edited to add: I cannot seem to find a connection between the “Brenton H. Cook” from the AiG site and the “Brent Cook” from Bob Jones University. Help?
Well, you can ignore that cite. But see, simply attacking a “bad cite” without coming up with one of your own is bad debating. And, maybe you dont like a cite, but that doesnt make the citer incompetent.
In any case, there were other cites, which were ignored.
- Not finding a “Better” cite doesn’t make a bad cite good.
- I had no problem with the other cites-just that one from AiG.
Nope, but it does show that your original point is wrong. look, if you state X, and someone comes up with three cites showing Not-X, then attacking one of those cites, without any supporting cite for X is bad debating.
It’s whataboutism, and you are doing it also.
That isn’t what “whataboutism” is.
BTW, if the chef sends me a Reuben that has fresh greens instead of sauerkraut, I am under no obligation to make a better sandwich-I just have to send it back and say it is not a valid Reuben.
Moderator Note
Insulting remarks about other posters are not permitted outside the Pit. No warning issued, but don’t do this again.
Colibri
Comments Moderator
Did Jesus have siblings?
July 30, 1999
Cecil wrote: "The Hebrew word in the Old Testament is almah, which one well known lexicon defines as follows (I rely here on Straight Dope friend of science Bill Baldwin): “girl (of marriageable age), young woman (until the birth of first child).” Kinda ambiguous. An inspection of the seven times almah is used in the OT doesn’t make things any clearer — we don’t really know what Isaiah meant. "
Oh, yes, we know exactly what Isaiah meant.
The original text in hebrew is in the present tense or the very near future, not futurum, telling us that the young woman lived in Isaiah’s time and was pregnant then, thus not a virgin and definitely not the Mary, who is assumed to be Jesus’s mother. The name ‘Jesus’ is, by the way, Greek and not a Hebrew or Aramaic name.
The original text actually says: “Look, a young woman is pregnant [hara], and she is about to give birth [jolaedaet] to a son, and she shall call him (call his name) Immanuel.”
Besides, the verse is (was) a very widespread and commonly known formula, documented in eg. old Egyptian and Phoenician texts.
And it came to pass that Mary said unto Him, “Shut the door! Jesus, were you born in a barn?”
The NT is written in Greek, and we know from other sources that “Ιησούς” (“Iesus” in Latin) was used as the Greek equivalent of “Yeshua”.
Does the Gospel of Mark ever claim Mary was a virgin? Does John? Does Paul?
Some parts of the New Testament are obviously fictitious embellishments. Other parts may be based on fact. It is counterproductive to assume truth of fictions when seeking the facts.
Some parts. How does one tell which parts are obviously fictitious embellishments?
Well, the parts before anyone knew who Jesus was, those are based upon 30 yo memories. Doubtful.
And, some of the miracles. Mind you- healing the sick? The power of Faith and placebo healing is more powerful than you think. You dont have to believe in miracles to believe a sincere holy man healed the sick. It happens today.
Sniffles, a headache and other things that will eventually go away naturally? Holy men(and women) “cure” those all the time. Missing limbs, blindness, leprosy, cancer and the like?
Not so much.
Perhaps on par or slightly better than doing nothing. The kind I read about in my bible would need more than the power of faith and placebo healing. Could the more likely answer be creative writing and wishful thinking or is that not to be considered?
When it gets pass the placebo stage, and starts healing amputees, raising the dead when their bodies were well past rigor mortis and started decomposing, I’ll sign up for their newsletter.
If the leprosy was misdiagnosed, which was quite common back then. Or just “unclean”
http://www.nlt.org.uk/about/biblical-leprosy/
The condition described as leprosy in the Bible is NOT the same as modern leprosy or Hansen’s Disease as it is often called. The Hebrew word sara’at is a ritualistic term denoting uncleanness or defilement and covered a range of conditions that could affect people, or clothing, or even a wall. The conditions described could include boils, carbuncles, fungus infections, infections complicating a burn, impetigo, favus of the scalp, scabies, patchy eczema, phagedenic ulcer, and impetigo or vitiligo on people. On walls or clothes it was more likely to be fungus, mould, dry rot, lichen or similar conditions. There is no evidence that the diseases described as “leprosy” in the Old Testament had any relationship to modern leprosy.
John 4:46-54- Child cured of “fever”.
Matthew 8:14-15, Mark 1:29-31, Luke 4:38-39- Simons mother-in-law cured of “fever”.
Matt 8:16, Mark 1:32, Luke 4:40- many sick cured during the evening, no details, except 'demons"
Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 1:40-45; Luke 5:12-15- man cured of “leprosy”
Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10- servant cured. No details
Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12, Luke 5:18-26- man cured of “paralysis”.
Matthew 12:9-14, Mark 3:1-6, Luke 6:6-10- man cured of 'withered hand".
Matthew 9:20-22, Mark 5:25-34, Luke 8:43-48- woman cured of “internal bleeding”
Matthew 14:34-36; Mark 6:53-56- healing of “many”, no details
Mark 7:31-37- There some people brought to him a man who was deaf and could hardly talk, and they begged Jesus to place his hand on him.
After he took him aside, away from the crowd, Jesus put his fingers into the man’s ears. Then he spit and touched the man’s tongue. He looked up to heaven and with a deep sigh said to him, “Ephphatha!” (which means “Be opened!”). At this, the man’s ears were opened, his tongue was loosened and he began to speak plainly.
Mark 8:22-26 “blind man” cured.
John 9:1-41 “blind man” cured.
Luke 13:10-13- "On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God." (I have seen this very “miracle” performed by faith healers on TV.
Luke 14:1-6-There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. …But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.
Luke 17:11-19- healing ten “lepers”
Matthew 20:29-34, Mark 10:46-52, Luke 18:35-43-blind man" cured.
Luke 22:45-54: healing a ear that had been cut off. (no mention of the ear growing back, mind you, just “healed”.
No missing limbs. No cancer.
Blindness? No problem- what used to be called “hysterical blindness”.
In other words, no miracle. Wonder what a good hypnotist (or magician) could do with those mental disorders described in the DSM-5?
And then you’ve got things like the calming of the storm. We’ve all seen storms just suddenly calm, right? Perfectly natural. And maybe it did calm down right after he told it to. But correlation is not necessarily causation.
It may not be easy! There are top scholars who devote much effort to guessing that distinction; I’ll just mention a few of the most obvious.
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- Jesus was NOT born in Bethlehem. Much in the Nativity story is at odds with facts. Embellishment. Jesus is consistently described as from Nazareth.
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- Jesus WAS a healer. All the Gospels agree on this and make it central to his greatness. Some theorize that psychosomatic ailments were common then and could be cured with hypnosis. Even today, hypnosis sometimes achieves startling success.
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- Stories that inexplicably show Jesus as flawed are probably TRUE. I’d have to consult some books to get the best examples. One, perhaps, was his equal treatment of women. All his followers rejected this IIRC so inferences from the Gospel are there for accuracy, not dogma.
Heh. I admit, your claim sent me to Google, to see if there was a term for this sort of use of the word “obvious.”
I don’t find this conclusive. I was born in New Mexico, but I don’t remember anything about it, since I moved to Illinois when I was still a baby. Being “from” Place A doesn’t preclude having been born in Place B.