Gospels are eyewitness accounts

ananda said:

I suppose I expect much, much more than just "better than"!

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Well, there is much, much, more. But you don't accept what that is, so there you are.

I'm under no obligation to convince you.

RDKirk said:

Well, there is much, much, more. But you don't accept what that is, so there you are.

I'm under no obligation to convince you.

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I accept it for what it is, but it's still not enough for me.

mindlight said:

The disciples and thousands of others witnessed extraordinary events and the actual person of Jesus. Over many years they shared the message of what they had seen perfecting the way in which they communicated this while being honest to what they were actually direct witnesses to. When they wrote these reflections and witness statements down there were still living witnesses around to what had been said including many of the disciples who could check the record and affirm it. The church including these living witnesses came to affirm the 4 gospels as the best accounts of Jesus life.

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Are there any living witnesses today?

Of the four Gospel texts, only John claims anything resembling eyewitness testimony. In that it presents itself as being written by "the disciple whom Jesus loved".

All four Gospel texts are, however, anonymous. Early tradition ascribes the four names associated with them. While the writings of Papias are lost to us, fragmentary form of some of them are preserved in the writings of later writers, such as Eusebius. Papias via Eusebius gives us possibly the earliest name associations with the four Gospels. Irenaeus tells us that Papias was "a hearer of John and a friend of Polycarp", of course the question of which John is meant is complex. At least two Johns of note are known from the earliest centuries: John the Apostle and John the Presbyter. In some cases these two are conflated to be one and the same person, making things more complicated. Irenaeus probably IIRC means John the Presbyter, rather than the Apostle. Though Papias is, along with Polycarp of Smyrna and Ignatius of Antioch among the most important second generation Christians providing a link between the apostolic period and the subapostolic period (others are important as well, such as Clement of Rome).

That the Gospel texts aren't eyewitness testimony seems irrelevant; that isn't their purpose. Their purpose is the writing down of the Gospel narrative for preservation and use within the Christian community; and their recognition as Sacred Scripture is well accepted by the mid-to-late 2nd century. By which is meant that they are included in the cycle of readings in the Christian liturgy.

-CryptoLutheran

mindlight said:

In a recent discussion an atheist raised the view that a great many modern scholars do not consider the gospels to be eyewitness testimony.

In the words of bhsmte:

"The gospels, don't claim to be eye witness accounts and they were penned by anonymous authors, decades after the supposed events they describe."

Jane_the_Bane said:

"As to the historicity of Jesus: the gospels, as religious literature written by fervent believers decades after the fact, are as unreliable a source as Mormon accounts of Joseph Smith's supposed miraculous abilities in translating golden tablets with a seeing stone (just to mention a single example)."

The settled view of the church and the one which accompanied the choosing of the canon was that the authority of these documents rests on the fact that they were direct apostolic testimony to Jesus. So this is quite a serious accusation.

Are the gospels eyewitness testimonies to the life of Jesus?

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"The Gospels" are generally writ in 3rd person, so no to answer you, no one knows who actually wrote what.

You have an infusion of Greek cultural belief systems and writings from unknown "apostles", it is hard to determine if any writing in the NT itself can be authenticated.

The documentary "Case for Christ" fails in this as well, generally there are not as much Papyrus as first thought by fundamental Christian scholars. As well, I think the author makes a case "for Christ" in that he is stunned by how crucifixion works, however, crucifixion isn't a minor event in early Roman times, it is a common practice. Check out Inaros II, 454 BC. and his crucifixion, he was impaled or crucified, but there have been many more bloody crucifixions. Jesus being crucified is only popularized by the church, that being said I don't put any more validity in the crucifixion of Jesus than I would Dumuzid or Tammuz (means month of July in Aramaic).

So my question, what makes you put so much emphasis on the writings of NT versus any other legends, epics, etc?

My only clue is that for you, having a popular Christian faith and "personal relationship" makes it seem all the while better.

I'm a polytheist so I have a personal relationship with my many Gods, key word being "personal relationship".

mindlight said:

The disciples and thousands of others witnessed extraordinary events and the actual person of Jesus. Over many years they shared the message of what they had seen perfecting the way in which they communicated this while being honest to what they were actually direct witnesses to. When they wrote these reflections and witness statements down there were still living witnesses around to what had been said including many of the disciples who could check the record and affirm it. The church including these living witnesses came to affirm the 4 gospels as the best accounts of Jesus life.

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Too bad those thousands didn’t record what they witnessed, and those that “did” were not included in the final version of the Bible. In fact, more books were rejected, than were included in the Bible.

mindlight said:

The gospels are written in the style of testimony, naming the various eyewitnesses that could confirm their accounts and providing enough textual evidence to affirm the traditional authors of each. It was not the custom for a man of truth to blow his own trumpet. It was also the tradition of the day when it came to testimony to talk in this style.

