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

[The Anointed]

There were only one general census around 28-27 BCE, not 3.

There were no census while Herod was alive around the time of Jesus' supposed birth in 6 BCE. Varus, the successor of Saturninus, was governor of Syria around this time in 7 or 6 BCE, and remained in office until Herod's death in 4 BCE. Archelaus succeeded Herod in 4 BCE, and remained as a client king for 10 years, until he was banished in 6 BCE.

And there were no census in Judaea until 6 CE, when Quirinius became the new governor of Syria, AND ONLY WHEN AUGUSTUS OUSTED ARCHELAUS from Judaea, turning a client kingdom into a Roman province.

Judaea has only through one census while Augustus was alive, not 3.

Quirinius had nothing to do with Syria, while he was governor of Galatia and fighting the Homonadenses. Quirinius was only governor of Syria, only the one time, after Judaea became a Roman province, not before it.

Lastly, you are trying to rewrite history again.

The term "vicegerent" was a title was only used by the church in Rome and Byzantine Empire, but never used in Augustus' time.

You are using vicegerent anachronistically.

Another term that doesn't exist in Roman politics, is Hegemon. It is neither a rank, nor a title used by Rome.

Augustus had originally wanted Agrippa to succeed him, but Agrippa died in 12 BCE, then he tried to appointed Gaius Caesar, but he died in 4 CE. Eventually Augustus appointed his stepson Tiberius whom he despised as heir-apparent. Quirinius was never had such powers as Agrippa, Gaius Caesar and Tiberius; not in Rome, and not in Syria.

All I would ask from you, is stopped making things up, The Anointed.

gnostic wrote...…. There were only one general census around 28-27 BCE, not 3.

The Anointed......Read the following link.

Is there a historical reference to the decree of Caesar Augustus? - BibleAsk

The Anointed...….. Correct! There was only one general census around 28-27 B.C., the other two were in 8 B.C., and 14 A.D. please reveal your HISTORICAL evidence that there was no Census of the Roman Empire which Census began in 8 B.C.?

Gnostic wrote..............Quirinius had nothing to do with Syria, while he was governor of Galatia and fighting the Homonadenses. Quirinius was only governor of Syria, only the one time, after Judaea became a Roman
province, not before it.

The Anointed...…. Please reveal the HISTORICAL evidence to support your erroneous statement that Quirinius was governor of Galatia?

We know that General Quirinius in 6-5 B.C., was dealing with the Homonadenses in the Taurus Mountains, which marked the northern limit of the Syrian plain from where Quirinius would have undoubtedly launched his campaign against the Homonadenses, while the census of Augustus was being carried out in Judaea.

[Wikipedia]…….”Marcus Antonius Felix was the Roman procurator of Judaea, in succession to Ventidius Cumanus.” So the word “hegemon,” used by Luke, could apply to any Roman official holding a leading position of authority, such as procurator, Vicegerent or Governor in any of the Roman provinces, including Syria.

Around the year of 6 B. C., the Governors of Galatia and Syria were involved in the construction of a system of military roads and garrison cities. They had a major problem. The Homonadenses had taken control of a Roman client nation located in the Taurus mountains which traversed the centre of these operations. Syria and Galatia would normally be required to intervene but Galatia had no army and Varus had no military experience. Whereas Quirinius was a general and famous for having quelled the Marmaridea rebellion in Cilicia (Libya) in 14 B.C., Quirinius was the one who Caesar Augustus sent to conquer the Homonadenses nation. This campaign had to have been implemented from Syria. It necessarily follows that in 6-5 B.C., General Quirinius dealt with the Homonadenses situation as Augustus' vicegerent =Lieutrnant, whilst Varus attended to the internal administration of Syria.

We know that in the time of Caligula the African administration, was divided in such a way, that the military power, and with it the foreign policy of the Province, was controlled by a Lieutenant of Augustus, while the internal affairs of the Province were left to the ordinary governor, a Proconsul.

Quirinius was a special Lieutenant of Augustus, (Lieutenant=one who acts as a Regent's deputy=Viceregent.) who conducted the war against the Homonadenses, while Varus administered the ordinary affairs of Syria. The duties of Quirinius might be described by calling him dux in Latin, and the Greek equivalent is necessarily and correctly hegemon, as Luke has it.

I see that you have failed to get the education required to debate these issues. Please feel free to come back when you do.

 

[PruePhillip]

Here is what you asserted...


I had never heard atheists refer to ancient Jews as being dumb. Therefore, I challenged your assertion. Please stop evading. I'll ask again, can you present any writings of prominent atheists who said ancient Jews are dumb? Or is that just something that you wrote to make a feel-good general criticism of atheists?

Yeah, they said the ancient Jews couldn't read or write.
Couldn't build their own nation
Couldn't tell the truth about their history.
Couldn't tell the difference between truth and lies.

 

[PruePhillip]

Are you saying that the Matthew sitting at a tax office is the same Matthew who is writing about the incident and quoting Jesus?

​

If that is the case, it would have been written...

Next, while moving on from there, Jesus caught sight of me, Matthew, sitting at the tax office, and he said to me: “Be my follower.” At that I rose up and followed him.​

This is the thing about people who loved their Messiah - they learned
to put themselves last.
Who's the author of Hebrews? No idea.
We know some of the epistle authors because they were just letters.
But the disciples of Jesus didn't not draw attention to themselves.
For instance in John's Gospel he talks of the "disciple whom Jesus
loved" without saying it was himself. And Luke's account of the early
ministry and journey to Rome employs the "royal we" about three
times, and from that we infer the author was part of the story. No
interesting details are given of Luke's life - he just talks about the
Christian ministry.
And that's why we don't have names for the Gospel authors.
It's certainly not important, but I am fine with the names given as
these were traditionally associated with three of the disciples and
this Luke guy - and there's this grainy match between the names
and the figures in the Gospel stories.
Again, it's not important, otherwise each author would present
his name.

Matthew-Levi is the same.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yeah, they said the ancient Jews couldn't read or write.
Couldn't build their own nation
Couldn't tell the truth about their history.
Couldn't tell the difference between truth and lies.

Sources please. Who said that and where?

 

[PruePhillip]

Sources please. Who said that and where?

Uh, don't YOU believe all the above?
Until 2010 there was no evidence of Hebrew writing back to the days
of King David, now we have four of them
Rare King David-Era Inscription Discovered in Biblical City

And to the link above, the discovery of fortifications against the Philistines during
this period. "Academics" posited King David, the Philistine wars and the like were
all made up 600-800 years later by Greek and Babylonian Jews. In other words,
fables, myths.. or just lies.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Uh, don't YOU believe all the above?
Until 2010 there was no evidence of Hebrew writing back to the days
of King David, now we have four of them
Rare King David-Era Inscription Discovered in Biblical City

And to the link above, the discovery of fortifications against the Philistines during
this period. "Academics" posited King David, the Philistine wars and the like were
all made up 600-800 years later by Greek and Babylonian Jews. In other words,
fables, myths.. or just lies.

I was asking for your sources that supported your allegations against others.

 

[gnostic]

The point of the 19th Century is there is a process by which history,
archaeology and genetics are catching up with our 'scholars.'
Our society still holds these people as having authority and wisdom,
and the profession is not held to account for past pronouncements.
And you guys quote them.

Again with the straw man.

In this thread, I HAVE NEVER QUOTED ANYONE FROM THE 19TH CENTURY. Not even Charles Darwin.

In fact, the only things that I have mainly quoted is some translations of some passages from the Bible.

I may have mentioned Darwin in my past posts, when I was arguing with someone, but I didn't quote from his books, not from his essays or from his letters. When I talk of Darwin, I would give a brief summary of what I learned from biology textbook 15 years ago, about Natural Selection. Chapters that I had read, don't talk much about Darwin at all, because the main focus was on modern evolution.

I am no biologist, nor a student of biology, but I did do reading in my own times, regarding to evolution, when I borrowed my cousin's textbook 15 years ago.

Before 2003, I was completely unaware about :"Evolution", and I didn't know there were debate between evolution and creation, until I joined my first forum.

My biology knowledge before 2003, come from my Year 9 high school "science" class (which was back in 1981), where I learn some basic on anatomy, physiology and very basic genetics, but not evolution. My focus in high school AFTER YEAR 9 was mainly in maths, physics and chemistry, because after high school I studied Civil Engineering, which don't require me to know biology.

I knew very little about genetics, but nothing on evolution or DNA or RNA. Perhaps, I would know more about it, in Year 11 or 12.

Hence in 2003, I did a little research in learning.

Hey, I knew about God, Jesus and the Genesis creation and flood, back when I was a teenager, but I also never heard of "Creationism" and "Creationist". The churches that I had wanted to join when I was teenager, never brought up Evolution and Creationism.

In fact, before joining this forum (in 2003), I never heard of Charles Darwin or his On Origin of Species or The Descent of Man.

So I was completely clueless that have been raging since Darwin's publication.

Anyway, in regarding to the 19th century, I didn't quote anything in regarding to the gospels about Jesus or about David or Solomon.

So, please stopped making crap things up what I didn't say or do.

You are really being a pain with your dishonesty.

 

[PruePhillip]

Sources please. Who said that and where?

Here are the minimalists
Biblical minimalism - Wikipedia

The scholars that have come to be called "minimalists" are not a unified group, and in fact deny that they form a group or "school": Philip Davies points out that while he argues that the bulk of the Bible can be dated to the Persian period (the 5th century BCE), Niels Peter Lemche prefers the Hellenistic period (3rd to 2nd centuries BCE)

The second claim is that "Israel" itself is a difficult idea to define in terms of historiography. There is, firstly, the idealised Israel which the Bible authors created—"biblical Israel". In the words of Niels Peter Lemche:
The Israelite nation as explained by the biblical writers has little in the way of a historical background. It is a highly ideological construct created by ancient scholars of Jewish tradition in order to legitimize their own religious community and its religio-political claims on land and religious exclusivity.
— Lemche 1998, pp. 165–66

 

[PruePhillip]

Sources please. Who said that and where?

There's tons of this stuff on-line. The major skeptics were 19th Century German, but I haven't the time to track them down.
Biblical 'minimalists' and the historical record


An example of this may be furnished by the claims of a small but vocal scholarly movement (originating in England and in Denmark) that is sometimes referred to as the “Copenhagen School” but that has mostly come to be called “biblical minimalism.”

Biblical minimalists, focused largely on the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, have argued that the Bible isn’t a reliable guide to ancient Israelite history and that, in fact, the concept of “Israel” itself is historically dubious. The Israelite monarchs David and Solomon, such minimalists contend, are merely fictional characters (created, perhaps, as late as the fifth century B.C.). There was, they commonly say, no kingdom of Israel in the 10th century B.C. But even if some primitive “Israelite” clan organization existed, they argue, its level of literacy was too low in those early days to allow the writing of the chronicles referred to in the Bible.

However, in recent years the minimalists seem to have been proven wrong regarding each of these claims.

 

[PruePhillip]

I may have mentioned Darwin in my past posts, when I was arguing with someone, but I didn't quote from his books, not from his essays or from his letters. When I talk of Darwin, I would give a brief summary of what I learned from biology textbook 15 years ago, about Natural Selection. Chapters that I had read, don't talk much about Darwin at all, because the main focus was on modern evolution.

I am no biologist, nor a student of biology, but I did do reading in my own times, regarding to evolution, when I borrowed my cousin's textbook 15 years ago.

Before 2003, I was completely unaware about :"Evolution", and I didn't know there were debate between evolution and creation, until I joined my first forum.

I love evolution. It's so amazingly simple and clever.
Galileo said that the bible doesn't teach us how the heavens go
but how to go to heaven. Nor does the bible teach us how life
is put together. Or does it?
Just last year scientists settled on an earth based origin for
life (fresh water) as opposed to an ocean origin. That is the
last issue I had with Genesis, ie that it got the sequence of
land vs ocean wrong. It didn't. God didn't create life, the earth
created life. Isn't that amazing?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Here are the minimalists
Biblical minimalism - Wikipedia

The scholars that have come to be called "minimalists" are not a unified group, and in fact deny that they form a group or "school": Philip Davies points out that while he argues that the bulk of the Bible can be dated to the Persian period (the 5th century BCE), Niels Peter Lemche prefers the Hellenistic period (3rd to 2nd centuries BCE)

The second claim is that "Israel" itself is a difficult idea to define in terms of historiography. There is, firstly, the idealised Israel which the Bible authors created—"biblical Israel". In the words of Niels Peter Lemche:
The Israelite nation as explained by the biblical writers has little in the way of a historical background. It is a highly ideological construct created by ancient scholars of Jewish tradition in order to legitimize their own religious community and its religio-political claims on land and religious exclusivity.
— Lemche 1998, pp. 165–66

I did not see any support for your allegations there. So were you making up those claims?

 

[PruePhillip]

I did not see any support for your allegations there. So were you making up those claims?

The biblical minimalists are saying in effect that the authors of the
bible are liars. For instance the bible makes strong assertions that
it is presenting history, ie the Prophet Isaiah lived during the reigns
of King Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz and Hezekiah. It is giving us times
and places (dates weren't much good back then apparently)
So when people say these authors made it up to appear historical
they are saying they are liars.
Whether minimalists actually USED the term 'liar' is another issue.
But they say these authors are essentially that.
Same too with stupid as regards the ability to craft their own
writing, build their own cities or fashion their own nation back then
in the Bronze Age.

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

I did not see any support for your allegations there. So were you making up those claims?

Pretty standard, and then when challenged, you'll get some pocket sand non-response that doesn't answer anything you actually asked.

The problem with stupid people, is they don't realise they're stupid. Instead, they think themselves insightful, witty, and winning in discussions, even though their prose barely makes any logical sense post by post, and is incoherent, self contradictory nonsense viewed across several threads.

 

[PruePhillip]

Pretty standard, and then when challenged, you'll get some pocket sand non-response that doesn't answer anything you actually asked.

The problem with stupid people, is they don't realise they're stupid. Instead, they think themselves insightful, witty, and winning in discussions, even though their prose barely makes any logical sense post by post, and is incoherent, self contradictory nonsense viewed across several threads.

You need to be a tad more specific. Then I can address any
issue you have with the historicity of the bible.

 

[Regiomontanus]

...
Just last year scientists settled on an earth based origin for
life (fresh water) as opposed to an ocean origin....

Hello. The origin of life question has not been "settled."

Peace

 

[ecco]

Yeah, they said the ancient Jews couldn't read or write.
Couldn't build their own nation
Couldn't tell the truth about their history.
Couldn't tell the difference between truth and lies.

Originally you asserted...

Jews are smart people - lots of atheists cast them
as being dumb, just because they didn't see great monuments to
their glory.

I didn't believe you and called on you to defend your spurious allegation...

I had never heard atheists refer to ancient Jews as being dumb. Therefore, I challenged your assertion. Please stop evading. I'll ask again, can you present any writings of prominent atheists who said ancient Jews are dumb? Or is that just something that you wrote to make a feel-good general criticism of atheists?

You haven't done so. So, the bottom line is that your comments about atheists are not grounded in truth.

​

Why must you make untruthful statements about atheists? Are you so frightened by us?





ETA: I notice that you also failed to respond to SZ when he asked the same questions.

 

[ecco]

Matthew 9:9-139 Next, while moving on from there, Jesus caught sight of a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office, and he said to him: “Be my follower.” At that he rose up and followed him.​

Are you saying that the Matthew sitting at a tax office is the same Matthew who is writing about the incident and quoting Jesus?​

This is the thing about people who loved their Messiah - they learned
to put themselves last.

This has nothing to do with a writer putting himself first or last. If The Writer Matthew is the same person as the Tax Office Matthew, the entire passage makes no sense. You are essentially trying to defend...

While walking from somewhere else, I saw myself sitting outside a tax office.​

No writer worth his salt would write something so convoluted.

 

[ecco]

And that's why we don't have names for the Gospel authors.

This is just another instance of you making assertions for which there is no evidence just as you did with your comments about atheists referring to ancient Jews as being dumb.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The biblical minimalists are saying in effect that the authors of the
bible are liars. For instance the bible makes strong assertions that
it is presenting history, ie the Prophet Isaiah lived during the reigns
of King Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz and Hezekiah. It is giving us times
and places (dates weren't much good back then apparently)
So when people say these authors made it up to appear historical
they are saying they are liars.
Whether minimalists actually USED the term 'liar' is another issue.
But they say these authors are essentially that.
Same too with stupid as regards the ability to craft their own
writing, build their own cities or fashion their own nation back then
in the Bronze Age.

That is quite the stretch.

how about limiting yourself to what they actually said?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Pretty standard, and then when challenged, you'll get some pocket sand non-response that doesn't answer anything you actually asked.

The problem with stupid people, is they don't realise they're stupid. Instead, they think themselves insightful, witty, and winning in discussions, even though their prose barely makes any logical sense post by post, and is incoherent, self contradictory nonsense viewed across several threads.

Reminds me of this quote: