₦airaland Forum

@pili,
How body ? In fact, you no easy on these guys at all. E ku ise naa. No cool down oh, just continue to dey yarn the truth. Make i add my own small contribu. . . . i probably will repeat many of the things you've already said.

@Carlosein and our other friends,
Your post is really funny; funny in the sense that it undermines the conclusions that you are trying to make; and its really unfortunate that you can't see that. However, it is good that its a catholic that put up those "promises" for all to see - so we can clearly examine the doctrines that come from your quarters.

A few things are obvious from your post:

(1) Examining the Mary
Those who claim that catholics are only HONOURING Mary (not worshipping her), like Pilgrim.1 has continually been letting you guys know, are not being very generous with the truth. Have you considered the first line of those promises
       
          "Whoever shall faithfully SERVE ME by the recitation of the Rosary shall receive signal graces"

Have you guys actually considered who this so-called Mary is, even, that has so exalted herself as to so brazenly DEMAND worship via service and devotion?  Do you see any semblance with the very humble biblical Mary who in humility said to the angel to 'be it unto me according to your Word'? Is it the birth of Jesus that made her so brazen as to demand worship and to allude powers and abilities to herself that only God posseses (as manifested by the other 'promises')? This Mary of the catholic church is obviously beyond a place of mere honour, she is at the focal point, she is at the center of attention, and failure to see this really beats me. This Mary has powers that no human being has, this Mary can almost be said to be omnipotent - since she can even "deliver people from hell".

Do you also notice that this Mary has basically done everything the Lord Jesus might have had to do? "Promises" such as this clearly illustrate the central place this Mary has in catholic doctrine. She has specially protected her devotees(2), saved people from hell (3), delivered people from perishing(5), delivered people from purgatory(9), placed people in position of high glory in heaven (10) to mention a few.
It is only for the sake of 'having intercessors in life and in death' that this Mary even needs Jesus at all - at the thirteenth promise out of 15.
The burning question is; WHO IS THIS ROMAN CATHOLIC MARY?

Furthermore, here is the quagmire you guys have dragged yourselves into; if you claim to only be merely "HONOURING" this Mary, then you are clearly disobeying her - through those 'promises' the catholic Mary cleary DEMANDS WORSHIP and DEVOTION, and not giving in to those demands is disobedience to the requirements for attaining those 'signal graces' and the salvation promised by her. And claiming otherwise is really unprodcutive.
If on the other hand you acknowledge that catholicsm actually requires the worship of Mary, then you can readily see the Mariolatory that is inherent to the RCC and realize that you guys have strayed far far away from the Way, the Truth and the Life.
The Escape Door is wide open.


(2) Examining the Word of God
The other thing that is obvious is that anyone who holds to the doctrines of the RCC has to either completely jettison the bible or to at best relegate it to second fiddle and just use it as a document for the face value of claiming attachment to christianity when there really is none. It is no different from what other sects such as Mormons do with their bible.
All those acts that 'Mary' requires, including devotion to the rosary being the escape ticket from purgatory and the means of salvation, are diametrically opposed to the bible's teachings. And i really wonder if you would even bother to know what the bible's CLEAR doctrines about salvation are - considering that Mary has given you her promises that are attainable just by 'reciting the rosary'. In this case, it is clear that we can easily lump catholicsm together with islam and many of the other world religions that are based on the attainment on salvation by works.
Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be) for you guys, the bible is clear; and just one passage of the bible will be a good starting point to expose the falsehood of the so-called Mary's promises

"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." (Eph 2;8-9)

So bros, there is no recitation of hail mary's, our fathers, and glory be's, that can deliver one from the wrath of God or bring one from darkness into light. All those actions constitute dead works before God. Neither is there is any other name given under heaven by which we must be saved. Mary is not, has never been, and will never be our Saviour. Even Mary herself needed to be saved. There is no human effort that can yeild fruit in this regard, except faith in the gospel.
Perhaps as you continually obey those requirements for attaining the promises, the futility of those actions will suddenly dawn on you by the Holy spirit. Ultimately, in my case, when i did recite those repitions (and many others) and God opened my eyes to see their eternal irrelevance was when i fled to take refuge in the saving grace of Christ; my prayer is that God will open you guys' eyes as well. Cheers.

Backslider:
Finally there is a reason why God refers to Himself by the male pronoun, and it is not a reflection of circumstances nor in condescension to culture.

LOL . . . . this cannot simply be ignored. One must preserve this height of absurdities in a pristine condition, and add it to our extended catalogue of Backslider's infamous quotable quotes

Tasma:
I've always found this topic a bit funny and maybe also pointless. First off if you ask a man if he believes in God and he says yes, what does that tell you? It in fact says very little until you know his concept of God. A muslim believes in God and still in not of the same belief as a Christian. A good guess would be that everyone in one way or the other has some concept of God or a creator in his mind. It's natural as human beings to reason that for anything to exist there must be a creator. So again what does the statement "I believe in God" tell us. Absolutely nothing! It simply means our minds have the tendency or need to believe in a creator.

In your quick summation to categorically dismiss all claims of a God, you have deliberately ignored a valid inference. Granted, there are different claims of / for the existence of or a belief in God. Granted, those different claims CANNOT all be true (especially considering that they are diametrically opposed in many cases). However, a valid inference is that, one (or more) of them may be true. Fine, it might be tedious to consider the different accounts individually, however, for someone who is so hasty to generally conclude that we cannot attain such knowledge, it would be worth the while if you could at least examine the major claims and determine if such claims were logically consistent and trustworthy or not.

The argument that God must exist because you pray to him and he answers your prayers is equally funny. A Buddhist may also pray to whatever symbol and have his prayers answered.

some analogies are just overdone. those examples are not mutually exclusive - the possibility of a Buddhist getting his prayers answered does not rule out God being the one who answers my prayers.

Furthermore the answering of prayers is a matter of perception and is also subjective

And evidently, the question of a God is ulitmately subjective.

The argument that God must exist because the Bible says so is also very strange.

Yes; it is strange for the person who considers the bible as being a book full of lies. If, for example, you have other ways of determining the accuracy of the bible or the potency of its claims, then you wouldn't easily rule out its claim of a God.

Any spiritual book could ask you to worship cows for instance and if you were brought up in that culture you probably would.

Probably, but it would be wise to determine the merit of the book in question before accepting hook-line-and-sinker what it recommends. Furthermore, the fact that one book may claim that the cow is a god, does not rule out the potential vericity of another book which makes a different or even a contrary claim. You seem to love to rule things out by generalization and extrapolation.

Before Christianity came to Africa, Africans had a concept of God. Is that concept of God evil, better, worse etc than the Christian God?

Yes, they had a concept of God. Question is, was that concept right? How did they attain such knowledge?

I think we should be content to know that we know little about existence and origin. I believe however that over generations we move closer to the truth. Would be nice to read less of the condescending "I know the truth and you know nothing" statements. Cheers.

Sorry, YOU know little about existence and origin. Yet again, you have assumed that your reasoning holds true for every other person.
The question of the right approach to obtaining/attaining objective (absolute) truth is a valid question; and i do not believe that 'over generations' we move closer to it. That arguement (about the right approach) is a different one entirely.
As long as there remains the possibility of ABSOLUTE TRUTH existing somewhere, and some people are privy to such knowledge and others aren't, then statements such as "I know the truth and you don't" would always be made.
It is a wonder though that you do not realize that through you post, you have indirectly (and inevitably i must add) made the statement you eventually denounced. Cheers.

sorry i'm just replying; was off Nairaland for a while

Actually, coupled with the supernatural happenings surrounding the account, that does make it unreliable.

from my perspective, and in keeping with parsimony, yes, they wrote from their perspectives, but they (at the very least, Matthew did) manufactured, rather than omitted, certain things in their accounts.

Or, the more likely, from a secular historian's (not that I'm one) point of view, he invented events to suit a theme he thought appropriate for his desired audience at the time.

I grouped related comments together so as not to keep on with the continous nit-picking and back and forths. . . .
you alluded that they invented the stories to suit their theme (or something like that). My question is "why do you think they made those particular accounts up?" Is it because they recorded supernatural events? and in your worldview such events aren't permitted to occur? Or is it because no other accounts recorded those events? Or some other reason, which is. . . ?

Wait, are you saying that a comprehensive (helped by a ordered chronology) account can't be gotten from the four Biblical Gospels, or that we don't need one?

I'm saying neither. I meant that they did not write a chronological account, nor was any single one of the accounts comprehensive or i should say exhaustive; biographies can be written thematically. And in their case, they had theological considerations for the events they chose to record.

I find the argument that perhaps the other Gospel writers (both Biblical and extra-Biblical), like, strangely, the secular historians, just didn't think reporting it was important to their emphasis, extremely unconvincing.

As long as historical accounts CANNOT be entirely exhaustive, the issue of 'what to record' remains a personal issue, involving personal considerations which in each different case may be perfectly valid logically, depending on the individual's context.

I get your drift. As a counter-argument (from my perspective), I'd say that he didn't include the ascension because it wasn't included in his source either.

that just isn't true. Your main problem is you don't understand the context of the bible and as long as you're not willing to acknowlege that the bible didn't (or doesn't) have to be written to suit or according to your requirements, then you'd keep having problems accepting it as truth. If you considered your point, and the earlier point about Matthew's authorship, you'd realize it doesn't fit; Matthew did witness the ascension (we can see that from the other accounts eg. Acts. 1:13), so his not including it sends a strong message (of course to people who understand biblical context) of his theme rather than the counter-argument you're making.

By the way, from what I gather from the other Gospels, Jesus actively discouraged the notion of a/his kingship on Earth. Or have I misinterpreted?

Yes you have. He discouraged the misunderstanding that his kingdom (at his first coming) was an earthly kingdom rather than a spiritual one. He did ride as king in Matt. 21;1-5

Inside sources? I wonder what inside source would have told the Gospel writers about Simeon's experience or about what happened with the Wise men:

" And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod"

Just a couple without having to scan the entire Gospels.

I think you're trying to drag me into an unnecessary quagmire - "what inside sources told Moses about what happened in Genesis 1 & 2, and, NO, don't tell me God told him"

I understand that, as a Christian, you believe your scriptures are divinely inspired; however, the point was, if they are to be accepted as evidence, then notions of divine inspiration and the supernatural have to dismissed.

And then my question would be: why? Ruling things out ab initio isn't the way to confirm or deny the vericity of a claim.

I meant that appealing to the divine isn't parsimonious and is the opposite of what parsimony represents in most instances.

I think you should have said in some instances. In some other instances, (particularly, with some other audiences i should say) appealing to the divine is sufficiently parsimonious.

I, of course, disagree that naturalistic explanations aren't always sufficient when it's the Bible - from what I've observed, they are abundantly sufficient.

Now this is funny. Care to expand how this is possible? Oh. they made up all those info that they couldn't have gotten naturally.
Naturalistic explanations as to how they got their material (ie the process of material acquisition)? Or as to the content of their material? or the object of their writings (ie their theology, themes, doctrine etc)? In any context, and in any way you look at it, except perhaps in the actual physical writing of the text (which isn't always adequate even in this limited case - some of Moses' documents had supernatural origins), it just doesn't factor in. The bible IS spiritual, and involves a lot of superantural occurences both in its content and its acquisition. That fact is foundational to the bible (and i dare say no other book) - and the root of our argument, i must say, here lies.

Second, in a broad sense,when dealing with historical texts, all books are treated the same way, whether it be the Bible or Caesar's tome. That one may have ben more scrutinised than the other doesn't affect the fact that the same historical method has been applied and is adequate for secular discussion.

The same historical method may be applied, but that doesn't mean it is adequate.
The gospels DO contain history, however, they aren't merely history. Ignoring the other contexts and attributes of the gospels in an attempt to "understand" it is, if i may say, counter-productive.

Maybe the answers are never sufficient because they aren't sufficient?

My point is: its a deeper problem; it CAN'T be sufficient, because of their underlying worldview. A person can only make allowance for what agrees with their frame of mind. For example a supernaturally incredulous person cannot accept evidence for/of spirits; his worldview just wouldn't make room for such 'nonsense'.

They were questioned. We can infer that from some of the writings of the early church fathers. Furthermore, I get the distict feeling that Paul was addressing the issue when he advised against genealogies.

which church fathers? Paul wasn't referring to that at all.

That's a lot of dodgy approximations and assumptions just to make Mary and Joseph the exact same age

Gets the job done. I wonder how you didn't see the overstretching on your part though - two lineages don't have to be the exact same number of generations to generate contemporaries.

Cool. Let me know what you find.

that they can be reconciled. Do you want me to post my hypotheses or possible explanations?

