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Elodin
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posted July 27, 2013 06:40 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 18:44, 27 Jul 2013.
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artu said:
@markkur
Your comment about some Greek scriptures on HCM made me curious and led me to do some research. It turns out some Christians do believe that Jesus was speaking Greek, and not just out of historical ignorance but because they think it was "the language of culture" in Ancient Rome.
Jesus would have spoken both Hebrew and Greek. But odds are when he was teaching he spoke Hebrew because his audience was Jewish. The New Testament was written in Greek.
Inso far as the claim that we don't know the original words of the New Testament, that is patently false. By textual criticism we are certain of the original words to 99.9% accuracy with discrepencies being mainly word order.
Clicky
Quote:
7.1 Is the wording of today's Bible error free or not?
If, as Christians believe, the initial biblical autographa were inspired of God without error, how can we be certain we have that same inerrant message today? Isn't it likely that even if a perfect God gave a perfect message to imperfect man, man would eventually get it confused over centuries of copying? How can we tell if the original texts have maintained their fidelity as they were passed down from one generation to the next?
Over the ages, and in spite of stringent safeguards, copyists have still made mistakes. Textual comparisons between the many biblical documents known to exist will verify this. Of course, the more ancient copies we have to compare between, the more easily the errant words or forgotten sentences can be identified. Currently there exist well over 24,000 ancient copies or portions of Scripture. These have revealed the variations to largely concern spelling and, to a lesser degree, word order and grammar.
So is the Bible not free of error?
It is the contention of conservative biblical scholars and orthodox interpretation that the original autographs, being directly inspired by God, were completely free of errors, but not necessarily the subsequent copies. Some of the earliest typeset Bibles, for example, had notable problems. One printing omitted the word "not" in the sixth commandment so that it read "Thou shalt murder". But today we do not consider "Thou shalt murder" the correct rendering of that verse. Why? Because of the process of textual criticism. It is by this process that we can trust the modern Bible to be as inerrant as the earliest known and best preserved copies.
7.2 What are examples of textual criticism?
The process of distinguishing the original wordings from any deviations among the ancient documents is called textual criticism or lower criticism. (Higher criticism was coined by J. G. Eichhorn in 1787 as the process of judging the authorship and date of biblical writings by their content. 2) Textual criticism is a surprisingly formalized study that actually categorizes different kinds of variations, or mistakes, found in ancient writings. 3
Fission, for example, is the term to describe the dividing up of one word into two words. An example in English would be the erroneous writing of "hardship" as "hard ship". Although the same letters are present in both, a totally different meaning is conveyed when the word is split. Fusion, conversely, describes the errant combining of two words into one. Dittography is the writing twice of a letter or word which should have been written only once. Haplography, opposite of the latter, is something that was only written once but should have appeared multiple times.
Metathesis is the reversal of two words or letters or phrases in a passage. Homophony is the substituting of one homonym for another. There are also mistakes which are simply the product of a copyist misreading the text. These include the confusion of similar appearing letters, or the omission of an entire line of text, usually due to two consecutive lines beginning with the same word or words.
7.3 Where are the errors in the Bible?
Because the number of extant manuscripts is in the tens of thousands (50,000 I am urged, though I have not seen confirmation of that figure), the total number of variations between documents as defined above is around 200,000 by the highest estimate. Although as critics might put it, these are "errors in the Bible", they must be accepted for what they really are - transmissional variations, not factual mistakes.
An example of a textual critique will put the question variations pose into proper perspective. Here are twelve simulated writings of the same sentence as a biblical scholar might encounter them among twelve worst-case copies of the same piece of Scripture:
She trimmed his gray beard.
She trimed his gray beard.
She trimmed his gray beard.
She trim med his gray beard.
Trimmed she his grey beard.
She trimmed his gray beard.
His grey beerd she trimmd.
She trimmed his gray beard.
His grey beerd she trimmd.
Shet rimmed his gray beard.
She trimmed his gray beard.
She trimmed hes gray beard.
These phrases, by the rules of textual criticism, offer thirteen variations in spelling and at least three different word orders. This yields a total of sixteen variations, or errors, in a single sentence that is itself only five words long. Yet even with three times more "errors" than words, it is still quite clear as to what is being said.
If a scholar officially declared the original wording to read, "She trimmed his gray beard", one would be hard-pressed to disagree based on the evidence of document comparison. This is exactly why proponents of the Bible stand firm in their support of modern translations such as the New International Version and others. Similar variations within the biblical writings present no threat to the original words conveyed or to any of the basic biblical doctrines. Gleason Archer confidently states that:
a careful study of the variants of the various earliest manuscripts reveals that none of them affects a single doctrine of Scripture. The system of spiritual truth contained in the standard Hebrew text of the Old Testament is not in the slightest altered or compromised by any of the variant readings found in Hebrew manuscripts of earlier date found in the Dead Sea caves or anywhere else. It is very evident that the vast majority of them are so inconsequential as to leave the meaning of each clause doctrinally unaffected.
