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Proof the Bible is not the Word of God

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Proof the Bible is not the Word of God

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 05/10/08 - 09:07 AM:	#26
Mariner wrote: I'm merely willing to claim that you have shifted your original statement. When you once defended that "the available textual evidence speaks against the existence of this Jesus person", now you claim that "there is not sufficient evidence supporting the existence of this Jesus person". Actually, my claim is that there is so little evidence and what evidence there is is of such poor quality that we can be confident that there was no such person. If there was such a person, there would probably be certain evidence available that does not exist. In any case, your misunderstanding does not justify placing quotation marks around the claim, "here is not sufficient evidence supporting the existence of this Jesus person," as if I said it.
_____________________ "Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein

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Posted 05/10/08 - 09:58 AM:	#27
Dranu wrote: How about asking questions about the structure that canonized it and their history and legitimacy as a religion. The majority of Christians are not Sola Scriptura followers. That being, it is the Church that legitimizes the Holy Bible to them, not the Bible alone. If the issue is the truth of the claims made in the Bible, then what is relevant about the “structure that canonized it” is not their history and legitimacy as a religion, what is relevant is the epistemic criteria that they subjected the claims to. That is, how did they determine that the claims were true? What criteria did they judge the claims by? What is it that makes them authorities if not their particular ability to determine the truth or falsity of the claims? Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

Mariner
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Posted 05/10/08 - 11:40 PM:	#28
Kwalish Kid wrote: Actually, my claim is that there is so little evidence and what evidence there is is of such poor quality that we can be confident that there was no such person. Yes. This is your new claim. Your old claim was that "the available textual evidence speaks against the existence of this Jesus person". And they are different claims. An example to help you see that. The available textual evidence speaks against the existence of Calvin and Hobbes (the cartoon characters). There are records of a guy telling how he invented both out of his own experiences. The case of Jesus is not equivalent to the case of Calvin and Hobbes. In any case, your misunderstanding does not justify placing quotation marks around the claim, "here is not sufficient evidence supporting the existence of this Jesus person," as if I said it. So, you didn't say "there is not sufficient evidence supporting the existence of this Jesus person", you said "there is so little evidence and what evidence there is is of such poor quality that we can be confident there was no such person". In any case, someone who can't distinguish between an instance of paraphrasing and a misquotation certainly isn't qualified to evaluate any kind of textual evidence. But your incompetence in this field is not what prompted me to post here. Your shifting claims are the interesting subject. And you still can't see that you are shifting between different claims, that your new one is not a mere rewording of the old one (not surprising, since you don't see that I was paraphrasing your new one, either). This cow has been milked, though. While you don't realize the logical distinction between your two claims, the content of your new claim can't be discussed. We are, indeed, speaking different languages -- I'm speaking English, you're speaking (and thinking) anti-Christianity. Only when (or rather, if) we come to terms and our words mean the same thing, this discussion can proceed. A suggestion -- imagine that someone who is not a Christian is raising the same points that I am. This will make it easier for you to realize that this is not about Christianity (yet). It is about logic and bias. And it will help you stop offering new rewordings of your new claim as if they were equivalent to your old one (or supporting it).
_____________________ "In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." -- Blaise Pascal "The more I am by myself and alone, the more I have come to love myths" -- Aristotle in his later years

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 05/11/08 - 07:55 AM:	#29
Mariner wrote: Yes. This is your new claim. Your old claim was that "the available textual evidence speaks against the existence of this Jesus person". And they are different claims. An example to help you see that. The available textual evidence speaks against the existence of Calvin and Hobbes (the cartoon characters). There are records of a guy telling how he invented both out of his own experiences. The case of Jesus is not equivalent to the case of Calvin and Hobbes. No, there is no distinction. The existence of certain texts point to the nature of Jesus as a fictional character and the textual evidence about historical figures of the day contains a notable absence of Jesus. That certain events do not occur is evidence. In any case, someone who can't distinguish between an instance of paraphrasing and a misquotation certainly isn't qualified to evaluate any kind of textual evidence. Exactly. By placing certain words in quotation marks, you have shown that you cannot adequately discern between quotation and paraphrasing or you are two dishonest to care.
_____________________ "Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein

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Posted 05/11/08 - 08:35 AM:	#30
... And so the wheel turns. It couldn't get more self-delusional than that. (Your cue: "Yes, I am so self-deluded, I actually believe biblical scholars when they present their research.")
_____________________ "In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." -- Blaise Pascal "The more I am by myself and alone, the more I have come to love myths" -- Aristotle in his later years

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Posted 05/11/08 - 01:40 PM:	#31
Kwalish Kid wrote: … the available textual evidence speaks against the existence of this Jesus person, … The existence of certain texts point to the nature of Jesus as a fictional character and the textual evidence about historical figures of the day contains a notable absence of Jesus. It is a well established fact that the textual evidence considered in total speaks against the actual existence of a Jesus whose conception and birth were announced by heavenly messengers, who was fathered by a deity, who escaped persecution an an infant, who impressed the rabbis in the temple with his precocious wisdom, who healed the lame and the blind, who raised people from the dead and performed various other signs and wonders, who passed a test of true-heartedness with the devil, who became a sacrificial victim, who died and went down to the dark places of the afterlife, who rose from the dead, who ascended to divinity, who will return one day … . When all this literary embellishment is removed, the Jesus that remains is a mere wandering preacher warning his illiterate followers that the end is near. Whether or not this wandering preacher actually existed is pretty much irrelevant. The significant point is that the textual evidence indeed speaks against the existence of the Jesus as conceived by the masses of believers, and reveals this Jesus to be one more embellished fictional character to whom those particular narrative motifs, well-known at the time of the composition of the Gospels, have been attached. Any self-delusion involved surely would be that of those who ignore the textual evidence and insist that all those common motifs actually did happen this one time in the case of their Jesus, but not in any of the many, many other cases in which those claims also were made (even though the motifs appeared widely in stories before the composition of the Gospels and were widely known at the time of the composition of the Gospels.) Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

Kwalish Kid
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Posted 05/11/08 - 06:29 PM:	#32
jdrw wrote: It is a well established fact that the textual evidence considered in total speaks against the actual existence of a Jesus whose conception and birth were announced by heavenly messengers, who was fathered by a deity, who escaped persecution an an infant, who impressed the rabbis in the temple with his precocious wisdom, who healed the lame and the blind, who raised people from the dead and performed various other signs and wonders, who passed a test of true-heartedness with the devil, who became a sacrificial victim, who died and went down to the dark places of the afterlife, who rose from the dead, who ascended to divinity, who will return one day … . When all this literary embellishment is removed, the Jesus that remains is a mere wandering preacher warning his illiterate followers that the end is near. Whether or not this wandering preacher actually existed is pretty much irrelevant. The significant point is that the textual evidence indeed speaks against the existence of the Jesus as conceived by the masses of believers, and reveals this Jesus to be one more embellished fictional character to whom those particular narrative motifs, well-known at the time of the composition of the Gospels, have been attached. Any self-delusion involved surely would be that of those who ignore the textual evidence and insist that all those common motifs actually did happen this one time in the case of their Jesus, but not in any of the many, many other cases in which those claims also were made (even though the motifs appeared widely in stories before the composition of the Gospels and were widely known at the time of the composition of the Gospels.) Cheers. jd I'm sorry. What actual evidence are you relying on?
_____________________ "Scientific truth is always paradox, if judged by everyday experience, which catches only the delusive nature of things." - KM, V, P and P "A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger "…Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people." -Ben Stein

