What would you have done?

[distraff]

There's no evidence that false made up belief systems were ever propagated and copied on anything like the scale we see for the NT,

There are actually a ton of examples. UFO claims, Islam, Mormonism, bigfoot, etc with a ton of records and witnesses.

as you said most claims about the supernatural are false, so surely if this too were false we'd expect to see many examples of writings like the NT, penned very early on, copied without error? Why - if what you say is true - do we not find a multitude of texts like the NT? there are none, absolutely none, it is unique on a variety of measures.

There was no logical reason for anyone to believe Christ was anything special at all, he had nothing to offer, no food, no military prospect of resisting Roman occupation, he was openly irreverent to Jewish authorities, what he said was often incomprehensible to people (and is still to this day), there really was nothing "religious" about him in the sense we today understand the term.

And we have many writing from any different religions at the time. But there is a good explanation for the number of records for Christianity.
1. It came from a highly advanced Roman Empire with a lot of literacy. This era as a golden age and previous ages didn't have the records and literacy the Roman Era had. Christianity was also a later religion and there was less time for records to be lost. If Christianity had started in Aboriginese Australia, or in ancient Sumer, it wouldn't have had the number of records.
2. Jesus taught a very inspirational message of love and kindness. His philosophy was ahead of its time and no other religion had anything like it. This made Christianity crazy popular among the common people. Imagine hearing or reading Christ's message in that brutal harsh era with brutal Gods. It would give you chills down your back and bring you to tears.
3. Christianity focused obsessively on missionary work in a way other religion's didn't. You didn't have Roman polytheists going out and trying to convert everyone with missionaries like the Christians did.
4. Christians later took over the Roman Empire. The Catholic Church put a lot of work to properly maintaining Christian records but not for other religions. Other religions may have had some great records, but were lost.

I think it is absolutely valid to demand physical evidence for supernatural claims, I've never argued otherwise. In fact my position here has been that if these things really did happen then what else could we expect as evidence two thousand years later?

Evidence that would help more would be less biased sources verifying the supernatural claims. And these claims being verified by multiple unconnected people who would have no motivation to lie and were eyewitnesses. For example if numerous non-Christian sources actually did say the dead rose from their graves about the time Jesus died. The evidence needs to be substantial because its plausible the Christians played a trick of some kind like having a look-alike of Jesus walking around. As long as a hoax is possible, I can't say its probably supernatural.

All we could hope for is what we have: a written record, we'd hope that that record stood out in some way, could give us reason to regard as not just another set of writings, and that's what we find, the speed at which it was written and meticulously copied with very few transcription errors or deliberate alterations all serve to make the NT stand out from any other ancient text.

The question one must ask is if we do examine all this in detail, the text, the history etc is it reasonable to conclude it is true? these things did happen? that the text has been preserved because of huge desire to record the events very early on, a huge desire to ensure as best one could to get this story out precisely because it was known, certain by those who were there at the outset.

This is why I've asked people what they would do, few here have cleared the mind and imagined they were in that situation, witnessing absolutely astonishing events, hearing incomprehensible yet deeply philosophical words, what would you do, what could you do?

That's why this thread is so titled - its asking people to really, really, really think.

I wouldn't believe in UFO claims or Mormonism simply because people wrote books claiming incredible things happened. Even if I had no explanation for the NT at all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Being very popular doesn't verify supernatural claims, being in a book soon after doesn't verify supernatural claims, and having multiple religious leaders back each other up doesn't verify supernatural claims.

 

[distraff]

Well the nearer a text is to the event's dates then the less likely it is there'll be inaccuracies, the more likely it will be that human memory has faded and so on, this is not proof of absolute correctness, just that if the events are true and the parties to the recording are honest then there's less scope for error.

Lies can be made about very recent claims all the time. Just look at Trump rallies. Just look at the Lady Fatima miracle claims or witch trials.

The Lady of Fátima & the Miracle of the Sun

Worshipers at Fátima believed that the Virgin Mary spoke to three children and that they all saw the sun "dancing in the sky." The more likely explanation is that they looked at the sun too long.

www.livescience.com

I'm not so sure, probability is a number and to use the term really requires some numeric basis - that's how I think the term should be used, ideally.

If you can give me a number (that obviously isn't 100%) for how probable the gospels are true given the evidence, then I'll give you mine for how likely historical records are likely to be true. In real life, we can weigh for ourselves with logic whether something is generally probable or not without being perfect human calculators.

