(Atheist Arguments from History: 2#) The gospels were not eyewitness accounts

theoneandonlypencil said:

I understand, but at the same time Paul also was extremely well-read on the philosophical figures and literature of the places he went to evangelize in; I believe he actually quoted a non-christian figure in one of his epistles? Correct me if I'm wrong, I do not remember which passage that was in.

Besides that, the people in the bible were preaching with divine inspiration; all we have now is a book that's been passed down for so long that people are beginning to question it, so before we can even hope to gain listening ears, we need to make sure we have our facts straight about our whole book.

You can build an entire empire on lies and half-truths, but one contradiction could result in devastating consequences and hurt the trust of those who listen to us beyond repair.

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theoneandonlypencil said:

Oh boy, I have another post here to start a discussion over and it is quite the doozy. Check out my first post to know more about this 'atheist arguments from history' thing;

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"The four gospels in the Bible are not eyewitness accounts. This is the standard understanding, a historical fact, among nearly all New Testament scholars.

The gospels were written anonymously & not by eyewitnesses of Jesus' ministry nor his disciples."

The sooner the church acknowledges this instead of asserting faith over historical fact the sooner we can have rational discussions.
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The four gospels we have now were decided upon mostly by Irenaeus, a bishop of Rome. His reasoning? There were four pillars to the universe and four universal winds so it only makes sense the gods truth is held up by four pillars- four gospels. That’s some solid reasoning.
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The reason he even had to come up with a certain number is that there were DOZENS of gospels being passed around- all of them were heretical, of course, heretical to Irenaeus’ version of orthodox belief, except the four he picked. The winners write the history books. These heretical gospels would be banned only the four they chose would be considered non heretical. These are the four we have today.
He picked these because he assumed they were actually written by the names given to them which occurred roughly 60 years before.
Apparently he did not know the lack of scrutiny that went into their authorship.
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Nearly no NT scholar believes the gospels are actually written by who they claim to be and those reasons are beyond reasonable and, at the very least, impossible to refute with current evidence.
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The story of how we got the gospels we have today is a picture and the remnants of a power struggle, or one well organized movement that dominated another. It is the very example of organized religion stepping on the people and ideas they deem heretical.
These were voices who would be silenced from history forever due to doctrinal differences.
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2k years later, not much has changed. If Jesus was indeed a Holy Man, “his” so-called church destroyed his message by the end of the second century. All in the name of religion and being theologically right- and everyone can, literally, be damned.

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JackRT said:

That is not a belief of mine. I am a Christian and remain so because I love the teachings of Rabbi Yeshua --- not so much the Christ that they have made him to be.

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ChetSinger said:

The elephant-sized answer is: the Olivet Discourse.

When dating any ancient document it's a no-brainer that it had to have been written after the events described in it transpired. For example, every biography of Lincoln was written after he lived, not before.

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ChetSinger said:

I'm a believer and have no problem believing that the gospels were penned by the names attached to them; it's easy because I believe that Jesus prophesied when the gospels say he did.

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PaulCyp1 said:

Irenaeus lived in the 2'nd Century. The bishops of the Catholic Church did not select the 73 texts of the Bible under the guidance of the Holy Spirit until the mid-4'th Century.

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hedrick said:

Of course they’re not eyewitness. Luke tells us that he got his information from other people. Early church tradition says Mark wrote Peter’s teaching. So neither of them were witnesses. It’s not likely that Matthew and a John were either.

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JackRT said:

I understand your point of view completely but there is no way of validating it. So we are in the same boat. The opposite of faith is not doubt --- the opposite is certainty.

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hedrick said:

I don't think they're perfectly accurate though.

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jacks said:

The only importance I can see as to when they were written is to help determine who wrote them. Even then, that to me is only of academic interest. In any case we really have no way of determining when they were written. Only when they were published or disseminated. (For a trite example, I wrote a variety of stories 30+ years ago, but since none are published who would know when they were written. And of course there are examples of modern authors being published decades after their death.) Even if they were written 50 to 100 years after Jesus death, that would change the authorship, but doesn't diminish their accuracy. When we watch a Ken Burns documentary on say the civil war, we don't say that it lacks validly because he wasn't alive then. An argument against the truth of Christianity based on when the gospels were "written" is very weak.

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Tolworth John said:

Strobel interviewed a series of acknowledged experts. His book is a series of reports of his interviews.
For his work to have been shredded would mean solid evidence has need found that demonstrate that Christianity is false.

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nolidad said:

These supposed scholars, over 1800 years removed from the writing, believe they can tell with certainty who wrote the gospels.

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hedrick said:

After looking at a parallel edition of the gospels, not many people will agree with you.

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theoneandonlypencil said:

If people were evil and corrupt all the way up to when Jesus came & died--especially in the name of religion--what makes you think they've changed now and are suddenly pure and spirit-filled?

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klutedavid said:

Side by side, these two accounts are noticeably different.

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JackRT said:

Of the 19 negative references to scribes in Mark, Matthew dropped 7 completely, kept 6 intact and altered 6 so as to remove the negativity. Matthew's community obviously regarded the scribe in higher esteem. Seems fairly obvious that Matthew followed Mark.

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hedrick said:

You need to look at a parallel edition of the whole Gospels to see the similarities and differences. There are too many verbal similarities to think that they're independent.

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Sam81 said:

The reason the same verses are in Matthew is because they happened. Not cause it was copied. It was written under inspiration of the same Holy Spirit, God-breathed. God preserved His Word. See, people need to stop thinking in the natural. If there is no God who involves Himself in the handing down of His Word then it would be different.

The problem is that the scholars who study this stuff come at it already imposing naturalism from the start.

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