John 8:13
13 The Pharisees challenged him, "Here you are, appearing as your own witness; your testimony is not valid"

John 7:18
18 Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.

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I guess you are confusing what I am asserting. Generally, the gospels cannot be verified, however, that being said, if a Jesus did exist he is an amalgamation of earlier epics, legends, myths, etc as are many other Bible characters. We find in Luke 8:25 Jesus operates the same way as a storm God, but we see Ba'al and Yahweh in the Old Testament are as well storm Gods. Hence, we see evidences that the New Testament is an extant of the Old Testament, it is a reproduction of it or an amalgamation. That being said, many other texts such as the Epic of Gilgamesh are written to reflect events and the claim is that these events happened, but in order to validate those claims we would need as well extra Biblical evidences or evidences outside of the claim itself, which I am unaware of anyone having. Hence, please prove one over the other and my conclusion is that you cannot do that at all. This is why posting Bible verses oft fails.

mindlight said:

The level of proof here is unparalleled. Fragments go back to within 30-50 years of the actual writing, their are early quotes from various church fathers, more substantially the church itself has affirmed the testimony as authentic from the beginning. The text itself provides built in evidence of this concern for authenticity and direct eyewitness testimony to the person of Jesus and the events described.

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There is no "level of proof", Biblical papyrus is not evidence of anything, other than the fact that a Bible exists, it doesn't prove anything beyond that, bringing me back to my point of "no extra Biblical evidences per se".

mindlight said:

Also in practice the Hebrew influence is perhaps more significant even if most of the gospels were written in the dominant cultural language of the day - Greek.

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The Jews are popularized that is for sure, and I don't disagree that Jewish influence was due to a popularization, so we will see an attempt in the gospels to polarize Jewish and Greek aforethought, but this isn't easily done.

mindlight said:

The number of named witnesses, the number of manuscripts and their closeness to the time by comparison with other religious literature, the ways in which circumstantial details, context, even the prevalence of certain names is born out and the existence of key characters can be affirmed.

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Which literature are you referring to?

mindlight said:

The credibility and trustworthiness of the message and the witnesses to that message. Integrity and honesty are after all the whole point here. The price many of the early witnesses paid for their commitment. Also I have read many of these other books and found them disappointing, incredible and even soiled by comparison.

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A claim is a claim, please substantiate that claim. Please show extra Biblical evidences for this.

mindlight said:

I doubt you have a personal relationship with any God and the gods you worship are not Divine.

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Once again my claim is that I have a personal relationship with whatever I choose to worship, please prove me otherwise. This is like me telling you that I have a red car, and you tell me "no" your car is blue. Divinity is a topic that long surpasses any Biblical epics, divinity is seen firstly in early Sumer and throughout Babylon as well in Canaan and other cultural settings. I assure you that divinity is not exclusively a Biblical topic.

mindlight said:

My God demonstrated he was real in the person of Jesus Christ in history. The testimony to this man-God is unparalleled compared to any other pretender who are mythological by comparison.

Yes I have a living relationship with a Person who has made us possible to know Him by the gift of his Spirit, the gift of scriptural testimony to Him and the historical testimony of the church he has founded.

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Your "God" demonstrated that he was imagined by the early Christian Church, that is about it. It seems you don't really understand or comprehend how the term "myth" is used religiously. The simplest way to say this is that myths generally surround events that have happened, but the myth itself is an explanation popularizing the event adding irrelevant elements to the event, this happens with the myth hero Jesus.

mindlight said:

The existence of an historical person called Jesus is not really in doubt by any serious minded scholar.

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Personally, I don't care whether Jesus' existed or not, but you should be aware of current attitudes.

A growing number of scholars are questioning the historical existence of Jesus
Historians are questioning if Jesus ever existed at all

Historians are questioning if Jesus ever existed at all

HitchSlap said:

Personally, I don't care whether Jesus' existed or not, but you should be aware of current attitudes.

A growing number of scholars are questioning the historical existence of Jesus
Historians are questioning if Jesus ever existed at all

Historians are questioning if Jesus ever existed at all

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One of your links, however, stills states this as the bottom line:

"Most historians believe a real person existed and became mythicized. "

mindlight said:

The existence of an historical person called Jesus is not really in doubt by any serious minded scholar.

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Not actually true at all, there is disagreement among secular scholars.

mindlight said:

Not only is there the testimony of the church here but also a mass of non religious commentary and also hateful reaction by those who do not like what he stands for.

