[SilverSun]

I know this was an answer to Architecture-er, but I couldn't resist tossing in my two cents. Hope nobody minds

(Original post by Kosmos)
But the problem is that you don't even know if Jesus said that, you can't with any accuracy base any 'teachings of Christ' as the framework for your Christianity because the writers of the Gospels were anonymous and were written years after Jesus' supposed death as well as not even basing their stories on evidence but on either hearsay or completely making it up to make it an interesting story and appealing to the masses at the time. The many schisms of Christianity clearly had a dogmatic influence on the scripture as we see that passages are changed to support a schism beneficial to a faction in proto-orthodox Christianity as well as after that, when other gospels and ideologies revolving around Christ was suppressed in order to unify one Church.

A few points:
1. How do you know that we don't know that Jesus said anything? I for one do know.
2. It doesn't matter how the Gospels ended up being written and through whom, as long as they're the word of God.
3. Can you prove that the writers of the Gospels were really making anything up?
4. What schisms of Christianity are you speaking of that "had a dogmatic influence on scripture"?
5. Can you prove that passages have been changed to support a schism?
6. Can you prove that other gospels were suppressed in order to unify one church and not because they were false gospels?

(Original post by Kosmos)
And I don't remember Jesus saying that the old laws were abolished, he did say however:

“Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
19 “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least ain the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

Good point and I fully agree.

(Original post by Kosmos)
So you really can't conclude that he's establishing new rules when this passage clearly designates the Law to be representative of how one should live, and if you do it tells you the punishment.

Please explain how from the above passage from Matthew you come to the conclusion that Jesus can't establish new rules.

(Original post by Kosmos)
And if you go on to say "But we don't have to follow them because...", then why do people always point to the Decalogue if they don't apply to Christians anymore or go against homosexuality (I'm of course not applying this to you as you've said nothing of the sort). And to say that one passage supersedes another, from which both viewpoints that he has changed it and he hasn't is apparent from various passages so you can't actually know which one is the correct one.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like you are assuming that either the whole Old Testament is still valid or then nothing of it is. However, the historical position of the church is that Jesus' statement in Matthew (which you quoted earlier) provides the general rule according to which the Old Testament should be assumed as valid unless God states otherwise. This means that Jesus didn't see His ministry as abolishing in principle the Old Testament.

Still, the rest of the New Testament and Jesus himself teach that a certain subset of the OT laws (the ceremonial laws) are fulfilled by Jesus and should be discontinued. This subset includes sacrificial laws and dietary laws. The laws regarding homosexuality, which you brought up, are ethical laws which remain valid and are confirmed in the NT.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Therefore for anyone to say that morality is objective and are coming from a Biblical viewpoint they are contradicting themselves, because clearly if you want to take the relative view, one for the Jews, one for the Christians, then it becomes clear that morality is relative from a Biblical standpoint.

Obviously I can't speak for everyone, but my position is that 1. Biblical morality is objective, 2. there is not one morality for the Jews and one for the Christians but one morality, full stop, and 3. there is no contradiction involved.

Couldn't help commenting, hopefully I'll get an answer

[Kosmos]

(Original post by SilverSun)
A few points:
1. How do you know that we don't know that Jesus said anything? I for one do know.

I didn't say that, I said you can't know accurately what Jesus said and what he didn't, it's based merely on doctrine created more than 30+ years after Jesus supposedly walked the Earth, and is documented by anonymous authorship that has gave no sources, no mention of witnesses, no historians that said anything at the time and from which the other Gospels depend on Mark for the majority of the story from which deviates only to appeal to a specific audience. We also know that many of the scriptures were altered, with embellished stories ("Cast the first stone"), changes in regards to specific creeds (the role of women and the nature of Jesus) and changes to oppose other groups at the time. I suggest you read Bart Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus' for this.

So to say "I for one do know." is just a blanket statement, you can't know if they didn't either.

(Original post by SilverSun)
2. It doesn't matter how the Gospels ended up being written and through whom, as long as they're the word of God.

This is an assumption you've made before you even analyse the composition of the stories, you're assuming that they're the word of God. I don't know why the word of God would have little historic evidence, anonymous authorship and embellished stories if it was the word of God. I'd expect a little better from God if he depended upon these doctrines to save us from Hell.

(Original post by SilverSun)
3. Can you prove that the writers of the Gospels were really making anything up?

Well let's put this into context, Mark's Gospel was penned around 64CE, that is years after Jesus' death and includes material that Paul didn't mention whatsoever in his letters except for the resurrection, but he doesn't explicitly refer to it as a bodily resurrection. So our earliest source doesn't even mention most of the key features of Jesus' life. Furthermore, Paul wasn't even an eyewitness, he got his information through hearsay and the reading of the texts didn't convince him, the only thing that make him convert was his supposed vision on Damascus. That obviously would make us skeptical. Before Mark's Gospel we don't have anything of his life and ministry, unless you want to refer to the Gnostic gospels but that wouldn't help your case. Oral tradition was rife in antiquity as well as mythological elements that were apparent from other Grecio-Roman religions at the time, so to see it in Mark's Gospel such as a virgin birth or resurrection wasn't unknown. If Mark were penning an accurate account or was trying to compile a proper gospel how would he know what the story was, considering he had to rely on oral tradition or sketchy scripture of the time (Christianity, in the 1st Century appealed to only a small audience, mainly illiterate or expectant Jews that relied on the accounts of hearsay).

Of course you can't absolutely prove that the writers of the Gospels were making anything up, as you can't with Mohammed or any other doctrine that reveals the words of God(s). But you can check the historical record to see whether the writers of the Gospels are reliable and telling the truth, from which this can't be judged to be a testimony of factual accuracy. You can check that Matthew and Luke were using Mark's gospel as their framework and then adding details to it. You can check to see if the author's testimony is historically credible by the way he reports the events from which Mark's gospel is not representative of a historical document but rather theological literature, so how do we come to this conclusion? Because of the way it always comes from the third person and the author knows what Jesus says when he's alone, even though the author wasn't there to hear it. The employment of literature devices such as foreshadowing and leaving an ambiguous ending so that it is open to interpretation were common methods used at the time.

And I can prove that Matthew was making prophecies up in order to make it seen that Jesus was the Messiah due to the Old Testament's predictions. For example, a predominant example is when Matthew misinterprets that a virgin will give birth, he took this from the mistranslation of the Septuagint of Isaiah 7:14 (which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament), he obviously used this in order to create the prophecy, from which the original text is referring to a young woman (the word "Almah"), it instead says parthenos (in Greek) which means virgin. Yet the complete passage doesn't refer to Jesus but of a prophecy that was fulfilled in the O.T, it was referring to Isaiah's own wife or concubine that when giving birth would give the sign to King Ahaz as a sign that God would protect his kingdom from his enemies. There are others such as mistranslating the two donkeys that Jesus rode on which is not featured in the other Synoptic Gospels because they obviously knew or read the Hebrew Bible and didn't make the same mistake Matthew makes over and over again.

As I said read Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, this is just one example of many.

(Original post by SilverSun)
4. What schisms of Christianity are you speaking of that "had a dogmatic influence on scripture"?

The schisms in Christianity, which you can infer from Paul's letters that warn against false teachers and interpretations, which shows that such schisms were evident. We also know that the various sects, i.e. Ebionites and Gnostics were apparent at the time of the early 2nd Century where we see various changes in texts in comparison with other manuscripts as well as embellishments that change the nature of Jesus as well as stories that would lend support to a specific schism. We also know that there were efforts and some succeeded of destroying Gnostic texts and centralizing the doctrines of the Church in order to strengthen its following. Changes include the role of Women in church as well.

(Original post by SilverSun)
5. Can you prove that passages have been changed to support a schism?

Yes we can by looking at earlier doctrines and comparing them with others, as well as redaction criticism, look it up.

(Original post by SilverSun)
6. Can you prove that other gospels were suppressed in order to unify one church and not because they were false gospels?

How can you know whether the gospels were right or not, they were chosen due to the popular orthodox view of the Church and years after Jesus had supposedly died, that's once again assuming that some Gospels were right and some were wrong.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Please explain how from the above passage from Matthew you come to the conclusion that Jesus can't establish new rules.

Of course he can come up with new laws, but the problem with Christians is that they assume the previous laws don't apply to them, but Matthew states that that isn't the case.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me like you are assuming that either the whole Old Testament is still valid or then nothing of it is. However, the historical position of the church is that Jesus' statement in Matthew (which you quoted earlier) provides the general rule according to which the Old Testament should be assumed as valid unless God states otherwise. This means that Jesus didn't see His ministry as abolishing in principle the Old Testament.

Exactly what I'm trying to say, he's still stating that the rules still apply to everyone and not just to Christians.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Still, the rest of the New Testament and Jesus himself teach that a certain subset of the OT laws (the ceremonial laws) are fulfilled by Jesus and should be discontinued. This subset includes sacrificial laws and dietary laws. The laws regarding homosexuality, which you brought up, are ethical laws which remain valid and are confirmed in the NT.

Does he explicitly say that the ceremonial laws are fulfilled though? Or is that just assuming just to continue preaching what the Church was and was aligning with Paul's teaching that you only need Jesus Christ in your life to achieve heaven?

[Christianlady]

(Original post by AceStacks)
Alcohol:

I Cor 6:9-10 - "A drunkard cannot inherit the kingdom of God"

Rom 13:13 - "Carousing and drunkenness is improper behavior"

Proverbs 20:1 - "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise"

Swine:

Leviticus 11:7-8 - "And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.

The evidence is clear so why don't Christians admit to their sins?

Hello AceStacks,

Well, first of all, the Tanakh was given by God to the children of Israel (Jacob) son of Isaac son of Abraham. Christians (whether Jewish or Gentile followers of Jesus) did not exist in that time, because Christians = followers of the Christ = Messiah = Anointed One who God promised would be on the throne of King David forever (2 Samuel 7, 1 Chronicles 17, Psalm 2, Psalm 89)

The first Christians (followers of Jesus Christ) were Jewish people, including his 12 apostles. They did follow the law that God gave to Moses for the children of Israel. Jesus and his apostles were children of Israel.

Now, the Tanakh does not forbid alcohol. It does advise against becoming drunk. Jesus, by the way, turned water into wine (John 2:1-12). So, the issue for the children of Israel was not so much drinking alcohol, but rather the act of getting drunk, by drinking too much alcohol.

About pork, the dietary law that God gave to the Israelites was not specifically passed on to Gentile believers in Jesus. Rather, the apostles of Jesus wrote the following to Gentile believers in Jesus:

Acts 15
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...15&version=NIV
(I boldened some.)

"22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.

