Good morning.
I've had problems opening the forum, even the website am only now catching up from my last post.
I see DOC has studiously ignored my posts about:
the inplacable, organised and documented christian persecution of other faiths, starting from Constantine,
the probability that the Neronian persecution is neither more nor less than an urban myth
and
the Roman persecution of christians was exaggerated out of recogition by the early church.
However, DOC has gone back to good old Josh McDowell as proof and/or refutation of the NT's accuracy. Fantastic.
To DOC:
DOC;5093294There is that word prove (or disprove) again. All you did was present evidence (not prove) that Luke could be wrong. Whereas I presented evidence (from Sir William M. Ramsay)that he could have been right. Even Pax came in and quoted a book of Ramsay's that said another census occurred {or was called for} in 8 B.C. . Josephus never mentioned this census.
Joobz has dealt with this pretty thoroughly (I've saved that post, joobz, o mighty one)
And I've already mentioned that some in here have implied that Josephus was wrong about Moses being in Egypt -- so if you believe he was wrong there, why not wrong again. And we know Josephus was close to the Roman Emperor who didn't exactly like Christians and surely wouldn't have mind if Josephus accidently (on purpose) got it wrong.
No, not implied. Rather explained, with the hellenistic authors cited, why Josephus isn't a world authority on Moses in Egypt.
No, we don't know Josephus was 'close' to either Vespasian or Titus. This has been sourced and explained to you. In this thread. Do you really imagine either Vespasian or Titus actually read thse Jewish histories Josephus wrote?
And then there was the whole thing about Quirinius could have been a ruler twice because of an inscription found by Ramsay.
As you already know, it is precisely this identification which has earned sir William Ramsay the epithet of 'wishful thinker' by modern bibical scholarship. This has been posted and sourced.
And there is another explanation that deals with another Greek translation of the verse that is explained on this site.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Luke_and_the_Census
Nice try, DOC. Unfortunately, you've commited yourself to the KJV, as far as I can tell.
Remember? Doulos?
So I've listed 4 reasons why Luke could have been right. So nothing has been "proved" regarding the census. And when you have 4 reasons why Luke could have been right you have to give the man who has been called a great historian {Luke} the benefit of any doubt.
Is this the sort of reasoning you're exposed to in your church? DOC continually refers to Josh McDowell, giving links over and over again to his really ill-researched work. As if it were evidence of anything but DOC's dependance on Josh McDowell.
Since when are 'could have been right' arguments in a discussion of history accepted?
'The benefit of any doubt'? Because he has been described at one point in time as 'a great historian'?
This is all the reason why people need to do their own research and not always believe someone in here who says we've proved this or we proved that with no explanation -- because I might not be able to get to every post due to time or might have missed a post.
A fair point, DOC. People need to do their own research.
That's how we learned the truth about:
sir William Ramsay misquoted wordbyte
Luke as an accurate 'historian'
the early church 'martyrs'
the Neronian urban myth
why the KJV translates doulos as bondservant
why Josephus accompanied the new Emperor's suite to Alexandria
the christian persecution of other faiths
Paul never says he saw a resurrected 'in the flesh' Jesus.
Nor claims anyone else did.
That's a fair amount.
And there's much more to come.