I can appreciate your view, I especially don't think it - especially the belief that the Bible is inerrant or flawless - is sane  . Hmm, maybe my defintion of sanity does differ from yours

You're only saying that because you're reading the bible from your present point of view - and sincerely i can understand. If i were still in your shoes (not that i was in your exact same shoes before but similar ones) i would have said the same thing. I've been outside before, now i'm in. I can tell you, from my experience, that "the Word is perfect" And yes, i DO NOT understand everything in the Book yet, but that aspect (of it's divine inspiration) i've already settled.
As per the definitions, it would be hard to tell whose is right. As they say, each one is 'right in his own eyes'. Cheers.

davidylan:
This is an islamic gimmick, recycle someone else's desperate garble that you don't understand anyway, make it incredibly long knowing that very few will be bothered to read through and reply then like babs787, gloat about having been able to pull a fast one on the christians.

But just in case someone (like pilgrim.1) is patient enough to tear your "contradictions" to shreds, go copy and paste more, cry that they have not been answered, recycle a few more then promptly disappear when your dishonesty is exposed.

Hmmn . . . . . that description fits someone i know from another recent thread to the letter
methinks the gimmick (or is it 'syndrome') goes beyond just being islamic though - maybe just in origin - in my experience, it seems to plague some other not-well-characterized, nevertheless non-islamic, bible-bashing species .

KAG:
Approximatey 100 infants is not a few, in my opinion; and I suspect in those days, it wasn't a few either. I guess I just find it curious that not even one other Gospel writer thought it was worth mentioning. You say perhaps the other Gospel writers possibly didn't think it was Herod's meanest action; however, one would have expected, even if they didn't think it was that mean for Herod, that they would have thought it was important enough, considering the subject - after all, we not only have wise men claiming the Christ was born, we have Jesus escaping infanticide and other strange events.

just to point out that I said maybe up to a hundred; the archaeologist i quoted said just a few.
However, that isn't my main point - my main point is that, the fact that it isn't mentioned by any of the other gospels doesn't mean its unreliable. If we just needed to have a comprehensive (albeit chronological) account, there would have been just one. But we have four different accounts. Why? They each had different emphasis (and also different perspectives) and omitting certain things in their own account just means that information wasn't important to their emphasis. Even certain teachings of Jesus are only found in one account, we can't thereby say that that teaching is unreliable. For instance, Mathew's emphasis was on christ's kingship on earth (note this isn't clearly stated unlike John who stated his own emphasis, but it can easily be inferred - for instance while Matt mentions kingdom at least 56 times, John only did so 4 times) - so he included things that related to that theme; the royal lineage of christ, the Magi, Herod's infanticide (- an earthly king being in fear over the king of kings), parables of the kingdom, supernatural occurences at Jesus' death etc. Yet he omitted something very important - his ascension. Shouldn't he have included that? Perhaps he should. However, understanding Matthew, the ascension wasn't relevant to his theme; Christ's kingship on earth; not that it isn't important as an event. I hope you get my drift.

As hearsay.

perhaps the record of all historians who mention events happening before their time should be discountenanced, all being 'hearsay'.

I was referring to the resurrection of the multitude (Matthew 27: 52-53). For some reason, no one other than Matthew seems to have thought that was an event worth mentioning.

i seem to think i've addressed this above.

Also, Josephus' record of Jesus - allowing for a mention and ignoring the parts that are obvious interpolations - is more a record of hearsay than a record of witnessed fact.

He was born 37AD.

Read it (Luke) doesn't explain how things that could not have been told to them made it into the Gospels. How do journalists know what is going on in the pentagon? They only know what they are told. Anything else is speculation and creative license on their part.

How do you know they could not have been told? In the case in question, they could have had inside sources. For example, Nicodemus was a member of the Jewish council, yet he secretly identified with the disciples (see John 3:1-2 and 19:39).

The thing is if the Gospels are to be accepted as evidence, then they have to be treated and read no differently than any other historical text. So, claims of supernatural inspiration have to be dismissed in much the same it's done when, for example, examining Julius Caeser's writings (he claims a lot of divine things too).

first, you misunderstood my context (and my reason) for mentioning supernatural inspiration. See next quote below.
However, that said, the analogy just doesn't work for me. I don't really think the bible is a collection of books like any other - it's one thing to claim something, its another thing entirely to live up to that claim.

by the way, appealing to the divine is not parsimonious - in fact, it's usually the antithesis of parsimony.

You really missed my point - i wasn't appealing to the divine as a form of parsimony. Quite the opposite - i did give an explanation for how they could have gotten the info ie they could have been told. However, i realized that, for the sake of balance (and i guess Truth), it just can't work that way in every single verse of the bible (for example the biblical prophecies, the passages i earlier quoted, etc) so i had to make it known that, naturalistic explanations for reasons of parsimony isn't always sufficient when a book like the bible is in question - and i don't think there ought to be apologies for that. Every book doesn't have to be (and i dare to say isn't) treated the same - at least i know that the scrutiny to which skeptics have subjected the bible, the ire it provokes, and the endless questions and so on is not the same way 'Julius Ceaser's writings' have been examined. And please don't say its because christians still hold on to it. LDS's also hold on to the book of Mormon. Furthermore, christians have continued to provide answers but those answers are "never sufficient".

While, I could point out that Luke actually wrote Joseph the son of Jacob and not Joseph, the husband of Mary who was begat by - (which I think is the pertinent part, not Jesus'), more troubling for me is the fact that one genealogy is significantly shorter than the other. Now, if we assume Luke was talking about Mary's genealogy, it appears Mary was several generations older than Joseph.

Yes, Luke said Joseph the son of Heli. No, he didn't say the son of Jacob. Matthew says Joseph the son of Jacob. Did Joseph have two fathers? or could Luke have rather meant the son-in-law (which in Jewish tradition is simply, the son) of Heli? I mean, these books were written in the first century when all these could have been checked out for Pete's sake, they didn't just appear out of the blues 500 years later when the unfortunate apologists were now too embarassed or too handicapped to have 'corrected' the authors' 'mistake'.
There are 28 generations to David in Joseph's line and 42 in Mary's. Just an illustration, if on average the approximately 30 generations of Joseph were 40 when they had the next child in the lineage and in the line of Mary, the approximately 40 generations were 30 years when they had the next child; (which is explanable given the fact that one is a royal lineage and the other isn't) what would that amount to?
Except of course for the notion that skepticsm constitutes such a hobby.

Then you shouldn't have any problem doing the Easter challenge: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-47997.0.html

would look into it.

That's a fair enough digression, but I've yet to come across a Christian that claims Biblical inerrancy that didn't have to do a whole lot of cutting and ignoring, to remain sane.

Obviously, i can't agree in any way with you here. I didn't say 'cutting and ignoring' - i said cross-referencing. Definitely i wouldn't claim to understand everything in the bible as of yet - bible study to me is lifelong; however i've seen enough things for me marvel in awe at the wisdom of God displayed through the writers and the different books. To me the Word is flawless. And, to the contrary, if not for the bible, there's no sanity for any of us - however, i'm guessing your definition of sanity is different than mine . . . .

So to teach they decided to write acounts that can't be reconciled chronologically? I mean, we are talking about accounts that have the same people doing and experiencing totally different things at approximately the same time, for Christ's sake.

Again, i didn't say that they decided to write accounts that can't be reconciled chronologically. I hope you can recognize your assumption here. I said, every one wrote from his own perspective and clearly, there was no collusion but rather 5 independent accounts. Morever, i said each writer had his emphasis and included things that related to their theme. Many times, they didn't write their accounts in chronological fashion - that doesn't mean they CAN'T be chronologically reconciled nor that the events didn't take place in chronologically thus calling to question the vericity of the events in the first place.

I won't object provided it didn't involve convolution and illogical ideas.

Let's hope so. By convolution you mean 'twisting' out of context?

I guess scepticism comes naturally to me. In any case, you do have a good point and I can accept that the author of the Gospel was Matthew the disciple.

ok.

KAG:
Except when they aren't. Of course, the fact I've never come across any atheist on a "nobody must believe in God" rampage may have something to do with me missing it. Could you give a couple of examples of atheists doing that "nobody must believe in God" rampage thing, please.

Edit: Just remembered two examples: Stalin and Mao Zedong. However, neither of them was "mostly focusing on Christianity".

I guess you forgot the apostle (or is it the 'face') of atheism itself; Dawkins. You don't need to go so far back in time.
"Nobody must (perhaps "should" is the word) believe in God" is putting his embarassingly endless rantings mildly. To the point that a fellow (i guess atheist) scientist even had to rebuke him (Tyson)

Ok, i saw this yesterday and i was going to jump in and say i don't think pilgrim.1 said that but i decided to allow. I think it was some other guys who mentioned that, if i may recall - even then, i don't think they made such a categorical statement.
However, a thread on the book of revelation and end-time prophecy would be interesting. I may be wrong, but my guess is there'd be so many different theories put forward.
Cheers all

KAG:
Africanus was one of the church fathers - many of whom were involved in defending an historical Christ through means that included "citing" non-Christian contemporary sources circa Jesus' time. And, yes, while it's difficult to know what Thallus wrote exactly, we can harzard guesses.

First, prior to to Africanus, no other writer or historian makes the connection between Thallus's eclipse and Jesus' crucifixion. That in itself suggests that Thallus neither made an explicit connection nor did he give a date (besides, Africanus never mentions or alludes to a Thallus-given time period)

Second, Africanus makes it clear that Thallus believed it was a solar eclipse (IIRC, Eusebius also mentions a historian referencing a solar eclipse in that period). Irrespective of fricanus' view, if it was solar eclipse, then we can be certain that it couldn't have been the same event as that mentioned in the Gospels (this is also assuming that the account in the Bible occured), because solar eclipses don't last three hours.

Finally, from Africanus's writings, we can conclude that Thallus never mentions Jesus, so using Thallus, through Africanus, as a source for a historical Jesus seems illogical.

Guesses and counterguesses? Its inconsequential to me though, so i'll pass.

I got your point, but I was addresing the "Do myths develop within 20 years?" more specifically. In this day, it would be more difficult to create a mythical figure of that magnitude, but it was possible in the past. IHowever, I don't believe that the Jesus character wasn't built around an actual person.

ok

By the way, would the case of Pope Joan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Joan) serve as an example of a great, maybe not so miraculous, figure that possibly didn't exist but, admittedly, more than twenty years later, has a biography?

wasn't that a timespan of like 400 years?

It is mysterious, though.

anywho.

Not adequate, unfortunately. The curious thing about the Herod infanticide is that not only is there no record of it extra-Biblically, there's no mention of it anywhere outside of Matthew. I mean, we're talking about an extensive and extremely cruel infanticide here. Also, we can assume that there were, at the very least, a few hundred children that were killed - that would have drawn at leats a footnote from at least one writer other than Matthew.

Again, you're not even entertaining the possibility of what i said. According to John McRay, a professor of archeology, Bethlehem was probably just a village of about 600 or so people, so there were just a few babies slaughtered (maybe up to 100 when you include the sorrounding villages). IMO, one can say that the fact that it isn't mentioned by the other gospels further shows that that couldn't have been the meanest action of Herod. Not that its not bad or its inconsequential though.

What would that have been?

First, i don't agree. He was mentioned by secular historians its just that he wasn't mentioned a lot or he appeared marginally. The reason for that isn't far-fetched, he was cheifly a religious figure, not a political one. If anything, he refrained from any urge to sway him(self) to the latter end. Religous figures in Isreal weren't new (see Acts 5:36-38) and with the way his life apparently ended, secular people might have dismissed him. Even his disciples were in doubt after he died, and it was his re-appearing that really changed everything to them. Historians of that day focussed mainly on the political figures. A notable exception though is John, who cut across in a way - and it was Josephus, a jewish historian who recorded him. As far as i can posit concerning the miracles? there were skeptics back then too. It would be absurd to expect a roman empire-affiliated historian to mention Jesus' ressurection.

Told by whom? The authors references no sources, and there are instances that he included in their gospels about which they couldn't have been told. If, for instance, we accept that for some reason Mary mentioned her various private experiences prior to Jesus' birth, who could we possibly assume told the Gopsel writers about Judas's or Herod's?

Maybe you should read Luke 1;1-4. Research? How do journalists know what is going on in the pentagon? However, see below.

Also, wouldn't the most parsimonious explanation be that they made it up?

Obviously, we're looking at the coin from two different angles. I said parsminious because i know you don't believe that the bible is a divinely inspired book. There are many verses in scripture that the authors could not have known except under divine inspiration (eg Genesis 1-3, many verses in Hebrews 11, Jude 9, and many others). Again, two very different perspectives.
Unfortunately, one can't argue his way into accepting the bible as the Word of God - more likely, the reverse would happen (1Cor1;23) Oh well

I did give two examples: the genealogy problem and the post-resurrection headache.

the genealogy problem is not hard - Mathew's account is through Joseph and Luke's is through Mary. that's why Luke said in 3;23, "the son as was supposed of Joseph" - it was customary to mention the genealogy through the father even though it was known that it is through Mary. Furthermore, Luke's emphasis was on christ's humanity, that's why he traces it all the way to Adam - Mathew's was on his kingship. There are websites that deal with it very comprehensively. I could provide a link
Post-ressurection as well was written from different perspectives, they don't contradict. Like i said, they have different emphasis - some don't mention his ascension, some do. Some mentioned many more appearances than others. It's just perspective.

