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Goodbye Jesus

How can I answer this Christian?


SerenelyBlue

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Josephus, the Jewish historian, records that Christ was crucified. We have the attestations of the Apostles that he was resurrected from the dead. If it was all a made-up story, you wouldn't have had a woman being the first one to report seeing the risen Lord. Nor would you have had the Apostles going to their tortuous deaths to spread a lie, or the chief persecutor of the Christians being converted on the road to Damascus. Immediately following the Crucifixion, the Apostles were in total disarray, demoralized and scared. Something would have had to happen to give them the faith and fortitude to carry on. The world was changed by the Resurrection of Christ. The world would be changed further if more people believed and took to heart the teachings of Christ.

 

The above is a post on a help website.  How would you suggest I counter this?

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Thank you

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Nice to see you again SB.  Why would you need to answer or counter it?  The Christian isn't going to listen to facts because people become Christians due to emotions.  You can't change the emotional satisfaction another Christian has with their religion so you won't change their mind.  

 

But anyway, Josephus wrote in the year 96 CE.  That was an entire lifetime after Jesus was suppose to have lived and died.  Josephus wasn't an eyewitness.  Regarding the events that happened before he was born he would have only reported things people had told him second hand.  However it is largely believed by non-Christian experts that the two passages mentioning Christ in Josephus' account were altered much later by Christians in order to fabricate evidence.

 

I don't know why the Christian would assert that a woman could not have done something in a made up story.  Authors can make any character do anything in a made up story.  This is the nature of fiction.

 

the stories about Apostles bravely choosing to be martyred are largely made up.  But just look to Islam to see crazy people who are willing to die for their faith.  Being willing to die doesn't make the religion true.  It only makes the followers fanatics.

 

The disorganization of the disciples after the crucifixion happened in a novel.  It was made up for dramatic effect like the ending of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

 

As for the world being changed . . . there was a time when everyone was Christians and Christians ruled the western world.  It is known as the Dark Ages.  It was a horrible time filled with ignorance and war.  Let's not go back to the Dark Ages.

 

 

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Thank you for that.  Hello Mymistake.  Nice to see you.  I just wqnted to give an informed answer.

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1 hour ago, mymistake said:

I don't know why the Christian would assert that a woman could not have done something in a made up story.  Authors can make any character do anything in a made up story.  This is the nature of fiction.

 

 

Christians often argue that this meets the Criterion for Embarrassment and gives the story validity. I don't necessarily agree, but i suspect that is why the OP segment refers to it.

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3 hours ago, mymistake said:

However it is largely believed by non-Christian experts that the two passages mentioning Christ in Josephus' account were altered much later by Christians in order to fabricate evidence.


Even some Christian leaders acknowledge that the paragraph about Jesus in Josephus that is alluded to in the OP (the passage known as the Testimonium Flavianum) could not have been fully written by Josephus. Even Lee Strobel's "Case for Christ" book admits that parts of it had to have been interpolated by Christians. These apologists attempt to redeem the reference by suggesting that a shorter, non-praisy version was originally written by Josephus and that only the praisy stuff was added by Christians. However, without having Josephus' original writing, there's no evidence whatsoever of a shorter authentic passage. Knowing that the passage had to have been tampered with extensively by Christians, the whole passage becomes suspect and not a trustworthy source as a reference to Jesus. The Christian attempt to rescue parts of it is based on their personal agenda rather than evidence.

 

3 hours ago, mymistake said:

But anyway, Josephus wrote in the year 96 CE.  That was an entire lifetime after Jesus was suppose to have lived and died.  Josephus wasn't an eyewitness.  Regarding the events that happened before he was born he would have only reported things people had told him second hand.

 

This point is of utmost importance. Even if Josephus had written about Jesus, it would simply be hearsay. He wasn't even born until after Jesus was allegedly crucified.

 

Thus, the only non-religious text referring to Jesus dating from the first century CE is not only not likely to be authentic, but it also was not written by an eye-witness. There is absolutely nothing, nada, zilch from that whole century about Jesus that is authentic testimony without a religious agenda.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Storm said:

 

Christians often argue that this meets the Criterion for Embarrassment and gives the story validity. I don't necessarily agree, but i suspect that is why the OP segment refers to it.

