It's to avoid yt taking down the video, the copyright algo for yt is ridiculous. It's yt's version of "unalived" Dan mentioned this in the video description.
@@marv-n-24 He should do what Dapper, Paulogia, PoZ, Logicked, etc do and use tools to filter it out, rather than making his content significantly worse and blowing folks' ears.
@mdm123196 oh yes I have and that's exactly what's going on. There's no such thing as a coincidence. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're not in academia are you? It's extremely cutthroat and what I said has a much higher probability than what you did
@4everseekingwisdom690 well your limb broke. I have a bachelor's and an M.Div. Nice assumption, though. Compare Dan to literally any apologist, including Wes. Dan routinely says he wants to know when he is wrong. He wants evidence to refine his views. Apologists tend to ignore evidence if it contradicts their beliefs in any way, shape, or form. And the idea that coincidences don't exist is quite the claim. If there are no coincidences, do you think a sovereign god controls everything then? That's a laughable claim, dude.
I agree with Dan on so many points. 1. Papais might not be referring to our Matthew or Mark (I'd give it 40/60) 2. Iraneaus is the first to identify the texts with the authors and doesn't give good reason why 3. There isn't good evidence that fragments before Iraneaus had titles/authors attached. On the "harmony" argument the apologist had at the end.... There is a plethora of contradictory evidence. We have many gospels of different styles, lengths, languages, theologies, and sources and some might even predate John. Just because some people eventually decided on a certain collection and attribution doesn't mean it was always destined as special.
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It's pretty obvious that Papias wasn't referring to what we call Mark or Matthew. He said Matthew was written in Hebrew, which is wrong. He said both Mark and Matthew were sayings gospels which is wrong. Beyond that, Papias wrote a ton of bonkers stuff that nobody takes seriously. Dan let him off easy.
His good reason why is that it was passed down secure apostolic tradition just like the tradition about Jesus living to be almost fifty in order to sanctify every stage of life (Against Heresies 2.22)
Xtians completely ignore that there were many different gospels/books in the first two centuries and they all claimed Apostolic authority. Papias also described two different gospels of Matthew and Mark and doesn't even mention GJohn or GLuke or Acts or Revelation and has a different version of Judas death than mentioned in our GMat or Acts. He even says GMat he knew was written in a Hebrew dialect and not in Greek like our GMatthew.
Good grief...how many ways could Judas die...was he resurrect over and over so he could continue to kill himself for eternity... WOW...man had more lives than Rasputin.. just saying
we know papias has access to the gospel of the hebrews -- associated with matthew, sayings, and probably circulating in aramaic. if i were making a guess, he's talking about that.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 Papias says "And so Matthew composed the sayings(of the lord) in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted [Or: translated] them to the best of his ability."
@@Cr-pj8bz @Cr-pj8bz Hebrews 1:10-12 is not a misquote but rather a quote of the Septuagint which itself has mistranslated the Hebrew. It is interpreted as though God is talking to a second person whos also God and attributing to him creation. Read scholsrship on this e.g. Bacon (1902) article. It is thus interpreted by Hebrews as the Father talking to the Son and attributing to him a unique feature of YHWH. Revelation 1 with Alpha and Omega and First Last are clearly divine and unique titles of YHWH. You know who else thinks this? Bart Ehrman. Look up his video on why Revelation was preserved. He thinks it was in large part due to its usefulness for the orthodox party against the Arians. He also mentions it briefly in one of his books. As for Johns the father is greater, that could be 3 things - one either the voluntary servant theology that comes down and becomes lesser like Philippians 2; it could be that it means greater functionally and not ontologically e.g. John says his disciples will do greater (same word) miracles than Jesus (greater than raising the dead??) or it could be indeed that its a trace of cognitive dissonance or another layer of tradition by John that doesnt quite fit which is a fair point. I dont know if secular scholarship agrees on either of these. But I didnt deny that the N.T. contains different Christologies. It does however contain some that indeed do equate Jesus with YHWH.
I think another notable concern here is the synoptic problem. There is significant amounts of text shared between the first 3 gospels. Not the same event recorded by 3 different observers, but a word for word duplication of the same text with little variation. It's not entirely clear if the first 3 gospels originated as 1 or 2 gospels that changed enough to be considered different works as they were copied and shared over time or as multiple different gospels that scribes attempted to synchronize.
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It could be way more complicated than that. Other than Matthew and Luke copying some form of Mark, we don't know how the gospels came together in their later forms.
Something I've seen pointed out by Kamil Gregor is that the kind of verbatim copying we see from Mark to Matthew (where over 90% of Mark is in Matthew word for word) is essentially unheard of in ancient historical writing, but common in fictitious literature and technical writing, in cases where an author is altering or rewriting an exiting text.
i still have many of my religious friends who believe the gospels were written by matthew, mark, luke, and john in that order. when you are indoctrinated at an early age old habits are hard to break.
It's also presumptuous to assume that information didn't travel very quickly in the Roman Empire. It didn't take years to get a message from Alexandria to Rome or from Lyons to the British Isles. These are established trade routes with a constant flow of goods and people.
didnt Bart Ehrman do a study about the accuracy of oral tradition and transmission? i forget his exact findings but it was along the lines of "it's not as accurate as proponents would have us believe" love your work, Dan
Look at the quasi-oral traditions that developed in less than four years over the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2001. Just peaceful tourists. Just peaceful protesters. Patriots. FBI agitators.
Bart heavily critiqued and debunked for that study by other biblical scholars and historians who were experts in oral traditions because he left out modern understanding of oral traditions
Thanks for this one Dan! I was wondering when you would get around to Wes Huff after his recent jump into the spotlight. I listened to a few of his videos and my meager knowledge of historicity of the scriptures quickly realized he is well versed in the Biblical teachings, but not so much the foundation of it. Hope to see more of your thoughts on his messages.
That’s because the apologists video has copy written background music and Dan wants to avoid the copy write strike. There’s a note in the video description.
And doesn't mention our GMat or GMark. He says Matthew was written in Hebrew and that Mark was written in short phrases and is not in order, while our has very long phrases and was written in order
@@soarel325 I don't think I know who that is - but if they're an apologist who appeals to the idea that the ancient Israelites were a 'high context society' in order to claim they 'clearly meant X despite there being no recorded evidence for X - then consider them an apt target. Personally I was thinking of IP, but let's face it, apologists are far from original.
From what I remember, Gospel of Thomas is widely accepted to have been originally written in Coptic. The earliest and most complete manuscript known to scholars is in Coptic and doesn't seem to show linguistic markers of having been a translation. Fragmentary manuscripts have been found in Greek as well, but from a later date and the style of Greek points to it being a translation from Coptic. Either way, Papias said the sayings gospel he was referring to was written in Hebrew. For me, the languages being so different is the biggest thing that leans toward excluding Gospel of Thomas from the writing Papias was talking about.
Paul referred to his ideas as a gospel. Would that be a basis for Mark or one of his readers to say “…according to Mark” to distinguish? (Paul said any gospel but his would be anathema to God.)
I thought I had heard it stated that the first verses of each Gospel, with the correct translation of the verb tenses, etc., indicate that they are actually the titles. ??
No no wait, I think this quiet creator has a point. Every Bible I’ve ever seen has the gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There’s no way they could all be wrong. R-right?
@@Dave01Rhodes Oh yeah, that's totally my point. You're view on "the bible" is whats left after they threw out or added all the parts they wanted to. Because lets face it, if you got a bible that said "Author 1" on the top of the NT, and it didn't have verse and chapter numbers you probably wouldn't buy that one. And if the "author 1" section didn't have Jesus showing himself to the disicples after his death you'd probably think they forgot a part. If nobody ever knew Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and just had some gospels loose in their library and some visitor said "That one is from Mark, traveling companion of Peter"... You'd believe them because you have nothing to contradict it. So you label it and everyone calls it Mark from now on. This happened by like 170CE, so the names certainly predate any collecting of all the books of the NT or the exclusion of other ones.
@@work3753 yeah that’s the joke. That I’m appealing to the accuracy of copies so far removed from early sources. It’s the original creator’s argument, but made far more obviously ridiculous.
What about non canonical gospels? As far as I know, they were also assigned one single authorship without variation. Is that proof that James really wrote the Protoevangelium of James or that Judas is the author of the Gospel of Judas?
*Papias’ Evidence* Papias wrote that in Mark’s gospel, Mark wrote everything he had heard. Also that -he- Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic. That doesn’t describe what we now call Mark’s (edit: or Matthew’s) gospel. Papias also wrote that he used only the words of people who spoke the truth, which seems to imply that he thought he already knew the truth and filtered out anything that he didn’t agree with.
@ Thank you. I was thinking about Mark and writing about Matthew. Brain split. I think Papias’ works are on Greek, which didn’t used the same word for Hebrew and Aramaic.
With the P1 text you showed, do we have the end as well. If not could the title be at the end, like claimed by the original author? Was this common at the time of the writing on the P1 papyrus? If i missed you stating an answer in the video, I apologize, my ADHD got the better of me for a moment and I had to write this question out before I forgot it.
I like these talks of yours. Very rarely does one come across really well thought and constructed Scholarship on the "Tube". I have a question if I may. Is it a valid or permissible to hold that all the "Gospel narratives from Immaculate conception to assertion in to heaven are entirely mythological , yet believe them ? Or perhaps. Enter into the "Myth" . and an emotional connection / relationship with the "Christ " revealed within and be led to the one "Spirit". by the risen "Christ". Take care and be good as best one can.
