Posted on 12/04/2013 3:17:41 PM PST by servo1969
So was Jesus born in the reign of Herod the Great?
Or was it during the Census?
Pick one lie and stick to it!
1886? Been paying attention to the data GarySpFc posted? Apparently not. Ramsay was after 1886.
I know of Brown’s liberal theology which is not surprising coming from the same Roman tradition. Did you read the discerts from the others? Or another wiki source?
Yes on Herod and Yes on a census.
Then argue with Josephus, not me.
Calvin was never elected pope or a spokesman for all Protestants.
If Jesus appeared to Paul, then it’s impossible that Paul didn’t meet him.
Science also uses statistical verification.
The number of prophesies fulfilled by Jesus provides statistical verification that these fulfilled prophesies did not occur by chance nor could they have been staged or self-fulfilled.
Hawking says the law of gravity created itself.
Goes to show, as John Lennox has pointed out, that a logically incoherent comment is logically incoherent even when written by a brilliant scientist.
“Why would its rules be be “Jam yesterday and Jam tomorrow but never Jam today”
Your ability to ask this question doesn’t address the ontological question—whether or not this supernatural force exists.
Your question only tells us you don’t like the particular arrangement of historical events.
"The blithe 'reconstruction' not only of Q, not only of its different stages of composition, but even of complete communities whose beliefs are accurately reflected in these different stages, betokens a naive willingness to believe in anything as long as it is nothing like Mark (let alone Paul)." N. T. Wright.
Quite frankly I agree with N.T. Wright.
Assertions that people rise from the dead.)
And you have something better to offer?
No amount of correct testimony (Pontius Pilate was governor) mixed in with falsehood is sufficient to give the testimony of ancient documents, only admitted under the exception to hearsay rules that is given to ancient documents, credence.
Thank goodness the experts don't share your OPINION.
If the ancient documents are a mixture of falsehood and fact, the fact that the documents are ancient makes it difficult to determine which is which. So after the gospels show the marks of forgery and the inability of the author to restrict his testimony to fact, the whole document can be safety relegated to the category of pious fraud- and rejected from being admitted as evidence.
"If" is a conditional word, and clearly exhibits a lack of certainty. Imagine, someone questioning the existence of two of the greatest minds the world has ever seen. I'm referring to Luke and Paul.
Matthew and Luke might have gotten some information from Mark and a document labeled Q, but that is extreme speculation on your part, since you discount all Biblical scholarship.
To deny the historicity of the bodily resurrection of Christ, you must provide a more plausible explanation for each of the following:
Why the tomb was empty.
Why the followers of Jesus were despondent and depressed right after his death and then within days had regained their faith and during the years that followed were willing to suffer poverty, persecution, torture and death for their faith.
Why the enemy of Christianity, Saul of Tarsus, converted.
Why the skeptic James converted.
Why the reports state Jesus first appeared to women, who in those days weren’t considered credible enough to testify in court. Myth or invention do not explain this.
Remember—the resurrection explains all of these. To deny it with any credibility, you must provide more plausible explanations. It has never been done—neither by scientist, philosopher, skeptic nor charlatan.
If you accept metaphysical naturalism you must also accept that the self doesn’t exist.
You must also accept under metaphysical naturalism that intentionality doesn’t exist.
Based on your belief in naturalism I’d say you should consider whether from now on you’ll be making any comments at all.
If you understand human nature, then you realize a church cannot get off to a start like Christianity and grow like it did, based on force.
Think of the concept known as mainstream consensus, regarding any given event or cluster of events, among historical experts.
If you understand that such a thing exists—guess what the consensus is on the events surrounding the resurrection of Jesus?
“And which one of the apostles was there, a member of the Sanhedrin? Who was the eye witness?”
Atheism must render its adherents somewhat stupid, judging from that question.
The witness to the events before the Sanhedrin is mentioned right in the text itself- someone who knew the apostles well and who had ample opportunity to relay the events to them in intimate detail. That witness of course was Christ himself after his resurrection.
Apparently your bias calls for an eclipse. All I know is the sun was darkened. We do have the following testimony, but it's not Scripture.
Thallus. Thallus wrote around A.D. 52. None of his works are extant, though a few fragmented citations are preserved by other writers. One such writer is Julius Africanus in about 221, who quotes Thallus in a discussion of the darkness which followed the crucifixion of Christ:
On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun. [Extant Writings, 18 in the Ante-Nicene Fathers]
Africanus identifies the darkness which Thallus explained as a solar eclipse with the darkness at the crucifixion described in Luke 23:44–45.
Oh good, so your evidence for magical testimony, indicating that the account of a resurrection is true is also magical.
Pelly! I never you were a Mormon! They know it is true because it was written on the golden plates, which are in the keeping of Moroni! No problem with that, right?
Now if only I could get some magical testimony for next week’s lottery numbers!
You mean the mainstream consensus that certifies global warming, despite the proven impossible of predicting non-trivial future states from past states for a Navier Stokes equation system (temperature and density changes with fluid flow) described by nonlinear, chaotic system with sensitive dependence on initial conditions.
You mean that mainstream consensus?
Usually it is at DU where people tell you to let others do the thinking for you. Is this really FR?
Jesus appeared to women because of the resurrection?
Can you spell non sequitur?
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