Listening to Trent take apart people's arguments with such patience and precision is truly a gift. I myself have little patience for others who spent such a tremendous amount of time and effort to try and dismantle the claims of Christianity and don't stop to ask what is the point of that task?
Christianity claims it is true, as do Islam, and other religions. They impact how people live their lives. For example the moral standards we should adopt and the laws we should pass, and sometimes how people vote. So, it is important to challenge the truth or otherwise of theistic claims.
Christians impact society based upon their false beliefs. It's not really that hard to work out. Christianity has made you an abysmal critical thinker.
So you think its a good thing to dismantle arguments and claims that are against Christianity but a bad thing when the same is done to claims of Christianity? Hypocritical much?
@timeshark8727 some actions have profound importance, some are pointless. To answer your accusation, not guilty. Again Trent is a really charitable guy, I wish I could give people as much benefit of the doubt, but I just see a bunch of rebellious minds posing as intellectual curiosity. It's all fun and games until people end up in hell.
seconds ago I googled "what do secular historians think about the apostles' martyrdom" and immediately after i closed that tab i opened youtube and saw that this video which was posted today was in the number one spot of my recommended
"Marty's Gutenberg files from the first century till 1830" google that more information for your history about the apostles and the rest who suffered, and who was front and centre of the barbarism.
So, let me get this straight, Trent. The same people calling the Bible "unreliable" now pretend that if something is not found in the same Bible, then it's decisively false. Give me a break!🙄
@@Gumbi1012 Yet, if the accounts of martrydom were found in the Bible, I would bet skeptics would simply default to an argument from unreliability In other words, the presence or absence of martyrdom accounts in the Bible have no real bearing on whether or not a person will believe them
@@TheMadman911xx you're misrepresenting the argument. The argument presumes that (for other reasons) that the New Testament documents are generally theological, not intrinsically historical documents. They contain historical information, absolutely, but they are not necessarily historical records like those of Josephus for example. Therefore any claims of martyrdom would have to be considered under that rubric if found in the New Testament.
That immediately popped into my head during the Singer bit. Why should I be limited to the Bible in order to point to an Apostle, etc. who was martyred for his belief? I don't believe in Sola Scriptura.
It was just last night I saw a video on my feed where a Christian and atheist were debating the resurrection and the atheist used the exact line you referenced about the 9/11 hijackers. Thank you for providing a real in depth retort to this counter point. God bless you and the work you do
The motives of the 9/11 hijackers is totally different then the early Christians. Believing your getting 100 virgins or whatever to kill people isn't the same as allowing people to kill you for your belief in Jesus. It's the exact opposite.
So if 20 years from now someone would write down a fancy story about how Allah himself appeared to the hijackers and explained to them that he wants them to destroy the WTC to punish the infidels then that evidence would be on the same level as the martyrdom of the disciples.
@@ramigilneas9274 Did those people ever claim and left record that Allah appeared in front of them at that exact moment and ordered them to do that? Or did they just did what they did based on what they had learned from previous believers in Islam? The point is that the original Apostles claimed they did see Jesus risen literally in front of them so much so that they could even touch him, so they left record of that in writings. The easy thing would have been to admit it was all made up so they could escape torture and prison as they were living it at that moment. They were not the ones persecuting others.
@@MiniLinlin Well, there is no evidence that the gospels were written by any of the apostles or that those stories are based on eyewitness testimony… we don’t know what the apostles claimed or if it had anything in common with the stories of the gospels. Like I already said… If 20 years from know some unknown authors who don’t claim to be eyewitnesses and don’t identify their sources would write down a nice little story about Allah personally appearing to the hijackers, performing miracles for them and then ordering them to punish the infidels with no verifiable evidence whatsoever that any of that happened at all… then that would be on the same level as the gospels.😂
@@ramigilneas9274 Well, we could all be debating the reasons for the Gospels and the letters of the Apostles. But if you already think it's stupid, then I don't see the point.
Great video Trent. Because the Christian faith makes historical claims about itself, the historical arguments are perhaps the most important arguments for Christianity, because they are the most testable. Jimmy Akin did a great job responding to Bart Ehrman's objections to the gosples being reliable (at least in the areas where it matters most) both in their last debate and on his website. However, on his website there is an objection in the comment section under the section Who Was Jesus' Grandfather that is worth making a response to.
I love watching atheist videos dunking on charismatic Christian youtubers then watching Trent meticulously tear apart all their arguments without talking down to anyone.
@@highroller-jq3ix I'm dumb as hell. Are you saying that he is tearing apart the proposition that apologetics is logically sound or convincing? I'm pretty sure he's on team apologist.
@@bigape8640 You're almost following! He's on team apologist, and nothing he offers here is either logically sound or convincing. Thanks for your question.
@Cameron Clark It's not logically sound that willingness to suffer for a belief is evidence of the truth of that belief. It's not logically sound to claim that if willingness to suffer were evidence of the truth of a belief that Christianity would have any special standing among the numerous fantastical and unsupported beliefs human beings have been willing to suffer for. Bad logic is never convincing to someone whose epistemology requires rationality and reason. None of the scanty evidence about Christian martyrdom is at all convincing. We know with absolute certainty that the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of Catholic martyr claims are false. Thanks for asking.
@@tomasrocha6139 they were charged with arson as christians. They can deny the arson but they can not deny being christians. It was illegal to be christians then.
I actually disagree here - Paul never met Jesus ever, and he hadn't met any of the apostles at the time of his Damascus Road experience. I think that Peter's martyrdom is a better argument.
@@phillipcummings3518 The Book of Acts suggests Paul's conversion on the Road to Damascus occurred 4-7 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus only hung around for 40 days after he rose, according to the Scriptures, and so, Jesus would have ascended into heaven years before Paul "met" Jesus on his way to Damascus. And then, what exactly happens on the Road to Damascus? Paul gets blinded by a great light and hears a voice. Acts 9 says "The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Paul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything." So, Paul never even saw Jesus! He heard Jesus's voice from heaven, but he never really met him.
@@Nontradicath I thought it was more commonly viewed that Paul met Jesus 1-3 years after his crucifixion. Also, Paul says that he saw Jesus in his own writings. Read 1 Corinthians 15:8, Paul records that he saw the risen Jesus just as all the other disciples had, not that he just saw a great light and nothing else. That would leave you with saying that Jesus blinded Paul after he saw Jesus and received the message to "Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do," (Acts 9:6).
@@Nontradicath Paul met Jesus twice; the first is recorded in Acts 9:3-7 (and in Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:8) and the other in 2 Corinthians 12:9. It isn't exactly quite right to say that Paul never met Jesus if Jesus physically talked to him twice.
Sean McDowell wrote a book based off of his doctoral thesis, called the fate of the apostles. I think it’s a good survey of the available information to separate Christian exaggerations. To be honest with you, this is one of the main reasons why I believe Jesus Christ was resurrected. Edit: I had not made it to 26:08 😊
Paulogia did a response to this video, and also ended it with the response that he was officially extending his interest in a debate, and that you seem like an honest interlocutor. I hope to see a debate soon
Thank you for taking on that one youtuber. It's been needing to happen for awhile. He tends to make a number of historical assumptions as well in his videos that are fringe theories to say the best.
@@TgfkaTrichter I'm not saying Trent's argument here was the best, as he wasn't directly going up against that guy in particular. Rather using parts of his response to respond to a larger question. I will repeat what I said earlier though, that paulogia tends to take fringe historical theories etc and run with them like they're widely accepted.
@@TgfkaTrichter Yes but he takes far too much at face value, outright rejecting things that merit a deeper dive. He makes many of the theories he proposes sound as if they are widely accepted in secular studies even when they are not, and fails to point out possible flaws in them.
@@ElessarofGondor strange. He has often scholars on his show, and by far not all of them are atheists and he discusses his ideas with them. Also note that most biblical scholars are christian and are working for religious institutes which forbid them to find out anything, that would contradict the religious dogmas even if they would find good evidence for those points and Paulogia even interacts with those guys who have to be dishonest to keep their living.
where the heck was this when I was younger!? I was an atheist like legit nihilistic absurdist, until I hit 30, and very slowly have been returning to the faith, I have found this channel has helped me with several questions that I had before, It’s impressive that the church doesn’t take care of this. truly thank you 🙏 you give me hope, and even tho I still struggle, your research and answers help me to believe more little by little.
I do feel quite silly that I had only relatively recently come to the realization that there were two Kings named Herod, only to now learn there were three. Thank you!
6:19 that was the most bad faith question i've ever seen from Tovia (and that's saying a lot), but it's also embarassing that the person being questioned couldn't answer, since St. Stephen's martyr is close to the very beggining of Acts.
Great video! Was surprised by the rabbi questioning the martyrdom of the Apostles in Scripture: John 21:19 - Christ prophesizes that St. Peter will die to glorify God (aka: martyrdom) Acts 12:2 - describes the martyrdom of St. James 2 Timothy 4:6-7 - St. Paul predicts his execution
Protestantism with sola scriptura does not allow Christianity to develop the fullness of its arguments. Tradition and Holy Scripture together make that possible. These two elements are based in time and space, making all aspects of the incarnation, death and resurrection of our Lord irrefutable
If I’m not mistaken, Sola Scriptura is about divine inspiration, not about historical reliability. In terms of defending the historicity of the resurrection and Jesus’ earthly ministry, even Roman Catholics aknowledge that the New Testament is a better source than the Apostolic Fathers and later Church Fathers, so they go along pretty much the same lines as Protestants when arguing about it, for the discussion is not based on whether the Bible and tradition are inspired or not (as skeptics don’t believe this) but whether the sources are historically reliable. In other words, it has nothing to do with Sola Scriptura, but with historicity criteria. That’s why you see Protestants (Habermas, Licona, Loke, Craig, Bauckham, Evans, Blomberg, Wright, Wallace, McGrew, Boyd, Eddy, the McDowells, Turek, Geisler, Bird, etc.) among the bests scholars and apologists for the resurrection and the historicity of the New Testament (even to the point where Trent himself cites in great lenghts Protestant work on the field): they do not depend on the inspiration of neither the Bible nor the tradition, but on their value as historical sources.
In other words, my take is that to believe that Protestants are somehow limited in the development of arguments in favor of the historicity of Christianity’s main claims doesn’t correspond to the actual reality of Christian academia, where the most influential and bests argumentations for Christianity from a historical perspective have been layed out by Protestants. But I’ll be glad to read to your thoughts about it! Blessings from a Protestant brother from the Dominican Republic!
@@Samuelsilva0502 brother, the apostolic fathers and later the patristic fathers are the historians of the Church. Their letters and homiles recorded and saved for the believers show a good picture of what the church was already in the first century. Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, praying with the saints, loving Mary and giving her a special position above the angels. Pagan critics like Celsius and Fronton accused Christians of cannibalism. Lucian of samosta mocks Christian be süße they venerate the saints. Celsus attacked also Mary and her virginity. Both side exchange letters and led to the birth of christian apologetics especially with Justin Martyr. We see here a picture of early Christianity looking like today's catholicism, and eastern and oriental Orthodox Churches. God bless
@@bouseuxlatache4140 I respectfully disagree, specially with the Marian dogmas, but that wasn’t my point really, I was just pointing out that contemporary and modern christian scholarship concerning the historical case for the resurrection and origins of the Christian faith is heavily influenced by Protestant scholars and apologists, who in my opinion have done a massive job in defending the faith in those points, reality which I believe no christian (roman catholic, oriental orthodox, etc.) should have problem accepting. However, when it comes to the beliefs that separate the Roman Catholic Church and Protestantism, I really haven’t studied how the early churh perceived and practiced those beliefs, so there’s really not much I can comment there. However, guiding myself from some impressions I have gotten from videos of protestants with much more experience on the topic, I believe the early church wasn’t that one sided to modern roman catholic dogmas as some catholics think, specially when talking about the institution of the Pope, and the Marian Dogmas (as I pointed out before); and of course considering that reformers actually citted Church Fathers, specially Saint Augustine (the most important and influential theologian of the medieval Catholic Church), to back up their claims. Still, it’s a topic that I have on my study list, so that could be an interesting conversation later. But what are your thoughts?
But belief in whom causes harm to others. I don't need to believe in Leprechauns who tell people to burn things to want to refute them if things keep getting burnt
@@endersdragon34you understand that without this god, women would be sub human if not married, they wouldnt be able to run for governament, you wouldnt be Able to oposse religion, you wouldn t have universities, the scientific method, human rights, slavery abolisment, Yes the british did it for 400 years, but its a pratice for god knows how long in africa and the arab slave trade whose existed for 1300 years before christian nations force end it, if it wasant for christianity our world would be centuries behind
If you have evidence that the Bible figure known as Jesus existed, provide it. However, it is an absolute fact that there is literally no contemporaneous evidence that Jesus ever existed. Paul made up the Jesus fiction in 48 AD after the Daniel 9:25 prophesy failed to fulfill. Shouldn't we expect that if God was walking around town for thirty years that the locals would have noticed? Fun fact: none of the Gospel authors witnessed Jesus.
