ParkCungHee
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The Gospels claim over 500 hundred people saw Jesus.
Yes, I realized there would be a problem once he ventured into Biblical History. I'm by no means an expert in that field, but he certainly made claims that stretched the use of the Historical Imagination, and his repeated refferences to the Gospels and Letters to the Corinthians as "Independent Sources" made me cringe.
The Gospels claim over 500 hundred people saw Jesus.
You can't say there were 'a dozen witnesses to the event', because at best there's one person quoted as being a witness, and he was claiming that other people were there too.
So, again, walking on water's not really all that impressive. Hundreds of people have seen me rip the head off of a tiger.
Yes, he's right. I was there. There were hundreds of people watching.
God inspired me to write this, therefore it must be true.
Independent Sources depends largely on the context involved. I should mention this was in the context of a discussion on the question Fifty raised, that is the historiocity of the Ressurection. In such a context, I don't think it's fair to say "The account is verified by multiple independent sources".Well, they are independent, probably. Paul was almost certainly writing before any of the Gospels were written. And the Gospels (at least some of them) were probably written before Paul's letters were widely circulated - or at any rate there is no reason to think that the authors of the Gospels were familiar with Paul. They are generally treated as largely independent sources. But of course, one would need to be wary of placing too much weight on that, since it's far from certain.
(Plus, it smacks of cherry-picking to agree with scholars when they say something you like - such as that the Gospels and Paul are independent sources - while disagreeing with them when they say things you don't like.)
The accurate way to put it is to say that we are told that there were hundreds of witnesses. We don't know whether in fact there were hundreds of witnesses (so we can't just say there were), and we don't know whether in fact there was none (so we can't just say there was none). In the case of the five hundred witnesses, there is a single source stating that there were hundreds of witnesses. Or, if you like, there is a single witness to the existence of hundreds of witnesses.
Independent Sources depends largely on the context involved. I should mention this was in the context of a discussion on the question Fifty raised, that is the historiocity of the Ressurection. In such a context, I don't think it's fair to say "The account is verified by multiple independent sources".
Independece implies not only differing authorship, but differing motives of authors.
Here is the evidence:
For the church leaders in the mid second century, the four Gospels were baseline authority in their teachings.
In about 170 AD, Irenaeus cited 23 of the 27 New Testament books, omitting only Philemon, James, 2 Peter and 3 John. The Muratorian fragment, written about the same time, attests to the widespread use of all the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, 1 Peter and 2 Peter. However, other church fathers had already cited those omitted books in various writings defending against Gnostic doctrines. The Codex Barococcio from 206 AD includes 64 of the 66 books of today's Bible. Esther and Revelation were omitted, but they had already been declared as inspired scripture by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian and the Muratorian Canon. In 230 AD, Origen declared that all Christians acknowledged as scripture the four Gospels, Acts, the epistles of Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation.
5,600 of which are copies and fragments in the original Greek. Some manuscript texts date to the early second and third centuries, with the time between the original and our earliest existing fragment being a remarkably short 40-60 years.
Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars (10 manuscripts remain, with the earliest one dating to 1,000 years after the original autograph)
Pliny the Younger's Natural History (7 manuscripts; 750 years elapsed)
Thucydides' History (8 manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed)
Herodotus' History (8 manuscripts; 1,350 years elapsed)
Plato (7 manuscripts; 1,300 years (until Nag Hammadi)
Tacitus' Annals (20 manuscripts; 1,000 years)
Homer's Iliad, is the second best-preserved literary work of all antiquity, with 643 copies of manuscript support discovered to date. In those copies, there are 764 disputed lines of text, as compared to 40 lines in all the New Testament manuscripts.
There were hundreds of texts, different books and Gospels and acts or deeds, that never made it into the New Testament.This fact is never talked about by the so called 'experts.They did not have the same priorities as we do today ie. textual geneology. The Jesus story is re-told countless times from early days (around AD50 first written) to the fourth century.
There is basically one Jesus story and it's always the same in the hundreds of accounts.
1) Jesus lived on earth as a man from the beginning of the first century to AD 33.
