Part 36 of Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

1. The outrageous claims are those found in the Gospels. We have extraordinary evidence to support the claim that man walked on the Moon.

All we have to support the Gospels is the Gospels.

2. They were among the mob. Were the Priests the ones who nailed Jesus to the cross?

3. Why on Earth would Joseph Smith want to invent the Book of Mormon and get himself killed? That's a question you keep dancing around because it destroys your bullshit logic.

 

Nice try but no..
This verse indicates we should put thoughts of suicide out of our mind and soldier on-
"Elijah came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, Lord ," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." (1 Kings 19:3-7)
And for the record, nowhere does the Bible say suicide is a sin.

 

1- There are plenty of people who think man never walked on the moon, they say the astronauts and thousands of NASA employees were all lying. Likewise, thousands saw Jesus, but atheists say they were lying too, haha maybe they should see a shrink..
Wiki- Paranoid personality disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis characterised by a pervasive and long-standing suspiciousness and generalized mistrust of others,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoid_personality_disorder
2- Maybe the priests wanted to rescue Smith's 14-year-old wife from his clutches like taxi driver Travis Bickle wanted to rescue Jodie Foster..
3- When Smith invented the Book of Mormon he couldn't foresee it'd get him killed as it seemed like a good idea at the time..




2-

 

1. There is overwhelming evidence supporting the claim that man walked on the Moon.

The only evidence that supports the Gospels is the Gospels. There is zero contemporary outside evidence and the Gospels in multiple places directly contradict things we know from history (the totally fabricated account of the census at Jesus's birth, the portrayal of Pilate, etc).

You have zero proof that thousands saw Jesus outside of the Gospels.

2. Maybe the Snooty Priests just wanted to stop Jesus the psychopath from launching further whip assaults on people conducting legal business?

3. Apply this same logic to the writers of the Gospels.

 

Why is suicide a sin when a devout Christian does it? Is not the sole aim of a Christian to enter the kingdom of heaven for all eternity? Why mess around, just do it and get happy. Of course, this question was answered a long time ago by clever leaders who saw the flaw in promising salvation after death, if everyone killed themselves to enter heaven life here would be pointless. So, they came up with the idea that God has a plan and you are not supposed to alter that plan even though this same God gave you free will despite him having a plan for you....see the illogic in this? Is God's plan for you fate or whimsy? If you can alter God's plan, he must be wrong about you. Maybe killing yourself is God's plan...ooh the head hurts trying to make up some baloney to fit God into all this mumbo jumbo.

 

1. Man walked on the moon. There is extensive evidence to support that claim. Since Conspiracy theorist's beliefs have been disproved, there is no evidence to refute the claim.
2. US Govt did 9/11. There is overwhelming evidence to refute that claim. Since Conspiracy theorist's beliefs have been disproved, there is no evidence to support the claim.
3. Matthew and John actually wrote the Gospels that are named after them. There is overwhelming evidence to refute that claim. Since Biblical Believers beliefs have been disproved, there is no evidence to support the claim.

Ergo...

1. High probability this is TRUE.
2. High probability this is FALSE.
3. High probability this is FALSE.

 

You are talking nonsense and are in denial as I have previously shown to you that the entire Bible is NOT the infallible word of God The Bible is full of interpolation, edits, additions and yes ... contradictions.

1) There are entire books that were originally in the Bible that are no longer there.
2) There are sections that have been added such as the long ending of Mark.
3) There are omissions done based on "artistic license = pious fraud" - such when the author of Matt, using the Gospel of Mark as a source document, left out only a few passages - just the ones he thought put Jesus and/or the disciples in a derogatory light.
4) There are other additions such as "Christ shedding tears of blood" - this well known "interpolation-pious fraud" was due to an overzealous scribe who wanted to show the human side of Jesus so he added a few lines.

Below are different versions of Deuteronomy 32:43 - a "troubling passage" that has been bastardized over the centuries.

The first version of the passage is from the Septuagint (LXX). This is what was used by the early Christians. The LXX (roman numerals for 70) refers to the 70 Jewish scholars who translated the 5 books of Moses into Greek as early as the 3rd century BC.

"O heavens, rejoice with Him
Bow to Him, all sons of the divine
O nations, rejoice with His people
and let all angels of the divine strengthen themselves in Him.
For He’ll avenge the blood of His sons,
be vengeful, and wreak vengeance and recompense justice on his foes
And the Lord will Cleanse His people’s land"

The next is exactly the same passage in the Masoretic Text (MT) - the test most widely used as the basis for translation in Protestant Bibles.
This text comes from a group of Jews called Masorites and was compiled 1000 years after the LXX (700-1000 AD)

"O nations, rejoice His people
For He’ll avenge the blood of His servants and wreak vengeance on His foes
And will cleanse His people’s land"

As you can see this is quite the hack job. The MT makes no mention of any "sons of the divine" bowing to the supreme God.
In the 3rd century BC Jewish scholars knew of the Israelite's previous belief in a "Divine Council of Gods". This did not make them polytheistic. They believed in the existence of many God's but only worshiped one. The concept of only one God was in its infancy - and this is reflected in the text.

Notice the subtle change from rejoicing "with his people" - a reference to the Jews being Gods chosen people and other nations rejoicing with them to a phrasing which seems to include all nations as Gods people.

In the MT there are no angels of the divine. In the MT the blood of "servants" is avenged rather than Sons.

As you can see the passage has significantly changed over the centuries. The MT version loses much of its meaning and specifically - any references to "sons of God" (which is a reference to the belief that El/ El Elyon (the Supreme God) had many sons of which YHWH was one as mentioned earlier in Deut 32:8 or other divine beings has been completely removed. The scene has been completely whitewashed of other divine entities. http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/DT32BibSac.pdf

There is a third version of the passage from a Qumran text (also BC) for comparison. It also maintains other divinities.

Now lets have a look at the translation in a modern Bible.

Rejoice, you nations with his people
for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
He will take vengeance on his enemies
and make atonement for his land and people.

We can see that this runs similar to the MT until the last sentence. The one passage that was the same in all the previous versions (LXX, MT, Qumran) was "Cleanse his peoples land"

This "Cleansing" in conjunction with wrecking vengeance and avenging the blood of his sons- refers to a particular kind of killing (something akin to xenocide in modern terms). The land wold be cleansed of people who were not up to snuff.

The modern Bible version says nothing of the sort. It is the passage that has been "cleansed".

In one case God is cleansing the land of undesirable people
In the other case God is making atonement ?

I suppose one could claim that "Cleansing the land of people" was a form of atonement but, how would anyone know that "atonement" meant "cleansing his peoples land" if they did not have the MT or the LXX ?

Note that they did manage to take something from the LXX - the nations are again rejoicing "with" his people.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy 32

All in all - the modern text is completely different and has lost almost all meaning relative to the LXX.

And Mitt - this is just one example - when they compared the Codex Sinaiticus (oldest Bible from the time of Constantine) to modern Bibles, there were thousands of differences (and entire books missing as mentioned previously - no long ending of Mark as mentioned previously)

 

Many of the NASA employees wrote first hand eyewitness accounts.
None of the (alleged) thousands who saw and heard Jesus wrote any first hand eyewitness accounts.

The gospel writers were somewhat honest.

• They didn't Write: I saw Jesus drink the water and I heard him say "It is cold".
• They wrote: Jesus drank the water and said "It is cold".

They provide no information on how they came to posses this knowledge.

 

I must admit that's the first time anyone has told me I have psychiatric problems. Cheers.

Neither have you, or any other Christian, explained to me why you take things out of context to prove your point. I don't have demons of suspicion, I have logic, study and commonsense to back me up. You have a book of events that have no backing outside its covers except for similar events in other religions.

Quote. The Prophecy of the Virgin Birth appears in Matthew 1:22-23. Matthew wrote this seventy years after Jesus Christ was born (35-40 years after he died). Up until that point no other text mentions Jesus' virgin birth. He quotes Isaiah 7:14 which was written 700 years before Jesus was born - thus claiming it was a sign, a prediction of the messiah's virgin birth.

But there is a serious problem. Matthew states that, due to prophecy, it is true that Jesus was a male line descendant of King David, and presents a genealogy at the beginning of his gospel tracing Jesus' lineage through Joseph. Matthew, apparently, like Luke and Paul and the rest of the early Christians, did not believe in a virgin birth. There are two theories that explain how this contradiction occurred. (1) A Septuagint mistranslation of the word "virgin" instead of "young woman" caused the discrepancy. The original prophecy is not that someone called Immanuel will be born of a virgin, but merely that someone called Immanuel will be born. In the original context of the story, this makes a lot of sense. (2) Matthew, writing for a Roman gentile audience in Greek, included popular myths surrounding sons of gods, who in Roman mythology were frequently said to be born of virgins. In either case, it is clear that Matthew's prophecy of a virgin birth was a mistake, and modern Bible's actually include a footnote in Matthew pointing out that the virgin birth is a Septuagint mistranslation.”

