Matthew Makes Another Error

by JosephAlward 109 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  RWC

  Joseph,

  Your explanation for the Gospels is entirely incorrect. First, the two passages that you cite from Samuel and Mark are entirely different. They relate to each other in no way.

  Second, Christanity was being preached by Peter , Paul and the apostles before the Gospels were written. The Gospels are not the bases for the beginning of Christanity, the church was started before.

  If Jesus was not a real person Peter and Paul and the others would have never been believed to begin with. They went to their death preaching about him as the Son of God. Would they have done that if they knew it was all made up and was a lie?

  Finally, Jewish historian Josephus does mention Jesus in his history.
• 

  rem

  RWC,

  Second, Christanity was being preached by Peter , Paul and the apostles before the Gospels were written. The Gospels are not the bases for the beginning of Christanity, the church was started before.

  But what kind of Christianity? Was it a religion based on a real person, or was it mystery movement based on a mythical God man such as the pagan religions. Remember, the gospels and many of the epistles were written much later than Jesus' supposed lifetime. Paul's Christianity, which seems to be among the earliest, doesn't seem to know much about a physical Jesus or any historical events of a man named Jesus. In fact there are many teachings of the Jesus of the Gospels that Paul could have used to his defense, but he didn't seem to know about those things. The evidence is quite compelling that the Jesus myth grew from a mythical Jewish mystery religion until later believers mistook the myths to be real events.

  Remember, you are only getting a very narrow viewpoint from the few books in the existing bible canon. You might want to research some of the writings that didn't make it, such as the Gnostic writings and the other 'gospels'.

  rem

  "We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain
• 

  Abaddon

  Sorry Pom; I wasn't ignoring you, I think you were typing yours yesterday whilst I typed mine.

  I am still with you. My incongurity is going 'twang' though. It seems to fit the idea of 'god' in, you are prepared to come up with any required supposition, like;

  if god knew there would be a fall, then god is source of evil

  but god cannot be evil, so he did not know of fall

  so god couldn't be omniscient then

  but god is omniscient now

  so god made himself omniscient at some point

  It's a great story, but I think you realise that this is unprovable conjecture, which is something you critisize scientists for!

  People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
• 

  funkyderek

  Christanity was being preached by Peter , Paul and the apostles before the Gospels were written

  Paul wrote more books of the bible than anyone else. By his own admission, he never met Jesus. The story of Jesus bears a striking resemblance (more, I believe, than mere coincidence would allow) to that of Heracles, a peasant demigod of Tarsus. Who else do we know who came from Tarsus?

  For more read http://www.geocities.com/pleiades61/heisrisen.html

  --
  "The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
• 

  pomegranate

  >>if god knew there would be a fall, then god is source of evil
  but god cannot be evil, so he did not know of fall
  so god couldn't be omniscient then
  but god is omniscient now
  so god made himself omniscient at some point

  It's a great story, but I think you realise that this is unprovable conjecture, which is something you critisize scientists for!<<

  Personally, I'd call it a reasonable trail of logic and not conjecture. As far as provable goes, I believe proving He exists will be His job alone. If I could prove He exists, then I would be more than another man and then too, faith would be useless and meaningless.

  For human beings, the ONLY real proof that satifies is by sight. But, it is not for man to show God, it is for God to show Himself.
• 

  Abaddon

  I suppose it illustrates one thing; what to me is a reasonable trail of logic (no evidence, no god (and you know that's a VERY simplistic abstraction) to you is unsupportable. What to you is a reasonable trail of logic to me is unsupported conjecture.

  We both, I think, are very sincere in our analysis, but have results.

  The consonance of sincereity and the potential disparity of outcomes for us as individuals is a problem for me.

  I honestly don't expect to be right. But I am convinced I am right as I can be. The idea that this might condemn me, or equally sincere Muslims, or a Hindus, or more liberal Christians, to some kind of punishment jars with any understanding I have of god.

  As you point out, it is god's job alone to prove he exists. And he hasn't. Quand Erat Demonstrandum.

  I'm more than happy if you want to carry on with Genesis, especially with the reconcilliation of science and scripture which you believe, as something of a literalist, is possible.

  But I think we both know that we are going to have to accept each others right to differ, as it is unlikely that either one of us is going to refine our paradigms in light of the others evidence, as neither of us feel the other has evidence that would warrent this.

  People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
• 

  RWC

  What type of Christanity? Read the conversion of Paul in Acts 8 and 9. He confirms this account in some of his writings (Gal. 1:15, 1 Cor. 15:8, Phil. 3:12). He says that he saw and heard the Lord at the time of his conversion. He than went and stayed with the apostles and started preaching that the Lord was the Son of God. He did this after he had persecuted them under the name of Saul.

  As for the Gnostic writings it is well established that they were written after the writings of Paul and the Gospels and that they incorporated the believes of other communities. These writings did not claim that Jesus did not exist.

  The canon that we have now was based on a number of factors. One of which was that the writings and teachings in the selected books were used by the early churches, were recognized by the apostles as being accurate, were consistent with each other, appeared to avoid outside influence among others. The books that did not make it did not stand up to this analysis.

