Proving the Historicity of Jesus? | Andrew - Twinsburg, OH | Atheist Experience 22.10

topic is listed as would like to prove the historicity of Jesus you did call in on the right it's an atheist miracle so you're on with Tracy and David and feel free go ahead well I'm not an expert in textual criticism but uh I don't know where do you want to start off with the Gospels or outside of the Bible for Jesus's existence well David I mentioned this in the tech the talk today is the first thing we should ask ourselves anytime somebody wants to tell you oh I know what Jesus said or did or how he wants you to vote you need to say okay well what's our source for that and then you have to say how reliable is that source so I guess that's what I put to you is what's your sources for anything you want to make that claim about Jesus and how reliable are those sources well for example if you look at the Emperor at the time of Jesus he has only tens historical sources in the first after the 150 years of his life but when we look at Jesus we have 42 hold on stop pump the brakes when you say we have 42 first of all that number is widely inflated how many contemporary witnesses do we have did Jesus how many non-christian witnesses do we have did Jesus that's a better question because it turns out of all the lines of evidence that you can use to prop up any historical claim not even about Jesus but about anybody jonatha Baptists Julius Caesar Alexander great you've got to ask yourself how many lines of evidence do we have to support this and when you look at just the ways that you can support a claim for most of those lines of evidence Jesus has exactly zero lines of evidence and the one that he does have which it's not the best kind of written evidence it's not historian citing their sources and giving you know critiquing views and and weighing the evidence it's the worst kind it's anonymous Christian writers falsely passing themselves off as someone who existed years before them and from other place who are writing specifically without sources claiming to be eyewitnesses claiming to be talking to eyewitnesses who are about their writing all this to convert you to Christianity it's hard that are in a worse shape for Jesus and that's true whether Jesus was real or not the fact is even if there was a Jesus just weighing the state of the evidence we have for him it almost doesn't even matter because everything that we think we know about Jesus comes from sources that have nothing to do with anybody who actually lived in the first century okay if you want to start with Pontius Pilate we found his grave Pontius Pilate is correct he's correct now now I'll go back it's what we know about Pontius Pilate that helps us tell that the stories they're telling about him in the Gospels don't match historical reality because the Pontius Pilate they paint a picture of is nobody who actually existed because we have lots of good sources on Pontius Pilate and they all disagree with what the Gospels are saying about him well we'll start with the Gospel of John you don't believe John the Apostle wrote oh no I don't think there was a John the Apostle and actually the the real author of that isn't given as John the Apostle it's given as the Beloved Disciple the disciple whom Jesus loved and in fact there's scholars out there who think it's actually the character of Lazarus who is supposed to be the Beloved Disciple because that's the only other person in there that it specifically mentions Jesus loving but it's funny you say let's start with John because John is actually the last gospel to be written and he's writing sometime in the early second century if you wanted to start with a gospel we should start with the Gospel of Mark because that was the first gospel that was written and when it was written it was written sometime right after the war with Rome around in the 70s of the first century all our biographical information ultimately comes from the four Gospels and all our four Gospels ultimately come that Gospel of Mark well I disagree with that because Mark Luke and Matthew are considered the synoptic Gospels know what that mean wait let's just break that down for our audience what that means if they're kids they're called the synoptic Gospels because I think yes I think I could explain that please do most of the parables most of the miracles most of Jesus's life in Luke Matthew and what are we talking about Martinez Mark Becca and Mark so that those are like you got 30 of the same stories and those because mark mark was written for the Romans Luke was written for the Greeks and Matthew was written for the Jews the reason that it was written for the Jews is because it's got most of the Old Testament prophecies in there and he also corrects most of Mark's mistakes whereas Luke tends to repeat them but I wanted to talk about something in John that's very specific that I know that this is an eyewitness testimony well that that's funny you say that because even the Gospel of John says that we know this is true even though we're not I witness is but go ahead go ahead I think I don't worry you're going with this but do you know what a poll aerial is using it let's let's come back to your synoptic problem first but no go ahead and tell me tell me it tell us all what plural confusion is well in John 19:34 it says when Jesus was dead the guy put a spear into his lung and a bunch of blood and water came out very specific very specific and very hard in reality how would you know if blood and water came out the same time just putting it out there because we can now confirm this with medical evidence no no no I'm not saying that I'm not saying it medically it can't be done what I'm saying is if you were an ancient person poking a hole into somebody and they say blood and water came out how would an ancient person know that that was happening metaphorically and allegorically it makes a lot of sense for a writer a later writer like John to be saying that that's what happened because there's metaphorical weight to water and medical wait to blood that's that he's drawing upon but as a anyway we're talking about a story you're talking about I'm not denying that there that that could happen or possibly happen but that's that the possibility of that happening isn't what making it true or not and it's certainly not making an eyewitness account in