Peter's teaching. He counts the number of references to Peter, and more significantly, he interprets the way Peter is depicted. He notes that other scholars have suggested that Peter is portrayed negatively; but Bauckham casts this is in a broader context, suggesting that the portrayal is consistent with a Petrine self-denigration from humility.

While it may be true that Mark is somehow derived from a Petrine perspective, somewhere in its lineage, there is not a strong case to conclude that Mark received it directly from Peter. Other scholars have suggested that the role depicted of Peter is simply consistent with the established fact that Peter was a recognized leader of the "Christian" church â€“ one of the "pillars" of whom Paul spoke. But you seem to ignore the qualifications and cast away all other possibilities, since you "know" Mark's source was Peter. Such â€œknowledgeâ€� can only be fideism. It is an objective fact that we cannot know who wrote the Gospel, nor can we know what relationship the author may have had with the disciple Peter, or anyone else. The past is lost to us. Itâ€™s all hypothesis, with very little hard data to support it.
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WinePusher wrote:

WinePusher wrote:The basic idea is correct. The Evangelists wanted to convey a persona about Jesus and also wanted their readers to accept it. The problem is, why does this matter?
fredonly wrote:It matters because the ancient biographers make up details to convey their view of the subjectâ€™s character, so being of the genre â€œancient biographyâ€� does not imply any specific stories are true.
No, you're stretching it when you say a biographer would go so far as to make up stories just to fit their perception of the individual. That undermines my argument that the perception a biographer has is derived from the facts of the subjects life..

I'm not stretching it at all, I'm relating to you what has been observed by historians, it's a common characteristic of ancient biographies. See my above quote from Breisach.

Consider Alexander the Great. One of the original sources of information about him was from Callisthenes, a relative and companion of Alexander. We don't have his original work, but it was a source used by later historians. What has come down to us, through these later historians, is that Callisthenesâ€¦

Breisach wrote:â€¦ seems not to have hesitated to depict Alexander as the hero favored by the gods: one whose ancestry even may lead back to Zeus and Achilles.

A purported descent from Zeus seems to me to be a virtually identical level of embellishment to a descent from Yahweh. And in the example I give, there is an established chain of evidence, from a contemporary and companion of Alexander. This is a chain of evidence that is historically more credible than you have regarding the alleged virginal conception/birth of Jesus. And yet, no one today believes Alexander is really descended from Zeus.
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:If the evangelist himself did not witness the events he is portraying, then he can only report what he thinks he heard about the event. Every link in the chain, from observer to evangelist, presents an opportunity for distortion of the alleged historical facts â€“ as described above in my quote from the Howell & Prevenier book on the Historical Method.
I understand that but it is only true if your theory of authorship is correct. If my theory is correct then what you have written is irrelevant because there would be no opportunity for distortion because there would exist no intermediaries.

Unless the author personally witnessed an event, then there are intermediaries. You continue to blur the "eyewitness" distinction, vaguely suggesting that a companion of Jesus would have knowledge of anything about him that is written in a Gospel. It simply doesnâ€™t work.
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WinePusher wrote:

WinePusher wrote:For example: Suetonius portrays the character of Nero as that of a musician and a lover of arts. The persona Suetonius creates is based upon the fact that Nero played music and performed. Similarly, the Evangelists convey the character of Jesus as Divine, a Savior, and a Healer. The persona the Evangelists create is based upon the fact that Jesus did miraculous things that indicated his divinity.
fredonly wrote:IFJesus actually did truly miraculous things , then sure, this would have resulted in these being reported. But did he? What evidence is there of this?
You actually, and probably unintentionally, articulated the 'evidence' better than I could have. You say that the goal of the Ancient Biographer was to convey his perception of the person whom he writes about. We both agree about the perception the Evangelists had about Jesus and that it was their goal to emphasis this perception. But you fail to explain how the perception is formed in the first place. I offered my explanation which you did not refute. The perception an Ancient Biographer creates is the result of the facts surrounding the persons life. To say that the Evangelists created a perception about the messianic and divine nature of Jesus without actually experiencing anything that would indicate his divine nature is a problematic assertion. So, the evidence is the perception itself. The perception of Jesus, created by the Evangelists, indicates his divine and miraculous nature.

N. T. Wright wrote about other messianic figures, to highlight the differences with the Jesus movement. There is also a key similarity: a number of people were perceived as Messiahs. Therefore you canâ€™t possibly deny that the perception that someone is a Messiah doesnâ€™t imply he IS a messiah. Wouldnâ€™t their (false) perceptions also be based on their eyewitness observations?

A perception is an internalized cognitive construct. Sure, it's built up from sensory input, what is seen and heard, directly and indirectly, but it is processed through the paradigms of a world view. A Keynesian economist and a classical (supply-side) economist perceive different economic patterns in the same set of economic data. More directly to the present topic, a person whose world view is based on supernaturalism will perceive a faith healing differently from a medical researcher familiar with the placebo effect.

I previously gave you my general hypothesis about how the view of Jesus developed. Let me review this. Jesus probably performed faith healings and exorcisms, acts that are known to have efficacy for purely natural reasons (placebo effect). Jesus also taught a theological ethic, and prophesied the coming of an eschatological kingdom. From the perspective of a credulous supernaturalist, a 1st century Jew, this would be perceived by some as demonstrating a closeness to God. Of course, not everyone perceived him this way, else he wouldn't have been executed. Enough people did perceive him this way that his movement continued in an evolved form. (The fact that he was not universally recognized as godly or divine suggests the wondrousness of his acts werenâ€™t as clear-cut as you seem to assume).

I suggest this is the basis for the exalted image of Jesus, an image that became grander and more exalted over time. It had to become grand enough to compensate for the fact of Jesus' execution as a common criminal.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:It is completely uncontroversial to suggest that Jesus preached an eschatology, an apocalyptic message.
I never said he didn't. I said that this made up only a minor part of his overall teachings, and whenever he spoke of it he spoke in ambiguity.

Funny thing about prophecies, they always seem to be ambiguous â€“ only able to be understood after the alleged fulfillment. How do you know this was only a minor part of his teachings? A lot of scholars think it to have been the central focus of his teachings.
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WinePusher wrote:
Whenever he spoke of the end of days, he spoke in mystery. The only thing he made clear was that no one, not even himself, would know when the end of days was. The apocalypse was only a minor part of his teachings, the bulk of what he taught revolved around social and relational issues.
fredonly wrote:N. T. Wright and Bart Ehrman agree on this (just to name two scholars). Regarding the alleged mystery of it: how do you know what Jesus actually said? I can anticipate your answer: because the Gospels say so. Your entire case is built around the assumption that the Gospels are trustworthy, accurate, historical accounts. If you BEGIN with this assumption, you canâ€™t possibly PROVE that they are accurate, historical accounts because this is circular.
I grow tired of these trivial rebuttals, fredonly. Yes, my position is that sections of the Gospels are undisputed facts and I assume that they are undisputed facts in this thread. That position is based upon Biblical Scholarship, not personal convictions. It shouldn't surprise you that there are items within in the Gospels that are undisputed by Biblical Scholars, so you are not justified to say that my position is based upon empty assumptions. They aren't assumptions, they're historical facts. The Jesus Seminar, the embodiment of extremely liberal New Testament Scholarship, has determined that two apocalyptic parables/sayings of Jesus, the Wedding Dinner and the Hidden Pearl, are probably true sayings made by the Historical Jesus. That should be good enough for you. And what I find even more troubling is that you're objecting to the authenticity of a saying of Jesus, not an event attributed to him. The consensus of scholarly opinion on the sayings of Jesus are far more conclusive than the consensus of scholarly opinion on the acts and events of Jesus.

â€œUndisputedâ€� is a bit strong, but I certainly agree that there are passages (a small number) that are widely accepted as historical, and I fully accept this scholarship. When I asked, â€œhow do you know what Jesus actually said?â€� I was referring to the fact that it is impossible to know the full context and intent of Jesusâ€™ teaching; I wasnot denying the validity of deriving SOME historical sayings. It is an overstatement to insist that his eschatological teaching was minor; many scholars think it was central to his message based specifically on the sayings of Jesus that they consider historical.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:My set of scenarios is based only on plausible assumptions, whereas your very specific scenario is based on a number of implausible assumptions (there is a creator of the universe, this creator continues to exist and intervenes in the natural world from time to time in miraculous ways, this creator singled out the Jews to be his â€œchosen people,â€� Jesus is God, â€¦ if any of these are NOT assumptions of yours, then provide your rational argument in support of each one (and get prepared for a lengthy debate on each one).
lol what a perfect example of a false burden. My burden of proof is not to prove every single assertion or event I believe, it is only to prove the root assertion and event which I believe. You've committed an elementary logical mistake:

P1: If the God of the Christian Bible exists, then Jesus of Nazareth is God, The Jewish people are God's chosen people, Jesus was born of a virgin, Jesus rose from the dead, the universe was the product of Intelligent Design, etc.
P2: The God of the Christian Bible exists.
Conclusion: Jesus of Nazareth is God, The Jewish people are God's chosen people, Jesus was born of a virgin, Jesus rose from the dead, the universe was the product of Intelligent Design, etc.

