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I won't go into any detail to reply to you further, other than that your points are simply inaccurate. I think your conclusion sums it up: "But christianity d

I won't go into any detail to reply to you further, other than that your points are simply inaccurate. I think your conclusion sums it up: "But christianity doesn't need to be verified by historical documents anyway - isn't that the point? Faith and whatnot." Since you understand Paul to be "slightly insane", let him answer your question: "And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead." - 1 Corinthians 15:14-15

louhike 11y ago
"I won't go into any detail to reply to you further, other than that your points are simply inaccurate." You cannot be taken seriously by refutting his arguments just saying those are innacurates without giving a single explanation other than pointing that he is biased because he does not believe in Jesus (even though you are obviously biased too).
- dkhenry 11y ago
  From his willingness to post on an internet forum about his faith and about the historical record of the Bible, I imagine this isn't his first time having such an argument, and anyone who has presented and defended their faith in _any_ forum, but especially on the internet, knows that the argument generally is a waste of time. We can re-hash out the centuries of debate about Jesus here on this thread, but do you think it would change anyone's mind ?
  - cholantesh 11y ago
    In my experience, it can and has, but a few anecdotes aren't really that meaningful, I guess.
    - PakG1 11y ago
      The issue is that this is HN. I'm an avid Christian myself, and can surmise that jorangreef probably really knows his stuff. But HN probably isn't the place for this kind of thing. On the Internet, I've met very few atheists or skeptics who really are able to play equally on the same playing field. Oh, if we debate physics and whatnot, sure, they often do great. But that's a completely different playing field. Debating historicity of scripture is very different from debating origin of the universe, just like how ice hockey is completely different from beach volleyball. And besides, if you know your Hebrew, you'll also know that a lot of atheists and skeptics likely misinterpret scripture when it comes to origin of the universe, so that debate is actually a moot point; but that's OK, so do many Christians who don't know Hebrew. It's like two people who are arguing about how to grill a steak when what they're actually doing is boiling eggs. But they're convinced they're grilling steak. It makes absolutely no sense. Anyway. My point is that although having this debate may have an impact on people (hey, can't disagree with you on the possibility), I imagine that if we went all-out to have a debate on faith-related topics, it would not be appreciated by the HN community. The HN community is not here to debate faith. As much as I'd like that, being an avid Christian myself, I have to respect that the community is here to discuss cool technology, software, trends, business, and the odd quirky, geeky factoid/story. This falls under quirky and geeky. But if it turns into an all-out debate about faith, I imagine it will no longer be seen as quirky and geeky cool. It will be seen as an annoyance. I can't speak for jorangreef, but I imagine his feeling is similar to what I felt when I saw some comments about death. Here's a thread in which I discussed death, and we actually had a really good back-and-forth where we both tried to be really open-minded: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10136438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10136438 Here's another thread where I wanted to participate, but I didn't, because right away the tone of the poster told me that the discussion would not be productive. His tone was hyperbolic, overly emotional, and absolute: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10371259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10371259 When you get the feeling from a poster's tone that he's not going to be open-minded about stuff, why stir the pot? It's not productive. If anything, it starts to get trollish. And trolls aren't appreciated on HN.
      - lotharbot 11y ago
        My experience is that discussions of this nature can be good on HN, given participants with a mindset of learning and exploring rather than preaching and fighting. For example, I suspect that a post describing the major viable positions on the historicity of Jesus, and their strengths and weaknesses, would be well-received. A post asserting one of those positions without giving mention to the others (like the pair that touched off this subthread) would be less well-received. Because the first type of post helps give people the tools they need to evaluate and draw their own conclusions, while the second type of post merely tells us what conclusions someone else has drawn and invites us into a fight. Most people on HN like to learn, even about religions they don't practice, and this is a great place to find people to learn from. But most people on HN don't want the sort of lame talking-past-each-other and name-calling that you can get on any other website.
- jorangreef 11y ago
  I thought the inaccuracies were obvious enough not to warrant much further apart from dealing with the conclusion. Here are some examples then: "It was definitely written in the first few centuries BC." Firstly, the New Testament documents were not written "BC" but AD. Secondly, most scholars will agree without question they were written within the first century, and no later. "22-25 years is still a very long time before any written records emerge" 22 years is actually reasonable for most history, and these documents are ancient history. Further, there is evidence to suggest that Matthew and Luke for example had access to even earlier sources. In any event, this kind of historical distance is still short enough for any inaccuracies in the accounts to be corrected, provided the eye witnesses are still alive, which in this case they were. Remarkably, 1 Corinthians 15 recognises this and is careful to mention that "most of [the eye witnesses] are still alive, though some have died". "That doesn't make it historically accurate, it just means lots of people read the stories." Actually, having lots of manuscript copies (in different languages and from different locations and places) is the key to textual criticism, which was the context. Having thousands of manuscript copies, as in the case of the New Testament documents, is mind-blowing when you compare it to the typically handful of copies for ancient history of the same period. As an unbiased person looking into history, you really couldn't ask for better.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - cholantesh 11y ago
    >these documents are ancient history. No, they're not. They're hagiographies. They're not intended to be records of historical events, but narrative prose with a specific audience, intended to bring them to Christ. The only exception might be Luke, who purports to recount eyewitness reports, but even he is not intent on detailing history, but imparting meaning to an existing narrative. (This is, by the way, widely accepted mainstream theology) If these are our best sources (and historians tend to agree that they are), anyone honest about history has to recognize that the historiography of Jesus' life is problematic, and the quantity of manuscript copies in circulation will not change that.
    - 11y ago
penguin82 11y ago
Well, my conclusion was there to indicate no bad faith despite my short rebuttals. Paul is considered slightly insane because of his visions and unreproducible-by-christians claims of healing and snake-immunity etc. If you don't want to have a debate then fine, but respond to any of my points properly and I can reply with sources, arguments, counter examples or other contemporary evidence.

