I get so frustrated that “theologians” try to pretend they are historians. It’s like an astrologer trying to tell an astronomer they don’t know what they are doing.
Yep, that's a Dirty Little Fact they try to avoid by pimping 'PhD' and 'Doctor' Smokescreens. TheoLOLogians are merely Professional Religious Polemicists or Professional Religious Rhetorical B/S Spreaders. They specialize in Mind/Word Wank, not FACTS or PHYSICAL REALITY. Had a Philosophy Major college roommate who eventually became a small college Philosophy Professor, and going back over his Facebook and other 'publications' I thing most Professional Philosophers below the Daniel Dennett Grade are pretty useless, too, but able to be trained to do small, useful jobs. (In fact, he changed in college from a good Philosophy school to a lesser for merely the $$$ charged) For example, memorizing and reciting, "Would you like fries with that?"
There are a plethora of religious universities that they could join, become historians, and then write papers and do research in favor of their position instead of excusing the poor evidence for gospel authorship if they think they do have a solid case
@@TheEpicProOfMinecraf a little. Less than i know about the bible because growing up the "Jews killed Jesus and are evil" was a really big talking point.
I originally thought it was unnecessary when Mr. Deity coined that term, but it has become increasingly useful as I encounter apologists and their lame excuses. It makes it so clear how pathetic their God is to need them to make so many excuses for him.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@joe5959 You think appeal to tradition makes something true? Incredulity? How? Which analogies were low tier? None of what you said supports the claim Paul is a sophist.
Fantastic job, Paul. These kinds of re-responses are very important but very time consuming. I really appreciate you taking the time to rebut and showing how most replies are simply people talking in circles.
@@wmoates6029Criterion of Embarrassment. No patriarchal/misogynistic church father would have claimed that a dude wrote such tripe unless it was true.
Gospel of some guy that I plagiarized verbatim ( up to 90%) and all the other guys copied and continued on a path of higher christology.. Propaganda is an accurate description and is shockingly similar to the affirmations from the Soviet era and current Russian leadership/dictators.. the current GOP leaders also qualify...
I just saw this in my feed. I’m in so much pain, and I’m going to lie down on a block of ice and hope your soothing voice helps me out. Then again, it could go the other way with their bad arguments worsening my migraine…but let’s hope their arguments are good!
I'm baffled at how any challenge to an apologist's fundamentalism is perceived by them as a huge affront. Why can't they concede something as innocuous as gospel authorship? Is their faith in Christ, or in later Christian traditions that developed after Christ? It's like if they think that if they concede on one issue, they'll have to acknowledge there may be reasons to investigate and reexamine all their other beliefs, and the whole thing may come down crumbling. That doesn't strike me as faith; that strakes me as fear. They cannot afford to lose any ground, or they have...nothing.
The entire fundamentalism is built on a house of cards. Gospel authorship is especially important as the foundation, since the Gospels contain the only quoted words of Jesus. Interpreting scriptures in general, and the 'red letter' text in particular, gets into linguistic specifics so the authenticity of the quotes is critical.
I have heard some cases of apologists essentially admitting as much. When they say something like "This interpretation of Genesis has to be true, otherwise our theology crumbles" (Obviously not how they would phrase it), they acknowledge the impact of a wish for something to be true. And I suspect that it would not be hard to find Christians, that are very afraid of doubt.
@@stevewebber707 Very true. They explicitly acknowledge the necessity of the resurrection. "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." [NIV 1 Corinthians 15:13-14] Genesis seems required, specifically the ideas of being made in God's image and original sin, to explain why we need salvation.
@@UnconventionalReasoning There are ways the the theology can be justified without the more literal interpretations. I suspect there are more theologians that don't take the very literalist approach, than than ones that do. Being made in God's image, can be interpreted in differing ways, but how does it make sense literally? I would argue the more appropriate theology, is of some spiritual, or mental quality, which is so vague, that I don't know that there are any real consequences over it's truth. Original sin sounds important, but I have always wondered, how important is the origin of that sin, in order to make needed a salvation from it? What functional doctrinal difference is there, in saying the first man committed the first sin, compared to just saying that all men are sinful? Evangelicals like pointing out, that Jesus made references to Genesis stories. I like pointing out that most of Jesus' lessons were allegorical. If anything, original sin doctrine presents challenges to be harmonized, since the bible has passages saying God won't visit the sins of the fathers upon the children. And other similar verses justifying passing down sin. Almost like the bible isn't consistent. Personally, I have problems with the necessity of the sacrifice and resurrection, from the get go, at the root of those concepts. So clearly, I am speaking from an outside perspective
3:44 - Paul is nothing, if not fair. That's one of the main reasons he's so damn effective at what he does. Of course, it never hurts to be on the correct side of an argument, either! ;-)
As much as I LOVE the gentle way you normally present information the vast majority of the time, I love seeing you hit back a little more firmly. Being so explicit about the Excusigetics is really important, showing exactly how IP, Testify, etc are trying to weasel around the tough reality that is known about Gospel authorship.
About the "Theophilus" thing. I agree the "Luke was writing to this person" interpretation is reasonable, but I think there are two other possibilities worth keeping in mind. 1. Theophilus is not anyone in particular, it is an honorary title Luke gives to the audience he is writing for. "Theophilus" means "friend of God" in Greek. 2. Luke is a forgery and this "Theophilus" thing is a verisimilitude. If Luke is a forgery claiming to be a traveling companion of Paul (see the "we" passages), it would make sense for him to address his writing to a specific person to make his account seem more believable, even though he was actually writing later to no one in particular. Edit: I missed Paul bringing up my first alternate explanation.
You wrote this much more eloquently than my comment about the same thing, that name just seems too perfect, a guy literally called Faithlover is the one the letter about faith is addressed to? Sure.
I appreciated reading the comment. I have just a few thoughts about your two hypotheses as well: 1. I find it unlikely that Theophilus is merely a stand-in name for the general reader, a sort of “to whom it may concern” at the beginning of the gospel and Acts. There are also two forms for the Greek singular second person pronoun “you”-one singular and one plural. I believe the form used in both Luke and Acts is singular. Additionally, is there any other example in Greco-Roman antiquity of an author using a clever name to denote a general readership? 2. Luke-Acts cannot be a forgery since it simply does not name or even definitively make any effort to identify its author. It is purely anonymous. As such, the author does not appear to be fabricating conventions merely for the sake of adding credibility. If he were, he could have claimed to have been an eyewitness to the life of Jesus and employed the first person plural “we” much, much earlier in his text.
@@ManoverSuperman 1. Being honest with you, the main reason I presented that possibility is because I have heard the possibility referenced so much. I've tried to look into it and it seems that it is always referenced as a possibility. It is never vigorously defended in anything I've read. The only real argument that ever seems to be given is that "Theophilus" is a name that would certainly fit is this is what Luke was doing, as it means something like "friend of God". This argument is, in my opinion, pretty flimsy. People in the ancient world were called Theophilus. Just because a name has deeper meaning, doesn't mean it isn't a real name. ("Jesus" for example means YHWH saves. No one argues that "Jesus is a literary creation because this name is so fitting. Not least because we have records of others named Jesus in his time and place.) Still, this does count for something. We almost certainly wouldn't be having this conversation if Luke had addressed the work to, for example, someone named "Alexander". However, overall must agree with you that this scenario seems pretty unlikely. Thanks for the correction. 2. I'll have to disagree with you on this, you don't need to explicitly claim to be a named figure to engage in literary forgery. I'll answer you by quoting Ehrman at length, since my position is basically his. "... Acts was probably not written by one of Paul’s traveling companions. But why would the author then speak in the first person on four occasions? ... The author is making a claim about himself. He is not naming himself. He is simply claiming to be a traveling companion of Paul’s and therefore unusually well suited to give a “true” account of Paul’s message and mission. But he almost certainly was not a companion of Paul’s. ... If the author is claiming to be someone he is not, what kind of work is he writing? A book written with a false authorial claim is a forgery. Obviously the authorial claim in this case is not as boldfaced as in, say, 1 Timothy or 3 Corinthians, whose authors directly say they are Paul. But the claim of Acts is clear nonetheless; the author indicates that he was a participant in and eyewitness to Paul’s mission, even though he was not. It should not be objected that if the author wanted his readers to be convinced he was a companion of Paul, he would have been a lot more explicit about his identity, that is, he necessarily would have named himself or been more emphatic in his self-identification as a cotraveler with Paul. This kind of objection about what an author “would have” done is never very persuasive. For modern readers to tell ancient authors what they should have done in order to be more convincing is actually a bit amusing. Why should the author of Acts have done anything other than what he did? How could he possibly have been any more successful at deceiving his readers? He was spectacularly successful doing it the way he did. Readers for eighteen hundred years accepted without question that the author was none other than Luke, the traveling companion of Paul. By inserting just a small handful of first-person pronouns into his account the author succeeded in producing a forgery that continues to deceive readers down to the present day." -Forged, pg. 209-210 So I would say that if Luke-Acts is a forgery, Theophilus is probably not a real person being addressed, but if it isn't a forgery, Theophilus probably is a real person being addressed.
@@l0rfA minor point, but names with reference to God are pretty common to have. We still have people named "Theodore" today, which literally means "god's gift". As for Theophilos, we have plenty of well attested examples of other people with the name: a 9th century Byzantine Emperor was called Theophilos, and one of his top generals was named Theophobus "god-fearing"
Luke didn't write Luke. It was a later invention. The story never got told to the one who already knew about it. The writer says that he had to investigate it therefore the writer isn't Luke.
@@TestifyApologetics I thought you said you wouldnt comment more because you didnt want to deal with the 'hate'.🤔 And now you are here stirring the hornets...
Remember when you listen to all of this discussion...this is *****EXACTLY****** the way god wanted it. The most powerful being in the Entire Universe had a plan to come to earth, visit a few people, leave nothing behind, leave zero evidence, have NOBODY write anything down during his visit...then have people a 1,000 miles away write down some crap they heard about the visit and do it 100's of years later. Facepalm THROUGH my HEad.
