(August 29, 2015 at 10:27 am)Minimalist Wrote: Snuck in before leaving for the day. What's Josephus' motivation? What point of view is he trying to promote? Xtians have every incentive to make up tales about their boy.
These "historians" of whom you speak are not unbiased. Most have some attachment to the religious establishment and I would call most of them theologians before historians.
They interpret the hell out of these books and cherry pick what they want and ignore what they dislike.
The bottom line remains that we have one original story (mark), two fanfics ( matty and luke ) and a re-write, John. We have an earliest date for them (70-71) but the latest date is all the way to the mid second century.
Well as I've pointed out to you before we don't know the dates that the gospels were written but mid second century certainly isn't possible. You believe that they all had to have been written after 70 AD but I don't. Yes it's possible that they were written as late as 90 AD, but it's also possible and I would argue quite likely that Mark, Luke and Acts (and therefore Matthew) were written down by 60 AD. The curious problem of the late dating of the gospels is that Matthew is very Jewish and is writing to a Jewish audience, and that points to a date earlier than 70 AD. Even if Luke and Matthew are written about 80 AD that is still about 15 years before Antiquities.
No historian is completely unbiased. But I'm not asking you to listen to apologists, evangelicals, fundamentalists, or theologians now am I?
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
