Gym Debate: Is there sufficient evidence to justify belief that Jesus was ressurected? (Kabane52 vs. robtul12)

[Kelp]

Gym Debate Notice:

This debate thread is open to debate the following issue:

The is not Sufficient Evidence to Justify Belief in the Resurrection of Jesus
Kabane52 will be defending the negative and robtul12 will be defending the affirmative. This debate will begin as soon as robtul makes his first post. The debate will last 5 rounds minimum.


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Spectator commentary is welcome here.

If you are up and unable to meet your deadline please contact a moderator ASAP.
Please do not edit your post after this notice is posted.
If you are not a participant please feel free to participate in the commentary thread noted in the first post of this debate.

[robtul12]

Tommy has requested that I say something regarding who bears the onus of providing proof. This individual is always the person who claims that a specific phenomenon exists or that an event has occurred. In fact, this is very close to a universal truism. It would be absurd for an individual to go around saying that this is so and that is so and it is up to other people to prove me wrong. Surely, if a person is going to say that this is so (making a positive statement, like say, Jesus was resurrected) then the person should have the common sense to explain why he or she feels that way and not why the other person does not. The same would be true if an individual showed you the inside of his hat and said that an invisible elf was in there casting all sorts of spells. It would not be up to the person who is being told about this to prove that one isn't there -- it is up to the claimant to prove that it is. It would downright childish for the person to say "well, prove me wrong." This is very elementary and I hope that I shall have to say nothing else on the subject. Let it suffice to say that in this context, if Tommy wishes to say that Jesus was resurrected, then it is up to him to prove it, not to me to disprove it.

I will now present my case for why I think that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is highly implausible and that sufficient evidence cannot be used to establish such an occurrence. To begin, the very first problem with invoking a resurrection is that a resurrection would be a miracle. The reason this is a problem is that the scientific community does not have good evidence for miracles in the first place. Or, put simply, we have no evidence that miracles exist or happen (resurrections included). Saying that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by a divine miracle is using an explanation that has yet to be an established phenomenon (at least any kind of well understood one). If it were an understood phenomenon then it would no longer bear the appellation of "miracle" and would be inducted into the corpus of science. It would be tantamount to using fairies or pixies to explain something. One ought to reject such explanations out of hand until the individual provides good evidence for this thing which was hitherto completely unknown and not understood. If one wishes to use fairies to explain something, one would need to produce a fairy otherwise -- the tale is nothing more than hearsay of a highly unlikely and unproven phenomenon. The same is to be said of the resurrection of Jesus Christ by God. Firstly, one would have to prove this God exists and then that it has supernatural powers and it decided to resurrect Jesus. No one has managed to do so yet last I checked, and I doubt that Tommy will be able to accomplish it here.

The second problem with the resurrection aside from the fact that we have no evidence for any such thing as a resurrection is that there are simpler explanations. If one knows logical fallacies, one must be familiar with Ockham's razor. Ockham's razor states that if there are two (or multiple) explanations for an event, the simplest explanation that satisfactorily explains what happened is to be preferred because it is more likely to be true than a more complex explanation. However Jesus’ tomb was emptied, saying that an improvable god did it with his magic powers is, if not the most unlikely explanation, pretty close to the top of the list of the most unlikely explanations. One is hard pressed to think of something more improbable than that. The tomb could have been robbed for example. I am not saying this happened. I don't know what happened. However, I am saying that it is infinitely more probable than a resurrection.

Apologists like William Lane Craig like to say that people like me employ what he calls "methodological atheism" in our arguments. This statement is so banal and absurd that it scarcely merits commenting. However, as I have seen Tommy bring it up before I will address it. The simplest response to this is that people like me are also "methodological afairyists." Or without belief in any other unproven phenomenon. Until conclusive proof has been presented for something, one has no business using it as an explanation. Plain and simple. People like me do not assume "god" doesn't exist. We say there is no good evidence that "he" does. Just like fairies, unicorns, giants, dragons, or anything else that only has stories and ancient mythologies to back up its existence. Stories will simply not do.

On the matter of the testimony of the Apostles and of the disciples and of whoever else, stories are not evidence. There is an endless array of stories and testimonies of odd things that are alleged to have happened. No rational individual would insist that we should believe something that contradicts all common sense and probability simply because X amount of people said it happened or claim they saw it happened. This might be enough in matter that simply don't make any difference like if someone or several people were to say they saw some ducks crossing a pond. Alright, that is very common place and well understood and doesn't fly in the face of all we know about science and the natural world. Saying that Jesus rose from the dead after being dead three days is a horse of a different color. A favorite argument of apologists is that "they would not have died for a lie." Well, this is tricky wording. They (the apostles and disciples) very likely would not have died for something they KNEW was a lie (unless they were mentally impaired in some way). However, they could have easily have died for a lie and have been unwitting of its untruth. Why did later Christians who never saw the risen Jesus die? They were told stories which they believed and subsequently died for them. That is all that is required. I don't think I need to say only more on this subject. Stories do not prove anything.

In sum, there is not sufficient evidence to support the claim that Jesus was resurrected due to the fact that miracles are not established phenomenon, there are simpler explanation that satisfactorily explain the events after Jesus' death, existence of the supernatural cannot be assumed, and anecdotes or testimonies of any kind do not prove an iota of anything. If one wants to use supernatural explanations, one would need to prove the supernatural exists -- and in so doing win a Nobel Prize in physics! What could be better than that? No one has done it yet, but Tommy, perhaps you can. Good luck. The ball is now in your court.

[Kabane52]

It looks as though I won’t so much be debating the historical merits of the resurrection as I will be debating the possibility of miracles. Let’s get started. The burden is on me primarily to demonstrate the resurrection, so here is my usual case for it (without the fancy italics or bold, because I’m lazy)

I will first be establishing the crucifixion of Jesus. After this, I will establish the empty tomb of Jesus. After this, I will take out the stolen body theory. Following this, I will establish the essential appearances of the risen Christ. And finally, I will devote a rather large portion to an attack on the hallucination theory.
First, the crucifixion. The crucifixion is an extremely well attested fact. It is confirmed both in biblical and extrabiblical sources. It is confirmed by Paul

(1 Corinthians 1:23) but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, .

Mark

(Mark 15:23-24) And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him and divided his garments among them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. .

Matthew

(Matthew 27:31) And when they had mocked him, they stripped him of the robe and put his own clothes on him and led him away to crucify him. .

Luke

(Luke 23:33) And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.

John

(John 19:18) There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them.

And for extrabiblical attestation we have:

Flavius Josephus

(Antiquities 18.3.3) And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross

Cornelius Tacitus

(Annals 15.44) Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.

The evidence for the crucifixion of Jesus is overwhelming. So overwhelming, in fact, that AE Harvey states that "It would be no exaggeration to say that this event is better attested, and supported by a more impressive array of evidence, than any other event of comparable importance of which we have knowledge from the ancient world." .

The Empty Tomb

Now, I will establish that the tomb of Jesus was in fact empty. This enjoys explicit attestation from the four Christian gospels as well as implicit attestation in the First Corinthians 15creed that I will discuss later.

Mark

(Mark 16:2-6) And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. And they were saying to one another, "Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?" And looking up, they saw that the stone had been rolled back--it was very large. And entering the tomb, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, dressed in a white robe, and they were alarmed. And he said to them, "Do not be alarmed. You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has risen; he is not here. See the place where they laid him.

Matthew

(Matthew 28:1-7) Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you."

Luke

(Luke 24:1-3) But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they went to the tomb, taking the spices they had prepared. And they found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they went in they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.

John

(John 20:1-7) Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself.

Apparent contradictions in these narratives will be harmonized as they come up in the negative's arguments. But let me first state that any divergences (not necessarily discrepancies) demonstrate that each attestation of the empty tomb within the gospels is independent.

Now, let me explain how the empty tomb is implicitly attested by the 1 Corinthians 15creed (hereafter 1C15C)

The 1C15C is an early creed of the church that was probably formulated one to five years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Therefore, this creed is extremely early and hence free of legendary material.

The part relevant to the empty tomb reads like this:

(1 Corinthians 15:3-4) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures

Christ died, was buried, and rose. If Christ died, was buried, and physically rose, then it follows that the grave was empty, since one cannot physically rise and at the same time leave your body behind. Since first century Jews believed in a physical resurrection, and Paul was a first century Jew, the burden is on the negative (if he wishes to take that path) to demonstrate that Paul believed that Jesus left his physical body behind.

The Theft Theory

Now I will demonstrate the improbability of theft by eliminating first the disciples of Jesus, next by eliminating the Jews and finally by eliminating occultists

The Disciples of Jesus

It is occasionally argued that the disciples of Jesus stole the body. However, if they had stolen the body, they would have known Christianity was a lie and preached such a lie until their deaths. They went knowingly and willingly to their graves (except John, who died a natural death), which demonstrates that they did not steal the body of Christ.

The Jews

This is almost never argued, but nevertheless has appeared from time to time. If the Jews stole the body, they could have easily accessed it and shown it publicly when the apostles began to preach the resurrection of Jesus. Them showing this would not be a story that would die out for a few days. It would be the ultimate refutation of Christianity, and the Jews would have appealed to it for a long, long time. Instead, we have them blaming the empty tomb on the theft of the disciples, an option we have already refuted.

Occultists

If the negative wishes to take this option to promote the stolen body theory, he must provide evidence for the existence of such a group in or near Jerusalem at the time period of the crucifixion of Jesus. He must also demonstrate that such occultists were in the practice of making off with entire bodies instead of just cutting off pieces of bodies, which is what necromancers of that time period (who did NOT exist in Jerusalem) would do.

We have established that Jesus was died and that his tomb was found empty. We have established that the body of Jesus was not stolen. We now continue to the appearances.

The Appearances of the Risen Christ

After his death, Jesus appeared to both his followers and to Skeptics. We will begin with the central attestation of the appearances, found in the 1C15C:

(1 Corinthians 15:3-7) For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.

Paul adds a personal appendix at the end of the creed:

(1 Corinthians 15:8) Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.

So we have an appearance to Peter (called Cephas), The Disciples, 500, James (a former skeptic of Jesus), and Paul (another former skeptic of Jesus)

Our first consideration deals with the fact that these were group appearances. In the 1 Corinthians 15:3-7creed, it states that Jesus appeared to the twelve. This is a group appearance. Though this consideration alone does not rule out a group appearance, it does make three criteria necessary.

Let me quote Anomalous Psychology by Zuzne and Jones, page 135.
It is expectation that plays the coordinating role in collective hallucination. Although the subject matter of individual hallucinations has virtually no limits, the topics of collective hallucinations are limited to certain categories. ?These categories are determined, first, by the kinds of ideas that a group of people may get excited about as a group, for emotional excitement is a prerequisite of collective hallucinations…Second, the categories are limited by the fact that all participants in the hallucination must be informed beforehand, at least concerning the broad outlines of the phenomenon that will constitute the collective hallucination.

So we have three criteria. Expectation, excitement, and being informed beforehand. We will see if the resurrection fulfills these criteria by looking at the accounts we have of the event.

First. Expectation.

We can clearly see that the disciples were unsure of what Jesus meant when he said he would rise from the dead.
(Mark 9:9-10) And as they were coming down the mountain, he charged them to tell no one what they had seen, until the Son of Man had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead might mean.

(Mark 9:31-32) for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, "The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him. And when he is killed, after three days he will rise." But they did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him

(Luke 18:33-34) And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise." But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

And what I think is most powerful,

(John 20:9) for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

Even when looking in the tomb, they didn’t believe it! How can we possibly derive “expectation” from data like this?

We can see that from the data that is in our hands, no evidence of expectation exists, and plenty of contrary evidence exists. Criterion one is not fulfilled. Already the hallucination theory has failed.

Let us continue on to criterion two. Excitement.

There is absolutely no evidence that after the crucifixion of Christ, that the disciples were excited. But let’s take a look at when the women inform the disciples of the resurrection.

(Luke 24:10-11) Now it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Mary the mother of James and the other women with them who told these things to the apostles, but these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.

Idle tale? The one place prior to the appearances where we expect the apostles to be most excited, they aren’t excited at all! They don’t even consider the testimony of the women! We’ll discuss the women in more detail, because I believe they are a deathblow to the hallucination theory.

With that, we can move onto our third and final criterion. Being informed beforehand. Is this fulfilled? Absolutely not! When they had the appearances, they still doubted!

(Matthew 28:16-17) Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

They didn’t even recognize him when they saw him!

(John 21:4) Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

(Luke 24:15-16) While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

So criterion three fails as well. All three criteria fail here. Now let us discuss the women. It is often said by Skeptics and atheists , that the appearances to the apostles were sparked by the women telling them of the angels. Now we have already seen that the disciples didn’t believe the women, but for the sake of argument, let’s say they accepted the testimony of the women without question. Then we have to answer the obvious question.

How the heck did the women see the angels? They went to the tomb to spice Jesus’ body, not to hear of resurrection. That was probably what they least expected! Applying the three criteria here, we find that we have another solid appearance, though here by angels rather than Jesus. So trying to explain the appearances to the apostles with the women creates an even bigger problem.

We can now continue to our two other appearances. The appearance to Paul and the appearance to James. Both of these appearances are appearances to Skeptics, which lends them even more credibility. Let’s look at some of the explanations of the appearances to Paul and James.

It has beeen said that the Apostle Paul was guilty, and experienced a guilt hallucination.

This is absolute nonsense. There is no evidence that Paul felt bad about persecuting Christians. By this reasoning, anyone who kills Christians is so guilty that they may experience a vision of Jesus. By this logic, Osama Bin Laden is a very guilty man!

It sometimes is argued that the disciples persuaded James of the plausibility of the resurrection. But I want to illustrate the absurdity of this argument by the following situation:

You have never believed your brother was the messiah, and then suddenly after he is crucified, further backing up James' belief, he hallucinates the risen Jesus because people who he didn't regard as credible in the first place urged him to?

I now want to move in for my final argument against group hallucinations. In the first century, the Jews were the only people who believed resurrection was possible. But they did not believe that anyone would rise from the dead before a general resurrection at the end of time. However, they did believe that someone’s body could be taken up into heaven, an assumption into heaven. Remember that the disciples were Jews.

So they would have believed that no resurrection would happen before then. So after the crucifixion, they are grieving horribly. Their alleged messiah was just shamed terribly, eliminating any honor he had during his ministry. Their brain has a hallucination. What is the content of this hallucination? They see Jesus up in heaven. He had been assumed into heaven, but would not walk the Earth again until the general resurrection. IF they had hallucinated, that is what they would have seen, but most definitely not resurrection.

