What evidence is there for a biblical jesus? (page 7)

joey jojo

Jesus said it would happen. So it will happen

Faith:

'strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof.'

Jeffro

When Watchtower (and the other religious institutions) are overthrown with a swift pitch, that will be evidence.

No, there could be any number of reasons why religious organisations could become defunct. And offering some hypothetical future event as 'evidence' isn't particularly compelling.

Jesus said it would happen. So it will happen.

You don't have any evidence that Jesus said it would happen, let alone that he would be necessarily correct. According to the 'gospels', which were written decades after Jesus' death and can't be regarded as reliable sources for anything Jesus said anyway, Jesus said his 'presence' would be within a generation of his ministry. That failed, so he's not reliable from the outset.

FreeTheMasons

Faith

Jesus was the one who had the angel give the vision of Revelation to John.

Jehovah is the one who gave Jesus the message to share.

Jehovah's Word never fails to take place.

Jeffro

🙄 okay then 🤦‍♂️

That definition of 'faith' is entirely useless. It asserts that 'faith' is itself 'evidence'. It is an irrelevant circular contrivance.

Jeffro

Jesus was the one who had the angel give the vision of Revelation to John.
Jehovah is the one who gave Jesus the message to share.
Jehovah's Word never fails to take place.

🤦‍♂️

Those are all claims, not evidence. Revelation purports to be written by 'John', but does not specify which John. It is only church tradition that it is 'the apostle John'. Who actually wrote it is unestablished, and there is no reason to consider it reliable. It does contain references to some first-century events dressed as 'prophecy' in addition to hyperbolic claims typical of the apocalyptic genre, but it has nothing to do with anything happening now.

FreeTheMasons

That definition of 'faith' is entirely useless. It asserts that 'faith' is itself 'evidence'.

Perhaps you should read it again.

It doesn't say faith is evidence.

It says faith is assured expectation of what is hoped for.

Why is it "assured"?

Because of convincing evidence.

In other words, first you have evidence, then you have faith that is built on that evidence.

It's not possible to build real faith without having the evidence first.

Jeffro

It's not possible to build real faith without having the evidence first.

You're yet to provide any evidence. And you conveniently ignore that it claims that faith is supposedly "the evident demonstration of realities that are not seen", i.e. 'evidence'.

joey jojo

There are no writings - biblical, or non-biblical that are contemporaneous, eyewitness accounts of Jesus. Everything we know about him was written decades later.

If any of us was asked to write a story about some things we did with our friends 30 years ago, how accurate would it be? What if someone else wrote it for us after they had heard it from someone else?

Yes, there are some positive statements and wisdom in the NT, just like there are in other ancient books. Looking at it critically, its not much to go on if you are going to base your entire beliefs and those of your children on it though.

joey jojo

FreeTheMasons

In other words, first you have evidence, then you have faith that is built on that evidence.
It's not possible to build real faith without having the evidence first.

Sorry , not true. JW's do not have any 'real faith'. They have believed many different things about the same topic during their history. The 'evidence' they had was based on whatever the latest watchtower said.

Also, the very definition of faith requires no evidence. It is the exact opposite of fact.

Faith- belief in something whether its true or not.

Fact - something that is true, whether you believe it or not.

Vidqun

Earlier in this thread, I correctly pointed out that Daniel 9:27 does not say that Jerusalem would be destroyed. For completeness I will also add that although Daniel 9:26 says the city would be 'destroyed', the actual word used in the original text (Strongs H7843) means corrupted rather than destroyed in the sense of perished (Strongs H6), desolated (Strongs H2717), erased (Strongs H4871) or completely destroyed (Strongs H2763). See also Daniel 11:31; 12:11.

Evidence associated with the piel and hiphil as the predominant conjugation stems suggests that the verb signifies an act of ruthless destruction subjecting the object to complete annihilation or decimating and corrupting it so thoroughly that its demise is certain. The only difference is that the piel has resultative meaning, being used when the reference is to acts of destruction already carried out, whereas the hiphil emphasizes the subject’s intent to carry out such destruction, being used when the reference is to current or durative acts of this sort.
J. Conrad, “שָׁחַת,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, trans. Douglas W. Stott (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004), 584.

To destroy or not to destroy? No Jeffro, your clarification does not work for me. Jesus describes the occasion best. I'll go with his version on the matter. His explanation, of not a stone upon a stone remaining, describes it as it turned out in the end: "As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down." (Luke 21:6 ESV)

15 "So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
16 then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. (Matt. 24:15-16 ESV)

He could even warn his people to flee, and they did.

What evidence is there for a biblical jesus?

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