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Posted 05/11/08 - 08:06 PM:	#33
Kwalish Kid wrote: I'm sorry. What actual evidence are you relying on? The point is that the narrative patterns of the Gospel stories were well rehearsed patterns that occur widely in very many other stories. The narrative patterns I mentioned are evidenced in the world's mythology, particularly the ancient Mediterranean religious mythology. And this mythology was well-known at the time of the composition of the Gospels. The Gospel writers clearly used many of the standard motifs in their narratives from the fathering by a deity to the dying and rising from the dead. Virtually every claim that makes Jesus more than an itinerant preacher is a claim that was plagiarized and adapted from other mythical stories and refitted onto Jesus. Besides the Greek myths, there were Egyptian, Sumerian, Persian, Roman, Hebrew, Mesopotamian, various Mystery religions ... . It's not likely that this was done as an organized conspiracy, so much as that this is simply how people constructed stories about people. Very similar things can be seen in stories about famous historical figures of those ages. A thorough textual analysis of the Gospel narratives takes the knowledge of all the already existing religious stories and myths into account as the context in which the Gospels were composed. Cheers. jd Edited by jdrw on 05/11/08 - 08:13 PM
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swstephe
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Posted 05/12/08 - 05:24 AM:	#34
Dranu wrote: Well then, work in another direction. If your faith is valid that the Bible and Christianity is not the of true religion, try to go about demonstrating it in ways that actually would raise issues. If the internal structure of a religion shows your examples to be non-problems then that isn't very useful ammunition is it? Perhaps you could demonstrate why their solutions are not reasonable? Otherwise, why evangelize to us (especially since you would prefer to leave Christians with their 'delusions')? I've decided that all religions are made up of subjective experience/interpretation. I don't expect to change anyone's mind, just point out the flaws in the inconsistencies within their own frameworks. I could compare it to hard-core Star Wars fans. Despite all the inconsistencies in the canon movie and books, they can always construct explanations to satisfy critics, (Why didn't Darth Vader recognize the droids he built? How to reconcile one account where Han Solo shoots first, and another where he shoots second?). In a legal court, coming up with explanations for examples of contradictions in testimony, without any source of authority, can be objected to as "conjecture". Dranu wrote: Again, this is a claim that can be mute under certain interpretation. The question you must ask yourself is: "Does the Christian religion call for self-interpretation of the Bible, or is the Bible part of something even greater that cannot be taken out of the context?" Even the Sola Scriptura folk can give good defenses against all the 'contradictions' you can raise in the same way other types of Christians might after clearing up the above point. Well it does at times, and vindicates certain sections as well. However, any book could do the same. How about asking questions about the structure that canonized it and their history and legitimacy as a religion. The majority of Christians are not Sola Scriptura followers. That being, it is the Church that legitimizes the Holy Bible to them, not the Bible alone. I prefer to look at the Bible from a literary standpoint. What is the author's point of view? The Old Testament is "third-person objective" most of the time, (although it sometimes switches perspective). The tradition continues through the gospels of the New Testament, (which means they aren't "testaments" anymore). That's the same point of view as newspaper reports and textbooks or ancient chroniclers. The author isn't as important as the events that are transpiring. It seems almost blasphemous to assume that God would take that position. It would be more appropriate for God to write in the "first-person omniscient" -- and it would be a much better read/document to understand the author's thoughts and relationships to what was happening. Of course there are obvious exceptions, Paul's letters and John's revelations are first person, but definitely omniscient. At one point Paul even explicitly states that some of his words are not God's words. Second, self-reference. How many times does the Bible refer to a written document which was the "word of God"? There are some references to the "word" and the "law" -- but the Bible reports on its existence through most of the text and doesn't claim to be it outside of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, (two books which are practically rejected by most forms of Christianity). Did they forget to write about the importance of the "written word of God" while documenting the number of jewels on the priest's breastplate and the physical dimensions of the ark of the covenant? What gets documented? The 10 commandments, except when they are replaced, they change substantially, (and most Christians don't know or obey those laws. Instead, Christianity seems to have some parts of Jewish bibliolatry, (in concept -- regardless of language or translation), and rejected others. The New Testament self-references are even more difficult to follow. Many parts of the Torah are misquoted or out-of-context and unrelated to the topic being discussed -- but those are rare instances. The canon of the Bible had to be built from the writing and quotes of early church fathers, (or at least the church fathers that the authorities agreed with at the time). If God had written the Bible, this exercise should have been completely unnecessary. The early history of the Bible indicates that it was originally a loose collection of writings that gradually became part of liturgy.
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DarkHorse
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Posted 05/12/08 - 08:53 AM:	#35
