QUOTE

PA Actually, only Luke expressly states that he was an historian who didn't know Jesus. The rest indicate they are first-hand accounts of Jesus' life.

I respectfully disagree. The Gospels are not eyewitness accounts. From The Written Gospel:

We do not have any written material from Jesus himself or his immediate circle of disciples, i.e., no one from this circle wrote a ‘Jesus biography’ based upon eye-witness testimony. The ascriptions of the Gospels to authors from the circle of the twelve are not historical. This applies to Matthew, to John the son of Zebedee and, all the more, to the alleged apostolic authors of the later ‘apocryphal’ gospels. An exception is presumably ‘John the Elder’, whom the tradition of Asia Minor designates as a ‘disciple of the Lord’ and whom Justin, Tatian and Valentinus’ pupil Ptolemaeus later identify with John the son of Zebedee. But this man of Jerusalem hardly belongs to Jesus’ most intimate circle, and his picture of Jesus leaves the historical figure of Jesus far behind in favour of his decidedly high Christology, so that the question of the ‘historical tradition’ behind the work remains an insoluble riddle.13 In John, the evangelist’s own literary-theological share in the formation of the tradition is by far the strongest, and it has suppressed ‘history’ to a great extent.14

Thus, even the claim to eye-witness testimony does not yet mean reliability in the actual ‘historical’ sense. On the basis of the deepened, even radically changed Christological insight attained through Easter and the experience of the Spirit, also an eye-witness could sketch a picture of Jesus that, according to our modern understanding, no longer corresponds to the historical reality.

This absence of early literary witnesses is all too easy to understand: one who awaits the end of the ‘old, evil world’ in the near future is not at first interested in a literary consolidation of history for posterity. It is enough to proclaim orally what the disciples and he himself have from their experience with Jesus. It is therefore no coincidence that the summarizing narrative presentation of Jesus-history did not begin until the late 60s with Mark after the death of the first generation’s great witnesses.15 Collections of Jesus’ sayings or miracles could be many decades older, and yet they were not closed literary works but texts that were open for additions in notebook form,16 i.e., texts whose history of development we can no longer discern. Scholarship has invested far too much industry in written sources before the Gospels, and despite great astuteness and effort, it has obtained little more than hypotheses difficult to prove. Of lasting value is that Mark was Luke and Matthew’s main source (in this order). He is the most important under the polloi of Luke 1.1. Beyond this conclusion, we can at best suppose from the note of Papias that the oldest Aramaic prototype of a sayings-collection was connected with the name of the tax collector Matthew, which was then translated into Greek by various translators, and that various collections were attached to it.17 These written collections were then used especially by Luke and Matthew ...--The Written Gospel, Bockmuehl, Markus; A. Hagner, Donald, p., 73-4

MARKUS BOCKMUEHL is Professor of Biblical and Early Christian Studies at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Fitzwilliam College. His publications include Jewish Law in Gentile Churches (2000) and (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Jesus (2001).

DONALD A. HAGNER is George Eldon Ladd Professor of New Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is author of commentaries on Matthew (1993, 1995) and Hebrews (1990); among his other books is The Jewish Reclamation of Jesus (1984).

From the Oxford Companion to the Bible:

... Unlike the Pauline letters, which bear the Apostle’s name, the third gospel is anonymous, as are the other gospels...--D. Hooker, Morna

Unfortunately what is known about the historical Jesus is extremely sparse. No first century historian was an eye-witness to his life, wrote a thing about him (note on Josephus below). The Gospels are not eye-witness accounts of his life either. They were written decades after the crucifixion and are considered midrash (or as Professor M. Goulder proposes--the Gospels were worked out along the lines of the Jewish Lextionary) and not history. Of course, that was their intent. The Gospels were expressions of faith, written to address particular questions about Jesus to particular communities. They are "faith documents," written to persuade others to believe.

Father Kannengiesser, Emeritus Professor at the University of Notre Dame:

"... works of modern textual criticism have revealed data which constitute a 'revolution in methods of Biblical exegesis' so that the facts relating to Jesus recorded in the Gospels are no longer 'to be taken literally', they are 'writings suited to an occasion' or 'combat writings'. Modern knowledge has brought to light the history of Judeo-Christianity and the rivalry between communities which accounts for the existence of facts that today's readers find disconcerting. The concept of eyewitness evangelists is no longer defensible, although numerous Christians still retain it today... It was almost obligatory to have such stories available,” the theologian says; “they were stock stories told to convert people to Jesus.” Tales of virgin births, divine heroes, and miracles workers were relatively common 2,000 years ago and simply did not mean what they do to us today."--Kerry Temple (PhD), Editor, Notre Dame Magazine

Reverend Robert Krieg, Professor of Theology, who teaches Christology at Notre Dame. And Reverend Edward Schillebeck, O.P., a top Catholic, Dutch scholar, who said, while there are limitations to HCM, this is what we know:

“... is that there are limitations to what we can know by using the historical-critical approach. The only text that we have show Jesus already proclaimed as Christ by the church and by his first disciples. The New Testament is the testimony of a believing people, and what they are saying is not history but expressions of their belief in Jesus as Christ.’…"--Ibid

STATEMENT FROM THE VATICAN: GOSPELS NOT HISTORY!

