SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
Did I mention the Second Coming?
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Why Didn't God Leave Huge Quantities of Secular Evidence For Jesus?
- Thread starter SeekingAllTruth
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- belief crucifixion jesus
SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
I don't believe anything in the New Testament. It was written with a specific agenda, to push the idea that Jesus Christ was a dying/rising god like the dying/rising god of Greeks and Roman of earlier times.
SeekingAllTruth
Well-Known Member
Oh, you didn't know? Yes, scholars have determined that the 4 gospels were written by anonymous highly educated Greeks. They were NOT written by Matthew Mark Luke and John. Those names were assigned to the gospels by Irenaeus in the late 2nd century.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Osiris was a dying/rising demigod who dies and was resurrected and gave the followers salvation
9afterlife). A savior demigod is the myth that is being copied. You can stop posting JP Holding articles because he isn't a scholars and provides no sources in his articles. If you think that is a good article to learn from then you clearly do not care about what is true. You just want people to make up things that support your beliefs even though they are lies and simple made-up information and have nothing to do with actual history which is something you could learn if you wanted to find actual truth.
This is from a PhD NT historian sourcing the Pyramid text and other early source information on Osirus.
Holding was using google.
"
Not only does Plutarch say Osiris returned to life and was recreated, exact terms for resurrection (anabiôsis and paliggenesia: On Isis and Osiris 35; see my discussion in The Empty Tomb, pp. 154-55), and also describe his physically returning to earth after his death (Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris 19), but the physical resurrection of Osiris’s corpse is explicitly described in pre-Christian pyramid inscriptions!
Plutarch writes that “Osiris came to Horus from the other world and exercised and trained him for the battle,” and taught him lessons, and then “Osiris consorted with Isis after his death and she became the mother of Harpocrates.” It’s hard to get more explicit than that. Contrary to Ehrman, there is no mention of Osiris not being in his resurrected body at that point. To the contrary, every version of his myth has him revive only after Isis reassembles and reanimates his corpse. As Plutarch says, “the soul of Osiris is everlasting and imperishable, but his body Typhon oftentimes dismembers and causes to disappear, and that Isis wanders hither and yon in her search for it, and fits it together again” (On Isis and Osiris 54).
And indeed, carved on the walls of the pyramids centuries before Christianity began were the declarations of the goddess Isis (or Horus, or their agents), “I have come to thee…that I may revivify thee, that I may assemble for thee thy bones, that I may collect for thee thy flesh, that I may assemble for thee thy dismembered limbs…raise thyself up, king, [as for] Osiris; thou livest!” (Pyramid Texts 1684a-1685a and 1700, = Utterance 606; cf. Utterance 670); “Raise thyself up; shake off thy dust; remove the dirt which is on thy face; loose thy bandages!” (Pyramid Texts 1363a-b, = Utterance 553); “[As for] Osiris, collect thy bones; arrange thy limbs; shake off thy dust; untie thy bandages; the tomb is open for thee; the double doors of the coffin are undone for thee; the double doors of heaven are open for thee…thy soul is in thy body…raise thyself up!” (Pyramid Texts 207b-209a and 2010b-2011a, = Utterance 676). That sure sounds like a physical resurrection of Osiris’s body to me. (As even confirmed by the most recent translation of James P. Allen, cf. pp. 190, 224-25, 272. The spells he clarifies are sung to and about the resident Pharaoh, but in the role of Osiris, receiving the same resurrection as Osiris, e.g. “there has been done for me what was done for my father Osiris on the day of tying bones together, of making functional the feet,” “do for him that which you did for his brother Osiris on the day,” etc.)
Plutarch goes on to explicitly state that this resurrection on earth (set in actual earth history) in the same body he died in (reassembled and restored to life) was the popular belief, promoted in allegorical tales by the priesthood—as was also the god’s later descent to rule Hades. But the secret “true” belief taught among the initiated priesthood was that Osiris becomes incarnate, dies, and rises back to life every year in a secret cosmic battle in the sublunar heavens. So in fact, contrary to Ehrman (who evidently never actually read any of the sources on this point), Plutarch says the belief that Osiris went to Hades was false (On Isis and Osiris 78); and yet even in that “public” tale, Osiris rules in Hades in his old body of flesh, restored to life. Hence still plainly resurrected. But as Plutarch explains (On Isis and Osiris 25-27 & 54 and 58), the esoteric truth was that the god’s death and resurrection occurs in sublunar space, after each year descending and taking on a mortal body to die in; and that event definitely involved coming back to life in a new superior body, in which Osiris ascends to a higher realm to rule from above, all exactly as was said of the risen Jesus (who no more remained on earth than Osiris did). The only difference is that when importing this into Judaism, which had not a cyclical-eternal but a linear-apocalyptic conception of theological history, they converted the god’s dying-and-rising to a singular apocalyptic event.
