Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Acts17apologetics really trust their saint; Paul, a reliable contemporary of Jesus?

In answer to the video "Paul Was a Contemporary of Jesus; Muhammad Wasn't (PvM 4)"

Being contemporary of an individual doesnt make a testimony reliable. The witness has to prove his objectivity, and Paul certainly fails in that regard. The sources we do have from historians contemporaries to Jesus paint a completely different picture than what Paul says, let alone the entire NT. No contemporary writing or immidiately following Jesus' time mention a thing about the extraordinary events surrounding his life or alleged crucifixion. Yet we have archeological and historical proof for the existance of Bar Kochba, another messianic claimant who came just a few years after Jesus, and performed no spectacular wonders. In short, none of the sources Christians bring up, religious or else, amount to more than circular reasoning in regards to determining the historical Jesus. The earliest sources are Christian, meaning the NT itself, written 30-70 years after the supposed events, by non eye witnesses. Up to 70 years is a huge time gap where legends, conjectures and deliberate lies could have been grafted into a historical core. The NT itself has no currently existing 1st century witnesses, either as manuscripts or as writings of Christians. We do not have an unbroken chain linking the Apostolic Fathers to the gospel writers to Jesus. So yes, relying on the NT is circular reasoning, besides the fact we are talking of grandiose events that could not have been missed by independent witnesses who were active and writing in that time and place. What secular historians will attest to, is not that a miracle worker named Jesus did and said what is narrated about him in the NT, but that an early 1st century community existed that believed what is said in the NT about someone called Jesus. Historians will then conclude that  the existence of such community attests to a true core regarding a historical person named Jesus who could have said some of what was attributed to him. Each historian will then work out what that true core was, based on textual criticism, archaeology, independent sources and conjecture.
Muslims got their answer to this through revelation 
"That is Jesus, the son of Mary - the word of truth about which they are in dispute". 
Of course, this description of what every prophet and slave of God was, doesnt line up well with those that raised a particular prophet to divine status.

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