A Cumulative Case for Christianity

[Cavebear]

There is no "cumulative case" for christianity.  No new information increases the idea of it being accurate.  From the beginning of the scientific era (oh, generally 1400 to present day), all evidence diminishes biblical and other theistic claims.  There is little in any theism that can withstand modern secular understanding of reality.

There is a cumulative case in that there are multiples lines of reasoning (just definitionally).

New information is evidence if the claim is that people will experience something. New people, new experiences, new evidence. To deny it is as evidence is question-begging, if you can't prove it.

What evidence diminishes biblical and other theistic claims since the 1400? You are not getting your message out...there are probably more Christians living today then there were in all the years prior to 1400.

If there are multiple lines of reasoning (to suggest biblical truth), please do let us know.

If there is new information, please do let us know about that. Since the bible was written mostly 100-300 AD, n ewer information would be interesting,

"there are probably more Christians living today then there were in [i]all the years prior to 1400".

That is probably because there are more people alive now. There are also "more damn fools" today as well. It doesn't mean they (now) are any more rational or intelligent. I'm not trying to "get a message out". I don't have to prove or disprove anything about your or any other religion. If you want to make a claim, prove it.

[Minimalist]

There are sure as hell more atheists now than in 1400....and that's a good thing because Stevie's ilk has been fucking up the planet long enough.

[Cavebear]

There are sure as hell more atheists now than in 1400....and that's a good thing because Stevie's ilk has been fucking up the planet long enough.

Yes, and burning us at the stake is less acceptable than it used to be. Though some people keep trying to... The fight toward progress continues...

[Dancefortwo]

There are sure as hell more atheists now than in 1400....and that's a good thing because Stevie's ilk has been fucking up the planet long enough.

Yeah, even as early as the 1400's a few people were starting to doubt that Moses wrote the first five books of the OT.   Then by 1700 there was a little more doubt about the Moses authorship.   Little doubts here and there started to taking place.  I may be wrong but I think it was around 150 years ago or thereabouts that scholars studying the New Testament really began questioning the authors of the gospels.  

As far as I can see, overall the case for Christianity has been UN-cumulative.   <----- I don't think that's a real word, but anyway.

[Deesse23]

What evidence diminishes biblical and other theistic claims since the 1400?

Archaeology, which debunked most of biblical claims about history of the levant, and the most silly ones about the history of the world like a global flood?

[SteveII]

Look at this table of the earliest extant manuscripts from Wikipedia. Let's just do the first line. Eleven large fragments of Matthew from Egypt.

Eleven fragments from Egypt which according to the table are from a 150 years time span starting from around 150 AD to 300. So basically from almost 70 years after your date for the first writting of Matthew. These are enormous time spans for fragments. None of those fragments are from the first century. None of those fragments. All found in Egypt this was a major intellectual center at the time as was Rome, Syria and Greece. Their location is not  an issue. In fact, If you look just at Matthew you will realise that all early fragments are from Egypt except one which comes from an unknown place and was simply bought in Egypt in 1924. In fact all of those early fragments seem to come from Egypt and specifically from the same two cities too. Then look at their date of production. Almost all of them are 3rd centuries. A handful few are second centuries. Where the hell would you get the idea that the Gospels were written a century before? It seems to all point out to the first writting of the Gospels in Egypt from the mid 2nd century mostly from prior oral tradition and maybe a few other fragments of texts.

And even then, we can't say that those fragments are part of full books or just stand alone chapters of a sort. To give you a point of comparison, Alexandre Dumas didn't wrote the Three Musketers as a full novel. He wrote it as an episodic adventure in the newspaper of the time and it's only later that those episodic chapter were collated together in a novel format. Even individual Gospels lend themselves easily to this format where each chapter can operate as a standalone document too.

But here's the thing, the next oldest fragment will be from a different region (let's say Syria) and not a descendent of these fragments here found in Egypt. So, what does that tell the textual critic scholars?

Here's your biggest mistake. I checked individually all of the fragments for the four Gospel from the list you provided. ALL of them come from Egypt. NONE were from Syria or anywhere else. Same things for Acts. The idea that there are fragments dating back from the 2nd and 3rd century found outside of Egypt is false for these five books. I also did so for Revelation and it's the same things. Those fragments all are from Egypt and many were actually found together. If your argument is that there is some small fragments in various part of the Roman empire around the 2nd century which proves that there was an older Ur text then this argument, while very sound, is not supported by the evidence which shows that all the early fragments of the NT, not just the Gospels, come from a singular region: Egypt and about half of them were found together in a single Egyptian city. This does not hint at the idea that these Egyptian artefacts are copies from older books written potentially in Palestine, Syria or Rome where the early Christians of the 1st century lived until the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. It stands to reason that Christianity was born after this event and emerged mostly from the population that fled the war torn and ravaged Palestine to Egypt. It would also explain why Jewish customs and politics is a bit mangled in the Gospel narrative or that they can't even agree on who Joseph's father was. They had no access to the genealogical records of Joseph nor were those writting those texts or dictating them Jews of the mid 1st century.

