johntheapostate

If one were to apply the standards by which apologests insist the New Testemant must be interpreted to the interpretation that Paul inflicted on the Hebrew scripture, then Christianity is nothing more than a blatent perversion of Judaism.

The extent to wich Paul misquoted, misinterpretated and outright lied is evedent to anyone who wishes to compare his proof texts to the actual passages in the Hebrew scripture.

It is so blatently false that in my study Bible they excuse it on the grounds that Paul was acting under the authority of the holy spirit.

Paul created a whole new religion in which he highjacked the god of the Jews and because it is the nature of monotheism that any doctrine in oposition to it is to be destroyed, Paul deliberatly tried to destroy Judaism.

The fact of the matter is if Judaism is the correct interpretation of god then Christianity is a lie. If Christianity is the correct interpretation of god than god has lied to the Jews from the very start

If god is a liar than is there any reason to have faith in him?

Amaleq13

The Christian argument is that God has been consistent and honest but the Jews either failed to understand or willfully refused to do so.

Ghost of Jeebus

I think this is missing Amaleq13's point, which is that mainstream archaeology rejects that the exodus story is factually accurate history as the Hebrew Bible describes it. For instance, William Dever leans towards the maximalist end of the spectrum, and is critical of Finkelstein, yet he still considers the Exodus story to be suspect (see Who Were the Ancient Isrealites and Where Did They Come From?, pgs 18-21.)

I'm confused by this. Why would we be looking to archaeology for evidence of evolution? Wouldn't paleontology or biology be better places to look?

Vorkosigan

Do you want this to be used for a thread in E/C? Let's not derail this one.

johntheapostate

Christions choose to ignore or are ignorant of passages such as Isaiah 66:9 where the text has god giving reasurances that he will keep his promises.

"Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery? says the Lord. Do I close up the womb when I bring to delivery? says your God"


If the Jews lost there inheritance through there own actions, this raises an interesting dilema for the Christion. As god would have known the outcome from the beginnig, any unconditional promises that he made, such as the one to Abraham, which he would have known he would not keep, would be nothing but lies. And if god is a liar than any faith the Christian has in him would be worthless.

bfniii

no change of mind was necessary. never once did i say not to approach each case individually. however, what i have said is that the bible has shown itself to be trustworthy.

i disagree. evidence regarding that specific case does not make a person credible or not. what a person has claimed over the course of their life is what constitutes their reliability. if their word is all that we have to go on in any specific case, the most we can say one way or the other is our opinion on the matter. a person can build a case for or against their testimony, but it's not proof. just speculation. to negate the claims of a group is even harder.

yet you can't prove that they didn't happen.

i couldn't disagree more. what i don't understand is that you affirm it's logically problematic to absolutely negate a claim but several people on this website do indeed claim that in regards to the bible. in fact, some go so far as to claim to be atheists when there exists no such proof that there isn't a God.

the burden is on each individual to accept or not accept what is written based on personal experience. affirmation or denial is not possible without evidence. the bible has been shown to be reliable by various evidences but it is true that not everything in the bible is verifiable. that does indeed require faith. but the faith requirement is not, in and of itself, sufficient reason to outright deny that said events did not happen.

several people in this thread have admitted that the bible has been in agreement with history, archaeology, geography, etc. it has been phrased that the bible "got some things right". i do understand that there are some people, finkelstein has been brought up, that have theories that undermine biblical claims. but theories are not proof and theories evolve.

ah, but your criteria has been met to a certain extent. now we need to discuss how much evidence you require. the evidence presented by science, et al, that affirms that bible is enough for many people (including many in academia and the sciences) but not enough for you. that's ok. my point is at this point in history i do not know of any information that proves the bible is untrue. there are things that are difficult to believe and there are even some things that appear confusing on the surface. but none of that means it's untrue.

not to be contrary but i have to disagree again. if one person had said that wilt chamberlain scored an unheard of 100 points in a game, it would be hard to believe. but if thousands of other people who went to the same game had the same report, it would be difficult to deny.

it's interesting that the bible makes both types of claims. while the first isn't so hard to believe and has even been verified in some cases, the second is harder to believe. but i couldn't prove that you didn't levitate.