It seems highly plausible that if authors weren't known that at some point "fans" of the work might speculate authorship and over time create a tradition of believed authorship. Considering there are many gospels, early scholars, clergy and enthusiasts (if there even was an exclusive third category) would want a way to distinguish each gospel. It seems like the gospels are pseudepigrapha. And I would speculate that each (even beyond the canonical gospels) may have been intended to be *the* one true gospel or perhaps a sort of "yes and" or "no but" progressive amendment. The phrase "fan fiction" comes to mind.
When speaking about Irenaeus and Papias being *our* earliest surviving references to authors of the gospels surely that does not mean those were the first ones that ever existed. There are, as far as I know, no early ascriptions of the gospels to anyone else. Why would that be?
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because nobody knows who wrote them, because they are anonymous. that's why. Justin Martyr quoted from them at length and never mentioned any of the supposed authors.
//because nobody knows who wrote them, because they are anonymous. // Circular reasoning, methinks. //Justin Martyr quoted from them at length and never mentioned any of the supposed authors.// Yes. And?
“Traditional authorship” is such obvious nonsense, every time I’m blown away by how absurd the copes apologists string together for it are. Matthean authorship in particular makes zero sense with the characteristics of the text we have, especially if we compare it to other ancient writings. Also, there was significant disagreement about the authorship of John even among the Patristic writers apologists love pointing to! There was agreement that someone named “John” wrote it, but not who this “John” was.
It’s so odd to me that disagreements concerning the Bible go down to this kind of minutiae. I’m more on the “if it was just Adam and Eve and their sons, where did everyone else come from?” vein of questioning. This is wild.
If it was so bloody important that we attribute these works to specific people, literally ALL God would have had to do was to inspire the writers to mention themselves or the sources they were working from in the text!!! Seriously, a normal creative writing teacher or editor could solve an equivalent problem in a manuscript. Oh, you intended this story to be a first person account? How about some first person narration? Or at least a clear statement of intent within the text? I am Matthew the tax collector who was redeemed through Jesus Christ. I followed him through Galilee and Judea and witnessed his glorified, resurrected form before he ascended to Heaven. Find THAT in multiple manuscripts in a style that didn't contradict the style and content of the original and I'd be a believer (at least in traditional authorship and the idea that all the Gospel stories were strongly based on these four guy's experiences; not necessarily in the religion itself). Or even using the word "I" every now and again LOL.
@jeffmacdonald9863 True LOL but more to my concerns inspire stories that have a consistent philosophy of who Jesus is and what's the point of it all. I actually respect the "inspired literature" idea that I've heard from Christians from not entirely literalist traditions ranging from Catholicism (doctrine over the letter of the Bible) to liberal Protestantism (a great deal of free form interpretation allowed). It goes that not every story element is a literal report but the narratives are based on things that really happened and teach us something important (and clear enough) about Jesus. The problem is that there is no consistent model across the board regarding the nature of Jesus, the nature of sin and salvation, etc. Is he pre- existent? Is he divine? Is blood sacrifice required for forgiveness (the writer of Luke much more than the others seems to put a lot of stock in repentance itself as redemptive), is following the Mosaic law a requirement? It isn't just little concrete problems with the genealogy or when in his career he started a ruckus in the Temple or one vs two angels or demoniacs.
All of a sudden, the God of Islam cares more about preservation of Scripture than the God of Christianity. And I’m supposed to believe Christianity is the way?
@@javierordonez2445 I mean, I don't think either of them are the way. Islam had the advantage of Muhammad living a long life and consolidating into an empire very early on, allowing their authorities to exercise control over the Koran from very near the beginning. That seems to me to be enough to explain the difference in preservation of Scripture.
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OR jesus could have stuck around until the 21st century so we could all have the benefit of his insights
oh man - did you forget to turn the sound down first time round? ;) edit - aah - fair enough. Just seen the whatever that bit of explanatory text is called.
If not even Mark was necessarily the first Gospel to have been in circulation, this adds credibility to the notion that the authors of the Gospels as we know them were not complete fabrications of a nonexistent person, and the authors were free to just invent a fictional Jesus however they wanted, but that they were constrained in their narratives by what was already known--whether that preexisting source was written or oral.
I don't think there are many scholars who think the gospels themselves were complete fabrications. Instead they drew on, though quite likely added to, existing traditions. That doesn't mean they were presenting facts of course, just that stories were circulating in oral and written form by that time.
All these extensive quotes of conversations public and private are accurate word for word? I doubt that Matthew consulted the diaries of the Magi, or that Jesus told His disciples what He said to God in Gethsemane.
@@roytee3127 There's a long distance between "not complete fabrications of a nonexistent person" and "accurate word for word". I don't think that was a claim for the Gospels being 100 historically reliable accounts, but for them not inventing the character of Jesus out of whole cloth.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 That is also consistent with other ancient histories or biographies, which made ample use of oral stories, anecdotes, urban legends and even fun events from other books that they thought were a good fit.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I'll settle for legends. It's entirely credible that a rabble-rousing itinerant would-be cult leader was executed by the Roman authorities. It's also extremely common for legends to grow up around such a figure. The stories about Jesus in the Gospels read a lot like literary creations. I'm OK with gleaning whatever wisdom that speaks to me in those stories, but I can't take them as gospel truth.
The idea of the anonymity of the Gospels isn't very controversial even in Christian theological circles throughout history. It's pretty commonly acknowledged that the ascribed authors is a case of tradition and not textual. Now the older mainline Christian communities, the Catholic & Orthodox churches, would view Holy Tradition as being inspired as well.
Most of the commentary of the Gospels truly seem to derive or literally quoted out of the Trial Records of Jesus Christ, made up by the High Priest and carried out by what is like an FBI wing of the Temple , the Scribes that followed Jesus to collect evidence to report directly to the Chief Priests. So when you read the Gospels, it is like being at the trial of Jesus and reading the case they brought against Jesus, quoting exactly from documents that existed that was used in the Court Trial of Jesus Christ. It all makes sense, the Scribes worked for the Temple , they reported daily to the High Priests, and then Jesus fell into disrepute only because Jesus began to predict the fall of the Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem, and he received the same treatment that was given to the Prophet Jeremiah, by the leading and ruling Jews. That being logical , the New Testament Gospels, literally are the transcripts written by the scribes, in the same way that Saint Paul , as Saul of Tarsus, was given papers by the High Priest to Damascus to arrest the early sect of Christians where Saul later called Paul, was directed by the leading rulers of the Temple to indict Christians. So when you read the Gospels you are amazingly actually reading official transcripts of Jesus' trial by Caiaphas, where other information is added, to illustrate the whole story of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. In Moses Law it actually says the devout Priest of the Temple Israel, who is approved of by Heaven , such a one, their sole inheritance is God Himself. On that assertion alone, Jesus is God, where in God is a Titular Honorarium of accomplishment, under Moses Law, such a priest who is devout and dies, is subject to rise from the dead and inherit God Himself. The Jews forgot Temple Israel , but if they renew the Sons of Zadok as Priests of the House of Phinehas under Moses Law, they would immediately lose that blindness and see how and why Jesus is God.
What is “utterly implausible” is that John referred to himself as the “beloved disciple” and that he lived long enough to write “the Gospel according to John,” some 60 years after the death of Jesus. He would have been pushing 100 years old - must have had a memory like a bank vault.
Is there a reason we think Theophilus wasn't a specific person? I have heard it could be a metaphorical person representing the church, that God loves. But I don't know the argument to support that. If it was a person, do we believe he was corresponding anonymously?
@keith6706 just because you're writing to someone using a pseudonim doesn't mean you're not writing to a real person. And I read it is a real name as well. I'm wondering if we have a reason to believe he wasn't a real individual.
@bfastje Why do you assume it's being written to someone at all? Framing a story as being one that's being told to someone else, whether or not that person really exists, when you're actually not, is an old technique. I mean, there's the forged correspondence between Paul and Seneca as a good example.
@keith6706 It could be a letter to a hypothetical person. I'm not assuming it isn't. But it seems likely a letter is written to someone if we don't have good reasons to think it wasn't. So, I'm commenting on an expert's video asking what the evidence is for both positions because I don't know.
Hi Dan, a question. Testify claimed recently that if the names for the authors had been invented, they would have invented something like "Peter" and "James" instead of "Mark" and "Luke". What do you guys say to this?
Peter already had an apocryphal gospel and was known to be a fisherman and not a writer, so Mark is the next best thing to tag that base, since he was understood as his interpreter. James had died well before any of the Gospels were written, so that wouldn't work, but Matthew works as a substitute because that Gospel uniquely names Matthew as one of Jesus' original disciples. Luke was supposed to be Paul's traveling companion, so attributing Luke-Acts to him was the next best thing to having a Gospel from Paul. That accounts for Peter, Paul, and John, and represents a suitable replacement for James.
@@maklelan I had thought something similar about Peter but they could say that Matthew, a tax collector, is not exactly a writer either. Thanks for the answer!
@@modernatheism Yes, but there weren't traditions about him needing an interpreter, and there were traditions about him having written other Greek texts.