There is literally no contemporaneous evidence that Jesus existed. The only Bible author who claimed to have seen Jesus is Paul who asserted that he met him in a vision and described Jesus as being only a bright light. Paul actually stated that his sources were non-human, "...the gospel I preached is not of human origin." (Galatians 1:11-12). Paul further asserted that Jesus selected him alone to speak for him (Acts 9:15): "Paul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings as well as to the people of Israel." In Romans 1:16 Paul reveals that no other gospels existed at the time, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ." The Jesus story began in 48 AD with the first of the Pauline Epistles (which comprise nearly half of the New Testament books) when Paul realized the Daniel 9:25 prophesy of a messiah expired without fulfilling so he made one up decades later and set the story decades in the past matching Jewish expectations of the messiah to make the prophesy seem true. The fulfillment of the Daniel 9:25 prophecy written in 444 BC was the test of the true messiah. By 48 AD it was known that the prophecy of a messiah coming in "seven weeks and threescore and two weeks" had not occurred on the prophesied date. It was the 69th Week and the 70th Week was soon to come. The prophesied messiah was expected and the anticipation set off a messiah craze. "Seven weeks and threescore and two weeks" is, 7 plus 60 plus 2 equals 69 total weeks. One prophetic week equals seven biblical years of 360 days (the Julian calendar was created centuries later), so 7 times 69 equals 483 total biblical years beginning with Artaxerxes' decree in 444 BC. Those 483 biblical years equal 173,880 days, or 476 Julian years. Therefore the Messiah would come and be "cut off" in AD 33. One prophetic week equaling seven Biblical years is something “Daniel” invented in about 165 BC, effectively an admission that Jeremiah 25:11-12 failed. Paul made up the entire Jesus story and added historical figures, locations, and events to add authenticity. In the Galatians "road to Damascus" conversion vision tale written in 48 AD he claimed to have gone to the Arabian desert to study the Old Testament for 17 years to align with the Daniel 9:25 prophecy. Paul's goal was to garner support for the insurrection against the Romans which began in 46 AD led by two brothers, Jacob and Simon, in the Judea province. The revolt, mainly in the Galilee, began as sporadic insurgency until it climaxed in 48 AD when it was quickly put down by Roman authorities. Both Simon and Jacob were executed. He created the fiction of having witnessed the risen messiah. He wanted to show that the messiah had come as prophesied but was murdered by the Romans. This was to entice the Gentiles to aid in the Jews' rebellion against the Romans.
@@EvilXtianity Have you watched the video mate! Would be much worth the effort and time if you watch the video. Rather than using/(wasting) your time and the the time of readers, by providing false arguments. Have a good listen to the video
@@brandonp2530 This isn't complicated; if you have evidence that Jesus existed, provide it. However, it is an absolute fact that there is literally no contemporaneous evidence that Jesus ever existed. None.
@@EvilXtianity the Talmud, Josephus, Tacitus, Mara bar-serapion, Pliny the younger, all talk about Jesus. Tacitus In Annuls 15.44, he explicitly talks about Jesus, during his writings on Emperor Nero. He talks first about the Christian sect before then mentioning: “… Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reining of Tiberius. This comes from an enemy of Christendom so has no reason to match the biblical account. The Babylonian Talmud In Sanhedrin 43a, it recounts how Jesus led many Jews astray. The Sanhedrin wanted to have him stoned and, on the eve of Passover, Jesus was Crucified. The line “But, not having found anything in his favour” also suggest that a trial happened. This is all in line with what we are told in the Gospels. Josephus talks about both Jesus his death and resurrection and also in antiquities talks about John the Baptist being beheaded by Herod. Mara bar-Serapion is noted for a letter he wrote in Syriac to his son, who was also named Serapion. The letter refers to the unjust treatment of “three wise men”: the murder of Socrates, the burning of Pythagoras, and the execution of “the wise king” of the Jews. Mara is believed to have been a monotheistic pagan. Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia et Pontus, wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan around 112 AD and asked for counsel on dealing with Christians. He remarks on how they “sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god. Also scholars don’t agree that Jesus never existed, neither did rabbis then or now. No one thinks he was made up and to say so is idiotic. You can disagree he is messiah or god, but to act like he never existed isn’t even on the table
Hello Trent and God bless you. You said that some Atheists say that also those who died during 9/11 ( the terrorists ) are also martyrs because they died for what they think is true, so the Atheists ask, does this mean that Islam is true? I humbly answer as did Saint Thomas Aquinas answered about Martyrdom, that a Martyr is someone who is killed performing an act of virtue and not someone who dies performing an act of vice. The Christian Martyrs died out of love for justice and Truth, and not because they hated anyone. The terrorists died hating and killing ( they are not martyrs ). What do you think? Thanks
You didn't ask me, but this is the internet. It seems Christians and atheists have two different definitions of the word. I've only ever known the word to mean "someone who dies/is killed for his/her beliefs." To me, your definition has unnecessary prerequisites.
@@lordfarquaad8601 No. When the word 'martyr' is used commonly, it is used to describe 'someone who was killed (at the hands of someone or something) or died for their belief'. There is a distinction between someone who is executed for their belief as the 21 Coptic Christians by Libyan Islamic militants this year versus someone who drives a car (or flying planes into buildings) packed with explosives into al-Zahraa mosque in Balad Ruz in 2015. The word always had this context baked in, that you might be tempted to say otherwise is disingenuous.
@@alisterrebelo9013 "1. One who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce religious principles. 2. One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle. 3. One who endures great suffering. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition" Maybe the 2nd and 3rd definitions are more recent ones, but they're ones I've always understood to be true. You can use the dictionary to look up "disingenuous" as well, since you clearly don't know what the word means.
@@lordfarquaad8601 Comprehension is clearly not your forte. I clearly stated the commonly understood (as opposed to Dictionary definition) is as I described it. I chose to go this way because that's how you presented your initial argument in terms of how the word is commonly understood. Now you want to tap dance your way to dictionaries, sure, lets do it. Why did you omit the rest of what the American Heritage Dictionary says? Why did you exclude the following: r.v. mar·tyred, mar·tyr·ing, mar·tyrs 1. To make a martyr of, especially to put to death for devotion to religious beliefs. 2. To inflict great pain on; torment. Do you see any indication or context of the martyr killing anyone in the process of their martyrdom in those examples or definitions even including the text you provided? Now from Merriam Webster, the etymology is Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin, from Greek martyr-, martys witness. First Known Use before the 12th century. A martyr killing someone else in the course of their martyrdom cannot be argued to sit within the same definition. The definitions you presented are clearly indicating death of the martyr comes from an external source, not at their own hand which would be suicide. And where are you getting this idea from that the definition of martyr can include the said martyr killing others in the process of their martyrdom? I was wrong, disingenuous would imply that you actually know something, but you clearly don't.
@@alisterrebelo9013Concerning common usage, I described how I'd always heard the word "martyr" to be used. You offered your own understanding of how the word is used, and then accused me of being disingenuous, as if I was deliberately omitting your definition from my own. I wasn't; I typed "martyr" into Google and copied the three definitions offered. I didn't exclude anything, and I didn't omit the first definition, I just didn't mention it, since the point of my response wasn't to deny your definition of the word, but to backup my own. The idea of someone killing others in the process of their martyrdom isn't explicitly excluded from any definition of the word. Your definition might be a more proper one than mine, but the 2nd and 3rd definitions I provided do not omit the plane hijackers, or the self-immolating monk. This goes back to common usage of the word but arguing any further seems fruitless as you seem to think I'm an idiot and/or a liar.
Indeed that would be a strange thing. Care to prove your unsubstantiated claim, how was the NT was fabricated? How about we see the full picture? It's one thing to die for something you believe in. It's something to die for a belief based on visions/dreams of a risen Christ. It's something substantial to die for this Jesus person across time, geography, gender (Joan of Arc). You don't have to believe, but to insinuate insanity is disingenuous.
Great point on people who pursue petty power wanting to avoid punishment. Those are eople who just go with the flow and refuse to stand for anything to get status. They promote what they promote because they know there is no risk. You can push false narratives about the risky sex lives of lgbt and decriminalizing giving stds, you can push abortion even sometimew until after birth and euthanasia without being fired from a major corporation and thrown out of polite society while being even a lukewarm Christian and spreading your beliefs there is a huge risk.
I find at every level people have tried to tear down Christianity. They say "Jesus wasn't real, the Apostles weren't real, they didn't really go here or there or do this and that, they weren't really martyred, Jesus didn't perform miracles, he was never crucified, he was never resurrected, if he did exist he was more likely 3 or 4 different guys and etc." Here's the thing about it: I have faith and confidence, not just in God and in Christ, but in the Church and in Christians. This has been going on for 2000 years, Christianity itself around for about 1900ish years. In that time a great deal of people have gotten hold of the teachings of Christ and later the bible. Christians for thousands of years have had the willingness to not just die for Christ, but suffer for him too. He has been genuinely embraced by those of every stripe, from lowest to highest, the most intelligent to the least intelligent. The bible has been read over and over and over and over and over in countless languages by those who devote their entire life's work to taking apart and understanding the bible piece, by piece in autistic detail. Mind you as well, not even JUST by Christians, secular scholars too and my personal favorite was when the bible was brought before the Emperor of China in the 7th Century and the guy read it over and had his advisors read it over and they were like "yeh, this is solid work, we are going to allow you to set up your Church in China and preach here." There is nothing that can convince me otherwise because I have read enough and have seen enough with my own eyes to know Jesus Christ was not just a real God-man, who came and performed miracles, died for our sins and came back after 3 days, thus proving everything in the old testament doing so but that most importantly what he taught was right. That's the thing about all of these guys that try to tear down Christ and his Church. They try to tear down Christianity as a blatant lie that has caused suffering and hardship around the world, but they have never and could NEVER attack Jesus Christ directly. They could never say "What Jesus Christ taught was wrong" because it isn't, there is no arguing with the King of Kings
Greetings Trent I am a Protestant Christian but I do believe in the maintainance of important traditions such as Communion and Genuinely Hope That Catholics and Protestants can One day reunite as a single Church and Body of Christ Have a Terrific day Friends 👋 🙏
I’d add Peter to the list at 7:50. John 21:19 mentions the fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s death. 2 Peter also mentions that Peter is about to be put to death.
I find it funny that the guy says a single source and the bible tells me so argument, but the Bible itself is a collection of different sources and books. So having multiple books in the bible is in itself multiple sources. Meanwhile we have I think only one story on the battle of Troy, well turns out that became true and is now proven in archeology. We have only one source on many historical events that receive far less criticism
I would personally argue that a collection of books that is altered without original source material for a majority of it becomes one source, especially with prior knowledge between specific writings and with the canon being hand picked by people who already believe it centuries later. However, Paul is generally very picky with the "for the bible tells me so" jingle. He uses it when claims are made based on a SINGLE biblical source, kind of as an easy way to flag something with "accept with caution", not directly as a way to refute it. Paul has to be the most kind hearted and thoughtful athiest with a youtube channel I've ever seen. He's very smart, attentive to sources, does his research and talks to experts on subjects. Very much worth the watch.
Hey, idk who’s gonna see this, but I’m going to try to evangelize to my friend who’s more or less agnostic (but I think he may be somewhat partial toward Christianity). I’m a cradle catholic so I don’t understand the perspective of a convert/potential convert all that well. Can anyone help me out a bit?
You're already on the right track by being a friend. Make sure you prioritize being a good friend over winning an argument. If you're not already praying for your friend's conversion, start doing that immediately. Like right now, offer a quick prayer for your friend before you read the next sentence. Before you can really engage with your friend's ideas, you have to understand them. So when you start asking questions, do so with the intention to understand more than the intention to start an argument. Past that, be prepared to answer questions, and if you don't know, then just say you don't know and look up the answer later. God bless you! - Kyle
Being a friend is definitely a leg up. Hes much more likely to listen to you even without formal argumentation, so take it slow and God will water the seed you plant. To start, I would ask him questions to see if the barrier is in the mind or in the heart, if that makes sense.
Hi Trent, I've noticed what I think may be a problem with your argument about accepting mundane claims. You say that evidence from the Bible about people being persecuted for their faith should be accepted even without corroboration because it is a mundane event, which would be typical to accept in ancient sources. That's true, but I would say people suffering for their faith *because they saw with thier own eyes a miracle* is no longer mundane. Thus I think an opponent might say the claim isn't actually mundane because of the ultimate context. For example, I would be very likely to believe an uncorrobrated account of a Roman official visiting Egypt since that would be mundane. However, if the only probable reason that official would have visited Egypt was because of knowledge of the future, I would want corroborating accounts or other evidence. Personally, I think that corobrating evidence is found in First Clement, which as an internal church letter from the first century by Pope Clement, would be from someone well placed to know the story to a group of people who would also know it, and among whom it would be hard to lie about if Paul or Peter had recanted. The fact he only says at the beginning of the passage and doesn't explicitly repeat it for both is not in my opinion significant.
What was not mentioned is that in the case of James, the brother of Jesus, we have extra biblical attestation form a non Christian. The ancient Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, records the martyrdom of James . That's what I would have answered Rabbi Toviah Singer.
Paulogia says being a preacher is a reward itself therefore it is wrong to say that the apostles has nothing to gain to believe in risen Christ because they became preachers. Paulogia is not only preaching, he is even earning money and has youtube fans. (Psychological projection?)
That's true lol... When I heard that argument I was genuinely curious on how ppl could find that convincing. Do ppl think that humans would be fine getting stoned, insulted, etc just for the sake of preaching? And it's not only them the ppl around them who got martyred before them, do the apostles not have any kind of sympathy? In conclusion, the apostles in their minds are a group of evil, heartless, and smart?
Could anyone explain to me why Trent says that when skeptics argue that muslims willing to die is missing the point, but he also includes Paul, shouldn't he for the sake of consistency discard Paul as well because somehow including him would be also missing the point?
Paul's life got worse because of his upheld beliefs in Jesus, so he counts. He went from being a respected member of jewish society worthy of being given special missions by the Sanhedrin to a preacher that would get beat up many times, who had to do leatherworking for a living and had to undergo the dangerous and uncomfortable endeavor of travelling.
Don't forget that Paul was actually a Martyr. Those terrorists are kamikaze, which is willing to commit suicide for any cause. Just because they both end up in death, doesn't mean that they are the same thing
Dr. Travis Horn and Dr. Johnny Atkins from Johnny Atkins Mysterious Land are two of my favorite males around! I can’t wait to see them do another new crossover!
It's ironic to think that jews say that the apostles saw hallucinations or imagined it but they don't apply that same metric to any of the visions presented in the old testament 🤔🤔
Hi Trent. Great video. My question is, how does the martyrdom of the apostles differ in sincerity from the martyrdom of early mormons/LDS members, including those who claimed to be witnesses or were higher-ups in the church?
In the “sincerely mistaken” video, you should address the cognitive dissonance argument, which says that because the apostles devoted so much of their life to following Jesus, it’s possible they only CHOSE to believe in the resurrection bc admitting they were wrong would be admitting they gave up so much for a lie
@@ethanwork764 The Apostles are portrayed as being somewhat cowardly, vain and blind to the power and message of Jesus. They are shown demoralized, confused and hiding from their fellow Jews. But, somehow the belief in the risen Christ spread to become a world-wide belief. The argument is that the Apostles/disciples didn't realize til after the resurrection that they were supposed to believe and preach it, which is odd either way, but they weren't steeped in the belief til the end.
All the apostles betrayed Jesus before the resurrection. They did not even believe he would come back. So none of them were in a position to martyr themselves when they didn’t believe themselves. In fact most were ready to flee to avoid confrontation with the authorities. So something happened between the time when Jesus died to them deciding they would die to spread the gospel. And financial gain and fame were not the rewards as they all lead materially poor lives in their ministry and were outcasts from Jewish society. The gospel explains why they chose martyrdom. Your theory of mistaken belief doesn’t hold water as it would require at minimum the apostles and the other disciples who followed Jesus to believe he resurrected. Doubting Thomas shower quite clearly that hearing Jesus had risen from other apostles who they trusted was not enough… they had to see with their own eyes. And how Paul learned the teachings of Christ that was the same as the others when he was not there but was catechized years after Christ rose …. A Pharisee if good standing with a good future choosing to throw it all away for martyrdom, poverty and being tormented …. That doesn’t add up logically with your thoughts.
Might we not infer that Stephen could have been among the 500 disciples who to whom the risen Jesus appeared? Though not stated directly, its a reasonable suspicion, I think.
Wow! From sola scriptura to extrabiblical resource requirement. Damn if your reference is extrabiblical, damn if your reference is only the bible. How devilish.
As a Mormon, anytime Christian apologists address Joseph Smith and the gold plates it's always a very superficial analysis that engages in lots of special pleading.
Yeah, nothing against this guy, I think he's doing good work for the cause of Christianity, but I could barely keep my eyes from rolling when he cited View of the Hebrews as Joseph's source for the Book of Mormon. The parallels are superficial at best. Of significant note is the fact that nobody at the time the Book of Mormon was published seemed to notice these supposedly "obvious" parallels. None of his critics seemed to have considered that as a likely source, otherwise they would've piled onto it. Using the View of the Hebrews theory just indicates a failure to look into the matter with much effort. But honestly, while I do think that the Hell that Joseph Smith was put through in life for his beliefs is an indicator of his sincerity, the more impressive witness in my opinion is the testimony of the 3 witnesses who testified that an angel showed them the plates and told them that Joseph translated them through the gift and power of God, and the testimony of the 8 witnesses who testified to have handled the plates with their own hands and examined them thoroughly (astute readers will note that that makes 11 official witnesses of the gold plates, just as there were 11 apostolic witnesses to the risen Christ). Granted, the 3 and 8 witnesses weren't martyred for their beliefs, but plenty of them were put through great hardship for their testimony, and some were threatened with death if they didn't deny it. Additionally, many of the witnesses were later alienated from the church and estranged from Joseph, with plenty of hard feelings between them. At no point after leaving the church did they ever deny their testimony. Indeed, they affirmed their testimony multiple times while still out of the church (some returned later in life, some didn't), insisting that they had seen and/or handled the plates. They didn't stop believing that Smith had translated the plates through the power of God, they just believed that Joseph had become a fallen prophet who could no longer be relied upon to lead the church, some reasons of this being the introduction of plural marriage and that incident with the bank and the financial hardship it caused. So a fair look at the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon would've addressed these matters and much more, though to be fair, to truly do it justice would take multiple lengthy videos. Edit: Can't believe I didn't remember that Hyrum Smith was one of the 8 witnesses and was killed alongside Joseph, so there's one martyr for the testimony of the gold plates. And he didn't have to be there. He wasn't the one arrested. He accompanied Joseph Smith willingly, and both of them seemed fairly certain that they would die. If he wasn't truly sincere about his testimony of seeing and handling the gold plates, why did he willingly put himself in harms way to stand by that testimony, and to stand by his brother whom he full heartedly believed as a prophet. Now, that's not to say that it's true because Hyrum thought so, it's simply to say that Hyrum was sincere in his claims.
For this purpose, however, the Catholic is correct, Smith was a political leader, he gained wealth and power from his religious following, he more resembled Muhammad than Jesus or the apostles. For evidential purposes, you don't need to believe in a religion in order to be willing to fight for political power.
For this purpose, however, the Catholic is correct, Smith was a political leader, he gained wealth and power from his religious following, he more resembled Muhammad than Jesus or the apostles. For evidential purposes, you don't need to believe in a religion in order to be willing to fight for political power.
@@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts Smith didn't become a political leader until the Nauvoo period and that was after he sought redress for his people at the local, state, and federal levels with no success. His political career was sought near the end of his life and it was mainly due to his disgust with the system.
@@EcclesiastesLiker-py5tsOnly in a gross absence of knowledge would someone find the Catholic correct in this instance. There was no contrary evidence given. Which prophet are we comparing Joseph to in terms of power and wealth? Moses, Abraham, Solomon, Samuel, Elijah?
One of the critics claims the apostals were motivated by power and authority. But the writer of Hebrews tells the hebrews to obey their leaders because they hold a position of RESPONSIBILITY for their followers, and will have to give an account of their ministry. I may be wrong, but I see my pastor and my bishop as having responsibility for me. I try to follow Hebrews and try to make their job a joy and not a burden. Hebrews 13:17. How about a riff on church hierarchy by responsibility versus power and authority?
TH your explanation starting at @9:04 is incomplete at best and intentionally misleading at worst. Here are a couple examples: 1. The book you quoted shares a similar thesis (That various groups of “Native” Americans descended from various groups of Hebrews that were led to the American continent) It makes a compelling case that portions of the NA languages, their monetary systems, their traditions, and even their manner of worship share similarities with Old testament covenant Israelites. It _does NOT_ tell basically the same story. This is 100% incorrect. The most obvious deduction is that you haven’t read either book. 2. The Apostles & Joseph Smith supported themselves while working in the ministry and leading their families. Members frequently contributed to ease their burdens. This topic is a double-edged sword since Catholic leaders do not support themselves or a family. 3. Risk/Reward - Referring to Smith as a criminal reflects your personal bias. Christ and the Apostles were seen as criminals by their religious opponents & deemed worthy of death despite committing no crime...a gruesome death is what they got. I imagine they (Jews) were able to rationalize those martyrdoms with similar dismissiveness and callousness. I"ve heard Ben Shapiro describe Christ as a Jew who tried to gain power and was killed for his trouble. 4. No such similar evidence? Here is what Smith wrote upon surrendering to authorities on trumped-up charges (more Bible parallels) _I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am as calm as a summer's morning. I have a conscience void of an offense toward God and toward all men. If they take my life, I shall die an innocent man, and my blood shall cry from the ground for vengeance, and it shall be said of me, 'He was murdered in cold blood!_ This doesn’t sound like a willingness to submit to martyrdom? -This is a man who had been attacked regularly for over a decade, tarred and feathered, had his entire town and Temple razed to the ground, and after His martyrdom did not accomplish its objective...a law was passed that it was legal to kill a Mormon on-site in Missouri (Order 44 - not to be confused with order 66) and your argument is that he was an unwilling martyr because he attempted to defend himself while being shot at by a mob…after he was promised protection by the governor if he surrendered willingly.? Honestly Trent I hope you are just unfamiliar with the subject matter and not as maliciously negligent as your description of events makes you appear. 5. Smith meets all three of your evidences for sincerity. The Apostles suffered and risked martyrdom not just for their belief in the resurrection but because they were actual witnesses of it. Prophets are not without honor except in their own country. Most suffer a similar fate in life and will share a similar reward. Sadly Paulogia has the high ground here. It's human nature to instinctively dismiss evidence that takes you in the opposite direction of where you want to go.
I’m a Catholic, but the “Who would die for a lie?” is a pretty bad argument. Who would die for a lie? A lot SS members that knew the regime was lying when the war was already lost in the 1940’s, but the NAZI portrayed a victorious scenario; a lot of first responders in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, who willingly accepted the lie of the USSR that falsely claimed that the area was hospitable for rescuers, but they died helping their comrades. In a lot of cases people are willing to die for a lie, both for good and bad reasons. Faith either you have it or don’t, you can’t. The god of the philosophers, historians and pseudo-Christian-scientists is not the God of Abraham and if you try to prove God through those means, you’re delusional… the real problem with this argument is that you’re doing a lot of mind reading and assuming that the people who died spreading the gospel, died for that gospel, but that is impossible to determine. Only God truly know someone’s heart.
Sean McDowell is pretty on point here: the evidence for martyrdom is shaky. Even where we can reasonably assume an apostle was killed for his faith, there is no record he had the chance to recant. I think they were sincere believers, but that doesn't make their beliefs true. After all, the followers of Arius also died for their beliefs.
Why are so many you guys trying to refute an argument without even listening to it? People like St Paul had absolutely no reason to join Christianity since he himself was fighting its spread. All these early Christian martyrs KNEW that they would be killed but yet they died despite being a position to know the truthfulness of their claims. You mentioning Arius and his followers is a good evidence for my claim that you didn't even listen to the argument. Arius and his followers were not in a position to know the truthfulness of their claims.
Paul had no earthly reason to switch sides since he had acquired power as a persecutor of Christians. Additionally, he was a student of the powerful and respected rabbi Gamaliel. Arius wouldn't "change his mind" possibly because he was not threatened with physical punishment! He was excommunicated spiritually at the Council of Nicaea, but was likely not worried. He died years later of natural causes. For years Arius could and did influence the Empire and the Church. (Indeed, he died even as the Emperor Constantine demanded that the bishops of the Church should readmit him to communion). Emperor Constantine's sons became Arian and began supporting Arians and persecuting Catholic Christians, until the Emperor Julian left Christianity entirely and began persecuting all types of Christian indiscriminately.@@gergelymagyarosi9285
@@gergelymagyarosi9285 Arius was in a position where Christianity was legal aka not persecuted? St. Paul got no reason to join a weird jewish sect believing in a crucified Messiah.
@@LorenzoPelupessy Where did you get the idea that Paul joined a weird sect? Accepting Jesus as the Messiah did not require to join Peter. And BTW, what has the legality of Christianity to do with why Arius didn't change his mind?
When someone robs a bank, they take a large risk of being shot dead by the police or security, or at the very least being locked away in a prison where, depending on what country they're in, they'll be set to spend years living in torturous conditions and being abused and potentially killed by prison staff or other prisoners. Whatever the reason the apostles could have had for spreading Jesus' message, their actions allowed this message to be spread even after their deaths, and the same cannot be said for a bank robber who has zero chance of achieving anything with the money they stole because they're dead. What does that tell you? Or for a closer example, we have much better evidence for the persecution and martyrdom of Joseph Smith than any of the apostles. We know for a fact that he was persecuted specifically because of his religious claims and he even directly compared his own suffering to Paul's. Does that mean Joseph Smith really did sincerely believe that he was appointed to be a prophet by God and given golden tablets by an angel that he translated into the Book of Mormon using magic stones? Maybe. Does this fact make it even a tiny bit more probable that his claims were actually true? Pretty much every christian who isn't Mormon would rightfully tell you no.
So James the brother of Jesus is some sort of step-brother even though Joseph disappears the moment Jesus is born. I love the story in Mark 3 where Jesus’ mother has heard that her son as been saying blasphemous things so “Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him”. Jesus them blows them off saying that his followers are his mother and brothers, not his ACTUAL mother and brothers. According to Mark, even though he had supposedly been going around doing miracles, his actual mother and brothers were not among his followers. I should also point out that in Matthew “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.” So unless Mary used birth control, which is opposed by the Church, she had more children.
one possibility is that the disciples saw a disembodied etheric spirit of Jesus, which proves that Jesus was allive without necessarilly necessitating a physical resurrection.
Its easy to act like a source of great knowledge at a party to impress people who are more ignorant on the subject than oneself. But the know-it-all will go quiet if a true expert on the subject shows up. More so they will be very unsure in situations where turning out to be wrong is truly costly. When the stakes get higher the required veracity gets higher as well--we find out what people really have solid faith in. Such faith might be either evidence based or based on an authority that the person (rightly or wrongly) deeply trusts. In the case of the Disciples we know they must have had such faith. And we know that they were in the very best position of anyone of knowing whether Jesus was really doing miraculous things or whether it was all fakery.
I don’t know if the resurrection is real or not, but I know Trump is telling us the truth since there are enough people believe him and are willing to do his biding. Even die for him! Haleluja!
The Roman guards who were told to guard it? It's like giving a testimony on how you failed at your job as a security guard lol! How could you mess up guarding a tomb? It's not like you're fighting an empire or smt 😂
The James passage in Josephus Book 20 Chapter 9 is most likely a later Christian addition. Head priest Festive Pig has died and the new head priest is out of town so his son “assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.” OK, what laws did this James break? Was it the heresy of breaking the first four commandments and calling his brother a god? Well fortunately they didn’t stone James and his friends right away. Some people who thought James was a nice guy sent a message to the high priest who sent a message to the Jewish king who put a stop to it. So apparently that is what counts for news worthy of putting in the history books. A guy is accused of unspecified crimes but is let go. Do you know what wasn’t included in the history? Paul and his buddies are going around arresting people and ACTUALLY having them stoned to death, like poor Stephen.
It doesn't matter if J Smith was telling the truth or not. By his own admiration they were given to him by an angel of light. And we all know what an angel of light is.
There is no reason at all to think the disciples/first apostles existed at all. And their "willingness to suffer and die" carries no more weight than the "fact" that only 30 brave rebel pilots attacked the Death Star knowing they would almost certainly fail and be killed. Nor is it anymore compelling than Harry Potter willingly walking into the forbidden forest as a martyr knowing Voldemort would kill him. The actions of fictional characters is irrelevant. They were just recruitment tales of fictional men the apologist is just asserting were real. There is not a shred of credible evidence they ever existed.
I don't remember Paul referring to Peter as anything other than an apostle and the head of the church. Paul said that Peter had a vision of Jesus just like Paul had visions of Jesus in "the third heaven". Where does Paul ever say that Peter was the disciple of a living Jesus or saw a living Jesus? Only in the Gospels from a couple of decades later is Peter assigned the head of the "twelve".
@@humanistreformation I think one of the main reasons that Christianity spread was their view of the afterlife and how to get there. In other religions like the Greek and Norse, only the great warriors got to go hang out with the gods and be served by beautiful warrior maidens in the Elysium Fields or Valhalla. Everybody else just went to a quiet resting place, like Hades, or Sheol for the Jews. A good ploy to get people to join your army and to fight bravely. Although probably borrowed from the Zoroastrians, along comes the Christians and now it doesn't matter who you were or what you did. Paul said that you no longer had to be a great warrior, or a good person to have a glorious afterlife in Paradise, as long as you had "faith" and worshipped Jesus, your actions were not important. As long as you join the club, you get to go to paradise when you die and everybody else will be punished with indescribable torture for all eternity. Quite a clever sales pitch really.
Yes, but that doesn't disprove any of their arguments since their deaths would be "dying for what they think is true" not necessarily "dying for a lie or an act they kept up" for whatever reason?
Hi Trent, can you help clarify something for me? I’ve been told that Catholicism does not forbid marriage to priests. But I’ve also been told that there’s a rule in Catholicism where single Catholic priests are not allowed to get married. Can you help me make sense of this?
Clerical celibacy is a discipline for the Roman rite of the Catholic Church. There are married eastern rite Catholic priests. This discipline doesn't rise to the level of doctrine and is something that could in principle be changed at any time if the Pope decides to do so is prudent (but probably won't). The "rule" is basically that prior to ordination in the Roman rite, you are required to take a vow of celibacy and you just won't be admitted to a seminary if you are currently already married. Disobeying this vow would be gravely sinful not as a matter of objective morality, but of obedience.
@@Chicken_of_Bristol I thought that married men could become priests but that single men aren’t allowed to be married after they become priests. Is that not the case?
Sure. Strictly speaking, the Church does forbid priests getting married. Now, we do see many married priests in the Church, so how does that happen? Married men are allowed to become priests, but priests are not allowed to become married men. So if a man is already married, he can still be ordained to the priesthood. However, if his wife dies before him, he's not allowed to remarry. But does this mean that the Church forbids some people to marry? No, because absolutely no one is forced into the priesthood. So this voluntary state of celibacy is not required for any person unless they freely enter into it. Hope this helps! -Kyle
@@TheCounselofTrent So how do we reconcile this rule with passages like 1 Timothy 4:1-3? It says, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” According to this passage, forbidding marriage is demonic.
@@FlemFlamH2 It's a fair question as it's not obvious why marriage doesnt preclude someone from entering the priesthood but it does preclude a priesthood holder from marriage. All other things being equal it comes down to timing and or circumstance.
Some of my thoughts regarding this video: 1. I agree with the host that 21st century adherents are not evidence to the truth of religious claims. 2. There is barely any evidence for the prosecution of the apostles based on their belief in a resurrection. We only have literary evidence in Acts which does not even discuss the lives of most of the apostles. We have no way of knowing anything about the vast majority them sans Peter, John, and James, the Lord’s brother. 3. Paul, calls himself an apostle, but he did not witness the resurrection of Jesus. According him, he had a vision and God revealed Jesus inside of him. 4. Acts is not a reliable source for the lives of the apostles or for early Christianity. It contradicts most of Paul ‘s authentic letters. The same author even contradicts himself in the gospel of Luke. 5. All ancient evidence needs to be looked on skeptically, from Tacitus’ claim about Nero killing Christians to Boudicca burning Londinium. 6. The gospels are not accurate portrayals of the lives of the apostles. 7. Islam did not arise until the 7th and 8th centuries. The Christians living in once Roman lands and now Islamic lands were not witnesses to the resurrection. Christians living in the 600s or 700s CE do not bear witness to the truth of religious claims. 8. The term “Christian” was not used until the early second century. Acts and I Peter were written in the second century and they use the term. However, no New Testament writing written in the first century uses the term “Christian”. The host seems to have a bias against public health and churches trying to protect the lives of their congregants. What does he have against COVID-19 restrictions? Does he not realize that COVID-19 killed over a million Americans? It was the deadliest disease since the Spanish flu in 1918. I wonder since the host has a inability to understand public health, can he really be trusted to understand arguments against the resurrection of Jesus?
Dismissing Joseph Smith's martyrdom with "he just wanted to get laid", is actually the answer to why the Apostles did the same thing. They wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire AND the Sanhedrin-led Judaism of the time. To that end, they found that the idea of Christianity would be useful. At that time, the belief eliminated the priestly class as interceder for Jews to reach God. And naturally, it was also useful in taking on the polytheism of Rome, with its Greco-influenced gods who were capricious or even cruel...with a singular "loving and caring God", while also incorporating many Greco Roman myths...like the demi-god born of a virgin, the god who could resurrect himself, and the god who could turn water into wine. To overthrow the Sanhedrin and the Roman Empire....wouldn't a zealous person perhaps "fudge" things a bit. After all, as Christians themselves say, without the Resurrection, Christianity falls apart. The Apostles would have known that.
There is no evidence that the aim of the disciples was to overthrow the Roman empire. They never believed that, nor did Jesus tell them to do that. Furthermore, all roman historians in the 1st and 2nd centuries that mention the early Christian movement agree that they spread the teachings of Jesus, and had absolutely nothing to do with beginning uprisings of any kind.
@mashah1085 Romans 13, read it and you'll be confused lol! So the disciples want to overthrow Rome, but tell the church in Rome to obey the government? Very interesting...
🤦This flies in the obvious fact that one of the main reasons the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus was because they wanted a messiah who would overthrow the roman empire so it doesn't make any sense that if they wanted to overthrow the roman empire they would want to overthrow the sanhedrin as well does it
@@endersdragon34 They don’t have “evidence”. They have conjectures and assumptions. Evidence is the Magdalene papyrus fragment dated to around 64 AD by papyrology techniques. See Carsten Peter Thiede. Conjecture is saying that the gospels had to be written after 70 AD because Jesus predicted the temple would be destroyed in 70 AD, and since nobody can predict the future, the gospel must have been written after 70 AD. Yeah, that’s the kind of crap that your beloved “scholars” foisted off as science lolol. Comprende mi amigo?
It seems a pretty peculiar position for Singer as this same objection could be used for the Old Test, if indeed a bible alone angle is pursued..of course I would neither expect that nor question either Testament. As Trent mentioned most of the martyrdom texts & prophecies, if using scripture, but I think theres an extremely strong case for it & Saint Stephen should immediately come to mind. The danger of the times which seems to be more brutal under Nero vs the end of the 1st into the 2nd cent, presents a strong case & historical documents outside of scripture such as reveals the necessity of the Church. Unfortunately we see even today, Jihadist Muslims for example, willing to & dying for their beliefs...but of course commit evil in the process while Christians sacrifice out of love & refusal to deny our only Master & Lord. A true born from above believer has the courage for this holy faith, unfortunately unbelievers do not know of such faith & sacrifice
Listening to Trent take apart people's arguments with such patience and precision is truly a gift. I myself have little patience for others who spent such a tremendous amount of time and effort to try and dismantle the claims of Christianity and don't stop to ask what is the point of that task?
Christianity claims it is true, as do Islam, and other religions. They impact how people live their lives. For example the moral standards we should adopt and the laws we should pass, and sometimes how people vote. So, it is important to challenge the truth or otherwise of theistic claims.
Christians impact society based upon their false beliefs. It's not really that hard to work out. Christianity has made you an abysmal critical thinker.
@@horridhenry9920I agree to this even as a Christian
So you think its a good thing to dismantle arguments and claims that are against Christianity but a bad thing when the same is done to claims of Christianity? Hypocritical much?
@timeshark8727 some actions have profound importance, some are pointless. To answer your accusation, not guilty. Again Trent is a really charitable guy, I wish I could give people as much benefit of the doubt, but I just see a bunch of rebellious minds posing as intellectual curiosity. It's all fun and games until people end up in hell.
Apart from the Holy Gospel, the evidence for God is everywhere, one just has to seek it.
Just open your eyes and look around! Evidence is everywhere!
Proof is subjective.
@@jackieo8693 yeah child cancer is fantastic evidence
You don't even have to "seek it", it's staring you in the face, you just have to open your eyes.
Which God?
seconds ago I googled "what do secular historians think about the apostles' martyrdom" and immediately after i closed that tab i opened youtube and saw that this video which was posted today was in the number one spot of my recommended
"Marty's Gutenberg files from the first century till 1830" google that more information for your history about the apostles and the rest who suffered, and who was front and centre of the barbarism.
Google owns your life
God did that btw
@@gabri41200 Submit to the algorithm
It’s a miracle!
So, let me get this straight, Trent. The same people calling the Bible "unreliable" now pretend that if something is not found in the same Bible, then it's decisively false. Give me a break!🙄
That's...not the argument. At all.
@@Gumbi1012 Yet, if the accounts of martrydom were found in the Bible, I would bet skeptics would simply default to an argument from unreliability
In other words, the presence or absence of martyrdom accounts in the Bible have no real bearing on whether or not a person will believe them
@@TheMadman911xx you're misrepresenting the argument. The argument presumes that (for other reasons) that the New Testament documents are generally theological, not intrinsically historical documents.
They contain historical information, absolutely, but they are not necessarily historical records like those of Josephus for example.
Therefore any claims of martyrdom would have to be considered under that rubric if found in the New Testament.
@@julywestt5277 so if it's not unreliable why don't you believe in the Resurrection?
That immediately popped into my head during the Singer bit. Why should I be limited to the Bible in order to point to an Apostle, etc. who was martyred for his belief? I don't believe in Sola Scriptura.
I'm not a Roman Catholic, but this was very well done.
Trent is not a Roman Catholic either. He’s Byzantine Catholic
@@lucidlocomotive2014 Eastern Catholics are in full and complete union with Rome. This distinction is based solely on rite.
@@jurajjuricic5286 Interesting. Didn't know either of these things.
@@lucidlocomotive2014No one is a Roman Catholic. They are Latin Rite Catholics.
@@lucidlocomotive2014So Orthodox?
God bless you Trent. I was already a Catholic when I heard about you but you solidified my faith. Thank you
This was one of the arguments that led me to become Christian a couple of months ago. Thanks for defending it so well, Trent!
What, arguments led you to Christianity? Did you see any evidence? Did Jesus show up.
Praise God!
Praise God 🙏 I hope you are now here with us brother if not keep looking into the Catholic faith
@@angelalemos9811 I am in Formation as we speak in a very blessed FSSP parish (so the Formation is *solid*). Blessings to you 🙏
oh my, I'm so sorry that you were mislead into a religion
One of the most compelling arguments for the resurrection
And one of the easiest to refute.
@@ramigilneas9274go on then.
@@SuperballsSupervidsOnYT are you a Morman?
@endersdragon34 I'm morman than most men.
@@ramigilneas9274 i too want to see your argument
Ever time I learn something new. Love your work and your books!!
It was just last night I saw a video on my feed where a Christian and atheist were debating the resurrection and the atheist used the exact line you referenced about the 9/11 hijackers. Thank you for providing a real in depth retort to this counter point. God bless you and the work you do
The motives of the 9/11 hijackers is totally different then the early Christians. Believing your getting 100 virgins or whatever to kill people isn't the same as allowing people to kill you for your belief in Jesus. It's the exact opposite.