I would also like to note that many of your earliest fragments date back from the late 3rd and early 4th century which is very, very late. They are, of course, from Egypt. This makes sense Egypt was the place to go to find good scribes at a bargain and also a whole lot of Christians. Alexandria and Damascus were far bigger centers of Christianity than Rome prior to the 5th century.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The fact we do not find fragments from the 2nd or 3rd century spread out in the various provinces of the Roman Empire and only in a single province: Egypt suggest that there were no or almost diffusion of Christian texts outside of those province and while there is numerous evidence for a Christian population well outside Egypt at the time. There were Christian in almost all the major urban centers of the Roman Empire though they were most numerous in Egypt, Asia Minor and Syria. If there was written NT texts in the late 1st century, they seem to have only existed in Egypt and were not widely diffused until the 4th or 5th century or later as we find no fragments of NT texts outside of Egypt prior to the mid to late 4th century, when Christianity was embraced by Rome.

The list I linked to was a list of the earliest surviving copies/fragments we have for each book of the New Testament. The common location is irrelevant--we should expect that a lot of them are from the same place. There is not a person in the world apart from atheist on the internet that think there were not many generations of copies prior to these. In fact, having so many different books written by different people across many years, in some cases hundreds or a thousand miles away from where the original was sent, is concrete proof that the oldest copies we have (the list) are themselves many generations of copies old.

You (and many others posting) continue to fail to understand what Textual Criticism is and what it produces. Since so many of you consider yourselves knowledgeable on the subject of the New Testament (judging by the confidence with which you make your claims), it seems like you should know at the very least the almost 300 year old process used to study and assess what we have today. Otherwise, well, you end up typing things that are simply not true or stupidly simplistic.

From Wikipedia article on Textual Criticism:

The objective of the textual critic's work is to provide a better understanding of the creation and historical transmission of the text and its variants. This understanding may lead to the production of a critical edition containing a scholarly curated text. If a scholar has several versions of a manuscript but no known original, then established methods of textual criticism can be used to seek to reconstruct the original text as closely as possible. The same methods can be used to reconstruct intermediate versions, or recensions, of a document's transcription history, depending on the number and quality of the text available.[b] [bold in the original, italics added]

I'll remind you of the list I posted earlier that shows OTHER interactions with what became the NT.

TIMELINE
Here is a chronology of relevant historical facts surrounding what was considered authentic:

Ignatius of Antioch (circa 50-117 CE):
Ignatius, an early Christian leader, wrote a series of letters while traveling to Rome to be martyred. In his letters, he quotes or alludes to many New Testament writings, indicating their recognition and use within the Christian community.

Papias of Hierapolis (circa 70-155 CE):
Papias, an early Christian bishop and writer, is known for his work "Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord." Although his writings are mostly lost, later Christian authors like Eusebius mentioned Papias' references to Gospel authors such as Mark and Matthew.

Justin Martyr (100-165 CE):
Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist, quoted from or alluded to many New Testament writings in his works, including the Gospels and Pauline letters. His writings provide evidence of the use of these texts in the mid-2nd century.

Marcion's Canon (circa 140-150 CE):
a heretical Christian leader, compiled his own list of authoritative texts that included only a subset of Paul's letters and an edited version of Luke's Gospel. His actions prompted orthodox Christians to consider which writings should be accepted as authoritative.

Tatian's Diatessaron (circa 160-175 CE):
Tatian, a Christian writer, compiled a harmonized Gospel account known as the "Diatessaron." This work combined elements from the four Gospels and is an indication of the acceptance of the individual Gospel texts in his time.

Irenaeus of Lyons (circa 130-202 CE):
Irenaeus, an early Christian theologian, provided important insights into the New Testament canon. In his work "Against Heresies," he affirmed the authority of the four Gospels and the letters of Paul, and he argued against alternative texts used by certain groups.

Muratorian Fragment (circa 170-200 CE):
This fragment is one of the earliest known lists attempting to define the New Testament canon. It includes most of the Gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, and some other writings. It also dismisses certain writings, indicating an emerging understanding of canonical texts.

[Minimalist]

There is another myth about the growth of jesusism...that of the kindly missionary converting one village full of ignorant peasants at a time.

The church then, as now, didn't give a fuck about the common people.  They looked to convert the rulers or chieftains. The "conversion" of Clovis I ( which was more political than religious!) is illustrative of the process.

https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=1635

Clovis I Converts to Roman Catholicism

The followers of Catholicism believe in One God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit (consubstantialityundefined), "as opposed to Arian Christianityundefined, whose followers believed that Jesus, as a distinct and separate being, was both subordinate to and created by God. While the theology of the Arians was declared a heresy at the First Council of Niceaundefined in 325 AD, the missionary work of the bishop Ulfilasundefined converted the pagan Goths to Arian Christianity in the 4th century. By the time of the ascension of Clovis, Gothic Arians dominated Christian Gaul, and Catholics were the minority. The king's Catholic baptism was of immense importance in the subsequent history of Western and Central Europe in general, for Clovis expanded his dominion over almost all of Gaul.

