Truth of resurrection and death of the apostles (for Willowtree)

A couple months ago, I had the discovery channel on while I was fixing dinner. They had a demonstration of memory on it. They informed a test group that they were going to be doing a study on people's memory with a nature walk, and told them to pay attention to what they were being taught. They were sent out with a "guide" in a preselected region of wilderness, and the guide proceeded to tell them bits of information about the different plants that they passed.However, the main point of the exercise they had set up in advance: they scattered strange looking scraps of metal across one location, put up caution tape, and had a person wearing a military uniform guarding the location inside the tape, to make it look like a UFO or some sort of top secret project had crashed. When they came to it, the "guide" told the people that he wasn't sure what to happen - when he had come the day before to setup the route, he was harassed by the military, and told not to come near the area; he diverted the group into a different direction.The people then continued on their walk, and left when it concluded.A month or so later, they were brought back in, and asked questions about the walk. When the subject of the "crash site" came up, it was amazing how much people's stories changed from what actually happened. Some people were convinced that there were two soldiers; one was even convinced that a soldier had fired at them, and she had pulled another person out of the way. When asked about how certain they were about their memories, everyone was quite confident.Many people picture human memory as being like a video camera; actually, every time you remember a thought, your mind only has bits and pieces of it "written down". It makes up the in-betweens every time you remember something. The older the memory, the less you have kept about it, and the more your mind makes up.Things get worse when you play a game of "telephone" over a long period of time, as likely happened with the gospels. And they get even worse when diverging lines of memory re-merge. And they get even worse when the parties involved have an intense need for events to be as "impressive" as possible.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 12-08-2003]

JosephusA) simply reported what people told him (Christians)B) His document was modified.B-1) For one, in the part that begins talking about christianity, the writing style suddenly changes into terms that he never used before (and terms that weren't even contemporary for use toward Christians, such as tribe). Josephus - not a Christian - is somehow expected to have written things like "if indeed one out to call him a man" and "he was the messiah". If Josephus believed that, why was he not a Christian (as Origen specifically stated)?B-2) Josephus doesn't even feel fit to mention Jesus or Christians in earlier works on the subject.B-3) The arabic version of testimonium flavianum - which is older - offers a different, less embelished version of the account of Jesus:"At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to themafter his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders."Even the arabic version was likely embellished, but not nearly so much as the Greek.C) The oldest manuscripts of testimonium have the particular passage inked out or cut out. Josephus was frequently fairly insulting to proported messianic figures. To believe that this was done by *non-Christians*, one would have to believe that they had a particular grudge against Christians in particular, but not against other groups. Hardly likely.In short, we have a text that is completely not in Josephus's style, contradicting an otherwise concordant arabic version of the text, where the arabic versionis older, and Josephus clearly didn't believe what was claimed that he wrote or he would have been a Christian, some of the words used weren't in use at the time in reference to Christians... you do the math. For much more detail on the subject, read this------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

quote:

---

One question though, by "arabic" texts do you mean those written in Aramaic, or do you mean texts by Muslim Arabs post 625 CE? I believe most of what was written in Judea between 200 BCE and 70 CE was written in Aramaic rather than Hebrew as Aramaic was the popular language of that time and place.

---

No early testimonium at all survives with that passage intact. Around 324 CE, Eusebius (who is rather solidly accused of forging numerous details of the life of Constantine as well) quotes from Testimonium. In the 10th century, however, Agapius (a Christian arab historian) quoted from the version of testimonium available in Hierapolis (since lost), the passage indicated above (in "Book of the Title", the history of the world from creation to 941/942 CE). The passage is far more Josephus's style, although still likely contains embellishments. Both cannot be correct; however, the Greek is written by a known forger, uses words not in Josephus's style (or even in wide usage at the time), portrays Josephus as a Christian when he was not... (etc).You be the judge. ------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."[This message has been edited by Rei, 12-11-2003]

quote:

---

I stand busted! I think I am quoting the information from a recent Discovery Channel special wherein some very modern-day Egyptian farmers took a group of archaeologists to a site in the middle of a farm field where several broken, large-scaled statues were found several miles south of the more accepted site for Avaris.

---

I saw that Discovery Channel special... it was one of the worst pieces of biblical scholarship that I've ever seen. The way they played fast and loose with their dates was almost obcene (at least they mentioned that the date was off on *one* occasion). Their level of omission was probably the worst I've seen from any Discovery Channel special.

quote:

---

The program actually was more focused on the documented use of mud bricks for construction of the lesser buildings and storehouses in the "House of Ramses" sites because of the Biblical references to Hebrews as assigned to making mud bricks for the Pharoah Ramses. The thought behind this focus is that since the current popular scholarly opinion is that the story of Exodus was written sometime between 600 BCE and 200 BCE by scribes several centuries removed from "Moses," and the fact that the common building material of that time in Judea was stone, the writers would not have direct or even historic knowledge of mud brick construction from a distant past.

---

Pretty much every river-based city-state has used mud bricks for construction; the concept that Israel would not have traded with one is almost unthinkable. Semitic people even ruled Egypt at one point (although whether they were Canaanites is still in question); likewise, Egypt ruled over Canaan (the date of the supposed exodus was actually during the height of Egyptian power, when Egypt was firmly in control of Canaan). The two cultures intermingled extensively, both on a conquest/slavery/occupying basis and on the basis of free citizens and merchentile activity.By the way, I listed a theory on the source of the exodus myth here; the basic premise is that (given the utter absense (and, in effect, physical impossibility) of any enslavement of the ~2,000,000 people and their subsequent exodus, and subsequent conquest of Canaan - and the ample evidence rendering this virtually impossible), the Israelites, over the generations, confused being conquered and ruled over by the Egyptians with actually having their entire population be dragged to Egypt and be slaves *in* Egypt, then returning; this got merged with various local conquest legends between different warring tribes through the ages.In fact, back to what you said earlier, the very name Moshe (Moses) was supposedly given to him by a Pharaoh's daughter because she drew him out from the water, and it sounds like the word for "to draw out" - and yet, it sounds like the *Hebrew* word for to draw out, not the Egyptian word.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."