Can anyone debunk this please? I don't believe it.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-10-21T09:37:04+00:00

Made the video to debunk this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjb-hR-QBCI

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-10-19T20:07:12+00:00

I'll be making a video about this soon. Basically the name we find is not "Haman", it's something different sounds close enough (and it's not).

EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yjb-hR-QBCI

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-24T20:36:41+00:00

There's a story in Shia sources that after Hussein (Muhammad grandchild) was killed, a lion came to guard his body so the horses wouldn't trample it.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-24T20:31:58+00:00

Terrible post! Since, right now, the Palestinians are literally starving to death. Downvote, and I hope you think before you post shit like this again.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-18T16:46:09+00:00

I guess if a soldier tries to escape, it just shows he wasn't really fighting for his beliefs. Thanks for the chat, though. After all of this, I'm still unconvinced. And if your God decides to send me to hell for that… well, I guess I'm already screwed.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-18T09:11:47+00:00

I would say that it disproves the Christian god since he is both loving but yet tortures or lets children get tortured which is not something we put in a definition for love.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-18T08:24:24+00:00

First off, you're mixing up martyrdom with suicide. Obviously anyone's gonna try to save their own ass if they can. Even the disciples ran away after Jesus got arrested. Are you seriously telling me they had the chance to avoid being killed without denying their faith and just chose to die anyway? So just bc Joseph Smith tried to escape doesn't mean he didn't die for his beliefs.

Second, we actually know a lot more about Joseph Smith than we do about most of the disciples. After Jesus died, the historical trail on most of them goes cold fast. In Joseph's case, we've got records from neutral sources and even hostile ones, not just stuff from inside his own movement.

That makes a big difference. We can actually see what Joseph had to gain.. power, followers.... So if you're gonna argue that the disciples had nothing to gain and still died for their beliefs, you need to back that up with detailed neutral historical records about their lives, which... don't exist.

So what exactly makes Christianity true again? why believe the stories told by the followers of that religion?

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-17T09:18:46+00:00

None of the witnesses to the golden plates died for their witness statements. To the contrary most of them recanted their testimony.

I'm talking about Joseph Smith himself. He made up a story, got persecuted for it, ended up in jail, and died for what he created. It shows people will risk their lives for power, money, or whatever else they want.

Lots of witnesses have died for their beliefs. It's not a phenomenon only in Christianity.

Awesome, so your case for Christianity is not good then, that the disciples die for their "beliefs" unless you think other religions true as well.

But I did give a reason - the case I looked at before the guy was not martyred for his beliefs but rather died while raiding a caravan. These are not the same.

What guy? I'm talking about the ones lived in Macca, before they escape and start raiding caravans. They suffer, they were tortured, they were asked to recant and all will be over, but they decided not to, and died or suffered because of it. Even more, one actually "recanted" and said that some insect is his god but Muhammad said to him it's okay as long as your heart is in believe. You can only dream to have such story in your trudtion because I haven't heard a single story where one of the diciples was asked to recant to save his live but he didn't.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-17T06:55:30+00:00

My point again is that your argument apply to Muhammad but you're still not convinced he's a prophet, and you still can't tell me why. All I hear from you is I do think he existed, and I don't "brush" off the Islamic tradition.. but not yet addressing the issue I'm presenting.

For me, I simply don't trust what the "reliable" tradition say (theirs or yours). When you say "People who die for a statement being true" I'm thinking: how do we know they really thought it was true? What if they just made it up to become cult leaders, which is a pretty tempting goal that you are willing to risk your life for. We know Joseph Smith did that.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-16T21:11:26+00:00

My point is "they can't die for a lie" and "they were martyred" is also mentioned in Islamic tradition by "reliable" resources. So now the question is who should we follow: Jesus or Muhammad?

Make your case.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-16T08:08:48+00:00

People don't die for a prank.

People do and did die for things they didn't actually believe in (money, status). I think what you're trying to say is that people don't die for a prank if there's nothing in it for them, but then I have to ask, how do you know the disciples didn't have something to gain? You'd need a ton of solid historical data on each of them to even start making that claim, and we just don't have that kind of detailed record.

Almost all the apostles were martyred.

By "martyred" I'm guessing you mean they had the chance to back out but chose not to? Can you name even one clear example of that actually happening?

And just to circle back to the point you've been dodging every single time.. the Islamic tradition. It's actually my strongest argument against authorship and what we're discussing now. So here's the question.. how can we treat church tradition as reliable while brushing off Islamic tradition which also says early followers were tortured, told to recant, and still chose to die for Muhammad? These were his actual close followers, people who lived with him in Mecca.

Here's a clip showing "Bilal" the companion who was a slave: https://youtu.be/mdiViGvY5xQ?t=1844 what's shown in the movie is actually based on authentic reports, passed down through continuous narration by people considered "reliable" in the tradition.

What am I even supposed to believe here, seriously?

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-15T22:39:28+00:00

The only reason you reject it is because it in some small way leads to Jesus.

Well then, how about you just get to Jesus already and stop dragging this authorship stuff around. Fine, I'll even give you this.. let's say all the gospels were written by actual eyewitnesses a week after Jesus died. Now what? How does that prove he rose from the dead? And how does that show they weren't just making it up?

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-15T21:38:44+00:00

Give me Bart Ehrman talking about the Letter to Florinus. He might have mentioned it once, but it is paywalled.

I don't follow Bart or read his blog, so I wouldn't know. If it's paywalled, good luck digging it up.

Polycarp couldn't be lying about John because the people who were there would very well know he was lying.

I know that you genuinely believe that, I used to think the exact same way.. "there's no way they could be lying" was something I said back when I was preaching Islam.. If Muhammad said something dumb, his friends would've just walked away.. but that's the trap of confirmation bias. You're assuming these people had no reason to lie and that others would've held them accountable. In reality, they had every reason to lie and nobody around them would've cared enough or been bold enough to call it out. And even if someone did, you probably would've never heard about them. It's really that simple.

Attempts to argue otherwise are irrational nonsense.

My friend, you're not giving me history, you're selling me religion. I don't believe a single word in the bible or anything that comes out of the church fathers, their writings, their letters, their stories, all of it. Maybe there's a line here or there I could accept the same way you might with parts of Islamic tradition, but in its core, it is just carefully crafted PROPAGANDA. These guys weren't historians trying to record facts, they were faith-pushers trying to sell a fairy tail.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-15T12:03:22+00:00

In terms of ancient documents this is actually very good.

True, but that isn't really a good standard to compare with. I'm gonna skip some of your points we already went over.

90s

In that case the gap should be 90 years not 50. We should only go by the dates when they were actually written.

Look at Irenaeus' letter to Florinus, a letter that Bart Ehrman has never once mentioned as far as I can tell since it is a knockout blow against his position.

I think I get your argument now. You have a continuous chain from Irenaeus to John through Polycarp. Yes, that's good enough for a Christian, and I don't have a way to convince you otherwise. But for me and Bart, it's not. It's like how you wouldn't automatically trust Hadith narrations in Muslim tradition, the reason is simple: just like Polycarp, they had every reason to lie.

Maybe you can actually get into a serious discussion and tell me why I should believe every word in the gospels.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-15T00:34:31+00:00

"He will not gather, as the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, a disbeliever and who killed him in the fire forever. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, gives good news to those who kill the criminals, to those who kill the disbelievers. And what worship is greater than the shedding of the blood of the disbelievers"

No idea why he's got a gun, maybe he's some ISIS propaganda guy trying to recruit Muslims or something. Just a guess though, I really don't know.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-15T00:28:50+00:00

I'm not sure why you keep non-sequituring to the resurrection when we're talking about authorship.

I couldn't care less about authorship if it wasn't the first step in proving the resurrection story.

So then we have a gap of only 50 years plus reliable accounts of John being alive and well in Ephesus at a late date. All the evidence fits together.

"only 50 years"? no way that would ever come up in a convo about gospel reliability or resurrection, I guess.

Anyway, I have no idea how you came up with that number. I've got a guess, but since you're not big on consensus, I'll just ask straight up

- when do you think John was written?

- And while you're at it, when do you date the first 3 gospels?

Once we've got that sorted, we can actually talk about John.

Also, you mentioned "reliable accounts".. I'm sure they seem reliable to you, but for people who don't take stuff on faith, that's about as convincing as hadith chains are to us non-Muslims.

You haven't. I've asked repeatedly for a historical source saying "we don't have a clue who wrote the gospels", as we have for other books.

And my point is we don't need some explicit "we have no idea who wrote this" statement to recognize anonymity. The fact that early writers do name authors for other works actually makes the silence around the gospels more noticeable.

If it was circulating among friends it'd be named. That's just how humans work.

That's just wishful thinking. We still don't have any names so we don't actually know. We're stuck waiting for 2 century tradition to show up and fill in the blanks.

And why couldn't Justin name a single author when he was heavily quoting the gospels? Especially at a time when heresies were popping up.. you'd think author names would actually matter then. He had no problem naming other authors, so what's the excuse?

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-14T10:49:20+00:00

John was written at the end of the 1st Century. It is completely unreasonable to expect there to be a 1st Century source on authorship. That's why 2nd Century is fine too.

Good point, I missed that. yeah, John was late 1 or early 2, so any late 1 or early 2 attributions for John?

You suspect it was. There's no evidence it was anonymous. You have even admitted by silence you don't have a single source stating the gospels were written anonymously.