An interesting note comes from the Gospel of John. Let’s look.

(John 20:6-9) Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus' head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.

So Simon and John go into the tomb. Simon doesn’t believe, but John does believe. But neither of them understands that Jesus rose from the dead. Huh? What kind of sense does that make? It means that when John saw the empty tomb, he concluded that Jesus had been assumed into heaven. He DID NOT think of resurrection, as the concept of resurrection before the general resurrection was unthinkable. This destroys the hallucination theory, as it clearly shows that a hallucination of resurrection makes absolutely no senses in the context of first century Judaism.

So what I’ve shown is that first, the apostles could not have experienced a group hallucination of Jesus. Second, I’ve shown that Paul and James could not have experienced a hallucination of Jesus. Third, I’ve shown that if a hallucination had taken place, it would have been a hallucination of Jesus’ assumption into heaven rather than of his bodily resurrection from the dead.

So what has been demonstrated in my opening statement is several facts.

First. Jesus was crucified
Second. Jesus' tomb was empty
Third. His body was not stolen by the Jews, the disciples, or occultists.
Fourth. Jesus appeared to the disciples and two skeptics, James and Paul.
Fifth. The appearances were not hallucinations

The explanation with the most explanatory power is the resurrection. Jesus was crucified, and his tomb was empty because Jesus had risen from the dead. There was no thievery involved. Skeptics and former believers alike saw the risen Jesus because Jesus had risen from the dead, and no hallucination was involved.

The burden of the negative is to provide an alternative explanation that has more explanatory power than the resurrection of Jesus Christ or that my facts are in error.

So now let’s comment on some specifics of what robtul wrote. He first objects that we do not have enough evidence for miracles. To this I would like to point out that evidence for the resurrection would be evidence for a miracle. His objection assumes we have no evidence for the resurrection. Providing evidence for the resurrection essentially fulfills what he says is needed to establish a miracle. Providing evidence for the resurrection also logically implies the existence of the causal agent.

Next, robtul complains about Occam’s razor. The razor states that the explanation that is the simplest and fits with the evidence is usually the best. Robtul in particular mentions the stolen body theory. This theory is refuted above, so it fails to fit the evidence.

If you do not assume God does not exist, then you should not make any statements predicated on his nonexistence. For example, you cannot say that resurrections cannot happen because God does not exist if you do not assume his nonexistence. If you assume nothing, then evidence for the resurrection is evidence for God’s existence.

Robtul next complains that historical writing and testimony is not sufficient evidence. I say that if we have a set of facts to be explained, we should accept the explanation which best explains those facts. The eyewitness evidence is one such fact. I believe it is best explained by the resurrection. Robtul should provide his own theory that he says explains the evidence better.

Finally, I’d like to pose a question. Do you believe that science can explain everything?


In conclusion, evidence for the resurrection establishes miracles, there are no explanations that sufficiently account for the available evidence other than the resurrection, we can establish the supernatural by providing historical evidence for the resurrection, and testimonies prove something if they are unable to be explained by any hypothesis other than the resurrection. Thank you.

[robtul12]

Tommy has provided a tendentious litany of "evidence" for the alleged resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, Tommy's post is fraught with error and logical inconsistencies. I have already stated that ancient testimony is not enough to establish a miracle of any kind. And what did Tommy do? He gave me a rather long and boring list of ancient testimonies. I don't find these testimonies any more convincing than both ancient and modern testimonies for miracles. They don't prove anything -- no matter how much Tommy may wish to wriggle his way out of this fact, there is no way to do it. Saying so doesn't make it so. This is unfortunate for the Christian position as there can never possibly be any way to prove that the resurrection actually occurred apart from invoking archaic testimony and "eyewitness" accounts and the thus far unproven supernatural causation. In the case of miracles, one needs more to establish that they happened than stories that first spread by word of mouth and became hearsay upon hearsay until they were finally written down by later Greek speaking Christians decades after the purported facts (the apostles did NOT write the gospels according to Barton D. Ehrman and many other scholars).

Tommy wanted to establish a series of "facts" about Jesus by invoking the gospels, the works of Paul, and some extra biblical sources. Well, let me take these down one by one. First , I turn to the gospels. The gospels are not accurate, reliable historical sources. They are not independent, they are not consistent, they are not contemporaneous, and they are not disinterested accounts. As mentioned, the gospels were not written by the apostles of Jesus. The names "Matthew", "Mark", "Luke", and "John" were attributed to them later by tradition. They were written in by later Greek speaking literate Christians. Not “Jesus’” illiterate Aramaic speaking followers. There has been a large body of Biblical scholarship dedicated to figuring out just who wrote them. Almost all Bible scholars agree that Mark is the oldest of the gospels. This is important for two reasons. Firstly, the latter part of Mark that mentions the resurrection and the appearances is a well known forgery and is admitted to be so by almost all Bible scholars across the board. This is the first mention that we have of the resurrection from the gospels and it is a complete fake. Secondly, it is important because most scholars believe also that the other gospels were derived from Mark and also from the Q ("Quelle" or source) Document from which many of the sayings of Jesus were taken. One notices that the later gospels that were derived from Q and the Mark are more elaborate and detailed than Mark (which makes no mention of a resurrection). Indeed, the story does grow with the retelling. With this knowledge in mind, nobody who wrote anything about Jesus ever saw him in the flesh and these things were wrote down decades after the fact with oral transmission by hearsay going on all the while and continuing to go on as they were written. Year after year after year the stories were told and as a result, inevitably changed. It gets worse. Not only were the gospels not written by the apostles or eyewitnesses of any sort (nor was anything else about “Jesus“ I might add), and the first mention of the resurrection a forgery, but the gospels are inconsistent and contradictory through and through. One gospel says an event took place at a specific time and another says the same thing happened at a different time and yet another at some other time. Only one can be correct -- if that. The gospels (or documents derived from ancient sources by non-eyewitnesses) are not consistent even in the most rudimentary and simplistic fundamentals of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The gospels don’t agree on time, day, place, and the events surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus. One says this happened and the other says that happened -- not to mention not being grounded on the where and when. No rational or sane person can accept such detached, inconsistent, error-ridden anecdotal nonsense as evidence of anything at all. With the knowledge that Mark’s resurrection story was a later forgery and that it was the first gospel to write about Christ, I don’t accept the later gospels which do mention the resurrection. Only a fool would say that Mark wasn’t in the mood to talk about the resurrection and left it out and spared his gospel a few insignificant lines. Indeed, without the resurrection, what is Christianity? One must also bear in mind that these people were stupefied, illiterate, first century peasants awash in credulity and without the slightest knowledge of science or how the natural order actually works. All of these advances into how things really work and what’s truly going on came later. Fearful ancients had ideas about the world that no one in the modern world after the industrial revolution has. They didn’t know why or how certain things happened and attributed these things to the action of a god or gods. If Tommy wishes me to include a list of things that were believed by the ancients about the natural world and that are now dispelled by science and modern understanding, I will be happy to do so upon request. Thus much for the gospels.

Now to St. Saul until he went stark staring bonkers and called himself St. Paul. All you have from him on this topic is a tiny little scribbling in chapter 15 of I Corinthians which truly doesn’t say much. For my own part and understanding, since Paul never claimed to see Jesus in person and first saw him in a vision on the Road to Damascus, he may have also meant that he rose in that context. Even if Paul did mean it literally, how would he know? -- he wasn’t there and was killing Christians until his vision. A non-eyewitness doesn’t prove squat. If he made such a statement literally, he did so on hearsay and based upon the stories being transmitted by these credulous fools in the first century. Simple as that. People are still foolish and uncritical in their thinking today. There are multiple independent eyewitness accounts today of the Loch Ness Monster. Scientists have swept the entire Loch Ness with sonar arrays which found no monster. They have also shown that there is not enough food in the Loch to sustain a large monster. They have also shown that it is absurd to say that something like a giant eel, which it is supposed to be, growing to be 30 feet long when eels normally grow to be 3 feet long is like saying a human which is normally about 6 feet high grew to be 60 feet high. Indeed, there is no proof for this monster aside from hearsay and anecdotal evidence. Yet, stories still prop up about this and many other things today in the age of science. How much more so could myths propagate themselves in the firth century. You like to say that the Roman authorities could’ve shown the body if they had it to scotch the rumors that he is risen -- well, trying to scotch rumors and “appearances” isn’t easy even today!!

There are no extra biblical accounts of the resurrection (which is the topic of our debate). You have given me nothing but archaic anecdotes spread by credulous people in the first century. You have built your whole case on the details about the events of “Jesus’” life found in the gospels. You mentioned the tomb. Which tomb? There is more than one and there is not a consensus on which is the correct one. Both are now empty but that doesn’t mean that both were empty then. I have gone into great detail concerning why the gospels simply cannot be trusted by anyone who is even mildly sensible and rational. If you have nothing else to proffer, you might do yourself the service of admitting that you believe this stuff based upon faith and not evidence. Stories are not evidence and certainly not enough to establish miracles -- no mater how much you would like them to be. To believe in a resurrection one would have to observed and documented by modern scientists with some kind of actual proof -- which, unfortunately, was not available at this time when god was in a whimsical mood and rose a body every now and again. It is too grandiose a claim to have nothing to back it up but testimony.

Finally Tommy, you asked me a rather important question. You asked if I though science could explain everything. The answer is I don’t know. I think science explains everything that we currently understand. We do not yet know everything. Usually a god is put in place of what science does not yet have a handle on. This is called the God of the Gaps. Science is fast closing these gaps and god is running out of places to hide. For me, science is the best and most reliable way of examining the natural world and it is constantly being improved and making new discoveries and correcting itself when it gets something wrong. To quote Albert Einstein “One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike – and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”

[Kabane52]

Considering the nonsense he posts on my YouTube videos, it's not surprising to hear robtul spew the same old stuff. Let's deal with a few soundbites first. He says that the first document to mention the resurrection was a forgery...clearly he is referring to Mark. Um. Robtul. Paul's letters preceded Mark, and almost every page mentions the resurrection. This would include the 1 Corinthians 15 creed, which is the earliest document we have. He whines about contradictions. Yes, there are alleged contradictions. Robtul did not name one. Please name some and I will deal with them as they arise. Robtul's main portion of his "rebuttal" consists of a stream of soundbites about the authorship and dates of the gospels. I'll just let you deal with my essay on the subject. Here ya go:

We will first deal with the authorship of the Gospel of Matthew. Before we look at this, a comment must be made. The title of Matthew must have been added early, and people must have associated the gospel with Matthew early because if not, then people would add different titles to the work.

Papias says in 125 CE,
" Matthew made an arrangement of the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each translated them as he was able..."

This may be referring to an early Aramaic, "proto-Matthew", which Matthew later rearranged into Greek.

Irenaeus confirms Matthean authorship in about 180 CE.

We also have the book titles confirming Matthean authorship. No other author is identified in any manuscript of Matthew.

Let us compare this with secular works, such as the Annals of Tacitus. Going with my date of 55, Matthew is identified as the author of Matthew 55-75 years after his gospel was composed.

With the Annals of Tacitus, the first definite ascription of it to Tacitus comes from Tertullian, quoting it 100 years after it's composition! So the external evidence for Matthew is stronger for Matthean authorship of Matthew than it is for Tacitean authorship of the Annals!

Next, internal evidence.

We have quite a wealth of internal evidence for the authorship of Matthew. The story of the fish and the coin would have interested Matthew as a tax collector. As noted by many scholars, the style of Matthew is systematic. Contrary to many scholars, this actually indicates Matthean authorship, as Matthew would have been particularly systematic as a tax collector.

When referring to his house, the author of Matthew refers to it as the house rather than his house.

Also worthy of note is the technical monetary term found in Matthew 22:15-22, as compared to the standard term used in the parallel passages in Mark 12:13-17 and Luke 20:20-26. Matthew uses monetary terms such as debts” in 6:12 where the Lukan parallel has “sins”; “bankers” in 25:27, drachma in 17:24; stater in 17:25; and talent in 18:24,

Matthew, as a tax collector would be a hellenized Jew, and it shows. Matthew writes in Greek in Greek literary style. Far from disconfirming Matthean authorship, as many say it does, it actually confirms it! The best option which explains all the data is Matthean authorship.

Next, let’s deal with the authorship of the Gospel of Mark. The first interesting thing we notice is that Mark is not prominent at all, and he is not an eyewitness, though he does serve as the interpreter of Peter. However, if the early church simply wanted to add apostolic authority to this gospel, why not make it the Gospel of Peter instead of attaching Mark’s name and saying he served as the interpreter of Peter?

The most compelling reason is that that is actually what happened, and the church was very careful with matters of authorship. We now continue to external evidence. Papias, writing in about 125 AD, says,

Mark indeed, since he was the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately, but not in order, the things either said or done by the Lord as much as he remembered.

As noted in our section on Matthew, this external evidence is better than the evidence for the external evidence for Tacitean authorship of Annals, and no serious scholar disputes Tacitean authorship of Annals.


Next, internal evidence. It is incredibly hard to establish internal evidence for Markan authorship of the Gospel of Mark, considering how little we know about this figure. However, we can establish that it was written based on material preached by the Apostle Peter. Throughout his gospel, Peter is given prominence. He is consistently ordered first in the inner circle. It includes information like that Andrew was the brother of Peter. It contains framing devices indicating Peter as the source of information.

The consistent use of third person plural is indicative of an eyewitness source for the information found in the Gospel of Mark. Considering all this evidence, the most likely conclusion is that the Gospel of Mark was authored by Mark based on the testimony of the Apostle Peter.

We now move to the authorship of the Gospel of Luke. Before we move to this, however, we must establish common authorship of Luke and Acts. Both books have similar prefaces addressed to the same person. They have extensive linguistic and theological similarities. Given this evidence, it is most reasonable to conclude common authorship.



If Luke was authored by Luke, who was a companion of Paul, then what Luke wrote of, Paul must have known of. This invalidates any arguments from silence a mythicist or skeptic uses based on Paul’s epistles. Furthermore, Paul received his information from the apostles, so Luke must have used that information as a source, and therefore it can be considered a reliable document.

We must first consider external evidence. We have nothing from Papias on the Gospel of Luke this time. However, Justin Martyr attributes a gospel to Luke the Physician in about 140 CE.

Next, internal evidence. As we have formerly noted, Acts has the same author as Luke, so establishing the author of Acts establishes the author of Luke. Luke uses technical medical language in his books. Since Luke was a physician, this is what we would expect if the author of Luke-Acts was indeed Luke.

The most powerful piece of evidence for the Lukan authorship of Luke-Acts are the we passages in the book of Acts. This indicates an author who was there, and therefore would refer to the events in first person.

