Burden of Proof

FROM APOLLOS:

Mansoor Ali � This is plainly false. Paul�s letters pre-date Mark and He refers to the crucifixion in a creed that pre-dates all the Gospels. Check the facts. I am not going to go through each of these accusations but if I show you a couple will you admit you are wrong?

Also, I find your approach very disingenuous. You are not listing things you have studied on your own but simply copy and paste from apostates, atheists, and Muslims who are trying to prove their point at any cost. They don�t have a comprehensive explanation that ties together their pick and choose points and neither do you.

First of all, it is important to know that according to the New Testament itself, all of Jesus' Disciples fled for their lives on the night of crucifixion.  None of them witnessed Jesus' crucifixion.

"All his disciples forsook him and fled" (Mark 14:50)

In taking this verse out of context and saying that the NT claims they all fled and were not at the crucifixion, you or the person you are quoting are plainly lying. The next verses point out that though everyone fled from the ones arresting Jesus, some then followed Him. The next day at the crucifixion Jesus mother, several other women, John and others were at the cross. Look at the verses you deliberately left out because they contradict your statement:

Mar 14:50  And they all forsook him, and fled.

Mar 14:51  And there followed him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body; and the young men laid hold on him:

Mar 14:52  And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked.

Mar 14:53  And they led Jesus away to the high priest: and with him were assembled all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes.

Mar 14:54  And Peter followed him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest: and he sat with the servants, and warmed himself at the fire.

At the crucifixion:

Mar 15:40  There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;

Mar 15:41  (Who also, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered unto him;) and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem.

John also (who refers to himself as the one Jesus loved) states he was present:

Joh 19:25  Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene.

Joh 19:26  When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son!

Joh 19:27  Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

The NT does not say �they all fled and never came back during the crucifixion� does it? In fact it says the opposite.

Mark was the first writer to record the crucifixion, yet he was NOT an eye-witness!

 �The author of Mark, the earliest of the narrative gospels, was not an eyewitness: he is reporting information conveyed to him by a third person or persons, who themselves were quite possible not eye-witnesses� (Robert Walter Funk, The Jesus Seminar: The Acts of Jesus, p. 4)

He wrote as Peter�s secretary and there are other contemporary documents that prove this. And do you know why the Jesus Seminar �scholars� believe such things? It is because they do not believe Jesus was the Messiah or a prophet from God. They start with that premise and then they exclude any statements that conflict with this belief. Then � oh surprise � they find that what is left proves their point!

Moreover, the Gospels are anonymous documents, totally unreliable. None of them originate from eye-witness sources.

�There is hardly any record of his code of behavior. The books in the New Testament do not even contain eye-witness accounts of his sayings and actions. They were written by people who derived their knowledge second-hand. These records are not comprehensive. Everything which Jesus said and did which has not been recorded has been lost forever�. (Muhammad Ataur-Raheem, Jesus Prophet of Islam, 1992 edition, p. 195)

Another biased inaccurate opinion without facts.

Originally posted by Apollos

4.      Tacitus ( ca. 55-120 A.D.) a Roman historian, states that "Christus" the founder of Christianity suffered death at the hands of Pontius Pilate but this only stopped the "superstition" for a short while.

     Roughly 80 years after the alleged events (and 40 years after the war) Tacitus allegedly wrote a (now) famous passage about "Christ" - this passage has several problems however:
* Tacitus uses the term "procurator", used in his later times, but not correct for the actual period, when "prefect" was used.

Half truth. Prefect was the more precise title but Procurator is not wrong or a word later developed than Tacitus time.

* Tacitus names the person as "Christ", when Roman records could not possibly have used this name (it would have been "Jesus, son of Joseph" or similar.)

Totally false. The notoriety of Jesus was as the Messiah, the Christ not the son of Joseph. Since no one ever called Him this, not even Himself, how would anyone know who they were talking about. Also this idea of �Roman records� implies this person thinks they had birth records like we have today. Tacitus may very well have been writing what he saw or heard himself not a quotation of other writings.