2) That his mother was supposed to be a Virgin named "Mary"
3) Same principle players, Peter, Andrew, Philip, John, Mary Magdeline.
4) That Jesus was known as a miracle worker.
5) He claimed to be the son of God and Messiah.
6) He was crucified under Pilate.
7) Around the time of the Passover.
8) Rose from the dead leaving an empty tomb.
9) Several women discovered the empty tomb.
10) That this was in Jerusalem.
We find in 1945 AD - 40 never before seen books from antiquity. They all concure, every single one, with the record of Jesus, the Apostles, the resurrection, and the whole enchilada.
1) The Apochryphon of John - "I John did hear these things."
2)The Gospel of Thomas - "These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down."
3)The Prayer of the Apostle Paul - ""prayer of Paul the Apostle."
4)The Apochryphon of James - "James writes to those."
5)The Gospel of Philip - "The Gospel according to Philip."
6)The Book of Thomas the Contender - "The secret words that the saviour spoke to Judas Thomas which I, even I Mathais(Acts 2) wrote down, while I was walking , listening to them speak with one another."
7)The (First) Apocalypse of James - (snipped) "It is the Lord who spoke with me... I have given you a sign of these things, James."
8)The (Second) Apocalypse of James - "This is the discourse that James the Just spoke in Jerusalem which Mareim one of the priests wrote."
9)The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles - "And I Peter, inquired about the name."
10)Apocalypse of Peter - "he said to me, Peter."
11) The Teachings of Silvanus - "The teachings of Silvanus." (companion of Paul in Acts 15)
12)The Letter of Peter to Philip - "Peter, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, to Philip our beloved brother."
13) The Gospel of Mary - "The Gospel according to Mary."
Now how can literally hundreds of accounts get these 10 facts wrong?
There are 24 known Gospels in existence not just four.
Yes, but not confiring is not the same as being different authors. While the authors of the Gospels were certainly independent persons, they were certainly if not in contact, in a chain of conference, I.E. the early Christian Community. While I certainly would regard them as independent if they were reached in such a manner, I find it unlikely that these men, as part of a small religion, all of whom would neccesarily have known Jesus for some time, were completely unaware of each other, as well as the Christian Community which they were all almost certainly in contact with.I wouldn't agree with that! Why do they have to have different motives? If two people both saw something, and they both describe it later, why do they have to have different motives to count as independent witnesses?
Independence means that one doesn't get its information from the other, directly or indirectly. Thus, if Arthur says that Grant is having an affair with Sharon, and Pauline, having heard him say it, repeats the gossip, they are not independent witnesses. If, however, Arthur and Pauline both say the same thing without having previously conferred, then they are independent witnesses. Of course, they might just both have heard it from Dot, in which case they are two witnesses to a single tradition. If, however, they got their information from different sources, then they are truly independent. Motive has nothing to do with it.
Yes, but not confiring is not the same as being different authors. While the authors of the Gospels were certainly independent persons, they were certainly if not in contact, in a chain of conference, I.E. the early Christian Community. While I certainly would regard them as independent if they were reached in such a manner, I find it unlikely that these men, as part of a small religion, all of whom would neccesarily have known Jesus for some time, were completely unaware of each other, as well as the Christian Community which they were all almost certainly in contact with.
But more importantly, to credulously describe a source as independent, they must not have a vested interest in the matter, or at least, not all the same one.
For example, say if Arthur says that Grant, Henry, Jacob, James and John working together murdered Pauline, and they all deny it, and claim that they were all in one place but did not murder Pauline, I can possibly claim that I have four independent sources willing to testify to their location for each of them. To do so is to be disengenuous. Likewise to claim 5 independent sources of Jesus's resurrection, while citing five works of the Christian Canon is not being entirely honest with yourself or the audience.
I would say you have 5 sources, not 5 independent ones.
Wrong verse? I don't see a denial of Messiahood in this verse, or in any of the surrounding verses.Second, Jesus does not claim to be "son of God" or "Messiah" in every text. I explained just a few posts ago that a claim to be "son of God" would be anachronistic. As for the Messiah, in Matthew 26:34 Jesus implies that he is not. Compare Mark 14:62, the parallel passage, where he says that he is. That's a contradiction right there.
