Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth.

[cj.23]

The inspired word of a so-called god, they would have not needed of any grasp of geography to know a name.

Paul

Paul, you might find this useful. I for example am neo-orthodox - so your criticism seems a bit odd to me -- but as you can see it's a bit more complex than "God wrote it" --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspiration

cj x

 

[Paulhoff]

Paul, you might find this useful. I for example am neo-orthodox - so your criticism seems a bit odd to me -- but as you can see it's a bit more complex than "God wrote it" --

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_inspiration

cj x

Yes, there are many excuses for bible, still is that the best a so-called god can do. Complex or not, do you think a god wrote and/or had anything to do with the bible, because it doesn't show anything like a god to me in that book, a childish being, yes, a god, no?

Paul

 

[cj.23]

Yes, there are many excuses for bible, still is that the best a so-called god can do. Complex or not, you think a god wrote and/or had anything to do with the bible, because it doesn't show anything like a god to me in that book, a childish being, yes, a god, no?

Paul

I think it's a collection of texts by men (and in at least couple of cases women) that purports to be inspired by God. As I said, look at the neo-orthodox position, that's mine. And check out some of the Protestant and Catholic ones too? You seem to be taking a very narrow Evangelical position as normative, whereas really it's probably only a couple of centuries old? Dunno...

cj x

 

[Paulhoff]

I think it's a collection of texts by men (and in at least couple of cases women) that purports to be inspired by God. As I said, look at the neo-orthodox position, that's mine. And check out some of the Protestant and Catholic ones too? You seem to be taking a very narrow Evangelical position as normative, whereas really it's probably only a couple of centuries old? Dunno...

cj x

I like to know how anyone sees any god in that book unless they have a need.

Paul

 

[Simon39759]

Bethsaida is also referred to as a polis (πολισ), as is Bethlehem. The fact the gospel writer had an often shaky grasp of geography is clear; it is however far from clear that the koine word polis was used in the Classical Greek sense as referring to a city and territory: in fact it might have been used to refer to any settlement, based upon the evidence I have seen. I'd like to see more 1st century texts analysed for common usage.

Hmmm; I was under the impression, not having read the original Greek, that the authors used the word for 'village' quite liberally too...

 

[cj.23]

Hmmm; I was under the impression, not having read the original Greek, that the authors used the word for 'village' quite liberally too...

komopoleis appears once in Mark 1:38 as far as I know; kome appears a few times in the gospels, but less than polis which is used for quite small (based on archaeological evidence) places freely. Hope helpful, can write more tonight if needed. Have a look at any Biblical Greek lexicon for discussion?

cj x

 

[kmortis]

Ok, cj, I got lost somewhere. What is the eveidnce train that Nazareth existed at the time of the gospels setting?

 

[cj.23]

Ok, cj, I got lost somewhere. What is the eveidnce train that Nazareth existed at the time of the gospels setting?

Scattered through dozens of threads i'm afraid -- it gets mentioned a bit from post 10 here --
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137026&highlight=NAzareth+RAndi

Eliyahu HaNavi summarizes it as follows

Edict of Caesar (strong and authenticity has yet to be disproven)
Middle Bronze tombs (strong for prior existance)
Iron II artifacts (strong for prior existence)
Farms and pottery spanning 2nd cent. B.C. to 4th century A.D. (strong)
Herodian tombs nearby and outside the town (strong)
Cisterns, silos, sublevel storage areas (moderate)
Early veneration (albeit, this is circumstantial and moderate)
Gospel references (circumstantial if any were written after the war and prior to the 2nd cent. but strong)

http://beyondyourken.com/phoenix/Pages/39310-1.html

My classic problem with "NAzareth never existed" claims is logical --

Why? Because we have sources from the first century, the gospels, which mention the place. There are also two lists of towns which do not, but that is not damning - other places known to exist are not attested in those writings - what we know is Nazareth was not important. However, if you don't believe that Nazareth existed, you are left with the amusing problem of why a fictional town was given as the birthplace at a time when that town did not exist, and then the fictional town comes in to existence a century years later. Like someone in 1901 writing "Charles Dickens was born in Milton Keynes." That would be a miraculous event!

and a short but useful discussion here --
http://beyondyourken.com/phoenix/Pages/78945-1.html

I may actually do a detailed sicussion on my blog ina few weeks, perhaps with Australian historian (and atheist) Tim O neil, summarising the evidence a best we read it.

