Jesus' Historicity: the data is prejudiced!!!

[liamconnor]

Question: Did later powers manipulate the data so that what we have regarding Christianity is biased, and by no means historically representative of the earliest movement beginning shortly after Jesus' death?

This is a common attack on the N.T.; these books were 'chosen' from a huge collection of books which tell a different story. I.E. ALL BOOKS ABOUT JESUS HAVE THE SAME HISTORICAL VALUE..............whether some are dated to within 50 years of Jesus, or some are dated to within 150 years of Jesus.

The gospel of Mark (that is, the earliest manuscripts of Mark) have no HISTORICAL priority over the gospel, of, say Peter.

As Bart Erhman would say, the gospels are the most reliable documents for Jesus history; not, of course, because they are special, but only because they are early.

Comment?

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 8 by JoeyKnothead]

ALL claims regarding Jesus suffer from the inability to show he existed.

Curious, do you have a historical criteria by which you can judge the historicity of anything from the past, or are you just talking a lot of gas?

If you have an historical criteria, what is it, and how does, say, Hannibal's existence fair against it?

If, on the other hand, you have no historical criteria, then on what grounds are you contesting the majority of scholarship on this matter?

[Mithrae]

That's the logical fallacy called argumentum ad it showed it up earlium.

The world is a better place for your existence Joey

That is, assuming you do exist, of course.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 8 by JoeyKnothead]

ALL claims regarding Jesus suffer from the inability to show he existed.

After years of study, I have yet to find any document that makes any credible claim that Jesus existed. The documents I've scrutinized include the gospels, the epistles, and Acts, as well as Josephus and Tacitus. Every mention of Jesus in these texts is very problematical for a historical Jesus.

A claim showin' up early don't mean it's true. That's the logical fallacy called argumentum ad it showed it up earlium.

I believe that the basic logic that we're scrutinizing here is that accuracy over time degrades. Evidence for a claim is often destroyed or lost or simply distorted. Destruction and distortion require time, of course. So the more that time goes by, the more the chances that evidence will be destroyed, lost, or distorted. We can then conclude that the authenticity of an early document is generally more robust than an older document, all other factors held equally. You are correct, though, that an early text is not necessarily true but may be more credible.

[marco]

We can then conclude that the authenticity of an early document is generally more robust than an older document, all other factors held equally. You are correct, though, that an early text is not necessarily true but may be more credible.

You mean "more robust than a later document."

We have mention of Christ's supposed speeches, apparently given verbatim, which requires a tiny miracle in itself. And though we have these intimate verbal details, we have next to nothing on the man's first thirty years on Earth, or wherever he came from. If we have to paint a picture of a man who walks on water, raises corpses, spits on the blind to cure them and talks to trees to curse them then we must accept we are examining a fiction.

It is rather stretching things to suppose this character was sent by God to say nothing more than: "Be good."

[Overcomer]

Here are dates based on the fragments of Scripture (with the numbers they have been logged by) that we have:

Mark 4:28 7Q6 AD 50
Mark 6:48 7Q15 AD ?
Mark 6:52, 53 7Q5 AD 50
Mark 12:17 7Q7 AD 50
Acts 27:38 7Q6 AD 60+
Romans 55:11, 12 7Q9 AD 70+
1 Timothy 3:16, 4:1-3 7Q4 AD 70+
2 Peter 1:15 7Q10 AD 70+
James 1:23, 24 7Q8 AD 70+

You can read the accompanying article here:

https://www.bethinking.org/bible/the-da ... -testament

And if you're interested in looking at more of the early documents we have, check the web site for the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts:

http://www.csntm.org/

They're finding more and more manuscripts all the time.

[Jagella]

[Replying to post 14 by marco]

Code: Select all

You mean "more robust than a later document." 

Yes. Thanks for the correction. It's like the term "ancient history." Wouldn't modern history be ancient history seeing that it's much older than the history of the Pharoahs, for example?

We have mention of Christ's supposed speeches, apparently given verbatim, which requires a tiny miracle in itself.

Some apologists argue that people in "ancient" civilizations--or at least Israel--were trained to remember detailed information. If the apologists are correct on this point, then the oral tradition that was finally written down in the New Testament was subject to less degradation from memory limitations than might be expected from people today. So although nobody was taking written notes when Jesus spoke, the memories of his hearers were adequate to accurately preserve his statements.

You can make of this apologetic what you will, but it does demonstrate the impressive ingenuity of people to come up with reasons to believe what they want to.

If we have to paint a picture of a man who walks on water, raises corpses, spits on the blind to cure them and talks to trees to curse them then we must accept we are examining a fiction.

And don't forget the "cleansing" of the temple by a one-man-gang Jesus or the zany trial before Pilate or the priests plotting to kill Jesus because he healed some guy or almost anything else in the gospels. It all seems rather unlikely to me.

It is rather stretching things to suppose this character was sent by God to say nothing more than: "Be good."

Jesus is portrayed in the gospels as much more than a moral teacher. The Jews wanted a messiah who could free them from the Roman occupation. That's what the story of Jesus was all about. It would be so much easier to just let an all-mighty god take care of the problem. Sadly, many Jews who may have never heard of Jesus or simply didn't buy the story about him rebelled against Rome not once but twice with tragic consequences.