I found an exchange from January between Richard and JAK that I believe to be telling of JAK's smoke and mirror game.
JAK: The fact that nothing was written of Jesus until 30 to 110 years after his death is strong evidence that there never was a historical Jesus
richardMdBorn:You're wrong here. Paul's epistles discuss Jesus and were written prior to 30 years after his death.
JAK: Incorrect analysis, RMB. See [two links]
He provides a link that discusses early Christianity. You can spend twenty minutes scrubing that article and you'll find absolutely nothing that makes JAK's point. The second link refers to the
pastoral epistles, proving JAK really has no clue what the hell he is talking about. In the third link we're directed to another wiki article and JAK points us down the page to a section called the "undisputed epistles." No dating for these epistles is offered. But biblical scholars have provided dates for several Pauline epistles that clearly refute JAK's dogmatic assertion that "
nothing was written of Jesus until 30 to 110 years
after his death." Here is a quick list of various epistles with estimated dates by scholars.
Thessalonians: 52 AD. 1 Corinthians: 54 AD. Romans & Galations 57-28 AD. Philippians: 59 AD. Colossians 61 AD.Ephesians 61 AD.
But back to the humorous exchange:
richardMdBorn: You wrote NOTHING. None of your sources refute the assertion that SOME of Paul's epistles were written prior to thirty years after Jesus' death. If I missed an argument to this effect, please show it to me again. Arguments about the authenticity of the pastoral epistles are irrelevant here.
JAK: On the contrary, I offered both websites and analysis on the issue which you raise. I’ll add to that. What sources have you offered for your contention? None.
The point
Richard raised? No, it was a point
JAK raised the minute he made the false statement. Richard simply asked him to back it up and JAK couldn't. Why? Because JAK's arguments are only as good as his ability to understand the sources he chooses to abuse.
At this point JAK thinks he should be getting credit because he is the only one to provide "links." Never mind the fact that none of them support his claim, he's got links! And until Richard proves otherwise, JAK thinks he wins by default.
JAK then gets flustered, saying "I'll add to that." What ensues is another rant supported by another list of "links." Are we directed to relevant scholarship? Don't get your hopes up. Instead, "professor" JAK directs us to three articles posted on infidels.org and another from an
Islamic website! JAK relies on Muslims as support, while at the same time he says they're beyond reason because they believe in God. Yes, the irony if officially thick.
JAK spends the next five minutes ranting about how the Bible isn't trustworthy to begin with, completely shifting his argument from beforehand. You see, the original claim was that nothing was written about Jesus until 30-100 years after his death. Now JAK wants to argue that the Pauline epistles probably weren't written by Paul because some people dispute that. How does this change the fact that the epistles were written by
someone, and they still refer to Jesus and still date to the time before the period insisted on by JAK? JAK continues to press his point to Richard that he has "offered
no websites and no evidence that the various accounts in the Bible (either testament) demonstrate consistency or clarity."
As if that were ever the argument to begin with!!!!
Richard respond appropriately with the following:
JAK,
You started out by asserting that, "And the fact that nothing was written of Jesus until 30 to 110 years after his death is strong evidence that there never was a historical Jesus"
Your subsequent comments did nothing to support this assertion. Jesus’ death is commonly dated to either 30 or 33 AD. Let’s take the earlier date. Your assertion then is that nothing was written of Jesus prior to 60 AD. All of your other comments are irrelevant to this issue. It’s best to deal with your initial statement before moving on to other things.
Take for evidence Gary Habermas’s comments in his debate with Anthony Flew in Did Jesus Rise From the Dead:
"This is especially based, for instance, on I Cor 15:3ff. where virtually all scholars agree that Paul recorded an ancient creed concerning Jesus’ death and Resurrection That this material is traditional and pre-Pauline is evident from the technical terms delivered and received, the parallelism and somewhat stylized content, the proper names of Cephas and James, the non-Pauline words and the possibility of an Aramaic original. Concerning the date of this creed, critical scholars almost always agree that it is of very early origin, usually placing it in the A.D. 30s." (p. 23)
Notice how richard responds with a citation from a book, not the internet. JAK doesn't know how to handle this, so he responds with his usual argument shift, whining about how the New Testament isn't reliable etc etc. And of course, he's got "links" to prove it. A total derailment from the original point of argument.
Then Richard shows just how ridiculous JAK really is when he actually looks up JAK's "source" and notices how it refutes JAK's claim:
JAK, you wrote, "And the fact that nothing was written of Jesus until 30 to 110 years after his death is strong evidence that there never was a historical Jesus."
Now you write, "As I state, nothing was written at the time of the alleged life and spoken words of the also alleged character Jesus. Early Christian writings are sometimes dated as this chart shows."
Your own link contradicts your point:
50-60 1 Thessalonians 50-60 Philippians 50-60 Galatians 50-60 1 Corinthians 50-60 2 Corinthians 50-60 Romans 50-60 Philemon
All of these are at most 20-30 years after Jesus’ death.
Guess what happened to JAK?
Vanished as usual. What's the excuse going to be this time.... Richard was too mean to him too?
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein