The Case For Christ - A defence of Lee Strobel's 1998 apologetic book

[Lion IRC]

That Alexander Romance wiki says;
"The earliest version is in the Greek language, dating to the 3rd century. "

600 years later.???

I'm interested in verifying whether Arrian and Plutarch are in fact the earliest written historical accounts.

I presume that Strobel and Blomberg mean "extant" because they very clearly state they are making "a comparison" with the equivalent extant Gospel document. But I'm happy to concede that other written histories about Alexander (and Jesus) existed earlier than the oldest extant documents we have today.

As I said earlier, I don't claim "earliest extant" is the same as "earliest".

 

[Rhea]

If you're trying to say that "extant" makes them equivalent (seems to be your theme?) Then are you trying to claim that the gospel writers say they are referring to earlier written works? Because I had never heard that before, that they SAY they are referring to earlier written works, the way Arrian and Plutarch do.

 

[Rhea]

You know, it's quite a puzzler how god never saw it coming that folks would want to read first-hand accounts and do something like, I dunno, inspire a writer or two to set it down and then inspire a records keeper or two to keep it safe.

Don't you hate when you are caught by surprise like that?

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

You know, it's quite a puzzler how god never saw it coming that folks would want to read first-hand accounts and do something like, I dunno, inspire a writer or two to set it down and then inspire a records keeper or two to keep it safe.

Don't you hate when you are caught by surprise like that?

4500 years before the Jesus stories Khufu was resurrected according to his followers, joining with Ra and descending into the underworld to fight the demons and preserve the world. And Khufu's tomb is empty. His granite sarcophagus contains no mummy, none has ever been found.

I wonder how much the Strobes knows about Khufu. Probably never heard of him even though he broke the Jesus story four and a half millenia before super jesus hit the presses.

 

[steve_bank]

Aha! We are getting down to the nitty gritty. The reliance on the gospels as facts. The acceptance of gospels as facts is the foundation of Christianity In particularly the resurrection as true.

What I see is the same as I jave seen with the average Christian, the authenticity of the gospels are irrelevant, the question never arises.

People get a good feeling reading and discussing the bible. That serves as validation.

There's no nitty gritty in yours and Koyaanisqatsi biblical arguments . But To be fair ... you are authorities (perhaps like Keith asked of me) although you do imo, give quite odd interpretations of what the scripture means in your eyes.

I get the impression that one of you ( if not both) has a little lack of the phsycological human experience , its the same way I used to discuss or debate, when I was in my mid-twenties ,without understanding a little more of humans. ( however , as for myself ... my grammar is still atrocious after all this time)

Now we are getting down to the brass tacks, the gospel truth....

 

[steve_bank]

Literacy tom the point of writing the gospels was not common. People did not have notebooks and pencils.

The people JC was said to hang around with were not the educated Jewish elite. It would certainly have been mostly hear say. subject to distortion and embellishment over time. We see it today playing out in global news.

A reporter in a place like Yemen report via a cell phone or sat phone what people are saying. He only witnesses aftermath.

As a business man Trump is a disaster, yet the myth of his business skill evolved. Christians believe in faith healing not having ever witnessed it. It is always a recounted story.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Literacy tom the point of writing the gospels was not common. People did not have notebooks and pencils.

The people JC was said to hang around with were not the educated Jewish elite. It would certainly have been mostly hear say. subject to distortion and embellishment over time. We see it today playing out in global news.

A reporter in a place like Yemen report via a cell phone or sat phone what people are saying. He only witnesses aftermath.

As a business man Trump is a disaster, yet the myth of his business skill evolved. Christians believe in faith healing not having ever witnessed it. It is always a recounted story.

Best to think of religion as urban legend.

Of course if I'm a devotee of urban legends, not yet aware of my rational, scientific and intellectual shortcomings,then reindeer still fly, we came from spacemen, humans fly around in the sky like superman and when we die we get abducted because we're part alien spaceman too.

There's an obvious target audience for the Strobes book.

 

[Rhea]

So using the quote function is hearsay.
Hmmm. I can see why you might think that is unreliable.

