We can be certain of NO resurrection - A Response

[Huggy Bear]

Wait, so what you're saying is that there is no record of a HEBREW city that goes by the Greek translation of "Arimathea"? Tell me it ain't so.......

No, he definitely said the gospels are horseshit.

And he posted a quote as to why he thought so, which you conveniently left out.

[Minimalist]

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.co...bably.html

In the first place we have no idea where the location of the town of Arimathea is, whereas we do know the location of other Biblical cites like Bethlehem, Nazareth, Jerusalem, Capernaum and Damascus. According to Roy W. Hoover, “the location of Arimathea has not (yet) been identified with any assurance; the various ‘possible’ locations are nothing more than pious guesses or conjectures undocumented by any textual or archaeological evidence.”[1] More than likely Hoover means we don’t have any other textual reference to the town in any ancient text apart from those influenced by the Biblical narrative, and there is no archaeology confirming the location of this town.

BTW, Roy Hoover is a bible scholar...one of you xtian clowns.


Secondly, and probably more importantly, one would expect that a member of the Sanhedrin was a jew and a Judaean.  Judea used a patronymic system for naming people; i.e.  X, son of Y.  The practice of naming someone after the town the lived in ( X of Y ) was a Greek thing.   So Joseph of Arimathea does not fit in with all the "Schlomo's sons of Morris" types who would have made up the Sanhedrin.  Since we know that these so-called gospels were written in Greek, by Greek speakers and not a bunch of illiterate fishermen, it makes sense that when they needed to create a character they picked one from their own culture rather than the one they were purportedly writing about.

Frankly the whole fucking story reads like a play with characters entering and exiting.  There were no curtains to ancient plays...not even in Shakespeare's time.  Hence why you see in Shakespeare that there is always a gang of soldiers, or comrades, or friends or relatives who show up to cart the body of the dead hero off the stage.  It would kill the whole thing if after the play ended Hamlet got up and walked off.  So a way had to be found to cart jesus' carcass off the stage and "Joseph of Arimathea" was invented to provide the deus ex machina.

[Huggy Bear]

Since we know that these so-called gospels were written in Greek, by Greek speakers and not a bunch of illiterate fishermen, it makes sense that when they needed to create a character they picked one from their own culture rather than the one they were purportedly writing about.

You do realize that Greek was a universal language, much like English is today. If your purpose was to spread the gospel, you'd write it in a language everyone could understand.

[Cato]

Since we know that these so-called gospels were written in Greek, by Greek speakers and not a bunch of illiterate fishermen, it makes sense that when they needed to create a character they picked one from their own culture rather than the one they were purportedly writing about.

You do realize that Greek was a universal language, much like English is today. If your purpose was to spread the gospel, you'd write it in a language everyone could understand.

Let me guess, by universal you mean educated citizens of the Roman Empire since we all know how fluent in Greek the Chinese, American Indians, Sub-Saharan Africans, and Australian Aborigines were 2000 years ago.

[Huggy Bear]

Let me guess, by universal you mean educated citizens of the Roman Empire since we all know how fluent in Greek the Chinese, American Indians, Sub-Saharan Africans, and Australian Aborigines were 2000 years ago.

Leave it to atheists to try and find the smallest detail to disagree with. Let me ask you something, were the American Indians conducting business in Asia minor?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_language

In a more practical fashion, trade languages, as ancient Koine Greek, may be seen as a kind of real universal language, that was used for commerce.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Leave it to Wiki to get stupid on matters linguistic. The term you're looking for, Buggy, is lingua franca. Using the term "universal language" in its stead is an inaccurate reinvention of a perfectly fine wheel.

[Huggy Bear]

Leave it to Wiki to get stupid on matters linguistic.  The term you're looking for, Buggy, is lingua franca. Using the term "universal language" in its stead is an inaccurate reinvention of a perfectly fine wheel.

I don't think using the term "universal language" confuses anyone except Cato.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Leave it to Wiki to get stupid on matters linguistic.  The term you're looking for, Buggy, is lingua franca. Using the term "universal language" in its stead is an inaccurate reinvention of a perfectly fine wheel.

I don't think using the term "universal language" confuses anyone except Cato.

I think using inapt terms confuses people who aren't educated. Cato certainly isn't in that group, but he certainly was pointing out inapt usage.

[Cato]

Leave it to Wiki to get stupid on matters linguistic.  The term you're looking for, Buggy, is lingua franca. Using the term "universal language" in its stead is an inaccurate reinvention of a perfectly fine wheel.

I don't think using the term "universal language" confuses anyone except Cato.

What a dumbass. You misused the term universal and when called on it scrambled to find some strictly parsed use all the while accusing me of arguing a technicality. Your attempt to save face falls short since your tightened definition places severe geographic limitations on your god's communication ability; namely, as far as the culture from which your idiotic religion sprang had then to date traveled. So much for the broader point that god used Greek to spread his word to everyone because of its universality. Your argument is shit.

[Homeless Nutter]

Let me guess, by universal you mean educated citizens of the Roman Empire since we all know how fluent in Greek the Chinese, American Indians, Sub-Saharan Africans, and Australian Aborigines were 2000 years ago.

Yeah, well - f*** the Chinese, the Indians (both kinds) and the Africans! God's message was only meant for the white and perhaps a few slightly brown-ish people...

To think, that if god bothered to translate his message into Arabic, we could have been spared Islam, since the main reason for the rise and success of that religion was the fact that Arabs were butt-hurt for having been omitted. Not to mention that there could have been another 1.5 billion christians in China by now - especially that a lot of them could read and write 2000 years ago...

Yeah, sure - Greek was definitely the way to go...