Hey, it must be how he wanted it - he is Mr. Omni, the all-knowing god, so he would anticipate any things that might go wrong or at least correct them after the fact. And not just that, he would know EXACTLY how to present this info in a clear concise manner which would no one confused - another version of "intelligent design." Because he would NOT want it necessary for legions of apologists having to god-splain this (as they think) over the centuries. PS - he could have made Jesus seek out Paul while still alive and explain it all to him, instead of the 12 dunderheads he apparently chose as the best and brightest to spread his message - of which only four at best did so.
@@johnnehrich9601 Also, god created the entire universe with all the tech that we won't even discover for 3,000 years. He couldn't deliver a book to all humans that would instantly translate itself for every reader? There couldn't be videos on the pages? how about completely indestructible? WHERE THE F ARE THESE 10 COMMANDMENT TABLETS Anyways?!?!?!!? it's all such complete obvious Bull
This can also be extended to the Pastoral epistles. Apparently God had some thoughts he really wanted us to know (including the inferior stature of women) but neglected to have Paul write down in his lifetime. So he just had someone else write it down later while claiming to be Paul. Nice one, God.
The real problem here is a presumed all-powerful god that has failed the church completely. The fact that we are debating this stuff 2000 years after the fact because their god couldn't have figured out the importance of authorship and reasonable evidence speaks a lot about the validity of the bible, church, jesus and god..
That’s my thing. If an Omnipotent God wanted us to know he existed, we *by definition* would. And it wouldn’t even impact our free will, according to the Bible itself. James 2:19- “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble!”
@@Florkl All it took was for Moses to go on a six week sabbatical on Mount Sinai and the Israelites ended up worshiping an entirely different set of gods, even after months of signs and wonders like the parting of the Red Sea, manna from Heaven, water from a rock, and God descending on Mount Sinai in fire. So yeah, the "can't interfere with free will" argument has always been ridiculous.
@@EnglishMike It's because they connect so many ideas together for no reason. It's why they think that "free will" argument against god's hiddenness is any good. They connect the idea of a god existing automatically with their god existing, then they connect their god existing with the automatic need to worship said god, then they connect the idea of their god needing to be worshipped with them having the correct way to worship that god. These connected ideas are all presupposed leaving them almost unable to understand none of those ideas are a given factual thing. It almost hinders them from understanding that even if their god exists, people can choose not to worship it while still knowing it exists. The reason why them claiming all atheists are "just mad at god" is kind of ignorant and nonsensical.
I don't get why Christians would favour an improbable explanation, instead of accepting the most straightforward story that the evidence is pointing to in many of these historical questions.
Because they're evangelicals who base their faith on the inerrancy of the Bible. Many mainstream and progressive Christians do not bother themselves with such issues because they fine with the fact that the Bible we have today is not the perfect inerrant Word of God transmitted miraculously without error down the centuries.
@@joe5959 Not exactly, where a literalist Christian's biases would lead him necessarily to false beliefs, an anti-Christian position does not necessarily include delusions. All religions are untrue.
Man, this is painful to watch. I wonder if those guys ever stop to think "Gee, maybe I'm going too hard on the mental gymnastics and should reevaluate things?". Probably not. But still, it's weird for me to see a guy like Inspiring Philosophy, who seems like a smart dude, being so absurdly delusional when he defends his faith.
On the question of whether names were important, yes, the early church valued names. This is evidenced by their use of St Peter, the martyr they based the new church in Rome around. This is also evidenced by their use of body parts from various martyrs and saints. They were grasping at every straw they could to tie their authority to people who they could make a case for being as directly associated with Jesus as possible. The fact the gospels lack this clear sourcing suggests they couldn't make such a case even back then.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@termination9353 You dredged all that out of John 21:24? I would say you are a big fan of conspiracy theories. John 21: 24This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true. I find the next one even more interesting. It is the laziest writing ever. "He did a bunch more stuff, trust me bro." 25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
@@avi8r66 Well who is the "we" that can say what is being written is true except the eyewitnesses. And when were the witnesses all together that they could give their deposition testimony to one to compose together into a novel except during Peter's church in Jerusalem. And if the Apostle witnesses had already given their testimony for compilation to a professional lawyer Pharisee Hebrew scribe why would they much later, in their unprofessional qualifications, write their own separate Gospels. "But these are written, that ye might believe...." -John 20:31 So if having the Gospel written be how Jesus is to be promoted and believed and it was the job of the Apostles to promote and spread the Gospel... then they would have got right to it and not leave it unwritten for 60+ years after the fact. And if you have proper reading comprehension youd see that Acts 10 confirms that Cornelious already had a copy of this Gospel, for Peter must have saw a copy in Cornelious home when Peter entered. For how else would Peter know that Cornelious knew the whole Gospel narrative except he saw Cornelious had read a copy of the Gospel.
@@termination9353 People lie, and people write fiction. Nothing new. Just because it was written down does not make it true. So the test is whether what is claimed lines up with reality. The gospels fail as does the rest of the bible where supernatural events are concerned.
@@avi8r66 Same can be said for all of the Tanak. But Torah says from the witnessing of two or three is a thing known. Here we have the deposition testimony of more than three "Jewish" witnesses. You don't have the Torah authority to pick and choose what is Tanak material and what is not. I do have this ruling authority. On the basis of John the Baptist fulfilling an Isaiah prophesy is the Gospel an included Tanak canon. For what are you going to say -That Isaiah was a failed Navi, for John fulfilled this prophesy that someone else was intended to fulfill?
For those curious as to why some scholars think that Theophilus isn't a real person, and Luke/Acts addressing him is a rhetorical device, consider that his name literally means "lover of god" in the language the book was written in. Does seem a tad off, no?
I am to the point in my journey away from Christianity that I find myself giggling when Christians talk about or debate the gospels. It's all so silly😂
I still attend small group Bible study because I want to maintain friendships, but yeah, I have the same reaction. It's like arguing about how the magic spells work in Harry Potter. So absurd and pointless, yet they are doing it totally seriously. Yesterday the Bible study leader made a segue into prayer time by saying "And now for something that is totally not crazy, prayer!" I could barely contain my laughter.
@@montagdp I went to church for months, probably years, after I decided I didn't really believe any of it. Like you, to maintain friendships. When I finally left, most of them didn't even bother to contact me. I realized they never were friends ☹️
@@The-Doubters-Diary yeah, we've told a few people so far, and the response has been pretty good (i.e. not toxic) until now, but I can already see this could be difficult to maintain. It's tough when you lose the main thing that brought you together as friends in the first place and no longer want to participate in the most frequent shared activities (church, Bible study, prayer, etc.).
My bait answer to that is 'yeah, context makes it worse'. And if they ask me to prove that i just point out that is exactly what they were expecting from me.
Actually, people DO need to see the context. The problem is when someone gives y'all the context in full, and someone replies "needs context" where the problem of twisting is probable.😢
_The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@LessThanLucid WLC is following the Pascal's Wager logic. Or lack of logic. It's astounding when someone so intelligent could be so illogical, though it may have been a consequence of his time. I mean Blaise Pascal, of course.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
Yes! I'm finally a stick figure! I've officially arrived as an apologetics somebody! I can scratch this off my bucket list. I'm getting away from responses for now as sometimes they lead to talking past each other and can be time consuming, but I'd be happy to have another discussion sometime, whether it's this topic or when get to doing your videos on Acts.
Commence all your hate comments to the people who don't like me around here lol. Ps It doesn't have to be with me I could arrange a discussion with Dr. Boyce, I'm guessing he'd be up for it.
@@TestifyApologetics While it is possible that will occur, I'm hopeful the community will be respectful and mirror the reasonable tone you had in your initial comment. Thanks for your continued willingness to be open to discussion!
It’s astounding that they made your point and then published the video as if they had created a rebuttal… your cartoon persona LITERALLY sat there silent and motionless for HUGE swaths of this video and they just went on to corroborate your thesis! They can’t be this dense, can they?
Without seeing their video in full I can't be certain of this, but from what I saw of them in this video I got a very Motte/Bailey vibe in their approach. Most Christians and many apologists will happily say to each other that these books were written by these people, with no clarification on what that means. The implication, intentional or not, is that they were authored the way books today are, by primarily one person whose name goes on it. That's the "Bailey", the outrageous outer claim that they would most like to believe in. Then Paulogia and others come along to show the many, MANY reasons to doubt this idea, which they have no choice but to agree on, lest they just outright lie instead. The bailey has fallen. But they retreat to the much tamer, much harder to dispute, and much less faith-affirming claim, the "Motte", that says only that the people named in these gospels have at least _something_ to do with them, and therefore it cannot be shown to be outright false to say that they had NO part in it, "earning" their names in the most meaningless sense imaginable. Under normal circumstances, this would be a good thing, and we'd call it "learning". The fallacy part comes in when the "invaders" leave, having failed to completely and utterly defeat the motte (because how even could you?), and they retake their ravaged bailey and go right back to claiming that these names are the primary authors again, despite having admitted under pressure that such a claim was untenable. The short version is that they agreed that they were shown to be wrong, made excuses to show that they weren't necessarily wrong about _every single detail,_ and then as soon as the coast was clear they went right back to believing the wrong thing as if it had never been challenged at all. And while it's always possible this is just dishonesty, it's surprisingly easy for people to do this completely by accident, and thusly become immune to logic and reasoning. In other words: Yes, they are that dense.
Or that afraid. When I think back to my Christian days I also couldn’t acknowledge foundational things for fear of the whole house coming down, even if it was subconscious.
@@harrispinkham Out of curiosity, if you realize now it was subconscious fear, what did you consciously tell yourself at the time? That might help myself and others spot the same fear in those who are still in it, and help them deal with it more constructively.
