Restored Topic

[Cogitoergosum]

Achiles had asked people to explain the rise of christianity. I don't know if it was supposed to prove that christianity was somehow special because of the way it rose, but how is that different than the rise of islam? Can you explain to me why you believe christianity to be better?

How do u explain the rise of christianity?

How do u explain the rise of islam?

1) The Gospels being written by at least the following dates
Mark 65-70 CE
Matthew 70-80 CE
Luke 80-85 CE

1) the koran being written about 700 C.E.

2) The letters of Paul and his writings on the subjects, specifically the parts where he refers to Jesus as a human, any of Jesus actions, and beliefs of himself and those he speaks about.

2) the "hadith" written as an add on to the kuran and the "ijtihad" written by imams that corroborate the divine message of mohammad and confirm his status as a prophet.

3) The writings of Josephus

referr to 2

4) The Historical account presented in the Talmud

The historical account in the Talmud of jesus is sketchy at best. Yeshua there is only a rabbi no magical powers, different set of parents than jesus, no disciples...
the historical account present in history books about mohammad and neighboring nations

5) The fact that the geography of the Gospels (especially Luke) is almost exact.

the geography in the history of islam and mohammad is accurate

6) The fact that Archeology has not uncovered anything that contradicts a Gospel, or acts, or Pauline letter account.

Archeology has not unproved anything in the koran

7) The beliefs of the very first Christians (Nazarenes).

the beliefs of the very first moslims

8) The accounts of history such as Caesar’s declaration around 60CE that bodies were never to be taken out of the graves, punishable by death, right near Nazareth.

I don't know what evidence that is, supposedly jesus's body is in heaven and not around nazareth. Multiple historical accounts confirm the existence of mohammad.

9) Later archeology and history such as Pliny's letters.

same as previous arguments

10) The conversion of Paul

the conversion of thousands of jews and christians of the time to islam.

11) The conversion of the early Jews, constituting the Council of Jerusalem
same as above

12) The Martyrdom of James

somebody killed him, so what?

13) The conversion of James

same as above

14) The martyrdom of the first apostles. ( I Know that there isn't solid evidence supporting these men being martyrs. However explain why the early church fathers would write about the details of their deaths, if something close to that did actually happen.)

martyrdom of the thousands of moslims while conquering lands and spreading islam.

so how exactly are these proofs of a divine religion?

[achilles12604]

You have made several claims here.

The first and most profound is that Sorcery is not magical in nature but refers to bad deeds. Please feel free to either support this claim or drop it. You are the first person I have ever heard make this argument against this passage. With most of Jewish writings, misdeeds are referred to as sins. Not sorcery. So please support your claim.

since you used wikipedia earlier, i'll use the same:

Originally referring to the older Zoroastrian Magi (i.e. sages, priests), the term "magic" became a negative term and among the followers of the Judaic religion was recorded into Western history with its denigrating meaning. In times of antiquity, practitioners of other religions were accused of practicing magic (though the adherents of Christianity and Islam were never accused of this on any large scale).

That's fine. I used to have major issues with Wikipedia. I still do if it contradicts other sources simply because it can be edited by anyone at any time. So really TRY not to use it as a source. However when discussing something of little value, I will refer to it usually to get ideas about where else to look for further information.

As for the Magic, your passage says that magic had begun to change into a bad word. It does not say (nor does it imply) that bad things were referred to as magic.

It works one way but you are reading it backwards.

Magic became a bad thing. Bad things did not become Magic. Another example.

All Toyota’s are automobiles. Not all automobiles are Toyota’s. Same thing happening here.

However if you can not support this claim, then the rest of your argument also falls down because Jesus ben Pandera didn't perform any miracles, nor was this ever his claim. So it couldn't be him. ALSO your timing is off since the segment of history refering to Jesus ben Pandera was 80-100 years prior to Jesus. The Talmud recorded events in between these men. This presents you with a problem. The Talmud book Sanhedrin refers to your Yeshua Ben pandera. The passage I mentioned isn't even in the same book. How could this be the same person? Also the Jesus ben Pandera was following a teacher named Joshua who berated him in the account.

This story cannot be directly connected with any of the traditional events in the life of Jesus, and it is set about 100 years before Jesus presumably lived.

You keep saying that this story is from 100 years before Jesus time.

Ok here is a very atheistic source which attributes this passage to Jesus although loosely. Now if it is really a full 100 years out of date as you claim, then this atheist scholar (and many others) should really have to go back to school for a while.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/ ... an43a.html

So now I leave it to you. Can you provide a scholarly source that discredits this atheists viewpoint? Can you show a source that says that THIS passage (not the one attributed to Yeshua ben Pan) is from 100 years before Jesus? I think you are confusing the two passages.