So, my only burden of proof is to prove that the God of the Christian Bible exists. The other assertions and events logically flow from this premise and do not need to be proven individually. I am speaking in abstract terms though. It is interesting to debate each assertion individually and weigh the evidence as we're doing here, but ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, the only claim that needs to be proven by Christians is the the Christian God exists and the other claims necessarily flow from it.

I see, so you think you can more easily prove the more general assertion that the God of the Christian Bible exists, without first needing to prove the individual propositions that this entails. This seems like a pretty tall order. Please give me your argument.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:-After his death, some of his followers wished to carry on Jesus teaching. We donâ€™t know exactly what they taught, but they may have had post mortem visions of Jesus or perhaps they didnâ€™t find Jesusâ€™ body where they expected it to be and jumped to a happy conclusion.
WinePusher wrote:This is one of those gaps I was talking about. Even though they lack any motivation to do so, and even though the circumstantial evidence of social persecution by the Jews and physical persecution by the Romans should have deterred them, they still 'wished' to carry on the teachings of Jesus? Please explain yourself fredonly.
fredonly wrote:Your filling in THIS gap with a nice apologetic portrait that suggests that the earliest Christians, particularly the direct disciples of Jesus, were under near constant persecution â€“ and yet bravely risked their lives to spread the â€œgood news.â€� The only problem with this is that it is not supported by the historical evidence. There is no direct historical record of the social context in which the Gospels were composed- so it is invalid to utilize an apologetic invention to make your case. There is no record that suggests the evangelists (whoever they were, and wherever they wrote) personally suffered persecution or lived in fear, nor is there credible, objective evidence that any of the disciples died for their beliefs.
So you've basically thrown out all the history we know about the first century in a few sentences. What we know about persecutions does not come from the Gospels, in fact it doesn't really even come from the New Testament. We read about persecutions in Acts, but our sources of information come from extrabiblical sources. The infamous Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, all direct testimonies to the persecution and marginalization of Christians.

Iâ€™m not throwing out history, you are distorting it. In the Resurrection Contradictions debate, I wrote at length about the fact that persecutions were sporadic and localized. There was no empire-wide pogrom to exterminate Christians; Christianity was not illegal. I do agree that there was SOME persecution, and that some people suffered because of their tenacity at being true to their faith, such as the Christians Pliny wrote about who refused to give tribute to the gods. Focusing exclusively on these persecuted people, and the fact that some of them died for their faith, what conclusions do you draw from this? The conclusion I draw is that these people held strong beliefs. I fail to see how that is relevant to your case. Muslim extremist suicide bombers die for their faith â€“ belief does not imply truth. Iâ€™ve said from the beginning that I believe there was sincerity among the early Christians every step of the way.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:As a reminder, we discussed the alleged Roman persecutions of Christians in the Resurrection Contradictions debate. The historical record shows that in the 1st 3 centuries, such persecutions were sporadic, neither empire-wide, nor perpetual. In the 1st century, the only recorded Roman persecution of Christians was Neroâ€™s, limited to the Christians in Rome, and was due to Neroâ€™s scapegoating them for the fires.
The fundamental question that needs to be answered is were the persecutions so minor that they would not have deterred Christians from spreading their message. Everything else is irrelevant. You managed to downsize the overall numbers and timespan of Roman persecutions, but it still doesn't prove that Christians would not have been deterred from evangelizing. Everything points us to the conclusion that the persecutions were so prevalent that they would have deterred Christians from evangelizing, but despite this Christians still evangelized.

What does it mean to say the persecutions were â€œso prevalentâ€� that they would have deterred? You appear to have the idea that the spread of Christianity was miraculous, and youâ€™re trying to construe the data to support this preconception. The historical record does not support your contention. If you think it does, then start posting some references outside of the Bible and martyrologies. If your only source is martyrologies then be prepared to defend their historicity.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:Social persecution by Jews occurred, but avoid exaggerating it. James was killed for heresy in the year 62, 30 years after Jesus execution. There is no record of Peter having been persecuted; legend has it that he was killed in Rome in the later stages of his life. If true, this would be tied to the Neroâ€™s persecution; at best this means Peter was killed because he happened to be Christian in a place and time where they were being scapegoated. James and Peter were â€œpillarsâ€� of the Jerusalem church, and clearly survived a good 30 years after Jesusâ€™ execution, a sufficient amount of time for them (and probably others) to preach their interpretation of Jesusâ€™ teaching.
Peter was imprisoned by Agrippa 1 and James was killed by Agrippa 1, a Jewish King. You are understating the facts when you merely say the Jews socially persecuted Christians. They physically persecuted Christians, and couple that with Roman persecution there would exist every reason to deter Christians from evangelizing.

The only source Iâ€™m aware of that indicates Peter was imprisoned was the historically problematic Acts of the Apostles. According to Acts, Peter was imprisoned by Herod, not Agrippa. Itâ€™s part of a far-fetched story that includes his rescue by an angel. Are you insisting this story is historical? Is there any extra-biblical evidence Peter was arrested? Why exactly did Herod arrest him? Were demands made of Peter to renounce his belief in the divinity of Jesus? How did he really get out? Is the history portrayed in Acts credible? I discussed in great detail in the Resurrection Contradictions debate some of the historical problems with Acts.

Regarding James, Josephus reports his death (by Ananus) as a judicial murder, during a period of lax imperial oversight. Josephus reports that this murder was objected to by other fair-minded, law-abiding members of the community which led to their successful petition to Agrippa for Ananusâ€™ removal. You are reading a martyrdom into this political event.
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:-Regardless of how the â€œresurrectionâ€� idea developed, it became linked to Jesus apocalyptic teaching and became the seed of the theologies that subsequently developed. This is the root of the revolution that turned the religion of Jesus into the religion ABOUT Jesus â€“ the religion we see in the epistles of Paul (who wrote practically nothing about the actual teachings of Jesus, but wrote a great deal about the meaning he perceived in Jesus death and resurrection).
WinePusher wrote:You make an interesting point. But the message of Jesus was ultimately about salvation (you even acknowledge that with your quote from Brown). Jesus explicitly implied that salvation would be achieved for mankind by his death and resurrection. Paul simply expounds upon this concept in his epistles, and is therefore consistent with what Jesus taught, not inconsistent.
fredonly wrote:You are again making the assumption that the Gospel accounts are accurate historical records of Jesus teachings. Did Jesus REALLY teach that he would die for all mankind and rise from the dead? That is not a historically plausible assumption. It ASSUMES Jesus was divine, or at least in close connection to God. The more plausible assumption is that the evangelist who wrote it (or the tradents who passed along this information) inserted this â€œprophecyâ€� of Jesusâ€™. If the evangelist himself believed that Jesus was divine, that he died for our sins, and rose from the dead, then it is imminently plausible to assume that he might make such an insertion. This hypothesis relies on no implausible assumptions, as does your interpretation of the data. You really are stuck with a circular argument: you have to assume the Bible is true in order to prove it is true.
You've completely forgotten what you initial point was. From what I understand, your point was that Early Christians, namely Paul, misconstrued the religion into a religion about Jesus rather than a religion of Jesus. You are trying to say that Paul perverts Christianity into something it was not meant to be and he justifies it by basing it upon the resurrection. I countered by saying that both Paul and Jesus focused on the salvation found in the death and resurrection of Jesus and how this would be the basis for Christianity. Jesus himself says that his claims of divinity would be vindicated by his resurrection from the dead. So there is nothing inconsistent with what Jesus taught and what Paul taught. And like I said earlier, some things are within the New Testament are undisputed among Scholars. The people that would dispute them cling to their belief despite what Scholarly opinion says and are no different than creationists who cling to their beliefs despite what scientists say. Both of these types of people are willfully ignorant.

Youâ€™re overplaying the fact that there are some widely accepted New Testament passages. This is a very small subset of the New Testament, and includes no statements associated with Jesus making claims of divinity. The only explicit statements of divinity in the Gospels are in the Gospel of John, written a good 60 years after Jesusâ€™ death. This Gospel presents an image of Jesus quite different from the synoptics, especially the oldest (Mark). The better explanation for the appearance of these statements was that it is the result of an evolved theology by the community which produced the Gospel.
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WinePusher wrote:
WinePusher wrote:I have a problem with that last part. What we have are two descriptions of the character of Jesus, one description lies within the Canonical Gospels and the other lies within the Gnostic Gospels. An ongoing problem for contemporary New Testament Scholarship has been figuring out why the description in the Canonical Gospels is the true standard while the one in the Gnostic Gospels is the false standard. How is this determined? â€¦.
fredonly wrote:There are two problems with this: First of all, there are different depictions of Jesus even within the canonical Gospels. Christian harmonization of these disparate views is fine apologetics to help the believer accept accounts that are prima facie inconsistent, but does not cut it as valid historical methodology.
No, there are not. There are no major different depictions of Jesus within the Canonical Gospels. This is another thing I hear atheists constantly regurgitate without any detailed justification. All the Gospels parallel eachother when it comes to their ultimate message and all the Gospels converge on the Resurrection. Every single Gospel has an unadulterated resurrection narrative.