@@riluna3695 it’s hard for me to put that knee jerk reaction into words but consciously probably something like the devil is trying to tempt you away from the truth and will use something small to lead you off the path
@@harrispinkham Yeah, that makes sense. It's so hard to fight past that cheat-code of "anything that disagrees with this belief comes from a threat that I have to be hypervigilant against." Talk about fear... But at the same time, you right now are proof that it CAN be conquered. As corny as it sounds, I'm truly proud of you for daring to seek the truth in the face of how terrifying they make the other side sound. Hopefully it's been much nicer here than they told you it would be.
Wow, Paul this is great authorship. Thank you. Here are two sayings; There are many lies but only one truth. Oh, what tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. This sums it up for me.
@@PaulogiaPaul this video is the same sloganeering as claims are not evidence. It’s literally the same dull thinking. IP refuted this video a little while ago. Watch it to see how your wrong yet again. Evidence is not excuses just like claims backed by evidence are evidence. You can’t provided good evidence for your points, you misunderstand counter arguments, and you refute with slogans and mockery. Very very weak to say the least. Buy the logic presented in this video you’re also just making excuses.
Mister Deity’s idea of “excusagist” is definitely one of the reasons I left Christianity. I was getting tired of coming up with excuses for God, and when I sought out help from apologists, they weren’t any better than my excuses on average.
Yes, I was raised Christian, but when I looked for answers to questions, I got a load of nothing. So just put that on the shelf a few years, until it became obvious no one had them. It's baffling to me how any still believes, but I guess they just are not interested in finding out more, the believers are just happy knowing less.
This is why we need to better educate ourselves on what is obfuscation. Cuz a lot of Excuseagists really use “benefit of the doubt” or plausible deniability as a way to justify some wild stuff
That and Burden of Proof. If they’re making the positive claim, Paul’s counter-possibilities don’t need to be correct- they just need to demonstrate that enough plausible alternatives exist that the initial claim cannot be made with as much confidence.
I've been saying this for a while now... in order for Christianity to work, you have to grant a multitude of benefits of the doubt. A gesture they would not extend to other religions.
@@davethebrahman9870 Having a degree in theology & anything beyond that perplexes me. Like what tangible benefit does a Masters of Divinity or a theology degree impart? Like what new thing will we learn about god through their research? Meanwhile a research biologist might discover a cure for cancer or how to prevent the aging process, etc.
@@Paulogia -The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
“At least not in the modern sense” and what is the “modern sense” of biography? Want an odd thing to say considering that we’re dealing with ancient texts…. “The gospels were anonymous writings” define anonymity.
@@MrMortal_Ra"In the modern sense" is an important thing to bring up. They likely considered them to be essentially biographies and to be true. The ancient context is necessary to understand the difference between how they would have thought of that notion versus how we would have. At the time, pulling what you want from existing sources without a critical eye or concern about context was considered a reliable method of getting truth. That's essentially what the Haggadah (written in the 1st or 2nd century BCE by a similar group of Messianic Jews) did. The idea of investigating sources to write literal truth rather than considering your narrative that conveys your message to be true was not in their heads at the time.
@@MrMortal_Ra watch the video have you ever read a modern biography we get dates when that person was born we get dates of the things they did in their life also Scholars who actually went to school for this thing have said that the gospels were written anonymously and did not get their names to to centuries after the fact also we know Matthew and Luke copied a lot of their information off of Mark if they were eyewitnesses why would they have to do things like that? The Gospel of John is a completely different animal all together.
@@MrMortal_RaThey were written with no stated author. That's your anonymity explanation. And modern idea of biography is that it's written by a person with information about the person they write about. That information would be either first hand from the person itself or second hand but coming directly from people who knew them directly.
@@kamilgregor Do you know what Apologists say about this?🤔 Eusebius doesn’t seem to like Papias… so maybe he made the story up himself to make Papias look bad or more likely he simply added the story and didn’t really care if his sources are reliable. If Apologists are consistent then they will certainly believe that Eusebius really thought that Papias believed that this is how Judas died or that Papias actually believed it because it would have been pretty embarrassing if early church fathers disagreed with some of the stories of the gospels… so they wouldn’t have preserved this information if it wasn’t true.
There is not necessarily a contradiction between what Papias states and the Gospel accounts of Judas. One of the principles in the field of hermeneutics, that was common prior to the rise of negative criticism, is to not work with a hermeneutic of suspicion and presumption of error. This charitable attitude is common for interpreting documents as a whole. For example: “[It is] fundamental to a true interpretation of the Scripture, viz., that the parts of a document, law, or instrument are to be construed with reference to the significance of the whole.” (Dean Abbot, Commentary on Matthew, Interpretation, p. 31.) “Where a transaction is carried out by means of several documents so that together they form part of a single whole, these documents are read together as one.... [They are to be so read] that, that construction is to be preferred which will render them consistent.” (Interpretation of Documents, Sir Roland Burrows, p. 49, Lutter-worth & Co., London, 1946.)
@@ramigilneas9274 The standard interpretation, popularized by critics, is that Judas was said to be as big as a house. But the text does not say that. The problem is that there is a reliance on a defective translation of Papias. For example, Bart Ehrman in his book “Jesus Before Gospels” writes that: “According to Papias, after Judas betrayed Jesus he was inflicted with a divine punishment. His body swelled up to an enormous size. He became so large that he could not squeeze onto a street that had buildings on either side.” The Greek text does not literally read that way. Papias’ account of Judas being so bloated that he was not able to pass through where a chariot could go may not have been an exaggeration. Excavations at Pompeii have revealed streets with relatively high stepping stones allowing chariots to pass through. So it is possible to contextually read what is quoted by Papias in the following manner. As a result of bloating, following a failed strangulation attempt, Judas’ head was subsequently larger than what was required to pass through where a chariot could easily pass. Problem solved.
Apparently it was Apollinaris of Laodicea (4th C) who provides the Papias quote about Judas. But I've tried to look into it and - as Kamil says - who knows. It isn't necessarily incompatible with the story in Acts though.
Apologists continually overlook the fact that they are asking people to believe: 1) God oversaw the production of these texts and wants people to believe their content. 2) Failure to embrace their content results in eternal damnation. These are substantial claims, the acceptance or rejection of which come with substantial consequences. Why then is the evidence in support of their contentions so vague, mostly amounting to church tradition with no real corroboration -- to the point where apologists have to engage in endless speculation as to why the evidence isn't better? God has the power (and allegedly the motivation) to have ensured that these supremely authoritative texts came down to us with an excellent history of transmission and with excellent corroboration. So why didn't he? To be honest, the Calvinists are the only believers who have a decent explanation to account for this: God simply doesn't care about most of humanity and supernaturally enables belief in his elect, thereby making evidence largely irrelevant. Believers don't need it and unbelievers can't benefit from it anyway, so why bother?
I love your face expressions! I love it because you have the face of someone that is listening, something you’re good at. You take in the other side before formulating a response, love that!
The attempts of Christian apologists to assign authorship to the gospels speaks volumes about their desperation & nothing at all about what’s true. Very informative, thanks Paul 🙏✌️
-The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
It's incredible to me the lengths some of these apologists will go to quibble over minute details of an argument while tacitly admitting that they agree about the most substantial aspect with the skeptic. The whole point about the debate about whether the gospels are anonymous works or not is precisely to call into question our confidence in traditional authorship. If all of the panelists in both videos agree ultimately that the gospels were by-and-large collaborative works, then what the hell was the point in dragging it out into hours-long conversations?
Because they couldnt look like they were agreeing with the Atheist. It's like letting the brother of your crush win a game to make yourself look good to them.
Fantastic videos Paul These apologists .. or excusigists struggle when they are confronted with someone who has outstanding knowledge of the source material And As always the videos are delivered with humility, they are informative, polite, have a humorous streak. A+
I would have to describe their Excusegetics as a lack of integrity. Instead of agree with you, they’d rather take the ball over to their friend group who will affirm them and just… not affirm you.
This is why I started my journey into atheism: because I had high standards for the Bible and when I discovered an apparent contradiction, the only defenses were excuses that I wouldn't even accept from myself, much less an omniscient, omnipotent God. 2 Timothy 3:16 "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness," The following is how I thought the Bible was written: Matthew 10:19-20 "But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you." The biblical authors didn't need editors, researchers, fact-checkers etc, because they weren't really the ones writing the Bible: God was writing it through them and he's perfect so how could there be any mistakes? There couldn't even be things that are technically not mistakes but sure look like errors: 1 Thessalonians 5:22 "Abstain from all appearance of evil." (Note. I normally quote the NIV but here I used the KJV. I grew up with the KJV and my Dad made a big deal out of this interpretation and it was part of our theology). Thus on Easter Sunday morning of 2013 while reading the crucifixion story in John, when I came across John 19:14 I felt a sense of dread. "It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews." I was sure I read in a different gospel that Jesus was on the cross from 9:00 in the morning till 6:00 in the afternoon. I combed through the other gospels and found it: Mark 15:25 "It was nine in the morning when they crucified him." I couldn't believe I'd never noticed it. How could my parents and brother who didn't countless Bible studies not notice it? God knew me before I was born. He knows how many hairs are on my head. He knows how many atoms are in the universe. How is it even conceivable that he can't remember when he was crucified? Or what he said earlier? If there is a contradiction between two gospels then at least one is wrong which means God didn't write it. I remembered reading in Haley's Bible handbook that in the first couple of centuries, there were a lot of forged gospels and Epistles. Did some of them make it into the Bible? How am I going to tell the difference between man's word and God's word? How many Christians think the book of John sounds more distinctly man made than the book of Mark? An apologetics website and later my brother both gave the same defense of the contradiction: Mark was writing for a Jewish audience and John was writing for a Roman audience. The Jews count the hours from sunrise and the Romans count the hours from midnight. This fails on so many levels. There was no evidence provided that this was true. The Bible wasn't written for a particular generation or nationality. God avoids even the appearance of wrong. Apologists often try to blame the Bibles problems on the human authors, but that's like typing a document on a typewriter then saying "I didn't write it. I only interfaced with the typewriter. The typewriter wrote the document and it made the mistakes." Lastly, I couldn't put my faith in something lesser than myself. Putting my faith in a god who couldn't write the Bible as clearly as I or the apologists can is like trusting your safety to a security guard that you can beat up. Most apologetics are excuses, and they always fail because the people making the excuses conveniently forget that "with God, all things are possible." And God knows everything, and God hates even the appearance of wrong. "God had to permit slavery. The Jews were stubborn..." Had to? "It just looks like a failed prophecy..." God looks like he doesn't know the future? "Ancient people couldn't understand a globe earth or plate techtonics, or evolution so God had to use mythical terms..." God couldn't make them understand? You get the picture. Thanks for reading.
