Ion

To summarize the meat of this thread up until now:

Judas -if he ever existed, like Jesus if he ever existed, which are not historically established- couldn't have possible died like in two contradictorily reported accounts.

So, "The Death of Judas: A Contradiction?" brings this answer:
yes.

leonarde

To sum up: same old nonsense from "the boys"....

Cheers!

Mageth

"The boys" being leonarde and Vanderzyden, I presume...

What we have by way of explanation so far (just concerning the hanging-falling contradiction) is a rope around a suicide victim's neck breaking, the body rotating 180 degrees to fall headlong on its way to the ground, oh, 3 or 4 feet at most below, and striking a rock or stick hard enough in the stomach (despite the body falling headfirst) to cause the intestines to fall out.

Sounds like nonsense to me.

leonarde

Previously posted (first by me then by Mageth):
You presume wrongly in this instance: except for
one brief response on page 8 Vanderzyden dropped
out on page 7 so that the thread deterioration that Vibr8gKiwi correctly notes has been a product
of those of us who have lingered beyond page 7.
Ion in particular has done yeoman work and shown a propensity for irrational thought seldom matched on this particular forum.

Cheers!

Ion

For those who might think that I got the thread sidetracked into something else, this was posted October 11 by Leonarde:
Because it falsely plays on common-sense, I engaged him on whether the historicity of the above claims had ever been established.

So, since October 11, I ask:
Huh?
1. When was "...his one-time status as an apostle." ever established in history?
2. When was "...his turning against Jesus." ever established in history, since even 'Jesus of Nazareth' hasn't been established in history?
3. If they weren't, then why believe in 1. and 2.?

1. and 2. didn't get answered as of October 16 because the answers simply don't exist in history, but sure the thread gets sidetracked by Leonarde starting October 11 with the mixing of historically established figures like Pontius Pilate and historically unestablished figures like the Biblical Jesus and Judas, the '..."...1 billion believers in Jesus..." is a recognition of historical Jesus reality...' false argument, 'mindreader', 'interpreter' and other lunacies that he keeps on posting.

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Ion ]</p>

Bumble Bee Tuna

To get back to the original topic:

The cause for all this debate is simply a fundamental difference in opinions on what constitutes a contradiction.

Van feels that he has done his part. He has shown that it is possible, however unlikely, that both passages are completely accurate, so long as you make up some fairly incredible conjecture. He believes nobody has refuted his point, and it's true. Nobody has proven that his conjecture couldn't at least have had a miniscule chance of happening. Thus, the contradiction is nonexistent, because there's still that small chance that the two stories fit.

Our view, of course, is that this is a stupid idea. It shows a complete lack of knowledge as to how the world works- NOTHING is certain, so it is the onus of society to figure out what things are almost certain, and then assume they are true. There's always that matrixesque possibility that this is all a dreamworld, so nothing it certain.

Van just hasn't grasped this simple concept, and until he does it seems debate it completely pointless.

There was a single post here, which asked Van to come up with a hypothetical contradiction that couldn't just be explained away by conjecture. He ignored it. It was brought back up. He ignored again. There was another one about a guy named Joe which made it pretty obvious the ridiculousness of Van's method, but that was ignored as well. Maybe he isn't ignoring, and it's just taking this long for him to come up with something. It's almost a shame, because I know it would be enjoyable to come up with implausible stories to fit whatever he did attempt to show as a possible contradiction.

It seems that argument will be impossible simply because of the diametrically opposed views toward the world in general.

I will say, that aside, he has done a poor job even responding to the objections that have been posted, even though it wouldn't be hard to simply invent more conjecture to fit the situation. Even by his own standards of what constitutes a contradiction, it appears to me that he is losing, as on the issues of landing headlong, silver coin anachronism, and the naming of the field he has not done anything.

That being said, I might attempt to bring something slightly new to the conversation. It seems blatantly obvious to me that the bursting story in Acts is not meant to have happened from physical means (a rock, a cliff, a spike, etc). Instead, it seems to be that the whole bursting bowels aspect of it is obviously a reference to the death being supernatural. Who would read a passage about a guy going to a field and bursting open think otherwise. Obviously it was a death brought to him by God. Think the end of Dogma, when God blows up the Affleck's head. Or when you play one of those poor-graphics arcade shooters, like Area 51, where the terrorists you shoot with a normal pistol burst into explosions of blood. It keeps up with the idea of the story being a legend- the death is somewhat mysterious, like wnadering off into a mist to never be seen again or something. Anyway reading over that, I didn't word it perfectly but hopefully you get my idea.

Oh, and finally, I must state I'm entirely unconvinced by the two pieces of conjecture Van came up with.

In the version where Judas hangs himself, fails because the rope breaks, and falls off of a cliff, I don't buy it. If someone hangs themself and fails, you don't say "they hanged themself". You say "they tried to hang themself". The word hang implies not just to rope yourself up but to do the deed as well.

In the version where Judas sits there for an extremely long time, decomposing, and eventually his neck is severed and he falls...Well, that's not headlong, and I doubt such a decomposed corpse would burst open gushing with blood.

Oh well I do realize Van seems to have given up long ago and stopped even trying to argue things. I still wanted to add my 2 cents.

-B

Vanderzyden

Butters,

I went back to read your rebuttal. Most of it is simply copying the OP. However, we do find a four-part summary of your critique, all of which have been addressed already:

This was covered fully in the OP. Did you read it? Falling will eventually follow a hanging. Or, if the hanging does not suceed, a fall will necessarily occure.

Please tell us, from where do you get the notion of "run over"?

This is also covered in the OP:

This seems to be a variant of the previous "contradiction". See above.

This again, is covered in the OP:

The only question you ask concerns the naming of the field:

The simple answer is that Matthew 27 and Act 1 seem to support the naming of the field on account of its purchase with "blood money".

I really have to wonder if you read very first post in the thread, despite the fact that you copied most of into your first response.

There have been few other rebuttals, all of which have been answered. First, Baidarka suggested that the text says that Judas would not have known about the purchase of the field:

My answer:


K compared the summary accounts to a newspaper article:

My response:


The only other notable objection concerns the term headlong. I have discovered some new information that should put this issue to rest, as well. That will come in a subsequent, separate post.

Vanderzyden

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Vanderzyden ]</p>

Vibr8gKiwi

The stories as written contradict--at their face they describe two different ways Judas died. Just because you can conjecture an improbable composite event doesn't eliminate the original conflict. It merely creates a situation where there is some (low) probability of there existing an explanation for the conflict--but notice it doesn't remove the conflict, it just gives a possible explanation for the conflict.

In fact notice that the conjecture V made is designed specifically to deal with the conflict. By making the conjecture V has shown he recognizes the conflict exists in the first place (or why else would it need an explanation?). Everyone else seems to realize that making an explanation doesn't remove the initial conflict, it just gives a possible explanation for it.

The conflict is there. V offers an explanation for it. We all think his explanation is silly and explain why. He ignores our points and makes the curious claim that there is no conflict (this same conflict he spends pages creating a compound event not contained in either account to explain away).

[edited to add...]

I think most here will admit that it is possible there is an explanation (such as V's) to explain the conflict. But the conflict is there and requires an outside conjectured explanation (of high silliness and low probability) to resolve. If all V wants is an admission that there is a possible explanation, then I readily admit that. Heck, I can give an explanation for the conflict myself: Judas died twice. Afterall people were supposedly dropping dead and coming back alive all over the place in the gospels.

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Vibr8gKiwi ]</p>

Butters

Originaly posted by Leonarde'

"Butters,
I was not making a appeal to numbers as an authority per se . Rather I was responding very closely to what Ion had posted before. A repost of my partial repost of what had prompted
my '1 billion' remark. (Ion)
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[...]Jesus dying and resurecting, then these claims would be the most recognized in human history and knowledge, because they would be the most formidable facts in humanity.[...]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How does one establish that a "claim" (ie of historicity here) is "recognized" or even "most
recognized in human history"????

There could be several criteria but they would certainly include:

1)length of time that a given claim is given credence. (we are talking about close to 2000 years in the given instance)."

If we are talking about something in history being a "fact", then the length of time it is believed does not qualify as "proof". It does qualify something to be investigated, to determine why it is believed, and if there is any basis for that belief.

"2)spread of the claim across cultures and a wide
geographical distribution. (7 continents and counting)"

Again, the number of believers only warrents an investigation, and is not evidence in itself.
How many continents hold believers of Islam, or Hinduisam?

"3)recognition by specialists in the field. (here
it is the field of ancient history)."

Here is one that does apply, but before we make an appeal to authority, the methods that the experts use to come to their conclustion must be investigated. If a specialist in the field of ancient history believes a story because they made a "leap of faith" despite evidence to the contrary, that opinion must be discounted.

H
"I was not claiming that because X number of people
believe something it is true. I was merely
observing that by Ion's own general criterion (recognition) the claim he denies
had more than passed the test."

If these are indeed Ion's only criteria for recognizing a historical fact, then he is also in error.
while methods may be complex, to arrive at the point of accepting a historical document as "true", only a couple of criteria need to be met.
1) Is the document internally consistent?
2) Is the document externally consistent?

Unfortunately, the Bible meets neither of these criteria.

Ion

I stated before, when many times I mentioned internal Biblical inconsistencies and external lack of consistency with medicine, archaeology, and non-religious texts, that for recognizing a historical fact 1) and 2) need to be met.

I was, and I am crystal clear on this.

[ October 16, 2002: Message edited by: Ion ]</p>