Religion, Scripture and logical thinking

a reply to: NOTurTypical

Oral retellings are the MOST susceptible to being embellished. That makes them even more dubious as a valid source. You let your mind reshape your experiences. You leave out details that conflict with your narrative (Jesus is god), embellish details that are kind of what you are saying (like say pretending that Jesus was a healer who could heal with prayer; in other words a televangelist), and other tactics. These are things you do either consciously and many times unconsciously. Eventually the new tale replaces the actual event in your head and you end up believing your own lies.

All of this is backed up with science by the way.
Is Your Brain Lying to You?

And again, where did the Jesus birth story come from? Who is the primary source for that story? You say Mary was the source for the story? How do you know? Do the disciples ever give her credit for the telling?

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Since the reason the gospels and the bible are so highly regarded is because of the wisdom of the teachings they contain, honestly it wouldn't change much if Jesus was really nothing else than a black Jewish midget mystic who never made any real miracle.

Claiming the text of the Bible might be inaccurate and symbolic and poetic is something that will only bother a fundamentalist Christian.

All religious texts are symbolic and poetic and inaccurate. It doesn't make them irrelevant from a spiritual point of view.

a reply to: JUhrman

It's a lot easier to write on a piece of paper, "Be nice to each other" than to make a giant book full of contradictions and vague meanings that all summed up pretty much say the same thing as that paper.

a reply to: Grimpachi

Can you provide a link to the 1st century pieces you claim exist, yes or no?

I agree with the conservative scholars conclusion on 7Q5.

But do you want to argue that fragment or stay with P52? Your link under the "Date" heading says P52 is a 1st or 2nd transmission making the autograph 1st century since it had time to make it's way in circulation to Egypt where it was found.

Which proves my claim that all the NT gospels and epistles were completed in the 1st century. John was the last apostle to live, and wrote the last book Revelation in 95 AD. And Paul and Peter were executed in Rome in the mid 50's AD. And James was executed in Jerusalem even earlier than that.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

That's your opinion regarding the wisdom contained in the bible (and other major religious texts) and you are free to have it.

A lot of people though decide to spend their lives studying these texts, not out of superstition nor obligation, but because they consider they contain enough to spend a lifetime studying them.

I suppose I'll trust the guys who spent so much time that there is more than just the golden rule and 100 variations of it in the bible (and other texts). Actually I enjoy reading their analysis because they bring much light to otherwise relatively hermetic texts.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Ye know the reason why they started writing things down instead of relying on oral tradition could be because people starting coming up with crazy embellishments of the original stories...

Then one day someone said "Jesus was actually God in the flesh"...

And Matthew was like... Ok that's enough of this... I better write this stuff down before it gets any worse

Seems to be the case, Jesus hints at the idea but never just comes out and says it... Likely because he didn't even hint at it in the first place

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Oral retellings are the MOST susceptible to being embellished.

The opposite is true:

Prior to the reliability of the printing press, the Oral Tradition was considered more trustworthy than written texts. The accuracy of the Oral Gospel Tradition was insured by the community designating certain learned individuals to bear the main responsibility for retaining the Gospel message of Jesus.

Link

It's relatively a new thing in literature or culture for people to be interested in word-for-word quotes. Most of history has been with thought-for-thought.

And again, where did the Jesus birth story come from?

I answered that already.. Mary.

a reply to: JUhrman

Well if you want to waste your life studying a moldy, old tome where all of its scientific claims have been debunked and all of its religious claims have been manipulated by politics and mistranslations, by all means. I won't stop you, but you are deceiving yourself if you look at it as anything other than a book of mythology, like the Iliad.

a reply to: Akragon

And Matthew was like... Ok that's enough of this... I better write this stuff down before it gets any worse

Matthew was a Jew. Every time he wrote that Jesus was THE LORD, he was writing that He was YHWH in the flesh. The only Lord they knew.

a reply to: Akragon

Jesus was a Jewish mystic.

Mystics consider the divine has to be experience from within, and do so. They live life knowing everyone is a singular expression of the divine.

They usually never plainly say 'I'm god' or 'You are god' because they know it's more complex and is usually misunderstood either as arrogance or craziness. That's why they say it in allegories and remain vague.

Just apparently not vague enough for the Sanhedrin who decided an exalted mystic telling people they don't need temples and priests was too dangerous for their business.

The sin of Jesus for them was to be too honest about spirituality.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

I agree with the conservative scholars conclusion on 7Q5.

Among the Dead Sea scrolls, 7Q5 is the designation for a small Greek papyrus fragment discovered in Qumran Cave 7 and dated before anyone claimed to be able to identify it by its style of script as likely having been written sometime between 50 B.C.E. and 50 C.E. The significance of this fragment is derived from an argument made by Spanish papyrologist Jose O'Callaghan in his work ¿Papiros neotestamentarios en la cueva 7 de Qumrân? ("New Testament Papyri in Cave 7 at Qumran?") in 1972, later reasserted and expanded by German scholar Carsten Peter Thiede in his work The Earliest Gospel Manuscript? in 1982. The assertion is that the previously unidentified 7Q5 is actually a fragment of the Gospel of Mark, chapter 6 verse 52-53. The majority of scholars have not been convinced by O'Callaghan's and Thiede's identification[1][2] and it is "now virtually universally rejected"

So your claim

And with the latest dating methods and equipment the later dates of some of these fragments are being moved up in time to earlier in the 1st century, not later.