fact the fact that it has to go out of its way from later editors to end the story and say oh and this was written by an eyewitness and we know it's true because it says right here it's the napkin religion is true because it says right here on the napkin that's what we get at the end of John and again this is being written by somebody in the mid to early second century it could not have been written by anybody who was alive when Jesus was alive I disagree because the reason why we Protestants don't include the apocryphal books which also give historical evidence of Jesus's because those were written after hundred ad well that's not why but anyway I'm not I'm finally you're saying you're pointing it seems the point you're making is that well because this thing medically is real that means this story actually happened and I'm not sure I follow that at all but you're suggesting that yes I made up a story that water came out no not you but I'm suggesting yes it was a story and we have many lines of evidence that point to this being a story in fact we can trace out the evolution of this story and I said let's start with mark because mark is the oldest gospel and we can trace out where Matthew spins off from mark where Luke spins off from mark where John spins off for them and when they're not in lockstep with each other quoting word-for-word in ways that are very unlikely if they were even trying to tell the same story because again it's word for word verbatim correspondence when they're not in lockstep with each other they're going off in completely incompatible ways I was just telling Tracy about that how if you read the details in John's Gospel about the last three weeks of Jesus's life and then compare it to any of the synoptic Gospels they don't match up at all not even a little bit they're completely detailed completely filled in and they're completely incompatible and I'm talking about not just after the resurrection which is they are but I'm talking about for the final month of Jesus life they've got their Jesus is doing completely different things in completely different ways four completely different motives what all mark was written first for the Romans so well Martin was the first full stop he wrote it for Greek Gentile Christians he he may have written it in Rome he certainly didn't write it in Judea or the Galilee because he makes all these mistakes about everyday life in Judea and basic Judaism that nobody would have made if they are actually the person he was supposed to be in the Bible Matthew goes and takes his Bible none of these guys were setting out to write a gospel they were all setting out to write v gospel Matthew was just trying to take the only gospel he knew Marx and improve on it add to it and correct its mistakes and where mark keeps eluding to Old Testament passages Matthew makes that explicit mark expects his more educated readers to understand what he's doing and that he's telling a story about Jesus but he's really telling parables taken from Old Testament Scriptures and things that don't make sense historically they don't make sense from a logical standpoint they make perfect in the perfect sense from an allegorical standpoint and Mark actually goes have his ways to tell us that's what he's doing whereas Matthew as you say written for the Jews and I totally agree was written for Jewish Christians in a Jewish Christian community Luke on the other hand he was writing for everybody he wanted to be a big tent writer he wanted Christianity to include women and children and Gentiles and Pharisees and the and John the Baptist cult he wanted to make these all part of the same team so when he's writing his gospel and interesting when he writes his gospel he says you know there's so many people writing Gospels now it seemed to me a good idea to go back to our sources and check in this story that was handed down to us which is a lie because all he does is take the best parts of Matthew and Mark and then spin off from there he doesn't tell us that's what he's doing it's very clear from the textual analysis that's exactly what he's doing and he's also taking things from Josephus and the reason we know he's taking things from flavie's Josephus is because when we match those up the information we get in Josephus is more complete it's in context and it makes sense whereas he's clearly just using bits of it for window dressing and not always getting his facts rights which is one of the ways that we know that he's the one stealing from Josephus and not the other way around and John of course comes decades later if not more than that and again he's writing at a time when his Jesus is so much different from Marx Jesus that you can barely think that they were the same character in Marx Jesus he is the most fallible most human the most no-frills Jesus John's Jesus should have been stoned to death for blasphemy two minutes out of the gate there's no reason that they shouldn't have killed him because he's constantly saying that he's God he might as well be wearing it on a t-shirt it's like there was a shortage of rocks around that time otherwise they would have a they would have taken him right out as Mosaic law required well you're suggesting that mark is not a eyewitness no I'm not suggesting it I'm saying it outright there is no way he was an eyewitness he doesn't claim to because I think says cousin Galatians 2:9 James Peter and John are those team pillars of the Christian Church and let's look at those pillars what what does Paul say about those guys that are the pillars of the church in Galatians can I just say mark gets his mark get Mark the Evangelist who wrote mark gets his information from Peter you know if that was true if that was true then why do the other Gospels have more information about Peter than Mark's does because mark is a basic summary of Jesus's life how do you know that important why would you even say that what makes you think it's a basic summary of Jesus's life first of the there we have four different guys and they're written for different people to get people to Christ you don't have just one book because if we did write one book you would just criticize that anyways well I probably would it probably would have something to criticize about it but the fact is we didn't have four Gospels for the longest time in fact we had we had dozens of Gospels really