Fundie or Mainstream Christian

[Serafina]

Sorry for stealing your thunder there.

Eh, i was busy anyway, and i am up way to late again as well.
Besides, you made a valid point and you weren't dogpiling. Plus, i wouldn't have recalled the example with Herod, so you clearly contributed more than i would have.


Anyway, actual content:
roflcopter, you didn't follow up on my challenge. Specifically, i want to see in-context quotes from people with an accredited degree in history or religious studies. Not some "bible scholar" or the like, those titles are essentially meaningless. Find such a quote which basically says "the bible is a literal, reliable historical account". Because that's what i am disputing - that it is neither literal, reliable nor historical (-ly accurate).
Of course, you won't find such a quote, since the claim that the bible is any of those is just outlandish.

[Norade]

Sorry for stealing your thunder there.

Eh, i was busy anyway, and i am up way to late again as well.
Besides, you made a valid point and you weren't dogpiling. Plus, i wouldn't have recalled the example with Herod, so you clearly contributed more than i would have.

I like to browse the Skeptics Annotated Bible for fun so that tends to help. Besides, I'm trying to de-convert a formerly Buhdist now Christian friend so I'm doing my research these days.

[Bakustra]

The argument is over whether the authors intended them as novels, which is what you two are appeared to be arguing, or whether the authors intended the to be biographies. Not whether the miracles actually happened, which is a matter of faith. What is important is whether the authors believed the miracles to be real in this case, and the evidence suggests that they believed the miracles were real (for one thing, the synoptic gospels agree on the miracles and parables very well. For another, some of the Pauline epistles predate the gospels and mention specific miracles as well). That is the critical distinction between novel and biography.

But biography at the time did not mean literal accordance with fact: just as an example, it's likely a poor translation into Greek produced the virgin birth of Jesus. Herod killing the children is a) not in Mark, and b) most likely a callback to the story of Passover, as can be seen with Joseph fleeing to Egypt, when there were other territories close to Galilee in the Roman Empire that Joseph could have departed for and escape the wrath of Herod. So too with the story of Bethlehem and the manger, etcetera. The educated Jewish audience would have understood the allusions and know that these were not literal accounts of Jesus, per se, but rather affirmations that Jesus was the Christ. But they would not have condemned them immediately as false, because they would have understood why this was done (but many rabbis would have argued against it).

It's the same, essentially, as Alexander the Great being declared the son of Amon-Ra. Nobody in Egypt believed that his mother had been physically impregnated by Amon-Ra, but rather understood it in a less literal sense. But people still believed him to be the son of Ra.

[roflcopter]

You did not actually quote anything from the book and thus it is a simple appeal to authority. If you were to take a quote, and properly source it then it would actually mean something.

Please. Tell me, on your (flawed) definition of appeal to authority, what difference would it make if I had the quote? You could still say that I'm "appealing to authority" because I don't actually possess the book itself.

The quote has been properly sourced. You're being willfully obtuse here.

Also most scholars don't take the bible as a very good source for anything as it's so poor in its accuracy that you always need other sources to confirm that the bible is even playing the same game let alone in the same ballpark as reality.

Wrong. Scholars use the Bible for historical data all the time.

Anyway, actual content:
roflcopter, you didn't follow up on my challenge. Specifically, i want to see in-context quotes from people with an accredited degree in history or religious studies. Not some "bible scholar" or the like, those titles are essentially meaningless. Find such a quote which basically says "the bible is a literal, reliable historical account". Because that's what i am disputing - that it is neither literal, reliable nor historical (-ly accurate).

You've already admitted that at least portions of the Gospels are meant to be literal (thus conceding your original point, so I don't know why I am bothering to keep responding to you anymore) - so what, precisely, am I supposed to do here? To show you scholars think the miracle parts are literal?

I don't need to because:

1) I never claimed they were
2) Whether or not a scholar will take them literally is more a matter of their philosophical presuppositions than the reliability of a historical account

[Bakustra]

To be completely fair, it is considered poor support if you can't provide quotes from the source directly, but there shouldn't be a shortage of such things anyways, and the point holds.

[Norade]

The argument is over whether the authors intended them as novels, which is what you two are appeared to be arguing, or whether the authors intended the to be biographies. Not whether the miracles actually happened, which is a matter of faith. What is important is whether the authors believed the miracles to be real in this case, and the evidence suggests that they believed the miracles were real (for one thing, the synoptic gospels agree on the miracles and parables very well. For another, some of the Pauline epistles predate the gospels and mention specific miracles as well). That is the critical distinction between novel and biography.

But biography at the time did not mean literal accordance with fact: just as an example, it's likely a poor translation into Greek produced the virgin birth of Jesus. Herod killing the children is a) not in Mark, and b) most likely a callback to the story of Passover, as can be seen with Joseph fleeing to Egypt, when there were other territories close to Galilee in the Roman Empire that Joseph could have departed for and escape the wrath of Herod. So too with the story of Bethlehem and the manger, etcetera. The educated Jewish audience would have understood the allusions and know that these were not literal accounts of Jesus, per se, but rather affirmations that Jesus was the Christ. But they would not have condemned them immediately as false, because they would have understood why this was done (but many rabbis would have argued against it).

It's the same, essentially, as Alexander the Great being declared the son of Amon-Ra. Nobody in Egypt believed that his mother had been physically impregnated by Amon-Ra, but rather understood it in a less literal sense. But people still believed him to be the son of Ra.

Miracles happening is no point of faith, it's a point of absurdity with nothing supporting that it ever happened. They would have lent a lot more credence to them being real if the books weren't written so far after the death of Jesus. They also would have done well to not pen outright lies and conflicting genealogies.

Indeed, the story of Herod was in Matthew and not Mark, I was only one book off at any rate. Passover and the entire Exodus was also, if not entirely, at least mostly fabricated from fantasy as well and thus not something to draw from for your Messiahs story. As well the New Testament can't even agree if Joseph even took Jesus to Egypt or to Nazareth and thus even the apostles aren't sure if they got it right or not; Matthew says Egypt, Luke says Nazareth. Not to mention that Jesus doesn't actually fulfill many of the prophecies about him no matter how hard his disciples tried to spin the stories. As an example take Matthew 2:23 "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." Jesus is now fulfilling prophecies that never existed or that exists only in books that remain excluded from the bible as we know it.

[Norade]

You did not actually quote anything from the book and thus it is a simple appeal to authority. If you were to take a quote, and properly source it then it would actually mean something.

Please. Tell me, on your (flawed) definition of appeal to authority, what difference would it make if I had the quote? You could still say that I'm "appealing to authority" because I don't actually possess the book itself.

The quote has been properly sourced. You're being willfully obtuse here.

You never quoted from the page in question so how the fuck does simply posting the source and a page help. The onus is on you to give us the entire quote that supports you, not on us to find it. So quit being a fucking weasel and get the damned quote.

Also most scholars don't take the bible as a very good source for anything as it's so poor in its accuracy that you always need other sources to confirm that the bible is even playing the same game let alone in the same ballpark as reality.

Wrong. Scholars use the Bible for historical data all the time.

Only to find names of kings and genealogies, and even those are oft found to be wrong. The bible is so full of myth and bad history that it's hard to use it for anything besides simply confirming a name and is at best a tertiary source for historians.

2) Whether or not a scholar will take them literally is more a matter of their philosophical presuppositions than the reliability of a historical account

How can anybody live there life by a book where half of it is lies and the other half needs to be interpreted to gain any meaning from it?

[Bakustra]

The argument is over whether the authors intended them as novels, which is what you two are appeared to be arguing, or whether the authors intended the to be biographies. Not whether the miracles actually happened, which is a matter of faith. What is important is whether the authors believed the miracles to be real in this case, and the evidence suggests that they believed the miracles were real (for one thing, the synoptic gospels agree on the miracles and parables very well. For another, some of the Pauline epistles predate the gospels and mention specific miracles as well). That is the critical distinction between novel and biography.

But biography at the time did not mean literal accordance with fact: just as an example, it's likely a poor translation into Greek produced the virgin birth of Jesus. Herod killing the children is a) not in Mark, and b) most likely a callback to the story of Passover, as can be seen with Joseph fleeing to Egypt, when there were other territories close to Galilee in the Roman Empire that Joseph could have departed for and escape the wrath of Herod. So too with the story of Bethlehem and the manger, etcetera. The educated Jewish audience would have understood the allusions and know that these were not literal accounts of Jesus, per se, but rather affirmations that Jesus was the Christ. But they would not have condemned them immediately as false, because they would have understood why this was done (but many rabbis would have argued against it).

It's the same, essentially, as Alexander the Great being declared the son of Amon-Ra. Nobody in Egypt believed that his mother had been physically impregnated by Amon-Ra, but rather understood it in a less literal sense. But people still believed him to be the son of Ra.

Miracles happening is no point of faith, it's a point of absurdity with nothing supporting that it ever happened. They would have lent a lot more credence to them being real if the books weren't written so far after the death of Jesus. They also would have done well to not pen outright lies and conflicting genealogies.

Indeed, the story of Herod was in Matthew and not Mark, I was only one book off at any rate. Passover and the entire Exodus was also, if not entirely, at least mostly fabricated from fantasy as well and thus not something to draw from for your Messiahs story. As well the New Testament can't even agree if Joseph even took Jesus to Egypt or to Nazareth and thus even the apostles aren't sure if they got it right or not; Matthew says Egypt, Luke says Nazareth. Not to mention that Jesus doesn't actually fulfill many of the prophecies about him no matter how hard his disciples tried to spin the stories. As an example take Matthew 2:23 "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." Jesus is now fulfilling prophecies that never existed or that exists only in books that remain excluded from the bible as we know it.

I am weary. Weary physically, from the hour, and weary spiritually, from having to babysit a drunken guy for a few hours. So I'll prefix this simply: you're an idiot. So let's begin.

First of all, you appear to be stubbornly refusing to admit that anybody could sincerely have a religious faith that allows miracles. That is to say, you are automatically dismissing because there are supernatural elements when people believed in the material power of gods et al. So even if the miracles never happened in the way described, people still believed that they did. That is why we cannot call it fiction, much like Chariots of the Gods is not fiction either. The writer did not intend to deceive.

Secondly, you completely ignored what I said, since it applies to all your complaints. Matthew focuses on Jesus being the Messiah, the Christ in the prophetic sense, and so Mary is a virgin, since he went by a Greek translation of Isaiah, and Jesus comes to bring not peace but a sword. That also explains the lineage, and the obscure/fabricated prophecies; Matthew sought to make absolutely clear that Jesus was the Messiah. But Luke had a different perspective, and his genealogy is different for that reason: he's not trying to squeeze Jesus into prophecies. Note that this doesn't mean that Matthew was insincere either, since he could well have been so convinced that, like many throughout history, he massaged the facts to fit his beliefs.

Thirdly, you ignore that people believe in Passover, and in the story of Moses. For Belobog's sakes, would you treat the Odyssey in this way? Crying nasally, "A witch turning people into pigs?! Absurd!!" without using it to examine what it tells us about Greek beliefs in the time of Homer?

Fourthly, they wrote after the fact, yes. They didn't have much of a choice, and they were working independently anyways. There is still some debate over whether the writer of Mark was an eyewitness or had access to one while writing, too. They also didn't really care about making it literally true, as I said above. Do I have to make a post with the preceding sentence in maximum font and in all colors of the rainbow before you'll acknowledge it? Do I?

2) Whether or not a scholar will take them literally is more a matter of their philosophical presuppositions than the reliability of a historical account

How can anybody live there life by a book where half of it is lies and the other half needs to be interpreted to gain any meaning from it?

What kind of book or moral principle doesn't have to be interpreted? Are you really this ignorant about literature? I mean, you could live your life according to the Scout's Handbook or something, but even then, you still would have to interpret "A scout is always prepared" at the very least. For any moral principle, you'd have to consider how it applies to you and your situation, aka interpreting it.

[Norade]

The argument is over whether the authors intended them as novels, which is what you two are appeared to be arguing, or whether the authors intended the to be biographies. Not whether the miracles actually happened, which is a matter of faith. What is important is whether the authors believed the miracles to be real in this case, and the evidence suggests that they believed the miracles were real (for one thing, the synoptic gospels agree on the miracles and parables very well. For another, some of the Pauline epistles predate the gospels and mention specific miracles as well). That is the critical distinction between novel and biography.