Anyway hope useful

cj x

 

[Akhenaten]

Ok, cj, I got lost somewhere. What is the evidence train that Nazareth existed at the time of the gospels setting?

Scattered through dozens of threads i'm afraid -- it gets mentioned a bit from post 10 here --

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137026&highlight=NAzareth+RAndi

Eliyahu HaNavi summarizes it as follows

Edict of Caesar (strong and authenticity has yet to be disproven)
Middle Bronze tombs (strong for prior existance)
Iron II artifacts (strong for prior existence)
Farms and pottery spanning 2nd cent. B.C. to 4th century A.D. (strong)
Herodian tombs nearby and outside the town (strong)
Cisterns, silos, sublevel storage areas (moderate)
Early veneration (albeit, this is circumstantial and moderate)
Gospel references (circumstantial if any were written after the war and prior to the 2nd cent. but strong)

http://beyondyourken.com/phoenix/Pages/39310-1.html

Edict of Cæsar

Edict of an unnamed Caesar warning of trial and death penalty for desecration of tombs.

- Louvre

Provenance of the slab is unknown. It was indeed sent from the town of Nazareth in 1878 but it might have been found anywhere as it is typical of decrees issued throughout the imperial period.


Tombs

The tombs, both those discovered by Bagatti and others known from earlier explorations, would have been placed outside the village and serve, in fact, to delimit its circumference for us. Looking at their locations on the plans drawn up by Bagatti or Finegan, one realizes just how small the village actually was . . .

–J.D. Crossan (The Historical Jesus)

Iron age artefacts

Some of these less numerous finds may be funerary, and some not. They come from caves in the vicinity of the Church of the Annunciation.

They were found in various 'silos' (cavities in the ground) and 'from other places' (unspecified) nearby. These remains include 5 vases, as well as jugs and jars (mostly fragments).

- G. Schumacher (1889 Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement)

Farms and pottery

Not disputed, but farms and discarded pottery do not a city make. Not even a village.


Cisterns, silos, sublevel storage areas

1955-1960 Excavations conducted by Father Bellarmino Bagatti (Professor, Studium Biblicum Franciscanum at Flagellation, Jerusalem)

Beneath his own church and adjoining land, Bagatti discovered numerous caves and hollows. Some of these caves have obviously had a great deal of use, over many centuries. Most are tombs, many from the Bronze Age. Others have been adapted for use as water cisterns, as vats for oil or as 'silos' for grain. Apparently, there were indications that Nazareth had been 'refounded' in Hasmonean times after a long period when the area had been deserted. Yet overwhelmingly, archaeological evidence from before the second century is funerary. Obliged to admit a dearth of suitable evidence of habitation, none the less, Bagatti was able conclude that 1st century AD Nazareth had been 'a small agricultural village settled by a few dozen families.'

- René Salm, The Myth of Nazareth (Kevalin, 2007)

Early veneration

Excavations by Michael Avi-Yonah at Caesarea in 1962:

History and archaeology actually begin to coincide with the discovery of a fragment of dark gray marble at a synagogue in Caesarea Maritima in August 1962. Dating from the late 3rd or early 4th century the stone bears the first mention of Nazareth in a non-Christian text. It names Nazareth as one of the places in Galilee where the priestly families of Judea migrated after the disastrous Hadrianic war of 135 AD. Such groups would only settle in towns without gentile inhabitants, which ruled out nearby Sepphoris. Apparently, the priests had been divided from ancient times into twenty-four 'courses' that took weekly turns in Temple service. The restored inscription reads:

The eighteenth priestly course [called] Hapizzez, [resettled at] Nasareth.

– J.D. Crossan (The Historical Jesus)

A few Jewish priests and their families made up a small settlement in the southeast of the valley until the 4th century. Quite probably, they extended and re-used some of the ancient necropolis tombs. The Jewish hamlet was then supplanted by the Christian presence slightly further north, by 'Mary's Well'.

- Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews (Phoenix Grant, 1987)

Gospel references

Umm . . . no.

We're in a Circular Reasoning Free Zone

My classic problem with "Nazareth never existed" claims is logical --

Why? Because we have sources from the first century, the gospels, which mention the place. There are also two lists of towns which do not, but that is not damning - other places known to exist are not attested in those writings - what we know is Nazareth was not important. However, if you don't believe that Nazareth existed, you are left with the amusing problem of why a fictional town was given as the birthplace at a time when that town did not exist, and then the fictional town comes in to existence a century years later. Like someone in 1901 writing "Charles Dickens was born in Milton Keynes." That would be a miraculous event!

I don't think I'm prepared to dispute that there was something at Nazareth at or about the time that the gospels claim for it.

What I would most definitely argue with, however, is the nature of the place as the authors described it. It certainly wasn't a city, not likely to have been a village and was probably, at most, a hamlet.

In other words, there's evidence for Nazareth, right enough, but is there evidence that the New Testament writers wrote the truth about it? Not so much.

and a short but useful discussion here --

http://beyondyourken.com/phoenix/Pages/78945-1.html

I may actually do a detailed discussion on my blog in a few weeks, perhaps with Australian historian (and atheist) Tim O'neil, summarising the evidence as best we read it.

Anyway hope useful.

cj x

Useful indeed. It's a pleasure to be having a real discussion about these matters.


Cheers,

 

[kmortis]

I don't think I'm prepared to dispute that there was something at Nazareth at or about the time that the gospels claim for it.

What I would most definitely argue with, however, is the nature of the place as the authors described it. It certainly wasn't a city, not likely to have been a village and was probably, at most, a hamlet.

In other words, there's evidence for Nazareth, right enough, but is there evidence that the New Testament writers wrote the truth about it? Not so much.

Is your issue that the gospel writers used the term "city" to describe Nazareth? Is it possible that the term "polis" meant something more like "established population center" rather than "population center of certain, large, size"?

 

[paximperium]

I was under the impression that archeological evidence points to Nazareth being essentially abandoned during that time period. There was a settlement there a few centuries before but it was abandoned and only became repopulated after.

 

[amb]

Whether it existed or not will not prove one way or the other whether the gospelers wrote the truth. I think they were writing hearsay and legends of oral history passed on and with each re-telling, something was added or subtracted.

 

[cj.23]

In other words, there's evidence for Nazareth, right enough, but is there evidence that the New Testament writers wrote the truth about it? Not so much.

Yep. I think the often missed point about Nazareth is simple: it was four miles, about an hours walk from Sepphoris, built by edict in 4BC, the Roman cultural capital of Galilee. At a time when changing land usage patterns have led to wide scale dislocation of the rural population, it is not hard ot imagine that Nazareth was in fact a boom town for itinerant labourers in the period described, working on the Sepphoris project, or feeding said builders and local labour.

What really fascinates me is why the Gospel authors, who have every reason to place Jesus from Bethlehem in terms of prophecy, all admit he actually was a resident of Nazareth, and try to show it as somehow foretold. This suggests strongly to me that he historical Jesus was indeed from the Nazareth area, and the fact was so widely known that no false origin in Bethlehem (either Bethleham) could be made; history trumps over the DAvididc origin, so we have the Census account, and Jesus' birth there, but he is clearly stated to have grown up in unfashionable GAlillee in Nazarareth. Given this is not actually a desirbale fact -- he needs to have been born in Bethlehem, from which tradition places a messiah to be born, I have every confidence that the HJ was born precisely here, and I think given a birthdate somewhere between 6BC and 6AD that is highly likely for the reasons I opened this post with. Others may well know more than me though about these issues...

cj x

 

[cj.23]

I was under the impression that archeological evidence points to Nazareth being essentially abandoned during that time period. There was a settlement there a few centuries before but it was abandoned and only became repopulated after.

