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On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal.
I think you're misreading what he meant.
If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B)
The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A)
A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent
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On March 24 2011 10:41 Signet wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal. I think you're misreading what he meant. If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B) The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A) A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent
His original statement was "there is no historical evidence of jesus" and then he went on to prove his point by saying "why no records if he was a big deal?"
We still aren't getting anywhere
My original example of why that logic is terribly unreliable involves the life Hannibal. Every single historical record of Hannibal and his campaigns were written after his death. Details of the campaigns themselves are often in disagreement among ancient historians like livy and polybius.
Hannibal was by far much more significant than jesus was in their respective lifetimes yet both of their lives are quite obscure.
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On March 24 2011 10:45 billyX333 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 10:41 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal. I think you're misreading what he meant. If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B) The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A) A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent His original statement was "there is no historical evidence of jesus" and then he went on to prove his point by saying "why no records if he was a big deal?" We still aren't getting anywhere
He follows that with "The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure." Which means exactly the same thing as "He wasn't a big deal."
Hence the !B -> !A thing.
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On March 24 2011 09:57 Igakusei wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 09:41 koreasilver wrote:
Problems in translations is a huge issue, and it was an important part of scholarly research leading up to and in the Protestant Reformation. European scholars began to increasingly see issues in the Vulgate, which was the Latin translation that was being used by the church at the time and realized that there were a lot of translation issues and problems of writings within the Vulgate that were not present in the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Which original Greek manuscripts?
Whatever were preserved. There were obviously many since various scholars from all across Western Europe were scrutinizing the Vulgate. The consensus was that the Vulgate had some bad translations and blatantly added in passages that weren't present in any Greek manuscripts.
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On March 24 2011 10:51 Signet wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 10:45 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:41 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal. I think you're misreading what he meant. If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B) The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A) A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent His original statement was "there is no historical evidence of jesus" and then he went on to prove his point by saying "why no records if he was a big deal?" We still aren't getting anywhere He follows that with "The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure." Which means exactly the same thing as "He wasn't a big deal." Hence the !B -> !A thing.
Wow, what?? "No evidence for the existence of jesus" followed by "he was an obscure figure"
How are we getting anywhere?
Why even mention "he was an obscure figure" That isnt contributing to your argument whatsoever. William Shakespeare lived in obscurity as well, so what??
You can't use "he wasn't a big deal" as an argument for his non existence.
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On March 24 2011 10:55 billyX333 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 10:51 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:45 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:41 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal. I think you're misreading what he meant. If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B) The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A) A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent His original statement was "there is no historical evidence of jesus" and then he went on to prove his point by saying "why no records if he was a big deal?" We still aren't getting anywhere He follows that with "The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure." Which means exactly the same thing as "He wasn't a big deal." Hence the !B -> !A thing. Wow, what?? "No evidence for the existence of jesus" followed by "he was an obscure figure" How are we getting anywhere? Why even mention "he was an obscure figure" That isnt contributing to your argument whatsoever. William Shakespeare lived in obscurity as well, so what?? You can't use "he wasn't a big deal" as an argument for his non existence.
No one was arguing that he didn't exist.
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On March 24 2011 10:59 Jswizzy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 10:55 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:51 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:45 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:41 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal. I think you're misreading what he meant. If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B) The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A) A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent His original statement was "there is no historical evidence of jesus" and then he went on to prove his point by saying "why no records if he was a big deal?" We still aren't getting anywhere He follows that with "The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure." Which means exactly the same thing as "He wasn't a big deal." Hence the !B -> !A thing. Wow, what?? "No evidence for the existence of jesus" followed by "he was an obscure figure" How are we getting anywhere? Why even mention "he was an obscure figure" That isnt contributing to your argument whatsoever. William Shakespeare lived in obscurity as well, so what?? You can't use "he wasn't a big deal" as an argument for his non existence. No one was arguing that he didn't exist.
I know, we are arguing whether or not there is evidence for his existence. This was your statement which I bolded, do you recall?
Reminding us that the records were written post death is in no way peculiar at all in the context of ancient history. I dont see why people mention this. That was my original point.