 

 

Oh I've heard the same thing a hundred times.  The Jewish culture hated women, or so the story goes.  But today I realize the New Testament was written by Greeks and Romans.  The Greeks and Romans had plenty of goddesses and maidens in their old stories.  So the objection is making several assumptions that might be false.  It's not a solid way to prove your religion is true.

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5 hours ago, SerenelyBlue said:

The world was changed by the Resurrection of Christ. The world would be changed further if more people believed and took to heart the teachings of Christ.

 

The above is a post on a help website.  How would you suggest I counter this?

 

Look at the world that occurred before AD0 and the world that occurred in the last 2000 years since 'Jesus'.

 

What could expect of a truly changed world?

 

Well we might expect mankind to stop the bloodshed, wars, and killing people for crimes that do not match reality.

 

What do we see through all of human history? Much of the same with groups going to war with each other, religions be coming dominate, changing, and dying off. Just what we'd predict if there was no actual demi God altering the course of humanity. What actually changed was the period called the enlightenment which was driven by values of respect for humans and discovering truth about the world. That the people back in the enlightenment were Christians is wholly unremarkable when you consider the penalty for denying God back then was death by hanging. Given the choice back then I'd believe in God too!

 

What would change the world is if everyone took all the very best bits of religions and lived by them, and hiffed out all the nonsense and terrible stuff. THAT would change the world. 

 

That line of thinking could be one counter for you?

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6 hours ago, SerenelyBlue said:

Josephus, the Jewish historian, records that Christ was crucified. We have the attestations of the Apostles that he was resurrected from the dead. If it was all a made-up story, you wouldn't have had a woman being the first one to report seeing the risen Lord. Nor would you have had the Apostles going to their tortuous deaths to spread a lie, or the chief persecutor of the Christians being converted on the road to Damascus. Immediately following the Crucifixion, the Apostles were in total disarray, demoralized and scared. Something would have had to happen to give them the faith and fortitude to carry on. The world was changed by the Resurrection of Christ. The world would be changed further if more people believed and took to heart the teachings of Christ.

 

The above is a post on a help website.  How would you suggest I counter this?

 

Well, there is no evidence that any of those things actually happened. The Bible is a collection of fictional stories, it is not a historical record of anything. Christians, of course, don't believe that & you will never convince them the  Bible is a collection of myths with mythical characters. I don't think it's even worth the effort to try.

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I would point them to Bart Ehrman, tell them to read his books and then get back to you about it, lol. But in all seriousness, the truth is Christians believe this stuff because they want to believe it, it's all about the emotional pull for them. And that's why Christians say that believing is a choice, that and the fact that they simply haven't educated themselves enough on the for and against issues in regards to Christianity.  In fact, believing is not a choice. How many of us can go back and decide that we want to believe that Jesus did live and die for our sins? There's a reason why too much education and literacy (in the early years of the church) were discouraged, and  continue to be discouraged in some circles of religous fundamentalism today.

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You are wrong about Josephus' writings. He wrote "The Jewish War" in 75 A.D. As a historian, he was familiar with events just before his lifetime. He mentions both Jesus and John the Baptist. We also know that Pontius Pilate was a real person--a tablet bearing his name, and dated to the time period of Jesus, was found in Israel. Josephus also mentions Pilate, who is also mentioned by Tacitus and Philo of Alexandria.

After the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, strange things happened in the temple. When the lots for the goats were chosen by the high priest on the Day of Atonement, the priest always picked the black lot first--considered a bad omen. Black lots were picked from the Crucifixion until the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. The odds of that happening year after year from 33 A.D. to 70 A.D. are about one in 5 billion. Also, when the red sash was cut in two and one part retained by the high priest, and the other part placed on the scapegoat, the red cloth NEVER turned white as it did in years past. The heavy bronze doors to the temple would also open by themselves every night--it took 20 men to move them, but they opened by themselves. The light on the menorah closest to the Holiest of Holies would always go out--it would not stay lit. Finally, just before the temple's destruction, Josephus records that a strange white light permeated the entire temple at night for a few hours, and then went out. This was perceived as the spirit of God leaving the temple. Now--these facts are recorded in the Jerusalem Talmud, which, Serenity, is a JEWISH source. The Sanhedrin blamed all of these happenings on Jesus. What is NOT in dispute is that they HAPPENED.

Some of Paul's letters are dated from around 55 - 60 A.D. The Gospels themselves were written from around 60 - 70 A.D. The synoptic Gospels were written by people who KNEW the original Apostles; the Gospel of John was supposedly written by the Apostle John himself--John the son of Zebedee.

Islam, if you recall, was spread by the armies of Islam after the death of Muhammad. Christians and Jews living in conquered lands were required to pay a heavy tax, the jizyah, to their new overlords or face execution. The Muslim Crusades predate the Christian Crusades by centuries. Both were bloody affairs. Right after the death of Muhammad, his son-in-law and cousin, Ali, was killed in internecine warfare.

Finally, the Apostles were NOT fanatics. They were scared s***ss after the Crucifixion. There is quite a difference between people like that and fanatics. Fanatics have limited capacity for reason. The Apostles preached with both reason and the words of Jesus on their side.

Christianity is not a myth. It is real. And the truth is there for those who will but seek it.

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All these superstitions about the temple and he can't know that the writers knew the apostels

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40 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

You are wrong about Josephus' writings. He wrote "The Jewish War" in 75 A.D. As a historian, he was familiar with events just before his lifetime.  

 

Okay, let's assume the Christian is right about the date of that work.  Josephus did write earlier historical works that did not mention Jesus at all but still Josephus wasn't born until 37 CE so he would have no memory of anything that happened before 40 CE.

 

Would he have heard stories about people and events before 40 CE?  Of course!  If those stories were about magic and witchcraft would hearing a story prove that magic and witchcraft are real?  Of course not because proving that physics as we understand it today can be set aside would require a great quantity of objective, verifiable evidence.  Ghost stories will not cut it.  And that is what the Gospels are . . . ghost stories filled with mysticism, magic and witchcraft.  They are fairy tails.  An angel is the Hebrew version of a fairy.

 

49 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

We also know that Pontius Pilate was a real person--a tablet bearing his name, and dated to the time period of Jesus, was found in Israel. Josephus also mentions Pilate, who is also mentioned by Tacitus and Philo of Alexandria.

 

The existence of Pilate is not disputed.  The Romans had a habit of assigning men to act as governors of various provinces.  It's not like people are claiming that Pilate had super powers.

 

 

52 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

After the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ, strange things happened in the temple. When the lots for the goats were chosen by the high priest on the Day of Atonement, the priest always picked the black lot first--considered a bad omen. Black lots were picked from the Crucifixion until the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. The odds of that happening year after year from 33 A.D. to 70 A.D. are about one in 5 billion. Also, when the red sash was cut in two and one part retained by the high priest, and the other part placed on the scapegoat, the red cloth NEVER turned white as it did in years past. The heavy bronze doors to the temple would also open by themselves every night--it took 20 men to move them, but they opened by themselves. The light on the menorah closest to the Holiest of Holies would always go out--it would not stay lit. Finally, just before the temple's destruction, Josephus records that a strange white light permeated the entire temple at night for a few hours, and then went out. This was perceived as the spirit of God leaving the temple. Now--these facts are recorded in the Jerusalem Talmud, which, Serenity, is a JEWISH source. The Sanhedrin blamed all of these happenings on Jesus. What is NOT in dispute is that they HAPPENED.

 

I'm sorry, what is the source of all these claims?  I will be happy to dispute them all until I see a reliable source.  Especially the one about the odds being one in 5 billion.  It takes more that ghost stories to prove that the laws of physics were set aside.  But all you have to do is visit a carnival or a magic show to realize that people are easily tricked.  Put a white sash on a goat and tell everyone you found it that way and *poof* magic is real.

 

57 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

Some of Paul's letters are dated from around 55 - 60 A.D. The Gospels themselves were written from around 60 - 70 A.D. The synoptic Gospels were written by people who KNEW the original Apostles; the Gospel of John was supposedly written by the Apostle John himself--John the son of Zebedee.

 

Some of Paul's letters are known forgeries.  None of the Gospels found in the Bible were written before 70 AD.  They didn't prophesy of the destruction of the temple.  They tried to give meaning to the event after it happened.  The Gospel of John was written after the Jewish and Christian religions had become separated and hostile.   It describes events that happened in the 2nd century.  Matthew and Luke are simply retellings of Mark.

 

1 hour ago, SerenelyBlue said:

 

Islam, if you recall, was spread by the armies of Islam after the death of Muhammad. Christians and Jews living in conquered lands were required to pay a heavy tax, the jizyah, to their new overlords or face execution. The Muslim Crusades predate the Christian Crusades by centuries. Both were bloody affairs. Right after the death of Muhammad, his son-in-law and cousin, Ali, was killed in internecine warfare.

Finally, the Apostles were NOT fanatics. They were scared s***ss after the Crucifixion. There is quite a difference between people like that and fanatics. Fanatics have limited capacity for reason. The Apostles preached with both reason and the words of Jesus on their side.

Christianity is not a myth. It is real. And the truth is there for those who will but seek it.

 

 

What are the sources on the apostles?  What is the evidence that Christianity is real?  Statistically Christians perform just as well as any other group of people.  Praying about stuff never gives them any statistical benefit.  There are no guardian angels or God granting any favors.  Christians suffer disasters and die of cancer at the same rate as non-Christians.

 

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Mymistake, that wasn't me stating all those things.  It was the Christian.  He claims to be a teacher.  I have stopped debating with him.  I don't like arguing over Christianity.

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17 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

Mymistake, that wasn't me stating all those things.  It was the Christian.  He claims to be a teacher.  I have stopped debating with him.  I don't like arguing over Christianity.

 

 

I assumed that was the case.  He is just trying to get you to send him or his pastor 10% of your income and then join their club where you will waste hour after hour of your life.  I wouldn't even bother with people like that.

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16 minutes ago, SerenelyBlue said:

...

I have stopped debating with him.

...

 

Good decision.  Little can be gained from attempting to have a rational discourse with someone deeply infected with a god virus, unless you just want to practice your debating skills or provide lurkers with samples of rational thinking.

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I don't think I am the best there is at debating over theology.

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On 4/10/2018 at 10:22 AM, SerenelyBlue said:

Josephus, the Jewish historian, records that Christ was crucified. We have the attestations of the Apostles that he was resurrected from the dead. If it was all a made-up story, you wouldn't have had a woman being the first one to report seeing the risen Lord. Nor would you have had the Apostles going to their tortuous deaths to spread a lie, or the chief persecutor of the Christians being converted on the road to Damascus. Immediately following the Crucifixion, the Apostles were in total disarray, demoralized and scared. Something would have had to happen to give them the faith and fortitude to carry on. The world was changed by the Resurrection of Christ. The world would be changed further if more people believed and took to heart the teachings of Christ.

 

The above is a post on a help website.  How would you suggest I counter this?

 

Suggest that the whole book  is a fictional story. In fictional stories one fictional character may cause a series of events in which other fictional characters do things. Using one fictional character to prove something about other fictional characters is still fictional.

 

If Spiderman was all a made up story, how come there are spiders ? How come there is radioactivity? Why are there spiderman costumes? Checkmate, Spiderman atheist!

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3 hours ago, SerenelyBlue said:

I don't think I am the best there is at debating over theology.

 

 

Well most of the time there isn't much to be gained from debating theology.  Christians are not about to change their minds just because the facts don't measure up to their beliefs.  They didn't become Christians because of the facts.

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All these Christians who are arguing about stuff in the bible such as the above are missing the bigger picture, which is genesis, about god first creating the world, and and eve eating that apple, and original sin, and then god creating and sacrificing another part of himself so that we can all be saved from the hell he also created.  If they can accept the bloodthirsty tyrant that they call love, then its hopeless to debate with them.

