As You Celebrate The Horror of Easter
-=A Human Sacrifice=-
and flaunt your little dead men on a stick, check your facts, most things that Easter depends on don't cross-check. [edited 4/15/2009. added links]
- Biblical scripture is no more accurate than other writings that cover the same period of time. Not what you'd expect from the revealed word of God.
- The story of passover, Jesus, and a dying and rising god all are of a type of theme of folklore that pervaded the Near East during that period of time.
- Moses, existence hasn't been verified yet. He may never have existed, and may be a version of Sargon of Akkad. If he didn't exist, then all the things that depend on him in the Bible need to have their accuracy and reliability re-assessed.
- The exodus hasn't been verified yet, but it is clear that if it did happen, it didn't happen as it is described in the Bible.
- The author of Genesis or authors of Genesis cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.
- Adam obviously never existed, and if he did the scripture is so inaccurate so as to make the story more dubious than not. There was never a time when he and Eve would have been alone, and his first son went out and founded a town or a city. Towns and Cities started popping up after 10,000 BC.
- Jesus never clearly stated he was God. The phrase used to support the claim of Jesus as God are of the type that are used by Jews to express their belief that God lives in all of us and we influence the world through him by our actions that he approves of.
- The Jews never said he was the Messiah, he never qualified. The Messiah was supposed to be a politician and engineer. Jesus wasn't even close to being an engineer, if he was he could have showed them how to make the world a better place by speeding up the invention of quite a few things, likewise if he were God.
- The principle that all of us have done things so egregious to warrant the death penalty is itself egregious. Name one thing that you have done that you should be put to death for.
- The principle that someone else can suffer the death penalty for us to resolve the problem is similarly egregious. Should anyone be punished not to mention given the death penalty for things that you do? Is the death penalty Just?
- The principle that a Sacrifice can appease a God has been shown to be flawed because all the other Gods that required a sacrifice have been shown to be folklore. What makes Yahweh any different?
- The principle that a Human Sacrifice can appease a God has been shown to be flawed because all the other Gods that required a Human Sacrifice have been shown to be folklore. Are you okay with the Human Sacrifice to absolve you of Sin?
- The principle that a perfect God WANTS a sacrifice is highly doubtful. You can't say he's perfect if he's not in a perfect state, and if wants something then he's missing something.
- If we are flawed, God is responsible because he made us this way.
- It is possible to be compelled to unacceptable behavior by biological factors, and unacceptable behavior, is in the eye of the beholder, even if we all agree that killing children is bad. God ordered children to be ripped from their mothers wombs and William Lane Craig defended it in one of his forums if you can believe that.
- The authors of the Gospels cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.
- The Gospels themselves don't agree, making them unreliable by definition of criteria that determines if information is unreliable.
- The Gospels depend on one of the most unreliable forms of evidence, Eye Witness Testimony.
- Theology behind Easter depends on Paul. He set it up. But he wasn't in a position to know, because he wasn't there at the beginning. The story of his conversion is unreliable because there are two slightly different versions of it and if you go to bible gateway.com and look up both of them, using multiple Bible versions and analyze them, you can have even more versions depending on which translation they used. I know because I've done it to prepare for a forthcoming article.
- Paul, like Jesus referenced a non-existent Adam, therefore the source of the information in both cases was not divine, but from scripture, which is of demonstrably low quality because the authors, the authors credentials and the authors position to know are all unverifiable.
- Its simple, since there was no Adam, and Jesus didn't qualify to be the Messiah, and Jesus was not God because he referenced Adam which demonstrates that he had no supernatural knowledge, then he was just one of the people that got caught for rabble rousing around the passover and put on the cross for six hours. The Koran says he didn't die, and the fact that there is no body, and the fact that many people survived crucifixion, especially for such a short period of time supports that theory
Now please get rid of all those disgusting dead men on a stick that are displayed everywhere and hanging around your necks.
FURTHER READING
A LIST OF PREMISES AS ARTICLES REFUTING GENESIS 1-11 AND ROMANS 5 SO FAR
P1. The Interconnectedness of The Ancients - Demonstrates the robust ancient civilizations at the time and that Canaan, Israel and Judah were central to them. Discusses trade routes, seafaring, the link between whales and the Leviathans of Mythology and how long it would take to get from one civilization to another by sea.
P2. Genesis 1:1-25 Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths. Demonstrates the prior existence of key elements of the story of the creation of the Universe that appears in Genesis.
P3.Genesis 1:26-1:27, Creation of Humans in Near Eastern Myths And The Paleolithic Era. Demonstrates that the physical evidence contradicts the story of the making of the first humans in Genesis.
P4.GENESIS 1:28-2:4a, Be Fruitful And Multiply, Founder Effect and Genetic Diversity. This Article shows that even if the physical evidence didn't refute the special creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve, in Genesis 1:27, the problem of Genetic Diversity known as the "Founder Effect" would eventually lead to crippling genetic mutations or extinction.
P5.Genesis 2:4b-20 Man Made From Earth Is Folklore, Conflated River Elements and the Myth of Adapa. This Article shows that the concept of man made from earth spans cultures and geographical boundaries, the rivers are confused between geographical areas and has many elements from pre-existing Near Eastern Myths such as "The Myth of Adapa.
P6. Genesis 2:21-25: Woman From Rib and Mother Goddesses of Near Eastern Myths. This Article shows that in the second creation story in genesis the concept of woman made from bone, earth and antler pre-existed the writing of Genesis, spanned cultures and geographical boundaries and that Eve shares aspects of Goddesses in Ancient Near Eastern Mythology.
and flaunt your little dead men on a stick, check your facts, most things that Easter depends on don't cross-check. [edited 4/15/2009. added links]
- Biblical scripture is no more accurate than other writings that cover the same period of time. Not what you'd expect from the revealed word of God.
- The story of passover, Jesus, and a dying and rising god all are of a type of theme of folklore that pervaded the Near East during that period of time.
- Moses, existence hasn't been verified yet. He may never have existed, and may be a version of Sargon of Akkad. If he didn't exist, then all the things that depend on him in the Bible need to have their accuracy and reliability re-assessed.
- The exodus hasn't been verified yet, but it is clear that if it did happen, it didn't happen as it is described in the Bible.
- The author of Genesis or authors of Genesis cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.
- Adam obviously never existed, and if he did the scripture is so inaccurate so as to make the story more dubious than not. There was never a time when he and Eve would have been alone, and his first son went out and founded a town or a city. Towns and Cities started popping up after 10,000 BC.
- Jesus never clearly stated he was God. The phrase used to support the claim of Jesus as God are of the type that are used by Jews to express their belief that God lives in all of us and we influence the world through him by our actions that he approves of.
- The Jews never said he was the Messiah, he never qualified. The Messiah was supposed to be a politician and engineer. Jesus wasn't even close to being an engineer, if he was he could have showed them how to make the world a better place by speeding up the invention of quite a few things, likewise if he were God.
- The principle that all of us have done things so egregious to warrant the death penalty is itself egregious. Name one thing that you have done that you should be put to death for.
- The principle that someone else can suffer the death penalty for us to resolve the problem is similarly egregious. Should anyone be punished not to mention given the death penalty for things that you do? Is the death penalty Just?
- The principle that a Sacrifice can appease a God has been shown to be flawed because all the other Gods that required a sacrifice have been shown to be folklore. What makes Yahweh any different?
- The principle that a Human Sacrifice can appease a God has been shown to be flawed because all the other Gods that required a Human Sacrifice have been shown to be folklore. Are you okay with the Human Sacrifice to absolve you of Sin?
- The principle that a perfect God WANTS a sacrifice is highly doubtful. You can't say he's perfect if he's not in a perfect state, and if wants something then he's missing something.
- If we are flawed, God is responsible because he made us this way.
- It is possible to be compelled to unacceptable behavior by biological factors, and unacceptable behavior, is in the eye of the beholder, even if we all agree that killing children is bad. God ordered children to be ripped from their mothers wombs and William Lane Craig defended it in one of his forums if you can believe that.
- The authors of the Gospels cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.
- The Gospels themselves don't agree, making them unreliable by definition of criteria that determines if information is unreliable.
- The Gospels depend on one of the most unreliable forms of evidence, Eye Witness Testimony.
- Theology behind Easter depends on Paul. He set it up. But he wasn't in a position to know, because he wasn't there at the beginning. The story of his conversion is unreliable because there are two slightly different versions of it and if you go to bible gateway.com and look up both of them, using multiple Bible versions and analyze them, you can have even more versions depending on which translation they used. I know because I've done it to prepare for a forthcoming article.
- Paul, like Jesus referenced a non-existent Adam, therefore the source of the information in both cases was not divine, but from scripture, which is of demonstrably low quality because the authors, the authors credentials and the authors position to know are all unverifiable.
- Its simple, since there was no Adam, and Jesus didn't qualify to be the Messiah, and Jesus was not God because he referenced Adam which demonstrates that he had no supernatural knowledge, then he was just one of the people that got caught for rabble rousing around the passover and put on the cross for six hours. The Koran says he didn't die, and the fact that there is no body, and the fact that many people survived crucifixion, especially for such a short period of time supports that theory
Now please get rid of all those disgusting dead men on a stick that are displayed everywhere and hanging around your necks.
FURTHER READING
A LIST OF PREMISES AS ARTICLES REFUTING GENESIS 1-11 AND ROMANS 5 SO FAR
P1. The Interconnectedness of The Ancients - Demonstrates the robust ancient civilizations at the time and that Canaan, Israel and Judah were central to them. Discusses trade routes, seafaring, the link between whales and the Leviathans of Mythology and how long it would take to get from one civilization to another by sea.