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On March 24 2011 10:52 koreasilver wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 09:57 Igakusei wrote:On March 24 2011 09:41 koreasilver wrote:
Problems in translations is a huge issue, and it was an important part of scholarly research leading up to and in the Protestant Reformation. European scholars began to increasingly see issues in the Vulgate, which was the Latin translation that was being used by the church at the time and realized that there were a lot of translation issues and problems of writings within the Vulgate that were not present in the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. Which original Greek manuscripts? Whatever were preserved. There were obviously many since various scholars from all across Western Europe were scrutinizing the Vulgate. The consensus was that the Vulgate had some bad translations and blatantly added in passages that weren't present in any Greek manuscripts.
Ah, well from what I've read the Greek manuscripts had a large share of discrepancy problems too.
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On March 24 2011 10:55 billyX333 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 10:51 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:45 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:41 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal. I think you're misreading what he meant. If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B) The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A) A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent His original statement was "there is no historical evidence of jesus" and then he went on to prove his point by saying "why no records if he was a big deal?" We still aren't getting anywhere He follows that with "The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure." Which means exactly the same thing as "He wasn't a big deal." Hence the !B -> !A thing. Wow, what?? "No evidence for the existence of jesus" followed by "he was an obscure figure" How are we getting anywhere? Why even mention "he was an obscure figure" That isnt contributing to your argument whatsoever. William Shakespeare lived in obscurity as well, so what?? You can't use "he wasn't a big deal" as an argument for his non existence.
I'm not arguing for his non-existence. This is a little confusing with the way you're using "you" and linking me to Jswizzy's argument. I'm only trying to clarify what he meant.
His original post that you replied to was:
Jesus probably did exist but there is no historical evidence to support that he did.
Which actually directly states his opinion that Jesus of Nazareth most likely did exist. Hardly something that can be considered an argument for non existence.
I think you are projecting a bit. (I don't mean this in an attacking way, just reread his original statement and see if it makes sense from the interpretation I offered)
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if humanity cauld take religion as an idea and not a fucking strict rule our world would be such an nice place. But this will never happen cause people are stupid. Well end of story for me is that the most epic fanatasybooks are written by them
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On March 24 2011 10:30 Signet wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 05:17 HULKAMANIA wrote:
If you ask me, the scholarship itself is sensationalist and not just the reporting on it. It's a heroic narrative typical of contemporary academia:
Once upon a time, there was gender egalitarianism. Then the men, because of their irrational misogyny, ruined everything and initiated an oppressive and patriarchal hegemony that lasted for thousands of years. Fortunately, modern scholarship now allows us to see through the misunderstandings of our forefathers and undo the great evils that they bequeathed to us. That summary of academia's view of cultural sexism was probably more true 20 years ago. Evolutionary anthropologists/sociologists today are looking for natural (non-conspiratorial) methods for which gender roles or whatever other aspects of society may have developed. For example, the following is an Invited Address from an APA (ie the most important psychological association in the US) conference in San Francisco 4 years ago: http://www.psy.fsu.edu/~baumeistertice/goodaboutmen.htmPolitics and outdated academia (aren't they really the same?) is where you'll find the worst man-haters. In fairness, some of these rabid feminists deal with some incredibly backwards men as opponents on a regular basis; their experiences are more negative than the average woman's.
No, no, no. I agree with you. I didn't mean to suggest that contemporary academia only produces that narrative—just that it does produce that narrative and that it’s a pretty stale one. I mean the study in the OP certainly fits the bill, despite how outdated the bill is.
But I think we agree on that already, and I’m really interested in hearing some legitimately contemporary psychology so thank you for that link. Once I’m done typing on my thesis tonight, I’ll definitely give it a look-see.
Show nested quote +I'm not even taking issue with the archaeology, either, but I can't really fathom why it's being framed as some doctrine-redefining discovery. The one demographic that this could possibly discomfit would be strict, literal-interpretation inerrantists, which isn't even the most tenable of inerrantist positions, which isn't, in turn, the only religious conviction that can be held on the scriptures.
