Gethsemane - Gospel Disparities

[ironhorse]

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

The Second World War happened only a few decades ago.  Does that mean I should believe every old codger who tells me a war story? 

[ironhorse]

 

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

The Second World War happened only a few decades ago.  Does that mean I should believe every old codger who tells me a war story? 

 

 

 

It might make you think if these 'old codgers' were willing to be beaten, tortured and killed for the story they were telling. 

[mymistake]

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

 

Bullshit.  You don't know who wrote them or when.  You have no originals.  You have no copies made prior to the fourth century.  You have no reason to believe the four gospels in the Bible are any better than the dozens of other gospels about Jesus that were rejected form the Roman book.  You have no evidence that ties the gospels to 55-65 AD.  It's just a hope you have like children believing in Santa Claus.

[mymistake]

 

 

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

The Second World War happened only a few decades ago.  Does that mean I should believe every old codger who tells me a war story? 

 

 

 

It might make you think if these 'old codgers' were willing to be beaten, tortured and killed for the story they were telling. 

 

 

Then the Gnostics must have known the truth about Jesus because Rome beat, tortured and killed them for disagreeing with the Biblical account and Rome's Christianity.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

 

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

The Second World War happened only a few decades ago.  Does that mean I should believe every old codger who tells me a war story? 

 

 

 

It might make you think if these 'old codgers' were willing to be beaten, tortured and killed for the story they were telling. 

 

A lot of those guys were beaten, tortured, and killed for the stories they have to tell.  We know this because historians of the period recorded a lot of the heroic deeds of those brave men.  That wouldn't stop them from embellishing from time to time, though (much like the creators of the christ myth did). 

 

Unfortunately not a single one of the historians of jesus' day bothered to write anything down about his deeds or words.  So even if we accept that the gospels were written just a few decades later, we still have no compelling reason to believe that any of them are true, because when they finally were written, all the "information" was nothing more than decades-old hear-say.  Not to mention that the gospels contain things that no one could have known, like what jesus supposedly prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

[bornagainathiest]

Y'know, I think you guys (Ficino, MM, theProf, srd44) are wasting your time with Ironhorse.

.

.

.

 

If he responds to me about Genesis 1:1, I'll probably be wasting my time with him as well.

I can explain Inflationary theory to him and why this means God cannot have created this universe, taking pages and pages of logical analysis, properly-cited science and using many links to do so.  I can spend a great deal of time and expend a great deal of effort presenting my arguments to him.  Like you guys, I'm certainly prepared to put in the work, but I seriously doubt if he is.

 

His ultra-brief, ultra-minimal replies tell me the following.

They are the absolute bare minimum amount of work he thinks he can put in on this thread and still maintain some kind of token Christian presence here.  So long as he can seen to be responding with something, it doesn't really matter to him if he ignores 99% of what you post.  If he were actually interested in answering even 1% of the many points raised he'd have done so by now - taking a lot more time and a lot more effort than he's put in recently.  He hasn't done that, has he?

.

.

.

But all is not lost! 

.

.

.

While we may well be wasting our time with Ironhorse, other people are reading this thread with interest.  We aren't wasting our time with them.  I'm speaking of the lurkers, the waverers, the recently-deconverted and those considering deconverting from Christianity.

 

For their sakes we should persist and persevere in our highly-asymmetrical dialog with him.  We should raise up a mountain of questions for him, even though we know he'll never bother answering even a tiny fraction of them.  We should carefully and methodically lay out as many Biblical contradictions as we can, even though we know that Ironhorse will fail to address almost all of them.  We should take every opportunity we can to demonstrate to Ironhorse (and those watching) just how committed and energetic we are in the pursuit of truth.  Doing this will powerfully show everyone reading this thread just how little he cares about the truth, how apathetic he is when challenged about his beliefs and how little his God means to him.

 

So, to paraphrase a piece of Christianese... "this is our witness to the deconverting."

.

.

.

 

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

 

To srd44, Ficino, MyMistake and TheRedNeckProf...

 

I salute you guys for the quality of your work, the depth of your research and the coherence of your arguments.   Also your persistence in the face of inexcusable laziness and your perseverance in the face of appalling apathy.  Please continue to show Ironhorse up for what he really is.