jdrw wrote: Virtually every claim that makes Jesus more than an itinerant preacher is a claim that was plagiarized and adapted from other mythical stories and refitted onto Jesus. Besides the Greek myths, there were Egyptian, Sumerian, Persian, Roman, Hebrew, Mesopotamian, various Mystery religions ... . It's not likely that this was done as an organized conspiracy, so much as that this is simply how people constructed stories about people. Very similar things can be seen in stories about famous historical figures of those ages. A thorough textual analysis of the Gospel narratives takes the knowledge of all the already existing religious stories and myths into account as the context in which the Gospels were composed. Cheers. jd That does not prove that Jesus did not exist. It actually does not prove very much at all, except that God was not particularly original (which is quite ironic). Hoka Hey!
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Posted 05/12/08 - 11:05 AM:	#36
DarkHorse wrote: That does not prove that Jesus did not exist. It actually does not prove very much at all, except that God was not particularly original (which is quite ironic). Hoka Hey! Quite right. Which is why I haven't claimed that it proved anything. But it surely weakens believers' claims that these events actually happened as recorded in the Gospel compositions. And, as I said, it reveals that believers would have to insist that all those things actually did happen this one time in the case of their Jesus, but not in any of the many, many other cases in which those claims also were made, even in stories that predated their Jesus version by centuries. Cheers. jd
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Posted 05/12/08 - 01:01 PM:	#37
swstephe wrote: I could compare it to hard-core Star Wars fans. Despite all the inconsistencies in the canon movie and books, they can always construct explanations to satisfy critics, (Why didn't Darth Vader recognize the droids he built? How to reconcile one account where Han Solo shoots first, and another where he shoots second?). In a legal court, coming up with explanations for examples of contradictions in testimony, without any source of authority, can be objected to as "conjecture". Here is the point I think you are missing: Most Christians do have a claim to authority. If George Lucas came and reconciled the contradictions as these hard-core fans do, then no one would call them inconsistencies because the one in authority of this 'canon' has reconciled it. I understand the problem when it is not done by the people who have authority as the 'keepers' of canon (like when it is done instead by the fans), but when it is answered by the authority of the keepers of tradition, then one would let it be. Let us say George says that when he dies, Jim will be the authority he was. Now if Jim contradicts himself then there is only evidence of contradiction in the canon. If it is irreconcilable, then it is proof. But so long as Jim solves the contradictions, one may not criticize the canon except to say that maybe he is screwing up and fixing his problems. However, 'maybe' is all they have got. Not a very strong position at all unless vindicated by further and stronger evidence. No one takes the interpretation of a reader over the interpretation of the author/tradition keepers. That would seem intuitively foolish. I prefer to look at the Bible from a literary standpoint. Ok, but that is not taking it from the religious stand point now is it (though they can be reconciled)? I thought you wanted to criticize the religious beliefs about the Bible. If your 'contradictions' are only literary they can be answered easily. Of course it may seem unreasonable to wiggle out of some of the contradictions in the way some do, but you have to remember that they are claiming the Bible to be divinely inspired. In that respect, you have to remember that is what you are trying to bring contradictions against, not a simple work of literature, but one that claims to have been divinely inspired. Now in that, you are trying to argue against the latter in ways that can easily be answered. The better way to do so would be to target the reasons why people believe the Bible to be divinely inspired in the first place. I think the argument you hold to may run something like this: 1.)That which is divinely inspired must be astonishing to the human reader in all respects. 2.)Finding many 'contradictions' to the uncritical eye, is not astonishing. 3.)Being able to fix those contradictions does not remedy the problem as it can be done with many human works. 4.)The Bible has many 'contradictions' to the uncritical eye. 5.)Therefore, the Bible cannot be divinely inspired. (If it is anything like this, then I would recommend critically examining premise 1, and comparing it to the more reasonable Christian reasons for believing the Bible to be divinely inspired) The canon of the Bible had to be built from the writing and quotes of early church fathers, (or at least the church fathers that the authorities agreed with at the time). If God had written the Bible, this exercise should have been completely unnecessary. The early history of the Bible indicates that it was originally a loose collection of writings that gradually became part of liturgy. I hope you understand most Christians believe the Bible to be divinely inspired, not written by God on paper and handed over to some man. Why then should this exercise become unnecessary? What is the argument you lay for this? Is the canonization of Holy Scripture not the same as how the Christian religion has functioned on doctrine for most of its existence? Jdrw wrote: If the issue is the truth of the claims made in the Bible, then what is relevant about the “structure that canonized it” is not their history and legitimacy as a religion, what is relevant is the epistemic criteria that they subjected the claims to. That is, how did they determine that the claims were true? What criteria did they judge the claims by? What is it that makes them authorities if not their particular ability to determine the truth or falsity of the claims? I am not sure if this is a direct post against my own or just to bring up a new point. If it was against my post, note that I was responding to the Bible being claimed as the 'word of God'. As for the truth value/historicity (another issue), I would agree that it doesn't do much good to appeal the Church for an answer, as one needs to have reason for believing the Church can determine truth and falsity in the first place. Often times this appeal to the Church can even come through some books of Bible as a historical text, which could make the argument somewhat circular. It is best to turn to scholarly means to determine such things to those outside the faith. Furthermore, even though the Church claims the Bible to be true, it doesn't claim every single thing in it to be literally historical (although much of it is claimed to have that aspect as well).

