General Arguments concerning Christianity and the Bible

[Easyrider]

There's comments in many of the different threads that, "That's not related to the subject of this thread." So I thought a general thread like this one would be good in handling different discussions that "evolve" into other subject matters. For instance, the Book of Daniel might be quoted but then the subject morphs into whether Daniel was a real prophet; who is a real prophet; and then Moses and Jesus are brought into it and soon you have a debate on the deity and legitimacy of Jesus. So, if the moderators don't mind, we can have a free for all here and just enjoy where the subjects lead without having to worry about thread topics.

[Easyrider]

It doesn't mater if he was accurate 80% of the time he was still wrong.

What, wrong 20% of the time? But accurate 80%? LOL! At 80% he beats your Michael Moore, who is pathetic.

[Cathar1950]

Now you are comparing Michael Moore with Daniel?
Your Michael Moore?
The point is that Josephus is questionable and after the fact and he like Jesus could have been wrong. Josephus likes to brag. He also told the general destroying Jerusalem that he was the fulfillment of he star prophecy that Christians attribute to Jesus. For Josephus, Titus was the Messiah that would rule the world coming out of Jerusalem.
So given you slur against Michael Moore can you prove that he was less then 80% correct? You ignored my point and made some kind of right-wing bash at a liberal that was unrelated to the topic. Even if Moore was 100 wrong all the time is irrelevant. What a cheep shot.

Jimmy Swagger got caught with a prostitute therefore all gospel music sucks and his is the worse therefore the rivers have all run dry and there is no love.

[Goat]

From http://www.centuryone.com/josephus.html

On Josephus' Accuracy

Was Josephus always correct? Certainly not. His inaccuracies range from vagueness to blatant exaggeration. Shaye Cohen
accuses him of "inveterate sloppiness".19 The index to Cohen's book goes so far as actually to include entries for "exaggeration", "inconsistency and sloppiness" and "corrupt transmission of names and numbers".20 Indeed, even if it is accepted that copyists were responsible for not a few of his mistakes (some of which have been hinted at already), it still cannot be denied that he was by nature somewhat negligent.21 The list of scholars who have deprecated his errors is long22 but suffice it to mention here the accusations of tow eminent archaeologists alone, since archaeology is the central theme of the present discussion. Albright remarks on "how inaccurate Josephus generally was in details . . ."

You seem to have glossed over all the examples in this article that described Josephus' accuracy in numerous historical accounts. Is there some reason you failed to mention those?

Yes, those had to deal with the War in Jersusalum... where he could possibly have access to records. Although, I will note that the story he has about Maasada , which was supposed to be partly autobiographical, was also shown to be highly inaccurate.

[Goat]

It doesn't mater if he was accurate 80% of the time he was still wrong.

What, wrong 20% of the time? But accurate 80%? LOL! At 80% he beats your Michael Moore, who is pathetic.

And that has what to do with the topic at hand? Is that an attempt to change the subject? As far as I can see, Michael Moore is totally irrelavent to the issue.

Jospehus has been shown to be very inaccurate much of the time. He does best in the situations where he can look at the field reports of roman commanders. Other than that, he is wildly inaccurate. Since it is shown he very often is wildly inaccurate, his opinion about something that happened well over 2 centuries before his birth is suspect.

Now, if you could show me some external to "The book of Daniel" evidence that dates from before 170 bce, then I will concede the point.

There is , of course more information. But I would like you to deal with the information presented already in an honest way first. That means' NO if then maybe buts'. That means dealing with real information.. not pure speculation.