Thanks for the sacrifice.

I agree with some of your points, but I realize that a good trial lawyer could cast a lot of doubt on this evidence. The Bible clearly states who witnessed what, but the witness list itself can be challenged. For example, Paul gives an extensive list of people who had encounters with Jesus after the crucifixion, but can we take his word for it? The four canonical gospels all have accounts of the Resurrection, but there are differences in details of the event. There are many writings about Jesus from the first and second centuries, but several of those were excluded from the canonical gospels, e.g., the Gospels of Thomas, Mary, Philip, and Judas. The canonical gospels are attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but those gospels were originally anonymous, and some scholars doubt that the four Evangelists were the real authors. The various Roman historians who wrote about Jesus were relying on Christian sources, and can't be considered to be independent corroborating witnesses. The most detailed account of Jesus from a non-Christian historian of the period, Flavius Josephus, is believed to be a forgery. But another passage in Josephus, generally considered to be authentic, does mention James, "the brother of Jesus", who was head of the Christian church in Jerusalem. ( Presumably, if your brother, relative or close friend exists, you do too!) I think your point is well taken that the evidence for Jesus is no weaker than that for various other figures who are generally thought to have existed. Crossan of the Jesus Seminar applies a methodology to the existing manuscripts that looks at the amount of agreement among them, as well as various indicators of their credibility and their historical context, and comes up with a portrait of Jesus and his message that I find convincing.

 

I think you'll find there are! You can go round it all you like, however many times you do it won't change the fact that you are wrong! Tell me how are there no eyewitness accounts?

 

Okiefreak-"unconditional love."

Unless you doubt his divinity. He will probaly let you burn in hell for eternity. Doesnt seem unconditional.




"Do we need eyewitnesses in order to believe that they're true? "

It would help.


"What is it about Jesus or his message that deserves ridicule?"

His advocation of child abuse."He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.”

Jesus says its okay to beat slaves Luke 12:47

and many other things.

 

The prevailing image we have of Jesus is that he is and claimed to be divine. I'm not sure where he made that claim; I suspect later Christians made it for him. I think he was divine--in the sense of sharing in divine energy. The historical Jesus may have believed in hell. It's a concept that was catching on (though not universally) among Jews of his time. I think hell is a bad attitude.

Sure, but if truths seem self-evident, witnesses may be surperfluous.

I don't think those ideas are found in many of the early writings about Jesus. I go along with Crossan in looking at inter-agreement among several different sources to get the basic ideas and principles. I agree the passages you quote don't fit, which is why I tend to disregard them. The Old Testament calls for putting rebellious children to death (another revolting idea), which is where the notion you mention may have come from. If you have a citation from the New Testament attributed to Jesus, I might be able to put it in context. are there multiple citations or just one? As for beating slaves, Jesus doesn't exactly say that it's okay to do that in the passage you cited, and beating people, especially the downtrodden, is completely inconsistent with his main message. You might infer that he's giving approval to the beatings, because the passage cited uses slave beating (a common practice of the time) as an example to make the point "To whom more is given, more is expected". The point seems valid, although one might argue Jesus could have used a different example, condemned slavery, etc. Which is why I'd doubt its authenticity. I don't consider either of your examples to be central to Jesus' message, which comes to us filtered through the avaliable sources (which Fedup American has noted are hearsay). Of course, sometimes great men really are inconsistent and flawed. Thomas Jefferson, another one of my heroes (Mr. "All Men are Created Equal") owned slaves and had sex with one of them--certainly, a terrible, hypocritical, and inexcusable thing but not enough to discredit the ideas of Jefferson that I admire. My concept of Jesus is influenced a lot by the scholarship of Crossan, who presents him as a wandering peasant hippie who preached radical equality, compassion and non-judgmental agapic love, especially for the nobodies and outcasts of society. That's the image that attracted me. If the historical Jesus had a different message, I'll stand by my intitial hero.

 

Hmmm . . . There's a bit of insight.

Yes, inspiration can take many forms, and it is important to recognize this. But I was asking about inspiration itself, the essence of inspiration, the "inspiration" that is common to all forms inspiration may take.

So my question remains - What is inspiration?

Yes, I know that. For whatever it's worth, I believe in you. That part is easy. Believing IN you was never the question.

Believing you, that is, believing what you say and do, well, that is where most of our discussions are rooted.

It seems to me that much of what you say is either the desparate defense/threats of a wounded creature (like Ann Coulter, for which I am truly sorry), or masterful satire (like Steven Colbert, whom I admire), neither of which is to be wisely taken at face value.

It is good to challenge those who abuse Christianity (or Democracy, Islam, Intellectualism, Atheism, Buddhism, or any other Ism) to justify whatever ignorance, greed and destruction they desire. The Isms themselves are not the problem.

If Bush had been born in the Middle East, he would be no less ignorant than he is as an American. He would probably just violate Islam with the same ignorance that he now mistakes for Christianity.

Christianity is not going to go away just because you cand stand it. If you want "Christians" to stop violating your reality with their beliefs, then you have to either alter your reality or improve their beliefs.

Thank You.

That's funny.

That's the universal human story, isn't it? A good human troubled by a few truly bad ideas. As long as one knows the difference between a human and an idea (no matter how "wrong"), then there is always hope.

Yeah, but my singing makes car alarms go off. Some may think that's festive, but it's not much of a celebration.

People, wine, gifts, food, inspired conversation, mirth, merriment . . . a good holiday. We didn't solve all of the world's problems, but . . .

Peace and Love

 

I have studied the bible in many different ways, if all you want to argue a point which is clearly wrong, then it doesn't matter what anyone says!

