Evidence: The Gathering

[Minimalist]

Ho Hum....

http://www.catholic.com/profiles/jimmy-akin

Jimmy Akin is an internationally known author and speaker. As the senior apologist at Catholic Answers,

Looks like one bullshitter found another.  Funny how that keeps happening.

[drfuzzy]

Amazing how someone can take quotes from fantasy fiction books, study them intently as if they were actual historical documents (or even - gasp! - written by gawd himself!) and declare them to be proof that they are RIGHT and anyone who disagrees is wrong.  This is not evidence.  There is no evidence in theological analysis of books of less value than Green Eggs and Ham, then jumping through mental hoops to say "therefore . . . gawd!"  I'll believe in gawd when he goes on global TV news and proves his existence.  Arguments from theologians over their imaginary friend . . . yawn. What a waste.

And then they sign the post with this smarmy, smug, snooty offensive "you'll thank me for enlightening your little pea brains" with a tagline like this:

Hope this helps. 


Helps? Yes it helps. You're a great source for confirming my decision to become an atheist. Thank you very much.

[abaris]

Amazing how someone can take quotes from fantasy fiction books, study them intently as if they were actual historical documents (or even - gasp! - written by gawd himself!) and declare them to be proof that they are RIGHT and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

Why should they be different than trekkies? Although, if asked, I vote for trekkies having political influence over christians.

[Rhondazvous]

Ho Hum....

http://www.catholic.com/profiles/jimmy-akin

Jimmy Akin is an internationally known author and speaker. As the senior apologist at Catholic Answers,

Looks like one bullshitter found another.  Funny how that keeps happening.

Funny how they think they have all the answers when they're scared to ask the questions. Soon as I hear someone claim to have all the answers, my bullshitometer goes on high alert.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

When you look at the painting it should be obvious that you are looking at a 100% BS lie.  Such books as the one the dude is holding didn't exist in the First Century.  Thanks for providing another nail for the coffin holding the corpse of the ethnocentric religious fairy tale.

Um...yeah...that medieval artist's rendition of the Word holding the Word is the final nail, alright.

It's a nice painting that classifies as good art.  But it depicts a lie that's very effective in brainwashing gullible people.  A dummy who looks at the picture thinks that it depicts a real event so he becomes brainwashed into believing a lie.  That's what's dangerous about the BS propaganda.

[Rhondazvous]

The book of Acts had at least two authors. One said the men on the road with Paul heard a voice but saw no man. The other said the men saw a light but heard no voice.

Once again, you can't make sense of the story without going through a lot of literary acrobatics and adding stuff that isn't there. Why couldn't  they tell a good story?  I wrote more coherent stories when I was in grade school.

Wow...do you like have a book that you bought containing all these freshman level "contraditions"? Or do you just wander around the web until you find something that sounds good to you because you don't actually take the time to think about it before posting?

First, if TWO people were involved in the authorship of the Book of Acts, then that pretty much blows the "collusion theory" all to hell because they obviously couldn't get their stories straight. If YOU could write a more coherent story, then it's safe to say that just about anyone else could have done the same.

But there ARE some passages which need some thought in order to be harmonized, and this is NOT because more than one author was involved but because you (or the person you are parroting) fail to understand the text.

Happily, Jimmy Akin wrote a blog post on this very topic just last month, and you know what? I'm going to quote it in full. (For the skimmers, I'll highlight the haymaker than KO's Rhonda's question in blue below.)

Resolving a Bible Difficulty: What Happened at Paul’s Conversion?
by Jimmy Akin
http://jimmyakin.com/2015/07/resolving-a...rsion.html

The book of Acts records St. Paul’s conversion in the following terms:


There are several interesting things here.

No Horse!

One is that there is no mention of St. Paul riding on a horse. You frequently hear people recounting how Paul was knocked off his horse at the time of his conversion, but this is an image that comes from art—not the Bible.

He isn’t likely to have been riding a horse, for at the time horses were more commonly used in warfare—such as for drawing chariots. They were not commonly ridden.

The passage doesn’t mention Paul riding any animal. He was likely travelling on foot, as suggested when the text simply says that he fell to the ground when the heavenly light flashed around him.

It’s also suggested by Jesus telling him to “rise and enter the city” (no mention of getting back on an animal) and by him being “led by the hand” into Damascus by his companions.

If he’d been riding on a beast (e.g., an ass), they presumably would have put him back on the animal and then led the beast—not taken Paul by the hand to guide him.

A Bible Difficulty?

Many people have commented on a Bible difficulty that arises from this passage when it says:


This is worthy of comment because, later in the book when Paul is recounting his conversion, he says:


What did they see? What did they hear?

The difficulty that needs to be solved concerns what the men with Paul saw and heard. The first is not difficult, for the two passages don’t contain any apparent discrepancy. The first says that they didn’t see anyone and the second says that they did see light. There is no contradiction because one can easily see light without seeing a person. What the men heard presents more of a difficulty, because the first passage says they were “hearing the voice” while the second says that they “did not hear the voice.”

That looks like a contradiction. Is it?

