“…I find that most believers are just as concerned as we are.”
Yep, and that is why people are leaving the faith in numbers like the world has never seen before (Trump™). Christianity is like a deflating balloon, flying around the room backward banging into everything.
Oh for the love of Zeus! Almost all historical fiction mentions real people, real places and sometime even real events. Using your anti-logic we should assume the novel Brave New World is actually non-fiction because it mentions people we know existed like Henry Ford, Sigmund Freud, H. G. Wells, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and others. I should have been more specific although I shouldn’t have to be. We’re talking about Jesus Christ and his Merrymen. What does the New Testament say about Jesus that can be corroborated in the historical record. These inscriptions you mentioned prove only one thing and that is the sheer desperation of your position. Consider the collapse of your worldview collateral damage.
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It seems you developed amnesia. You asked:
The archaeological finds I mentioned satisfied both requests. They had nothing to do with miracles and corroborated the existence of something (from the entire set of things mentioned) in the New Testament.
You are right that fictional stories can have real characters. The Avenger’s movie produced by Marvel used real cities but fictional characters and we know this because there is lots of evidence. However, since you weren’t there when the New Testament was written, you have no idea whether the miracles it mentions actually happened or not, so you have no basis to positively state they are fictitious. If you have evidence that these miracles definitely did not happen, please show me.
Do you realize this is self-contradictory?
Jesus was judged by the High Priest Caiaphas. Here’s something for you:
https://dannythedigger.com/caiaphas-ossuary/
Those inscriptions show that certain details in the NT are historically accurate. You can yap all you want, but facts don’t go away.
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It was already happening before Trump entered politics. The greatest recruiter of new atheists is Ken Ham. I wouldn’t count on Christianity just going away though. More moderate and science accepting Christians are beginning to assert themselves. Religion evolves too!
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The name Caiaphas is eponymous. It means “inquisitor.” These kinds of names are used by playwrights and storytellers to help audiences and readers understand an idea easily. They are a sure sign that the story is fictional. The New Testament writers dropped hints like this all the time and sure enough the literal mind never detects them.
Most of us remember the James the brother of Jesus ossuary. How did that end up working out for you? Like the James ossuary, the authenticity of this Caiaphas fake has been challenged by scholars on a number of grounds. Yeah facts don’t go away and they don’t get manufactured either. They get discovered not fabricated. Give up.
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C’mon man! (Biden™). Do you see what I’m doing here? Trump has nothing to do with my comment. Rather I was borrowing his oft- used phrase “…like the world has never seen before.” At least Ken Ham doesn’t try to hide his real motives.
What the Reverend Stephen C. Meyer and his Tin Foil Hat club, The non-Discovery Institute are doing damages our society and misleads the public, especially in the United States where science literacy is lower than in any other civilized country that I know of. If you believe that you are being constantly lied to about science or that scientists don’t know what they’re doing or they are protecting what they supposedly know is a bankrupt theory you are in danger of accepting the untruths of others. So you’ll likely deny man-made climate change, the efficacy of vaccines, medicines, stem cells, the reality of space travel and satellites, the shape and age of the earth and so on. Those who get deluded by people like Meyer can make mistakes in their private lives when raising children, purchasing insurance policies and probably most importantly, again especially in this nation, deciding which politicians they should support. So the scientific ignorance promoted by Meyer and friends multiplies exponentially.
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@Boris_Badenoff, there might be some folks who want to chime in and agree with you but are worried that you’d try to argue with them. 
So instead of addressing the evidence I presented, you just continued with the unnecessary trolling.
Caiaphas may be an eponym but it was still a family name. In fact, inscribed on the back of that ossuary is the description, “Joseph son of Caiaphas”. Take a look yourself:
This ossuary with the above inscription was the most intricately decorated among the other ossuaries found in the cave that housed them. In addition, dating methods revealed the age of the man to be around 60 years.
Interestingly, this is what Josephus has to say about “Joseph” in his The Antiquities of the Jews, 18.95:
https://lexundria.com/go?q=J.+AJ+18.95&v=wst
Thus, Josephus corroborates the existence of Caiaphas or Joseph, a high priest, who lived around the time Jesus was active in his ministry.
Years later another ossuary was found, called the Marian ossuary and it had the inscription:
Obviously, Miriam is a daughter of Joseph or Caiaphas a priest of Maziah, one among many who were active in the time of Jesus.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23214223
All of these findings provide good evidence to support the existence of Caiaphas the High Priest mentioned in the NT. They don’t prove he tried Jesus, but they make that proposition very plausible. Indeed, some historical details in the NT are accurate.
Sure James ossuary turned out to be a hoax. Not so with this one which has been vetted quite rigorously and found to be authentic. You calling it “fake” is irrelevant when evidence indicates otherwise.
Guess what? Those ossuaries were “discovered”, vetted and authenticated. They certainly aren’t going anywhere. Give up this angry atheist attitude of yours.
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A fair point.
Also a fair point. Our goal for this forum is to establish common ground so people can discuss their differences, not just talk past each other as you see on many other forums. There is a better way than fighting each other.
