You can listen to Bart Ehrman and Peter Williams debate the reliability of the Bible on the radio show Unbelievable.
I think it’s odd anyone would think a book that was written generations after events happened and contains things like “this man was born of a virgin” and “this man rose from the dead” to be reliable — but some people will believe anything, I guess.
By the way, did you hear about Johnny Zimzel back in 1923? He was born of a virgin, rose folks from the dead and did amazing miracles. Then he ascended into heaven on a motorcycle.
What? No, I didn’t know him personally. But I have friends who saw him do miracles! Huh? No, I don’t have any videos. No, no audio either. But over 500 people saw these miracles and are alive today. Seriously, 500. You can ask them. What was that? Well, I don’t have their names handy. But I’ll get them to you as soon as I can.
Geez guys, why are you being such skeptics? NO I don’t have birth records. NO I don’t have pictures. But you should believe me! It’s true! I swear!
JOHNNY ZIMZEL CHANGED MY LIFE AND HE’S COMING BACK TO KICK YOUR ASS!
So you better believe me.
I’m curious Daniel – do you believe in any higher order or being? What cheesed you off about Christianity that you changed your mind? Which evangelical church were you a member of – denomination, not location?
>What cheesed you off about Christianity that you changed your mind? <
Michelle, you missed to point of Daniel’s post. Or as he put it just above: "some people will believe anything"
There are surprisingly a lot of good episodes of that show!
Though the Christian side often looks quite goofy … not that this comes as a surprise ;)
Interesting post. The fact remains that, no matter how you slice it, the Bible was written by the hand of man (many men, actually, and not impossibly at least one woman). Most men are known to be … um … imperfect? Even if the original words were copied verbatim from God’s mouth, they have been copied and copied and copied, and the chance for error creeps in with each copy. Then men decided which parts to leave in, which parts to leave out, and which parts to combine (Genesis being more than translation of the Beginning). Then you get into the possible errors in translation, and, even worse, the possible errors in interpretation.
The Bible is an interesting history book. Some of it is no doubt true. But determining which parts is the tricky thing.
Peace
And I give you Kissing Hank’s Ass
The Bible is reliable almost as newspaper’s story – something happened somewhere and everyone has its own point of view (and believes in it). I know that everybody has the right to believe in something, but I don’t like when they want me to believe in it too.
I also don’t like it when I have friends and family members believing…God and Jebus is so great huh? Something tells me you have a lot of reading to do.
Thank God for the bible, it’s the easiest conversion tool.
It’s outrageous to believe someone could be born of a Virgin, do miracles, and then rise from the dead.
Unless, of course, it’s true.
Its outrageous to believe that a dragon is living in my garage.
Unless of course it’s true. :)
Um, no. History is something that actually, happened.
If so, then it’s purely by happenstance.
I posted about the Ehrman/Williams discussion over on my blog. It was interesting that Ehrman seemed to agree with Williams that an Ehrman-approved NT would not be so very different from the published ones, yet Ehrman found it impossible to remain an inerrantist after he’d studied the history of the Biblical text.
Evangelicals would argue (as fellow LiveJournaler Rob does here) that as far as manuscripts are concerned, we can be pretty sure we have what was written, in most cases, and that critics of Christianity hold the Bible to a higher standard than they do other ancient texts.
The problem is that this “pretty sure” stuff isn’t what’s typically preached by evangelicals. As Queex says when arguing with Rob, if evangelicals are pretty sure, they ought to apply Utility Theory using the cost/benefit and probabilities of being right and being wrong, yet you don’t see them doing this. Williams alludes to the difference between scholars and regular believers on his blog. I think Williams is being naive when he says Ehrman hasn’t addressed what evangelicals actually believe, because what he means is that Ehrman hasn’t addressed what some evangelical scholars believe. Like a lot of ordinary evangelicals, the young Ehrman had an attitude to the inspiration of scripture which is pretty similar to how Muslims view the Koran. It’s easy to see how that attitude won’t survive knowledge of the history of the text. I’d like to see Williams develop just what he does mean by inerrancy in the face of a text obviously hasn’t been miraculously preserved.
All of this is just about transmission. If I remember rightly, Ehrman and Williams never even get into why we should trust reports of stuff that’s, a priori, very unlikely from very old documents. My usual question to evangelicals is “why does God expect us to become experts in ancient history?”
Am I the first commenter to be genuinely scared of the return of Zimzel?
I don’t get it though, when he returns, will he be kicking the ass of believers in him, or non-believers.
I need to know whether to position myself as a Zimzel adherent, or a Zimzel atheist… because honestly, that whole kicking my ass part is scaring me enough to do whatever I need to do to avoid it!
