(September 30, 2015 at 11:54 am)Minimalist Wrote: http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.co...bably.html
Quote: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.
Heh...funny how archaeology keeps finding stuff that proves rather than disproves the Bible, isn't it?
If they find Arimathea (like they have found Sodom and Gomorrah), what will your excuse be then?
