winstonjen

Well, you gave one answer, but how do you know that it is the correct answer, other than the bible? And how are you any different from the atheists? You rely on ancient writings, assuming that they will always be right, even when they contradict each other (was Jesus coming to fulfill the law or tell people that they didn't have to obey the dietary laws, or to tell people that not one jot or tittle of the law would be removed, for example?). Why not analyse the evidence as objectively as possible?

martinc

Hello and greetings Dr X (Since this website has as its title INFIDEL in it I assume that this term is not an insult and is what you guys go by) This is Martinc the original Martin whose statements started this thread. I will reply to your reply to me. All of my responses are preceded by "mc"


Anyway the argument that greymouser made that we can not trust the gospel writers to write objectively seems to fail the logic test. I say his because their is an assumption being made that because the writers of scriptures were followers of Jesus they therefore conspired many decades apart to write books that would be frauds. . . .


Oh my . . . actually no. Greymouser makes a valid point based on the evidence.

mc what evidence? Where is the evidence that the gospel writers wrote fiction? I have never seen ANY that couldn't reasonably have doubts cast upon it.

The authors of the Synoptic gospels and Jn were not "witnesses" or "followers" of Junior. Indeed, Lk of Lk-Acts admits this.


mc I never said they were.That doesnt prove they wrote inaccurately.


Lk and Mt use Mk as a source and rewrite him. Both Lk and Mt have birth narratives linked to historical events. Unfortunately, they are events about ten years appart! So . . . at least one of them is wrong!

mc I don't believe that sir. You need to make a separate post explaining what you are talking about as to why you think apparently that Luke and Matthew contradict each other.Please list the EXACT two scriptures you think contradict each other and I will address them.

A good introduction to the NT is Mack's Who Wrote the New Testament?. See the Recommended Reading List

mc thanks for quoting a reference
.


quote:. . . that appeared to make Jesus look like he fulfilled prophecy ,is a very problematic assumption.


It is not an assumption. It is based on the scholarship of the relevant passages, some of which have been quoted above.

mc I have yet to see any evidence of a grand conspiracy of many men over many years to fraudulently make it appear that Jesus fulfilled prophecies.It seems to me it takes more faith to believe in such a conspiracy then to believe scripture itself.


quote:Using that kind of reason one could rightly conclude that Republicans who write historical works about George Bush could not be trusted to tell the truth.


Of course you can trust them . . . Democrates, however. . . .

mc Please Do not avoid or atempt to joke away this valid point of mine. If we can't trust early Christian writings to be accurate because they write about Christ then how can we trust ANY Republican to write objectively about a Republican like Bush? Or how can we trust a democrat to faithfully record the transcripts of Slick Willie's impeachment ? Does not everyone have a bias or opinion of some sort? The gospel writers are not disqualified from writing accurately simply because they were followers of Jesus. Who else would you expect to record all the details of his life?


quote:If we can't trust what the early Christian writers said about Jesus then who should we trust to get info on Jesus?


Welcome to the nightmare that has kept scholars awake at night for over two hundred years.

mc exactly my point,if you discredit one source because you refuse to believe they can be objective in recording details of history then you can pretty much do that with any writing.


quote:Maybe Jospehus a Jewish historian?


While controversial, most, if not all, of his references are added in by someone else. However, even if valid they tell us nothing about what Junior said or did.

mc true


quote:. . . if a man was really searching objectively for the truth about this fellow Jesus he would accept the written records of ancient scrolls with at least a nuetral outlook. . . .


Unfortunately, they do not exist.

mc sure they do.There are a number of ancient scrolls.The concordant Bible uses 3. I did not say originals ,but there are ancient copies of the originals and they were meticulously recorded with extreme accuracy in reproduction.


All four authors have a polemic--mostly against the disciples!! Certainly, none of them wanted to be in the same book! They are far from "neutral" or "unbiased."

mc again I admit everyone has a bias but you are trying to imply that this disqualifies them from recording honestly. I have a bias in favor of Christ but I am not misrepresenting or altering your quotes in any way because I am an honorable man. By the same token I believe the early gospel writers were honorable men proud of their own integrity.


quote:. . . until it could be shown scientifically that a particular writer fabricated something, . . .


Most scholars conceed a resurrection is a fabrication--"dead flesh is dead flesh!"

mc well true if you are going by known facts of physics a literal resurrection is impossible however if a genuine resurrection occured you would expect corroborating evidence which is what you get in the gospels.If the acount was written about a regular guy I would laugh at the miraculous stories but remember these writers readily proclaim they are writing about a virgin born Son of God so of course in that context a miracle here and there are expected.

Oh my. . . .

. . . fortunately I had my texts about on the subject of YHWH and his consort Asherah. . . .

mc lol


quote:I have not yet found a clear fabrication in the scriptures that could be verified objectively IN FACT I have countless times found science confirming Biblical stories such as ashes 4 inches deep found where Sodom and Gomorrah are believed to be or the walls of Jericho being unearthed and found to indeed have fallen outwards etc etc.


The reference below is a great and accessible resource for what I am about to write. Also Archaeology and the Bible listed in the Recommended Reading is a great resource. I use it as the basis for a long post on why scholars have abandoned the Exodus-Conquest as historical . . . somehere in these threads. . . .

mc the problem is for every ANTI Bible refence you give me I can give you a PRO
for example from the url http://mentura.com/Titles/Movie.aspx?Movieid=753 we see a source that states the follwing..

Sodom and Gomorrah" - Two cities scorched into oblivion as fire and brimstone pour down from the sky--and only one man and his family escape the disaster. "Impossible," say critics. But recent archaeological digs say otherwise. See for yourself; do ancient bones, pottery and ashes sifted from stony ground south of the Dead Sea have a story to tell the world today? "The Walls of Jericho" - Jericho--one of the world's oldest and most mysterious cities. Could its fortress walls suddenly collapse at a mere trumpet blast? The rushing waters of the Jordan River miraculously stop flowing to give advancing Israelites an attack route to the city? Skeptics say no; but silent witnesses recently unearthed from ancient Jericho say otherwise





Sodom and Gomorrah:

No one . . . NO ONE . . . has located anything that suggests a city or city existed.

mc again MY experts disagree with your experts,now watch you say well Martin your experts are biased Christians and I will reply but Dr X your experts are pagans.

Jericho:


quote:[Contradictions to the Joshua Conquest--Ed.] Jericho was among the most important. As we have noted, the cities of Canaan were unfortified and there were no walls that could have come tumbling down. In the case of Jericho, there was no trace of a settlement of any kind in the thirteenth century BCE, and the earlier Late Bronze settlement, dating to the fourteenth century BCE, was small and poor, almost insignificant, and unfortified. There was also no sign of a destruction.

mc I disagree. read my experts statements as follows..


from the following url http://www.lesmahagow.net/walls_of_jericho.htm



During excavations of Jericho between 1930 and 1936, Professor John Garstang found one of the

most incredible confirmations of the biblical record about the conquest of the Promised Land. The results were so amazing that he took precaution of preparing a written declaration of the archeological discovery, signed by himself and two other members of his team. "As to the main fact, then, there remains no doubt: the walls fell outwards so completely that the attackers would be able to clamber up and over their ruins into the city." This fact is important because the evidence from all other archeological digs around ancient cities in the Middle East reveal that walls of cities always fall inwards as invading armies push their way into a city






quote:Keep in mind that the scriptures are claimed to be verbally inspired by God. . . .


They were not.

mc yes they were CLIAMED to be.Shall I give you the actual verses. All scripture is God breathed and good for reproof correction etc.That is from 1 Timothy

The concept of theopneustos is very late and certainly not in the NT or Synoptics and Jn. Indeed, to quote one scholar:


quote:Nevertheless, for scholarly theology the scriptural principle presupposed here has been shelved once for all as a result of the disintegration of the dogma of inspiration.

mc again the Bible says in at least two verses I can think of offhand that it was inspired,the other verse goes like this..Holy men of old wrote as they were borne along by the Spirit.. I can get the actual two verses if you like



quote:. . . and when the dead sea scrolls were found they were almost virtually identical to present day transcripts of the books.


Eh . . . no. . . . They do demonstrate variant readings.

mc Not really I have been told many times that Isaih for example has just a few (less then 5 I think) discrepancies from the modern texts.This is incredible really when you think about it.The dead sea scrolls confirmed the incredible accurate renderings of scriptures.The scribes who copied scrolls were extra extremely careful not to alter one single stroke.


quote:. . . and yet you would have us believe that it is full of errors and lies. I think it is worth exploring both sides of this issue instead of condemning without understanding.


"Sauce for the goose, Martin. You would have to accept child sacrifice, mass murder, two competing creation myths, two contradictory and impossible Flood Myths . . . et cetera. . . .

mc I can explain any particular problem you may have in interpreting a particular sripture. I assume you are referring to OT commands to kill thousands by God almighty .I am not sure what you are talking about regarding child sacrifice.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. Also there is no contradiction anywhere in the entire Bible ever from all the reseaarch I have done countering Gabes many points,but I don't want to get side tracked in addressing every single supposed contradiction (however one or two I will go to the trouble to refute if you give me the EXACT Two scriptures that you claim contradict each other.) Anyway I sort of enjoy debating as long as we remain polite. I am ambivalent because you call my Lord and Saviour "Junior" so I have a slight attitude and bias against you but nonetheless being a Universalist and believeing all will be saved and being generally a very friendly guy I enjoy the mental excercise of a debate.Anyway you seem like a pretty smart and well read man. I don't expect to convince you of diddley squat nor you me but I pride myself on being open minded and reasonable.Bottom line for me is I can always say my experts disagree with the conclusions of your experts,or my experts are smarter then yours etc. In the end faith is a gift from God...it can not be produced in you or others by me posting a post (unless perhaps God uses me in some small way as his instrument but I am not deluding myself vainly to think that he is ..but he might be

Martin Chretien

--J.D.

References:

Finkelstein I, Silberman NA. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts. New York: The Free Press, 2001.

Laughlin JCH. Archaeology and the Bible. London: Routledge, 2000.

Ludermann G. The Unholy in Holy Scripture: The Dark Side of the Bible. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997.


Last edited by Doctor X on February 25, 2004 at 06:45 AM

Sven

You should perhaps take a look at the ongoing debate about the contradictory resurrection stories her

Why do you think there is a need for a grand conspiracy? Only some men writing what they though had occured, sometimes a little (or more) bit exaggerated plus a mass of people to whom this was preached and who never were able to check it themselves.

Your analogy is problematic - as you surely now, there is (1) a difference between politics and religion (2) a difference between todays society and the society about 1900 years ago.

If he was indeed such an exceptional person, we would at least expect accounts from other people about him.

You should perhaps reread some of the posts in this thread about "honorable"...

... and nowhere else.


Do these guys actually present any evidence? (sorry, to lazy to check the URL)

Quote:

watch you say well Martin your experts are biased Christians and I will reply but Dr X your experts are pagans.

The problem is that you're wrong. There are also Christians in the archeologist teams who contradict your claims.

Quote:

from the following url http://www.lesmahagow.net/walls_of_jericho.htm During excavations of Jericho between 1930 and 1936, Professor John Garstang found one of the most incredible confirmations of the biblical record [...]

Perhaps you should also look for more recent work?

Quote:

mc yes they were CLIAMED to be.Shall I give you the actual verses. All scripture is God breathed and good for reproof correction etc.

Nice circular reasoning. The Bible is true because it say so.

Quote:

mc Not really I have been told many times that Isaih for example has just a few (less then 5 I think) discrepancies from the modern texts.This is incredible really when you think about it.The dead sea scrolls confirmed the incredible accurate renderings of scriptures.The scribes who copied scrolls were extra extremely careful not to alter one single stroke.

You've been told...? By whom? Someone with an agenda?

Quote:

There are no contradictions in the flood fact which is in my view a FACT

LOL!!! I suggest you go back and read a bit basic evolutionary theory and geology. You could also check the two recent flood threads.

Quote:

confirmed by Inca writings and Aztec etc of a universal flood which literally covered every high mountain just like the Bible says

What does this prove? Perhaps that other ancient civilizations also had to suffer from catastrophic local floods? NOOOOOO.... can not be....
BTW, it looks like you're out of the camp which says that the mountains were as high as today before the flood, or am I wrong?

Quote:

Where I live a brother in law found a sea shell on the top of a mountain.

So what? Go and learn some basic geology.

Jack the Bodiless

Martin:

If you're using "fulfilled prophecies" as a reason for believing in the Biblical God (which is what the title of this thread is referring to), then you need to come up with a prophecy that can be independently verified as having actually occurred.

Prophecies that came true "if you believe the Bible" are simply not good enough. For instance, what about the many prophecies in Greek myth, such as the startling prophecy that Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother? If you believe Greek myth, these prophecies came true. Do these "successful prophecies" therefore confirm that Greek myth is true?

It is interesting to note that the Bible apparently contains NO verifiable prophecies at all. And that it DOES contain numerous failed prophecies.

Jesus was born in the reign of Herod (died 4 BC) and the governorship of Quirinus (beginning 6 AD).
It is quite obvious that the author of "Matthew" did this. The evidence is in the Bible itself. The "virgin birth" prophecy (of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz, NOT Jesus: just read Isiah 7 and 8) is the most famous example.
We should be able to trust both the Romans and the Jews to write something about Jesus. There Romans dealt with several rabble-rousing "Messiahs", but Jesus was not among them. The Jewish records, also, dealt with several heretic preachers: but each fails to qualify as Jesus in various significant ways.
How can you possibly claim that these copies were made "with extreme accuracy in reproduction" when there are no originals to compare them to?
There was no global Flood in recent history. That is a FACT. Local floods, however, are common in the low-lying fertile flood plains where humans prefer to live. It is also possible that some flood legends were invented because of fossils of marine organisms found on mountains (these are not mysterious, we now know how they got there).
There are many contradictions on the Favorite Contradictions thread.

spin

Is there any hope for this clueless adherent to pagan messianism?

I doubt it, but I would recommend that one do some sort of litmus test before entering into dialogue with xians in order not to have to wade through reams of ill-thought out, rambling ideas which show little understanding of what is required as evidence and which show their owners as neither willing to analyse, nor capable of analysing, their fundamental positions.

Imagine a subscription form:

-----------------------------------------------

1) Are you

a) a literal fundamentalist
b) a literal fundamentalist who will run to metaphor when necessary
c) a believer who accepts the texts as means of communication rather than literal truths

2) Do you think that

a) only xians can understand the bible
b) only through God's help can one understand the bible
c) only those with a knowledge of ancient literature can understand the bible
d) anyone can understand the bible

3) Do you believe that contradictions in the bible

a) do not exist
b) exist to confound the unbeliever
c) are only apparent
d) exist because of bad transmission
e) exist because the writers were only human

4) Are you here because

a) you feel you should preach to the lost souls
b) you need to test yourself
c) you don't feel too sure about your religion
d) you want to know what the enemy is doing
e) of simple curiosity

5) Do you

a) accept the rule of logic and evidence
b) argue in a worldly manner over worldly subjects
c) trust only in the direction of the spirit of God

-----------------------------------------------

Naturally this is only a poor starting effort for such a screening process, but once the "form" has been completed you should know whether the believer has the ability to enter into rational debate or not, assuming that he/she tells the truth.


spin

cloudyphiz

um, if the flood wiped out everyone but noah and his family, why were there aztecs over there to write about it afterwards?

-gary

Sven

You may find this useful - in one way or the other

Edited to add: Hmm, the Inca myths doesn't resemble the biblical story at all - apart from this basic theme: "a flood rose above the highest mountains. All created things perished, except for a man and woman who floated in a box." But the rest... read it up yourself.

Amlodhi

As Sven has suggested, you need to study some more recent work.

The major problem concerning your assertions about the exodus and the conquest is that the dates cannot be consolidated. For instance, certainly there were walls around Jericho during some periods of history and in some periods they did indeed fall down. The trick is to find a time period for this that matches the conquest of the other Canaanite cities, the date of the exodus, references to the events occurring in this area from ancient extra-biblical sources, and evidence of settlement patterns based on further archaeological considerations.

These are things that need to be considered instead of simply pointing to an isolated incident that occurred somewhere in time and concluding that the exodus and conquest accounts are factual.

I would be happy to examine each of these points with you. Why don't you tell us exactly when you think the exodus from Egypt occurred according to your understanding of archaeology and the bible and we can begin to unravel the various evidences from there.

Are you up for it?

Namaste'

Amlodhi

spin

Why? Garstang is the be-all and end-all isn't he? What could Kathleen Kenyon say to change anything? What's been discovered has been discovered and one can only cover it up again, right? So we get the wisdom of Bryant Wood to fix up the doubts caused by Kenyon's work. Then come a pair of Italians just a few years ago who claim there were no walls to come tumbling down, but Wood knew that they must have had ideological motivations.... It would be easier to stick with good biblical archaeologists like Garstang. You can trust him, believe me.


spin

Amlodhi

Of course! . . What was I thinking!?

And in the 1920's Sir Leonard Woolley discovered the Flood deposit at Ur!

How could I have been so blind?

Nevermind.


Amlodhi