@measure76: I’m glad you mentioned that. This part is actually passionately debated by Zimzel scholars. On his last day on this earth, some say he said:
But others scholars say that was a misunderstanding of his words, or a later interpolation from fundamentalists. They say his last words were really:
But regardless, it comes down to Bowser’s Wager — do you really want Zimzel to kick your ass? If not, you should believe in him. It’s really that simple.
I have to ask AGAIN . . .
What denomination, what “Bible College” did you come from, Daniel?
Yes, Dave, I know that’s not the point of this post but I’ve asked before as have others and we’re curious. What’s the big deal in asking that?
I’ll tell you every school, church, and restaurant I’ve been to.
We’re just interested to know where the anger comes from. I’m not saying it’s not valid, I’m just asking.
It’s an extremely VALID question considering the author of this blog uses the statement that he is a “former evangelical” to give “credit” to his arguments. Again, not doubting the truth in that but it’s an insanely valid question.
Tell me, I won’t tell. I can keep a secret.
Mike aka MonolithTMA
This is pretty good. I recommend it to everyone.
——————-
I love that no matter how much you could point out how unlikely the accounts of the Bible are to be true accounts, the response will almost always be: “Well, what if it’s true?”
@Stephen
I challenge you to quote something Daniel has said that remotely resembles ‘anger’.
It’s interesting that you interpret a new-found disbelief in ideas that he now considers silly, to be ‘anger’.
‘The Bible is reliable almost as newspaper’s story’
Close, but it’s not quite that, is it? – it’s not written by objective reporters, it’s written by people trying to sell Jesus to us.
It’s more like a *press release*. It’s like a company issued press release telling us about a new miracle cure they’ve discovered, that you can buy from them.
And if there’s one thing we should know by now – miracle cures often come at a cost and have nasty side effects.
@Valis
If so, then it’s purely by happenstance.
Did King David exist? Almost certainly. Did many of the cities mentioned in the Bible exist? They’ve been found and dug up. Did the Israelites really go to some town and start bashing babies heads against stones because “God told ‘em to do it?” Well, if you want an excuse to bash babies heads against walls, saying that God told you so is a better excuse than many. Did it really happen? Not unlikely. Did God have anything to do with it? THAT’s where the question lies.
Don’t doubt the historical significance of the Bible. Many of the names mentioned within were probably at least based on real people. Some of the events are based on real events. The Bible is the best historical document of the time period, slanted as it is.
‘It’s outrageous to believe someone could be born of a Virgin, do miracles, and then rise from the dead. Unless, of course, it’s true.’
Most smart Christians and Christian theologians have moved away from that position – the insistence on a literal, historically-happened, could-go-back-in-a-time-machine-and-see-it truth because … well, the very first book of the Bible is clearly and demonstrably not ‘true’ in that sense.
Literalists, of course, have had to grow ever more vocal and insistent that – to paraphrase Douglas Adams – that if there’s a conflict between the Bible and reality then it’s reality that’s got it wrong.
Atheists like me love people that insist that things in the Bible are literally true. It’s an easy, fixed target. All you have to do is demonstrate how it’s not true and you sink the other side’s battleship.
So: if you believe the Bible’s literally true, you’d have no problem confirming that the north wind lives in a big shed when it’s not blowing. It says that’s the case in the Bible.
The ‘unless it’s true’ thing is great, because it ensures the burden of proof is where it’s meant to be, on the believer in something that appears to be nonsense.
The christ history was created for roman empire clergy. The people who wrote the gospels never set a foot on Palestine, the land of jesus. The writers made many geographical mistakes. If we give credibility to the jesus history then we have to give the same to Mihtra, Osiris or Dionisius.
Many things in todays gospels were added in later copies, i.e. the part where it says “whoever is free from sin throw the first stone” appeared in the V century, the earliest copies in II century don’t have that text.
Remember, at that time there were no copy machines, no independent reviwers. There was only one powerful church that eliminated almost all gnostic forms of christ believing.
There are more details. For spanish readers a strongly recoment “la puta de babilonia de Fernando Vallejo”
Jesus never existed, it was a fabrication.
We’re just interested to know where the anger comes from. I’m not saying it’s not valid, I’m just asking.
So that you can say that it’s not “Christianity” that’s wrong, it’s just that denomination X is *so* messed up that people who come to realize it’s wrong will “throw out the baby with the bath water”?
IMHO, a person doesn’t have to submit a resume to back up claims of “yes, I’ve studied it sincerely, not in my mom’s garage but at a school for studying it” when that person demonstrates a pretty good grasp of the subject and isn’t arguing from the authority of “I’ve studied this at a top school, so you have to believe me”.
“It’s an extremely VALID question considering the author of this blog uses the statement that he is a “former evangelical” to give “credit” to his arguments. Again, not doubting the truth in that but it’s an insanely valid question.”
Or you could just skip that part and tell us all, “He’s not a True Scottsman.”
Daniel
I’m really enjoying the uptick is visitors to your site.
