dik909 wrote:

The entire Bible is fiction ?

most of it. Or do you think the flood happened? Or hours of worldwide darkness that no body noticed, or the temple curtain ripped in half, which no one else noticed. Or that anyone ever said "let their be light" (let the be a higgs field would at least have been appropriate), or that there was a talking snake, or that the is a sea (!) of galilee isn´t just a lake, or that Jews wondered through the dessert for 40 years... ....

Jesus' existence ?

Unlikely to about 1:10.000 as person and as a supernatural god is a non-starter anyways.

best regards
Thomas

tommy1808 wrote:

dik909 wrote:

The entire Bible is fiction ?

most of it. Or do you think the flood happened? Or hours of worldwide darkness that no body noticed, or the temple curtain ripped in half, which no one else noticed. Or that anyone ever said "let their be light" (let the be a higgs field would at least have been appropriate), or that there was a talking snake, or that the is a sea (!) of galilee isn´t just a lake, or that Jews wondered through the dessert for 40 years... ....

Bruh, you are utterly failing as an exegete. You must remember that the Bible isn't one book, but a collection of books, each one with it's own unique literary style and genre. The majority is historical narrative, but there's poetry, songs, prophecy, parables, letters, etc. And, you'll find that the texts closest to the beginning & end of time are quite veiled in allegory. So, please, give thoughtful study before wanton dismissals based on ignorance and prejudices.

tommy1808 wrote:

dik909 wrote:

Jesus' existence ?

Unlikely to about 1:10.000 as person and as a supernatural god is a non-starter anyways.

best regards
Thomas

Man, if you can find me just ONE tenured, peer-reviewed historian of classics or ancient history at an accredited university who agrees that Jesus didn't exist, I'll eat my words. ^_^

No offense, but you strike me as someone who believes things at face value without doing any independent research, because if you did you'd know that there's +45 independent eyewitness testimonies to Jesus' life and works from within one generation of His life. Can you even comprehend how close that is in terms of ancient history !? The earliest manuscripts/sources we have referring to Plato are from the Middle Ages; are you as skeptical of his existence ?

I hope you're not being selectively skeptical in order to square your beliefs with what you want to be true..

dik909 wrote:

The entire Bible is fiction ?

Obviously.

What you know as "The Bible" is a hodgepodge of invented or borrowed
from other cultures short stories heavily redacted to fit into a major storyline
and the objectives of a crowd controlling organisation, i.e. a church.

(Mono)Theistic Religions are janitor controlled organisations with the boss forever absent.

Did some guy fitting the description of "Jesus" ever exist?
could be.
but Jesus could have been the condensed to one person actions of a (cohesive or not) group of people from that time.
We've seen that in different historic context : one brightly shining person is attributed with a range of "seen as good" ideas/deeds.

What I do wonder on occasion:
The basic ideas offered in those writings would fit the "from a wholly different world" ideas found in Buddhism
as "translated" to that cultural environment. ( Moot, those ideas have been long lost by the group
that most outspokenly describe themselves as "Christian". .. What a hoot, regressing by aeons and still
calling it something progressive. )

dik909 wrote:

You must remember that the Bible isn't one book, but a collection of books, each one with it's own unique literary style and genre.

Doh! Really? Where exactly did i say it wasn´t fiction by different authors, or that there can´t be something that did happen working their way into it? That is rather usualy for fiction .... .

The majority is historical narrative,

fictional narratives.

So, please, give thoughtful study before wanton dismissals based on ignorance and prejudices.

I did, it is mostly nonsense.

