was the "new testament" actually finished around 400 AD?

[Cerpin Taxt]

Having the "fact" of general consensus is not "fact" that the consensus is true.

And my next door neighbor has three rabbits. What does either statement have to do with this thread?

Just admit, you don't want to believe, so you're gonna hold on to any straw you can.

What in the actual fuck are you talking about?

 

[Tweak155]

And then I explained that it apples to all persons because it is a question basic epistemology, and you ran away.

I wish I ran away.

Now you're here again making the same wrongheaded claims I already refuted. What's that saying about someone who does the same thing over and over expecting different results?

What exactly are you refuting? I get the impression we're not on the same page. Rather than accuse one another of not following replies, perhaps it is best to clearly state it.

Marvelous. Now, what difference does that make? Have I ever accused you of doing either?

Not directly.

What would you know about my replies? You clearly haven't read them.

Unfortunately I have. If I didn't feel like upping my post count, I'd quit.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

What exactly are you refuting?

Your allegation that I've characterized people as unreasonable for the simple fact that they've disagreed with me. It's patently untrue.

I get the impression we're not on the same page. Rather than accuse one another of not following replies, perhaps it is best to clearly state it.

It is unreasonable to believe that the miracle of virgin birth occurred as alleged in the manuscripts of the Bible. It is unreasonable because once a person admits miraculous effects he surrenders the legitimacy of his inferences. I already said exactly this, and you utterly failed to acknowledge its significance.

The connections between a person's brain and external reality depend on a chain of natural interactions to deliver him reliable sensory data. A person implicitly assumes the absence of the miraculous effects of intermeddling supernatural beings literally billions of times all day, every day -- when he believes that his senses report reality accurately, he is assuming that this connection is free from magical interference. When you believe that your car keys will remain where you left them, and no magical demons or djinni will spirit them away to an hidden dimension, you are making this same assumption.

It is unreasonable, therefore, to make any exception to this pattern, because that exception cannot be based upon any a posteriori fact, and it cannot present any fact which could be reliably inferred. Instead, persons making exceptions to that pattern do so a priori and completely arbitrarily, and that makes the beliefs that they engender arbitrary as a result.

 

[OverVolt]

This must be one of the most odd arguments I've ever heard. "Christians fund a lot of schools, therefore they must be really smart." FYI I learned to be an atheist at moderately prestigious Christian school.

Thats why its ironic had you been at a public school you'd never have been so smart to begin with depending on where you lived. People mix up the evangelicals, TV pastors, and rural south edumacation meetings about intelligent design with the real deal. Most of the crap atheists say doesn't nearly reflect what I experienced personally wrt to religion, school, church, etc. You were taught evolution in biology correct?

Alot of what I was taught DOES clash with modern society, I get that. So complain about that instead of saying religious people are retarded.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Thats why its ironic had you been at a public school you'd never have been so smart to begin with depending on where you lived.

You appear to be confused. Does it depend on whether or not it was a "public" school or depend on where I lived? Upon what bases would you make either contention?

People mix up the evangelicals, TV pastors, and rural south edumacation meetings about intelligent design with the real deal. Most of the crap atheists say doesn't nearly reflect what I experienced personally wrt to religion, school, church, etc. You were taught evolution in biology correct?

Yes, and I also learned what the No True Scotsman fallacy was.

Alot of what I was taught DOES clash with modern society, I get that. So complain about that instead of saying religious people are retarded.

Um... what?

 

[OverVolt]

Public vs private school is a completely different term depending where you are from, such as if you were from the UK. I don't really know anything about you, thats fine. I'm assuming you are from the US. Locally, none of the public schools have any religious affiliation at all where as almost all of the private schools do, so I just assumed you went to private school.

Schools are of varying quality depending on where you live. Generally speaking most city schools are quite bad and have surrounding private schools which are much better, and out in the rural areas the schools can be good, but in the smaller towns the schools can be rather backward, especially in the South. This applies for about a 500 mi radius from where I live I'm fairly confident it works like this in most places in the US.

