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

[Akhenaten]

Will you apologize if I produce at least 2 quotes where I give page numbers?

At the risk of repeating myself, I'll just repeat myself.

<snip>

You think that quoting page numbers produces a veneer of credibilty for yourself when you pretend to quote from a book that you've never read, don't you?

And you think that not quoting page numbers undermines the credibilty of your opponents.

And you have no idea how childish and petulant this behaviour looks to people reading your posts.

Grow up.


<snip


You lied when you pretended to be quoting Ehrman from the big, bold text on the inside cover of the book. Not only did you dishonestly omit a vitally important word when you tried to use that quote to support your contention that the book supports your claims of Magical Zombie Jesus™, but you completely ignored the fact that they weren't even Ehrman's words.

In other words, in the matter of this book, just as in all of your other intellectually bankrupt "arguments", you destroyed your credibility on your first faltering steps out of the gate.

When will you be apologising, not just for this latest episode of pretending to have read Ehrman's book, but for the blatantly transparent dishonesty that you've displayed from the very first post in this thread?

You repeatedly quote discredited sources and cherry pick others down to single words. You commit the same logical fallacies hundreds of times, despite being caught out and corrected on them every time.

You alter other people's posts, misattribute them to other people and alter your own posts after other people have quoted them.

You demand links and references from people and then refuse to deal with them, while the vast majority of your own links are either to the same old apologist nonsense that's already been refuted dozens of times or worse still, to the mindless drivel that you've concocted yourself.

When the questions become too numerous and too strident for you to continue to pretend to not see them you:

• attempt to derail the thread by introducing ridiculously off-topic Nimrods,
  
  
• answer with some vapid non sequitur or other,
  
  
• whine about how other posters are making it 'all about you',
  
  
• claim to be hamstrung by search engine and other technical difficulties that affect only you out of the thousands of users of the Forum,
  
  
• repeatedly start clones of this thread all over the board to provide you with bolt-holes in which you think to hide when your latest fiasco du jour starts to unavel.
  
  
• ad nauseam.

And you dare to seek apologies from people who do nothing more than provide evidence of your own dishonesty?


Hypocrisy doesn't even begin to cover it, DOC.

 

[Akhenaten]

Here are some others from Wiki on Roman temples:

<snip>

What in the name of Bastet are you talking about?

I don't think a lot of people realize just how drastically Jesus and Christianity changed the world.

There's no evidence that Jesus existed and even less evidence that you know anything at all about Christianity.

Others, however, know a great deal about it and that's why they're here, countering your attempts to proselytize your intellectually and morally barren version of Paul's nasty little cult.

A good book on this topic is titled "What If Jesus had Never Been Born".

Since he wasn't, and since this idiotic book has been debunked more times than Kali has broken a fingernail, your endorsment of this bilge as 'a good book' is exactly like everything else you've ever posted here - wrong.


By the way . . .

Why aren't Muslim martyrs evidence for the truth of Islam in the same way that, according to you, Christian martyrs are evidence for the truth of Christianity?​

 

[Mojo]

Here are some others from Wiki on Roman temples:

WITHIN THE CITY OF ROME
Temple to All the Gods, known as the Pantheon - Campus Martius
Temple of Antoninus and Faustina - Roman Forum
Temple of Apollo Palatinus - Palatine Hill
Temple of Apollo Sosianus - Near the Theater of Marcellus
Temple of Bellona (Rome) - Near the Theater of Marcellus
Temple of Bona Dea - Aventine Hill
Temple of Caesar - Roman Forum
Temple of Castor and Pollux - In the Roman Forum
Temple of Concord - Roman Forum at the base of the Capitoline
Temple of Cybele (Magna Mater) - Palatine Hill
Temple of Diana - Aventine Hill
Temple of Divus Augustus behind Basilica Julia
Temple of Hadrian - Campus Martius (Built into Chamber of Commerce building)
Temple of Hercules Victor
Temple of Isis and Serapis - Campus Martius
Temple of Janus (Roman Forum)
Temple of Janus (Forum Holitorium)
Temple of Juno Moneta - Capitoline Hill
Temple of Jupiter (Capitoline Hill) - Capitoline Hill (under Palazzo Conservatori)
Temple of Mars Ultor - Forum of Augustus
Nymphaeum often called (erroneously) a Temple of Minerva Medica, formerly in the Forum Transitorum
Temple of Minerva Medica, named in literary sources but no longer extant
Temple of Peace - Forum of Peace (now mostly covered by Via dei Fori Imperiali)
Temple of Portunus - Near Santa Maria in Cosmedin
Temple of Romulus - Roman Forum
Temple of Saturn - West end of the Roman Forum
Temple of Siriaco - Janiculum Hill
Temple of Venus and Roma - Northeast corner of the Roman Forum
Temple of Venus Genetrix - Forum of Caesar
Temple of Vespasian and Titus
Temple of Vesta - Roman Forum
Temple of Veiovis - Capitoline Hill (Basement of Palazzo Senatorio)

