DreamTheaterForums.org Dream Theater Fan Site
General => Archive => Political and Religious => Topic started by: William Wallace on January 23, 2012, 12:25:34 PM
-
I agreed to review a book about the "Jesus-myth" and I'm debating (https://thepassivehabit.blogspot.com/2012/01/christ-myth-fail-more-thoughts-on-david.html) the author right now.
Thoughts? Does anybody actually think this idea is likely?
-
As an atheist, I believe that he actually existed as a human being, but nowhere as "divine" as he is described in the Gospels. I tent to think Jesus "only" was an exceptionally great man who as a result exceptionally inspired people for millennia. My two cents. :)
-
Likely? No. Something spawned Christianity and the mass of other writings and religions related to Christ. Without Jesus as a person you're left with a tall task of filling in how everything took off.
Not going to say I'm well acquainted with the subject, but I do recall reading about theories that Jesus was a conglomerate of 2-3 people. I don't think those were taken too seriously, though. The simplest explanation is that Jesus existed one way or another.
-
As an atheist, I believe that he actually existed as a human being, but nowhere as "divine" as he is described in the Gospels. I tent to think Jesus "only" was an exceptionally great man who as a result exceptionally inspired people for millennia. My two cents. :)
Why aren't more Atheists in my area like you?
As for my two cents, I may have become Agnostic recently, but I do believe that he existed.
-
As an atheist, I believe that he actually existed as a human being, but nowhere as "divine" as he is described in the Gospels. I tent to think Jesus "only" was an exceptionally great man who as a result exceptionally inspired people for millennia. My two cents. :)
Why aren't more Atheists in my area like you?
As for my two cents, I may have become Agnostic recently, but I do believe that he existed.
I am agnostic as well. I believe the person Jesus from Nazareth did exist, but, like wasteland, I don't believe any of the miraculous events that are attributed to him in biblical writings. With that said, he was obviously an incredibly gifted, charismatic and wise person who has inspired many.
-
He existed.
-
I'm agnostic dyslexic insomniac. I spend my nights awake wondering if there really is a Dog.
-
He existed.
Cool. I'll just tell him that DTF's bible scholar-overlord agrees with me. Argument settled.
-
I have a hard time believing he never existed in any form.
-
For a dude who was supposed to be around 2000 years, we have more than enough historical records of his existence to definitively say he existed.
-
For a dude who was supposed to be around 2000 years, we have more than enough historical records of his existence to definitively say he existed.
To play devil's advocate, what about the argument that there are no contemporary reports about Jesus?
-
I'm agnostic dyslexic insomniac. I spend my nights awake wondering if there really is a Dog.
Wow, you are dyslexic! I think you meant to type "God." ;)
I agree with hefdaddy42.
-
In my book it could go either way. There might have been one guy, there might have been a couple of (real or not real) guys whose stories were merged, which happens all the time in mythology. I think the utter lack of contemporary records puts a hard upper limit on how influential he really was. He certainly wasn't heralded by the Jews in Jerusalem upon his entry to the city.
rumborak
-
In my book it could go either way. There might have been one guy, there might have been a couple of (real or not real) guys whose stories were merged, which happens all the time in mythology. I think the utter lack of contemporary records puts a hard upper limit on how influential he really was. He certainly wasn't heralded by the Jews in Jerusalem upon his entry to the city.
rumborak
Which is, interestingly, the reason he probably wasn't more prominently mentioned by first century writers who could have written about him. Not because he didn't exist.
-
I think that anything was written about him at all makes it considerably more likely he existed than he didn't. There's pretty low standards for determining if a guy existed 'round those times.
-
He existed.
Cool. I'll just tell him that DTF's bible scholar-overlord agrees with me. Argument settled.
:lol
I think there is too much of an impact on the course of human events for him to have not existed. Son of God, no. Figure of great historical significance, yes. Wicked awesome Scrabble player, you bet your sweet ass.
-
He existed.
Cool. I'll just tell him that DTF's bible scholar-overlord agrees with me. Argument settled.
:lol
I think there is too much of an impact on the course of human events for him to have not existed. Son of God, no. Figure of great historical significance, yes. Wicked awesome Scrabble player, you bet your sweet ass.
???
-
He existed.
Cool. I'll just tell him that DTF's bible scholar-overlord agrees with me. Argument settled.
:lol
I think there is too much of an impact on the course of human events for him to have not existed. Son of God, no. Figure of great historical significance, yes. Wicked awesome Scrabble player, you bet your sweet ass.
And he was RIPPED. See those abs he has on that statue on the cross over the altar at church?
Serious six-pack. Dude got laid for sure. He was like a hippie Tyler Durden.
First rule of christianity. No one talks about christianity.
-
He existed.
Cool. I'll just tell him that DTF's bible scholar-overlord agrees with me. Argument settled.
:lol
I think there is too much of an impact on the course of human events for him to have not existed. Son of God, no. Figure of great historical significance, yes. Wicked awesome Scrabble player, you bet your sweet ass.
And he was RIPPED. See those abs he has on that statue on the cross over the altar at church?
Serious six-pack. Dude got laid for sure. He was like a hippie Tyler Durden.
First rule of christianity. No one talks about christianity.
At my local Catholic church they have him on a stained glass window that has a greenish tint to it. And yes, he's ripped as fuck, so he looks like the Hulk. You wouldn't like Jesus when he's angry.
-
I also agree he existed, but i believe his actions have been greatly exaggerated and over enhanced.
-
He existed.
Cool. I'll just tell him that DTF's bible scholar-overlord agrees with me. Argument settled.
Um, OK.
-
In my book it could go either way. There might have been one guy, there might have been a couple of (real or not real) guys whose stories were merged, which happens all the time in mythology. I think the utter lack of contemporary records puts a hard upper limit on how influential he really was. He certainly wasn't heralded by the Jews in Jerusalem upon his entry to the city.
rumborak
There are gaps in history that we cannot even fill due to people not writing about these people. This is called "normalcy" when you are dealing with a history that not only dates this far back, but in a culture that was mostly comprised of illiterates. The Romans for the most part did all the documentations and it's because of them we know that Jesus did exist and it's because of Paul that we get the earliest written accounts of Christ granted he wasn't an eyewitness but he had an experience. Given how the history played out, the documentation on Christ, who wrote this documentation at first, how the Gospels eventually were written, the Primitive Kergyma of the faith and how the canon came to be, I'm shocked anyone thinks 1) he didn't exist and 2) he's a mixture of more than one person. History just doesn't paint it like that.
-
The Romans for the most part did all the documentations and it's because of them we know that Jesus did exist
No, that's too strong a term. Thanks to the Romans we know *Christians* existed who believed in someone called Jesus Christ. We do *not* have records from the Romans reporting about Jesus himself.
rumborak
-
The Romans for the most part did all the documentations and it's because of them we know that Jesus did exist
No, that's too strong a term. Thanks to the Romans we know *Christians* existed who believed in someone called Jesus Christ. We do *not* have records from the Romans reporting about Jesus himself.
rumborak
*yes* we do. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus#Tacitus_on_Christ)
-
In my book it could go either way. There might have been one guy, there might have been a couple of (real or not real) guys whose stories were merged, which happens all the time in mythology. I think the utter lack of contemporary records puts a hard upper limit on how influential he really was. He certainly wasn't heralded by the Jews in Jerusalem upon his entry to the city.
rumborak
There are gaps in history that we cannot even fill due to people not writing about these people. This is called "normalcy" when you are dealing with a history that not only dates this far back, but in a culture that was mostly comprised of illiterates. The Romans for the most part did all the documentations and it's because of them we know that Jesus did exist and it's because of Paul that we get the earliest written accounts of Christ granted he wasn't an eyewitness but he had an experience.
Paul was a Jew. He was also in contact with eyewitnesses, James and Peter for example.
Given how the history played out, the documentation on Christ, who wrote this documentation at first, how the Gospels eventually were written, the Primitive Kergyma of the faith and how the canon came to be, I'm shocked anyone thinks 1) he didn't exist and 2) he's a mixture of more than one person. History just doesn't paint it like that.
Don't be shocked. The mental blockage generated by skepticism is awfully thick.
No, that's too strong a term. Thanks to the Romans we know *Christians* existed who believed in someone called Jesus Christ. We do *not* have records from the Romans reporting about Jesus himself.
rumborak
What's the difference? Furthermore, we would expect that Jesus' followers would be those most likely to write about him and in most detail - just like most ancient teachers or philosophers. Upper crust Roman historians wouldn't have cared all that much about him.
-
The Romans for the most part did all the documentations and it's because of them we know that Jesus did exist
No, that's too strong a term. Thanks to the Romans we know *Christians* existed who believed in someone called Jesus Christ. We do *not* have records from the Romans reporting about Jesus himself.
rumborak
*yes* we do. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus#Tacitus_on_Christ)
"Written in AD 116"
Lol. The guy wasn't even born for another 30 years after Jesus' supposed death.
rumborak
-
The Romans for the most part did all the documentations and it's because of them we know that Jesus did exist
No, that's too strong a term. Thanks to the Romans we know *Christians* existed who believed in someone called Jesus Christ. We do *not* have records from the Romans reporting about Jesus himself.
rumborak
*yes* we do. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacitus#Tacitus_on_Christ)
"Written in AD 116"
Lol. The guy wasn't even born for another 30 years after Jesus' supposed death.
rumborak
That's such an idiotic objection. Ron Chernow was born long after George Washington died, he obviously wrote his biography of Washington even later. Clearly, Washington's existence is questionable.
-
Are you seriously equating the validity of Washington's existence with Jesus?
Washington was written about every fricking day during his time.
Nobody wrote about Jesus for a century.
rumborak
-
Are you seriously equating the validity of Washington's existence with Jesus?
Washington was written about every fricking day during his time.
rumborak
So? All you have are written documents. All the "witnesses" are dead, no interviews to conduct. Any surviving written accounts aren't easy to access. The people that have access to them are experts, collectors of rare documents and museums, all of whom have a vested interest in keep the "historical Washington" alive and well.
Nobody wrote about Jesus for a century.
No. Mark may have been composed in the early 60s, but 70 CE at the latest. Jesus probably died in 30 or 33. The pertinent question, however, is why he wasn't written about earlier.
-
It's also entirely plausible that people wrote extensively about Jesus prior to our existing sources, and it was simply lost. Given that apocalyptic preachers weren't exactly uncommon at the time, I don't think it would be high-up on anyone's to-do list to go around making copies of accounts of his life.
-
I say it doesn't matter, because the religion has existed for 2000 years now and has essentially earned its keep.
-
So? All you have are written documents. All the "witnesses" are dead, no interviews to conduct.
For you coming from a religious family that might be enough. It ain't for me.
Romans were ridiculously anal about recording events. The fact that Jesus isn't worth a Roman's footnote for 80 years says something.
rumborak
-
So? All you have are written documents. All the "witnesses" are dead, no interviews to conduct.
For you coming from a religious family that might be enough. It ain't for me.
Romans were ridiculously anal about recording events. The fact that Jesus isn't worth a Roman's footnote for 80 years says something.
rumborak
The Romans would have documented every time he took a shit.
-
So? All you have are written documents. All the "witnesses" are dead, no interviews to conduct.
For you coming from a religious family that might be enough. It ain't for me.
Romans were ridiculously anal about recording events. The fact that Jesus isn't worth a Roman's footnote for 80 years says something.
rumborak
Your statement tells me you haven't bothered to study beyond a few google searches, but you feel entitled to pass judgement.
-
So? All you have are written documents. All the "witnesses" are dead, no interviews to conduct.
For you coming from a religious family that might be enough. It ain't for me.
Romans were ridiculously anal about recording events. The fact that Jesus isn't worth a Roman's footnote for 80 years says something.
rumborak
The Romans would have documented every time he took a shit.
:facepalm:
it's your choice to accept the document or not. The idea that will not accept leave very little room open for any rational or reasonable discussion of this topic. In many ways it's like in Inherent the Wind whenever the attorney had a reasonable argument and the judge said, "nope". Whatever. Your choice. Most historians however choose to listen.
-
Romans were ridiculously anal about recording events. The fact that Jesus isn't worth a Roman's footnote for 80 years says something.
rumborak
No, not at all. They selectively recorded what they wanted to record. They weren't at all "ridiculously anal about recording events" in a general sense. The fact that Roman writers did not write anything about Jesus is more likely than not attributable to one simple fact: he lived in a relatively unimportant (from a Roman perspective) province that the Romans recording virtually nothing about during this time period. Virtually nothing, for example, about their privincial governor (Pilate) or about the regent they allowed to stay in place (Herod) despite the fact that these individuals were politicians. So it is not surprising that contemporaneous Roman historians would have recorded anything about a local relgious leader whose teachings did not, during his lifetime, spread beyond a small portion of this relatively unimportant province.
-
So? All you have are written documents. All the "witnesses" are dead, no interviews to conduct.
For you coming from a religious family that might be enough. It ain't for me.
Romans were ridiculously anal about recording events. The fact that Jesus isn't worth a Roman's footnote for 80 years says something.
rumborak
Your statement tells me you haven't bothered to study beyond a few google searches, but you feel entitled to pass judgement.
If that thought makes you feel better ...
@bosk: Lack of other evidence is hardly evidence for Jesus. Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
-
So? All you have are written documents. All the "witnesses" are dead, no interviews to conduct.
For you coming from a religious family that might be enough. It ain't for me.
Romans were ridiculously anal about recording events. The fact that Jesus isn't worth a Roman's footnote for 80 years says something.
rumborak
Your statement tells me you haven't bothered to study beyond a few google searches, but you feel entitled to pass judgement.
If that thought makes you feel better ...
@bosk: More stretched excuses for the lack of relevance of Jesus.
rumborak
Somebody better tell those excuse-making historians.
-
What is the point of this thread? Neither you nor bosk are in any shape interested in actually discussing the topic. All that's happening is regurgitation of statements.
Jesus' contemporary record is 100% non-existent. Plain as that.It is up to your personal faith to believe the accounts produced 80 years later.
rumborak
-
What is the point of this thread? Neither you nor bosk are in any shape interested in actually discussing the topic. All that's happening is regurgitation of statements.
Jesus' contemporary record is 100% non-existent. Plain as that.It is up to your personal faith to believe the accounts produced 80 years later.
rumborak
Please explain your math to me. Jesus dies in 30 or 33 CE. Mark is written down in 70, at the latest. That's 40 years. You forgot to carry the 1, maybe? Also, 1 Corinthians was written in the 50s and contains the same basic elements of the resurrection narratives in the gospels.
-
116AD-30AD=86 years
-
Jesus' contemporary record is 100% non-existent. Plain as that.It is up to your personal faith to believe the accounts produced 80 years later.
rumborak
Setting aside the gospel accounts for a moment, Paul was contemporary, wasn't he? At least, he claimed to be. And he sourced other contemporaries.
-
Jesus died sometime in the 30's. Paul wrote in the 50's.
-
@bosk: Lack of other evidence is hardly evidence for Jesus.
Never said it was. My point is that your assertion that contemporary Roman historians should have recorded Jesus if he was real is provably false.
As far as the extraordinary evidence part, we have that. But that has nothing to do with contemporary Roman historians. So, nice try at sidestepping the issue. But the point remains that your argument about contemporary Roman historians is incorrect.
-
And this extraordinary evidence is?
-
There is actually hardly any evidence on Nero being a total bastard, but most of us accept that he is.
Must have been a good guy.
edit: I'm just saying we can't pick and choose which sources are acceptable in the manner some want to. You have to go on what we have. In fact, much of Greek history comes from ONE GUY (Herodotus), who most modern historians claim had a huge tendency to over-exaggerate EVERYTHING. It's amazing how people love to pick and choose, crossing the line when it suits them but standing safely back when it doesn't.
going for the double edit: Also, the Romans were notorious for keeping track of the stuff that made them look good. Why the crap would they report about Jesus? His dealings were in the Jerusalem area. While they were the military force in the area, they certainly didn't give THAT much of a shit about it (at least as far as regards to Jesus are concerned).
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
As I said in my initial reply to the thread, it's reasonable to assume that some dude existed at some point. I think it's also reasonable to assume that the core messages by him are attributable to him. Where it gets very dicey is the part that make him look divine, i.e. walking on water, healing lepers, being resurrected. There is zero evidence outside the documents written by the believers themselves. Let's be honest; when a man manages to feed 5,000 people all at once with a single loaf of bread, that makes waves in the Roman empire, because when 5,000 people witness the same miracle, they will tell people left and right about it. No such thing is mentioned anywhere. It's reasonable to assume it never happened.
rumborak
-
Wow Rumby, impressive, I'm following.
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
As I said in my initial reply to the thread, it's reasonable to assume that some dude existed at some point. I think it's also reasonable to assume that the core messages by him are attributable to him. Where it gets very dicey is the part that make him look divine, i.e. walking on water, healing lepers, being resurrected. There is zero evidence outside the documents written by the believers themselves. Let's be honest; when a man manages to feed 5,000 people all at once with a single loaf of bread, that makes waves in the Roman empire, because when 5,000 people witness the same miracle, they will tell people left and right about it. No such thing is mentioned anywhere. It's reasonable to assume it never happened.
rumborak
If you assume naturalism before you even examine the evidence, of course your realized picture of the historical Jesus is going to be a naturalist one. That's exactly what the Jesus Seminar is doing.
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
As I said in my initial reply to the thread, it's reasonable to assume that some dude existed at some point. I think it's also reasonable to assume that the core messages by him are attributable to him. Where it gets very dicey is the part that make him look divine, i.e. walking on water, healing lepers, being resurrected. There is zero evidence outside the documents written by the believers themselves. Let's be honest; when a man manages to feed 5,000 people all at once with a single loaf of bread, that makes waves in the Roman empire, because when 5,000 people witness the same miracle, they will tell people left and right about it. No such thing is mentioned anywhere. It's reasonable to assume it never happened.
rumborak
I agree. Just wanted to clarify whether we were arguing over the existence of a guy named Jesus who taught a lot of good moral and religious messages while leading by example, or the existence of a wizard named Jesus.
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
As I said in my initial reply to the thread, it's reasonable to assume that some dude existed at some point. I think it's also reasonable to assume that the core messages by him are attributable to him. Where it gets very dicey is the part that make him look divine, i.e. walking on water, healing lepers, being resurrected. There is zero evidence outside the documents written by the believers themselves. Let's be honest; when a man manages to feed 5,000 people all at once with a single loaf of bread, that makes waves in the Roman empire, because when 5,000 people witness the same miracle, they will tell people left and right about it. No such thing is mentioned anywhere. It's reasonable to assume it never happened.
rumborak
If you assume naturalism before you even examine the evidence, of course your realized picture of the historical Jesus is going to be a naturalist one. That's exactly what the Jesus Seminar is doing.
What he is saying is that naturalism is what we know from living in the world, so for him to accept something other than that requires some pretty impressive evidence.
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
As I said in my initial reply to the thread, it's reasonable to assume that some dude existed at some point. I think it's also reasonable to assume that the core messages by him are attributable to him. Where it gets very dicey is the part that make him look divine, i.e. walking on water, healing lepers, being resurrected. There is zero evidence outside the documents written by the believers themselves. Let's be honest; when a man manages to feed 5,000 people all at once with a single loaf of bread, that makes waves in the Roman empire, because when 5,000 people witness the same miracle, they will tell people left and right about it. No such thing is mentioned anywhere. It's reasonable to assume it never happened.
rumborak
Would it really mean anything if Tacitus reported Jesus' miraculous doings? We have reports of supernatural events from several ancient historians, but I doubt you accept any of them. And there's no reason to dismiss Christian literature from the outset. It's obviously biased, fine. Take that into account. But don't dismiss the bulk of the written evidence of the Jesus' life and works because you don't like what it says about it. Unending skepticism is retarded.
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
As I said in my initial reply to the thread, it's reasonable to assume that some dude existed at some point. I think it's also reasonable to assume that the core messages by him are attributable to him. Where it gets very dicey is the part that make him look divine, i.e. walking on water, healing lepers, being resurrected. There is zero evidence outside the documents written by the believers themselves. Let's be honest; when a man manages to feed 5,000 people all at once with a single loaf of bread, that makes waves in the Roman empire, because when 5,000 people witness the same miracle, they will tell people left and right about it. No such thing is mentioned anywhere. It's reasonable to assume it never happened.
rumborak
Would it really mean anything if Tacitus reported Jesus' miraculous doings? We have reports of supernatural events from several ancient historians, but I doubt you accept any of them. And there's no reason to dismiss Christian literature from the outset. It's obviously biased, fine. Take that into account. But don't dismiss the bulk of the written evidence of the Jesus' life and works because you don't like what it says about it. Unending skepticism is retarded.
This. Rumby, I think you should reevaluate the historicity of the gospels, especially the synoptics. There's many ways we can know that they were an honest attempt to portray what actually happened. What about how the disciples, including Peter, the first leader of the church, were complete dunces at times? If the stories were invented to advance Christianity, would the church leaders (whether it was Peter/Paul or their followers) have permitted those writings? Likely not. What about the attention to useless detail? Jesus having a pillow as he slept on the boat? Peter and Jesus catching precisely 153 fish? James being the son of Zebedee, some random dude? You don't see that attention to detailin legends or contrived religious literature. You see that in honest attempts at eyewitness history. Imagine your alleged two generations that it took to construct the gospels. Imagine some old guy passing down his knowledge to his son: "Now remember that Jesus had a pillow, boy! This is critically important material!" Or imagine early cult leaders, saying to each other, "Guys, I have a great idea! Let's throw in a bunch of insignificant names so scholars 2000 years from now will think that our accounts are actually true!"
Those are just a few examples that I thought of on the spot, but there are books written on the subject. You really ought to reconsider how you are reading the gospels. You've got to see that your naturalistic assumptions are created a LOT of problems for your interpretation of the evidence.
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
As I said in my initial reply to the thread, it's reasonable to assume that some dude existed at some point. I think it's also reasonable to assume that the core messages by him are attributable to him. Where it gets very dicey is the part that make him look divine, i.e. walking on water, healing lepers, being resurrected. There is zero evidence outside the documents written by the believers themselves. Let's be honest; when a man manages to feed 5,000 people all at once with a single loaf of bread, that makes waves in the Roman empire, because when 5,000 people witness the same miracle, they will tell people left and right about it. No such thing is mentioned anywhere. It's reasonable to assume it never happened.
rumborak
Would it really mean anything if Tacitus reported Jesus' miraculous doings? We have reports of supernatural events from several ancient historians, but I doubt you accept any of them. And there's no reason to dismiss Christian literature from the outset. It's obviously biased, fine. Take that into account. But don't dismiss the bulk of the written evidence of the Jesus' life and works because you don't like what it says about it. Unending skepticism is retarded.
Then don't dismiss or ignore the written evidence for Buddha's life and HIS "miracles."
Or Joseph Smiths
Or Mohamed
-
Neither Herod nor Pilate are reported to walk on water or raise from the dead. So please, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
rumborak
I thought the discussion was about whether he was an actual dude or not, not whether he did any of the crazy shit in the Bible. Not sure what's so extraordinary about "Jesus existed."
As I said in my initial reply to the thread, it's reasonable to assume that some dude existed at some point. I think it's also reasonable to assume that the core messages by him are attributable to him. Where it gets very dicey is the part that make him look divine, i.e. walking on water, healing lepers, being resurrected. There is zero evidence outside the documents written by the believers themselves. Let's be honest; when a man manages to feed 5,000 people all at once with a single loaf of bread, that makes waves in the Roman empire, because when 5,000 people witness the same miracle, they will tell people left and right about it. No such thing is mentioned anywhere. It's reasonable to assume it never happened.
rumborak
Would it really mean anything if Tacitus reported Jesus' miraculous doings? We have reports of supernatural events from several ancient historians, but I doubt you accept any of them. And there's no reason to dismiss Christian literature from the outset. It's obviously biased, fine. Take that into account. But don't dismiss the bulk of the written evidence of the Jesus' life and works because you don't like what it says about it. Unending skepticism is retarded.
I think you aren't even realizing your own inherent bias by saying I exhibit "unending skepticism". In the grander scheme of opinions out there I would say I am far more religion-leaning about the veracity of biblical claims than your average atheist/agnostic.
Miracles aren't just things that happen between drinks at a bar, everybody just casually glances over and goes back to their business. Miracles, like the feeding of 5,000 people with one loaf of bread are miracles because they completely and utterly defy the natural sequence of events, When 5,000 people simultaneously witness an otherwise impossible sequence of events, that's a bigger event than the coronation of an emperor.
What you're essentially proposing is miracles that were super-awesome, but strangely made no waves. All that happened (in your scenario) is some dude writing it down as "coolio, this thing happened". That's where my natural skepticism kicks and says "nah-ah. That's not how humans have ever behaved in history".
rumborak
-
This. Rumby, I think you should reevaluate the historicity of the gospels, especially the synoptics. There's many ways we can know that they were an honest attempt to portray what actually happened. What about how the disciples, including Peter, the first leader of the church, were complete dunces at times? If the stories were invented to advance Christianity, would the church leaders (whether it was Peter/Paul or their followers) have permitted those writings? Likely not.
Neither of the gospels were written by Peter, keep that in mind. The gospels appeared out of some unknown communities. And, take for example the sighting of Jesus after his death. Peter wasn't privy to that. So, Peter would never have been in the position to say "no, that didn't happen!"
Bottom line is, you got stories appearing and they get integrated into the canon, because, who can deny them?! That's how mythologies have evolved since the dawn of time. The flood myth appears in all kinds of creation myths because they were transferred from one to the next over time.
What about the attention to useless detail? Jesus having a pillow as he slept on the boat? Peter and Jesus catching precisely 153 fish? James being the son of Zebedee, some random dude? You don't see that attention to detailin legends or contrived religious literature.
What about the details that are just plain historically wrong? (e.g. that geographical error in one of the gospels). Just like in any story-telling, people "color" the story with small facts. To the teller of the story they're not important, they're just there to draw in the listener more. To the reader 2,000 years later they come across as fact.
rumborak
-
Then don't dismiss or ignore the written evidence for Buddha's life and HIS "miracles."
Or Joseph Smiths
Or Mohamed
This. If you want to believe that jesus is the son of god because of detailed ancient books, I would think you would have to use the same reasoning and believe the assertions of other religions and their texts.
-
Then don't dismiss or ignore the written evidence for Buddha's life and HIS "miracles."
Or Joseph Smiths
Or Mohamed
This. If you want to believe that jesus is the son of god because of detailed ancient books, I would think you would have to use the same reasoning and believe the assertions of other religions and their texts.
I thought other religions were bollocks if one was a Christian.
-
What about the details that are just plain historically wrong? (e.g. that geographical error in one of the gospels). Just like in any story-telling, people "color" the story with small facts. To the teller of the story they're not important, they're just there to draw in the listener more. To the reader 2,000 years later they come across as fact.
rumborak
Could you be specific? And please remember that we aren't discussing Biblical inerrency here. We are discussing whether they can be treated as historical evidence, which is prone to error. Don't throw out the whole thing due to one date that's a bit off, or one geographical mistake.
And ancient literature was not written in a colorful, detailed way. Modern literature does that, yes. But the standards are different for ancient literature--you don't see that kind of attention.
-
Have you read other mythical accounts? They're equally as specific about minute details. Even details that are written first-hand account like, but nobody actually could have observed first-hand (discussions of Norse gods in Valhalla, or Luke 12:42, or Genesis!).
Detail is not an indicator of veracity.
My overall point isn't to throw away the whole thing. But again, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But of the really wild claims there is none, and so reasonable (i.e. absence of the inherent bias of personal faith) one should reject those claims. Just as it's reasonable to reject that Loki and Baldr had those verbatim conversations in Asgard.
rumborak
-
What about the details that are just plain historically wrong? (e.g. that geographical error in one of the gospels). Just like in any story-telling, people "color" the story with small facts. To the teller of the story they're not important, they're just there to draw in the listener more. To the reader 2,000 years later they come across as fact.
Still beating that dead horse? :lol It still amazes me that you love to claim such "errors" no matter how many times you fail to cite to a single provable error when called on the subject.
-
Bosk, you believe the Bible is inerrant and the Earth is 6,000 years old. Any discussion between you and me isn't worth the disk space it's saved on.
rumborak
-
Yes, I believe the Bible is inerrant. No, I have no idea how old the earth is. But aside from that, great arguments.
-
Bosk, you believe the Bible is inerrant and the Earth is 6,000 years old. Any discussion between you and me isn't worth the disk space it's saved on.
rumborak
:lol
-
Yes, I believe the Bible is inerrant. No, I have no idea how old the earth is. But aside from that, great arguments.
bosky, a belief in the Bible's inerrancy leads automatically to a belief in a roughly 6,000 year old Earth. If you start with the 6 days of Creation, and then all of the begats in Genesis, down through the Exodus and then the time of the Judges and into the monarchy on into the time of Jesus, and then up to now, it is a little more than 6,000 years.
-
Not quite. And that still has nothing to do with the historicity of Jesus.
-
Jesus was a simple carpenter, whom after being baptized saw his calling as the son of god. To teach people about loving each other, treating one another as you would like to. Somewhere down the line, someone decided to exaggerate his roles to misguided people. He was a Jew speaking to his people, and yet they chose to kill him over a murderer, yet the murderer asked Jesus for forgiveness.
Also, guaranteed if Jesus was to return, people would shun him
-
As long as you know that's about as speculative as anything else.
Consider simple carpenter. It's gaining steam that carpenter is miscast as a lower caste in Jesus' time. It may indicate he was born into a well off family and received an excellent education. Now, I don't anything about how people figure these things out, but some of the reasons for believing this sound plausible.
-
rummy, you are arguing your idea from an Antioch point of view but from an atheistic approach. That is, because history doesn't record the miracles, therefore the miracles didn't happen. Fair enough, but to quote your words, isn't that a bit strong? I think there are a great many things in history that were never recorded but in hindsight we might be able to speculate, even academically that they could have an excellent chance of happening. For you, speculation is not even a possibility which makes me wonder what kind of history you believe. In studying history sometimes all you have is a pot, maybe a sign or symbol. That's it. How you shape history from that comes from the surrounding happenstances of the time. You CANNOT ignore these happenstances or take them with a grain of salt, if you do you could miss out on something very important. Tacitus writting about Christus is quite extraordinary. Why did he write about him at all? He was a pagan and not a fan of Christianity. The fact we have his account on Jesus speaks volumes there. You speak of bias yet you throw this piece of history away for the sole reason that it's too late. Sorry, but that's not what historians do. That is what someone with an agenda does, someone with a message.
Also, you seem to be arguing from the divine side that it never existed. That's not the discussion here. I never brought up the divinity of Jesus. The only places you have eyewitness accounts come from the Bible and even that needs to questioned under the title of authorship and form criticism. The fact remains that enough evidence exists that Jesus *did* exist. The evidence of his divinity is a concept of *FAITH*. You either believe the apostles or you don't. We...get...it. You don't believe the apostles. But be careful that conviction doesn't spill over into claiming false idea of *history*. The study of the history of Jesus and the faith of the divinity of Christ fall under two very separate fields of study called: history and theology. Interestingly enough, most theologians use history in their academic works and historians are not afraid to study theology to help in their academic works of history. THAT'S what it means to be unbiased.
-
Jesus was a simple carpenter, whom after being baptized saw his calling as the son of god. To teach people about loving each other, treating one another as you would like to. Somewhere down the line, someone decided to exaggerate his roles to misguided people. He was a Jew speaking to his people, and yet they chose to kill him over a murderer, yet the murderer asked Jesus for forgiveness.
Cool story. And your evidence is?
-
rummy, you are arguing your idea from an Antioch point of view but from an atheistic approach. That is, because history doesn't record the miracles, therefore the miracles didn't happen. Fair enough, but to quote your words, isn't that a bit strong? I think there are a great many things in history that were never recorded but in hindsight we might be able to speculate, even academically that they could have an excellent chance of happening. For you, speculation is not even a possibility which makes me wonder what kind of history you believe. In studying history sometimes all you have is a pot, maybe a sign or symbol. That's it. How you shape history from that comes from the surrounding happenstances of the time. You CANNOT ignore these happenstances or take them with a grain of salt, if you do you could miss out on something very important. Tacitus writting about Christus is quite extraordinary. Why did he write about him at all? He was a pagan and not a fan of Christianity. The fact we have his account on Jesus speaks volumes there. You speak of bias yet you throw this piece of history away for the sole reason that it's too late. Sorry, but that's not what historians do. That is what someone with an agenda does, someone with a message.
I am not throwing away historical evidence. Far from it, I agree that the Bible is ample evidence that a person called Jesus did in fact exist. But, maybe I'm misjudging you here, but I would think you have at least a double standard when comparing Christian "evidence" to other historical evidence.
I can't remember which Roman (demi)god it actually was, but there's at least one who has been shown historically to exist as a real person. However, as with all characters in the Roman pantheon, he was up there with Zeus and the others doing magical things. Does that mean we can deduce the validity of those magical stories? Far from it.
rumborak
-
Jesus was a simple carpenter, whom after being baptized saw his calling as the son of god. To teach people about loving each other, treating one another as you would like to. Somewhere down the line, someone decided to exaggerate his roles to misguided people. He was a Jew speaking to his people, and yet they chose to kill him over a murderer, yet the murderer asked Jesus for forgiveness.
Cool story. And your evidence is?
Life. Knowing that we are here in the now. Think about it, if you are real now and if he was real, he'd have the same desires as man, hence he had to eat and longed for a companion. I understand this if he were real. He got mad, showed dislike for hate. Usual human tendencies. And knowing how no,one will know the actual truth, you have to basically rely on faith for the rest.
-
...which is speculation, not evidence. It's still filling in holes by assumption even if it seems reasonable.
-
...which is speculation, not evidence. It's still filling in holes by assumption even if it seems reasonable.
Which is all we got. I doubt we'll ever get evidence the atheists/agnostics want/need. But they had to exist at some point why else would their be stories from those times, I mean hell we won't really know how their life was lives how much faith they had. They had no grocery stores or easy means. Which is what I'm getting at, no one will know. But I know his teachings are true, basically to live peaceful is to be Jesus, living how he lives with forgiveness. That's all I'm sure he cares about.
-
...which is speculation, not evidence. It's still filling in holes by assumption even if it seems reasonable.
Which is all we got. I doubt we'll ever get evidence the atheists/agnostics want/need. But they had to exist at some point why else would their be stories from those times, I mean hell we won't really know how their life was lives how much faith they had. They had no grocery stores or easy means. Which is what I'm getting at, no one will know. But I know his teachings are true, basically to live peaceful is to be Jesus, living how he lives with forgiveness. That's all I'm sure he cares about.
Which is why you blame his death directly on the Jews, and not just a specific group like the priesthood but collectively.
-
rummy, you are arguing your idea from an Antioch point of view but from an atheistic approach. That is, because history doesn't record the miracles, therefore the miracles didn't happen. Fair enough, but to quote your words, isn't that a bit strong? I think there are a great many things in history that were never recorded but in hindsight we might be able to speculate, even academically that they could have an excellent chance of happening. For you, speculation is not even a possibility which makes me wonder what kind of history you believe. In studying history sometimes all you have is a pot, maybe a sign or symbol. That's it. How you shape history from that comes from the surrounding happenstances of the time. You CANNOT ignore these happenstances or take them with a grain of salt, if you do you could miss out on something very important. Tacitus writting about Christus is quite extraordinary. Why did he write about him at all? He was a pagan and not a fan of Christianity. The fact we have his account on Jesus speaks volumes there. You speak of bias yet you throw this piece of history away for the sole reason that it's too late. Sorry, but that's not what historians do. That is what someone with an agenda does, someone with a message.
I am not throwing away historical evidence. Far from it, I agree that the Bible is ample evidence that a person called Jesus did in fact exist. But, maybe I'm misjudging you here, but I would think you have at least a double standard when comparing Christian "evidence" to other historical evidence.
I can't remember which Roman (demi)god it actually was, but there's at least one who has been shown historically to exist as a real person. However, as with all characters in the Roman pantheon, he was up there with Zeus and the others doing magical things. Does that mean we can deduce the validity of those magical stories? Far from it.
rumborak
What is the difference between "Christian" evidence and "historical" evidence? Are you saying the Bible or Christian writers or writers about Christianity cannot be used as evidence when discussing history? To your last comment, again, it seems you are comparing the validity of the *faith* to the validity of *history*. Are you saying because we cannot deduce the validity of the miracles we therefore cannot deduce the validity of Jesus of history? Who is doing that? That's not the question here. the question here is "Did Jesus ever exist?" Why are we bringing up the divine idea of Jesus or the miracles? As the question stands, did Jesus exist? Yes. Is Jesus Divine? That's a matter of faith that in no way diminishes the existence of Jesus.
-
As long as you know that's about as speculative as anything else.
Consider simple carpenter. It's gaining steam that carpenter is miscast as a lower caste in Jesus' time. It may indicate he was born into a well off family and received an excellent education. Now, I don't anything about how people figure these things out, but some of the reasons for believing this sound plausible.
I can't remember where I read it but, I remember something about that being a mis-translation and the true translation meaning "master of the craft". He could have been anything from a stone mason to whatever you could imagine that title applying to.
-
Jesus was a simple carpenter, whom after being baptized saw his calling as the son of god. To teach people about loving each other, treating one another as you would like to. Somewhere down the line, someone decided to exaggerate his roles to misguided people. He was a Jew speaking to his people, and yet they chose to kill him over a murderer, yet the murderer asked Jesus for forgiveness.
Cool story. And your evidence is?
Life. Knowing that we are here in the now. Think about it, if you are real now and if he was real, he'd have the same desires as man, hence he had to eat and longed for a companion. I understand this if he were real. He got mad, showed dislike for hate. Usual human tendencies. And knowing how no,one will know the actual truth, you have to basically rely on faith for the rest.
What makes you think he didn't have the same desires as man? Are you saying he wasn't man? That's about the only way you wouldn't have such desires. Life in general is usually a term reserved for philosophy. Our knowledge of God and life falls under theology. Christ showing human desires from the Bible, illustrates that Christ was human.
Which is all we got. I doubt we'll ever get evidence the atheists/agnostics want/need. But they had to exist at some point why else would their be stories from those times, I mean hell we won't really know how their life was lives how much faith they had. They had no grocery stores or easy means. Which is what I'm getting at, no one will know. But I know his teachings are true, basically to live peaceful is to be Jesus, living how he lives with forgiveness. That's all I'm sure he cares about.
What atheists and agnostics want is specific evidence, experience-based evidence, not feelings, stories, historical documents, etc. The only evidence they will accept is if God suddenly appeared and said "Hi", however I'm 99% sure that even that wouldn't be enough. However we *do* know some things when it concerns that period of time, how the apostles lived, where they traveled to (for the most part) and the early structures of these newly founded Christian communities. The only documentation we have for Jesus's teachings come from the Apostles, passed down either orally or written, like in the case of Paul where we have most of his letters. To accept these testimonies is no different than to accept the testimony of someone who came up to you and said they just saw a Space ship. But there is a lot more to Christ's teaching than to just live peacefully. He passed down a tradition that he asked us to keep, practice and teach to others. That's the Christian tradition which is alive and dynamic.
-
rummy, you are arguing your idea from an Antioch point of view but from an atheistic approach. That is, because history doesn't record the miracles, therefore the miracles didn't happen. Fair enough, but to quote your words, isn't that a bit strong? I think there are a great many things in history that were never recorded but in hindsight we might be able to speculate, even academically that they could have an excellent chance of happening. For you, speculation is not even a possibility which makes me wonder what kind of history you believe. In studying history sometimes all you have is a pot, maybe a sign or symbol. That's it. How you shape history from that comes from the surrounding happenstances of the time. You CANNOT ignore these happenstances or take them with a grain of salt, if you do you could miss out on something very important. Tacitus writting about Christus is quite extraordinary. Why did he write about him at all? He was a pagan and not a fan of Christianity. The fact we have his account on Jesus speaks volumes there. You speak of bias yet you throw this piece of history away for the sole reason that it's too late. Sorry, but that's not what historians do. That is what someone with an agenda does, someone with a message.
I am not throwing away historical evidence. Far from it, I agree that the Bible is ample evidence that a person called Jesus did in fact exist. But, maybe I'm misjudging you here, but I would think you have at least a double standard when comparing Christian "evidence" to other historical evidence.
I can't remember which Roman (demi)god it actually was, but there's at least one who has been shown historically to exist as a real person. However, as with all characters in the Roman pantheon, he was up there with Zeus and the others doing magical things. Does that mean we can deduce the validity of those magical stories? Far from it.
rumborak
What is the difference between "Christian" evidence and "historical" evidence? Are you saying the Bible or Christian writers or writers about Christianity cannot be used as evidence when discussing history? To your last comment, again, it seems you are comparing the validity of the *faith* to the validity of *history*. Are you saying because we cannot deduce the validity of the miracles we therefore cannot deduce the validity of Jesus of history? Who is doing that? That's not the question here. the question here is "Did Jesus ever exist?" Why are we bringing up the divine idea of Jesus or the miracles? As the question stands, did Jesus exist? Yes. Is Jesus Divine? That's a matter of faith that in no way diminishes the existence of Jesus.
I think we were talking about different things. The existence of a man called Jesus is almost no question for me; yes, he did exist. I had moved on from there to distinguish what we can not consider as historically valid.
rumborak
-
But that doesn't answer the question. What is the difference between Christian evidence and historical evidence and in what way are you applying them? to what object? I'm very curious to know of this parameter you have set.
-
Not quite.
It's called math.
And that still has nothing to do with the historicity of Jesus.
That's true.
-
But that doesn't answer the question. What is the difference between Christian evidence and historical evidence and in what way are you applying them? to what object? I'm very curious to know of this parameter you have set.
There is no clear-cut line between "religious evidence" and "historical evidence", if that's what you are asking.
But, there is the act of prioritizing evidence by "believability".
As an example, and in order to not use Christianity (because I have the impression people here are way too involved in Christianity to make a fair assessment of its historical validity), let's use Heaven's Gate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_%28religious_group%29).
If you read any of their self-produced literature, it is stated with absolute conviction and certainty that a spaceship was hiding behind Hale-Bopp. Now, there is no evidence from NASA or otherwise that that is the case. And I would think that you too believe with absolute certainty that there was no spaceship, and not only that, but you also view it as a historical certainty.
What was the problem? The problem was that the literature was written by people for whom those "facts" were beyond question. Not only that, the literature was written to recruit more people.
Now tell me how that is different from Christian literature.
rumborak
-
But that doesn't answer the question. What is the difference between Christian evidence and historical evidence and in what way are you applying them? to what object? I'm very curious to know of this parameter you have set.
There is no clear-cut line between "religious evidence" and "historical evidence", if that's what you are asking.
But, there is the act of prioritizing evidence by "believability".
As an example, and in order to not use Christianity (because I have the impression people here are way too involved in Christianity to make a fair assessment of its historical validity), let's use Heaven's Gate (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Gate_%28religious_group%29).
If you read any of their self-produced literature, it is stated with absolute conviction and certainty that a spaceship was hiding behind Hale-Bopp. Now, there is no evidence from NASA or otherwise that that is the case. And I would think that you too believe with absolute certainty that there was no spaceship, and not only that, but you also view it as a historical certainty.
What was the problem? The problem was that the literature was written by people for whom those "facts" were beyond question. Not only that, the literature was written to recruit more people.
Now tell me how that is different from Christian literature.
rumborak
Keep the focus on Christianity. We're not taking about the Heaven's Gate cult, and by shifting the focus to them, you conveniently excuse yourself from answering the legitimate points that have been brought up and instead argue motive.
-
Wow, so at this point analogies aren't even fair game to you, WW?
Heaven's Gate is a perfect discussion ground because none of you has their soul staked on the validity of their claims. At least in the case of bosk that fact colors his willingness to entertain arguments so strongly, that it makes it impossible to have any meaningful discussion. And you're not too far from that spot either, WW.
rumborak
-
I tend to agree with rumby. He was fairly clear in his post as to why he was bringing up Heaven's Gate as an example.
-
Then don't dismiss or ignore the written evidence for Buddha's life and HIS "miracles."
Or Joseph Smiths
Or Mohamed
This. If you want to believe that jesus is the son of god because of detailed ancient books, I would think you would have to use the same reasoning and believe the assertions of other religions and their texts.
I thought other religions were bollocks if one was a Christian.
Which is the first illogical step Christians, and any devout follower of any specific religion, take. Look around the world, and you see people making the exact same arguments for their religion. Those arguments are by definition false and wrong, because they lead to different conclusions... hell, they reach whatever conclusions the speaker wants them to.
It's really just another way of going after what rumby's going after right now though.
I also like when the world "cult" comes up, because it's a word that can only be used in support of a strong bias.
-
Wow, so at this point analogies aren't even fair game to you, WW?
Heaven's Gate is a perfect discussion ground because none of you has their soul staked on the validity of their claims. At least in the case of bosk that fact colors his willingness to entertain arguments so strongly, that it makes it impossible to have any meaningful discussion. And you're not too far from that spot either, WW.
rumborak
Valid analogies, sure. Yours was not. Changing the historical and social context makes all the difference in the world.
-
That's a True Scotsman argument. You're trying to carve out Christianity a nook in which it can not (or must not) be questioned or compared to anything else, for the plain reason that you know it won't make Christianity look good (because there is really is no inherent difference between Christianity and HG). That's exactly why I suggested using HG as the discussion ground.
Again, little value to this discussion. I'll wait for Vivace's or H's reply.
rumborak
-
That's a True Scotsman argument.
It's not at all. You can't compare a modern movement like Heaven's Gate to an ancient religion; the differing social context invalidates the comparison. Another first century religious movement would be a better choice, especially one that developed under the Roman Empire. If you don't understand my objection, than you're too thick to see past your own confirmation bias, ironically.
-
Manichaeism.
-
That's a True Scotsman argument.
It's not at all. You can't compare a modern movement like Heaven's Gate to an ancient religion; the differing social context invalidates the comparison. Another first century religious movement would be a better choice, especially one that developed under the Roman Empire. If you don't understand my objection, than you're too thick to see past your own confirmation bias, ironically.
So god and the nature of reality have changed since the first century? I think his point is all the more poignant because it uses a modern religion; ancients had an excuse of ignorance, Heaven's Gate people can't really use that defense.
-
Not quite.
It's called math.
Hey, if you think those passages are there to present a literal timeline of events, I'm not going to say you're wrong.
-
Not quite.
It's called math.
Hey, if you think those passages are there to present a literal timeline of events, I'm not going to say you're wrong.
I am saying that I don't see how a belief in literal truth and inerrancy in the Bible can lead to any other assumption.
-
Not quite.
It's called math.
Hey, if you think those passages are there to present a literal timeline of events, I'm not going to say you're wrong.
I am saying that I don't see how a belief in literal truth and inerrancy in the Bible can lead to any other assumption.
It is clear that the Genesis creation account was not written as a scientific text to describe the creation of the Universe and specifically, the Earth. The Genesis account has a lot in common with the Psalms and with Job, both poetic types of literature. That said, no telling how much time elapses from "In the beginning" to "Let there be light". The creation "story" in particular is pretty stylized and isn't written in nearly the same way some of the other "history" books in the Old Testament are written.
-
But if the bible is inerrant, one would think that it would have to be very clear as to what is literal and what is metaphor. It is easy to say how "clear" it is to you or others, but so many have believed in the literal interpretation for centuries....and still do.
-
While there are possibly a few obscure passages (I can't think of any at this time) that aren't clear, I haven't ever had a problem with seeing the contrast between the literal and the metaphoric. Are there passages that don't coincide with our current scientific knowledge, there is little doubt. But that has been the case for centuries.
-
Not quite.
It's called math.
Hey, if you think those passages are there to present a literal timeline of events, I'm not going to say you're wrong.
I am saying that I don't see how a belief in literal truth and inerrancy in the Bible can lead to any other assumption.
It is clear that the Genesis creation account was not written as a scientific text to describe the creation of the Universe and specifically, the Earth. The Genesis account has a lot in common with the Psalms and with Job, both poetic types of literature. That said, no telling how much time elapses from "In the beginning" to "Let there be light". The creation "story" in particular is pretty stylized and isn't written in nearly the same way some of the other "history" books in the Old Testament are written.
What are the "history" books?
-
other than the writings (Job, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) and the prophets (Isaiah through Malachi), the rest are primarily history. Generally, though, Genesis thru Deuteronomy are considered law, and Joshua through Nehemiah are considered history.
-
But if the bible is inerrant, one would think that it would have to be very clear as to what is literal and what is metaphor. It is easy to say how "clear" it is to you or others, but so many have believed in the literal interpretation for centuries....and still do.
I agree with what you're saying. Unfortunately, Westerners have interpreted the Bible in a very Western fashion for a very long time, and the Bible wasn't written by Western folks. I also think one ought to be careful when throwing around the word "inerrant" when using it to describe the Bible, mainly because there are some very obvious copy errors in the text. I won't dispute that at all.
I do think the Bible is absolutely true, for the record. I do not, however, think it is exhaustive by any means.
EDIT: And, sorry, didn't mean to derail the topic. There's enough evidence out there to support Jesus as being a real person. I do believe the statements he made concerning himself and the acts he performed to be truth based upon other evidences that some would consider unreliable.
-
It is clear that the Genesis creation account was not written as a scientific text to describe the creation of the Universe and specifically, the Earth. The Genesis account has a lot in common with the Psalms and with Job, both poetic types of literature. That said, no telling how much time elapses from "In the beginning" to "Let there be light". The creation "story" in particular is pretty stylized and isn't written in nearly the same way some of the other "history" books in the Old Testament are written.
I don't see Genesis having much in common with Psalms or Job at all.
I agree that Genesis isn't a scientific text. But it is a descriptive text, and it explicitly describes creation as taking 6 days.
-
It is clear that the Genesis creation account was not written as a scientific text to describe the creation of the Universe and specifically, the Earth. The Genesis account has a lot in common with the Psalms and with Job, both poetic types of literature. That said, no telling how much time elapses from "In the beginning" to "Let there be light". The creation "story" in particular is pretty stylized and isn't written in nearly the same way some of the other "history" books in the Old Testament are written.
I don't see Genesis having much in common with Psalms or Job at all.
I agree that Genesis isn't a scientific text. But it is a descriptive text, and it explicitly describes creation as taking 6 days.
A friend of mine, who is very religious, was talking about this the other day. When trying to show how it likey isnt literally a 24 hour day, and that a day could mean a million years. He asked me that, when it comes to god, isnt a million years for each day more realistic? I told him, considering the scope of how powerful god supposedly is, why would he need an entire 24 hours much less a million years? The way god is described as all powerful, I would think it is more reasonable that it simply came into being in an instant. And I was always amused that the all omnipotent entity needed to rest! If you are outside of time, matter, or all laws of our existence....would you really need a nap? LOL.
-
other than the writings (Job, Psalm, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon) and the prophets (Isaiah through Malachi), the rest are primarily history. Generally, though, Genesis thru Deuteronomy are considered law, and Joshua through Nehemiah are considered history.
OK. I was just wondering whether wolfandwolfandwolf considered Exodus to be a "history" given his opinion the Bible is absolutely true, and historians' views on the subject. Though, that still leaves the problem of Joshua.
-
It is clear that the Genesis creation account was not written as a scientific text to describe the creation of the Universe and specifically, the Earth. The Genesis account has a lot in common with the Psalms and with Job, both poetic types of literature. That said, no telling how much time elapses from "In the beginning" to "Let there be light". The creation "story" in particular is pretty stylized and isn't written in nearly the same way some of the other "history" books in the Old Testament are written.
I don't see Genesis having much in common with Psalms or Job at all.
I agree that Genesis isn't a scientific text. But it is a descriptive text, and it explicitly describes creation as taking 6 days.
A friend of mine, who is very religious, was talking about this the other day. When trying to show how it likey isnt literally a 24 hour day, and that a day could mean a million years. He asked me that, when it comes to god, isnt a million years for each day more realistic? I told him, considering the scope of how powerful god supposedly is, why would he need an entire 24 hours much less a million years? The way god is described as all powerful, I would think it is more reasonable that it simply came into being in an instant. And I was always amused that the all omnipotent entity needed to rest! If you are outside of time, matter, or all laws of our existence....would you really need a nap? LOL.
It did not take God 24 hours to create the items each day. They were "instant" as you assumed. He spoke "let there be light" and there was light, etc.
The reason for the 24 hours was to establish our 24 hour day. The seven days was to establish our week.
The reason for the rest was so that we would rest.
-
When I was in Jew school, I was in a class that asked about that seven days thing, and we decided that in "God time," a day would be like a thousand years or more.
-
That's why Jew school is overrated.
@GP: Yesh's post is correct in terms of which books are traditionally referred to as "history." But others, such as Genesis-Deuteronomy, largely contain history as well.
-
It is clear that the Genesis creation account was not written as a scientific text to describe the creation of the Universe and specifically, the Earth. The Genesis account has a lot in common with the Psalms and with Job, both poetic types of literature. That said, no telling how much time elapses from "In the beginning" to "Let there be light". The creation "story" in particular is pretty stylized and isn't written in nearly the same way some of the other "history" books in the Old Testament are written.
I don't see Genesis having much in common with Psalms or Job at all.
I agree that Genesis isn't a scientific text. But it is a descriptive text, and it explicitly describes creation as taking 6 days.
In English it does, absolutely. But the Hebrew word yom, which most mainline English translations translate into the English word "day" is used in a lot of various ways throughout the Old Testament. It is translated in the book of Joshua as "an age" or "a period of time". Likely in Genesis it is a literal day.
You're right in saying that the Genesis account explicitly describes creation as taking six days. However, in my reading, I've found that it describes most explicitly the creation of the Earth and her inhabitants in those six literal days.
Genesis is indeed a descriptive/narrative text. I should have been more clear in my initial post, in that the creation account itself has more in common with Job or the Psalms stylistically in the original Hebrew than it does even with the rest of the Genesis narrative itself.
Sorry for the confusion.
-
When I was in Jew school, I was in a class that asked about that seven days thing, and we decided that in "God time," a day would be like a thousand years or more.
What's the point of that? I mean, clearly an omnipotent God can create the universe in 7 days if he wants to. Creating the concept of "God time" makes the Genesis account only superficially more in line with modern cosmology. To be perfectly honest, they tried to cover up one non-truth with another, in the hope that the kids stop asking after that.
rumborak
-
I think people should stop thinking of the bible as a rulebook, playbook, textbook, or reference book for their faith. It is a story from which lessons and wisdom can be learned.
-
Respectfully, I think people who choose not to live by any faith should stop telling people who choose to live by faith what they should believe and why. Telling people how they should view their own religion shows a complete lack of wisdom.
-
Respectfully, I think people who choose not to live by any faith should stop telling people who choose to live by faith what they should believe and why. Telling people how they should view their own religion shows a complete lack of wisdom.
Respectfully, I wasnt telling anyone how to live their life or view their religion. Just what my opinion was. And it was coming from a viewpoint of having previously lived that life of religion and faith. Not being able to tell the difference between someone sharing an opinion in a forum on the subject, and a person telling someone what they should do, shows a complete lack of reading comprehension.
-
When I was in Jew school, I was in a class that asked about that seven days thing, and we decided that in "God time," a day would be like a thousand years or more.
What's the point of that? I mean, clearly an omnipotent God can create the universe in 7 days if he wants to. Creating the concept of "God time" makes the Genesis account only superficially more in line with modern cosmology. To be perfectly honest, they tried to cover up one non-truth with another, in the hope that the kids stop asking after that.
rumborak
Oh I didn't really have a point, it was just a small related anecdote.
-
I thought about going to Jew School, but it was too expensive, so I just bought "Jewism for Dummies" at Borders to save time and money.
-
When I was in Jew school, I was in a class that asked about that seven days thing, and we decided that in "God time," a day would be like a thousand years or more.
What's the point of that? I mean, clearly an omnipotent God can create the universe in 7 days if he wants to. Creating the concept of "God time" makes the Genesis account only superficially more in line with modern cosmology. To be perfectly honest, they tried to cover up one non-truth with another, in the hope that the kids stop asking after that.
rumborak
Or, maybe kids in a classroom aren't the final authorities on Ancient Hebrew?
-
You know, the fact that there can even be an argument surrounding the language used in the Bible really sorta undermines the authority of the Bible. For one, it shows you how interpretable the entire thing is, no matter what language you are using, and how no one today can possibly pretend to know what the author originally meant. You can put forward interpretative understandings of the Bible, but there is no way to verify that such is objectively true. And it also reminds us of how language evolves, and how such a process mirrors the process of evolution.
Why look for truth in a book, when the worlds all around you?
-
You know, the fact that there can even be an argument surrounding the language used in the Bible really sorta undermines the authority of the Bible. For one, it shows you how interpretable the entire thing is, no matter what language you are using, and how no one today can possibly pretend to know what the author originally meant. You can put forward interpretative understandings of the Bible, but there is no way to verify that such is objectively true. And it also reminds us of how language evolves, and how such a process mirrors the process of evolution.
Why look for truth in a book, when the worlds all around you?
You know, the fact that people fight over evolution sorta undermines its status as a valid theory. For one, it shows that basic facts about the natural world are open to interpretation and nobody can know whether Darwin was right or not. You can put forward interpretative understandings of the data, but you can't know if they're objectively true. This also reminds us of how science evolves to reflect the modern assumptions of would-be philosophers and armchair scientists.
Why study science when you can just make things up as you go?
-
The difference in rigor between the scientific method and a layman making interpretations of scripture makes that comparison pretty off-base.
-
The difference in rigor between the scientific method and a layman making interpretations of scripture makes that comparison pretty off-base.
As I said, lay interpretations of a text are not what should matter. And I humbly suggest that historians are no less rigorous in their pursuit of the original meaning of an ancient text than biologists are with evolution.
-
Except a theological text can only be read as legitimate history to such a limited degree, given their propensity to exaggeration and straight-up fabrication.
-
Except a theological text can only be read as legitimate history to such a limited degree, given their propensity to exaggeration and straight-up fabrication.
You guys maul anybody who comes in here and makes uninformed claims about science. Be consistent and don't say dumb things about topics you haven't bothered to investigate. The Bible's theological nature has nothing to do with elucidating a particular passage's original meaning.
-
You know, the fact that there can even be an argument surrounding the language used in the Bible really sorta undermines the authority of the Bible. For one, it shows you how interpretable the entire thing is, no matter what language you are using, and how no one today can possibly pretend to know what the author originally meant. You can put forward interpretative understandings of the Bible, but there is no way to verify that such is objectively true. And it also reminds us of how language evolves, and how such a process mirrors the process of evolution.
Why look for truth in a book, when the worlds all around you?
You know, the fact that people fight over evolution sorta undermines its status as a valid theory. For one, it shows that basic facts about the natural world are open to interpretation and nobody can know whether Darwin was right or not. You can put forward interpretative understandings of the data, but you can't know if they're objectively true. This also reminds us of how science evolves to reflect the modern assumptions of would-be philosophers and armchair scientists.
Why study science when you can just make things up as you go?
:rollin Do you really even think before you type this? I mean, actually think about what you're saying, and what it implies?
Science is based upon the idea that it is an interpretation of facts. Science, if it is indeed science, is inherently falsifiable. Science does indeed evolve, it acknowledges this, and it has no problems with this fact of life. For instance, compare Newtonian physcis with modern physics; Newtonian physics is one interpretation of facts, and it's applicable for a large variety of every day experience; however, we also know for a fact that Newtonian physics is basically false and based upon faulty premises. Science is continually upturning former scientific discoveries, shedding new and more appropriate light upon it, and continually modifying itself. This is the scientific method, it is extremely skeptical and it never assumes it actually knows the truth, only that this seems to work, and it allows us to do such and such, but it never makes the jump to outright Truth, especially some objective religious truth as espoused by Religion.
There's also the last thing I mentioned: science examines the real world, not the book of some long dead author. What do you think is going to be more accurate, looking for truth in a old book, based upon faulty and ignorant worldviews, or actually examining the world around you?
And I do think you can come closer to a better understanding of a text, in this case the Bible, but you can never actually verify for sure that such is the truth, or the most accurate way of understanding said text. Which is why people can study the exact same text, come to deeper understandings, and still disagree with other experts about what the text means.
-
Except a theological text can only be read as legitimate history to such a limited degree, given their propensity to exaggeration and straight-up fabrication.
You guys maul anybody who comes in here and makes uninformed claims about science. Be consistent and don't say dumb things about topics you haven't bothered to investigate. The Bible's theological nature has nothing to do with elucidating a particular passage's original meaning.
Why not? After all, that's what the Bible is; a piece of religious scripture. Sure it can be seen as history, but considering much history in that era was mythologized for the sake of cultural and political legitimacy (case in point: the Roman survivor of Troy), how do you separate the legitimate from the embellished?
-
The difference in rigor between the scientific method and a layman making interpretations of scripture makes that comparison pretty off-base.
I can agree with this. A layman interpreting scripture some times leads to pretty terrible things, not limited to just a misunderstanding culturally of a text. We can see this in some of the atrocities that have been committed in the name of God and scriptures over time by various religions, including Christianity.
I suppose that someone without much knowledge of science could also simply say "it's science" just as someone without much knowledge of God could say "it's God".
I won't claim that I have all the answers, I certainly don't. All I know is what I've studied of the Bible itself and how it works together with science and reason and all of the other things in this world that are simply not mutually exclusive.
And I don't think there is a reason to get angry about it either. I'm just stating what I've read/studied and what I know.
-
Except a theological text can only be read as legitimate history to such a limited degree, given their propensity to exaggeration and straight-up fabrication.
You guys maul anybody who comes in here and makes uninformed claims about science. Be consistent and don't say dumb things about topics you haven't bothered to investigate. The Bible's theological nature has nothing to do with elucidating a particular passage's original meaning.
Why not? After all, that's what the Bible is; a piece of religious scripture. Sure it can be seen as history, but considering much history in that era was mythologized for the sake of cultural and political legitimacy (case in point: the Roman survivor of Troy), how do you separate the legitimate from the embellished?
Because before it can be seen as a piece of religious writing, it is a piece of writing, like any other. Using literary study and criticism to interpret the meaning of a text has (or should have) little to do with any theology that cropped up around it later.
-
It is clear that the Genesis creation account was not written as a scientific text to describe the creation of the Universe and specifically, the Earth. The Genesis account has a lot in common with the Psalms and with Job, both poetic types of literature. That said, no telling how much time elapses from "In the beginning" to "Let there be light". The creation "story" in particular is pretty stylized and isn't written in nearly the same way some of the other "history" books in the Old Testament are written.
I don't see Genesis having much in common with Psalms or Job at all.
I agree that Genesis isn't a scientific text. But it is a descriptive text, and it explicitly describes creation as taking 6 days.
In English it does, absolutely. But the Hebrew word yom, which most mainline English translations translate into the English word "day" is used in a lot of various ways throughout the Old Testament. It is translated in the book of Joshua as "an age" or "a period of time". Likely in Genesis it is a literal day.
You're right in saying that the Genesis account explicitly describes creation as taking six days. However, in my reading, I've found that it describes most explicitly the creation of the Earth and her inhabitants in those six literal days.
Genesis is indeed a descriptive/narrative text. I should have been more clear in my initial post, in that the creation account itself has more in common with Job or the Psalms stylistically in the original Hebrew than it does even with the rest of the Genesis narrative itself.
Sorry for the confusion.
yom is definitely a word with some flexibility, but the primary meaning is "day" and the context in Genesis (the evening and the morning) clearly indicates day. Any attempt to render it as something other than a normal 24-hour period is usually done by someone who wants to sell you something. I mean, believe it or don't believe it, that's up to you, but the text says "day."
Yes, it specifically describes the creation of the Earth, but it doesn't differentiate between the Earth and anything resembling any wider Universe; the ancient Jews had no concept of such things, so that makes sense.
I still see no real similarities between the creation account and Job or the Psalms. But to each his own.
-
Except a theological text can only be read as legitimate history to such a limited degree, given their propensity to exaggeration and straight-up fabrication.
You guys maul anybody who comes in here and makes uninformed claims about science. Be consistent and don't say dumb things about topics you haven't bothered to investigate. The Bible's theological nature has nothing to do with elucidating a particular passage's original meaning.
Why not? After all, that's what the Bible is; a piece of religious scripture. Sure it can be seen as history, but considering much history in that era was mythologized for the sake of cultural and political legitimacy (case in point: the Roman survivor of Troy), how do you separate the legitimate from the embellished?
Because before it can be seen as a piece of religious writing, it is a piece of writing, like any other. Using literary study and criticism to interpret the meaning of a text has (or should have) little to do with any theology that cropped up around it later.
Later? The written Bible is the centuries-old culmination of Oral Torah (Torah b'al peh), the religious tradition of the Jews. That predates the written Bible by at least a thousand years. And if the New Testament is based on the Good News of Jesus, that too is then simply a recorded form of religious principles.
-
All of that aside, it still doesn't have anything to do with the point he is making. Any piece of writing, whether religious or secular, is a text. Analysis of the text itself has nothing to do with whether you believe in what the text purports to say.
-
True, but my point was that that very religious nature, and also given the time period in which it was converted into text, you risk mistaking embellishment for fact, and oftentimes the historical facts or the chronology could be deliberately changed to assist in maintaining some internal logic of the text. I mean, the Gothic (and Frankish) Chronicles are a damn good example of that. Not to mention it's a textual adaptation of a centuries-old oral tradition, meaning it's subject to all sorts of generational and regional distortions.
-
Very interesting discussion here. My point of view is that most of the information I have about Jesus comes from the Bible. There may be tons of historians that talk about him that I haven't read so I am a little skeptical about his existence.
Going back to the Bible, I went to a Jewish high school (I am not religious) and for the last three years I had to choose between learning Hebrew or studying the Jewish bible and I went for the later. What I found very interesting was that every time we went over a passage, the teachers always told us we should not take what the Bible says literally but that we should consider them metaphors. One example I can remember clearly was Jonah and the whale. We read the passage and then started analyzing it and the first thing our teacher told us was that we shouldn't believe Jonah was really trapped inside a whale because we know that's not possible, but instead that it meant he went through a dark time in his life where he felt alone and desperate. Also she told us that this characters don't necessarily existed.
Taking that point of view, I have a hard time taking anything the gospels say literally because I think it makes a lot more sense that this stories about supernatural events be meant as metaphors than that they actually happened.
@William Wallace: I think you are a very clever poster and tend to make good arguments but you are jumping on people in this thread when they try to establish an argument that goes against your point of view. The arguments may be weak but if someone is unable to believe in Jesus then you should let them be.
-
True, but my point was that that very religious nature, and also given the time period in which it was converted into text, you risk mistaking embellishment for fact, and oftentimes the historical facts or the chronology could be deliberately changed to assist in maintaining some internal logic of the text. I mean, the Gothic (and Frankish) Chronicles are a damn good example of that. Not to mention it's a textual adaptation of a centuries-old oral tradition, meaning it's subject to all sorts of generational and regional distortions.
You must know something textual critics don't know. Critical study of a text requires that you look out for embellishments and changes introduced through transmission. Ironically, that principle has been applied more rigorously to the Bible than any other ancient writing.
-
Alright, well consider this: what if I told you that not only did the story of Passover and Jewish slavery in Egypt not occur, but that what would eventually become Iron Age Israel actually never even left Canaan in the first place?
Textual critics who rely on extra-Biblical accounts and other forms of contrast would be harder pressed to explain that than, say, archaeologists.
-
What if I told you that not only did Augustus Caesar not exist, but that Obama is an Irish Muslim man born in New Guinea?
Not sure I'm following your point.
-
What if I told you that not only did Augustus Caesar not exist, but that Obama is an Irish Muslim man born in New Guinea?
Not sure I'm following your point.
His point is that the accepted view of the Books of Exodus and Joshua is that the events they recount are not historical, and instead present an origin myth for the Jewish people, and that any textual study of the Bible would not reveal this.
-
And as with Obama's birth or the first of the Caesars, it's an origin myth that appears from all available evidence to be true and uncontradicted.
-
a proffessor of mine had actually written a massive volume showing how the egyptian dates are off and how when adjusted astonomically the facts align with history. I sat through the class and found it fascinating.
at the time it was being considered by the scientific community, but that was years ago.
hadn't heard since what came of it
your point is taken, though, that our current dating does not coincide with the history recorded in Exodus.
-
True, but my point was that that very religious nature, and also given the time period in which it was converted into text, you risk mistaking embellishment for fact, and oftentimes the historical facts or the chronology could be deliberately changed to assist in maintaining some internal logic of the text. I mean, the Gothic (and Frankish) Chronicles are a damn good example of that. Not to mention it's a textual adaptation of a centuries-old oral tradition, meaning it's subject to all sorts of generational and regional distortions.
Your assertion that the Bible is a textual adaptation of a centuries-old oral tradition is a theological perspective, not a literary/historical one. Which is what I'm talking about.
I mean, there is no doubt that the legends and traditions collected in the Pentateuch are largely based on stories handed down over time, but that is a very small part of the Bible.
-
What if I told you that not only did Augustus Caesar not exist, but that Obama is an Irish Muslim man born in New Guinea?
Not sure I'm following your point.
His point is that the accepted view of the Books of Exodus and Joshua is that the events they recount are not historical, and instead present an origin myth for the Jewish people, and that any textual study of the Bible would not reveal this.
But experts don't study the text in English and absent any background knowledge of the history and original language. How do you think you know about the different interpretations that exist? It's because the people I'm referring to do the research and write about it. Then, little bits of that scholarship are filtered into whatever silly sources you rely on.
-
What if I told you that not only did Augustus Caesar not exist, but that Obama is an Irish Muslim man born in New Guinea?
Not sure I'm following your point.
His point is that the accepted view of the Books of Exodus and Joshua is that the events they recount are not historical, and instead present an origin myth for the Jewish people, and that any textual study of the Bible would not reveal this.
Pretty much this.
What if I told you that not only did Augustus Caesar not exist, but that Obama is an Irish Muslim man born in New Guinea?
Not sure I'm following your point.
His point is that the accepted view of the Books of Exodus and Joshua is that the events they recount are not historical, and instead present an origin myth for the Jewish people, and that any textual study of the Bible would not reveal this.
But experts don't study the text in English and absent any background knowledge of the history and original language. How do you think you know about the different interpretations that exist? It's because the people I'm referring to do the research and write about it. Then, little bits of that scholarship are filtered into whatever silly sources you rely on.
See Nekov.
-
See Nekov.
My point of view is that most of the information I have about Jesus comes from the Bible. There may be tons of historians that talk about him that I haven't read so I am a little skeptical about his existence.
Precisely the problem.
-
I was referring more to:
@William Wallace: I think you are a very clever poster and tend to make good arguments but you are jumping on people in this thread when they try to establish an argument that goes against your point of view. The arguments may be weak but if someone is unable to believe in Jesus then you should let them be.
-
I was referring more to:
@William Wallace: I think you are a very clever poster and tend to make good arguments but you are jumping on people in this thread when they try to establish an argument that goes against your point of view. The arguments may be weak but if someone is unable to believe in Jesus then you should let them be.
But what he was talking about doesn't necessarily have anything to do with believing in Jesus.
-
I know, I was talking about the condescending way in which he frames his arguments. I believe, as GP said, that:
the accepted view of the Books of Exodus and Joshua is that the events they recount are not historical, and instead present an origin myth for the Jewish people, and that any textual study of the Bible would not reveal this.
WW's response was to attribute the flaw in my argument to "whatever silly sources I rely on," thereby assuming my knowledge base is inherently fallacious and my argument null. In other words, he jumps on people in this thread when they try to establish an argument that goes against his POV. And it might not even be an issue of a weak argument; the conceits by which one or the other of us chooses to confront problems is different.
-
Well, that depends. Do you, in fact, rely on silly sources?
-
What do you consider silly? :P
-
WW's response was to attribute the flaw in my argument to "whatever silly sources I rely on," thereby assuming my knowledge base is inherently fallacious and my argument null.
He tries to do that a lot. Only his sources are good and proper, everyone else is "silly" and basically "amateurish academia."
Basically, it's genetically fallacious.
-
What do you consider silly? :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w
-
WW's response was to attribute the flaw in my argument to "whatever silly sources I rely on," thereby assuming my knowledge base is inherently fallacious and my argument null.
He tries to do that a lot. Only his sources are good and proper, everyone else is "silly" and basically "amateurish academia."
Basically, it's genetically fallacious.
I don't think so. Someone brings up an objection which no serious historian entertains, and I don't think it's out of place to point that out.
-
What do you consider silly? :P
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w
Well that wasn't *very* silly, was it? :p
I love that skit, good on ya. :biggrin:
WW's response was to attribute the flaw in my argument to "whatever silly sources I rely on," thereby assuming my knowledge base is inherently fallacious and my argument null.
He tries to do that a lot. Only his sources are good and proper, everyone else is "silly" and basically "amateurish academia."
Basically, it's genetically fallacious.
I don't think so. Someone brings up an objection which no serious historian entertains, and I don't think it's out of place to point that out.
Who said that they haven't? Then again, what do you consider as the threshold separating 'serious' historians from 'amateurs?'
-
WW's response was to attribute the flaw in my argument to "whatever silly sources I rely on," thereby assuming my knowledge base is inherently fallacious and my argument null.
He tries to do that a lot. Only his sources are good and proper, everyone else is "silly" and basically "amateurish academia."
Basically, it's genetically fallacious.
I don't think so. Someone brings up an objection which no serious historian entertains, and I don't think it's out of place to point that out.
It's ok if you want to point out a flaw in someones argument but the way you do it makes us think that you are being condecending.
-
WW's response was to attribute the flaw in my argument to "whatever silly sources I rely on," thereby assuming my knowledge base is inherently fallacious and my argument null.
He tries to do that a lot. Only his sources are good and proper, everyone else is "silly" and basically "amateurish academia."
Basically, it's genetically fallacious.
I don't think so. Someone brings up an objection which no serious historian entertains, and I don't think it's out of place to point that out.
I'm sure no serious historian entertains the idea that Jesus, as a normal human being, didn't exist. I'm not sure anyone here has even said otherwise.
But to say that "no serious historian" doesn't basically believe in the innerancy of the Bible is just fucking ludicrous. Your church recently had Dr. Richard Carrier debate the issue, whom has a Ph.D in ancient history, and has done a lot regarding Christian history. But I guess he isn't a serious historian? You see, your qualification for a "serious historian" is that they agree with you.
-
WW's response was to attribute the flaw in my argument to "whatever silly sources I rely on," thereby assuming my knowledge base is inherently fallacious and my argument null.
He tries to do that a lot. Only his sources are good and proper, everyone else is "silly" and basically "amateurish academia."
Basically, it's genetically fallacious.
I don't think so. Someone brings up an objection which no serious historian entertains, and I don't think it's out of place to point that out.
I'm sure no serious historian entertains the idea that Jesus, as a normal human being, didn't exist. I'm not sure anyone here has even said otherwise.
But to say that "no serious historian" doesn't basically believe in the innerancy of the Bible is just fucking ludicrous. Your church recently had Dr. Richard Carrier debate the issue, whom has a Ph.D in ancient history, and has done a lot regarding Christian history. But I guess he isn't a serious historian? You see, your qualification for a "serious historian" is that they agree with you.
Who said every historian believes in biblical inerrancy? Certainly not I. I was specifically criticizing Super Dude's claim that "...a theological text can only be read as legitimate history to such a limited degree, given their propensity to exaggeration and straight-up fabrication."
Fact is, the Bible has been very well reconstructed relative to other first century literature. Text critics know in most cases which readings of a given verse have been altered or embellished. With that kind of knowledge, it's easier to determine what the Bible originally said and how reliable the information recorded in it is. In other words, his attempt to cast doubt on the historicity of "theological" texts is nonsense.
By the way, I know Carrier and have read several of his books. Though I disagree with him, he is a serious historian and I have a lot of respect for him.
-
Well I'm confused, because you've made it out before as if the kind of studies of the Bible in question are your reason and proof for gods existence. Meaning, its descriptions of miraculous and metaphysical events are accurate.
And the historical claims of Jesus' miracles are the embellishments the rest of us are talking about. You can't really say these are purely historical claims, as their truth would be, as you are aware, quite profound. In my experience, you don't always seem to distinguish between this, and it comes off as if you think anyone who questions the historical veracity of these miracles is being historically ignorant - whether thats intentional or not.
-
Well I'm confused, because you've made it out before as if the kind of studies of the Bible in question are your reason and proof for gods existence. Meaning, its descriptions of miraculous and metaphysical events are accurate.
One thing to point out here is there are plenty of arguments on the existence of God without referring to Scripture. Just look at Anselm of Canturbery and Thomas Aquinas who both give a very convincing argument in that regard. Now before people jump all over that statement like some do, remember, you follow a philosophy that might have an argument against this. However these arguments are mostly likely made "for" those very same arguments. Today's arguments about the existence of God, Jesus and etc, are certainly nothing new.
And the historical claims of Jesus' miracles are the embellishments the rest of us are talking about. You can't really say these are purely historical claims, as their truth would be, as you are aware, quite profound. In my experience, you don't always seem to distinguish between this, and it comes off as if you think anyone who questions the historical veracity of these miracles is being historically ignorant - whether thats intentional or not.
Why not? They are events of historical literature much the same the Greek Myths are or King Arthur. They may contain elements that cannot be proven through human reason but they still reveal the history of humanity in that particular time and place. This is exactly what the bible means to a "true" historian. The Bible is a book of literature from another time and another place that can be studied much the same as any text of literature that reveals the human element contained within that particular text. We cannot use human reason when it comes to the miracles but that was not the author's intention. The miracles are God's revelation. They tell us something about God and what He is trying to say to us. Human reason cannot come to God's revelation without Holy Scripture thus was revelation was necessary.
Inerrancy is only through the human element of recording. God didn't dictate the Bible, but inspired the Bible. If it was dictated that removes the human element of free-will. We must be able to express this revelation freely in our own way or else we can never come to understand any of it. However, when it comes to the revelation of God, there is no error. The Bible doesn't teach us how the heavens go, but how to go to heaven.
The Bible can be read in two ways, from "the Bible as history" or "the Bible as literature". Most of the time people only discuss the Bible as literature, but this is purely a subjective way of looking at it. The Bible as history is an objective way that tell us about the form of the literary passage, why it is written in that way, what it tells us about the person who wrote, the reason he wrote it that way, etc. It also tells us about the intention of the author as well. What was the author's message here? This is how we can come to accurate interpretations of revelation. Johan Sebantian Drey said it well, "the history of salvation is within human history". Our own history, comes through the revelation and the miracles.
What I find interesting though is most people want to read the Bible as "literature" but tend to talk about it as historical. That is, it's just a book, but even from that standpoint, it's a point that belongs in the fiction section much the same as The Illiad does. Interestingly enough historians don't do this with the Bible and I find it interesting that most don't ask the question why? And no it's has nothing to do with politics or power. ;)
-
Well I'm confused, because you've made it out before as if the kind of studies of the Bible in question are your reason and proof for gods existence. Meaning, its descriptions of miraculous and metaphysical events are accurate.
And the historical claims of Jesus' miracles are the embellishments the rest of us are talking about. You can't really say these are purely historical claims, as their truth would be, as you are aware, quite profound. In my experience, you don't always seem to distinguish between this, and it comes off as if you think anyone who questions the historical veracity of these miracles is being historically ignorant - whether thats intentional or not.
Fair enough. Let me clarify. This thread started as a discussion about the historical Jesus, and then trailed off into textual reliability. On the latter point, I know of few historians who would throw up their hands and say, "the text is hosed." Most would say we can get close to the original reading of the New Testament. So, that the authors meant to record Jesus as a miracle worker is undeniable. Whether or not Jesus actually was is an entirely different argument. I obviously think he was, but for reasons unrelated to this discussion.
My complaint in this thread has been that people attempt to cast doubt on the claims of Christianity by claiming that the text hasn't been reliably transmitted down through the centuries. That's false.
-
It is clear that the Genesis creation account was not written as a scientific text to describe the creation of the Universe and specifically, the Earth. The Genesis account has a lot in common with the Psalms and with Job, both poetic types of literature. That said, no telling how much time elapses from "In the beginning" to "Let there be light". The creation "story" in particular is pretty stylized and isn't written in nearly the same way some of the other "history" books in the Old Testament are written.
I don't see Genesis having much in common with Psalms or Job at all.
I agree that Genesis isn't a scientific text. But it is a descriptive text, and it explicitly describes creation as taking 6 days.
In English it does, absolutely. But the Hebrew word yom, which most mainline English translations translate into the English word "day" is used in a lot of various ways throughout the Old Testament. It is translated in the book of Joshua as "an age" or "a period of time". Likely in Genesis it is a literal day.
You're right in saying that the Genesis account explicitly describes creation as taking six days. However, in my reading, I've found that it describes most explicitly the creation of the Earth and her inhabitants in those six literal days.
Genesis is indeed a descriptive/narrative text. I should have been more clear in my initial post, in that the creation account itself has more in common with Job or the Psalms stylistically in the original Hebrew than it does even with the rest of the Genesis narrative itself.
Sorry for the confusion.
yom is definitely a word with some flexibility, but the primary meaning is "day" and the context in Genesis (the evening and the morning) clearly indicates day. Any attempt to render it as something other than a normal 24-hour period is usually done by someone who wants to sell you something. I mean, believe it or don't believe it, that's up to you, but the text says "day."
Yes, it specifically describes the creation of the Earth, but it doesn't differentiate between the Earth and anything resembling any wider Universe; the ancient Jews had no concept of such things, so that makes sense.
I still see no real similarities between the creation account and Job or the Psalms. But to each his own.
All great points, and all points taken. I don't have my thoughts or beliefs nailed down quite yet on creation, but I see the flexibility in those first two chapters of Genesis and just have to wonder what all of that could mean.
-
Well I'm confused, because you've made it out before as if the kind of studies of the Bible in question are your reason and proof for gods existence. Meaning, its descriptions of miraculous and metaphysical events are accurate.
And the historical claims of Jesus' miracles are the embellishments the rest of us are talking about. You can't really say these are purely historical claims, as their truth would be, as you are aware, quite profound. In my experience, you don't always seem to distinguish between this, and it comes off as if you think anyone who questions the historical veracity of these miracles is being historically ignorant - whether thats intentional or not.
Fair enough. Let me clarify. This thread started as a discussion about the historical Jesus, and then trailed off into textual reliability. On the latter point, I know of few historians who would throw up their hands and say, "the text is hosed." Most would say we can get close to the original reading of the New Testament. So, that the authors meant to record Jesus as a miracle worker is undeniable. Whether or not Jesus actually was is an entirely different argument. I obviously think he was, but for reasons unrelated to this discussion.
My complaint in this thread has been that people attempt to cast doubt on the claims of Christianity by claiming that the text hasn't been reliably transmitted down through the centuries. That's false.
Oh, there's nothing special about Christian scripture, I'm skeptical of all religious scripture. :P
Although I can see where you're coming from now, and I wasn't proposing anything so extreme as that, but even given that our ability to arrive at the truth is still limited. And I'm sure many historians would acknowledge that.
-
And I'm sure many historians would acknowledge that.
Me too.
-
Well I'm confused, because you've made it out before as if the kind of studies of the Bible in question are your reason and proof for gods existence. Meaning, its descriptions of miraculous and metaphysical events are accurate.
One thing to point out here is there are plenty of arguments on the existence of God without referring to Scripture. Just look at Anselm of Canturbery and Thomas Aquinas who both give a very convincing argument in that regard. Now before people jump all over that statement like some do, remember, you follow a philosophy that might have an argument against this. However these arguments are mostly likely made "for" those very same arguments. Today's arguments about the existence of God, Jesus and etc, are certainly nothing new.
And the historical claims of Jesus' miracles are the embellishments the rest of us are talking about. You can't really say these are purely historical claims, as their truth would be, as you are aware, quite profound. In my experience, you don't always seem to distinguish between this, and it comes off as if you think anyone who questions the historical veracity of these miracles is being historically ignorant - whether thats intentional or not.
Why not? They are events of historical literature much the same the Greek Myths are or King Arthur. They may contain elements that cannot be proven through human reason but they still reveal the history of humanity in that particular time and place. This is exactly what the bible means to a "true" historian. The Bible is a book of literature from another time and another place that can be studied much the same as any text of literature that reveals the human element contained within that particular text. We cannot use human reason when it comes to the miracles but that was not the author's intention. The miracles are God's revelation. They tell us something about God and what He is trying to say to us. Human reason cannot come to God's revelation without Holy Scripture thus was revelation was necessary.
They may be based upon some actual event, but that does not mean that such actual events occurred as they are passed down. People at the time would see a solar eclipse, and attribute it to some supernatural cause, and not the deterministic route of the moon around the sun. Also, if we want to use this kind of logic, then we are left in a position where we have to follow and accept many conflicting beliefs. Why not follow the Greek Pantheon? Or the Egyptian? They have myths as well, and they're most likely based upon some factual events. But they contradict each other on theological levels, give different creation stories, give different reasons and morals for life.
Also, the difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Bible is that no one reads the Iliad or the Odyssey thinking its a work inspired by God (even though it claims to be inspired by the Gods in the beginning), and there aren't entire religions based upon the works. The difference is the attribution and the acceptance of God, supernatural entities, and supernatural events and miracles. If people read the Iliad and the Odyssey, and started forming a religion based upon it, and fighting against each other over the claims made in those books, you'd probably see them treated a lot differently.
-
My complaint in this thread has been that people attempt to cast doubt on the claims of Christianity by claiming that the text hasn't been reliably transmitted down through the centuries. That's false.
To be clear what my point is, it's not so much that the text itself has been changed, it's that human society and the human mind has changed, altering how that same text is understood and received. Today, living in a modern society, with modern comforts, with modern technology, fundamentally alters how we perceive the world, and it effect how we understand everything.
Someone in the 5th century reading the Bible is going to understand it differently than someone now reading the same Bible. It's not an issue of the text, it's an issue of the subject and the mind reading said text.
-
Although I would like to add, because this was part of what I was saying, is that a good thousand or two years (actually probably way more than that, but let's just assume that timespan) passed between the stories that would eventually become the Bible being created and told, and their actual being written down. And so in that same fashion, Torah b-al'peh (Oral Torah) probably also changed with the progression of the human experience and the normal distortions you can expect from people not possessing perfect memories or having an agenda in twisting something.
-
Study oral transmission in the first century.
-
You gotta go farther back than that, bud.
-
Although I would like to add, because this was part of what I was saying, is that a good thousand or two years (actually probably way more than that, but let's just assume that timespan) passed between the stories that would eventually become the Bible being created and told, and their actual being written down. And so in that same fashion, Torah b-al'peh (Oral Torah) probably also changed with the progression of the human experience and the normal distortions you can expect from people not possessing perfect memories or having an agenda in twisting something.
Where do you get these numbers? Scholars normally date the time of the Exodus to somewhere between 1500-1300 BCE; they were most probably written down in something resembling their current form sometime between the start of the monarchy in the United Kingdom (1020 BCE) and the fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel (722 BCE).
-
Actually recent scholarship thinks the actual writing of the Pentateuch may have been during the Babylonian exile.
And to answer your question, I go to a predominantly Jewish university with a major called Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. And actually, since this semester I'm in a class with a professor whose expertise is Biblical and Mishnaic history, would y'all like me to ask him his professional opinion?
-
Actually recent scholarship thinks the actual writing of the Pentateuch may have been during the Babylonian exile.
And to answer your question, I go to a predominantly Jewish university with a major called Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. And actually, since this semester I'm in a class with a professor whose expertise is Biblical and Mishnaic history, would y'all like me to ask him his professional opinion?
1250BC is the approximate date of Moses and the Exodus. 1850 is the approximate date of Abraham in Canaan. 587 being the exile of Israel. Why so precise? This is because of records that we have which mark this date as being an accurate time of this event. The other dates have ambiguous information that make it harder to determine the actual date. Also what professional opinion are we getting? That the Bible today does not have "exactly" what was written down or told before? I think it's obvious that over time elements might become altered but it does fascinate me in knowing that throughout history the Church has actually "guarded" the traditions and texts and teachings that have been passed down. It's kinda like imagining that Rome has guarded the information passed down about their Emperors. I do find it funny that people like to cast doubt on the history of the bible but fail to take that same doubt and cast it on other historical events in the same era.
-
Actually recent scholarship thinks the actual writing of the Pentateuch may have been during the Babylonian exile.
And to answer your question, I go to a predominantly Jewish university with a major called Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. And actually, since this semester I'm in a class with a professor whose expertise is Biblical and Mishnaic history, would y'all like me to ask him his professional opinion?
1250BC is the approximate date of Moses and the Exodus. 1850 is the approximate date of Abraham in Canaan. 587 being the exile of Israel. Why so precise? This is because of records that we have which mark this date as being an accurate time of this event. The other dates have ambiguous information that make it harder to determine the actual date. Also what professional opinion are we getting? That the Bible today does not have "exactly" what was written down or told before? I think it's obvious that over time elements might become altered but it does fascinate me in knowing that throughout history the Church has actually "guarded" the traditions and texts and teachings that have been passed down. It's kinda like imagining that Rome has guarded the information passed down about their Emperors. I do find it funny that people like to cast doubt on the history of the bible but fail to take that same doubt and cast it on other historical events in the same era.
Who said I didn't?
-
Actually recent scholarship thinks the actual writing of the Pentateuch may have been during the Babylonian exile.
And to answer your question, I go to a predominantly Jewish university with a major called Near Eastern and Judaic Studies. And actually, since this semester I'm in a class with a professor whose expertise is Biblical and Mishnaic history, would y'all like me to ask him his professional opinion?
1250BC is the approximate date of Moses and the Exodus. 1850 is the approximate date of Abraham in Canaan. 587 being the exile of Israel. Why so precise? This is because of records that we have which mark this date as being an accurate time of this event. The other dates have ambiguous information that make it harder to determine the actual date. Also what professional opinion are we getting? That the Bible today does not have "exactly" what was written down or told before? I think it's obvious that over time elements might become altered but it does fascinate me in knowing that throughout history the Church has actually "guarded" the traditions and texts and teachings that have been passed down. It's kinda like imagining that Rome has guarded the information passed down about their Emperors. I do find it funny that people like to cast doubt on the history of the bible but fail to take that same doubt and cast it on other historical events in the same era.
It's not like historians actually believe that Rome was founded by brothers raised by wolves. Most ancient historical texts and accounts are treated with heaps of skepticism. Any basic ancient history class will teach you this, as large amounts of time will be devoted to assessing the inaccuracies, biases, and exaggerations of a writer like Plutarch, Tacitus, or Livy. It's perfectly rational to doubt the history of the Bible where, in the case of something like the Exodus, there is nothing in the way of non-Biblical accounts or archaeological evidence. The same skepticism is treated to many other events from historical accounts.
-
Yeah, I can specifically say about German history that there's quite a few accounts of heroic battles (throughout the ages, not just the Big Wars) that were found to be plain fabrications.
rumborak
-
By the way, I compared the Christ-myth people to creationists, and one of them is all upset with me (https://thepassivehabit.blogspot.com/2012/02/neil-godfreys-lousy-defense-of-christ.html).
-
Also, the difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Bible is that no one reads the Iliad or the Odyssey thinking its a work inspired by God (even though it claims to be inspired by the Gods in the beginning), and there aren't entire religions based upon the works. The difference is the attribution and the acceptance of God, supernatural entities, and supernatural events and miracles. If people read the Iliad and the Odyssey, and started forming a religion based upon it, and fighting against each other over the claims made in those books, you'd probably see them treated a lot differently.
That section in bold is grossly inaccurate. For thousands of years, the myths of the ancients formed the basis of their world view and they were taken very seriously. What happened in the Iliad and the Odyssey was considered to be historical fact by the ancient Greeks for centuries, and such was the case various other ancient peoples throughout the world. While philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle may have dismissed them as "Old wives tales", for the majority of the ancient people believed their gods and demigods to be very real. Religion and, most especially, sacrifice was an integral part of life many millenia ago, and trust me, ancient cultures weren't sacrificing goats, bulls or in a few cases, other humans, to gods they didn't believe were real. Furthermore, many of those ancient texts like the Norse Eddas, the Hindu Vedas, the texts of Zoroaster, and yes, Homer's poems, did indeed form the basis of "real" religions. The ancient myths are treated as mere "literature" only by people of opposing theological viewpoints, typically those of the Abrahamic faiths or atheists, but make no mistake, to followers of those polytheistic belief systems, both past and present, they are much more then simply a bunch of old stories.
-
We're not talking about then, we're talking about now.
-
Also, the difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Bible is that no one reads the Iliad or the Odyssey thinking its a work inspired by God (even though it claims to be inspired by the Gods in the beginning), and there aren't entire religions based upon the works. The difference is the attribution and the acceptance of God, supernatural entities, and supernatural events and miracles. If people read the Iliad and the Odyssey, and started forming a religion based upon it, and fighting against each other over the claims made in those books, you'd probably see them treated a lot differently.
That section in bold is grossly inaccurate. For thousands of years, the myths of the ancients formed the basis of their world view and they were taken very seriously. What happened in the Iliad and the Odyssey was considered to be historical fact by the ancient Greeks for centuries, and such was the case various other ancient peoples throughout the world. While philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle may have dismissed them as "Old wives tales", for the majority of the ancient people believed their gods and demigods to be very real. Religion and, most especially, sacrifice was an integral part of life many millenia ago, and trust me, ancient cultures weren't sacrificing goats, bulls or in a few cases, other humans, to gods they didn't believe were real. Furthermore, many of those ancient texts like the Norse Eddas, the Hindu Vedas, the texts of Zoroaster, and yes, Homer's poems, did indeed form the basis of "real" religions. The ancient myths are treated as mere "literature" only by people of opposing theological viewpoints, typically those of the Abrahamic faiths or atheists, but make no mistake, to followers of those polytheistic belief systems, both past and present, they are much more then simply a bunch of old stories.
Did the epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey form the basis for those religions, or was it a religiously inspired text? I don't ever remember hearing about it being the basis for the Greek religion, always thought it was a creation of the Greek religion.
As well as how we currently read them. They aren't read that way anymore, and if you read them today, you don't read them assuming they're completely accurate, and that they describe real events. Which of course, doesn't really make much of a difference because the genius of the work isn't religious.
-
Also, the difference between the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Bible is that no one reads the Iliad or the Odyssey thinking its a work inspired by God (even though it claims to be inspired by the Gods in the beginning), and there aren't entire religions based upon the works. The difference is the attribution and the acceptance of God, supernatural entities, and supernatural events and miracles. If people read the Iliad and the Odyssey, and started forming a religion based upon it, and fighting against each other over the claims made in those books, you'd probably see them treated a lot differently.
That section in bold is grossly inaccurate. For thousands of years, the myths of the ancients formed the basis of their world view and they were taken very seriously. What happened in the Iliad and the Odyssey was considered to be historical fact by the ancient Greeks for centuries, and such was the case various other ancient peoples throughout the world. While philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle may have dismissed them as "Old wives tales", for the majority of the ancient people believed their gods and demigods to be very real. Religion and, most especially, sacrifice was an integral part of life many millenia ago, and trust me, ancient cultures weren't sacrificing goats, bulls or in a few cases, other humans, to gods they didn't believe were real. Furthermore, many of those ancient texts like the Norse Eddas, the Hindu Vedas, the texts of Zoroaster, and yes, Homer's poems, did indeed form the basis of "real" religions. The ancient myths are treated as mere "literature" only by people of opposing theological viewpoints, typically those of the Abrahamic faiths or atheists, but make no mistake, to followers of those polytheistic belief systems, both past and present, they are much more then simply a bunch of old stories.
Did the epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey form the basis for those religions, or was it a religiously inspired text? I don't ever remember hearing about it being the basis for the Greek religion, always thought it was a creation of the Greek religion.
As well as how we currently read them. They aren't read that way anymore, and if you read them today, you don't read them assuming they're completely accurate, and that they describe real events. Which of course, doesn't really make much of a difference because the genius of the work isn't religious.
Unless the sudden hypothetical discovery of the other five volumes in the saga proves otherwise, it's the latter.
-
Did the epics of the Iliad and the Odyssey form the basis for those religions, or was it a religiously inspired text? I don't ever remember hearing about it being the basis for the Greek religion, always thought it was a creation of the Greek religion.
The works of Homer and Hesiod are the oldest known works of the Greek mythic cycles, and while the mythologies contained within them may be derived from an already existent theological system (it is believed that virtually all Indo-European polytheistic religions had some common theological source that is now lost), Homer and Hesiod doubtlessly defined theology to the Ancient Greeks by entwining such mythology with actual events of ancient Mycenaean Greek history. That's not to say Homer's poems were held to be some sort of Bible in ancient Greek temples, but along with Hesiod's works, their sheer extent and thoroughness of the myths contained within indicates that they doubtlessly formed the basis of Greek theological thought between the 8th century BC and the Christian era.
As well as how we currently read them. They aren't read that way anymore, and if you read them today, you don't read them assuming they're completely accurate, and that they describe real events. Which of course, doesn't really make much of a difference because the genius of the work isn't religious.
Obviously, most people today to treat them as mythological literature, although there are pagan re-constructionist groups that take them much more seriously and believe that they do have at least some measure of historical and theological truth in them, so that really just depends on your personal spiritual inclinations.
As for whether they are inherently religious texts, they are, above all else, texts of Greek history and culture, and in the ancient world, the line between national heritage and religion was not so clearly defined since a peoples history was so tightly bound to their national mythology. I suppose you can argue that they aren't religious in the sense that their primary purpose isn't solely theological, but rather national. As I said earlier, though, spiritual beliefs were very tightly bound to national identity back then, so the line between religious identity and national identity was virtually non existent. National history and mythology were virtually inseparable, and to the ancients, they may not have cared to perceive any practical difference between the accounts of their ancestors and those of their Gods.
-
All of which just reaffirms the point I was making, that it's wrong for Vivace to say that the Bible is treated differently then other historical / religious texts of the time.
-
As a deist, I believe he existed, like Mohammed or like other prophets but in a way how historical papers said, not religion related.
History always gives a human being that leads the people. Religion was (and still) a good weapon to gather people. Jesus was one of them, probably a clever one like others. Back in the days, religion was a important thing, people tended to believe no matter what, it's kinda human nature (which is why I don't understand ateism) So, some one had to do something. But in religion way, I don't believe he had power beyond nature. Just a human being, that's all.
-
, religion was a important thing, people tended to believe no matter what, it's kinda human nature (which is why I don't understand ateism
I think people have the need to make sense of the world around them, we need some explanation to cope with the (often hostile) world around us and go on with our daily life and in the last 150 years new satisfactory non religious explanations about the world have developed which have substituted religious explanations.
-
Slightly related to this thread, I was looking at a recent National Geographic issue about the travels of the apostles. To my annoyance they just used the idea that the apostles also wrote the gospels as plain fact.
rumborak
-
I think people have the need to make sense of the world around them, we need some explanation to cope with the (often hostile) world around us and go on with our daily life and in the last 150 years new satisfactory non religious explanations about the world have developed which have substituted religious explanations.
This.
-
Jesus may have existed but it's really of no importance to his divine claims whether he existed or not. Even if he existed, was born of a virgin, even if he was resurrected, that wouldn't prove that he was right about about anything he said. I seriously doubt most of the key claims about his supposed life simply of the basis that those same traits pop up over and over throughout ancient religious myths, Christianity is just another one. His teachings are far from unique as well, but frankly the idea that you and I need to be "taught" morality like we are inherently immoral is an insulting aspect of religion. But of the main point, I will just reiterate that if it could ever be shown that Jesus the man did exist, there is still all the work in the world needed to then prove his divinity.
-
Even if he existed, was born of a virgin, even if he was resurrected, that wouldn't prove that he was right about about anything he said.
Really?
-
Yeah, that statement is rather peculiar. I think if Jesus' divinity could be established without doubt, from thereon just about anything he said should be considered unquestionable. I mean, from my point of view the claims of his divinity came from that motivation.
rumborak
-
Even if he existed, was born of a virgin, even if he was resurrected, that wouldn't prove that he was right about about anything he said.
Really?
Yeah, that statement is rather peculiar. I think if Jesus' divinity could be established without doubt, from thereon just about anything he said should be considered unquestionable. I mean, from my point of view the claims of his divinity came from that motivation.
rumborak
So, if someone can be proven to do something supernatural, you will believe whatever they tell you based on that?
Let's say Jesus could walk to water. Does it make him divine necessarily? No. Does it mean God exists necessarily? No, it just means that he could walk on water.
-
Yeah, that statement is rather peculiar. I think if Jesus' divinity could be established without doubt, from thereon just about anything he said should be considered unquestionable. I mean, from my point of view the claims of his divinity came from that motivation.
So, if someone can be proven to do something supernatural, you will believe whatever they tell you based on that?
Let's say Jesus could walk to water. Does it make him divine necessarily? No. Does it mean God exists necessarily? No, it just means that he could walk on water.
What about the other claims Jesus makes concerning his divinity? If those claims and supernatural acts that are more directly related to his divinity (God the Father's approval of Jesus post baptism, the transfiguration) were proven by the method you see fit, wouldn't that validate his divinity?
-
I think he was specifically referring to the performance of miracles. After all, Christian bishops in Late Antiquity won many converts by performing miracles of their own: exorcisms, healing, clouddriving, locating lost iron tools. Does this make them divine as well?
-
In response to your question, no, but upon my reading, the current discussion is regarding the divinity of Christ based upon all of his actions and statements, not just his actions that could be considered parlor tricks.
-
Even if he existed, was born of a virgin, even if he was resurrected, that wouldn't prove that he was right about about anything he said.
Really?
Yeah, that statement is rather peculiar. I think if Jesus' divinity could be established without doubt, from thereon just about anything he said should be considered unquestionable. I mean, from my point of view the claims of his divinity came from that motivation.
rumborak
So, if someone can be proven to do something supernatural, you will believe whatever they tell you based on that?
Let's say Jesus could walk to water. Does it make him divine necessarily? No. Does it mean God exists necessarily? No, it just means that he could walk on water.
I don't know, that seems a step down from virgin birth and resurrection. I mean, fucking resurrection?
-
Even if he existed, was born of a virgin, even if he was resurrected, that wouldn't prove that he was right about about anything he said.
Really?
Yeah, that statement is rather peculiar. I think if Jesus' divinity could be established without doubt, from thereon just about anything he said should be considered unquestionable. I mean, from my point of view the claims of his divinity came from that motivation.
rumborak
So, if someone can be proven to do something supernatural, you will believe whatever they tell you based on that?
Let's say Jesus could walk to water. Does it make him divine necessarily? No. Does it mean God exists necessarily? No, it just means that he could walk on water.
I don't know, that seems a step down from virgin birth and resurrection. I mean, fucking resurrection?
(https://i1159.photobucket.com/albums/p637/sjacobson/POW.gif)
-
A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem. While they were there, the wife passed away.
The undertaker told the husband, "You can have her buried here in the Holy Land for $150 or we can have her shipped back home for $5,000.
The husband thought about it and told the undertaker he would have her shipped back home.
The undertaker asked him, "why would you spend $5,000 to have her shipped home when you could have a beautiful burial here, and it would only cost $150????"
The husband replied, "Long ago, a man died here, was buried here, and three days later, rose from the dead.
I just can’t take that chance!"
-
I might be hijacking a bit...but people tend to focus on the miracles a bit too much, when that was not the main thrust of his being here.
I was just reading the other night about how the apostles wanted him to come back and heal more people, but instead he said that he had to go into other villages to *preach and teach*...and that THAT was the main reason he was even here. Not to heal the sick or feed the hungry.
I think focusing on the supernatural is missing out on the whole point. Proof of divinity (to me) has nothing to do with the miracles. (or at least, it's a very secondary point, since I believe there are evil spirits that are also capable of "supernatural" signs) It has to do with fulfilled prophecy, and teaching.
EDIT: BTW...LOL @Bosk
-
I might be hijacking a bit...but people tend to focus on the miracles a bit too much, when that was not the main thrust of his being here.
I was just reading the other night about how the apostles wanted him to come back and heal more people, but instead he said that he had to go into other villages to *preach and teach*...and that THAT was the main reason he was even here. Not to heal the sick or feed the hungry.
I think focusing on the supernatural is missing out on the whole point. Proof of divinity (to me) has nothing to do with the miracles. (or at least, it's a very secondary point, since I believe there are evil spirits that are also capable of "supernatural" signs) It has to do with fulfilled prophecy, and teaching.
EDIT: BTW...LOL @Bosk
And part of fulfilled prophecy and teaching involves miraculous acts.
-
^^^^^
Well ya...but as I said. It's not like it didn't matter *at all*...I was just saying that Jesus' attitude was that people were too focused on the miracles, and I think that should speak volumes. The miracles do mean something in as much as they fulfill prophecy...but they really shouldn't be the main focus.
EDIT: They are not the "be all and end all" of proof of divinity.
-
I am a believer in everything Jesus taught and said.
(https://i548.photobucket.com/albums/ii324/jawkjaw/double%20s%20pro/eminem-wallpaper-32v1-1.jpg)
-
Lol @ musicians and their views.
rumborak
-
What things did Jesus do that signifies his divinity then?
-
What things did Jesus do that signifies his divinity then?
This is where we start to get into a discussion of the reliability of the scriptural account itself. I have done research on both sides. I learned some scripture when I was young, became a skeptic later in life, and then really did some *deep* digging into the arguments on *both* sides of the issue. My personal conclusions were that higher Bible criticism arguments completely fell apart under scrutiny...where as the scriptures were always accurate and reliable. (*VERY* important to note...I'm talking about The Bible itself...NOT theology's interpretation of it! MANY conclusions are drawn in "Christianity" that somehow get attributed to The Bible itself...(the earth being created in six literal days for instance)...that are just a misrepresentation of the facts.)
If you believe the Bible account, it's mostly the fulfillment of *HUNDREDS* of prophecies...as well as exact dates etc etc etc. But God acknowledging his Son in a voice from heaven wasn't a bad one either. Don't know that I'd call a voice from heaven as "a miracle" per se...just a father acknowledging a son.
-
Lol @ musicians and their views.
rumborak
:lol
-
What things did Jesus do that signifies his divinity then?
This is where we start to get into a discussion of the reliability of the scriptural account itself. I have done research on both sides. I learned some scripture when I was young, became a skeptic later in life, and then really did some *deep* digging into the arguments on *both* sides of the issue. My personal conclusions were that higher Bible criticism arguments completely fell apart under scrutiny...where as the scriptures were always accurate and reliable. (*VERY* important to note...I'm talking about The Bible itself...NOT theology's interpretation of it! MANY conclusions are drawn in "Christianity" that somehow get attributed to The Bible itself...(the earth being created in six literal days for instance)...that are just a misrepresentation of the facts.)
If you believe the Bible account, it's mostly the fulfillment of *HUNDREDS* of prophecies...as well as exact dates etc etc etc. But God acknowledging his Son in a voice from heaven wasn't a bad one either. Don't know that I'd call a voice from heaven as "a miracle" per se...just a father acknowledging a son.
Respectfully, you didn't answer my question.
-
What I was trying to say is that I can't and still keep the thread on topic.
That...and it's an answer that took me *months* of digging. I'm just not sure that I have the capacity to sum up all of that in a single paragraph.
The shortest answer wouldn't make any sense without the context of the extended research.
How about "42"?? :D
EDIT: The best succinct answer I can give you is, "he fulfilled all the hundreds of prophecies spoken about him in detail."...that's what proves to me that he was who he said he was. Period. That includes where he was born, that children would be killed when he was born, his teaching activity, his death, dates of his arrival...etc etc etc etc...
-
Wasn't the Messiah supposed to be called Immanuel or something?
rumborak
-
Yes. And he was. (Matthew 1:22-24)
-
Lol @ musicians and their views.
rumborak
:lol
You knuckleheads do realize I made that for humors sake, don't you?
-
It seems you were misunderstood.
-
Yes. And he was. (Matthew 1:22-24)
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, [..] and they shall call his name Emmanuel,
[..]
Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, [...] and he called his name JESUS.
:lol
Was that Joseph's middle finger to God or something? "Yeah, you want me to call him Emmanuel?! Well, I'm calling him JESUS."
rumborak
-
the fact that his name would be jesus was also prophecied a number of times in Zechariah, whereas emmanuel was one of several titles that were prophecied. Jeremiah prophecied that his name would be Jehovah Tsidkenu (Yahweh is our Righteousness), etc. They were not intended as an actual personal name but as a descriptive title
-
Verse 22 says that he was in fact called immanuel.
EDIT: What Yesh said.
-
Jeremiah prophecied that his name would be Jehovah Tsidkenu,
:lol
You guys are not pitching this one particularly well.
rumborak
-
Verse 22 says that he was in fact called immanuel.
EDIT: What Yesh said.
And it would have been *impossible* for someone to insert Verse 22, so as to fulfill the prophecy?
-
Verse 22 says that he was in fact called immanuel.
EDIT: What Yesh said.
And it would have been *impossible* for someone to insert Verse 22, so as to fulfill the prophecy?
...and as I said, I've been through deep and thorough research into *both* sides of this argument. My personal conclusion was that the arguments against divine inspiration of the scriptures did not hold water. Your mileage may vary.
-
Verse 22 says that he was in fact called immanuel.
EDIT: What Yesh said.
And it would have been *impossible* for someone to insert Verse 22, so as to fulfill the prophecy?
...and as I said, I've been through deep and thorough research into *both* sides of this argument. My personal conclusion was that the arguments against divine inspiration of the scriptures did not hold water. Your mileage may vary.
Doesn't really answe the question.
-
Actually....yes I did.
-
No, you merely stated that it's false, and gave no reason why, other than trust me. Considering its a very specific claim, and something relevant to your claim that all the prophecies were fulfilled. It's a simple question, what other evidence is there for him being called Immanuel. Point me towards the literature.
-
I would point someone to the book of Isaiah. This is the book that the original promise of a child born to a virgin whose name would be "god with us." In addition to this specific promise, the entire book is full of prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. Chapters 49-60 are full of messianic allusions. Some of these chapters describe events that no one understood in the first place in order to fictionally fulfill.
-
I would point someone to the book of Isaiah. This is the book that the original promise of a child born to a virgin whose name would be "god with us." In addition to this specific promise, the entire book is full of prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. Chapters 49-60 are full of messianic allusions. Some of these chapters describe events that no one understood in the first place in order to fictionally fulfill.
Sorry if this is an entirely ignorant question, but how did people know they were fulfilled if they didn't understand them in the first place?
(that's a legit question btw, not an argument in any way)
-
that's an awesome question, actually.
it is conceivable that a false messiah could come along and fictionally fulfill some of the prophecies of the messiah in the jewish writings, and I would imagine some did try.
there are many prophecies that did not make sense to the reader, but once they were fulfilled by Jesus they made perfect sense.
there really is dozens that I could highlight, but one simple one is Isaiah 53. the jewish targums (paraphrases of the jewish bible) rendered the chapter to be speaking of the gentiles (they would suffer for the sake of the jews, bear their sin, etc). one of the statements that challenged this interpretation is that the chapter speaks of the sufferer being killed, but then later speaks of them being alive and victorious. though the jewish interpreters tried to explain this passage as referring to the gentiles being their scapegoat, they couldn't fit in how they would be killed and then come back to life victoriously.
the primary message of Jesus is that he came to be the scapegoat (for Jews and Gentiles) and suffer on behalf of us, resulting in being killed and that he was raised back to life, thus gaining victory.
no one had ever previously understood what this text was talking about in order to scheme the story of Jesus to fulfill it.
this is just one of many examples.
-
Thanks.
As a follow up, if these prophecies were difficult to understand, what would have stopped a false prophet from inventing an interpretation that works, and then fulfilling that? I would think a more cryptic prophecy would be easier to argue you fulfilled in hindsight, than a much clearer prophecy that left less wiggle room for interpretation.
Obviously being killed and coming back to life would have been pretty good proof, regardless of whether it was prophecized, but I'm speaking generally here. :lol
-
Thanks.
As a follow up, if these prophecies were difficult to understand, what would have stopped a false prophet from inventing an interpretation that works, and then fulfilling that? I would think a more cryptic prophecy would be easier to argue you fulfilled in hindsight, than a much clearer prophecy that left less wiggle room for interpretation.
Obviously being killed and coming back to life would have been pretty good proof, regardless of whether it was prophecized, but I'm speaking generally here. :lol
:lol oh, c'mon...it happens practically everyday
your point is well taken, though. I chose Isaiah 53 since it is one of the simpler examples.
more complex ones would be several in the book of Zechariah (I want to say ch 3, 6 and 12). these prophecies are extremely complex and even prophecy Jesus' actual name.
-
My personal conclusion was that the arguments against divine inspiration of the scriptures did not hold water.
That's interesting, because my conclusion was the exact opposite.
Of course, I remain a faithful Christian, albeit a somewhat unorthodox one.
-
Nothing is impossible, but it certainly was highly unlikely. Rationality kicks in at a certain point.
-
My personal conclusion was that the arguments against divine inspiration of the scriptures did not hold water.
That's interesting, because my conclusion was the exact opposite.
Of course, I remain a faithful Christian, albeit a somewhat unorthodox one.
The key (for me) was to completely chuck all modern theology and tradition out the window. Let the Bible speak for itself without the twisted interpretations of modern religious men. I figured that if Jesus had to straighten out the holy hierarchy of his time, then the modern clergy was equal if not more guilty of the same crime. At that time, God's Law (the Mosaic law) was inspired...but even the top schools that were teaching it were all of them teaching falsehoods and oral traditions and additions that God had never intended. Which is exactly why they missed the Messiah altogether. Preconceptions and twisted interpretation of prophecy (taught by the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees) made them look for the Messiah in a way that prophecy never intended. I absolutely believe there is a modern day parallel.
-
^Absolutely correct. Could not have said it much better.
-
Unfortunately, the Bible cannot speak for itself.
-
Unfortunately, the Bible cannot speak for itself.
Why do you think so?
-
Unfortunately, the Bible cannot speak for itself.
I disagree. I believe it's the *only* way to get to the heart of the matter. If I want to know what God says, I'll skip the middle man...
-
Unfortunately, the Bible cannot speak for itself.
I disagree. I believe it's the *only* way to get to the heart of the matter. If I want to know what God says, I'll skip the middle man...
OK, then what does God say, for example, in Genesis? Is he presenting a literal history? A spiritual history? Metaphors? Two separate stories? One story?
-
Unfortunately, the Bible cannot speak for itself.
I disagree. I believe it's the *only* way to get to the heart of the matter. If I want to know what God says, I'll skip the middle man...
OK, then what does God say, for example, in Genesis? Is he presenting a literal history? A spiritual history? Metaphors? Two separate stories? One story?
It's not that simple....it's simpler. :laugh:
Not sure how to answer that, because I'm not coming from that angle at all. You can't take *ONE PIECE* of a jigsaw puzzle and ask me to describe the picture.