In response to the we passages, some scholars have argued that this was simply the normal way of reporting ancient sea voyages. However, we passages are only used in three of the seven sea voyages and are used in several land voyages! Furthermore, it has now been shown that Robbins, the creator of the theory, misread the secular texts he based his theory on.

The author of Luke has written the best Greek in the New Testament, which means he has a high degree of culture, however, he is unfamiliar with Aramaic or Hebrew, which means he is a Gentile, not a Jew. He had the time to write a two volume work on Jesus and the early church, and was clearly empathetic. All of these factors point towards Luke as the author of Luke-Acts.

We now move towards the Gospel of John, the gospel with the most disputed authorship. Some scholars say that John was written by an anonymous non eyewitness and that the document has little historical value. Some scholars say that the Gospel of John was written by John the Elder, not John the son of Zebedee. Still others hold to the traditional view, that this Gospel was written by John the apostle, the Son of Zebedee.

As usual, we will begin with external evidence. Irenaeus, writing in about 180 CE, relates a tradition given to him by Polycarp:

“ John, the disciple of the Lord, who leaned back on his breast, published the Gospel while he was resident at Ephesus in Asia”




Irenaeus quoted Polycarp here, who was a disciple of the apostle John. Thus, this testimony may be traced back to the apostle John himself. This piece of evidence is tremendously important, and we could establish Johannine authorship based simply on this.

But we still have internal evidence. Dr. Craig Blomberg says on the author of this gospel: “[he] accurately understands Jewish customs, is steeped in the Old Testament, is aware of finer points of distinction among pre-70 Jewish sects...His knowledge of the geography and topography of Israel is excellent...John's Gospel regularly demonstrates Jesus and his Jewish opponents discussing 'halakhic' (legal) regulations relatively unique to Israel, and portions of the Gospel demonstrate affinity with distinctive Samaritan forms of thought.” The apostle John clearly fits the portrait painted here.

The professional fishermans term for cooked fish is used in the Gospel of John. As John is a fisherman, this is what we would expect if the apostle wrote this gospel. Furthermore, we have John leaving out stories found in the Synoptic Gospels where the apostle is prominent. This fits with the ancient dialectic of honor and shame, and is thus evidence for Johannine authorship.#

Finally, the author of John refers to John the Baptist as simply “John” instead of “John the Baptist”. This is what we would expect if the author was the apostle rather than someone who needed to distinguish between the two.

Now we will deal with objections to the traditional authorship of each of the gospels. First, the Gospel of Matthew. Cited against Matthean authorship are two usual reasons: the dependence on Mark and the Greek language of Matthew.

As for the dependence on Mark, this assumes Markan priority. Markan priority may be true, and probably is true, but Matthean priority is also a possibility. Secondly, Mark wrote based on Peter’s testimony. Peter was a member of the inner circle of apostles, and thus had more reliability than Matthew. Therefore, it would have made sense for Matthew to use Mark.

As for the Greek language, Matthew was a tax collector, so he would know how to read and write Greek. This objection is unwarranted.

There are generally no objections to Markan authorship except historical and geographical errors, and a comprehensive treatment of these would take far too long. So I’ll wait for robtul to attempt to provide some.

For Lukan authorship of the Gospel of Luke, it is objected that Papias doesn’t mention Luke. However, Papias mentioned Matthew and Mark because there was a problem with Mark’s authority. There was no problem with Luke’s authority.


Objected to Johannine authorship of the Gospel of John is its attribution to the heretic Cerinthus. However, this attribution came from the anti-Montanists, who disliked the Gospel of John in the first place, so their testimony cannot be considered weighty. Some object that John does not refer to James, his brother. This is a somewhat silly objection, considering that John was writing for the Christian community, not a personal family document.

As we have seen, we have excellent reasons for maintaining the traditional authorship of the gospels, and thus we can be very optimistic about their reliability. Now let us continue to the date of these gospels, which will rely somewhat on a solution to the synoptic problem. For purposes of simplicity, we will use the standard “QM” hypothesis. This means that the Gospel of Mark was written first, and Matthew and Luke used it as a source. Matthew and Luke also drew from a hypothetical source document or body of oral tradition, called Q, short for Quelle, which is German for source. I will first date the Gospel of Luke, because it has important implications for dating of the Gospel of Mark.

As we have noted previously, Luke was volume one of a two volume set, Luke and Acts. Let us look at the book of Acts. We know that Paul died in the year 64 CE. The book of Acts spends ten whole chapters on the events leading up and into Paul’s trial. However, Acts does not mention Paul’s death. It suddenly cuts off in the middle of the events. Why is this? Some scholars have proposed that this is because Paul had not died yet. This seems to be the best explanation, and it explains the facts without adding hypothetical “lost volumes” or overcomplicating the situation. We may therefore date Acts at about 62 CE. Given that Acts was volume two in a two volume set, we may put Luke at 60 CE.

Also in favor of an early date are primitive terms used in Luke’s gospel, such as the “breaking of bread”, and “the first day of the week”. Had he been writing in 80-90, he would have had to explain these terms, instead of saying them without further explanation.

Now, since we have dated the Gospel of Luke at around 60, and Luke used Mark as a source, Mark must be earlier. We will give it a 5-10 year dispersion cycle, and given this, Mark may be dated 50-55 CE. In favor of an early date for Mark, we have the extremely accurate portrayal of the Jewish religious groups. These groups completely changed after 70, and thus, this points to a pre 70 date for Mark.

As the Gospel of Matthew used Mark, it must be dated later than 50-55 CE. Indications that the Jerusalem temple is still standing are found in (Matthew 12:5-7) Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. And if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless.

(Matthew 23:15-23) Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. "Woe to you, blind guides, who say, 'If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.' You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? And you say, 'If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.' You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. and

(Matthew 26:60-61) but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward and said, "This man said, 'I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.


After 70 CE the temple tax went to support the pagan temple of Jupiter, so it is unlikely that the story of the fish and the coin would have been included here:
(Matthew 17:24-27) When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the half-shekel tax went up to Peter and said, "Does your teacher not pay the tax?" He said, "Yes." And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, "What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?" And when he said, "From others," Jesus said to him, "Then the sons are free. However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself."

Finally, we can note the mention of the Saducees. Matthew has more warnings about the Saducees than the rest of the New Testament combined! The Saducees were wiped out with the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, so it would be useless for the author to include these warning had the date of composition been later than 70 CE. We accept the critical date of about 90 CE for the Gospel of John.

Now that we have established that the gospels were written relatively early by eyewitnesses, we can conclude that they are reliable sources of information for the historical Jesus.

Perhaps the most irritating part of robtul's "rebuttal" is his extended complaining about how the ancients didn't know about modern science. Newsflash: they were aware that dead people stayed dead. They knew that something miraculous must have happened if it had indeed happened. And it's quite clear that the apostles were rather dismissive of it at first.

As for our friend the Apostle Paul, if you actually read Galatians, you would see that he had personally met with Peter and James to confirm what Jesus had told him. Duh....And as for the creed, the creed wasn't written by Paul. It was passed on by Paul. It was handled and transmitted by the eyewitnesses themselves.

Your ramblings on the empty tomb only show that you didn't get what I was saying. I didn't appeal to physical evidence of the tomb being empty now. I appealed to various pieces of historical evidence.

Now for his continued attempts at defending his initial silliness about miracles. Robtul, continuing to declare "but datz not enuf i need mor" is not an argument. You need to explain the criteria for assessing a miracle, and WHY those criteria and only those criteria are valid.

No objections to your last paragraph. I have as much problem with God of the Gaps as you do, and I don't believe in the God of the Gaps.

[robtul12]

Once again, I have asked for evidence and Tommy has provided me with dubious archaic testimony as his only crutch for believing in the resurrection. Tommy wines that the gospels are accurate and do not have contradictions and that I flubbed up in saying that Mark is the first account of the resurrection. I did not mess up. I said that Mark is the first GOSPEL account of the resurrection (indeed, the entire paragraph was about the gospels) -- and I also addressed the I Corinthians question later on in my narrative. I grow weary over arguing whether or not the gospel accounts are genuine. I will put forth more evidence that the gospels are not genuine and were not written by eyewitnesses in much of what they say even if they were written by the people who are purported to have written them. Then I will state why even if the gospels and I Corinthians were genuine, they wouldn’t prove any kind of a resurrection at all.

First, let us turn back to the gospels. There are several Bible scholars who maintain that the gospels were not written by eyewitnesses and the titles "Matthew", "Mark","Luke", and "John" were added later by tradition. However, arguments from authority prove nothing. What matters is the evidence. From what we know about the ancient world, most of the people were illiterate and had a trade that they learned as their occupation. We have no other reason to think differently of the apostles. We are given their trades and have no reason to think that they were any different from the other illiterate people who surrounded them. The people who knew how to read and write were specially trained to do so and were called scribes. This knowledge in mind, the apostles couldn’t possibly have written the gospels if they, like almost everyone else, were illiterate. Another clue that the gospels were not written by Jesus’ Aramaic speaking followers is that the gospels were written in Greek (at least all of the ones that we have are written in Greek). All of the gospels are written in the third person and have the alleged authors speaking of themselves in the third person which would be odd if they were the ones who were writing about their experiences and their testimony. Another reason to think the gospels suspect as eyewitness accounts of the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that these apostles write of things they couldn’t possibly have been witness to. Indeed, the majority of the stuff found in the gospels had to be relying on hearsay and was not eyewitness testimony. We are told about the circumstances of Jesus’ miraculous birth in the gospels. The apostles couldn’t have witnessed this event. We are even told what the wise men say to Herod. Who was there to hear that? The wise men would have had to tell Mary or Joseph and it would have had to pass form two hearsay accounts at the very least. The gospels inform us of Jesus’ exploits at the temple when he was twelve. The apostles were not there to see that. They would’ve had to have gotten the story from someone else which makes it hearsay. The gospels tell us of the conversation between Jesus and Satan when Jesus was allegedly all alone. Who saw and witnessed this? Nobody. What about the prayer of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? The apostles by their own admission were asleep and immediately thereafter Jesus was arrested and crucified and the apostles write in their gospels that they fled. Then we are told after that intimate details about Jesus’ trial for which they couldn’t have been present. What the thieves on the other two crosses said, what the Roman centurion said, what Jesus said, what Pilate did, what Simon of Cyrene did, and so forth. Indeed, how were the apostles to have known all of this stuff? Didn’t they flee and go into hiding for fear? Then there is the matter of contradictions found in the gospels. The gospels give different times for the time of Jesus’ crucifixion John says it was at noon and Mark says at 9 a.m. The tiny little sign at the top of Jesus' cross has the inscription different in each gospel no matter how short and simple it would be to wrie down. Different numbers of women are given in the tomb story. One gospel said it was Mary alone, another says it was Mary and the other women and so forth. Different numbers and different types of figures are said to be either inside or outside the tomb -- one gospel says a single angel, one gospel says a man, one gospel says two angels, and so forth some say the being was inside the tomb and other gospels say the tomb was empty. Matthew informs us that the graves were opened upon the crucifixion and the dead saints appeared unto many in Jerusalem. The other writers saw fit to leave out this petty, trifling, insignificant little detail out as if it were as trivial as a pile of dog poop was next to the cross. The notoriety of the thing and the shock of it would have merited its being written down by the others as well. Some gospels say Jesus carried his cross all of the way to the crucifixion site and others say that Simon of Cyrene carried it part way. Some miracle stories appear in one gospel and not in another gospel. Some miracle stories are in only one of the four gospels. Some of Jesus’ parables appear in only some gospels and not in other gospels. I could go on but I find it a wearisome task to mention every single inconsistency and error in these gospel accounts as you would have me do. There are also elements in the gospel that stretch credulity to new heights. They say Jesus was crucified Passover Eve! Get real! The Jews would have never crucified anyone on the eve of Passover. Jesus wasn’t going anywhere and it was a very holy festival which they begin to observe on the evening of Passover. I know this from personal experience also as I spent 6 years in an Orthodox synagogue Let it suffice the say that the gospels are contradictory, anachronistic, inconsistent, and give highly improbable testimony and the older ones were derived from Mark which is the simplest and least embellished source and the Q document also.

As for I Corinthians 15, yes, it is the very first mention of the resurrection in the Bible. Note it includes few details. It says Jesus was buried and not entombed. And it says he “rose” which could possibly mean symbolically rose. All of the later details came about 40 to 60 years later in the gospels and are inconsistent and contradictory.

Now, even if I was wrong on everything that I just wrote and the gospels are genuine and aren’t inconsistent, it still wouldn’t be proof of Jesus’ miracles and his resurrection. We have had numerous purported miracle workers and “doers of wonders” throughout time. All of them having several independent eyewitnesses claiming to have seen them performing their miracles. There are even such people in the present time like Sai Baba for instance. Thousands of people have claimed to have seen his miracles and to be eyewitnesses to them. If this manner of testimony is all that you require Tommy, then be consistent and write in your next post that you believe in all miracle workers throughout time since all you need is archaic testimony. Ordinary testimony is fine to establish ordinary probable events, but it is not sufficient to establish the laws of nature deviating from their course as they have NEVER been proven or shown to do. We have stories of miracles -- but that is all. There has yet to be a single scrap of proof that miracles (resurrections included) take place. Whenever scientists try to verify a miracles, the bottom falls out. Every single miracle scientists have ever attempted to study has been a hoax of some kind. We have lots and lots of stories and “eyewitness” accounts -- but again, they don’t prove ANYTHING. The gospels are testimonies, and one can either believe that miracles took place based upon the testimony of the people who wrote them or not. For most rational people, testimony is not enough to establish a new norm in our understanding of the world. Miracles have never been proven to exist. If someone told you that a miracle took place (like a resurrection for instance), and you took their word for it and needed nothing else but their testimony -- you are among the more credulous lot of people. That is all I can tell you.


Tommy, what I would ask you to do now is to be honest with everyone and to tell the truth. You do not have evidence for any of your beliefs. You have no proof that god or any kind or supernatural/paranormal thing exists. If you did, you could win a Nobel Prize and go down in history as perhaps the most important scientist of all time. But, you have no proof -- you have a Bible, filled with dubious stories. You should admit once and for all that you take the resurrection on faith and not evidence. You choose to believe that the stories of the resurrection you find in three gospels are true. If there is one thing science has learned it’s that anecdotal evidence can’t be relied upon. The topic of our debate is that There is not sufficient evidence to justify the belief in the resurrection of Jesus. And there isn’t. To establish a new norm in science, we need more than three archaic testimonies. We have plenty of testimonies both modern and ancient. That is why testimony isn’t enough. Saying something doesn’t make it true. If there is nothing to back it up but a story -- we have to refrain from making any definitive statements. Perhaps I will see you on the news one day and the headline will be “Definitive proof the Jesus was resurrected and Christianity is true and God exists” But, you haven’t come up to that scratch today. If you have something other than archaic dubious testimonry, I would sure love to hear it. But don't repeat your blather abou the gospels and I Corinthians. I don't care and Ihave now informed you why. I'm sorry if I seem like a jerk who doesn't believe every nut with a story.But, I don't believe every nut or several nuts with a story. Thank You.

