Why would the apostiles have lied?

In His allknowing wisdom, God made sure that the birth of Christianity would be its proof. Eastern religions are based of theories and philosofies. There are no "original revelation". Therefore, their founders fall into the "maybe" catogary. Christianity, how ever, is based on the eye witness accounts of hundreds, even thousands of people. The apostiles themselves would therefore know whether they are lying, or telling the truth. There cannot have been a "maybe" in their mind. And if they were lying, they must have had alterier motives. The best example of them all is Paul. He had a fanatic hatred against Cristianity. He was a member of the most powerfull religious party of the jews: the farisites. AND he was a roman citizen. He gave all of it up, to become one of the most enthusiastic apostiles. The question that comes to mind is: WHY ON EARTH??? Remember, if they were lying, then they would've given up at the first sight of hardship: they would not have had any gauruntee that their story would catch on. What ever their motives, they would've find some other way to achive them. And let's not forget. The first church started in Jerusalem. 5000 members strong. Peter converted them, by putting the things THEY ALL SAW WITH THEIR OWN EYES into perspective.The stories he told about Jesus, THEY ALL SAW!
If the apostiles were lying, these people would've known, and expose them as lieers. This church then was broken up and schattered throughout the region, aiding the spread of Christianity. There is a mistake people make that the 12 apostiles were the only eye witnesses that spreaded christianity. There was hundreds, if not thousands.

This man lied, because he could make money from it. Unlike the appostiles, he has no witnesses, and he is not endangering his live or wealth to do so. Your example is invalid

So, how can we be sure there was a king called Nebucanedzer of Babylon? You declare historical documentation invalid, for the sole reason that a religion is based on it.

My mistake. they didn't SAY it, they WROTE it to congregations across the world.

This is the lousiest reply yet. The letters of the Apostiles EXIST. The letters tells that they have been WRITTEN by the apostiles. The proof that this is true, is the fact that the church exists today, dispite the oppresion during the first 300 years of Christianity. There is absolutely NO proof that the letter was not written by the apostiles. And most importantly, if christianity wasn't started by the apostiles who did? What documentation exist of it? It must have been the greatest conspiricy ever. Let me quess. You propably don't believe that Mohammed was a real person, or Moses or Budda. So tell me then. who DID start these religions?

If you actually read some of his letters, then you would've seen that he refers to himself as "the least worthy of all apostles" (Sorry about the spelling) He is an apostle, because of the revelation he recieved on his way to Damascus, which turn his live 180 degrees around

I'd be glad to. According to Islam, the people perverted the teachings of the (prophet, not God) Jesus Christ, so God revieled Himself to Mohammed with the true teachings. Oh, it wasn't God, it was the arch angel Gabriel. He denied things that were written and confirmed by wittnessess 600 years before him. Thus the entire Islamic faith stand or falls on the word of Muhammed. There were no other witnesses. If Muhammed had lied, there are no other witnesses to test his word.Jesus, however, said he is the son of God, and performed the miricals to proof it in from of hundreds of witnesses. And not just any kind of mirical. He rose Lazarus from the grave when the body were already smelling bad. And He rose from the dead, and revealed Himself to a few hundred people. This is the eye witness accound of the appostles. And their credibility has been tested in my opening statement. Up to now, I haven't read a single proposal for the motivations why they would've lied. This shows that there was no other motivation, therefore no lies. There are even non-Christian references to him as a man that did great wonders.Now, I am very reluctent to write the following, since I've heard stories that Muslims would hunt down and kill people that openly critisize the credibility of the Qu'ran, but, I'm going to do it anyway.Muhammed, unlike the apostiles, has the posibility of alterier motives: the Arabs were a divided, insignificant people, surrounded by the powerful Eastern Roman Empire. The unity among christians inspired him to start a rival religion. If he could unite the Arabs under one God, they will become a force to be recond with. And unlike the Christians, when the people of Mecca refused to believe, he went to Medina, where he created an army to force them to convert. I might be wrong, but as you can see, there is plenty of space to suspect Muhammed of alterier motives.Further more, the apostiles wrote about things that happend right in front of their eyes, Muhammed said they were lying, 600 years afterwards.You take your pick: who is more credible.

There are Christian and non-christian historical documentation revering to Jesus. Now I can understand if you say: Jesus was a good person, and he had some strong view, but he was just a man. But to deny his existance ?!? I call that denial.There are people that believe there wasn't a real moon landing. The idea is propostourous, because it is imposible to ensure the silence of everyone involved for such a long time. If christianity was a lie, it would've been a greater feat than having a fake moon landing. There are just to many people involved.If Jesus did not exist, then, please, show me the historical data that indicate to a different source. Denying the existance of even the person Jesus Christ, is like denying the existance of dinosaurs.

