Greg Boyd on New Testiment Reliablity

[Reginus]

I consitered adding this material on to my "9 points" topic, but decided it deserved a new topic in it's own right.

The Quest for a "Merely Human" Jesus

Internal Arguments for the Gospels

Archeological Support for the Gospels

Corroborating Historical Support For the New Testiment

Reliablility of the Early Church's Oral Traditions

Is the Book of Acts Reliable?

Edit:Response to "Misquoting Jesus"

A summary:General Arguments For the Reliablity of the New Testiment

I admit that as a Christian, I am pretty one sided as far as critical thinking goes for this topic, so I am interested in the flaws you guys see in these arguments.

[Will]

The Quest for a "Merely Human" Jesus

This seems to ignore entirely the fact that the Bible today bears little resemblance to the original texts and additional books. Ecumenical politics permeates the Bible, so modern interpretation which only takes information from the NKJ or NIV would seem... irrelevant. Regardless of how the author feels about "liberal" "naturalism", the wider issue is that no one basing their understanding of Jesus on the modern Bible is getting even part of the story as it was supposedly, originally.

Naturalism is the answer to the question, "What principle can one settle on if they only accept verifiable evidence?" I don't blame modern theologians for trying to integrate such a principle into religion, in order to try and protect it from the likes of people like myself. Unfortunately, it's a bit like putting a barnacle on the outside of a piece of iron and calling it a fish. That fish won't float.

Internal Arguments for the Gospels

Much like above, the modern interpretation ignores the history of the documents themselves. Since there's no evidence at all that the Gospels were written during the time when Jesus supposedly was alive, there's no reason at all to assume that any historical accuracy suggests anything more than simply fitting a fable in with known events. The same argument could be made for any historical fiction. Historicity no more demonstrates the truth of the gospels than it does the movie Titanic. There was a large boat named "Titanic", and on its maiden voyage its hull was punctured by an iceberg, which caused it to sink. There's nothing demonstrating that two young people, one rich and engaged and one poor and probably Irish, got busy in the back of a car or drew each other naked, however.

Archeological Support for the Gospels

Evidence of the Nature of First Century Judaism gets us off with a bit of a strawman. Orthodox Jews are just as capable of reviewing their prophecies and creating a character to fit them as “Hellenized” Jews, in fact I'd say that have more of a reason to do so. Inventing a savior, if successful, could (and did) revitalize religion in the area making “Hellenization" less likely.

Bethsaida follows the same argument I made above, as does the A Galilean Fishing Boat.

 I don't know of anyone that doubts Pontius Pilate was a real historical figure. I certainly don't and I'm one of those people that argues that there's no historical, extra-Biblical evidence for the existence of Jesus. I'm also well aware people were crucified.

Regarding the Caiaphas Ossuary, I'm afraid it was debunked almost immediately by those tasked with testing it. Apparently, it was a hoax.

The Pool of Siloam? May have existed, doesn't prove that Jesus healed people there, or that there ever was a Jesus there.

Peter's House seems to suggest that there were Christians in the late first century, which doesn't really surprise me. The Gospel of Mark dates back to about 70AD, iirc. It should also be said that the dating of the building suggests that it's from the first or second century.

There has never been a burial site verified to have been the resting place of Jesus. Due respect to James Charlesworth, there's no evidence whatsoever to support such a wild and irresponsible conclusion.

I'm starting to see a pattern, so I'm going to have to conclude that there's really nothing new here. Some of the Bible does reference historically accurate information, but that does not suggest the entire Bible is correct.

[Arctonyx]

This naturalistic presupposition permeates liberal New Testament scholarship, and, while liberal scholars may differ somewhat in the degree to which they hold to it (depending on how broadly or narrowly they define the “natural” world), its importance in determining the conclusions more radical scholars arrive at can hardly be overstated. If a person begins his or her research with the assumption that supernatural events never occur, then obviously the only Jesus he or she can possibly “discover” through their research is a non-supernatural Jesus, a Jesus, in other words, that is radically different than the Jesus portrayed in the Bible. Thus, the conclusion that the Bible’s portrait of a supernatural savior is inaccurate is assumed at the start!

This guy just lost all credibility in my book for this statement, firstly it's a straw man fallacy and secondly I wouldn't be surprised if he's making the assumption that supernatural events can and did occur and starting from there. Instead of starting where you're supposed to: "We don't know whether Jesus performed supernatural acts, is there evidence to support either viewpoint?". It's just a really underhanded way of calling us close minded on his part.

