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Because on one hand you appeal to Roman records but on the other hand you dismiss Roman records. 3 Roman historians speak of Christ.
Here is Emperor Julian's testimony regarding the census record:
Even Jesus, who was proclaimed among you, was one of Caesar's subjects. And if you do not believe me I will prove it a little later, or rather let me simply assert it now. However, you admit that with his father and mother he registered his name in the governorship of Cyrenius.

And these were already shown as complimentary and not contradictory when read in context.

Even Jesus, who was proclaimed among you, was one of Caesar's subjects. And if you do not believe me I will prove it a little later, or rather let me simply assert it now. However, you admit that with his father and mother he registered his name in the governorship of Cyrenius.

Some of the prophecies concerning world empires and the Messiah are certainly reaching centuries into the future. With this as your starting premise everything else falls short of making your point.

The Hebrew is using a singular masculine pronoun to speak of one male individual--a man of sorrows--someone whom God assigned to bear all the sins of Israel--the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Messiah is spoken of many times and in many passages without the usage of the term Messiah because He is described in many ways by many different terms.

Your explanation logically fails.

You will need to provide evidence for this because it goes against the testimony of early witnesses and the current consensus of impartial scholarship.

More legal inquiries into the resurrection evidence by leading legal men,

Lord Caldecote, Lord Chief Justice of England, observed that an “overwhelming case for the
Resurrection could be made merely as a matter of strict evidence”21 and that “His Resurrection has
led me as often as I have tried to examine the evidence to believe it as a fact beyond dispute....”22
(cf., Thomas Sherlock’s Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, which places the
Resurrection in a legally argued forum and in the words of lawyer Irwin Linton, “will give anyone so
reading it the comfortable assurance that he knows the utmost that can be said against the proof of
the central fact of our faith and also how utterly every such attack can be met and answered.”23 At
the end of the legal battle one understands why, “The jury returned a verdict in favor of the
testimony establishing the fact of Christ’s resurrection.”24)

Irwin H. Linton was a Washington, D.C. lawyer who argued cases before the U.S. Supreme
Court. In A Lawyer Examines the Bible, he challenges his fellow lawyers “by every acid test known
to the law...to examine the case for the Bible just as they would any important matter submitted to
their professional attention by a client... .”11 He believes that the evidence for Christianity is
“overwhelming” and that at least “three independent and converging lines of proof,” each of which
“is conclusive in itself,” establish the truth of the Christian faith.12 Linton observed that “the logical,
historical... proofs of... Christianity are so indisputable that I have found them to arrest the surprised
attention of just about every man to whom I have presented them....”13 He further argues the
Resurrection “is not only so established that the greatest lawyers have declared it to be the best
proved fact of all history, but it is so supported that it is difficult to conceive of any method or line of
proof that it lacks which would make [it] more certain.”14 And that, even among lawyers, “he who
does not accept wholeheartedly the evangelical, conservative belief in Christ and the Scriptures has
never read, has forgotten, or never been able to weigh—and certainly is utterly unable to refute—
the irresistible force of the cumulative evidence upon which such faith rests....”15
He concluded the claims of Christian faith are so well established by such a variety of
independent and converging proofs that “it has been said again and again by great lawyers that
they cannot but be regarded as proved under the strictest rules of evidence used in the highest
American and English courts.”16

J. N. D. Anderson, in the words of Armand Nicholi of the Harvard Medical School (Christianity
Today, March 29, 1968), is a scholar of international repute, eminently qualified to deal with the
subject of evidence. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on Muslim law, Dean of the Faculty
of Law at the University of London, Chairman of the Department of Oriental Law at the School of
Oriental and African Studies, and Director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies at the
University of London.7 In Anderson’s text, Christianity: The Witness of History, he supplies the
standard evidences for the Resurrection and asks, “How, then, can the fact of the resurrection be
denied?”8 Anderson further emphasizes, “Lastly, it can be asserted with confidence that men and
women disbelieve the Easter story not because of the evidence but in spite of it.”9


John Singleton Copley (Lord Lyndhurst, 1772–1863) is recognized as one of the greatest legal
minds in British history. He was Solicitor General of the British government, Attorney General of
Great Britain, three times the High Chancellor of England and elected High Steward of the
University of Cambridge. He challenges, “I know pretty well what evidence is; and I tell you, such
evidence as that for the Resurrection has never broken down yet.”5
Hugo Grotius was a noted “jurist and scholar whose works are of fundamental importance in
international law,” according to the Encyclopedia Britannica. He wrote Latin elegies at the age of
eight and entered Leiden University at eleven.6 Considered “the father of international law,” he
wrote The Truth of the Christian Religion (1627) in which he legally defended the historical fact of
the Resurrection.

I did a bit more study on this one as it seems this is one of the latest fads among the skeptics--that 2 Pet was a forgery because:
1. Peter was illiterate
2. Peter could not speak or write in Greek
3. Peter's language was different between the two epistles
4. It was not quoted by the earliest Church writers

Let's weigh those arguments:

1&2. The basis of Peter's illiteracy was that he was fisherman and that he was considered unlearned. The literacy rate among Jews was very high for those times because the fathers were to instruct their children in the law. He was considered uneducated by the standards of scholars Acts 4:13. However they were amazed at what he knew without going to school. Jesus chose him to be one of his witnesses and specifically gave him a prominent position among the others and gave him the Greek name, Peter. Whether Peter could or could not write is really not a relevant issue because many times the author used an amanuenses to dictate their words.

