120 Reasons to Reject Christianity

[bilby]

You appear to have a difficulty in getting 'the point.'

She's asking for evidence, a reason to believe Christain theology.
Your answer is only effective for those who already accept Christain theology. It's certainly not evidence because we have no evidence of that eternal life.

Ya, that's kind of like saying "Suicde bombers get a whole gaggle of virgins up in Heaven and therefore your arguments against suicide bombing are wrong".

Or "Of course there's a Silicon Heaven. If there is no Silicon Heaven, where do all the calculators go?"

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why did Jesus Christ get placed into the historical record? How? What did he do?

How does someone get mentioned in the historical record (500 years ago or earlier)? (The "record" in both the "loose" AND in the "narrow" sense):

1. Loose sense: ALL documents, no matter what. I.e., any documents that survived; and

2. Narrow sense: only documents from widely-recognized historians. Jesus Christ is mentioned twice -- once in TACITUS, and once in JOSEPHUS (the authentic Josephus quote, not the celebrated controversial quote).

Being mentioned is important in both senses of the "historical record." What other example is there of someone preserved in the "record" who had a short public life and no established status or wide reputation or position of power at the time?

(We could put a time limit, like within 100 or 200 years of the reputed events, but this time length doesn't matter.)

Probably a reason there are so few references is that Jesus was active publicly for less than 3 years, very likely even less than one year. Virtually all "famous" characters in history had to be doing something for a much longer time than this in order to gain a mention in mainline history documents.

. . . most of them are mentioned for accomplishments, not duration of public eye.

Of course, but it took time for them to do their accomplishments and accumulate a reputation such that anyone would know of them enough to write about them. Someone active for only 1-3 years, and who had no publicly-recognized status, would likely get no mention even if they did something noteworthy, or at least no immediate mention.

Only a small fraction of the noteworthy events in history ever got recorded for the benefit of later generations. Most important historical events were not recorded and are forgotten. And the few persons who were written about and preserved for us in documents were ones who had long public careers and were widely recognized while they were still alive.

What's an example of someone in the historical record, other than Jesus Christ, who had such a short public career? (other than a name in a list, like a geneology or similar listing?) There probably is no other example of this.

What did Christ do in such a short time span, having no political power or recognized status, that would gain him this distinction? Isn't this "extraordinary evidence" that he must have done something "extraordinary"?

If someone was in the public eye for one hour, but caused the dead bodies in the city tombs to get up and walk around during that hour, you'd expect quite a bit of attestation and corroboration in the accounts of the day.

There's no way to know, for one single event. Maybe there'd be no account, even for the most unusual event you can imagine. Most events were not recorded, even the unusual ones. If the persons at the event were not famous or powerful, the event might be totally disregarded, no matter how unusual. But for repeated miracles, like the healing acts of Jesus, we'd expect some mention in later documents. If it's not those miracle acts that he did, then he must have done something else highly unusual. What would that be?

Jesus wasn't just giving speeches or rising to the throne.

But what he did was less likely to be recorded, or written down immediately, than speeches by those in power or acts by those assuming power or wielding power, because he was not a person in high position of power or influence, so that there were not scribes present and no occasion for the events to be recorded as in the case of those having power or wide repute.

He was [allegedly] conducting miracles...which no one at the time seemed to write down...

Not immediately when they happened -- because virtually no events were written down immediately when they happened and/or because 99% of documents did not survive. Even very important or unusual events are mostly unrecorded until after some time lapse. The criterion for being recorded was mainly the power or high status of the persons written about.

What's an example of a commoner who gained mention in the historical record (any surviving document) because of an unusual act he did?

What we have in the gospel accounts is what we would expect if someone actually did perform a large number of miracle acts, i.e., someone of no recognized political status or no connection to those in the social power structure or no widespread repute due to a long career. Only by repetition of the unusual acts, remembered and reported as rumors, would those acts eventually gain recognition and be recorded for the benefit of posterity.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Being mentioned is important in both senses of the "historical record." What other example is there of someone preserved in the "record" who had a short public life and no established status or wide reputation or position of power at the time?

My nothing, it's the same thing over and over and over again. Trying to prove a fact by asking leading questions.

Why's Jesus is fictional why aren't there more fictions?
If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
Scottish people emigrated to the US to become Scottish-Americans. Why are there still Scottish people in Scotland?
Protestantism came from Catholicism. There are Protestants today, why are there still Catholics?

What we have in the gospel accounts is what we would expect if someone actually did perform a large number of miracle acts

But what we have OUTSIDE of the gospels is not the corroboration we'd expect if there were actual witnesses to actual miracles, Lumpy.
Swing-and-a-miss.

 

[Atheos]

Once again, the fact that people were telling stories about a mythical character named Jesus is part of the historical record. Your continued stance of ignoring the most likely scenario (namely that Josephus and Tacitus were merely parroting the claims made by Christians at the time about their Jesus hero) has grown far more than tiresome. These people did not witness any of this for themselves and lived in a time 90-120 years removed from the allegations. Just like us today, they had to rely on what they were hearing/reading and we can be certain that what they wrote would have been influenced by the presence of zealous Christians. We can also be fairly certain that each of these individuals would have had an opportunity to read GMark, possibly other gospels by that time.

And no, just for the record, just because a historical source happens to be closer to the events in question does not automatically make it a more reliable source, especially if said source is not an eyewitness or contemporary. At best Josephus and Tacitus are reporting what many people believed happened many decades before. Context is everything when attempting to ascertain the reliability of something written in an historical setting. For the reasons we've continued to enumerate throughout this debate the context clearly muddies up the circumstances by which Josephus and Tacitus wrote what they did. It is impossible to determine if they were merely parroting what Christians were claiming or if they had some other reason for writing what they did. Without that context the most reasonable explanation is that they had heard it from Christians, which were abundant by the time these things were written.

There are hundreds of scenarios that would place this character's stories into the historical record without requiring that the character actually lived, and hundreds more that would adequately explain the existence of these stories if they were based on an actual historical character that do not require one to believe the character walked on water and levitated off into the sky. You continue to summarily dismiss all of those reasonable and rational scenarios without addressing them. If I didn't know better I would think you already had your mind made up that your invisible friend was a miracle worker and are unwilling to entertain any other possibilities.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

The DOGMA that miracles can never happen vs. SCIENTIFIC belief in Christ based on the evidence.

Without more data it is impossible to ascertain exactly what happened. So what sensible historians do is look at what is more likely.

It's exactly like mom walking in on her kids with cookies in their mouths and an open cookie jar nearby. Usually the cookie jar sits on a high shelf but now it's on the counter. One kid says that Jesus miraculously appeared, levitated up to the cookie jar, floated back down with it in his hands, handed one to each child and said, "Take, eat, for this is my body which is broken for you." The kid explains that it would be a sin not to finish eating the cookie.

Another kid says, "No, what happened was that Brian climbed up on the counter, got the cookie jar down off the shelf and put it down here were we could get to the cookies."

One explanation involves the miraculous. The other does not. Mother refuses to believe the levitating cookie thief story for the exact same reason sensible people are skeptical about the Jesus myths.

You need a more realistic example than this. In any real scenario such as this, "Mother" would know that the first kid is just pulling her leg. Give us a real example of a miracle claim to use for comparison. Give an example where the miracle claim is serious and there are some who really believe it and it's not just a joke.

Now let's say that the first kid whips out his Android smartphone and says, "But mom, I got it all on video! Watch!"

He then plays a video, in which it is clear that her kitchen is visited by this apparition as her other child stares open-mouthed the whole time.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

And we require more than this cliche, or slogan.

Give a real example to illustrate this, or a serious one. Give us a real example where "extraordinary" evidence is required to verify an "extraordinary" claim. Your example does not do this. Extraordinary events do sometimes happen, and we can believe it based on witness accounts, without the need for a video recording.

What we need for miracle claims is extra evidence. Many historical events are believed on the basis of one source only, but for miracle events we need extra sources. We have more evidence for the miracles of Jesus, because of the extra sources, than we have for many historical events which we accept as true.

Provide the extraordinary evidence and we've got something to talk about.

We have the necessary extra evidence. No one can show any flaw in this evidence. Events in history are believed because someone reports that they happened, and this is all that is required. That report is the evidence that it's true. If it's unusual, or a miracle, then we need extra evidence.

And the extra evidence does not make it 100% certain. Maybe not even 90%. But the claim becomes more credible as the sources increase in number. Also, proximity to the events, or relative closeness to them in time, increases the credibility in comparison to a much longer time distance from the events.

The very earliest that we can date "Mark" is around 65AD. It's more likely that it was written around 75AD. Either way we're looking at a minimum of 30-40 years of myth development, an eternity when playing the gossip game.

But that's much closer in time than for other miracle stories, such as those of Asclepius or Horus or Krishna and other alleged earlier miracle-workers. And also the later miracle stories, such as for Apollonius of Tyana, or for Simon Magus.

