It turns out that the Wikipedia article talk page has further citations, e.g.
Many scholars reject the tradition that the author was Luke or that he was Paul's traveling companion, because the information in Luke-Acts does not always agree with what we find in Paul's letters. If the author were close to Paul, we would expect the information to agree. Other scholars, however, still accept the traditional identification as Luke.
p196, An Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity, By Delbert Burkett
I get that. Other professors, however, disagree with those professors, so those quotes you flagged are not a âscholarly consensusâ as Faizal had claimed
These are not scientific statements. They are metaphysical statements, and dogmatic ones at that.
I wouldnât try. Since you made the claim, itâs your obligation to fly across the Atlantic Ocean by flapping your arms. If you donât provide the demonstration, everyone can and will ignore your claim, and rightly so. (For the same reason, no one is under the obligation to falsify the claim that the first life arose by accidental interactions of simple molecules. The onus is on the person who makes that claim to show how it could have happened. If he canât do this, people will rightly ignore the claim as speculative and undisciplined.)
What you mean is, you donât do theistic faith. You do have faith, though, that unguided causes can explain all events that have ever happened in the world.
They are my statements, so I can say with confidence they are scientific statements. Are you saying the scientific evidence does not support the hypothesis that human beings cannot walk on water, and that they stay dead after they have died? If so, Iâd like to see the publications that say otherwise. Have you any citations?
Good. So once again you agree with me. The claim cannot be falsified, and it is not necessary to falsify it in order to not accept it as true. This is the point I was making. But you knew that, of course, because you never join a discussion in the middle without knowing what is being discussed. Right, âEddieâ?
Hardly. For instance, I know that the message you typed there was guided by you.
I was just about to post that very article! This quotation is particularly apt, coming as it does from someone who goes against the consensus and believes in an early origin of the Gospels:
Conservative Christian NT scholar, Richard Bauckham:
âThe argument of this book [ Jesus and the Eyewitnesses ]âthat the texts of our Gospels are close to the eyewitness reports of the words and deeds of Jesusâruns counter to almost all recent scholarship. As we have indicated from time to time, the prevalent view is that a long period of oral transmission in the churches intervened between whatever the eyewitnesses said and the Jesus traditions as they reached the Evangelists [the authors of the Gospels]. No doubt the eyewitnesses started the process of oral tradition, but it passed through many retellings, reformulations, and expansions before the Evangelists themselves did their own editorial work on it.â
I never intended the Wikipedia article to be the end of the discussion, but it made as good a starting point as any.
Contrary to @jongarveyâs less than informed âJoe Publicâ crack, I know first hand that every phrase on an article like this, that is both (i) high profile & (ii) contains controversial content, is going to be litigated within an inch of its life, and an accusation of âUndue Weightâ to a viewpoint is going to be subjected to wider scrutiny within the Wikipedia community (Requests for Comment, Neutral POV Noticeboard, etc).
Further, I have presented a wealth of expert opinions supporting the Wikipedia view, and @Faizal_Aliâs.
I would further further note that we have seen absolutely zero evidence to the contrary.
Definitely a religion â very strange supernatural and spiritual beliefs. Itâs now become fashionable to speak of MOVE as though it were not a religion, because people feel that the big confrontation which killed so many of its members can be turned to a sort of âBlack Lives Matterâ story. The fact that the group was centered upon some batshit-crazy religious beliefs is unhelpful to that recasting of the story. The early stories of religion always get recast in some way to serve the ends of others, if they do not die out entirely.
But thatâs not a difficulty at all. I can find you dozens upon dozens of people who believe strange things, that they say they witnessed, which almost certainly never happened. Alien abductions alone could fill a stadium. There is nothing even slightly unusual about it.
To put it simply, we know how religions originate. It happens all the time. And we know how trustworthy the beliefs of their originators are. We have no reason to think that it has ever been otherwise.
Now, to depart from that, you need evidence which is competent to speak to the question of whether your god does exist and what it is like. Historical evidence simply is not competent for purposes like that. The historical evidence for Christian belief is not very good, but even if it were, it wouldnât help. You need evidence that bears directly upon the issue, because there simply is no way to evaluate claims of the paranormal when those claims come to us only as historical accounts. The expectation that others should have some particular explanation for why people were willing to die or why they may have claimed to have seen the events they are said to have claimed to have seen misses the point entirely, because there simply is nothing very out-of-the-ordinary to explain there.
I do get a bit weary of this. After decades of spending far more time than the subject deserves trying to understand Christian claims and Christian history, and after wading through some mind-roastingly awful garbage like Intelligent Design literature and other creationist works, the expectation always seems to be that I havenât familiarized myself with the case and that all that is needed is a persuasive assembly of the facts by someone who may or may not be able to write well.
That isnât whatâs needed. I know what the evidence is. I need evidence that actually supports the claims in a meaningful and useful way, and itâs plain enough that that will never, never be on offer.
He used his own professional knowledge of how to investigate events in the past to investigate the gospels personally.
From this website:
He is also an adjunct professor of apologetics at Talbot School of Theology (Biola University) and Southern Evangelical Seminary, and a faculty member at Summit Ministries. J. Warner became a Christ-follower at the age of thirty-five after investigating the claims of the New Testament gospels using his skill set as a detective. He eventually earned a Masterâs Degree in Theological Studies from Gateway Seminary.
Arenât you saying that even if thereâs pretty good evidence for God, youâre just going to remain agnostic anyway, since belief in God requires faith and thatâs too much to ask?
I know all that. Like I said: He has exactly zero expertise to determine what happened in the past based on reading ancient documents in Koine Greek.
No. Iâm saying if there was good evidence for God, then faith would not be necessary to believe he exists. I donât need âfaithâ to be convinced of the existence of my left thumb.
You didnât respond my question about whether you agreed with the video on skepticism. https://youtu.be/YrGVeB_SPJg
Also, Jesus provided this story as an example of your stubbornness.
19 âThere was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and [h]fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with [i]the crumbs which fell from the rich manâs table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abrahamâs bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 âThen he cried and said, âFather Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.â 25 But Abraham said, âSon, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.â
27 âThen he said, âI beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my fatherâs house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.â 29 Abraham said to him, âThey have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.â 30 And he said, âNo, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.â 31 But he said to him, âIf they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.â â
Oh, the people who wrote the stories about Jesus being God also wrote a story about bad things happening to a guy who didnât agree that Jesus was God. Gee, can you figure out why that would not be convincing to me?
I took a look at this. My conclusion was (i) that David Wood is very annoying (unsurprising having read his Wikipedia Bio), and (ii) like most (all?) apologists he works by twisting things to suit his preconceived narrative.
âScooby-Doo on Zombie Islandâ is, after all, a cartoon. In this case the joke is that they inverted the normal Scooby-Doo plotline. Of course, to mine the joke, and because this is a cartoon, they take Fredâs skepticism far beyond what is realistic.
Davie, apparently only wants us to be skeptical about ideas he doesnât like. Iâm sorry Davie, but skepticism doesnât work that way. See for example the Outsider Test for Faith:
Ah, the argument that, well, if you donât believe it, youâre going to hell, nyah, nyah.
This argument is rock-solid, irrefutable proof of something, for sure. Not the correctness of Christianity, though. The argument says more about its presenters and endorsers than it does about the substance of the matter.
