inconsistent Creationists

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and you dont see any of that in yourself?





time and again people have proven that no god is needed for the universe to function as we know it, there is plenty of uncertainty, granted, but even more arguments as to how everything functions without divine intervention.

a modern god would be limited to being either a first mover without imtervention or a first mover with limited scope that intervenes, both are radically different from the all mighty all knowing all perfect skydaddy.
furthermore when a tv show on a regular basis can provide better and more nuanced moral instruction it really does highlight just how ridicoulous it is for humans to believe that anything that is 2000 years old is a complete picture of anything.

Additionally, you can't make the claim that the Bible is a wholly historical document. Certainly some parts of it record a version of history, yes - but so did the Prose and Poetic Eddas. All are works of myth shot through with historical events, which is why the Bible isn't trusted as a primary source. It's certainly used as a source, but the events within it are not considered solid by the historic community until they're backed up by other sources and archeological findings - you know, just like any other document.

Or unless supporting documents were destroyed over time. Remember, Jerusalem, including the palace and temple were destroyed during the Chaldean invasion. Both the books of Kings and Chronicles actually do cite external sources. It could be that those histories that became Kings and Chronicles were the only ones that were preserved. And if the original sources got moved to the archives of the invading nations, it could be that the nations that followed THEM lost their records. The ancient world wasn't all that concerned with archival and preservation. Just because we don't have those records don't mean they never existed.

And maybe they DO exist somewhere and we just haven't found them yet. There's plenty of history left to dig up.

And? The possibility of such records existing doesn't make the Bible more credible. When those records are found and they support the version of events recorded in the Bible, THEN it becomes more credible. You can't sustain a position with no evidence, even if it is a possibility.

Now I haven't studied history for a while, but wouldn't the Gospels be a secondary source? They aren't written by eyewitnesses, or even written at the time, they were written decades after Jesus' death.

Credible according to whom? Disbelieving something out of existence is wishful thinking.

Matthew and John were eyewitnesses. Luke was a companion of Paul. Mark MIGHT have been John Mark. There's hint in Mark's gospel of that, but more likely (in my opinion) he was a disciple of Peter--who actually was an eyewitness and the gospel could have been a series of transcriptions of Peter's teachings. Just because someone says something and a scribe writes it down doesn't make it a secondary source.

Luke is more of a stylized biography of Jesus' life apparently collected from various eyewitness sources. When I was younger, I found it really boring, but I've learned to appreciate it more as I've read more of the Bible. It doesn't really overblow the life of Jesus--meaning Jesus isn't represented as some Herculean character, but generally follows positive assessment of Jesus' life and teachings consistent with ancient Greek biographies. It also has a distinctive Semitic flavor, which helps can make it entertaining at times (if you pick up on it). It's my fave of the Synoptic gospels, but I never get tired of reading John.

John is less biographical, though, and focuses more on theology. It is distinctively different from the others. It certainly counts as a primary source.

Well...depends on what you mean by primary/secondary... Jesus never wrote a book Himself that we're aware of. I think the point of that is that Jesus was more concerned about what people had to say about Him rather than dictating to people what they ought to believe and do. He always leaves it up to us to decide to believe Him or not. A text that He wrote Himself would be somewhat contrary to His character. The ascended Jesus did dictate some stuff, but this was apart from His earthly ministry. If you take the work that the disciples did as a primary source, then, sure. They are a primary source in that they witnessed what Jesus did and taught. But it just depends on what sense you mean "primary/secondary" source. Being a secondary source doesn't make something untrue.

Well, I've done some reading on authorship.

Matthew, it seems, is widely, but not universally, accepted to be written by St Matthew.

John claims to be written by an Apostle, though the majority of Biblical scholars believe it to be written between 90AD and 100AD by some followers of John.

Mark may have been witness to some events, he may have known several of the Apostles. It was authored no earlier than 70AD, apparently.

Luke may have been one of The Seventy, and traditionally he is seen as one of Paul's disciples. I read that the majority view is that the authorship is unknown and is unlikely to be someone who followed Paul, as the Gospel contradicts Paul and emphasises different points.

This great! Keep at it!

No. A secondary source would be an article or a book by a modern scholar. A primary source is one taken from the period, roughly. The fact that they were written so late after the events is why one should be especially careful about them. That's where source criticism comes handy.

A chronicle written in the 9th century and describing events in the 6th, for example, is still a primary source, just an untrustworthy one. Unless there is a reason to believe it was based on an earlier but now extinct source, this chronicle's description of the 6th century shows... the perception of the past of the 9th century, not the events of the 6th. In the case of the Gospels, they can be used to show what early Christians of the late 1st/early 2nd centuries remembered of the early 1st. At least, it remains within living memory for the most part, kind of, but this memory had certainly been highly reconstructed by then.