So if 20 years from now someone would write down a fancy story about how Allah himself appeared to the hijackers and explained to them that he wants them to destroy the WTC to punish the infidels then that evidence would be on the same level as the martyrdom of the disciples.
@@ramigilneas9274 Did those people ever claim and left record that Allah appeared in front of them at that exact moment and ordered them to do that? Or did they just did what they did based on what they had learned from previous believers in Islam? The point is that the original Apostles claimed they did see Jesus risen literally in front of them so much so that they could even touch him, so they left record of that in writings. The easy thing would have been to admit it was all made up so they could escape torture and prison as they were living it at that moment. They were not the ones persecuting others.
@@MiniLinlin
Well, there is no evidence that the gospels were written by any of the apostles or that those stories are based on eyewitness testimony… we don’t know what the apostles claimed or if it had anything in common with the stories of the gospels.
Like I already said…
If 20 years from know some unknown authors who don’t claim to be eyewitnesses and don’t identify their sources would write down a nice little story about Allah personally appearing to the hijackers, performing miracles for them and then ordering them to punish the infidels with no verifiable evidence whatsoever that any of that happened at all… then that would be on the same level as the gospels.😂
@@ramigilneas9274 Well, we could all be debating the reasons for the Gospels and the letters of the Apostles. But if you already think it's stupid, then I don't see the point.
Great video Trent.
Because the Christian faith makes historical claims about itself, the historical arguments are perhaps the most important arguments for Christianity, because they are the most testable. Jimmy Akin did a great job responding to Bart Ehrman's objections to the gosples being reliable (at least in the areas where it matters most) both in their last debate and on his website. However, on his website there is an objection in the comment section under the section Who Was Jesus' Grandfather that is worth making a response to.
Well done Trent! Great video.
I love watching atheist videos dunking on charismatic Christian youtubers then watching Trent meticulously tear apart all their arguments without talking down to anyone.
But he doesn't end up tearing apart anything other than the proposition that apologetics is logically sound or in the least bit convincing.
@@highroller-jq3ix I'm dumb as hell. Are you saying that he is tearing apart the proposition that apologetics is logically sound or convincing? I'm pretty sure he's on team apologist.
@@bigape8640 You're almost following! He's on team apologist, and nothing he offers here is either logically sound or convincing. Thanks for your question.
@Cameron Clark It's not logically sound that willingness to suffer for a belief is evidence of the truth of that belief. It's not logically sound to claim that if willingness to suffer were evidence of the truth of a belief that Christianity would have any special standing among the numerous fantastical and unsupported beliefs human beings have been willing to suffer for. Bad logic is never convincing to someone whose epistemology requires rationality and reason. None of the scanty evidence about Christian martyrdom is at all convincing. We know with absolute certainty that the vast, vast, vast, vast, vast majority of Catholic martyr claims are false. Thanks for asking.
@@highroller-jq3ixThat's not the argument. The argument is that their martyrdom demonstrates the apostles' sincerity. That's it.
Can't wait for the refutal of the 'hallucination', or 3rd l, hypothesis, Trent. Keep the good stuff coming! 👍
The hallucination thing is about as ridiculous as jesus actually raising from the dead
Both Peter and Paul were under arrest and had trial. They had every opportunity to recant.
The Fact that they didn't just goes to show how faithful They were to The Lord Jesus Christ 🙏
@@D.W.C935 The guy who helped bomb the World Trade Center in 1993 didn't deconvert from Islam at his trial. Therefore Islam is true.
@@redpillfreedom6692 Islam came from a Demon Who gave it to Muhammad its of The Devil.
Nero charged them with arson, can't recant from that.
@@tomasrocha6139 they were charged with arson as christians. They can deny the arson but they can not deny being christians. It was illegal to be christians then.
24:50 "this is just a bunch of semantic nonsense" 😂 Trent I love you, the right answer to petty puns that mystify the Truth
I am amazed that you are not tired for explaining and defend catholic faith.
Thank you. I pray God aways bless you.
Paul's conversion and martyrdom is a very good argument.
I actually disagree here - Paul never met Jesus ever, and he hadn't met any of the apostles at the time of his Damascus Road experience. I think that Peter's martyrdom is a better argument.
@@NontradicathPaul didn't meet Jesus? Nonsense.
@@phillipcummings3518 The Book of Acts suggests Paul's conversion on the Road to Damascus occurred 4-7 years after the crucifixion of Jesus. Jesus only hung around for 40 days after he rose, according to the Scriptures, and so, Jesus would have ascended into heaven years before Paul "met" Jesus on his way to Damascus. And then, what exactly happens on the Road to Damascus? Paul gets blinded by a great light and hears a voice. Acts 9 says "The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Paul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything." So, Paul never even saw Jesus! He heard Jesus's voice from heaven, but he never really met him.
@@Nontradicath I thought it was more commonly viewed that Paul met Jesus 1-3 years after his crucifixion. Also, Paul says that he saw Jesus in his own writings. Read 1 Corinthians 15:8, Paul records that he saw the risen Jesus just as all the other disciples had, not that he just saw a great light and nothing else. That would leave you with saying that Jesus blinded Paul after he saw Jesus and received the message to "Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do," (Acts 9:6).
@@Nontradicath Paul met Jesus twice; the first is recorded in Acts 9:3-7 (and in Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 15:8) and the other in 2 Corinthians 12:9. It isn't exactly quite right to say that Paul never met Jesus if Jesus physically talked to him twice.
❤ excellent explanation ...
Wow, I can't help but be amazed by how much time, effort, and precision you put into these videos. I am going to come back to this one.
Very convincing arguments!
Well, convincing if that means affirming confirmation bias.
@@highroller-jq3ixhow come?
@@crusaderACR Feel free--and encouraged--to pose your inquiry in a coherent and meaningful way.
Thank you Trent, and thank you for your book "Hard Sayings"
Love this, Trent! God bless, brother.
Sean McDowell wrote a book based off of his doctoral thesis, called the fate of the apostles. I think it’s a good survey of the available information to separate Christian exaggerations. To be honest with you, this is one of the main reasons why I believe Jesus Christ was resurrected.
Edit: I had not made it to 26:08 😊
McDowell showed what a weak and predominantly unsubstantiated "argument" it is.
So apocryphal claims about historically questionable personages convinced you. Interesting.
Paulogia did a response to this video, and also ended it with the response that he was officially extending his interest in a debate, and that you seem like an honest interlocutor. I hope to see a debate soon
Did this ever get scheduled??
Thank you Trent. I learn a great deal from your video’s. God bless🙏
Thank you for taking on that one youtuber. It's been needing to happen for awhile. He tends to make a number of historical assumptions as well in his videos that are fringe theories to say the best.
sadly this one youtuber has seen this video and made a response for it and well, Trents video does not look that good afterwards.
@@TgfkaTrichter I'm not saying Trent's argument here was the best, as he wasn't directly going up against that guy in particular. Rather using parts of his response to respond to a larger question. I will repeat what I said earlier though, that paulogia tends to take fringe historical theories etc and run with them like they're widely accepted.
@@ElessarofGondor sadly Paulogia has the bad habbit to show his sources and they seem to support him most times.
@@TgfkaTrichter Yes but he takes far too much at face value, outright rejecting things that merit a deeper dive. He makes many of the theories he proposes sound as if they are widely accepted in secular studies even when they are not, and fails to point out possible flaws in them.
@@ElessarofGondor strange. He has often scholars on his show, and by far not all of them are atheists and he discusses his ideas with them. Also note that most biblical scholars are christian and are working for religious institutes which forbid them to find out anything, that would contradict the religious dogmas even if they would find good evidence for those points and Paulogia even interacts with those guys who have to be dishonest to keep their living.
where the heck was this when I was younger!? I was an atheist like legit nihilistic absurdist, until I hit 30, and very slowly have been returning to the faith, I have found this channel has helped me with several questions that I had before,
It’s impressive that the church doesn’t take care of this.
truly thank you 🙏 you give me hope, and even tho I still struggle, your research and answers help me to believe more little by little.
Very clear explanation Trent! (as always)
Thank you Trent. Appreciate you.
I do feel quite silly that I had only relatively recently come to the realization that there were two Kings named Herod, only to now learn there were three. Thank you!
6:19 that was the most bad faith question i've ever seen from Tovia (and that's saying a lot), but it's also embarassing that the person being questioned couldn't answer, since St. Stephen's martyr is close to the very beggining of Acts.
Whaaat? A Talmudic Jew acts in bad faith?
Apostle James, brother of John Acts 12:1-2.
Yep, the whole time I kept screaming "ST. STEPHEN"
Monday mornings with a new Trent Horn vid are so cozy.
Thanks for this video. Wanted someone to address this.
Great job!
Thank you for this video.
Great video Trent!
6:43 Presupposing sola scriptura to trap the caller, very dishonest move!
I don't think it's dishonest, maybe the caller was an average American Evangelist?
Great video! Was surprised by the rabbi questioning the martyrdom of the Apostles in Scripture:
John 21:19 - Christ prophesizes that St. Peter will die to glorify God (aka: martyrdom)
Acts 12:2 - describes the martyrdom of St. James
2 Timothy 4:6-7 - St. Paul predicts his execution
Don't forget St. Stephen
Protestantism with sola scriptura does not allow Christianity to develop the fullness of its arguments. Tradition and Holy Scripture together make that possible. These two elements are based in time and space, making all aspects of the incarnation, death and resurrection of our Lord irrefutable
If I’m not mistaken, Sola Scriptura is about divine inspiration, not about historical reliability. In terms of defending the historicity of the resurrection and Jesus’ earthly ministry, even Roman Catholics aknowledge that the New Testament is a better source than the Apostolic Fathers and later Church Fathers, so they go along pretty much the same lines as Protestants when arguing about it, for the discussion is not based on whether the Bible and tradition are inspired or not (as skeptics don’t believe this) but whether the sources are historically reliable. In other words, it has nothing to do with Sola Scriptura, but with historicity criteria. That’s why you see Protestants (Habermas, Licona, Loke, Craig, Bauckham, Evans, Blomberg, Wright, Wallace, McGrew, Boyd, Eddy, the McDowells, Turek, Geisler, Bird, etc.) among the bests scholars and apologists for the resurrection and the historicity of the New Testament (even to the point where Trent himself cites in great lenghts Protestant work on the field): they do not depend on the inspiration of neither the Bible nor the tradition, but on their value as historical sources.
In other words, my take is that to believe that Protestants are somehow limited in the development of arguments in favor of the historicity of Christianity’s main claims doesn’t correspond to the actual reality of Christian academia, where the most influential and bests argumentations for Christianity from a historical perspective have been layed out by Protestants. But I’ll be glad to read to your thoughts about it! Blessings from a Protestant brother from the Dominican Republic!
@@Samuelsilva0502 brother, the apostolic fathers and later the patristic fathers are the historians of the Church. Their letters and homiles recorded and saved for the believers show a good picture of what the church was already in the first century. Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, praying with the saints, loving Mary and giving her a special position above the angels. Pagan critics like Celsius and Fronton accused Christians of cannibalism. Lucian of samosta mocks Christian be süße they venerate the saints. Celsus attacked also Mary and her virginity. Both side exchange letters and led to the birth of christian apologetics especially with Justin Martyr. We see here a picture of early Christianity looking like today's catholicism, and eastern and oriental Orthodox Churches. God bless
@@bouseuxlatache4140 I respectfully disagree, specially with the Marian dogmas, but that wasn’t my point really, I was just pointing out that contemporary and modern christian scholarship concerning the historical case for the resurrection and origins of the Christian faith is heavily influenced by Protestant scholars and apologists, who in my opinion have done a massive job in defending the faith in those points, reality which I believe no christian (roman catholic, oriental orthodox, etc.) should have problem accepting. However, when it comes to the beliefs that separate the Roman Catholic Church and Protestantism, I really haven’t studied how the early churh perceived and practiced those beliefs, so there’s really not much I can comment there. However, guiding myself from some impressions I have gotten from videos of protestants with much more experience on the topic, I believe the early church wasn’t that one sided to modern roman catholic dogmas as some catholics think, specially when talking about the institution of the Pope, and the Marian Dogmas (as I pointed out before); and of course considering that reformers actually citted Church Fathers, specially Saint Augustine (the most important and influential theologian of the medieval Catholic Church), to back up their claims. Still, it’s a topic that I have on my study list, so that could be an interesting conversation later. But what are your thoughts?
Imagine having a career based on disproving God, who you believe doesn’t exist.
But belief in whom causes harm to others. I don't need to believe in Leprechauns who tell people to burn things to want to refute them if things keep getting burnt
So like missionairies in non christian countries?
@@endersdragon34you understand that without this god, women would be sub human if not married, they wouldnt be able to run for governament, you wouldnt be Able to oposse religion, you wouldn t have universities, the scientific method, human rights, slavery abolisment, Yes the british did it for 400 years, but its a pratice for god knows how long in africa and the arab slave trade whose existed for 1300 years before christian nations force end it, if it wasant for christianity our world would be centuries behind
Some people argue that Jesus and the apostles never even existed! Insanity runs rampant!
If you have evidence that the Bible figure known as Jesus existed, provide it.
However, it is an absolute fact that there is literally no contemporaneous evidence that Jesus ever existed.
Paul made up the Jesus fiction in 48 AD after the Daniel 9:25 prophesy failed to fulfill.
Shouldn't we expect that if God was walking around town for thirty years that the locals would have noticed?
Fun fact: none of the Gospel authors witnessed Jesus.