3. I quote .. As Kruger {2} describes, 1 Peter has 542 words, 2 Peter has 399 words, and they share 153 words in common, which means only about 38% are shared words, while 62% are unique to 2 Peter. While this may seem like good evidence for two different writers to some critics, consider that 1Timothy and Titus share about 40% of their words and about 60% are unique to Titus, yet both are believed by critics to have the same author, even if they don’t believe it’s Paul, (which is another debate). And also 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, both believed by practically all scholars to be written by Paul, share 49% of their words, and 51% are unique to 2 Corinthians. So differences in language are not conclusive, especially when we consider that they really seem to have two very different purposes, 1 Peter to encourage a church during persecution, 2 Peter to address the problem of false teaching.
Attributing documents to different authors because of style has always been problematic, many times because of the subjective nature of the argument. For example, in the introduction to each letter, the only parts that match are the second verses of each. Why would a forger only copy this one part? Furthermore, this particular word combination “grace and peace be multiplied” can only be found in these two books in the entire New Testament.

4. I quote ... It’s true that Origen was the first to officially quote the epistle. But he quotes the book six times, and there is no trace of a doubt in his writings that it belongs in the canon of the New Testament. This would not happen casually with some recently composed document. What it means is that by his time the book was widely accepted as authentic. Church father Eusebius listed 2nd Peter along with some other books as “disputed”, the others being James, Jude, and 2 and 3 John. But he clearly indicates that the majority of the church regarded it as authentic.
All church fathers after Origen acknowledge that 2nd Peter is canonical. Learned church father Jerome accepted 2nd Peter without hesitation even though he admitted it differed in style from 1 Peter, which he attributed to different scribes employed for each letter.
2nd Peter appears in some early manuscripts such as the P72 Bodmer Papyrus from the 3rd century and in the very authoritative Codex from the 4th century, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, on which many of our modern translations are based.
One of the reasons the church fathers in the first 2 centuries may have been reluctant to quote 2nd Peter was because there were many other documents around at that time that were forgeries falsely attributed to Peter, such as the Gospel of Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, and others. But the fact that 2nd Peter rose above the rest of these and ultimately gained full acceptance is greatly in its favor.
Although the first official quote of 2nd Peter was from Origen, there is evidence for an early date of composition contrary to some critic’s charges. Clement of Alexandria (150-215 A.D.) wrote a commentary on 2nd Peter, which unfortunately is now lost. Why would he have written this if the church thought that 2nd Peter was a forgery? [1] Irenaeus (130-200) quotes from Psalm 90:4 in language almost exactly matching 2 Peter 3:8, both deviating widely from the Septuagint translation in almost the exact same places, indicating that Irenaeus may have been quoting directly from 2nd Peter. Justin Martyr (115-165) also may be alluding to 2nd Peter with a passage in his Dialogue with Trypho that matches up with the wording in 2 Peter 2:1. There is evidence that the Apocalypse of Peter written in 110 A.D. depends on 2 Peter, and finally even 1 Clement (written 95-97 A. D.) has two phrases in it that have matches in 2 Peter but are not found in the rest of the New Testament. These phrases are referring to God as “the magnificent glory” (2 Peter 1:17) and “the way of truth” (2 Peter 2:2, also 1 Clement 35:5). It’s unlikely the Greek in these phrases would match so closely when they are both so rarely used. {2}

Thanks for your work and info on this, TH.

God is good, all the time. Wish you would experience that. You and Idaho fit the biblical definition of a fool. Lot's of nice guys are fools though, congrats.

I thank you as well!

I want to thank you for helping me prove the Bible is riddled with contradictions. I have a lot more of them.

Every one that I have posted and you have responded; you state that there is no contradiction. Then you explain and give reasons for the contradiction.

For example...“… the earth abideth for ever.” — Ecclesiastes 1:4
the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.” — 2Pet

You responded with a good explanation about the earth being destroyed and than renewed. So the “earth abideth forever” still remains a contradiction.

However most of the others you did not respond, but you claim to have proven they do not exist. You have not done that.

You have yet to even respond to my first example about the contradictions between God in the Old and God in the New Testament. Did the authors evolve from God killing children, raining burning sulfur, and genocide to the gentle teachings of Jesus?

You tell me to seek the truth. But I say onto you that the truth in not in you.

Not you're just making stuff up. The passage in question was not referenced. Before the 4th century.

After 4 examples if you cannot see the contradictions are in your own mind and not the text, then responding to 6 more will only illustrate the same point. Not meaning to be disrespectful but the level you go to try to prove something that cannot be proven only weakens the position you hold. The contradictions that I addressed are not very difficult to resolve--it only takes some context, honest inquiry, and common sense.

Testimony alone is not necessarily evidence. The person giving an account of an event may be mistaken, deluded, lying, etc, which is why verifiable evidence is necessary.

