ONCE AGAIN! Facts in the Bible is supported by archaeology.

[shunyadragon]

No it isn't. His work has numerous detractors.

Having detractors is not meaningful;

Debates does not equate truth.

What we have here is more a dialogue of different views, and not a debate, nor is there anything remotely in this thread nor on this site that would be demonstrated or remotely agreed to as Truth

Yes it does. People have known debates do not lead to truth in every case since the Greeks. Look up what a rhetorician is.

You have a trivial view of what is truth, and not what Greeks proposed, nor what we dialogue and debate today has a goal of finding the truth.

No it wasn't. Carrier's views are still a fringe in Biblical scholarship. Carrier is a mythicist. You went on a tangent and ignored what I first posted attacking Bart in a vain attempt to undermine my points about Carrier. Points you never refuted. Try again son.

I believe the contemporary scholarship view is that the Bible particularly the Pentateuch and the NT has a considerable foundation in myth. The dominant view of the Church Fathers and that reflected in the authors, editors and or compilers (?) of the gospels and letters of the NT believed in some form of literal Genesis, which is fundamentally myth.

Actually even though Ehrman, believed that a man called Jesus existed, he like many scholars consider the Divine Resurrected Jesus a myth.

His book does not prove Jesus is a myth nor has it even shifted mainstream views.

You disparaged mythiistc earlier.

Proof is a naive odd high bar for any Middle East scholar as a goal, whether minimalist, maximalist or somewhere in between,

 

[shunyadragon]

Let's face it, as far as logical fallacies go, most people, including scholars, believe Jesus is an historical figure despite the fact that we cannot know one way or the other.

In terms of history we do not 'know' Jesus existed. It depends on which version of Jesus you believe existed. By far most history scholars believe Jesus existed as a Messianic figure at the time that the NT described. Historically there were a number Messianic figures around the time Jesus lived. It is possible, but not likely that the Jesus Christ of the NT is a mythical construct of the Messianic figures of the time.

The maximalists will, of course, believe that the Bible is for the most part historically accurate, and yes, archaeology is justifying or will justify in the future that validity and accuracy of the Bible.

The minimalist, and the secular archaeologists take the view that the Bible is not history, but a edited, redacted compilation of writings set in history. It is widely accepted that the Bible contains historical facts, events, and people, but also contains myths and numerous erroneous historical and factual accounts. For example: The Gardens of Babylon are probably accurately described, but they are not found in Babylon, but in the Assyrian capital Ninivah in the North.

Would you call all the Minimalists, and secular historians mythicists, because they support the view that the Bible contains myths? If this is the case there are an awful lot of historians that would be called mythists.

 

[Bear Wild]

In part I agree with your assessment.
Remember, society went from saying (pre 1600's) that the bible in "inerrant"
to ca 1900's to it being totally fabricated by a bunch of Canaanites in Babylon.
The bible IS an historic account of a people. Gradually the veil is being lifted
on these people. The divinity in the bible is an issue of faith - you can't say its
myth but it has characteristics (limited) of mythology. Thus its best to say "I
suspect there really WAS a person called Moses, but I find aspects of his
story to be unlikely."
And finally, the bible is written in theological language. Thus God sends the
Assyrians against Israel - when in fact the Assyrians were simply creating
an empire. Still true, but seen with different eyes. And there's the Creation
Story of Genesis 1 I mentioned - theologically written but conforming to the
current understanding of the early earth.

What I do not understand is why do you need to place genesis into out current understanding of the earth and how life came about. Those that created the story had so little information about the variety of life, geologic events, or the genetic mechanisms. Faith does not require for any of the events to be true to have faith in a god or goddess. If one took the supposed statements of Jesus for instance to be fact on face value then they would have no meaning. The reference to a mustard seed was not to be the factual mustard seed but rather an analogy for one to reflect on faith.

 

[PruePhillip]

What I do not understand is why do you need to place genesis into out current understanding of the earth and how life came about. Those that created the story had so little information about the variety of life, geologic events, or the genetic mechanisms. Faith does not require for any of the events to be true to have faith in a god or goddess. If one took the supposed statements of Jesus for instance to be fact on face value then they would have no meaning. The reference to a mustard seed was not to be the factual mustard seed but rather an analogy for one to reflect on faith.

Agree in most part. The mustard seed is quite large compared to some seeds.
The bible is a set of allegorical and/or factual statements.
Genesis 1 is both.
I see the symbolism as being in the days, ie seven is sign of perfection.
I see mistakes, ie repeating things
I see misunderstanding in later "sense for sense" translation, ie the
definition of a day when it is obvious it couldn't have been so.
And I see factual statements, ie the precise scientific sequence.

And I see one mistake of your own.

"Those that created the story had so little information about the variety of life,
geologic events, or the genetic mechanisms."

Those that created Genesis also gave us Jacob's account of the line of Judah
leading to the Messiah, and this Messiah would be accepted by the world but
by implication, not accepted by the Jews as it would end their nation.
Understanding the future is more amazing than understanding the natural world.

Thank you for your response. It made me think!!!

 

[lukethethird]

In terms of history we do not 'know' Jesus existed. It depends on which version of Jesus you believe existed. By far most history scholars believe Jesus existed as a Messianic figure at the time that the NT described. Historically there were a number Messianic figures around the time Jesus lived. It is possible, but not likely that the Jesus Christ of the NT is a mythical construct of the Messianic figures of the time.

Yes, the messianic figure appears to be the current trend, as far as trends go.

The maximalists will, of course, believe that the Bible is for the most part historically accurate, and yes, archaeology is justifying or will justify in the future that validity and accuracy of the Bible.

For those of you that have a crystal ball.

 

[PruePhillip]

Yes, the messianic figure appears to be the current trend, as far as trends go.
For those of you that have a crystal ball.

Am I reading this right? Jesus was just one of many,
and Messiahs were all the rage, like some distorted
Life Of Brian movie?

If so I take that as an infantile and ignorant view of
what transpired - not just in Jesus' day but in the
2,000 years leading up to Him.

 

[lukethethird]

Am I reading this right? Jesus was just one of many,
and Messiahs were all the rage, like some distorted
Life Of Brian movie?

If so I take that as an infantile and ignorant view of
what transpired - not just in Jesus' day but in the
2,000 years leading up to Him.

Current means now, as in today. You say, most history scholars believe Jesus existed as a Messianic figure. If true, I would see that as a current trend among present day history scholars.

but as far as;

Jesus was just one of many,
and Messiahs were all the rage, like some distorted
Life Of Brian movie?

goes, yes, it has been said that the Life of Brian is the most accurate depiction of 1st century Palestine as compared to other Jesus movies.

 

[shunyadragon]

Am I reading this right? Jesus was just one of many,
and Messiahs were all the rage, like some distorted
Life Of Brian movie?

If so I take that as an infantile and ignorant view of
what transpired - not just in Jesus' day but in the
2,000 years leading up to Him.

I am not sure what you mean by the 2,000 years leading up to Jesus Christ. Please clarify. The Messianic figures, some inciting rebellion against Rome and leading armies against Rome within a hundred years of the life of Jesus Christ.. The prophetic expectancy of a Messiah that would rise up to defeat Rome and restore the Jewish Kingdom popular at the time. Read Josephus.

 

[shunyadragon]

Yes, the messianic figure appears to be the current trend, as far as trends go.
For those of you that have a crystal ball.

Clarify, sarcasm is not meaningful response.

 

[joelr]

No, Moses and the Patriarchs are considered historic to believers,
and for which "no evidence exists" to skeptics.
Zeus is myth. The Greeks make no claim on him being an historic
figure.

Of course the Greeks claimed Zeus was a historic figure??????????
They didn't walk around saying "have you read the myths about Zeus", they PRAYED TO ZEUS!?!

They were conquered by Rome. Christianity became the Roman state religion under Constantine and THEN it became ILLEGAL to follow anything else.
In the 12th century the Roman Catholic Church completely dominated those areas.
Every religion thinks the characters in the myth were real?
Hindus today each have major deities and personal deities that are believed to be literally real.
So do Catholics. Saints and angels are basically the same concept.

Remember the old saying that "all swans are white"? They found
black ones in my country. You can't say "all swans are white" or
even "the Patriarchs are myth" because the statements are not
scientific.