"... His [Clovis's] conversion to the Roman Catholic form of Christianity served to set him apart from the other Germanic kings of his time, such as those of the Visigothsundefined and the Vandalsundefined, who had converted from paganundefined beliefs to Arian Christianity. His embrace of the Roman Catholic faith may have also gained him the support of the Catholic Gallo-Roman aristocracy in his later campaign against the Visigoths, which drove them from southern Gaul in 507 and resulted in a great many of his people converting to Catholicism...." (Wikipedia article on Clovis I, accessed 12-29-2013).

And Clovis, after his "conversion" ended his career by murdering a number of his former friends and enemies.... so much for this xtian "love" horseshit!

[SteveII]

What evidence diminishes biblical and other theistic claims since the 1400?

Archaeology, which debunked most of biblical claims about history of the levant, and the most silly ones about the world like a global flood?

So the best you came up with was evidence that Young Earth Creationists (popular only recently) are wrong? Augustine in the fourth century literally wrote a book how Genesis 'days' were not literal and the garden stories allegorical.

Nothing better than that? It seems such an obviously true claim that science has been debunking Christianity for centuries. I would like to see where that rubber hits the road though.

[Deesse23]

Archaeology, which debunked most of biblical claims about history of the levant, and the most silly ones about the world like a global flood?

So the best you came up with was evidence that Young Earth Creationists (popular only recently) are wrong? Augustine in the fourth century literally wrote a book how Genesis 'days' were not literal and the garden stories allegorical.

Nothing better than that? It seems such an obviously true claim that science has been debunking Christianity for centuries. I would like to see where that rubber hits the road though.

You asked:

What evidence diminishes biblical and other theistic claims since the 1400?

I just answered your question.

You commented on the second part of my reply, and *forgot* the first, main part, i wonder why.

So the best you came up with was evidence that Young Earth Creationists (popular only recently) are wrong?

Bolding mine. "Popular only recently"    really?     what was the mainstream "theory" of Christianity about the age of the Earth, until "recently"?
Evidence that a global flood didnt happen, isnt evidence against young earth creationism. Its first and foremost evidence that a global flood didnt happen.

You pretended as if i only presented ONE piece of evidence (global flood), which was dishonest to begin with, only to complain that i didnt present more than one. Isnt ONE pice of evidence enough, considering your original question? I wonder if anybody could have been more dishonest in his reply than you were: Asking for evidence against biblical claims post 1400. Then getting "global flood + the whole history of the Levant", and your reply was "global flood only is not enough".

The Augustine part is only the icing on the cake, since what you claimed about him is not relevant to a global flood/my response. Its a classic case of "red herring".

But i didnt expect anything different from you. You cant be honest to others as long as you arent honest to yourself. This whole threat, this whole endeavor to rehabilitate your lack of evidence for your irrational belief clearly shows that you arent equipped to have a honest conversation with anyone else, yet.

[Dancefortwo]

  TIMELINE
Here is a chronology of relevant historical facts surrounding what was considered authentic:

You're not using any critical thinking here.  Let me go through ths again and look at the details.

 Ignatius of Antioch (circa 50-117 CE):

Ignatious of Antioch writes a very tall tale about his martyrdom.  


From Syria even unto Rome I fight with beasts, both by land and sea, both by night and day, being bound to ten leopards, I mean a band of soldiers...

That's a 2000 mile trip. The Romans did NOT transport convicted prisoners 2000 miles to execute someone.  This trip involves travel on land, then across the Mediterranian Ocean on a ship, then back on land in one of the ports in Italy, then onto Rome for his execution.  All with ten soldiers accompaning him on the long journey.   This DID NOT HAPPEN. The Romans executed people where they lived. They spent as little money on executions as they could.  Ignatius is telling an out and out lie.  If he is telling a big lie about this, then what else is he lying about?

Next we have Papias.  Another.... LIAR FOR JESUS.  

  Papias of Hierapolis (circa 70-155 CE): 

First of all, we don't have any of his original works.  We only know about him thrugh Eusibius quoting him in the 4th century.  Eusibius didn't think much of him either and called him a  "a man of small mental capacity".

But here's another fabrication Papias comes up on the death of Judas.  He made it up out of whole cloth because lying for Jesus was acceptable then.  Here's how Judas died, according to Papias


But Judas went about in this world as a great model of impiety. He became so bloated in the flesh that he could not pass through a place that was easily wide enough for a wagon—not even his swollen head could fit. They say that his eyelids swelled to such an extent that he could not see the light at all; and a doctor could not see his eyes even with an optical device, so deeply sunken they were in the surrounding flesh. And his genitals became more disgusting and larger than anyone's; simply by relieving himself, to his wanton shame, he emitted pus and worms that flowed through his entire body. And they say that after he suffered numerous torments and punishments, he died on his own land, and that land has been, until now, desolate and uninhabited because of the stench. Indeed, even to this day no one can pass by the place without holding his nose. This was how great an outpouring he made from his flesh on the ground.

This is completely different than the other two accounts in the NT.  What happened?  Why are there three versions of the story of Judas' death.  IT"S  LYING FOR JESUS. 