The Gospel authors were thus confronted with a literary problem that had to be solved. They wanted to tell the story of Jesus' birth, but apparently had little to work with. Here, then, is where tradition and theology came in. In 1965, the Second Vatican Council held that while the Scriptures are ultimately "true," they are not necessarily to be taken as accurate in the sense we might take an Associated Press wire report about what happened at a school-board meeting as accurate. The council focused on the importance of paying attention to "literary forms" in Scripture. The Gospels are such a "literary form," and the accounts of Jesus in the canon are not history or biography in the way we use the terms. Classical biography, however, was a different genre. Writers like Plutarch invented details or embellished traditions when they were reconstructing the lives of the famous, and the Christmas saga features miraculous births, supernatural signs and harbingers of ultimate greatness similar to those found in pagan works. If we examine the Nativity narratives as classical biography, then the evangelists' means and mission to convey theological truths about salvation, not to record just-the-facts history �become much clearer.

AND:

"... The problem posed by a drama constructed on the basis of the gospels comes from their giving the appearance of being history when they are not history. They are based on history and set in history, but they are not history in any modern sense of that word. Frequently the things described as happening to Jesus come directly from the psalms or some other biblical place. They are in the order of literary symbol, specifically type-fulfillment, not history."--Leonard Swidler, Professor of Catholic Thought and Interreligious Dialogue at Temple University, a state university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Editor of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies, and a Consultor to the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (U.S.).

AND:

*Steve Mason: Professor of Classics, History and Religious studies at York University in Toronto: “All four gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.�

From Jesus To Christ
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sh...religion/story/

Therefore, to conclude, in the matter of eyewitness and contemporary accounts to Jesus' earthly life, there is a striking absence. The situation is adequately summed up by Reginald Fuller, Professor of New Testament, Union Theological Seminary: "... Of the 27 books of the New Testament only the authentic Pauline epistles are, strictly speaking, the testimony of an apostolic witness. And even Paul...was not a witness of the historical Jesus. Since the earliest witnesses wrote nothing...there is not a single book in the New Testament which is the direct work of an eyewitness of the historical Jesus..."--A Critical Introduction to the New Testament, Fuller, Reginald, H., p.197

The four gospels were written by anonymous authors beginning with Mark (70-75CE) and ending with John (95-100CE). These are not eye-witness accounts.

The Identity of the Evangelists: Second Century Guesses
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/guess.html

Mark, Matthew, Luke and John were written some forty plus years after his crucifixtion and are considered faith documents, midrash. Their purpose was to address the numerous questions being asked by various communities--hence the term "Gospel" or "Good News". They are not biographies and it is readily apparent that there is much theological editing already occurring.

*What are the Gospels (From Jesus to Christ, Professor L. Michael White)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sh...ry/gospels.html

AND:

"It is certain that the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor by his apostles, but a long while after them, by some unknown persons, who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with... Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the speeches of our Lord which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since--as already it has been often proved--these things were written not by Christ, nor [by] his apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the apostles of the Lord or on those who were supposed to follow the apostles, they maliciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits according to them."--St. Faustus, Fifth-Century French Bishop

"The Four Gospels are indeed difficult sources; their initial selection from the dragnet does not mean that they are guaranteed to represent the historical words and deeds of Jesus. Shot through and through with the Easter faith of the early Church, highly selective, and ordered according to various theological programs, the canonical Gospels demand careful, critical sifting if they are to yield reliable information for the quest."--John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew - Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1.

"The problems for the reconstruction of the best archetype for the manuscript tradition is more or less identical with the assumed autograph is precarious. The oldest known archetypes are separated from the autographs by more than a century. Textual critics of classical texts know that the first century of their transmission is the period in which the most serious corruptions occur."--Helmut Koester, "The Text of the Synoptic Gospels in the Second Century", in Colloquy on New Testament Studies: A Time for Reappraisal and Fresh Approaches 81 (1989)

Allen D. Callahan: Associate Professor of New Testament, Harvard Divinity School: ”...If we want to read the gospels as eyewitness accounts, historical records and so on, then not only are we in for some tough going, I think there's evidence within the material itself that it's not intended to be read that way. I mean that there are certain concerns that are being addressed in this literature. And we become theologically and even historically tone deaf to those concerns, if we don't give them due consideration. It's now consensus in the New Testament scholarship to some extent [that] ... in the gospels we're dealing with theologians, people who are reflecting theologically on Jesus already. And there's all indication that what we now refer to as theological reflection was there at the very beginning of things. . . They (gospels) don't claim to be eyewitness accounts of his life.

