I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
— Percy Bysshe Shelley,
1792 – 1822 —
Fear thee not, faire Nan, for Thor will be with us as long as Marvel makes sequels.
(Just practicing for the Renaissance Faire I’ll be attending with my grandchildren next Saturday)
This having to do with absolutely nothing, I was re-reading “The Merchant of Venice this morning, over a glass of fine wine ($12 for a gallon jug!), and ran across this line, regarding Jews converting to Christianity that I found amusing – even more so after the third glass:
“This making Christians will raise the price of hogs….“
archaeopteryx1
May 3, 2015 at 11:46 am
As a brief epilogue, the Father-Daughter Banquet (and Ball) was a smashing success. We fast-danced, we slow-danced, and we did one dance where I stood in place and pivoted while my little red-haired pixie held my hands and ran around me in a circle – I have no idea what that was called, but since no one else was doing it, I guess that made us innovators. It should shortly be sweeping the nation.
Also, Gary, you might want to check into the “Adoptionists,” another Christianity that was around for a couple of hundred years, who believed that Yeshua was fully human, but was “adopted” by Yahweh at his baptism.
Then check into the Gnostics, who believed that Yeshua was fully human, but in whom the “Christos” entered at his baptism, then left his body on the cross, just prior to his death, basically saying, “Hey, I’m outta here – you’re on your own kid! See you in three days!” resulting in his echoing Isaiah in saying, “My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Of course a wise biblical scholar knows that the whole “My god, my god” exclamation was simply another feeble effort to tie Yeshua to Isaiah’s prophecies regarding a Messiah.
Is it just me or are there a lot of conservative Christians who are control freaks when it comes to having a discussion with skeptics on the claims of Christianity. I presented Matthew 27 to the Christian below, under his article regarding the empty tomb as evidence for the Resurrection. I pointed out to him that there was a possible period of time that the tomb was not guarded. He absolutely refused to even consider it as a possibility. Below is the end of our conversation where he stopped publishing my comments until I would agree to his rules of discussion (Sound familiar??)
Randy Everist
Sorry, Gary, that’s not quite right. No Christian philosopher rests his or her case on the Resurrection being the only possible explanation (in any case, I certainly don’t), and the Resurrection isn’t posited as the explanation for the text you’re using; this is why I said you’ve malformed the question. The best explanation of the Matthew 27 text you’ve quoted above is not that the Pharisees, being concerned to make sure the tomb is not empty, instead ignored whether or not it was empty. The best explanation is instead that they checked and it wasn’t. There’s simply no textual evidence to the contrary sufficient to overturn this. Will you grant this? If not, there’s little point to continuing our conversation. I don’t let people bounce from topic to topic, least of all fundamentalist atheists!
Randy Everist
Sorry, Gary: I warned you I would not let you bounce from topic to topic. Do you admit the best explanation of the text is that the tomb was not empty? This is your last chance. Have a good day! 🙂
Randy Everist
I warned you! Hope you have an awesome day; let me know if you are ever open or have any questions. 🙂
Of course a wise biblical scholar knows that the whole “My god, my god” exclamation was simply another feeble effort to tie Yeshua to Isaiah’s prophecies regarding a Messiah.
Mak, “Percy died too soon.
He said ignorance gave birth to the gods, learning will lead to their death”
Alvin Boyd Kuhn said something similar about Christianity, ““As ignorance was its mother and the source-spring of its world power, it is bound to cherish ignorance as its patron saint and monitor forever, for the breath of knowledge would wither it away.”
“William Dever is not a theist (so you can’t pin that rap on him!)” – I see that your debating style, Unk, doesn’t prohibit you from dealing in half-truths:
William G. Dever is the son of a fundamentalist preacher. From a small Christian liberal arts college in Tennessee he went to a Protestant theological seminary that exposed him to “critical study” of the Bible, a study that at first he resisted. In 1960 it was on to Harvard and a doctorate in biblical theology. For thirty-five years he worked as an archaeologist, excavating in the Near East, and he is now professor of Near Eastern archaeology and anthropology at the University of Arizona. [This is dated – Dever has since retired and lives with his wife on Malta.]
