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 
Nate, cont..
” And scholars don’t believe this because they want to, but because of evidence. None of the gospels were written in the first person, and all of them are anonymous.”
Again, so? That’s not very good evidence that the traditional authorship is incorrect. And again, it doesn’t matter who physically wrote the Gospels.. it only matters if it’s true or not.
from Tektonics.org
“We will examine and dispose of the common arguments for dating the Gospels late, and for rejecting their traditional authorship. With this, I will also offer two caveats:
1. Authorship and date are important; but equally important, if not more so, is whether what is in the Gospels is true.
Regardless of who wrote the Gospels and when, if they reflect reality correctly, then it points to their being written by eyewitnesses, or having eyewitnesses as their source. Thus, even if the traditional authorship and earliest dates are disproved – and it is my contention that the arguments against them are inadequate – it matters very little, we may surmise, who wrote them and when. (Hengel [Heng.4G, 6] notes that we have only one biography of Muhammed, written 212 years after his death, which used a source from about 100 years after his death, and yet “the historical scepticism of critical European scholarship is substantially less” where Muhammed is concerned.)
2. Critical arguments about authorship and date of the Gospels revolve around the same data, and have revolved around it, for a long time.
With very, VERY few exceptions, critics and Skeptics have used the same arguments against the traditional data over and over and over. In my survey of the literature, I have found that the standard critical arguments have been overused by Skeptics and sufficiently answered by traditionalists; yet the critics have not deigned to answer the counter-arguments, except rarely and then only with bald dismissals. ”
Boy.. I’ve found that last part to be especially true.
http://www.tektonics.org/ntdocdef/gospdefhub.php
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Arch,
“How can you POSSIBLY, Kathy, read Nate’s paragraph above, and not see the connection? Are you TRYING to prove that you lack intelligence? If so, you’re doing a bang-up job!”
Arch, I fully understand why the child believes in the tooth fairy.. but I’m pretty sure that isn’t the same case with the author of Genesis.. stop trying to cover for Nate. I want to know the “theory” of how page one of Genesis was written by someone who was honest even though what they wrote was all lies.
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“Regardless of who wrote the Gospels and when, if they reflect reality correctly ” – what an absurd response, when no one can say that they do!
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“Arch, I fully understand why the child believes in the tooth fairy..” – it’s not an issue, Kathy, as to WHY a child believes in the tooth fairy, it’s one of how a child who does, can honestly say without lying, that the tooth fairy exists, and still be wrong. PLEASE tell me that your apparent denseness is some sort of strange tactic, that you’ve erroneously convinced yourself is debate – I would not like to believe that ANYone is that dense.
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“it’s not an issue, Kathy, as to WHY a child believes in the tooth fairy, it’s one of how a child who does, can honestly say without lying, that the tooth fairy exists, and still be wrong.”
Sorry Arch, as inconvenient as it is.. it most certainly IS the issue. The issue is determining the Truth of the Bible. I’m pretty sure the author of Genesis was not a naïve child. But apparently you are (naïve) (and definitely a lot like a child) since I had to point that obvious fact out to you.
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“I’m pretty sure the author of Genesis was not a naïve child.” – no, he was a naive priest, living in captivity in Babylon, trying to make sense of things. He believed the BS all his life, that his god would protect his people, yet here he was, in captivity in a strange land, having witnessed his temple, the center of his life, being torn down, stone by stone, and he wondered why. Like you, it never occurred to him that he had spent his life following a fairy tale, and like you, in his mind, the god he believed in could do no wrong, so the fault, he decided, MUST lie with the Hebrews. So he (and others with him) decided to revamp the JE portion of Torah, that had been written down hundreds of years earlier by priests in both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, and to try and make the god depicted there appear more godly, more dignified, so that people would have more fear and respect for him and obey his commands, so that this could never happen again to his people. He knew nothing of science, of how the universe ACTUALLY came to be, so he used his imagination, and made up a scenario, as thousands of cultures before him had done, intending for it to replace the JE version, but the redactor instead, placed both versions, Gen1 and gen2, side by side.
