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Historically, the Bible tells us what the Christian church has taught. What do you do when that conflicts with what your church teaches?
Religion is man made and should be taken as such. The Bible is man made and should be taken as such. The writers may have been inspired, but God did not write the Bible.
I see no conflict between the RCC and the Bible. The RCC is the Bible plus the apostolic tradition. And this includes reverence to the blessed virgin and the saints. There is no conflict at all.
The dates are straightforward (though that hasn't stopped one of two arguing that our historical information is wrong or perhaps lacking where is throws doubt on the veracity of the Gospels - e.g the Census of Quirinus and the mention of Theudas by Gamaliel in Acts), but that is missing the point as the the times in which the gospels are set are not necessarily the times when they were written. There is no serious, scholarly debates that the Gospels were written about the life of Christ (01-33AD) ... and were penned during the First Century between 50-75 AD by the specified authors.
In fact there is plenty of evidence that indicates that they were written later and by people who actually had no personal knowledge of the events, history or indeed geography of the times and places they were writing about.
There are always plenty of 'contradictory claims' that seek only to detract from scripture, but, no real evidence ... particularly to your claims - In the NT, only the writers of Hebrews (and perhaps parts of Acts) are seriously debated by scholars and even these are consistent with other scripture
As to the prophecies based on the OT, it can be demonstrated that they ransacked the OT for appropriate quotes which, if they didn't put them into Jesus' mouth, they applied to the events or indeed built up the events around the quotes. The analogy of firing the arrow and painting the target around it afterwards.
Sometimes (as in the prophecies associated with the death of Judas, this required extensive rewriting of the original 'prophecy' to make it fit even then. On other occasions it is remotely related to an event such as the Bethlehem massacre, which itself looks doubtful as accurate history. Once one has seen the trick, the 'prophecies' don't look so astonishing after all.
There are approximately 3500 accurately fulfilled OT prophecies, including about 350 pretty specific Messianic prophecies, all of which were penned long before the actual events. Your suggestion to the contrary implies a 'conspiracy' that involved a hundred different writers, over 2000 years in a wide variety of cultures and geo-political circumstances. Simply put, there is considerable evidence to support the prophetic aspects of scripture, but, only vague 'conspiracy theories' and conjecture to support any contradictory position.
They were written about the life of Christ set around 3- 33 AD and I think you will find quite a few apart from myself who don't regard the gospels (at least in their present form) as being earlier than the later years of the 1st century or even of the early 2nd.
If there is no serious scholarly debate, I aim to start some. I am aware that I have to substantiate my claims. I am aware that they are not mainstream. That is not my fault. The evidence is there and it isn't rocket science.
There are as many inconsistencies within the gospels as there are consistencies. It is examination (as opposed to explaining them away or dismissing them as eyewitness discrepancies or 'not important' or 'not affecting doctrine', as if that was relevant) of these that show that the writers cannot be eyewitness, cannot be reliable and cannot be Jewish. Good grief, they even use the Septuagint for their OT quotes because they can't read Hebrew.
Finally, you adroitly sidestep the point. There are many messianic quotes in the OT and by a handful of writers, rather than a hundred. What they wrote is not part of any 'conspiracy'. Though in fact, on their own account, they used the method of retrospective prophecy, as in the 'prophecies' of Tyre, Babylon and Daniel, which I think can be demonstrated on the internal evidence to date to the post - Alexandrine period.
No, the conspiracy involved only the Gospels, and they had the example of Paul to work on. His 'Romans' is a fine example of presenting an argument and backing it up with irrelevant, mined and cobbled together and often rewritten OT quotes. With such an example to go on, is it any wonder that the Gospel -writers rummage around in the Pentateuch for anything that looks like it might relate to Jesus, and if it doesn't, they write something to which it does. The unhistorical Bethlehem massacre is a touchstone example. John's far -fetched Caiaphas prophecy at 11.51another example where the method is let slip.
You will probably reject this as will most posters here. That doesn't matter. I state it mainly as a reason why I don't buy the 'fulfilled prophecy' claim. Those who are willing to research for themselves will find out soon enough that I'm right.
Dating is indeed difficult, if you want to get it down to exactly the date. There are books and commentaries on the subject. In general, you can just assume that the books were written by the person they are ascribed to and it was written within their lifetime.
They were written about the life of Christ set around 3- 33 AD and I think you will find quite a few apart from myself who don't regard the gospels (at least in their present form) as being earlier than the later years of the 1st century or even of the early 2nd.
If there is no serious scholarly debate, I aim to start some. I am aware that I have to substantiate my claims. I am aware that they are not mainstream. That is not my fault. The evidence is there and it isn't rocket science.
There are as many inconsistencies within the gospels as there are consistencies. It is examination (as opposed to explaining them away or dismissing them as eyewitness discrepancies or 'not important' or 'not affecting doctrine', as if that was relevant) of these that show that the writers cannot be eyewitness, cannot be reliable and cannot be Jewish. Good grief, they even use the Septuagint for their OT quotes because they can't read Hebrew.
