Merged Topic - Historical Reliability of the Gospels

[stromboli]

Just a little clarification....

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/nicaea.html

In tracing the origin of the Bible, one is led to AD 325, when
> Constantine the Great called the First Council of Nicaea, composed of
> 300 religious leaders. Three centuries after Jesus lived, this council
> was given the task of separating divinely inspired writings from those
> of questionable origin.
>    The actual compilation of the Bible was an incredibly complicated
> project that involved churchmen of many varying beliefs, in an
> atmosphere of dissension, jealousy, intolerance, persecution and
> bigotry.
>    At this time, the question of the divinity of Jesus had split the
> church into two factions. Constantine offered to make the little-known
> Christian sect the official state religion if the Christians would
> settle their differences. Apparently, he didn't particularly care what
> they believed in as long as they agreed upon a belief. By compiling a
> book of sacred writings, Constantine thought that the book would give
> authority to the new church.

The references in the Christian religion of reincarnation, I am told,
> were removed by the Council of Nicea. (See Note A)

  Also, we do know that there were many books of supposed prophets
> floating around up until 312 CE when the Council of Nicea decided
> which books were scripture and which ones were burned. Thanks to
> the notorious habit of early Christian leaders of destroying
> books/scrolls, we may never know what doctrine existed before the
> Council of Nicea.

Christianity consisted of many sects. By converting Constantine
> (The Great) the Paul heresy triumphed as the concept of trinity and the ending of the
> Mosaic law (which made swine flesh permissible) brought this version of
> Christianity very close to the Hellenic paganism that was practiced in Rome
> and Greece. At Nicea Constantine had 300 versions of the Bible burnt, thus
> legitimising and patronizing only the Paulic heresy.

>Actually, legend has it that at the Council of Nicea, Constantine was
>unsure of what else to include as a holy scripture (which later the batch
>became the Bible). He threw the batch that he was to choose from onto a
>table. Those that remained on the table were in, those that fell off were
>out.

There are one or two places where there is evidence of which is 'right',
> the most famous example perhaps being the account of the raising of Lazarus
> which was removed from Mark on the instructions of the Council of Nicea as
> it hat overtones of a 'mystery cult'.


The Roman Catholic Church created the canon of Christian
> scripture at the Council of Nicea, at the same time that they determined
> the doctrine of Trinity (through the assassination of a few of the voting
> bishops, by one vote).

Good article. Recommend you read it. Point being that the creation of the bible by committee was absolutely a political agenda.

The Vatican from its creation was a political operator across Italy and then Europe and into Asia. Watch "The Borgias" on Showtime to get some idea of how they rolled. Its fiction based on actual events, but gives some idea of the politics and cutthroat (literally) tactics involved. Ol' Lucretia had a way with poisons for a reason. 

[Hakurei Reimu]

Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus. See the account of this event in Acts 8.

This is false, as Baruch already explained.

Nor am I attempting to have it both ways. Someone who lives in a predominantly oral culture can know how to read and write. Conversely, people today can develop memory skills that most of us neglect.

Yeah. We called it "rote memorization." I don't know what you kids do these days, but when I was in school, we had to know facts by heart. None of that iPhone shit.

Furthermore, while you can train yourself to memorize easier, all of the methods I'm aware of require you to transform the memory in some way, because all of them require you to link those memories to imagery or a rhyme or somesuch. Even the ones from mideval Europe.

The guardrails on the narrative, however, is the fact that the audience is already familiar with the story. While some deviation is permitted to the orator, the audience would not permit wholesale changes.

"Familiar with the story" does not mean that they have memorized an accurate version of the story. Also, that narrative has to be appealing to them in some way, otherwise they'll just take their ears elsewhere, and there were other sects to choose from. Some playing up is to be expected.

When you practice a skill, you get better at it. This is just common sense.

Do remember that it's these societies of oral tradition is where all of the other myths and legends of the world come from. Am I to take them seriously too because they were memorized tales from old? Should I sacrifice you to Quetzalcoatl, who is sustained by the blood of humans? He must be dying for a tall glass of blood by now. Perhaps I should search for the island of Polyphemus in the Mediterranian? After all, Homer â€"with his good oral memoryâ€" has obviously preserved the memory of the giant cyclops for all time. Or what of the tale of the trickster spirit Coyote and the wasichu, where wiley Coyote tricks the too-clever-for-his-own-good guy into giving Coyote his horse and clothes?