And that’s just Osiris. Clearly raised from the dead in his original, deceased body, restored to life; visiting people on earth in his risen body; and then ruling from heaven above. And that directly adjacent to Judea, amidst a major Jewish population in Alexandria, and popular across the whole empire. But as Plutarch said in On the E at Delphi 9, many religions of his day “narrate deaths and vanishings, followed by returns to life and resurrections.” Not just that one. Plutarch names Dionysus as but an example (and by other names “Zagreus, Nyctelius, and Isodaetes“). And we know for a fact this Dionysus wasn’t the only example Plutarch would have known. Plutarch only names him because he was so closely associated with Osiris, and the most famous.
joelr
Well-Known Member
The Persians has their own use of Baptism?:
"The rite of Zoroastrian initiation was baptism, by either blood, urine, or water."
Iran Chamber Society: Religion in Iran: The Secrets of Zoroastrianism
Salvation (eternal life, salvation from death) was provided by the Persian messiah as well as many other mystery religions demigods.
Each culture adds their own spin to the concepts. Even if baptism did not exist the borrowing or messianic concepts. afterlife, heaven, hell, Satan vs God in an eternal strugle, resurrection at end times apoctalyipic world ends in fire and cult members get a new body. It's all the same.
There was a Jewish version a Thracian version, a Syrian version, a Greek version and others. All different in some ways but they copied the basic idea.
as Professor Stravopolou points out very clearly, the Israelites were poly-theistic until the Persian period and them began re-writing their myths and added so many elements of the Persian belief system that there is no denying that the Jewish scribes found ways to incorporate the myths into their books.
Carrier explains, they poured over passeges in the OT and found ways to suggest "oh look, if you interpret this passage this way it looks like we are getting a world savior also. Either that ot they would recieve new "revelations" about how they too would be having their world end and the messiah would save them to and their god wants them to have this and that as well....
Over a few centuries they made the Persian beliefs into Jewish beliefs.
Some day if you decide you are tired of being told incorrect facts by JP Holding and read what actual peer-reviewed works from biblical history fields you will learn a tremendous amount.
Bart Ehrman can help you with the NT. Mary Boyce has many books on the Persian religion.
joelr
Well-Known Member
https://evidenceforchristianity.org...ection-of-jesus-from-the-religion-believable/
Again, if you accept crank non-scholarly articles from laymen you will only learn bia opiniojs of people who desparately need Jesus to be real. So you do not care about what is true.
"It is hard to prove either that Zoroastrianism influenced Judaism or that Judaism influenced Zoroastrianism."
For him. Not for professors of Old Testament studies. At 2:00 she explains most of what we know as the OT was written during the Persian Period.
And as Carrier points out, Persian Zoroastrian system of messianism, apocalypticism, worldwide resurrection, an evil Satan at war with God, and a future heaven and hell effecting justice as eternal fates for all, was Judaized when they were imported into Judaism. None of those ideas existed in Judaism before that (and you won’t find them in any part of the Old Testament written before the Persian conquest).
They were not part of Jewish myth then during this period they were and they became much mor monotheistic. They borrowed ideas? No way around it. Well, except like and deny like thos apologetics articles.
Pre-Perian Satan was different. Satan worked with Yahweh and did his bidding. He tortured Job upon Yahwehs request, he was sent by Yahweh to inflict a plague to kill 70,000 people, he acted as prosecuter with Yahweh as Judge, he was even called an "agent of God".
Then after the Persian period he was exactly like the Persian devil.
Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval.[17] 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story,[17] but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan".[17]
Samuel 24, Yahweh sends the "Angel of Yahweh" to inflict a plague against Israel for three days, killing 70,000 people as punishment for David having taken a census without his approval.[17] 1 Chronicles 21:1 repeats this story,[17] but replaces the "Angel of Yahweh" with an entity referred to as "a satan".[17]
Yahweh asks, "Have you considered My servant Job?"[21] The satan replies by urging Yahweh to let him torture Job, promising that Job will abandon his faith at the first tribulation.[22] Yahweh consents; the satan destroys Job's servants and flocks, yet Job refuses to condemn Yahweh.[2
THEN, it even says the JEWS WERE HEALAVILY INFLUENCED BY THE ZOROASTRINAIN RELIGION?????
