David,
You are a man after my own heart....snarkiness and all.
I am constantly amazed at the absurd lengths that people will go to in order to discredit the bible and Christ.
This is a well timed article as I am speaking on a Christmas apologetics message and will be using some similar ideas.
Thanks for the great post
1. I agree.
2. You give a misleading impression by speaking of the gospels as being
"models of reliability" "both historically and archeologically". The gospels rarely mention historical events, and there isn't any confirmation of the main claims from archeological evidence either.
Oddly, in support of this claim, you take an example from outside the gospels. Not sure why.
3a. This is like saying that because we have found evidence that Troy existed, we have to aceept the existence of the Homeric gods in the Iliad. The historical claims are the minimal level of veracity; you can't generalize to conclude that all the miracle claims (or for that matter, any claims) are therefore true.
In fact, I doubt that you would make this kind of unwarranted leap for any other book. Even lots of fiction books get the history correct. The Koran gets the historical milieu of Muhammed correct. So what?
3b. You start off saying that "we acknowledge that Jesus performed miracles" and end with "the writers of the gospels believed that had witnessed actual miracles." The second claim is manifestly true, and uninteresting. It does not support the first claim.
3c. "...many of whom would have had ample opportunity to deny the miracles when the apostles began preaching in Jerusalem." And of course the Jews in Jerusalem never converted. Why do you think that was?
3d. "no known account of someone claiming “I was there, I was among the crowd, and that didn’t happen.” There is no known account of sombody denying David Koresh's miracle either by saying “I was there, I was among the crowd, and that didn’t happen.” You know why? It's because there wasn't any such crowd! Weak.
4. I would assume this is tautologous in the definition of a miracle, so OK.
5. Not obvious. Ezek 14.9. Needs more backup.
6. Where did Jesus affirm that the Bible was the word of God? You mention that he held *Scripture* in a high regard: OK: but what is Scripture? Not the Bible obviously.
I had a revelation whilst reading Balanced Apologetics by Meyer. As you stated in your previous post we don't convince people by our persuasivness the Holy Spirit does by His, using our words.
Atheists beware. Christian baiters beware. Every time you get into a debate with a Christian you are essentially opening the door to God working in you and showing you the error of your ways.
I don't save people, God saves people. He might use my words to do so though.
This greatly encouraged me in my apologetic efforts. Thanks for your great posts on Inerrancy, useful to have, I had intuitively used a very similar bootstrap argument previously, it's nice to see it laid out formally.
AR:
1. I agree too 
2. The gospels rarely mention historical events, and there isn't any confirmation of the main claims from archeological evidence either. Where do you get this idea from? The gospels mention the crucifixion of Jesus as a real historical event, one back up by Tactius(which I assume is why David included that quote and by Josephus (and other non Christian historians).
The gospels are replete with historical facts, Jesus' birth, parents, place of birth, historical places and events and a plethora of other historical and archelogical 'facts'.
Do you reject the authority of the scholars who claim that there is little doubt as to the historical reliability of the gospels? Are you an ancient Historian. As an example the University classics course in my home town suggests the bible as a useful archelogical and historical source. Do you think these professors of classics don't know what they are tlaking about?
3. You are arguing as someone who doesn't believe that miracles can happen, so of course you are going to have a problem here. You forget davids stated aim that this is primarily for believers, at least allow him to decide how to talk with his audience. By your posts I am assuming you are an atheist or agnostic, as such youa re not the intended audience.
Having said that the bible is much more readily accepted as a historical text that Homers works are. I am at work and don't have references but there are technicals of language analysis that suggest that the large part of Homers writing is intentionally mythical, whereas the large part of the gospels writers efforts are intentionally hewing to the historical data. You need to compare apples with apples.
Also, non biblical sources also attest that Jesus was doing something supernatural (as Davids quote from the Balylonian Tamud points out). So, even if you don't beleve that miracles can happen you have a variety of well established historical works saying that they do.
You can chose to reject this historical evidence based on your presupposition that miracles can't happen, but that's your issue.
4. How would you then define a miracle? Yourdictionary.com offers the following:
An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.
A common understanding of miracles is that they come from God. We can then ask why would God perform miracles? There are a number of reasons. The common understanding in Jesus' was that a prophet of God would be backed up by miracles (as Moses, Elijah and Elisha were, that's why people though Jesus might be Elijah).
5. The Net Bibles understanding of Ezekiel 14:9 can be summed up in the following quote from their note on this: In this view, if a prophet speaks when not prompted by God, he will be shown to be a fool, but this does not reflect negatively on the Lord because it is God who shows him to be a fool.
We also need to distiguish between a prophet and The Prophet. Moses prophesied a prophet greater than him back in Dueteronomy (I think), this prophesied prophet was some of the foundation for the concept of a Messiah.
Thus Jesus may have been a qualitatively different prophet. Certainly Jesus is different in that he is fully God and fully man, so it may be different in his case. Not that it matters much here.
The point of Ezekiel 14:9 is to warn both idolaters who seek prophecies saying their actions are okay and prophets who give them. And I don't think Jesus fits into either camp.
6. Scripture and Bible can be used as synonyms:
The sacred writings of the Bible. Also from yourdictionary.com
David is clearly doing this here. Do we really need to get into semantics? Do you have a valid point to make by splitting this hair?
Dang
A couple of clarfications. In my response to AR's 4 above, in paragraph 3 I meant to say "...in Jesus' time..." I missed out the time and makes it's meaning somewhat unclear.