 

    

 

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

 

To any lurkers silently observing this thread...

 

Please take careful note of how the Christian Ironhorse has conducted himself in this thread and compare and contrast this with the conduct of the non-Christians.  If you are harbouring doubts about Jesus, God and the Bible, if you are thinking of deconverting or have recently deconverted please ask yourself the following questions.

1. Does it look to you as if the Ironhorse really cares a **** about defending his beliefs?

2. Does it look to you as if he cares much at all about the truth?

3. Does it look to you as if MyMistake, srd44, Ficino and TheProf care about the truth?

Please consider carefully what you've seen displayed in this thread and factor that into whatever decision you make about your allegiance to Christ and Christianity.

Also remember this... "By their fruits you will know them."

 

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

 

To Ironhorse....

 

If you aren't ashamed of yourself by the time you've read this sentence, you certainly should be!  How many souls could you have saved for Christ if you'd hadn't been so lazy in this thread?  Matthew 25 : 14 - 30 seems to have been written just for you!

.

.

.

Nevertheless, it's not too late. 

You can still step up to the plate and redeem yourself by making a proper defense of scripture and the God you claim to love ...by matching Ficino et all, stride of stride and point for point, right here in this thread.

 

Or...

You can reply to me on a point-by-point, stride-for-stride basis in the, 'There is No Justice In the Christian Concept of Heaven and Hell' thread, specifically about the content of posts # 76 and 77.

 

I'll be waiting for you there!

 

 

BAA

 

 

 

[♦ ficino ♦]

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

Once again, I think you are lifting from Christian websites, for the dating of the gospels is an immensely complicated question. All your dates are too early. I, maybe srd44 and others, will go into this question with you if you would like, perhaps best in a separate thread.

 

It might make you think if these 'old codgers' were willing to be beaten, tortured and killed for the story they were telling.

We have no real evidence of this. Tradition has it that Peter and Paul were martyred in Rome, for example, but other traditions put Paul in Spain, and the Peter tradition has no foundation until perhaps the time of Hadrian. See this discussion on another forum:

 

http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=335&p=4879&hilit=zwierlein#p4879

 

You may have heard of Candida Moss' recent book showing that stories of the apostles' martyrdoms are legend, not history:

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Persecution-Christians-Martyrdom/dp/0062104527

[ironhorse]

 

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

 

Bullshit.  You don't know who wrote them or when.  You have no originals.  You have no copies made prior to the fourth century.  You have no reason to believe the four gospels in the Bible are any better than the dozens of other gospels about Jesus that were rejected form the Roman book.  You have no evidence that ties the gospels to 55-65 AD.  It's just a hope you have like children believing in Santa Claus.

 

 

 

I have many reasons to believe.

 

 

Here is part of an essay written by Timothy Minich:

 

The New Testament was complete, or substantially complete, about AD 100, the majority of the writings being in existence twenty to forty years before this. In this country a majority of modern scholars fix the dates of the four Gospels as follows: Matthew, c. 85-90; Mark, c. 65; Luke, c. 80-85; John, c. 90-100.4 I should be inclined to date the first three Gospels rather earlier: Mark shortly after AD 60, Luke between 60 and 70, and Matthew shortly after 70. One criterion which has special weight with me is the relation which these writings appear to bear to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. My view of the matter is that Mark and Luke were written before this event, and Matthew not long afterwards (Bruce).

 

Fourth, the evidence indicating that the Gospels that we have today are the same as the original texts is overwhelming. 'The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt (Bruce).' Since we do not have the originals, the best way to determine the accuracy of our copies as compared to the original is with the multiplicity of the copies and the length of time between the original and the oldest surviving copy. Having lots of copies allows for cross checking between copies. They may then be determined reliable or unreliable depending on the discrepancies between the copies. The length between the original and the earliest copies also help determine reliability. For example, Homer's Iliad has about six hundred fifty surviving Greek manuscripts. These were copied in the second and third centuries, which places them about nine hundred to a thousand years after they were originally written. A Roman historian by the name of Tacitus wrote The Annals of Imperial Rome around 116 AD, the earliest and only copy is from about 850 AD (Christ 77-78).

