Were there no eye-witnesses who wrote about gospel events?

[Goose]

And the gospels aren't even that. There were no eye-witnesses who wrote about gospels events. Written works didn't arrive until quite a bit after the events described.

"The New Testament Gospels] were written thirty-five to sixty-five years after Jesus death, not by people who were eyewitnesses, but by people living later. Where did these people get their information from? After the days of Jesus, people started telling stories about him in order to convert others to the faith. When Christians recognized the need for apostolic authorities, they attributed these books to apostles (Matthew and John) and close companions of apostles (Mark, the secretary of Peter; and Luke the traveling companion of Paul). Because our surviving Greek manuscripts provide such a wide variety of (different) titles for the Gospels, textual scholars have long realized that their familiar names (e.g., "The Gospel According to Matthew") do not go back to a single "original" title, but were added later by scribes."*

* Bart Ehrman, Jesus, Apocalyptic Prophet of a New Millennium (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 248-249; B. Ehrman, Lost Christianities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 235; B. Ehrman and W. Craig, "Is There Historical Evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?: A Debate between William Lane Craig and Bart Ehrman" (March 28, 2006).

Questions for debate:

Is the claim by Miles, that there were no eye-witnesses who wrote about gospel events, true?

Why is it true?

[historia]

It's perfectly accurate.

Assertions are not arguments.

[oldbadger]

[E]yewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. So even if we pretend to know who these authors were and if we pretend further that they were eyewitnesses of something or another, their reports are very likely highly inaccurate.

Eyewitness testimony is absurdly inaccurate, so even if it could be shown that we have eyewitness testimony of Jesus, it'd be of little value.

It's not. It's perfectly accurate.


Tcg

You've got that wrong, Tcg. Those are very inaccurate sentences of yours, up there. imo

An accurate assessment of or about eye-witness testimony is :-
It might be inaccurate in places.
I might be wholly inaccurate.
It might be a perversion of truth.
But It might be accurate.

[We_Are_VENOM]

.

Miles is correct....BUT..

And the gospels aren't even that. There were no eye-witnesses who wrote about gospels events.

Written works didn't arrive until quite a bit after the events described.

When I see an objection like this, I ask the objector whether or not he/she would become a believer if we had evidence that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses.

I am of the belief that the answer would be "no", regardless, however..

Yes: If the answer is yes, then I would take the task of presenting a case that the Gospels are reliable, despite neither book being written by the author which bears its name.

No: If the answer is no, then it really doesn't matter at that point, now does it?

However, I could also point out that the biography of Alexander the Great (AtG) was not written by eyewitnesses of AtG's life...and it was written some 300 years after AtG was long gone...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histories ... _the_Great

And it is still regarded as credible by historians.

That, compared to Jesus' biographies (the Gospels), which were all written within the first century AD (the same century that Jesus died in).

So, if we are comparing timeframes after-the-event, Jesus biographies are like a newsflash compared to Alexander the Great. But the same objection doesn't apply to AtG, but it applies to Jesus?

Nonsense. We are going to play fair here today, fellas.

What we have here is the taxi cab fallacy...and a textbook example of it, at that.

Questions for debate:

Is the claim by Miles, that there were no eye-witnesses who wrote about gospel events, true?

Why is it true?

It is true. But no one that I am aware of is claiming that the Gospels were written by eyewitnesses.

We are saying that the source material of the books...the mere SOURCE, comes from eyewitnesses of the accounts. This is a claim of modesty, evidence, and obviousness.

[POI]

.Yes: If the answer is yes, then I would take the task of presenting a case that the Gospels are reliable, despite neither book being written by the author which bears its name.

But then you would probably fail to substantiate your case, and still demonstrate <blind faith>, which can just as easily be randomly applied to any "extraordinary' claims. Why? I'll demonstrate below....

However, I could also point out that the biography of Alexander the Great (AtG) was not written by eyewitnesses of AtG's life...and it was written some 300 years after AtG was long gone...

Is anyone going around claiming AtG did anything "extraordinary"? Not many, I'm sure. Many things were written about AtG, but we all (logically and rationally) dismiss such 'extraordinary' claims, right? And why is that? Probably for some of the same reason(s) most/all dismiss the countless "extraordinary" claims of alien abductions. No one, for which you would likely deem competent, is entertaining the written 'extraordinary' claims of both AtG (and/or) aliens probing human anuses.

