The same is true of most beliefs including alot of atheists dan.
Meno,
I find it interesting you are seeking such tenuous claims to back up your belief. here’s a few sticking points, I’m not going to touch everything, I don’t have time for a shower.
Luke, and Acts were written for Theophilus of Antioch. The author is clearly addressing an individual and not the general assembly generally implied.
Why not?
If this were true, early church fathers would’ve quoted from the work, Barnabas, Ignatius, James, Paul himself. All silent. Ignatius gives us a brief imagery of the virgin mary. Nothing about the gospels though. What we do have of the gospels in the early second century is a fragment from John. Now, It’s my theory that John was written first, and was the first transitional document when Jesus was being transformed from a purely heavenly figure, “logos” , “word of god”, into an actual living person. Mark was probably written after that, for a different community, it deals with Jesus less in the sense of logos and more in the sense of a person. Matthew and Luke take from the pre-existing documents to build their own stories. The two earliest, John and Mark, don’t have a nativity scene. Clearly this was a later addition to the story, and matthews nativity borrows the exodus tale of the destruction of the young children, to stop the future savior.
If you are willing to further challenge yoru belief read Earl Doherty:
Aight - I’ve resolved to post once in this thread, and only once.
It's all been said before, but:
If you want to make the study of the bible an exercise in objective thought, start with no assumptions. We cannot assume (without evidence) that the bible is anything but a manuscript - just like the Illiad is a manuscript, just like The Anarchist's Cookbook is a manuscript. That said, proving that it came from where it came from doesn't tell us anything about what it means and what's true about it. If you want to prove the bible, stop teaching it. If people who haven't been told a story about a world-wide flood can find evidence of it, I'd take that as unbiased. If people who haven't been told a story of a man being resurrected can examine a grave-site and tell us that he must have risen from death, I'd take that as objective. If either an evangelical scientist or a biasedly atheist scientist performed the examination, it would be colored.
All that said, that kind of unbiased report is almost impossibly rare, so all we can do is analyze what this manuscript claims and compare it with our observations about the world in general. If we assume that things worked the same back then as they have day in and day out for the 2000-or-so years of recorded history we have, we find that most of the stories in the bible (while compelling stories) are directly contradictory to the way we observe the world to be.
I'll stress again that I don't care where the bible came from - if it's true (we'll argue on your terms) it is true regardless of historical circumstance. If The Great Gatsby is a good story, it's a good story now, it will be in 2100, and it would have been in 200 BC. The only thing that can be argued for (if you want to claim that the bible is actually true) is the veracity of the claims in the bible itself. Historical evidence doesn't matter, unless your only aim is to prove that the bible itself exists, which none of us would contest.
Mark could have written it in 1999 - if it's true, then it's true - if it's false, then it's false.
All these posts…but yet this thread has failed to deliver even a glimmer of what is promised in the thread title.
What a drag.
Emorgasm,
Date does matter. If I wrote about the holocaust, I’d have to draw upon what has already been written about it, or see if I can find any surviving witnesses to that event. The further away you get from an event, the more revisionist histories of said event you’ll have to deal with. The most accurate account of what happened during that time would be the accounts that were taken closest to it. That’s why during a police investigation, they IMMEDIATELY take accounts from all witnesses, and possible suspects.
The most immediate witness christianity has it Paul. (and the imaginary Q document that will never be found. As Das stated, they don’t even know when that was written!) Paul’s view of christ was very similiar to that of all christians (which were hellenistic jews at the time) of the time. Notice that:
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he doesn’t call the church a “christian” church, but “the church of god.”
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He speaks of christ in a transcendent visionay way. That christ is the logos of god. His sacrifice was on another plane.
John or Mark are the oldest gospels we have, and the earliest we can quote either of them is a fragment of john to 115 CE. That’s 95 years after the “crucifixion”. So my above example would STILL be closer in time than either of these.
When one critically examines the four canonical stories, the immediate step would be to realize the following:
Matthew and Luke are innacurate sources as they are both building upon Mark and other sources. They were written so late that nothing in their accounts can be accounted for.
Mark and John then need to be cricitically examined. What could’ve happened? Can we correlate it with earlier material? Was jesus the man really an exclusive healer that also taught?
Obviuosly, some people are under the false impression that I am trying to convert everyone to Christianity. That couldn’t be further from the truth, my sole attempt is to present Christianity in a true perspective. so no need to worry, your conversion is your business. This is an important thought, when one approaches evidences, is must be from an objective point of view.
Archaeological evidences, some quotes.
Millar Burrows of Yale, “Archaeology has in many cases refuted the view of modern critics. It has shown in a number of instances that these views rest on false assumptions(The Wellhasuen Theory of the Old Testament)
and unreal, artificial schemes of historical development.
William Albright, “As a critical study of the Bible is more and more influenced by the rich new material from the ancient Near East we shall see a steady rise in respect for historical significance of now neglected or despised passages and details of the Old and New Testament.