Except a soft science - archeology, put forth proof that there is no doubt as to the mythical nature of Moses and the Patriarchs.
Again, you can say any supernatural entity is real and worship anything. But in scholarship there are proven historical facts that don't always make it into the daily lives of people. Most folks do not understand quantum mechanics. It's still the most accurate theory ever invented.
Thomas Thompsons work shows Moses to be exactly as mythical as Zeus or Odin.
Historical facts are probabilistic. Moses sits alongside Krishna in probability of being mythical.


I

 

[PruePhillip]

I am not sure what you mean by the 2,000 years leading up to Jesus Christ. Please clarify. The Messianic figures, some inciting rebellion against Rome and leading armies against Rome within a hundred years of the life of Jesus Christ.. The prophetic expectancy of a Messiah that would rise up to defeat Rome and restore the Jewish Kingdom popular at the time. Read Josephus.

No, don't read Josephus. He was a Pharisee and deliberately made
no mention of Jesus. He devote half of his War to looking at the
family of Herod. There were clearly more interesting things to write
about but he steered clear of them - Jesus and the growing church
in Rome could have filled whole books.

There are TWO Messiahs in the OT. Redeemer and King.
Zachariah is one of the authors I found that refers to them both.
The Redeemer goes back explicitly (Jacob in Gen 49) and figuratively
(the lamb offered for Isaac, the lamb's blood on the door lintel in Exod)
It is clear, from Jacob to Daniel, that the Redeemer must first come -
and while Israel exists (Jacob) and the temple still stands (Dan.)

Jesus was apolitical. Read Sermon on the Mount; the attempt to make
him King and his comments about separation of church and state.
Those Jewish rebel wannabes have no part in anything Jesus thought,
said or did.

 

[joelr]

The Chinese drank water believing it was changed into wine because there was no grape juice. Easy to misinterpret history as you have just demonstrated.

Sun going down:

"More significant to the potential credibility of these observations are the accounts from the early civilizations of Meso America (e.g. from the Annals of Cuaulititlan -- as related by Immanuel Velikovsky [1]) which refer to a day when the sun rose slightly, set again in the east, and then after an extended night rose again. Zecharia Sitchin [2] has addressed this phenomena as well, noting the Andean tradition that during the third year of the reign of Titu Yupanqui Pachacuti II, the fifteenth monarch in Ancient Empire times, there occurred an extended night of some additional 20 hours."

Sun, Stand Thou Still

Well that's a whole lot of nothing? There is no Jesus, savior messianic demi-god or anything even close to any of the pagan dying/rising god men/women in China at all?

Until actual Christian evangelists went there?

Two possibly Nestorian monks were preaching Christianity in India in the 6th century before they smuggled silkworm eggs from China to the Eastern Roman Empire.

The first recorded Christian mission to China was led by the Syriac monk known in Chinese as Alopen. Alopen's mission arrived in the Chinese capital Chang'an in 635, during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. Taizong extended official tolerance to the mission and invited the Christians to translate their sacred works for the imperial library. This tolerance was followed by many of Taizong's successors, allowing the Church of the East to thrive in China for over 200 years.[1][2]

 

[PruePhillip]

Of course the Greeks claimed Zeus was a historic figure??????????
They didn't walk around saying "have you read the myths about Zeus", they PRAYED TO ZEUS!?!
I

Ever heard that old Greek saying "If the people don't believe us, we cease to exist?"
No Greek, back then or now, would go searching for evidence of Zeus on Mt Olympus.

 

[PruePhillip]

Except a soft science - archeology, put forth proof that there is no doubt as to the mythical nature of Moses and the Patriarchs.
Again, you can say any supernatural entity is real and worship anything. But in scholarship there are proven historical facts that don't always make it into the daily lives of people. Most folks do not understand quantum mechanics. It's still the most accurate theory ever invented.
Thomas Thompsons work shows Moses to be exactly as mythical as Zeus or Odin.
Historical facts are probabilistic. Moses sits alongside Krishna in probability of being mythical.

See, I am arguing two different things with two different people.
1 - Hard science tells you to say "We have no evidence for Moses, make of that what you will."
2- And soft-headed skeptics will say, "Scientists have shown there's no Moses."
3 - Thoughtful people will say, "There has to be some truth to the claims as the Bronze Age
cultural accounts correlate roughly with modern archeology. And the Hebrews DID burst
onto Canaan in the 12th Century BC... from somewhere."

Which of the three statement do you think is the stupid one?

 

[joelr]

No it isn't. His work has numerous detractors.
Fine ignore Ehrman's blog and responses.
So?Debates does not equate truth.
Yes it does. People have known debates do not lead to truth in evercase since the Greeks. Look up what a rhetorician is.Responded to on Bart's blog
This was about Maurice Casey's work
The arguments are years old as the spat between Bart and Richard is years old.

Ignore Bart, it's years old, no debates, you're going in circles here.
Those ideas on debates are ridiculous.
Every time Carrier debates someone I can see spots where their logic fails.
Stuff like, a long winded version of this:

Guy: "it says in the gospels"

Carrier: "the gospels are not reliable history"

Guy: "but the gospels say.."

then I go, "oh, he's debating a crazy person". See? Then I learned something.

Of course Carrier has detractors? Every new theory has that?
He has a new and better theory with more accurate historical information. He explains in his work many assumptions held by the field were based on poor facts.
Then sometimes in debates we see proof of this.

No it wasn't. Carrier's views are still a fringe in Biblical scholarship. Carrier is a mythicist. You went on a tangent and ignored what I first posted attacking Bart in a vain attempt to undermine my points about Carrier. Points you never refuted. Try again son.

Your "points" on Carrier are this:



"No he isn't."


Wow. How could I ever refute that?

Yes Carrier is fringe? So was general relativity. After his book came out we have to wait, watch debates, see what points other historians make.
So far his work is solid and the only actual evidence against him are faulty apologist arguments.

His book does not prove Jesus is a myth nor has it even shifted mainstream views.
You disparaged mythiistc earlier.
"Like the worst of mythicist literature, you will come away after reading it with more false information in your head than true, and that makes my job as a historian harder, because now I have to fix everything he screwed up."

You compared Bart's book to that of the type Carrier himself writes. Hilarious.

Oh boy. That's Carriers review of Bart's book. I thought you might actually get that. And there are piles of bad mythicist literature out there.
One reason why Carrier is so good is he DEBUNKS IT.

He also exposes many of Bart's "mistakes" and corrects many of his errors on that video. Which you did not listen to nor did you read Carrier's blog on ALL of their exchanges and why Ehrman is wrong.

Even if you can't get to Ehrman's errors I've more than shown Carrier holds his own. I can't argue vast generalizations like what's happening in this post.
I don't even see the point of getting involved in that Carrier vs Ehrman debate at all, I don't want to do that. I've shown Carrier to be "good". That's plenty. Arguing for someone who isn't me is kind of a waste of time.

Carriers work claims 3/1 in favor of myth. He doesn't claim 100% proof, just that it's most likely.
His information has held up in debates with other scholars which is one way to see that he's on the correct path.
If debates don't work for you then fine, good luck with that.

I'm skeptical here of your motivations. Are you siding with Ehrman because you believe he is a better historian or because you believe in Jesus as a divine being and Bart's work better supports you religious beliefs?

Assertion.

Have you heard of a mistake?

You're catching on. Lots of mistakes.

 

[joelr]

Ever heard that old Greek saying "If the people don't believe us, we cease to exist?"
No Greek, back then or now, would go searching for evidence of Zeus on Mt Olympus.

Is that a point?
In modern time, now, all people in all religions try to find hard evidence for their religion.
We also have big foot hunters/photographers, all sorts of ufo hunters and actual doctors who make cases for alien abductions being real?
We have a planet full of people trying to scientifically prove remote viewing or any ESP and so on and so forth.
Supernatural hunting of all kinds is just as popular as it ever was.
Ghost hunters??

Actual science people used to hunt for ghosts?

Probably though, back in the day, people didn't search as much for supernatural proof. It was their science, they assumed deities were real.

You seem to be forgetting even Jews believed in witches and god seemed to believe in gods. The supernatural wasn't questioned back then.
Their (your) cosmology was that the lower heavens was in the upper atmosphere. Adam is buried on Mars in one account.

 

[joelr]

See, I am arguing two different things with two different people.
1 - Hard science tells you to say "We have no evidence for Moses, make of that what you will."

No hard science doesn't say that.
Archeology shows that there is no archeological evidence to support Moses/Patriarchs.

2- And soft-headed skeptics will say, "Scientists have shown there's no Moses."

You should be a little more forgiving here. Over the last few pages you've made some absolutely horrific points that made a mockery of logic and were refuted and you just moved on to the next thing.
Like spraying shotgun pellets over the widest area possible.

Seriously was that you with the King David vs Zeus, Krishna, Godzilla and such...?
Why are you all over the map with these long shots of logic but demand precise statements in return. Very disingenuous.

3 - Thoughtful people will say, "There has to be some truth to the claims as the Bronze Age
cultural accounts correlate roughly with modern archeology. And the Hebrews DID burst
onto Canaan in the 12th Century BC... from somewhere."

Which of the three statement do you think is the stupid one?

This one. This is the stupid one.
It's stupid or a lie. You pick.

Archeology just said, nope, not what happened. But you just changed that to "correlate roughly". No, if it's "Gods words" then it isn't just a tiny bit correct or even correlate roughly. No, it would be 100% accurate. This is not possible, so we are left with, it's man-made mythology. There is no other choice. Except if god writes mythology, which is an equally poor argument.

 

[joelr]

Am I reading this right? Jesus was just one of many,
and Messiahs were all the rage, like some distorted
Life Of Brian movie?

If so I take that as an infantile and ignorant view of
what transpired - not just in Jesus' day but in the
2,000 years leading up to Him.

Shockingly ignorant. Scholarship says exactly that.
But what's shocking is that the Christians also knew this in those times and modern Christians pretend like it wasn't true.

Once you get into NT we have much better sources.

second century lament of the Christian apologist Justin Martyr

"When we say…Jesus Christ…was produced without sexual union, and was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended to heaven, we propound nothing new or different from what you believe regarding those whom you call Sons of God. [In fact]…if anybody objects that [Jesus] was crucified, this is in common with the sons of Zeus (as you call them) who suffered, as previously listed [he listed Dionysus, Hercules, and Asclepius]. Since their fatal sufferings are all narrated as not similar but different, so his unique passion should not seem to be any worse."





"Ancient Christians well knew there was nothing new about their dying-and-rising god. Not in respect to the mytheme. Their claims were solely that his particular instantiation of it was better, and the only one that actually happened. They didn’t make up the stupid modern arguments that dying-and-rising god myths didn’t exist or weren’t part of a common mytheme everyone knew about. For example, in the same century, Tertullian, in Prescription against Heretics 40, makes exactly the same argument as Justin."



Justin argued that the devil made history look like that


"Likewise, Justin notices the mytheme is not virgin birth, but sexless conception. Of which many examples had already been popularized in pagan mythology (there just happens to also have been examples of actual virgin born gods as well). And by his argument (that the Devil was deliberately emulating the Jesus mytheme, in advance), Justin clearly accepted the same principle for “rising again” after death: the particular exact metaphysics of the resurrection could, like the exact method of death or conception, vary freely. The mytheme consists solely of the abstraction: returning to life. Somehow. Some way. We will say bodily, at the very least. But what sort of body (the same one, a new one, a mortal one, an immortal one), didn’t matter. If it had, Justin would have made the argument that “those gods” weren’t really resurrected. But that argument, never occurs to him. Nor did it to any other apologist of the first three centuries."

6 dying rising pre-Christian gods:

Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier

 

[joelr]

Jesus was apolitical. Read Sermon on the Mount; the attempt to make
him King and his comments about separation of church and state.
Those Jewish rebel wannabes have no part in anything Jesus thought,
said or did.

Sermon on the Mount is known to be a Greek creation.
It was composed in Greek and dependent on the Septuigant.
In it the temple was assumed to have already been destroyed.
It was a Rabbitical response to how to practice Judaism, the 3 pillars.
The evidence is overwhelming to this end.
Jesus did not go around telling tales in Greek.

At :57 Carrier goes over the evidence from Dale Allison (Journal of Biblical Literature)

 

[Milton Platt]

Pontius Pilate’s ring may have been discovered at ancient biblical fortress

Just another nail that keeps appearing again and again.

It's amazing, to me, how the information in the Gospels and letters are supported by facts that are discovered.

Okay, so Pontius Pilate existed...........