Also, in the last point about scripture is should say scripture = "The scared writings of the bible"; over enthusiastic in my cutting and pasting and not in my editing. My apologies.
Matt,
2. The statements about Jesus, i.e. he existed, preached, was crucified, would fall under point 1. I agree we can take these as given.
There are very few other such checkable claims in the *gospels*. Jesus' parentage and birthplace are not confirmable historically from extrabiblical sources.
When people claim the bible is a useful source for history, they are probably referring to the historical books (Kings, Chronicles etc.) , not the gospels.
3. Whether or not I believe in miracles isn't the point. Let me ask you: the Koran gets the historical milieu of Muhammed correct. Does this mean that we should accept that Muhammed performed all the miracles described in the Koran? Why not?
4. So you agree that this point is a tautology?
5. Perhaps, perhaps not. David still has to show some reason to believe that "As a prophet, Jesus would speak the truth". So far, I see no argument (even scriptural), just assertions.
6. What do you think *the people who heard Jesus preach* would have thought was Scripture? This is what the word should be taken to mean in this context. (Hint: the new testament didn't exist yet.)
Actually, I think that for Mr. Heddle's intended audience, point 6 is the most crucial. The intended audience seems to be believers who believe the bible is reasonably reliable. For them, points 1-5 should be more or less a given (some of them may deny the validity of some of the miracles, but all must at least accept the resurrection.)
But the question is, why should these believers accept inerrancy? Inerrancy is to my mind a highly superfluous doctrine, in all its forms. A belief that the bible is basically reliable should suffice.
To argue inerrancy, the most direct way would be to show that Jesus affirmed inerrancy (point 6.) As Mr. Heddle has already pointed out, this doesn't really work, since one could consistently argue that Jesus' statements were misreported (a possibility that Mr. Heddle does not give full weight to, IMO.) But it would be something at least.
But even that isn't the case. What do we have? Jesus affirmed that the *law* was inerrant (this would be the Torah.) He held that Scripture (the Old Testament) was inspired. Neither of these statements covers the full Bible, and in particular, there is no statement that the entire Bible is inerrant.
Also, Mr. Heddle himself brings up another possibility, which he dismisses too lightly; namely that Jesus himself was mistaken. If he was mistaken, then a false statement from him would not be a lie. So Mr. Heddle's objections don't seem to me to work.
So in summary; Jesus may have been mistaken; he may have been misreported (no objection has yet been raised to this possibility) and anyway he didn't claim the entire Bible was inerrant.
So why should we buy inerrancy again?
AR
Muhammed didn't do any miracles...he claimed the revelation itself was the miracle. Surely you have a better example of miracles being mentioned in historical records....Show me which of them is more historically reliable and written as historical narrative?
I think you will find that Jesus' parentage (to mary) is mentioned in the Talmud.
There are dozens of historically verified items in luke's writings. He passes the test as an accurate historian with flying colors.
As the Gospel's are written as history, not fiction (as opposed to the illiad), so you need a basis for discounting what is written there, otherwise the unbiased thing to do would be to accept them at face value.
There are problems with doing anything else...i.e. you need to be able to explain , as Jesus lived and was crucified, and many witnesses testified to his seeing him after his resurrection, why they acted in a manner consistent with that resurrection even though it cost them their lives and why the Roman's did not simply produce Jesus' bones to stop the troubling spread of Christianity.
Alan,
Your post probably crossed with my previous post, where I state that for the purpose of this discussion only Point 6 is relevant. These other diversions are leading into the larger atheism-theism debate, and may not be appropriate here.
Nevertheless..
I am *not* discounting the gospels. The gospels are evidence for the beliefs of the early Christians, and for some aspects of Jesus' life.
(The Talmud reference, incidentally, is late and reports what tradition says. Not a histical verification. It doesn't matter; even atheists would accept that Jesus' mother was named Mary.)
On the last paragraph:
"you need to be able to explain , as Jesus lived and was crucified, and many witnesses testified to his seeing him after his resurrection,"
Nope. You have the statement of Paul that many people saw Jesus. That counts as one witness, not many. Including the gospels, that makes at most four independent witnesses.
" why they acted in a manner consistent with that resurrection even though it cost them their lives
and why the Roman's did not simply produce Jesus' bones to stop the troubling spread of Christianity."
This might sound offensive, but you could just as well ask why the Heaven's Gate members killed themselves, and why the growth of Mormonism hasn't been stopped by the revelation of Joseph Smith's egregious lies. Religions are not deterred by appeals to reason.
In any case, why would the production of some old bones prove anything? It's not like they could prove whose bones they were.
Let's not take for granted that the gospels were written by eye-witnesses. The earliest gospel was written at least 30 years after the even occurred and we really have no clue who the authors were and whether they really knew Jesus or not.
I have to agree with GCT here
More info about the history of Biblical defense.
The gospels.
Not only do we not know who wrote them, consider that none of the unknown Gospel authors wrote them during the alleged life of Jesus, nor do these authors make the claim to have met an earthly Jesus. Add to this that none of the original gospel manuscripts exist; we only have copies of copies.
Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, lived as the earliest non-Christian who mentions a Jesus. Although many scholars think that Josephus' short accounts of Jesus (in Antiquities) came from interpolations perpetrated by a later Church father (most likely, Eusebius), Josephus' birth in 37 C.E, happened after the alleged crucifixion, and he wrote Antiquities in 93 C.E. after the unknown authors wrote the gospels. Therefore, even if his accounts about Jesus came from his hand, his information could only serve as hearsay.
Evidence of myth
The "evidence" of Hercules closely parallels that of Jesus. We have ancient accounts from Hesiod and Plato who mention Hercules. Similar to the way the gospels tell a narrative story of Jesus, so do we have the epic stories of Homer that depict the life of Hercules. Aesop tells stories and quotes the words of Hercules. So start worshiping Zues people there is just as much proof!
Christians love to cite Joesphus' brief mention of Jesus in Antiquities, but how many Christians know about his many more references to Hercules? (see Antiquities 1.15; 8.5.3; 10.11.1) Just as Tacitus mentions a Christus, so does he also mention Hercules many times in his Annals. Now that's historic accuracy for ya!
The Talmud
Christians claim that Yeshu (a common name in Jewish literature) in the Talmud refers to Jesus. However, this Jesus, according to Gerald Massey actually depicts a disciple of Jehoshua Ben-Perachia at least a century before the alleged Christian Jesus. [Massey] Regardless of how one interprets this, the Palestinian Talmud derived from the 3rd and 5th century C.E., and the Babylonian Talmud between the 3rd and 6th century C.E., at least two centuries after the alleged crucifixion! At best it can only serve as controversial Christian and pagan legend; it cannot possibly serve as evidence for a historical Jesus.
As yet many people do not even think that Jesus ever really existed. If you can’t even prove that your savior really existed, how can you ask me to believe anything else related to the subject?
Later
Frank,
The primary evidence for the existence of Jesus comes from the letters of Paul, followed by the gospels. Tacitus and Josephus are really not important.
Paul really does seem to write as if he had met people who had met Jesus. It's hard to explain why he would write the way he did if Jesus didn't exist.
Anyway, there is nothing very extraordinary in the claim that there was a man named Jesus who was a preacher and was crucified under Pilate. Given the commonness of the name, it would be surprising if there wasn't somebody like that. So even the testimony of the gospels should be sufficient to accept this much. (The more extraordinary claims are another story, of course.)
Also, I don't think "many" people buy the Christ-myth theory. These people are overrepresented on internet fora, unfortunately.
To go on from ARs response to Frank. A variety of sources are used to determine who the authors of the gospels are. Most main stream scholars in this area, Christian and Non Christian accept the authorship all of the Gospels and most of the letters.
With regard to Myth there are some generally accepted guidelines that seperate mythical writings from historical, in the case of the New Testament the general consensus is thatn they are accurate historical works (given the standards of the time and compared with contemporary historical works, in act Luke is recognised as an excellent historian).
There is some dispute about the dates that the documents were written, but normally "Mythic" elements tend to appear hundreds of years after the supposed events; no one argues that the gospels were written hundreds of years after the events. The latest authorship suggested is for revelation at somewhere between 85 and 95 AD, and there are many who would dispute that and place it quite a lot earlier.
On top of this there are fragments of early Christian tradition in the letters of Paul in particular that are commonly dated to within the decade of Jesus' death.
Based on all this, and lots of other related stuff besides I agree with AR that few people buy the Christ Myth thing. There is general schoalrly consensus on the historical reliability of the gospels.
Of course you can choose to ignore that, but I really don't have much else to add if you do.
If you don't ignore it then I think you have a prima facie case for miraculous activity. This doesn't mean that the gospels prove miraculous activity, but if you accept their general historical reliability there is no prima facie reason to reject the specific accounts of miracles. Of course people may harbour worldviews that reject miracles, but the onus really is on them to show why the NT should be generally accepted but rejected in this regard without appealing to the naturalistic assumptions that cause them to lean in the skeptical direction towards the miracles.
Comparison to the Koran is not particularly useful as it has been show to be rather historically unreliable in a number fo ways. There are articles on www.answering-islam.org regarding the historical unreliability of the Koran.
Alan Grey also pointed out the the only miraculous event mentioned in the Koran is the revaltion of scripture.
A google search on "the historical reliability of the gospels" will get you a stack of stuff.
I also recommend the Chrisitan Think tank, he has an extended study (with his copious sources cited) on the miracles of Jesus, various claims about how they might have been fabricated etc and a good long look at the data. You can find this at this address
http://www.christian-thinktank.c...nk.com/
mqx.html
In a final note, AR is right that Jesus' listeners would have interpreted 'scripture' as the law and Prophets etc.
I think it's clear that biblical ineraancy is an extrabiblical doctrine in that it is not directly mentioned in the bible but is inferred from what the bible says. But I have no problem with that. A number of Christian doctrnes are inferred from scripture (the Trinity for example); this is okay.
At the end of the day am not going to fight to the death of biblical inerrancy, I think it is inerrant, but that is based on my all the bad arguments david put forward (my experience, the inner witness of the Holy Spirit etc).
I am willing to accept that people that don't have access to that are likely to think otherwise.
But whether you think the bible is inerrant or not, you still have to find a non circular way to deal with a, it's historical reliability and b, the fact that a historically reliable document documents what we can only presume the excellent historian auhtors (well Luke was an excellent historian) documented as historical events that happen to be miracles.
An interesting artilce, with sources cited fro your reference.
http://www.probe.org/content/vie...nt/view/678/77/
A quote about external evidence of the dating of the gospels
"A final piece of evidence comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls Cave 7. Jose Callahan discovered a fragment of the Gospel of Mark and dated it to have been written in A.D. 50. He also discovered fragments of Acts and other epistles and dated them to have been written slightly after A.D. 50."
