From: sieferme@stein.u.washington.edu (Eric Sieferman)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: VERIFYING CHRISTIANITY #1
Date: 27 Jan 93 02:13:06 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu

In article <1993Jan26.154824.18539@news.ysu.edu> af664@yfn.ysu.edu (Frank DeCenso, Jr.) writes:
>
>Yet from it's first book (Genesis) to it's last (Revelation), it is in
>  COMPLETE harmony in it's major subject - God's redemption of man.

Huh?  The question of "redemption" hardly ever appears in the OT,
the major part of the Bible.  And the prescription for
"redemption", such as it is, is to repent and behave
better (eg, Book of Jonah).

It is only the Christian co-opting and distorting Jewish
heritage which leads to the farcical notion that
the books of the Bible are in some sort of "harmony".

(more stuff deleted)
> 
> 
>TOTAL MANUSCRIPTS OF NEW TESTAMENT KNOWN TO BE IN EXISTANCE...24633
> 
>The second most widely attested work of antiquity is Homer's Illiad which
>has a total of 643 surviving manuscripts.
> 
>Has anyone questioned the authenticity of Homer's Illiad lately?

Major non-sequitur!  Although the tales in the Iliad do have
some correspondence to actual historical events, this is incidental
to their value.  Besides, no one claims that belief in Homer
will lead to eternal bliss (except Marge, maybe) :).

>It's also important to compare other writings of antiquity (which are
>virtually never disputed) with the Bible.
> 
>AUTHOR                WHEN WRITTEN    EARLIEST COPY   TIME SPAN   # OF COPIES
> 
>Caesar (Gallic Wars)   100-44 BC       900 AD           1000 yrs.   10
(etc)
> 
>There can be no doubt that if authenticity of any work of antiquity needs to
>be questioned, it certainly isn't the New Testament !

The fact that there are still so many extant copies of PARTS
of the christian bible simply shows that many people through
the past millenia thought it was important enough to save
and copy.  However, while ancient copies of books of the
bible show much consistency with each other, they also
show some serious differences, beginning with the books
which actually compose the bible.

You seem to be using two meanings of the word "authenticity".
If "authenticity" means finding a copy of a book which
closely matches the original WRITTEN story, then your analysis
may have some value.  It says nothing about the authenticity
of the WRITTEN story vis-a-vis the older ORAL story.
It says absolutely nothing regarding the historical
accuracy of any account of any historical event in
any book of the bible.  The bible may be ancient, unchanged,
and wrong.

>Any Classical Writing critics out there?
>Dr. Simon Greenleaf, who was the Royall Professor of Law at Harvard Univ.,
>wrote "A Treatise on the Law of Evidence", a three-volume work, considered
>one of the greatest works on this subject in legal literature.
>Using these rules of evidence, he researched the Resurrection of Jesus
>Christ and came to the conclusion that according to the laws of legal 
>evidence administered in courts of law, there is more evidence for the 
>Resurrection of Jejesus than for just about any other event in history !

This just proves the power of pre-conceived notions in
damaging critical thinking.

>He recorded his findings in the book, "An Examination of the Testimony of
>the Four Evangelists by the Rules of Evidence Administered in the Courts
>of Justice".
> The scientific method is related to measurement of phenomena and
>experiment-ation or repeated observation.
>The scientific method isn't appropriate for answering questions like,
>"Did Jesus Christ rise from the dead?", "Was Lincoln shot in a theater?",

You have a VERY limited idea of the scientific method.
Please take a course in historiography to learn how 
historians apply scientific principles in answering
questions like these two.

>etc.
>Historical events must be taken out of the realm of scientific proof and
>put into the realm of legal proof.
>This kind of proof is established on the basis of the evidence; when
>there's no reasonable basis for doubting the decision.

One of my bases for rejecting the resurrection of Jesus as
an historical fact is that the only four alleged accounts
of the event are vague and filled with contradictions.
For an event as extraordinary as a return from the dead,
I would like much more extraordinary evidence.

>It depends upon three types of testimony : oral testimony, written
>testimony, and exhibits.
>
>The Old Testament contains over 300 references to the Messiah that were
>literally fulfilled in Jesus. The probability of one man fulfilling 48 of
>the over 300 prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 157th power (10 with 157
>zeroes).

Many of these "prophecies" are taken out-of-context from OT
writings which were not speaking of a messiah at all.
Of the OT writings which are speaking of a messiah,
many of the prophecies are not fulfilled by the NT
stories at all.

>
>Part of the Bibliographical test to substantiate a document's validity
>is to see how widely it was accepted as well as quoted. Below is a chart
>detailing quotations of the New Testament in others' writings prior to
>the Council of Nicea (325 AD).
> 
(more deletions)
> 
>The New Testament was widely accepted and used as authentic as well as
>factual by people who lived very near the time of the writers of the New
>Testament !

The reliability of astrology and entrail-reading was
also widely accepted at the time.  Today, we know
more (at least some of us do).
-- 
---  As Seen In soc.religion.islam:  You can dance the whole day
alone in your room, or with your wife and family at home, but you cannot
do that in a disco.