Merged Evidence for why we know the New Testament writers told the truth - (Part 2)

[dafydd]

And if Christ did say this generation shall not pass instead of this generation may not pass there is no law that God couldn't change his mind. We know God changed his mind in the book of Jonah after the people repented. Who knows, after he saw all the apostles being martyred, or after he possibly heard some of the prayers of those who heard Christ's speech he could of changed his mind and delayed the end of the world. It would seem an all powerful God would have that prerogative based on the future free will actions and prayers of those who believe in him.

The true answer to your riddle is that your god does not exist. You have proved that time and time again.

 

[Dinwar]

there is no law that God couldn't change his mind.

Except that 1) your god has never been shown to exist; and 2) this contradicts the whole omniscient thing. If an omniscient entity was going to change its mind, it'd know it was going to change its mind and therefore would actually not be changing its mind, but merely following a longer path. And if Jesus said "may not" rather than "shall not" that means that the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe didn't know what was going to happen--again, a contradiction.

Also, this is nothing more than post-hoc justifications for a failed prophesy. If someone accepts the logic "If a prophesy in Book X occurs, that deity exists" it necessarily follows that "If a prophesy in Book X does not occur, that deity does not exist". Jesus' prophesy didn't happen (assuming you don't go with "Jesus didn't have a bloody clue"), therefore he's not God.

So even though I don't agree with Ehrman's final conclusion and I don't believe he was ever a real Christian filled with the Holy Spirit (he does claim he was a Christian)

Pure No True Scotsman. If you left the Church you were never REALLY a member of the Church, you only pretended! Only those who haven't left were ever REAL Christians!

 

[Mojo]

And if Christ did say this generation shall not pass instead of this generation may not pass there is no law that God couldn't change his mind. We know God changed his mind in the book of Jonah after the people repented. Who knows, after he saw all the apostles being martyred, or after he possibly heard some of the prayers of those who heard Christ's speech he could of changed his mind and delayed the end of the world. It would seem an all powerful God would have that prerogative based on the future free will actions and prayers of those who believe in him.

Doesn't special pleading about God changing His mind belong in the "incredible odds of fulfilled Bible prophecy" thread?

 

[welshdean]

DOC, should save everyone the trouble and start any further threads of his in AAH.

His dishonesty is flabberghasting.

 

[TimCallahan]

DOC: Yeah, there probably was a historical Jesus. There was also a historical Alexander the Great. Do you believe that Alexander the Great hitched two griffins to his chariot and flew up to heaven? Do you believe he erected an iron gate blocking a pass in the Caucasus Mountains to keep Gog and Magog (i.e. tribes of the Sarmatians) from invading the civilized lands? I'm going to assume your answer to both questions is, "No."

So, the fact that there probably was a historical Jesus doesn't mean that he walked on water, magically multiplied food, healed lepers, raised the dead or was himself raised from the dead. All it means is that there was a messianic pretender named Yeshua -- a variant of Joshua, meaning "Yahweh is salvation," a name we anglicize as "Jesus" -- who taught certain doctrines and was put to death under Pontius Pilate for sedition.

We are still left with gospels full of fictional narratives, often simply rewritten with little change from the greek of the Septuagint to the Greek of the gospels, which do not agree withe each other on the specifics of either the Nativity or the Passion. We are also left with virtually no independent attestation concerning the nature of Jesus.

 

[Dinwar]

All it means is that there was a messianic pretender named Yeshua -- a variant of Joshua, meaning "Yahweh is salvation," a name we anglicize as "Jesus" -- who taught certain doctrines and was put to death under Pontius Pilate for sedition.

Do we actually know the highlighted part? My understanding was that no records of such an event have ever been found. I don't doubt that some Yeshua was put to death, I just haven't seen any convincing evidence that there was one.

 

[Gazpacho]

I thought I'd ask here, is there an active thread for "Christ myth" discussion (i.e. the idea that Jesus was not embellished, but wholly invented)? Because I have something to say about that but this probably isn't a good place.