"
During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[27][8][28] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,[8][29] the Zoroastrian god of evil, darkness, and ignorance.[8] In the Septuagint, the Hebrew ha-Satan in Job and Zechariah is translated by the Greek word diabolos (slanderer), the same word in the Greek New Testament from which the English word "devil" is derived.[30] Where satan is used to refer to human enemies in the Hebrew Bible, such as Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the Syrian, the word is left untranslated but transliterated in the Greek as satan, a neologism in Greek.[30]
The idea of Satan as an opponent of God and a purely evil figure seems to have taken root in Jewish pseudepigrapha during the Second Temple Period,[31] particularly in the apocalypses.[32] The Book of Enoch, which the Dead Sea Scrolls have revealed to have been nearly as popular as the Torah,[33]"
joelr
Well-Known Member
You are so uninformed and living in a fantasy world it's incredible. All Christian scholars understand this is an issue with no easy answer. It's been a huge debate for centuries. To just fluff it off shows you are just not interested in what's actually true but creating a fantasy reality for yourself.
At the very least, read the article and 8 best arguments given for the Markan priority on Bible .org
The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org
They are not atheists. Don't you even care about whats going on in your own religions?
OR read the article then explain why you feel oral tradition best explains this problem.
joelr
Well-Known Member
I have zero idea why youy are bringing up Jesus and his parents?
My quote was from a NT scholars explaining that scholars in hhis field are not interested in the gospel Jesus, that is a work of fiction. They are trying to establish if a man named Jesus was really teaching around that tie.
The gospel stories are wildly fictionalized accounts of what happened and not supported by outside sources in any way. It is religious fiction.
Subduction Zone
Veteran Member
That would be quite the trick. If you could do this amazing deed why aren't you published? Your claims ring of the same sort of nonsense as the people that claim that there is a "Bible code". And those all have been refuted.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Why? It was YOU who when asked questions that cannot be answered turned to
"what is your reason anyway" as if we are not on a debate forum which gives an explicit and clear reason for debating religion? The passive aggressive is you either debate or don't debate. Not stop and ask motives when the person is winning with logic.
I don't care about motives. I care about what is true. All specifics have been dealt with. Incredibly vague 2 hr videos with no timestamp to make a specific point is not a valid point.
Awesome:
1. WLC, NOT A HISTORIAN. Apologetics, theology, not in the history field, has no peer-reviewed work in the field, probably cannot read any source material, Greek, Hebrew or any mystery religions sources. Has no concept of comparative religion because like most theologians only his religion is divine messages and all others are herecy. Excellent way to find out what is not true at all.
2.WLC doesn't believe in biblical history or biblical archeology or coomparative religious studies because he's a crank apologist who doesn't believe in evolution of the earth being 5 billion years old.
Wow, great source. He's a clever guy desperately finding ways to keep his belief in gods true while academia is like "cool, whatever, it's just myths same as Islam or Hinduism.
3. No I back everything up with scholarship and usually consensus in an entire field. If you actually go and listen to the actual interviews (with the Bart Ehrman parts) you will likely be like "oh darn, WLC is making stuff up?
4. See now you are really showing what's what here.I let you off the hook easily. But you missed it. Ok, which thing did WLC debunk that Enrman couldn't recover from? Tell me the thing. Just pick one.
Then we can review the response and you will see WLC is delusional.
Find a version where they BOTH speak their turns and I will show you WLC is in complete denial and does these debates for people who don't care about scholarship and consensus in history fields and the incredible amount of intellectual work these fields share and grow and the actual knowledge they have.
Most of which is shared by the Christain scholars. WLC simply finds ways to double-talk and sound fancy.
Take one debate point from WLC and then we can see exactly how he "debunked"
every biblical historian?
- Notice that you offer your personal opinion (which you have every right to have)
- You really haven't proven that it is lies
- Don't really care how Carrier expresses his viewpoint. I would express it this way... We have Matthew, Mark (or however wrote it), Luke, John, Paul, Peter, James who agree that it happened. Some were eyewitnesses and others (Luke_) took affidavits (so to speak). In a court of law, these witnesses of the fact would make the fact acceptable.
- Because you found one Apologetic who may have erred does not mean that all Apologetics are lies. That would be like saying because one doctors had a mis-diagnosis... all doctors are fraudulent.
But you can continue denying it. You can feel free to deny that the earth is round and be a flat-earther too (if you so desire)
1.2.- So in # 4 you admit there is a lie so that takes care of that.
3. - Again if you are referring to the Synoptic Problem I am going to try one more time to link an article from Christian scholarship on the synoptic problem.