louhike 11y ago

"I won't go into any detail to reply to you further, other than that your points are simply inaccurate." You cannot be taken seriously by refutting his arguments just saying those are innacurates without giving a single explanation other than pointing that he is biased because he does not believe in Jesus (even though you are obviously biased too).

dkhenry 11y ago
From his willingness to post on an internet forum about his faith and about the historical record of the Bible, I imagine this isn't his first time having such an argument, and anyone who has presented and defended their faith in _any_ forum, but especially on the internet, knows that the argument generally is a waste of time. We can re-hash out the centuries of debate about Jesus here on this thread, but do you think it would change anyone's mind ?
- cholantesh 11y ago
  In my experience, it can and has, but a few anecdotes aren't really that meaningful, I guess.
  - PakG1 11y ago
    The issue is that this is HN. I'm an avid Christian myself, and can surmise that jorangreef probably really knows his stuff. But HN probably isn't the place for this kind of thing. On the Internet, I've met very few atheists or skeptics who really are able to play equally on the same playing field. Oh, if we debate physics and whatnot, sure, they often do great. But that's a completely different playing field. Debating historicity of scripture is very different from debating origin of the universe, just like how ice hockey is completely different from beach volleyball. And besides, if you know your Hebrew, you'll also know that a lot of atheists and skeptics likely misinterpret scripture when it comes to origin of the universe, so that debate is actually a moot point; but that's OK, so do many Christians who don't know Hebrew. It's like two people who are arguing about how to grill a steak when what they're actually doing is boiling eggs. But they're convinced they're grilling steak. It makes absolutely no sense. Anyway. My point is that although having this debate may have an impact on people (hey, can't disagree with you on the possibility), I imagine that if we went all-out to have a debate on faith-related topics, it would not be appreciated by the HN community. The HN community is not here to debate faith. As much as I'd like that, being an avid Christian myself, I have to respect that the community is here to discuss cool technology, software, trends, business, and the odd quirky, geeky factoid/story. This falls under quirky and geeky. But if it turns into an all-out debate about faith, I imagine it will no longer be seen as quirky and geeky cool. It will be seen as an annoyance. I can't speak for jorangreef, but I imagine his feeling is similar to what I felt when I saw some comments about death. Here's a thread in which I discussed death, and we actually had a really good back-and-forth where we both tried to be really open-minded: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10136438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10136438 Here's another thread where I wanted to participate, but I didn't, because right away the tone of the poster told me that the discussion would not be productive. His tone was hyperbolic, overly emotional, and absolute: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10371259 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10371259 When you get the feeling from a poster's tone that he's not going to be open-minded about stuff, why stir the pot? It's not productive. If anything, it starts to get trollish. And trolls aren't appreciated on HN.
    - lotharbot 11y ago
      My experience is that discussions of this nature can be good on HN, given participants with a mindset of learning and exploring rather than preaching and fighting. For example, I suspect that a post describing the major viable positions on the historicity of Jesus, and their strengths and weaknesses, would be well-received. A post asserting one of those positions without giving mention to the others (like the pair that touched off this subthread) would be less well-received. Because the first type of post helps give people the tools they need to evaluate and draw their own conclusions, while the second type of post merely tells us what conclusions someone else has drawn and invites us into a fight. Most people on HN like to learn, even about religions they don't practice, and this is a great place to find people to learn from. But most people on HN don't want the sort of lame talking-past-each-other and name-calling that you can get on any other website.
jorangreef 11y ago
I thought the inaccuracies were obvious enough not to warrant much further apart from dealing with the conclusion. Here are some examples then: "It was definitely written in the first few centuries BC." Firstly, the New Testament documents were not written "BC" but AD. Secondly, most scholars will agree without question they were written within the first century, and no later. "22-25 years is still a very long time before any written records emerge" 22 years is actually reasonable for most history, and these documents are ancient history. Further, there is evidence to suggest that Matthew and Luke for example had access to even earlier sources. In any event, this kind of historical distance is still short enough for any inaccuracies in the accounts to be corrected, provided the eye witnesses are still alive, which in this case they were. Remarkably, 1 Corinthians 15 recognises this and is careful to mention that "most of [the eye witnesses] are still alive, though some have died". "That doesn't make it historically accurate, it just means lots of people read the stories." Actually, having lots of manuscript copies (in different languages and from different locations and places) is the key to textual criticism, which was the context. Having thousands of manuscript copies, as in the case of the New Testament documents, is mind-blowing when you compare it to the typically handful of copies for ancient history of the same period. As an unbiased person looking into history, you really couldn't ask for better.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- cholantesh 11y ago
  >these documents are ancient history. No, they're not. They're hagiographies. They're not intended to be records of historical events, but narrative prose with a specific audience, intended to bring them to Christ. The only exception might be Luke, who purports to recount eyewitness reports, but even he is not intent on detailing history, but imparting meaning to an existing narrative. (This is, by the way, widely accepted mainstream theology) If these are our best sources (and historians tend to agree that they are), anyone honest about history has to recognize that the historiography of Jesus' life is problematic, and the quantity of manuscript copies in circulation will not change that.
  - 11y ago

penguin82 11y ago

Well, my conclusion was there to indicate no bad faith despite my short rebuttals. Paul is considered slightly insane because of his visions and unreproducible-by-christians claims of healing and snake-immunity etc. If you don't want to have a debate then fine, but respond to any of my points properly and I can reply with sources, arguments, counter examples or other contemporary evidence.