Jesus Was An Unreliable Witness

[Wizened Sage]

If a witness on the stand in a court case is found to utter several obvious, provable untruths, wouldn’t it be sensible for the jury to disregard/discount all of that witness’ testimony? Whether he is simply misinformed, deluded, lying, or whatever, he is, demonstrably, not a reliable witness.

 

There seems to me to be a very close parallel in the bible, in the witnessing of Jesus Christ. Note that, according to the bible:

1) Jesus said that whatsoever one asks of God in his name, he shall receive.

2) Jesus said that if one has even enough faith to fill a mustard seed, he can command a mountain to move and it will move.

3) Jesus said he would return to Earth soon and, in fact, he stated that it would be within the lifetime of his contemporaries.

 

Now the Christian obviously does not get whatever he prays for, no Christian can move a mountain by his command, and it’s been two thousand years – all of Jesus’ generation are surely dead – but he has still not returned. All of these claims are demonstrably false (and there are others we might have used). It appears a cut and dried case that Jesus was not a reliable witness and that ALL of his biblical testimony should be discounted. Does the term “false prophet†mean anything to you?

 

Of course, there’s nothing truly original here; I have read similar arguments on this site many times. Yet, it seems to me to be a very powerful, easily understood, useful case against the divinity of Jesus. Certainly the “true believer†can be counted on to come up with some sort of pretzel logic to counter this argument. I would love to see any counter arguments you folks can come up with, which might help to refine this argument. Thanks in advance for your help.

- Wizened Sage

[GraphicsGuy]

Maybe useful to us who have already deconverted, but absolutely fucking useless to argue those points with a fundy. They'll easily come up with excuses such as:

 

1) Jesus is not our personal genie. We can't just ask him for whatever we want and he'll magically give it to us. Everything has to fit within God's will for our life.

 

2) Jesus was talking about moving spiritual mountains, not physical ones.

 

3) All times are soon to Jesus. There are still prophecies to be fulfilled before he can return.

 

They'll ignore any logic or related passages you can throw in. They'll simply say that you don't have the spiritual eyes to understand the scriptures. Even if you can knock down all their defenses they'll finally stonewall the argument with a "Goddidit" "it's God's will, not our will" or "I don't understand, but I have faith."

[Ouroboros]

I would say the Gospels are unreliable witness statements, because they never put themselves into the stories what they did themselves. When you tell a witness story you probably would say "And then I saw him..." or "After dinner I went out and I got the donkey and when I came back he told me that...", but the stories are written in third person. An eyewitness can't tell what someone else told them what they did, because it becomes hearsay. Examples like Jesus fasting in the desert and talking to the Devil. It doesn't matter if he told them what happened afterwards or not since it's still a hearsay, and not eye-witness accord. So whatever Jesus said, it's hearsay, since no one of the authors claim "Jesus told me..." or "us..."

[godlessgrrl]

Keep in mind that we don't actually have any primary sources from Jesus himself. As far as we know, Jesus never wrote his own autobiography, he never kept a diary or wrote a gospel account of his actions, in his own words, from his own POV. What we have is a bunch of other witnesses talking about what Jesus did. Already the information is second-hand, without bringing up the fact that we don't actually know who wrote the gospels in the first place. They have apostles' names on them, but it's more likely that they were written by followers of the individual apostles, rather than the apostles themselves. In other words, they were written by guys who probably never actually met Jesus, and just got their stories from guys who actually did. That, my friend, is called "hearsay". And 'round these parts, it ain't admissible in court. You can't say "I heard from Joe that Jim did X" and have it considered reliable testimony.

 

On top of that, there's the unresolved question of whether Jesus actually existed in the first place. Outside of the Bible itself, the evidence for it is extremely scanty and unreliable. It's clear that Christians existed within a couple centuries of Jesus' alleged death, and it's clear that people believed Jesus existed... but it's really hard to take the testimony of a witness who may not have been real in the first place. I mean what if the gospel accounts replaced the name "Jesus" with the name "Superman"?

 

Just some thoughts I had on the subject, take what's useful, if anything.

[Wizened Sage]

To Gwenmead and Madame M,

 

Thanks for your comments.

I could have, should have been clearer. I agree with you both in that Jesus may never have existed as an historical character, and that all we know of him is hearsay. In fact that's the problem with Christianity as a whole - the whole case for Christianity is hearsay as there isn't a shred of physical evidence to be found anywhere.

 

My point was that IF one accepts that the Bible is the true revealed word of god, then Jesus was a false prophet and an unreliable witness by his own words. If the bible is true, then Jesus was false. If the bible is true, then jesus is not a reliable witness. Moreover, it appears that we can prove that Jesus' utterings in these examples were false. Does this make any more sense?

[R. S. Martin]

Everything we know about Jesus was heresay and therefore inadmissable.

