real life wrote:timberlandko wrote:real life wrote:timberlandko wrote:An actual fact, for those keeping track, is that there exists no external-to-scripture evidence "He" said or did anything, no evidence "He", as portrayed in scripture, ever existed.
Since this tired old objection keeps showing up, I guess I'll continue to point out that when the books of Matthew , Mark, Luke and John were written , they were not 'books of the Bible'. They were 'external-to-scripture'.
Simply because these seperate books are all now commonly printed and bound in one volume for ease of reference, this somehow makes them invalid ? Ridiculous.
And what of the various 'gospels' that are not part of the Bible? Are they not 'external-to-scripture' ? They do indicate that Jesus lived, don't they?
Yer chasin' yer tail, Timber. But keep spinnin' yer circles. It's entertaining.
Just don't know when you're beat, do you? No historigraphic argument for the putative Jesus is supported by any independent-of-scripture evidence, period....
I just cited several.
No you didn't; claiming to provide validation of scripture, you quoted from scripture. That's particularly disingenuous circular argument ... absurdity dificult, if possible at all, to distinguish from ignorance, to the point bordering on, perhaps even entering the realm of, patent stupidity.
Quote:The 4 gospels when they were written were not 'books of the Bible'. (Neither were the NT epistles, Acts or Revelation for that matter).
The various extra-canonical 'gospels' are 'independent-of-scripture'.
Can't handle either of these?
All books of the Bible are scripture by definition. However, not all scripture has been canonized into the Bible, and some scripture is to be found in some Bible canons and not others. Neither the Bible, in whatever canon, version, or translation, nor extra-Biblical scripture, in whatever form, proves anything other than that it has come to be regarded scripture, some of it accepted into some one or another canon. Quoting scripture, whatever its status, whatever its origin, is merely quoting scripture.
Quote:timber's argument:
No document which was written to tell of Jesus' life can actually be used to show that Jesus lived! It wouldn't be fair!
No, that is not the argument, that is a straw man. The argument is that the Jesus narrative is unevidenced in any contemporary documentation independent of the Jesus narrative as it exists in scripture.
Quote:Why.... you Christians are arguing in a circle![/b]
Of course you are. You have to. Its all you've got.
Quote:(How about if we add the writings of the early Church Fathers? They are 'independent-of-scripture' as well.)
No, grasshopper, the writings of the early Church Fathers are not independent of scripture, they derive directly from, are wholly dependent upon, and claim authority through scripture.
Quote:As I've mentioned before, it is very odd that the Jews, who would have more to gain by disproving the existence of Jesus than any other group, have seldom if ever made the argument that Christianity is invalid because Christ never lived.
Their culture was in close proximity to the early Christian believers (who were often considered little more than a Jewish sect, and whose members attended synagogues throughout the known world) and should have made this line of argument #1, if it could be substantiated.
Jewish scholarship has not taken this approach however. Wonder why?
Mostly because whether or not there was a Jesus, it has squat to do with Judaism as it is practiced, as the Jews do not acknowledge that a messiah has come. Its a non-issue. Well, except, perhaps, for decidedly disparaging passages to be found in the Talmud, which some Christian apologists are wont to take out of context then scrub clean of reference and massage liberally to smooth out the wrinkles inconsistent with the notion they might have something to do with the Jesus of Christian myth.
