I already did, I am saying I would reject such claims and look for verification if someone on the street today was claiming the exact same thing.
Variant, we are not talking about what someone on the street is claiming. We are talking about what the New Testament documents contain. These are two very different subjects.
So once again, you have failed to provide an argument or give good reason(s) as to why historians should reject the reliability of the New Testament documents. What some hypothetical person off the street would or would not tell you with our without independent verification is simply immaterial to the issue.
The truth of the matter is the point here though before we go about organizing our lives around basic principles that other people claim.
We should base our lives around the truth, regardless of how we receive and from whom receive it.
People historically have a nasty habit of making up religions based upon sketchy and unverifiable info.
Variant, even if I grant what you say is true, how does that demonstrate that the New Testament documents are not reliable accounts of Jesus' life?
These are all red herrings because you are bringing up issues that are not pertinent to my challenge to you.
It seems to me that you are implying that historically, people have a nasty habit of making up religions based upon sketchy and unverifiable info (this statement in itself unverified and arguably false) and that therefore, Christianity necessarily is also based on sketchy and unverifiable info.
But that is a genetic fallacy. It simply does not follow. Even if every other religion was in fact founded that way, it does not follow that Christianity was also founded that way.
The accounts of what Jesus said and did are of course suspect for the reason that they claim all sorts of things that are practically unbelievable.
A miracle by definition is going to be extraordinary and supernatural. It would not be a miracle if it was not. I also would argue that instead of being "suspect" as you put it, that they should be viewed as events for which there must be a cause. Like any other effect. Treat them no differently. If someone you know has been dead for several days and their body has started decomposing, and then the next time you see them they are alive and walking around, you need to understand that there is a reason for this. People who are dead and rotting don't just come back to life on their own. Dead tissue does not regenerate itself. There must be an explanation for this.
The writers are suspect in and of the fact that I don't really even know who they are in the first place.
Taking this view, every historian and biographer who has ever written anything about any other person in history must also be suspect because you do not know them either.
So what you never met the writers of the New Testament or know them personally. Does that mean that the New Testament is therefore necessarily unreliable? I'm willing to say that you have never met or known the biographers or Julius Caesar, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon, Alexander the Great etc. etc. Are we to say that these men never existed, or that the records of their lives written by those closest to them are to be disregarded?
I can say nothing really of their motivations or their intentions, who they were or what they were doing when the wrote such tales.
Can you say anything regarding the motivations and intentions of the men and women who knew George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, King James, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra etc. etc. that wrote about their lives and major milestones?
No. Do you disregard those people as not having existed, or not being who their closest companions and biographers recorded them as being?
And again, if an eye witness to the events told me in person I would not believe such things unless I could go see them for myself.
You can go to Jerusalem today. You can walk the Via Dolorosa. You can do a number of things. Can you see Jesus being crucified? No, because that is a non-repeatable event. You cannot go back in time to see these events take place. But seeing them actually happen is not a necessary requirement in taking the New Testament accounts as accurate and trustworthy.
They aren't reliable in the exact same way as a person telling me the same thing on the street is unreliable.
We are not talking about people on the street telling us something. We are talking about the New Testament documents.
If someone would have told me of Jesus during that time I would have asked to go see him and witness it for myself.
As many people did. Some saw and believed, many did not. The scriptures tell us why they did not believe by the way....
Which means that like me other people would have too. But, of course we all know that these things were written down and distributed about the man mainly after his death and supposed resurrection.
That is correct.
I can't dub religious writings with my credulity based upon claims I have not way to verify and have never, ever experienced anything like.
You judge the New Testament the way you would judge any other ancient text. You look at it, you study it. You read it. You consult those knowledgeable in this arena. See how many manuscripts are in existence. How old are they, etc. etc.
If that is how God acts with regard to his creation.
Then why can't your God make a display for me? Kind of goes to the heart of this thread don't you think?
God can spend years convincing other people directly but I get to argue over 2000 year old stories?
Jesus worked many miracles, signs, and wonders in front of many people. Many of these people were the same ones crying: "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" at his mock trial. If God existed and wanted to make Himself known, He would do so in a way that everyone would have access to, not just you. The Bible has been translated into more languages and dialects than any other piece of literature. Billions have read it, learned from it, received strength and encouragement from it, had their lives changed by it.
Jesus died once. He will die no more. This was a non-repeatable event, and like you, everyone alive today has not seen Jesus die or rise from the dead. But there is sufficient evidence to place us well within our epistemic right to say that Jesus did all the things that He is recorded as having done.
Jesus said that if anyone was
willing to do His will, then they would know whether or not the things He was saying were true.
OK, then why do you think a recording of such a supposed occurrence is credible?
Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability|Accuracy of the New Testament | Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
I have indeed been through the work on the subject.
The contemporary history of Jesus barely actually tells us that there was a guy named Jesus, and much of it is questionable. You have to go to the Gospels proper to get the claims attributed to him.
Well the Gospels or the many various other apocryphal works that say Jesus said A or B or C.
None of which were written at the same time Jesus was alive.
I can see you've been "through" some of the work on the subject. However, I would recommend instead of going "through" the work, you come to it, "stop" and read it and understand it.
If one accepted the entire story of Jesus as told by the four canonical gospels truthful you would already be a believer.
Some people saw Jesus alive after His passion and still did not believe. Trust me, what you say simply is not necessarily true.
These people do believe though, thus I call them believers.
Then you use the term differently than I do.
