What evidence do you have to offer?

[Zzyzx]

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From another thread:

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There are some gods that theists would be justified in believing in if they existed. They would leave evidence. But that evidence is lacking.

What evidence exactly?

ANY evidence more substantial than unverified testimonials, unverified claims, unverified stories, unverified opinions and conjecture. What do you (generic term) have to offer?

Question for debate: What evidence of "gods" can be offered that is more substantial than unverified testimonials, unverified claims, unverified stories, unverified opinions and conjecture?

[Korah]

Well, this isn't technically true is it? We have the Gospels which were originally purported to have been written at the time of Christ, yet we now know they weren't.
The fact that we could have had written documents from that time, but don't, is pretty telling don't you think? Such a historical event, yet no one bothered to write about it. And this is one of many historical inaccuracies present in said book.

"We know....fact"
Not so. These are just your assertions. I have been presenting evidence that there are seven written eyewitness records within the four gospels. At Post #43 within this thread
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... c&start=40
I started with Nicodemus with the Discourses he wrote that are included within the Gospel of John. I showed that his change of attitude meant that he wrote during Jesus's lifetime on Earth. This is now the fifth website where I have presented my Thesis and no one has made a serious attempt to refute me. Any discussion of this should be over there, as this "evidence" thread is limited to the Resurrection. Of the seven eyewitnesses, only three pertain to the Resurrection. The most notable was from the second person on the Walk to Emmaus at Post #97:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... c&start=90
Luke 24:34 likely gives his name as Simon, too important a person (the second Bishop of Jerusalem) to need special identification as to which Simon he was, particularly as he was likely the author of an early draft of Luke. (In which case "appeared to me" would next get written up in the next draft as "appeared to Simon".

[KenRU]

[Replying to Korah]

Not so. These are just your assertions. I have been presenting evidence that there are seven written eyewitness records within the four gospels. At Post #43 within this thread ... I started with Nicodemus with the Discourses he wrote that are included within the Gospel of John.
Well, that goes against what my professor (a Methodist Minister) at college taught me in my Gospels course. John was written well after Christ was supposedly crucified, if memory serves (and college for me was a while ago, lol).

As for Nicodemus I found this on Wikipedia: The dates of its accreted sections are uncertain, but scholars agree in assigning the resulting work to the middle of the fourth century AD.

Do you have any supporting evidence of said proof that it was written earlier? Are you published or peer reviewed?

And, just to be clear, you admit that most if not a vast majority of scholars date Nicodemus to the Middle Ages?

[Korah]

[Replying to post 22 by KenRU]
No surprise, you did not read what I cited, even though it's right here in DC&R. Not Z would allow that.
You're talking about the pseudonymous Gospel of Nicodemus, agreed by all to be a forgery. As I made clear, I was talking about a SOURCE within the four canonical gospels during the lifetime of eyewitnesses to Jesus. That means First Century, not Fourth Century.

Even if I agreed that the Gospel of John was written late (I don't), that does not imply that the sources were late at all, particularly if (as I clearly stated) that source presented with evidence that it was written during Jesus's lifetime.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 23 by Korah]

No surprise, you did not read what I cited, even though it's right here in DC&R.
No surprise, you didn't answer my questions. But, here's an idea, let's agree to dispense with the sarcasm, and have a civil debate?

You're talking about the pseudonymous Gospel of Nicodemus, agreed by all to be a forgery.
Ok, my bad. It has been a while, lol.

As I made clear, I was talking about a SOURCE within the four canonical gospels during the lifetime of eyewitnesses to Jesus.
I just read through your link, and, as I understand it, these are conclusions you are drawing, correct? That there is no 1st hand (eyewitness) accounts of Nicodemus. These source documents have not been found, and therefore, you are drawing a conclusion, correct?

I'm not discounting your opinion, don't get me wrong, but what you cite is far from fact. Therefore, it shall be regarded as such.

Even if I agreed that the Gospel of John was written late (I don't), that does not imply that the sources were late at all, particularly if (as I clearly stated) that source presented with evidence that it was written during Jesus's lifetime.
Lots of trouble with this sentence. One: Most scholars would disagree with you about the dating of John. Two: these source documents you cite, don't exist, so they can't be studied. Third: who says the source documents are accurate (if they even exist)? Can they be corroborated by other historical documents? One's that do not have an agenda?

I'll ask again: Have you submitted your work/research for publishing? Has it been reviewed by your peers? Who are your peers? If you have solid and convincing "evidence" that proves current knowledge incorrect, it should not be difficult to present this to academia for vetting.

-All the best,

[Korah]

[Replying to post 24 by KenRU]
It still stands as the latest post here in this sub-forum in the thread "How can we determine which parts of Scripture are true?', so you should have researched this before your post. In spite of what Z says, I rarely repeat myself, so please go to Post #146 here:
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... &start=140
Meanwhile, it happens that just this week-end I did some research at my nearest academic library and found quite a rejoinder to you in what I read from a most highly respected academic scholar, Bruce Chilton. He was not at all proud of the stultifying atmosphere at his academic level.

In effect he was saying that most of the 20th Century was lost in Form Criticism. It was so stultifying that critiques of it were prevented from publication for decades (p. 43 in Synoptic Opportunities) before Thorlief Boman in 1967 in Die Jeus-Uberlieferung..attacked this model, showing quite convincingly from the orally developed literature of many cultures that we must think rather of longer continuous epics at the point of origin which were woven together over the course of time. (Synoptic, 106) On the same note Chilton observed, institutions of higher learning canand often doreduce their faculty to repeating knowledge rather than framing it.


