Once again, the Gospel According to Terl:
“But I did read and meditate on the Bible!”
“Exactly- but you did not read, meditate on, and accept the Bible. A-HAHAHAHAHA!”
snort
Carry on. 
Alas, scripture doesn’t work as a hammer to those who do not believe in it.
So, what tool to use to deride others? Hmmm . . .
Maybe I’ll call them “sad,” “unbelievable,” “useless,” or illiterate. I bet that’s the Christian way to handle things.
Ooooh! And I can pay lip service to objectivity, that’ll throw them off! And I can fool them by saying that they know more about the Bible than I do, even though I really don’t mean it!
And then, I’ll bail out and feel all warm and fuzzy that I’m saved and those other people are just heathens and jerks!
Now there’s a recipe for witnessing!
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: you can’t reason someone out of a position they were never reasoned into.
First it’s objective, then it’s “if you don’t first believe it’s true, you’ll never understand how it’s true.”
Avenger Said:
Likewise, when Matthew describes the Massacre of the Innocents and the flight to Egypt, he knows that these events did not happen, he is portraying an image of Jesus as the new Moses.
I didn’t know we KNEW these events were FALSE, starting for the logical point that it is very difficult to prove something did not happen ( you cannot prove that Julius Caesar did NOT invent the Teflon).
How can you PROVE that they did not go to Egypt? It is not even illogical! If the Bible had said they went Aruba I’d cut you some slack but Egypt is right around the corner.
As to the innocents…Herod wasn’t the nicest guy around, known to be paranoid; a small village would’ve had about 10-20 kids the right age, it really does not seem that preposterous to have them killed. Even today massacres like that (in size not kind) happen constantly that go unnoticed, so 20 kids being killed in some Judaean backwater…
I’m not saying this proves they actually happenned, but DISproving event that seem more than probalbe requires a lot.
Rodrigo,
Let’s leave aside the fact that there is no corroborating evidence outside of the Gospel of Matthew for either the slaughter of the innocents or the flight to Egypt (and Herod killing babies would have gotten some attention from historians). The alleged motive for Herod’s actions were that he was told by astrologers that a new king of Judea had been born in Bethlehem. In other words, Herod’s actions, if historical, would have to presuppose a predictive prophesy, a supernatural event. Objective historical criticism does not accept alleged supernatural events without proof.
Furthermore, literary analysis shows us that Matthew designed his nativity narrative to correspond with certain events and passages from Exodus. He was rhetorically portraying Jesus as a new Moses.
So it comes down to a question of what is more likely: that Matthew is portraying an authentic historical event which is dependant on supernatural prophesy and which is not supported by any other evidence either inside or outside of the New Testament or Matthew is using a literary device to make a theological point about Jesus. Occam’s razor tells us the latter.
Now it may still be said that Matthew’s story has not been unequivocally disproven, only shown as historically very unlikely. Of course, the same thing can be said about the intervention of the Greek gods in the Trojan war.
Actually, it wouldn’t require historical recognition of a supernatural event; it would only require recognition that a prophecy was made and that Herod believed it. Whether that prophecy was in fact true or came from God or whatever wouldn’t matter at all.
At any rate, I’ve got a modest proposal that might be entertaining, just for funsies. A lot of the same folks that can count off biblical contradictions from memory also can come up with tortured explanations for things like how, in the Star Wars universe, “parsec” is a legitimate basis for measuring the speed with which one makes the Kessel Run. I’ve always wondered what those folks would come up with if they put their apologetics powers to work on the more egregious contradictions of the Bible.
It might even be a more productive endeavor: for all the horrible things done in the name of God, at least the Almighty never unleashed Jar-Jar Binks on an unsuspecting world or made Greedo shoot first.
I hesitate only because (i) it might get ugly and (ii) I have no idea what forum would be appropriate for this sort of thing. Let me know what you think.
Aw, man, I was reading 1 Samuel: the Special Edition, and Goliath shoots first!
Bastards!
Back to “errors” in the collection of ancient historical documents we call the Bible…
What does it take for some of you to believe historical events described in the Bible? How much “evidence” does it take? How “good” does the evidence need to be? How little/much does it take for you to accept a refutation of an assertion of historicity?