30 So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter."

So, it is important to note that Gentiles who became followers of the Jewish Jesus (since Jesus is Jewish) did not have to become Jewish and circumcise the boys or follow all the Law that God gave to the children of Israel through Moses. Rather, they were encouraged to "abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality."

Peace and God bless you

[Truthman]

(Original post by Christianlady)
Hello AceStacks,

Well, first of all, the Tanakh was given by God to the children of Israel (Jacob) son of Isaac son of Abraham. Christians (whether Jewish or Gentile followers of Jesus) did not exist in that time, because Christians = followers of the Christ = Messiah = Anointed One who God promised would be on the throne of King David forever (2 Samuel 7, 1 Chronicles 17, Psalm 2, Psalm 89)

The first Christians (followers of Jesus Christ) were Jewish people, including his 12 apostles. They did follow the law that God gave to Moses for the children of Israel. Jesus and his apostles were children of Israel.

Now, the Tanakh does not forbid alcohol. It does advise against becoming drunk. Jesus, by the way, turned water into wine (John 2:1-12). So, the issue for the children of Israel was not so much drinking alcohol, but rather the act of getting drunk, by drinking too much alcohol.

About pork, the dietary law that God gave to the Israelites was not specifically passed on to Gentile believers in Jesus. Rather, the apostles of Jesus wrote the following to Gentile believers in Jesus:

Acts 15
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/...15&version=NIV
(I boldened some.)

"22 Then the apostles and elders, with the whole church, decided to choose some of their own men and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They chose Judas (called Barsabbas) and Silas, men who were leaders among the believers. 23 With them they sent the following letter:

The apostles and elders, your brothers,

To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:

Greetings.

24 We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. 25 So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul— 26 men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. 27 Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. 28 It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: 29 You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.

Farewell.

30 So the men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter."

So, it is important to note that Gentiles who became followers of the Jewish Jesus (since Jesus is Jewish) did not have to become Jewish and circumcise the boys or follow all the Law that God gave to the children of Israel through Moses. Rather, they were encouraged to "abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality."

Peace and God bless you

Rather, they were encouraged to "abstain from food sacrificed to idols,

Hello.

May I ask you a question, what do you think about christians eating halal food? If allah is not the christian God, then eating halal food would be eating food sacrificed to false gods (idols).

[SilverSun]

Thanks for answering.

(Original post by Kosmos)
I didn't say that, I said you can't know accurately what Jesus said and what he didn't, it's based merely on doctrine created more than 30+ years after Jesus supposedly walked the Earth, and is documented by anonymous authorship that has gave no sources, no mention of witnesses, no historians that said anything at the time and from which the other Gospels depend on Mark for the majority of the story from which deviates only to appeal to a specific audience. We also know that many of the scriptures were altered, with embellished stories ("Cast the first stone"), changes in regards to specific creeds (the role of women and the nature of Jesus) and changes to oppose other groups at the time. I suggest you read Bart Ehrman's 'Misquoting Jesus' for this.

So to say "I for one do know." is just a blanket statement, you can't know if they didn't either.

You will agree, I'm sure, that if the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then I can know what Jesus said, right?
When you say that I can't know accurately what Jesus said and what he didn't, you are assuming that the Bible is not the word of God. We both start with an assumption.

Again I ask you to prove that the doctrine was created more than 30 years after Jesus.

When it comes to "proper" referencing, authorship, witnesses and historians, you are imposing modern academic referencing standards on documents around 2000 years old, which is anachronistic.

You base your reasoning on the primacy of Mark, but this is far from being established as scholars disagree on this.

Also, you talk as if you knew the intentions of the writers of the Gospels: while you criticise that I can't know what Jesus really said, how can you know why the Gospels were written the way they were?

Thank you for your recommendation of Ehrman's book, I will try to find it. Have you read criticisms of the book? Although I haven't read Ehrman's book yet, based on your arguments he doesn't seem to say anything new that hasn't been asked and answered before.

(Original post by Kosmos)
This is an assumption you've made before you even analyse the composition of the stories, you're assuming that they're the word of God. I don't know why the word of God would have little historic evidence, anonymous authorship and embellished stories if it was the word of God. I'd expect a little better from God if he depended upon these doctrines to save us from Hell.

That is correct. It is an assumption I've made before starting to analyse.

The Biblical doctrine of inspiration makes irrelevant the way in which the Gospels came to be written. Furthermore, the Gospels are the historical evidence which you claim to be absent.

Regarding your last statement, God is not bound to fulfil your or anybody else's criteria for how to write the Bible to save us from Hell.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Well let's put this into context, Mark's Gospel was penned around 64CE, that is years after Jesus' death and includes material that Paul didn't mention whatsoever in his letters except for the resurrection, but he doesn't explicitly refer to it as a bodily resurrection. So our earliest source doesn't even mention most of the key features of Jesus' life. Furthermore, Paul wasn't even an eyewitness, he got his information through hearsay and the reading of the texts didn't convince him, the only thing that make him convert was his supposed vision on Damascus. That obviously would make us skeptical. Before Mark's Gospel we don't have anything of his life and ministry, unless you want to refer to the Gnostic gospels but that wouldn't help your case. Oral tradition was rife in antiquity as well as mythological elements that were apparent from other Grecio-Roman religions at the time, so to see it in Mark's Gospel such as a virgin birth or resurrection wasn't unknown. If Mark were penning an accurate account or was trying to compile a proper gospel how would he know what the story was, considering he had to rely on oral tradition or sketchy scripture of the time (Christianity, in the 1st Century appealed to only a small audience, mainly illiterate or expectant Jews that relied on the accounts of hearsay).

The year when Mark's Gospel was written is historically unproved as well as irrelevant. How long after Jesus' death and resurrection the Gospels were written has no effect on their accuracy, since Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would have helped the apostles in writing them and remembering Jesus' words (John 14:26). You probably don't believe in the Holy Spirit. However, in order to make an effective criticism of the Christian faith, you need to provide an internal critique. This, thus far, you have not done as you have limited yourself to show that, given unbiblical presuppositions, the Christian faith can be shown to be wrong.

As for Paul, we don't need to know his whereabouts or past activities in order to hold his account reliable since he was chosen by God to be an apostle. Paul didn't believe the Gospel until God opened his eyes - what is there to make us skeptical of this? It's consistent with everything we know about God. In addition, Paul was an eyewitness to the resurrection.

Furthermore, mythological parallels don't automatically make the Biblical accounts false. Remember that the first Christians were Jews who were trying to sell the Gospel story to other Jews, and why would they try to do that through Greco-Roman pagan mythology?

(Original post by Kosmos)
Of course you can't absolutely prove that the writers of the Gospels were making anything up, as you can't with Mohammed or any other doctrine that reveals the words of God(s). But you can check the historical record to see whether the writers of the Gospels are reliable and telling the truth, from which this can't be judged to be a testimony of factual accuracy. You can check that Matthew and Luke were using Mark's gospel as their framework and then adding details to it. You can check to see if the author's testimony is historically credible by the way he reports the events from which Mark's gospel is not representative of a historical document but rather theological literature, so how do we come to this conclusion? Because of the way it always comes from the third person and the author knows what Jesus says when he's alone, even though the author wasn't there to hear it. The employment of literature devices such as foreshadowing and leaving an ambiguous ending so that it is open to interpretation were common methods used at the time.

You are assuming that the Gospels are unreliable only by starting from unbiblical presuppostions. When you consider them from within the biblical framework, you can't but conclude that the Gospels are reliable. You propose tests to confirm the credibility of the Gospels but I fail to see how I would necessarily have to come to a negative result.

In addition, you presuppose that there's only human elements in the Gospels, and conclude, quite correctly, that the human authors could not have had access to all that information. But you are begging the question: whether God exists and helped the Gospel writers is the actual heart of the matter.

Literary devices were of course used at the time and were employed by the Gospels' writers but how does this undermine their accuracy?

(Original post by Kosmos)
And I can prove that Matthew was making prophecies up in order to make it seen that Jesus was the Messiah due to the Old Testament's predictions. For example, a predominant example is when Matthew misinterprets that a virgin will give birth, he took this from the mistranslation of the Septuagint of Isaiah 7:14 (which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament), he obviously used this in order to create the prophecy, from which the original text is referring to a young woman (the word "Almah"), it instead says parthenos (in Greek) which means virgin. Yet the complete passage doesn't refer to Jesus but of a prophecy that was fulfilled in the O.T, it was referring to Isaiah's own wife or concubine that when giving birth would give the sign to King Ahaz as a sign that God would protect his kingdom from his enemies. There are others such as mistranslating the two donkeys that Jesus rode on which is not featured in the other Synoptic Gospels because they obviously knew or read the Hebrew Bible and didn't make the same mistake Matthew makes over and over again.

As I said read Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, this is just one example of many.

Can you prove that the Septuagint rendering of Isaiah 7:14 is a mistranslation? The Hebrew word is ambiguous, and could mean a virgin, whereas the Greek word is unambiguous. The Septuagint was a translation done by Jews and it does not
necessarily contradict the original Hebrew, as it in fact can more likely be said to clarify it.

Your comment on Isaiah's wife is true, but it does not disqualify this passage from being a prophecy about Jesus. This is because the Bible is full of typological fulfilments. Adam, David, Samson, Jonah etc were all actual persons who lived in the OT but were also prophetical types of Christ. This is making use of the foreshadowing which you spoke of earlier.

To claim that differences in the number of donkeys in the Synoptic Gospels undermines the reliability of the Gospels is to claim that one event cannot be looked at in more than one way and that every single detail must be mentioned in the same way by all three authors, which is an unreasonable demand. If Jesus took two donkeys, he also took one.

(Original post by Kosmos)
The schisms in Christianity, which you can infer from Paul's letters that warn against false teachers and interpretations, which shows that such schisms were evident. We also know that the various sects, i.e. Ebionites and Gnostics were apparent at the time of the early 2nd Century where we see various changes in texts in comparison with other manuscripts as well as embellishments that change the nature of Jesus as well as stories that would lend support to a specific schism. We also know that there were efforts and some succeeded of destroying Gnostic texts and centralizing the doctrines of the Church in order to strengthen its following. Changes include the role of Women in church as well.

What you call a schism, I call a heresy. Of course the rise of heresies led the apostles to clarify and refine Gospel truth. I see no problem in this.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Yes we can by looking at earlier doctrines and comparing them with others, as well as redaction criticism, look it up.

Where can I look this up? Could you give me examples? I understand you are saying that later NT doctrines contradict earlier ones.

(Original post by Kosmos)
How can you know whether the gospels were right or not, they were chosen due to the popular orthodox view of the Church and years after Jesus had supposedly died, that's once again assuming that some Gospels were right and some were wrong.