Some evidence, the excavations of Jericho (1930-1936) John Garstang found something so startling that a statement of what was found was prepared and signed by himself and two other members of the team. In Joshua 6:20, it reads " . . . the wall fell down flat , so that the people went up into the city . . .” " Garstang found that the walls fell outward, why so unusual? Because the walls of the cities do not fall outwards, they fall inwards.”
According to Genesis 11:1 the whole word spoke one language, and that God confounded the language of the people. Philologist, Alfredo Trombelle and Max Mueller both attest to the common origin of languages. But Trombelli, boldly stated, “that he could trace and prove the origin of common languages.” I cited earlier a study by Julius Wellhausen, who developed the Documentary Hypothesis, which deinies Mosiac authorship and identifies four anonymous writers/editors as J.E.P.D. One probem with Wellhausen’s theory, is he never went to Palistine to attempt to prove his theory correct. His entire work is A priori based, unaccompanied by empirical evidence. I’ll present one more post on the Archaeological evidences for the Bible, then I’ll address the resurrection.
For all those who doubt the resurrection, unless you have documented historical evidence(and not just biases) wait until my forth coming post.
Please excuse my lack of humor, but all you stated was personal point of view. Find some documented evidence, you will only discredit you own position. Your beliefs of the N.T. are firmly planted in the air.
hardly… off the top of my head I can think of two researchers that hold such a view,
One surmises that jesus lived 100 years before the church states. And that Jesus may not have existed at all.
(Alvar Ellegard, Earl Doherty)
The evidence for Jesus’ existence is not an issue. Are their views based on research and established documentation. History is an empirical science not speculative, you aforementioned researchers must have something to document their findings, that are verifiable empirically.
For those who have studied history, will understand that in many cultures is was a common practice if there was an unpopular personality, it was the habit of his antagonists to either obliterate his name from their history, such as the Pharoahs did to their predecessors, or not write many accounts if any at all. Jesus was not a popular figure in His time, so to make him fade into the past, it was common not to write about him. That is why we don’t have many accounts of His life on earth in the first century, because the Romans wanted to wipe his memory from the face of history. This practice has been continued to our time, after Joseph Stalin died, a movement of destalinization occurred, Stalingrad the cite of a decisive battle in WWII was renamed Volgograd, all other images of his life have also been eliminated.
Thus, the conclusion is simple, just because there isn’t much material from contemporary writers, doesn’t preclude the existence of a real person, or even the one named Jesus Christ. Most of the scholars who question the historical Jesus, do from an a priori thinking, based on a presupposition. 
Jesus was one of many miracle workers. (this is historically backed up.)
Jesus was a popular figure among first century christians that would gain nothing from not talking about the life of christ in VERY recent terms.
Both books are highly researched and both present plausible cases. What’s obvious from the data represented is that jesus the man didn’t exist in the first century. Alvar presents a good case for him living 100 years earlier.
I’ll look them up, but don’t expect any answer soon. I’m busy.
I want more historical proof of the Trojan War.
That was bad shit!
If you are so interested look it up youself.
Well, I can’t help that, I am addressing this issue. I hope in an orderly fashion. Research takes time and effort and my time is also used for other pusuits, so you’ll just have to be patient. Anyway, what specifically are you making reference to?
Dan,is a GOOD ROLE MODEL!!!.
oh by the way,can we brrow the mirror from eachother,i will pay with sympathy lol.
Your jumping around from topic to topic, being very passionate. That is not a quality revered by THINKERS. Philosophical discussions are impassionate. Why don’t you pick one topic and focus on that. If you can’t then don’t expect any further replies. You lash out in emotional outbursts, like this post I’m replying to presently. You are a self proclaimed THINKER, but in reality you aren’t. You carry alot of emotional baggage into your discussions. Attacking a person in an argument only detracts from your position, in a dialogue one must focus on the issue at hand, not taking pot shots at people. (ie. I thought l(ie)ying was a sin, but you(r)'re still talking) This is a false claim that can’t be supported. Thus you have compromised your own position.
This is a correction of the previous title. Is Dan a good role model? It is a resounding NO! See previous post.
i admite i didnt read it all, but i hope you’ve included the prophecy(s) about: the isrealites being delivered from babylon in exactly 70 years,
the fall of babylon so quicky,
jesus’ words about not a stone upon a stone left on the jewish temple.he also prophecyed about how rome would kick jeruselum’s butt. but he didnt actually say it would be rome.
i appologize about the bad spelling and lack of detail,but folks this is only from memory i have yet to do proper homework.*
i will go into detail with legitamate questions.
- and man, i feel screwed up right now. i better stop posting for a while till i get it together.
I was concentrating on the N.T., in particular the gospels. As far as prophecies are concerned, the evidence for their fulfillment is undoubtable.
At this moment in time I am engaged in classes on Logic and my time is better spent studying, to attain my goal of PhD in Philosophy and teach in a college or university. If anyone is genuinely interested about this or related subjects, there is a plethora of material availible to read. I have done my research and concluded that in spite of the unrelenting attacks of skeptics, the"Bible is an anvil that will wear out many more hammers."