We don't have verifiable evidence in the bible. We have what anonymous authors, copying from older material and word of mouth transmission, tell us.

Now I repeat the same answer because it stands and I will add a quote from an early church writer, Origen before the 4th century as he lived from 184-253 AD.

Origen, Against Celsus, Book I, Chapter 47

I would like to say to Celsus, who represents the Jew as accepting somehow John as a Baptist, who baptized Jesus, that the existence of John the Baptist, baptizing for the remission of sins, is related by one who lived no great length of time after John and Jesus. For in the 18th book of his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus bears witness to John as having been a Baptist, and as promising purification to those who underwent the rite. Now this writer, although not believing in Jesus as the Christ, in seeking after the cause of the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple, whereas he ought to have said that the conspiracy against Jesus was the cause of these calamities befalling the people, since they put to death Christ, who was a prophet, says nevertheless-being, although against his will, not far from the truth-that these disasters happened to the Jews as a punishment for the death of James the Just, who was a brother of Jesus (called Christ),-the Jews having put him to death, although he was a man most distinguished for his justice. Paul, a genuine disciple of Jesus, says that he regarded this James as a brother of the Lord, not so much on account of their relationship by blood, or of their being brought up together, as because of his virtue and doctrine. If, then, he says that it was on account of James that the desolation of Jerusalem was made to overtake the Jews, how should it not be more in accordance with reason to say that it happened on account (of the death) of Jesus Christ, of whose divinity so many Churches are witnesses, composed of those who have been convened from a flood of sins, and who have joined themselves to the Creator, and who refer all their actions to His good pleasure.

This quotation illustrates that Josephus is writing about John the Baptist, Jesus, and James the brother of Jesus, thus establishing Jesus' existence as a man. Note that Celsus is also quoted as accepting Jesus as a man of history. While this citation is not the Testimonium Flavianum per se, it certainly validates the essentials points of the Testimonium Flavianum by indicating that Jesus was an historical figure who was put to death. The part on whether he did notable deeds or not, is not the main the point in question--because the main point is whether Josephus testifies of the existence of Christ -- which he does.

Additionally, the part that Origen quotes is the same as what has survived today. So again there is no hard evidence of interpolation--this is merely an unproven assumption.

Eusebius cites the Testimonium Flavianum in 324 and uses the exact wording that we have today. Do you really think the TF did not exist in the preceding century before he quoted it? Do you really think this wording only existed in his manuscript?

I'm still challenging you to explain how all the original copies were destroyed, and how only the interpolated ones survived with the same reading, and why there isn't any record of the interpolation.

I'm not expecting you to accept the challenge and provide the evidence, because if it existed, someone would have provided it already.

Sir you are really showing desperation here--every court would examine eye-witness accounts and testimonies to establish evidence--which is what the dictionary says. You have to create your own laws of evidence in order to dismiss the evidence--no reasonable person would accept your methodology. If you had a good argument you would not resort to these measures.

Well, the illustrious Bart Ehrman wrote a book.... “Did Jesus Exist?” One comment attributed to him was:

“...whatever you think about Jesus, he certainly did exist.”


There is much ado about Josephus and I do not seem to appreciate it.

Meh, Jesus existed..... was real....

Get over it.

Well, Jesus asked us to be “witnesses” and provide testimony. The Holy Spirit is the agent that provides “proof.” But, you do have free will and you certainly can reject all you want.

And, it may be true that you “don’t have verifiable evidence.” Didn’t Jesus say that some would not believe even one who came back from the dead?

Originally Posted by DBT

Originally Posted by Ringman

Originally Posted by DBT

So, on the contrary, it is the believer who dismisses these contradictions with no consideration, perhaps not understanding the argument, or even what a logical contradiction happens to look like.

I'm a little late with this, but here goes. Tell me what's wrong with contradictions.

Contradictions happen when two propositions (or more) are logically not compatible, therefore both cannot logically be true. In the simplest terms, if an object is described as being entirely white, it cannot be described as being entirely black....one description or the other must be false. Both cannot be true.

If God is described as a God of Love, who has no jealousy. who is good to all, love your enemy, etc, and God is described as being a jealous God, punishing generations for the sins of their fathers, ordering slaughter, killing guilty and innocent alike, etc.... both descriptions cannot be true, it can one or the other....or God is bipolar.

Where do you get the idea God has no jealousy? God tells us "My name is Jealous because I am a jealous God." (Exodus 34) You are anthropomorphizing God. You, and most including Christians, are missing the concept that God is [i]Infinite. He fills the universe. Even the "space" between electrons and proton. That means when He loves He loves infinitely. Consider He set a rule that death is the punishment for sin and man's death cannot atone for his own sin. That's His rule and we can't do a thing to change it. So He sent His only Begotten Son to die for that punishment as a propitiation for all who will accept His Gift of His Son. When He hates He hates infinitely. Consider the Flood of Noah's time. Beautiful virgins, cute kittens, cuddly puppies, mean old men and caring mothers, lions, tigers, bears and yes even dinosaurs were all treated the same. We find their fossils in water born sediments all over the world.