Illiterate men.

[Minimalist]

and yet very little is questioned when a "new discovery" is documented.

Because they better have some fucking evidence to back up their assertions or they will not survive peer-review.

That's where your bible fails. It is not true because it says it is.


Period.

[Drich]

and yet very little is questioned when a "new discovery" is documented.

Because they better have some fucking evidence to back up their assertions or they will not survive peer-review.

That's where your bible fails. It is not true because it says it is.


Period.

It's almost like a formula. I let one of you guys assertion go unanswered and two or more will test the gap. if I let those go unanswered then as many as a 1/2 a dozen will belabor the point.

Question now is how long do i wait before I show examples of foolish conjecture and speculatirampant runs rampent in archeology and anthropology? Where all it takes is one little unexplained thing to be founcrushing an chrusexplanation explaination, mix with someone looking to make a name for himself. (especially serving popular morality) This is truly a field where the right ambition can completely literally rewrite history.

Lets talk about a well established people and a well established history, then literally a few dozen fish bones are found in what is thought to be a mess hall for the bpyramids of the pymrids, broken beer casks, coupled with the right imagination and the right degree, Dr. Hawass now cpyramidthat the prymid builders were not slaves, completely dismissing the ancient documents that said articlee. The aritical I am going to post absolutely guaranteeslutly garantees that the Idea that the builderpyramidse Great pyrmids were in fact highly paid and highly skilled craftsmen. All because they found a dozen or so gpyramidsear the ppositivelyat positivly conpyramidshat the pyrmids were built by wealthy craftsmen, and not slaves.

.. 12 graves, a few dozen fish bones in what was thought to be a mess hall with broken pottery in it, is the strongest evidence that the Leading Egyptologist has to conclude, ('Dr.'Hawass) that the Greek historians who documented the construction of the pyramids got it wrong, because of the 12 bodies along with the fish bones he found tell him otherwise.

Seriously? I could think of 20 reasons he found what he did to explain away his best guesses.. And now just because his speculations support the popular morality of his generation, A well documented History is tossed aside.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan...aves-egypt

[FallentoReason]

All because they found a dozen or so gpyramidsear the ppositivelyat positivly conpyramidshat the pyrmids were built by wealthy craftsmen, and not slaves.

Did you have one too many?

I would say 99% of church tradition puts John death on old age.

there are ques but the interpretation of said ques fall back on a traditional understanding of who Mat was.

So what holds together all the supposed facts about how we got these manuscripts and who their authors were fall back on Church tradition? In other words, the manuscripts don't speak for themselves..

[Drich]

Did you have one too many?

New computer, new spell check program. Still a bit glitchy everything looks good on my end then it posts all cattywhompus. Either that or one of the mods is trying to "help" me with my posts.

I would say 99% of church tradition puts John death on old age.

Tradition meaning Church held documents and historical records. Any and all documents concerning christianity were obtained by the church as the curtain on the dark ages fell. They did this for control over the religion/preservation of the word. The problem here is unless you have the key to the Vatican's archives you are always going to be somewhat limited to Church tradition.

there are ques but the interpretation of said ques fall back on a traditional understanding of who Mat was.

So what holds together all the supposed facts about how we got these manuscripts and who their authors were fall back on Church tradition? In other words, the manuscripts don't speak for themselves..
[/quote]
My comment was directed at the book of Matthew. The other three stand on their own merit.

[FallentoReason]

My comment was directed at the book of Matthew. The other three stand on their own merit.

True. I shouldn't have extrapolated.

Well, if the Gospel of Matthew sits on shaky foundations, then doesn't that start to paint a new picture about the credibility of the other witnesses?

Let's look at the intentions that Luke had when he wrote his account:

Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may have certainly concerning the things you have been taught.

So in 1:1 he acknowledges that he was familiar with previous texts describing the events i.e. Mark. Now, this is what wikipedia says about this introduction:

The traditional view is that Luke, who was not an eye-witness of Jesus' ministry, wrote his gospel after gathering the best sources of information within his reach (Luke 1:1-4)

Which makes sense with the fact he had access to the Gospel of Mark. Conclusion? The author couldn't have been the Apostle Luke as he didn't witness anything but merely relayed on the information he gathered. So once again it is Church tradition that holds together the ideal possibility that we are reading what the Apostles wrote. Not very convincing..

[radorth]

I met up with a Christian friend today at university. Long story short, I took us on a tangent to what we were discussing about the Bible and I decided to see what his responses would be with some of the 'inconsistencies I happened to stumble upon'.

I told him that Jesus and his disciples were all illiterate, which explains why Jesus never wrote anything.

This is a false dichotomy, i.e. only 2 choices, either he wrote something or he was illiterate. There are one or more rational alternatives.

For the disciples this meant that we could confidently say that, yes, Church tradition did infact label the Gospels and we don't actually know who wrote them, but we can speculate that the 4 disciples passed on their accounts to people who could write. I didn't want to go all out and state that the disciples never took part in the writing of Gospels because of what we know historically about the writings.

Here I thought Luke wrote a Gospel.

One of the greatest engineers at a NASA center never went to college. He taught himself. So did Abe Lincoln. This post is based on all kinds of biased assumptions. Hopefully you will actually fall to reason soon and see what revelations you get. Pehaps you will reach the Thomas Jefferson level, a true thinker who believed Jesus' was a real person, who did not work miracles, but whose teachings he called the greatest ever, and "the most sublime."

[Phil]

Here I thought Luke wrote a Gospel.

Yes and he addressed his gospel and the book of Acts to Theophilus who just so happened to be alive in the 2nd century. So if he was the apostle (if there really were any) he was well over 100 years old and if he was Paul's traveling buddy (if there was a Paul), then he must have been dragging a really old, smelly and decomposed corpse.

[Minimalist]

Tradition meaning Church held documents and historical records.

No, church "tradition" is simply shit they have made up over the years to fill in the blanks in your holy horseshit...such as the name of the three kings who came to sniff jesus' diaper.

Matty..the ONLY source...does not name them...does not say they were kings...and does not say there were 3 of them.


So much for your fucking traditions.

[Phil]

Tradition meaning Church held documents and historical records.

No, church "tradition" is simply shit they have made up over the years to fill in the blanks in your holy horseshit...such as the name of the three kings who came to sniff jesus' diaper.

Matty..the ONLY source...does not name them...does not say they were kings...and does not say there were 3 of them.


So much for your fucking traditions.

Did you know they were Jews? Why else would they be called the Wiseman family?

[FallentoReason]

This is a false dichotomy, i.e. only 2 choices, either he wrote something or he was illiterate. There are one or more rational alternatives.

Go one step further and please state what you think then.

Here I thought Luke wrote a Gospel.

If we go purely with what's written in the Gospels, then Luke apparently copied Mark's account and admits to not being a witness.

Pehaps you will reach the Thomas Jefferson level, a true thinker who believed Jesus' was a real person, who did not work miracles, but whose teachings he called the greatest ever, and "the most sublime."

So it can't be said he was resurrected. So.. where's God now?