Concerning this post, you said; “I think it’s odd anyone would think a book that was written generations after things happened and contains things like…to be reliable….”. What I think is odd is that I believed just these things. It has led in recent years to an interest in neuroscience and the ways in which the brain comes to believe some things and not others are true. All of us are subjectively locked into our own brain. Such things as ‘the feeling of knowing’, subconscious reasoning and confirmation/certainty biases are helping me to understand how I “knew what I knew” and to be skeptical of what “I know that I know”. Ultimately, skepticism, specially the part about submission of hypotheses to others and grappling with the results leads the way forward for me. And in that I find your blog quite helpful. Thank you.
Stephen Webb, you’ll find that atheists who once went to church come from all kinds of denominations and sects and have a variety of de-brainwashing stories. It’s very easy for believers to assert that there’s been some sort of trauma rather than an ex-Christian rationally coming to the conclusion that the biblical texts are little more than remnants of Middle Eastern/Mesopotamian mythology.
A: “You, an unmarried young lady, are clearly pregnant. Now who is the father of your baby?”
B: “Why, sir?”
A: “When we discover it we will hang him and stone you for your terrible crime.”
B: …
B: “Halleluya! It’s a miracle! Yea, though I am a virgin, God himself has given me a child”
A: “That’s your story?”
B: “Yes. And I’m sticking to it.”
Is the Bible reliable?
Well, it says that there were not rainbows until after Noah. However, water refracts light, does it not? So as long as you have water and light, you would’ve had a rainbow.
And that’s not to mention the absurdity of the entire story of Noah. Or Jonah. Or Abraham.
At least that’s my impression of it.
Some Bible-readers believe there was a canopy of water around the earth prior to the “flood”, not oceans as we know them today. That would affect at least the rainbow hypothesis.
Wilbur-
Not all references to the “earth” are literal…some refer to our “earthen vessels”, that is our bodies.
“Some Bible-readers believe there was a canopy of water around the earth prior to the “flood”, not oceans as we know them today.”
I’ve been told with a straight face that the earth was once surrounded by water, kept out by a layer of metallic hydrogen. This layer kept the air pressure on the earth high enough that the plants grew lush (supporting the dinosaurs) and people lived much longer and healthier lives (based on some half-comprehended understanding of high-pressure chambers in hospitals.)
Some fundamentalists will believe anything that allows them to preserve biblical literalism and inerrancy – even if it means reading huge amounts of additional material into the text.
Daniel
Unfortunately, you need to brush up on your Biblical manuscript evidence. We have evidence that at least one Gospel was written during the lifetime of the eyewitnesses. And if one was, and they all used each other as sources, it’s logical to assume that they all were. Here is my brief synopsis of Biblical Manuscript evidence, (http://intelligentscience.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/new-testament-manuscript-evidence-how-we-can-know-the-bible-is-accurate/).
The particular evidence I’m talking about is found in the sections entitled “Overwhelming Evidence” and “Logical Deduction”.
the bible is really not the book to find historical truths, but is made to be a very reliable source of theological statements. i really could understand were all the mockery comes from, it comes from your ignorance. hehehe.
when reading the bible, you need to read it in context of the time. imagine a news paper saying lebron james carried his whole team to the championship and digging it in the ground. 20 million years from now and it gets excavated, should you believe that lebron literally carried his team on his shoulders to win the championship??
Kirk Nortwick:
If the newspaper article said that LeBron James carried the Boston Red Sox to win a Stanley Cup in Alpha Centauri over a squadron of space aliens, do you think I would believe that?
The Bible is internally inconsistent, often conflicts with things we know about our reality, and there is also no proof that there is a supernatural element to begin with.
@ Eric,
That is not brief. False advertising.
I do find it interesting that the earliest date mentioned is 65/66 CE. I was under the impression that Jesus died around 30 CE (as early as 24 CE and late as 37 CE, depending on when you place his birth). According to wikipedia, the average lifespan of the time was around 20-30 years, so assumption of eye witness status is questionable.
The lack of uproar of eyewitnesses might have something to do with the lack of historical records of the time, or perhaps the low level of literacy or maybe the total lack of eyewitnesses. I also doubt that there were churches established at that time (the church is only mentioned once in the bible). Overall such arguments could be applied to works like the Iliad or Odyssey, yet no one is worshipping Zeus.
(Forgot to clarify, eyewitness status of records of his death is questionable. Eyewitness status of his birth or events preceding that but mentioned in the NT is ridiculous with current evidence.)
” And if one was, and they all used each other as sources, it’s logical to assume that they all were.”
No it’s not.
Too many if’s.
Proto
Can you support your assertion that people only lived to be 20-30 years old, or is that what you must believe to deny the eyewitness testimony of the Gospels?
