What is the biggest bible contradiction?

According to Justin Martyr, during the revolt Christians refused to fight. They were condemned to various punishments, and forced to blaspheme against Christ. Tacitus recorded the persecutions which took place at Nero's hands. I do not know enough about it to decide that it is greatly exaggerated, but I am curious now if there is any evidence you will except, or of what nature? There is a preserved conversation between Pliny (one of them) and Trajan, from 112 CE. Pliny mentions having already exterminated most of the Christians before, and that they were growing in numbers again and spreading their superstitions. He did call them Christians, and it seems that there were enough of them to cause this letter.I suppose it will be good to ask you whether you allow other Biblical texts as evidence here. I am assuming not. Yet; Where did you get this info if you do not think there was any persecution?Even if a group is sedate, it does not mean there will not be conflict. Public preaching could inflame, secret meetings could inflame, and allow plenty of opportunity for all of the joyful walking to martyrdom.

repeatEdited by anastasia, : repeat

OK, based on the last few posts, it seems that Brian and Anastasia agree that there is nothing to support the idea of Paul’s Damascus road conversion being real beyond the legendary Acts account and plain speculation. Note that even Paul himself never mentions the Damascus road conversion or any kind of a light himself, but that the anonymous author of “Luke” does so decades later. In one of the authentic letters of Paul, he does say that Jesus appeared to him, but no other details are given.I mean, based on what Paul says, Paul may only have had one of those "seeing Jesus on a tortilla" incidents, and nothing more.The immediate question was evidence of the conversion legend or of Jewish persecution of Christians in the first century.For instance, Anastasia wrote:

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There was something call the Bar Kochba, a Jewish persecution of Christians, but not until 135 CE.

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But subsequent discussion shows that Brian already knew of the Bar Kochbas, that they don’t fit, and more importantly that they are irrelevant anyway since they are second century.

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Nero is said to have persecuted Christians around 53?

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And that’s a Pagan persecuting a Christian, not a Jew persecuting a Christian. More importantly, Nero did that to use an unpopular minority group as a scapegoat - not because Nero cared what they believed. Nero probably didn’t have a clue as to the difference between, say, Christians and Buddhists, nor did he probably care. What we were looking for is any evidence that 1st century Jews persecuted Christians because they found their beliefs to be blasphemous, or that Paul's Damascus road story happened.

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and I think there is enough probable cause, according to historians, for the Romans to have fueled the fire of the Jews.

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Firstly, they were afraid of the christians talk of a 'king'.

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Second, any perceived dissension and hostility between the sects, could be, and apparently was, frowned on, with both sides being punished.

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It is possible that orthodox Jews could be enlisted to control the dissident christians, more with political goals and fear of upheaval in mind.

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All of the statements above are pure speculation, and don’t fit the Pax Romana anyway. Other aspects don’t fit the known history.

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I will say that some of what I said is indeed speculation.

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Yes. We are looking for any evidence to suppose that some of it follows logically. Remember that the Damascus story is never told to us by Paul (not even in the forged letters that use his name), but is rather a later legend.Are getting too far off topic? Or have we satisfied Neutralmind’s original request long ago anyway?Have a fun day all-Edited by Equinox, : added the tortilla.

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

All of the statements above are pure spedulation. Can you tell me more about the known history which you are aware of? I find the contrary to be true; that historians do agree on persecution, with different possible locations for the conversion, reasons for the persecution, and description of early christians. For example, there is the possibility that early christians were lumped into a pile with all messianic Jews, called 'christians' even before the followers of Jesus were. Much of history is always speculation based on the known facts. It is open to interpretation. You and Brian may speculate about the course of history based on what we know about the Pax Romana. That is what you may call logical speculation. History is not always logical.But this is not the OP, as you say. It could be something to continue elsewhere, as I am curious what would constitue admissable evidence, and what is merely 'legend'. I am sure that some things which are now contained in the Bible, were once thought of as historical documents. Sometimes it sounds like just because a document is in the Bible it is relegated to the realm of the unbelievable, while a contemporary document is considered history. If all written material of a time period is 'legend', what is left but speculation?

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Can you tell me more about the known history which you are aware of?

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OK. You mentioned:

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any perceived dissension and hostility between the sects, could be, and apparently was, frowned on, with both sides being punished.

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It is possible that orthodox Jews could be enlisted to control the dissident christians

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The Romans certainly dealt harshly with open rebellions against Rome, and punished groups who attacked another group, but can you cite something where they punished both sides? Or where Rome felt it had to get a Jew to control the Christians? In that that case, Rome certainly would be able to handle things themselves. Those are examples of what I mean by “known history”. We know how the Romans dealt with problems.

