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Post by LunarOrbit on Sept 3, 2007 18:13:09 GMT -4
Like during Sunday school, I must've fallen asleep. I'll take a look.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 3, 2007 18:26:27 GMT -4
I believe Jesus existed, but I believe he was just an ordinary man who was embellished greatly in the bible. Sorry you have no critical thinking skill LO. I think it's unlikely, the evidence is pretty much the same as Cameron's tomb, a bunch of names bundled together. I suspect that if the family has a tomb, it is in Nazerath, not Jerusalem. Joseph seems to have died before Jesus' ministry because while Mary and his brothers get a lot of mention, Joseph is never mentioned passed Jesus' first trip to Jeresalem at 10. It also points out that the family didn't have a tomb in Jerusalem, which is why he was placed in a borrowed tomb. Likewise others of the family were said to have been buried elsewhere, for instance this passage from Hegesippus about James' death (and another passage relating to Jesus.) They came, therefore, in a body to James, and said: "We entreat thee, restrain the people: for they are gone astray in their opinions about Jesus, as if he were the Christ. We entreat thee to persuade all who have come hither for the day of the passover, concerning Jesus. For we all listen to thy persuasion; since we, as well as all the people, bear thee testimony that thou art just, and showest partiality to none. Do thou, therefore, persuade the people not to entertain erroneous opinions concerning Jesus: for all the people, and we also, listen to thy persuasion. Take thy stand, then, upon the summit of the temple, that from that elevated spot thou mayest be clearly seen, and thy words may be plainly audible to all the people. For, in order to attend the passover, all the tribes have congregated hither, and some of the Gentiles also.
To the scribes' and Pharisees' dismay, James boldly testified that Christ "Himself sitteth in heaven, at the right hand of the Great Power, and shall come on the clouds of heaven." The scribes and pharisees then said to themselves, "We have not done well in procuring this testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, that they may be afraid, and not believe him."and continues in that the scribes and Pharisees “ …threw down the just man… [and] began to stone him: for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned, and kneeled down, and said: "I beseech Thee, Lord God our Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."
And, while they were thus stoning him to death, one of the priests, the sons of Rechab, the son of Rechabim, to whom testimony is borne by Jeremiah the prophet, began to cry aloud, saying: "Cease, what do ye? The just man is praying for us." But one among them, one of the fullers, took the staff with which he was accustomed to wring out the garments he dyed, and hurled it at the head of the just man.
And so he suffered martyrdom; and they buried him on the spot, and the pillar erected to his memory still remains, close by the temple. This man was a true witness to both Jews and Greeks that Jesus is the Christ." Thus one wouldn't expect James' body to be in a tomb with Jesus'. Likewise, Mary was given into John's care, and while I'm reluctant to accept it as true, church tradition says that they moved to Ephesus where both died and were buried. (Well the Catholic Church claims that Mary acsended bodily into heaven after her death, but let's not go there shal l we...) With at least 3 of the major names who should missing, actually being there, in a tomb that likely is in the wrong town, I'd suggest that this was not Jesus' family either, but one that again shared many commion names of the time.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 3, 2007 18:45:07 GMT -4
I think it's unlikely, the evidence is pretty much the same as Cameron's tomb, a bunch of names bundled together. Actually, Phantomwolf, this link LO pointed us to is the same tomb that we were discussing earlier on the other thread ("Cameron's tomb"). There is no real evidence that it has anything to do with the Biblical Jesus other than the similar names. And, as I said before, since Jesus (Yeshua), Joseph, and Mary were all very common names at the time, it's not that unlikely to find them all in a tomb.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 3, 2007 19:12:30 GMT -4
ahhh, okay, it was the 1980 date that obviously threw me off, I thought Cameron's one was a more recent find. Either way it's a load of hockey.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Sept 3, 2007 19:27:13 GMT -4
Just to make it more interesting, it seems that there are actually three copies of the original Hebrew Gospel of Matthew still in existance, the Shem Tov Matthew, the DuTillet Matthew, and the Munster Matthew, although all three are late medieval themselves. However early historians reported that Matthew wrote his gospel in Hebrew and that while this was translated into Greek because people outside of Irsael didn't read Hebrew, some of the Hebrew copies were preserved. It sems that htose we have now are copies of those.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 3, 2007 19:40:27 GMT -4
The fact that the documentary was plugging a tomb that was discovered more than twenty years earlier as if it were recent news is just one more example of the creator's devotion to serious science.
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Post by Ginnie on Sept 3, 2007 20:13:01 GMT -4
I'm wonderin' if the thread should read "Are parts of the Bible evidence of the existence of Jesus". I don't think that anyone would assume that all the NT is true, just like any other book. You can read a biography written today about a person and a lot of it may not be true. e.g. I've read a lot about T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). He too, was an extraordinary man - a hero to some, a traitor to others. He wrote a fabulous account of his experiences in Arabia in WWI called 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom', one of the great works of literature in the English language. Now, while it is a great book, Lawrence was known to 'embellish' his adventures and suspected of making things up at times. He account of his supposed rape by the Turkish governor Hajim Bey at at Deraa in Syria in 1917 is very much disputed. Many historians say it never happened. Hajim Bey did exist, and people who knew him well said that he was not capable of such an act. Also they whole episode does not fit well into Lawrence's accounts in his diaries etc. Now, if Lawrence did embellish events, and sometimes lie about events, does that mean that none of his experiences ever happened? Many people can collaborate most of it. They were there, reports were filed, pictures were taken, Turks and Arabs died and all that. So while 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom' is treated as a historical account of events in WWI, scholars do not believe ever word of it. But for the most part it is a reliable source for what went on in Arabia at the time. I've read a biography of Lawrence written by an Arab. it gives a different picture of the man in all lot of areas. If you read Lowell Thomas' book , 'With Lawrence in Arabia' you get a hero worshipping account of Lawrence - described as 'Prince of Arabia' and all that nonsense.