The information contained in the Gospels is amazing at times, others quite slanted. Not only was authorship attributed to Saints but Apostles as well. Take a moniker for instance (like serpent), a self selected title. How or where do they get appropriately placed? By pin pointing the originator e.g Saul/Paul? Saul's wild doctrines permeate the Gospels everywhere. Yeshu' was also interrogated.... Three of the for Gospels were written by John, which was Marks first name. Whom was Yeshu's fore runner and taught baptism (to Saul's chagrin). John was a son of a priest. All that proxy weighs heavily towards authorship. Matthew simply means Levi. I doubt simple fishermen (Zebedee brothers) could divulge such critical information about the Holy scriptures in that day....
Then wouldn't it make sense for Paul's writings from the same period to be anonymous as well? Christians were not being persecuted for being Christians.... Jesus was persecuted for political reasons, for claiming to be the king of the Jews....
@@TripSmith Paul admits in his own letters he was persecuting Christians before his conversion. Maybe he didn't feel the need to write anonymously--he would have been one of the few Jews or Christians with Roman citizenship at the time, which probably gave him a measure of protection from the Roman authorities--but there was clearly an environment of persecution at the time, one that eventually Paul became a victim of.
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hateful commenters? obviously they were never on youtube
If there was an oral tradition that ascribed authorship, as Dan states there was, then these gospels were not being referred to anonymously by definition.
I don't think that's quite what Dan's saying. The gospels were written first and circulated anonymously. Over time, traditions developed about authorship, but this was well after the 4 Gospels were known
@jeffmacdonald9863 Yes, that might be Dan's take on it, but should it be? Being able to write & circulate a gospel anonymously, hardly seems to be a very plausible scenario. Christians were a close-knit low population group cognisant of, & alert to, bad actors trying to both infiltrate & preach false gospels. A document from an anonymous author, unknown to be a bone fide church member, is hardly likely to be accepted unquestionably at face value. Any author of any document would have to be a known church member, so why would the authorship be unknown & why would the oral tradition of who that author was be unreliable.
@@glenwillson5073 They were low population, but hardly close knit. They were widely spread, with separate groups across the empire. Sure, the local community probably knew who wrote the Gospel of Mark, but by the time a copy reached the other end of the empire, having the name of some Christian from hundreds of miles away attached wouldn't mean anything to anyone. What would mean something would be the reputation of whatever person or group recommended it. And of course, as eventually proved the case, having an apostolic name attached
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The gospels are anonymous because at no point do any of the authors identify themselves or even claim to have directly observed anything. They are third person omniscient accounts the same as typically used for fiction. Matthew even refers to himself in the third person.
@jeffmacdonald9863 By "close-knit" I meant in terms of beliefs. They knew who was true & who was false. I understand your point re distance, but it's irrelevant. The question is not, the degree of confidence, those removed by time & distance, could have in any document eventually reaching them. The question is, how would it be possible for a document of unknown authorship be accepted in the first place. You've agreed that, "Sure, the local community probably knew who wrote the Gospel of Mark, ...." So the questions remain; Why would this original knowledge of who the author was not be passed on, why would it be unreliable, and why can't it be Mark?
I don't need to argue against his last point, since he's factually wrong. We don't always find authorship assigned on every manuscript. It's utterly implausible that Hoff cares about facts
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plus all the manuscripts are long after authorship was formally attributed
This religion was not destined to the so called gentiles, ie the pagan greco romans, so there had to be a discontinuity/gap between the true followers of Jesus and the gentiles. Educated writers, btw, none of them pretended to be a "christian" wrote biographies after stories spread about Jesus of Nazereth. These are not religious books.
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bonkers take. they are definitely religious books and the writers were definitely christians.
There is no religiosity in there just information. Show me where they said they were Christians. I don't think you will do. At least Paul said he was Jesus slave.
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@@munbruk The parts where they say jesus resurrected means they are christians your take is ridiculous
Correct. Those individuals were making copies of a copy, of a copy, of a copy of the original copy (still not writing by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John). This was in a time when 90% of people couldn't read or write and of those that could, probably couldn't do it very well. So mistakes were unintentionally made at large and there are even obvious intentional changes that were made.
still avoids the question of who actually wrote the gospels, or more accurately, who sponsored them to be scribed (many times) for circulation. of course it's not wise to put your (elite) name on a gospel, for maximum traction but, still leaves the question, which is not impossible, and would shed light on history, rather than philosophy.
I don't think there's a real answer to that question. Most likely no one. At least not in the sense of "I've written a Gospel, have some scribe run off a few dozen copies." Copies were likely made slowly, one at a time for the use of local churches and to send to other churches. No single large sponsor.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 : made for people with power. there definitely is a real answer, as these are physical things made by scribes and paid for by particular elites. for the longest time nobody really cares to get the answers, as it's much easier to talk about the political fiction content and other things. sure, it may not be easy, but the real history did occur..texts written/paid for by particular men.
Please, please, fix these audio levels. I know its to avoid copyrighted music but ive seen other youtubers use some program to take the music out. Might be a nice idea to look into that, it would make your videos much more enjoyable without having my ears blown out every time it switches back to you or an ad comes on.
Scholars have no problem imagining up Hebrew manuscripts that do not exist. Why do they find themselves unable to apply this logic to the Greek gospels?
@soarel325 No Hebrew manuscripts exist that pre-date the Greek but we are supposed to believe they exist because scholars tell us so however when it comes to the gospels they seem keen on only looking at physical archaeological evidence.
@@DJKrol-pv8ft The vast majority of scholars don't actually believe Hebrew manuscripts that replace the Greek exist, I don't know where you got this idea from. This is one of the main reasons most scholars do not take the idea of Matthean authorship seriously.
Dan is a very smart marketer. He has noticed that Wes UA-cam has grown twice as big has his UA-cam within 1 week so he has probably sifted through Wes videos to find one that has some slight over emphasis and some minor inaccuracies and chose to add his thoughts just to get Wes to reply so that he can hijack Wes’s views - this is known social media marketing tactic. Dan also said he may be wrong which basically gives him a get out of jail free card. Wes would do good to not reply and instead focus on growing his channel and defending his PHD thesis
Nonsense, he could have done this weeks ago or a few months in the future. He clearly did this right at the heart of Wes’s new found moment of fame and growth . Dan is a scholar and a social media influencer. In this case his social media goals clearly came out on top. Scholars are humans, they want money they are susceptible to chasing fame, they have ego’s. I don’t think Dan did anything immoral. Just smart from a marketing perspective
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@@BakiVSKengan so dan's timing wasn't perfect according to you, therefore his motive was mendacious or something, according to you. got it.
@jeffmacdonald9863 Pliny the elder was the main Roman historian from that exact time period makes no mention of Jesus or miracles apostles Paul etc etc. Josephus and Tactius were born and wrote decades later after Jesus died. Nothing. One must pause........
@@Nudnik1 Sure. And that's a good argument that the Biblical story as told in the Gospels with the giant crowds and the miracles and the dead walking in Jerusalem didn't happen. But take it too seriously and you wind up having to argue there weren't even any Christians until they were suddenly widespread enough for the authorities to notice. Why would anyone but a believer mention an executed preacher called Jesus (or Paul, or the Apostles) if the entire sect of his followers wasn't noticed?
Wes's 15 minutes of fame getting sued by Billy Carson is finally getting him attention. Good. He actually is a PhD, but of theology. Visit his site and you'd think he was a historian/archeologist.
Dan literally said in the comments that Wes did a great job against Billy. Wes is in the last year of his PHD program at one of the best universities in the world
@@stephenbelmont1918 I've watched it is just a personal attack, offers nothing specific where DM could be fraudulent or anything DM has said that could be wrong. It's a Christian throwing he's toys out the pram, there's nothing to respond to
@@KenT-d7u, the fellow is vacuous in his claims against Dan. So are the vast majority of the claims people make that Dan stitches in his videos. Just not many I've seen calling Dan out directly with click bait titles just asking to be stitched.
Missick refers to himself as a “Bible scholar” due to having attended the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which requires graduates to sign multiple confessional statements, including the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. These confessional statements bind them to Baptist dogma and disallow real historical-critical scholarship, which the school doesn’t even actually offer education in (their degrees are in Divinity, Ministry, Theology, etc.). By his own admission, Missick’s degree is in Ministry, not any actually relevant field. In contrast, Dan’s degrees are in the relevant fields (Biblical studies, ANE studies, History, etc.). Missick accuses him of being a “fraud” based on his claim that Dan doesn’t have degrees more relevant to the field than him, but in fact, the opposite is true. In his video Missick states that he believes in the historicity of the Exodus, and while he admits there is no evidence for it outside the Bible, he fails to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence actively contradicting the account and showing it to be false. This is not (to quote him) “being honest and going where the facts lead”, this is ignoring evidence to get the conclusion you want. In other words…typical apologetics.
Given that Christianity was a subversive, underground movement in Rome for those first couple centuries... who would put names on any of their contraband? In such an environment, anonymous distribution would be totally sensible. This is especially true if these are mainly community documents at first, with different congregants contributing their original pieces (as I suspect John was first assembled). And if all of these people are thinking they aren't really the ones writing it, they're merely transcribing for the magical inner witness of the Holy Breath, then it also makes sense to leave the names off all the early individual contributions. Given the surviving evidence, the early anonymity seems comfortably plausible to me.
Paul didn't write anonymously. The letter of James is attributed to a James. The letters of Peter too. Revelation is attributed to a John. So this refutes your argument. Of course Peter or James or John didn't write those books, but they were attributed to people.
@@j8000 By the time of the Gospels, I don't think they were naming any living core sect members. Maybe John was still around? Jesus was dead of course. Peter and James died in the 60s. It's not clear that any others of the 12 were active in the sect at that point. Naming martyrs, but not living leaders isn't a bad approach.