 

In contrast, more than five thousand Greek copies of the original manuscripts have been found, the earliest which date to somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty AD, which places it between twenty and one hundred years later than the original. Manuscripts in other languages, including Latin, Ethiopian, Slavic, and Armenian, bring the total to about twenty-four thousand manuscripts (Christ 79-81). These copies also contain only a few minor discrepancies. These are so rare and minor that scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix concluded that 'The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book - a form that is 99.5 percent pure (quoted In Christ 85).' 'The textual evidence decisively shows that the Gospels were written and circulated during the lifetime of those who witnessed the events. Since there are so many specific names and places mentioned, eyewitnesses could have easily discredited the writings. The New Testament would have never survived had the facts been inaccurate (Zukeran).'

[Kris]

Interesting how accurate these damn gospels are--- yet they don't even agree with each other. The truth is that if people hadn't been told over the years that this is gods word--- these books would be relegated to fable as well. I don't care what an apologist thinks. He is blinded by his own delusion!!

[mymistake]

 

 

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

 

Bullshit.  You don't know who wrote them or when.  You have no originals.  You have no copies made prior to the fourth century.  You have no reason to believe the four gospels in the Bible are any better than the dozens of other gospels about Jesus that were rejected form the Roman book.  You have no evidence that ties the gospels to 55-65 AD.  It's just a hope you have like children believing in Santa Claus.

 

 

 

I have many reasons to believe.

 

 

Here is part of an essay written by Timothy Minich:

 

The New Testament was complete, or substantially complete, about AD 100, the majority of the writings being in existence twenty to forty years before this. In this country a majority of modern scholars fix the dates of the four Gospels as follows: Matthew, c. 85-90; Mark, c. 65; Luke, c. 80-85; John, c. 90-100.4 I should be inclined to date the first three Gospels rather earlier: Mark shortly after AD 60, Luke between 60 and 70, and Matthew shortly after 70. One criterion which has special weight with me is the relation which these writings appear to bear to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. My view of the matter is that Mark and Luke were written before this event, and Matthew not long afterwards (Bruce).

 

 

 

See, this is the kind of backwards stupidity that throws Christians off.  You presume that the Gospels tell prophesy about the destruction of the temple before it happened and then you use your presumption as evidence that magic is real.  Circular reasoning is circular.  The crucifixion of Christ is plagiarized from the work of Josephus.  So the Gospels could not have been written before the work they plagiarized.  That means they are all at least 20 years after the destruction of the temple that they supposedly prophesied.  Prophesy is easy if you write it after the fact.

 

 

 

Fourth, the evidence indicating that the Gospels that we have today are the same as the original texts is overwhelming.

 

Zero is not overwhelming.  This is wishful thinking.  Even the Fourth century copies we have do not agree with each other.  We have no clue what the original message was in this giant game of Telephone.

 

 

 

'The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt (Bruce).'

 

This is the fallacy of equivocation.  We don't use copy errors to pretend the Egyptian Book of the Dead didn't exist.  Of course we accept that the Bible existed.  However Christians like to pretend that the Bible is the word of God and that every single word is preserved.  No other writings from antiquity are expected to pass that test.  This is dishonest.

 

Your belief is based on lies.

 

 

In contrast, more than five thousand Greek copies of the original manuscripts have been found, the earliest which date to somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty AD, which places it between twenty and one hundred years later than the original. Manuscripts in other languages, including Latin, Ethiopian, Slavic, and Armenian, bring the total to about twenty-four thousand manuscripts (Christ 79-81). These copies also contain only a few minor discrepancies. These are so rare and minor that scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix concluded that 'The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book - a form that is 99.5 percent pure (quoted In Christ 85).' 

 

When were these 5,000+ manuscripts found?  Why didn't this make the news?  We had just a few manuscripts from the 4th century and now we find five thousand manuscripts that are two centuries older and nobody puts this in the headlines?

 

Documentation please.