There are people writing biographies of people who died 50 years ago that are generally recognised as being historically accurate. Why don't we extend the same to the gospels?
Matt, you said "I think it's clear that biblical ineraancy is an extrabiblical doctrine in that it is not directly mentioned in the bible but is inferred from what the bible says." No, it's worse than that. It is *not* inferred from scripture. It can't be. Some believers like you believe it for purely extrabiblical reasons. And then there are circular arguments like the one Mr. Heddle has here.
Incidentally, do you agree your reasons for believing in inerrancy are bad? How would you respond to Mr. Heddle's criticisms?
Matt wrote,
"If you don't ignore it then I think you have a prima facie case for miraculous activity. This doesn't mean that the gospels prove miraculous activity, but if you accept their general historical reliability there is no prima facie reason to reject the specific accounts of miracles. Of course people may harbour worldviews that reject miracles, but the onus really is on them to show why the NT should be generally accepted but rejected in this regard without appealing to the naturalistic assumptions that cause them to lean in the skeptical direction towards the miracles."
No, that is incorrect. Even if Jesus existed, that does not lead to the existence of his miracles. The evidence is not on someone to disprove that the miracle existed. We do not assume miracles until disproven. We assume no miracles until proven that there were miracles.
The Gospels describe narrative stories, written almost virtually in the third person. People who wish to portray themselves as eyewitnesses will write in the first person, not in the third person. Moreover, many of the passages attributed to Jesus could only have come from the invention of its authors. For example, many of the statements of Jesus claim to have come from him while allegedly alone. If so, who heard him? It becomes even more marked when the evangelists report about what Jesus thought. To whom did Jesus confide his thoughts? Clearly, the Gospels employ techniques that fictional writers use.
Paul's biblical letters (epistles) serve as the oldest surviving Christian texts, written probably around 60 C.E. Most scholars have little reason to doubt that Paul wrote some of them himself. However, not one instance, in all of Paul's writings, does he ever meet or see an earthly Jesus, nor does he give any reference to Jesus' life on earth. Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come from other believers or his imagination. Hearsay.
Even if the texts supported the notion that the apostles wrote them, consider that the average life span of humans in the first century came to around 30, and very few people lived to 70. If the apostles births occurred at about the same time as the alleged Jesus, and wrote their gospels in their old age, that would put Mark at least 70 years old, and John at over 110.
I think that someone wanted to fulfill the old Hebrew text prophecy and at the same time start a new religion. They made up a story about a guy named Jesus. Which was in fact just a term for the sun “Jes” means “The one great fire from the sun” with the typical roman “us” added to the end. And Christ from “Krist” meaning anointed.
Sounds made up to me.
The various unremarkable idioms of the Christian religion are kindred to the great mystery religions of that time period. Current religons do not want the ordinary person to know about the myriad other crucified saviors of antiquity, or of the myriad other "virgin births," or of the wounded and dying martyr-heroes, wielding miracles, who came for a season only to depart in some kind of fantastic and dramatic manner, many returned as gods themselves.
All in all the Christian religion is not even that original, It had all been done before by other religions and then pieced together anew for Christianity.
Later
“Jes means “The one great fire from the sun” with the typical roman “us” added"..
Don't know where you got this. Jesus is the Hellenized form of the Aramaic name Yeshua, which was very common in the first century. Christ is indeed an appellation, not a name.
Even if parts of the gospels are fictional, there could be a core that's true, and the simple existence of a preacher named Yeshua isn't that remarkable.
I am not saying that a Jesus person could not have existed; I am just saying that the person most people of faith portray has not even been proven to exist. Why then should I believe any part of the Bible as factual?
More ammo…
The term "aten" (or aton), that we find at the end of the names Tutankhaten and Akhenaton, derives from the supreme god of this family. Aten was personified by the sun. Aten or Aton is the Adon or Adonai of the Judites and Levites who were exiled from Egypt.
Adonai is officially known to be the active name of the Judeo-Christian god Jehovah (Ja, Jah, Yah, Yahweh, Ju, etc,). Originally, Jehovah was the god of the Egyptian Akhenaton, and his renegade family, and not of the so-called "Hebrews" and Levites.
Christ who was pronounced to be "sent" by Adonai/Jehovah, turns out to be "sent" by Aten. The man referred to as "Christ" was an emissary of Aten, and was based on the Pharaohs who instigated the monotheistic worship of Aten, Adon, Adonai, at Heliopolis, Thebes, and Alexandria, in Egypt. It is from Alexandria, that the Jews received their esoteric knowledge, and from where they learned the secrets of the earlier invisible colleges. After the destruction of Alexandria's great library, the various keepers of the Gnostic secrets dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. As time went by, and as memory of the earlier days faded, it served the Jewish power-elites, as it would later serve Christians, to make it appear that divine revelation accounted for their beliefs and dogmas.
AR here is the quote and reference for the “Jes” statement.
The divine title "Lord", in the New Testament, is translated from the Greek "Kuros," which is the Persian name for the sun; God is "Gad," and Ammonian name for the sun; Jehovah by translation and declension, become Jupiter, which, according to Macrobius, is "the sun itself." Deity is from the Latin "Deus," which is traceable to "dies," a day - a period of time measured by the sun; Jesus is from "Jes"...which means "the one great fire from the sun," and Christ is derived from "Chris," a Chaldean term for the sun - Kersey Graves (Bible of Bibles, 1863 AD)
Later
Matt
There are people writing biographies of people who died 50 years ago that are generally recognised as being historically accurate. Why don't we extend the same to the gospels?