P2. Genesis 1:1-25 Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths. Demonstrates the prior existence of key elements of the story of the creation of the Universe that appears in Genesis.
P3.Genesis 1:26-1:27, Creation of Humans in Near Eastern Myths And The Paleolithic Era. Demonstrates that the physical evidence contradicts the story of the making of the first humans in Genesis.
P4.GENESIS 1:28-2:4a, Be Fruitful And Multiply, Founder Effect and Genetic Diversity. This Article shows that even if the physical evidence didn't refute the special creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve, in Genesis 1:27, the problem of Genetic Diversity known as the "Founder Effect" would eventually lead to crippling genetic mutations or extinction.
P5.Genesis 2:4b-20 Man Made From Earth Is Folklore, Conflated River Elements and the Myth of Adapa. This Article shows that the concept of man made from earth spans cultures and geographical boundaries, the rivers are confused between geographical areas and has many elements from pre-existing Near Eastern Myths such as "The Myth of Adapa.
P6. Genesis 2:21-25: Woman From Rib and Mother Goddesses of Near Eastern Myths. This Article shows that in the second creation story in genesis the concept of woman made from bone, earth and antler pre-existed the writing of Genesis, spanned cultures and geographical boundaries and that Eve shares aspects of Goddesses in Ancient Near Eastern Mythology.
82 comments:
While enjoying a chocolate bunny (who happens to be my neighbor), I had a thought:
where is Jesus' body now?
I know that makes about as much sense as asking where Darth Vader's body is, but what do these Christian folks believe? After he flew up into the sky and went to heaven, did he keep his physical body? Just curious.
Nice post Lee. Fear and brainwashing is why people believe this stuff. It has no more credibility than Mormonism.
Lee
Most Christians, if not all have never worn a crucifix to "flaunt" it.
UnBeguiled,
Are you kidding, Dark Jedi is hiding his body from the rulers of the Galactic Empire, Jeez dude.
I know most of you out there think this is just another weekend, but in any case, I hope you all have a great Easter and enjoy your peeps.(the candy, and your family)
Live long and prosper, and may the force be with you! feeno
Hi Feeno,
you have a great weekend too.
Most Christians, if not all have never worn a crucifix to "flaunt" it.
why wear a crucifix?
to show it.
to whom?
other people.
why?
because by association, the christian is making a statement about themselves. It is a sign that others are supposed to see. It is advertising. It is marketing.
that my friend is flaunting.
Just like a NASCAR T-Shirt.
I should have know I was not cut out to be a christian because the sight of Jesus on the Cross has always kicked off my "yuck reflex". When i was kid i thought it meant i was evil. When I was grown up I thought something was wrong with me. Once I got over being a christian, I realized how twisted it is.
A dead man on a stick is offensive.
more bully tactics
(sigh, par for the course)
Christians love to state, as fact, that our sins nailed Jesus to the cross. My response is: What the hell?!
Yahweh (God) either killed his own son to satisfy his thirst for blood and death or God himself committed suicide in a confused mental state (or more likely, both of the preceding).
Theology has God becoming one of us (The Incarnation). Committing suicide so he can not only now accept himself, but so he can accept what he (God himself) created (The Atonement).
And then God continues to blame humanity for struggling to live in a (Fallen) world God himself created. Talk about sin! God is pictured in the Bible as the biggest sinner of all!
Christian theology is the only human endeavor where confusion and contradiction rules and where the theological screw ups are passed off on all humanity forever as the will of some cosmic God who has an IQ of less than 40.
Hi Brad,
what does that mean?
where does "bully" fit in?
Hi Brad,
better yet,
where am I wrong?
Lee, you know this is a polemic. The title is the "Horror of Easter", sounds like a good B-movie title.
And as for your points (which vary wildly) I don't feel like writing a 1000 word post, maybe I'll address them on my blog. But surely you are already aware of the counters to your argument.
Harry,
You said, "Yahweh (God) either killed his own son to satisfy his thirst for blood and death or God himself committed suicide."
This is a false dichotomy. God as only blood thirsty is debatable because while Scripture does portray God as angry and even blood thirsty at times, this is not the case all throughout Scripture. As for God committing suicide, there's no good reason for that since God cannot die. A good argument remains the fact that God created freewill, which at this expense brought: evil, hell, and the reality of millions if not billions of people going to hell. Christians argue that this is the best possible world God could have created and freewill is a wonderful thing. For without freewill, we would be robots. However, I think I would rather be a robot than use my freewill to arrive at the wrong belief about God and end up in hell for eternity.
I think the best approach with Christians is to ask, why would an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent God setup such a world? It is obvious that He does not have all these characteristics given: hell, evil, & the hiddenness of God. Of course this list could be longer, but these are on my mind the most.
By the way, I like your comment of God being the biggest sinner of all.
Great post!
Thanks for the reply Seek4Truth.
Here is why theology says God committed suicide:
A. In the Trinitarian dogma, God is in Jesus and Jesus is in God or God and Jesus are ONE.
B. God, as Jesus, knew he was going up to Jerusalem a Passover to be killed.
C. The Gospels represent Jesus’ willingness to be killed “as a lamb to the slaughter”.
D. Jesus sharply reproves Peter for his objection to Jesus’ own planed death; even calling Peter “Satan”.
E. Thus, if one knowingly ends one’s own life with death, it is suicide. Even the Catholic Church’s Canon Law classifies suicide into two classifications:
1. First Degree Suicide: The killing of oneself for no other reason but to end one’s life. (the penalty here is Hell)
2. Second Degree Suicide: Ending one’s own life to save others. For example, you, running your car off a cliff to keep from hitting a school bus. (The penalty here is more time in spent in Purgatory).
So by theology’s own logic, God in the Incarnation of Jesus at least committed Second Degree Suicide.
So, no matter what degree it was: Suicide is still Suicide!
Excellent post once again!
polemic?
show me the data.
what do you want to see backed up?
I've got most of them in archive.
Hi there,
Just one clarification. You mention, "The Gospels depend on one of the most unreliable forms of evidence, Eye Witness Testimony." But this is likely not the case. In fact, they only report to depend on eye-witness testimony, even though they likely weren't. Thus, the quality falls even lower...
Harry,
Thanks for clarifying. I can grant that God committed "second degree suicide" if and only if it's truly possible that God could, like humans, die and not come back to life. If God cannot truly die in the first place, then "sacrificing Himself" is not a genuine sacrifice. It seems like a fake suicide.
It's similar to the temptation of Jesus. If Jesus could not have truly sinned in the first place, then He is not a genuine sacrifice for humanity. Some will try to argue that Jesus could have sinned, but chose not to. I don't think He could have sinned and still retain his divinity, so Jesus as the saving sacrifice for humanity is flawed.
Sarah
Lee, I am very interested to read your forthcoming article. Will it be posted/linked on here? Secondly, what other dying saviours are there? I know about the Zeitgeist stuff which I understand to be a load of guff. Are there genuine parallels?
Thanks for the input Sarah.
Tell you what. I think you have some great input that I would like others to comment on too in a new post here at DC.
When I get home this evening, I’ll start a new post with a provocative title (What I call a Pucker or Duck Title…one will either hate it (take a swing) or love it (get kissed)) and narrow it down to theology, orthodoxy and suicide.
I hope to have this new post up by 7:00pm (EST).
Stay tuned!
Thanks Harry. I look forward to the post.
erlend,
have you bothered looking into it for yourself? The information is out there and easy to find.
Here's a hint. Google. Library.
heres a google tip. To search this site for information type in your search term and then the site
like this example that should all be typed together in the google search page
dying rising site:debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com
if that doesn't work for you use googles advanced search features.
Since christians only make up 35% of the worlds population, make sure that you only use 35% christian material to obtain a good representative sample from authors from other cultures and countries.
Take courses on comparative religions, The Ancient Near East, the history of egypt, Rome, Greece and anthropology.
the teaching company has lots of courses ranging from $30 to $200 and most of the time they are available and inexpensive in audio format.
In Egypt, Osiris is the first God to die and rise, and have a son with Isis called horus.
All the Pharoahs were considered Gods on Earth until the end.
The king in the gilgamesh epic was part god.
the hindus believe that all of us were derived from the killing of a god and we are all made up of his pieces.
Fertility cults were all about the dying and rebirth.
I'll start posting links in the body of the article with the other articles I've done which support my claims.
Here's a link to all of my articles to get you started
all lee's articles
for my other articles, you may be waiting a while. I have lots of unfinished ones, but the track I'm taking right now is in information quality. The next article I plan to publish will talk about accuracy and probably metrics for believability.
Earlier I said
I'll start posting links in the body of the article with the other articles I've done which support my claims.
scratch that. I'm getting tired of doing other peoples homework for them.
my support is in the articles available on the link in the last comment,
Why should anyone believe me?
Do your own research and stay away from christian material. Use academic and scientific material. the truth is out there and easy to find. You just have to make the effort.
Jeff,
of course you are right, I know the proposed timeline of the gospels as well as you evidently do.
but christians use the "eyewitness" analogy like its bullet proof and I was referring to that in a sloppy way.
I would also like to take a moment to point out Brads use of the strategy commonly used by christians of minimization by reference.
they say,
"sheesh, there are lots of good research to devastate each of these points"
and then not try to attack one point.
The main point of this article is that Adam didn't exist, but was referenced by both Jesus and Paul.
There's no hint of divine knowledge there at all so what qualifies Jesus or Paul as being authoritative on anything?
