https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oli0DTmPmGU
*Title changed to appease Mung 😉
I’ve not had any refutation / substantive critique from Christians and Sophisticated Theists(c) so I’ll put this here. Are they using ancient words wrong? Is the birth of Jesus story figurative? Does it matter to Christianity if it is not actually true? (I suspect its nearly as important as the resurrection)
You buy that mental contortion? I’ve a bridge to sell you. Use your head, man.
Richardthughes, I watched the video, more than once. I applied myself to your seven points of alleged contradiction. Neither the video nor your seven points stood up under scrutiny.
Either the accounts of Matthew and Luke contradict each other on these seven points or they do not. I say they do not. Further, I say your youtube video neither claims nor establishes that the accounts of Matthew and Luke contradict each other on these seven points.
What say you?
Is that supposed to prove something? I give you actual data and you give me “the opinions of recent biographers”? really?
What new evidence do these recent biographers give?
peace
I know. I was going to say that myself but deleted the comment, lol.
This:
“yes, thank you Mung. I’ve changed the title and credited you. Now the small issues of:
It creates events that never happened. It gets timelines wrong. It proffers logistical nonsense. It fulfills non-existent prophecises.”
I would expect the a record of that order given by a king to be memorialized by one of his biographers / historians. They could mention meeting the wise men whilst they were at it.
Yes, and the contrary explanation would be?
Matthew, a first century Jew was unaware that the prophets did not mention Nazareth and none of his original audience caught the mistake?
Do you actually buy that?
really?
peace
it is fiction or partial truth.
What was the status of peer review at the time? Editing got a bit better hundreds of years later: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Christian_biblical_canon
Do you actually think Herod would want these events to be published widely?
I can see it now
“The king hereby proclaims that he is afraid of an infant” because some odd travelers from the east came looking for him and therefore will kill some of the offspring of his loyal subjects”
Surely you see why the decree would be kept on the down low if possible.
And since we are only talking about 20 infants keeping it on the down low would be easy, A couple of thugs could pull that off in a weekend
peace
History does a very good job of capturing clandestine acts, especially after the fact. He and is rule would have been very well scrutinized. Also a military force going through a village of 1000 people looking for infants is no small matter and something that would have been remembered.
http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/philo.html
“Yet Philo says not a word about Jesus, Christianity nor any of the events described in the New Testament. In all this work, Philo makes not a single reference to his alleged contemporary “Jesus Christ”, the godman who supposedly was perambulating up and down the Levant, exorcising demons, raising the dead and causing earthquake and darkness at his death.
With Philo’s close connection to the house of Herod, one might reasonably expect that the miraculous escape from a royal prison of a gang of apostles (Acts 5.18,40), or the second, angel-assisted, flight of Peter, even though chained between soldiers and guarded by four squads of troops (Acts 12.2,7) might have occasioned the odd footnote. But not a murmur. Nothing of Agrippa “vexing certain of the church” or killing “James brother of John” with the sword (Acts 12.1,2).”
I did not realize we were dealing with another Jesus myther.
You do realize that no serious scholars take your little conspiracy theory seriously don’t you?
peace
Sorry chief. Conspiracy theorists are the ones who proffer things without evidential support and against common sense. In this case, you: He was real and all these things happened that were literally miraculous but no-one ever recorded them because… chemtrails?
A few months ago I would not have counted myself as a myther, but after watching the case for the historical Jesus presented on these threads, I doubt if anything in the gospels is reliable history. I haven’t seen any serious questions addressed.
The most serious of which is the similarity of the Jesus story to dozens of other religious stories.
From the OP:
Please update the OP to point out how this is no longer the case. Perhaps a mention of how easily the original alleged contradictions were dispensed with. You can say you did it to appease Mung. Do it for me, please. Appease.
🙂
You might want to wait for keiths to weigh in though. He seems pretty certain the video contains damning evidence of contradictions between Matthew and Luke.
p.s. What was the original title? Something about Biblical Contradictions?
That’s for readers to decide, Mung. It appears the text is still gets timelines wrong, proffers logistical nonsense and fulfills non-existent prophecises.
Mung is on the case.
Yes, the word “problems” replaced “contradictions”, a poor choice on my part.
When does he start? Why are so many biblical stories cribbed from other stories?
Please direct me to the OP that someone here at TSZ started on “The Historical Jesus.” Start one yourself if you like.
What I see is people who deny that Jesus ever existed, and me and fifth (and others) shrugging them off as not to be taken seriously.
If you somehow manage to confuse this rejection of “Jesus denialism” with “the case for the historical Jesus” it only calls into question your objectivity.
Let’s see what the logic looks like:
Jesus denialism is not being taken seriously here at TSZ.