No, not perfectly identical accounts. Just accounts that you don't have to hem here, cut there, to sort of create a strange looking narrative.

Little here, little there? Yes. To create a strange narrative? No. It acheives the opposite - it gives a complete and  balanced account without the potential allegation of a collusion.
To digress a little, a basic principle of scriptural study is cross-referencing; in fact, there's no book that demands it more. And the kind of cross-referencing in the bible is not just within books or across accounts referring to the same thing, but across books written at different times, by different people. For example, one cannot understand Revelation without Daniel, etc 

I've yet to see anybody logically reconcile the events after Jesus' alledged resurrection. In fact, I'm still waiting for somebody to rise up to the easter challenge with something more than "they probably didn't have enough ink and/or paper" and other such convoluted suggestions.

probably because there's no point? in fact, in this case, what the authors omit and include say (actually, the word is teach) more than what can be learnt from a mere chronological account. If it was a mere history book, maybe. Furthermore, if one were to reconcile it, there would still be objections - so what would be gained?

Pilgrim posted a verse that shows Jesus asking a Matthew/Levi to follow him. I see no reason to presume that the two are the same.

AND

KAG:
Stronger points than there's no internal or direct external indication that the account was written by Matthew? I'll have to think about it a little. While I'm doing that, do you have any positive evidence to support the view that the Gospel was written by Matthew Levi, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus?

You just make it look like its so hard. I'll pardon your skepticsm, but i find no reason why its hard to accept that those who considered the book back in the first century to be inspired, wouldn't have known who authored it. If an anonymous book is published now, if no one else, at least the publishers would know who wrote it. Then it was much worse - it had to be hand-copied. Its not hard for me to to deem that the early transcribers of the Mathew autograph would have known the author and its not so far-fatched to posit that the information hung around orally for a while. Like i said, you're entitled to your skepticism.

OLAADEGBU:
Terah died at the age of 205 in Haran.  Gen. 11:32

Abraham was 75 years of age when Terah died.  Gen. 12:4;Acts 7:4.

Terah was 70 years old when he gave birth to his firstborn child who is most likely to be Haran.  Gen. 11:26,28-29.

Therefore, Terah was 130 years of age when he gave birth to Abraham.  (205-75=130.)  Q.E.D.

Nice job . QED.

@(?? . . . ok. Luke 6:31) Pilgrim.1,
hehe humility is a virtue. However, observers know better .
For example, another well articulated post

Just kiddin tho, keep doing what u're doing.
I agree with your observations - i decided not to reply Jen33 anymore when it was obvious we are not on the same page. And, not to offend him but, checking out his other threads, i saw the same pattern. So . . .
It makes a lot of difference when one's discussant/co-debator is objective. And i've noticed that sometimes that does not depend on a person's religious convictions (or lack therof) - of course, not that those convictions don't or shouldn't help.
Cheers .

[quote author=pilgrim.1 link=topic=75506.msg1575255#msg1575255 date=1192041065]Lol. . . this is even becoming more dramatic and laughable.

Ok, the Vatican paints the idea that Mary defeated the "dragon" (or was it supposed to be the "serpent", abi? No worries - there are a lot of 'em pix that I've seen with regards to that fallacy (one even showing Mary having a chat with the "dragon".
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Any more pictures to confirm the heresies of the Vatican? [/quote]Now this is amazing. If a protestant had supplied this picture it would have been something. Could it more plain than this? Here, Jesus is supposedly the baby. And Mary fights and overcomes the devil for him eh? Notice the crown hanging above the head of Mary rather than Jesus. They will soon drop it on her head now maybe in the next pishur
Is Mary now the King of kings? Is it now Mary rather than Jesus that died on the cross and overcame the evil one?
Carlosein et al, the truth is staring right at you in the face. Having been into all this stuff in the past though, i know that it only takes a special opening of one's eyes by Baba Himself for the obvious to dawn on one. My prayer is for that opening of eyes for all our RCC folks.

debosky:
I thought Mary was Joseph's wife, maybe I am mistaken

I wont be surprised if someone were to come along and say Joseph is the Holy Spirit. I mean, what haven't we heard?

kulaShaker:
LMAO GOODNESS ALL SORTS OF DOCTRINES. its all good hahahaha

It's not all good o. It's not all good rara at all 

I'm sure you'd say I'm following you about but please forgive me.

Backslider:
At the hair of Pastor Chris. You must know that he is not born with a hair Like that and he is Emulating The white man.

I will ask a question The Chineese have a peculiar eye shape. Did they try to cut their eyes to make it look like others?

We black people have sinned against God. We have changed our bodies.

Ah! don't you know EMULATIONS IS A SIN?.

two questions;
(1) i changed my accent when i got to the US, in so doing, some can allege that i was 'emulating the white man'. Is that a sin?
(2) i also did some 'gymming' and thereby 'changed my body' (to become less 'lepa'). Do i also need to repent of that?

thanks.

Backslider:
The TV is a TOOL.

I am 100% support of banning it if the content does not Change. The devil is Using it to destroy Many. We as christians are supposed to do battle on the High.

AND

Backslider:
The internet is a tool also.

Ok. From your second statement in the first quote, i can infer that you are also '100% support' of it being banned, right?

Why don't you start living up to your convictions? I doubt if the content of the internet will 'Change'.

what about the internet?

KAG:
The Evil Atheist Conspiracy - we don't exist, no matter what you cat may have said.

Linky poo:
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Evil_Atheist_Conspiracy
http://craptaculus.com/eac/
http://evilatheistconspiracy.org/

Now, those were some queer (or is it creepy) sites. As an 'insider', any reason for us to be affraid?

There's no evidence that Thallus was speaking about Jesus. Yes, Africanus claimed he was, but that was his interpretation of what was a reference to an eclipse.

You don't know why Africanus made his claim. Obviously, there have been many earthquakes in history, there might have been other reasons why Africanus made that assertion. The original work is lost now, but it is safe to assume that it wasn't lost then. For example, if Thallus had elsewhere stated the year he was referring to, and it happened to be the same year Jesus was crucified, then its not far-fatched to make such a conclusion (considering the odds of such an event happening more than once in a single year). That's just a possible explanation; i don't know for a fact.

Actually, yes, many myths develop well within 20 years. Heck, some develop instantly. One example that comes to mind is that of the followers of Mani who, alledgedly, proclaimed, while their prophet was clearly still dead, that Mani lives. Other examples - modern this time - include the Scientologists and John Smith.

I'm sure you know you're overstretching my point. Those analogies don't work. Can I fabricate a biography now about a great and popular miracle worker known throughout Lagos with claims that he existed 20 years ago? That was my context.

Moreover, the reason the silence in Jesus' case is mysterious - to say the least - is because the Gospels hve led u to believe that he performed several miraculous, abnormal deeds, and a good deal of those were know far and wide. Besides, you'd expect any historian worth his salt to have nmentioned, at the very least, the slaughter of the infants and the resurrection of the dead that was witnessed by many.

I've addressed the slaughter of the infants earlier. As for the first part, the anwer i would have given lies in the long treatise you posted earlier.

First, I don't agree that the writers were credible - Matthew certainly isn't. And a great deal of the writings aren't just hearsay, but impossible for anyone writing to have known. For instance, we have the Gospel writers relaying n a fcatual manner, Mary and Elizabeth's conversation.

Sincerely, that's your opinion. And to me, its patently false. As for the statement in bold, many explanations can be given, in this case though the parsimonious explanation is: he was told. If Matthew, the tax collector disciple of Jesus wrote the gospel as is traditionally touted, then that's a non-issue.

Second, the general consensus is that Mark's Gospel was the first of the Biblical four and the others sourced his Gospel or were privy to his source.

I mentioned that in my post; however, the notion only stems from the two-source hypothesis which the so-called bible scholars hold on to. It's not proven. There is also the augustinian hypothesis. One can hold on to whatever view he chooses.

Third, the four Biblical Gospels do contradict each other in several instances. For instance, two of them can't agree on Jesus' genealogy, and sorting out what happened after the resurrection is a logistical nightmare.

Now that's false. The gospels DONT contradict one another; they complement one another, with each person writing from his own perspective (if anything, that lends more credence to their accounts by showing that there was no collusion). I really wonder what skeptics are looking for here; perfectly identical accounts? Except, however, your definition of a contradiction is different from mine. As long as the different accounts can be logically reconciled, then they do not contradict one another. Are they different? Yes. Do they contradict? No. Can they be reconciled? Yes. A noteworthy example is the different accounts as regards Judas Iscariot's death. They are perfectly reconcilable.

Finally, while I can't be certain about the others, it's evident that Matthew was not an eyewitness.

Also, just your opinion, which IMO is false. Pilgrim.1 addressed this earlier more competently than I did: https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-41030.32.html#msg1571014
Cheers.

@samueline,
three clues
see Acts 7;4 ; Gen. 11;32 and Gen. 12;4
then do some mathematics

samueline:
Guess its 70.

And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Gen. 11: 26.

should have said its a tricky question. Actually, considering all the scriptures that apply, it can't be 70. The questions that would arise are; are they triplets? Was Abram the first born? and so on. If you answer those, you'd realize it isn't 70.

So try again . The question still stands;

How old was Terah when Abram was born?

_{I could give some clues if you want}

Another possible acronym [b]F[/b]alse [b]E[/b]vidence [b]A[/b]ppearing [b]R[/b]eal

Here's a question for the Mathematicians/scholars;

How old was Terah when Abraham was born?

@KAG,
yeah, considering your skepticsm, you may need a wash.
However, i guess the word in bold should suffice in driving the point home to Jen that this is not the way to go.
BTW, what's EAC?

@Jen33
Just need to set a few things straight cause you seem to like to repeat lies.
First,
Here was my statement

ricadelide:

None of the gospels are eyewitness accounts, as every bible scholar knows.

even though that statement is not true, if that is the basis for your denial of Jesus then it is laughable; because the majority of the so-called 'bible scholars' are in agreement as to the historicity of Jesus. So what do you bring to the table that should make us believe you over them? Are you aware of facts these 'scholars' aren't aware of?

Here is your paraphrase

''All bible scholars believe Jesus existed. Who are YOU to question them''.

Can you notice the difference? Do they mean or sound the same to you? Talk about lost in translation (or is it interpretation?) I did not say ALL. Neither did I say 'who are you to question them'.

My point was plain - mere skepticsm is not going to count as 'evidence' nor 'proof'. You need to provide cogent reasons and evidence to back up your claims. What facts do you bring to the table? NOT 'who are you to question them.'
Bad thing is that, because you keep saying the same things over and over, this is my second time mentioning/addressing this.

Second,
I did not insult you. Pointing out a logical fallacy or a falsehood in an argument does not constitute insult in case you didn't know - if anything, the insults you laced at me abound, and its there for all to see. The funny thing is that, i was basically (absurdly if i may say) addressing Mr Walker, so in the light of the queer nature of the debate we've hard (third-party debate) I wonder why you took my statements personal. Really queer debate it was.
Anyways, i'm done arguing with you (or rather, with your pastes, whoever the authors are/were). Cheers.

Learn to acknowlege your sources. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism.
Repeated spouting of another man's unsubstantiated opinion as 'FACT' and 'FIGURES' is not the way to go.

Source http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/marshall_gauvin/did_jesus_really_live.html

when you're ready to itemize your points, and offer your own arguments, then we'd have a discussion. However, my guess is that we'd just have to wait for your next copy/paste. Fortunately for you, them plenty for web.

oga pilgrim (hehe  . . . . now its my turn),
Had to zoom off to schl. You sef get exam? Na plan .
Unfortunately for me, I be 'crasher'. The way you're composed, e don too sure say you go 'destroy' that exam
Anyways, thanks for the wishes. Easy on those profs o - those exam(s) no get choose. Enjoy

pilgrim.1 and cgift,
thanks for the detailed response o jare. I was put off by the long post 'cause man get exam and should be reading some papers now.

How's the going? cheers.

Sorry i didn't make my post yesternight.

Jen33:
ricadelide, your defensive, confrontational posture throughout your response is instructive.

I wonder why you sound so upset.

I like the contradiction in bold; defensive/confrontational = balanced? no?
I'm not upset. Neither did i make any insults like you claim. I will not claim to be pleased though by the overly long post.

As for your 'trashing' of the article, dream on!

You think you can obfuscate issues by blowing all hot, bluffing and blustering your way through, and dismissing this as ''appallng'', and that as ''ridiculous''?

And what's this stuff about ''credible scholars believe in the historicity of Jesus. Why should we believe you over them?''

That sounds suspiciously like blackmail by force of majority. The majority see it this way so it must be right.

The thing about such an argument is that, it was no doubt used by the defenders of a variety of ancient gods and beliefs to advance their causes.

Think of Egypt back in the day -

''All scholars agree on the existence of Osiris, who are YOU to dispute it?''