But biography at the time did not mean literal accordance with fact: just as an example, it's likely a poor translation into Greek produced the virgin birth of Jesus. Herod killing the children is a) not in Mark, and b) most likely a callback to the story of Passover, as can be seen with Joseph fleeing to Egypt, when there were other territories close to Galilee in the Roman Empire that Joseph could have departed for and escape the wrath of Herod. So too with the story of Bethlehem and the manger, etcetera. The educated Jewish audience would have understood the allusions and know that these were not literal accounts of Jesus, per se, but rather affirmations that Jesus was the Christ. But they would not have condemned them immediately as false, because they would have understood why this was done (but many rabbis would have argued against it).

It's the same, essentially, as Alexander the Great being declared the son of Amon-Ra. Nobody in Egypt believed that his mother had been physically impregnated by Amon-Ra, but rather understood it in a less literal sense. But people still believed him to be the son of Ra.

Miracles happening is no point of faith, it's a point of absurdity with nothing supporting that it ever happened. They would have lent a lot more credence to them being real if the books weren't written so far after the death of Jesus. They also would have done well to not pen outright lies and conflicting genealogies.

Indeed, the story of Herod was in Matthew and not Mark, I was only one book off at any rate. Passover and the entire Exodus was also, if not entirely, at least mostly fabricated from fantasy as well and thus not something to draw from for your Messiahs story. As well the New Testament can't even agree if Joseph even took Jesus to Egypt or to Nazareth and thus even the apostles aren't sure if they got it right or not; Matthew says Egypt, Luke says Nazareth. Not to mention that Jesus doesn't actually fulfill many of the prophecies about him no matter how hard his disciples tried to spin the stories. As an example take Matthew 2:23 "And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene." Jesus is now fulfilling prophecies that never existed or that exists only in books that remain excluded from the bible as we know it.

I am weary. Weary physically, from the hour, and weary spiritually, from having to babysit a drunken guy for a few hours. So I'll prefix this simply: you're an idiot. So let's begin.

First of all, you appear to be stubbornly refusing to admit that anybody could sincerely have a religious faith that allows miracles. That is to say, you are automatically dismissing because there are supernatural elements when people believed in the material power of gods et al. So even if the miracles never happened in the way described, people still believed that they did. That is why we cannot call it fiction, much like Chariots of the Gods is not fiction either. The writer did not intend to deceive.

People still believe in this load of horseshit which is why we're even talking about it now. Also, if I were to say that there is a pink elephant in the room right now and I were to honestly believe it it would make me deluded and my story a work of fiction in much the same way the bible is a poorly written work of fiction. Also, much of what is written in the bible was known to be false when it was written so it is fiction, and worse than that fiction pretending to be history.

Secondly, you completely ignored what I said, since it applies to all your complaints. Matthew focuses on Jesus being the Messiah, the Christ in the prophetic sense, and so Mary is a virgin, since he went by a Greek translation of Isaiah, and Jesus comes to bring not peace but a sword. That also explains the lineage, and the obscure/fabricated prophecies; Matthew sought to make absolutely clear that Jesus was the Messiah. But Luke had a different perspective, and his genealogy is different for that reason: he's not trying to squeeze Jesus into prophecies. Note that this doesn't mean that Matthew was insincere either, since he could well have been so convinced that, like many throughout history, he massaged the facts to fit his beliefs.

So because these people were fundie idiots with an agenda they get a free pass? Pull your head out of your ass you proselytizing putz.

Thirdly, you ignore that people believe in Passover, and in the story of Moses. For Belobog's sakes, would you treat the Odyssey in this way? Crying nasally, "A witch turning people into pigs?! Absurd!!" without using it to examine what it tells us about Greek beliefs in the time of Homer?

Except that nobody takes the Greek gods for anything more than fables whereas we have idiots that swear by some bronze age fables and vote because of it. The entire story has been disproved many times and isn't even of any worth historically, the Odyssey, though a tough read was of some historical value and we know that Troy and the battle for it actually existed even if not during the same time period.

Fourthly, they wrote after the fact, yes. They didn't have much of a choice, and they were working independently anyways. There is still some debate over whether the writer of Mark was an eyewitness or had access to one while writing, too. They also didn't really care about making it literally true, as I said above. Do I have to make a post with the preceding sentence in maximum font and in all colors of the rainbow before you'll acknowledge it? Do I?