...Even though the two copies of Isaiah discovered in Qumran Cave 1 near the Dead Sea in 1947 were a thousand years earlier than the oldest dated manuscript previously known (AD 980), they proved to be word for word identical with our standard Hebrew Bible in more than 95 percent of the text. The 5 percent of variation consisted chiefly of obvious slips of the pen and variations in spelling. [emphasis mine] 4
7.4 What percent of ancient documents are in agreement?
On the average, Old Testament documents yield about one variation per page of text; New Testament manuscripts yield only a tenth of one percent variance. In other words, 99.9% of those manuscripts are in perfect agreement.
Though an occasional scribe altered a text to be copied, the resulting deviant copy constitutes only an infrequent departure from the plethora of copies available for corroborating comparison. Even as later copyists unknowingly passed on certain aberrations, appeals to still earlier or more reliable documents preserve the original message.
Thanks to textual criticism and on-going archaeological discoveries, even as time passes far beyond the date of the original writings, we may be confident that the Bible of today is a fully trustworthy duplication of the original autographs.
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Revelation
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 27, 2013 06:53 PM |
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Edited by artu at 18:55, 27 Jul 2013.
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That's not about what the objection is. Even if the latter copies of the Gospel of Luke are not different from the first manuscript, all of the criticism still stays intact about the first draft. I recommend to read at least the first 40 pages of the book and especially the chapter on 139, I haven't finished it myself yet, as I downloaded it just this morning. So before saying anything else, I want to finish it. I can tell you this though, up until now everything he says fits like a glove to what I've learned about the historical facts during the college, so it's true that all of his work is based on common scholarly knowledge.
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Elodin
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posted July 27, 2013 07:39 PM |
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artu said:
That's not about what the objection is. Even if the latter copies of the Gospel of Luke are not different from the first manuscript, all of the criticism still stays intact about the first draft. I recommend to read at least the first 40 pages of the book and especially the chapter on 139, I haven't finished it myself yet, as I downloaded it just this morning. So before saying anything else, I want to finish it. I can tell you this though, up until now everything he says fits like a glove to what I've learned about the historical facts during the college, so it's true that all of his work is based on common scholarly knowledge.
Dude, you are a johnny-come-lately to textual criticism, apparently in your desperate attempt to find something to attack Christianity with. I first read such a book about 33 years ago.
Here is a brief article about the authorship and dates of the when the gospels were written.
Clicky
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artu
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posted July 27, 2013 08:06 PM |
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Edited by artu at 20:36, 27 Jul 2013.
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First of all, the information on your clicky contradicts with the book and considering your source is President and Founder of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. He is openly biased and not considered a valid source.
And I'm new to nothing, as I mentioned before the things in the book are generally not new to me. I knew the 4 gospels were written after Jesus was death for a long time, even talked about it here. The importance of this book that I link to Markkur however, comes from two things:
1- Author is an ex-evangelist, so he can clearly empathize with believers,
2- Author states what he presents as data is already known by pastors and part of standard theological courses, yet not shared with general public somehow.
Now, before you mumble some non-sense again about my desperate attacks, I suggest you read the book and if you have a solid objection, put it with its why and how like I did. Why is this wrong for example:
Even though it is very hard to date the Gospels with precision, most scholars agree on the basic range of dates, for a variety of reasons.Without going into all the details, I can say that we know with relative certainty—from his own letters and from Acts—that Paul was writing during the fifties of the common era. He was well-traveled
in Christian circles, and he gives in his own writings absolutely no evidence of knowing about or ever having heard of the existence of
any Gospels. From this it can be inferred that the Gospels probably
were written after Paul’s day. It also appears that the Gospel writers
know about certain later historical events, such as the destruction of
Jerusalem in the year 70 CE (possibly Mark, in 13:1; almost certainly
Luke, in 21:20–22). That implies that these Gospels were probably
written after the year 70.There are reasons for thinking Mark was written first, so maybe he wrote around the time of the war with Rome, 70 CE. If Matthew and Luke both used Mark as a source, they must have been composed after Mark’s Gospel circulated for a time outside its own originating community—say, ten or fifteen years later, in 80 to 85 CE. John seems to be the most theologically developed Gospel, and so it was probably written later still, nearer the end of the first century, around 90 to 95CE. These are rough guesses, but most scholars agree on them. This means that our earliest surviving written accounts of Jesus’ life come from thirty-five to sixty-five years after his death. What was happening during all the intervening years? It is quite clear what was happening to Christianity: it was spreading throughout major urban areas of the Mediterranean region. If the Gospels and Acts are right, immediately after the resurrection of Jesus his followers included maybe fifteen or twenty men and women who had been with him previously,in Galilee, and who came to believe that he had been raised from the dead.By the end of the first century—thanks to the missionary efforts of the apostles and of converts like Paul the religion could be found in the villages, towns,and cities of Judea, Samaria, Galilee, and Syria; it had moved north and west into Cilicia and throughout Asia Minor (modern Turkey) and Macedonia and Achaia (modern Greece); it had made its way as far as Rome, the capital of the empire, and possibly as far west as Spain.It had also traveled south, possibly to North Africa and probably to parts of Egypt.
