Who the Bible was written for

[Aegon]

It wasn't witten for the average person - as through 95 percent of human history, 95 percent of the population was illiterate.

There is every evidence to suggest that these silly stories existed as oral tales in various Canaanite communities.  We have no indication that any of this shit was written down prior to the Ptolemaic Greeks drafting the Septuagint in the early 3d century BC.

Get ready for the assholes to scream!

I didnt know anything about the Septuagint until right now. It's a translation? Wouldn't there have to be written materials in Hebrew to translate?

[RobbyPants]

Oh, look who noticed my thread now that I put him on ignore.

[Minimalist]

It's a translation?

Life is a bit more complicated than that.  We have no indication that this holy horseshit existed in written form prior to the Septuagint.  Yehud, as it was then known, was an insignificant shithole ( Trump would love it!) when it was part of Alexander's empire.  It had the misfortune to be located on the the fringes of both the Ptolemaic Empire and the Seleucid Empire when Alexander's generals started quarreling over who had the biggest dick.  In what were called the Wars of the Diadochi Ptolemy established his dynasty in Egypt in 323 and Seleuchus his empire somewhat later.  Initially, in the period we are talking about, the Ptolemies controlled Yehud.
It was still a tiny shithole.

The story, and it is just that, a story, of the Septuagint being 'miraculously' composed by 72 jewish scribes who produced the "translation" in exactly 72 days comes from a fraudulent piece of shit called the Letter of Aristeas which itself dates from the mid second century BC or so.  BTW, the number of scribes was obtained claiming that 6 scribes were chosen from each of the 12 tribes of Israel.... missing the fact that 10 of those "tribes" were allegedly lost.  Obviously, that part of the holy bullshit story hadn't been written when the Aristeas forgery was made.

So we are left with the more likely probability that a Greek writer interviewed some jew, either in Alexandria or Jerusalem ( and more probably Alexandria ) and listened to the oral tales and wrote them down as they were regurgitated.  That would explain some of the statements which only make sense if they were originally spoken in Aramaic rather than "Hebrew."

Until the jesus freaks produce anything resembling a Hebrew/Aramaic written version of this shit which predates the Septuagint we are forced to conclude that it was the Greeks who gave us this nonsense.... not the jews.

And now let's hear the morons start screaming!

[Amarok]

Ignorant desert roving sheep herders .

[Minimalist]

I feel like annoying Dripshit.  Always fun to annoy a blithering idiot.

[vulcanlogician]

I just discovered Bart Ehrman a month or so ago. I'd heard the name thrown around (on here) but hadn't really delved into his stuff. I haven't read any of his books, but I've seen some lengthy lectures/debates of his on YouTube. Good stuff. His conclusions are well reasoned and well argued.

[Minimalist]

I have some issues with Ehrman but not in his field of textual criticism where he is a giant.  He can't quite seem to let go of the historical jesus bullshit even though he can't produce any evidence for it, either.

[vulcanlogician]

I have some issues with Ehrman but not in his field of textual criticism where he is a giant.  He can't quite seem to let go of the historical jesus bullshit even though he can't produce any evidence for it, either.

There is no way we will ever definitely know if Jesus existed or not. There are decent arguments on both sides of the issue. 

As an atheist, all Ehrman is really saying is that some carpenter schmuck did some preaching in ancient Judea and got nailed to a cross for it. It's not all that implausible of a thesis. Especially when you consider his other argument: the Gospels probably don't depict him accurately at all.

[The Grand Nudger]

-Except for that tidbit about how he was a carpenter nailed to a cross by rome.  Sifting through a pile of shit for the single kernel of corn.  

There's more than a little bit of weirdness going on when a person says "We can't trust this story - but I trust this part of the story!"

[vulcanlogician]

Meh. It's hard for me to really care about it. Does it matter if some guy who wasn't God existed or not? Not really.