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Jesus, the Gospels & Acts eBooks:
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Other scholars think the ratio is more likely to be 0%. Source: Richard Carrier.
> this is a thread about ... Joshua
You're right, my mistake. Sorry. We're having two simultaneous discussions and I got mixed up about which was which.
> It means you need to interpret the text according to the grammar and historical context
OK, fine. So you read Joshua "according to the grammar and historical context" and conclude that it means something other than the plain meaning of the text. But if you do the same thing to Genesis you can likewise conclude that it too means something other than the plain meaning of the text. For example, Genesis 1 and 2 are clearly two different accounts written by two different authors. (The transition is actually at chapter 2 verse 4.) One refers to God as "Elohim" and the other refers to God as "YHWH". One says that animals were created before man, and the other says man was created before the animals. So the natural conclusion is that it's all just mythology. What's good for the Joshua goose is good for the Genesis gander. You can even do the same thing to the New Testament.
This book on the resurrection of Christ was probably one of the biggest as it takes the facts about the life of Christ that all scholars accept as factual and the different theories and answers to what happened in the life of Christ. https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LUJDNE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Next was a fairly in-depth look into the phenomena of Marian apparitions and Eucharistic miracles. I was agnostic when I read into Fatima with an open mind. I was Catholic very shortly afterwards.
Right. As a Christian, it is frustrating to see someone like Russell dismiss revelation so superficially, while criticizing Aquinas who extensively documented every objection he heard of to any of his claims.
It's not exactly a philosophical treatise, but there is a modern work I recommend commonly for understanding whether scripture/revelation is reliable. An atheist man's wife decided to become Christian. He was an investigative reporter, and he thought it was really important to show his wife how mistaken she was, so he used all his skills as a reporter to write the story of why the Bible, particularly belief in the Resurrection, isn't reliable. He read extensively, and he flew around the country talking to experts, all to disprove his wife's new faith.
He published his notes on this investigation under the title, The Case for Christ, and ended up converting to Christianity as well.
A huge part of Orthodox belief is accepting that the tradition of the Church is correct. A huge part of academic practices is completely tossing out/omitting tradition from analysis. They are different ways of attempting to perceive truth and cannot be directly pitted against one another.
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Jesus-Biblical-Historical-Evidence-ebook/dp/B00X2F7XF0/
I would recommend this book. I used to be an atheist who peddled the arguments addressed in here & I am ashamed to say I never really researched them properly and just repeated them because they sounded convincing. The book really helps shed light on the origin of the Gospels and how the simplest explanation is that they are what they say they are rather than forgeries or mysterious documents arbitrarily attributed.
Maybe put the Old Testament down for now and explore the New Testament, starting with one of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Continue to pray and ask God to give you faith in him. You might consider reading this book. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2
I would encourage you to start reading the Bible with an open mind. Pray and ask God to reveal himself to you. Start with the gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. "The Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel is a popular book for people in your position. https://www.amazon.com/Case-Christ-Journalists-Personal-Investigation-ebook/dp/B01863JLK2
I found The Case for Christ to be a pretty good summary of why the Resurrection was a real event. It was written by an atheist trying to prove to his wife that the Resurrection wasn't real by talking to all the best experts he could, but he ended up converting. Otherwise, even though I grew up Catholic, I like the stories of those who converted later in life, like CS Lewis (see his book Surprised by Joy), or a less famous but more recent Holly Ordway (Not God's Type).
> I take it that the scholarly consensus is that the names attributed to them (Matthew, mark, Luke, and John) did not really write them, although the traditional view is they did.
That traditional view is held because the evidence from the earliest Greek manuscripts and ancient Christian writers attribute the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. “Not only the earliest and best manuscripts but all of the ancient manuscripts - without exception, in every language – attribute the four Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.” Brant Pitre, The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ.
There is no manuscript evidence (therefore no historical evidence) to support the claim that “originally” the Gospels had no titles. In historical scholarship the term “anonymous” denotes that the author isn’t directly identified within the manuscript. It does not mean MMLJ “didn’t really write them” and it does not mean we don’t know who the authors are.
It’s problematic to assert that MMLJ “did not really write them” because that claim has a glaring problem – there’s no evidence for it. There are no anonymous manuscripts of the four Gospels. There is absolute uniformity in the authors to whom each of the books is attributed in every language. Titles at times are abbreviated but the familiar names are found in every single manuscript we possess.
The only way to defend the assertion that they “did not really write them” is to ignore virtually all of the evidence from the earliest Greek manuscripts and the most ancient Christian writers. You must ignore the compelling reasons to conclude that the four Gospels were written by MMLJ.
There was a journalist once whose wife decided to become a Christian. He thought this was stupid, and that she was joining a cult. So, he set about trying to save his wife, by proving to her definitively that Christianity was wrong (and that atheism is right). He did this by trying to disprove the core of Christianity: the Resurrection.
He talked to all sorts of experts on history, textual analysis, archeology, and so forth. After spending a lot of time researching, he had enough material to write a book about what he found. And why he decided to become a Christian.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01863JLK2/
It's worth a read.
The existence (or lack thereof) of God is fundamentally the most important question you can ask. For Christianity, the main question hinges on whether the resurrection was a true historical event or if another theory better explains the growth and existence of the church.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LUJDNE/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
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Outside of that question, there are plenty well documented cases of mystical and supernatural events in the Catholic tradition that can't be explained by natural causes.