So why do we not go by primary sources written when Jesus still lived? Maybe because he was nothing special and these so called followers of his were frauds and lairs with an agenda.

2) Whether or not a scholar will take them literally is more a matter of their philosophical presuppositions than the reliability of a historical account

How can anybody live there life by a book where half of it is lies and the other half needs to be interpreted to gain any meaning from it?

What kind of book or moral principle doesn't have to be interpreted? Are you really this ignorant about literature? I mean, you could live your life according to the Scout's Handbook or something, but even then, you still would have to interpret "A scout is always prepared" at the very least. For any moral principle, you'd have to consider how it applies to you and your situation, aka interpreting it.[/quote]

So you're ignoring the part where half of the book is lies and outright falsehoods and saying that it's still perfectly okay to live by it. Go fuck yourself.

[Bakustra]

Well, since you have decided that my posts mean that I'm a fundamentalists Christian, I suppose that this quote would be appropriate, then: "eloi, eloi lama sabacthani."

With that said, you're conflating "people are religious and I can't stand that! Argh!" with "The authors of the Bible were intentionally lying!". So if you sincerely believed in the invisible pink dragon, you would be wrong, but not lying. Lying requires insincerity. Fiction also requires insincerity. Aesop's fables are overall fictitious where Herodotus is not; though both contain unlikely events. But Aesop wrote the stories as moral fables and parables, while Herodotus was concerned with history. This distinction is one that eludes you.

Let's put this in another context: were all the people who believed in a theory of light other than wave-particle duality lying? Was Newton a liar when he failed to account for relativity? They sincerely thought this was the case, but were they lying?

I was objecting to the idea that any sort of work should not have to be interpreted, because it's quite simply brain-dead when referring to moral principles, or to literature, or to works written before the rise of literalism in nonfiction.

Ultimately, what this comes down to is a refusal of you to believe that there could be any sincerity amongst religious believers, and that they all must have been liars at the foundation and deluded fools from then on. I find this unsupportable.

[Darth Hoth]

Strange to say, perhaps, given our recent history and our differences on religious matters otherwise, I nevertheless find myself supporting Bakustra, here. No, the ancients would not necessarily believe that every bit of the Bible was literally true (nor do modern fundies, for that matter), but generally they really did believe in the miracles and so on being part of a real history based on substantial historical truths. Even Philo of Alexandria, famous for interpreting the Bible extremely non-literally (so as to be able to combine it with Platonic philosophy), believed that the stories about the passover, the exodus and so forth were actual truths, only that they also had spiritual/non-literal significance.

As a modern-day atheist, one can of course make fun of the ancients that believed in literal miracles, just as one can make fun of the present-day fundies that do the same. But one does not have the right to claim that any and all religious belief, historical or present, is and must be fundamentally dishonest.

As for the alma/betulah issue and whether the Isaiah passage that Matthew quoted should have used parthenos for its translation, or whether the anonymous translators behind the Septuagint even understood that Greek word to mean "virgin" as we read it, that is a matter from another time. As I understand it, it is a bit more complicated than just one word being mistranslated and there being as very straightforward differences in meaning between the words as in our modern languages.

[Alyrium Denryle]

As for the alma/betulah issue and whether the Isaiah passage that Matthew quoted should have used parthenos for its translation, or whether the anonymous translators behind the Septuagint even understood that Greek word to mean "virgin" as we read it, that is a matter from another time. As I understand it, it is a bit more complicated than just one word being mistranslated and there being as very straightforward differences in meaning between the words as in our modern languages.

The alma/betulah thing is a non-starter. It is not a messianic prophecy, and refers to a kid who was born in the next chapter.

[Darth Hoth]

The alma/betulah thing is a non-starter. It is not a messianic prophecy, and refers to a kid who was born in the next chapter.

Now you are confusing me ; do you mean that Immanuel and Mahershalalhashbaz are one and the same? I had not heard of that interpretation before; where did you read that?

[Alyrium Denryle]

The alma/betulah thing is a non-starter. It is not a messianic prophecy, and refers to a kid who was born in the next chapter.