Sanhedrin 107b || Sota 47a (except for the last sentence)
This is mostly a somewhat modernized version of A.M. Streane's translation, quoted in Mead, pp. 137f. My modernization has been informed by Goldstein's translation of the same text (pp. 73f)

How convenient. My source above is also Goldstein and his timing is not 100 years off.

The Rabbis taught: The left should always be used to push away, and the right, on the other hand to draw nearer. But one should not do it as Elisha who pushed Gehazi away, nor as R. Joshua ben Perachiah, who pushed away Yeshu with both hands. What was the problem with R. Joshua ben Perachiah? When King Jannai ordered the extermination of the Rabbis, R. Joshua ben Perachiah and Yeshu fled to Alexandria. When it was safe to return, Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach sent him a letter:

As I pointed out in my prior post, this passage refers to Yeshua ben Pandera. He was the one running around with Joshua.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/talmud.html
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/talmud.htm#t07

[achilles12604]

Perhaps. But this ignores the points I made entirely.

What was your point then so i may adrress it?

Ok lets backtrack.

I wrote:

10) The conversion of Paul

You wrote:

the conversion of thousands of jews and christians of the time to islam.

I then compared the two and pointed out that Christianity didn't convert with violence for at least 300 years until the roman empire took over. I contrasted this with Islam which was spread via violence before Muhammad was even dead.

I then pointed out that Paul's conversion would have been unique as he was not only an enemy of Christianity being a Pharisee, but he was an active enemy in so much as he attacked and murdered Christians. I have compared his conversion to Hitler stopping world war 2, becoming Jewish, renouncing his former ways, and then suffering a great deal to spread Jewish beliefs as far as he could.


Top this you replied that Many converted willingly.

First, I would love for you to prove this, but that would be impossible. However I can offer evidence against it simply by pointing out that Islam didn't take any hold in the region until their army's came. If many people had converted before war, then it would have appeared much like Christianity, in communities that lived apart from the rest and with each other peacefully. This isn't what history records so while you are unable to prove your case (I think, you are free to surprise me), I can offer historical record as my evidence.

Then you put forth that you wondered how much Christianity had spread before the Romans.

To answer that I could refer to atheist Mack who did a study on the subject, but I think that simply pointing out that is covered the known civilized world and churches existed from Rome to Egypt BEFORE Constantine, should be enough to show it had spread quite a bit.


The point you didn't address was my original point, Paul's conversion and its uniqueness.

[dthmstr254]

I never made any such claim and I would think the answer is obvious...life expectancy of a certain period is an average for a population. Elite groups in a population are often familial. Elite groups have better access to food and sanitation. Elite groups have greater life expectancy. Were the apostles from elite groups or were they 'common' men?

Now I know you haven't read the Bible a lot. The disciples were fishermen. Jesus was a carpenter's son. These were not elitists. They were ordinary men who did some extraordinary things. Anyways, who is your source. I base my idea of life expectancy on the textbook Traditions and Encounters.

Wow.. you've now extended the life expectancy of witnesses to Jesus to in excess of 100 years.

You might like to re-check you figures

Note, I said full form and not fully written. If I were to say when every book was written, I would say inside 70 years. The Codex Vaticanus is the first copy of the entire New Testament. It was compiled around 100 years after. I can also reliably date the writing of the gospels because there are copies floating around of John as early as 115 AD in Egypt.

From - wiki..."A hadith was originally an oral tradition relevant to the actions and customs of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Starting the first Fitna of the 7th century, those receiving the hadith started to question the sources of the saying [1]. This resulted in a list of transmitters, for example "A told me that B told him that Muhammad said". This list was called an Isnad. The text itself came to be known as Matn.

The hadith were eventually recorded in written form, had their Isnad evaluated and collected into large collections mostly during the reign of Umar II (bin Abdul Aziz, grandson of Umar bin Khattab(RAA)2nd Caliph) during 8th century, something that solidified in the 9th century. These works are still today referred to in matters of Islamic law and History.

The hadith are prone to error and often misinterpreted. They are meant to be a secondary source of Islam, if followed at all. More and more muslims are reverting back to the Quran alone when they realise the method of compilation of hadith is based on hear-say."

And your point was? that does not prove it is more or less reliable other than delving into a source on which I am a member. That gives me the evidence from which I believe the Bible is more reliable.

It depends on what you are trying to prove. In terms of factual history I would think they can be treated in the same way. With doubt.