[quote=Man, if you can find me just ONE tenured, peer-reviewed historian of classics or ancient history at an accredited university who agrees that Jesus didn't exist, I'll eat my words. ^_^[/quote]

aside of tenure, Thomas L. Thompson fits your bill and one ups it by actually be a Theologen, and endorsed by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Then there is Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney, Charles-François Dupuis, David Strauss (ok, he is just saying no miracles, everything supernatural in the gospels is nonsense), Bruno Bauer, Abraham Dirk Loman, Edwin Johnson, pretty much the whole Dutch Radical School, George Albert Wells ..... not all fit your bill point for point of course, but there is plenty of peer reviewed historians, archaeologists and so on that don´t think Jesus ever existed as an historical person.
The Mainstream opinion only holds on, it is only eroding slow, because for most scientists in the field, believing that nonsense is required to get the job. There have been plenty on studies on how accepted methods of historical inquiry are consistently set aside when it comes to bible studies, see for example:
Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne (eds.), Jesus, History and the Demise of Authenticity
Dale Allison, 'The Historians' Jesus and the Church', in Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage
Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies
Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria
Stanley Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals

No offense, but you strike me as someone who believes things at face value without doing any independent research, because if you did you'd know that there's +45 independent eyewitness testimonies to Jesus' life and works from within one generation of His life. Can you even comprehend how close that is in terms of ancient history !?

There is not a single eyewitness testimonial of Jesus life on earth, you mean hearsay. That is not the same. Keep in mind that we don´t know the authorship of any Gospel, so everything is along the lines of "I am telling you a story, that someone told me, and according to him this and that happened". The only person we know about that conceivably could have met Jesus, Paul, has not met Jesus and insists you can only know about him from revelation and scripture.
There is however plenty of evidence that accounts of Jesus have been faked, not much point doing that if you have plenty of evidence available. Like, most likely, Eusebius adding the Testimonium Flavianum to Josephus´s work.

The earliest manuscripts/sources we have referring to Plato are from the Middle Ages; are you as skeptical of his existence ?

Haven´t considered it, at a quick glance evidence for his historicity seems to be rather vague. But the account of his life also isn´t at odds with other sources of the time, while pretty much everything about Jesus is.

best regards
Thomas

WIederling wrote:

Obviously.

What you know as "The Bible" is a hodgepodge of invented or borrowed
from other cultures short stories heavily redacted to fit into a major storyline
and the objectives of a crowd controlling organisation, i.e. a church.

What body of evidence led you to that conclusion ? Please, what sources/citations can you offer to defend your claims ??

WIederling wrote:

Did some guy fitting the description of "Jesus" ever exist?
could be.
but Jesus could have been the condensed to one person actions of a (cohesive or not) group of people from that time.
We've seen that in different historic context : one brightly shining person is attributed with a range of "seen as good" ideas/deeds.

Interesting. So if your "Jesus" was a manufactured hodgepodge of various unrelated events & ideas, just whom do you believe manufactured him ? When ??

Do you have any evidence to support your claim ?

WIederling wrote:

What I do wonder on occasion:
The basic ideas offered in those writings would fit the "from a wholly different world" ideas found in Buddhism
as "translated" to that cultural environment. ( Moot, those ideas have been long lost by the group
that most outspokenly describe themselves as "Christian". .. What a hoot, regressing by aeons and still
calling it something progressive. )

I'm sorry, is that supposed to be a coherent thought ?

tommy1808 wrote:

dik909 wrote:

You must remember that the Bible isn't one book, but a collection of books, each one with it's own unique literary style and genre.

Doh! Really? Where exactly did i say it wasn´t fiction by different authors, or that there can´t be something that did happen working their way into it? That is rather usualy for fiction .... .

The majority is historical narrative,

fictional narratives.

Question-begging; you're assuming your premise to be true in your conclusion. Stahp.

I already asked you exactly what part(s) you claim are fiction, to which you've yet to seriously respond. I await a reply.

tommy1808 wrote:

So, please, give thoughtful study before wanton dismissals based on ignorance and prejudices.

