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Author Topic:   Scriptural evidence that Jesus is Messiah:
GDR
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Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 31 of 304 (659565)
04-16-2012 8:15 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by PaulK
04-16-2012 2:26 PM


Re: First things first.
PaulK writes:
We know about the shared sources and/or copying between the synoptic Gospels so we aren;t dealing with differing eyewitness accounts, and we should expect fewer and smaller differences. In fact we seem to have a whole different set of accidents !
Well actually it is pretty much agreed that there are shared sources with likely one of them being Mark. That does not mean that they all used the same sources all the time. Frankly if the accounts were all exactly the same then I would be suspicious as there would be probable collusion. As it is, the fact that differences exist IMHO, actually adds to their credibility. The accident is a metaphor for the resurrection and on that they all agree. It is again the details that differ.
PaulK writes:
And according to Acts 1 it seems that they had been talking to Jesus there, so it doesn't seem to be against the command they were given. Especially as Olivet is only just outside old Jerusalem (and IN modern Jerusalem). That's very different from a the journey out to Galilee, which is not even hinted at in either Luke or Acts.
I agree the accounts don’t agree, but on the assumption they got the resurrection part on which they all agree right, does it really matter that they got the sequence of events as to what happened when and where afterwards right?
PaulK writes:
Which does not change the possibility that the story as we have it is exaggerated or even complete fiction.
I would say that the fact that Matthew shows no sign that it happened at all and implies that it did not is far more significant.
I agree that there is at least one common source used for the synoptic but that doesn’t mean that all of one of the authors couldn’t have used a source that the others didn’t have. It seems to me that this event in the life of Cleopas would be something he would have told to many people many times and as a result even with an account written years later there would have been someone who could easily refute it if it was made up or exaggerated to any great degree.
PaulK writes:
Luke has them take a short trip outside the city walls, and with orders to remain in Jerusalem which would rule out much longer trips like a journey to Galilee.
Which really makes my point - the difference between you and the inerrantists is one of degree, rather than kind.
It is actually you who are siding with the inerrantists in that if the details don’t all line up then we have to discard what is the major thrust of the story. Yes, these books are written years later so some of the details will not be accurate but so what? Through all of the intervening years the story of a resurrected Jesus has been told and both within Israel and also in a much broader context. If anyone could have produced the body, if any of the disciples were to say it didn’t happen or any other way of disproving the accounts the whole movement would have died out.
PaulK writes:
It seems to me that my explanation involves no great implausibilities. You're going to have to do better than mere assertion - even Buz can manage that much.
The big implausibility is that the movement was from a start a resurrection movement. It all depended on the resurrection being an historical event. As Paul says, if it didn’t happen then what they are doing is a waste time and are in fact to be pitied. IMHO there is no plausible explanation that this counter cultural movement would have grown the way it did if your theory on the basis of your theory.
PaulK writes:
Apparently he had a vision, which was enough to convince him. He doesn't seem to know about the Go spel stories of the post-resurrection appearances, just that there were appearances which he considers on a par with his vision.
He was a contemporary and we know that he was familiar with the movement as he had been busily persecuting its followers. We also know that he had considerable contact with Peter.
PaulK writes:
If y ou have examples from less doubtful passages, then maybe you should have chosen that rather than an event only mentioned in Luke, and which Matthew implicitly denies.
I did in my first post in this thread. Message 15

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by PaulK, posted 04-16-2012 2:26 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 34 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2012 1:53 AM GDR has replied

  
Dawn Bertot
Member
Posts: 3571
Joined: 11-23-2007


Message 32 of 304 (659580)
04-17-2012 12:35 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by Dr Adequate
04-15-2012 10:44 AM


Er, according the the Gospels, the Jewish people most learned in the scriptures wanted Jesus crucified for claiming to be the Messiah. If he had been an obvious fulfillment of the Messianic prophecies, then they would have recognized him as being the Messiah.
You want an "outcry"? Here's your outcry:
Again the high priest asked him, and saith unto him, Art thou the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?
And Jesus said, I am: and ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.
And the high priest rent his clothes, and saith, What further need have we of witnesses?
Ye have heard the blasphemy: what think ye? And they all condemned him to be worthy of death.
And some began to spit on him, and to cover his face, and to buffet him, and to say unto him, Prophesy: and the officers received him with blows of their hands.
Got that? If the gospels are true, then the people who were, as you say, "closer to all the facts", did indeed take Jesus to be a "false messiah" and a "fraud".
If, on the other hand, the gospels are false ...
Now you are starting to get it. I was hoping you would cite those passages. Now without trying you have atleast established that the possibility exists that the references could apply to Jesus Christ correct.
You mean these people, "most learned in the scriptures"?
Perhaps you would care to cite the passages where Jesus said, "for which of these miracles do you stone me", to which they replied, "Not for any miracles, but that you being a mere man, make yourself equal with God"
You mean the learned leaders that asked the blind man, repeadedly who had healed him, until the man said, "I have told you and you have not believed, do you want to be his decisple also"?
Are these the guys to whom you refer?
Its a cinch Dr Adequate, that if they did not understand the nature of the coming Messiah (not a military leader), then it should not be to hard to understand they would miss any refernces to him as the messiah.
If they denied his miracles and attributed them to satanic behavior, it is a sinch they would miss the point and nature of his Messiahship
BTW, I believe the Apostles were Jews, correct? Many of the jews believed him to be the messiah during the time of Christ and long thereafter
Now all you have to do is two things. Decide if any of it is true to make an actual informed argument, as per the OP, or find someone else that fits the Old Test prophecies,, as did Christ.
Dawn Bertot
Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-15-2012 10:44 AM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Dawn Bertot
Member
Posts: 3571
Joined: 11-23-2007


Message 33 of 304 (659584)
04-17-2012 1:47 AM
Reply to: Message 21 by Modulous
04-15-2012 11:11 AM


Please provide the evidence that killing newborns was a daily act by ancient rulers. I am highly confident you are wrong.
Surely you are not suggesting that every act of violence, (in those time periods)even on a large scale has been put in writing or even worthy of mention by historians.
This was a daily, sometime hourly act by the Roman government, which gave thier male citizens the right to kill undesirable children, female children, without consideration
Not to mention human sacrifice in temples that was a routine act. Why would some edict to kill unimportant underclass citizens need to always be mentioned? This would be as common as our daily burgles (verbage if you are from England)
Need I mention the gladiator games. These are the things we are aware of, what do you think got forgotten or buried (No pun intended)
Serious, Mod, Im sure you are very intuative. Im sure you can imagine the blood letting that went on on a weekly if not daily basis, without condieration or notice, eh
If someone lies about Tony Blair I can still reasonably conclude that they are not talking about George Bush.
If you assume for the sake of argument that the OT prophet is actually prophecing, Foretelling, then would you not have to atleast entertain the idea, he may be speaking about Christ?
If for the sake of argument you grant what the scriptures contend concerning inspiration and intervention
If you dont, it seem that you have no logical way to proceed, considering the fact that it would not make difference whether he was talking about Christ or Cavediver.
IOWs, what would be your interest in knowing he was not speaking about Christ,, if the reliabilty of the OT writer is in question also?
Why would there be an outcry about a character whose life was being written decades after his death? Of course there the naysayers such as most of the Jews, who denied that he was the Messiah. But who was alive while the NT was being composed and also as a witness to the events in question, to be able to say 'That didn't happen?' and create any outcry?
Your statement assumes to much and is contradictory at best. I dont think I need to address what it assumes, concerning the dating of the Nt documents. But it is contradictory in the respect that you say, "who was alive at the time of those events in question". You are for the sake of argument assuming the events were real, then acting as if there were no people around to question it
There course of action was to stamp it out, knowing they could not contend with in any rational way
The so-called learned Leaders as Dr A describes them, surely would have made a written document in the negative concerning those matters, had they though it would have been sustainable.
Not every culture. And their floods were not all global. I don't deny that ancient cultures may have suffered from floods. I do deny that any such flood killed almost all life on earth. Even moreso than the Herod story, that would have left independent evidence lying around.
To help demonstrate my point about the necessity of involving all the scripture has to say about prophecy( Foretelling), ie the miraculous. What kind of evidence would the Burning bush left laying around?
What kind of evidence, that a man completely healed of an infirmity, that I never saw prior to being healed, leave behind?
It only appears in one source. A biased source. An anonymous source. How are we concluding it is reliable?
Why do you assume that it is biased? What has it said to make it unreliable. Has it contradicted a known historical fact?
Shouldnt we start with the premise that it could be true until it is contradicted?
That would be interesting, of course. Again, I don't think such reports would have survived the Catholic Church though. There were other Messiah contenders, of course, but if anyone bothered to write stories about them, few of them survived.
But we can demonstrate that the earliest teachings and traditions were around in the character of the early Chruch fathers, the "Catholic Church" notwithstanding
Im confident they only compilied what everyone already knew as truth, Dan Brown, notwithstanding
I dont think anyone has any real problem tracing the original teachings back to the earliest times
It's not my first inclination. My first inclination is however, skepticism. The Massacre of the Innocents is just one reason to suppose that false things were being written to shoehorn the Jesus character into a Messiah role.
Since I have already addressed that point, perhaps you could present the other False things, for our consideration to messiahship
One last point on the massacre of the innocents. You claim this is no small thing. Do you feel the same about the millions of partial birth abortions commited each year? Is this a big moral dellima for you?
Have you possibly dismissed it in the same way an event in those times by desenstized people may have demissed that event?
It hardly gets much attention other than by the religious people today. Immoral and calus people have long since dismissed it, eh. Why do you think a bunch of Romans would care what Herod was doing with dredges of his own?
Now imagine 1000 years from now. Modern day abortion will be dismissed as myth and claimed to be an invention of Christians to propogate thier morality. You do realize there are already people denying the Holocoust actually happended, correct?
Dawn Bertot
Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.
Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Modulous, posted 04-15-2012 11:11 AM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by Modulous, posted 04-17-2012 7:54 AM Dawn Bertot has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 34 of 304 (659585)
04-17-2012 1:53 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by GDR
04-16-2012 8:15 PM


