edx-Course --> Early Christianity: The Letters of Paul

by fastJehu 44 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  bohm

  Neon: I am not really sure if you still agree or disagree with my original statement: I simply argue the description of certain events taking place in year 70 imply the book was written after year 70 with high probability.

  Would you agree with that logic as it is formulated?

  I also want to consider a second, parallel example. Disregard Dixons success or lack of the same as a prophet, or consider we are dealing with another Dixon of who you know little. Suppose some of Dixons family turned up a note (or book or whatever) that said:

  "I hereby affirm that my prophecy will be correct, JFK will be shot dead near the end of the 60s in Dallas. Cheers, Dixon, 5 May, 1958."

  and that note could not be dated accurately, for instance because it was written with ink and on paper from the 40s. I only claim I would then believe (with high certainty) that note was written after Kennedy was killed and it would still take quite a bit of evidence to convince me it was written before JFK was shot. Do you think that is the wrong conclusion to draw?

  Then I am curious on what basis you believe that prophecy is possible.

  Clearly prophecy is logically possible.. I believe it is possible for the simple reason I can easily imagine a situation in which i was convinced someone was a prophet. I think one should be open to all possibilities and demand evidence in proportion to how out of the ordinary they seem to be.

  Are you saying that prophecy might really happen, and some day we might also discover real fairies and unicorns?

  yes prophecies might really happend, I assume by prophecy we are dealing with someone who has advanced knowledge about the future.

  It *might* even be the case someone is telling the future because God is telling him whats going to happend. But as a matter of logic that is an even more remote option.

  Fairies are very unlikely for a number of reasons, especially the flying human-like kind with butterfly wings. I would say they violated several laws of physics and their existence was very unlikely.

  If an unicorn is an animal that look like a horse or large deer but with a single horn on its forehead, well, it might be possible one has actually lived, and I would say the chances was quite high we could one day make one in a laboratory when genetic engineering has advanced sufficiently.

  Are you saying unicorn and fairies are a-priori impossible but the existence of god, angels etc. is not?
• 

  NeonMadman

  Here's another book you wont like Neon:

  islamic-replies.ucoz.com/Bible_Books/22916607-Jesus-interrupted-Bart-D-ehrman.pdf

  I've read some of Ehrman, and I'm not impressed. His data are excellent, of course. The man is clearly a scholar of the highest order in terms of his historical and textual research, but his conclusions strike me as being pre-determined by his agenda. Textual criticism is a well-developed science, and gives us good reason to believe that the New Testament we have today is very much as it was originally written. Ehrman acknowledges as much in some of his works, but takes the fundamentalist-like position that if there is any doubt whatsoever as to what the original manuscripts said, then we have absolutely no idea what they might have said. When we can trace multiple lines of manuscript evidence back to a largely unified critical text, it seems unfounded to claim that some unknown changes might have occurred in the earliest times that altered the text somehow in major ways before the manuscripts even began to circulate. It also seems to me that if Ehrman wants to assert such a thing, then the burden of proof is upon him to demonstrate it. This is another case of the "extraordinary evidence" fallacy, in that he subjectively has set the bar so high for "extraordinary" evidence that it could never be met by any evidence. Nothing short of a signed, dated, time-stamped original would satisfy him. Really, if Ehrman is right in his claims about the New Testament, then we have no idea whatsoever about any document, person or event in ancient history, since there is no evidence available that would meet the criteria he demands of the NT.

  Numerous books have been written refuting Ehrman, of course, but the authors who wrote them don't become media darlings as he has.
• 

  NeonMadman

  "I hereby affirm that my prophecy will be correct, JFK will be shot dead near the end of the 60s in Dallas. Cheers, Dixon, 5 May, 1958."

  Technically, that would be an incorrect prophecy, since JFK was killed in 1963.

  But I see what you are getting at.

  I only claim I would then believe (with high certainty) that note was written after Kennedy was killed and it would still take quite a bit of evidence to convince me it was written before JFK was shot. Do you think that is the wrong conclusion to draw?

  I suppose I could see why you would accept that as a prima facie conclusion. What I think bothers me about the statement is the phrase "with high certainty." The problem, again, comes down to the question of whether one accepts that prophecy is a real possibility. You've said that you acknowledge that as being so. If that is the case, why necessarily conclude in an a priori fashion that the prediction almost certainly could not have occurred as claimed? If there really is no anti-prophecy bias at work, then the information should be evaluated as to its claims, not dismissed as being highly improbable.

  Suppose in this scenario, Dixon had accumulated a group of followers prior to 1963 who touted the possibility of a president being shot dead in Dallas at that time? What if these followers believed in Dixon's prophecy so strongly that they were willing to undergo personal hardship or even death in order to spread her message far and wide - a message that, if it was false, they were in a position to know was false? Suppose, further, that the government considered these followers to be a problem and so began to suppress them, even violently? Would things like this happening before 1963 change your view of the possibility of the prediction being a real prophecy?

  Are you saying unicorn and fairies are a-priori impossible but the existence of god, angels etc. is not?

  No, that's not where I was going with that at all. I was trying to gague your openness to actual prophecy by seeing whether you would put real prophecy in the same basket with things like fairies and unicorns, or whether you actually considered it a real possibility.

  And of course, your remarks about unicorns are correct; some might even use the term of a rhinoceros.
• 

  Pistoff

  Neon:

  The thing is this:

  Christians assert Jesus was raised in the body; does Paul really assert this?

  He speaks of Jesus being raised up, but does not use the word resurrection. Some (non-religious) scholars feel Paul was speaking of the elevated position of Jesus in the minds and lives of his followers. Certainly, his impact outlived his death, and he was much greater in death than in life.

  You are asking us to believe that Jesus somehow violated the laws of nature and physics, reanimated himself and is living in heaven.

  I say, no proof for this other than the words of those who believe it.

  My point about Paul is this:

  Paul argues mightily that Jesus is God's son, is the Messiah, but NEVER mentions any of the miracles, ie, water to wine, raising the dead, walking on water, healing. Or any of the unique teachings of Jesus, say from the sermon on the mount.

  Never.

  If you are arguing for the divinity of Jesus, those have to be at the top of your list.

  Of Jesus resurrection, the gospel accounts are the only source.

  No independent source.

  The gospels are a faith take, a religious persepective, on the life of Jesus the man.

  The take away for me is that Paul wrote before any of the miracle stories circulated about Jesus, or he didn't believe them.
• 

  humbled

  Putting Jesus in a Harvard class room with Paul is the same problem Jesus might have figured when he was sawing boards with his papa---as soon as your beliefs were subject to the approval of your "betters" you were skinned.

  Saying that are attributed to Jesus the carpenter showed up in more places than the NT would lead you to believe. But THE CHURCH wouldn't tolerate them. The writings were burned whenever the church could find them. And the Church persecuted and killed those who valued the writings

  That Paul was a resurrection-believing Pharisee pushed the NT's emphasis on Jesus being raised and the promise that salvation=resurrection. Resurrection=salvation as the center of the NT epistles is the tragedy of Christiaity-- a tragedy in our times.

  The teachings that were banned in the early church were in the gospels that the churchfathers burned.

  Theology is the whip in the hands of the "learned" once more. Priests and scribes--don't people wait to hear God speak through them?

  On the other hand, having a teacher of goodness, love and forgiveness--well, this brave teaching is good and well conveyed by folk to simple folk. Without a priest.

  To my thinking, a salvation that relies primarily on having the perfect "Credo" impeccably memorized has long allowed "Christians" to enslave, and kill, steal, etc. The salvation that was earthier, imo, is the one that doesn't looks to living with kindness NOW.

  Paul got into the early church and --even if with good intentions--really subverted the beauty and the accessability of Jesus' teachings.