The naturalistic pov is that the religions are not true. That is bringing a naturalistic bias into the study. But of course that would rule out believers studying it also.
So the problem is that the naturalistic bias is in some methods used and conclusions are based on those methods.
No. There is no such thing as "naturalistic bias". That is a fiction invented by apologetics. There is just evidence and lack of evidence. You would never expect a child to come home from a history or science class and say they learned Allah is the true name of God and miracles are real because of the Quran?
You would say how can you add myths into history and science? Of course they would say "well we read the Quran without a naturalistic bias and so it must be true. It also says Christians are wrong with the Jesus thing. An angel said it so we really can't argue with that?" "So all Christian studies are cancelled, we hope everyone can drop the naturalist bias and see that Allahs word is true!".
Give me a break with this crank. It's Greek/Persian mythlology, ZERO historians or others confirm any of it and the origins/OT are taken from Egyptian and common Near Eastern literature.
It's not a problem when historians don't confirm Krishna as a real divinity now is it?
It does not make sense when you imply that the theologians are not historians or that only non believing historians have a right to pronounce a verdict on the truth of a religion.
Why would that not make sense? In a debate between Bart Ehrman and a pastor the pastor kept saying "I'm not a historian so..."
How hard is this to understand? Theologians START out with the assumption that a religion is true. They do not look at where did the theology come from, did it come from older cultures? NO! Of course not? They already believe it came from the Lord?
Again, an Islamic scholar who has never learned where the OT stories came from, never looked into evidence, never doubted the Quran, never used rational, skeptical or empirical thinking but always assumed it was a revelation from Allah. Do you care what this person thinks about the truth of Islam? OR do you want to ask a historian who understands the debates about the life of Muhammad, the debates about the origins of the material, about who was involved, when was it revised, was it borrowing myths from bordering religions? And who can read all source writings that pertain to this understanding?
If you ask most Christian leaders about historical issues they don't know. They don't often know basic things like Mark was the source of the Synoptics or the 2nd century was more Gnostic sects.
They are taught apologetics, which I have studied and is PURE CRANK. It is pseudo science.
Why do you say I am ignoring historical work and you are not? I pick the historical work I believe and you pick the historical work you believe. The facts are the facts no matter who is doing it, (even if "facts" can be put in biased ways) but what we are choosing is the conclusions.
No there is only ONE history? The history of the Near Middle East is not that complex. Apologetics just ignores it. Or says Satan made history look that way to fool Christians? The Bible is not history. It's stories.
William Dever, Professor Emeritus of the University of Arizona, has investigated the archeology of the ancient Near East for more than 30 years and authored almost as many books on the subject.
"The truth of the matter today is that archeology raises more questions about the historicity of the Hebrew Bible and even the New Testament than it provides answers, and that's very disturbing to some people.
Dever: We want to make the Bible history. Many people think it has to be history or nothing. But there is no word for history in the Hebrew Bible. In other words, what did the biblical writers think they were doing? Writing objective history? No. That's a modern discipline. They were telling stories. They wanted you to know what these purported events mean.
Not all historians agree that the gospels are a mythical narrative.
Dr Richard Carrier, latest peer-reviewed Jesus historicity study since 1926
"
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that
that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.
No. We aren’t interested in that.
When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can
really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his
actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death. Consequently, I will here disregard fundamentalists and apologists as having no honest part in this debate, any more than they do on evolution or cosmology or anything else they cannot be honest about even to themselves."
What does confirm mean to you? Is it to treat the narratives as lies until proven to be true? Is it to ignore that Paul would have known whether a Jesus existed or not along with those believers he met?
Myths are not really lies. It's no different than Islam, Hinduism or Mormonism. It's a framework to couch wisdom and philosophy. Not much philosophy because this is a "God is wisdom" and "fear God" philosophy. Not very deep.
The OT we-working of Egyptian and Mesopotamian myths is subjective.
The
Genesis creation narrative is the
creation myth[a] of both
Judaism and
Christianity
Scholarly writings frequently refer to Genesis as myth, for while the author of Genesis 1–11 "demythologised" his narrative by removing the Babylonian myths those elements which did not fit with his own faith, it remains a myth in the sense of being a story of origins.
[
Comparative mythology provides historical and cross-cultural perspectives for
Jewish mythology. Both sources behind the Genesis creation narrative borrowed themes from
Mesopotamian mythology,
[
Genesis 1–11 as a whole is imbued with Mesopotamian myths.
[1
Genesis 2 has close parallels with a second Mesopotamian myth, the
Atra-Hasis epic – parallels that in fact extend throughout
Genesis 2–11, from the Creation to the
Flood and its aftermath.
Noah - Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned
Gilamesh - When the seventh day dawned I loosed a dove and let her go. She flew away, but finding no resting- place she returned.
Noah - And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen.
Gilamesh - When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled;
Noah - And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake;
Gimamesh - , I made a sacrifice and poured out a libation on the mountain top. Seven and again seven cauldrons I set up on their stands, I heaped up wood and cane and cedar and myrtle. When the gods smelled the sweet savour, they gathered like flies over the sacrifice.
Noah - The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
Gimamesh - “Wisest of gods, hero Enlil, how could you so senselessly bring down the flood? Lay upon the sinner his sin, Lay upon the transgressor his transgression, Punish him a little when he breaks loose, Do not drive him too hard or he perishes; Would that a lion had ravaged mankind Rather than the flood, Would that a wolf had ravaged mankind Rather than the flood, Would that famine had wasted the world Rather than the flood, Would that pestilence had wasted mankind Rather than the flood
Gilamesh - ‘For six days and six nights the winds blew, torrent and tempest and flood overwhelmed the world, tempest and flood raged together like warring hosts. When the seventh day dawned the storm from the south subsided, the sea grew calm, the flood was stilled;
Noah - And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
Noah - And all the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years: and he died.
Gilamesh - Gilgamesh, the son of Ninsun, lies in the tomb.