Therefore, there is no case for the historical Jesus presented on these threads.
Therefore, I doubt if anything in the gospels is reliable history.
I honestly struggle with the claim that atheists have reason on their side and religious believers do not. Perhaps that’s the real myth here.
I’m not a mythicist. But I agree that the gospels are not reliable history. They are story telling. What’s unclear is the extent to which there is a basis for the stories.
I have no idea whether there was someone called Jesus. I have read and listened to the arguments for the historical veracity of the gospels, and they are pathetic. You really need something better on which to hang the fate of the universe.
At the very least, something not plagiarized.
From the OP:
Well now you have. Every one of the six alleged contradictions were addressed. Every one. Not one was skipped.
The conclusions are as follows:
1.) There is no case where Matthew contradicts Luke or Luke contradicts Matthew for any of these six alleged contradictions. The alleged contradictions are imaginary.
2.) The provided video fails to assert that the accounts of Matthew and Luke are contradictory for any of these six alleged contradictions.
3.) The provided video fails to provide any evidence to substantiate the claim that the accounts of Matthew and Luke are contradictory for any of these six alleged contradictions. [Hardly a surprise, given the previous conclusion.]
So let’s not pretend that anything relating to the original OP and the original six alleged contradictions is in doubt or has not been addressed.
Strawman.
The historicity of Jesus is a continuum from “a man” to “Son of God who did all those things”. The accounts in the bible aren’t very good and external corroboration (of events that are indeed miraculous) is non existent.
Then we have the fact the memorialization of the bible happened many many years after the purported events. Do tales ever become more fantastic in the retelling in oral tradition? The simple question is why is there no external corroboration (and in fact text is at odds with known events) and what should a reasonable bar for acceptance or non acceptance to be?
But I’m intrigued what you think the historical case for Jesus (outside of the bible) is.
Mung,
I’ve already said contradictory was a poor choice of words. Other arguments have been offered, which you’re welcome to adress if you like, again (specifically):
“It creates events that never happened. It gets timelines wrong. It proffers logistical nonsense. It fulfills non-existent prophecises.”
Yes, a poor choice to replace contradictions with problems. 🙂
Believe it or not I kept track of the alleged “problems” declared in the video as well.
0:29 The problem is …
1:21 The problem is …
9:15 The problem here …
9:45 The problem is …
Do you have some others to add?
Again:
“It creates events that never happened. It gets timelines wrong. It proffers logistical nonsense. It fulfills non-existent prophecises.”
these are from the video.
I’ve debunked the video. Or, more accurately, I’ve debunked the OP and it’s alleged reliance on the video. So now we are clearly into “moving the goalposts” territory.
1.) It creates events that never happened.
2.) It gets timelines wrong.
3.) It proffers logistical nonsense.
4.) It fulfills non-existent prophecises.
These claims are too vague. But that’s not all. A litany of complaints is not an argument. As I pointed out in a previous post, there is only one single argument given in the entire video.
The claim that the accounts of Matthew and Luke were contradictory in six specific cases was testable. The claim that the accounts of Matthew and Luke were contradictory in those six specific cases was found to be without merit.
Please proffer an argument or direct me to a specific time in the video where an argument is provided. [The video offers up only one argument. I think I mentioned that.]
Please update the OP to reflect that the goalposts have moved. You know, to appease Mung.
Ah yes. The argument from silence. Always reliable.
The Levant:
Well there you have it. Jesus should have met Philo and Philo should have met Jesus. After all, they both traveled the same areas. Philo never mentioned Jesus, therefore, Jesus did not exist. QED.
[ETA; Jesus never mentioned Philo. Therefore Philo never existed.]
Mung,
No. You’ve conflated the post and the comments.
Now, moving on to:
(all from the video) examples world be
1 & 2 There was no census. There was no Killing of infants. “Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city.” No.
3.You think everyone in the Roman empire would go back to their home city? Madness. The romans were actually very good at taxing and kept good records.
4. Matthew 2:22-23 “But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Then after being warned by God in a dream, he left for the regions of Galilee, and came and lived in a city called Nazareth. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets: “He shall be called a Nazarene.”
Mung,
Even more surprising in that no record of Philo’s miracles witnessed by thousands went unrecorded. Philo did at least write his own words, rather than have a divinely inspired recollection decades later..
Problem 1.
Why is this a problem?
“Problems? What problems?” Mung says, covering his ears and squeezing his eyes shut.
Mung,
You and fifth believe that the Bible is the word of God.
Do you think God got confused over when Herod the Great died, when the census took place, and why Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem?
Sensible people look at the Bible and see that it’s obviously not the infallible word of God.
You and fifth have swallowed the Kool-Aid.
Two can play the conspiracy game.
