Posts by JosephAlward

28

Bible Error: Jesus Cures the Leper

by JosephAlward in

the author of mark thinks that jesus cured the leper after he cured simon peters mother-in-law, but the author of matthew says just the opposite: he thinks that jesus cured the leper before he cured the mother-in-law.

they both cannot be right, so the bible is in error.

here is the evidence:.

JosephAlward

I think it is very telling that Lars didn't address the main point I raised in the post to which he responded.

Why does Lars think that Jesus said that the "the gospels are a complex revelation of secrets that can only be understood by the anointed ones"?

Jesus couldn't have said this, as I explained in the previous post. How could Lars not have known this elementary fact, especially if he's guided by God to have a better understanding of scripture than just about anyone else, according to Lars?

What about that, Lars? How could it have been possible that Jesus said, as you claimed, that "the gospels can only be understood by the anointed ones"?

In regard to what Lars thinks is his bullet-proof defense against attacks against the inerrancy of the Bible, Lars principal defense is simply to declare that he is a prophet, and therefore cannot be wrong, and that's the end of it. With this type of logic, every nut in the world can declare himself to be in sole possession of religious truth and believe himself capable of defeating the most determined skeptical challenges. All Lars has to do to win is declare himself the winner, and that's the end of it, he thinks. It's funny, but it's also very sad, I sincerely mean that.

I guess what really matters is whether Lars is truly happy in the make-believe world he's created for himself; as long as he is never given control over the lives of others, he should be allowed to believe what he chooses to believe. If he's not harming anyone, I wish him all the happiness he can find with his belief system.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

28

Bible Error: Jesus Cures the Leper

by JosephAlward in

the author of mark thinks that jesus cured the leper after he cured simon peters mother-in-law, but the author of matthew says just the opposite: he thinks that jesus cured the leper before he cured the mother-in-law.

they both cannot be right, so the bible is in error.

here is the evidence:.

JosephAlward

Lars thinks that "the gospels are a complex revelation of secrets that can only be understood by the anointed ones" and furthermore, Lars shouts, "JESUS SAYS SO!".

Jesus said so?

Jesus told his disciples that he spoke in parables so that outsiders would not understand the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but the gospels, which report what Jesus allegedly said, were written long after Jesus had died. Thus Jesus couldn't possibly have believed that the gospels contained secrets only to be understood by special chosen ones, because the gospels didn't exist at the time Jesus walked the earth. And, even if Jesus did know what was in the gospels before they were written, he only taught that secrets relating to the kingdom of heaven should be kept; he said absolutely nothing about keeping secrets about mundane matters such as whether one, or two lepers were cured by Jesus.

If Lars were, indeed, one of the special ones God chose to understand well what his Bible says, then one would expect that Lars would know this.

That he apparently doesn't know this, or knew it but didn't know how to explain well what he knew, is good evidence here that Lars is not anointed, not guided by a god to understand and explain well the teaching in the Bible.

Furthermore, Lars thinks that because Jesus wanted to keep the secrets about salvation away from outsiders, that the historians who later would write about Jesus would naturally also keep from its readers information about how many lepers Jesus healed before--or after--curing the mother-in-law. Where does he get such ideas? What possible value could come from our not knowing such a trivial thing?

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

39

Bible Error: How Did Judas Die?

by JosephAlward in

matthew says that judas hanged himself, while the writer in acts says that he fell and his guts spilled out.

both of these accounts cannot be true.

either one is, or neither is, and this means that the bible is not error-free.

JosephAlward

Lars attempted to provide "secular Jewish" example of the "Jewish writing sytle" he thinks shows a tendency toward secrecy. Lars' example was Josephus' seemingly contradictory description of the desolation period.

Lars just assumes that Josephus couldn't have made a mistake, and therefore the seeming contradition was intended as a screen to prevent others from knowing the truth.

First of all, that's preposterous. What possible reason could Josephus have had for hiding the truth about the desolation period? It's not as if he was describing where the Ark of the Covenant was buried and didn't want outsiders to understand what he was writing.