I don't get how just saying "I learned the No True Scotsman fallacy" proves the point wrong. I went to a religious school and learned evolution, if you did go to one, then you probably learned only evolution as well. Alot of these grievances against "religion" that atheists have are actually what I consider fringe elements of religion like the Westboro Baptist Church.

So I guess to ultra-clarify I went to catholic school which is a little different than say Baptist Christians. I don't know why its fair for atheists to take Westboro's crazy ideas and apply it to all religion.

The WBC has 40 members and Roman Catholics 1.2 Billion so its not exactly the no true Scotsman fallacy. Baptists are mostly in the South and there's 33 million of those, and they are more the intelligent design nonsense type but I don't know that much about Baptists.

Alot of what I was taught DOES clash with modern society, I get that. So complain about that instead of saying religious people are retarded.

So to clarify I mean on their outdated stances wrt birth control, abstinence, sex that type of thing.

 

[Tweak155]

Your allegation that I've characterized people as unreasonable for the simple fact that they've disagreed with me. It's patently untrue.

Ah, there we are. Yes that was merely a jab, nothing near me trying to make an actual observation or state a fact. Possibly highlights why insults are useless, which is really what I dislike.

It is unreasonable to believe that the miracle of virgin birth occurred as alleged in the manuscripts of the Bible. It is unreasonable because once a person admits miraculous effects he surrenders the legitimacy of his inferences. I already said exactly this, and you utterly failed to acknowledge its significance.

Its significance is irrelevant due to the fact an unreasonable person may or may not make a reasonable claim. I would argue you're very unreasonable due to replying to obviously staunch theists, argue with insults that have nothing to do with the point, and continue to do so without letup. I don't therefor ignore the rest of your statements that may or may not have validity, or blanket the rest of your statements as unreasonable to suit my attitude / goal.

Ultimately what is significant is whether or not something is true, not whether or not the person who stated something is right or wrong, or whether the person is reasonable or unreasonable.

 

[AViking]

You give the impression that the tales were told and retold implying a great potential for error and embellishment. Please know that John was written by John, the disciple of Jesus. Mark was written by Mark the interpreter for Peter, the disciple. Luke was written by Luke the physician and disciple of Paul. These books reflect first-hand accounts of the events surrounding Jesus's life as written or "dictated" by eyewitnesses within 40-60 years of his crucifixion.

Stopping you right there even with the first example scholars do not believe it was written by "John". They think it was written by multiple people.

The Gospel of John doesn't even identify itself as being written by John.

It was written long after Jesus's death and has clearly been edited. John is generally considered to have been written in 90-100 AD which is 57-67 years after Jesus died.

Of course the Church does claim John outlived all the other apostles and lived until 100 AD so you'll claim he still wrote it and I have wasted my time.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Stopping you right there even with the first example scholars do not believe it was written by "John". They think it was written by multiple people.

The Gospel of John doesn't even identify itself as being written by John.

It was written long after Jesus's death and has clearly been edited. John is generally considered to have been written in 90-100 AD which is 57-67 years after Jesus died.

Of course the Church does claim John outlived all the other apostles and lived until 100 AD so you'll claim he still wrote it and I have wasted my time.

The Gospel of John does indeed identify itself as being written by John ("the disciple whom Jesus loved"). There's legitimate debate regarding authorship; however, surely you know that many, many scholars believe it was written by John.

