show that pual did not love Jesus and he killed people how dare you say a thing Paul loved Jesus faithful and was persecuted... Thats what the bible says
The scholars of the Jesus Seminar fail miserably to confront the fact that most of the NT was written by persons who either witnessed the resurrection of Jesus themselves or personally knew those who did.
This narrative is repeated often throughout the NT and is essential to its central meaning.
It'd be a stretch to explain away even some of this as forgery committed by zealous, pagan-inspired, 2nd Century devotees.
To explain all of it this way, as Dr. Meyer does 4:48, is absurd.
The scholars of the Jesus Seminar fail miserably to confront the fact that most of the NT was written by persons who either witnessed the resurrection of Jesus themselves or personally knew those who did.
This narrative is repeated often throughout the NT and is essential to its central meaning.
It'd be a stretch to explain away even some of this as forgery committed by zealous, pagan-inspired, 2nd century devotees.
To explain all of it this way, as Dr. Meyer does (4:48), is absurd.
Wow... there are a myriad problems with this argument. However, I think the main problem is that the people in the video are taking things as "historical" when they're not historical. The events in the gospels should in no way be considered historical, because they are not supported by any other than Christian writers. There is nothing in the archeological record or written record (i.e. writing other than a narrative) that verifies it.
Actually they don't. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny's references to Jesus are taken totally out of context: they give no biography, they just passingly mention Jesus as the god worshipped by Christians. Josephus reference is thought to be a forgery and has been taken off the table as an historical reference. There are inscriptions that support the idea of insurrection in Judea, but none that lend credence to the story of Jesus itself. Furthermore, I said writing OTHER than a narrative.
@jacquemar1798 Ironically, you admit of pagan historians who do mention Jesus. He brushes this off by claiming that they must be forgeries.
The problem is that historians do not universally consider these passages to be forgeries. In addition, Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, Lucian and Celsus refer to Christ and Christians sometimes in negative terms. This is hardly the strategy for a Christian forger who is trying to gain credibility for his movement.
@jacquemar1798 The longer TF in Josephus is thought to be an outright interpolation by less than 25 percent of all Josephus scholars. Most think it is genuine or at least contains original genuine material. Almost all scholars agree that the shorter TF is genuine. So it is virtually certain that Josephus wrote about Jesus.
Again, not true. 75% of historians studying the ancient world are in some way skeptical about the Josephus reference. There are some that say the whole book is a forgery, and there are others that feel it was an interpolation. They have a right to be skeptical because the only version of The Jewish War is in Greek, a translation made by Eusebius. Josephus wrote in Aramaic, and not a copy to compare has been found.
@jacquemar1798 We know from non-Christian authors: 1. Jesus was a real person. 2. Jesus was a Jew. 3. Jesus mission was to the Jews. 4. Jesus was a teacher. 5. Jesus interpreted his last meal with reference to his death. 6. Jesus underwent a trial. 7. Jesus appeared before Pontius Pilate. 8. Jesus death involved the Jews. 9. Jesus was crucified. 10. Jesus was buried. 11. Jesus appeared to witnesses after death. How is this "non-biography" mentioned "passingly"? Do you mean "briefly"?
No it's NOT there. I have the Annals, The Twelve Caesars, the Jewish War, the Letters, etc. None of these points that you bring up are in these references. Furthermore, if you have any further references that may clarify this point, please provide the author, the date, the title of the text, and its country of origin.
Josphous does mention jesus as a jewsih teacher, so you can claim him for 1-4. And tacitus does mention #7, but he was just quating christian belief, he was not an historian in any way, and not one other source indicates this as fact. As for the rest it seems to be entirely fraudulant.
You made all of this up. There is NO first or second century Pagan reference (or any Pagan reference at all) that is this detailed about the life of Jesus. I have read the references, and all that they say is that Jesus was worshiped by the Christians, and the Christians were being persecuted by Nero. Why do you feel it necessary to lie to prove your point?
People have claimed to see elves many times after his death. It is a mind trick some times when you truly love some one you feel as though as you see them when its just a mind trick.
As for the empty tomb. It was sealed by a rock and rock that was placed by man then removed again to see his body again. This could mean many things including grave robbers witch has happened many times with many body's
The 1st premise only holds for the disciples and followers. What about Paul and James. Paul not only did not love Jesus, he persecuted Christians following Jesus' crucifixion. There was no need for him to say this if it was not so. James only came to Christ after these events. Why?
That is a good point regarding the people claiming alien abductions.
However, even with alien abductions, I would be more likely to believe it if it happened in a major city, like Jerusalem (instead of in the middle of nowhere with no witnesses), and there were many witnesses, some of whom were educated, and several of whom wrote about it, especially if most of the written accounts concurred on the main points of the story.
Yes, but a lot of "prophets" of that time were said to have been seen after their deaths. In those ages the people believed in sightings of the dead the way we believe in sightings of the sun in the sky. See, today we would scoff if someone said that, but back then it wasn't even rare or unusual. You can't base ancient history in today's standards, like he is trying to do.
The Jesus-as-myth hypothesis appeared in the late 1800s with Bruno Bauer and was popularized by Sir James George Frazers book, The Golden Bough in the 1920s.
Academics thoroughly refuted it at the time.
The recent popularizers arent saying any thing new.
If Jesus did not exist then you ought to be able to meet one of two challenges.
1. Name even one writer who claimed Jesus never existed prior to 1800.
2. Name five PhDs teaching history at the university level that teach this today.
How much more likely would it be that if Jesus had remained dead that the Jews or the Romans would have procured evidence of that in order to quell the disorder this new sect of Christians was causing.
The best the Jews could do was to say that someone stole the body.
So there was an empty tomb and hundreds of people saying, "He is risen," and thousands believing this.
nice lol every athiest I have met has been so incredibly uninterested in doing their own research, and just quoting their man-gods like Dawkins or stupid films that keep having to apologize for their embarassing research errors, like Zeitgeist, but if u say you're a Christian, automatically that translates into "closed minded, unscientific, tunnel vision, unintellectual' to these people. Hmm.
You're correct, this set of videos are about people believing what they are told without asking questions. Just be sure that you are not the one being fooled.
Occam's razor argues for the least complicated (ie: obvious) explanation, so, would it suggest that:
(A) Hundreds of witnesses conspired to create the idea that Christ returned in the flesh after death, then passed the story on orally for at least 30 years, until several of them wrote or commissioned writings to tell the story, and unbelievably each of them independently came up with basically the same story decades after it happened,
or
(B) They simply told what they all actually witnessed?
That's a good point that can be used to prove many things that skeptics deny.
According to Luke, thousands of people witnessed the event of Pentecost. Most of these people went back tho their cities, preached the Gospel and began churches that consisted of converted Jews in their local synagogues.
If the account of Acts was not true, then people later in the first century who read the account Acts, who were still alive living in these cites, would have known it was a tale and rejected it.
Yeh, I find it difficult to fathom the idea that so many people could either concoct a story and write/tell it decades later and still agree on most of the main points of it.
Heck, its hard enough to get even a couple of people to keep a made-up story straight over time.
The only other skeptical argument is for a hallucination, but again, even though there are mass hallucinations, not all of the participants hallucinate the same thing at once.
people at that time didn't conspire anthying, they were very critical of what went into to scrolls and scriptures, very critical! and when a town of over 1200 people saw the final miracle, Jesus raising lazerus from the dead, he pulled the stone away so the whole town could smell the rotting corpse, this really took the doubt out of most minds and he placed they authority of life into a dead human, this is documented, in galileeian scrolls, carefully written, I trust that!
Second Part: "It spreads accordingly ; and, in defiance of the exasperated bigotry of the Jews, and of all the authority, power, and active opposition of the Gentiles, is established, within that period, in all the countries into which it penetrates. Can any one doubt but that the prediction and its fulfillment were equally divine?"
First Part: "The reputed son of a mechanic instructs a few simple fishermen in a new dispensation destitute of worldly incentives, but full of self-denials, sacrifices, and sufferings, and fells them that in about forty years it should spread over all the world. "
An educated Roman philosopher and critic of Christianity, Celsus, wrote that the only people claiming to see a resurrected Christ were his disciples who could not be trusted as they had a vested interest in perpetuating their religion. Had Christ appeared to people who could be believed, his persecutors (Romans and Jews), then their testimony would be more believable. Cf. bibleorigins net for why Jesus cannot be the Messiah.
If you are saying Christ did not appear to his persecutors and to Roman officials, this of course is false. He certainly did.
If you are simply saying He did not prove his resurrection to "non-believers," then this is an oxymoron, since all those He appeared to became believers.
Back your claim up! Give me the author, title, page number of your "authority" that proves Christ after his resurrection appeared to his persecutors, such as for example Pontius Pilate, the High Priest of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Romans in Judaea and the Jews. This has to be a non-biblical source as the liars who wrote the New Testament would claim he appeared to two Roman soldiers who guarded the tomb! Show me a contemporary Roman and Jewish source, not lying Christian.
The "contemporary historians who are not Christians" challenge shows your ignorance.
There are only three Roman historians who recorded anything about the Roman Empire of the first century and none of them wrote in the first part of the first century. According to your challenge, we should not be able to prove any history from his time because the historians are not "contemporaries." Yet in the NT we have contemporary history.
Some scholars understand Paul's writings are the earliest and dated circa 55-65 AD. So nothing in the New Testament is an eye-witness account. Suetonius and Tactitus mentioned Christian "superstition" and agreed they deserved execution. In otherwords neither historian had any knowledge of Jesus' resurrected body being seen by millions or thousands of Romans or Jews who were not Christians. Had that event happened it would have been noted in their histories on Tiberius for 30 AD.
There are no extant Roman histories of Tiberius prior to the second century writers Livy, Suetonius, and Tacitus.
