Validity of Written Documents

Even as a kid I wondered about that. It seemed so strange - from a young age I was fascinated by all sorts of history and in all the history books I read I never came across anybody anywhere doing anything like this.Although the Roman Empire is usually talked about in terms of the military conquests of the great generals or the endless intrigues of politics it has always seemed to me that trade was the life blood of the Empire (actually that may well be true for all Empires) - and it is hard to credit the idea that they would deliberately do something to screw up the production and/or movement of goods in one of their provinces when there was no good reason to.

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I've heard an even sillier idea. There's a document from a Roman census in Egypt stating that everyone who was away from home had to return home to register. And some apologists actually try to argue that this supports the idea that Joseph would have to LEAVE his home in Galilee to register in Judaea !

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John explicitly says that there was so much more that could have been written about Jesus the world itself couldn't contain all the books.

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Can Gospel according to "John" be truly considered a Gospel..."Good News" Since it never talks about repentance (even once)?

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"An uninformed person cannot conceptualize the essence of knowledge nor its sublimity. One who fails to conceptualize something, its significance will never become rooted in the heart."

They are however written by rabbis. I tracked them down last night finally and one is from the Jerusalem Talmud, whose commentaries originated between the 3rd and 5th centuries, and the other was an 11th century rabbinical commentary of some sort. They are fictions and in my opinion very bizarre, very fanciful, but nevertheless they are Jewish lore and they do indicate the expectation that the Messiah will be born in Bethlehem. Other Jewish leaders may interpret Micah 5:2 differently but obviously some interpret it the way Christians do, and that is definitely evidence that it is a valid interpretation. It's obviously a test question. Both stories are structured that way. The report of the Messiah comes and the messenger is questioned with the obvious intent of seeing if the report is true, and then takes action to find the Messiah based on the answers to the questions. You would have them take the messenger's word for the report without asking? What an odd idea. Because they spent their lives studying such things perhaps? Other Jewish views are just other Jewish views, and some Jewish views, esepcially those of Jews for Judaism, which is your source, have the objective of undermining anything that might seem to corroborate the claims of Jesus Christ.But if there are rabbinical texts that agree with the views we rest Jesus' claims on, that validates that trend of interpretation as quite a reasonable one no matter what they try to do to undermine it. Oh balderdash. What a bunch of sly parsing and nitpicking. There is often little distinction made between a clan and its centers, what silliness. I presented the view of Christian commentators on the text and they have more authority based on 2000 years of scholarship and Biblical exegesis, including understanding of the Hebrew, than your revisionist reference.Let's just call it an impasse because I'm not conceding anything to that kind of silliness and I know you aren't conceding to me. End of subject.

Good. Maybe we can get back to the methods you apply to determine the validity of written documents with historical references.

You're "entitled" as they say, to your opinion no matter how uncharitable of course, but this was a "requirement" of the Jews, as that's how they organized their genealogies, by houses or clans with their own home base as it were. Bethlehem was, as you like to point out, the seat of the Davidic clan. Anyway this was not a Roman requirement particularly, but a Jewish custom that was being respected. They made much of their genealogies. Priestly lineage was extremely important for instance - it determined the duties in the Temple, and of course the Davidic lineage was important because of the Messianic prophecies.Insane or not it's a fact.

I haven't heard that, but it isn't all that silly if you think of the genealogical concerns of the Jews (the Romans often respected the customs of their conquered peoples for the sake of good will.) Bethlehem was the seat of the house of David, and all those of that lineage would in some sense be "going home" when they went there.

Why do you assume it would have occasioned THAT much disruption? Wouldn't you think people on foot and donkeys could stick to the side of the road while the Roman transports passed? Besides, even the greedy like to have their holidays from work.Anyway how would you have set it up? Obviously it's much more efficient to have numbers of people collect in one place to be counted than to send out thousands of Roman officials to count heads where they lived. Or maybe you just think the idea of a census is dumb anyway?

No, the Romans doidn't require Egyptians to return to the homes of their ancestors - and there is no evidence that they required Jews to do so either. This s just another claim in Luke which has absolutely no external corroboration.