Italian peninsula
Temple of Apollo (Pompeii)
Temple of Bellona (Ostia)
Temple of Vesta - Tivoli

Europe
Temple of Claudius, Colchester, England,[2][3]
Arthur's O'on, Stenhousemuir, Scotland
Pagans Hill Roman Temple, Somerset, England
Roman Baths (Bath) and Temple of Sulis Minerva, Bath, Somerset, England
London Mithraeum, Londinium, modern London
Temple of Augustus (Pula) - Pula, Croatia
Temple of Augustus in Ancyra - Ankara, Turkey
Roman Temple of Évora - Évora, Portugal
Temple of Augustus in Barcelona - Barcelona, Spain
Roman temple of Alcántara, Spain
Roman temple of Vic, Spain
Roman temple of Córdoba, Spain
Maison Carrée - Nîmes, Southern France
Temple of Augusta and Livia - Vienne, France

Africa and the Near East
Temple of Bacchus - Baalbek, Lebanon
Temple of Artemis (Jerash)
Donuktas Roman Temple - Tarsus [3]
Umayyad Mosque, Damascus, Syria
Ain Harcha, Lebanon
Kfar Qouq, Lebanon
Aaiha, Lebanon
Deir El Aachayer, Lebanon
Yanta, Lebanon

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

You have previousy argued that the building of "the huge St. Peters basilica" is evidence of the truth of the resurrection:

Yes, but you can't will yourself to come out of a tomb and be alive and well after going through a brutal Roman crucifixion. And the fact that 11 apostles turned from uncertainty and cowardice (before the reported resurrection) into bold evangelizing martyrs who laid down their lives for Christ is some evidence for this actual Resurrection. And the huge St. Peters basilica in the heart of the former great Roman Empire would have never been built unless something caused one former cowardly apostle who denied Christ 3x's to a lone woman to have a serious attitude adjustment.

Are all these huge temples evidence of the truth of the Roman gods?

 

[Akhenaten]

Are all these huge temples evidence of the truth of the Roman religions?

Ozymandias nods approvingly on reading this question

 

[dafydd]

I don't think a lot of people realize just how drastically Jesus and Christianity changed the Western world.

.

You forgot a word there. Hinduism changed large parts of the Eastern World. Were the writers of the Mahabharata telling the truth? Do you believe in the Hindu pantheon of gods?

 

[ddt]

Wow. Posts like that make these threads worthwhile. Thank you, ddt!

You're welcome! To finish the story: As with so many other pagan ritual sites, Christians took over the site and built a church on the site of the Roman temple. That church was replaced by a Romanesque church, and that in turn by a Gothic church (map). We may actually thank the Nazis for finding the Roman temples. Elst lies halfway between Nijmegen and Arnhem; in the aftermath of Market Garden the church burnt out. The Dutch archaeological agency decided to investigate the site before the church was rebuilt, and thus the temples were found. You can actually visit the remains of the temple, but you have to make an appointment with the sacristan of the (protestant) church.

Speaking of Market Garden: I always had the impression that this shot was taken from, and meant to depict, the church tower of Elst. I've not been able to find anything online about it. This page claims it would have been Driel, but historic photos of the Driel church are way off that tower, and the Elst tower seems a more logical choice as it was/is much, much higher (but Driel was closer to the battlefield). Or was the shot taken from the Lebuiniskerk in Deventer - the same town where the "Arnhem bridge" shots were taken? This movie fragment (start at 7:20) shows the camera first taking a shot from the base of the church up the tower.

 

[Multivac]

I don't think a lot of people realize just how drastically Jesus and Christianity changed the world.

Very true. Without them the film "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" would not have been made. More importantly the Pythons would not have produced the "Spanish Inquision" sketch, or the films "The Life of Brian" and "The Holy Grail". Also, the "Every sperm is sacred" sketch would be missing from "the Meaning of Life".

So, for these reasons only, I am glad that the jesus myth exists.

 

[TimCallahan]

You're welcome! To finish the story: As with so many other pagan ritual sites, Christians took over the site and built a church on the site of the Roman temple. That church was replaced by a Romanesque church, and that in turn by a Gothic church (map). We may actually thank the Nazis for finding the Roman temples. Elst lies halfway between Nijmegen and Arnhem; in the aftermath of Market Garden the church burnt out. The Dutch archaeological agency decided to investigate the site before the church was rebuilt, and thus the temples were found. You can actually visit the remains of the temple, but you have to make an appointment with the sacristan of the (protestant) church.

Speaking of Market Garden: I always had the impression that this shot was taken from, and meant to depict, the church tower of Elst. I've not been able to find anything online about it. This page claims it would have been Driel, but historic photos of the Driel church are way off that tower, and the Elst tower seems a more logical choice as it was/is much, much higher (but Driel was closer to the battlefield). Or was the shot taken from the Lebuiniskerk in Deventer - the same town where the "Arnhem bridge" shots were taken? This movie fragment (start at 7:20) shows the camera first taking a shot from the base of the church up the tower.

Taking over the temples and holy days of the religion one has displaced is, apparently, standard practice. When the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople in 1453, they not only changed the city's name to Istanbul, but, as well, converted the Christian cathedral Hagia Sofia ("Holy Wisdom"), built by Justinian and Theodora, into a mosque.

 

[Craig B]

Taking over the temples and holy days of the religion one has displaced is, apparently, standard practice. When the Ottoman Turks took Constantinople in 1453, they not only changed the city's name to Istanbul, but, as well, converted the Christian cathedral Hagia Sofia ("Holy Wisdom"), built by Justinian and Theodora, into a mosque.

No they didn't change the city's name to Istanbul. It was changed by the secular Turkish Republic in 1930. See wiki on Constantinople:

The city was originally founded as a Greek colony under the name of Byzantium in the 7th century BC. It took on the name of Konstantinoupolis ("city of Constantine", Constantinople) after its re-foundation under Roman emperor Constantine I, who designated it as his new Roman capital. The modern Turkish name İstanbul derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin (εις την πόλιν), meaning "in the City" or "to the City". This name was used in Turkish side by side with Kostantiniyye, the more formal Arabic–Persian adaptation of the original Constantinople, during the period of Ottoman rule, while western languages mostly continued to refer to the city as Constantinople until the early 20th century. After the creation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, the Turkish government began to formally object to the use of Constantinople in other languages and ask that others use the more common name for the city.

 

[Craig B]

TimCallahan

There's a long discussion of this question here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=235911&highlight=Istanbul&page=4.

 

[pakeha]

I quite like the temple=truthiness argument.
And DOC's references to the brutal Romans spur me on to new culinary delights.
Who says these threads are a waste of time!

edited to add:
http://www.romamor.it/en/ric/contornog.htm

Who knew this marvellous dish was a legacy of those nasty, brutish Romans!

 

[Agatha]

Have you yet to apologize to Agatha for insinuating that she has not read the book?

Do you often demand things of others which you are unable to do yourself?
How would Jesus, if he was real, respond to such behavior?

I won't hold my breath waiting for an apology from DOC; his rudeness and lack of etiquette is his problem. If Jesus were real I cannot but think he would disapprove of such behaviour.

 

[Akhenaten]

I won't hold my breath waiting for an apology from DOC; his rudeness and lack of etiquette is his problem. If Jesus were real I cannot but think he would disapprove of such behaviour.

 

[TimCallahan]

No they didn't change the city's name to Istanbul. It was changed by the secular Turkish Republic in 1930. See wiki on Constantinople:

Thanks for that correction, Craig. Can you tell me anything about the city's designation as the "Sublime Porte"?

As to Hagia Sophia, however, I'm pretty sure the Turks turned it into a mosque. I believe it is at present a museum. I also seem to remember that in the various takings and retakings of Jerusalem, the conquering armies variously dragged the crescent or the cross through the streets.

In Russia, this phenomenon can be seen in the onion domes of many churches surmounted with a cross on top of a crescent, signifying the triumph of Christianity over Islam. However, in this case, the significance is more nationalistic than religious, owing to the early conversion of the Golden Horde to Islam.

 

[DOC]

I won't hold my breath waiting for an apology from DOC; his rudeness and lack of etiquette is his problem.

Another derogatory post that does not respond to a post of mine or give examples.

 

[joobz]

Another derogatory post that does not respond to a post of mine or give examples.

Another post avoiding an apology for falsely implying Agatha had not read the book that you, yourself, had not read.

 

[Craig B]

Thanks for that correction, Craig. Can you tell me anything about the city's designation as the "Sublime Porte"?

Not the city itself, but the seat of the Ottoman Imperial government. Ambassadors were traditionally received by the Grand Vizir at the Great Gate of Topkapi Palace, known to westerners as the Sublime Porte, and the expression came to refer generally to the political entity to which these diplomats were accredited.

 

[Giordano]

Another post avoiding an apology for falsely implying Agatha had not read the book that you, yourself, had not read.

This^^^^^
Agatha clearly read the book. DOC clearly had not read the book at all when he first misquoted the book jacket, and has still failed to read most of it, particularly any of the parts that deny the very title of this thread.

DOC- isn't it more than a little counterproductive to quote a book as evidence for your belief when the book itself strongly denies your central premise (the divinity of Jesus)? Is this a new scholarship of "anti-apologetics"?
And still no apology to Agatha...

 

[DOC]

Another post avoiding an apology for falsely implying Agatha had not read the book that you, yourself, had not read.

This is false, I merely asked for the page numbers of the information she was giving. I gave page numbers 2 or 3 times. There was always the chance she could have not portrayed exactly what Ehrman said since she seemed to be saying it on memory.

And I have read more of the book "Did Jesus Exist" than probably 95% of the people on this site. If it wasn't for me, I have a feeling very few in here would even know of the book.

----

And as I've stated many times my threads are not about me.

 

[DOC]

This^^^^^
Agatha clearly read the book. DOC clearly had not read the book...

I have read much of the book, although not all of it. I've already pointed out Ehrman said "Jesus certainly existed" on page 173 and he also said there are solid reasons to believe Judas betrayed Jesus.