There is literally no contemporaneous evidence that Jesus existed.
The only Bible author who claimed to have seen Jesus is Paul who asserted that he met him in a vision and described Jesus as being only a bright light. Paul actually stated that his sources were non-human, "...the gospel I preached is not of human origin." (Galatians 1:11-12). Paul further asserted that Jesus selected him alone to speak for him (Acts 9:15): "Paul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to kings as well as to the people of Israel." In Romans 1:16 Paul reveals that no other gospels existed at the time, "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ."
The Jesus story began in 48 AD with the first of the Pauline Epistles (which comprise nearly half of the New Testament books) when Paul realized the Daniel 9:25 prophesy of a messiah expired without fulfilling so he made one up decades later and set the story decades in the past matching Jewish expectations of the messiah to make the prophesy seem true.
The fulfillment of the Daniel 9:25 prophecy written in 444 BC was the test of the true messiah. By 48 AD it was known that the prophecy of a messiah coming in "seven weeks and threescore and two weeks" had not occurred on the prophesied date. It was the 69th Week and the 70th Week was soon to come. The prophesied messiah was expected and the anticipation set off a messiah craze.
"Seven weeks and threescore and two weeks" is, 7 plus 60 plus 2 equals 69 total weeks. One prophetic week equals seven biblical years of 360 days (the Julian calendar was created centuries later), so 7 times 69 equals 483 total biblical years beginning with Artaxerxes' decree in 444 BC. Those 483 biblical years equal 173,880 days, or 476 Julian years. Therefore the Messiah would come and be "cut off" in AD 33. One prophetic week equaling seven Biblical years is something “Daniel” invented in about 165 BC, effectively an admission that Jeremiah 25:11-12 failed.
Paul made up the entire Jesus story and added historical figures, locations, and events to add authenticity.
In the Galatians "road to Damascus" conversion vision tale written in 48 AD he claimed to have gone to the Arabian desert to study the Old Testament for 17 years to align with the Daniel 9:25 prophecy.
Paul's goal was to garner support for the insurrection against the Romans which began in 46 AD led by two brothers, Jacob and Simon, in the Judea province. The revolt, mainly in the Galilee, began as sporadic insurgency until it climaxed in 48 AD when it was quickly put down by Roman authorities. Both Simon and Jacob were executed.
He created the fiction of having witnessed the risen messiah. He wanted to show that the messiah had come as prophesied but was murdered by the Romans. This was to entice the Gentiles to aid in the Jews' rebellion against the Romans.
@@EvilXtianity Have you watched the video mate! Would be much worth the effort and time if you watch the video. Rather than using/(wasting) your time and the the time of readers, by providing false arguments. Have a good listen to the video
@@brandonp2530
This isn't complicated; if you have evidence that Jesus existed, provide it.
However, it is an absolute fact that there is literally no contemporaneous evidence that Jesus ever existed.
None.
@@EvilXtianity the Talmud, Josephus, Tacitus, Mara bar-serapion, Pliny the younger, all talk about Jesus. Tacitus In Annuls 15.44, he explicitly talks about Jesus, during his writings on Emperor Nero. He talks first about the Christian sect before then mentioning: “… Christus, the founder of the name, was put to death by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea in the reining of Tiberius. This comes from an enemy of Christendom so has no reason to match the biblical account. The Babylonian Talmud In Sanhedrin 43a, it recounts how Jesus led many Jews astray. The Sanhedrin wanted to have him stoned and, on the eve of Passover, Jesus was Crucified. The line “But, not having found anything in his favour” also suggest that a trial happened. This is all in line with what we are told in the Gospels. Josephus talks about both Jesus his death and resurrection and also in antiquities talks about John the Baptist being beheaded by Herod. Mara bar-Serapion is noted for a letter he wrote in Syriac to his son, who was also named Serapion. The letter refers to the unjust treatment of “three wise men”: the murder of Socrates, the burning of Pythagoras, and the execution of “the wise king” of the Jews. Mara is believed to have been a monotheistic pagan. Pliny the Younger, the Roman governor of Bithynia et Pontus, wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan around 112 AD and asked for counsel on dealing with Christians. He remarks on how they “sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god.
Also scholars don’t agree that Jesus never existed, neither did rabbis then or now. No one thinks he was made up and to say so is idiotic. You can disagree he is messiah or god, but to act like he never existed isn’t even on the table
Hello Trent and God bless you. You said that some Atheists say that also those who died during 9/11 ( the terrorists ) are also martyrs because they died for what they think is true, so the Atheists ask, does this mean that Islam is true? I humbly answer as did Saint Thomas Aquinas answered about Martyrdom, that a Martyr is someone who is killed performing an act of virtue and not someone who dies performing an act of vice. The Christian Martyrs died out of love for justice and Truth, and not because they hated anyone. The terrorists died hating and killing ( they are not martyrs ). What do you think? Thanks
You didn't ask me, but this is the internet. It seems Christians and atheists have two different definitions of the word. I've only ever known the word to mean "someone who dies/is killed for his/her beliefs." To me, your definition has unnecessary prerequisites.
@@lordfarquaad8601 No. When the word 'martyr' is used commonly, it is used to describe 'someone who was killed (at the hands of someone or something) or died for their belief'. There is a distinction between someone who is executed for their belief as the 21 Coptic Christians by Libyan Islamic militants this year versus someone who drives a car (or flying planes into buildings) packed with explosives into al-Zahraa mosque in Balad Ruz in 2015. The word always had this context baked in, that you might be tempted to say otherwise is disingenuous.
@@alisterrebelo9013
"1. One who chooses to suffer death rather than renounce religious principles.
2. One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle.
3. One who endures great suffering.
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition"
Maybe the 2nd and 3rd definitions are more recent ones, but they're ones I've always understood to be true. You can use the dictionary to look up "disingenuous" as well, since you clearly don't know what the word means.
@@lordfarquaad8601 Comprehension is clearly not your forte.
I clearly stated the commonly understood (as opposed to Dictionary definition) is as I described it. I chose to go this way because that's how you presented your initial argument in terms of how the word is commonly understood.
Now you want to tap dance your way to dictionaries, sure, lets do it. Why did you omit the rest of what the American Heritage Dictionary says? Why did you exclude the following:
r.v. mar·tyred, mar·tyr·ing, mar·tyrs
1. To make a martyr of, especially to put to death for devotion to religious beliefs.
2. To inflict great pain on; torment.
Do you see any indication or context of the martyr killing anyone in the process of their martyrdom in those examples or definitions even including the text you provided?
Now from Merriam Webster, the etymology
is Middle English, from Old English, from Late Latin, from Greek martyr-, martys witness. First Known Use before the 12th century. A martyr killing someone else in the course of their martyrdom cannot be argued to sit within the same definition.
The definitions you presented are clearly indicating death of the martyr comes from an external source, not at their own hand which would be suicide. And where are you getting this idea from that the definition of martyr can include the said martyr killing others in the process of their martyrdom?
I was wrong, disingenuous would imply that you actually know something, but you clearly don't.
@@alisterrebelo9013Concerning common usage, I described how I'd always heard the word "martyr" to be used. You offered your own understanding of how the word is used, and then accused me of being disingenuous, as if I was deliberately omitting your definition from my own. I wasn't; I typed "martyr" into Google and copied the three definitions offered. I didn't exclude anything, and I didn't omit the first definition, I just didn't mention it, since the point of my response wasn't to deny your definition of the word, but to backup my own. The idea of someone killing others in the process of their martyrdom isn't explicitly excluded from any definition of the word. Your definition might be a more proper one than mine, but the 2nd and 3rd definitions I provided do not omit the plane hijackers, or the self-immolating monk. This goes back to common usage of the word but arguing any further seems fruitless as you seem to think I'm an idiot and/or a liar.
It's one thing to die for something you believe in, and it's another thing to die for a lie of your own invention.
Indeed that would be a strange thing. Care to prove your unsubstantiated claim, how was the NT was fabricated?
How about we see the full picture? It's one thing to die for something you believe in. It's something to die for a belief based on visions/dreams of a risen Christ. It's something substantial to die for this Jesus person across time, geography, gender (Joan of Arc). You don't have to believe, but to insinuate insanity is disingenuous.
Great point on people who pursue petty power wanting to avoid punishment. Those are eople who just go with the flow and refuse to stand for anything to get status. They promote what they promote because they know there is no risk. You can push false narratives about the risky sex lives of lgbt and decriminalizing giving stds, you can push abortion even sometimew until after birth and euthanasia without being fired from a major corporation and thrown out of polite society while being even a lukewarm Christian and spreading your beliefs there is a huge risk.
I find at every level people have tried to tear down Christianity. They say "Jesus wasn't real, the Apostles weren't real, they didn't really go here or there or do this and that, they weren't really martyred, Jesus didn't perform miracles, he was never crucified, he was never resurrected, if he did exist he was more likely 3 or 4 different guys and etc."
Here's the thing about it: I have faith and confidence, not just in God and in Christ, but in the Church and in Christians. This has been going on for 2000 years, Christianity itself around for about 1900ish years. In that time a great deal of people have gotten hold of the teachings of Christ and later the bible. Christians for thousands of years have had the willingness to not just die for Christ, but suffer for him too. He has been genuinely embraced by those of every stripe, from lowest to highest, the most intelligent to the least intelligent. The bible has been read over and over and over and over and over in countless languages by those who devote their entire life's work to taking apart and understanding the bible piece, by piece in autistic detail. Mind you as well, not even JUST by Christians, secular scholars too and my personal favorite was when the bible was brought before the Emperor of China in the 7th Century and the guy read it over and had his advisors read it over and they were like "yeh, this is solid work, we are going to allow you to set up your Church in China and preach here."
There is nothing that can convince me otherwise because I have read enough and have seen enough with my own eyes to know Jesus Christ was not just a real God-man, who came and performed miracles, died for our sins and came back after 3 days, thus proving everything in the old testament doing so but that most importantly what he taught was right. That's the thing about all of these guys that try to tear down Christ and his Church. They try to tear down Christianity as a blatant lie that has caused suffering and hardship around the world, but they have never and could NEVER attack Jesus Christ directly. They could never say "What Jesus Christ taught was wrong" because it isn't, there is no arguing with the King of Kings
6:25 St. Stephen
There, easy-peasy.
He wasn’t an eyewitness
Very well done! God bless
Greetings Trent I am a Protestant Christian but I do believe in the maintainance of important traditions such as Communion and Genuinely Hope That Catholics and Protestants can One day reunite as a single Church and Body of Christ Have a Terrific day Friends 👋 🙏
I’d add Peter to the list at 7:50. John 21:19 mentions the fulfillment of Jesus’ prediction of Peter’s death.
2 Peter also mentions that Peter is about to be put to death.
Acts 7:54-60 Outlines a person executed for his belief in Jesus.
I find it funny that the guy says a single source and the bible tells me so argument, but the Bible itself is a collection of different sources and books. So having multiple books in the bible is in itself multiple sources. Meanwhile we have I think only one story on the battle of Troy, well turns out that became true and is now proven in archeology. We have only one source on many historical events that receive far less criticism
Great point
I would personally argue that a collection of books that is altered without original source material for a majority of it becomes one source, especially with prior knowledge between specific writings and with the canon being hand picked by people who already believe it centuries later. However, Paul is generally very picky with the "for the bible tells me so" jingle. He uses it when claims are made based on a SINGLE biblical source, kind of as an easy way to flag something with "accept with caution", not directly as a way to refute it. Paul has to be the most kind hearted and thoughtful athiest with a youtube channel I've ever seen. He's very smart, attentive to sources, does his research and talks to experts on subjects. Very much worth the watch.
Hey, idk who’s gonna see this, but I’m going to try to evangelize to my friend who’s more or less agnostic (but I think he may be somewhat partial toward Christianity). I’m a cradle catholic so I don’t understand the perspective of a convert/potential convert all that well. Can anyone help me out a bit?
You're already on the right track by being a friend. Make sure you prioritize being a good friend over winning an argument. If you're not already praying for your friend's conversion, start doing that immediately. Like right now, offer a quick prayer for your friend before you read the next sentence. Before you can really engage with your friend's ideas, you have to understand them. So when you start asking questions, do so with the intention to understand more than the intention to start an argument. Past that, be prepared to answer questions, and if you don't know, then just say you don't know and look up the answer later.
God bless you! - Kyle
Being a friend is definitely a leg up. Hes much more likely to listen to you even without formal argumentation, so take it slow and God will water the seed you plant. To start, I would ask him questions to see if the barrier is in the mind or in the heart, if that makes sense.
Just use the typical christian tactics, use emotion instead of pure reason
@@gabri41200even if u are given a reason. U wont believe anyway.
@@aerolanz2512 nope, if someone gives a solid reasoning for god, and it holds, ill believe.
Hey Trent really love watching your videos can you do a video on Shellenbergs mom resistant non belif?
Hi Trent, I've noticed what I think may be a problem with your argument about accepting mundane claims. You say that evidence from the Bible about people being persecuted for their faith should be accepted even without corroboration because it is a mundane event, which would be typical to accept in ancient sources. That's true, but I would say people suffering for their faith *because they saw with thier own eyes a miracle* is no longer mundane. Thus I think an opponent might say the claim isn't actually mundane because of the ultimate context.
For example, I would be very likely to believe an uncorrobrated account of a Roman official visiting Egypt since that would be mundane. However, if the only probable reason that official would have visited Egypt was because of knowledge of the future, I would want corroborating accounts or other evidence.
