diana

Magus55,

If you read and understood the points I was making in the post you responded to with the above, would you please demonstrate your understanding of my argument by repeating it back to me in your own words?

Thanks.

d

Jayhawker Soule

Which archaeologists? There is:

• No evidence of a young earth.
• No evidence of the Nephilim giants.
• No evidence of a world flood.
• No evidence of an exodus from Egypt.
• No evidence of a virgin birth.
• No evidence of Herod's infanticide.
• No evidence of a resurrection.
• No evidence of saints crawling out of their graves and strolling around Jerusalem.
• And no evidence that you know anything about archaeology.

So, pick one, and let's see how far your "overwhelming amount of evidence" will take you.

The Bible is little more than layers of mythological lard floating upon a thin gruel of disjointed historical fact and anachronism.

Magus55

You said you all don't take the story of Columbus on faith, You take the word of people who attest to his existance both loving and hating him and that they had no reason to make it up.

You say you can say the same for God since hes not a person.

Jesus was both God and fully human - he was a person just like us except that he was perfect.

The link i provided shows the people that attested to his life, death and ressurection including people who hated him and were hostile. The apostles also had no ulterior motive to make their testimonies up considering the were executed for their belief in what they saw and wrote. Them giving their life certaintly makes one wonder why they made up a lie that wasn't true just to get executed. Pretty lousy ulterior motive if you ask me

Vorkosigan

Kudos to everyone who has had the patience to deal with this nonsense.

Mag posted a short article from CARM containing the usual apologetic horse manure that a serious apologist would cringe at posting here. Mags, I suggest you bop over to our BC&A forum and look at the posts involving Vinnine, Bede or Layman, some of our more intelligent apologists, and then report back here.

Nevertheless, in the interests of fairness, we should really take a look at this stuff from CARM

• One person tells another person a sentence who then tells another person, who tells yet another, and so on and so on until the last person hears a sentence that has little or nothing to do with the original one. The only problem with this analogy is that it doesn't fit the Bible at all.

The writer goes directly to the New Testament, ironic evidence that the writer is simply regurgitating propaganda without really thinking about it.

• The fact is that the Bible has not been rewritten. Take the New Testament, for example. The disciples of Jesus wrote the New Testament in Greek and though we do not have the original documents, we do have around 6,000 copies of the Greek manuscripts that were made very close to the time of the originals.

Not to put too fine a point on it, this is a lie. Assuming the Bible legends are correct, Jesus was whacked sometime in the late 20s or early 30s. The earlist gospel, widely thought to be Mark's, is usually placed between 70 and 80. The earliest manuscript of that we have of any gospel -- not Mark -- are two small portions of John's passion story that date from the latter half of the second century, more than a century later.

Further, Mags, the vast majority of these manuscripts were produced in Medieval times, not "very close to the time of the originals." Only a handful of them date to before the 4th century, and no complete version dates from prior to the that time.

Finally, as for the 'telephone game' that is in fact the case. For many years the stories of Jesus circulated in oral form. This meant that (a)some of the stories of Jesus collected in the NT are later embellishments, additions and inventions; and (b) some of the authentic tradition is recorded outside of the NT. Whatever the original words of Jesus were, they have all been lost.

Additionally, the Bible has been rewritten. The Gospel of John, for example, was redacted somewhere between 3 and 5 times. Numerous scholars have made similar arguments for the letters of Paul -- half of the ones in the NT are known to be later forgeries.

• These various manuscripts, or copies, agree with each other to almost 100 percent accuracy. Statistically, the New Testament is 99.5% textually pure.

This is a nonsense statement for several reasons. First of all, they do not agree with 100% accuracy; over 300,000 variant readings are known, although most are minor spelling errors, many are important. For some documents (Acts, for example) there are two versions.

Second, agreement signifies nothing. All extant copies of Josephus have the famous passage on Jesus, but all authorities agree that it has been extensively reworked.

• That means that there is only 1/2 of 1% of of all the copies that do not agree with each other 100%. But, if you take that 1/2 of 1% and examine it, you find that the majority of the "problems" are nothing more than spelling errors and very minor word alterations. For example, instead of saying Jesus, a variation might be "Jesus Christ." So the actually amount of textual variation of any concern at all is extremely low.

Maybe -- but it exists. And the fact is that the originals are completely unknown, and reconstructed from the extant te
15B7
xts. No text is exactly like the reconstructed text.

And of course, this does not even discuss the problems of agreement between the various text families, the Syriac and Coptic versions, etc, etc, etc.

