Atheism vs. Christianity

Thank you, muted, for your swift reply. I have been busy Saturday as it was my 18th birthday and did not have time to write up my argument until an hour before it was due. Therefore, I cannot respond to all the arguments in this round. Nevertheless, I will eventually respond to all of your arguments. My opponent’s sole argument is that Jesus rose from the dead, then the Christian God exists, formally put: P1: If Jesus rose from the dead, then Christianity is true. P2: Jesus rose from the dead C: Therefore, Christianity is true. For sake of the debate, I will gladly accept premise 1; however, we will be discussing the second premise. Did Jesus Christ rise bodily from the dead? I will hopefully be able to reply to his evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In summary, my opponent’s arguments that Jesus did rise from the dead are as follows: The New Testament is a reliable historical document If it was a hoax, it was the greatest hoax in history Empty tomb Eye witness accounts Change in the disciples lives I cannot respond to all of these right now, but I will attempt to respond to each of these in the next round. How reliable is the New Testament Before we discuss the other four items, I feel that it is important to ask ourselves how reliable the New Testament actually is. The Manuscripts The manuscripts of the New Testament are riddled with contradictions and vary widely amongst themselves. Here is a chart adapted from Aland’s The Text of the New Testament to show just full story [1]: Group of Writings Total Number of Verses Number of Verses with Variants Percentage of Verses with Variants The Gospels 3769 1713 45.4% The Acts 1006 329 32.7% Pauline Epistles 2032 495 24.4% The Catholic Epistles 735 220 29.9% Revelation 405 191 47.1% Total 7947 2948 37.1% It can now be seen that the most corrupted works are the Gospels and Revelations. Half of these verses have variants. In total, more than 1/3 of the verses in the New Testament have variants. [2] When we talk about these variants, these are not simply grammatical variations such as commas or periods at different places or words spelled differently, we are talking about entire portions of verses moved or deleted from the text. For example, the story of the woman taken in adultery (“He who is without sin, cast the first stone”), is absent from early manuscripts and does not appear in Codex Vaticanus and Codex Siniticus; however, some of the other manuscripts have it after Luke 21:38! [3] Other inauthentic texts include I John 5:7-8 (KJV) “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. And there are three that witness on earth, the Spirit, the Water and the Blood and these three agree in one.” The italicized portion only appears in the Latin Vulgate and in the King James Version of the Bible. If you look in any modern translation, it does not appear. [4] Some other changes include the final portion of Mark which does not appear in any of the early manuscripts nor was it quoted by any of the church fathers. Could a book from God have gotten so corrupt that changes and variants often infringe upon Christian doctrine? Sorry, but I’m out of time, I’ll expand in the next round. [1] Aland, op cit: p29 [2] http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net... [3] http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net... [4] Ibid