Here is why.
No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. Not a single contemporary Roman record shows that a Pontius Pilate executed a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus reveal that its authors wrote well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings.
Hearsay.
Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness' own knowledge.
Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay provides no proof or good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but in the case of Jesus no one can even provide a solid piece of evidence to prove his existence.
Even if a person named Jesus was wondering around that general area at the time, but did not get any attention from the locals, than the Bible is still guilty of exaggerating to the point of lying, and everything in it should be looked at with skepticism.
Later
Frank,
What makes you the "expert" historian? Do you have all your facts straight? All I hear are claims.
See http://www.probe.org/content/view/18/77
Do you celebrate Christmas? Merry Christmas.
Elvis,
I don't think you are grasping Frank's argument here. He is saying that nothing exists that can serve as evidence of Jesus's life DURING THE TIME IN WHICH HE LIVED. Presenting a webpage that documents writings 40 years after the fact and later does nothing to counter his argument. You should be looking for writing or an archaeological find that is contemporary to the lifetime of Jesus.
GCT wrote:
"No, that is incorrect. Even if Jesus existed, that does not lead to the existence of his miracles. The evidence is not on someone to disprove that the miracle existed. We do not assume miracles until disproven. We assume no miracles until proven that there were miracles."
Okay, you a priori discount the possiblity of miracles despite there being an otherwise historically relibale text that says they happen. In this case you are simply speaking from your metaphysical presuppositions and there is really no where we can go with this.
I would like to see you try to respond to them without assuming that you are metaphysically correct, and until you do there isn't really anything else we can do.
I do appreciate you being open about your metaphysical position though, many are not.
Obviously, metaphysically I do think miracles can happen, but in this case I don't think it matters (it does elsewhere). See this a text that, as I have said, is considered very historically reliable, and it states that certain events happened. Normally the onus is on the person who disagrees with the statement to argue their position.
Incidentally, do you agree your reasons for believing in inerrancy are bad? How would you respond to Mr. Heddle's criticisms?
I don't think my reasons for believing in biblical inerrancy are bad but they are of little use in a debate with people who have a different metaphysical position to me. Not everything that Christians do is for debate with non Christians, some, even many of the things we do, are for other Christians (as David outlined in his original post).
For someone who shares the same experience of God as I do then to talk of that experience of God as ensuring biblical inerrancy is perfectly natural. But if people don't share that experience it doesn't make much sense.
If I went to see the Grand Canyon with some friends, then I would talk with those friends about the majesty and wonder of it all. However when meeting someone who hadn't seen it my comments might well fall on deaf ears as I am talking about something they haven't experienced. That's a fairly poor analogy, but I think itbroadly makes the point.
Perhaps if I am talking with my best friend about how wonderful my wife is (as he knopws her well too) we would share our experiences of her, things she has said and done. But talking to someone who doesn't know her that would all be just words because he knows nothing about what she is really like. I could be deluded and she could be mean and nasty (she's not).
See what I mean?
AR said:
"So why should we buy inerrancy again?"
I don't know that you should. I am not trying to prove it to you. I am trying to show something else entirely, something we can agree on. Historical reliability.
Frank:
"The Gospels describe narrative stories, written almost virtually in the third person. People who wish to portray themselves as eyewitnesses will write in the first person, not in the third person."
I am not sure it's even worht entering the debate with someone who is going to make sweeping assumptions like this.
1. You have to look at the type of literature it is. It is a history. Most contemporanous histories to the gospels were also written in the third person.
2. Apply the standards of the Hisotries of the times to the text, not the standards now. History was done differently then, try not to read your own assumptions about what amounts to a good text into them.
Paul's biblical letters (epistles) serve as the oldest surviving Christian texts, written probably around 60 C.E. Most scholars have little reason to doubt that Paul wrote some of them himself. However, not one instance, in all of Paul's writings, does he ever meet or see an earthly Jesus, nor does he give any reference to Jesus' life on earth. Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come from other believers or his imagination. Hearsay.
First, Pauls letters are generally agreed to have been written from about 48AD-62BC.
Secondly Paul met the ressurected Christ, even if you doubt this is what happened you have to explain how he went from a persecutor of the church to it's fiercest promotor. Madness is not a good answer as there is nothing in his writing to suggest he has any kind of mental disorder.
Thirdly if you are going to count all histories written by people that did not mean the people they are writing about as Heresay you might as well discount the entire discipline of history and move on. If you really do think this, then there is little more we have to say.
More ammo…
I though this was a debate, not a war
As for the Aten hypothesis it has been roundly discounted by mainstream scholarhsip.
Although some scholars refer to Akhenaton as Egypt's first monotheistic pharaoh, it's important to understand that his "monotheism" was definitely NOT the same as that of the Hebrews. The god Aton was essentially identified with the physical disk of the sun; the God of the Bible is not to be identified with anything in His creation (see Exodus 20:1-6). Livingston writes, "Aton was purely a nature entity and, curiously, the pharaoh continued to regard himself as a god, too" (119). Thus, Akhenaton did NOT worship the one true God. He was not a biblical monotheist.
From the Probe ministries website.
Anyway, if you, on one hand argue extreme historical skepticism you can't then appeal to other historical sources.
GCT
You are correct; no evidence of any kind supports a Jesus from the time Jesus supposedly lived. There are sources such as Tacitus (born 64 C.E.) that come after, but these people could only have gotten their information from Christians wanting to spread their religion. Not the most reliable source, do you give much credence to Scientologists? At any rate there is nothing historically special about the Bible. Any Steven King fiction novel might contain names and places that are accurate from a historic point of view but I don’t believe that the events from the book “IT” actually took place. Even thought in the book a fairly accurate history of the town of Derry was given. (Although some gruesome tragedies were added) The Mayer of Derry and the president of the United States at the time were mentioned in the book, it does not make it historically accurate.
Matt
I do not discount all historic writers works as hearsay, but in the case of someone writing anomalously and gives no references as to where they got their information as well as claiming to know what a person said while alone, or quoting what a person thought when there was no possible way the writer could have been there, then yes I discount it as at best hearsay.
Socrates, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, etc. there occurs a vast difference between these historical figures and Jesus. We have artifacts, writings, or eyewitness accounts for historical people, whereas, for Jesus we have nothing.
How odd that none of the disciple characters record what Jesus looked like, yet believers attribute them to know exactly what he said. Indeed, this gives us a clue that Jesus came to the gospel writers as indirect and through myth.
Interestingly, almost all important historical people have descriptions of what they looked like. Plato described what Socrates looked like, we have busts of Greek and Roman aristocrats, artwork of Napoleon, etc. We have descriptions of facial qualities, height, weight, hair length & color, age and even portraits of most important historical figures. But for Jesus, we have nothing. Nowhere in the Bible do we have a description of the human shape of Jesus. How can we rely on the Gospels as the word of Jesus when no one even describes what he looked like? Did you know that the current image of Jesus is in fact a renaissance recreation from a person’s imagination, and not from any writing or description? The actual roman depiction is of a clean shaven Apollonian youth with short blond hair. (found in the Roman catacombs)
If, indeed, the Gospels portray a historical look at the life of Jesus, then the one feature that stands out prominently within the stories shows that people claimed to know Jesus far and wide, not only by a great multitude of followers but by the great priests, the Roman governor Pilate, and Herod who claims that he had heard "of the fame of Jesus" (Matt 14:1)". One need only read Matt: 4:25 where it claims that "there followed him [Jesus] great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jersulaem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordan." The gospels mention, countless times, the great multitude that followed Jesus and crowds of people who congregated to hear him. So crowded had some of these gatherings grown, that Luke 12:1 alleges that an "innumberable multitude of people... trode one upon another." Luke 5:15 says that there grew "a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear..." The persecution of Jesus in Jerusalem drew so much attention that all the chief priests and scribes, including the high priest Caiaphas, not only knew about him but helped in his alleged crucifixion. (see Matt 21:15-23, 26:3, Luke 19:47, 23:13). The multitude of people thought of Jesus, not only as a teacher and a miracle healer, but a prophet (see Matt:14:5).
So here we have the gospels portraying Jesus as famous far and wide, a prophet and healer, with great multitudes of people who knew about him, including the greatest Jewish high priests and the Roman authorities of the area, and not one person records his existence during his lifetime? Wow now that is a miracle!
And you are correct we are debating and not actually at war, I get confused sometimes.
Elvis
I do indeed celebrate Christmas, because I believe in Santa. Santa leaves me awesome presents every year and I do not have any reason to question this “proof”. Even though it seems impossible that a fat guy in a reindeer driven flying sleigh could achieve the speeds necessary to deliver all of those presents every year, I believe! (Besides I do not want the presents to stop coming)
Anyway I think that everyone can agree that the spirit of Christmas is good, they are the rules I try to live by daily. (peace on earth and good will towards our fellow man and all) so why fight it?
Merry Christmas!
Later
Matt
Although some scholars refer to Akhenaton as Egypt's first monotheistic pharaoh, it's important to understand that his "monotheism" was definitely NOT the same as that of the Hebrews. The god Aton was essentially identified with the physical disk of the sun; the God of the Bible is not to be identified with anything in His creation (see Exodus 20:1-6). Livingston writes, "Aton was purely a nature entity and, curiously, the pharaoh continued to regard himself as a god, too" (119). Thus, Akhenaton did NOT worship the one true God. He was not a biblical monotheist.
From the Probe ministries website.
I am not saying that the Egyptians were worshiping your one true god. What I am suggesting is much more damaging; I am saying that the Hebrews might have been worshiping the Egyptian sun god. And that your religion is based off of an old disk of the sun cult. There is evidence to support this. There are many parities from those old cults and Christianity.
For instance the legend of Hercules.
Hercules got born as a human from the union of God (Zeus) and the mortal and chaste Alcmene, his mother. Similar to Herod who wanted to kill Jesus, Hera wanted to kill Hercules. Like Jesus, Hercules traveled the earth as a mortal helping mankind and performed miraculous deeds. Like Jesus who died and rose to heaven, Hercules died, rose to Mt. Olympus and became a god. Hercules gives example of perhaps the most popular hero in Ancient Greece and Rome. They believed that he actually lived, told stories about him, worshiped him, and dedicated temples to him.
From the old Egyptian myth of Horus.
The Egyptian mythical Horus, god of light and goodness has many parallels to Jesus. [Leedom, Massey] For some examples:
Horus and the Father as one
Horus, the Father seen in the Son
Horus, light of the world, represented by the symbolical eye, the sign of salvation.