In my view, what sort of eyewitness accounts do we actually have for the said 'extraordinary' events for Jesus. Welp, you already admitted there were no direct eyewitnesses -- (from the top of post 43), so you have a non-starter conversation anyways.

[oldbadger]

In my view, what sort of eyewitness accounts do we actually have for the said 'extraordinary' events for Jesus. Welp, you already admitted there were no direct eyewitnesses -- (from the top of post 43), so you have a non-starter conversation anyways.

I think the Gospel of Mark was written by a man who was a partial witness. I think he was there at the arrest.
But I also think that his gospel is mostly based upon the memoirs of Cephas. That isn't primary testimony but it's fairly close.

[POI]

In my view, what sort of eyewitness accounts do we actually have for the said 'extraordinary' events for Jesus. Welp, you already admitted there were no direct eyewitnesses -- (from the top of post 43), so you have a non-starter conversation anyways.

I think the Gospel of Mark was written by a man who was a partial witness. I think he was there at the arrest.
But I also think that his gospel is mostly based upon the memoirs of Cephas. That isn't primary testimony but it's fairly close.

Well then... This all sounds plenty sufficient to reasonably believe a man rose from a grave and contacted hundreds or more

[We_Are_VENOM]

But then you would probably fail to substantiate your case, and still demonstrate <blind faith>, which can just as easily be randomly applied to any "extraordinary' claims. Why? I'll demonstrate below....

Aight, lets see..

Is anyone going around claiming AtG did anything "extraordinary"? Not many, I'm sure. Many things were written about AtG, but we all (logically and rationally) dismiss such 'extraordinary' claims, right? And why is that? Probably for some of the same reason(s) most/all dismiss the countless "extraordinary" claims of alien abductions. No one, for which you would likely deem competent, is entertaining the written 'extraordinary' claims of both AtG (and/or) aliens probing human anuses.

First, I need a clear definition of what is considered "extraordinary". Seems rather subjective to me.

In my view, what sort of eyewitness accounts do we actually have for the said 'extraordinary' events for Jesus. Welp, you already admitted there were no direct eyewitnesses -- (from the top of post 43), so you have a non-starter conversation anyways.

Syllogism test...

1. Unless the writer of a historical event was a direct eyewitness to the event...

2. Then the writer cannot be trusted.

Welp. That pretty much flushes the entire historical method down the toilet.

[brunumb]

[Replying to We_Are_VENOM in post #47]
Dodgy syllogisms aside, if someone is not a direct witness of an alleged event then the best we can say about what they have written is that it is hearsay. We need not place any trust in the truth of the report without some verified supporting evidence.

[We_Are_VENOM]

[Replying to We_Are_VENOM in post #47]
Dodgy syllogisms aside, if someone is not a direct witness of an alleged event then the best we can say about what they have written is that it is hearsay.

Ok, so lets just call the entire field of history hearsay.

Because no living historian was a direct witness of any alleged event which preceded his/her birth.

As long as you apply that ridiculous standard to any alleged account of history and not just to the Biblical claims, then I can at least give you kudos for being fair and consistent.

However, if you only apply it to Biblical (or religious) claims while giving every other alleged historical claims a free pass, then we got problems....fallacious problems.

It is a good thing that the actual historical method that historians use isn't subjected to the standards that certain people on religious forums who have no clue about what historical methodology are using.

Thank goodness.

We need not place any trust in the truth of the report without some verified supporting evidence.

See above.

[TRANSPONDER]

Isn't it rather the other way around in Bible - apologetics? They present the Bible as reliable, they hear the debunks and then argue that all history should equally be debunked. Which would mean that we should swallow legend as history too because it is written down by someone.

It doesn't work that way, and of course it is an ongoing problem in assessing history that there are doubtful elements from what seems like myth (e.g the Christian crediting Constantine's victory to Christianity) to elements of propaganda. I'd say the problem is that Believers think in terms of 'Believe...or not' whereas logical (science ) thinking uses a sliding scale of probability. The doubts we have about mythical elements in histories reflects what we know to be extraordinary claim which we doubt even in accepted history, because we know, as a general principle that 'miracles don't happen,. and elephants do not appear in rooms when anyone prays for them. This is why anecdotal claims of answered prayers and miracles are not admissible as evidence.