Re: First things first.
quote:
Well actually it is pretty much agreed that there are shared sources with likely one of them being Mark. That does not mean that they all used the same sources all the time. Frankly if the accounts were all exactly the same then I would be suspicious as there would be probable collusion. As it is, the fact that differences exist IMHO, actually adds to their credibility. The accident is a metaphor for the resurrection and on that they all agree. It is again the details that differ.
Of course copying is pretty much equivalent to collusion, and the individual events are pretty much equivalent to an accident. So what you are saying is that the Gospels are far less reliable than eye-witness accounts of an accident, and even the similarities may be due only to copying.
quote:
I agree the accounts don’t agree, but on the assumption they got the resurrection part on which they all agree right, does it really matter that they got the sequence of events as to what happened when and where afterwards right?
It isn't the "sequence of events" it is the events themselves. And yes, if you are going to quote details of the events as evidence of what Jesus actually believed about himself it does matter if your sources are horribly unreliable.
quote:
I agree that there is at least one common source used for the synoptic but that doesn’t mean that all of one of the authors couldn’t have used a source that the others didn’t have. It seems to me that this event in the life of Cleopas would be something he would have told to many people many times and as a result even with an account written years later there would have been someone who could easily refute it if it was made up or exaggerated to any great degree.
However, we find that Matthew has a completely different story from Luke, so different that one must be badly wrong. This cannot be explained simply be different but accurate sources.
quote:
It is actually you who are siding with the inerrantists in that if the details don’t all line up then we have to discard what is the major thrust of the story.
Of course that isn't true. The inerrantists only say that to insist on the inerrancy doctrine - the vast majority are like you - they make up excuses to sweep the errors under the carpet. I am not proposing that a slight error makes the whole thing unreliable - indeed I am not saying that they are more unreliable than you are ! But given unreliable sources I take the best explanation of that unreliability (exaggeration really is to be expected - and the differences are so pervasive that the original story must be lost) and conclude that mundane explanations for the "appearances" are all that is required to account for the evidence. Unlike you and the inerrantists this is a rational approach to the evidence rather than one motivated by faith.
quote:
Through all of the intervening years the story of a resurrected Jesus has been told and both within Israel and also in a much broader context. If anyone could have produced the body, if any of the disciples were to say it didn’t happen or any other way of disproving the accounts the whole movement would have died out.
My only disagreement is that I am not convinced that producing a body (which was likely impossible by the time it mattered) may not have been near enough. My point is that the actual evidence can easily be explained without invoking the supernatural, so while the disciples may well have believed in some form of resurrection we cannot rationally conclude that the resurrection actually did occur.
quote:
The big implausibility is that the movement was from a start a resurrection movement. It all depended on the resurrection being an historical event.
Obviously a strong BELIEF in a resurrection is sufficient. Just as a strong BELIEF in Joseph Smith's Golden Plates and his miraculous "translation" was sufficient for the Mormons. Even though it was quite clearly a fraud. And I am not even alleging fraud on the part of the disciples - just a misinterpretation of natural events based on faith hope and a good dash of cognitive dissonance.
If it had depended on the Gospel stories then we would find those stories earlier - or at least evidence of them - and we wouldn't see the major discrepancies between Luke and Matthew.
quote:
Yes, these books are written years later so some of the details will not be accurate but so what?
By some of the "details" you mean events like the whole Road to Emmaus story and Pentecost...
quote:
IMHO there is no plausible explanation that this counter cultural movement would have grown the way it did if your theory on the basis of your theory.
Perhaps you would like to back our opinion with evidence. You SAY that the history is important but then you ALSO say that pretty much all of it is unimportant details that are bound to be wrong anyway. So it seems that the parts we are discussing CAN'T be the basis of the belief, and can't even be important to the belief in the resurrection.
quote:
He was a contemporary and we know that he was familiar with the movement as he had been busily persecuting its followers. We also know that he had considerable contact with Peter.
So therefore the fact that he shows no knowledge of the Empty Tomb, or the details of the post-resurrection appearances is pretty good evidence that none of them were that important at the time of his conversion...
quote:
I did in my first post in this thread. Message 15

And the first of your additional quotes is attributed to John, not Jesus... Which leaves only one quote. Form a source you regard as horribly unreliable. That's not very good evidence, is it ?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by GDR, posted 04-16-2012 8:15 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 36 by GDR, posted 04-17-2012 6:08 PM PaulK has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(2)
Message 35 of 304 (659592)
04-17-2012 7:54 AM
Reply to: Message 33 by Dawn Bertot
04-17-2012 1:47 AM


Surely you are not suggesting that every act of violence, (in those time periods)even on a large scale has been put in writing or even worthy of mention by historians.
I was asking for evidence, independent of the single biased anonymous account we have, that confirms that Herod ordered systematic infanticide. That is the kind of thing historians would mention. They mention much less interesting facts about Herod that the Massacre of the Innocents.
This was a daily, sometime hourly act by the Roman government, which gave thier male citizens the right to kill undesirable children, female children, without consideration
Evidence that the Massacre of the Innocents was a daily or hourly act of the Roman Government, please.
If it did happen all the time, why did Matthew bother mentioning it? And how does something that occurs hourly really qualify as a fulfilled prophecy?
Serious, Mod, Im sure you are very intuative. Im sure you can imagine the blood letting that went on on a weekly if not daily basis, without condieration or notice, eh
But killing all the firstborn children under your power is not common daily violence is it? Its a systematic extermination. Josephus wasn't a big fan of Herod if memory serves. He mentioned several moral crimes that Herod committed. He neglected to mention murdering hundreds to thousands of babies.
If you assume for the sake of argument that the OT prophet is actually prophecing, Foretelling, then would you not have to atleast entertain the idea, he may be speaking about Christ?
Of course! That's what this thread is here to explore! In fact, it is my position that several passages in the OT are in fact talking about the messiah. I don't think these passages connect well with Jesus though.
If you dont, it seem that you have no logical way to proceed, considering the fact that it would not make difference whether he was talking about Christ or Cavediver.
I can study the Three Witches prophecy in Macbeth without the need to believe the Witches were inspired by Hecate...in reality.
You are for the sake of argument assuming the events were real, then acting as if there were no people around to question it
I am saying that Matthew was written as best as we can tell at a time when few to zero contemporaries with Jesus were around.
The so-called learned Leaders as Dr A describes them, surely would have made a written document in the negative concerning those matters, had they though it would have been sustainable.
I'm sure that as soon as most of the Jews heard about the Jesus story, whenever that was, they rejected it as untrue.
To help demonstrate my point about the necessity of involving all the scripture has to say about prophecy( Foretelling), ie the miraculous. What kind of evidence would the Burning bush left laying around?
What kind of evidence, that a man completely healed of an infirmity, that I never saw prior to being healed, leave behind?
I'm not proposing one provides evidence for any Biblical miracles. I was asking for evidence of a mundane event that would have left evidence behind: The Massacre of the Innocents.
Why do you assume that it is biased?
The book of Matthew clearly has the agenda of trying to convince the readers that Jesus was the Messiah prophecied by the Jews. It is biased to that end.
hat has it said to make it unreliable.
I've already mentioned the Massacre of the Innocents a few times.
Shouldnt we start with the premise that it could be true until it is contradicted?
We certainly shouldn't assume it is false from the outset. The premise 'it could be true' is too vague to work from, I feel. 'It might be false' is a useful thing to keep in mind, if we're interested in being open minded about things.
But we can demonstrate that the earliest teachings and traditions were around in the character of the early Chruch fathers, the "Catholic Church" notwithstanding
The early churches had many more Gospels than we have now. They were quite different than any church we have now. A lot of those works have since been destroyed. I see no reason to suppose that texts detailing Messiahs other than Jesus would have met a different fate.
One last point on the massacre of the innocents. You claim this is no small thing. Do you feel the same about the millions of partial birth abortions commited each year? Is this a big moral dellima for you?
I wasn't making a moral point. The only point of interest here is that those abortions are often documented by sources whose only detectable agenda is to document abortions. The Massacre of Innocents was only documented by one source who clearly had an agenda above and beyond recording historical facts.
It hardly gets much attention other than by the religious people today. Immoral and calus people have long since dismissed it, eh. Why do you think a bunch of Romans would care what Herod was doing with dredges of his own?
Romans were not the only people capable of writing about the Massacre of the Innocents. Josephus wrote about Herod. Did he mention Herod's massacre? If not, can you think of a good reason why he didn't?
Now imagine 1000 years from now. Modern day abortion will be dismissed as myth and claimed to be an invention of Christians to propogate thier morality.
I doubt that.
You do realize there are already people denying the Holocoust actually happended, correct?
And the Holocaust is well documented. And even some Jews have talked about it, I hear. Unlike the Massacre of the Innocents which didn't seem to move them.
Since I have already addressed that point, perhaps you could present the other False things, for our consideration to messiahship
If you have any other prophecies you'd like to discuss then present them. Do you have any scriptural evidence that Jesus fulfilled the requirements of being considered a messiah?
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 33 by Dawn Bertot, posted 04-17-2012 1:47 AM Dawn Bertot has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 39 by Dawn Bertot, posted 04-17-2012 11:48 PM Modulous has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 36 of 304 (659642)
04-17-2012 6:08 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by PaulK
04-17-2012 1:53 AM