Greek to You and Me

Whenever we encounter something that looks like a contradiction, it’s wise to check the original language, which in this case is Greek. Examining the two passages, we find that both of them use the same two terms: akouō (hear) and phōnē (voice). This means that we can’t solve the dilemma by appealing to the fact that the passages are using different terms, because they aren’t. They both use the same verb for hearing and the same noun for what is being heard. That doesn’t mean we can’t resolve the discrepancy, though, because these terms have more than one meaning in Greek.

Akouō can mean hear, listen, understand, obey, know, and other things.

Phōnē can mean sound, tone, voice, cry, solemn declaration, etc.

Since we have a single author (Luke) writing both passages in a single book (Acts), a logical inference is that Luke probably meant the terms to be taken in different senses. Are there two different senses in which the terms can be taken that would make sense of the passages? You bet.

The Likely Solution

The most likely solution is that in the first passage, akouō is to be taken to mean “hear” and phōnē is to be taken to mean “sound,” while in the second passage, akouō is to be taken to mean “understand” and phōnē is to be taken to mean “voice.” On this reading, Acts 9:7 says that the men were hearing a sound but didn’t see anyone while Acts 22:9 says that they saw light but did not understand the voice.

This would parallel John 12:28-29, where the Father speaks to Jesus from heaven and some in the crowd perceive it as thunder: They heard a noise, but they didn’t perceive it as an intelligible voice—the clearer perception being reserved for those God wanted to have it. This appears to be the most probable solution. Thus some translations render the two passages like this:


These translations are perfectly acceptable, as “hear” and “understand” are common meanings for akouō, while “sound” and “voice” are common meanings for phōnē.

Be Cautious Beyond This Point

While we have identified the probable solution, we should be careful not to press it too far. Some have proposed that there is a feature in the Greek that makes the solution even more certain. According to some older grammars and commentaries, the verb akouō’s meaning changes in a way that is relevant here depending on the grammatical form of the noun that follows it.

In Greek, nouns take different forms, known as “cases,” depending on the role they play in a sentence (the same is true of nouns in Latin, German, Russian, and many other languages). Two of these cases that Greek uses are known as the genitive and the accusative. According to some, when akouō is followed by a noun in the genitive case, it stresses the hearing of the sound but not the understanding of it. By contrast, these individuals hold, if akouō is followed by a noun in the accusative case, it highlights the understanding of the sound.

It so happens that in Acts 9:7 the noun phōnē is in the genitive case, and in 22:9 it is in the accusative. This is then taken as evidence confirming the solution proposed above: In the first passage the companions are said to hear the sound while in the second they are said not to understand it.

The problem is that these claims are not at all clear from the way the verb is used in New Testament Greek.

Daniel Wallace, one of the foremost contemporary scholars of New Testament Greek, writes:


We should thus be cautious of case-based arguments concerning the solution to this difficulty.

This does not mean, however, that we haven’t identified the correct solution. The most likely solution remains that the terms are simply being used in different senses in the two passages.

+++

Hope this helps.

Is that your rebuttal?

Why are we wasting time with this idiot? He is obviously operating under the influence of a blow to the head with a heavy blunt object.

WI can see him now sitting at his table wondering, "Do I have a bottle in front of me or a frontal lobotomy."

[Homeless Nutter]

Why are we wasting time with this idiot? He is obviously operating under the influence of a blow to the head with a heavy blunt object.
[...]

Because to us - it's just a discussion, with almost nothing at stake. Randy on the other hand is desperately fighting for his salvation and the eternal life he's been conned into believing in - and failing at it. It's morbidly fascinating - like watching a venomous spider trying to climb out of the bath-tub.

[drfuzzy]

I'm with Rhondazvous. 

"Is that your rebuttal? 

Why are we wasting time with this idiot? He is obviously operating under the influence of a blow to the head with a heavy blunt object."

This nut-job has been told over 'n' over 'n' over in many different ways that we can have NO respect for his so-called sources, because they were written by individuals laboring under the same delusions as he is.  Studying the voices in one's head only proves insanity.

And yet, he keeps cutting and pasting the same insulting trash onto dozens of threads.  Amazing.  

[Randy Carson]

Ho Hum....

http://www.catholic.com/profiles/jimmy-akin



Looks like one bullshitter found another.  Funny how that keeps happening.

Funny how they think they have all the answers when they're scared to ask the questions. Soon as I hear someone claim to have all the answers, my bullshitometer goes on high alert.

A condition which has the unfortunate side effect of preventing you from learning anything from those who really do know what they're talking about since you will never be open-minded enough to discover that some people aren't just making a claim to have answers.

“There's nothing wrong with ignorance, per se. Ignorance with humility is harmless and curable, but ignorance combined with pride blossoms into arrogance, and is most often incurable, the patient being highly resistant to the only antidote.” - Jimmy Akin

[Randy Carson]

Is that your rebuttal?

Why are we wasting time with this idiot? He is obviously operating under the influence of a blow to the head with a heavy blunt object.

WI can see him now sitting at his table wondering, "Do I have a bottle in front of me or a frontal lobotomy."

You didn't understand a word of what Akin wrote, did you?