This would get you laughed out of the room in any scholarly situation. Virtually no scholar, atheist or otherwise, agrees with this. Not even Ehrman.
broken telephone
More ignorance. Textual criticism is nothing like the telephone game. The synoptics in particular are dated to the same generation in which Jesus lived. Mark in particular is virtually certainly not written later than thirty years after Jesus. Probably much, much sooner. There's actually a good case for seven years.
We have more textual references to the New Testiment than to any other ancient work and it's not even remotely close. Something like 500k+ textual artifacts. And that's not counting references included in early church letters. You'd be more likely to be correct saying Alexander the Great never existed. The first textual reference we have for him is Quintus Curtius Rufus 400 years after Alexander died.
Yes Jesus almost certainly existed. The view that he didn't is very very fringe among historians. Of the few that assert that he never existed (the mythicists), I've read some of their stuff and am simply not convinced.
The real debate surrounds what Jesus actually said and did. That makes for fun investigation.
Well, I think you can back into the Scriptures from the other direction.
Starting with the Kalam and the argument from fine tuning, we can safely posit the universe as a result of a creator god which exists outside of the universe (because a cause can't cause itself, ergo the cause must exist outside of the caused)
Because the universe is ordered, we can surmise that this god behaves rationally.
Because relational consciousness exists, and consciousness appears to be non-material, we can surmise that the creator has a relational purpose for us.
If the creator has a relational purpose for us, it stands to reason that it would act in such a way as to guide us to this purpose.
So then we need to examine the material world for things which fit these criteria.
To fit premise 1 we are restricted to Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and general theism. I am not aware of any other religion which fronts a creator god that is uncaused and exists outside of its creation.
General theism is ruled out by premise 3
Zoroastrianism is ruled outI believe by virtue of the fact that it is almost dead and much of its scripture has been lost. It stands to reason that a god congruent with premise four would be motivated and capable of protecting its instructions.
Islam is ruled out by virtue of the fact that it is badly inconsistent, both internally and inconsistent with history and the natural world. Therefore it violates premise 2. There's also some cutting edge research to show that Mohammed may have never existed and that Islam is the product of Arabian Empires 200 years after the supposed Sunna of Mohammed. If true, this violates the heck out of 4.
So we're left with Judaism and Christianity. It's my opinion that the destruction of the priesthood in AD 70 causes Judaism to violate premise 4 in that it is now and forever impossible for Jews to practice the Law as prescribed. The tribe of Levi is lost and all surviving Hebrews are ceremonial unclean with no path to regaining cleanliness. This prevents priestly duties up to and including sin offerings, which closes to door of forgiveness before God to practicing jews.
Ehrman aside, early Christianity is remarkably internally consistent,, well preserved and our worship system is intact. It's the only religion intact that doesn't obviously violate one or more of the premises. So accepting the premises, we have to conclude that there is a true religion and Christianity fits the criteria far better than any other. So we can assume we have a correct account to such a level as to be sufficient to accomplish God's purposes. Which is the entire point.
That's an interesting line of argument. Craig's Kalam argument isn't my favorite of the Cosmological arguments to work with. Not that I don't think it's good. But I think you can have a more focused discussion when you work with cosmological arguments that focus more closely on necessity vs. contingency. Craig's argument goes into a lot of detail from contemporary science that I don't think is necessary. I'm not saying that his argument doesn't work, it's just not my preferred way of addressing the issue.
Jesus never existed.. fake fairytales passed down like broken telephone.... Flat earth would be more believable.. yet is bs as well.
This would get you laughed out of the room in any scholarly situation. Virtually no scholar, atheist or otherwise, agrees with this. Not even Ehrman.
More ignorance. Textual criticism is nothing like the telephone game. The synoptics in particular are dated to the same generation in which Jesus lived. Mark in particular is virtually certainly not written later than thirty years after Jesus. Probably much, much sooner. There's actually a good case for seven years.
We have more textual references to the New Testiment than to any other ancient work and it's not even remotely close. Something like 500k+ textual artifacts. And that's not counting references included in early church letters. You'd be more likely to be correct saying Alexander the Great never existed. The first textual reference we have for him is Quintus Curtius Rufus 400 years after Alexander died.
At least make an effort to be informed.
Yes Jesus almost certainly existed. The view that he didn't is very very fringe among historians. Of the few that assert that he never existed (the mythicists), I've read some of their stuff and am simply not convinced.
The real debate surrounds what Jesus actually said and did. That makes for fun investigation.
Well, I think you can back into the Scriptures from the other direction.
Starting with the Kalam and the argument from fine tuning, we can safely posit the universe as a result of a creator god which exists outside of the universe (because a cause can't cause itself, ergo the cause must exist outside of the caused)
Because the universe is ordered, we can surmise that this god behaves rationally.
Because relational consciousness exists, and consciousness appears to be non-material, we can surmise that the creator has a relational purpose for us.
If the creator has a relational purpose for us, it stands to reason that it would act in such a way as to guide us to this purpose.
So then we need to examine the material world for things which fit these criteria.
To fit premise 1 we are restricted to Judaism, Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and general theism. I am not aware of any other religion which fronts a creator god that is uncaused and exists outside of its creation.
General theism is ruled out by premise 3
Zoroastrianism is ruled outI believe by virtue of the fact that it is almost dead and much of its scripture has been lost. It stands to reason that a god congruent with premise four would be motivated and capable of protecting its instructions.
Islam is ruled out by virtue of the fact that it is badly inconsistent, both internally and inconsistent with history and the natural world. Therefore it violates premise 2. There's also some cutting edge research to show that Mohammed may have never existed and that Islam is the product of Arabian Empires 200 years after the supposed Sunna of Mohammed. If true, this violates the heck out of 4.
So we're left with Judaism and Christianity. It's my opinion that the destruction of the priesthood in AD 70 causes Judaism to violate premise 4 in that it is now and forever impossible for Jews to practice the Law as prescribed. The tribe of Levi is lost and all surviving Hebrews are ceremonial unclean with no path to regaining cleanliness. This prevents priestly duties up to and including sin offerings, which closes to door of forgiveness before God to practicing jews.
Ehrman aside, early Christianity is remarkably internally consistent,, well preserved and our worship system is intact. It's the only religion intact that doesn't obviously violate one or more of the premises. So accepting the premises, we have to conclude that there is a true religion and Christianity fits the criteria far better than any other. So we can assume we have a correct account to such a level as to be sufficient to accomplish God's purposes. Which is the entire point.
That's an interesting line of argument. Craig's Kalam argument isn't my favorite of the Cosmological arguments to work with. Not that I don't think it's good. But I think you can have a more focused discussion when you work with cosmological arguments that focus more closely on necessity vs. contingency. Craig's argument goes into a lot of detail from contemporary science that I don't think is necessary. I'm not saying that his argument doesn't work, it's just not my preferred way of addressing the issue.