Re: First things first.
PaulK writes:
Of course copying is pretty much equivalent to collusion, and the individual events are pretty much equivalent to an accident. So what you are saying is that the Gospels are far less reliable than eye-witness accounts of an accident, and even the similarities may be due only to copying.
I hardly said that.
PaulK writes:
It isn't the "sequence of events" it is the events themselves. And yes, if you are going to quote details of the events as evidence of what Jesus actually believed about himself it does matter if your sources are horribly unreliable.
I don't agree that they are horribly unreliable. I agree that the sequence of events and in a couple of occasions the location of events appear to be in disagreement, but the points that are fundamental to message of and for the early Christian movement are consistent.
PaulK writes:
However, we find that Matthew has a completely different story from Luke, so different that one must be badly wrong. This cannot be explained simply be different but accurate sources.
Actually a case can be made for the different accounts to be events that happened at different times in that 40 day span of time. Frankly, I'm not concerned one way or the other. If these stories were all the figment of someone's fertile imagination, it would not only involve a fairly large number of people to be involved in the conspiracy, but it would also require someone as well educated and bright as Paul to be gullible enough to buy the whole thing. It would also require everyone ignoring all those who would have been able to give credible evidence to refute the assertions made, if not in the Gospels but in the Gospel sources.
I would also add that there is no discernible motivation for them to do this in the first place. Your take on this is similar to the 9/11 conspirators today. Things don’t line up perfectly so the suggestion is that there was a conspiracy but it requires a conspiracy involving a large number of people with no particular motive.
PaulK writes:
Obviously a strong BELIEF in a resurrection is sufficient. Just as a strong BELIEF in Joseph Smith's Golden Plates and his miraculous "translation" was sufficient for the Mormons. Even though it was quite clearly a fraud. And I am not even alleging fraud on the part of the disciples - just a misinterpretation of natural events based on faith hope and a good dash of cognitive dissonance.
Here is a quote from 2 Maccabees.
quote:
[1]It happened also that seven brothers and their mother were arrested and were being compelled by the king, under torture with whips and cords, to partake of unlawful swine's flesh.
[2] One of them, acting as their spokesman, said, "What do you intend to ask and learn from us? For we are ready to die rather than transgress the laws of our fathers."
[3]The king fell into a rage, and gave orders that pans and caldrons be heated.
[4] These were heated immediately, and he commanded that the tongue of their spokesman be cut out and that they scalp him and cut off his hands and feet, while the rest of the brothers and the mother
looked on.
[5] When he was utterly helpless, the king ordered them to take him to the fire, still breathing, and to fry him in a pan. The smoke from the pan spread widely, but the brothers and their mother encouraged one another to die nobly, saying,
[6] "The Lord God is watching over us and in truth has compassion on us, as Moses declared in his song which bore witness against the people to their faces, when he said, `And he will have compassion on his servants.'"
[7]After the first brother had died in this way, they brought forward the second for their sport. They tore off the skin of his head with the hair, and asked him, "Will you eat rather than have your body punished limb by limb?"
[8] He replied in the language of his fathers, and said to them, "No." Therefore he in turn underwent tortures as the first brother had done.
[9] And when he was at his last breath, he said, "You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws."
[10]After him, the third was the victim of their sport. When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands,
[11] and said nobly, "I got these from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again."
[12] As a result the king himself and those with him were astonished at the young man's spirit, for he regarded his sufferings as nothing.
[13]When he too had died, they maltreated and tortured the fourth in the same way.
[14] And when he was near death, he said, "One cannot but choose to die at the hands of men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by him. But for you there will be no resurrection to life!"
[15]Next they brought forward the fifth and maltreated him.
[16] But he looked at the king, and said, "Because you have authority among men, mortal though you are, you do what you please. But do not think that God has forsaken our people.
[17] Keep on, and see how his mighty power will torture you and your descendants!"
[18]After him they brought forward the sixth. And when he was about to die, he said, "Do not deceive yourself in vain. For we are suffering these things on our own account, because of our sins against our own God. Therefore astounding things have happened.
[19] But do not think that you will go unpunished for having tried to fight against God!"
[20]The mother was especially admirable and worthy of honorable memory. Though she saw her seven sons perish within a single day, she bore it with good courage because of her hope in the Lord.
[21] She encouraged each of them in the language of their fathers. Filled with a noble spirit, she fired her woman's reasoning with a man's courage, and said to them,
[22] "I do not know how you came into being in my womb. It was not I who gave you life and breath, nor I who set in order the elements within each of you.
[23] Therefore the Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of man and devised the origin of all things, will in his mercy give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws."
As you can see in vs 14 they believed that they would be resurrected by the Father. The Maccabees had triumphed militarily over their enemies, they had ruled for decades and they had died heroically. The movement faded and died with their deaths. No one went around saying that they had seen and physically touched the brothers afterwards. From a human standpoint this has to be the logical place for a resurrection movement. It didn’t happen.
Instead we have a quiet movement that was not revolutionary in the historical sense, whose followers were not members of the established elite and who went quietly to the cross without establishing an army let alone winning any battles. Yet, what happened afterwards has been the root of the largest religion in the world, as far from perfect as it is.
Yes there are differences in the accounts, but they are differences that don’t alter the fundamental belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus by His followers.
PaulK writes:
So therefore the fact that he shows no knowledge of the Empty Tomb, or the details of the post-resurrection appearances is pretty good evidence that none of them were that important at the time of his conversion...
You come to that conclusion just because he didn’t specifically write about them. These beliefs were fundamental to the Christian church. They would be a given and certainly Paul would have seen and been aware of the early beliefs in this regard. He disagrees with Peter on how Gentile converts should be dealt with, and if he had any disagreements with Peter on the empty tomb and post-resurrection appearances I can’t see it not showing up in his writing. He obviously had to be in agreement with Peter’s testimony.
The early Christian movement was a Kingdom of God movement based on the evidence that Jesus had been endorsed by the Father in His resurrection. The rapid rise of the movement is hardly likely to happen if it had been based on a lie. The first disciples plainly believed and there just as plainly we can see that there was not enough if any contrary information to shake those beliefs.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 34 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2012 1:53 AM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 37 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2012 6:46 PM GDR has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 37 of 304 (659648)
04-17-2012 6:46 PM
Reply to: Message 36 by GDR
04-17-2012 6:08 PM