  The question that says suppose the Gospels were written to make it look as if the prophecies were fulfilled and there " is no proof they were not" is turning the burden of proof around. The gospels are accounts of men who witnessed Jesus' teaching and living. They are accounts of witnesses to his resurrection. They were turning Jewish society and thousands of years of religion on its ear. The Messiah they were promoting was not what the Jewish people were looking for. He did not advocate war against Rome, nor did he deliver them from Roman control. They told the story of women being the first to see the empty tomb when at the time women were not deemed credible and could not even testify in court. They died for what they wrote to be the truth. They did not die for what they knew to be a made up lie. They preached about it days after it happened at a time when it clearly could have been debunked from the start. None of that happened. There is no real evidence that what they wrote was not what they knew to be the truth and alot of reasons and evidence to the contrary.
• 

  Abaddon

  RWC; our idea of evidence or burden of proof are rather different!

  The Gospels were written after Jesus' death. The most obvious conclusion, as the Bible cannot be proven to be accurate as an inspired book might be, is that they specifically fufilled the prophecies of the Messiah to give crdence to the story of Jesus. You don't have to agree with me, by all means, feel free to have the last word...

  ... but could I just point out you've not answered this;

  In the, oh, three hundred years Missionaries have been active in India, Christians remain in a massively small minority. This either means that people are dying unaware of god's true word due to ineffective dissemination of God's word (which would mean it wasn't fair), or because they were somehow intrinsically less inclined to follow the true god (which implies some cultures or races are more inclined towards god, which is illogical).

  or this;

  I believe there are four contemporary references to Jesus outside the Bible (and the Gospels are not contemporary to Jesus, being written sometime after), and that all four of these are classified as fraudulent or doubtful by many theologans, let alone athiests.

  People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...
• 

  funkyderek

  [Paul] says that he saw and heard the Lord at the time of his conversion.

  We know he says that. The whole basis of modern Christianity is that Paul believed that he saw the risen Jesus. But we only have Paul's word on that. We know Paul never met the person known as Jesus of Galilee. The similarities between the Jesus myth and that of Heracles are striking. The fact that Christianity's number one publicist came from Tarsus where Heracles was worshipped, makes a coincidence unlikely.

  The canon that we have now was based on a number of factors. One of which was that the writings and teachings in the selected books were used by the early churches, were recognized by the apostles as being accurate, were consistent with each other, appeared to avoid outside influence among others. The books that did not make it did not stand up to this analysis.

  So despite Paul's saying that "all scripture is inspired of God" the Council of Nicea in the fourth century removed those books which they felt didn't fit in with their belief system and kept those which they thought gave an account consistent with what Christianity had evolved into.

  The question that says suppose the Gospels were written to make it look as if the prophecies were fulfilled and there " is no proof they were not" is turning the burden of proof around.

  No it's not. You readily admit that the church removed books of the Bible which weren't consistent, which could conceivably have included accounts of Jesus' life that didn't fulfill prophecy. The earliest extant manuscripts of the gospels date from the third or fourth century, plenty of time for revisions. The only records of an event are documents written three hundred years after the events they describe. Of course the burden of proof should not be on the skeptics here.

  They told the story of women being the first to see the empty tomb when at the time women were not deemed credible and could not even testify in court

  Coincidentally, Heracles also first appeared to women after his resurrection. He was also born of a virgin in a far away town, was of royal descent, escaped from mortal danger as an infant, was tempted in the wilderness, performed miracles, died an excruciating death, was resurrected and ascended to heaven, his return eagerly awaited by his disciples.

  They preached about it days after it happened at a time when it clearly could have been debunked from the start.

  Not according to any surviving contemporary records. Nobody writing in the first century seems to have heard of Jesus at all.

  --
  "The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, 1794.
• 

  pomegranate

  >>I suppose it illustrates one thing; what to me is a reasonable trail of logic (no evidence, no god (and you know that's a VERY simplistic abstraction) to you is unsupportable. What to you is a reasonable trail of logic to me is unsupported conjecture.<<

  Well, let's reason on logic a bit.

  What is logic? Logic is based on reasoning from earlier and known statements, events or conditions WHETHER TRUE or FALSE. Logic is a principle based on the age old conflict of TRUE and FALSE. OFF and ON. YES and NO. Logic is BINARY, it is answers (YES or NO) based on rational analysis.

  In order to have logic and reason, we use known things as a base for starting. Logic is based on QUESTIONS and ANSWERS.

  For instance, Did God "know" evil before Satan created it? That question demands a YES or NO in logic. Evidence (previous accepted knowns, whether factual or intellectual) can support a train of logic regarding this simple question.

  So you see, I really can't go on unless you understand and verify the legitimacy of the "logic" I am presenting. Is what I have presented to you intellectually logical? Because if you feel what I have said thus far is illogical (even off the wall), then it is useless to go forward as future logic will be based on prior logic. If prior logic is deemed FALSE and illogical by you (because of a "lack of evidence", it should be pointed out that logic can also be built on premise), any further building of this train of logic will be fruitless and to go forward will be a waste of time for both of us.