Ed you said they weren't really witnesses because the first martyrs were killed centuries later. I gave you examples of martyrs killed much earlier. Now your saying "better to examine further away in time."

Ed I think we already responded to this. The thing is these guys early on were dying for a truth (or falsehood) they saw with their own eyes. Not an opinion about what is right or wrong. Whether something is right or wrong can be a truth that we can easily see people being mislead on. But its hard to mislead someone about what they saw with their own eyes.

Here’s another point. Other religions do have evidence that supports them. Certainly if say Muhammad were to say by the power of God someone will drop dead now and it is recorded that the person then and there dropped dead that would be evidence. If other religions have miracles attested to as well as Christianity that their leaders performed miracles and claimed it was through Gds power that would be evidence. So in short no there is no different standard. Its the same standard regardless of the religion.

You are sounding like what lead Ehrman from the faith. The bible authors were people. Inspired by God but not dictated by God.

Again even Jesus was a man.(albeit a divine one) There is nothing that he always knew everything. He just communicated what needed to be communicated. The same can be true of an inspired text.

What is accurate what not? There are many ways. Look at what is recorded there and other places. How long after the event was it recorded. Etc. For example, skeptics often want to talk about the infancy narratives because they have the most inconsistencies. But of course they were written almost 2xs longer in time from the events as the passion narratives. So one would expect additional inconsistencies.

Ok you make some points. Here is the thing though. The writers themselves may not have seen the resurrected Jesus. However they were obviously intelligent and eloquent people. They remained so at least during the time of their writing. They would have had contact with others who would have seen the resurrection. Paul says about 500 saw it. If the people who were claiming to have seen the resurrection were delusional nut jobs it seems they did remarkable job convincing intelligent and eloquent people to write for them. About 10 different NT writers.

Again its evidence. I’m not saying it will convince everyone its proof beyond reasonable doubt. Its just something that can sway our views one way or another on the resurrection…if if if you are open to the possibility of miracles. I suppose if that is impossible to you for whatever reason then its ruled out from the start. At that point we would really need to examine your reasoning for rejecting the possibility of miracles.

Well Lane set out his view that they should be interpreted as suggesting Jews did believe in an afterlife. Maybe he has very good reasons for this. You don’t know what his reasons are so why are you saying we all need to out of hand dismiss his views.


Please quote what Lane said that lead you to say “he is pretending that the Pharisees and Sadducees read the same exact books” I simply can’t find anything that would lead one to that conclusion.

I think Lane makes it clear that certain sects like the Sadducees did not believe in the afterlife. In fact he states it outright. So I don’t think he was misleading anyone by claiming all Jews believed that at the time. Instead of putting words in his mouth that he did not say, and saying he is a fool, why don’t you try to give a quote that you think is demonstrably wrong.

Yes there were differences that distinguished the Jewish sects but there were also similarities that allow us to appropriately label them as “Jews.”

I can only give you the skinny. But here it goes.

I hold beliefs about my beliefs about ethics. I believe those beliefs are reliable. I can see that evolution is how we came about in one way or another. I can see that if that is all there is then these beliefs about ethics are not reliable. The problem is I can't really believe that these beliefs are not reliable. I can sort of think that and utter the words but it simply doesn't seem possible to rid myself of the view that my beliefs about ethics have some reliability.

Hence if I accept atheism but I am forced into a contradiction. Contradiction in your beliefs is incoherent and an anathema to rational minds. Hence I can't tolerate it. So in order to have a coherent beliefs I have to look for something more to explain what I can not reject.

Other authors have come to similar conclusions. Its hard to accept that morals are anything more than fantasy if/since there is no God - Mackie. Joyce concluded that morality can not have its essential inescable authority if we accept naturalism and evolution. Now he did not think this is an argument for God and in a way its not.

But you have to choose a world view that is consistent with much of what you believe. Christianity is it for my set of beliefs.

Now maybe a sociopath would not have the problems I have. I'm not saying all atheists are sociopaths. But I am thinking that if they are not they are living with a contradiction in their beliefs.

That's it. I'm done trying to explain this to you. Lane stated explicitly that Jews believed in resurrection. He then cites three texts to show this. Thus he asserts that Jews universally believed this. This is not true. He even admits that Pharisees and Sadducees believed differently on this.

If you can't sort this out I obviously can't help you.

Ed Yetman, III
YetmanBrothers.com

And, Ed, this is the bottom line as to just why that you will continue to go "around and around and around" with people like niceforkinmove and myself here in this thread.

Ed, unless Almighty God works in your heart and brings you to the point where you actually BELIEVE that the Biblical accounts can actually BE trusted, (yes, EVEN for historical and rational purposes), there can be, (and will be), NO coming to any kind of an agreement concerning all of what we are discussing here.

Indeed, to break all of this on-going discussion here down to its most common denominator, the bottom line here, Ed, is that niceforkinmove and myself DO believe, and, you, Ed, do NOT believe, and, at the moment, unless Almighty God works faith in His Word into your heart, Ed, then, "never shall the three of us meet in any sort of an agreement about all of this."


Chess Fan

Actually, I found the style of the New Testament to be rather dry, repetitive and boring. Occasionally it rises to the level of good writing, but it doesn't happen often. If we were to compare the quality of writing, Koran would kick Bible's ***. So the intelligence and eloquence of the Bible authors does not impress me that much.

I hope you do realize there is a difference between 500 witnesses and 1 person (or 2 or 3 people) saying there were 500 witnesses. He can say there are 5 million witnesses, but he is still the one guy saying that.

If we agree that bible authors didn't witness the events (/Jesus) themselves, why would it be impossible that they wouldn't be critical enough of the "testimony" or even that they wouldn't insert false things on purpose themselves. It wouldn't be the first time (or the last) intelligent and eloquent people were lying.

And even if the authors of the NT were not liars, and really believed the "witnesses", again, it wouldn't be the first time (or the last) delusional liars convinced intelligent and eloquent people to write for them. Or die for them. Or believe the same things as them. Again, consider Hitler. People living in the Nazi Germany were smart and educated people - at least many them were. And Hitler and company managed to get millions of people to do things for them - write for them, sing songs for them, make movies for them, sacrifice their lives in large numbers for them. So, the "remarkable job convincing intelligent and eloquent people " that the "witnesses" of Jesus had done doesn't seem to prove much. Hitler and his buddies has done the same job on what perhaps was a more impressive scale. If anything, it proves the gullibility of the "intelligent and eloquent people", rather than the veracity of claims that they can get convinced by.

From what I understand the Koran is in Arabic and was intended to stay that way. The english translations I read were not that impressive to me but this is subjective. If you disagree that the NT is one of the greatest literary acheivements in history then we can just disagree.

I can't say whether the writers witnessed the resurrected Jesus or not. Its hard to say. But for the sake of argument I granted that. You are right we don't have texts from 500 people who claimed to see the resurected Jesus. But its not just one author either. Paul is not the only one who wrote many saw Jesus.

There are material differences between Hitler and his situation and Jesus. However rather than go through them and argue about them with you, Ill just say because some other explanation is "possible" that doesn't mean we should reject the most plausible.