Scholarly analysis recognizes differences in the depictions, even though you donâ€™t. As discussed above, only the Gospel of John portrays Jesus as a clearly divine entity. Only John has Jesus saying that he is the â€œbread of life,â€� â€œlight of the world,â€� â€œthe good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep,â€� and â€œthe way, the truth, and the life.â€� Only John identifies Jesus as the â€œWord of Godâ€� â€œthrough whom all things were made.â€� Only John has Jesus making the claim, â€œbefore Abraham was, I am.â€� In the synoptics, Jesus does not speak openly of his identity, in contrast to John where his miracles are called â€œsigns.â€� John doesnâ€™t discuss Jesusâ€™ birth in Bethlehem, his baptism by John the Baptizer, or his time in the wilderness being tempted by the Devil. The Johanine Jesus does not proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God , nor does he tell parables. It omits the Lordâ€™s supper, his prayers in Gethsemane, and thereâ€™s not a word about a trial before the Sanhedrin or finding him guilty of blasphemy.

Regarding Jesusâ€™ â€œultimate messageâ€� as depicted in the Gospel, the challenge is to extract the historical from the theological. It is clear that the evangelists believed in the Resurrection, and that this was THEIR joint ultimate message. It is challenging to extract Jesus message from amidst the layers of theology and kerygma. That, of course, is what the search for the historical Jesus is all about. Conservative apologists donâ€™t like it, because this results in a Jesus without the theological trappings â€“ not the Christ of their Christianity. Are you willing to look at it with this level of objectivity?
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:Secondly, you present a false dichotomy between Gnosticism and Orthodox Christianity. Christianity was far more diverse than this. There were the Ebionites and Nazarenes who did not consider Jesus divine (some scholars have proposed that these were the original Christians, and included James and Peter). There were adoptionists who believed God â€œadoptedâ€� Jesus when he was baptized; there were docetists who believed Jesus divine, but not truly human. Donâ€™t forget the Judaizers, whom Paul encountered and which appear to have included Cephas and James (Ebionites and Judaizers are not mutually exclusive categories).
Not necessarily. What we know today as Orthodox Christianity and Gnosticism were the two major competitors in the ancient world. You're correct that other groups existed but they were minor. Example: What did Orthodox Christian Ireneus primarily devote his Against Heresy towards? The answer is Gnostic Christianity.

We have very few of the original writings by the other groups. History is written by the winner; in this case, the losers records werenâ€™t even retained. Most of what we know of Gnosticism and other sects is from polemics written by the proto-orthodox. Such polemics do not allow us to make a balanced assessment, being completely one-sided. They do tell us that multiple sects existed, but they do not tell us what they really believed, nor how widespread they were, so its an overstatement to insist they were â€œminor.â€� We know that ultimately only one sect survived, and one may plausibly assume that one factor in its success was its ability to control doctrine, resulting in a competitive advantage.

There is no real controversy around the fact that each Gospel was written for a different audience, a different community. This means they provide a glimpse into the thoughts of some of the different communities. Other glimpses can be seen in the non-canonical works, each of which were also used in various Christian communities); the polemical writings of the â€œchurch fathersâ€� give us another glimpse. Collectively, these differences imply heterodoxy.

It is orthodox chauvinism (i.e. faith) that assumes proto-orthodoxy was true, and that the others were splinter groups who were misled by heresy. A historical view has to be objective, and observe that various groups existed who possessed varied beliefs.
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WinePusher wrote:
WinePusher wrote:Because the closest source of information to the event would be the standard by which subsequent sources of information would be fact checked against. The canonical Gospels are the closest sources of information to Jesus we have, and because of that later sources of information about Jesus would be fact checked against the canonical Gospels and if they failed to match, the later sources would be thrown out as heretical and false. If a story was consistent with the information found in the canonical gospels, it would be received. If it was inconsistent with the information found in the canonical gospels, it would not be received.
fredonly wrote:Fact checking against the canonical Gospels!? Iâ€™m talking about fact checking by the authors of these canonical Gospels. There is no evidence of any of this. In fact, it appears there was apologetic editing by Matthew and Luke - cleaning up the parts that didn't fit their perceptions, rather than rejecting it as non-factual. This is rewriting history to fit their biases, not fact checking.

I really don't understand what you're saying. The Canonical Gospels would be the standard of Christianity by which you would fact check other versions of Christianity against.

You have contended that the canonical Gospels are historically reliable. I am disputing this by pointing out that the information they contain was not fact checked, as would be done in modern journalistic or historical accounts. The objective of the Gospels was kerygma, not historical accuracy. Luke and Matthew, in copying from Mark, show signs of editing that are associated with theology, not with a devotion to fact.

If factual reporting was the objective, why would Luke add words to a statement made by Jesus, as reported in Mark?
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:But let's look at the standard you suggest. Why wouldnâ€™t this have been applied to the gospel of John? Had it been compared to the synoptics for â€œfact checking,â€� the last of the canonical Gospels wouldnâ€™t have made the cut. It has Jesus ministry starting with, rather than ending with, the cleansing of the Temple; it has Jesus dying on a different day of the week, and it presents a different portrait of Jesus â€“ the highest Christology in the New Testament. So your standard doesn't even work internally.

The only relevant thing in this statement is John's Christology. The manner by which he organizes chronological events in his Gospel is not relevant to his 'portrait' of Jesus. And the Christology found in John is no different than the Christology found in the Synoptics, you can add this to the many other bare assertions you've made throughout this thread.

Raymond Brown sums up the situation in An Introduction to New Testament Christology:

Brown wrote:â€¦most Christians, even if unconsciously, have had their views of Christ massively shaped by John; often they assume Johnâ€™s high Christology to be that of the whole New Testament. In my judgement the uniqueness of John among the Gospels does not receive sufficient attention either in preaching or religious education. On the other hand scholars are very aware of Johanine uniqueness and peculiaritiesâ€¦ (p196)

Brown and other scholars have identified a historical pattern moving from a lower to higher Christology over time:

Brown wrote:â€¦If we date New Testament times from 30 to 130, quite clearly the use of â€œGodâ€� for Jesus becomes frequently attested only in the second half of the period. The chronological context is confirmed by the evidence of the earliest extrabiblical Christian works. At the beginning of the 2d century Ignatius freely speaks of Jesus as Godâ€¦Plinyâ€™s testimonyâ€¦Christians of Asia Minor sang hymns to Christ as to a God. By mid-2d century, Clement states â€œWe must think of Jesus Christ as the Godâ€¦Is this usage a Hellenistic contribution to the theological vocabulary of Christianity? Since we have no evidence that Jesus was called God in the Jerusalem or Palestinian communities of the first two decades of Christianity, the prima facie evidence might suggest Hellenistic originsâ€¦.The Johanine works come from the final years of the century, when the usage of â€œGodâ€� for Jesus has become common. Yet the Fourth Gospel preserves some traditional material about Jesus that has been handed down from a much earlier period before such usage (14:28, 17:3, 20:17, which, prima facie, would not favor equating Jesus with God or putting him on the same level as the Father. (p191-192)

And the viewpoint Brown gives is perfectly consistent with Roman Catholic doctrine:

Brown wrote: The 1964 Instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, â€œThe Historical Truth of the Gospelsâ€� section VIII recognizes that only after Jesus rose from the dead was his divinity clearly perceived. That need not mean that this perception was instantaneous; it took a long time to come to understand the mystery of Jesus and to give it formulation. The Arian dispute shows this clearly. (p190)

Brown discusses the work of liberal scholars:

Brown wrote: [scholarly] liberal analyses of developing Christology [suggests] that titles such as Lord and Son of God were applied to Jesus in a divine sense only in the Christian mission to Greek-speaking gentiles-either they did not exist at an earlier Jewish-Christian stage or were used in a much humbler sense of master and Messiah (anointed king). This speculation gave the impression of a linear development toward a â€œhigher Christology,â€� ----p12-13

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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:You speak of â€œheretical and falseâ€� from an orthodox Christian point of view. But one manâ€™s orthodoxy is another manâ€™s heresy. These terms are purely theological, and presumes that you (or your historical predecessors) KNEW what was true (without possibility of being wrong). A historical view cannot be based on theological assumptions. A proper historical perspective is to recognize that a group of Christians with certain beliefs selected books that were consistent with their beliefs. You would HOPE to be able to provide a historical argument to support your assumption that these â€œorthodoxâ€� Christians knew the truth, but the problem is that there is no historical data that can identify theological â€œtruth.â€�

I've already offered you one way to discern how what we know today as 'orthodox christianity' is true, and it's based in the historical method. The canonical Gospels were the closest written accounts to the events they describe while the gnostic Gospels were written later, after the canonical Gospels. If you have two sources describing the same individual/event differently, you go with the closest source.
.

I agree that the historical method gives greater credence to the oldest source, but that doesnâ€™t make the oldest existing source TRUE. It was written following a period of teaching about Jesus, a teaching that is likely to have evolved over time. The existence of the later non-Canonical books shows that the ideas about Jesus continued to evolve. Iâ€™ve already described how different John is from the synoptics, which is evidence of evolution within the 30 or so years timespan between Mark and John.

