Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward 54 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  JosephAlward

  RWC,

  I’m responding to your last post. Please try to answer all of the questions I ask; there are fourteen of them.

  You wrote,

  Second, let me give you some more examples of where Paul does mention some of the things you list:

  1. baptized by John - Acts 13:23-25 ]

  23"From this man's descendants God ha brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised. 24Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel. 25As John was completing his work, he said: 'Who do you think I am? I am not that one. No, but he is coming after me, whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.'

  This says nothing about John baptizing Jesus, which is what I listed.

  2. Tried by Pilate -Acts 13:28

  28Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed.

  This was never on my list; maybe you’re confusing the trial with events surrounding the arrest, which I did mention. Why didn’t Paul ever write anything about Judas betraying Jesus, and the mob coming to arrest him, and Peter denying Jesus, and the disciples running away? Aren’t the betrayals by Judas and Peter extremely important? Wouldn’t Paul have mentioned them if he had known about them? Was not Peter an extremely important part of Christianity? Was he not the “rock” on which the church was founded? So, wouldn’t Paul have mentioned that the “rock” betrayed Jesus, if he actually had known about it? Why not?

  To counter my claim that Paul seems unaware that God called Jesus his “son,” you offer this:

  3. Was called the Son of God - Romans 8:3

  3For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.

  This does not show that Paul knew God called Jesus “son”; it only shows that Paul believed that Jesus was God’s son. Why wouldn’t Paul tell his readers that God announced that Jesus was his son, if he had known this?

  4. left an empty tomb behind - Acts 13:30

  30But God raised him from the dead,

  This is not what I asked for; I asked you to explain why Paul didn’t write about Mary finding an empty tomb. Paul makes no reference to the tomb, or to Mary. Why wouldn’t Paul have referred to Mary’s testimony, if he had known about it? Wouldn’t his readers have wanted to know that there was actually evidence that Jesus had left the tomb?

  5. taught that Jesus fulfilled the old testament scriptures for the messiah - Acts 13:32; Romans 1:1-6

  Acts 13: 32"We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers 33he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus.

  Romans 1: 1Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God-- 2the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures 3regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, 4and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. 5Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. 6And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

  This doesn’t begin to address the many miracles I listed in my post. Where are all of the miracles and healings, the calming of the seas, the walking on water, converting water to wine, miraculous feedings, the sending of demons into the herd of pigs, the transfiguration? If Paul had known about them, wouldn’t he have mentioned them, at least once?

  6. virgin birth - Romans 1:4 ( by implication)

  4and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God

  Do you really think this shows that Paul knew that Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus? Don’t you think that if Paul knew that Mary was told by the Holy Spirit that she would conceive God’s son he would have told his readers about it? Wouldn’t they want to hear it straight from Paul that Jesus was born of a virgin? If Paul really knew this, then why didn’t he mention it, at least once?

  The bottom line is that the assumption you make is absolutely unsupportable and is no evidence that the teachings of the Gospels are false and made up.

  You have not addressed the main points of my argument; you have not explained why all of those extremely important events in Jesus’ life were not mentioned by Paul. All you’ve done is show a very few things of a very general nature that Paul did know or think about Jesus, as if you believed that that somehow proved that Paul also knew about all of those other events. You don't show that he had any specific information about any of the miracles, and any of the other marvelous events in Jesus' life which the gospels alleged had occurred. And, you haven’t explained why Paul, who was the very first person to write about Jesus, did not think it was appropriate to record for posterity all of those extremely important events in Jesus’ life, if he knew about them, if indeed they had actually occurred. Why, if Paul really knew about them, did he let the world wait twenty years or more to hear about these events from Mark, Matthew, and Luke?

  RWC, please address the main part of my argument: Why did Paul not let the rest of the world know through his writings about the miraculous deeds that Jesus allegedly had performed, if in fact Paul knew about them, if they had indeed happened?

  Why did he instead let mankind wait for twenty years or more before they would see in print the miracle stories and other stories about Jesus in print? Wouldn’t Paul have wanted to make sure that as many persons as possible knew about as many of the details of Jesus’ life as possible, if in fact Paul had actually known these details? If not, why not?