It is not that thousands and thousands of people were converting
overnight. But over the years, dozens and dozens of people—probablyhundreds—were converting in major urban areas. How did Christians convert people away from their (mainly) pagan religions to
believe in only one God, the God of the Jews, and in Jesus, his son,
who died to take away the sins of the world? The only way to convert
people was to tell them stories about Jesus: what he said and did, and
how he died and was raised from the dead. Once someone converted to the religion and became a member of a Christian church, they, too, would tell the stories. And the people they converted would then tell the stories, as would those whom those people converted. And so it went, a religion spread entirely by word of mouth, in a world of no mass media. But who was telling the stories about Jesus? In almost every instance, it was someone who had not known Jesus or known anyone
else who had known Jesus. Let me illustrate with a hypothetical example. I’m a coppersmith who lives in Ephesus, in Asia Minor.
A stranger comes to town and begins to preach about the miraculous
life and death of Jesus. I hear all the stories he has to tell, and
decide to give up my devotion to the local pagan divinity, Athena,
and become a follower of the Jewish God and Jesus his son. I then
convert my wife, based on the stories that I repeat. She tells the
next-door neighbor, and she converts. This neighbor tells the stories
to her husband, a merchant, and he converts. He goes on a business
trip to the city of Smyrna and tells his business associate the stories.He converts, and then tells his wife, who also converts.
This woman who has now converted has heard all sorts of stories
about Jesus. And from whom? One of the apostles? No, from her husband.
Well, whom did he hear them from? His next-door neighbor,
the merchant of Ephesus. Where did he hear them? His wife. And
she? My wife. And she? From me. And where did I hear them from?
An eyewitness? No, I heard them from the stranger who came to
town.This is how Christianity spread, year after year, decade after
decade, until eventually someone wrote down the stories. What do you suppose happened to the stories over the years, as they were told
and retold, not as disinterested news stories reported by eyewitnesses
but as propaganda meant to convert people to faith, told by people
who had themselves heard them fifth- or sixth- or nineteenth-hand?
Did you or your kids ever play the telephone game at a birthday
party? The kids sit in a circle, and one child tells a story to the girl sitting next to her, who tells it to the next girl, who tells it to the next, and so on, until it comes back to the one who first told the story. And it’s now a different story. (If it weren’t a different story the game would be a bit pointless.) Imagine playing telephone not among a group of kids of the same socioeconomic class from the
same neighborhood and same school and of the same age speaking
the same language, but imagine playing it for forty or more years,
in different countries, in different contexts, in different languages.
What happens to the stories? They change.Is it any wonder that the Gospels are so full of discrepancies? John heard different stories than did Mark, and when he heard the same stories he heard them differently. The Gospel writers themselves evidently changed the stories of their sources (remember how Luke changed Mark’s account of Jesus going to his death). If things could change that much just from one writer to the next, imagine how much they could change in the oral tradition.
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Elodin
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posted July 27, 2013 10:28 PM |
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Edited by Corribus at 17:05, 28 Jul 2013.
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artu said:
First of all, the information on your clicky contradicts with the book and considering your source is President and Founder of the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. He is openly biased and not considered a valid source.
The author you are quoting was "raised" a Christian (as in he never had a relationship with Jesus himself) and has rejected Christianity and describes himself as an agnostic. He is oh so far from being objective and constantly lies about an assaults Christianity.
Clicky
MOD EDIT: Long excerpt removed. Please click on the link if you want to read it.
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artu
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 27, 2013 10:54 PM |
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Edited by artu at 23:00, 27 Jul 2013.
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Quote:
The author you are quoting was "raised" a Christian (as in he never had a relationship with Jesus himself) and has rejected Christianity and describes himself as an agnostic. He is oh so far from being objective and constantly lies about an assaults Christianity
No, as he states in the opening of the book, he was a devoted Christian not just culturally raised as one. Obviously you didn't even read it. And you again linked some site called www.apologeticspress.org. Maybe, you didn't understand my objection to that; apolegetic Christians are people whose purpose is to defend Christianity no matter what, they are not impartial and they don't claim to be. They already have their conclusions, they don't use reason to arrive at it. Ehrman, on the other hand neither defends nor attacks Christianity, not believing in it isn't attacking something. He even says that his historical approach is not the reason of his disbelief and many scholars who agree with him on these matters are STILL Christians. And more importantly, his views are not marginal or edgy, they are common knowledge among historians. I can confirm that, since here over the Atlantic, as a student I studied the same data too while taking lectures on Western Civilization and Christianity.
Now, put all that beside, let's look at the two arguments here. Your guy simply argues:
The writer of the gospel of John was obviously an eyewitness of the events of Christ's life since he speaks from a perspective of having been there during many of the events of Jesus' ministry and displays a good knowledge of Israeli geography and customs.
Put aside the fact that there's nothing that contradicts with the criticism of oral transportation of stories that I quoted, it also indicates it may not even be John. But let's just skip that also, what he's doing is simply guessing the guy was there because of the tense the story is told. That's all he has. I can write a story about Napoleon right now, as if I was with him. What does that prove. Now let's look at how Erhman establishes his reasoning:
I can say that we know with relative certainty—from his own letters and from Acts—that Paul was writing during the fifties of the common era. He was well-traveled in Christian circles, and he gives in his own writings absolutely no evidence of knowing about or ever having heard of the existence of any Gospels. From this it can be inferred that the Gospels probably were written after Paul’s day. It also appears that the Gospel writers know about certain later historical events, such as the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE (possibly Mark, in 13:1; almost certainly Luke, in 21:20–22). That implies that these Gospels were probably written after the year 70.
It's solid, based on historical events and the reasoning is not as half as arbitrary.
Btw, please don't text-wall some apologetic site here in your every post like anybody except you treats it as objective data. You give the "clickies" anyway, I quoted the long text because it's from a book and a pdf file. And of course, you replied to nothing about it except trashing Ehrman: Ad Hominem. Just give concrete answers to his line of reasoning on the part I quoted. He is historically not wrong about how those stories spread, nobody says he is, so why should he be wrong about his conclusion?
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 28, 2013 12:32 AM |
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Edited by Corribus at 00:33, 28 Jul 2013.
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Moderator note: Elodin, please refrain from cutting and pasting such long tracts taken from other webpages. If it's more than a few paragraphs, please just link to it. That goes for you, too, Artu.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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artu
Promising
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My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 28, 2013 01:16 AM |
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Edited by artu at 01:16, 28 Jul 2013.
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Corb, can you ask Val to add a spoiler gadget to the tools menu, you know, like in the Russian Heroes forum, you [spoiler]long text[/spoiler] and it turns into a button that opens up the text. Very handy when reporting crash logs also.
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 28, 2013 02:05 AM |
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I believe we have asked for this in the past. You are free to suggest it again in the tribunal.
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I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're goin', and hook up with them later. -Mitch Hedberg
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Elodin
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posted July 28, 2013 03:27 AM |
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Sure, I can see how topic relevant material it bad for discussions. Especially when it opposes Christianity being trashed.
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gnomes2169
Honorable
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Duke of the Glade
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posted July 28, 2013 07:17 AM |
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Elodin said:
Sure, I can see how topic relevant material it bad for discussions. Especially when it opposes Christianity being trashed.
...
Once again, Elodin, Cor is commenting to both you and your opposition that you are doing something that should be stopped. It is not an attack on you or your position, merely a petition that quotes from a source not be obscenely long. Of course, you can treat it like a personal attack just like every other time Cor posts something that contains your name in it, but I would suggest that you look at the context this time. Thank you.
@Artu: This actually looks like a rather interesting read, and I'm probably going to download it in the morning. Thank you for pointing it out.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred
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adriancat
Famous Hero
Protector Of The Peace
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posted July 28, 2013 12:18 PM |
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“Pocaiti-va, ca s-a apropiat Imparatia cerurilor!” (Matei 4,17)
"Return yourselves to God because the Heavenly Kingdom is near ! " ( Orthodox Bible - Matei's Evangel 4,17 ) .
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Elodin
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posted July 28, 2013 12:58 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 13:01, 28 Jul 2013.
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Quote:
Btw, please don't text-wall some apologetic site here in your every post like anybody except you treats it as objective data. You give the "clickies" anyway, I quoted the long text because it's from a book and a pdf file. And of course, you replied to nothing about it except trashing Ehrman: Ad Hominem. Just give concrete answers to his line of reasoning on the part I quoted. He is historically not wrong about how those stories spread, nobody says he is, so why should he be wrong about his conclusion?
Apologetic sites are in general maintained by scholars who refute liars such as the article writer you quoted.
Yeah, you accept nothing but anti-Christians such as the article writer you quoted. You claimed the guy was objective and sympathetic to Christianity, but he has rejected Christianity and constantly attacks it. Your guy is NOT objective and tells lots of lies. There are certain folks out there who love to attack Christianity with lies. In fact, there is nothing at all new about the lies your author relates, as the article I quoted pointed out.
Your deceiver's book is far from a scholarly work.
Quote:
Though it has been well received on the popular level, Ehrman’s work has not met with approval from those best quipped to evaluate his claims. In his blog, respected New Testament scholar Ben Witherington III critiques Ehrman’s book, saying,
It is mystifying however why he would attempt to write a book like Jesus, Interrupted which frankly reflect [sic] no in-depth interaction at all with exegetes, theologians, and even most historians of the NT period of whatever faith or no faith at all. A quick perusal of the footnotes to this book, reveals mostly cross-references to Ehrman’s earlier popular works, with a few exceptions sprinkled in.... What is especially telling and odd about this is Bart does not much reflect a knowledge of the exegetical or historical study of the text in the last thirty years. Even in a work of this sort, we would expect some good up to date bibliography for those disposed to do further study, not merely copious cross-references to one’s other popular level books.... The impression is left, even if untrue, that Ehrman’s actual knowledge of and interaction with NT historians, exegetes, and theologians has been and is superficial and this has led to overly tendentious and superficial analysis (2009, emp. added).
....
Ehrman notes that, “[s]tories were changed with what would strike us today as reckless abandon.... They were modified, amplified, and embellished. And sometimes they were made up” (2006, p. 259). He never explains why he chooses to believe that the stories concerning Jesus are legendary or fictitious. Biography, legend, and fiction are different genres, each with its own distinguishing characteristics. This is common fare for Christianity’s critics: to announce the Bible as fiction, legend, myth, or fairy tale without justification or supporting evidence.
