Johnny Skeptic

Consider the following from another thread:

GakuseiDon

I think that we are stuck with the ancient records that we have. We just need to try to analyse them in the best way that we know how. I agree that God could do a lot better getting His message across by showing up tangibly and telling us, but until that happens, we need to rely on the records that we have. I agree with Roger that the preference is on using the written record rather than imagination.

Johnny Skeptic

But one must use a lot of imagination to imagine that a loving, moral, rational God would use the inefficiency of written records as his primary means of communicating with people. In my opinion, the preference is on being agnostic pending the availability of additional evidence. Perhaps it would be beneficial if Christians would state what they believe God is trying to accomplish with written records.

DCHindley

Doesn't this approach essentially throw the baby out with the bath water?

History is a collection of mental reconstructions of past events. These mental reconstructions will always be developed by applying the principal of analogy to our current perceptions of reality.

You seem to be stuck on the question of whether the faith based Christian is justified in treating the books of the bible as supernaturally preserved in a way that gives them a value greater than that would normally be ascribed to historcial relics.

Rather than just reject the supernatural claim and its implications, you seem to want to demote the significance of all ancient documents to the level of irrelevelance.

Where's that supposed to get us?

You guys think too much about the wrong kinds of things. I am reminded of the students of Professor Charles W. Kingsfield Jr on the old Paper Chase series (the crusty contract law professor who attempts to turn a bunch of graduate law students with "brains of mush" into lawyers).

Oh Professor Kingsfield, intimidating god of contracts, where are you now in our hour of need???

DCH

GakuseiDon

Do you mean, it would be beneficial if those Christians -- who believe that God uses the inefficiency of written records as his primary means of communicating with people -- would state what they believe God is trying to accomplish with written records? Wouldn't the answer be "communicate"?

Minimalist

Too many people are willing to use that "analysis" as an excuse to torture the books in order to get them to say what they want them to say.

Calilasseia

the basic problem here of course is that documents are written by people. People are capable of making things up or lying. Which is why, when faced with a document that makes extraordinary claims, we need corroborating evidence.

Many ancient documents make perfectly reasonable claims - for example, that people grew certain plants for food. We can verify these claims quite easily. Find examples of, for example, maize seeds and implements for processing them in an archaeological dig, and any document that says "we grew maize for food" can be regarded as a reasonable document. Even without such archaeological evidence, such a document is not making an unreasonable claim, because other documented examples of maize cultivation abound, and it seems slightly weird that someone would wish to lie about something as trivial as this. A document that says that man was created from a handful of mud, and was led astray by a talking snake, on the other hand, is making claims that require a much higher standard of verification.

Smullyan-esque

This sounds good.

What about the priority between written records and physical evidence?

If this question seems silly, you might want to read the recent thread about the Patriarchs. At one point, the argument was about which is more reliable.

So, it really isn't such a silly question. Even if your opinion is "Of course X is the more reliable of the two" it would still be good to put it in writing.

I'm not a historian and this isn't really my forum, so I'll just let the experts discuss this point.

stuart shepherd

If Jesus is really God in the flesh as Christians believe, he could have easily looked into the future and seen what was going to happen. He could have seen his followers fighting religious wars and murdering heretics, homosexuals, and Jews. Jesus could have seen his Roman Catholic followers butchering his Protestant followers, and visa-versa.
If we assume that this was abhorrent to him as it is to most of us, Jesus could have done something about this disaster of religious wars, murder, book burning, suppression of science, and persecution that has been the Christian gift to the world.
Jesus could have inspired his New Testament writers to put language into the New Testament that would have been absolutely 100% clear instructions to his followers to strictly avoid the catastophe that his followers have brought upon this world.
But Jesus allowed it to happen. Maybe that's the way he wanted it. Or better yet, maybe Jesus just wasn't the God in the Flesh that his followers thought he was.

stuart shepherd

Minimalist

They usually dodge that point by saying "the lord works in mysterious ways," Stu.

They have a bullshit answer for everything.