One thing you have to weigh is how likely someone lied vs the claim actually is true. For example, I claim I ate eggs this morning. The chance that I lied is less likely than the claim that I ate eggs (assuming you generally trust me). But if I claim that I saw a unicorn then its a lot more likely that I just lied, or was delusional, or was mistaken, than that unicorns actually exist. This is why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Yes many claims about the supernatural are false but that doesn't mean that therefore all claims about the supernatural must be false, it doesn't mean that it is impossible for some supernatural event to occur.

I never claimed all supernatural claims had to be false. I'm just saying that since the vast majority of supernatural claims are false, then we should be a lot more skeptical of them. For example people don't trust Nigerian prince emails, so my bar is very high for believing these claims. But I trust messages from family members so my bar is much lower.

 

[Individual]

There are actually a ton of examples. UFO claims, Islam, Mormonism, bigfoot, etc with a ton of records and witnesses.

I think that was a true claim, "There's no evidence that false made up belief systems were ever propagated and copied on anything like the scale we see for the NT, "
No OTHER "false made up belief system" has been able to acquire so many followers, with perhaps the exception of Islam.

And we have many writing from any different religions at the time. But there is a good explanation for the number of records for Christianity.
1. It came from a highly advanced Roman Empire with a lot of literacy. This era as a golden age and previous ages didn't have the records and literacy the Roman Era had. Christianity was also a later religion and there was less time for records to be lost. If Christianity had started in Aboriginese Australia, or in ancient Sumer, it wouldn't have had the number of records.
2. Jesus taught a very inspirational message of love and kindness. His philosophy was ahead of its time and no other religion had anything like it. This made Christianity crazy popular among the common people. Imagine hearing or reading Christ's message in that brutal harsh era with brutal Gods. It would give you chills down your back and bring you to tears.
3. Christianity focused obsessively on missionary work in a way other religion's didn't. You didn't have Roman polytheists going out and trying to convert everyone with missionaries like the Christians did.
4. Christians later took over the Roman Empire. The Catholic Church put a lot of work to properly maintaining Christian records but not for other religions. Other religions may have had some great records, but were lost.




Evidence that would help more would be less biased sources verifying the supernatural claims. And these claims being verified by multiple unconnected people who would have no motivation to lie and were eyewitnesses. For example if numerous non-Christian sources actually did say the dead rose from their graves about the time Jesus died. The evidence needs to be substantial because its plausible the Christians played a trick of some kind like having a look-alike of Jesus walking around. As long as a hoax is possible, I can't say its probably supernatural.



I wouldn't believe in UFO claims or Mormonism simply because people wrote books claiming incredible things happened. Even if I had no explanation for the NT at all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Being very popular doesn't verify supernatural claims, being in a book soon after doesn't verify supernatural claims, and having multiple religious leaders back each other up doesn't verify supernatural claims.

Every miracle I've ever witnessed first hand left me wondering how it was done, but they never reveal their secret. David Copperfield was, and remains, my favorite.

 

[distraff]

I think that was a true claim, "There's no evidence that false made up belief systems were ever propagated and copied on anything like the scale we see for the NT, "
No OTHER "false made up belief system" has been able to acquire so many followers, with perhaps the exception of Islam.

But some religion has to be number 1. And in 50 years, Islam will be on top. The fact is that while Christianity is currently #1, many other beliefs have propagated like crazy. 33% of Americans believe in UFOs for example. Islam has almost 2 billion adherents now.

In post #126, I listed off some reasons for Christianity's popularity. Another reason is that despite their message of peace, Christians were really good at conquering. Constantine won a Roman Civil war and forced Christianity on the Roman empire. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Charlemagne and other Christians forced Christianity on many Pagan nations. Christians in Europe conquered the world, and spread their religion too.

Every miracle I've ever witnessed first hand left me wondering how it was done, but they never reveal their secret. David Copperfield was, and remains, my favorite.

I personally am trying to figure out how the magician at my friend's fifth birthday pulled out that rabbit from the hat.

 

[trouble13]

If you had lived 2,000 years ago and if you had witnessed a "miracle" (like those described in the Gospels, e.g. turning vats of water into wine) I put it to you that you would have no option other than to create a written record of the event or ask someone else to do so, or do nothing, ignore the information.

