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

[Akhenaten]

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.

You are wildly off topic, DOC.

 

[DOC]

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?​

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=5959646#post5959646

http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html

The very first post of Part 1 of this thread gave some evidence that the NT writers told the truth. That post could have been written better by myself. It would probably be better to read Chapter 11 of the book cited in post #1 as it is much more complete. Here it is:

http://books.google.com/books?id=PC...6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Geisler 10 reasons&f=false

Here is some more historical evidence:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=6366925#post6366925

 

[Craig B]

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.

Now I know why you're banging on about Ehrman's book. DOC, I have never encountered such absurd reasoning. Suppose I worshipped William Tell as a god. He is not thought to have existed as a real person. But then somebody finds evidence that he really did exist. So I go to you and say, that's evidence for the truth of my belief, because it goes part of the way towards proving that he both existed, and was a god!

Would you accept that? The Romans worshipped Augustus as a god. We know he existed. That goes part of the way to proving he really was a god, or alternatively proves that the human aspect of the godman entity existed in reality?!?

DOC, this is entirely bizarre. It's not half as bizarre, I agree, as imagining that an omniscient being can give up part of his own omniscience in order to become a human being and therefore cease to know some things. But I'll leave that for now, because it's doing my nut in, as we say in Glasgow.

 

[Mojo]

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.

No, it hasn't. The fact that there was a 1st century Jewish apocalyptic preacher called Jesus (or Jeshua, or whatever), even if it were to be definitively established, doesn't mean that the Jesus that you believe in has been shown to exist. They are not the same. Also, they are different.

 

[Akhenaten]

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?​

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=5959646#post5959646

That, DOC, is a link to this very thread.

There are no words to describe how ridiculous it is that you would refer to this mess as being evidence for itself.

http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html

The very first post of Part 1 of this thread gave some evidence that the NT writers told the truth. That post could have been written better by myself. It would probably be better to read Chapter 11 of the book cited in post #1 as it is much more complete. Here it is:

http://books.google.com/books?id=PC... AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Geisler 10 reasons&f=false

That drivel has was debunked years ago when you first posted it and has been debunked approximately weekly every time you've repeated it since then.

Here is some more historical evidence:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=6366925#post6366925

You cannot refer to your own posts as evidence for the truth of your own posts!​

 

[Akhenaten]

When are you going to deal with falsity of this claim as shown in Post #1539?

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

Before or after you deal with ddt's long-outstanding questions about Greek translations as reiterated in Post #1536?

 

[Akhenaten]

Now I know why you're banging on about Ehrman's book. DOC, I have never encountered such absurd reasoning.

I'm inclined to think that calling it 'reasoning' is drawing far too long a bow.

It's such a complete denial of what Ehrman's book actually says that DOC is in fact touting a book that doesn't even exist and is falsely attributing it to poor Sir Bart.

 

[RoboTimbo]

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.

Fallacy of equivocation. Bart Ehrman says that a human existed with the variant name of Jesus. You claim that your god was called Jesus. Those are two different things. Many have asked you where does Bart Ehrman say that a god existed and you have ignored those questions because you know he doesn't.

If you can't provide a citation for your claim, you are simply lying. Again. Do you believe it is moral to lie for Jesus?

 

[ddt]

I'm away for a day and there's a flurry of posts...

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.

Make that a year - the original is from 15 June 2011. DOC never responded. To date, he hasn't even taken the trouble to find the original passages where Heichelheim resp. Geisler promoted their pet translations, with hopefully some explanation behind their thinking.

But thanks for reposting it, mate!

 

[Fast Eddie B]

That, DOC, is a link to this very thread.

There are no words to describe how ridiculous it is that you would refer to this mess as being evidence for itself.

It would be inspired to take this "argument" and transpose it to a möbius loop!

Not an original idea. In a collection titled "Lost In The Funhouse" John Barth played with infinite regression:

The first "story", called Frame-tale, is actually a Mobius strip! It is a single page with the words "ONCE UPON A TIME THERE" written at one edge and "WAS A STORY THAT BEGAN" on the opposite side, with instructions for joining the ends to make a Möbius strip.


Anyway, I was reminded of that!

 

[Akhenaten]

As it happens, one of the first pictures I made for this thread was, in fact:

 

[Elizabeth I]

I'll take the 15 minutes to look it up if you agree you will apologize if I find it and never say anything negative about me. You won't do that so I won't take the 15 minutes to look it up. If you really cared about the information you would take me up on the offer.

Translation: you're all big poopyheads and if you don't play by my rules I'm going to kick the board over and go home. Waaaah!

 

[joobz]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=5959646#post5959646

http://www.leaderu.com/everystudent/easter/articles/josh2.html

The very first post of Part 1 of this thread gave some evidence that the NT writers told the truth. That post could have been written better by myself. It would probably be better to read Chapter 11 of the book cited in post #1 as it is much more complete. Here it is:

http://books.google.com/books?id=PC...6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Geisler 10 reasons&f=false



Here is some more historical evidence:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=6366925#post6366925

All of which has been discussed and found to be wanting.
You have no evidence, only wishful thinking.

 

[GrandMasterFox]

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.

According to the Christian religion Nerd religion (which is my religion), Jesus is God in the flesh and part of the Godhead Spiderman exists in the flesh under the name Peter Parker. And even skeptic Bart Ehrman said "Jesus certainly existed". There are over 60 people living in new york called Peter Parker. So my God Spiderman or at least part of that God Spiderman has been shown to exist.

 

[ddt]

I've read about 30% of the book which is mostly arguing that Jesus did exist. And I see you disagree with Ehrman's statement that "Jesus certainly existed".