@davidhoffman6980 Np. I enjoy hearing some deconstruction stories. With all the fundamentalists and other religious extremists in the US I'm constantly at unease. Though hearing stories from people who are still making it out of those mindsets gives me hope that things can still improve for humanity. Could just be wishful thinking on my part, or these times are a watershed era. Where science, logic and our understanding of the natural world are in it's primary struggle against religion and faith in god claims.
I watched your first video. I was just kind of like okay. Like, none of this is really controversial. I never expected anyone to put together a four-person panel to talk about it for hours.
So modest... with a background working for Industrial Light and Magic (I presume, I know you said you worked on Star Wars movies). Yeah, you have the editing skills. More important here, you also bring the facts.
here is some facts-The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
The writer of the book of Matthew never borrowed the temptation conversation from the book of Mark because Mark never wrote about the temptation conversation
It is hilarious that they accuse Paul of engaging in speculation and just-so-ing, then they just go off on total speculation about how the apostles did their work in composing the gospels.
'I that [Paul] was quite fair on some of the pushback he presupposed he would get'. Acknowledging the counter arguments to one's position before elaborating on it is good academic practice. Spending hours making excuses for a lack of evidence is...kind of the opposite.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
What makes me sad that we still debate about the bible, is the fact that if we could finally agree that there's no god, we could also start treating revelations as a cosmic horror novel!
I don't want to say thy cropped out the citations footnotes intentionally, but I am now curious whether the full panel were able to see the full video on their own screens, or if they only had access to the cropped version we see in the stream?
It doesn't really matter who wrote the gospels, unless they can demonstrate that the events described in those stories actually happened they're essentially arguing over authorship of what amounts to ancient comic books and dime store novels.
@@DesGardius-me7gf here is a new argument -The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@GameTimeWhy He's been a total hypocrite here about how "this is all a bunch of possibilities" when the exact same thing can easily be said of his precious "undesigned coincidences".
It is no doubt gratifying that they started with so many affirmations and compliments. I could have wished that their response could have been fairly described with such compliments. But sadly, I don't think I could do so. They seem to be fond of the Occam's razor principle. But frequently neglect the "all things being equal" part of it. It is frequently trivial to concoct a narrative, that is simpler, than a more complex but true narrative. Love the callouts to Mr. Deity.
It seems to me that an omnipotent god could've simply preserved the authorship proofs necessary. It can turn a woman into a pillar of salt instantly but doesn't understand preservation?
It certainly takes some kind of dedication to spend a decade of your life obtaining a doctorate in Evolutionary Biology when you don't believe a word of it. What a pity nobody took him seriously even after all that effort and he's been forced to spend most of his time since as a bog-standard unqualified apologist...
Another great video. Paul, if these guys are Protestants, you may want to include in a future video the fact that after hundreds and hundreds of years, Protestants decided that the Roman AND Eastern orthodox churches had actually been wrong about how many books should be considered authoritative scripture and created a new canon of Scripture that rejected generations of Christian tradition. If Protestants believe that church tradition could be wrong about which books are inspired by God, why would it be a problem for a Protestant to admit that church tradition was also wrong about who authored the so-called Gospels???
-=The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
Yahweh and his son never wrote anything or bothered to communicate directly with each of their creations. Instead he left it to Hebrews living on the Sinai Peninsula in the Bronze Age to write down their own thoughts in Aramaic and for future generations to claim those thoughts came from a god they invented and worshiped. Pretty sneaky.
"Ever since I've been on TikTok..."
Well that's your first mistake.
"all kinds of books don't mention my name, I wonder if I wrote any of those". Now that is some top quality snark!!
I get so frustrated that “theologians” try to pretend they are historians. It’s like an astrologer trying to tell an astronomer they don’t know what they are doing.
Perfect analogy
Hey, don't besmirch the good name of theology by calling these guys theologians
@@kamilgregor😂 my bad.
Yep, that's a Dirty Little Fact they try to avoid by pimping 'PhD' and 'Doctor' Smokescreens.
TheoLOLogians are merely Professional Religious Polemicists or Professional Religious Rhetorical B/S Spreaders.
They specialize in Mind/Word Wank, not FACTS or PHYSICAL REALITY.
Had a Philosophy Major college roommate who eventually became a small college Philosophy Professor, and going back over his Facebook and other 'publications' I thing most Professional Philosophers below the Daniel Dennett Grade are pretty useless, too, but able to be trained to do small, useful jobs. (In fact, he changed in college from a good Philosophy school to a lesser for merely the $$$ charged)
For example, memorizing and reciting, "Would you like fries with that?"
There are a plethora of religious universities that they could join, become historians, and then write papers and do research in favor of their position instead of excusing the poor evidence for gospel authorship if they think they do have a solid case
Mathew was trained to read the Talmud?! A commentary that wouldn’t even be written for 300 years?! Now THATS a miracle
Something something mysterious ways
Wouldn't be compiled*
It wasn't written all at once.
@@TheEpicProOfMinecraf was all of it compiled and compiled as it was originally written?
@@GameTimeWhy How much do you know about the Talmud?
@@TheEpicProOfMinecraf a little. Less than i know about the bible because growing up the "Jews killed Jesus and are evil" was a really big talking point.
That panel must be exhausted after all of that tap dancing. 🙄
I bet they all have badly blistered feet 😂
They're seasoned river dancers.
Nah theyre in shape from all the mental gymnastics
@@stevem7945 And blistered tongues from all that lying.
Richard Gere did it better in Chicago
“Excusogist” is more snarky than we usually get from Paulogia. I like it!
Brian is a bad influence!
@@sbushido5547 Indeed
Rouse not a Canadian to anger, lest you learn why it’s always the polite ones who necessitate new rules in the Geneva Conventions.
I originally thought it was unnecessary when Mr. Deity coined that term, but it has become increasingly useful as I encounter apologists and their lame excuses. It makes it so clear how pathetic their God is to need them to make so many excuses for him.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
At this point, these guys speaking is not them giving arguments, it's them chanting slogans to keep themselves from a breakdown
I just seen you in Dan McClellans channel
All they needed was a campfire and some alcohol ...
@@Call_Me_Rio where was he on dan mcclellans channel?
will you ever make a response?
Is this really the best you got kamil?
Your arguments are fragile, just like your ego.
If mental gymnastics were an Olympic sport... these guys would be world class.
We just watched a panel of gold medalists.
Its actually the opposite. Paulogia is a certified sophist.
@@joe5959 Oh lordy. How so?
@@utubepunkhandwaves tradition. Incredulity. Low tier analogies.
@@joe5959 You think appeal to tradition makes something true? Incredulity? How? Which analogies were low tier? None of what you said supports the claim Paul is a sophist.
Fantastic job, Paul. These kinds of re-responses are very important but very time consuming. I really appreciate you taking the time to rebut and showing how most replies are simply people talking in circles.
It's got to be a good feeling when you're debating a topic, and your opposition has that many compliments for your arguments.
It would feel better if they actually took them seriously, instead of just ignoring the references ON THE SCREEN.
The Gospels should be titled, "The Gospel of Some Dude," "The Gospel of Some Other Dude," etc.
What makes you assume they were written by dudes?
@@wmoates6029Criterion of Embarrassment. No patriarchal/misogynistic church father would have claimed that a dude wrote such tripe unless it was true.
@@wmoates6029The style of language and writing.
Gospel of some guy that I plagiarized verbatim ( up to 90%) and all the other guys copied and continued on a path of higher christology..
Propaganda is an accurate description and is shockingly similar to the affirmations from the Soviet era and current Russian leadership/dictators..
the current GOP leaders also qualify...
@@wmoates6029the odds are in favor of it having been written by men, women were almost never educated in this era
Dearest Theophilus,
New York City hot dogs are awesome!
Yours truly,
Spider-Man
I’m a witness to this exchange 🙃
@haydenbodenham And I heard there were 600 other witnesses that are alive today. If you don't believe me go ask them.
Dearest redditor
Get a job!
-a concerned citizen
@@joe5959 Salty Joe making the rounds. You really showed'em, Joe! 😄
@@utubepunk
Does your jaw hurt from all that suckin?
I just saw this in my feed. I’m in so much pain, and I’m going to lie down on a block of ice and hope your soothing voice helps me out.
Then again, it could go the other way with their bad arguments worsening my migraine…but let’s hope their arguments are good!
I'm baffled at how any challenge to an apologist's fundamentalism is perceived by them as a huge affront. Why can't they concede something as innocuous as gospel authorship? Is their faith in Christ, or in later Christian traditions that developed after Christ? It's like if they think that if they concede on one issue, they'll have to acknowledge there may be reasons to investigate and reexamine all their other beliefs, and the whole thing may come down crumbling. That doesn't strike me as faith; that strakes me as fear. They cannot afford to lose any ground, or they have...nothing.
Excellent point.
The entire fundamentalism is built on a house of cards. Gospel authorship is especially important as the foundation, since the Gospels contain the only quoted words of Jesus. Interpreting scriptures in general, and the 'red letter' text in particular, gets into linguistic specifics so the authenticity of the quotes is critical.
I have heard some cases of apologists essentially admitting as much.
When they say something like "This interpretation of Genesis has to be true, otherwise our theology crumbles" (Obviously not how they would phrase it), they acknowledge the impact of a wish for something to be true.