[Kabane52]

The cleverness of robtul’s repeating of my use of the word “whine” is significantly decreased by the fact that he misspelled the word. (this is a joke robtul, don’t try to fatten your post by having a paragraph on why this is a red herring)

Robtul continues to confirm for us that he is clearly on the lower tier of skepticism and knows very little indeed about ancient writing. He begins by ignoring every single point I made demonstrating the authorship of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Newsflash, robtul. If you want to demonstrate that these accounts are not apostolic, you have to answer my case too.
The cleverness of robtul’s repeating of my use of the word “whine” is significantly decreased by the fact that he misspelled the word. (this is a joke robtul, don’t try to fatten your post by having a paragraph on why this is a red herring)

Robtul continues to confirm for us that he is clearly on the lower tier of skepticism and knows very little indeed about ancient writing. He begins by ignoring every single point I made demonstrating the authorship of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Newsflash, robtul. If you want to demonstrate that these accounts are not apostolic, you have to answer my case too.

Once again, I have asked for evidence and Tommy has provided me with dubious archaic testimony as his only crutch for believing in the resurrection.

No, you were demanding evidence for the authorship of the gospels as a way to demonstrate their historicity. I provided internal and external evidence. You have chosen not to respond.

Tommy wines that the gospels are accurate and do not have contradictions

I informed you of the massive body of evidence for their authorship. You have chosen not to respond to that evidence.

and that I flubbed up in saying that Mark is the first account of the resurrection. I did not mess up. I said that Mark is the first GOSPEL account of the resurrection (indeed, the entire paragraph was about the gospels)

So how is that even relevant? You implied that the fact that Mark 16:9-21 is a forgery somehow compromised the historicity of the resurrection. If we have many earlier mentions of the resurrection, how is this the least bit damaging?

and I also addressed the I Corinthians question later on in my narrative.

And if you didn't notice, I responded to your nonsense about the Corinthian creed. Let me quote myself:

As for our friend the Apostle Paul, if you actually read Galatians, you would see that he had personally met with Peter and James to confirm what Jesus had told him. Duh....And as for the creed, the creed wasn't written by Paul. It was passed on by Paul. It was handled and transmitted by the eyewitnesses themselves.

You failed to address my counterpoints. It's a favorite tactic of Skeptics to say "I addressed that", when their address has been refuted. Robtul, you may address my refutation or you may grant that the Corinthian creed is a real piece of evidence that must be dealt with.

I grow weary over arguing whether or not the gospel accounts are genuine. I will put forth more evidence that the gospels are not genuine and were not written by eyewitnesses in much of what they say even if they were written by the people who are purported to have written them.

Look forward to it.

From what we know about the ancient world, most of the people were illiterate and had a trade that they learned as their occupation. We have no other reason to think differently of the apostles.We are given their trades and have no reason to think that they were any different from the other illiterate people who surrounded them.

Other than the fact that we have good evidence that two gospels and several epistles were written by them. If I said my dad was a professor at a university and someone said

"Hm? Nonsense! Only 5% of Americans are professors at universities. We have no reason to think otherwise about your father."
You would consider that ridiculous. And anyway, only Paul, Matthew, John, and Peter even wrote anything! That is four out of twelve apostles! Paul was a highly educated Pharisee, who would be taught to write. Matthew was a tax collector. Peter and John were both fishermen, but nonetheless, the Jewish people highly valued education and it isn't implausible that they were taught to read and write.

Another clue that the gospels were not written by Jesus’ Aramaic speaking followers is that the gospels were written in Greek (at least all of the ones that we have are written in Greek).

Matthew, as a tax collector would know Greek. Greek was the common language of the land. It is akin to a Mexican American learning English in Northern Mexico. John learning Greek is not implausible.

All of the gospels are written in the third person and have the alleged authors speaking of themselves in the third person which would be odd if they were the ones who were writing about their experiences and their testimony.

First person accounts are more typical of pseudepigrapha than they are of authentic works. Ancient bioi is typically written in the third person.

Another reason to think the gospels suspect as eyewitness accounts of the apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is that these apostles write of things they couldn’t possibly have been witness to.

So? I didn't say they were direct witnesses of every single thing in their gospels.

Indeed, the majority of the stuff found in the gospels had to be relying on hearsay and was not eyewitness testimony.

Yes, the word hearsay does have a negative connotation. But it simply means secondhand information, if you want to use it loosely. So, rob. Explain why secondhand information is necessarily unreliable. Nearly all of Annals and Antiquities is second hand. Nearly all of Livy is secondhand. If you are allowed to dismiss secondhand information out of hand, you have just dismissed virtually all written ancient history. That disposes all the examples he gives on "hearsay". Those aren't valid arguments until he answers the challenge I just posted. Let's deal with the alleged contradictions.

Then there is the matter of contradictions found in the gospels. The gospels give different times for the time of Jesus’ crucifixion John says it was at noon and Mark says at 9 a.m.

The synoptics say it was about the third hour. John says it was the sixth hour. The synoptics are using Jewish time. John is using Roman time. Sixth hour is 6 AM. So when John says about the sixth hour, he is before the synoptics. Therefore, this chronology is perfectly acceptable.

(John 19:14-17) Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" They cried out, "Away with him, away with him, crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar." So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.

Pilate delivers him over at six. And then they took Jesus, and he carried his cross up, these processes likely took a long while. And then

(Mark 15:25) And it was the third hour when they crucified him.

So Pilate delivers him over at six, he is actually nailed to the cross three hours later.

The tiny little sign at the top of Jesus' cross has the inscription different in each gospel no matter how short and simple it would be to wrie down.

The difference is about two words. Ancient standards don’t qualify this as an error, as it only required them to put down the gist of what was written. Small variations like this were perfectly acceptable.

Different numbers of women are given in the tomb story. One gospel said it was Mary alone, another says it was Mary and the other women and so forth.

Mary and the other women went. Silence is not a contradiction.

Different numbers and different types of figures are said to be either inside or outside the tomb -- one gospel says a single angel, one gospel says a man, one gospel says two angels, and so forth some say the being was inside the tomb and other gospels say the tomb was empty.

If there were two angels, there was at least one. No contradiction. Man was often considered interchangeable with angel. It is clear from the “white clothes” that Mark describes that his “man” was an angel.

Matthew informs us that the graves were opened upon the crucifixion

They likely rose after his resurrection, not his crucifixion. See Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary, Volume One, page 181.

and the dead saints appeared unto many in Jerusalem. The other writers saw fit to leave out this petty, trifling, insignificant little detail out as if it were as trivial as a pile of dog poop was next to the cross. The notoriety of the thing and the shock of it would have merited its being written down by the others as well.

This was mentioned specifically in Matthew’s Gospel because the gospel of Matthew was written specifically for Jews. There were strains of Judaism which held that some select saints would rise with the coming of Messiah. Those resurrections were very relevant to the orthodox Jews making up Matthew’s audience, but not the gentiles of Luke’s audience or the Hellenistic Jewish audience of Mark.

Some gospels say Jesus carried his cross all of the way to the crucifixion site and others say that Simon of Cyrene carried it part way.

Where does it say all the way to the crucifixion site, hm? It says he carried it. He carried it, collapsed partway through, and Simon was drafted to finish carrying it.

Some miracle stories appear in one gospel and not in another gospel. Some miracle stories are in only one of the four gospels.

Um. So? They aren’t the same gospels. Jesus’ ministry was packed with miracles, they didn’t have the paper to write every single one. And by the way: some news stories appear in Newsweek and not Time.

Some miracle stories are in only one of the four gospels. Some of Jesus’ parables appear in only some gospels and not in other gospels.

Same principle.

There are also elements in the gospel that stretch credulity to new heights. They say Jesus was crucified Passover Eve! Get real! The Jews would have never crucified anyone on the eve of Passover. Jesus wasn’t going anywhere and it was a very holy festival which they begin to observe on the evening of Passover. I know this from personal experience also as I spent 6 years in an Orthodox synagogue.

This is one of my favorite skeptical canards, as it is so easy to refute. The rule banning this comes from the Mishna Sanhedrin. Date of composition: 220 CE. The rules were not codified until 70 CE.

As for I Corinthians 15, yes, it is the very first mention of the resurrection in the Bible. Note it includes few details.

This may be because it was a church creed condensing the essentials into one easily memorizable segment.

It says Jesus was buried and not entombed.

And? There is plenty of evidence that Jesus was entombed.

And it says he “rose” which could possibly mean symbolically rose.

No, it could not “possibly mean symbolically”. Why don’t you provide evidence that it was symbolic? Or are you just going to throw that out there unsubstantiated?

All of the later details came about 40 to 60 years later in the gospels and are inconsistent and contradictory.

No, silly, you can’t just declare those dates to be factual without any interaction with my arguments for an early date. Already answered the “contradictions”.

Now, even if I was wrong on everything that I just wrote and the gospels are genuine and aren’t inconsistent, it still wouldn’t be proof of Jesus’ miracles and his resurrection. We have had numerous purported miracle workers and “doers of wonders” throughout time. All of them having several independent eyewitnesses claiming to have seen them performing their miracles. There are even such people in the present time like Sai Baba for instance. Thousands of people have claimed to have seen his miracles and to be eyewitnesses to them. If this manner of testimony is all that you require Tommy, then be consistent and write in your next post that you believe in all miracle workers throughout time since all you need is archaic testimony.

I acknowledge the alleged eyewitness testimony for Sai Baba. The guy has some nice magic tricks. His claims have been explained naturalistically. The resurrection has not. That is the difference. I don’t discredit Baba because he has eyewitness testimony. That is indeed a fact to be explained. It has been explained. The eyewitnesses for the resurrection are facts to be explained. They have not been explained.

Ordinary testimony is fine to establish ordinary probable events, but it is not sufficient to establish the laws of nature deviating from their course as they have NEVER been proven or shown to do.

Please demonstrate that the laws of nature are immutable. Science describes and explains these laws, it does not work outside the bounds of these laws, so for you to demand that I scientifically prove a miracle contradicts the nature of science. The evidence that they are not immutable is the evidence for the resurrection.

We have stories of miracles -- but that is all. There has yet to be a single scrap of proof that miracles (resurrections included) take place.

Well then I do hope you refute my arguments for the authorship of the gospels, and against your stolen body theory.

Whenever scientists try to verify a miracles, the bottom falls out. Every single miracle scientists have ever attempted to study has been a hoax of some kind.

Irrelevant, even if true. We aren’t discussing these miracles. We are discussing the resurrection.

We have lots and lots of stories and “eyewitness” accounts -- but again, they don’t prove ANYTHING. The gospels are testimonies, and one can either believe that miracles took place based upon the testimony of the people who wrote them or not. For most rational people, testimony is not enough to establish a new norm in our understanding of the world. Miracles have never been proven to exist.

This is not an argument. Simply declaring that it is irrational to disagree with you does not make it so.

If someone told you that a miracle took place (like a resurrection for instance), and you took their word for it and needed nothing else but their testimony -- you are among the more credulous lot of people. That is all I can tell you.

The testimonies are used to establish the sincere belief of the apostles that they saw Jesus, so they did see something. The empty tomb is applied in conjunction. We now have to explain how they saw what they saw and the empty tomb. You halfheartedly tried to explain the empty tomb by repeating the old stolen body theory- a theory I have answered thoroughly. You tried to explain the appearances through an appeal to symbolism- an appeal you pulled out of thin air and did not support.

Tommy, what I would ask you to do now is to be honest with everyone and to tell the truth. You do not have evidence for any of your beliefs. You have no proof that god or any kind or supernatural/paranormal thing exists. If you did, you could win a Nobel Prize and go down in history as perhaps the most important scientist of all time.

Nobel prizes are not offered in philosophy or history.

But, you have no proof -- you have a Bible, filled with dubious stories.

I have several ancient texts, some authored by eyewitnesses, written very close to the events.

To establish a new norm in science, we need more than three archaic testimonies.

We aren’t dealing with science. Science describes the laws of the universe. Their immutability is not a topic of science.

But don't repeat your blather abou the gospels and I Corinthians. I don't care and Ihave now informed you why. I'm sorry if I seem like a jerk who doesn't believe every nut with a story.But, I don't believe every nut or several nuts with a story. Thank You.

I won’t repeat my “blather about the gospels”, considering that you haven’t even addressed my essay dealing with the dates and authorship.

[robtul12]

Tommy’s acute acknowledgment that I misspelled “whine” in my former post is greatly diminished by the fact that he carelessly and wantonly repeated his first two paragraphs as the third and fourth paragraphs of his last post. It is also amusing to note that Tommy states that since I failed to address his “case” for the authorship of the gospels, I have in my silence shown a tacit lamentable lack of knowledge concerning ancient writings and am therefore of the lower tier of skepticism. I am grateful for a chance to exonerate myself from this impious accusation. I will say at the outset that Tommy has blatantly lied in his last post. I have consistently asked for something other than anecdotal “evidence” as proof of the resurrection. I have done so since my first post and have not deviated from that format in all of my subsequent posts. I have dedicated substantial portions of all of my posts on why anecdotal evidence is not enough to establish a miracle of any kind (resurrections included) and that stories are not sufficient evidence. One need only to reread my posts to verify this axiom. So, when Tommy said that I asked for evidence concerning the authorship of the gospels, he is lying. The gospels are testimonies and I have consistently said that I don’t find them persuasive and that testimony can‘t be used to establish new norms in how we understand our natural world functions (e.g. that dead bodies can come back to life). Tommy brought up the gospels and I said a little bit on them for the sake of amusement -- but then I went on to say that even if I were incorrect on my contentions on the gospels, they would still not be proof of a resurrection as they are testimony (genuine or otherwise, testimony is testimony and that doesn’t establish new norms in our understanding of the universe).