Eric Kemp,
Do you deny the eyewitness testimony of a man in Arabia in the 600s AD who supposedly saw an angel and received divine revelations?
Please explain to me what your standard is for believing or not believing this claim, and then tell me why or why not you are applying the same standard to your claims. Thanks.
Teleprompter
Uh, claiming that God spoke to you through seizures is not eyewitness testimony.
@ Eric,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_lifespan
The bit where it says “Classical Rome” followed by “20-30 years”. Though from my understanding, Jerusalem was a Roman outpost rather than a Roman capital, so no aqueducts and no plumbing.
Don’t get me wrong though, it’s possible – but far from likely – that Jesus’s death was witnessed by the author of the Q document. (Which later became the gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke.)
The life expectancy figure includes infant mortality, and that can seriously skew the figures – if a third of babies die in infancy (it’s about that currently in Sierra Leone) but anyone who survives infancy will die around the age of sixty, then the ‘average life expectancy’ is about forty.
The Bible – once it’s past all that stuff about people living centuries – puts the average adult lifespan at ‘threescore years and ten’, we’ve got a reasonably good idea how long all the various disciples lived and some lived into old age. Not, of course, old enough to see the Second Coming, as explicitly promised by Jesus in one of His Pinocchio moments.
We could, of course, note the strange and amazing coincidence that in the modern world there’s an almost direct correlation between the wealth of a country and the number of doctors per capita and infant mortality. And, meanwhile, there’s no correlation at all between infant mortality and which gods are worshipped or how fervently.
We can also note that anti-abortion groups claim to be ‘pro life’, but that they’re far more interested in banning family planning in Africa than in addressing the issue that in many countries, once those babies are born more than a quarter will die before they reach school age. There are far more babies dying in Africa for the most basic, preventable reasons than there are abortions performed. The only solutions the American evangelists have for this is
sending them Bibles and cutting off funding for anyone who tells young African married couples about condoms.
@Eric Kemp: looking at your blog, I think you’re referring to the Magdalen papyrus, whose date is anywhere between the last third of the 1st century and the 200s, depending on who you ask. It’d be more accurate to say something like “which two scholars have dated to 65/66 AD, although many others disagree” in reference to that manuscript. The name comes from the name of Magdalen College, Oxford (pronounced “Maudlin”, as is Magdalene College, Cambridge, just to add to the confusion), although I find the extra “e” on the apologetics sites you got this information from.
I find the comparison to other ancient texts is interesting in showing how keen Christians were on copying the NT and does give some confidence that the text we have now is similar to the text that was written. But your blog seems to conflate this with the reliability of what was originally written. The Miracle of the Sun is much better attested than the NT miracles: do you accept that it was caused by the Virgin Mary, and if so, will you be converting to Catholicism?
As I said above, it’s odd that God seems to expect people to become experts in ancient history, yet that’s what that popular apologetic technique of telling people to examine the evidence (for the Resurrection, say) seems to be asking. You can short circuit the historical problems by saying that you have a strong conviction (which you say is from God) that the NT is inerrant, but we can no more respect this than the people who have strong conviction that they have the souls of fictional characters (Google for “Otherkin”: it’s enlightening).
@Kirk:
You said,
This is news to me. How can theological statements be tested to know if they are reliable or not? For instance, how can “god is love” be tested to see if it is reliable, or if it isn’t? Is it more reliable than if it said, “god is ether” or “god is in our marrow”?
Also, some of the theological statements are also historical claims — for instance, Jesus was born of a virgin, raised the dead, turned water into wine, was crucified, and was raised from the dead are ALL historical claims that have not been verified, but are also theological bedrocks of Christianity. How can you separate them?
“Uh, claiming that God spoke to you through seizures is not eyewitness testimony.”
What do you suppose happened to Paul on the road to Damascus? Probably not a seizure, but there was definitely something physiological going on.
[entering believer mode]
Mike, don’t be silly. God doesn’t speak through seizures or voices to zealous Arabs, but he CAN speak through blinding and talking to Jews or also if they fast for long periods of time. If you don’t believe me, read the BIBLE!
Oh, and even though there is signed testimony about Joseph Smith’s golden plates (which I admit is far more evidence than anything from the bible), we know that can’t really be true, because Smith was a con man and fooled people. Plus he was a heretic, and God doesn’t speak to heretics.
[ending believer mode]
;)
That makes me want to go watch the South Park episode about Mormonism again. ;-)
Yes, it would. It would also affect the gravity hypothesis, because there really isn’t anything that could hold all that water up there. If it was in orbit as ice (like the rings of Saturn, which hardly count as a “canopy”), it would have superheated on re-entry and boiled everyone on the planet long before they had time to drown – God would have been better off telling Noah to build a refrigerator than an ark.
If it was actually a canopy, the air pressure would be increased to the point where humans couldn’t survive. And the greenhouse effect of all that water would push temperatures unlivably high. The pre-flood world must have been a pole-to-pole desert populated by lifeforms whose like we don’t see any more.
But, yeah. It would explain the rainbows. Well done.
@Proto
“Please explain to me what your standard is for believing or not believing this claim, and then tell me why or why not you are applying the same standard to your claims. Thanks.”
Here’s Eric’s standard.
Eric “God’s existence is one of my most basic presuppositions. Meaning, that I use my belief in God’s existence to interpret the evidence which I recieve.”
Hey….. and let’s not forget about the innumerable “*living* “eyewitnesses” who have seen hairy, large-footed, bipedal humanoids in their communities. Yes, we’re talking community gorillas, folks. Nevermind that thingy that appears to be a zipper on the back-side. The Oral Tradition has confirmed it’s “a scar”.
@Sunny Day
You are being to nice to Kemp … he has shown himself to be dishonest, intellectually and otherwise, on many occasions — I somehow doubt that this time will be any different. Some people deserve the benefit of the doubt Kemp has shown that he’s not one of them.
“he has shown himself to be dishonest, intellectually and otherwise, on many occasions:
Yeah, I know. If/when you post over there and use acutal quotations from him he’ll delete the post.
I especialy love the posts where he goes off and attacks people. “Keith Olbermann’s Humanism”, “A Question for the WordPress Community”, “Airtightnoodle IS a Progressive Creationist”, “Forknowledge, his Brother and Their Belief in the Supernatural”,
and “Response to Cubik’s Rube”.
No matter how many times, or how polite you are in correcting his many mistakes, mis-truths, and general knowledge about science he ignores it and keeps mucking along. He wonders why people don’t respond to him,”I find it discourteous when someone I was arguing with would leave valid points on the table and never respond.” – Eric Kemp.
Sunny Day
Whoa!
Say what you will about Christianity, or me for that matter, but don’t lie about me.
“Yeah, I know. If/when you post over there and use acutal quotations from him he’ll delete the post.”
I never delete comments as long as the comment includes some semblance of an argument. If the comment is merely insult, I’ll warn the person, and if they continue with pure insult, then I’ll delete the comment. So I’ve never done what you have said.
“No matter how many times, or how polite you are in correcting his many mistakes, mis-truths, and general knowledge about science he ignores it and keeps mucking along.”
Although I’m human, I don’t know everything, and I’m open to being wrong, I’m confused of exactly when it’s been pointed out to me about a lack of scientific knowledge and where I’ve ignored it. Could you please be specific?
“I especialy love the posts where he goes off and attacks people.”
So, are you equating forming counter-arguments to individual people with “attacking” them?
“He wonders why people don’t respond to him,”I find it discourteous when someone I was arguing with would leave valid points on the table and never respond.” ”
And that would be a perfect definition of “quote mining” Sunny. Please, be honest about the context and purpose of a quote or don’t quote it.
@ Steve Jeffers
You’re right. I should have read more of the wikipedia entry. With that in mind, I suppose it’s more plausible that the death of Jesus was witnessed by contributors to the NT. So long as we’re assuming that the eyewitness was an infant at the time of the crucifixion.
Personally, I’m conflicted as to whether or not Jesus was even a historical figure. You’d think that if the son of god was born, did real miracles, was worshipped and then crucified and resurrected, some of the historians of the time would have taken notice and written something down. The only mention of any Jesus in early non-Christian sources is by Josephus, who refers to a ‘Jesus, son of Damneus’ who was apparently still alive during 62 CE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_myth_hypothesis#Early_non-Christian_references_to_Jesus
“I never delete comments as long as the comment includes some semblance of an argument. If the comment is merely insult, I’ll warn the person, and if they continue with pure insult, then I’ll delete the comment. So I’ve never done what you have said.”
You know what you did, and I know what you did. Your protestations of innocence will not find much traction.
You are a dishonest Young Earth Creationist
“I’m confused of exactly when it’s been pointed out to me about a lack of scientific knowledge and where I’ve ignored it. Could you please be specific?”
Even a cursory read of your site is sufficient to prove my point. As someone put it so well, kind of a Ray Comfort site without the advertising budget.
“So, are you equating forming counter-arguments to individual people with “attacking” them?”
No more so than you do, “these discussions were taking place over at Unreasonable Faith and when a Christian posts a comment on that site, boy do they get a shellacking!”
“And that would be a perfect definition of “quote mining” Sunny. Please, be honest about the context and purpose of a quote or don’t quote it.”
Oh how precious, a creationist accusing someone of quote mining!
Actually Eric, judged on your comments here it tends to seem as though you aren’t just “open to being wrong” but leapingly, boundingly enthusiastic about it.
Sunny Day
Hilarious. I ask for examples and proof of your claims against me and you offer nothing except “It’s obvious”. Good work Sunny.
Eric, don’t bother. Each word from you makes it more clear how outstandingly nuts. Learn from your mistakes. When you are so far out of your league, you should probably ask the coach to send you back to the minors for seasoning.
500 people saw Zimzel?
Don’t be silly. The Zimzel movement was totally crushed by his death. All his followers, a handful of them, were in despair.
When could 500 Zimzel followers get together to see this miracle?
You haven’t though this ‘Zimzel’ parody of Christianity through, have you?
‘In addition to these, we have since found a fragment of Matthew 26 called the Magdelene manuscript that has been dated 65/66 AD. ‘
Actually, it is dated 25-33 BC. I have just dated it at that date myself.
I admit my dating is not likely to be accurate, but yours is absurd….
Carsten Thiede’s absurd rubbish about this Magadalen Papryrus is as solidly based as the claim that there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz.
http://www.bowness.demon.co.uk/thiede.htm written years ago, since when Thiede’s garbage has been quietly dropped by Christian scholars…
Steven, just have faith in Zimzel and he’ll forgive you for that blasphemy. If not… well I’m warning you. He won’t be happy.
More seriously, I’m confused. Did you just say you personally dated that manuscript fragment before the supposed birth of Jesus?
Aor
Yea, asking Sunny for evidence of claims made against me and then mocking him/her for having nothing, I’m definetly out of my league. You’re so right, I should go into hiding right now because I’ve very intimidated by Sunny’s stunningly logical arguments of “It’s obvious” and “because I know it”.
Eric,
You asked for where I got the 20-30 years figure for average lifespan and I replied. I’m still waiting for either agreement or counter arguments. If you’d rather argue about whether or not you’re dishonest or whatever then that’s fine with me, but don’t assume your claims of eyewitnesses writing the NT are unchallenged.
Daniel,
Having been there yourself, you must understand that as a believer it is vital that you examine all evidence according to how well it fits the Bible. If it fits, you can simply toss it aside, but if it contradicts the Scripture, you have to do a bit of jimmying until it works. This is key to maintaining your belief.
Anyway, I honestly have to say that I’m surprised at your reaction to Christians who believe that Yeshua was born of a virgin and died, then was resurrected. That’s about as silly as a religious person wondering why a biologist believes in macroevolution. To hijack a phrase you used in an earlier post, if you believe in an all-loving, all-powerful God, you get virgin birth and resurrection for free. In that context, it really isn’t that far-fetched.
Eric, I base my opinion of you on multiple interactions. You do not behave honestly. You show intent to deceive.
You are unworthy of respect due to the way you behave.
Proto
Ok, you asked for it. Flavius Josephus (37 – 100 CE), Justin the Martyr (100-165), Gaius Julius Caesar (140 – 85 BCE), Julius Caesar (100 – 44 BCE), Gaius Octavianus Agustus (63 BCE – 14 CE) . . . shall I keep naming blood line of the Caesars, and other early historians, theologians, and how long they lived or can I stop now?
And the point that was already made was that the Romans commonly practiced infanticide, not to mention the lack of medicine made getting a disease early in life and dying a crap shoot. Those would make your “average life span” numbers off. And plus…we weren’t talking about average life span; you made the statement that people DID NOT live that long. Obviously they did as recorded by history.
So your “the 60′s CE was too late for the eyewitnesses to still be alive” is dead, move on.
Aor
Your opinion of me doesn’t matter if you don’t have any evidence. I’m honestly asking for evidence for these “deceptions”, as well as the claims Sunny made against me. So far the best you guys have done is “because we said so”. Are you really in the habit of thinking that because you claim something, therefore it’s true? And would I really be openly asking for you to provide evidence of my behavior if I thought you had anything?
“Ok, you asked for it. Flavius Josephus (37 – 100 CE), Justin the Martyr (100-165), Gaius Julius Caesar (140 – 85 BCE), Julius Caesar (100 – 44 BCE), Gaius Octavianus Agustus (63 BCE – 14 CE) . . . shall I keep naming blood line of the Caesars, and other early historians, theologians, and how long they lived or can I stop now?”
I didn’t realize all those people were the historians that wrote the bible.
@Eric
“And would I really be openly asking for you to provide evidence of my behavior if I thought you had anything?”
The real answer to this question is do you actually know that you’re deceptive or not. If you do know you’re deceptive then you need to think properly about whether that is a behaviour you wish to continue; if you don’t even realise what you are doing then may I suggest that you step back and actually look at your behaviour so as to determine what you are actually doing. Now obviously the posts you have made do not allow me to judge which of the above is true but you seriously need to consider why you act in the way you do.
I think he acts that way because atheism threatens his self esteem. The idea that those beliefs that are so central to his emotional well being could be seen as outright ridiculous by rational people makes him lash out.
Eric,
Wikipedia also places the NT at being written in ~70 CE, rather than 60 CE. As someone else pointed out, the Magdalen papyrus was written much later than 65/66BC.
You mentioned Roman historians and Caesars, individuals who would have lived in extreme luxury compared to the people of Jerusalem. The Caesars were perhaps the most powerful and richest people alive (no starving when food is scarce). The Romans also built aqueducts (clean drinking water) and plumbing. Overall, better living conditions.
Doesn’t change much though. If we accept an average lifespan of 40 years or so, the eyewitnesses would be infants at the time of Jesus’s death.
Even if someone in Jerusalem, without the benefits of being upper class members of the most advanced society of the time, managed to live as long as any of the individuals you mentioned (65 years), then they still would not have witnessed the birth of Jesus, let alone what came before it (fulfilments of OT prophecies).
(There is also the question of accuracy – how accurate can something written 40 years after the fact be?)
@ Everyone who is criticising Eric
Eric hasn’t done anything that most other religious posters haven’t done, and at least he hasn’t been proselytising (bleh). Not that that excuses it.
Of course, now that my arguments are ‘dead’ because Eric says so, on the basis that he’s replied but probably doesn’t want to hear my rebuttal, I’m somewhat considering joining in.
@ Sunny Day
That’s it, disappear when directly challenged about claims you made about me, and then reappear when something isn’t directed at you. Well done.
@ Jabster
“The real answer to this question is do you actually know that you’re deceptive or not. If you do know you’re deceptive then you need to think properly about whether that is a behaviour you wish to continue”
If I was accused of not always being able to get my point across clearly, or being a bad communicator of argument, then fine, I would agree. Like all humans, I don’t always write as well as I should, or explain as well as I should.
However, I was accused of being deceptive on purpose. I can honestly say that I never, ever do this. While I may not always be the most cordial fellow, and sometimes my frustration and sarcasm get the best of me, deception is something I just don’t do. I am straightforward up to a fault (just ask my wife).
So, if something I’m saying seems deceptive because of poor communication skills, then fine, point it out to me and I’ll attempt to clarify. But if you’re going to accuse me of purposeful deception, you better have something to back it up or I’m to point out your hypocrisy and bearing of false witness.
@Aor
You make accusations, and when asked for evidence, you have nothing. Making claims without being able to back them up is the definition of irrationality.
@Proto
Your original claim was that people back then “did not” live long enough to write the NT. I have shown this to be false. You can move goalposts to, “well it’s unlikely that they didn’t live long enough because . . .” and that’s fine, but that wasn’t the original statement. If you want to make the statement that “no one” outside of Roman royalty lived past 40, then have at it, and have fun proving that absolute negative.
But as for me, when I look at history and see that people did live that long, I’ll go with the evidence and say that it’s just as likely that the writers of the NT did live long enough to write it. If you want to speculate that they didn’t, I can’t stop you, but realize that it’s just what you prefer, and nothing that a logical deduction brought you to.
Also, are you trying to say that an eyewitness of the riots of 1969, writing now, wouldn’t be able to recall accurately the things he experienced?
“You mentioned Roman historians and Caesars, individuals who would have lived in extreme luxury compared to the people of Jerusalem. The Caesars were perhaps the most powerful and richest people alive (no starving when food is scarce). The Romans also built aqueducts (clean drinking water) and plumbing. Overall, better living conditions.”
@Proto
That’s what I was thinking, except I didn’t want to waste that many keystrokes on a YEC. Funny he picked a bunch of people on the right side of the bell curve when you were obviously talking about average lifespan. Why he’s trying to justify a longer lifespan by using historical figures escapes me. The bible is full of magical people with longer lifespans, he could just as easily claimed it was written by one of those.
“Yea, asking Sunny for evidence of claims made against me and then mocking him/her for having nothing, I’m definetly out of my league.”
It’s not my fault you find my response unsatisfactory, judged by your postings on your site, this site, and the blogs of others you find many things unsatisfying. I don’t think the fault lies with those other people.
When you read something like this “Should Christians Believe in an Old Earth?” its hard to take anything you say seriously.
http://intelligentscience.org/2008/10/24/should-christians-believe-in-an-old-earth/
Sunny Day
I wasn’t trying to prove an increased average age, only show that Proto’s claim of “people DO NOT live that long” wrong. I did that.
And, no matter how much insult you pile on, or unrelated articles you link, the plan fact remains that you were asked for evidence of your claims against me and you have none. This proves you to be exactly what you claimed me to be.
@ Eric Kemp
I feel no need to justify my opinion of you. I think regular readers of this blog will have already formed their opinions on you and I would be quite surprised if they came closer to your opinion of yourself than mine of you.
Maybe you could save me the trouble of looking for deceptive comments from you on months worth of blogs. How about you just make an ass of yourself here and I will deal with your crazy opinions as they come up? I never run away from a discussion, Eric. If you read the comment streams here regularly you will be well aware of that.
If you want me to rip your belief system to shreds, then take a position in favor of the supernatural. I’m willing to deal with any issue you raise, and fully capable of making you appear quite foolish in the process.
Not that making Eric Kemp appear foolish is at all difficult. Any mirror can manage.
“plan fact remains that you were asked for evidence of your claims against me and you have none.”
I pointed at your entire site, its sufficient for me and most other people. If you wish, I exempt your navel gazing posts, “Does the Bible Teach a Solid Firmament?” as it doesn’t touch much upon actual Science.
@Kemp
“So, if something I’m saying seems deceptive because of poor communication skills, then fine, point it out to me and I’ll attempt to clarify. But if you’re going to accuse me of purposeful deception, you better have something to back it up or I’m to point out your hypocrisy and bearing of false witness.”
You’re not really understanding the point. So I’ll restate it — it is clear that your are deceptive so the question is why you do this? Is it on purpose as you feel that it’s justified or do you not realise that you’re even doing it. In the former, well just carry on, but in the latter maybe your should try getting someone else to read over your posts. I don’t know the answer to this only you do.
@Aor
“If you want me to rip your belief system to shreds, then take a position in favor of the supernatural. I’m willing to deal with any issue you raise, and fully capable of making you appear quite foolish in the process.”
Moving goalposts. I’m asking evidence for specific claims made against me of purposeful deception . Because you don’t have anything you resort to, “Yea, well I’ll beat you on any subject so there!” Well done sir.
Oh, and you don’t need to boast about your penchant and ability for ridicule. You’ve proved that many times over, PZ would be proud. Now, the question is, could you have a discussion without it? Could you form an argument without condescending sarcasm? Are you up for the challenge Aor?
@Sunny Day
“I pointed at your entire site, its sufficient for me and most other people.”
Ah yes, you again resort to “because it’s obvious”. Next time you make claims against someone, you should probably be able to back them up with evidence. Which is ironic because you demand it every time you talk to a Christian but don’t need any yourself when you attack a Christian.
In fact, it shows that you are actually the one attempting to be deceptive.
@Jabster
“You’re not really understanding the point. So I’ll restate it — it is clear that your are deceptive so the question is why you do this?”
Since I’ve been asking for evidence of this deception, it’s alittle irrational to then say, “It’s clear that you’re deceptive”. You and your friends just keep telling me as if your words make it fact. Show me.
Honestly guys. I’m not defending myself here because I give a hoot about what you think about me, or I need to “defend my pride” or something. I was accused of being purposefully deceptive and deleting comments because someone disagreed with me. Both claims are just plain false, and that’s why I’m defending myself, because the claims are false. I’m asking you for evidence, not so I can explain the evidence away, but because I know you don’t have any.
Go ahead, link my conversations at my own blog. I want you to. Because when people read them they will see how I’m not purposefully deceptive in the slightest and nor do I delete comments just because someone disagrees with me. I may not be the best communicator in the world, and I may be more than a tad verbose from time to time, but I’m not purposefully deceptive. Go ahead, look for it, find the deception. I guarantee you that you’ll have to quote mine and ignore context in order to find any.
Eric
I never claimed that “people do NOT live that long”. I never made such a statement, neither did anyone else in this comment thread. If you’d like to stop building strawmen, I said “assumption of eye witness status is questionable” in reference to Jesus’s death. Thus far, you have done nothing to deal with the likelihood of such an occurrence, and focused solely on the possibility – something that was never in question.
I did however profess severe doubt as to the possibility of eyewitness accounts of his birth and everything before. Despite their priviliedge posistions, none of the individuals you listed lived longer than 65 years, not long enough to write the NT AND witness the birth – or prophesied events preceding it.
As for accuracy, what do you think would be a better account of the events of the riots of 1969, reports written within a few weeks of the event or around 40 years after it?
@Kemp
“Go ahead, look for it, find the deception. I guarantee you that you’ll have to quote mine and ignore context in order to find any.”
No what is guaranteed is that you’ll claim that your obvious deceptiveness was actually due to because “I may not be the best communicator in the world, …” The fact that you’ve already put this ‘idea’ into the thread suggests says a lot about you. You are deceptive so why don’t you think about why you are.
Proto
“According to wikipedia, the average lifespan of the time was around 20-30 years, so assumption of eye witness status is questionable.”
Kemp
“And plus…we weren’t talking about average life span; you made the statement that people DID NOT live that long. Obviously they did as recorded by history.”
“I wasn’t trying to prove an increased average age, only show that Proto’s claim of “people DO NOT live that long” wrong. I did that.”
You mean that claim that Proto didn’t make.
Kemp claims that he’s not deceptive, and he accuses Proto of “Moving the Goalposts” in the same post. That’s just sad.