Or does this good oral memory only work when it suits you?

Nah, there's a limit to how much you can train this sense. Modern psychological studies into memory do not help you in your case.

Thanks for taking the time to read the article. It is a pleasure chatting with someone who is willing to consider the material properly.

If there was no written record of Pontius Pilate, why would there be much contemporaneous record of Jesus. As atheists love to point out, the Romans crucified people all the time. Jesus was just one more victim of their oppressive rule of Palestine.

Yeah, they did crucify people, but not that much. Jesus's conflict with the Pharasees was an internal matter. Unless Jesus was acting against the Roman state, there's no reason why Pilate would even be bothered. Internal governence is why the Romans left the Pharasees in charge of Judea in the first place, as was part of their deal. The Roman Empire was a true empire, with a monopole (Rome) and periphery states under control of the regional governers, and with people mostly under their own governence provided it was subservient to Rome.

Which makes the biblical account really kind of puzzling. It's as if the tail is wagging the dog here. If Jesus did anything against Roman interests, Pilate would simply deal with him without input from the Pharasees; if Jesus did nothing against the Romans, Pilate wouldn't have interfered.

Akin addresses this point here:

The Procurator and the Peasant
http://jimmyakin.com/2014/10/the-procurator-and-the-peasant.html

Yeah, it seems reasonable, except when you consider a very imporant point: Jesus was executed by Roman authority and apparently came back from the dead. Are you really saying that no Roman got wind of Jesus coming back and thinking, "Hey, didn't we already kill that guy?" A man in Judea defied Roman authority, and defied the gods themselves, and came back from the dead, as well as performing other miracles during his life and extra life.

And the Romans have nothing to say on that? Really?

Keep your story. I'm not buying that.

Sorry, but I can't determine which point about Tacitus you are referring to.

Tacitus was writing about Christ. All the Romans who supposedly met Jesus were already long gone, and it seems for all intents and purposes were all "Nothing unusual happened today" in any case. As such, all of the people spreading the word of Jesus initially spoke Aramaic and/or Hebrew, not Latin. Being on the other side of the empire, it is unlikely Tacitus spoke either. Thus, the report of Jesus had to have passed through at least one set of ears that spoke Aramaic and Latin on its way to Tacitus. Hearsay.

This makes it different from second-hand accounts, where some text is lifted directly from the original text into a secondary source as excepts, and paraphrases are done with the original text right in front of you.

Alright. Caught up. I'm going to take a break.

PS, thank goodness for automatic backups!

[stromboli]

I have a couple of points
The necessity of a Jesus narrative to be derived from a Hebrew source. I don't count myself a Biblical scholar, but is there such an account? As far as I am aware, everything in the NT was both written and originated in Greek. The Septuagint was translated about 300 BCE. I know that there were later revised versions of Torah that post date the Septuagint.

In other words:

1. Lacking a Hebrew source for any Jesus narrative, I would expect it calls into question any authenticity, specifically of the Gospels. I personally do not know of any translation. It could just as easily have been created post tense by Roman Christians to bolster their story.

2. The Septuagint was translated before some changes in the relevant Torah Scrolls. Torah were an ongoing set of directives vis a vis Judaism, as I understand. Therefore the Septuagint version accepted as the OT would not include any later revisions, meaning that there could be many differences of accepted Jewish belief from the OT. All of which call into question both the relevance and the authenticity of source material.

[Randy Carson]

Now lets call up that chart...

...Yeah, that one. Ignoring the rather glaring order of magnitude error in the age of the first copies of Natural History (did the 7500 year difference really not tip anyone off?), the earliest fragment of the NT is AD 114. According to you, the gospels were written about AD 35. That leaves a good 80+ years where we have no fragments available. Even if we accept the majority opinion, it's still a good 44 years before the existence of the first fragments.

Sorry for the typo. 7,500 years would be a long time, wouldn't it?