I shall do as Tommy requests and deal with his contentions concerning the authorship of the gospels. I would like to begin by noting that for someone who has chastened me for being a contrarian to the mainstream on certain issues, Tommy is very much so outside the mainstream on his extremely unusual and very early dates for the gospels. Indeed, I have never seen such early dates suggested by any Bible scholar. That is not an argument of course, it is simply an amusing observation, as is my paragraph above. It is clear why Tommy wishes to have the dates of the gospels so early on. The closer a document is to the events, the more reliable it is. The further away a document is to the events it speaks of, the more unreliable and prone to changes of various kinds it will be. Since so much of the Christian faith hinges on the gospels, Tommy wants them to be early on, and wants them to be accurate. Unfortunately, Tommy’s case for the authorship of the gospels is completely untenable and is, to be candid, a pathetic joke. Let’s have a look at Tommy’s “case.”

We first turn to Matthew which, interestingly, is the first Gospel Tommy mentions. Tommy uses some external sources as “evidence” in attempt to prop up his hopeless “case” first. Tommy mentions Papias Bishop of Hierapolis and Irenaeus of Lyons as external sources concerning the authorship of Matthew. Let us look at Papias first. Papias makes mention of the two gospels that were known to him: Mark and Matthew. If Papias knew about Luke and John, he decided to remain silent. It should first be understood that the quotation concerning Matthew is actually Eusebius quoting Papias in Ecclesiastical History and not a work from Papias himself as the only work Papias wrote (The Oracles of Our Lord) is lost -- something which is hard to understand since it would have been very valuable and uncontroversial unlike the many tomes that the church fathers burned. Therefore, one is taking the word of Eusebius on the issue of the authorship of Matthew and not even that of Papias. Papias allegedly said (or Eusebius has him say) " Matthew made an arrangement of the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each translated them as he was able..." Firstly, we have no evidence that this “proto-Matthew” that you refer to even existed aside from this “quotation” of a lost work by the famous forger and interpolator Eusebius. Matthew was not written in Hebrew because the text (according to the overwhelming majority of scholars) is reproduced from the Greek Markan account and relied upon the Markan gospel (agreed upon almost universally to be the oldest gospel) heavily as its source. It is for this same reason that Matthew didn’t write Matthew. An eyewitness would not use the account of someone who was a non-eyewitness for his source! Papias could have easily been referring to another text that was attributed to Matthew and actually was written in Hebrew or Aramaic (unlike Mark which is written in Greek and from which Matthew is taken). Like the infancy gospel of Matthew. The other option is that Eusebius was lying. Something not uncommon for him to do as most think he was also the interpolator of the Josephus passage (church fathers admitted to Pious Fraud) in the Antiquities of the Jews. Your next bit of “evidence” is a quotation from Irenaeus of Lyons in the late second century CE. So says Irenaeus who lived long after the events he claims to know about (nearly in the third century) and would have to be relying on some other source (whatever that might be). We may even think that Eusebius may have forged this document too because Irenaeus believes that Jesus was crucified at fifty years of age and says as much. This might lead us to think that he is not as familiar with the accounts of the gospels as he claims to be (or Eusebius makes him) There is also no reason to think that this may be nothing more than a mistaken ascription of some other text. Indeed, this point is pertinent concerning your third piece of “evidence” which is the titular ascription to “Matthew.” Let me give you over to Burton L. Mack who can explain the practice of later ascription by people who lived long after the events to an important figure believed to live earlier better than I:

“With the exception of the seven letters by Paul and the Revelation to an otherwise unknown John, the writings selected for inclusion in the New Testament were not written by those whose names are attached to them…A better way to understand this phenomenon is to realize (1) that most literature of the early Christian period were written anonymously, (2) that the concept of an apostolic age was a second-century creation, and (3) that the later attribution of this literature to names associated with apostles can be explained in ways that show it was not considered dishonest. One helpful observation is that anonymous authorship of writings intended for use in social institutions such as schools, temples, and royal bureaucracies was standard practice in the scribal traditions of the ancient Near East…Even the earliest collections of teachings and stories about Jesus, such as the Sayings Gospel of Q, the Gospel of Thomas, and the little sets of anecdotes and miracle stories from the pre-Markan tradition bear the marks of literacy and creativity, though none was signed by an author…Scholars agree, in any case, that for these and other reasons, most of the writings in the New Testament were either written anonymously and later assigned to a person of the past or written later as a pseudonym for some person thought to have been important for the earliest period.” -- Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth, pgs. 6-7.

Your stating that there is more evidence that “Matthew wrote his gospel that Tacitus wrote the Annals is just ridiculous and absurd. We have nothing from Papias and would be relying upon Eusebius for that “quotation” of Papias’ mysteriously “lost” work. It is not a direct quotation from Papias. So your claim about the early date of ascription to Matthew is nonsense. Your statement would also only make sense if you assumed that the ascription from Tertullian was the only reason scholars believe that the Annals were written by Tacitus -- which it isn’t.

That takes care of “external evidence” for Matthew. Now you mentioned some things about “internal evidence.” Let’s look at that. The first bit saying that Matthew would have found particular parables quaint and interesting doesn’t even merit refutation. I find it interesting that when I mention the fact that certain parables are included in one gospel and not included in another you don’t consider a point against their authorship but you consider it a point for their authorship. As if you think they included or excluded stories about the savior based upon whether or not they enjoyed them. You then went on to say that the gospel is systematic. I know scholars I could quote which would very much disagree with that. Even if it were true, that observation would only mean something if no one else who was more educated and lived after him could write a gospel as “ordered” and “impressive” as Matthew’s - a claim which is simply ridiculous. You then go on to say that “Matthew” refers to “his” house as the house. So what? You yourself said in your former post that they wrote in the third person in these “ancient biographies.” So what exactly are you trying to establish by saying that? You babble on about how Matthew spackles a few different words here and there when referring to money. So What? The gospels also use different miracle stories, parables, and sequence events differently. Are we to make assumptions about authorship concerning those factors? Each gospel adds this story or parable and omits this one or that one etc. Your final bit concerned the fact that the gospel was written in Greek. A factor which makes the overwhelming majority of Bible scholars say that it was written later on by Greek speaking Christians. However, you appear to think that a Jewish guy living in Jerusalem collecting taxes from a bunch of illiterate Jewish people knew how to read and write in Greek. This is absurd. The fact is we don’t even know if this fellow was even a tax collector. All of that information comes from the gospels. And it is the gospels that we are attempting to establish with respect to their veracity. You also appear to think that the two fishermen Peter and John knew how to read and write also. You said that the Jews valued education and it is no improbable that they were literate. What absurd nonsense. Well then, did all the other peasants read and write too? And are the historians wrong in saying that these people were illiterate and not educated outside of a trade? Or is it just your favorite peasant fishermen who were educated and taught to read and write? You truly do stretch the limits of credulity. Even if it was so, the fact remains: this gospel was derived from the non-eyewitness account of Mark and from Q.

Now we’ll look at the account from Mark. The first thing we notice is that Tommy downplays the importance of Mark. It is easy to see why. Mark mentions no miraculous birth circumstances and no resurrection and no appearances of any kind. Very embarrassing when acknowledging that the other were derived from Mark which is the oldest account. You mention that Mark was not an eyewitness. That’s right, whoever wrote “Mark” wasn’t an eyewitness. Nor were the writers of the other gospels. We notice that Tommy uses the same exact line of argument to establish Mark. He quotes the same apocryphal patristic nonsense he did to attempt to establish Matthew. I have addressed that “evidence” above. The rest is so weak and silly I won’t mention it. Tommy, do you accept Markan Priority or not? State it plainly in your next post.

Now to the gospel of Luke. Let us bear in mind that there was a debate going on between Christians as to the nature of the religion. There were competing schools of thought. The Gnostics, Marcionites, Ebionites, and many others. There was a culture clash and there was no set doctrine at that time. There were competing schools of thought and theology. It took several Ecumenical Councils before the New Testament Cannon was decided upon. Marcion had his own Luke in the Second Century and it predates your Luke. A growing number of scholars are defending this hypothesis including Helmut Koester. Let me give you a quote from Wikipedia: “In the PBS documentary, From Jesus to Christ, narrated by Elaine Pagels, Ehrman, Karen King, and other secular New Testament scholars, Marcion's role in the formation of the New Testament canon is discussed as pivotal, and the first to explicitly state it. There were early Christian groups, such as the Ebionites, that did not accept Paul as part of their canon.” The point is that these things were not as settled on as the Church fathers say. I have already told you that these are not eye-witness accounts. Your nonsense assertion about “Luke” being a companion of Paul means nothing. The texts were not autographed by any author and the names “Matthew”, “Mark”, “Luke”, and “John” were added later. Get this through your head. I don’t feel that I need to say anything more on “Luke.” Justin is repeating what he heard from who knows who. With the tumultuous climate at that time, little is certain. You say that the same person who wrote Acts wrote Luke. Perhaps so. That doesn’t mean it was “Luke.” What’s more is that “Luke” doesn’t even claim to be an eyewitness at the very beginning of his gospel.


Now to John. I have already given you the quote from Burton L. Mack (and I can use other scholars if you want) to establish that these text were attributed to the people who were known to have existed at the time and were thought to be important. That explains your John and John the Baptist blather. John was illiterate and he couldn’t write is the second point. Almost no scholar thinks “John” wrote John. This is a big time fringe opinion of yours. You are about as right wing conservative as they come Tommy. The fact that three gospels are synoptic and John isn’t pretty much says it all right there. John is a horse of a different color. His gospel is way different from the other three. The Jesus Seminar along with the majority of other Bible scholars think it was written by a non-eyewitness. Irenaeus supposedly quoting Polycarp doesn’t even begin to establish John. “John” is a joke.

Now that I have dispensed with the gospels, I want to turn again to the I Corinthians 15 creed. I told you I thought it was symbolic and you asked me to substantiate that. Gladly. The reason is simple. The textual evidence shows that Paul was talking about a spiritual resurrection and one that could not even possibly be literal or physical. Here is what Paul says in verses 42- 50:
42So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
43It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
45And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
46Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
47The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.
48As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.
49And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
50Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

It is hard to imagine how Paul could have been more specific about the type of resurrection from the dead he was talking about. Not one of flesh and blood like we have, but a spiritual one. All of the later literalizing details about tombs, resurrections and the like come later in the gospels and can be dismissed as theological workings of later speaking Greek Christians.

Now about miracles. At the end of the day the gospels at their very best are testimony of ignorant first century peasants. One can either chose to believe the stuff they wrote down or not. If their say so is enough for you then the say so of all other witnesses of alleged miracles should be enough also. I mentioned Sai Baba. Tommy said that his miracles have been explained. Yes, they have. But the point is that that sort of critical thinking and technology and proof to disprove them was not available at the time of Jesus and you well know it. And even though Mr. Baba truly has no miraculous powers, thousands truly think he does and he has been mythologized to be something he isn’t. If western educated men in women in the age of science and technology can be so easily manipulated and fooled, how much more so could peasants in the first century? The simple testimony of these people is not enough to establish new norms in science and to think that natures laws abrogated themselves for that very reason. All you have are stories to support the resurrection and I have said since the beginning that that is not good enough. We have stories of several ancient people who supposedly could do miracles. If all you need is ancient testimony, write in your next post that you accept each and every ancient miracle report that has ever existed. And if not, why your miracle stories are so much more meritorious and reliable than theirs. I here rest the case.

[Kabane52]

Here we go again. Rob opens up with some rhetoric, claims that I lied, etc. We will skip that paragraph and dive right into the argument.

. I would like to begin by noting that for someone who has chastened me for being a contrarian to the mainstream on certain issues, Tommy is very much so outside the mainstream on his extremely unusual and very early dates for the gospels.

I chastened robtul for adhering to the Jesus myth theory while repeating old and refuted arguments for his theory by non experts. My arguments are derived from experts. Yes, it is not consensus, but it is not fringe as the Jesus myth theory is. Moving on.

Papias makes mention of the two gospels that were known to him: Mark and Matthew. If Papias knew about Luke and John, he decided to remain silent. It should first be understood that the quotation concerning Matthew is actually Eusebius quoting Papias in Ecclesiastical History and not a work from Papias himself as the only work Papias wrote (The Oracles of Our Lord) is lost

Here we have robtul failing to make key connections. He claims that Papias was silent on Luke and John, and then proceeds to explain that this is only a quotation of Papias. Yes...and since it is you cannot know if he mentioned Luke or John, so don't try to make an argument from silence there. Secondly, Papias was mentioning Matthew and Mark because of issues with the authority of Mark.

something which is hard to understand since it would have been very valuable and uncontroversial

Ancient works are lost. This is a simple fact of history. Several books of Tacitus' Annals are lost. His Histories are lost. Most of Livy is lost. These are not regarded as anomalies, so don't try to create an anomaly out of the loss of Papias.

Therefore, one is taking the word of Eusebius on the issue of the authorship of Matthew and not even that of Papias.

Do you mean to argue that Eusebius invented this quote to prove the authorship of Matthew and Mark even though the authorship of Matthew and Mark was not in dispute?

" Matthew made an arrangement of the oracles in the Hebrew language, and each translated them as he was able..." Firstly, we have no evidence that this “proto-Matthew” that you refer to even existed aside from this “quotation” of a lost work by the famous forger and interpolator Eusebius

I suppose you are saying that Eusebius interpolated the Testimonium? We'll deal with that as it arises, but as it stands you are just asserting without evidence.

Matthew was not written in Hebrew

Aramaic is what proto-Matthew is thought to have been written in.

because the text (according to the overwhelming majority of scholars) is reproduced from the Greek Markan account and relied upon the Markan gospel (agreed upon almost universally to be the oldest gospel) heavily as its source.

We can run with this if we want for the sake of argument. I don't want to get into rabbit trails, and many Christian scholars accept the QM hypothesis.

It is for this same reason that Matthew didn’t write Matthew. An eyewitness would not use the account of someone who was a non-eyewitness for his source!

Except that Mark wrote based on the testimony of Peter. Peter was an eyewitness who was in the inner circle of apostles. Matthew was not in the inner circle.

Papias could have easily been referring to another text that was attributed to Matthew and actually was written in Hebrew or Aramaic (unlike Mark which is written in Greek and from which Matthew is taken).

All this being said while you criticize me for fabricating documents. While in the proto-Matthew theory, one additional document (proto-Matthew) is created, you have created two. Quelle and an additional Aramaic Matthew which has no literary relation to the biblical gospels.

The other option is that Eusebius was lying. Something not uncommon for him to do as most think he was also the interpolator of the Josephus passage (church fathers admitted to Pious Fraud) in the Antiquities of the Jews

Interesting, considering that Eusebius was no friend of Papias. He referred to him as "a man of small mental capacity". Why, pray tell, if Eusebius was lying, did he use someone he openly disliked?

Your next bit of “evidence” is a quotation from Irenaeus of Lyons in the late second century CE. So says Irenaeus who lived long after the events he claims to know about (nearly in the third century) and would have to be relying on some other source (whatever that might be).

Thus the comparison to Tacitus' date. Your arguments against that comparison will be addressed as they arise.

We may even think that Eusebius may have forged this document too because Irenaeus believes that Jesus was crucified at fifty years of age and says as much.

lolwut? We have Against Heresies. We don't rely on Eusebius for that. Irenaeus forced Jesus' age to rebut a specific group of gnostics.

Robtul then decides to quote liberal scholar Burton Mack.

that most literature of the early Christian period were written anonymously

Yawn. As I said, the gospels were anonymous as the Annals of Tacitus were anonymous.

that the concept of an apostolic age was a second-century creation

Not sure how this is relevant to the authorship of the gospels.

that the later attribution of this literature to names associated with apostles can be explained in ways that show it was not considered dishonest. One helpful observation is that anonymous authorship of writings intended for use in social institutions such as schools, temples, and royal bureaucracies was standard practice in the scribal traditions of the ancient Near East…Even the earliest collections of teachings and stories about Jesus, such as the Sayings Gospel of Q, the Gospel of Thomas, and the little sets of anecdotes and miracle stories from the pre-Markan tradition bear the marks of literacy and creativity, though none was signed by an author…Scholars agree, in any case, that for these and other reasons, most of the writings in the New Testament were either written anonymously and later assigned to a person of the past or written later as a pseudonym for some person thought to have been important for the earliest period.”

This was answered in my initial case. Had the gospels not been ascribed to those people early, then multiple titles would have taken over these gospels. You did not address this point It is clear that these are not just titles. Ancient Christians did honestly believe that these gospels were written by the people whose names are on them. Mack is grasping at straws.

Your stating that there is more evidence that “Matthew wrote his gospel that Tacitus wrote the Annals is just ridiculous and absurd. We have nothing from Papias and would be relying upon Eusebius for that “quotation” of Papias’ mysteriously “lost” work. It is not a direct quotation from Papias. So your claim about the early date of ascription to Matthew is nonsense. Your statement would also only make sense if you assumed that the ascription from Tertullian was the only reason scholars believe that the Annals were written by Tacitus -- which it isn’t.

Right. There is internal evidence as well. Which is why I went over internal evidence. You next try to address that.

The first bit saying that Matthew would have found particular parables quaint and interesting doesn’t even merit refutation. I find it interesting that when I mention the fact that certain parables are included in one gospel and not included in another you don’t consider a point against their authorship but you consider it a point for their authorship. As if you think they included or excluded stories about the savior based upon whether or not they enjoyed them.

They did it based on whether they were relevant to their specific audience, and whether they were personally interested in them, yes. They had limited space and tons of parables. There were several parables standard to apostolic tradition, and some that were interesting personally to Matthew or his audience.

You then went on to say that the gospel is systematic. I know scholars I could quote which would very much disagree with that.

Do it then.

Even if it were true, that observation would only mean something if no one else who was more educated and lived after him could write a gospel as “ordered” and “impressive” as Matthew’s - a claim which is simply ridiculous.

This is part of a cumulative case. If that was the only piece of evidence, that would not be convincing. This is but a brick in an entire building.

You then go on to say that “Matthew” refers to “his” house as the house. So what? You yourself said in your former post that they wrote in the third person in these “ancient biographies.” So what exactly are you trying to establish by saying that?

But a brick. Please stop treating these as if they are my only pieces of evidence and then declaring that it isn't enough.

You babble on about how Matthew spackles a few different words here and there when referring to money. So What?

Matthew was a tax collector. Interesting how he uses technical monetary terms that a tax collector would know while the other gospels use standard terms. The fact that he talks a lot about money points back to the fact that this is a tax collector. This is how internal evidence is assessed. Writing style, interests of audience, personal interests. It appears that you have read almost nothing on the subject.

. Your final bit concerned the fact that the gospel was written in Greek. A factor which makes the overwhelming majority of Bible scholars say that it was written later on by Greek speaking Christians.

I suppose you didn't know that many people were bilingual back then.

However, you appear to think that a Jewish guy living in Jerusalem collecting taxes from a bunch of illiterate Jewish people knew how to read and write in Greek. This is absurd.

Except that tax collectors needed to know how to read and write Greek.

The fact is we don’t even know if this fellow was even a tax collector. All of that information comes from the gospels. And it is the gospels that we are attempting to establish with respect to their veracity.

Are you suggesting that the author of Matthew deliberately fabricated all the internal evidence to establish the authorship of it by Matthew? If so, then provide evidence beyond speculation. If no, then your comment was irrelevant.

You also appear to think that the two fishermen Peter and John knew how to read and write also. You said that the Jews valued education and it is no improbable that they were literate. What absurd nonsense. Well then, did all the other peasants read and write too?

Twelve apostles. Four of them, including Paul, wrote. That is a 25% literacy rate amongst the apostles. That is not absurd.

Even if it was so, the fact remains: this gospel was derived from the non-eyewitness account of Mark and from Q.

I do find it amusing that you accuse me of creating documents based on only one attestation while you create documents with no attestation. Proto-Matthew could be Q. Did you ever consider that? Mark is based off the testimony of Peter.

The first thing we notice is that Tommy downplays the importance of Mark.

I did no such thing. I said that Mark as a person was not very prominent, and so the church had no reason to attribute it to Mark falsely. This relates to an earlier point by Burton Mack. If they had been attributing it to heroes, why Mark? He is mentioned very little. And why Matthew, for that matter? He's a relatively obscure apostle. Why not his inner circle?

It is easy to see why. Mark mentions no miraculous birth circumstances and no resurrection and no appearances of any kind.

As for the miraculous birth, it was viewed just as the other miracles were by the early church. It was just one of Jesus' many miracles. Only later did it gain special significance. With regard to the appearances, we find the appearances attested even earlier in the 1 Corinthians 15:3-7 creed, and the resurrection is clearly implied.

The rest is so weak and silly I won’t mention it.

Cheap trick. I could easily say that about your entire post, and you would laugh and say that I was just trying to avoid answering it. So I am laughing and saying that you are trying to avoid answering it.

There were competing schools of thought. The Gnostics, Marcionites, Ebionites, and many others

Nope, all that stuff came in the early to mid second century, far after Paul enumerated orthodox Christianity. Even if we accept the standard 60-90 gospel dates, the heresies come far afterwards. Now I know you buy that deliciously absurd Gnostic Paul theory so bring that up and I'll crush it.

It took several Ecumenical Councils before the New Testament Cannon was decided upon.

No, silly. It was formalized at the councils. Almost all of the books were universally accepted beforehand, including all of the gospels and Paul's letters.

Marcion had his own Luke in the Second Century and it predates your Luke.

Luke was written in the standard dates about 80. It is around 60 in my date. Both are earlier than the Gospel of Marcion. Marcion wanted to disconnect Jesus from the God of the Old Testament, so he removed all the Jewish influence from the gospels. He cut out the genealogies, to cut off Jesus from his OT ancestors. He does exactly what would be expected if he wanted to cut Jesus from the OT.

A growing number of scholars are defending this hypothesis including Helmut Koester.

You named me one radical German Higher Critic who studied under Bultmann. This is not a "growing number of scholars". This is fringe.

Let me give you a quote from Wikipedia: “In the PBS documentary, From Jesus to Christ, narrated by Elaine Pagels, Ehrman, Karen King, and other secular New Testament scholars, Marcion's role in the formation of the New Testament canon is discussed as pivotal, and the first to explicitly state it. There were early Christian groups, such as the Ebionites, that did not accept Paul as part of their canon.”

Those scholars by no means endorse the Marcion predates Luke theory. Marcion helped form the NT canon by forcing the church fathers to formally draw up a list of canonical books.

The texts were not autographed by any author and the names “Matthew”, “Mark”, “Luke”, and “John” were added later. Get this through your head.

Yeah, just like Annals was not autographed by Tacitus. Get that through your head.

You say that the same person who wrote Acts wrote Luke. Perhaps so. That doesn’t mean it was “Luke.” What’s more is that “Luke” doesn’t even claim to be an eyewitness at the very beginning of his gospel.

But it is Luke. You addressed none of the we passages, none of the medical language. I never said he was an eyewitness.

Onto John. Your treatment of my arguments is just pitiful. I've already refuted the illiterate point. General statistics cannot be used to refute specific examples. You then go for a massive throbbing non sequitur. The fact that John is different doesn't mean anything in relation to its authorship. You just dismiss Irenaeus there without explaining why, so that bare assertion can be dismissed.

But the worst thing of all in your rebuttal is your treatment of Paul. Oh, how terrible that is. The Greek for spiritual body is soma pneumatikos. This is spiritual in ORIENTATION. NOT SUBSTANCE. Check out this verse:

(Galatians 6:1) Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.

The word translated spiritual here is pneumatikos, the same word used in the passage you cite. Here, Paul is clearly referring to members of the church who are spiritual in orientation, or are you suggesting that some of Paul's recipients were immaterial?

Rob then tries to analogize Jesus' miracles to the tricks of Sai Baba. For this to be a proper analogy, Rob must explain what trick could have been used to fake the resurrection. I'm waiting.

[robtul12]

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Tommy is insistent that the titles which have been ascribed to the gospels must have been attributed to them early or many tiles would have clustered around them. This is an unfounded assertion that Tommy is making. In the quote in my former post from Dr. Mack it was noted that most all literature from early Christianity was anonymously written and then names were assigned to them later by church tradition. Tradition was built and eventually a name was assigned to the work. I have given a quote from a very well respected New Testament scholar. Tommy is just playing Nostradamus. I have now discovered through much reading that the majority of New Testament scholars agree that we don’t know who wrote the gospels and that they most definitely were not written by the people whose names are attached to them. As Dr. Marcus Borg says:

“We are virtually certain that none was written by any of the twelve disciples or other eyewitnesses. There is a strong scholarly consensus that Matthew and John were not written by disciples named Matthew and John…Neither Mark nor Luke was among the twelve disciples, nor was either an eyewitness to the public activity of Jesus.” -- Reading the Bible Again for the First Time. Page 219, footnote 10.

Dr. Elaine Pagels concurs when she says:

“Biblical scholars have challenged this view: few today believe that contemporaries of Jesus actually wrote the New Testament gospels. Although Irenaeus, defending their exclusive legitimacy, insisted that they were written by Jesus’ own followers, we know virtually nothing about the persons who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. We only know that these writing are attributed to apostles (Matthew and John) or followers of apostles (Mark and Luke).” -- The Gnostic Gospels. Page 17

We move again to examine the testimonies of two second century Christian bishops: Papias and Irenaeus. The first question that ought to be asked of a witness who is giving testimony to something that he was not there to see is whether or not that person’s testimony is accurate and reliable. I have now found out that the majority of what is quoted from Papias is considered by New Testament scholars as legendary and unreliable.

To quote Dr. Ehrman in his new book Jesus, Interrupted on pages 109-110:

“I should point out in this connection, that scholars have almost uniformly rejected just about everything else that Papias is recorded to have said in the surviving references to his work. Consider another piece of fourth hand information: Thus the elders who saw John, the disciple of the Lord, remembered hearing him say how the Lord used to teach about those times, saying: “The days are coming when vines will come forth, each with ten thousand boughs; and on a single bough will be ten thousand branches. And indeed, on a single branch will be ten thousand shoot and on every shoot ten thousand clusters; and in every cluster will be ten thousand grapes, and every grape, when pressed, will yield twenty-five measures of wine. And when any of the saints grabs hold of a cluster, another will cry out, ‘I am better, take me, bless the lord trough me’” No one thinks John really said this. Or that John the disciple of Jesus said that Jesus said this.”

He goes on to say in footnote 9 on pages 287-288

“Another tradition in Papias that no one thinks is historically accurate: he writes that Judas, after the betrayal, bloated up, becoming so fat that he couldn’t walk down the street because not even his head could fit between the buildings, until eventually he more or less exploded and died. It’s a terrific story, but not one that anyone believes.”

I for one, do not choose to place my faith in so unreliable a source. We don’t have his book and from what little bits and references remain in other works of antiquity, they appear to be full of gross legend and untrustworthy testimony considering this legendary material also came from the “elders“ who are the same “elders” from which he gets his material about Mark and Matthew. Now we again look at the testimony from Irenaeus.

Dr. Ehrman also has something to say on his testimony also on page 111 of Jesus, Interrupted “There were lots of other gospels floating around in the early church -- most of them actually claiming to have been written by the disciples of Jesus…How was one to decide which Gospels were to be trusted as apostolic? This was a thorny problem since most of the “other” Gospels represented theological perspectives branded heretical by the likes of Irenaeus.”

The point is that in the very late second century when this patristic ascription is made by Irenaeus, there were lots and lots of other gospels going around and many different interpretations of Christianity and Christ. Irenaeus had a side just like everybody else. There were others who opposed Irenaeus and said they were the true Christians. I will later quote Dr. Burton L. Mack who has something more to say on the topic of early disputation of theology in Christianity since its outset.

If we are to accept the occupations given the serried evangelists said to have written the gospels, some conclusions can easily be reached about whether or not they are the authors. I have been back and forth with Tommy twice already about whether or not these men were literate and hence, able to write a gospel. Two of the men, Peter and John, would have been day laborers or fishermen. This existence was a very rough one indeed. These were peasants. They lived one day at a time and barely made it. Everyday was a hard struggle for peasants of their stature in the first century CE. After their workday, they would have been very tired indeed and didn’t have the time or energy to learn how to read, let alone write. It is inconceivable by what we know of the history and cultural context of that time that these men had the time, leisure, and wealth to learn to read, let alone write. Being literate was a thing that was almost exclusively a privilege of the wealthy and the rich at that time or it was an occupation in and of itself (writing was an occupation and those who could write were called scribes). Reading and writing were two separate disciplines and one who could read didn’t know how to write narratives like we find with the gospels. Most average people, let alone peasant fishermen, didn’t know how to read or write in their own language, let alone in Greek.

