Are there credible witnesses to the resurrection?

[doubtingmerle]

Ha ha, very funny. Your link just takes me to this thread.

You actually clicked on a link I posted! Wow!

Of course the link points to this thread. In this thread I have answered your arguments over and over again. So if you want to know how i answer your arguments, all you need to do is read this thread.

I understand it was very embarrassing for you that your own link to the greek definitions of "vision" proved that it can also just mean "sight", thereby proving that in context my interpretation of Acts 9 is correct and you were incorrect. Sorry buddy. Try again.

Huh? It can mean sight, therefore it means sight?

Sorry, words mean what they mean in context. You cannot simply look up a word in a dictionary and pick the meaning you want. Translators overwhelming think Acts 26:19 is saying that Paul is claiming he saw a vision.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed, the person you're talking with, no matter what you say, is not going to agree with you. His presuppositions he brings to the discussion prohibit him from doing so.

G.K. Chesterton once remarked that, "You cannot catch up with Jones if he is walking in the opposite direction." We've been chasing after doubtingmerle but he has been walking in the other direction from us the whole time.

Doubtingmerle has a naturalist's bias against the miraculous that he brings to these discussions and therefore he has to deny at all costs that Jesus rose bodily from the dead.

Yes, I know. My responses to his comments are primarily for any open minded lurkers that might be out there and for any Christians that need encouragement in their faith in the bible as the infallible Word of God.

 

[anonymous person]

My entire world view.

How so?

 

[doubtingmerle]

How so?

Where is this silly line of questioning going?

First, before I answer, can you answer yourself? You had asked me, "And if the weight fell to the witnesses, what, if anything would change for you?" Let me throw that back at you: If the weight of the evidence fell against the witnesses to the resurrection, what, if anything would change for you?

 

[anonymous person]

Where is this silly line of questioning going?

First, before I answer, can you answer yourself? You had asked me, "And if the weight fell to the witnesses, what, if anything would change for you?" Let me throw that back at you: If the weight of the evidence fell against the witnesses to the resurrection, what, if anything would change for you?

I don't answer hypotheticals I have no reason to think would happen.

I encourage you to adopt the same position, even if that means you don't answer mine.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I don't answer hypotheticals I have no reason to think would happen.

I encourage you to adopt the same position, even if that means you don't answer mine.

I cannot understand why you ask questions that you yourself would never answer yourself.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Because there is strong evidence that he believed in the empty tomb. Besides his quoting of the ancient hymn which plainly implies that fact

Oh dear. We have gone over the "ancient hymn" so many times. You really want to keep bringing it up?

OK, I Cor 15:3-8 is subject to many views. Some think it was added after Paul. Some think it is the words of Paul. Some think parts of it are an ancient hymn Paul copied. You take the extreme view that this was all a hymn written shortly after the crucifixion. Let's look at it one more time, and I will explain again why I don't accept this all as an ancient hymn. And once again, most critical scholars do not accept this all as an ancient hymn. Here is I Cor 15:3-9

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
​

No hymn would begin with the word "that". But that is exactly what we have if this is a hymn : "that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he...". This is not even a grammatical sentence.

​

No hymn would include the words "appeared also to me," with "me" meaning Paul.

No hymn would refer to Paul as "one untimely born".

No hymn would discuss Paul as the least of the apostles. If you try to make the hymn end before verse 9 to avoid this, it is a strange break in the middle of a thought.

No hymn written in 33 AD would say most of the 500 are dead, because they most likely did not die until later.

No authoritative hymn or creed would include a list of memorized names. If people were simply repeating a list of witnesses passed on by word of mouth, and that was their evidence, that is all a very strange means of documentation.

The list of appearances do not match the gospels. The gospels record women and two others as the first witnesses, which this "ancient hymn" strangely leaves out.

The gospels never record an appearance to the 12, since there no longer were 12. Judas was no longer with them, and there were only 11 left.

If Jesus appeared to 500 at once, it is very odd that the gospels do not record this. It is very hard to find a place where this appearance to 500 could be fit into the gospels.

The appearance to James and all the apostles is nowhere recorded in the gospels, and appears to be a later addition by followers of others who wanted to say "me too".

Paul says this is the gospel (v1). He also says he did not receive the gospel from men (Galatians 1:11-12). It makes no sense for Paul to say,

I did not receive the gospel from men. This is the gospel that I received from men: Christ died..."​

But that is what we end up with if this is a hymn Paul copied from others.

