Thanks Steve, but errors discount a witness

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>STEVE CR

>I think you are heading in the wrong direction in your attempt to 

understandearly church history. Firstly, the fact of a church father 
making a

>theological error - how could that lead to a conclusion that they are

>unreliable in their testimony of a historical event.


I was careful to say that their testimony, upon proving some other 
error, would "be called into question".  Now of course, if you barge in 
on it as you did, then you can't just flush everybody's testimony down 
the sewer.  However, the existence of a theological error speaks not to 
"history" but to theology, and the resurrection of Christ is at least 
theological issue.  The same with History.  Irenaeus was 'strangely 
mistaken' about his view that Jesus lived to be an old man.
Have you never heard of a "attacking the credibility of a witness"?
While I am careful not to debunk everything, I DO say that inerrantists 
who claim the resurrection would stand in court, don't have a case, 
since at least one of their sources for early Christian evidences made 
perhaps the most serious error one could make in Christianity, not 
knowing the life of Christ properly.

 Secondly, how could a

>church father making an historical error lead you to the conclusion 

that

>their testimony was unreliable.


The same way a witness to a car accident would be considered unreliable 
because the facts beg to differ.  Christians are so busy talking giving 
the standard "but-then-you-would-destroy-all 
knowledge-of-ancient-history" rebuttal, they fail to deal with the fact 
that errors do indeed impeach to some degree a person's witness.  


>In this case there would be no history. Tacitus made errors. Josephus 

made

>errors. Etc.


Protestant Trinitarians would never call a Jehovah's Witness to the 
stand to testify of Christ's resurrection, preciesly because both 
disagree as to the theological truth, was it bodily or spiritual?  Thus, 
if a protestant uses a church father who disagrees with them on points 
the Protestant feels are important, they are hyocritical to call them to 
the witness stand in a court.


>It also sounds like you have already made your mind up before you know

>anything.


Sorry you took it that way.  I know lots of things about Christianity, 
which is why I am currently writing a book against it.
I also know a simple fact of law in the court system:  Though it is 
improper to immediately debunk a witnesses testimony simply because they 
made mistakes therein, it is very proper to CALL  THEIR TESTIMONY INTO 
QUESTION.  So then, the Christian's case is weakened considerably when 
their witnesses demonstrate inaccuracies of testimony.  Thus, the mere 
fact that their testimony is called into question, renders such 
testimony suspect, and in turn makes it unusable REGARDING THE QUESTION 
AT HAND.  How old did Jesus live to be?  However you lookup the answer, 
forget about using Ireneaus!

skepticbud@aol.com
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