The only way out of it is equivocation as a strategy for persuasion.
But since there was no adam there was no original sin, there was no need for redemption additionally our problems were designed into us even if Adam existed.
Freewill?
Try to eat vomit. You'll probably throw up.
That reflex could have been designed into all of us to make it a unpleasant choice to "SIN".
Instead people get addicted to "SIN". There are biological processes that prevent an addict from stopping. Wheres the freewill there? At the beginning? When they want to stop they can't. Where's the justice in that? When they are sorry and their lives have hit the skids they pray to stop but it doesn't, where's the justice in that? They go to the AA meetings and talk about higher power but the majority of them slide back into it.
Freewill designed into us by god is ridiculous.
The story of passover, Jesus, and a dying and rising god all are of a type of theme of folklore that pervaded the Near East during that period of time.
Moses, existence hasn't been verified yet. He may never have existed, and may be a version of Sargon of Akkad. If he didn't exist, then ...
The exodus hasn't been verified yet, but ...
Adam obviously never existed
Paul, like Jesus referenced a non-existent Adam
... since there was no Adam, and Jesus didn't qualify to be the Messiah, ...
Hey, Lee,
Y R U so shocked? Napoleon didn't exist either! :-| It's all probably just another myth, just waiting to be soon debunked...
The Gospels themselves don't agree, making them unreliable by definition of criteria that determines if information is unreliable.
The Gospels depend on one of the most unreliable forms of evidence, Eye Witness Testimony.
Lee,
R U the same as this guy here? (I didn't know You were so young... )
Thanks for the advice Lee.
I am a classicist as it happens so I have taken many classes, written many essays and a completed a dissertation on the ancient world and its religions. But your advice is good, especially about taking courses.
Now, don't get me wrong. I believe there are parallels to many Bible stories (one need only start with John Taylor's Classics and the Bible to see this). I am not some hit and run polemicist, I am genuinely interested in hearing what you are saying, and will listen to it.
Now, any academic work I have read gives pretty short shrift to the pagan parallel idea for the historical Jesus. There is no sustained treatment of it in any peer-reviewed work I can find. The most is throw-away comments but the likes of Helmut Koester suggesting Christians utilized common religious themes.
In particular I have seen how Mithra studies has been utterly misused by the likes of Freke and Gandy, Ancyra S and so on (on hearing about Zeitgeist it uses these sources as well).
So, if you are correct, why hasn't this area been intensely studied? Of the hundreds of books on the historical Jesus and the influences of various traditions and ideas that were influencing it, why has this one been almost ignored?
you reference Egyptian myths. The first point I would like to raise would be how could a myth from Egypt written several thousand years before Christianity influence the Jesus tradition. Now we have acres of papyri and inscriptions from Egypt (thanks to the sand keeping them safe). Can you show that this Egyptian myth was still told, read and known around the 1 century C.E.? [you might want to consult books such as David Frankfurter's 'Religion in Roman Egypt'; Jaime Alvar and Richard Gordon (eds.) Romanising Oriental Gods: Myth, Salvation and Ethics in the Cults of Cybele, Isis and Mithras; Laurent Bricault, Miguel J. Versluys and Paul G. P. Meyboom (eds.) Nile into Tiber: Egypt in the Roman World: Proceedings of the IIIrd International Conference of Isis Studies.
If you accept a Jewish (and more specifically Palestinian) provenance for the first Christian community and the Gospel of Mark can you show the presence of syncretism of Egyptian religion into this area. Mark Chancey's two works on the absence of G-R influence on Galilee might be a good place to start- but not very helpful for your point. How far is the influence? Is it complete or partial? In any case if you can prove it you should research it and get it published!
Onto your actual suggestions.
I'm afraid I don't know a lot about Egyptian Pharaohs and their claims to deity. I will accept that point. I will though suggest reading Gradel's really excellent work on Roman Emperors' claims for deity. He shows "that emperor worship was indeed perfectly in keeping with Roman religious tradition, which has been generally misunderstood by a posterity imbued in radically different notions of the relationship between man and the divine." In essence he shows we read Christian theology into what the Roman Emperors' were saying about themselves, when actually it is utterly different from any Christian notion of the divine and man.
As far as I know fertility cults were not all about rising and dying Gods. I am willing to be proved wrong though.
Is the suggested parallel you make on the 06 July 'Isis Heals the Sick Boy' the fact that a sick boy is healed? This is a parallel to the gospel story? Well it might be. It would also seem plausible that it isn't that unusual a scenario for it to be replicated. Indeed, reading it again it seems the only parallel between the two stories is that a sick boy was healed, none of the other surrounding narrative parallels each other.
- Biblical scripture is no more accurate than other writings that cover the same period of time. Not what you'd expect from the revealed word of God.
KH> The NT documents are reliable and better preserved and in more MSS than anything from the ancient world. God did not bypass humanity in the transmission of the Scriptures.
- The story of passover, Jesus, and a dying and rising god all are of a type of theme of folklore that pervaded the Near East during that period of time.
This is a rejected, refuted theory. While similarities are interesting, they do not prove "same source" and the differences are significant.
There is no good evidence for pagan religious influences upon first-century Palestinian Judaism, which would have rejected it as such.
Most of what we have written of seasonal pagan deities comes after the Christian era so "borrowing" could have been the other way around.
- Moses, existence hasn't been verified yet. He may never have existed, and may be a version of Sargon of Akkad. If he didn't exist, then all the things that depend on him in the Bible need to have their accuracy and reliability re-assessed.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We have Moses recorded in the strongest Jewish traditions and writings and the archeological picture may yet improve.
The Neo-Assyrian text from the seventh century BC about Sargon long post-dates Moses and the "borrowing" may have been the other way.
- The exodus hasn't been verified yet, but it is clear that if it did happen, it didn't happen as it is described in the Bible.
See above.
- The author of Genesis or authors of Genesis cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.
See above. I would also give a Christological argument that Jesus affirmed Moses and his general authoriship, and Jesus is authoritative in all he affirms.
- Adam obviously never existed, and if he did the scripture is so inaccurate so as to make the story more dubious than not. There was never a time when he and Eve would have been alone, and his first son went out and founded a town or a city. Towns and Cities started popping up after 10,000 BC.
Mere assertion about the denial of their specific creation. And it's quite possible that Cain went out among other offspring of Adam and Eve who had established some communities.
- Jesus never clearly stated he was God. The phrase used to support the claim of Jesus as God are of the type that are used by Jews to express their belief that God lives in all of us and we influence the world through him by our actions that he approves of.
Jesus explicitly and implicitly claimed to be God. Taking the name of God, "I AM" and applying it to himself nearly got him executed by stoning (John 8:58-59).
- The Jews never said he was the Messiah, he never qualified. The Messiah was supposed to be a politician and engineer. Jesus wasn't even close to being an engineer, if he was he could have showed them how to make the world a better place by speeding up the invention of quite a few things, likewise if he were God.
Most Jews expected the military Messiah. They missed the first mission of Messiah: to suffer for the sins of the people.
The second aspect of Messiah's mission is forthcoming and will include the expected reign.
- The principle that all of us have done things so egregious to warrant the death penalty is itself egregious. Name one thing that you have done that you should be put to death for.
Rejecting the holy, righteous, eternal God led to physical death. Rejecting God's remedy for that leads to eternal seperation from God (the second death). Christian theology is consistent on this internal question.
- The principle that someone else can suffer the death penalty for us to resolve the problem is similarly egregious. Should anyone be punished not to mention given the death penalty for things that you do? Is the death penalty Just?
Christian theology holds that not just anyone can die for the sins of others. Only someone completely innocent and pure before God; only a person who could satisfy the eternally-holy God's wrath and justice.
- The principle that a Sacrifice can appease a God has been shown to be flawed because all the other Gods that required a sacrifice have been shown to be folklore. What makes Yahweh any different?
The existence of competing views does not make a particular view false. Each view can be evaluated on its own terms.
- The principle that a Human Sacrifice can appease a God has been shown to be flawed because all the other Gods that required a Human Sacrifice have been shown to be folklore. Are you okay with the Human Sacrifice to absolve you of Sin?
See above.
- The principle that a perfect God WANTS a sacrifice is highly doubtful. You can't say he's perfect if he's not in a perfect state, and if wants something then he's missing something.
God is free to will something concomitant with his perfection. The desire (not need) to have a relationship and remove the barriers to that relationship is not imperfection.
- If we are flawed, God is responsible because he made us this way.
For finite beings, perfection is a process.
I'm out of time. I'll try to pick up the rest of these but I find them simplistic.
And any reference to God "committing suicide" is ignorance of the Hypastatic Union.
- It is possible to be compelled to unacceptable behavior by biological factors, and unacceptable behavior, is in the eye of the beholder, even if we all agree that killing children is bad. God ordered children to be ripped from their mothers wombs and William Lane Craig defended it in one of his forums if you can believe that.
- The authors of the Gospels cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.
- The Gospels themselves don't agree, making them unreliable by definition of criteria that determines if information is unreliable.
- The Gospels depend on one of the most unreliable forms of evidence, Eye Witness Testimony.
- Theology behind Easter depends on Paul. He set it up. But he wasn't in a position to know, because he wasn't there at the beginning. The story of his conversion is unreliable because there are two slightly different versions of it and if you go to bible gateway.com and look up both of them, using multiple Bible versions and analyze them, you can have even more versions depending on which translation they used. I know because I've done it to prepare for a forthcoming article.
