Is Jesus God?

[outhouse]

That is a powerful, truthful statement that you cry "apologetic rhetoric" because you think the Catholic Encyclopedia is not a credible source.

I did not say it was devoid of credibility. If one wanted to know what the catholic church thought when you rode a horse to a library, it would have been a great achievement in its day.

But not for history, only for theology of the catholic church.

Catholic Encyclopedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church


The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index volume in 1914 and later supplementary volumes. It was designed "to give its readers full and authoritative information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine".

While more limited in focus than other general encyclopedias

many of its entries may be out of date either with respect to the wider culture or to the Catholic ecclesiastical world.

 

[JM2C]

False. Every thing I stated I can back with credible modern scholars.

As modern as these guys here compare to William Albright? Julius Wellhausen(May 17, 1844 – January 7, 1918) and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (/hɒbz/; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679)

Explain why proto Israelites after 1200 BC use the Canaanite alphabet, Canaanite pottery, and Canaanite deities, and spoke the Canaanite native tongue ???????????????????

I think you are confused about the proto-Israelites evidence that was found in Egypt dating 1200 BC with the Israelites during the Joshua’s time when they, the Israelites, conquered Canaan in 1400 BC.

The continued presence of the Canaanites with their heathen practices created serious religious problems for the Israelites because some of them, the Israelites, disobeyed God and intermarried with the Canaanites and adapted their way of life, but this has nothing to do with your unfounded theory proto-Israelites evidence that was found in Egypt dating 1200 BC.

This is how you create a myth by mixing the real evidence found in the bible with unrelated and unfounded theories and made a conclusion that what was written in the bible is the myth because of these unrelated and unfounded theories.

 

[JM2C]

Please go back and find one of my statements where I said that. I do require honesty when debating, so please go back and find ANYTHING where I even implied that.

It does not matter how you define it. There was no orthodoxy early on.

There is a reason it took 300 years to create a canon.

I thought the assumption here is, if there is no bible, then there is no Christianity.

 

[outhouse]

Israelites during the Joshua’s time

No such thing.

Joshua - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The prevailing scholarly view is that Joshua is not a factual account of historical events

Most scholars today accept that the majority of the conquest narratives in the book of Joshua are devoid of historical reality

the Israelites, conquered Canaan in 1400 BC.

Provide credible sources.

 

[outhouse]

I thought the assumption here is, if there is no bible, then there is no Christianity.

You thought wrong, again.

 

[JM2C]

JM2C said:↑ the Israelites, conquered Canaan in 1400 BC.

Provide credible sources.

Again for the 2nd time, you are getting confused about the proto-Israelites evidence or should I say false evidence that was found in Egypt dating 1200 BC. This false evidence found in Egypt was saying or suggesting that the Israelites did not really get out of Egypt until the 1200 BC and NOT as a group like the one in Exodus and therefore denying what the bible was saying about the Exodus which occurred in 1445 BC.

IOW, there was no mass Exodus of Israelites that came out of Egypt is what this false evidence was suggesting.

And if you read your own statement here you will see it yourself how confused you are,

Explain why proto Israelites after 1200 BC use the Canaanite alphabet, Canaanite pottery, and Canaanite deities, and spoke the Canaanite native tongue ???????????????????

You are mixing the proto-Israelites false evidence found in Egypt dating 1200 BC with facts from the bible.

Here are the facts from the bible on how “the Israelites lived among the Canaanites”,

Jdg 3:5 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
Jdg 3:6 They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
Jdg 3:7 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

The continued presence of the Canaanites with their heathen practices created serious religious problems for the Israelites because some, if not most, of them, the Israelites, disobeyed God and intermarried with the Canaanites and adapted their way of life, and this explained why the Israelites “use the Canaanite alphabet, Canaanite pottery, and Canaanite deities, and spoke the Canaanite native tongue” but this has nothing to do with your unfounded theory proto-Israelites evidence that was found in Egypt dating 1200 BC.

IOW, if there was NO ABRAHAM, NO ISAAC, NO JACOB, NO MOSES, NO EXODUS then there was NO CANAAN the INHERITANCE that GOD promised to ABRAHAM. If no INHERITANCE then there was no PALESTINE. If there was no PALESTINE then there was ISRAEL today. 100 years from now people like you would be saying THERE WAS NO HOLOCAUST.