The gospel of Matthew doesn't contain the prophecy of the virgin birth , and indeed, this accords with much of the rest of early Christian writing.

The Jewish Scriptures prophesize that the Messiah will be born of the male line of King David. Multiple New Testament authors go out of their way to point out that this was indeed the case.

1. The Genealogies: The Jewish authors of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke both list genealogies in order to prove that Jesus was descended from David via Joseph (Matthew 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38). Matthew's is introduced with the words 'Jesus Christ, a descendant of David, a descendant of Abraham'. This only makes sense if Joseph really is the father of Jesus.
   
   
2. Jesus as the Son of Joseph: In the Gospel of Luke a Jew called Simeon praises the child of Joseph and Mary; Luke 2:33 and Luke 2:48 both call Jesus the ordinary, flesh-and-blood son of Joseph and Mary (or rather, they did so in the original versions, but later edited versions did not say so!).
   
   
3. Jesus was 'of the seed of David' as prophesized: Acts 2:30 says "God hath sworn with an oath to [David] that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne". Romans 1:3says with much clarity: "Jesus Christ our Lord which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh". Jesus is called the son and the seed of David in Matthew 1:1, Matthew 9:27, Luke 1:32, John 7:41-3, Acts 13:23, 2 Timothy 2:8, Revelations 5:5 and Revelations 22:16.
   

To say that Jesus was born of a virgin as Christians did in later centuries is to say that some significant Old Testament prophecies were wrong, and that Jesus's father was God, and therefore that Jesus had no male bloodline at all.

Vexen Crabtree http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/christianity_birthnarrative.html

 

It should not be a surprise to anyone but the literalist clan that the Bible has contradictions. It was written in many pieces by many people over thousands of years. The parts written earlier were translated and re-translated over that time period. As beliefs/dogma changed over time, so did the translation.

The KJV is kind of pointless (imo) as it is the worst translation and - it is hard to read. For general things I will also use NIV or some other but if I am looking at a specific passage I will go to the scholarship.

In general if a passage has anything to do with sex or other divinities, the KJV or modern translation has often been corrupted beyond recognition.

This is the passage that got me started down this path some 4 decades ago.

Proverbs (one of my favorite books along with Ecclesiastes) 6:26

"A man can hire a prostitute for the price of a loaf of bread, but adultery will cost him all he has"
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs+6&version=GNT

This is the Good News Translation (Bible the Lutherans use).

The context of the passage is a Father warning his son about the dangers of Adultery.

Is this not brilliantly written ? and so true. The father is not saying to the son that he should run out and find a prostitute. What he is saying however, is that adultery is orders of magnitude worse than going to a prostitute. A prostitute will cost the price of a loaf of bread ... adultery will cost you all you have including your life. So where does this leave "pre-marital sex" ? I will leave this one hanging.

This passage is strange to someone raised in a protestant home (such as was my upbringing) but, unthinkable to fundamentalists or the anti- sex church of the middle ages- when the KJV was written.

Sex is sex ... it is all a horrible sin unless it is with one's wife. This pretty much what I had been taught thanks to the Apostle Paul.

Now have a look at the KJV rendition of this passage.

" For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adultress will hunt for the precious life"

It was a twisted day for the middle age translator that came up with this nonsense. He could not bear to appear to condone sex outside of marriage in any way shape or form. Ignoring the context of the passage completely and the words on the page, he engaged in some twisted mind bending linguistic charlatanism and decided to turn a man into a piece of bread.

This pious fraud was not limited to middle age translators. I will list a few but a bunch can be found here - http://biblehub.com/proverbs/6-26.htm

New Living Translation
"For a prostitute will bring you to poverty, but sleeping with another man's wife will cost you your life" A different take on nonsense

English Standard Version
for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread, but a married woman hunts down a precious life. Correct bravo !

NET Bible
"for on account of a prostitute one is brought down to a loaf of bread, but the wife of another man preys on your precious life." Another magical nonsensical analogy where a man is brought to the level of a loaf of bread.