Or more recently ''All scholars agree the earth is flat. Who are YOU to say it's round? Why should we believe YOU over all these esteemed scholars?''

See how SILLY and desperate you sound?

LOL . . . I really doubt if i sound silly. Perhaps we could have a poll to see who does ? Its not so hard you know. If you notice, you twisted my words;
first i did not say; "the majority says this, thus they must be right"
neither did i say "the majority says this, who are YOU to say contrary".
That's not the statements i made. I said, 'why must we believe you over them? what evidence are you bringing to the fore, that those scholars are not privy to?' there's a load of difference.
Ever heard of burden of proof? Skeptics do not have any reason to accept the claim of a historical Jesus, yet they do - why? Because every evidence points that way (manuscript evidence, evidence from secular historians of the first century, biblical evidence, archeaological evidence, etc.), and it would be ignorant to say otherwise. My point is, since Mr Walker (and you i guess) has chosen to say contrary, he has to bring evidence to back of his claims, not just go about making false claims and spewing his own personal incredulity. Anybody can do that. I can wake up one morning and start crying that Plato never existed; that all the manuscripts acclaimed to be his writings are forgeries, etc. Would i be taken seriously? No. Likewise, if Mr Walker is to be taken seriously he should bring credible evidence - the burden of proof is on him - not faulty logic and skepticsm. His skepticsm does not constitute proof to the contrary.

Or are you taking a cue from another holy falsifier -

"It is usual for the sacred historian to conform himself to the generally accepted opinion of the masses in his time.'

– St Jerome (P.L., XXVI, 98; XXIV, 855).

It may be ''usual'' St Jerome, but is it right? Is it moral? Is it godly?

What has a statement by St Jerome got to do with the arguement at hand? Is this now your evidence that Jesus did not exist?

I'll get back to some of the stuff you've written up there, but really all you've done is skirted round the issue. What we need is PROOF that Jesus lived, and you've simply not furnished ANY proof.

please do get back to me. I'll be waiting. Now you're no longer asking for evidence; its now PROOF. what will it be the next time (j/k)?

Where is the archaeologcal proof you claim exists??

It is known to all that the gospels were written WELL AFTER the alleged life of Jesus. 40 years at the earliest. Not 3 or 10 years after like you've falsely claimed.

You base those figures on what 'church fathers' think.

Ok, how do you know when the gospels were written? What evidence do you have for your claim?

But we know, from history - and from their own admission - that 'church fathers' would think and do just about anything to further their aims, including mass murder and bare faced falsehood peddling. We need INDEPENDENT verification, and the INDEPENDENT verification places the earliest written text about a 'Jesus Christ' at no less than 40 years after he supposedly returned to heaven in the clouds.

Now, this is when it gets irritating. Which 'church fathers' are you talking about? Are you mistaking the early church for the Roman catholic church and the roman empire? The early church that is widely known to have been persecuted are now the ones perpetrating 'mass murders'? When are you referring to? 1st century AD? Please go and look up your history.

No writings contemporary to Jesus in other words, written during or shortly after his alleged life exist or have ever been known to exist. The works of hundreds of scholars of the period remain with us today, Seneca etc, you name them. NOT ONE mentions Jesus, despite the fact that they recorded a whole lot of comparatively inconsequential occurences,

Shortly after? Yes. During? NO. Why? already answered. Now, where are those works of hundreds of scholars, please let me know about them. Besides, a lot of secular historians DID mention Jesus, so i don't know where your claims stem from.

Those of us with brains still intact know that it is not possible for such a momentous individual to live, draw crowds of thousands, attract the ire of priests, scribes, and authorities, a man who caused an infanticide as a toddler, and yet not have anyone write about him for decades after his ''ascension into heaven''.

Thank GOd for those brains. However, skepticsm never constitutes proof. I'll address the infanticide later.

Incredibly,  you claim no one contemporary to Jesus wrote about him because ''he only lived the last three years of his life in public glare''.

Read Matt. 4;24, Mk 1;28. It mentions when the 'news about him spread'. Even John, who was supposed to be his foreunner, did not even know Him. How popular can i be if the person that is to introduce my ministry did not even know me until i was about to start my ministry. He became popular in the last three and half years of his life; and i'm surprised we have to argue about that.

But that's simply not true. According to the bible story, just as soon as he was born, he was on the run from Herod, who went on to commit infanticide, slaughtering thousands of first borns in his bid to find and kill Jesus! So it is quite crazy to state that such an occurrence would not be recorded by even ONE of the hundreds of Jewish writers present at the time, Or that the rest of this individual's life will simply be ignored by writers until 40 years after his departure.

Ok, this is a valid question and i'll address it. First, Herod knew about Jesus, not because he was popular, but becuase of the Magi. Go and look it up. If he was popular he would have at least known where he was born, but that is not the case, he had to inquire of the scribes about the prophecy (not about the particular boy Jesus, because he just didn't know him)
Second, as regards the infanticide. First thing to note is this; that we do not have any other historical account does not prove anything. Second, contrary to your thinking, Bethlehem was a small village - it did not even have more than 1000 people not to talk of 1000 babies. It was a village of around 600 or so people. How many babies would have been there? Your guess is as good as mine. Third, Herod was a maniac, he killed lots of people, and killing a few babies in an insignificant village is not going to amount to much news. There were more important things for historians to write about.
If you need more facts, follow this link

The fact we're even arguing for or against the historicity of Jesus shows there's a serious problem. Like someone said, you'd think the Creator would be able to bark up his life on earth with some good solid evidence.

the fact that we're arguing does not show anything. ANYTHING can be argued upon. I can argue that we are all a figment of each other's imagination - that does not 'show' anything.

Oh, by the way, what's your take on the apparent false claim in the bible regarding a city of Nazareth? No such city ever existed in the first century.

this is also false. And old. Nazareth has been discovered long ago, and this is a long dropped objection. Here is a link.

<snip>

as for the rest of your post about the catholic church, i don't really have to answer that, because it has nothing to do with Jesus not the gospels and you're just setting up a strawman in order to sway the discussion from the real issues. The earliest dated manuscripts have been traced to as early as the 2nd century (long before the RCC was formed) so bringing evidence of the RCC practices does not constitute proof that Jesus never lived. The questions you should ask yourself are these; Did the people you mentioned write the bible? Were they around in the first century when the gospels and epistles were already circulating? Did they edit the text of the manuscripts? If you answer that, then we'd continue.

In light of such a horrible, shocking record of deceit and lies, how can ANYBODY in their right mind possibly defend ANYTHING written or said by christians

Ok. when you provide evidence that the catholic church wrote the bible, then we'd yarn.

ricadelide, you truly are an example of a brainwashed African. (Assuming that you ARE an African.

Sanctified deceivers, manipulators and liars staring you in the face and admitting as much, YET, like a programmed robot, you still come here to defend their record.

Have you no shame?

LOTS of compliments. Thanks a bunch.

Long before ''Jesus'' was invented, the world had several godmen believed to have been born of virgins and later killed as a ransome for mankind. It's the oldest fairytale in the book. Christians simply copied, stole, and appropriated all these stories to form their own <snip>

First, the disciples and apostles who are JEWS don't need any foreign religon to copy. All the details about the life of Jesus had been prophecied in the Jewish old testament, long before those heathen religions came up with their fairy-tales. As early as the first few chapters of Genesis, the death of Jesus as a lamb had been symbolized by God and the 'seed of the woman' had been prophecised to crush the head of the serpent (see Gen. 3;15). Go figure. So if any conclusion came be made, it is that those people copied the jews and not vice versa. In fact, one of the major proofs that Jesus is the Messiah is the amount of prophecies he fulfilled. So what Jesus did was not something that just came up; they are things that had been written about him long before he came around.
Second, we're talking jews here - if anything, the jews DO NOT subscribe to pagan religions believing themselves to be the special/chosen people of God. So to allege that those jews 'stole' things from pagan religions is patently false.

Which comes back to this: Nobody wrote about Jesus while he was 'alive', and for decades afterwards. Nobody. The record does not exist. Jesus was famous far and wide, the Bible says.

this has been severally addressed yet you keep repeating it. If that's the way with you; then there's no point seeking a discussion.

King Herod tried to kill Jesus as an infant, so famed was Jesus even before he knew his own name. Yet nobody wrote about him. The Judaic and Roman cultures were literate, as we well know.  And yet, nobody wrote about the 'King of Kings'?,  It's impossible.

Again, all untrue. And saying 'nobody wrote about him' is patently false. The whole of the new testament was not written eh? Go and read my objections to Mr Walker's claims. Not only that, many secular historians like mr walker quoted, tacitus, piny the younger etc wrote about him. So repeating the same old things over and over does not make for a good arguement.

More likely that Jesus did not exist. And from the church's self confessed record of lies + the fact of historical godmen with virgin mothers with identical stories to 'Jesus' which predate christianity, it becomes a no-brainer that Jesus was yet another fabrication from the super-efficient, indefatigable lying factories of Christendom.

Already addressed. No one is forcing you to believe that Jesus existed. You can believe anything you want; but to say that there is no evidence that he existed is patently false. Likewise to allege that he did not exist, you must provide evidence; something you don't seem capable of doing, except your own skepticsm. Skepticsm is not evidence. Cheers.

Jen33 the professional Copy/Paster
Now you blatantly refused to admit your sources eh and chose to scramble up the post and interpolate your own 10 or so sentences? So much for the 'forgery' claims you make about the christians - remove the log in your eye . . . .
Anyways, i'll answer the copy/paste from jesusneverexisted.com when i get home.
However, i don't think you read my post in any detail. Apart from the fact that you did not provide any riposte to my major points yet choosing to rehash the unsubstantiated claims, you chose to ignore the fact that I made a very succint plea:  NO MORE OVERLY LONG COPY/PASTES - is that too hard to ask? Even if you can't offer any arguements of your own, can't you at least take a little time off to summarize the arguments of others that you so desperately hang on to?
Cheers

Mr Jen33,
Even I, who amn't a flunky of walker, could have easily summarized Mr Walker's arguments into a few points which can easily be addressed rather than copy/pasting almost a whole website. Here are his points:
Hearsay - thrashed.
The bible cannot be trusted - thrashed
there is no contempary (during the life of Jesus) account of him - thrashed
Jesus is a myth - thrashed
etc etc - irrelevant
There's no pont in copying the whole christianity section of stupidreligion.com (or wherever you got it) in order to put me off into not replying and then start dancing around that i don't have a case and that i have 'surrendered'. Indeed! Some of us are more busy than that. If i littered this thread with overly long posts like you did, what would be acheived?
I did not in all my post exhaust the amount of evidence that can be provided for the historicity of Jesus but only confined myself to refuting Walker's arguement, as the burden of proof is on him.
I had asked you a very simple question and you have not answered it. It is one thing to deny the bible's claims about the divinity of Jesus, its another thing entirely to deny the historicity of Jesus as a living person. The majority of sane (i had to include this adjective for the sake of conspirators like the one you run to) historical scholars (including secular historians) are in agreement as to the historicity of Jesus; why do we have to beleive you over them? For the sake of your personal incredulity?
If you can answer that, then this discussion might continue. If you can also succintly refute my discussion on Walker's rambling, then the discussion might continue. If you resort to another long-drawn copy/paste then you won't see me here. You can then conclude that since the christians on nairaland forum did not reply you, then the historical Jesus could not have existed. That would make for a very sound arguement. Cheers .

LYING FOR THE CHURCH

The editing and formation of the Bible came from members of the early Christian Church. Since the fathers of the Church possessed the texts and determined what would appear in the Bible, there occurred plenty of opportunity and motive to change, modify, or create texts that might bolster the position of the Church or the members of the Church themselves.

Evidence? Adding verses or titles to the synoptic gospels does not constitute modifying text. Furthermore, the biblical canon isn't 'determined', it is 'discovered' based on certain principles

Take, for example, Eusebius who served as an ecclesiastical church historian and bishop. He had great influence in the early Church and he openly advocated the use of fraud and deception in furthering the interests of the Church [Remsberg]. The first mention of Jesus by Josephus came from Eusebius (none of the earlier church fathers mention Josephus' Jesus). It comes to no surprise why many scholars think that Eusebius interpolated his writings. In his Ecclesiastical History, he writes, "We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity." (Vol. 8, chapter 2). In his Praeparatio Evangelica, he includes a chapter titled, "How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived" (book 12, chapter 32).

The Church had such power over people, that to question the Church could result in death. Regardless of what the Church claimed, people had to take it as "truth." St. Ignatius Loyola of the 16th century even wrote: "We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."

The orthodox Church also fought against competing Christian cults. Irenaeus, who determined the inclusion of the four (now canonical) gospels, wrote his infamous book, "Against the Heresies." According to Romer, "Irenaeus' great book not only became the yardstick of major heresies and their refutations, the starting-point of later inquisitions, but simply by saying what Christianity was not it also, in a curious inverted way, became a definition of the orthodox faith." [Romer] The early Church burned many heretics, along with their sacred texts. If a Jesus did exist, perhaps eyewitness writings got burnt along with them because of their heretical nature. We will never know.

In attempting to salvage the Bible the respected revisionist and scholar, Bruce Metzger has written extensively on the problems of the New Testament. In his book, "The Text of the New Testament-- Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Metzger addresses: Errors arising from faulty eyesight; Errors arising from faulty hearing; Errors of the mind; Errors of judgement; Clearing up historical and geographical difficulties; and Alterations made because of doctrinal considerations. [Metzger]

With such intransigence from the Church and the admitting to lying for its cause, the burning of heretical texts, Bible errors and alterations, how could any honest scholar take any book from the New Testament as absolute, much less using extraneous texts that support a Church's intolerant and biased position, as reliable evidence?

This is ridiculous. The institutionalized church did not come into existence until much later after many of the books had been written and accepted as the writings of the apostles and disciples. The collected writings of Paul were circulating in their current from as early as the late 1st century. Likewise by mid second century the 4 gospels were already accepted as inspired by the time of the earlier-mentioned Iraneus. At that time the church had no political power whatsoever. The early church was persecuted and killed. If anything, the catholic church made the scriptures inaccessible to the general public, wanting to keep the people in the dark, hence the abundance of heretic and unbiblical practices in the institutionalized RCC. It seems there is no end to the lies you'd bring up to justify your errant position. Your point is moot.

GNOSTIC GOSPELS
<snip>

this does not advance your case in any way so i'll pass.

NON-CHRISTIAN SOURCES

Virtually all other claims of Jesus come from sources outside of Christian writings. Devastating to the claims of Christians, however, comes from the fact that all of these accounts come from authors who lived after the alleged life of Jesus. Since they did not live during the time of the hypothetical Jesus, none of their accounts serve as eyewitness evidence.

Josephus Flavius, the Jewish historian, lived as the earliest non-Christian who mentions a Jesus. Although many scholars think that Josephus' short accounts of Jesus (in Antiquities) came from interpolations perpetrated by a later Church father (most likely, Eusebius), Josephus' birth in 37 C.E., well after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus, puts him out of range of an eyewitness account. Moreover, he wrote Antiquities in 93 C.E., after the first gospels got written! Therefore, even if his accounts about Jesus came from his hand, his information could only serve as hearsay.

Pliny the Younger, a Roman official, got born in 62 C.E. His letter about the Christians only shows that he got his information from Christian believers themselves. Regardless, his birth date puts him out of the range of eyewitness accounts.

Tacitus, the Roman historian's birth year at 64 C.E., puts him well after the alleged life of Jesus. He gives a brief mention of a "Christus" in his Annals (Book XV, Sec. 44), which he wrote around 109 C.E. He gives no source for his material. Although many have disputed the authenticity of Tacitus' mention of Jesus, the very fact that his birth happened after the alleged Jesus and wrote the Annals during the formation of Christianity, shows that his writing can only provide us with hearsay accounts.

Suetonius, a Roman historian, born in 69 C.E. mentions a "Chrestus," a common name. Apologists assume that "Chrestus" means "Christ" (a disputable claim). But even if Seutonius had meant "Christ," it still says nothing about an earthly Jesus. Just like all the others, Suetonius' birth occurred well after the purported Jesus. Again, only hearsay.

Talmud: Amazingly some Christians use brief portions of the Talmud, (a collection of Jewish civil a religious law, including commentaries on the Torah), as evidence for Jesus. They claim that Yeshu (a common name in Jewish literature) in the Talmud refers to Jesus. However, this Jesus, according to Gerald Massey actually depicts a disciple of Jehoshua Ben-Perachia at least a century before the alleged Christian Jesus. [Massey] Regardless of how one interprets this, the Palestinian Talmud got written between the 3rd and 5th century C.E., and the Babylonian Talmud between the 3rd and 6th century C.E., at least two centuries after the alleged crucifixion! At best it can only serve as a controversial Christian and pagan legend; it cannot possibly serve as evidence for a historical Jesus.

The above sources get quoted the most as "evidence" for Jesus by Christians. All other sources (Christian and non-Christian), some of which include: Mara Bar-Serapion (cira 73 C.E.), Ignatius (50 - 98? C.E.), Polycarp (69 - 155 C.E.), Clement of Rome (? - cira 160 C.E.), Justin Martyr (100 - 165 C.E.), Lucian (circa 125 - 180 C.E.), Tertullian (160 - ? C.E.), Clement of Alexandria (? - 215 C.E.), Origen (185 - 232 C.E.), Hippolytus (? - 236 C.E.), and Cyprian (? - 254 C.E.). All these people got born well after the alleged death of Jesus. Not one of them provides an eyewitness account, all of them simply spout hearsay.

As you can see, apologist Christians embarrass themselves when they unwittingly or deceptively violate the rules of historiography by using after-the-event writings as evidence for the event itself. Not one of these writers gives a source or backs up his claims with evidential material about Jesus. Although we can provide numerous reasons why the Christian and non-Christian sources prove spurious, and argue endlessly about them, we can cut to the chase by simply looking at the dates of the documents and the birth dates of the authors. It doesn't matter what these people wrote about Jesus, an author who writes after the alleged happening and gives no detectable sources for his material can only give example of hearsay. All of these anachronistic writings about Jesus could easily have come from the beliefs and stories from Christian believers themselves. And as we know from myth, superstition, and faith, beliefs do not require facts or evidence for their propagation and circulation. Thus we have only beliefs about Jesus' existence, and nothing more.

First, if there were writings around the time of Jesus, they probably would have been lost if they were not copied and widely circulated, so the fact that we don't have documents now does not necessarily mean they may not have existed. Second, the statement in bold is so foolish, perhaps they should have used before-the-event writings eh? Just like science fiction of time travel constitutes evidence of the existence of time machines? You have not disputed the evidence of secular writers, if anything, studying them clearly shows that the corroborate the details, descriptions and documentation found in scripture. Evidence from secular historians at the time is very clear (there are at least 45 ancient references that are authoritative) and that is why skeptics do not even argue against the historicity of Jesus. (Except of course, conspiracy theorists like your hero, Walker)

FAKES, FRAUDS, AND FICTIONS

Because the religious mind relies on belief and faith, the religious person can inherit a dependence on any information that supports a belief and that includes fraudulent stories, rumors, unreliable data, and fictions, without the need to check sources, or to investigate the reliability of the information. Although hundreds of fraudulent claims exist for the artifacts of Jesus, I will present only three examples which seem to have a life of their own and have spread through the religious community and especially on internet discussion groups.
<snip>

Hmmn . . . . . enlighten us on the religious mind. Considering the argument thus far and your so-called evidence i wonder who has the deluded mind. Outright rejection of clear and authoritative evidence thus not help you keep your sanity; it makes it wanting. Again, the secular historians that have accepted the historicity of Jesus must be relying on belief and faith.

WHAT ABOUT WRITINGS DURING THE LIFE OF JESUS?

What appears most revealing of all, comes not from what got later written about Jesus but what people did not write about him. Consider that not a single historian, philosopher, scribe or follower who lived before or during the alleged time of Jesus ever mentions him!

If, indeed, the Gospels portray a historical look at the life of Jesus, then the one feature that stands out prominently within the stories shows that people claimed to know Jesus far and wide, not only by a great multitude of followers but by the great priests, the Roman governor Pilate, and Herod who claims that he had heard "of the fame of Jesus" (Matt 14:1)". One need only read Matt: 4:25 where it claims that "there followed him [Jesus] great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jersulaem, and from Judaea, and from beyond Jordon." The gospels mention, countless times, the great multitude that followed Jesus and crowds of people who congregated to hear him. So crowded had some of these gatherings grown, that Luke 12:1 alleges that an "innumberable multitude of people, trode one upon another." Luke 5:15 says that there grew "a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, " The persecution of Jesus in Jerusalem drew so much attention that all the chief priests and scribes, including the high priest Caiaphas, not only knew about him but helped in his alleged crucifixion. (see Matt 21:15-23, 26:3, Luke 19:47, 23:13). The multitude of people thought of Jesus, not only as a teacher and a miracle healer, but a prophet (see Matt:14:5).

So here we have the gospels portraying Jesus as famous far and wide, a prophet and healer, with great multitudes of people who knew about him, including the greatest Jewish high priests and the Roman authorities of the area, and not one person records his existence during his lifetime? If the poor, the rich, the rulers, the highest priests, and the scribes knew about Jesus, who would not have heard of him?

Ok. Now i'm gettin tired. How many times do you need to recycle this same thrashed point? How long was this so-called lifetime? Anyways this point is already addressed above.

Then we have a particular astronomical event that would have attracted the attention of anyone interested in the "heavens." According to Luke 23:44-45, there occurred "about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour, and the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst." Yet not a single mention of such a three hour ecliptic event got recorded by anyone, including the astronomers and astrologers, anywhere in the world, including Pliny the Elder and Seneca who both recorded eclipses from other dates. Note also that, for obvious reasons, eclipses can't occur during a full moon (passovers always occur during full moons), Nor does a single contemporary person write about the earthquake described in Matthew 27:51-54 where the earth shook, rocks ripped apart (rent), and graves opened.

Matthew 2 describes Herod and all of Jerusalem as troubled by the worship of the infant Jesus. Herod then had all of the children of Bethlehem slain. If such extraordinary infanticides of this magnitude had occurred, why didn't anyone write about it?

Some apologists attempt to dig themselves out of this problem by claiming that there lived no capable historians during that period, or due to the lack of education of the people with a writing capacity, or even sillier, the scarcity of paper gave reason why no one recorded their "savior." But the area in and surrounding Jerusalem served, in fact, as the center of education and record keeping for the Jewish people. The Romans, of course, also kept many records. Moreover, the gospels mention scribes many times, not only as followers of Jesus but the scribes connected with the high priests. And as for historians, there lived plenty at the time who had the capacity and capability to record, not only insignificant gossip, but significant events, especially from a religious sect who drew so much popular attention through an allegedly famous and infamous Jesus.

Take, for example, the works of Philo Judaeus who's birth occurred in 20 B.C.E. and died 50 C.E. He lived as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the area of Jerusalem during the alleged life of Jesus. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the surrounding area. Yet not once, in all of his volumes of writings, do we read a single account of a Jesus "the Christ." Nor do we find any mention of Jesus in Seneca's (4? B.C.E. - 65 C.E.) writings, nor from the historian Pliny the Elder (23? - 79 C.E.).

If, indeed, such a well known Jesus existed, as the gospels allege, does any reader here think it reasonable that, at the very least, the fame of Jesus would not have reached the ears of one of these men?

Amazingly, we have not one Jewish, Greek, or Roman writer, even those who lived in the Middle East, much less anywhere else on the earth, who ever mention him during his supposed life time. This appears quite extraordinary, and you will find few Christian apologists who dare mention this embarrassing fact.

To illustrate this extraordinary absence of Jesus Christ literature, just imagine going through nineteenth century literature looking for an Abraham Lincoln but unable to find a single mention of him in any writing on earth until the 20th century. Yet straight-faced Christian apologists and historians want you to buy a factual Jesus out of a dearth void of evidence, and rely on nothing but hearsay written well after his purported life. Considering that most Christians believe that Jesus lived as God on earth, the Almighty gives an embarrassing example for explaining his existence. You'd think a Creator might at least have the ability to bark up some good solid evidence.

Again, the same old thrashed points. The statement in bold is one of your many lies. Here's a quote;
"Circa AD 52, Thallus wrote a history of the Eastern Mediterranean world from the Trojan War to his own time. This work itself has been lost and only fragments of it exist in the citations of others. One such scholar who knew and spoke of it was Julius Africanus, who wrote about AD 221, In speaking of Jesus' crucifixion and the darkness that covered the land during this event, Africanus found a reference in the writings of Thallus that dealt with this cosmic report. Africanus asserts:  'On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.'' Source - Josh McDowell 'A Ready Defense'
That the historical writings about Jesus were written after his death does not prove that he did not exist. We're not talking 100 years here, we're talking 10-30 years. In many cases the authors still remembered verbatim his statements (see John). Give me a break. Do myths develop within 20 years?

HISTORICAL SCHOLARS

Many problems occur with the reliability of the accounts from ancient historians. Most of them did not provide sources for their claims, as they rarely included bibliographic listings, or supporting claims. They did not have access to modern scholarly techniques, and many times would include hearsay as evidence. No one today would take a modern scholar seriously who used the standards of ancient historians, yet this proves as the only kind of source that Christology comes from. Couple this with the fact that many historians believed as Christians themselves, sometimes members of the Church, and you have a built-in prejudice towards supporting a "real" Jesus.

In modern scholarship, even the best historians and Christian apologists play the historian game. They can only use what documents they have available to them. If they only have hearsay accounts then they have to play the cards that history deals them. Many historians feel compelled to use interpolation or guesses from hearsay, and yet this very dubious information sometimes ends up in encyclopedias and history books as fact.