That's it.
The four Gospels and Acts mention many first century events concerning the Roman Empire including Tiberius. These were all written in the first century. So according to your logic, we should accept the historicity f the NT over that of the Roman Empire.
The archeology on PBS is at best primitive, antiquated, and fallacious. The cities, people, events, and many cultures that atheists assumed were mythical have been found and confirmed. This PBS broadcast merely confirms how uneducated and history illiterate atheists have presented themselves in times past. The very fact that we see a long list genealogies in the Old Testament is clear evidence that the Jews valued keeping accurate records of reality. Preconceived speculation is NOT evidence.
let me put it like this if you believe in God and you are wrong you have nothing to lose ,but if you don't believe in God and you are wrong it could cost you an eternity and its not the other way around Wake up mocke
many different theories out there, there is another theory stating that jesus christ was actually an egyptian emperor during the roman reign that his name was ptolemy the 15th also known as ceasarian, other theories state that jesus is an ancient astronomical event that occurs every year during the birth of our sun on december 25th, in the end, who cares, it is not going to change anything, people will still continue their evil ways.
It isn't a "theory" unless there is some type of documentary evidence or other data to back it up. Orthodox Christianity has literally tons of data in the form of manuscripts and an unbroken witness in every generation.
These other crackpot hypotheses are only conjecture.
Well speaking of "data" the ancient astronomical event that occurs every year year on december 25th is a proven scientific fact. If you read about ancient ptolemy the 15th it has parrallels to jesus christ. Tons of "data"?? written by who?? people, that's who, people who get paid to do that ok. If you knew anything about christianity, it would be that it did not actually take form until several centuries after the "event" happened.
We have the NT writings and then many other books from writers who lived in the first century who quote the NT. Then every century after that has a ton of quotes directly from the NT. That is how we know the text is reliable to the original.
The gospels are unrelieable because they were written decades after the event. That is the same as you now recording what happened during the first world war without acces to any written material. How accurate do you think that would be?
Compare the Gospels to the histories of the 1st century Roman Empire -- we have records mainly from three historians -- Livy, Suetonius and Tacitus -- each wrote in the 2nd century.
Do we know nothing reliable about first century Rome?
The earliest Gospel accounts began to appear as early as 40 AD. Most conservatives put the three synoptic Gospels in the 40s to 60s. Liberals put them in the 70s and 80s. That's much closer to the source than the history of 1st century Rome!
If someone would lie, who then benefits from the lie? The men from Jesus's time if they lied which ones benefited from that lie. As a lie surely needs some benefit to prompt one to lie. Does it not?
The ossary that was shown in the video the experts have written it off as a forgery, the owner was the same guy ( odessa i think his name was) who tried to sell a black stone that was supposed to come from Soloman's temple, the authorities found that Oddessa a private collector of antiquities, had a fully equipped workshop for producing fake artifacts of antiquity. Oddessa tried to sell this black stone to the museum. Now, they fear that artifacts have to be tested & proved, esp Oddessa's ones.
you must be very clever!!!dude...it's not quantity you need but quality.. how much can you understand from the books..i could read 20 books a the time too.but how much would i understand
to equate our level of information communication. to that of the ancient near east. in the world that the bible was written in 10% of the entire world population was literate in its given native language.
outside of the nightmare's we have made africa and indo-asia, the vast majority of people the world over are literate in there native language.
The Jewish establishment thought that Jesus was a prophet but not the Messiah and they instigated a lot of the resentment and anger against the early christian movement.
Hindus and Buddhists don't care about Jesus or any of the Judeo-Christian beliefs. There faiths are completely seperate and have nothing to do with Jesus. They would not have even been aware of his existence or the jewish faith.
Jesus' early followers thought he would be right back to make the Jews rulers of the world but 2,000 years later and they are still waiting. A whole story developed around this guy Jesus and they recycled old pagan rituals and beliefs and applied them to Jesus. I mean why would the Romans care who Jews thought Jesus was.. they worshipped all kinds of wierd stuff. Remember the early followers of Christ were Jews who believed the Jesus was the Messiah as promised in the old testament.
The Jews have been waiting for 4000-5000 years for the Messiah to come and make them rulers of the world because they are the chosen people of God. Jesus' followers thought he was this Messiah but then he was killed. Jesus may have thought he was the Messiah which is why he said "Why has though forsaken me" Now what to do? Wow do we feel like idiots. Oh yeh he raised from the dead like most Gods on earth do after they've been killed. He went up to heaven and Paul waited for him to return.
it is most likely that the "mythical miracle's" were things that paul added to the faith, in order to better sell it to the romans, things they were comfortable with.
and it likely wouldn't take long, hellenistic culture was vastly open in regards to religion. and the ancient greeks and later romans respected judaism because it was hundreds of years old(they like that sort of thing) but rarely convert do to the penis cuttin, but paul got rid of that and added the "mysteries" to the mix.
i like how christians make up "jewish" things, "resurrection in the jewish sense" their was no jewish notion of YWHY flooding you with his "glory" and "bringing you back to life" it is a western christian notion that was first put down in the 1 century c.e.
Facts? The facts are that the Jesus story and christianity is nothing more than a mythology based on previous ancient mythologies. There is nothing new about christianity that doesn't exist in previous mythologies. I can't belive that it is 2009 and this strange mythology still has so many followers. It is so silly. I'm going to go pray to Horus, Athena, Aphrodite, and Zeus.
Well, prior to the 1800s the church had a strangle hold on government and in many cases they were inseperable. This was called the Dark Ages for a reason... intellectual thought was all but prohibited... the earth was flat, everything in the univese revolved around the earth, God's hand held everything on the earth and gravity didn't exist and on and on. No one dared suggest that Jesus did not exist or say anything that was contrary to the teaching of the church.
That may have been true in the Middle Ages in a few countries in Europe.But
Prior to 325 A.D. the church was a persecuted minority. There were many Roman, pagan and Jewish critics of Christianity -- none of them suggested Jesus never existed.
Christianity has never been more than 25 percent of the world's population. No Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist ever suggested Jesus never existed.
The is such a thing in a bibliographic test for reliability as internal evidence.
A book that is delivered to a people that has the words to the effect of: "We were eyewitnesses AS YOU WERE ALSO EYEWITNESSES" has a good chance of being reliable if the audience it was written for accepted it as such.
That's what we see int he Gospels, the book of Acts, Paul's letters, 1 John, etc.
Bibliographic test? Who came up with that? We were eyewitnesses AS YOU WERE ALSO EYEWITNESSES" who were they, what were their names? The Gospels written at times by people who never met Jesus, Acts written by Paul who writes about Jesus who he never met and you can tell by his writings.
Google: Chauncey Sanders "Introduction to Research in English Literary History"
The historian has to deal with the person who claims to be an eyewitness who tells falsehoods even though he is close enough to the events to tell the truth.
The New Testament is reliable because the accounts of Christ were circulated within the lifetimes of people who were alive during the time of Jesus. These people could confirm or deny the accounts.
Therefore, the Apostles always appealed to common knowledge even when confronting their most murderous opponents.
Not only did they say, "We know these things are true ..." but they also said, "You know about these things too!"
A couple of explicit examples of this are in Acts 2:22 and Acts 26:24-28.
In fact, EVERY book of the NT makes this claim implicitly or explicitly because even some of the bitter enemies of Christianity were eyewitnesses to the events described therein.
Chauncey Sanders of CHAUNCEY SANDERS MINISTRIES? What are the names of the people who could confirm Jesus in his time. Just say many saw, means nothing
But you are missing the point. No one writes a false prophecy and delivers it to people who would recognize it as a false prophecy -- and have no one recognize it as such.
Who's talking about prophecy, you stated there were witness, who were they? And as for prophecy Jesus proclaim that they would come to past in their GENERATION.
The NT records there were about 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ. There aren't any witnesses who are not Christians. If I witnessed the assassination of JFK, I would not claim it never happened.
One of the early Christian teachers was Manean. In Acts 13:1, he is spoken of as having been brought up with (Greek: syntrophos; rendered in R.V. foster brother of) Herod. He likely would have been a witness of Jesus' trial. He later became convinced of the resurrection.
Conversations with skeptics always go around in circles. You never concede a point and eventually come back to arguing your original thesis without countering my rebuttal.
Eyewitness testimony is what we have to go on with any historical source, then the next thing would be a report written by those who received an eyewitness report.
We don't have writings of ANYONE who witness Lincoln's assassination. We have only second hand accounts of those people who took the testimony.
the problem is that none of the new testament were writen by eyewitness', they were at best written by people for them or after their death, and most were written after the death of the disciples claiming authorship.
Argument from silence. You are saying that if you can't prove a claim of eyewitness testimony (to your satisfaction apparently) then there is a problem with it?
The reason why there are four Gospels is so we an see the corroboration. If they were written by non-eyewitnesses some basic facts would be widely varied.
there are vast discrepences in all four of the gospels in regards to jesus, its actually more correct to say that its hard to find important aspects of the jesus stories that don't vary widely.
as for the gospel's, we know when they were written down first, they are not the torah with varing dates as to when it could have been entered in to the canon. 70b.c.e. the earliest of the gospels was pend down. thats a rather large gap from death to documentation.
Numerous theologians including the liberal JAT Robinson have the earliest Gospel at about 40 AD and the latest book of the NT prior to 70 AD. This was the historical view until about the 1800s with the German Higher critics came on the scene. They wanted to put the Gospels in the 2nd century, which has since been shown to be ludicrous. Liberals have now compromised to a late first century date. But they have no documentary or testimonial evidence. It's all conjecture.
the geneology of jesus given by matthew and luke are completely different outside of the fact that they both attempt to show he is some how related to david. luke gives a list that ends with mary's familiy being in the davic bloodline, and matthew gives a list that ends with Joseph being in the line of david, which would leave jesus as not being of the line of david because he is sapposed to have no earthly father, this also would imply that he wasn't born of a virgin.