 

 

'The textual evidence decisively shows that the Gospels were written and circulated during the lifetime of those who witnessed the events. Since there are so many specific names and places mentioned, eyewitnesses could have easily discredited the writings. The New Testament would have never survived had the facts been inaccurate (Zukeran).'

 

Uh no.  100 AD is not within the lifetimes of somebody who was an adult in 40 AD.  And the specific people in the New Testament are "a certain man/a certain man/a certain man/a certain man/a certain man".

 

You are quoting from people who made stuff up.

[♦ ficino ♦]

I'm sure there were crucifixions on Passover. The one referrenced in the paper is Pentacost, of the festival of Weeks. The examples in Josephus might come from the Pompey era or some other time. I can't remember were or from what sources, that idea or example comes from.

You're not thinking of the prisoners of Cumanus, whom Quadratus later crucified, AJ 20.129, BJ 2.241? Those guys had been Jews and Samaritans who fought with each other. I don't see a tie with Passover, although Cumanus had suppressed an earlier uprising on Passover, AJ 20.106ff, BJ 2.225ff.

 

I did a search of the TLG for πάσχα and φάσκα and ἀζυμ- in Josephus, Philo and Dio Cassius and didn't find anything about crucifixions during Passover.

 

Unless I'm missing something, this absence stirs up another thought: it looks as though there is not a record in Josephus of Romans crucifying Jews in Jerusalem during Passover. Could it be that they actually did not perform crucifixions then and there? After all, there were thousands upon thousands of people in the city, many having zealot ties - a dicey time to crucify brigands. Could this be another of the improbabilities surrounding the gospel stories?

 

Matthew, Mark and John state the custom acc. to which Pilate (or the procurator, Matthew) was accustomed to release at Passover a prisoner named by the crowd/Jews. None of the gospels say that prisoners were normally crucified at Passover or that the prisoner released would be someone destined for crucifixion in particular. (I'm not expressing a view on whether this was a real custom.)

[ironhorse]

 

 

 

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

 

Bullshit.  You don't know who wrote them or when.  You have no originals.  You have no copies made prior to the fourth century.  You have no reason to believe the four gospels in the Bible are any better than the dozens of other gospels about Jesus that were rejected form the Roman book.  You have no evidence that ties the gospels to 55-65 AD.  It's just a hope you have like children believing in Santa Claus.

 

 

 

I have many reasons to believe.

 

 

Here is part of an essay written by Timothy Minich:

 

The New Testament was complete, or substantially complete, about AD 100, the majority of the writings being in existence twenty to forty years before this. In this country a majority of modern scholars fix the dates of the four Gospels as follows: Matthew, c. 85-90; Mark, c. 65; Luke, c. 80-85; John, c. 90-100.4 I should be inclined to date the first three Gospels rather earlier: Mark shortly after AD 60, Luke between 60 and 70, and Matthew shortly after 70. One criterion which has special weight with me is the relation which these writings appear to bear to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. My view of the matter is that Mark and Luke were written before this event, and Matthew not long afterwards (Bruce).

 

 

 

See, this is the kind of backwards stupidity that throws Christians off.  You presume that the Gospels tell prophesy about the destruction of the temple before it happened and then you use your presumption as evidence that magic is real.  Circular reasoning is circular.  The crucifixion of Christ is plagiarized from the work of Josephus.  So the Gospels could not have been written before the work they plagiarized.  That means they are all at least 20 years after the destruction of the temple that they supposedly prophesied.  Prophesy is easy if you write it after the fact.

 

 

 

Fourth, the evidence indicating that the Gospels that we have today are the same as the original texts is overwhelming.

 

Zero is not overwhelming.  This is wishful thinking.  Even the Fourth century copies we have do not agree with each other.  We have no clue what the original message was in this giant game of Telephone.

 

 

 

'The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt (Bruce).'

 

This is the fallacy of equivocation.  We don't use copy errors to pretend the Egyptian Book of the Dead didn't exist.  Of course we accept that the Bible existed.  However Christians like to pretend that the Bible is the word of God and that every single word is preserved.  No other writings from antiquity are expected to pass that test.  This is dishonest.

 

Your belief is based on lies.

