I may live to regret this, but I’ve decided to extend this never-ending conversation once again.
Kathy, this time, it would be a nice change of pace if you would actually address what William has repeatedly been saying to you:
I have. Not saying i’m perfect at it or that I’m right, but the “evidences” you listed arent real evidences. And since you refuse to look at things that are counter to your current beliefs, how can you honestly speak to me about evidences?
here’s all I’ve seen you provide:
1) martyrs, even though every religion and many non-religions have them.
2) our very existence – which no one knows how that started, but even if you must land on god(s), you must go back to that book of claims to get to jesus.
3) there were miracles, but as it turns out, those dont happen today, and end up being more claims by the same men who claim they speak for god.
4) the fulfilled prophecies we’ve discussed weren’t really prophecies at all, or had to be viewed so figuratively that it’s difficult to show anything precise about them other than location (maybe) in order to claim they’re actually fulfilled.
5) 40 authors taking 1500 years to write the bible. But there’s nothing miraculous about men writing books, editing books, and being inspired to write a book or letter after reading an older book.
About that last point, if the Bible had been written by 1500 people scattered across the globe, who didn’t know one another, and they did it in 40 days, then you’d really have something incredible. But 40-ish people, all familiar with the Jewish god, and writing over a long period of time with the previous writings as reference, is not that impressive.
Finding Truth 
Kathy,
I do see your point here.. but there could be explanations for this..
You are having to do an awful lot of explaining for a text that’s supposedly inspired and inerrant. That’s kind of a red flag to me.
If this is all a fabrication, why wouldn’t they insert author names?
I don’t think that anyone is suggesting that it is a fabrication. Just that it isn’t inerrant nor inspired by God. As has been suggested before much of the OT could be allegory. Maybe the Israelites did believe a god was communicating with them. Maybe that was the best explanation they could come up with for some things. Maybe they really did believe that a god told their leader to conquer nations and kill people. That doesn’t mean that a god actually did tell their leader this. Just that their leader, for some reason, believed that a god was speaking to him and, in turn, his followers believed that too.
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Much of it seems to have been sensationalized. If God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow, why doesn’t he operate in the world in the same way today that he did in the OT?
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“If this is all a fabrication, why wouldn’t they insert author names?” – in ancient times, there were no plagiarism laws, because there was no significant money to be made from writing unless you were a scribe. Often, when someone of no great repute had something to say that they felt people needed to know, but realized that no one would likely read, they would stick the name of someone famous on their work, and present it as having been written by that person – granted, the actual authors would get no real recognition, but if getting the message out there was really important, then they didn’t care.
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I might add that those who run such websites as AIG, get paid well for what they do – if they fail to come up with twists and turns that make the Bible seem true, they’re out looking for a real job.
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Nate, I posted a link on another thread by accident, is it possible to move it? Thanks even if you can’t! Gotta run!
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Yeah, I can do it shortly
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Laurie meant to post these here:
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Glad you’re friend is better. Miracle, fluke, misdiagnosis, whatever it was, i wish it happened to a few people i knew.
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Kathy, I wanted to call your attention to something else in relation to your question about why these authors would make all this up if it wasn’t legit. As others have said, I’m sure the authors (at least most of them) truly believed what they were recounting.
Archaeologists have found a relic that I find very fascinating. It’s called the Mesha Stele, as well as the Moabite Stone. You can read about it here.
It’s something that king Mesha of Moab had inscribed. He’s mentioned in the Bible (2 Kings 3), and he was a contemporary of Israel’s king Omri. What’s interesting is that Mesha served the Canaanite god Kemosh. Whenever something good happened to Mesha or Moab, it was because of Kemosh’s blessings. Whenever something bad happened, it was because Kemosh was punishing them. In other words, it reads just like something a Jewish king might have written about Yahweh.
We can all agree that Kemosh isn’t real, but Mesha obviously was completely convinced that he was. Thus, it’s not hard for people to write this stuff, believe it, and it still be wrong.