To give an example, the chronicles which tell us about the First Crusade, all written after the conquest of Jerusalem (1099), are often read with suspicion when they tell us of its original goals, since they knew how it concluded. A chronicle like that of William of Tyre, written around 1070-1080, is read with a double dose of suspicion because it was so late, and thus has little direct knowledge; yet some information can be drawn from it (I vaguely remember that it was based on a now lost source).

Last edited by enrico_dandolo on 10 Aug 2012, 11:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

That's kinda what I thought.

With the gospels, though, you have a source written within two or three decades of the events, and that is pretty uncommon from what I understand about ancient sources. All the gospels from what we can tell were not only written soon after the events they described, but they were rapidly copied and distributed among the major 1st century churches. We know this because the earliest SURVIVING manuscripts of different books date to the early 100s, and you have bound collections of them not long after that. And that's not to mention the copying accuracy among all the different manuscripts.

And then there's Qumran...

I think maybe the Greek NT is probably a better attested source that some would like to admit!

i think you misunderstood something,

he wasnt increasing the reliability of the source, he shined light on a distinction between primary and secondary sources.

the reliability of any one of those is disconnected from the distinction between primary and secondary.

no historical document will be worth much on its own, even with multiple sources one has to account for the culture and enviroment it was written in.

Actually, Matthew and Mark are anonymous, but there are clues in the text that support their authorship. When Levi (Matthew) joins the team, it's almost like the tone of the gospel changes. That's the impression I get, anyway, but it's, like, "ok, this is what they told me, and not THIS is what I actually witnessed." Matthew and Luke are interesting to compare.

Luke's writing takes two parts, though. The Acts of the Apostles is like the sequel to Luke's gospel.

I dunno, Paul's letters are pretty consistent with the gospels, and emphasizing different points doesn't really put them in contradiction to each other. Even if it did, it just shows Luke is objective and can resist coloring his presentation of the evidence of the gospel with the influence of someone who doesn't have the purest of motives. If a news reporter or police investigator is taking a statement, they are just reporting the facts. He said,"X." She said, "Y." Luke doesn't really seem to have an opinion other than that he is doing his best to record an accurate recollection of the events of Jesus' life and the founding of the Christian church. IF there really are contradictions, and I don't believe that there really are, then it just shows the writer of Luke/Acts is merely maintaining integrity.

The thing about Paul that appears contradictory is, like you said, different emphases. Jesus' teachings were directed at the Jews. Paul's teachings were directed at the Greeks and other Gentiles. Given the cultural conflicts between the Greeks and Hellenistic Jews, there were two dangers early Christians faced: Misunderstanding the appropriate role ancient law had for Christians (do you have to be a Jew first or not?), and how Jesus' teachings applied to a different culture. Part of Paul's mission in spreading the gospel involved addressing issues that were unique to various groups of Gentiles.

Er, I am aware of that, which was why I wrote that first sentence in my response.


Well, of course, if you intend to extrapolate the intended meaning of the text for as close to an accurate interpretation of it. And that's the thing about the Bible. You're trying to take the entire bound volume as a single source document, and it isn't. All four gospels differ in perspective and in purpose. Where one might be vague, another clarifies. Where information is missing in one, it is continued in another. The 3 Synoptics are rich in information about what Jesus did and said; John is written as if he assumes you know all of this already and goes deeper into what Jesus taught about theology. Probably every evangelical Christian who has spent any time at all in church can quote the KJV John 3:16. Or if you have a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses in your area, John 1:1 is a good one to have handy--it's just a good one to know anyway: "In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." I'd tell any new convert wanting to dive into the Bible that John is probably the best place to start. The epistles of Peter and John are pretty light reading, but I'd read Paul's later writings before getting into the earlier stuff. For some odd reason, the preacher I grew up listening to went verse-by-verse out of James every year it seemed like, so I grin and bear it because of long-standing negative associations. It's still good stuff, though.

But, I mean, the point is the NT is not "A" historical document but a collection of them. The environment and culture doesn't really seem to adversely affect them although, obviously, it affects the language and style of the writings. That doesn't make it untrue, though.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMUDXO4xkW8[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK3O6KYPmEw&feature=related[/youtube]

in essence you have to look sentence by sentence in relation to other historical documents and evidence which means that no amount of historical corroboration will lend credence to the book or passages themselves, only the singular fact you have examined.
point being that it still doesnt hold very well as anty form of argument or evidence.