But if you are so convinced that this method was employed, then please explain why the Gospel of John was accepted, considering its numerous innovations?
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WinePusher wrote:

WinePusher wrote:This is another gap that I disputed earlier. As of yet I have not gotten an adequate rebuttal to the following: (1)Why would the Disciples of Jesus not be interested in writing down written accounts of his Life and Ministry?
fredonly wrote:Hereâ€™s why:
a) There is a 99% chance that the disciples of Jesus were illiterate. They couldnâ€™t have personally written anything down if they wanted to.
b) 99% of the population to whom they were ministering were also illiterate. It was an oral culture.
c)The disciples believed the kingdom of God would be established in their generation, so they would have had little motivation to leave a written record for future generations.

Illiterate how? Be specific, I'm more inclined to accept the theory of aramaic primacy of the Gospels which would make your objection irrelevant.

Hereâ€™s my basis for calling them illiterate:

Ehrman wrote:In his 1989 book, Ancient Literacy, William Harris, professor of ancient History at Columbia University, did a study of literacy. He argued that in the ancient world, at the very best of times, only about 10% of the population was reasonably literate. By â€œbest of timesâ€� he meant Athens, a center of learning at the height of its intellectual power in the 4th-5th century BCE (the days of Socrates and Plato). The literate were from the upper classes, the social and economic elite, who had the leisure and money to afford an education. Lower class people did not learn how to read, and even fewer learned how to write. Of those who could write, fewer still could compose a complete sentence, and only the most educated could compose an essay. The number that could read, write, and compose within a foreign language would be extremely small indeed.

Catherine Hezser researched literacy in 1st century Palestine ( Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine). She estimates that about 3% of the population could read, and the majority of these would have been in the cities and larger towns. Smaller towns and villages would have a literacy of around 1%. These literate people were, again, always the elite of the upper classes. And those who did learn to read, learned how to read Hebrew â€“ not Greek. There are only 2 known Palestinian literary authors from this period: Josephus and Justus of Tiberius; both were upper class and inordinately well educated.

Mark Chancey (Greco-Roman Cluture and the Galilee of Jesus) reports his studies of the archaeological evidence from around 1st centuray Galilee, and concludes that Gentiles (who spoke Greek) in Galilee were almost exclusively located in the two major citiies, Sepphoris and Tiberias. The rest of Galilee was predominantly Jewish. And since most of Galilee was rural, not urban, the vast majority of Jews had no encounters with Gentiles. Greek was not widely spoken in the area, and there would be essentially no reason for an average person to learn it, so the vast majority of the Jews spoke Aramaic and had no facility in Greek.
- Forged

So I have to say that a strong preponderance of evidence suggests that the peasant followers of Jesus were just what I said, illiterate, Aramaic speaking Jews. It is historically implausible to suggest the Disciples learned to read and write in their native language, then learned to read and write in Greek, and then finally learned to compose coherent narratives in this foreign language[/quote]

WinePusher · Post by **WinePusher** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 1:05 am

fredonly wrote:You seem to be overlooking this key point, so I'll repeat it: the number of intermediaries between the original telling of an event and the version that our source contains, the more chance there is of distortions. Jesus conception and birth are EVENTS. You are arguing in this debate that this specific, implausible event actually occurred, so this element of the historical method is directly applicable.

Are we or are we not dealing with a society whose primary means of transmitting information was through oral tradition? The statement makes some sense

WinePusher wrote:If the Gospels were written by the individuals whose names they bear, then they all are considered the testimonies of eyewitnesses and the entirety of their contents are also considered the products of eyewitnesses.

fredonly wrote:In a generic way, this is true. However when critically evaluating a sourceâ€™s information, to potentially use it to support a historical hypothesis, it is appropriate to evaluate the eyewitness testimony. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... s_evidence, see item 2: How well could the author observe the thing he reports? Were his senses equal to the observation? Was his physical location suitable to sight, hearing, touch? Did he have the proper social ability to observe: did he understand the language, have other expertise required (e.g., law, military); was he not being intimidated by his wife or the secret police?

Do you reject the historical method ? Do you reject just portions of it? Do you feel the Bible should be exempt, since itâ€™s the word of God? If you are using some alternate standard, please provide the source that describes it.

There is no need to barrage me with a handful of meaningless questions.

WinePusher wrote:For the sake of clarification, I'll reiterate my argument. Matthew and John were both eyewitnesses to Jesus, and while Mark and Luke were not they received their information from eyewitnesses. The absurdity in your position is that even if this premise was historically true, these four accounts would not qualify as eyewitness accounts because these four individuals failed to be physically and visually present at every single event listed in the Gospels. That is a modern, legal understanding of the term and it is not congruent with Ancient History because it would disqualify a written account as an eyewitness account simply because the eyewitness who wrote it failed to physically see every single item mentioned in the account. And under both your distorted definition and my definition, there is no eyewitness testimony available for the virgin birth narrative. So you and others should stop putting words in my mouth.

fredonly wrote:The position you call "absurd" and "distorted" are the objective standards of modern historical research! This is not me inserting a legalism, or attempting to unfairly evaluate the gospels in an unfair or unique manner. I'm calling for objective analysis, which you are rejecting through a fallacious special pleading. If your position is based on fideism, then admit it and we can leave it at that. But if you're attempting to show that there is a sound historical basis for accepting the virginal conception/birth â€“ then you have no choice but to accept the modern standards of historiography. Make up your mind which it is.

In case you have an idealistic view of ancient history, consider this:
Breisach wrote: Historiography: Ancient, Medieval, and Modern, Chapter3: The Limits of Greek Historiography, p33-34] --
History as scholarship was known to few people. History as political narrative or local story had a somewhat greater public appeal. History as dramatic account â€“ serious or frivolous-received the major share of attention. ..The historians who dramatized their accounts, told anecdotes, and did not shy away from trivia to enhance the human interest wanted history to offer its listeners and readers mimesis, an imitation of reality which, like drama, "involved" them by stirring up their emotions, even passionsâ€¦Long prevented from joining philosophy in interpreting human life, and never perceiving history as the attempt to reconstruct the past for the love of truth alone, historians utilized the techniques of drama in order to evoke emotions, convey a lesson or two, and above all entertain. He quotes from one ancient historian (Polybius) condemning the practices of other historians:
Though their subjects are simple and without complications, they seek the name and reputation of historians not from the truth of their facts, but the number of their books, and accordingly they are obliged to give petty affairs an air of importance, and fill out and give rhetorical flourishes to what was originally expressed briefly; dress up actions and achievementsâ€¦and are not at all satisfied with me for giving a more truthful relation of such events as they really occurred...Polybius, The Histories
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WinePusher wrote:My argument from the outset has been that we know of the virgin birth of Jesus from individuals who were eyewitnesses to the life of Jesus, and although the specific mode of transmission is unknown (meaning that we don't know who exactly told Matthew and Luke) we do know that they derived the information from two disconnected sources. These facts alone grant the narrative an enormous amount of credence.
fredonly wrote:What is the basis for saying â€œwe knowâ€� Matthew and Luke derived their information about the virginal conception and birth from two different sources. I agree it is possible, but it seems a severe overstatement to say â€œwe knowâ€� this. At best, you can state that itâ€™s a hypothesis that is a better explanation than the alternatives.
Well fredonly, under the two sourced hypothesis we have 3 possible sources for the content of Matthew and Luke: Mark, Q, M and L. The virgin birth narratives are common between Matthew and Luke but uncommon between Mark and Q since Q is a Sayings Gospel. Therefore, Matthew and Luke derived this narrative fom two disconnected sources: M and L.

fredonly wrote:Letâ€™s consider some alternative hypotheses about the sources used by Matthew and Luke.

Facts to be dealt with:1) the presence of 2 propositions in common between the two nativity stories (virginal conception; born in Bethlehem); 2) at least one of the Nativity stories is not true with regard to the other details (because the two stories conflict with one another).

Hypothesis 1: A single source had the common information â€“ the 2 propositions and nothing more. Luke and Matthew received this and each wove these propositions into narratives that they each constructed.

Hypothesis 2M: Matthew received a full nativity narrative, Luke received just a sketch with the 3 common points. Luke expanded these points into his narrative of his own making.

Hypothesis 2L: Luke received a full nativity narrative, Matthew received just a sketch with the 3 common points. Matthew expanded these points into his narrative of his own making.

Hypothesis 1 is the better explanation. There is evidence that Matthew and Luke had 2 common sources (Mark and Q). Such information could certainly be in Q. Thereâ€™s no reason to assume yet another common source (principle of parsimony). The other hypotheses require more distinct sources.

If hypothesis 2M is true, then we should assume â€œMâ€� contained a complete nativity narrative (one that is possibly true).; L contained just the two sketchy propositions which Luke weaved into a narrative. But this begs the question of where L received the sketchy information from â€“ it implies yet another source, making this hypothesis less parsimonious in terms of number of assumed sources. In addition, why would one assume Matthew is more trustworthy than Luke in his reporting? Since we know ONE story is fictional, thereâ€™s no particular reason to assume the OTHER is factual, other than wishful thinking.