This was written by a NT professor and outlines the 8 main reasons why Mark was first and the likely source.
The article has 100 source links and uses graphs, charts and is easily understood. Unsourced "ideas" based on stuff one may hear at church is not likely what is actually true. If you want to make some sort of statement regarding which Gospel is first and who copied from who, I would ask to explain why your argument is better than this short essay which is a decent summary.
Right now the best evidence is contained in Mark Goodacre's book The Case Against Q and uses rigouous scholarship to prove his point that Q is the least likely source. This article agrees with his findings.
The Synoptic Problem | Bible.org
1. - you misunderstand. The point is that an extreme few scholars believe in young-earth and no evolution. We can ignore them. Well the vast majority of biblical historians/archeologist do not believe in the supernatural aspects. The ones who do, we can ignore them as crank.
2. Well I posted words from PhD Carrier explaining that when historians say they are looking for Jesus they are NOT looking for the mythocized version. That would mean MOST HISTORIANS?!
Here he is again saying after Thompson's work came out in the 70's there was blowback but now it's satndard in the field that Moses and teh Patriarchs are myth.
Hhow many times have I heard things like this listening to biblical historians and archeologists? MANY!
55:14
Moses and Patriarchs are Myth, consensus among all biblical historians
3. Name someone in Bart Ehrman's field who is a fundamentalist Christian. You don't seem to understand PdD historians believe a vast majority of standard, consensus material that hadisagree they have to submit work and have it peer-reviewed. What you are saying sounds like fantasy.
Most of Ehrman's knowledge is just standard stuff same as ALL HARD AND SOFT SCIENCES?
You would know way more about this is you bothered to study the period in an honest way. Why don't you go back to Thompson's work and find out what you don't agree with?
4. Carrier's views are either standard and already shown to be most probable by other scholars and anything that is his opinion is backed up by tremendous amounts of fact. List one thing you disagree with?
First the revolution is just a war. Those are common. And we have evidence from countless sources on both sides. But there are many founding myths, the life of George Washington is somewhat mythic.
Similar to the Exodus story told by early Israelites.
I don't need to explain a war is already something that happens.It's disingenous to compare a religion to a revolution. Compare it to something else from that time. Mormonism. Or Islam. Or the Cargo cults (also have savior figures), or any other Middle Eastern Movement from 5 Hinduisms to countless others. Surely you wave those off as completely ridiculous. Yet even they have divine beings speaking messages to people. Every single one. Yet none are real.
But, hey, you can debate... but just because you debate doesn't make you right. I give you a wide berth to be wrong even when you think you are right
Debating doesn't make it right. Evidence does. Anyone can make statements like that. A Mormon can say what you are saying, a Sikh, Islam. But they cannot provide evidence. They cannot point to Gods beyond stories of Gods. For every supposed "miraculous" event that gets praised a tornado hits an elementary school and people just fall silent. That's because that is just confirmation bias. The evidence is overwhelming . And that is why apologists would lie. Why do you think Wallace simply didn't say "well there could be some interdependence among the gospels...." because he's creating a false narrative. When one examines the evidence honestly the truth is clear.
I cannot find any. I have had my beliefs forced to change and it was not easy. I have heard believers say they study history and so forth but it turned out to be not true. All of the apologetics I have encountered (a lot) is incredibly debunkable but if you don't try it will suck you in.
I an reading critical reviews by apologists of Carriers book by :
Graig Evans, Danielle Gulotta, Tim O'neil and Larry Hurtado and they just use debunked apologetics and do not address Carriers arguments in the book?
I have never heard an apologist say they were reading Thomas Thompson's work then listening to Fransesca Stravopolou and reading her work then Ehrman, Carrier, Pagels, Goodacre, Joh Dominick Crossman, Price, and being like "Now I see it's all true?
That has never happened?
Why don't you listen to a debate? Ehrman debated a theologian scholar Shefield on if the current NT
could be the original manuscript. Ehrman is not a believer Sheffield is.
Sheffield studies the early period more as a hobbyist and Ehrman is defending the basic beliefs in his field that we do not likely have the originals.
It's a good debate. In the end Sheffield is left being unable to answer why most scholars lean in one direction and he leans in another. I gave Sheffield a shot as I do many times. Carrier recently debates
Jay Cox an amateur scholar and it was also a good debate.
Apologetics contains many half truths and if other information also does I want to know. The point is to find what is true.
joelr
Well-Known Member
As I have shown Edon is no longer "smoking forever" and there are 12 cities along rt 95.
It did not happen.