Now, I have not said that ALL of the gospels were written about AD 35. But your point still holds. There is a gap. And I think the gap is insignificant. So do the scholars who actually do the work. In fact, scholars of other ancient literature are jealous of the wealth of manuscripts that NT scholars have at their disposal.

It is during this time that the most interesting things are going to be happening to the books of the bible. It's the time where the vqrious sects of christianity (and yes, we know they existed â€" the gnostics were one) are going to be competing for members, borrowing text, and most imporantly, driving each other out of existence. The unique and home versions of books of eaten sects become either incorporated, or often neglected â€"extinct. Since this is the time where the least text exists (you're not going to have many more copies as you do members), it is unlikely we are going to find fragments in exactly the time the biblical books are going to be changing the most. After all, if you only have a few copies of a version of Mark in existence, there are only a few to dispose of should you decide to change it. After this period, when only a handful of sects survive and books finally come to be written, most of the books have already crystalized and attain their final forms.

But we are not in the dark about this period, are we? Read the Didache, Clement of Rome, Polycarp of Smyrna, Papias, and Ignatius of Antioch, etc. And most notably (and fatal to your argument) is that during the period of "silence" between the writing of the gospels (which occurred between AD 40-45 and AD 95) and AD 114, there were still living witnesses alive to consult regarding the events in Jerusalem on Easter morning. The number of living witnesses dropped over time, but the Apostle John lived until near the end of the first century. This closes the gap considerably. And when we consider the disciples of the disciples:

Peter > Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch
John > Papias, Polycarp > Irenaeus
etc.

we can easily see that there is no gap in the memory of the Church at all.

It is obvious that you are an intelligent person, but are you unfamiliar with the Apostolic Fathers and their successors, the Early Church Fathers? If so, you should know that the NT can be reconstructed from the writings of the ECF's completely independently of the manuscripts themselves. So, there is more than one way to conclude that the modern reconstruction of the NT is reliable.

By the time your textual criticism comes in, where Bruce Metzer notes the similarities in the biblical versions, most of the interesting stuff is already well behind the bottleneck, invisible to the technique, and the only clues of those halcyon days are to be found in the final texts. As such, it's not really surprising to me that, as Ehrman notes, "most of the changes found in early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology," because by this time those issues had already been sussed out.

And this should not be a problem. The apostles and disciples, led by the Holy Spirit, reflected upon the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and came to some conclusions about what it meant. The core of the Christian faith was established early by living eyewitnesses.

It's also not clear whether these >98% figures are for single named text (only versions of Mark is compared with other versions of Mark, for example), or with multiple texts (comparing Mark to Matthew). I doubt it's the latter, given the large amount of text from Q in Matthew and Luke. But the former is not an acceptable conclusion because (citing the large amount of borrowing from Mark in Mt&L), the gospels are not separate works from each other, but actually separate versions of the same work (or at least, the same schema). And not just the canonical gospels, but also the gospels not included in the canon (Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of George, Gospel of Larry, Gospel of Curley, Gospel of Moe â€" okay, the GoT is the only serious one, but there are undoubtedly other gospels besides the canonical ones). After all, we know that the Catholic canon excludes 26 books from the OT and 16 from the NT... that we know of. There were probably much more, and if you exclude all the gospels most problematic for your theology, of course the remainder is going to be no problem. If we had all of the texts from all of those various sects in our hot little hands, I don't think that the theological and ideological concerns would be nearly so clear-cut.

Are you a scientist? I get the impression that you would benefit from reading a good book on the subject. And if you REALLY want to be sure of your opposition to the gospels, then be sure to read a book by a respected Christian scholar and find the errors in his work. This is in keeping with the idea that you need to know your opponent's arguments better than he does. So, learn the BEST Christian explanation and prove it wrong.

Oh, about that graph... most of the 5000 someodd copies are going to be fragmentary, with a small percentage distinct books. Also, Tacitus's Annals. Isn't that the one with one of your "independent corroborations" of Jesus? If you get to keep a text with a 1000 year gap between work and first copies, I get to keep Socrates and Alexander the Great. Or do corroborations only work when they suit you?