Now you are confusing me ; do you mean that Immanuel and Mahershalalhashbaz are one and the same? I had not heard of that interpretation before; where did you read that?

There are reasons jews did not accept Jesus as the messiah... Still, I got the details incorrect. It is not the next chapter.

http://www.messiahtruth.com/is714a.html

The Jewish Perspective on Isaiah 7:14


The seventh chapter in the Book of Isaiah begins by describing the military crisis that was confronting King Ahaz of the Kingdom of Judah. Around the year 732 B.C.E., the House of David was facing imminent destruction at the hands of two warring kingdoms: the Northern Kingdom of Israel, led by King Peqah, and the Kingdom of Syria (Aram), led by King Retsin. These two armies had besieged Jerusalem. Isaiah records that the House of David and King Ahaz were gripped with fear. G-d sent the prophet Isaiah to reassure King Ahaz that divine protection was at hand – G-d would protect him and his kingdom and that their deliverance was assured, and these two hostile armies would fail in their attempt to subjugate Jerusalem.

It is clear from the narrative in this chapter, that Isaiah’s declaration (Is 7:14-16) was a prophecy about the unsuccessful siege of Jerusalem by the two armies from the north. The verses Isaiah 7:15-16 state that, by the time this child (whose imminent birth was foretold in Isaiah 7:14) reaches the age of maturity (“… he knows to reject bad and choose good …”), the kings of the two enemy nations will be gone, in fact, they will be killed. Two Biblical passages, 2 Kings 15:29-30 and 2 Kings 16:9, confirm that this prophecy was contemporaneously fulfilled when these two kings were assassinated. With an understanding of the context of Isaiah 7:14 alone, it is evident that the name of the child in Isaiah 7:14, Immanu'el, is a sign which points to the divine protection that King Ahaz and his people would enjoy from their otherwise certain demise at the hands of these two enemies. Clearly, Isaiah 7:14 is a near-term prophecy that is part of an historic narrative, and which was fulfilled in the immediate time frame, not some seven-and-a-half centuries in the future.

[Darth Hoth]

Ah, that looks more similar to the common anti-Matthew argument.

Still, Christians have the perfect cop-out against this kind of thing. Their belief system allows for prophecies to have both a contemporary meaning and a deeper, far-future one. That also justifies why Jesus could still be Messiah even though he did not restore the temple, smite the heathens and all the other stuff the Messiah was supposed to do: that bit of the prophecy still has to be fulfilled. (Even though Jews will insist that no prophecy speaks of separate first and second comings. For the condensed version of American Fundie Theology, see the Scofield Bible Reference Notes.)

In this case, and by this logic, Isaiah's prophecy would be comfort for Ahaz and his court, but it would also prophesy of the miraculous virgin birth of Jesus some seven centuries into the future. And that, I suppose, would be how Matthew understood it as well when he wrote his Gospel. A lot of the prophecies he use are taken out of context provided in their deeper, spiritual sense that way.

[Norade]

With that said, you're conflating "people are religious and I can't stand that! Argh!" with "The authors of the Bible were intentionally lying!". So if you sincerely believed in the invisible pink dragon, you would be wrong, but not lying. Lying requires insincerity. Fiction also requires insincerity. Aesop's fables are overall fictitious where Herodotus is not; though both contain unlikely events. But Aesop wrote the stories as moral fables and parables, while Herodotus was concerned with history. This distinction is one that eludes you.

I claim them to be outright liars because if the bible was meant to contain real history they would not have needed to make-up cities and events to make their prophet messiah seem grander than he was. Nor would they be many times less historically accurate than other sources contemporary to them. Writing on a slaughter of children to draw a comparison to passover while also slandering a king is outright dishonest no matter what the reasoning is as there is no way he believed that was true and in noway was it prefaced to show that it was untrue. If I were to purposefully shove random fiction into a work of history, would or would I not be being dishonest if i knew it was untrue?

Let's put this in another context: were all the people who believed in a theory of light other than wave-particle duality lying? Was Newton a liar when he failed to account for relativity? They sincerely thought this was the case, but were they lying?