Some "scholars" accept that v3-5 may be based on an ancient hymn, but few believe this is all an ancient hymn.

-------------------

Now let's look at the content of "the hymn". Does it say the grave was empty? No. It says:

that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures,
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,​

The key phrase here is "in accordance with the scripture". As I explained many times, this is typical of how authors in ancient times credited their sources. They might say, "Blah, blah, according to Josephus, and yada yada, according to Philo." Thus when Paul says, "according to the scriptures", it is very likely he means that this is his source, that according to the scriptures the Christ will die for our sins, and according to the scriptures, the Christ will rise the third day. The whole thing has more of the tone of a theological interpretation of the Old Testament teaching of the Christ, rather than a statement of history. I see this view as more likely compared to your alternate view that these words just mean "in fulfillment of prophesy".

And if you think it means, "in fulfillment of scriptures", please show me which scripture prophesies that Christ will arise the third day.

By the way, we know from other writers that people were interpreting the story of Jonah as an allegory of the Christ, and thinking that therefore Christ must rise the third day. But all this was forced into the scriptures.

So Paul is saying that, theologically, the Christ will rise on the third day. Paul, writing at least 10 years after the crucifixion (if it happened), could simply be echoing his belief that the Christ arose on the third day, according to his interpretation of scripture. None of this requires an empty grave. None of this requires a missing body. None of this requires a bodily resurrection. None of this even requires that Jesus was historical. It simply says that Paul thought the Christ died (either in history or in myth) and, based on the scripture, his spirit rose 3 days later.

Notice also that Paul includes his "was seen of me" as though this is qualitatively the same thing as what everybody else saw. If you believe Acts 26, there Paul says what he saw was a heavenly vision. And yes, I know you think "heavenly vision" does not mean heavenly vision, just like "heard not a voice" does not mean heard not a voice; that "Christ lives in me" does not mean Christ lives in me; that "neither received it of man" does not mean neither received it of man, etc. I think "heavenly vision" means heavenly vision. But even if "heavenly vision" means a sighting that Paul believes is a real person, that does not prove that the body was missing. You yourself believe that eventually God will make a replica of the body of Paul that will look like Paul and live forever. If you believe things like that will be happening, then I do not understand why you would not think Paul might think the same thing happened to Jesus.

Nothing in Paul says anything about a personal Jesus traveling around in a body. The body of Christ, in Paul, always refers to the church, as far as I can tell. Paul says that Christ lives in him. So he seems to be describing a spirit Jesus who lives in his body (the church including Paul) and empowers the church. None of this requires an empty grave.

​

 

[anonymous person]

I cannot understand why you ask questions that you yourself would never answer yourself.

The question I asked you is not a question that I would never answer.

 

[doubtingmerle]

The question I asked you is not a question that I would never answer.

Oh puhleeze.

Let's reword it. Your question to me, reworded, is: "If you found the weight of evidence on the resurrection was against your views, what, if anything would change for you?" I answered. Now I throw it back at you. Do you care to answer?

I cannot understand why you follow some of these lines of questioning. Previously you asked me how I knew my thoughts were not the result of an evil spirit within me, and therefore my conclusions are irrational. Do you ask the same thing when someone makes a suggestion at work? Do you ask the same thing if somebody makes a claim about a football play? If you stop and think about it, you would never ask a question like this in a business meeting, because you know the question itself is silly. So why ask it here?

 

[anonymous person]

Oh puhleeze.

Let's reword it. Your question to me, reworded, is: "If you found the weight of evidence on the resurrection was against your views, what, if anything would change for you?" I answered. Now I throw it back at you. Do you care to answer?

I cannot understand why you follow some of these lines of questioning. Previously you asked me how I knew my thoughts were not the result of an evil spirit within me, and therefore my conclusions are irrational. Do you ask the same thing when someone makes a suggestion at work? Do you ask the same thing if somebody makes a claim about a football play? If you stop and think about it, you would never ask a question like this in a business meeting, because you know the question itself is silly. So why ask it here?

The question is not the same. You re-worded it and your re-wording of the question presents to me a hypothetical I don't have a reason to think would actually happen.

It's like asking me what I would say to a married bachelor if I were to run into one out on the street.

Flipping my question back to me doesn't answer the question I asked. I was just curious as to what you meant when you said your whole worldview would change.