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As does creationism; many creationists now claim that “kinds” (never defined rigorously) evolved far more quickly than biology would allow!
On that, Chad, do you have any idea of a good treatment for a burning sensation in the ears? It’s quite strong.
I keep meaning to chime in with some qualified support for Boris – not on all issues, certainly, but on some. But, as an old fan of the great Manchester band Magazine, I have some aversion to being “shot by both sides.”
Now, as I am an agnostic atheist, perhaps some level of agreement between me and Boris is unsurprising. But I suspect that Boris would be surprised, if he explored the subject in more measured tones, at the degree of agreement he would find on many points with some of the theists here as well.
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In the diagram below the A on the top matches with the A on the bottom, the B with B and so on. In these kinds of chiastic structure diagrams the middle line (F in this case) is what is being taught, the point of the story. Every book, story and epistle can be diagrammed in this way. [Check my Facebook page where I have posted at least a dozen of them]. So in this case the writer has Caiaphas confess Christ is the Son of God - the people knew what they were doing. Notice how carefully and neatly this story is written. This is not remembered history, it’s religious drama and Caiaphas is an actor in a play, not a real person.
14:54-65 Jesus before the council
A (54) Jesus is welcomed by the guards
B (55) The Council seeks to put Jesus to death
C (56-59) Testimony of the false witnesses
D (60) High Priest’s question: “Have you no answer?”
E (61a) Jesus is silent about himself
F (61b) The high priest’s unwitting confession: Christ son of the Blessed" (cf. 15:9, 18)
E (62) Jesus proclaims himself
D (63) High priest’s question: “Why do we still need witnesses?”
C (64ab) Accusation of the high priest.
B (64c) The council condemns Jesus to death
A (65) Jesus is beaten by the guards
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I just showed you archaeological and literary evidence that Caiaphas (alias Joseph) was a real person, but you still call him fictional character. Now we know who denies reality. I am done with you.
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Yes, chiasm works this way.
Absolute BS (and I’m one who thinks chiasms are important and more prevalent than many). You have no evidence of this (regardless of the dozen[!] you’ve put on FB).
Complete non sequitur. Literary crafting and historical referencing are not mutually exclusive.
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True, but literary crafting does suggest that events have not been accurately reported but have bee adjusted to fit a form. It doesn’t mean that Jesus didn’t exist or was not condemned by the Pharisees. But it does mean that we can’t take the account as factual, and we can’t know to what extent it was factual. Even if nothing of the sort ever happened, that’s not evidence that Jesus didn’t exist.
My view, if anyone cares, is that the evidence for Jesus is moderate, and by “Jesus” I refer to an itinerant preacher of that name around that time, apparently coming from Nazareth, and having considerable influence on a group of followers. It could be that all manner of stories and legends became attached to him subsequent to his career, but it makes more sense that they were attached to a real person than that they were assembled around nothing.
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Huh? The fact that every document (including news and science articles) are crafted to meet the form requirements of a venue or to serve an intended purpose is not evidence of inaccuracy.
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It should not surprise anyone that the life and death of Jesus seems to be reflected in the verses of Isaiah 53 and other parts of the OT. This is not a coincidence. We have to remember that the Hebrew Scriptures came before Jesus. The authors of the New Testament used images of the Jewish Messiah they found in the Hebrew Scriptures and created their stories about Jesus to fit those images. When the gospels describe John and Jesus as apocalyptic prophets, they are not talking about contemporary ideas about the world or the end of the world. They are part of Elijah and Elisha’s fictional narrative world and make their own effort to reconcile the generations, Samaria and Jerusalem.
We know the Book of Daniel was written during the time of Antiochus, around 167 BC and completed before 164 BC. It was written for a Jewish audience who correctly interpreted it as an apocalypse concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. But to Christians Daniel had accurately predicted the rise of Antiochus centuries earlier so his prophecy about the Son of Man was sure to be fulfilled soon.
The passion narrative reiterates the myth of Dionysus, with many of its motifs of wine and fertility borne by a dying and rising divine figure. This theme is basic to the figure with which Plutarch describes Dionysus. He is a symbol for the divine, the everlasting quality of life. The gospel writers didn’t need a real person to construct their stories. They had plenty of material from the literary world to work with.
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This makes no sense to me.
The form doesn’t mean anything about factuality (unless one establishes a certain literary feature or genre that intends to speak of factuality or non-factuality. @Boris_Badenoff certainly has demonstrated nothing of the sort.)
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Thanks for the reminder…like there’re people who don’t know this.
In one sense, duh. In another sense, it’s interesting Jews don’t think Christians (including NT authors) make right connections, particularly with Isaiah 53.
Pure assertion (like almost everything you’ve stated on PS).
You really don’t know biblical scholarship that well to state this. Plenty of scholars, including evangelicals, accept a late date for Daniel.
Assertion…again
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It’s like an anti-Christian/Bible version of a Gish gallop…
(Initially wrote “atheist” but realized that wouldn’t do…)
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