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/did-john-write-his-gospel

Facts Support Tradition

The facts are these: The Tradition of the Church, supported by the unbroken line of patristic testimony, as well as internal evidence from the text itself, is that the Gospel is rooted in the testimony of the apostle John, son of Zebedee. Numerous other witnesses in the second and third centuries corroborate St. Irenaeus’s testimony. In addition, various elements within the Gospel strongly suggest John as the author. Most obviously, there is the attestation of the witnesses penning the Gospel that it is the testimony of "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 21:20)—a disciple to whom no one but John corresponds. The source of the Gospel is, quite clearly, a Jew familiar with the conditions of Palestinian Judaism at the time of Christ. He speaks Aramaic and Greek. He knows Jerusalem as it looked before Rome reduced it to rubble in A.D. 70. And he gives countless details which, if they are not the testimony of a first-hand eyewitness who was present at the Last Supper, are a singular occurrence of novelistic realism 19 centuries ahead of its time. That he was part of Christ’s "inner circle" of Peter, James, and John (cf. Gal. 2:9) is even more likely given that he was the disciple at the Last Supper who laid his head on Christ’s breast. He can’t be Peter, who is distinguished from him in the text, and he can’t be James (who died in the early 40s). So it all points to John. Additionally, the patristic tradition that the Gospel was composed in Ephesus also points to John. First, this is the city associated with the Assumption of the Virgin who was commended into his care. Second, the Gospel repeatedly answers a sect devoted to John the Baptist with the reply that John "was not the light" but had only come to "bear witness to the light" (John 1:8). We know from Acts 18:24 and 19:1-7 that there was such a sect centered in Ephesus. Finally, the sophistication of the Gospel fits the fact that the New Testament epistle with the most sophisticated exposition of theology is Ephesians.

So all the evidence points to the accuracy of the Church’s tradition that John published his Gospel in Ephesus in the second half of the first century.

 

[AViking]

It doesn't identify John. If I recall correctly "John" was identified in another text but not the Gospel. You did quote it correctly though. That is how the author was described. Jesus only loved John? That doesn't make any sense. What am I missing in that narrative?

I also don't think it's honest to use the Catholic Church as your source.

The writing style changes in the gospel if I remember correctly so they think it was written by several people or simply redacted.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

It doesn't identify John. If I recall correctly "John" was identified in another text but not the Gospel. You did quote it correctly though. That is how the author was described. Jesus only loved John? That doesn't make any sense. What am I missing in that narrative?

I also don't think it's honest to use the Catholic Church as your source.

The writing style changes in the gospel if I remember correctly so they think it was written by several people or simply redacted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciple_whom_Jesus_loved

Disciple whom Jesus loved

The phrase the disciple whom Jesus loved (Greek: ὁ μαθητὴς ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς, ho mathētēs hon ēgapā ho Iēsous) or, in John 20:2, the Beloved Disciple (Greek: ὃν ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς, hon ephilei ho Iēsous) is used five times in the Gospel of John,[1] but in no other New Testament accounts of Jesus. John 21:24 claims that the Gospel of John is based on the written testimony of the "Beloved Disciple".

Since the end of the 1st century, the Beloved Disciple has been considered to be John the Evangelist.[2] Scholars have debated the authorship of the Johannine works (the Gospel of John, First, Second, and Third epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation) since at least the 3rd century, but especially since the Enlightenment. Some modern scholars now believe that he wrote none of them.[3] Opinions continue to be divided, however, and other renowned theological scholars continue to accept the traditional authorship. Colin G Kruse states that since John the Evangelist has been named consistently in the writings of early church fathers, "it is hard to pass by this conclusion, despite widespread reluctance to accept it by many, but by no means all, modern scholars."[4] Thus, the true identity of the author of the Gospel of John remains a subject of considerable debate.

 

[AViking]

Yeah but you understand what I'm saying right? Isn't it really weird that it's written by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" as if Jesus didn't love everyone?

 

[child of wonder]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciple_whom_Jesus_loved

Disciple whom Jesus loved

The phrase the disciple whom Jesus loved (Greek: ὁ μαθητὴς ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς, ho mathētēs hon ēgapā ho Iēsous) or, in John 20:2, the Beloved Disciple (Greek: ὃν ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς, hon ephilei ho Iēsous) is used five times in the Gospel of John,[1] but in no other New Testament accounts of Jesus. John 21:24 claims that the Gospel of John is based on the written testimony of the "Beloved Disciple".