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Posted 05/14/08 - 05:38 AM:	#38
crossword wrote: To me the most telling argument is, if the Bible is the Word of God, then why doesn’t it contain some truths we can't figure out for ourselves yet, like how the universe came into being? Because no rational person believes the snakes and naked ladies version any more. I guess that makes me non rational, my sister says the same thing I'm not sure what you mean by this, why is it important that we can not figure it out for ourselves? Never the less I am pretty sure we have not figured out what happens after death for ourselves, yet.
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Posted 05/14/08 - 08:00 AM:	#39
There is an argument here which does not (directly) rely on the Bible being right or wrong, but is rather about the marketing power of Christianity, and the Bible as its prime product brochure. The problem that it presents is that here we have God who apparently sent his only begotten Son to die for our sins and bring us redemption, but decided that the best way of advertising that redemption would be through the vehicle of a set of patchy, committee-edited product brochures with some genuinely great copy randomly mixed in with genealogy, misanthropy, personal invective and mysticism. He then chooses to allow its delivery to be managed by organisations riven with schism, sin and deceit (as well as holiness and good intent). It doesn't matter if you find the whole of the text perfect, it is a fact that many people don't, and so we appear to have a God who couldn't provide a compelling vehicle for his message. There is a self-proving argument here - I (and others) don't find the Bible persuasive, so it can't have been written under the direction of anyone who was as good as possible at communicating.

