... on Misrepresenting Origins of Catholic Church

The Origin Of Roman Catholic Religion - with Peter Michael Martinez
Peter Martinez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoCQpSN_kGk

4:17 "streamed into the NEW Christian Church"?

• 1) The Edict of Milan was not founding any Church, just recognising as legal and as in certain ways privileged one already in existence;
  
  
• 2) What do you consider then and there happened to the 280 years OLD one?

4:25 "And the NEW Polytheistic Christianity" ... There you go again!

• 1) You have not pointed to any point which reasonably could have been then and there a founding act for a new counterfeit Christian Church, the edict if Milan was not one;
  
  
• 2) You are still not explaining what happened to the original Christian Church.

4:46 "The wholesale conversion of the Roman people without any understanding of the original doctrine of the Apostles"

• 1) The edict of Milan, unlike that of Theodosius, decades later, obliged no Pagans to desist even from public Paganism and was therefore not forcing people with a taste for public religion to become Christians;
  
  
• 2) If the Christians in Rome and Empire in 312 had an understanding of the original Christian doctrine, why would the Church lose it in 313?
  
  
• 3) And since Christian clergy had privileges, they could impose on the ones wanting to convert to study the faith for some time before getting to baptism : it was called being a Catechumen. In other words, your whole scenario breaks down as impossible.

4:54 "many pagan and polytheistic beliefs were incorporated into the New State Church"

• 1) Except that the Edict of Milan didn't make Christianity a State Church.
  
  
• 2) Except that the original Church, which would normally still have been extant and which would normally have been the first beneficiaries of the Edict (at least before Constantine supposedly meddled with it at Nicaea) were still around to prevent such paganism flowing in.

5:11 "Converted in mass to the all inclusive new religion"

Sorry, but the Catholic Church just after 313 was anything BUT "all inclusive"!

It is not exactly like the Vatican II Council "Catholicism", you know!

5:41 "it was decided to incorporate as many of the customs and beliefs"

When and where?

What decision?

What historical fact can you point to?

You are telling a just so story, not very different from the one given by Dan Brown, through his character Teabing!

5:51 "they thought they would increase the number of Pagan converts"

Again, when and where?

If you look at Pope St Gregory the Great, he is a fan of including customs from Pagans, as long as the remains of these customs include nothing in conflict with the Christian belief.

BUT Pope St Gregory I is Pope 590 to 604.

You are supposedly still talking about just after the Edict of Milan. 313. Nearly 300 years before Pope St Gregory I.

6:03 J. L. von Monsheim, Ecclesiastical History, vol. I.

Thank you for citing your authority, at least.

I can google it, and it gives exactly five hits on some korean page.

In other words, the book probably does not exist. You are probably a fraud.

And you are also not even giving page numbers, fair enough, since the page numbers cannot exist without the book.

What however does exist is a 4 vol. Institutionum historiae ecclesiasticae libri IV, 1726, by one Johann Lorenz von Mosheim. Mosheim, not Monsheim.

As he was a Lutheran, his view of the Catholic Church can be suspected of being somewhat biassed. Especially back then in 1726.

6:41 "had found a way ... without confronting false religions"

Why was the Catholic Church then so very busy doing that, precisely confronting false religions?

Oh, it is perhaps not in von Monsheim, but it is in more real Ecclesiastical histories.

Take the Annals of Quedlinburg monastery. They tell of a monk and priest who went to Lithuania and who was nearly sacrificed to Lithuanian gods, only a horse gave a nudge interpreted as gods being against the sacrifice, and he survived and could tell of it.

Or take the men who came to Birka, Sts Ansgar and Rimbert and bishop Gauzbert - confronting Odinism near its headquarters in Sweden (Birka to Elder Uppsala is a fairly short distance, c. 92 km - using the municipalities they are part of, Ekerö and Uppsala).

If their Catholicism was so all inclusive as you claim, why take the trouble?

Speaking of Pope St Gregory, again : if his Catholicism was so all inclusive, why did he bother to tell bishops in Gaul (now France) they should NOT read in the Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid, poems containing pagan names of false gods?

This last in R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and Its Beneficiaries.

