There is Nothing Inherently Wrong with Being Gay

My opponent says that Jesus burial by Joseph, his empty tomb, his appearances afterwards, and the origin of the disciples' belief have not been proven to be historical facts. So she is using the "myth theory," that these were fabrications. But we have good reason to believe these are real events. The gospels are to be treated as historical sources because there was not enough time between the writing of the gospels and the events for myths to replace the core historical facts. Ignatius of Antioch (died 107 C.E.) quotes from John's gospel in his letter to the Ephesians. In fact, he quotes all four gospels in his letters, refuting any claim that these are second century forgeries. The John Rhylands fragment of John's gospel is dated 125-150 C.E., and enough time has to be allowed for this gospel to have circulated to the place where the fragment was found, Egypt. Papias also mentions Matthew's gospel in 115 C.E. So these documents were written by people living in the first century. We also know they were written by those whose names are on them, for if they were anonymous, a variety of competing authors would have arisen for each gospel as did happen with apocryphal gospels. This suggests that they received their titles very early. And if they were not written by the contemporaries as claimed, then why were such unlikely persons chosen as authors? Matthew was a tax collector, Jews hated them; Luke is a very obscure person, Mark abandoned Paul. (Acts 15:36-41) Would you pick the IRS man and an obscure apostle to author your gospel? Were obscure person deliberately chosen to fool us into thinking they were authentic? It is doubtful that the Gospels could have gotten anywhere unless they were certainly attributable to someone who was recognized as knowing what they were writing about. For an anonymous author to have penned a Gospel, and have it accepted as from the hand of any authoritative person, would have required them to first produce the Gospel, then present it as the work of another; they would have to concoct some story as to how it came peculiarly to be in their possession; get around the problem of why a work by such a person disappeared or was previously unknown; then get the church at large, first in his area and then throughout the Roman Empire (and would not the claimed discovery of such a document cause a sensation, and controversy?), to accept this work as genuine. Can Pro explain how these logistic difficulties were overcome? If Pro says these are forgeries, I want her to get down to the specifics of how one could have managed to pull off such a hoax on the church as a whole. Is there any parallel to this in secular history, where an enormous group at large was bamboozled by (and continued to be bamboozled by) not just one forgery, but four, attributed in a couple of cases to members of an inner circle, in widely separated places and times? The time gap between the dates of the gospels and the events they relate is too small for myths to replace the historical core. Luke got his information from eyewitnesses. (Luke 1:1-4) John was an eyewitness. (John 1:14; Rev 1:1-10) This refutes Pro's claim that this was written hundreds of years after the events; no, it was written by contemporaries of the events. This point has been well-explained by A. N. Sherwin-White in his book Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament. Professor Sherwin-White is not a theologian; he is a professional historian of times prior to and contemporaneous with Jesus. He says that the sources for Roman and Greek history are usually biased and removed generations and centuries from the events they record. Yet, he says, historians reconstruct with confidence the course of Roman and Greek history. For example, the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than 400 years after Alexander's death, and yet classical historians still consider them to be trustworthy. The fabulous legends about Alexander the Great did not develop until during the centuries after these two writers. According to Sherwin-White, the writings of Herodotus enable us to determine the rate at which legend accumulates, and the tests show that even two generations is too short a time span to allow legendary tendencies to wipe out the hard core of historical facts. When Professor Sherwin-White turns to the gospels, he states that for the gospels to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be "unbelievable." More generations would be needed. First, Jesus' burial: as a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin which condemned Jesus, Joseph of Arimethea is unlikely to be a Christian invention. No disciples would invent a story where a member of the hated Sanhedrin does what is right by Jesus. The disciples could not have declared Jesus' resurrection in the face of a tomb containing his body. No competing burial story exists, thus we have no reason to think its legendary. Second, the fact that his tomb was discovered by women (John 20) in first century Palestine where the testimony of women was considered useless testifies to the honesty of the writers. Third, we have multiple, independent attestation of the resurrection appearances. (1 Cor 15:3-8; Matt 28; Mark 16; John 20-21) Last, these Jews came to believe in the resurrection so fervently, they were willing to die for this belief. This Jesus, raised by God, believed the Torah which said, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." (Lev 19:22) If the Son of God says being gay is wrong, its wrong. His resurrection proved he was who he claimed to be, so unless Pro refutes the resurrection, she must see Jesus was God's Son. As such, he would know which scripture was reliable. "The Bible was also changed when it was edited by the Counsel of Nasea so we have no idea what the original document looked like." Pro, please provide your source for this. We don't know which manuscripts you are even talking about; there are thousands of Greek manuscripts in existence; not to mention the Old Latin versions of 200 C.E. which predate the Council of Nicea, yet these agree with the gospels we have today. As for translation problems, I've never another rendering of Leviticus 19:22 which does not condemn homosexuality. It is pretty clear, and so is Romans 1. When one does proper research into the languages, he learns the correct translation; just because men have freedom of choice to make poor translations doesn't mean you can't know which ones are reliable. "the gospels do not match up in their accounts." Please give examples, we don't know what you mean. At least I don't. "Only some of them speak of these miracles of which you assert to have happened" All four gospels mention the resurrection of Jesus; his burial, empty tomb, and appearances. Other gospel relating to other subjects need not do so. Pro doesn't believe in absolute moral values, so in her belief, there is nothing really wrong then with gay-bashing? Either, its just her opinion that its wrong, or its really wrong! My challenge to her is this: if you truely believe there is no standard of right and wrong above and beyond ourselves, then a man who thinks he should rapes little 8-yr-old girls isn't really wrong. Pro says the society decides morality; so when the "society" of Nazi Germany decided to mistreat and kill Jews during the holocaust, they were right? The laws of their state permitted them to do this, so it was right? When the society decided to keep blacks as slaves, were they right because the society decided this acceptable? Majorities don't decide right and wrong; if it did, Pro would still lose this debate since most people are against homosexuality as taboo. Society says its unnatural. A man raping a ten year old girl is absolutely wrong no matter who or how many thinks it right! So is homosexuality. I'm out of space, more next round.