Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Note: Every subject matter expert Lee interviews is biased toward Christian beliefs. This is blatant dishonesty on his part because he claims to be a non-biased investigator C1: The Eyewitness Evidence: Right at the beginning there is an admission that the gospels are anonymous. The oldest and best manuscripts have no cited author and nowhere in the gospels do the writers disclose their identities. The early church assigned names to the gospels to provide authority. The claims of “who” wrote the books came almost 100 years after the supposed death of Jesus and the church fathers had a vested interest in claiming authoritative people were the authors. The gospels were written as narratives, not as historical documents. They were propaganda to help draw people into the religion. The books of Matthew and Luke draw heavily from Mark which is strange as actual eyewitnesses would write what they saw and experienced. Not to mention taking information from the Q document which seems to be a book of sayings by Jesus written by an unknown author. The claim that Mark wrote his book based on the recollections of the eyewitness Peter MUST be demonstrated to be true, as this claim is pure speculation. At one-point the earliest biographies of Alexander the Great are compared to the gospels. We have a lot of physical evidence beyond these biographies that verify that Alexander was a real person, yet most rational people don’t accept the claims made that he was born of a virgin and his father was Zeus. What physical evidence do we have for the existence of the character of Jesus described in the bible? I am willing to tentatively grant there may have been one or more itinerant apocalyptic preachers roaming around Israel in the first century on which the character of Jesus was based. However, we have absolutely no evidence to prove the stories, and especially the miracle claims, are factually accurate. The bottom line is: We don’t know who wrote the gospels; we do not have any reliable sources outside of the gospels to verify the Jesus described in the bible was a real person; we do not know if the information, especially the supernatural claims, contained in the gospels are factually accurate (they must be demonstrated to be so). C2: Testing the Eyewitness Evidence. Lee continues: he speaks of 8 different tests: The Intention Test (did the writers intend to record accurate history). This is not relevant. The stories which formed around Christianity were oral traditions that were being passed around for a minimum of 20-30 years prior to them being written down. During this time people were NOT attempting to preserve history; they were proselytizing. We must understand that every religion, at that time in that region of the world, contained supernatural elements. To convince people to convert there must be something more than just a nice guy, who had good advice, and was executed by the government for inciting people. I’m not saying they made up lies, but exaggeration occurs. So, when the literate Greek speaking writers came along they recorded the STORIES that were available to them. So, what is more probable: 1. An itinerant apocalyptic preacher was roaming around Israel preaching his message and he was executed by the authorities for inciting the crowds and after his death stories about him were greatly exaggerated? Or 2. He is a god and genuinely had supernatural powers, while all other god claims are false? The Ability Test: Did the writers have the ability to record the accurate history? Not if they were only recording exaggerated oral stories. The Character Test: Was it in the character of these writers to be truthful. We don’t know because we don’t know who originally wrote down this information. The Consistency Test: Is what is written consistent? If you read the gospels horizontally, they have some consistent elements but there are some parts that are drastically different. One example are the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke. If you look at them (without doing a huge amount of mental gymnastics) they cannot align. The Bias Test: Did the writers have any biases. They may have been biased, or not. We cannot say for sure. But the oral traditions they recorded were most likely biased and exaggerated. The Cover-Up Test: Leaving out embarrassing or hard to explain details. We don’t know if any details were left out of the gospels. However, we know that the early church had MANY gospels (and other books) which were not included in the cannon, and the church tried to destroy all existing copies of those books. The Corroboration Test: Yes, the bible mentions some real people, places, and landmarks. However, this is irrelevant. If the bible did not include these elements it would cast enormous doubt on its reliability. The Adverse Witness Test: Were there others present who would have contradicted or corrected the gospels if they had been distorted or false. Maybe there were but are just not remembered by history. There were people who argued against Scientology and Mormonism, yet those are still active religions. C3: The Documentary Evidence: In this section they speak of the number of biblical manuscripts and how accurately they have been copied. This chapter is meaningless. As I have mentioned above, it is the information that was originally written that is the issue. Yes, the Catholic church became an extremely powerful organization who employed an army of monks to copy and translate the bible, so they could spread their religion far and wide. Yes, the copies and translations were fairly accurate. None of this matters if the information contained within the originals cannot be demonstrated to be factually accurate. The Hindu holy books, the Koran, the book of Mormon, and Dianetics have all be copied accurately; does this indicate that the information contained within them is factually accurate? Again, I am not concerned with the mundane claims made in the bible; I am only interested in the extraordinary claims. These need to be demonstrated, in a verifiable and objective way, to be factually accurate. C4: The Corroborating Evidence In this chapter Lee covers documents that mention Jesus or Christianity outside of the bible. To start, let’s say I grant that these are not forgeries: Not one of the writers of these documents was an eyewitness to anything, so they are simply recording things they heard from others. The claims made must be demonstrated to be true. First is Josephus (37 to 100 CE). Josephus mentions James, the brother of Jesus, in Antiquities (book 20, chap 9). The majority scholars feel this is most likely written by Josephus. However, this does not prove the miracle claims of the bible. Then there is the Testimonium Flavianum; which speaks in more detail about Jesus. The majority of scholars reject the authenticity of this passage and believe it was altered by the Catholic church. Next is Tacitus (56-120 CE). This passage speaks of Christians and what they believed about Jesus; which in no way demonstrates the truth of what they believed. Again, many scholars doubt this passage was written by Tacitus and was more likely added later. Next is Pliny the Younger (62-113 CE). Pliny wrote a letter to the Emperor Trajan in 110 CE regarding the Christiani. He gives some information about these people including them singing hymns to Christ as God. Again, this was describing people who believed something and does not provide any evidence of their beliefs being true. I think the bigger issue is there were at least 126 historians, in the area of Israel from the 1st to 3rd century, who never mention Jesus or Christians, which most likely shows the Christian movement was so small and unimpressive as to go unnoticed until the 4th century. They go on to speak of the darkness which occurred during Jesus’ crucifixion. There were NO references made, by contemporary historians, to this darkness at any time around the date provided for Jesus’ death. C5: The Scientific Evidence: This section discusses archaeology proving sites and landmarks mentioned in the bible existed at the time the supposed stories took place. John states, “…it doesn’t confirm that what Jesus Christ said is right.” It also does not demonstrate that the character of Jesus described in the bible actually existed, or any of the supernatural and extraordinary elements described in the bible factually occurred in reality. Of course, the writers of the bible included real places in their stories; that would be expected by everyone who heard those stories. C6: The Rebuttal Evidence: This section is about refuting the Jesus Seminar. I don’t care about the Jesus Seminar and the opinions of those involved. At one-point Greg speaks of the supernatural elements in the gospels. He states, “…what I can’t grant is the tremendous presumption that we know enough about the universe to say that God-if there is a God-can never break into our world in a supernatural way.” If you claim that there is a god and that god is capable of doing anything supernatural you MUST demonstrate this to be true; otherwise we have to grant every other extraordinary claims people make both supernatural (Mohamad flew to heaven on a winged horse) and potentially natural (alien abduction) claims. Yet again, I do not care about the mundane claims made in the bible. It is the extraordinary claims which must be demonstrated to be factually accurate. They go on to saying that the claims made in the gospels are different then supernatural claims made in other ancient documents therefore the Jesus miracle claims are more likely to be true. They are wrong. Each extraordinary claim must be demonstrated to be true on it’s own with actual demonstrable, verifiable, objective evidence. Greg does on to speak of “The Jesus of history and the Jesus of faith.” I agree. As I’ve said above the character of Jesus described in the bible may have been based on a real person (historical). The character of Jesus described in the bible requires faith that the miracle claims are true because there is no evidence to demonstrate they are factually accurate. C7: The Identity Evidence: This section covers who Jesus of Nazareth thought he was. Most of this chapter is meaningless. The gospels were written by unknown authors who were most likely recording orally transmitted stories circulating about Jesus. We don’t know if any of this information is factually accurate. We only have the character described in the bible. So, this is like reading stories about Hercules and attempting to assess who Hercules thought he was. Yet again, it must be demonstrated that the stories written about the character of Jesus are factually accurate. They speak of his deeds and his miracles, but these claims must be demonstrated to be true as well. C8: The Psychological Evidence: Again, this section is meaningless for the same reason as the last. We have stories written about the character of Jesus in the bible. Attempting to base a psychological assessment of a character in a book is basing on your evaluation on information which most likely fictional. It is like doing a phycological evaluation of Professor Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books. The stories about the character of Jesus must be demonstrated to be factually accurate and that has not been done in this book so far. C9: The Profile Evidence: This section is about whether or not the character of Jesus described in the bible fulfilled the attributes of god. Yet again, it has not been demonstrated that the character of Jesus described in the bible actually existed in reality. If the writers of the bible wrote him that way, then he did within the context of the stories, just like Harry Potter fulfilled the attributes of the chosen one to defeat Voldemort. Can anyone demonstrate that any of this information is true? So far, no one has. At one point Lee brings up the concept of hell. It is basically stated that people are in hell by choice, because they don’t want to follow god’s rules, they just want to rebel against god, if god took his hand off of this world we humans would make earth into hell, but in the end, everyone will get their deserved justice. Can they demonstrate ANY of these claims are true? They also bring up slavery and attempt to excuse the FACT that the bible (Exodus 21 & Leviticus 25), and thereby god, clearly advocates for slavery; and by slavery, I mean owning another human being as property for the lifetime of the slave. No where in the new testament does Jesus specifically denounce slavery. Is it too difficult for a god to just state “thou shalt not own another human being as property”? C10: The Fingerprint Evidence: In this section Lee speaks with a Christian pastor who was raised in a Jewish household. He describes how he led a tough life, experimented with other eastern religions and even satanism, got into drugs, and then discovered Christianity and was saved. At one point he states, “God has to be an objective reality if he’s going to have any meaning beyond my own imagination.” Really? Can he objectively demonstrate this god exists in any demonstrable and verifiable way? No one has been able to do this so