  Joseph F. Alward
  "Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

  * http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
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  JosephAlward

  My apologies to Yadirf, whose revised post--a revision of the one I didn't understand--slipped by me. In that post, Yadirf pointed to Matthew 24:29 as an example of a miracle which wasn't advertised as coming from God. But, I must disagree; I think the surrounding text makes it clear that the Son of Man. i.e., the son of God, which is the equivalent of God, a miracle maker, is the one which will cause the remarkable events to occur:

  27For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 28Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather. 29"Immediately after the distress of those days " 'the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'

  
  Joseph F. Alward
  "Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

  * http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html
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  RWC

  I have already answered thes questions. Paul wrote to specific churches or individuals for specific reasons. He was not writing to mankind in general at the time he wrote the letters. They have since proved timeless and are used by mankind, but that was not their original intent. He wrote what was needed to address the problems the letter was addressing.

  What makes you think that Paul failed to mention the things you mention because he didn't know about them? And from there, where do you leap logically to the point that because he didn't mention them the events never happened?

  Priests and missionaries since the beginning of the Church have been writing letters to churches. I am confident that they do not mention all of the things you list. Does that mean that they never happened?

  We do not know if Paul did not write some of these things down. We only have the letters that were cannoized. That does not mean that we have all of the letters that Paul wrote. When the canon was decided that was around the year 340, so the Gospels were already written and being used. Had Paul written his own version of the events you describe or his own gospel, it would have been redundant and not the most direct source of the information which was one of the tests for cannonized.

  Are these events the most astonishing since the beginning of mankind? yes

  For the answer to the rest of your questions in the post, see above.
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  RWC

  One more thought, how do you explain that Paul taught that Jesus was the messiah using the old testament scriptures which I listed? The Bible clearly says he did
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  JosephAlward

  Had Paul written his own version of the events you describe or his own gospel, it would have been redundant and not the most direct source of the information which was one of the tests for cannonized.

  If the Bible editors were concerned about redundancy, as you claim, then how do you explain why the gospels of Matthew and Luke repeat almost verbatim 90% of the stories Mark wrote?

  Furthermore, according to you, Mark's information came indirectly from Peter, so if it's true that the Bible writers would only have wanted to include information that was the "most direct," then why did they include Mark's Jesus stories at all?

  Finally, according to you, both Paul and Mark got their information about Jesus from Peter. Now, since Paul's writings were closer in time to Jesus, why would the Bible editors not have included Paul's miracle stories, if they had existed? Why not include both sets of miracle stories, if they had existed? Did the Bible writers not show that they weren't the least concerned about the repetition in the four gospels?

  Priests and missionaries since the beginning of the Church have been writing letters to churches. I am confident that they do not mention all of the things you list. Does that mean that they never happened?

  That's not a sound argument. There would be no historical imperative for priests today, or even a thousand years ago, to repeat all or even most of the miracles stories, since they were common knowledge, and in writing already. But, the situation for Paul is different. Paul wrote at a time when he knew there were no gospel stories in print; the stories by Mark, Matthew, and Luke were still twenty years in the future. Thus, Paul had an obligation to history to record virtually everything he had learned about Jesus, since no one else had done so at that time. We're talking about he most important being since the dawn of time, and Paul was the first person to write about him; we're not talking about priests who lived centuries after the gospel stories had already been canonized and in print for centuries; we're talking about the person who lived about the time of Jesus and who was the first person to write about Jesus. Surely you agree that what Paul might have written about Jesus is vastly more important than what a priest at your local parish might write.

  Thus, as the very first historian to record the life of Jesus, one would have expected that the Bible writers would have given precedence to Paul's writing--if they had existed--over those of Mark's, since Paul's would have been closer in time to Jesus than Mark's. At the least, the editors would have included both Paul's writings and Mark's, but certainly not just Mark's alone--if Paul had in fact ever written any miracle stories.

  I think we're done with this argument. I'll present another puzzle for you to think about later, in another thread.

  Joseph F. Alward
  "Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"

  * http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html