but the fact is it wasn't until the middle of the second century that anyone thought you know what we should put all these letters together and all these Gospels together and sort out the ones we like from the ones we don't like and make a New Testament out of it and you know where they got that idea they got that idea from heretics Marcion once they did one of the print print we didn't have the printing press till 1500 didn't say we had written and press right now didn't say we had the printing press but they took they got the idea to collect these letters and these books and put them into a collection of Scripture they got that idea from Marcia and we're talking about the second century now up till then up to time of Paul before Paul it never occurred to anybody that could to put these writings together so when you say these guys were writing their Gospels for different audiences yeah that's true but that's true of dozens of Gospels and all of these those though they were aimed a specific target like Matthew he was a Jewish writer aiming for Jewish community Luke was a Gentile writer aiming for Gentiles it wasn't like they were sorting out themselves to to to target and we'd have all four and that would cover our target audience know every single one of them was writing the one true gospel Luke even is right out of the gate says so many people are writing Gospels I'm gonna give you the true story and then he'd be Smerch as his own sources Matthew Mark and everybody else who's writing and again these are just the Gospels that made the cut they aren't including all the Gospels we know about and that's not only including all the Gospels that have survived to the day so there's a world of Christian writings out there early Christian writings that never made it well we could start with a lot of people don't know the history of the early Christian Church you remember reading to the choir 300 years for the first 300 years of Christianity it was senator Kohl absolutely and it was a cold and and these men these men sacrificed their lives hang on hold on how do we know that who tells us that well we know James did cuz uh Josephus recorded that James died well he records that a guy named James died but if you've read my book nailed you'll know that that James is not the James that we think of as the leader of the Jerusalem church that's a completely different an artifact that's James suggestion it's not our Jesus in fact you only have to read the passage in Josephus to see that that's the case that the James in that passage and the Jesus in that passage is James the just and Jesus son of damned Gnaeus the brother of thy priest it's not II that session we that should be a no-brainer by this point because you just have to read it to know that we have 24,000 copies of the New Testament you know we could have any 24 million copies and it wouldn't make any difference because those 24 thousand copies you're talking about are from the 12th century eighth 17th century for when you want to talk about what really matters it's not the amount of monks who were copying scripture how many route manuscripts do we have how many textual traditions do we have when you start going back to that what do we have from the third century what do we have from the second surgery what do we have from the first century we have nothing at all from the first century we have not nothing but scraps for the majority of the second century we don't have complete books of the New Testament until the very end of the second century we don't have complete New Testaments until the fourth century so there's a huge blackout period for the first 150 to 250 years of Christianity where we don't know if what we have matches the originals we have no way of knowing if it matches the originals and here's the thing let's say somebody put the original in a vault and it magically has been undisturbed until just now if we found that manuscript and had it in our hands right now we wouldn't know it was the original we'd say well here's a weird heretical gospel yes well we found the Dead Sea Scrolls which prove the Book of Isaiah was that you're sorry yeah the Dead Sea Scrolls do talk about Isaiah yep and they also at least one but well and when we say accurate Isaiah was written by two different people over two different times and we can know we can see that in the Dead Sea Scrolls too and I don't know what has to do with a new Testament but there you go but we can trace all the New Testament books back to Jesus's inner circle no we can't no we can yes we can if you look at Matthew he was a tax collector he talked about the temple tax in Matthew 17 he talked about the unforgiven server in the Matthew 18 and in Matthew 20 talked about the parable of the workers in the vine and where is any of the stag this was written by Matthew some strange God where does it say anywhere in the gospel that this was written by Matthew and I should say we just say Matthew Levi because hang on a second we should say Matthew Levi because in 1 JN one gospel he's Matthew the tax collector and the other one he's Levi and it's been put together as Matthew Levi but in the separate Gospels they're two separate characters and in fact there's no when you take out all the apostles including the ones who are in evangelist there is no single Christian document full-stop that agrees on who the apostles were not a single one they're all what would you get it all put together by slapping together the four Gospels we like and then saying well this guy must have had two or three names and then and doing it from there you mentioned you mentioned the leaders of the Jerusalem church and I want to come back to that because yeah we do have the leaders of the Jerusalem church and you didn't answer my question what does Paul say about those guys everyone says oh in Galatians he says that you know James is the brother of the Lord they know he's Jesus brother well no he's not Jesus brother he's the brother of the Lord and what does Paul say about him he says all those guys are false Christians he doesn't agree with him for a minute the whole book of Galatians the letter of Galatians is talking about his run-in with these guys who he calls false Christians how do you talk about Jesus as friends and family like this it seems like all the arguments you're making are we the gospel says this and