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Such as and who? What extra Biblical evidences do you have? The church, okay so that is essentially going to be based on Biblical claims, that isn't extra Biblical at all.

mindlight said:

You use a comparative religious approach here claiming that because alternate accounts exist and sometimes chronological prior accounts of certain types of miracle or narrative then the Christian account must be fabricated from these. But given the comparatively poor level of proof for the texts you cite this seems rather fanciful and also the key difference here is between testimony to something witnessed and fabricated narratives with no basis in history.

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The very fact that the same type of epic in the epic of Sodom and Gomorrah are seen and paralleled in the book of Kings, is evidences itself of Biblical parallelism within the confines of the Bible. But, you fall short on this, because even the Babylonian epics aren't exact to Sumerian epics. The God Tammuz is equated for example differently in Aramic writings than Babylonians writings and isn't even a subject in Sumer, because the God Dumuzid (whose symbol is a cross) is the savior in Sumer. There have a been a whole hosts of saviors, with each story differing in each culture, but the ideology of a savior has always existed, hence, the savior and myth hero Jesus doesn't really weigh heavily on anything but Biblical mythologies.

mindlight said:

Abrahams leaving of Iraq before the writing of the Epic of Gilgamesh is for example in part explained by the degeneration of the quality of witness to true events that the Epic encapsulates.

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If Abraham did exist, he wouldn't leave Iraq until about 1800 BCE, the epic of Bilgames (later called "epic of Gilgamesh" in Babylonian) is ascribed in Cuneiform about 4000 BCE. You have your time lines wrong here.

mindlight said:

Given the quality of the bible witness we do not actually need any more witnesses. Your claim here is like ignoring the testimony of the person standing right next to what happened in favor of someone a thousand miles away with a Professorship in a top university. Just cause the second has some credibility in an academic sense does not make him an authoritative witness at all. Most of those who actually saw what happened ended up believing or refusing to talk about it. But there are also extra witnesses in Josephus, archaeology, various Roman writers etc

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The quality of witnesses? That is vague and overboard. Josephus as I know has been dismissed by many scholars, I suggest you research it. What extra Biblical archeological findings prove your claim, please be specific. What person standing right next to me making a claim? The Bible, if I relied on that itself, that would be circular in nature.

mindlight said:

Fragments are evidence in that they affirm that what was said was said close to the event and its broad testimony has not been changed. Thus the bible has fragments going back to a generations distance from the writing of the accounts and fragments are geographically dispersed across sometimes antagonistic denominations indicating that it was broadly accepted and can be trusted. The difference of authenticity and authority between fabricated Hindu or Muslim accounts and the bible is therefore made very clear by the sheer volume and geographical distribution of fragments. These fragments are further endorsed by circumstantial historical evidence, archaeology, the names in the accounts match those in general use on graves in Palestine in that time period etc They are quoted in a wider body of literature by church fathers further indicating that the record we have is broadly what was given.

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The Bible is a collection of writings, so fragments that make up the Bible are essentially the Bible itself, meaning....circular. I have a collection of writings that claim I am God and because no one else has these writings, my collection of writings must be true. Joseph Smith does this same thing with LDS or Mormonism, it is only a claim and that is all it can be. Even if you add the word 'divine' it only still remains a claim, and can't be proved otherwise unless it can be substantiated. Even if (and in this case this is true) the church popularized those fragments; modernly we see those fragments into the Biblical account, that isn't proof, all that is, is fragments of translated writing. How does that make anything true?

mindlight said:

Not sure I get your point here nor how it effects the eyewitness quality of the accounts.

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Judaism is popularized because it's culture survived, and we have Indo-Euro influence here. But, just like when the myth hero Moses cannot see Yahweh, Moses has to look at Yahweh from behind as he passes. The same happens with Zeus and the girl who couldn't look at his lightning bolts or she would perish. The epics are the same, only the characters change.

mindlight said:

The Quran or any Hindu text are not credible by comparison for instance. But you would probably need to start a new thread affirming the historical authenticity of your chosen text to argue that one. I have argued the Quran to some extent on these forums. But I have never met a Hindu who would seriously defend the historical credibility of ANY Hindu text and any kind of real connection to the events described in them with anything except blind faith

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Islam is an Abrahamic based religion, just like it's sister religion Christianity. They are both Monotheistic religions with Henotheistic overtones, and there is really no "authenticity" to be shown, we see each text coming from its adaptation from each religious ideology. The Koran being loosely based on the Bible, the Bible being loosely based on Judaic text. You would have to prove that the Tanach and KJV have different concepts entirely in order to refute this and you cannot do it I assure you.

mindlight said:

You seem to have missed the point I was making which was to do with the credibility of described witnesses in various religious texts and the historical credibility of these witnesses (many of who died for their faith). Again the bible and church tradition are the most credible sources here but for example the account of James the brother of Jesus death in Josephus is pretty much uncontroversial.