The gnostic Gospels are in clear contradiction with the four Gospels in the Bible not in terms of minor details but in terms of theology. Also, they were written long after the NT canon came to be accepted.

Ultimately, though, we return the actual crux of the matter: does God exist and did He help the four Gospel writers to deliver the truth?

I invite you to answer 'yes' to this question for the sake of discussion and consider whether the Christian faith and the validity of the Gospels make sense internally based on that presupposition. Otherwise what we are really discussing here is not the reliability of the Gospels but whether or not God exists.

Lastly, regarding the gnostic gospels, I recommend the book "The Missing Gospels" by Darrell L. Bock. In this book the author also addresses objections by Ehrman.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Of course he can come up with new laws, but the problem with Christians is that they assume the previous laws don't apply to them, but Matthew states that that isn't the case.

You are generalising here quite broadly. I agree with you - the previous laws do apply as Matthew said.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Does he explicitly say that the ceremonial laws are fulfilled though? Or is that just assuming just to continue preaching what the Church was and was aligning with Paul's teaching that you only need Jesus Christ in your life to achieve heaven?

The book of Acts (especially 10:10-16); the letter to the Hebrews; the letter to the Colossians (especially 2:20-22); and the letter to the Galatians are filled with instructions regarding similar OT laws to the effect that they are not binding anymore as they are fulfilled in Jesus. These laws handle issues such as offering sacrifices, the keeping of special feasts, circumcision and dietary laws, and all these kinds of OT laws are said to be expired for the same reason. Ceremonial laws were all shadows of things to come (foreshadowing, if you will) and were fulfilled by the coming of Jesus: for example Jesus brought down the wall of separation between Jews and gentiles (Ephesians 2:14) which brought about the change in the dietary laws discussed in Acts (the dietary laws, among other things, had historically and symbolically separated the Jew from the gentile). Also in Mark 7:19 Jesus declares all foods clean.

For convenience all the laws mentioned (as well as others, my list was not complete) came to be grouped as ceremonial laws (they were not called so in the Bible).

[Kosmos]

Right, I'll try and keep this to a minimum so that we don't flood the thread, and also thank you for your quick response.

(Original post by SilverSun)
You will agree, I'm sure, that if the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then I can know what Jesus said, right?

There's too many presuppositions needed to justify that premise: that this Abrahamic God exists, that Jesus was the Son of God (as Jews would disagree, I'm not mentioning Muslims because they're were way after Jesus), that the Scriptures haven't been tampered with (i.e. no contradictions, embellishments, copying from other religions), that the Jews wrote down exactly what God had commanded and that the early Jewish Christians wrote down exactly what God had commanded.

This can be used by Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and followers of Hinduism to justify their doctrines, but the only way to analyze the premises is by looking at the scriptures and not taking a presupposition that completely shifts the way we look at a text, otherwise it's looking at a text through a biased prism.

(Original post by SilverSun)
When you say that I can't know accurately what Jesus said and what he didn't, you are assuming that the Bible is not the word of God. We both start with an assumption.

My assumptions are not as credulous as the assumptions undertaken by you, which employ the presuppositions I've listed above. My assumptions are based on looking at a text skeptically in order to delineate whether a text is authentic or is just the words of men creating a religion to serve various benefits in their community for either themselves or the people around them.

Even the majority of Biblical scholars agree that we can't know everything Jesus said because of such contradictions, embellishments, changing in wording and dogmatic influences.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Again I ask you to prove that the doctrine was created more than 30 years after Jesus.

Mark's Gospel has been approximately dated to 70CE by most modern scholars with 64CE being the lowest approximation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_...ip_and_sources

Another thing is that Paul in neither of his letters ever references to passages in Mark or happens to talk about miracles or events except for the resurrection, and its been debated that he thought of a spiritual resurrection.

(Original post by SilverSun)
When it comes to "proper" referencing, authorship, witnesses and historians, you are imposing modern academic referencing standards on documents around 2000 years old, which is anachronistic.

Oh, on the contrary, it shows that we cannot know who Mark was and where he got his sources from whatsoever, therefore it reduces it heavily the ability to know what is truthful and what is not. Even historians in antiquity attempted to document events which contained biases but would clearly list their sources and conflicting documentation on an issue in order to see what one was close to telling the truth. We have nothing here with any of the Gospels except for Luke-Acts which still fail to reach the correct historical methodology to establish if an event happened.

This shows us that we should be skeptical as to what Mark reported was true, unless you want to take this same method with other events of the time which would allow us to make the case of other seemingly mythological figures that were considered sons of gods and achieved miracles have just as much right to be considered true as their sources are just as trustworthy as Mark or who don't employ the historical criteria to know whether an event occurred or not.

(Original post by SilverSun)
You base your reasoning on the primacy of Mark, but this is far from being established as scholars disagree on this.

I don't base my whole reasoning on Mark but it was a text that was heavily relied on by the later Gospels of Matthew, Luke and John. We can see verses verbatim across these Gospels and slight changes in accordance with the audience that they're focusing on. The weird thing is that Matthew and Luke don't even say that they're using Mark. Their framework was primarily Mark, whereas as you probably know about the hypothetical 'Q' document that apparently had the sayings of Jesus on it. Before Mark, we have nothing whatsoever depicting Jesus' life, unless you want to use Paul's letters that say nothing of Mark's gospels or the events within it.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Also, you talk as if you knew the intentions of the writers of the Gospels: while you criticise that I can't know what Jesus really said, how can you know why the Gospels were written the way they were?

I don't know the intentions of the Gospels but we can infer the way they wanted their gospels to come across to the reader, as you know by the different themes employed by each of the gospels specifically focused on a different audience. Seeing as Mark's gospel mimicking literary devices used by previous stories in antiquity (i.e. Homer's Odysseus) and due to Mark probably would have used this in order to learn Greek, we can make an inference that he used some of the devices in Homer's book and transfer them to the Gospel, such as foreshadowing, Messianic secret (i.e. the audience knowing who Jesus was but the disciples didn't), leaving an ambiguous and the focus of Jesus' tribulations. As you said, maybe if he was inspired by God to do so, God wanted him to use a format that would have been known to the audience at the time or maybe Mark used them in order to strengthen the narrative.

And that's a very different issue: knowing what Jesus said and knowing the intentions of the Gospel writers, we have the Gospel writer's approximate scriptures whereas we have nothing of Jesus' writing.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Thank you for your recommendation of Ehrman's book, I will try to find it. Have you read criticisms of the book? Although I haven't read Ehrman's book yet, based on your arguments he doesn't seem to say anything new that hasn't been asked and answered before.

No problem, it'll enlighten you on the problems associated with knowing the texts and yes I have read the criticisms of the book (i.e. Lee Strobel's books on the subject "Case For Faith") but they attempt to dampen the problems by using assumptions that are not backed up by evidence. I also suggest you read Richard Carrier's Not The Impossible Faith which details how Christianity succeeded and the socio-political outlook at the time as well as diminishing the appalling arguments made by J. Holding.

(Original post by SilverSun)
That is correct. It is an assumption I've made before starting to analyse.

You've made a huge assumption, the assumption you've made is through an unjustified inference that can heavily bias your outlook on the problems within the Scripture. It's the equivalent of a Muslim looking at the Qu'ran and seeing through it being absolutely true, therefore disregarding problems as merely not being problems but meant to be there or reinterpreting a verse in order to harmonize "non-existent" contradictions. Try to look at the criticisms through the eyes of a historian piecing together a story rather than seeing the story as absolute truth and then stating that it's the inerrant word of God because then you'll be blinded by the problems.

(Original post by SilverSun)
The Biblical doctrine of inspiration makes irrelevant the way in which the Gospels came to be written. Furthermore, the Gospels are the historical evidence which you claim to be absent.

You can assume that if you must because you're starting at a biased premise, the way in which the Gospels were made to be written and for us to assess them should have been compiled with evidence so that we infer whether an event was true or not. Anyone in antiquity could make up an event and not refer to the source or make up eye witnesses and still receive a following simply because the people at the time didn't care for evidence but what the religion offered to them. In the case of Christianity it was merely a watered down 'Judaistic' Essene cult, which spread the wealth among people and admonished the reverence of the Roman upper class which many people at the time didn't like. As you could tell by the horrific treatment they were receiving due to the poor Roman emperors at the time throughout the 1st Century, i.e. Caligula and Nero and Tiberius, who were all loonies!

As I've said they are nowhere near historical documents as I said in my previous post, the lack of describing sources, eyewitness testimonies, conflicting testimonies, which were what secular historians (i.e. Josephus and Pliny the Elder) used to decide whether a story was true or not, even though these historian's techniques weren't as thorough or fool-proof as modern Historians, this would be the right way to describe a historical event if it happened of course. And as I've mentioned it's parallels with works of mythological literary devices as well as stories makes Mark's gospel unreliable as a historical document used to infer what Jesus said and who he was.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Regarding your last statement, God is not bound to fulfil your or anybody else's criteria for how to write the Bible to save us from Hell.

Another assumption made but if think logically rather than depending on inerrancy, if you were God (being omnibenevolent and omniscient) you'd want to give every evidence you can in order for people to get into heaven. You wouldn't rely on anonymous authorship written years after your Son's death as evidence because that "evidence" is equal to other mythic cults prior to Christianity as well as other religions competing to be called the word of God. Obviously at the time it was penned it didn't matter about the evidence so much because the people who first joined were poor illiterate Jews and Gentiles who longed for social cohesion and the fulfillment of prophecy, that's why there wasn't a great following in the first Century because it was rejected, it was only the resurgence after the Roman-Jewish War (that wiped out most of the so-called eyewitnesses) that led to followers flocking to Christianity, there was no way of a skeptic questioning Christianity because there was no way of getting evidence to go against it (i.e. eyewitness testimony), the only way was to make slanderous philosophical claims like in the book by Origen "Against Celsus" or to criticize their rituals that were often misunderstood to be cannibalistic (i.e. Eucharist).

(Original post by SilverSun)
The year when Mark's Gospel was written is historically unproved as well as irrelevant. How long after Jesus' death and resurrection the Gospels were written has no effect on their accuracy, since Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would have helped the apostles in writing them and remembering Jesus' words (John 14:26). You probably don't believe in the Holy Spirit. However, in order to make an effective criticism of the Christian faith, you need to provide an internal critique. This, thus far, you have not done as you have limited yourself to show that, given unbiblical presuppositions, the Christian faith can be shown to be wrong.

It is incredibly relevant seeing as it reflects when the Gospel was written and how long away it was from Jesus' death, the gaping whole in time in between can lead to oral tradition being altered as oral traditions do, witnesses dying out (as the average age was 35), this would make supposed eyewitnesses at above 70 which would be way over life expectancy and memory could well be faltered, there is also the Roman-Jewish War which would have wiped out most supposed eyewitnesses as well as the ability for people to check whether the events were true, i.e. asking the Sanhedrin or the names referred to by the gospel writers. It doesn't allow for these purported events in the gospels to be historically accurate whatsoever unless you use your hogwash which is not historical and can be used by any religion to support their doctrines.

I have showed internal inconsistencies between the gospels and you'd only need to do an internet search to see the inconsistencies as well as changes in Scripture that means that it has been altered. I'm sorry but that is not how you critically analyze a book, you do judge it based on a presupposition that it is true otherwise you're not going to be able to find anything to criticize it with. As I've stated, this can be done by any religion. You can check any scholar even N.T. Wright, a staunch believer, sees that there are inconsistencies and embellishments in the Scripture.

(Original post by SilverSun)
As for Paul, we don't need to know his whereabouts or past activities in order to hold his account reliable since he was chosen by God to be an apostle. Paul didn't believe the Gospel until God opened his eyes - what is there to make us skeptical of this? It's consistent with everything we know about God. In addition, Paul was an eyewitness to the resurrection.

Another presupposition that isn't historically viable, we don't say Hitler was chosen by the Devil to wipe out the Jews because that isn't historical, we assess the evidence that led to his situation. The same is done for Paul but we have to rely on one person, we don't have other sources that mention Paul whatsoever just Paul's word which cannot be historically reliable seeing as it's just from one source and that's himself. Of course we do, if we didn't assess Joseph Smith's past activities how would you know whether he was telling the truth or not, you can say he was guided by the Holy Spirit, but he was a fraud and a trickster who exploited people in order to make himself a religion based on the Abrahamic God, his followers could quite easily use your argument to justify theirs.

This makes us skeptical because he obviously didn't see that the evidence was there, he didn't see it historically satisfying only until God came to him, from which means there must have been little to go by or wasn't satisfactory to meet his standards of assessment. I'd like to know the source that says Paul was a witness to the Resurrection because even himself doesn't say that and he is the earliest record we have of Christianity. So just because it's consistent that must mean he is speaking the truth, we could easily use this to justify Joseph Smith or Mohammed.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Furthermore, mythological parallels don't automatically make the Biblical accounts false. Remember that the first Christians were Jews who were trying to sell the Gospel story to other Jews, and why would they try to do that through Greco-Roman pagan mythology?

They would do of course, because why would God need to use mythological elements to make his story convincing, surely he would be able to do that himself, the parallels are explained by the Jews exposure to the Grecio-Roman culture at the time which was abundant with extravagant miracles, sons of Gods incarnate and sons of Gods given to mortal humans, Gods impregnating mortals, we have all this from various Roman sects at the time. Actually the first Christians *may* have been selling it just to Jews, Paul was promoting it to Gentiles. Remember that Mark's gospels weren't written when the first Christians were recruiting, they were written much later when Paul had already preached to the Gentiles, so we can see why Mark had mythological elements that paralleled Roman cults, because it was primarily aimed to attracting such an audience. Even early Church leaders realized the parallels and insisted that the Devil must have planted these cults with such similar elements in order to mimic the Christian religion.

(Original post by SilverSun)
You are assuming that the Gospels are unreliable only by starting from unbiblical presuppostions. When you consider them from within the biblical framework, you can't but conclude that the Gospels are reliable. You propose tests to confirm the credibility of the Gospels but I fail to see how I would necessarily have to come to a negative result.

No, I'm starting from a historical standpoint because that's the only way to know if something that is being purported is reliable or it is not, if we used your assumptions then every religion could justify their origins as merely being the word of God(s) even the Roman cults could use this, but by looking through this at a historical viewpoint it is unbiased and seeks the truth.

Because the only way you look at is by saying it's right and inerrant, how else am I meant to critique it if you think it's wholly true.

(Original post by SilverSun)
In addition, you presuppose that there's only human elements in the Gospels, and conclude, quite correctly, that the human authors could not have had access to all that information. But you are begging the question: whether God exists and helped the Gospel writers is the actual heart of the matter.

This is not about whether God exists or not, it's about whether the accounts are historically reliable and if they succeed in giving an honest account of Jesus, but this is obviously flawed as I have highlighted, otherwise anyone could justify their religions which is not objective but subjectively dependent on religious interpretation which doesn't tell us if something is accurate or not.

If God helped the writers we wouldn't see what we have today as I have highlighted, we would have seen historical accounts of Jesus while he was preaching, the apparent multitude of supposed witness testimony proclaiming that Jesus' miracles were true, eyewitness testimony, enemies of Jesus downplaying him being the Messiah, no embellishment or textually altercation and variants.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Literary devices were of course used at the time and were employed by the Gospels' writers but how does this undermine their accuracy?

Of course it does, no-one uses literary devices to tell a historical account unless they're writing an account to convince someone that their religion is true and making a story interesting for the reader which is not what historians do to explore the truth. This automatically makes it suspect to unreliability from which other historical accounts don't suffer from such use of literary devices and the way in which the dialogue is invoked in the third-person that knows everything that has been said as well as dialogue that they weren't even present to hear, without even mentioning where they got the story from.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Can you prove that the Septuagint rendering of Isaiah 7:14 is a mistranslation? The Hebrew word is ambiguous, and could mean a virgin, whereas the Greek word is unambiguous. The Septuagint was a translation done by Jews and it does not
necessarily contradict the original Hebrew, as it in fact can more likely be said to clarify it.

No it's not ambiguous, almah means young woman which is equivalent to elem which means young man, it's solely to do with age rather than sexual status. Bethulah is used to denote a virgin and this is not used in the original Hebrew. But obviously Christian apologists would have to try to reaffirm the meaning in order for Matthew not to be contradicted.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Your comment on Isaiah's wife is true, but it does not disqualify this passage from being a prophecy about Jesus. This is because the Bible is full of typological fulfilments. Adam, David, Samson, Jonah etc were all actual persons who lived in the OT but were also prophetical types of Christ. This is making use of the foreshadowing which you spoke of earlier.

Of course it does if it refers clearly to one instance and Matthew obviously misinterpreted the verse it shows that he had mistaken this for a prophecy when it in fact was referring to Isaiah's wife as I have said. But this isn't an instance of a typological fulfillment seeing as it was fulfilled. I don't know about them being real persons, but Christ didn't fulfill the Jewish requirements so they weren't prophetical types of Christ but instead interpreted by early Christians as being so. It is very easily to infer from Christ back to the O.T. what is relevant to Christ, which is essentially self-fulfilling prophecy. And it is in fact self-foreshadowing, in that these were already known by the authors of the Gospels and had to attempt to show that Christ fulfilled the requirements, they had to hit as many of them as possible, which is what we see with Matthew and making up prophecies that weren't actually prophecies but referring to people in the O.T.

(Original post by SilverSun)
To claim that differences in the number of donkeys in the Synoptic Gospels undermines the reliability of the Gospels is to claim that one event cannot be looked at in more than one way and that every single detail must be mentioned in the same way by all three authors, which is an unreasonable demand. If Jesus took two donkeys, he also took one.

It doesn't undermine the Gospels, it undermines Matthew and his complication of trying to fulfill prophecies that weren't there as well as misinterpreting the Greek text of the Old Testament whereas the other Gospels didn't seeing as their ability with the Hebrew text. And undermines your biblical inerrancy of the gospel. Of course it can't! If the event was meant to be historical and as you said inspired by the Holy Spirit they'd all come up with the same event verbatim or if you claim otherwise you're contradicting yourself. He either rode on one or on two, but when you see the Greek text, Matthew misinterpreted it.

(Original post by SilverSun)
What you call a schism, I call a heresy. Of course the rise of heresies led the apostles to clarify and refine Gospel truth. I see no problem in this.

Of course you'd see that, it's the only way you can because of your unfounded assumption that it's the inerrant word of God, you don't look at it critically. Seeing as it molded alterations in the text of Gospels there's a major problem with it, seeing as there were later ideologies these could have changed the gospels to, in the eyes of the scribes copying them, clarify them to the audience in order to suit their agenda.

You don't know what the Apostles taught they could have been completely different from what the Gospels teach, as you can see from Paul he mentions nothing of Jesus' life or his ministry from which Mark seems to do so easily.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Where can I look this up? Could you give me examples? I understand you are saying that later NT doctrines contradict earlier ones.

Yes I am, for the sake of this reply going on for ages, read Bart Ehrman because I'd basically be copying it verbatim and it'd be too much effort in copying the text down, it goes into detail as well which in my summary wouldn't be beneficial to you, I don't want you getting a dumbed down piece which isn't as explanatory for the sake of this discussion.

There's also stories that are in later ones but not in earlier ones, one of the top of my head is the story of the adulteress being spared by the crowd after Jesus says only those who are without sin can cast the first stone, which is not apparent in earlier scripture but came later. There are also alterations and other embellishment that Ehrman goes into detail.

(Original post by SilverSun)
The gnostic Gospels are in clear contradiction with the four Gospels in the Bible not in terms of minor details but in terms of theology. Also, they were written long after the NT canon came to be accepted.

On the contrary, the Gospel of Thomas has been dated at its earliest to 40 CE to 140 CE which is around the time John had composed his document so to say they were written long after the NT canon is not true. They are, as you said, in clear contradiction and you can see why these were burnt and buried because of the implications it would have on the Orthodox Church.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Ultimately, though, we return the actual crux of the matter: does God exist and did He help the four Gospel writers to deliver the truth?

I don't agree, as I said previously, that that is the case seeing as we can historically analyse each text and compare them in order to find discrepancies as well as assess the historical nature of the time in order to see how they influenced each other and the ideology at the time with the opposition of the Roman authorities as well as the many factions of Roman cults and Greek ideologies at the time. When you make the assumption it completely discredits our ability to assess it as you have been found to not be able to because of your theological position.

(Original post by SilverSun)
I invite you to answer 'yes' to this question for the sake of discussion and consider whether the Christian faith and the validity of the Gospels make sense internally based on that presupposition. Otherwise what we are really discussing here is not the reliability of the Gospels but whether or not God exists.

As I've mentioned previously it has nothing to do with whether God exists or whether God influenced it, it is assimilating Jesus' identity and the differences in the Scriptures as well as how accurate they are. By conceding to your point it completely shifts the critical analysis as merely harmonizing accounts and giving excuses for why some differ and why some are embellished.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Lastly, regarding the gnostic gospels, I recommend the book "The Missing Gospels" by Darrell L. Bock. In this book the author also addresses objections by Ehrman.

I recognize the name but I will read it of course thank you.