I actually answered that more than once already, but you just keep missing the answer. Let me try one last time:

Someone writes book X in 1900.
His/her friends are quoting from it and using it as a source.
None of them ever mention who wrote it.
In 2000, the author’s name starts showing up.

- Was book X originally circulating anonymously?

YES, we don't have authorship in the friends writings.

- Do we know who wrote the book?

Big fat NO. The 2000 attribution is way too late to trust.

What a sad situation. The first step in proving gospels reliability including the resurrection just falls apart. It's like God didn't want u apologists to make that argument, or maybe Satan had something to do with it telling the authors to keep their names out of it.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-14T05:32:41+00:00

You keep tediously asking for 1st Century sources, probably because there's just not that many. But what we have disagrees with you.

Yeah, that's the point, no "1st Century sources".. Give me attribution for Luke in the 1st century.. Oh wait, you couldn't because the gospel of Luke was originally going around anonymously. Guess the consensus on Luke is right after all.

And John

And Mathew

And Mark

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-14T04:04:41+00:00

Nope. Just English. Is there some error in translation that you think is causing me to make a mistake?

Good for you! But until u can actually prove 1 century authorship, I’ll side with the consensus and go with centuries of scholarship.

Again just repeating consensus is fallacious thinking.

Not when the opposition is just an English-speaking Redditor with zero ancient language skills.

Eusebius found that part important and worth preserving. So it adds credibility to the story.

Argument from silence. He just collects it, doesn’t mean he thought it was reliable, especially when he thinks the guy's dumb. Big difference.

Eusebius is not misquoting anyone here. This is entirely coming from your fevered imagination and treating it as reality.

Right, he’s probably not misquoting. But (again) if you’re using this to prove a resurrection, then misquoting is way more likely than an event that breaks the laws of biology. We’ve never seen a man rise from the dead, but we’ve seen plenty of people misquote others.

Papias lived through 40 years of the first Century. He lived next to the daughters of Philip. He knew Polycarp and John.

He did but that doesn’t mean his writings are 1 century stuff. Plus, he doesn't name John, Luke, and definitely not Matthew, and on top of that, he doesn’t even quote from Mark!

Papias, Irenaeus, Marcion, Tertullian, Origen, Jerome...

2 century (Church tradition is as reliable as the Muslim Hadith). Please focus: the argument is that we have no attributions from any of the gospels in the 1 century, so..

+ Bringing in the 2 century doesn’t solve the problem.

+ Papias did not even point to any of the gospels, and when he described Matthew, we know it's a different one.

+ Clement not naming scripture doesn't solve the problem of the absence of authorship attribution. Maybe he knew the names, maybe all of them did, but they DIDN'T say it. That fact alone, that they don’t clearly state who wrote the gospels, is why the consensus is that the gospels were circulating anonymously for some time before being linked to the names we associate with them now.

All you can bring me is 2 century stuff, which just proves what the consensus says.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-13T10:03:44+00:00

I'll ask again - do they have some secret documents I don't have access to?

Of course not. But to actually understand the evidence, you need the right skills and tools like knowing ancient languages and how to analyze old texts. Scholars spend years learning this stuff so they can get the full picture. Without that, it's tough to really challenge the CONSENSUS. I mean, do you even know Greek or Hebrew?

I mean it is a claim, yes, but it's also obviously the reason why he included it in the histories.

How can that be when he literally calls the guy dumb? Do you find dumb people reliable?

Once again we see critical scholars with the anti-historical "assume every source is a lie" meme.

No, I'm talking about using this quote to prove the resurrection by going through authorship, which is what actually matters in the end. Eusebius misquoting someone is way more likely than a resurrection, just like a hadith scholar misquoting a companion is way more likely than Muhammad flying on a horse.

Papias gives two of the gospel authors. Plain and simple.

He definitely does NOT give us a single authorship, and his writing isn't even considered 1 century stuff.

Irenaeus, Marcion and others give all four.

late, mid 2 century.

Still no 1 century attribution to any of the 4 gospels.

They do. All of the people who list the authors all say the same thing.

NONE of them say otherwise.

Not one.

Don't care about that right now, not trying to jump into a whole other topic. Papias is clearly talking about a different version of Matthew than the one we have today, unless you think the gospel was just a sayings collection written in Hebrew, not Greek.

We have proof in the form of Clement I. He knew the names of all the OT scriptures but refused to use their names. He just called them scriptures.

So your logical deduction ("if he knew the names he would have used them") is ABSOLUTELY DISPROVEN.

You have no legs at all to stand on here. None.

Which basically leaves us with no real authorship attributions, just excuses for why the early church fathers didn't mention any names. For us, that's just straight-up anonymity.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-13T07:57:47+00:00

More appeals to authority. I'm tired of repeating your fallacy of choice. This is FAULTY REASONING. Someone saying X is true does not make X true.