So, do you then grant that in the case of Jesus we do have more evidence, or better evidence, than for these cases from pagan mythology and from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD? Do you grant that we have more evidence in the case of Jesus than for other alleged miracle workers of antiquity?

You give this criterion here yourself, in your citation of Mark from 65 or 75 AD, saying that the gap of 30-40 years is a problem for credibility. But don't you grant that this is better for credibility than several centuries, as in the case of Krishna or Horus or Asclepius? or 100 or 200 years as in the case of Apollonius and Simon Magus?

But also, the Q document, which is quoted or paraphrased in Matthew and Luke, is EARLIER than Mark. This document contains 2 miracle narratives of Jesus and also a non-narrative reference to Jesus performing miracles. This Q document is almost certainly datable to the 50s AD (if not even earlier), so only 20-30 years separate from the events.

. . . 30-40 years of myth development, an eternity when playing the gossip game.

But remember that most historical events, from that long ago, are farther removed than this from the sources that report them to us.

Though there is this separation of the events from the documents that we have, it's not the same as saying there were no documents or reports earlier than this. On the contrary, these early documents were almost certainly preceded by still earlier documents, as well as oral reports, going far back near to the actual events.

The later reports of events, which finally take a written form that survived down to us, are usually reliable and serve as a basis for the actual events that happened decades or centuries earlier. A great amount of our accepted history is based on this kind of evidence. Much of it is separated by CENTURIES from the actual events, and yet we accept these later documents as reliable evidence, because it's obvious that they're based on much earlier sources.

We do NOT assume that these intervening years must produce major changes due to "gossip" or myth-making. If we assumed that, we would have to throw out of the historical record most of the events from this far back in history.

Even worse, you've already been told (by me) that other gospels (non canonical) have Jesus living at different time frames . . .

No one in this message board topic has given any example of this. One claimed falsely that the Gospel of Peter had put Jesus back a century earlier. But the truth is that this non-canonical gospel puts Jesus in the same period as the canonical gospels, during the time of Pontius Pilate and the tetrarch Herod Antipas.

If it is true that any other source puts Jesus earlier than about 30 AD, then give the example and quote the text saying this. Some have distorted a Talmudic text as referring to a Jesus being crucified back in the 2nd century BC, but these are clear distortions and misinterpretations, i.e., are clearly false claims of identifying Jesus Christ with an earlier figure.

. . . or not giving any time frame at all . . .

There are sayings documents, like the Gospel of Thomas, which only give some reported sayings of Jesus. We must assume they are talking about the same Jesus who was crucified in about 30 AD, as long as they don't say otherwise.

There is no basis for any claim that Jesus lived at a different time than that of about 20-30 AD. Those making such a claim need to provide the evidence, or sources, instead of just repeating some slogans from some sensationalist Jesus-debunker crusader.

This is similar to claims that there are "parallels" to Jesus, such as the pagan deities and others, but not giving any examples for comparison and showing the texts which provide the similarities to Jesus.

So what evidence do we have to fill in the gap?

Again, those passages in Mt and Lk based on the Q document partly fill this gap, taking the earliest miracle accounts of Jesus back to the 50s AD. But also, we do not require that the "gap" be filled in for vast amounts of our history for these times. The "gap" can even be centuries, and yet we still accept our late reports of those earlier events as reliable.

Well... we have the authentic Pauline epistles. These are books that talk about Jesus. They talk about him a lot, and they talk about him precisely during the gap between when the canonical gospels having him living and when they start being produced. What does that evidence say?

Not once - not once does Paul ever mention even a hint that Jesus performed miracles.

Except the resurrection, which is the most important of his miracles.

Paul omits a great deal. But he makes it clear that he's talking about the same person, when he mentions the resurrection appearances. And he specifically says that Jesus was "handed over" on the night of the "Lord's Supper" event. What did he mean when he said that Jesus was "handed over"? He must have been talking about someone in particular, a person to whom some things happened.

He says virtually nothing of the background of Jesus, and yet the Jesus Christ he preaches must have come from somewhere -- he must have emerged from some place where he had been living, because Paul says things that could only happen to a real human person.

The Book of Acts also says virtually nothing about the background of Jesus. But we know this author knew of the biographical background of Jesus. The absence of it in Acts doesn't mean Jesus had no background. He did things, he was at certain places, he said some things, and this author, who also wrote Luke, obviously knew of it.

The Epistle to the Hebrews also omits any background on Jesus. The writer of this Epistle obviously wants to talk about the Heavenly Risen Christ and not about the earthly Jesus, and yet he makes it very clear that this Christ was also an earthly figure who suffered as a human in the flesh. He gives no history of this earthly Christ, except to say that he suffered and was killed.

Here are some references from Hebrews to show that the same spiritual and Heavenly Christ was also an earthly human who suffered and died as a flesh-and-blood human:

In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he spoke to us through a son, whom he made heir of all things and through whom he created the universe, . . .
(Hebrews 1:1)

This "son" communicates likewise as the prophets did, in human speaking, clearly implying that this "son" had human form, just as the prophets were humans. Though this "son" was also a cosmic figure, probably existing long prior, the meaning here says clearly that he spoke as a human "in these last days" just as the human prophets had spoken earlier to "our ancestors."

So this human must have been somewhere at a certain time in history and was seen by people and had some background. The possibility that he only appeared, without having any normal human origin, might be supposed, but he still had to be somewhere when he appeared, and this had to have a time duration, so he either moved around, had a route which he followed and thus some kind of history, or he simply appeared from time to time and then vanished each time, which seems less likely than that he had some kind of history, even if very brief.

The following description has to be that of a human who suffers:

. . . but we do see Jesus "crowned with glory and honor" because he suffered death, he who "for a little while" was made "lower than the angels," that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
(Hebrews 2:9)

How did he suffer death unless he was a human? How was he "for a little while" made "lower than the angels" unless it means he was taken away from that cosmic realm and put into an earthly human form in which he suffered? If that's not what this means, then what does the "for a little while" and the "lower than the angels" mean?

This has to refer to a human who was also a cosmic figure, taken down from his cosmic place and put "lower" into a human form "for a little while," i.e., some period of earth time up to about 30 AD when he suffered and was killed. What else can it mean? This refers to a human who lived on earth for some period and was killed. Thus, he had some kind of history, a geographical location, an itinerary, and flesh-and-blood human existence for this time frame.

So there had to be a "biography" of some kind. And yet the author is totally silent on this biography. It does not mean there was no earthly existence or biography. Rather, this writer simply omits that information and expounds upon the Christ's cosmic importance. Omission of the earthly information does not mean that the author was unaware of it. Omission of this does not imply that it wasn't there.

Now since the children share in blood and flesh, he likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, . . .
(Hebrews 2:14)

How did Christ "share" in the blood and flesh unless it means he was a human, with a human body which then suffered the death referred to here? And how could he have been a flesh-and-blood human who died unless he also had some biography or personal history? Maybe it was short, and unusual in some ways, but there had to be the personal background of this human, because he had to have a location at certain times, or had to have a body that moved from this place to that during this "for a little while" time period the writer speaks of.

Because he himself was tested through what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.
(Hebrews 2:18)

What is the testing and suffering here, unless it refers to Christ's earthly life, as a human, i.e., the one described in the gospel accounts? What else could this refer to?

He leaves out all of this, including the miracle events, but he obviously knew that this Christ cosmic entity had lived as a human and thus had some personal history or earthly "biography" as an essential element of his being.

Virtually all the early Christian writers, for centuries later, had little or nothing to say about the miracles of Jesus. Or about any of his personal history or biography. This is not something they chose to write about, even though they knew of these events recorded in the gospels.

He doesn't say anything about Jesus confounding the Jewish leaders with his wisdom when he was only 12 years of age. He never mentions turning water into wine, healing blindness, paralysis, leprosy or deformities. He never talks of Jesus confronting the money changers at the temple. He doesn't even mention Jesus bringing two different people back to life. Paul never mentions Jesus being in Jerusalem, Galilee, Nazareth, Bethlehem or any other physical location.

But the fact remains that Paul's Jesus figure was a human, or had human form, in the flesh, and so he had to be somewhere. That Paul and some other writers never mention these biographical points does not mean they were non-existent or that Paul didn't know of them or thought his Jesus was outside history. He and the others spoke of Jesus as an earthly human who suffered and died, as a human. There is no reason to believe that the human Jesus they believed in was significantly different than the one described in the gospel accounts.

Paul does connect to the gospel account in his description of "the Lord's Supper" scene and the "handing over" of Jesus on that night, plus also the resurrection and appearances of Jesus that follow. All this harmonizes with the accounts in the gospels. How else can this be explained unless the risen Christ Paul spoke of was the same person as described in the gospel accounts? There is no contradiction between Paul's Jesus and that of the gospel accounts.

These connections between Paul and the gospel accounts, even though few, are enough to show that it was the same person being referred to. You have to show a significant contradiction between Paul and the gospel accounts to prove otherwise. And the miracles are ignored by Paul just as he ignores all the Jesus biographical matter, except the resurrection, and just as all the Christian writers for centuries later played it down or ignored it completely.

The Jesus about which Paul wrote for decades could have lived 200 years before Paul was born for all intents and purposes.

Only if you can explain who this 200 BC person was who was "handed over" and who Paul thought was the "brother" of James and who was crucified and thought to have risen and to have appeared "to Kephas, then to the Twelve" and later "to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep." (I Cor. 15:5-6) This Jesus could not have lived 200 years earlier unless you can identify someone back then who meets this description, which includes that he was seen back then by some who were still alive in Paul's time.

The Jesus about which Paul wrote for decades could have not lived on earth at all.

But then how could Paul have thought he was the "brother" of James? How was he "handed over"? Where was Jesus "handed over" if not somewhere on earth? Where did Paul think "the Lord's Supper" took place if not somewhere on earth? What was the bread and the "cup" he handed to the disciples? Who did he speak to in this scene? Where were they if not somewhere on planet earth?

All this could have taken place in some spiritual frame.

Only if you can explain how he could have had a "brother" and what it means that he was "handed over."

Paul focused on the risen Christ who ascended to Heaven and was now in a different realm than before. He never says anything to suggest that Jesus never existed "on earth." His emphasis was on the Power of Jesus, not his earthly existence where he had a mortal body and was subject to being tortured and killed.

Just because he played down this earthly life of Jesus does not mean he was unaware of it. He clearly shows awareness of it by his reference to these earthly events.

The evidence we have available strongly suggests that the miracle tales developed decades later.

No, it suggests that there was probably some usual mythologizing, as with any historical person who becomes made into legend. Even if some myths emerged along with the factual reports of his miracles, this only points to the actual fact of a real person of an unusual nature that such mythologizing would have a concrete individual to begin with which served as the object of the mythologizing.

We have to have a real person to begin with before the legend can begin to evolve. You have to explain the origin of the legend. You haven't explained this.

A plausible scenario has already been presented, but you've ignored it.

More than one scenario has been presented, and all of them fail to explain how the Jesus legend could have got started in the first place. They all just say people started believing in this mythical hero presented to them, with no explanation how or why they began believing in a pure fiction. Even other legendary figures must have been unusual to begin with. There has to be an explanation how the legend began.

In the case of Jesus this is more difficult to explain because the miracle stories were already circulating within 20-40 years, which is far less than in the case of reputed miracle-worker deities, where it requires centuries for the miracle myths to develop.

Most likely scenario is that as the Jesus myth became more and more popular it suffered from its dearth of the miraculous.

No, what Jesus myth are you talking about? How did it first get started? You're not answering this. You just ASSUME that the myth is already there. You're talking about the Jesus legend many years later after he was gone and no one was doing any miracles.

But you have to go back earlier, to the beginning of the myth. How did it start? And how did it become "more and more popular"? You have no plausible scenario to offer until you answer this.

Other popular gods could turn water into wine, heal people of disease and tame fierce denizens of the underworld.

No they could not, not even in fantasy. Name a "popular god" who was doing these things or who was believed to be doing these things. Where are the texts, from the period, saying that people were being healed or seeing gods doing miracles? We have the written accounts of the Jesus miracles. Where are similar written accounts of miracles done by "other popular gods" and dating from near the time when the miracles allegedly happened? like within 100-200 years after?

The existence of ancient myths, dating more than 1000 years earlier, has no connection to the miracles of Jesus in the gospel accounts. These ancient myths, for which there is no credible evidence, does not give any explanation of the origin of the Jesus miracle events in the gospel accounts.

It would only take one unscrupulous Jesus salesman to begin assuaging his customers with a new version of Jesus who did all these things (and more) to have the entire audience eagerly lapping up these new and much more captivating details about Jesus with gusto.

Then why don't we have hundreds of other Jesus-like miracle-workers emerging during this period? If it's this easy to foist a miracle scam onto gullible people, then there should easily be dozens of other scams emerging during this time, providing similar accounts, near to the reputed miracle events. Yet no one can name another example that has any credibility, any evidence, any connection to actual history, such as we have in the gospel accounts.

Name another case. There has to be more than one, if it's so easy to foist such a fraud.

It is every bit as gullible to believe the Jesus miracle stories based only on their existence in tales as it is to believe everything you read in emails about black market kidney heists and gang initiations involving flashing headlights.

So you're saying kidneys and flashing headlights don't really exist?

You can't claim to have debunked all beliefs in the bizarre or paranormal or miraculous just because you have uncovered some that were fraudulent.

The fact still remains that much of what we know from history is based on claims made by limited sources, many generations or even centuries later, after the alleged events took place. For unusual claims, like miracles, you've not shown why it isn't sufficient to require extra sources.

The crap they write about in National Enquirer is every bit as credible as the crap contained in the canonical gospels and the people who wrote it can be identified and their sources can be interrogated.

So you lump them all together and just assume they are all hoaxes and disregard the evidence, no matter what?

There can't be a few exceptions where the reported event really did happen? or is at least partly true?

Is there a miracle-worker reported in the National Enquirer who has or had similar power to heal as Jesus described in the gospel accounts? And is the evidence just as credible? You have examined that evidence and have found that there are no reported cases of this healer being unable to heal someone who was brought to him? I.e., there are no reported cases of "misses" but only "hits"?

Which case is that? Can you name who this healer was? Or did he do other "miracles" that are of a similar nature, i.e., showing a super-human power of some kind? What is the best case of this? You say there are others just as credible as the Jesus accounts. So give an example of one. Which is the best example?

I'm not sure if the quote feature has removed some text at this point that would help explain what it is you're going on about. Find me some extraordinary evidence corroborating these fantastic claims in the National Enquirer and I'll give it more consideration.

No, YOU find the evidence. You said: "The crap they write about in National Enquirer is every bit as credible as the crap contained in the canonical gospels . . ."

What "crap" from the National Enquirer are you talking about? You said it's just as credible as the "crap" in the gospels. The latter is miracle events, reported in 2 or 3 or 4 separate accounts, saying Jesus healed someone. So, what is the "crap" in the National Enquirer that is just as credible?

Let's just start from the premise that there must be more than one source, such as we have for the Jesus miracles, just to begin the comparison. So, is there a miracle story from the National Enquirer for which there are 2 or more separate sources?

You at least have to claim that much if you say such a story is "every bit as credible" as that of the gospel accounts.

Though such stories from the Enquirer might exist, and maybe they're still untrue, still it does increase the credibility if there are more sources than only one. Many of their stories probably do not meet this criterion, and so all those can be easily dismissed as failing the test, and so they are NOT "every bit as credible" as the Jesus miracle accounts.

And there are some other tests also. It is not scientific or rational to simply dismiss all miracle stories as false, regardless of any evidence. If there is sufficient evidence in some cases, why couldn't the story then be true, or partly true, even though there are other similar stories that could easily be debunked?

Meanwhile I'm not swallowing these fantastic claims just because someone saw fit to put them down on paper.

But it becomes more credible if more than one such person wrote it down, and we can compare these separate sources. Automatic dogmatic unquestioned disbelief is just as irrational as A D U belief.

You keep trying to "special plead" your Jesus myth as if somehow the unique elements of it are evidence that it happened.

In some cases they are. In the Jesus example it is difficult to explain how the myth began, because the claims were circulating at most 30-40 years after the reported events happened. This is unlike the pagan deities where the myths required centuries to evolve. So this uniqueness of the Jesus miracle events sets them apart in a way that they are more plausible. I.e., because of this "unique element" it is more difficult to explain how the stories could have emerged if the events did not really happen. Whereas for the pagan deities, it is easy to explain how the myths could have emerged as fiction over several centuries.

However, even so, the original pagan deity is best explained as a real person who existed many centuries earlier, and was probably someone important, so that a real person of note actually was the origin of the legend and not a totally fictional character. But the long time separation can explain the super-human element that evolved from the original accounts of the historical figure.

Unique elements do not make a story more plausible than other stories because every freaking story has unique elements.

Some unique elements DO make the story more plausible. If it's an element that makes this story unexplainable in a way that other such stories can be explained, then it means you have to do extra work trying to explain how the original story-myth began.

Doesn't a time span of several centuries explain how Asclepius evolved from a real historical person who may have practiced normal medicine back in 1000 or 2000 BC into a deity who did miracles? But that same explanation cannot apply to the case of Jesus, because the accounts of his miracles are too close to the actual time of the reported events. I.e., there was not sufficient time for the legend to evolve into that of a miracle-worker, as in the case of Asclepius. And this explains most of the pagan deities which allegedly did miracles. Whereas the "unique element" in the Jesus case rules out this explanation.