Second, why couldn't Josephus have been honestly in error? Historians of any age make mistakes of interpretation, use false data, and make mistatements. Why must a mistake by Josephus--if that's what it was--be evidence of what Lars thinks was a "Jewish writing style" of hiding important information?

Now that Lars has shown a willingness to attempt to answer questions he thinks he can answer, perhaps he will now provide the answers to questions I've asked of him repeatedly--if he thinks he can answer them. I'll ask them again, below; if he doesn't answer them, perhaps it will be fair to assume that he cannot answer them.

Larsguy has refused my invitation for him to explain why he rejects the obvious explanation of Luke's account in Acts of Judas "bursting" open. I've noted that Luke never meant for readers to believe that Judas actually "burst" open, but simply wanted us to compare Judas metaphorically to the old wineskin that Luke spoke of earlier in his gospel. Just as an old wineskin cannot hold new wine, and thus bursts, so did Judas "burst"--in a figurative sense only--when he could not hold the new teachings of Jesus.

Why does he hold to his belief that the Bible writers wanted us to guess how Judas first hanged himself and then ended up with his guts spilled. Why does he think this makes more sense than the wineskin metaphor? Why?

Finally, Larsguy has also refused to respond to the question I asked in a previous post. I'll repeat it here:

"How do you know that you're not just imagining this relationship you have with God, a relationship which is so special it places you in a position of privilege above billions of other inhabitants of this planet? If you say that 'Jehovah told me,' then how do you--and we--know you're not just imagining that? How would the Governing Body know?"

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

39

Bible Error: How Did Judas Die?

by JosephAlward in

matthew says that judas hanged himself, while the writer in acts says that he fell and his guts spilled out.

both of these accounts cannot be true.

either one is, or neither is, and this means that the bible is not error-free.

JosephAlward

I can't know with certainty which passages were meant to be taken literally. For the purpose of contesting the inerrantists' belief that all of the stories were meant to be taken literally, it won't matter if I'm wrong about which stories were literally true. If it turns out that I'm wrong about an author intending a story to be literally true, then the Bible's not literally true, and the inerrantists are wrong.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

39

Bible Error: How Did Judas Die?

by JosephAlward in

matthew says that judas hanged himself, while the writer in acts says that he fell and his guts spilled out.

both of these accounts cannot be true.

either one is, or neither is, and this means that the bible is not error-free.

JosephAlward

Bang writes,

"If your ofay with some anagogical understanding, why are you skeptical?"

Alward responds:

Some passages in the Bible are allegories, metaphors, or just figures of speech. Other passages were meant to be taken literally, but some of them conflict with other passages which likewise were meant to be taken literally. I'm not skeptical about the former passages, only the latter.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

5

Matthew's Potter's Field Story Is a Fake

by JosephAlward in

according to matthew, jesus says that jeremiah spoke of events which would foreshadow the priests' purchase of the potter's field with the thirty pieces of silver judas obtained for his betrayal of jesus: .

"then judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders... and they... bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

then was fulfilled that which was spoken by jeremy the prophet, saying, and they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of israel did value; and gave them for the potter's field" (matthew 27:3-10) .

JosephAlward

Jayhawk,

You understood the point I made about Matthew's story being a complete fabrication, based on two or more stories from the Old Testament which had nothing whatsoever to do with a betrayer, blood money, a burying field, or money thrown at a potter?

That Matthew's story about Judas is completely false, and based on misrembered or misunderstood stories in the Old Testament? That there never was any money given Judas, no field bought from a potter?

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

28

Bible Error: Jesus Cures the Leper

by JosephAlward in

the author of mark thinks that jesus cured the leper after he cured simon peters mother-in-law, but the author of matthew says just the opposite: he thinks that jesus cured the leper before he cured the mother-in-law.

they both cannot be right, so the bible is in error.

here is the evidence:.

JosephAlward

Yeru,

You clearly imply that your faith is not so strong as to permit you to unequivocally accept that the account of the six-day creation is literal, but yet you seem also to imply that you can accept other parts of the Bible on faith, especially the account of the resurrection.

What is it about the resurrection accounts that allows you to believe them? Or, is your faith not based on the Bible but on something else? Or, is your faith based partly on the Bible and partly on other sources? If partly on the Bible, how do you know which parts of the Bible to take on faith? If one part of the Bible can be false, how would you be able to determine whether the part you take to be "true" on faith is really true?