While it is true, technically, that Dever is an atheist, having been made so by the lack of evidence uncovered during 35 years of excavations in the Levant, it is impossible to entirely rid oneself of early childhood propagandizing. Dever could well be considered a maximalist, believing that the Bible contains much history, and was in conflict with Finkelstein, a Jewish minimalist working for the Jewish Museum at Tel Aviv, for years, but if you listen carefully to the first Finkelstein video I posted, Finlelstein states that Dever has moved ever closer to the minimalmist position. Possibly you should rethink your use of Dever as a witness for your side. Even without investigating his change of mind, he has always stated his belief that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were fictional characters, and that there was no evidence for a Moses, rendering Yeshua, the “son of god,” clearly lacking knowledge of that fact.
I suspect that UnkleE, like most liberal Christians today, is a Marcionite: It really doesn’t matter what the OT says, Christianity is all about the red lettered text in the New Testament.
I sent the following question to Bart Ehrman regarding the Guards at the Tomb claim by Matthew. I’ll let you know what his response is:
“The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63 and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first.” 65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard[t] of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.”[u] 66 So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.”
I agree that that next day started at sundown, but wouldn’t that next day be the Sabbath, and, the Passover? Do you believe that devout Jews would have gone into Pilate’s residence to request guards to guard a tomb on the Passover?
And even if the guards did come to the tomb that evening, not the next day (in daylight), wouldn’t it still be true that the tomb was unguarded and unsealed for some period of time? Even if the Sanhedrin showed up to Pilate’s door one minute after sunset, it would still take the guards time to get to the tomb. Even if someone only had ten minutes, that is enough time for a couple of grave robbers (or disciples, or Jesus’ family) to move the stone, grab the corpse, and dispose of it…all under the cover of darkness. Yes, one could say that the Sanhedrin left their own guards at the tomb until the Roman guards arrived, but then, what was the point in asking for Roman guards?
Bottom line: Accepting Matthew’s account as historical, the tomb was not guarded and secured by Roman guards from the moment Joseph of Arimethea rolled the stone in front of the door to the discovery of it empty on Sunday. There was an opportunity for the body to have been stolen, and this is the most probable explanation for an empty tomb than that an ancient Canaanite god had raised a man from the dead. William Lane Craig’s principle argument for the historicity of the Resurrection has a big hole in it.
One more question on the timing of this event:
I am not a NT scholar but it seems odd to me for Matthew to have been describing Joseph of Arimethea’s activities of placing Jesus’ body in the tomb and rolling the stone in front of the door in the late afternoon, and then, instead of saying, “Then that evening, the Sanhedrin went before Pilate…” he says, “and the next day the Sanhedrin went before Pilate…”.
Is that a typical pattern of speech in Matthew or in the NT for describing a sequence of events?
Although the article is dated 4/5/15, I read of this find a number of years ago. Interestingly, the author states that at most, there could only have been no more than two families in Judea with all three of those names. Sadly, he never tells us where he gets his stats. I have previously demonstrated on other posts that “Jesus” was a fairly common name – even Barabas was named, “Jesus.” You can’t throw a rock in Mexico without hitting a “Maria,” and I would expect there were many in Israel as well, as Jesus himself was surrounded by three of them, and that was just within his own little circle of close acquaintances. Joseph was about as popular a name as John Smith on motel registries.
Gary, that’s fine with me. You can paste as many times as you wish.
Hi Ken, good to see you. I like that quote too.
arch, in supernatural religion, William Cassell’s does show that the author of the Clementine Homilies believed the spirit that was in Adam, Isaac, Jacob, Abraham, Noah, Enoch and Jesus was the same. They are the only true prophets. They, who from the beginning of the world, changing names and forms passes through time.
Finding Truth 
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Gary … sure glad you didn’t mention Thor! He’s my hero god. 😀
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Fear thee not, faire Nan, for Thor will be with us as long as Marvel makes sequels.
(Just practicing for the Renaissance Faire I’ll be attending with my grandchildren next Saturday)
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Percy died too soon.
He said ignorance gave birth to the gods, learning will lead to their death
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This having to do with absolutely nothing, I was re-reading “The Merchant of Venice this morning, over a glass of fine wine ($12 for a gallon jug!), and ran across this line, regarding Jews converting to Christianity that I found amusing – even more so after the third glass:
“This making Christians will raise the price of hogs….“
LikeLiked by 1 person
Arch, Paul/ Saul didn’t have a map and his guide somewhat lost his way. That is how he ended up on the road to Damascus
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For those interested, here are some objections Marcion raised and I doubt they have been answered
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Of all the comment on this blog, this ->
archaeopteryx1
May 3, 2015 at 11:46 am
As a brief epilogue, the Father-Daughter Banquet (and Ball) was a smashing success. We fast-danced, we slow-danced, and we did one dance where I stood in place and pivoted while my little red-haired pixie held my hands and ran around me in a circle – I have no idea what that was called, but since no one else was doing it, I guess that made us innovators. It should shortly be sweeping the nation.
. . . is my favourite. ❤
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Makagutu,
I liked your post on Marcion. I copied and pasted it to my blog (with credit to you), I hope that is ok with you.
Gary
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Also, Gary, you might want to check into the “Adoptionists,” another Christianity that was around for a couple of hundred years, who believed that Yeshua was fully human, but was “adopted” by Yahweh at his baptism.
Then check into the Gnostics, who believed that Yeshua was fully human, but in whom the “Christos” entered at his baptism, then left his body on the cross, just prior to his death, basically saying, “Hey, I’m outta here – you’re on your own kid! See you in three days!” resulting in his echoing Isaiah in saying, “My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Of course a wise biblical scholar knows that the whole “My god, my god” exclamation was simply another feeble effort to tie Yeshua to Isaiah’s prophecies regarding a Messiah.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is it just me or are there a lot of conservative Christians who are control freaks when it comes to having a discussion with skeptics on the claims of Christianity. I presented Matthew 27 to the Christian below, under his article regarding the empty tomb as evidence for the Resurrection. I pointed out to him that there was a possible period of time that the tomb was not guarded. He absolutely refused to even consider it as a possibility. Below is the end of our conversation where he stopped publishing my comments until I would agree to his rules of discussion (Sound familiar??)
Randy Everist
Sorry, Gary, that’s not quite right. No Christian philosopher rests his or her case on the Resurrection being the only possible explanation (in any case, I certainly don’t), and the Resurrection isn’t posited as the explanation for the text you’re using; this is why I said you’ve malformed the question. The best explanation of the Matthew 27 text you’ve quoted above is not that the Pharisees, being concerned to make sure the tomb is not empty, instead ignored whether or not it was empty. The best explanation is instead that they checked and it wasn’t. There’s simply no textual evidence to the contrary sufficient to overturn this. Will you grant this? If not, there’s little point to continuing our conversation. I don’t let people bounce from topic to topic, least of all fundamentalist atheists!
Randy Everist
Sorry, Gary: I warned you I would not let you bounce from topic to topic. Do you admit the best explanation of the text is that the tomb was not empty? This is your last chance. Have a good day! 🙂
Randy Everist
I warned you! Hope you have an awesome day; let me know if you are ever open or have any questions. 🙂
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And especially Psalm 22
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Yeah, Gary, that kind of crap drives me nuts. “Agree with me or I won’t post your comments!”
I’m proud to say that I’ve never used content moderation — even when I was a Christian.
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Mak, “Percy died too soon.
He said ignorance gave birth to the gods, learning will lead to their death”
Alvin Boyd Kuhn said something similar about Christianity, ““As ignorance was its mother and the source-spring of its world power, it is bound to cherish ignorance as its patron saint and monitor forever, for the breath of knowledge would wither it away.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
“William Dever is not a theist (so you can’t pin that rap on him!)” – I see that your debating style, Unk, doesn’t prohibit you from dealing in half-truths:
While it is true, technically, that Dever is an atheist, having been made so by the lack of evidence uncovered during 35 years of excavations in the Levant, it is impossible to entirely rid oneself of early childhood propagandizing. Dever could well be considered a maximalist, believing that the Bible contains much history, and was in conflict with Finkelstein, a Jewish minimalist working for the Jewish Museum at Tel Aviv, for years, but if you listen carefully to the first Finkelstein video I posted, Finlelstein states that Dever has moved ever closer to the minimalmist position. Possibly you should rethink your use of Dever as a witness for your side. Even without investigating his change of mind, he has always stated his belief that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were fictional characters, and that there was no evidence for a Moses, rendering Yeshua, the “son of god,” clearly lacking knowledge of that fact.