far. Ultimately, he becomes a Christian without god being an objective reality. What finally convinced him was the supposed fulfilled old testament prophecies about the messiah. Here are the criteria of a genuinely fulfilled prophecy: 1 Made clearly & demonstrably prior to the events predicted; 2 Intended to be a prediction; 3 An Extraordinary, Non-mundane claim; 4 Fulfilled by a single, clear, verifiable occurrence; 5 Not open to interpretation; 6 Not something people are actively working to fulfill. Not a single, so called, prophecy in the bible meets these criteria (if you have one, please provide) The new testament writers had full access to the old testament documents and had a vested interest in those prophecies coming true. All they had to do is write them into the stories. C11: The Medical Evidence. This chapter focuses on whether or not Jesus actually died on the cross or he somehow survived the crucifixion. The chapter goes into great detail of how a crucifixion cause enormous suffering and ultimately causes death. Once again, this chapter is irrelevant. First it must be demonstrated that the character of Jesus described in the bible existed in reality and was crucified. We have NO Roman (or any other) records of this execution. We only have the bible. Yet, this chapter helped me to understand that crucifixion was a horrible form of execution and that many people were killed this way. Which actually takes away from the story of god sacrificing himself. I’m sure many of the people who were crucified by Rome were not deserving; and many were pagans and ended up in hell. The character of Jesus was god in human form, so he suffered briefly and then was in paradise and was the ruler of the universe. If I was given the opportunity to be crucified in exchange to provide a cure for all cancer, I would gladly sacrifice myself to prevent all of the human suffering cancer causes. Yet, this would be unjust. If there is a cure, why ask anyone to sacrifice themselves to use that cure? Why sacrifice a human body to forgive people for transgressions against rules you created instead of just forgiving? C12: The Evidence of the Missing body: This section is about attempting to prove the empty tomb. First, I want to emphasize that the writers of the gospels were NOT historians and NOT using the methods of historians of that time. They speak of these stories as if they have already proven to be historical accounts when they have failed to demonstrate that they are factually accurate. They speak of whether there was a tomb, if Joseph of Arimathea was a real person, an old creed which mentions the burial of Jesus, whether there were guards at the tomb, discrepancies in the gospel accounts, whether Jesus wasn’t actually dead, etc. None of this matters. They are making arguments about events that happened within the context of stories. They need to demonstrate these events actually took place in the real world and have no means to do so. What I find more interesting is the FACT that not a single contemporary historian EVER mentions Jesus or any of the supernatural events associated to him. During the crucifixion there was an earth quake, sudden darkness, and many people rose from the dead in a major city (Jerusalem); and yet not a single historian recorded these events. What about all of the miracles attributed to Jesus? A genuine miracle worker didn’t draw the attention of any contemporary historian, even though others were written about? This was a man drawing crowds of 5000+ to hear him speak, yet no historian took note. C13: The Evidence of Appearances: In this section Lee covers Jesus’ appearances after his resurrection. The mention a creed, that predates the gospels, that mentions Jesus appearing to Peter, then the twelve (which is funny because Judas as gone Matthias had not yet replaced him), then 500 unnamed people (and no details of where and when), then James, then all the apostles (whoever they were), then to Paul. Yet Paul only claims to have seen Jesus in visions, did these other people only see him as a vision? We don’t know who wrote this creed and we cannot verify the factual accuracy of this creed. They go on to attempt to use the appearances of Jesus claimed in the bible as evidence, but again we cannot verify the factual accuracy of the gospels either as they were written by unknow authors based on oral traditions. C14: The Circumstantial Evidence: In this section Lee provides even weaker arguments to support his previous claims. 1. The disciples died for their beliefs: Show me these martyr stories are actually true. Also, people die for their beliefs regardless of the factual accuracy of those beliefs. 2. The conversion of skeptics: People convert to religions for there own personal reasons. 3. There were Jews who converted. See #2. 4. Communion and Baptism: So the Catholic church developed rituals. Most religions have rituals. 5. The emergence of the church: The religion spread (with the help that Rome eventually declared Christianity its national religion). Lots of religions became popular and spread. Conclusion: In this section Lee basically summarizes the prior chapters, concludes that the extraordinarily supernatural claims made in the gospels and by Paul are true, then gives the formula of faith (believe + receive = become). For a moment imagine you are a juror in a court room. The defendant is being accused of being god and performing miracles. The defendant is not present in the court room, so he can’t be questioned. The prosecutor presents his evidence which consists of 4 books, and the written testimony of one man. Three of the books took much of their information from the first so they are not really independent accounts. We don’t know who wrote these books, so they cannot be cross examined. We do know that the authors got their information from unknow verbal sources, so we can’t cross examine the people or first told the stories. The man who wrote the addition testimony is also dead, so he cannot be cross examined. In his written testimony he claims he only saw the defendant as a vision. Then we bring in 13 subject matter experts, who already believe the defendant is guilty, to review and provide their opinions about the evidence provided. Is this sufficient evidence to determine if the defendant is guilty of being god? If it was a murder trial and all we had was written accounts from unknown people (hearsay), one written account of a man seeing a vision (not sufficient), and some SMEs guessing about these account (inadmissible and irrelevant), the jury would have no choice but to rule the defendant not guilty.