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Here is the introduction to this series of posts answering the common charges and challenges made against the Bible and Christianity while interacting with Atheists. I'm not going to cover these in the order I gave them in the initial post but I will get to all of them, maybe not everyday but maybe one or two a week. For this post I will discuss number five on my list
5. There is no historical evidence for Jesus outside the Bible.
I think that people say statement like this because if they can convince themselves that there is no Jesus then they can easily dismiss his claims and teachings and use their own ideas and concepts as the standard for their lives. I've made the following arguments but as of yet have received no great rebuttal or explanations.
1. No modern, recognized historian today claims that Jesus never existed. Even Bart Ehrman agrees that Jesus' life is a historical fact. The most liberal and secular scholars agree that there was a man from Jesus of Nazareth, who preached and lived in Palestine during the early part of the First century CE The agree that Jesus was put to death by Roman crucifixion around about 30 CE and afterward, the tomb Jesus was in was found empty, and Jesus' followers went around saying the Jesus was raised from the Dead and carried on the teaching. These are indisputable facts. We may disagree on Jesus' virgin birth. The miracles He is said to have performed. The teachings He taught. And even the resurrection itself. However, Jesus' existence is not up for debate.
2. Paul Maier who is an expert in 1st Century CE history believes and persuasively argues that Jesus existed. So what if Maier is a Christian. Consider just the fact of His existence for a moment and you will see that at least you must agree that Jesus did personally live. I have provided following lecture by Maier but no one interacted with it.
3. Paul Maier is so convinced that the historicity of Jesus can be so thoroughly defended the he debated noted atheist Dan Barker on the issue and trounced him. By the way, it was Maier's first debate!
4. My brother-in-Christ, Mariano, once posted an article that lists 236 citations of Jesus from the first three centuries of the common era. Historical Jesus
5. Jesus the Christ is one of the best-attested personage from the 1st century CE. I'd like to name someone better attested to than Jesus.
6. Some say that the four gospels are a liability in accessing the historical Jesus, but if you study them you really see that they are great historical documents.
a. Early dating - what other such ancient biographies can be dated within 2-3 generations of the events being written about?
b. Record eyewitness information
c. Contains embarassing information - meaning that they must have been true
i. Women finding the tomb Easter morning.
ii. Jesus' male followers initally giving up
d. We have thousands of copies of the manuscripts spanning nearly 2000 years and through textual criticim we know what the original manuscripts say - scholars agree with this. Most texual variations are spelling differences and word order which change nothing in the meaning of the text. The other major variations deal with a few large sections of the Gospels being missing from the earliest manuscripts. These missing pieces do no damage to the Gospel message itself.
These 5 points are why I believe that the Bible's testimony of Jesus is accurate and able to be trusted. If someone disagree with anything I have written here provide sources that disagree "and let us reason together".
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There is plenty of historical evidence of Jesus, especially in Roman documentation. I don't dispute his existence; merely his divinity.
ReplyDeleteEmperor Claudius, however, is better attested to than Jesus, for instance. So, there's someone to refute one of your points. More independent, contemporary and diverse writings exist about any of the Caesars than Jesus, whereas documentation of most aspects of Jesus's life were after the fact. Most of Jesus's life, over 20 years of it, isn't documented at all.
One thing I would like to know though is how come a character as well documented as Jesus is always portrayed as a white hippy instead of as a middle-eastern man?
@jearle
ReplyDeleteOkay, then we have very little to disagree over. Can you give citations and examples of what we know of the Cassars? Let's just take Claudius as an example: What documents and artifacts do we have? How old are they? How reliable are they? Can you come up with 236 within the first 3 centuries of the common era?
I see you agreeing with me and you haven't refuted anything. Look carefully at point 5. I said that Jesus is one of the best attested personages of the 1st Century CE, not that we have no meaningful information on anyone else from the first century.
Your point about 20 years of no documentation of Jesus' life is not important unless you can provide documentation of every year of at least one person's life from the the 1st century CE.