 

 

In contrast, more than five thousand Greek copies of the original manuscripts have been found, the earliest which date to somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty AD, which places it between twenty and one hundred years later than the original. Manuscripts in other languages, including Latin, Ethiopian, Slavic, and Armenian, bring the total to about twenty-four thousand manuscripts (Christ 79-81). These copies also contain only a few minor discrepancies. These are so rare and minor that scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix concluded that 'The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book - a form that is 99.5 percent pure (quoted In Christ 85).' 

 

When were these 5,000+ manuscripts found?  Why didn't this make the news?  We had just a few manuscripts from the 4th century and now we find five thousand manuscripts that are two centuries older and nobody puts this in the headlines?

 

Documentation please.

 

 

'The textual evidence decisively shows that the Gospels were written and circulated during the lifetime of those who witnessed the events. Since there are so many specific names and places mentioned, eyewitnesses could have easily discredited the writings. The New Testament would have never survived had the facts been inaccurate (Zukeran).'

 

Uh no.  100 AD is not within the lifetimes of somebody who was an adult in 40 AD.  And the specific people in the New Testament are "a certain man/a certain man/a certain man/a certain man/a certain man".

 

You are quoting from people who made stuff up.

 

 

 

The quoted text I posted was not copied from a Christian site but an atheist site.

http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/index.shtml

[mymistake]

 

 

The quoted text I posted was not copied from a Christian site but an atheist site.

http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/index.shtml

 

 

 

If something is false then it is still false even if it comes from an atheist.  Authority isn't magical.  Ideas should stand or fall on their own merit.

 

 

Oh and by the way this Minich guy is drinking the kool aid hard.

http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/minich-gospels.shtml

 

Look at his Bibliography.  The Holy Bible?  The Case for Faith?  The Case for Christ.  No wonder his ideas are so divorced from evidence.

 

He begins his essay by assuming the intent of the authors.  The gospels are anonymous.  One of them gives a statement of intent but it is also the gospel that makes some huge historical blunders.  Minich doesn't seem to notice that or else he doesn't care.  He simply declares that these unknown authors were honest and died for their work.  We don't know who those people were or how they died.  The four gospels do not agree with each other on even simple matters like the last words of Christ.  These are novels and negative material was included for the same reason that negative material is included in all novels - it serves the novel writer's needs.

 

The earliest manuscript we have for a gospel dates the the fourth century.  That is nearly 300 years after Paul.  It is true that Christians were dedicated to copying the work and there are over fiver thousand copies but no two copies are alike.  Every translation had errors and who knows how much these works changed from the second century when they were the originals were probably written until the fourth century when the oldest surviving copies were made.

 

The Testimonium Flavianum is generally considered to be a forgery.  Like the Johannine Comma along with the books Titus, Timothy 1 and 2 this was a forgery that Christians created to lend credibility to their religion.

 

Our good Minich is also misrepresenting the Tacticus quote.

 

What rubbish.

[sdelsolray]

 

 

 

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

 

Bullshit.  You don't know who wrote them or when.  You have no originals.  You have no copies made prior to the fourth century.  You have no reason to believe the four gospels in the Bible are any better than the dozens of other gospels about Jesus that were rejected form the Roman book.  You have no evidence that ties the gospels to 55-65 AD.  It's just a hope you have like children believing in Santa Claus.

 

 

 

I have many reasons to believe.

 

 

Here is part of an essay written by Timothy Minich:

 

The New Testament was complete, or substantially complete, about AD 100, the majority of the writings being in existence twenty to forty years before this. In this country a majority of modern scholars fix the dates of the four Gospels as follows: Matthew, c. 85-90; Mark, c. 65; Luke, c. 80-85; John, c. 90-100.4 I should be inclined to date the first three Gospels rather earlier: Mark shortly after AD 60, Luke between 60 and 70, and Matthew shortly after 70. One criterion which has special weight with me is the relation which these writings appear to bear to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. My view of the matter is that Mark and Luke were written before this event, and Matthew not long afterwards (Bruce).