L. Michael White: Professor of Classics and Director of the Religious Studies Program University of Texas at Austin: ”The gospels are not biographies in the modern sense of the word. Rather, they are stories told in such a way as to evoke a certain image of Jesus for a particular audience. They're trying to convey a message about Jesus, about his significance to the audience and thus we we have to think of them as a kind of preaching, as well as story telling. That's what the gospel, The Good News, is really all about...”

Paula Fredriksen: William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of the Appreciation of Scripture, Boston University: ”The gospels are very peculiar types of literature. They're not biographies. I mean, there are all sorts of details about Jesus that they're simply not interested in giving us. They are a kind of religious advertisement. What they do is proclaim their individual author's interpretation of the Christian message through the device of using Jesus as a spokesperson for the evangelist's position...”

John Dominic Crossan: Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies DePaul University: ”...For somebody who thinks the four gospels are like four witnesses in a court trying to tell exactly how the accident happened, as it were, this is extremely troubling. It is not at all troubling to me because they told me, quite honestly, that they were gospels. And a gospel is good news ... "good" and "news"... updated interpretation. So when I went into Matthew, I did not expect journalism. I expected gospel. That's what I found...”

Steve Mason: Professor of Classics, History and Religious studies at York University in Toronto: “All four gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.”

Rudolf Bultmann: University of Marburg: “So unreliable were the Gospel accounts that ‘we can now know almost nothing concerning the life and personality of Jesus.’

Most respectfully,

Sean

^ This is rediculous. Then we might as well not believe the testimony about Julius Caesar, because the earliest copy of his writings are far younger than the earliest copy of the writings of the Apostles. It all depends on who we think is credible, but more so who we choose to think is credible. Its an opinion game that everyone wins to themselves.

It is in no way ridiculous. It is fact freely admitted to by the Vatican, scholars and theologians alike. This is consensus, taught in both universities and seminaries: Notre Dame, Princeton, Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge et al. Nothing new here. I didn't like it either during my Christian walk ... but I could no longer deny the facts. Faith had been trumped by reality. Even early Church bishops et al knew the Gospels were not eyewitness accounts ...

"It is certain that the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor by his apostles, but a long while after them, by some unknown persons, who, lest they should not be credited when they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with... Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the speeches of our Lord which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since--as already it has been often proved--these things were written not by Christ, nor [by] his apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the apostles of the Lord or on those who were supposed to follow the apostles, they maliciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits according to them."--St. Faustus, Fifth-Century French Bishop

As for Julius Caesar ... This is a McDowell argument--one that holds no water whatsoever.

1. HISTORIANS' CRITERIA FOR RELIABILITY

... In short, as McDowell claims in his conclusion to Chapter 4, "If one discards the Bible as being unreliable, then he must discard almost all literature of antiquity."

This conclusion is extremely naive, so much so that in my view either McDowell has been taken in by the Christian apologists he quotes or he is trying to do the same to us. McDowell's conclusion rests on the assumption that the only criteria for historical reliability are manuscript count and transmission interval. While these criteria have value, they are not the primary ones by which historians evaluate reliability. As Wells points out (1999, p.10), historians look for independent and corroborating testimonies from proximal witnesses, that is, witnesses situated as close as possible in time and place to the events in question. For example, ten corroborating manuscripts testifying to events in the life of Jesus which are all copies of an earlier manuscript are no more convincing than the earlier manuscript by itself. On the other hand, if there were 10 corroborating manuscripts authored independently by 10 different writers, that would constitute much more compelling evidence.

It is independent corroborating testimony that is important. A large count of corroborating manuscripts is evidence for reliable transmission of manuscripts from the fourth century to us, but it is not evidence of independent corroborating testimony on the life of Jesus, because most manuscripts are copies of earlier ones or records of preceding oral tradition. In fact one can argue that there is very little independent evidence of events in Jesus' lifetime, that the evidence that does exist is only weakly corroborating, and that the witnesses are not all that proximal. But I leave this discussion for the future.

Returning to McDowell's criteria, much more important than transmission interval is the proximity in time between the writing of the original manuscript and the dates of the events described in the manuscript. Caesar was an eyewitness to many of the events he describes in his Commentaries. The elapsed time between the wars and Caesar's writing is a matter of months or a few years. The fact that the transmission interval is nearly 1000 years is not highly relevant to historians' assessment of reliability. In contrast, the elapsed time for Gospel reports is probably 40 years for Mark and 60 - 70 years for the other three Gospels. Moreover, the Gospel accounts were not written by eyewitnesses. So based on spatial and temporal proximity alone, it is reasonable to give more credence to Caesar's Commentaries than to the Gospels.

