Was Jesus for real?

[Jon Miller]

basically I am not going to address anymore of that error prone site

if you want to be taken seriously, provide serious arguments

Jon Miller

[Jack the Bodiless]

Jon:

often called by who?

I just did a Google search on "Paulianity" and got 119 hits. It's a term used mainly by critics of Paul, both within and outside Christianity.

and how is the skeptics Bible any more of a valid source than a creationist site?

Because it IS the Bible (King James Version). It's easy to check that the Bible does indeed say what the SAB claims it says. Whereas creationist lie about virtually every aspect of science.

Obiwan:
When attempting to argue that there was "not enough time" for myths to develop: surely you need to use the maximum time available, not the minimum?

If I take the generally-accepted date of the death of Jesus (about 33 AD), what's the maximum time available for the myths in the gospels to develop?

Assuming the upper end of the date ranges above:

Mark: 47 years.
Matthew: 67 years.
John: 87 years.
Luke: 97 years.

So even the earliest gospel could have been written half a century after the events it describes, in a time when there was virtually no means of confirming the accuracy of historical information or separating fact from fiction!

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Jon:

I just did a Google search on "Paulianity" and got 119 hits. It's a term used mainly by critics of Paul, both within and outside Christianity.

Because it IS the Bible (King James Version). It's easy to check that the Bible does indeed say what the SAB claims it says. Whereas creationist lie about virtually every aspect of science.

but the site lies about every aspect of the Bible

how is it any better?
(also, on the stuff I deleted, you are assuming that it is false again, that is not the way to argue)

Jon Miller

[Jack the Bodiless]

that site is complete crap

I can point out errors from the beginning (the first 'mistake')

God said that Adam would surely die if he ate the fruit

and well, he did didn't he?

so it is truth

God did not say he would die that instant

Jon Miller

It is a list of all known errors and contradictions, and some are better than others.

But that one is a genuine Biblical difficulty. Despite the claims of Christians, Adam and Eve were NOT immortal before the Fall. This is clear from God's fear that they would also eat from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Life and BECOME immortal (and become rival gods). This is the reason for the expulsion from Eden: like the Prometheus myth, it's based on God's fear of what power humans might gain with this "forbidden knowledge".

basically I am not going to address anymore of that error prone site

if you want to be taken seriously, provide serious arguments

So this is how you wave away all the other problems with Matthew? Like his confusion between Zecharaiah and Jeremiah, or his misapplication of the "Immanuel" prophecy, and so forth?

The errors won't just go away because you think you can resolve ONE of them (or even several of them).

but the site lies about every aspect of the Bible

Fascinating. You have investigated every claim and determined that it is a "lie"?

How long did this take?

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

It is a list of all known errors and contradictions, and some are better than others.

But that one is a genuine Biblical difficulty. Despite the claims of Christians, Adam and Eve were NOT immortal before the Fall. This is clear from God's fear that they would also eat from the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Life and BECOME immortal (and become rival gods). This is the reason for the expulsion from Eden: like the Prometheus myth, it's based on God's fear of what power humans might gain with this "forbidden knowledge".

I don't know a single Christian who believes that (that they would become Gods)

and how do you say that they weren't immortal? isn't that assuming your own argument?

that is entirely you (and others) reading into the Bible what they (you) want to be there

of course the bible will have things that don't make sense if your force interpretations to fit your views

the only way the Bible makes sense, is if you come at it with an open mind desiring truth

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless

Fascinating. You have investigated every claim and determined that it is a "lie"?

How long did this take?

everyone I looked at was a lie

while I did not look at them all (don't feel like taking the time at this time), looking at a few and seeing that it was crap is enough for me to make a judgement about the rest

I admit I might be wrong, but I am not going to sift through crap looking for one decent argument

if there is one on that site, please bring it to my attention

(basically I am ignoring it the same reason as you (and rightly so I might add) would ignore most creationist sites, you read a little, see nothing but crap, and judge that the rest will be likewise)

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

also

do you know what the ancient texts (that we have) look like?

there are no spaces or punctuation in any of it

and the old testament part has no vowels even

and many of the words have many meanings

many of the issues come to ones of interpretation

Jon Miller

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
also

do you know what the ancient texts (that we have) look like?

there are no spaces or punctuation in any of it

and the old testament part has no vowels even

and many of the words have many meanings

many of the issues come to ones of interpretation

Jon Miller

Thank you for reaffirming with such conviction why it is impossible to say that what the Bible says can be taken as literal.

[Jack the Bodiless]

I don't know a single Christian who believes that (that they would become Gods)

and how do you say that they weren't immortal? isn't that assuming your own argument?

that is entirely you (and others) reading into the Bible what they (you) want to be there

Whether "Christians believe that" is irrelevant: generally, Christians don't know the Bible wery well. In fact, many ex-Christian atheists say that reading the Bible is what deconverted them.

But it's pretty obvious from the Bible what the reason for the expulsion was:

Genesis 3: 22-23 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

of course the bible will have things that don't make sense if your force interpretations to fit your views

the only way the Bible makes sense, is if you come at it with an open mind desiring truth

I agree. But that's not what Christians do. They have a preconceived notion of what the Bible should say. For instance, it's quite clear that the Jews practised human sacrifice, and a plain reading of the relevant Bible verses will reveal this (it's listed in the SAB as a "contradiction", but this one is easily resolved: human sacrifices to the god Molech are bad, but those to the J/C God are OK). It is also perfectly consistent with the overall context: a deity who demands blood sacrifices and also requires the total slaughter of captured enemies. Why not kill some of them by using them as sacrifices? There is no "why not", and that's exactly what they did. Only a very forced interpretation by certain Christians can prevent them from accepting what would otherwise be evident.