The thing about messianic prophecies is the NT writers likely wrote the fiction as if a prophecy in older fiction came true. So you cannot say "wow look, here is proof". The gospels are considered fictional stories by historians and secular people believe this as well. The are simply not history any more than stories of Krishna are history.
joelr
Well-Known Member
I don't think anyone is reading those crank JP Holding articles at this point.
The gospels are not considered historically reliable among scholars. Even Christian scholars constantly debate them.
And the fact that they all just copy Mark has become fact. They won't announce it in church but the facts remain for those who want to know truth.
"It is commonly thought that the writers of the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke used Mark as a source, with changes and improvement to peculiarities and crudities in Mark.["
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Bible
Jp Holding does not care about scholarship, he does not care about evidence he just wants to make his religion true using confirmation bias and half-truths or lies. That site is for people who do not want to challenge their beliefs and have ways to be re-assured their fantasy beliefs are true.
On a debate forum that fluff doesn't stand up.
joelr
Well-Known Member
If Jesus was an actual man it doesn't matter what he did in life. When Mark wrote his gospel he didn't use Jesus' life as a guide he used the prophecies to construct a fiction.
His sources are believed to be:
"Mark is a counter-narrative to the myth of Imperial rule crafted by Vespasian.[73] In 1901 William Wrede demonstrated that Mark was not a simple historical account of the life of Jesus but a work of theology compiled by an author who was a creative artist.[74] There has been little interest in his sources until recently, but candidates include the Elijah-Elisha narrative in the Book of Kings and the Pauline letters, notably 1 Corinthians, and even Homer.[75]
Jesus was written in part to be an updated Moses. The stories were 2000 years old and needed to be updated for a modern audience.
joelr
Well-Known Member
CC Lewis forgot to mention he was probably neither. Everything written about him was a fictionalized mythical narrative taken from Homer, the OT and other fiction.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Had the apologetics lier read Mary Boyce's book he would be clear.
The differences do not matter. Jesus is a Judaized version with Jewish differences. All religious syncretism shows differences like this. But the similarities - world savior, born virgin, defeats death, world ends, members get resurrected in new body, world ends in fire. This all happens when the savior shows up.
Heaven and Hell?? There was no heaven even before the Perisian period? Face it. Christianity is Jewish and Persian myths combined.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Jesus is far lower. He preaches eternal hellfire, families splitting apart and hates non-believers. Zero religious freedom. Bad role model. Always pissed about non-belief.
Scholarship knows the Septuigant was written using the Greek OT. No man actually spoke all those words and people remembered them. It was written down as part of a fictional narrative and copied from the Greek OT.
All of that wisdom is actually in the OT.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Evil Animals in the Zoroastrian Religion on JSTOR
this book speaks on exorcisms from the Persian religion. Hmm, looks like they did copy
Why can you not understand they didn't borrow every single aspect of Jesus from the Persians?
They used OT stories of exorcism, they used all sorts of sources, there were many Jewish religious text not in the OT?
What was borrowed was already discussed. The authors filled in the rest. Why do you think they have to copy every single thing?
Dc and Marvel copy each other like crazy but they also make changes so each character is a bit unique.
joelr
Well-Known Member
Now let's see what an actual scholar says: Oh he does die. SO your source of apologetics is lying again, wow what a shock!
"Baal (or “Ba’al”) was one of the most ancient of resurrected gods. His death is probably the same mourned under the name Hadad-Rimmon in Zechariah 12:11. But whether or no, in pre-Christian texts Baal’s corpse is found by Anat, so in his myth the god is definitely dead; one text even outright says “and the gods will know that you are dead,” and multiple gods actually declare him dead; he is then buried, and funeral rites performed (Mettinger, Riddle, pp. 60-62). There are then clear references to Baal’s resurrection. In fact, his returning to life and then living forever are used as analogies in pre-Christian immortality spells (Mettinger, Riddle, pp. 69-71). Though this god was then not yet a personal savior but a metaphor for communal agricultural salvation, that was prior to Hellenization. He was transformed into one of the many personal savior gods of the region we hear of at the dawn of Christianity (Jupiter Dolichenus), but are allowed to know nothing about, owing to the Medieval Christian destruction of pagan evidence. For example, Hippolytus devoted two entire chapters of his Refutation of All Heresies to the mystery cults and their savior deities. Curiously, those are the only two books wholly destroyed. Go figure. What were the Medievals trying to hide? What did they not want us to read? I’ll let your imagination ponder."
joelr
Well-Known Member
This list covers all mythology. Clearly that the gospel writers who used these traits they were writing just another myth. All of them are saviors in some sense. All myth.
sojourner
Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Your point?