Of course the issue of the historical reliability of the Gospels is much more involved than this. I only want to point out how misleading are McDowell's use of manuscript count and transmission interval as criteria for historical reliability, and to point out the criteria that historians actually use...--Gordon Hazen, professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University

REST HERE: A Verdict on Josh McDowell by Professor Gordon Hazen, Northwestern University
http://users.iems.northwestern.edu/~hazen/...llRebuttal.html

AND:

ARGUMENTS AGAINST NEW TESTAMENT LITERALISM: In Full

Continuing the textual analysis and form criticism of modern biblical scholarship, theologian Sheila Harty deconstructs the hero-making myths in the New Testament, a specifically Jewish document. The midrash style of Jewish sacred storytelling is behind what the evangelists tell us about Jesus. The gospels are not history but a story in service to a faith. The only biographical elements shared by all gospel writers are that Jesus began his ministry in Galilee and journeyed to Jerusalem where he died. The rest is hearsay. No gospel writers were companions of Jesus nor eyewitnesses. No original gospel manuscripts survived two millennia. What we have are copies of copies into which crept the usual suspects -scribal errors and biased commentary.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST NEW TESTAMENT LITERALISM by Theologian Sheila Harty
http://www.sheila-t-harty.com/topic_list.htm

Most respectfully,

Sean

Since I'm not sure what you're asking, I'll try to cover everything that I know for certain. Angels that fell along with Satan are demons and they certainly exist today. Satan, according to Isaiah 14:13-14, fell from heaven because of his vanity, he wanted to be better then God. Now, you will hear that this chapter (Isaiah 14) only refers to the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:4); and sometimes you will hear that it refers to the antichrist. I believe it could refer to all of the above, satan, the antichrist, and the king of babylon (basically being people like Hitler). The antichrist and satan are almost one in the same because the antichrist will be full of satan. The other angels fell because they followed satan.
The Bible isn't clear on when satan or the angels fell. I hope this helps, sorry for the wait. If you have anymore questions or if I didn't answer your question exactly, just ask me and I'd be happy to share any information I have. Thanks,
~Apostle

This is an excellent question that is still a bit of a mystery. Let's look at the verses, and this is from the Stone Edition of the Tanach.

"For if you refuse to send out, and continue to grip them; 3 behold, the hand of HASHEM is on you livestock that are in the field, on the horses, on the donkeys, on the camels, on the cattle, and on the flock- a very severe epidemic. 4 HASHEM shell distinguish between the livestock of Israel and the livestock of Egypt, and not a thing that belongs to the Children of Israel will die. 5 HASHEM has set an appointed time, saying, 'Tomorrow HASHEM shall carry out this word in the land.' 6 HASHEM carried out this word the nect day, and all the livestock of Egypt died, and of the livestock of the Children of Israel not one died." -Exodus 9:2-6

But then again in verse 19-26 we see that some were still alive to get killed by hail.

"'And now send, gather in your livestock and everything you have in the field; all the people and animals that are found in the field; all the people and animals that are found in the field that are not gathered into the house- the hail shall descend upon them and they shall die.' 20 Whoever among the servants of Pharaoh feared the word of HASHEM chased his servants and his livestock to the houses. 21 And whoever did not take the word of God to heart- he left his servants and livestock in the field. HASHEM said to Moses, 'Stretch out your hand toward heaven, and there will be hail in the entire land of Egypt, on man and beast, and on all the grass of the field in the land of Egypt.' 23 Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and HASHEM sent thunder and hail, and fire went earthward, and HASHEM rained hail upon the land of Egypt. 24 There was hail, and fire flaming amid the hail- very heavy such as had never been in the entire land of Egypt, from the time it became a nation. 25 The hail struck in the entire land of Egypt, everything that was in the field from man to beast; all the grass of the field the hail struck and every tree of the field it smashed. 26 Only in the land of Goshen, where the Children of Israel were, there was no hail."

The question that naturally comes up is how could there any livestock left to be gathered up if it was all killed during the fifth plague? But not only that in Exodus 14:6-7 we find out that the Pharaoh harnessed at least 600 elite chariots and all the chariots of Egypt. So didn't all the horses die too?

Well, this is still unclear, but let's just look at a few explanations.

1. The word "all" only means the "vast majority". Even in verse 3 of chapter 9 it says, "...the hand of HASHEM is on you livestock that are in the field", so apparently the plague on the livestock was limited to the livestock in the field.