Otherwise they'd all just be the same story.

Of course, it matters what the "unique elements" are. In some cases they help to make the "myth" more credible than in other cases. But all stories are "unique" in some way, so uniqueness per se does not prove higher credibility. The believer has to demonstrate how the particular "unique element" makes the story more credible.

The shorter time period between the alleged event(s) and the written reports of them does make the Jesus miracles more plausible.

However, you've been presented with the fact that there really is nothing unique in your Jesus myths. Asclepius could heal the sick.

No, the accounts of Asclepius are non-existent until many centuries after the historical figure existed, if he existed. Because of this we can easily explain how the miracle element evolved in this case, over the many centuries of tradition and myth-making. Whereas the Jesus miracles cannot be explained in this way, because there is not the same time gap in which the legend could have evolved and the hero figure could have been mythologized.

Bacchus could turn water into wine.

Could he? Is this even what the myth claims?

In addition to the above reason, that the Bacchus legend evolved over many centuries, unlike the Jesus legend, there is a further fallacy with this example: It is not clear from the myth that Bacchus could really turn water into wine.

Those who claim Bacchus did this never give the ancient texts which tell of his power to do this, or which narrate him doing such a thing.

Since Bacchus lived and breathed and died wine, you can probably dig up something from the ancient myths that can be misinterpreted to mean that he changed water into wine. But the truth is that Bacchus was never famous for turning water into wine until after Christ and the gospels had become popularized, when the Jesus-debunkers turned Bacchus into a water-into-wine deity in order to make it appear that the early Christian writers were copying this miracle from Bacchus.

If you think Bacchus was famous for turning water into wine, find the ancient text which relates him doing this miracle. You'll have trouble finding it.

Everything your Jesus did was something some other Greek, Roman, Assyrian or Egyptian god had done centuries before.

No, there are hardly any parallels. You can't give a good example, just phony ones like the above.

But the most important difference is that in the case of Jesus there is real evidence that he did perform miracles, whereas all the earlier legends are unsupported by any evidence. And likewise the later miracle myth-legends which began popping up after 100 AD.

There's hardly anything like the Jesus healing acts. The closest would be some people who prayed at a temple or statue of an ancient deity. But there was no historical person who is reported to have performed miracle healing acts, to whom the afflicted ones were brought to be healed by him. You can't give an example of this, either from mythology or from any historical or other source.

This is not to say that there are absolutely no parallels. You can show some similarities of symbolism, but at most you are only proving that Jesus fulfilled some of the wishes that had existed earlier and had gone unfulfilled.

The entire life of Jesus is nothing more than a warmed over "Hero-God" epic myth that follows the story of Perseus so perfectly that the only remaining miracle is how Christians continue to ignore this critical bit of evidence.

You can't give any example of a Jesus-Perseus parallel based on any ancient text about Perseus. Only based on popular slogans from Jesus-debunkers. You cannot quote any source for this other than these modern Jesus-debunkers. Nothing from the ancient sources. When you go back to those original stories about the gods, and quote the texts that relate their miracles, it becomes clear that there is virtually no parallel to Jesus in the gospels.

And, of course, whatever miracle acts they did are reported only many centuries later, and so are a result of mythologizing. So there is total lack of evidence, unlike the case of Jesus for whom we have multiple sources near to the time that the events took place.

The fact that people believed these bullshit stories offers absolutely nothing of value when it comes to determining whether or not the stories were true.

Wrong, it does offer value. Our historical record comes from witnesses who report the events and believed them. There is very little in the historical record that does not come from someone who reported the events because they believed they happened. The reported events, in documents (which is what the "gospel" accounts are), are accompanied also by archaeological finds, but these latter are few by comparison and tell us much less about the actual events than the documents tell us.

Wow. Seriously? Evidently you've never been to a museum filled with bracelets, pottery, paintings, arrowheads and other artifacts that contain evidence to corroborate (or gainsay) historical documents.

Most of our historical facts are not corroborated by such evidence.

There is an old saying, one you'd be well served to apply: "The victors write the history books."

Yes, and the anti-Christians who dominated and were victorious up until 200 to 300 AD wrote all the history books from 30 to 300 AD, and these records are what give us the evidence of Christ's power. We needn't rely on any historical evidence from AFTER the time that Christianity took power in Rome. The evidence for Christ belief comes to us BEFORE the Christian "victors" took over.

Yes, rational historians understand that written documentation is always to be taken with skepticism, especially when it presents too much of a one-sided perspective or contains things unlikely to have happened. The one-sidedness of the gospel narratives, combined with their inclusion of things unlikely to have happened give sensible people good cause to treat them with skepticism.

Of course. That's why we require more than one source. We have at least 4 sources, and we can use our skepticism to determine if some elements are less credible. However, it's not necessary to impose the dogmatic premise that no miracle event can ever happen. Skepticism also requires that we set aside this dogmatic premise and leave open the possibility of miracles if there is extra evidence for them, which there is.

It's OK to say that we need extra evidence or testimony in the case of something weird or super-normal, but it's not OK to say that any such reports as these are automatically rejected as false, regardless if anyone believed them. That is arbitrary and dogmatic and unscientific.

It is neither arbitrary, dogmatic nor unscientific. The scientific method involves observation, experimentation, hypothesis, testing and conclusion. Observation of blind people reveals that the chances of them gaining their sight instantly is inductively at or near zero. Experiments can be conducted for as long as resources allow without a single blind person recovering sight in this manner. Hypothesis would definitely not favor "Therefore it is possible that someone can cure blindness with a touch." Further testing would fail to verify this hypothesis and the conclusion would be that this is an impossibility.

For standard medical science and all other known human healing methods it may be improbable or impossible. Most of the miracles of Jesus were acts that were not possible with normal human power. Blindness might be more difficult to heal, but many other afflictions also are difficult to heal with normal human power, or even impossible. That's the point of a miracle, or the miracle acts that Jesus did -- they are something that is not normally possible. These acts demonstrate that he had super-human power, i.e., power normal humans do not have, and so of course these acts are not performed in normal human experience, and some afflictions Jesus cured are not cured in normal standard medical treatments.

We have the verifiable example of modern savants, who have super-human power to perform certain acts. These cases are repeatable and scientifically verifiable. They don't include healing, but they include other acts that are simply impossible for normal humans. Just because normal humans cannot do a particular act is not scientific proof that it is impossible.

So, that we have evidence of Jesus performing these acts does not contradict the fact that they are impossible for normal humans. The conclusion, from those experiments, that "this is an impossibility" is fine in terms of the limits of normal human power, or normal human medical science. But those "experiments" and "testing" do not address whether there can be a super-human power to heal, such as what Jesus demonstrated. For that we can only go by the evidence of what happened.

We already know that normal human power cannot do this healing. We don't need more scientific tests and experiments to tell us this.

We have additional historical evidence supporting the possibility of super-normal healing ability. There is evidence supporting the cases of Rasputin the mad monk and Edgar Cayce the American psychic. For the latter it was an ability to diagnose illnesses rather than heal them, but the ability was beyond that of normal human medical science.

It's fine to be skeptical and demand extra evidence, but to reject all such possibility of super-normal healing is not based on anything scientific. There are reported cases where such healings took place, and the proper scientific or skeptical response is to leave open the possibility of it and require the extra evidence, including investigating the source and its reliability.

Reading that someone did so in a story that looks for all intents and purposes like historical fiction would not be sufficient evidence to contradict the mountain of evidence to the contrary.

But the "mountain of evidence" doesn't mean much if the accounts of such miracles are describing someone who was super-human or who possessed super-human power. Because the "mountain of evidence" applies only to normal human power which apparently is shown to be incapable of performing such healing.

We also have a "mountain of evidence" that one cannot normally become a piano virtuoso without many years of hard work, and yet there are a few "savants" who somehow acquire this power in only a few days or a few weeks, and can perform at a higher level than student musicians who studied and practiced diligently for 20 years.

And other savants can acquire other "impossible" talents, to do math, or to read thousands of books and remember every word -- this kind of ability has to be described as super-human, in the sense that it is simply impossible for normal humans. It cannot be learned. Probably the ability to heal is more rare.

Here's how real historical criticism works:

The more fantastic the claim the more physical evidence it takes to make it credible.

We don't have any "physical evidence" for most historical events. Unless you mean documents that are discovered. We do have more of this documentary evidence for the miracle acts of Jesus than we have for many of the recognized historical events.

So you've never seen a minie ball or a tabloon? You've never been exposed to the wealth of information we've been able to discover through artifacts about ancient civilizations who had not invented writing? You've never seen a fossil? Your knowledge of the subject matter you're arguing is atrocious.

Most historical facts we know are not supplied to us by such evidence. How do we know that Caesar Augustus was believed to have been poisoned by his wife? Where's the physical evidence of that? Yet we know this from the documents. That's the kind of evidence we have for most historical facts we know.