And I guess that's my problem with both the research and the press on these things. Because they refute the most basic, simplistic, uncritical approaches to scripture, they are taken to destabilize the entire structure of religion. It's like assuming that nutrition is a bunk science simply because the hardline, fat-free diet that some diet gurus used to preach turned out to be a bad approach. It's discrediting a highly elaborate and complex belief system on the grounds that one of its myriad cells is demonstrably wrong. What it ends up doing is impoverishing the dialogue on both sides of the fence. I think the internet has a tendency to make the literal-interpretation stance seem less common than it is. For example, according to a 2008 Gallup Poll, 44% of Americans believe the earth was created as-is within the last 10,000 years while just 14% believe in natural evolution (36% believe in intelligent design, the rest unsure). I think if you did a poll even of just the religious people on TL, more than 50% would believe in natural evolution and very few in 6-day creationism. As it affects everything from school curricula to political discourse, it's important to show how flawed the literal-interpretation inerrantist position is. As was stated, it's difficult to imagine that after thousands of years of manual copying, the Bible suffered from no inadvertent errors or from the translator's own biases when there were multiple linguistic translations to choose from. But beyond that, when literacy was low and few people owned personal copies of the Bible, to say the least it would have been tempting for the Church to alter the documents to suit their own agenda. Even today, certain groups are editing the Bible to suit their own agenda (The Conservative Bible Project, for example) so I'm skeptical that people managed to avoid this temptation for 2000+ years. It doesn't have to be such a deliberate attempt either - hypothetically, if the Jewish culture evolved from viewing YHWH as a male deity with a spouse into a culture viewing YHWH as a masculine yet genderless creator with no such companion, the process of copying the written record might have included benevolently purging the perceived error and attempting to extrapolate what the "true version" of the text was. Besides that, examining ancient cultures is interesting. However I completely agree that the press on science, anthropology, etc is typically awful.
I have no knowledge of the textual history of the Bible. It's kind of out of my area of expertise so I won't speak on it. I general, though, that the idea of a bunch monks slyly facilitating their private political schemes by intentionally manipulating their own manuscripts strikes me as a bit too Dan Brown.
I also categorically distrust activist scholarship as it almost certainly results in academics slyly manipulating their own manuscripts. It might be a little apolitical of me, but the world can to hell. I just want to know something before I die. And I think targeting the lowest common denominator of opponent ideologies kind of muddies the waters for everyone.
I got nothing but goodwill towards you, though. You sound like a fairly tolerable academic  .
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On March 24 2011 06:59 MrBadMan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 03:12 skypig wrote:
If you just read the Bible you will see that the Jews worshiped tons of other gods, which was why God had to pwn them over and over. I'm not sure why the researcher in the OP's post thinks that "other gods" are such a big deal; if he'd just read the Bible he would see that there was way more than "Asherah" or whatever...lol. As for the debate whether God exists or does not: deep inside everyone knows that he does exists. It's the default setting in every human being. Through education or lack thereof, this default setting gets switched off, the certain knowledge that God exists is diminshed. For a plethora of reasons, many people actually choose they want nothing to do with God, and pretend that he does not exist. It's some sort of mass psychosis. It is pointless to debate with people like that, they have trapped themselves in their own personal hell and the door is locked from the inside. Whatever floats their boat I guess...life is too short to argue with fools.
How can you claim with certainty that the 'default position' for every human is that there is a god?
One would rather argue that the 'default' position is actually nothing at all. Why would default be an idea that is culture and time based, while default should actually be neutral and unbiased.
You make rather... bold assumptions regarding people who refute arguments from theists.
'pretend that he doesn't exist' - implies there IS a god. There is no logical argument for this way of thinking besides information from peer and some book that was written and rewritten for over 2000 years.
' It's some sort of mass psychosis' - this is just plain disrespect to people who doesn't believe what you believe.
