Evil is the absence of good

Nah, just circular reasoning.

You were claiming John couldn’t have been written by John because it was written in AD100. I did the maths and shown how it definitely could have been written in AD100

Convenient of you to not actually link the articles, and cut out the important parts of the quote. Here it is in full.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/oral-tradition-in-the-new-testament

Another difficulty is that the doctrine of the apostles came to them in oral form from Jesus. In one sense the entire Christian message is based on oral tradition and is only augmented by using the written revelation of the Old Testament. From this perspective, perhaps 90 percent of the New Testament is based on authoritative oral tradition (from Jesus), and the remain ten percent is from written sources.

They’re claiming the apostles wrote down what Jesus wrote. And this is an argument surrounding Sola Scriptura, not Gospel authorship. The rest of the article is then talking about an old testament oral tradition existing, which I do not dispute. That’s not the same as the New Testament being an account of Jesus. He’s just making a statement against sola scriptura by saying “Well, Jesus didn’t literally write this”.

The second quote doesn’t even contradict anything I said. Just because stories were exchanged orally first, doesn’t mean the written accounts are firsthand. If I witnessed a car crash, and went and told my colleagues at work, then family about it at dinner, then the next day the police ask for a written statement, and I submit it in the evening after more talking about it in work, it doesn’t devalue my original testimony. As yes, stories of that car crash were told orally before being written down.

Lol, and you have the gall to talk about forgeries…

The main reason people say it is a forgery because Josephus was a practicing Jew and a Jew wouldn’t say that (circular reasoning) and that the earliest copy of that is quoted by Eusebius, so it mustn’t be reliable. They aren’t really good arguments.

So pick a side here. Is it possible for a non Christian to write something in defence of Christianity, or not? If it is possible, then Josephus isn’t a forgery. If it isn’t, then you cannot dismiss the new testament and Church Fathers, lest you be irrational

God doesn’t create evil

What makes you assume he’s 83? The only thing informing your assumptions are your conclusions. He must be the author, so he must have lived to 100ad, which means he must have been 16 when Jesus died…

This is a pretty reasonable assumption? No?

A scribe can also be some writing down an oral tradition…

That’s not what I was referring to at all. It would be silly to think I was in the context I was talking about John writing John.

Clement was born in 150ad… Eusebius utilized different sources to propose that there were at least two different johns. John the apostle who he supposed wrote the book of John and Presbyter John, who he believed wrote revelations.

The writer of John still identifies himself as being at the crucifixion and last supper anyway. That’s a different debate over who wrote revelation.

“is widely agreed amongst Biblical scholars that accounts of Jesus’s teachings and life were initially conserved by oral transmission, which was the source of the written gospels”

Did you just quote Wikipedia? The admins on there are neckbeards such as Tgeorgescu who basically had a “no Christian apologists” rule which is impossible, because any historian who argues something that is pro Christianity, they are automatically labelled a “Christian apologist”.

No, if we had records from the Romans claiming the guy they crusified a couple days ago is back…that would be a source from outside his fellowship.

3. (63) Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works-a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; (64) and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

The Antiquities of the Jews, Book 18, Chapter 3 From The Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston

If scientology was biased they wouldn’t have bad stories about their leaders at the time…

Are these in actual Scientology “scriptures”?

How so? The earliest evidence of the gospel of Mary is from the 3rd century and was thought to be written in the 2nd.

So not the first…

Because it didn’t fit within church doctrine.

And how did they establish doctrine?

Ahh yes, let’s make wild assumptions that fit my own narrative…

In your land, an 83 year old dude writing something is a “wild assumption”. ok.

Evidence that John wrote John would be evidence to support this.

“I’m not disputing the possibility of a scribe.”

You know what a scribe is… Right? Someone who sits with you as you dictate to them? You know a lot of news report articles about people aren’t actually written by that person, but a journalist themselves… And even then, a scribe is more reliable than a journalist 🤦

Eusebius’s argument was an ongoing debate between scholars in the early church. However it’s widely recognized as how the church canonized John the apostle as the author.

Eusebius was quoting Clement of Alexandria from AD 150…

Yes, but those were written from lost primary and contemporary sources from people like Ptolemy, Aristobulus, and in some cases the king’s journal.

So like what Esebius wrote, and what was likely composed by Luke the Evangelist in his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.

You’re claiming the new testament that the new testament didn’t first get passed down by oral tradition?

Yes, because within the timeframe it was written in. The likes of Mark and Luke would have had those aspects, possibly some in Matthew, but even then, oral tradition isn’t unreliable and it takes centuries for supernatural claims and legends to show up.

No, just saying that you can’t use biased sources to make claims about his motivation.

In this case, anything arguing in favour or showing the resurrection of Christ is automatically “biased” by your definition. It’s like arguing with someone about global warming who doesn’t trust scientists or the scientific method - Any science you do show them they dismiss as “biased” because they don’t trust scientists. In the same way, if anyone believed that Jesus rose again, they’d rationally be a Christian. You dismiss this as “biased” because they were a Christian. Or if someone who wasn’t a Christian wrote something that did defend it, then it must be interpolated because of the “bias”.

If the Gospels were biased, they wouldn’t have had bad stories about their leaders at the time. Such as peter denying Jesus, Peter cutting off a dude’s ear and Jesus rebuking him, or James and John trying to get priority status in Glory.

I have no idea what you are trying to accuse me of?

Irrational thinking. The argument for Christian interpolation is basically “Josephus couldn’t have written it, as Jesus didn’t rise from the dead”

I’m saying that just saying that all religions pick and choose their own doctrine. It’s not like the church adopted the gospel of Mary.