By comparison, the physical evidence gives us very little. What do we know about the Essenes and Qumran community? Virtually all of it is from the documents, from the celebrated scrolls and also from 1st-century writers.

I agree that extra evidence is required for such events as this. So for normal events, one source alone is often sufficient. While for miracle acts it requires more than one source, or more than two.

There is no scientific or objective criterion for prescribing the exact number of sources that is required.

If you maintain that the evidence for these events is not sufficient to be included as facts of history in standard history textbooks, I don't disagree. These unusual events in the N.T. belong in a category of many historical events that are reported as doubtful, or events that cannot be verified sufficiently as proven facts, but which nevertheless may be actual historical events -- and they are put into the unknown category, as possibly true but doubtful.

Much of the historical events are in this category. Was King Arthur a real king? Are the exploits of William Tell for real? How much of the Rienzi character is real, and how much imaginary? etc. Obviously there are many legends and fictional elements mixed in with the facts, but also normal events which cannot be verified with certainty, where some details, even important ones, are in doubt.

Why do you exclude your Jesus myth from these, pray tell?

I don't. All those characters were real people, who became mythologized, and so was Jesus. For all of them we need to try to separate the fiction from the fact. All of them must have distinguished themselves in some way, to attract the attention that caused them to become heroes and mythologized into something beyond the real historical figure.

In the case of Christ, there had to be something that distinguished him, to make him be recognized and worshiped as a god. The best answer is that he actually did perform the miracle acts that are described. This explains how he then became worshiped and followers began putting words into his mouth and claimed he was a virgin-born Son of God or Messiah etc. This extraordinary behavior, within such a short time span, is best explained by his having done super-human acts.

If this isn't what distinguished him and provoked them to make him into a god, what was it?

A normal human preacher, with only some charisma and a few quaint parables, and no status or long career, does not become mythologized into a miracle-worker hero in only a few decades.

The more a story disagrees with the historical record the less likely it is to be credible.

Of course. But "the historical record" is simply the entire collection of all the reported events in all the documents. The N.T. is included as part of these documents, or as part of the historical record. You cannot arbitrarily exclude any documents from the historical record. You can say some are more reliable than others, but you have to include them all.

Ah, except as I've mentioned above, for non-document artifacts, of which there is quite a bit.

Yes, the artifacts also are part of the historical record. But there's nothing in them which "disagrees" with the N.T. accounts. Any problems with these accounts, or discrepancies, are not due to any conflict with artifacts.

The gospel accounts, their depiction of Jesus, the miracles, etc. -- do not "disagree" substantially with the historical record, with other documents, or artifacts. But there are some problems or discrepancies, so that not every detail in the gospel accounts has to be taken as infallibly true in order for the overall depiction of Jesus to fit with the general known historical facts.

Most of it is not available outside the gospel accounts, so there is little outside corroboration. But that doesn't mean there's a disagreement with the outside accounts.

The more the perpetrators of a story have an obvious political or religious agenda the more skeptical one should be in accepting the story at face value.

Of course. And virtually all of them do have such an agenda, and the more this agenda shows itself, the more skeptical we should be. However, even in a biased source we can read between the lines and glean the truth, or make a good speculation. So you cannot exclude a source even if it is very biased. Rather, you take into account this bias and still look for what truth we can get from it that would not be tainted, or is less tainted, by that bias.

Which is why sensible people would conclude that perhaps an itinerant non-miracle-working preacher named Jesus may have lived around the time frame in question, pissed off some important people and gotten his ass crucified for his efforts.

But there were many others like these. John the Baptist for one. So, if being such a preacher and pissing someone off causes one to be mythologized into a miracle-worker, we should see dozens of these miracle-worker messiahs popping up, with documents attesting to their miracles. And yet there are no others. There is no other example of a reputed miracle-worker being mythologized so soon, so that his fame as a miracle-worker is spreading in only 30-40 years after the reported events.

So sensible people also conclude that this reputed miracle-worker was different than the others. I.e., this one really DID perform the reported miracles, because there's no other way to explain how he attained miracle-worker status. And we have the extra evidence in this one case, which we do not have for any of the others.

His followers, . . .

What "followers"? Why is anyone "following" him? Why aren't they following John the Baptist and all the other "itinerant non-miracle-working" preachers? You have to start at the beginning and explain how he was so distinguished that they mythologized him into a god.

His followers, living in denial as grieving people often do, refused to believe he was dead.

But why didn't the followers of all those other itinerant preachers also live in denial and refuse to believe their hero was dead? Why is Jesus the ONLY one that the followers refused to believe was dead? Why is he the only one who got mythologized into a resurrected savior and messiah and god?

The rest, as they say is ... sort of ... history. Fits all the evidence, . . .

No, it doesn't fit the evidence if it leaves the important questions unanswered. Your explanation ignores the question why we don't have dozens more of these resurrected god-heroes who also were mythologized and for whom there are documents attesting to their miracle acts.

Those additional Jesus-like gods do not exist, which is evidence that contradicts your theory. The evidence that would fit your explanation would be facts showing several Jesus-like cults emerging through this period, several different reported miracle-workers rather than only one, documented in multiple sources such as we have in the case of Jesus. But there are no such facts and thus no such evidence. The facts are the opposite -- Jesus is the only such miracle-worker figure for whom there are documented reports of his miracle acts, and so the "itinerant non-miracle-working preacher" theory does not fit the evidence.

. . . jettisons all the miraculous BS and leaves us with a plausible scenario.

No, implausible, because it contradicts the evidence; it's a scenario which requires the existence of many more Jesus-like miracle-workers, who do not exist. The only point of this scenario is to "jettison all the miraculous BS," but not to determine the truth based on evidence.

The more independently a story is corroborated the better a chance the story has credibility.

It depends on what you mean by "independently." There is nothing wrong with a source relying partly on earlier sources. This actually increases the reliability. It makes it more certain that this source is not inventing its own private version of the facts, but is trying to stay in keeping with the earlier reports.

There is nothing less credible about a source which relies partly on earlier sources while also adding its own unique contribution that is separate from the other sources.

But that is not what happened, is it? Matthew didn't simply "add more unique contributions." Matthew directly contradicted Mark in many places.

So he believed Mark was wrong on some points. These are minor details, hardly even "contradictions" but just reinterpretations. Perhaps both accounts are slightly off on those details. If you believe the earlier account got it wrong on this or that detail, isn't it appropriate to add the correction?

There is no example of such a "contradiction" that has any significant bearing on the truth of the overall depiction of Jesus in the gospel accounts. We don't know what other source Matthew may also have had and which may have derived from different witnesses than the Mark account relied on, and we should expect that different witnesses will disagree on certain details. This indicates the relative independence of the gospel writers and that the sources they used were different from each other, even in some cases not consistent with each other. Which is normal with witnesses reporting the same unusual event.

Luke and John directly contradict the others in places. This is consistent with myth development over large areas where people spread out and add more details independently to their myth.

And it's also consistent with the spreading of true reports of real events, in which the reports get changed in some ways, especially on some detail. There still had to be a real event from which the later modified reports emerged. What is not consistent with reality is the notion that the original account is total fiction, and that nothing unusual happened originally to give rise to the myth development.

So, what was the original unusual event that led to the later mythologizing of Jesus? What was it about this original unusual Christ event that was NOT the case with John the Baptist and other heroes and "itinerant non-miracle-working" preachers?

Answer (just between you and me): Jesus did miracles, the others did not.

The gospels themselves are evidence that most of what happened in them is made-up.

No, they are evidence that the basic narrative of Jesus doing miracle acts is true, but that there were multiple witnesses who remember the events differently, as with real events that are reported by many witnesses, and they are evidence that a mythologizing process set in very early after these events, indicating that Jesus must have done something highly unusual.

There are probably the made-up elements too, which got added in with the factual part. This is always what happens when something highly unusual happens and is reported differently by different witnesses, and what we have is not from one tight clique of followers, but from a wide variety of different camps, each giving its own interpretation and its own version of what happened, so that no one limited cult or band of crusaders is the origin of the information we have, or was in control of dictating what would be included in the record and what excluded.

The gospel narratives contain extremely extraordinary claims backed up by absolutely no physical evidence.

Again, there are many facts of history for which there is no "physical evidence" other than the documents that report these facts.

Since the claims are extraordinary it is reasonable to require additional sources. But to require "physical evidence" which is not required for other historical events is an unreasonable demand based only on a dogmatic prejudice against such events being possible. You cannot reasonably require a higher quality of evidence. Rather, you can demand some extra evidence that is the same kind or the same quality of evidence as is required for the ordinary events or claims.

Extraordinary evidence is required for extraordinary claims.

No, just extra evidence.