I did, it is mostly nonsense.

dik909 wrote:

Man, if you can find me just ONE tenured, peer-reviewed historian of classics or ancient history at an accredited university who agrees that Jesus didn't exist, I'll eat my words. ^_^

aside of tenure, Thomas L. Thompson fits your bill and one ups it by actually be a Theologen, and endorsed by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Then there is Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney, Charles-François Dupuis, David Strauss (ok, he is just saying no miracles, everything supernatural in the gospels is nonsense), Bruno Bauer, Abraham Dirk Loman, Edwin Johnson, pretty much the whole Dutch Radical School, George Albert Wells ..... not all fit your bill point for point of course, but there is plenty of peer reviewed historians, archaeologists and so on that don´t think Jesus ever existed as an historical person.
The Mainstream opinion only holds on, it is only eroding slow, because for most scientists in the field, believing that nonsense is required to get the job. There have been plenty on studies on how accepted methods of historical inquiry are consistently set aside when it comes to bible studies, see for example:
Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne (eds.), Jesus, History and the Demise of Authenticity
Dale Allison, 'The Historians' Jesus and the Church', in Seeking the Identity of Jesus: A Pilgrimage
Hector Avalos, The End of Biblical Studies
Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria
Stanley Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals

So, by your own admission, not a single one of those names are tenured, peer-reviewed professors of classis or ancient history at an accredited university ? Hmm..

Dale Allison allows for Jesus' existence. Why are you citing him ? Hector Avalos writes predominantly about healthcare in the early Christian world, has not published on Jesus' historicity, and although he denies Jesus' resurrection he also allows for Jesus' existence. Here's him getting eviscerated in a debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHQJvn4Hnh8

I'm quite surprised you're citing Copenhagen School "scholars," since it has been debunked for years. For example, the dating on early Hebrew manuscripts which the Copenhagen assumed were written hundreds & hundreds of years later were found to be just one generation removed from the events depicted, (cf. Moore & Kelle, 2011, et al.)

tommy1808 wrote:

No offense, but you strike me as someone who believes things at face value without doing any independent research, because if you did you'd know that there's +45 independent eyewitness testimonies to Jesus' life and works from within one generation of His life. Can you even comprehend how close that is in terms of ancient history !?

There is not a single eyewitness testimonial of Jesus life on earth, you mean hearsay. That is not the same. Keep in mind that we don´t know the authorship of any Gospel, so everything is along the lines of "I am telling you a story, that someone told me, and according to him this and that happened". The only person we know about that conceivably could have met Jesus, Paul, has not met Jesus and insists you can only know about him from revelation and scripture.
There is however plenty of evidence that accounts of Jesus have been faked, not much point doing that if you have plenty of evidence available. Like, most likely, Eusebius adding the Testimonium Flavianum to Josephus´s work.

Dude, you can't just throw doubts in the air and hope that they land on something. You need to provide a meaningful explanation for what exactly you propose happened, and then support with evidence. The overwhelming majority of Biblical scholarship, even atheist/agnostic scholars, recognize that Jesus' existence is the best explanation for the body of undisputed historical facts. The question before us now is, what best explains the body of historical data ? Consider the following:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=1

tommy1808 wrote:

The earliest manuscripts/sources we have referring to Plato are from the Middle Ages; are you as skeptical of his existence ?

Haven´t considered it, at a quick glance evidence for his historicity seems to be rather vague. But the account of his life also isn´t at odds with other sources of the time, while pretty much everything about Jesus is.

best regards
Thomas

"Everything about Jesus is" ? On the contrary, literally every single earliest source tells (largely) the same story, about a man who performed miracles, accepted worship, was publicly flogged & crucified, and who was then seen by many people in many places in the following days/weeks/months. Now there might be slight variations on the details that each account gives, but this is to be expected. No forensic detective expects all witnesses to tell the exact same story; to the contrary, if they all tell the exact same story then there's likely a conspiracy.

Christians were being persecuted & executed en masse until Nero; so what theory do you offer as the best explanation for the body of known facts ?

dik909 wrote:

Christians were being persecuted & executed en masse until Nero; so what theory do you offer as the best explanation for the body of known facts ?

The first use of the word Christian is in Peter 1 at the end of the century. Nero couldn´t not have possibly persecuted Christians after the fire of Rome, since the word didn´t even exist. Cassius Dio also wrote extensively about the fire, no mention of Christians or actually any persecution, he only talks about a couple of arsonists being executed. According to 1 Clement Peter and Paul where killed where killed out of Jealousy, a strange choice of words if they had been executed in a wide spread persecution of Christians due to a fire.... Pliny the Younger knows jack about Christians even 50 years later. You´d think that a Praetor, basically an Attorney General of freaking Rome, doesn´t know anything about Christian crimes? Or why the can be persecuted. Even writers 100 years after Tacitus don´t even mention them.

