Posts by RWC

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

I have already answered thes questions. Paul wrote to specific churches or individuals for specific reasons. He was not writing to mankind in general at the time he wrote the letters. They have since proved timeless and are used by mankind, but that was not their original intent. He wrote what was needed to address the problems the letter was addressing.

What makes you think that Paul failed to mention the things you mention because he didn't know about them? And from there, where do you leap logically to the point that because he didn't mention them the events never happened?

Priests and missionaries since the beginning of the Church have been writing letters to churches. I am confident that they do not mention all of the things you list. Does that mean that they never happened?

We do not know if Paul did not write some of these things down. We only have the letters that were cannoized. That does not mean that we have all of the letters that Paul wrote. When the canon was decided that was around the year 340, so the Gospels were already written and being used. Had Paul written his own version of the events you describe or his own gospel, it would have been redundant and not the most direct source of the information which was one of the tests for cannonized.

Are these events the most astonishing since the beginning of mankind? yes

For the answer to the rest of your questions in the post, see above.

10

The Last Supper - very simple

by Atreyu in

jesus took bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples.

take it and eat it, he said, this is my body.

then he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he handed it to them saying, drink from this, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

RWC

One of the most revealing scriptures that shows that the Lord's supper is for everyone is 1 Cor 11:23 where Paul is instructing the church in Corinth on how to partake of the Lrod's supper. If it was only meant for a few why would he do that?

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

Joseph we can go round and round on this but let me respond to your latest. One, you are changing the reason for Paul's letters in your argument without any foundation for the assumption.

Second, let me give you some more examples of where Paul does mention some of the things you list:

1. baptized by John - Acts 13:23-25

2. Tried by Pilate -Acts 13:28

3. Was called the Son of God - Romans 8:3

4. left an empty tomb behind - Acts 13:30 and the many references from Paul that Jesus was raised from the dead.

5. taught that Jesus fulfilled the old testament scriptures for the messiah - Acts 13:32; Romans 1:1-6

6. virgin birth - Romans 1:4 ( by implication)

The bottom line is that the assumption you make is absolutly unsupportable and is no evidence that the teachings of the Gospels are false and made up.

72

Question for Atheists

by RWC in

christians who believe in the bible and the teachings of christ use that as a moral core and code of conduct.

for those who don't believe in god, where do you get your sense of moral right and wrong?

what is your moral foundation?

RWC

Larc, I would assume they learned alot of their goodness from you. Where did you learn your moral compass? Another question, would be by whose definition are they moral and loving people? Don't take that as I am questioning that they are, only, by what standard are you making that comment.

Julien, I do not know where you determined that God is a God of war that believes in child sacrifice of humans. That is certainly not the God that I worship, nor is it the God as lived through Jesus Christ. If you are referring to the events in the Old testament, I would think that you received a warped interpretation of them and have completely ignored the teachings of Jesus. And in what way do you say that "true" morals are better today than in the past?

38

Response to RWC's Atheist Questions

by Liberty in

hi rwc,.

i'm sure you're a very nice person and i don't want to get into an argument but rather a civil debate.

i just wanted to point out that as ex-jws many of us are a little obsessed with truth (not to be confused with "the truth" tm) and that after being burned by the watchtower society and hating ourselves for being so stupid to have fallen for its bs we have now become highly skeptical of the bible as well.

RWC

Peaceful Pete, Interesting response. But I must correct you on one thing. My thoughts went more how something came from nothing, and not just what happened in the first 1/1000000 second. Do you think that science will be able to tell us how something came from nothing regardless of how it started?

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

Thank you for the answer to your motivation. We can discuss that in another post. For now, I cannot agree that just because Paul didn't include all of these specifics in the letters that were cannoized that means that he did not know of them and thus they did not happen. That line of argument is based upon too many assumptions to be credible. What we do know is that the letters that were cannonized were written to specific churchs for specific reasons. They already believed that Jesus was the Messiah and there would be no reason to include the information to convince them. The Gospels were written to chronicle Jesus' life and thus they include this information. You will note that Paul refers to Jesus as the son of God in many of his letters, so he knew the connection. He also talks of the cross and the resurrection. He does not write specifically about Mary and the tomb, but how does that deny that the ressurrection ever occurred?