Exactly the same argument can be made against hypothesis 2L.

Feel free to offer additional hypotheses, or provide new defenses for the above ones.
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WinePusher wrote:
But the part of your source that is worthy of discussion is this: 'And rightly so, for the greater the number of intermediaries between the original telling of an event and the version that our source contains, the more chance there is of distortions.' While that is true, it is not relevant if my premise is correct. If my premise is correct then no intermediaries would exist because they would have been written down from memory.
How can you possibly suggest that there was no intermediary, when the ONLY person with direct knowledge of the alleged virginal conception is Mary? Even if Mary told the evangelist directly, the evangelist is secondary to the one and only eyewitness. And the problem with THIS assumption is that there is no evidence that this occurred, it is an ad hoc rationalization for the a priori assumption that the virginal conception is true; it is not a deduction from the evidence.
Winepusher wrote:What you fail to recognize if that even though the Gospels were written decades after the fact, they were written down within living memory of the facts.
Sure, some people were alive that had seen Jesus during the period of time the Gospels were written. This would be relevant if the Gospels were written in Aramaic in Palestine. Even had they been, it is Greek versions that came down to us, and were in circulation in the Greek speaking world. How do Aramaic speakers control the content of the stories circulating in Greek?
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WinePusher wrote:The individual comes to know of the event by the spread of information through the society. I'll go back to my previous example. There were only a handful of people physically present at the assassination of Julius Caesar, but due to the cataclysmic nature of the event the information spread and others became informed.
You've already described some key differences: a "handful of people" were physically present at Ceasar's assassination, while only one person was present at the conception. The "cataclysmic" nature of the event would naturally result in the news spreading about the killing; a conception is not noteworthy.
WinePusher wrote:These people still qualify as 'eye-witnesses' to the death of Caesar even though they were not physically present.
That's not true! Only those present were actually eyewitnesses. The historians of the time tell us there were 40 conspirators; 21 of them are named (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassinat ... nspirators).

But although the historians who record the event weren't eyewitnesses, the large number that were involved provide a plausible basis for the information becoming well known. And of course, it had immediate political impact on the empire.

Who was present when Jesus' zygote appeared within Mary's womb? Who was watching her before that to ensure she was a virgin? There is no plausible source for this information. The conception of Jesus by a peasant woman was an everyday, trivial matter.

WinePusher wrote: And no disciples were near the vicinity of Mary when the conception occurred since they themselves were either not born yet, or children. I am contending that the Evangelists Matthew and Luke were eye-witnesses to the ministry of Jesus Christ and they would have received information about the virgin birth during that duration.

From WHOM could they have received this? There is no credible evidence of any chain of custody of the information, so it is complete hearsay â€“ hearsay about an implausible event.

WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:In Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, Richard Bauckham makes the argument that the Gospels are derived from eyewitness testimony. He does not conclude that they CONSIST OF eyewitness testimony. This is an important distinction, in general, but especially so in the case of the virginal conception hypothesis.
Where does Bauckham say this? .
Here's a summary comment, toward the end of the book:
Bauckham wrote:Page 472: In one case, we have argued, an eyewitness has authored his own Gospelâ€¦Not being eyewitnesses themselves, the other Gospel writers are less theologically ambitious.â€�

In his study, Bauckham tested the evidence â€“ trying to make the case for the Gospels being eyewitness accounts. The evidence against the synoptics was so strong that even he couldnâ€™t deny the fact that they were clearly not written by eyewitnesses. He does decide that John is an eyewitness, but itâ€™s not the disciple John, the son of Zebedee. He identifies the evangelist as John the Elder.

Iâ€™ll add that Bauckham is up front about his starting pointâ€�
Bauckham wrote:I suggest that we need to recover the sense in which the Gospels are testimonyâ€¦Trusting testimony is not an irrational act of faith that leaves critical rationality aside; it is, on the contrary, the rationally appropriate way of responding to authentic testimony. Gospels understood as testimony are the entirely appropriate means of access to the historical reality of Jesus.
Bauckham is an apologist, who begins with his assumption that the Gospels represent testimony, and identifies support for this assumption. He does not, however, consider the broad alternatives. He never questions the plausibility aspects of the alleged â€œtestimony,â€� nor consider alternative (more plausiblie) explanations as to what is behind the stories. When discussing John, he ignores the evidence that (for example) Raymond Brown utilizes, that lead Brown to conclude the Gospel was the product of a community (multiple authors)â€“ and that it is more of a community history than a historical account of Jesus. If Brown is even partly right, then Bauckham must be wrong. For Bauckham to be right, he needs to provide alternate explanations for the narrative breaks and mixed messages that Brown identifies.

winepusher wrote:This assessment is only true for Mark and Luke, if they actually wrote their Gospels they would have derived the information from actual eyewitnesses. Luke's sources are unknown, but Mark's source is clear. It was Peter.
It is erroneous to call it â€œclearâ€� that Peter was Mark's source. There is exactly one tenuous bit of evidence that Mark had personally gotten his information from Peterâ€™s preaching: a brief comment by Papias. We discussed this a good bit in the Resurrection Contradictions debate. Papiasâ€™ testimony in this regard is highly suspect.

winepusher wrote: The book you cite devotes pages to the idea that Mark is simply channeling Peter in his Gospel, and if the Two-Sourced-Hypothesis is actually true the Petrine Perspective in Mark would still remain in tact, making at least one of the four Gospels a genuine eyewitness account.
Bauckham identifies some components of Mark that are consistent with the notion that this Gospel is, in some sense, derived from Peter's teaching. He counts the number of references to Peter, and more significantly, he interprets the way Peter is depicted. He notes that other scholars have suggested that Peter is portrayed negatively; but Bauckham casts this is in a broader context, suggesting that the portrayal is consistent with a Petrine self-denigration from humility.

While it may be true that Mark is somehow derived from a Petrine perspective, somewhere in its lineage, there is not a strong case to conclude that Mark received it directly from Peter. Other scholars have suggested that the role depicted of Peter is simply consistent with the established fact that Peter was a recognized leader of the "Christian" church â€“ one of the "pillars" of whom Paul spoke. But you seem to ignore the qualifications and cast away all other possibilities, since you "know" Mark's source was Peter. Such â€œknowledgeâ€� can only be fideism. It is an objective fact that we cannot know who wrote the Gospel, nor can we know what relationship the author may have had with the disciple Peter, or anyone else. The past is lost to us. Itâ€™s all hypothesis, with very little hard data to support it.
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WinePusher wrote:

WinePusher wrote:The basic idea is correct. The Evangelists wanted to convey a persona about Jesus and also wanted their readers to accept it. The problem is, why does this matter?
fredonly wrote:It matters because the ancient biographers make up details to convey their view of the subjectâ€™s character, so being of the genre â€œancient biographyâ€� does not imply any specific stories are true.
No, you're stretching it when you say a biographer would go so far as to make up stories just to fit their perception of the individual. That undermines my argument that the perception a biographer has is derived from the facts of the subjects life..
I'm not stretching it at all, I'm relating to you what has been observed by historians, it's a common characteristic of ancient biographies. See my above quote from Breisach.

Consider Alexander the Great. One of the original sources of information about him was from Callisthenes, a relative and companion of Alexander. We don't have his original work, but it was a source used by later historians. What has come down to us, through these later historians, is that Callisthenesâ€¦

Breisach wrote:â€¦ seems not to have hesitated to depict Alexander as the hero favored by the gods: one whose ancestry even may lead back to Zeus and Achilles.
A purported descent from Zeus seems to me to be a virtually identical level of embellishment to a descent from Yahweh. And in the example I give, there is an established chain of evidence, from a contemporary and companion of Alexander. This is a chain of evidence that is historically more credible than you have regarding the alleged virginal conception/birth of Jesus. And yet, no one today believes Alexander is really descended from Zeus.
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:If the evangelist himself did not witness the events he is portraying, then he can only report what he thinks he heard about the event. Every link in the chain, from observer to evangelist, presents an opportunity for distortion of the alleged historical facts â€“ as described above in my quote from the Howell & Prevenier book on the Historical Method.
I understand that but it is only true if your theory of authorship is correct. If my theory is correct then what you have written is irrelevant because there would be no opportunity for distortion because there would exist no intermediaries.
Unless the author personally witnessed an event, then there are intermediaries. You continue to blur the "eyewitness" distinction, vaguely suggesting that a companion of Jesus would have knowledge of anything about him that is written in a Gospel. It simply doesnâ€™t work.
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WinePusher wrote:For example: Suetonius portrays the character of Nero as that of a musician and a lover of arts. The persona Suetonius creates is based upon the fact that Nero played music and performed. Similarly, the Evangelists convey the character of Jesus as Divine, a Savior, and a Healer. The persona the Evangelists create is based upon the fact that Jesus did miraculous things that indicated his divinity.
fredonly wrote:IFJesus actually did truly miraculous things , then sure, this would have resulted in these being reported. But did he? What evidence is there of this?
You actually, and probably unintentionally, articulated the 'evidence' better than I could have. You say that the goal of the Ancient Biographer was to convey his perception of the person whom he writes about. We both agree about the perception the Evangelists had about Jesus and that it was their goal to emphasis this perception. But you fail to explain how the perception is formed in the first place. I offered my explanation which you did not refute. The perception an Ancient Biographer creates is the result of the facts surrounding the persons life. To say that the Evangelists created a perception about the messianic and divine nature of Jesus without actually experiencing anything that would indicate his divine nature is a problematic assertion. So, the evidence is the perception itself. The perception of Jesus, created by the Evangelists, indicates his divine and miraculous nature.
N. T. Wright wrote about other messianic figures, to highlight the differences with the Jesus movement. There is also a key similarity: a number of people were perceived as Messiahs. Therefore you canâ€™t possibly deny that the perception that someone is a Messiah doesnâ€™t imply he IS a messiah. Wouldnâ€™t their (false) perceptions also be based on their eyewitness observations?

A perception is an internalized cognitive construct. Sure, it's built up from sensory input, what is seen and heard, directly and indirectly, but it is processed through the paradigms of a world view. A Keynesian economist and a classical (supply-side) economist perceive different economic patterns in the same set of economic data. More directly to the present topic, a person whose world view is based on supernaturalism will perceive a faith healing differently from a medical researcher familiar with the placebo effect.

I previously gave you my general hypothesis about how the view of Jesus developed. Let me review this. Jesus probably performed faith healings and exorcisms, acts that are known to have efficacy for purely natural reasons (placebo effect). Jesus also taught a theological ethic, and prophesied the coming of an eschatological kingdom. From the perspective of a credulous supernaturalist, a 1st century Jew, this would be perceived by some as demonstrating a closeness to God. Of course, not everyone perceived him this way, else he wouldn't have been executed. Enough people did perceive him this way that his movement continued in an evolved form. (The fact that he was not universally recognized as godly or divine suggests the wondrousness of his acts werenâ€™t as clear-cut as you seem to assume).

I suggest this is the basis for the exalted image of Jesus, an image that became grander and more exalted over time. It had to become grand enough to compensate for the fact of Jesus' execution as a common criminal.
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fredonly wrote:It is completely uncontroversial to suggest that Jesus preached an eschatology, an apocalyptic message.
I never said he didn't. I said that this made up only a minor part of his overall teachings, and whenever he spoke of it he spoke in ambiguity.
Funny thing about prophecies, they always seem to be ambiguous â€“ only able to be understood after the alleged fulfillment. How do you know this was only a minor part of his teachings? A lot of scholars think it to have been the central focus of his teachings.
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WinePusher wrote:
Whenever he spoke of the end of days, he spoke in mystery. The only thing he made clear was that no one, not even himself, would know when the end of days was. The apocalypse was only a minor part of his teachings, the bulk of what he taught revolved around social and relational issues.
fredonly wrote:N. T. Wright and Bart Ehrman agree on this (just to name two scholars). Regarding the alleged mystery of it: how do you know what Jesus actually said? I can anticipate your answer: because the Gospels say so. Your entire case is built around the assumption that the Gospels are trustworthy, accurate, historical accounts. If you BEGIN with this assumption, you canâ€™t possibly PROVE that they are accurate, historical accounts because this is circular.
I grow tired of these trivial rebuttals, fredonly. Yes, my position is that sections of the Gospels are undisputed facts and I assume that they are undisputed facts in this thread. That position is based upon Biblical Scholarship, not personal convictions. It shouldn't surprise you that there are items within in the Gospels that are undisputed by Biblical Scholars, so you are not justified to say that my position is based upon empty assumptions. They aren't assumptions, they're historical facts. The Jesus Seminar, the embodiment of extremely liberal New Testament Scholarship, has determined that two apocalyptic parables/sayings of Jesus, the Wedding Dinner and the Hidden Pearl, are probably true sayings made by the Historical Jesus. That should be good enough for you. And what I find even more troubling is that you're objecting to the authenticity of a saying of Jesus, not an event attributed to him. The consensus of scholarly opinion on the sayings of Jesus are far more conclusive than the consensus of scholarly opinion on the acts and events of Jesus.
â€œUndisputedâ€� is a bit strong, but I certainly agree that there are passages (a small number) that are widely accepted as historical, and I fully accept this scholarship. When I asked, â€œhow do you know what Jesus actually said?â€� I was referring to the fact that it is impossible to know the full context and intent of Jesusâ€™ teaching; I wasnot denying the validity of deriving SOME historical sayings. It is an overstatement to insist that his eschatological teaching was minor; many scholars think it was central to his message based specifically on the sayings of Jesus that they consider historical.
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fredonly wrote:My set of scenarios is based only on plausible assumptions, whereas your very specific scenario is based on a number of implausible assumptions (there is a creator of the universe, this creator continues to exist and intervenes in the natural world from time to time in miraculous ways, this creator singled out the Jews to be his â€œchosen people,â€� Jesus is God, â€¦ if any of these are NOT assumptions of yours, then provide your rational argument in support of each one (and get prepared for a lengthy debate on each one).
lol what a perfect example of a false burden. My burden of proof is not to prove every single assertion or event I believe, it is only to prove the root assertion and event which I believe. You've committed an elementary logical mistake:

P1: If the God of the Christian Bible exists, then Jesus of Nazareth is God, The Jewish people are God's chosen people, Jesus was born of a virgin, Jesus rose from the dead, the universe was the product of Intelligent Design, etc.
P2: The God of the Christian Bible exists.
Conclusion: Jesus of Nazareth is God, The Jewish people are God's chosen people, Jesus was born of a virgin, Jesus rose from the dead, the universe was the product of Intelligent Design, etc.

So, my only burden of proof is to prove that the God of the Christian Bible exists. The other assertions and events logically flow from this premise and do not need to be proven individually. I am speaking in abstract terms though. It is interesting to debate each assertion individually and weigh the evidence as we're doing here, but ultimately, in the grand scheme of things, the only claim that needs to be proven by Christians is the the Christian God exists and the other claims necessarily flow from it.
I see, so you think you can more easily prove the more general assertion that the God of the Christian Bible exists, without first needing to prove the individual propositions that this entails. This seems like a pretty tall order. Please give me your argument.
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fredonly wrote:-After his death, some of his followers wished to carry on Jesus teaching. We donâ€™t know exactly what they taught, but they may have had post mortem visions of Jesus or perhaps they didnâ€™t find Jesusâ€™ body where they expected it to be and jumped to a happy conclusion.
WinePusher wrote:This is one of those gaps I was talking about. Even though they lack any motivation to do so, and even though the circumstantial evidence of social persecution by the Jews and physical persecution by the Romans should have deterred them, they still 'wished' to carry on the teachings of Jesus? Please explain yourself fredonly.
fredonly wrote:Your filling in THIS gap with a nice apologetic portrait that suggests that the earliest Christians, particularly the direct disciples of Jesus, were under near constant persecution â€“ and yet bravely risked their lives to spread the â€œgood news.â€� The only problem with this is that it is not supported by the historical evidence. There is no direct historical record of the social context in which the Gospels were composed- so it is invalid to utilize an apologetic invention to make your case. There is no record that suggests the evangelists (whoever they were, and wherever they wrote) personally suffered persecution or lived in fear, nor is there credible, objective evidence that any of the disciples died for their beliefs.
So you've basically thrown out all the history we know about the first century in a few sentences. What we know about persecutions does not come from the Gospels, in fact it doesn't really even come from the New Testament. We read about persecutions in Acts, but our sources of information come from extrabiblical sources. The infamous Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, Tacitus, all direct testimonies to the persecution and marginalization of Christians.
Iâ€™m not throwing out history, you are distorting it. In the Resurrection Contradictions debate, I wrote at length about the fact that persecutions were sporadic and localized. There was no empire-wide pogrom to exterminate Christians; Christianity was not illegal. I do agree that there was SOME persecution, and that some people suffered because of their tenacity at being true to their faith, such as the Christians Pliny wrote about who refused to give tribute to the gods. Focusing exclusively on these persecuted people, and the fact that some of them died for their faith, what conclusions do you draw from this? The conclusion I draw is that these people held strong beliefs. I fail to see how that is relevant to your case. Muslim extremist suicide bombers die for their faith â€“ belief does not imply truth. Iâ€™ve said from the beginning that I believe there was sincerity among the early Christians every step of the way.
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:As a reminder, we discussed the alleged Roman persecutions of Christians in the Resurrection Contradictions debate. The historical record shows that in the 1st 3 centuries, such persecutions were sporadic, neither empire-wide, nor perpetual. In the 1st century, the only recorded Roman persecution of Christians was Neroâ€™s, limited to the Christians in Rome, and was due to Neroâ€™s scapegoating them for the fires.
The fundamental question that needs to be answered is were the persecutions so minor that they would not have deterred Christians from spreading their message. Everything else is irrelevant. You managed to downsize the overall numbers and timespan of Roman persecutions, but it still doesn't prove that Christians would not have been deterred from evangelizing. Everything points us to the conclusion that the persecutions were so prevalent that they would have deterred Christians from evangelizing, but despite this Christians still evangelized.
What does it mean to say the persecutions were â€œso prevalentâ€� that they would have deterred? You appear to have the idea that the spread of Christianity was miraculous, and youâ€™re trying to construe the data to support this preconception. The historical record does not support your contention. If you think it does, then start posting some references outside of the Bible and martyrologies. If your only source is martyrologies then be prepared to defend their historicity.
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fredonly wrote:Social persecution by Jews occurred, but avoid exaggerating it. James was killed for heresy in the year 62, 30 years after Jesus execution. There is no record of Peter having been persecuted; legend has it that he was killed in Rome in the later stages of his life. If true, this would be tied to the Neroâ€™s persecution; at best this means Peter was killed because he happened to be Christian in a place and time where they were being scapegoated. James and Peter were â€œpillarsâ€� of the Jerusalem church, and clearly survived a good 30 years after Jesusâ€™ execution, a sufficient amount of time for them (and probably others) to preach their interpretation of Jesusâ€™ teaching.
Peter was imprisoned by Agrippa 1 and James was killed by Agrippa 1, a Jewish King. You are understating the facts when you merely say the Jews socially persecuted Christians. They physically persecuted Christians, and couple that with Roman persecution there would exist every reason to deter Christians from evangelizing.
The only source Iâ€™m aware of that indicates Peter was imprisoned was the historically problematic Acts of the Apostles. According to Acts, Peter was imprisoned by Herod, not Agrippa. Itâ€™s part of a far-fetched story that includes his rescue by an angel. Are you insisting this story is historical? Is there any extra-biblical evidence Peter was arrested? Why exactly did Herod arrest him? Were demands made of Peter to renounce his belief in the divinity of Jesus? How did he really get out? Is the history portrayed in Acts credible? I discussed in great detail in the Resurrection Contradictions debate some of the historical problems with Acts.