therefore we know that but you're not saying well who wrote these Gospels how do we know that Matthew wrote discuss will come Matthew because the Gospel of Matthew doesn't say that I Matthew wrote this in fact it says things like oh and this story was told around and the Jews believe it to this day he did all all the Gospels have giveaways there that there's anachronism that they're writing long after the time they admit that the story is set in it's like you're trying to say well Gandalf said that Frodo had the one ring so we know that was true well we know the Gospel of Matthew is correct because the massacre of the innocents when Herod did that when we look out sort sources outside of the Bible it proves that he killed his own kids and one of his wives well he definitely killed his own kids and one survives but we don't have any we do have no corroboration for the massacre that the innocents and that's a very weird thing to leave out because the same guys who told us that he killed his wife and his sons they loved picking dirt on on Herod the Great they would have no way that would have missed something like oh and he just happened to Massacre all the boys born in Bethlehem for over two years and honestly if he did that well then how a jonatha Baptist survived because he was born around then - but anyway the point is you say these things have historical cooperation you can't point to the same book and say they have historical corporation and when you look at what you when you look at the corroboration what they're operating is not what you say they are khakis mention tackiest mentioned Jesus's crucifixion he mentions that Christians worship a guy that he that was uh was crucified and I think you're actually you're missing mentioning your I think you're thinking of Suetonius too but all these guys and I again I go through all these alleged reefs the witnesses in my book nailed in every single case we're talking about 2nd and 3rd century figures talking about Christians and what Christians are saying and Bart Ehrman who's a staunch he's with you that there was a real Jesus even he says and he's talking about the Josephus testimony and in particular he says you know what even if every word of is true and we know it's not because it's a forgery it doesn't add anything to the question because this is nothing except what Christians were saying or any Christian on the street was saying we know Tacitus wasn't going through the library to look up this stuff because he's not talking about Christians he's talking about something else and just mentioning it to explain okay Christians I should explain what these are because you've never heard of them they there is worship this crucified guy bla bla bla some of your some of your fellow Christian apologists bring out AI witnesses that if they read these suppose that eyewitnesses not only would they see that these are not eyewitnesses often they're not even saying what you think they're saying and they're saying things about Christianity that does not make early Christianity look good and I'm thinking of pollution of sama sada they say oh he mentions that Jesus was crucified yeah yeah he's he's a fourth century third century Jerry Seinfeld talking about how gullible the Christians are and that has his friend Proteus as our peregrinus wrote Christian scriptures and they all fell for it it's like keep reading what these witnesses to what you're saying is that I'm gonna have to insert here that we do have other callers on the line but andrew has not gotten much talk time so what I'd like to do I just want Sanders you want to talk more about this offline well if you want talk more to this offline please suggest can I just do this can I just get a couple of things here she's one question I've talked a lot over obscure does he believe the Roman emperor Tiberius existed duh why would I not believe that we wait let me put it this way we have good lines of evidence that indicate Tiberius existed but we only have 10 historians that recognize him within the one that's not doesn't that's not all we have anyway even if that was the only even if that was the only written evidence we have that's not the only evidence we have if Jesus was just a carpenter from Nazareth why do we have 42 independent sources that recognized as the identity short answer we don't long answer because they started a religion about it but those 42 witnesses that you're lined up none of them are from none of them are from his life none of them are from the first century almost all of them are after the fact and almost all of them are Christian alright I'm grabbing the reins here and I'm gonna say would you come on more clutch no because then he'll give you an answer I would like wait wait wait wait wait please let me just insert my solution here so that we can move on to another call what I was gonna do is ask David would you be amenable to engaging at our blog with the people who have might have questions for you about the conversations today it would be my happy okay so Andrew you can ask David questions at the blog I'm gonna just warn you and everyone can see it on the blog yeah it's gonna be visible on the blog so Android you're welcome to come there's an open show thread at the Atheist Experience blog that will be specifically for this show you can go and post your questions to David and David has agreed to answer them and I will let you know that if you have not posted to our blog before the first comment that you post has to be moderated so there may be a delay so if you go to post and you don't see your post immediately appear it's just because it needs moderation when someone goes in and moderates it then you will be able to post freely after that do you understand yes okay so if you believe Alexander the Great existed we've got good evidence for it look this is more of a thing we have any evidence of his life until two hundred years after his death that's adorable that is adorable Andrew okay Andrew please post it at the blog and David please respond to him at the blog I promise I will and I won't even be talking about be snarky alright and I you know I didn't I didn't want to hang up on Android felt that Andrew was actually a polite caller he was actually okay I just this can't go on because it will be endless so this is my life this is my life ya know then down the rabbit hole we go