I admit I might be wrong, but I am not going to sift through crap looking for one decent argument

if there is one on that site, please bring it to my attention

(basically I am ignoring it the same reason as you (and rightly so I might add) would ignore most creationist sites, you read a little, see nothing but crap, and judge that the rest will be likewise)

It would be a mistake to assume that ALL creationist arguments are crap just because SOME are. But there are no non-crap creationist arguments: I have never seen any, and if they existed, I'm quite sure that creationists would use them in preference to all the crap ones (in other words, I'd have heard about them by now).

What are you looking for a "decent argument" about? I've already mentioned human sacrifice, but maybe you accept that the Jews did indeed practise it. On a more relevant topic, there was Matthew's confusion of Zechariah and Jeremiah (from the Matthew prophecies section referred to earlier), or his misuse of the "Immanuel" prophecy (which clearly does not refer to Jesus, as you can see from the following verses), but maybe you think that's too trivial. Or there are the contradictions relating to the punishment of innocents for the crimes of others.

But it's hard to make a good case to a non-inerrantist. You can just shrug and say "so what?"

[Mercator]

Of course Jesus exists!

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


Thank you for reaffirming with such conviction why it is impossible to say that what the Bible says can be taken as literal.

how does that have anything to do with wether the Bible can be taken literally?

all it does is suggest that a given set of words can have different interpretations

Jack, you do have some points and I hope to get to them (after I have slept and got some assignments turned in), but the way that you keep pointing out nonissues that are only issues because of the stuff that you add into them makes it annoying to address your issues

I am not saying that issues are not there, I am saying that your specific ones are mostly just made up out of your immagination

as for human sacrifice (to God), I can think of only 1 occasion of it in the old testament (and it was not portrayed as good)

one thing is that you continue to read words and say that they mean a certain thing, when that meaning is in no way clear

(like in the versus you quote

where does it imply that are now gods?

rather man has become one of us in that they know good and evil

wow, maybe it just means what it words say)

also, I don't know a single Bible studier that became an athiest through that emans (in fact, in RL, I don't know a single Bible studying athiest)

while it is true that most Christians know little, at least from my expereince, evreyone who studies it are very into being Christian (even if their form of christianity is full of doubts about the validity of the Bible (I only see this among theologians) they still are very into it)

Jon Miller

[Jon Miller]

the fact is Jack, you make it very obvious that you don't have a clue what you are talking about (by what you think are big errors and things pointing to the Bible being false)

Jon Miller

[Jack the Bodiless]

as for human sacrifice (to God), I can think of only 1 occasion of it in the old testament (and it was not portrayed as good)

There are numerous references. Including Numbers 31:40, the sacrifice of 32 captured virgins.

(like in the versus you quote

where does it imply that are now gods?

rather man has become one of us in that they know good and evil

wow, maybe it just means what it words say)

It doesn't actually say that they will become gods, but it's clear that they are being prevented from gaining abilities which gods have and which humans aren't supposed to have. They were not supposed to have the divine ability to know good and evil, and they must be prevented from obtaining the divine ability of immortality. Genesis clearly states, with the word "therefore", that this is why they were ejected from Eden.

also, I don't know a single Bible studier that became an athiest through that emans (in fact, in RL, I don't know a single Bible studying athiest)

while it is true that most Christians know little, at least from my expereince, evreyone who studies it are very into being Christian (even if their form of christianity is full of doubts about the validity of the Bible (I only see this among theologians) they still are very into it)

Maybe you should hang out at www.infidels.org for a while. Some of the atheists there are former ordained ministers!

the fact is Jack, you make it very obvious that you don't have a clue what you are talking about (by what you think are big errors and things pointing to the Bible being false)

I haven't even mentioned the BIG errors yet (six-day creation, Noah's Flood and so forth). I know you are not a creationist (and therefore not an inerrantist either), so why the reluctance to accept Biblical errors?

You KNOW that the Bible is false. At least in parts.

[XarXo]

Jesus existED.

[Ben Kenobi]

Boy!

This thread exploded.

Starting with Boris:

Because perhaps Paul was:

A) Hallucinating
B) Dreaming
C) Lying


This is a standard atheist argument.

C) - Would you die for a lie? It seems unreasonable to me that Paul would suffer torture if he knew that Christianity was a lie.

Therefore, we can conclude that Paul sincerely believed that he saw the risen christ.

Now what about the other 2 options.

Again, looking at the passage from Acts 9:3-9

As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"
"Who are you, Lord?" Saul asked.
"I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting," he replied. "Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do."
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

B) Dreaming seems unreasonable since Acts describes Paul as travelling on the road to Damascus before he sees the vision.

A) Could this be a Hallucination? No. A Hallucination would not blind Saul for 3 days. This leads me to reject all three of these alternate explanations in favour of Paul's testimony.

Yet in Acts, Gamaliel and the Pharisees are sympathetic towards the Christians and protect them...

Which passage? Consider the response of the Jews in the synagogue when Saul begins to preach.

Acts 9:20-23

Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, "Isn't he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn't he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?" Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.[1]
After many days had gone by, the Jews conspired to kill him,


Hardly harbouring the converted Saul!

This theory is somewhat substantiated by contemporary corraborating evidence, namely the writings of the Ebionites, an early Christian sect which claimed Paul was an opportunistic gentile-convert-to-Saducee who became the toady of the High Priest in Jerusalem and, when disappointed with advancement, decided to found his own religion.

If you want to found a religion for personal profit, why did Paul insist on working for his keep?