 

[doubtingmerle]

The question is not the same. You re-worded it and your re-wording of the question presents to me a hypothetical I don't have a reason to think would actually happen.

It's like asking me what I would say to a married bachelor if I were to run into one out on the street.

Flipping my question back to me doesn't answer the question I asked. I was just curious as to what you meant when you said your whole worldview would change.

What part of "my whole worldview would change" don't you understand?

 

[anonymous person]

What part of "my whole worldview would change" don't you understand?

Well, exactly what does that entail, in your view?

Where does for example, repentance come into play?

 

[doubtingmerle]

As I explained earlier, your ad hoc fabricated concept of spirit body was not part of the Judeo-Christian worldview. The ancient jews and Christians believed when you died that you either were gone forever, changed into a spirit, or resurrected bodily.

The Bible says God is a spirit, but it says Moses saw God.

The Bible says angels are spirits, but multiple places it speaks of seeing angels, and even records that people sometimes mistake an angel for a person. That is strong indication they thought that angels could show up in a spiritual body of some kind that looked very much like humans.

If the early Christians believed the story of Luke 2, where the shepherds saw spirit angels, then I have no problem understanding that they could believe that a spirit Jesus caused the experience described in Acts 26. If they believed that Joseph had a conversation with a spirit angel, then it is hardly a strain that they might think a spirit Jesus would have a conversation with Paul.

Yes, that is one of the reasons the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is wrong. Jesus' body cannot be in two places at one time.

Which is a real problem for people who ask Jesus to come into their heart. How can a physical being that is restricted to one place at a time come into many people's hearts? If Jesus is physical, how could he come into a single heart? You seem to be saying that all those who were taught to ask Jesus to come into their hearts were deceived into asking for something that never happens.

I am referring to the context of all of his letters that plainly teach that the resurrected Jesus had a physical body as I have demonstrated throughout this thread. Also, the historical context that I referenced above about the persecuting jews.

Your big argument for Christ having a physical body is Col 2:9, "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." This is a weak argument.

First, critical scholars think Colossians was not even thought to be written by Paul, but by a later imposter, so it does not necessarily reflect what Paul thought.

Second, you are putting a lot of weight on one adverb, "bodily". As there are more distinct errors in the New Testament manuscripts than there are words, how can you be sure this word belongs there?

Third, the word translated bodily has the concept of corporeally. Look at how Strongs says the word is used:

bodily, corporally

of the exalted spiritual body, visible only to the inhabitants of heaven [ Genesis Chapter 1 (KJV) ]
​

Interesting. It is used to mean a spiritual body, visible only to the inhabitants of heaven.

Even the English word "bodily" used in Col 2:9 does not necessarily mean possessing a body made of atoms.

​

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
He could have, but it is more rational that as a highly educated leader of the Church it is much more probable that he also had read the gospels and probably even had copies readily available to him.


dm: If the gospels were widely known, then yes, Clement, a highly educated leader of the church in Rome and reported disciple of Peter would have know about the gospels. If the gospels were widely used, one would expect Papias in the early second century to rely on them as a source for his book on the sayings of Jesus. If the gospels were widely known, we would expect Justin, who accurately quotes the Old Testament, to quote them accurately.

But Clement shows little if any knowledge of the gospels. Papias says he didn't think there would be anything in books about Jesus that would help him write about Jesus. Justin's "Memoirs of the Apostles" seems to be something different from the modern gospels. So maybe the four gospels were not widely known in the first half of the second century?

No, his obvious intertwining of the Isaiah 53 prophecy and the gospels crucifixion narrative shows an extensive knowledge of the gospels. Most scholars agree that Justin WAS referring to the gospels. Also, they had to have been well known before 180 for Tatian to have written a harmonization of them in 172 AD called Diatessaron. In addition there are other texts from before 150 AD that contain quotes or stories from all four gospels, the Gospel of Peter and the Egerton Gospel. And the Gospel of Truth which dates to 140 AD quotes from 3 of the gospels. This plainly refutes your contention about the gospels not being known prior to 180 AD.

dm: Isaiah 53 quote. He simply does not say what you just make up here. Why not go by what he actually says?

Anyone with a good knowledge can see the suffering and humiliation of Christ as recorded in the gospels intertwined in his commentary on Isaiah.

dm: Galatians 2:20 proves that Paul meant Holy Spirit even though he says Christ? You simply wrote your own theology into this verse, and called your theology "context".