Quote:
Put aside the fact that there's nothing that contradicts with the criticism of oral transportation of stories that I quoted, it also indicates it may not even be John. But let's just skip that also, what he's doing is simply guessing the guy was there because of the tense the story is told. That's all he has. I can write a story about Napoleon right now, as if I was with him. What does that prove. Now let's look at how Erhman establishes his reasoning:
I can say that we know with relative certainty—from his own letters and from Acts—that Paul was writing during the fifties of the common era. He was well-traveled in Christian circles, and he gives in his own writings absolutely no evidence of knowing about or ever having heard of the existence of any Gospels. From this it can be inferred that the Gospels probably were written after Paul’s day. It also appears that the Gospel writers know about certain later historical events, such as the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE (possibly Mark, in 13:1; almost certainly Luke, in 21:20–22). That implies that these Gospels were probably written after the year 70.
Your author's reasoning is loony. Why on earth would Paul write about the gospels in his epistles to the various churches? Paul wrote those letters to the various churches to address various issues that needed to be addressed, as the Holy Spirit moved him to do so.
And the early church certainly knew who wrote what gospels. John wrote the gospel of John and the epistles of John. Using the third person to write events you were involved in was not at all uncommon in those days.
Quote:
It also appears that the Gospel writers
know about certain later historical events, such as the destruction of
Jerusalem in the year 70 CE (possibly Mark, in 13:1; almost certainly
Luke, in 21:20–22). That implies that these Gospels were probably
written after the year 70.
What your article writer assumes is that prophecy is not real and that therefore Jesus could not have prophesied the coming destruction of Jerusalem. Again, written from an anti-Christian viewpoint. He has no evidence at all, just his bias that Jesus is not God and could not have predicted the destruction of Jerusalem.
I've heard all the lies the guy presents before. Like I said, I' ve been reading such stuff before you were even born.
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Revelation
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Elodin
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posted July 28, 2013 02:31 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 14:53, 28 Jul 2013.
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Below is an exerpt of an article discussing Ehrman's anti-Christian book. There's quite a bit more where that came from. All of Ehrman's books are blatant attacks on Christianity and are filled with dishonesty, poor research, and poor logic.
Clicky
Quote:
Chapter 5 can be summarized as "things Ehrman still believes that the academic world has long rejected." He offers a re-heated version of Schweitzer's view that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet--while drawing material from his book, Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium (1999)--but never bothers to tell his audience that Schweitzer's theories have been largely discredited and most "Questers" today have moved on to other views. Likewise, Ehrman attempts to resurrect (pun intended) David Hume's argument against miracles by suggesting the historian can never declare that a miracle is the most probable explanation because, by definition, miracles are always the least plausible events. Again, he does not mention (or does not know) that Hume's arguments have been roundly critiqued as fallacious, even by secular philosophers (one need only read John Earman, Hume's Abject Failure, Oxford, 2000). Unaware of these philosophical issues, Ehrman makes statements that are overtly circular and often presupposes his own naturalistic worldview. For example, he declares, "[The resurrection] is the least likely [explanation] because people do not come back to life, never to die again, after they are well and truly dead" (176). But, isn't the question of whether people can "come back to life" the very issue being debated? If so, then how can Ehrman simply assume they cannot as the basis for his argument? He may as well argue, "People can't rise from the dead because people can't rise from the dead." As the reader completes chapter 5, a growing irony begins to emerge--Ehrman has built his entire book on the premise that his ideas reflect the consensus of modern scholarship but it is becoming more and more clear that he stands very much in the minority.
And below is the conclusion of the article reviewing Ehrman's book. In keeping with the "only quote a few paragraphs" ruling I'll leave it at that. However, one should read the entire article.
Quote:
In the end, Jesus Interrupted can be best summarized as a book filled with ironies. Ironic that it purports to be about unbiased history but rarely presents an opposing viewpoint; ironic that it claims to follow the scholarly consensus but breaks from it so often; ironic that it insists on the historical-critical method but then reads the gospels with a modernist, overly-literal hermeneutic; ironic that it claims no one view of early Christianity could be "right" (Walter Bauer) but then proceeds to tell us which view of early Christianity is "right;" ironic that it dismisses Papias with a wave of the hand but presents the Gospel of the Ebionites as if it were equal to the canonical four; and ironic that it declares everyone can "pick and choose" what is right for them, but then offers its own litany of moral absolutes. Such intellectual schizophrenia suggests there is more going on in Jesus Interrupted than meets the eye. Though veiled in the garb of scholarship, this book is religious at the core. Ehrman does not so much offer history as he does theology, not so much academics as he does his own ideology. The reader does not get a post-religious Ehrman as expected, but simply gets a new-religious Ehrman--an author who has traded in one religious system (Christianity) for another (postmodern agnosticism). Thus, Ehrman is not out to squash religion as so many might suppose. He is simply out to promote his own. He is preacher turned scholar turned preacher. And of all the ironies, perhaps that is the greatest.
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Revelation
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 28, 2013 03:01 PM |
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Edited by artu at 15:27, 28 Jul 2013.
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You label anything that does not go "oh Jesus our savior" as anti-christian. I told you before, Christian or not, no historian will assume prophecies are prophecies while doing academic work because it's not how the methodology applies. You can not find real scientists making hypothesis based on miracles and the supernatural, don't search in vain. The most polite ones will give you the secular explanation and tell you, science's job ends there and it's for you to decide.
Now, not that this apologetic site actually counts but all their objections are logical fallacies also. They say he doesn't mention Joseph, but when you read the book you see he does, they talk about Hume and miracles, maybe Hume's line of thinking was confronted by another philosopher, science is not philosophy though, and it does NOT accept miracles no matter what Hume says or not, (that is something I shouldn't even be explaining to a man who claims to be educated), they say (just like you) why should the oral tradition be untrustworthy but he doesn't come up with it out of the blue, he comes with it to explain the inconsistencies that are everywhere:
The list goes on. Some students accept these new views from day one. Others—especially among the more conservative students—resist for a long time, secure in their knowledge that God would not allow any falsehoods into his sacred book. But before long, as students see more and more of the evidence, many of them find that their faith in the inerrancy and absolute historical truthfulness of the Bible begins to waver. There simply is too much evidence,and to reconcile all of the hundreds of differences among the biblical sources requires so much speculation and fancy interpretive footwork that eventually it gets to be too much for them.
And let me tell you how oral tradition works among peasants and especially illiterate people (which was the vast majority of the people back then). During the war in 1920's, while Mustafa Kemal was on the front line, he gets a bullet to the chest and is saved by a clock he carries. The bullet hits the clock. Now, I'm not sure if this story is true or written for propaganda during the 1930's but sociologists say that up until the 1950's, there was a rumor among the villages of Anatolia, the peasants used to believe that Mustafa Kemal was bullet-proof! (And they could easily die for their belief and they were not academics working on deconstruction either). That's oral tradition for you! And this takes place in the 20th century, among people speaking the same language. Imagine the first century where explaining EVERYTHING with the supernatural was the norm among common folk and stories traveled between languages in a world without dictionaries.
Your objections to the dating based on Paul's letters or the destruction of Jerusalem are not convincing at all. But they don't matter for another reason, it's not specific to this writer, it is very clear from his words that this is the mainstream opinion among the scholars to say the gospels were written after Jesus died, it is common knowledge, just go to Wikipedia and read Gospel of X, everybody, even your apologetics accept the gospels weren't written "during the life of Jesus" When they object, they object by saying why shouldn't we trust the oral transportation of those stories? Which is a very absurd question by all scientific criteria, especially when there are eventual differences between the gospels themselves.
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted July 28, 2013 03:37 PM |
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Edited by Elodin at 15:41, 28 Jul 2013.
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artu said:
You label anything that does not go "oh Jesus our savior" as anti-christian. I told you before, Christian or not, no historian will assume prophecies are prophecies while doing academic work because it's not how the methodology applies.
You are incorrect that no New Testament scholars accept miracles on face value. Your loony author makes assumptions that that the gospels were written at a late date because of the prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem because he disbelieves in God and disbelies in prophecy. And he falsely claims his is the consensus view amoung scholars. But he has no evidence for what he presents as fact. He is just one more in a line of loony liars who love to attack Christianity with falsehoods.
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You can not find real scientists making hypothesis based on miracles and the supernatural, don't search in vain. The most polite ones will give you the secular explanation and tell you, science's job ends there and it's for you to decide.
Sorry dude, but your author declared miracles don't happen because miracles don't happen. Circular "logic" that anti-Christians quite often put forward.
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Now, not that this apologetic site actually counts but all their objections are logical fallacies also. They say he doesn't mention Joseph, but when you read the book you see he does, they say (just like you) why should the oral tradition be untrustworthy but he doesn't come up with it out of the blue, he comes with it to explain the inconsistencies that are everywhere:
Sorry to burst your bubble but there are not inconsistencies "everywhere."
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Your objections to the dating based on Paul's letters or the destruction of Jerusalem are not convincing at all.
You are not familiar with Paul's writings. He wrote the epistles (letters) to various churches to instruct them in matters of certain doctrines and to address various problems. He had no reason to mention the gospels. None.
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But they don't matter for another reason, it's not specific to this writer to say the gospels were written after Jesus died,....
Dude, I never said the gospels were written while Jesus was alive and I don't know ANY Christian who thinks they were. If you go back to one of my first posts on the subject you'lls see a timeline form when the gospels and other books were written. That just shows you are not even reading my posts.
Below is a link an extensive review of Ehrman's book by New Testament scholar Dr. Ben Witherington. Below is a brief excerpt.