That still is a whitling down of the five he claimed.So I still think that if you have two quite distinct accounts of the resurrection, which do not seem to rely upon each other or upon a common source, then it's perfectly legitimate to say that they are two independent sources.
You've made a very convincing claim that what he said could be technically true. But I never really doubted that, just saying so was being disengenuous. Partiallly because in the course of the lecture he made it not entirely clear that for some things he was citing, his only source was the bible. He would at times, quote one of the texts, and then say this way "verified by independent sources" without ennumerating them. Including matters for example Christ being seen after his death. While he may be thinking like a philosopher such as yourself, and see no connection between independent and reliable, for the most part when you say "independent sources" it brings to mind reliable ones.Just because those two sources were later incorporated into the Christian canon doesn't invalidate them or make them any less independent from each other; they're still written by different people at different times, apparently on the basis of different traditions. That's what makes them independent.
Wrong verse? I don't see a denial of Messiahood in this verse, or in any of the surrounding verses.
That still is a whitling down of the five he claimed.
You've made a very convincing claim that what he said could be technically true. But I never really doubted that, just saying so was being disengenuous. Partiallly because in the course of the lecture he made it not entirely clear that for some things he was citing, his only source was the bible. He would at times, quote one of the texts, and then say this way "verified by independent sources" without ennumerating them. Including matters for example Christ being seen after his death. While he may be thinking like a philosopher such as yourself, and see no connection between independent and reliable, for the most part when you say "independent sources" it brings to mind reliable ones.
beingofone
Here is the evidence:
For the church leaders in the mid second century, the four Gospels were baseline authority in their teachings.
Plotinus:
I don't think that is true. That makes them sound like conservative evangelicals. The "baseline authority" for second-century Christian theologians was the "rule of faith", as explained by both Irenaeus and Tertullian. The four Gospels were certainly part of that rule of faith but they were not the be-all and end-all of it.
BO:
In about 170 AD, Irenaeus cited 23 of the 27 New Testament books, omitting only Philemon, James, 2 Peter and 3 John. The Muratorian fragment, written about the same time, attests to the widespread use of all the New Testament books except Hebrews, James, 1 Peter and 2 Peter. However, other church fathers had already cited those omitted books in various writings defending against Gnostic doctrines. The Codex Barococcio from 206 AD includes 64 of the 66 books of today's Bible. Esther and Revelation were omitted, but they had already been declared as inspired scripture by Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian and the Muratorian Canon. In 230 AD, Origen declared that all Christians acknowledged as scripture the four Gospels, Acts, the epistles of Paul, 1 Peter, 1 John and Revelation.
This may be true but it's not really relevant to what we're talking about.
Plotinus:
You also forget that the Syrian church during this period didn't use the four canonical Gospels
it used the Diatessaron, made by Tatian, which was a harmony of the four canonical Gospels. It wasn't until the fifth century (I think, off the top of my head) when this practice was ended and the four canonical Gospels used instead.
BO:
5,600 of which are copies and fragments in the original Greek. Some manuscript texts date to the early second and third centuries, with the time between the original and our earliest existing fragment being a remarkably short 40-60 years.
Julius Caesar's The Gallic Wars (10 manuscripts remain, with the earliest one dating to 1,000 years after the original autograph)
Pliny the Younger's Natural History (7 manuscripts; 750 years elapsed)
Thucydides' History (8 manuscripts; 1,300 years elapsed)
Herodotus' History (8 manuscripts; 1,350 years elapsed)
Plato (7 manuscripts; 1,300 years (until Nag Hammadi)
Tacitus' Annals (20 manuscripts; 1,000 years)
Homer's Iliad, is the second best-preserved literary work of all antiquity, with 643 copies of manuscript support discovered to date. In those copies, there are 764 disputed lines of text, as compared to 40 lines in all the New Testament manuscripts.