Regarding James, Josephus reports his death (by Ananus) as a judicial murder, during a period of lax imperial oversight. Josephus reports that this murder was objected to by other fair-minded, law-abiding members of the community which led to their successful petition to Agrippa for Ananusâ€™ removal. You are reading a martyrdom into this political event.
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:-Regardless of how the â€œresurrectionâ€� idea developed, it became linked to Jesus apocalyptic teaching and became the seed of the theologies that subsequently developed. This is the root of the revolution that turned the religion of Jesus into the religion ABOUT Jesus â€“ the religion we see in the epistles of Paul (who wrote practically nothing about the actual teachings of Jesus, but wrote a great deal about the meaning he perceived in Jesus death and resurrection).
WinePusher wrote:You make an interesting point. But the message of Jesus was ultimately about salvation (you even acknowledge that with your quote from Brown). Jesus explicitly implied that salvation would be achieved for mankind by his death and resurrection. Paul simply expounds upon this concept in his epistles, and is therefore consistent with what Jesus taught, not inconsistent.
fredonly wrote:You are again making the assumption that the Gospel accounts are accurate historical records of Jesus teachings. Did Jesus REALLY teach that he would die for all mankind and rise from the dead? That is not a historically plausible assumption. It ASSUMES Jesus was divine, or at least in close connection to God. The more plausible assumption is that the evangelist who wrote it (or the tradents who passed along this information) inserted this â€œprophecyâ€� of Jesusâ€™. If the evangelist himself believed that Jesus was divine, that he died for our sins, and rose from the dead, then it is imminently plausible to assume that he might make such an insertion. This hypothesis relies on no implausible assumptions, as does your interpretation of the data. You really are stuck with a circular argument: you have to assume the Bible is true in order to prove it is true.
You've completely forgotten what you initial point was. From what I understand, your point was that Early Christians, namely Paul, misconstrued the religion into a religion about Jesus rather than a religion of Jesus. You are trying to say that Paul perverts Christianity into something it was not meant to be and he justifies it by basing it upon the resurrection. I countered by saying that both Paul and Jesus focused on the salvation found in the death and resurrection of Jesus and how this would be the basis for Christianity. Jesus himself says that his claims of divinity would be vindicated by his resurrection from the dead. So there is nothing inconsistent with what Jesus taught and what Paul taught. And like I said earlier, some things are within the New Testament are undisputed among Scholars. The people that would dispute them cling to their belief despite what Scholarly opinion says and are no different than creationists who cling to their beliefs despite what scientists say. Both of these types of people are willfully ignorant.
Youâ€™re overplaying the fact that there are some widely accepted New Testament passages. This is a very small subset of the New Testament, and includes no statements associated with Jesus making claims of divinity. The only explicit statements of divinity in the Gospels are in the Gospel of John, written a good 60 years after Jesusâ€™ death. This Gospel presents an image of Jesus quite different from the synoptics, especially the oldest (Mark). The better explanation for the appearance of these statements was that it is the result of an evolved theology by the community which produced the Gospel.
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WinePusher wrote:I have a problem with that last part. What we have are two descriptions of the character of Jesus, one description lies within the Canonical Gospels and the other lies within the Gnostic Gospels. An ongoing problem for contemporary New Testament Scholarship has been figuring out why the description in the Canonical Gospels is the true standard while the one in the Gnostic Gospels is the false standard. How is this determined? â€¦.
fredonly wrote:There are two problems with this: First of all, there are different depictions of Jesus even within the canonical Gospels. Christian harmonization of these disparate views is fine apologetics to help the believer accept accounts that are prima facie inconsistent, but does not cut it as valid historical methodology.
No, there are not. There are no major different depictions of Jesus within the Canonical Gospels. This is another thing I hear atheists constantly regurgitate without any detailed justification. All the Gospels parallel eachother when it comes to their ultimate message and all the Gospels converge on the Resurrection. Every single Gospel has an unadulterated resurrection narrative.
Scholarly analysis recognizes differences in the depictions, even though you donâ€™t. As discussed above, only the Gospel of John portrays Jesus as a clearly divine entity. Only John has Jesus saying that he is the â€œbread of life,â€� â€œlight of the world,â€� â€œthe good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep,â€� and â€œthe way, the truth, and the life.â€� Only John identifies Jesus as the â€œWord of Godâ€� â€œthrough whom all things were made.â€� Only John has Jesus making the claim, â€œbefore Abraham was, I am.â€� In the synoptics, Jesus does not speak openly of his identity, in contrast to John where his miracles are called â€œsigns.â€� John doesnâ€™t discuss Jesusâ€™ birth in Bethlehem, his baptism by John the Baptizer, or his time in the wilderness being tempted by the Devil. The Johanine Jesus does not proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God , nor does he tell parables. It omits the Lordâ€™s supper, his prayers in Gethsemane, and thereâ€™s not a word about a trial before the Sanhedrin or finding him guilty of blasphemy.

Regarding Jesusâ€™ â€œultimate messageâ€� as depicted in the Gospel, the challenge is to extract the historical from the theological. It is clear that the evangelists believed in the Resurrection, and that this was THEIR joint ultimate message. It is challenging to extract Jesus message from amidst the layers of theology and kerygma. That, of course, is what the search for the historical Jesus is all about. Conservative apologists donâ€™t like it, because this results in a Jesus without the theological trappings â€“ not the Christ of their Christianity. Are you willing to look at it with this level of objectivity?
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WinePusher wrote:
fredonly wrote:Secondly, you present a false dichotomy between Gnosticism and Orthodox Christianity. Christianity was far more diverse than this. There were the Ebionites and Nazarenes who did not consider Jesus divine (some scholars have proposed that these were the original Christians, and included James and Peter). There were adoptionists who believed God â€œadoptedâ€� Jesus when he was baptized; there were docetists who believed Jesus divine, but not truly human. Donâ€™t forget the Judaizers, whom Paul encountered and which appear to have included Cephas and James (Ebionites and Judaizers are not mutually exclusive categories).
Not necessarily. What we know today as Orthodox Christianity and Gnosticism were the two major competitors in the ancient world. You're correct that other groups existed but they were minor. Example: What did Orthodox Christian Ireneus primarily devote his Against Heresy towards? The answer is Gnostic Christianity.
We have very few of the original writings by the other groups. History is written by the winner; in this case, the losers records werenâ€™t even retained. Most of what we know of Gnosticism and other sects is from polemics written by the proto-orthodox. Such polemics do not allow us to make a balanced assessment, being completely one-sided. They do tell us that multiple sects existed, but they do not tell us what they really believed, nor how widespread they were, so its an overstatement to insist they were â€œminor.â€� We know that ultimately only one sect survived, and one may plausibly assume that one factor in its success was its ability to control doctrine, resulting in a competitive advantage.

There is no real controversy around the fact that each Gospel was written for a different audience, a different community. This means they provide a glimpse into the thoughts of some of the different communities. Other glimpses can be seen in the non-canonical works, each of which were also used in various Christian communities); the polemical writings of the â€œchurch fathersâ€� give us another glimpse. Collectively, these differences imply heterodoxy.