I now need to talk about Mark and Q. Tommy has over and over and over and over again dodged addressing what is virtually a consensus in New Testament scholarship. Namely, that Matthew, Luke, and John were all derived from the GREEK gospel of Mark and from an sayings of Jesus source scholars call Quelle from the German for “source” or simply Q. We know that the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John are taken from Mark because large portions of the gospels are identical and verbatim copied from the Greek Markan account. This means several things. First is that if they are copied one form the other, they obviously are not independent sources but rather heavily dependent upon Mark. That is another clue that shows scholars the gospels were not written by the apostles. If they were writing their testimonies, they would not verbatim copy other people’s testimonies! Especially not from what was then an anonymous gospel they had picked up that was not signed by its author. They would write their own. Just as you or I would. There is also a second and rather important thing that this evidence shows us too. The thing it shows us has to do with a principle of higher historical criticism which is that the more spectacular version is judged to be inauthentic. This is because it is more natural to see the story grow with the retelling (or re-writing) and not shrinking. Therefore, essentially what we have in the other gospels are embellished versions of the gospel of Mark and Q. Mark is far and away the simplest and shortest. The other versions are heavily embellished both with extra new-to-the-scene material, and beefed-up versions of the old stories found in Mark. This principle would be true of independent sources, let alone sources that for large portions were copying verbatim from the original! This evidence alone, without the knowledge of illiteracy would point away from the idea of individual apostolic eyewitnesses giving their accounts. It just didn’t happen that way.

Tommy speaks as if the gospels that were put inside of the cannon and that we now have were the only gospels going around at that time and that there was some sort of uniformity in Christianity before certain gospels were formally canonized much later on. This is the most absurd gibberish imaginable. It is not the case at all. There was a great deal of discord among Christianity right from the very beginning and it grew and grew in the progressing centuries. Let me again give you a quote from Burton L. Mack’s book:

“We now know that there were many different responses to the teachings of Jesus. Groups formed around them, but then went different ways depending upon their mix of peoples, social histories, and discussions about the teachings of Jesus and how they were to be interpreted and applied. Some were of the type we call Jesus movements…Still others developed into enclaves for the cultivation of spiritual enlightenment or the knowledge (gnosis) Jesus had taught. Each of these branches of the Jesus movements, including many permutations of each type, imagined Jesus differently…And they all competed with one another in their claims to be the true followers of Jesus. Many of these groups had their own gospels…As for the New Testament, it turns out to be a very small selection of texts from a large body of literature produced by various communities during the first one hundred years. These new Testament texts were collected in the interest of a particular form of Christian congregation that emerged only by degrees through the second to fourth Centuries.” -- Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth. Pg. 6 [The emboldened emphasis is my own.]

So therefore, it can be clearly seen that there never was one true interpretation of Christianity. One eventually got the upper hand (as was bound to happen for one of them), and denounced all others as heretical and false. That’s all. It is also therefore the case, that we have no reason to accept the Markan gospel, and those derived from it, as better or more meritorious than the tons of other gospels and interpretations of Jesus that emerged at that time simply because it was used by the literalizers who got the upper hand in the battle of who the real followers of Jesus were. Paul was but one of many. I could easily rest the gospel argument right here. But, I’m feeling generous. I will further destroy Tommy’s argument.

As I stated above, the idea that Matthew wrote the gospel according to Matthew is almost universally rejected; as is the idea that any of the other gospels were written by the evangelists whose names are attached to them. Despite this, Tommy still wants to try and make it seem like they were written by the people whose names are attached to them. Fine, let’s look at Matthew again. I have already addressed the testimonies of Papias and Irenaeus. So we are left to peer again at the pitiful internal evidence Tommy attempts to give us. The first thing to notice is that we have no reason to think this gospel as anything other than re-written and embellished Mark made for theological reasons based upon our understanding of higher criticism and of the QM hypothesis. We also have the near consensus of New Testament scholars that this title was added to this book later by tradition because it is, to quote Tommy “written in Greek and in Greek literary style.” Tommy talks about the story of the fish and the coin and how it would be meaningful to “Matthew.” The logic is flawed. There is not a reason or a way in the world to even attempt to make an authorship case for the gospels based upon what an apostle may or may not have found personally interesting. Let’s take the Matthew the tax collector example. If we are to accept logic a la Tommy, then parables with money and the like would be interesting and meaningful to him because he was a tax collector but not to the other apostles who weren’t. However in the synoptics, the parable of the creditor and two debtors is only found in Luke. Luke was a doctor. Why not in Matthew? The parable of the lost coin is only found in Luke. Why not in Matthew? The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is only found in Luke. Why not Matthew? I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point. I have addressed above in painstaking detail why this man did not write Greek and why according to the QM hypothesis it testifies against the idea of an apostle sitting down and writing his personal testimony and the parables that he remembered because they were meaningful to him or whatever else. And it definitely shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that this gospel was originally written in Greek and was never penned in Aramaic because it is definitely derived from the Greek Markan account. So no “proto-Matthew” for you. Based on this, I don’t think a case can be made for his authorship of the Gospel simply based on the fact that the gospel uses different words for money alone.

Now we look at Mark. I think I have shown very effectively why the idea that Mark was the secretary or interpreter of Peter as told in the tales of Papias is unreliable rubbish coming from the “elders” Papias is said to have gotten his data from along with so much other nonsensical gibberish. Therefore, I see no reason to say much else about this gospel. Tommy agrees it was not an eyewitness. Tommy mentions that Peter’s name is given first in the list of apostles in the Markan account. I find this intensely interesting. It is likely the author remembered a list of apostles and wrote them down in whatever order he remembered the names. Then Tommy mentions that the gospel is in third person. That is not a point for him. Tommy wishes to say that the gospels are “ancient biography.” I now know from my studies that that is absolute nonsense. The fact that they are in third person only shows one thing: that there is no indicator that the person writing it is an eyewitness. It would appear the same in third person if the author wasn’t an eyewitness as he would have to speak the same way. Third person in other words, is what an account written by a non-eyewitness would look like. This is not only true for our original Markan account, but for all of the other gospels derived from Mark as well. All of which were written anonymously and in third person.

We now go to Luke’s account. I agree wholeheartedly, as it is the consensus, that Luke and Acts were indeed authored by the same person. I noted in one of my posts that Luke shows he’s not an eyewitness right at the beginning. In fact, Luke’s testimony at the beginning shows that there were many gospels floating around early on at least in the 80’s CE. Luke says “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” Luke 1:1-2. Look at what we have here, it is rather remarkable. The Author of Luke-Acts in the 80’s CE is already distinguishing himself from those who were eyewitnesses at the first and admits freely that at this reasonably early time that there were already many gospel accounts going around. I think the arguments from silence are perfectly valid as it is the consensus view (with the exception of some far right wing evangelical scholars) that these title’s were later assigned by church tradition to these gospels in the second century. Just like Tommy’s Martyr ascription to “Luke” being written by Luke in 140 CE. He is repeating what we heard from nobody knows who and I have shown above how reliable this apocryphal patristic ascription of scripture can be. There is no way for Justin to have known. And it has been shown above that there was a tumultuous environment at the time and much dispute certainly by the second century when Justin makes this ascription to Luke about the many gospels floating around and the time of the true meaning of Christ and Christianity. Indeed, Marcion was on the scene at the time, and Justin so happens to make this claim just as the Gospel of the Lord was going around. Interesting. You then say something in which you totally shoot yourself in the foot. You have said before that the third person shows the gospels to be “ancient biography” and that first person narratives are, according to you, typical of pseudographia. Well look at what you said in you last post about Luke-Acts:

“The most powerful piece of evidence for the Lukan authorship of Luke-Acts are the we passages in the book of Acts. This indicates an author who was there, and therefore would refer to the events in first person.”

This is what YOU said Tommy. Well, which is it. Is first person indicative of pseudographia and false writing or is it the most powerful form of evidence for an eyewitness? Your one argument militates against the other. Thus much for Luke. He said he’s not an eyewitness, proves my point about many gospels going around quite early on, and has the best Greek of the new testament which shows to most scholars and to my mind also, that this was written by some very educated non-eyewitness whoever it was.

Now we go to John. Again Tommy wants us to rely upon Irenaeus who was writing in the second century and supposedly quoting Polycarp. I have shown that these Patristic ascriptions are not to be trusted for the following reasons: (1) There are certain patristic traditions that pass from second hand information that no scholar accepts like those from Papias, (2) There were many different sects of Christianity by the second century and surely the late second century and almost third century when this ascription to John is made, (3) It was a very volatile environment and each sect claimed to be the true followers of Christ, (4) Several gospels were floating around at the time from these various sects, (5) Irenaeus was not there and had no true way to know and is repeating what he heard because he says this nearly in the third century, and (6) Irenaeus was supporting the sect that he personally sided with and there were many sects by the second century who viewed Christianity far differently than Irenaeus.

Indeed, Pagels states “But the Gnostic Christians, whom Irenaeus opposed, assumed that they ad gone far beyond the apostles’ original teaching.” -- The Gnostic Gospels. Page 21

The point is that it isn’t as certain as Tommy would like to make it seem. Then Tommy goes again for his banal internal “evidence.” Here we go again. John is said to understand Jewish customs and geography and so forth. He used the word for cooked fish. And he referred to John the Baptist as John and didn’t distinguish between the two John’s. That is the case. Anyone who lived in the area would understand Jewish customs and geography. A single word used for fish does merit a case for authorship. Whoever wrote the gospel happened to be able to write first of all (unlike John), and secondly, since he had to be very highly educated at that time of history, he could easily have had that word in his vocabulary. The last point is that he doesn’t distinguish between John the Apostle and John the Baptist by calling John the Baptist simply John. There are two points to observe here. First, he clearly shows by the text that it is John the Baptist like in John 1:25-27 where it says “Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elijah, neither that prophet? John answered them, saying I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe‘s latchet I am not worthy to unloose.” And the second point is that John the Baptist is simply referred to as John in Luke as well. In Luke 3:15-16 “And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not; John answered saying unto them all I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” By the way, in John 20:11 it says “But Mary stood without at the sepulcher weeping;…” and it doesn’t appear to distinguish which Mary it is as there are two. Maybe John was written by Mary (whatever Mary it may be)?

Now about the Jewel set on a heaven kissing hill: the I Corinthians 15 creed. I would like to quote you from a book just published by Dr. John Dominic Crossan and Dr. Marcus J. Borg. Here is what they have to say:

“There are at least three surprises. First, Paul’s Damascus experience happened at least a few years after the forty days of appearances reported in Acts. Clearly Paul regarded experiences of the risen Christ as continuing rather than being confined to that brief period of time. Moreover, his phrase “Last of all…he appeared to me” need not be understood to mean that such experiences stooped with him. Rather, it probably means that the last experience cited in the last was his own…He repeatedly used the verb “appeared” not only for the experiences of Peter and the rest, but also for his own experience, suggesting that they were in this sense similar. To call them visions suggests that they were not the kinds of experiences that could have been photographed, as a literal-factual reading of the gospel stories would suggest…First he says that there are many kinds of bodies (15: 38-41). Then, in a series of contrasts, he writes about the differences between physical bodies and resurrected body…The resurrected body-- including the body of Jesus-- is a spiritual body: raised imperishable, raised in glory, raised in power. Clearly the resurrected body is not simply a physical body restored to life... Then Paul adds : “It is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’ the last Adam [Jesus] became a life-giving spirit” (15: 45). The risen Christ is a life-giving spirit” -- The First Paul, Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon. Pages 149-151.

Dr. Elaine Pagels agrees when she states:

“But although his discussion often is read as an argument for bodily resurrection, it concludes with the words “I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable [that is the mortal body] inherit the imperishable.” Paul describes the resurrection as a “mystery,” the transformation from physical to spiritual existence.” -- The Gnostic Gospels, page 6.

But, we still have the matter of Tommy’s comparison with the passage in Galatians 6:1. Here Tommy is failing to apply a very simple and well understood principle. Words can change meaning based upon their context. In I Corinthians 15, Paul is clearly making a distinction between a spiritual and a physical body like the one we all have. In Galatians however, the context is such that he is using the word spiritual in the way that Tommy is saying that he did. In orientation and not in substance. However, in I Corinthians 15 he is clearly talking about the difference between a physical and a spiritual body. If the spiritual body in this verse had substance, why would Paul bother to make the distinction at all and then go on to compare it to a “life giving spirit?” Are we to say that “life giving spirit” is physical too?

[Kabane52]

Tommy is insistent...whose names are attached to them

This is simply rhetorical flair without any interaction with my arguments. Yes, I am aware that Dr. Mack's contention is that the gospels are not eyewitness documents. To be blunt, I do not care. What I care about is the evidence for their authorship, internal and external. I could cite scholars who believe that the four gospels were written by eyewitnesses, such as Dr. Blomberg, and scholars who believe that they were all based off eyewitness testimony, such as Dr. Bauckham.
Rob quotes Borg, my response:

It is granted that neither Mark nor Luke were direct eyewitnesses. However, Bauckham argues that Luke was based off the eyewitness testimony of the women disciples, and that Mark was based off the testimony of the Apostle Peter. The point remains that these texts were closely based on eyewitness testimony. Whether there be a "strong scholarly consensus" that Matthew and John were not Matthean or Johannine or not, it doesn't matter. What matters is the arguments for my position, which I have presented, and as we will see, Rob has failed to rebut adequately. He next quotes Pagels who simply appeals to a consensus, which is useless.

Rob proceeds to interact with my citation of Papias. He argues that Papias is unreliable, quoting Ehrman:

“I should point out...Jesus said this.”

So what do we have here? We have Ehrman declaring that he doesn't believe what Papias says. With all due respect to Dr. Ehrman, this is not an argument. This is a dismissal without justification. Why does he reject this tradition? Because he does. What Papias quotes St. John as saying is obviously a rhetorical prediction of the abundance of Paradise, ala a "land flowing with milk and honey". Of more relevance is this:

“Another tradition in Papias that no one thinks is historically accurate: he writes that Judas, after the betrayal, bloated up, becoming so fat that he couldn’t walk down the street because not even his head could fit between the buildings, until eventually he more or less exploded and died. It’s a terrific story, but not one that anyone believes.”

The source of this is Eusebius, who quotes a single sentence from Papias devoid of the context. What this appears to be is a rhetorical riposte on Judas Iscariot, not a literal historical account. It's akin to someone saying "Your mother is so fat that she can't fit in the door". While the mother may not actually be fat, the point remains, the individual is not fond of your mother. This appears to be Papias' point. Furthermore, Bauckham has pointed out that Papias does not actually need to be a reliable historian. All he needs is that Papias was in a position to know who was the source of the Jesus tradition. And he clearly was, he knew the daughters of the apostle Philip and knew personally the eyewitnesses John the elder and Aristion. Rob proceeds to take a look at the testimony of St. Irenaeus, quoting Ehrman:

“There were lots of other gospels floating around in the early church -- most of them actually claiming to have been written by the disciples of Jesus…How was one to decide which Gospels were to be trusted as apostolic? This was a thorny problem since most of the “other” Gospels represented theological perspectives branded heretical by the likes of Irenaeus.”