So basically what my point is: Are parts of the NT reliable enough to be used as evidence of a historical Jesus? Can other parts be embellished without tarnishing the work of all the NT authors? Do we dismiss the whole NT accounts if one part is found to be false?
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Post by wdmundt on Sept 3, 2007 20:47:43 GMT -4
I said the earliest fragment that we have of the NT was a fragment called P52. I asked if you were aware of other fragments of the NT that predated it. I guess, for your sake, I should have said "a fragment of what would later become to be known as the New Testament." But, yeah -- I just said "fragment." Obviously a tremendously ignorant thing for me to have done.
The Bible can't be evidence of it's own authenticity. Just on the face of it, the New Testament can't be taken as fact. Much of it was written at an unknown time and its primary authors are unknown or their identities are in grave doubt. The earliest text we have is in Greek, but it is thought that its subject would have spoken Aramaic. So the earliest versions of the documents are likely already translations. For hundreds of years, the texts were copied and translated and copied and copied and copied again. And then copied some more, often by people who had little idea of what they were copying. Various forces were at work during this time, as different kinds of Christian thought struggled for dominance. Additional texts appeared, embellishing and adding to the story of the original. When (what we call) the New Testament was assembled, much other work was left out. Entire lines of Christian thought were banished. We have good reason to question the analytical skills and motives of those men who assembled the New Testament.
That's what I'm talking about.
edited to remove smart-a** comment to prevent a flame war
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Post by LunarOrbit on Sept 3, 2007 20:53:01 GMT -4
I'm not sure what you meant by that. I'm going to assume because you added a that you didn't mean to be insulting. Since I'm taking the middle of the road by saying that I believe Jesus existed but that he wasn't a God I think I'm being pretty objective. I believe he was an ordinary human who was embellished in the bible... I don't believe he was resurrected before flying off to heaven (that's one of the embellishments), therefore expecting there to be a tomb doesn't seem unreasonable. The fact that the documentary was plugging a tomb that was discovered more than twenty years earlier as if it were recent news is just one more example of the creator's devotion to serious science. Much of the documentary was devoted to explaining that it was discovered in 1980. The website explains that it was discovered in 1980. Anyone who thinks they were trying to hide that fact obviously hasn't seen it. Why has this tomb been ignored for almost 30 years? Why was it left open for children to play in, when it should have been full of archaeologists? Maybe it isn't Jesus' tomb, but it's a mystery to me why so many people dismiss it so easily. The names on the ossuaries may have been common individually, but when grouped together in one tomb they are far less common statistically (ie. the names John, Paul, George, and Richard are very common -- but how many rock bands have members with all of those names?). It ought to at least be enough to justify further study, but instead it has been ignored because people don't want to be accused to contradicting the church. Jesus' body vanished, therefore there can not be an ossuary with his bones in it. And he certainly didn't get married and have a son named Juda... nope, it couldn't possibly have happened that way because then the church would be wrong.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 3, 2007 21:36:20 GMT -4
I'm not sure what you meant by that. I'm going to assume because you added a that you didn't mean to be insulting. I believe he was trying to make a joke that wdmundt would accuse you of lacking critical thinking skills, since you accept a historic Jesus. I'm not saying they were hiding the fact - I'm saying that they were drumming up old news as new news to catch the tale end of the DaVinci Code fad. Perhaps because there really isn't all that much evidence to tie it to the biblical Jesus? The Israeli Department of Antiquities was called in the day after it was discovered, and Archaeologists surveyed it from March 31 to April 11 of 1980. There was a lot of construction going on in Israel at the time, and a lot of tombs being uncovered. The IDA could barely keep up. The tomb was also the subject of a 1996 documentary on the BBC as well, which also suggested that it was Jesus' family tomb (though it did not use DNA). Did you know the first Dead Sea Scrolls found were almost used as firewood, before the bedouin who found them recognized they were religious texts? Well, A) It doesn't match the biblical account (aside from the fact that if Jesus was resurrected and ascended he can't have left remains, if it's Joseph's family tomb it should be in Nazareth or possibly Bethlehem, not Jerusalem), B) They were popular names at the time, so the circumstance of finding several of them together is not really that unlikely (I've seen the odds placed at 1 in 600 - not insurmountable), C) "The DNA evidence" doesn't really tell us anything except that "Jesus" and "Mary" are not siblings. It certainly does not prove they were married, as the documentary declares. It's a great deal of speculation on very little actual evidence. EDIT: And before wdmundt says "Got you! You believe in the Bible, and that's just wild speculation on very little actual evidence!" - the written accounts in the New Testament are much more than just four names.
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Post by gillianren on Sept 3, 2007 21:40:27 GMT -4
Middle-of-the-road, "Jesus existed but He wasn't God" statements aren't controversial, LO, and therefore get thought of as wishy-washy by many on both sides.
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 3, 2007 21:43:23 GMT -4
Middle-of-the-road, "Jesus existed but He wasn't God" statements aren't controversial, LO, and therefore get thought of as wishy-washy by many on both sides. At least it's more reasonable than outright denying his existence.
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Post by wdmundt on Sept 3, 2007 21:44:38 GMT -4
I am so likely to say that. Or not. But what I might ask is this: in dismissing the "Jesus Tomb," what archaeological evidence do you offer against it?
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Jason
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Post by Jason on Sept 3, 2007 21:48:56 GMT -4
There's not a strong enough case that this is Jesus' family tomb to need disproving archaelogical evidence.
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Post by wdmundt on Sept 3, 2007 21:51:26 GMT -4
Is that aimed at me? I have stated here that I don't know if Jesus existed.
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