Here’s an excerpt:
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Nate, I find it very interesting that you back up your statements with scripture from the bible that Kathy believes in.. Yet all she can come back with is how un-objective you are.
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Nate,
“I’m sure the authors (at least most of them) truly believed what they were recounting.”
Nate, please pick any page of the Bible and elaborate on this… how it could be false but they could believe what they are writing as true.
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Nate,
“We can all agree that Kemosh isn’t real, but Mesha obviously was completely convinced that he was. Thus, it’s not hard for people to write this stuff, believe it, and it still be wrong.
Here’s an excerpt:
And Chemosh said to me, Go take Nebo against Israel, and I went in the night and I fought against it from the break of day till noon, and I took it: ..”
Nate, I don’t deny that people believed in false gods and believed they spoke to them in various ways. Your example is a description of what Mesha did because he believed his god spoke to him. I don’t know the detail of how he claims his god spoke to him but the claims in the Bible can’t be confused. Either it did happen or all the authors were have delusions.. or they were all lying.
Your example is of one man’s testimony of his god communicating with him.. it doesn’t compare to the claims of the multiple authors of the Bible. And it doesn’t make sense that they were all having delusions or that they were all lying. This is why it makes for compelling evidence.
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Hope you won’t mind, Nate …
Matthew (26:36-56) talks about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Note that there are three instances in which Jesus retreats into the garden of Gethsemane to pray. Each time he requests the disciples to stay awake while he is gone … and each time he returns to find them sound asleep. Yet the bible records Jesus’ prayers. How can this be when the only witnesses are asleep?
I have been told (among other things) that Jesus’ prayers were short so the disciples heard the prayers before they fell asleep. But this is speculation. When you take the bible at its word, there is no way the disciples could have heard Jesus pray. This story is false.
Kathy claims the gospel writers were actual witnesses. So the question becomes — were they the disciples in the garden? If not, how did they find out about the story? Did they stand and watch? If they were the disciples mentioned, how can they record something they did not hear?
Much more likely, the gospel writers heard about the incident through word-of-mouth. They believed that they heard was true and included it in their made-up stories about Jesus.
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Don’t mind at all, Nan. Thanks.
Let’s consider another. Joseph is sold into slavery and rises to become pharaoh’s right hand man. Whoever wrote this certainly believed it was true, but how could they have known? They didn’t have to lie or have delusions, they were just writing down stories they had heard.
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“the documentary hypothesis that arch likes to post so much! He’s so predictable! ” – ya can’t start with the roof, ya gotta start with the foundation.
“Also, at the risk of sounding completely crazy” – that ship has sailed.
“I experienced a miracle this week.” – there has to be a rational explanation.
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Further, Nate, Kathy is using as evidence that 40+ authors over 1500 years wrote a consistent story – Superman was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, high school students living in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1933 – over 80 years ago. Since then, hundreds of writers have written Superman stories for the comic book, and others for the radio, TV and motion picture versions. They have all written consistent stories (except Superman II, which was stupid*). Once a concept is developed, one story builds on the next. And Superman is no more real than – well, Yahweh.
The Priestly (P) Source, writing parts of Genesis in Babylon, had JE, the combined Yahwhist/Elohist version to work from, as just one example.
*(The screenwriter has Superman, in the Fortress of Solitude, battling General Zod and the Kryptonians, appearing to be in one place, while actually being in another, and has him saying to Lois, “It’s a child’s game we used to play on Krypton.” – Superman was sent to earth as a baby, and never played ANY games on Krypton! I take my Superman seriously – Yahweh, not so much.)
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“please pick any page of the Bible and elaborate on this… how it could be false but they could believe what they are writing as true.”
Kathy, Nate just showed you how King Mesha of Moab TRULY BELIEVED that the Canaanite god, Chemosh, handed him a victory over the Israelites – are you saying that Chemosh is real? Or are you so dense that you can’t see the similarity between a believer of one religion, writing about what he TRULY BELIEVES, yet isn’t true, and Bible authors doing the same?
It HAS to be one or the other!
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I’m voting for dense.
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Arch, Clark Kent was real though…..right ? Please don’t tell me ! I don’t wanna know !
🙂
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Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane trees, and peeled white stripes in them, exposing the white which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the gutters, even in the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink; and they mated when they came to drink. So the flocks mated by the rods, and the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted. And Jacob separated the lambs, and made the flocks face toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his own herds apart, and did not put them with Laban’s flock. Moreover, it came about whenever the stronger of the flock were mating, that Jacob would place the rods in the sight of the flock in the gutters, so that they might mate by the rods, but when the flock was feeble, he did not put them in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. So the man became exceedingly prosperous, and had large flocks and female and male servants and camels and donkeys (Genesis 30:37-43).
Does anyone seriously believe this story ?
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“Does anyone seriously believe this story ?” – clearly written by a people who knew nothing about genetics – but inspired by a god who created EVERYthing?
And who was there, recording it? Was he a guest of Laban the Syrian? If so, why didn’t he tattle? If not, where did he stay, that he could come over to Laban the Syrian’s early every morning to see what Jake would do next? And how did he know that Jacob, a seemingly simple field hand, was doing anything worth writing home about? Am I the only one who wonders about the details?
Genesis tells us that Jacob fled to Haran, to his uncle, Laban the Syrian, fearing for his life. A rabbi from Chabad.org, in a personal correspondence with me, informed me that Jake stopped off for 16 years and studied Torah, before proceeding to Haran. Show of hands, who wouldn’t do that when running for their life?
Further, Torah hadn’t been written yet – does NO one think of these things? Complete, blind acceptance, without thought – it boggles the rational mind. My mind can’t take a lot of boggling —
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“Let’s consider another. Joseph is sold into slavery and rises to become pharaoh’s right hand man. Whoever wrote this certainly believed it was true, but how could they have known? They didn’t have to lie or have delusions, they were just writing down stories they had heard.”
Nate, this doesn’t address Jesus’ disciples.. again.. either they were all delusional or they are lying.
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Nan,
“Note that there are three instances in which Jesus retreats into the garden of Gethsemane to pray. Each time he requests the disciples to stay awake while he is gone … and each time he returns to find them sound asleep. Yet the bible records Jesus’ prayers. How can this be when the only witnesses are asleep?
I have been told (among other things) that Jesus’ prayers were short so the disciples heard the prayers before they fell asleep. But this is speculation. When you take the bible at its word, there is no way the disciples could have heard Jesus pray. This story is false.”
Why couldn’t Jesus have told them what He prayed?
Again, what you are claiming is that the authors of the Gospels were lying. And then they allowed themselves to be martyred for these lies.
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“please pick any page of the Bible and elaborate on this… how it could be false but they could believe what they are writing as true.”
First you challenge Nate with “ANY PAGE” . Now that several poepl have given you examples , you want to ignore them and get specific about Jesus’ disciples ????
I think you need to address the responses to your challenges first Kathy. Nice dodge move. NOT !
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Check out what our hero, Jacob, did when he thought his brother Esau was coming to kill him, with 400 troops at his side. First, he cut out a portion of his herd and had them sent to Esau as a
bribe– gift. Then he divided his camp. He put the rest of the herd between Esau’s path and Jake’s entourage, then he placed his servants out in front, behind the cattle, so Essau would have to hack his way through them. Then he placed his wives and children next, as additional protection from his brother, then finally, himself. Does this sound like a man who trusted his god to protect him?Turned out his brother didn’t need the blessing that Jacob stole from him, he had become a mighty man entirely on his own, and wanted nothing more than to hug his brother and welcome him back. EVEN THEN, paranoid Jacob, again demonstrating no faith in his god, promised his brother he would follow him to his home in Edom, but more slowly, because of the cattle and children, then when Esau was out of sight, changed course and hurried to the northern Levant.
This, and Abe and Ike, who lied about their wives being their wives – again, out of fear for their lives – are the kinds of heroes the entire Bible was built on – imagine a pyramid, built with these guys on the bottom. None of them trusted that their god could protect them.
And some say the Bible is where morals come from.
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