Mark 9:40 "For he who is not against us is for us.
Luke 9:50 But Jesus said to him, "Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you."
Luke 11:23 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters these are attempts to claim exclusiveness and the claim to totality.
matthew 27:3-8 tells the story of juda's discovering christ fate returns the silver and hangs himself. acts 1:18 cont.
acts 1:18-Now this man bought a field with the money he got for his crime. Falling on his face, he burst open in the middle, and all his intestines gushed out.
Ecclesiastes 1:4-A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever.
2Peter 3:10 - But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will disappear with a roaring sound, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be exposed.
Matthew 19:26-Jesus looked at them intently and said, "For humans this is impossible, but for God all things are possible
judges1:19-Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.
the earliest new testament fragments that we have are from no earlier than 150c.e. that puts 100yrs between what the bible might have as compared to what paul might have written. paul is the only new testament writter believed to have written anything prior to 70c.e. with the gospels being traditionally placed at no sooner than 70c.e.
but to actually find a copy you need to go into the second or third century c.e. depending on which of the four gospels you want to look at.
actually p52 dates to 125-160 c.e. it could be anywhere between those dates.
and the text on the fragment is rather unimportant in regards to the belief's of christians at the time. a slice of rhetoric out of its context that has little if any esotoric value
The AVERAGE dating of P52 is 115 AD. Some estimates have it in the first century. The dating for the Egyptian biblical papyri has been moving to earlier dates. A few of points you are missing:
1. John was written in Ephesus. This fragment was copied and discovered in Egypt. It indicates a wide distribution by 115 AD. The autograph was much earlier.
2. These fragments are two sided. The text on the front matches what the text on the reverse would have (in the right place on the page) if P52 copies matched closely to the received text.
3. The text concerns the trial of Jesus before Pilate. Hardly unimportant for doctrine.
Ancient papyri usually have a window of about 25 to 50 years. The given date is the midrange. Paleographers know the handwriting styles of the different centuries and they have gotten more accurate as more evidence has been uncovered.
One of the leading authorities is Phillip Comfort. He has dates ranging from 110 to 125 AD proposed by Kenyon, H.I. Bell, Diessman, and W.H.P. Hatch.
See also Aland's Greek NT (84-87): In recent discussions on P52 scholars tend to date it closer to 100 than 125.
You accuse others of "bias" and say in the same breath that Christians aren't qualified to do scholarly investigation.
That's biased and bogus.
Comfort is one of THE leading experts on the early manuscripts of the NT.
There are many examples of liberals who have examined the documentary evidence and have come to a conservative position because they were without bias.
You are assuming a contrary position and then arguing that those who don't hold o it are biased -- not very logical.
he writes for a christian book company, thats got a lot of bias to it.
most all secular archeologist are also christians, but they don't have their means of living held over their head if they don't find what there boss' want them to.
Yeah he needs to get a job where he edits the Greek New Testament for a NON- Christian book company!
Your statement is an oxymoron. You want a NON-CHRISTIAN Bible publishing company in order for the result to be UNBIASED? Of course, a company interested in publishing the Greek New Testament would have a Christian influence.
It would be like saying that a medical journal has to be published by NON-PHYSICIANS in order to be unbiased.
Using the same reasoning, we don't know that the Gettysburg Address, The Declaration of Independence, all of William Shakespeare and about 99.99 percent of the literature ever written "is the same as the first put down."
Very rarely is a published book the same as first put down. Very rarely.
But having the exact same words as were put down isn't a requirement of inerrancy. It's the doctrines contained in the words.
"some of the books said to be penned by paul we know were not"
First, try using capitalization, punctuation and complete sentences.
Second, no one KNOWS that some of Paul's letters are forgeries. This is liberal conjecture. They are all identified as being written by Paul. They were delivered to churches who would have known Paul's ministry. Every book of the New Testament has a continuous pedigree and record of transmission from the time of writing to today.
please don't resort to petty symantic insults, its youtube you can relax on the typing. this notion of "liberal conjecture" these are things that have been known about the old testament for 200-300yrs. you are of course correct when you say that the bible the most important book of the past 1500yrs, which makes it the most known. whe know that the books where not written by who they are traditionally claimed to be done by, like moses some how watching himself die and then writting about it?
This just shows ignorance of the evangelical position. If you REALLY want to know what we meant by inerrancy read the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. There were several recensions to Old Testament texts by the scribes ad priestly caste. That is stated in scripture itself. Joshua, Samuel, Solomon, etc. One example is when Ezra found the book of the Law in the Temple after it had been neglected for many years. No one knew what it was because the very alphabet had changed.
i know what individuals mean when they talk about biblical inerrancy, but the fact is that it is only inerrant untill it says something that is opposed to the individuals world veiw then it is metophorical.
the book of law was written by the preist who claimed to find it. it wasn't really 'found" that is simply a story. the obvious truth is that the priest need to up date the laws so they did and lied about their orgin.
The Chicago Statement addresses how metaphorical passages are determined. But since you are willfully ignorant, you wont read it.
You state: "conjecture, conjecture, conjecture" and then say it is an obvious fact. Wrong. You DO NOT know what happened in Ezra's time. You have no proof it was a lie.
no i understand the metaphorical instances in the bible. it is simply pick and choose, some people choose to take the metaphorical idea of jesus protecting you from snakes as literal, doesn't make it so.
it is a flawed idea because it is pick and choose, some things were only ment for back then, some apply now, and some are metaphorical, but all are objective.
it cannot be inerrant if parts of it are left to individual's imaginations.
I don't know where you get the 300 year figure or what you are referring to. T
he Masoretic Text of the OT was long suspected to be corrupt because the gap between the autographs and the extant copies were so great. The oldest complete copy was from the 1000 AD range -- a pretty large gap.
It was thought that the Septuagint (which is newer but has older copies) was more accurate.
But when the Dead Sea scrolls were found it confirmed the reliability of the Masoretic text to an amazing degree.
There were changes to the OT text, but as I said all of these had a pedigree -- they were done by people who had the divinely inspired authority to do so.
The OT texts actually have MORE reliability than the NT because the copying and recensions were done in one place (Jerusalem) only by those qualified to act as scribes.
Textual criticism of the NT is a little more complex. For a long time, the oldest copies were Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.
But several partial codices from the 200 to 300 AD range and several fragments from the 115 and later confirm the reliability of the later texts.
The good thing about NT textual criticism though is that there are SO MANY copies to work with that an almost exact reconstruction of the autograph (or at least a very early archetype) can be made.
...passed from man, to man, to man for hundreds or thousands of years until it was written on a medium that could be preserved for an indefinite period of time. The Bible as word of God or a factual tomb is just not possible. God did not write any of it, man wrote what would be hearsay in a court of law, and the Bible contradicts itself so often that it would also be ruled inadmissible. How can facts contradict each other and still be true? And I am not asking for cute paradoxes. lol
jc4runner, you are obviously both extremely well versed in theologics, as well as quite set in your belief. I think you might find it more rewarding and eye-opening if you were to detach yourself from the outcome of this discussion, and just objectively look at the big picture. Im not an atheist as you might assume, I wholeheartedly believe in a Higher Power, but its not the storybook God. The Bible (NT) is a beautiful guide for living together. But it is the word of man...
Thanx anyways but I think I have had enough of your condescending tone and I don't enjoy talking to walls...It seems rather futile to make salient points that you cannot dispute so you disregard them and refer me rudely to post elsewhere...Typical of a religious zealot. Have a great day...
What I find so interesting is that people on both sides of the debate see the same "evidence" with such opposing views. And as such both sides often claim the same evidence supports thier arguments. At times I would love to prove the existence of Jesus/God, but when I look at the whole subject, when I take a giant step back and view it from afar, disconnected to a result and with an objective viewpoint, it seems like an incredible saga. An epic play, novel, or fairytale. But believable? No way.
I have thoroughly researched these allegations myself. I do not rely on zeitgeist but I do agree with its hypotheses. I was involved in exaustive Bible study as a teen and I was an Acolyte or Alter Boy in my church growing up. As one of my points stated, no matter which side of the fence ur on, you will see the evidence in support of your point of view, however that still doesnt make the FAIRYTALE true! Why be afraid of the truth? The truth shall set you free, even if it is an unpleasant one.
I think it is more important to point out that there is not one verifiable account of a person named Jesus in or around Jesus' alleged time of existence. It is rather easy to rewrite history if you are the only one who can read and write and has access to the scrools. To attempt to prove Jesus existence by using references to a Christus is falling rather short, and really only amounts to hearsay.
Take a good long look at the past and see how many millions have died for lies...According to God's Laws either the Jews or the Christians are damned to hell, they cannot both be right about the Messiah. If Jesus is/was and the Jews dont accept Him...well, then the Jews wernt so chosen, and, if he wasn't then his claim to be son of God is/was false. Or do I misperceive this dilemma?
I wont name names, but I would assume that many US Soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq had a pretty good idea that they were lied to about finding bin laden in a cave or WMD's in Iraq. Some people have a very developed sense of duty. JC you are a bit too contentious with views that challenge your own. It seems that you are somewhat threatened by sane lucid logical explanations regarding the possibility that Jesus is just a myth and therefore did not exist.
"Nero created a diversion and subjected to the most extraordinary tortures those hated for their abominations by the common people called Christians. The originator of this name (was) Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontinus Pilate. ... So an arrest was made of all who confessed; then ... an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of arson as for hatred of the human race." (Tacitus, Annales, 15, 44)
"Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames. Nero had thrown open the gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or drove about in a chariot. For it was not for the public good, but glut one man's cruelty, that they were being punished."
