It is truthfully a very difficult task to try reaching those who enjoy their complete ignorance where history and archaeology concern the record of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately for these atheists, it is their complete disregard of truth, intellect and lack of comprehension that makes them revert to base mockery and ridicule. What they wish to do is remain the mocking fools they are. Sad. It is a waste of time to alot of people in giving them a chance at dialogue – however, I wanted to give them enough information that they might just realize their mocking assumptions fail in light of history and facts.
*I start at my reply to the skeptic’s denial of the birthplace of Nazareth and that by this ignorant assumption was that Jesus was not a historical person. (The responses are copied and pasted exactly as was typed by my contenders, but make note* that I have removed their cuss words for obvious reasons of minors who may read this.)
- MOCKER A: The street preacher seems like a really nice, genuine person. I like him, but really, everything he said has been taken apart and disproven so many times. For instance, don’t scholars agree now that Nazareth wasn’t around during Jesus’ lifetime? He should critically examine everything he is preaching. I always wonder how spreading misinformation could possibly be doing God’s work? Atheists and Christians really need to open up more respectful dialog like this video. We would all benefit.
- ME: Nazareth was outside of the walls of Yaphia off the main road to Sephoris. There is no scholar in higher academia who doubts the existence of Nazareth. Even Josephus refers to it (Yaphia). You are right, God doubters and Christians need to be respectful, however there are answers for the skeptic if the Christian is intellectually engaged in sound scholarship and doctrine. Faith should never be blind – either by believers or nonbelievers.
- MOCKER B: No, Josephus does NOT refer to it in his listing of towns and cities in the area. It is mentioned in John but when was John written? Using the Bibble to prove the Bibble? Seriously? Fail!
- MOCKER A: Josephus was born about 60 years after Christ’s supposed death. FAIL!!!!!!!!
- ME: Do you know anything about Ancient Historiography and Archaeology? Do you know that scholars do not doubt Titus Flavius Josephus lived between 37AD and circa 100AD – the meaning of which, Josephus lived in the era of the Jesus timeline. Even so, the archaeological evidence of Nazareth is fact. Based upon the evidence, you need to rethink your inadequate position.
- MOCKER B: He was born after the supposed death of Yeshua bar Yoseph so he could not have known him. The Jewish chronicles that have come down to us do not, (apparently), contain ANY reference to such a famous and miracle wielding Rabbi wandering the land preaching to multitudes in the 30s AD. How odd! Why would they omit a famous person like that from their carefully kept records? Oh, that would be because he never existed. He’s a myth, a phantasm, a collation of various people and gods from that time.
- ME: The Gospel accounts have not been refuted by history, but rather, confirmed by at least 17 non-biblical sources. This historical data is contemporary/within the era of the early Yeshua community. Josephus’ accounts do *confirm Jesus = his life, teachings, claims, and death, plus the report of his resurrection appearances. Josephus also references the brother of Christ, James, and the account of his death by stoning. Other Jewish sources for Jesus Christ include The Talmud and Toledoth Jeshu.
- ATHEIST: Josephus was still not a contemporary.. So all he had to go on was hear say and stories as well.. And many of the stories about Jesus accredited to him has now been deemed fake.. The only place where a Jesus is mentioned in what appears to be genuine is a sentence or two in the context of Jesus’ brother.. Nothing about his teachings or any supernatural claims..
- ME: Not only is Josephus 1st Century,he is a reliable Roman historian. Said debate calls into question certain passages of his “Testimonium Flavianum” that seemingly are later interpolation. In summary, without those phrases, we still glean: Jesus is James brother, was wise and virtuous, crucified under Pilate, claims of surprising feats, induced a large following, reports of his resurrection on the third day and attached Messianic belief. Overall there is no textural evidence against this account.
- ATHEIST: And all you are left with is still a claim from a man who had hear say as a source.. Is hear say reliable evidence for something?
- ME: Not only do we have eyewitness accounts within the Gospel records, early creeds and worship, we have an entire movement within the Jewish community that was recorded historically. All confirmed by non-biblical accounts and by enemy attestation. There is no competing claims that Jesus didn’t exist, or that these supernatural claims about him were untrue, even if explained away by ‘sorcery’. A surprising amount of info about Jesus is drawn from historians contemporary to him or lived soon after.
- ATHEIST: We have eyewitness accounts? That is the first I’ve heard of this.. Where can I find these?
So do you consider eyewitness accounts as reliable evidence for supernatural events?
Who are these other contemporaries that you are talking about?
- ME: Clearly the weight of sound scholarship rests on evidence. It is all evidence. The same, in fact, that could be presented into a court of Law and judged accordingly. When external events corroborate eyewitness testimony, it is taken as key evidence. We have the same number of Non-Christian sources for Jesus as the Roman Emperor contemporary with him.What we see here is an event in history. An event so extraordinary, it is documented in official government records.
- ATHEIST: One thing is to claim that someone lived and that we might have evidence for that.. Another thing is claiming supernatural events.. As someone said – “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.. So having an eye witness can never prove anything supernatural ever happened. And what we have is not an eyewitness account, it is documents from someone else.. Hear say.. What does your court of law think about hear say?
Again, what are these eyewitness accounts you keep mentioning?
- ME: What do you mean we don’t have eyewitness accounts? Most certainly we do! Not only do the Gospels reliably record early testimony of the first witnesses, also John who records in his words as an eyewitness, we also have the epistles written by the likes of James, Jesus’ own brother, as well as Paul -Jewish anti-Christian who converts after seeing the risen Christ – Paul even passes on a very early creed that is at ground zero of 3-5 yrs post-resurrection. The critical scholars all accept Paul.
- ATHEIST: And when are all of the written?
- ME: In ancient historiography, the earliest and best attested is of course best – which makes the NT manuscripts the best in comparison to any other ancient writ. No historian doubts Homer, Herodotus, Plato, or Caesar etc – yet the closet they can come to the 5,500+ New Testament manuscripts – is Homer’s Iliad at 800BC ranking in with 643 copies, and the earliest copies are some 400 yrs later. Compare that to the usual 1000-1350 year time gap with only 7 to 10 copies for ancient literature.
- ME: The NT was written well within the lives of the eyewitnesses abt 50-100AD. Mark is the earliest Gospel and Paul predates Mark – timeline c 20-25 yrs from Christ. Creeds are earlier still. Even skeptical scholars agree that Paul is the author of 7-8 of the 13 epistles. (*Skeptical scholars include atheists, agnostic and non-believers.) Early dating is given to Paul – example, Paul’s letters written to the Romans, the Corinthians and the Galatians were written in the period between 48AD and 60AD.
- ATHEIST: So the earliest accounts of this were written down 20 years after his death? Well, that seems like a rather large delay if you want to remember something.. But for some reason, even then, they were able to quote Jesus to the word? Riiiight..But again.. Eye witness accounts can and will never prove the existence of something supernatural 🙂
- ME:On the contrary, for the ancient historian that is an extraordinary timeline – no other ancient manuscript can match it! It must also be remembered that The Gospels were written as the eyewitnesses were dying and persecution was the threat for every follower of Christ. The Jews were an oral cultural by tradition, as the creeds and accounts of Christ were first known collectively. The Yeshua community, if you will remember, was a Jewish one. Early creeds in Paul’s epistles date within the 30s.
- ATHEIST: Josephus was still not a contemporary.. So all he had to go on was hear say and stories as well.. And many of the stories about Jesus accredited to him has now been deemed fake.. The only place where a Jesus is mentioned in what appears to be genuine is a sentence or two in the context of Jesus’ brother.. Nothing about his teachings or any supernatural claims..
- ME: Not only is Josephus 1st Century,he is a reliable Roman historian. Said debate calls into question certain passages of his “Testimonium Flavianum” that seemingly are later interpolation. In summary, without those phrases, we still glean: Jesus is James brother, was wise and virtuous, crucified under Pilate, claims of surprising feats, induced a large following, reports of his resurrection on the third day and attached Messianic belief. Overall there is no textural evidence against this account.
- ATHEIST: That is not what I understand from researching the claims that Josephus corroborated jeezuz as the christ. As far as I am aware, having removed the added chwistian bullsh__, we are left with, “There once was a dude called jeezuz”, end of.
- ME: Then I would address your knowledge of Josephus as a first century historian and address your studies in ancient Jewish literature. Clearly, for you there is no academic research in historiography, only your misinformed assertions.
- ATHEIST: No, I would ask you to cite your sources, the seventeen non-biblical sources would be a good start. All such sources I have heard of were written long after the events they are supposed to support and are therefore worthless. If such sources existed and confirmed the godspells as true, there would be a massive shift to ‘chwistianity’. No such shift has occurred. I wonder why?
- ME: Unfortunately, such sophomoric attempts at digs toward Christianity often matches a dull intellect…however, I will try your understanding of history by asking if you know what contends to be *early for Ancient Historiography? Not only that, but evidence for such a “massive shift” might entail the split of history into two eras -say, before Christ and after Christ — And, let’s not forget the revolutionary, permanent change of two profound cultures: 1st century Judaism and the Roman Empire.
- ATHEIST: No, I am perfectly adequate in my higher intellect, thank you. I just enjoy taking the piss out of idiots who still need an invisible friend over the age of five. I’m not talking about the ‘massive shift’ to the use of anno domini to denote after the mythical jeezuz is supposed to have sacrificed himself to himself. I’m talking about the here and now. If the evidence you pretend actually existed, there would NOW be a massive shift to the true religion of the zombie Rabbi.
- ATHEIST: Sorry but the phrase ‘intellectual chwistian’ is an hilarious oxymoron.
- ME: No, but you seem to think so. Then again, I would not suppose you get around much to Oxford or Cambridge.
- ATHEIST: Yes, it is, just like ‘intelligent design’ is pure idiocy. Been to both Oxford and Cambridge, nice towns. I can only imagine you there on a tourist bus going “Oh gee! Would you look at that! Elmer, take a picture!”
- ME: Sorry, you’ll need a better zinger that that. Professor Elmer takes horrible pictures.
As you can see, it is no easy task to have a comfortable discussion of some pretty heavy facts when confronting mockers and their foolishness about the historical record and Jesus Christ. When it degrades to such a level that you are just a target, it is of little use to try and carry on any rational discussion and sometimes it is better to let humor lighten the angry atheist’s attacks. Of course, while I wish to relay much needed answers to the skeptic, my mission is not one to convert. Remember, we can only witness. To convert is to transform – that is not what Christians are called to do nor can do. This is the power of the Holy Spirit. As for spreading the Gospel of Christ, that is spreading the Truth of God’s Word to the world and it will never cease. Those who have ears let them hear. I can only pray their minds might be open and they mature enough to find that the facts of history are there to investigate.
~ Dragonfly in the Rain ~
June 12 2012
answeringechoes 