 

 

 

See, this is the kind of backwards stupidity that throws Christians off.  You presume that the Gospels tell prophesy about the destruction of the temple before it happened and then you use your presumption as evidence that magic is real.  Circular reasoning is circular.  The crucifixion of Christ is plagiarized from the work of Josephus.  So the Gospels could not have been written before the work they plagiarized.  That means they are all at least 20 years after the destruction of the temple that they supposedly prophesied.  Prophesy is easy if you write it after the fact.

 

 

 

Fourth, the evidence indicating that the Gospels that we have today are the same as the original texts is overwhelming.

 

Zero is not overwhelming.  This is wishful thinking.  Even the Fourth century copies we have do not agree with each other.  We have no clue what the original message was in this giant game of Telephone.

 

 

 

'The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt (Bruce).'

 

This is the fallacy of equivocation.  We don't use copy errors to pretend the Egyptian Book of the Dead didn't exist.  Of course we accept that the Bible existed.  However Christians like to pretend that the Bible is the word of God and that every single word is preserved.  No other writings from antiquity are expected to pass that test.  This is dishonest.

 

Your belief is based on lies.

 

 

In contrast, more than five thousand Greek copies of the original manuscripts have been found, the earliest which date to somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty AD, which places it between twenty and one hundred years later than the original. Manuscripts in other languages, including Latin, Ethiopian, Slavic, and Armenian, bring the total to about twenty-four thousand manuscripts (Christ 79-81). These copies also contain only a few minor discrepancies. These are so rare and minor that scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix concluded that 'The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book - a form that is 99.5 percent pure (quoted In Christ 85).' 

 

When were these 5,000+ manuscripts found?  Why didn't this make the news?  We had just a few manuscripts from the 4th century and now we find five thousand manuscripts that are two centuries older and nobody puts this in the headlines?

 

Documentation please.

 

 

'The textual evidence decisively shows that the Gospels were written and circulated during the lifetime of those who witnessed the events. Since there are so many specific names and places mentioned, eyewitnesses could have easily discredited the writings. The New Testament would have never survived had the facts been inaccurate (Zukeran).'

 

Uh no.  100 AD is not within the lifetimes of somebody who was an adult in 40 AD.  And the specific people in the New Testament are "a certain man/a certain man/a certain man/a certain man/a certain man".

 

You are quoting from people who made stuff up.

 

You are dealing with a peddler of lies, misrepresentations and logical fallacies.  Plus, he's lazy and is a coward.  Good luck all that.

[♦ ficino ♦]

In contrast, more than five thousand Greek copies of the original manuscripts have been found, the earliest which date to somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty AD, which places it between twenty and one hundred years later than the original. Manuscripts in other languages, including Latin, Ethiopian, Slavic, and Armenian, bring the total to about twenty-four thousand manuscripts (Christ 79-81). These copies also contain only a few minor discrepancies. These are so rare and minor that scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix concluded that 'The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book - a form that is 99.5 percent pure (quoted In Christ 85).' 'The textual evidence decisively shows that the Gospels were written and circulated during the lifetime of those who witnessed the events. Since there are so many specific names and places mentioned, eyewitnesses could have easily discredited the writings. The New Testament would have never survived had the facts been inaccurate (Zukeran).'

The large number of manuscripts of the NT that survive does not guarantee that the text that they transmit is the same as that written by the original writers. The huge majority of them are Byzantine manuscripts containing a form of the text that had already undergone considerable interpolation and other forms of alteration.

 

The earliest fragment of a gospel codex is a piece of a papyrus book of prob. the first half of the second century CE. It contains small parts of John. We do not know whether the entire book, of which this piece survives, corresponded to our present 4th gospel - it may well have done.

 

Link:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rylands_Library_Papyrus_P52

[♦ ficino ♦]

 

 

 

 

The Gospel narratives were not composed centuries later.

They were written between A.D. 55-65, with the exception of John's Gospel, which was written around A.D. 85-90.

 

Only a few decades after the events.

 

 

Bullshit.  You don't know who wrote them or when.  You have no originals.  You have no copies made prior to the fourth century.  You have no reason to believe the four gospels in the Bible are any better than the dozens of other gospels about Jesus that were rejected form the Roman book.  You have no evidence that ties the gospels to 55-65 AD.  It's just a hope you have like children believing in Santa Claus.