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All of this reminds me strongly of the 1980s infatuation with Josh McDowell and his "Evidence that Demands a Verdict". None of the documents he references are from the lifetime of Jesus, only long after talking about the cult of Christianity that was spreading. Nobody from the lifetime of Jesus wrote about him, and there are a lot of documents from the time he was alleged to have lived. Nothing about his triumphal entry to Jerusalem, nothing about miracles of healing or feeding thousands, nothing about people rising from the dead after his crucifixion, nothing. Just like Mormonism spread throughout America while being an entirely fabricated religion, the same is true of Christianity.

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On 4/10/2018 at 1:22 PM, SerenelyBlue said:

 We have the attestations of the Apostles that he was resurrected from the dead. If it was all a made-up story, you wouldn't have had a woman being the first one to report seeing the risen Lord. Nor would you have had the Apostles going to their tortuous deaths to spread a lie, or the chief persecutor of the Christians being converted on the road to Damascus. 

 

The above is a post on a help website.  How would you suggest I counter this?

Hello SerenelyBlue, lots of good stuff posted on here by others, so I'll just add a few thoughts.

1. Your interlocutor uses the gospels and Acts as though they are historical sources. But that is precisely one of the questions at hand. From what I've seen, an increasing number of non-evangelical biblical scholars are dating Acts to the earlier second century, and after Josephus (it gets some stuff from Josephus' Antiquities wrong). We do not know as fact anything about the apostles' actions in the 30s A.D. We also don't know as fact about their supposed martyrdoms. Their martyrdoms are themselves less securely attested even than the gospel stories. So we don't know that the apostles ever had the chance to decide whether or not to die for what they knew was a lie. That whole argument rests on later tradition about martyrdoms.

 

2. Josephus' Antiquities, in which are found the two references to Jesus, are from the 90s, not 75. 

 

3. The argument about the women is very poor because it rests on assumptions that we have no reason to apply to the author of Mark, generally taken to be the first gospel. Mark throughout has women at the center of Jesus' travels and ministry. In part that's consistent with Mark's continual "the last shall be first, and the first, last" theme. It is absolutely consistent with Mark that women should be the ones at the tomb first. The disciples are continually portrayed as lacking understanding in Mark. Then, there is a parallel with the myth of Dionysius, which comes up in Euripides' Bacchae. There are a number of fascinating parallels between the Bacchae and the early Christian stories. I don't make much of this, because it's obviously speculative, but I note that Dionysius in the play is followed by a company of female devotees. Anyway, the Criterion of Embarrassment and the women at the tomb is not a proof of historicity because we have no reason to think the author of Mark thought the point an embarrassment for the gospel tale.

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SB , Jonathan Pearce has pulled together a lot of information about why non-fundy archaeologists are pretty much agreed that the entire Exodus story is myth. If that's myth, the Covenant of the Torah is myth. And then there is no "old covenant" of which the "new covenant" is the new covenant. All the NT assumptions of a historical Exodus are pretty clearly mistakes of myth/legend for history.

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/04/09/debunking-the-exodus-analysing-some-counter-evidence/

 

Johno has also pulled together a lot of info about problems with the Easter accounts in the gospels:

 

this post is a summary but it has links to earlier posts in his series on Easter:

 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tippling/2018/04/02/the-resurrection-debunked-naturalistic-explanations/

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2 hours ago, Fuego said:

All of this reminds me strongly of the 1980s infatuation with Josh McDowell and his "Evidence that Demands a Verdict". None of the documents he references are from the lifetime of Jesus, only long after talking about the cult of Christianity that was spreading. Nobody from the lifetime of Jesus wrote about him, and there are a lot of documents from the time he was alleged to have lived. Nothing about his triumphal entry to Jerusalem, nothing about miracles of healing or feeding thousands, nothing about people rising from the dead after his crucifixion, nothing. Just like Mormonism spread throughout America while being an entirely fabricated religion, the same is true of Christianity.

But you would never know that when you listen to a lot of Christian pastors. They talk as if the Gospels and all these miracles were written by eyewitnesses to the events, which is far from the truth. I think the success of Christianity is due to the fact that it spread with the use of the sword, not only by voluntary choice. And now that Christianity and Christians are taken to be virtuous and good and people fall for the argument that only religious people are moral, it has a lot going for it. Until we reach a point when it's acceptable to critique Christianity out in the open without serious consequence, it will have some sort of protected status. 

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