2. The Egyptians could have bought and traded with the Israelites who did not have their livestock killed.

That's the best I can do for you. I will continue to ask God to reveal this mystery to me, I'll share something if I learn more. Thanks for the question.
~Apostle

A first class post Sean a nice bit of research .That should put to rest the claims that they were written by the apostles but of course we know it won't



fullywired

The gospels are the only things that humans have accepted, even though we dont knwo who they are, what they lineage is, and they dint even leave their surnames, as to not be recognised etc.

There was a Garden of Eden. The location of it is given in the Bible, well, before it was removed.
Genesis 2:10-14
"And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. 11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasses he whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasses the whole land of Ethiopia. 14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel; that is it which goes toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates."

The exact location of the Pison and the Gihon rivers are unknown, but the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are well known. If those are the same rivers that they were back then, then that means to location of the Garden of Eden would have been somewhere in the Middle East, likely in Iraq.
Source:http://www.gotquestions.org/garden-of-Eden-location.html

In Genesis 3:24 it says,
"So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Sherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

So, even before Eden was destroyed, no one could have gotten into it. I believe that the garden of Eden was destroyed by the world-wide flood of Noah's day. That could also be why the Pison and Gihon rivers are no longer there. That seems to be the most plausible thing to me anyways.

BTW, PA, the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve did exist. If Adam and Eve didn't exist then their children wouldn't have existed, and then their children, and so on and so forth; and then the Bible would just be a book of lies. Jesus was a descndant of Adam and it is impossible to be descended from a myth.
~Apostle

You are right I'm a living descendent of king David and believe that Adam and Eve did exist how do I know this because I saw the Arch Angel Micheal who told me that I had gross negligiance or did'nt care for myself then I started having strange dreams like seeing Eve when i called out her name she hissed at me but she was so beautiful dressed in torn clothes.
I also had visions of hell where I saw 3 priests reading from a book when 4 black horses came out of a pool of sulphur

I have a question. Jesus prophecied (or the scriptures claimed that Jesus prophecied, for those who are skeptical) that the Temple would be destroyed:

"Some of his disciples were remarking about how the temple was adorned with beautiful stones and with gifts dedicated to God. But Jesus said, 'As for what you see here, the time will come when not one stone will be left on another; every one of them will be thrown down.'" - Luke 21:5-6 (NIV)

This prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD. The Romans set fire to the Temple, a fire which melted the gold that lined the walls of the holy chambers. Afterwards, the Romans had to tear apart the ruins brick by brick to salvage all the gold that had seeped between the cracks.

If there is one thing that the authors of the Bible loved to do it was to show fulfilled prophecy. Scripture states that true prophecy (tellings of future events that later become fulfilled) is from God and those who penned the scriptures are very quick to point these events out whenever they can, to add weight and divine authority to their claims.

Now, if the gospels were written/altered after the Temple was destroyed, then why don't they mention it? Something that big would certainly have made it into the New Testament's pages, as it was a very detailed prophecy that was fulfilled to the letter concerning the Jewish people's most holy site.

Actually, all it shows is that we don't know who the authors originally were. I doubt you would find many Christians (knowledgeable Christians, at least) who would disagree. I certainly don't. We don't know who wrote the gospels. However, they were written conceivably within the lifetime of Jesus' followers (with the possible exception of John), and therefore it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the people who wrote the gospels were indeed followers of Jesus. Yes, we know the names ascribed to the gospels are not necessarily right and given such through tradition alone, but that in itself is not evidence against.

Just a thought.

~ Regards, PA

I have to disagree again ,there is no evidence that shows they were written during the lifetime of Jesus


Quote from Sean's post


Unfortunately what is known about the historical Jesus is extremely sparse. No first century historian was an eye-witness to his life, wrote a thing about him (note on Josephus below). The Gospels are not eye-witness accounts of his life either. They were written decades after the crucifixion and are considered midrash (or as Professor M. Goulder proposes--the Gospels were worked out along the lines of the Jewish Lextionary) and not history. Of course, that was their intent. The Gospels were expressions of faith, written to address particular questions about Jesus to particular communities. They are "faith documents," written to persuade others to believe.