Clicky
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As we turn to Ehrman’s chapter entitled “A Mass of Variant Views” let is start with a statement on p. 63--- “Paul wrote letters..he did not think he was writing the Bible….Only later did someone put these letters together and consider them inspired.” Here we are dealing with a half truth appended to which is a false conclusion. It is quite right to say Paul did not think he was writing canonical books. He did however think that both his oral proclamation and his writing were inspired by God’s Spirit, and he says so repeatedly in these letters. The notion of inspiration is not something that came later and after the fact. Indeed, Paul was convinced from the outset that his preaching was the living word of God, and his writings likewise inspired. I have dealt with this subject at length in my book The Living Word of God, but what will have to suffice here is a simple quotation from one of Paul’s earliest undisputed letters, 1 Thessalonians--- 1 Thess. 2.13 reads as follows: “And we also thank God continually because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.”
Early Christianity, from Pentecost on (see Acts 2), was a pneumatic movement, a movement of prophets and Spirit inspired teachers and preachers and apostles. It was a movement profoundly convinced that it had a new and late word from God that the world needed to hear. The leaders of this movement believed not only that the OT was inspired by God and so God-breathed (see 2 Tim. 3.16), they believed that their own words and writings were likewise inspired by God. This is precisely why in a text like 1 Cor. 7, Paul can quote the very words of Jesus on divorce, and then put his own words right beside them as equally authoritative and inspired and true. Now of course a secular historian can be skeptical about whether what Paul says is true or not, but what is absolutely not historically true is the notion that only later someone put these documents together and considered them inspired. That would be a false analysis of the historical data.
And of course Peter in one of his epistles acknowledged the divine inspiration of Paul.
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2Pe 3:15 And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation; even as our beloved brother Paul also according to the wisdom given unto him hath written unto you;
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 28, 2013 04:05 PM |
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Edited by artu at 16:08, 28 Jul 2013.
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Dude, I never said the gospels were written while Jesus was alive and I don't know ANY Christian who thinks they were. If you go back to one of my first posts on the subject you'lls see a timeline form when the gospels and other books were written. That just shows you are not even reading my posts.
I looked at your timeline, I even told you it contradicts with the book. And if you don't claim that, then you do acknowledge that between the actual events and the texts, there is a time that everything was "preserved" under the conditions the author describes.
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Sorry to burst your bubble but there are not inconsistencies "everywhere."
There are, and as he says, even the most resistant students come to accept that. Live with it and please don't repeat the same thing fifty times again.
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Sorry dude, but your author declared miracles don't happen because miracles don't happen. Circular "logic" that anti-Christians quite often put forward.
No miracles don't happen because a miracle by definition is something that contradicts with the natural law, and if your method is scientific, you can not take that as a given. Also, he clearly states that is the standard education. You continuously seem to disregard the fact that most of the stuff Erchman writes is not new or his own conclusions. They are results of mainstream research:
The approach taken to the Bible in almost all Protestant (and now Catholic) mainline seminaries is what is called the “historical-critical” method. It is completely different from the “devotional” approach to the Bible one learns in church.
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You are not familiar with Paul's writings. He wrote the epistles (letters) to various churches to instruct them in matters of certain doctrines and to address various problems. He had no reason to mention the gospels. None.
I don't understand why you even mention this if you agree that the Gospels were written after Paul's time? And obviously most scholars think, it is reasonable to think they'd be mentioned somehow since it is the mainstream view he summarizes.
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The clicky: http://answersforthefaith.com
Yes, another apologetic site that is presented by devoted Christians only to convince other devoted Christians! Why can't you provide even one impartial, unbiased link? Not an atheist site but not a Christian site either, a common book review for example, or encylopedic material?
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Elodin
Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
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posted July 28, 2013 11:18 PM |
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artu said:
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Dude, I never said the gospels were written while Jesus was alive and I don't know ANY Christian who thinks they were. If you go back to one of my first posts on the subject you'lls see a timeline form when the gospels and other books were written. That just shows you are not even reading my posts.
I looked at your timeline, I even told you it contradicts with the book.
Your book was written by an anit-Christian. He lied a lot. I've already quoted scholars saying he lied.
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Sorry to burst your bubble but there are not inconsistencies "everywhere."
There are, and as he says, even the most resistant students come to accept that. Live with it and please don't repeat the same thing fifty times again.
Lol!!! The guy who wrote your book is not the ultimate source of truth. He is lying. Most seminaries DO NOT teach Jesus did no miracles and did not rise from the dead and there is no reason for you to falsely claim they do.
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Sorry dude, but your author declared miracles don't happen because miracles don't happen. Circular "logic" that anti-Christians quite often put forward.
No miracles don't happen because a miracle by definition is something that contradicts with the natural law, and if your method is scientific, you can not take that as a given.
Your source said Jesus did not rise from the dead because there is no resurrection of the dead. His is not scholarship but loonyship. The typical arguments of anti-theists who constantly preach their viewpoint as the ultimate truth and condemn all others.
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Also, he clearly states that is the standard education. You continuously seem to disregard the fact that most of the stuff Erchman writes is not new or his own conclusions. They are results of mainstream research:
Nah, the sources I quoted says he is lying. The standard in seminaries is NOT preaching that Jesus did no miracles and did not rise from the dead. You found one loony guy who wrote a bunch of lies and said, "Yeah!!! He proved Christianity wrong!" When actually all he is doing is saying stuff like, "Jesus did no miracles because there can be no miracles." Circlular logic.
