You don’t know the difference between a sign of the zodiac which is about a month in length and an age which is over 2000 years. That’s pretty pathetic right there. But there’s more - or in your case less. LOL! Also, the sign of Pisces is followed by the sign of Aries while the Age of Pisces is followed by Aquarius. "This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius… Ever heard that song? The order of ages runs in the opposite direction than the signs of the zodiac.
Now that is just rich coming from a person who believes Jesus existed!
What Calander would we be using if people were worshiping Attis and Jesus was considered a myth by the masses as Attis is now? Name it and claim it™.
The archaeologists who have dug up quite a few bones and found the remains of only one crucified man to be recovered from antiquity. That’s who. There’s no physical evidence for 6000 people being crucified in one spot. None. There should be a ton of it just as there would be if every firstborn Egyptian child and animal were killed on one night. What Christians can never understand is that the past no longer exists for us and history and myth belong to those who wrote them. In other words, written testimony which would include both testaments is basically worthless for discovering the past unless we have archaeological evidence to corroborate it. Christianity is based solely on testimony. This is why it’s important to disregard the claims of historicity for the Bible and look for the correct interpretation of the texts. This is what honest scholarship has done. People like me can explain why we have no evidence for the major events in the Bible like the flood, the Exodus, the Conquest, the trial, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. You cannot. Honest scholars can explain why we have no evidence for the existence of any of the major figures in the Bible like Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon and Jesus and the apostles. You cannot. Based on just the explanatory power of star and sun worship my explanation has to be preferred. In a short time, it will be and the Jesus figure will have taken its proper place in the pantheon of mythical Gods with Zeus, Ahura Mazda, Apollo and the rest of them. In fact, I think he’s already there. Say goodbye.
If there’s no Nazareth then there’s no Jesus of Nazareth. Game over. Where’d you go to college? Post your real name. I’ll have my friend Harriet in the HR business check. Name em and claim em™. I could write a book based on the silly things you have said: Mythic Past: Ed R’s Education.
It’s in a synagogue and there are others in other synagogues. They show evidence of sun worship in Judaism as does the lighting of a candle representing Shamash during Hanukkah and this και ανατελει υμιν τοις φοβουμεωοις το ονομα μου ηλιος δικαινσυης (sun of righteousness) και ιασις εν ταις πτερυξιν αυτου, και εξελεθσεσθε και σκιρτησετε ωε μοσχαρια εκ δεσμων ανειμενα.
Nope. You ignored this: “We know that his testimony is true.” This author is not a witness because he claims to have gotten some of his information from someone else. You ignored it because it shoots down your claim. You do that crap all the time.
Oh please, the special pleading is ridiculous. “might have been only 16-18…” We can’t assume the disciples even existed or Jesus was crucified without some evidence. So, Name it and claim it™.
I never sent anything to an academic publisher or even thought about it. When I was in college, I already knew what my career was going to be and like a lot of other people it has nothing to do with what I studied in college.
Just because I quote somebody doesn’t mean I rely on everything they say. Only binary thinkers like you do that. A person who thinks a crank like the Reverand Stephen C. Meyer is qualified to speak about biology and should not be calling people cranks. A minority opinion should always be ignored unless you hold it. LOL! Your hypocrisy has gone into orbit.
I did not get the idea that the gospels are theatre from Bible scholars. I got it when I was in fifth and sixth grades after listening to my teacher read through Homer, studying Greek and Roman mythology and Greco-Roman plays, comedies, dramas, mystery dramas, stories of the gods and noticing the obvious similarities between them and the gospels, the Book of Daniel, Judith and others. So, at age twelve I already knew things that you readily admit you and other Bible scholars never even heard of. I left you guys in the dust a long time ago and you’re still stuck at the starting gate unable to prove your Jesus even existed.
A pedantic argument. That’s like saying that because there was no such person as the “Born on the Fourth of July George M. Cohan,” since Cohan was actually born on the Third of July, then there was no such person as George M. Cohan.
The identification of Jesus with Nazareth does not figure at all in the Creeds or systematic theologies of the Christian Church. It has literally nothing to do with Christian faith or Christian doctrine.
One of the top 10 grad schools in Religion on the continent, according the ACAPS report at the time. Where did you go?
By your own argument, parts of the conclusion were written later, so how do you know that the “we” in 21:24b refers to the author of the main body of our text of John? How do you know that the “we” does not refer to a group of people who, acting in an editorial capacity, are validating the authorship of that text by “the disciple whom Jesus loved”?
In fact, it’s plain from the Greek that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” wrote the previous account, if you understand the most elementary uses of the demonstrative pronoun in Greek.
Verse 20 highlights:
“the disciple whom Jesus loved”
and the references to that disciple continue up to the use of the pronoun “this” (houtos) in Verse 24a, where we are told:
“This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things”
Try looking up the normal usage of houtos in relation to antecedents in those Greek grammar books of which you are so proud, and maybe the penny will drop.
No special pleading at all. You made a factual claim. You said that even if we accepted the traditional early date for John (ca. 90-95), it could not have been written by a disciple because the disciple would have been too old to still be alive. I pointed out the biological and arithmetical errors in your conclusion. A disciple of Jesus could have lived long enough to write John, without assuming any supernaturally long lifespan. So either you don’t know the normal extent of a human lifespan, or you can’t do basic arithmetic. Which is it?
Oh, and what was that career, exactly? If you already knew what your career was going to be while working on a Humanities BA , and if you already knew that that career would have nothing to do with what you were studying, it’s likely that you were planning to work in a family-owned business after graduating. So did your Dad own a fleet of cabs, or a hamburger franchise, or a retail store, or what?
You quoted him to give weight to your opinion, after telling us that “biblical scholars” know “less than nothing.” If you can’t see the contradiction there, your reasoning powers are defective.
Parallels between aspects of the Gospels and Greek literature were noticed by scholars long before you were born, and I certainly didn’t need your posts to be aware of them. But it’s a big jump from “parallels between aspects” to “the Gospels are all allegories.” You’ve come nowhere near to demonstrating this, nor, based on your presentation here, do you have anywhere near the skills in language and literary interpretation that it would take to make such a case.
We have good physical evidence that Cohan existed. We don’t have that for Jesus. Do you want to address that? I didn’t think so.
Only fictional people can come from fictional cities. “Creeds or systematic theologies” are used for brainwashing in every cult. Ideologies based in reality don’t need those things. if there was a speck of truth to the claims of Christianity you wouldn’t need that mind numbing garbage.
You didn’t answer my question. I don’t think you ever went to college let alone grad school. But for the sake of argument how does studying religion make the world a better place? What good comes from religion? Name it and claim it™. Your income comes directly or indirectly from gullible rubes being taken advantage of by other gullible rubes. Christianity is and always has been a criminal enterprise. It’s built on fraud, fakes and lies and used violence to get to where it is - or was anyway. That is not something to be proud of. Thankfully this evil institution is circling the drain.
Because the book was written by Christian evangelists in Rome in the Second Century and is a polemic against Judaism and one of the pillars of antisemitism. No Jewish person would write this tripe. That’s how I know. It influenced the Christian hero, founder of your sect of Christianity and virulent anti-semite Martin Luther who in turn was the inspiration for Adolph Hitler and the Holocaust.
Yes, it’s written in Greek. Case closed.
Like David loved Jonathan more than any woman? Jesus washes feet which is a metaphor for genitals. Homoeroticism… I think I should just leave it there.
How come you can’t use a Greek text on your computer? My guess is because you can’t read it.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda - no. Not buying it.
Humanities? Your problem is you just make stuff up and then believe it yourself.
A person whose life is based on a belief in magic, miracles and a staunch denial of science is telling me my reasoning powers are defective!
Oh, now all of a sudden there ARE parallels between Greek literature and the Bible. You spent a long time and a lot of words denying that fact. Just go away. You were good for some laughs for a while but you’re boring me.
"like the comparisons of The Odyssey to accounts about Jesus on your page (telling stories on a floating island and Jesus teaching on a boat… not exactly an uncanny resemblance).
No. A real person might be given a fictional city of birth, or of habitation, by a later writer who did not know the actual city, and felt the freedom to invent one. Just as a real person might be given a fictional genealogy by a writer, in order to elevate (or denigrate) the real person. In this case, there might be a deliberate linguistic play here regarding the “Nazirite” way of life (and no, that suggestion is not original with me). The point is that it doesn’t matter whether there was a real town named Nazareth in Jesus’s day, if the writer of the Gospel is not trying to write “history” in the modern sense.
Of course, because of your habit of imputing beliefs to people, you’ve assumed I read the Gospels as “history” in some narrow sense – which I don’t. That doesn’t mean there aren’t historical elements in the Gospels, including a real historical Jesus. It means only that the stories about Jesus, however historical their core, have been shaped by the choices of the particular Gospel writers. The Gospels are not “history”, nor are they “fiction”; they are a unique literary genre of their own.
And you haven’t answered most of mine, so you have zero grounds to complain.
Why ask me? You said you studied it yourself – took several courses in it – at your college. Maybe you even majored in it. Why did you bother to study it? Why didn’t you study chemistry or physics instead? Was the math too tough?
Again, another result from the biblical scholarship that you despise, another conclusion coming from a body of people who know “less than nothing,” but a conclusion that you nonetheless accept because it serves your purposes. Your love/hate relationship with biblical scholarship is something that a psychologist or a psychiatrist should look into. Paging @Faizal_Ali!
Did I say that a Jew wrote the Gospel of John? All that I said was that it was mathematically and biologically possible for one of Jesus’s disciples to have written it, if it was written before 100. I didn’t actually claim that it was written by one of the disciples. It says it was, but I don’t necessarily take that statement as correct. In fact, I find it unlikely, and partly for the reason you give: I don’t think a typical Galilean Jewish disciple of Jesus would have written a work with such contents. Not only the hostility to Jews, but the whole literary and theological cast of the work is heavily Hellenistic, not the culture of a simple Galilean fisherman.
I’m not a Lutheran, so I’m not of Luther’s “sect”; and if you meant Protestantism, Protestantism isn’t a sect at all, but a blanket general term for a whole group of churches and sects. And I’m not even really a Protestant, except in my origins. On the basis of the very hazy understanding of Christianity that you carry around in your head, you’d probably class me as closer to Catholic.
Your question is illegitimate due to a false presumption. You should have used the word “don’t” rather than “can’t,” and the reason is simple: I’m interested in communicating my thought to people here who don’t read Greek characters (likely the vast majority of readers here). It’s uncharitable and show-offy to write in characters that others here can’t read.
I’m confident enough that the people here who actually know something about the New Testament, Bible scholars like Allen Miller and deuteroKJ, and people like T. aquaticus and John Harshman who have done a bit of Bible study in their lives, will be able to tell that I have studied both Greek and Biblical scholarship, and that I don’t need to write Greek characters to prove it to them. Others, more insecure, may flaunt their knowledge of Greek characters in order to appear more authoritative.
Yes, that’s what the bits and pieces of biography you have given about your undergrad degree point to. You appear to have taken courses in religion, Greek, and Classics, and possibly a bit of ancient history. So the general area of the only courses you have told us about is “humanities”, though it’s possible that at your school religion was under “social sciences,” as it sometimes is.
If I’m wrong about your area, just clarify: What subjects did you study? What does your diploma say your major was?
On the contrary, I’m naturally skeptical about miracles (which does not mean that I affirm they can’t or don’t happen) and of magic, and I’m a big defender of science – science when practiced properly and when it has not degenerated into reductionism and scientism. I went to university on a science scholarship, and was particularly in love with math and chemistry. But soon the lure of “the big questions” drew me into other subjects.
I did not. You chose to read my words in that way, because, as is your habit, you read into the written words what you have guessed your opponent probably is thinking, rather than what your opponent actually wrote. This habit of yours would have made it impossible for you ever to have become a successful scholar, unless in graduate school some supervisors beat it out of you.
There are parallels that are significant, and there are parallels that are forced and fanciful. Neither Harshman nor myself have denied the possibility of significant parallels. There is no logical connection between finding most of your parallels forced and fanciful, and denying the existence of parallels altogether.
A real person might also give himself a fictional education and fictional career and pretend to know things they don’t. Right?
They are not unique in any sense of that word. The format of the gospels all follow the conventions of Greco-Roman tragedies, melodramas, and mystery dramas.
Again: I show my work. Where’s yours?
Again, unlike you, I am not here to talk about myself or what you’re doing - some fake persona you created. If I say anything about myself it will be used as an excuse for you to blather on about yourself or your phony persona. Nobody wants to see any more of that. Except you.
What New Testament scholar says the gospels were written in the Second Century by Christian priests? Name 'em and claim 'em™.
So, the book is a forgery and the claim of being an eyewitness is therefore almost certainly a lie. So, it’s just a short step to Jesus not existing.
Let’s see. I have very hazy understanding of Christianity but yet I get all my ideas from Christian Bible scholars? Hmmm…Do you see a problem with that? Well, I do. That is called talking out both sides of your mouth.
Transliteration isn’t any easier to understand than Greek script.
I doubt it. Maybe they do but I don’t think even the picture of whoever’s books you showed convinced them either. It didn’t convince me.
If I write say fifteen words about that you’ll write thirty about yourself. Nobody wants that. Except you.
I’ll tell you this. I was told my grammar is horrible but that I am a very forceful writer. That is evidenced by the fact that I got you to finally show some evidence of your education you’ve been bragging about for who knows how long - that bookcase. Could someone else here have done that? I doubt it.
You’re not a defender of science. FYI the Johnsonist gospel of intelligent design creation magic is not science. It’s Christian apologetics at its most dishonest and destructive. And that is what you are a defender of.
Who says I wanted to be a scholar? You chose to read my words in that way, because, as is your habit, you read into the written words what you have guessed your opponent probably is thinking, rather than what your opponent actually wrote. This habit of yours would have made it impossible for you ever to have become a successful scholar, which is why I don’t believe you ever were one.
You didn’t have a clue how to identify parallels until I showed you the six criteria used to detect intertextual referencing: accessibility or availability, interpretability or intelligibility, analogy, density, order and distinctiveness. You learned that from me because your “scholars” never heard of any of that.
Undemonstrated claim. At least, undemonstrated here, but if you have written something more substantial elsewhere, you can refer us to it.
I was referring to the claim that one or more of the Gospels was written in Rome, not to the claim about the date. The Rome location is a very old suggestion.
You’re forgetting the character of ancient literary conventions. What we would call a “lie” would from the ancient point of view be seen differently. Ancient historians freely put speeches into the mouths of a famous generals and statesmen that almost never correspond with what the general said or would have said. Were they “lying” when they did so? I don’t think so. I think the writer of John believes that on all the important issues, i.e., the theological issues, he is teaching The Truth. A little touch of creative biographical framing would not be seen as a problem, if it makes the reader more open to accepting The Truth. There’s no “lie” on anything of substance. Would I do that myself? No. But I’m inhibited by centuries of square Christian moralizing which scrapped the ancient pagan literary freedom. To me it would seem like lying, so I wouldn’t do it. But an ancient writer, steeped in either Hebraic or Greek literary traditions, would not think or feel as I do about the means and ends involved in conveying religious truth.
No, it’s a colossal leap, and an unwarranted one, especially since we have Gospels other than John. Even if we discount John’s whole Gospel because we think he lied about knowing Jesus, the rough similarity of material in the other Gospels, where no such lie occurs, suggests that John is not lying in the main.
Christianity is not just the Bible. It’s a whole bunch of tradition, ritual, and theology that involves much more than the Bible. I was talking about an entire religious tradition, not a set of ancient texts from the 1st/2nd centuries. I can tell from your discussions that you have only the most glancing familiarity with that tradition.
Yes it is, because many of the words that come up, such as logos and agape and dikaiosune and theos and kurios and christos are discussed frequently in English writings about the Bible, and even occasionally in sermons, and readers with a general interest in the subject are familiar with them. And at the very least, transliteration gives the reader at least a fighting chance of pronouncing the words, especially if the writer supplies (as I sometimes do) little notations like “long o” or “ch as in Loch”.
It has nothing to do with the pictures of my books. The Bible scholars that I mentioned here have been giving my posts “Likes” for a few years here now, long before my very recent bookshelf pictures (which must have burned you up no end); they can tell I have academic background in the field by what I say and how I say it; they need no pictures of bookshelves, transcripts, etc. On the other hand, your writing here has “hobbyist autodidact” written all over it, and they would have no trouble concluding you had never been in a graduate program of Biblical studies, comparative religion, theology, etc.
I didn’t ask for even fifteen words. I asked for maybe five, e.g., “My BA was in Sociology.” You are the one who made an issue of this. I said you had studied the Humanities, and you repeated “Humanities?” with a sarcastic question mark. So you’re saying you didn’t major in any of the humanities? What then? Economics? Sociology? Women’s Studies? Accounting? Why are you afraid to say? It won’t give away your name, your location, or even the name of your school. You’ve got no motive to hide your major – or do you? I’ve told you mine.
Actually, I’ve read hardly any Johnson, and he’s not one of my favorite ID writers. And I don’t suppose it will do anything to alleviate your willful historical ignorance if I point out that Boyle, founder of modern chemistry, thought that design inferences regarding nature, if employed cautiously, could be valid.
Another tactic routinely practiced by autodidacts, but rarely by serious scholars, is mocking imitation of exact phrases of one’s opponent. It’s a puerile form of rebuttal. But then, “puerile” is a word that often comes to mind as I read your style of argument.
I’ve learned nothing from you. I could talk about Greek/Christian parallels (and indeed Greek/Hindu, Greek/Norse, Christian/Hindu and other parallels), long before I ever heard of you. The difference is that in the books I have studied regarding such parallels, the parallels and their significance were presented competently, rather than in the fashion of Erich von Daniken.
So the Roman commander, politician, historian or commentator alive in 71BC who should have mentioned the execution of thousands of prisoners captured after the battle at the Sele River is…
(drum roll)
…a modern archaeologist!
Thanks for the laugh ‘Boris’. Thanks for demonstrating conclusively that you’re only good for laughing at, because you clearly aren’t capable of engaging in serious or even honest conversation.
Incidentally,
If you’d read Plutarch or Appian on Spartacus, knew anything about the slave revolt, or were even just paying attention, you’d know that they weren’t crucified in one spot, but spaced along the road from Capua to Rome.
The one you only quoted half of. Couldn’t you find it? I included it to make it easy for you.
What’s pathetic is that when I described how the Age of Pisces is defined, you didn’t recognise it!
All this talk from you about the Ages of Pisces, Aries and Aquarius, and you don’t seem to even know what they are.
The Gregorian one, dumbass. Constantine didn’t introduce any changes to the calendar when he adopted Christianity, so there’s no reason to think he would have done so if he’d have chosen Attis instead. Dennis the Short might have selected a different event as year 1, and Gregory might have had a different name, but there’s no reason to think the calendar would be different.
Do you not know that our calendar was put in place long before Christianity began?
If I am reading this right, are you really claiming that crucifixion was invented by the gospel writers and Early Christians and was not a method of execution used by the Romans before that point?
Not that long 46 BCE and it was called the Julian Calendar. Had another calendar been adopted by the Romans there’s no reason to think Constantine would have changed that one either.
I don’t believe the gospel writers invented crucifixion. I just don’t believe that story nor do I believe such a person as Jesus Christ ever existed. No evdience.
You have defined that Kinds are species that cannot form a nested hierarchy. What is an example of a species that cannot form a nested hierarchy? What would be the molecular make up of such a species?