Justin Martyr (100-165 CE)

Born too late to have known anyone who knew Jesus but I'll let that pass for now.  He, as with most of the early church fathers, made up shit and wrote about it.  In his "Dialogue with Trypho"  from about 157 CE, he creates a Jewish character (this man does not exist excpet in Justin's imagination)  and he has a looong ass dialogue with this fictional person.  He puts words in Trypho's mouth that Justin can easily reply to and manipulates the dialogue exactly like a playwright.  What we end up with is another LIAR FOR JESUS text that is full of imaginary nonsense.   He also has all sorts of mistakes and blunders and sites passages in the OT that we know were translation errors because the Jesus storytellers were retroactivly shoehorning Jesus into the messiah role AFTER THE FACT so it would look like prophecy. 



The rest on your list are "affirming the gospels" over 100 years after Jesus died.   But what does that mean?  Believing in something does not make it true.  

We know so much of the gospels stories were written later because they were written for an already existing Christian church.  The are not eyewitness accounts. We know the census in the N T is historically wrong. 

In the "render onto Ceasar what is Caesar's" incident, we know the denarii coin Jesus is handed was not struck until after the 70 CE destruction of Jerusalem so this was a made up story.   Jesus would have held a shekel.

After the destruction of the Temple the currency and government in Judea changed dramatically. A tax was levied by Vespasian in the form of the denarii as one of the measures against Jews after of the Jewish revolt of AD 66–73. The denarii tax was issued to raise money for the upkeep of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus but ONLY AFTER 70 CE   It was  intended as a punishment and humiliation for all subjugated Jewish people. This really stuck in their craw because it was a huge insult to the Jewish population and that's why it ended up in the NT story.  We know the coin in Jesus' hand could not have been a denarii but whoever wrote it didn't know this.  More made up shit in the NT.   

Plus, when you realze this is written by Matthew who is supposedly a tax collector, he either is stupid and doesn't know much about the tax situation during Jesus' time or it found its way into the Jesus story much later when Jews were being taxed up the wahzoo and really pissed about it. 

When you have a bunch of made up shit to promote a product usually people don't buy it.  But when people want to buy a product because they believe  it will cure their ailments they'll buy it despite what the reality says.  

 

[Bucky Ball]

There is no tradition in Apocalyptic Judaism for (ever, even once) the rising from the dead of one of the Apocalyptic heroes. Not one. Matthew said that Elijah was to return before the messiah would come. Never happened. Jesus never got the job done of the Hebrew messiah. Still hasn't.

Then we have the problem of Pious Fraud. The church fathers were not known to be honest.

"We see passages taken captive by your pen and pressed into service to win you a victory, which in volumes from which they are taken have no controversial bearing at all ... the line so often adopted by strong men in controversy – of justifying the means by the result." – St. Jerome, Epistle to Pammachus (xlviii, 13; N&PNF. vi, 72-73)

Eusebius, entitles the 32nd Chapter of his 12th Book of Evangelical Preparation
"How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived."

Eusebius is notoriously the author of a great many falsehoods – but then he does warn us in his infamous history: "We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity."
– Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 8, chapter 2.

Clement of Alexandria was one of the earliest of the Church Fathers to draw a distinction between "mere human truth" and the higher truth of faith: "Not all true things are the truth, nor should that truth which merely seems true according to human opinions be preferred to the true truth, that according to the faith." – Clement (quoted by M. Smith, Clement of Alexandria, p446)

John Chrysostom, 5th century theologian and erstwhile bishop of Constantinople, is another: "Do you see the advantage of deceit? ... "For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind ... And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."
– Chrysostom, Treatise On The Priesthood, Book 1.

John (above) is notable for his extensive commentaries on the Bible which emphasized a literal understanding of the stories; the style popular at Alexandria until then was to acknowledge an allegorical meaning of the text. Thus eminent ‘believers’ added falsehood to the beliefs of later generations. ‘For the best of reasons’ they ‘clarified’ obscure points, conjured up characters to speak dialogue that could have been said, invented scenarios that could have happened, borrowed extensively from a wider culture. And this all before they became the custodians of power and had real reasons for lies, inventions and counterfeits.

The 5th and 6th centuries was the 'golden age' of Christian forgery. In a moment of shocking candour, the Manichean bishop (and opponent of Augustine) Faustus said: "Many things have been inserted by our ancestors in the speeches of our Lord which, though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith; especially since – as already it has been often proved – these things were written not by Christ, nor [by] his apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by I know not what sort of half Jews, not even agreeing with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports and opinions merely, and yet, fathering the whole upon the names of the apostles of the Lord or on those who were supposed to follow the apostles, they maliciously pretended that they had written their lies and conceits according to them."

In the ferocious battle for adherents, the propagandists sought to outdo each other at every turn. One example: by the 5th century, four very different endings existed to Mark's gospel. Codex Bobiensis ends Mark at verse 16:8, without any post-crucifixion appearances; it lacks both the 'short conclusion' (of Jesus sending followers to 'east and west') or the 'long conclusion' – the fabulous post-death apparitions, where Jesus promises his disciples that they will be immune to snake bites and poison.