Nothing he wrote in that book four or five years ago is new. Many scholars have taken him to task of it.
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I don't understand why you even mention this if you agree that the Gospels were written after Paul's time? And obviously most scholars think, it is reasonable to think they'd be mentioned somehow since it is the mainstream view he summarizes.
Actually, Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written during Paul's time. Mark and Luke both traveled with Paul. Luke more than Mark. Luke wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. At the end of the book of Acts Paul was still alive and in prison.
John was the last of the apotles to die, and the only one not to be murdered. He wrote the Gospel of John after Paul's death in all probability.
I was wrong about one thing. Paul did quote one of the gospels. A phrase from the Gospel of Luke.
Clicky
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Luke wrote both the Book of Acts and the Gospel of Luke. These two texts contain introductions that tie them together in history. In the introduction to the book of Acts, Luke refers to his ‘former book’ where he ‘wrote about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven’. If it is reasonable to conclude that the Book of Acts was written prior to 64AD, it would also be reasonable to conclude that the Gospel of Luke was written in the years prior to this. Paul certainly knew that Luke’s Gospel was common knowledge in about 64AD when Paul penned his letter to Timothy. Note the following passage from his letter:
1 Timothy 5:17-18
The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. For the Scripture says, ‘Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,’ and ‘The worker deserves his wages.’
Paul quotes two passages as scripture here; one in the Old Testament and one in the New Testament. ‘Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain,’ refers to Deuteronomy 25:4 and ‘The worker deserves his wages’ refers to Luke 10:7. It’s clear that Luke’s gospel was already common knowledge and accepted as scripture by the time this letter was written. It’s therefore reasonable to assume that Luke’s gospel was written in the early 60’s.
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The clicky: http://answersforthefaith.com
Yes, another apologetic site that is presented by devoted Christians only to convince other devoted Christians! Why can't you provide even one impartial, unbiased link? Not an atheist site but not a Christian site either, a common book review for example, or encylopedic material?
Dude, the only people you'd accept would be somebody like Dawkins or the late Hitchens and those guys just attack(ed) Christianity like the author of the book you love.
I did link to an eminent Biblical scholar who did a rather extensive review of the book. It would have taken you quite some time to read the whole thing and I am doubtful you even skimmed through what he wrote.
It has already been proved the author you love is did shody research, lied a lot, and engaged in circular reasoning. All of his books attack Christianity. He is not at all fair or impartial.
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Revelation
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 29, 2013 12:03 AM |
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This is turning into he said she said... Now, although your concept of "anti-christian" is something like anybody who doesn't believe yet still makes comments about the historical story of Christianity, and since you say things like "he lies, students don't do that," I will not try to prove he doesn't. How can I do that here, I must go and videotape the lectures. You accuse a writer of lying in the simplest sense, about what he witnessed in the classrooms he's been in.
I will do something else, I will remind you how this all started. Markkur, while explaining why he was a Christian talked about two possibilities:
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Now either he was a lying nutcase or he was being truthful. I believe the latter...much to your dismay I'm sure
And he said, he wanted to retire from the thread. I send him a message, saying because he wanted to retire, I preferred to send this via PM and there is a third possibility: Jesus was turned into a legend over time. He replied mentioning the Greek scriptures, I -just to be sure- researched about those Greek scriptures and it turns out, as I said to him, those were PUT INTO TEXT by secondary "witnesses" after some time passed away also. I linked a book about it written by an expert on New Testament though, since if he was to doubt my expertise on the subject, he'd be very right.
Now, that's about the time you come in with your crusader mode, and please don't get me wrong, I respect a person who stands up for his ideas, but the objection was about the possibility of a third option, which is btw, no matter how you close your ears to it, is considered to be the historical option when history is meant to be a social science. I know, you (or Markkur) won't convert into an atheist by those possibilites but "either this or that" was missing a possibility. And no matter how you demonize the author, he has some very rational points. Take Jesus being "the son of God" for example, only by comparing the four Gospels, he concludes this, (he speaks Hebrew), when Jews said "son of God" they meant that person is loyal to God (think of it like you saying you are the lamb of Jesus, you don't literally mean you are a lamb), and only in one of the Gospels, which is the latest btw, he is without doubt referred as the literal son of God. In others, there is not a verse that literally indicates that, and if the man himself declared that, wouldn't all gospels mention it? So, what he does is, tie the concept of being the actual son of God to John's theology. And let me remind you, this is done just by comparing the four gospels to each other. You have the right to reject this because of your faith but why do you have to define it as anti-christian lying? It is simply reasoning.
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artu
Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
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posted July 30, 2013 10:42 AM |
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Maybe, I was wrong to give agricultural religions centuries to disappear 
Religion to Disappear By 2041 Claims New Study
It is clear that the growth of Atheism or “unaffiliated” people is growing at an incredibly rapid rate in the United States, but it seems that being non-religious is also exploding globally. The UK’s Daily Mail reported an extensive 2010 study that showed unaffiliated individuals as the “third largest global group” behind Christians and Muslims, placing the unaffiliated ahead of Hindus, Buddists, Jews and all other religious affliations.
2041 seems too soon, even to me though.
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This thread is pages long: 