 

 

 

I have many reasons to believe.

 

 

Here is part of an essay written by Timothy Minich:

 

The New Testament was complete, or substantially complete, about AD 100, the majority of the writings being in existence twenty to forty years before this. In this country a majority of modern scholars fix the dates of the four Gospels as follows: Matthew, c. 85-90; Mark, c. 65; Luke, c. 80-85; John, c. 90-100.4 I should be inclined to date the first three Gospels rather earlier: Mark shortly after AD 60, Luke between 60 and 70, and Matthew shortly after 70. One criterion which has special weight with me is the relation which these writings appear to bear to the destruction of the city and temple of Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70. My view of the matter is that Mark and Luke were written before this event, and Matthew not long afterwards (Bruce).

 

 

 

See, this is the kind of backwards stupidity that throws Christians off.  You presume that the Gospels tell prophesy about the destruction of the temple before it happened and then you use your presumption as evidence that magic is real.  Circular reasoning is circular.  The crucifixion of Christ is plagiarized from the work of Josephus.  So the Gospels could not have been written before the work they plagiarized.  That means they are all at least 20 years after the destruction of the temple that they supposedly prophesied.  Prophesy is easy if you write it after the fact.

 

 

 

Fourth, the evidence indicating that the Gospels that we have today are the same as the original texts is overwhelming.

 

Zero is not overwhelming.  This is wishful thinking.  Even the Fourth century copies we have do not agree with each other.  We have no clue what the original message was in this giant game of Telephone.

 

 

 

'The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt (Bruce).'

 

This is the fallacy of equivocation.  We don't use copy errors to pretend the Egyptian Book of the Dead didn't exist.  Of course we accept that the Bible existed.  However Christians like to pretend that the Bible is the word of God and that every single word is preserved.  No other writings from antiquity are expected to pass that test.  This is dishonest.

 

Your belief is based on lies.

 

 

In contrast, more than five thousand Greek copies of the original manuscripts have been found, the earliest which date to somewhere between one hundred and one hundred fifty AD, which places it between twenty and one hundred years later than the original. Manuscripts in other languages, including Latin, Ethiopian, Slavic, and Armenian, bring the total to about twenty-four thousand manuscripts (Christ 79-81). These copies also contain only a few minor discrepancies. These are so rare and minor that scholars Norman Geisler and William Nix concluded that 'The New Testament, then, has not only survived in more manuscripts than any other book from antiquity, but it has survived in a purer form than any other great book - a form that is 99.5 percent pure (quoted In Christ 85).'

 

When were these 5,000+ manuscripts found?  Why didn't this make the news?  We had just a few manuscripts from the 4th century and now we find five thousand manuscripts that are two centuries older and nobody puts this in the headlines?

 

Documentation please.

 

 

'The textual evidence decisively shows that the Gospels were written and circulated during the lifetime of those who witnessed the events. Since there are so many specific names and places mentioned, eyewitnesses could have easily discredited the writings. The New Testament would have never survived had the facts been inaccurate (Zukeran).'

 

Uh no.  100 AD is not within the lifetimes of somebody who was an adult in 40 AD.  And the specific people in the New Testament are "a certain man/a certain man/a certain man/a certain man/a certain man".

 

You are quoting from people who made stuff up.

 

 

 

The quoted text I posted was not copied from a Christian site but an atheist site.

http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/index.shtml

 

Ironhorse, you have just lost the little respect I had for you. You seem to intend to cover up the truth.

 

You say you posted a text "not copied from a Christian site but an atheist site," and you give the link to the that site's Atheist Ground page. That's a page on which the tolerant webmaster allows people of different persuasions to post their opinions.

 

Timothy Minich, as mymistake pointed out, is NOT an atheist. He is a fundamentalist, as his very superficial bibliography makes clear. Lee Strobel? WTF.

 

What you should have posted was the link to the essay from which you quoted. That link is this:

 

http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/minich-gospels.shtml

 

You tried to give the impression that even atheists admit that the Bible is historically reliable. You play fast and loose with truth and try to hide it.