Now...the general outline of The Bible is wrapped around one central theme. Creating things perfect, how things got imperfect, how God is going to solve this problem. Everything from Genesis to Revelation is all wrapped around that central theme. By the end of chapter 3 of Genesis, some of the most important questions in our lives are answered. How we got here, how things got completely screwed up, and how God was going to save us. That's the focus. All other issues, if not addressed implicitly, will be answered at a later time. The most important things are there. If God were to write down a detailed account of how he created everything...where the dinosaurs went...blah blah blah...he could have written *literally thousands* of books bigger than the Bible JUST to explain the first 2 chapters of Genesis. But that's not the focus. There are more important issues, and that is what the Bible addresses. "This is how you got here, this is how evil came into existence, this is my plan for ridding the universe of evil forever." Period.
Now, you can get alot more detail with this theme and ask a thousand questions. Sometimes the Bible answers them with laws, sometimes with principles. But the Bible does have answers to any question involving this central theme. If you look for things outside of that scheme that the Bible is not specific on... well, I don't have the answers. But I believe that I will get them someday after the important stuff is sorted out.
-
But that's all your interpretation. That's not the Bible speaking for itself.
And what about things that the Bible gets wrong? Or where it contradicts itself? Obviously the Bible could not speak for itself in those situations.
-
But that's all your interpretation. That's not the Bible speaking for itself.
And what about things that the Bible gets wrong? Or where it contradicts itself? Obviously the Bible could not speak for itself in those situations.
Never seen a contradiction that held water. And yes...I've seen all the supposed examples. Some of them laughable.
One in particular struck me as funny. One video I saw tried to ask the question "Does God get tired?"....then used two scriptures to point out a "contradiction". One said that God never tires out. The other one said that God was tired of superficial sacrifices. :facepalm: Even my agnostic step-son had to laugh and say, "That's STUPID! That's not the same kind of 'tired'!" I have to agree. Most of the "contradictions" that critics try to point out are along the very same lines.
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
-
I will add that the idea of any personal interpretation on *my* part goes against every fiber of my being.
The Bible does speak for itself. In other words, if I *want* a scripture to mean 1 thing, but then another scripture contradicts MY interpretation of the first scripture...then *I* am wrong. I have to adjust my viewpoint. Only in that way can the Bible speak for itself. If I find something new in scripture that contradicts my POV or my interpretation...then *I* am the one that has to change. Because this is God's POV....not mine.
For instance, I might want to believe that God will save *everyone*...as some scriptures seem to insinuate. But others scriptures make it clear that not everyone will be. You do a little digging into all scriptures on the subject....*everything* that the Bible has to say on the matter...and a bigger picture becomes clear. The *offer* to be saved is open to everyone. But not everyone will accept it. This is not what I wanted to hear...but it is what it says. I've had friends spin some of these scriptures in a way that would suit more to some of my personal viewpoints...but that personal viewpoint contradicts other parts of God's word. The only interpretation, is the one that harmonizes all parts.
I heard someone once say, "The truth will set you free....but it will piss you off first." That was my experience.
-
But that's all your interpretation. That's not the Bible speaking for itself.
And what about things that the Bible gets wrong? Or where it contradicts itself? Obviously the Bible could not speak for itself in those situations.
Never seen a contradiction that held water. And yes...I've seen all the supposed examples. Some of them laughable.
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
Well, a reasonably well known one, that isn't even an issue of interpretation/meaning of language, is the year of Jesus' birth. Matthew puts it during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. Luke puts it during the Roman census of 6 CE. So there's at least a ten year gap in between the dates offered by the two accounts. Historians lean towards Matthew's account. It's thought that Luke's inclusion of the census was to provide a reason for Mary and Joseph to have been in Bethlehem for Jesus' birth rather than Nazareth.
Another rather cut-and-dry example would be the conquest of Israel, which is almost entirely ahistorical, yet is presented as a literal history.
-
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
A LOT of people disagree with you on that one though, including (I would argue) the majority of Christians.
rumborak
-
My personal conclusion was that the arguments against divine inspiration of the scriptures did not hold water.
That's interesting, because my conclusion was the exact opposite.
Of course, I remain a faithful Christian, albeit a somewhat unorthodox one.
The key (for me) was to completely chuck all modern theology and tradition out the window. Let the Bible speak for itself without the twisted interpretations of modern religious men. I figured that if Jesus had to straighten out the holy hierarchy of his time, then the modern clergy was equal if not more guilty of the same crime. At that time, God's Law (the Mosaic law) was inspired...but even the top schools that were teaching it were all of them teaching falsehoods and oral traditions and additions that God had never intended. Which is exactly why they missed the Messiah altogether. Preconceptions and twisted interpretation of prophecy (taught by the scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees) made them look for the Messiah in a way that prophecy never intended. I absolutely believe there is a modern day parallel.
well said
-
But that's all your interpretation. That's not the Bible speaking for itself.
And what about things that the Bible gets wrong? Or where it contradicts itself? Obviously the Bible could not speak for itself in those situations.
Never seen a contradiction that held water. And yes...I've seen all the supposed examples. Some of them laughable.
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
Well, a reasonably well known one, that isn't even an issue of interpretation/meaning of language, is the year of Jesus' birth. Matthew puts it during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. Luke puts it during the Roman census of 6 CE. So there's at least a ten year gap in between the dates offered by the two accounts. Historians lean towards Matthew's account. It's thought that Luke's inclusion of the census was to provide a reason for Mary and Joseph to have been in Bethlehem for Jesus' birth rather than Nazareth.
Another rather cut-and-dry example would be the conquest of Israel, which is almost entirely ahistorical, yet is presented as a literal history.
Actually there is evidence...and I can cite references...that Quirinius was *twice* governor of Syria, the first reign being between 4 BCE and 1BCE...and that another registration did take place. The first registration would coincide with Matthew's account. Luke even insinuates knowledge of this fact by referring to "this first registration" implying there was another one...which did take place in 6CE and is referenced in Acts.
-
But that's all your interpretation. That's not the Bible speaking for itself.
And what about things that the Bible gets wrong? Or where it contradicts itself? Obviously the Bible could not speak for itself in those situations.
Never seen a contradiction that held water. And yes...I've seen all the supposed examples. Some of them laughable.
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
Well, a reasonably well known one, that isn't even an issue of interpretation/meaning of language, is the year of Jesus' birth. Matthew puts it during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. Luke puts it during the Roman census of 6 CE. So there's at least a ten year gap in between the dates offered by the two accounts. Historians lean towards Matthew's account. It's thought that Luke's inclusion of the census was to provide a reason for Mary and Joseph to have been in Bethlehem for Jesus' birth rather than Nazareth.
Another rather cut-and-dry example would be the conquest of Israel, which is almost entirely ahistorical, yet is presented as a literal history.
Actually there is evidence...and I can cite references...that Quirinius was *twice* governor of Syria, the first reign being between 4 BCE and 1BCE...and that another registration did take place. The first registration would coincide with Matthew's account. Luke even insinuates knowledge of this fact by referring to "this first registration" implying there was another one...which did take place in 6CE and is referenced in Acts.
I'd like to see these references. I'm anticipating that they would be from "scholars" who claim the Bible is inerrant, and thus attempt to create a historical narrative that fits their world-view, because what you've described goes entirely against mainstream opinion.
-
It's not too difficult to find "sources" online who please the pious reader's desire for a perfectly coherent Bible. But, I would hope that you at least admit out of intellectual honesty that, without the gospel's claims otherwise, there is almost no reason to assume that Quirinius was governor more than once.
rumborak
-
So *anyone* that believes the Bible to be inerrant can only ever be "scholars"?? (with the quotes) Seems like prejudging to me.
But we will probably just have to respectfully agree to disagree. As I said, I delved deeply into both sides of the argument...and I went with the argument that had the strongest and most compelling evidence. Your mileage may vary.
-
But that's all your interpretation. That's not the Bible speaking for itself.
And what about things that the Bible gets wrong? Or where it contradicts itself? Obviously the Bible could not speak for itself in those situations.
Never seen a contradiction that held water. And yes...I've seen all the supposed examples. Some of them laughable.
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
Well, a reasonably well known one, that isn't even an issue of interpretation/meaning of language, is the year of Jesus' birth. Matthew puts it during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. Luke puts it during the Roman census of 6 CE. So there's at least a ten year gap in between the dates offered by the two accounts. Historians lean towards Matthew's account. It's thought that Luke's inclusion of the census was to provide a reason for Mary and Joseph to have been in Bethlehem for Jesus' birth rather than Nazareth.
Are you familiar with any of the attempts to Harmonize the birth narratives? If so, what do you think of them?
-
As I said, I delved deeply into both sides of the argument...and I went with the argument that had the strongest and most compelling evidence. Your mileage may vary.
What's your view on modern biblical scholarship? I mean, to my knowledge the general consensus is that the Bible has numerous mistakes and errors, and later editing too.
It would seem to me you would have to wholesale disregard modern scholarship.
rumborak
-
But that's all your interpretation. That's not the Bible speaking for itself.
And what about things that the Bible gets wrong? Or where it contradicts itself? Obviously the Bible could not speak for itself in those situations.
Never seen a contradiction that held water. And yes...I've seen all the supposed examples. Some of them laughable.
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
Well, a reasonably well known one, that isn't even an issue of interpretation/meaning of language, is the year of Jesus' birth. Matthew puts it during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. Luke puts it during the Roman census of 6 CE. So there's at least a ten year gap in between the dates offered by the two accounts. Historians lean towards Matthew's account. It's thought that Luke's inclusion of the census was to provide a reason for Mary and Joseph to have been in Bethlehem for Jesus' birth rather than Nazareth.
Are you familiar with any of the attempts to Harmonize the birth narratives? If so, what do you think of them?
Yes. I think it's a load of crap. The two separate gospels were written by two sets of people not present at the actual events, and were probably just filling in backstory based on prophecy and of truths or half-truths. There's nothing to harmonize. It's as pointless as trying to harmonize the two genealogies of Jesus.
-
It's not too difficult to find "sources" online who please the pious reader's desire for a perfectly coherent Bible. But, I would hope that you at least admit out of intellectual honesty that, without the gospel's claims otherwise, there is almost no reason to assume that Quirinius was governor more than once.
rumborak
You can be such a dick sometimes -- and you're wrong. If Quirinius actually served twice, we should want to know, right? Whether people are trying to defend the Gospels or attack them, their arguments should always be considered. And are you even familiar with any historian who defends the harmonization of the birth narratives? If you aren't, I don't think you should dismiss their work out of hand.
-
watch it WW!
-
As I said, I delved deeply into both sides of the argument...and I went with the argument that had the strongest and most compelling evidence. Your mileage may vary.
What's your view on modern biblical scholarship? I mean, to my knowledge the general consensus is that the Bible has numerous mistakes and errors, and later editing too.
It would seem to me you would have to wholesale disregard modern scholarship.
rumborak
I object to "wholesale disregard"... I operate on a case by case basis. But, based on my experiences, observance of both sides of the issue, and historical track record of both lines of thought...it is very safe to say that I view the Bible as being above any human viewpoint.
Anything I hear from any human whatsoever, I'm generally going to view as slanted one way or another. And I don't think *anyone* is immune. Not even the references I've mentioned.
I used to work at a bank. During robbery training, they taught us that after a robbery, NO ONE was to speak to each other or exchange stories. Why? Because stories get mixed up. This is different than the "grapevine" theory...that the more something gets passed down, the more screwed up it will get. It's even worse. It means that 10 people can witness the *exact same event FIRST HAND* and still give you ten different stories. That doesn't mean the bank robbery didn't happen.
Any writing of men, I view with that attitude. I view the Bible as the ONLY thing that gives us God's POV. The only person in the universe who has *absolute* POV. None of us has the ability to know *the whole* of any given situation. God does.
Actually....the best way that I can describe my viewpoint of all of man's "scholars" put together...can be summed up in this *hilarious* 3 minute video called "The Beatles 3000". It's a humorous look at "experts" trying to piece together the history of The Beatles 1000 years from now....after all the evidence has passed long into history. It's light hearted and funny (and might take some of the "weight" out of this thread) but to me it's also very poignant and intelligent. This is *exactly* what experts have to struggle with when trying to piece together something that no one alive was there to witness. It's an insurmountable battle...and is only guesswork at best.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z2vU8M6CYI
To me, the Bible is testimony of the only living eyewitness to all the events. God himself.
-
watch it WW!
K. But tell me it's not true.
-
that video was awesome!
-
watch it WW!
K. But tell me it's not true.
are u trying to get me banned!!!!
-
But that's all your interpretation. That's not the Bible speaking for itself.
And what about things that the Bible gets wrong? Or where it contradicts itself? Obviously the Bible could not speak for itself in those situations.
Never seen a contradiction that held water. And yes...I've seen all the supposed examples. Some of them laughable.
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
Well, a reasonably well known one, that isn't even an issue of interpretation/meaning of language, is the year of Jesus' birth. Matthew puts it during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4 BCE. Luke puts it during the Roman census of 6 CE. So there's at least a ten year gap in between the dates offered by the two accounts. Historians lean towards Matthew's account. It's thought that Luke's inclusion of the census was to provide a reason for Mary and Joseph to have been in Bethlehem for Jesus' birth rather than Nazareth.
Are you familiar with any of the attempts to Harmonize the birth narratives? If so, what do you think of them?
Yes. I think it's a load of crap. The two separate gospels were written by two sets of people not present at the actual events, and were probably just filling in backstory based on prophecy and of truths or half-truths. There's nothing to harmonize. It's as pointless as trying to harmonize the two genealogies of Jesus.
I didn't ask you for an example of circular reasoning.
-
I will add that the idea of any personal interpretation on *my* part goes against every fiber of my being.
The Bible does speak for itself. In other words, if I *want* a scripture to mean 1 thing, but then another scripture contradicts MY interpretation of the first scripture...then *I* am wrong. I have to adjust my viewpoint. Only in that way can the Bible speak for itself. If I find something new in scripture that contradicts my POV or my interpretation...then *I* am the one that has to change. Because this is God's POV....not mine.
For instance, I might want to believe that God will save *everyone*...as some scriptures seem to insinuate. But others scriptures make it clear that not everyone will be. You do a little digging into all scriptures on the subject....*everything* that the Bible has to say on the matter...and a bigger picture becomes clear. The *offer* to be saved is open to everyone. But not everyone will accept it. This is not what I wanted to hear...but it is what it says. I've had friends spin some of these scriptures in a way that would suit more to some of my personal viewpoints...but that personal viewpoint contradicts other parts of God's word. The only interpretation, is the one that harmonizes all parts.
I heard someone once say, "The truth will set you free....but it will piss you off first." That was my experience.
Y'know, by definition, if the way in which you react to the Bible is to take it as it is, that's still an interpretation. Your interpretation. It just means that your interpretation is that the Bible is religious scripture that is inerrant and that is to be taken literally.
-
It's not too difficult to find "sources" online who please the pious reader's desire for a perfectly coherent Bible. But, I would hope that you at least admit out of intellectual honesty that, without the gospel's claims otherwise, there is almost no reason to assume that Quirinius was governor more than once.
rumborak
You can be such a dick sometimes -- and you're wrong. If Quirinius actually served twice, we should want to know, right?
I might be a dick about it, but I have the impression I'm in good company. :-*
What part is "dickish" about saying that the Roman records suggest Quirinius was governor only once? Is it dickish to suggest that without the Bible nobody would even raise an eyebrow about the statement that Quirinius was governor once?
And are you even familiar with any historian who defends the harmonization of the birth narratives? If you aren't, I don't think you should dismiss their work out of hand.
We've discussed time and again the attempts, the wild theories. And they are wild theories, like Quirinius being governor a second time, Jesus's parents having made crazy excursions through Egypt etc etc.
It takes a believer to believe them all.
rumborak
-
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about these supposed "contradictions." When GP and others have brought them up in the past, they've been thoroughly debunked. But the response is always the same: fingers in ears, shouting, "no, no, no! It has to be a contradiction!"
-
So, does anyone have non Biblical evidence for Jesus also being called Immanuel?
-
I don't think so. Why?
-
Is that one of the Prophecies he fulfilled?
-
That's already been answered.
-
So, does anyone have non Biblical evidence for Jesus also being called Immanuel?
not sure why we would expect non-biblical evidence of Jesus being called Immanuel. It wasn't a name but a title. the new testament is full of dozens of titles of Jesus. I would venture to guess that there were many rabbi's who wrote regarding the passage in Isaiah 7:14 and applied it to the messiah.
-
Yes. And he was. (Matthew 1:22-24)
So the only evidence that this prophecy was fulfilled, is basically saying, "Oh ya, he was also called Emmanuel."
Am I getting this right? Becuase it sounds a lot like that doomsday guy, who, whenever the world doesn't end when he says it will, goes, "Oh, I did the math wrong, it's 6 months from now!" It's justification after the fact, it's forcing the story to fit the prophecies, but in a shockingly shallow and rather clumsy manner.
It wouldn't even be a problem, but you're so adamant that there's nothing wrong, at all, in the Bible, and basically ignore this. If you didn't hold that position, I would consider it such a minor, and irrelevant point, because it in no way important to your theological beliefs.
-
I've studied the Bible thoroughly...and I have *never* seen a contradiction.
Yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about these supposed "contradictions." When GP and others have brought them up in the past, they've been thoroughly debunked. But the response is always the same: fingers in ears, shouting, "no, no, no! It has to be a contradiction!"
Yes, they've been so thoroughly debunked that it's the mainstream academic opinion. Anyone who doesn't buy into the theories of fringe apologetics are the close-minded ones. ::)
I am curious, though: how do people think themselves around cut-and-dry stuff like Jericho not being inhabited when Joshua supposedly captured it? Or does that fall back on the "radioactive dating is all a lie" argument?
-
Yes. And he was. (Matthew 1:22-24)
So the only evidence that this prophecy was fulfilled, is basically saying, "Oh ya, he was also called Emmanuel."
Am I getting this right? Becuase it sounds a lot like that doomsday guy, who, whenever the world doesn't end when he says it will, goes, "Oh, I did the math wrong, it's 6 months from now!" It's justification after the fact, it's forcing the story to fit the prophecies, but in a shockingly shallow and rather clumsy manner.
It wouldn't even be a problem, but you're so adamant that there's nothing wrong, at all, in the Bible, and basically ignore this. If you didn't hold that position, I would consider it such a minor, and irrelevant point, because it in no way important to your theological beliefs.
Actually, it's the exact opposite of any of those doomsday guys. In those cases, they say, "oops, I made a mistake. The prophecy wasn't fullfilled yet. But this next time, for sure!" :portrucci: With the Matthew passage, it is the opposite. It is, "here is the prophecy, and here is exactly how it was fulfilled."
But I understand your general point, which is, how do we know Matthew 1:22-24 wasn't intentionally made up and inserted after the fact to make it look like a prophecy was fulfilled when in fact nothing of the sort actually happened in real life? And that's an absolutely fair point. A few points in response. First, by itself, it isn't a strong example. But it wasn't raised as a point in support of Biblical historicity. Rumborak raised it as a counterargument, after which, I explained where he was incorrect. Second, while it doesn't prove anything by itself, there are so many examples of fulfilled prophecy that it becomes impossible to ignore or explain away all of them. In addition to being far too numerous, many are far too specific in terms of naming actual persons, places, and timeframes that, given that they were known during the time eyewitnesses were still alive, it would have been a simple matter to debunk at least some of them if they were not in fact true.
-
not sure why we would expect non-biblical evidence of Jesus being called Immanuel. It wasn't a name but a title.
How is Immanuel (God with us) a title? Is Jesus (Lord is salvation) a title too?
It seems rather arbitrary (and of course awfully convenient) to relegate a name to a title. Jesus' name was Jesus, not Immanuel.
I think it's reasonably obvious. The writer of Matthew tried to tie Jesus to the prophecy, and had to overcome the obstacle that everybody knew Jesus' name to be Jesus. Nobody had ever called him anything different, as that was his name. So, enter angels who proclaim the name of the OT prophecy to Mary and Joseph.
It's the same really with the "Jesus of Nazareth" business. Everybody knew Jesus was from Nazareth, but Nazareth isn't Bethlehem, where OT prophecy said the Messiah would come from. So, Jesus' parents make a "detour" according to the gospels.
Or another one, the differing genealogy of Jesus. One wants to tie him to David, the other to Adam.
EDIT: I should mention that this post was dickish, ignorant and too "Jesus Seminar"-ish, as usual.
rumborak
-
Nah. Being dickish and being wrong are not necessarily the same thing.
-
not sure why we would expect non-biblical evidence of Jesus being called Immanuel. It wasn't a name but a title.
How is Immanuel (God with us) a title? Is Jesus (Lord is salvation) a title too?
It seems rather arbitrary (and of course awfully convenient) to relegate a name to a title. Jesus' name was Jesus, not Immanuel.
I think it's reasonably obvious. The writer of Matthew tried to tie Jesus to the prophecy, and had to overcome the obstacle that everybody knew Jesus' name to be Jesus. Nobody had ever called him anything different, as that was his name. So, enter angels who proclaim the name of the OT prophecy to Mary and Joseph.
It's the same really with the "Jesus of Nazareth" business. Everybody knew Jesus was from Nazareth, but Nazareth isn't Bethlehem, where OT prophecy said the Messiah would come from. So, Jesus' parents make a "detour" according to the gospels.
Or another one, the differing genealogy of Jesus. One wants to tie him to David, the other to Adam.
EDIT: I should mention that this post was dickish, ignorant and too "Jesus Seminar"-ish, as usual.
rumborak
as I mentioned earlier, Jer 23:6 is another example where the messiah is given a "name" where it is obviously a title.
-
I will add that the idea of any personal interpretation on *my* part goes against every fiber of my being.
The Bible does speak for itself. In other words, if I *want* a scripture to mean 1 thing, but then another scripture contradicts MY interpretation of the first scripture...then *I* am wrong. I have to adjust my viewpoint. Only in that way can the Bible speak for itself. If I find something new in scripture that contradicts my POV or my interpretation...then *I* am the one that has to change. Because this is God's POV....not mine.
For instance, I might want to believe that God will save *everyone*...as some scriptures seem to insinuate. But others scriptures make it clear that not everyone will be. You do a little digging into all scriptures on the subject....*everything* that the Bible has to say on the matter...and a bigger picture becomes clear. The *offer* to be saved is open to everyone. But not everyone will accept it. This is not what I wanted to hear...but it is what it says. I've had friends spin some of these scriptures in a way that would suit more to some of my personal viewpoints...but that personal viewpoint contradicts other parts of God's word. The only interpretation, is the one that harmonizes all parts.
I heard someone once say, "The truth will set you free....but it will piss you off first." That was my experience.
Y'know, by definition, if the way in which you react to the Bible is to take it as it is, that's still an interpretation. Your interpretation. It just means that your interpretation is that the Bible is religious scripture that is inerrant and that is to be taken literally.
Well come on....that's pretty broad isn't it? Couldn't you really...by definition...say that about just about anything? Go back to what I said about the bank robbery. *EVERYONE* has their own interpretation about ANYTHING. People witness the exact same event and have completely different stories....it gets even harder when there are no witnesses.
I guess you could say that there are some things that are hard to quantify...except to say "patterns". There are patterns in life, the universe and everything. My observation (and research...because I truly believe "blind faith" is not only stupid, but dangerous) is that The Bible fits into the pattern of everything around us. Science is fascinating...but it's theories don't always fit the pattern.
-
You may say it is broad, but it is still accurate.
And there are plenty of contradictions in the Bible. But it is the interpretation of some people that they aren't really contradictions. But there they remain.
-
You may say it is broad, but it is still accurate.
And there are plenty of contradictions in the Bible. But it is the interpretation of some people that they aren't really contradictions. But there they remain.
I'm sorry...but there is just not. I can agree to disagree. But to simply state that "This is fact because *my* sources say so" is nothing short of ridiculous.
If you state that in your opinion, after looking at both sides of the argument, you felt that one side seemed to carry more validity to your own personal values...then fine. I can respect that.
But I'm not going to go on and on about it. If you have made up your mind already that there *are* contradictions...and you feel you've heard all the arguments, and it's not going to sway you...then fine. I can respect that too. But again, it simply means we will have to respectfully agree to disagree.
-
It's not too difficult to find "sources" online who please the pious reader's desire for a perfectly coherent Bible. But, I would hope that you at least admit out of intellectual honesty that, without the gospel's claims otherwise, there is almost no reason to assume that Quirinius was governor more than once.
rumborak
You can be such a dick sometimes -- and you're wrong. If Quirinius actually served twice, we should want to know, right?
I might be a dick about it, but I have the impression I'm in good company. :-*
rumborak
Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. I overreacted a bit. My apologies. I think what irritated me was your outright dismissal of the possibility, and the assumption that the harmonization was invented wholesale to spare Christians the pain of knowing that the Bible contradicts itself. Motivations can't discredit arguments by themselves. But time and time again, you put your "fingers in ears, shouting, "no, no, no! It has to be a contradiction!" as bosk put it.
The argument comes from two biblical scholars whose work has passed peer review. But you're so convinced that the explanation is irrational you can't even consider the evidence in support.
-
to simply state that "This is fact because *my* sources say so" is nothing short of ridiculous.
You're kinda doing that too, ya know.
-
to simply state that "This is fact because *my* sources say so" is nothing short of ridiculous.
You're kinda doing that too, ya know.
To be fair, I also said that I had done alot of research and come to my own conclusions....not out of "blind faith" (which I despise) but out of examination of the evidence. Based on my research, I feel I have established what I believe to be facts. If, based on your research, you have established what you believe to be facts, I can respect that.
...and again, we would simply have to agree to disagree. But I don't appreciate the insinuation that my conclusions do not have merit. I have seen the evidence of your side of the argument. I can actually see how one could be drawn to your conclusion...but I don't share it.
-
Since this has turned into the latest "why the Bible sux" thread, here are a few things (https://thepassivehabit.blogspot.com/2012/02/king-james-only-movement-and-atheism.html) skeptics have in common with the raisin cakes who believe the King James Bible is the only reliable translation.
-
You may say it is broad, but it is still accurate.
And there are plenty of contradictions in the Bible. But it is the interpretation of some people that they aren't really contradictions. But there they remain.
I'm sorry...but there is just not. I can agree to disagree. But to simply state that "This is fact because *my* sources say so" is nothing short of ridiculous.
If you state that in your opinion, after looking at both sides of the argument, you felt that one side seemed to carry more validity to your own personal values...then fine. I can respect that.
But I'm not going to go on and on about it. If you have made up your mind already that there *are* contradictions...and you feel you've heard all the arguments, and it's not going to sway you...then fine. I can respect that too. But again, it simply means we will have to respectfully agree to disagree.
I've done years and years of research too. Believe what you want. But I wouldn't say that it is my OPINION that there are contradictions (or other problems) in the text of the Bible. I would say I am letting the text speak for itself. To see these contradictions and to somehow go to great lengths to try to explain why they AREN'T contradictions is an opinion, or an interpretation, or what have you.
But if you don't want to have a discussion and just want to "agree to disagree" then let's just drop this entire line of posting.
-
Yeah, last night as I was falling asleep (yeah, some nights I think about discussions I've read over the internet. I'm terrible) I was wondering how you reconcile "letting the bible speak for itself" and using outside information to explain potential contradictions.
-
Yeah, last night as I was falling asleep (yeah, some nights I think about discussions I've read over the internet. I'm terrible) I was wondering how you reconcile "letting the bible speak for itself" and using outside information to explain potential contradictions.
Everything *I* need, I find in the Bible.
Sadly, there are many times that I run into "guilty until proven innocent" mentalities. In those cases, it is sometimes nice to have outside sources backing up your claim. It is usually for the benefit of the skeptic, who (often) will not look to internal evidence. But often...not even that will convince people. There are more than a few people for whom credentials only apply to those who agree with them.
Life itself has taught me quite a bit about how a person can say one thing at one time...another thing later that seems to contradict...only to get an explanation later that harmonizes the two comments in a way that hadn't occurred to you. The two factual statements that you need are still directly from the source...you don't *need* anything else except the ability be open minded to the explanation.
-
"Open minded" is an interesting way to describe doublethink.
-
Consider yourself warned for personal attacks, GP.
-
Hef is pretty dead on though. The contradictions are there, at least on the surface. Whether the reader/student finds the harmonization efforts convincing or not is a question of interpretation then. Fact of the matter is, Jesus' name wasn't Immanuel, despite the prophecy saying so. Whether you accept the angel's proclamation, or rather to the point, whether you accept that the writer of Matthew (who felt it necessary to explain to the reader that "Immanuel" means XYZ to drive the point home) is to be believed, is personal interpretation. Without faith, it's hard to believe.
rumborak
-
Yes. And he was. (Matthew 1:22-24)
So the only evidence that this prophecy was fulfilled, is basically saying, "Oh ya, he was also called Emmanuel."
Am I getting this right? Becuase it sounds a lot like that doomsday guy, who, whenever the world doesn't end when he says it will, goes, "Oh, I did the math wrong, it's 6 months from now!" It's justification after the fact, it's forcing the story to fit the prophecies, but in a shockingly shallow and rather clumsy manner.