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Good luck in your journey!
I often recommend The Case for Christ. The author started in a similar position as you - doubting the resurrection was a real event or that the Bible was a reliable source, and it details him raising every objection he can think of and researching the objection thoroughly by talking to experts.
I hope it helps!
And I was wrong. It was against Celsus, because that's the title of letters. Celsus' letters have been lost, but not his name. I forgot that bit.
This is a 2 volume book documenting thousands of miracles and drawing conclusions:
It's a bit difficult to read cover-to-cover due to the quality of the prose, but worth the effort, I think, even if you just skim it.
Along with the books in /u/jmj1970's list:
The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ by Brant Pitre.
The Gospel of the Lord: How the Early Church Wrote the Story of Jesus by Michael Bird.
Fortunately, since you are only 18, you have plenty of opportunity to retrain to have a profession that does not require lying to people. I hope you grasp the opportunity to do that.
Morally, it seems bad to lie to people, but I can't say you have an obligation to preach atheism. If you have concerns about the morality of your actions but you do not want to create trouble for yourself, extricate yourself from your present activities that involve lying. You don't have to tell anyone why. This is what I would do. If your present obligations are a mixture of religious leadership and mundane things like driving kids from point A to point B, you could offer to do the driving but not the lying.
If you want to be the leader they think you are, tell them the truth starting now. They may feel uncomfortable hearing it. This is not you hurting them, this is them experiencing more personal development than they feel comfortable with. I am sure that making people feel uncomfortable was a legitimate part a of your role as leader when you were Christian, so there is no shame in doing that. Be mindful of potential retaliation. Do not get into a situation you did not choose. This is not what I would do - I would get a job doing something else and then consider coming back and disassembling their belief system when I felt properly prepared. But it is what Jesus would do, if he had different beliefs, and he existed.
Another option is to be a sociopath and make money by lying for the next few decades. If you felt comfortable with that you probably wouldn't have made your post. Unless you are an unusually talented preacher you would probably make more money by learning a new profession.
I suppose I should caution you not to get your hopes up. I don't know how often God heals people.
But Trent Horn has recommended Miracles by Craig Keener, apparently documenting numerous medical mysteries.
Bart Ehrman is a historian of the Bible. He has many videos on youtube and has written many books about various aspects of the way Christianity developed. The latest that I read was How Jesus Became God, which describes the evolution of the theology of the trinity.
> The writers of the gospels (who most certainly never knew Jesus or anyone who knew Jesus)
While it's true that some scholars perhaps argue this, I would object to your phrase "most certainly". I feel that I should note that there are also scholars who defend the authors of the Gospels as they are noted in the title of their respective writings.
In fact, I'm currently reading The Case for Jesus: The Biblical and Historical Evidence for Christ by Brant Pitre. I'm only in a couple chapters but he stresses that there are compelling reasons for concluding the the four Gospels are first-century biographies of Jesus, written within the lifetime of the apostles, and based directly on eyewitness testimony.
I've read Ehrman's work and Pitre addresses Ehrman's arguments with compelling counter arguments.
Its a tome of depth and breadth, but check out Licona's <em>The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach</em>.
Very often, I find the popular criticisms fail to stand up to scrutiny because the conclusion they cannot be applied consistently to other fields of historical study. Popularizers tend to not be privy to the theory or method of historical inquiry pertaining to ancient texts. Understanding the theory and method at any level will help, as if we are able to establish the NT documents as an average ancient document for historical inquiry, the question then becomes "What are we to make of the historical facts we can discern from the texts?"
http://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Credibility-New-Testament-Accounts-ebook/dp/B007KOI2PY/
I haven't read it yet. Check Reviews, etc.
> Then the same applies to all the other miracle claims from Asia. So their dieties have power too. So who is the real god?
We can't make assumptions. We have to look at the evidence and make conclusions based on the evidence and probability, the best we can. Documentation affects how we should assign probabilities, I would think.
> Hitchens? I don't think I mentioned him in this thread.
"You still have all your work ahead of you" was a phrase he used often in debates (on YouTube) to emphasize the difference between deism and theism.
> If they contain valid evidence and arguments, please let me know what they are.
The Akita book contains photographs and eyewitness testimony, including date, time, and location. The Fatima book contains eyewitness testimony.
It's not as "rock solid" as you're hoping for; they're rather starting points for further inquiry.
As an aside, I've seen many people throw out eyewitness testimony citing potential problems, e.g. leading questions, without actually demonstrating or even caring to see whether those potential problems were actually applicable; it is frustrating spending time here ...
The final bit about the Gospel was to provide a theological answer to her theological question. It was not my point to make "claims" with that reference. If you want evidence, see Keener's Miracles volume: http://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Credibility-New-Testament-Accounts-ebook/dp/B007KOI2PY/ As even skeptical reviews indicate, it is amply documented.
This book covers it in great detail.
Basically, the more distant the gospels were from Jesus, the move divine he becomes. Originally he was just a really awesome dude, then he was divine, then he became god himself.
He goes from "My god, why have you forsaken me" (rather an odd thing to say to yourself about yourself) to "It is finished!"
There's a lot more than that, but basically early christianity went from a low christology (where he was a man) to a high Christology, where he was God. These changes are reflected in Bible.
And then there's Richard Carrier who argues the opposite.