In other words, Biblical scholarship gets forced into a lower standard by the very sources they examine. A renowned Biblical scholor illustrated this clearly in an interview when asked about Biblical interpretation. David Noel Freeman (the General editor of the Anchor Bible Series and many other works) responed with:

"We have to accept somewhat looser standards. In the legal profession, to convict the defendant of a crime, you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil cases, a preponderance of the evidence is sufficient. When dealing with the Bible or any ancient source, we have to loosen up a little; otherwise, we can't really say anything."

-David Noel Freedman (in Bible Review magazine, Dec. 1993, p.34)

The implications appear obvious. If one wishes to believe in a historical Jesus, he or she must accept this based on loose standards. Couple this with the fact that all of the claims come from hearsay, and we have a foundation made of sand, and a castle of information built of cards.

Keep repeating your empty lies. I asked your protege a question, now let me ask you; the common concensus among historical scholars is that the historical Jesus existed; can you give me any sane reason we should believe you over them? Are you privy to facts they're not aware of?

CITING GEOGRAPHY, AND KNOWN HISTORICAL FIGURES AS "EVIDENCE"

Although the New Testament mentions various cities, geological sites, kings and people that existed or lived during the alleged life of Jesus, these descriptions cannot serve as evidence for the existence of Jesus anymore than works of fiction that include recognizable locations, and make mention of actual people.

Homer's Odyssey, for example, describes the travels of Odysseus throughout the Greek islands. The epic describes, in detail, many locations that existed in history. But should we take Odysseus, the Greek gods and goddesses, one-eyed giants and monsters as literal fact simply because the story depicts geographic locations accurately? Of course not. Mythical stories, fictions, and narratives almost always use familiar landmarks as placements for their stories. The authors of the Greek tragedies not only put their stories in plausible settings as happening in the real world but their supernatural characters took on the desires, flaws and failures of mortal human beings. Consider that fictions such as King Kong, Superman, and Star Trek include recognizable cities, planets, and landmarks, with their protagonists and antagonists miming human emotions.

Likewise, just because the Gospels mention cities and locations in Judea, and known historical people, with Jesus behaving like an actual human being (with the added dimension of supernatural curses, miracles, etc.) but this says nothing about the actuality of the characters portrayed in the stories. However, when a story uses impossible historical locations, or geographical errors, we may question the authority of the claims.

For example, in Matt 4:8, the author describes the devil taking Jesus into an exceedingly high mountain to show him all the kingdoms of the world. Since there exists no spot on the spheroid earth to view "all the kingdoms," we know that the Bible errs here.

John 12:21 says, "The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee. . . ." Bethsaida resided in Gaulonitis (Golan region), east of the Jordan river, not Galilee, which resided west of the river.

John 3:23 says, "John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim. . . ." Critics agree that no such place as Aenon exists near Salim.

There occurs not a shred of evidence for a city named Nazareth at the time of the alleged Jesus. [Leedom; Gauvin] Nazareth does not appear in the Old Testament, nor does it appear in the volumes of Josephus's writings (even though he provides a detailed list of the cities of Galilee). Oddly, none of the New Testament epistle writers ever mentions Nazareth or a Jesus of Nazareth even though most of the epistles got written before the gospels. In fact no one mentions Nazareth until the Gospels, where the first one didn't come into existence until about 40 years after the hypothetical death of Jesus. Apologists attempt to dismiss this by claiming that Nazareth existed as an insignificant and easily missed village (how would they know?), thus no one recorded it. However, whenever the Gospels speak of Nazareth, they always refer to it as a city, never a village, and a historian of that period would surely have noticed a city. (Note the New Testament uses the terms village, town, and city.) Nor can apologists fall on archeological evidence of preexisting artifacts for the simple reason that many cities get built on ancient sites. If a city named Nazareth existed during the 1st century, then we need at least one contemporary piece of evidence for the name, otherwise we cannot refer to it as historical.

Many more errors and unsupported geographical locations appear in the New Testament. And although one cannot use these as evidence against a historical Jesus, we can certainly question the reliability of the texts. If the scriptures make so many factual errors about geology, science, and contain so many contradictions, falsehoods could occur any in area.

If we have a coupling with historical people and locations, then we should also have some historical reference of a Jesus to these locations and people. But just the opposite proves the case. The Bible depicts Herod, the Ruler of Jewish Palestine under Rome as sending out men to search and kill the infant Jesus, yet nothing in history supports such a story. Pontius Pilate supposedly performed as judge in the trial and execution of Jesus, yet no Roman record mentions such a trial. The gospels portray a multitude of believers throughout the land spreading tales of a teacher, prophet, and healer, yet nobody in Jesus' life time or several decades after, ever records such a human figure. The lack of a historical Jesus in the known historical record speaks for itself.

Frankly, as every neutral observer can empathize, i'm knackered. Suffice it to say that the archeaological evidence for a historical Jesus is staggering. You have no point in choosing to reject the evidence by citing a false analogy. The authors never mentioned fictitous locations or impossible figures. All the so-called cases you mentioned can be disputed. If your underlying point that geographical locations and historical figures do not constitute evidence made sense, then there would be no ancient historical narratives, because they all make allusions to geography and known historical figures and events. And in case you didn't realize, the authors of the gospels weren't citing those as their evidence; they just wrote them as casually as any/every historical writer would. Scholars can evaulate such and see if it were plausible for those events to have occured around those figures and/or locations. However, considering that many changes have taken place within 2000 years, they (scholars) cannot come to a negative conclusion even if evidence for certain sites mentioned aren't immediately found. If anything, they'd need to keep looking. That said however, scholars can readily allude to loads of archeological evidence and are in consensus as to those claims.

COMPARING JESUS TO OTHER HISTORICAL FIGURES

Many Christian apologists attempt to extricate themselves from their lack of evidence by claiming that if we cannot rely on the post chronicle exegesis of Jesus, then we cannot establish a historical foundation for other figures such as Alexander the Great, Augustus Caesar, Napoleon, etc. However, there sits a vast difference between historical figures and Jesus. There occurs either artifacts, writings, or eyewitness accounts for historical people, whereas, for Jesus we have nothing.

Alexander, for example, left a wake of destroyed and created cities behind. We have buildings, libraries and cities, such as Alexandria, left in his name. We have treaties, and even a letter from Alexander to the people of Chios, engraved in stone, dated at 332 B.C.E. For Agustus Caesar, we have the Res gestae divi augusti, the emperor's own account of his works and deeds, a letter to his son (Epistula ad Gaium filium), Virgil's eyewitness accounts, and much more. Napoleon left behind artifacts, eyewitness accounts and letters. We can establish some historicity to these people because we have evidence that occurred during their life times. Yet even with contemporary evidence, historians have become wary of after-the-fact stories of many of these historical people. For example, some of the stories of Alexander's conquests, or Nero starting the fire in Rome always get questioned or doubted because they contain inconsistencies or come from authors who wrote years after the alleged facts. In qualifying the history of Alexander, Pierre Briant writes, "Although more than twenty of his contemporaries chronicled Alexander's life and campaigns, none of these texts survive in original form. Many letters and speeches attributed to Alexander are ancient forgeries or reconstructions inspired by imagination or political motives. The little solid documentation we possess from Alexander's own time is mainly to be found in stone inscriptions from the Greek cities of Europe and Asia." [Briant]

Inventing histories out of whole cloth or embellished from a seed of an actual historical event appears common throughout the chronicle of human thought. Robert Price observes, "Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus, Cyrus, King Arthur, and others have nearly suffered this fate. What keeps historians from dismissing them as mere myths, like Paul Bunyan, is that there is some residue. We know at least a bit of mundane information about them, perhaps quite a bit, that does not form part of any legend cycle." [Price, pp. 260-261]

Interestingly, almost all important historical people have descriptions of what they looked like. We have the image of Augustus Caesar cast on denarius coins, busts of Greek and Roman aristocrats, artwork of Napoleon, etc. We have descriptions of facial qualities, height, weight, hair length & color, age and even portraits of most important historical figures. But for Jesus, we have nothing. Nowhere in the Bible do we have a description of the human shape of Jesus. How can we rely on the Gospels as the word of Jesus when no one even describes what he looked like? How odd that none of the disciple characters record what he looked like, yet believers attribute them to know exactly what he said. Indeed, this gives us a clue that Jesus came to the gospel writers and indirect and through myth. Not until hundreds of years after the alleged Jesus did pictures emerge as to what he looked like from cult Christians, and these widely differed from a blond clean shaven, curly haired Apollonian youth (found in the Roman catacombs) to a long-bearded Italian as depicted to this day. This mimics the pattern of Greek mythological figures as their believers constructed various images of what their gods looked like according to their own cultural image.

Historial people leave us with contemporary evidence, but for Jesus we have nothing. If we wanted to present a fair comparison of the type of information about Jesus to another example of equal historical value, we could do no better than to compare Jesus with the mythical figure of Hercules.

Let's compare Plato to mythological Prometheus; hmmn . . . they were both intelligent. Also their names both start with letter 'P'. Therefore, Plato did not exist.

IF JESUS, THEN WHY NOT HERCULES?
<snip>

That question should be directed at you. Probably because one was real and the other not, no?

THEN WHY THE MYTH OF JESUS?
<snip>

After you answer that, then, why the folly of Mr Walker?

A NOTE ABOUT DATING:
<snip>

I'd be surprised if you hadn't tried to lie to us here yet again. Historians didn't name A.D. after myths.

This is a very embarrassing attempt at research and scholarliness. It takes more faith (and loads of absense of logic and counter-logic) to accept Mr Walker's claims than to accept the historical consensus among noteworthy scholars (both religious and secular) as regards the historicity of Jesus. Mr Walker needs to get his head and his facts straightened (and so must his followers). Cheers.

Jen33:
ricadelide, I think you need to read some home truths about the nature of your present beliefs:

LOL . . . . "home truths"? Give me a break; more like home lies and illogical statements stemming from the author's own personal incredulity and good old absence of common sense.

Did a historical Jesus exist?


by Jim Walker

Ok Mr Walker, let's Walk

Amazingly, the question of an actual historical Jesus rarely confronts the religious believer. The power of faith has so forcefully driven the minds of most believers, and even apologetic scholars, that the question of reliable evidence gets obscured by tradition, religious subterfuge, and outrageous claims. The following gives a brief outlook about the claims of a historical Jesus and why the evidence the Christians present us cannot serve as justification for reliable evidence for a historical Jesus.

I take it that secular historians that accept the vericity of a historical Jesus are also deluded like we are eh? The 'power of faith has (likewise) so driven the minds of most (secular historians)'. Pity.

ALL CLAIMS OF JESUS DERIVE FROM HEARSAY ACCOUNTS

No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus.

Obviously the introduction to this part of the writeup is so illogical; in his bid to bring a moot point of hearsay, the author begins to allude to lack of physical evidence and evidence by the romans and all sort (all of which can be disputed). Again, in order to bring in a point of hearsay. First, Mr Walker, how do they preclude from eyewitness accounts and neccessitate hearsay? Second, who said there isn't archaelogical evidence of Jesus; perhaps they should have preserved his carpentry works eh? That would have done it for you - 'Here lieth the door constructed by Jesus (who later claimed to be Christ) in Year 28AD'. How nice.

Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus.

Ok, Mr Walker, there is no contemporary ('contemporary' meaning during the short life of Jesus) account of the life of Jesus, how devastating. Jesus did most of the great things he did in the last 3 and half years of his life - what a long period for a contemporary writer eh? who is the wise contemporary writer that would not, in the light of the strange occurences in the life of the said Jesus, wait a few years to see what turns out ie the outcome, before putting pen to paper? Even if they waited 2 or 3 years (which is extremely short) Jesus would still have died by then. On the other hand, what is the purpose of a biblical documentation of the life of jesus when he had not died - considering the importance of his death? Except Mr Walker lives in space, are all contemporary (here meaning 'modern day') biographies written during the lifetime of the protagonist?

All documents about Jesus got written well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings. Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, I will use the information and dates to show that even if these sources did not come from interpolations, they could still not serve as reliable evidence for a historical Jesus, simply because all sources derive from hearsay accounts.

FALSEHOOD
Many of the accounts about the life of Jesus, both in the gospels and in the epistles are by eyewitnesses, not hearsay. And not just mere eyewitnesses, credible ones. They each write from their own perspective in detail and precision and do not collude nor contradict one another. If the traditional ascriptions of the authorship of the synoptics are correct; we can;t be 100% because the authors do not include their names in the text, then Matthew was an eyewitness, Luke and Mark were involved directly with eyewitnesses (see Luke 1;2), thus very credible third-parties - Luke's case is very clear (in the book of Acts). Mark was constantly with Paul and Barnabas (who also had been with Peter, James and John at various times). This very fundamental point undermines the whole of your argument becuase you keep repeating your unsubstantiated claims as your justification.

Hearsay means information derived from other people rather than on a witness' own knowledge.