No, in the context of his other letters where he plainly teaches that Christ has a physical body.

dm: Oh puhleeze. Paul wrote I Cor in the 50's. What phrases are you referring to that would have been common in the 30's but not in the 50's? I have asked you repeatedly in this thread to back up this claim. You just ignore me, and make the same claim again and again.

I am not an Aramaic scholar but they say that Aramaic terms are used like Cephas and "the Twelve". And the linguistic structure points to Aramaic. Languages can change a lot in 20 years, ask any linguist.

 

[Ed1wolf]

First, you have shown nowhere where any of these writers verifies the name of a gospel writer before 180 AD. All you have is Papias, who mentions a book by Matthew and Mark, but doesn't give enough information for me to know what books he is talking about. (And no, you need not write back and say you think he gave enough information. I already know you think that.) So I don't really know who wrote the gospels.

Second, the best we have as far as quotes of the gospels in the early second century are short one-liners that are close to what the gospels say that Jesus said, and may be intended as quotes of the gospels. Or they can simply show a shared heritage of sayings attributed to Jesus. These sayings could come from word of mouth, from one of the many books about Jesus that Luke 1:1 refers to, from early versions of some of the many books that later Christian authors talk about, from Q, from the same people that spread your resurrection "hymn", etc. A few one-line moral teachings that are close to the Jesus of Matthew do not verify that the stories as recorded in the four gospels were widely known at that time. The content of early books like Clement, Barnabas, and the Shepherd rely more on the Old Testament for filling in the details of Jesus's life than they rely on the four gospels. See "Crossing the Threshold of History: Jesus in the Apostolic Fathers" .

Actually the fact that all the quotes from the gospels in the pre-180 writings but not always identified with a particular authors name shows that they may have been so well known that people could recognize which gospel is being quoted that it was unnecessary to reference the author. It was only later as the church grew and less people knew the gospels as well as previously, they started placing the name of the author in the text. See my post above that shows many more texts that quote from the gospels from pre 180.

 

[miknik5]

Where is this silly line of questioning going?

First, before I answer, can you answer yourself? You had asked me, "And if the weight fell to the witnesses, what, if anything would change for you?" Let me throw that back at you: If the weight of the evidence fell against the witnesses to the resurrection, what, if anything would change for you?

We'd know it to be a false witness and false testimony

 

[Ed1wolf]

The question is whether the early writers disagreed. I gave Luke 3:22 as one example. The earliest version of this verse agree with those who think Jesus was a man that was adopted at baptism. You say it does not mean he was adopted, else Luke would differ with Matthew and Mark. That is the very point in question! Did the earliest writers disagree? You cannot merely assume the point in question.

You still have not provided any evidence that the oldest copies of Luke all use that verse. But even if they did, different eyewitnesses hear and notice different things. God may have said all those things that are quoted in Matthew Mark and Luke. Just the source that Luke used only remembered that statement.

dm: Let's turn to Justin Martyr as a source. Justin, writing in the middle of the second century, quotes "Memoirs of the Apostles". His quotes from the memoirs are close to the four gospels, but not exact. Some think he is referring to a different book literally called the Memoirs. Some think he is quoting from earlier copies of the gospels. You, however, ignore all evidence, and insist somehow that Justin was quoting something close to the modern gospels. Ok, let's look at what Justin says the voice said at the baptism of Jesus:

but then the Holy Ghost, and for man's sake, as I formerly stated, lighted on Him in the form of a dove, and there came at the same instant from the heavens a voice, which was uttered also by David when he spoke, personating Christ, what the Father would say to Him: 'Thou art My Son: this day have I begotten Thee;' [the Father] saying that His generation would take place for men, at the time when they would become acquainted with Him: 'Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten thee.' "[Source: Dialog with Trypho 88]

So twice we have Justin saying the voice said the same thing that I am telling you the earliest Greek manuscripts say in Luke 3:22. Ok, maybe he was paraphrasing or had a slip. Read on:

when [Jesus] went up from the river Jordan, at the time when the voice spake to Him, 'Thou art my Son: this day have I begotten Thee,' is recorded in the memoirs of the apostles [Dialog with Trypho 103]
Justin, when quoting the Old Testament is meticulous in giving exact quotes and telling us the correct name of the book he is quoting. And yet this is what he says repeatedly he is reading in "The Memoirs of the Apostles".

