Vorkosigan

People who hold it are politically agressive, socially regressive and morally repugnant. They are also the most violent of the various Christian cults and sects. It is they who have transformed the political scene of my country in the last twenty years. That is reason enough to oppose them.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

Regardless of when the first gospel is dated (which is generally disputed anyway) the events are still written about much sooner than much of the ancient history.

True only if Mark is correct in reporting a crucifixion under Pilate. But in many legends the chronology of major events is freely moved around. So your position turns out to be circular -- if the gospels are true in the dating of Jesus' death then they are true because they are close to events, and Jesus death really occurred around 30 because the gospels are true because they are close to events. There is no way to get outside of that circle, because we have no independent evidence untainted by Christian interpolation, that Jesus was executed under Pilate.

Your claim is also absurd on other grounds. For some events in history, it is quite true we have only late evidence. For others, however, we have first-hand accounts (Caesar's campaigns, for example) and other evidence from observers of the time. Just read through one of the dynastic histories of China. There are many, many works from several cultures far closer to events and more reliable than the NT.

And there are many texts that are outside the Bible and a lot of archeological evidence that supports the events of the NT.

Saying "Tiberias existed" does not mean that Jesus walked there. No archaeology confirms any story about Jesus.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

So I think declaring the Bible a myth is jumping to conclusions based on incorrect standards.

What standards should we use, then?

As far as the Gospel of Thomas is concerned, I don't know if you've read it, but I have, and the reason it was discarded is not because it contradicted other books but it blatantly contradicted itself and was much of it is little more than nonsense. I challenge you to read it yourself and draw a different conclusion by any standards.

Well, I don't know what conclusions I would draw, but about 25-30% of the Gos of Thomas is paralleled by the Q tradition in Luke and Mark. See Crossan's The Birth of Christianity and check out the appendices at the back, especially appendix 1:

"28% (37 out of 132 units) of the Gospel of Thomas has parallels in the Q gospel."

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

The point of my analog is that during the time in which the bible is written, the exact time of events was not considered important.

This is incorrect. While some historians did not pay much attention to time, others took pains to date events, or provide data by which the order and date of events can be worked out.

Now you can criticize the style of the time as not being very accurate historically by today's standards but you can't reasonably expect them to have tried to meet different standards than were being practiced. Perhaps a better example would be, suppose in the future it become the accepted practice to record every possible detail in historical accounts (i.e. the color and length of a person's hair, etc..) Now, someone in the future could then look back at our history books and say they are invalid because one book describes George Washington as having long hair and another as having short hair (a detail that today wouldn't be considered significant). Would it be reasonable to judge our current historical records by those future standards?

Nobody is doing that. Rather, the contradictions are but one set of facts in a huge network of facts and interpretations that casts grave doubts on the historicity of the NT legends.

....therefore may say that one event occured before another because it doesn't matter to them.

Has it occurred to you that this attitude which you impute to the first century may have consequences for the truthfulness of what they record, not merely for the proper sequence of events?

Vorkosigan

Paul5204

Clutch:

Excuse me, I meant contradiction. You see, I work 12-14 hour days here at the law office, and sometimes the brain does not come up with the correct word. But my point is still valid. The fact that Mr. A writes up a story saying that one driver had the green while Mr. B writes up a story saying that the other driver had the green, is not cause for rejecting the notion that there was in fact an accident. And I am so otherwise so glad that you know the word "hubris." We can make that the word of the day. And, yes, I find the logic here rather appalling at times. The example I gave re the conversion of that other Paul was posted on one of these boards. Not one soul pointed out the error in not differentiating between a narration of what the author of Acts claims is the historical truth versus her/his later report of what reportedly said concerning the event in question.

In closing, you can rip the inerrancy claim to shreds, but it means nothing. Since history tells us that it was not until well after the time of Yeshua that there was an agreed upon canon. Thus, it would appear that an inerrant bible was not necessary for Yeshua, Simon son of Jonah, and that other Paul. So too with me.

lcb

I wonder why the Roman Catholic church didnt carefully go through and remove anything that wasnt consistent? usually when an institution writes its own history and protocols it does it in the most self-serving way possible. the debater in me says that militates in the accounts of many illiterate first century peasants as being accurate as opposed to carefully orchestarted.lcb is neutral-so far.

Beach_MU

Vorkosigan,
I'll get to the rest of your arguments later, but for the moment I'm just curious exactly how Christians have transformed/hurt the political scene of your country? Also what country are from lest I mix up my facts?

Beach_MU

It's fine if you point out the logical consequences of my position as long as you're accurate about what my position is, which I'm sorry to say you weren't in your original response. Don't twist my words to try and suggest that I believe something I don't.

Further, it matters in another way. The willingness of authors to move around events, anecdotes and sayings suggests that they had no idea whether this person had ever lived, and the stories they wrote are theological/legendary constructs.

False.

Finally, the many strong differences between the wordy discourses of John and the Synoptics suggests that one set of accounts is probably not true.

Please point out some these unresolvable issues that bother you so drastically.

Lastly, I'm just curious if you prescribe to the post-modernist philosophy that would suggest that there is no absolute truth.

Vorkosigan

It's fine if you point out the logical consequences of my position as long as you're accurate about what my position is, which I'm sorry to say you weren't in your original response. Don't twist my words to try and suggest that I believe something I don't.

beach, you yourself suggested that the gospels disagreed amongst themselves; in fact, you argued that such disagreements were a sign of their veracity.

Further, it matters in another way. The willingness of authors to move around events, anecdotes and sayings suggests that they had no idea whether this person had ever lived, and the stories they wrote are theological/legendary constructs.
False.

True. Here are a few reasons why this is true:

• the re-arrangement of events and people – John's moving the temple scourging, for example
• indifference to geographical and political realities – Mark's geographical boners, Matthew's depiction of a Jewish crowd shouting "His blood be on us forever!", the constant depiction of Roman centurions faithful to the Jewish god
• depiction/re-arrangement of history in religious/supernatural frameworks – John's Seven Signs
• few or no critical views of subject
• no details of personal characteristics, habits and attitudes – did Jesus like art? Spicy food? Was he afraid of spiders? Ancient historians frequently gave detailed descriptions of character, because it was a widespread belief that it would give clues as to why events occurred the way they did
• not merely the mentioning of, but the constant presence of the supernatural that permeates the work
• the use of passages and stories from earlier works to construct the NT – reliance on the OT prophecies and stray verses. Subtract these and what is left?
• few or no historical asides/digressions to explain to the reader what is going on, or who was such-and-such in history.
• no stated commitment to history such as Tacitus, Thucidydes or Polybius made
• the existence of multiple redactions – were Tacitus and Polybius redacted?
• the description of Jesus' life using themes from legends and myths – miraculous birth, redemptive death
• little or no explanation by historical/naturalistic/supernatural causation; causation is often supernatural – "and this was done that they prophecy might be fulfilled" Compare with explanatory remarks in Tacitus: "His men were lukewarm in their allegiance, for many came from Dalmatia and Pannonia, and these provinces were now in Vespasian's hands" or describing Vespasian's success in Judea: "Good luck, a distinguished record and excellent subordinates enabled him to within a space of two summers…."
• overt declaration of propaganda motives in writing
• A sense that events have complex causes -- for example, Tacitus' examination of Civilis' motives for sparing Cologne from being sacked.
• discussions of disgreements between or with sources -- see, for example, Tacitus' remarks on what other writers have said about whether the two armies at the Battle of Cremona should surrender, or his remarks on causation at the end of Book Two.
• a commitment to dating events and putting them in their proper order.
• knowledge of appropriate laws, habits, customs and procedures. Is Jesus' trial really a possible and legal trial? Compare to Tacitus' detailed knowledge of how political procedures operated.

Finally, the many strong differences between the wordy discourses of John and the Synoptics suggests that one set of accounts is probably not true.

Please point out some these unresolvable issues that bother you so drastically.

They don't bother me drastically, they just mean that one or both accounts is not history (more likely both, since John is clearly borrowing from the Synoptics).

These would be things like, an open declaration of messiahship vs the messianic secret in Mark, differing date of execution, differing sequence of post-resurrection appearances, much redaction (as many as five by some accounts), the use of philosophical discourses as opposed to parables, the differing accounts of John the Baptist, to name a few.

Lastly, I'm just curious if you prescribe to the post-modernist philosophy that would suggest that there is no absolute truth.

What precisely are you talking about? The post-modernist idea that truth is local, situated and limited? That would be "no." I am an ardent foe of post-modernism.

Vorkosigan,
I'll get to the rest of your arguments later, but for the moment I'm just curious exactly how Christians have transformed/hurt the political scene of your country? Also what country are from lest I mix up my facts?

I'm an American. Since 1979, with the triumph of dispensationalism among the Southern Baptists -- an undemocratic, agressive, apocalyptic, intolerant and violent sect of Christianity -- right-wing Christianity has transformed the American political scene. We have challenges to science, to democracy, to secularism, civil society and other issues on many fronts. Undermining the religious basis of right-wing Christianity is one tactic among many for destroying its legitimacy. Of course that is only one.

scumble

On a general note, what many people fail to recognise is the inherent possibility of unreliability in any historical account. In History, there is only an accepted version of events, and maybe not even that. We can talk of what most probably happened in many cases.
Put it this way - even if there were no problems in the Bible, textually, there still isn't enough warrant to believe Jesus rose from the dead, say.
It's just so old, and traces of events that happened thousands of years ago are very scarce.
This is not on the same level as the Holocaust, where personally, I've seen the remnants of concentration camps, where you could technically verify all the human remains in gas chambers and incinerators. There are traces of the first and second world war all over Europe. Even then it's bloody difficult to get anything about what people might have said to each other at various sites.
This is what it claimed of the NT, that what Jesus said is utterly reliable, based on four possibly inaccurate accounts. Remember it is impossible to verify by archaeology, what people actually said to each other with 100% accuracy, because you must have a text.

[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: scumble ]

[ July 29, 2002: Message edited by: scumble ]</p>