1] The Gospels were written down decades after the death of Jesus. This poses a really big problem, as it is even much harder to swallow the truth claims (dubious?) of walking on water, water into wine, resurrection accounts etc at face value or literally. None of the canonical gospels were written, pen in hand, by the original disciples of Jesus but rather later generations of Christians, followers whose ideas of Jesus have developed over time. For example:Superfanboy
This would pose a big problem if someone was not aware of just how oral tradition worked in the ancient world, specifically 1st century Palestine. Now Richard Bauckham has written a great book on this subject called Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, which you can read for free at books.google.com. Now the preservation of oral tradition is very important because it ensures the reliability of the Gospel portrayal of the Historical Jesus, or as Richard Bauckham calls "The Jesus of Testimony".
- Why aren't many of the miracles Jesus is said to have done in the two dozen epistles and or letters of Paul (most of which were written even earlier than the gospels themselves)? Superfanboy
as Eddy and Boyd rightly note, Paul only repeats large portions of the Jesus tradition for Evangelistic purposes. However in the letters of Paul, he is not evangelizing to anyone but rather answering questions posed by Christians in the church.
It is obvious these were added to the less than sensational oral traditions about the guy, which were multiplied and later exaggerated. Superfanboy
Then pray tell, why does Paul clearly say in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus rose from the dead? furthremore, Paul repeats an amazing story of Jesus appearing to more than 500 WITNESSES! None of the Gospels contain that. Furthremore, the story of the appearance to the 500 was formally organized into an apostolic tradition less than 5 years after the event in question (and that's at the latest! some scholars think that it was formalized just months after the events). Furthremore, this is of no relavence because as Bauckham successfully argued in chapters 3 and 6, the sources for these miracle claims were very likely the witnesses THEMSELVES.
Furthermore, something is quite fishy about superstitious beliefs of common peasant folk and cures with no follow up reports long after the healings. Superfanboy
Here's the problem: they believed in the resurrection. but EVEN PEASANTS were aware of the fact that dead people stayed dead.
- Ever compared Mark (the earliest gospel written) with John (the last one)? Night and day difference and more like a tale in growing with embellishments. Superfanboy
Here's the problem with these supposed "Bultmannian laws". The Synoptic Gospels drop names. Lemme demonstrate. there are many anonymous characters in the 3 synoptic Gospels. assuming some form of the 2 source hypothesis (Mark wrote first, Matthew and Luke came along later and used Mark and another hypothetical "Q" source), we see they drop names. Not a single anonymous character from Mark gains a name in Matthew or Luke. Furthermore, some named characters become anonymous in Matthew and Luke's Gospels. This is clear evidence against this "legendary embellishment" hypothesis.
- The fact that author of Matthew used 75% of Mark's gospel, almost word for word, clearly indicates that this author was not actually Matthew, since it doesn't make sense that an eyewitness would follow the account of a non-eyewitness so closely. Superfanboy
There are 2 major problems with this
1: The idea that Matthew copied all of his common material with mark *from* mark is untenable. given the clear preference for oral reports in the ancient world, they were more than likely using similar traditions passed on by the eyewitnesses. Since the traditions were clearly controlled traditions, they would not diverge from eachother very much
2: According to Papias, Mark was the interpreter of Peter. This is a big problem because Peter was a member of hte inner circle of disciples (which included James and John the Sons of Zebedee, and Peter). Mark, dictating Peter's words, would have been invaluable for Matthew even though matthew was an eyewitness.
And the final chapter of John makes it perfectly clear that it was not written by John but by people who claimed to be his followers.Superfanboy
No actually John 21 says "this is the disciple who testifies to these things". Now who else, other than the beloved disciple, could that possibly be?
- Historical errors abound. Luke says Jesus was born during the census of Quirinius. That was in AD 6-7. Matthew, however, says Jesus was born before the death of Herod the Great. Herod died in 4 BC. That's a ten year discrepancy and a blatant contradiction.Superfanboy
Here's the problem, or problems I should say: 1: You're giving Josephus too much benefit of the doubt
2: You're forgetting that Quirinius was running military expeditions in Cilicia on the northern border of Syria
3; Luke 1:2 can be translated as "in the days before the Census of Quirinius", no discrepency.
- Jesus was very of vocal to the apostles of what was going to happen, which makes their subsequent confusion a bit hard to understand. Either they were extremely stupid or the NT isn't actually telling us what really happened. It's hard to see why they would be so puzzled by the betrayal, his trial and execution etc if just days before he had explicitly explained that precisely all this was going to happen. Had they forgotten this detailed explanation?? Superfanboy
Jesus never offered a detailed explanation. But surely they would be puzzled, after all, his messiahship was nothing like what they or anyone else expected. NO ONE expected a DEAD messiah!