[AlP]

Thanks for taking the time to post Will and Arctonyx. I read through the first couple of links. They were so inane I couldn't even think what to post. Thanks again for taking the time to make "sense" of it.

[Heretical Rants]

stuff

Does this guy have anything other than the Bible?

stuff

If we discover something beyond what we currently consider "natural,"  it would not be supernatural, because would exist.  The definition of "natural" would stretch to include it.  We would make new theories to model its behavior, attempt to utilize it, and probably revolutionize the way we live life.

Certainly, I have no belief in the supernatural.  It does not exist BY DEFINITION.

[Arctonyx]

If we discover something beyond what we currently consider "natural,"  it would not be supernatural, because would exist.  The definition of "natural" would stretch to include it.  We would make new theories to model its behavior, attempt to utilize it, and probably revolutionize the way we live life.

Certainly, I have no belief in the supernatural.  It does not exist BY DEFINITION.

This is what confuses me when I hear arguments such as "God is outside of our reality, therefore you can't test it" or something (I've heard it a couple of times from a friend at least). And if God does exist then he must exist inside reality, things outside of reality don't exist. Though I guess most religious people use 'supernatural' in the sense that actions are performed which according to our current knowledge would be impossible.

[AlP]

I'm making a genuine attempt to understand what these articles mean and if I understood them I might be interested in debating them. The first stumbling block I have with the first article is I don't know what the author means by supernatural. It seems to mean different things to different people. Does he mean supernatural as in paranormal? Or is he referring to a non-natural realm, like Plato's ideal versus non-ideal realms? Or something else?

[Heretical Rants]

"God is outside of our reality, therefore you can't test it"

The Muslims keep trying to tell me Allah exists outside of time, since time itself did not exist until he created it.

[LoneMateria]

This is what confuses me when I hear arguments such as "God is outside of our reality, therefore you can't test it" or something (I've heard it a couple of times from a friend at least). And if God does exist then he must exist inside reality, things outside of reality don't exist. Though I guess most religious people use 'supernatural' in the sense that actions are performed which according to our current knowledge would be impossible.

Of the debates I've participated in and have listened to I find when someone says, "God is outside of our reality." or something similar they are trying to cop out in a last ditch effort to preserve their god.  The thing is even if there was some way to exist outside of reality a god interacts (supposedly) in this reality.  Therefore there would be a way to measure and test what it does because it's inside reality.  If the god does not interact in our reality then theres no need to call it god, worship it, or really acknowledge it.  

If someone would use that definition of supernatural i'd show them the flaw with it.  If we shoot a gun is it supernatural that there are holes in what we are shooting at?  How about 2000 years ago?  It might be considered supernatural to them but not to us.  If they consider it supernatural does it make it supernatural?  No.  Is it okay for them to call it supernatural because they will never understand it? No.  If theists were to use supernatural to refer to their god it literally becomes a "god of the gaps" fallacy.  Because all they are doing is taking something we don't quite yet understand and saying it was god.  No proof, no evidence, just an empty assertion that becomes a classic "god of the gaps".

**Edit** I still need to read those articles I was just commenting.

[Reginus]

Try not to get too hung up on the first post, as it's only an introduction. Anyway, I suppose you can just think of something that's "supernatural" as something that does not have a natural cause, something that's more than natural.  If you lived inside of a small two-dimensional world, it would be impossible for you to imagine a full form world of three dimensions.

[Will]

Try not to get too hung up on the first post, as it's only an introduction. Anyway, I suppose you can just think of something that's "supernatural" as something that does not have a natural cause, something that's more than natural.  If you lived inside of a small two-dimensional world, it would be impossible for you to imagine a full form world of three dimensions.

That's not quite the same thing. We live in a 4-dimensonal world, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for us to not only comprehend, but test and verify physics in the 5th dimension. Science doesn't have natural limits at all. The supernatural is something entirely outside of science, something that not only cannot be explained in any way by science yesterday or today, but ever. If god is ever discovered and can be tested using natural laws, god will never have been supernatural at all. Why is that a problem? God is supernatural by definition. Supernatural by definition means something can never ever be tested and demonstrated using science.

[AlP]

Try not to get too hung up on the first post, as it's only an introduction. Anyway, I suppose you can just think of something that's "supernatural" as something that does not have a natural cause, something that's more than natural.  If you lived inside of a small two-dimensional world, it would be impossible for you to imagine a full form world of three dimensions.

So the definition, if I get it, is the natural is not a cause of the supernatural but the supernatural can presumably be a cause of the natural? The natural would be the universe, both in space and time? By this definition, does time also apply to the supernatural? Does the supernatural also have a kind of space like the natural?

If it has space and time then it seems like Plato's ideal realm that I linked earlier. If not then it seems more like the paranormal. I don't mean to use paranormal as a dysphemism for the supernatural. I am not attempting to portray the supernatural in a poor light with rhetoric. I simply do not know another comparable word.

Thanks.

Edit:
So I've been trying to make sense of this... The first article is about the futility of looking for a non-supernatural Jesus. Suppose Jesus was supernatural. Then by the definition you provided, it seems that he would not be affected causally by the natural world. But he lived in it and was presumably influenced by it right? You believe, among other things, that he was crucified right? Would this not be a contradiction? I'm going to speculate and guess that this is the reason for the Trinity? That would allow the natural and supernatural worlds to interact while keeping a clear non-causal relationship from natural to supernatural? Sorry to press you. People throw around the word supernatural all the time and I would like an accurate definition. This stuff interests me. Thanks again.

[LoneMateria]

I have a couple of notes / questions.  Thinking about the supernatural can you demonstrate supernatural exists?  More importantly can you demonstrate supernatural is different then imaginary?  If you can't then what becomes a more reasonable position supernatural or imaginary?

A sort of fun note on dimensions.  Does anyone know about string theory?  According to it there is up to as many as 11 dimensions.  By the way for those who don't know string theory is a branch of theoretical physics that bridges Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity.  

Anyway i'm going to shout out to you programmers so those who don't like programming this paragraph you should just skip proally.  While I was learning XNA (Microsoft's game programming language) I came across some interesting features.  When drawing objects we have a few different methods built in to choose from.  We had Vector2D for drawing 2 dimensional objects which I never used cause 2 dimensional games weren't the point of the class.  Vector3D 3 dimensional objects which I did use.  But it also had Vector4D.  I never really learned how it worked, my parter guessed that it used a timer or some time reference but couldn't prove it.  Our book sucked and Microsoft's free help site didn't help.  I was trying to visualize it and my teacher gave it a guess.  He grabbed 2 pieces of paper and put them perpendicular to each other to form a 3d grid and showed the X, Y, and Z axis.  He tried to describe it as that 3d grid actually moving (by walking around the room) which would be interesting in a space game.  I don't know if he was referring to a fixed 0(x),0(y),0(z) or it moving.  I'm still a little confused if you have any better ideas let me know ^_^

[AlP]

Anyway i'm going to shout out to you programmers so those who don't like programming this paragraph you should just skip proally.  While I was learning XNA (Microsoft's game programming language) I came across some interesting features.  When drawing objects we have a few different methods built in to choose from.  We had Vector2D for drawing 2 dimensional objects which I never used cause 2 dimensional games weren't the point of the class.  Vector3D 3 dimensional objects which I did use.  But it also had Vector4D.  I never really learned how it worked, my parter guessed that it used a timer or some time reference but couldn't prove it.  Our book sucked and Microsoft's free help site didn't help.  I was trying to visualize it and my teacher gave it a guess.  He grabbed 2 pieces of paper and put them perpendicular to each other to form a 3d grid and showed the X, Y, and Z axis.  He tried to describe it as that 3d grid actually moving (by walking around the room) which would be interesting in a space game.  I don't know if he was referring to a fixed 0(x),0(y),0(z) or it moving.  I'm still a little confused if you have any better ideas let me know ^_^

Oh please don't scare off Reginus. He's smart and he knows things about religion and I find religion fascinating. Anyway, I'm a (ex) video games programmer. 4 dimensional space is most often used for homogeneous coordinates and quaternions in that domain. I won't explain here because it's OT!

[LoneMateria]

Oh please don't scare off Reginus. He's smart and he knows things about religion and I find religion fascinating. Anyway, I'm a (ex) video games programmer. 4 dimensional space is most often used for homogeneous coordinates and quaternions in that domain. I won't explain here because it's OT!

Scare him off  ?  I'm pretty sure non programmers are reading this thread and I was just giving them warning they are probably going to have a hard time understanding what i'm saying.  Side note I don't consider drag n drop real programming (sorry Reginus >.<) though I do sometimes use a GUI editor for convenience in C# just because it establishes the parameters more easily and sets up handlers quicker.  Also AlP I think I understand both of those ... in a very basic sense.  It seems like all they have to do with is rotation right? Weird 4th dimension.

Thats going to segue back on topic though (well not back on topic but back on current discussion).  What is considered a dimension? Dictionary.com gives the word dimension a broad range of meaning.  Can anyone think of a good way to define dimension with an example (preferably one thats not time ^_^ but can apply to time)?