Personally, I think that corobrating evidence is found in First Clement, which as an internal church letter from the first century by Pope Clement, would be from someone well placed to know the story to a group of people who would also know it, and among whom it would be hard to lie about if Paul or Peter had recanted. The fact he only says at the beginning of the passage and doesn't explicitly repeat it for both is not in my opinion significant.
Excellent video.
"the apostles were motivated from having any authority at all"
I don't know, that statement sounds like projecting in my opinion
Exactly, like they're all of his same condition
What was not mentioned is that in the case of James, the brother of Jesus, we have extra biblical attestation form a non Christian. The ancient Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus, records the martyrdom of James . That's what I would have answered Rabbi Toviah Singer.
Paulogia says being a preacher is a reward itself therefore it is wrong to say that the apostles has nothing to gain to believe in risen Christ because they became preachers. Paulogia is not only preaching, he is even earning money and has youtube fans. (Psychological projection?)
That's true lol...
When I heard that argument I was genuinely curious on how ppl could find that convincing.
Do ppl think that humans would be fine getting stoned, insulted, etc just for the sake of preaching?
And it's not only them the ppl around them who got martyred before them, do the apostles not have any kind of sympathy?
In conclusion, the apostles in their minds are a group of evil, heartless, and smart?
Could anyone explain to me why Trent says that when skeptics argue that muslims willing to die is missing the point, but he also includes Paul, shouldn't he for the sake of consistency discard Paul as well because somehow including him would be also missing the point?
Paul's life got worse because of his upheld beliefs in Jesus, so he counts. He went from being a respected member of jewish society worthy of being given special missions by the Sanhedrin to a preacher that would get beat up many times, who had to do leatherworking for a living and had to undergo the dangerous and uncomfortable endeavor of travelling.
Don't forget that Paul was actually a Martyr. Those terrorists are kamikaze, which is willing to commit suicide for any cause. Just because they both end up in death, doesn't mean that they are the same thing
Hey doll put down your trombone and let’s hang with Mr. Horn
Jokes aside I love these videos. 💯 info for people who want to live and share their faith.
My therapist :Trent Saxophone doesn't exist, he can't hurt you
Trent Saxophone: ...
@@hogandonahue9598 - 🎺💀
Dr. Travis Horn and Dr. Johnny Atkins from Johnny Atkins Mysterious Land are two of my favorite males around! I can’t wait to see them do another new crossover!
It's ironic to think that jews say that the apostles saw hallucinations or imagined it but they don't apply that same metric to any of the visions presented in the old testament 🤔🤔
Nor does Trent or his audience when it happens in modern times. Certainly ironic. 🤔
@@HaleStorm49huh? He believes in Marian apparitions, what are you talking about?
Hi Trent. Great video. My question is, how does the martyrdom of the apostles differ in sincerity from the martyrdom of early mormons/LDS members, including those who claimed to be witnesses or were higher-ups in the church?
Yeah, don't expect to get an answer to this.
Do you watch the video ?
9:04
can you make a video defending the empty tomb argument?
In the “sincerely mistaken” video, you should address the cognitive dissonance argument, which says that because the apostles devoted so much of their life to following Jesus, it’s possible they only CHOSE to believe in the resurrection bc admitting they were wrong would be admitting they gave up so much for a lie
Except the Gospel story shows the opposite until the resurrection
@@phillipcummings3518 what do you mean
@@ethanwork764 The Apostles are portrayed as being somewhat cowardly, vain and blind to the power and message of Jesus. They are shown demoralized, confused and hiding from their fellow Jews. But, somehow the belief in the risen Christ spread to become a world-wide belief. The argument is that the Apostles/disciples didn't realize til after the resurrection that they were supposed to believe and preach it, which is odd either way, but they weren't steeped in the belief til the end.
All the apostles betrayed Jesus before the resurrection. They did not even believe he would come back.
So none of them were in a position to martyr themselves when they didn’t believe themselves. In fact most were ready to flee to avoid confrontation with the authorities.
So something happened between the time when Jesus died to them deciding they would die to spread the gospel. And financial gain and fame were not the rewards as they all lead materially poor lives in their ministry and were outcasts from Jewish society.
The gospel explains why they chose martyrdom.
Your theory of mistaken belief doesn’t hold water as it would require at minimum the apostles and the other disciples who followed Jesus to believe he resurrected. Doubting Thomas shower quite clearly that hearing Jesus had risen from other apostles who they trusted was not enough… they had to see with their own eyes.
And how Paul learned the teachings of Christ that was the same as the others when he was not there but was catechized years after Christ rose …. A Pharisee if good standing with a good future choosing to throw it all away for martyrdom, poverty and being tormented …. That doesn’t add up logically with your thoughts.
There's an even simpler theory: the martyrdoms are part of the fictional story. They "died for a lie" because the deaths are also part of the lie.
Might we not infer that Stephen could have been among the 500 disciples who to whom the risen Jesus appeared? Though not stated directly, its a reasonable suspicion, I think.
Wow! From sola scriptura to extrabiblical resource requirement. Damn if your reference is extrabiblical, damn if your reference is only the bible. How devilish.
At this point it’s why Sacred Tradition is also important.
@@lukebrown5395 good thing we have Sacred Tradition and historical references.
@@pemcortes9467 tradition helps put the pieces together that isn’t scripture. St Matthews death isn’t in scripture.
Wait a second... that's a good point. I hadn't noticed this but it's kinda sneaky.
Great video
As a Mormon, anytime Christian apologists address Joseph Smith and the gold plates it's always a very superficial analysis that engages in lots of special pleading.
Yeah, nothing against this guy, I think he's doing good work for the cause of Christianity, but I could barely keep my eyes from rolling when he cited View of the Hebrews as Joseph's source for the Book of Mormon. The parallels are superficial at best. Of significant note is the fact that nobody at the time the Book of Mormon was published seemed to notice these supposedly "obvious" parallels. None of his critics seemed to have considered that as a likely source, otherwise they would've piled onto it. Using the View of the Hebrews theory just indicates a failure to look into the matter with much effort.
But honestly, while I do think that the Hell that Joseph Smith was put through in life for his beliefs is an indicator of his sincerity, the more impressive witness in my opinion is the testimony of the 3 witnesses who testified that an angel showed them the plates and told them that Joseph translated them through the gift and power of God, and the testimony of the 8 witnesses who testified to have handled the plates with their own hands and examined them thoroughly (astute readers will note that that makes 11 official witnesses of the gold plates, just as there were 11 apostolic witnesses to the risen Christ). Granted, the 3 and 8 witnesses weren't martyred for their beliefs, but plenty of them were put through great hardship for their testimony, and some were threatened with death if they didn't deny it. Additionally, many of the witnesses were later alienated from the church and estranged from Joseph, with plenty of hard feelings between them. At no point after leaving the church did they ever deny their testimony. Indeed, they affirmed their testimony multiple times while still out of the church (some returned later in life, some didn't), insisting that they had seen and/or handled the plates. They didn't stop believing that Smith had translated the plates through the power of God, they just believed that Joseph had become a fallen prophet who could no longer be relied upon to lead the church, some reasons of this being the introduction of plural marriage and that incident with the bank and the financial hardship it caused. So a fair look at the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon would've addressed these matters and much more, though to be fair, to truly do it justice would take multiple lengthy videos.
Edit: Can't believe I didn't remember that Hyrum Smith was one of the 8 witnesses and was killed alongside Joseph, so there's one martyr for the testimony of the gold plates. And he didn't have to be there. He wasn't the one arrested. He accompanied Joseph Smith willingly, and both of them seemed fairly certain that they would die. If he wasn't truly sincere about his testimony of seeing and handling the gold plates, why did he willingly put himself in harms way to stand by that testimony, and to stand by his brother whom he full heartedly believed as a prophet. Now, that's not to say that it's true because Hyrum thought so, it's simply to say that Hyrum was sincere in his claims.
For this purpose, however, the Catholic is correct, Smith was a political leader, he gained wealth and power from his religious following, he more resembled Muhammad than Jesus or the apostles. For evidential purposes, you don't need to believe in a religion in order to be willing to fight for political power.
For this purpose, however, the Catholic is correct, Smith was a political leader, he gained wealth and power from his religious following, he more resembled Muhammad than Jesus or the apostles. For evidential purposes, you don't need to believe in a religion in order to be willing to fight for political power.
@@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts Smith didn't become a political leader until the Nauvoo period and that was after he sought redress for his people at the local, state, and federal levels with no success. His political career was sought near the end of his life and it was mainly due to his disgust with the system.
@@EcclesiastesLiker-py5tsOnly in a gross absence of knowledge would someone find the Catholic correct in this instance. There was no contrary evidence given.
Which prophet are we comparing Joseph to in terms of power and wealth? Moses, Abraham, Solomon, Samuel, Elijah?
One of the critics claims the apostals were motivated by power and authority. But the writer of Hebrews tells the hebrews to obey their leaders because they hold a position of RESPONSIBILITY for their followers, and will have to give an account of their ministry. I may be wrong, but I see my pastor and my bishop as having responsibility for me. I try to follow Hebrews and try to make their job a joy and not a burden. Hebrews 13:17. How about a riff on church hierarchy by responsibility versus power and authority?
TH your explanation starting at @9:04 is incomplete at best and intentionally misleading at worst. Here are a couple examples:
1. The book you quoted shares a similar thesis (That various groups of “Native” Americans descended from various groups of Hebrews that were led to the American continent) It makes a compelling case that portions of the NA languages, their monetary systems, their traditions, and even their manner of worship share similarities with Old testament covenant Israelites. It _does NOT_ tell basically the same story. This is 100% incorrect. The most obvious deduction is that you haven’t read either book.
2. The Apostles & Joseph Smith supported themselves while working in the ministry and leading their families. Members frequently contributed to ease their burdens. This topic is a double-edged sword since Catholic leaders do not support themselves or a family.
3. Risk/Reward - Referring to Smith as a criminal reflects your personal bias. Christ and the Apostles were seen as criminals by their religious opponents & deemed worthy of death despite committing no crime...a gruesome death is what they got. I imagine they (Jews) were able to rationalize those martyrdoms with similar dismissiveness and callousness. I"ve heard Ben Shapiro describe Christ as a Jew who tried to gain power and was killed for his trouble.
4. No such similar evidence? Here is what Smith wrote upon surrendering to authorities on trumped-up charges (more Bible parallels) _I am going like a lamb to the slaughter, but I am as calm as a summer's morning. I have a conscience void of an offense toward God and toward all men. If they take my life, I shall die an innocent man, and my blood shall cry from the ground for vengeance, and it shall be said of me, 'He was murdered in cold blood!_ This doesn’t sound like a willingness to submit to martyrdom?
-This is a man who had been attacked regularly for over a decade, tarred and feathered, had his entire town and Temple razed to the ground, and after His martyrdom did not accomplish its objective...a law was passed that it was legal to kill a Mormon on-site in Missouri (Order 44 - not to be confused with order 66) and your argument is that he was an unwilling martyr because he attempted to defend himself while being shot at by a mob…after he was promised protection by the governor if he surrendered willingly.? Honestly Trent I hope you are just unfamiliar with the subject matter and not as maliciously negligent as your description of events makes you appear.
5. Smith meets all three of your evidences for sincerity. The Apostles suffered and risked martyrdom not just for their belief in the resurrection but because they were actual witnesses of it. Prophets are not without honor except in their own country. Most suffer a similar fate in life and will share a similar reward.
Sadly Paulogia has the high ground here. It's human nature to instinctively dismiss evidence that takes you in the opposite direction of where you want to go.
Please, Trent, make a video scrutinizing MythVision,
I put up all kinds of defences of belief in God, but the MythVision folk ignore them.
I’m a Catholic, but the “Who would die for a lie?” is a pretty bad argument. Who would die for a lie? A lot SS members that knew the regime was lying when the war was already lost in the 1940’s, but the NAZI portrayed a victorious scenario; a lot of first responders in the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, who willingly accepted the lie of the USSR that falsely claimed that the area was hospitable for rescuers, but they died helping their comrades. In a lot of cases people are willing to die for a lie, both for good and bad reasons. Faith either you have it or don’t, you can’t. The god of the philosophers, historians and pseudo-Christian-scientists is not the God of Abraham and if you try to prove God through those means, you’re delusional… the real problem with this argument is that you’re doing a lot of mind reading and assuming that the people who died spreading the gospel, died for that gospel, but that is impossible to determine. Only God truly know someone’s heart.
Which lie is your manual cinematic pickings ?
Sean McDowell is pretty on point here:
the evidence for martyrdom is shaky. Even where we can reasonably assume an apostle was killed for his faith, there is no record he had the chance to recant.
I think they were sincere believers, but that doesn't make their beliefs true.
After all, the followers of Arius also died for their beliefs.
Why are so many you guys trying to refute an argument without even listening to it?
People like St Paul had absolutely no reason to join Christianity since he himself was fighting its spread. All these early Christian martyrs KNEW that they would be killed but yet they died despite being a position to know the truthfulness of their claims.
You mentioning Arius and his followers is a good evidence for my claim that you didn't even listen to the argument. Arius and his followers were not in a position to know the truthfulness of their claims.
@@ultron3693
Why do you think Paul had no reason?
And why wouldn't Arius change his mind? Isn't this evidence for the truthfulness of his faith?
