Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 05-13-2012, 07:50 PM

Bauckham doesn't get a lot of respect here either.

Showing a common style may indicate a common author or editor, but getting from there to showing that the author was an eyewitness to history is a leap over the Biblical equivalent of the Grand Canyon.

There's a common style to the novels written by Arthur Conan Doyle, but he was not an eyewitness to Sherlock Holmes.

Diogenes the Cynic · 05-13-2012, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James The Least

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

We have modern equivalents that are even more striking hijacks of pre-existing religions. Elijah Mohammad was a bold-faced liar in 1930 by claiming Nation of Islam was... Islamic. Malcolm X had to travel to Mecca in 1964 before he learned Elijah Mohammad was a fraud. The church had operated for 34 years, in complete contradiction to Islam, in the Midwest USA where there actually were Islamic Mosques in operation at the same time.

So it wasn't like Islam was in some distant land far away with another language. A minority religion, but it existed alongside this blatant fraud. The fact a guy could get away with this in the 20th century with newspapers, telephones, radios, libraries, and such high literacy is incredible. Getting away with it in the second century where nobody can read - pffft. Piece of cake. So Mark hijacks the Hebrew Scriptures to his own ends. We're Jews in name only, so that we may abscond with their credentials while acting contrary to Judaic Law.

Exactly!

Get a load of the Nation of Islam's founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad aka Wallace Dodd Ford:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Fard_Muhammad

He fits the Apostle Paul/Joseph Smith character type, a con-man opportunist who sees a need he can exploit for power and money. "Muhammad" disappeared when it looked like he might go back to jail. In an earlier time, they would have said he was "martyred by the Jews and/or Romans."

"One of Fard's first followers had been Elijah Poole, who later changed his name to Elijah Muhammad. Elijah began preaching that Wallace Fard Muhammad was the Mahdi and that it was God directly intervening in the world through Fard. He taught his followers that, Allah appeared in the person of Master Fard Muhammad. He taught as his followers believe today, that The True and Living God operated in Fard's person. Shortly before he departed Detroit for the last time, Fard had conferred leadership of the Nation of Islam on Elijah Muhammad."

The lesson? Religions often begin under dubious circumstances by men of less than sterling character, to put it kindly. Tell people what they want to hear (they are the chosen elect of God), scare them (the end of the world is coming soon), and inspire cultic dedication (all other religions are false and created by evil forces). If you can do that, you can live comfortably the rest of your life without having to work, and probably have lots of women on the side as Elijah Muhammad serves to prove.

Oh, but this was impossible in the first century with Christianity. :rolling:

I would call Elijah Muhammed the "Paul" here, and Fard the "Jesus." Fard claimed to be God, after all, Paul did not.

And Fard existed. We have his mugshots.

aa5874 · 05-13-2012, 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic

I would call Elijah Muhammed the "Paul" here, and Fard the "Jesus." Fard claimed to be God, after all, Paul did not.

And Fard existed. We have his mugshots.

That is NOT how the biography of characters are derived.

FARD is FARD.

Elijah Muhammed is Elijah Muhammed.

We have NO Mugshots of Paul and Jesus just Fiction stories in the Pauline letters, Acts of the Apostles and the Gospels in the Canon.

What camera can take pictures of the Son of a Ghost or a Resurrection???

Adam · 05-13-2012, 09:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adam

Common literary style tends to denote an author or scribe. A person. Any one person mentioned or indicated at both the start and end of that document is the prime candidate (and eyewitness) unless the writing can be proven to be after his death. That's basically my Alpha and Omega Principle, similar to Richard Bauckham's inclusio.

Yes, some eyewitness evidences in Bauckham can be offset by viewing the vividness and details as what we expect from good fiction.
However, where source-criticism of the gospels has identified internal strands, you would do better to argue a team of forgers, each instructed to focus on one particular character. Yet no one here seems to argue for Atwill or the Piso Family anymore. As improbable as it is, to not be in denial it's your only rational alternative.

James The Least · 05-14-2012, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

Quote:

Originally Posted by James The Least

Get a load of the Nation of Islam's founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad aka Wallace Dodd Ford:

Oh yes, absolutely. I thought I remembered accusations Poole had murdered Fard, but one of the incredible things is that the founder of this black religion was not black himself.

That's another thing. We're constantly told that Christianity must be true because nobody would make up something so absurd (an apologetic that goes back to Tertullian). And yet look at the Nation of Islam. An American black nationalist movement started by a Polynesian man from New Zealand!

sotto voce · 05-14-2012, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James The Least

Quote:

Originally Posted by rlogan

Quote:

Originally Posted by James The Least

Get a load of the Nation of Islam's founder, Wallace Fard Muhammad aka Wallace Dodd Ford:

Oh yes, absolutely. I thought I remembered accusations Poole had murdered Fard, but one of the incredible things is that the founder of this black religion was not black himself.

That's another thing. We're constantly told that Christianity must be true because nobody would make up something so absurd (an apologetic that goes back to Tertullian). And yet look at the Nation of Islam. An American black nationalist movement started by a Polynesian man from New Zealand!

Tut, tut. Oh, tut. Tut, tut, tut. The Nation of Islam is founded upon the absolute dead certainty that Tertullian, craven double-talker though he was, was correct. Buffoon, degenerate popes, brawling Orthodox priests, the cockamamie Qur'an, Joseph Smith, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, all of these and many more testify that Jesus has turned much of mankind apparently insane. It would have been far more telling, and more truthful, to cite in evidence the notion of trinitarianism— surely the most gargantuan idiocy in the whole universe— rather than a small sect like the Nation of Islam.

But it is indeed the USA that best illustrates the crisis; and crisis it is, even if it's chronic. The Great Problem that America has is in its provenance; Puritan, yet inordinately, unprecedentedly, pecunious. So Americans cannot serve God and Mammon and keep their sanity. That is why it is the hothouse of cults of every sort. Obama and Carter do not truly represent the ideological core of America. Farrakhan, and yes, Romney represent the true conclusion of the logic of the USA. And Romney may actually become President. It will be the most fitting occasion if he is sworn in.

Yet, the American 'microcosm' is really expressive of the whole human condition, in every age, in every place, for the last 2000 years, wherever that confounded gospel has reached. So the rest of the world should not smirk too much.

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05-13-2012, 07:50 PM	#231
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	Bauckham doesn't get a lot of respect here either. Showing a common style may indicate a common author or editor, but getting from there to showing that the author was an eyewitness to history is a leap over the Biblical equivalent of the Grand Canyon. There's a common style to the novels written by Arthur Conan Doyle, but he was not an eyewitness to Sherlock Holmes.

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