He may not have been a naive child, he was worse – he was a naive man who was making it up as he went along, which by itself, wouldn’t have been so bad, as writers have been composing fiction since the Epic of Gilgamesh and possibly even before, but he was passing his fiction off as truth, truth inspired by a god, and that was just wrong.
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Must sleep – Kathy, Kathy, go away, come again another day – zzzzzzzz
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KC: “”Kathy, you are correct that Elohim has a plural usage in the OT. Show us where the Plural Usage points to a Son and a Holy Spirit ? This is certainly your intent by mentioning it at all.”
Kathy: “You take into account the other passages.. you find the CONTEXTUAL meaning. And when you do that, you see the Trinity.”
Could you line up those passages, Kathy, in some kind of order, and show us how to see the Trinity in the word, “Elohim”? Is it anything like seeing the face of Jesus on a grilled cheese sandwich?
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I haven’t read the latest comments yet, but this isn’t good enough, Kathy. Is the child lying about the Tooth Fairy, or is the Tooth Fairy real? I’d like for you to answer this question.
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Okay, so I see where you’ve conceded the child just believes in the Tooth Fairy without the Tooth Fairy being real — no lying required.
That’s exactly what I’m saying happened with the writers of Genesis. You don’t have to be a child to do this same thing — we’re all guilty of it from time to time. When my first two children were born, my wife and I told them how God created the world and sent his only son to die for our sins. These were things we felt they should know, so they could grow up to be godly Christians. But we had no independent knowledge of any of that. We could have written it down, but there was no need as it was already contained in the Bible. We believed it was true for a number of different reasons, but one of the biggest is that it’s what we were raised to believe as well. Cultural tradition plays a huge part in determining what someone believes.
Many, if not most, of the stories in the Bible began as oral traditions. They had been passed down for generations, and everyone in that culture believed them without question. None of them needed first hand knowledge of the actual events. This isn’t some crazy theory — it’s what anthropologists have known for centuries about all cultures. The Arthurian legends were oral traditions until they were finally written down, centuries after the events in question (if Arthur was even real). Native American traditions were passed down orally.
This is just how human societies developed. It’s not hard to see how the stories in the Bible were just the written accounts of stories that had been long held as true among the Jewish people. In fact, that’s the most likely scenario, considering it’s how every other culture in the world has operated. If you want to believe that the Jews were different — that their written stories didn’t start as oral legends but were handed down from the one, true God, then you need evidence to back it up. But when we examine the scriptures, we find all kinds of clues that point to the former explanation as being the most likely. We’ve been giving you those clues, and it forms the basis of the documentary hypothesis.
Again, instead of trying to shoot off a reply, I’d recommend you take some time to research these issues further. Ask more questions if you want — we’ll be happy to help. But when you try to argue these points without really researching them first, most of your responses end up being little more than “nuh-uh”.
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Boy.. I’ve found that last part to be especially true.
Not so. You first have to give actual counter-arguments. Just denying our arguments without providing something solid to back up what you’re saying isn’t a “counter-argument,” it’s just denial. And that’s why the same arguments keep being made — they haven’t been overturned. Note that the article you’re quoting says the arguments have been “sufficiently answered,” but that’s obviously his opinion. It’s a nice phrase to make anyone reading it assume he’s right, but he hasn’t shown the evidence for this statement. What he finds “sufficient” may not meet anyone else’s definition. That’s what I discovered when I began doing my own research into these things. But again — that’s my assessment, and you shouldn’t take it at face value without doing your own.
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I haven’t had time to catch up on all the comments but is it being proposed that when adults make statements about their beliefs that there can be only 2 possibilities:
1) They are lying
2) They are correct
?
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No one would deny this. But there are many issues in the gospels (as we’ve repeatedly shown) that indicate they doesn’t reflect reality correctly.
This isn’t really accurate, but similar claims are made quite often. For one thing, the earliest non-Muslim sources that talk about Muhammad date to within about 5 years of his death. Secondly, and most importantly, historians actually acknowledge that there are real issues in figuring out the historicity of Muhammad. So your author’s entire premise is false.