[buffettphan]

I had an odd, somewhat humorous thought regarding Ironhorse's insinuation that Timothy Minich is an atheist.  We all know how Ironhorse likes to throw famous names around, right?   Maybe he's confusing Timothy Minich with the atheist comedian Tim Minchin (accidentally on purpose?).     

 

 

 

[TheRedneckProfessor]

+1 buffettphan

[ironhorse]

This is all I said about the text I quoted:

"The quoted text I posted was not copied from a Christian site but an atheist site."

 

That is true. I did not say it was written by an atheist. I thought it was great

that it was posted on the site. 

 

I try, when i can, to post links/text from non-Christian sites.

[mymistake]

This is all I said about the text I quoted:

"The quoted text I posted was not copied from a Christian site but an atheist site."

 

That is true. I did not say it was written by an atheist. I thought it was great

that it was posted on the site. 

 

I try, when i can, to post links/text from non-Christian sites.

 

But it is so hard because most of them do not allow essays written by fundamentalists like Minich.  And you aren't going to post links to material that does not support your agenda.  Good for Atheist Ground for allowing everybody to have a say.

 

I take it that you have nothing to say about all the failures in the essay.  You are going to continue to believe even if all your justifications were wrong.

[sdelsolray]

This is all I said about the text I quoted:

"The quoted text I posted was not copied from a Christian site but an atheist site."

 

That is true. I did not say it was written by an atheist. I thought it was great

that it was posted on the site. 

 

I try, when i can, to post links/text from non-Christian sites.

The Cowardly Lyin' speaks.

[ironhorse]

Info on the New Testament Manuscripts:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/03/21/an-interview-with-daniel-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts/

 

 

Two things though...It is true that the four Gospels do not harmonize on every detail, but this does not 

destroy the story or themes in the text. I do not understand the assertion that this makes them invalid and untrustworthy.

The copies centuries later have little error between them.

 

To me, it makes each Gospel more trustworthy. These guys were not sitting in a cave together writing a myth.

[Roz]

Info on the New Testament Manuscripts:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2012/03/21/an-interview-with-daniel-b-wallace-on-the-new-testament-manuscripts/

 

 

Two things though...It is true that the four Gospels do not harmonize on every detail, but this does not 

destroy the story or themes in the text. I do not understand the assertion that this makes them invalid and untrustworthy.

The copies centuries later have little error between them.

 

To me, it makes each Gospel more trustworthy. These guys were not sitting in a cave together writing a myth.

 

Let's grant that Mary Magdalene was real, jesus was real, he's the son of god, everything in the gospels and indeed the whole bible were true.

 

The story of Mary Magdalene going to the tomb of jesus:

1. In Matthew, Mary, the eye-witness in the story, tells Matthew that she and Mary (James' mother) went to the tomb and the heavy stone was barring the tomb.
2. In Mark, Mary Magdalene, Mary James' mom, and Salome go to the tomb and were wondering to themselves "who's gonna roll away the stone?"  When they got there, the stone was ALREADY rolled away.
3. In Luke, it was 4 other women who were there with Mary Magdalene, no mention of the heavy stone.
4. In John, Mary goes alone and finds the stone ALREADY rolled away.

What does she find in the tomb?

1. Mark says that MM sees a "young man sitting inside the tomb"
2. Luke says it was "two men standing"
3. John says it was "two angels sitting on each side of the slab"
4. Matthew says a great earthquake occurred, an angel descends from the heavens, shocks and awes the Roman guards, and he rolls away the stone

Go go christian apologetics now! 

 

We all know Mary M. would get slapped by every single judge/jury if she were testifying in court.  These are contradictions that if 1 is true, the others are false.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Two things though...It is true that the four Gospels do not harmonize on every detail, but this does not 

destroy the story or themes in the text. I do not understand the assertion that this makes them invalid and untrustworthy.

 

[snip]

 

To me, it makes each Gospel more trustworthy. These guys were not sitting in a cave together writing a myth.

Glad you're thinking about this, Ironhorse. Already you have given up the inerrantist position, in the bolded part above.

 

Next step: consider each individual writer's agenda and rhetorical strategy. You could start from the accounts of the empty tomb, as Roz suggests. Or perhaps from the infancy narratives.