Courts of law do not generally allow hearsay as testimony, and nor does honest modern scholarship. Hearsay provides no proof or good evidence, and therefore, we should dismiss it.

that is very wrong. This is not hearsay. However, even for the sake of argument, if it were hearsay, third-parties can and do write accurate, historically verifiable documents if they do their research properly and consult relevant authorities on the subject matter. It is very obvious that the writers of the synoptic gospels had eyewitnesses that they consulted, and the writer of Luke clearly alludes to this in his introduction (see Luke 1;1-4). There's also a huge similarity between Mark and Matthew which, amongst many things, can suggest that they had good, reliable sources; some have even suggested that both Matthew and Luke consulted the book of Mark; although not proven, it is a workable theory for some.

If you do not understand this, imagine yourself confronted with a charge for a crime which you know you did not commit. You feel confident that no one can prove guilt because you know that there exists no evidence whatsoever for the charge against you. Now imagine that you stand present in a court of law that allows hearsay as evidence. When the prosecution presents its case, everyone who takes the stand against you claims that you committed the crime, not as a witness themselves, but solely because other people said so. None of these other people, mind you, ever show up in court, nor can anyone find them.

False analogy. David Herbert Donald is a biographer of Abraham Lincoln. DHD is still alive and didn't live at the time of Lincoln therefore his writing is hearsay. Conclusion: AL did not exist. QED

Hearsay does not work as evidence because we have no way of knowing whether the person lies, or simply bases his or her information on wrongful belief or bias. We know from history about witchcraft trials and kangaroo courts that hearsay provides neither reliable nor fair statements of evidence. We know that mythology can arise out of no good information whatsoever. We live in a world where many people believe in demons, UFOs, ghosts, or monsters, and an innumerable number of fantasies believed as fact taken from nothing but belief and hearsay. It derives from these reasons why hearsay cannot serves as good evidence, and the same reasoning must go against the claims of a historical Jesus or any other historical person.

Your logic is appalling. A lot of the things you roped together there have nothing in common, and are not entirely ruled out. Your personal incredulity does not constitute evidence nor proof.

Authors of ancient history today, of course, can only write from indirect observation in a time far removed from their aim. But a valid historian's own writing gets cited with sources that trace to the subject themselves, or to eyewitnesses and artifacts. For example a historian today who writes about the life of George Washington, of course, can not serve as an eyewitness, but he can provide citations to documents which give personal or eyewitness accounts. None of the historians about Jesus give reliable sources to eyewitnesses, therefore all we have remains as hearsay.

OK. Now the gospels don't have any citations, i'm waiting for more lies. A writer at any point in history can research about the life of any person and write about them, and merely not making a citation (which is not even the case here) does not mean the author's work is invalid. those historical writers must have been very ignorant. Again read Luke 1;1-3.

The most "authoritative" accounts of a historical Jesus come from the four canonical Gospels of the Bible. Note that these Gospels did not come into the Bible as original and authoritative from the authors themselves, but rather from the influence of early church fathers, especially the most influential of them all: Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the middle of the second century. Many heretical gospels existed by that time, but Irenaeus considered only some of them for mystical reasons. He claimed only four in number; according to Romer, "like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures-- the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John (see Against the Heresies). The four gospels then became Church cannon for the orthodox faith. Most of the other claimed gospel writings were burned, destroyed, or lost." [Romer]

The first statement in bold is ridiculous. Authors don't push for the inclusion of their works in the bible; its not politics. And i really wonder what point you intend to make there. The second in bold also is another empty assertion without proof. there probably were many writings that were around (can easily be inferred from Luke 1;1), but they were not included not necessarily because they were heretical but because they weren't considered to be inspired as scripture. Again, whether they chose 4 or 50 is inconsequential, it does not advance your argument in any way.

Elaine Pagels writes: "Although the gospels of the New Testament-- like those discovered at Nag Hammadi-- are attributed to Jesus' followers, no one knows who actually wrote any of them." [Pagels, 1995]

they were attributed to them as early as the late first century; while many of them were still alive or just died, could the people who ascribed it to them not have verified the authenticity of the claims and the person of the authors? How foolish do you really imagine those early scholars and christians to have been? Let's even assume they were entirely anonymous works, does that connote that they are fables?

Not only do we not know who wrote them, consider that none of the Gospels existed during the alleged life of Jesus, nor do the unknown authors make the claim to have met an earthly Jesus. Add to this that none of the original gospel manuscripts exist; we only have copies of copies.

Keep adding to your pack of lies. And stop repeating that illogical point in bold. John clearly claims to have met Jesus, and the synoptics could not have known certain things (eg the details in the mount of transfiguration) if they didn't have access to first-hand witnesses, even the so-called inner caucus (as mentioneded by Luke in 1;3), a point which i have clearly illustrated above.

The consensus of many biblical historians put the dating of the earliest Gospel, that of Mark, at sometime after 70 C.E., and the last Gospel, John after 90 C.E. [Pagels, 1995; Helms]. This would make it some 40 years after the alleged crucifixion of Jesus that we have any Gospel writings that mention him! Elaine Pagels writes that "the first Christian gospel was probably written during the last year of the war, or the year it ended. Where it was written and by whom we do not know; the work is anonymous, although tradition attributes it to Mark, " [Pagels, 1995]

the same scholars acknowledge the existence of a historical Jesus - what have you to say to that? In any case, there is no real evidence that they were written at the time alluded to them. if anything there is evidence that they were written before that time. For instance, the synoptics contain a prophecy about the temple; secular historians will not accept the possibility of that being a prophecy and since it was fulfilled to the letter, would like to place it after 70AD, that however poses a lot of problems; the turmoil around the time, the persecution etc. Most importantly, the authors should have mentioned it as a historical event if indeed they wrote it after 70AD (as is the case with other biblical prophecies that are fulfilled before the books were written). Likewise Luke did not mention the persecution by Nero, death of Paul, Peter etc all of which happened by the early 60s AD. So there. Thus the weight of evidence is for the traditionally accepted dates (by the early church) of 37-60AD (with John being written later), that is just a meagre 4-30 years after the life of Jesus during which time many of the folks that saw Jesus were still alive. Even if there were exaggerations, the could have been corrected in the writings of Peter et al and this was not the case. Myths do not spring up during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. People develop myths about things that happen centuries before their time (or in the case of sci-fi for example, after their time) - there are no contemporary myths of this magnitude.

The traditional Church has portrayed the authors as the apostles Mark, Luke, Matthew, & John, but scholars know from critical textural research that there simply occurs no evidence that the gospel authors could have served as the apostles described in the Gospel stories.

Ok. the traditional church within 50 -100 years didn't know, and historians 2000 years later now "know from critical textural research" Give me a break. Perhaps we assume that those early church folks were fools and 'we' are the wise ones now eh? They don't 'know' that they didn't write them, they 'assert' that they didn't. there's a load of difference

Yet even today, we hear priests and ministers describing these authors as the actual disciples of Christ. Many Bibles still continue to label the stories as "The Gospel according to St. Matthew," "St. Mark," "St. Luke," St. John." No apostle would have announced his own sainthood before the Church's establishment of sainthood. But one need not refer to scholars to determine the lack of evidence for authorship. As an experiment, imagine the Gospels without their titles. See if you can find out from the texts who wrote them; try to find their names.

Maybe Mr Walker should go ahead and say that there are verses and chapters in the bible and since the authors didn't include them, they are all false. First, you don't know the meaning of the word disciple, neither do you know the meaning of the word saint. Perhaps when you do we can have a discussion

Even if the texts supported the notion that the apostles wrote them, consider that the average life span of humans in the first century came to around 30, and very few people lived to 70. If the apostles births occured at about the same time as the alleged Jesus, and wrote their gospels in their old age, that would put Mark at least 70 years old, and John at over 110.

pray where did the author get his 30 figure? from the life of Jesus ? First, there is no evidence to the statement in bold - if i may recall for example Luke mentioned Anna as being 84 years old (Luke 2;37) Second, let's even say there is evidence, averages are averages. I mean, consider this list; 0,2,4,6,8,10 average = 5 yet i don't have any number of the value '5' in my list. Go figure. Third, the time that the scriptures were written according to modern scholars is not proven. Scholars (if i may call them that) at the time of the early church, place the dates much earlier and you can't readily wash them aside.

The gospel of Mark describes the first written Bible gospel. And although Mark appears deceptively after the Matthew gospel, the gospel of Mark got written at least a generation before Matthew. From its own words, we can deduce that the author of Mark had neither heard Jesus nor served as his personal follower. Whoever wrote the gospel, he simply accepted the mythology of Jesus without question and wrote a crude an ungrammatical account of the popular story at the time. Any careful reading of the three Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) will reveal that Mark served as the common element between Matthew and Luke and gave the main source for both of them. Of Mark's 666* verses, some 600 appear in Matthew, some 300 in Luke. According to Randel Helms, the author of Mark, stands at least at a third remove from Jesus and more likely at the fourth remove. [Helms]

First in bold, not proven, just a theory. Traditionally, the first is ascribed to Mathew. Second in bold, evidence? Third, it seems Mr Walker does not know the difference between 'story' or 'oral testimony' and 'mythology' as he seems to substitute them at will. From there on you just have a whole load of empty bull.

* Most Bibles show 678 verses for Mark, not 666, but many Biblical scholars think the last 12 verses came later from interpolation. The earliest manuscripts and other ancient sources do not have Mark 16: 9-20. Moreover the text style does not match and the transition between verse 8 and 9 appears awkward. Even some of today's Bibles such as the NIV exclude the last 12 verses.

Ok, so now this is your evidence for it being a myth?

The author of Matthew had obviously gotten his information from Mark's gospel and used them for his own needs. He fashioned his narrative to appeal to Jewish tradition and Scripture. He improved the grammar of Mark's Gospel, corrected what he felt theologically important, and heightened the miracles and magic.

Empty assertion that doesn't add anything to further your argument.

The author of Luke admits himself as an interpreter of earlier material and not an eyewitness (Luke 1:1-4). Many scholars think the author of Luke lived as a gentile, or at the very least, a hellenized Jew and even possibly a woman. He (or she) wrote at a time of tension in the Roman empire along with its fever of persecution. Many modern scholars think that the Gospel of Matthew and Luke got derived from the Mark gospel and a hypothetical document called "Q" (German Quelle, which means "source". [Helms; Wilson] . However, since we have no manuscript from Q, no one could possibly determine its author or where or how he got his information or the date of its authorship. Again we get faced with unreliable methodology and obscure sources.

Here's the introduction to the book of Luke
"Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, 3 it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; 4 so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught." (Luke 1;1-3)

Looking at the statements in bold, a lot of things can be inferred here; (1)there were many written accounts circulating at the time (probably lost due to aging and not being copied to a very high degree),  (2)those things they were referring to happened 'among them' even if they weren't eye-witnesses (just as i was not an eyewitness of the VT shootings, yet a contemporary) (3) there were oral testimony from those who witnessed those events first-hand (4)Luke's account is a product of thorough and carefull investigation of the facts (5)Luke had access to these eye-witnesses (6)the purpose of Luke was not to establish that Jesus existed (too simplistic, a non-issue), but to establish the truth (as distinguished from lies and exaggerations that circulated around) about those things (7)in the light of all these, it could not by any stretch of the mind have been a myth, neither does it claim to be one

Furthermore, Luke is widely regarded as a thoroughly researched document written in the style of historical narratives at the time, with lots of detail and references to various events and locations at the time which have been confirmed by archealogy. The book can easily be placed within AD57 -63. Less than 30 years after the death of Jesus, during which time eyewitnesses AND apostles were still alive who could have served as sources and correct any mistakes about the account of Jesus' life if any. Get your facts straight.

John, the last appearing Bible Gospel, presents us with long theological discourses from Jesus and could not possibly have come as literal words from a historical Jesus. The Gospel of John disagrees with events described in Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Moreover the unknown author(s) of this gospel wrote it in Greek near the end of the first century, and according to Bishop Shelby Spong, the book "carried within it a very obvious reference to the death of John Zebedee (John 21:23)." [Spong]

In bold, evidence? Perhaps, you should have told us what the historical Jesus was likely to have said. Second in bold LOL, evidence? Am not surprised that your tune of 'hearsay' has suddenly stopped playing - probably because John claimed to be an eyewitness, no? Lastly, you saw 23, i'm guessing you didn't read it up to 24?

Please understand that the stories themselves cannot serve as examples of eyewitness accounts since they came as products of the minds of the unknown authors, and not from the characters themselves. The Gospels describe narrative stories, written almost virtually in the third person. People who wish to portray themselves as eyewitnesses will write in the first person, not in the third person. Moreover, many of the passages attributed to Jesus could only have come from the invention of its authors. For example, many of the statements of Jesus claim to have come from him while allegedly alone. If so, who heard him? It becomes even more marked when the evangelists report about what Jesus thought. To whom did Jesus confide his thoughts? Clearly, the Gospels employ techniques that fictional writers use. In any case the Gospels can only serve, at best, as hearsay, and at worst, as fictional, mythological, or falsified stories.