* Tacitus accepts the recent advent of Christianity, which was against Roman practice (to only allow ancient and accepted cults and religions.)

He certainly does not. His comments are derogatory about Christians and contrary to what Christians believed. A Christian or sympathizer would not have written such things. I quote most of the referenced passage below. (Have you even read it before saying what you have?)

Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order.

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.

* This passage is paraphrased by Sulpicius Severus in the 5th century without attributing it to Tacitus, and may have been inserted back into Tacitus from this work.

Speculation that doesn�t fit the facts.

Originally posted by Apollos

5.      Thallus (ca. 52 A.D.) tried to explain away the darkness that accompanied Jesus' death as an eclipse of the sun. Obviously, Jesus' crucifix­ion and the resurrection message promoted by the disciples immediately after Christ's death was accepted common knowledge to those alive at the time.

    We have NO certain evidence when Thallus lived or wrote, there are NONE of Thallus' works extant.
What we DO have is a 9th century reference by George Syncellus who quotes the 3rd century Julianus Africanus, who, speaking of the darkness at the crucifixion, wrote: "Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse".
But, there is NO evidence Thallus made specific reference to Jesus or the Gospel events at all, as there WAS an eclipse in 29. This suggests he merely referred to a known eclipse, but that LATER Christians MIS-interpreted his comment to mean their darkness. (Also note the supposed reference to Thallus in Eusebius is a false reading.)

Richard Carrier the historian has a good page on Thallus:http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/thallus.html

     So,Thallus is no evidence for Jesus at all,merely evidence for Christian wishful thinking.

The quote and context of Thallus� quote is legitimate. I don�t have time to address the details and I doubt you would read them anyway. This is just copy and paste not things you have truly studied.

Originally posted by Apollos

6.      Josephus (b. 37 A.D.) mentions the crucifixion of Jesus (Antiquities 18, chapter 3). Even though some believe the passage has been added to by Christians in later years, the underlined portion below is judged authentic by most scholars: Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, [if it be lawful to call him a man;] for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher [of such men as receive the truth with pleasure,] He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. [He was the Christ.] And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; [for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him.] And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

     The famous Testamonium Flavianum in the Antiquities of the Jews is considered probably the best evidence for Jesus, yet it has some serious problems :
* the T.F. as it stands uses clearly Christian phrases and names Christ as Messiah, it could not possibly have been written by the Jew Josephus (who remained a Jew and refused to call anyone "messiah" in his book which was partly about how false messiahs kept leading Israel astray.),
* The T.F. comes in several versions of various ages,
* The T.F. was not mentioned by any of the early Church fathers were reviewed Josephus. Origen even says Josephus does NOT call Jesus the Messiah, showing the passage was not present in that earlier era.
* The T.F. first showed up in manuscripts of Eusebius, and was still absent from some manuscripts as late as 8th century.
* (The other tiny passage in Josephus is probably a later interpolation.)
An analysis of Josephus can be found here:
http://www.humanists.net/jesuspuzzle/supp10.htm

In short - this passage is possibly a total forgery (or at best a corrupt form of a lost original.)
But, yes,it COULD just be actual evidence for Jesus - late, corrupt, controversial but just POSSIBLY real historical evidence.

I already showed the questionable areas and it remains a good reference as redacted. There are many details I could show concerning older manuscripts, etc. but you aren�t reading these anyway in your copy and pastes.