And I suspect that it would not be hard to find Christians, that are very afraid of doubt.
@@stevewebber707 Very true. They explicitly acknowledge the necessity of the resurrection.
"If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." [NIV 1 Corinthians 15:13-14]
Genesis seems required, specifically the ideas of being made in God's image and original sin, to explain why we need salvation.
@@UnconventionalReasoning There are ways the the theology can be justified without the more literal interpretations. I suspect there are more theologians that don't take the very literalist approach, than than ones that do.
Being made in God's image, can be interpreted in differing ways, but how does it make sense literally? I would argue the more appropriate theology, is of some spiritual, or mental quality, which is so vague, that I don't know that there are any real consequences over it's truth.
Original sin sounds important, but I have always wondered, how important is the origin of that sin, in order to make needed a salvation from it?
What functional doctrinal difference is there, in saying the first man committed the first sin, compared to just saying that all men are sinful?
Evangelicals like pointing out, that Jesus made references to Genesis stories. I like pointing out that most of Jesus' lessons were allegorical.
If anything, original sin doctrine presents challenges to be harmonized, since the bible has passages saying God won't visit the sins of the fathers upon the children. And other similar verses justifying passing down sin. Almost like the bible isn't consistent.
Personally, I have problems with the necessity of the sacrifice and resurrection, from the get go, at the root of those concepts. So clearly, I am speaking from an outside perspective
The amount of straws grasped by the panel is enough to reduce oceanic pollution
Save a turtle, become an Apologist today!
3:44 - Paul is nothing, if not fair. That's one of the main reasons he's so damn effective at what he does.
Of course, it never hurts to be on the correct side of an argument, either! ;-)
As much as I LOVE the gentle way you normally present information the vast majority of the time, I love seeing you hit back a little more firmly. Being so explicit about the Excusigetics is really important, showing exactly how IP, Testify, etc are trying to weasel around the tough reality that is known about Gospel authorship.
About the "Theophilus" thing.
I agree the "Luke was writing to this person" interpretation is reasonable, but I think there are two other possibilities worth keeping in mind.
1. Theophilus is not anyone in particular, it is an honorary title Luke gives to the audience he is writing for. "Theophilus" means "friend of God" in Greek.
2. Luke is a forgery and this "Theophilus" thing is a verisimilitude. If Luke is a forgery claiming to be a traveling companion of Paul (see the "we" passages), it would make sense for him to address his writing to a specific person to make his account seem more believable, even though he was actually writing later to no one in particular.
Edit: I missed Paul bringing up my first alternate explanation.
You wrote this much more eloquently than my comment about the same thing, that name just seems too perfect, a guy literally called Faithlover is the one the letter about faith is addressed to? Sure.
I appreciated reading the comment. I have just a few thoughts about your two hypotheses as well:
1. I find it unlikely that Theophilus is merely a stand-in name for the general reader, a sort of “to whom it may concern” at the beginning of the gospel and Acts. There are also two forms for the Greek singular second person pronoun “you”-one singular and one plural. I believe the form used in both Luke and Acts is singular. Additionally, is there any other example in Greco-Roman antiquity of an author using a clever name to denote a general readership?
2. Luke-Acts cannot be a forgery since it simply does not name or even definitively make any effort to identify its author. It is purely anonymous. As such, the author does not appear to be fabricating conventions merely for the sake of adding credibility. If he were, he could have claimed to have been an eyewitness to the life of Jesus and employed the first person plural “we” much, much earlier in his text.
@@ManoverSuperman
1. Being honest with you, the main reason I presented that possibility is because I have heard the possibility referenced so much. I've tried to look into it and it seems that it is always referenced as a possibility. It is never vigorously defended in anything I've read. The only real argument that ever seems to be given is that "Theophilus" is a name that would certainly fit is this is what Luke was doing, as it means something like "friend of God". This argument is, in my opinion, pretty flimsy. People in the ancient world were called Theophilus. Just because a name has deeper meaning, doesn't mean it isn't a real name. ("Jesus" for example means YHWH saves. No one argues that "Jesus is a literary creation because this name is so fitting. Not least because we have records of others named Jesus in his time and place.) Still, this does count for something. We almost certainly wouldn't be having this conversation if Luke had addressed the work to, for example, someone named "Alexander". However, overall must agree with you that this scenario seems pretty unlikely. Thanks for the correction.
2. I'll have to disagree with you on this, you don't need to explicitly claim to be a named figure to engage in literary forgery. I'll answer you by quoting Ehrman at length, since my position is basically his.
"... Acts was probably not written by one of Paul’s traveling companions. But why would the author then speak in the first person on four occasions? ... The author is making a claim about himself. He is not naming himself. He is simply claiming to be a traveling companion of Paul’s and therefore unusually well suited to give a “true” account of Paul’s message and mission. But he almost certainly was not a companion of Paul’s. ... If the author is claiming to be someone he is not, what kind of work is he writing? A book written with a false authorial claim is a forgery. Obviously the authorial claim in this case is not as boldfaced as in, say, 1 Timothy or 3 Corinthians, whose authors directly say they are Paul. But the claim of Acts is clear nonetheless; the author indicates that he was a participant in and eyewitness to Paul’s mission, even though he was not. It should not be objected that if the author wanted his readers to be convinced he was a companion of Paul, he would have been a lot more explicit about his identity, that is, he necessarily would have named himself or been more emphatic in his self-identification as a cotraveler with Paul. This kind of objection about what an author “would have” done is never very persuasive. For modern readers to tell ancient authors what they should have done in order to be more convincing is actually a bit amusing. Why should the author of Acts have done anything other than what he did? How could he possibly have been any more successful at deceiving his readers? He was spectacularly successful doing it the way he did. Readers for eighteen hundred years accepted without question that the author was none other than Luke, the traveling companion of Paul. By inserting just a small handful of first-person pronouns into his account the author succeeded in producing a forgery that continues to deceive readers down to the present day."
-Forged, pg. 209-210
So I would say that if Luke-Acts is a forgery, Theophilus is probably not a real person being addressed, but if it isn't a forgery, Theophilus probably is a real person being addressed.
@@l0rfA minor point, but names with reference to God are pretty common to have. We still have people named "Theodore" today, which literally means "god's gift". As for Theophilos, we have plenty of well attested examples of other people with the name: a 9th century Byzantine Emperor was called Theophilos, and one of his top generals was named Theophobus "god-fearing"
Luke didn't write Luke. It was a later invention. The story never got told to the one who already knew about it. The writer says that he had to investigate it therefore the writer isn't Luke.
Paul, you have them in a panic.
Shaking in my baby seal leather boots
@@TestifyApologetics Baby seal or baby leprechaun? I thought you preferred fake leather.
@@TestifyApologetics I thought you said you wouldnt comment more because you didnt want to deal with the 'hate'.🤔
And now you are here stirring the hornets...
@@TestifyApologetics Not mad, laughing actually?
@@Julian0101 "don`t listed to atheist youtubers"
Remember when you listen to all of this discussion...this is *****EXACTLY****** the way god wanted it. The most powerful being in the Entire Universe had a plan to come to earth, visit a few people, leave nothing behind, leave zero evidence, have NOBODY write anything down during his visit...then have people a 1,000 miles away write down some crap they heard about the visit and do it 100's of years later.
Facepalm THROUGH my HEad.
Hey, it must be how he wanted it - he is Mr. Omni, the all-knowing god, so he would anticipate any things that might go wrong or at least correct them after the fact. And not just that, he would know EXACTLY how to present this info in a clear concise manner which would no one confused - another version of "intelligent design." Because he would NOT want it necessary for legions of apologists having to god-splain this (as they think) over the centuries.
PS - he could have made Jesus seek out Paul while still alive and explain it all to him, instead of the 12 dunderheads he apparently chose as the best and brightest to spread his message - of which only four at best did so.
@@johnnehrich9601 Also, god created the entire universe with all the tech that we won't even discover for 3,000 years. He couldn't deliver a book to all humans that would instantly translate itself for every reader? There couldn't be videos on the pages? how about completely indestructible? WHERE THE F ARE THESE 10 COMMANDMENT TABLETS Anyways?!?!?!!? it's all such complete obvious Bull
@@gruuvmunky ABSOLUTE:Y!!! (And who was the idiot that supposedly forced humanity to speak in different languages way back when?
The Lord works in mysterious ways ... 😃
This can also be extended to the Pastoral epistles. Apparently God had some thoughts he really wanted us to know (including the inferior stature of women) but neglected to have Paul write down in his lifetime. So he just had someone else write it down later while claiming to be Paul. Nice one, God.
The real problem here is a presumed all-powerful god that has failed the church completely. The fact that we are debating this stuff 2000 years after the fact because their god couldn't have figured out the importance of authorship and reasonable evidence speaks a lot about the validity of the bible, church, jesus and god..
That’s my thing. If an Omnipotent God wanted us to know he existed, we *by definition* would. And it wouldn’t even impact our free will, according to the Bible itself. James 2:19- “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe-and tremble!”
@@Florkl All it took was for Moses to go on a six week sabbatical on Mount Sinai and the Israelites ended up worshiping an entirely different set of gods, even after months of signs and wonders like the parting of the Red Sea, manna from Heaven, water from a rock, and God descending on Mount Sinai in fire.
So yeah, the "can't interfere with free will" argument has always been ridiculous.
@@EnglishMike
It's because they connect so many ideas together for no reason. It's why they think that "free will" argument against god's hiddenness is any good. They connect the idea of a god existing automatically with their god existing, then they connect their god existing with the automatic need to worship said god, then they connect the idea of their god needing to be worshipped with them having the correct way to worship that god. These connected ideas are all presupposed leaving them almost unable to understand none of those ideas are a given factual thing. It almost hinders them from understanding that even if their god exists, people can choose not to worship it while still knowing it exists. The reason why them claiming all atheists are "just mad at god" is kind of ignorant and nonsensical.
