Creation, Evolution, and faith

I'm currently 20. If I write a book about Obama when I'm 60, will it be contemporary or not ?I'm just trying to get a clear understanding of what you mean by contemporary.PS and of course, the gospels aren't the earliest reference to Jesus and specifically, to his ressurection. Thessalonians is dated at 50AD. That is only 20 years after his death, which means there were a least at that time a community that not only thought Jesus lived and existed, but though that he rose from the dead.

How do you know Paul never met Jesus ????AbE We know he was a Pharisee, and was in Jerusalem prior to his conversion.(from his wiki page)For all we know he could even have been in the Sanhedrin that condemned JesusEdited by slevesque, : No reason given.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Ok, and for example hypothetically if Obama himself wrote an autobiography about his presidential campaign 40 years after it, would it be considered by a contemporary author, but not a contemporaneous account ?Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Well first off, we were talking about 40 years, not 60. And of course, this figures comes from the 70AD date to the first Gospel Theodoric gave earlier, which is even a bit high considering most scholars date the first gospel to 55-60. That puts it at 25-30 years after the events.So not only did you give no source for the life expectancy of people at that time, instead claiming that it would require a miracle for someone to still be able to write at an age of 75-90 at that time, but you are also stretching the dates to permit yourself to make baseless claims.And now of course, if Obama writes about his presidential campaign 40 years after the event, you consider it contemporary. But if I write about it 40 years after the event, you won't consider it contemporary ? This alone is a fallacy.But disregarding this, it still poses a dilemna. If you consider Obama's account as not contemporary, then it is putting a burden on the proof that the vast majority of historical documents won't fit in. How many ancient documents about historical accounts do you seriously think were written as the events were taking place ? Very few.But if you do consider that Obama's account would be contemporary, then you have to come to the same conclusions about at least the first gospel written in order to stay consistent.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Hi Percy,Of course I agree with all this, but this isn't really opposing science with religion. This is opposing science with historical claims of religion. But of course it presents a difficulty, in that a lot of historical claims of 2000 years ago will fall into the same category of subjectivity unfortunately.But I believe that in past history just as in science, some things can be proven. By proven I mean of course 'proven beyond reasonable doubt', as in a court room. You may never know if a further evidence will not turn the murderer into an innocent, but this doesn't mean that as of right now, he is proven to be a murderer beyond reasonable doubt.Of course, there is a difference between past historical events and science, And too often, people put the same burden on historical facts that they put on scientific facts. But doing so cuts off just about every single piece of evidence we have about what happened 2000 years ago from even being reliable.This can be seen in the movie religulous, when Bill Maher interviews Francis Collins. He asks something along the lines of ''would that stand up in a laboratory as absolute full-proof evidence ?'' and Dr. Collins responds to him ''you are setting up a standard for proof, that I think would be an almost impossible standard to meet''. And the documentary stops there, which is a shame really because of all the documentary it was the one possibly-interesting inerview ...Anyways, I think this same fallacy is being done here again and again, asking of historical records to be as precise as scientific facts.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

As I said, we know Paul was at Jerusalem at that time. We know that he was a premier Pharisee ''advancing in stature within Judaism's Jerusalem temple Leadership'' (wiki).And we know Jesus caused a turmoil in their ranks, and that they judged him. This are reasons to believe that Paul could have met Jesus. Well, you made the baseless assertion. ''Paul never met Jesus''. And you rebuke me for asking any reasons why you think that, defending yourself behind ''you can't prove a negative'' ? When I don't even ask a proof of it, only for reasons to think it to be possibly true.Did they live in separate geographical location ? No, they were both at times possibly quite close.Did they lie in different time periods ? No, they lived at the same time.Did they opperate in unrelated issues ? No, both of them were involved in matters of religion.These are all reasons to believe they could have met, not the contrary.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Now that is a reason for thinking they never met. See GM, it's not complicated to provide supporting facts to a negative.In any case, I my intent is not to affirm that they met, I am contemporary of Obama even if I didn't meet him. All I want to show is that you can't just assume baseless assertions. I just provided reasons that makes it totally possible that they had met.

Not exactly, you made the claim that ''being able to write at 75 at that time would require a miracle''. You claimed this without knowing the life expectancy of the time, and 'assumed' that it must have been significantly less then now. Are you really accusing me of being an idiot, when I ask for historical claims to be more 'proved' then 'assumed' ? What is wrong of askign for a claim to be supported ?Clearly, the claim ''it requires a miracle to be able to write at age 75 in 50AD'' is clearly not comparable in 'obviousness' to 'water is wet'. Interesting, I notice that there are 49/350 people who were past 49 years old. And this does not show all those between 0-49 who will effectively go past 49.Considering the correct date is probably nearer 30 years after the event rather then 60 as you said, it shows that a miracle isn't require to live up to that age.Also, note the the main reason for thinking the story of Jesus passed from oral tradition to written accounts is that the eye-witnesses were beginning to pass away. If the dropoff is about at 50, as your diagram suggests, and the first gospel was written 30years after the event, then the dates correlate to about the same figure. Sorry, my memory failed in associating Subbie's previous comment( that my account of Obama's campaign would not be considered contemporary) to you. See above. It does not require a miracle for eye-witnesses to be alive when the gospels were written. Furthermore, the very dates seem to align up were the oral tradition became a written account when eye-witnesses started to die.

Hi,I just want to assure that this is not my intention. The first replys of ''how do you know paul never met Jesus ???'' probably gave that impression however. Something becomes a reasonable possibility when there are not only no facts against it, but also a couple of facts that make the thing likely and therefore reasonably possible.

Maybe I'm caught in a discussion inside a discussion, since I didn't read kbertsche's discussion.Besides, I have the feeling the historicity of Jesus is quickly demanding to be in a topic of it's own.

All I was answering to was the claim ''Paul never met Jesus''. Since I thought it very plausible that they did, I was asking how you could the person affirm such a statement. But instead of having back a reason for this, I was fed the 'well I can't prove a negative, so I can't give you a reason duh ...'. All the while I had never affirmed that they DID meet, only that they could easily have.In the end, it's all a side argument, since even if they didn't meet does prevent Pul from being contemporary. As I said, I am contemporary of Obama even if I didn't meet him. This line of reasoning has much more weight. Of course someone could say that since he believes he had a supernatural encounter of Jesus after his resurection, Paul would just be using this as his example of his encounter with Jesus rather then any previous and unconsequential one.Of course, if he had been part of Jesus's persecution, I also think he would have mentioned it. But if he just met Jesus randomly around Galilee, with nothing special coming out of it, then maybe not.But as I said, it's a side issue (albeit an interesting one for me since I had never looked into it before)

Well, there are 4 gospels in the Bible, plus lots of other gospels, which aren't part of the bible, who speak of the event.Are you saying that there are no truth to the story of Jesus's death ?

I think what kbertsche is saying is that logic and reason will tell you what the Bible means in those passages. Is it talking about a worldwide flood ? a local flood ? other humans survived ? everybody perished ? etc.Since the author had one intended meaning, the passage can only have this one meaning in reality. He is saying you use reason and logic to determine what that meaning is.

Well, once you have identified through logic and reason what the intended meaning of the author was, then the job of the biblical scholar is ''done''.And of course, the matter of if the biblical flood (your seemingly favorite biblical topic) is a possible reality in the light of the evidence, it's another subject which would of course also require logic and reason.

This reflects a bit Dawkins view that he disagrees with the way that liberal scholars interpret Genesis.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.