(Original post by SilverSun)
You are generalising here quite broadly. I agree with you - the previous laws do apply as Matthew said.

The book of Acts (especially 10:10-16); the letter to the Hebrews; the letter to the Colossians (especially 2:20-22); and the letter to the Galatians are filled with instructions regarding similar OT laws to the effect that they are not binding anymore as they are fulfilled in Jesus. These laws handle issues such as offering sacrifices, the keeping of special feasts, circumcision and dietary laws, and all these kinds of OT laws are said to be expired for the same reason. Ceremonial laws were all shadows of things to come (foreshadowing, if you will) and were fulfilled by the coming of Jesus: for example Jesus brought down the wall of separation between Jews and gentiles (Ephesians 2:14) which brought about the change in the dietary laws discussed in Acts (the dietary laws, among other things, had historically and symbolically separated the Jew from the gentile). Also in Mark 7:19 Jesus declares all foods clean.

But the fact that it doesn't mention that all the ceremonial laws, if that was encased as the category doesn't reflect that you generalize into all of them. It mentions only few of the laws and not all of them, which were not discussed in the passages you supplied as well as passages mentioned by Paul. Ephesians 2:14 talks about as you said the spiritual wall was broken down, but doesn't mention all the ceremonial laws or ethical laws, it could well mean that Gentiles have to follow the laws of Judaism.

(Original post by SilverSun)
For convenience all the laws mentioned (as well as others, my list was not complete) came to be grouped as ceremonial laws (they were not called so in the Bible).

Exactly they were not called so, so to completely generalize them into this subset when it was not established by "Jesus", if it mentions specific means such as dietary it can't be distinguished with the other laws.

[SilverSun]

And I also thank you for your quick reply.
I must apologise for making my reply to your long and detailed comment so short. I'm leaving for holiday and I don't have much time to write. Here I intend to include the most crucial bits. If you specifically wanted my answer for a question I don't answer here, or my comment for something you said that I don't cover here, please let me know.

(Original post by Kosmos)
There's too many presuppositions needed to justify that premise

You didn't answer my question. Do you agree that if the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then I can know what Jesus said?

(Original post by Kosmos)
My assumptions are not as credulous as the assumptions undertaken by you, which employ the presuppositions I've listed above. My assumptions are based on looking at a text skeptically in order to delineate whether a text is authentic or is just the words of men creating a religion to serve various benefits in their community for either themselves or the people around them.

All assumptions are credulous by definition. If they are assumptions, they are something "credulous", something you believe. When you look at the text skeptically, you have already assumed that it's not the word of God, and that that's something that must be determined by appeal to some other standard external to the Word of God.

(Original post by Kosmos)
I'd like to know the source that says Paul was a witness to the Resurrection

Paul was a witness of the resurrection because he saw the risen Christ. He explains this several times in Acts, in Galatians and in 1 Corinthians.

(Original post by Kosmos)
This is not about whether God exists or not, it's about whether the accounts are historically reliable and if they succeed in giving an honest account of Jesus, but this is obviously flawed as I have highlighted, otherwise anyone could justify their religions which is not objective but subjectively dependent on religious interpretation which doesn't tell us if something is accurate or not.

If God helped the writers we wouldn't see what we have today as I have highlighted, we would have seen historical accounts of Jesus while he was preaching, the apparent multitude of supposed witness testimony proclaiming that Jesus' miracles were true, eyewitness testimony, enemies of Jesus downplaying him being the Messiah, no embellishment or textually altercation and variants.

Alright, you want to talk about historical reliability instead of the existence of God. I see you are treating the Bible as a mere historical text. But if the content of this historical text is true, then it completely changes the way in which it should be examined. If the God of the Bible exists, everything changes. So the question of whether or not the God of the Bible exists is crucially relevant. You cannot convincingly discuss the validity of the Bible from a so-called neutral viewpoint.

Here you are simply presuming to know what would be the case if this or that thing had happened, and how you would have written the history of the world if you had been in charge. You demand academic precision in the way Mark and Luke footnote their material, but you feel free to offer sheer speculation as the reason why you reject their eyewitness accounts.

(Original post by Kosmos)
You've made a huge assumption, the assumption you've made is through an unjustified inference that can heavily bias your outlook on the problems within the Scripture.

You also have made a huge but unwarranted assumption that biases the way you look at the Bible. There is no neutrality. The position of the neutral historian you describe and ask me to imitate is a myth.

(Original post by Kosmos)
You can assume that if you must because you're starting at a biased premise, the way in which the Gospels were made to be written and for us to assess them should have been compiled with evidence so that we infer whether an event was true or not.

The Word of God is the highest and ultimate authority there is. Of course I must start from it. If there was a higher authority which confers authority to the Bible and legitimises it, then that would be the highest and ultimate authority. You want me to embrace the ultimate authority you have chosen for yourself. Please explain what it is and why this authority can be trusted. Let's start from here: is it infallible?

(Original post by Kosmos)
Another assumption made but if think logically rather than depending on inerrancy, if you were God (being omnibenevolent and omniscient) you'd want to give every evidence you can in order for people to get into heaven.

Although I could argue that it's ridiculous for a person to imagine to be in God's place and justify God's actions based on what he'd rather do, the problem I have with what you are saying here is more doctrinal. Perhaps this is a good moment to bring up my view that I do not believe God to be omnibenevolent. If He was, there'd surely be no Hell. The Bible does not teach an omnibenevolent God, but a God who is merciful to whom he wills, and who hardens whom he wills.

Thanks for this interesting debate. Please don't expect an answer from me while I'm on holiday for the next two weeks, but if you reply to this comment of mine I will surely get back to you once I return home.

If you are short on summer reading I can recommend Triablogue, especially the archives, at triablogue.blogspot.com and the work of Craig Blomberg at http://www.denverseminary.edu/craig-...ament-musings/. There is also an interesting interview with Blomberg at http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/...raig-blomberg/ where also Ehrman is mentioned.

Lastly, I want to leave you with one thought in mind, the one I already mentioned towards the ending of this post: What is your ultimate authority? Can it be trusted? Is it infallible?

Cheers

[jmj]

Great question

(Original post by AceStacks)
Alcohol:

I Cor 6:9-10 - "A drunkard cannot inherit the kingdom of God"

Rom 13:13 - "Carousing and drunkenness is improper behavior"

Proverbs 20:1 - "Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler, And whoever is intoxicated by it is not wise"

These verses are more to do with being drunk than having wine. Jesus had no problem with creating wine out of water for the wedding he was at in Cana (John 2:1-10) and the apostle Paul recommends Timothy drink a little wine for the sake of his stomach and his frequent illnesses (1 Timothy 5:23) so the Bible doesn't seem to have a problem with the consumption of alcohol in general, only drunkenness. As further note- the book of Proverbs is lots of general advice about how to live in a relationship with God in the world- it is general advice and principles for different situations, rather than specific commands everyone has to follow all the time.

(Original post by AceStacks)
Swine:

Leviticus 11:7-8 - "And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.

The evidence is clear so why don't Christians admit to their sins?

This relates back to the general relationship God has had with his people. The relationship God has had with His people is made up with two covenants or deals- the old covenant in the old testament and the new covenant in the new testament. In the old covenant, God gave the Israelites lots of food laws (like this one in Leviticus 11) in order to make them distinctive- they were to be different, a model for what a relationship with God looked like. Their relationship with God was based on Old Testament laws and sacrifices.

However, in the Old Testament God promised a new covenant, a new way for people to relate to God. This new covenant came in Jesus, God's promised king that God had promised throughout the Old Testament. The book of Hebrews details how Jesus and the new covenant are better than the law/sacrifices and the old covenant and how Jesus brings a new way to relate to God through His death and resurrection- Jesus on the cross takes the penalty for our rebellion against God on our behalf and through that we can become friends with God.

Because Christians live in the new covenant, the old covenant food laws no longer apply because how we relate to God has changed- it's through Jesus, rather than keeping Old Testament laws and performing animal sacrifices. This is explicitly taught in the Bible in Acts 10 when God tells Peter all food is clean.

Hope that answers your question- sorry if my post was a bit long but wanted to answer your question properly.

[Kosmos]

(Original post by SilverSun)
And I also thank you for your quick reply.
I must apologise for making my reply to your long and detailed comment so short. I'm leaving for holiday and I don't have much time to write. Here I intend to include the most crucial bits. If you specifically wanted my answer for a question I don't answer here, or my comment for something you said that I don't cover here, please let me know.

Ah no problem, I see that this discussion has been going on for some while and taking up a lot of the thread. Have fun on holiday sorry for keeping your time I'd rather spend my time looking forward to it!

(Original post by SilverSun)
You didn't answer my question. Do you agree that if the Bible is the inerrant word of God, then I can know what Jesus said?

Observantly no, because that premise has not been proved correctly thus there is no reason to employ it. If so, as I have constantly stated this can be used for any text, the Muslims can start by saying that the Qu'ran is the Holy Inerrant word of God and then analysis from there is biased. You see how flawed that reasoning is?

(Original post by SilverSun)
All assumptions are credulous by definition. If they are assumptions, they are something "credulous", something you believe. When you look at the text skeptically, you have already assumed that it's not the word of God, and that that's something that must be determined by appeal to some other standard external to the Word of God.

But this assumption is required when reading upon any text, it's a given. When you're analyzing any text you should read it without bias, thus not stating whether it's true or false, but giving judgement only after evidence has been presented for either side. And thus, as I have stated, the evidence is in the contrary of inerrancy by fiction by men for both the Old Testament and the New.

"When you look at the text skeptically, you have already assumed that it's not the word of God" because that's required, that does take all previously conceived bias from looking at the text, otherwise problems with the text would either be overlooked or harmonized. Thus, it's not an honest analysis. The standard is the one that is given to all religious texts or those that purport to contain truth, we analyse the text and if there's something that is contradictory or has problems then it's obviously not divinely inspired. If we see that scripture has been influenced by other religions or other peoples or is in the contrary of science as well as history then it must be critically analyzed, as with everything other that purports to hold eternal truth.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Paul was a witness of the resurrection because he saw the risen Christ. He explains this several times in Acts, in Galatians and in 1 Corinthians.

Oh right I thought you meant he was there at the resurrection with the apostles sorry, yes that's correct, but it he saw the resurrection independently through a personal revelation.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Alright, you want to talk about historical reliability instead of the existence of God. I see you are treating the Bible as a mere historical text. But if the content of this historical text is true, then it completely changes the way in which it should be examined. If the God of the Bible exists, everything changes. So the question of whether or not the God of the Bible exists is crucially relevant. You cannot convincingly discuss the validity of the Bible from a so-called neutral viewpoint.