Sorry I meant the disciples, peter crucify upside down is stuff of legends, were is the out side info on their sacrifice. And most of all What historical proof about an empty tomb?
Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome about 67. This is attested by multiple sources. The earliest being in 1 Clement, which is about 96 AD.
"Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity ... suffered martyrdom under the prefects. (1 Clement 5).
The empty tomb is not as hard to ascertain as one might imagine. The Gospels themselves record that the Jews started a rumor that the disciples stole the body.
There are similar statements in the Talmud.
There are numerous independent sources that say that Christians preached Christ risen from the dead.
Caiaphas the High Priest (whose tomb was recently found) and Gamaliel (who is also a historical person) tried to stop the Apostles from preaching.
What is the point of arguing about a book wich info was written years ago? and the only person who knows the truth does not like the lights of you and your race?
Jesus was a man, not God in Flesh. He did NOT know he would be ressurected after his death. If he *were* God or knew he would be ressurected after his death, then his sacrifice was a sham. A bit of stage magic to impress the gullible. I witnessed a man, not any kind of divinity, risk his like for 3 small children to save them from a flood. He *died* saving them. Which would I consider more noble, the sham sacrifice of Jesus, or the real sacrifice of that man? Even the gospells had jesus ask why.
ah, but the Gospels do say that Jesus knew he was going to be resurrected. You make a very sound logical argument. But those who wish to believe in Jesus as a God or a man who existed do not wish to follow logic. Faith defies logic.
And the Jews say: Uzair (Ezra) is the son of Allaah, and the Christians say: Messiah is the son of Allaah. That is their saying with their mouths, resembling the saying of those who disbelieved aforetime. Allaahs Curse be on them, how they are deluded away from the truth!
Knowing the REAL JESUS is NOT only knowing HIM through the Books(Theological) it is also knowing HIM personally as you learn of HIM in your daily life.HE is trully alive in us.We are HIS temple.Once you have that PERSONAL EXPERIENCE you will know deeper what more HE is our CREATOR THE 1 TRUE LIVING GOD of ALL.
It is also true with how we live as we move from the Holy Scriptures we live it we act it NO LONGER the old man(sinful nature)we will live the same path the ancient people went through.
i see everyone stating historical facts.. how do u know them to be true.. how do u know the writers and those that supported them weren't part of the lie?.. how can u prove these things? u only know what they tell u to be true.. u have to go beyond this reality.. there is more than what u know from books.. we are kept ignorant for a reason.. and my god u believe it?.. for shame!! how is it that they can say history is exact.. when they cant even convict they right man?.. dont be a dummy
How can you prove that evolution is true without observing every single part of it? How can you prove that Chuck Norris exists, maybe he's 3d graphics put on tv? How can you know that the points of light visible outside are stars, planets, cluster, galaxies, and nebulae, and not flying monkeys holding flashlights really far away? How can you know that you really exist?
It seems you've identified quite a conspiracy that has endured for ~ 5000 years.
these are all stories.. same with romeo and juliette.. u hear them enough .. u believe they are so.. history is a fabricated lie to keep us out of the light.. we are much more than we know.. the god u worship and the angels u claim guide u and the satan that u abolish.. are mere aliens.. all fabricated tales designed to keep our reality askew.. we are being corralled like sheep.. and nobody seems to notice. bit by bit.. we get more stupid..why is it that our evolution now seems in reverse???????
omg.. to scotchlvr.. right on.. i absolutely agree.. also.. with this proving of a book written by man.. why bother?.. how do we even know?.. it has been translated and retranslated.. we are dumbed down.. the original version of the book we call the bible is no doubt much more powerful than we are lead to believe.. allowed to know.. open your eyes.. you fear the unknown.. they hid it from us.. its our right to know.. get information.. start thinking for yourself again.. i am sad for the stupid
I would tend to say more like ignorance. Lack of information, and it's not a judgment but something of which should shake you awake. You see, we have all been "sleepwalking" though life living it unconciously. The time has come where we all need to learn how live a life consiously, not name call us for being "liberal theolgians" or what ever name you wish to label with. Truth: we create our reality with our thoughts and beliefs. Jesus taught this and that is now being re-claimed.
hey show me historical accounts that
show that pual did not love Jesus and he killed people how dare you say a thing Paul loved Jesus faithful and was persecuted... Thats what the bible says
1turner22 1 year ago
The scholars of the Jesus Seminar fail miserably to confront the fact that most of the NT was written by persons who either witnessed the resurrection of Jesus themselves or personally knew those who did.
This narrative is repeated often throughout the NT and is essential to its central meaning.
It'd be a stretch to explain away even some of this as forgery committed by zealous, pagan-inspired, 2nd Century devotees.
To explain all of it this way, as Dr. Meyer does 4:48, is absurd.
razumfrackle 1 year ago
The scholars of the Jesus Seminar fail miserably to confront the fact that most of the NT was written by persons who either witnessed the resurrection of Jesus themselves or personally knew those who did.
This narrative is repeated often throughout the NT and is essential to its central meaning.
It'd be a stretch to explain away even some of this as forgery committed by zealous, pagan-inspired, 2nd century devotees.
To explain all of it this way, as Dr. Meyer does (4:48), is absurd.
razumfrackle 1 year ago
doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, doctrine, and MORE doctrine, but NONE of you whites, look at the WISDOM.
pillsburydoughboy47 2 years ago
Wow... there are a myriad problems with this argument. However, I think the main problem is that the people in the video are taking things as "historical" when they're not historical. The events in the gospels should in no way be considered historical, because they are not supported by any other than Christian writers. There is nothing in the archeological record or written record (i.e. writing other than a narrative) that verifies it.
jacquemar1798 2 years ago
Josephus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, numerous inscriptions support the NT historical backdrop.
jcr4runner 1 year ago
Actually they don't. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny's references to Jesus are taken totally out of context: they give no biography, they just passingly mention Jesus as the god worshipped by Christians. Josephus reference is thought to be a forgery and has been taken off the table as an historical reference. There are inscriptions that support the idea of insurrection in Judea, but none that lend credence to the story of Jesus itself. Furthermore, I said writing OTHER than a narrative.
jacquemar1798 1 year ago
@jacquemar1798 Ironically, you admit of pagan historians who do mention Jesus. He brushes this off by claiming that they must be forgeries.
The problem is that historians do not universally consider these passages to be forgeries. In addition, Josephus, Suetonius, Tacitus, Pliny, Lucian and Celsus refer to Christ and Christians sometimes in negative terms. This is hardly the strategy for a Christian forger who is trying to gain credibility for his movement.
jcr4runner 1 year ago
@jcr4runner
I only said that the Josephus' refernce was
a forgery. The Pagan references are thought
to be genuine.
jacquemar1798 1 year ago
@jacquemar1798 The longer TF in Josephus is thought to be an outright interpolation by less than 25 percent of all Josephus scholars. Most think it is genuine or at least contains original genuine material. Almost all scholars agree that the shorter TF is genuine. So it is virtually certain that Josephus wrote about Jesus.
jcr4runner 1 year ago
Again, not true. 75% of historians studying the ancient world are in some way skeptical about the Josephus reference. There are some that say the whole book is a forgery, and there are others that feel it was an interpolation. They have a right to be skeptical because the only version of The Jewish War is in Greek, a translation made by Eusebius. Josephus wrote in Aramaic, and not a copy to compare has been found.
jacquemar1798 1 year ago
@jacquemar1798 You don't know what you are talking about. There are no Josephus scholars who say the whole book is a forgery. Name one.
jcr4runner 1 year ago
jcr4runner 1 year ago
@jcr4runner
You just made all of this up. The only Roman
historian who gives any further information
about Jesus is Tertulian, and he was a Christian/
Josephus was not a Pagan, and his reference
is thought to be a forgery.
jacquemar1798 1 year ago
@jacquemar1798 That is how you respond? I made it all up? If you read the accounts of Pliny, Josephus, Tacitus and Suetonius, it is all there.
jcr4runner 1 year ago
No it's NOT there. I have the Annals, The Twelve Caesars, the Jewish War, the Letters, etc. None of these points that you bring up are in these references. Furthermore, if you have any further references that may clarify this point, please provide the author, the date, the title of the text, and its country of origin.
jacquemar1798 1 year ago
@jcr4runner
Josphous does mention jesus as a jewsih teacher, so you can claim him for 1-4. And tacitus does mention #7, but he was just quating christian belief, he was not an historian in any way, and not one other source indicates this as fact. As for the rest it seems to be entirely fraudulant.
humanistheart 1 year ago
You made all of this up. There is NO first or second century Pagan reference (or any Pagan reference at all) that is this detailed about the life of Jesus. I have read the references, and all that they say is that Jesus was worshiped by the Christians, and the Christians were being persecuted by Nero. Why do you feel it necessary to lie to prove your point?
jacquemar1798 1 year ago
What music is that at 2:14?
EndTimeDelusion1 2 years ago
People have claimed to see elves many times after his death. It is a mind trick some times when you truly love some one you feel as though as you see them when its just a mind trick.
As for the empty tomb. It was sealed by a rock and rock that was placed by man then removed again to see his body again. This could mean many things including grave robbers witch has happened many times with many body's
NewFoundAnima 2 years ago
The 1st premise only holds for the disciples and followers. What about Paul and James. Paul not only did not love Jesus, he persecuted Christians following Jesus' crucifixion. There was no need for him to say this if it was not so. James only came to Christ after these events. Why?
zsifk 1 year ago
An empty tomb is an empty tomb.all it proves is that it is empty-in much the same way that the new testament is empty of reality.
1stephen67 2 years ago
That is a good point regarding the people claiming alien abductions.