So then when some claim "there's no evidence" that Jesus did such things, this is an illogical position because it is clear the only evidence we could expect is some preserved written record.

Furthermore because the events were so shocking, a great effort would need to be devoted to ensuring this information is preserved, tremendous value would be attached to the preservation of such incredible information.

Now it is pretty obvious to me that because such huge significance would be attached to this information and written copies were the only way to preserve this for future generations, a practice of making meticulous copies would be strongly emphasized from the outset knowing that many copies would be inevitably lost due to their fragility.

In addition, due to the very obvious risk of the information being lost forever, as many copies as could be created would be created.

The above is a very reasonable expectation if and only if such incredible events were observed, that the events were true and did occur.

And what do we actually find when we explore this subject?

From wikipedia:

and



From a Bible information site:

View attachment 67300517

and

View attachment 67300518

These statistics, charts and numbers are easily verified facts.

The facts do indeed fit the expectation of what we'd find if a herculean effort were made by the initial observers to preserve the information with the technology available at the time, and this in turn strongly supports the belief that these events must have been true and were genuinely witnessed, no other explanation makes any real sense.

There are really no grounds for the atheists oft heard claim that there's no evidence Jesus existed, no evidence Jesus performed miracles, the data - when honestly analyzed in light of the prevailing technologies of the time - is exactly what one would expect to find.

Therefore - what is written in the New Testament is very very likely true.

If you are truly interested in the question you raise i suggest you watch the documentary that i posted the trailer for below. Its about 90 min and easy to find on youtube. Its not anti religion at all but it does use science to explain all the miracles in the story of exodus.
If your an atheist you will say see it was all acts of nature and if your religious you will say god caused those things to happen. Either way its very interesting.

 

[Individual]

But some religion has to be number 1. And in 50 years, Islam will be on top. The fact is that while Christianity is currently #1, many other beliefs have propagated like crazy. 33% of Americans believe in UFOs for example. Islam has almost 2 billion adherents now.

In post #126, I listed off some reasons for Christianity's popularity. Another reason is that despite their message of peace, Christians were really good at conquering. Constantine won a Roman Civil war and forced Christianity on the Roman empire. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Charlemagne and other Christians forced Christianity on many Pagan nations. Christians in Europe conquered the world, and spread their religion too.

But Christian religions don't offer 72 black eyed virgins, though I often wonder if that meant God had to beat them to get them to comply.

I personally am trying to figure out how the magician at my friend's fifth birthday pulled out that rabbit from the hat.

When I was very young (and short), my Parents took me to a carnival where there was a magician. One of his tricks was to make a bird disappear from a cage. We moved in closer to the stage, and I could no longer see the bird in the cage due to the height of the stage. The magician covered the cage and said some magic words and uncovered the cage which was then empty and someone yelled "where did it go?" and I yelled back "it's under the table" as that was about all I could see.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

There are actually a ton of examples. UFO claims, Islam, Mormonism, bigfoot, etc with a ton of records and witnesses.

None of these pertain to antiquity, we see no examples from antiquity, I think I am correct here.

And we have many writing from any different religions at the time. But there is a good explanation for the number of records for Christianity.
1. It came from a highly advanced Roman Empire with a lot of literacy. This era as a golden age and previous ages didn't have the records and literacy the Roman Era had. Christianity was also a later religion and there was less time for records to be lost. If Christianity had started in Aboriginese Australia, or in ancient Sumer, it wouldn't have had the number of records.
2. Jesus taught a very inspirational message of love and kindness. His philosophy was ahead of its time and no other religion had anything like it. This made Christianity crazy popular among the common people. Imagine hearing or reading Christ's message in that brutal harsh era with brutal Gods. It would give you chills down your back and bring you to tears.
3. Christianity focused obsessively on missionary work in a way other religion's didn't. You didn't have Roman polytheists going out and trying to convert everyone with missionaries like the Christians did.
4. Christians later took over the Roman Empire. The Catholic Church put a lot of work to properly maintaining Christian records but not for other religions. Other religions may have had some great records, but were lost.

1. True, but again there are no examples at all of such extant material from the Roman empire or any of its dominions, the NT stands out dramatically.
2. Yes this is true, but can it account for the immediacy we find in the creation of written accounts? the rate at which copying grew? a wandering philosopher, upsetting established Judaism who ends up executed was not unusual back then, so why this one?
3. I agree but the question is WHY was that? I think that the miracles, the absolute astonishment these caused must be part of the reason, this is my thesis - this was a huge motive for creating records, spread them, it was almost unbelievable.
4. This occurred in the early 4th century though, we have clear evidence of NT manuscripts and fragments predating this period by at least 150 years, the copying had already started and was what enabled Christianity to grow.