Yes of course, but if it's historical sound it will add to its credibility as to whether its contents is true or false in contrast to other religious texts, the presupposition as I have stated creates a veil of bias when analyzing it. Surely if it were the Word of God, it would be historically sound because it was from Him, it was the recorded word or actions of this God. So yes, it can be analyzed from a neutral viewpoint.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Here you are simply presuming to know what would be the case if this or that thing had happened, and how you would have written the history of the world if you had been in charge. You demand academic precision in the way Mark and Luke footnote their material, but you feel free to offer sheer speculation as the reason why you reject their eyewitness accounts.

Yes I have, because it shows how a fallible human mind would create a better chance for his creation than this presumed omniscient one. I don't demand academic precision, I'd expect if it were to be true and which would lead to the presumption that the material within it were true, it would lend credibility to its contents if it were recorded in the way historians of the time would record an event, and we know the mindset and the way people would believe mythological stuff in the 1st Century as known from the various religious texts and people purported to be witnesses as well as people believing in miracles without asking for evidence.

First of all they're not eyewitness accounts to say the least, Mark is either completely made up or based on oral/scriptural material, as I've demonstrated from it's origins and its content relation to other texts. I don't offer speculation, I offer the reasons why they can't be relied upon seeing as they're the equivalent of other religious texts that claim they're right.

(Original post by SilverSun)
You also have made a huge but unwarranted assumption that biases the way you look at the Bible. There is no neutrality. The position of the neutral historian you describe and ask me to imitate is a myth.

Of course I don't, I analyze whether it's true or false as I've said which you do not, you see it as automatic truth which clouds your views on the known contradictions and problems in both O.T and N.T. The neutral historian has to decide whether the material given is reliable and accurate or because of the sheer lack of evidence it cannot be relied upon, this is how a historian works when looking at texts regardless of their context, it's a teleological approach. There can be evidence indicative in order for the historian to take precautions when handling these texts, such as the time period, the approach taken by authors and their biases at the time (i.e. their methods to infer whether the evidence is reliable or not) which at this time in antiquity, it was flawed.

(Original post by SilverSun)
The Word of God is the highest and ultimate authority there is. Of course I must start from it. If there was a higher authority which confers authority to the Bible and legitimises it, then that would be the highest and ultimate authority. You want me to embrace the ultimate authority you have chosen for yourself. Please explain what it is and why this authority can be trusted. Let's start from here: is it infallible?

But that is an unfounded assumption that deters criticism when looking at this text, and anyway, it can be founded whether it is the Word of God if the text shows truth and is reliable without contradiction or problems. Of course, even if it were internally consistent it wouldn't mean it's true because that would just lend to it's historical accuracy but it could, in some eyes, add to it's theological accuracy. And as you've stated, you can believe it if you want or you don't have to, as you've said you believe it's the word of God, so it doesn't matter if it contains inaccuracies then it's still theologically sound.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Although I could argue that it's ridiculous for a person to imagine to be in God's place and justify God's actions based on what he'd rather do, the problem I have with what you are saying here is more doctrinal. Perhaps this is a good moment to bring up my view that I do not believe God to be omnibenevolent. If He was, there'd surely be no Hell. The Bible does not teach an omnibenevolent God, but a God who is merciful to whom he wills, and who hardens whom he wills.

Of course you can, and I'd expect that if you believe that it is the Word of God because there's nothing greater than god, but obviously for me it lends to the ridiculousness of the doctrine and adds to its inconceivability.

But that's usually stated as one of his attributes, if that isn't for you then my argument doesn't hold water and I apologize for invoking that argument, that's true thank you, that's what I've been saying! OK at least you don't say that as one of his attributes.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Thanks for this interesting debate. Please don't expect an answer from me while I'm on holiday for the next two weeks, but if you reply to this comment of mine I will surely get back to you once I return home.

If you are short on summer reading I can recommend Triablogue, especially the archives, at triablogue.blogspot.com and the work of Craig Blomberg at http://www.denverseminary.edu/craig-...ament-musings/. There is also an interesting interview with Blomberg at http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/...raig-blomberg/ where also Ehrman is mentioned.

Same, thank you! Enjoy our holiday, good to get away from everything and relax! Will look at them thanks, again, thanks for this debate.

(Original post by SilverSun)

Lastly, I want to leave you with one thought in mind, the one I already mentioned towards the ending of this post: What is your ultimate authority? Can it be trusted? Is it infallible?
Cheers

I have no ultimate authority, mine is based on where the evidence lies and if so then it lends to its truthfulness. I don't create an ultimate authority for the sake of it so it bolsters my opinions on things because that is inherently fallacious.

Starting with a conclusion then analyzing a text with that conclusion is confirmation bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[SilverSun]

Thanks for your answer and patience. We have indeed been taking quite a lot of time and space on this thread, so it would be nice if we could start wrapping up our answers little by little. I suppose we both want to enjoy summer rather than sit inside engaged in online debates. Thank you also for keeping this debate very polite, I appreciate it.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Observantly no, because that premise has not been proved correctly thus there is no reason to employ it. If so, as I have constantly stated this can be used for any text, the Muslims can start by saying that the Qu'ran is the Holy Inerrant word of God and then analysis from there is biased. You see how flawed that reasoning is?

This answer carries no weight. I dare say you are still not answering my question. I am asking if the conclusion follows from the premise (which is: given A is true, does B follow? You cannot say that B doesn't follow because A is false.).

(Original post by Kosmos)
But this assumption is required when reading upon any text, it's a given. When you're analyzing any text you should read it without bias, thus not stating whether it's true or false, but giving judgement only after evidence has been presented for either side. And thus, as I have stated, the evidence is in the contrary of inerrancy by fiction by men for both the Old Testament and the New.

Who requires you to analyse without any bias?

(Original post by Kosmos)
"When you look at the text skeptically, you have already assumed that it's not the word of God" because that's required, that does take all previously conceived bias from looking at the text, otherwise problems with the text would either be overlooked or harmonized. Thus, it's not an honest analysis. The standard is the one that is given to all religious texts or those that purport to contain truth, we analyse the text and if there's something that is contradictory or has problems then it's obviously not divinely inspired.

What is wrong with contradictions?

(Original post by Kosmos)
If we see that scripture has been influenced by other religions or other peoples or is in the contrary of science as well as history then it must be critically analyzed, as with everything other that purports to hold eternal truth.

So science is an authority?

(Original post by Kosmos)
Yes of course, but if it's historical sound it will add to its credibility as to whether its contents is true or false in contrast to other religious texts, the presupposition as I have stated creates a veil of bias when analyzing it. Surely if it were the Word of God, it would be historically sound because it was from Him, it was the recorded word or actions of this God. So yes, it can be analyzed from a neutral viewpoint.

Are other religious texts an authority? But more to the point, whether or not it's 'historically sound' cannot be determined on the assumption that God doesn't exist. Your critique needs to be internal.
The historical reliability of the account of Noah's flood in Genesis (for example) cannot be checked from a neutral viewpoint, because an assumption must be made before you start.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Yes I have, because it shows how a fallible human mind would create a better chance for his creation than this presumed omniscient one.

This is quite a claim. Please prove to me that your scenario for the history of the world is better than the one God has chosen.

(Original post by Kosmos)
I don't demand academic precision, I'd expect if it were to be true and which would lead to the presumption that the material within it were true, it would lend credibility to its contents if it were recorded in the way historians of the time would record an event, and we know the mindset and the way people would believe mythological stuff in the 1st Century as known from the various religious texts and people purported to be witnesses as well as people believing in miracles without asking for evidence.

You don't have a standard to which you compare how prophets of the true God would have proclaimed His word differently from what you find in the Bible. You are comparing apples with oranges. You or anyone else can't know how else the God of the Bible would have spoken.

(Original post by Kosmos)
First of all they're not eyewitness accounts to say the least, Mark is either completely made up or based on oral/scriptural material, as I've demonstrated from it's origins and its content relation to other texts. I don't offer speculation, I offer the reasons why they can't be relied upon seeing as they're the equivalent of other religious texts that claim they're right.

I hate to harp on it, but it doesn't matter how the gospel of Mark came to be written. The biblical doctrine of inspiration is not limited to dictation. You are again assuming that human authorship entails unreliability and fallibility but you can do that only by assuming that God didn't mastermind the process.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Of course I don't, I analyze whether it's true or false as I've said which you do not, you see it as automatic truth which clouds your views on the known contradictions and problems in both O.T and N.T. The neutral historian has to decide whether the material given is reliable and accurate or because of the sheer lack of evidence it cannot be relied upon, this is how a historian works when looking at texts regardless of their context, it's a teleological approach. There can be evidence indicative in order for the historian to take precautions when handling these texts, such as the time period, the approach taken by authors and their biases at the time (i.e. their methods to infer whether the evidence is reliable or not) which at this time in antiquity, it was flawed.

You don't know me and cannot say what to me is "automatic." You don't know the extent of the research I have done in order to believe what I believe.

What you are describing is a methodological naturalistic approach which presupposes that God was not involved in the writing of the Bible as the Bible claims. If the God of the Bible exists, your method will guarantee that you will never find out the truth.

(Original post by Kosmos)
But that is an unfounded assumption that deters criticism when looking at this text, and anyway, it can be founded whether it is the Word of God if the text shows truth and is reliable without contradiction or problems. Of course, even if it were internally consistent it wouldn't mean it's true because that would just lend to it's historical accuracy but it could, in some eyes, add to it's theological accuracy. And as you've stated, you can believe it if you want or you don't have to, as you've said you believe it's the word of God, so it doesn't matter if it contains inaccuracies then it's still theologically sound.

It's not an unfounded assumption for me. As for contradictions, it's not that I choose not to see them or address them. I'm familiar with the stock objections to the inspiration of the Bible. I don't see how they can properly be called contradictions. Internally considered, the Bible stands up well to objections such as the ones you are raising. It's when an external standard is introduced and when presuppositions that are at odds with Biblical theology rule one's thinking that people conclude that the Bible contains inaccuracies.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Of course you can, and I'd expect that if you believe that it is the Word of God because there's nothing greater than god, but obviously for me it lends to the ridiculousness of the doctrine and adds to its inconceivability.

But that's usually stated as one of his attributes, if that isn't for you then my argument doesn't hold water and I apologize for invoking that argument, that's true thank you, that's what I've been saying! OK at least you don't say that as one of his attributes.

I'm glad we agree on something. But since omnibenevolence is not an attribute of the Christian God, your attempt to show that the idea of God is "ridiculous"
and "inconceivable" falls flat. Do you have other reasons to reject the God of the Bible?

(Original post by Kosmos)
I have no ultimate authority, mine is based on where the evidence lies and if so then it lends to its truthfulness. I don't create an ultimate authority for the sake of it so it bolsters my opinions on things because that is inherently fallacious.