Go to the bookstore and take a look in the concordance of a Thompson KJV Bible. In there you will find an entire archaeological supplement. When you have refuted even one thing in there, ring me up.

My question was which one was more reliably copied.

You are waxing lyrical. I can go upstairs and see one of the original copies of the magna carta. Can I do that with any of the gospels?

I can go to the Roman museum and look directly upon the earliest known copy of the Bible, the Codex Vaticanus. Unlike you, I don't have a museum in my upstairs room. However, my library has a copy of Genesis as it was in the original Hebrew form. I can for the time being talk to the head of Wycliffe Bible Translators about the copying of the Bible and its reliability. You got any questions for him?

[Goat]

You have made several claims here.

The first and most profound is that Sorcery is not magical in nature but refers to bad deeds. Please feel free to either support this claim or drop it. You are the first person I have ever heard make this argument against this passage. With most of Jewish writings, misdeeds are referred to as sins. Not sorcery. So please support your claim.

since you used wikipedia earlier, i'll use the same:

Originally referring to the older Zoroastrian Magi (i.e. sages, priests), the term "magic" became a negative term and among the followers of the Judaic religion was recorded into Western history with its denigrating meaning. In times of antiquity, practitioners of other religions were accused of practicing magic (though the adherents of Christianity and Islam were never accused of this on any large scale).

That's fine. I used to have major issues with Wikipedia. I still do if it contradicts other sources simply because it can be edited by anyone at any time. So really TRY not to use it as a source. However when discussing something of little value, I will refer to it usually to get ideas about where else to look for further information.

As for the Magic, your passage says that magic had begun to change into a bad word. It does not say (nor does it imply) that bad things were referred to as magic.

It works one way but you are reading it backwards.

Magic became a bad thing. Bad things did not become Magic. Another example.

All Toyota’s are automobiles. Not all automobiles are Toyota’s. Same thing happening here.

However if you can not support this claim, then the rest of your argument also falls down because Jesus ben Pandera didn't perform any miracles, nor was this ever his claim. So it couldn't be him. ALSO your timing is off since the segment of history refering to Jesus ben Pandera was 80-100 years prior to Jesus. The Talmud recorded events in between these men. This presents you with a problem. The Talmud book Sanhedrin refers to your Yeshua Ben pandera. The passage I mentioned isn't even in the same book. How could this be the same person? Also the Jesus ben Pandera was following a teacher named Joshua who berated him in the account.

This story cannot be directly connected with any of the traditional events in the life of Jesus, and it is set about 100 years before Jesus presumably lived.

You keep saying that this story is from 100 years before Jesus time.

Ok here is a very atheistic source which attributes this passage to Jesus although loosely. Now if it is really a full 100 years out of date as you claim, then this atheist scholar (and many others) should really have to go back to school for a while.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~humm/Topics/ ... an43a.html

So now I leave it to you. Can you provide a scholarly source that discredits this atheists viewpoint? Can you show a source that says that THIS passage (not the one attributed to Yeshua ben Pan) is from 100 years before Jesus? I think you are confusing the two passages.

Sanhedrin 107b || Sota 47a (except for the last sentence)
This is mostly a somewhat modernized version of A.M. Streane's translation, quoted in Mead, pp. 137f. My modernization has been informed by Goldstein's translation of the same text (pp. 73f)

How convenient. My source above is also Goldstein and his timing is not 100 years off.

The Rabbis taught: The left should always be used to push away, and the right, on the other hand to draw nearer. But one should not do it as Elisha who pushed Gehazi away, nor as R. Joshua ben Perachiah, who pushed away Yeshu with both hands. What was the problem with R. Joshua ben Perachiah? When King Jannai ordered the extermination of the Rabbis, R. Joshua ben Perachiah and Yeshu fled to Alexandria. When it was safe to return, Rabbi Simeon ben Shetach sent him a letter:

As I pointed out in my prior post, this passage refers to Yeshua ben Pandera. He was the one running around with Joshua.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/talmud.html
http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/talmud.htm#t07

I will point out that the passages about jesus in Josphus are controversial at best, and while the Jerusalum Talmud was 150 years later, it only had to do with Temple ritual. The one that Jesus is alleged to be referenced in is the babaloyinan Talmud, which is 400 to 600 years later than Jesus. Yehua ben Pandera is supposed to be 100 bce anyway.

400 years is plenty of time for oral traditions to develop in reaction to Christian beliefs.

[Goat]

I never made any such claim and I would think the answer is obvious...life expectancy of a certain period is an average for a population. Elite groups in a population are often familial. Elite groups have better access to food and sanitation. Elite groups have greater life expectancy. Were the apostles from elite groups or were they 'common' men?

Now I know you haven't read the Bible a lot. The disciples were fishermen. Jesus was a carpenter's son. These were not elitists. They were ordinary men who did some extraordinary things. Anyways, who is your source. I base my idea of life expectancy on the textbook Traditions and Encounters.

I am sure he knew.. he was making a point. The life expecntancy of fishermen was a lot shorter than the life expectancy of priests and scholars.

[dthmstr254]

I never made any such claim and I would think the answer is obvious...life expectancy of a certain period is an average for a population. Elite groups in a population are often familial. Elite groups have better access to food and sanitation. Elite groups have greater life expectancy. Were the apostles from elite groups or were they 'common' men?

Now I know you haven't read the Bible a lot. The disciples were fishermen. Jesus was a carpenter's son. These were not elitists. They were ordinary men who did some extraordinary things. Anyways, who is your source. I base my idea of life expectancy on the textbook Traditions and Encounters.

I am sure he knew.. he was making a point. The life expecntancy of fishermen was a lot shorter than the life expectancy of priests and scholars.

However, most rabbis then also had to work on the side. The Pharisees were only religious leaders. They weren't rich. The life expectancy of those days, according to most SECULAR college textbooks, was similar to today's. Otherwise, you have to account for why the majority of them had long lives. I see this as only a dodge.

[Cogitoergosum]

What do you make of Josephus (60 years later), the talmud(150 years later), and the beliefs of the Nazarenes (5 years later). These are not biblical. Besides these are of course Paul's letters which at the very least refer to the bodily resurrection of Jesus (a miracle).

The talmud does not speak of jesus of nazareth, josephus was not presesnt for the miracles so heresay at best, the nazarenes? are those early christians the same ones that saw the miracles or was it heresay? or maybe they were fooled?

As for why would people reject him after seeing his miracles, I address this under another thread (Jesus Confusing Words page 1 I think) In short, when a person's preconceived "truths" are challenged, they can overlook ANYTHING which is contradictory to their original beliefs. Non-theists accuse Christians of doing this all the time.

that is funny if i saw someone raise the dead i don't think i'll have the choice but to believe him.

So organized armies are required groups of different ideas to slaughter each other?

well if you can have war without armies i'm not aware of it.

I'll let you be the judge.

Which Gospel would be better?
1) Written 30-45 years after the events
2) Written 150-250 years after the events.

it is completely irrelevant when they were written, what matters is the truth. If i see a book saying that the earth is flat i'm not going to believe it to be true because the one that says the earth is round was written later.

Which Gospel would be better?
1) Written by an apostle or follower of an apostle.
2) Written by someone so out of date, they couldn't possibly get info from an apostle.

The evidence of the gospels being written by apostles or followers are sketchy at best. Supposedly the writers were 70-90 years old if they were apostles which much higher than average life expectancy for that era, especially if you were not wealthy among the elite.

Which Gospel would be better?
1) One written without additional ideas which appeared much later but didn't exist during the time
2) Include any and all ideas whenever they come along.

That you have no proof for, it is church propaganda.

You be the judge. Please let me know which one you would have chosen.

being the judge i say both equally crazy.

So once again you are implying that differing views require armies and empires before they can kill each other?

to have a war like the muslims did yes you need to.

Constantine didn't appear on the scene for several hundred years. To compare to Islam you would need to figure out how people in the time of Paul were killing each other or pagans over differences of opinion about the details of their religion.

Before that christians are a minority and as a minority you tend to be more tolerant, when they got to power they abused it like anybody else. So the christians not killing anybody based on ideology before constantine meerly reflects their satus as a minority.

[Cogitoergosum]

As for the Magic, your passage says that magic had begun to change into a bad word. It does not say (nor does it imply) that bad things were referred to as magic.

It works one way but you are reading it backwards.

Magic became a bad thing. Bad things did not become Magic. Another example.

All Toyota’s are automobiles. Not all automobiles are Toyota’s. Same thing happening here.

no my point was that in the judeo christian tradition magic was used to mean bad deeds. that's all.

As I pointed out in my prior post, this passage refers to Yeshua ben Pandera. He was the one running around with Joshua.

Joshua or yeshua both of them in these account do not fit with jesus of nazareth.

[Cogitoergosum]

How do we know of paul's conversion?

[bernee51]

The life expectancy of those days, according to most SECULAR college textbooks, was similar to today's.

This is not the information I have...perhaps you could reference it for me.