The example of savants is extraordinary. That someone can play complicated piano music, with no instruction or practicing the music, but only having heard the music -- being able to play Chopin or Liszt, and even being blind, and never having studied the notes, and even further, being able to change key immediately and transpose that same complicated music into any key that someone requests -- this is superhuman power. This defies science and all normal experience, and thus is "extraordinary" if anything is.

What is the evidence? It is the same as for anything else, but more of it. I would not believe this is if I were told this by someone. If I saw it only once on a TV show, I think I'd still doubt that it could be true.

But I have seen the evidence several times, usually on TV, on "60 Minutes" in particular. And I've seen it and heard about it so many times that I realize that it must be true. I had heard about this from people casually making claims, and I figured they were exaggerating, because I know that different musicians have varying degrees of talent, and there are some who seem to pick it up much easier than others, but still they have to practice on any really difficult piece and cannot just play it without ever having practiced at all. Especially they cannot simply transpose instantaneously -- this could not be possible.

And yet I found that it was true, seeing it demonstrated on the TV program, and if it was not true, the entire CBS Network would be guilty of foisting a massive fraud onto the public. And there is further corroboration.

All the evidence is ordinary evidence, but it is just extra amounts of it. The increased quantity of evidence finally makes it clear that there are some amazing persons who have this ability. Most of them are apparently mentally retarded and cannot perform many normal functions. It defies common sense, or normal experience. It requires many sources in order to believe that it's really true. An increased quantity of evidence, not a higher quality of evidence.

Don't know how many times this must be said but it obviously isn't sinking in.

No, repeating your slogan over and over doesn't make it true. We need extra evidence, not "extraordinary" evidence beyond that required for non-extraordinary claims.

Mythic stories are not extraordinary evidence as there are thousands of such mythic stories and not one piece of extraordinary evidence backing any of them up.

Accounts of events, or claims or "stories" that something happened ARE evidence that the events did happen. Virtually ALL events that have happened are known to us through this kind of evidence, i.e., accounts or "stories" that the events happened. For miracle events we must have extra accounts, not only one or two.

We need extra evidence, and we have it in some cases. In most cases of miracle events we do not have the necessary extra evidence, and so we should not believe it.

Condemning a piece of evidence by calling it "mythic" is not a legitimate refutation of it, just as name-calling does not legitimately refute anything. The accounts are there and can be investigated. If there are several accounts and you can show nothing wrong with them (other than your prejudice or bias against them), then it is reasonable to accept the report as true. And you can believe it while still having some doubt, if the claim is highly irregular.

I've already mentioned the sort of evidence one would expect to find had Jesus performed such incredible miracles in a highly populated area such as Jerusalem. There would be some evidence contemporary to the events that would survive.

Why? We have virtually NO evidence contemporary to any events. There is no reason to believe that an educated scholar was following Jesus around and writing down everything he said and did while it was happening. Those who could write and had their writing items with them were a tiny fraction of the population.

Virtually ALL the recorded events were written down many years later, usually decades and generations after the events happened. And these recorded events are a tiny fraction of the total events that were noteworthy -- because most events go unrecorded and are forgotten.

There is none.

There is NO EVIDENCE for virtually all events that happened. Even today. And 2000 years ago the recorded events were a vastly smaller fraction of the total events than is the case today.

We have mundane letters written in that area about trivial crap from that time period.

No we don't. Not from ordinary people like the ones who saw Jesus. The only letters that have come down to us were from famous educated elitists who had high positions of power and status.

We have absolutely nothing documenting this incredible person's activities.

We have far more documentation than for 99.999999% of all the activities that went on. We have more documentation for the miracle acts of Jesus than for most recognized historical events of that time.

If he did no miracle acts at all, then it is virtually impossible to explain how we have the large amount of documentation of him that we have, from the 1st century.

Which is why that person's activities reported 40 years after the fact lack credibility.

No, it's precisely BECAUSE of the extra documentation we have of him that in this one case there is credibility to the reports of his miracle acts, in contrast to other miracle claims, both before and after, which lack any comparable documentation.

For most events of the period, the reports are longer than 40 years after the fact, making the miracle events of Jesus more credible than most other events, except for the sole reason that they are miracle events and thus subject to extra suspicion. And it's OK for them to be subject to extra suspicion and doubt, and thus we need the extra sources to confirm them, which extra sources we do have.

The gospel narratives disagree in many places with known information about the times and places uncovered over the years through scientific disciplines.

Usually on minor details only. Most of the accepted histories of the period also contain disagreements or discrepancies. There are contradictions even within the writings of the same historian.

There are a few major details in the gospel accounts where there is a discrepancy problem. But these are generally found in only one of the gospel accounts. Such as the star over Bethlehem. This does not undermine the credibility of Matthew generally, for the general account of what happened.

You need to give us 1 or 2 of the best examples of these disagreements with known information. You're probably thinking of some minor detail that is not important. Give an example.

Okay, how's this:

"John" has Mary showing up at a desolate scene on resurrection morning. No guards, nobody around, just an empty tomb. She runs to Peter and tells him "They have taken his body and we don't know what they've done with it!" Peter and John rush back, investigate and leave. Mary hangs around after they leave, gets talked to by angels and then turns around and there is Jesus standing right there.

"Matthew" has Mary and Mary showing up at an incredible scene involving an earthquake, an angel triumphantly sitting on the stone rolled away from the tomb, and at least two guards laying on the ground petrified with fear. The angel tells the ladies that Jesus has risen and that they need to go tell his disciples to meet him in Galilee. The ladies actually bump into Jesus himself before they get to the disciples.

"Luke" has at least 5 women showing up at the tomb which is open but no angels are outside. They go inside the tomb and suddenly the angels appear and start talking to them. They go tell the disciples, who didn't believe them. Yada yada yada... Jesus miraculously appears inside a locked room with the disciples. There he tells them to stay in Jerusalem until they have been endued with power from on high.

John's desolate scene is the direct opposite of Matthew's dramatic one. Luke's angels appear inside the tomb after the ladies get there but Matthew and Mark have their messengers outside the tomb. In one version Mary has no clue what happened to Jesus when she reaches Peter, but in others she has not only been told what happened but she's talked to Jesus himself.

None of this discredits the general account of the resurrection. It's not necessary to harmonize all these details from the separate accounts. These discrepancies only prove that the 4 gospel accounts are separate independent accounts relying on different sources, sometimes even conflicting sources. But the basic events are the same, and this basic event did happen, witnessed by several persons, and there are conflicting details as to who saw the empty tomb first and who they encountered there.

It is typical of an unusual event that really happened that different witnesses report it differently, and also that later writers trying to re-create the scene come up with different versions of it. It isn't necessary to nail down the exact details and chronology of what happened. Or rather, the basic event is just as credible regardless of the problem of the conflicting reports.

Matthew's version has the disciples meeting Jesus in Galilee, at least 30 miles north of Jerusalem. Luke/Acts leaves absolutely no room for a journey to Galilee and is very specific that everything that happened between resurrection Sunday and Pentecost happened in Jerusalem.

These two accounts are easily harmonized by correcting only one mistake. In Matthew it says "the eleven" disciples went to Galilee and saw him. But in 30 AD there might not have even been such a thing as "The 12 Disciples" or "the eleven" (minus Judas), and this institution of "The 12 Disciples" might be a symbol created later.

The two versions are totally compatible by allowing that the disciples in Galilee were a different group than the ones in Jerusalem. Matthew doesn't name Peter as one of them, so it's quite possible that "the eleven" wording was added later and that the small "inner circle" of Peter and John etc. was not the group who saw Jesus in Galilee. Almost certainly there were some followers of Jesus who had stayed behind in Galilee rather than traveling to Jerusalem, and it's appropriate that Jesus would appear to them also.

Can't both be right. Could both be wrong.

They're both right, except that Matthew is wrong to say it was "the eleven" who went to Galilee.

That's just for starters. Rationalize all you want. These are direct contradictions. There are many more.

But they are minor contradictions of no importance. These are differing accounts of the same basic historical events. The basic events did happen, and it is to be expected that the accounts would differ and even conflict on some details.

Jesus is not mentioned at all in the established history record.

He is mentioned in Josephus, in the authentic quote, and in Tacitus, who are established non-Christian historians.

He is mentioned in myths that clearly developed over a period of decades, . . .

Which is a SHORTER time period than usual for most historical figures to be mentioned and be clearly developed, at that point in history .

And the reports of him are no more "myths" than the reports of any other historical figure of the period. It is prejudged that they are "myths" because of the nature of the writings, especially the miracle element, but the mentions of him have the same standing as any factual reports, and cannot be categorized as "myths" except for the prejudgment that anything containing miracle elements has to go in this myth or fiction category.

. . . settling into a time frame and geographic location 40 years after the alleged events took place.

Which 40 years again is a shorter time length than usual for historical figures to settle into their time frame and geographic location. Simply because the surviving written documents telling us about an historical figure are ones not existing until several decades later does not mean that it took time for that historical person to be placed into a certain time frame and geographic location.