As Ehrman has written about extensively, there was no "orthodoxy" until at least the Council of Nicaea began to cook it up, long after the "fathers" were dead.
Constantine wanted to use religion to unite his empire, and so called the council . He told them he didn't care what they agreed on, as long as they agreed on something.
So they invented "orthodoxy". They took a few Jewish ideas, and over-laid Greek ideas, and "viola". A new religion.

The fact that crazy people say "Oh, I have experienced something" is proof of nothing.

Stevie-Weavie has invented his own definition of Christianity and claimed it's supported.
The young man in Matthew asked jesus what he had to do to gain eternal life.
Jesus said "keep the commandments"
That's it. Period. According to Jesus, there's no reason for "Christianity".
AND he told them that he came to change nothing, "not one jot or tittle" ... all things are NOT *accomplished*.
These idiots need to read their holy books.

LOLOL

[Astreja]

Steve, please give serious consideration to the critiques above. You can believe silly-ass stories to your heart's content, but when push comes to shove those stories have only the power that your own imagination can give them. No amount of tradition or faith or wishful thinking can circumvent the reality that we are mortal, and that heaven, hell, gods, demons, miracles and resurrections are almost certainly mythical and only valuable *as* myths.

The "Cumulative Case for Christianity" is hereby dismissed without prejudice. (strikes gavel)

[airportkid]

I have mentioned several times in posts to theists who claim to have proved their god is real that, had they truly accomplished about the most remarkable accomplishment possible in history, they'd be Nobel Prize winners and globally famous, not making an annoying presence in an obscure internet forum.  None has recognized that point.

But I thought I'd check to see if there really is a Nobel category for theology or religion, and there ain't no such animal.  Proving a god is real would NOT win a Nobel Prize directly.

However, proving a god is real would constitute a major scientific achievement, so getting a Nobel for making a god stand up and say hello would still score a Nobel Prize, and likely be acclaimed as the most notable Nobel Prize ever awarded.

Until that Nobel is a demonstrated matter of historic moment, I see no point in bothering to endlessly refute the witless maunderings of the theists who blunder in here, except as an entertainment.

[pattylt]

I enjoy hearing from the more intelligent Christian’s and Steve seems to fit that category. I’m amazed when reasonably intelligent people can compartmentalize their beliefs, putting it into a safe box in their brain. How do they keep the real world from opening the box? That’s what fascinates me. They accept science and use reason for every other part of their lives but just can’t make the leap towards how ridiculous the Jesus story actually is.

It’s amazing how how our minds work to accomplish an obvious false story being believed because of how they were raised and lead to believe it when anyone outside the Jesus bubble simply shakes their head and says, “ you expect me to believe that?” Yet, it happens in Islam, Hindus, Druze, and all others. Each accept THEIR story as believable while the rest of shake our heads and, well, feel kind of sorry for them.

[Inkubus]

Archaeology, which debunked most of biblical claims about history of the levant, and the most silly ones about the world like a global flood?

Nothing better than that? It seems such an obviously true claim that science has been debunking Christianity for centuries. I would like to see where that rubber hits the road though.

Well try biology. This is a human cell, just one cell:



Three days after the cessation of life this cell and the 30-40 trillion others that make up the human body are completely and utterly fucked. And that's not counting the countless trillions of neurons and synapses that need to be rewired.
Science say's this process can not be reversed. Now If you say it can then you're not right in the head.

'Yabut science doesn't know everything!'

Correct: but that doesn't mean everything science does know is wrong, what science does know is: if you're dead for three days you're fucking staying dead.

[Minimalist]

Clement of Alexandria at least was probably a real person....unlike Clement of Rome who seems to be as fraudulent as fucking jesus himself!

[epronovost]

The list I linked to was a list of the earliest surviving copies/fragments we have for each book of the New Testament. The common location is irrelevant--we should expect that a lot of them are from the same place.

They were ALL from the same place. It's hard to believe these were the copies of copies of copies of documents more than a century older many of which would have first been produced in other regions of the world (Asia Minor, Rome, Syria, Greece, etc.) and yet not find a single shred of those manuscripts is found in any of those regions prior to the late 4th, early 5th century. This is evidence of absence. We should expect that widely circulating pieces of documents used by hundreds of thousands of people in multiple region would leave traces in several regions with a higher concentration in the area where they were most widely distributed and copied. Sure, if most of them were Egyptian and only a few bits and pieces were from other regions, it would defend the thesis that these documents were widely circulated already at that these were copies of copies of copies. If you find almost no traces prior to the 4th centuries and that every single piece of Christian scripture from the 3rd and 2nd centuries are fairly poorly preserved, fragments all found in a single province with almost all of them from a single city of that province, it's evidence of very small scale distribution and these might be very close in time (around 30 to 50 years at most) to the original copies if not the originals themselves.

This is reinforced by the fact that the eldest "full length" collection of those Christian scriptures, the Codex Vaticanus, dating back from the mid to late 4th century, is substantially different than the versions used in the early Middle-Ages and onward. It doesn't contain all the books associated with the Christian Canons and there is noticeable differences in several of the Gospels books compared to the current version which indicates that the process of editing of those scriptures was still ongoing at that point and time.  