- Paul, like Jesus referenced a non-existent Adam, therefore the source of the information in both cases was not divine, but from scripture, which is of demonstrably low quality because the authors, the authors credentials and the authors position to know are all unverifiable.
- Its simple, since there was no Adam, and Jesus didn't qualify to be the Messiah, and Jesus was not God because he referenced Adam which demonstrates that he had no supernatural knowledge, then he was just one of the people that got caught for rabble rousing around the passover and put on the cross for six hours. The Koran says he didn't die, and the fact that there is no body, and the fact that many people survived crucifixion, especially for such a short period of time supports that theory
Kevin,
Do you not think we already know the standard Christian answers to these arguments? Do you think you introduced any of us to anything new with your long and unsourced post?
Kevin wrote: KH> The NT documents are reliable and better preserved and in more MSS than anything from the ancient world. God did not bypass humanity in the transmission of the Scriptures.
I think Lee was referring to reliability and accuracy beyond what we'd expect given the circumstances and abilities at the time, not in competition with other holy books, scriptures or even other historical documents. In this light, Lee is indeed correct.
You appear to be driven by a personal belief that God exists. Therefore, out of all religious texts we're aware of, you've concluded that God must be accurately represented by the one which is most logically possible and historically accurate. However, this is a flawed approach as none of them may be accurate.
For example, any work of fiction can reference historically accurate locations and people. Merely having the most accurate backdrop among many shouldn't justify promoting a single work as non-fiction.
God may not exist at all. Or God may exist, but Christianity still may be a very elaborate myth with an above average historical backdrop.
Based on what we know about human observation, it's seems very unlikely that we have an accurate picture of God's nature should he actually exist.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Given what little records we have that suggest he did exist, ongoing discoveries indicate his existence is more and more unlikely, instead of vice versa. Falling back to what is possible, instead of what is probable, seems to be a common tactic of theists.
Jesus explicitly and implicitly claimed to be God. Taking the name of God, "I AM" and applying it to himself nearly got him executed by stoning (John 8:58-59).
First, the entire verse is...
58"I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
Given that God supposably knew me before I was born, this doesn't seem to be a clear indication that Jesus was claiming to be God. While you might hold this interpretation, Jesus clearly speaks of God as a separate entity just a few sentences earlier.
Second, Jesus was speaking of their highest regarded human religious figure. How else did you expect them to react given the barbaric law that demanded stoning, which was supposedly dictated by God handed down by Moses himself?
Furthermore, God's nature, as depicted throughout the OT, is clearly not that of Jesus' nature, as depicted in the NT. The idea that a timeless, all knowing God would suddenly decide reveal a completely different aspect of his nature seems far fetched and very improbable.
Are you suggesting that God could not reveal this aspect of his nature without first becoming a human being? This seems unlikely given that God is supposedly omnipotent and would have been just as great had he decided not to create human beings.
Most Jews expected the military Messiah. They missed the first mission of Messiah: to suffer for the sins of the people.
Or it could just simply be that Jesus wasn't the Messiah that he claimed to be. Why would most Jews get it wrong if scripture was divinely inspired?
Rejecting the holy, righteous, eternal God led to physical death. Rejecting God's remedy for that leads to eternal seperation from God (the second death). Christian theology is consistent on this internal question.
We know the party line. What we are questioning is if such a response is reasonable beyond the Biblical scripture you already believe is true.
If the Bible is metric by which you determine if God's response is or is not reasonable, then you will perceive God's response of death and eternal separating as reasonable.
What we've asking you to do is assume, for just a few moments, there wasn't some holy book that said it was "OK" for God to act this way.
Given that he would have an intimate knowledge of our limitations through creating us, does it really seem reasonable for an all knowing being to demand death if we rejected him? Would a perfect being demand eternal separation if we conclude he doesn't exist, despite intentionally withholding information of his existence until after we die?
Again, just because something is logically possible, doesn't mean it's probable or reasonable.
If you say we must use faith to plug in the holes in God's nature, then why have faith in a being who separates us when we can learn nothing from such separation or who demanded and enjoyed the smell of animal sacrifices?
Why this particular nature?
It appears to be merely an attempt to defend dogma.
Lee,
(dirty little trick) I answered you on my start-up blog
Hi Erlend,
Now, any academic work I have read gives pretty short shrift to the pagan parallel idea for the historical Jesus. ...Of the hundreds of books on the historical Jesus and the influences of various traditions and ideas that were influencing it, why has this one been almost ignored?
okay lets put that on the back burner for now
you reference Egyptian myths. The first point I would like to raise would be how could a myth from Egypt written several thousand years before Christianity influence the Jesus tradition.
At this point i doubt you are as knowledgeable as would like me to think, because you have completely overlooked the process of SYNCRETISM which is fundamental to human ideas. An idea is originated and modified over time to the present and will continue to be modified as time goes on.
Onto your actual suggestions.
I'm afraid I don't know a lot about Egyptian Pharaohs and their claims to deity. I will accept that point.
Thank you for your honesty
In essence he shows we read Christian theology into what the Roman Emperors' were saying about themselves, when actually it is utterly different from any Christian notion of the divine and man.
HOLD THE PHONE!
You do understand SYNCRETISM but you only apply it BACKWARDS IN TIME.
As far as I know fertility cults were not all about rising and dying Gods. I am willing to be proved wrong though.
this further supports my belief that your are lying about your credentials or you are just a terrible student.
I found this in about 2 seconds. you can probably find more at a University.
Encyclopedia britannica, Mesopotamian Religion.
At this point I will consider you debunked as a serious commenter and am going to ignore you.
thanks brad,
I'll check it out.
Hi Kevin,
you should dump that
ABSENSE OF EVIDENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ABSENSE
nonsense because all you are saying is that
there is not enough information to make a conclusion.
Since that is the case I'll turn it around on you like the following
There is no good evidence for pagan religious influences upon first-century Palestinian Judaism, which would have rejected it as such.
Kevin,
ABSENSE OF EVIDENCE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF ABSENSE
see, the logic in that statement enables all things to be possible.
but we know all things are not possible.
so unless you want to include unicorns and Vishnu in your world, you should cut that nonsense out.
The Neo-Assyrian text from the seventh century BC about Sargon long post-dates Moses and the "borrowing" may have been the other way.
cut out that REVERSE SYNCRETISM nonsense as well.
[- Adam obviously never existed, and if he did the scripture is so inaccurate so as to make the story more dubious than not. There was never a time when he and Eve would have been alone, and his first son went out and founded a town or a city. Towns and Cities started popping up after 10,000 BC.]
Mere assertion about the denial of their specific creation. And it's quite possible that Cain went out among other offspring of Adam and Eve who had established some communities.
Okay smarty pants,
WHERE DOES ADAM FIT?
and I'll stop my comments right there because everything in christianity depends on that.
WHERE DOES ADAM FIT IN HISTORY?
I'm not going to argue anything else from this article until someone can show me that the fundamental premise that christianity depends on is likely true.
ROM 5:12
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
romans 5:12 depends on ADAMS EXISTENCE.
Hi Brad,
on your blog you say
But just to get to specifics, here's a tasty treat: The authors of the Gospels cannot be identified, therefore neither can their credentials or if they were in a position to know. Therefore the information is of low quality.
Notice how Lee wipes away 200 years of biblical criticism with one argument. This is his haymaker, that we don't have the signatures of the authors to verify. I might as well never read an AP article until I find out who submitted it and where they are from and what their biases are and whether they are delusional and whether they have any hidden ideological motivations.
So when you read anything you don't give any credence to
- who was the author
- what are there credentials
- were they in a position to know
- is the author biased
- is the information accurate
- can the information be cross checked
and you consider yourself an educator?
your AP analogy doesn't fly because if you wanted to, you could check all those things about any given article.
and you can logically conclude that the reputation of the news source is derived from the quality of the information it publishes, so you can reasonably expect an article on genetics from Nature to have a higher quality than the AP, and you can expect the AP to have a higher quality than the average tabloid.
Get serious will you?
Information quality can be measured and graded. The list above is just a simple one for School Kids doing research papers, or did you recognize it as such? It doesn't appear to me that you did.
Where does adam fit in history?
I always wondered how people could believe in a god that requires a blood sacrifice to be propitiated. Doesn't that strike anyone as incredibly primitive? sounds like some borderline caveman crap to me.
Thanks Lee for your reply. I'm not sure why you said you will now ignore me, suggest three times I am a poor student or not knowledgeable. I ensure you that I am a free-thinker and am merely wanting to explore further your comments. Its actually quite frustrating spending time crafting a response to you only to find you seem to have put me in some sort of enemy-box. I often found this when I post on Christian message boards, I did notexpect it here.
At this point i doubt you are as knowledgeable as would like me to think, because you have completely overlooked the process of SYNCRETISM which is fundamental to human ideas. An idea is originated and modified over time to the present and will continue to be modified as time goes on.
I understand syncretism perfectly well. My whole point was that you needed to demonstrate that such syncretism took place. I had referenced one of the leading scholars on syncretism in Palestine for you to consider. I referenced key works on the influence/syncretism of Egyptian religion to Graeco-Roman religion. I therefore don't understand your comments to me at all.
HOLD THE PHONE!
You do understand SYNCRETISM but you only apply it BACKWARDS IN TIME.
Lee, the reading of Christian theology into our interpretation of Divine Emperors is not syncretism, that is called an anachronism.
As far as I know fertility cults were not all about rising and dying Gods. I am willing to be proved wrong though.
this further supports my belief that your are lying about your credentials or you are just a terrible student.
I found this in about 2 seconds. you can probably find more at a University.