Re: First things first.
quote:
I hardly said that.
When it is clear that the differences are greater than between eye-witness accounts of an accident, and that we are dealing with written accounts based on common sources - sections of which are largely copied into the text - I don't see what other conclusion can come to
quote:
I don't agree that they are horribly unreliable. I agree that the sequence of events and in a couple of occasions the location of events appear to be in disagreement, but the points that are fundamental to message of and for the early Christian movement are consistent.
We don't have the same events in a different sequence, we have different events.
quote:
Actually a case can be made for the different accounts to be events that happened at different times in that 40 day span of time.
Which requires a horrid mix of assuming unreliability to support an assumption of reliability.... It's apologetics, not rational evaluation of the evidence.
quote:
f these stories were all the figment of someone's fertile imagination, it would not only involve a fairly large number of people to be involved in the conspiracy, but it would also require someone as well educated and bright as Paul to be gullible enough to buy the whole thing. It would also require everyone ignoring all those who would have been able to give credible evidence to refute the assertions made, if not in the Gospels but in the Gospel sources.
Except that no conspiracy is require. And the differences between the Gospels already tell us that there any refutations WERE ignored.
quote:
I would also add that there is no discernible motivation for them to do this in the first place. Your take on this is similar to the 9/11 conspirators today. Things don’t line up perfectly so the suggestion is that there was a conspiracy but it requires a conspiracy involving a large number of people with no particular motive.
I'm not proposing any conspiracy at all. This is just a nonsensical strawman. The differences between the Gospels exist. I propose that the differences are the product of differing narrative tendencies developing over time. You might as well say that urban legends require a conspiracy to explain.
quote:
As you can see in vs 14 they believed that they would be resurrected by the Father. The Maccabees had triumphed militarily over their enemies, they had ruled for decades and they had died heroically. The movement faded and died with their deaths. No one went around saying that they had seen and physically touched the brothers afterwards. From a human standpoint this has to be the logical place for a resurrection movement. It didn’t happen.
But that is not true. You need to look not at the beliefs of those who died, but the beliefs of those who follow them. How they dealt with the deaths. You haven't even begun to make a case.
quote:
Instead we have a quiet movement that was not revolutionary in the historical sense, whose followers were not members of the established elite and who went quietly to the cross without establishing an army let alone winning any battles. Yet, what happened afterwards has been the root of the largest religion in the world, as far from perfect as it is.
And maybe that is because the Maccabees were a military movement while the early Christian were less so - although the Gospels are a little ambiguous on the exact views. And the later success of Christianity is surely due to its establishment as a gentile religion, and moving away from it's Jewish roots, to the point where it would probably be unrecognisable to the Disciples.
quote:
You come to that conclusion just because he didn’t specifically write about them.
Obviously I come to the conclusion that Paul showed no knowledge of them because he showed no knowledge of them...
quote:
These beliefs were fundamental to the Christian church.
With the exception of the Empty Tomb they don't seem to be fundamental even at the time of the Gospels, let alone Paul's time....
quote:
They would be a given and certainly Paul would have seen and been aware of the early beliefs in this regard. He disagrees with Peter on how Gentile converts should be dealt with, and if he had any disagreements with Peter on the empty tomb and post-resurrection appearances I can’t see it not showing up in his writing. He obviously had to be in agreement with Peter’s testimony.
Of course we don't know what Peter believed, so your entire argument begs the question. The Empty Tomb story doesn't show up before Mark, generally agreed to have been written after Peter's death. So we have no idea what Peter's view on that matter was at all.
quote:
The early Christian movement was a Kingdom of God movement based on the evidence that Jesus had been endorsed by the Father in His resurrection. The rapid rise of the movement is hardly likely to happen if it had been based on a lie. The first disciples plainly believed and there just as plainly we can see that there was not enough if any contrary information to shake those beliefs.
All of which is entirely consistent with my views....

This message is a reply to:
 Message 36 by GDR, posted 04-17-2012 6:08 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 38 by jar, posted 04-17-2012 6:56 PM PaulK has not replied
 Message 41 by GDR, posted 04-18-2012 1:42 PM PaulK has replied

  
jar
Member (Idle past 394 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004


Message 38 of 304 (659649)
04-17-2012 6:56 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by PaulK
04-17-2012 6:46 PM


Re: First things first.
GDR posting to PaulK writes:
Instead we have a quiet movement that was not revolutionary in the historical sense, whose followers were not members of the established elite and who went quietly to the cross without establishing an army let alone winning any battles. Yet, what happened afterwards has been the root of the largest religion in the world, as far from perfect as it is.
I would say that the Gospels had very little to do with Christianity growing as it did, rather being adopted as the State religion of the biggest, baddest super power of the period, and then being adopted by the succession of super powers as their State religion was the greatest factor in that growth.
There is much to be said about the influence of wealth and power when it comes to spreading a culture.

Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2012 6:46 PM PaulK has not replied

  
Dawn Bertot
Member
Posts: 3571
Joined: 11-23-2007


Message 39 of 304 (659671)
04-17-2012 11:48 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Modulous
04-17-2012 7:54 AM


1 recipientsCC: recipientsYou More
BCC: recipientsYou Show Details FROM:Charles Blakley TO:resolve8538@yahoo.com Message flagged Tuesday, April 17, 2012 10:33 PM
I was asking for evidence, independent of the single biased anonymous account we have, that confirms that Herod ordered systematic infanticide. That is the kind of thing historians would mention. They mention much less interesting facts about Herod that the Massacre of the Innocents.
@
Correct. such information would corroborate a single event. However, you are still missing the main point. Unless there is reason to believe matthew is unreliable, there is no reason to assume he is, correct. For example, again if you could point to someother fact which we know for certain he got wrong, then you would be on the right path
@
Evidence that the Massacre of the Innocents was a daily or hourly act of the Roman Government, please.
@
My previous illustration and known fact that Roman right by the father to indiscrimatley discard and terminate a female childs life and any childs life is sufficient to demonstrate my point. I also think you are feeling the weight of that argument and illustration, so you are evading by focusing in on the words hourly and daily. You know I meant these as a hyperboly
@
If it did happen all the time, why did Matthew bother mentioning it? And how does something that occurs hourly really qualify as a fulfilled prophecy?
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Your kidding of course. He mentions it because it was prophetic of the death of Christ and because it was a big part of a real time story that unfolded that showed how the enemies of Christ did not want another king besides themself. Besides this I believe Herod was alittle paranoid and bonkers, corect?
@
But killing all the firstborn children under your power is not common daily violence is it? Its a systematic extermination. Josephus wasn't a big fan of Herod if memory serves. He mentioned several moral crimes that Herod committed. He neglected to mention murdering hundreds to thousands of babies.
@
Im sure he neglected or grew weary of mentioning anything about Heord after a while. So let me get this straight , when Josephus mentions, Jesus, James and John the Baptist you say its an interpolation. But when Josephus doesnt mention a single event, your dissatisfied?
@
Here is another point. Who started the fires that burnt Rome? Was it Nero or was it the Christians that wanted to see the end of the world
@
Are you sure you would believe it had he mentioned it? Or would you be on the other side of the coin?
@
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There is no reason to believe Matthews account is unreliable, or biased. especially if it was divinely inspired. Its only biased to believe it is, for no good reason
@
Of course! That's what this thread is here to explore! In fact, it is my position that several passages in the OT are in fact talking about the messiah. I don't think these passages connect well with Jesus though.
@
If only the Old testament writer knew what the intentions and purposes of his said Messiah were to be, does it matter, that it is talking about A messiah at all. IOWs of what value is your belief that he talking about a messiah, if you dont allow or involve intervention. Without inspiration and divine understanding, would I be wrong in assuming you could be incorrect, that it is not refering to Jesus Christ
@
Since the evidence is stacked in favor of Jesus as indicated by the passages provided by the Old Test authors and the NT writers, yet you still firmly believe its not refering to jesus, perhaps you could provide an alternative that makes as much sense.
@
At bare minimum, we Christians are in good company and are without fear of contradiction, if we select Jesus, seeing that nothing of any value can be offered contrary wise, correct?
@
I can study the Three Witches prophecy in Macbeth without the need to believe the Witches were inspired by Hecate...in reality.
@
Hows that going for you intellectually and spiritually?
@
I am saying that Matthew was written as best as we can tell at a time when few to zero contemporaries with Jesus were around.
@
Why do you assume Matthew was not his contemporary? Is there any reason I should not believe Matthews account, contrary wise , that is
@
@
@
@
I'm not proposing one provides evidence for any Biblical miracles. I was asking for evidence of a mundane event that would have left evidence behind: The Massacre of the Innocents.
@
Your estimations of what the value of human life was back then are fanciful and misplaced at best. The Jews, especially children and women (hotties or not) were nothing more than cattle, even in Jewish society
@
Unlike us, thier women didnt rule thier lives and suck the life blood right out of us. Wait a minute did I think that or type it, Dohhh
@
@
The book of Matthew clearly has the agenda of trying to convince the readers that Jesus was the Messiah prophecied by the Jews. It is biased to that end.
@
Well that is something I guess. So its not actually biased the way an artical would be falsified, its only biased from your perspective?
@
@
@
The early churches had many more Gospels than we have now. They were quite different than any church we have now. A lot of those works have since been destroyed. I see no reason to suppose that texts detailing Messiahs other than Jesus would have met a different fate.
@
Why would you assume that the early Church had many more Gospels than we have now? If they were destroyed how would you know thier amounts and what they contained? Or how would you know the earliest disciples had a conspiracy a foot?
@
If your indirect implication is that these Gospels should be considered of real value in comparison with what has been handed down, then I would ask you to follow your own rule of evidence and provide that evidence. Surely you would not require me to follow your rules, but then you are excluded from the same scrutiny, concerning your assertions
@
I wasn't making a moral point. The only point of interest here is that those abortions are often documented by sources whose only detectable agenda is to document abortions. The Massacre of Innocents was only documented by one source who clearly had an agenda above and beyond recording historical facts.
@
Right those Abortions are common knowledge of routine and common events presently. Because it is becoming routine, like the taking of life in those days. 1000 years from now they will be of no significance to anyone.
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Your estimation that every notorious and significant event that took place, should be recorded, is more of an observation, than an actual argument against believing Matthew.
@
Wasnt it the practice of most regimes to exclude less than desirible events, than to include them?
@
@
Romans were not the only people capable of writing about the Massacre of the Innocents. Josephus wrote about Herod. Did he mention Herod's massacre? If not, can you think of a good reason why he didn't?
@
Yes. As Ive already indicated human life was of no value. This is indicated by his actions in the first place. It could have been a thing in a list of things that he had did. It seems he wanted it done in the simplest and quietest way, possible, so it was never known that it was him that ordered it in the first place.
@
As I pointed our previously, your observation could be vilafied, were we able to demonstrate that matthew was incorrect in some known fact, like peoples, places, kings or other archeological point.
bertot writes
Mod writes
I doubt that.
@
Why?
@
And the Holocaust is well documented. And even some Jews have talked about it, I hear. Unlike the Massacre of the Innocents which didn't seem to move them.
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If you have any other prophecies you'd like to discuss then present them. Do you have any scriptural evidence that Jesus fulfilled the requirements of being considered a messiah?
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Why yes. all of them. Since it is obvious that the NT is correct in presenting him as the fulfillment, I see no reason why I should disagree, correct? If you have a disagreement as to why the writer is correct, I would ask you to present each one individually and I will be happy to address it
@
Its not me that is in disagreement, I believe it is you correct. You stated earlier that the Gospel writers presented other lies concerning Jesus, Im still waiting for them
@
Dawn Bertot