 

[JM2C]

No such thing.


Joshua - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


The prevailing scholarly view is thatJoshua is not a factual account of historical events


Most scholars today accept that the majority of the conquest narratives in the book of Joshua are devoid of historical reality

They all have the same theory.

“The mechanisms by which this came about remain unknown,[13]but there are currently two important hypotheses.[14]

The first, called Persian Imperial authorisation, is that the post-Exilic community devised the Torah as a legal basis on which to function within the Persian Imperial system;

the second is that Pentateuch was written to provide the criteria for who would belong to the post Exilic Jewish community and to establish the power structures and relative positions of its various groups, notably the priesthood and the lay "elders".[14]

-Wiki

 

[outhouse]

Again for the 2nd time, you are getting confused about the proto-Israelites evidence or should I say false evidence that was found in Egypt dating 1200 BC.

Your just wrong again.

Who are you to tell the brightest minds on the subject in the world, Israeli Finkelstein Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze Age and Iron Ages at Tel Aviv University

And William Dever a Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania.


OR

a biased apologist with no education on any aspect being debated.

They all have the same theory.

No they don't, They all have education pinions VS biased apologetics.

Here are the facts from the bible

I said provide credible sources. Not know apologetic pseudo history.

100 years from now people like you would be saying THERE WAS NO HOLOCAUST.

Red Herring.

We are using evidence to make these determinations. Not bias.

 

[outhouse]

facts from the bible.

Yet can you tell the difference from poem, song, allegory and metaphor and mythology from history and legend, with your complete lack of education on these topics?

 

[kepha31]

I did not say it was devoid of credibility. If one wanted to know what the catholic church thought when you rode a horse to a library, it would have been a great achievement in its day.

But not for history, only for theology of the catholic church.

Catholic Encyclopedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church


The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index volume in 1914 and later supplementary volumes. It was designed "to give its readers full and authoritative information on the entire cycle of Catholic interests, action and doctrine".

While more limited in focus than other general encyclopedias

many of its entries may be out of date either with respect to the wider culture or to the Catholic ecclesiastical world.

If you can't refute the truth of a statement, just say the source "may be out of date either with respect to the wider culture or to the Catholic ecclesiastical world." because it came from the scholarly up-to-date infallible wikipdeia, which has NOTHING TO DO WITH MY POST. Worse, you say it has theology and little or outdated history. Deal with reality:

in short the origin of the Church, requires for its explanation the reality of Christ's Resurrection, for the rise of the Church without the Resurrection would have been a greater miracle than the Resurrection itself.​

Your infallible John Dominic Crossman claims Jesus' body got eaten by a pack of wild dogs (with no eye witnesses, to quote your mantra.) That's more absurd than the Islamic theory of substitution. Crossman may be a scholar, but he's degenerated into a modernist heretic.

All the modernist "scholars" cannot account for the rise of the Church without the Resurrection, and neither can you.

 

[outhouse]

History, sociology, anthropology and all the modernist "scholars" cannot account for the rise of the Church under so many opposing circumstances without the Resurrection, and neither can you.

Actually we have.

But with no credible education on these topics, you have no clue what is being taught these days in credible universities that ALL teach the opposite of what you posit.

You have no clue what opposing circumstances were. Monotheism had been growing in Hellenism for hundreds of years before Jesus was even born. Monotheism was going to Hellenist with or without Jesus, it was juts a matter of what historical circumstance lit the match.

This time it was the Martyrdom of the Galilean.


The resurrection was so unimportant to the early movement the FIRST gospel the other 2 later copied, BARELY MADE ANY MENTION OF IT.


There is no historicity here. What you don't know, because you refuse education, is that this resurrection was a common belief held by most 1st century Palestinian Jews.

Hell the Pharisees warned people not to go against this belief.

This was not belief that started after Jesus died, it was common mythology of that exact era.

Today the event is a matter of faith, I hope you keep yours. Just don't start claiming facts without evidence, because all evidence points to something other then historicity.

 

[atpollard]

(1) Where this idea comes from.

Jesus said it and all of the gospels record it.
John 1 is the clearest.
"Son of Man" (used over and over in multiple gospels) is a reference to Daniel 7:13-14

13 “In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,fncoming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.​

Even if you set aside the task of translating any of the references ... just trust that the people listening to him understood what he was saying ... they kept gathering stones to kill him for blasphemy. THEY knew that he claimed to be God.

(2) If you agree with it and why/why not.

If you believe that Jesus lived, died and rose from the dead.
Then claims that he was God are more reasonable.
Theology answer: a man might be able to die for a another man's sins ... but for every man's sins?
On the other hand, the life of God (the creator) so worth more than an infinite number of men (the creation).

Experiential answer: people like objective truth ... things that they can weigh, measure or count.
I have observed that most matters of faith are based on on subjective truth ... I believe because I have experienced the reality of God ... once you have met God, you can recognize his distinctive 'style'.

 

[outhouse]

Your infallible John Dominic Crossman claims Jesus' body got eaten by a pack of wild dogs (with no eye witnesses, to quote your mantra.) That's more absurd

I have never claimed he is infallible.

You just refuse the brightest educated minds on the planet, for your own biased opinion you admit is from a lack of credible historical education on these topics.


Doing so you quote mine out of context, and keep making comments one after the other, on which you know nothing about, trying in vain to refute educated positions.

For me absurd, is a lack of education on something you seem to have a passion for.

 

[kepha31]

I have never claimed he is infallible.

If you can't tell hyperbole from fact it's not my problem.

You just refuse the brightest educated minds on the planet, for your own biased opinion you admit is from a lack of credible historical education on these topics.

Is that a dogmatic declaration? "Jesus' body got eaten by dogs" is not "credible historical education", it's laughable.

Doing so you quote mine out of context, and keep making comments one after the other, on which you know nothing about, trying in vain to refute educated positions.

More like refuting sensationalism dressed up as scholarly.

"...THIRD, from the beginning the seminar has sought popular media coverage to an extraordinary degree--one reviewer has compared it to the style of P.T. Barnum. Claiming that scholarly views appearing in books and scientific journals do not reach the general public, the leading figures in the Jesus Seminar have turned to newspaper interviews and TV talk shows, attracting attention even in Sunday supplements and periodicals like GQ. Part of the piquancy is attributed to a proclaimed intention to liberate Jesus from the tyranny of the "religious establishment," represented in church or doctrinal tradition and Christian worship. Thus after almost every seminar session bombshell announcements are released to catch the public's eye, e.g., that Jesus did not utter the Lord's Prayer or any of the beloved words that appear in John. An impression has been created that these scandalous sound bites represent where scholars now stand...

"...J.D. CROSSAN bases his presentation of Jesus on sources that he would date before 60: e.g., the reconstructed Q and apocryphal gospels (GOSPEL OF THOMAS, SECRET GOSPEL OF MARK, an early form of the GOSPEL OF PETER). He draws on social analyses of Roman rule in Palestine in Jesus' lifetime that posit much political unrest and assume as applicable to Nazareth a power pattern attested in larger cities. Jesus is seen as a combination of an itinerant Cynic preacher and illiterate Galilean peasant, who was strongly egalitarian. The historicity of Jesus' infancy narrative is dismissed by Crossan on the analogy of a 12th-century AD account of Moses' life (SOPHER ha-ZIKRONOT --see BBM 600)...."
(but the Catholic Encyclopedia is outdated)
In fact, however, although spokesmen for the Jesus Seminar like to pretend that the chief disparagement of their stances comes from "fundamentalists," scholarly evaluations and reviews of the productions of the Jesus Seminar have often been bluntly critical, e.g., those by NT professors like A. Culpepper (Baylor), R.B. Hays (Duke), L.T. Johnson (Emory), L.E. Keck (Yale), J.P. Meier (Catholic University), and C.T. Talbert (Wake Forest/Baylor). One finds therein such devastating judgments as: methodologically misguided; no signficant advance in the study of the historical Jesus; only a small ripple in NT scholarship; results representing the Jesus the researchers wanted to find; the pursuit of a specific confessional agenda; and dangerous in giving a false impression. ..