the assumptions you make based on what you have read is debateable. i agree that a case can be made that seems to support those analyses of the gospels. but alternate explanations are just as reasonable that support apostolic, authentic authorship.

miracles are rarely reproducible or repeatable. i agree that there is a subjective element to them as well.

in what way are they mutually incompatible?

john merely chronicles the question posed by the doubting nathanael. why should he have taken it out? i'm not sure how this response addresses the question posed. notice even the jews didn't refute His fulfillment of the prophecies. they just expected someone different. to this day, jews avoid isaiah 53. why do you suppose that is? i think it's because they're trying to hide the fact that they missed the messiah.

i didn't say "extraordinary". not that it matters.

we can get into the specifics if you want. however, that will really bog us down. it suffices to say it's out there. it can be provided if you like. my references have not totally been limited to the bible.

how do we know anything from that period of time occurred?

He was both. at one time, He was loved. later, He was hated.

the multitude had been assembled well before they were "convinced" by the elders. in fact, they were so intent on convicting Jesus they broke more than 20 of their own laws of jurisprudence in doing so.

what's even more interesting is that these jewish laws provided citizens a means for dispensing justice without the aid of religious leaders. so they had the means to deal with Jesus but went to great inconvenience and broke many of their own laws to get the leadership involved. when one group of leadership didn't acheive the desired results, they moved on to another.

suggesting, or proving? as you have asked me, how do we know these documents are reliable?

oh my gosh. can i quote you on that? i'm in a debate with a chemist about abiogenesis and i would love to see his reaction to another atheist making that claim. anyway, i see no reason to doubt this "possible" claim.

fortunately, there is more. the rest of the new testament.

et al, meaning among others. the point is many people in this thread pick and choose who to believe and when to believe them. josephus is reliable in that he didn't mention the infanticide, but unreliable when he mentions Jesus. another double standard.

ah. so no people who opposed christianity, or at least didn't support it, were able to curry the same favor to protect their own documents? in other words, only the christians were capable of this. moreover, no other influential people were able to see or stop this injustice? this seems to be an argument from convenience. that was a colorful tale.

incidentally, how was this pathetic group of vagabonds able to gain favor with peoples influential?

there were people running around, inside of judea and outside, claiming to be eyewitnesses to these events. how hard would that be to falsify their claims? jewish and roman authorities were involved. ordinary citizens were involved. it just doesn't seem that hard.

again with the word extraordinary. i merely said claims, which is more general. as i have said, the miraculous is often not repeatable or reproducible.

bfniii

well, bless your heart if you didn't go and repeat it a third time. you're persistent, aren't you? ok, once again:

• style-as in different literary periods. many authors have gone through these different periods. not conclusive
• theology-different, but not contradictory. just a person going through different phases of their life. not conclusive
• seams-see style. note: this was a "rugged fisherman". seams are to be expected.
• additions-different doesn't necessarily mean different author

the "we" does not necessarily indicate a different author. the book was probably written by john while in ephesus. "we" probably refers to the church leadership and his colleagues there.

i have responded to your "evidence" multiple times. it is evidence of no kind and not even compelling analysis. yet, you have not once addressed the 6 points i provided.

bfniii

what kind of evidence are you looking for? if another book mentioned it, it would be criticized for "copying" and is unreliable. if an extrabiblical source mentioned it, it's because christians later appended it and is unreliable.

maybe the other gospel authors didn't themselves witness it and therefore did not include it in their book. the bible says the saints appeared to "many". maybe those particular people weren't literate and therefore perpetuated the story orally. those who were christians saw the event recorded in matthew so there wasn't a need to re-record it.

i agree to a certain extent. there are some cases where the bible is irrefutably true. however, there are some cases where it's reliability is a matter of degree, not fact. your assessment of "fall short" is a subjective judgment. i would not use the term "questionable". my personal opinion is that until something unquestionably proves the bible wrong, there is no reason to doubt it. i do understand that different people need varying degrees or quantities of evidences. however, those idiosyncrasies do not show the bible to be untrue or unreliable.

curious. the more rigorous standard employed by non-christians has yet to disprove the bible's claims.

i was not referring to the method by which historical documents are examined. i was referring to the fact that there seem to be many double standards at work here. i have outlined them several times and can do so again if need be.