However, even with alien abductions, I would be more likely to believe it if it happened in a major city, like Jerusalem (instead of in the middle of nowhere with no witnesses), and there were many witnesses, some of whom were educated, and several of whom wrote about it, especially if most of the written accounts concurred on the main points of the story.
thekingmaker10 2 years ago
Yes, but a lot of "prophets" of that time were said to have been seen after their deaths. In those ages the people believed in sightings of the dead the way we believe in sightings of the sun in the sky. See, today we would scoff if someone said that, but back then it wasn't even rare or unusual. You can't base ancient history in today's standards, like he is trying to do.
peppersdog 2 years ago
obey Acts 2:38 before it's too late.
Acts238Acts242 2 years ago
The Jesus-as-myth hypothesis appeared in the late 1800s with Bruno Bauer and was popularized by Sir James George Frazers book, The Golden Bough in the 1920s.
Academics thoroughly refuted it at the time.
The recent popularizers arent saying any thing new.
If Jesus did not exist then you ought to be able to meet one of two challenges.
1. Name even one writer who claimed Jesus never existed prior to 1800.
2. Name five PhDs teaching history at the university level that teach this today.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
'two historical facts'
... one historical fact, people came to believe...
multiple explanations for this
curiniul 2 years ago
1. That there was an empty tomb.
2. That hundreds of people claim they saw Jesus risen from the dead.
What is YOUR explanation?
jcr4runner 2 years ago
1. you ever read about Cagliostro, he was though to be able to do all sorts of magic tricks, did he?
2.All the king's horses and all the kings men saw humpty dumpty in smithereens also.
How much of this can be sheared with Occam's razor?
curiniul 2 years ago
How much more likely would it be that if Jesus had remained dead that the Jews or the Romans would have procured evidence of that in order to quell the disorder this new sect of Christians was causing.
The best the Jews could do was to say that someone stole the body.
So there was an empty tomb and hundreds of people saying, "He is risen," and thousands believing this.
Why?
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Because most people are stupid and they believe what they're told without asking questions.
Metallic7Dust 2 years ago 2
These videos are about asking and answering questions.
That way stupid atheists and postmodernists can learn to think.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
nice lol every athiest I have met has been so incredibly uninterested in doing their own research, and just quoting their man-gods like Dawkins or stupid films that keep having to apologize for their embarassing research errors, like Zeitgeist, but if u say you're a Christian, automatically that translates into "closed minded, unscientific, tunnel vision, unintellectual' to these people. Hmm.
snurplebeans 1 year ago
You're correct, this set of videos are about people believing what they are told without asking questions. Just be sure that you are not the one being fooled.
zsifk 1 year ago
Occam's razor argues for the least complicated (ie: obvious) explanation, so, would it suggest that:
(A) Hundreds of witnesses conspired to create the idea that Christ returned in the flesh after death, then passed the story on orally for at least 30 years, until several of them wrote or commissioned writings to tell the story, and unbelievably each of them independently came up with basically the same story decades after it happened,
or
(B) They simply told what they all actually witnessed?
thekingmaker10 2 years ago
That's a good point that can be used to prove many things that skeptics deny.
According to Luke, thousands of people witnessed the event of Pentecost. Most of these people went back tho their cities, preached the Gospel and began churches that consisted of converted Jews in their local synagogues.
If the account of Acts was not true, then people later in the first century who read the account Acts, who were still alive living in these cites, would have known it was a tale and rejected it.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Yeh, I find it difficult to fathom the idea that so many people could either concoct a story and write/tell it decades later and still agree on most of the main points of it.
Heck, its hard enough to get even a couple of people to keep a made-up story straight over time.
The only other skeptical argument is for a hallucination, but again, even though there are mass hallucinations, not all of the participants hallucinate the same thing at once.
thekingmaker10 2 years ago
people at that time didn't conspire anthying, they were very critical of what went into to scrolls and scriptures, very critical! and when a town of over 1200 people saw the final miracle, Jesus raising lazerus from the dead, he pulled the stone away so the whole town could smell the rotting corpse, this really took the doubt out of most minds and he placed they authority of life into a dead human, this is documented, in galileeian scrolls, carefully written, I trust that!
airholeahole1 2 years ago
Second Part: "It spreads accordingly ; and, in defiance of the exasperated bigotry of the Jews, and of all the authority, power, and active opposition of the Gentiles, is established, within that period, in all the countries into which it penetrates. Can any one doubt but that the prediction and its fulfillment were equally divine?"
George Peter Holford
SimplesmenteCristao 2 years ago
First Part: "The reputed son of a mechanic instructs a few simple fishermen in a new dispensation destitute of worldly incentives, but full of self-denials, sacrifices, and sufferings, and fells them that in about forty years it should spread over all the world. "
George Peter Holford
SimplesmenteCristao 2 years ago
An educated Roman philosopher and critic of Christianity, Celsus, wrote that the only people claiming to see a resurrected Christ were his disciples who could not be trusted as they had a vested interest in perpetuating their religion. Had Christ appeared to people who could be believed, his persecutors (Romans and Jews), then their testimony would be more believable. Cf. bibleorigins net for why Jesus cannot be the Messiah.
sapiensape 2 years ago
If you are saying Christ did not appear to his persecutors and to Roman officials, this of course is false. He certainly did.
If you are simply saying He did not prove his resurrection to "non-believers," then this is an oxymoron, since all those He appeared to became believers.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Back your claim up! Give me the author, title, page number of your "authority" that proves Christ after his resurrection appeared to his persecutors, such as for example Pontius Pilate, the High Priest of the Jewish Sanhedrin, the Romans in Judaea and the Jews. This has to be a non-biblical source as the liars who wrote the New Testament would claim he appeared to two Roman soldiers who guarded the tomb! Show me a contemporary Roman and Jewish source, not lying Christian.
sapiensape 2 years ago
I could write books on this:
Why Did God Choose the Chief Persecutor of Jesus to become the Apostle to the Gentiles?
Saul of Tarsus was a leading rabbi of his day.
Why Did God Choose a Roman Official to Be the First Gentile Convert (Acts 10:1-48)?
Cornelius is thought by scholars to be the Roman centurion of the Gospels -- the same who calimed: "Suerly this was the Son of God."
Another example -- the centurion who escorted Paul to Rome. This centurion is called Julius.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
The "contemporary historians who are not Christians" challenge shows your ignorance.
There are only three Roman historians who recorded anything about the Roman Empire of the first century and none of them wrote in the first part of the first century. According to your challenge, we should not be able to prove any history from his time because the historians are not "contemporaries." Yet in the NT we have contemporary history.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Some scholars understand Paul's writings are the earliest and dated circa 55-65 AD. So nothing in the New Testament is an eye-witness account. Suetonius and Tactitus mentioned Christian "superstition" and agreed they deserved execution. In otherwords neither historian had any knowledge of Jesus' resurrected body being seen by millions or thousands of Romans or Jews who were not Christians. Had that event happened it would have been noted in their histories on Tiberius for 30 AD.
sapiensape 2 years ago
There are no extant Roman histories of Tiberius prior to the second century writers Livy, Suetonius, and Tacitus.
That's it.
The four Gospels and Acts mention many first century events concerning the Roman Empire including Tiberius. These were all written in the first century. So according to your logic, we should accept the historicity f the NT over that of the Roman Empire.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
The archeology on PBS is at best primitive, antiquated, and fallacious. The cities, people, events, and many cultures that atheists assumed were mythical have been found and confirmed. This PBS broadcast merely confirms how uneducated and history illiterate atheists have presented themselves in times past. The very fact that we see a long list genealogies in the Old Testament is clear evidence that the Jews valued keeping accurate records of reality. Preconceived speculation is NOT evidence.
prffsrx 2 years ago
let me put it like this if you believe in God and you are wrong you have nothing to lose ,but if you don't believe in God and you are wrong it could cost you an eternity and its not the other way around Wake up mocke
Time2Repent 2 years ago
the bible could have been mixed up is like gossip if one persons says it then the other could have gotten mixed up and said somthng diffrent
12ig8 2 years ago
many different theories out there, there is another theory stating that jesus christ was actually an egyptian emperor during the roman reign that his name was ptolemy the 15th also known as ceasarian, other theories state that jesus is an ancient astronomical event that occurs every year during the birth of our sun on december 25th, in the end, who cares, it is not going to change anything, people will still continue their evil ways.
maximusTLP 2 years ago
It isn't a "theory" unless there is some type of documentary evidence or other data to back it up. Orthodox Christianity has literally tons of data in the form of manuscripts and an unbroken witness in every generation.
These other crackpot hypotheses are only conjecture.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Well speaking of "data" the ancient astronomical event that occurs every year year on december 25th is a proven scientific fact. If you read about ancient ptolemy the 15th it has parrallels to jesus christ. Tons of "data"?? written by who?? people, that's who, people who get paid to do that ok. If you knew anything about christianity, it would be that it did not actually take form until several centuries after the "event" happened.
maximusTLP 2 years ago
We have the NT writings and then many other books from writers who lived in the first century who quote the NT. Then every century after that has a ton of quotes directly from the NT. That is how we know the text is reliable to the original.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
The gospels are unrelieable because they were written decades after the event. That is the same as you now recording what happened during the first world war without acces to any written material. How accurate do you think that would be?
T0X0PHILUS 2 years ago
Ridiculous!
Compare the Gospels to the histories of the 1st century Roman Empire -- we have records mainly from three historians -- Livy, Suetonius and Tacitus -- each wrote in the 2nd century.
Do we know nothing reliable about first century Rome?
