Question to Christians about Jesus's family

Matt8townsend wrote:

Obviosuly you guys are believers and I have no doubt you believe in the inherent 'goodness' or whatever or the Christian message - you therefore quite nobly wish others to come around to your way of thinking. But you can't expect to convince an atheist (or rationalist) by citing biblical scripture as so called evidence.

Then we are at an impasse then. I'll admit I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination but how much written information do we have about that time period, and would much information be written about those small occurrences? I have no idea. It's not like today's day and age (I'm not saying you think this way) where information is so readily available and accessible and it is repeated by hundreds of news sources; I imagine the amount of written documentation from that time period pales in comparison to the amount of archiving we have today. And if you choose to not accept one of the handful of historical texts (which has internal and external validation) then that's fine, but it is evidence. Have a good one.

Matt8townsend wrote:

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE THAT JESUS WAS SUPERNATURAL AND COULD RETURN FROM THE DEAD. I know some disciples say they saw his resurrected self whilst they were fishing but again that really isn't genuine evidence in the scientific sense is it. .

Outisde of the Bible I agree with what you say. And I guess that's also why they call it faith. I BELIEVE that the Bible is true and to ME it is evidence Jesus was supernatural. I believe Jesus and God exist in the same way that you believe, as a self admitted atheist, that they don't exist (or at least Jesus isn't God since God doesn't exist). Neither of us knows 100%, but we both believe that one option is true.

i do like the wesley snipes quote.

chopitdown wrote:

Outisde of the Bible I agree with what you say. And I guess that's also why they call it faith. I BELIEVE that the Bible is true and to ME it is evidence Jesus was supernatural. I believe Jesus and God exist in the same way that you believe, as a self admitted atheist, that they don't exist (or at least Jesus isn't God since God doesn't exist). Neither of us knows 100%, but we both believe that one option is true.

i do like the wesley snipes quote.

I take your point but I assume (I prefer that to 'believe' - but that's just me being a bit anal over my choice of words) God dosn't exist because there's no evidence at all that he does (other than the Bible but there's no point rehashing the debate over the validity of that as a historical document). You are right I cannot know 100% - from my point of view that's because you cannot prove a negative (we'd have never gone to war with Iraq on the justification of non-existent WMD if you could).

You can't prove that fairies and unicorns or any creature of the imagination categorically dosn't exist either, but most of us don't take them very seriously. Religion we do because it is supported and cemented by powerful institutions and centuries of cultural ingrained dogma - but to me it's no more valid.

Cheers for jousting with me though (and I'm glad you like my Snipes quote).

miller8966 wrote:

Nothing is valid...science changes all the time. Whats right today is wrong tommorow

Science doesn't change all the time. Science progresses, though.

You seem to be one of those people who thinks science is the opposite of religion. It's not.

Matt8townsend wrote:

So Matthew and Luke's gospels contradict each other. In their desperate attempt to conform to the Messianic prophecy one fabrocates a lineage on his virgin mother's side and the other seeks a 'bloodline' to David through a guy who aint his Dad anyway.

Then again we all descend from Adam Eve (or a common progenitor if you prefer Darwin to Genesis) so in some we all descend from the same ancestors anyway. Hey presto the question of his descent from the house of David was a mute point all along.

how you get that the two books contradict each other i don't know.

cornnifer wrote:

i'm going to disagree. Obviously, there IS some point to debating the Validity of the Bible as an historical document. But first off. let me be up front by saying that, contrary to an earlier post of yours, i don't care if you believe as i do. i could care less whether you share my Christian faith or not. i'm not in the business of converting you and i certainly have not chosen this message forum as my personal mission field. that being said, the scholarly (even in secular circles) dating of the gospels places Mark at about 70 A.D. ( which is really not all that late). Now, the NT book of Acts ends with its central character Paul still alive and under some kind of arrest in Rome. This means Acts was probably written sometime before Paul was put to death which means it had to have been written no later that A.D 62. Luke wrote the book of Acts as the second of two parts the first of which was his Gospel. The Gospel of Luke incorporates parts of Mark, indicating Mark was written before Luke! Ultimately, what you end up with is Mark written no later than about A.D. 60, or perhaps even the late 50's. Jesus was put to death apx A.D. 30-33, which leaves only a gap of 25 to 30 years, tops! That, is very much within the time frame of eyewitnesses, including hostile eyewitness who could have easily called bullshit. Lets compare that to the earliest written accounts we have of Alexander the great dated apx. 400 years after HIS death and the fact that Historians consider THEM generally trustworthy.
In addition, to all this, the NT has undergone all of the strict scrutiny historians place on all ancient historical documents used to test crdibility, such as the authors intention, ability, bias, character, and consistency, test of corroborations, as well as a test of any adverse witnesses, and it stands up VERY well as Historically reliable.
If you also consider the archeolgically confirmed people, places, and events mentioned in the NT, what we are left with is a very SOUND and, in fact, valid historical document.