good idea. i think i will. however, i have studied it thoroughly. i'm not the only person who knows it's a farce, including biologists. a simple web search will attest to that.

this seems to be a concession or either i have misunderstood the topic here. "is lack of evidence a form of evidence" not "is lack of evidence a form of no good reason to believe".

again, while there is a relationship, they are not identical thus indicating separate accounts of the same events. they do share some material. so what? the majority of the material they share is during the period when the purported authors shared the experiences of Jesus' ministry. it would stand to reason that they would have nearly identical accounts. if they didn't, they would be criticized by people like yourself. where they differ is mostly in the recording of times they didn't share experiences, such as the history of john the baptist or the genealogy.

i sure would love to know who these majority are. the majority i read disagree with what you're saying. furthermore, the authors i read are biblical experts from the first century on.

i didn't find in this response where you accuse matthew of not being an eyewitness.

this response doesn't address the accusation i put forth. when the gospels share information, they aren't authentic. when they don't share information, they are either contradictory or unreliable. that is a double standard. sharing information is not a liability, no matter how many "mainstream" scholars say so.

i meant papias, i apologize for that typo. :Cheeky: you are correct, and so is papias. the extant book is in greek which was interpreted from the original aramaic or syro-chaldaic as best as the author could.

one reason was to protect the author during perilous times. the gospels were read weekly in synagogue at which time the author would be credited. the names were actually written down on the documents later.

Vorkosigan

spin.....spin.....spin....calling....spin.....

Amaleq13

Then, perhaps, "clarification" would be more appropriate. Your initial position certainly appeared to be that unsubstantiated biblical claims could somehow be considered more reliable because other claims were substantiated. If I understand you correctly now, you do not hold this position.

However, when you continue to make statements like this:
I have to question if you really understand the point. Unless each and every claim has been substantiated, the claim that the Bible is "trustworthy" is clearly an example of trying to make exactly the sort of generalization you claim to deny making.

Evidence supporting specific claims made by an individual increases the credibility of the claims. That is the only rational way one can attribute credibility to a particular claimant. Yet even established credibility says nothing about the possibility of misperception, hallucination, or other factors not involving deliberate lying but resulting in an untrue claim.

Too bad you don't have the claims of a group. You have the isolated and unsubstantiated claim of an individual that some unknown group had some sort of experience. In addition, the individual does not appear to be relating something he personally witnessed but is repeating something he has been told. I question whether you would indulge such a claim in any other context that one supporting your faith.

We've already covered this. It is logically problematic to "prove a negative". The more rational position is to expect the affirmative claim to be supported. An extraordinary claim, by definition, is unlikely and it is only reasonable to doubt it absent significant supportive evidence.

I consider this position irrational but I suspect you only hold this view with regard to your already held beliefs. Otherwise you would incapable of denying virtually any claim. For example, this irrational position forces you to accept my claim of having an invisible dragon in my garage (thank you, Carl Sagan, for the example).

I suggest you take that up with "them" rather than try to make me defend a strawman position.

My personal experience suggests that the supernatural claims in the Bible are highly unlikely to be true.

You keep appearing to make the generalization you insist you are not making. Specific claims in the Bible have been supported by evidence. Other claims have no such support. It is entirely reasonable to accept the supported claims and entirely reasonable to doubt those which lack support especially if they are extraordinary in nature.

It is, in and of itself, sufficient reason to doubt that such events ever actually happened.

I thought it was obvious I was still referring to the extraordinary claims. That certain cities named in the Bible can be shown to exist is entirely uninteresting to me.

Apparently, I missed the post where you presented evidence supporting a specific extraordinary claim.

I'm tired of your unsubstantiated generalizations. Either state the evidence supporting the extraordinary claims in the Bible or quite making this meaningly assertion. I don't know of anyone who accepts those claims on anything other than faith. Keep in mind that includes the many folks who allow their faith to guide their interpretation of the evidence.

If you persist in approaching it in such a logically problematic (ie proving a negative), I suspect your faith is safe.

Please search the web for a list of logical fallacies. You will find why "an appeal to numbers" is logically flawed described in any of them.

By your reasoning, then, you must believe that I did. This, alone, should show you that your reasoning is flawed.

I disagree and suspect that it is your faith that makes these explanations seem just as reasonable.