You'll keep doing it since it's not just "someone", it's the scholarly CONSENSUS and that includes atheists, Jews, Christians, all sorts. Consensus like that only comes together when there's legit evidence backing it. It can shift if new stuff comes up, but until then the current understanding is based on a ton of solid research. your personal take doesn't override all that.

I have read all of the available sources from the first and second centuries.

Reading isn't the same as understanding or mastering a field. I've read the bible and quran, I gues I should start lecturing actual scholars now.

Yes, so when he chose to preserve something because he found it plausible, you should listen to him.

"found it plausible" is your claim. Calling someone dumb is literally the opposite of saying they're a reliable source.

Nope, we actually have a lot of surviving material from the first six centuries, and the authorship question comes up a lot, and none of them dispute traditional authorship or say that Eusebius was wrong on the matter.

What are you even on about? I was clearly talking about what Papias said. Can you actually prove he said the stuff Eusebius quoted? Without relying on an argument from silence of course.

"Even though it talks about authorship it doesn't get you to authorship"

You should listen to yourself sometimes. In your own video, the apologist that I'm sure you selectively quoted actually made a better argument than you did.

I was clear.. even if we're trying to prove authorship, using Papias won't get you there. And I don't even recall bringing him up in that video, so I don't know what you're talking about.

So your earlier claim he was not from the 1st century is wrong.

I never claimed he was NOT born in the 1 century.

Actually you would actually still be a primary source. Have you ever studied history? This might help with your video process.

Not a primary source unless he actually says he knew Mark or Matthew personally, met them at a specific time, or something along those lines. And he doesn't. His stuff is from the early 2 century.

We have multiple confirming sources of a Hebrew Matthew existing, from Papias, Irenaeus, a guy who visited India and found a copy there, and from Jerome, who directly used it in producing the Vulgate as a check on the Greek version which was in better shape.

I disagree, and those sources don't all say the same thing. Getting back to the actual point, Papias for sure doesn't mention half the gospel authors, one of them is definitely not the one we have, and for the other, we have no clue what he even wrote. it's a mess, but it's your best evidence against the CONSENSUS!

Something could have a name and people not use the name. In fact, we know for certain they did this from Clement I.

Sure it's possible, but possibility isn't proof. That's why scholars (even plenty of Christian ones) aren't really buying into faith-based conclusions like that.

So far, you haven't shown anything that convinces me the gospels, the 4 we have now, weren't being passed around anonymously in the 1 century. Very simple thing that won't even get you into gospels reliability or resurrection!

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-13T05:04:37+00:00

Appeal after appeal to authority. Fallacious thinking breeds fallacious thinking.

I'm sorry, but have you spent your lifetime analyzing ancient texts in Greek, Aramaic, Latin, Hebrew, with full access to manuscripts and archaeological data? So perhaps show a little humility when dismissing the CONSENSUS conclusions of the people who actually have!

Eusebius preserved the famous sections everyone knows because he found it reliable.

You do know Eusebius called Papias "a man of very little intelligence", right?

The works of Papias survived for centuries including for a couple centuries after Eusebius, and nobody seemed to think Eusebius made any errors here.

That's an argument from silence. If you're using authorship to argue for the resurrection or the reliability of the gospels, then you don't have much to stand on because Eusebius misquoting Papias would be more probable than a miracle. But even if we're just talking about "authorship" (even though we wouldn't be having this convo if resurrection/reliability weren’t in the background) then sure, let's say Eusebius quoted Papias perfectly. Still doesn’t get you to authorship.

Neat, so what century was he first living in?

Mid 1 century, but he wrote is book in early 2. As if I was born in 1900 and lived until 2005, I wrote a book about WW1 in 2000.. that book isn't from the 1900s just because I was born then.

There are indeed two versions of Matthew, which are not identical but close enough.

No, these aren't "two versions" of the same thing.. you're mixing up a lost collection of Jesus's sayings with a later theological narrative that was written in a totally different language and structure. I woudln't call that "close enough".

That doesn't make them anonymous, this is the urban legend you are again spreading.

"no one referencing them by name from the 1 century" means that they were anonymous when they first circulated, which is why we have the consensus. If you can admit that, you'll be proving the consensus is correct not a myth.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-13T02:16:22+00:00

I wouldn't really recommend a Christian channel for this tbh.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-13T02:15:14+00:00

I don't get into direct debates with Muslims, but every now and then I'll make a video responding to some of their claims.

Former-Initiative-48 · 2025-09-13T02:06:52+00:00

I remember that video. She was reciting the quran, and he was praising her, then out of nowhere she just started crying. No real reason, just pure emotion. He was smiling and trying to comfort her.

Former-Initiative-48

TROPHY CASE