Since the end of the 1st century, the Beloved Disciple has been considered to be John the Evangelist.[2] Scholars have debated the authorship of the Johannine works (the Gospel of John, First, Second, and Third epistles of John, and the Book of Revelation) since at least the 3rd century, but especially since the Enlightenment. Some modern scholars now believe that he wrote none of them.[3] Opinions continue to be divided, however, and other renowned theological scholars continue to accept the traditional authorship. Colin G Kruse states that since John the Evangelist has been named consistently in the writings of early church fathers, "it is hard to pass by this conclusion, despite widespread reluctance to accept it by many, but by no means all, modern scholars."[4] Thus, the true identity of the author of the Gospel of John remains a subject of considerable debate.

So the book of John itself says it is written by "the beloved disciple" and after the Gospel of John was written people began considering John to be "the beloved disciple," therefore the Gospel of John was written by John?

This is called circular logic.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Its significance is irrelevant due to the fact an unreasonable person may or may not make a reasonable claim.

Total nonsense. I don't care if a person can make a reasonable claim about busses or cars or television programs. If he begins to make claims about supernatural miracles, he has sacrificed the legitimacy of he inferences like I just explained. Are you sure you even understand my argument? That is not an insult but a legitimate question, because this rebuttal of yours is so widely off the mark that it gives me the impression that you don't.

I would argue you're very unreasonable due to replying to obviously staunch theists, argue with insults that have nothing to do with the point, and continue to do so without letup. I don't therefor ignore the rest of your statements that may or may not have validity, or blanket the rest of your statements as unreasonable to suit my attitude / goal.

This has nothing to do with a particular person. This isn't an issue about general credibility. This is an issue of epistemology like I've already said before.

Ultimately what is significant is whether or not something is true...

But as I've already explained a person making claims about supernatural miracles cannot say whether or not something is true. He can't tell the difference between water actually turning to wine or photons magically changing their frequencies on the way to his eyeballs or his memory being magically altered after the fact. If he chooses to believe the first or the second or the third, he is doing so arbitrarily because he cannot rule out the other conceivable scenarios that can also account for his sensory input.

...not whether or not the person who stated something is right or wrong, or whether the person is reasonable or unreasonable.

My argument has clearly gone over your head.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

So the book of John itself says it is written by "the beloved disciple" and after the Gospel of John was written people began considering John to be "the beloved disciple," therefore the Gospel of John was written by John?

This is called circular logic.

Moby-Dick was clearly authored by a guy named Ishmael, not this silly Herman Melville guy. It says so right in the first chapter.

 

[Retro Rob]

Yeah but you understand what I'm saying right? Isn't it really weird that it's written by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" as if Jesus didn't love everyone?

This is a red-herring. It is not saying Jesus only loved John.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

So the book of John itself says it is written by "the beloved disciple" and after the Gospel of John was written people began considering John to be "the beloved disciple," therefore the Gospel of John was written by John?

This is called circular logic.

Then that must mean there's a lot of really stupid scholars out there who think otherwise. 🙄

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Then that must mean there's a lot of really stupid scholars out there who think otherwise. 🙄

Well, yes. Those are the Christians who want to hold on to tradition. The majority of scholars do not believe that John authored the gospel.

I thought we already covered that. Maybe your memory is failing.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

This is a red-herring. It is not saying Jesus only loved John.

So then wouldn't Bartholomew also be the disciple Jesus loved?

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Yeah but you understand what I'm saying right? Isn't it really weird that it's written by "the disciple whom Jesus loved" as if Jesus didn't love everyone?

That's certainly one way to look at it...but I believe there is deeper context here. If you recall, Jesus specifically asked John to look after his mother just before he died on the cross. This highly suggests a special relationship.

 

[Retro Rob]

So then wouldn't Bartholomew also be the disciple Jesus loved?

"No one has greater love than this....than to give his soul in behalf of his friends.." John 15:13.

He loved them all.

