Weltall

Have you actually read the Dead Sea Scrolls or did you just hear that from someone? As someone who's read parts of the scrolls I can tell you that that is definitely not the case.

Mageth

Originally posted by martinc
There are no contradictions in the flood fact which is in my view a FACT confirmed by Inca writings and Aztec etc of a universal flood which literally covered every high mountain just like the Bible says. Where I live a brother in law found a sea shell on the top of a mountain.

OK. There is a natural explanation for why we sometimes find seashells and other marine fossils on top of mountains. How would you explain all the many, many mountains (and valleys, and plains, and deserts) on which no marine fossils are found?

Llyricist

It is not a valid point, this is not how one does history. One takes sources of ALL biases they can get their hands on, and on those points where the varying sources agree, one can have a high level of confidence that those things happened. However, on those points only supported by ONE bias, one can have no confidence at all.... i.e. "it may or may not have happened". In fact, in matters of religion, they CAN'T be trusted.

By YOUR reasoning, we have to trust ALL the religious myths... Zeus really DID live atop Mount Olympus... Joeseph Smith really did get visited by angels and did the Umum and thumum thing with the golden tablets...

In JC's case, ALL we have are sources of the one bias. So all we have is ... "He may or may not have done this or that." (actually it even comes down to "he may or may not have existed")

And in GWB's case, we have sources from all sides agreeing he took us to war with Iraq..... but when it comes to whether he lied or not to get us there, whether we were justified or not... etc... we have writings all over the map. And quite a bit of fabrication... on all sides.

Babylon Sister

The Inca did not have a "writing system" as it is commonly defined. Their primary non-verbal means of communication was by knotted strings known as khipu. Most archeologists believe these were used primarily for accounting purposes. (However, in the last year there has been some speculation that the khipu may be an early form of non-numerical writing, but that has not been determined conclusively.)

Now. I said all that to say this: To date, there are NO known non-numerical Inca writings so there can be no Inca writings that discuss the flood.

Protagoras

If I so chose I could be in a situation where I was mocked. Whatever about choosing...

If I so chose I could be naked... RIGHT NOW!!! (Who's to say I'm not?)

Gambling for clothes shouldn't be hard to do... (It's gambling to lose clothes that I'd want)

Alright! I'm up to three

graymouser

Martin:

You are incorrectly assuming, as many millions before you have done, that the writings identified as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, plus the Acts of the Apostles, are valid and accurate descriptions of events that took place. This is simply untrue, and Christianity as a whole falls on that fact.

The way the people of the ancient world thought and wrote was different from what we expect. A great deal of historiographical confusion has arisen from this difference. You see, ancient writers were not often too picky about the facts. If you wanted to make a person seem greater in stature, you attributed wise sayings and incredible events to that person. Take the story of Jesus outsmarting the rabbis in the temple courts (Lk. 2:41-52). This is clearly a story added to make Jesus seem more impressive to the audience, who expected such tales. (Consider the tale of Alexander the Great's taming of Bucephalus, which is fairly similar in its elevation of the young leader.)

One of the things Christians don't understand is that, in the ancient world, proclaiming Jesus was the Son of God was nothing new. Everybody who was anybody was the Son of God - a concept inherited by osmosis into Hellenistic culture from Persian and Egyptian sources. People got titles like "theou huios" and "soter" (remember the famous "ICHTHUS" symbol means "Iesous Christos, Theou Huios, Soter") for political reasons. Again, take Alexander the Great - in Egypt, he visited an oracle who proclaimed him the son of Zeus. And he believed it. Given that the Christian line was about how great Jesus was, it's logical that they would've made him out to be Theou Huios and Soter. This was fiction, but again, it at least meant that Christianity at least had the credibility that paganism did, since it had its Son of God and Savior too. The same thing goes for the claim of Virgin Birth and the absurd lineages.