Encyclopedia britannica, Mesopotamian Religion.
At this point I will consider you debunked as a serious commenter and am going to ignore you
I maintain my point. The Encyclopedia Britanica is fine( I used to have a subscription to its online content) but its not really a place to go to find out recent scholarship or a particularly well developed argument- hence why I can't ever remember coming across it cited in academic work. Anyways, that is by the by. I will refer you to two recent works on the subject. Mark S. Smith's 'Origins of Biblical Monotheism' by Oxford University Press, pp.108-133 which examines the purported theme of dying and rising Gods and their applicability to be held as a analogue for Jesus' life. If you read that, especially his account of the introduction of the theme by Robertson Smith and Frazer in the late 19th century. In particular see his discussion 'problems with this category' , pp.108-133. Two articles, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago 1990), chap. 4; Mark S. Smith, "The Death of Dying and Rising Gods in the Biblical World," Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament 12 (1998):257-313. both argue the entire category is a fallacy.
This is all very general though. So can I ask, what was at the back of your object. What specific cult were you thinking of?
Silly Lee! You can only /die/ if you have a Physical Body. Jesus had a physical corporeal body but the rest of the Trinity does not. That's why 2 out of 3 never could die! And Jesus' new body is incorruptible and is totally "God-mode" now, so he can't die again. He is better than Boris, HE IS INVINCIBLE!
Hi erlend,
all thats irrelevant if there was no adam.
where does adam fit in history?
Lee,
Your claims about the resurrection being based upon previous myths has nothing at all to do with whether the person of Adam was historical or not.
Imagine going into a colloquium of ANE scholars and New Testament scholars met to discussion the links between the Jesus tradition and other stories. You stand up and ask 'was Adam real' or 'did the exodus happen', 'why is there two genealogies of Christ'.... scholars' response 'huh??'.
I think you are violating the comment policy of this blog which says 'So each Team Member assumes the responsibility to defend his or her own initial post'
Also you claimed that I am either lying about who I am, or that I am a terrible scholar who you have debunked and will ignore- all because I asked you some questions you aren't answering.
Yet the comment policy states that comments are allowed provided they are:
are civil in tone...[not to be] willfully mischaracterizing what we say in order to belittle us, or by personally attacking us. Anyone who does this will have their posts summarily deleted and/or banned from this blog.....[but]We will do our best to treat our opponents with some dignity and respect'
Your comments to me, and others I have seen, really have not been civil, polite, or demonstrative of a willingness to interact with anyone who disagrees with you.
Perhaps John can comment on whether you are violating this policy?
I enjoy many of your posts.I am not your enemy, I will listen to you and treat you with respect. Please do the same for me.
To perhaps go some way in proving this, you might want to consider reading 'Riddle of Resurrection: "Dying and Rising Gods" in the Ancient Near East' by T. N. Mettinger. He does argue that there is some merit to the theme of dying-rising Gods in the ancient world, and interacts with the academics I cited. Though he states it is almost universally accepted now that the idea of dying-rising saviors is a fallacious reading of the texts, and his rather qualified acceptance of it isn't quite as applicable to your theory it would benefit your argument.
Again though, I ask. What were you referring to in your original post.
he erlend,
where does adam fit in history?
Erlend I haven't been following this thread but I don't need to. Lee is always respectful with people who are respectful of him. You are a guest here. Don't forget that. In our comment policy I also said this:
Posts made by people whose profile isn't available are suspect, and may not be published for this reason alone...
This applies to you so be careful.
I also said:
We choose to follow the Golden Rule, for the most part...
Do you understand the last four words here? Sometimes we just can't resist a slapping ignorant Christians.
Finally I said:
We will respond to the posts we choose to respond to if we have the time...When it comes to posts we disagree with, don't assume that if we haven’t responded we won’t, or if we don’t respond that we can’t, or if we can’t respond that our opponents are right. There are always people who agree with us who can answer the objections we haven't studied up on sufficiently. No one can claim to be an expert on all of the relevant issues between believers and non-believers.
By your selective reading of our comment policy you are now put on notice. This is a warning. Behave or be gone.
Lee is my right hand man, a good man, an intelligent man.
Lee,
I don't see any relevance to discussion of ANE parallels to the resurrection. Adam is a fictitious character invent and redacted over time by numerous Jewish scribes. I'm sure you are aware of the documentary hypothesis.
Again, I am a free-thinker. Perhaps some background might help for I am guessing your hostility towards me is because you think I am a Christian just attacking your post? I am not a Christian [though I was]. I am re-evaluating everything, and that is a painful experience. I enjoy you posts, and this blog- as I have said. Now, for my first post I was genuinely enquiring about an essay you are writing and secondly to ask you about an issue that is interesting to me.
I wanted to know what sources or arguments you were thinking of. I can't see any so I pointed out that I think you are genuinely overstating your point, and responded to it in the best way I know how and in a manner and tone I would be happy to replicate in any academic setting. That doesn't mean I don't respect you because I disagree with one specific point that yo made. I did not expect to have to preface my opening remarks to you explaining all of this before I could ensure getting a cordial response from you! I hope we can clear the air.
To John,
Thanks for your comments. I hope you don't mind reading my reply. I wasn't aware my profile was on anonymous. That is changed. I have no reason to remain anonymous.
I spent quite a while thinking on what Lee said and how I would respond to it I am was entirely polite and respectful.
Lee is always respectful with people who are respectful of him.
I'm not sure if you mean I have disrespected Lee? I don't think I have.
Looking back over my comments I am pleased with them. 90% of it is decent, scholarly stuff, sticking to talking about the argument. On the other than around 70% of Lee's comments are calling me incompetent, a liar or asking me about Adam and not giving any indications he is wanting to talk about what I have said. I have not tried to assess Lee's character or qualifications.
this further supports my belief that your are lying about your credentials or you are just a terrible student.
I found this in about 2 seconds. you can probably find more at a University.
Encyclopedia britannica, Mesopotamian Religion.
At this point I will consider you debunked as a serious commenter and am going to ignore you.
At this point i doubt you are as knowledgeableh as would like me to think
Now that is not reasonable John. That is not respectful or engaging with my points. As it happens I am an academic by trade, and a post-graduate student in Graeco-Roman culture.
Lee's comments were not motivated by any disrespect I showed him. The only needed influence that was needed for his aggression was me to imply that he might not have such a good argument as he thought- or at least that he needs to show the argument that he has.
On the second point I quoted the policy on backing up points to try and get Lee to engage with what I have written in response. As you can see my points haven't been responded to; Lee either calls me incompetent, a liar, or asks me about Adam. It is quite frustrating John, whether or not he is your friend I hope you can empathize!
I hope that explains the situation better. I can't help but think I am either being very obtuse about this or that there has been a misunderstanding. I am looking forward to talking with you all on here and I hope you see that I don't need to be on moderation- something I have never been on before in almost 7 years of using net boards or chatrooms.
Sincerely,
Erlend.
Thanks for the endorsement John.
Hi Erlend,
Again, I am a free-thinker. Perhaps some background might help for I am guessing your hostility towards me is because you think I am a Christian just attacking your post? I am not a Christian [though I was]. I am re-evaluating everything, and that is a painful experience. I enjoy you posts, and this blog- as I have said.
I get a variation of this comment every now and then from people that turn out to be "posers". The fact that you re-produced it further supports my suspicion that you are a "poser". I think you are one of the tweb or tectonics crowd trying to get me to bite on your dying-and-rising gods red herring.
but since you said
Adam is a fictitious character invent and redacted over time by numerous Jewish scribes.
Now I will continue.
since adam was fictitious, then paul was wrong.
ROM 5:12
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
- cannot be used as a premise to explain how Jesus got on the cross.
- demonstrates that paul had no supernatural information source
- in Matt. 19:4-5 Jesus references Adam and Eve to use as premise for the argument for why divorce is only permitted for reasons of "immorality", which demonstrates that he didn't have any supernatural information source. Jesus was not God.
So neither Jesus or Paul have any right to be considered authoritative on anything any supposed God has a position on.
FURTHERMORE
ROM. 5
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
...
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
...
19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.
Adams original sin of disobedience is given as a reason for why humans are sinful, and Jesus obedience to the point of accepting death is our "Justification" or salvation.
there was no adam.
So adams disobedience is not the reason humans are "SINFUL". If Jesus died on the cross it was for some other reason.
and the principle that Jesus death in some way Justifies me or removes something or remediates a problem is a fallacy.
- It is not justifiable to have someone die for anything I've done.
- It is not justifiable to put me to death for anything i've done.
and reiterating
- it is not justifiable to put Jesus to death for disobedience of a folklore character.
- therefore Christianity has no justification
and debating rising and dying Gods parallels is irrelevant, is only a minor and irrelevant part of the whole article and I have a day job, and a family so my time is precious.
I get a variation of this comment every now and then from people that turn out to be "posers". The fact that you re-produced it further supports my suspicion that you are a "poser". I think you are one of the tweb or tectonics crowd trying to get me to bite on your dying-and-rising gods red herring.
Well I would have hoped my tone and use of proper scholarship and pointing out to you Mettinger's study which partially supports your point shows that is not the case.
I am not like who Kevin who used some copy and paste answers for a hit-and-run attack. I am still here wanting to engage am I not?
Why are you so keen to withhold common curiosity from me? Because I think you are wrong about one point out of about twenty?
[I search tektonics and can't find a reference to Mettinger's work, I don't know what Tweb is but search there! Try to see if my information comes from me and if I have been actually studying this or using
using pop-apologists!]
therefore Christianity has no justification
and debating rising and dying Gods parallels is irrelevant, is only a minor and irrelevant part of the whole article and I have a day job, and a family so my time is precious.
