Validity of Written Documents

lots of people were born in bethlehem.also, notice the word that modifies bethlehem ephrathah? clan. it's a CLAN of judah, not a city. jesus being born in the city does not fulfill the prophesy, unless he was of the FAMILY of bethlehem.we're discussing this one in the other thread on jesus and the torah/nevi'im btw. might want to take it there.but what does it mean if this book DOESN'T validate itself?This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 05-12-2005 04:01 AM

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אָרַח

Yes, the Bethlehem Ephratah reference is one that some Christians think is a wonderful prophecy, but they do not realise that it is a reference to a clan rather than a place. Although the clan is based in the Bethlehem area and Bethlehem was earlier called Ephratah (Gen. 35:19, And Rachel died, and was buried in the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem )The phrase "too little to be among the clans of Judah," has been changed by the authors of the King James Version to read "though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, ". But this is still problematic for the 'place' people, as Israel has never had thousands of towns of cities, it still has to refer to a clan.But, back on topic, how can we possibly say that Jesus was definitely born in Bethlehem? Just because the New testament says so? Anyone can claim whatever they want for Jesus, but if there is no external data to support it then it remains unconfirmed. That depends where you are coming from. From a faith angle it probably wouldn't make any difference.From an historical research angle it makes a world of difference. We have to consider the possibility that all the stories about Jesus are pieces of propaganda, invented to make Jesus inot something that he wasn't. There is so much written about Jesus that is beyond historical enquiry that it is difficult to narrow down what could be considered historical. His birth, his arrest, trial, and death are all things that COULD have some external support, but there are no contemporary external sources to support any of these.Also, if we take certain events that are historically plausible, the trial for example, we are then faced with all sorts of historical problems in relation to official procedures. Thus, the 'historical' records of Jesus trial as portrayed in the Gospels appear to be entirely unhistorical.Personally, I think that with a document HAVING to continually rely on itself for validation, especially when claiming the occurrence of many hugely epic events that are invisible in hsitory, we have to finally make a decision within ourselves to the worth of this document.Sure, the Bible has some wonderful examples of how to live your life and how to treat others, but all of these ideologies can be found in other older texts.As far as history is concerned, I believe if any other book had as poor a track record as the Bible has, then no one would take it seriously.I'm often asked why I stopped being a Christian, and apart from the tragedies that made me reconsider, I have to admit that since I cannot trust the Bible in historical matters then why should I trust it in spiritual matters?Brian.

It's interesting you would say that, because that is exactly the reaction we see so often from the extreme fundamentalists here."If the Bible is not literally 100% true then why should I believe at all?"While such a discussion is certainly OT here, it might be interesting to explore that question in another thread.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Hi Jar, I know what you mean, but where I see myself and the fundy parting ways is that I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt to the Bible to a certain degree, I certainly wouldn't bin any complete book because of one or two errors. I wouldn't reject the whole of Genesis for example, because the Flood didnt happen. I believe that some fundies would not trust the Bible if one syllable could be proven wrong. personally, this was just one reason why I gave it up, and it wasn't the primary reason. I decided that after finding fault, after fault, after fault after fault, that there came a time when I had to be honest with myself and ask myself a question. How many errors am I going to allow a text before I start to doubt its reliability?I see what you are getting at, but I do treat the HB as I would treat any historical text. And I do believe that there is history in there somewhere. But, for example, if the authors can exaggerate Joshua's victories isn't it entirely possible that the authors of the NT can exaggerate the events in Jesus' life?Perhaps a thread on this might be a good idea because I was thinking, during my chat with Arach, that there are a few Christians out there who do not take some miraculous events literally, yet they take the resurrection literally, so it could be an interesting discussion.Brian.

Brian,I think that could be a very interesting discussion. I'm mostly interested in the psychological differences in the way people approach belief and faith. Clearly some people want the continuity of tradition. Others want the world depicted in the text rather than the one they know. Why don't you make the proposal? I'll read that thread and may even contribute.lfen

You would have thought so, but this is yet another out of context prophecy. Funny thing is, it isn't even a messianic.Here's another strange offering:The Messiah will be of the house of DavidandThe Messiah will be from the tribe of JudahSurely the first prophecy makes the second one redundant?BrianThis message has been edited by Brian, 05-12-2005 03:27 PM

i've seen worse. there is SOME validity to the bible as a historical document, and we can actually find this validity because of its horrible track record. me can tell about when things were written, some changes, which prophecies might have been real (the unfulfilled ones), etc.as a document ranging in age from about 2600bc to 150ad, it's got lots of validity, if we take it for what it is: attributed accounts and collections of stories, poetry, traditional mythology, and biased history. well, i think that's a little silly. for one, rarely is anything completely true and all encompassing in every last one of its details. things written by people are bound to have problems. and errors do not neccessarily mean that there is nothing of value in the book.and for two, my faith is not in a book, it's in a god.which might explain the answer to this: i have faith, but i'm also interested in what the book actually says apart from that faith.

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אָרַח

You'd think 2000 years worth of Christian scholars might know a few things but to hear you and others here talk they're all idiots who missed the point of everything. Oh well. Yup, it remains unconfirmed for all those who refuse to accept the testimony of scripture.However, I'm posting this for another reason. You might be interested to know that there are Jewish stories about the Messiah that take for granted that he will be born in Bethlehem. There is a fascinating book called The Messiah Texts by Raphael Patai [Wayne State University Press, paperback 1979] that explores all the Jewish lore and literature concerning their vision of the Messiah. I have the book and I hope I will eventually read it carefully -- so far I have only skimmed it and marked interesting passages. I haven't tracked down all the bibliographic references either, partly because the way they are arranged is difficult to figure out. I'd like to find out the date of a particular text but the arrangement makes it more trouble than it's worth at the moment. It appears that most of the stories are post-Christian however. The subtitle of the book is Jewish Legends of Three Thousand Years but the pre-Christian material appears to be only the Old Testament scriptures themselves, plus some of the Apocrypha.I should also tell you that Raphael Patai is not a believer in the Messiah. Although he is Jewish he is not religious. He is, however, a very thorough scholar. He makes it clear also that he does not believe anything in his book supports the claim of Jesus Christ to be the Messiah, which I find remarkable considering that so much of it seems to me to do so. In the margins of many a page I've had to note how CLOSE they come to getting it without getting it. But that's just me of course.HOWEVER. The reason I'm bringing this up is just to point out that in the chapter titled The Mother of the Messiah there are two stories in which the Messiah's birth in Bethlehem is mentioned in passing.The first (p.123) is taken from "Y. Ber. 5a" and I can't find the reference to that on the list of sources for some reason. I think the Y. means "Yerushalmi" which could mean it's from the Jerusalem Talmud, but I'm not sure.ANYWAY, yes, all that background is needed so you'll be able to get the context here.These are rather fanciful stories, to the point of being bizarre in some ways. I am quoting them because of some things they demonstrate about Jewish expectations of the Messiah based on their scripture.First story, or most of it: Part of the next story, on the next page [ref "B'reshit Rabbati pp 130-1"]: So, these stories show that Bethlehem is taken for granted as the birthplace of the Messiah, who is still expected by religious Jews.It is also interesting that they link the coming of the Messiah with the destruction of the Temple, which of course Christians claim occurred because sacrifices were no longer relevant after Jesus became THE sacrifice for all sins of all sinners who believe on Him.In another part of the book it is made clear that the Jews expect the Messiah to "come with the clouds of heaven" (Chapter 8, Son of the Clouds which is what we understand about Jesus' second coming. It also shows that the phrase "son of man" in scripture is taken to refer to the expected Messiah.There is more fascinating lore in this book but I just wanted to show that contrary to your dismissal of the meaning of Bethlehem as a place where the Messiah was expected to be born, some Jews have exactly that same understanding of what it means that Christians have.Edited to change title<
span class=LI1>This message has been edited by Faith, 05-16-2005 04:09 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-16-2005 06:23 PM

I have always said that there is valid historical information in the Bible, the question is, how do we validate that information? The Bible cannot be used to validate itself, what would be the point? We can tell when things were written, etc, by using external information, even by identifying which texts are post-exilic we are relying on external data. Are you sure about this?Which particular texts are said to be 2600 BCE, or did you mean 1600 instead of 2600? Indeed, but I dont think this is what the thread is about. It would be silly if this was the sole reason for me abandoning Christianity, but as I said earlier it is only one of the reasons and at that it is fairly far down my list of reasons.Also, I did say it wasn't because one or two things are incorrect int he text, it is because page after page after page are incorrect. Think of the Bible as a recipe book, the first 100 reipes you try all taste bad, when do you stop using the recipes in that book? You may well say that there are some recipes in there that taste good, but these recipes are ones that you have to take someone elses word for because the ingredients are not available to everyone. But the errors tell me a lot. They tell me that we have to be wary about the intentions of the authors. If they can make mistakes about one thing then there is good reason to believe that they can make mistakes about other things. Yes, a God who you think is a hippy guy based on the information given in the aforementioned unreliable book. Surely you have faith that the stories you base your conclusions on are true? So. what came first, your faith or reading the book?Brian.

You would think that they would, but they are extremely biased towards keeping this Jesus myth going. You have to realise that The New Testament authors have mutilated the Old testament in their attempt to make Jesus into something that he clearly wasn’t. The Christian scholars are simply keeping this tradition going. Indeed, which is what the thread is about. You believe that Jesus was born in Bethlehem because the Bible says so. This is nothing other than circular reasoning. Most of us know that you cannot use a source to support itself. There is nothing wonderful at all about Jesus’ so called fulfilled prophecies, the amazement of it all falls apart when you finally understand that the authors of the NT were simply going through the Tanakh and then attributing things to Jesus. Strange thing is, many of the alleged messianic prophecies fulfilled by Jesus aren’t even messianic prophecies, Isaiah 7:14 for example.Do you have anything outside of the Bible to support Jesus being born in Bethlehem? If not, then how do we validate verses such as Matthew 2:1? You are misunderstanding the prophecy. Jews do not believe that the messiah *HAS* to be born in Bethlehem. What they believe is that the Messiah will need to be able to trace his ancestry back to Bethlehem, which, being a descendant of David, is pretty self-evident. But, as Jesus wasn’t a descendant of David, it doesn’t really matter where Jesus was born.Micah 5 is about a bloodline, the messiah could be born anywhere but he needs to be able to trace his ancestry back to David, who was born in Bethlehem.1 Samuel 17:12: Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul's time he was old and well advanced in years.The Hebrew Bible is quite clear that it is a clan being referred to.Brian.

You'd think 2000 years worth of Jewish scholars might know a few things but to hear Jesus talk they're all idiots who missed the point of everything. Oh well.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I'd partially disagree on just one point.The Bible could contain independent accounts which might be useful as confirmatory evidence.However although the Nativity accounts do appear to be independent they are too different to be mutually supporting. And when the historical evidence is take into account it is likely that at least one is probably untrue.
(I started this thread to discuss that issue.) It is entirely possible that both are fictional and that the belief that Jesus was born in Bethlehem was based on Micah rather than any historical knowledge.

sorry, double postThis message has been edited by LinearAq, 05-16-2005 12:16 PM

So...what methods did you use to come to this acceptance of the "testimony of scripture"?Can I use these methods to determine if I can accept the testimony of the "Kent Family Chronicles"?If so, how?If not, what makes these methods inapplicable to the "Kent Family Chronicles".

God ought to know. You wouldn't.