I totally agree with your point about depicting Jesus as a white man instead of a person of color.It's not historically accurate. But that is people's fault not the Bible's. The Bible says Jesus looked like His contemporaries - which would mean that He would have at least had been olive-skinned...which would have made Him darker than I.
As for Jesus' divinity, It wasn't the point of my post to defend it. I've written about the divinity of Christ before on this blog and it is quite easy to show that the earliest Christians and the Bible itself teaches the at Jesus is God incarnate. Therefore I offer two challenges:
1. Prove that the Bible does not teach that Jesus is human and deity.
2. Prove that the Bible is fallible and contains falsehoods.
If you can do any of that then my arguments fail. But aside from the nature of Jesus, we seem to completely agree. Thanks
Bible fallible? Seriously? Let's go for a simple one: The Flood.
ReplyDeleteAre you seriously suggesting that we should believe the tale of the Flood? I'll dig out the maths of how much water has to fall to cover the earth and how fast it has to fall to fill the earth in just 40 days. A preview: It would kill anyone standing under it and destroy anything like a boat.
Let's not even get started on the size of the boat.
The bible, therefore, contains falsehoods. The Flood could not have happened as described in the bible.
As for refuting your documentation issue, have you ever studied history? Have you seen the amount of documentation, portraits, sculptures, coins, temples, etc., pertaining to the Roman Emperors? You even know some of their quotes in the original Latin!
ReplyDeleteJust because you've not read it doesn't mean it's not out there. Jesus existed and you're picking on a strawman if that's your first refutation as I doubt anyone doubts his esistence.
All I care about is his divinity, and he's as divine as Emperor Augustus or Claudius in my books.
@jearle
ReplyDeleteIn order for your arguments against flood to have weight you have to defend and prove your assumption that the hydrology cycle has always been the same as it is now. I think you also have forgotten that at the time the earth was one giant landmass. And the size of the ark (not a boat - had no steering mechanism or propulsion) is in the same proportion as our large ocean going vessels today like aircraft carriers/ How did Noah do that? Oh yeah, God gave him the dimensions to use. Sorry, your refutation fails, but if you want to go through the math and the assumptions you are making I'm game.
I'm not denying that there are "portraits, sculptures, coins, temples, etc., pertaining to the Roman Emperors" I'm asking you to prove that the emperors really look liked that. I'm asking you if the person who minted the coin actually saw the emperor depicted. I'm asking you if the writer/chronicler was personally in attendance at the events he described? So again you are not offering anything of a refutation. We agree.
As for Jesus' existence the point of this post is that some atheist argue that Jesus did not exist as living, breathing person. I'm glad that you aren't mistaken like that but some people like Dan Barker and Askegg (Andrew) are mistaken about that point even if you aren't That is why I spent time on Jesus' Historicity.
I agree the main point of contention is Jesus' divinity. It's the most important point and the point that we disagree most with each other about. Do you reject Jesus' deity because you reject the Bible or for some other reason? I have written about why I know Jesus is God incarnate here, there, and over here.
Seriously? You're going with "The Ark Happened"? Six inches of rain per minute for forty days and forty nights? A ship over one and a half times the size of the maximum physical limits of a wooden boat and with inferior materials?
ReplyDeleteIf your defence is that it was special rain or that God changed the laws of physics for a 300 cubit Gopher Wood boat, or that the earth wasn't a sphere back then, I'm done.
This one has been debunked so many times, here's just one example. You start making excuses, and I'm done here.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/canopy.html
Oh, and how come no other civilisation (especially the ones that didn't notice a flood) has any written records of the great flood?
First how do you know the wood the ark was made out of was inferior? By the way, inferior to what? Where are you getting your numbers for maximum physical limit of a wooden box of the dimensions of the ark? How do you know it was 6 inches of rain/minute? I waan see numbers and assumptions. What about a "back-of-the-envelope calculation. Something! You made no reference to my hydrological argument or the super continent. I looked at your link and it made me laugh. Most of the world's mountain ranges would not have existed at the time of Noah's flood because plate techtonics had not created them yet. And there are other ancient written records of the great flood. Ever hear of the Sumarians? Gilgamesh? Guess not.