Finally, you adroitly sidestep the point. There are many messianic quotes in the OT and by a handful of writers, rather than a hundred. What they wrote is not part of any 'conspiracy'. Though in fact, on their own account, they used the method of retrospective prophecy, as in the 'prophecies' of Tyre, Babylon and Daniel, which I think can be demonstrated on the internal evidence to date to the post - Alexandrine period.
No, the conspiracy involved only the Gospels, and they had the example of Paul to work on. His 'Romans' is a fine example of presenting an argument and backing it up with irrelevant, mined and cobbled together and often rewritten OT quotes. With such an example to go on, is it any wonder that the Gospel -writers rummage around in the Pentateuch for anything that looks like it might relate to Jesus, and if it doesn't, they write something to which it does. The unhistorical Bethlehem massacre is a touchstone example. John's far -fetched Caiaphas prophecy at 11.51another example where the method is let slip.
You will probably reject this as will most posters here. That doesn't matter. I state it mainly as a reason why I don't buy the 'fulfilled prophecy' claim. Those who are willing to research for themselves will find out soon enough that I'm right.
There was a lot of post-prophetic writing in the NT, but it's not as easy to see in the OT. You are quite correct that the Bethlehem slaughter of babes is an unlikely event. Herod the Great was a brutal and vicious man and the Romans and Josephus commented on many of his atrocities. The Caesar once famously quipped, "I would rather be Herod's pig than his son," because Herod didn't even spare his kinfolk. But there is absolutely no recording at all about the infanticide which would have been a big deal even in that bloodthirsty time.
Further, the gospels all show a decided difference in the way they treat John the Baptist. There is no doubt that John made a huge impact on the Jewish people. They were going for miles to be baptized by him in order to become one of his followers. In Mark 1:4 the claim that John baptized for repentance of sins. A strange thing to have a man able to forgive sins even before he met Jesus. Josephus, however, states that John's baptism "was not for the remission of sins, but for the purification of the body," which makes his baptism more like an initiation rite (as many Protestant churches today claim that it is). One needed John's baptism to become part of his sect, a claim that the Corinthians proudly made (Acts 19:1-3). If that were so, then perhaps Jesus had joined John's sect and his forty days in the wilderness (where John lived) was a time of learning from John.
The problem for early Christians was that any acceptance of John's interaction with Jesus puts John, at least in the beginning, as a superior figure. If John's acceptance of baptism was for the forgiveness of sins as Mark claims, then Jesus' acceptance of it indicated a need to be cleansed of his sins by John. If John's baptism were an initiation rite, then Jesus became just another of John's disciples. And that was precisely the claim made by John's followers who long after both men had been executed refused to be absorbed into the Jesus movement, because, they argued, John was greater than Jesus. Who baptized whom?
Early Christian writers could not dismiss John because he was popular, well-respected, and acknowledged as both a priest and a prophet. His fame was too great, so the story needed to be told, but it needed revision to bring Jesus to the forefront. There was a steady regression of John's character from the gospel of Mark, where he is presented as a prophet and mentor to Jesus, to the last gospel in which his sole purpose appears to be to acknowledge Jesus' divinity.
The voice coming from heaven at Jesus' baptism appears not to have been heard by either John or any other of what may have been dozens of other bystanders at Jesus' baptism. John never actually acknowledges that Jesus is the one to whom he is referring when he says one is coming after him, "one whose sandals I am not worthy to untie."
But a couple of decades later, Matthew, writes of the baptism in almost Mark's words, but he makes sure to address a glaring omission in Mark. When Jesus arrives on the banks of the Jordan, John immediately recognizes Him as the "one coming after me." And then Matthew's John at first refuses to baptize Jesus, saying that Jesus is the one who should baptize him.
Luke goes further still, not stating that Jesus was even baptized by John, but making it appear that His baptism occurred after John had been arrested by Herod. There is no agent of baptism in Luke. Further the nativity story of John and Jesus side by side makes Jesus a superior figure. John may have been born to a barren woman, Elizabeth, but that is not nearly as miraculous as the virgin birth of Jesus. This is all an attempt by Luke to convert John's disciples to follow Jesus.
By the fourth gospel, John admits, "I am not the messiah, I have been sent before him----He must increase, as I must decrease (John 3:28-30). Jesus first disciples according to John 1:35-37, were actually two of John's disciples, Andrew and Phillip. John gives his blessing to them and sends them to follow Jesus.
This is but one interesting development that a study of the historical times and textual criticism of the scriptures can give to the believer (or to the non-believer). There will always be some who can see through eyes of faith to God's purpose in the way things came about. There will be others who are seed upon that fall upon ground which, when the tares and weeds of scripture rise up about them, will lose their faith.
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Good points