Due to the high amount of responses, I couldn't read them all. But, those which I have read are very similar and very poor. There were two responses:1. They lied.Those that go with this theory, has yet to provide me motives. No one lies without motives, aspecially if the lie causes you so much trouble.2. They never existedTipical convinient atheist awnser. Can't deal with the problem, so we delete it all together. That simple, isn't it? Only christian litruture refer to these people anyway, right? WRONG!!! You did not even look on the internet to proof your statement. I haven't got a lot of time, but if you're really interrested, go to Google and select advanced search. Type in the following:with all of the words : Roman
with the exact phrase : non-Christian reverences
with at least one of the words : Jesus ChristYou will find about 52 results.I haven't got time to go through them right now. But here is one I quickly looked at, since its URL did not hint Christian source :http://www.law.umkc.edu/...s/jesus/nonchristianaccounts.htmlThe opening paragraph:"If the only references to the trial of Jesus came from Christian sources, there might be reason to wonder if such a trial ever took place--or indeed, even if Jesus ever existed. Fortunately, there are two important surviving references to the trial of Jesus in non-Christian writings. One comes from Publius Cornelius Tacitus, a Roman historian who was hostile to the Christian movement. The other comes from Josephus, a Jewish historian. Each of these historians confirms three central facts: that there was a leader of a movement called Jesus (or Christ), that Jesus was executed, and that the movement that Jesus was part of survived his death."COME ON! You're scientists. If someone come to you and attack the evolution theory with no proof, you rip him apart with all your knowledge. If you ARE going to argue the origens of Christianity, do a bit of research first, instead of these unfounded (religious like?) believes.I will not respond to any more naive posts claiming that Jesus or the apostles did not exist.

You don't believe because you don't WANT to believe. You argue in circles. For the thousandth time. IT IS EASY TO MAKE UP RELIGIOUS LIES WHEN YOUR WEALTH, AND EVEN YOUR LIFE IS NOT AT RISK!!!!! SO MUCH EASIER IF YOU ACTUALLY STAND TO GAIN FROM IT!!!! So kindly stop comparing the apostles to other examples were no persecution took place! You say the apostles lied, and I ask what do you propose they hoped to gain from that. And you say, the hell with what they wanted to gain. They lied! That is not a very convincing reply.****************************************************************
Next the Christians will point to the Annals by Tacitus. In the Annals XV,44, Tacitus describes how Nero blamed the Christians for the fire of Rome in 64 C.E. He mentions that the name "Christians" originated from a person named Christus who had been executed by Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberias. It is certainly true that the name "Christians" is derived from Christ or Christus (Messiah), but Tacitus' claim that he was executed by Pilate during the reign of Tiberias is based purely on the claims being made by the Christians themselves. They appeared in the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke, which had already been widely circulated when the Annals were being written. (The Annals were published after 115 C.E. and were certainly not written before 110 C.E.) Thus, although the Annals contains a sentence in which "Christus" is spoken of as a real person, this sentence was based purely on Christian claims and beliefs which are of no historical value. It is quite ironic that modern Christians use Tacitus to back up their beliefs since he was the least accurate of all Roman historians. He justifies hatred of Christians by saying that they committed abominations. Besides "Christus" he also speaks of various pagan gods as if they really exist. His summary of Middle East history in his book the Histories is so distorted as to be laughable. We may conclude that his single mention of Christus cannot be taken as reliable evidence of an historical Jesus.
**************************************************************Don't make me laugh. There were many misconceptions on what Christianity was about in the beginning. But those were the views of outsiders that ardly ever spoke to a christian, and are invalid. Or have we forgotten that many people in America, aspeccially after 9/11, think Islam is about Jehad and suicide bombings and terrorism andpeople shouting "Death to America, Death to Israel"? Those are the views of people outside the religion, and who has no idea what it s really about.And besides. There was first Jesus who thought the people, and then there was the following. You propose that the following just appeared out of no where, and then they dreamt up Jesus to justify their "following". That's absurt!

Thank you, Mark. You seem to be the only one posting rational replies.
If I had to trust the Bible on only what the Bible says, I would propably have serious doubts about it by now, or, at least, I wouldn't have started this debate. The Letters from the apostles are credible, because:1. There are many different eyewitnesses that tells the same story.
2. The surcamstances in which it was told, make it imposible to motivate why they would've lied
3. Non-Christian evidence that point to Jesus as being a real person.In the case of the Qu'ran:1. There are no eye witnesses to confirm that Muhammed actually saw Gabriel. Furhermore, much of the Qu'ran is about refuting the Bible. Who are you going to believe: Lots of eye witnesses that tells the same story, or one man, that came 600 years later, that tells a totally different story?2. Given that Islam were forced on people, the circumstances in which Muhammed operated, make it possible that he had alterier motives to start a religion.I don't doubt Muhammed existance, though. There is no point in doing so, since Islam must have had a founder.So you see, it is not just a blind believe in the bible, but the CIRCUMSTANCES in which it was written that makes it believable.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
1/ Are there non-religious, independent sources that suggest the apostles existed? Or are the "eyewitnesses" part of the same self evident documents?
---------------------------------------------------------------------
There are non-religious sources indicating that Jesus had a following which survived His death. And the earliest copies we have of the new testiment books are only from a few decades later. That means that many first generation Christians that actually spoke to the apostles were still around. Do you really think they wouldn't have noticed that these accounts are not falsified? Rememder, there were thousands of christians already by that time. If some of the first generation Cristians would've wanted to falsify history, surely others would've noticed? Look at it this way:Neo-Nazi's claim the concentration camps never existed. No one believes them. Why? Because they're trying to change history and we all know the original version. So too, would all the Christians have known the original story, and any falsification would immediatly be noticed.To say that those early Christians harmouniously corrupted history, without anyone noticing, or any Christian objecting, is as rediciulous as claiming the moonlanding was faked by everyone involved. If the moonlanding was faked, wouldn't someone that was involved have speaken out already?Sorry. This arguement just doesn't add up for me. There is no evidence available that the apostolic letters weren't written by the someone else.Besides, that Christianity spread like wild fire, is a historical fact. Someone must have taken the burden to spread it. Is their names really relivant?-------------------------------------------------------------------
IF they existed, which we are in no way sure of, may have lied to garner support for there religion, like Mohammed. You can only guess at their motives.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I delt with this before, but I'll do it again. If they had lied to garther suport for their religion, it would mean that they didn't really believe that it's Gods religion, and that it's the Holy Spirit that plants faith into ones hart. That would mean that their entire story is a lie.And when people knowingly lie, they hope to gain something from it. Yet the apostiles had no wealth. Infact, Paul often says in his letters that he has the right to demand finansial support from the church, but he didn't, so he wouldn't be a hindrence for the spreading of the evangely (Sorry about the spelling. I don't know how to spell that in English). So money is not the motive. Also, they were subjected the the harshed forms of punishment. People lie to avoid punishment. They do not lie in order to be punished. If they were lieing, all they had to do was to tell the truth and walk free. They didn't.You just have to read the Bible to realise the apostles were convinced that that which they were telling was the truth.They wouldn't have lied to promote the religion for the sake of promoting the religion. If they did, they would've expected some personal gain in the process. But, apart from ever lasting live with God, they lost everything else.-------------------------------------------------------------------
I think what you need to do is provide non-religious evidence for the apostles, & the contentious things they may have said. If you can’t do that, then the belief in the Qurans account of Mohammed speaking the word of God is just as reliable as anything the apostles may have said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
A. Quite unnecesary. This is common sence:
0 AD- Jesus Christ teaches in palistine.
100 AD- Tens of thousands of people across the Roman empire share a common believe, and text with the apostles teachings are found round about this date, confirming modern day Bibles. Someone had to spread the news, and all documentation on who these people were point to te apostles. History demands the existance of apostles.B. I don't need to proof they weren't lieing: You go to Iran, and tell the people some lie about God reveiling Himself to you to make a few ajustments on the Qu'ran. Then try to fearlessly convert the people there. Say they won't kill you just there and then. We'll see for how long you stick to your lie. Like I said. The terrible conditions in which they lived because of their story of Jesus Christ proof they weren't lieing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Why is it absurd? We see this sort of thing all of the time now. Take crop circles for example. It has been shown that they are man made yet many still believe that aliens made them.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Because there is no proof of a different origen for Christianity. Someone had to come up with it, and spread the news. And once again, it has to come down to people will not tell lies if they don't stand to gain anything, and asspecially not if they are gauriteed to loose everything.Sorry, pal. You cannot get away from the fact that SOMEONE started Christianity (and all historical data points to Jesus) and SOMEONE had to spread it (and all historical data point to the apostles.) It all comes down to why those that spread this story, would have done it if they are physically been punished for it. (The persucution of Christians during the first 300 year is a historical fact.)Have you ever been tortured? No? How long will you be able to continue telling a lie as you are being tortured?

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hanno:

Because there is no proof of a different origen for Christianity. Someone had to come up with it, and spread the news. And once again, it has to come down to people will not tell lies if they don't stand to gain anything, and asspecially not if they are gauriteed to loose everything.

---

You don't have to lie to be wrong. They could trully have believed what they said. However, their belief in no way makes their statements true.------------------
compmage

Wrong. The apostles were merely telling people what they saw and what they heard. They were not teaching people on hear say, or interesting philosofies, they gave eye witness accounts. In this case, it is impossible "to tell lies and not be aware of it".