 

[Akhenaten]

I thought I'd ask here, is there a current thread for "Christ myth" discussion (i.e. the idea that Jesus was not embellished, but wholly invented)? Because I have something to say about that but this probably isn't a good place.

Try these threads, mate:

The "Christ Myth" Theory: The Creationism of Skeptics?


What counts as a historical Jesus?​

 

[DOC]

That means Jesus is not God, because he then says that the Father does know. Matthew 24.

Christ came out of the Godhead to become a human being. He slept and ate, was born and was a child, but he did not sin. While on earth he was not the totality of God, but was a part of the Godhead. To be fully aware of what it is like to be a human you must experience periods of having a lack of knowledge. After leading a perfect sinless life and being crucified and resurrected he then says "All power in heaven and earth is given to me." That implies the complete power (such as total knowledge) wasn't there while he was on earth even though he lived a perfect sinless life.

 

[Akhenaten]

Christ came out of the Godhead to become a human being.

Evidence for this?

He slept and ate, was born and was a child, but he did not sin.

Evidence for this?

While on earth he was not the totality of God, but was a part of the Godhead.

Evidence for this?

To be fully aware of what it is like to be a human you must experience periods of having a lack of knowledge.

Evidence for this?

After leading a perfect sinless life and being crucified and resurrected he then says "All power in heaven and earth is given to me."

Evidence for this?

That implies the complete power (such as total knowledge) wasn't there while he was on earth even though he lived a perfect sinless life.

Evidence for this?


How about instead of preaching this polytheistic drivel at people you make a bit of an effort to address the topic?

 

[joobz]

Christ came out of the Godhead to become a human being.

ewwwwww....

 

[Akhenaten]

Well, yeah, there's that too.

 

[dafydd]

Christ came out of the Godhead to become a human being. He slept and ate, was born and was a child, but he did not sin. While on earth he was not the totality of God, but was a part of the Godhead. To be fully aware of what it is like to be a human you must experience periods of having a lack of knowledge. After leading a perfect sinless life and being crucified and resurrected he then says "All power in heaven and earth is given to me." That implies the complete power (such as total knowledge) wasn't there while he was on earth even though he lived a perfect sinless life.

And the Tooth Fairy visited me last night. You can stow the preaching, this is not a church full people with nothing but blind faith. Kindly stop posting evidence-free posts.

 

[joobz]

Well, yeah, there's that too.

Milk, Milk, Lemonade
and around the corner
gods are made.

 

[Fast Eddie B]

Christ came out of the Godhead to become a human being. He slept and ate, was born and was a child, but he did not sin. While on earth he was not the totality of God, but was a part of the Godhead. To be fully aware of what it is like to be a human you must experience periods of having a lack of knowledge. After leading a perfect sinless life and being crucified and resurrected he then says "All power in heaven and earth is given to me." That implies the complete power (such as total knowledge) wasn't there while he was on earth even though he lived a perfect sinless life.

This is what I think is called a "just so" story.

Every major (and probably minor) religion has these.

And has adherents.

To those outside of any given faith, these stories carry no weight, full of ungrounded assumptions, internal contradictions and just plain nonsense.

But whatever floats your boat.

But back on point, and echoing others, given the topic of the thread, where is the evidence for that little story you just told?

 

[Akhenaten]

Since we seem to be just about finished with the gospel according to Sir Bart perhaps we should return to the point at which it was lobbed into the discussion.

Or there simply could have been a Palestine census at exactly the time Luke reported and Quirinius could have been an official at that time. Rulers and politicians do hold more than one office in their lifetime. This census was around 4 BC. Josephus wasn't even born then and he didn't write about this time period until about 91 AD. Also Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD so its not like there would be a lot of census records laying around (for Joshephus to read) of something that happened 95 years ago.

First of all, the text does not support that. You have brought in Heichelheim and Geisler claiming that, but you have not given any argumentation why their claims are valid. Let's go over that 9-word sentence of Luke 2:2 again:

αὑτη ἡ ἀπογραφη πρωτη ἐγενετο ἡγεμονευοντος της Συριας Κυρηνιου

Now, let's break down that sentence.

It's subject is αὑτη ἡ ἀπογραφη - "that census". The word αὑτη is a demonstrative pronoun ("that"), and refers back to the previous verse where it said that Augustus ordered a census. The word ἡ is the definite article (which is usual in Greek in this construct but obviously not translated in English). Lastly, ἀπογραφη means census; it's a feminine word; as it's the subject, it's in the nominative; and it's singular;. The words αὑτη and ἡ are inflected to agree with that.

The verb is ἐγενετο. It's the aorist indicative, 3rd person singular of γιγνομαι - to become, to be, to happen (cf. the English word Genesis). It acts here as a copula.

Then the word we've skipped: πρωτη. That is a superlative of an adjective that has no positive grade, and means "first" or "earliest". A Greek superlative may also be translated as "very ...", so "very early" would also be possible. It's inflected in the nominative singular feminine, and so it's the predicate of the copula.

Then the last four words: ἡγεμονευοντος της Συριας Κυρηνιου. They are a genitive absolute construction. The word ἡγεμονευοντος is the genitive singular masculine of the present participle of ἡγεμονευω, "to rule", "to govern", so literally it means "ruling". This verb happens to have its direct object in the genitive case too; that object is της Συριας, i.e., Syria (της is the genitive singular feminine of the definite article "the"). The last word, Κυρηνιου, is the genitive singular of Κυρηνιος, the Greek transcription of the name Quirinius. So the whole construct means "Quirinius ruling over Syria". A genitive absolute construct is called "absolute" because it stands "loose", it is independent grammatically, of the rest of the sentence. It is typically translated as a subordinate clause, with simply a temporal relation ("while", "when") or a causal relation ("because") or a concessive relation ("although") or whatever the translator deems appropriate. The fact that the participle employed here is a present participle means that the action in the genitive absolute construction is contemporaneous with the action in the main clause.

So, all in all, my translation is: "This census was the first, while Quirinius ruled over Syria".

Now, I don't see any mention in this sentence of two censuses as your favourite apologists contend, but I'll give you some rope to hang yourself with. Some scholars claim that the NT writers now and then employed a superlative (here: πρωτη, "earliest") when they actually meant a comparative (which would be προτερη, "earlier"). In case of a comparative there has to be a thing you compare it with, say: "Peter is taller than Paul". You can't just say "Peter is taller". That (the italicized part) can be expressed in two ways in Greek: (1) the word ἠ stands for "than" and the actual thing is in the same case as the thing we compare it with, or (2) the thing we compare it with is put in the genitive case.

Now, obviously the word ἠ is absent; and the genitive construction doesn't work either IMHO: firstly, the verb ἐγενετο is placed in between which makes this unlikely to have been the idea (Greek word order is not that free); and secondly, the genitives are there for a genitive absolute, not for a comparative.

And even if you were able to convince me of such a translation, there are also historical reasons why this doesn't work.

A census in Judea around 4 BC is right out, for several reasons. Herod reigned over Judea, and the finances of Judea was not the Romans' worry. They had an agreement with Herod how much tax he had to turn over and it was his business how to get that. There was no need for the Romans to mandate he conduct a census, and still, then it would have been Herod's census and not Quirinius' c.q. Augustus' census.

Varus was the governor over Syria in the last years of Herod's reign. Even in your fantastic scenario of a Roman census in that time, Quirinius would have been a subordinate. The Greek text of Luke 2:2 however is very clear:

ἡγεμονευοντος της Συριας Κυρηνιου

which means "while Quirinius reigned over Syria". The use of the verb ἡγεμονεω leaves open a subordinate position, however, της Συριας is a direct object (in the genitive) and precludes anything but him being the boss - otherwise, Luke would have written ἐν τῃ Συριᾳ ("in Syria"). But we're here already in the realm of fantasy, as noted above.

But to put your last fantastical delusions to an end: if you're going to argue Quirinius may have been governor of Syria after Varus, then this is the first instance we know that the same man had been governor twice of the same Roman province. Surely Josephus, Tacitus or any other Roman historian would have told us.

Also if Luke wanted to make up a story of how Joseph and Mary got to Bethlehem why make up a story that can be challenged by all the people of that time (that doesn't make sense). Why not just make up a story that can't be challenged. He could say something like the dead Joseph wanted to visit his hometown, or he wanted to have the child in the place he was born. Why go through all the trouble of bringing in historical people and events into made up story where it can be challenged, that doesn't make sense to do that.

Your posts here are a testament to the gullibility of the general populace to take any story they're told at face value. Skeptics who critically engage a story were in the minority then as well as now. Most of Luke's readers were not in the position to challenge the story. They didn't have Wikipedia to look up that there's actually a gap of 10 years between Herod's death and Quirinius' tenure. They couldn't check the claim that Joseph had to travel for a census. However, there's a definite advantage to Luke's story - from a Christian perspective. After the Jewish Revolt, Jews were looked upon with suspicion by Romans. The early Christians had to disambiguate their cult from the Jews. There also was the story (per Josephus) of the revolt of Judas the Galilee as a reaction to Quirinius' census. Having Joseph be an obedient Roman subject, willing to make an arduous journey with his highly pregnant wife paints Christians as law-abiding Roman subjects from the outset.

You've had at least 15 minutes to look up a response to this, DOC, so let's see it.

 

[Mojo]

Christ came out of the Godhead to become a human being. He slept and ate, was born and was a child, but he did not sin. While on earth he was not the totality of God, but was a part of the Godhead. To be fully aware of what it is like to be a human you must experience periods of having a lack of knowledge. After leading a perfect sinless life and being crucified and resurrected he then says "All power in heaven and earth is given to me." That implies the complete power (such as total knowledge) wasn't there while he was on earth even though he lived a perfect sinless life.

[citation needed]

 

[DOC]

Except that 1) your god has never been shown to exist...

That's not true. According to the Christian religion (which is my religion), Jesus is God in the flesh and part of the Godhead. And even skeptic Bart Ehrman said "Jesus certainly existed". So my God or at least part of that God has been shown to exist.

 

[Akhenaten]

Except that 1) your god has never been shown to exist...

That's not true. According to the Christian religion (which is my religion), Jesus is God in the flesh and part of the Godhead.

DOC, have you lost the plot completely?

This is the very thing you set out all those years ago to provide evidence for in this thread and so far you've failed to provide a mustard seed's worth of it.

You don't get to just skip the whole bloody thing and go straight to a foregone conclusion that Magical Zombie Jesus existed.

Where is your evidence?​

And even skeptic Bart Ehrman said "Jesus certainly existed". So my God or at least part of that God has been shown to exist.

You are lying again. As you have been told repeatedly:

So then you disagree with Bart Ehrman who said on page 73 of his book:

"To dismiss the gospels from the historical record is neither fair or scholarly."

The power of So strikes again! I'd need to see what Ehrman says in context to see whether I agree with him, but really whether I agree with him or not has no bearing on the historicity of your fanboi. Undoubtedly there are some parts of the Gospels which mesh with recorded history, but there is much that does not - like the Census or the reign of Herod.

Also, without a Resurrection, how do you explain the rapid growth of Christianity in the brutal Roman empire ( by peaceful means), where being a Christian can get you nailed to a cross.

Ehrman says on page 118 of his book that Paul's Thessalonians is usually dated 49 CE. So about 19 years after the crucifixion, Paul is writing letters to an already established church. Roman Emperor Nero was torturing Christians in Rome in 64 CE. Other than a Resurrection what could drive this rapid growth and the willingness to die and be tortured.

You probably need to keep reading before you tout Ehrman as support for your belief in the resurrection, while it is clear Ehrman believes someone named Yeshua was crucified, he doesn't believe that the resurrection was an historical event. In fact, he says:

But then something else happened. Some of them began to say that God had intervened and brought him back from the dead. The story caught on, and some (or all - we don't know) of his closest followers came to think that in fact he had been raised.

This in itself (and particularly in context) makes it quite clear that the "something" was not a resurrection event. It's on page 164 if you want to check the quote.

Or on page 233:

For some reason, however, the followers of Jesus (or at least some of them) came to think he had been raised from the dead.

Again, in context, it is clear Ehrman doesn't believe that the reason was a resurrection.
Ehrman suggests that someone (who might have claimed to be a messiah, hardly an uncommon claim) had died and his followers didn't want to let it lie:

They were forced to come up with the idea of the crucified messiah because there really was a man Jesus who was crucified, yet they wanted to maintain that he was the messiah

(page 240).

And again:

Those who believed he was the messiah therefore concluded that the messiah had been crucified. And as a result they redefined what it meant to be the messiah. It meant one who had suffered for the sins of others.

(page 246, my emboldening).

In short, Ehrman does not believe in the resurrection. If this thread is about your support for Ehrman's beliefs as stated in this book, you cannot cite him as support for the resurrection, even while you accept that he believes there was a historical Jesus. The Jesus of this book is not the Christ, he's just an apocalyptic preacher who had a few followers and who was crucified. In short, Ehrman's opinion is that "The Jesus proclaimed by preachers and theologians today had no existence".

Having actually read most of Ehrman's works intended for laymen, I can attest that his view is that Jesus was a member of a Jewish apocalyptic movement who's teachings were radically different from what has come to be known as Christianity today. The historical Jesus he speaks of would have been appalled by the blasphemy of claiming that he was God, and he would have been enraged if he'd learned that this blasphemy bearing his name would become the official religion of the hated Roman Empire.

So that being the case, whether or not he then chooses to still believe in a Jesus he just proved to be unsupportable, is fully irrelevant, really. An argument from "but Barth Ehrman still believes that Jesus existed" is really still an argument from authority. And if not only he doesn't have any good evidence, but he just told you himself what's wrong with the evidence, then who cares what he chooses to believe without evidence?

But the Jesus he says existed is not the same as the Jesus you say existed. From Jerry Coyne's comments about the book:

You’ll also know that that the book doesn’t assert the divinity of Jesus, claiming, as Ehrman has consistently, that the man was a fully human apocalyptic preacher.

For the record, Ehrman states categorically in his book:

The Jesus proclaimed by preachers and theologians today had no existence.

The magical zombie Jesus of the Bible and the alleged historical Jesus that Ehrman is talking about are not the same entity.​

Do you really think you'll get away with claiming that Ehrman's book supports your position?

Really???

 

[DOC]

Except that ...2) this contradicts the whole omniscient thing. If an omniscient entity was going to change its mind, it'd know it was going to change its mind and therefore would actually not be changing its mind, but merely following a longer path. And if Jesus said "may not" rather than "shall not" that means that the omnipotent, omniscient creator of the universe didn't know what was going to happen--again, a contradiction.

In order to ensure free will God could "choose" not to know the future regarding human actions. He has the ability to know, but chooses not to know for free will purposes. I have the ability to hop on a plane to Newark, New Jersey, but I can choose not to do it.

The bible shows the Christian God is dynamic and complex. We don't completely know God's personality but we are given some glimpses of it through the bible.

Sometimes people only think on the 1st level of things. As stated, the Christian God is dynamic and complex and I believe one shouldn't limit him to a cookie cutter always predictable personality.