"The Myth of the Neronian Persecution" by Professor Brent Shaw of Princton, or "The Myth of Persecution" by Professor Candida Moss of Notre Dam make a very compelling argument, and Professor Keith Hopkins of Cambridge has the perfect explanation to get that fact in line with known facts: there where pretty much no Christians around to persecute, Christians where irrelevant in numbers until about 250 CE

Seems like your "known facts" have a tendency to turn out made up. And you kinda have to reject the whole hypothesis if one data point is wrong. Considering that Christianity spend almost 2000 years destroying anything that disagrees with their myth, it is quite impressive how much we can debunk.

best regards
Thomas

dik909 wrote:

seb146 wrote:

And that is because there is the reinforced stereotype that "all Muslims" are violent. For years, the right has perpetuated this stereotype and people believe it. There are violent people who happen to practice Islam. That does not make all Muslims violent. If people want to use that reasoning, all Christians are violent because there are some Christians who are violent. Same logic.

Ugh, this was painful to read.

Fact, no true thinker claims that "all Muslims" are violent. The claim IS that the Koran, in numerous places, proscribes violence against non-believers. Compare that to the Old Testament, where the violent passages were overwhelmingly descriptive of historical events, not proscriptive.

Early in Md.'s "ministry" he claimed Islam was peaceful; but as time went on he started waging wars of aggression against non-believers. Surah 9, hands-down the most violent chapter in the Koran, was the last to be revealed to Md. It follows, then, that the Koran ends with Md.'s final marching orders being, "fight the infidel." This is how Radical Islamists justify their action. There are numerous ex-Muslims who have come forward and revealed this. Verily, violent Muslims are practicing orthodoxy; peaceful Muslims are nominal. Taqiya is an interesting doctrine within Shia Islam that I recommend you familiarize yourself with, too.

Tu Quoques don't make a right.

You want painful? I just tried to read this....

Christianity was used for centuries as a reason to be violent against non-believers. Just like IS does. This is not an entire religion doing this, but a specific sect. Unlike Christian history. There are also people who believe that ALL Muslims are violent because of the actions of a few. Not all Muslims are violent and hate. The fact that this constantly needs to be pointed out is insane. People need to be reminded of this. And, still, they do not understand that statement: Not all Muslims are violent.

The book of Revelation in the Bible is violent. It tells us that there must be a major deadly war in the Holy Land before the Second Coming will happen. There are some who really want that to happen. There are some Christians who are happy with the violence and bloodshed in Jerusalem. I guess, by your standard, that makes ALL Christians bloodthirsty.

tommy1808 wrote:

The first use of the word Christian is in Peter 1 at the end of the century. Nero couldn´t not have possibly persecuted Christians after the fire of Rome, since the word didn´t even exist.

You certainly are throwing up some new & rare objections. (That's a compliment ).

How do you figure that the occurrence of the word 'Christian' in the Epistles could eliminate the possibility that "they" were still being persecuted under Nero ? That seems to be a Non Sequitur. Consider: it's possible that Nero may not known of the word 'Christian,' and it seems like that he & his would have referred to "them" in some other diminutive manner. I'd compare it to the long-time use of the word Indians to refer to Native Americans, who had distinct/different names for themselves. The word used to describe them by an outside element in no way invalidates their existence.

tommy1808 wrote:

Cassius Dio also wrote extensively about the fire, no mention of Christians or actually any persecution, he only talks about a couple of arsonists being executed. According to 1 Clement Peter and Paul where killed where killed out of Jealousy, a strange choice of words if they had been executed in a wide spread persecution of Christians due to a fire.... Pliny the Younger knows jack about Christians even 50 years later. You´d think that a Praetor, basically an Attorney General of freaking Rome, doesn´t know anything about Christian crimes? Or why the can be persecuted. Even writers 100 years after Tacitus don´t even mention them

As for Cassius Deo, historians don't consider the fact that he didn't mention Christians to be an argument against their existence, since they are still widely attested to in other independent sources. Or ?