If God exists, then he's pretty stupid.
A very insightful observation.
I'm still waiting for the multi-hour panel discussion on the correct metaphorical interpretation of the smell of magical rainbow unicorn farts.
Paul really says ":/" in all photos of him lmao
MrDeity is a real one for coining "Excuseigist" 😂
It is hard for us to properly imagine a time when literacy was so limited.
Wait, are you talking about Biblical times and the OG disciples? Or modern times and apologists? 🫤
Orangutans would be a reasonable comparison, except they are not skilled in excucegetics.
@@Nymaz I think modern apologists have trouble imagining the OG disciples, who they have been taught to respect, as illiterate and unschooled.
The comment about all the books you might have written and “…the 9 Bible references that are literally on the screen now” has me ROFL!😂😂😂😂
So awesome
I don't get why Christians would favour an improbable explanation, instead of accepting the most straightforward story that the evidence is pointing to in many of these historical questions.
Because they're evangelicals who base their faith on the inerrancy of the Bible. Many mainstream and progressive Christians do not bother themselves with such issues because they fine with the fact that the Bible we have today is not the perfect inerrant Word of God transmitted miraculously without error down the centuries.
One word: Bias
@@NA-vz9kojust like the anti Christian bias paulogia clearly has?
@@joe5959 Not exactly, where a literalist Christian's biases would lead him necessarily to false beliefs, an anti-Christian position does not necessarily include delusions. All religions are untrue.
@@joe5959 Pointing out how irrational your religion is doesn't imply a bias.
Mr. D is my hero...thanks Bri Bri
Paul, your style of deep look is always a pleasure to experience...
Outstanding work, as usual, Paul. I know it can be time consuming, but the body of work you are producing is making a difference.
And will continue to do so for decades into the future.
Man, this is painful to watch. I wonder if those guys ever stop to think "Gee, maybe I'm going too hard on the mental gymnastics and should reevaluate things?".
Probably not. But still, it's weird for me to see a guy like Inspiring Philosophy, who seems like a smart dude, being so absurdly delusional when he defends his faith.
I love that the apologists literally said "no one can know for sure, so lets just assume the thing i believe."
On the question of whether names were important, yes, the early church valued names. This is evidenced by their use of St Peter, the martyr they based the new church in Rome around. This is also evidenced by their use of body parts from various martyrs and saints. They were grasping at every straw they could to tie their authority to people who they could make a case for being as directly associated with Jesus as possible. The fact the gospels lack this clear sourcing suggests they couldn't make such a case even back then.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@termination9353 You dredged all that out of John 21:24? I would say you are a big fan of conspiracy theories.
John 21: 24This is the disciple which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his testimony is true.
I find the next one even more interesting. It is the laziest writing ever. "He did a bunch more stuff, trust me bro."
25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
@@avi8r66 Well who is the "we" that can say what is being written is true except the eyewitnesses. And when were the witnesses all together that they could give their deposition testimony to one to compose together into a novel except during Peter's church in Jerusalem. And if the Apostle witnesses had already given their testimony for compilation to a professional lawyer Pharisee Hebrew scribe why would they much later, in their unprofessional qualifications, write their own separate Gospels.
"But these are written, that ye might believe...." -John 20:31 So if having the Gospel written be how Jesus is to be promoted and believed and it was the job of the Apostles to promote and spread the Gospel... then they would have got right to it and not leave it unwritten for 60+ years after the fact.
And if you have proper reading comprehension youd see that Acts 10 confirms that Cornelious already had a copy of this Gospel, for Peter must have saw a copy in Cornelious home when Peter entered. For how else would Peter know that Cornelious knew the whole Gospel narrative except he saw Cornelious had read a copy of the Gospel.
@@termination9353 People lie, and people write fiction. Nothing new. Just because it was written down does not make it true. So the test is whether what is claimed lines up with reality. The gospels fail as does the rest of the bible where supernatural events are concerned.
@@avi8r66 Same can be said for all of the Tanak. But Torah says from the witnessing of two or three is a thing known. Here we have the deposition testimony of more than three "Jewish" witnesses. You don't have the Torah authority to pick and choose what is Tanak material and what is not. I do have this ruling authority. On the basis of John the Baptist fulfilling an Isaiah prophesy is the Gospel an included Tanak canon. For what are you going to say -That Isaiah was a failed Navi, for John fulfilled this prophesy that someone else was intended to fulfill?
For those curious as to why some scholars think that Theophilus isn't a real person, and Luke/Acts addressing him is a rhetorical device, consider that his name literally means "lover of god" in the language the book was written in. Does seem a tad off, no?
I am to the point in my journey away from Christianity that I find myself giggling when Christians talk about or debate the gospels. It's all so silly😂
Same! They're talking nonsense while taking themselves so seriously.
I still attend small group Bible study because I want to maintain friendships, but yeah, I have the same reaction. It's like arguing about how the magic spells work in Harry Potter. So absurd and pointless, yet they are doing it totally seriously. Yesterday the Bible study leader made a segue into prayer time by saying "And now for something that is totally not crazy, prayer!" I could barely contain my laughter.
@@montagdp I went to church for months, probably years, after I decided I didn't really believe any of it. Like you, to maintain friendships. When I finally left, most of them didn't even bother to contact me. I realized they never were friends ☹️
@@riverofthewood I know right???
@@The-Doubters-Diary yeah, we've told a few people so far, and the response has been pretty good (i.e. not toxic) until now, but I can already see this could be difficult to maintain. It's tough when you lose the main thing that brought you together as friends in the first place and no longer want to participate in the most frequent shared activities (church, Bible study, prayer, etc.).
I'm amazed how you are consistently able to calmly, carefully, and methodically completely destroy their inadequate "arguments"
Every time I hear someone say "needs context", I hear "Twist the facts to fit our narrative."
My bait answer to that is 'yeah, context makes it worse'. And if they ask me to prove that i just point out that is exactly what they were expecting from me.
@@Julian0101that's actually funny.
Actually, people DO need to see the context. The problem is when someone gives y'all the context in full, and someone replies "needs context" where the problem of twisting is probable.😢
_The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@termination9353 fun fanfiction. You can't prove it though.
Apologists are only interested in what is possible, not what is probable
Apologists also seem to take "what is possible" and turn it into "what occurred".
See also "Low Bar Bill"; William Lane Craig literally said you have to lower your standards for Christian evidence/beliefs!
@@LessThanLucid WLC is following the Pascal's Wager logic. Or lack of logic. It's astounding when someone so intelligent could be so illogical, though it may have been a consequence of his time. I mean Blaise Pascal, of course.
"Plausible" is the standard they aim for.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
Yes! I'm finally a stick figure! I've officially arrived as an apologetics somebody! I can scratch this off my bucket list.
I'm getting away from responses for now as sometimes they lead to talking past each other and can be time consuming, but I'd be happy to have another discussion sometime, whether it's this topic or when get to doing your videos on Acts.
Commence all your hate comments to the people who don't like me around here lol.
Ps It doesn't have to be with me I could arrange a discussion with Dr. Boyce, I'm guessing he'd be up for it.
@@TestifyApologetics How is what you do any different from Momon apologists?
@@TestifyApologeticsyou can relax mate. Most of us were former Christians. Not liking an idea doesn’t mean we don’t like individuals.
@@TestifyApologetics While it is possible that will occur, I'm hopeful the community will be respectful and mirror the reasonable tone you had in your initial comment. Thanks for your continued willingness to be open to discussion!
@@TestifyApologetics Christian persecution complex on full display. Great start.
It’s astounding that they made your point and then published the video as if they had created a rebuttal… your cartoon persona LITERALLY sat there silent and motionless for HUGE swaths of this video and they just went on to corroborate your thesis! They can’t be this dense, can they?
Without seeing their video in full I can't be certain of this, but from what I saw of them in this video I got a very Motte/Bailey vibe in their approach. Most Christians and many apologists will happily say to each other that these books were written by these people, with no clarification on what that means. The implication, intentional or not, is that they were authored the way books today are, by primarily one person whose name goes on it. That's the "Bailey", the outrageous outer claim that they would most like to believe in.
Then Paulogia and others come along to show the many, MANY reasons to doubt this idea, which they have no choice but to agree on, lest they just outright lie instead. The bailey has fallen. But they retreat to the much tamer, much harder to dispute, and much less faith-affirming claim, the "Motte", that says only that the people named in these gospels have at least _something_ to do with them, and therefore it cannot be shown to be outright false to say that they had NO part in it, "earning" their names in the most meaningless sense imaginable.
Under normal circumstances, this would be a good thing, and we'd call it "learning". The fallacy part comes in when the "invaders" leave, having failed to completely and utterly defeat the motte (because how even could you?), and they retake their ravaged bailey and go right back to claiming that these names are the primary authors again, despite having admitted under pressure that such a claim was untenable.
The short version is that they agreed that they were shown to be wrong, made excuses to show that they weren't necessarily wrong about _every single detail,_ and then as soon as the coast was clear they went right back to believing the wrong thing as if it had never been challenged at all.
And while it's always possible this is just dishonesty, it's surprisingly easy for people to do this completely by accident, and thusly become immune to logic and reasoning.
In other words: Yes, they are that dense.
Or that afraid. When I think back to my Christian days I also couldn’t acknowledge foundational things for fear of the whole house coming down, even if it was subconscious.
@@harrispinkham Out of curiosity, if you realize now it was subconscious fear, what did you consciously tell yourself at the time? That might help myself and others spot the same fear in those who are still in it, and help them deal with it more constructively.
@@riluna3695 it’s hard for me to put that knee jerk reaction into words but consciously probably something like the devil is trying to tempt you away from the truth and will use something small to lead you off the path
@@harrispinkham Yeah, that makes sense. It's so hard to fight past that cheat-code of "anything that disagrees with this belief comes from a threat that I have to be hypervigilant against." Talk about fear...
