E-mails from my Born-again sister You respond.
Offline These to e-mails might be to easy to refute but i thought everyone would get a kick out of them.
A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber
began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many
things and various subjects.
When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't
believe that God exists."
"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.
"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist.
Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be
abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I
can't imagine a loving a God who would allow all of these things."
The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to
start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just
after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty
hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and un-kept.
The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the
barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."
"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber.
And I just worked on you!"
"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would
be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."
"Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is, people do not come to me."
"Exactly!"- affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist!
What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him.
That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world. "
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Answer: The historian, and I believe archaeologist, is Sir William Ramsay, a former skeptic who set out to prove the Scriptures wrong. Ramsay stated, "Luke is a historian of the first rank...this author should be placed along with the very greatest of historians." (Sir William Ramsay, The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament) Are you somehow more informed in history and archaeology than Ramsay?
"As a Western Scripture scholar I am inclined to doubt these stories, but as a historian I am obliged to take them as reliable." (Dr. Peter Stuhlmacher, Time Magazine, 8/15/88)
"There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament tradition...Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of inumerable deatils, and has brought increased recognition to the value if the Bible as a source of history." (Wiliam F. Albright, reknown authority on Biblical archaeology)
"It is therefore legitimate to say that, in respect of that part of the Old Testament against which the disintegrating criticism of the last half of the nineteenth century was chiefly directed, the evidence of archaeology has been to re-establish its authority, and likewise to augment its value by rendering it more intelligible through a fuller knowledge of its background and setting." (Sir Frederic Kenyon)
Kenyon also said, "The interval between the dates of the original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established." (Sir Frederick Kenyon, director and principal librarian at the British Museum, The Bible and Archaeology)
As to the Apostle Paul inventing Christ as you claimed:
"Studies by New Testament scholars such as Martin Hengel of Tubingen University, C.F.D. Moule of Cambridge, and others have proved that within twenty years of the crucifixion a full-blown Christiology proclaiming Jesus as God incarnate existed. How does one explain this worship by monotheistic Jews of one of their countrymen as God incarnate, apart from the claims of Jesus himself?" Craig, ApIn, 160, www.answering-islam.de/Main/Emails/divinity.htm)
This is ain't just a spidey comic book...oh, it is much more.
There is ample evidence for God's existence. Some ignore it; Some dismiss it; Some attempt to explain it away; Some even attempt to outright attack it...but it is there.
pby, could you address this?
... Not to mention the whole notion that the earth is 6,000 years old - the Bible loses a lot of credibility there. Or a world-wide flood - there is no evidence of a world-wide flood in the archaeological or geologic record. Further, the notion that all the worlds races could develop out of a single, inbred, homogeneous family in a couple thousand years is a little absurd. Also, modern linguisitics casts a major shadow over the Babel myth ...
I would agree that there is historical verisimilitude in the later books, esp. with respect to the United Monarchy, the Later Kings, the Assyrian Invasion and the Babylonian Captivity - but this is corroberated by other accounts of near-eastern and oriental civilizations. Between Egypt and Persia, the Hellenic world and the Arabia Peninsula, there are many records of the events from 1500 BCE to the time of Paul (Saul of Tarsus) and beyond ...
I'm off myspace.com so you can only find me here: http://geoffreymgolia.blogspot.com
Answer: If I can...which part, specifically?
How do you square:
1) "... the whole notion that the earth is 6,000 years old - the Bible loses a lot of credibility there.
2) Or a world-wide flood - there is no evidence of a world-wide flood in the archaeological or geologic record.
3) Further, the notion that all the worlds races could develop out of a single, inbred, homogeneous family in a couple thousand years is a little absurd.
4) Also, modern linguisitics casts a major shadow over the Babel myth ..."
These to me are completely ahistorical and could only be characterized as mythology. I'll concede that there is historical verisimilitude in the later books, esp. with respect to the United Monarchy, the Later Kings, the Assyrian Invasion and the Babylonian Captivity - but this is corroberated by other accounts of near-eastern and oriental civilizations. Between Egypt and Persia, the Hellenic world and the Arabia Peninsula, there are many records of the events from 1500 BCE to the time of Paul (Saul of Tarsus) and beyond.
I'm off myspace.com so you can only find me here: http://geoffreymgolia.blogspot.com
On Ramsay and some of the others, I think we have access to more information now than they did then.
Your quote re Paul inventing the christ concept actually supports my case as I believe that Paul finished his epistles about 20 years after the crucifixion and the gospels came 15 years or so after that. (will happily provide links if you ask)
There is evidence that people believed in the existence of a god. That is vastly different from evidence of that god's existence.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
Answer: It was "full-blown" at twenty years. There is also historical evidence of Jesus worship at about ten years after the crucifixion (inscriptions on graves...'"Jesus save me" and so forth).
How could that be possible...full-blown at only twenty years after the crucifixion? (There is only one answer.)
All the Jews had to do to stop the spread of Christianity was produce Christ's dead body...but they couldn't (hundreds had seen the resurrected Christ and thousands had heard about it from the eyewitnesses). (Thus, the Swoon Theory - Christ wasn't actually dead...He was in a coma or something.)
And actually Paul's Epistles and the Gospels were written about the same time 50's to maybe 70 (some say earlier), according to many scholars. There are several views on this subject, as you know, but hardly anyone puts (not even skeptics) the writing past 70 because of no references to the destruction of the Temple (70 A.D.).
We know that in about 64 Nero blamed the fire of Rome on Christians and Christian persecution was in full swing. So...Christianity survived the crucifixion of Jesus (thanks to His resurrection) and it survived the attempts by the Jews to squash it from its inception and it survived intense persecution under Nero. In fact, at this time, it grew, and grew, and grew...
People were willing to die because of Paul's made up story? I hardly think so!
Paul's Gospel message was completely based on the resurrection and Deity of Christ. Some of the people that he was converting were Jews and Gentiles who were contemporaries of Christ. They knew that Christ wasn't made up.
Paul was beaten, imprisoned, put on trial and eventually beheaded in Rome. He endured this all for his own made-up Christ?
Paul was a Pharisee of all Pharisees, a zealous persecutor of the Christian church prior to his conversion...Are you saying that a myth was the genesis of Paul's conversion (the only thing that is a myth is your contention that Paul invented Christ).
And how did Paul make Christ up, if he was persecuting believers in Christ prior to being a missionary for Christ? What did Paul consent to the stoning of Stephen for, then? What did Paul drag people off to prison for? (...believing in some Christ that he invented later? Not rational.)
Why didn't the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees just refute Paul's claims about Christ, if they were made up?
All they had to say was, "Has anyone ever even seen this Christ that Paul is talking about (let alone seen Him risen from the dead)? No...us either! Forget about it!"
Nope...Paul's claims couldn't be refuted because they knew Jesus to be all too real.
Your Paul theory, especially gven the historical evidences for Christ, just are not based in realistic evidences (wishful thinking maybe?).
Refrences, please. Also, I asked for your references for the repeal of the Treaty of Tripoli. No response. Also, did you read the article I pointed you to, in regards to the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in early America?
www.caseagainstfaith.com
Answer: The references are cited in this thread in a previous post above.
I will find the citation for the Treaty of Tripoli, again, and I will add to it a later US treaty in which God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are mentioned at the beginning of the treaty. It is also interesting to note that Article XI of the Treaty of Tripoli was not found in the Arabic version.
I did not read the article but I am aware of the conflict (It was an issue even in the JFK presidential campaign)...is there something specific that you wanted to point out about it?
Luke is generally considered "reasonably" reliable, but not perfect:
http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/lukehistory.html
That assumes there even was any Christ at all. And that people had the time and inclination. But, an even bigger problem is, even if I were to assume there was a Jesus that was crucified, it is not clear that the earliest Christians believed in a BODILY resurection. Mark ends with no post-Resurrection appearances, and it isn't at all clear that Paul speaks of any BODILY appearances of Jesus.
And yet, not ONE SINGLE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT exists. And this includes the Gospels, by the way. Luke specifically states he is not an eyewitness. John claims to be an eyewitness, but it is likely a later interpolation. Mark and Matthew make no claims either way.
The Gospel stories end roughly 30 years before the destruction of the Temple, so this argument is silly. There is some places where the Gospels make some allusions to the destruction, some say "prophesy" of it. Which makes it all the more likely to not actually mention it, so that the allusion to it looks more like a real prophesy.
Actually, no, we don't know this. It is now believed by virutally all historians that Nero blaming the Christians for the fire is erroneous, it never happened.
People have been willing to die for really stupid things, take Heaven's Gate, for example. But, in the case of Christianity, we actually don't know there were any martyrs, in the very early days. The legends of the disciples being martyred are unsubstantiated.
This is also unsubstantiated legend.
And of course we have no record of anything Saul said or did prior to his conversion, except from him AFTER his conversion.
www.caseagainstfaith.com
I went looking, and I did find this: "Studies by New Testament scholars such as Martin Hengel of Tübingen University, C. F. D. Moule of Cambridge, and others have proved that within twenty years of the crucifixion a full-blown Christology proclaiming Jesus as God incarnate existed. How does one explain this worship by monotheistic Jews of one of their countrymen as God incarnate, apart from the claims of Jesus himself?"
But, I did not find any reference to your claims of things 10 years after, such as the supposed inscriptions on graves. The reason I ask is, as far as I know, we have exactly 0 Christian-related artifacts dated to the first century. Now of course the second century, third century, etc., artifacts do make some references to first century events. So, we can make at least some guesses about what happened in the first century. But, given that we have ZERO, NONE, ABSOLUTELY ZERO first century Christian artifacts, it is quite difficult to know what people believed in the first century. Hengel couldn't possibly have "proved" what it is claimed he proved, given that we just don't have artifacts to back it up.
And, even if Hengel was right about there being lots of Christians in the early first century (doubtful, but even if it were true), still, we absolutely do not know what they believed. For nobody knows who had access to which Gospels or what stories were passed word of mouth. We simply don't know as we don't have any evidence.
I was talking about in the very early days of America, in the 1800's, which is when the first law cases relating to school prayer were filed.
www.caseagainstfaith.com
Did the big bad atheist scare the theist away?
Nope...I am still here.
[MOD EDIT - Duplicate Post Deleted]
I'm still waiting for pby to answer on the historical verisimilitude of the flood myth (and the subsequent creation of all the worlds diverse races by one family ...) and the babel myth, among a few others.
I'm off myspace.com so you can only find me here: http://geoffreymgolia.blogspot.com
Answer: What specific information do we now have access to that Ramsay, and some others, did not have back then?
Did I say I had specific information? If I did, I apologize. All I was stating was my strong suspicion that the research didn't stop with Ramsay, those guys in the mid '50s and those in the late '80s. That's the nature of research - it's an ongoing process.
Are you saying that all research stopped after they made their conclusions?
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
You said that we have access to more information today then Ramsay, and others, back then, which, to me, implied that Ramsay's assessment of Luke's first rate historian status was now inaccurate.
Isn't that what you implied?
What is the new information from the ongoing research that refutes Ramsay as you suspicion?