As for Clement's First Epistle, I looked up some translations. Only J.B. Lightfoot translates it to jealousy. Hoole and Roberts-Donaldson both translate it to envy. They're not too far apart, but it matters. I'd be curious to see the manuscripts they translated from. In either case, though, what are you supposing they were jealous/envious about ? They were both "envious," so it had to have been of something else. Or each other ? Meh.

Pliney wrote ~50 years later, yes. And you're still supposing that he's lying ? He was already a Roman official, what did he have to gain from making it up ? Pray tell.. Do you think that he made up Pilate, too ? Why or why not ?

tommy1808 wrote:

"The Myth of the Neronian Persecution" by Professor Brent Shaw of Princton, or "The Myth of Persecution" by Professor Candida Moss of Notre Dam [sic] make a very compelling argument, and Professor Keith Hopkins of Cambridge has the perfect explanation to get that fact in line with known facts: there where pretty much no Christians around to persecute, Christians where irrelevant in numbers until about 250 CE

Christians were a despised religious sect up until ~300AD. You claim that Tacitus and ??? "made it all up", but to whose advantage ?

Are you completely forgetting Suetonius' Life of Emperor Nero ? Or Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho the Jew ?

I don't doubt that the Papal Rome is an outgrowth of whatever power grab was attempted by Constantine, but something significant had to have happened in order to cause so many people to willfully die for something that was taboo in the Roman world for ~300 years. It is claimed by many that Jesus appeared to many who had seen Him tortured & executed, and they were willing to die for this fact. People don't die for lies. I maintain that the best explanation as to what could have caused such a radical transformation in so many people is the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, as is multiply recorded in early sources.

tommy1808 wrote:

Seems like your "known facts" have a tendency to turn out made up. And you kinda have to reject the whole hypothesis if one data point is wrong.

C'mon now, don't go claiming victory before you've even responded to my questions. Speaking of, you only replied to one from above. Hmm..

tommy1808 wrote:

Considering that Christianity spend [sic] almost 2000 years destroying anything that disagrees with their myth, it is quite impressive how much we can debunk

Yale historian Kenneth Scott LaTourette has something to say to this, as quoted herein:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhGgGnfF5zQ

I'm curious, what do you consider to be the criteria for a reliable historical source ?

tommy1808 wrote:

best regards
Thomas

Likewise. Thanks for the spirited/friendly debate, too. We can take this to PM if it's too far off-topic.

seb146 wrote:

You want painful? I just tried to read this....

Christianity was used for centuries as a reason to be violent against non-believers. Just like IS does. This is not an entire religion doing this, but a specific sect. Unlike Christian history. There are also people who believe that ALL Muslims are violent because of the actions of a few. Not all Muslims are violent and hate. The fact that this constantly needs to be pointed out is insane. People need to be reminded of this. And, still, they do not understand that statement: Not all Muslims are violent.

The book of Revelation in the Bible is violent. It tells us that there must be a major deadly war in the Holy Land before the Second Coming will happen. There are some who really want that to happen. There are some Christians who are happy with the violence and bloodshed in Jerusalem. I guess, by your standard, that makes ALL Christians bloodthirsty.

Erm, you do know that Revelation is a book of prophecy, right ? As in, it hasn't even happened yet..

And, Zionists ≠ Christians. Please don't conflate the two.

As for my claims about Islam, don't believe what I say, research what I say.

As to your claim that Christianity is only violent, please refer to the end of my reply in the message directly above. ^^^

dik909 wrote:

I'm sorry, is that supposed to be a coherent thought ?

You are asking the wrong questions.
potentially because you are not interested in understanding what I wrote.

WIederling wrote:

dik909 wrote:

I'm sorry, is that supposed to be a coherent thought ?

You are asking the wrong questions.
potentially because you are not interested in understanding what I wrote.

No, seriously. Go back and read it. It's not a complete sentence.

dik909 wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

Anyway, no one knows exactly what the person (Jesus, Yeshua) actually said. We only know what others, writing many years after the fact, claim he said.

How many ?

Already answered by Tommy1808

dik909 wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

And we know that they made many errors while putting Greek words in his mouth.

To say this presupposes that we have accurate knowledge of what Jesus originally said. So, what are your sources ?

See next response from Me.

dik909 wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

Also, it is perfectly clear that "Jesus" did not speak Greek, and that the Greek writers did not understand Aramaic (which "Jesus" spoke).

What sources led you to the conclusion that the Greek writers didn't understand Aramaic ?

They were not native speakers of Aramaic and made many errors of translation into Greek, especially because they did not understand idiomatic expressions. This has been thoroughly demonstrated by George M. Lamsa, who translated into English the Peshitta, or Aramaic Bible of the Syriac Church. He also wrote "Idioms in the Bible Explained and a Key to the Original Gospels", 1931, my copy is a reprint/edition 1985 by HarperCollins.

One simple example is that of a Camel not being able to pass through the eye of a Needle. Camel was a wrong word choice during translation. The correct word choice would have been "Rope". A rope can't pass through the eye of a needle, or can do so only with great difficulty. An idiom well-known to native speakers of Aramaic, but not to the Greek writers or British translators.

There are dozens of these cases (of idioms) and hundreds of cases of single word-choice errors of this sort.

dik909 wrote:

BobPatterson wrote:

Still, there are lovely stories being told, especially after passing through the poetic minds and pens of the King James translators.

You do realize that the KJV contains numerous extra passages which are found nowhere in the primary sources, yes ?

Should we not trust the translation which most closely corresponds to our earliest NT manuscripts ??

It depends upon what you mean by "trust". Literary criticism should be based on the earliest known copies of any book, passage or word.

But that does not mean that, even then, we have the actual original written wording.

And it is, of course, a matter of judgment or of faith that the words actually represent what a speaker said a hundred or more years previously.

tommy1808 wrote:

There is not a single eyewitness testimonial of Jesus life on earth, you mean hearsay. That is not the same. Keep in mind that we don´t know the authorship of any Gospel, so everything is along the lines of "I am telling you a story, that someone told me, and according to him this and that happened". The only person we know about that conceivably could have met Jesus, Paul, has not met Jesus and insists you can only know about him from revelation and scripture.

There is however plenty of evidence that accounts of Jesus have been faked, not much point doing that if you have plenty of evidence available. Like, most likely, Eusebius adding the Testimonium Flavianum to Josephus´s work.

Tommy, I'm impressed by your obvious depth of study and knowledge of biblical criticism.

You have told us previously that you have trained in economics (another faith field? )

I'm curious to know, if you don't mind my asking, whether you've spent time studying as a seminarian.

dik909 wrote:

seb146 wrote:

You want painful? I just tried to read this....

Christianity was used for centuries as a reason to be violent against non-believers. Just like IS does. This is not an entire religion doing this, but a specific sect. Unlike Christian history. There are also people who believe that ALL Muslims are violent because of the actions of a few. Not all Muslims are violent and hate. The fact that this constantly needs to be pointed out is insane. People need to be reminded of this. And, still, they do not understand that statement: Not all Muslims are violent.

The book of Revelation in the Bible is violent. It tells us that there must be a major deadly war in the Holy Land before the Second Coming will happen. There are some who really want that to happen. There are some Christians who are happy with the violence and bloodshed in Jerusalem. I guess, by your standard, that makes ALL Christians bloodthirsty.

Erm, you do know that Revelation is a book of prophecy, right ? As in, it hasn't even happened yet..

And a lot of people are praying and preying like the dickens that happens. That is why these snake oil salesmen on TV preach so much about the end times and how we are living in the end times and you need to send your last pennies to them so everyone can be saved when that last great war happens in Israel. Bloodthirsty Christians, as I have said.