 

[AViking]

Interesting yet still odd.

All 4 gospels were written anonymously. It really isn't until after the fact that they are attributed to people by the early church.

Yet when scholars look at them today they see multiple authors and redaction. What boggles my mind is why can the super religious not be fine with this? When we write books today we have editors and they go through several drafts. Yet with the Bible it is divine and the word of god. Regardless of how absurd it is it's still divine and the word of god.

Most believe that there was another source. A q gospel. Makes sense considering that you can see plagiarism in 2 of the gospels. These books that you are reading today are not the word of god.

You're free to have faith. Especially if you can pull great value from the books. However your belief in divinity in the bible is really no different that worshiping the word of Harry Potter.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

Interesting yet still odd.

All 4 gospels were written anonymously. It really isn't until after the fact that they are attributed to people by the early church.

Yet when scholars look at them today they see multiple authors and redaction. What boggles my mind is why can the super religious not be fine with this? When we write books today we have editors and they go through several drafts. Yet with the Bible it is divine and the word of god. Regardless of how absurd it is it's still divine and the word of god.

Most believe that there was another source. A q gospel. Makes sense considering that you can see plagiarism in 2 of the gospels. These books that you are reading today are not the word of god.

You're free to have faith. Especially if you can pull great value from the books. However your belief in divinity in the bible is really no different that worshiping the word of Harry Potter.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. We (as well as the experts) can quibble all day long about authorship of various books of the bible. But, so what if John was written by another disciple, or close followers of John's teachings, or Lazarus for that matter. These books were obviously written during a period within 60 years of the crucifixion. They describe a remarkable human being who's teachings they sought to preserve for posterity. Yes, there was likely a Q document that Matthew and Luke used to document the teachings of Jesus. But what does that imply? Nothing in my opinion except that it reinforces the likelihood that many, many attempts were made during that period to document the life of Jesus by many, many people. What boggles my mind is why the non-religious are not be fine with this and why they feel compelled to attack every minute aspect regarding the origins of Christianity as if this holds great value to them?

I think it's pretty obvious to anyone with 2 brain cells to rub together that Jesus actually existed and he made a profound impact on the world which still reverberates to this day. You're free to believe anything you want regarding this man, but I think you're being intellectually dishonest to marginalize him and his teachings by comparing such to a Harry Potter book.

 

[child of wonder]

Then that must mean there's a lot of really stupid scholars out there who think otherwise. 🙄

That's what your link says. Are there other reasons why we should believe the Gospel of John was written by or taken from 1st hand testimony of John that don't commit the same logical fallacy?

Scholars can be biased, too, you know, especially when it comes to proving preconceived notions about their own personal lord and savior.

 

[Retro Rob]

You're certainly entitled to your opinion. We (as well as the experts) can quibble all day long about authorship of various books of the bible. But, so what if John was written by another disciple, or close followers of John's teachings, or Lazarus for that matter. These books were obviously written during a period within 60 years of the crucifixion. They describe a remarkable human being who's teachings they sought to preserve for posterity. Yes, there was likely a Q document that Matthew and Luke used to document the teachings of Jesus. But what does that imply? Nothing in my opinion except that it reinforces the likelihood that many, many attempts were made during that period to document the life of Jesus by many, many people.

I would respectfully disagree, vehemently. It means a lot because to accept the "Q" (source) document, we'd have to admit that the Gospel writers were plagiarists and myth-makers at the least and at the most, they didn't really exist.

If John is attributed as being the writer of his Gospel, but it was actually Lazarus or some unknown author, then that means that the basis of Christian faith (and the life and ministry of Jesus) is a lie, fabrication, idealistic account, falsehood.

Imagine someone pretending to be you wrote a letter to your mother supposedly conveying your thoughts and actions, but to her dismay, you weren't the author of it. How would she feel? Would she have reason to believe ANYTHING in that letter?

It does matter who wrote what, because if our faith is based on a lie, then what do we have faith in?