If they were destroyed long ago then how do you know they existed at all. Regardless this is an argument from silence and is not valid.
We have writings that tell of the existence of texts and destruction of these texts. The real argument from silence is yours.
Wrong, the vision said Saul why are you persecuting ME? It was jesus that was addressing him.
It was a vision .. having a dream and meeting someone are two different things.
Paul was not a follower at the time of the resurrection.That was not paul's role he was more involved with the propegation of the Church and defineing doctrine. Since the other apostles had no problem with Paul why would you.
Paul supposedly knew and had contact with Peter, James and so on .. surely he would have been aware of some of the stories of Jesus. Almost nothing of Jesus is mentioned .. Paul did not know Jesus or much of the life of Jesus.
The gospels are widely believed to be written after much of Paul's was. What is the relevance?
The relevance is that Paul did not seem to know anything about the life of Jesus.
He did record some of them. Ex...The 500 witnesses. What are you trying to say. There is no point to these statements.
Big deal .. Paul heard one story of supposed witnesses to the resurrection. Was there nothing else about the life of Jesus that was worth recording ?
First this is just nuts. Second Paul wrote more than any other apostle did in the new testament. It would be more logical to think the others were the rogues. His life demonstrated a sincere 180 degree change that happened at his conversion. His teachings were accepted by the other apostles. His messages are overwhelmingly viewed by theologans to be consistent with the teachings of Christ. This sound more like an opinion resulting from a bias than a researched one.
Many of Pauls teachings were not accepted by the other apostles .. Read James 2 sometime. They came to an agreement on the circumcision issue and that was about it.
This is not even close. I will amend my statement to remove a pointless contention. It was written over more than a thousands years. That doesn't change anything and it is in fact a larger period of time. The Old Testament was written from approximately 1400 B.C. to approximately 400 B.C. Moses wrote the first five
books known as the Pentateuch, which included the editing of Genesis into its final form from oral or earlier written records. In this latter regard some scholars consider that Abraham himself wrote much of Genesis, since we now know that writing was in use for centuries before Abraham. His birth in
2161 BC would then date his writing considerably earlier than Moses, probably done during his time in Canaan. These tablets would then have been preserved and handed down to eventually come into the hands of Moses. In terms of preservation it is worth noting that this is a very small time considering that tablets have been found in the 20th Century which date to around this time. This theory, known as the 'Tablet Theory' is advanced by some to explain the 'toledoth phrases' found in a number of places in Genesis which mark the end of a tablet dealing with a particular subject. This theory dates the original writing somewhat earlier than its final edited form which would be what has been handed down to us
.
Abraham was not born anywhere close to 2161 BC. That would put the time in Egypt at over 600 years.
We have no idea who wrote Genesis and the post Exodus books.
Some of the poems/psalms likely date to King Solomon's time and there was likely some record of the things that happend in Kings, and the military conquest post exodus and so forth. I will grant that much. The problem is that we do not know how much of these stories were original content and how much artistic liberty was used by the editors in 400 BC.
Writing goes back to 3500 BC- Proto Elamite which we can not read. We can read Elamite which came shortly after. In these early texts you will find the original version of Genesis in much greater detail than given in Genesis and it predates Abraham by a long long time.
These creation stories were in circulation among the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, Canaanites and so forth.
If you read the twin stories of creation in Genesis you will see that in the first version the creator is "El" Ellil/Enlil. In the second version El-Yahwah is given credit. The second creation story in Genesis is a later addition. If it was not a later addition then Moses would not have had to ask God his name or at least Moses would have used the same name for God from start to finish in Genesis.
El was the God of Abraham .. El Yahweh (the God Yahweh) a local city God undergoes a fusion into El .. El in to Yahweh.
http://www.jhsonline.org/Articles/article_144.pdf
That is irrelevant. The Israelites like the rest of us are a dissobedient stiffnecked bunch of people. They were always screwing up. God condemned these practices. The bible says were have somekind of rebelious nature resulting from the fall that makes us seek our own will and makes us resist authority. Their rebellion is consistent with the narrative. If they were perfectly obedient then that would be inconsistent.
The only thing that is consistent is that the writers of the OT in 400 BC attributed the downfall of Israel to worship of other Gods. They then adopted the Persian religious customs of monotheism and abhorrence of human sacrifice because they thought that God favored the Persians.
What is consistent throughout most of the history of Israel after the Exodus is that the Israelites did not seem to have much reverence for the God that supposedly parted the Red Sea, performed a bunch of other miracles, and took them out of Egypt, and followed them around in a tent for a number of years helping them win wars.
Just a few years after leaving Egypt, when Moses goes up the mountain for a couple days, Aaron - brother of Moses has the people bring him Jewlery and Gold out of which a Golden Calf is made. (Think El, Asherah) El Yahweh is even shown with his consort Asherah in archeaological inscriptions from Israelite settlements from a later date.
Not only do these early Israelites believe in the God of Moses .. his own Brother is not convinced. This does not even pass the giggle test.
When Moses comes back he is ******. Turns the calf into powder and makes the people drink it. He then asks the people to take sides (those on the side of the lord and the rebels) and has assassins kill those who took the other side.
What we have is an insertion of a word into the original story .. (instead of the side of "the lord" what Moses is really asking is if they side with him)
Moses was a great military leader and he put dissent down quickly.
Wrong, this claim pops up every now and then. Dr James White a very respected textual scholar completely and utterly destroys this idea. I believe you could find it in video form online. Videos are blocked where I am and I cannot look for it
Serious Biblical scholars agree that there was an cross adoption of religious customs between the Jews and the Persians. I gave you the part in Isaiah where they even claim that Cyrus was annointed by God. What is also clear from "Bibilcal History" is that for centuries prior to the Babylonian captivity the vast majority of Israelites had little reverence monotheism and engaged in human sacrifice as required by these other Gods.
It is rediculous to assert that for over 500 years the vast majority of Israelites are worshiping other Gods and sacrificing humans to these Gods and then "suddenly" of their own accord they turn to monotheism.. which just happened to conicide with them gaining some freedom and legitimacy under the Persians after being reduced to nothing by the Babylonians.
To suggest that the Jews adoption of monotheism and cessation of human sacrifice had nothing to do with the fact that these were the Religious customs of the Persians who saved them and who's king was thought to be annointed by God is beyond absurd and beyond logic.
Persia was definately a world power. He was annointed but they did not adopt their religion. The Jewish religion existed prior to their captivity.
Of course the Jewish religion existed prior to their captivity. This religions of the Israelites was not monotheistic and included human sacrifice. After Persia .. who were monotheistic and abhorred human sacrifice .. all of a sudden so were the Jews .. go figure.
The Israelites had 1400-500 .. roughly 900 years to adopt monotheism and they did not. It was only after the Babylonian captivity/ during the Persian reign that this happened.
