Can you provide a cite that demonstrates that Zoroastrians lived in close proximity to the Jews during the time in which Deuteronomy 13 was set down?
A per JThunder’s post. Would it be immoral to stone someone proselytizing worship of Molech which would lead to a common practice of child sacrifice?
No, it’s not impossible if you pay attention to the context and stop trying to impose your modern view on it. Your talk about killing children is a straw man anyway. They aren’t talking about little children obviously because how would a small child come into contact with a neighboring tribes religion and seek to convert their fellows? It’s not like people of the time lived in a multicultural pluralistic cosmopolus like New York City with a single tenement having a Catholic, a Jew, a Bahai and Muslim in the same building. When they talk about neighboring towns, they are still talking about Jews.
I am not Jewish. Why do you have to make this an ad hominem? Why do you have to assume that I am trying to justify anything? I’m just trying to get you to let go of your own opinion for a minute in order to examine the context.
Do you not believe there are cases for necessary evil? Like are soldiers all murderers or is it sometimes justified for soldiers to go to war with competing nations. After all, war is about belief too. The idea that we are even separate tribes or separate states is entirely a belief. So anyone going to war is killing over belief.
Josephus says that a James who he calls, “the brother of Jesus, the so-called Christ” was executed by Ananus, but doesn’t say why. There is no Biblical account Of James’ death and no evidence, historical or Biblical, that he was killed for anything having to do with Jesus. Those traditions don’t arise until maybe the late 2nd Century.
Even the authenticity of the Josephus account is somewhat questionable (not so much that Ananus executed somebody named James, but that the identification of him as the brother of someone who was called “Christ,” may have been an interpolation).
I don’t know. I’m saying this as an atheist but the bible has a lot of good in it. It seems kind of lame to point out these little things.
Two things:
Why bother trying to have them change their religion?
Why even acknowledge the bible as a non-fictional work?
You’re citing 2nd Century tradition, not known fact, and it’s not a tradition that’s widely accepted as authentic anymore, but even so, the Gospel of John makes no claim to being a first hand account. There is an appendix in which someone claims that “we know” these were the words of an apostle, but the body of the Gospel does not make any first hand claims. It’s not implausible that some of the content of John could wend its way back to an apostolic account, but it’s not possible to prove or to discern exactly what. The same is actually true of all the other Gospels as well – especially the Q material.
More tradition (and a demonstrably spurious one), but again, the author of Mark not only never claims to have witnessed anything personally, he never even claims to have met anybody who did.
wiki:
"But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest"
Pretty clear here that Ananus has James stoned, and there’s a pretty strong indication of why.
Nor is this passage in dispute (“The above quotation from the Antiquities is considered authentic in its entirety by almost all scholars”) , you are mixing it up with the other passage in Josephus, which indeed very likely has a pious insertion/edit added to whatever Josephus originally wrote. Of course, much like the Moon Landing, there are crackpots who dispute anything about Jesus.
There is also other evidence that James was stoned and why:
"Eusebius, while quoting Josephus’ account, also records otherwise lost passages from Hegesippus (see links below), and Clement of Alexandria (Historia Ecclesiae, 2.23). …
How about 1 Samuel 15:3?
3Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.
No wiggle room there. God said to kill babies. Right or wrong?
Oh, good, now that we’ve got that cleared up, let me ask you this. When you say “people who claim to live their life by the Bible, every word of it”, who exactly are you referring to? Please note that I’m not looking for a vague, categorical answer such as “fundies” or “evangelicals”. I’m asking you to name specific people who make this claim, and to provide direct quotes proving that they make this claim.
To put it directly, I think that this class of people doesn’t actually exist. (And even if they do, you probably won’t find them on the Straight Dope Message Board.)
I never said it didn’t say Ananus has someone named James stoned, but it gives no indicaton at all as to why, it just says he was a “breaker of the law.” It’s also questionable whether the words “who was called [or so-called] Christ” are original to Josephus, but even if they are, Josephus does not say that James was killed for anything having to do with Christianity.
I’m not mixing up anything. I know exactly waht the passages are and what the arguments are. It’s true that most accept the James passage as wholly authentic, but not ALL of them do, and the “called Christ” part is what MAY be interpolated.
This is not evidence, this is Eusebius, and this is what I was referring to when I madecreference to “late 2nd Century tradition” (and even THAT much is assuming that Eusebius wasn’t inventing his quotes from Clement and Hegissippus.
So basically you’re saying that Christians are free to ignore the rules in the Bible.
Was James a friend of Ananus? If not, then you can’t use that exception either.
As for verse 14, it does NOT say that one should track down just anyone who is promoting the worship of false gods. Rather, Deuteronomy 13:12-15 is specifically talking about situations wherein a neighboring town is promoting the worship of these false deities. We could argue the ethics of this command all day long, but the point remains – this was NOT the basis for the execution of James the Just, as you now claim. If it were, then his entire town would have been put to the sword.
With all due respec,t do you know what this tells me? It tells me that the passage does not really support your assertion – namely, that James was killed in accordance with Mosaic Law – but you’re trying to force-fit that interpretation anyway. Heck, you’ve implicitly acknowledged a key point that distinguishes his killing from the capital punishment commanded in Deuteronomy 13, yet you still insist that this is the law that was being applied. Again, that’s simply force-fitting an interpretation.
In fact, Flavius Josephus – who was by no means a Christian apologist – records that the martyrdom of James was widely viewed as a political act of judicial murder, and that it offended a number of “those who were considered the most fair-minded people in the City, and strict in their observance of the Law.” (Antiquities, Book XX). So you have internal contextual evidence which rules out the application of Deuteronomy 13, and you have testimony from a non-Christian source which attributes his execution to political fiat. To say that James was executed in accordance with Mosaic Law is simply bizarre.
But even if he were, I’d like to remind you (once again), that Ananus was not a worshipper of Jesus. Ergo, you cannot take his actions and conclude that Jesus did not dispense with any of the commands for capital punishment in the Old Testament. That would be like citing the posts of Der Trihs and saying, “See? This is how you Christians behave on the Internet!”
I could just as easily have said Shintoism as Zoroastrianism. Proximity wasn’t my point.
We’re talking about the law according to God. If you want to take the atheist position that the rules are not divine or even well thought out then fine, but that seems rather counterproductive if you’re defending their value as the epitome of Godliness–which seemed to be what you were trying for.
As an atheist I’d fully agree that the rules were a product of their time and place, totally separate from anything like omniscient knowledge or a supreme morality. But that’s the atheist stance, not the Christian one.
Right so, you agree that:
- Close relatives
- Friends
- Neighbouring towns
Were on the kill list but non-friend inhabitants were not on the list? That seems like rather a blind spot. Forget that the whole point seems to be stopping the spread of the word of false prophets and that the examples given cover the full range from very emotionally-close to physically and emotionally distant peoples. None of that matters: If God didn’t specifically mention in undeniable words that you had to kill non-friend inhabitants of your town, then you don’t kill them.
Ya?
And where the hell did Ananus come from in this discussion?
Well yes, Shintoism wouldn’t even be plausible. So you could have just as easily come up with an even more ridiculous comparison.
We’re not talking about our personal moral codes, which are irrelevant to the discussion.
I don’t care what you believe as an atheist, it’s irrelevant to the topic.
Oh yes, there are commandments for genocide in the Old Testament. That’s inarguable. But abusing the context doesn’t really help us here. We’re not trying to come to what is right, but whether or not people acted rightly according to the laws they themselves set down. I have heard the argument laid down that the Jews disobeyed the commandments and showed mercy, thus they suffered for it.
This is a straw man. In prior times people didn’t live in the same towns as non-friend inhabitants.
As is saying that the laws were a product of their time and place. The question was why did God change his mind? When did God say it was limited to a time and place? When did God say that it was limited to cases of human-sacrificers? I don’t see the parts where God gave you the choice in the question. I don’t see the part where he qualified his command.
You can’t say it’s God’s law at the same time as saying that it’s not a law, just a suggestion, and one which is only applicable to a particular time and place that you are fully free to interpret the applicability of. Or at least, you can’t unless God’s law says you can. If it does say that, tell me where in the Old Testament it says that: God’s Law not applicable in…
Holy shit Christ YES! I am blown away that this question even needs to be asked. Please tell me you don’t think the answer to this question is no.
What a ridiculous smokescreen. A soldier going to war is not the same as a father stoning his son to death for being stubborn (and yes we are talking about little children here, there is no age limit given in Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
Well you and I are sort of at cross purposes. I talk to atheists about religion as if God doesn’t exist. There is no point in talking about it as though God exists. As I understand it Jews don’t treat the Torah as the unalterable word of God, but as a historical book of law. There are some things that they claim God set down like the Decalogue, but not the book in it’s entirety.
You’re approaching it in the opposite way, trying to talk to me as though God exists.
I’m not trying to be offensive, I just have seen way too many of these arguments turn into personal validation pissing contests.
I by the way am not even talking about my personal beliefs. Personally I agree with Diogenes 100%, there is an absolute morality and it is knowable by everyone. What’s up for dispute here is how that morality is interacted with.
I am not saying it is God’s law. In its own context, ‘Thou shalt not worship another God before me’, is God’s law. “Stone your relatives for blasphemy”, isn’t. So Blasphemy never stopped being against God’s law, but the consequences for blasphemy have changed.
More over, almost everything you say in your article is false.
First, you claim that Paul’s letters were written 400 years after the death of Jesus. Other posters have already shown that you’re off by about 390 years, so I won’t belabor that point here.
Second you equate “the Old Law” to “the entire Old Testament”, which is obviously wrong. The laws established under the original Covenant, which very clearly apply only to Jews and only before the establishment of the New Covenant, make up only a tiny portion of the Old Testament. You would know this if you had ever read the Bible.
Third you say of the Bible was “it’s clearly an anthology of largely unrelated texts that some council decided was ‘the good bits’ 400 years after Christ died?” The Books of the Bible are not unrelated, but instead are related. If you had read the Bible you would know this as well. As for your claim that the books were selected for inclusion by a council 400 years after Christ died, I assume that you’re speaking about the Council of Nicaea, even though it was actually held less than 300 years after Christ died. But the Council of Nicaea did not select the books for inclusion in the New Testament (or the Old Testament), but merely confirmed what had already been a standard list for a long time. As Dr. Bruce Metzger has said, “Even as early as the first century, we see a high degree of uniformity among Christians about which books to accept.” Saying that the Council of Nicaea decided which books to include is like saying that modern editors of Shakespeare decided which plays to put in the original folio.