Originally posted by Apollos

7.      The details and history of crucifixion show that people didn�t survive this form of execution. The Romans were good at it and they didn�t make such mistakes. But let�s imagine they did this one time. This meant Jesus was nailed to a cross as various eyewitnesses attest, he suffered incredible blood loss, paralysis of the upper body and overall shock before his legs were broken or a sword was put through his side. If he had survived all this (something there is no natural explanation for), he had to look dead to a Roman soldier who was experienced at ascertaining such things. He then had to stay alive while others made a tomb ready, wrapped him tightly in burial cloths, and placed him in a cold dark tomb. He would have had about hundred pounds of burial spices on top of him, and a large stone sealing off the entrance where guards were probably posted. If he somehow survived all this for several days without medical attention, food or water (something there is no natural explanation for) he had to somehow get out of the bindings, out from under the heavy spices, and out of the  tomb - by himself. Once outside he had to appear healthy and robust for the disciples needed to see him as the Lord of Life, not a pale bleeding, bruised and near dead man. The swoon theory is so unbelievable that even people who are determined to reject the resurrection as real, opt for other theories rather than this one.

8.   If Jesus continued living rather than rose from the dead, why did he disappear after 40 days? What would have been his motive and how would he have been able to hide?  Why wasn�t he recognized by people elsewhere after this? Even if he decided to stop preaching in public, someone would have noticed his stigmata. And how could he have evaded his followers who were so convinced he had risen from the dead? Surely he would hear of their torture and martyrdom for claiming that he had risen. Why wouldn�t he have had shown up to say: �Hey, look they are telling the truth, here I am�?

9. All the facts support the simple history that he was crucified and died. There is nothing but a theory to support the idea that he was only temporarily injured.

Apollos

 Jesus never prophesied his own crucifixion, rather these sayings were put into his mouth, and it was okay to fabricate these verses according to the culture. There were no �copyright laws� back then; it was permissible to borrow from others without asking!

"The concept of plagiarism was unknown in the ancient world. Authors freely copied from predecessors without acknowledgment. Sages became the repository of free-floating proverbs and witticisms.  For the first Christians, Jesus was a legendary sage: it was proper to attribute the world�s wisdom to him. The proverb in Mark 2:17, for example, is attested in secular sources (Plutarch and Diogenes for example)...in the parallel to the Markan passage, Matthew adds a sentence taken from the prophet Hosea (Matt 9:13)."  ["The Five Gospels." Translations of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.]

 Now read the following quotations:

��The Gospels, however, were religious dramas used for worship and as a form of evangelism. They were meant not to impart history but to buttress and convey belief. The editor of John�s Gospel (the least historical of them all) boldly and honestly states his aims in the text itself when he says, �But these things are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah�. The goal is to establish the faithful and to create new converts, not to create an authentic biography. (Tom Harper, The Pagan Christ, p. 126)

All of this is refuted by the existence of Church in Jerusalem. It started within days of Jesus� crucifixion, founded on Sunday worship and the willingness of the disciples to die for the message they were proclaiming. The cross was a key symbol and expression. That is one of the reasons why the 12 core facts I earlier listed are accepted by scholars. You can find a �scholar� who rejects one obscure point here and another scholar who rejects another obscure point there but their theories never explain all the facts and their theories rely on some of the NT being accurate. Show me an explanation that relies on secular history alone and I will listen but this pick and choose approach out of the Bible that ignores what the early Church was preaching and doing is foolishness. It is like me telling you that Muslims started believing what Mohammed said only 100 years ago. Even if there was no Quran and no Hadiths, you have a chain of people, traditions, and culture that goes back to Mohammed don�t you? Christians have a chain that goes directly back to the crucifixion � and before.

 �The number of deliberate alterations made in the interests of doctrine is difficult to assess.�  [Bruce M. Metzger's "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration", 1964]

Metzger was a great Greek scholar but you have taken his quote out of context. He was not referring to the overall NT but specific manuscripts from specific geographical areas. The way we know such things is we have many other unaltered versions to judge them by.

It is clear that Jesus never foretold his death, he tells false prophecies, misquotes the Old Testament, and contradicts himself, so how can the Gospels be accurate?

 The three claims here are false so obviously the conclusion is false. Please no more blind copy and pastes. Study something for yourself and then tell me what you think instead of spreading lies, half truths and opinions from others.

Apollos