Posts by Leolaia

28

C t Russell and jellyfish case

by Jaime l de Aragon in

c t russell and jellyfish case.

then he said, "i am like a jellyfish.

i float around here and there.

Leolaia

He wasn't. A 25-year-old woman is not a child. The testimony does suggest he was a sexual harrasser.

199

I Want Proof Jesus Even Existed

by Farkel in

don't bother me with the josephus addendum.

i've already seen that debunked.. i am quite aware of the fact that the only evidence of jesus comes from his own followers who didn't even bother to write down his life for decades after jesus "died.

" don't know about you, but if i saw all that shit, i would have gone home and written three books about it that same day!.

Leolaia

You have not actually given an opinion why its wrong.

I did give an opinion....Robert Price's opinion. I did that because it's late and I'm about to go to bed, and I don't want to make the effort of putting things into my own words. Maybe tomorrow. At any rate, Price sums up much of my impression of Atwill's thesis.

How do you explain the coincidences ?

I don't know, most I've seen are not impressive and need no explaining, which is part of why I said I think the thesis is a streeetch. Price discusses a few of them. If your bar for considering something a parallel is that low, you will find LOTS of parallels quite easily. It's similar to how conspiracy theories are formed out of anomalies and coincidences, which means they are lacking in internal consistency and thus fail to adequately explain the preponderance of the evidence because they were designed to explain the coincidences and oddities. Sometimes a coincidence means something, sometimes it doesn't; it's a coincidence. It's how the evidence fits together into a comprehensive picture that allows one to judge whether the anomaly means anything. For example, if you've read Fomenko, you'd know that he considers the entirety of ancient history to be a medieval hoax. He finds LOTS of fascinating, compelling coincidences between unrelated histories, which led him to consider them to be duplications and fabrications. Atwill's thesis kind of reminds me of Fomenko in a way. But Fomenko is wrong. His amazing discoveries of parallels don't mean anything. We know this because they are invalidated by the preponderance of evidence, real physical evidence like radiocarbon dating, that proves you can't compress world history the way he does. There is no internal consistency if you truly take all the evidence into account. Anyway, I'm about to fall asleep, I'll try to pick this up tomorrow....

70

Please Help! Wife want PROOF of Watchtower Deception

by Indian Larry in

please post any examples of clear cut watchtower deception.

my wife does not believe that the watchtower would purposely decieve her.

i need clearcut examples of deception of by the wtbts.

Leolaia

Good points, Nathan Natas.

I wish I could remember that thread. It was a beauty and should have gone into the "Best of". Anyway, your job right now is to find what would pique further interest and keep the mind open. Patience is important, as she needs to move at her own pace. You can't rush a plant by overwatering, that would just kill it. But find something that is simple and speaks for itself, needs minimal exposition, which suits her interests and which raises questions she's never pondered before. I don't know what that could be....I hope you find a lot of potential examples and then carefully select the right one. Be choosy.

199

I Want Proof Jesus Even Existed

by Farkel in

don't bother me with the josephus addendum.

i've already seen that debunked.. i am quite aware of the fact that the only evidence of jesus comes from his own followers who didn't even bother to write down his life for decades after jesus "died.

" don't know about you, but if i saw all that shit, i would have gone home and written three books about it that same day!.

Leolaia

Yes, I read through his book quite a few years ago, and it was awful. IMO. Not as bad though as Tony Bushby's books since Bushby is a flatout liar whereas Atwill is honest with his sources but just constructs an utterly preposterous thesis that ignores the vast scope of scholarship on early Judaism and early Christianity's place within it.

It's been a while since I've looked at it, but Robert Price's review (Price, as you know, is a scholar who is thoroughly skeptical of the historicity of Jesus) sums up a lot of my thoughts I had on it:

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.com/rev_atwill.htm

And Rome wasn't the be-all-end-all of early Christianity. I know the Western Church sees it that way but that is an extremely myopic view of the diverse scope of the movement.