Paul had no earthly reason to switch sides since he had acquired power as a persecutor of Christians. Additionally, he was a student of the powerful and respected rabbi Gamaliel.
Arius wouldn't "change his mind" possibly because he was not threatened with physical punishment!
He was excommunicated spiritually at the Council of Nicaea, but was likely not worried. He died years later of natural causes.
For years Arius could and did influence the Empire and the Church. (Indeed, he died even as the Emperor Constantine demanded that the bishops of the Church should readmit him to communion).
Emperor Constantine's sons became Arian and began supporting Arians and persecuting Catholic Christians, until the Emperor Julian left Christianity entirely and began persecuting all types of Christian indiscriminately.@@gergelymagyarosi9285
@@gergelymagyarosi9285 Arius was in a position where Christianity was legal aka not persecuted?
St. Paul got no reason to join a weird jewish sect believing in a crucified Messiah.
@@LorenzoPelupessy
Where did you get the idea that Paul joined a weird sect?
Accepting Jesus as the Messiah did not require to join Peter.
And BTW, what has the legality of Christianity to do with why Arius didn't change his mind?
What is the likelihood that St. Thomas went to India?
When someone robs a bank, they take a large risk of being shot dead by the police or security, or at the very least being locked away in a prison where, depending on what country they're in, they'll be set to spend years living in torturous conditions and being abused and potentially killed by prison staff or other prisoners. Whatever the reason the apostles could have had for spreading Jesus' message, their actions allowed this message to be spread even after their deaths, and the same cannot be said for a bank robber who has zero chance of achieving anything with the money they stole because they're dead. What does that tell you?
Or for a closer example, we have much better evidence for the persecution and martyrdom of Joseph Smith than any of the apostles. We know for a fact that he was persecuted specifically because of his religious claims and he even directly compared his own suffering to Paul's. Does that mean Joseph Smith really did sincerely believe that he was appointed to be a prophet by God and given golden tablets by an angel that he translated into the Book of Mormon using magic stones? Maybe. Does this fact make it even a tiny bit more probable that his claims were actually true? Pretty much every christian who isn't Mormon would rightfully tell you no.
The martyrdom of Peter and Paul are alluded to in the Revelation of St. John. I was taught.
So James the brother of Jesus is some sort of step-brother even though Joseph disappears the moment Jesus is born. I love the story in Mark 3 where Jesus’ mother has heard that her son as been saying blasphemous things so “Then his mother and his brothers came, and standing outside they sent to him and called him”. Jesus them blows them off saying that his followers are his mother and brothers, not his ACTUAL mother and brothers. According to Mark, even though he had supposedly been going around doing miracles, his actual mother and brothers were not among his followers.
I should also point out that in Matthew “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.”
So unless Mary used birth control, which is opposed by the Church, she had more children.
one possibility is that the disciples saw a disembodied etheric spirit of Jesus, which proves that Jesus was allive without necessarilly necessitating a physical resurrection.
Hey vote for Pedro
Lord have mercy on the soul of the man behind the Cartoon.
Its easy to act like a source of great knowledge at a party to impress people who are more ignorant on the subject than oneself. But the know-it-all will go quiet if a true expert on the subject shows up. More so they will be very unsure in situations where turning out to be wrong is truly costly. When the stakes get higher the required veracity gets higher as well--we find out what people really have solid faith in. Such faith might be either evidence based or based on an authority that the person (rightly or wrongly) deeply trusts. In the case of the Disciples we know they must have had such faith. And we know that they were in the very best position of anyone of knowing whether Jesus was really doing miraculous things or whether it was all fakery.
I don’t know if the resurrection is real or not, but I know Trump is telling us the truth since there are enough people believe him and are willing to do his biding. Even die for him! Haleluja!
Who exactly has died for Trump? Please get yourself checked out.
Any recommended sources for investigating this topic further?
There is zero evidence the apostles died for their beliefs. Let alone for belief in the resurrection.
This argument would be compelling if we possessed the report of the Roman soldiers who were placed on guard at the tomb.
The Roman guards who were told to guard it?
It's like giving a testimony on how you failed at your job as a security guard lol!
How could you mess up guarding a tomb?
It's not like you're fighting an empire or smt 😂
The James passage in Josephus Book 20 Chapter 9 is most likely a later Christian addition. Head priest Festive Pig has died and the new head priest is out of town so his son “assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned.”
OK, what laws did this James break? Was it the heresy of breaking the first four commandments and calling his brother a god?
Well fortunately they didn’t stone James and his friends right away. Some people who thought James was a nice guy sent a message to the high priest who sent a message to the Jewish king who put a stop to it.
So apparently that is what counts for news worthy of putting in the history books. A guy is accused of unspecified crimes but is let go. Do you know what wasn’t included in the history? Paul and his buddies are going around arresting people and ACTUALLY having them stoned to death, like poor Stephen.
It doesn't matter if J Smith was telling the truth or not. By his own admiration they were given to him by an angel of light. And we all know what an angel of light is.
That is a possibility that an atheist will not admit. We have one option they don't, Demon possession.
There is no reason at all to think the disciples/first apostles existed at all. And their "willingness to suffer and die" carries no more weight than the "fact" that only 30 brave rebel pilots attacked the Death Star knowing they would almost certainly fail and be killed. Nor is it anymore compelling than Harry Potter willingly walking into the forbidden forest as a martyr knowing Voldemort would kill him. The actions of fictional characters is irrelevant. They were just recruitment tales of fictional men the apologist is just asserting were real. There is not a shred of credible evidence they ever existed.
I don't remember Paul referring to Peter as anything other than an apostle and the head of the church. Paul said that Peter had a vision of Jesus just like Paul had visions of Jesus in "the third heaven". Where does Paul ever say that Peter was the disciple of a living Jesus or saw a living Jesus? Only in the Gospels from a couple of decades later is Peter assigned the head of the "twelve".
@@humanistreformation I think one of the main reasons that Christianity spread was their view of the afterlife and how to get there. In other religions like the Greek and Norse, only the great warriors got to go hang out with the gods and be served by beautiful warrior maidens in the Elysium Fields or Valhalla. Everybody else just went to a quiet resting place, like Hades, or Sheol for the Jews. A good ploy to get people to join your army and to fight bravely.
Although probably borrowed from the Zoroastrians, along comes the Christians and now it doesn't matter who you were or what you did. Paul said that you no longer had to be a great warrior, or a good person to have a glorious afterlife in Paradise, as long as you had "faith" and worshipped Jesus, your actions were not important.
As long as you join the club, you get to go to paradise when you die and everybody else will be punished with indescribable torture for all eternity. Quite a clever sales pitch really.
Would all these apologists die for their beliefs.
Yes, but that doesn't disprove any of their arguments since their deaths would be "dying for what they think is true" not necessarily "dying for a lie or an act they kept up" for whatever reason?
@@LorenzoPelupessy l doubt it
lots of coping in the comment section by seething atheists who didnt watch the video in full
I watched it and it the argument did not get any stronger.
Hi Trent, can you help clarify something for me? I’ve been told that Catholicism does not forbid marriage to priests.
But I’ve also been told that there’s a rule in Catholicism where single Catholic priests are not allowed to get married.
Can you help me make sense of this?
Clerical celibacy is a discipline for the Roman rite of the Catholic Church. There are married eastern rite Catholic priests. This discipline doesn't rise to the level of doctrine and is something that could in principle be changed at any time if the Pope decides to do so is prudent (but probably won't). The "rule" is basically that prior to ordination in the Roman rite, you are required to take a vow of celibacy and you just won't be admitted to a seminary if you are currently already married. Disobeying this vow would be gravely sinful not as a matter of objective morality, but of obedience.
@@Chicken_of_Bristol I thought that married men could become priests but that single men aren’t allowed to be married after they become priests.
Is that not the case?
Sure. Strictly speaking, the Church does forbid priests getting married. Now, we do see many married priests in the Church, so how does that happen? Married men are allowed to become priests, but priests are not allowed to become married men.
So if a man is already married, he can still be ordained to the priesthood. However, if his wife dies before him, he's not allowed to remarry.
But does this mean that the Church forbids some people to marry? No, because absolutely no one is forced into the priesthood. So this voluntary state of celibacy is not required for any person unless they freely enter into it. Hope this helps! -Kyle
@@TheCounselofTrent So how do we reconcile this rule with passages like 1 Timothy 4:1-3?
It says, “Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.”
According to this passage, forbidding marriage is demonic.
@@FlemFlamH2 It's a fair question as it's not obvious why marriage doesnt preclude someone from entering the priesthood but it does preclude a priesthood holder from marriage.
All other things being equal it comes down to timing and or circumstance.
Some of my thoughts regarding this video:
1. I agree with the host that 21st century adherents are not evidence to the truth of religious claims.
2. There is barely any evidence for the prosecution of the apostles based on their belief in a resurrection. We only have literary evidence in Acts which does not even discuss the lives of most of the apostles. We have no way of knowing anything about the vast majority them sans Peter, John, and James, the Lord’s brother.
3. Paul, calls himself an apostle, but he did not witness the resurrection of Jesus. According him, he had a vision and God revealed Jesus inside of him.
4. Acts is not a reliable source for the lives of the apostles or for early Christianity. It contradicts most of Paul ‘s authentic letters. The same author even contradicts himself in the gospel of Luke.
5. All ancient evidence needs to be looked on skeptically, from Tacitus’ claim about Nero killing Christians to Boudicca burning Londinium.
6. The gospels are not accurate portrayals of the lives of the apostles.
7. Islam did not arise until the 7th and 8th centuries. The Christians living in once Roman lands and now Islamic lands were not witnesses to the resurrection. Christians living in the 600s or 700s CE do not bear witness to the truth of religious claims.
8. The term “Christian” was not used until the early second century. Acts and I Peter were written in the second century and they use the term. However, no New Testament writing written in the first century uses the term “Christian”.
The host seems to have a bias against public health and churches trying to protect the lives of their congregants. What does he have against COVID-19 restrictions? Does he not realize that COVID-19 killed over a million Americans? It was the deadliest disease since the Spanish flu in 1918. I wonder since the host has a inability to understand public health, can he really be trusted to understand arguments against the resurrection of Jesus?
Well, my relative uses this story to argue that "God wanted David to sin" because he's a hyper calvinist...never knew how to reply
Paulogia has a great rebuttal to this argument
Dismissing Joseph Smith's martyrdom with "he just wanted to get laid", is actually the answer to why the Apostles did the same thing. They wanted to overthrow the Roman Empire AND the Sanhedrin-led Judaism of the time. To that end, they found that the idea of Christianity would be useful. At that time, the belief eliminated the priestly class as interceder for Jews to reach God. And naturally, it was also useful in taking on the polytheism of Rome, with its Greco-influenced gods who were capricious or even cruel...with a singular "loving and caring God", while also incorporating many Greco Roman myths...like the demi-god born of a virgin, the god who could resurrect himself, and the god who could turn water into wine.
To overthrow the Sanhedrin and the Roman Empire....wouldn't a zealous person perhaps "fudge" things a bit. After all, as Christians themselves say, without the Resurrection, Christianity falls apart. The Apostles would have known that.
There is no evidence that the aim of the disciples was to overthrow the Roman empire.
They never believed that, nor did Jesus tell them to do that.
Furthermore, all roman historians in the 1st and 2nd centuries that mention the early Christian movement agree that they spread the teachings of Jesus, and had absolutely nothing to do with beginning uprisings of any kind.
@@darkwolf7740 The Judean men under Roman occupation did "not" want the Roman Empire destroyed? And what of Sanhedrin Judaism?
@mashah1085 Romans 13, read it and you'll be confused lol!
So the disciples want to overthrow Rome, but tell the church in Rome to obey the government?
Very interesting...
@@LorenzoPelupessy So the Disciples supported the Roman dictatorship?
🤦This flies in the obvious fact that one of the main reasons the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus was because they wanted a messiah who would overthrow the roman empire so it doesn't make any sense that if they wanted to overthrow the roman empire they would want to overthrow the sanhedrin as well does it
Most modern Bible scholars are as trustworthy as most modern anthropologists: not at all.
So just get rid of all the evidence you don't like?
@@endersdragon34
They don’t have “evidence”. They have conjectures and assumptions. Evidence is the Magdalene papyrus fragment dated to around 64 AD by papyrology techniques. See Carsten Peter Thiede. Conjecture is saying that the gospels had to be written after 70 AD because Jesus predicted the temple would be destroyed in 70 AD, and since nobody can predict the future, the gospel must have been written after 70 AD. Yeah, that’s the kind of crap that your beloved “scholars” foisted off as science lolol.
Comprende mi amigo?
There is a fourth option. The writings were “improved”.
Great breakdown of the flaws in this video, just released by paulogia
It seems a pretty peculiar position for Singer as this same objection could be used for the Old Test, if indeed a bible alone angle is pursued..of course I would neither expect that nor question either Testament. As Trent mentioned most of the martyrdom texts & prophecies, if using scripture, but I think theres an extremely strong case for it & Saint Stephen should immediately come to mind. The danger of the times which seems to be more brutal under Nero vs the end of the 1st into the 2nd cent, presents a strong case & historical documents outside of scripture such as reveals the necessity of the Church. Unfortunately we see even today, Jihadist Muslims for example, willing to & dying for their beliefs...but of course commit evil in the process while Christians sacrifice out of love & refusal to deny our only Master & Lord. A true born from above believer has the courage for this holy faith, unfortunately unbelievers do not know of such faith & sacrifice