This is appalling. Now, narrative style is evidence against the existence of Jesus (i guess anything goes now eh?).Just an example, Luke wrote Luke in third person, and wrote Acts in mixture of first and third person. It's called narrative style. Luke was not present (like he said) in the events of Jesus, thus it would be foolish of him to write it in first person. He was present in Acts and wrote it in first person.
Mr Walker, continuous repitions and assertions does not constitute proof or logic. The traditionally ascribed authors are known. And because some people do not accept them as the authors does not constitute evidence to the contrary. To show how blinded you are by your fanatical zeal, the second and third statements in bold does not make it obvious to you that they had to have been eyewitnesses or third-parties who had access to eyewitnesses? I mean, what kind of logic (or lack thereof) is this.

OTHER NEW TESTAMENT WRITINGS

Even in antiquity people like Origen and Eusebius raised doubts about the authenticity of other books in the New Testament such as Hebrews, James, John 2 & 3, Peter 2, Jude, and Revelation. Martin Luther rejected the Epistle of James calling it worthless and an "epistle of straw" and questioned Jude, Hebrews and the Apocalypse in Revelation. Nevertheless, all New Testament writings came well after the alleged death of Jesus from unknown authors (with the possible exception of Paul, although still after the alleged death).

Lol . . . possible exception of Paul even though he wrote about 50% of the NT? Again, empty assertion; they were not from unknown authors.

Epistles of Paul: Paul's biblical letters (epistles) serve as the oldest surviving Christian texts, written probably around 60 C.E. Most scholars have little reason to doubt that Paul wrote some of them himself. However, there occurs not a single instance in all of Paul's writings that he ever meets or sees an earthly Jesus, nor does he give any reference to Jesus' life on earth. Therefore, all accounts about a Jesus could only have come from other believers or his imagination. Hearsay.

Keep repeating your follies. "Evidence from other believers is not evidence." Give me a break. Just two points for space. Paul obviously claimed to have had a supernatural (albeit public) encounter with Jesus. This is recorded by Luke - a third party/contemporary with access to eyewitnesses. In Paul's own writings he claimed severally to have met the Lord (notably 1Cor 9;1) and, noteworthy, he mentions a public quote from the Lord which is not recorded in the gospels, and with the way thay verse is written, we can infer that he (and probably the whole of the early church) was very aware of Jesus, his actions, and his teachings/sayings. (see Acts 20;35 compare Acts 1;1b). Paul's conversion was as early as AD34 -37 and his writings as early as AD55. In your mind, that's a very good amount of time for him to have gulped the fables eh? The creed that Paul records in 1Cor 15;3-4 shows that he clearly considers Jesus life, death and ressurection a historically verifiable event. Paul's scholarship, his zeal, his integrity, his persecution and eventual killing are also without any question by any sane historical scholar. You have absolutely NO case here whatsoever.

Epistle of James: Although the epistle identifies a James as the letter writer, but which James? Many claim him as the gospel disciple but the gospels mention several different James. Which one? Or maybe this James has nothing to do with any of the gospel James. Perhaps this writer comes from any one of innumerable James outside the gospels. James served as a common name in the first centuries and we simply have no way to tell who this James refers to. More to the point, the Epistle of James mentions Jesus only once as an introduction to his belief. Nowhere does the epistle reference a historical Jesus and this alone eliminates it from an historical account. [1]

Of course you have no choice but to deny this one; for mythological figures do not have brothers. This was written by James the half-brother of the non-existent (you wish!!) Jesus (Gal 1;19) and yes, Paul wrote that. He also wrote 1Cor 15:7, where he(James) saw the ressurected Lord. It is not hearsay; but first-hand. Furthermore, this James did not believe in his brother as the Saviour (normal eh? i wouldn't have either) until probably after the ressurection (when he appeared to him). See John 7;5.

Epistles of John: The epistles of John, the Gospel of John, and Revelation appear so different in style and content that they could hardly have the same author. Some suggest that these writings of John come from the work of a group of scholars in Asia Minor who followed a "John" or they came from the work of church fathers who aimed to further the interests of the Church. Or they could have simply come from people also named John (a very common name). No one knows. Also note that nowhere in the body of the three epistles of "John" does it mention a John. In any case, the epistles of John say nothing about seeing an earthly Jesus. Not only do we not know who wrote these epistles, they can only serve as hearsay accounts. [2]

Educate yourself and reject lies. John was well-known to the early church to the point that he was even referred to as 'the elder'. He was one of the three "special" apostles of the Lord, and his style is different from other books because of the amount of intimacy he had with the Lord (see John 21;20,23-24). John clearly claims to have seen, touched etc the historical Jesus. "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life— and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us— what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ" (1John 1;1-3). Myths or imaginations aren't touched nor felt. Jesus was touched AND felt.

Epistles of Peter: Many scholars question the authorship of Peter of the epistles. Even within the first epistle, it says in 5:12 that Silvanus wrote it. Most scholars consider the second epistle as unreliable or an outright forgery (for some examples, see the introduction to 2 Peter in the full edition of The New Jerusalem Bible, 1985, and [3]). In short, no one has any way of determining whether the epistles of Peter come from fraud, an unknown author also named Peter (a common name) or from someone trying to further the aims of the Church.

I'm tired. The statement in bold shows that Mr Walker does not even know what a stenographer is. It's not my responsibility to educate you. Peter dictated to Silas aka Silvanus who wrote the epistle as clearly stated in 1;1. I know that since Peter made the statement in 2Peter1;16, you would have to resort to claiming that it is a fraud. How sad. 2Peter 3;1 however clearly points to the contrary. Here's the statement; 2Peter1;16 "For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty." Here it is fairly obvious that the writer was not even concerned about the historicity of Jesus, because as at the mid-first century when this was written that was not even an issue; what was paramount to the apostle was his Majesy and His Power especially as demonstrated on the mount (see verses 17-18) and that was why he restated the fact that they witnessed it with their very own eyes.

Of the remaining books and letters in the Bible, there occurs no other stretched claims or eyewitness accounts for a historical Jesus and needs no mention of them here for this deliberation.

As for the existence of original New Testament documents, none exist. No book of the New Testament survives in the original autograph copy. What we have then come from copies, and copies of copies, of questionalbe originals (if the stories came piecemeal over time, as it appears it has, then there may never have existed an original). The earliest copies we have got written more than a century later than the autographs, and these exist on fragments of papyrus. [Pritchard; Graham] According to Hugh Schonfield, "It would be impossible to find any manuscript of the New Testament older than the late third century, and we actually have copies from the fourth and fifth. [Schonfield]

Of course it is true that we don't have the autographa - perhaps you could have helped with their preservation for around 2000 years on parchment. As to your second statement in bold, don't stretch it. The manuscript evidence for the bible is overwhelming and no other books from antiquity even comes close. Contrary to the lies above, the earliest copies are as early as the early to mid 2nd century - that just a few decades from the autographa. No other ancient work has such a short timespan between the autograph and available manuscripts. From the abundance of the biblical manuscripts, the exact contents of the original documents can be determined, simply by cross-checking the thousands of manuscripts - because they contain very minor errors like the ommission of a letter etc. There are over 5000 different kinds of manuscripts available, the only document that comes close is a very distant 650 (Homer's Iliad).

***Had to split it into two because of the exceeding great length (lol). The second half of Mr Walker's is mainly bull and reptition though. Sorry***

Jen33:
The crescendo of silence is so strong as to shatter my eardrums.

i didn't reply you because i sincerely do not have the time nor the patience for overly long treatises; this is meant to be a discussion forum, not a copy/paste forum. i could easily have copy pasted a reply. How would that have advanced the discussion? Would the copy/pastes begin to argue for us? Or would the arguement had been won by the person with the longer copy/pastes?
Anyways, i'd really go out of my way this time to reply you.

Jen33:
KAG, sorry I don't buy your explanation for their silence. Unless the forumers here are barely literate, lazy dolts, your rationalisation for their silence makes no sense.

i'll take that as a complement; long i receieved such.

Put simply, I reckon its the silence of surrender.

Afterall, WHAT can they possibly argue against there?

It's such a heavily researched article that you just have to read it and chill. 

No point arguing.

Like Fela would have said, the author really 'opened book' for them.

The most they can do is to pick up little inconsequential things like you did. The central point  -total lack of evidence for Jesus' existence + the church's self-admitted history of lies and  myth peddling -  will remain unchallenged, because quite simply, it cannot be challenged.

It cannot be challenged because it cannot be refuted.

LOLZ @ the points in bold. You cannot challenge them because you swallowed his lies hook line and sinker. Those are not intelligent statements to make i'm sorry. Anything, can be argued against or refuted. By the time i'm done i'll wonder what anthem you'd sing then.

MisterMan:
We were made to believe that we die because of the sin committed by Adam and Eve.

For some (or many) of us, the belief still holds

The popular thinking is that had Adam and Eve not sinned, we would have lived forever.

Maybe that's the popular belief, but that's not necessarily what the bible says: from Gen. 3;21 one can infer that if the man (in his fallen state) should eat of the tree of life, then he will live forever. To my knowledge, the bible is silent about what his fate would have been if he hadn't eaten the tree of knowledge. But my guess is that he probably would have eaten from the tree of life.

But is that really so?

why do you think it isn't so? You don't really give any cogent reasons in your post

The curse concerning Adam is in Gen. 3 17-19. Note that it was only Adam that God did not curse directly.

the curse is not 'concerning Adam'. the curse was to the ground - and it was a direct consequence of Adam's actions. By disobeying God, he had violated the initial order of things as God created them Gen. 1;31 (ie everything was very good albeit perfect). that perfection of things was lost
Also, its not 'only Adam' that God did not curse directly; He did not curse Eve either (directly or indirectly). Gen 3;16; "to the woman He said"

He cursed the land (read vs 17 very well).

I read it. "Cursed is the ground (land) because of you" in order words, because of your actions, the ground is cursed. Simple.

It was the effect of the curse on Adam that God was talking about

I wonder why you're arriving at the wrong conclusions. Its the other way round - Adam was not cursed; his actions resulted in the land being cursed. Its the effect of Adam's sin. Are you forgetting that sinning has consequences, he (Adam) knew the consequences. Adam was not decieved (see 1Tim2;14).

What God was saying is that Adam would continue to work hard till he die. The task of Adam was supposed to be a pleasant one (2:15).

2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and keep it.

Now after the disobedience, it was hard work: thorns, thistles, weed, pests etc. Let me quote part 17 to 19 of chapter 3

17 , cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 In the sweet of thy face shall thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return

Ok?

The operative word here is 'till'. Here is what Oxford Advanced Learner say: up to the time when. To paraphrase that sentence, we can say: you will continue to work hard until you die. You will not rest until you die.

I'm really at a loss to what your point is, however, basically, a life without christ, in sin, is meaningless. Read ecclesiastes. In Christ, there is meaning AND fulfillment.

What does all these mean.

It means just what it says without misreading concepts that aren't taught into the scriptures.

If they had not eaten the fruit, our mothers will not experience birth pains.

Again, not necessarily true; the punishment (note, not curse) was that he would 'greatly increase' her pains in childbearing (Gen. 3;16); that doesn't connote that she would not have experienced any pain(s) had she not been decieved, but that it would not have been to the same degree. There is nothing wrong with normal, moderate amounts of pain - there's pain involved in many physiologic processes (not to be crude but sometimes there's pain with/in defeacation) - excessive pain however is undesirable.

Farming would have been very easy and pleasant. Why did God chase the miserable pair away? Read Gen 3: 22 & 23. So what do you think? Peace

He chased them away for the very reasons he stated in the scriptures you read and quoted. Cheers.

I don't really know what your underlying issues are - i can't seem to get it from your post, except for the errors you had in your inferences/conclusions - however, i just want to say that those chapters couldn't be plainer than they are. Not that deep things aren't contained in them, they or there are, but that one can easily grasp the major concepts there and make meaning of it all. As per the title of the topic, death entering through sin, i believe it is clear from the text and your post did not undermine that truth in any way.
On re-reading your post though it seems you fail to realize the import of Adam's sin, rather, you're focussing on the consequence rather than the action that brought about the consequence. the consequence is not the whole picture; you need to understand the action, so that it would give you an inkling into God's mind and his requirements, as regards obedience, man's resposibility, doing right, and so on. You also need to study and understand what led to their action ie Satan's deception(Gen.3;1-5), Eve's misinterpreation of God's word ("neither shall you touch it" 2:17 versus 3;3), her lusts (Gen. 2:9a versus 3;6a - see also 1John 2;16), Adam's willful disobedience etc so you can understand man (in a generic sense) better (and of course, man's adversary). Cheers.

IDINRETE:
I think it is all crap and horseshit

that's your opinion; it does not undermine other people's convictions. Like one of my friends says 'assertion (in this case, subjective opinion) does not an argument make' . I'm sure some people thought the same of your post.
And: if thats what you think of it, there's really no need to get angry. I'm not angry that Zeus defeated the Titans . Except your anger is because some of us believe it, in which case, i can only say; no 'vess'. Cheers.