HI WT,
I got this from previous posts of yours that claim the N.T. writers were engaged in myth-making.
Not everything they wrote was a myth, but most of it was.
IF a parlour is a controlled environment specially prepared to deceive then isn't a public setting the most unlikely place to pull off such a stunt/trick/deception ?
A parlour trick is a simple trick that victorians used ot do in their parlours to entertain each other. They were not that complex, they were simple childlike illusions.
Have you ever watched the street magicians on TV, they practise a lot before they go out on the streets, but their tricks are performed in public, usually with the member of the public in very close proximity to them.
Magicians were ten a penny in Jesus' day, even Simon Magus is mentioned in the Bible.
Brian, why do you interpret the text to be the work of a magician ?
Simple, because if Jesus was a god then he wouldn't need to go through all the showbiz stuff of building up the crowd, he wouldn't need to use props. He could just have cured people with a thought, he cured the roman centurion's servant at Capernaum without actually going to where the servant was.
He could have done the same with Lazarus, but he didn't, he just swanned around for a while before going back to raise Lazarus from the dead. Jesus clearly loved the attention that these tricks brought him.
How is it that you cannot be fooled by the claims of Luke unlike a zillion other people ?
A zillion other people are desparate to believe thats why.
Well it is a bit more comples than that of course, but many of these people have been indoctrinated from an early age, they have been conditioned into thinking that everything in the Bible is true, therefore this story is true.
NBot everyone approaches the text from a critical stance, many are too biased towards the Bible to stand back and criticise it, if the same story was attached to Muhammad then you would say it was nonsense.
Many people think because some of the story is plausible then all of it is 100% true, but this is a wrong approach. Parts of the tale may be true, but miracles do not happen, there is always another explanation. You also have to remember that Luke didnt know Jesus, Luke didn't witness Jesus doing anything at all, he was getting these stories from other people who undoubtedly exaggerated them.
Why can't the text be accurate, rather, what is your evidence/rationale for Luke claiming a miracle was performed when it was a cruel trick ?
The text can be accurate, but the conclusion doesnt need to be your one.
Evidence/rationale? Well evidence is that Luke wasn't an eyewitness, people exaggerate stories over time, the bible needs to be interpreted and this interpretation may not be accurate the blindness may have been metaphorical.
Rationale: Miracles do not happen, people who are blind do not suddenly see when they have had spit and mud rubbed on their eyes. Your ONLY source for this tale is from someone whose idol benefits from the telling of it, there are NO objective sources to anything Jesus did.
People played, and still do, cruel tricks on others all the time, they did it 2000 years ago and they do it now. Jesus didnt do any work related to his occupation in the stories we have in the Gospels, he had to make a living, being a magician must have brought a good living, he certainly appeared to get invited to people's houses for meals and it sure beats sawing wood for a living.
Brian.
PS, Did God lie to Ahab? YES or NO
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