If Rob wishes to defend any of the apocryphal gospels, he may do so. I will say that none of these gospels have been given a fighting chance within scholarship, with the exception of Thomas, who has a few scholars which date it early. There are two reasons why this is untenable. First of all, Thomas is dependent on the late Syriac Diatessaron, a harmony of the four gospels. This was written in about 180, so Thomas postdates that. Reaons to think this is so is because Thomas repeats phrases unique to the Diatessaron which had resulted from combining phrases from the Synoptic Gospels. Circumstantially, catchwords within Thomas point to the original language being Syriac. Second of all, it is clearly familiar with the Matthean, Markan, and Johannine streams of tradition. For more on this, see Evans, Fabricating Jesus and Perrin, Thomas: The Other Gospel.

The point is that in the very late second century when this patristic ascription is made by Irenaeus, there were lots and lots of other gospels going around and many different interpretations of Christianity and Christ. Irenaeus had a side just like everybody else. There were others who opposed Irenaeus and said they were the true Christians.

The difference is that St. Irenaeus was in a line tracing back to the apostle John. He was a disciple of St. Polycarp, who was a disciple of the apostle John himself. The other Gnostic sects cannot be traced back to the apostles of Jesus Christ. Their gospels have been analyzed by biblical scholarship, and, for the most part, thrown out as late and unreliable.

I have been back and forth with Tommy twice already about whether or not these men were literate and hence, able to write a gospel. Two of the men, Peter and John, would have been day laborers or fishermen. This existence was a very rough one indeed. These were peasants. They lived one day at a time and barely made it. Everyday was a hard struggle for peasants of their stature in the first century CE. After their workday, they would have been very tired indeed and didn’t have the time or energy to learn how to read, let alone write. It is inconceivable by what we know of the history and cultural context of that time that these men had the time, leisure, and wealth to learn to read, let alone write. Being literate was a thing that was almost exclusively a privilege of the wealthy and the rich at that time or it was an occupation in and of itself (writing was an occupation and those who could write were called scribes). Reading and writing were two separate disciplines and one who could read didn’t know how to write narratives like we find with the gospels. Most average people, let alone peasant fishermen, didn’t know how to read or write in their own language, let alone in Greek.

The Jews highly valued education and taught their children to read more than the Gentiles taught their children how to read. As I have already noted, St. Matthew was a tax collector and thus needed to know Greek. Other than Matthew, we have two members of the Twelve who knew how to write. This is not a huge amount. It would be implausible if I claimed that all twelve knew how to write. That is not what I am claiming. I am claiming that three of the Twelve knew how to write. General statistics cannot be used to refute specific examples. This point on literacy will not stand.

I now need to talk about Mark and Q. Tommy has over and over and over and over again dodged addressing what is virtually a consensus in New Testament scholarship. Namely, that Matthew, Luke, and John were all derived from the GREEK gospel of Mark and from an sayings of Jesus source scholars call Quelle from the German for “source” or simply Q.

This is the majority position, it is not the universal position. There have been serious, respectable scholars who have attacked the QM theory, see "Redating Matthew, Mark, and Luke", and "Questioning Q". However, even if we grant the QM hypothesis, this does not refute my position. Notable Christian scholars, such as Blomberg and Wallace, have adopted the QM hypothesis. Rob is absolutely wrong in claiming that John was derived from Mark. John is not one of the Synoptic Gospels, it does not repeat the synoptic sayings.

We know that the gospels of Matthew, Luke, and John are taken from Mark because large portions of the gospels are identical and verbatim copied from the Greek Markan account.

Again, wrong. John does not copy verbatim from the synoptic accounts.

This means several things. First is that if they are copied one form the other, they obviously are not independent sources but rather heavily dependent upon Mark.

This applies only to the cases where literary dependence can be shown. There are other places (ie the resurrection accounts) where literary dependence is very implausible.

That is another clue that shows scholars the gospels were not written by the apostles. If they were writing their testimonies, they would not verbatim copy other people’s testimonies!

This is not a problem at all for Luke's Gospel, because nobody says Luke was an eyewitness. Mark was drawing from Petrine tradition. Peter was one of the inner circle, he was the pre-eminent apostle. Thus, it is not surprising that we see an obscure apostle like Matthew making use of Peter's testimony in many cases rather than his own.

Especially not from what was then an anonymous gospel they had picked up that was not signed by its author. They would write their own. Just as you or I would.

I have a problem with assuming that 21st century writing customs are identical to first century writing.

There is also a second and rather important thing that this evidence shows us too. The thing it shows us has to do with a principle of higher historical criticism which is that the more spectacular version is judged to be inauthentic.

This is very interesting, because this is not what happens. Read Bauckham's study of names in the gospel tradition. Names are actually DROPPED as we move from Mark to Matthew and Luke, not added. Why did this happen? Simple. Because the names were used to identify living eyewitnesses who were alive in the Christian community. When they died, their names were deleted. This supports, first, that the gospels are based on eyewitness testimony. Second, it refutes the contention that the authors made the story more fantastic as they went along.

This is because it is more natural to see the story grow with the retelling (or re-writing) and not shrinking. Therefore, essentially what we have in the other gospels are embellished versions of the gospel of Mark and Q. Mark is far and away the simplest and shortest. The other versions are heavily embellished both with extra new-to-the-scene material, and beefed-up versions of the old stories found in Mark.

As we have seen, the assertion that the other gospels are "beefed-up" is contrary to the available evidence. Rob quotes Mack:

“We now know that there were many different responses to the teachings of Jesus. Groups formed around them, but then went different ways depending upon their mix of peoples, social histories, and discussions about the teachings of Jesus and how they were to be interpreted and applied. Some were of the type we call Jesus movements…Still others developed into enclaves for the cultivation of spiritual enlightenment or the knowledge (gnosis) Jesus had taught. Each of these branches of the Jesus movements, including many permutations of each type, imagined Jesus differently…And they all competed with one another in their claims to be the true followers of Jesus. Many of these groups had their own gospels…As for the New Testament, it turns out to be a very small selection of texts from a large body of literature produced by various communities during the first one hundred years. These new Testament texts were collected in the interest of a particular form of Christian congregation that emerged only by degrees through the second to fourth Centuries.” -- Who Wrote the New Testament? The Making of the Christian Myth. Pg. 6 [The emboldened emphasis is my own.]

Tracing the Gnostics to the first century is absolutely dishonest. Nobody seriously contends that the Gnostics developed at the same time as the Orthodox. The earliest trace we see of them is in St. John's epistles where he attacks the docetists, who contended that Jesus was not truly incarnate, but was a deity without a human body. If Rob or Dr. Mack wishes to provide the EVIDENCE where the apocryphals are first century, or the EVIDENCE that Gnostics are an early group, they may, but as of yet, they have not.

It is also therefore the case, that we have no reason to accept the Markan gospel, and those derived from it, as better or more meritorious than the tons of other gospels and interpretations of Jesus that emerged at that time simply because it was used by the literalizers who got the upper hand in the battle of who the real followers of Jesus were. Paul was but one of many. I could easily rest the gospel argument right here. But, I’m feeling generous. I will further destroy Tommy’s argument.

As I have stated, I challenge Rob to pick an apocryphal gospel, and defend its dating to the first century.

Tommy talks about the story of the fish and the coin and how it would be meaningful to “Matthew.” The logic is flawed. There is not a reason or a way in the world to even attempt to make an authorship case for the gospels based upon what an apostle may or may not have found personally interesting. Let’s take the Matthew the tax collector example. If we are to accept logic a la Tommy, then parables with money and the like would be interesting and meaningful to him because he was a tax collector but not to the other apostles who weren’t. However in the synoptics, the parable of the creditor and two debtors is only found in Luke. Luke was a doctor. Why not in Matthew? The parable of the lost coin is only found in Luke. Why not in Matthew? The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican is only found in Luke. Why not Matthew? I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point

The fish and the coin story was one of my most minor points, and would be laughable if used alone. However, I used it alongside much more significant points, such as where St. Matthew changes St. Mark's use of a common Greek word to a technical monetary term, and where Matthew mentions the names of money, where the other gospels do not.

I have addressed above in painstaking detail why this man did not write Greek

No, you addressed Sts. Peter and John, not St. Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. He HAD to know Greek. This is not unlikely at all.

And it definitely shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that this gospel was originally written in Greek and was never penned in Aramaic because it is definitely derived from the Greek Markan account. So no “proto-Matthew” for you. Based on this, I don’t think a case can be made for his authorship of the Gospel simply based on the fact that the gospel uses different words for money alone.

Except that I didn't use that alone.

Tommy wishes to say that the gospels are “ancient biography.” I now know from my studies that that is absolute nonsense.

This may be because you are reading radicals like Mack and Koester. If you read more widely, including moderates like Johnson, you would know that the majority position is that of ancient biography.

The fact that they are in third person only shows one thing: that there is no indicator that the person writing it is an eyewitness. It would appear the same in third person if the author wasn’t an eyewitness as he would have to speak the same way. Third person in other words, is what an account written by a non-eyewitness would look like. This is not only true for our original Markan account, but for all of the other gospels derived from Mark as well. All of which were written anonymously and in third person.

Writing in first person is actually a red flag that it is pseudepigraphal. Forgers would usually write in third person, while authentic writers would not. See the apocryphal "Gospel of Peter".

Luke says “Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” Luke 1:1-2. Look at what we have here, it is rather remarkable. The Author of Luke-Acts in the 80’s CE is already distinguishing himself from those who were eyewitnesses at the first and admits freely that at this reasonably early time that there were already many gospel accounts going around.

There may well have been many small accounts going around. Luke gives no indication that these were heretical, rather, he appears to acknowedge their orthodoxy. I have no issue with a few lost orthodox accounts of Jesus.

Just like Tommy’s Martyr ascription to “Luke” being written by Luke in 140 CE. He is repeating what we heard from nobody knows who and I have shown above how reliable this apocryphal patristic ascription of scripture can be.

As I have noted, if Rob wishes to dismiss St. Justin, St. Papias, and St. Irenaeus on these grounds, he must also dismiss the ascription of Annals to Tacitus. The first identification of Tacitus as the author of Annals is from Tertullian, writing much later after the fact than St. Justin and St. Irenaeus.

There is no way for Justin to have known.

Really? St. Clement, writing in 90 AD, notes that the apostles appointed successors to preserve the apostolic tradition. This is first century. We know these successors as the bishops. St. Justin was in the early second century ministry. This is shortly after St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp, both of who knew personally the apostle John. There is no dark chasm between the apostles and the early fathers. There is continuity.

You then say something in which you totally shoot yourself in the foot. You have said before that the third person shows the gospels to be “ancient biography” and that first person narratives are, according to you, typical of pseudographia. Well look at what you said in you last post about Luke-Acts:

“The most powerful piece of evidence for the Lukan authorship of Luke-Acts are the we passages in the book of Acts. This indicates an author who was there, and therefore would refer to the events in first person.”

This is what YOU said Tommy. Well, which is it. Is first person indicative of pseudographia and false writing or is it the most powerful form of evidence for an eyewitness?

Two things. First of all, Acts is not biography but historiography. Second, St. Luke does not use first person in the sense that pseudepigrapha do. Luke does not name himself. He simply uses "we". The apocryphals named themselves incessantly.

That is the case. Anyone who lived in the area would understand Jewish customs and geography. A single word used for fish does merit a case for authorship.

Yes, and this establishes that St. John was a Jew, which many people dispute. Second, it alone does not merit it, but it strengthens the case. Internal evidence has the job of confirming external evidence. Rob argues that the non-distinction between the apostle and the Baptist doesn't matter. He says Luke doesn't make the distinction either, quoting one verse. This is false, see Luke 7:20, 33, and 9:19. Second, he argues that John's Gospel does make the distinction. He misunderstands my point, it is that John is not called "John the Baptist", not that you can tell who he is by the context. Third, he says that Mary isn't named as the mother of Jesus in John 20. My answer, is so?

Next, Rob gives a very short treatment of the 1C15 creed, quoting Borg and Crossan:

“There are at least three surprises. First, Paul’s Damascus experience happened at least a few years after the forty days of appearances reported in Acts. Clearly Paul regarded experiences of the risen Christ as continuing rather than being confined to that brief period of time. Moreover, his phrase “Last of all…he appeared to me” need not be understood to mean that such experiences stooped with him. Rather, it probably means that the last experience cited in the last was his own…He repeatedly used the verb “appeared” not only for the experiences of Peter and the rest, but also for his own experience, suggesting that they were in this sense similar. To call them visions suggests that they were not the kinds of experiences that could have been photographed, as a literal-factual reading of the gospel stories would suggest…First he says that there are many kinds of bodies (15: 38-41). Then, in a series of contrasts, he writes about the differences between physical bodies and resurrected body…The resurrected body-- including the body of Jesus-- is a spiritual body: raised imperishable, raised in glory, raised in power. Clearly the resurrected body is not simply a physical body restored to life... Then Paul adds : “It is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’ the last Adam [Jesus] became a life-giving spirit” (15: 45). The risen Christ is a life-giving spirit” -- The First Paul, Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church’s Conservative Icon. Pages 149-151.

First of all, there is no reason to think that Paul's vision wasn't objective. Acts says that the others heard the voice. Second, these scholars clearly misunderstand what Paul means by spiritual. The Greek here is "pneumatikos". The Greek, "tikos", means in orientation. That is, the resurrection body is a supernatural, glorified body, oriented spiritually, but physical in substance. If St. Paul wanted to convey a substantially spiritual body, then he would have used the Greek "tinon", that is "pneumatinon", because that would mean substantially spiritual. But he didn't.

“But although his discussion often is read as an argument for bodily resurrection, it concludes with the words “I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable [that is the mortal body] inherit the imperishable.” Paul describes the resurrection as a “mystery,” the transformation from physical to spiritual existence.” -- The Gnostic Gospels, page 6.

Nobody says the resurrection body is a mortal body, it is immortal, yet physical. Flesh and blood does not mean physical, but it was a phrase intended to convey the state of human sin and weakness. Flesh and BONES convey physicality.

But, we still have the matter of Tommy’s comparison with the passage in Galatians 6:1. Here Tommy is failing to apply a very simple and well understood principle. Words can change meaning based upon their context. In I Corinthians 15, Paul is clearly making a distinction between a spiritual and a physical body like the one we all have.

No, it is not "clear" at all. Paul is making the distinction between the mortal, perishable body that we have and the immortal, glorified resurrection body. As I have stated, there was a different Greek word for substantially spiritual, and St. Paul did not use that. He used the word that meant spiritually oriented.

why would Paul bother to make the distinction at all and then go on to compare it to a “life giving spirit?” Are we to say that “life giving spirit” is physical too?

Yes.