So some of the things you regard as causes for the growth of Christianity seem more plausibly to be effects created by an already active practice of copying, meticulously copying, the oldest fragments from the 2nd century are almost in full accord with codices we have from around Constantine's time, the codex Vaticanus and Codex Sinaiticus must have been copied from some earlier older copy, nothing else can explain the consistency we see over these initial centuries.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Evidence that would help more would be less biased sources verifying the supernatural claims. And these claims being verified by multiple unconnected people who would have no motivation to lie and were eyewitnesses. For example if numerous non-Christian sources actually did say the dead rose from their graves about the time Jesus died. The evidence needs to be substantial because its plausible the Christians played a trick of some kind like having a look-alike of Jesus walking around. As long as a hoax is possible, I can't say its probably supernatural.

This is interesting, your phrasing and structure are interesting here.

First you wonder about "non Christian" sources but all the sources we find later became known as Christian sources; at the time these events were witnessed there was no "christianity", the original writings cannot be called "Christian sources" at the time they were simply chroniclers. So the sources that did exist were - over time - treated as sacred, but how can you expect a "non Christian" source when all the sources that did exist became labelled as "Christian"? All we have are sources that predate any church organization, that we now - centuries later - refer to these as "Christian sources" but this is quite misleading.

And tell me how could a "less biased" source verify anything? how can you call the sources that do exist as biased simply because they are sources? surely any source would biased in your view simply because it is a source?

I wouldn't believe in UFO claims or Mormonism simply because people wrote books claiming incredible things happened. Even if I had no explanation for the NT at all, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Being very popular doesn't verify supernatural claims, being in a book soon after doesn't verify supernatural claims, and having multiple religious leaders back each other up doesn't verify supernatural claims.

Then you make your decisions as you have - if the NT really is evidence and if the NT is all that remains of a possibly urgent, perhaps even desperate effort to propagate an absolutely astonishing set of events - then you cannot get the corroboration you seek, you may have set the bar just a teeny bit too high that despite the events being true you can never recognize it, you, your personal criteria (whatever they mal really be) could be blocking you from seeing truths.

Incidentally there are many extra-biblical texts around that stem from the early church period (called the "ante-nicene" fathers), for example take a look at Clement's Epistle this is believed to have been penned very early, perhaps 70 AD (though the oldest copy we have is later than that) and there are numerous other fascinating examples.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

But some religion has to be number 1. And in 50 years, Islam will be on top. The fact is that while Christianity is currently #1, many other beliefs have propagated like crazy. 33% of Americans believe in UFOs for example. Islam has almost 2 billion adherents now.

In post #126, I listed off some reasons for Christianity's popularity. Another reason is that despite their message of peace, Christians were really good at conquering. Constantine won a Roman Civil war and forced Christianity on the Roman empire. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Charlemagne and other Christians forced Christianity on many Pagan nations. Christians in Europe conquered the world, and spread their religion too.



I personally am trying to figure out how the magician at my friend's fifth birthday pulled out that rabbit from the hat.

Be careful, evaluating the NT by the kinds of people who claim it as "their book" two thousand years later is a huge epistemological mistake.

I mean look at many Trump supporters, thugs, plain and simple thugs who call themselves Christians yet admire Trump's bullying and violent rhetoric - even the staunchest atheist can see these kinds of people are a universe away from the things Christ spoke of.

I've met many "christians" who regularly attend their services and get furious over abortion being legal, yet are eager to support and justify bombing children in "foreign" countries or starving them with sanctions, killing them with medicine sanctions and so on.

I know many people can't decouple this kind of attitude from the Bible but you must, the NT predates the perverse christianity we see today by thousands of years, it never advocated the stuff we see today all around us.

 

[devildavid]

I certainly never said it. I decide what I regard as ordinary or not, I always have.



You say there's nothing extraordinary about the NT yet the facts (which you can check for yourself) are that it is by far the most extant of documents from antiquity and exhibits the shortest time (with very few exceptions) between events and our first record of the events, it stands out dramatically in these respects, it is unique in these respects do you disagree? You cannot disagree and remain honest David, these are facts, archeological facts, paleographical facts.



