I'm shocked, I say, shocked, to hear that MG1962 is a serial killer.
It's a bit disappointing that the best info in this thread comes form the non-believers. Of the two believers, one "just knows" that an impossible story is true, and the other introduces all kind of conjecture to make another tall tale, of a known fantasizer (Mattie), true.
But that also seems to be the wider case with the whole discipline of theology. You start out with a modestly-sized, ancient "Holy Book"folklore and old-wives' tall tales from an amalgam of an overall similar and related peoples, full of vague or outright contradictory statements due to variations in local cults and preferences to one tall tale over another, and then you write tome after tome with made-up details and with lame rationalizations to iron away the wrinkles in the original story and for the purposes of easier control over all those various peoples with a consistent and homogenous propaganda that makes the various chieftains and tribes appear as an autochthonous people united by family ties serving one king and priest.
You know you have REAL theologians at work, when they write tome after tome after tome about stuff that's not even in any of the books. Like the whole assumption of Mary or for that matter the immaculate conception. It's not even ironing wrinkles in an existing story, it's making extra stuff up from whole cloth, because it... err... made sense to someone that God would totally do that.
[snip]
I keep comparing theology with Fan Dumb, but yeah, for that reason. If someone spent many years and wrote many pages arguing the role of Captain Pike in saving the galaxy, in the original Star Trek series, via his influence of Spock and Kirk, even most die-hard trekkies would think it's not healthy to be that (A) obsessed and (B) into taking one's own ass-pulls as reality. But you do that for Joseph, they call you Pope John Paul II.
[snip
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There's no rules for fiction!
The author invents a vast movement of peoples in the past, or invents some fancy tale about a zombie... he can do that.
And so it is written.
And you have just described the creation of the Torah and Tanakh in general as well as all similar books of myths like Iliad, Aeneid, Upanishads etc. etc.
Well, pretty much. Especially the post-Babylonian additions include such stories made up out of whole cloth just to make a point, like Job, or Jonah, etc.
But I'd still say even there it gets even more Fan Dumb if you read some of the theology built AROUND the books, rather than the books themselves. Some of the midrash is frikken hilarious.
The problem with this is that there is no corroborating evidence whatsoever for all of this. As you say, no-one else mentions anything unusual in the sky. And you don't give any evidence for any kind of diplomatic mission either. What would these Magi have been doing at Herod's court? Negotiate the release of the 10,000 Roman POWs of Carrhae? A bit late. And why doesn't Josephus tell us about such a thing then? Your remark about "hornets nest" also implies they would actually have gone to Bethlehem and would have deviated then from their purported diplomatic mission. What idiot would do that?
And after all, we're talking here about a tale we only know from an author who has other uncorroborated tall stories. Like a 3-hour lasting eclipse (during the Crucifixion), or a massive zombie rampage through downtown Jerusalem (after the Resurrection) which no-one else tells us about.
Brainache's explanation seems much more reasonable: Matthew just wanted to cram another "OT prophecy" into his tale. And made a dog's breakfast of it.
Well, pretty much. Especially the post-Babylonian additions include such stories made up out of whole cloth just to make a point, like Job, or Jonah, etc.
But I'd still say even there it gets even more Fan Dumb if you read some of the theology built AROUND the books, rather than the books themselves. Some of the midrash is frikken hilarious.
The Star of Bethlehem was undoubtedly an astrological sign. And one probably only understood by the Magi themselves. Anything physical such as a comet supernova etc etc would have been seen by others, especially the Babylonians and Chinese. An no other chronicle at the time mentions anything unusual for a number of years either side of this event.
The whole mission of the Magi was probably a diplomatic decision and had bugger all to do with the son of God or anything like that, and the Magi unfortunately stepped straight into a hornets nest.
How do you know there were Magi at all? How do you know it was not just a fabricated piece of fictive CODE.... Matthew loved to tie Jesus one way or another to the Tanakh.... how do you know he did not also add this little fiction to tie Jesus to the Magi religion (Big Daddy) while none of it has any basis in reality other than CODE and MYSTERY and INNER CIRCLE talk?
How do you know that if he existed that he did not run away like he did here John 8:59 and then the writers invented the rest to make him look better?
How do you know that if the Romans killed him it was not by gun shot or electrocution.... oh wait... wrong Romans…. err… sword or lashing to death?
You think what you think because you cherry picked bits from the NT and now you are arguing that it is true because the NT says so.... circular unreasoning again.
You know you have REAL theologians at work, when they write tome after tome after tome about stuff that's not even in any of the books. Like the whole assumption of Mary or for that matter the immaculate conception. It's not even ironing wrinkles in an existing story, it's making extra stuff up from whole cloth, because it... err... made sense to someone that God would totally do that.
Or there is actually a whole discipline in Catholic theology called "Josephology." Look it up, I'm not making it up. There are whole tracts and studies into Joseph, the husband of Mary, and his role in universal salvation. And he isn't even mentioned in more than a handful of verses total as doing not much more than being just the guy who married Marry.
I have always found it fascinating that people will spend hours, days, their entire life to make up, in very erudite sentences, tons and tons of nonsense about God, the Bible, etc., and are thought of very highly for this trait. "Clearly God must be eternal, because only an etherial God can be eternal..." What a waste of time! I often have thought this is just use of fancy words to obscure what a logical person would reject if described simply. Do we have "theologians" of Harry Potter who are equally elevated to academic positions?
One way is to do it the Jesus way.... starve and thirst for 40 days.... that is a GUARANTEED meeting of god either as a hallucination after a couple of days or if he exists then in person after 10 days.
But hey... it's one way to make the trip cheaper.
Or you can do it the John way.... wear a loin cloth and only eat locusts and honey if you can fight off the bees.
Primarily because of the utter lack of physical and historical evidence.
The only source of information you use for the "exodus" is the inconsistently-edited, heavily redacted, sectarially-canonized collection of myths from at least four different sources, into at least two different traditions, in language(s) you cannot read and do not accurately interpret.
It seems you still have not figured out the problem with circular reasoning.
My position remains the same. The original contention was there is as little evidence for the Crucification as is for Exodus is false. Jesus lived in a place where it was possible to be crucified. Exodus does not even have that going for it.
And the Israelites lived in a place where they could have been captured and could have been enslaved by the Egyptians. There is just no evidence outside the bible that they ever were. And Jesus could have existed and could have been crucified. There is just no evidence outside the bible that he ever was. See your problem there?
How do you know there were Magi at all? How do you know it was not just a fabricated piece of fictive CODE.... Matthew loved to tie Jesus one way or another to the Tanakh.... how do you know he did not also add this little fiction to tie Jesus to the Magi religion (Big Daddy) while none of it has any basis in reality other than CODE and MYSTERY and INNER CIRCLE talk?
Odd - For all your talk, nothing about the previous links I supplied you...at your request. Why is that? No good trolling material.
So rather than just flinging poop and hope you look good, care to bother responding. Or are we going to beg of that we are a little busy and can not offer a detailed reply, which is your usual MO when ever the discussion gets beyond you?
I have always found it fascinating that people will spend hours, days, their entire life to make up, in very erudite sentences, tons and tons of nonsense about God, the Bible, etc., and are thought of very highly for this trait. "Clearly God must be eternal, because only an etherial God can be eternal..." What a waste of time! I often have thought this is just use of fancy words to obscure what a logical person would reject if described simply. Do we have "theologians" of Harry Potter who are equally elevated to academic positions?
That's what I've been saying, literally. It's what's called the Fan Dumb (you know, pun on Fandom.)
There ARE people who'll literally spend time arguing that, say, Voyager: Blood Fever isn't actually canon (despite being an actual official aired episode) because Vulcans would never do that. Or that, screw the actual author statements about it, Bella in Twilight is part werewolf, or that Harry Potter isn't the chosen one, Neville is. Because it makes sense to them, see, and they're the real fans, while the ones who say otherwise aren't REALLY fans of the show.
That goes for games just as well. There are people who'll devote many many thousands of words to tell you why you aren't a real Fallout fan, if you liked Fallout 3 more than New Vegas, or why it makes no sense to have ballistic weapons instead of all-energy in Fallout 3 or New Vegas, never mind that ballistic weapons were there all right in Fallout 1, 2 and Tactics. Really, I actually got to wade through such a thread on the Nexus about how everyone making a ballistic weapon mod for Fallout 3 is a monster that rapes canon seven ways to Sunday, never mind that they were the majority of weapons in all other Fallout games. But it makes sense to the delusional author of the rant that they wouldn't use those, so that's the REAL canon.
Except usually that's disconsidered when fans of ST or Fallout do it, while for religion you get to be called a church father or heresiarch.
That's really what I keep saying: when you read Augustine or such, the realisation just sinks in that, OMG, I'm reading the work of a deranged obsessive fanboy. Exactly the same kind of "well, it wasn't on screen, but it makes no sense to me that X would/wouldn't happen, so therefore we just established that X is the one true thing" that would get laughed off a trekkie board is exactly what, for example, Augustine is doing about whether witchcraft can cause permanent effects or not. Literally.
And the Israelites lived in a place where they could have been captured and could have been enslaved by the Egyptians. There is just no evidence outside the bible that they ever were. And Jesus could have existed and could have been crucified. There is just no evidence outside the bible that he ever was. See your problem there?
The difference is we have contradictory hard evidence that under no circumstances could the Exodus have gone down the way it was written. On the other hand there are a number of sources of widespread crucifictions in Judea. Even being nailed to cross appears to be far less unique than people originally thought at time of Christ.