No because they took a scientific approach and all science is inherently prefaced by 'this is my best guess as to how it works and here is my proof for why' simply due to the scientific principle. The bible offers not a shred of proof for most of its outlandish claims and being written so far after the death of the one they wrote about means that even if the authors were 100% convinced that such things were true they very likely never saw them and should have written as much into their works.

I was objecting to the idea that any sort of work should not have to be interpreted, because it's quite simply brain-dead when referring to moral principles, or to literature, or to works written before the rise of literalism in nonfiction.

I object to the idea that the bible be used for anything as without overly much work nothing can be gained from it. Already nothing can be gained from it that can't be gained with ore ease from other sources and thus the works, no matter the intention are worthless.

Ultimately, what this comes down to is a refusal of you to believe that there could be any sincerity amongst religious believers, and that they all must have been liars at the foundation and deluded fools from then on. I find this unsupportable.

When the authors outright lie about things they know to be false such as a massacre of infants, or a group of Jews escaping a nation it is hard to believe that they are anything but liars. These people may have been less sophisticated than us, but they did not lack some fundamental capacity for rational thought so they should have wondered at any man healing people with a mere touch and wondered that if this could be so why would so many yet suffer and why this god had only just appeared to spread his word.

[Norade]

Strange to say, perhaps, given our recent history and our differences on religious matters otherwise, I nevertheless find myself supporting Bakustra, here. No, the ancients would not necessarily believe that every bit of the Bible was literally true (nor do modern fundies, for that matter), but generally they really did believe in the miracles and so on being part of a real history based on substantial historical truths. Even Philo of Alexandria, famous for interpreting the Bible extremely non-literally (so as to be able to combine it with Platonic philosophy), believed that the stories about the passover, the exodus and so forth were actual truths, only that they also had spiritual/non-literal significance.

Yet even back then they were simply being ignorant and lazy, as there histories would have been more complete than our own and they could have easily seen that such a thing as passover and the exodus had never happened. I don't care if you think something is true, when you are capable of checking the facts before you write them as truth for followers to believe then you should damned well do your research with the Greeks were no strangers to doing.

[Bakustra]

Strange to say, perhaps, given our recent history and our differences on religious matters otherwise, I nevertheless find myself supporting Bakustra, here. No, the ancients would not necessarily believe that every bit of the Bible was literally true (nor do modern fundies, for that matter), but generally they really did believe in the miracles and so on being part of a real history based on substantial historical truths. Even Philo of Alexandria, famous for interpreting the Bible extremely non-literally (so as to be able to combine it with Platonic philosophy), believed that the stories about the passover, the exodus and so forth were actual truths, only that they also had spiritual/non-literal significance.

Yet even back then they were simply being ignorant and lazy, as there histories would have been more complete than our own and they could have easily seen that such a thing as passover and the exodus had never happened. I don't care if you think something is true, when you are capable of checking the facts before you write them as truth for followers to believe then you should damned well do your research with the Greeks were no strangers to doing.

What? The Bible was compiled from oral, not written records. Their "histories" simply did not exist. The Greek historians even on the level of Herodotus (who did alter the facts similarly) came centuries later. Objectivity came later yet, especially in history. You really are being an idiot here. This is also ignoring that the distinctions were different back then, but you refuse to admit that, so I don't know why I bring it up.

[Norade]

Strange to say, perhaps, given our recent history and our differences on religious matters otherwise, I nevertheless find myself supporting Bakustra, here. No, the ancients would not necessarily believe that every bit of the Bible was literally true (nor do modern fundies, for that matter), but generally they really did believe in the miracles and so on being part of a real history based on substantial historical truths. Even Philo of Alexandria, famous for interpreting the Bible extremely non-literally (so as to be able to combine it with Platonic philosophy), believed that the stories about the passover, the exodus and so forth were actual truths, only that they also had spiritual/non-literal significance.

Yet even back then they were simply being ignorant and lazy, as there histories would have been more complete than our own and they could have easily seen that such a thing as passover and the exodus had never happened. I don't care if you think something is true, when you are capable of checking the facts before you write them as truth for followers to believe then you should damned well do your research with the Greeks were no strangers to doing.