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What credibility? You have no extra Biblical evidences. Regardless of this I already stated personally I think there may have been a Jesus, but he is an amalgamation of older epics. Jesus is only popularized, this doesn't make any claim relating to Jesus "true" it only makes it popular.

mindlight said:

No this is more like – there is only one car in the parking lot yet you claim to know another car of a different color that is also parked in the parking lot.

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This is actually incorrect, I am stating that I have a personal relationship with my Gods (my car is red) you are stating I do not (you would then be stating my car is blue). A claim is a claim is a claim, we aren't going beyond the claim itself. If you want to make a further statement "your car doesn't exist", that is also fine. But in the same way an atheist can make that statement to you "your car doesn't exist". This is called 'pot calling the kettler black', it makes no sense.

mindlight said:

Saying it is there does not change the fact that it is not. You can describe the car in infinite detail and your experiences in driving it also. But if it does not exist in the literal historical location you suggest these are just words. Similarly you can quote other less well authenticated religious texts and then compare them to scripture but miss the point that these texts cannot be taken as seriously for a whole host of reasons.

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This goes back to claims, you claim Jesus is this and that, but there is no extra Biblical evidences for this, not any that can be substantiated.
Authentication by Church whether it be the Catholic or Christian dogmatic faiths is essentially biased. In the same way if an atheist states that humans evolved from apes, you could state that the atheist is biased because that is what they belief and the science doesn't "prove that" and I'm sure they would have a differing conclusion.
That is like me asking a baptist pastor if I'm going to Heaven, when the pastor says if you are not a Christian then you will be on your way to Hell. The assumption is that the Baptist pastor is correct, because the pastor is a Christian and believes such. However, the issue is, because it is a Baptist pastor who believes in Heaven and Hell I am getting a biased answer to my question.

mindlight said:

The gospel accounts are not written in a mythical style valued for their spiritual explanatory power or the quality of the composition of their literary frameworks. They are descriptions of actual events with great care taken to be honest and authentic reports. They include for example the objections voiced by those who witnessed the same events in antagonistic ways. They were written by the people who saw the things described or who collected such first hand reports. People can then draw all sorts of meaning and explanations for life the universe and everything from these accounts. But they are not pregnant metaphors hanging in a blue sky. They connect to real people and events and their credibility is enhanced by that connection.

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Please define "mythical style", and please define which processes were used to substantiate those Papyri.

There are descriptions from Egypt and the Hittite's of a peace treaty in 1213 BCE, this isn't stylized in Mythological writings. However, extra evidences such as archaeological digs and writings from the Hittite's (Indo-Euro) and Egyptian (Semitic) writings are agreeable. We don't see extra Biblical evidences confirming "eyewitness" accounts per se. Hence, the credibility factor goes out the window.

RDKirk said:

One of your links, however, stills states this as the bottom line:

"Most historians believe a real person existed and became mythicized. "

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Most likely there was a myth hero Jesus, but he's popularized by the Church, the same is done with the rest of the Bible. But this same phenomenon happens in most culture's, so I'm not surprised.

mindlight said:

Even were it the case that a majority of Western educated historians did not believe Jesus existed the bulk of the worlds population clearly do not endorse that conclusion. But even the Western academic elite do not believe this. Just global Christians and Muslims together are enough to put the burden of proof on the nihilists. But given the overwhelming body of proof for this you would have to completely mistrust any Christian related evidence to come to this conclusion which would be entirely dishonest.

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I think what we're seeing is a modern synthesis of the information we do have, and a more accurate portrayal of the Jesus character is being understood in light of this.

HitchSlap said:

Personally, I don't care whether Jesus' existed or not, but you should be aware of current attitudes.

A growing number of scholars are questioning the historical existence of Jesus
Historians are questioning if Jesus ever existed at all

Historians are questioning if Jesus ever existed at all

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They're citing Bart Ehrman as a historian who questions whether or not Jesus ever existed? He's an outspoken critic of Mythicism, so to equate him with that position is disingenuous to say the least.

Seriously, Richard Carrier stomping his feet a lot does not a "current attitude" make. This is a very poor portrait of what modern biblical scholarship looks like.

mindlight said:

The existence of an historical person called Jesus is not really in doubt by any serious minded scholar.

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That's simply not true, though they are a small minority to be sure.

And, yes, I do mean serious minded scholars.


eudaimonia,

Mark