Toto

Which Bible are you reading? Where does it call Jesus Christ a "god?"

And it is quite clear that it was the Romans who crucified Jesus on a Roman instrument of torture.

Why exactly do you want to defend the Bible if you reject the religion that produced it? (This is not a rhetorical question. I am curious as to your point of view.)

Evad

My experience with the skeptical, considering myself to be skeptical as well as having spent most of my life as an "atheist" I feel comfortable in saying that the skeptical aren't so much skeptical of the divine inspiration of the Bible as much as they are politically and or socially motivated unbelievers.

That in and of itself doesn't imply an informed position. You still are most likely skeptical of the religious rather than the ancient collection of human stories. The collection is simply a misunderstood, and in fact, alleged representation.

Evad

John 1:1 (KJV) - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

1808: "and the word was a god." The New Testament, in an Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome's New Translation: With a Corrected Text, London.

1864: "and a god was the Word." The Emphatic Diaglott, by Benjamin Wilson, New York and London.

1935: "and the Word was divine." The Bible-An American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed, Chicago.

1935: "the Logos was divine." A New Translation of the Bible, by James Moffatt, New York.

1975: "and a god (or, of a divine kind) was the Word." Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Siegfried Schulz, Gottingen, Germany.

1978: "and godlike sort was the Logos." Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Johannes Schneider, Berlin.

1979: "and a god was the Logos." Das Evangelium nach Johannes, by Jurgen Becker, Wurzburg, Germany.

See The Pathway Machine: Is Jesus God?

Is it? Then why didn't the cross, a Roman phallic symbol, not appear in Christian tombs, or writings, until after the fourth century C.E.?

Why would the Jews allow Jesus to die on such a filthy idol but not allow him to remain on it through the passover?

What are the Greek words used for the implement of destruction, and what forms were the Roman instruments used? x, t, and l shaped?

If you look just briefly at any organized or popularized religion you see a definite pattern. The transmogrification of the original teachings.

Atheos

What "erroneous position" are you talking about? The "erroneous position" that the bible may actually be the work of ordinary human beings with no help from any deity? You do understand that this is circular reasoning, I trust.

You made the following claim (emphasis mine):
Why is it a "bold unsubstantiated assumption" that the bible is a collection of writings by a group of ancient people with the intention of perpetuating a myth? From a rational point of view this is the very first and most obvious assumption one should make. The writings were collected many centuries ago by ancient people and they contain elements of what appear to by myth. Talking snakes, magical fruit trees and angels wielding flaming swords to keep people out of a magic garden just for starters.

Is it a "bold unsubstantiated assumption" that Hesoid's "Works and Days" is a single writing by an ancient person with intention of perpetuating myths (in this case the myths of Promethus bringing fire to humanity and Pandora bringing pain)?

Until there is actual evidence that Promethus did, indeed, suffer for 1000 years as ravens ate his liver daily and Zeus caused it to regrow each night I'm going to remain skeptical and boldly assume "Works and Days" to be largely the stuff of myth.

And until there is actual evidence that Jesus did, indeed, walk on water, cure blindness with spit, turn water into wine and float off into the sky after a death / burial / resurrection I'm going to remain skeptical and boldly assume that collection of ancient literature to be the stuff of myth as well.

Why should I suspend my skepticism just to give the bible a pass? I'm curious.

Horatio Parker

Many here are concerned about the role of religion in politics and society, yes. But there is also a resistance, even antipathy, to spirituality and philosophy generally, let alone religion.

I'm interested in scripture from a spiritual and philosophical POV as opposed to a religious one, and it has generally been my experience here that anything not understood as science is not worth approaching in any systematic manner.

If it is not a representation, what is it? I don't see how it can be anything else, except various inks on various materials.

KeepTalking

I won't presume to speak for others, but the above portion of your post in boldface does not describe this particular skeptic.

I first became skeptical of the Bible at a point in my life when I had absolutely no interest in politics. As far as social motivation goes, every social pressure on me at that point was to believe the Bible. I was raised in a Baptist family, my father was/is a Deacon in the Baptist Church, and I was a prominent member of our Church youth group. I exerted social pressure on others to believe in God, through witnessing.

