And here we are in the last installment.
"A guy showed up 2000 years ago, did some pretty strange things and taught a pretty radical message. All evidence seems to suggest that he actually rose from the dead."
Now it was my turn to get pissy..er. Science may not be my forte, but history's right in my wheel-house.
Yeah, I must have forgot about that mountain of independently verifiable eyewitness accounts from the days of the event, None of which were written by his followers, fans or well-wishers beginning some 40-50 years after his alleged death. None of which were written after the first one of these alleged eyewitness accounts came out. And none of which have been carefully and selectively edited for content by generations of followers, fans and well-wishers....not to mention generations of socially, politically and economically interested parties, I might add.
"Actually, the first witness is 20 years after his death and happens to be a creed too. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)."
Oh. So we use the bible to prove the bible is true. Understood.
Oh. So we use the bible to prove the bible is true. Understood.
"You said the documents were too late and I replied that the earliest was 20 years after said event. I'm not using the Bible to prove the Bible, I'm using the Bible to prove Jesus and seeing as I'm treating it just like every other historical document, I haven't done anything wrong. You use historical documents about historical figures in order to prove anything about said historical figure."
Ah, but you are not "treating it just like every other historical document" because you have accepted the authenticity of it without question and are not using other corroborating evidence from the period in question. You have done several things wrong that even a first-year history major wouldn't. First off, you don't "prove" anything in history. You provide evidence. You have one source, written 20 years after the fact, by a guy who did not know Jesus personally, but who had a religious experience where he claimed to have "met" the guy. (for comparison's sake, George Harrison claimed to have met Lord Krishna. People from all walks of life claimed to have been abducted by aliens). The only thing close to a primary source you actually have is the Gospel of Mark, written in either 64 AD or 70 AD by an unidentified author who claimed to have gotten all the details from Jesus' buddy Mark (and there is dispute as to which one of Jesus' buddies named "Mark" he actually was.) The facts are this:
1. You don't have anything written by Jesus himself.
2. You don't have anything written by anyone who personally knew Jesus or saw Jesus while he was alive written at the time he would have been alive..(you said it yourself, the earliest documents were written 20 years after his death by a person who's neutrality and objectivity is in question)
3. You are talking about a document that makes up a book that has been edited, translated, re-translated and checked for "content errors" by Church authorities for nearly 2000 years and any disputing evidence that may have been presented would have been considered heretical and destroyed.
No, we are clearly not talking about a document that has been "treated like any other historical document."
1. You don't have anything written by Jesus himself.
2. You don't have anything written by anyone who personally knew Jesus or saw Jesus while he was alive written at the time he would have been alive..(you said it yourself, the earliest documents were written 20 years after his death by a person who's neutrality and objectivity is in question)
3. You are talking about a document that makes up a book that has been edited, translated, re-translated and checked for "content errors" by Church authorities for nearly 2000 years and any disputing evidence that may have been presented would have been considered heretical and destroyed.
No, we are clearly not talking about a document that has been "treated like any other historical document."
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