Does Jesus's Prayer Show Christianity Is False?

[Leonhard]

And why you say that would make evangelization that much harder makes no sense. After all Jesus would have to die in order to resurrect.

Then why did St. Paul write that it preaching Christ crucified, was an offense to others. Why did the Church Fathers insist that the Romans thought this belief to be ridiculous (namely that they worshipped a God that had been crucified)? Why did all sorts of other syncretic sects dump the crucifixion the first chance they got, and that even today its quite a stumbling block for Muslims and others.

Its not the kind of detail you invent when you want to make an awesome God for people to believe in.

[Gary]

You mean, other than the fact that most experts on the history of the New Testament and the early church accept them? Again, you know this is the case, right?

Do you believe the majority expert opinion on ALL issues related to the Bible?

[Leonhard]

The majority of experts reject a literal six day Creation.
...believe in evolution and natural selection of the species.
...believe that the universe is billions of years old.
...believe that the earth is millions if not billions of years old.
...reject the claim of a worldwide flood.

Uncontroversial.

...reject the literal, biblical story of the Exodus as historical.
...reject the literal, biblical story of the Conquest of Canaan as historical.

Depending on what you mean by 'literal' this is also uncontroversial. Though here there's more of a discussion going on. Even among Christian scholars.

[Gary]

Jesus was crucified around 30 AD and Paul, as nearly every scholar I'm aware of calculates, converted somewhere between 34 and 37 AD and then went to Jerusalem between 36 and 38 BC where he would have received first hand information from the apostles and other eyewitnesses concerning His execution, burial and subsequent resurrection. I think it is safe to conclude that what Paul heard wasn't something that they came up with when he met the apostles and what he heard he later repeated in I Corinthians.

What evidence do you have that Paul went to Jerusalem and received first hand information from the apostles and the other eyewitnesses in 36-38 AD? And specifically what first hand information did he receive?

[Leonhard]

Do you believe the majority expert opinion on ALL issues related to the Bible?

I think you misunderstand what why its brought up. Generally we're not experts in all fields, even within the field of Biblical history no one is an expert on all topics. However when someone advances a fact, and wants to defend it, going by the consensus is what you usually do, unless you have very good reasons to do something different. The real argument is about the evidence, and any apologist with any respect for themselves should be ready to engage in such a discussion. However if you deny that Jesus existed, or that the Apostles did not report seeing him alive again, then its you who have to defend why you do so.

[Leonhard]

What evidence do you have that Paul went to Jerusalem and received first hand information from the apostles and the other eyewitnesses in 36-38 AD?

His own letters.

The claim that he went to Jerusalem is entirely uncontroversial. Its where the Christian Church was at that time. He gives an account of some of the earliest meetings they had, in particular the first council where it was decided that you don't have to become a jew to become a Christian.

[Gary]

Then why did St. Paul write that it preaching Christ crucified, was an offense to others. Why did the Church Fathers insist that the Romans thought this belief to be ridiculous (namely that they worshipped a God that had been crucified)? Why did all sorts of other syncretic sects dump the crucifixion the first chance they got, and that even today its quite a stumbling block for Muslims and others.

Its not the kind of detail you invent when you want to make an awesome God for people to believe in.

Groups of people have accepted as fact all sorts of crazy beliefs. For proof, we only have to look at the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jonestown cult, the Heaven's Gate people, the Branch Davidians, etc. etc. Just because people are willing to believe something really odd and really offensive to everybody else in society is NOT proof that it is true.

[Leonhard]

Groups of people have accepted as fact all sorts of crazy beliefs. For proof, we only have to look at the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Jonestown cult, the Heaven's Gate people, the Branch Davidians, etc. etc. Just because people are willing to believe something really odd and really offensive to everybody else in society is NOT proof that it is true.

There's no doubt that it was an obstacle to evangelization. However I'm not making an argument about Christianity being true, because it was so hard to believe and follow at the time, that its survival was nothing short of miraculous (though I do believe this). I am saying that the apostles, if they were making up Christianity as they went along, would not have included such details.

There's nothing comparable in any of the examples you've given.

[Gary]

Uncontroversial.



Depending on what you mean by 'literal' this is also uncontroversial. Though here there's more of a discussion going on. Even among Christian scholars.

Uncontroversial??? Check out the doctrinal statements of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, just to name a few Christian denominations, and then tell me that these issues are "noncontroversial". Maybe in the United Church of Christ and other very liberal churches they are not controversial, but in the majority of conservative Christian denominations they are still VERY controversial.

[Gary]

I think you misunderstand what why its brought up. Generally we're not experts in all fields, even within the field of Biblical history no one is an expert on all topics. However when someone advances a fact, and wants to defend it, going by the consensus is what you usually do, unless you have very good reasons to do something different. The real argument is about the evidence, and any apologist with any respect for themselves should be ready to engage in such a discussion. However if you deny that Jesus existed, or that the Apostles did not report seeing him alive again, then its you who have to defend why you do so.

EXACTLY! If you are not an expert in a particular field, you should accept the majority expert opinion in the field. The overwhelming majority of archeologists and Near East experts do NOT believe that a couple million or even a couple hundred thousand Hebrews left Egypt, defeated Pharaoh, and then wandered in the Sinai (or Saudi Arabia) for forty years.

[Leonhard]

Uncontroversial??? Check out the doctrinal statements of the Southern Baptist Convention and the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, just to name a few Christian denominations, and then tell me that these issues are "noncontroversial". Maybe in the United Church of Christ and other very liberal churches they are not controversial, but in the majority of conservative Christian denominations they are still VERY controversial.

I don't know what it looks like in America, but even there the majority of Christians accept those things you outlined without much problems. The Catholic Church is by far the largest single denomination, and it allows its members to hold differing opinions on these subjects. I think your views of Christians are skewed a bit.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/p...man-evolution/

But I know Nick would simple concede all that to you for the sake of argument. "Alright, lets say these things happened as you said, that large parts of the Torah is incompatible with history, etc... I'll grant you all that for the sake of argument. Now... do you have a naturalistic account of the Ressurection?"

[Adrift]

Do you believe the majority expert opinion on ALL issues related to the Bible?

Nope. But that's not the issue. If you were to tell me that you have reservations about the historicity of the Exodus as presented in the Old Testament because of the lack of scholarly support, I could certainly sympathize with that. I'm not telling JimL to believe the NT account because of the scholarly support for it, I'm telling him that it's reasonable to believe in it, or as he puts it, there are "good objective reasons" to believe it. These are distinctions that fundamentalists have a hard time understanding, so I can see how you might find this confusing.

[Gary]

I think you misunderstand what why its brought up. Generally we're not experts in all fields, even within the field of Biblical history no one is an expert on all topics. However when someone advances a fact, and wants to defend it, going by the consensus is what you usually do, unless you have very good reasons to do something different. The real argument is about the evidence, and any apologist with any respect for themselves should be ready to engage in such a discussion. However if you deny that Jesus existed, or that the Apostles did not report seeing him alive again, then its you who have to defend why you do so.

I do not deny the existence of Jesus, even though the evidence for his existence is not very strong, but it is strong enough that I accept it. I also accept that soon after his death, his followers came to believe he had been raised from the dead. But just because they believed something to be true, does not make it true, especially when their claim is an unheard of, supernatural, claim.

[Leonhard]

EXACTLY! If you are not an expert in a particular field, you should accept the majority expert opinion in the field.

I think that epistemology is a bit simplistic and naive, but in general its a good rule of thumb to take for granted what experts agree on, unless you have specifically good reasons for denying it.

The overwhelming majority of archeologists and Near East experts do NOT believe that a couple million or even a couple hundred thousand Hebrews left Egypt, defeated Pharaoh, and then wandered in the Sinai (or Saudi Arabia) for forty years.

Alright, I haven't looked into the historicity of the Exodus, its timeframe, size, and so forth. So I won't be discussing it. I'll grant whatever you have to say here for the sake of argument.

[Leonhard]

But just because they believed something to be true, does not make it true, especially when their claim is an unheard of, supernatural, claim.

I have some sympathy to what you say here, because I started out as an atheist who was a naturalist. As a naturalist I didn't believe anything supernatural existed, and so there would be no possibility of someone dead coming back to life. And so I didn't see this historical argument as very strong, because of those commitments.

But it leaves the facts unexplained.