Horus served the way, the truth, the life by name and in person
Horus baptized with water by Anup (Jesus baptized with water by John)
Horus the Good Shepherd
Horus as the Lamb (Jesus as the Lamb)
Horus as the Lion (Jesus as the Lion)
Horus identified with the Tat Cross (Jesus with the cross)
The trinity of Atum the Father, Horus the Son, Ra the Holy Spirit
Horus the avenger (Jesus who brings the sword)
Horus the afflicted one
Horus as life eternal
Twelve followers of Horus as Har-Khutti (Jesus' 12 disciples)
According to Massey, "The mythical Messiah is Horus in the Osirian Mythos; Har-Khuti in the Sut-Typhonian; Khunsu in that of Amen-Ra; Iu in the cult of Atum-Ra; and the Christ of the Gospels is an amalgam of all these characters."
I think it is clear that the possibility of a Jesus Myth exists and should be concidered and investigated. Remember the burden of proving his existence lies with the people who claim he actually existed.
Later
Odd
I was just looking over the article again and the author brings up the idea that by leaving out the destruction of Jerusalem it in some way gives credit to the Bibles inherency.
All that shows is that the writer had some access to a historic timeline. Since the New Testament was written about events that happened and ended before the destruction of Jerusalem there should be no reason to add it.
That would be like me writing about the life of George Washington starting with his birth and ending the text at his death but for some reason adding the American civil war to the story. It does not fit, the story ends before the destruction and that is why it is not mentioned.
Although the writer does give some good arguments as to why someone would make up the story in the first place.
Later
Matt. I appreciate that you are not trying to prove inerrancy, but Mr. Heddle is, and that post was meant for him.
Secondly, I would point out that Mr. Heddle is a believer, indeed an inerrantist, and he also thinks your internal experiences are of no weight. As he asks "If the Spirit does not testify audibly, the question becomes, how does the Spirit, through inaudible testimony, convey to someone that the bible is inerrant?"
Thirdly, on historical reliability: the gospels are not histories in any sense. They give no dates; they do not present things in chronological sequence; Matthew and Luke copy wholesale passages from Mark; they do not record the sources of their information; much of their content is sayings material. Even on the details of Jesus' life, there is a paucity of information. We do not know exactly when Jesus was born, we do not know exactly which year he died; thirty or so years of his life pass by without comment.
And then there is the absence of confirmation of major events which should have been confirmable. Star of Bethlehem? Nobody else saw it. Darkness over the land for three hours? Ditto. An army of resurrected saints appearing in Jerusalem? Ditto.
And then there are the problems in the nativity stories, like the nonexistent census, and the misnamed Quirinius. No I don't think we should exaggerate the historical reliability of the gospels.
Matt said,
"Obviously, metaphysically I do think miracles can happen, but in this case I don't think it matters (it does elsewhere). See this a text that, as I have said, is considered very historically reliable, and it states that certain events happened. Normally the onus is on the person who disagrees with the statement to argue their position."
No, actually, the onus is on the person who states the positive claim. For example, if I claim that I have a unicorn living in my closet, the onus is on me to prove it, not on you to disprove it. If you want to state that miracles (supernatural events) occur, you have to show that the supernatural occurs and that we can not account for the miracle through natural means.
Your other argument is that since some details in a book are correct, then all details must be, but that is also incorrect. Many novels (esp. historical fictions) use this technique to make their stories more believable. Getting a few details right does not mean that personal communications or other reported happenings are necessarily right.
GCT:
"No, actually, the onus is on the person who states the positive claim."
Perhaps I should rephrase this. With what is commonly seen as an otherwise historically reliable text the onus is on the person who disagrees with it to show why.
If I read a biography of Hitler that is generally correct but ti states that he killed Jews because he loved them and wanted them t go to heaven. The onus is on me to show, using relevant historical evidence, why I think this is wrong.
AR:
"Matt. I appreciate that you are not trying to prove inerrancy, but Mr. Heddle is, and that post was meant for him."
From the way the reply was structured I though I should answer.
"Secondly, I would point out that Mr. Heddle is a believer, indeed an inerrantist, and he also thinks your internal experiences are of no weight. As he asks "If the Spirit does not testify audibly, the question becomes, how does the Spirit, through inaudible testimony, convey to someone that the bible is inerrant?""
I can't speak for David, but I see there are two ways to interpret this.
1. He is coming from an evidentialist type point of view and has restricted his notion of what counts as ground for beleif to this point, in which case I think he is in error. There are other grounds for rational beleif besides evidence.
Even on these grounds I think you can construct evidence anyway, in that while we might not hear the audible testimony of the Holy Spirit we could take as evidence the many millions of people who believe in biblical inerrancy and say that their second hand independent (of each other) tesitimony provides a case for it. This is commonly done in historical sciences (i.e. forensics and archeology).
He is coming from a "softer" position that would place more strnegth with a more objective case like the one he has put forward. I this I wouldn't say he is wrong, but I would say that it is potentially misguided to argue for one kind of evidence over and above the rest. I would prefer to build a cumulative case using his argument, using the bibiical argument, using the argument from experience and so on, all provide different lines of evidence and confirmation for the believer.
Frank:
"I do not discount all historic writers works as hearsay, but in the case of someone writing anomalously and gives no references as to where they got their information as well as claiming to know what a person said while alone, or quoting what a person thought when there was no possible way the writer could have been there, then yes I discount it as at best hearsay."