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Modulous, posted 04-17-2012 7:54 AM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 40 by Modulous, posted 04-18-2012 7:50 AM Dawn Bertot has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 40 of 304 (659700)
04-18-2012 7:50 AM
Reply to: Message 39 by Dawn Bertot
04-17-2012 11:48 PM


Correct. such information would corroborate a single event. However, you are still missing the main point. Unless there is reason to believe matthew is unreliable, there is no reason to assume he is, correct. For example, again if you could point to someother fact which we know for certain he got wrong, then you would be on the right path
I don’t think the onus should be on me to disprove the reliability of Matthew, it should be up to you to prove its reliability.
But sure, I’ll play along. What about the ‘tradition’ of releasing a prisoner of the crowd’s choice? There’s no evidence that such a tradition actually existed outside of the Gospels.
Your kidding of course.
No, I’m being perfectly serious. It’s hardly the fulfilment of prophecy worthy of note if every birth was heralded with infanticide, as you are more or less claiming.
I claim that Matthew believes that Massacre of the Innocents was an almost unique event that heralded the coming of Christ, drawing a paralell with Pharoah and Moses
Im sure he neglected or grew weary of mentioning anything about Heord after a while.
This is of course, an excuse. And a particularly stupid one. Josephus was a writer. He wrote a lot of things about a lot of people. But you are trying to have me believe he grew so weary of discussing Herod he couldn’t be bothered to mention one of the most astounding ‘facts’ about his life.
So let me get this straight , when Josephus mentions, Jesus, James and John the Baptist you say its an interpolation. But when Josephus doesnt mention a single event, your dissatisfied?
When Josephus does not mention an event he would have known about, that was very very noteworthy and regarding a subject he did write aboutthat’s unusual. Coupled with the information that No other human being bothered to record it until decades afterwards when someone that may well have not even been local and certainly wasn’t a witness.
There is no reason to believe Matthews account is unreliable, or biased. especially if it was divinely inspired. Its only biased to believe it is, for no good reason
I have good reason: Matthew is clearly biased towards the position that Jesus is a Messiah who worked miracles and he is clearly biased towards trying to persuade his readers to that. There is no better indication of bias as when the author wears the bias on his sleeve like Matthew does.
If only the Old testament writer knew what the intentions and purposes of his said Messiah were to be, does it matter, that it is talking about A messiah at all.
It really only matters in so far as we want to know if Jesus meets the OT requirements.
IOWs of what value is your belief that he talking about a messiah, if you dont allow or involve intervention. Without inspiration and divine understanding, would I be wrong in assuming you could be incorrect, that it is not refering to Jesus Christ
I’m going to have to ask you to reword this.
Since the evidence is stacked in favor of Jesus as indicated by the passages provided by the Old Test authors and the NT writers, yet you still firmly believe its not refering to jesus, perhaps you could provide an alternative that makes as much sense.
Sure: Some people believed Jesus was the Messiah. Some authors therefore attempted to persuade people that Jesus was the Messiah by attempting to show how Jesus’ life events were fulfilment of prophecy. They found a prophecy and tried to create something that was as close to a fulfilment as they could get away with.
I can study the Three Witches prophecy in Macbeth without the need to believe the Witches were inspired by Hecate...in reality.
Hows that going for you intellectually and spiritually?
Consistent and illuminating.
Why do you assume Matthew was not his contemporary? Is there any reason I should not believe Matthews account, contrary wise , that is
Why should we assume that an author of book, the earliest manuscript of which we have is much later than the events described, is contemporary?
If you want to discuss dating of Matthew that might be a thread in its own right.
Your estimations of what the value of human life was back then are fanciful and misplaced at best. The Jews, especially children and women (hotties or not) were nothing more than cattle, even in Jewish society
If life was cheap and the Massacre was a commonplace occurrence why did Matthew mention the Massacre of the Innocents. Why did Mark not? You have not provided any evidence that the Massacre of the Innocents was so common so as to be unnoteworthy to every human being that lived at the time, other than one person for whom the Massacre suited his agenda some decades later.
Well that is something I guess. So its not actually biased the way an artical would be falsified, its only biased from your perspective?
What? Just because something is biased, that doesn’t mean it is false. It just means we shouldn't take the document as...gospel.
Why would you assume that the early Church had many more Gospels than we have now? If they were destroyed how would you know thier amounts and what they contained? Or how would you know the earliest disciples had a conspiracy a foot?
I've not said the earliest disciples had a conspiracy afoot. What I am saying is that we know that other Gospels were written because early authors quoted from them, referred to them etc. We have other clues such as the existence of the Gospel of Thomas.
If your indirect implication is that these Gospels should be considered of real value in comparison with what has been handed down, then I would ask you to follow your own rule of evidence and provide that evidence.
No that was not my indirect implication. My direct explicit statement was that the Church destroyed documents that contradicted their view, that would include rival gospels and documents pertaining to rival messiahs.
Right those Abortions are common knowledge of routine and common events presently. Because it is becoming routine, like the taking of life in those days. 1000 years from now they will be of no significance to anyone.
This doesn't address the argument at all. My argument was that AT THE TIME the Massacre of the Innocents was unreported. You say it is because it is routine and common, and you cite abortions which are also routine and common. The problem is that abortions are both routine and documented by contemporary sources. The Massacre of Innocents was neither routine nor documented by contemporary sources.
So your analogy with abortion works against you, it does not support your position at all. I suggest dropping it.
Your estimation that every notorious and significant event that took place, should be recorded, is more of an observation, than an actual argument against believing Matthew.
My argument is that people such as Josephus were motivated and able to write about the Massacre of the Innocents. They managed to record minor details about these people and it is extremely odd that they didn't mention something as noteworthy as the Massacre of the Innocents. You have provided me with no reason to suppose that Massacre of the Innocents occurred so regularly that nobody literate cared about any of the times it happened. Except one anonymous author. Writing some time divorced from one of the supposed events. Who seems to imply that the Massacre of the Innocents was a noteworthy event.
Wasnt it the practice of most regimes to exclude less than desirible events, than to include them?
So Herod suppressed Josephus but not the gospels? Is that your claim?
Yes. As Ive already indicated human life was of no value.
Can you provide any evidence that life was so valueless that nobody gave a fuck when a king went about killing all the young males of his subjects?
Don't worry, I know the answer ahead of time.
I doubt that.
Why?
Because you gave no reason to suppose it was true.
If you have any other prophecies you'd like to discuss then present them.
Why yes. all of them.
Sorry, that wasn't vague enough. Could you be less specific?
If you have a disagreement as to why the writer is correct, I would ask you to present each one individually and I will be happy to address it
I'll get round to disagreeing when you present something for me to disagree with.
You stated earlier that the Gospel writers presented other lies concerning Jesus, Im still waiting for them
Did I? I might have implied it. You present something that you think is not a lie, and I'll tell you if I think its a lie or could be a lie.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by Dawn Bertot, posted 04-17-2012 11:48 PM Dawn Bertot has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 45 by Dawn Bertot, posted 04-20-2012 1:03 AM Modulous has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 41 of 304 (659756)
04-18-2012 1:42 PM
Reply to: Message 37 by PaulK
04-17-2012 6:46 PM