So I cannot see how you can be arguing both that Justin was correctly quoting one of the four gospels, and also that none of the four gospels said what Justin says here.

I am not saying that that reading is definitely wrong. I notice that Justin actually uses my interpretation of the verse, thanks for confirming that my interpretation may be correct even if God actually did say that. And that it does not contradict the other words from God at the baptism.

dm: Gal 1:11-12

It would be inconsistent for Paul to say,

I did not receive the gospel from men. I now declare the gospel I received as a creed from men, that Christ died...

That is what Paul would be saying in your interpretation. That makes no sense to me, or to many other scholars.

No, that is not what I am saying and neither is Paul. Paul is saying that he did receive his gospel from Christ not men but yet his gospel is confirmed to be the same one that the disciples were preaching as shown in verse 24. And one of the ways that he confirms that his gospel is agreed to by the other earlier disciples is by quoting their hymn in his letter to the Corinthians.

dm: Please, please, please, please, please! We have been over this dozens of times, and you refuse to acknowledge I am saying what I am saying. What does that benefit you to act like this?

See above.

ed: Acts 9:7. Taking things out of context is starting to be your trademark.

dm: How do you know the book of Acts does not contradict itself? It is generally believed it went through several compilations and edits. The final editor may not have noticed that a chapter at the beginning contradicted one at the end. Acts 22 says they did not hear a voice. Acts 9 says they did. That is a clear contradiction. We cannot say they do not contradict, since, if they did, then they would be contradicting. That is illogical.

Because it is inspired by the Christian God whom we can quite easily demonstrate most likely exists. And The Christian God cannot contradict Himself. There is no evidence that it went thru several compilations and edits in any significant way.

ed: I didn't say it proves it, but it is the most rational conclusion as I demonstrated earlier.

dm: OK, if that is what it takes for you. Resurrections from the dead are extremely rare, if they happen at all. It seems to me unreasonable, that if one thinks he is hearing a voice from heaven that claims to be a person that had died, to conclude that therefore that voice must be coming from a human larynx, and that therefore the body including the larynx came out of the grave and is now alive in heaven. That is not enough evidence for me. (And besides, I don't think Acts is accurate history.)

No, I provided evidence earlier that show that Acts is at the least as accurate history as Herodotus if not more given its closer date to the actual events.

dm: Back to the voice at the baptism: If all voices from the heavens come from a human larynx, do you think this voice came from a larynx? If not, why could not the voice in Acts have come from a spirit also?

I explained this earlier. The voice at the baptism is the Voice of God, an omnipotent being. God does not need a larynx. Only human spirits need a larynx to speak. That is what the human body is for, to enable the human spirit to interact with the physical universe.

 

[doubtingmerle]

Ed1Wolf,

Wow, you still don't understand what I am saying about the gospels? Seriously, how many times do people need to repeat the same thing with you?

It is fine for you to disagree with me. But it is wrong for you to refuse to attempt to understand me, and repeatedly make up things that I am not saying.

Once more, here is my point about the gospels. Nobody knows what the earliest gospels looked like. We have virtually nothing surviving before the middle of the second century. The Christian writings up until the middle of the second century gives us little in terms of firm quotes of the gospels. We do know that books with substantial changes were made. The modern Matthew, the Gospel of the Ebionites, and the Gospel of the Nazerenes all appear to be based on a complete edit of the original Mark. Mark itself did not have the ending it now has, and was copied down in other versions including Secret Mark. Many other gospels were written, each appearing to be variations of the original Mark or earlier variations of Mark. In light of all of that editing, I don't think we can be certain that any surviving gospels after the middle of the second century match the originals. All of that is fairly non-controversial, but for some reason you insist on arguing against it, with no evidence.

After about 140 AD, changes continue to be made, but at a slower rate. Here we can view the changes better, because we have better documentary evidence. Over 200,000 changes have been found in the existing manuscripts.

By the Middle Ages professional scribes were in control, and used a much higher standard of copying. But that was not true in the early days.

So we simply do not know what was changed before the third century. You have given us nothing to argue against it, other than to say you disagree.

My other point is that, before 180 AD, I don't think anybody quotes enough of a gospel with a name attached to it that we can say a particular gospel was written by a particular author. Again you go through endless slight of hand to pretend you address this, but so far you have found no hard facts that dispute this claim.