Scholars have no problem accepting Tacitus and Socrates and Alexander the Great. And the accuracy of the New Testament. You seem to be making my point for me.

[Hakurei Reimu]

God cannot breathe life into an object that does not have it? How do you know this?

Logic. If God could do that, resurrection wouldn't be impossible, but possible. If resurrection is impossible, period, then it is impossible for God. They are mutually exclusive propositions. (And life is not a substance that can be breathed, but a process.)

No, that's just a presupposition. Merely stating your opinion is not the same as providing evidence for what you believe.

I cover both possibilities, Randy. Don't get your panties in a twist because I don't assume that your God is big-O omnipotent.

If Jesus was raised from the dead, then the probability that Jesus was raised from the dead is one. And if Jesus was raised from the dead, then the probability that God exists goes up really dramatically, doesn't it?

No. You simply don't understand how probability works. P(g|r) is the conditional probability of god doing it, given that Jesus is raised from the dead. This is the only place where any assumption that Jesus actually has been raised from the dead exists.

You have asserted that the probability of ANY resurrection is very low, but you have not proven that the probability of Jesus' resurrection is zero.

Of course not. I showed that proposing a God capable of resurrecting Jesus doesn't improve his chances of being raised. Because a mere proposition of God doesn't compel him to exist. That's the basic error behind all 'logical proofs' of god.

Why not? Were there no Christians in Rome? Were there no Romans who had spoken to these Christians? Pliny speaks of interviewing Christians about their beliefs before condemning them to death.

Please keep in mind that this is a Pliny writing in a history that has the bible. Half the problem that Romans had with christians is their complete reluctance to pay any kind of homage to the Roman gods. Without a bible and preachers speaking with its authority to prevent compromise, Roman christians would probably come to be much more amenable to that. In the Roman empire, the state didn't really care what you believed as long as you did that, and there would be no persecution of christians, and much less attention drawn to them to see what all the fuss was about.

You believe in cars on the road because you have seen cars on the road. There is nothing extraordinary about believing what you have seen. The disciples said that they had seen Jesus alive three days after he died on the cross. He wasn't pink and he wasn't dancing. But he was alive, and that is not something that we would normally expect after someone dies. Nonetheless, there would have been nothing extraordinary about believing that Jesus was alive again if you had seen it with your own eyes. Trusting in your own experience would satisfy you in the case of the cars, the pink elephants or Jesus.

It's not just that I've seen one car on the road, or even a few. I've seen many cars on the road, and further, cars are made to drive on roads, roads are made to be driven on by cars, and I've driven cars on the road. But coming back from the dead is something a precious few creatures in the world have claimed. Yes, seeing Jesus in the flesh would make it easier for the diciples to swallow, but even they should realize just how ridicious that would seem to anyone they would tell about this. If they had any scientific bent, then they could have done some proper documentation, but as it is, the opportunity was lost. Too bad, so sad.

---

You raise some good questions, and all of them are answered comfortably by textual criticism.

Before I insult your intelligence, you DO understand what that is and how it works at least at a layman's level, right?

I think so, but any conclusion you come up with is always going to be some flavor of "maybe." Any conclusions of textual criticism is going to have to be weighed against everything you know. "Science is true, even in textual criticism."

[Randy Carson]

Logic. If God could do that, resurrection wouldn't be impossible, but possible. If resurrection is impossible, period, then it is impossible for God. They are mutually exclusive propositions. (And life is not a substance that can be breathed, but a process.)

"breathing life" = "initiating that process"

Poetry is not your thing, is it?

If God can initiate the process of life, he can re-initiate that process in a dead body.

No. You simply don't understand how probability works. P(g|r) is the conditional probability of god doing it, given that Jesus is raised from the dead. This is the only place where any assumption that Jesus actually has been raised from the dead exists.

I studied this subject in college (note the avatar?), but it's been awhile.

Of course not. I showed that proposing a God capable of resurrecting Jesus doesn't improve his chances of being raised. Because a mere proposition of God doesn't compel him to exist. That's the basic error behind all 'logical proofs' of god.

If there is no God capable of raising him from the dead exists, the his chances of being raised are decidedly worse.