The earliest Gospel accounts began to appear as early as 40 AD. Most conservatives put the three synoptic Gospels in the 40s to 60s. Liberals put them in the 70s and 80s. That's much closer to the source than the history of 1st century Rome!
jcr4runner 2 years ago
If someone would lie, who then benefits from the lie? The men from Jesus's time if they lied which ones benefited from that lie. As a lie surely needs some benefit to prompt one to lie. Does it not?
shelley0809 2 years ago
The ossary that was shown in the video the experts have written it off as a forgery, the owner was the same guy ( odessa i think his name was) who tried to sell a black stone that was supposed to come from Soloman's temple, the authorities found that Oddessa a private collector of antiquities, had a fully equipped workshop for producing fake artifacts of antiquity. Oddessa tried to sell this black stone to the museum. Now, they fear that artifacts have to be tested & proved, esp Oddessa's ones.
shelley0809 2 years ago
Check the holy light that appears every Easter at Jerusalem to the Orthodox Patriarch
Metania01 2 years ago
you shouldn't assume that all non-believers are dullards who simply listen to mind numb "tv watchers". i read 3 books at a time and read everyday.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
you must be very clever!!!dude...it's not quantity you need but quality.. how much can you understand from the books..i could read 20 books a the time too.but how much would i understand
ceerijjay 2 years ago
cont.
era of newspapers.
to equate our level of information communication. to that of the ancient near east. in the world that the bible was written in 10% of the entire world population was literate in its given native language.
outside of the nightmare's we have made africa and indo-asia, the vast majority of people the world over are literate in there native language.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Outside of more than half the world, most people are literate? What kind of statement is that.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
The Jewish establishment thought that Jesus was a prophet but not the Messiah and they instigated a lot of the resentment and anger against the early christian movement.
Hindus and Buddhists don't care about Jesus or any of the Judeo-Christian beliefs. There faiths are completely seperate and have nothing to do with Jesus. They would not have even been aware of his existence or the jewish faith.
cultofchrist 2 years ago
No actually the Hindus and Buddhists were aware of Jesus very early on. They considered Him to be divine -- or a type of an Avatar.
And of course the Muslims have nothing but good things to say about Jesus.
No one ever denied Jesus' existence, just His claims to be the One and only Son of God..
jcr4runner 2 years ago
their were buddist settlements as far as greece by 320b.c.e. also in just about every other hellenistic city. archeological evidence shows it.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Jesus' early followers thought he would be right back to make the Jews rulers of the world but 2,000 years later and they are still waiting. A whole story developed around this guy Jesus and they recycled old pagan rituals and beliefs and applied them to Jesus. I mean why would the Romans care who Jews thought Jesus was.. they worshipped all kinds of wierd stuff. Remember the early followers of Christ were Jews who believed the Jesus was the Messiah as promised in the old testament.
cultofchrist 2 years ago
The Jews have been waiting for 4000-5000 years for the Messiah to come and make them rulers of the world because they are the chosen people of God. Jesus' followers thought he was this Messiah but then he was killed. Jesus may have thought he was the Messiah which is why he said "Why has though forsaken me" Now what to do? Wow do we feel like idiots. Oh yeh he raised from the dead like most Gods on earth do after they've been killed. He went up to heaven and Paul waited for him to return.
cultofchrist 2 years ago
How much time do you think the "myth of Jesus" took to develop around the real person named Jesus?
jcr4runner 2 years ago
it is most likely that the "mythical miracle's" were things that paul added to the faith, in order to better sell it to the romans, things they were comfortable with.
and it likely wouldn't take long, hellenistic culture was vastly open in regards to religion. and the ancient greeks and later romans respected judaism because it was hundreds of years old(they like that sort of thing) but rarely convert do to the penis cuttin, but paul got rid of that and added the "mysteries" to the mix.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Myths and legends don't take just 30 to 40 years to originate. Remember that eyewitnesses to the events were still alive at this time.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
i like how christians make up "jewish" things, "resurrection in the jewish sense" their was no jewish notion of YWHY flooding you with his "glory" and "bringing you back to life" it is a western christian notion that was first put down in the 1 century c.e.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Facts? The facts are that the Jesus story and christianity is nothing more than a mythology based on previous ancient mythologies. There is nothing new about christianity that doesn't exist in previous mythologies. I can't belive that it is 2009 and this strange mythology still has so many followers. It is so silly. I'm going to go pray to Horus, Athena, Aphrodite, and Zeus.
cultofchrist 2 years ago
Dear Jesus Mythist crackpot,
If you want to post the Jesus myth fallacy on my vlog, you have to meet one of two challenges.
1. Name even one writer who claimed Jesus never existed prior to 1800.
2. Name five Ph.D.s teaching history at the university level that teach this today.
If you can't do this, go sell "crazy" somewhere else.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Well, prior to the 1800s the church had a strangle hold on government and in many cases they were inseperable. This was called the Dark Ages for a reason... intellectual thought was all but prohibited... the earth was flat, everything in the univese revolved around the earth, God's hand held everything on the earth and gravity didn't exist and on and on. No one dared suggest that Jesus did not exist or say anything that was contrary to the teaching of the church.
cultofchrist 2 years ago
That may have been true in the Middle Ages in a few countries in Europe.But
Prior to 325 A.D. the church was a persecuted minority. There were many Roman, pagan and Jewish critics of Christianity -- none of them suggested Jesus never existed.
Christianity has never been more than 25 percent of the world's population. No Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist ever suggested Jesus never existed.
Why?
jcr4runner 2 years ago
No one in the Middle Ages taught to earth was flat.
You've drunk the atheists' kool-aide.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
yeah thats a little off on the "flat earth" comment you added about a 8th of a millenium.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Why did Ariel ask "Did Jesus really raise himself from the dead?". How can Jesus raise himself if he is dead? I thought God raised him.
Bible9230 2 years ago
What historical proff about an emty tombe? How do use the bible to prove the bible?
rackerslacker 3 years ago
The is such a thing in a bibliographic test for reliability as internal evidence.
A book that is delivered to a people that has the words to the effect of: "We were eyewitnesses AS YOU WERE ALSO EYEWITNESSES" has a good chance of being reliable if the audience it was written for accepted it as such.
That's what we see int he Gospels, the book of Acts, Paul's letters, 1 John, etc.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Bibliographic test? Who came up with that? We were eyewitnesses AS YOU WERE ALSO EYEWITNESSES" who were they, what were their names? The Gospels written at times by people who never met Jesus, Acts written by Paul who writes about Jesus who he never met and you can tell by his writings.
rackerslacker 3 years ago
Google: Chauncey Sanders "Introduction to Research in English Literary History"
The historian has to deal with the person who claims to be an eyewitness who tells falsehoods even though he is close enough to the events to tell the truth.
The New Testament is reliable because the accounts of Christ were circulated within the lifetimes of people who were alive during the time of Jesus. These people could confirm or deny the accounts.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Therefore, the Apostles always appealed to common knowledge even when confronting their most murderous opponents.
Not only did they say, "We know these things are true ..." but they also said, "You know about these things too!"
A couple of explicit examples of this are in Acts 2:22 and Acts 26:24-28.
In fact, EVERY book of the NT makes this claim implicitly or explicitly because even some of the bitter enemies of Christianity were eyewitnesses to the events described therein.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Chauncey Sanders "Introduction to Research in English Literary History" a book written in 1957, rarely reprinted, Can't even find a bio on the man.
rackerslacker 3 years ago
I had no problem finding a copy.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Chauncey Sanders of CHAUNCEY SANDERS MINISTRIES? What are the names of the people who could confirm Jesus in his time. Just say many saw, means nothing
rackerslacker 3 years ago
No, the English literary historian.
But you are missing the point. No one writes a false prophecy and delivers it to people who would recognize it as a false prophecy -- and have no one recognize it as such.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Who's talking about prophecy, you stated there were witness, who were they? And as for prophecy Jesus proclaim that they would come to past in their GENERATION.
But first who were the witness?
rackerslacker 3 years ago
The NT records there were about 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ. There aren't any witnesses who are not Christians. If I witnessed the assassination of JFK, I would not claim it never happened.
One of the early Christian teachers was Manean. In Acts 13:1, he is spoken of as having been brought up with (Greek: syntrophos; rendered in R.V. foster brother of) Herod. He likely would have been a witness of Jesus' trial. He later became convinced of the resurrection.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
If I witnessed the assassination of JFK, I would not claim it never happened.
Did you witness Lincolns assassination?
rackerslacker 3 years ago
Conversations with skeptics always go around in circles. You never concede a point and eventually come back to arguing your original thesis without countering my rebuttal.
Eyewitness testimony is what we have to go on with any historical source, then the next thing would be a report written by those who received an eyewitness report.
We don't have writings of ANYONE who witness Lincoln's assassination. We have only second hand accounts of those people who took the testimony.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
the problem is that none of the new testament were writen by eyewitness', they were at best written by people for them or after their death, and most were written after the death of the disciples claiming authorship.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
They were written by people claiming to be eyewitnesses or by people who wrote for the eyewitnesses.
You claim they were not, but you were not an eyewitness so there is a problem with your testimony.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
wow
your reply no offense, but it makes no sense.
you cannot prove that the people who wrote the books were eyewitness etc, so i think that there is a problem with their testimony.
go read plato's "the rethoric" and you will see what i mean
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Argument from silence. You are saying that if you can't prove a claim of eyewitness testimony (to your satisfaction apparently) then there is a problem with it?
The reason why there are four Gospels is so we an see the corroboration. If they were written by non-eyewitnesses some basic facts would be widely varied.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
there are vast discrepences in all four of the gospels in regards to jesus, its actually more correct to say that its hard to find important aspects of the jesus stories that don't vary widely.
as for the gospel's, we know when they were written down first, they are not the torah with varing dates as to when it could have been entered in to the canon. 70b.c.e. the earliest of the gospels was pend down. thats a rather large gap from death to documentation.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Numerous theologians including the liberal JAT Robinson have the earliest Gospel at about 40 AD and the latest book of the NT prior to 70 AD. This was the historical view until about the 1800s with the German Higher critics came on the scene. They wanted to put the Gospels in the 2nd century, which has since been shown to be ludicrous. Liberals have now compromised to a late first century date. But they have no documentary or testimonial evidence. It's all conjecture.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Name one "vast discrepancy."