American Standard Version and English Revised Standard
For on account of a harlot a man is brought to a piece of bread; And the adulteress hunteth for the precious life. Both mess up this passage.

As you can see - when it comes to passages about sex - Translators lose their minds.

 

King Saul committed suicide and he was God's buddy for about five minutes.

 

"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Romans 10:13

 

In Revelation 16:11 everyone curses God.

 

Who says suicide is a sin whether a christian or anybody else does it? The Bible certainly doesn't say it..
If somebody kills themselves because of serious physical or mental health issues I don't think God will mind, but generally we're urged to stick it out-
Jesus said- "To follow me you must carry your own cross daily" (Luke 9:23)
"We share in Jesus's sufferings in order to share in his glory" (Romans 8:17)
"All creation groans in pain from the beginning til now" (Romans 8:22)
"We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22)
"God didn't spare his own son" (Romans 8:32)
"Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life.." (James 1:12)
How about it Sergeant?

"Take the pain. TAKE THE PAIN!"

 

Nevertheless, there are dozens of vids on youtube by people presenting apparently sensible level-headed evidence to say man didn't walk on the moon!
Personally I believe we did walk on the moon because I can't accept that the astronauts and thousands of NASA employees were lying.
Likewise I can't accept that the thousands of eyewitnesses who saw and heard Jesus were lying..

 

The gospels were written with help from "..eyewitnesses and ministers of the word" (Luke 1:2)
Regarding the moon landings, no doubt some NASA employees wrote individual eyewitness accounts, but the vast majority wouldn't see any need.
Likewise, the thousands who saw Jesus left it to the gospel-writers to put it down on paper for posterity, and anyway the vast majority couldn't read or write anyway..
PS- This NASA guy wrote a book analysing Ezekiels UFO close encounter-

 

Mate, you say the ancient scriptural documents of the bible are unreliable, yet you regularly quote from ancient historical documents to try to "disprove" the bible.
So how do you know if your documents are reliable?,,

 

Perhaps their glasses steamed up when they came to passages like this in Song of Solomon ch 4-
"Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely: thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.
Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.."

 

Even Hitler liked to be seen going in and out of church, but if he was a true christian I'm Mary Poppins..

 

Because most of them are backed up by other documents.

The interchange of letters between ancient kings. Different accounts of events by victor and vanquished. In many cases one backs the other up regarding the event but sometimes gives it's own version. History and archaeology themselves can often show the real result.
While the Egyptians and Hittites both give differing outcomes to the battle at KADESH - each claiming a victory, it's fairly obvious from details that neither side could win without a great slaughter, so a peace treaty was agreed. Copies of peace treaties were written on walls in Palaces and Temples. There is a copy from the ruins of the Hittite city - in stone, and a copy from an Egyptian palace. Archaeologists have found copies of 'letters' exchanged by Pharaoh and the Hittite emperor, and other kings and Pharaoh.

The Bible has verifiable people and events only from the era of the kings. Even then many of them are greatly exaggerated as is shown by knowledge of the times, the area and the culture. The invasion of the Promised land is fiction. Joshua did not 'fight the battle of Jericho', or Ai - which had been in ruins for 1000 years (destroyed by the Egyptians who recorded the event). Judah did not pit 500,000 soldiers against Israels 800,000 soldiers. This was probably more than the total population of Palestine at that time. Quite probably a battle did occur, but it is greatly exaggerated. Not even the mighty Assyrian or Babylonian Empires could muster even a fraction of that amount of soldiers.

Of course, you could say that these documents, events, etc. are the result of devious ancient planning over 1000 years to fool civilisations 3000 years in the future.

What do you think Mary?

 

We don't have the accounts of thousands of eyewitnesses of Jesus. We have 4 Gospels of dubious authorship filled with information we know to be inaccurate about historical details that claim there were thousands of eyewitnesses.

 

That's only your opinion. Believers have the Holy Spirit to confirm the Word of God.

 

Which is why there is only one denomination of Christian.

Because the "Holy Spirit" is a reliable source, yes?

 

So the definition of Christian is such that none who have sinned are part of the group?

I thought all have sinned because sin passed from father to son from Adam onwards.

 

Different denominations agree on the most important doctrines. Jesus is God in the flesh, died for our sins, rose the third day, the Word of God is in the Bible, etc. Many denominations aren't even Christian. There are many nondenominational Christian churches. You haven't a clue as to what the Church is all about.