I'm sorry but I find this distasteful. You made a quite serious point from history which I asked you about. I love history, my life's work is history, and I don't like it being treated flippantly- for any cause! I spent a lot of time creating a response to you, you were really quite forcefully in suggesting your were right- to the point of rudeness.
At least say something like 'Fine. There is maybe isn't as much to this as I had thought' or 'Okay I maybe should have qualified my remarks' or at least 'I disagree with you but thanks for the reasoned response and for giving reasons for your disagreement'. Don't just dismiss it.
Looking forward to talking, and agreeing with you on many things, in the future Lee.
Lee, thanks for visiting.
I like what Nahum Sarna has to say about the Genesis accounts, but I don't feel like writing everything out here.
He's signed his books, I think, so we can judge the quality of information in them.
Hi erlend,
you have not been rude at all, and you have been quite polite. My compliments. But politeness is not a qualifier for identity and neither is being able to type in a list of references.
I did check to see if your comment times made sense from the perspective of a person posting from the UK and didn't see anything suspicious.
maybe i made a blunder and was too quick to judge you.
if so I regret it, and if history really is your lifes work, I hope to learn something from you.
I admit I'm not up on the latest scholarship where dying and rising gods are concerned or a lot of things for that matter and my resources for references are only run-of-the-mill.
In fact, I'm just a guy with a passion for learning that is uncomfortable with the state of the world around me and a desire to make the world a better place (from my perspective of course), and a love of puzzles and games of strategy.
But I do strongly disagree with you on this:
you reference Egyptian myths. The first point I would like to raise would be how could a myth from Egypt written several thousand years before Christianity influence the Jesus tradition.
and this:
In essence he shows we read Christian theology into what the Roman Emperors' were saying about themselves, when actually it is utterly different from any Christian notion of the divine and man.
and this:
As far as I know fertility cults were not all about rising and dying Gods. I am willing to be proved wrong though.
for reasons I mentioned before,
But you did mention one author (Mark Smith) that have read and respect, but while I give him more credit than others, one or two dissenting opinions do not turn the tide for me.
However, I am well aware that the proper view of history can change with new information. So I will keep an open mind and keep my eye out for new information and investigate the references you mentioned previously.
My audience is meant to be fence sitters. This article was just meant to be a bulleted list for hints about what questions to ask. People should do their own homework rather than take my word for it.
That article covers enough ground to write a book about. Though I didn't provided any references in this article, normally, i do. This time, I didn't have the time to do that, but most of the points are covered in my pervious articles.
The only thing I intended to debate here is Easter and the relationship between Jesus, Adam, Paul and the Atonement.
Hi Brad,
so you don't think Adam really existed either?
I'd be interested in learning about what the Christian view of salvation was before Paul came along with his Original Sin/Adam/etc doctrine.
Thanks Lee for the conciliatory post.
I'm quite happy to leave and let the emphasis go to discussions on Adam. I would like to re-state a point I had tried to make earlier though.
You say
But you did mention one author (Mark Smith) that have read and respect, but while I give him more credit than others, one or two dissenting opinions do not turn the tide for me.
The idea that rising dying Gods are analogues to what we see in the Jesus tradition is just not held any more in any depth by scholarship. It seems it only lives on on the internet. Mettinger calls this consensus 'nearly universal' and in 'Ethnicity in ancient Mesopotamia papers read at the 48th Rencontre assyriologique internationale, 2002' they concluded that 'the last nails have been hammered into the idea of the rising dying god motif, p.445, over the past twenty years.
(hope you don't mind me referencing again)
To see a better, and supported, argument on how the Jesus tradition was manufactured one need only consult the works of secularists such as James Crossley, Rodney Stark, Crossan etc.... To me their arguments are far more forceful than repeating now discarded notion of linking highly dubious connections to previous myths.
I think one reason many have continued to hold onto such ideas of borrowing (some are valid though, don't get me wrong!) is that they far more accessible to the common audience. You can get your neighbour, pastor and friends to quickly grasp what you are trying to say and why it is damaging to their faith. It will take a lot more time and willpower to understand a complex interplay of Jewish, Graeco-Roman and political forces and their influence!
What do you think? I am being fair?
Lee, it's not to fully explain in one comment, but I guess I'm not committed either way, whether or not there was an "Adam".
brad,
if you are committed to the the truth of the following,
"ROM. 5
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
...
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
...
19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. "
you cannot logically or rationally deny the existence of Adam without denying the truth or the credibility of Romans 5.
If you are committed to the truth of Romans 5, you must be committed to the actual existence of Adam.
Adams lack of existence makes breaks christianity.
Hi erlender,
I don't mind references at all, in fact as you seem to have overlooked, I usually use a lot of them ad nauseum.
I agree that the dying and rising god motif as it was practiced by the generations before christians does not "over-lay" or match up exactly. Thats where syncretism and the evolution of ideas come into play.
I say that anyone that tries to take any dying and rising god scenario and match it to the jesus story to a large degree is guilty of excluding the middle.
Folklore experts like dundees on page two of holy writ as oral lit describe a distinctive characteristic of folklore as having multiple existence and variation but the same theme.
you have to admit, that christianities characteristics of a divine king, a virgin birth, a dying god sometime before spring, a rising god in spring, the sacrifice of the 'lamb' of god on passover, the human sacrifice as the most valuable sacrifice, being washed away with blood, and suffering and benefiting mankind are all themes that can be found previous the the timeframe of 0-30 AD. Theres your theme, and multiple existence and variation.
Thats why I keep referring to the bible as folklore.
And if you want to tell me that christianity was immune to the influences of its environment, I have to believe that you are having a bit of cognitive dissonance.
now, thats all I have to say on the topic of dying and rising gods in this article.
Hi erlend,
and about this
"Lee's comments were not motivated by any disrespect I showed him. The only needed influence that was needed for his aggression was me to imply that he might not have such a good argument as he thought- or at least that he needs to show the argument that he has. "
don't flatter yourself, you're excluding a lot of qualifiers there. Is that the only reason? is that the reason I mentioned earlier? no.
I still am not convinced that, in the uk or not, you are not an apologist posing as a freethinker, trying to derail the topic.
hi erlend,
have you checked out Valeries interview with Dr. Tony Nugent, scholar of world religions and mythology, in the huffington post?
Ancient Sumerian Origins of the Easter StoryHe says crazy things like
"When mythic stories get passed from one culture to the next, sometimes one character can split into two or two characters come together. In this case, the Jesus of the resurrection story blends parts of Inanna and Dimuzi".
I invite you to carry your dying and rising god argument over to the DC article addressing that.
I don't mind references at all, in fact as you seem to have overlooked, I usually use a lot of them ad nauseum.
Lee, my comments on referencing was meant to be a reference to what you said here:
But politeness is not a qualifier for identity and neither is being able to type in a list of references.I wasn't trying to suggest anything.
And if you want to tell me that christianity was immune to the influences of its environment, I have to believe that you are having a bit of cognitive dissonance.I think I have said twice that Christianity does have parallels to myths in the surrounding culture.
I still am not convinced that, in the uk or not, you are not an apologist posing as a freethinker, trying to derail the topic.I have found this whole experience very disheartening Lee. You really, really, have done me a disservice and I still can't quite work out what exactly I have done to warrant your aggression.
Formatting went wrong in last post. I've re-posted it. Hope that is aright:
I don't mind references at all, in fact as you seem to have overlooked, I usually use a lot of them ad nauseum.Lee, my comments on referencing was meant to be a reference to what you said here:
But politeness is not a qualifier for identity and neither is being able to type in a list of references.I wasn't trying to suggest anything
And if you want to tell me that christianity was immune to the influences of its environment, I have to believe that you are having a bit of cognitive dissonance.I think I have said twice that Christianity does have parallels to myths in the surrounding culture.
I still am not convinced that, in the uk or not, you are not an apologist posing as a freethinker, trying to derail the topic.I can't see how I can derail a topic when you made the post about it. However, I have found this whole experience very disheartening Lee. You really, really, have done me a disservice and I still can't quite work out what exactly I have done to warrant your aggression.
Hi erlend,
in a nutshell,
here is what is shaping my responses to you that you are taking as "aggression".
I still am not convinced that, in the uk or not, you are not an apologist posing as a freethinker, trying to derail the topic.
have you checked valeries interview?
Lee,
Well I guess I will need to prove myself- something I didn't think I would need to do.
Thinking about it though, even if I was a Christian apologist what right do you have to be so dismissive and aggressive? I don't mind what a person's beliefs are, as long as they are reasonable and show signs of wanting to engage with all the evidence.
Do all posters here have to agree on what is posted (which I normally do anyway!) or get treated like muck?
Yes I have read the interview. I will make a quick response to it hopefully today.
Hi erlend,
Do all posters here have to agree on what is posted (which I normally do anyway!) or get treated like muck?If you're so offended, why do you keep coming back? To me that supports my view that you are "fishing" for nasty responses.
you are ignoring qualifiers again.
Feel free to disagree all you want, but not all posters appear to me to masquerading as freethinkers. When they appear to me to be masquerading as freethinkers, then I consider them to be of the 'TROLL' type of commenter and am not very patient with them.
As I've said, maybe i'm wrong, but I think you have overstated your credentials quite a bit because I feel that if a hack like me has read and therefore knows that ancient near east folklore has strikingly similar themes to Christianity, I expect you would too.