The surviving documents about Jesus inform us where he was and when, in the same manner as similar surviving later documents inform us where and when other historical figures lived. There is no more uncertainty about when and where Jesus lived than for other historical figures. The facts place him in Galilee in about 30 AD and ending his life in Jerusalem. This is established as definitely for Jesus as the time and geographic location is established for virtually all other historical figures.

The nebulous nature of the earliest depictions of Jesus have no time frame or location, making it impossible for people to gainsay the myth.

No, there is nothing nebulous about the time frame or the location. Some references omit the biographical details, but none of them conflict with the clear placement of him first in Galilee and traveling to Jerusalem where he is killed.

The only conflict or discrepancy here is that the John Gospel has Jesus traveling to Jerusalem and then returning to Galilee, possibly doing several trips. John is probably mistaken in part, however it may be that John covers a period of Jesus being near Jerusalem, still outside the city, possibly entering and leaving again, and thus including some subject matter at this point that the synoptic gospels omit.

So there could be some error, or discrepancy, but this is minor and does not undermine the overall credibility of the general accounts or of the clear biographical fact of Jesus in Galilee and later in Jerusalem at about 30 AD.

As actual people who might have been alive at the time began to die off the details start appearing.

No, they first appear in the Q document, quoted or paraphrased in Luke and Matthew, which place Jesus in Galilee at the time of Herod Antipas. The Q document appears sometime in the 50s when most of the disciples are still alive. It is believed to have been written by some of the original direct disciples of Jesus.

However, the Bethlehem story might be fiction which developed later. It isn't necessary to insist on the literal truth of the virgin birth and Bethlehem story. These are not an essential part of belief in Christ, even though they have become established in the doctrine. The overall Christ belief can be true without the need to adhere to every established Christian doctrine.

It is as blatant a case of myth building as one could present.

So there may be some myth, just as there is myth accompanying hundreds or even thousands of historical figures. Like Confucius and Buddha and Alexander the Great and Zoroaster and Julius Caesar and so many other historical persons who became mythologized. All of them were distinguished persons who did something noteworthy and then become "the stuff of legend."

So, since the historical Christ person also became an object of myth-building, what was the original Christ person, before the myth-building began? Since we have real evidence in this case of actual miracle acts, from multiple documents near to the time of the events, the best answer is that he really did perform miracles, and it was because of these that he then became mythologized into a hero or deity.

He had to have done something that distinguished him, just as the other legendary figures did. For the others we can see what they did. They were people of power, of high status, of wide reputation and public recognition, people who rose to power or influence and impressed many followers or devotees or admirers over a long colorful career.

So, by contrast, what did Christ do -- being of no status or power or wide public recognition -- to bring him such distinction that he became mythologized like these others?

Psssssssst -- just between you and me -- he performed miracle acts.

But the fact remains that you don't get to hide a miracle worker behind decades of cloud and smoke and then pretend that somehow the myths written about him 40 years later are evidence that he worked the miracles.

But it's better evidence than for most other historical facts, which are not documented so soon.

Why do you apply a different standard for historical truth in this one case than for all other historical facts? Many facts are not documented until more than a century later. Much of what we know about Caesar Augustus comes only from Tacitus, who wrote it a century after the events happened. And there are plenty of examples where the time separation is even greater.

Even if you reject the Christ miracle stories, you have to admit that we have more evidence for these miracles than we have for any other reputed miracle-worker up until modern times. We have more sources, and sources written much closer to the reported events, than for any other reputed miracle-worker.

This is not responsible historical critique. It is religion, pure and simple.

What's not responsible is to reject evidence when it conforms to the standards that we accept for all other historical facts.

It is "religion" and blind faith to reject this evidence, when the only grounds to reject it is that it leads to conclusions that you cannot bear -- i.e., that some miracle events do actually happen. You can't tolerate this logical conclusion, and so in your rage you condemn the evidence.

And it is religion, not science, that is dogmatic and oftentimes arbitrary.

Yes, and by contrast, belief in Christ is based on reason and evidence, from the historical record, and so conforms to science. Whereas rejection of that evidence, only because it contains the miracle element, is dogmatic and arbitrary, because that same evidence would be accepted for establishing the truth, if it did not contain the forbidden taboo miracle accounts, which are dogmatically ruled out no matter what, regardless of the evidence.

 

[bilby]

You need a more realistic example than this. In any real scenario such as this, "Mother" would know that the first kid is just pulling her leg. Give us a real example of a miracle claim to use for comparison. Give an example where the miracle claim is serious and there are some who really believe it and it's not just a joke.

You mean something like a young woman who falls pregnant to her boyfriend, and when challenged by her husband about this, claims that she remains a virgin, and that her son is the son of God?

I would rate that as rather LESS plausible than the kids' cookie story, but it does at least meet your criterion that "there are some who really believe it".

I would say that Mary was very fortunate to be living in a time when claims of supernatural intervention had some chance of being taken seriously; Because if she tried that today, Joseph would dump her so fast she wouldn't have time to set her FB status to "It's complicated".

The basic problem with your demand for "...a real example of a miracle claim to use for comparison. [...] an example where the miracle claim is serious and there are some who really believe it and it's not just a joke." is that ALL miracle claims are ludicrous, except to the fools who believe them.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You need a more realistic example than this.

No, it's quite on point.
Moms don't accept bullshit; historians don't put the supernatural into the historical record.

Moms don't believe 'this man came through the window' or 'there was a ghost' or 'my dolly came to life and...'
Historians don't write that 'Pharaoh was a god.' They write 'was venerated as a god.'
They don't write that 'the king received a mandate from Heaven.' They write 'He claimed to have received...'

So, when you say

Yes, and by contrast, belief in Christ is based on reason and evidence, from the historical record,

the parts that are crucial to your argument are NOT part of the historical record, for reasons that have been repeated ad nauseum in this thread.

and so conforms to science.

Nope.

Whereas rejection of that evidence, only because it contains the miracle element,

Now, now, get it correct. We reject the miracle element because there's insufficient evidence FOR the miracles, not JUST because of the miracle element.

miracle accounts, which are dogmatically ruled out no matter what, regardless of the evidence.

That's the whole point. It's not regardless, we keep pointing out that your 'evidence' fails, and why it fails, and you keep attacking the strawman that we're being dogmatic, rather than face the truth.
Over and over and over and over....

 

[Keith&Co.]

Huh....
It struck me that Lumpy's posting to shit that's been responses to way, way old posts.
I wonder if that's a tactic?

His responses have been trending to be later and later after the post he's pretending to reply to by reguritating his same-old, same-old. His last four posts have averaged 100.8 days in delay.
I notice also that he tends to take the critic's statements out of context. Pretending that a given reason to reject his argument is actually meant as a given reason to reject Christainity. Could he be hoping we didn't notice that, because it was so long ago?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Lumpen, you aren't in the habit of answering my posts,.

Well, only one of your posts is within the bandwidth of posts he's pretending to answer. Most of your posts are too recent for him to have worked his way to them.
He's two-thirds of the way through December, so you may start seeing some action in about August.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The DOGMA that miracles can never happen vs. SCIENTIFIC belief in Christ based on the evidence.

OH! I hadn't even noticed that you shot yourself in the foot before you even started the post.
Science explains everything naturalistically. That's part of the way science operates. It's the 'nature' of science, if you will.

Your belief that Jesus did miracles thus proves he offers an afterlife in Heaven for human souls is not naturalistic. You CANNOT have a scientific belief in the supernatural. It's an oxymoron.

 

[James Brown]

From George Smith's Atheism: A Case Against God:

Another definition of a miracle is any event so unusual that it can be explained only with
reference to a supernatural power. Thus if we were to observe an exceptionally strange occurrence,
such as an iron bar floating on water, we might conclude that a supernatural being is at work.
This kind of argument mistakenly assumes that positing a god somehow explains an unexplained
event. The theist observes the “floating iron,” thinks, “How amazing! How is it possible?”—and
then provides himself with the solution: “An unknowable power must be responsible.” But this
explains nothing. One cannot answer the question, “How is it possible?” with the response, “An
unknowable being using unknowable means did it...”

Since the positing of a god explains nothing, one cannot infer the existence of a god from an
unusual event as a causal explanation. Regardless of the phenomenon involved, it is never rational
to jump from the statement, “x is unexplained” to the statement, “Therefore, a supernatural power
must have caused x.” Explanations, by their very nature, must fall within the realm of natural
causality. To posit the supernatural as an explanation is to posit the unknowable as an explanation,
and this is nothing more than an exercise in futility.

 

[Atheos]

You need a more realistic example than this. In any real scenario such as this, "Mother" would know that the first kid is just pulling her leg. Give us a real example of a miracle claim to use for comparison. Give an example where the miracle claim is serious and there are some who really believe it and it's not just a joke.