 

Also this passage pretty much proves his testimony unreliable:

 

John 5:31 “If I bear witness of Myself, My witness is not true. 32 There is another who bears witness of Me, and I know that the witness which He witnesses of Me is true. 33 You have sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.

 

Madame M, I think you're taking idiom and reading it literal. If we translate Jesus' idiom into our idiom, I think it would read something like this:

Don't take my word for it. Ask John. He knows me. You know how he preached in the wilderness. You can trust him to be honest.

I confess this is the first time I read it this way but I just had a conversation with an atheist highschool English teacher and I learned about idiom and how it works across languages. He works with international students. I speak more than one language. After reading your interpretation and mulling things over, suddenly things just clicked. I'm sure this is what it was originally meant to say.

 

I very seriously doubt that this Jesus guy ever existed or that he said this specific statement if he did exist. But I do believe that as a fiction this is what the statement was supposed to say.

 

And if we look at it from the perspective that it is fiction, then I assume it really does make sense and that if we would understand all the subtlties of the culture and language in which it was written we would understand it.

 

However, if we read it literally as the fundamentalist Christians do, with a doze of skepticism thrown in, no the whole thing comes off as contrived and twisted and disingenious. It's simply unfair to the original authors to read the Bible like the fundies do. That's the long and short of it.

[PandaPirate]

If a witness on the stand in a court case is found to utter several obvious, provable untruths, wouldn’t it be sensible for the jury to disregard/discount all of that witness’ testimony? Whether he is simply misinformed, deluded, lying, or whatever, he is, demonstrably, not a reliable witness.

 

There seems to me to be a very close parallel in the bible, in the witnessing of Jesus Christ. Note that, according to the bible:

1) Jesus said that whatsoever one asks of God in his name, he shall receive.

2) Jesus said that if one has even enough faith to fill a mustard seed, he can command a mountain to move and it will move.

3) Jesus said he would return to Earth soon and, in fact, he stated that it would be within the lifetime of his contemporaries.

 

Now the Christian obviously does not get whatever he prays for, no Christian can move a mountain by his command, and it’s been two thousand years – all of Jesus’ generation are surely dead – but he has still not returned. All of these claims are demonstrably false (and there are others we might have used). It appears a cut and dried case that Jesus was not a reliable witness and that ALL of his biblical testimony should be discounted. Does the term “false prophet†mean anything to you?

 

Of course, there’s nothing truly original here; I have read similar arguments on this site many times. Yet, it seems to me to be a very powerful, easily understood, useful case against the divinity of Jesus. Certainly the “true believer†can be counted on to come up with some sort of pretzel logic to counter this argument. I would love to see any counter arguments you folks can come up with, which might help to refine this argument. Thanks in advance for your help.

- Wizened Sage

 

Sorry for being ignorant...but what is pretzel logic?

[Wizened Sage]

Pretzel logic is logic that has been twisted into a pretzel, sometimes refered to as tortured logic. It is the result of taking an idea that makes little or no sense and bending it every which way to try to make it sound sensible.

[Ouroboros]

My point was that IF one accepts that the Bible is the true revealed word of god, then Jesus was a false prophet and an unreliable witness by his own words. If the bible is true, then Jesus was false. If the bible is true, then jesus is not a reliable witness. Moreover, it appears that we can prove that Jesus' utterings in these examples were false. Does this make any more sense?

It's a good point.

 

And another one is that Jesus said that they (the world, you and me) would know that he was from God and that the disciples were from God because of their unity, and he also talked about that a kingdom that is divided can't stand.

 

John 17:20-23

20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

 

Mirror, mirror, on the wall,

Which religion can profess to have the most cults and is most devided of them all?

 

The answer only leads to the conclusion that Christianity by its own standards is not inspired by God.

 

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And we can also see it on the fruits of the spirit. It says that a Christian that has the fruits would be tolerant, patient, loving, kind, meek and all that, and when did you meet one? It seems like most Christians don't have the fruits of the spirit, which only leads to a very serious question: why? Isn't that part of the deal? Isn't that kind of the point? Becoming a better person? But it seems like Christians are more judgmental and more unkind and more intolerant than anyone else you can find. Somehow you would think they get the fruits fo the Devil instead.

 

Gal 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 meekness, self-control; against such there is no law.

 

---

 

Then of course we have Paul's little mishap of using the liars paradox, and calling it's premise to be true. Epimenides paradox didn't get fully completed until Paul came in an "confirmed" it. Totally awesome. All cretans are liars, because one of their own said so. Paul, you got F, but you will get an A for effort.

[DanInPA]

Even according to the bible, Jesus was a false prophet.

 

 

Mark 9

1And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power."

 

John 14:

12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

 

20"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

 

Mark 16:

17 And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

 

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Deuteronomy 18:

22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.