Channel: The Atheist Experience

Views: 299,564

Rating: 4.8177857 out of 5

Keywords: atheist experience, the atheist experience, theatheistexperience, atheist, atheism, atheist vs christian, atheist debate, religion debate, atheism debate, Matt Dillahunty (Broadcast Artist), belief, faith, reason, rational, proof, evidence, logic, fallacy, religion, religious, science, secular, Skepticism, skeptic, questioning god, doubt, is god real, agnostic, agnosticism, evidence for god, Christianity, Islam, morality, evidence for jesus, Jesus, Jesus Christ, debate, Bible, Bible contradictions

Id: O5AordEPtok

Length: 26min 23sec (1583 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 21 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MyDogFanny]

I really enjoy David Fitzgerald. His books are well worth the time and money if you are interested in this topic.

[u/Tekhead001]

Saw that the other day. Both hilarious and a little bit saddening. Somebody should teach people like this that the rope-a-dope technique doesn't work in reasonable discourse or debates, especially against atheists. No amount of having your argument demolished and your points invalidated will lead to a victory.

[u/justgord]

Wonderful episode !

[u/SawTheLightOfReason]

This kind of thing makes amusing entertainment, but, back when I was a Christian, it would not have affected my beliefs one way or the other. I'd have been turned off by the whole thing. (I'm an Atheist/Agnostic now.)

I don't have any problem with Atheists doing what they did on this video, or Christians calling in, like some Christian did on this video. But I just don't think it ever does anything to change anybody's mind.

Is there anyone reading this thread, who used to be a Christian, who was influenced by something like this? I'd love to hear your story.

[u/dull_define]

I found my self laughing hysterically watching this episode. Not at the people but at how David could not control himself.

It is kind of reminiscent of my middle school history teacher. You would just mention a topic and she just went on an hour long rant about it.

[u/ReddBert]

David certainly knows his stuff, but when arguing he is mostly providing conclusions and is often short on providing a fact to support that. If a caller is susceptible to rational arguments, that wouldn’t help him over.

The caller is also typical: He doesn’t acknowledge what David says. That to me is a sign of dishonesty and typical of defending a POV that they want to be true. In a discussion, both participants should be willing to give up their POV if shown wrong.

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