Re: First things first.
PaulK writes:
I'm not proposing any conspiracy at all. This is just a nonsensical strawman. The differences between the Gospels exist. I propose that the differences are the product of differing narrative tendencies developing over time. You might as well say that urban legends require a conspiracy to explain.
Sure, but again we can look at the conspiracy theories around 9/11. They have developed over time but they all agree that 9/11 happened. Yes the details of what happened between the Easter and the day of the Ascension differ, but they all agree that Jesus appeared a resurrected body. They tell different stories by different authors, even though some of it is probably drawn from common sources.
I don't disagree that the narratives developed somewhat over time but that isn’t the point. It was the resurrection that was the catalyst around which the narratives were constructed.
PaulK writes:
And maybe that is because the Maccabees were a military movement while the early Christian were less so - although the Gospels are a little ambiguous on the exact views. And the later success of Christianity is surely due to its establishment as a gentile religion, and moving away from it's Jewish roots, to the point where it would probably be unrecognisable to the Disciples.
That’s my point. The Maccabees actually accomplished a great deal of what a Jews of that era expected of a Jewish messiah, but when they died while claiming that they would be resurrected their movement ended as did the movements of all of the other messianic claimants.
As for the movement being spread to gentiles we have to ask ourselves why gentiles would all of a sudden start worshipping a Jewish messiah, based on some outlandish story as told by Paul. There would have to be substantial verification of what happened for anyone to accept the resurrection as historical.
PaulK writes:
Obviously I come to the conclusion that Paul showed no knowledge of them because he showed no knowledge of them...
Paul may not have written about the details of the resurrection other than of his own experience by so what? The empty tomb is part of the resurrection story. This is from 1 Corinthians 15.
quote:
Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. 3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
PaulK writes:
Of course we don't know what Peter believed, so your entire argument begs the question. The Empty Tomb story doesn't show up before Mark, generally agreed to have been written after Peter's death. So we have no idea what Peter's view on that matter was at all.
Matthew tells the story of the empty tomb and tells us that Peter went there. The gospel tells us that he wondered what had happened. Afterwards Peter preaches a resurrected Jesus. I think it is pretty safe to assume that Peter at that point had figured it out.
GDR writes:
The early Christian movement was a Kingdom of God movement based on the evidence that Jesus had been endorsed by the Father in His resurrection. The rapid rise of the movement is hardly likely to happen if it had been based on a lie. The first disciples plainly believed and there just as plainly we can see that there was not enough if any contrary information to shake those beliefs.
PaulK writes:
All of which is entirely consistent with my views....
Then we are in agreement. Welcome to the fold brother.....

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 37 by PaulK, posted 04-17-2012 6:46 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 42 by PaulK, posted 04-18-2012 2:46 PM GDR has replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 42 of 304 (659768)
04-18-2012 2:46 PM
Reply to: Message 41 by GDR
04-18-2012 1:42 PM


Re: First things first.
quote:
Sure, but again we can look at the conspiracy theories around 9/11. They have developed over time but they all agree that 9/11 happened. Yes the details of what happened between the Easter and the day of the Ascension differ, but they all agree that Jesus appeared a resurrected body. They tell different stories by different authors, even though some of it is probably drawn from common sources.
If you want to compare the Gospel stories to conspiracy theories, be my guest. Although saying that only the details differ is considerably understating the matter. But OK, say that there is agreement among Christians on this point by 70AD (which is the most that that evidence can get you). How does that help you?
quote:
I don't disagree that the narratives developed somewhat over time but that isn’t the point. It was the resurrection that was the catalyst around which the narratives were constructed.
Some sort of idea of a resurrection, yes. But the evidence won't take you any further than that.
quote:
That’s my point. The Maccabees actually accomplished a great deal of what a Jews of that era expected of a Jewish messiah, but when they died while claiming that they would be resurrected their movement ended as did the movements of all of the other messianic claimants.
That isn't what your long quote says. And the Maccabean Revolt DIDN'T fail. It established an independent Israel that was quite successful until the Romans came.
quote:
As for the movement being spread to gentiles we have to ask ourselves why gentiles would all of a sudden start worshipping a Jewish messiah, based on some outlandish story as told by Paul. There would have to be substantial verification of what happened for anyone to accept the resurrection as historical.
I am sure that they were every bit as skeptical as the early Mormons, Scientologists, Moonies, Jehovah's Witnesses, the members of the Solar Temple, the followers of Heaven,s Gate.....
And again, Paul doesn't preach anything about an earthly resurrection that needed to be or even could be confirmed in the letters we do have. But we do know that there were Gentiles attracted to Judaism and that Paul relaxed the requirements of the Jewish law to make the Christian sect far more appealing to such people...
quote:
Paul may not have written about the details of the resurrection other than of his own experience by so what? The empty tomb is part of the resurrection story.
It is part of the story that we have NOW. We have no evidence that it was part of the resurrection story in Paul's lifetime, and reasons to suspect that it was not.
Your quote gives a bare list of "appearances" with no explanation of what happened, the appearance in front of 500 is not easily identifiable with anything in the Gospels or Acts, and Paul places his own visionary experience on the list. It,s not very good evidence if anything supernatural going on.
quote:
Matthew tells the story of the empty tomb and tells us that Peter went there. The gospel tells us that he wondered what had happened. Afterwards Peter preaches a resurrected Jesus. I think it is pretty safe to assume that Peter at that point had figured it out.
Of course you are just begging the question again and falling into circularity. You can't argue for the historicity often Empty Tomb by assuming that it happened.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 41 by GDR, posted 04-18-2012 1:42 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 43 by GDR, posted 04-19-2012 12:01 PM PaulK has replied

  
GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 43 of 304 (659867)
04-19-2012 12:01 PM
Reply to: Message 42 by PaulK
04-18-2012 2:46 PM


Re: First things first.
PaulK writes:
That isn't what your long quote says. And the Maccabean Revolt DIDN'T fail. It established an independent Israel that was quite successful until the Romans came.
That’s my point. The Maccabean revolt was very successful. They had overthrown their occupiers and they had ruled for decades. They suffered heroic deaths and claimed that God would resurrect them. If there ever was a time when it would seem obvious that someone would begin an ongoing resurrection movement, this would have been the time. It didn’t happen and the same is true of the rebellion in 135 AD.
Instead it happens with a minor leader, one that told them to love their occupiers, one that had gone relatively quietly to a criminal’s death and with one whose followers consisted of relatively uneducated working class folk.
PaulK writes:
It is part of the story that we have NOW. We have no evidence that it was part of the resurrection story in Paul's lifetime, and reasons to suspect that it was not.
Nonsense. Paul was a contemporary of the apostles. He knew very well what they meant when they talked about resurrection.
PaulK writes:
Some sort of idea of a resurrection, yes. But the evidence won't take you any further than that.
Ok then, what idea of resurrection fits the evidence better?

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

This message is a reply to:
 Message 42 by PaulK, posted 04-18-2012 2:46 PM PaulK has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by PaulK, posted 04-19-2012 1:41 PM GDR has replied
 Message 50 by Dr Adequate, posted 04-21-2012 2:11 AM GDR has not replied

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 44 of 304 (659901)
04-19-2012 1:41 PM
Reply to: Message 43 by GDR
04-19-2012 12:01 PM


Re: First things first.
quote:
That’s my point. The Maccabean revolt was very successful. They had overthrown their occupiers and they had ruled for decades. They suffered heroic deaths and claimed that God would resurrect them. If there ever was a time when it would seem obvious that someone would begin an ongoing resurrection movement, this would have been the time. It didn’t happen and the same is true of the rebellion in 135 AD.
Except that it doesn't seem to be. The element of cognitive dissonance seems to be missing. Those executed don't seem to be leaders. The promised resurrection seems to be clearly physical and not satisfied by visions. So it really seems to be less than ideal...
The 135AD rebellion is much better, but how do we know that there wasn't something of the sort ? We know about Christianity because it was wildly successful later on - but that was mainly because of Paul - who we know didn't have any direct knowledge of a physical resurrection - and his appeal to the Gentiles who knew even less.
quote:
Nonsense. Paul was a contemporary of the apostles. He knew very well what they meant when they talked about resurrection.
Indeed he must have. The problem is that WE don't know what the apostles meant when they talked about the resurrection. So you have said absolutely nothing to refute my point.
quote:
Ok then, what idea of resurrection fits the evidence better?
Well, as we know the appearance stories differ greatly, which makes no sense if there really were impressive post-resurrection appearances. It follows then that the original stories were far less impressive. In the stories Jesus comes and goes mysteriously, which is inconsistent with simple physical survival by any means, natural or supernatural - but is consistent with the stories originating as "sightings", visions, dreams or simply the feeling of Jesus' presence. Let us also note that Jesus failed to fulfil the role expected of him, and when people who are committed to a cause run into this situation there are often die-hards who look to reinterpret and invent ways to keep to their beliefs.
I would say therefore that the evidence is more consistent with entirely natural events than with a supernatural resurrection, and given the basic unlikelihood of miracles such an explanation is always to be preferred in the absence of strong evidence to the contrary.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 43 by GDR, posted 04-19-2012 12:01 PM GDR has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 48 by GDR, posted 04-20-2012 7:12 PM PaulK has replied

