Are the Gospels reliable?

Do you want to maybe TRY citations?

"Don't believe everything you read on the internet.". - Abraham Lincoln.

Quote: Dalex64

You still have nearly 100 years of unknown provenance, whether written or oral.

Now you bring up another argument that we do not doubt the reliability of other period documents.

Do you have an example of a 95 year gap in recordkeeping when questioning the reliability of a document?

It's pretty clearly been done that the gospel documents and changes to them over time are pretty well tracked between 125CE and now.

Let's compare apples to apples here.

That 95 year gap is a 95 year break in reliability. Yes I know it is unavoidable when dealing with 2000 year old documents. That doesn't give you a pass to say that "we can't do any better therefore we must assume they are reliable"

Plato's earliest manuscript is dated to the late 9th century AD for a gap of over 1,200 years.
Aristole's earliest manuscript is dated to 850 AD for a gap of roughly 1,100 years.

Quote: Evenbob

historians say the fewer copies
you have of something the more true
to the originals it will be.

Said no historian ever! Surely you are joking.
The more copies you have and the longer the time period these copies span the easier it is to see or notice where errors take place, a gloss, or skipping a line or page, stuff like that. The more copies you have over periods of time from different locations the better. I kind of feel this is self evident and you are either joking or we are misunderstanding each other.

If you only have a few copies then how do you know these few copies are not mistakes without other copies to compare them to. The idea is that the more people copying the text they won't all make the same mistakes at the same time so you can compare and see where the deviation happened by looking of which copy is different from the rest. Why do you think fewer copies would be more true to the original?

Why do you say the Book of Acts is a forgery? It is written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke. If you look at the Greek, the vocabulary, and even the texts of both the Gospel and Acts they were meant to go together. Also, by forgery do you mean written by someone different than the named author? If so, you are correct. The idea of using an apostles' name or other Church leader to give weight to the document's importance or to claim to be from the "school" or from a disciple of the Apostle was common place. This is not just in the New Testament but throughout literature of that time.

Quote: Evenbob

That's all you need to know. If you
want to take what was later written
as truth, you aren't a rational person,
you're a religious person with an agenda.
Rationality isn't in your wheelhouse.

I'm an atheist, and very rational.

You'll notice how good I am trying to be even when you throw me tempting softballs like this. I write as I am biting my lip.

Why is it not rational to believe an oral tradition that was written down? You think it is embellished or changed, but from my own personal experience of what Jesus has done in my life and in that of others I don't think so. I also look at historically how this message of Jesus spread and I can't help but think it wasn't all embellishment and exaggeration. Why is it rational not to believe but it is not rational to believe?

Quote: FrGamble

Plato's earliest manuscript is dated to the late 9th century AD for a gap of over 1,200 years.
Aristole's earliest manuscript is dated to 850 AD for a gap of roughly 1,100 years.

Makes me question what we really know about those two, and what they actually wrote.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates
"As Socrates did not write down any of his teachings,[13][14] information about him and his philosophies depends upon secondary sources. Furthermore, close comparison between the contents of these sources reveals contradictions, thus creating concerns about the possibility of knowing in-depth the real Socrates. This issue is known as the Socratic problem,[15] or the Socratic question."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato
"Thirty-five dialogues and thirteen letters (the Epistles) have traditionally been ascribed to Plato, though modern scholarship doubts the authenticity of at least some of these. "

Scholars agree.

Quote: FrGamble

You'll notice how good I am trying to be even when you throw me tempting softballs like this. I write as I am biting my lip.

Why is it not rational to believe an oral tradition that was written down? You think it is embellished or changed, but from my own personal experience of what Jesus has done in my life and in that of others I don't think so. I also look at historically how this message of Jesus spread and I can't help but think it wasn't all embellishment and exaggeration. Why is it rational not to believe but it is not rational to believe?

Your "why is it not rational?" questions surround an "I like it therefore it must be true" argument.

It might be rational to want to believe something you like and agree with, but it isn't logically sound.

I'm asking why someone thinks it is not rational to believe that an oral tradition in a time where that was so very important could not be trusted after less than 20 years? Why is it not rational to believe that the New Testament, which is far and away the most early attested and often attested ancient text we have is reliable? It has nothing to do with want or wishes other than some people wishing and wanting to discredit the New Testament because they don't like what it says. If the Gospels were written about any other person or told some secular history it would be considered unquestionably reliable by every scholar and person who looked into it. If looked at rationally and just based on the facts and comparing apples to apples its reliability is extraordinary.

No, I would say it would be more widely believed if it didn't contain accounts of supernatural abilities.

That is more about its accuracy than reliability.

You would find more people willing to believe that it was a reliable account of the stories told at the time, but many fewer who believe the factual accuracy.

With Plato and Socrates, there are questions about the reliability about who said what, if at all, but few questions about the factual accuracy of the content.

This seems to be based on an a priori idea that there is no possibility of the supernatural. If the reason you doubt the factual accuracy of the Gospels but accept them for Plato is just because of the supernatural, then you might need a reason to ignore the supernatural rather than the circular, "it doesn't exist."

Quote: FrGamble

This seems to be based on an a priori idea that there is no possibility of the supernatural.

No, it is based on a lack of evidence of anything supernatural, not "no possibility" of anything supernatural.

Also please remember that "no known explanation therefore X" is not valid.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Holmesian_fallacy

Quote:

If the reason you doubt the factual accuracy of the Gospels but accept them for Plato is just because of the supernatural, then you might need a reason to ignore the supernatural rather than the circular, "it doesn't exist."

Sorry, that isn't circular logic, and it is not just because of the supernatural.