But at the same time, you right now are proof that it CAN be conquered. As corny as it sounds, I'm truly proud of you for daring to seek the truth in the face of how terrifying they make the other side sound. Hopefully it's been much nicer here than they told you it would be.
Wow, Paul this is great authorship. Thank you. Here are two sayings; There are many lies but only one truth. Oh, what tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. This sums it up for me.
Paulogia, you are doing amazing job on daily basis. Thank you really much!
Thank you! 😃
@@PaulogiaPaul this video is the same sloganeering as claims are not evidence. It’s literally the same dull thinking. IP refuted this video a little while ago. Watch it to see how your wrong yet again. Evidence is not excuses just like claims backed by evidence are evidence. You can’t provided good evidence for your points, you misunderstand counter arguments, and you refute with slogans and mockery. Very very weak to say the least. Buy the logic presented in this video you’re also just making excuses.
I really don’t see how. No good arguments, misunderstanding counter arguments and refuting with slogans. Shallow to say the least
Mister Deity’s idea of “excusagist” is definitely one of the reasons I left Christianity. I was getting tired of coming up with excuses for God, and when I sought out help from apologists, they weren’t any better than my excuses on average.
Yes, I was raised Christian, but when I looked for answers to questions, I got a load of nothing.
So just put that on the shelf a few years, until it became obvious no one had them.
It's baffling to me how any still believes, but I guess they just are not interested in finding out more, the believers are just happy knowing less.
I still think ‘apologist’ fits better.
It makes think of a parent apologizing for their kid’s behavior and making excuses why its not their fault.
@@Marniwheeler I'm working through a book by Frank Turek and your comment is so relevant.
This is why we need to better educate ourselves on what is obfuscation. Cuz a lot of Excuseagists really use “benefit of the doubt” or plausible deniability as a way to justify some wild stuff
That and Burden of Proof. If they’re making the positive claim, Paul’s counter-possibilities don’t need to be correct- they just need to demonstrate that enough plausible alternatives exist that the initial claim cannot be made with as much confidence.
I've been saying this for a while now... in order for Christianity to work, you have to grant a multitude of benefits of the doubt. A gesture they would not extend to other religions.
EVERY apologetic argument I've heard ultimately boils down to some variation of an argument from ignorance, or an argument from incredulity.
It is shameful when grown adults think that philosophical and theological arguments carry any weight in the analysis of reality.
@@davethebrahman9870 Having a degree in theology & anything beyond that perplexes me. Like what tangible benefit does a Masters of Divinity or a theology degree impart? Like what new thing will we learn about god through their research? Meanwhile a research biologist might discover a cure for cancer or how to prevent the aging process, etc.
Thanks! Keep up the great work, I find it amusing that you can defend your video so well and so easily.
I appreciate that!
@@Paulogia -The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@Paulogia Inspiring Philosophy has apparently made a response video.
*Faith In The Gospels ;*
Faith in the hearsay stories of _men that "claim" to speak for Jesus._
(an unavoidable fact)
You knocked another one out of the park, Paul.
Your research is top notch Paul. None of the apologists have any reasonable response to your points 😂😂😂.
The gospels were anonymous writings. The gospels are not historical or even biographical writings at least not in the modern sense.
“At least not in the modern sense” and what is the “modern sense” of biography? Want an odd thing to say considering that we’re dealing with ancient texts…. “The gospels were anonymous writings” define anonymity.
@@MrMortal_Ra we don't know who wrote them or why, because they don't write their names or state their purpose (except Luke)
@@MrMortal_Ra"In the modern sense" is an important thing to bring up. They likely considered them to be essentially biographies and to be true. The ancient context is necessary to understand the difference between how they would have thought of that notion versus how we would have. At the time, pulling what you want from existing sources without a critical eye or concern about context was considered a reliable method of getting truth. That's essentially what the Haggadah (written in the 1st or 2nd century BCE by a similar group of Messianic Jews) did. The idea of investigating sources to write literal truth rather than considering your narrative that conveys your message to be true was not in their heads at the time.
@@MrMortal_Ra watch the video have you ever read a modern biography we get dates when that person was born we get dates of the things they did in their life also Scholars who actually went to school for this thing have said that the gospels were written anonymously and did not get their names to to centuries after the fact also we know Matthew and Luke copied a lot of their information off of Mark if they were eyewitnesses why would they have to do things like that? The Gospel of John is a completely different animal all together.
@@MrMortal_RaThey were written with no stated author. That's your anonymity explanation.
And modern idea of biography is that it's written by a person with information about the person they write about. That information would be either first hand from the person itself or second hand but coming directly from people who knew them directly.
Papias also tells us about a crazy story about how Judas died that isn’t compatible with his death in the gospels.
Very strange.😉
Or, and this is a very real possibility, the guy who says this is what Papias wrote, was himself misinformed or lying
@@kamilgregor
Do you know what Apologists say about this?🤔
Eusebius doesn’t seem to like Papias… so maybe he made the story up himself to make Papias look bad or more likely he simply added the story and didn’t really care if his sources are reliable.
If Apologists are consistent then they will certainly believe that Eusebius really thought that Papias believed that this is how Judas died or that Papias actually believed it because it would have been pretty embarrassing if early church fathers disagreed with some of the stories of the gospels… so they wouldn’t have preserved this information if it wasn’t true.
There is not necessarily a contradiction between what Papias states and the Gospel accounts of Judas.
One of the principles in the field of hermeneutics, that was common prior to the rise of negative criticism, is to not work with a hermeneutic of suspicion and presumption of error.
This charitable attitude is common for interpreting documents as a whole. For example:
“[It is] fundamental to a true interpretation of the Scripture, viz., that the parts of a document, law, or instrument are to be construed with reference to the significance of the whole.” (Dean Abbot, Commentary on Matthew, Interpretation, p. 31.)
“Where a transaction is carried out by means of several documents so that together they form part of a single whole, these documents are read together as one.... [They are to be so read] that, that construction is to be preferred which will render them consistent.” (Interpretation of Documents, Sir Roland Burrows, p. 49, Lutter-worth & Co., London, 1946.)
@@ramigilneas9274 The standard interpretation, popularized by critics, is that Judas was said to be as big as a house. But the text does not say that.
The problem is that there is a reliance on a defective translation of Papias. For example, Bart Ehrman in his book “Jesus Before Gospels” writes that:
“According to Papias, after Judas betrayed Jesus he was inflicted with a divine punishment. His body swelled up to an enormous size. He became so large that he could not squeeze onto a street that had buildings on either side.”
The Greek text does not literally read that way.
Papias’ account of Judas being so bloated that he was not able to pass through where a chariot could go may not have been an exaggeration.
Excavations at Pompeii have revealed streets with relatively high stepping stones allowing chariots to pass through.
So it is possible to contextually read what is quoted by Papias in the following manner. As a result of bloating, following a failed strangulation attempt, Judas’ head was subsequently larger than what was required to pass through where a chariot could easily pass.
Problem solved.
Apparently it was Apollinaris of Laodicea (4th C) who provides the Papias quote about Judas. But I've tried to look into it and - as Kamil says - who knows.
It isn't necessarily incompatible with the story in Acts though.
Apologists continually overlook the fact that they are asking people to believe:
1) God oversaw the production of these texts and wants people to believe their content.
2) Failure to embrace their content results in eternal damnation.
These are substantial claims, the acceptance or rejection of which come with substantial consequences. Why then is the evidence in support of their contentions so vague, mostly amounting to church tradition with no real corroboration -- to the point where apologists have to engage in endless speculation as to why the evidence isn't better?
God has the power (and allegedly the motivation) to have ensured that these supremely authoritative texts came down to us with an excellent history of transmission and with excellent corroboration. So why didn't he? To be honest, the Calvinists are the only believers who have a decent explanation to account for this: God simply doesn't care about most of humanity and supernaturally enables belief in his elect, thereby making evidence largely irrelevant. Believers don't need it and unbelievers can't benefit from it anyway, so why bother?
I can’t believe I missed this but your illustration of Tertullian goes so damn hard
Their argument: If we redefine anonymous to mean whatever we want it to mean, then we can have our cake and eat it too.
Whenever a theist says it requires more context I break out my bald assertion counter and settle myself in for a real workout.
The lesson is clear: it takes four apologists to take on one Paulogist
.... and they still fail epically!
Another well researched video by Paul.
I think I'll start my own channel and call it Polycarpogia
I can join you with Polly crap- like the bottom of the parrot's cage.
You're in rip-snorting form , Paul. You really deserve many more followers.
I love your face expressions! I love it because you have the face of someone that is listening, something you’re good at. You take in the other side before formulating a response, love that!
Thank you so much 😀
Apologists only care about defending the faith, they care little to nothing about the evidence or reason.
Good for you, that you got so much attention for your video! Such an important topic to discuss
The attempts of Christian apologists to assign authorship to the gospels speaks volumes about their desperation & nothing at all about what’s true. Very informative, thanks Paul 🙏✌️
-The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@termination9353Prove it.
Great video, you have to love it when the people critiquing your work can only agree with it say nuh-uh in response.
Do these excusigists also argue against all the other forgeries? Because these also suggest the church fathers weren't good at verifying authorship.
It's incredible to me the lengths some of these apologists will go to quibble over minute details of an argument while tacitly admitting that they agree about the most substantial aspect with the skeptic. The whole point about the debate about whether the gospels are anonymous works or not is precisely to call into question our confidence in traditional authorship. If all of the panelists in both videos agree ultimately that the gospels were by-and-large collaborative works, then what the hell was the point in dragging it out into hours-long conversations?
Because they couldnt look like they were agreeing with the Atheist.
It's like letting the brother of your crush win a game to make yourself look good to them.
Or maybe he was called Levi because he was fond of denim jeans?
Fantastic videos Paul
These apologists .. or excusigists struggle when they are confronted with someone who has outstanding knowledge of the source material
And
As always the videos are delivered with humility, they are informative, polite, have a humorous streak.
A+
I would have to describe their Excusegetics as a lack of integrity.
Instead of agree with you, they’d rather take the ball over to their friend group who will affirm them and just… not affirm you.
I wish they had YOU on the panel.
"4 guys no arguments"
Wheres paulogias argument?
@@joe5959 re-watch video
@@fmdji watched it once. Never saw an argument.
25:44 - IP really loves to just declare that his own explanations are "simpler" and then refuse to explore the evidence beyond that starting point.
Danke!
Thank you!
This is why I started my journey into atheism: because I had high standards for the Bible and when I discovered an apparent contradiction, the only defenses were excuses that I wouldn't even accept from myself, much less an omniscient, omnipotent God.
2 Timothy 3:16
"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,"
The following is how I thought the Bible was written:
Matthew 10:19-20
"But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20 for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."
The biblical authors didn't need editors, researchers, fact-checkers etc, because they weren't really the ones writing the Bible: God was writing it through them and he's perfect so how could there be any mistakes? There couldn't even be things that are technically not mistakes but sure look like errors:
1 Thessalonians 5:22
"Abstain from all appearance of evil." (Note. I normally quote the NIV but here I used the KJV. I grew up with the KJV and my Dad made a big deal out of this interpretation and it was part of our theology).
Thus on Easter Sunday morning of 2013 while reading the crucifixion story in John, when I came across John 19:14 I felt a sense of dread.
"It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.
“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews."
I was sure I read in a different gospel that Jesus was on the cross from 9:00 in the morning till 6:00 in the afternoon. I combed through the other gospels and found it: Mark 15:25 "It was nine in the morning when they crucified him." I couldn't believe I'd never noticed it. How could my parents and brother who didn't countless Bible studies not notice it? God knew me before I was born. He knows how many hairs are on my head. He knows how many atoms are in the universe. How is it even conceivable that he can't remember when he was crucified? Or what he said earlier? If there is a contradiction between two gospels then at least one is wrong which means God didn't write it. I remembered reading in Haley's Bible handbook that in the first couple of centuries, there were a lot of forged gospels and Epistles. Did some of them make it into the Bible? How am I going to tell the difference between man's word and God's word? How many Christians think the book of John sounds more distinctly man made than the book of Mark? An apologetics website and later my brother both gave the same defense of the contradiction: Mark was writing for a Jewish audience and John was writing for a Roman audience. The Jews count the hours from sunrise and the Romans count the hours from midnight. This fails on so many levels. There was no evidence provided that this was true. The Bible wasn't written for a particular generation or nationality. God avoids even the appearance of wrong.
Apologists often try to blame the Bibles problems on the human authors, but that's like typing a document on a typewriter then saying "I didn't write it. I only interfaced with the typewriter. The typewriter wrote the document and it made the mistakes."
Lastly, I couldn't put my faith in something lesser than myself. Putting my faith in a god who couldn't write the Bible as clearly as I or the apologists can is like trusting your safety to a security guard that you can beat up.
Most apologetics are excuses, and they always fail because the people making the excuses conveniently forget that "with God, all things are possible." And God knows everything, and God hates even the appearance of wrong. "God had to permit slavery. The Jews were stubborn..." Had to? "It just looks like a failed prophecy..." God looks like he doesn't know the future? "Ancient people couldn't understand a globe earth or plate techtonics, or evolution so God had to use mythical terms..." God couldn't make them understand?
You get the picture.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks for using logic!🖖🏻
@@_Omega_Weapon well thanks for reading my long winded comment. It's a big deal to me.
@davidhoffman6980 Np. I enjoy hearing some deconstruction stories. With all the fundamentalists and other religious extremists in the US I'm constantly at unease. Though hearing stories from people who are still making it out of those mindsets gives me hope that things can still improve for humanity. Could just be wishful thinking on my part, or these times are a watershed era. Where science, logic and our understanding of the natural world are in it's primary struggle against religion and faith in god claims.
I watched your first video. I was just kind of like okay. Like, none of this is really controversial. I never expected anyone to put together a four-person panel to talk about it for hours.
I have caught myself making that "Paulogia face" the last few months when I'm feeling incredulous about claims my kids make.
So modest... with a background working for Industrial Light and Magic (I presume, I know you said you worked on Star Wars movies). Yeah, you have the editing skills.
More important here, you also bring the facts.
Not sure, but I think he said Lucas Film
@@Dee-Eddy I assumed ILM because that's the special effects house owned by LucasFilm. But it could have been LucasFilm directly. Don't know.
I'm aware. I think I heard him say Lucas Film. Definitely could be wrong.
here is some facts-The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
@@termination9353 your mom
The writer of the book of Matthew never borrowed the temptation conversation from the book of Mark because Mark never wrote about the temptation conversation
Apologists are just so obvious. For any sane stance apologetics are not needed. The fact that they feel the need to defend a position says it all
It is hilarious that they accuse Paul of engaging in speculation and just-so-ing, then they just go off on total speculation about how the apostles did their work in composing the gospels.
Thanks! Brilliantly done as usual!
Thank you very much!
'I that [Paul] was quite fair on some of the pushback he presupposed he would get'. Acknowledging the counter arguments to one's position before elaborating on it is good academic practice. Spending hours making excuses for a lack of evidence is...kind of the opposite.
The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
I think Paul gave us the best label for them …excuseologists
Your video first, then Dan McClellan's video commenting on IP specifically. Nice Wednesday morning. Thanks
The reason apologists use straw-men and gaslighting is because they have nothing else.
Excellent scholarship Paul 👍.
What makes me sad that we still debate about the bible, is the fact that if we could finally agree that there's no god, we could also start treating revelations as a cosmic horror novel!
People will find another religion after leaving.
Take a look a paulogia, he left one religion, for wokeism
@@joe5959 you sure you answered to the right comment? I'm talking about the greatest work of political fiction ever wrote.
@@thusspoke724so youre talking about reddit atheist forums? I completely agree!
@@joe5959 no I'm talking about the book of revelations!
@mikeboyd-og1shdo men get pregnant?
I don't want to say thy cropped out the citations footnotes intentionally, but I am now curious whether the full panel were able to see the full video on their own screens, or if they only had access to the cropped version we see in the stream?
It doesn't really matter who wrote the gospels, unless they can demonstrate that the events described in those stories actually happened they're essentially arguing over authorship of what amounts to ancient comic books and dime store novels.
Another good point that apologists can't defend. Same with blaming "sin" on two functional children.
"Excuseagists." I used to be one...and yes, it's a great term, a perfect balance of truth and sarcasm.
The biggest problem I have with Eric Manning's arguments (like so many other apologetic arguments) is that they're highly speculative.
Speculation is fine as long as it's in favour of the bible, even if it requires magic/miracles.
That's the apologetic approach. Their goal is to presuppose the conclusion then come up with arguments to show it's possible they're right
@@benroberts2222 Really, that's the thing about apologists. They _never_ offer anything new as arguments.
@@DesGardius-me7gf here is a new argument -The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
Apologists - People who apologise profusely for God's inability to make things clear, factual, logical and truthful.
At least IP doesn’t ban people who criticise him, unlike that sad case called Testify.
Except he banned Danny of Philtalk after IP got owned on the trinity
@@swiftf7225 Got a link? Would like to watch that.
@@swiftf7225Uhh…. Citation?
Testify has been leaving crybaby comments trying to start flame wars while also saying "I expect to be persecuted".
@@GameTimeWhy He's been a total hypocrite here about how "this is all a bunch of possibilities" when the exact same thing can easily be said of his precious "undesigned coincidences".
Got to love it when Paul's gloves come off and he gets down to defending his points
IP is not impressed by the arguments: aka the academic consensus. A layman with no credentials is not impressed
It is no doubt gratifying that they started with so many affirmations and compliments.
I could have wished that their response could have been fairly described with such compliments.
But sadly, I don't think I could do so.
They seem to be fond of the Occam's razor principle. But frequently neglect the "all things being equal" part of it.
It is frequently trivial to concoct a narrative, that is simpler, than a more complex but true narrative.
Love the callouts to Mr. Deity.
It seems to me that an omnipotent god could've simply preserved the authorship proofs necessary. It can turn a woman into a pillar of salt instantly but doesn't understand preservation?
Defending inerrancy/ divine inspiration is absolutely hilarious 😂😂😂😂
Mclatchie is a borderline grifter. Seriously cannot stand the guy
It certainly takes some kind of dedication to spend a decade of your life obtaining a doctorate in Evolutionary Biology when you don't believe a word of it. What a pity nobody took him seriously even after all that effort and he's been forced to spend most of his time since as a bog-standard unqualified apologist...
Another great video.
Paul, if these guys are Protestants, you may want to include in a future video the fact that after hundreds and hundreds of years, Protestants decided that the Roman AND Eastern orthodox churches had actually been wrong about how many books should be considered authoritative scripture and created a new canon of Scripture that rejected generations of Christian tradition.
If Protestants believe that church tradition could be wrong about which books are inspired by God, why would it be a problem for a Protestant to admit that church tradition was also wrong about who authored the so-called Gospels???
-=The Gospel of Jesus was originally one book, written by Lazarus in consultation with the Apostles [John 21:24] and published soon after Jesus left them on their own. The religion was hijacked by Rome, the Gospel was broken up scrambled adulterated into a bunch of competing narratives. Later four of those adulterated gospels were canonized with falsely ascribed authorship and a Gnosticism cover-story. It was the finding of an original Gospel of Jesus scroll in Jerusalem that gained the Knights Templar power over the Church and their eventual undoing when the church finally retaliated against them Friday 13th.
Yahweh and his son never wrote anything or bothered to communicate directly with each of their creations. Instead he left it to Hebrews living on the Sinai Peninsula in the Bronze Age to write down their own thoughts in Aramaic and for future generations to claim those thoughts came from a god they invented and worshiped.
Pretty sneaky.
It Saramago, in the 20th century, to write…The Gospel According to Jesus Christ.
This is wonderful work Paul