@@danielandteresabowlin3406 There's nothing in the text of the Bible that says that. Those early Church fathers did apply the labels that are printed in our modern Bibles, but there's nothing in the text of Matthew that says "I am Matthew the tax collector, that I'm introducing in this passage."
3 дні тому+1
@@danielandteresabowlin3406 Justin Martyr quoted extensively from what we call the gospels and never mentioned any of the supposed authors.
you have Papias, Iraneus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, (Justin Martyr stated "For the gospels, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels". he was referring to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)
1 Cor 14:33 KJV.. god is NOT the author of confusion???but but but.... oh really... 2000 years on and still 'trying' to justify authorship. interpolations etc.. give me a break....
The Gospels were written , pin to paper, by different professional scribes with long studies in Greek . What is missing is a front page thanking who paid for the work. The work cost real money. 🎉
Since the Gospels are clearly eyewitness testimony, then many people at that time would have known who authored the Gospels at the time they were written. This knowledge has been passed down through the generations until now. Better to go with the testimony of those who were there at the time than some skeptics 2000 years later.
The gospels aren't clearly eye-witness testimony or even written in the first person. Take our earliest Mark for example. Mark isn't in the story, and even if tradition is true and its really Peter's perspective, then we have to examine the parts that Peter clearly couldn't have been there for, with John the Baptist. So at best this part of the story would be Witness->Peter->Mark. But there is nothing in the text that says it was Mark writing, or Peter's words, or Andrew or Jesus who told Peter. Not until at least a full generation later do we have any evidence that Mark wrote a gospel, and its difficult to show they were even referring to this one. And nowhere in the text does it claim the author's source. What "knowledge" you claim has been passed down could have started as later than 120CE about 90 years after Jesus's death. With no eye-witnesses or author left to refute what was being NOW claimed as Mark->Peter->Witness.
@work3753 Or we could just take their word for it, rather than someone like yourself who is 2000 years removed from the events.... 'Many scholars believe that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around AD 55, or about twenty-two years after the death and Resurrection of Christ. JAT Robinson, the liberal New Testament scholar, conducted an in-depth study in which he found strong historical, textual, and logical evidence for the entire New Testament having been composed between AD 40-65.1 In particular, Acts ends while Paul is still in prison. As a result, 1 Corinthians may have been written even earlier. However, a wide range of scholars believes the earliest Christian creed was formulated and taught less than five years after the death and Resurrection. Ulrich Wilckens writes that it, ‘indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.’ Joachim Jeremias states that it is ‘the earliest tradition of all.’ Gerd Lüdemann, an arch-skeptic, maintains that ‘the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus…not later than three years…’ Michael Goulder, an anti-christian, thinks it ‘goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.’ Thomas Sheehan believes the creed ‘probably goes back to…within two to four years of the crucifixion.’ Two New Testament scholars date the creed even earlier. Walter Kasper believes the creed may have been in use less than one year after the crucifixion. Likewise, James D.G. Dunn wrote that the 1 Corinthians 15 creed was formalized and taught within months of Jesus’ death and Resurrection. Historically speaking, the creed was formulated, distributed, and written so extremely early that talk of myth or legend lacks any credibility whatsoever. It possesses all the characteristics of an official creed. First, Paul uses the words ‘delivered’ and ‘received’, which are technical rabbinic terms indicating that he is passing along a holy tradition. Second, the grammatical structure and style are indicative of a creed. Third, the original text uses Cephas, which is the Hebrew/Aramaic name for Peter. The use of such language is evidence of an extremely early origin. Fourth, Paul uses unconventional phrases such as ‘he was raised’, ‘the third day’, and ‘the twelve.’ These phrases go back to the earliest, most primitive stage of historical Christianity. Fifth, the stylized content and specific wording are similar to Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew means of narration German historian Hans von Campenhausen says, ‘This account meets all the demands of historical reliability that could possibly be made of such a text.’ Pinchas Lapide, one of the few Jewish New Testament scholars, considers the creed to be so reliable that it may be considered as a statement of eyewitnesses.'
I think a lot of people don't realize how good communications were in the Roman Empire. That's kind of how they maintained the empire. Well, that, armies & international trade.
So after 7:00 you're saying that it's "technically not impossible" that the gospels were anonymous, therefore you believe they are anonymous. Don't you criticize apologists for thinking this way? I am in agreement that it is utterly implausible for that to happen to all four gospels across the empire.
At no point whatsoever did I say it's "technically not impossible." I pointed out that nothing is at all "utterly implausible." It's a perfectly plausible theory for how the ascriptions remained so consistent, but it's just a theory, not something we can prove. This isn't remotely the apologetic thinking I criticize.
I don't particularly like Wes' exegesis because he's a believing Christian but I'd wager any amount of money you're deliberately going after him because of all the attention he's getting from destroying Billy Carson in a debate... you trying to prove you're the better scholar. lol seriously, man, this isn't a coincidence.. and I would expect nothing less from a man who profess to part of a religion he knows is complete nonsense.. education yes, integrity not a drop
If you can’t attack the argument, attack the man. If you are a Christian don’t waste your money on bets. Give it to the poor, as Jesus instructed you to do.
This guy doesn’t like someone’s exegesis because he is a Christian. Shows you are biased towards atheists as if we don’t have a wealth of great biblical scholarship from Christians
Because I'm subscribed to your channel, the UA-cam algorithm thinks I would also like to watch videos of this "biblical scholar". While I have watched a couple of his "lectures" while trying to keep an open mind, I always come away feeling kind of dirty... like I was just verbally accosted by a high pressure salesman.
Those audio levels... 😬
It's to avoid yt taking down the video, the copyright algo for yt is ridiculous. It's yt's version of "unalived" Dan mentioned this in the video description.
@@marv-n-24 He should do what Dapper, Paulogia, PoZ, Logicked, etc do and use tools to filter it out, rather than making his content significantly worse and blowing folks' ears.
No doubt
@@Matoyak Those audio tools aren't cheap. (I know, because I own one.) Dan's method is just fine.
"I may be wrong"
- no apologist ever
6:21 "But I may be wrong" - That is a considered a win for apologists.
That’s their ego
The argument from incredulity. "I can't imagine this any other way, so my assumption must be correct."
Always thorough and always welcomed. Thanks, Dan.
Thanks!
I knew you would stumble upon Wes Hoff sooner or later! Appreciate it Dan
Oh it's not a coincidence someone is jealous of the attention Wes of getting and wants to prove he's the better scholar
@4everseekingwisdom690 If you think that's what's going on, you haven't watched enough of Dan's material.
@mdm123196 oh yes I have and that's exactly what's going on. There's no such thing as a coincidence. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're not in academia are you? It's extremely cutthroat and what I said has a much higher probability than what you did
@4everseekingwisdom690 well your limb broke. I have a bachelor's and an M.Div. Nice assumption, though. Compare Dan to literally any apologist, including Wes. Dan routinely says he wants to know when he is wrong. He wants evidence to refine his views. Apologists tend to ignore evidence if it contradicts their beliefs in any way, shape, or form. And the idea that coincidences don't exist is quite the claim. If there are no coincidences, do you think a sovereign god controls everything then? That's a laughable claim, dude.
@@mdm123196 Nice mic drop on the assumptionist !
I agree with Dan on so many points. 1. Papais might not be referring to our Matthew or Mark (I'd give it 40/60) 2. Iraneaus is the first to identify the texts with the authors and doesn't give good reason why 3. There isn't good evidence that fragments before Iraneaus had titles/authors attached.
On the "harmony" argument the apologist had at the end.... There is a plethora of contradictory evidence. We have many gospels of different styles, lengths, languages, theologies, and sources and some might even predate John. Just because some people eventually decided on a certain collection and attribution doesn't mean it was always destined as special.
It's pretty obvious that Papias wasn't referring to what we call Mark or Matthew. He said Matthew was written in Hebrew, which is wrong. He said both Mark and Matthew were sayings gospels which is wrong. Beyond that, Papias wrote a ton of bonkers stuff that nobody takes seriously. Dan let him off easy.
His good reason why is that it was passed down secure apostolic tradition just like the tradition about Jesus living to be almost fifty in order to sanctify every stage of life (Against Heresies 2.22)
Comment for the algorithm. I greatly appreciate your work, Dan!
The algorithm is pleased. Let there be engagement 🙏
Xtians completely ignore that there were many different gospels/books in the first two centuries and they all claimed Apostolic authority. Papias also described two different gospels of Matthew and Mark and doesn't even mention GJohn or GLuke or Acts or Revelation and has a different version of Judas death than mentioned in our GMat or Acts. He even says GMat he knew was written in a Hebrew dialect and not in Greek like our GMatthew.
Describes it as a collection of sayings, iirc.
Good grief...how many ways could Judas die...was he resurrect over and over so he could continue to kill himself for eternity... WOW...man had more lives than Rasputin.. just saying
we know papias has access to the gospel of the hebrews -- associated with matthew, sayings, and probably circulating in aramaic. if i were making a guess, he's talking about that.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 Papias says "And so Matthew composed the sayings(of the lord) in the Hebrew tongue, and each one interpreted [Or: translated] them to the best of his ability."
