Peter Kirby

lcb writes: anymore suspicious than a bedouin sheperd boy finding the dead sea scrolls in a cave, (where are all the other tens of thousands of scrolls from that same time?)

Are you comparing an unwitnessed "million man march" to the discovery of ancient Dead Sea Scrolls as equally suspicious? Why?

The reason that more scrolls haven't survived in Palestine is that the weather in the Eastern Mediterranean dictated that the papyrus, without being properly stored for preservation (that is sealed), would generally rejoin nature in a matter of centuries. The first dead sea scrolls were found in a sealed jar, which prevented too much deterioration. The dead sea scrolls have been found not in just one cave but in a network of caves around the Qumran area. If people hid other scrolls in jars in caves elsewhere, then we will eventually find them.

In Egypt, however, the dry climate is much more forgiving to papyrus. We have discovered literally thousands of fragments and manuscripts from the sands of Egypt, including the fabulous Nag Hammadi find (which also happened to be sealed in jars). For a sense of the discoveries, try checking out The Oxyrhynchus Papyri in a good university library. The earlier volumes are by Greenfell and Hunt.

best,
Peter Kirby

lcb

"no one else saw fit to mention it" except for matthew , mark, luke and John! the commander of the roman garrison and his centurions were probably chomping at the bits to write down and carefully preserve the evidence that they had just mocked, tortured, and brutally murdered "something" that had the stone rolled away by alien beings from far away (that would be good for one's military career in the roman army)..etc....the permutations cut both ways!

Toto

lcb - you seem to be incapable of making a coherent argument. We are talking about the alleged 500 or so witnesses to the risen Christ, and your problem is that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John do not mention them.

[ August 12, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

Amen-Moses

Originally posted by lcb:
...what was Saul going to Damascus to do?

Join the Essene?

why did the early christians have to hide and worship in underground tombs?

Probably the same reasons the Mithraists did, their idol was born in a cave and rose from a tomb, where better to congregate? (especially if you are also a secret society)

You seem to be hinting that the authorities may have been responsible for destroying christian records? The same claim is sometimes made of the Romans vs the Druids but no evidence exists that the Druids even had any written records (at least not any that Romans would recognise as such), why should the early christians be any different?

Anyhow the Romans didn't seem able to differentiate between Jew and Christian at that time and Jewish records seem to have survived well enough.

Amen-Moses

lcb

toto, are you possibly missing the forest for the trees? the synoptic gospels and the new testament as a unity say that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth and was an intinerant preacher in Gallillee, Capernaum and towns and cities throughout Israel, Judea, Samaria etc. They seem to say he preached to many thousands, did miracles that thousands saw and that after his resurrection he appeared to many groups: two groups of fishermen, a group walking down a road, a group of women, a group of disciples in one instance, and another group in another instance, he appeared "to those that had pierced him"(which may suggest he was seen by Roman or Jewish people as well, and he appeared to his own people, etc...the quantification of these groups does not seem to be a theological issue and certainly the numbering of one group doesn't mutually exclude appearing to another group of a different number. And as a forensic aside, it would seem extremely well documented, well enough that hundreds of millions of people have read about the intimate details of Jesus' post resurrection appearances and hundreds of thousands of intellectuals to this very day are fixated on the details!

Toto

lcb, you have proven that you were dishonest in your previous posts. You are a committed Christian, (even if you don't practice it very well) and obviously have not studied any of the problems with the Christian story. You don't seem to understand what this issue is about.

You say:

I think you are using words you do not understand. What is forensic about this question? Hundreds of millions of people have read Homer, but that doesn't make anything he wrote history.

I also think that you lied when you said you had read some of the rebuttals of McDowell, since you show no evidence of that.

Please take your witnessing somewhere else.

Ted Hoffman

Mageth said:
The phrase used is "the beleivers" NOT "some beleivers".

Then there is Kirby's quote which Toto provided:
Toto, after interpreting:
Kirby's response:
Now, why does this remind me of Peter saying that it is valid for McDowell to use the TF to argue for the historicity of Jesus and people like Layman interpreting that to mean that Kirby meant that the TF was authentic?

Is it just me or does Kirby have a knack of making non-comittal but oblique statements that can elicit wrong interpretations concerning his stand on issues?

[ August 14, 2002: Message edited by: Intensity ]</p>

Ted Hoffman

Although I must admit that Toto seems to have made two contradicting statements:
This one seems to support the idea that Peter agrees that there is an interpolation:
This one inquires why Peter does NOT agree that there is an interpolation:

Peter Kirby

Intensity writes: Now, why does this remind me of Peter saying that it is valid for McDowell to use the TF to argue for the historicity of Jesus and people like Layman interpreting that to mean that Kirby meant that the TF was authentic?

Quote me.

Intensity writes: Is it just me or does Kirby have a knack of making non-comittal but oblique statements that can elicit wrong interpretations concerning his stand on issues.

You may have confused the question of the interpolation of verse 6 and the interpolation of the entire 15:3-11 section.

best,
Peter Kirby

Toto

That was Jeffery Jay Lowder, not Peter Kirby, in The Jury Is In.

I'm sorry - I picked up Peter's comments from another thread, where this issue had been discussed in more depth and also confused with other issues. I probably should have referenced the other thread or provided more details of Peter's statements.

Let's not beat up on our moderators.

I guess starting this thread was a mistake. I have not gotten anyone to take the issue very seriously.