(June 30, 2016 at 1:15 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: I thought the reason he gave for his agnosticism was the problem of evil?

That may have been the final straw but he is quite clear in "Misquoting Jesus" that it was the problems with the bible itself - including a re-cap of the Day of Preparation fuck up which causes Dripshit to lose what little is left of his mind! - that started him down the road to realization.

Quote:In short, my study of the Greek New Testament, and my investigations
into the manuscripts that contain it, led to a radical rethinking
of my understanding of what the Bible is. This was a seismic change
for me. Before this—starting with my born again
experience in high school, through my fundamentalist days at Moody, and on through
my evangelical days at Wheaton—my faith had been based completely
on a certain view of the Bible as the fully inspired, inerrant word of
God. Now I no longer saw the Bible that way. The Bible began to appear
to me as a very human book. Just as human scribes had copied,
and changed, the texts of scripture, so too had human authors originally
written the texts of scripture. This was a human book from beginning
to end. It was written by different human authors at different
times and in different places to address different needs. Many of these
authors no doubt felt they were inspired by God to say what they did,
but they had their own perspectives, their own beliefs, their own
views, their own needs, their own desires, their own understandings,
their own theologies; and these perspectives, beliefs, views, needs, said. In all these ways they differed from one another. Among other
things, this meant that Mark did not say the same thing that Luke
said because he didn't mean the same thing as Luke. John is different
from Matthew—not the same. Paul is different from Acts. And
James is different from Paul. Each author is a human author and
needs to be read for what he (assuming they were all men) has to say,
not assuming that what he says is the same, or conformable to, or consistent
with what every other author has to say. The Bible, at the end
of the day, is a very human book.
This was a new perspective for me, and obviously not the view I
had when I was an evangelical Christian—nor is it the view of most
evangelicals today.

pgs 11-12

It was his realization that the bible was unreliable that triggered what the jerkoffs would call a "crisis of faith."  (I call it LIBERATION.)

Anyway, Jorg, if you want to read the book I have an electronic copy.  PM an email address and I'll send it to you.

(June 30, 2016 at 10:56 am)Aractus Wrote:

(June 30, 2016 at 8:33 am)Jehanne Wrote: This paragraph is just false:

http://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily...ompassion/

Did Jesus get "angry" or did he have "compassion"?  Big difference, if you ask me!

Just because a variation exists (there's literally at least one variation per word in the NT due to the large number of Greek manuscripts, with most of those being differences in spelling or grammar) doesn't mean it casts doubt upon the original wording. But look, let's assume this a genuine case for an un-knowable original wording of Mark - it's not a big deal. It's less significant than the number of the beast because the meaning of the passage is not substantially altered. You might think it's a "big difference" - but it isn't. Mark describes Jesus taking action and rebuking others out of anger in several other places in his gospel anyway. Anyway that's besides the point, AFAIK it is believed the text originally read "indignant" as is indicated by the fact that the 2011 version of the NIV uses that as the basis for their translation, and it would therefore be the version found in Novum Testamentum. Given that it's an Evangelical translation that would prefer to be influenced by evangelical theology (one of my criticism of it), for it to include that variation over the "compassion" version would lead me to believe that Bart and the other textual critics decided that's how it was originally written in Mark. Therefore they do know what it said with a reasonable degree of confidence, and it's not a matter for petty debate, or an unsettled matter as is Revelation 13:18's number of the beast.

Maybe a 1st century manuscript, if any exist, will shed light on the matter.  Fact is that there are some passages of the New Testament that everyone agrees were not in the original texts (the end of Mark after verse 8, the Johannine comma, the Pericope Adulterae, The Testimonium Flavianum, and some others), which shows that Christian scribes had no qualms about altering historical texts, inspired or not.  In addition, no one disputes the fact that about half the letters of Paul (the Pastoral epistles) were not even written by him; ditto for the epistles of Peter and the three letters of John.

Quote:doesn't mean it casts doubt upon the original wording.

But, as Ehrman constantly points out, we don't have the original wording.  Just copies of copies of copies of copies.

I sometimes wonder if he is right about that.

(June 30, 2016 at 7:14 pm)Jehanne Wrote: Maybe a 1st century manuscript, if any exist, will shed light on the matter.  Fact is that there are some passages of the New Testament that everyone agrees were not in the original texts (the end of Mark after verse 8, the Johannine comma, the Pericope Adulterae, The Testimonium Flavianum, and some others), which shows that Christian scribes had no qualms about altering historical texts, inspired or not.  In addition, no one disputes the fact that about half the letters of Paul (the Pastoral epistles) were not even written by him; ditto for the epistles of Peter and the three letters of John.

Again, none of that is controversial and the only ones who will disagree are fundamentalists and Orthodox Christians, and other people who simply don't believe in critical scholarship. I would actually strongly disagree with you that those examples show that scribes were, generally speaking, quite willing to make alterations. The Comma Johanneum for example is noty found in any Greek manuscript ever, until the 16th century when it was deliberately inserted into one because of its place within the Vulgate. There are two points to note here, firstly despite the Vulgate including it, no one added it to Greek texts for consistency until one person in the 16th century, someone who was convinced it must have been originally written in the Greek. Not only that, but the Vulgate itself was probably based on some ancient Greek variant that included it - yet it died off. That would suggest to me that Christians even in the early days recognised careless copying and preferred the texts they perceived to be more authentic to the author's autograph.