You seem to severely overestimate the capacity of textual criticism to assess a precise date of redaction of a book. Yes, textual criticism is an important tool in the arsenal of the historian to date the writing of a text or assess the authenticity of a document, but with ancient documents with no named author that are composed from earlier oral tradition (which is the case for the 4 Gospels of the New Testament), it can be very difficult to pin down a date of writing within a decade or two. That's why you can see the dating for texts like the Second Epistle of Peter ranging from 60 to 150 AD. That's a range of almost a full century and the same kind of range can be attributed to pretty much all books of the NT.

Then there is the problem of oral tradition. There is no doubt most stories of Christianity first emerged as oral traditions, discourse, and sermons that were later committed to writing. This makes identifying the Ur text even more difficult because textual critique cannot make the difference between differing medium very effectively.  


Then there is the problem of authorship of some of the characters of early Christianity like those you mentioned.

Ignatius of Antioch (circa 50-117 CE):
Ignatius, an early Christian leader, wrote a series of letters while traveling to Rome to be martyred. In his letters, he quotes or alludes to many New Testament writings, indicating their recognition and use within the Christian community.

The story of his traveling to Rome for execution from Syria is considered rather farcical as this was not a tradition of the Roman Empire at that point and time. The authenticity of the authorship of his epistles are debated too. Many scholars have argued these are pseudepigraphic letters written about 50 years after the death of Ignatius of Antioch probably from an original core. Ignatius references to the Gospel doesn't require a written Gospel either. Plus, if the Epistles of Ignatius were indeed heavily modified if not outright composed around the mid 2nd century, we do know for sure that at least some parts of the Gospel were committed to writing around the same time. 

Papias of Hierapolis (circa 70-155 CE):
Papias, an early Christian bishop and writer, is known for his work "Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord." Although his writings are mostly lost, later Christian authors like Eusebius mentioned Papias' references to Gospel authors such as Mark and Matthew.

As for Papias; there is intense debate due to the fact we have lost much of his writing if he even talk about the actual writing of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew as in the Canonical texts or if he was referring to the process of creation that would later culminate in those works many years later. His completely different telling of the death of Judas seems to show that he either did not respect very much the Gospels (unlikely) or that the Gospels were still being written when he wrote this version. The fact Papias himself might have participated in their composition is also a good clue towards the idea that those books were not 50 years old already when he was writing about them late in his life. Then of course, there is the elephant in the room. Is Papias a credible source for what he says. He could have well been repeating hearsay and rumors about the composition of those documents. If his story about Mark is 100% true, then it means Mark was mostly written in between Palestine and Rome and for Matthew it would be between Palestine and Greece. Note that we have found no material trace of the Gospel being written anywhere else than Egypt. Papias lived in Asia Minor. It's doubtful if he ever came into direct contact with any of these character or traveled to these places. So this story about the writing of the Gospel is suspicious, plus if it occurred in the context of a sectarian dispute which is not improbable, it might be an outright fabrication to bolster the legitimacy of a particular branch of Christianity over another. Papias was not motivated by a desire to record history as it was. He was a religious figure.

Justin Martyr (100-165 CE):
Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist, quoted from or alluded to many New Testament writings in his works, including the Gospels and Pauline letters. His writings provide evidence of the use of these texts in the mid-2nd century. 

Marcion's Canon (circa 140-150 CE):
a heretical Christian leader, compiled his own list of authoritative texts that included only a subset of Paul's letters and an edited version of Luke's Gospel. His actions prompted orthodox Christians to consider which writings should be accepted as authoritative.

Tatian's Diatessaron (circa 160-175 CE):
Tatian, a Christian writer, compiled a harmonized Gospel account known as the "Diatessaron." This work combined elements from the four Gospels and is an indication of the acceptance of the individual Gospel texts in his time.

Irenaeus of Lyons (circa 130-202 CE):
Irenaeus, an early Christian theologian, provided important insights into the New Testament canon. In his work "Against Heresies," he affirmed the authority of the four Gospels and the letters of Paul, and he argued against alternative texts used by certain groups.

Muratorian Fragment (circa 170-200 CE):
This fragment is one of the earliest known lists attempting to define the New Testament canon. It includes most of the Gospels, Acts, Paul's letters, and some other writings. It also dismisses certain writings, indicating an emerging understanding of canonical texts.

Not exactly news there. We have fragments from the mid-2nd century. It's highly probable the very text Christian scriptures and first, incomplete, versions of the Gospels appeared around the mid to late 2nd century to take their final form around the 5th century. As for the last 2, debate over canon I would say is anachronistic since an orthodoxy had yet too be established though, already Christian sects were certainly eager to be the one to establish an orthodoxy. Note that nowhere in the history of Christianity had there been a period without sectarian divide and strife. You can even see it in Paul's letters who was very much amongst the first Christians.

[1Sam15]

I enjoy hearing from the more intelligent Christian’s and Steve seems to fit that category.  I’m amazed when reasonably intelligent people can compartmentalize their beliefs, putting it into a safe box in their brain.  How do they keep the real world from opening the box?  That’s what fascinates me.  They accept science and use reason for every other part of their lives but just can’t make the leap towards how ridiculous the Jesus story actually is.  

