Eyewitness To Jesus? The Gospel Authors

This looks like an interesting discussion. I was suprised to find no mention of 1 Corinthians in your discussion of Paul's writings. I posted the following in a thread in the "Faith and Belief" forum that appears to be nearly identical to this one.The two best-attested books in the NT are 1 Corinthians & Galatians. We know that 1 Corinthians was written around 50 AD (about 15 years after, Jesus' crucifixion); in part, due to a later document, 1 Clement. In 1 Corinthians, Paul lays out the "gospel", which includes Jesus death & resurrection. He also mentions that there were over 500 other eye-witnesses of these events. We know from Galatians that those people were Jews in and around Jerusalem before 35 AD.So, we know that there were Jews in Judea who believed that Jesus had lived, had died, and had been resurrected no more than 5 years after his death. I feel that this is pretty strong evidence for his existence at least. No one makes up a myth with events 5 years in the past; you have to put things far enough into the mythical past to where they cannot be disproven.Evan

I wrote my post in response to posts like 37 and 38 of this thread, and I'm not trying to give a full-blown proof. I find that internet discussions prohibit that sort of thing. The long posts are boring, and generally the discussion ends in a shouting match. But, I did want to respond to your post.I don't think we can assume that Jesus was "spiritual" at this point, that explanation doesn't completely fit the text. The word Paul uses for "resurrection", is always used for a bodily, physical resurrection. They considered Jesus to be a real person, with a body who lived in history.Evan

Ifen, please don't take anything too personal. I'm glad that you're exploring these kinds of topics, as someone famous said, "the unexamined life is not worth living". I've read your posts on this thread, and they are some of the better posts I've read. It's a shame that these important topics are not always discussed with your civility.I've actually never heard of Doherty, is he good? I'm thinking that his ideas might be a good topic for a new thread, what do you think? Do you want to start one?Evan

Ifen,I'm a bit overwhelmed by Doherty's site! I don't want to say anything too negative, because you seem to appreciate his insight, just take him with a grain of salt.I've just skimmed his site, so this is an initial opinion. I'm just a little worried about his method, he appears to think he can disprove a historical Jesus because of a lack of records. But there are a lot of different reasons why there may not be any records.Besides the somewhat obvious reasons (manuscripts lost, etc.) there are some other good reasons why we don't have the records. One, most of the early Christians were probably illiterate, especially those that would have known Jesus. Two, no one but Christians would have cared about Jesus, and it appears that their religious ideas were mainly transmitted orally.There may be other explanations that I haven't thought of, but I don't think that Doherty has a leg to stand on.Evan

Iasion,You make some good points. I would like to clarify that I am not trying to prove anything. I originally wrote this message with a header that explicitly said that, but it seemed out of place in this thread. I'm not saying I have a lack of proof, only that this forum isn't conducive to such proofs.Secondly, I'm not asking you to believe this because it's my personal opinion, this is mainstream thought in NT scholarship. I would encourage you to do some more research if you are interested.And last of all, regarding the Gospels and myths in general. I chose not to discuss the Gospels with good reason, they are not well-attested, unlike 1 Corinthians. And regarding myths in general, I'd like to point out that your two examples of quick myths (Augustus & Schneerson) include historical people. Some of the tales about Jesus are probably mythical in nature, but your examples do not prove that a myth can arise in days without some sort of true, historical figure.Evan(the following part is edited)P.S. You claimed that Paul's Jesus, could have developed over decades. Though that might be theoretically possible, it does not fit the evidence. The essential parts of the Jesus story (in Paul's mind) arrive complete in 1 Corinthians which was written approx. 15 years after his "conversion". Since there are no intermediate stories, I find it difficult to believe that it developed over decades.This message has been edited by bambooguy, 07-08-2004 07:09 PMThis message has been edited by bambooguy, 07-08-2004 07:11 PM

Ifen,Thanks for the informative posts. They leave a lot of room to think. Thank you.Evan