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

28

Bible Error: Jesus Cures the Leper

by JosephAlward in

the author of mark thinks that jesus cured the leper after he cured simon peters mother-in-law, but the author of matthew says just the opposite: he thinks that jesus cured the leper before he cured the mother-in-law.

they both cannot be right, so the bible is in error.

here is the evidence:.

JosephAlward

Yeru writes,

I believe the bible is indeed true, I don't necessarily believe in Creationism over creationary evolution though. I don't think that because chronology is off negates the bible as spiritual truth.

Alward responds:

I agree that a false chronology doesn't negate whatever "spiritual truth" may be found in the Bible. However, fundamentalists will disagree with you; their entire belief system is built around the assumption that there are no errors whatsoever in the Bible. They take the position held by St. Augustine (354-430), who was one of the founders of the Roman Catholic Church. He well understood that Christianity was like a house of cards; if the church dared to admit to even a single error in the Bible, who could say there wasn't an error on every page? The resurrection story might then be false and everyone's hopes are in vain. This is what he said:

"The most disastrous consequences must follow upon our believing that anything false is found in the sacred books....If you [even] once admit into such a high sanctuary of authority one false statement, there will not be left a single sentence of those books, which, if appearing to anyone difficult in practice or hard to believe, may not by the same fatal rule be explained away as a statement, in which intentionally, the author declared what was not true." --St. Augustine in Epistula, p. 28.

Now, Yeru, you say that you don't necessarily believe the story of the six days of creation as described in Genesis. Well, if that's true, then on what basis do you believe that the resurrection of Jesus actually happened? If the Bible writers might not have been speaking the literal truth when they wrote Genesis, might the gospel writers also not have been speaking literally? How do you know?

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

39

Bible Error: How Did Judas Die?

by JosephAlward in

matthew says that judas hanged himself, while the writer in acts says that he fell and his guts spilled out.

both of these accounts cannot be true.

either one is, or neither is, and this means that the bible is not error-free.

JosephAlward

Thanks for the perceptive comments, Hillary. A careful reader of my posts would conclude--as you have--that I'm arguing that there is no Bible "error," but merely a misinterpretation of the Bible by inerrantists.

My position is that for those who hold that the Bible is literally true--as Lars does in the case of the Acts account of Judas "bursting," the Bible seems to be in error, but for those who don't feel obligated to believe every story in the Bible is literally true, the wineskin-metaphor more neatly removes the "error."

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html

28

Bible Error: Jesus Cures the Leper

by JosephAlward in

the author of mark thinks that jesus cured the leper after he cured simon peters mother-in-law, but the author of matthew says just the opposite: he thinks that jesus cured the leper before he cured the mother-in-law.

they both cannot be right, so the bible is in error.

here is the evidence:.

JosephAlward

I agree with Yeru and Mox that a more plausible explanation of the apparent contradiction is that the gospel writers recorded what they thought might have been events in the life of Jesus without regard with the particular order in which the events occurred. This interpretation is vastly more believable than the preposterous one proposed by the one who thinks he was chosen to be one of the few in the world who truly understands the Bible.

However, this means that the Bible is not the literal word of a God, and therefore it's subject to the errors made by fallible men. If there can be an error in chronology on one page, there can be errors of other kinds on other pages, and perhaps the story of the resurrection contains errors, too.

The evidence I've seen shows that the "Jesus" described in the gospels didn't exist. The gospel writers may have sincerely believed that there was a "Jesus," and that he was the savior written about in the Old Testament, but they were not eyewitnesses to any of the "events" they reported. The healings and feedings by Jesus, the walking on water, and other "miracles" are actually just remakes of events reported about either Moses, Elijah, Elisha, David, or Yahweh. The writers perhaps sincerely believe that these Old Testament heroes did things that would later be echoed by the savior, so they just assumed that the "Jesus" they wrote about did those things, too.

Articles which deal with this topic are found in links on the web page listed below.

Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible"
http://members.aol.com/jalw/joseph_alward.html