Your assessment could not miss the mark more completely in my case.

Mageth

^^^ Same goes for me.

Atheos

I can't help wondering what possible social or political motivation there is for atheism. If I were trying to gain political power the single easiest way to do so would be to pander to a major religious affiliation. Being exposed as an infidel is practically a drink from the poison chalice for most politicians.

Socially it's easier to hook up with people if you share a common interest and religion is certainly one such mechanism. Churches are themselves largely social clubs anyway.

The only advantage I get from my skepticism is personal. I can live with myself because I know I'm being honest with the primary person that matters -- me. I'm not pretending to believe in some invisible friend just to fit in with everyone else around me. Not saying that's why anyone else does it, but I have to confess that it was the single biggest reason I was a believer for so many years.

stephan huller

Julius Africanus interestingly is the first Patristic source I see to tackle why the genealogies don't match. His explanation is very complex (and forced in my opinion). Nevertheless he does bring up an interesting point while reporting what ancient detractors of the two genealogies pointed out. The purpose of the two genealogies apparently was to show that Jesus was both a 'son of David' and of priestly descent. Yet the difficult these critics pointed out was that - in the early period certainly - the Levites zealously guarded their marriages. We still see this from documents at Qumran.

It would be difficult to imagine an individual who was both 'of Levi' and 'of Judah' as the ancestors of Jesus are purported to have been.

Just an observation.

spin

As I indicated to Little Dot the only way one can claim the rightness of both genealogies of Jesus is to make a mockery of them, by rendering them meaningless.

Before I look at the process, let's look at the footnotes Evad gives. Each of them show Evad's willingness to do eisegesis, to read things into the text rather than get the information they contain.

There is nothing evident about this. Comments about mothes in law and legally recognized are simply conjecture not derived from biblical sources. Both Mt and Lk follow the Ezra, Nehemiah and Haggai showing no knowledge of or interest in 1 Chr 3:17.

"Could have been" means "I want to believe". It is not evidence of any kind, except what one wants to believe.

The conclusion is assumed, not demonstrated.

"Possibly" means "I want to believe".

The footnotes display the approach of Evad's analysis, ie not interested in what the evidence actually indicates, but in getting to the conclusions desired.

Evad has not read the discussion in this thread about adoption.

Quickly resolved? By spending an extremely long post constructing a web of conjecture.

We know that blood lineage does not permit two separate lines to end up at the same descendant. It is impossible. We then must look for alternatives to explain away the impossible.

It is notable that the Lucan genealogy says nothing about Mary in the lineage. All we have is that "Jesus... was the son (supposedly) of Joseph, of Heli...." The point here is plain: the lineage to the ancestors goes through Joseph. Mary is irrelevant.

Actually both nullify the significance of the bloodline when they cut Jesus from it through grammatical gymnastics. Both lines are to Joseph and suddenly he is not the real father.

The theological claims here do not change the genealogies or hook Mary into one. Mary's cousin is Elizabeth, who was a descendant of Aaron (Lk 1:5), making Mary not of Judah but of Levi.

Somebody else's conjecture quoted here is merely secondhand conjecture.

One should gasp here, but...

"[P]erhaps" indicates more pure conjecture.

There is nothing of substance here to deal with the problems other than to render both genealogies worthless because Evad wants to deal with "spiritual seed" not the genealogies and their bloodlines.

That Mary is Davidic is false given that she is Aaronid.

Red herring.

One doesn't know the genealogy of the genealogies. The above is conjecture.

No doubt we don't know what was consulted.

Note the "seems". Desire, not content here.

"[W]ould have been" here is a synonym for "were, it is is my belief".

So far no substance.

This is a conjectured resolution of a conflict of indications in the Hebrew bible. Besides the conflict there is no evidence here.

None of the rest is of any direct use regarding an attempt to explain what is happening in the two divergent genealogies in Mt & Lk. The result of the above is a display of the willingness of Evad to explain the divergence rather than read them for what they say.

As I said, Little Dot, before one can dismiss blood lineage with half-baked claims of adoption, one needs to show some examples where adoption is clearly the case before one can posit adoption as a means of smoothing difficulties in what appears to be a blood lineage.