It’s amazing how how our minds work to accomplish an obvious false story being believed because of how they were raised and lead to believe it when anyone outside the Jesus bubble simply shakes their head and says, “ you expect me to believe that?”  Yet, it happens in Islam, Hindus, Druze, and all others.  Each accept THEIR story as believable while the rest of shake our heads and, well, feel kind of sorry for them.

In the US I believe the reason xians believe is such crazy shit is because of Santa. 


Brainwash a baby to 10-11 years old all the fantasy of Santa who has very similar traits as jebus and you end up with Steve who can’t tell reality from fantasy.

[airportkid]

... I’m amazed when reasonably intelligent people can compartmentalize their beliefs, putting it into a safe box in their brain.  How do they keep the real world from opening the box?  That’s what fascinates me.  They accept science and use reason for every other part of their lives but just can’t make the leap towards how ridiculous the Jesus story actually is ...

It's a phenomenon not limited to irrational religious adherence.  A good friend of mine had an impeccable and rigorously intellectual career.  When hard disk drives were the apex of data storage he designed the read/write heads that flew just above the disk surface at a distance so fine he needed to take quantum effects into account.  The likelihood that the disk drive in your computer in the 90s and 00s had a read/write head of his design was very high.  When he was in his early 20s he wrote a computer chess playing program he published and sold.  He held several patents.

Yet, when right after 9/11 an American Airlines Airbus crashed in New York due to pilot over-control in wake turbulence that tore the vertical fin off the tail, my friend was convinced missiles from a US Navy cruiser had destroyed the airliner (much like early speculations about TWA 800).  I prevailed upon a noted aviation journalist I corresponded with to write my friend an email proving what the NTSB had found.  All that accomplished was to convince my friend the aviation journalist was part of the cover-up.

We cement beliefs in some cases more rooted in prejudice and desire than in facts, and we do it regardless of our intellectual training specifically to not do it.  I have no idea how to begin to overcome that tendency, but at least recognizing that sheer IQ isn't sufficient to prevent it might be a start.

One of my favorite scientific notables was Martin Gardner, who wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American for many years.  Gardner freely confessed a belief in a god, despite acknowledging its intrinsic absurdity.  He wrote he found the belief too "consoling" to his peace of mind to be able to dislodge it.

[Minimalist]

As much as I hate to give Stevie any sort of a break the fact is the main reason there is papyrus evidence in Egypt is because papyrus only grows in Egypt and was used as a writing medium in the Old Kingdom as far as we can tell.  

The climate in Egypt was such that papyrus had a chance of surviving whereas in most of the rest of the world it would rot away as easily as any other medium.  The Dead Sea Scrolls, for example, although hidden in remote caves in the Judaean desert were written on parchment and were in execrable condition when found and pieced together.  About 10 years ago an almost intact papyrus scroll was found dating from the 4th Dynasty (Old Kingdom) which was located in a desert cave off the Red Sea.   It is considered the oldest papyrus example known and it has fuckall to do with religion!

None of which changes the simple fact that we have got NOTHING about this jesus asshole in any format written in the first century CE.  Not in Greek.  Not in Aramaic.  Not in Hebrew.  Certainly not in Latin.  It isn't there.  And neither was jesus.

[Deesse23]

... I’m amazed when reasonably intelligent people can compartmentalize their beliefs, putting it into a safe box in their brain.  How do they keep the real world from opening the box?  That’s what fascinates me.  They accept science and use reason for every other part of their lives but just can’t make the leap towards how ridiculous the Jesus story actually is ...

It's a phenomenon not limited to irrational religious adherence.  A good friend of mine had an impeccable and rigorously intellectual career.  When hard disk drives were the apex of data storage he designed the read/write heads that flew just above the disk surface at a distance so fine he needed to take quantum effects into account.  The likelihood that the disk drive in your computer in the 90s and 00s had a read/write head of his design was very high.  When he was in his early 20s he wrote a computer chess playing program he published and sold.  He held several patents.

Yet, when right after 9/11 an American Airlines Airbus crashed in New York due to pilot over-control in wake turbulence that tore the vertical fin off the tail, my friend was convinced missiles from a US Navy cruiser had destroyed the airliner (much like early speculations about TWA 800).  I prevailed upon a noted aviation journalist I corresponded with to write my friend an email proving what the NTSB had found.  All that accomplished was to convince my friend the aviation journalist was part of the cover-up.

We cement beliefs in some cases more rooted in prejudice and desire than in facts, and we do it regardless of our intellectual training specifically to not do it.  I have no idea how to begin to overcome that tendency, but at least recognizing that sheer IQ isn't sufficient to prevent it might be a start.

One of my favorite scientific notables was Martin Gardner, who wrote the Mathematical Games column in Scientific American for many years.  Gardner freely confessed a belief in a god, despite acknowledging its intrinsic absurdity.  He wrote he found the belief too "consoling" to his peace of mind to be able to dislodge it.

I can confirm this.

