Athiests: were the historical witnesses in the bible just kidding when they documented what they saw,?

Question

or did they get money to lie about it?

Answer 1

It's funny how many state some of the things in the bible may not be true, yet wouldn't it be possible everything else written in the bible be false?

Answer 2

Well not an atheist - but I can say that I doubt all the people mentioned in the bible existed.

For the NT portion, a lot of the accounts - the gospels - where written after Paul's own writings. It would be a little more believable at least one gospel had preceeded Paul.

We don't know who wrote the gospels. It is church tradition to believe that they were written by the apostles - or those close to them - but honestly we don't know. They just started circulating. We don't know who actually wrote them, or what motivations behind writing them these people had.

Also some of the things that happened in the NT should have made a historical note somewhere. Like people coming back from the dead when Jesus did and appearing to others. The some 500 people Paul claims that say Jesus after his death. Even the death of Jesus, and how he died, being such a large changer of history, should have made a historical splash somewhere. Other Messiah figures had - why not Jesus?

I don't think the people in the NT were intentionally lying or trying to tell their stories for some type of fee. I don't believe Paul is who he said he was - but that he did truly believe in what he was preaching.

Answer 3

Historical witnesses? The majority of the bible was written from 60 to 100 years after jesus and some almost 300 years after so to claim the accounts within to be historically witnessed is ludicrous. The bible is a work of fiction, therefore the characters within it are also fictitious.

Answer 4

Setting aside for the moment that the witnesses in the bible could be fictional characters as well (because others made that case very well indeed). Let's assume they are what you claim. Now take the modern example of 9/11. We ALL watched the whole thing happen on live TV and many times since. You can find plenty of people that swear they saw different things. One sees plated explosives and another sees Arab terrorists and another sees A Bush conspiracy. We have it on tape and can't get the story straight. Imagine how distorted (and interpreted) a story can get being told word of mouth and translated and retold and retranslated for 2000 years.

Answer 5

If you look at the various gospels that discuss the trial of Jesus you will note that the dialog varies, the cast changes, and Jesus' quotes are entirely different ie he is silent when asked questions other accounts have him saying a lot etc. To have been present one would have to have been a court reporter or Pilate himself would have had to record everything WORD FOR WORD then pass it on to ultimately the gospel writer. The verbiage sounds very politically correct to not cast the Romans in a bad light and is likely early propaganda. Besides let me stress the accounts are all different, the verbiage is different, and the players are different. The account of the trial was an early "docudrama" and to hold the verbiage there as being accurate is being beyond naive. The question is who provided the dialog for the trial of Jesus Christ? the answer was the creative writing skills of the gospel writers proven by the fact that they all give varying accounts of what took place with varying verbiage.

Source NT

Answer 6

First, let me tell you about "athiests." There are no such creatures, as far as I can tell. There are "atheists."

Second: Have the historical witnesses in the Bible been corroborated by any extra-Biblical evidence? If not, you are using the Bible to prove that the Bible is accurate history, which does not work very well.

Answer 7

Historical witnesses? Most of the bible was "written" long after the supposed events occured.

For example, people believe the Torah was "transcribed" by Moses, who was not around for those events. What is interesting is that if you look at the Torah, there are many different writing styles included. That leads many to believe that each of the books are a compilation of different wirtings by different authors.

A specific example of this is the creation myth. One, it is detailed twice in the book. Also, each version has a very different style to it. So, explain to me why god would tell the same story twice, very differently each time , to Moses who was transcribing these events.

So, my faith in these "historical witnesses" is slim to none, and slim just left the building.

Answer 8

Some of the things in the Bible were things that can't be explained unless we are there to witness for ourselves. Some of the things were most likely the "visions" of people suffering from mental illness. (Hallucinations, hearing voices.) If you saw a man today, standing over his son holding a knife, and fully intending to kill him because he says that "God told him to", you wouldn't for a SECOND believe that God actually TOLD the man to kill his son. (Even if it was only supposed to be a test.) You would call the police and have the guy locked up. You would understand that the guy is most likely mentally ill. Yet when one reads the story of Abraham in the Bible, they take it as absolute truth that God was talking to him and telling him to do things that any sane person would not even consider. There's hundreds of examples of this kind of thing all throughout the Bible.
The last of the bunch are things that were probably just completely made up.

Answer 9

What historical witnesses.
Did Harry Potter Really save Dumbledor? Or were the witnesses just lying about it.

You really need to think about where and when the Bible was written. What reasons it had for existing.
http://www.bidstrup.com/bible.htm

Answer 10

It was the political spin of its day. If you look at the accounts of historical events in any conflict of the era, when there were documents on both sides, you will see that both sides filtered and embellished, attributing many things to their gods.