Plotinus:
This, again, may be true, but is beside the point. I can never understand why Christian apologists always trot out these statistics about manuscripts and compare those of the New Testament to those of Caesar, Tacitus, and Plato. There's very little question of the textual integrity of the New Testament books that we have.
The main question, from the point of view of the historian, is whether what they say is true in the first place. The fact that the text has been reliably transmitted is irrelevant to that question. I'm fairly sure that my copy of The Da Vinci Code contains a reliable version of the text as written by Dan Brown (or, at least, his editor) but that doesn't make it a useful historical source.
BO:
There were hundreds of texts, different books and Gospels and acts or deeds, that never made it into the New Testament.This fact is never talked about by the so called 'experts.They did not have the same priorities as we do today ie. textual geneology. The Jesus story is re-told countless times from early days (around AD50 first written) to the fourth century.
I think that New Testament experts do talk about extra-canonical Gospels and similar texts rather frequently, in fact. There is a huge literature on them. You can see some very brief overviews of some of this literature at this excellent site.
Plotinus:
I don't know where you get the AD 50 date from; the earliest extant Gospel, either canonical or not, is almost certainly Mark's, which is normally dated to the late 60s or early 70s of the first century.
BO:
There is basically one Jesus story and it's always the same in the hundreds of accounts.
1) Jesus lived on earth as a man from the beginning of the first century to AD 33.
2) That his mother was supposed to be a Virgin named "Mary"
3) Same principle players, Peter, Andrew, Philip, John, Mary Magdeline.
4) That Jesus was known as a miracle worker.
5) He claimed to be the son of God and Messiah.
6) He was crucified under Pilate.
7) Around the time of the Passover.
8) Rose from the dead leaving an empty tomb.
9) Several women discovered the empty tomb.
10) That this was in Jerusalem.
Plotinus:
Even the list you give here isn't actually accurate, even if we confine ourselves to the canonical Gospels. First, the date of Jesus' death is never given in the Gospels, let alone a date of 33 CE. 30 CE is normally given as the most likely date but really it could have been any time between 26 CE and 36 CE (when Pilate was in office).
Second, Jesus does not claim to be "son of God" or "Messiah" in every text. I explained just a few posts ago that a claim to be "son of God" would be anachronistic. As for the Messiah, in Matthew 26:34 Jesus implies that he is not. Compare Mark 14:62, the parallel passage, where he says that he is. That's a contradiction right there.
Also, the Gospels do not agree on the principal characters. Peter, James, and John are the main disciples in the Synoptic Gospels, but Peter is less prominent in John's Gospel and James and John are completely absent.
You say that they all name Philip as a main character, but he is mentioned only briefly in passing in the Synoptics and is prominent only in John. Nicodemus is a major figure in John, but is not mentioned at all in the Synoptics.
John also features an unnamed "beloved disciple" who does not appear in the Synoptics, unless he is supposed to be one of the disciples who is named there. Traditionally he's identified with John, but this interpretation doesn't explain what's happened to James.
How do you get that? Luke 8:2As for Mary Magdalene, she is not a principal player in any of the canonical Gospels; she barely appears in the Synoptics,
and in John's Gospel is prominent mainly by being the first person to whom Jesus appears.
She has a larger role in some extra-canonical Gospels, such as the Gospel of Mary, which is obviously intended, in part, to undermine the teachings found in other Gospels.
BO:
We find in 1945 AD - 40 never before seen books from antiquity. They all concure, every single one, with the record of Jesus, the Apostles, the resurrection, and the whole enchilada.
1) The Apochryphon of John - "I John did hear these things."
2)The Gospel of Thomas - "These are the secret sayings that the living Jesus spoke and which Didymos Judas Thomas wrote down."
3)The Prayer of the Apostle Paul - ""prayer of Paul the Apostle."
4)The Apochryphon of James - "James writes to those."
5)The Gospel of Philip - "The Gospel according to Philip."
6)The Book of Thomas the Contender - "The secret words that the saviour spoke to Judas Thomas which I, even I Mathais(Acts 2) wrote down, while I was walking , listening to them speak with one another."