After about 180 AD, there is a surge of interest in the gospels, with the traditional authors accepted as the authors.

And no, you need not write me and say you disagree. We all know that. I write this only to explain yet again what I am actually saying, because you insist on misrepresenting me.

No, his obvious intertwining of the Isaiah 53 prophecy and the gospels crucifixion narrative shows an extensive knowledge of the gospels.

Anybody that will look up Clement 16 will clearly see this is false. I have quoted the whole passage here, and won't repeat it again. You will ignore the link, but interested lurkers can see it here-- First Clement: Clement of Rome . Clearly he is using Isaiah 53 as his source, not a gospel. Clearly he is not intertwining a gospel text of the crucifixion here. If you think he is, please quote back where he does what you claim.

Most scholars agree that Justin WAS referring to the gospels.

Oh. My. Word.

Seriously, this is not the issue. You have been told that repeatedly, and ignore it. Once more. There are 3 views of what Justin was quoting:

a) A book called "the Memoirs of the Apostles" that no longer exists
b) Earlier copies of the gospels that differ from today's copies.
c) Copies of the gospels that are essentially the same as ours.

Scholars have long debated if a or b is correct. I know of no serious scholar that supports c, and yet somehow you insist c is correct. And you continuously list scholars that support b as if they support you. That is wrong.

C can easily be shown to be wrong. For instance, Justin says the spirit said "this day have I begotten you" at the baptism, but no modern gospel says that. And Justin repeats that claim 3 times. And yet somehow, you insist that he is quoting the same gospel as the modern gospel, and ignore the evidence.

Also, they had to have been well known before 180 for Tatian to have written a harmonization of them in 172 AD called Diatessaron. In addition there are other texts from before 150 AD that contain quotes or stories from all four gospels, the Gospel of Peter and the Egerton Gospel. And the Gospel of Truth which dates to 140 AD quotes from 3 of the gospels. This plainly refutes your contention about the gospels not being known prior to 180 AD.

None of this has anything to do with what I say. I have repeatedly told you about the many gospel variations out there. I have never claimed the gospels were not known by 180 AD. You simply made up something I am not saying and pretend to be defeating it.

Sad tactic, that.

Anyone with a good knowledge can see the suffering and humiliation of Christ as recorded in the gospels intertwined in his commentary on Isaiah.

That is not the point. The point is that Clement's source is clearly Isaiah, not Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

I am not an Aramaic scholar but they say that Aramaic terms are used like Cephas and "the Twelve". And the linguistic structure points to Aramaic. Languages can change a lot in 20 years, ask any linguist.

We have been through this before. Paul uses the word "Cephas" many places as his preferred name for Peter. If the presence of Cephas proves a verse is an ancient hymn, are all those verses ancient hymns? You refuse to answer, and pretend I never responded.

You still have not provided any evidence that the oldest copies of Luke all use that verse.

I have provided two sources. Justin clearly is quoting something different from the four gospels. And Ehrman details this in his books, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture and Misquoting Scripture. By the way, the first book is a boring book for scholars, and is not the best place to start. The second book is written for a wide audience, and was on the New York Times Bestseller list. That is a much better place to start.

But even if they did, different eyewitnesses hear and notice different things. God may have said all those things that are quoted in Matthew Mark and Luke. Just the source that Luke used only remembered that statement.

That is not the point. The point is that many early surviving copies of Luke have a different sentence here compared to modern copies.

I am not saying that that reading is definitely wrong. I notice that Justin actually uses my interpretation of the verse, thanks for confirming that my interpretation may be correct even if God actually did say that. And that it does not contradict the other words from God at the baptism.

I am not asking you what interpretation Justin had. The point is that Justin quotes the text 3 times as saying something different from the modern text.

Because it is inspired by the Christian God whom we can quite easily demonstrate most likely exists.

Now that would be a good topic for a thread. Perhaps we can take it up some time.

And The Christian God cannot contradict Himself.

Then he must not have written the Bible, where one book says the disciples did not leave Jerusalem before Pentecost and another says they did, or where one book say the women saw a man at the grave who announced the resurrection, and another says they say two men, and another says they saw an angel who told them this.

No, I provided evidence earlier that show that Acts is at the least as accurate history as Herodotus if not more given its closer date to the actual events.

No you did not. You mentioned that Acts mentions some historical facts. That does not make the book historical. You have given not one piece of evidence that the stories it tells about Paul or the disciples are historical.