How do you know Philo wrote his own words? What is the oldest manuscript we have of his supposed writings? Do we have any independent evidence of his existence at all? If Philo had actually existed Paul would surely have mentioned him
His history obviously conflicts with other writings from the time period so it must be incorrect. right?
Just show me the evidence.
peace
Again – that miraculous things happened and weren’t recorded – the conspiracy is yours.
We have over half a million words:
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/philo.html
Some of which are about his personal life, such as his voyage to rome. He breaks no laws of physics nor does anything miraculous, so it is less likely he would be remembered by others and also it is far easier to take his claims as true. His writings corroborate know events from other historical sources.
1) Jesus broke no laws of physics. He might have violated your understanding of those laws but the problem is in your understanding not in the laws themselves.
2) So this is really all about your problems with the miraculous.
I maintain that says more about your own materialistic bias than the reliability of certain historical accounts.
peace
1) You can’t get much more personal that a going away dinner with friends
2) Ever hear about Jesus journey to Jerusalem?
Your understanding of what it means to be a law of physics is defective.
Physical laws are codified and formalized predictions based on observed regularities. Many of the doings attributed to Jesus are outside the norm of observed regularities. If they weren’t, they would never have been called miracles.
It is, of course, possible, that the doings of Jesus were in fact no more remarkable than the doings of faith healers and stage magicians, and surviving accounts exaggerate.
fifthmonarchyman,
Fifth, the problem is not “my problem” but what the bar should be for claims:
Example:
1) There’s milk in the fridge
2) There’s a unicorn in the fridge
Given that we can’t look in the fridge, do we take the two claims equally or is the standard for belief contingent?
Plato is similarly “remembered by others” but I have no problem with him because I’ve seen nothing outside of the human experience that is fantastic and the accounts are not at odds with recorded history and common sense.
Back to specifics – did Casear order an empire wide census where you had to return to your place of birth?
All from the bible, all written decades later, by others.
I agree,
The problem is your frame of reference.
For instance an apple floating in the air would seem to be a violation of the laws of physics but if you are on the space shuttle not so much.
The incarnation was a singularly significant event, your experience at the local walmart is not an appropriate analog
peace
fifthmonarchyman,
Sophisticated Theology!(c)
Its at odds with collective human experience, and unsopported in any other source.
Here’s a exercise for you and Mung. You wont do it, because deep down you don’t want to consider the ramifications:
create a table of Jesus’ miracles:
http://www.jesus.org/life-of-jesus/miracles/what-miracles-did-jesus-perform.html
Estimate how many people would have seen them and given how amazing they were (by miracle) the odds of one of those memorializing it. Think about how such an amazing story might spread and be memorialised by a third party.
When you’ve done that we can look at the odds of no account of any of them existing, outside of the bible.
How do you know that the supposed writings of Philo were not written decades later by Jewish opponents of the Christian message? Perhaps they destroyed the real writings that went into detail of Philo’s association with Jesus and his conversion to Christianity.
Just show me the evidence that this did not happen
See, two can play the conspiracy theory game
peace
you need to understand the words you use:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(civil)
Pointing out there is no corroboration outside of the bible, is a brute fact, that you avoid or want to create a false equivalency.
also:
I don’t think so, and the text does not say so either. All that the text says is that Augustus wanted everyone counted.
Do you think Augustus was not interested in how many subjects he had?
peace
Luke 2:1
“1Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. 2This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.…”
http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/census.htm
” There is no record of Caesar Augustus’ decree that “all the world should be enrolled” (Lk. 2:1). The Romans kept extremely detailed records of such events. Not only is Luke’s census not in these records, it goes against all that we know of Roman economic history. Roman documents show that taxation was done by the various governors at the provincial level. As we shall see later, the property tax was collected on site by travelling assessors, thus making unnecessary Joseph’s journey away from what little property he must have owned”
They had a good, working, census system that kept good records. Unlike the Luke account.
Straw Man.
I don’t believe that God dictated the contents of what was to be written down to a human who then wrote down the words. That’s not what believing that the bible is ‘the word of God” means.
I doubt fifth accepts your childish version of “the word of God” either.
Paul’s letters were written by Paul, or perhaps by someone to whom he dictated what to write. You’re anthropomorphizing God as author.
Do try to do better keiths. You know, what with you atheists being all so reasonable and such, unlike us religious types.
By the way, for the record, I’m also opposed to Bibliolatry. I don’t worship the bible. Jesus Christ is the Word.
Mung doesn’t worship the bible.. He worships the jesus Christ.. which he access through the bible.
And he has sophisticated theology, unlike your simple version KeithS, where you take the words at face value, like many other believers.
Don’t worry about the nonsense bits.
Paul’s letters were written by Paul. Or by his friend. Or someone else.