RE: Was Jesus of Nazareth a religious loon?
April 4, 2020 at 1:55 pm
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: I think concede is perhaps not the word here. Even the most immovable of fundies would say anything outside the Bible is fair game for assassination, and that a lot of subsequent writing about Jesus is just not history.
The holey babble is not history either.
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: There are a range of tools we can use to support the reliability of different parts of the Gospels.
Are there? The holey babble mentions Jerusalem. Sure. The Spiderman comics mention New York. Therefore Spiderman must be real.
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: Things like multiple attestation,
There is none. Even the gospels don't agree among themselves.
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: criteria of coherence,
What? if it is written in some language it is evidence of truth?
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: embarrassment (as the OP) etc.
Oh. "Everyone in my community is going with it so I shall pay lip service in return for a quiet life" is evidence to you?
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: We can also use other tools such as the development of theology (just why did a Jewish sect declare the arrival of the Kingdom of God (KoG) when it plainly hadn't arrived?
Are you unaware of the volume of religious fruitloops wandering the levant at that time? Are you unaware that we have solid evidence for all of them except jebus? Why have we solid evidence for Kochba, or Ben Yair or any of gaggles of others, but none for your jebus?
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: Why was resurrection, a small and debated aspect of the KoG put smack in the centre of belief?)
Competition with established deities. My god is better than yours.
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: As for the events of Matthew 27:51-53.
More puzzles than answers. Did Matthew mean to imply that the risen saints were lurking in the tombs between Jesus' death and resurrection? What happened to them afterwards? How many earthquakes over the three days? Could this have been a way of turbocharging the start of the Early Church by getting some key 'witnesses to miracle' to sign up? Why has Matthew written an account of an event full of imagery as the fulfilment of OT texts, when Jesus' resurrection was the fulfilment?
No. There were no such earthquakes, the zombie apocalypse never happened, Saul/Paul's fit of epilepsy started it off, why does Matt disagree with the other three gospels, why does matt intentionally bend the truth to square with OT prophecy (and we know he was hurling porkies) and how the fuck do you think you know that any ressurection happened at all?
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: And most crucially- Why is he risking telling a story that would literally steal Jesus' resurrection thunder?
Because Matthew was not written by Matthew, nobody knows who wrote it and you don't either. Furthermore, parts of it are known to be the anonymous author bending the jebus story to fit with OT prophecies. To concoct a legend.
(April 3, 2020 at 1:51 pm)Vicki Q Wrote: It's one of these things where you say it's just so bizarre it probably didn't happen, but so much about it is odd that it must have.
No. It isn't. It is one of those things that one is forced to the conclusion that it is utterly stupid.
