dating mss.

[archaeologist2]

do not know if this has been talked about so here goes:

one of the favorite tacticsused by atheists, deists, gnostics and other unbelievers is the idea that Christ was a copy of earlier 'messianic' or 'cultic' leaders.

they point to the similarities between the cultic writingas and the writings of the apostles and say 'see, you guys copied to create your own powerful figure head'

two places this arument falls short, these will just be brief blurbs with detail scoming later if people are interested:

1. there was no need for the apostles or biblical writers to copy. there is no proof of them doing any such thing plus to steal from others would automatically disqualify the Bible from being scriptures for the authors would have contradicted their own teachings.

2. ALL ancient mss. that pertain to plato, zoastorism, gnosticism and many other cultic beliefs are dated to hundreds of years AFTER their supposed authorship and no less than 100 years AFTER the 1st century.

which means that the followers of those false beliefs saw the popularity of the gospels, of Christianity and made changes to their works to be more attractive to the people.

this argument against Christ and the disciples is actually very weak and the documenttion does not support it in any way. Dr. Bart Ehrman has made a career of saying that we do not have the original mss. for the Bible and thus rejects christianity.

his problem is, we do not have the original mss. of all ancient secular authors and most survive in the works of others via quotes or allusions referals etc. yet He and other secular scholars readily accept the authorship of these secular writers without complaint or investigation or putting the works through the same criteria as they do the Bible.

this double standard undermines Erhman's and others complaint and argument and shows the lengths evil will go to get people away from God.

 

[MrPolo]

In addition to that, who says there isn't a degree of truth in some of the old myths. God has been active in the hearts of men for centuries upon centuries. There always seems to be the concept of a single highest deity, even among polytheistic societies. There are glimpses and images of God throughout time. Of course, the atheist is silly to say Jesus is "based" on some of these concepts, since of course He existed from the beginning. Plus there is nothing like Christianity with its numerous witnesses, unprecedented spread across nations, the fulfillment of prophecies already written, etc...

 

[Dale]

Archaeologist2:
"1. there was no need for the apostles or biblical writers to copy. there is no proof of them doing any such thing plus to steal from others would automatically disqualify the Bible from being scriptures for the authors would have contradicted their own teachings."

Wouldn't it be true to say that the Gospel authors were not well educated, with the possible exception of Luke? If the Gospel authors were not familiar with written sources, they would not be influenced by them.

As I remember, there was some controversy about whether Paul was influenced by Greek philosophy. The experts decided that there is no evidence that Paul knew much about it.

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[Adrift*]

Archaeologist2:
"1. there was no need for the apostles or biblical writers to copy. there is no proof of them doing any such thing plus to steal from others would automatically disqualify the Bible from being scriptures for the authors would have contradicted their own teachings."

Wouldn't it be true to say that the Gospel authors were not well educated, with the possible exception of Luke? If the Gospel authors were not familiar with written sources, they would not be influenced by them.

As I remember, there was some controversy about whether Paul was influenced by Greek philosophy. The experts decided that there is no evidence that Paul knew much about it.

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I don't know that these guys were uneducated. First of all, not everyone could afford or had the ability to write like these folks did. I mean, it's not like today where you can buy a ream of paper, throw it into a printer and sit down at your computer, or even jot down notes in a legal pad. Writing out the Gospels and Epistles would have been pretty expensive and time consuming. The material was expensive, and you either had to be educated enough to read and write or have someone scribe it out for you. You didn't write everything down in a little notebook, but had to lay out the scroll on a table and begin writing that way.

Besides, there are the traditional backgrounds of the authors of the NT that speak well for them (educationally at least). Matthew a tax collector, Luke the physician, and I'd argue that Paul was highly educated (studied under Gamaliel) and probably was wise to much Greek philosophy (was a Roman citizen and preached the Gosepl with the Athenians at Mars Hill).

To the original post though, I'd like to say a couple things. Even though it's an appeal to authority, on the whole, the majority of Biblical scholars, even those who are extremely liberal, believe that Jesus truly did exist. Now whether or not they believe in the miraculous claims of the Gospels is another story, but at least that gives the apologist some breathing room to work with. Second of all, the advice I always hear (I think last I heard it was from an online audio segment from apologist Gary Habermas), and I think its wise advice as I've seen it work every single time, is to ask for first hand sources for these claims of copycat-isms. 95% of the time you'll hear the other party say something like "well I watched it in a video and they said..." or "well so and so said in this book....", but keep pushing for the first hand source. What you'll see if they can produce the source is that the original claim post dates the founding of Christianity (who's the copycat then?) or the similiarities are extremely vague to non-existant.

You get a lot of dying and rising messiah stories from folks who don't seem to understand that Jesus isn't a harvest god. Or ridiculous virgin birth stories (Zeus lustfully turning himself into a golden shower or Mithra being carved out of a rock...).