Name one other "myth" that took less than a generation to originate.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
the geneology of jesus given by matthew and luke are completely different outside of the fact that they both attempt to show he is some how related to david. luke gives a list that ends with mary's familiy being in the davic bloodline, and matthew gives a list that ends with Joseph being in the line of david, which would leave jesus as not being of the line of david because he is sapposed to have no earthly father, this also would imply that he wasn't born of a virgin.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Answered in the DVD.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Mark 9:40 "For he who is not against us is for us.
Luke 9:50 But Jesus said to him, "Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you."
Luke 11:23 "He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters these are attempts to claim exclusiveness and the claim to totality.
matthew 27:3-8 tells the story of juda's discovering christ fate returns the silver and hangs himself. acts 1:18 cont.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
acts 1:18-Now this man bought a field with the money he got for his crime. Falling on his face, he burst open in the middle, and all his intestines gushed out.
Ecclesiastes 1:4-A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever.
2Peter 3:10 - But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that day the heavens will disappear with a roaring sound, the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done on it will be exposed.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Genesis 32:30-So Jacob named the place Peniel, for he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved."
John 1:18- No one has ever seen God. The unique God, who is close to the Father's side, has revealed him.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Not a contradiction -- we are just getting more or different information from one passage than another.
Moses then describes in Exodus 33 exactly what is meant by "face to face.'
jcr4runner 2 years ago
no they don't contradict they simply state exact opposites in idea's
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Matthew 19:26-Jesus looked at them intently and said, "For humans this is impossible, but for God all things are possible
judges1:19-Now the LORD was with Judah, and they took possession of the hill country; but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
All so-called contradictions (including those you mention here) can be answered in one of three ways.
1. Two authors write to a different audience in a different context.
2. One author includes more information and the other less.
3. Two authors include different information, not contradictory, just different.
I have a web page that answers hundred of so-called "contradictions" -- I don't see anything new or unanswerable here.
What you have is a "wish fulfillment."
jcr4runner 2 years ago
the earliest new testament fragments that we have are from no earlier than 150c.e. that puts 100yrs between what the bible might have as compared to what paul might have written. paul is the only new testament writter believed to have written anything prior to 70c.e. with the gospels being traditionally placed at no sooner than 70c.e.
but to actually find a copy you need to go into the second or third century c.e. depending on which of the four gospels you want to look at.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
No.
The Rylands fragment is dated to about 115 AD.
It is a copy of a copy (at least) so the original Gospel of John is definitely decades older.
Then we have the "bridge" material -- the quotations of the NT in the Didache, 1 Clement (late 1st century) and Ignatius and Polycarp (c 115 AD).
The New Testament is the only ancient book that has a continuous pedigree in contemporary witnesses from the time of its writing to the present.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
actually p52 dates to 125-160 c.e. it could be anywhere between those dates.
and the text on the fragment is rather unimportant in regards to the belief's of christians at the time. a slice of rhetoric out of its context that has little if any esotoric value
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
The AVERAGE dating of P52 is 115 AD. Some estimates have it in the first century. The dating for the Egyptian biblical papyri has been moving to earlier dates. A few of points you are missing:
1. John was written in Ephesus. This fragment was copied and discovered in Egypt. It indicates a wide distribution by 115 AD. The autograph was much earlier.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
2. These fragments are two sided. The text on the front matches what the text on the reverse would have (in the right place on the page) if P52 copies matched closely to the received text.
3. The text concerns the trial of Jesus before Pilate. Hardly unimportant for doctrine.
John 18:31-33
John 18:37-38
The dating of P52 destroyed 100 years of liberal scholarship that had the authorship of NT in the second century. That is now known to be impossible.
Where do you get your information?
jcr4runner 2 years ago
not according to any scientific acrheological catologe you look it up in
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Ancient papyri usually have a window of about 25 to 50 years. The given date is the midrange. Paleographers know the handwriting styles of the different centuries and they have gotten more accurate as more evidence has been uncovered.
One of the leading authorities is Phillip Comfort. He has dates ranging from 110 to 125 AD proposed by Kenyon, H.I. Bell, Diessman, and W.H.P. Hatch.
See also Aland's Greek NT (84-87): In recent discussions on P52 scholars tend to date it closer to 100 than 125.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
phillip comfort isn't actually authority on the matter, he is a christian book writter. you need to site some non-bias scientific journals
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
You accuse others of "bias" and say in the same breath that Christians aren't qualified to do scholarly investigation.
That's biased and bogus.
Comfort is one of THE leading experts on the early manuscripts of the NT.
There are many examples of liberals who have examined the documentary evidence and have come to a conservative position because they were without bias.
You are assuming a contrary position and then arguing that those who don't hold o it are biased -- not very logical.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
he writes for a christian book company, thats got a lot of bias to it.
most all secular archeologist are also christians, but they don't have their means of living held over their head if they don't find what there boss' want them to.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Yeah he needs to get a job where he edits the Greek New Testament for a NON- Christian book company!
Your statement is an oxymoron. You want a NON-CHRISTIAN Bible publishing company in order for the result to be UNBIASED? Of course, a company interested in publishing the Greek New Testament would have a Christian influence.
It would be like saying that a medical journal has to be published by NON-PHYSICIANS in order to be unbiased.
This discussion is getting painful.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
its as if i was to try to use richard dawkins as a unbias source for biblical arguements, which would be a fallacy of reason.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
not from the time of writting
we don't know if the copy of john that you read is the same as the first put down.
some of the books said to be penned by paul we know were not
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
Using the same reasoning, we don't know that the Gettysburg Address, The Declaration of Independence, all of William Shakespeare and about 99.99 percent of the literature ever written "is the same as the first put down."
Very rarely is a published book the same as first put down. Very rarely.
But having the exact same words as were put down isn't a requirement of inerrancy. It's the doctrines contained in the words.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
"some of the books said to be penned by paul we know were not"
First, try using capitalization, punctuation and complete sentences.
Second, no one KNOWS that some of Paul's letters are forgeries. This is liberal conjecture. They are all identified as being written by Paul. They were delivered to churches who would have known Paul's ministry. Every book of the New Testament has a continuous pedigree and record of transmission from the time of writing to today.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
please don't resort to petty symantic insults, its youtube you can relax on the typing. this notion of "liberal conjecture" these are things that have been known about the old testament for 200-300yrs. you are of course correct when you say that the bible the most important book of the past 1500yrs, which makes it the most known. whe know that the books where not written by who they are traditionally claimed to be done by, like moses some how watching himself die and then writting about it?
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
This just shows ignorance of the evangelical position. If you REALLY want to know what we meant by inerrancy read the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. There were several recensions to Old Testament texts by the scribes ad priestly caste. That is stated in scripture itself. Joshua, Samuel, Solomon, etc. One example is when Ezra found the book of the Law in the Temple after it had been neglected for many years. No one knew what it was because the very alphabet had changed.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
i know what individuals mean when they talk about biblical inerrancy, but the fact is that it is only inerrant untill it says something that is opposed to the individuals world veiw then it is metophorical.
the book of law was written by the preist who claimed to find it. it wasn't really 'found" that is simply a story. the obvious truth is that the priest need to up date the laws so they did and lied about their orgin.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
No, you really DO NOT know.
The Chicago Statement addresses how metaphorical passages are determined. But since you are willfully ignorant, you wont read it.
You state: "conjecture, conjecture, conjecture" and then say it is an obvious fact. Wrong. You DO NOT know what happened in Ezra's time. You have no proof it was a lie.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
no i understand the metaphorical instances in the bible. it is simply pick and choose, some people choose to take the metaphorical idea of jesus protecting you from snakes as literal, doesn't make it so.
it is a flawed idea because it is pick and choose, some things were only ment for back then, some apply now, and some are metaphorical, but all are objective.
it cannot be inerrant if parts of it are left to individual's imaginations.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
just as you have no proof that it is fact
eoifs1 2 years ago
prove it
draconusrex33 2 years ago
I don't know where you get the 300 year figure or what you are referring to. T
he Masoretic Text of the OT was long suspected to be corrupt because the gap between the autographs and the extant copies were so great. The oldest complete copy was from the 1000 AD range -- a pretty large gap.
It was thought that the Septuagint (which is newer but has older copies) was more accurate.
But when the Dead Sea scrolls were found it confirmed the reliability of the Masoretic text to an amazing degree.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
There were changes to the OT text, but as I said all of these had a pedigree -- they were done by people who had the divinely inspired authority to do so.
The OT texts actually have MORE reliability than the NT because the copying and recensions were done in one place (Jerusalem) only by those qualified to act as scribes.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
Textual criticism of the NT is a little more complex. For a long time, the oldest copies were Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.
But several partial codices from the 200 to 300 AD range and several fragments from the 115 and later confirm the reliability of the later texts.
The good thing about NT textual criticism though is that there are SO MANY copies to work with that an almost exact reconstruction of the autograph (or at least a very early archetype) can be made.
jcr4runner 2 years ago
...passed from man, to man, to man for hundreds or thousands of years until it was written on a medium that could be preserved for an indefinite period of time. The Bible as word of God or a factual tomb is just not possible. God did not write any of it, man wrote what would be hearsay in a court of law, and the Bible contradicts itself so often that it would also be ruled inadmissible. How can facts contradict each other and still be true? And I am not asking for cute paradoxes. lol
syndrome1965 3 years ago
jc4runner, you are obviously both extremely well versed in theologics, as well as quite set in your belief. I think you might find it more rewarding and eye-opening if you were to detach yourself from the outcome of this discussion, and just objectively look at the big picture. Im not an atheist as you might assume, I wholeheartedly believe in a Higher Power, but its not the storybook God. The Bible (NT) is a beautiful guide for living together. But it is the word of man...
syndrome1965 3 years ago
You are welcome to come to The Forerunner discussion board and post there.