ReplyDeleteBible Wins. You loose. Perhaps you should try the other tactic and show that the Bible does not teach Jesus is God. Go ahead if you can.
Ok, I'm done.
ReplyDeleteYou don't seem to have enough of an education in the sciences to understand what we're discussing. I simply don't have the time to invest in teaching you the basics a decent education should have given you.
Sorry, take away from this what you will. Your faith is undiminished and my certainty is unchallenged. I am simply not invested enough in convincing you something you will never believe anyway. I'll carry on this discussion with someone who actually understands what I'm saying at a level I can respect.
@jared
ReplyDeleteThere is no need to be insulting. Why do you think I don't understand your argument? I have a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering. If you want to argue about the forces on the ark and whether or not such a craft could survive those stresses I can go there. You say that I don't understand the level of science you are talking about but you haven't provided any science. No calculation to support your conclusion. You haven't even refuted any or points. Just point me to the documents you are using and I'll look through the math myself.
Instead just admit that you don't want to take the time to give this point the time it needs to prove your case...not that you are wasting your time simply because i am challenging your conclusions and asking you to back them up. That's not fair.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteYou have a degree in engineering? Excellent.
ReplyDeleteHow big is the Ark? 300 Cubits long (at least 450 feet), 30 cubits high.
What's it made of? Gopher Wood. Whuh?
Let's assume the ark is 450 feet long and made of wood (and not the perfect cube some versions of the bible said) how is it that Noah could make a boat larger than any wooden ship before or after?
You're an engineer, show me the maths for a 450 foot plus ship made of woods available in the middle-east. This I have to see.
Oh, and Gilgamesh survived the flood? I'm aware of the history, but you're saying that the Sumerians survived the flood as well? Nicely done.
@Jared
ReplyDeleteI'm saying that the sumarians have records of a world wide flood and they survived it through Noah's sons....Shem I believe. The point being made is that there are records of a world wide flood outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Thanks for admitting that you gave the wrong information about there being no reference to the flood outside the Bible. I think think the Bible's records it correctly and the other traditions aren't completely true. You believe what you want but the point is there is evidence for a world-wide flood
As for the dimensions and sea worthiness of the ark, it deserves a fuller treatment than I can give it in comments. Give me to the end of this week and I will put together a full, researched post with the math included. It'll be fun and easy...the research has already been done, you wouldn't have been spouting such nonsense had you known that.
First - the global flood supposedly (Scripturally) covered the planet, and Mount Everest is 8,848 meters tall. The diameter of the Earth at the equator, on the other hand, is 12,756.8 km. All we have to do is calculate the volume of water to fill a sphere with a radius of the Earth plus Mount Everest; then we subtract the volume of a sphere with a radius of the Earth. Now, I know this won't yield a perfect result, because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, but it will serve to give a general idea about the amounts involved.
ReplyDeleteSo, here are the calculations:
First, Everest:
V = 4/3×pi×r3
= 4/3×pi×6387.248 km3
= 1.09151×1012 km3
Now, the Earth at sea level:
V = 4/3×pi×r3
= 4/3×pi×6378.4 km3
= 1.08698×1012 km3
The difference between these two figures is the amount of water needed to just cover the Earth: 4.525×109 Or, to put into a more sensible number, 4,525,000,000,000 cubic kilometres. This is one helluva lot of water.
For those who think it might come from the polar ice caps, please don't forget that water is more dense than ice, and thus that the volume of ice present in those ice caps would have to be more than the volume of water necessary.
Some interesting physical effects of all that water, too. How much weight do you think that is? Well, water at STP weighs in at 1 gram/cubic centimetre (by definition), so:
4.525×109 km3 of water,
×109 (cubic meters in a cubic kilometer),
×106 (cubic centimetres in a cubic meter),
×1 g/cm3 (denisty of water),
×10-3 (kilograms),
(turn the crank)
equals 4.525×1021 kg
Further, Mount Everest extends through 2/3 of the Earth's atmosphere. Since two forms of matter can't occupy the same space, we have an additional problem with the atmosphere. Its current boundary marks the point at which gasses of the atmosphere can escape the Earth's gravitational field. Even allowing for partial dissolving of the atmosphere into our huge ocean, we'd lose the vast majority of our atmosphere as it is raised some 5.155 km higher by the rising flood waters; and it boils off into space.
Yet, we still have a quite thick and nicely breathable atmosphere. In fact, ice cores from Antarctica (as well as deep-sea sediment cores) which can be geochemically tested for paleoatmospheric constituents and relative gas ratios; and these records extend well back into the Pleistocene, far more than the supposed 4,000 YBP flood event. Strange that this major loss of atmosphere, atmospheric fractionation (lighter gasses - oxygen, nitrogen, fluorine, neon, etc. - would have boiled off first in the flood-water rising scenario, enriching what remained with heavier gasses - argon, krypton, xenon, radon, etc.), and massive extinctions from such global upheavals are totally unevidenced in these cores.
ReplyDeleteEven further, let us take a realistic and dispassionate look at the other claims relating to global flooding and other such biblical nonsense.
Particularly, in order to flood the Earth to the Genesis requisite depth of 10 cubits (~15' or 5 m.) above the summit of Mt. Ararat (16,900' or 5,151 m AMSL), it would obviously require a water depth of 16,915' (5,155.7 m), or over three miles above mean sea level. In order to accomplish this little task, it would require the previously noted additional 4.525×109 km3 of water to flood the Earth to this depth. The Earth's present hydrosphere (the sum total of all waters in, on and above the Earth) totals only 1.37×109 km3. Where would this additional 4.525×109 km3 of water come from? It cannot come from water vapour (i.e., clouds) because the atmospheric pressure would be 840 times greater than standard pressure of the atmosphere today. Further, the latent heat released when the vapour condenses into liquid water would be enough to raise the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere to approximately 3,570 C (6,460 F).
Someone, who shall properly remain anonymous, suggested that all the water needed to flood the Earth existed as liquid water surrounding the globe (i.e., a "vapour canopy"). This, of course, is staggeringly stupid. What is keeping that much water from falling to the Earth? There is a little property called gravity that would cause it to fall.
Let's look into that from a physical standpoint. To flood the Earth, we have already seen that it would require 4.525×109 km3 of water with a mass of 4.525×1021 kg. When this amount of water is floating about the Earth's surface, it stored an enormous amount of potential energy, which is converted to kinetic energy when it falls, which, in turn, is converted to heat upon impact with the Earth. The amount of heat released is immense:
Potential energy: E=MgH, where
M = mass of water,
g = gravitational constant and,
H = height of water above surface.
Now, going with the Genesis version of the Noachian Deluge as lasting 40 days and nights, the amount of mass falling to Earth each day is 4.525×1021 kg/40 24-hr. periods. This equals 1.10675×1020 kilograms daily. Using H as 10 miles (16,000 meters), the energy released each day is 1.73584×1025 joules. The amount of energy the Earth would have to radiate per m2/sec is energy divided by surface area of the Earth times number of seconds in one day. That is:
ReplyDeletee = 1.735384×1025/(4×3.14159×((63862)×86,400))
e = 391,935.0958 j/m2/s
Currently, the Earth radiates energy at the rate of approximately 215 joules/m2/sec and the average temperature is 280 K. Using the Stefan-Boltzman 4th-Power Law to calculate the increase in temperature:
E (increase)/E (normal) = T (increase)/T4 (normal)
E (normal) = 215
E (increase) = 391,935.0958
T (normal) = 280.
Turn the crank, and T (increase) equals 1,800 K.
The temperature would thusly rise 1,800 K, or 1,526.84 C (that's 2,780.33 F. lead melts at 880 F...). It would be highly unlikely that anything short of fused quartz would survive such an onslaught. Also, the water level would have to rise at an average rate of 5.5 inches/min; and in 13 minutes would be in excess of six feet deep.
Finally, at 1800 K water would not exist as liquid.
It is quite clear that a Biblical Flood is and was quite impossible. Only fools and those shackled by dogma would insist otherwise.
I must say, Andrew, you have finally shown that you can do physics. Bravo. There are a couple of problems with your assumptions.
ReplyDelete1. Why did you use mt. Everest as your basis for calculations? It's the highest point on earth today, but why would you think it was the same at Noah's time. The Bible reports that Pangea (the supercontinent from which all the continents came from) was divided after the flood. Therefore it's conceivable that there was no Everest then.
2. All of the water from the flood, according to Genesis, did not come from the sky. Genesis 6:11,12
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.
These springs are also referred to in Genesis 2:4-7.
3. Another possibility that you failed to take into account is the fact that maybe some of the earth's atmosphere did boil off allowing more cosmic rays and ultraviolet radiation to hit the earth surface than before the flood. It could explain why the life spans after the flood decreased so much. We know that such rays cause people to age. Also the Bible bears this out because In Genesis 6, God says that He was going to cut human lifespan and then He said He was going to send the flood! Doesn't seen like a coincidence and even if you deny that Moses wrote Genesis, how would the author know that about human life spans.
I think the physics and mathematics you provided are up to snuff, unfortunately your Biblical exegesis is not. Your calculations are based on some assumptions you can't honestly make.
1) Where did the water go?
ReplyDelete2) Can you hear yourself? Look at the mental gymnastics you have to go through to hold on to your beliefs. Mount Everest did not exist 6,000 years ago (or whenever Noah apparently lived)? Seriously? There is no reasoning with people like you, which is why I blocked you. Magic, disappearing mountains, angels, demons, spirits, a god who can make any bullshit seem real. Whatever dude. I am not 4 and these fairy tales do not impress me.
@askegg
ReplyDeleteYou answer my questions before you offer your own! I never said that Noah lived 6,000 years ago, neither does the Bible. The Bible does not give us enough information to date Noah or the earth's creation. You are the one specializing in red herrings. I undercut all your calculations because your assumptions are faulty. Your arguments don't impress me because you didn't explain why the assumptions you made were reasonable. Not allowing me to follow your tweets is no slight against me. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. Thank you for showing yourself to be truly mistaken.
OK - let's play your silly game.
ReplyDelete1) There is no evidence to suggest Mount Everest was any smaller when the flood occurred. Not even in your precious Bible. There is of course, tremendous evidence the entire mountain range is ancient and the result of tectonic movements in the Earth's crust moving two land masses together.
2) OK - Let's say some of the water came up from the ground. It still does not explain how anything survived under 9 kilometres of water for 40 days. Noah was not told to take aquatic animals on the boat, so where did all the fresh fish come from?
Also, where did the water go? Did it go back into the Earth crust? If so where is ti? Also, why hasn't the Earth's molten rock core converted the water to steam and forced it back out again?
The pressure of 9 kilometres of water is immense. It compresses the Earth, which rebounds slowly over time. This effect can be measured in glacial areas long after the glacier has gone - so why is there no noticeable effect all over the Earth?
3) You really think because a book says someone lived to be 900 years old it's true? The same guy who wrote about his own death? Seriously?
4) The ice in Antarctica is like tree rings. There are clear patterns laid down with each summer and winter cycle. We can witness new layers being formed and how it happens. There are thousands of layers, yet no evidence whatsoever of any catastrophic flood. Why is that?
5) Our current atmosphere is consists of much more that hydrogen and oxygen, and as stated earlier, most of the atmosphere above 5 kilometres would have boiled into space. Why is out atmosphere mostly nitrogen now? Did God magically inject more nitrogen into the atmosphere when the flood waters subsided? Why doesn't the Bible mention anything like this? Oh yeah - it a myth told by ignorant goat herders to explain why there was a rainbow in the sky.
" I never said that Noah lived 6,000 years ago, neither does the Bible"
ReplyDeleteReally? So you discount the genealogy and calculations used by Biblical scholars to determine the Earth is around 6,000 years old? On what grounds do you say they are wrong, and you are right? Young Earth Creationists (or cretins) believe in the Bible just as much as you seem to. Are they not true Christians?
" I undercut all your calculations because your assumptions are faulty."
Actually, you left the difficult problems alone and went to magical reasons your faith is still true. Disappearing mountains - come on!
"Your arguments don't impress me because you didn't explain why the assumptions you made were reasonable."
And you think it's reasonable for an entire mountain range to simply appear of disappear at will, or God magically inserted nitrogen into the atmosphere, or freshwater fish somehow survived a global flood and made it back to their homes, or there is zero evidence of sedimentary layers from a single global flood anywhere? You call me unreasonable?
@Askegg
ReplyDeleteTemper, temper. Relax.
1. There is no evidence that Everest was around when the flood happened because we don't know when the flood happened. You can't use the Bible to date Genesis. It doesn't give enough information. Young earth Creationist are not cretins. They aren't less Christian because I happen to disagree on how they date Genesis. Any dating is speculation. There are good men and women on both sides of the debate. So you believe that the earth is significantly older than 6000 yrs...we agree. As I've told you the same "problem" you see in the geneologies of the new testament are present in the old testament. Moses didn't list every single person in each generation. It is impossible to date anything using them. Moses only listed the important people as was the culture custom in ancient times. We don't know what the tectonic stresses were before the flood because then the all the continents were one continent. We know this because in the days of Peleg(One of Noah's grandsons) the earth was divided. We know the Himalayas resulted from the Indian sub continent smashing into the Asian Continent. This had to happen after Noah. So no Everest. If you disagree, then just show how the Bible says that there was a mountains as tall as Everest during the time of the flood. I think a more suitable calculation to give a better estimation for how much water there really was is to use the tallest mountain in the Ararat range where the ark came to rest. I mean if the Himalayas were taller at the time, wouldn't the ark had come to rest there instead of in Turkey?
2. Again you can't prove that Everest was the highest point on the earth at the time of the flood, therefore your calculation of 9 km is off.
3. I don't know how all the aquatic life forms survived the entire flood. Maybe there were pockets of salt water. The Bible doesn't tell us and we haven't enough information. That doesn't mean it didn't happen only we don't know all the details.
4. The Bible says that the waters receded it does not say it went under the earth's crusts, so again we don't have enough information to explain it all, but we don't have enough counter evidence to discount it either.
5. Moses wrote about way more incredible things than Methusaleh living 936 yrs. That's small in comparision to most of what is in the Torah. Remember, Adam and Eve weren't ever going to die had they obeyed God. So living over 900 years is kind of a let down compared to what humans could have had in this life.
6. You brought up questions about the geological evidence for the flood. I'm planning a fuller blog post probably next week on evidences for the flood itself. In the meantime amuse yourself with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGeULHljDn8.
7. You don't know what the status of our atmosphere was during the time of Noah's flood. It's silly to assume that the atmosphere had the same properties as it does today when we know it has changed over time. The simple fact is you nor I can honestly raise your objection about nitrogen or answer it without more information.
8. And is really reasonable that the rain fell from 10 miles from the sky? Oh and you granted that some of the water may have come up out the ground but depending on how much water was needed to cover the whole earth and from how far the water had to fall in the atmosphere, you've seriously undercut all your beautiful math.
9. I never said that the Himalayan mountains reappeared or disappeared. You did. I argued that Everest's location did not look the same in Noah's day as it does today and you can't prove it did. Oh and some scientist do attribute some of the observations of some sedimentary layers in some locations to a single global flood. Some of those layers even contain dinosaur fossils leading to the speculation that they died in a flood.
The only unreasonable person I see is you. I'm calling you unreasonable now. Before I called your assumptions and conclusions unreasonable not your questions.
Your defence rests on the assumption physics was different back then?
ReplyDeletePlonk.
No my point is that there was only one continent and you can't prove that mount everest was the highest point on earth then.
ReplyDelete