Very interesting information! Thanks!

G’night

I chose this quotation because it may lift up the soul of someone who feels despair and point him to Christ.

as to the why- it provokes interesting thought and conversation about the effectiveness of governmental justice. (see this article : http://antarcticdevelopments.no-ip.org:6800/propjets/index.php?blog=5&cat=24 )

You spoke to me, thanks.

God bless.

(Love the new layout. :D)

Who were these eyewitnesses anyway?

Read the article:
“Eight different men wrote the New Testament. Their names were James, John, Jude, Luke, Mark, Matthew, Paul, and Peter. Out of those eight men, six had direct contact with Jesus, the two who hadn’t been with Jesus traveled for years with someone who had.”

Los Angeles is a real city. The government works to prevent terrorism. Is Jack Bauer real?

You have a very good point.
However, the point I was making is different than that. If the places/events didn’t match - then the Bible couldn’t be true.
In fact, Isaiah and Jeremiah (Old Testament Prophets) predicted Babylon’s fall several hundred years before it did.

But how many of these people actually met Jesus? Not one first-hand testimony, all hearsay written decades after his apparent resurrection. This is better explained as an acknowledgment of the publics interest in this Jesus fellow.

No, they’re not eye witnesses. But they did recognize the existance (the fact that many people were following a Jesus) of Jesus. One of them was a Jewish text - which wouldn’t want to do anything to promote Jesus.

I don’t believe the Gospel authors were writing lies. They were simply recording a developing oral history, conveniently using each other as sources

They were eye witnesses - and they all (but John) died excruciating deaths for their belief.

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Please note that the verification process (mainly the manuscripts, history, internal, etc) is the same as used for all ancient documents. The Bible exceeds all other ancient documents in all aspects.

-Brian Purkiss
[The Admin]

During that time, legends and falsehoods would not have been able to spring up. For, the eyewitnesses would have squashed these distortions of the truth.

You don’t know that. If Joe McJewishguy witnessed the sermon on the mount, he didn’t necessarily see the the Jesus raise Lazareus from the dead, or witness Moses and Elijah appear to Jesus at his tent. Who were these eyewitnesses anyway? Funny how none of these first-hand observers could write anything down. It’s a lot more likely that a lot of people heard different bits and pieces of the same developing myth.

The events mentioned in the Bible are genuine events, the places of the Bible are real places

Los Angeles is a real city. The government works to prevent terrorism. Is Jack Bauer real?

Many ancient non-Christians agree in their writings that Jesus was actually a man and claimed to be God, such as Tacticus (The Annals of Imperial Rome), Suetonius (Life of Cladius, Lives of the Ceasers), Roman governor Pliny the Younger (Epistles), Greek satirist Lucian (On the Death of Peregrine), Syrian Mara Bar-Serapion (a letter). Even the Jewish Talmud mention’s Jesus!

But how many of these people actually met Jesus? Not one first-hand testimony, all hearsay written decades after his apparent resurrection. This is better explained as an acknowledgment of the publics interest in this Jesus fellow.

But, did God speak to humanity through them? Or were the authors of the Bible writing lies?

Those aren’t the only options. I don’t believe the Gospel authors were writing lies. They were simply recording a developing oral history, conveniently using each other as sources. It’s pretty safe to assume they believed what they wrote. But this doesn’t make what they wrote true.