A fabrication on your part. I figured.

But do you want to argue that fragment or stay with P52? Your link under the "Date" heading says P52 is a 1st or 2nd transmission

My link says.

The original transcription and translation of the fragment of text was not done until 1934, by Colin H. Roberts.[6] Roberts found comparator hands in dated papyrus documents between the late 1st and mid 2nd centuries, with the largest concentration of Hadrianic date. Since this gospel text would be unlikely to have reached Egypt before c. 100 CE[7] he proposed a date in the first half of the 2nd century. Roberts proposed the closest match to \mathfrak[P]52 as being an undated papyrus of the Iliad conserved in Berlin;[8] and in the 70 years since Roberts's essay the estimated date of this primary comparator hand has been confirmed as being around 100 CE,[9] but other dated comparator hands have also since been suggested, with dates ranging into the second half of the 2nd century, and even into the 3rd century.[10]

Many would say you are being dishonest.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The Illiad and the Odyssey are other fascinating books containing a lot of hidden philosophical teachings. I'm sorry you are so oblivious to that, though it's true 'old greek texts' aren't probably part of the standard education program in your country despite being the basis of all the western culture, from geometry to politics, fom rhetoric and logic to philosophy.

originally posted by: NOTurTypical
The opposite is true:

Prior to the reliability of the printing press, the Oral Tradition was considered more trustworthy than written texts. The accuracy of the Oral Gospel Tradition was insured by the community designating certain learned individuals to bear the main responsibility for retaining the Gospel message of Jesus.

Link

Correction: The opposite USED to be true, but then science came along and showed that oral retellings AREN'T trustworthy. You can't trump science with ancient beliefs.

It's relatively a new thing in literature or culture for people to be interested in word-for-word quotes. Most of history has been with thought-for-thought.

Just because that is the case doesn't mean you get to automatically elevate those sources as more credible. The fact remains, that oral retellings AREN'T trustworthy regardless of what people assumed back in the day about them.

I answered that already.. Mary.

Are you sure? The gospels don't say that this is the story according to Mary, they just start telling the story as if they were there and witnessed it. Not to mention, the two tales (since it only shows up in two of the four gospels) contradict each other. Clearly there is more than one source or Mary couldn't keep her story straight (I will leave this as a possibility since I firmly believe that Mary is a liar, starting with the virgin birth thing to keep it hidden that she didn't get pregnant by Joseph).

a reply to: JUhrman

Not sure what you are talking about here. I studied the Odyssey in ninth grade. And the reason I brought them up as a comparison is because the greek texts and the bible are both mythology. You can spend your time studying them, but you are being dishonest if you believe for a second that they are the truth or reality in any sense of the word.

originally posted by: NOTurTypical
a reply to: Akragon

And Matthew was like... Ok that's enough of this... I better write this stuff down before it gets any worse

Matthew was a Jew. Every time he wrote that Jesus was THE LORD, he was writing that He was YHWH in the flesh. The only Lord they knew.

Nah... Being a jew he would have known better then to call a man God...

Lord is subservient to God...

Just like in Victorian times... a duke could be called Lord, but one of his servants would not call him King

a reply to: Grimpachi

The majority of scholars have not been convinced by O'Callaghan's and Thiede's identification and it is "now virtually universally rejected"

Correct. But they don't mention the caveat.. "by liberal scholars".

I said I agree with the conservative date scholars. This criticism of the liberal date scholars is quite compelling:

On the other hand, I find it equally disturbing that many liberal scholars have uncritically rejected O’Callaghan’s proposal without even examining the evidence. Higher criticism must of course have a say in this discussion; but it must not preclude discussion. Both attitudes, in their most extreme forms, betray an arrogance, an unwillingness to learn, a fear of truth while clinging to tradition, a fortress mentality—none of which is in the spirit of genuine biblical scholarship. When the next sensational archaeological find is made, should not conservatives and liberals alike ask the question: Will we fairly examine the evidence, or will we hold the party line at all costs? ~ Daniel B Wallace

Let's not forget that these liberal scholars have banked their careers and thesis papers on challenging the historical scholarly consensus.

Many would say you are being dishonest.

I suppose so, but I would say those "many" don't know there are two groups of scholars arguing the dating. I agree with the conservative date scholars, my statement reflects their position, so that's not a deception.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

The virgin birth thing is a big one. Well, the entire birth story seems to be a mishmash of at least two stories with added fabrications from earlier mythologies.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I have no idea why you think I believe they are true. I specifically said all religious and mythological texts are poetic and symbolic. The teachings they contains, hidden in symbols, are of a philosophical nature. Why would anyone care about debunking a philosophy book? That's stupid.

If you don't know what symbolic means I can't help you.

You shouldn't assume so much about my beliefs and actually read my posts if you are going to reply to them.

a reply to: Akragon

Nah... Being a jew he would have known better then to call a man God...

That's why they were nearly all murdered by the Jews. Christianity was blasphemy to them.



And we aren't talking about Victorian culture, we are talking about 1st century Jewish culture. For a Jew to call someone "the Lord" (definite article specific), it was calling that person YHWH of the OT.

a reply to: JUhrman

Well you have to remember that even today its a horrible blasphemy to a Jew to associate anything with God...

They won't even write the word God... even though that isn't actually a name but a title...

To the Priests of the temple and the Sanhedrin... Jesus just calling himself the son of God was enough to get him executed...

Plus putting ones self over Caesar was an executable offence as well...