Odd - For all your talk, nothing about the previous links I supplied you...at your request. Why is that? No good trolling material.
So rather than just flinging poop and hope you look good, care to bother responding. Or are we going to beg of that we are a little busy and can not offer a detailed reply, which is your usual MO when ever the discussion gets beyond you?
None of those actually answer that question, though. So please spare your fantasies about how actually asking a relevant question is just trolling and flinging poop. And actually address the question. Or don't.
Plus, it seems to me like if any of those actually answered his actual question, you COULD just copy and paste the part which does, instead of requesting that he puts in the disproportionately higher effort to see if any particular paragraph from any of those links actually answers the question at all, much less in a way that holds any water.
Again, you don't get to be right by just hinting that the answer is somewhere out there. Which is getting to be a deja vu issue about your posts. Lots of just claiming some explanation or reason exists, bugger all when it comes to even stating what that is, much less actually supporting the claim.
Maybe, but it's also no reason to assume something is true just because there's no evidence to the contrary. In fact, assuming it's true just because there's a lack of evidence either way is a pretty textbook case of the argument from ignorance.
No, seriously, assuming something happened or exists because you don't have evidence that it didn't, is just the kind of BLATANT attempt to reverse the burden of proof that that fallacy is all about.
The difference is we have contradictory hard evidence that under no circumstances could the Exodus have gone down the way it was written. On the other hand there are a number of sources of widespread crucifictions in Judea. Even being nailed to cross appears to be far less unique than people originally thought at time of Christ.
1. While having evidence AGAINST some claim is a bit stronger than not having evidence that it actually happened, you're still left with an empty bag if you claim the latter actually happened or has evidence for it. Yes, the former would just flat out disprove it, but the latter still leaves anyone claiming the positive with the burden of proof.
2. Assuming X happened to Y just because X happened to other people, is just flat out nonsense.
After all, again, we have plenty of evidence that other people were serial killers, but it would still be stupid of me to just assume you're one, just because it's certainly attested and well documented that some people were. Or we have plenty of evidence that other people died in airplane crashes, but it would be stupid of me to then just assume that it happened to you too.
I have always found it fascinating that people will spend hours, days, their entire life to make up, in very erudite sentences, tons and tons of nonsense about God, the Bible, etc., and are thought of very highly for this trait. "Clearly God must be eternal, because only an etherial God can be eternal..." What a waste of time! I often have thought this is just use of fancy words to obscure what a logical person would reject if described simply. Do we have "theologians" of Harry Potter who are equally elevated to academic positions?
Yes, but think of the TimeCube man and all the others who work on their theories for all their life, if they had taken up theology they'd be respected instead of crackpots yet both are talking about imaginary entities.
Yes, I am sorry, I forgot about your post. I was actually in the middle of composing a reply yesterday when I dosed off and later I forgot about it due to life (whether you believe me or not... I do have a life of sorts at my age I am lucky to still have one).
Just for now though
The Cyrus Cylinder stuff is actually one of MY references not long ago in some post.
But what you ignored about the cylinder stuff is that it is PROPAGANDA which is why I cited it, to prove that Cyrus was a guy who knew very well what propaganda is and what it does.
The fact that the Biblical PROPAGANDA is of a very similar kind does not prove that the biblical story is true.......it proves that the same guy wrote a similar propaganda in a different place to bamboozle a different people just like the cylinder did for the Babylonians.
However, the cite you give does of course the standard thing when it comes to Biblical nonsense. It assumes that the Bible is truth waiting for confirmation from archaeological evidence and any SHRED of evidence that might mention something related to the Bible then it is assumed that it verifies the Bible.
Why could it not be that the Bible is a good FICTION and like good fictions uses common knowledge and surroundings to build up the props for the tall tales? Does Harry Potter living in London and travelling via Kings Cross prove Hogwarts or that he was really a wizard?
That is of course BIASED thinking and is not scientific and ever since REAL archaeologists as opposed to Biblical ones have taken over from the 19th century and early 20th century desperados like Albright et al, the field has slowly become more of a real science.
Why should finding a stele with the word BTDWD on it prove that David existed when the same stele has on it that Chomech defeated YHWH.
Why can't BTDWD be a name of a village like BTEL or BTLKHM etc.? But of course due to Biblical mind numbing it becomes a cherished "proof" for King David since that is how he is mentioned in the bible.
So even archaeology used to be studied and still is by Biblical "scholars" in the same way they study the Bible.... CIRCULAR REASONING.
I do not remember the other stuff I have to go look at the post and see but for now while I am getting on with the unfortunate things in life that keep interfering with doing what we want to do, have a look at this video.... I would have picked some salient minutes to save you time but I really have no time... just watch the whole thing.
ETA: Thanks Hans... yes... I list the questions again below
None of those actually answer that question, though. So please spare your fantasies about how actually asking a relevant question is just trolling and flinging poop. And actually address the question. Or don't.
How do you know there were Magi at all? How do you know it was not just a fabricated piece of fictive CODE.... Matthew loved to tie Jesus one way or another to the Tanakh.... how do you know he did not also add this little fiction to tie Jesus to the Magi religion (Big Daddy) while none of it has any basis in reality other than CODE and MYSTERY and INNER CIRCLE talk?
How do you know that Jesus existed???
How do you know that if he existed that he did not run away like he did here John 8:59 and then the writers invented the rest to make him look better?
How do you know that if the Romans killed him it was not by gun shot or electrocution.... oh wait... wrong Romans…. err… sword or lashing to death?
I keep comparing theology with Fan Dumb, but yeah, for that reason. If someone spent many years and wrote many pages arguing the role of Captain Pike in saving the galaxy, in the original Star Trek series, via his influence of Spock and Kirk, even most die-hard trekkies would think it's not healthy to be that (A) obsessed and (B) into taking one's own ass-pulls as reality. But you do that for Joseph, they call you Pope John Paul II.
Just trying to believe a story is lightweight stuff. You're really a theologian when you make a whole new story up and argue it's true because it makes sense to you, and cite a few equally unsubstantiated paragraphs from Augustine and Eusebius for why it's true
HECK a trillion acts..... Acts of Andrew, Acts of Barnabas, Acts of John, Acts of the Martyrs, Acts of Paul, Acts of Peter, Acts of Pilate, Acts of Philip. Acts of Thomas, Acts of Timothy, The Lost Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles
These were ALL books that were VERY MUCH loved and read in the proto-churches and quoted on regular basis by early Christian fathers.
All of this is quite elaborate and detailed fiction written with the aim of bamboozling people to believe the stuff as historical real events.
Think about this for a minute. That was not in an age where there were typewriters or word processors. People had to write this out by hand letter after letter dipping a reed in an ink pot and making sure the ink does not run or spill etc.
Also there were only handfuls of people who could write or read let alone compose.
Most people were too busy trying to not drop dead from hunger or disease or to prevent their children from being snuffed out by all sorts of reasons.
Only a handful of people had the time, knowhow and means to afford to write anything more than a bill of sale or title deed.
YET... there are hundreds of the stuff if not thousands.
What kind of person sits hour after butt numbing hour to write the stuff which he knows is pure claptrap? With all that education and free time and means he decides to fabricate pure hogwash just to peddle it off on people as real facts and real events... why?
And while he was doing all that, who fed him, clothed him and kept him supplied with the accoutrements of the trade? Who supplied him with records and archives for references? It’s not as if there were public libraries just for anyone and everywhere.
However, in the less enlightened ages individuals like the above would have been patronized by kings and placed in courts with nearby libraries. However, their imagination and acumen for fabricating would have been pressed into service for more cunning and sinister goals.
But be assured their imagination for creating sagas would have been no less developed than Tolkien or Arthur C. Clark or Virgil or Homer or Lucas or the people who wrote the Upanishads or the Zoroastrian Vedas.
It has, for a 50+ year old man, opened my eyes again and given me arms, which I often never had, helping me understand, and now back-up, my very early (when about 5 years old) religious misgivings (about the bible both OT and NT), strongly condemned both at home and school when I dared to espouse them.
You might enjoy these books... some are PDFs that you can just download and enjoy... others are web pages that you can read. I think all of them are amazing stuff that should be required reading in colleges.
The difference is we have contradictory hard evidence that under no circumstances could the Exodus have gone down the way it was written. On the other hand there are a number of sources of widespread crucifictions in Judea. Even being nailed to cross appears to be far less unique than people originally thought at time of Christ.
That is exactly what I just posted earlier today- evidence that the New Testament can not be correct. Evidence that Jesus, if he existed, could not have done what the Bible and his followers believe. You never replied. What was wrong with my evidence? Or are you claiming that the New Testsment was wrong and Jesus was a normal person?
And the Israelites lived in a place where they could have been captured and could have been enslaved by the Egyptians. There is just no evidence outside the bible that they ever were. And Jesus could have existed and could have been crucified. There is just no evidence outside the bible that he ever was. See your problem there?
There is a plain statement at Tacitus, Annals, XV, 44.
Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate
This need not be accepted as independent or accurate evidence, but it IS extra-biblical evidence, in the sense that Tacitus is used as a source of information when he discusses other matters.
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And why doesn't Josephus tell us about such a thing then? Your remark about "hornets nest" also implies they would actually have gone to Bethlehem and would have deviated then from their purported diplomatic mission. What idiot would do that?
Thank YOU.