7)The (First) Apocalypse of James - (snipped) "It is the Lord who spoke with me... I have given you a sign of these things, James."
8)The (Second) Apocalypse of James - "This is the discourse that James the Just spoke in Jerusalem which Mareim one of the priests wrote."
9)The Acts of Peter and the Twelve Apostles - "And I Peter, inquired about the name."
10)Apocalypse of Peter - "he said to me, Peter."
11) The Teachings of Silvanus - "The teachings of Silvanus." (companion of Paul in Acts 15)
12)The Letter of Peter to Philip - "Peter, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, to Philip our beloved brother."
13) The Gospel of Mary - "The Gospel according to Mary."
Now how can literally hundreds of accounts get these 10 facts wrong?
There are 24 known Gospels in existence not just four.
Plotinus:
Well, even if we grant that all these Gospels agree about those ten "facts" (which I don't grant),
the awkward fact remains that they disagree about an awful lot of other stuff. Take, for example, the Acts of John, in which John describes how Jesus was constantly changing appearance, never blinked or left footprints, and had a crotch like Action Man's. That's not something that exactly agrees with the account in the canonical Gospels - and it's obviously an expression of a highly docetic christology associated with gnosticism.
Or you cite the Apocryphon of John. Do you really think that the Jesus of that book - who says things like "The Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it" - has got anything to do with the Jesus of the canonical Gospels?
The book exists to put gnostic mythology into the mouth of Jesus - it doesn't preserve any historical information about Jesus. Anything in it that is historical is just copied from the canonical Gospels.
In general, the basic problem with your argument is that the texts of the Nag Hammadi library which you cite, and indeed most of the extra-canonical Gospels, are much later than the canonical Gospels and do not appear to preserve any authentic traditions that aren't found in the canonical Gospels.
To put it briefly, anything of value for understanding the historical Jesus that appears in those Gospels is taken from the canonical Gospels, and anything that they add which is not in the canonical Gospels is wildly unhistorical. They are very important for our understanding of the people who wrote them, and thus for our understanding of the development of Christianity, but as witnesses to Jesus himself they're not much use.
The only generally accepted exception to this is the Gospel of Thomas, which may preserve some authentic traditions not found in the canonical Gospels, but there is no consensus regarding its sources and, crucially, its relation to the canonical Gospels.
Other texts such as the Egerton Gospel or the Gospel of Peter probably exist in literary relation to the canonical Gospels. That is, either their authors copied the canonical Gospels, or (less probably) the authors of the canonical Gospels copied them. That means that they are not independent witnesses.
What it all boils down to is that while there are many texts, they do not represent independent witnesses to the same story. The later ones copied the earlier ones, usually adding embellishments of their own which probably came from the authors' own imaginations. Certainly they're not all the work of the people they claim to be their authors, as your list of the attributions implies!
So the existence of many later Gospels does not add to the evidence, such as it is, for the resurrection. It just replicates the same evidence.
Willingness to Die forr a cause or belief is hardly unique to Christiandom. By this standard of truth, we can conclude that Hirohito was a god incarnate, or that Bringham Young recieved visitations by angels, or that Hong Xiuquan is the Brother of Jesus Christ. Or, even on matters of purely secular affairs we can use it to achieve entirely irrational outcomes. For example, Edward the Confessor both did and did not bestow his kingdom to William of Normandy.The proof is that the apostles were willing to be killed for their eyewitness accounts. They all died as old men (except Judas) without ever having recanted their testimony.
Is there anything you could reveal about the Gospel or the Hebrews, beyond (or contradicting) that which can be found on its wikipedia page?
I did not say the Gospels were the be-all - I said they were baseline and authoritative in there accounts.
It demonstrates that there were several things the early Christains agreed on:
1) Jesus resurrected because of the multiple eyewitness accounts.
2) The apostles were hand picked as guides by Jesus.
3) The apostles and all of the eyewitnesses could be consulted as to the events and were.
That said; it became necessary to preserve the accounts and the Gospels were handpicked as authentic. You must remember that truth is paramount in the teachings of Christianity.
Nope, not true at all - Tatian combined the four gospels.