You are blind to your methodological naturalism, by which you make judgements on what is and isn't likely. You discount the possibility of supernatural causes as plausible explanations at the outset. However, if the God of the Bible exists, your method guarantees that you won't ever find the truth. Aren't you interested in finding the truth? I know I am and only Christianity has helped me find truth.

(Original post by Kosmos)
Starting with a conclusion then analyzing a text with that conclusion is confirmation bias.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Thanks for the link. I suppose we all have confirmation bias which is based on
preliminary conclusions. Everything you said about, for instance, the Gospel of Mark could be dismissed in the same way. I start with a "conclusion", but not a fideistic conclusion but an educated conclusion. The Christian faith alone provides the preconditions for intelligibility regarding any historical analysis, therefore, you must presuppose its truth in order to speak as you do here. But since you use historical analysis to discredit the Word of God, you saw off the branch upon which you are sitting.

[cid]

Didn't Noah get drunk as a fart and pass out naked in his tent? good drills if you ask me ... oh and then curse his grandson who didn't even do anything just because one of his sons saw him naked and told his brothers?


As for the pork thing, in Europe when Christianity was a fledgling religion trying to get a foot hold pork was a stable of many Europeans diet, its hard to convince people to join your religion if it means they will probably starve to death over winter, so Christianity evolved, adapted to suit the needs of Europeans.

[Kosmos]

(Original post by SilverSun)
Thanks for your answer and patience. We have indeed been taking quite a lot of time and space on this thread, so it would be nice if we could start wrapping up our answers little by little. I suppose we both want to enjoy summer rather than sit inside engaged in online debates. Thank you also for keeping this debate very polite, I appreciate it.

Yes I agree, this will be my last response as I'll be away for the holidays.

(Original post by SilverSun)
This answer carries no weight. I dare say you are still not answering my question. I am asking if the conclusion follows from the premise (which is: given A is true, does B follow? You cannot say that B doesn't follow because A is false.).

It does carry weight, because creating an assumption that so heavily biases your perspective when assessing the truth claim of the text should be put on hold until the scripture has been proven. Now how could it be proven? Quite easily, if all the stories within it are historical and have been proved to be so through archaeological finds or are historically consistent: Now what do we have? No evidence for a historical Abraham, Moses, Flood, Exodus, Adam and Eve or to an extent the real historical Jesus.

We can also look at the stories and beliefs of Ancient Judaism to see whether it was an objective religion that never changed, thus lending a sense of credibility to its claims, as if God did exist, would have been objective to the Jews and given them the correct information. We can see, internally, that there are various beliefs regarding God (i.e. God, himself acknowledged the existence of other gods in Genesis, Exodus etc.) that conflict with each other and between the prophets as well as the copying undertaken by Jews to construct their stories of origin from other religions rampant at the time. There's also accounts of prophecies that have failed (i.e. Ezekiel and Daniel) as well as inherent contradictions as well as books that have been forgeries (i.e. The claim that Moses wrote the Pentateuch is not supported by the consensus of Biblical scholars because it mentions things after his death as well as linguistic differences).

There's also the relation in beliefs and the taking of older stories from Judaism to bolster the framework of their origins, such as the The Epic of Gilgamesh in comparison to Noah's Ark, rules that equate to the Code of Hammurabi and the Hittite Laws, the creation myth in relation to the other religions.

For further read, I suggest John Loftus' The Christian Delusion (I know it may be a provocative title), but seriously, I really want you to read this, you'll see the many problems that is wrong with it and Christian apologists that are emotionally charged rather than honestly using historicity and logic. Or Robert Goldenberg's The Origins of Judaism, to see the evidence that underpins Ancient Judaism and their beliefs.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Who requires you to analyse without any bias?

How, if you are assessing a truth claim, would you approach a religion that claims their scripture is from God? By looking at Scripture and see the evidence that claims to be of divine inspiration. And through archaeological and historical means it fails the test. This is not done only to the Bible, this is done to each scripture that claims to be of God, it is absent of bias. If you assess the Bible with the assumption that it's divinely inspired, then you must do so with each holy scripture or that wouldn't be truthful.

(Original post by SilverSun)
What is wrong with contradictions?

Well that depends on the claim that you are positing, you can take a liberal standpoint or a fundamentalist standpoint. As you know the fundamentalist standpoint fails in light of the anonymous authorship and textual criticism. When taking a liberal standpoint, contradictions are still a problem, why? Because the contradictions within the text go against common conceived notions of Jesus (See Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus).

Such contradictions highlight that the scriptures aren't reliable if they can't even agree with each other over an event that occurred, contradictions to archaeology and history is even worse as it shows that the event (i.e. the empires of David and Solomon or the expeditions of Joshua) were either extremely exaggerated or fabricated (i.e. The Exodus or the Flood), which casts doubt on the reliability of the Bible if the anonymous authors knowingly distort history and insert mythology, or whether it is just the penning of oral traditions, the latter probably more conceivable.

(Original post by SilverSun)
So science is an authority?

Science doesn't use faith, it uses evidence to corroborate theories and if a hypothesis fails to meet the evidence then it is disregarded. Now with this process there is no bigotry or holding onto beliefs based on faith, instead if a theory has such overwhelming support then it is accepted and if there were to be something that falsified the theory then it is disregarded in favor of a better theory. This process is self-correcting, it is not based on emotion or appeals, rather it is an unbiased process of delineating what is true and what is false.

This is why, for example, Muslims tend to champion their Qu'ran according to the scale of science, because we know how reliable science is and if an ancient text has supported it, that must be it's divinely inspired, but of course when it conflicts with them they disregard it! Religion, on the other hand, is based on faith and people's ideologies that encompasses the great questions that have arisen through the ages.

Ancient Judaism is a fantastic example, their story of creation answers many questions that the ancients wished to know: Who created the universe? Who created the Earth? Why do humans have sexual impulses? Why are women subordinate to men? All creation stories appease the human mind's thirst for knowing. We know that ancient Judaism's beliefs resembled the Sumerians and Babylonians in that the earth was flat with a dome overarching it.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Are other religious texts an authority? But more to the point, whether or not it's 'historically sound' cannot be determined on the assumption that God doesn't exist. Your critique needs to be internal.
The historical reliability of the account of Noah's flood in Genesis (for example) cannot be checked from a neutral viewpoint, because an assumption must be made before you start.

Well that depends if they corroborate with the universe and how it is now, also whether the texts are internally consistent (but that would by no means mean it was divinely inspired), if it doesn't conflict science which underpins how we know if something is true or false, then it lends itself to credibility.

It can though, the Bible makes a historical claim that a global flood happened, this can be tested to be true or false, and it does conflict the evidence that we see on the Earth scientifically. The story is also know to have mimicked the Epic of Gilgamesh and other Flood stories around the Near East, Mesopotamia is set as the location due to it's susceptibility of floods, whereas Canaan and Judea weren't in the location where much floods would occur in terms of Mesopotamia. So it's safe to say it was modeled on an ancient story circulating way before Judaism penned the tale.

(Original post by SilverSun)
This is quite a claim. Please prove to me that your scenario for the history of the world is better than the one God has chosen.

But that's a loaded question, whatever I say, you will respond with you are not greater than the mind of god, so how could I respond to that question?

The fact is the Bible contains mythology which contradicts the archaeological and historical record, as well as internally inconsistent and written by anonymous authorship. Now if I were to present you with another religion's scripture and you analyzed whether it was true or false, how could you honestly say it was divinely inspired with such extraordinary claims and no evidence to back it up?

(Original post by SilverSun)
You don't have a standard to which you compare how prophets of the true God would have proclaimed His word differently from what you find in the Bible. You are comparing apples with oranges. You or anyone else can't know how else the God of the Bible would have spoken.

The standard is the historical and archaeological record, not to mention analyzing the ideologies of Judaism and Christianity and seeing that scripture conflict with each other due to inconsistencies and contradictions. And regardless of this, you can use such an ideology to underpin any theology, religious scripture or ideology.

We can get an idea of how this God would have spoken by his attributes of being God maybe? Yet the Bible contains justified genocide and accepts slavery, contains numerous contradictions and inconsistencies, lack of historicity and archaeology to reinforce the claims made. Are you honestly insinuating that an omnipotent deity would inspire an author to pen an event that didn't happen whatsoever like the Exodus, which is so pivotal in Judaism? Or would have been so careless as to present this Scripture as evidence of his existence when it portrays him as merely a man, a capricious and vindictive slave-master as is the analogy made repeatedly. He describes himself as a jealous god, which doesn't rule out the existence of other gods and this is supplemented by various passages in the Bible that reflect its henotheistic nature, note the God doesn't dispute this.

You seem to judge everything in your life with a skeptical approach of whether it meets up to its burden of proof, and you're doing with it me now and that's justified because I'm showing that it's not divinely inspired by the words of ancient tribesmen, all texts that make such extraordinary claims should meet up to extraordinary evidence.

(Original post by SilverSun)
I hate to harp on it, but it doesn't matter how the gospel of Mark came to be written. The biblical doctrine of inspiration is not limited to dictation. You are again assuming that human authorship entails unreliability and fallibility but you can do that only by assuming that God didn't mastermind the process.

But that bias deters knowing whether the claims are true in false, as soon as you grant this assumption, which should at first meet it's historicity and burden of proof, not in any way should it be granted as divine inspiration. This technique can be employed for any religion and justified their doctrines. Considering we know that throughout the bible there are problems, not to mention the New Testament, which is littered with contradictions and historical inaccuracy, then how can it be given divine inspiration status?

If this God did mastermind the process, then it would stand up to historical and archaeological scrutiny, surely I shouldn't even be able to make a claim against the Bible if it's the word of God, but I can because it's the work of men and is by no means infallible.

(Original post by SilverSun)
You don't know me and cannot say what to me is "automatic." You don't know the extent of the research I have done in order to believe what I believe.

What you are describing is a methodological naturalistic approach which presupposes that God was not involved in the writing of the Bible as the Bible claims. If the God of the Bible exists, your method will guarantee that you will never find out the truth.

That is true, I can't say to know you or the texts you have read to reach your conclusion. But I can note the biased approach taken to validate your beliefs, it's not based on an honest approach used to delineate truth from fiction, which is done to any texts and I don't see why the Bible should be excluded from this process.

This is not about God, it is about the inaccuracies and the plague of problems inherent in the Bible. It's not honest to brush them under the carpet and claim biblical inspiration, instead the conclusion is that it is not, it is merely the ideology of ancient men. You seem to take a methodological naturalist approach to everything else in life then why not to the Bible?