That's a matter of opinion. I understand full well what an inference is, it is you who confuses inference with deduction, that's always been evident in your posts.



But there is David, we know that people fabricate sometimes, that fanciful claims are made by some people sometimes, yet if the NT were such a document then why is it the only one that exhibits the dramatic prevalence of copies? the unusually close tally between event and earlies record of the event?

If the NT were fiction then I'd expect to see many more example of documents like it with the same kind of prevalence, but guess what David? there are none, it stands alone in this respect - therefore I infer there's a reason for that.



David, I really expect better than this form you, you are not paying attention - I've repeatedly referred to documents from antiquity from a time when printing did not exist in any form, from a time where every copy was made by artisans, from a time where few people had the skills to read and write, so please pay attention to the details in my posts.



I present to you the New Testament and all of the many thousands of fragments and copies that exist in collections and museums - that is the evidence.

So something is extraordinary because you say so? No, that isn't what makes something extraordinary.

There is no such thing as most extant. Something is extant or it isn't. There aren't degrees of extant.

It doesn't matter what your opinion on what you expect to see. That is opinion, not fact or scientific in any way. Your "evidence" is opinion, not facts.

If you know what inference is, why don't you demonstrate how you inferred what you did? So, far you have failed to do so using the proper logical form of inference.

 

[devildavid]

You might be correct, I might be wrong to say "most extant" so let me instead say "most prevalent" and present this scholar's view while I'm at it:



From an interview here.

So there we have it, the facts, facts that are easily verified if you care to do so, facts that underpin the arguments for the NT's reliability as a witness, facts that you should - if you are willing to be impartial - embrace, because we all know how much value you like to attach to facts, you remind us of it regularly.



Yes we do, "mere decades" see the above excerpt from an interview with an expert on these matters.

Your facts do not even suggest what you are claiming they do. You are talking very limited facts and extrapolating something that does not logically connect. You conveniently keep ignoring the facts of who copied the documents and why. You just assume things based upon very slim facts that don't necessarily lead to your very limited conclusion. Otherwise, it can be claimed that Harry Potter stories must be based on something real. There are so many copies of this story throughout the entire world. It must have taken an extraordinary effort to accomplish this.

 

[bongsaway]

If you had lived 2,000 years ago and if you had witnessed a "miracle" (like those described in the Gospels, e.g. turning vats of water into wine) I put it to you that you would have no option other than to create a written record of the event or ask someone else to do so, or do nothing, ignore the information.

So then when some claim "there's no evidence" that Jesus did such things, this is an illogical position because it is clear the only evidence we could expect is some preserved written record.

Furthermore because the events were so shocking, a great effort would need to be devoted to ensuring this information is preserved, tremendous value would be attached to the preservation of such incredible information.

Now it is pretty obvious to me that because such huge significance would be attached to this information and written copies were the only way to preserve this for future generations, a practice of making meticulous copies would be strongly emphasized from the outset knowing that many copies would be inevitably lost due to their fragility.

In addition, due to the very obvious risk of the information being lost forever, as many copies as could be created would be created.

The above is a very reasonable expectation if and only if such incredible events were observed, that the events were true and did occur.

And what do we actually find when we explore this subject?

From wikipedia:

and



From a Bible information site:

View attachment 67300517

and

View attachment 67300518

These statistics, charts and numbers are easily verified facts.

The facts do indeed fit the expectation of what we'd find if a herculean effort were made by the initial observers to preserve the information with the technology available at the time, and this in turn strongly supports the belief that these events must have been true and were genuinely witnessed, no other explanation makes any real sense.

There are really no grounds for the atheists oft heard claim that there's no evidence Jesus existed, no evidence Jesus performed miracles, the data - when honestly analyzed in light of the prevailing technologies of the time - is exactly what one would expect to find.

Therefore - what is written in the New Testament is very very likely true.

A preserved written record makes it neither accurate or true. Who is to say it's not a work of fiction?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

So something is extraordinary because you say so? No, that isn't what makes something extraordinary.

Yes it is, if I find something extraordinary then it is, this is a legitimate personal reaction to an observation, how one reacts is a function of what one knows or does not know already.

There is no such thing as most extant. Something is extant or it isn't. There aren't degrees of extant.

Yes you raised that earlier, I agreed, see my earlier response.

