Mining the New Testament for historically reliable information

[Phantasmal]

Authorship:

There is no propaganda value to early Christians attributing two of the gospels to low-ranking, obscure Christians. That's what makes it seem credible. Luke's Gospel is probably reliably attributed to a companion of Paul named Luke. Mark's Gospel is probably reliably attributed to Peter's companion Mark. Gospel of Mathew probably isn't directly written by the apostle Mathew but may be based on part on earlier writings he wrote in Hebrew attesting to some of the sayings of Jesus. I don't know enough about the Gospel of John, other than it was probably written after 90 AD long after John the Apostle should have been deceased.


Historicity of Important New Testament figures:

A combination of archeological evidence, and independent first century literary sources outside the Christian canon support that Pontius Pilate, John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, and his brother James were real historical figures.


Crucifixion:

The Jews of the early first century would never have expected the Messiah to be arrested and crucified as a common criminal. It's not a story they would have made up out of whole cloth. The fact that the apostles dispersed and ran away like rats from a sinking ship is not a flattering story and would not have just been made up.


Resurrection:

In antiquity, women would not have been considered reliable witnesses. Only a man's testimony would have been given credibility. The Gospels report that it was women who first found the empty tomb; this does not sound like a story made up from whole cloth.

That the apostles seem to believe they saw Jesus after his crucifixion is not a later legendary account added to the canon. This belief goes all the way back to the original eyewitness and to the earliest days of the Jerusalem church, as attested to in Corinthians. The fact that some of the apostles were willing to die and be persecuted for believing they had seen Jesus after the crucifixion is difficult to square with a claim that the story was simply something they conspired to make up in a tavern over carafes of wine. That doesn't necessarily mean Jesus came back from the dead, only that the apostles genuinely believed they had seen him after he was thought to be dead.

First question, Peter was an illiterate fisherman, so scholars believe that he attracted a man of letters as a companion?
Bart Erhmann and other scholars believe he was more likely a companion of Paul and Barnabus who were educated men, unlike Peter.

 

[Margot]

Organized religion is anything BUT boring! It is so much fun to see how each individual group of humans builds their own version of God complete with ALL THE REALLY COOL DEMANDS God has for them. Sometimes VERY INTRICATE. Things like The creator of the universe doesn't like it when you mix fibers together. He also is 100% against murder unless it is in service to what He approves. Meanwhile this group over here says that God hates THOSE people but loves US and the real way to tell that is that WE lay on the ground with our bodies aimed this way. And those OTHER folks over there don't even believe God requires that but we have to think a special way to escape the horrors of existence. And this other group over here thinks that there are a BUNCH of gods all working in different departments in heaven.

Religion is a manifestation of how HUMANS would run the universe if they were in charge. And it's pretty cool to see how "complex" they would make it if it were up to them.

Organized religion is man's spin! No thanks!

 

[Cypress]

First question, Peter was an illiterate fisherman, so scholars believe that he attracted a man of letters as a companion?
Bart Erhmann and other scholars believe he was more likely a companion of Paul and Barnabus who were educated men, unlike Peter.

The early second century Bishop Pappias reports that Mark was a companion and interpreter of Peter who recorded his teachings. I can't see any propaganda value for first and early second century Christians to attribute a Gospel to a low ranking and relatively obscure Christian like Mark.

The prophet Muhammed was illiterate, but undoubtedly associated with literate Arabs. Likewise, I don't see any reason a high ranking Apostle like Peter couldn't associate with someone who could write. Mark is not known as a particularly talented writer, I don't know if you could actually call him lettered. The consensus is that Gospel of Mark is noteworthy for being written in a crude and rudimentary form of Greek compared to the elevated koine Greek of John, Paul, and Matthew.

 

[Cypress]

Had to google this. Is this the Tao Te Xing?

Yes, I am trolling the the troll, don't blow it for me

 

[serenity]

The Way that can be walked is not the eternal Way.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth.
The named is the mother of all things.
Therefore:
Free from desire you see the mystery.
Full of desire you see the
manifestations.
These two have the same origin but differ in name.

the way evolving works ancestrally changing people alive in a body of ever changing shape since arrived a fertilized cell living eternally separated now is what makes living eternal life while ancestrally positioned each rotation alive and until decomposed after death.

