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It appeared David was saying you could be anything other than atheist and conceivably believe. I'm doubting that.
As I pointed out in a link earlier, 26% of American non-Christians believe that Jesus was resurrected. Though I doubt that any of those 26% are atheists.
Mmmm.....I'll play the devil's advocate for a moment too. Northstar is right about that one, anyone who accepts the resurrection of Jesus is not a non-Christian. That's what Christianity is based on.
Again, I've already shown it to be false. 26% of American non-Christians believe that Jesus was resurrected.
As I pointed out in a link earlier, 26% of American non-Christians believe that Jesus was resurrected. Though I doubt that any of those 26% are atheists.
What is the source for that statistic? I'd be interested in Biblical scholars names also so I can read their writings.
Nobody today, of course, including the staunchest biblical literalists, can offer-up anything near proof of the physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. I myself, being a liberal Christian, am fairly certain that His resurrection" was, for his followers, of the spiritual and not a the physical type depicted in the Gospels of the new Testament.
Just as Jesus was spiritually "tapped-into" or enmeshed into the Godhead, I think that his followers, after his crucifixion, had a sort of 'epiphany" or "spiritual awakening" of their own that enabled them to finally comprehend the gravity and the fullness of the message he was trying to impart unto them during his ministry.
So, Jesus' Spirit lived-on; not his body.
Having said all that, I feel compelled to add that, personally, there is one argument the "physical resurrection" apologists make that I do find compelling; it's almost enough to make me believe in it. But, alas, not quite. And that argument is: "Why would so many of his followers stubbornly and doggedly continue to preach about Jesus' divinity--especially when in so many instances this lead to their martyrdom and deaths at the hands of the Romans--if he had not indeed been physically resurrected? Would these people risk death for a mere mortal, or a rabbi? Would they suffer horrible ends like stoning and crucification if they new that, in reality Jesus' body had been removed from the tombby a few of his followers in an attempt to fake a physical resurrection?
Would these people give their lives for a ruse?
One would think not. Especially given the doubts and vacillating they often exhibited during his ministry. (Peter's thrice denials in Gesthemene come to mind as an example of this.)
Like I said: food for thought.
Why? Do you think a Christian forger is going to write it in a way that immediately gives it away as being a Christian forgery? Isn't that the idea of a forgery, to make it look something that it isn't? Of course any Christian forger is going to make it look anti-Christian. There wouldn't be much point in forging it otherwise would there? What do you think the dude was going to do, fill it full of Christian propaganda so that the first person that read it would say ...'Hey! Old Taci wasn't a Christian. He wouldn't have written all these good reports about Christians'.
C'mon man ...wake up will you!
Are you serious? By that logic, the Testimonium Flavinium can't be an interpolation, since it's clearly pro-Christian, right?
"...And as Jesus passed forth thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, follow me and he arose, and followed him." (Matthew 9:9)"
If the aBbove had been written by Matthew, why would he refer to himself in the 3rd person?
Because that was how people wrote when referring to themselves within a historical record. Julius Caesar and Josephus also referred to themselves in the third person within their histories.
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[/font]The Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts are assumed to have been written by the same person, since they are addressed to the same individual, a Roman named Theophilus. Now let's look here....
...and we will see that the 'Theopholus' that Luke is addressing lived in the 4th century. Could you explain, how could the writer who is addressing letters to Theophilus in the 4th century be the same Luke who is supposed to be with Jesus in the 1st century?
Where in that article does it suggest that this was the same Theophilus that Luke addressed the Gospel to? Am I missing something? Sorry, but pointing out that someone by the same named lived 3 centuries later doesn't mean that this was the individual the Gospel was addressed to. Josephus mentions a rabbi named Theophilus ben Ananus in the first century, who might have been the addressee. Or, more likely, it was someone else named Theophilus who we don't know anything else about.
Also, Papyrus 45, which dates to about 250 AD, has large chunks of both Luke and Acts in it, which makes it clear that they were written prior to the 4th century. It contains Luke chapter 6-14, except for chapter 8. It also contains Acts 4-17. Thus proving that neither Luke nor Acts were written in the 4th century, unless time travel was somehow involved.
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John 5:7 is universally recognized as being a later "insertion" of the Catholic church and does not exist in any manuscript before the 15th century.
Agreed. I'm only saying that the bulk of it was likely written by John. I agree that some parts were clearly later additions.
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The book of revelation and the Gospel of John are written in 2 different styles with completely different language. It is quite obvious they were not written by the same person.
Also agreed. Revelation was written by someone else, but that still doesn't suggest that John didn't write his Gospel.
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The gospel of Mark, as has already been mentioned, originally ended at Mark 16:8. Mark 169-20 were added at a later date.
Agreed. What we know of as Mark 16:9+ was another author.
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and yet you KingDavid want to rely on these documents as 'evidence'?
I'll gladly question those passages that were not part of the original text, but the 99%+ that it leaves are still very good evidence for the events they describe. showing that a handful of passages are questionable doesn't make the non-questionable passages somehow questionable.
I'd be interested in Biblical scholars names also so I can read their writings.
Here's a wikipedia page listing Biblical scholars. It doesn't seem to separate Christians from non-Christians, but if you go through the list, you'll see that many them are Christians.
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