When I said there was no point rehashing the validity of the Bible as a historcial doscument I was talking specifically to Chopitdown - as we'd already gone back and forth on the point a couple of times.

But yeah you're right about the accepted dating of the Gospel according to Mark. I'll just add the following with respect to it's reliability:

Starting in the 19th century, textual critics have commonly asserted that Mark 16:9–20, describing some disciples' encounters with the resurrected Jesus, was added after the original autograph. Mark 16:8 stops at the empty tomb without further explanation. The last twelve verses are missing from the oldest manuscripts of Mark's Gospel.[26] The style of these verses differs from the rest of Mark, suggesting they were a later addition. In a handful of manuscripts, a "short ending" is included after 16:7, but before the "long ending", and exists by itself in one of the earliest Old Latin codices, Codex Bobiensis. By the 5th century, at least four different endings have been attested.

Also note that unlike both Matthew and Luke, Mark does not offer any information about the life of Jesus before he begins his ministry, including neither the nativity nor a genealogy. As I previously suggested the fact that these other gospels alternatively attempt to propose geneological links to the house of David through his Virgin mother and non-Dad Jospeh respectively indicates a cynical and contradictory attempt to demonstrate (circa invent) such a link - shame they couldn't have sat down and got their story straight as to which side of his 'family' they were gonna claim descends from the holy house (a bit like the cartel of high priests and their Roman masters who selected which words of God were canonical and which apocraphyl).

Anyway I already stated in a previous post there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Jesus - the historical figure - the man - the philosopher and moraliser who may or may not have exploited the Messianic prophecy to swell his following - probably did exist - I do not dispute that - and the early gospels are a contributing factor in the establishment of that concensus. As such he is a man I admire on the level of Ghandi or Martin Luther King. A man well ahead of his time and a shining light to all he most ceratainly was, but no more supernatural than Uri Geller.

You mention accounts of Alexander the Great being written 400 years after his death. The point is that if accounts written only half a century (or less) after his death were discovered that said Alexander the Great was 'supernatural' - ie performed 'miracles' and rose from the dead - would those accounts (on their own without any other 'evidence' whatsoever) be enough to convince you or the majority of historical scholars that he was indeed supernatural? Of course it wouldn't. Even if there were accounts satisfactorily verified as being written during his life time that were written by people claiming to have witnessed Alexander's miracles and resurrection we would not just accept that he was superhuman and supernatural on the basis of somebody elses ancient say so. But that is all the evidence you have that Jesus was supernatural. A smattering of 2,000 year old alleged eye witness accounts don't count for sh*t to any credible and discerning historian. But Jesus's alleged 'divinity' and 'supernaturalness' was institutionalised by self serving power and wealth hungry clerics, and propogated by (probably very decent and well meaning) moral philosphers, woven into the fabric of our culture and society, passed down from generation to generation in schools and homes and hey presto - in 21st century Western society people still believe in 'magic'.

cornnifer wrote:

the earliest written accounts we have of Alexander the great dated apx. 400 years after HIS death

Not quite right... there is a contemporary account of his death! There were numerous accounts of Alexander the Great written during his lifetime but none of these have actually survived to our day. BUT they were still there when the histories of Alexander were written and the historians heavily relied on these sources. Also, the original sources are referenced in these accounts. Also, archeology, etc. validates these accounts.

EDIT - not to debate - just thought I would slip it in for 'accuracy'