It's not just that I've seen one car on the road, or even a few. I've seen many cars on the road, and further, cars are made to drive on roads, roads are made to be driven on by cars, and I've driven cars on the road. But coming back from the dead is something a precious few creatures in the world have claimed. Yes, seeing Jesus in the flesh would make it easier for the diciples to swallow, but even they should realize just how ridicious that would seem to anyone they would tell about this. If they had any scientific bent, then they could have done some proper documentation, but as it is, the opportunity was lost. Too bad, so sad.

They did realize this. Paul wrote:

1 Corinthians 1:22-24
22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

[trdsf]

As shown above, I listened carefully to your objection. I answered your direct questions.

Now you're explicitly a liar -- how very christian of you.

You haven't answered anything, and you've ignored my objections.  You've just re-asserted you're right without offering one shred of independently confirmable solid evidence.

Mods?  I vote ban.  He's long since degenerated into preaching.

[Randy Carson]

Now you're explicitly a liar -- how very christian of you.

You haven't answered anything, and you've ignored my objections.  You've just re-asserted you're right without offering one shred of independently confirmable solid evidence.

Mods?  I vote ban.  He's long since degenerated into preaching.

If you think I have ignored your question, post it again - either in this thread or in the thread I started to collect all the questions that I have allegedly ignored:

One Question, One Response.
http://atheistforums.com/index.php?topic=10069.0

[trdsf]

If you think I have ignored your question, post it again - either in this thread or in the thread I started to collect all the questions that I have allegedly ignored:

One Question, One Response.
http://atheistforums.com/index.php?topic=10069.0

Why?  So you can go "LA LA LA I'M RIGHT I'M RIGHT HERE'S MORE MADE UP STUFF THAT I BELIEVE WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE THAT PROVES I'M RIGHT AND I DIDN'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO ANYTHING YOU WROTE LA LA LA"?  It's a waste of time.  You have no interest in honest debate, you're just out to preach.

I don't *think* you've ignored my questions.  I *know* you have.  And you do too.  Creating another thread is just a dilatory tactic: "HEY LOOK OVER HERE SO MAYBE YOU WON'T NOTICE I HAVE DODGED DIRECT QUESTIONS."

I don't really care what you believe.  When you claim to think you know what I believe or why I believe it, and when you deliberately mistake your beliefs for actual settled facts, that's when you cross over into dishonesty.  If you at least had the honesty to admit that the evidence for your mythology is a) flimsy at best and b) not universally accepted to demonstrate what you claim, that would make all the difference in the world.

But you won't, and so demonstrate that you are a dishonest disputant more interested in preaching than debating.

You are entitled to your own opinions.  You are not entitled to your own facts.

[Randy Carson]

Do you admit then that the afforementioned census would not and could never be conducted as described, and as such any such account must be a fabrication by someone who is ignorant of the logistics of running a kingdom or empire, or what the purpose of a census is?

Census Edict for Roman Egypt, 104 C.E.:

"Gaius Vibius Maximus, the Prefect of Egypt, declares:

The census by household having begun, it is essential that all those who are away from their nomes [an Egyptian administrative district] be summoned to return to their own hearths so that they may perform the customary business of registration and apply themselves to the cultivation which concerns them. Knowing, however, that some of the people from the countryside are required by our city, I desire all those who think they have a satisfactory reason for remaining here to register themselves before . . . Festus, the Cavalry Commander, whom I have appointed for this purpose, from whom those who have shown their presence to be necessary shall receive signed permits in accordance with this edict up to the 30th of the present month..."

More here: http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/greek/census.html

Alternate translation:

Gaius Vibius Maximus, prefect of Egypt.

As a house-to-house registration has been authorized, it is necessary to order all persons absent from their nomes [an Egyptian administrative district] for any reason whatsoever to return to their homes that they may perform the customary business of registration and may apply themselves to the cultivation of the land, as is their proper duty. I realize, however, that the city has need of some of the peasants ; and it is my will that all persons who appear to have good reason to remain in the city shall register themselves with . . . and Festus, the prefect of the cavalry, whom I have assigned to this duty, from whom those persons who prove that it is necessary for them to remain in the city will receive the necessary authorization to remain until Epiph 30 in the current month . . .

http://droitromain.upmf-grenoble.fr/Anglica/Aegypti29_johnson.htm

So, Hakurei Reimu, would you like to run that by me again about how a census would not and could never be conducted as described" in the gospels???

And how the gospel "must be a fabrication by someone who is ignorant of the logistics of running a kingdom or empire"?



Once again, the authors of the New Testament are shown to be accurate in the smallest details. Here are two examples I've provided so far (with more to come):

1. The Pilate Stone confirms the existence of Pontius Pilate.
2. The Edict of Gaius Vibius Maximus confirms the need to travel to Bethlehem.

[Randy Carson]

Why?  So you can go "LA LA LA I'M RIGHT I'M RIGHT HERE'S MORE MADE UP STUFF THAT I BELIEVE WITHOUT ANY EVIDENCE THAT PROVES I'M RIGHT AND I DIDN'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO ANYTHING YOU WROTE LA LA LA"?  It's a waste of time.  You have no interest in honest debate, you're just out to preach.

I don't *think* you've ignored my questions.  I *know* you have.  And you do too.  Creating another thread is just a dilatory tactic: "HEY LOOK OVER HERE SO MAYBE YOU WON'T NOTICE I HAVE DODGED DIRECT QUESTIONS."

I don't really care what you believe.  When you claim to think you know what I believe or why I believe it, and when you deliberately mistake your beliefs for actual settled facts, that's when you cross over into dishonesty. If you at least had the honesty to admit that the evidence for your mythology is a) flimsy at best and b) not universally accepted to demonstrate what you claim, that would make all the difference in the world.

But you won't, and so demonstrate that you are a dishonest disputant more interested in preaching than debating.

You are entitled to your own opinions.  You are not entitled to your own facts.

I'm being dishonest because I won't "admit" things that I don't believe? How does THAT work?



A lot of posts are directed at me, so I have not responded to every single one. However, if I have failed to answer any important question you posed in any thread, post it here so that I may respond.

Thanks.

[Baruch]

Per Stromboli ...

People think that Jews are homogeneous.  Any exposure to Falasha Jews should blow that away.  We are not racially homogenous, nor doctrinally homogeneous.  We don't all follow the same Torah ... the Karaites and the Samaritans dispute the written and oral Torah of the rabbinic faction.  This was even less true 2000 years ago, Jews were heterogenous.  Jews have developed pidgin or creole tongues according to whichever group of Gentiles they were living with.  In Spain they developed Ladino, in Germany they developed Yiddish.  But there are many more, mostly extinct tongues.  One of these was Judeo-Greek.  The Septuagint and the NT are in Judeo-Greek, not in Pagan-Greek (which came in multiple varieties among the Pagans).  Simpletons overly simplify ... they just say Koine Greek ... the most common uneducated Greek dialect of that time.  Koine Greek and that of the Hellenistic Jews is similar, but they are not the same.  Even words that are written the same, don't mean the same, because Pagan and Jewish culture are different.

My scholarship ... Papias says that ...

"Therefore Matthew put the logia in an ordered arrangement in the Hebrew language, but each person interpreted them as best he could."

This is misinterpreted by later scholars ... "logia" refers to sayings (not a narrative gospel) ... the Q or the Gospel of Thomas in Judeo-Greek.  Not Hebrew, not Aramaic.  The Judeo-Greek we have now, was in Greek letters ... but this is not necessary.  One can do Judeo-Greek on Hebrew letters just fine.  I think someone ignorant of the details ... couldn't tell the difference between a Judeo-Greek text in Hebrew letters (aka square Aramaic, a distinction without a difference) and a Hebrew text.  Papias nor his source quotes actual material from this "logia".  By interpretation, I would see this as the origin of the fictional gospels.

Analysis of the gospels usually confirm that they are composed by literate people, not illiterate fishermen, and with very few phrases deliberately called out ... in Aramaic.  If one is committed to a historical Jesus, one has to believe he spoke Aramaic, not Judeo-Greek, not Hebrew (only scholars did that).  But this puts the cart before the horse.  If I don't suppose a historical Jesus, I can accept that the Gospels were composed by literate men, several generations after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, men who were part of the Jewish Hellenistic community.  The last 50 native speakers of Judeo-Greek (expelled from Egypt by Nasser) are probably dead now.  A native speaker of modern Greek, doesn't automatically understand ancient Greek in any dialect ... they are different languages ... same as an Israeli doesn't understand Biblical Hebrew or Aramaic.

Now I can't say, why the Gospels were written, and written anonymously.  Obviously Papias was concerned about this circa 100 CE and wanted to help create the historical Jesus movement along with the Synoptic Gospels, whose message is different from that of Paul or the Gospel of John ... which speak more of Christ the god, not Jesus the man.

And this is all I will interject on this circular turkey shoot.  Scripture doesn't matter.  Papias himself says ...

"As Papias clearly states, he found the "living voice" superior to the content of the written texts available to him."

Indeed ... I would take one person possessed by the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) over 1000 theologians.  The creation of writings, as per Socrates ... is the initial loss of confidence in a particular Messianic Jewish community ... a Judeo-Greek community ... and the worst nightmare of the Aramaic/Hebrew speaking Pharisees who are the foundation of almost all later Judaism.  G-d and religion aren't complicated, but clergy makes it so ... and I think Yochanan the Immerser would agree!

[Baruch]

It is OK to not to admit to anything, Randy.  For you we are in a court run by a hanging judge (that guy in Ft Smith Arkansas).  Your lawyer would tell you ... plead innocent, and try to break out of jail!  Yehah!

[widdershins]

How will you know whether there is reason to believe without studying the matter?

But why would you study something you don't care?

See, I'm not sure you're a real atheist. I think you're an apatheist.

If I told you my dick was 14 inches long would you feel compelled to "study the matter"?  If I told you that I catch fairies in jars with the kids on Saturday nights would you feel compelled to spend hundreds of dollars to come witness this to see if it were, in fact, true?  Have you ever looked for Bigfoot?  Have you ever taken a boat and sonar onto Loch Ness?  Have you ever prayed to Satan to get his side of the story?

Let me help you with those answers.  They are, "Ewe!  No!", "Not really.", "Probably not.", "No." and "FUCK NO!"

Why should I pay your beliefs any more mind than you pay the millions of "not your" beliefs out there?  Why, ONCE AGAIN, are the standards higher for me than they are for you?  What is so super special about your religion that sets it apart from any other?  From my perspective, not a damned thing.

And you can label me whatever you like.  It doesn't bother me.  I know what I am and am comfortable with it.  If you feel the need to slap a different label on me then, like everything else about your posts, feel free to do something entirely for yourself with no regard for others and pretend you have some "knowledge".

[Randy Carson]

If I told you my dick was 14 inches long would you feel compelled to "study the matter"?  If I told you that I catch fairies in jars with the kids on Saturday nights would you feel compelled to spend hundreds of dollars to come witness this to see if it were, in fact, true?  Have you ever looked for Bigfoot?  Have you ever taken a boat and sonar onto Loch Ness?  Have you ever prayed to Satan to get his side of the story?

Let me help you with those answers.  They are, "Ewe!  No!", "Not really.", "Probably not.", "No." and "FUCK NO!"

Why should I pay your beliefs any more mind than you pay the millions of "not your" beliefs out there?  Why, ONCE AGAIN, are the standards higher for me than they are for you?  What is so super special about your religion that sets it apart from any other?  From my perspective, not a damned thing.

And you can label me whatever you like.  It doesn't bother me.  I know what I am and am comfortable with it.  If you feel the need to slap a different label on me then, like everything else about your posts, feel free to do something entirely for yourself with no regard for others and pretend you have some "knowledge".

Oh, you miss the point here completely.

If you really think Catholicism/Christianity are bogus, it seems to me that you ought to study them carefully in order to be able diprove them EVEN BETTER than you already can.

IOW, it makes sense to know your opponent's arguments even better than he does, doesn't it?

But that's only if you care. You don't, so it doesn't matter.

This is an odd place to spend so much of your free time, though. I don't care about knitting, so I don't post in knitting forums.

But that's just me.