Steven Avery

Since "critical methodology" methodically excludes a conservative position that actually believes the text, this is of no import whatsoever. Same with the Pastorals.

And when simple thinking folks actually LOOK at the evidences they find the weakness of most all the argumentation (in some cases, Acts simply refutes the contentions, as in the church society arguments, so then they have to circularly disclaim Acts as late too) used against the simplest Occam authorship of 2 Peter and the Pastorals.

.. the letters were by who the folks who said they were writing, and the epistles were accepted because the early church folks (much closer to the issues than we are) received the first-person text and writing as historical and true.

Personally, I have discussed both issues in depth on these Net skeptic forums and been appalled at the weakness of most of the argumentation used by the critics.

Michael, honestly, that is one of the stupidest comments you have come up with. And with it you only express your own antipathy to the scripture text. True conservative scholarship is rich and deep in exegesis and study. (Example, do you ever spend a good time simply reading John Gill's studies on verses, or David Baron and Adoph Safir, simply to understand the verses and books ?) However, it does not consider the text as written by liars, your defacto personal definition of 'unsterile'.

To a clear-thinking person, it is the liberal scholarship that is 'sterile' to the max. What are these skeptics even wasting all this time on the text if they TRULY believe it was just a bunch of forgers and liars. Now talk about sterile dung, if they really believed the text is the way they act, the way they put up a front, they would be studying Shakespeare, or going bowling, or robbing banks or whatever would float their boat.

The subtle answer ... the critics and skeptics and mythicists, those whose conscience is not seared, do have a sense, a warning, that they are wrong, that such sophistry as the anti-Petrine authorship arguments are very weak.

Yet they need a public exposition to act as a conscience balm, and this type of back-slapping pseudo-scholarship attacking the scripture text acts as the balm, the mask, to hide the rebellion. The acceptance of such strained and often churlish nonsense argumentation, (put under the umbrella of 'modern critical scholarship'), yet really just trying to find some angle to fight the simple and clear and beautiful sense of the scripture text.

Halleluyah ! Thank you Lord Jesus for your beautiful word. And thank you for exposing the pretensions and wiles of those seeking some wedge to attack your word, slinking under some 'critical' cover.

May the simplicity of the Gospel, and the beauty and majesty of the word of God, be seen by all those hungry, earnest, sincere.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

FatherMithras

Is it any surprise that Richbee only insults people instead of actually refuting their arguments? "Such anmd such is a liberal!" or "lol" "rubbish!"

Well, we can at least be secure that the scholars overwhelmingly agree with us. You know once someone starts pretending that the resurrection is proved that they're not very educated.

TomboyMom

Your post doesn't match your title. Anyway, to respond to the post itself, if I remember what I learned from the basic questions thread, which is now a sticky above, this is not an accurate summary of what the general consensus of modern scholarship accepts. If I recall correctly, unless the post-ers here are lying to me, the c. of modern s. accepts that:
There was probably a man named Jesus who lived in Palestine from around 4 B.C.E. to around 30 C.E., and who preached and had followers, and was executed. Nothing was written about him for several decades, when the first surviving written material about him was produced by Paul. Paul's writings do not mention anything about his life, only final days and death. Starting around 70 C.E., we start to get some writings about his life. No one who wrote anything about him was alive during his lifetime to witness anything about his life and death, including the apostles. We do not know how any of the apostles died. There are NO eye-witness testimonies to anything about Jesus' life or death.
You may disagree with these statements, but not about the fact that they represent the consensus of modern scholarship.

Julian

I'm so proud!

You are exactly right, of course.

Julian

hallq

prax-

You establish a ridiculous false dichotomy between thinking the text is inerrant and thinking it was written by liars and forgers. No historian in any other field begins with the assumption that a text is inerrant, but that doesn't mean they're assuming ancient texts are all written by liars. They just realize that people make mistakes, are blinded by prejudice, and occasionally do lie - not all the time, but occasionally. For this reason, when evidence contradicts a source, they admit the source may be wrong rather than bending over backwards to rationalize away the problem. In such a situation, the claim may not be a lie - it may be a totally honest mistake, or one caused by ideaological blinders rather than conscious dishonesty.

Dargo

There's also the possibility the authors truly believed they were being inspired by a deity to write the text, and therefore did not believe that they were lying. Mental illness is the most likely explanation, but might not apply in all cases. Some fictional authors say that story ideas will pop in their heads which gradually get expanded. It's likely some ancient authors may have mistaken their own imagination for divine inspiration and incorrectly credited a god rather than themselves for their stories. Maybe some of the Bible authors thought writers block was Satan trying to supress god's will, and they would pray until they got over it.

Dargo

There's also the possibility the authors truly believed they were being inspired by a deity to write the text, and therefore did not believe that they were lying. Mental illness is the most likely explanation, but might not apply in all cases. Some fictional authors say that story ideas will pop in their heads which gradually get expanded. It's likely some ancient authors may have mistaken their own imagination for divine inspiration and incorrectly credited a god rather than themselves for their stories. Maybe some of the Bible authors thought writers block was Satan trying to supress god's will, and they would pray until they got over it.

jackrabbit

They may not assume it is inerrant, but when they hit the first miracle or supernatural event, it wouldn't be a historical text any more and the historian would turn it over to those who study mythology.

RED DAVE

From Praxeus:
Now there's a strong set of arguments for you. Just what we need as a convincer in the midst of a scholarly debate.

RED DAVE

Richbee

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