Father Kannengiesser, Emeritus Professor at the University of Notre Dame:

^I beg to disagree (yet again). That we don't know who the authors are is completely true. But the time of authorship does not deny the possibility that they were eye-witness accounts. Mark was written 40 years after the crucifixion (at most, conservative dating puts it closer to the event, as close as 20 years). Matthew and Luke were written shortly thereafter. Nothing in any quote given by Sean denies any of what I have just said. Matthew and Mark state clearly that they were eye-witnesses. Luke states that he was an historian who interviewed people who knew Jesus. Now, if you don't believe their statement and wish to take the view that they were written by people who never knew Jesus, as faith-documents, then so be it, you are of course free to do so. But in and of themselves there is nothing in either of the synoptic gospels to invalidate their claims of authenticity.

the gospels are are actually not the only things humans have accepted and I doubt they will be as time goes by thought of as anything more than ancient script - like any other old text where religion is concerned. even now they don't hold the same weight they once did among believers.

the moon goddess was widely worshipped once too.

plenty of historians have taken down statements that Nixon was a great president. Some will that Bush was.

it doesn't make it true.

I find it interesting that when people are looking for proof of something they only look for those who back them up usually those of the same faith,
just because someone wrote it down does not make it true.

To both - but it doesn't by necessity then make it false, either!

Lt Ripley - I can't really comment on Nixon or Bush, not knowing much about either one, but some will say that ex-Prime Minister Howard was the worst thing to happen to Australia. I personally think he was one of our greatest Prime Ministers.

norwood - That's why you read what it says and make up your own mind. I know that just because something was written down doesn't make it true, but after reading the gospels I came to the conclusion that they were true. Obviously others don't come to the same conclusion and make the leap of Faith that it is not an eye-witness account. My point is that there is no justifiable reason to say for absolute certainty that they are not eye-witness accounts.

Your very big on asking proof yourself when someone makes a statement that you do not agree with. I’ve seen someone ask you to back something up before with proof & you said that you didn’t have any & then you asked more or less’ why do you think I should?’

The quote I repeated from Sean denies what you have just said "They were written decades after the crucifixion and are considered midrash (or as Professor M. Goulder proposes--the Gospels were worked out along the lines of the Jewish Lextionary) and not history." but it it is obvious that you need to believe they were eyewitness accounts so let's leave it at that ,Agreeing to diagree

fullywired

Hi norwood. Perhaps you are going to have to shake my memory here. The only point in recent memory I have asked for proof is when someone has said that Jesus is a copycat of other deities. With something like that I would ask for proof, because just saying it is not good enough. I would ask for proof again in the same situation in the future. If there is another time when someone has made a claim and I ahve asked for proof, please tell me.

This situation is not the same. This is not trying to prove what is essentially a conspiracy theory. The texts themselves are good enough as proof. If you accept Matthew Mark and Luke, then it is proof enough. If you don't then it is not. What "other proof" are you requiring????

"decades after the crucifixion" - in other words, at most - 4 decades (probably less). "and are considered midrash" - by whom, I ask? Professor M. Goulder? As for me "needing" to believe they were eye-witness accounts, I guess I could turn this around and say that it is obvious that you need to believe they were not. But as you say, agreeing to disagree sounds peachy - it seems what was destined before this discussion ever began All the best,

~ Regards, PA

"decades after the crucifixion" - in other words, at most - 4 decades (probably less).




you wish you wish you wish


fullywired

like they say -

line up 100 people and whisper a quick story to the first person and have them pass it on.

you would be lucky to realise it by the time it got to the 100th.

and that is fact.

now try 100 years.

I am a man of God and have been all of my life, as I know it. I have not been perfect and have been subject to the folly of being human too.

After reading Ronald Weinland's Books , 2008 God's Final Prophesy and End Time prophesies , it has awakened old questions within me that the Holy Bible has not been able to answer for me.

They are:

In the beginning, In Genesis we are told of Adam and Eve. we are told they were the first here and all of us afterward are their offspring. They had three children. Cain, Abel and Seth .
Cain and Seth were told to go forth and Multiply. Adam and Eve had no more children after that. So who did Cain and Seth multiply with?

I also am in confusion about the Mark of the Beast. Does this happen after the seventh seal is opened or before?

AHH..... But it is the same you ask for written proof of what someone tells you but then you tell someone else that you can’t backup one of your statements. That’s a double standard not to mention you said in one of your post that just because it’s written down does not mean that it’s true. I do believe like many others that Jesus was a copy of other Gods many people have proven this you just don’t agree & that’s fine.
Why is it not the same because someone asked you to back up your claim?

Someone asked you this question: What rights would those be exactly? What rights are being encroached on by having "In God we Trust" plastered on some currency or other? And how are these rights being violated/protected if the phrase is removed or not.

This was your answer: No, I can't back it up. Do you think it important that I do so?


Again you seem keen on other s showing your proof so why can’t you show it when someone asks you for the same?

Sorry for not replying sooner. This brings up an interesting quandry then if god is infinite. In a nutshell it means that there is nothing in the universe that is not god. From the tiniest particle of an atom to the universe itself & everything in between, it must by definition all be god if god is infinite. That means you & I & everyone & everything is in someway, god!

I beleive the gospels to be genuine too and though some of the bible is hard for me to comprehend its true meaning I try to take each scripture andlook at it as God wanted it to be veiwed.The question of freewill confuses me though I believe we have a choice and our choices determine our future but I aslo beleive God knows what where when how everything about us so if thats true does God step in when we make the wrong choice and then if He did then is it still our freewill or Gods plan? Am I making any sense I hope so, Always a pleasure

If you two can't even agree on the meanings of passages contained in the Bible, what chance do the rest of us have ??

Once again it comes down to personal and individual interpretations.......

Correctumundo! Unfortunately, you can't forget about sin. Sin is like darkness, or dryness. It is not a thing but rather a non-thing, a lack of something. Sin, being "anti-God" or "not-God", cancels out this connection. This is why it is so detrimental to our existence.

using that mindset, you can't trust anything that has happened in the past. they should just abolish the whole field of history and burn all the textbooks.

also, you have to factor in the importance of the information. do this with a some random sentence and it won't get far. try it with next week's winning lotto numbers and I guarantee you it will travel a lot farther.

personally, I have trouble subscribing to the "telephone game" arguement. it's not like someone told the story and then died, then the next person told it and then died. you have one person spending decades telling an immensely important story. the first time they tell it is the same as the last time and that creates years and years of consistancy.

you need to reread genesis because after seth it states that adam and eve had many children. It seems only those three were of note worth

Personally, I like to think that there were other "people" around that may have shared some cosmetic similarities with humans, but didn't possess the Breath. This would account for the people who lived in the land of Nod, the place where Cain went after he was cursed. Think about human "ancestors" like cro-magnon man. I do not believe in evolution so I don't think that they were earlier stages of human development. Rather, I think that they were seperate people altogether. I'm no expert, though, so don't take this as doctrine. It's just a theory.

On a side note I have thought about this for a while and it tickles me silly to see that many experts don't view neanderthal man as predating homo sapiens anymore, as there is strong evidence now that they lived side-by-side.



If memory serves it is after the seventh seal. However, I think it's important to note that when the Bible mentions the Mark, it is required by everyone to have it. This does not mean that the Mark couldn't exist in an earlier, unrequired form. I have great faith, though, that when the Mark does arrive, followers of Christ will know that it is the Mark. There won't be all the theories and speculation like there is now, it's just too serious a thing.

LOL Quite big of you to take on the sceptor of teaching everyone. I think we're all better off not hearing what you got to say.

I could say the same for you taking on the mantle of deciding who's worthy of talking about a specific subject. I think we'd be better off hearing what everyone has to say.

Jesus Christ was God in human form.

ouch! Well to say that people are misinformed and that he has all the answers is egotistical.

Actually it would mean there is no such thing as sin. Since everything is god, that means everything is done by gods will including so called sin. It's like the Tao which is comprised of both Yin & Yang. Both positive & negative together equal a whole which cannot be comprehended in totality because it's a paradox. By definition a paradox is something that seemingly is comprised of total opposites which should not be, however I like to say that instead of it being something that should not exist, it's something we simply can't comprehend.

point taken but it really depends on the motives behind it. to deny that misinformation exists is ignorant and to combat that misinformation is a noble, and often thankless, job. I find it admirable to do what the OP has done, taking general questions in a public forum such as this, where his responses will be scrutinized by everyone, both believers and non. a much more admirable task than popping into a thread just to tell someone to shut up.

I see what your saying but there still is a conflict with your reasoning. It is true that everything is God, but like I said, sin is a non-thing. The reason sin is possible is because God chose to define Himself. He did this by telling us what He wants and what He doesn't want (which created free will in us). If He hadn't done this, then the rest of what you said would apply- "...everything is done by gods will...". Since God chose to define Himself and set boundries, then it is possible to fall outside of those boundries making "...everything is done by gods will..." inaccurate.

Why is the OT and thee NT so different?? what I mean is ... the OT does make God seem harsh, but the NT makes God & jesus out to be loving, it is like looking a a jackle & hyde book

If memory serves it is after the seventh seal. However, I think it's important to note that when the Bible mentions the Mark, it is required by everyone to have it. This does not mean that the Mark couldn't exist in an earlier, unrequired form. I have great faith, though, that when the Mark does arrive, followers of Christ will know that it is the Mark. There won't be all the theories and speculation like there is now, it's just too serious a thing.

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The mark of the beast is here and being used everyday. It is also mostly only being used to MARK the beasts with. It is the little computer chip that they use to ident. pets. There are also a few humans using it.

The OT is justice. The NT is mercy.

That still does not make any sense......sorry

Before Christ's sacrifice all god could dish out was justice. After his sacrifice god could temper it with mercy.

