Historical Revisionism and Misreading the Bible
Re: For Bibletruth
http://www.youtube.com/user/ForBibletruth
Quote:
Originally Posted by ForBibletruth
What "eyewitness testimony" are you talking about? It is common knowlege that Gospels were not written by the Apostles. They didn't even bear titles until the late 2nd century. Whats more is that the Gospels do not say Jesus was resurrected.
You keep using the term "naturalistic explanation". If you truely want a natural explaination, surely you would seek for evidence outside of the Bible. Are you aware that there is no contemporary evidence that Jesus or the Apostles existed in the first place? Josephus wrote about 100 CE, and he stated that there were four philosophies held by the people of Judea, and Christianity was not one of them.
You chose to believe and falsely claim things that are not taught in the Bible. You stated, " Paul mentions in 1 Cor. 15 the gospel he received from them and their eyewitness testimony." That is a totally false statement. No where in the New Testament, does Paul claim he received the gospel from the Apostles. The exact opposite is true. Gal 1:11-12 "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ."
You Claim "James was killed as mentioned in Acts for his eyewitness testimony", but Acts 12:1-2 says, "Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword." Where do we read of the testimony of James was the reason Herod killed him? Where do we read that he was killed because he believed Jesus was raised from the dead? I also ask the same questions in regard to Stephen-in his entire speech in Acts chapter 7, he never mentions Jesus or his resurrection. You seem to like to making things up out of whole cloth.
You also state, "You have to understand that most of the books of the NT were completed before 65 AD according to the Dead Sea Scrolls as identified by 27 fragments from Cave 7." The truth is that there is one very small fragment that a few men argue is from the Gospel of Mark, but the only complete word on the fragment is the Greek word "kai" which is the conjuction "and", which is a very common word used all books. From this you again falsely claim that this is somehow proof that all 27 New Testament books were completed before the year 65. The fact is that no New Testament writtings were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Jesus was never mentioned in any of the writtings found there.
Your, last paragraph-"Luke wrote a biography of Paul in Acts but made no mention of his death, which is sorta important don't you think? So Acts was written about 55 AD, but Luke said Acts was part two of his former work, Luke. So we can place Luke at about 45 AD. Now Luke took from Mark so that places Mark at about 35 AD. And Mark worked with Peter, so that gives us an early dating for 1 & 2 Peter."
I'm sorry, but, I almost fell off my chair, I was laughing so hard. It appears that you think that you can just make things up as you go along. I thought perhaps you were willing to have an honest discussion on these matters, but, it is very clear that you would rather dish out lies, and hope that others would be foolish enough to believe them.
"No naturalistic explanation, then you have no excuse when you go to Hell." I can say the same to you-Proverbs 12:17 "He that speaketh truth sheweth forth righteousness: but a false witness deceit."
Where is the documents we know were written before 65 AD with no names then given the names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? From the 2nd century we can reproduce the whole NT except for 11 verses from quotes from the church fathers. When Luke said he wrote Luke as his former work, Mark pointed to himself in his writings and John to himself in his writings, what's the problem?
The eyewitness testimony is that of Peter and James and John to Paul and Paul to them of seeing Jesus alive from the dead which Paul records in 1 Cor. 15, Gal. 1 & 2. I quote you exactly this is a fact in the writing.
Of course there are competing ideas all the time, but that doesn't change the fact the 12 Apostles who spent three years with Jesus truly believed they had seen Jesus alive from the dead and the resurretion is the best proof of all multiply attested.
Clement of Rome wrote about 75 AD. The Didache was about 75 AD. And who cares about the fact that non-Christians didn't start writing right away about Jesus? People generally don't write about that which they don't care about it or what appears to be some small insignificant movement. Non-Christians couldn't care less until Christianity started to build which took a generation or two. Even so there are 17 non-Christians sources within the first 150 years of Jesus' life, more than any other person in all of antiquity by far. For example, Tiberius, the Roman Caesar, died 4 years after Jesus but he only had 9 sources of him. By the time non-Christians started writing the Apostles had been put to death, so I wouldn't get your hair all up in a bonnet about that since then you would be sinning with a doublestandard for you would have to reject everything that existed in antiquity and no credible historian does that. If there is a Jesus, and nobody doubted that in the first two centuries that he died on the cross, then there is the 12 Apostles. You can't have one without the other, for we have detailed description of the life and times of the apostles and Jesus, and other apostles.
Yes Paul said he received the gospel from the Apostles. "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand" (1 Cor. 15.1). "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures" (v.3). "And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures" (v.4). Paul said he met with Peter in 1 Cor. 15, Gal. 1 & 2) who he received this from.