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Posted 05/14/08 - 08:42 AM:	#40
There is a concept called "narrative truth", which focuses on the narrative conveying meaning and values independently of and irrespective of literal factual or historical accuracy. It is the deep truth of parables and of myths and of great literature. To insist, as so many Christians do, that the truth of the Gospels also is literal fact and history, reduces their faith to silliness that distracts and detracts from the truths. I cannot ever think about this issue without recalling Joseph Campbell's poignant tongue-in-cheek insight that "myth is other people's religion." And that "religion is misinterpreted mythology." Cheers. jd
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Posted 05/14/08 - 12:51 PM:	#41
The original point reminds me of the "Jesus Christ, Superstar" lyrics, sung by Judas to Jesus: Every time I look at you I don't understand Why you let the things you did get so out of hand. You'd have managed better if you'd had it planned. Why'd you choose such a backward time in such a strange land? If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation. Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication. For another mass media reference, consider the film titled "The Greatest Story Ever Told". Was it really the greatest story ever told? Honestly, objectively, is it clearly better than Oedipus Rex, Hamlet or The Odyssey (not to mention the other religious stories)? If not, perhaps you might question the narrative omnipotence of its driving force. Edited by mric on 05/14/08 - 01:00 PM

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Posted 05/16/08 - 06:13 AM:	#42
Dranu wrote: Here is the point I think you are missing: Most Christians do have a claim to authority. I have to disagree with that part. Back in my Bible scholar days, I was amazed at how much time and effort was wasted arguing over every little disagreement. Nobody has the authority to resolve anything -- which books, verses, translations to include or reject. I would guess that if God were to inspire someone to write something new to clear up all the confusion and unify Christianity -- they would immediately get rejected. Its always the older stuff that has more "authority" than the new -- and always backed up by that denomination's beliefs. Dranu wrote: If George Lucas came and reconciled the contradictions as these hard-core fans do, then no one would call them inconsistencies because the one in authority of this 'canon' has reconciled it. I understand the problem when it is not done by the people who have authority as the 'keepers' of canon (like when it is done instead by the fans), but when it is answered by the authority of the keepers of tradition, then one would let it be. Let us say George says that when he dies, Jim will be the authority he was. Now if Jim contradicts himself then there is only evidence of contradiction in the canon. If it is irreconcilable, then it is proof. But so long as Jim solves the contradictions, one may not criticize the canon except to say that maybe he is screwing up and fixing his problems. However, 'maybe' is all they have got. Not a very strong position at all unless vindicated by further and stronger evidence. How about midi-chlorins? Once a document gets a following, there is a resistance to even the author making changes to what they have valued. Some parts are conveniently pushed out of the way or even called "non-canon". The Bible is so revered by Christians, even God couldn't make a change without a lot of resistance anymore. Dranu wrote: Ok, but that is not taking it from the religious stand point now is it (though they can be reconciled)? I thought you wanted to criticize the religious beliefs about the Bible. If your 'contradictions' are only literary they can be answered easily. Of course it may seem unreasonable to wiggle out of some of the contradictions in the way some do, but you have to remember that they are claiming the Bible to be divinely inspired. In that respect, you have to remember that is what you are trying to bring contradictions against, not a simple work of literature, but one that claims to have been divinely inspired. Now in that, you are trying to argue against the latter in ways that can easily be answered. The better way to do so would be to target the reasons why people believe the Bible to be divinely inspired in the first place. I think the argument you hold to may run something like this: 1.)That which is divinely inspired must be astonishing to the human reader in all respects. 2.)Finding many 'contradictions' to the uncritical eye, is not astonishing. 3.)Being able to fix those contradictions does not remedy the problem as it can be done with many human works. 