I have noticed that many of you are a lot quicker to accept refuting testimony than you are to accept the assertion of historicity? Have you noticed? You are not nearly as suspicious of the refuting evidence as you are of the assertion. You hear of a “plausible” arguement (or timeline or ancient historian) and leap upon it quickly and without much questioning if it seems to refute the Biblical account.
Be even-handed – we are dealing with ancient history here. We should be about finding the truth, right? We both have that goal, right? Well we all do have something in common, I hope. Ever notice how we all accept Josephus’ accounts without question – as if it’s, uh, the Bible. [Oh, I couldn’t resist that]. Granted, he is extremely detailed and corroborated. But it’s also generally accepted that he’s a quite a bit prone to exaggeration and bias when it comes to his own role in events of the day. He is also accused of bias toward the Romans, his employer-client. But he and others seem to be accepted without question. Ya know, the Bible writers corroborate and authenticate the other sources too. It goes both ways.
Some people require a great deal of hard evidence they can verify with all their senses before they will accept an assertion. There still may be some who believe that astronauts never went to the moon, that the government filmed it all on a set and played it for the world. But we believe astronauts went to the moon, don’t we?. Others — well, you know what P. T. Barnum said, “There is a sucker born every minute”.
In dealing with the veracity of historical writers, we should all think and talk like objective historians. Weigh the evidence (on both sides) by some of the criteria I listed in my last post.
I’ve not said that there are no “errors” in the Bible. But I’m more concerned about the internal methodology by which many of you
think about these matters.
I have lots of stuff on the Quirinius issue. But I’ll post that in a while — stay tuned. After looking at a great deal of the evidence on both sides, I am inclined to believe that it is “more likely true than not”, that Luke’s account is accurate.
But I’ll support that next time and you can read it yourself if you have the patience, interest and objectivity to do so. There’s a lot to read.
But in the meantime, this post is more about honest historical research, about pre-judice, about closed-mindedness, about
(a) holding the Bible writers’ accounts of people, places and events to the same standard of scrutiny as you do extra-biblical sources, and
(b) holding extra-biblical writers’ account of people, places and events to the same standard of scutiny as you do the Bible writers.
Actuary, I suspect that what you perceive as an acceptance of anti-bible bias is more a result of seeing the Cliffs Notes® versions of these discussions (that have been worked over numerous times earlier) than an actual choice to discredit any biblical “fact” with a non-biblical “fact.”
There are a whole range of people posting, here, so you will, indeed, find some people who will use any lame excuse to discredit the bible. However, there are also a great many people who are quite willing to weigh each account separately.
Treating all posters (or even all posters perceived as “one side” of a discussion) as speaking with monolithic uniformity will get anyone in trouble, because each poster is unique. Aim for the argument, rather than the broad brush of characterization, and you will be less likely to be dismissed as a person of extreme positions, yourself.
For example:
You will find few people, here, treating Josephus as authoritative by himself. It is explicitly when Josephus is read in context (and without the later Christian copyists’ emendations) that Josephus is used. When Josephus plays up the historic role of his patron, he is suspect. When he simply remarks on an event with a date, there is less reason to doubt him unless you can provide a plausible reason why he would deliberately change the dates.
We could also leave aside that for most historical events you take for granted there is no outside corroborating evidence. Most of our historical knowledge of ancient times depends of one-source things. As to the event getting historians attention. We’re talking of about 15 kids being killed (it needn’t be in one single event) in a Judaean backwater; given Herod’s track record it doesn’t seem that surprising. How many massacres go unnoticed today. do you know who the Uchuraccay victims were or the Soccos-Vinchos massacre? They happened in my country and got lots of publicity but in 100 years no one will remember them and outside my country not even today are they known.
Come on! Can any person in the world think that a historian would pick the unexpected departure of a carpenter! whoa "Next on Larry King Live…why did Joseph go?)
Are these events so ILlogical? Maybe they didn’t happen but comparing them to the assertion that god foughton a war is really being intelectually dishonest.
Let’s see:
- What outside evidence do you have for Neil Armstrong’s prescence on the moon.
- What outside evidence do you have that Columbus arrived in the americas on 12 October 1492?
As to old-time historians, well…we don’t know how the pyramids were built (you’d guess they’ve picked it up) or what Columbus’ ships looked like or how trebuchets were actually built. Heck the US congress just decreed that antonio Meucci invented the phone and not A.G. Bell .