It doesn't matter what your opinion on what you expect to see. That is opinion, not fact or scientific in any way. Your "evidence" is opinion, not facts.

I have no idea what specifically you're referring to here, as is often the case you fail to quote the sentence with which you take issue, so I have no idea what you are referring to.

If you know what inference is, why don't you demonstrate how you inferred what you did? So, far you have failed to do so using the proper logical form of inference.

Sure, for the third time the NT is unique in terms of the number of copies we have found, no other material comes close, it is an anomaly in that respect, this is fact as you well know.

I infer that there's a reason for this, there is some specific reason, cause for what we find, there's a reason the NT has this very unusual quality, this is called cause and effect, the volume of NT material, fragments, codices etc is very unusual compared to almost all other documents from antiqiuty.

Of course you are determined to dismiss this because you are prejudiced, these facts do not matter to you because the truth does not matter to you.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Your facts do not even suggest what you are claiming they do. You are talking very limited facts and extrapolating something that does not logically connect. You conveniently keep ignoring the facts of who copied the documents and why. You just assume things based upon very slim facts that don't necessarily lead to your very limited conclusion. Otherwise, it can be claimed that Harry Potter stories must be based on something real. There are so many copies of this story throughout the entire world. It must have taken an extraordinary effort to accomplish this.

Tell me David, what are these "your facts"? why do you refer to facts that I use in support of my position as "your facts"? what "your facts" are you referring to?

Do you dispute any of the facts I've referred to so far? if so which ones?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

A preserved written record makes it neither accurate or true. Who is to say it's not a work of fiction?

How can we tell?

 

[devildavid]

Yes it is, if I find something extraordinary then it is, this is a legitimate personal reaction to an observation, how one reacts is a function of what one knows or does not know already.



Yes you raised that earlier, I agreed, see my earlier response.



I have no idea what specifically you're referring to here, as is often the case you fail to quote the sentence with which you take issue, so I have no idea what you are referring to.



Sure, for the third time the NT is unique in terms of the number of copies we have found, no other material comes close, it is an anomaly in that respect, this is fact as you well know.

I infer that there's a reason for this, there is some specific reason, cause for what we find, there's a reason the NT has this very unusual quality, this is called cause and effect, the volume of NT material, fragments, codices etc is very unusual compared to almost all other documents from antiqiuty.

Of course you are determined to dismiss this because you are prejudiced, these facts do not matter to you because the truth does not matter to you.

No, you don't get to call something extraordinary just because you say so. But that seems to be you approach to debate.

Uniqueness is a meaningless trait. A unique book is not more true than one which is less unique. How something came to written and copied means nothing in regard to its contents. You are still not making an inference at all. What you are doing is called making a guess. You can't infer by comparing things and showing their differences.. You infer by showing what they have in common. Your opinion that something is unusual tells us nothing. Being unusual tells us nothing about the contents.

The irony is just dripping from your last line. You are prejudiced because you only choose to interpret a few basic facts to fit what you have obviously already concluded. You should be trying to gather sufficient facts before you can conclude anything at all. Who wrote the texts?

 

[devildavid]

Tell me David, what are these "your facts"? why do you refer to facts that I use in support of my position as "your facts"? what "your facts" are you referring to?

Do you dispute any of the facts I've referred to so far? if so which ones?

The only facts you present is how many years and how many copies of documents that tell a story there were. You leave out the facts of who copied them and the nature of the actual stories. Are they written as eyewitness accounts? Are there any stories that couldn't have had eyewitnesses? Are there more than one version of the stories? if so, why? Your base bones facts don't come close to even suggesting what you think they do. There are more facts available, so why do you ignore them?

 

[devildavid]

How can we tell?

By analyzing the actual content and the actual source of the writing. Who wrote it and why? How it was copied and how often does not answer these questions.

 

[watsup]

The only facts you present is how many years and how many copies of documents that tell a story there were. You leave out the facts of who copied them and the nature of the actual stories. Are they written as eyewitness accounts? Are there any stories that couldn't have had eyewitnesses? Are there more than one version of the stories? if so, why? Your base bones facts don't come close to even suggesting what you think they do. There are more facts available, so why do you ignore them?

There are indeed more than one version is the stories. There is the Apocryphal Gospel of St Thomas in which he goes into more detail about Jesus' family and discusses his marriage to Mary Magdalen. Without inclusion of that gospel, the conclusion is incomplete.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

No, you don't get to call something extraordinary just because you say so. But that seems to be you approach to debate.