I did NOT say the EGYPTIANS were required to return to their clan homes. You misread. I said the extrapolation from their being required to return to their OWN homes to the Jewish preference for being counted as part of the clan is a fair one. {EDIT: It implies the importance of order based on location in the one case but clan membership in the other, which is also identified by location.There is a point at which the demand for "external corroboration" becomes just silly. The text in itself is evidence. You don't discard its statements because you don't have external corroboration for each statement. They stand on their own.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-20-2005 02:49 AMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-20-2005 02:52 AM

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I did NOT say the EGYPTIANS were required to return to their clan homes. You misread. I said the extrapolation from their being required to return to their OWN homes to the Jewish preference for being counted as part of the clan is a fair one.

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I din't mirsead you at all - I simply ointed out what you would need for a REAL parallel between the cases. You can't even call your assertion a valid extrapolation (it isn't even extrapolation). There are obvious administrative benefits in having people register at their own homes. You would have to offer evidence that the Romans did not care about that and had the Egyptians register at home for different reasons to have a valid argument.

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There is a point at which the demand for "external corroboration" becomes just silly. The text in itself is evidence. You don't discard its statements because you don't have external corroboration for each statement. They stand on their own.

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If the details are unlikely then it is reaonable to ask for external corroboration. Especially when it is obviously convenient for the story the author wants to tell and when ther provennace of the story is completely unknown. THe more so since other points also lack corroboration and offer evidence to doubt the accuracy of the story. There is none for the supposed decree (although here should be if it occurrred as stated) - the nearest match is for a census that covered at most one province. If it was that census then Matthew's story is wrong. But there is no external corroboration for an earlier tax census for Judaea and every reason to doubt that the Romans would have even wanted one.

You appeared to be imputing to me the idea that the Egyptians were registered by clan. If not, fine. This kind of thinking is unfortunately very common and very wrongheaded. The details are not unlikely according to 2000 years of Christian believers, including scholars, but you have no problem deciding they are unlikely even at your great remove from the time, the circumstances, the scholarship of the millennia, based on a few scraps of supposedly contradictory evidence.And you know what, ALL the TRUE details of ANY TRUE account whatsoever "just HAPPEN to be **convenient** for the story the author wants to tell" because in TRUE accounts the parts of it DO just **happen** to fit together, even the ones that don't seem to fit at first glance, and all end up contributing to the "story the author wants to tell." Isn't that remarkable? Didja ever think of that? The very idea that Luke would make up a census decreed by Caesar and distribute such a report among thousands of people who would have known whether it happened or not is just ludicrous on the face of it.Why *should there be* evidence of all the decrees of Augustus Caesar after all this time pray tell?You have bits and pieces of information about censuses in that general time frame and you expect that paltry bit of information to falsify a coherent writing that could easily have been refuted at the time of the writing by thousands, and you have no problem using those flimsy scraps as a wrecking ball against 2000 years of Christian understanding. This is modern "science." Wow.I would also point out that dates are not given in the NT, only mentions of events and circumstances relative to each other. Any independent evidence of the same census {that disagreed with Luke's account} that can truly be verified as the same census would only change the official dating of the birth of Jesus, which has never been hard and fast anyway.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-20-2005 06:00 PM

Actually I didn't mean that - I was talking about the disruption of many businesses, farms, fishing boats and pretty much every other type of commercial and subsistence activity being shut down for as long as it takes the people to get to where their ancestor comes from and back again.Although, now you mention it the sheer clogging of the roads by a population on the move would be pretty bad. I'd probably do it the way the Normans compiled the Domesday Book after they took control of England in 1066 (and they had pretty much the same level of technology as was available around the time of the Nativity). As described in The Domesday Book Online Site : So here we have 28 men covering the whole of England, not thousands as you suggested would be needed. Remember that the Romans were excellent administrators so if the Normans could cover the whole of England with less than 30 officials I see no reason to think the Romans couldn't organise something equally efficient for Judea.P.S. I can't believe we've got this far into the thread without somebody saying 'What have the Romans ever done for us?'