We could also leave aside that for most historical events you take for granted there is no outside corroborating evidence. Most of our historical knowledge of ancient times depends of one-source things. As to the event getting historians attention. We’re talking of about 15 kids being killed (it needn’t be in one single event) in a Judaean backwater; given Herod’s track record it doesn’t seem that surprising. How many massacres go unnoticed today. do you know who the Uchuraccay victims were or the Soccos-Vinchos massacre? They happened in my country and got lots of publicity but in 100 years no one will remember them and outside my country not even today are they known.
Come on! Can any person in the world think that a historian would pick the unexpected departure of a carpenter! whoa "Next on Larry King Live…why did Joseph go?)
Are these events so ILlogical? Maybe they didn’t happen but comparing them to the assertion that god foughton a war is really being intelectually dishonest.
Let’s see:
- What outside evidence do you have for Neil Armstrong’s prescence on the moon.
- What outside evidence do you have that Columbus arrived in the americas on 12 October 1492?
As to old-time historians, well…we don’t know how the pyramids were built (you’d guess they’ve picked it up) or what Columbus’ ships looked like or how trebuchets were actually built. Heck the US congress just decreed that antonio Meucci invented the phone and not A.G. Bell .
Does it mean that the massacre and the flight happened? No
But are they so illogical they require so much corroboration? No
You can believe it if you want, Rodrigo, personally I think the fact that Matthew makes claims about supernatural events throughout his gospel submarines his credibility as pure historian. Also it’s obvious from a literary analysis that he is deliberately creating parallels to what he perceives as OT “prophesies.”
It’s impossible to prove a negative, but frankly, as far as historical scholarship is concerned, it is far more likely than not that Herod’s slaughter and the flight to Egypt are Matthew’s own creations, not history.
I said I said in my response to your first post, which you ignored, real historians treat these the same. No one trusts even primary sources without corroborating evidence. There are many reasons for a writer to distort things, including sucking up to a monarch, making oneself look better, to advance a particular cause, or to make things more intersting. You must admit that the writers of the Bible were not dispassionate.
When the Bible says that Babylon exists, and there is independent evidence, then we believe it. When the Bible says there was a flood, and geological evidence disproves it, then we don’t. No one believes Herodotus was 100% accurate. We’re no better - the latest memoir from a president or White House aide is not believed 100% either.
Now a question for you - do you start with the assumption that the Bible is 100% accurate?
A fact these guys seem to be overlooking is that real historians DO severely question the truth of many ancient stories. I mean, no hsitorian really thinks the Trojan Wars proceeded as described by Homer for goodness sakes. And despite there being way more contemporary documents written about Socrates than Jesus, few historians really think that Socrates really existed in exactly the way that Plato describes him, even if he was supposedly a first hand witness.
There is plenty of evidence that the Gospels were written more to tell the story their authors needed for their purposes rather than simply telling what happened, for instance. Why else would Matthew have Jesus ride two asses at once, if it wasn’t trying to have Jesus fulfill in the story a supposed phrophecy that the author of Matthew most likely mistranslated (taking a poetic repitition to mean two animals). Why else does the text call him Emmanuel, when no one else calls Jesus that ever, if not simply to try and fulfill what they thought was yet another phrophecy (and another probable mistake)
Just two things.
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Nobody’s ever claimed that Matthew’s is a pure historian (BTW I don’t thing such a person exists, i.e. a guy with no bias or agenda) in a modern way. He was writing 2000 years ago using the literary techniques of his times. Sorry he isn’t a 21st century person.
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It is also obvious from literary analysis that that your are deliberatly copying someone else’s ideas of literary analysis, invented in the 19th century and claiming that they are true; most of which, like “Q” for instance, is going down the drain.
It is undeniable that a parallel exists, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. My contry, Peru, has a general who helped bring independence form Spain. Oh, sorry, Washington was also a general who helped bring independence to his country and, since my country became independent in 1821, my history books have got to be wrong.
We’ve all got biases, at least admit that, and we all consider our biases more legitimate the other people’s biases.
BTW, I still don’t see what’s the beef with the flight. Massacre maybe, but flight, come on!!!
Au contraire, Rodrigo. I think that this position is precisely what Fundamentalist Christians would have us believe – what Matthew says it true, literally true, bonafide history. The purest history there is. To get it any purer, you’d need a time machine and a Magnum condom.
Can you cite a serious scholar who has published information indicating that Q is "going down the drain? On what does he (or she or they) base that claim?