• Therefore, we can say that we have an extremely accurate compilation of the original documents.

No. The only way we could be sure of this is to possess an original document.

• So when that we translate the Bible, we do not translate from a translation of a translation of a translation. We translate from the original language into our language. It is one step, not a series of steps that leads to corruption. It is one translation step from the original to the English or to whatever language a person needs to read it in.

As the saying goes, meaning is what is lost in translation.

• Therefore, the translations are very accurate and trustworthy in regards to what the Bible originally said.

No. The translations are often hotly disputed and translators disagree, never mind the doctrinal issues that infest translations, for example, the NIV, where passages are rewritten to justify the NIV's doctrinal standpoint, and to harmonize contradictions.

And we haven't even discussed the OT......

• The following chart represents a compilation of various ancient manuscripts, their original date of writing, the earliest copy, the number of copies in existent, and the time span between the originals and the copies.

Check out this list carefully. It ignores texts from other traditions. For example, we have more than 40,000 texts from Chinese tombs of this period, many of them originals. The textual tradition of the NT is nice, but it is almost completely modern by comparison.

In any case, it would be natural that such texts would survive, since there was an active effort to preserve them, as opposed to the texts of Homer or Pliny. In any case, any of the papyrus originals from Egypt would blow away the text tradition of the NT -- since they are copies of copies of copies.

I hope this discussion has helped a little. You should read the Suggested Reading thread in BC&A, there's quite a bit there. But basically, this kind of ignorant, low-level apologetics isn't going to cut the mustard around here.

Vorkosigan

Magus55

There is evidence of the flood, there are other written accounts by other civilizations existing when the flood happened.

Moses was the most active figure in Exodus and he wrote what he went through, as well as the ten commandments he receieved.

Jesus was born of a virgin - Mary's account of her getting pregnant had nothing to do with Joseph whatsoever and it was prophecised 700 years earlier before Mary and Joseph were even born. And since every other prophecy has come true - that one obviously did too.

500+ people witnessed Jesus' ressurection. And since many people testified to Jesus' crucifiction and since his body was in a roman guarded Tomb but wasn't in there when they opened it - only for Jesus to then be found in town in the flesh and blood talking to tons of people. And since archeologists found Jesus' supposed tomb but there are no bones left in it - he obviously was actually ressurected.

What saints strolling out of their graves? Their is testimony and eyewitnesses and archeaological findings of the sites themselves where Jesus performed his miracles.

You're right , i don't know much about Archaeology - when did i say all this came from me? The info is from Archeaologists themselves. Now if you can't provide constructive and meaningful posts like Diana and Luiseach, please refrain from posting. I don't need you telling me im clueless and have no clue what im talking about thanks.

Magus55

Vorks, with all due respect, considering the articles from Carm.org are from a theologist with a masters ( or Phd, forget which) in this stuff, i think he has a more of a clue what hes talking about then you.

Vorkosigan

There is evidence of the flood, there are other written accounts by other civilizations existing when the flood happened.

Mags -- think. If they were destroyed in a world-wide flood, how did they make written accounts? Are you saying that the descendents of Noah dispersed to the regions of Egypt and China, took up those languages -- which were dead languages -- and then recapitulated their mythology, even though they already knew the truth? Weird argument, that.

Moses was the most active figure in Exodus and he wrote what he went through, as well as the ten commandments he receieved.

Mags, no serious scholar believes this. Why don't you get a serious introductory work, like Who Wrote the Bible? by Friedman or The Unauthorized Version by Robin Lane Fox.

Jesus was born of a virgin - Mary's account of her getting pregnant had nothing to do with Joseph whatsoever and it was prophecised 700 years earlier before Mary and Joseph were even born. And since every other prophecy has come true - that one obviously did too.

This is a well-known misunderstanding of Matthew's based on his erroneous reading of a prophecy that was aimed at Isaiah's time, and not Jesus. Matthew was using a Greek translation of the scriptures, which caused him to confuse what Isaiah was saying.

500+ people witnessed Jesus' ressurection.

Incorrect. Nobody witnessed Jesus' resurrection. Paul claimed that 500 people say the resurrected Jesus after he had been resurrected. Different story entirely.

And since many people testified to Jesus' crucifiction and since his body was in a roman guarded Tomb but wasn't in there when they opened it

Almost everyone considers the stories about the Tomb guards to be fictions designed to combat the story that Jesus' body was stolen from his tomb. Note that they do not occur in the earliest account, that of Mark.

only for Jesus to then be found in town in the flesh and blood talking to tons of people.

And yet, other gospels deny that this was the case.

And since archeologists found Jesus' supposed tomb but there are no bones left in it - he obviously was actually ressurected.

No tomb of Jesus has ever been found.

What saints strolling out of their graves? Their is testimony and eyewitnesses and archeaological findings of the sites themselves where Jesus performed his miracles.

None of these stories are known outside the gospels, and all scholars believe that Matthew made this detail up based on his reading of the OT. The passion account is made up entirely out of the Old Testament, as scholars know.

Here is a passage from J. D. Crossan, a leading scholar:

• The individual units, general sequences, and overall frames of the passion-resurrection story are so linked to prophetic fulfillment that the removal of such fulfillment leaves nothing but the barest facts, almost as in Josephus, Tacitus, or the Apostle's Creed. By individual units I mean such items as these: the lots cast and garments divided from Psalm 22:18; the darkness at noon from Amos 8:9; the gall and vinegar drink from Psalm 69:21. By general sequences I mean such items as these: the Mount of Olives situation from 2 Samuel 15-17; the trial collaboration from Psalm 2; the abuse description from the Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16. By overall frames I mean the narrative genre of innocence vindicated, righteouness redeemed, and virtue rewarded. In other words, on all three narrative levels -- surface, intermediate, and deep -- biblical models and scriptural precedents have controlled the story to the point that without them nothing is left but the brutal fact of the crucifixion itself. (italics in original) Birth of Christianity, p.521

What do you think? Arfe you familiar with the work of Michael Goulder on "midrash" and the NT?

You're right , i don't know much about Archaeology - when did i say all this came from me? The info is from Archeaologists themselves.

No, it is from apologists misunderstanding and misusing archaeology.

Vorkosigan

diana

I assume you meant "can't." If you want me to listen to your points, please address mine. My implied question was: Do you think there's a difference between taking many different people's words about the existence of a man and taking several different people's words about a god? Why?

You're only demonstrating here that you're missing my point.

Quite frankly, I rarely read links. Here's why. If the person in question doesn't know or care enough to make his own argument, I'm usually not very interested in discussing any points with him, as his reticence makes it pretty clear that he doesn't actually have an argument. At best, he's just sending me to someone else's.

I do my own work. I expect my opponent to do his.

I read and responded to the chapter you quoted in your OP because I thought you wanted to discuss it. But sending us to read more stuff instead of defending it yourself is not a good faith effort at discussion. By the same token, if I engage in religious conversation with a person and he fetches the preacher to argue with me, I take this as a sign that the person I was first talking with is admitting he doesn't know what he's talking about.

When a person argues with links instead of his own thoughts and his own words, I make the same assumptions.

I also assume that he's far less interested in understanding my point of view than he is in getting me to accept his. I doubt seriously you'd talk for long with someone who you didn't think was even trying to understand your viewpoint. Why should I?

Who, outside of the characters listed in the bible, attested to the death and resurrection of Jesus? Or even the existence of Jesus?

There is a vast difference between the bible claiming that people who hated Jesus admitted he rose from the dead (or whatever) and finding extrabiblical historical records written by the people who hated him acknowledging his existence. You see?

As to your Argument from Martyrdom...forget for a moment that the stories of the martyred apostles come to us from the bible, which was written anonymously by believers in God (who were therefore biased--which, being translated is, "Those stories could be myths, too, for all we know).

You are also forgetting that people die for gods they never even claim to have seen. Does their martyrdom prove their claims true? Then Allah exists.

d

Vorkosigan

That may be true. But the article itself was not written by a PHD, but by someone who clearly does not know what he is talking about. I do not know what the sources said originally, because the author has not cited them properly.

If you want to read about how the Gospel of John was rewritten (for example) pick up one of the standard Intro texts, such as that of Raymond Brown, Bart Ehrman, Luke Timothy Johnson, or Udo Schnelle. All -- a conservative Catholic cleric, an atheist, a right-wing Christian apologetic scholar, and a German mainstream protestant -- agree that the Gospel of John has been extensively edited and rewritten. Raymond Brown's monumental three-volume study of John discusses that in minute detail.

Another good source is Bart Ehrman's The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture.

Also, you presume I don't have a relevant PHD. Why is that? I don't, but that is not something you should presume.

In any case, why not focus on what I said, and point out a few of my mistakes?

Vorkosigan

oriecat

I will admit to not having read this thread, but regarding the original post, I would like to say that it appears that god doesn't believe in copyright infringement either. Isn't that a bit much to be posting and still be in compliance with forum rules?