From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Newsgroups: talk.origins,sci.skeptic,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: The Historical Jesus
Date: 10 Apr 92 15:45:00 GMT
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
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In article <0adHohmm6@cs.psu.edu>, kiledal@lisp.cs.psu.edu (Erik Kiledal) writes...
>In the posting by Roger Squires with the subject "The Historical Jesus", 
>Squires writes about the New Testament. After having read what he has
>to say, I am left with very much the same feelings I have when I have
>read Creationist literature: "Does this person know what he is talking 
>about?", "Has the person bothered to study the primary literature, or
>just studied criticism that fits his belief system?".
> 
>[deletions]
> 
>Roger:
>>Ok.  First let me say that I have been perusing five or six different
>>texts on the NT, and all of them agree with the above paragraphs.
>>Let me itemize what I think are the important points this author makes:
>>        1) The Gospels are not eyewitness accounts.
> 
>Roger, pick up your Bible (I assume you have one?), look up the Gospel
>according to John, chapter 21, verse 24. This is near the very the end 
>of the book: "This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who 
>wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true." (NIV). John the
>apostle, an eyewitness, wrote this gospel. From the commentary of the
>NIV Study Bible, Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1985, p. 1591: "The author
>[of the Gospel according to John] is the apostle John, "the disciple
>whom Jesus loved" (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20,24). He was prominent
>in the early church but is not mentioned by name in this Gospel -- which
>would be natural if he wrote it, but hard to explain otherwise...Early
>writers such as Irenaues and Tertullian say that John wrote this Gospel,
>and all other evidence agrees (see Introduction to 1 John: Author)".
> [text deleted]

It's not true that "all other evidence agrees," which is why many (most?)
biblical scholars reject that the gospel of John is an eyewitness account.
It is believed to be the last written of the four gospels and contains
numerous inconsistencies with the other three (which is why they are called
the "synoptics" (they see "eye to eye") and John is not included in that
class).

>The list goes on, these are just some examples. The authors of large
>parts of the NT were eyewitnesses.

The authorship of most books of the NT is in dispute--in particular
the letters of Peter which you claimed as authored by an eyewitness.

>Roger:
>>You say that the OT is devoted to setting the stage for the coming of
>>Christ, and that when he finally did appear, there was evidence that
>>he was who he said he was, because he fulfilled a lot of prophecies.
>>I could read this statement of yours in two ways:
> 
>[useless interpretation 1) deleted]
> 
>>        2) Taking all the miracles as related in the NT literally and
>>objectively true, we match them up against the OT prophecies.  Well, I
>>am not an OT scholar, and don't have a list of these prophecies at hand;
>>perhaps YOU can provide such a list that I could research.  Specifically,
>>I would like to know how specific these prophecies are - are they general
>>statements or do they refer to specific events in the NT.
> 
>First of all, the prophecies in the OT are not generally about miracles. 
>About the time just before Jesus died (the same day?), more than 30 
>prophecies about him were fulfilled. These are very specific, and concern 
>things that were far beyond his control. One example (I will try to give you
>as many as I can later):

The alleged messianic prophecies do not stand up to scrutiny.  I look
at many of them in my _The Fabulous Prophecies of the Messiah_, which
I will send through email to anyone who requests it.

>Zechariah 12:10 "...They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and
>they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child" (This is the word
>of the LORD)
> 
>More than 500 years later John, the eyewitness apostle, writes:
> 
>John 19:34 "Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear,
>bringing a sudden flow of blood and water". The "instead" refers to
>instead of breaking Jesus' legs (to hasten death) which was normally
>done (this fulfills another prophecy that his (the Passover Lamb's) bones 
>will not be broken (Exodus 12:46; Num. 9:12; Psalm 34:20).

If you look at the context of Zech. 12:10, it is clearly *unfulfilled.*
(See esp. verses 9 and 11.)  There are numerous problems in claiming
that verses about Passover lambs not having broken bones are prophecies
of Jesus (they don't look like prophecies), among which is the fact that
the Paschal lamb is supposed to be completely without blemish, whereas
Jesus was allegedly scourged.  (I recommend Gerald Sigal's book,
_The Jew and the Christian Missionary_, as a Jewish response to these
claimed messianic prophecies.)

>Erik Kiledal				| kiledal@cs.psu.edu
>The Norwegian Institute of Technology   | "Nietzsche is dead" 
>Computer Science			| - God
> 
>>Roger Squires
>>rsquires@cyclops.eece.unm.edu

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721