Your very first sentence is as wrong as everything else you wrote, so I'll just address this and leave it be. You write too damn much Lumpenproletariat.

The scenario I provided is every bit as realistic as the anonymous and absurd claims that a man walked on storm tossed water, turned water into wine, healed blindness with spit and levitated off into the sky to disappear into the clouds. Its purpose was to illustrate a point that obviously sailed right over your head, so until you demonstrate the comprehension skills necessary to recognize the point being made and address it I'm done.

 

[DBT]

Lumpen, you aren't in the habit of answering my posts,.

Well, only one of your posts is within the bandwidth of posts he's pretending to answer. Most of your posts are too recent for him to have worked his way to them.
He's two-thirds of the way through December, so you may start seeing some action in about August.

Given the sheer size of his posts, presenting walls of text, no wonder. Who could, or would, respond to each and every point, only to be presented with an even larger reply, ad infinitum.

 

[Barbarian]

Lumpen, you aren't in the habit of answering my posts,.

Well, only one of your posts is within the bandwidth of posts he's pretending to answer. Most of your posts are too recent for him to have worked his way to them.
He's two-thirds of the way through December, so you may start seeing some action in about August.

Can't argue with exact science like that, so I'll just warn Lumpen that by August I'll have our exchange forgotten and therefore will have little idea why is he replying to me.

Brevity is a virtue, Lumpen.

 

[Barbarian]

The DOGMA that miracles can never happen

That's not a dogma but a conclusion from observation. We never witness miracles happening, nor is there any physical proof of them ever having happened in the past. In the fullness of time Satan invented the videocamera and all we got now is a lousy fairytale.

Check around you, Lumpen. Nobody accepts that miracles happen. Keep telling people that so-and-so a priest floats or emits light while praying - a miracle as common in the Middle Ages as dirt - and see how they react. You should shoulder your burden and prove that miracles are possible. And no, rare or unlikely events aren't miracles. From my PoV only honest-to-god strongly emergent phenomena would qualify.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

Why did only Jesus Christ emerge as the new "god" or "messiah" instead of several competing Jesus-like hero deities?

Who knows why this cult succeeded where others did not?

One answer is that the central figure, Jesus Christ, actually did perform the particular acts. This explains the anomaly. Of course you can just say we don't know the answer. But if one answer explains it, and there is no other good answer, then you have to seriously consider that one answer, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

Though the Roman Empire later certainly helped greatly expand the influence of this religion.

Yes, but only after it had already distinguished itself from all those other hallucinated miracle-workers and the accounts of this Christ figure were in circulation

Actually, it was the act of the Roman Empire that circulated the cult . . .

No, not in the early period up to 300 AD. Only AFTER that did the Roman Empire do anything to circulate Christian belief. Before that it mostly opposed the new Christ cult. Something else "circulated" the cult initially, and only then did the Romans adopt it, AFTER it had prevailed.

The gospel accounts, and other N.T. writings, and the new Christ belief were spreading in the earlier period without any Roman support, but only with opposition. Why did it spread? Because many were impressed with the fact that the Christ person in the gospel accounts had shown super-human power, evidenced by the miracle acts in the gospel accounts.

This was new, because there had never before been any such evidence of someone showing such power as this. Though there were miracle claims, there had never before been any credible evidence. So, many people were won to the new belief, now based on evidence instead of only fables and superstition. This is why Christianity spread during this period, not because of any support from the government, because there was no such support.

And when it had spread widely, finally Rome decided to adopt this new religion, out of necessity, to start using it rather than trying to stamp it out.

AND provided the trimming away of all the various Christ cults that conflicted with each other, contradicted each other and were not terribly recognizable as being of a similar influence or source.

Perhaps, but only AFTER 300 AD, after the new Christ belief had spread widely without Roman support.

You keep pretending the Christ Cult was a single religion in the years before Constantine.

It was not. If I said it was then I should be drawn and quartered and impaled on a stake and stretched out naked on a rock and smeared with honey to be eaten alive by ants.

The 'christian' cults were all over the map.

Yes, but there was only one Christ who performed miracle acts. Several cults adopted him, though they were "all over the map" and each doing its own thing, sometimes opposing each other, even trying to eliminate each other and condemning each other as heretical.

Yet they each claimed the same Christ as their founder. How did this one person gain the recognition of all these different opposing groups? Why didn't each one invent its own unique mythic hero or deity or savior to be the center of its crusade? Why did these different rival groups, each claiming exclusive truth, hating and denouncing the others, all happen to plug into the same "messiah" or savior or Jesus Christ mythic hero, the Jesus of Galilee who got crucified in Jerusalem? What sort of thing did this one person do that he got adopted by all of them even though they mostly hated each other?

When you hate the others, why would you adopt the same mythic hero that they were promulgating? Why didn't each of these new upstart cults adopt its own separate "messiah" to distinguish it from the other rival cults?

Best explanation: Jesus was recognized as someone with power. No one planned this, but rather, he gained this recognition because he did something that showed great power, which forced the crusaders to adopt him. So the crusaders/cults didn't have to get together and agree with each other on who would be the new "messiah" or Christ or mythic hero figure, to be created artificially; rather, a real miracle-worker was already there, widely recognized, having proved his power.

Constantine's effort trimmed away all the weird ones and the too-small-to-matter ones and a shitload that would be viewed as heresy today.

Sort of. But the historical Christ figure was central, or was a given, no matter which of the new cults would stumble and perish and which one(s) would prevail. All of them had adopted the Jesus of Galilee Christ figure as their god. Christ was not one of several optional deity figures to choose from -- rather, he was universally recognized by all of them, without any rival or competing gods equal to him and which could have emerged instead of him. He was the only choice to become the new god or hero-legend. Because he was the only proven miracle-worker.

And the winners get to pretend that their sources go unchallenged all the way back to the time of the Christ.

Their sources do go back to Christ. They all claimed this same source, or this original "founder" of their cult. There was no other "source" to be taken seriously, because only this Christ person had actually performed miracle acts to give proof or evidence of his power.

And this was the case regardless which of the new cults might prevail and be the "winners" in the contest going on between them. The Christ figure, i.e., that historical Jesus from Galilee described in the gospel accounts, is the entity that prevailed regardless which particular cult(s) or crusade(s) would bite the dust and which one(s) would come out on top to become established or recognized as the official "Church" he founded.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Who knows why this cult succeeded where others did not?

One answer is that the central figure, Jesus Christ, actually did perform the particular acts.

And you've yet to offer any actual evidence of this....

And the winners get to pretend that their sources go unchallenged all the way back to the time of the Christ.

Their sources do go back to Christ. They all claimed this same source, or this original "founder" of their cult. There was no other "source" to be taken seriously, because only this Christ person had actually performed miracle acts to give proof or evidence of his power.

Just keep asserting it without any sort of evidence, Lumpy. If it makes you feel good, then bully for you.
The rest of us have seen no actual historical reason to accept it, though.

 

[Keith&Co.]

No, not in the early period up to 300 AD. Only AFTER that did the Roman Empire do anything to circulate Christian belief. Before that it mostly opposed the new Christ cult..

You still pretend it's all the same religion.
The word you want there is 'cults.'

You seem to be a little confused on 'Christ,' too. It's a title, not a name. There were other Christs. John the Baptist was one.

And not all of them were miracle workers. Mostly because the Jewish Messiah was supposed to be entirely a man, not a demigod.

 

[Atheos]

* Sigh *

Marketing.

 

[atrib]

This was new, because there had never before been any such evidence of someone showing such power as this. Though there were miracle claims, there had never before been any credible evidence. So, many people were won to the new belief, now based on evidence instead of only fables and superstition.

Again you repeat this lie.

What evidence? Outside of the Bible, what is the evidence that the Jesus described in the Bible performed any miracles? Who witnessed these miracles? Where is the testimony of these witnesses recorded? Point us to some of the evidence so we may examine it for ourselves.

Yes, but there was only one Christ who performed miracle acts.

Still waiting for you to provide the evidence that Jesus performed miracles. Now would be a good time to provide the evidence.

Best explanation: Jesus was recognized as someone with power. No one planned this, but rather, he gained this recognition because he did something that showed great power, which forced the crusaders to adopt him. So the crusaders/cults didn't have to get together and agree with each other on who would be the new "messiah" or Christ or mythic hero figure, to be created artificially; rather, a real miracle-worker was already there, widely recognized, having proved his power.

Not in any way that you can demonstrate. Outside of the Bible, there is no evidence of Jesus performing miracles. You can keep ignoring this fact, but we will keep pointing it out.

Sort of. But the historical Christ figure was central, or was a given, no matter which of the new cults would stumble and perish and which one(s) would prevail.

There is no historical Jesus. Prove me wrong, provide references to where the miracles of Jesus are documented in history outside of the Bible.