A friend of mine (back then a student i tutored) is a really, really, really smart electronics engineer. He won prices, everybody who knows his attests to his genius, he so fucking smart, i am really a dumbass compared to him.
Yet, he is a young earth creationist. In his youth he was...lets say, "enjoying his life to its fullest". Sex, drugs and rock n Roll. Then one night he was driving on a dark road, totally tired (and maybe still high/drunk), and suddenly *poof* and Angel appeared and made him yank the steering wheel, so that he just avoided a fatal acident. No need to tell you the rest of the story. He is highly intelligent, no one-trick-pony, can comprehend paleonthology, radio carbon dating, you name it, pretty open minded, but has compartmentalized this belief (aith YEC on top). He is not accessible with arguments anymore.

[no one]

Silly little hoomans will latch on to any tit that provides.

[SteveII]

Steve, please give serious consideration to the critiques above.  You can believe silly-ass stories to your heart's content, but when push comes to shove those stories have only the power that your own imagination can give them.  No amount of tradition or faith or wishful thinking can circumvent the reality that we are mortal, and that heaven, hell, gods, demons, miracles and resurrections are almost certainly mythical and only valuable *as* myths.

The "Cumulative Case for Christianity" is hereby dismissed without prejudice.  (strikes gavel)

Astreja, nice to hear from you.

If you are referring to Bucky's 'critiques', sorry, they are not worth consideration. In his typical fashion, he cherry-picks a phrase or concept, strips away context, and then asserts this new idea as the person's life work and proof of whatever point (usually over the top) he is trying to make. Don't believe me? Let's take what looks to be his strongest quote:

He quoted John Chrysostom in his work "Treatise On The Priesthood," specifically in Book 1. Here is the fuller context of the quote:

"Are they then to lie who are entrusted with the priesthood? By no means, but there is a deceit which is not a lie, when one thing and another are done, where the difference is great. And I will make what I say clearer by examples. The midwives in Egypt lied, but they did not lie in the way that liars do; for a lie that is properly a lie is to say what is contrary to what one thinks in his mind; and the midwives did not do this, but what they saw they said. And yet it was a lie, for what they said was not in their mind, but something else. But then it was not a lie to say this, since they who heard were not injured by the statement; and it was necessary that they should not be pained by the disaster, but should rather feel pleasure."

"Do you see the advantage of deceit? Not only is no harm done, but actually great profit comes of it. For great is the value of deceit, provided it be not introduced with a mischievous intention. In fact action of this kind ought not to be called deceit, but rather a kind of good management, cleverness and skill, capable of finding out ways where resources fail, and making up for the defects of the mind. And often it is necessary to deceive, and to do the greatest benefits by means of this device, whereas he who has gone by a straight course has done great mischief to the person whom he has not deceived."

The passage discusses the concept of deceit, drawing a distinction between deceit as lying and deceit as a possible form of "greater good." Chrysostom offers the example of the midwives in Egypt who misled Pharaoh to protect the lives of the Hebrew male infants. He argues that while this action could be considered a form of deceit, it was done to prevent harm and was therefore not malicious. SO, is this a case of Church Father's and their deceitful tendencies that calls into question the whole movement, the reliability of the NT or rather an early theologian wrestling with complex issues of morality--during a time when widespread Christian persecutions existed just a generation before? You decide.

I find it interesting that many atheist require a distance or necessary vagueness about the actual text they are referring to in order to dismiss with the typical level of distain ("silly-ass stories") they probably wouldn't have had they actually studied the text with an open mind. I am quite sure most atheist did not become atheists because they read the NT and were not persuaded. They arrived some other route and backed into their distain for the texts or otherwise read their bias into the text. Is that a fair assessment?

This is a conversation, not an argument.

[epronovost]

 I am quite sure most atheist did not become atheists because they read the NT and were not persuaded. They arrived some other route and backed into their distain for the texts or otherwise read their bias into the text. Is that a fair assessment?

This is a conversation, not an argument.

I can't speak for others, but I do know that I became an atheist mostly because I was not persuaded by theistic claims. Of course, I am culturally Christian and was raised in such a context, my "default" religion was thus Christianity since I was groomed to be one since a fairly early age (albeit not a fundamentalist one). When I reached late teenage years, I passed from what one could call a liberal, mostly deist, kind of Christian to an atheist due largely to me reading the New Testament and finding it much more ridiculous and mean spirited than I would have expected it. As a young adult, I became an historian and during my professional studies I further realized that the historicity of early Christianity was very dubious at best and my interest for philosophy showed that the arguments of theologians like Saint Thomas Aquinas were frankly either obviously fallacious or extremely weak. This further reinforced my atheism and my skeptical stance on religion in general. My complete abandonment of religious faith and even of deism was a reason and knowledge base approach. I have no doubt, many atheist are simply so because they were raised by atheists and groomed in certain sense to be atheists or that some atheist lost their faith due to some problem they faced in their lives that exposed a problem with their religion like being rejected by their community, a face-first encounter with the Problem of Evil, etc. This is not my case.

[Inkubus]

...midwives in Egypt who misled Pharaoh to protect the lives of the Hebrew male infants...

Is that from the same book that tells us three million+ people waded through the Red Sea. Average depth 1,600 ft.