Family Man

To make the point clear, Leonarde, science fiction writers routinely write things that contain a great deal of verisimilitude. That doesn't imply that Klingons actually exist. Neither does the limited verisimilitude in the Bible imply that the supernatural events described happened either. Your whole argument makes no sense.

Radorth

Durant isn't a Christian. He's an agnostic, and about the most impartial historian you will ever read. But then you don't go anywhere but skeptics.org for your info anyway. I told you before, I don't read Christian historians. I don't trust them any more than atheists. I try to find those who really don't give a crap what the answer is. I don't need Christian historians to overcome your argument. All I need is unbiased ones.

Rad

Ion

True.
I gave twice in this thread, "...unbiased ones.", remember?
William Dever, Bryant Woods, Ron Hendel, Carol Meyers, remember them now?

However, to your sorrow, they disprove the Bible:
for example, I read that Ron Hendel, a professor of Hebrew Bible at UC Berkley: "...says that the story is riddled with internal contradictions stemming from the fact that it was spliced together from two or three texts written at different times." and "...some of the story's features are myths motifs reprised from other Near Eastern legends.".

These US historians publish in archaeology journals.
They make the official syllabus of history books in the US academia.

Vorkosigan

Great Rad. Stop keeping us in suspense. Bring on his methodology for extracting truth from fiction out of the Jesus legends, show that it is unbiased, and show that it is successful.

Vorkosigan

Radorth

Uh right.

Time to show me the arguments and rationale of some agnostic historians who are arguing the internal evidence disproves the Gospels. Durant spells out his rationale quite plainly for those who actually want to hear a line other than is preached here.

Why should I believe the above are impartial? Because you say so?

Rad

Ion

OK then.

From historian Jim Meritt's 'A List of Biblical Contradictions' I read:
.) the Gospels of Matt and Like contradict each other on the genealogy of Joseph;
.) Jesus first sermon was it in plain or mount?
.) Jesus' last words.
.) many, many more contradictions seen as internal evidence disproving the Gospels;
see
<a href="http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/extra/bible-contradictions.html#introduction" target="_blank">http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/extra/bible-contradictions.html#introduction</a>
for Gospels' contradictions galore.

leonarde

Posted by Family Man: 1)This is a mismatching that I find very common
here: the facile comparison of a NT book with
a work of fiction which the author(s)
readily acknowledge is a work of fiction.

2)The "Klingons" were evidently created by the
creators of "Star Trek". There's nothing to indicate that they ever meant anyone to take the Klingons for historical entities. Aside
from a few over-the-top Trekkies, there's no indication that anyone has.

3)Luke's Gospel, the OTHER Gospels, and the Acts
of the Apostles are just chalkfull of extraordinary events: talking in tongues, the miraculous curing of sick people, the raising of the dead etc.

4)Since these events are sewn into the very fabric
of the books, your basic stance must be that such
is ahistorical. But there's so MUCH of such non-
naturalistic stuff that there's no way for you
to claim that verse X is historical (or has an
historical base)and verse X plus 1 is an invention.

5)The first 4 verses of Luke and the last few
verses of John's G indicate that they were TRYING
to give an accurate account. It is also clear that
John's account is based on an eyewitness testimony
(John's G says this).


Cheers!

[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: leonarde ]</p>

leonarde

Since the idea seems to have been floated that
I and/or a handful of others here have "invented"
a method or methods to study the historicity of
the NT works, let me very quickly disabuse anyone
of that notion: scholars have been looking for
and finding/not finding "the historical Jesus"
(as well as "the historical Paul/Peter/Luke/plug-
in-early-disciple/apostle") for years, decades before I was born. For a nice treatment of same
see: "Jesus in History; An Approach to the Study
of the Gospels" (2nd edition 1977) by Howard Clark
Kee (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc,)New York. Kee
was affiliated with Bryn Mawr College.

Cheers!

Devilnaut

That's so silly. You are claiming that because the bible contains a whole bunch of whacky events that they are probably true???


Honestly, like you said before, nothing but an inventive imagination is preventing me from penning down a work of literature that is identical in nearly every way to the bible. Certainly the ability to perform miracles is not a prerequisite to being able to write about them.

What if we found a 3000 year old religious text tomorrow that contained some historical data about ancient civilizations, and contained about 20 more miraculous events than the bible does? Would you convert?

Frankly it is easy to see how legends arise and how simple stories morph into miraculous tales over time and oral tradition. It even happens all the time now, where people are far less credulous. Elvis back from the dead, right? Right.. well since someone claimed it, and Elvis did actually exist, it must be true?

[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: Devilnaut ]</p>

leonarde

Posted by Devilnaut: Gee, I hope you
don't "take notes" for anyone in a class!! That was the worst non-summary of my position yet (and you have some stiff competition here!

Cheers!