(Original post by SilverSun)
It's not an unfounded assumption for me. As for contradictions, it's not that I choose not to see them or address them. I'm familiar with the stock objections to the inspiration of the Bible. I don't see how they can properly be called contradictions. Internally considered, the Bible stands up well to objections such as the ones you are raising. It's when an external standard is introduced and when presuppositions that are at odds with Biblical theology rule one's thinking that people conclude that the Bible contains inaccuracies.

For you, but objectively it is unfounded, considered it can be applied to "validate" anything else that doesn't have evidence or is in the contrary position of such. So when two or more authors disagree on theological issues or a "historical" event then it is not a contradiction? That is changing the meaning of contradiction based on the presumption of divine inspiration. Internally considered, it is littered with problems and I hope you do read John Loftus, it will show it, just that book no other.

(Original post by SilverSun)
I'm glad we agree on something. But since omnibenevolence is not an attribute of the Christian God, your attempt to show that the idea of God is "ridiculous"
and "inconceivable" falls flat. Do you have other reasons to reject the God of the Bible?

It's not my burden of proof to prove that the Christian God exists, all the arguments for fail to materialize since, if they were true, would justify the belief in any god(s).

Yes, the sheer fact of the Bible being inconsistent and fallible is testament to the non-existence of god, the sheer lack of evidence where there should be is evidence against the existence of Yahweh. The Judaistic progressive thought of their god is testament of this god not existing, seeing as they were polytheistic and then transition suddenly to monotheistic, and this is inherent in scripture.

(Original post by SilverSun)
You are blind to your methodological naturalism, by which you make judgements on what is and isn't likely. You discount the possibility of supernatural causes as plausible explanations at the outset. However, if the God of the Bible exists, your method guarantees that you won't ever find the truth. Aren't you interested in finding the truth? I know I am and only Christianity has helped me find truth.

Methodological naturalism is the world around us, it is evidence. Whereas supernaturalism has no evidence, it is used by religions to posit that their specific god and afterlife exists, but the fact is there is no evidence to support their claims, they fail to meet the burden of proof.

But the problem with supernaturalism is that they don't explain anything, naturalistic explanations don't require a supernatural answer, the supernatural answer is only posited when there are gaps in our scientific knowledge. For example, we didn't know why there are an abundance of animals therefore it must have been god, then we learnt about evolution. We thought that the universe is geocentric because of god, but then we learnt it wasn't. It is an argument from ignorance based on sustaining a belief that has no evidence to support it.

The truth claims of the God of the Bible existing fail to meet the expectations of not only existing but inspiring the Bible. 1) The God that is purported has no evidence whatsoever of existence except the "Bible" which is not evidence. 2) The God of the Bible was conceived by Ancient Jews in the desert over 3000 years ago, and changed depending upon Judaism's political and social status. It is a circular argument, the Bible says it's inspired, God exists because the Bible says it's inspired.

That's why I am no longer a Christian, I've been searching for the truth and finally I have no cognitive dissonance and live my life by evidence rather by the words of superstitious desert-dwelling men. Now I'm not claiming I have found truth, but in terms of the Bible, this god does not exist. A God may exist but the Abrahamic one does not. I don't have to explain away uncomfortable scriptural lies or superstitious nonsense that isn't based on evidence, I don't have to lie to myself about how the Bible is valid and that the contradictions don't matter, who cares that it doesn't go with archaeology or history as long as I believe.. no, that is not an honest approach it is appealing to a standard that is non-existent and can justify any god.

(Original post by SilverSun)
Thanks for the link. I suppose we all have confirmation bias which is based on
preliminary conclusions. Everything you said about, for instance, the Gospel of Mark could be dismissed in the same way. I start with a "conclusion", but not a fideistic conclusion but an educated conclusion. The Christian faith alone provides the preconditions for intelligibility regarding any historical analysis, therefore, you must presuppose its truth in order to speak as you do here. But since you use historical analysis to discredit the Word of God, you saw off the branch upon which you are sitting.

I, on the other hand, didn't start with a conclusion. I was a Christian until I realized it has no evidence to support the claims Christianity is positing. If there are problems in theological narratives and if they aren't based on evidence, then they are not truthful but mutterings and oral traditions appealing to an audience to improve it's following and teachings, the same goes with the other gospels that subsequently preach a different message to different people.

Your approach is incredibly biased because it presupposes truth before you've even analyzed or read the doctrines and gospels, it could contain anything but you can attribute that to simply fallibly and constantly say that this must be of god without even proving the main conclusion that god exists. This sort of thinking hinders scientific enterprise and the ability to scrutinize your beliefs, this is exactly why people like Darwin, Galileo and atheists of the like suffered extremely because of the ignorance that the bible is truth and is unquestionable because it is divinely inspired yet has no evidence to back this assumption up except circular argumentation. I don't see how it is an educated conclusion if you've already made a conclusion that affects how you analyze the statements leading to it, that's not educated that's incredibly biased and is not how you analyze the truth claims by saying truth before analyzing.

But that's me of course, I want to live in reality where evidence is what determines whether something is true or whether it is false, because unless there is that standard then we'll fall back into the dark ages where superstition brews and false stories flourish based on faith. This is why all the religions are still existent, because they appeal to an authority that has no evidence of existence and exclaim that you need faith, when faith is just believing not based on evidence.

I wish you all the very best, and I apologize if anything which I just wrote seemed provocative, I'm very passionate when it comes to claims that, to me, don't meet their burden of proof and then are paraded as absolute truth to people, for example, in third world countries and affect their worldview and how they perceive it based on a book which lacks in evidence and breeds superstition like the existence of demons and of heaven and hell which plague the minds of young children.

But I really do hope you read John Loftus' The Christian Delusion, and don't be threatened by the title it's just a provocative marketing strategy to get attention. The book isn't as intense as the title suggests and I think will provide you with the foundation of realizing why the Bible is bunk.

[SilverSun]

Hi Kosmos and sorry to have kept you waiting for my final comment. I've been very busy.

I'll keep it short and sweet.

Thank you for the book suggestion, in fact I already have it and I'll promise to have a proper look at it.

I realise you are trying to pursue a scientific approach to historical investigation so as to get a clear and true account of past events with as little bias involved as possible. I respect that, but I encourage you to consider some of the axioms you need in order to undertake any sort of research - the very basics. "What is truth?" may sound like a boring question, but think on it for a while. Does your worldview account for the existence of truth? Does your worldview guarantee that everything around you is not an illusion? Does your worldview provide the preconditions for knowledge and for finding out truth? Unless it does, the value of your research, however extensive and however passionate you may be about it, is completely void of meaning. For you, anything you research or anything you do won't solve the problem of the big fat elephant in the middle of the room - everything is futile because truth does not and cannot exist.

Clearly, when you do research - or anything else - you are acting on a Christian basis whether you notice it or not. You presuppose the existence of truth. Without God you can't explain where truth comes from. (Try it!) The same goes for morals. You assume that historians, archaeologists and other researchers must write truthfully so that you can trust their work and then base your future arguments on what they've said. That morality, that obligation to tell the truth, is fully accounted for in Christianity. Can the same be said about your worldview?

These are some of the reasons why I said that you saw off the branch upon which you are sitting when you ditch Christianity.

Also, science does make use of faith in many ways. You have faith that there are such things as truth and non-truth. You have faith that evidence provides or gives insight to truth. You have faith that there are facts. You have faith that scientists report of their findings as truthfully and accurately as they can.

I urge you to reconsider Christianity. Christianity provides the foundations for any research you do. Absolutes in morality and facts must be objective but they can only be objective if the God of the Bible exists. Otherwise you have no epistemological basis for anything you do. You can't beat everything with nothing.

(Original post by Kosmos)
I wish you all the very best, and I apologize if anything which I just wrote seemed provocative, I'm very passionate when it comes to claims that, to me, don't meet their burden of proof and then are paraded as absolute truth to people, for example, in third world countries and affect their worldview and how they perceive it based on a book which lacks in evidence and breeds superstition like the existence of demons and of heaven and hell which plague the minds of young children.

Just because you don't personally like an aspect of Christianity does not make it false.

In conclusion, once you realise that only Christianity explains the world and provides an epistemological basis for historical research, it does not make sense to turn around as you do and attack its historical reliability by a standard which is not Biblical.

I wish all the best to you too. I was not offended by anything you wrote. I apologise if I came across as rude, but I also had to be blunt in what I wrote because I genuinely believe that what I said is true and needs to be brought into your attention. I pray you will consider the things I discussed here even though they weren't in direct response to your previous post. I was not trying to steer the conversation elsewhere. Epistemology is the heart of the matter and I urge you to begin from there.

Cheers!

[kevinhidden]

Drinking is fun, bacon and ribs are delicious. Thank you more for me if you do not eat and drink it.

[kevinhidden]

There is no basis in fact for any religion. All religion is based on mans disbelief in physical science and that which is self evident. Man therefore makes up extremely detailed yet written with the understanding of the time stories to make up a belief that gives us a basis for trance like adherence to those doctrine. These beliefs are so flimsy that those supporting them are often brought to blows when questioned in any way as to the validity of those "creative beliefs". As a relative new comer to the religion game Islam is more vulnerable to murderers then other fairy tail nonsense is. That is all. To believe anything else is sheer nonsense and without any basis in reality.

[Martyn*]

The problem is clearly disregarded. It is an historical one. Moreover it is doctrinal. Christianity was originally paganism for Jews, since the Jewish law prohibited anyone from taking part in heathen celebrations. That's the reason why Jesus is the wine biber as well as is Dionysus Bacchus. That's the reason why wine is drunk as in the Bacchic rites, the blood of the god. The swine was considered unclean by many civilisations. An exception was made at the time of the full-moon when the pig was ritually sacrificed and eaten in honour of a particular lunar-god. Jews were prohibited from this, until, of course, Christianity was made and declared that every creature that God made including the long-maligned pig was sanctified.

[MOE_786]

Christianity is a religeon based on common sense and logic.

The bible has been manipulated so many times that you christians dont now what to believe no more.

This is the reason you drink piss and have sex with strangers and then wonder why you all turned up so focked up.

[Dukeofwembley]

(Original post by MOE_786)
Christianity is a religeon based on common sense and logic.

The bible has been manipulated so many times that you christians dont now what to believe no more.

This is the reason you drink piss and have sex with strangers and then wonder why you all turned up so focked up.

lol, christianity based on common sense and logic?are you mad?

[pokemons]

I don't eat Pork. I find Leviticus 11 really interesting though! One word that screams out to me here is Symbolism

[navarre]

(Original post by kevinhidden)
Drinking is fun, bacon and ribs are delicious. Thank you more for me if you do not eat and drink it.

Most truthful post, end of thread.