There's Not An Iota Of Evidence The Apostles Existed

[blü 2]

Jews would cry, "Next year in Jerusalem" as part of their Passover ritual.
Deep in the heart of frozen Russia, 1500 years after being driven out of 'Palestine'
by the Romans, this was the passion of people who had never seen so much as a
palm tree. These people weren't Russian, they were Jews, and they were Israelis.
But the idea of Zionism was ridiculed by the cognoscenti and know-alls.
And how could sophisticated, integrated, secular, urbanite Jews in places like
Germany and Poland consider those ancient superstitions about God and the
'people of the book.' And for these people, nationalists at heart, to leave Europe
and fight for a land that belonged to Arabs and Turks? Absurd.
Yes it happened.

And just as strange was people like Jacob saying there would be an Israel but
it would only last till the Messiah came? And how could this Messiah king be
killed and the temple of God destroyed?

Yeah, it's supernatural. I talk to people who mock the supernatural and say
these things. It makes me very uncomfortable. I ask them to read the history
of modern Israel and figure for themselves - were all these natural events?

Yeah, yeah, whatever ...

 

[PruePhillip]

Yeah, yeah, whatever ...

Ezekiel spoke of a 'second return' when the Jews, in captivity, had
not seen a 'first return'
And the scene which unfolds, in great detail, Ez 38,39 is of a nation
which has taken its land back 'with the sword' and live in peace in
'cities without walls'. The Arab, Persian and Slav (?) nations which
attack it remind me of the current situation. Israel has one ally but
Ezekiel cannot name it - it's on the coast lands or islands. And that
war is full of fire and ferocity.
Go back to first Zionist Congress 1897 and you could imagine the
mockery - Palestine was some malaria infested backwater of the
Ottoman empire. Certainly not the center of anyone's world. How
things change. And I love how Israel 'restores' a ruined landscape,
long fallen into neglect.

 

[Mister Emu]

Luke the Physician and Other Studies in the History of Religion

You realize, that's not a quote from William Ramsay?

 

[blü 2]

Ezekiel spoke of a 'second return' when the Jews, in captivity, had
not seen a 'first return'
And the scene which unfolds, in great detail, Ez 38,39 is of a nation
which has taken its land back 'with the sword' and live in peace in
'cities without walls'. The Arab, Persian and Slav (?) nations which
attack it remind me of the current situation. Israel has one ally but
Ezekiel cannot name it - it's on the coast lands or islands. And that
war is full of fire and ferocity.
Go back to first Zionist Congress 1897 and you could imagine the
mockery - Palestine was some malaria infested backwater of the
Ottoman empire. Certainly not the center of anyone's world. How
things change. And I love how Israel 'restores' a ruined landscape,
long fallen into neglect.

Gosh, who'da thought!

 

[Mister Emu]

"Luke was incapable of being accurate and was untrustworthy as a historian"

Luke the Physician and Other Studies in the History of Religion
By William Mitchell Ramsay pg 23

You realize, that's not a quote from William Ramsay?

Further, a quote actually from Ramsay is "Luke is a historian of the first rank." The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament 1915 p. 222

 

[oldbadger]

I throw the challenge out to you. Name one secular historians who mentions even one apostle. I doubt you will.

So you didn't have the first clue about who I was talking about! I didn't think you would! You don't deserve to know the name.
Let me tell you..... anybody who has spent any time in researching early first century Palestine and 1st/2nd century writings about Jesus could have put a name to that description without much thought.

But you couldn't... which shows the readership here that you haven't any education about the subject mater at all. That's all I wanted to find out, actually... all that I have shown.

Here was brief my description of his words, yet again:-
...........it's possible to name one that was dead set against Christianity and who had no good words to write about Jesus or his band of followers. He could even throw additional info about them not mentioned anywhere else, so that's easy to show.
He also named the man who he claimed was the true father of Jesus, as well as telling us that it was two tax officers (not one) on his closest twelve.

Extreme mythers are as ignorant as extremist Christians, imo.

 

[PureX]

They are? Do people believe that the stories of Harry Potter are true?

While they read them, yes.

 

[Augustus]

My bad. I should not have used the word, state. Here:

Some scholars allege that his main objective was to gain unanimous approval and submission to his authority from all classes, and therefore chose Christianity to conduct his political propaganda, believing that it was the most appropriate religion that could fit with the Imperial cult

Constantine the Great and Christianity - Wikipedia

Some 'scholars' allege Christians burned down the Great Library of Alexandria and systematically destroyed "pagan" scientific texts.

Doesn't make it true.

"Rational skeptics" tend to be emotionally attached to such views as Christianity being wrong isn't enough, it has to be devious and driven by charlatans pulling the strings to dupe the masses. This is the same reason Jesus mythicism is popular among "rational skeptics".

Also they like to think of the ancient world as being populated by people who think like modern rational skeptics rather than them being reflective of the highly superstitious and religious pre-modern world.

One way or the other it was political. Constantine was not a believer.

Why is that more plausible than him actually having some attachment to the belief system he was taking risks to promote?

Can you give a rational argument as to why adopting a minority religion that had been persecuted for centuries for being 'unroman' and only just decriminalised, that also diminishes the status of the Emperor (who was already divinely favoured and could even undergo apotheosis), that has the potential to alienate the political and military elites would be adopted purely as a cynical means of manipulating the masses (90%+ of whom were not Christians and given the lack of modern communication and transport technology were not going to know a great deal about it anyway)?

If Joe Biden became a Salafi Muslim, would you see that as being more likely to be a cynical ploy to dupe the masses, or a genuine belief?

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Huh?



Not when the jig is up.

Not with the Game Over light flickering.

Not when the Two Witnesses are laying dead in the street.

I had said:



Paul talked about the wrath of abandonment. Thee times he said God gave them over, God gave them over, God gave them over. God gave them over to what?

A reprobate mind:

"Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

"Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.

"Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.​

The night comes when no man can work.

Time to become a five pointer.

Let Calvinism do it's thing.

Like that line from the movie: "kill them all and let God sort it out latter.

"Do you want to live forever?

The answer was supposed to be yes.

I just expect more out of God than a lazy jerk.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Not dreaming of interfering in the real world? Did not God say He would lay the temple to the ground
and drive the Jews into exile for a very long time? And did not 10-15 million Jews die in this exile?
And did not God say He would deliver the Jewish people their homeland again? Like, now?

Humans did those things.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Ezekiel spoke of a 'second return' when the Jews, in captivity, had
not seen a 'first return'

So what? We are not a place but people. I think nationalism is a sin.

 

[PruePhillip]

Humans did those things.

True.
And it was a rare thing in the bible for God to directly intervene in anything.
It was always natural events. God 'punished' Israel by way of drought, and
by the Assyrians taking away ten of the twelve tribes. And God punished
Israel by sending them into captivity - but that was also Babylonian agency.
And the bible stated that Israel would reject the Messiah and go into exile,
but that wasn't God, it was the Romans. But maybe it WAS God?
The horrors that come on some people and some nations who hated God
didn't come from lightning strikes (but that's natural too) or vengeful angels,
it came through natural agency.

 

[blü 2]

It’s amazing to me all the time spent trying to disprove the facts of the Bible.

Why should not the bible be examined according to the usual procedures and enquiries of historians? For instance, parts of it are self-evidently untrue as history, though they may correctly record forklore and fable, parts of it appear to be inaccurate as history eg the Egyptian Captivity, the reality of Moses, the alleged grandeur of Solomon, and so on.

One Day everyone will stand before God and have the opportunity to make their defense before God. That Day has been settled for me and I received the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. For everyone that hasn’t that Day will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So you're relishing the idea of having the last laugh on the rest of us? Charming.

If there's a God and [he]'s omnipotent then [he] knows that everything that happens in the universe, including everything anyone ever thinks, says or does, can only have happened because [he] willed it. And if [he]'s also benevolent, then [he] won't punish those who've done wrong, [he]'ll perfectly understand why they did wrong, and instead of helling them, [he]'ll heal them.

Of course, if [he]'s not benevolent, then no one is safe, not even you,

 

[PruePhillip]

Why should not the bible be examined according to the usual procedures and enquiries of historians? For instance, parts of it are self-evidently untrue as history, though they may correctly record forklore and fable, parts of it appear to be inaccurate as history eg the Egyptian Captivity, the reality of Moses, the alleged grandeur of Solomon, and so on.
So you're relishing the idea of having the last laugh on the rest of us? Charming.

If there's a God and [he]'s omnipotent then [he] knows that everything that happens in the universe, including everything anyone ever thinks, says or does, can only have happened because [he] willed it. And if [he]'s also benevolent, then [he] won't punish those who've done wrong, [he]'ll perfectly understand why they did wrong, and instead of helling them, [he]'ll heal them.

Of course, if [he]'s not benevolent, then no one is safe, not even you,

And what is the issue with the 'grandeur of Solomon'?
The claim about the amount of gold he possessed isn't that much different
from what other regional powers had in the early Iron Age. And with the
great Bronze Age Collapse the nation of Israel did become a regional power
for a while. Greater than the power it had today I suggest.
How Solomon differs from say Ramses II or Nebuchadnezzar was that these
other kings glorified their reigns, whereas it was against Jewish sensibilities
to do that - they couldn't even make an image of their king.

Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.

 

[blü 2]

Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence.

Very largely that's exactly how it works.

No evidence, no reason to believe.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

Some 'scholars' allege Christians burned down the Great Library of Alexandria and systematically destroyed "pagan" scientific texts.

Doesn't make it true.

"Rational skeptics" tend to be emotionally attached to such views as Christianity being wrong isn't enough, it has to be devious and driven by charlatans pulling the strings to dupe the masses. This is the same reason Jesus mythicism is popular among "rational skeptics".

Also they like to think of the ancient world as being populated by people who think like modern rational skeptics rather than them being reflective of the highly superstitious and religious pre-modern world.



Why is that more plausible than him actually having some attachment to the belief system he was taking risks to promote?

Can you give a rational argument as to why adopting a minority religion that had been persecuted for centuries for being 'unroman' and only just decriminalised, that also diminishes the status of the Emperor (who was already divinely favoured and could even undergo apotheosis), that has the potential to alienate the political and military elites would be adopted purely as a cynical means of manipulating the masses (90%+ of whom were not Christians and given the lack of modern communication and transport technology were not going to know a great deal about it anyway)?

If Joe Biden became a Salafi Muslim, would you see that as being more likely to be a cynical ploy to dupe the masses, or a genuine belief?

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

Can you give a rational argument as to why adopting a minority religion that had been persecuted for centuries for being 'unroman' and only just decriminalised, that also diminishes the status of the Emperor (who was already divinely favoured and could even undergo apotheosis), that has the potential to alienate the political and military elites would be adopted purely as a cynical means of manipulating the masses (90%+ of whom were not Christians and given the lack of modern communication and transport technology were not going to know a great deal about it anyway)?

If you read the wiki article you know it's a controversial question. Some take my side, others take yours.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

You don't deserve to know the name.

I knew you didn't have any.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

You realize, that's not a quote from William Ramsay?

I may have quotedwrong. If so, I apologize.

 

[Mister Emu]

I may have quotedwrong. If so, I apologize.

No need to apologize, the full text is online and if you read the statement you quoted in context you can see Ramsay is referring to the opinion of another author he is discussing.

So that is the opinion of some author of some literature in the field of New Testament studies, just not Ramsay.