Then there are the miracles. Well, some significant historians - Ramsey MacMullan comes to mind - have talked about the tendency of Christian proselytization in the early years as being a system of holy men who would preach, perform some "miracles," and initiate the new converts. And if these people were performing miracles (now, here I want you to think of modern-day sham faith healers to understand why they're not true), it only followed that this Jesus performed even greater miracles. Stories of the marvels that Jesus did grew, and the Gospel writers probably used a healthy mix of the oral mythology and making up their own as they wrote.

Then there's the moral teaching. Jesus, in the Gospels, has a lot of different faces. Most Christians seem to like him the most when he goes around expounding values that pagan philosophers had long before set out. He's a sort of Socratic figure at times. The fundamentalists, though, absolutely love the parts when he's all-out fire and brimstone. This may reflect the Christianity that was taken from the apocalyptic Judaism of its era (see the Essenes who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls for a good example). These two streams seem to have merged into the synthesis of Christianity.

Next, we hit a curious number. Jesus was said to have 12 apostles, none of whom was particularly excellent in moral character. 12 is a very significant number in ancient numerology, as we see things like two periods of twelve hours in a day, twelve months, twelve signs of the zodiac, etc. This is just one of a multitude of examples that the Gospel writers were trying to be very broad in who they were significant to.

The ultimate portion of it, though, is the Resurrection. Dying and resurrecting gods go back to at least the Egyptian god Osiris. The Persians (and then much of the Roman Empire) had Mithras, the Greeks Dionysus, Bacchus, and Orpheus. The mystery cults of such beings, gods in human form slain as atonement, were the dominant religious force in the world in which we find Paul of Tarsus (the first person we can identify as a Christian). They had elaborate rituals of immersion of the believer and consumption of bread and wine which had become the mystical flesh and blood of the god. (To the ancient Greeks, Dionysus was not a god of wine as modern interpretations of mythology make him out to be; he was the wine.) There were even Virgin Births and elaborate celebrations of the resurrection right at the start of springtime. The Anglicized name for a popular version of this festival is Easter. Mithras' birthdate was calculated as the Winter Solstice; it is not a coincidence that Christmas is celebrated on the date when the Solstice fell about 2000 years ago.

So, when we strip away the incredible stories told to glorify the subject, the proclamations of Son of God-ness and being a savior, the miracles added for emphasis, pagan philosophy, Jewish apocalypticism, numerology, and mystery cults...what exactly do we know about this Jesus? Just about nothing. The story, while remarkable to us today, was nothing new in its time; if anything, Christianity was profoundly uncreative in its mythology. It at least had the sense to borrow from a diverse bunch of contemporary sources.

So, does my argument still fail the logic test? I certainly don't think so.

-Wayne

Doctor X

Wow. . . .

It seems that most of my work has been done by other posters.

martin:

I would suggest reviewing the "quote" function because it makes it easier to see who wrote what when trying to reply--especially on long posts.

I will try to make this succinct:

You mean "infidel?"

See the post of greymouser, and particularly Jack_the_Bodiless

See reply of Jack_the_Bodiless. Mt links him to Herod and Lk links him to Quirinius.

They seem to be explained otherwise above. I believe there is an article linked here that goes over the claimed prophecies. Methinks there is a book as well; I would have to check.

Ah . . . here we go . . . Prophecy

I have not read Callahan's work. His book on the Bible is quite good, but I wish he gave more scholarly references. I do not know if that applies to this book. Most of my rebuttals depend on individual claimed prophecies and are scatter'd about the journals and texts I have.

You do not have to assume a "conspiracy." You do need quite a bit of faith to believe a person born once could be born twice a decade appart.

Other posters demonstrate the point of the "Republican/Democrat" analogy. Nevertheless:

They were not. As indicated above, Lk denies being a follower if you mean someone who actually followed the historical figure.

It is not a question of "refusing to believe they can be objective," the fact they misrepresent history--double birth--and rewrite sources they do not like, proves they lack objectivity.

Then we would not have so many variants.

You have to evaluate what they are trying to present as history. A bias that colors their presentation does not help.

That sincere belief will not tell you when Junior was born, whether Judas hung himself or exploded, et cetera. However, the writers do attack people and write some very horrible things. I would not accord such great respect to them.

We live in the real world.

The gospels are not "corroborating evidence" as others have shown.

See the Flood Myths, Exodus-Conquest. Other rebut you material on Jericho and the flood myths. I would sincerely recommend you check out the references I gave you.

Not that have survived peer-review and have been published. Also, those who recognize that the OT and NT do not preserve history as in "it happened like this" do not consider themselves "Anti" Bible.

For the reccord:

I would not say that. I would have them cite the evidence. As others show in their reply, the "experts" you cite are old and incorrect. Since you cite Garstang in this respect, here is a quote from Laughlin's work--which I really recommend:

I have a rather long summary of the problems with the Conquest and Exodus. I can link it in again if anyone needs it.

No. Timothy is a late text and is apologetic, creating the "inspiration" apology. The OT and earlier NT texts--Synoptics/Jn--do not have this tradition.

Of what? As another poster put it, you have not demonstrated you know what the Qumran scrolls actually are.

I can and have linked in a long summary on it. As for the herem or "ban"--the requirement to slaughter a people as a sacrifice to the god, the OT texts follow the basic pattern.

Others discuss the problem with the "Inca writings" and comparative myth.

See birth narrative above.

I do not consider him a lord or a savior either. Use of the term presupposes things which should not in a debate.

I probably should not add that Mk and Jn contradict that?

We can check the evidence and the references.

With regards to your confession of faith, I try to avoid discussion of that on this forum.

--J.D.

spin

One of the things about argument from authority, often here hidden behind discussions based on what various books say, is that protagonist and antagonist can usually muster some book or other to argue from and eventually stick tongue out saying, "my authority is better than yours".

Modern books mean nothing unless they supply references from ancient sources or from archaeology that beastly reader can digest and use, for it is only the evidence from ancient sources and/or archaeology that have any significance in arguments.

People's opinions are not worth a fig in "objective" discussion, ie discussion in which people from differing positions are forced to communicate meaningfully.

So talking about a good book is well and fine, but in arguments you have to get the meat from the book rather than the pleasing. So you like what the book says, but the person you are talking with may not.

Reactions differ about opinions, but evidence causes different reactions, for if someone abides by the rule of evidence, then sufficient evidence communicates. This is true whether it is theist or non-theist presenting the evidence.

Now, if a book says something that you find meaningful but doesn't footnote the idea (ie give suitable references, in our case to ancient writings or archaeology), how can you use the information in an argument?


spin

aikido7

You are making a popular error in reading biblical texts--simply, your reasoning is going the wrong way. It is unreasonable.

It is not the case that events in the Old Testament predicted events in Jesus' life, but that later writers studied the ancient texts and sometimes (especially Matthew) changed real historical truth to make it conform to textual "prophecy."

Matthew's community of believers already thought that Jesus was the messiah, so Matthew "seaches the scriptures" in the writings of the prophets to find clues that Jesus was in fact the messiah. Whenever Matthew discovers something--anything-- in the OT that might relate to Jesus, he correlates it with something in Jesus' life, or with something he believes about Jesus' life.

Whenever a prophet mentions anything about the messiah, God's son or a future Davidic king, Matthew can highlight information about Jesus not previously recognized.

As biblical scholar Dom Crossan likes to point out, instead of prophecy some day becoming real history, history itself is turned into prophecy ("prophecy historicized"). Much to the understandable confusion of pious believers for 2,000 years....

Mageth

Very good post, aikido7.

I would, however, add to:

Whenever Matthew discovers something--anything-- in the OT that might relate to Jesus, he correlates it with something in Jesus' life, or with something he believes about Jesus' life.

Matthew et al also created details in Jesus' life - e.g. the virgin birth - based on the Hebrew scriptures. The Jewish tradition of midrash was available and known to the Gospel writers - and used liberally to tie Jesus' life into the Jewish traditions.

I recommended it earlier, but I'll repeat my recommendation for martin. Read John Shelby Spong's Resurrection: Myth or Reality? for an excellent treatment on the evolution of the Jesus legend, particularly the Easter legend, in the early Church. I'd also recommend any and all of Elaine Pagels' books for excellent treatments of early Church histor.