  
Dawn Bertot
Member
Posts: 3571
Joined: 11-23-2007


Message 45 of 304 (659977)
04-20-2012 1:03 AM
Reply to: Message 40 by Modulous
04-18-2012 7:50 AM


I don’t think the onus should be on me to disprove the reliability of Matthew, it should be up to you to prove its reliability.
But sure, I’ll play along. What about the ‘tradition’ of releasing a prisoner of the crowd’s choice? There’s no evidence that such a tradition actually existed outside of the Gospels.
Surely you cant be serious. We are speaking about events two-thousand years ago. The fact that a writer of that time included it, indicates it may have actually been a tradition. Unless you are now claiming someone in the 1800s wrote it. You seem to be moving backwards with your illustrations. Are there any things he mentions that contradict known facts
My point was, does he contradict a known fact? Why should reliability start with your baseless assumtions, verses demonstratable contradiction and error?
[qs]No, I’m being perfectly serious. It’s hardly the fulfilment of prophecy worthy of note if every birth was heralded with infanticide, as you are more or less claiming.[qs] I was simply claiming life was of little or no value in those times. Thus far you have presented nothing to contradict that point
I claim that Matthew believes that Massacre of the Innocents was an almost unique event that heralded the coming of Christ, drawing a paralell with Pharoah and Moses
It was a shadow and a type, like the passover. God is not sanctioning the massacre, he is simply using it as an example and illustration, for the birth of the first born son, that would give his lofe a ransom for all.
This is of course, an excuse. And a particularly stupid one. Josephus was a writer. He wrote a lot of things about a lot of people. But you are trying to have me believe he grew so weary of discussing Herod he couldn’t be bothered to mention one of the most astounding ‘facts’ about his life.
It cannot be an excuse, if we do not know the facts in thier entirity. There could be several reasons why the event is not recorded by him. You are struggleling against the fact that you cannot find anything in his writing that contradicts known facts, so you find fault in the negative.
As I stated before, if he had mentioned it, you would claim it was spurious. If he mentioned it you would say it had nothing to do with Jesus
Bertot writes
So let me get this straight , when Josephus mentions, Jesus, James and John the Baptist you say its an interpolation. But when Josephus doesnt mention a single event, your dissatisfied?
Mod writes
When Josephus does not mention an event he would have known about, that was very very noteworthy and regarding a subject he did write aboutthat’s unusual. Coupled with the information that No other human being bothered to record it until decades afterwards when someone that may well have not even been local and certainly wasn’t a witness.
And still no contradiction exists. Again, Ill ask the question. Were his statments concerning Jesus and James reliable or not? It would be interesting to see the skeptics exercise the reasoning, time and effort as to why he did not mention the massacre, the way they struggle to demonstrate interpolations.
Here is one consideration in the opposite direction. Ironically this writer is confiming things I had been mentioning, even before I read his content
- When Tobin and other critics say that there's no reference to the slaughter in other ancient sources, they're excluding early Christian affirmations outside of Matthew. Justin Martyr (Dialogue With Trypho, 78), Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 3:16:4), and many other Christian sources of the patristic era refer to the event in a way that suggests its historicity. Even earlier, we have sources referring to Matthew's gospel as scripture (e.g., The Epistle Of Barnabas, 4), which suggests their acceptance of the historicity of Matthew's account of the slaughter. We know that the gospel of Matthew was widely distributed and highly regarded during the earliest patristic decades (Clayton Jefford, The Apostolic Fathers And The New Testament [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2006], pp. 110, 140-143).
While such sources may have accepted Matthew's account for no good reason, we shouldn't assume without argument that they did so. Some of them, like Justin Martyr, were in contact with critics of Christianity, including Jewish critics, and were studying and responding to their arguments. Despite his tendency toward allegorizing, Origen treated the slaughter as historical (Against Celsus, 1:61). Earlier, I cited a Jewish source used by Celsus who doubted at least Herod's involvement in the slaughter, perhaps even the slaughter itself and its surrounding events. But Origen doesn't mention any evidence that Celsus cites, and Origen doesn't seem to think that any significant objection has been raised. I'm not aware of any other source in the earliest generations who denies the historicity of the event. With that one possible exception in Celsus' treatise against Christianity, it doesn't seem that the historicity of the slaughter was questioned much by the early Christians or their enemies.
- An early Jewish source, the Assumption Of Moses, refers to Herod as a murderer of the young in a context in which he's compared to the Pharaoh who ordered the execution of the Jewish children in Exodus 1. The most natural implication is that the author thought Herod was involved in killing children in a way similar to what Pharaoh had done. Geza Vermes, a non-Christian scholar who's highly critical of the infancy narratives, even cites this passage as evidence of an atmosphere in which Matthew's account might have arisen:
"Already, the work known as the Assumption of Moses, which probably originated at the turn of the era, depicts Herod as the king who 'shall slay the old and the young, and shall not spare...And he shall execute judgments on them as the Egyptians executed upon them' (Assumption of Moses, 6)." (The Nativity [New York: Doubleday, 2006], p. 110)
But where did the author of the Assumption Of Moses get the idea that Herod was involved in such activity? Matthew's account provides an explanation. But even if we assume that the author of the Assumption Of Moses had some other incident or series of incidents in mind, it doesn't seem that he's referring to anything recorded by Josephus. If the Assumption Of Moses could be aware of one or more such misdeeds of Herod not mentioned by Josephus, then why couldn't the same be true of Matthew?
- A few hundred years after Matthew's gospel was written, another non-Christian source, Macrobius, gives us a garbled account that seems to partially corroborate what Matthew reported. But Macrobius is a late source, and some of his information is inconsistent with what we find in Matthew. His testimony isn't as significant as what we find in Matthew or the Assumption Of Moses. It's possible that he's not even referring to Matthew's event. But, as with the Assumption Of Moses, we would then have further evidence of a misdeed of Herod not recorded by Josephus. Or Macrobius may have just been confusing one historical event with one or more others. He doesn't seem to have been dependent on Matthew for his information. See here. At the least, it seems that Macrobius offers non-Christian corroboration of the plausibility of such a misdeed of Herod that wasn't recorded by Josephus.
- Craig Keener cites an incident that Josephus doesn't mention:
"It is possible that he [Herod] also engaged in persecutions outside the scope of Josephus’s sources, as in the repression of the wilderness Essenes (Fritsch 1956: 23-24). In an era of many, highly placed political murders, the execution of perhaps twenty children in a small town would warrant little attention (see France 1979: 114-19). Although Josephus readily lists Herod’s atrocities, most of his reports surround the royal house or events known on a national scale; it is not improbable that Herod was no less brutal when acting out of range of Josephus’s sources" (A Commentary On The Gospel Of Matthew [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999], pp. 110-111)
- An indirect line of evidence for the slaughter is the evidence we have for the Divine inspiration of scripture. See the many posts on that subject in this blog's archives.
- Notice that an Evangelical (or another type of defender of Matthew's account in some cases) has multiple reasons for trusting what Matthew wrote. It's not as though an Evangelical must assume Biblical inerrancy without any concern for evidence, then assume Matthew's reliability as a result. Rather, Evangelicals have argued for their conclusion that the Bible is inerrant, and there are other lines of evidence for Matthew's account independent of inerrancy.
- The heart of the objection to Matthew's account is the silence of Josephus. (That tells you something about the weakness of the objection.) Tobin tells us that Josephus' silence about the slaughter "speaks volumes" and that "he would have had every reason to tell the story if he had known about it" (in John Loftus, ed., The Christian Delusion [Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 2010], p. 159) He writes:
"Did Josephus have any reason to suppress the information? None at all, indeed if anything, it was the opposite. As has been pointed out, Josephus was writing for Emperor Titus, whose mistress, Berenice, was herself a Hasmonean. So It was in the interest of the Jewish historian to blacken Herod’s name as much as possible. We note, furthermore, that Josephus himself was a Pharisee, Herod was not too kind to them as well."
Josephus' negative portrayal of Herod in Antiquities Of The Jews is different than his earlier, more positive portrayal in Jewish War (Steve Mason, Josephus And The New Testament [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005], p. 160). The former, which is the work Tobin has primarily been citing, wasn't written for Titus. And even the writing of Jewish War was started several years before Titus became emperor (ibid., p. 64). Steve Mason has argued that Josephus issued veiled criticisms of Titus and other high-ranking Romans by his use of irony (ibid., pp. 81-88; Josephus, Judea, And Christian Origins [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009], pp. 80-86). If Tobin wants us to believe that Josephus "was writing for Emperor Titus" in some way that suggests that he should have mentioned the Slaughter of the Innocents, then he'll need to produce more of an argument to establish that conclusion.
And he'll have to argue for his conclusion that Josephus was a Pharisee. It's a disputed point. See the first book by Steve Mason that I cited in my last paragraph (pp. 203-206), which is one of the sources Tobin himself has cited.
I've already mentioned some evidence that Josephus wasn't giving an exhaustive account of the misdeeds of Herod. He could "blacken Herod's name" by giving representative examples. He didn't need to be exhaustive. Josephus wrote:
"And since Herod had now the government of all Judea put into his hands, he promoted such of the private men in the city as had been of his party, but never left off avenging and punishing every day those that had chosen to be of the party of his enemies." (Antiquities Of The Jews, 15:1)
Since Josephus says that Herod "never left off" doing such things "every day", will Tobin argue that Josephus mentions every one of those activities done each day? After all, Josephus wanted to "darken Herod's name as much as possible", according to Tobin.
Does Josephus claim to be giving an exhaustive account anywhere? Not that I'm aware of. I've never seen any critic of Matthew cite such a claim by Josephus. Why are we supposed to believe that he was being exhaustive?
I emailed Shaye Cohen, a scholar who's studied Josephus, on this issue. He told me that he doesn't recall any passage in which Josephus states or suggests that he's going to be exhaustive. The New Testament scholar Craig Keener wrote back to me, "That Josephus includes some events in either the War or the Antiquities that he doesn’t include in the other one suggests that he doesn’t try to be exhaustive."
Tobin's inability to think of any potential reason for Josephus to not mention the slaughter doesn't reflect well on Tobin. Why might Josephus not mention Herod's execution of the children? Aside from the factors I've already discussed, there are the pro-Christian aspects of the event. Matthew's gospel probably was circulating before Josephus published his material on Herod, and the traditions behind Matthew's gospel would have been circulating even earlier. Christians were already using the account of the slaughter for their own purposes. The Slaughter of the Innocents elicits sympathy for Christianity, it suggests that Jesus was under God's protection, and it involves Jesus' fulfillment of a commonly accepted Messianic prophecy (Micah 5:2). What would Josephus' readers have thought of his Judaism in light of such an event? Josephus had enough material on Herod to avoid utilizing an account that had such pro-Christian implications, an account that was being utilized by the Christians of his day. Similarly, Josephus makes vague reference to the miracles of Jesus, demonstrating that he was aware of them, without going into detail. He knew more than he wrote.
A desire on the part of Jews to avoid corroborating Christianity on such issues isn't just likely in principle. We have evidence that it did occur. Origen accuses post-Christian Jews of trying to avoid discussion of Micah's Bethlehem prophecy, and he notes that Jesus' birth in that city is acknowledged by both Christians and their enemies (Against Celsus, 1:51). Raymond Brown recognized the significance of Origen's comments:
"Later Jewish polemic did not feature a denial that Jesus was born at Bethlehem, even when his legitimacy was attacked. If there is any truth in Origen's charge of suppressed references to the Messiah's birth at Bethlehem (footnote 2), such suppression would represent a tacit acknowledgment of Christian tradition concerning the birthplace of Jesus." (The Birth Of The Messiah [New York, New York: Doubleday, 1999], p. 514)
Was Origen in a good position to judge the issue? Yes, he was. He read and traveled widely. John McGuckin notes that Origen "consulted on several occasions with famous rabbis...Talmudic texts also have Origen in discussion with the Caesarean Jewish scholar Hoschaia Rabba." (The Westminster Handbook To Origen [Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004], n. 62 on p. 11) Elsewhere, McGuckin refers to "the apologetic exchanges between the Christian and Jewish scholars of the respective Caesarean schools" (p. 27). Steve Mason notes that Origen "lived in Caesarea and knows the reality well [of what was happening in Israel]" (Josephus, Judea, And Christian Origins [Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2009], p. 178).
While Origen makes much of Jesus' fulfillment of the Bethlehem prophecy, Celsus and his Jewish sources avoid the subject. Similarly, Justin Martyr made much of the prophecy and its fulfillment in his writings, whereas his Jewish opponents didn't, though they did raise objections to the infancy narratives on other grounds. It seems that ancient Jews acknowledged Jesus' birth in Bethlehem, but preferred to largely avoid discussing the subject. Josephus' silence about the Slaughter of the Innocents, an event that corroborates the Bethlehem birthplace and reflects well on Christianity in other ways, isn't much of an objection to the historicity of the event.
Without the argument from Josephus' silence, Tobin's objection to the Slaughter of the Innocents collapses. And recall how much emphasis Tobin placed on the alleged non-historicity of the slaughter:
Triablogue: Is The Slaughter Of The Innocents Historical?
I have good reason: Matthew is clearly biased towards the position that Jesus is a Messiah who worked miracles and he is clearly biased towards trying to persuade his readers to that. There is no better indication of bias as when the author wears the bias on his sleeve like Matthew does.
Great, now we have once again, established you vehemently believe he is biased, but without any reason, from a Biblical perspective. Weve done the historical thing and drew a stalemate. I cant prove the massacre took place and you cant prove it didint. I guess we need more information to know he was actually a liar. perhaps you could come up with a contemporary writer, with Matthew or whoever, that insisted Matthew was a liar, or just making stuff up
It really only matters in so far as we want to know if Jesus meets the OT requirements.
.How would you establiash those requirements?. If we cant use the writers of the Gospels that claim fulfillment, who do we use? Unbiased people like you and Jar?
Bertot writes
IOWs of what value is your belief that he talking about a messiah, if you dont allow or involve intervention. Without inspiration and divine understanding, would I be wrong in assuming you could be incorrect, that it is not refering to Jesus Christ
Mod writes
I’m going to have to ask you to reword this.
Ok, were either the OT or NT writers actually inspired by God?
Bertot writes
Since the evidence is stacked in favor of Jesus as indicated by the passages provided by the Old Test authors and the NT writers, yet you still firmly believe its not refering to jesus, perhaps you could provide an alternative that makes as much sense.
Mod writes
Sure: Some people believed Jesus was the Messiah. Some authors therefore attempted to persuade people that Jesus was the Messiah by attempting to show how Jesus’ life events were fulfilment of prophecy. They found a prophecy and tried to create something that was as close to a fulfilment as they could get away with.
Why should we assume that an author of book, the earliest manuscript of which we have is much later than the events described, is contemporary?
If you want to discuss dating of Matthew that might be a thread in its own right.
As we have seen the early Church fathers dismiss your claim. At bare minimum, you assumption is poorly warrented
I've not said the earliest disciples had a conspiracy afoot. What I am saying is that we know that other Gospels were written because early authors quoted from them, referred to them etc. We have other clues such as the existence of the Gospel of Thomas.
What part of the Gospel of Thomas do you accept as valid, to use it against the canon, that can be traced all the way back? Do you have evidence that non-contenders were purposely destroyed?
No that was not my indirect implication. My direct explicit statement was that the Church destroyed documents that contradicted their view, that would include rival gospels and documents pertaining to rival messiahs.
What is your source for this contention
This doesn't address the argument at all. My argument was that AT THE TIME the Massacre of the Innocents was unreported. You say it is because it is routine and common, and you cite abortions which are also routine and common. The problem is that abortions are both routine and documented by contemporary sources. The Massacre of Innocents was neither routine nor documented by contemporary sources.
So your analogy with abortion works against you, it does not support your position at all. I suggest dropping it.
No what I said was that something not being mentioned, is not proof it did not happen. Life was cheap, especially when it came to women and children. Unless it was yours of course
So Herod suppressed Josephus but not the gospels? Is that your claim?
No, Josephus did not mention all his acts. Especially ones that were heresay concerning him. I doubt he asked permission of the Roman procurators ahead of time
Can you provide any evidence that life was so valueless that nobody gave a fuck when a king went about killing all the young males of his subjects?
Don't worry, I know the answer ahead of time.
Youve not touched the Law concerning the Roman right to discard a female at will. I remember when I was in your country at the town called Bath. I read an ancient letter by a Traveling Roman, who had wrote to his wife, "If it is a male keep it, if it is female, through it on the heap" That is a paraphraze, but I remember it to that affect, because I could not believe what I was reading
I'll get round to disagreeing when you present something for me to disagree with.
Im sorry, please explain to me again the meaning of biased
Did I? I might have implied it. You present something that you think is not a lie, and I'll tell you if I think its a lie or could be a lie.
Why not start with the list of alledged prophecies in the OP?
Dawn Bertot
Edited by Dawn Bertot, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 40 by Modulous, posted 04-18-2012 7:50 AM Modulous has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 47 by Modulous, posted 04-20-2012 8:42 AM Dawn Bertot has replied

  
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