4.)The Bible has many 'contradictions' to the uncritical eye. 5.)Therefore, the Bible cannot be divinely inspired. (If it is anything like this, then I would recommend critically examining premise 1, and comparing it to the more reasonable Christian reasons for believing the Bible to be divinely inspired) I hope you understand most Christians believe the Bible to be divinely inspired, not written by God on paper and handed over to some man. Why then should this exercise become unnecessary? What is the argument you lay for this? Is the canonization of Holy Scripture not the same as how the Christian religion has functioned on doctrine for most of its existence? I think this hits my point "not written by God on paper". This thread is about "Word of God". I know from my Christian days that a lot of terms get equated. "Divinely Inspired", (and therefore infallible), equates with "Word of God". Maybe this cause confusion. When I say "Word of God", I mean things that God actually says. That's why I gave the first test: it should at least be written in the first person. If I found an ancient parchment that was claimed to be the "Word of King Tut", then read the first sentence as "he was born in the summer" -- right there, it shows someone referring to King Tut in the 3rd person, which seems very peculiar for something actually written, dictated or transmitted from the original person. The Bible is written from the point-of-view of humans and God is more or less a background character and quoted. If anything could even claim to be the "Word of God", it would be the 10 commandments, (written in the first person from God's point of view) -- but is obviously an external document -- which the Bible happens to quote. The rest is written from a human, historical, point-of-view. Tradition has over-inflated the purpose of the Bible, from a written record of oral traditions, to replacing the 10 commandments (tablets) in religious ritual and carried over into Christianity. The idea of infallibility comes up in just about every religion, and that's where you get into pointless arguments over contradiction and apologetics. I think such arguments are worthless because it is trying to argue against the tradition of infallibility. Even if you win, you have only defeated a tradition, not the core argument, and not the entire text.
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Posted 05/16/08 - 06:32 AM:	#43
I did a quick search on the net, because a friend who studied theology (non-Christian) was studying the Bible and other writings in order to reconstruct Jesus' life and time but never once he suggested Jesus might actually never have lived. According to what I found the non-historicity of Jesus is generally not accepted in academic circles. Not that that is proof of anything but apparently they consider enough evidence to be available, contrary to Kwalish Kid's claims. As far as I recall, no direct evidence is available of Alexander the Great either but everyone is quite convinced he lived. How much the historical Jesus has anything to do with the religious Jesus is in my opinion an entirely different issue.
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Kwalish Kid
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Posted 05/16/08 - 06:53 AM:	#44
Oh, I don't doubt that most Biblical scholars don't make the claim that Jesus did not exist. I'm merely claiming that most Biblical scholars offer no evidence that Jesus existed and that they are, in their honest moments, clear that they offer no such evidence. It might very well be the case that we should not believe that Alexander the Great existed. There are a number of investigations that we can do to determine if later accounts of Alexander are likely to be derived from legitimate sources or not. For example, we have to determine whether or not the story of Alexander the Great is one that people were likely to create and one that was likely to propagate for many years.
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Benkei
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Posted 05/16/08 - 07:43 AM:	#45
Historians don't regularly make the claim that Jesus did not exist, not just Biblical scholars. What is commonly accepted among historians as historical fact about Jesus is that he was a Jewish preacher and had a bunch of Gallilean followers and that he lived around the year 0. The debate about the historicity of Jesus is certainly not finished but the evidential procedures for historians used to prove the existence of Alexander the Great and Jesus are the same and on the basis of those procedures both are commonly held to have existed. There therefore seems no reason for you to be confident about the non-existence of the historical Jesus based on a "lack of evidence" as historians seem to have enough evidence to claim the opposite. Of course, we probably both have not reviewed the available evidence directly and we cannot do more than appeal to authority but the consensus seems to be he did exist and there is sufficient evidence to support this. Or at least, sufficient evidence for historians to still argue about it.
_____________________ - How are you doing? - I'm doing good. _ No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