What? The Bible was compiled from oral, not written records. Their "histories" simply did not exist. The Greek historians even on the level of Herodotus (who did alter the facts similarly) came centuries later. Objectivity came later yet, especially in history. You really are being an idiot here. This is also ignoring that the distinctions were different back then, but you refuse to admit that, so I don't know why I bring it up.

Odd that now, many thousands of years after the fact we can prove there was no Exodus, but when it was much closer and supposed to have happen only generations ago nobody could look for any history telling of the event. We can also find written histories of things that did happen back then so some histories must have existed.

[Bakustra]

What? The Bible was compiled from oral, not written records. Their "histories" simply did not exist. The Greek historians even on the level of Herodotus (who did alter the facts similarly) came centuries later. Objectivity came later yet, especially in history. You really are being an idiot here. This is also ignoring that the distinctions were different back then, but you refuse to admit that, so I don't know why I bring it up.

Odd that now, many thousands of years after the fact we can prove there was no Exodus, but when it was much closer and supposed to have happen only generations ago nobody could look for any history telling of the event. We can also find written histories of things that did happen back then so some histories must have existed.

When it was supposed to have happened centuries ago. The Torah was first compiled, as far as we know, in or around 950 BCE. But the events it describes were supposed to have occured in the late 1200s and early 1300s BCE, almost five hundred years earlier, and dating to before a written tradition existed in that part of Mesopotamia. As for histories that date to the 1300s BCE, please enumerate these histories. The Epic of Gilgamesh, it must be noted, is not a history.

[RedImperator]

Yet even back then they were simply being ignorant and lazy, as there histories would have been more complete than our own and they could have easily seen that such a thing as passover and the exodus had never happened. I don't care if you think something is true, when you are capable of checking the facts before you write them as truth for followers to believe then you should damned well do your research with the Greeks were no strangers to doing.

This is the second stupidest thing I've heard all month.

1. Exodus was first compiled 500 years before Thucydides and Herodotus were "doing their research" (PS: Herodotus uncritically reported local legends and mythology as facts). There was no such thing as objective historiography in 950 BC.

2. There were no written records to research. The ancient Hebrews were not a record-keeping society, and the idea of traveling to a foreign country to research your own history was completely unknown at the time.

3. As Bakustra mentioned, Exodus was compiled half a millennium after the alleged events of the Exodus. For a comparison, look at our present knowledge of the Aztecs--despite the existence of more surviving written records than the Hebrews would have had, well-preserved eyewitness accounts, and modern archeology, there are huge gaps in our knowledge of their society and history, including their origins. How accurately do you think a society with nothing but word-of-mouth legends was going to remember events after 500 years?

Odd that now, many thousands of years after the fact we can prove there was no Exodus, but when it was much closer and supposed to have happen only generations ago nobody could look for any history telling of the event. We can also find written histories of things that did happen back then so some histories must have existed.

And this is the stupidest. Holy Jesus fucking Christ. Gee, I wonder how a society with modern archeological methods, the scientific method, and the philosophical sophistication to question its own mythology might be able to prove the Exodus never happened when a bunch of Bronze Age primitives couldn't. You're acting like the authors of Exodus were writing about something in living memory, when a little basic research would have told you they were writing centuries after the fact.

[Darth Hoth]

When it was supposed to have happened centuries ago. The Torah was first compiled, as far as we know, in or around 950 BCE. But the events it describes were supposed to have occured in the late 1200s and early 1300s BCE, almost five hundred years earlier, and dating to before a written tradition existed in that part of Mesopotamia. As for histories that date to the 1300s BCE, please enumerate these histories. The Epic of Gilgamesh, it must be noted, is not a history.

Slight correction: The pentateuch as we know it today was, according to historical/literary criticism, at least, more likely compiled at some point in the sixth century BC. However, its oldest source document (the famous "Jehovistic History" more commonly known among Biblical scholars simply as Source J), which would originally have described more or less all of Israel's primeval history as we know it in the Bible today, from Abraham to the Exodus, is widely believed to have been composed in the tenth century BC, and quite probably during Solomon's reign. (Although we cannot be certain that this was the case, of course, basing our knowledge on science alone; such are the limitations of history.) This chronicle, in turn, would have been built upon older oral traditions, as G. von Rad persuasively argues in his classical Genesis commentary.

Your points against Norade, of course, all still stand, regardless.