@@Cr-pj8bz @Cr-pj8bz Hebrews 1:10-12 is not a misquote but rather a quote of the Septuagint which itself has mistranslated the Hebrew. It is interpreted as though God is talking to a second person whos also God and attributing to him creation. Read scholsrship on this e.g. Bacon (1902) article. It is thus interpreted by Hebrews as the Father talking to the Son and attributing to him a unique feature of YHWH. Revelation 1 with Alpha and Omega and First Last are clearly divine and unique titles of YHWH. You know who else thinks this? Bart Ehrman. Look up his video on why Revelation was preserved. He thinks it was in large part due to its usefulness for the orthodox party against the Arians. He also mentions it briefly in one of his books. As for Johns the father is greater, that could be 3 things - one either the voluntary servant theology that comes down and becomes lesser like Philippians 2; it could be that it means greater functionally and not ontologically e.g. John says his disciples will do greater (same word) miracles than Jesus (greater than raising the dead??) or it could be indeed that its a trace of cognitive dissonance or another layer of tradition by John that doesnt quite fit which is a fair point. I dont know if secular scholarship agrees on either of these. But I didnt deny that the N.T. contains different Christologies. It does however contain some that indeed do equate Jesus with YHWH.
Thank You Dan! We need to see a debate with you and Wes to clear some things up.. respectfully!
I think another notable concern here is the synoptic problem. There is significant amounts of text shared between the first 3 gospels. Not the same event recorded by 3 different observers, but a word for word duplication of the same text with little variation. It's not entirely clear if the first 3 gospels originated as 1 or 2 gospels that changed enough to be considered different works as they were copied and shared over time or as multiple different gospels that scribes attempted to synchronize.
It could be way more complicated than that. Other than Matthew and Luke copying some form of Mark, we don't know how the gospels came together in their later forms.
Something I've seen pointed out by Kamil Gregor is that the kind of verbatim copying we see from Mark to Matthew (where over 90% of Mark is in Matthew word for word) is essentially unheard of in ancient historical writing, but common in fictitious literature and technical writing, in cases where an author is altering or rewriting an exiting text.
i still have many of my religious friends who believe the gospels were written by matthew, mark, luke, and john in that order. when you are indoctrinated at an early age old habits are hard to break.
❤❤❤❤❤❤thanks Dan!!
Thanks Dan. ❤
It's also presumptuous to assume that information didn't travel very quickly in the Roman Empire. It didn't take years to get a message from Alexandria to Rome or from Lyons to the British Isles. These are established trade routes with a constant flow of goods and people.
didnt Bart Ehrman do a study about the accuracy of oral tradition and transmission? i forget his exact findings but it was along the lines of "it's not as accurate as proponents would have us believe"
love your work, Dan
Look at the quasi-oral traditions that developed in less than four years over the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2001.
Just peaceful tourists. Just peaceful protesters. Patriots. FBI agitators.
Bart heavily critiqued and debunked for that study by other biblical scholars and historians who were experts in oral traditions because he left out modern understanding of oral traditions
Thanks for this one Dan! I was wondering when you would get around to Wes Huff after his recent jump into the spotlight. I listened to a few of his videos and my meager knowledge of historicity of the scriptures quickly realized he is well versed in the Biblical teachings, but not so much the foundation of it.
Hope to see more of your thoughts on his messages.
I would take any analysis of the Carson-Huff debate that Dan gives us. 4 minutes or 4 hours
I’ve been waiting for a Wes video. Hoping to see you cover his debate with Billy Soon!!!
The audio mix in this post differs from the post on Instagram. Wes' audio is quieter while Dan's seems noisier.
Same happened in another recent video.
That’s because the apologists video has copy written background music and Dan wants to avoid the copy write strike. There’s a note in the video description.
Thank you.
And here.. We.... Go
I could barely hear the clips from the other guy.
It had copyright background music which Dan wasn't allowed to include.
Papias *does not* refer to Matthew or Mark as "gospels."
And doesn't mention our GMat or GMark. He says Matthew was written in Hebrew and that Mark was written in short phrases and is not in order, while our has very long phrases and was written in order
Yeah, Dan only touches on it briefly, but it's very clear that Papias is not discussing the gospels we're familiar with.
@@Cr-pj8bz Plus Papias was bonkers. He is not a reliable source.
b b b but - muh 'high context society!'......
That way you can claim Jesus invented the iphone.
Is this a jab at JP Holding? lol
@@soarel325
I don't think I know who that is - but if they're an apologist who appeals to the idea that the ancient Israelites were a 'high context society' in order to claim they 'clearly meant X despite there being no recorded evidence for X - then consider them an apt target. Personally I was thinking of IP, but let's face it, apologists are far from original.
@@bengreen171 I'm fairly sure IP gets it from JP Holding
@@soarel325
I wouldn't be surprised - IP is nothing if not unoriginal.
Dan, what are the chances Papais was referring to the Gospel of Thomas(which seems to fit the description better) ??
From what I remember, Gospel of Thomas is widely accepted to have been originally written in Coptic. The earliest and most complete manuscript known to scholars is in Coptic and doesn't seem to show linguistic markers of having been a translation. Fragmentary manuscripts have been found in Greek as well, but from a later date and the style of Greek points to it being a translation from Coptic.
Either way, Papias said the sayings gospel he was referring to was written in Hebrew.
For me, the languages being so different is the biggest thing that leans toward excluding Gospel of Thomas from the writing Papias was talking about.
@anangoohns Thanks
Paul referred to his ideas as a gospel. Would that be a basis for Mark or one of his readers to say
“…according to Mark” to distinguish?
(Paul said any gospel but his would be anathema to God.)
I thought I had heard it stated that the first verses of each Gospel, with the correct translation of the verb tenses, etc., indicate that they are actually the titles. ??
No no wait, I think this quiet creator has a point. Every Bible I’ve ever seen has the gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. There’s no way they could all be wrong.
R-right?
But what about all the Bibles and gospels you haven't seen? Mary, Thomas, Barnabas, Joseph.... Its a long list.
@ I don’t know about other languages. All I know are English bibles, and they all say Matthew Mark Luke and John!
@@Dave01Rhodes Oh yeah, that's totally my point. You're view on "the bible" is whats left after they threw out or added all the parts they wanted to. Because lets face it, if you got a bible that said "Author 1" on the top of the NT, and it didn't have verse and chapter numbers you probably wouldn't buy that one. And if the "author 1" section didn't have Jesus showing himself to the disicples after his death you'd probably think they forgot a part. If nobody ever knew Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and just had some gospels loose in their library and some visitor said "That one is from Mark, traveling companion of Peter"... You'd believe them because you have nothing to contradict it. So you label it and everyone calls it Mark from now on. This happened by like 170CE, so the names certainly predate any collecting of all the books of the NT or the exclusion of other ones.
@@work3753 yeah that’s the joke. That I’m appealing to the accuracy of copies so far removed from early sources. It’s the original creator’s argument, but made far more obviously ridiculous.
What about non canonical gospels? As far as I know, they were also assigned one single authorship without variation. Is that proof that James really wrote the Protoevangelium of James or that Judas is the author of the Gospel of Judas?
Bingo.
*Papias’ Evidence*
Papias wrote that in Mark’s gospel, Mark wrote everything he had heard. Also that -he- Matthew wrote in Hebrew or Aramaic. That doesn’t describe what we now call Mark’s (edit: or Matthew’s) gospel.
Papias also wrote that he used only the words of people who spoke the truth, which seems to imply that he thought he already knew the truth and filtered out anything that he didn’t agree with.
@@scienceexplains302 papias doesnt say what language Mark wrote in, youre conflating this with Hebrew Matthew
@ Thank you. I was thinking about Mark and writing about Matthew. Brain split. I think Papias’ works are on Greek, which didn’t used the same word for Hebrew and Aramaic.
With the P1 text you showed, do we have the end as well. If not could the title be at the end, like claimed by the original author? Was this common at the time of the writing on the P1 papyrus? If i missed you stating an answer in the video, I apologize, my ADHD got the better of me for a moment and I had to write this question out before I forgot it.
I like these talks of yours. Very rarely does one come across really well thought and constructed Scholarship on the "Tube". I have a question if I may. Is it a valid or permissible to hold that all the "Gospel narratives from Immaculate conception to assertion in to heaven are entirely mythological , yet believe them ? Or perhaps. Enter into the "Myth" . and an emotional connection / relationship with the "Christ " revealed within and be led to the one "Spirit". by the risen "Christ". Take care and be good as best one can.
It seems highly plausible that if authors weren't known that at some point "fans" of the work might speculate authorship and over time create a tradition of believed authorship. Considering there are many gospels, early scholars, clergy and enthusiasts (if there even was an exclusive third category) would want a way to distinguish each gospel. It seems like the gospels are pseudepigrapha. And I would speculate that each (even beyond the canonical gospels) may have been intended to be *the* one true gospel or perhaps a sort of "yes and" or "no but" progressive amendment. The phrase "fan fiction" comes to mind.
That's a dope shirt.
When speaking about Irenaeus and Papias being *our* earliest surviving references to authors of the gospels surely that does not mean those were the first ones that ever existed. There are, as far as I know, no early ascriptions of the gospels to anyone else.
Why would that be?
because nobody knows who wrote them, because they are anonymous. that's why. Justin Martyr quoted from them at length and never mentioned any of the supposed authors.
//because nobody knows who wrote them, because they are anonymous. //
Circular reasoning, methinks.
//Justin Martyr quoted from them at length and never mentioned any of the supposed authors.//
Yes. And?