It is orthodox chauvinism (i.e. faith) that assumes proto-orthodoxy was true, and that the others were splinter groups who were misled by heresy. A historical view has to be objective, and observe that various groups existed who possessed varied beliefs.
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WinePusher wrote:Because the closest source of information to the event would be the standard by which subsequent sources of information would be fact checked against. The canonical Gospels are the closest sources of information to Jesus we have, and because of that later sources of information about Jesus would be fact checked against the canonical Gospels and if they failed to match, the later sources would be thrown out as heretical and false. If a story was consistent with the information found in the canonical gospels, it would be received. If it was inconsistent with the information found in the canonical gospels, it would not be received.
fredonly wrote:Fact checking against the canonical Gospels!? Iâ€™m talking about fact checking by the authors of these canonical Gospels. There is no evidence of any of this. In fact, it appears there was apologetic editing by Matthew and Luke - cleaning up the parts that didn't fit their perceptions, rather than rejecting it as non-factual. This is rewriting history to fit their biases, not fact checking.

I really don't understand what you're saying. The Canonical Gospels would be the standard of Christianity by which you would fact check other versions of Christianity against.

You have contended that the canonical Gospels are historically reliable. I am disputing this by pointing out that the information they contain was not fact checked, as would be done in modern journalistic or historical accounts. The objective of the Gospels was kerygma, not historical accuracy. Luke and Matthew, in copying from Mark, show signs of editing that are associated with theology, not with a devotion to fact.

If factual reporting was the objective, why would Luke add words to a statement made by Jesus, as reported in Mark?
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WinePusher wrote:

fredonly wrote:But let's look at the standard you suggest. Why wouldnâ€™t this have been applied to the gospel of John? Had it been compared to the synoptics for â€œfact checking,â€� the last of the canonical Gospels wouldnâ€™t have made the cut. It has Jesus ministry starting with, rather than ending with, the cleansing of the Temple; it has Jesus dying on a different day of the week, and it presents a different portrait of Jesus â€“ the highest Christology in the New Testament. So your standard doesn't even work internally.

The only relevant thing in this statement is John's Christology. The manner by which he organizes chronological events in his Gospel is not relevant to his 'portrait' of Jesus. And the Christology found in John is no different than the Christology found in the Synoptics, you can add this to the many other bare assertions you've made throughout this thread.

Raymond Brown sums up the situation in An Introduction to New Testament Christology:
Brown wrote:â€¦most Christians, even if unconsciously, have had their views of Christ massively shaped by John; often they assume Johnâ€™s high Christology to be that of the whole New Testament. In my judgement the uniqueness of John among the Gospels does not receive sufficient attention either in preaching or religious education. On the other hand scholars are very aware of Johanine uniqueness and peculiaritiesâ€¦ (p196)

Brown and other scholars have identified a historical pattern moving from a lower to higher Christology over time:
Brown wrote:â€¦If we date New Testament times from 30 to 130, quite clearly the use of â€œGodâ€� for Jesus becomes frequently attested only in the second half of the period. The chronological context is confirmed by the evidence of the earliest extrabiblical Christian works. At the beginning of the 2d century Ignatius freely speaks of Jesus as Godâ€¦Plinyâ€™s testimonyâ€¦Christians of Asia Minor sang hymns to Christ as to a God. By mid-2d century, Clement states â€œWe must think of Jesus Christ as the Godâ€¦Is this usage a Hellenistic contribution to the theological vocabulary of Christianity? Since we have no evidence that Jesus was called God in the Jerusalem or Palestinian communities of the first two decades of Christianity, the prima facie evidence might suggest Hellenistic originsâ€¦.The Johanine works come from the final years of the century, when the usage of â€œGodâ€� for Jesus has become common. Yet the Fourth Gospel preserves some traditional material about Jesus that has been handed down from a much earlier period before such usage (14:28, 17:3, 20:17, which, prima facie, would not favor equating Jesus with God or putting him on the same level as the Father. (p191-192)

And the viewpoint Brown gives is perfectly consistent with Roman Catholic doctrine:
Brown wrote: The 1964 Instruction of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, â€œThe Historical Truth of the Gospelsâ€� section VIII recognizes that only after Jesus rose from the dead was his divinity clearly perceived. That need not mean that this perception was instantaneous; it took a long time to come to understand the mystery of Jesus and to give it formulation. The Arian dispute shows this clearly. (p190)

Brown discusses the work of liberal scholars:
Brown wrote: [scholarly] liberal analyses of developing Christology [suggests] that titles such as Lord and Son of God were applied to Jesus in a divine sense only in the Christian mission to Greek-speaking gentiles-either they did not exist at an earlier Jewish-Christian stage or were used in a much humbler sense of master and Messiah (anointed king). This speculation gave the impression of a linear development toward a â€œhigher Christology,â€� ----p12-13

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fredonly wrote:You speak of â€œheretical and falseâ€� from an orthodox Christian point of view. But one manâ€™s orthodoxy is another manâ€™s heresy. These terms are purely theological, and presumes that you (or your historical predecessors) KNEW what was true (without possibility of being wrong). A historical view cannot be based on theological assumptions. A proper historical perspective is to recognize that a group of Christians with certain beliefs selected books that were consistent with their beliefs. You would HOPE to be able to provide a historical argument to support your assumption that these â€œorthodoxâ€� Christians knew the truth, but the problem is that there is no historical data that can identify theological â€œtruth.â€�
WinePusher wrote:I've already offered you one way to discern how what we know today as 'orthodox christianity' is true, and it's based in the historical method. The canonical Gospels were the closest written accounts to the events they describe while the gnostic Gospels were written later, after the canonical Gospels. If you have two sources describing the same individual/event differently, you go with the closest source.
fredonly wrote:I agree that the historical method gives greater credence to the oldest source, but that doesnâ€™t make the oldest existing source TRUE. It was written following a period of teaching about Jesus, a teaching that is likely to have evolved over time. The existence of the later non-Canonical books shows that the ideas about Jesus continued to evolve. Iâ€™ve already described how different John is from the synoptics, which is evidence of evolution within the 30 or so years timespan between Mark and John.

But if you are so convinced that this method was employed, then please explain why the Gospel of John was accepted, considering its numerous innovations?

WinePusher wrote:Illiterate how? Be specific, I'm more inclined to accept the theory of aramaic primacy of the Gospels which would make your objection irrelevant.
fredonly wrote:Hereâ€™s my basis for calling them illiterate:
Ehrman wrote:In his 1989 book, Ancient Literacy, William Harris, professor of ancient History at Columbia University, did a study of literacy. He argued that in the ancient world, at the very best of times, only about 10% of the population was reasonably literate. By â€œbest of timesâ€� he meant Athens, a center of learning at the height of its intellectual power in the 4th-5th century BCE (the days of Socrates and Plato). The literate were from the upper classes, the social and economic elite, who had the leisure and money to afford an education. Lower class people did not learn how to read, and even fewer learned how to write. Of those who could write, fewer still could compose a complete sentence, and only the most educated could compose an essay. The number that could read, write, and compose within a foreign language would be extremely small indeed.

Catherine Hezser researched literacy in 1st century Palestine ( Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine). She estimates that about 3% of the population could read, and the majority of these would have been in the cities and larger towns. Smaller towns and villages would have a literacy of around 1%. These literate people were, again, always the elite of the upper classes. And those who did learn to read, learned how to read Hebrew â€“ not Greek. There are only 2 known Palestinian literary authors from this period: Josephus and Justus of Tiberius; both were upper class and inordinately well educated.

Mark Chancey (Greco-Roman Cluture and the Galilee of Jesus) reports his studies of the archaeological evidence from around 1st centuray Galilee, and concludes that Gentiles (who spoke Greek) in Galilee were almost exclusively located in the two major citiies, Sepphoris and Tiberias. The rest of Galilee was predominantly Jewish. And since most of Galilee was rural, not urban, the vast majority of Jews had no encounters with Gentiles. Greek was not widely spoken in the area, and there would be essentially no reason for an average person to learn it, so the vast majority of the Jews spoke Aramaic and had no facility in Greek.
-Forged
fredonly wrote:So I have to say that a strong preponderance of evidence suggests that the peasant followers of Jesus were just what I said, illiterate, Aramaic speaking Jews. It is historically implausible to suggest the Disciples learned to read and write in their native language, then learned to read and write in Greek, and then finally learned to compose coherent narratives in this foreign language

I found this particular passage from Ehrman's book quite interesting because it's so absurd. The scholars whom he cites (Mark Chancey and Catherine Hezser) must be dumbfounded to see their work being misapplied by Ehrman like this. In order to understand actual literacy within first century palestine, you have to calculate in a variety of factors. Virtually every single scholar would agree that Greek was the 'lingua franca' language of the Roman Empire, therefore it would be reasonable to believe that individuals who were merchants, traders and officials of the state were literate in Greek because their occupation required it. Hezser herself attests to this. And when writing this passage, Ehrman, either intentionally or unintentionally, ommitted the fact that scribes were a fundamental part of written communication in the ancient world. Cicero was arguably an 'upper class' Roman citizen yet many of his literary texts were produced by scribes. Even if the followers of Jesus were illierate (and evidence suggests they weren't) the usage of scribes was a common practice in the ancient world and eliminates the problem people like you and Ehrman continually bring up.