I also urge the necessity of all of us being careful not to confuse the dubious likes of the participants in the Jesus Seminar with genuinely reputable biblical scholars, Catholic or Protestant.​

Biblical Scholarship -- Evangelical Catholic Apologetics, Philosophy,Spirituality

For me absurd, is a lack of education on something you seem to have a passion for.

I can admit when I am wrong, and I don't have any degrees, but I have a passion for finding the truth, not excuses.

 

[JM2C]

Your just wrong again.

Who are you to tell the brightest minds on the subject in the world, Israeli Finkelstein Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in theBronze AgeandIron AgesatTel Aviv University


And William Dever a Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology atLycoming Collegein Pennsylvania.

I said provide credible sources. Not know apologetic pseudo history.

Do you think your proto-Israelites twisted theory are more credible than Judges 3:5-7?

Explain why proto Israelites after 1200 BC use the Canaanite alphabet, Canaanite pottery, and Canaanite deities, and spoke the Canaanite native tongue ???????????????????

The archaeological data presented by Finkelstein and Dever, “Canaanite alphabet, Canaanite pottery, and Canaanite deities, and architecture” were not really contradicting on what the bible is saying about the Israelites.

Jdg 3:5 The Israelites lived among the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites.
Jdg 3:6 They took their daughters in marriage and gave their own daughters to their sons, and served their gods.
Jdg 3:7 The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

What these two guys, Finkelstein and Dever, were saying are; the Israelites started from within the Canaanites people during the middle bronze, late bronze and iron ages, or the Israelites ancestor was Canaan/Ham, or IOW, they were actually Canaanites and split from this group and form the Israelite group around 1200 BC, and they based this conclusion on archaeological data, [pottery, architecture, and the language] on which the bible is not REALLY disagreeing with it but supporting it because “the Israelites lived among the Canaanites –Judges 3:5-7” around 1375 BC. IOW, your twisted theory about the proto-Israelites around 1200 BC is nothing but a baseless theory.

So, these two scholars agreed on the existence of certain people or group of people during the middle bronze, late bronze and iron ages. What they don’t agree is this certain group of people were the Israelites from the lineage of Abraham and Shem, the brother of Ham.

IOW, the Israelites did not come from Canaan/Ham as these two scholars were suggesting that they were actually Canaanites. The Israelites came from Shem, the progenitor of the Semitic race, that is, the Israelites, and from Shem to Abraham –Genesis 11:10-27. IOW, they were all related to each other as Ham, the brother of Shem, is the father of Canaan –Genesis 9:18.

They were saying that they just made up these stories about Genesis and Exodus during Ezekiel time so they, the Israelites, after the Babylonian captivity could claim the lands they supposedly inherited from Abraham base on the Pentateuch.

IOW, they produced a made up stories about Abraham and Moses in the Pentateuch so they could show this to the ruling empire at time, i.e., the Persian Empire, that they have the rights to the land they inherited from Abraham.

The following are their hypotheses:

“The mechanisms by which this came about remain unknown,[13]but there are currently two important hypotheses.[14]

The first, called Persian Imperial authorisation, is that the post-Exilic community devised the Torah as a legal basis on which to function within the Persian Imperial system;

The second is that Pentateuch was written to provide the criteria for who would belong to the post Exilic Jewish community and to establish the power structures and relative positions of its various groups, notably the priesthood and the lay "elders".[14] -Wiki

“Nevertheless, the completion of the Torah and its elevation to the centre of post-Exilic Judaism was as much or more about combining older texts as writing new ones - the final Pentateuch was based on existing traditions.[15]

InEzekiel33:24, written during the Exile (i.e., in the first half of the 6th century BCE), Ezekiel, an exile in Babylon, tells how those who remained in Judah are claiming ownership of the land based on inheritance from Abraham; but the prophet tells them they have no claim because they don't observe Torah.[16]“ –Wiki

But if you actually read Ezekiel 33:24 you would sense that there was not a hint of any of their insinuated analogies on that verse. There was nothing in that verse that says that “they have to observe the Torah to claim a land they inherited from Abraham”. Do you see who is making up stories here? That is actually a made up stories by these scholars just to discredit Abraham and Moses.

So, from that verse these scholars made an assumption or analogies or HYPOTHESES that the Israelites invented the Pentateuch, during Ezekiel time, so they could make a claim on the lands they supposedly inherited from Abraham that was written in the Pentateuch.

 

[kepha31]

Actually we have.

But with no credible education on these topics, you have no clue what is being taught these days in credible universities that ALL teach the opposite of what you posit.

The University of Maine initially banned candy canes on campus last December because they remind people of Christmas. Is the University of Maine a credible university or are they just insane?

You have no clue what opposing circumstances were. Monotheism had been growing in Hellenism for hundreds of years before Jesus was even born. Monotheism was going to Hellenist with or without Jesus, it was juts a matter of what historical circumstance lit the match.

Agreed. Moses was a Monotheist but I don't think he was a Greek.

This time it was the Martyrdom of the Galilean.

At least you admit he was killed.

The resurrection was so unimportant to the early movement the FIRST gospel the other 2 later copied, BARELY MADE ANY MENTION OF IT.

Starting with Matthew 27:61 to the end of the chapter: 540 words.
Starting with Mark 16:1 to the end of the chapter: 508 words.
Starting with Luke 24:1 to the end of the chapter: 1,094 words
Starting with John 20:1- 22 to the end of the chapter 770 words.
BARELY MENTIONED?

Like everything else, the Resurrection does not rest on the Written Tradition alone. I'm not going to get sidetracked with a discussion on the authenticity of the Gospels, my focus is proving the Divinity of Christ via the Resurrection and the consequential rise of the Church, which you have been unable to disprove. Denial that a Church was founded in the 1st century is the worst form of revisionism. I expect that from funnymentalists and cultists, not from a person with an education.

There is no historicity here. What you don't know, because you refuse education, is that this resurrection was a common belief held by most 1st century Palestinian Jews.

Obfuscation. For Jews, life after death was resting in the Bossom of Abraham. The PHYSICAL Resurrection of CHRIST was a belief held by ALL 1st century Palestinian Jewish Christians. There is fulfillment and harmony between Jewish and Christian beliefs, not contradictions.

Hell the Pharisees warned people not to go against this belief.

See above.

This was not belief that started after Jesus died, it was common mythology of that exact era.

Name one "common myth" where a living, breathing, speaking person rose from the dead on their own power. Just because there were myths does not mean they were right. For example, Romans had lots of myths, yet had no qualms about killing their own infants. You can argue that has to do with morality and not myths, but you would be arguing for the sake of arguing.

Today the event is a matter of faith, I hope you keep yours. Just don't start claiming facts without evidence, because all evidence points to something other then historicity.

Then provide the facts and evidence of no consequence between the Resurrection of Christ and the miraculous rise of the Church. No scholar would deny the Church existed, the only option left is to disprove the Resurrection by creating a false dichotomy, when in fact the two events are inseparable.

 

[JM2C]

OR

a biased apologist with no education on any aspect being debated.

At least I’m not sucking up to academia or pretending to be knowledgeable in certain areas like

the cultural and social anthropology surrounding the text. No, I use academia and universities to justify my position.

All I’m getting from you were nothing but C&P from your ONLY vital source of knowledge, i.e., the Wiki. You know sometimes you need to summarize what you were reading from Wiki’s and not just like picking up scraps of info and make a show of it as if you really understood what you’re Cutting and Pasting.

 

[outhouse]

At least I’m not sucking up to academia

Why hate education and knowledge?

 

[outhouse]

Agreed. Moses was a Monotheist

Moses has no historicity as ever existing. He definitely did not bring monotheism to the many cultures of Israelites.

King Josiah started this with his monotheistic reforms after 622 BC. But it did not take hold in all cultures.

Moses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

the figure of Moses as a leader of the Israelites in these events cannot be substantiated.

 

[Orbit]

OMG what hath I wrought? 41 pages? sigh.

Did we ever figure out who besides the Mormons think Jesus was the OT God?