199

I Want Proof Jesus Even Existed

by Farkel in

don't bother me with the josephus addendum.

i've already seen that debunked.. i am quite aware of the fact that the only evidence of jesus comes from his own followers who didn't even bother to write down his life for decades after jesus "died.

" don't know about you, but if i saw all that shit, i would have gone home and written three books about it that same day!.

Leolaia

A reeaaal stretch.

70

Please Help! Wife want PROOF of Watchtower Deception

by Indian Larry in

please post any examples of clear cut watchtower deception.

my wife does not believe that the watchtower would purposely decieve her.

i need clearcut examples of deception of by the wtbts.

Leolaia

I think the best thing is to find just one single really undeniable example that speaks for itself with minimal analysis or reflection....something that's clear on its face. That would also depend on her interests and what might appeal to her as a convincing example. It may not be something dealing with doctrine per se, as opposed to policy and its effects in people's lives. The Candace Conti case being a good example of this.

Be sure not to deluge her with a ton of examples, that could make one's mind close up. Just one really good example, just to get her mind open enough to want more.

There was an AWESOME thread about this a few years ago. Anyone remember this? It was about how to best talk to your loved one and open their mind without overwhelming them.

70

Please Help! Wife want PROOF of Watchtower Deception

by Indian Larry in

please post any examples of clear cut watchtower deception.

my wife does not believe that the watchtower would purposely decieve her.

i need clearcut examples of deception of by the wtbts.

Leolaia

That can be a tall order if she is indoctrinated. When I was in, and I got an anti-JW booklet, it was well-researched and supported, but it was ridiculous to me and I laughed it off. The examples even if they are good ones might just be ignored or rationalized. What really convinced me of dishonesty is when I saw it firsthand myself and I took notice. I think that is happening right now to some extent with people being confused and bothered by the changes in the generation doctrine.

31

Stevie Nicks thread

by littlerockguy in

i have always been been a huge stevie nicks fan even when i was a kid when she came out with rhiannon.

i dont go to many concerts but if there is a way to see her when she tours next year i will be in the audience!

it's hard for me to pick a favorite song by her but if i had to choose it would be storms.

Leolaia

OMG I get extremely emotional thinking back to "Rhiannon". It is associated with some pretty heady childhood memories, and listening to it is like stepping into the tardis and winding up in 1976. It's because of that I don't listen to it very often because I don't want to lessen the impact.

I feel that way about "Gypsy" too. God, I feel that way about most of Fleetwood Mac's late 70s early 80s songs I heard all the time. I remember in the car with my mom in 1978 driving back home after the Sunday meeting and "Don't Stop" was on the radio and it was a warm, sunny day and we were singing along together....moments like that can't be forgotten....

12

Powerful questions to DEBUNK the Jonah and the big fish story

by Black Man in

just wanting to link logical, common sense questions that dismantle the jonah/big fish story..

Leolaia

Just read my post about it:

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/169191/1/Jonahs-under-water-stomach-vacation-a-biblical-fact#3133211

The Jonah story is a satire, and a rather good one.

To the fundamentalists: Why can't there be fiction in the Bible? That is essentially what narrative parables are. Think of the book of Jonah as an extended parable. It's a satirical story that engages in social critique.

199

I Want Proof Jesus Even Existed

by Farkel in

don't bother me with the josephus addendum.

i've already seen that debunked.. i am quite aware of the fact that the only evidence of jesus comes from his own followers who didn't even bother to write down his life for decades after jesus "died.

" don't know about you, but if i saw all that shit, i would have gone home and written three books about it that same day!.

Leolaia

There is no proof. I do think the balance of the evidence favors the standard model of Jesus' historicity, at least on the broad outlines, than otherwise, although it isn't something to be dogmatic about (there is much room for doubt). It is rather akin in my mind to the question of the existence of the Teacher of Righteousness, the founder of the Qumran sect of the Essenes. There probably was a founder for this well-defined religious group (remarked even by Pliny as residing by the Dead Sea), and the Dead Sea Scrolls indicate both the time when he was active (the 150s BC IIRC) and his teachings. But such a figure is not mentioned in any contemporary sources unlike he is identified with any of a number of other figures in the Hasmonean period. Still most Qumranic scholars accept that such that person probably existed.