If you are going to argue this then you are arguing that all Classical literature is hersay. Let me repeat (I am pretty sure I have said it before) the New Testament is the most well attested calssical document we possess.
"Socrates, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, etc. there occurs a vast difference between these historical figures and Jesus. We have artifacts, writings, or eyewitness accounts for historical people, whereas, for Jesus we have nothing."
On this you are plain wrong. I'll exclude Nepoleon here because it's ot a classical document.
All we know of Socartes is transmitted to us through Plato and other of his students or people debating against him. Further to this the earliest manuscripts we have concerning Socrates are copies made hundreds of years after his death. The same goes for Alexander.
We have 10 manuscripts referring to Ceaser, the earliest copy of which is from the 10th century (I think, I don't have the source on hand). Compare this where we have over 5000 direct documents of new testament books, some written in the early 100s (less than a generation after Jesus) and if we count quotes from other writers there are more than 24000 attesting documents.
The Illiad comes in second with 600 and something documents the earliest of which was written almost a 1000 years after Homer composed his original.
Some scholars claim that you could reconstruct almost the entire new tesament from the documents we have. That can not be saif for *any* other classical document.
To go to the quote above you said:
"but in the case of someone writing anomalously and gives no references as to where they got their information as well as claiming to know what a person said while alone, or quoting what a person thought when there was no possible way the writer could have been there, then yes I discount it as at best hearsay."
In my previous post I said you need to judge the literature of the time by the standards of the time. Most classical historians did not cite their sources. In fact the NT writers are better at this than most classical writers. In 1 Corinthians 15 Pauls cites a list of witnesses to the truth of his writings. He probably wrote Corinthans in the mid 50's when almost all of these people were still alive. They could easily have said, no, we disagree.
but in the case of someone writing anomalously and gives no references as to where they got their information as well as claiming to know what a person said while alone, or quoting what a person thought when there was no possible way the writer could have been there, then yes I discount it as at best hearsay.
To be hoest I find this debate fruistrating because on one had you cite historical sources for proof against Christianity, and then you claim extreme historical skepticism toward the gospels (against the stream of mainstream scholarship in this area I might add, both Christian and non Christian).
You need to decide. Either you apply your standards of historical skepticism to all classical literature (and probably all historical documents from the way you state it) and get out of the debate (can't debate with youaif you are going to deny the validity of the materials in the debate). Or you accept the general consensus of modern scholarship get over your skepticism of the gospels accepting their historical reliabiltiy.
Matt
Why would I exclude EYEWITNESS accounts written in the first person by people who were around during the time of the actual event? Who, I might add, also signed their works.
GTC and I have both given you good examples of why the Bible is not historically accurate. Including but not limited to;
1)Not one miracle in the Bible was corroborated by other sources.
2)The Christian religion is not even original.
3)Some places are incorrect, and include imaginary locations like the mountain that Jesus could see the whole surface of the earth from. (You can’t even do this from space, you can only see half.) This also insinuates that the earth is flat.
4)The Bible also insinuates that the sun revolves around the earth.
5)The Bible has very few dates or other historic events listed.
6)You cannot even prove that the guy the book is about really ever existed. (What did Jesus look like? and where do you get that from the Bible?)
7)The earliest surviving text is from long after the alleged death of Jesus, and was probably altered for dubious purpose. (see Eusebius; In his Ecclesiastical History, he writes, "We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity." (Vol. 8, chapter 2). In his Praeparatio Evangelica, he includes a chapter titled, "How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived" (book 12, chapter 32)
No one is certain who actually wrote any of the gospels.
9)Hearsay.
10)There is no reason to accept the historic accuracy of the Bible.
11)If you can’t trust the content in the Bible you can’t use it as evidence.
Now, for evidence of other historic peoples.
Alexander, for example, left a wake of destroyed and created cities behind. We have buildings, libraries and cities, such as Alexandria, left in his name. We have treaties, and even a letter from Alexander to the people of Chios, engraved in stone, dated at 332 B.C.E.
For Socrates, we have the EYEWITNESS writings of Plato that depicts his philosophy and life.
Robert Price observes, "Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly disappeared into myth. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue. We know at least a bit of mundane information about them, perhaps quite a bit, that does not form part of any legend cycle." [Price, p. 260-261]
We can establish some historicity to these people because we have evidence that occurred during their life times.
Historical people leave us with contemporary evidence, but for Jesus we have nothing.
If we wanted to present a fair comparison of the type of information about Jesus to another example of equal historical value, we could do no better than to compare Jesus with the mythical figure of Hercules.
Later
After reading all the comments, my feeling is as follows:
Point 3. It is not hard to find cult (e.g. Falun Gong) propagandas which are reasonable historic accounts except for their descriptions of miraculous events. Historical accuracy serves as a very weak evidence for the existence of miracles in these cases. Similarly, we need to take into account the purpose of gospels when we evalutate the content.
Point 6. I do not see any argument against AR's criticism of point 6. To turn it around, maybe Mr. Heddie's bootstrapping argument can be used for inerrancy of Old Testament ?
Overall, Mr. Heddie's bootstrapping argument is just an elaborate circular argument relying on assuming slightly more than the evidence implies at each step. These assumptions add up. The fallacy of the whole argument is apparent when we apply the same argument to current cult (e.g. Falun Gong) propagandas.
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