by punkofnice 139 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
No, we know what the early church taught. We have writings from several early church fathers, some of whom may have known the disciples.
Are you including the hundreds of variants of Christianity that existed at that time and had wildly different beliefs as well? Or just the ones you agree with?
If you accept one on "most", youy must also accept the other.
Why? I'd expect more from you. You accept everything that most scholars think? You don't examine the evidence yourself and come to a conclusion that makes the most sense? You just blindly follow what most scholars say? Or do you instead examine what most scholars think, examine what other scholars think, and settle on a conclusion that makes the most sense at the time?
I didn't say I believe Jesus existed just because most scholars said so. And I don't have to believe what most scholars say about every thing. I think it was you that criticized me for quoting something that John Macarthur said because he also believes in young earth creationism. I either had to accept everything he said, or reject it all. It doesn't seem quite fair since I'm sure you don't do that either.
Are you including the hundreds of variants of Christianity that existed at that time and had wildly different beliefs as well? Or just the ones you agree with?
We know what many of them taught. Not just the ones that I agree with. You're trying to pick on my words again, like you do on all the threads I post on about religion. I made the comment that we know what the early church fathers taught in response to the claim that we only know what later Christianity taught. We know what the Gnostics taught. And we know what the others taught. We have very early writings from them. So comprehensive, in fact, that we can reconstruct almost the entire NT just based on the writings of the early church fathers alone.
Christ alone: i dont see how "not fully authenticated" is a true representation of widely believed to be a forgery..
Why?
So you are at least logically consistent. If you want to appear biased, inconsistent and slanted, that's your choice.
I'd expect more from you.
Sorry, I'm not really interested in addressing the rest of your post as it starts out with and contains a lot of strawman arguments. See my point above for what you need to know.
We know what many of them taught. Not just the ones that I agree with. You're trying to pick on my words again, like you do on all the threads I post on about religion
You are cherry picking church fathers (i.e., the views that won out). I specifically asked about all of the others. Understand the difference and then we discuss my question again.
So comprehensive, in fact, that we can reconstruct almost the entire NT just based on the writings of the early church fathers alone.
Untrue.
Bart Ehrman on whether Jesus existed:
As Christians prepare to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, Ehrman, an agnostic, convincingly demonstrates in clear, forceful prose that there was a historical Jesus, a Jewish teacher of the first century who was crucified by Pontius Pilate. As for the so-called “mythicists” who argue otherwise, Ehrman has some choice words: “sensationalist,” ‘’wrongheaded,” and “amateurish.”
“They’re driven by an ideological agenda, which is, they find organized religion to be dangerous and harmful and the chief organized religion in their environment is Christianity,” Ehrman said in an interview.
The fact that Ehrman is siding with Christians on the historical truth of Jesus does not indicate a change of heart, much less a conversion. Instead, he said, it’s an attempt to say, “history matters.”
But for fellow nonbelievers, who cheered Ehrman’s previous books as proof that evangelicals are wrong about many biblical claims, the latest publication seems like the beginnings of family feud, if not an outright betrayal.
Some have already suggested Ehrman is painting atheists with too broad a brush.
“I don’t personally know a single atheist who would deny that Jesus existed,” said Louise Antony, professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “It would be really unfair to suggest that it’s part of being an atheist to deny the existence of Jesus as a historical person.”
Yet Ehrman who said he spent a summer boning up on mythicist books, such as “The Greatest Story Ever Sold,” and “The Jesus Mysteries,” sees a growing embrace of the position that Jesus was a fictional figure.
Ehrman said he had long received occasional emails from atheists and others asking him if he thought Jesus actually lived. Then last year, he accepted an award at a meeting of the American Humanist Association in Cambridge, Mass. While there, he was dismayed to find many humanists, who describe themselves as “good without God,” adhered to widely discredited notions that Jesus never lived.
It eventually dawned on him that the Jesus deniers were the flip side of the Christian fundamentalists he had long ago foresworn. Both were using Jesus to justify their relationship to Christianity.
“I keep telling Christians, they don’t have to be afraid of the truth,” said Ehrman. “The same thing applies to atheists and humanists. It’s not going to kill them to think Jesus really existed.”
Largely missing from the quarrel is an acknowledgement of how far atheists and agnostics have come.
“They’re squabbling over the existence of a man, not a messiah or a god,” said Ryan Cragun, a sociologist at the University of Tampa. “No one is saying Jesus was God. If you step back it’s not that cataclysmic.”
If anything, said Cragun, who studies atheists, the sparring may be a sign the atheist movement is maturing. Meanwhile, evangelical Christians, watching from the sidelines, are enjoying a breather.
“I wrote Bart a note and said, ‘Thank you for doing our dirty work for us,’” said Ben Witherington, professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., and an evangelical blogger. “This saves us some time.”
What do mythicists argue?
If Jesus really existed, mythicists ask why so few first-century writers mention him. These mythicists dismiss the Gospel accounts as biased and therefore non-historical. To many mythicists, the Jesus story is based on pagan myths about dying and rising gods.
What does Ehrman argue?
Ehrman points out that only about 3 percent of Jews in Jesus’ time were literate, and Romans never kept detailed records. (Decades after Jesus’ crucifixion, three Roman writers mention Jesus in passing, as does the Jewish historian Josephus.) Though the Gospel accounts are biased, they cannot be discounted as non-historical. As for Jesus being a Jewish version of the pagan dying and rising god, Ehrman shows that there is no evidence the Jews of Jesus’ day worshipped pagan gods. If anything, Jesus was deeply rooted in Jewish, rather than Roman, traditions.
You are cherry picking church fathers (i.e., the views that won out).
No, I'm speaking of the earliest ones we have. And until this post I did not even mention a specific church father, so how am I cherry picking? And what am I picking them for? I was on topic with if Jesus existed, and how we know outside the NT. My comment was that we know what those less than possibilty 20 or 30 years from his death knew about him. Do we have one earlier than Didache? Or Barnabas? Or Clement? Or Ignatius of Antioch? If there is a gnostic one earlier, I'd be happy to acknowledge. BTW, I don't agree with some of what the early church fathers taught anyway, so I certainly am not just cherry picking them to support any particular belief. Only to acknowledge that very early there is proof outside the NT that Jesus existed.
I said nothing about the beliefs of the early church fathers, only that we know what they taught. Telling me that I'm setting up strawmen and you will thus not answer me is a strawman in itself. I don't see any strawman in my question though. I said nothing to defend what any particular church father taught. Only that we have their writings about Jesus from a time that was very close to the beginnings of Christianity.
No, I'm speaking of the earliest ones we have. And until this post I did not even mention a specific church father, so how am I cherry picking?
The church fathers and the writings you refer to are the ones that won. You are ignoring all of the other versions of Christianity from the same time period that didn't win and aren't well known.
The fact that Ehrman is siding with Christians on the historical truth of Jesus does not indicate a change of heart, much less a conversion. Instead, he said, it’s an attempt to say, “history matters.”
“I keep telling Christians, they don’t have to be afraid of the truth,” said Ehrman. “The same thing applies to atheists and humanists. It’s not going to
kill
them to think Jesus really existed.”
Though the Gospel accounts are biased, they cannot be discounted as non-historical. As for Jesus being a Jewish version of the
pagan dying and rising god, Ehrman shows that there is no evidence the Jews of Jesus’ day worshipped pagan gods. If anything,
Jesus was deeply rooted in Jewish, rather than Roman, traditions.
See my beard? Ain't it weird? Don't be skeerd, it's just a beard.