I started a new thread just for people like you.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Thanx anyways but I think I have had enough of your condescending tone and I don't enjoy talking to walls...It seems rather futile to make salient points that you cannot dispute so you disregard them and refer me rudely to post elsewhere...Typical of a religious zealot. Have a great day...
syndrome1965 3 years ago
What I find so interesting is that people on both sides of the debate see the same "evidence" with such opposing views. And as such both sides often claim the same evidence supports thier arguments. At times I would love to prove the existence of Jesus/God, but when I look at the whole subject, when I take a giant step back and view it from afar, disconnected to a result and with an objective viewpoint, it seems like an incredible saga. An epic play, novel, or fairytale. But believable? No way.
syndrome1965 3 years ago
Do you have any ideas of your own? Have you read books on opposing sides? Or are you just regurgitating Zeitgeist?
Before you can post Jesus Myth nonsense on my vlog, you need to meet two challenges:
1. Name five Ph.D.s teaching at the university level who subscribe to Frazer's Jesus as Myth hypothesis.
2. Name even ONE historian prior to 1800 who claimed Jesus was not a real person based on myth.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
I have thoroughly researched these allegations myself. I do not rely on zeitgeist but I do agree with its hypotheses. I was involved in exaustive Bible study as a teen and I was an Acolyte or Alter Boy in my church growing up. As one of my points stated, no matter which side of the fence ur on, you will see the evidence in support of your point of view, however that still doesnt make the FAIRYTALE true! Why be afraid of the truth? The truth shall set you free, even if it is an unpleasant one.
syndrome1965 3 years ago
I think it is more important to point out that there is not one verifiable account of a person named Jesus in or around Jesus' alleged time of existence. It is rather easy to rewrite history if you are the only one who can read and write and has access to the scrools. To attempt to prove Jesus existence by using references to a Christus is falling rather short, and really only amounts to hearsay.
syndrome1965 3 years ago
The Christians did NOT have access to Josephus until about 100 years later. We see him then quoted in Tertullian and Origen.
But until then at least, and probably to 325 AD, then he was copied by pagan scribes.
The church of the first 300 years just did not have the power to alter literary history.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
...ew That guy supported the they would not die for a lie "argument". So long integrity.
sroHex 3 years ago
Would you die for a lie?
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Take a good long look at the past and see how many millions have died for lies...According to God's Laws either the Jews or the Christians are damned to hell, they cannot both be right about the Messiah. If Jesus is/was and the Jews dont accept Him...well, then the Jews wernt so chosen, and, if he wasn't then his claim to be son of God is/was false. Or do I misperceive this dilemma?
syndrome1965 3 years ago
Yes, you misperceive.
Can you name one person who has ever died for what they KNEW was a lie?
jcr4runner 3 years ago
I wont name names, but I would assume that many US Soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq had a pretty good idea that they were lied to about finding bin laden in a cave or WMD's in Iraq. Some people have a very developed sense of duty. JC you are a bit too contentious with views that challenge your own. It seems that you are somewhat threatened by sane lucid logical explanations regarding the possibility that Jesus is just a myth and therefore did not exist.
syndrome1965 3 years ago
I'd just counter that they DID NOT think they were dying for a lie, they believed it was true.
If the original Disciples of Jesus did not see Him raised from the dead, then they died for what they knew was a lie.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
What proof outside the Bible states take they died for there faith? Not legend some sort of separate historical record?
rackerslacker 3 years ago
Tacitus:
"Nero created a diversion and subjected to the most extraordinary tortures those hated for their abominations by the common people called Christians. The originator of this name (was) Christ, who, during the reign of Tiberius had been executed by sentence of the procurator Pontinus Pilate. ... So an arrest was made of all who confessed; then ... an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of arson as for hatred of the human race." (Tacitus, Annales, 15, 44)
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Tacitus continues:
"Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames. Nero had thrown open the gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or drove about in a chariot. For it was not for the public good, but glut one man's cruelty, that they were being punished."
Suetonius:
jcr4runner 3 years ago
Sorry I meant the disciples, peter crucify upside down is stuff of legends, were is the out side info on their sacrifice. And most of all What historical proof about an empty tomb?
rackerslacker 3 years ago
Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome about 67. This is attested by multiple sources. The earliest being in 1 Clement, which is about 96 AD.
"Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him. Owing to envy, Paul also obtained the reward of patient endurance, after being seven times thrown into captivity ... suffered martyrdom under the prefects. (1 Clement 5).
jcr4runner 3 years ago
The empty tomb is not as hard to ascertain as one might imagine. The Gospels themselves record that the Jews started a rumor that the disciples stole the body.
There are similar statements in the Talmud.
There are numerous independent sources that say that Christians preached Christ risen from the dead.
Caiaphas the High Priest (whose tomb was recently found) and Gamaliel (who is also a historical person) tried to stop the Apostles from preaching.
All they had to do was produce a dead body.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
the larger problem about the resurrection is the lack of consistancy in the bible on what happened during and after
also their is the problem of symantics.
lovecraftfan311 2 years ago
What is the point of arguing about a book wich info was written years ago? and the only person who knows the truth does not like the lights of you and your race?
monpaps 3 years ago
Jesus was a man, not God in Flesh. He did NOT know he would be ressurected after his death. If he *were* God or knew he would be ressurected after his death, then his sacrifice was a sham. A bit of stage magic to impress the gullible. I witnessed a man, not any kind of divinity, risk his like for 3 small children to save them from a flood. He *died* saving them. Which would I consider more noble, the sham sacrifice of Jesus, or the real sacrifice of that man? Even the gospells had jesus ask why.
RyuDarragh 3 years ago
ah, but the Gospels do say that Jesus knew he was going to be resurrected. You make a very sound logical argument. But those who wish to believe in Jesus as a God or a man who existed do not wish to follow logic. Faith defies logic.
syndrome1965 3 years ago
Taoism rules!
WillWilsonII 3 years ago
And the Jews say: Uzair (Ezra) is the son of Allaah, and the Christians say: Messiah is the son of Allaah. That is their saying with their mouths, resembling the saying of those who disbelieved aforetime. Allaahs Curse be on them, how they are deluded away from the truth!
[al-Tawbah 9:30]
sick08 3 years ago
Most ancient history has to be taken on faith, generally people writing historically, while some bias may enter in, are usually quite accurate.
I guess we can only trust that God will call people to him, and that things like this can continue to be the great encouragement they are.
Its no wonder some people respond the way they do when rebellion is in our nature.
cae1989p 3 years ago
ah! i was expecting an answer from a skeptic or a non believer. always refreshing to hear that though ;)thanks! praise God!
fishboi87 3 years ago
Knowing the REAL JESUS is NOT only knowing HIM through the Books(Theological) it is also knowing HIM personally as you learn of HIM in your daily life.HE is trully alive in us.We are HIS temple.Once you have that PERSONAL EXPERIENCE you will know deeper what more HE is our CREATOR THE 1 TRUE LIVING GOD of ALL.
It is also true with how we live as we move from the Holy Scriptures we live it we act it NO LONGER the old man(sinful nature)we will live the same path the ancient people went through.
Theysee35 3 years ago
A sound theological statement!
;-)
jcr4runner 3 years ago
i see everyone stating historical facts.. how do u know them to be true.. how do u know the writers and those that supported them weren't part of the lie?.. how can u prove these things? u only know what they tell u to be true.. u have to go beyond this reality.. there is more than what u know from books.. we are kept ignorant for a reason.. and my god u believe it?.. for shame!! how is it that they can say history is exact.. when they cant even convict they right man?.. dont be a dummy
damnitmimi 3 years ago
How can you prove that evolution is true without observing every single part of it? How can you prove that Chuck Norris exists, maybe he's 3d graphics put on tv? How can you know that the points of light visible outside are stars, planets, cluster, galaxies, and nebulae, and not flying monkeys holding flashlights really far away? How can you know that you really exist?
It seems you've identified quite a conspiracy that has endured for ~ 5000 years.
chert95 3 years ago
these are all stories.. same with romeo and juliette.. u hear them enough .. u believe they are so.. history is a fabricated lie to keep us out of the light.. we are much more than we know.. the god u worship and the angels u claim guide u and the satan that u abolish.. are mere aliens.. all fabricated tales designed to keep our reality askew.. we are being corralled like sheep.. and nobody seems to notice. bit by bit.. we get more stupid..why is it that our evolution now seems in reverse???????
damnitmimi 3 years ago
omg.. to scotchlvr.. right on.. i absolutely agree.. also.. with this proving of a book written by man.. why bother?.. how do we even know?.. it has been translated and retranslated.. we are dumbed down.. the original version of the book we call the bible is no doubt much more powerful than we are lead to believe.. allowed to know.. open your eyes.. you fear the unknown.. they hid it from us.. its our right to know.. get information.. start thinking for yourself again.. i am sad for the stupid
damnitmimi 3 years ago
The various Bible translations are all made from the original Greek and Hebrew texts.
They are not "translated and retranslated."
Be careful who you call stupid.
jcr4runner 3 years ago
I would tend to say more like ignorance. Lack of information, and it's not a judgment but something of which should shake you awake. You see, we have all been "sleepwalking" though life living it unconciously. The time has come where we all need to learn how live a life consiously, not name call us for being "liberal theolgians" or what ever name you wish to label with. Truth: we create our reality with our thoughts and beliefs. Jesus taught this and that is now being re-claimed.
sc0tchlvr 3 years ago