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On March 24 2011 11:02 Signet wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 10:55 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:51 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:45 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:41 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal. I think you're misreading what he meant. If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B) The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A) A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent His original statement was "there is no historical evidence of jesus" and then he went on to prove his point by saying "why no records if he was a big deal?" We still aren't getting anywhere He follows that with "The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure." Which means exactly the same thing as "He wasn't a big deal." Hence the !B -> !A thing. Wow, what?? "No evidence for the existence of jesus" followed by "he was an obscure figure" How are we getting anywhere? Why even mention "he was an obscure figure" That isnt contributing to your argument whatsoever. William Shakespeare lived in obscurity as well, so what?? You can't use "he wasn't a big deal" as an argument for his non existence. I'm not arguing for his non-existence. This is a little confusing with the way you're using "you" and linking me to Jswizzy's argument. I'm only trying to clarify what he meant. His original post that you replied to was: Jesus probably did exist but there is no historical evidence to support that he did.Which actually directly states his opinion that Jesus of Nazareth most likely did exist. Hardly something that can be considered an argument for non existence. I think you are projecting a bit. (I don't mean this in an attacking way, just reread his original statement and see if it makes sense from the interpretation I offered)
I was disputing one claim (which I bolded) and then the supposed evidence for why he believes there is no evidence. Thats all. Wasn't trying to debate but rather crush this misconception that records of historical figures need to be written during ones lifetime to be valid.
It might sound like I want an argument but I don't really. I just hear this completely invalid point brought up time and time again which irritates me to no end
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On March 24 2011 11:13 billyX333 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 11:02 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:55 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:51 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:45 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:41 Signet wrote:On March 24 2011 10:26 billyX333 wrote:On March 24 2011 10:24 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 10:20 billyX333 wrote:
The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure.
No. Huge misconception. Jesus was completely insignificant during his lifetime. Your just parroting my last statement I said he was obscure. Your logic: If he was such a big deal, why no records?? My statement: He wasn't a big deal. I think you're misreading what he meant. If Jesus had been a big deal during his lifetime, there would have been better records. (if A then B) The fact that there aren't these records therefore shows that Jesus was an obscure figure during his lifetime. (if not B then not A) A -> B and !B -> !A are logically equivalent His original statement was "there is no historical evidence of jesus" and then he went on to prove his point by saying "why no records if he was a big deal?" We still aren't getting anywhere He follows that with "The fact is Jesus was an obscure figure." Which means exactly the same thing as "He wasn't a big deal." Hence the !B -> !A thing. Wow, what?? "No evidence for the existence of jesus" followed by "he was an obscure figure" How are we getting anywhere? Why even mention "he was an obscure figure" That isnt contributing to your argument whatsoever. William Shakespeare lived in obscurity as well, so what?? You can't use "he wasn't a big deal" as an argument for his non existence. I'm not arguing for his non-existence. This is a little confusing with the way you're using "you" and linking me to Jswizzy's argument. I'm only trying to clarify what he meant. His original post that you replied to was: Jesus probably did exist but there is no historical evidence to support that he did.Which actually directly states his opinion that Jesus of Nazareth most likely did exist. Hardly something that can be considered an argument for non existence. I think you are projecting a bit. (I don't mean this in an attacking way, just reread his original statement and see if it makes sense from the interpretation I offered) I was disputing one claim (which I bolded) and then the supposed evidence for why he believes there is no evidence. Thats all. Wasn't trying to debate but rather crush this misconception that records of historical figures need to be written during ones lifetime to be valid. It might sound like I want an argument but I don't really. I just hear this completely invalid point brought up time and time again which irritates me to no end
The entire point of that sentence was that the only account of Jesus in the 1st century outside of the Gospels was a forgery. The whole Josephus thing being born after Christ died was just to give reference to the time period in which Josephus was writing his histories. I wasn't using it as a proof. I realize that Ancient History is very ambivalent.