Furthermore, the historicity of Jesus is not nearly as contested as the author is trying to make it appear. There are certainly some mythicists, but most scholars believe that Jesus was a real person who lived in the 1st century, had a group of followers, was known as a preacher and healer, and was killed by the Roman authorities. That’s fairly well accepted. Do most historians believe he could walk on water and rose from the dead? No. But neither do they believe Muhammad rode a winged horse to Jerusalem.
Your author is trying to make fellow Christians think there’s some unfair conspiracy aimed at Christianity, but it’s just not true. Its historicity is treated just the same as any other subject’s, which is exactly how it should be.
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“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.” – kathy
isn this what you claim about the martyrs of every other religion?
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“How did they know what Jesus prayed?”-nan
“You assume something didn’t happen because scripture didn’t mention it? Just think about.. while I answer more challenging questions.” – kahty
when would jesus have had time to tell them? When he was being arrested? Did he fill them in as he was putting the ear back on malcus?
You’re suggesting something “might” have happened, when there was no time for it to have occurred, and when the bible doesn’t say that it did happen, because you actually see the issue presented, but don’t want it to be true – so you just make something up and pretend that your fabrication covers the problem enough to justify you ignoring it.
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I haven’t had time to catch up on all the comments but is it being proposed that when adults make statements about their beliefs that there can be only 2 possibilities:
1) They are lying
2) They are correct
?
That’s just about the size of it, I think, Howie. Which begs the question: if someone actually believes what they are saying to be true are they lying if it isn’t?
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You’re suggesting something “might” have happened, when there was no time for it to have occurred, and when the bible doesn’t say that it did happen, because you actually see the issue presented, but don’t want it to be true – so you just make something up and pretend that your fabrication covers the problem enough to justify you ignoring it.
And this from the person who was criticizing others for inserting the word “all” into a certain prophecy that it is pretty clear from the context that “all” was actually the meaning.
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“Yes Nate, I’m serious.. please tell me your theory of how the author of page 1 of the Bible can believe what they are writing even though it’s “fiction”.” – kathy
what? first tell us how muslims, catholics, witches, buddhists, sihks, etc, etc do it.
This is stupid. You have to be smarter than this. cant you see what you’re doing?
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“But your claim insists that they are using heresay.. “FICTIONAL” heresay, meaning they CAN’T have reasonable verification.. yet they are reporting it as fact. This isn’t a reasonable claim.” – kathy
you’re a christian right? How do you believe this stuff? Did you see jesus die on the cross, raise from the dead and fly into heaven?
Did you see god create everything in 6 days?
…or did you read about it in a book? a book that claimed all this was true? as in… hearsay?
do you know what “hearsay” is?
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“Again, so? That’s not very good evidence that the traditional authorship is incorrect. And again, it doesn’t matter who physically wrote the Gospels.. it only matters if it’s true or not.” -kathy
lol
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“Arch, I fully understand why the child believes in the tooth fairy.. but I’m pretty sure that isn’t the same case with the author of Genesis.. stop trying to cover for Nate. I want to know the “theory” of how page one of Genesis was written by someone who was honest even though what they wrote was all lies.” – kathy
because they were told these stories as children, and were told they were true. They didn’t have the scientific understand of these modern times, so it still somehow made sense to them as they grew.
they really believed in god and really believed he created the world as they were told when children. They wanted others to know how god created the world, so when they learned tow write, they wrote it down…
is this really difficult to grasp?
are you aware about the studies done on false memories? if not, i suggest googling it.
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I have a thought to add about the “are they lying” or “are they correct” possibilities. There’s a third possibility, which is that the person is insane; a psychotic person can truly believe that “their” reality is true, when it doesn’t bear any resemblance to objective reality according to sane people. A more mild version of insanity would be delusion (like the kid who believes in Santa or the Tooth Fairy) because someone else has lied to him/her. Just throwing that out there . . .
I’ve got a more general question for everyone, though. When you say “evidence” or “proof”, what do you mean by that? (I’m trying to make sure that we’re all using the same definitions for words and communicating clearly.)
What would you consider as evidence or proof that something–anything, not just religion-related things–is true?
