As I replied at the time, I wondered whether the contributor had actually read the page at that link? It is one of those pages designed to impress you (or perhaps depress you) by quantity not by quality. I would have thought that with 1 billion christians in the world, just one of them could come up with something more convincing than that.
The earliest 'evidence' presented there was the work of the Jewish historian, Josephus. However, did you know that early copies of Josephus do not contain the passages about Jesus? It is pretty certain that the copies commonly published are forgeries from the 2nd or 3rd century. (You may dispute this claim, but if so I trust that you can provide solid evidence.)
Besides that, Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus were writing decades after the supposed time of the crucifixion, and the other writers mentioned on that page were even later than that.
Thinking about this helped me to formulate the idea of "The Grandfather Gospel Challenge". If you feel strongly about the early gospels being historically accurate, I challenge you to respond to it. Follow this link and surprise yourself.
Download this unique file free at this link and take the challenge if you dare.
Maybe that will at least make believers think again about the nature of evidence. I don't for one moment expect it to deconvert anyone.
Maybe that will at least make believers think again about the nature of evidence. I don't for one moment expect it to deconvert anyone.
8 comments:
Do I just leave the challenge here?
You can mail your attempt to plasma dot engineer at gmail dot com. I'm happy to publish anything you write (within reason) but I might comment critically.
Of course I'm also open to persuasive arguments if any exist. You might even convince me that Jesus really did exist!
And as usual, I see that a convincing answer is not forthcoming.
HA HA! this is too funny, yet i see that nobody has taken the challenge...now i remember my grandfather, and i loved him, but there is no way i can even begin to write a story about him that can come close to the supposed accuracy of the gospels...
many would argue that the proliferation of copies of the new testament in the Greek and Hebrew would mean that it is both accurate to the actual events or original versions, and it is 100% true, but that only means they were spamming people with the gospel in the known world...and still doesn't mean it was an accurate portrayal of the actual life of Jesus...it also means they had learned how to mass copy the book by hand well enough to get so many of them out to the public...
but just because i can mass produce several thousand copies of "Abraham Lincoln,: vampire hunter" does not mean it is true, or even accurate, it is historical fiction...this, i suspect, is the case with the bible in most instances...
This is quite a ridiculous method for refuting the existence of a historical figure
Firstly, you make the assumption that grandfathers are within that 30 year range. My father was more than 30 years older than me.I could write an accurate record of his history, events in his life,etc, and yet my father was, hmmm...should I say "not that interesting". The teachings/parables, challenges, and simple anecdotes of 'Jesus' are far more interesting and memorable than the facts of my own father's life. Secondly, the value of story-telling as a means of perpetuating 'history' was much greater (and necessary)than the more modern means--where recording/printing became an easier task. Just because you or perhaps most people cannot reproduce the story of their grandfather simply reflects your limited story-telling abilities; for some traditional cultures, the story-teller is a revered position. It is recognized and cultivated by that society when an individual has the ability to observe and reflect back very accurate details that most others miss. I think this exercise is ridiculous!
Oh - someone anonymous has left a vacuous response. I wonder how an independent and un-biased third party would judge the two opinions. I maintain that mine is more rational and the anonymous one is the more ridiculous of the two.
However interesting your grandfather was or wasn't is only a matter of opinion, and your claim that you could write an accurate account of your father's life is unsupported by any evidence.
The implied claim that people in ancient times were better at maintaining the integrity of stories is also unfounded. Nobody can know that. There is no doubt that good stories survive more readily as they transform into 'better' stories whenever it happens.
The question is more about the life of some mythical figure called Jesus. For some reason his works were SO interesting that no contemporary historians chose to write about them.
Sadly, by remaining anonymous, my critic will probably not see this response and the debate is unlikely to go further. Nobody has offered anything approaching a useful response to my challenge yet.
I find it interesting that people claim to have a valid point to make yet sign themselves Anonymous.
It makes it difficult to determine if any two Anonymous posts are from the same person, difficult to address them directly, and furthermore as most people use pseudonyms anyway, why not sign yourself as you are.
If you feel you have a valid point then please identify yourself!
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