 

^prove him wrong lay the facts out

 

If someones viewpoint is that it is all crap and that everyone else will be wrong there is no point if trying to prove anything. He probably knows what I meant but can't admit it. I know what I belief, so if He isn't willing to listen and discuss appropriately, nor can I!

 

Ok!

The deciples were with Jesus during His entire ministry, both Matthew and John's Gospels were eye-witness accounts, however there is an unproven tradition that Mark's Gospel is in fact Peter's account which he told to Mark to record - either way still an eye-witness account so makes it irrelevent. Luke is the only Gospel in which the author tells us he is not an eye-witness, nevertheless he also tells us where he got his information from.

John's Gospel provides different stories fromt he other three, does not duplicate any found in the others, although Jesus is portreyed the same, suggesting the authors are talking about the same man. If you read any of the Gospels, there are parts which have the eye-witness touch about them, some which if it was just all made up would not be included - almost diary written. The Gospels are written as they are because that is how the authors remembered it.

You say that you prefer reality? How can you be so certain that there is nothing bigger? If God is something that cannot be proven 100% how can you be so sure that there is nothing, that it is all made up? I could understand someone saying it probably isn't true, but how can one be so adamant that it isn't? I ask this sincerely, I actually would like to know why?

 

Not to quibble, but the earliest gospel (Mark) is believed to have been written about 70 years after the alleged events. The last (John) appears to have been written about when you say the first was written. If Matthew and John were wrtitten by Matthew and John, which is unlikely, they could be (very senile) eyewitnesses.

 

Better yet, find me some supporting peer reviewed scholarly books and articles, since fraudulent links are a dime a dozen. I'm going by Bart Ehrman and John Patrick Crossan, two respected scholars of the Bible whose credentials would be hard to dispute. Your sources are probably wrong.
Ehrman, Professor and Chair of the Deparatment of Religious Studies, University of North Carolins,Lost Christianities, p. 19: "Most scholars think that Mark is our earliest surviving account of Jesus' life, written somewhere around 65 0r 70 c.e.; that Matthew and Luke were produced ten or fifteen years later, possibly 80-85 c.e.; and that John was the last of the canonical accounts, written near the end of the first century, around 90 or 95 c.e."

My Christmas was spectacular, thank you very much, and I hope your New Year also brings lot of happiness and continued orneryness.

 

The earliest surviving manuscripts for the New Testament were written 40-90 years after the death of Jesus. So I say respectfully to you, get your facts straight before criticising others!

And eyewitness means you were there at the events - which they were.

Maybe you should do some more research before argueing your next point! This is clearly going nowhere fast as you have yet to come up with an arguement based on anything other than your own opinions, all so called 'facts' you have stated are clearly wrong. Maybe it is time to admit that you don't know that much about the religion!

 

Just to clarify, the oldest surviving manuscripts for the New Testament are believed to be letters of Paul, from 50 to 56 c.e. He was an eyewitness to Jesus, having encountered Him in a vision on the road to Damascus, but he was not an eyewitness to the events of Jesus' life, of which he seemed to have had little interest apart from His death and resurrection. Acts of the Apostles may have been written as early as 60 c.e.

 

John is actually presumed to have lived to the age of around 100.

 

Another point may be relevant. The emperor for most of Jesus' life was Tiberius. He was a great general before becoming a nasty, lecherous emperor--so they say. But did he exist? Our main sources of information about him are biographies by Velleius Paterculus, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dio Cassius, only the first of which could be considered an "eyewitness", the others writing 75 to 200 years after his death. Tacitus and Suetonius are sources for Jesus, as well, so maybe their testimony on behalf of Tiberius should be considered suspect. Of course, there is non-biographical evidence that corroborates the existence of Tiberius: coins from the early first century bearing his images; statues of him from the period; remains of his villa on Capri, etc., as we would expect. But much historical biography, where most of our detailed knowledge about Tiberius comes from, could be challenged by the same kinds of attacks used against the existence of Jesus. And Tiberius was the emperor!

 

That is rationalization. When bound to the rigid stone of literalism, John needs to be about 100 years old to coincide with archeological evidence that suggests when the gospel was written.

It is more likely that it was written by a disciple of John, or in the case of the Pastoral letters and Paul, by someone who is using John's name to give validity to their work.

 

There is actually an abundance of evidence to suggest that John may have actually lived up to 100yrs. Yes, it is possible someone else used his name, but you can only go on what you have.

 

I thought of a better example. Socrates, of the 4th century B.C., known to the youth of today from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, is generally regarded as the father of modern western philosophy. But did he exist? There are no coins, statutes from his time, or other physical evidence. Our knowledge of him comes mainly from his pupil, Plato, who is also our main source for the Lost Continent of Atlantis, with bits of partial corroboration from Plato's pupil, Aristotle, from Xenophon's Symposium, and from Aristohanes play Clouds. Many scholars doubt that Socrates said all of the things Plato attributed to him, and there is no hard evidence that he said any of them at all. Belief that he even existed comes mainly from the corroboration of his existence by the other writers. But Aristotle wasn't even born until fifteen years after Socrates' death, and obviously got his information from his teacher, Plato. There are notable discrepancies between Xenophon and Plato, e.g., over whether or not Socrates took money for this teaching gigs. And Aristophanes portrays him only in a play, as a clown. So what to do? Would it be appropriate to put Socrates in the same category as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, and deride anybody who takes him seriously and reveres him (most of the philosophy faculties in the U.S. and Europe) as being childish fools? And (Socratic question) how does this relate to Jesus?

 

Oh get over yourself and stop being so patronising. You have no idea what I know nor do you know me.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospels ;http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/14452.htm;
http://www.carm.org/questions/gospels_written.htm