However, Chilton himself does not avoid all the traps. Along with most current scholars he knows that Logion does not translate as just sayings (Schliermachers mistake), but includes narrative as well. Chilton takes advantage of this to push his conservative position that Papias was speaking in the 2nd Century already about the completed Gospel of Matthew (Synoptic, p. 15). He cites statistics that show much less use of Q by Mark than by Matthew and Luke, in spite of acknowledging that Q did after all include narrative. He fails to consider that Q may include much of the Triple Tradition, and thus Mark did after all use lots of Q. Chilton concludes in error that this makes it problematic to assume Q was an actual document. Actually we just need to broaden our concepts of what this document was. But Chilton was writing two decades before Dennis MacDonald with his Q+, and apparently no scholar can be expected to think outside the box unless he is young with a name to make for himself.

The upshot is that Chilton himself fails to press forward against the Oral Gospel errors nor the assumed Marcan priority. He should have pressed for documentary underpinnings for the Synoptics. But that wasnt fashionable then, and it certainly would not have been fashionable to hark back almost two centuries for a Grundschrrift or an Urevangelium. He rightly rejected slovenly Oral Gospel advocates and left Marcan Priority ungrounded, but he did not come up with anything better. Thus I say again, the fine points of the Synoptic Problem require something like my Horizontal Synoptic Solution. (Itself a more technical matter than my seven written gospel eyewitnesses thesis I have been touting in five websites and have only presented on Peter Kirby's EarlyChristianWritings.com .)

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 25 by Korah]

I'm pretty sure I'm not required to read other threads before posting on a new one. So, your chiding of me is given its due consideration, and promptly dismissed.

After clicking on your link, I quickly noticed that Zzyzx gave you the same response I did:

If one has serious scholarly work and conclusions to present, websites are not a credible place to do so. Verification or refutation in debate forums does not substitute for presentation to professional, scholarly groups.

If one's work is not accepted professionally, they may still try to promote it in a non-scholarly venue.

Hopefully, Zzyzx, you won't mind me quoting you.

Nonetheless, it would seem to me that you would need to convince academia, and not us, that you are right and they are not. If you are having trouble convincing your scholarly peers, then you can understand why I am skeptical.

In order to move things along, even if said documents were examples of writings from the time of Christ, it doesn't even remotely mean they are accurate, nor is it proof/solid evidence that a miracle occurred.

There are still a whole lot of assumptions you are making.

-All the best,

[Korah]

[Replying to post 26 by KenRU]
Your problem is that you demand to have it both ways.
When Christians say something, you just dismiss it as the conventional view of Christians.
When a creative Christian like me comes along, you retreat to the conventional view
of anti-Christians, even though I have shown that even the best of scholars know that this cannot be trusted. Good stuff does not get published nor necessarily accepted quickly even when it does. It may take decades more on the internet before what I say may be seriously considered. However, the internet is the only vehicle I know where I might attract someone to sponsor my views and get the publication you demand up front.

I brought my arguments here, as was demanded. Deal with them--that was the deal.
Edited to add:
I have not said it on this thread yet, so be advised that the Consensus has shifted. Form Criticism failed to produce agreement, and it is now largely rejected. With Richard Bauckham's Jesus and the Eyewitnesses in 2006 the pendulum is swinging back to eyewitnesses. My Thesis just takes the next step of identifying them and what they wrote.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 27 by Korah]

Your problem is that you demand to have it both ways.
Nice try, but not true. I even conceded that if your argument was accurate, it doesn't change my assertion that no miracle occurred.

To argue that inferred authors of missing texts is evidence of an eyewitness account of a miracle is not enough to believe the laws of nature were violated.

I have no problem accepting something presented with reasonable evidence. I'd happily do so. However, I doubt you could say the same.

You are drawing a supernatural conclusion based on source documents that don't exist, and don't like it when confronted with the irrationality of it.

Doesn't sound to me like I have the problem.

-All the best,

[Korah]

[Replying to post 28 by KenRU]
Perhaps you did not notice my link in my Post #25 reply to you, to where I have presented here on DC&R (as demanded by some for whom links to other websites are ignored) my case for seven written eyewitness reports on Jesus. I don't want to risk being accused again of repeating myself. so I have not started my own thread on the matter.

My Thesis is that seven men wrote about Jesus and that I can roughly tell you what verses in the gospels each man wrote. These are SOURCES within the gospels--there is no complete gospel that is from an eyewitness. As you say, this does not prove that any verses within any source are TRUE. I can't prove truth. To anyone who is a convinced Materialist (Ignostic?) certain verses must be false. That's your decision--my case is only to show what is from an eyewitness and what is not. I even argue that much of what Nicodemus wrote as the Discourses in the Gospel of John distorts what Jesus actually said. My point is that the eyewitness Nicodemus
wrote it, not that he was absolutely factual in his quotes of Jesus. My case for saying that Nicodemus wrote during the lifetime of Jesus is that he varies from incredulity to antagonism to faithful disciple, all in one document that he could not reasonably have written later when he had one particular apologetic.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 29 by Korah]

Again, you are inferring that these source documents of eyewitnesses exist, correct?