Likewise I'm shocked you don't know more about egyptian folklore and customs and that you are so quick to dismiss syncretism in the evolution of ideas leading to the point of christianity.
Maybe I'm stupid, bit I think your position goes so far against the grain of expert consensus not to mention common sense that I think you are more likely a young man at seminary or some christian university cutting your teeth in this forum and using it as an opportunity to label and characterize my responses to make me appear to be unreasonable.
You don't need to prove yourself to me or anyone, you can post here all you like.
If I'm wrong about you, I'll admit it and buy you a beer the next time I'm the UK.
now here's a smile and wink for you just to show that I don't harbor any hard feelings.
;-)
Cheers Lee :)
Lee, no it doesn't. I wish you all could hear how much you sound like fundies when you try to set up these "make or break" scenarios.
First, there have been some genetic studies that suggest we all go back to a common ancestor. Nothing coercive in that, but it's enough to keep in mind.
But what really gets me is that you literalize Paul's poetic reflection on the nature of sin and the atonement. This is obvious Hebrew parallelism, yet you want to beat me over the head with a literal interpretation of it. This is proof-texting at its worst.
Paul's point is that sin entered in the world through "Adam", which by the way is the generic in Hebrew for humanity, so it could go either way, and it was atoned for by the last "Adam" which is obviously used figuratively to talk about Jesus. But Paul's atonement theology was never only about Adam, it was about everyone. The rest of the letter makes that clear, so please don't pull that verse out of context.
But let's say I deny the truth in that verse, it still doesn't have any weight on the historical arguments for the resurrection.
Try this in Ken Ham.
Lee, no it doesn't. I wish you all could hear how much you sound like fundies when you try to set up these "make or break" scenarios.You mean like how some Christians claim that the Resurrection alone "makes or breaks" the truth of Christian theology? That all they have to prove is that it's likely that Jesus came back to life for the entire universe of protestant Christian claims to be validated?
HI Brad,
First, there have been some genetic studies that suggest we all go back to a common ancestor. you might want to read up on that before you start using it to defend your position. Someone might actually know something about it and call you on it. It seems that mitochondrial "eve" lived 200,000 years ago, and "adam" lived 60,000 years ago. how does that work?
Here's where you find the IBM, National Geographic Genographic Project. "A landmark study of the Human Journey"
The Genographic Project joint effort of National Geographic and IBM
heres some of my articles with information about that.
A LIST OF PREMISES AS ARTICLES REFUTING GENESIS 1-11 AND ROMANS 5 SO FARP1. The Interconnectedness of The Ancients - Demonstrates the robust ancient civilizations at the time and that Canaan, Israel and Judah were central to them. Discusses trade routes, seafaring, the link between whales and the Leviathans of Mythology and how long it would take to get from one civilization to another by sea.
P2. Genesis 1:1-25 Is An Amalgam of Near Eastern Creation Myths. Demonstrates the prior existence of key elements of the story of the creation of the Universe that appears in Genesis.
P3.Genesis 1:26-1:27, Creation of Humans in Near Eastern Myths And The Paleolithic Era. Demonstrates that the physical evidence contradicts the story of the making of the first humans in Genesis.
P4.GENESIS 1:28-2:4a, Be Fruitful And Multiply, Founder Effect and Genetic Diversity. This Article shows that even if the physical evidence didn't refute the special creation of the first humans, Adam and Eve, in Genesis 1:27, the problem of Genetic Diversity known as the "Founder Effect" would eventually lead to crippling genetic mutations or extinction.
P5.Genesis 2:4b-20 Man Made From Earth Is Folklore, Conflated River Elements and the Myth of Adapa. This Article shows that the concept of man made from earth spans cultures and geographical boundaries, the rivers are confused between geographical areas and has many elements from pre-existing Near Eastern Myths such as "The Myth of Adapa.
P6. Genesis 2:21-25: Woman From Rib and Mother Goddesses of Near Eastern Myths. This Article shows that in the second creation story in genesis the concept of woman made from bone, earth and antler pre-existed the writing of Genesis, spanned cultures and geographical boundaries and that Eve shares aspects of Goddesses in Ancient Near Eastern Mythology.
But what really gets me is that you literalize Paul's poetic reflection on the nature of sin and the atonement. okay, I'll play. Then that means that its all poetic reflection and none of it actually represents real world events. Its allegorical that...
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.
...
12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
...
19 For as through the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. "
Great, then I was right. Christianity is just poetic reflection and doesn't acutally represent any real world states.
- Poetic reflection that Jesus was the personification of God,
- That his purpose was to be the perfect sacrifice
- That his death on the cross DID anything with regard to the state of human beings, even if it meant something in a poetic way.
But honestly, I don't see Paul saying anywhere "excuse me while i wax reflective...."
But one thing I don't understand about you is how you can take rom 5:12 and say that paul was talking about humanity in general. It clearly says "through one man sin entered into the world" no matter how many bible versions you look at. (Thank Luck for biblegateway.com)
Romans 5:12 (New American Standard Bible) 12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned--
Romans 5:12 (King James Version) 12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Romans 5:12 (New King James Version)
Death in Adam, Life in Christ12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned—
Romans 5:12 (Young's Literal Translation)12 because of this, even as through one man the sin did enter into the world, and through the sin the death; and thus to all men the death did pass through, for that all did sin;
Romans 5:12 (New International Version - UK)
Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ 12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned—
Brad, this is a clear case of you attempting to use the strategy of equivocation to make the text fit disconfirming evidence.
But let's say I deny the truth in that verse, it still doesn't have any weight on the historical arguments for the resurrection.Arguments depend on evidence, there is no evidence. The new testament authors are unknown, their credentials are unknown, and if they were in a position to know is unknown, there is no other record of any resurrection or people rising from the dead or darkness at noon, even nasas website has a record of all the eclipses that have happened for thousands of years and there was none even close to any day that fits the story.
all you have is poetry. I don't think that is ever going to convince the other 65% of the world that are non-christians.
Christianity is busted.
You are busted.
;-)
Brad,
Jesus' death is supposed to reconcile a debt that required payment or atonement. If there was no historical event which is causally responsible for this debt, then why is God offended? In what way does Jesus' death enable humanities' salvation?
Paul's point is that sin entered in the world through "Adam", which by the way is the generic in Hebrew for humanity...And human beings supposedly entered the world the perfect creation of an omniscient and omnipotent God. How do we get to the resurrection from creation without a historical event which his death somehow resolves?
But Paul's atonement theology was never only about Adam, it was about everyone. The rest of the letter makes that clear, so please don't pull that verse out of context.The inclusion of everyone is precisely the issue. inheritance requires a chain of historical events that must ultimately point to a specific action, which God deemed punishable by death, which was taken by humanities' common ancestor. No historical event at the root, no inheritance as a race.
Are we guilty by default of being God's creation?
hi scott,
[applause]
brilliant comment.
Hello Lee and Scott,
It feels a little vain to try to respond, since I'm already "busted", but I just have to point out some things.
First, Romans 5 was never Paul's atonement theology. Romans 3:21-26 explains it clearly. Lee, go to biblegateway and look up verse 23 in 15 different versions and see if they all say "all". Or look at 4:22-25, and who is "we" in those verses? 6:15-23? Paul even talks about himself in chapter 7. There is no causal chain, we aren't being punished for Adam's sin, we're being punished for our sins.
Look at 5:12 again, the main point is that "all have sinned." Paul is juxtaposing the sin of Adam with the redemption of Jesus. Surely you know about Hebrew parallelism, Lee. We humans are caught up in sin, and one man's sacrifice is efficacious for all of us. Look at verse 21, Adam is no where in sight, and the main focus is sin. That's why linking this in a causal chain takes the verses out of context.
Of course, though, I'm afraid and brainwashed.
But the main point is that you sound exactly like Ken Ham when you set up these belief dominoes. I've heard him say exactly the same thing, that if you don't believe this, then you can't believe this and this and this. I've never even contested you on the origins of the creation account in Genesis, (I happen to agree with most of it, and I'll refer you to Sarna again) but you still want to beat it over me so you can "bust" me.
If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...
Brad,
isn't it true that sin entered into the world through adam, and through that we all have sinned and will keep sinning, but by jesus obeying god to be the human sacrifice of atonement we are absolved of that sin as long as we believe that jesus obeyed and believe in the efficacy of his sacrifice?
Hi Brad,
CARM says the following"Therefore, sin originated with Lucifer who was the first to rebel and entered the world through Adam who likewise chose disobedience.
Hi Brad,
and this one seems to contradict you too
Are we punished for Adam's sin?Their arguments seem to depend on Adam.
Lee, I think I would go with the arminian position at CARM, not the calvinist. That's what Romans 3:23 says, at least IMHO.
Jesus didn't repay Adam's sin, he repayed everyone's sins. It seems the easiest reading of everything.
Hi Brad,
so how did sin get into the world?
Lee, I think we've about exhausted this thread.
I had some thoughts on sin and evil here just as a starter a while ago:
http://www.reasonablefaith.org/site/PageServer?pagename=message_board&id=3423470
Hi Brad,
it was a pleasure talking to you. Hope to see you again.
Brad,
The Bible says there was a time when human beings did not sin. It is only after some specific historical event that human beings start to sin. This is how Christianity lets God off the hook from creating us with sinful nature by default.
This is similar to the idea that God originally created all animals as vegetarians. While God may have created saber tooth tigers, they originally ate grass, not meat. Again, this lets God off the hook for creating a system where animals need to kill each other to survive.
