You make it sound like there are copies of some kind of *Jerusalem Gazette *from the first century for us to comb through. Exactly what “secular sources” are there “prior to 40 CE” for us to check for reports concerning Jesus? If none of those sources still exist then we don’t know what they said and did not say.
This is not an easy thing to say, but Christianity is likely to all-but-die-out in the next 100-200 years unless it becomes a 'big tent' that permits a wide range of opinions on key theological issues. This is the atmosphere you already find in many mainline congregations where freedom of belief is nurtured and Bible studies are open to different interpretations of this or that Biblical passage. I recall attending such studies where no one was afraid to take issue with a traditional interpretation. They were stimulating, eye-opening, and did not in any way undermine my basic religious faith.
God bless those of every creed, color and country. May religion truly become a bridge rather than a barrier.My interjection; It would greatly benefit you to reevaluate those guidelines you follow in determining what you consider acceptable accumulative evidence;
Ask youself; which has the most overwhelming accumulation of evidence"
Your adopted beliefs seemingly would rather promote a made for TV movie version of scripture to satisfy what seems obvious; a lack of faith and an adaptation created to provide a more personally acceptable “faith”. With an equally preposterous question, one may ask you; was the purpose of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection to conquer death and offer salvation so that all man may be saved or to show off so to speak and stand before His mere human judges wagging His tongue at them with His thumbs in His ears flagging them with His hands? Some may say such views are childish and would reflect Jesus’ intentions as shallow and egotistical. Some may say that. I would like to promote the belief that the one Son of God would have a more meaningful motive than show boat as would be your suggestion.
The previous excerpt and supporting documentation reflects the depth of your erroneous opinions and lack of credibility. What you require for “proof” is much less than what has been required to support Christianity.
The fact your opinion is based on the premise the authors were “writing religious advertisements” or relating it to any such analogy puts your conclusions well into perspective.
Please present your credible support with references. Physical evidence includes ancient texts, and unrelated documentations which can be cross-referenced, including scriptural texts, writings of the Early Church Fathers, verification through sources such as the historians of that era who also wrote of Him And the findings of Archeological recoveries. What evidence do you have to invalidate those documentations, texts and recovered artifacts?
You could argue anything but that in no way gives credence to your position which in the first paragraph above shows your misguided conclusions.
Here is the answer to what you claim; you say you are a liberal protestant. Most protestants to my knowledge consider themselves Christians base on faith in the Christ of Scripture. In order that anyone may be Christian they must accept Christ as the Savior and the scriptures as the Inspired Word of God. If scripture is as you describe it, it is not the Inspired Word of God and nothing in Scripture would be reliable including salvation. There would be no severance between what is fact and what is manufactured leaving anyone who would claim to believe in one part but not another such as you promote, completely irrational. Further, there would be nothing to hold belief in in God as there would be no true knowledge of a Godly being other than those mindfully manufactured by man. So until you can discredit the prophacies of the OT which vertually would have been impossible to fulfill for any man as in relationship to the life of Christ, and until you can provide equally valid support for your opinions they are of no credibility.
Your claim here makes two opposing statements but show your support for your claim of proof to the opposite.
how many PH.Ds do you hold? Watch more of the Channel “H. I.” Science has shown that the possibility exists that all of these events could have occurred, even against those who choose not to believe in God.
Do you believe it proof because something was not found to date it will not be? Where is the evidence that Nazareth didn’t exist? Wouldn’t that be along the lines of those who said the city of David didn’t exist?
It would be wonderful if you could offer credible support for your adopted beliefs. One could say the names we have assigned to colors are incorrectly assigned, but would that be credible? Blue is actually red and red green and so forth… this is your position in reflection.
He did not need to clear them all out to make his point. And you are assuming that moneychangers were spread throughout the whole area rather than be confined to a single place.
At the time this event happened, Jesus was widely believed to be a prophet, and he was doing the sort of thing that one expects from a prophet. And the Jews present knew their Scripture concerning the prophets of the past. For example, they knew that people who mocked the Prophet Elisha were killed by bears (2Kings 2:23-24). And check out Amos 7:10-17 to see what happened to Amaziah the Priest when he dared to chastize the Prophet Amos.
I think your suggestion that this would have been the proper way for Him to have responded was based on a “show boating” mentality. Does that help clarify my reference?
I agree it is ridiculous and as far as my response, I seem to be the only one of the two of us who provides reference proofs. You are welcome to research the information I provided you and the many, many ancient texts that were referred to that proved you wrong in your previous statements to start with.
Where does scripture say anything about what areas or how many acres of the temple was occupied? I am asking you to provide your supporting references. That should not be so hard to produce for one with so much data. Please provide your sources and I will be MORE than happy to respond. Perhaps the following will help you;
Would he not have been wrestled to the ground?
I’m sure…
I will continue onward . . .
Bart, you should read previous posts that have already addressed your remarks and debunked them. Also, here is a small section from a larger document taken from the BIOGRAPHY OF HIS HOLINESS, POPE BENEDICT XVI who has two PhD’s :
Its the same strategy he used when he brought out an outdated claim that there is no proof whatsoever of nazareth, and when I brought the dig he started to spin other excuses instead of addressing the premise itself: That we did find proof of nazareth and it was dated right during Jesus’s time. It seems like Ollie resorts to one of the oldest tricks of the extremist skeptics book: keep spinning in an endless regression of rediculous objections to win the argument based on a volume of words with either outdated-poorly researched answers or to change the subject all together.I can’t help but notice that you didn’t answer any of twb1621’s points. You just re-asserted “Did not!” And then shifted to a new topic.
Do you know how to get people to believe the 100 most absurd things … you must have a Phd … a paraphrase from Dr. Peter Kreeft.
Earlier you made a criticism that all we know about Jesus prior to A.D. 40 is from religious sources, rather than secular ones. So which sources, religious OR secular backs up your statement? I’ll help you with the answer: there are none! So from us you demand secular sources to back up our claims, but it is ok for you to simply throw your personal opinion out there without any historical sources whatsoever.
It is more accurate to say that oldest surviving manuscript (which is a copy of a copy, etc. etc. of an older written Marcan tradition) does not contain this term. The manuscript in question is Sinaiticus which omits the “Son of God” phrase. The Vaticanus manuscript contains it. Both were written in the 4th Century, being considerably removed in time from the original written version of Mark, which has never been found. Although scholars give some authority to Sinaiticus being a bit older than Vaticanus, you seem to have adopted the idea that if something is not in Sinaiticus then Mark never wrote it. That is an incredibly big leap.
As a Catholic I make no excuses for what the NIV does. The Catholic New American Bible places the term “Son of God” in brackets and provides a footnote explaining that it is omitted in “some important manuscripts.” All existing manuscripts are “early” and none of them are from the first century - that is to be understood. So Catholics are not hiding anything in this regard. Other manuscripts use the term “Lord”, by the way.
If this debate comes down to whose statements are backed up by PhDs or the most PhDs, you are going to lose. And even though I don’t think your question was directed at me personally, for the record I do not have a PhD. I do, however, have a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Arts in Systematic Theology with a Secondary Study in Scripture. No doctorates, but still enough to give straight answers to the questions being raised in this thread, even if you want to denounce them as being “spin” because they happen to contradict your personal opinions as to who Jesus was.
In addition to my above mentioned degrees, I also have a degree in psychology. It only happens to be a Bachelor of Arts, so that is nothing special, and in no way qualifies me to consider myself a psychologist. But it is enough for me to know a bit about human nature. The problem with your assessment is that people often don’t do what we personally feel they ought to. Your argument is based upon a temple guard’s job description. In other words, it was their job to arrest someone who was creating a ruckus, so if Jesus overturned the tables then they would have arrested him. My argument is based on common human nature. What guard wanted to be the first one to risk the wrath of God by laying his hands on someone everyone considered to be a prophet, and not only that, but to do so in the very Temple of God? No guard wanted to risk instant death or a divine curse upon himself and his family, which is what happened to some people in the past for mistreating God’s prophets. And, as I pointed out earlier, the temple authorities did not want to publically arrest Jesus at that time in fear of a mob revolt.
Jesus wasn’t a “prophet”, although he was very likely an apocalyptic end days preacher.Again, provide credible support…
Forgive my disregard for political correctness but I do not see that a principle that Jesus would feel should precede in importance over His teachings. This position you hold I proved invalid and provided you the references to check out on your own but you obviously fear doing that at the risk of recognizing fault in your adopted beliefs, which is why you believe you hear nothing but spin.
And you deduce that as substantial evidence to support your position that Marks Gospel is inaccurate? It’s sad you are so seemingly eager to dismiss what you can not understand in faith.
Your opinion here was already nullified lacking any support whatsoever.
Lets see… According to Ehrman’s web site where he promotes his books, I quote; “An accomplished scholar of early Christianity, Ehrman (religious studies, Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) ventures out of the ivory tower in this accessible lay introduction to New Testament textual criticism. He sketches the development of New Testament literature, the gradual accumulation of errors therein through the accidental or intentional revisions of copyists, and attempts (beginning with Erasmus in the 16th century) to reconstruct the original text.
Henri de Lubac, S.J., PH.D,doctorate in theology specialized and teaching in the history of religions, studies on atheism, Buddhism, medieval biblical exegesis, ecclesiology, and the sacramental nature of Catholicism.