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On March 24 2011 08:45 Jswizzy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 08:24 kn83 wrote:On March 24 2011 04:42 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 04:31 kn83 wrote:
The fact that the ancient Jews worshiped many gods is no hidden secret, hell Christians and Jews themselves didn't try to hide this fact at all. Most people don't seem to know ( which many religious scholars point out) that monotheism, polytheism, pantheism and others are purely modern concepts that largely had no meaning to people in ancient/medieval times ( the words themselves were coined by Western Europeans in 17th-18th centuries, with no earlier parallels ). Also, many scholars of today pointed out that the rejection of Asherah (a foreign deity) had mostly to do with the Jews ethnic conflicts with the Canaanites and not with theology (the Jews still had female deities that they still worshiped afterward). Also, Asherah was said to by El's wife, not Yahweh (YHWH, who was considered the absolute, ineffable, beyond any relation, genderless, etc if your in to metaphysics). Yahweh was the center of attention because he's the "essence" of God (hence his "personal" name). Going back to the first point, the many gods and goddess of ancient Israel are in fact the numerous names/attributes of God/YHWH in Orthodox Judaism (one of the names, Elohim, is in fact plural, that's why God refers to himself as "we" in parts of the Bible, he's ALL of the gods, not one among others). When you think about it, its no different from Hinduism ("truth is one, but it is known by many names" says the Rig Veda). In light of all this if you're not a literalist, you could read the 2nd commandment as "don't cling to anything except me". If you were to translate these names in Arabic, you'd get the 99 names of Allah in Islam ( Muslims DO worship the same God, this shouldn't even be a debate). The issue about the Christian trinity is not that Jews and Muslim actually think Christians worship 3 gods (Mormons kind of do though), its a debate over God's essence. The sensationalism around this issue is based on pure feminist crap about Abrahamic religions "suppressing" the feminine (completely ignoring the fact that sexism exist in ALL religions and the whole of human culture in general, see Pandora's Box in Greek Mythology for example). I think that explains everything. I am not really buying the whole Hindu thing. It contradicts the fact that all the Gods found in the Bible even Yahweh existed in the Canaanite pantheon before the formation of Israel. There is no evidence to believe that Yahweh was anything but a local storm God. All the Gods at that period of time were tied to locations and even Yahweh was tied to a mountain. First of all, no scholar/academic today believes Yahweh/YHWH was a local storm deity in the first place (they already had a storm/sky god named Hadad). Second, that all the deities were in the Canaanite pantheon already is nothing surprising (Jews, Canaanites and Babylonians are all Semitic cultures so of course they have the same deities. Hell, why do you think the Greeks and Romans had the same gods, their both Indo-European cultures). Third, I'm not religious nor anti-religious so this ain't just me speaking my bias interpretation of things, but all your assumptions have pretty much been debunked by historians after at least WWI. You can look this out in any new article on the topic, library or even Wikipedia of all places. Seriously, its just as stupid as the myth about Jesus never existing or the moon god myth about Islam, two other examples of things widely debunked by scholars. Oh really? Show nested quote +The cult of Yahweh predates the gradual development of monolatry and monotheism in the Kingdom of Judah.[97] Theophoric names, names of local gods similar to Yahweh, and archaeological evidence are used along with the Biblical source texts to build theories regarding pre-Israel origins of Yahweh worship, the relationship of Yahweh with local gods, and the manner in which polytheistic worship of Yahweh worship evolved into Jewish monotheism.[98] For example, one source presents Yahweh as the name of a god in ancient Semitic religion, in origin a storm god both related to and in direct competition with Hadad (Baal).[99] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh
The source it list, "Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible" itself doesn't declare YHWH was a storm god, it merely states, "it has been assumed by earlier scholars such and such" and then concludes that YHWH is closer to El (a preserved name) than Hadad (the actual Semitic storm god). Thats why Yahweh is called El-Olam in the Bible. Yahweh itself means "I am that I am" and Hadad was said to be in conflict Yam ( a different god altogether) not YHWH. Also Ba'al is in reality an ancient title used for kings, male gods, and any prestigious male, not a particular name for anything.
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On March 24 2011 08:52 wadadde wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 08:24 kn83 wrote:On March 24 2011 04:42 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 04:31 kn83 wrote:
The fact that the ancient Jews worshiped many gods is no hidden secret, hell Christians and Jews themselves didn't try to hide this fact at all. Most people don't seem to know ( which many religious scholars point out) that monotheism, polytheism, pantheism and others are purely modern concepts that largely had no meaning to people in ancient/medieval times ( the words themselves were coined by Western Europeans in 17th-18th centuries, with no earlier parallels ). Also, many scholars of today pointed out that the rejection of Asherah (a foreign deity) had mostly to do with the Jews ethnic conflicts with the Canaanites and not with theology (the Jews still had female deities that they still worshiped afterward). Also, Asherah was said to by El's wife, not Yahweh (YHWH, who was considered the absolute, ineffable, beyond any relation, genderless, etc if your in to metaphysics). Yahweh was the center of attention because he's the "essence" of God (hence his "personal" name). Going back to the first point, the many gods and goddess of ancient Israel are in fact the numerous names/attributes of God/YHWH in Orthodox Judaism (one of the names, Elohim, is in fact plural, that's why God refers to himself as "we" in parts of the Bible, he's ALL of the gods, not one among others). When you think about it, its no different from Hinduism ("truth is one, but it is known by many names" says the Rig Veda). In light of all this if you're not a literalist, you could read the 2nd commandment as "don't cling to anything except me". If you were to translate these names in Arabic, you'd get the 99 names of Allah in Islam ( Muslims DO worship the same God, this shouldn't even be a debate). The issue about the Christian trinity is not that Jews and Muslim actually think Christians worship 3 gods (Mormons kind of do though), its a debate over God's essence. The sensationalism around this issue is based on pure feminist crap about Abrahamic religions "suppressing" the feminine (completely ignoring the fact that sexism exist in ALL religions and the whole of human culture in general, see Pandora's Box in Greek Mythology for example). I think that explains everything. I am not really buying the whole Hindu thing. It contradicts the fact that all the Gods found in the Bible even Yahweh existed in the Canaanite pantheon before the formation of Israel. There is no evidence to believe that Yahweh was anything but a local storm God. All the Gods at that period of time were tied to locations and even Yahweh was tied to a mountain. First of all, no scholar/academic today believes Yahweh/YHWH was a local storm deity in the first place (they already had a storm/sky god named Hadad). Second, that all the deities were in the Canaanite pantheon already is nothing surprising (Jews, Canaanites and Babylonians are all Semitic cultures so of course they have the same deities. Hell, why do you think the Greeks and Romans had the same gods, their both Indo-European cultures). Third, I'm not religious nor anti-religious so this ain't just me speaking my bias interpretation of things, but all your assumptions have pretty much been debunked by historians after at least WWI. You can look this out in any new article on the topic, library or even Wikipedia of all places. Seriously, its just as stupid as the myth about Jesus never existing or the moon god myth about Islam, two other examples of things widely debunked by scholars. Where's a good place to find out more about the debunking of 'myth' that Jesus didn't exist? Sounds interesting! I always thought that there wasn't a solid reason to think that Christ existed, so how can the 'myth' that he didn't be debunked?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_myth#Counter-arguments
"…if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned… To sum up, modern critical methods fail to support the Christ myth theory. It has "again and again been answered and annihilated by first rank scholars." In recent years, "no serious scholar has ventured to postulate the non historicity of Jesus" or at any rate very few, and they have not succeeded in disposing of the much stronger, indeed very abundant, evidence to the contrary."
Grant, Michael (1977), Jesus: An Historian’s Review, pp. 199–200
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On March 24 2011 11:31 kn83 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 24 2011 08:45 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 08:24 kn83 wrote:On March 24 2011 04:42 Jswizzy wrote:On March 24 2011 04:31 kn83 wrote:
The fact that the ancient Jews worshiped many gods is no hidden secret, hell Christians and Jews themselves didn't try to hide this fact at all. Most people don't seem to know ( which many religious scholars point out) that monotheism, polytheism, pantheism and others are purely modern concepts that largely had no meaning to people in ancient/medieval times ( the words themselves were coined by Western Europeans in 17th-18th centuries, with no earlier parallels ). Also, many scholars of today pointed out that the rejection of Asherah (a foreign deity) had mostly to do with the Jews ethnic conflicts with the Canaanites and not with theology (the Jews still had female deities that they still worshiped afterward). Also, Asherah was said to by El's wife, not Yahweh (YHWH, who was considered the absolute, ineffable, beyond any relation, genderless, etc if your in to metaphysics). Yahweh was the center of attention because he's the "essence" of God (hence his "personal" name). Going back to the first point, the many gods and goddess of ancient Israel are in fact the numerous names/attributes of God/YHWH in Orthodox Judaism (one of the names, Elohim, is in fact plural, that's why God refers to himself as "we" in parts of the Bible, he's ALL of the gods, not one among others). When you think about it, its no different from Hinduism ("truth is one, but it is known by many names" says the Rig Veda). In light of all this if you're not a literalist, you could read the 2nd commandment as "don't cling to anything except me". If you were to translate these names in Arabic, you'd get the 99 names of Allah in Islam ( Muslims DO worship the same God, this shouldn't even be a debate). The issue about the Christian trinity is not that Jews and Muslim actually think Christians worship 3 gods (Mormons kind of do though), its a debate over God's essence. The sensationalism around this issue is based on pure feminist crap about Abrahamic religions "suppressing" the feminine (completely ignoring the fact that sexism exist in ALL religions and the whole of human culture in general, see Pandora's Box in Greek Mythology for example). I think that explains everything. I am not really buying the whole Hindu thing. It contradicts the fact that all the Gods found in the Bible even Yahweh existed in the Canaanite pantheon before the formation of Israel. There is no evidence to believe that Yahweh was anything but a local storm God. All the Gods at that period of time were tied to locations and even Yahweh was tied to a mountain. First of all, no scholar/academic today believes Yahweh/YHWH was a local storm deity in the first place (they already had a storm/sky god named Hadad). Second, that all the deities were in the Canaanite pantheon already is nothing surprising (Jews, Canaanites and Babylonians are all Semitic cultures so of course they have the same deities. Hell, why do you think the Greeks and Romans had the same gods, their both Indo-European cultures). Third, I'm not religious nor anti-religious so this ain't just me speaking my bias interpretation of things, but all your assumptions have pretty much been debunked by historians after at least WWI. You can look this out in any new article on the topic, library or even Wikipedia of all places. Seriously, its just as stupid as the myth about Jesus never existing or the moon god myth about Islam, two other examples of things widely debunked by scholars. Oh really? The cult of Yahweh predates the gradual development of monolatry and monotheism in the Kingdom of Judah.[97] Theophoric names, names of local gods similar to Yahweh, and archaeological evidence are used along with the Biblical source texts to build theories regarding pre-Israel origins of Yahweh worship, the relationship of Yahweh with local gods, and the manner in which polytheistic worship of Yahweh worship evolved into Jewish monotheism.[98] For example, one source presents Yahweh as the name of a god in ancient Semitic religion, in origin a storm god both related to and in direct competition with Hadad (Baal).[99] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahweh The source it list, "Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible" itself doesn't declare YHWH was a storm god, it merely states, "it has been assumed by earlier scholars such and such" and then concludes that YHWH is closer to El (a preserved name) than Hadad (the actual Semitic storm god). Thats why Yahweh is called El-Olam in the Bible. Yahweh itself means "I am that I am" and Hadad was said to be in conflict Yam ( a different god altogether) not YHWH. Also Ba'al is in reality an ancient title used for kings, male gods, and any prestigious male, not a particular name for anything.
I said Baal was a surname awhile back on page 4 and I am not arguing about anything but the idea that God is somehow some pantheistic deity.
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On March 24 2011 11:05 HULKAMANIA wrote:
I have no knowledge of the textual history of the Bible. It's kind of out of my area of expertise so I won't speak on it. I general, though, that the idea of a bunch monks slyly facilitating their private political schemes by intentionally manipulating their own manuscripts strikes me as a bit too Dan Brown.
I also categorically distrust activist scholarship as it almost certainly results in academics slyly manipulating their own manuscripts. It might be a little apolitical of me, but the world can to hell. I just want to know something before I die. And I think targeting the lowest common denominator of opponent ideologies kind of muddies the waters for everyone.
Well again, it doesn't have to be deliberate or malicious. It can be as simply as - if people believed X, and a certain passage can be translated as saying X or Y, which are they naturally going to assume?
A bit more bold would be - if people believe X, and the scriptures say something that contradicts that, maybe they honestly believe a prior error has occurred (I think this is the case for the Conservapedia folks who are/were in the process of writing their own Bible translation) and that they are simply correcting the error. Most, or at least many, people seem to believe that the views of God should coincide with their own views. Humorous example - about a month ago, a man gained internet notoriety when he committed some sort of hate crime against a homosexual, and in an interview he revealed a tattoo of Leviticus 18:22 as part of his justification for his actions. (tattoos are forbidden in Lev 19:28) But more generally, there's no shortage of people who insist that a certain Biblical scripture be followed without exception or even enshrined into our nation's laws, while insisting that others are unimportant or even that God really intends us to do the opposite. And after observing enough of this behavior and interacting with many such people, I'm convinced that they're not making it up or lying to themselves. They really do believe that God's views are in lockstep with their own, and that therefore any biblical passage which may contradict their political beliefs is a mistranslation or something that was only meant to apply to ancient society, while the views they agree with are timeless. (obviously this goes for some folks on both sides of the political aisle) If such a group of people had an opportunity to change Biblical cannon, I think they could have done so completely in good faith, honestly believing that they were correcting a past error that had occurred. (I'm not even saying that this necessarily happened, only that it is easily conceivable without a presumption of malice or conspiracy)
There was a cool History Channel show about some of the tricks Greek and Roman priests used to make people think miracles were happening at the temples. Different religion, but it's the same principle - people willing to be a little dishonest if they believed it would help people believe the truth. The Shroud of Turin is a good example of a hoax meant to persuade people to believe in the Resurrection. Claims of miracles taking place at a statue of Our Lady of Fatima at a church in CA, the famed Basilica of the Holy Blood in Belgium, supposedly liquefying saints' blood in Naples Cathedral (that the church will not allow to be chemically verified as actual blood) are all examples of what are almost surely deliberate hoaxes. But the people behind them believe that this small action of deception will bring people to God, so the good outweighs the misdeed right? It's the same rationalization that might have allowed people to edit the biblical texts if they believed it ultimately served God.
It's theorycrafting on my part, but a lot of knowledgeable historians seem to believe similar explanations.
I got nothing but goodwill towards you, though. You sound like a fairly tolerable academic .
Well I appreciate the good thoughts  Dunno if I could be considered an academic; I've been out of grad school (math) for hm 5 years now. I still keep in touch with some academic psychs... their commentary is pretty interesting.
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In my opinion, the argument stated in the OP among others in this thread boil down to whether you take the Bible as the inspired word of God or not. Archeological evidence is somewhat arguable either way, but my approach is simple, being a believer:
The Bible as we have it today, is a mix of words, sayings, and stories, which as a whole make up the person of who i believe God to be. That is, take the whole thing, each part describes a part of God that exists. The bible by itself, or taken as a selection of literature or history, is just words on a page, but the information that it carries, speaks of a person. I believe that the original text/language it was written in comes closEST to capturing, as in a photograph who God is. Even these languages of men, though, are still fail to equate the 100% of who God is. However, just like if there was a biography written about you, reading the biography would not equate to KNOWING you.
Granted that every language of history has inconsistencies that can be interpreted a variety of ways. Granted that the Bible we hold now was written by men and you can argue or not whether they made mistakes or not. Granted that the aggregation of the Bible was also done by men, who may or may not have included or excluded for their personal reasons.
Counting all these things, if you actually meet the person of God, and are aquainted with who he is, then the information of Bible will either confirm or refute your personal experiences, and better yet, cause you to seek for more.
The apostle Paul didn't write the epistles thinking it was going to be combined into some sort of master book one day. He wrote inspired words to people he cared about, outlining the truth of what he believed God to be. The words are a container that hold the information which is truly without form and void.
"in the beginning was the Word..." to me reads "in the beginning there was information" That information to me is the God of the Bible in a person. A person who caused the information to have a container, take shape and be translated into what we understand.
God does want a wife, according the the bible, but not in the procreative way we do as humans. The union of two people being like one flesh, knowing and being known and accepted in a perfect marriage relationship is the closest thing we can relate to, so i believe that's what was used.
Great discussion though <3 to everyone who posted in this thread. I do mean everyone! ^^
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Religious books may be fake, it's always interesting, you don't need a story to be true to enlight you.
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EPT