However, if there was no historical event, then why did human beings start sinning and why did animals start eating each other? If there was no reason, then God's alibi no longer holds up as he set us up to "fail" from day one.
Scott, I'm a little tired of scrolling down this thread, so let me recommend some material that helps explain my thinking a little more.
C.S. Lewis has a great chapter in the "Problem of Pain" that gives what he considers to be his creation "myth". I think it's called "the fall" and later on he talks about time and causality for God, kind of taking on Molinism before it became hot recently.
And this podcast just came out which, though I don't agree with it all, is another good start.
http://downloads.pleaseconvinceme.com/files/10%20Past%20iTunes%20Podcasts/PCM%20Podcast%2095%20-%20Does%20the%20Existence%20of%20Dinosaurs%20Contradict%20the%20Teaching%20of%20the%20Bible.mp3
Brian,
I'm not exclusively referring to the existence of the "natural" death of animals before the fall. I'm referring to the nature of human beings and animals as God created them.
However, regarding the podcast, the speaker first argues that absence of Dinosaurs in the scriptures does not disprove the Bible. However, he turns right around and suggests the absence of an explicit statement that animals did not die before the fall makes his theology possible? This appears to be an attempt to harmonize Biblical creation story with the death of animals as found in the fossil record.
Furthermore he suggests that the Garden wasn't the "promise land" where we will all live eternally. Instead, the second Adam will bring about a new world with is "better" than what Adam experienced (where animals died). However if this were the case, then what if man had never sinned?
Was God just waiting for man to sin so he could eventually send Jesus and bring about the perfect place that the garden was not? Again, it appears that God intentionally and knowingly created us to sin as part of his plan.
Sorry, that was a response to Brad. (Just got off the phone with a Brian)
Lee,
"In Egypt, Osiris is the first God to die and rise, and have a son with Isis called horus."Yea right Lee was that before or after he was cut up into 13 pieces put back together in 12 pieces and zombified in the UNDERWORLD??? Not even the physical world???
Parrallelomania(sp)
Hi Harvey,
you don't seem to understand the evolution and growth of ideas.
Apologists seem to think that if a story shares common elements with christianity and precedes it but the christian story omits some elements and adds others that it is not possible that they have a similar origin.
It doesn't work that way in folklore, ancient religions, philosophy, medicine, science or SITCOMS.
did you ever notice that SITCOMS today have some of the same story lines and elements as they did twenty or more years ago? And did you ever notice that some of those sitcoms have elements that appeared in books and plays hundreds of years before?
Generally speaking, the blending of ideas is called syncretism and using them outright is plagiarism
so your strategy of reduction to the absurd by frivolous labels may work with the flock, but they won't work on people that think about the details.
SYNCRETISM from answers.com
1. Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.
2. Linguistics. The merging of two or more originally different inflectional forms.
PLAGIARISM from answers.com
[play‐jă‐rizm], the theft of ideas (such as the plots of narrative or dramatic works) or of written passages or works, where these are passed off as one's own work without acknowledgement of their true origin; or a piece of writing thus stolen. Plagiarism is not always easily separable from imitation, adaptation, or pastiche, but is usually distinguished by its dishonest intention. A person practising this form of literary theft is a plagiarist. The older term plagiary was applied both to plagiarisms and to plagiarists.
Keep it real Harvey.
Later.
Lee,
Osiris is the BEST parallel that atheists can offer and even then the parallel is a poor pitiful stretch.
1- You have to go through all the many available and varying stories of Osiris to get to one that imaginatively has any type of correllation or resemblence.
2- When you do that as you guys do, then you have to make terms fit, make crop harcest resemble physical resurrection accounts, and "suggest" that one thing led to the other over time as you do...
The problem is that using your methodology either the "myth" would get incredibly wild or become so real that it is indistinguishable from actal happenings...So which one is it? Is the gospel story incredibly wild or does it resemble actual history?
If it is wild and obvious myth then you must account for evidences of hostile historical witnesses, radical changes and conversions such as James and Paul and will ultimately believe that folklore, over time, will resemble reality...right?
If it resembles actual history, then look at the story based on it's merits and actual time in history dissasociated from mythical stories...The biblical story offers actual historical proofs based on testimony of friend and foe, and as opposed to some commenting here ACTUAL eyewitness accunts who repeatedly state this themselves such as John in Jn. 21:20-25.
So you can say the story was blended, spliced, plaigerized etc...whatever you want...Then your analysis is most highly inconsistent, because if they were smart enough to LIE, and dumb enough to not take advantage of it for their own monetary benefits, and then die just to be known, then they couldn't have been smart enough to even BEGIN a deception such as this that has lasted over 2000 years and more...
So Lee you and the unltra skeptic are in a worse condition than it appears on the surface...simply too many loose ends to fix and not enough explaination or cognitive counter theories.
later
Hi Harvey,
Osiris is the BEST parallel that atheists can offer and even then the parallel is a poor pitiful stretch.We're making progress. In your first days here I don't think you would've admitted something like that.
1- You have to go through all the many available and varying stories of Osiris to get to one that imaginatively has any type of correllation or resemblence. That sounds like a christian trying to reconcile inconsistencies in the bible, but I don't want go there, I let that slide in favor of something else
So which one is it? Is the gospel story incredibly wild or does it resemble actual history?- Jesus was god, a god in human form, walking around interacting with people
- and died on the cross, made a sacrifice to help mankind, like prometheus and the hindu god that let himself be torn to pieces to make humans out of
- was resurrected and taken up to heaven, went down into the dark place (if you buy into the "getting the first prophets out of hell" and saving them), then he came back and went to his final destination, like osiris and some other gods. Check out Valeries article listed right below this one on the front page.
- There was darkness at noon, and the dead rose from their graves.
Sounds pretty mythical. This kind of thing doesn't happen very often, and the only recorded precedents that we have, you regard as myths and folklore, just as I do.
you have to admit, that christianities characteristics of a divine king, a virgin birth, a dying god sometime before spring, a rising god in spring, the sacrifice of the 'lamb' of god on passover, the human sacrifice as the most valuable sacrifice, being washed away with blood, and suffering and benefiting mankind are all themes that can be found previous the the timeframe of 0-30 AD.
If it is wild and obvious myth then you must account for evidences of hostile historical witnesses, radical changes and conversions such as James and Paul and will ultimately believe that folklore, over time, will resemble reality...right?Those hostile witnesses were hostile towards CHRISTIANS, not JESUS (as i'm sure you know very well but are guilty of omission in favor of a persuasive argument) and as is recorded quite well, many pagans were criticising the christians for using the same themes and repackaging them into another religion. But you have to get out of the christian bookstores and universities to find the historical data about the pagan orators and philosophers and what their criticisms were. This type of thing depends on you looking at information from the other 65% of the worlds culture to get a more well rounded education.
At this point you begin assuming that the Gospels are good quality information. You think they are sound enough to use to conclude that Jesus was god and died on the cross was resurrected and taken up to heaven. You seem to think you have enough information to make conclusions about James and Paul, or about the dead coming out of their graves.
But there is no inherent quality in the text, there is only the application of some sort of quality from the consumer. The text has none of the indicators of inherent qualtiy, but the person that is using it, the consumer, believes it is of the highest quality because of tradition.
There is no inherent quality in the Gospels because you don't know
- who the authors were
- if they were in a position to know
- What their credentials were
- what the origin of that information was
- What iteration of repitition it was in
- how much it changed from its origin before it got recorded
- If the originator was in a position to know
- and they depend on eyewitness testimony which is the most unreliable form of evidence
If your tax returns had as many inconsistencies as the Gospels, you'd never get your taxes filed or you'd be looking at an audit because they would not consider it good quality information. They don't want your word, or the eyewitness testimony of someone that knows you, they want the original data.
Basically there is no reason to consider the Gospels good information. The gospels agree as much you'd expect folklore to agree. They share a common theme and there is multiple existence and variation.
So it qualifies as folklore no doubt, but does it represent the state of the real world at a certain time? Thats still an open question. Does any of the other near eastern mythology represent real world states? Its never been proven to be false. Just keep that in mind. People have simply stopped regarding it as Good quality information.
If it resembles actual history, then look at the story based on it's merits and actual time in history dissasociated from mythical stories.. So does historical fiction, and folklore
As i said previously you've assumed the good quality of the information of the bible on no reasonable grounds whatsoever which leads you to say things like
- The biblical story offers actual historical proofs
- based on testimony of friend and foe, and as opposed to some commenting here
- ACTUAL eyewitness accunts who repeatedly state this themselves such as John in Jn. 21:20-25. Eyewitness testimony as evidence is the least reliable form of evidence, so you are compounding the inherent quality problems of the text
because if they were smart enough to LIE, and dumb enough to not take advantage of it for their own monetary benefits, and then die just to be known, then they couldn't have been smart enough to even BEGIN a deception such as this that has lasted over 2000 years and more...and this is quite a slippery slope, because it depends on the data being accurate. While this is one version of the story, the orginal data is lost.
The best you can say is that, we've got some data here, and not a lot of validation to go with it. That makes it inherently low quality information, and as the consumer of that information you are free to do with it what you will, and regard it how you wish, but if you try to defends its historicity by appealing to the fact that it exists at all and it has eyewitness testimony in it, thats just foolish.
that wouldn't fly with the tax-man.
At this point I'm going to bail on this article. Its been a week, and thats as long as I like to support and article.
I'm just repeating the same thing over and over.
- the bible has little inherent quality,
- therefore no warrant to regard it as accurate,
- therefore no warrant to use it for decision making,
- therefore no warrant to use it to frame a world view.
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