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“(Sound familiar??)” – All too —
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Arch,
I suspect that UnkleE, like most liberal Christians today, is a Marcionite: It really doesn’t matter what the OT says, Christianity is all about the red lettered text in the New Testament.
LikeLiked by 1 person
James Tabor has an interesting article on his blog suggesting that the family tomb of Jesus may have been found – if it is proven the consequences would be far reaching:
http://jamestabor.com/2015/04/20/the-talpiot-jesus-family-tomb-case-closed/
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KC! Missed you, man! How the hell have you been?
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I sent the following question to Bart Ehrman regarding the Guards at the Tomb claim by Matthew. I’ll let you know what his response is:
“The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63 and said, “Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ 64 Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead,’ and the last deception would be worse than the first.” 65 Pilate said to them, “You have a guard[t] of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.”[u] 66 So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.”
I agree that that next day started at sundown, but wouldn’t that next day be the Sabbath, and, the Passover? Do you believe that devout Jews would have gone into Pilate’s residence to request guards to guard a tomb on the Passover?
And even if the guards did come to the tomb that evening, not the next day (in daylight), wouldn’t it still be true that the tomb was unguarded and unsealed for some period of time? Even if the Sanhedrin showed up to Pilate’s door one minute after sunset, it would still take the guards time to get to the tomb. Even if someone only had ten minutes, that is enough time for a couple of grave robbers (or disciples, or Jesus’ family) to move the stone, grab the corpse, and dispose of it…all under the cover of darkness. Yes, one could say that the Sanhedrin left their own guards at the tomb until the Roman guards arrived, but then, what was the point in asking for Roman guards?
Bottom line: Accepting Matthew’s account as historical, the tomb was not guarded and secured by Roman guards from the moment Joseph of Arimethea rolled the stone in front of the door to the discovery of it empty on Sunday. There was an opportunity for the body to have been stolen, and this is the most probable explanation for an empty tomb than that an ancient Canaanite god had raised a man from the dead. William Lane Craig’s principle argument for the historicity of the Resurrection has a big hole in it.
One more question on the timing of this event:
I am not a NT scholar but it seems odd to me for Matthew to have been describing Joseph of Arimethea’s activities of placing Jesus’ body in the tomb and rolling the stone in front of the door in the late afternoon, and then, instead of saying, “Then that evening, the Sanhedrin went before Pilate…” he says, “and the next day the Sanhedrin went before Pilate…”.
Is that a typical pattern of speech in Matthew or in the NT for describing a sequence of events?
LikeLike
Although the article is dated 4/5/15, I read of this find a number of years ago. Interestingly, the author states that at most, there could only have been no more than two families in Judea with all three of those names. Sadly, he never tells us where he gets his stats. I have previously demonstrated on other posts that “Jesus” was a fairly common name – even Barabas was named, “Jesus.” You can’t throw a rock in Mexico without hitting a “Maria,” and I would expect there were many in Israel as well, as Jesus himself was surrounded by three of them, and that was just within his own little circle of close acquaintances. Joseph was about as popular a name as John Smith on motel registries.
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Gary, that’s fine with me. You can paste as many times as you wish.
Hi Ken, good to see you. I like that quote too.
arch, in supernatural religion, William Cassell’s does show that the author of the Clementine Homilies believed the spirit that was in Adam, Isaac, Jacob, Abraham, Noah, Enoch and Jesus was the same. They are the only true prophets. They, who from the beginning of the world, changing names and forms passes through time.
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So, Mak – is Cassels saying that that “spirit” was the Cristos?
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Yes. That spirit was the logos. Not equal to god. So to the early fathers, and especially to the writer of the clementine homilies, jesus was not god.
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