You start the argument with two incorrect assumptions. One that Paul was writing his letters for all mankind - he wasn't. They were personally directed to individual churches and in some cases to individuals. The second assumption is that he would have wanted to include all of these important events to get his message across. He was writing for specific purposes and included what he needed to get this message across.

"Just because Paul taught that Jesus was the messiah doesn't mean that he also had to have taught that Jesus did all of those other things that Paul didn't put in his writings. He certainly would have told them about the many miracles if he had known about them, and since he didn't put them in writing, we should take this as evidence--not proof--that he may not have known about those miracles, and therefore that they didn't occur."

I would contend that if he was winning converts from the Jewish people from the Scriptures he would need to tell them of these things to show that he was the messiah they were waiting for. The messianic scriptures include the virign birth (Isaiah 7:14), betrayed by a friend (Psalm 41:9), crucifixion (Psalm 22; 69:21), perform miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6), Born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), Forsaken by disciples (Zechariah 13:7), etc.. Thus the vidence of what is written shows that Paul would had to have preached these things in order for him to win converts among the Jewish people. He could not have ignored the Messianinc prophecies when he preached to them.

14

Bible Contradition: Cursing the Fig Tree

by JosephAlward in

the contradiction below is just one among a great many which show that the bible cannot be trusted to give an accurate account of jesus life.. mark believes that jesus cursed the fig tree before he drove the merchants from the temple:.

the next day as they were leaving bethany, jesus..said to the tree, "may no one ever eat fruit from you again.

" (mark 11:12-14).

RWC

I will only address the thoughts on the motivation. Read the verses that follow where Jesus tells his disciples that they need to ask for things in prayer. The cursing of the fig tree was a teaching tool on prayer. It was not a childish act of an angry Jesus.

Why did he walk to it? So the disciples could see it had no fruit.

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

Joseph, are you trying to imply that Paul did nor know that Jesus died on the cross and was than resurrected? Are you trying to imply that Paul did not know he was tried by Pilate?

Again , your assumption that Paul did not know of these miracles that you mention because he did not explain them in detail in the letters cannoized is not supported by logic or the facts. The cites I gave you are merely examples of where Paul obained the information he did from the disciples and of specific of Jesus' life that he did recount such as Pilate, the last supper, the cross and the ressurection. I also pointed out to you where he preached to the Jews that Jesus was the messiah from the scriptures, which means that he would preach to them that he fulfilled the messianic prophecies. These would include the virgin birth, the healings and the other miracles. Why isn't that a logical conclusion from the information presented. And why isn't that a more logical conclusion that he didn't know so they were all made up?

I did go to the other website you gave me and saw the other posts. It seems that you make the same arguments there that you do here. I noticed that the same idea that the calming of the storm was a copy of Jonah was not agreed to there and instead alot of the same arguments I have made were made by others. I will go again. Thank you.

As for the questions, one that I recall was never answered was what is your motivation for all of this? I will look for others.

God Bless

38

Response to RWC's Atheist Questions

by Liberty in

hi rwc,.

i'm sure you're a very nice person and i don't want to get into an argument but rather a civil debate.

i just wanted to point out that as ex-jws many of us are a little obsessed with truth (not to be confused with "the truth" tm) and that after being burned by the watchtower society and hating ourselves for being so stupid to have fallen for its bs we have now become highly skeptical of the bible as well.

RWC

Liberty, You pose alot of questions in your post. I will not be able to answer them all here, but will over time I am sure.

The place to start I would quess is the with creation. First, as a scientist, you must agree that science tells us that something can't come from nothing. If you are to exclude the realm of the supernatural, you must agree that creation did not start from nothing. Something had to be there for the big bang to begin. From a scientific standpoint, what was that and how did it get there?

Then, as a scientist, you must agree that you would not place much stock in a theory that could not be replicated or had a strong probability of failure, or depended upon so many unknown factors that it can't be deemed reliable. That is what you have with the portion of evolution or abiogensis that trys to explain the origins of life through evolution. The idea that with just the passage of enough time the elements would come together in such a complex and diverse fashion that all life as we know it would be created is unbelievable. In any other context scientist would say it would never happen. For example, place a watch on a table in pieces. Even a million years later it will still be a watch in pieces. It will not have been put together through the passage of time. What makes you think that all of plant and animal life, much more complicated than a watch would do that?

Biblical archaeology had shown time and again the accuracy of the Bible as an historical text. For example, fairly recent finds in the City of Dan confirm, through the enemies of the Isrealites, that David was a real person and was the King of the Jews. Another example is the story of Joseph being sold in to salvery. It has been noted by a recognized Egyptologist, Kenneth Kitchen from the University of Liverpool that the price noted in Gensis ( twenty silver shekels ) is precisely the going price for slaves in the region during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries BCE. There are alot more examples of where the stories of the ancient Isralites match with extrabiblical evidence on issues such as inheritence, treaties, oaths, etc.. The importance of this is that it is evidence of the proper settings of the events in the Bible that compare correctly with the time they are believed to have happened, not at when skeptics believe that the Jewish people made them up much later.

Why the Bible and not the other religions you mention? First, the Book of Morman was written by one man a little over one hundred years ago. The events described in the book have yet to be cooberated with one artifact through archeology and instead alot can be traced to Joesph Smith's personal history. The Bible on the other hand was written by numerous authors over thousands of years and has been authenicated over and over again.

Second, the bible is the only holy book that places its spiritual leader ( Jesus) in an historical context with real people and real time. We know when he was born, who sentanced him to death, and when he died. The people who wrote about him stated these things very specifically and could easily have been refuted to obscurity. The other stories of ancient Gods, are not so specific, instead, they talk about things that happened in ancient history with no historical context. Also, the Bible is the only holy book that makes specific prophecies that have come true.

Finally, what makes you think God has not made himself known? Do you want him to appear in the sky and annouce to each person he is there? If so, where would faith come in? In truth, God has presented himself everywhere. He is the intelligent designer in creation, he is the divine author behind the Bible, He is the real man Jesus who came to earth, he is the one who spoke through prophets and whose prophecies came true.

I know this is only a start to our conversation. But I want to aske you a question. Do you expect to prove the basis of faith through science based upon our limited abilites to understand the world around us? For example, do you dismiss that Jesus could have risen from the dead because we cannot explain that scientifically?

54

Bible Fake: Jesus Stills the Storm

by JosephAlward in

i've argued before in this forum that mark wanted to have jesus seem to be the messiah whose existence he believed--or pretended to believe--was prophesied, foreshadowed, or prefigured, by persons and events found in scripture, so he scoured the writings of the prophets for these stories, and adapted them to fit jesus.

i believe the striking parallels below show almost conclusively that mark's story about jesus stilling the storm was adapted from jonah, and is fictional.. in jonah, a violent storm threatens a ship on which jonah sleeps, so mark made a violent storm threaten a ship on which jesus sleeps.

in jonah, the apprehensive sailors waken jonah and question his cavalier attitude toward the danger, so mark made his boat's captain apprehensive also, and had him, too, waken jesus and question him about his seeming lack of concern.

RWC

1. Acts 13:26- Brothers,, children of Abraham and you God fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. When they carried out all that was written about him they took him down from the tree and laid him in the tomb. But God raised him from the dead and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem.

2. Acts 17:2- As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue and on three Sabbath days he resoned with them from the Scriptures, explainng that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Christ. (If he was reasoning from the Scriptures he must have been telling them how Jesus fulfilled the messanic prophecies which would have included the vergin births among other things)

3. Acts 15:2 - He stayed alon time with the disciples.

4. Acts 19:13 - Paul said John's baptism was a baptism of repentence. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is Jesus.

5. 1 Corinthians 17-26 - Thelord's supper and what Jesus did and said that night.

6. Philippians 2:6-11 Humility of Christ, dying on the cross

7. Galatians 1:18- After three years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquanited with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.

All of the letters from Paul are directed to specific churches for specific purposes. They were not sent for all mankind at the time they were sent. He was telling them what they needed to hear for the prpose of the letters. He told them about the most important event in human history : the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

The letters also say that he told these shurches alot orally, that was not written down. You are making the assumption that because not all of the events of Jesus' live are descibed in detail by Paul that he did not know about them and then the leap that if he did not know about them they must not have happened. These are two assumptions that are unwarranted and unsupported.

How can Paul have preached that Jesus was the Messiah to the Jews from Scripture without preaching how his life fullfilled the scriptures?

Joseph, I notice that you fail to answer any of teh questions I give you and instead move on to your next question. Look through the past posts and see all of the questions that you have failed to answer. I will be happy to keep answering your questions, but I think in order to keep this going you should answer some of mine.