Gal 1:11-12 "But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ." Paul is not saying he did not receive the gospel message from Peter, but that as to revelation in his spirit and is not accordingly to man's ways of thinking like you think (e.g. resurrection is impossible), one must believe by faith. Even though Peter told Paul he had seen Jesus resurrected having spent 15 days with Paul, for Paul to believe it for himself, it would need to be not by much cogitating in his outerman but intuitively received in his spirit. He would have to come to God with an honest heart. The same is true for you, if you are going to be saved, it must be from your spirit within and not keep spinning around in your soulical self putting up a Berlin wall in your heart.
James was just randomly killed for no reason? No. The passage says "vex certain of the church". What church? the Church of Jesus Christ? What about Jesus? Paul says, "rose again the third day" (1 Cor. 15.4) "seen of Peter then of the 12" (v.5) and "seen of James" (v.7). The two he mentioned by name he spent time with personally as mentioned in Gal. 1 & 2.
"Name one prophet your ancestors didn't persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One--the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered" (Acts 7.52) "But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed steadily upward into heaven and saw the glory of God, and he saw Jesus standing in the place of honor at God's right hand" (v.55).
Since Stephen was the first martyred he would have been included in the 500 who saw Jesus at one time.
The 27 fragments are not referring to the 27 books of the NT, but at least a dozen of the NT books which are direct quotes from those books. I have seen videos of comparisons of these fragments to verses in the New Testament.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAnidfEb9dU
That video has 12 fragments. They have since found 15 more fragments, for a Total of 27 verses found in the NT pointing the books of the NT before 65 AD.
http://biblocality.com/forums/showth...hlight=scrolls
http://biblocality.com/forums/showth...hlight=scrolls
I really don't even thave to perform these arguments, because still as far as antiquity is concerned there is no document in antiquity with sources so close to the timing of there events. It is unprecedented.
It's clear if all else fails you will just shut your mind down. What is untrue of this statement? - "Luke wrote a biography of Paul in Acts but made no mention of his death, which is sorta important don't you think? So Acts was written about 55 AD, but Luke said Acts was part two of his former work, Luke. So we can place Luke at about 45 AD. Now Luke took from Mark so that places Mark at about 35 AD. And Mark worked with Peter, so that gives us an early dating for 1 & 2 Peter."
Though you can't always prove Prov. 12.17 it stands true. But the resurrection is not that kind of statement, but it is the statement of eyewitnesses in various group settings which Mark attests to especially as the earliest source along with 1 Cor. 15, Gal. 1 & 2. People don't willingly die for a lie, the Apostles died for their eyewitness testimony, they truly believed they saw Jesus resurrected, and group hallucinations are impossible. As the greatest lawyer of the 19th century said, the burden of the proof is on you. Therefore, you need a naturalistic explanation. This is fairly simple. It's not rocket science. You should be able to come up with something that fits the data if you are not going to Hell. The guy who did more jurisprudence in the 19th century than all the lawyers in Europe combined says your thinking is wrong. Logically, I agree,
http://biblocality.com/forums/list.p...imon-Greenleaf
When you really think about it, it is not an evidence issue, because there is more than enough evidence. It is really is a heart issue. Your heart is ugly, does not seek the truth with an honesty and sincerity, with all your heart and soul, mind and will, spirit and body. I guess you don't have to if you don't think you have a will, spirit and soul. Delusion for you is the order of the day, and that is what Hell is isn't it? A place where you can remain eternally delusionally as you wish, for you send yourself to Hell. You're a bad guy.
To prove my point, you would still reject Jesus resurrected from the grave and is God, creator of all things: nothing that was created was created without Him. Even if there were writings about Jesus one year after he died from non-Christians and we could Carbon 14 date those papyrus' to that date, you would still reject Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Even if we could Carbon 14 date still preserved papyri that starts off by saying, "I am Peter, one of the original eyewitness Apostles, I wrote this..." like he does in 1 Pet. 1.1 and 2 Pet. 1.1 and speaks of his eyewitness testimony in 2 Peter 1 and confirming Paul's writings in 2 Pet. 3.15-16, you will still reject your Creator, so why should God provide more evidence? That would be redundant and make the Bible unnecessarily thick.
And what about John? Even if we had Carbon 14 dating of papyri which said "I am John who saw Jesus resurrected, I wrote this..." as he does in 2 John 1.1, 3 John 1.1 and in 1 John 1.1 "the one who we have heard and seen," you would still reject your Creator. Personally, I like the way God did it. Makes more sense His way than your way. And ultimately that is what Hell is, a place for those who don't want God's way, because they are too selfish to submit themselves humbly to Him.
"Just as our beloved brother Paul wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him" (2 Pet. 3.15) "speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters around to mean something quite different from what he meant, just as they do the other parts of Scripture--and the result is disaster for them (v.16). "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life. (For the life was manifested, and we have seen [it], and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship [is] with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1.1-5).
"And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God. After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized" (John 3.19-22).