Nope: we have tombs of type that are essentially pre 70CE: that means NAzareth was inhabited by the middle years of the 1st century, and probably much earlier. as Saim admits. The argument is usually that tombs were all there was: this is extremely unlikely. The 2008/2009 season saw a rash of discoveries and reports, which I can summarise later, on what appear to be clear signs of habitation in the 1st century. The "missing link" scenario never made any sense really.

Off hand, what appears ot have happened is this. In the 1950's and 1960's there was very little evidence for 1st century habitation at Nazareth, and the idea it did not exist was put forward, and seized on by minimalist (as in the Levantine archaeological tradition) writers and then by anticlerical and attheist writers. The idea had succumbed to evidence by the mid 1990's - the modern 'Nazareth never existed' school, basically Renne Saim and Frank Zwindler of American Atheist Press are now defending a hypothesis long since rejected by archaeologists, even by the minimalists. It WAS a sensible position to take maybe forty years ago -- but recent research in Jewish funerary customs (for example http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=10313 ) have blown it out of the water.

cj x

 

[Paulhoff]

James Randi Speaks: Questioning the Bible



Paul

 

[cj.23]

Is your issue that the gospel writers used the term "city" to describe Nazareth? Is it possible that the term "polis" meant something more like "established population center" rather than "population center of certain, large, size"?

I think that very likely - see http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6162874&postcount=14119 and following discussion. We need more koine first century texts from the area to be sure either way of the usage prevailing though.

cj x

 

[secrets]

The amount of contradictions in this thread is astonishing.

 

[cj.23]

James Randi Speaks: Questioning the Bible



Paul

Yes it's complete unmitigated bollocks, and a very rare example of Randi and the JREF promoting woo -- see http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137026

The video appears to have been shot originally as a promotion for Frank Zwindler's American Atheist Press, who happen to publish Saim's book, and appeared on that website as an advertisement for said book. I wish the JREF would simply take it down or publish a retractiuon, as i have to put up with this drivel beng used as some kind of evidence. Randi is a wonderful chap but a biblical scholar or archeologist he is not.

cj x

 

[Akhenaten]

Is your issue that the gospel writers used the term "city" to describe Nazareth? Is it possible that the term "polis" meant something more like "established population center" rather than "population center of certain, large, size"?

Not entirely. I know I brought up the nomenclature in Post #14114, but that was mainly just a quick sally to get the subject moving again.

Given the difficulties I've seen described in this thread and in other places with pinning down words to their original meanings, due to numerous retranslations etcetera, I'd have to call the use of the word 'city' in the NT as we now know it pretty lightweight evidence. Arguing semantics seems unproductive.

I find other bits of the gospels more likely indicators that the writers were telling porkies:

1. Jeebus and his dad (Joseph, not the other one) were supposed to have been carpenters in Nazareth, however, the evidence points to the place not being big enough to be able to support this type of specialised trade.


2. Jeebus was supposed to have created a big ruckus at the local synagogue:

Luke 4, 16-31; Mark 1, 15; Matthew 4, 17.

JESUS came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read . . .

The evidence, however, says that Nazareth in those days was too small to have warranted its own synagogue.


3. Luke 4:28,29 states:

²⁸And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, ²⁹And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.​

The nearest hill ('mountain' in some translations) with a cliff suitable for a mob wishing to dispose of a blasphemer is 4 km from Nazareth. It's doubtful they'd want to drag someone that far just to throw him off a cliff.​

I was under the impression that archeological evidence points to Nazareth being essentially abandoned during that time period. There was a settlement there a few centuries before but it was abandoned and only became repopulated after.

That seems to fit quite nicely with the archæological and other evidence that I've been reading.



ETA: On the other hand . . .

The 2008/2009 season saw a rash of discoveries and reports, which I can summarise later, on what appear to be clear signs of habitation in the 1st century. The "missing link" scenario never made any sense really.

cj x

Thanks cj. I'll do some more reading of my own as well.

 

[cj.23]

The amount of contradictions in this thread is astonishing.

The amount of words in this thread is astonishing too! Secrets, what did you have in mind. And welcome, I don't think we have met before

cj x