I think it's far more likely that this explanation never happened and that it has been added to the story later. Superfanboy
Here's the problem: The disciples were an official body of witnesses in the early church. this is really big because they would have exerted a controlling influence on the traditions. Furthremore, again, Bauckham has exhaustively demonstrated that the Gospels are rooted in eyewitness testimony. Finally, Malchus, the dude whose ear was lobbed off by Peter, was the likely source for John when he was telling about the story in the garden of Gethsemane.
Most likely the betrayal etc was as much a shock to Jesus as it was to everyone else, but his prophecies about it added to the story post facto to make it seem like it was all part of some big redemptive plan. Superfanboy
This radical Jesus-Seminar-esque skepticism is simply unwarranted and is based on the a priori presupposition that the Gospel portrayal of Jesus simply cannot possibly be correct. and with this assumption, SURPRISE SURPRISE (!), they end up with a different Jesus.
Thus, the idea that he was executed, died and rose again was a belief his followers developed to justify their faith makes a lot more sense now to me than what was taught to me in Sunday school (ie Jesus died for my sins on the cross etc)... Superfanboy
N.T. Wright in his last chapters of The Resurrection of the Son of God has a sweeping refutation of this idea. When we examine other messianic movements which ended with the deaths of their leader, they usually would shift status onto another family member like it were a dynastic relationship. So if this were the case with Jesus, we should see clear evidence that some christians regarded James as the messiah. but we have NO EVIDENCE that anyone regarded James as the true messiah! As N.T. Wright rightly notes, when your messiah died, you either abandoned any messianic aspirations, or you got yourself a new messiah.
2] All of the OT was written in the post-Exile period, Superfanboy
at the best, at the VERY BEST, all you can prove is that the Old Testament or the Pentateuch was compiled under one cover after the Exile. But there is rather clear evidence that the traditions in Genesis regarding the Patriarchs go back thousands of years, and there's striking evidence that the Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deutoronomy was written somewhere between the 14th and the 12th centuries BCE. For Exodus, we have the Sinai covenant which has clear affinities with Hittite treates of the same era, but not with treates before OR after, we have the tent-tabernacle, which has clear analogues with Egyptian buildings, and we have the mention of Pi-Ramsees, which was only known as Tanis after the 11th Century BC. For Leviticus and Numbers we have the dietary laws. In 11th century canaan, there was a massive 5-fold population increase. in some food refuse piles, there were pork bones, and in others, there were no pork bones. This is consistent with the Levitical laws prohibiting pork consumption NOT being post-exhilic fabrications. For Deutoronomy we have what Kenneth Kitchen calls The Deutoronomic pattern which abbreviated is DPCD which stands for Disobediance, Punishment, Contrition, and Deliverance. This has a clear parallel with an older Egyptian text (I dont have it with me right now though unfortunately). Now for the entire pentateuch, all the prophetic books (Ezekiel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, etc.) contain references to the Penteteuch indicating that the Pentateuch is much older.
all these combined dispell your idea that the OT in its entirety was written in the post-exilic period. They also provide very interesting evidence against the Documentary hypothesis.
so a hell of a lot of it needs to be taken with a large grain of salt. Looking at things like the story of David in Kings, for example, as history is like taking the story of King Arthur as a reliable history of Fifth Century Britain. And I don't really want to discuss taking Genesis as literal truth quite anymore either.Superfanboy
The Story of David and Solomon's empire of course is perfectly consistent with 10th century Canaanite archaeology and is consistent with the written historical record.
On a final note, I don't have anything against my old religion. Let them believe whatever they wish. I still admire the history of Christianity and its rise from a obscure Jewish sect...the culture and art it helped bring about from the Medieval ages to the Renaissance...Heck, I thank the monks who helped preserve ancient text... Thanks for your time and I hope you have learned other views of Jesus. Books I recommend by professional academic, non-Christian historians such as Bart Ehrman or Paula Fredriksen (books in TinyURL preview format):
From Jesus To Christ by P.F
http://preview.tinyurl.com/9neaj5
Misquoting Jesus.. by B.Ehrman
http://preview.tinyurl.com/7k6a23
Jesus the Jew by Geza Vermes
http://preview.tinyurl.com/9xv3arSuperfanboy
and I would strongly recommend 4 books for you to set you on the path back to faith:
The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright
The Jesus Legend By Paul Eddy and Gregory Boyd
Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham
On the Reliability of the Old Testament by Kenneth Anderson Kitchenalthough I have to give you tremendous respect for not acting like a pompous evangelical ass like so many of the new Atheists. I hope I didn't come off that way though.
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