I dont class what god did was justice, nor was it for the good of anyone

A true leader is meant ot set an example right? but when you look at the OT, it is like saying - Do as i say, but dont do as I do..IE killing

God in the OT was far from the forgiving sort, all of his actions resulted in violence

Man also made God out to be dumb, so much so that because his enemy satan was able to trick him into killing a lot of innocent people just to prove a point to satan himself, that does not sound like a smart all knowing God, it sounds like someone that is easily tricked.ESPECIALLY when he is aware how deceitful and sneaky satan is..therefore he would know what satan was doing ..when all he had to do was cast satan away from him and allowed Jobs family to live in peace..as he already knew how much Job loved him, he didn't need to kill off so many lives to prove a stupid point

Yet in the NT..it is the complete opposite ..it is almost as if, someone read the OT and disagreed with it and changed things around to get others to see that God is NOT like that at all..and that ALL loving actually means what it says

I believe that is WHY so many follow christianity..because it is all about following an all loving peaceful god....if they believed in the OT being so good..and they know there was no such thing as christ in the OT therefore no christ followers in the OT..then they wouldn't call themselves christians they would have a different name...they obviously favor the NT

This is an assumption on my part. But I don't think that Jobs family died in vain. God wasn't trying to teach Job a lesson he was trying to teach us a lesson. I just wish I remembered what that lesson was. Has something to do with Satan and being loved by god no matter what was thrown at you by Satan.

It could be that all of those times when the bad people and what ever were killed it wasn't God but Satan. Remember before Christ we were all doomed so maybe the whole or almost the whole planet was under the sway of Satan. Who had to stay with in certain boundaries but was free to do as he wanted inside those limits as in the case of Job.


After Christ God was able to get the upper hand and that is where/how we live now.



The story of moses is true.

But the story of moses is also a parable for what Christ did during the three days in hell.

I didnt say he was trying to teach Job a lesson, I said he was trying to prove a point to satan, and he knew satan was full of deceit and was very sneaky, so an all knowing being like God should have seen right through satan, he knew Job loved him, so he should have casted satan back to where he came from ......the story of Job could have been told a lot better and not as harshly..it still wouuld have sent us the SAME message

You are saying it could be...but we don't really know. I see God much smarter and much more loving than what the OT says, thats why i chose not to believe in it

Violence and evil is very strong in todays world and it will always be this way

Hi norwood,

This thread is not about the rights of atheists, nor about having "In God we trust" emblazoned on notes. IT has nothing to do with the topic at all, except to divert attention away from the questions asked. It is, in essence, a Red Herring.

However, you are perhaps right about double standards in relation to that. I just did not feel that it was important to the discussion of that thread to provide evidence (or more correct, I did not believe that one could prove that with stats - perhaps I was wrong to think such). But when it comes to claiming that Jesus is a copycat saviour, I would ask for proof from ancient sources. So far, of all the claims of copycat, only a small handful have actually been proven with ancient texts. Apparently Horus had 12 disciples, yet I have not seen a single ancient document to corroborate this. Apparently Horus was crucified, died and rose again 3 days later, yet again I have never seen a piece of ancient text or heiroglyph to support this. Mithra was crucified died and rose 3 days later too, yet the only texts corroborating this story date to long long after the gospels were written. The only times I have ever seen the majority of the claims made about the supposed copycats is in the work of Christ-mythers (Graves, Acharya, Massey, et al). Rarely are the claims made by said Christ-mythers backed up with original ancient sources. Massey quotes very little, and when he does a lot of the time no historian can find any mention of such a text. Acharya and Graves most often quote Massey. In short, when someone makes a claim like this, I would ask for proof - naturally.

This is not the same as needing proof to validate the gospels (going back to the point of this original discussion in the thread). The gospels ARE ancient sources. Whether you accept them or not as valid texts is not the point. You asked that I provide proof that the gospels are valid. What proof can I give for this? And if you cannot see the difference between this and asking for proof about Christ-mythers, then I'm afraid any further discussion is rather pointless.

Which brings me finally back to the discussion that you brought up about me not giving proof in the "4% minority" thread. Considering the difference between the issues here, I see it as nothing more than a Red Herring. A way to deflect from the point of the discussion, which is about the validity of the gospels.

~ Regards, PA

Quite good, actually. If you note his response to that, he agreed with me and thanked me for showing him information that was lacking in his own understanding of scripture. So no, it's not quite as simple as personal and individual interpretation. His interpretation was plain wrong, and when shown the evidence he agreed and apologised for bringing up false information into the thread.

That's not to say though that I am always right, nor is it meant to imply that my knowledge is greater than anyone else's. I'm likely to be wrong at times also. But just because there is the chance that we will get things wrong from time to time does not mean that we should not try, right?

~ PA