I explained this earlier. The voice at the baptism is the Voice of God, an omnipotent being. God does not need a larynx. Only human spirits need a larynx to speak. That is what the human body is for, to enable the human spirit to interact with the physical universe.

Your Jesus is not God? If God can speak without an larynx, how could it not be that Jesus could speak without a larynx? And yet you find the claim that Jesus spoke as proof that he had a larynx, but do not accept the claim that God spoke as proof that he had a larynx. This sounds like special pleading to me.

 

[Ed1wolf]

Ed1wolf said: ↑
I dealt with all of this earlier so will not rehash it here. There is no evidence of any other significant edits to the story as I stated earlier.

dm: But you have shown no evidence that there were no changes before 150 AD. Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada. And yet, with zero evidence, you proudly proclaim that you are right. Why?

If you can provide evidence of any significant changes prior to 150 AD then provide them.

dm: The later Orthodox said a man named Marcion changed the scriptures to match his perverted beliefs. But then, when you read Marcion, he says it was the Orthodox who changed the scriptures, and all he was doing was setting it back to the original. Who was telling the truth? How can you possibly know?

Because the gospels were written 70-90 years before Marcion lived and he rejected all except Luke. He also rejected large parts of Pauls letters. All of those texts were considered scripture long before Marcion and rejected large parts of scripture so he plainly could not be setting it back to the original.

dm: It used to be that all we knew about the gnostics was what the Orthodox told us. They told us the Gnostics had perverted the scriptures. But then we found Gnostic writings at Nag Hammadi, and guess what, their writings are reasonable, and they say the Orthodox are the one who changed the scriptures. Who is telling the truth? How can you possibly know?

Or maybe everybody was changing the scriptures.

Since almost all the gnostic writings are much later then they are much more likely to be historically inaccurate so they should be rejected. And there is no evidence that any of them were written by the apostles or their close associates which also greatly diminishes their historical accuracy.

ed: Revelation 22:18-19 that any book written by an apostle or his associate was considered scripture. And both of those books were written before 100 AD. And any changes made to them were a sin.

dm: 2 Peter? That is universally believed by critical scholars to be written in the second century. See 2 Peter . And lists of NT books do not include 2 Peter until late, so it was probably not even widely known until the 3rd century. That books hardly can be an authority about the views of the first century.

Many scholars disagree. There is evidence it was written by the apostle Peter, though I admit it is not as strong as First Peter and other NT letters.

dm: And the threat in Revelation against those who altered the words? That is similar to threats found in other books. That is hardly proof that the book was not altered. Rather it is proof that everybody knew books were being altered. That is why they added threats in the hopes it will discourage the rampant editing, intentional or unintentional, that was going on.

Nevertheless for devout Christians, such a threat from the apostle John using words inspired from God held great weight and would prevent most from ever doing such a thing.

ed: No, he made no major changes to affect the gospel message.

dm: What I said is that Matthew made significant changes. Matthew started with Mark and made significant changes.

Matthew made no changes to Marks message by adding his own experiences to Mark's.

 

[mark kennedy]

Once more, here is my point about the gospels. Nobody knows what the earliest gospels looked like. We have virtually nothing surviving before the middle of the second century. The Christian writings up until the middle of the second century gives us little in terms of firm quotes of the gospels. We do know that books with substantial changes were made. The modern Matthew, the Gospel of the Ebionites, and the Gospel of the Nazerenes all appear to be based on a complete edit of the original Mark. Mark itself did not have the ending it now has, and was copied down in other versions including Secret Mark. Many other gospels were written, each appearing to be variations of the original Mark or earlier variations of Mark. In light of all of that editing, I don't think we can be certain that any surviving gospels after the middle of the second century match the originals. All of that is fairly non-controversial, but for some reason you insist on arguing against it, with no evidence.

Hang on, I'd like to jump in here for this one. Indeed Mark has a questionable ending, not a lot, but there are a couple of passages like that in the New Testament. That doesn't mean we don't know what the originals (autographs) looked like, we have 30,000 extant manuscripts to do not diverge in any significant way. The New Testament was preserved in a lot the same way as the Old Testament, in fact most manuscripts have a word count with them. That's so you could go through and make sure you didn't add or subtract anything. We have very few manuscripts from the first century, a few fragments but that's not surprising since the church was meetings in homes, parchments was highly perishable and the scrolls were probably read and copied to pieces.

