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To: kms61
People can delude themselves into believing all kinds of things are true. See: Jonestown;Heaven's Gate. Not equating Christianity with either of those, simply saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and there's not any that I can see. Just that when Christians try to provide ironclad evidence it doesn't hold up IMV. You do better sticking with the faith argument.

Faith in what?

The Christian "faith" is precisely the absolute confidence in the historical facticity of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, a recorded event with vastly more immediate and quantitative manuscript evidence than the historical facticity of Julius Caesar's conquest of Gaul (but you don't doubt the facticity of that event, do you? Of course not...)

In considering the New Testament we have tens of thousands of manuscripts of the New Testament in part or in whole dating from the second century A.D. to the late fifteenth century when the printing press was invented. These manuscripts have been found in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and Italy, making collusion unlikely. The oldest manuscript, the John Rylands manuscript has been dated to 125 A.D. and was found in Egypt, some distance from where the New Testament was originally composed (Asia Minor). Many early Christian papyri were discovered in 1935, which have been dated to 150 A.D., and include the four gospels. The Papyrus Bodmer II, discovered in 1956, has been dated to 200 A.D. and contains 14 chapters and portions of the last seven chapters of the gospel of John. The Chester Beatty biblical papyri, discovered in 1931, has been dated to 200-250 A.D. and contains the Gospels, Acts, Paul's Epistles, and Revelation. The number of manuscripts is extensive compared to other ancient historical writings, such as Caesar's "Gallic Wars" (10 Greek manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), the "Annals" of Tacitus (2 manuscripts, the earliest 950 years after the original), Livy (20 manuscripts, the earliest 350 years after the original), and Plato (7 manuscripts).

Manuscript Evidence for Ancient Writings

Author

Written

Earliest Copy

Time Span

# Mss.

Caesar

100-44 B.C.

900 A.D.

1,000 yrs

10

Plato

427-347 B.C.

900 A.D.

1,200 yrs

7

Thucydides

460-400 B.C.

900 A.D.

1,300 yrs

8

Tacitus

100 A.D.

1100 A.D.

1,000 yrs

20

Suetonius

75-160 A.D.

950 A.D.

800 yrs

8

Homer (Iliad)

900 B.C.

400 B.C.

500 yrs

643

New Testament

40-100 A.D.

125 A.D.

25-50 yrs

24,000



69 posted on 08/27/2002 12:45:40 PM PDT by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian
You're talking about two diffferent things. To repeat: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You're contending that there's evidence a historical figure named Jesus existed and was a figure of some note in Roman Palestine. Okay, there seem to be some facts to back that up. But to make a leap that he was a supernatural being who performed miracles and rose from the dead...I don't think it's out of line to require a higher standard of proof than for the other historical personages you cite. Nobody's asking me to believe that Caesar's conquest of Gaul was a supernatural event.


72 posted on 08/27/2002 12:59:16 PM PDT by kms61
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To: OrthodoxPresbyterian
The oldest manuscript, the John Rylands manuscript has been dated to 125 A.D.

Almost a hundred years after the supposed death of Jesus. I'll look upon any supposedly first-hand accounts of the life of Queen Victoria, written under your name, with similar skepticism.

74 posted on 08/27/2002 1:04:25 PM PDT by andy_card
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