The authors of the four gospels sourced from myths, not directly from eyewitnesses (debate #2)

Response to Intro R3 To reiterate my previous defense, I stated my introductory arguments as arguments based on ancient evidence, not as arguments from authority, and therefore my arguments should be rebutted as arguments based on ancient evidence. My references contain both believers and non-believers, but the related arguments are in the form of probabilistic explanations of the evidence. Rebutting these arguments will require both proving the improbability of my own explanations and presenting better explanations, not presenting opinions of the majority of (religious) scholars. Response to Contention 1 R3 Con claims that I am missing the point of his contention. He claimed, “I prove that these documents did not change over time or ‘evolve’.” I will restate my argument, as I believe that Con is the one who is missing the point. The resolution is (emphasis added): “The authors of the four gospels sourced from myths, not directly from eyewitnesses.” If a text sources from oral myths, then the text may or may not change over time with further copying. If it can be shown that a text did not change from the original written, then that fact says nothing about its sources, and the converse also holds. As it happens, very solid arguments can be made that some of the gospels did indeed change significantly (additions of the ending of Mark and the Pericope Adulterae in John). However, these points are irrelevant to the resolution, so I leave them out. Con claimed, “I prove they were early and within the lifetime of the Apostles.” Con did make a point related to this in R2: “When additional books, that were unknown to the Church, appeared on the scene they were rejected due to the fact they were unknown to prior generations. There was a process to stop ‘mythical’ concepts from being added to the Gospels and even the Bible as a whole.” This is a good argument to the effect that the canonical gospels can be dated earlier than other persisting gospels, such as the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, which is the earliest persisting non-canonical gospel and dated by most scholars to the mid-2nd century [8]. It is, however, a poor argument to the conclusion that the gospels can be dated to within the lifetimes of the apostles. The conclusion simply does not follow from the premises. This and other arguments (i.e. Rylands Papyri, Bishop of Antioch) are arguments for a maximum date of composition of the gospels to the 2nd century. They are not arguments for early 1st century composition nor authorship by eyewitnesses, at least not at expense of the hypothesis of composition by late 1st century anonymous Greek-speaking Christians. On a related note, there were most certainly other early gospels that served as sources for the canonical gospels, such as Q and the sources for John, and these sources became lost. An argument for Q is covered in Problem 4 of R2. Con claimed, “I prove there was no manuscripts claiming these Gospels were faked, by the ‘real’ Apostles.” This was neither part of Contention 1 nor any previous argument. Con did not present this argument. Perhaps Con is getting this debate mixed up with another? Con claimed, “I show there are ZERO competing theological documents with as early a date as the Gospels and even Acts.” This argument is also seemingly unstated in previous rounds, though it may be closely related to the point already discussed above: “When additional books, that were unknown to the Church, appeared…” Response to Contention 2 R3 Con claims, “Then ends the book while knowing Paul’s death to be mundane did not ‘invent’ a similar scenario? After all the mundane ‘acts’ already converted to supernatural ones, the author just misses this one?” My position is that the book of Acts, like the gospels, sourced largely from myths. A writing that sources from myths does not follow the same patterns as a writing that “invents” stories on the spot. The author of Acts was telling what he believed to be the truth, and he would not make up the death of Paul if he knew the contrary, and he would likely find the mundane death of Paul to be an “act” that is too irrelevant for inclusion in his writing. Con claims, “My opponent is suggesting a myth built way later than the first and second generation, way later than 70 A.D. --- So the Author that made up Luke, that included a prophecy about the fall of Jerusalem missed including it in the ‘acts’ portion of his story? Oops?” Again, the author of Acts was writing what he believed to be the truth. He did not include the events of 70 CE for largely the same reason that a modern chronicler of the administration of Jimmy Carter would not include in the account the fall of the Soviet Union. The events fell outside the chronological context of the account--either all or most of the apostles were dead by 70 CE. This is not special pleading. It is expected of the evidence and historical patterns. Con claimed, “Dead Sea Scrolls Cave 7. Jose Callahan discovered a fragment of the Gospel of Mark and dated it to have been written in A.D. 50. He also discovered fragments of Acts and other epistles and dated them to have been written slightly after A.D. 50.” For this claim, Con sourced an article by Probe Ministries on Bible.org, which, in turn, cited Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics. When I researched the matter on Google Scholar, I discovered the true nature of the evidence. “The trouble is that the fragments are so tiny and contain so few Greek letters that they can be identified with almost anything.” [9] “In addition, and staying with 7Q5, even reading the fragment as O'Callaghan would like, it can only be made to agree with Mark 6:52-53 by supposing a textual variant (the omission of three letters) not witnessed by any manuscript. However, the strongest argument of those who oppose the identification is that other identifications (such as various texts of the Old Testament or apocryphal literature, which are also more plausible) are equally possible or even more probable, since they involve none of the changes of letters required by O'Callaghan. And if several identifications are possible, none of them can be considered as conclusively established. And still less can it comprise the starting point from which one can claim to alter the course of exegesis. In other words, although the hypothesis of identification is in itself interesting, it has such a meagre foundation and implies so many questionable factors that nothing solid can be built upon it.” [10] Response to “Concerning My opponents Positive argument 1” “’Jesus only spoke Aramaic, Nicodemus only spoke Aramaic…’” I request that Con please not summarize my claims with quotation marks unless it is an exact quotation. I do not think that Nicodemus only spoke Aramaic. The conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus in John can only be between two imagined Greek speakers. The historical Jesus probably spoke only Aramaic, and we don’t know about the historical Nicodemus, but the Jesus in the gospel of John is quoted entirely in Greek. “Deductive fallacy presuming that the characters only spoke one language.” This was not my presumption. This was Con’s premise! I presented my evidence from the gospel of John as a way to rebut Con’s point that: “The Roman Culture had a scribe in every agora. You need only hire a scribe for a small sum of money and any rural bumpkin could write anything that he wanted in any language.” Con is getting mixed up. He should settle on one and only one position concerning which and how many languages the original apostles spoke. Was it Aramaic? Was it Greek? Or was it both? Unfortunately, I have run out of characters, so I will have to drop the other issues. I appreciate my opponents continued participation. References [8] Darrell L. Bock, The Missing Gospels, page 63. [9] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins, page 24. [10] Florentino García Martínez, et al., The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls, page 14.