Is something true only when it’s backed up by scientific data or eyewitness testimony or scholarly research or what? What if the science backing a particular claim is later shown to be false because new data has emerged? Or what if the witnesses aren’t accurate in their assessment of what they saw? What if the scholars researching aren’t careful enough? What if the evidence conflicts with other evidence?
I’m thinking along these lines because I read a magazine article that described how an innocent man was put in prison for 2+ decades, simply because “forensic evidence” convinced the jurors of his guilt. This, despite 20-odd witnesses collaborating his alibi. The forensic evidence was later shown to have been processed sloppily, and the “hairs” that linked him to the crime scene were dog hairs! So, sometimes scientific evidence can be inaccurate, and the eyewitnesses can correct.
I hope you understand how these things are linked in my mind.
Enjoying reading this discussion. I’ve got lots to research. Thankfully, I like research!
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Hi Laura!
I meant to tell you yesterday that I’m also in the Bible belt — I live in the Birmingham, AL area. So “y’all, shucks, reckon,” and “grits” are all words I use quite regularly. 😉
First, I agree with you that insanity is always an option. So is delusion, though I would add “mistaken” as one of the more probable explanations — not quite to the level of delusion. And that’s where I think many of the writers of the Bible fall.
As to evidence, you raise some great questions. I don’t know that it’s ever possible to get 100% accuracy on any issue. It’s true that science sometimes overturns its own findings — in fact, that happens quite a lot. But at every stage, the findings are based on our best understanding of all the facts. Can we really do better than that? And even if the current consensus is wrong, should it be a crime to accept it? After all, it’s where the best evidence is currently pointing.
But to finally answer your question, I don’t think my standards for evidence are all that different from anyone else’s. For something like advanced science, I try to learn what I can about the issue, but I also put stock in the consensus opinion of the experts, since I can’t be an expert on everything.
I think eye-witness testimony is very valuable, but I also know that it can sometimes be wrong for a variety of reasons. I think that anything that can go back to actual scientific results is usually on the best footing. For instance, when scientists get back radiometric dating results from several samples of an object, and they all corroborate, I think that’s pretty solid evidence.
When it comes to the gospels, I tend to agree with most historians in thinking that Jesus was a real person who had followers and was killed by the Romans. But if I were to believe the supernatural aspects of the story, I would need very strong evidence. I don’t see any evidence of divine inspiration in any book of the Bible (I can give details, if you’re interested), and I’ve never experienced anything supernatural, so I simply have no reason to believe that the fantastical elements of the story are true.
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It may be a cliché, but I think the old saying is true: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
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Hi Laura,
I’ll take a stab at this. I’m sure others will weigh in and be able to better answer you. The actual definition of evidence has been supplied a few times.
Full Definition of EVIDENCE
1 a : an outward sign : indication
b : something that furnishes proof : testimony; specifically : something legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a matter
2: one who bears witness; especially : one who voluntarily confesses a crime and testifies for the prosecution against his accomplices
For this particular discussion we are all looking at what would most likely be termed as circumstantial evidence because we lack much, if any, primary evidence.
Is something true only when it’s backed up by scientific data or eyewitness testimony or scholarly research or what? What if the science backing a particular claim is later shown to be false because new data has emerged? Or what if the witnesses aren’t accurate in their assessment of what they saw? What if the scholars researching aren’t careful enough? What if the evidence conflicts with other evidence?
These are all issues that must be considered when dealing with historical documents. It is entirely possible that even eyewitness testimony can be inaccurate. That’s where the “special pleading” that we talk so much about comes in. It has been determined by Biblical inerrantists that somehow Yahweh has preserved what he wanted written in such way that the supposed eyewitness testimony it entirely 100% accurate. That they only recorded what Yahweh intended for them to record. That their testimony is in no way tainted. I’m skeptical of that claim.
Furthermore, in other historical and scientific fields when conflicting information is given no one claims to have a certain knowledge. And, like in your forensics case, albeit not good for the man in question, once new evidence does come to light course corrections are made. Not so with the Bible. With other areas of academia we are not expected to take those things at face value and we certainly don’t face any horrific consequences for being skeptical of claims being made or even testing and researching conclusions drawn from information that is available.
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