It wouldn't even be a problem, but you're so adamant that there's nothing wrong, at all, in the Bible, and basically ignore this. If you didn't hold that position, I would consider it such a minor, and irrelevant point, because it in no way important to your theological beliefs.
Actually, it's the exact opposite of any of those doomsday guys. In those cases, they say, "oops, I made a mistake. The prophecy wasn't fullfilled yet. But this next time, for sure!" :portrucci: With the Matthew passage, it is the opposite. It is, "here is the prophecy, and here is exactly how it was fulfilled."
Cept both are based basically upon faith that the Bible is inerrant. You say that the prophecy was fulfilled, because it is in the Bible, which can't be wrong. But at the same time, you're saying this is one of the reasons why the Bible is inerrant. And as I said, it's only an issue for me, becuase you seem to be so convinced that the Bible is inerrant.
Since this has turned into the latest "why the Bible sux" thread, here are a few things (https://thepassivehabit.blogspot.com/2012/02/king-james-only-movement-and-atheism.html) skeptics have in common with the raisin cakes who believe the King James Bible is the only reliable translation.
As someone who grew up with pretty much no religion in my life, I can say, that nothing in that page relates at all to myself. The more you post the kind of things like the above, though, the more I think you ultimately weaken the foundation you try to set up for yourself. The more "unliteral" the Bible becomes, the bigger the door of interpretation becomes, and the more it just becomes the work of a great thinker, of which there have been many through out history.
The more you try to look at the Bible in context, the more you're doing what I think you should be doing, but still attributing it to a deity. It's also the root for why I think there are going to be translation issues, and interpretation issues, in reading the Bible. Which, you'll notice, is nothing like how you think it is.
-
The best illustration I can come up with is this.
To me...proof of the Bible's inspiration is a lot like the OJ trial.
To me, the cloud of evidence that it *IS* inspired of God and inerrant is simply too great to ignore.
Think about the OJ trial for a second. To me, the overwhelming evidence that OJ was involved somehow is immense and insurmountable. However...if you take a really talented lawyer...go through all the individual pieces bit by bit and go over them with a fine toothed comb with fancy talk until the individual piece falls apart...then move on to the next piece of evidence and do the exact same thing..etc..etc...etc... You are eventually left with no evidence left.
BUT!!! What was the goal of OJ's lawyers? Was the goal of those lawyers to find the truth? Or free their client??
If you were to study all the arguments of OJ's lawyers...you might end up convinced that OJ had nothing to do with his wife's death. But anyone who takes a step back to look at *ALL* the evidence as a collective...*knows* that he was SOMEHOW involved. Common sense takes over and you are just forced to admit that there is too much evidence surrounding the event and OJ specifically. The more excuses, the more flimsy the argument becomes.
Now whether you think OJ was innocent or not essentially comes down to which arguments YOU find to be the most plausible.
I bring this up illustratively. Because it's just another event that all of us have seen the evidence for, but none of us were there to witness.
I personally believe you can pick apart the individual pieces of evidence of *ANYTHING*....but you're missing the forest for the trees. The evidence that it *IS* inspired and inerrant is simply far more overwhelming than the excuses people make that it isn't. To me, the arguments against it always end up feeling more like OJ's lawyers. You can bring up a hundred lines of evidence, and they always have an excuse for each one...but there's just too much of it to ignore. Too much proof surrounds it.
Again...your mileage may vary.
-
To me, the cloud of evidence that it *IS* inspired of God and inerrant is simply too great to ignore.
Whoa, I have to say the fact that you put those two very different things casually into one sentence makes me stop for sure.
Nobody here is questioning whether the Bible was inspired by God. I personally certainly don't believe in it since I'm a strong agnostic, but I will also not argue against somebody who says whatever was written was inspired by God. It's a matter of faith essentially.
That is very, very different from an inerrant Bible. Everybody here on the moderate side is asserting that, since the Bible was written by humans with their respective flaws and aspirations, it not only reasonable to expect flaws and errors, it is also clearly apparent in the documents we have. That means the writers can still have been inspired by God; it just doesn't mean that the writer's quill was guided by an invisible hand.
I really also don't see how you can consider the Bible inerrant when you see stuff like this:
Lev 11:6: "And the hare, because he cheweth the cud..."
Hares don't chew cud.
Matt 13:31-32: " "the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed which…is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree."
Mustard doesn't grow to become trees.
rumborak
-
I honestly don't even know how to answer that. My jaw is on the floor.
The idea that God has gone through the trouble of making sure we have a guidebook, but then filling it with mistakes... uhh... wow.
It's essentially implying that a) It is beyond God's ability to protect his word from human error. (because he CAN protect his son from being born as perfect human and protect HIM from the taint of human imperfection...but no, the buck stops here...he couldn't have possibly done that with his word.) and/or b) he would intentionally throw stumbling blocks into the roadway to knowledge. In either case, I absolutely cannot agree. Peter wrote under inspiration that men spoke NOT OF THEIR OWN will, but they spoke from God as they were borne along by holy spirit.
I believe that The Bible was guided by Holy Spirit...God's power prevented us from being misguided or stumbled....and prevented errors in the Bible.
Now...errors in translations? That's a bit different. But I've done my research in dozen's of translations...most of them don't deviate from each other much. And I almost never see differences in *teaching*...most just look like they got a bit creative with a thesaurus. But looking at several translations creates a pretty clear picture of what the oldest documents actually say.
So while we may have gotten a certain individuals POV...God's spirit guided the writing of the Bible and protected it from any errors in teaching.
2 Tim 3:16 says that *ALL* Scripture is inspired of God...but it goes on to say that that is the reason why it is used for teaching, correction and so on. God would not give us a book for teaching and correction that was filled with mistakes. That line of reasoning, to me, does not even make any sense.
Sorry...I stand by what I said. The two thoughts go hand in hand.
-
It's essentially implying that a) It is beyond God's ability to protect his word from human error.
What about the possibility that God simply doesn't inhibit people from writing wrong stuff? When you make all these statements here about scripture, do you feel yourself guided by God with every letter you type?
Is it so utterly inconceivable to you that you are essentially the same type of normal Joe Schmoe as the guy 2,000 years ago who wanted to preserve the stories that had been passed down for generations?
Or, how do you explain Galatians 2:11-21? If even the apostles can't agree on theology, how can their words be inerrant?
rumborak
-
Lev 11:6: "And the hare, because he cheweth the cud..."
Hares don't chew cud.
Dr. Waldo L. Schmitt, Head Curator, Department of Zoology of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., in commenting on these findings, wrote: “There seems to be no reason to doubt the authenticity of the reports of various workers that rabbits customarily store semi-digested food in the caecum and that this is later reingested and passes a second time through the digestive tract.”
In the broad scheme of things....science has redefined what it means to "chew the cud"...this a modern change of definition...not a Bible error.
Matt 13:31-32: " "the kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed which…is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown is the greatest among herbs and becometh a tree."
Mustard doesn't grow to become trees.
rumborak
[/quote]
Again...this is by modern definitions. Mustard plants grow up to 10-15 feet tall and have sturdy enough branches for "the birds of heaven" to rest upon. So his audience identified the mustard plant as a "tree"...regardless of our modern redefining of the matter.
Jesus was not giving a botany lesson. Last I checked, the mustard seed is NOT "the smallest of all seeds" either...but it WAS the smallest seed known AT THAT TIME. So Jesus was absolutely correct both in calling the mustard plant a "tree" and the mustard seed as "the smallest of all seeds"...
Can you imagine how bogged down Jesus entire ministry would have become if he would have been correcting *EVERYTHING* that hadn't been discovered yet? He had three and a half years to teach them about what God expected of them. He could have spent 10 times that amount of time correcting ideas that hadn't been conceived yet....and in the process, he would have alienated his audience over unnecessary things.
-
I can only make the comment that seemingly, your "deep study" of all sides of the subject has caused you to accept even the most far-fetched explanations. I fail to see how that is a reasonable or balanced judgment.
Sorry, mustard bushes may grow high, but they are not trees. Unless you're saying Jesus was too stupid to distinguish a tall bush from a tree.
Check out this fellow who was on a similar errant: https://dqhall59.com/images/tall_mustard.jpg
Is that a tree to you?
And no, eating your own poop isn't "chewing cud" either. That's what hares do. Chewing cud is when you regurgitate preprocessed food.
rumborak
-
It's essentially implying that a) It is beyond God's ability to protect his word from human error.
What about the possibility that God simply doesn't inhibit people from writing wrong stuff? When you make all these statements here about scripture, do you feel yourself guided by God with every letter you type?
Is it so utterly inconceivable to you that you are essentially the same type of normal Joe Schmoe as the guy 2,000 years ago who wanted to preserve the stories that had been passed down for generations?
Or, how do you explain Galatians 2:11-21? If even the apostles can't agree on theology, how can their words be inerrant?
rumborak
Regarding Galatians 2:11-21....I see no "disagreement in theology". I see that Peter was human and made an error in judgement, and Paul called him out on it in public. There is no reason to believe that Peter did not accept this counsel and correct the matter.
As to your other point... There are no modern day prophets because we have everything we need from Christ's example, and the writings of those who walked with him. (and Paul, who had a personal revelation from Jesus directly) The opening of Hebrews makes clear that God had spoken by means of prophets in the past...but *now*, he had sent his Son. So we don't need anything else. We had had scores of imperfect prophets in the past who had made mistakes (and those mistakes are recorded with *full accuracy*) but then we were finally given the *perfect* example in Jesus...so nothing else is needed. Those who walked with and were fully trained by Jesus himself then set up organizational procedures and related personal experiences that proved God was blessing their work. Finally, John was given a revelation as to what was still to come. Nothing more is needed. And God's Word states implicitly that if *anyone* teaches *anything* different (even if it was an "angel from heaven") they were to be cursed. So there is really nothing more to add.
I once heard someone refer to the Bible as "frozen Holy Spirit"... That's a personal conclusion, but I like it and I agree with it. My personal experience has taught me that it's an accurate analogy. So we have Holy Spirit if we are guided by God's Word...but human error kicks in when we deviate from it.
-
Regarding Galatians 2:11-21....I see no "disagreement in theology". I see that Peter was human and made an error in judgement, and Paul called him out on it in public. There is no reason to believe that Peter did not accept this counsel and correct the matter.
Are you implying God is not even able to guide his own apostles? How can Peter have been possibly wrong beforehand?
Or is your point now that, while the apostles were human and may have been wrong in all kinds of matters, those unknown people who wrote the gospels decades later, were on other hand inerrant?
rumborak
-
I can only make the comment that seemingly, your "deep study" of all sides of the subject has caused you to accept even the most far-fetched explanations. I fail to see how that is a reasonable or balanced judgment.
Sorry, mustard bushes may grow high, but they are not trees. Unless you're saying Jesus was too stupid to distinguish a tall bush from a tree.
Check out this fellow who was on a similar errant: https://dqhall59.com/images/tall_mustard.jpg
Is that a tree to you?
And no, eating your own poop isn't "chewing cud" either. That's what hares do. Chewing cud is when you regurgitate preprocessed food.
rumborak
I'm just saying...what would Jesus' *AUDIENCE* thought...
Let me illustrate it this way. If a three year old asks me why it rains, I'm going to say that the cloud fills up with water until it's full...when it's full the water falls.
This is a *GROSS* oversimplification. But it's not a falsehood. When the child gets older, I'll sort out the details.
Did you really expect Jesus to spend three hours bringing his listeners up to speed before a 20 minute discourse?? No. He would have worked with what his audience understood at that time....and he was not wrong to do so.
-
Are you seriously telling me now that Jesus' audience was too stupid to tell a bush from a tree? Dude, those guys tilled farms all day long. Bushes and trees were their living.
rumborak
-
Regarding Galatians 2:11-21....I see no "disagreement in theology". I see that Peter was human and made an error in judgement, and Paul called him out on it in public. There is no reason to believe that Peter did not accept this counsel and correct the matter.
Are you implying God is not even able to guide his own apostles? How can Peter have been possibly wrong beforehand?
Or is your point now that, while the apostles were human and may have been wrong in all kinds of matters, those unknown people who wrote the gospels decades later, were on other hand inerrant?
rumborak
Oh the apostles were absolutely imperfect men that made mistakes the same as you and I do. They were no better than any of us. But when God needed something recorded, he used them to cause certain writings to take place...and then further caused those writings to be protected.
But that is *exactly* why the Bible is GOD'S Word...not Paul's word or Peter's word.
-
Oh the apostles were absolutely imperfect men that made mistakes the same as you and I do. They were no better than any of us. But when God needed something recorded, he used them to cause certain writings to take place...and then further caused those writings to be protected.
This crucial fact, that apostles who spent years with Jesus can not be trusted but random people with quills who never met Him can, you established .... how?
Also, why aren't translations divinely protected?
rumborak
-
Are you seriously telling me now that Jesus' audience was too stupid to tell a bush from a tree? Dude, those guys tilled farms all day long. Bushes and trees were their living.
rumborak
Are you seriously telling me that Jesus' audience had the exact same definition of the term that we do today? Are you seriously telling me that the word that Jesus used (which is translated "tree" in English) is not a term that would have encompassed a mustard plant to his listeners? Do you seriously think that these people who, as you say "tilled farms all day long" wouldn't have called him out on it on the spot?
I seriously don't see how this is so difficult to conceive. It's a pretty basic concept. It's like you're not acknowledging that definitions change over time at all. I can think of no less than three terms off the top of my head that have changed definitions *IN MY LIFETIME*...
-
Do you seriously think that these people who, as you say "tilled farms all day long" wouldn't have called him out on it on the spot?
Why should they? Jesus was a man too, and made errors. The message counted.
rumborak
-
Of all the things to argue about, you're focusing on mustard?
-
The best illustration I can come up with is this.
To me...proof of the Bible's inspiration is a lot like the OJ trial.
It's pretty sad if that is the best illustration you can come up with.
To me, the cloud of evidence that it *IS* inspired of God and inerrant is simply too great to ignore.
I don't see it. Please give some of this evidence. No, I'm not being sarcastic.
Oh, and rumby, the mustard plant was a huge nuisance in the Middle East in those times. In fact, that is part of the point of the parable. You are losing on that one, just back up and punt.
-
Of all the things to argue about, you're focusing on mustard?
Was the first thing that came up on a search. There's hundreds of pages of course. I think the Peter vs. Paul thing illustrates the matter much better though.
rumborak
-
Oh the apostles were absolutely imperfect men that made mistakes the same as you and I do. They were no better than any of us. But when God needed something recorded, he used them to cause certain writings to take place...and then further caused those writings to be protected.
This crucial fact, that apostles who spent years with Jesus can not be trusted but random people with quills who never met Him can, you established .... how?
Also, why aren't translations divinely protected?
rumborak
Your first point is lost on me. Who ever said that they "cannot be trusted"? You're focused a lot on the individuals...the individuals are flawed, so I don't focus on the individuals. I don't follow or worship the apostles. They were imperfect men. You're taking issue with who God chose to record his word...I don't. The whole "why person A and not person B" is just a line of thought that makes no sense to me at all. It doesn't really matter. Jesus even told Peter (paraphrasing here) .."if I've decided that John is going to be the last one to die...what's it to you?" God used different people for different things...he chose who he chose. Period.
As to your second point. Knowledge of key points in the original writings is not hard to find. I was just reading an interesting book called "Truth in Translation" by the Professor of Religious Studies at Northern Arizona University. He pointed out that really, in the whole of scripture, there's only debate over a relatively few *key* points. It doesn't take much digging to find the facts about these key texts. It takes relatively little effort to find the information on the oldest manuscripts. So inaccurate translations, generally don't hold up...or last long. There are accurate translations out there in abundance.
-
It takes relatively little effort to find the information on the oldest manuscripts. So inaccurate translations, generally don't hold up...or last long.
Tell that to the KJV translation of Revelation. 400 years and still going strong.
-
Your first point is lost on me. Who ever said that they "cannot be trusted"? You're focused a lot on the individuals...the individuals are flawed, so I don't focus on the individuals. I don't follow or worship the apostles. They were imperfect men. You're taking issue with who God chose to record his word...I don't. The whole "why person A and not person B" is just a line of thought that makes no sense to me at all. It doesn't really matter. Jesus even told Peter (paraphrasing here) .."if I've decided that John is going to be the last one to die...what's it to you?" God used different people for different things...he chose who he chose. Period.
How do you know the writers of the gospels were "chosen"? It needed a council centuries later to decide which gospels were canon and which were not.
The point I'm making here is, there is no glorious yellow road leading to the inexorable conclusion that whatever has been passed down as scripture is inerrant and written by God. You chose to declare the scriptures as such, simple as that. That is fine, but don't pretend it was a rational decision. It was a decision of your personal faith as a Christian.
It takes relatively little effort to find the information on the oldest manuscripts. So inaccurate translations, generally don't hold up...or last long.
Tell that to the KJV translation of Revelation. 400 years and still going strong.
As dual speaker myself, I can only shake my head at people thinking whatever local version of the Bible they read, it's a good translation. The two languages I speak are both Germanic languages, and even there I am routinely met with the situation where I have to say "oh, German doesn't have a term for that." (or the other way around)
And now think how that works trying to translate ancient Greek to modern English. Booya.
rumborak
-
I don't see it. Please give some of this evidence. No, I'm not being sarcastic.
*sigh*...
I'm not going to lie. On some levels...this is an emotionally overwhelming request. Ya...I know I'm going to get picked apart for this. It's just like someone asked me to sum up one of the busiest years of my life in a paragraph.
Havn't you *ever* had a request that seemed overwhelming?
Try asking an evolutionist to sum up the evolution theory in two or three short paragraphs.... I guarantee you that even if he succeeds, his response will soon be picked to shreds by those who take issue with "point A" or "Point B"...
But I'm not saying no...it's just such an overwhelming request. It requires hitting the books to refresh my memory on some of the finer points...regathering all this information...just to know in the back of my mind that I'm bringing it before a proverbial firing squad.
I suppose off the top of my head...one of the more fascinating and convincing points of evidence *to me*...was the prophecies of Daniel. Yes, I've seen the arguments that Daniel was supposedly not even written by Daniel, and supposedly written later. And to me, those arguments do not hold water.
Daniel prophesied years in advance about the rise and fall of Alexander the Great in great detail. I believe that this was history written in advance. (obviously, I'm going to stick with the main category of why I believe the Bible is inspired...and trying not to getting bogged down in the *subcategory* of why I believe the arguments for vs. against on each individual point...because I'd still be writing this *next week*..)
I also believe that Isaiah's prophecy of Babylon's fall was also history written in advance.
I also believe the scores of prophecies in Isaiah involving Jesus all came true and are accurate.
Daniel's prophecy of the succession of world powers have all come true.
The prophecy of Jerusalem's fall...the cutting off of the kings until Messiah came...check, check..
This is just off the top of my head. I could go on and on and on and on. I could spend days in research to find more. I'm just afraid of having alot of hard work turning into target practice.
Surely you must understand what that feels like.
-
It takes relatively little effort to find the information on the oldest manuscripts. So inaccurate translations, generally don't hold up...or last long.
Tell that to the KJV translation of Revelation. 400 years and still going strong.
Actually...that's a GREAT point. But I don't think the KJV is *that* bad... Yes, there are a couple of fairly important mistakes...but again, it's not hard to find the truth about those points if you really want to know.
Lots of false religious teachings can be exposed even with the relatively flawed KJV.
-
Try asking an evolutionist to sum up the evolution theory in two or three short paragraphs.... I guarantee you that even if he succeeds, his response will soon be picked to shreds by those who take issue with "point A" or "Point B"...
Actually, I think that would be a lot easier, since the evidence for evolution is well documented and widespread.
I suppose off the top of my head...one of the more fascinating and convincing points of evidence *to me*...was the prophecies of Daniel. Yes, I've seen the arguments that Daniel was supposedly not even written by Daniel, and supposedly written later. And to me, those arguments do not hold water.
Daniel prophesied years in advance about the rise and fall of Alexander the Great in great detail. I believe that this was history written in advance. (obviously, I'm going to stick with the main category of why I believe the Bible is inspired...and trying not to getting bogged down in the *subcategory* of why I believe the arguments for vs. against on each individual point...because I'd still be writing this *next week*..)
I also believe that Isaiah's prophecy of Babylon's fall was also history written in advance.
I also believe the scores of prophecies in Isaiah involving Jesus all came true and are accurate.
Daniel's prophecy of the succession of world powers have all come true.
The prophecy of Jerusalem's fall...the cutting off of the kings until Messiah came...check, check..
Without picking this apart piece by piece, I will just say that I don't believe any of that stuff about those passages that you do. Do you have any evidence that doesn't depend on "believing" something about a different passage? Again, I'm not being sarcastic. To me, believing that the text of the Bible is inerrant and inspired is nothing more than circular reasoning. It is because it says it is. I want to see if there is anything more.
-
Try asking an evolutionist to sum up the evolution theory in two or three short paragraphs.... I guarantee you that even if he succeeds, his response will soon be picked to shreds by those who take issue with "point A" or "Point B"...
Actually, I think that would be a lot easier, since the evidence for evolution is well documented and widespread.
I suppose off the top of my head...one of the more fascinating and convincing points of evidence *to me*...was the prophecies of Daniel. Yes, I've seen the arguments that Daniel was supposedly not even written by Daniel, and supposedly written later. And to me, those arguments do not hold water.
Daniel prophesied years in advance about the rise and fall of Alexander the Great in great detail. I believe that this was history written in advance. (obviously, I'm going to stick with the main category of why I believe the Bible is inspired...and trying not to getting bogged down in the *subcategory* of why I believe the arguments for vs. against on each individual point...because I'd still be writing this *next week*..)
I also believe that Isaiah's prophecy of Babylon's fall was also history written in advance.
I also believe the scores of prophecies in Isaiah involving Jesus all came true and are accurate.
Daniel's prophecy of the succession of world powers have all come true.
The prophecy of Jerusalem's fall...the cutting off of the kings until Messiah came...check, check..
Without picking this apart piece by piece, I will just say that I don't believe any of that stuff about those passages that you do. Do you have any evidence that doesn't depend on "believing" something about a different passage? Again, I'm not being sarcastic. To me, believing that the text of the Bible is inerrant and inspired is nothing more than circular reasoning. It is because it says it is. I want to see if there is anything more.
I'm guessing you and I have both seen the "for and against" arguments. We just have different opinions about which side is the more plausible.
I don't think the "fors" rely strictly on belief...just on evidence that is generally dismissed.
Track record is often a big one for me. Bible critics once said there was no such city as Nineveh...until they found it in the mid-18hundreds. Certain kings (that slip my mind at the moment) that the Bible mentions and critics long held that the Bible was wrong...until they found the dude's palace.
Things of that nature. In the end, the Bible has always proven itself to be reliable...
Also, the difference it makes in people's lives *when it's followed accurately* (underscore, underline, boldtype that caveat). When it is followed accurately...it brings peace, puts and end to war over land, race, tribe, etc etc etc. It brings peace, harmony, love, and unity when it is followed accurately. Which is exactly what I would expect from a letter from God. I also believe that man is not capable of writing a book that accomplishes this.
But there's still more....I'm just spitballing. I could go on and on.
I trust God because he has never lied to
-
I also don't understand why belief has to deteriorate into this arms race of "who is the biggest believer?"
In all of that, Jesua' actual message gets relegated to a footnote. Point in case, when conservatives decry public healthcare as socialist, I must wonder what version of the Bible they read. Or at least, what passages they focussed on.
-
I also don't understand why belief has to deteriorate into this arms race of "who is the biggest believer?"
In all of that, Jesua' actual message gets relegated to a footnote. Point in case, when conservatives decry public healthcare as socialist, I must wonder what version of the Bible they read. Or at least, what passages they focussed on.
Next thing you know they'll want to redefine the word "Tree" to include the mustard bush.
-
Blasphemy!!
Is that blasphemy for the Judean Liberation Front, or the Liberation Front of Judea? I can never remember.
rumborak
-
Blasphemy!!
Is that blasphemy for the Judean Liberation Front, or the Liberation Front of Judea? I can never remember.
rumborak
People's front! Don't even mention the damn liberation front, splitters.
-
I also don't understand why belief has to deteriorate into this arms race of "who is the biggest believer?"
In all of that, Jesua' actual message gets relegated to a footnote. Point in case, when conservatives decry public healthcare as socialist, I must wonder what version of the Bible they read. Or at least, what passages they focussed on.
I actually applaud this thought. Which is also why I generally don't like getting into these debates. I don't think I've ever been in a single one that didn't deteriorate in some way, shape or form.
The Bible even warns about getting caught up in arguments and "debates over words"...but for some reason, I always feel compelled to clarify when people ask me why I believe what I believe.
I know religious zealots who simply "believe"...and to me that's frustrating...because not only is it wrong and dangerous, but it's not even what the Bible even teaches we should do. One should *always* know what they believe and why they believe it. Maybe that's why I feel it is important to separate myself from those types by clarifying that I *do not* believe in "blind faith". Faith without evidence is completely void of any meaning, IMHO.
-
We HATE the Judean People's Front!!! We're the People's Front of Judea!!! :rollin
Life of Brian is the greatest movie ever made about this subject. Maybe I'll watch that tonight.
-
One should *always* know what they believe and why they believe it.
We agree! :clap:
-
It takes relatively little effort to find the information on the oldest manuscripts. So inaccurate translations, generally don't hold up...or last long.
Tell that to the KJV translation of Revelation. 400 years and still going strong.
Nah. Except for a handful of cranky baptists, he's right. The amount of manuscript evidence in support of the modern translations that's been uncovered since the 17th century has made the KJV all but irrelevant.
-
Consider however that whatever version you read, it's on that "island of English". I can say that Luther's Bible is distinctly different in many ways, a lot due to the target language. I think people get fooled by growing up with a certain language's Bible that that's all there is and thus it's close enough to the original. For some of the Bible texts the original language's texts don't even exist.
rumborak
-
This is also why it is important to choose a "Translation" over a "version".
I liked your earlier comment:
As dual speaker myself, I can only shake my head at people thinking whatever local version of the Bible they read, it's a good translation. The two languages I speak are both Germanic languages, and even there I am routinely met with the situation where I have to say "oh, German doesn't have a term for that." (or the other way around)
And now think how that works trying to translate ancient Greek to modern English. Booya.
I really feel like this is close to the very heart of the idea I was trying to convey with the mustard plant conversation. Honestly don't want to re-open that can of worms...just felt that it was relevant.
-
Track record is often a big one for me. Bible critics once said there was no such city as Nineveh...until they found it in the mid-18hundreds. Certain kings (that slip my mind at the moment) that the Bible mentions and critics long held that the Bible was wrong...until they found the dude's palace.
Things of that nature. In the end, the Bible has always proven itself to be reliable...
This is not close to being true. Much of the "historical events" of the Old Testament are considered to be fabrications.
Once again, you're applying a complete double standard, based on what confirms your viewpoint and what conflicts with it. You're perfectly willing to cite the work of archaeologists if they ostensibly confirm something mentioned in the Bible, but when they conclude that the Israelites originated from Canaan, that the Exodus never happened, that the conquest of Israel was more myth than fact, that Jericho was uninhabited when Joshua purportedly conquered it, etc. they're wrong, or there's an explanation that flies in the face of all available evidence, but nevertheless must've happened.
-
Consider however that whatever version you read, it's on that "island of English". I can say that Luther's Bible is distinctly different in many ways, a lot due to the target language. I think people get fooled by growing up with a certain language's Bible that that's all there is and thus it's close enough to the original.
Yes, that about sums up the King James only crowd.
For some of the Bible texts the original language's texts don't even exist.
rumborak
I'm not sure what you mean. There are some manuscripts that contain passages that aren't found in the earliest witnesses, like the Comma Johanneum (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+john%205:7-5:8&version=KJV). Maybe you can clarify.
-
It takes relatively little effort to find the information on the oldest manuscripts. So inaccurate translations, generally don't hold up...or last long.
Tell that to the KJV translation of Revelation. 400 years and still going strong.
Nah. Except for a handful of cranky baptists, he's right. The amount of manuscript evidence in support of the modern translations that's been uncovered since the 17th century has made the KJV all but irrelevant.
That handful of cranky baptists isn't really a handful. It's more than you may realize, and they are very loud and influential.
-
It takes relatively little effort to find the information on the oldest manuscripts. So inaccurate translations, generally don't hold up...or last long.
Tell that to the KJV translation of Revelation. 400 years and still going strong.
Nah. Except for a handful of cranky baptists, he's right. The amount of manuscript evidence in support of the modern translations that's been uncovered since the 17th century has made the KJV all but irrelevant.
That handful of cranky baptists isn't really a handful. It's more than you may realize, and they are very loud and influential.
How so? No scholar takes them seriously, and most Christians wouldn't know what to make of their arguments.
-
Mostly to others of their ilk. But that is a large number of people. I mean, I don't know about the left coast, but on this side, there are a TON of KJV-only churches.
-
Mostly to others of their ilk. But that is a large number of people. I mean, I don't know about the left coast, but on this side, there are a TON of KJV-only churches.
That's true. The south is a haven for that particular brand of suck. But in a general sense KJV onlyism doesn't seem like a major threat.
-
This is not close to being true. Much of the "historical events" of the Old Testament are considered to be fabrications.
Once again, you're applying a complete double standard, based on what confirms your viewpoint and what conflicts with it. You're perfectly willing to cite the work of archaeologists if they ostensibly confirm something mentioned in the Bible, but when they conclude that the Israelites originated from Canaan, that the Exodus never happened, that the conquest of Israel was more myth than fact, that Jericho was uninhabited when Joshua purportedly conquered it, etc. they're wrong, or there's an explanation that flies in the face of all available evidence, but nevertheless must've happened.
I've noticed you talk a lot about sources and being able to use such sources to substantiate whatever claim one sees fit. It is just as easy for me to make the same claims about the sources you use that are "proven". Am I missing something?
-
This is not close to being true. Much of the "historical events" of the Old Testament are considered to be fabrications.
Once again, you're applying a complete double standard, based on what confirms your viewpoint and what conflicts with it. You're perfectly willing to cite the work of archaeologists if they ostensibly confirm something mentioned in the Bible, but when they conclude that the Israelites originated from Canaan, that the Exodus never happened, that the conquest of Israel was more myth than fact, that Jericho was uninhabited when Joshua purportedly conquered it, etc. they're wrong, or there's an explanation that flies in the face of all available evidence, but nevertheless must've happened.
I've noticed you talk a lot about sources and being able to use such sources to substantiate whatever claim one sees fit. It is just as easy for me to make the same claims about the sources you use that are "proven". Am I missing something?
One can find someone saying almost anything. That's why consensus is important. The reason global warming is a serious threat is not because one scientist says so, it's because the overwhelming majority of the relevant scientific community agrees, and has done so for the past 20+ years.
Likewise, the word of one scholar does not hold much weight, because of the possibility for all sorts of biases, errors, faulty work, or outright lies. A consensus is to be trusted (even if it is shown later to be false) because well researched, exhaustive, and persuasive work will draw attention, further study, and ultimately wide-scale support from the academic community.
One could "disprove" evolution by linking to the work of some wacko biologist, but that doesn't mean anything. The consensus is what matters. And ignoring the consensus of academics who've worked years upon years in post-graduate studies upon these subjects just because one has done a cursory analysis of the writings of apologetics and concluded they know the real "truth" is silly.
-
So the majority is always right??
-
The majority view of professionals is usually a very good bet. One needs to have extraordinary reason to disregard that.
rumborak
-
It seems that, more or less, the "consensus" you read is based upon whatever bias you lean towards already. There are lots of groups of scientists, historians, etc. that make a "consensus", and whatever one's leaning is, one can choose to believe in or place high importance on those findings.
You're right. One can take a cursory look at apologetics, or one can examine all sources closely. I do appreciate your distinction, but I still find it to be highly subjective.
-
It seems that, more or less, the "consensus" you read is based upon whatever bias you lean towards already.
Even so, consensus usually implies that the larger part of the field's experts agree whatever their personal inclinations, and one's own biases notwithstanding.
-
It might be worth a thread to find out for what there is consensus and for what not. E.g. I believe there is consensus that the gospels were not written by Matthew, Luke etc. Whereas there probably no consensus on the historicity of the post-death accounts.
rumborak
-
It seems that, more or less, the "consensus" you read is based upon whatever bias you lean towards already.
I understand this viewpoint. I think the distinction comes between various kinds of scholars. There are critical scholars, who start with the text, analyze it, using what we know of the historical record, and come to some conclusions regarding the text to interpret it in such a way as to nail down belief/knowledge. Then there are theologians/apologists, who start with belief, then interpret the text in light of their belief.
My 2 cents.
-
In thinking of this thread...I was reminded of something in my own life that I feel gives a good example of what supposed "contradictions" in the Bible are like.
All of the following statements are true and factual.
When I am asked how many kids I have...depending on the person and circumstances, they will get one of the following replies:
I have two kids. Both boys
I have two kids. A boy and a girl.
I have three kids, two boys and a girl.
I have 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl.
I have 6 kids, 5 boys and 1 girl.
I have 7 kids, 5 boys and 2 girls.
I have made ALL of these responses. They are all true. They are all factual. And depending on the situation, each is an entirely appropriate response for the given circumstances. None of them contradict....though they might SEEM to.
-
In thinking of this thread...I was reminded of something in my own life that I feel gives a good example of what supposed "contradictions" in the Bible are like.
All of the following statements are true and factual.
When I am asked how many kids I have...depending on the person and circumstances, they will get one of the following replies:
I have two kids. Both boys
I have two kids. A boy and a girl.
I have three kids, two boys and a girl.
I have 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl.
I have 6 kids, 5 boys and 1 girl.
I have 7 kids, 5 boys and 2 girls.
I have made ALL of these responses. They are all true. They are all factual. And depending on the situation, each is an entirely appropriate response for the given circumstances. None of them contradict....though they might SEEM to.
Those aren't the same kinds of contradictions found in the Bible. This analogy is just a matter of different answers at different times, showing an increase of children over time.
-
In thinking of this thread...I was reminded of something in my own life that I feel gives a good example of what supposed "contradictions" in the Bible are like.
All of the following statements are true and factual.
When I am asked how many kids I have...depending on the person and circumstances, they will get one of the following replies:
I have two kids. Both boys
I have two kids. A boy and a girl.
I have three kids, two boys and a girl.
I have 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl.
I have 6 kids, 5 boys and 1 girl.
I have 7 kids, 5 boys and 2 girls.
I have made ALL of these responses. They are all true. They are all factual. And depending on the situation, each is an entirely appropriate response for the given circumstances. None of them contradict....though they might SEEM to.
Those aren't the same kinds of contradictions found in the Bible. This analogy is just a matter of different answers at different times, showing an increase of children over time.
Not true. Depending on who you are and what the circumstances are, I could make all of these statements *today*...and they would all be completely true and factual for the given circumstances. It has NOTHING to do with "increase of kids over time".
-
In thinking of this thread...I was reminded of something in my own life that I feel gives a good example of what supposed "contradictions" in the Bible are like.
All of the following statements are true and factual.
When I am asked how many kids I have...depending on the person and circumstances, they will get one of the following replies:
I have two kids. Both boys
I have two kids. A boy and a girl.
I have three kids, two boys and a girl.
I have 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl.
I have 6 kids, 5 boys and 1 girl.
I have 7 kids, 5 boys and 2 girls.
I have made ALL of these responses. They are all true. They are all factual. And depending on the situation, each is an entirely appropriate response for the given circumstances. None of them contradict....though they might SEEM to.
Those aren't the same kinds of contradictions found in the Bible. This analogy is just a matter of different answers at different times, showing an increase of children over time.
Not true. Depending on who you are and what the circumstances are, I could make all of these statements *today*...and they would all be completely true and factual for the given circumstances. It has NOTHING to do with "increase of kids over time".
"Factual" is not "Truthful." Many things are "factually" correct, but are demonstrably "not True."
-
In thinking of this thread...I was reminded of something in my own life that I feel gives a good example of what supposed "contradictions" in the Bible are like.
All of the following statements are true and factual.
When I am asked how many kids I have...depending on the person and circumstances, they will get one of the following replies:
I have two kids. Both boys
I have two kids. A boy and a girl.
I have three kids, two boys and a girl.
I have 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl.
I have 6 kids, 5 boys and 1 girl.
I have 7 kids, 5 boys and 2 girls.
I have made ALL of these responses. They are all true. They are all factual. And depending on the situation, each is an entirely appropriate response for the given circumstances. None of them contradict....though they might SEEM to.
Those aren't the same kinds of contradictions found in the Bible. This analogy is just a matter of different answers at different times, showing an increase of children over time.
Not true. Depending on who you are and what the circumstances are, I could make all of these statements *today*...and they would all be completely true and factual for the given circumstances. It has NOTHING to do with "increase of kids over time".
"Factual" is not "Truthful." Many things are "factually" correct, but are demonstrably "not True."
They are all true. When did I say anything untruthful?
Ok...all of these statements are true....today they are all true. Depending on who asked me and what the circumstances are, I would answer one of the above and I would be telling the truth.
-
If a person asks how many and you tell them less than the truth, then you aren't being truthful. What kind of circumstances could support being less than truthful on a simple question like "how many kids you have"?
-
Jammin,
don't you think you're rather bending over backwards to make it work? I have a hard time imagining you giving as much leeway to any other potentially fictional piece of text. E.g. assuming you're not a Mormon, how does the Book of Moroni distinguish itself from the regular Bible that the former can not be believed, the latter however very much so?
rumborak
-
If a person asks how many and you tell them less than the truth, then you aren't being truthful. What kind of circumstances could support being less than truthful on a simple question like "how many kids you have"?
I assure you. I am not being less that truthful. You just have to be open minded to the explanation.
I have two kids, both boys.
These are my two *actual* 100% confirmed biological sons. The first one is from a fling I had as a teenager, the second is from my first marriage. I have only met the older one twice in his entire life, I barely know him, we never talk and I had absolutely nothing to do with his upbringing. My door is always open to him if he ever needs me...and I have attempted to reach out on several occasions...but we are, for all purposes, complete and total strangers.
I have two kids, a girl and a boy.
These are my two kids from my first marriage. I met my first wife when she was 3 months pregnant. She had a daughter...the real father disappeared into the woodwork and was never found. He never paid a dime, and we never saw him. He didn't ever exist in her life. *I* raised her, fed her, changed her diapers, and took care of her...I am her father.
I have three kids, two boys and a girl.
This is when I count all of the above. I don't always count my oldest boy...this is probably the most common answer I give.
I have 5 kids...4 boys and one girl.
In my second marriage married into three more sons. I've had a big effect on their lives (the younger ones more than the older ones), and treat them exactly as if they were my very own flesh and blood. I've been MORE of a father to them than I have been to my oldest son. These are the children whose lives I have effected as a "father figure"...
I have 6 kids...5 boys and one girl.
I give this answer very commonly as well. This is when I put my current wife's three kids and my three kids altogether.
I have 7 kids...5 boys and two girls.
This is the rarest answer...and the only one on the list that is, admittedly, a stretch. Before I met my first wife, I was in yet another relationship that very nearly went to marriage. There was a daughter that was put up for adoption. I don't talk about it much...she would be 23 now....and because of the timing of the breakup, there were actually two possible fathers who *both* had to sign the paperwork. But I'm about 80% sure it was mine. She would be my only biological daughter if that were true.
So, depending on circumstances (usually just coming down to a matter of, are you looking for *my kids* that I have raised? Or family medical history for someone I barely know??) all of the above are TRUE AND FACTUAL for their given circumstances.
-
If you have 7 kids, and someone asks you how many kids you have and you say 2, then you aren't being factual.
And none of that convoluted mess has anything to do with the contradictions or other problems with the text of the Bible.
-
If you have 7 kids, and someone asks you how many kids you have and you say 2, then you aren't being factual.
And none of that convoluted mess has anything to do with the contradictions or other problems with the text of the Bible.
I 100% disagree on both counts.
I do not think of myself as having 7 kids. Even though one could say that I do.
What I've given are "spitball" answers. There's still ANOTHER answer that I give if I feel the person actually has the time and wants to know. And that is, "It's not that simple..."
Real life is not that simple. Are you asking about the kids I've fathered? The kids I've raised? Or both put together?
Many so called "contradictions" in the Bible are just a matter of perspective...and the explanations are not a stretch...they are just *real life*. I didn't have to concoct a story to make my kid situation happen...it is what it is. It's real life.
If someone a thousand years from now were to dig up my life history, they would have a very difficult time trying to piece together how many kids I *actually* had. That doesn't make the above scenario not true. It just means that reality is not always black and white, and the explanations are not always easy....but that doesn't make them not true.
-
I'd be interested to know how, say, Matthew counting 40 generations between Abraham and Jesus compared to Luke counting 55 is "a matter of perspective."
-
I'd be interested to know how, say, Matthew counting 40 generations between Abraham and Jesus compared to Luke counting 55 is "a matter of perspective."
I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but I've heard that one is supposed to be Mary's and the other is Joseph's. Or something.
-
Example:
Some people point out that Matthew says there were two demon possessed men at Matt the 8th chapter...while Mark and Luke say there was only one in the parallel accounts.
The answer is really simple. There were two men, but Jesus only addressed one directly and he became the central point of attention.
Real life has taught me that things are just like that sometimes. Both accounts are true and factual.
That's where MY real life situations (like with my kids) have taught me that sometimes two personal accounts can have different details...but that does not make either one of them false or untrue in any way, shape or form.
A bank robbery happens. One person says there were two men...another says there were three. The second person happened to be standing outside and saw the person in the getaway car that the eyewitnesses on the inside never saw. So is either account false? Not to any reasonable person. Both statements are true and factual.
-
I'd be interested to know how, say, Matthew counting 40 generations between Abraham and Jesus compared to Luke counting 55 is "a matter of perspective."
Matthew goes back to Abraham. Luke goes back to Adam.
-
I'd be interested to know how, say, Matthew counting 40 generations between Abraham and Jesus compared to Luke counting 55 is "a matter of perspective."
I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but I've heard that one is supposed to be Mary's and the other is Joseph's. Or something.
BTW...this is also true. And it was important. Because Jesus had to be a blood relative of David (which could *only* be through his mother)...but he also had to have *legal* decent to David, which was through Joseph. The blood relation from the mother...the legal right through the father.
-
You're inferring a whole lot. I don't see how that can be considered reasonable. Modern scholars mostly agree that the genealogy of Jesus was crafted by the writers.
rumborak
-
I'd be interested to know how, say, Matthew counting 40 generations between Abraham and Jesus compared to Luke counting 55 is "a matter of perspective."
I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but I've heard that one is supposed to be Mary's and the other is Joseph's. Or something.
BTW...this is also true.
No it's not. Not according to the text. You are interpreting the text to say something that it does not. You are not letting the text speak for itself. Both Matthew and Luke explicitly claim to offer the geneaology of Joseph. They are both also inconsistent with each other. This is a contradiction.
-
You're inferring a whole lot. I don't see how that can be considered reasonable. Modern scholars mostly agree that the genealogy of Jesus was crafted by the writers.
rumborak
M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopaedia (1881, Vol. III, p. 774): “In constructing their genealogical tables, it is well known that the Jews reckoned wholly by males, rejecting, where the blood of the grandfather passed to the grandson through a daughter, the name of the daughter herself, and counting that daughter’s husband for the son of the maternal grandfather..."
-
I'd be interested to know how, say, Matthew counting 40 generations between Abraham and Jesus compared to Luke counting 55 is "a matter of perspective."
I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but I've heard that one is supposed to be Mary's and the other is Joseph's. Or something.
BTW...this is also true.
No it's not. Not according to the text. You are interpreting the text to say something that it does not. You are not letting the text speak for itself. Both Matthew and Luke explicitly claim to offer the geneaology of Joseph. They are both also inconsistent with each other. This is a contradiction.
It does speak for itself. But one does need to understand the circumstances of the times. See the above quote....
-
I can only shake my head at all this. The hoops you're willing to jump through, jammin, are extraordinary.
I find talking to conspiracy theorists somewhat similar. No matter what normal explanation is brought to the table, some obscure facts gets pulled in to support the original theory.
rumborak
-
I'd be interested to know how, say, Matthew counting 40 generations between Abraham and Jesus compared to Luke counting 55 is "a matter of perspective."
I'm sure I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, but I've heard that one is supposed to be Mary's and the other is Joseph's. Or something.
BTW...this is also true.
No it's not. Not according to the text. You are interpreting the text to say something that it does not. You are not letting the text speak for itself. Both Matthew and Luke explicitly claim to offer the geneaology of Joseph. They are both also inconsistent with each other. This is a contradiction.
It does speak for itself. But one does need to understand the circumstances of the times. See the above quote....
The circumstance is that both say exactly what they are doing.
-
You're inferring a whole lot. I don't see how that can be considered reasonable. Modern scholars mostly agree that the genealogy of Jesus was crafted by the writers.
rumborak
Funny that his enemies never saw fit to bring that up. EVERYTHING was all about genealogy back then. If the Jews wanted to stop Christianity...they had access to Jesus genealogy all the way up until 70 C.E.
If Jesus didn't have the bloodline to be the Christ...don't you think it might have been wise for that to have been made public? Maybe even from the moment he started to make a nuisance of himself?
Seems to me like they had 40 years to pull that Ace out of the deck if they had it....and *extremely* odd that they never did.
-
They wouldn't have had to. The "Christ" that the Christians were claiming didn't bear very much resemblance to the Messiah the Jews were awaiting. It would've been a circular argument.
Besides, what the Jews or Christians may or may not have said to each other would have been moot by the time the gospels were written, when any such records would have been destroyed during the Jewish War. Which is another reason that most scholars think that the genealogies in Matthew and Luke aren't historical. They are, rather, confessional and very pointed in the assemblage.
-
Believers have never been particularly susceptible to factual evidence. Even if the Jews had had Jesus genealogy (which I very much doubt), what impact could that have made? Killing the guy already didn't quell the movement, a measly genealogy wouldn't have fazed anybody. Also, in 70AD trying to find the genealogy of a carpenter's son in Nazareth would have been virtually impossible.
rumborak
-
I can only shake my head at all this. The hoops you're willing to jump through, jammin, are extraordinary.
I find talking to conspiracy theorists somewhat similar. No matter what normal explanation is brought to the table, some obscure facts gets pulled in to support the original theory.
rumborak
I will agree that I have presented the fact that the Jews would not accept a female bloodline...and would further give credit to such a bloodline to the son-in-law (as the opinion was...the father of the child).
I never said you had to believe. I've said all along that your mileage may vary. I just cannot see how it's so unreasonable. I look at where your line of reasoning takes you...and it just *baffles* me. But I'm not out to convert....just present evidence as to why *I* believe it to be reasonable.
What I don't like, is the accusation that there is no evidence...and that religious people operate on pure blind faith. Many people do...I don't. I have spent my life examining the *EVIDENCE* from each said...and I followed the course that had the more reasonable argument. To me, the evidence that bore the earmarks of truth...and then I made an *EDUCATED DECISION*...
I would never call that "blind faith"...which I will maintain is both dangerous and stupid.
-
You're inferring a whole lot. I don't see how that can be considered reasonable. Modern scholars mostly agree that the genealogy of Jesus was crafted by the writers.
rumborak
Funny that his enemies never saw fit to bring that up. EVERYTHING was all about genealogy back then. If the Jews wanted to stop Christianity...they had access to Jesus genealogy all the way up until 70 C.E.
If Jesus didn't have the bloodline to be the Christ...don't you think it might have been wise for that to have been made public? Maybe even from the moment he started to make a nuisance of himself?
Seems to me like they had 40 years to pull that Ace out of the deck if they had it....and *extremely* odd that they never did.
I'm curious, how did everyone keep track of thousands of years of genealogy? Why would the Pharisees even have access to things like of what they considered to be some random trouble maker? Keep in mind he wasn't exactly a big deal at the time.
-
This thread is super, dude.
-
They wouldn't have had to. The "Christ" that the Christians were claiming didn't bear very much resemblance to the Messiah the Jews were awaiting. It would've been a circular argument.
You make it sound here as if Jesus were no big deal. A gnat in the ointment. If he was so insignificant, why kill him? Again...your line of reasoning makes no sense. Even if the Jewish leaders didn't like him and just wished he would go away...the easiest way to get people to quit following him would be to make his genealogy public...and that would have been the end of it. Especially since they were the keepers of the records and hated him so much. Sorry...this just doesn't fit the facts of record...or even human nature for that matter.
Besides, what the Jews or Christians may or may not have said to each other would have been moot by the time the gospels were written, when any such records would have been destroyed during the Jewish War. Which is another reason that most scholars think that the genealogies in Matthew and Luke aren't historical. They are, rather, confessional and very pointed in the assemblage.
Matthew's account was written in 41 C.E. Luke's was sometime between 56-58 C.E. when Paul was confined in Caesarea.
-
Matthew's account was written in 41 C.E.
Pray tell, which of your sources give that exact date? Most scholars place Matthew at 80-90AD.
rumborak
-
You're inferring a whole lot. I don't see how that can be considered reasonable. Modern scholars mostly agree that the genealogy of Jesus was crafted by the writers.
rumborak
Funny that his enemies never saw fit to bring that up. EVERYTHING was all about genealogy back then. If the Jews wanted to stop Christianity...they had access to Jesus genealogy all the way up until 70 C.E.
If Jesus didn't have the bloodline to be the Christ...don't you think it might have been wise for that to have been made public? Maybe even from the moment he started to make a nuisance of himself?
Seems to me like they had 40 years to pull that Ace out of the deck if they had it....and *extremely* odd that they never did.
I'm curious, how did everyone keep track of thousands of years of genealogy? Why would the Pharisees even have access to things like of what they considered to be some random trouble maker? Keep in mind he wasn't exactly a big deal at the time.
He wasn't anything at all to the Romans. That's why Pilate would rather just let the Jews do as they will with this guy rather than jeopardize his political career. (there's a veiled threat in the account that if he didn't execute Jesus...they would report Pilate to Caesar...something Pilate didn't want...but that's another discussion.)
To the Jews...the Messiah was *EVERYTHING*...their whole lives revolved around the appearance of the Messiah. The first 10 chapters of Chronicles are NOTHING but genealogy. They knew that when Messiah came to save the nation...he would have to be through the bloodline that God had spoken of. That was why they kept * meticulous* records...and yes, the Jewish religious leaders had access to these records. It would have been no trouble at all to discredit Jesus openly and quickly if they could. But they couldn't.
-
They wouldn't have had to. The "Christ" that the Christians were claiming didn't bear very much resemblance to the Messiah the Jews were awaiting. It would've been a circular argument.
You make it sound here as if Jesus were no big deal. A gnat in the ointment. If he was so insignificant, why kill him? Again...your line of reasoning makes no sense. Even if the Jewish leaders didn't like him and just wished he would go away...the easiest way to get people to quit following him would be to make his genealogy public...and that would have been the end of it. Especially since they were the keepers of the records and hated him so much. Sorry...this just doesn't fit the facts of record...or even human nature for that matter.
He was killed by the Romans. Just the same as thousands of other Jews during the first century CE in Palestine. He wasn't all that big a deal until his followers began experiencing him after his death. Even then, they stayed faithful Jews. Your genealogy argument doesn't hold any water at all.
Besides, what the Jews or Christians may or may not have said to each other would have been moot by the time the gospels were written, when any such records would have been destroyed during the Jewish War. Which is another reason that most scholars think that the genealogies in Matthew and Luke aren't historical. They are, rather, confessional and very pointed in the assemblage.
Matthew's account was written in 41 C.E. Luke's was sometime between 56-58 C.E. when Paul was confined in Caesarea.
There is simply no evidence for that whatsoever. Both gospels are normally dated to sometime between 80-100 CE.
-
You're inferring a whole lot. I don't see how that can be considered reasonable. Modern scholars mostly agree that the genealogy of Jesus was crafted by the writers.
rumborak
Funny that his enemies never saw fit to bring that up. EVERYTHING was all about genealogy back then. If the Jews wanted to stop Christianity...they had access to Jesus genealogy all the way up until 70 C.E.
If Jesus didn't have the bloodline to be the Christ...don't you think it might have been wise for that to have been made public? Maybe even from the moment he started to make a nuisance of himself?
Seems to me like they had 40 years to pull that Ace out of the deck if they had it....and *extremely* odd that they never did.
I'm curious, how did everyone keep track of thousands of years of genealogy? Why would the Pharisees even have access to things like of what they considered to be some random trouble maker? Keep in mind he wasn't exactly a big deal at the time.
He wasn't anything at all to the Romans. That's why Pilate would rather just let the Jews do as they will with this guy rather than jeopardize his political career. (there's a veiled threat in the account that if he didn't execute Jesus...they would report Pilate to Caesar...something Pilate didn't want...but that's another discussion.)
To the Jews...the Messiah was *EVERYTHING*...their whole lives revolved around the appearance of the Messiah. The first 10 chapters of Chronicles are NOTHING but genealogy. They knew that when Messiah came to save the nation...he would have to be through the bloodline that God had spoken of. That was why they kept * meticulous* records...and yes, the Jewish religious leaders had access to these records. It would have been no trouble at all to discredit Jesus openly and quickly if they could. But they couldn't.
I didn't say the messiah wasn't a big deal, I'm jewish you know, I know what we are like. I said Jesus wasn't a big deal. He wasn't the only person claiming to be the messiah and he didn't have a crap load of followers in his life time. He merely wasn't very important. Why kill him? Because they killed tons of people for tons of things back then, it was a horrible time for people.
-
Matthew's account was written in 41 C.E.
Pray tell, which of your sources give that exact date? Most scholars place Matthew at 80-90AD.
rumborak
Which is pure conjecture, because they believe it was copied from Mark. A theory that has absolutely not a shred of credible evidence to support it. Other than, "I have a degree, and these passages look the same."
Older manuscripts have a subscription that it was written approximately 8 years after Jesus ascension...internal evidence harmonizes with the claim...and there is not credible evidence to the contrary.
-
Matthew's account was written in 41 C.E.
Pray tell, which of your sources give that exact date? Most scholars place Matthew at 80-90AD.
rumborak
Which is pure conjecture, because they believe it was copied from Mark. A theory that has absolutely not a shred of credible evidence to support it. Other than, "I have a degree, and these passages look the same."
It's not that they believe it was copied from Mark, but that both Matthew and Luke used Mark as their main source. And if you think there is "absolutely not a shred of credible evidence to support it"...I'm sorry, but you haven't read the evidence. It isn't like this is some idea that some scholars whipped up one day as a conspiracy. There are reasons that so many critical scholars believe this to be the case.
-
You're inferring a whole lot. I don't see how that can be considered reasonable. Modern scholars mostly agree that the genealogy of Jesus was crafted by the writers.
rumborak
Funny that his enemies never saw fit to bring that up. EVERYTHING was all about genealogy back then. If the Jews wanted to stop Christianity...they had access to Jesus genealogy all the way up until 70 C.E.
If Jesus didn't have the bloodline to be the Christ...don't you think it might have been wise for that to have been made public? Maybe even from the moment he started to make a nuisance of himself?
Seems to me like they had 40 years to pull that Ace out of the deck if they had it....and *extremely* odd that they never did.
I'm curious, how did everyone keep track of thousands of years of genealogy? Why would the Pharisees even have access to things like of what they considered to be some random trouble maker? Keep in mind he wasn't exactly a big deal at the time.
He wasn't anything at all to the Romans. That's why Pilate would rather just let the Jews do as they will with this guy rather than jeopardize his political career. (there's a veiled threat in the account that if he didn't execute Jesus...they would report Pilate to Caesar...something Pilate didn't want...but that's another discussion.)
To the Jews...the Messiah was *EVERYTHING*...their whole lives revolved around the appearance of the Messiah. The first 10 chapters of Chronicles are NOTHING but genealogy. They knew that when Messiah came to save the nation...he would have to be through the bloodline that God had spoken of. That was why they kept * meticulous* records...and yes, the Jewish religious leaders had access to these records. It would have been no trouble at all to discredit Jesus openly and quickly if they could. But they couldn't.
I didn't say the messiah wasn't a big deal, I'm jewish you know, I know what we are like. I said Jesus wasn't a big deal. He wasn't the only person claiming to be the messiah and he didn't have a crap load of followers in his life time. He merely wasn't very important. Why kill him? Because they killed tons of people for tons of things back then, it was a horrible time for people.
The Roman judicial system was actually a relatively fair system. And the Jewish high court didn't have the authority to execute criminals (once they came under Roman rule)...that is why they had to bring Jesus to Pilate in order to get the execution they wanted.
If if the Jewish leaders would have done it themselves (a point of contention as to whether or not they had the authority to do so under Roman rule) they would have stoned him. But they *wanted* this particular kind of death...because of the Jewish custom that every man who was hung up on a tree was cursed. (Deut 21:23) They wanted him to be a cursed man...they figured that no Jew would *ever* accept a man who had hung on a tree as their Messiah. They didn't realize that this also played into fulfillment of prophecy.
-
The Roman justice system was just to their own citizens. For non-citizens it was hell.
Dude seriously, Jesus was not a big deal during his lifetime, and he was plain executed because nobody gave a rat's ass, I.e. neither the Romans nor the Jews. If he had been anything worth noticing the Romans would have mentioned him in their records. They didn't.
rumborak
-
The Roman justice system was just to their own citizens. For non-citizens it was hell.
Dude seriously, Jesus was not a big deal during his lifetime, and he was plain executed because nobody gave a rat's ass, I.e. neither the Romans nor the Jews. If he had been anything worth noticing the Romans would have mentioned him in their records. They didn't.
rumborak
I would not have *ever* expected him to turn up in Roman records. To me, it fits the pattern that he *didn't* get mentioned in Roman records. Why would they care? The entire Jewish nation was becoming a nuisance at that time...and the local high court is jealous of a lowly Jewish carpenter? I honestly believe that Pilate tried to free Jesus because he thought the idea of executing this man for nothing was nothing short of ludicrous. When he realized this was essentially an internal dispute that boiled down to nothing more than jealousy...he washed his hands of the whole thing. He was the only Roman of importance that ever had anything to do with it...and he didn't want to have anything to do with it.
I would question any Roman documentation if it ever turned up...because it wouldn't fit the pattern. Why would any Roman give a gnat's butt about any of this???
-
Your theories get wilder and wilder with every page of this thread. The Romans recorded the most inane shit, it was their obsession. Not being mentioned at all anywhere puts an upper limit on the impact Jesus had.
rumborak
-
Also...I don't see why he would have ever turned up in Jewish records either...although maybe to a smaller extent.
I mean, to confess Jesus as the Christ meant getting cast out of the synagogue, and sometimes possibly getting stoned and left for dead (as happened to Paul).
It was only the brave that dared testify to what they believed. The Jewish high court ordered that no one *even talk about him*...and they held more influence over the Jewish population than anyone else.
-
So now were getting Conspiratorial. Awesome.
So, Jesus was important enough to be killed, but not important enough to make contemporary written accounts?
-
Don't be dense. There ARE contemporaneous written accounts--just not Roman accounts. Which, as pointed out in this thread and in previous ones, is consistent with the fact that virtually nothing in Judea during this period is recorded in Roman records.
-
Jeeez, bosk. I take it your "contemporary accounts" are contemporary because you reject the mainstream dating of the documents? Paul's epistles are the earliest existing documents, and they were written decades after Jesus' death.
rumborak
-
Plus...and this is for everyone. I urge you to look at the pattern. As I've grown older, I've seen the way human nature and life turns out. I've been around the block.
The Bible holds up under its own claims. Throughout the entire account, God's servants are ALWAYS in the extreme minority. 8 souls were saved out of possibly hundreds of thousands who, as Jesus put it, "TOOK NO NOTE" (the all caps are mine). The pattern has ALWAYS been that those who are wise in God's eyes, will be honored by God...but treated as ridiculous by everyone else. Even Jesus, the Bible describes as the "The stone that *the builders rejected" and has become the "chief cornerstone". Again...rejected as meaningless by everyone, except God, and those who believed him.
The Flood
Sodom and Gomorrah
The Exodus
Gideon
I could come up with a laundry list of examples of people who were treated as nothing by everyone else in the world...but not God. Jesus said that the last days would be exactly like Noah and the Flood. Noah was called a "preacher"...so he didn't keep the coming flood a secret. EVERYONE was invited...the warning was given...but no one came. Noah and his family were the only ones that obeyed. Lot's sons and wife were told that the destruction was coming, but the sons just treated Lot like "a man who was joking" and his wife desired the things she left behind.
Everytime God has taken action in the past....every single time...it has been in a situation where the overwhelming majority treated the obedient as....a bunch of insignificant nobodies.
He intentionally rejects those who are "wise in their own eyes" and consistently chooses those who are honest, humble and usually feel completely inadequate and unqualified.
I submit that not *every* minority is right...but the majority is *usually* wrong. So now it's a matter of finding out what fits the pattern. If don't believe God exists...fine. I don't judge you, nor should anyone else. Maybe something will change your mind someday...maybe not. If you DO believe that God exists...you need to look for the pattern. What fits the pattern of God's activity? Taking into account that there is false worship out there? Who fit the pattern of the Pharisees? The Scribes? Who mirror their attitudes and actions? Same for Jesus and the apostles....who imitate their spirit? Who follow their *pattern*?? Everyone must make their own *educated* decision.
Whatever anyone...on any side of any part of this issue...decides, please don't follow anything blindly. Make an educated decision.
-
Jammin, I think you need to come down a bit from your high horse there. You may be yourself convinced that you've done a superb job at looking the evidence available, but to many of us here it looks you chose the literalist path, and from there it all fell into place by picking the evidence as needed while dismissing the rest. Putting Matthew at 41AD displays an extraordinary bias on your side that has nothing to do with careful examination of evidence.
rumborak
-
If I ever sounded like I was on any "high horse"...I apologize. That is the farthest thing from my mind.
I will stand firm that if you claim there is no evidence whatsover for what I have claimed...it is a "guilty until proven innocent" approach. I feel the evidence supporting the 41 C.E. date is stronger than the evidence against it.
-
If if the Jewish leaders would have done it themselves (a point of contention as to whether or not they had the authority to do so under Roman rule) they would have stoned him. But they *wanted* this particular kind of death...because of the Jewish custom that every man who was hung up on a tree was cursed. (Deut 21:23) They wanted him to be a cursed man...they figured that no Jew would *ever* accept a man who had hung on a tree as their Messiah. They didn't realize that this also played into fulfillment of prophecy.
That is a fundamental misreading of the text from Deuteronomy. Here is the entire passage: "21:22 If a person commits a sin punishable by death and is executed, and you hang the corpse on a tree, 21:23 his body must not remain all night on the tree; instead you must make certain you bury him that same day, for the one who is left exposed on a tree is cursed by God. You must not defile your land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance."
He wouldn't have been cursed by the hanging itself; the curse would have been as a result of not being buried the same day. And the point against this was that the land not be defiled by burying something that was cursed. But according to the Gospels, Jesus was buried the same day so this is irrelevant. Doubly irrelevant, since the passage from Deuteronomy has nothing to do with crucifixion, which is death by hanging on a cross, but with hanging up the body of someone who is already dead. Furthermore, there is no evidence from the Gospels that such a thing was even thought of by the Jews, so this whole proposition is strange at best.
I honestly believe that Pilate tried to free Jesus because he thought the idea of executing this man for nothing was nothing short of ludicrous. When he realized this was essentially an internal dispute that boiled down to nothing more than jealousy...he washed his hands of the whole thing. He was the only Roman of importance that ever had anything to do with it...and he didn't want to have anything to do with it.
This assumes that the Gospel accounts of Jesus's trial are accurate. Which I seriously doubt.
Pilate is known to history as a horribly cruel and unjust man. The portrayal of him in the Gospels is as a wishy-washy person who was afraid. I can't speculate as to what really happened, but I know that all of the Gospels mentioned that all of Jesus's followers had deserted him, so none of them witnessed any such trial (as if they could have if they had wanted to).
The Gospels portray "the Jews" as feeling that Jesus committed blasphemy. If this was true, they would have been well within their rights to execute him by stoning, and Pilate wouldn't have cared. But that isn't what happened. He was crucified, which was a Roman punishment for all kinds of things. The most likely thing is that he was crucified because he was a public nuisance, including the "scourging of the Temple", during Passover Week. That would have been reason enough, there is no reason for a Sanhedrin conspiracy.
-
I don't know where Luke took most of his eyewitness sources from. I know he used Mark/Peter. Does anyone know where he took the rest?
-
This assumes that the Gospel accounts of Jesus's trial are accurate. Which I seriously doubt.
One thing that always left me scratching my head is John 18:33-38. Who recorded this private conversation between Pilate and Jesus?
Was Jesus wired?
rumborak
-
I don't know where Luke took most of his eyewitness sources from. I know he used Mark/Peter. Does anyone know where he took the rest?
No one can know specifically, although the evidence that he used Mark is pretty strong.
-
So now were getting Conspiratorial. Awesome.
So, Jesus was important enough to be killed, but not important enough to make contemporary written accounts?
Yes, because the people who killed him and the historians who were "supposed" to write about him didn't have the same interests. And bosk is correct.
-
This assumes that the Gospel accounts of Jesus's trial are accurate. Which I seriously doubt.
One thing that always left me scratching my head is John 18:33-38. Who recorded this private conversation between Pilate and Jesus?
Was Jesus wired?
rumborak
This is an answer that requires belief in God and the fact that he sent his son and resurrected him. *IF* you believe that (I, and several others believe that this did, in fact, take place) then the very easy answer is that it's Jesus own testimony...given to his disciples after he was resurrected. Again...this fits the pattern.
-
This assumes that the Gospel accounts of Jesus's trial are accurate. Which I seriously doubt.
One thing that always left me scratching my head is John 18:33-38. Who recorded this private conversation between Pilate and Jesus?
Was Jesus wired?
rumborak
This is an answer that requires belief in God and the fact that he sent his son and resurrected him. *IF* you believe that (I, and several others believe that this did, in fact, take place) then the very easy answer is that it's Jesus own testimony...given to his disciples after he was resurrected. Again...this fits the pattern.
The text doesn't say that it is Jesus's own testimony given to his disciples after he was resurrected. You are making an assumption.
-
This assumes that the Gospel accounts of Jesus's trial are accurate. Which I seriously doubt.
One thing that always left me scratching my head is John 18:33-38. Who recorded this private conversation between Pilate and Jesus?
Was Jesus wired?
rumborak
This is an answer that requires belief in God and the fact that he sent his son and resurrected him. *IF* you believe that (I, and several others believe that this did, in fact, take place) then the very easy answer is that it's Jesus own testimony...given to his disciples after he was resurrected. Again...this fits the pattern.
The text doesn't say that it is Jesus's own testimony given to his disciples after he was resurrected. You are making an assumption.
Oh good grief. He hung out with them on and off for 40 days.... What do YOU think they talked about? How about this... "There are, in fact, many other things also which Jesus did, which, if ever they were written in full detail, I suppose, the world itself could not contain the scrolls written." (John 21:25)
There...that outta cover it. :angel: ::)
-
You're still making an assumption. One of course that you feel is fully logical, but an assumption none the less.
Which is not letting the text speak for itself.
-
You're still making an assumption. One of course that you feel is fully logical, but an assumption none the less.
Which is not letting the text speak for itself.
Using your level of absolutes....I can argue that reality isn't real.... Using that level of absolutes...you can disprove or prove *anything at all*... At some point, one has to be reasonable.
I have presented arguments that water isn't really wet using the methods that you are using right now. Of course...water not being wet is ridiculous...when a person enters these debates, they usually expect *some* level of reasonableness from the opposing side. When that stops, it stops being fun. This is supposed to be fun debate for the enrichment of everyone involved.
I've given reasons...I've even supplied a source text (and there are more) to support my view. My source of conclusion is the text itself. If you're not going to be reasonable, and bring something to the debate...please move along.
-
You're still making an assumption. One of course that you feel is fully logical, but an assumption none the less.
Which is not letting the text speak for itself.
Using your level of absolutes....I can argue that reality isn't real.... Using that level of absolutes...you can disprove or prove *anything at all*... At some point, one has to be reasonable.
I have presented arguments that water isn't really wet using the methods that you are using right now. Of course...water not being wet is ridiculous...when a person enters these debates, they usually expect *some* level of reasonableness from the opposing side. When that stops, it stops being fun. This is supposed to be fun debate for the enrichment of everyone involved.
I've given reasons...I've even supplied a source text (and there are more) to support my view. My source of conclusion is the text itself. If you're not going to be reasonable, and bring something to the debate...please move along.
What? All I did was mention that you are making assumptions. I attached no judgement to that what so ever.
-
Surely the conversation with pilate isn't the only narrative or facts that they were not privy to. In john 14-16 Jesus told 12 that he would leave them his spirit who would guide them into all truth. This is the core of inspiration and is explanation for situation like pilates convo
-
Surely the conversation with pilate isn't the only narrative or facts that they were not privy to. In john 14-16 Jesus told 12 that he would leave them his spirit who would guide them into all truth. This is the core of inspiration and is explanation for situation like pilates convo
That is still an assumption. That text doesn't say anything about telling people what happened in certain situations.
I mean, go ahead and believe it if you want to. But that is an interpretation and an inferrance on your part, not something the text actually says.
-
Surely the conversation with pilate isn't the only narrative or facts that they were not privy to. In john 14-16 Jesus told 12 that he would leave them his spirit who would guide them into all truth. This is the core of inspiration and is explanation for situation like pilates convo
That is still an assumption. That text doesn't say anything about telling people what happened in certain situations.
I mean, go ahead and believe it if you want to. But that is an interpretation and an inferrance on your part, not something the text actually says.
This means that there are lots of things left up to inference and assumption, or perhaps faith.
EDIT: Luke took his eyewitness accounts sometime when Paul was under house arrest. I'd be interested in knowing which folks he spoke with. No way of knowing for sure on that either.
-
Given the usual dating of John, it would have required essentially an eyewitness account to float around for decades. I think it's rather more likely that the author of John just took artistic license, like in so many other passages of the gospel.
rumborak
-
It's quite frequent that ancient texts, even history texts, contain conversation, or speeches, or what have you.
It's just that historians don't believe that it happened verbatim, because it would be ridiculous to think that the details of a conversation could be passed down exactly over decades or centuries. I don't see why anyone would consider any of the conversations in the Bible to have happened exactly as they appear.
-
It's just that historians don't believe that it happened verbatim, because it would be ridiculous to think that the details of a conversation could be passed down exactly over decades or centuries. I don't see why anyone would consider any of the conversations in the Bible to have happened exactly as they appear.
What you are saying makes perfect sense in the abstract. But as applied to specific conversations, such as the specific conversation with Pilate, the type of error you describe is mitigated by the fact that there is not a large quantity of dialog recorded, but only a few key lines. It is much easier to preserve the integrity of a few sentences of dialog than a full 10-minute conversation.
-
Actually, if anything, the other way around. A short dialog is much less likely to be written down than a 10-minute discussion.
Either way, I find it highly doubtful that the Jesus-Pilate dialog was ever truly recorded. My guess is that the basics of the whole event were passed down (Jesus gets put before Pilate, Jews accuse Jesus), but the details were filled in by the respective gospels authors to make a compelling narrative.
rumborak
-
No, that's not what I meant. Sorry if I wasn't clear. What I was saying is that in terms of recording a conversation accurately, there is a higher likelihood of accuracy where only a few lines of dialog are recorded versus every detail of a much longer conversation (unless, of course, it is recorded verbatim as it is being said).
-
I understood your point. You're saying, all else things being equal, the probability of a long text to survive unchanged is smaller than a small piece of text. Of course that is true.
My point is that other effects come into play too, for example that a small piece of text is more likely to be transferred orally than a 10-minute dialog. So, with that in mind I don't think the shortness of a section is a guarantee for its accuracy.
rumborak
-
There are some reasonable conclusions drawn....but all conclusions drawn have evidence within the text itself. The Bible does say that Jesus spoke to his apostles AT LENGTH after his resurrection. It is reasonable to conclude that Jesus "filled in the gaps" of what happened to him.
This is one of the things that seemed perfectly logical to me in drawing my conclusions. When looking at the other side...the arguments were stretched *far far* thinner. The evidence just didn't hold up.
-
I think we got the notion, jammin.
rumborak
-
There are some reasonable conclusions drawn....but all conclusions drawn have evidence within the text itself. The Bible does say that Jesus spoke to his apostles AT LENGTH after his resurrection. It is reasonable to conclude that Jesus "filled in the gaps" of what happened to him.
This is one of the things that seemed perfectly logical to me in drawing my conclusions. When looking at the other side...the arguments were stretched *far far* thinner. The evidence just didn't hold up.
I don't think it is reasonable at all to conclude ANYTHING, because there are no details whatsoever concerning what they may or may not have discussed. You aren't drawing a conclusion, you are making an assumption.
The most reasonable thing to do is to CONCLUDE that we can't know what they discussed. Could it have been this? Sure. But maybe not. The probability is the same either way.
The first rule of textual analysis is that if it isn't in the text, it isn't in the text. "I don't know" is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to anything not directly stated in the text. And it is dangerous to build your doctrine on a list of "I don't know"s.
But hey, it's a free country. Believe whatever you want.
-
There are some reasonable conclusions drawn....but all conclusions drawn have evidence within the text itself. The Bible does say that Jesus spoke to his apostles AT LENGTH after his resurrection. It is reasonable to conclude that Jesus "filled in the gaps" of what happened to him.
This is one of the things that seemed perfectly logical to me in drawing my conclusions. When looking at the other side...the arguments were stretched *far far* thinner. The evidence just didn't hold up.
I don't think it is reasonable at all to conclude ANYTHING, because there are no details whatsoever concerning what they may or may not have discussed. You aren't drawing a conclusion, you are making an assumption.
The most reasonable thing to do is to CONCLUDE that we can't know what they discussed. Could it have been this? Sure. But maybe not. The probability is the same either way.
The first rule of textual analysis is that if it isn't in the text, it isn't in the text. "I don't know" is a perfectly reasonable conclusion to anything not directly stated in the text. And it is dangerous to build your doctrine on a list of "I don't know"s.
But hey, it's a free country. Believe whatever you want.
I just know I'm going to open up a can of worms here...but...
I could take your entire statement, and aim it at the evolution theory. People want to pretend like it's "iron clad" and "rock solid"....it's not. There are *A LOT* of assumptions made, yet people treat it as iron clad and absolute proof. There is more than quite a bit of assumptions made in "connecting the dots", as it were. It's funny how when the shoe is on the other foot, the same actions suddenly present no problem.
-
If you think it's wrong to do that with evolution, why do you do it with the Bible?
BTW, I disagree strongly that the theory of evolution uses "assumptions." It actually uses "conclusions." But let's save that for another thread and stay on task.
-
I didn't say that I necessarily think the act of assumption is *always* wrong. It depends on the body of evidence to support it.
My point was the similarity. The fact that those who believe the Bible are criticized for drawing conclusions...by people who do the exact same thing themselves with *their* "assumptions".
-
But let's save that for another thread and stay on task.
This.
-
I didn't say that I necessarily think the act of assumption is *always* wrong. It depends on the body of evidence to support it.
My point was the similarity. The fact that those who believe the Bible are criticized for drawing conclusions...by people who do the exact same thing themselves with *their* "assumptions".
"They" aren't making assumptions. You are.
-
I didn't say that I necessarily think the act of assumption is *always* wrong. It depends on the body of evidence to support it.
My point was the similarity. The fact that those who believe the Bible are criticized for drawing conclusions...by people who do the exact same thing themselves with *their* "assumptions".
"They" aren't making assumptions. You are.
(https://i141.photobucket.com/albums/r47/jammindude/girlfight.gif)
-
That's just ridiculous.
-
It's just that historians don't believe that it happened verbatim, because it would be ridiculous to think that the details of a conversation could be passed down exactly over decades or centuries. I don't see why anyone would consider any of the conversations in the Bible to have happened exactly as they appear.
What you are saying makes perfect sense in the abstract. But as applied to specific conversations, such as the specific conversation with Pilate, the type of error you describe is mitigated by the fact that there is not a large quantity of dialog recorded, but only a few key lines. It is much easier to preserve the integrity of a few sentences of dialog than a full 10-minute conversation.
Did you never play telephone as a kid? A single word can get morphed pretty easily, especially by humans.
There are some reasonable conclusions drawn....but all conclusions drawn have evidence within the text itself. The Bible does say that Jesus spoke to his apostles AT LENGTH after his resurrection. It is reasonable to conclude that Jesus "filled in the gaps" of what happened to him.
Take this response as also a response to most of your argument over the past several pages, not just at this:
For starters, you keep forgetting that the Bible is the thing in question, meaning, you can't use evidence from the Bible to support your claim that the Bible is innerant, etc. It's circular logic, and it shouldn't even be thought of as logically acceptable.
But more importantly, there's a huge problem with your entire argument, and it's that you're arguing for a polysemous, contextual or perspective definition of Truth, but still arguing for an absolute Truth in the Bible. The two cannot possibly go together. I have no argument against your argument that what can appear to be a contradiction, is in fact not upon later reflection, or upon gaining the right perspective. I am, in fact, a believer in such a world, and such a definition of "Truth." However, the consequence of this epistemological standpoint is that Truth, as defined as say the Bible being innerantly True, being the Word of God, etc, is no longer a viable or tenable position to hold. In your attempt to make the Bible no contradict itself, you basically completely destroy the foundation whereby it's important for the Bible not to contradict itself. Its preposterous to look at the Bible as the world of God in such a world, at least if you want to only look at the Bible, and not the countless of other works which deal with the nature of reality, "God," and the like. Think Christianity has some antinomies? Well try bridging the gaps between Christianity and Hinduism, or Chrisianity and any other religion in the World, and try to imagine ways in which those "contradictions" are no such thing.
Also, I remember you defending yourself earlier by saying you're not just acting on blind faith, etc. Well as to that argument, I would say that I think everyone operates, basically, upon blind faith. Every single person in this conversation has to make leaps of faith, in some manner, to function. Scientists have to assume that the world is logical, and consistent. Both of those things require a "leap of faith," because there's not much you can do to actually experimentally prove those propositions.
-
For starters, you keep forgetting that the Bible is the thing in question, meaning, you can't use evidence from the Bible to support your claim that the Bible is innerant, etc. It's circular logic, and it shouldn't even be thought of as logically acceptable.
I think this is a very important point really. Of course the Bible's authors will have tried to make it internally consistent, and pointing out those consistencies has not much value to it. I would argue the fact that they were so unsuccessful on so many levels (different versions of stories between gospels etc.) points to their struggle.
rumborak
-
I'm not so sure they went to any great lengths to make them internally consistent.
-
Well, they did to the extent possible I would say. The separate gospel writers tried to connect their own work to the documents they had at hand at the time of writing, most notably the OT, and early versions of other gospels. Whereas they are much less consistent across the gospels, because in general they were written at different times by different people.
rumborak
-
I'm not so sure they went to any great lengths to make them internally consistent.
I agree, since they often weren't writing the same kinds of literature or were trying to communicate different points. Modern readers almost never consider such facts when they treat different books of the Bible like contradictory newspaper accounts.
-
Luke took his eyewitness accounts sometime when Paul was under house arrest. I'd be interested in knowing which folks he spoke with. No way of knowing for sure on that either.
BTW, where did you get this?
-
Luke took his eyewitness accounts sometime when Paul was under house arrest. I'd be interested in knowing which folks he spoke with. No way of knowing for sure on that either.
BTW, where did you get this?
New Testament class at the university I attend. I'm anticipating the eye rolls. I have a couple of texts that state that it is believed that this is what happened, or that it is likely. So I know, not absolutely concrete. The dates are near each other.
-
Luke took his eyewitness accounts sometime when Paul was under house arrest. I'd be interested in knowing which folks he spoke with. No way of knowing for sure on that either.
BTW, where did you get this?
New Testament class at the university I attend. I'm anticipating the eye rolls. I have a couple of texts that state that it is believed that this is what happened, or that it is likely. So I know, not absolutely concrete. The dates are near each other.
I just don't get it. It's pretty obvious that Luke was written well after Paul shuffled off this mortal coil. I mean, he could have had access to eyewitness account that dated from that time, but the text doesn't appear to be from that time.
-
Luke took his eyewitness accounts sometime when Paul was under house arrest. I'd be interested in knowing which folks he spoke with. No way of knowing for sure on that either.
BTW, where did you get this?
New Testament class at the university I attend. I'm anticipating the eye rolls. I have a couple of texts that state that it is believed that this is what happened, or that it is likely. So I know, not absolutely concrete. The dates are near each other.
I just don't get it. It's pretty obvious that Luke was written well after Paul shuffled off this mortal coil. I mean, he could have had access to eyewitness account that dated from that time, but the text doesn't appear to be from that time.
I agree that it was penned after Paul's death. And you're right, I was speculating that he conducted his interviews or got his sources before Paul died. I meant to say that, and I typed it as being concrete. Apologies. ;D
-
Whether it was penned afterward or not, it was most likely penned before Acts, and Acts seems to record that Luke was with Paul on some of his journeys (for example, switching to the use of "we" at times in describing Paul's travels, indicating that Luke was with him during those times). So I don't think the theory is farfetched that Luke may have gotten some of his information in the gospel of Luke from Paul.
-
That would have been second-hand then, no? Paul was never an eyewitness himself.
rumborak
-
That would have been second-hand then, no? Paul was never an eyewitness himself.
rumborak
Maybe. Paul likely did witness a number of the more public events recorded that happened in Jerusalem. But, yes, a lot of Paul's knowledge about Jesus' life would likely have been second-hand.
-
Also, Luke is quoted in Paul's epistles. 1 Timothy 5:18 quotes Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7. It's supposed to be the exact same Greek words that Luke used, too, according to my source.
Luke was clearly considered 'canon'/'Scripture' by the time of 1 Tim's writing. I don't know how long it would take for a book to be written, be sent out, and finally recognized as Scripture, but I'm sure it wasn't instantaneous. If 1 Tim was written by Paul around 62-67 AD, then you can be sure Luke was written at least a few years before.
If you think 1 Tim was not written by Paul, then I guess it depends on how liberal your date is...if you still have a somewhat early date, it's still possible Luke was written during Paul's lifetime.
-
Also, Luke is quoted in Paul's epistles. 1 Timothy 5:18 quotes Deuteronomy 25:4 and Luke 10:7. It's supposed to be the exact same Greek words that Luke used, too, according to my source.
Luke was clearly considered 'canon'/'Scripture' by the time of 1 Tim's writing. I don't know how long it would take for a book to be written, be sent out, and finally recognized as Scripture, but I'm sure it wasn't instantaneous. If 1 Tim was written by Paul around 62-67 AD, then you can be sure Luke was written at least a few years before.
If you think 1 Tim was not written by Paul, then I guess it depends on how liberal your date is...if you still have a somewhat early date, it's still possible Luke was written during Paul's lifetime.
Given what we already know about Luke's adaptation of Mark, and all of the evidence that 1 Timothy is non-Pauline, I would say that 1:Timothy 5:18 is more evidence for both propositions.
-
Except that we don't know that Luke was an adaptation of Mark or that 1 Timothy is non-Pauline. But nice theory.
-
Except that we don't know that Luke was an adaptation of Mark or that 1 Timothy is non-Pauline. But nice theory.
You can say that you don't know. But the evidence for both is fairly strong.
-
Except that we don't know that Luke was an adaptation of Mark or that 1 Timothy is non-Pauline. But nice theory.
You can say that you don't know. But the evidence for both is fairly strong.
Can you explain why you feel the evidence on the other side of the argument isn't as strong?
-
Except that we don't know that Luke was an adaptation of Mark or that 1 Timothy is non-Pauline. But nice theory.
You can say that you don't know. But the evidence for both is fairly strong.
You are certainly entitled to believe that, but I believe the evidence for either is actually incredibly weak and speculative.
-
Except that we don't know that Luke was an adaptation of Mark or that 1 Timothy is non-Pauline. But nice theory.
You can say that you don't know. But the evidence for both is fairly strong.
You are certainly entitled to believe that, but I believe the evidence for either is actually incredibly weak and speculative.
Funny, that's what I think about the alternative.
-
Mark and Luke both contain similar verses/stories, so assuming someone copied someone, how do we know it was Luke that copied Mark? Why couldn't it be the other way around?
I'm not saying that it has to be the other way around, I really just don't know. :angel: Is it because Mark is shorter?
EDIT: Or if there's that 'Q' document or whatever, they might not have copied off each other at all. That's a possibility, isn't it?
-
H, I recommend the Wikipedia article on Markan Priority, specifically the section "Modern arguments for Markan priority". Especially strong I find the argument that a later document wouldn't edit a previous one to make him look less divine.
rumborak
-
^Yup, highly recommended. If you are not as familiar with the analysis, the short summary form that wikipedia presents makes it easier to see some of the flaws in the arguments, IMO.
-
I think that post was half-intended to help me and half-intended to bait rumborak. :lol
-
Mark and Luke both contain similar verses/stories, so assuming someone copied someone, how do we know it was Luke that copied Mark? Why couldn't it be the other way around?
I'm not saying that it has to be the other way around, I really just don't know. :angel: Is it because Mark is shorter?
EDIT: Or if there's that 'Q' document or whatever, they might not have copied off each other at all. That's a possibility, isn't it?
Q doesn't have anything to do with Mark. It has to do with the non-Markan material that Luke and Matthew share with each other.
You really don't know anything about this stuff?
-
Mark and Luke both contain similar verses/stories, so assuming someone copied someone, how do we know it was Luke that copied Mark? Why couldn't it be the other way around?
I'm not saying that it has to be the other way around, I really just don't know. :angel: Is it because Mark is shorter?
EDIT: Or if there's that 'Q' document or whatever, they might not have copied off each other at all. That's a possibility, isn't it?
Q doesn't have anything to do with Mark. It has to do with the non-Markan material that Luke and Matthew share with each other.
You really don't know anything about this stuff?
A little bit, but sometimes I get my terms confused. I do appreciate you tilting your chin up and making me feel like an intellectual inferior, though.
-
??? That's not where I was coming from at all, sorry if you took it that way.
I wasn't being sarcastic, I was asking a question in surprise.
-
On a non-serious note:
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/420614_10150655858324267_509844266_9062952_747588754_n.jpg)
-
I love that SD