Since you clearly know nothing about the subject we're discussing you are far from competent to judge what is and is not extraordinary David.

But once again, I do get to call whatever I want "extraordinary" if I find it not ordinary, so yes I do have that right, and all your foot stamping makes no difference.

Uniqueness is a meaningless trait.

To you sure, because you don't understand what's being discussed.

A unique book is not more true than one which is less unique.

More strawmen, of course you can't quote me saying that David because I never said that !

How something came to written and copied means nothing in regard to its contents.

You can believe this if you want, some proof would be nice but I know you can't do that, so I won't ask.

You are still not making an inference at all. What you are doing is called making a guess.

I can infer that you know nothing about this subject and do not understand anything said so far - that's not a guess, trust me.

You can't infer by comparing things and showing their differences.. You infer by showing what they have in common. Your opinion that something is unusual tells us nothing. Being unusual tells us nothing about the contents.

I'll infer as I see fit David, by all means disagree, this is expected now, you never agree with anyone in any thread.

The irony is just dripping from your last line. You are prejudiced because you only choose to interpret a few basic facts to fit what you have obviously already concluded. You should be trying to gather sufficient facts before you can conclude anything at all. Who wrote the texts?

I'm sorry you feel this way, but you are once again simply ranting, you despise anything that challenges your world view, you refuse to listen, to ponder, you snap back to each and every post like a robot, you are quite boring David, quite tiresome.

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

The only facts you present is how many years and how many copies of documents that tell a story there were. You leave out the facts of who copied them and the nature of the actual stories. Are they written as eyewitness accounts? Are there any stories that couldn't have had eyewitnesses? Are there more than one version of the stories? if so, why? Your base bones facts don't come close to even suggesting what you think they do. There are more facts available, so why do you ignore them?

Do you dispute any of the facts I've referred to so far? if so which ones?

 

[watsup]

Since you clearly know nothing about the subject we're discussing you are far from competent to judge what is and is not extraordinary David.

But once again, I do get to call whatever I want "extraordinary" if I find it not ordinary, so yes I do have that right, and all your foot stamping makes no difference.



To you sure, because you don't understand what's being discussed.



More strawmen, of course you can't quote me saying that David because I never said that !



You can believe this if you want, some proof would be nice but I know you can't do that, so I won't ask.



I can infer that you know nothing about this subject and do not understand anything said so far - that's not a guess, trust me.



I'll infer as I see fit David, by all means disagree, this is expected now, you never agree with anyone in any thread.



I'm sorry you feel this way, but you are once again simply ranting, you despise anything that challenges your world view, you refuse to listen, to ponder, you snap back to each and every post like a robot, you are quite boring David, quite tiresome.

"You do not understand." *L*

 

[devildavid]

Do you dispute any of the facts I've referred to so far? if so which ones?

Do you dispute that those facts that you use are insufficient to come to the conclusion that you do? Do you dispute that you never respond about other evidence that can be used as well to get more facts to make a more accurate conclusion?

 

[Sherlock Holmes]

Do you dispute that those facts that you use are insufficient to come to the conclusion that you do? Do you dispute that you never respond about other evidence that can be used as well to get more facts to make a more accurate conclusion?

Do you dispute any of the facts I've referred to so far? if so which ones?

 

[watsup]

Do you dispute any of the facts I've referred to so far? if so which ones?

Since you clearly know nothing about the subject we're discussing you are far from competent to judge what is and is not extraordinary David.

But once again, I do get to call whatever I want "extraordinary" if I find it not ordinary, so yes I do have that right, and all your foot stamping makes no difference.



To you sure, because you don't understand what's being discussed.



More strawmen, of course you can't quote me saying that David because I never said that !



You can believe this if you want, some proof would be nice but I know you can't do that, so I won't ask.



I can infer that you know nothing about this subject and do not understand anything said so far - that's not a guess, trust me.



I'll infer as I see fit David, by all means disagree, this is expected now, you never agree with anyone in any thread.



I'm sorry you feel this way, but you are once again simply ranting, you despise anything that challenges your world view, you refuse to listen, to ponder, you snap back to each and every post like a robot, you are quite boring David, quite tiresome.

"You are quite boring but I continue to wait on pins and needles to answere your every single post!"