As I mentioned before though, those examples don't advance Bart's argument that the original wording is "un-knowable". The fact is, yes if you want to know exactly whether the originals said "Christ Jesus" or "Jesus Christ" and how often each version appeared (before the use of the Nomina Sacra which is now found in every single NT Greek manuscript), then you're out of luck. But that doesn't mean you don't know what it said. Whether in Greek appears "Christ Jesus", "Jesus Christ" or the Nomina Sacra variations of CJ/JC makes no difference, you don't need to know which of the two ways it was written down first.

There's a much greater degree of confidence in the original wording of the NT writings than there are of any other ancient Greek text for which the original is lost. Much more than say for Antiquities of the Jews, or any other significant Greek text written in those times - again with the very rare exception of where you might have an original letter.

(June 30, 2016 at 8:09 pm)Aractus Wrote: As I mentioned before though, those examples don't advance Bart's argument that the original wording is "un-knowable".

I'm not familiar with all of Ehrman's work, but I have never encountered such an argument in the stuff that I have read. Since you haven't read Ehrman's work, I can only presume you are referring to videos in which he's made this argument. Can you link to such a video or other media in which Ehrman is making the argument you claim he is making?

Quote:But that doesn't mean you don't know what it said.

Sadly, it does.  That's what "original" means.  And we do not have those.  Maybe.

(June 30, 2016 at 9:03 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(June 30, 2016 at 8:09 pm)Aractus Wrote: As I mentioned before though, those examples don't advance Bart's argument that the original wording is "un-knowable".

I'm not familiar with all of Ehrman's work, but I have never encountered such an argument in the stuff that I have read.  Since you haven't read Ehrman's work, I can only presume you are referring to videos in which he's made this argument.  Can you link to such a video or other media in which Ehrman is making the argument you claim he is making?

fyi, Bart Ehrman was also employed by The Teacher Company TTC to produce several series of University style audio lectures on the History of Christianity (MP3). I am lucky enough to have come up the entire collection.  I should try to make this available to my Atheist friends somehow. The more people learn about Christian History, the more they reject it.

Doesn't matter.  You can take this from Theopedia ( of all places )

http://www.theopedia.com/bart-ehrman

Quote:Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar and expert on early Christianity. He is currently the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ehrman is well known for his writings on early church history and the development of the New Testament canon.

and you'll still get some ignorant baptist shitball come along and say "he doesn't know what he's talking about."  You have to get used to that with jesus freaks, D/D.

(June 30, 2016 at 8:09 pm)Aractus Wrote: I would actually strongly disagree with you that those examples show that scribes were, generally speaking, quite willing to make alterations.

No one in the modern era would tolerate it, at least without the "f-word" ("fraud") being used.  I grant you that the alterations from the 2nd century on became less and less, but they were still there.  Take John, Chapter 21; everyone agrees that it was a later addition.  Point is that John itself, as a Gospel, could have gone through a number of revisions until the "final" version settled down near the end of the 1st century or early into the 2nd.  Even then it was not an issue in the early Church for someone to come along and append an entire extra chapter to it.  Given this layering upon layering of the Gospels, it is difficult to say how, exactly, the very first manuscripts appeared.  And, then, these very early manuscripts were written at least a generation (40 years) after the death of Jesus, and both you and I agree that there was embellishment upon embellishment, especially, with the Resurrection accounts.  I would agree with you that the Gospels contain some of the words of the historical Jesus, but even scholars themselves cannot agree on which ones Jesus actually spoke!

And, so, there is substantial doubt about all of it.  We know that Jesus existed, that he was an historical figure during the early 1st century Palestine, but even then, the Romans did not bother to even mention his existence, let alone anyone else.  As such, it is reasonable to conclude that his influence on the cultural of his day was "unremarkable".  To me, this means that the Romans viewed him as yet another apocalyptic loon whom had a doomsday prophecy, and after his disturbance in the temple in Jerusalem (at the end of his ministry and not at the beginning, as John puts it), they arrested him, and some Roman official (probably, not even Pilate) sentenced him to die.  The rest, as they say, is "history".

(June 30, 2016 at 11:32 pm)Jehanne Wrote: And, then, these very early manuscripts were written at least a generation (40 years) after the death of Jesus

No they weren't. I find it near inconceivable that Matthew could have been written to Jewish Christians after the fall of Jerusalem. But let's ignore the gospels for a moment, we have at least two letters of paul that reliably date to 51-54 AD, and the Epistle of James which almost certainly was written before 50AD.

(June 30, 2016 at 11:32 pm)Jehanne Wrote: I would agree with you that the Gospels contain some of the words of the historical Jesus, but even scholars themselves cannot agree on which ones Jesus actually spoke!

Incorrect. The Sermon on the Mount is pretty much universally accepted as being genuinely delivered by Jesus, especially given the number of times James makes direct reference to it before any of the Christian gospels were written (he directly cites it something like 14-19 times, in addition to citing other things Jesus said as well). If he didn't give the Parables of the Rich Ruler and the Good Samaritan then it's up to you to prove where they came from, not up to me or others or Christians to prove it. I think that most sceptics would agree that the Parable of the Good Samaritan was one of Jesus's best teachings - if not the best. It was not at all aligned with the conventional wisdom of Judaism in the first century, which is what really makes it interesting.

That said, I don't think he ever claimed to be the Messiah. I'd agree with other sceptics that when Jesus talks about the "Son of Man" he is not referring to himself in the third-person, but rather looking towards the celestial being prophesied by Daniel. Those are great points of difference between us and Christians, but ultimately I'm forward looking, so of course it could one day be shown I'm wrong and that Jesus was referring to himself as the Son of Man - and if that was the case, as a sceptic, I have absolutely no explanation for it.