Do you mean the quote function that produces the original manuscript with electronic verification of its author? THAT’s the quote function you are comparing to your presumption of earlier written documents that we can’t find?

That’s the way your mind thinks?

 

[Lion IRC]

Literacy tom the point of writing the gospels was not common. People did not have notebooks and pencils.

The people JC was said to hang around with were not the educated Jewish elite.

Jewish men, from a young age, regularly went to synagogues and read from and studied the Torah. You think they were illiterate?

Matthew Levi was a tax collector. Think he couldn't read his own accounting records?

Peter and James and John ran a fishing business. Zebedee was wealthy and occasionally held the position as acting High Priest.

These are not ignorant peasants.

 

[James Brown]

Catherine Heszer, Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of London, has estimated that the literacy rate of Palestine in the 1st century was about 3 percent.

Only young men from wealthy families could read and study the Torah, and in 1st-century Palestine very few families were wealthy. We might as well say that today, young men and women enter medical school to become brain surgeons, so the majority of people are qualified to remove brain tumors.

A tax collector in ancient times was not like today's IRS agent with a CPA. Matthew was more of a toll-booth collector, and one merely need to be able to perform simple counting and making change to do that. When Matthew met Jesus, he was sitting at his toll booth (Matthew 9:9). Lots more about Matthew here.

Being fishermen does not mean "running a fishing business" which invokes today's imagery of keeping detailed records and reading complicated regulatory papers. It means getting in a boat, netting fish, carrying it back to a market, and selling it to others. You imagine Peter and James were captains of industry? Peter and John admit outright in the Book of Acts that they were unlettered.

When I was a Christian, I was told that part of Jesus' appeal was that he spent his time with the poor, the downtrodden, the lowest classes of people. But if we need Jesus to move among the circles of the wealthy elites in order to build up our case that Christianity is authentic, that's fine too. But it can't be supported biblically.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Catherine Heszer, Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of London, has estimated that the literacy rate of Palestine in the 1st century was about 3 percent.

I never met a person who was illiterate until I was 26 and living in the south. There were three men on my crew that could neither read nor write. They were all married adults with children and had never left their county of birth.

In another southern state I met the wife of a workmate who was illiterate. One day she found herself on the interstate and didn't know what to do. She was lost and drove two-hundred miles before pulling off and calling her husband who after figuring out where she was told her to stay there and that he would drive to her.

Was Jesus literate? How do we know if he was? How did he become literate if he was? Shall we make up some more stuff about Jesus so we can make him be literate?

 

[steve_bank]

Catherine Heszer, Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of London, has estimated that the literacy rate of Palestine in the 1st century was about 3 percent.

Only young men from wealthy families could read and study the Torah, and in 1st-century Palestine very few families were wealthy. We might as well say that today, young men and women enter medical school to become brain surgeons, so the majority of people are qualified to remove brain tumors.

A tax collector in ancient times was not like today's IRS agent with a CPA. Matthew was more of a toll-booth collector, and one merely need to be able to perform simple counting and making change to do that. When Matthew met Jesus, he was sitting at his toll booth (Matthew 9:9). Lots more about Matthew here.

Being fishermen does not mean "running a fishing business" which invokes today's imagery of keeping detailed records and reading complicated regulatory papers. It means getting in a boat, netting fish, carrying it back to a market, and selling it to others. You imagine Peter and James were captains of industry? Peter and John admit outright in the Book of Acts that they were unlettered.

When I was a Christian, I was told that part of Jesus' appeal was that he spent his time with the poor, the downtrodden, the lowest classes of people. But if we need Jesus to move among the circles of the wealthy elites in order to build up our case that Christianity is authentic, that's fine too. But it can't be supported biblically.

Great summary. I'd say it was the same in Christian Europe under the RCC. Few people could read the bible let alone understand it. The average person went to church and heard Latin.

 

[Lion IRC]

Literacy tom the point of writing the gospels was not common. People did not have notebooks and pencils.

The people JC was said to hang around with were not the educated Jewish elite.

Jewish men, from a young age, regularly went to synagogues and read from and studied the Torah. You think they were illiterate?

Matthew Levi was a tax collector. Think he couldn't read his own accounting records?