4 dimensions of thing(no-thing, some-thing, any-thing possible, everything specifically here now) in 5 generation gaps alive. 16 great great grandparent generation gap lived so far, 8 great grandparent generation gap lived so far, 4 grandparent generation gap lived since inception of the DNA streaming continuing with 2 parent generation adding each great great grandchild born each rotation so far.

Series parallel existence in plain sight.

 

[Cypress]

the way evolving works ancestrally changing people alive in a body of ever changing shape since arrived a fertilized cell living eternally separated now is what makes living eternal life while ancestrally positioned each rotation alive and until decomposed after death.

4 dimensions of thing(no-thing, some-thing, any-thing possible, everything specifically here now) in 5 generation gaps alive. 16 great great grandparent generation gap lived so far, 8 great grandparent generation gap lived so far, 4 grandparent generation gap lived since inception of the DNA streaming continuing with 2 parent generation adding each great great grandchild born each rotation so far.

Series parallel existence in plain sight.

Close your mouth,
block off your senses,
blunt your sharpness,
untie your knots,
soften your glare,
settle your dust.
This is the primal identity.

 

[serenity]

Close your mouth,
block off your senses,
blunt your sharpness,
untie your knots,
soften your glare,
settle your dust.
This is the primal identity.

you do anything to avoid discussing your actual origin to living forward now and how being alive is witnessing eternal separation of lifetimes occupying space here so far.

Says everything about your character role playing cradle to grave as ancestrally alive daily.

 

[Cypress]

you do anything to avoid discussing your actual origin to living forward now and how being alive is witnessing eternal separation of lifetimes occupying space here so far.
Says everything about your character role playing cradle to grave as ancestrally alive daily.

If you prefer,
I'll be pure raging meat,
or if you prefer,
as the sky changes tone,
I'll be absolutely tender,
not a man, but a cloud in trousers!

 

[Hume]

Organized Religion? Epiphanies? Visions? Apollyon?

You are boring.

 

[serenity]

If you prefer,
I'll be pure raging meat,
or if you prefer,
as the sky changes tone,
I'll be absolutely tender,
not a man, but a cloud in trousers!

Thanks for validating my previous post.

 

[Margot]

You are boring.

Deflection

 

[Daylight63]

Deflection

I sense some posters find themselves in a bad mood from time to time and come on the forum to bash it out on a few people. It's the joy of anonymity. We can be as unpleasant and unfriendly to each other as we like.

We willfully fail to appreciate that others on this forum are real.

 

[serenity]

I sense some posters find themselves in a bad mood from time to time and come on the forum to bash it out on a few people. It's the joy of anonymity. We can be as unpleasant and unfriendly to each other as we like.

We willfully fail to appreciate that others on this forum are real.

This was a wonderful diversion and proper use of reverse psychology on the social stage of New World Order.

 

[EdwinA]

There are no anachronisms in the New Testament, which would be the case if it were written at a later date, and it was composed by extremely literate and intelligent men who knew Jewish theology inside out, not con artists; the latter would never have bothered with the many complexities and compositions and contextual variety of its literary devices. The term 'taking it literally' is misunderstood; it is written on a number of levels and using highly symbolic language , as well as a complex organizational structure across nearly all of the 'books', a vast enterprise; it is not just a collection of isolated verses. There are several good books on it, a sociological study of the times by Joachim Jeremias being one of the most detailed and citing Jewish sources almost exclusively is a very good intro to the both the OT and NT, explaining a lot of things a contemporary reader would find confusing or incomprehensible in the writings and in Jewish culture of the day.

https://archive.org/details/jerusalemintimeo0000joac/page/n7/mode/2up

F.F. Bruce's 'Histories are usually pretty good as well.

New Testament History

This book recounts the Roman and Jewish context of New …

www.goodreads.com

For those who would like a book written for laymen, Darrel Bock's rebuttal of the Gnostic claims of Walther Bauer and Elaine Pagels is also a good read.

The Missing Gospels: Unearthing the Truth Behind Alternative Christianities

Darrell Bock turns his literary guns on the new textual criticism cropping up surrounding early Christianity and it's contemporary ideological competitors. Big-name revisionist historians such as Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrman and Marcus Borg sell thousands of copies of their books by pulling the...

www.christianbook.com

These 'books' were all part of the Jewish oral tradition, so claiming they were 'written' years later is a pointless observation. They were written down years later, not composed years later, as the religion spread beyond the local Jewish cities.