“Traditional authorship” is such obvious nonsense, every time I’m blown away by how absurd the copes apologists string together for it are. Matthean authorship in particular makes zero sense with the characteristics of the text we have, especially if we compare it to other ancient writings.
Also, there was significant disagreement about the authorship of John even among the Patristic writers apologists love pointing to! There was agreement that someone named “John” wrote it, but not who this “John” was.
Wes Huff COOKED Billy Carson !!
It’s so odd to me that disagreements concerning the Bible go down to this kind of minutiae. I’m more on the “if it was just Adam and Eve and their sons, where did everyone else come from?” vein of questioning. This is wild.
It wasn’t just Adam & Eve and their sons. Adam & Eve were Yahweh’s perversion of the humans Elohim created in chapter 1.
If it was so bloody important that we attribute these works to specific people, literally ALL God would have had to do was to inspire the writers to mention themselves or the sources they were working from in the text!!!
Seriously, a normal creative writing teacher or editor could solve an equivalent problem in a manuscript.
Oh, you intended this story to be a first person account? How about some first person narration? Or at least a clear statement of intent within the text?
I am Matthew the tax collector who was redeemed through Jesus Christ. I followed him through Galilee and Judea and witnessed his glorified, resurrected form before he ascended to Heaven.
Find THAT in multiple manuscripts in a style that didn't contradict the style and content of the original and I'd be a believer (at least in traditional authorship and the idea that all the Gospel stories were strongly based on these four guy's experiences; not necessarily in the religion itself).
Or even using the word "I" every now and again LOL.
He could also have inspired accounts that agreed on all points, but weren't word for word copies
@jeffmacdonald9863
True LOL but more to my concerns inspire stories that have a consistent philosophy of who Jesus is and what's the point of it all.
I actually respect the "inspired literature" idea that I've heard from Christians from not entirely literalist traditions ranging from Catholicism (doctrine over the letter of the Bible) to liberal Protestantism (a great deal of free form interpretation allowed).
It goes that not every story element is a literal report but the narratives are based on things that really happened and teach us something important (and clear enough) about Jesus.
The problem is that there is no consistent model across the board regarding the nature of Jesus, the nature of sin and salvation, etc.
Is he pre- existent? Is he divine? Is blood sacrifice required for forgiveness (the writer of Luke much more than the others seems to put a lot of stock in repentance itself as redemptive), is following the Mosaic law a requirement?
It isn't just little concrete problems with the genealogy or when in his career he started a ruckus in the Temple or one vs two angels or demoniacs.
All of a sudden, the God of Islam cares more about preservation of Scripture than the God of Christianity. And I’m supposed to believe Christianity is the way?
@@javierordonez2445 I mean, I don't think either of them are the way.
Islam had the advantage of Muhammad living a long life and consolidating into an empire very early on, allowing their authorities to exercise control over the Koran from very near the beginning.
That seems to me to be enough to explain the difference in preservation of Scripture.
OR jesus could have stuck around until the 21st century so we could all have the benefit of his insights
oh man - did you forget to turn the sound down first time round? ;)
edit - aah - fair enough. Just seen the whatever that bit of explanatory text is called.
If not even Mark was necessarily the first Gospel to have been in circulation, this adds credibility to the notion that the authors of the Gospels as we know them were not complete fabrications of a nonexistent person, and the authors were free to just invent a fictional Jesus however they wanted, but that they were constrained in their narratives by what was already known--whether that preexisting source was written or oral.
I don't think there are many scholars who think the gospels themselves were complete fabrications. Instead they drew on, though quite likely added to, existing traditions.
That doesn't mean they were presenting facts of course, just that stories were circulating in oral and written form by that time.
All these extensive quotes of conversations public and private are accurate word for word?
I doubt that Matthew consulted the diaries of the Magi, or that Jesus told His disciples what He said to God in Gethsemane.
@@roytee3127 There's a long distance between "not complete fabrications of a nonexistent person" and "accurate word for word".
I don't think that was a claim for the Gospels being 100 historically reliable accounts, but for them not inventing the character of Jesus out of whole cloth.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 That is also consistent with other ancient histories or biographies, which made ample use of oral stories, anecdotes, urban legends and even fun events from other books that they thought were a good fit.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I'll settle for legends.
It's entirely credible that a rabble-rousing itinerant would-be cult leader was executed by the Roman authorities.
It's also extremely common for legends to grow up around such a figure.
The stories about Jesus in the Gospels read a lot like literary creations.
I'm OK with gleaning whatever wisdom that speaks to me in those stories, but I can't take them as gospel truth.
How is "The Memiors of the apostles" anonymous?
Please increase his volume
The idea of the anonymity of the Gospels isn't very controversial even in Christian theological circles throughout history. It's pretty commonly acknowledged that the ascribed authors is a case of tradition and not textual. Now the older mainline Christian communities, the Catholic & Orthodox churches, would view Holy Tradition as being inspired as well.
no audio on clip
Most of the commentary of the Gospels truly seem to derive or literally quoted out of the Trial Records of Jesus Christ, made up by the High Priest and carried out by what is like an FBI wing of the Temple , the Scribes that followed Jesus to collect evidence to report directly to the Chief Priests. So when you read the Gospels, it is like being at the trial of Jesus and reading the case they brought against Jesus, quoting exactly from documents that existed that was used in the Court Trial of Jesus Christ. It all makes sense, the Scribes worked for the Temple , they reported daily to the High Priests, and then Jesus fell into disrepute only because Jesus began to predict the fall of the Temple and the destruction of Jerusalem, and he received the same treatment that was given to the Prophet Jeremiah, by the leading and ruling Jews. That being logical , the New Testament Gospels, literally are the transcripts written by the scribes, in the same way that Saint Paul , as Saul of Tarsus, was given papers by the High Priest to Damascus to arrest the early sect of Christians where Saul later called Paul, was directed by the leading rulers of the Temple to indict Christians. So when you read the Gospels you are amazingly actually reading official transcripts of Jesus' trial by Caiaphas, where other information is added, to illustrate the whole story of Jesus Christ as the Messiah. In Moses Law it actually says the devout Priest of the Temple Israel, who is approved of by Heaven , such a one, their sole inheritance is God Himself. On that assertion alone, Jesus is God, where in God is a Titular Honorarium of accomplishment, under Moses Law, such a priest who is devout and dies, is subject to rise from the dead and inherit God Himself. The Jews forgot Temple Israel , but if they renew the Sons of Zadok as Priests of the House of Phinehas under Moses Law, they would immediately lose that blindness and see how and why Jesus is God.
Ah I was waiting when you'd respond to Wesley Huff. This is interesting stuff.
What is “utterly implausible” is that John referred to himself as the “beloved disciple” and that he lived long enough to write “the Gospel according to John,” some 60 years after the death of Jesus. He would have been pushing 100 years old - must have had a memory like a bank vault.
Is there a reason we think Theophilus wasn't a specific person? I have heard it could be a metaphorical person representing the church, that God loves. But I don't know the argument to support that.
If it was a person, do we believe he was corresponding anonymously?
You're asking if a guy literally named named "God-lover" might be a tad too on the nose?
@keith6706 just because you're writing to someone using a pseudonim doesn't mean you're not writing to a real person. And I read it is a real name as well. I'm wondering if we have a reason to believe he wasn't a real individual.
@bfastje Why do you assume it's being written to someone at all? Framing a story as being one that's being told to someone else, whether or not that person really exists, when you're actually not, is an old technique. I mean, there's the forged correspondence between Paul and Seneca as a good example.
@keith6706 It could be a letter to a hypothetical person. I'm not assuming it isn't. But it seems likely a letter is written to someone if we don't have good reasons to think it wasn't.
So, I'm commenting on an expert's video asking what the evidence is for both positions because I don't know.
Hi Dan, a question. Testify claimed recently that if the names for the authors had been invented, they would have invented something like "Peter" and "James" instead of "Mark" and "Luke". What do you guys say to this?
Peter already had an apocryphal gospel and was known to be a fisherman and not a writer, so Mark is the next best thing to tag that base, since he was understood as his interpreter. James had died well before any of the Gospels were written, so that wouldn't work, but Matthew works as a substitute because that Gospel uniquely names Matthew as one of Jesus' original disciples. Luke was supposed to be Paul's traveling companion, so attributing Luke-Acts to him was the next best thing to having a Gospel from Paul. That accounts for Peter, Paul, and John, and represents a suitable replacement for James.
@@maklelan I had thought something similar about Peter but they could say that Matthew, a tax collector, is not exactly a writer either. Thanks for the answer!
@@maklelan Wasn't John also a fisherman?
@@modernatheism Yes, but there weren't traditions about him needing an interpreter, and there were traditions about him having written other Greek texts.
The information contained in the Gospels is amazing at times, others quite slanted. Not only was authorship attributed to Saints but Apostles as well. Take a moniker for instance (like serpent), a self selected title. How or where do they get appropriately placed? By pin pointing the originator e.g Saul/Paul? Saul's wild doctrines permeate the Gospels everywhere. Yeshu' was also interrogated.... Three of the for Gospels were written by John, which was Marks first name. Whom was Yeshu's fore runner and taught baptism (to Saul's chagrin). John was a son of a priest. All that proxy weighs heavily towards authorship. Matthew simply means Levi. I doubt simple fishermen (Zebedee brothers) could divulge such critical information about the Holy scriptures in that day....
They are anonymous. They had to protect their privacy from hateful commenters. Why complicate matters?
If they're anonymous, how do you know what the motive for making them anonymous was? That's jumping to a conclusion not supported by evidence
Then wouldn't it make sense for Paul's writings from the same period to be anonymous as well? Christians were not being persecuted for being Christians.... Jesus was persecuted for political reasons, for claiming to be the king of the Jews....
@@tom.parryjones Great point!
@@TripSmith Paul admits in his own letters he was persecuting Christians before his conversion. Maybe he didn't feel the need to write anonymously--he would have been one of the few Jews or Christians with Roman citizenship at the time, which probably gave him a measure of protection from the Roman authorities--but there was clearly an environment of persecution at the time, one that eventually Paul became a victim of.
hateful commenters? obviously they were never on youtube
If there was an oral tradition that ascribed authorship, as Dan states there was, then these gospels were not being referred to anonymously by definition.
I don't think that's quite what Dan's saying. The gospels were written first and circulated anonymously. Over time, traditions developed about authorship, but this was well after the 4 Gospels were known
@jeffmacdonald9863
Yes, that might be Dan's take on it, but should it be?
Being able to write & circulate a gospel anonymously, hardly seems to be a very plausible scenario.
Christians were a close-knit low population group cognisant of, & alert to, bad actors trying to both infiltrate & preach false gospels.
A document from an anonymous author, unknown to be a bone fide church member, is hardly likely to be accepted unquestionably at face value.
Any author of any document would have to be a known church member, so why would the authorship be unknown & why would the oral tradition of who that author was be unreliable.
@@glenwillson5073 They were low population, but hardly close knit. They were widely spread, with separate groups across the empire. Sure, the local community probably knew who wrote the Gospel of Mark, but by the time a copy reached the other end of the empire, having the name of some Christian from hundreds of miles away attached wouldn't mean anything to anyone.
What would mean something would be the reputation of whatever person or group recommended it.
And of course, as eventually proved the case, having an apostolic name attached
The gospels are anonymous because at no point do any of the authors identify themselves or even claim to have directly observed anything. They are third person omniscient accounts the same as typically used for fiction. Matthew even refers to himself in the third person.
@jeffmacdonald9863
By "close-knit" I meant in terms of beliefs. They knew who was true & who was false.
I understand your point re distance, but it's irrelevant.
The question is not, the degree of confidence, those removed by time & distance, could have in any document eventually reaching them.
The question is, how would it be possible for a document of unknown authorship be accepted in the first place.
You've agreed that, "Sure, the local community probably knew who wrote the Gospel of Mark, ...."
So the questions remain; Why would this original knowledge of who the author was not be passed on, why would it be unreliable, and why can't it be Mark?
I don't need to argue against his last point, since he's factually wrong. We don't always find authorship assigned on every manuscript. It's utterly implausible that Hoff cares about facts
plus all the manuscripts are long after authorship was formally attributed
This religion was not destined to the so called gentiles, ie the pagan greco romans, so there had to be a discontinuity/gap between the true followers of Jesus and the gentiles. Educated writers, btw, none of them pretended to be a "christian" wrote biographies after stories spread about Jesus of Nazereth. These are not religious books.
bonkers take. they are definitely religious books and the writers were definitely christians.
There is no religiosity in there just information. Show me where they said they were Christians. I don't think you will do. At least Paul said he was Jesus slave.
@@munbruk The parts where they say jesus resurrected means they are christians your take is ridiculous
So does this mean that those individuals really just edited the gospel but they were not the original author
Correct. Those individuals were making copies of a copy, of a copy, of a copy of the original copy (still not writing by Matthew, Mark, Luke or John). This was in a time when 90% of people couldn't read or write and of those that could, probably couldn't do it very well. So mistakes were unintentionally made at large and there are even obvious intentional changes that were made.
Who is that handsome guy you are contradicting? He might get famous one day.
Weird, just saw that guy for the first time a couple hours ago. I couldn't listen for long.
If only Bill Carson had a lifeline to call Dan during his debate 😅
Oh, he'd have found no relief from me. I thought Wesley did a great job calling Billy out on his nonsense.
@ 😆 I know you wouldn’t have answered Dan and yes Wes did decimate him throughly
@@maklelan Billy Carson is a gentleman and a scholar
If you have to lower volume, next time it would be great to repeat back what he said
Amazing how much objective biblical scholarship Huff has acquired, yet he insists on interpreting it through the lens of his Christian dogma.
still avoids the question of who actually wrote the gospels, or more accurately, who sponsored them to be scribed (many times) for circulation.
of course it's not wise to put your (elite) name on a gospel, for maximum traction but, still leaves the question, which is not impossible, and would shed light on history, rather than philosophy.
I don't think there's a real answer to that question. Most likely no one. At least not in the sense of "I've written a Gospel, have some scribe run off a few dozen copies."
Copies were likely made slowly, one at a time for the use of local churches and to send to other churches. No single large sponsor.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 : made for people with power. there definitely is a real answer, as these are physical things made by scribes and paid for by particular elites. for the longest time nobody really cares to get the answers, as it's much easier to talk about the political fiction content and other things. sure, it may not be easy, but the real history did occur..texts written/paid for by particular men.
Everytime might be a bit too much . But most of the time s true
After authorship was formally attributed by the church so what
Beef of the Biblical scholars
Do Wes Huff vs Dan McClellan debate
"Do not harass or report this creator or comment on their appearance or speech".
Can we comment on the quality of the audio, though? 🙄
Please, please, fix these audio levels. I know its to avoid copyrighted music but ive seen other youtubers use some program to take the music out. Might be a nice idea to look into that, it would make your videos much more enjoyable without having my ears blown out every time it switches back to you or an ad comes on.
Tell me DAN, if you're a scholar of languages, why does Thanos speak American English?
Scholars have no problem imagining up Hebrew manuscripts that do not exist. Why do they find themselves unable to apply this logic to the Greek gospels?
What do you mean?
@soarel325 No Hebrew manuscripts exist that pre-date the Greek but we are supposed to believe they exist because scholars tell us so however when it comes to the gospels they seem keen on only looking at physical archaeological evidence.
@@DJKrol-pv8ft The vast majority of scholars don't actually believe Hebrew manuscripts that replace the Greek exist, I don't know where you got this idea from. This is one of the main reasons most scholars do not take the idea of Matthean authorship seriously.
@soarel325 Thanks for the interaction I suppose?
@soarel325 I never said anything about any manuscripts replacing another. Cute straw man attempt. Not really but...
Dan is a very smart marketer. He has noticed that Wes UA-cam has grown twice as big has his UA-cam within 1 week so he has probably sifted through Wes videos to find one that has some slight over emphasis and some minor inaccuracies and chose to add his thoughts just to get Wes to reply so that he can hijack Wes’s views - this is known social media marketing tactic.
Dan also said he may be wrong which basically gives him a get out of jail free card. Wes would do good to not reply and instead focus on growing his channel and defending his PHD thesis
Sigh. Talk about adopting a WWE attitude to serious scholarship. This is the New USA. 😢
Dan just described the clear scholarly consensus. There was nothing remotely controversial in his comments. In fact, he understated his position.
Nonsense, he could have done this weeks ago or a few months in the future. He clearly did this right at the heart of Wes’s new found moment of fame and growth . Dan is a scholar and a social media influencer. In this case his social media goals clearly came out on top. Scholars are humans, they want money they are susceptible to chasing fame, they have ego’s.
I don’t think Dan did anything immoral. Just smart from a marketing perspective
@@BakiVSKengan so dan's timing wasn't perfect according to you, therefore his motive was mendacious or something, according to you. got it.
@ No such thing as perfect. Can do what he wants. I am simply making assertions based on the timing and the actual contents of the video.
Like the video, but the audio levels are a little off. The video you're reviewing is much quieter than u. Kinda an uncomfy listening experience.
No historian mentions Jesus Apostles miracles Paul anywhere in any historical record from that era.
Nothing
None of them even mention Christians at all.
@jeffmacdonald9863 Pliny the elder was the main Roman historian from that exact time period makes no mention of Jesus or miracles apostles Paul etc etc.
Josephus and Tactius were born and wrote decades later after Jesus died.
Nothing.
One must pause........
@@Nudnik1 Sure. And that's a good argument that the Biblical story as told in the Gospels with the giant crowds and the miracles and the dead walking in Jerusalem didn't happen.
But take it too seriously and you wind up having to argue there weren't even any Christians until they were suddenly widespread enough for the authorities to notice. Why would anyone but a believer mention an executed preacher called Jesus (or Paul, or the Apostles) if the entire sect of his followers wasn't noticed?
The evidence doesn't support my ideology therefore I will assert that my ideology is more plausible. Problem solved!😂
Wes's 15 minutes of fame getting sued by Billy Carson is finally getting him attention. Good. He actually is a PhD, but of theology. Visit his site and you'd think he was a historian/archeologist.
Dan literally said in the comments that Wes did a great job against Billy. Wes is in the last year of his PHD program at one of the best universities in the world
Hey Dan. Just saw a clip "Dan McClellan is a Fraud" by Stephen Missick. Might warrant a rebuttal video 😂. Would love to watch if you did respond.
I'll have a look but I'm not sure how Dan can be a fraud, I mean he could be wrong but not fraudulent
@@stephenbelmont1918 I've watched it is just a personal attack, offers nothing specific where DM could be fraudulent or anything DM has said that could be wrong. It's a Christian throwing he's toys out the pram, there's nothing to respond to
@@KenT-d7u, the fellow is vacuous in his claims against Dan. So are the vast majority of the claims people make that Dan stitches in his videos. Just not many I've seen calling Dan out directly with click bait titles just asking to be stitched.
@@stephenbelmont1918 I watched but nothing specific was said, just a personal rant, there's nothing precise to respond to, just an upset Christian
Missick refers to himself as a “Bible scholar” due to having attended the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which requires graduates to sign multiple confessional statements, including the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. These confessional statements bind them to Baptist dogma and disallow real historical-critical scholarship, which the school doesn’t even actually offer education in (their degrees are in Divinity, Ministry, Theology, etc.). By his own admission, Missick’s degree is in Ministry, not any actually relevant field. In contrast, Dan’s degrees are in the relevant fields (Biblical studies, ANE studies, History, etc.). Missick accuses him of being a “fraud” based on his claim that Dan doesn’t have degrees more relevant to the field than him, but in fact, the opposite is true.
In his video Missick states that he believes in the historicity of the Exodus, and while he admits there is no evidence for it outside the Bible, he fails to acknowledge the overwhelming evidence actively contradicting the account and showing it to be false. This is not (to quote him) “being honest and going where the facts lead”, this is ignoring evidence to get the conclusion you want. In other words…typical apologetics.
Dan McKellen super Billy Carson fan.
This is all just a huge psi-op.
You figured it out good job
Given that Christianity was a subversive, underground movement in Rome for those first couple centuries... who would put names on any of their contraband? In such an environment, anonymous distribution would be totally sensible. This is especially true if these are mainly community documents at first, with different congregants contributing their original pieces (as I suspect John was first assembled). And if all of these people are thinking they aren't really the ones writing it, they're merely transcribing for the magical inner witness of the Holy Breath, then it also makes sense to leave the names off all the early individual contributions. Given the surviving evidence, the early anonymity seems comfortably plausible to me.
Other than the fact the Christians were not subversive, nor really under persecution for large periods of that time. Secretive? Yes. Subversive, no.
Paul didn't write anonymously. The letter of James is attributed to a James. The letters of Peter too. Revelation is attributed to a John. So this refutes your argument. Of course Peter or James or John didn't write those books, but they were attributed to people.
Naming the core sect members in the text but not saying who wrote the text is not genius level op sec
@@j8000 By the time of the Gospels, I don't think they were naming any living core sect members. Maybe John was still around?
Jesus was dead of course. Peter and James died in the 60s. It's not clear that any others of the 12 were active in the sect at that point.
Naming martyrs, but not living leaders isn't a bad approach.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I'm trying to accept the premise of the OP, not describe something I feel could map onto reality
Justin Martyr says no.
Dan I like your videos but those audio levels....
can’t hear him
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote the Gospels
prove it and pick up your nobel prize
according to the Bible and early church historians
@@danielandteresabowlin3406 There's nothing in the text of the Bible that says that. Those early Church fathers did apply the labels that are printed in our modern Bibles, but there's nothing in the text of Matthew that says "I am Matthew the tax collector, that I'm introducing in this passage."
@@danielandteresabowlin3406 Justin Martyr quoted extensively from what we call the gospels and never mentioned any of the supposed authors.
you have Papias, Iraneus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, (Justin Martyr stated "For the gospels, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels". he was referring to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John)
audio.... Otherwise, very interesting video!
Yes, it is very easy to know who wrote some small cults' religious ramblings from thousands of years ago . . .
Are people serious about this? 😆
Richard Bachman is not a real person. Mark Twain is not a real person. Did this guy just forget that pen names are a thing?
1 Cor 14:33 KJV.. god is NOT the author of confusion???but but but.... oh really... 2000 years on and still 'trying' to justify authorship. interpolations etc.. give me a break....
Is this some kind of fucking joke. How am I supposed to hear this dude at all??
The Gospels were written , pin to paper, by different professional scribes with long studies in Greek . What is missing is a front page thanking who paid for the work. The work cost real money. 🎉
Sound of the guest you are trashing is awful and so quiet it's barely audible
Since the Gospels are clearly eyewitness testimony, then many people at that time would have known who authored the Gospels at the time they were written. This knowledge has been passed down through the generations until now.
Better to go with the testimony of those who were there at the time than some skeptics 2000 years later.
The gospels aren't clearly eye-witness testimony or even written in the first person. Take our earliest Mark for example. Mark isn't in the story, and even if tradition is true and its really Peter's perspective, then we have to examine the parts that Peter clearly couldn't have been there for, with John the Baptist. So at best this part of the story would be Witness->Peter->Mark. But there is nothing in the text that says it was Mark writing, or Peter's words, or Andrew or Jesus who told Peter. Not until at least a full generation later do we have any evidence that Mark wrote a gospel, and its difficult to show they were even referring to this one. And nowhere in the text does it claim the author's source.
What "knowledge" you claim has been passed down could have started as later than 120CE about 90 years after Jesus's death. With no eye-witnesses or author left to refute what was being NOW claimed as Mark->Peter->Witness.
@work3753 Or we could just take their word for it, rather than someone like yourself who is 2000 years removed from the events....
'Many scholars believe that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians around AD 55, or about twenty-two years after the death and Resurrection of Christ. JAT Robinson, the liberal New Testament scholar, conducted an in-depth study in which he found strong historical, textual, and logical evidence for the entire New Testament having been composed between AD 40-65.1 In particular, Acts ends while Paul is still in prison. As a result, 1 Corinthians may have been written even earlier.
However, a wide range of scholars believes the earliest Christian creed was formulated and taught less than five years after the death and Resurrection. Ulrich Wilckens writes that it, ‘indubitably goes back to the oldest phase of all in the history of primitive Christianity.’ Joachim Jeremias states that it is ‘the earliest tradition of all.’ Gerd Lüdemann, an arch-skeptic, maintains that ‘the elements in the tradition are to be dated to the first two years after the crucifixion of Jesus…not later than three years…’ Michael Goulder, an anti-christian, thinks it ‘goes back at least to what Paul was taught when he was converted, a couple of years after the crucifixion.’ Thomas Sheehan believes the creed ‘probably goes back to…within two to four years of the crucifixion.’
Two New Testament scholars date the creed even earlier. Walter Kasper believes the creed may have been in use less than one year after the crucifixion. Likewise, James D.G. Dunn wrote that the 1 Corinthians 15 creed was formalized and taught within months of Jesus’ death and Resurrection. Historically speaking, the creed was formulated, distributed, and written so extremely early that talk of myth or legend lacks any credibility whatsoever.
It possesses all the characteristics of an official creed. First, Paul uses the words ‘delivered’ and ‘received’, which are technical rabbinic terms indicating that he is passing along a holy tradition. Second, the grammatical structure and style are indicative of a creed. Third, the original text uses Cephas, which is the Hebrew/Aramaic name for Peter. The use of such language is evidence of an extremely early origin. Fourth, Paul uses unconventional phrases such as ‘he was raised’, ‘the third day’, and ‘the twelve.’ These phrases go back to the earliest, most primitive stage of historical Christianity. Fifth, the stylized content and specific wording are similar to Aramaic and Mishnaic Hebrew means of narration
German historian Hans von Campenhausen says, ‘This account meets all the demands of historical reliability that could possibly be made of such a text.’ Pinchas Lapide, one of the few Jewish New Testament scholars, considers the creed to be so reliable that it may be considered as a statement of eyewitnesses.'
I think a lot of people don't realize how good communications were in the Roman Empire. That's kind of how they maintained the empire. Well, that, armies & international trade.
😁 debate! Debate! Debate😁
Sounds like Dan is taking the Apologetic role in this argument, and is coming from it as the complete opposite way than normal.
Just depends who says, "utterly implausible"... from 2000 years distance...
So after 7:00 you're saying that it's "technically not impossible" that the gospels were anonymous, therefore you believe they are anonymous. Don't you criticize apologists for thinking this way? I am in agreement that it is utterly implausible for that to happen to all four gospels across the empire.
At no point whatsoever did I say it's "technically not impossible." I pointed out that nothing is at all "utterly implausible." It's a perfectly plausible theory for how the ascriptions remained so consistent, but it's just a theory, not something we can prove. This isn't remotely the apologetic thinking I criticize.
@ I can’t see much of a difference. You say you go with “most likely” at every point. I can’t see any other theory reaching any where near that one.
Why do people waste their time on this fantasy story…there isn t a giant man floating around in outer space…grow up please
Only internet atheists think that.
I don't particularly like Wes' exegesis because he's a believing Christian but I'd wager any amount of money you're deliberately going after him because of all the attention he's getting from destroying Billy Carson in a debate... you trying to prove you're the better scholar. lol seriously, man, this isn't a coincidence.. and I would expect nothing less from a man who profess to part of a religion he knows is complete nonsense.. education yes, integrity not a drop
Debates aren't scholarship, they're theatre.
If you can’t attack the argument, attack the man.
If you are a Christian don’t waste your money on bets. Give it to the poor, as Jesus instructed you to do.
This guy doesn’t like someone’s exegesis because he is a Christian. Shows you are biased towards atheists as if we don’t have a wealth of great biblical scholarship from Christians
Because I'm subscribed to your channel, the UA-cam algorithm thinks I would also like to watch videos of this "biblical scholar". While I have watched a couple of his "lectures" while trying to keep an open mind, I always come away feeling kind of dirty... like I was just verbally accosted by a high pressure salesman.