I am inclined to think that the Christian movement had its start within the popular movement of John the Baptist (to whom Josephus refers); the book of Acts at least shows that many in the early Jerusalem church (helmed by James the Just) had been members of that movement. (John the Baptist, in turn, can be situated quite well within popular Essenism) John was then executed by Herod Antipas and his movement did not come to a sudden stop but seems to have been absorbed within the later Christian movement. It makes good historical sense to think that after John died, someone else stepped into his shoes, took the movement in a new direction by claiming to be a messiah (and Josephus shows that messianic pretenders were quite common in the period), and then was executed by the local Roman government for sedition (again not unusual). Jesus did not need to develop his own movement from scratch but simply drew on an already-existing one, and since John was popularly believed to be Elijah, there was already a biblical model for a successor (with Jesus as an Elisha figure.....hence the miracle stories in the gospels which largely seem to draw on OT stories about Elisha). Then after Jesus' death the movement continued under the leadership of James and the apostles John and Peter (the pillars mentioned by Paul), which sought to work out the meaning and implications (both eschatological and soteriological) of Jesus' death, shifting the focus from halakhic matters of how to achieve true righteousness (the primary concern for John the Baptist, the Jesus of the synoptic gospels, and to a great extent what we know about James) to what Jesus achieved as messiah through his death and resurrection (which is what became the primary concern for Paul). And then Paul transformed the movement further, spreading his own form of this religious tradition into the West to a largely non-Jewish population, where it drifted further from its Palestinian Jewish roots (with much friction resulting between Pauline Christianity and more traditional Torah-observant Christians). Paul was quite clear that he was somewhat of a Johnny-come-lately and that there was already in existence a Jesus movement before him.

So my view of things comes more from the perspective of accounting for the social history of religious movements, which leave a larger historical footprint than any single individual. I think the question posed by the mythicists is whether it is necessary to posit Jesus' existence in order to explain the origin and spread of Christianity. There is no denying the mythical dimension of much of what early Christians believed about Jesus, such as what we find in Paul and in proto-gnosticism, and there is no doubt that the gospel writers invented a lot of the narrative by drawing creatively on OT material. But I do not think it was necessarily "turtles all the way down" because real people did claim to be messiahs (such as Simon bar Kochba) and it was the office of the messiah that drew on a host of mythical traditions about messianic identity and function. One can readily recognize how the ideas surrounding Jesus Christ in the NT incorporates many layers of messianic tropes already present in pre-Christian messianic Judaism. For example, Jesus as the eschatological heavenly "Son of Man" directly borrows the Enochic conception of the "Son of Man" and heavenly Wisdom found in the Essene Book of Parables from the early first century AD. Qumran messianic texts have expectations about various future end-times priestly and royal figures (CD, 4Q246, 4Q252, 4Q521, 4Q534, 4Q540-541, 11QMelch) which have strong parallels to ideas found in the NT regarding Jesus. These and many other notions drawn from the OT (such as the messiah as the Suffering Servant figure from Deutero-Isaiah, as a Moses figure, etc.) were applied to Jesus by those who believed that he was the messiah. But what is striking is that in all pre-Christian eschatological texts about the messiah, the messiah is an imagined future deliverer, whereas the earliest Christian texts look upon Jesus as a messiah whose activity lay in the past (and who continues to be active in the present). The only Jewish parallel that readily comes to mind is John the Baptist, who occupied the role of Elijah redivivus. There was an established mythic eschatological expectation that Elijah, a heavenly figure, would return at the end of days, and those expectations looked towards the future. The followers of John the Baptist however drew on Elijah mythology as pertaining to the past: "Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished" (Matthew 17:12, Mark 9:13; cf. Luke 9:8, "others said Elijah had appeared" regarding Jesus' succession to John the Baptist). This seems to be quite parallel to what happened with Jesus. It wasn't simply a matter of Jews hoping for the return of Elijah inventing the character of John the Baptist as a mythic Elijah figure to fulfill those expectations; John was a historical person who led a popular Jewish movement critical of the Herodian administration, as Josephus makes clear, but the religious movement came to identify him as Elijah whose return at the end times had been prophesied. In the case of Simon bar Kochba, a clearly historical figure, we can see a similar pattern. He was identified with the "star", a heavenly symbol, from the Balaam oracles in Numbers. The description that Jerome gives of him smoking lighted blades of straw while he talked suggests that Simon tried to identify himself with the messianic "Man From the Sea" figure from 4 Ezra who spoke with a fire in his mouth and sent forth "from his lips a fiery breath" (13:10-11). So too it is conceivable that another messianic claimant, Jesus, could come to be viewed as identified with the Enochic Son of Man, as heavenly Wisdom, as the Logos, as the branch of David, as Melchizedek, as the morning star, as the Moses-like Taheb, etc. Christians seemed to apply every single messianic motif in existence to their messiah. So I do not find that all this mythologizing and theologizing necessarily indicates that Jesus originated as a purely mythological character, and there are indications that a non-mythological human being lies under the surface. Paul loves to talk about Christ in abstract, cosmic terms when he is theologizing about the religious significance and meaning of Jesus, but when he writes more plainly about his history in the Christian movement in his apologia in Galatians, Jesus appears more down-to-earth as the brother of the leader of the Jerusalem church, James (1:19; cf. 1 Corinthians 9:5), and even when he was theologizing he still clearly conceived of Jesus as a Jew who was "born under the Law" (Galatians 4:4) and "descended from David under the flesh" (Romans 1:3-4), and who was killed just as the prophets of old were killed (1 Thessalonians 2:14-16). This does not prove that Jesus was a historical figure; the evidence overall is much, much too slight to serve as proof of anything solid, but it does show that Paul did think of Jesus as a flesh-and-blood person and thus it is incorrect to characterize Paul as conceptualizing Jesus purely as a timeless heavenly figure. I think what can be glimpsed in Paul is the process of mythologizing a messianic claimant as all the things a proper messiah should be; Jesus was to him at the same time the person who was born under the Law and who died and was buried, as well as the heavenly Son of God who pre-existed his earthly life and who rules over all creation by his Father's side. It was the belief in Jesus' resurrection (revealed to Paul, Peter, and others through vision) that allowed Paul and other early Christians to connect the messanic claimant Jesus with the imagined spiritual being in heaven who embodies everything that Second-Temple Judaism expected the heavenly Son of Man/Logos/Wisdom to be.

Anyway, that's just my own hypothesis and opinion....I am pretty agnostic about the matter and whenever I write about the origins of Christianity I always try to focus it more on the community (for which there is a lot more evidence) than an individual, Jesus, who is buried under such a heavy weight of interpretative traditions that I never felt certain that there was someone there underneath it all. Many scholars have sought to reconstruct the "historical Jesus" and their efforts show just how arbitrary and subjective such an enterprise is. But I think there is a good case to be made that there was a historical figure at the font of the Christian movement (just as the Teacher of Righteouness was the founder of the Qumran sect, just as Simon the Galilean was the founder of the Zealot movement, just as Muhammad was the founder of Islam, just as Martin Luther was the founder of the Protestant movement, just as Joseph Smith was the founder of the Mormon movement, etc.), and if religious tradition unanimously names that figure as Jesus, I think it is more likely to surmise that there was a messianic claimant bearing that name who was later mythologized (which is a common pattern in religious movements) than a purely mythological figure who was historicized. But I do not consider this a matter that could be definitively proven, and like many other aspects of history, it is something that can be debated and doubted. The proof just isn't there....at least not with the evidence we currently have.