After he combined them he used the Diatessaron - a simple Google search will show this.
Because the textual geneology is hammered - over and over. You may not question the texts but many do. This is usually done out of shear ignorance of the literal mountain of veracity of integrity and sometimes, nepharious agenda.
And this is truly the point - you nailed it.
The proof is that the apostles were willing to be killed for their eyewitness accounts. They all died as old men (except Judas) without ever having recanted their testimony.
If someone were to hold a gun to your head and say "just say you are not Batman and we will let you live."
This is akin to saying "just say Jesus did not resurrect and we will let youu live."
Someone may die for many reasons - but dying for a falshood is not in the realm of probabilities when given the option to recant. Not a single one recanted their eyewitness account.
That some of the apostles were in their forties when called by Jesus.
What does the date have to do with the historical accounts?
Matthew 26:64 does not imply he is not the messiah - how did you get that from the text?
He is on trial and answering the question of blasphemy. He said that his accusers were claiming that.
What?
John 6:67 - 70,71
John 20:24
What do you mean the gospels do not agree on the principal characters? Who were the twelve? Do you have record of someone else?
OK - so what?
It is a reach to say that certain authors emphasized some and others someone else that they contradict each other. There is no contradiction on the persons involved.
What?
James was the brother of Jesus and did not believe until the resurrection. In fact, he thought Jesus was insane before the resurrection.
The author of John is - John.
How do you get that? Luke 8:2
Matthew 27:56, Mark 15:40,47 - she was with the mother of Jesus at the crucifixion and she was not involved?
Matthew 28:1, Mark 16:1,9, Luke 24:10 - she was at the tomb the day of the resurrection.
Nope - all four gospels agree with this - see above ref.
She is found in confirming ancient texts - because she was a principal character in the life of Jesus.
I still do not see a contradiction here, could you point it out?
Then rather than opinion, could you give a rock solid reference?
I did not list it in the textual evidence because its authorship is not verified in the text itself. Little is known regarding the actual author or authors of this work. It was not found in the Nag Hammadi so it cannot be verified as authentic.
That is why I listed the cannon and the Nag Hammadi as hard evidence as the source can be verified. You brought up a red herring.
Christianity was not limited to Jerusalem and there were many cultures trying to express the same idea.That does not undo the hard evidence.
Finish the quote you started so that we have context rather than you spinning it:
"The Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it. [it is he who exists] as [God] and Father of everything, [the invisible] One who is above [the invisible] One who is above [everything] incorruption, which is pure light into which we cannot look."
Quite different then selective quotation isn`t it?
Nonsense - the Nag Hammadi contains loads of historical data. It confirms the New Testament as a credible historical library of evidence.It confirms the ten facts listed above concerning the life of Jesus and proves the New Testamnet has not been redacted and is solid. The Nag Hammadi quotes, verbatim, the New Testamnet over and over. The New Testamnet quotes the Nag Hammadi, verbatim.
1) We cannot date the texts because they were translated to Coptic. All we can date is the binders and so, we must go by the authors and historical crosschecks. Some of the authors are the apostles themselves - they said so, right in the books.
2) I do not use extra-cannonical gospels because the source cannot be verified; I like to know the truth.
3) They quote - verbatim - the cannon.They tell the same historical facts and evidence of the life of Jesus. I would say, the New Testament just passed a two thousand year test and is rock solid with true external validation from antiquity.
4) There is a book in the Nag Hammadi that was written 4 centuries before Jesus, I can prove that.
What was the date of the composition of Plato`s Republic? So much for the books being written much later than the NT.
More eyewitness testimony is not much use?
How so?
Thomas wrote the book of Thomas - he said so, right in the gospel he wrote.
It is word for word with the four gospels in 80% of the quotes - more evidence.
You keep bringing up spurious texts, why?
I think what it boils down to is - most people cannot wrap their noodle around an infinite universe that is propelled by infinite energy in a state of infinite momentum - anything can happen, even the miraculous resurrection.
I would say; wetting the finger and sticking it up in the air is not an accurate dating method.
I'm sorry, how do we know the apostles were killed for their faith?