Regarding the nativities in Matthew and Luke, you asked:
See Richard Carrier's excellent article for a specific example of incompatibility. That Luke clearly portrays Nazareth as the family's original hometown from which they leave to go to Bethlehem while Matthew just as clearly portrays it as a new home to which they relocate after the escape to Egypt is also a significant incompatibility. That apologists can offer strained attempts to harmonize these accounts does not eliminate the apparent incompatibility.

I didn't say he should have taken it out. I said he fails to correct it and he could have done so by having someone assert that Jesus was, in fact, born in Bethlehem.

I wouldn't characterize not accepting the Christian interpretation as avoidance. You might be interested in this thread.

It certainly does matter if you intend to establish the reliability of the Bible as a whole. Showing support for the ordinary claims of the Bibel is entirely uninteresting to me.

Only if they relate to extraordinary claims. Since you apparently recognize that the extraordinary biblical claims cannot be given any benefit of the doubt simply because some ordinary biblical claims have support, you'll need to provide specific support for them to give them their own reliability.

"Later"? Sorry, I don't find it reasonable to suggest that their sentiments changed so drastically in such a short amount of time and for no apparent good reason. It is bad fiction but, IMO, completely unbelievable as history.

The author does not explain how they were able to "persuade" the multitude to change their mind. Even if the unhistorical context wasn't suspicious enough, this is just not credible.

Or the author was ignorant of or intentionally disregarded those rules when he wrote the story. Sorry but there is simply too much wrong with this entire scene for it to be believed by anyone lacking faith.

I'm getting tired of repeating myself. We have two independent individuals creating historical records who describe Pilate as ruthless in his treatment of the Jews and a contrary depiction by a single individual creating a text that is primarily theological in nature. We also have evidence from a historian suggesting that no such practice was ever conducted by even the most lenient of rulers. Again, I suspect you would not hesitate to accept this sort of evidence if it supported your beliefs.

Thanks for the laugh. Too bad that's all you really have.

I'm not sure how "reliable" applies to the absence of any reference to the Slaughter of the Innocents but you seem to misusing the concept of "double standard". There are good reasons to expect Josephus to mention such a horrible crime by Herod since he seems to enjoy listing them. It is an argument from silence but there seems to be a reasonable expectation of something other than silence. If Josephus knew about it, we can be reasonably sure he would have reported it. If it took place, we can be reasonable sure that Josephus would have heard about it. The evidence that the TF is the product of Christian interpolation is painfully obvious. The only real argument is whether it can be established is some part of it is original.

This is not an example of a double standard but an example of considering individual claims on their own merits.

Where are the preserved arguments against Christianity written by Celsus?

I have no idea if any other sect would have obtained in the same results if they had been supported by Constantine and, subsequently, by the entire Roman Empire.

Yes, it is called The History of Christianity. Several historians have written about it. You might be interested in it.

I think you are being naive. Perhaps you have some specific ideas about how they would go about falsifying the claims? How would one prove that an individual had not had the Risen Christ appear to him?

Then what is your point? You admit that support for one claim cannot be generalized and that each claim must be supported on its own merits. Unless you have support to offer for the extraordinary claims, it continues to be entirely reasonable to doubt they ever happened.

Regarding the Night of the Walking Dead Saints story:
Independent and reliable would be great.

I am not interested in defending strawman arguments or those put forth by others. If you believe I have employed a double standard, please be specific.

It is not a concession, it is part of my position with regard to the OP. I've described my views on arguments from silence and extraordinary claims several times.

This seems to me a rather superficial consideration of the evidence that would benefit from a review of the current scholarship on the subject. When I refer to "the majority of scholars", I am referring to current scholarship. I do not doubt that the majority of scholars you've read disagree but don't confuse them with the much larger group available.

The author of the text borrowed the majority of his story from another author. The author does not identify himself as "Matthew". The text is not written from a first-person viewpoint. The earliest claim that "Matthew" wrote anything does not appear to describe the extant text. The earliest connection between the extant Gospel and the name "Matthew" is in the late 2nd century.

I see no reason to assume this book was written by an eyewitness.

I am not interested in defending strawman arguments or those put forth by others.

Prove it.

They were "protecting" names by announcing them in public on a weekly basis?!? LOL! :rolling: