Problems with the Bible

Ark and Covenant found at Golgotha, Palestine
[video=youtube;nDBGuU4k6aM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDBGuU4k6aM[/video]

 

Larf.

Well, that's good enough for Pravda.

 

The same guy found where Israel crossed the Red Sea, along with the remnants of Pharoah's chariots under the water.

 

So, in other words, you have read non of the scholarship on the subject have you? Haven't even watched a documentary on the History Channel? All of what you ask for is out there, has been provided numerous times, and, for the most part, can be found with a simple google search.

Yet your opinion, supposed unbiased, unemotional, and learned, did not even bother with basic fact checking?

Seems atheism is more akin to intellectual laziness than scholarship? How is it that self described experts can be so unaware of the historical and evidential record when it suits their purposes?

Because this isn't really about evidence is it? Its about faith.

Evidence and reason drove your opinion? Yet here you are asking for it? When its readily available and those actually learned on the subect are very much aware of it. How is that possible if your opinion is 'scientific'?

 

I'm sure he did.

 

If the evidence is "out there," it should be easy enough to provide here, shouldn't it?

 

Here we go again...You need to understand that the New Testament itself is a historical records. In fact, it's multiple historical records. Historians understand this and judge it as they do other historical records, which is why the vast majority agree that someone called Jesus existed, preached, and was crucified.

 

Paul himself says that the greater half of five hundred were still alive at his writing. It is not at all beyond the pale that there might have been eyewitnesses to Christ's death and resurrection all the way up into the 2nd century. If Christ was crucified in AD33 and you were a 10-year-old seeing it, you would have been 77 in AD100. Very old for the time, of course, but hardly unheard of.

 

So, in other words, you haven't checked have you? I am supposed to participate, as an equal, in a discussion about the history of my faith with someone who is not .... even an amateur?

Clearly, its not evidence that lead you to perform your opinion, and coy dodges are just that.

At this point, having arrived at it before with a number of atheists, we get to what is called atheist baseball. Its the same mess of excuses and double standards that condemned GA Wells, author of the Jesus Myth, ( a widely trounched bit of 'scholarship') in which all evidence presented is simply dimissed for one non-professional reason after another. An arguement from absurdity.

The atheist version of a Creationist.

 

I see. Does this make the Book of Mormon historical as well?

 

Of course I've checked. The only so-called evidence I've ever found is a few blurbs written by early historians about the contemporary Christians, and in it they make a brief mention of Jesus or "Christus" and why he's important to them. They were also written after 100 CE, and in the case of Josephus, there was clearly editing done by a later Christian to one such passage (gotta love those religious revisionist nuts!)

 

No, you have not.

http://books.google.com/books?id=3H...=Evidence for Jesus Outside the Bible&f=false

There are several good and reliable manuscripts that document, in great detail, the extra-Biblical evidence for Jesus, both is terms of documents and archeology.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/

There is a timeline of early Christian documents, and, as you can see, there are many authored BEFORE 100 CE.

There is also an effort afoot to redate the Washington Codex to the first century. IMO, a very strong case.

http://www.washington-codex.org/

And the list goes on. But here you are asking for evidence and claiming that you have checked, when even a cursory search of teh available documentation establishes the reality that you have no idea what you are talking about.

Like so many other atheists, you believed what was written on some atheist web site didn't you? Isn't that a bit like studying Islam by camping out with Dick Cheney? Hardly the stuff of unemotional, unbiased, facts is it?

 

Wolverine,

WHY would you named the topic "Problems with the Bible" when you don't even believe in it? You call it um....fairytale, was it? So why even get yout hanes in a wad about it? just live your life and keep the Bible in the Dr. Suess section of your mind. no harm no foul.

 

I spoke of the historians' accounts being written after 100 CE. As for early Christian writings, a number of which were presumably not good enough to make canon, so what? More religious writings about this character. As for the Washington Codex, why do you think it's a 1st century work? You speak of a "very strong case" in your opinion, but your link only wants to sell a spendy book about it. Can you provide data?

It is highly suspect to me that the only writings attributable to anyone who lived as an adult during the time of Christ are religious in nature, and of course contradictory to the extent that the early church had to reject many of them from canonisation.

Did Herakles live? Did Mithras? Did Osiris? They were real enough to those who believed in them and wrote about them, and various ancient Greek families even claimed to be descended from Herakles, which they did in order to establish a rightful claim to rule over some chunk of ancient Greece. And, of course, we have no direct evidence against the idea of Herkles having lived, nor of his having been fathered by Zeus. So, you believe in him, right?

 

You suspect? And apparently now the standard is that historians have to write about someone before they die?

Apparently, because we are an expert of religions, who produce no actualy evidence and are clearly pulling an ostrich on the evidence presented, we are now, dimwitted and adled to the point where we are unable to determine the difference between mythology and religion? It does not matter than a similiar examination of the historical record will help make that intellectual leap and confirm the classifications ....

Well, any lazy excuse will do ...

 

All writings are historical records in that they come from history. A Christmas Carol is a historical source. Despite not being a journalistically reliable account of how Christmas spirits instruct human beings, it can tell us a great about the culture, morals, social issues, and, of course, literature of early Victorian England.

In that sense, certainly the Book of Mormon is a historical document. As is the Koran. I don't think either of these books, combined with other sources, provide sufficient evidence for believing their miraculous claims. However, they do present strong evidence, for example, that Smith and Mohammed existed, claimed that angels had come to them with divine revelations, and founded religions on that basis. I don't deny that Mohammed existed. I don't even deny that thought he had a revelation in the Cave of Hira. He very well might have. And the Koran does provide historical evidence for that.

 

No, I said it is highly suspect to me, as in I am wary of such texts. But here you go, I've just been looking at the earliest Christian writing on that one link of yours:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/passion-young.html
14:48 [18] And Jesus answering said to them, `As against a robber ye came out, with swords and sticks, to take me!

14:49 [19] daily I was with you in the temple teaching, and ye did not lay hold on me -- but that the Writings may be fulfilled.'

14:50 [22] And having left him they all fled;

14:51 [17] and a certain young man was following him, having put a linen cloth about [his] naked body, and the young men lay hold on him,

14:52 [17] and he, having left the linen cloth, did flee from them naked.

14:53 [24] And they led away Jesus unto the chief priest, and come together to him do all the chief priests, and the elders, and the scribes;

14:54 [16] and Peter afar off did follow him, to the inside of the hall of the chief priest, and he was sitting with the officers, and warming himself near the fire.

Do you believe that bolded bit? Looks like Jesus was into the boys..

 

All right, that's a good assessment, in my opinion.

In like fashion, the Bible is good evidence that its writers existed, and it can certainly shed some light on the people and times in which the various bits of it were written, but obviously it's not terribly convincing where miracles and the like are concerned.

 

So, your expertise is leading you, having never examined a record, to ripe something out of context to call Jesus, whom you doubt even exists, a pedophile?

And this reflects more on my faith than yours?

Every claim you have made is wrong, and now you resort to ... playground smear tactics? Yep, that is indeed atheism. BRAVO.

Let me know when you have that reasoned, scientific arguement you keep talking about. Or shall I just spin something Dawkins said to call him a homosexual? Or might that be just slightly dishonest?

 

So, your expertise is leading you, having never examined a record, to ripe something out of context to call Jesus, whom you doubt even exists, a pedophile?

And this reflects more on my faith than yours?

Every claim you have made is wrong, and now you resort to ... playground smear tactics? Yep, that is indeed atheism. BRAVO.

Let me know when you have that reasoned, scientific arguement you keep talking about. Or shall I just spin something Dawkins said to call him a homosexual? Or might that be just slightly dishonest?

 

Yep, now all you have to do is explain why, when those miracles are untestable, why its better to doubt than affirm? It isn't is it?

 

This purportedly early writing actually makes for interesting comparison to Matthew, the purportedly earliest gospel account.


http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/passion-young.html
14:43 [24] And immediately -- while he is yet speaking -- cometh near Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great multitude, with swords and sticks, from the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders;

14:44 [21] and he who is delivering him up had given a token to them, saying, `Whomsoever I shall kiss, he it is, lay hold on him, and lead him away safely,'

14:45 [24] and having come, immediately, having gone near him, he saith, `Rabbi, Rabbi,' and kissed him.

14:46 [25] And they laid on him their hands, and kept hold on him;

14:47 [20] and a certain one of those standing by, having drawn the sword, struck the servant of the chief priest, and took off his ear.

14:48 [18] And Jesus answering said to them, `As against a robber ye came out, with swords and sticks, to take me!

14:49 [19] daily I was with you in the temple teaching, and ye did not lay hold on me -- but that the Writings may be fulfilled.'

14:50 [22] And having left him they all fled;

14:51 [17] and a certain young man was following him, having put a linen cloth about [his] naked body, and the young men lay hold on him,

14:52 [17] and he, having left the linen cloth, did flee from them naked.

14:53 [24] And they led away Jesus unto the chief priest, and come together to him do all the chief priests, and the elders, and the scribes;

14:54 [16] and Peter afar off did follow him, to the inside of the hall of the chief priest, and he was sitting with the officers, and warming himself near the fire.

Versus

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+26&version=NIV
47 While he was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, arrived. With him was a large crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests and the elders of the people. 48 Now the betrayer had arranged a signal with them: “The one I kiss is the man; arrest him.” 49 Going at once to Jesus, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” and kissed him.

50 Jesus replied, “Do what you came for, friend.”[d]

Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus and arrested him. 51 With that, one of Jesus’ companions reached for his sword, drew it out and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear.

52 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53 Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that say it must happen in this way?”

55 In that hour Jesus said to the crowd, “Am I leading a rebellion, that you have come out with swords and clubs to capture me? Every day I sat in the temple courts teaching, and you did not arrest me. 56 But this has all taken place that the writings of the prophets might be fulfilled.” Then all the disciples deserted him and fled.
Jesus Before the Sanhedrin

57 Those who had arrested Jesus took him to Caiaphas the high priest, where the teachers of the law and the elders had assembled. 58 But Peter followed him at a distance, right up to the courtyard of the high priest. He entered and sat down with the guards to see the outcome.

I'd heard that the Bible had been edited, but this is just silly!

 

Because miracle claims are as reliable as alien abduction stories? Because even you would reject non-Christian miracles? Because the source is obviously biased and potentially fraudulent? Take your pick.

Here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult

That article is about some South Pacific Islanders who are waiting for a mythical pilot to land on one of their little imitation airstrips and bring them cargo. They formed a messianic cult around what they had witnessed but not properly understood during World War II, when US forces had bases on their islands. We as Americans know better than they did. They even ought to know better than that today, but do they? Behold the power of self-delusion...

 

Hey, I'm quoting from a text you just tried to tell me was evidence for Jesus having lived, remember? And it says that some naked young man was following him, then fled with the others.

I want to know what you think about it. Do you believe it? Is this text reliable? You seemed to think so back, you know, before you'd read it..

 

Actually, almost completely unheard of at the time.