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No, I'm not suggestign that you think that the Egyptians were registered by clan. What I am pointing out is that that is the sort of evidence you would need to back up your claim.

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This kind of thinking is unfortunately very common and very wrongheaded. The details are not unlikely according to 2000 years of Christian believers, including scholars, but you have no problem deciding they are unlikely even at your great remove from the time, the circumstances, the scholarship of the millennia, based on a few scraps of supposedly contradictory evidence.

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Oh please, you have no problem in dismissing anything you don't like for less reason.. It doesn't matter how many biased assessments you can dig up. The evidence won't change. Maybr you think it is "wrong-headed" to care more about the truth than to adhere to dogma, but that doesn't make it so. Millions of Christians beleive the hopeless mix of Matthew and Luke that appears every Christmas time.

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And you know what, ALL the TRUE details of ANY TRUE account whatsoever "just HAPPEN to be **convenient** for the story the author wants to tell" because in TRUE accounts the parts of it DO just **happen** to fit together, even the ones that don't seem to fit at first glance, and all end up contributing to the "story the author wants to tell." Isn't that remarkable? Didja ever think of that?

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If REAL events always conveniently fit themselves to the author's desire it WOULD be remarkable. However it is not the case, in fact many Bible scholars take events that do NOT fit the author's desire as being likely to be authentic - the "Criterion of Embarrassment". Yet here you are saying that there can be no such thing when dealing with a true story as if the writers of fiction would deliberately hamper themselves by inventing events that are inconvenient to their purpose.

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The very idea that Luke would make up a census decreed by Caesarand distribute such a report among thousands of people who wouldhave known whether it happened or not is just ludicrous on the face of it.

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But WOULD "thousands" have clearly have known of it ? The census in Judaea would have been 70 years or more bewfore the Gospel achieved widespread distribution. Time enough for the ordinary peopel to forget the details. And only those who knew of the history of Judaea or Syria could hope to identify a date. Why should the early Christians have any more problem than modern cults, or the Jehovah's Witnesses with their repeated failed predictions of the end of the world or the Mormons with their fake scriptures ? [quote] Why *should there be* evidence of all the decrees of Augustus Caesar after all this time pray tell?
[/qute]ALL the decrees ? I never said ALL the decrees. But a major, unprecedented decree would surely be recorded in his deeds. We have Roman histories of the period - and at least one Jewish history. None of them record such a decree. The census of Quirinius is mentioned by Josephus - but as part of the annexation of Judaea, not part of an Empire-wide census.And you are wrong about the dates. If you had bothered ot look at the other thread you owuld have seen the problem.Matthew definitely has Jesus born in the reign of Herod the Great. Matthew 2:22 expicitly mentions Herod's successor Archeleus is the new king.Quirinius held his census after Archeleus was deposed and Judaea was annexed (which is the reason a census was needed - prior to that the local rulers taxed the people as they saw fit and paid an agreed amount to Rome).According to Jospehus Archeleus was deposed in the 10th year of his reign.Even if you dispute the duration of Archeleus' reign there is no doubt that the best date for Jesus' birth based on Luke is years later than Matthew has the family return from Egypt.So no, it's not a matter of choosing a different birth date. Matthew rules out any date after the death of Herod the Great. That IS hard and fast. Your casual assumption that there could not be a problem is an example of the wrong-headed thinking on your side, which substituttes bias for a proper examination of the evidence.

Very good point.Non-believers assert the invent based on an argument from ignorance.We know there was a census because Luke records it.In fact, Luke is villified by Crossan for reporting Jesus could read as He did in Chapter 4.What is Crossan's evidence that Jesus was illiterate ?Assumption contrary to the text based on his worldview and its needs, and an assertion that the population was vast majority illiterate.Shoddy "scholarship" like this only feeds the worldview bias observation.Also, it is asserted the book of Acts was written late, if not by pseudonym in the 2nd century.We know it was written prior to 70 AD because Luke would of surely mentioned the Roman decimation of Jerusalem and the Temple.Ray Martinez