by fulltimestudent 22 Replies latest jw friends
The National Geographic web-site publishes this story:
These 12 Men Shaped Christianity—But Were They Real?
Link: : https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160306-bible-apostle-jesus-christian-religion-ngbooktalk/?cmpid=org=ngp::mc=social::src=facebook::cmp=editorial::add=fb20181222culture-resurfapostlesbooktalk::rid=&sf204668865=1
In secular history, Jesus is a shadowy figure, but, as the above discussion shows, so are his 12 selected 'leader's' of the early church.
The 12 apostles only enter the picture in the second-century, there's two token references to them outside the gospels and somebody added rhe one in 1 Corinthians 15 after the fact and probably the one in Revelations too, the Elders Papias wrote about tampered with it.
The introduction of apostles comes right around the time the Gnostics started claiming secret revelations from Jesus. The proto-orthodox church said its not about present eevelation but about Jesus' earthly revelation to the 12 who our fore-elders followed. Which is pretty much bunk. So the Gnostics came back with Well we follow the disciples of apostles too, Peter's secretary Glaucius, Paul's disciple Theudaa.
Claims to apostolic authority are sandcastles on the beach, shoulda been washed down ages ago.
Probably came from the 12 tribes of Israel , the ancients were known to use or plagiarize other theological expressions from the past, even from other different civilizations.
Exactly, and early Christians were big on numerology too, just to follow up on that.
I think that without the Resurrection that no one would ever have thought much about this group of fisherman and other nobodies from this far-flung Roman Provence.
Are you familiar with the Minimal Facts argument for the Resurrection?
I'll bite, what's the argument? I don't accept that there was a resurrection to be clear, just know that going in.
It has as much truth to it as Grimms Fairy Tales.
At 2:20 in Part 2 of the Lecture he lists 12 virtually undisputed, strongly supported facts concerning this early group that most scholars agree with. He claims that the ones with asterisks next to them are supported by 95% of new testament scholars including unbelieving skeptics. The others are supported simply by most scholars, perhaps 75%.
The "evidence for the evidence" is the best :
People never get resurrected-- unless you believe in the supernatural.
As a rule gods don't die but absolutely anything, even the impossible, can and does happen in supernatural tales.