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Equinox writes:

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More importantly, Nero did that to use an unpopular minority group as a scapegoat - not because Nero cared what they believed. Nero probably didn’t have a clue as to the difference between, say, Christians and Buddhists, nor did he probably care.

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All of the statements above are pure spedulation.

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No, they aren’t, they are based on Tacitus, an ancient source from the second century. Now, Tacitus could indeed have made this up, but either way it’s not my speculation. Tacitus writes in Annals 15:

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Nero set up [i.e., falsely accused] as the culprits and punished with the utmost refinement of cruelty a class hated for their abominations, who are commonly called Christians. Nero’s scapegoats were the perfect choice because it temporarily relieved pressure of the various rumors going around Rome.

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Another reason to think that Nero didn’t care what the Christians believed is that he didn’t persecute them either before nor after the fire incident, and never wrote or said anything that we know of that indicates he knew or cared what the Christians or the Buddhists believed. It’s good to question and ask for evidence. In this case, the evidence is the writings of historians like Tacitus, Suetonius, etc.

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I find the contrary to be true; that historians do agree on persecution, with different possible locations for the conversion

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OK, if “historians” are discussing different possible locations for the conversion, then they must have some basis to think the conversion story happened. What source do they have other than Acts? I know of no other ancient source - not even Paul’s own writing, that mentions the road to Damascus conversion story. Can you provide some way historians (or even high school kids) could even begin to speculate on different possible locations for the conversion, beyond Acts? It's like discussing different possible locations where hercules solved the Gordian knot.Sure historians agree on persecution - especially in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and mostly by local mobs. Is that disputed by anyone?

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I am sure that some things which are now contained in the Bible, were once thought of as historical documents. Sometimes it sounds like just because a document is in the Bible it is relegated to the realm of the unbelievable, while a contemporary document is considered history.

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I’m sure of that too. In fact, during the dark ages and for much of western history, the Bible was considered the primary source of historical information. It’s not that being in the Bible disqualifies something as a historical source today, but that the books that we call the Bible are subject to the same analysis as any other ancient source. And vice versa: all other historical sources are subject to the same analysis and criticism that the books in the Bible are subject to.Any ancient source is to be examined for bias, compared with other information and with the laws of science, and examined critically.What may seem to some like a bias against the bible is actually just normal critical evaluation. At least one book in the Bible outright states that it’s written specifically to get you to believe, and there are tons of examples of scientific and historical errors and clear bias. That’s not to say that other sources don’t have some bias - they usually do, but the level of propaganda, miracle stories used to evangelize, historical absurdities, and other problems are rarely as high in the works of a professed historian (such as tacitus, josephus, etc) as compared to the Bible.So when they are all subject to the same requirements, the Bible often fares poorly. This poor performance is then seen by some as bias against the bible, when it is not. I’m sorry if it seems that way, it’s nothing personal.

I can deal with your conclusions here, Equinox. This for example is a fair and possible portrayal. In Brian's posts, and I may be wrong entirely, but it seems when he said this; or this; that he is denying the possibility of persecution based solely on the Pax Romana. Freedom to follow any religion also means freedom from persecution by another group, and that gives us enough room to logically speculate that Rome could punish the Jews, or, not understanding the full meaning of the religious differences, simply ask the Jewish leaders to put a stop to any uprising. All speculation aside though, there is some evidence of 'persecution' regardless of the Pax Romana. It is not necessarily persecution as we see it today....it may have been an attempt to maintain a political order; thus, Paul was taken aback at the alledged words of Jesus saying " why do you persecute me?" I think historians deal fairly with the Bible. In most cases it provides some part of their overall picture. Participants in this forum, myself included, may not be free of bias in our own interpretations of evidence. To some of us, the Bible is much more suspect historically than other documents; even considered a legend. Yes, it incorporates the beliefs of those who wrote it, as do the letters between Pliny and Trajan incorporate pagan beliefs. In spite of this, my personal bias tells me that the 'legends' have some element of fact and are a valuable insight on the past. I do not find that one need stretch the known facts so far as to rule out the possibilty of Paul's 'persecutions'.

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All speculation aside though, there is some evidence of 'persecution' regardless of the Pax Romana.

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Could be. Sounds like we largely agree, depending on relatively minor details (though I'm still not sure what non-biblical evidence of 1st century Jewish based persecution you are referring to). It seems plausible that Jews and Christians didn't get along early on (since the Jews by and large rejected the claims of the Christians). I guess calling it a "persecution" depends on which side of the conflict you are on. It may be easier to see paul's alleged persecution as something Paul did on his own, like when a lone Christian goes killing abortion doctors or bombing gay bars.That's not to confuse this mid-first century discussion with the big, real, second and third century persecutions of Christians by local (and non-jewish, gentile) mobs.And of course this has been complicated by the addition of the whole road to Damascus story. We agree that there could have been small, local conflicts between Jews and Christians in the first century. About the road to damascus story, that could well be a later legend that Paul himself would have been surprised to hear.The two questions should be kept separate.Have a fun day-Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.Edited by Equinox, : typo

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

That's fine, as I have said many times over the years I have been a member here, ALL the hypotheses and theories presented by anyone who has carried out historical research are speculative.Historical research is more or less the same as scientific research, and although both disciplines provide some extremely convincing theories, these theories are never proven. There are new discoveries appearing all the time and one may falsify a current theory, so historians should never claim that their findings are true. History is all about plausibility. Oh I know. I even disagree with some of the conclusions of my ex lecturers. If you do the research, and feel confident about your findings then it is good to discuss it with someone in the same field.What I don't like though, and I have witnessed it at 2 conferences, is when the debate gets personal, or one expert has most of the audience on their side and the other expert doesn't really have a chance to put their points across. Of course it is speculation, but it is speculation based on existing evidence. Pax Romana promoted freedom of religion, and the Romans kept order in their empire, this is why I find it highly unlikely that Paul had a hit squad operating in a Roman province. Add to this the fact that the Sanhedrin had no power in Syria, then mix in the supernatural elements of the Damascus road episode and I think it is a pretty sound conclusion that the Damascus road incident is fictional.To me the story is clearly unhistorical, it doesnt even resemble history, it smacks of fiction. What can be more convincing that a former persecutor becoming converted and turning into the most fervent follower of all? It sure reads good. Add in a little bit of 'Goddidit' and hey ho you got a strong argument for your faith.But what I was replying to was your speculative claims, which appear to be based solely on your opinion. Granted your opinion may well be based on existing evidence but you didn't say what that evidence is and I have no idea what it could be.I don't think I said that the alleged Jewish persecution of Xians by Paul was illogical due to Pax Romana, I think I said it is illogical to claim that Jews persecuted xians AND allowed them to preach in their synagogues at the same time! This doesn't sound plausible at all, if the Jews were persecuting xians, why would they allow them to use synagogues to promote xianity? Do you see my point or am I not putting it across very well? Yes, but we can't just make things up. Our speculative claims have to be based on something, we need something tangible to base our speculations on. You may well have something to base your speculations on but I haven't seen it yet. There is a possibility that the reference in Tacitus was a later addition, it isn’t universally accepted as belonging to the original work. I accept all kinds of evidence, but textual contemporary texts are probably the soundest, although these need to be checked for plausibility.However, I wouldn't accept, and NO historian really should accept, supernatural explanations for an event. Saying God interacted in some way with history is beyond the realms of historical enquiry. Well, I would not allow a biblical text to support another biblical text in a historical context, I would be different in a theological context. But I wouldn't permit text 'A' in the Bible supportiing the historicity of text 'B' which is also in the Bible.I don't doubt that the Bible does contain kernels of accurate historical information, but it a task to weed these out. This persecution was under the Romans, much later than Paul.Brian.

Alexander the Great, actually.

Nittrain wrote:

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Alexander the Great, actually.

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Yes, sorry about that, and thanks for the correction.Let me try again:"It's like discussing the different possible locations where Hercules killed the Hydra."Edited by Equinox, : typo

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

You`re welcome, Eq.

“And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter.” 1 Samuel 6:19Unless my math is a bit fuzzy again, this says 50,070 men were killed for looking into the Ark of the Covenant. Are we to conclude that each and every one of these 50,070 men looked into that box?Would you like to calculate the amount of time for 50,070 men to actually come by and look into that box? And then did God start killing them right away as they looked in or did He wait till they were all done then smote all their asses?If not, wouldn’t you think once the first “lookers” began to die that the rest would have figured it all out?

Did dinosaurs and man coexist according to the bible? If not, how was there "meat eating" before "the fall" ? Many dinosaurs have been found with creatures in their stomach and creature parts on teeth.

That sounds just too funny Maybe some creo can clear this up?

And who got the golden images of the mice and "emerods" that day? Did he get smitten too?