Last year I participated in an email debate, concerning the historical reliability of the New Testament Gospels.
My opponent took the position that the documents in question are completely historically reliable. I took the contrary position, that this was not the case.
In chronological order, here are the exchanges, unedited:
Opening statement (for)
Opening statement (against)
First response (for)
First response (against)
Second response (for)
Second response (against)
Third response (for)
Third response (against)
Fourth response (for)
Fourth response (against)
Fifth response (for)
Fifth response (against)
Conclusion (for)
Conclusion (against)
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15 comments:
Can I be the first to say 'Welcome'?
Erm... word verification is 'woodi'?
Lee
Yeah, what Lee said.
Billy Yeah, what Lee said.
You can't say that... well, you can - but you would be wrong.
How could you be the fist to say 'Welcome' when it is clear I already said it?
Sorry... better go. My humour has left the building.
Lee
I decided to move my stuff from my "other blog", as I had intended that one for "computer programming" (my day job) related "stuff".
Never have gotten around to posting anything non-religious however :-)
Oh well, I guess it's biblical criticism for me...
Havok
Just thought I would pop in and say hello and obviously encourage your historical pursuits being a not too bad but could be better historian myself - I too am very interested in the authenticity of the gospels by proof rather than faith.
I will have a good read of all this when I get the chance, it looks excellent fun!
Cheers
Philip
Philip, this happens to be the debate which you helped with (via PM's on rd.net). Your assistance was invaluable, and I thank you for it :-)
CF: wow
Enjoy reading!
And please comment on anything and everything. I'd like to know if and where I've gone wrong (or right), and where my opponent has also gone wrong or right :-)
AHA!
I thought I recognised it but didn't want to be presumptuous!
You put some serious work into that one, poor bugger didn't get any of it, that thing called "historical evidence" was something that didn't quite connect in his brain.
Before I forget, I am currently reading a book called The Jesus Puzzle by Earl Doherty - you can find excerpts from it by googling it. Fantastic stuff so far, you might want to have a look at it at some point.
It even has a rebuttal by Richard Carrier who, after reading it concluded that despite his not being a mythicist about Jesus he could not find too many faults with Doherty's research.
As and when I finish it there will be a blogging about my findings!
Tally Ho!
Philip: Fantastic stuff so far, you might want to have a look at it at some point.
It's currently winging it's way from amazon USA :-)
Philip: It even has a rebuttal by Richard Carrier who, after reading it concluded that despite his not being a mythicist about Jesus he could not find too many faults with Doherty's research.
The critical review from Richard Carrier is hear.
What he had to say certainly piqued my interest.
Philip: As and when I finish it there will be a blogging about my findings!
Excellent! Looking forward to it :-)
LOL. If the Gospels are completely factual, then, um, why in the world does Matthew start wth a geneology purporting to connect Jesus with King David THROUGH JOSEPH?
Because the Gospels are not, and never were, meant to be "history" in the sense we know it today. Or any other sense, probably.
They're theological narratives -- stories of interpretation, apologies, arguments. Meant to "propogate the Jesus cult" is not an inaccurate way to put it.
ER, you know that, and I know that, but there are an awful lot of people who do not (like the other fellow in this debate).
Yep. :-)
Hey, next, go after the two creation stories in the first two chapters of Genesis! Or how Moses, who is purported to have written the Pentateuch, then must have recorded his own death! :-)
ER, if someone is foolish enough to claim that and wants to "prove" it then I'm happy to :-)
The Gospels contain plagiarised stories , as can be seen from Miracles and the Book of Mormon
It is not so much wake up and smell the coffee, more that a branch of Starbucks has opened up in the church....
Not one person in history ever named himself as seeing Lazarus, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, the BVM, Mary Magdalene, the other Mary, Joanna, Salome, Bartimaeus, Jairus, Simon of Cyrene, his sons, most of the disciples...
Not one person in history ever named himself as meeting a person who had ever seen any of those people.
Even in church history, all of these people disappear from the story when you get to Acts 2 and the letters, to be replaced by people like Andronicus and Junia.
These people vanish even from Christianity, as though they had never existed.....
Real philosophical investigation begins with the question what do we really know.
1.About "me" the being that presumes to know and thereby control the ever-changing nature of the Light show that IS Reality.
2.About the nature of this perceived Light show now, now and now.
There is always only now--the present moment.
When and where in the multi-dimensional flux of the cosmic light-show was 2000 years ago.
Therefore what do we really know about what happened way back when in Palestine etc---or yesterday afternoon at 2 o'clock.
Did anyone alive today ever meet any of these essentially fictional characters or witness these "events".
If not it is ALL conjecture. There are no facts to be found in any of the so called "proofs"--none, zero, zilch.
Meanwhile I quite like this reference which thoroughly debunks all of the bogus "truth" claims.
www.jesusneverexisted.com
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