Because those gnostic texts were known forgeries.

What reason would have they had to pick and choose the four Gospels over the gnostic texts anyway?

He had a microphone. If that’s not dangerous, then why did someone see the need to kill him?

True. My lemmy client is crap. Doesn’t show the full context. Sad!

I don’t think I called him a hero?

Okay but he was a lot more civilised than his successor…

Hey, being a conservative Christian on here is my job!

Is he getting a state funeral at this rate?

Yeah I don’t know how politics descended that far

I’m guessing you are claiming the John lives to be nearly a hundred years old?

If John was, let’s say 16 at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion in 33 AD, then he’d be 83 years old if it was written in 100 AD. A reasonable age. I’m not disputing the possibility of a scribe.

Even though there is no evidence to support this…

Evidence that John wrote John would be evidence to support this.

These contextual clues first put forth in 185ad

You’ve got no evidence to support this than an argument from silence. That is the earliest RECORDED evidence. And from that time frame, that’s pretty damn close. Historians accept Julius Caesar was born in Suburra, yet the earliest record of that was written by Suetonius, around 200 years after the fact.

Then there’s Alexander the great - born in 300 BC but the records of his biography we use were written in the second century AD, by Arrian and Plutarch.

John did not write it… He may have orally transferred the story to someone who later wrote it down after the time of his death. You’re working off of assumptions that are highly disputable.

You’re the one working off of assumptions

From his own cadra of followers… That’s like saying everything scientology claims about L Ron Hubbard is true because it was witnessed by 4 different scientologist.

So you’re basically asking me to find you sources documenting the resurrection of Jesus Christ from people who didn’t believe it happened? Don’t you realise how silly of a proposition that is? That, and whenever someone were to propose someone like Josephus, you’ll just cry “Christian interpolation”, while most people are crying that using circular reasoning that he mustn’t have written about it because “someone can’t rise from the dead”. We’d have to throw out almost everything we know about Julius Caesar with that logic as it was either written by him or someone in his country at the time.

And all Christian text are non contradictory…? There haven’t been any ancient scripts found about Christianity that the church hasn’t adopted?

There have been. Are you talking about non Christian sources? stating that the Church was “adopting everything someone wrote about Jesus”

I’ve heard some say “it’s better for someone to get into politics and disagree with me than to be apathetic”

It’s a reinterpretation of oral accounts passed down decades after the deaths of the people it’s about, and was first attributed to John nearly 180 years later. The gospel of John was first authored anonymously around 90-100ad and attributed to John by Irenaeus in 185ad

90-100ad isn’t decades after the death of people it’s about.

And it wasn’t authored anonymously.

John 21:20-25 ESV

[20] Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who also had leaned back against him during the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?” [21] When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about this man?” [22] Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” [23] So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” [24] This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. [25] Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

That this disciple reclined with Jesus and was at the crucifixion and resurrection.

John 13:23 ESV

One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’ side,

John 19:25-26 ESV

but standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. [26] When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”

John 20:2-5

[2] So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” [3] So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. [4] Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. [5] And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in.

So this is clearly a primary source.

More reasoning for narrowing it down to John can be found here.

It also makes sense that somebody would know who wrote the Gospel. The authorship of the Gospels were never disputed in the early Church despite geographic spread. So that doesn’t mean that Irenaeus (A student of Polycarp who was a disciple of John) made it up

Not really, contemporary sources are generally limited to people involved with the actual history.

Which the writer of John clearly was.

When combined with other contextual sources.

There are four detailed accounts of Jesus.

I’m not the one making the claim that other religions are wrong and Christianity is true. Do you have evidence that Joseph Smith, Muhammad, or Buddha had alternative motives?

Mormonism has been debunked by the finding of the “original” papyrus to one of their scriptures. The Qur’an claims to be in agreement with the Bible yet contradicts the hell out of it. Mohammed and JS had numerous wives because “god told me” and Mohammed was a warlord, JS tried to set up “deseret”

He got some youths interested in politics

I think that’s it

First of all… The Bible is not a primary source,

How do you define “primary source”? The section I quoted was written by someone who knew Jesus personally

it wasn’t even a contemporary source when first written down, which was at least a century after his death.

Not at least, the latest… If you’re charitable. According to secular scholars, the latest Gospel of John which I quoted was written 60-70 years after Jesus was crucified. That is definitely contemporary for accounts at this point in history. A lot of what we know about other people were written down centuries after.

Secondly, demagogues and those who follow them don’t exactly announce their true motivations. So it doesn’t really make sense to use their own claims as evidence of their innocence.

Okay then, do you have any evidence on the contrary?

Lastly, I could just as easily claim Jesus was not killed for his faith, but because he destroyed a temple…

What temple did He destroy? The temple was destroyed in 70AD

Matthew 20:20-28 ESV

[20] Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons, and kneeling before him she asked him for something. [21] And he said to her, “What do you want?” She said to him, “Say that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.” [22] Jesus answered, “You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” They said to him, “We are able.” [23] He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” [24] And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. [25] But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. [26] It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, [27] and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, [28] even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

John 6:14-15 ESV

[14] When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!” [15] Perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself.

Jesus was not looking for political power.

Joseph Smith wasn’t merked for his faith. He was merked for burning down a printing press.

I actually agree tbh. Provided the drag queen/king doesn’t have a record or a history (I don’t think that’s common anyway)

I unironically know of a guy who is an asylum seeker and convicted criminal who is complaining about illegal immigrants