Peter and James and John ran a fishing business. Zebedee was wealthy and occasionally held the position as acting High Priest.

These are not ignorant peasants.

Catherine Heszer, Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of London, has estimated that the literacy rate of Palestine in the 1st century was about 3 percent.

Only young men from wealthy families could read and study the Torah, and in 1st-century Palestine very few families were wealthy.

OK.
So the New Testament writers were literate AND wealthy.

A tax collector in ancient times was not like today's IRS agent with a CPA. Matthew was more of a toll-booth collector, and one merely need to be able to perform simple counting and making change to do that.

You're making that up.
What next? Judas Iscariot wasn't good with money?

When Matthew met Jesus, he was sitting at his toll booth (Matthew 9:9). Lots more about Matthew here.

Speculation.

Being fishermen does not mean "running a fishing business" which invokes today's imagery of keeping detailed records and reading complicated regulatory papers. It means getting in a boat, netting fish, carrying it back to a market, and selling it to others. You imagine Peter and James were captains of industry?

You imagine that they weren't.
Was Jesus' father Joseph a self-employed business man (carpentry)?

Peter and John admit outright in the Book of Acts that they were unlettered.

In which alphabet?

When I was a Christian, I was told that part of Jesus' appeal was that he spent his time with the poor, the downtrodden, the lowest classes of people.

Part of Jesus' appeal. Part of how He spent His time.
He also spent a good deal of time with wealthy educated people like Nicodemus and Joanna ans Susanna and Chusa and Joseph of Arimathea, and Zacchaeus. Jesus had no trouble calling upon wealthy supporters to provide an all expenses paid upper room Passover meal.

But if we need Jesus to move among the circles of the wealthy elites in order to build up our case that Christianity is authentic, that's fine too.

You're the one saying only wealthy, literate, upper class Jews could have written the Gospels.

But it can't be supported biblically.

There's ample support for Jesus' supporters and disciples being literate.

 

[Learner]

Kudos Lion (rep given) still engaging discussion , doing well keeping up , responding with the many posts.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Kudos Lion (rep given) still engaging discussion , doing well keeping up , responding with the many posts.

And all of it evasive bullshit that never addresses the fact that it’s still just hearsay. What he’s desperately trying to do is establish that it’s reliable, as if that makes any difference. They were literate and rich and “elite” therefore their claims of magic can be trusted, therefore it’s all real. Which, of course, is utter nonsense.

Especially since he keeps shooting himself in the foot by stipulating that that we can remove the claims of magic, which are the only claims that matter.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Kudos Lion (rep given) still engaging discussion , doing well keeping up , responding with the many posts.

And all of it evasive bullshit that never addresses the fact that it’s still just hearsay.

Kudos Koy (rep given) for continuing to call a spade a fucking shovel.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Kudos Koy (rep given) for continuing to call a spade a fucking shovel.

Eh.
When you call it a manually operated, human-powered, bovine fecal matter relocation device, it's still a bullshit shovel.

 

[Learner]

And all of it evasive bullshit that never addresses the fact that it’s still just hearsay. What he’s desperately trying to do is establish that it’s reliable, as if that makes any difference. They were literate and rich and “elite” therefore their claims of magic can be trusted, therefore it’s all real. Which, of course, is utter nonsense.

Especially since he keeps shooting himself in the foot by stipulating that that we can remove the claims of magic, which are the only claims that matter.

I don't agree about that, but IMO, I don't think we need further a new debate about Lion's so-called character , you should perhaps just discuss according to what's on the OP .

(unless you think it benefits you ... argumentus-tacticalus-thingybob )

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

We're evil.

A spaceman died for us.

We're redeemed.

Hallelujah.

Send me your money.

Lee Strobel

 

[Learner]

We're evil.

A spaceman died for us.

We're redeemed.

Hallelujah.

Send me your money.

Lee Strobel

A spaceman did not die for us.

We're not redeemed.

No Hallelujahs.

Send me your money.


(Case against Christ, The God delusion, Caesars Messiah and many more)

Either way ... religion for and against , can make money. (Im in the wrong business)