At the end of the book it seems his biggest argument against Jesus being divine is the ol' "This generation shall/may not pass" verse, and that Jesus was a an Apocalyptic preacher. (I however believe the evidence is there Jesus was much more than just this.)

Regarding the "This generation shall/may not pass" verse (Mark 13:30), Ehrman doesn't say a word (that I saw) that "genea" can be translated as "race", and he doesn't say a word about Young's Literal Translation of the verse that says "This generation "may" not pass.

I also didn't see him talk about the verse two verses later that says no one, not even the Son of Man knows the day or hour.

How can you be so sure that Ehrman doesn't discuss that? Maybe it's in the 70% of the book you couldn't read off Amazon preview. More probable is, though, that it really isn't worth his time because it is a non-issue that is only raised by the desperate.

Discussions but no sources as to why it can't literally say "may pass".

Aberhaten has already been so kind to copy my posts on the issue which included sources.

Regarding the "shall/may pass" issue. Ddt has his opinion and "Young's Literal Translation" has their opinion.

The "typo" that Pharaoh so nicely captured (there instead of their) illustrates very well how you're barely competent in your native language let alone that you can judge about a foreign language.

Let me repeat this: there is no such thing as a literal translation. Richly inflected languages like Latin and Greek use the oblique moods (subjunctive, optative, imperative) for a wide range of functions where English employs a wide array of modal auxiliaries to express this. Sometimes English doesn't translate it at all: I gave the example of nowadays German, which uses the subjunctive in indirect speech where English doesn't "translate" such thing at all but just uses the indicative. Young seems to have translated the subjunctive wholesale with "may". I count 20 occurrences of "may" in Mark 13 alone, 24 occurrences of "shall" and none of other auxiliaries (might, can, could, will, would, should). That says to me that he slavishly translated every subjunctive with "may" and every future tense with "shall". It just doesn't work that way.

You need to look at the original language, the tense and mood used, and consult a grammar from an expert to know what that usage means. I know it's pearl before the swine in your case: you already lied about me not giving sources, and it's patently obvious you're not even inclined to start learning the Greek alphabet (that lesson 1 I linked for you) - unlike Akhenaten who can now proceed to lesson 2. But I'll give you some more rope to hang yourself with and quote from Daniel Wallace's "The Basics of New Testament Syntax - an intermediate Greek grammar". That is, of course, to high fetched if you haven't even mastered the alphabet and you are barely aware of your native tongue's grammar, but what the hell.

Mark 13:29 has the subjunctive after the conjunction ὅταν which means "when" or "whenever". On page 209 of Wallace's grammar he writes:

f. Subjunctive in Indefinite Temporal Clause
(1) DEFINITION. The subjunctive is frequently used after a temporal adverb (or improper preposition) meaning until (e.g., ἒως, ἄρχι, μέχρι), or after the temporal conjunction ὅταν with the meaning, whenever. It indicates a future contingency from the perspective of the time of the main verb.

The use of the subjunctive is obligatory after the conjunction ὅταν is obligatory, and it describes a future event. As to the certainty of that event, Mark 13:30 is very, very clear on that. The first subjunctive there is παρέλθῃ which is preceded by οὐ μὴ. Wallace says on that combination on page 204:

c. Emphatic Negation Subjunctive
(1) DEFINITION. Emphatic negation is indicated by οὐ μὴ plus the aorist subjunctive or, less frequently, οὐ μὴ plus the future indicative. This is the strongest way to negate something in Greek.

Highlighting mine. So definitely, this generation will not pass.

To the second subjunctive in that sentence, the same applies at above for Mark 13:29.

And whoever you believe, there is still the "genea" can be translated as "race" instead of "generation" issue; and different people have different opinions on that.

First of all, I must wonder why you keep using the word "race". Are you a Nazi, DOC? Only Nazis refer to Jews as a race, other people refer to them as a "nation", a "people" or a "tribe" if you will.

Secondly, give me another instance in the NT or in other Koine Greek texts from the time where that is unequivocally used. To help you, here is Strong's concordance on the issue.

Instead of reiterating the same drivel like a broken record, you might want to try to take the discussion forward and come with some credible sources yourself.

Thus endeth the Greek lesson for the day.

 

[catsmate]

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.

And you're back to lying again.

• Neither you nor any other god botherer has ever shown that your god exists.
• Ehrman fails to show even a human Jesus existed.
• You happily parrot Ehrman when he confirms your prejudices but ignore him when he says your god doesn't exist. Blatant hypocrisy.

 

[wollery]

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.

So, what you're saying is that we can't trust anything Jesus said to be true or accurate, or to properly reflect the knowledge or will of God. Some or all of the things Jesus said could be complete and utter bollocks, according to you.

Got it.

 

[ddt]

Discussions but no sources as to why it can't literally say "may pass".

I really resent that you claimed here that I had not given sources, whereas I clearly had. An apology is due.

 

[I Ratant]

Fallacy of equivocation. Bart Ehrman says that a human existed with the variant name of Jesus. You claim that your god was called Jesus. Those are two different things. Many have asked you where does Bart Ehrman say that a god existed and you have ignored those questions because you know he doesn't.

If you can't provide a citation for your claim, you are simply lying. Again. Do you believe it is moral to lie for Jesus?

.
It is pandemic to the christians.

 

[Fireshadow]

I really resent that you claimed here that I had not given sources, whereas I clearly had. An apology is due.

You know an apology will come at about the same time as the return of the Great Prophet Zarquon, don't you?