After about 140 AD, changes continue to be made, but at a slower rate. Here we can view the changes better, because we have better documentary evidence. Over 200,000 changes have been found in the existing manuscripts.

A pretty typical claim, rather easy to dismiss:

It should be mentioned, however, that the 200,000 textual variants contained in the NT, "represent only 10,000 places in the New Testament. If one single word is misspelled in 3000 manuscripts, this is counted [by Biblical scholars] as 3,000 variants" (Geisler, 1986, p361). For instance, the word "Deid," which we know is "Died" could have appeared in over 3000 manuscripts, which would thus account for 3000 variants out of a total of 200,000 variants. Norman Geisler stated that "Textual scholars Westcott and Hort estimated that only one in sixty of these variants has significance. This would leave a text 98.3% percent pure." This means that out of the total number of variants within the New Testament, the text is 99% accurate and clean from any major doctrinal errors. (The Historical Reliability of the New Testament)
​

By and large people have no idea how the New Testament was written, or the Old Testament for that matter. The church would get a copy of a letter from Paul and later other epistles and the gospels, they would make a nearly exact copy and did that for centuries before professional clerics had the means to collect large numbers of scrolls. Text variation is negligible and certainly they didn't accumulate over time. When the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered the oldest copy of the Masoretic Text (Hebrew Old Testament) was from the tenth century AD. When they finally got around to disclosing what was discovered from the finds it turns out the only differences were normal, negligible text variation after a thousand years.

By the Middle Ages professional scribes were in control, and used a much higher standard of copying. But that was not true in the early days.

Which is simply not true. John Mark who wrote Mark was a Levite, so was Barnabas and apparently they knew something about how sacred texts were preserved. The early church was Jewish and just as the Jews like having copies of the Law and Prophets on hand the early churches collected scrolls the represented the Apostolic witness.

So we simply do not know what was changed before the third century. You have given us nothing to argue against it, other than to say you disagree.

We didn't have an agreed on canon until the third century but when it was finally decided it was unanimous and the entire church from Syria to Rome was represented. Actually we have no evidence of any changes or alterations other then normal text variation.

My other point is that, before 180 AD, I don't think anybody quotes enough of a gospel with a name attached to it that we can say a particular gospel was written by a particular author. Again you go through endless slight of hand to pretend you address this, but so far you have found no hard facts that dispute this claim.

They usually identify themselves, church tradition was uniform on the subject until about 150 years ago with the rise of modernist naturalistic assumptions dominating all academics.

No you did not. You mentioned that Acts mentions some historical facts. That does not make the book historical. You have given not one piece of evidence that the stories it tells about Paul or the disciples are historical.

The Scriptures are primary source evidence, my opinion after years of study is that the historicity of Scripture has a highly credible written record that is incomparable to anything from antiquity. There is nothing else like it, it's a living witness since it's been in the custody of living people it's entire history. Simon Greenleaf wrote a short book on the historicity of the New Testament offering tests used to weigh the truthfulness of testimony used in municipal courts in his day. He was uniquely qualified to do this kind of work since he literally wrote the book on evidence and was one of the founders of the Harvard Law School where he served as Dean. These where the criteria:

• Every document, apparently ancient, coming from the proper repository or custody, and bearing on its face no evident marks of forger, the law presumes to be genuine, and devolves on the opposing party the burden of proving it to be otherwise.
• In matters of public and general interest, all persons must be presumed to be conversant, on the principle that individuals are presumed to be conversant with their own affairs.
• In trials of fact, by oral testimony, the proper inquiry is not whether is it possible that the testimony may be false, but whether there is sufficient probability that it is true.
• In proceeding to weigh the evidence of any proposition of fact, the previous question to be determined is, when may it be said to be proved? The answer to this question is furnished by another rule of municipal law, which may be thus stated: A proposition of fact is proved, when its truth is established by competent and satisfactory evidence.
• The credit due to the testimony of witnesses depends upon, firstly, their honesty; secondly, their ability; thirdly, their number and the consistency of their testimony; fourthly, the conformity of their testimony with experience; and fifthly, the coincidence of their testimony with collateral circumstances. Let the evangelists be tried by these tests. (Greenleaf, Testimony of the Evangelists)

I have no problem pursuing actual evidence, so lets look at the evidence.

The rest is just too bizarre to deal with right now.

Have a nice day
Mark