jdrw
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Posted 05/16/08 - 07:48 AM:	#46
Benkei wrote: How much the historical Jesus has anything to do with the religious Jesus is in my opinion an entirely different issue. Yes. Which is what I meant when I said that the actual existence of some itinerant preacher warning his illiterate followers that the end is near is pretty much irrelevant. What makes Jesus an issue is the religious Jesus, the Jesus with all the well-known mythical trappings attached. That these mythical trappings were attached to a real person is more likely than that Jesus was invented whole cloth. I don't recall the reasoning, but I have read that using standard methods of historical analysis on the Gospels there is sufficient reason to conclude that some Jesus person probably actually existed--and probably even said certain of the things attributed to him. But, this actual existence of some such person is an entirely separate issue from the mythological claims attached to him. Cheers. jd
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georgeT
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Posted 05/17/08 - 02:03 AM:	#47
since when is the bible supposed to be "astonishing to the human reader in all aspects". I'm serious, were does it say in the bible that its supposed to be astonishing, were? correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I'm aware it doesn't.

mric
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Posted 05/17/08 - 04:31 AM:	#48
georgeT wrote: since when is the bible supposed to be "astonishing to the human reader in all aspects". I'm serious, were does it say in the bible that its supposed to be astonishing, were? correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I'm aware it doesn't. What the Bible says about itself is somewhat incidental. The problem with the Bible identified in this thread could be compared to me taking a text with a provenance of around 1650, and claiming that it is the lost play Cardenio by William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616) I might also claim that it contains his finest late work, despite the text being a stylistically diverse and in many places clumsy and lacking in artistic merit. The lack of artistic merit would be strong reason not to believe that a text was indeed by Shakespeare. The question here would be whether it is reasonable to believe that God's primary communication with man would reflect his power and glory with a strong personal impact to a far greater extent that the mere works of fiction of fallible men, such as Hamlet or the Odyssey. I would suggest that is a reasonable belief, and so the hotchpotch of narrative, moralising and sometimes sheer nonsense in the Bible would indicate a reasonable belief that it is not God's communication with man.

georgeT
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Posted 05/17/08 - 05:30 AM:	#49
you say that the bible contains nonsense, what nonsense? be specific. Plus isn't that just your opinion, what you believe to be nonsense may to someone else may be profound and meaningfull, which is kind of the whole point. Many of you may judge the bible to not be the word of god but what are you judging that decision on? have you previously herd the word of god and therefore know this to not be it by comparison? or just because it may not be astonishing to you or a lot of other people doesn't mean it isn't astonishing to some people, or that it isn't the word of god. I mean are you sure your reading it correctly? because I assure you there is more than one way to read it. All christians are told to read the bible with god because if you read it any other way you'll get it wrong. Seeing as the original question posed was "how would a christian answer the following arguments" it says to me that crossword is not christian and how could any non christian even attempt to understand something they don't believe in. Most christians don't even fully understand the bible or gods word and any that say they do probably still have it wrong. So what makes you crossword or anyone else so sure that the bible is sexist or that what god says is nonsense. You may be able to pick out a few quotes that appear to you to be sexist or nonsense but how can you be sure you understand EXACTLY what there saying if you don't believe in god? and don't read those statements with god? I think a christians reply would simply be a puzzled look and a "you just don't get it"

mric
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Posted 05/17/08 - 10:39 AM:	#50
georgeT wrote: you say that the bible contains nonsense, what nonsense? be specific. Plus isn't that just your opinion, what you believe to be nonsense may to someone else may be profound and meaningfull, which is kind of the whole point. Many of you may judge the bible to not be the word of god but what are you judging that decision on? have you previously herd the word of god and therefore know this to not be it by comparison? or just because it may not be astonishing to you or a lot of other people doesn't mean it isn't astonishing to some people, or that it isn't the word of god. I mean are you sure your reading it correctly? because I assure you there is more than one way to read it. All christians are told to read the bible with god because if you read it any other way you'll get it wrong. Seeing as the original question posed was "how would a christian answer the following arguments" it says to me that crossword is not christian and how could any non christian even attempt to understand something they don't believe in. Most christians don't even fully understand the bible or gods word and any that say they do probably still have it wrong. So what makes you crossword or anyone else so sure that the bible is sexist or that what god says is nonsense. You may be able to pick out a few quotes that appear to you to be sexist or nonsense but how can you be sure you understand EXACTLY what there saying if you don't believe in god? and don't read those statements with god? I think a christians reply would simply be a puzzled look and a "you just don't get it" I think your answer supports my point precisely. You are saying that the Bible is not sufficiently persuasive or impactful to to be interpreted positively unless you already believe in its god. There are many documents, plays and novels that are incredibly powerful whatever you believe about their authors - what is it about God that meant he was not able to to produce a Bible that effectively communicated his messages to non-believers? The "nonsense" parts would be the injunctions against shellfish, the statements of the imminent destruction of the world written 2 millennia ago, etc. However, there is also a large amount of stylistic and narrative nonsense (and I agree that is a subjective statement). However, my and others' subjective aesthetic problems are themselves objective facts, and indications that the book is not uniformly well written. I can't imagine many literary analysts agreeing with the following: "“We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God....” — Westminster Confession, 1647. Indeed, your response admits as such - the fact that I "just don't get it" is a strong indication that the Bible isn't very good at convincingly communicating its message. A surprising weakness if it is the work of God....

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