7:21 Identifying Jesus with the sun god ... "Et orietur vobis timentibus nomen meum sol justitiae, et sanitas in pennis ejus: et egrediemini, et salietis sicut vituli de armento." [Malachias (Malachi) 4:2]

Catholics hardly did so more than Malachy did! You do consider Malachy a real prophet of the Old Testament, do you?

7:31 Imagery repackaged from sunworshippers?

Possible - but for another purpose.

IDOLS repackaged from sunworshippers?

You'd have to document that!

7:45 "Rather than convert the people to the Gospel, the new Church in Rome decided to convert their traditions and customs and simply call them Christian."

Funny, then, that you don't find solar looking monstrances until centuries after sun worship was gone.

Funny also, then, that you STILL have:

• 1) not answered by what act of apostasy or new foundation the "New" Christian Church arose;
  
  
• 2) NOR explained what happened to the old Christian Church, the one which Roman Pagans had persecuted along with Jews for 280 years.

8:28 OK, you are speaking of Constantine in 321 introducing Sunday rest.

Can you show that Sunworshippers before that had been resting on Sundays?

8:42 Tim Dowley, noted.

9:09 Sorry, but Christmas celebrated on december 25 is actually older than Constantine and arguably it could at least be older than Aurelian instituting Sol Invictus on Dec. 25 a few decades earlier than Constantine.

9:34 If one had only had one Church in Rome / Roman Empire ceasing to be purely Christian and becoming a new Church, this could have been possible. Actually it did happen too, they were called Arians, one of the times.

BUT you are not just saying this happened, you are also saying it happened after the Church had already become a new Church purely through the Edict of Milan, and also you are at least not giving any evidence of showing there was another Church surviving and resisting apostasy beside this. If Christianity had merely been human or demonic, no problem. But since Christianity is from God, you are contradicting Matthew 28.

Unless you claim sth other than the RC Church continued to be the Christian Church that Christ had founded.

... on Misidentification of Tower of Babel

Some Very Compelling Evidence the Tower of Babel Was Real
Smithsonian Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgksU2F18lg

3:35 Seriously? Tower of Babel from c. 600 BC = Biblical account?

No.

In 600 BC all the world was no longer just one people and of one tongue. While Nebuchadnezzar II could have been inspired by Nimrod (at one time he tried to get divine honours for himself and commit Daniel to death penalty for refusing that), he is way too late for being the real Nimrod behind the real Tower of Babel.

Far from confirming the Genesis story, this would instead demote it from fact to a fiction set in prehistory which lampoons contemporary fact - all the while also setting composition of Genesis at way too late. A Christian cannot accept this.

The Sticky Clue That Links the Tower of Babel to the Bible
Smithsonian Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_vxg-IWhIM

It seems here that people are saying Genesis is a product of the Babylonian captivity.

No. It is very much not. Friedrich Delitzsch was wrong in 1902 and he is still wrong.

"They utilised the tower of Babylon as inspiration for the Tower of Babel story in the Bible."

This means, far from being real old history preserved to Ezra et al. from way before Babylonian captivity, Genesis is a piece of "history fiction" written millennia after the events and in which he (or someone like him in his day) placed parodies of contemporary events and things.

I find it way more likely that Nebuchadnezzar II was inspired from traditions back to Nimrod in his country - or even in an early look at Judaism (well before Daniel converted him!) was inspired by real old history in the Genesis story - but inspired in the wrong way. Emulating the bad guys.

2:22 I have argued that baked bricks and bitumen were there in Göbekli Tepe but were later removed.

The tower of Nebuchadnezzar could be where it was removed to. He could have tried to get luck from his predecessor in Shinar plains (and Neo-Babylonian Empire included Göbekli Tepe / Edessa, or so it looks from the map) and tried to do so by reusing all of the bricks he could find in GT. Which was then covered with sand as to non-brick stone foundations.

Of course, stamps from the time of Nebuchadnezzar II could have been somewhat difficult to add two thousand years after they were originally made, so these stamps could refute this theory.

3:14 The Bible doesn't specifically say the Tower of Babel was never finished. It was the city that was ceased from being built.

I have argued that the Tower of Babel has lately been finished in Cape Canaveral and in Bajkonur, etc. The project was a rocket and good for us, we are using O2 and H2 for rocket fuel.

Nimrod would probably have known explosive qualities of Uranium from pre-Flood wars as reflected in Mahabharata and he would have tried that. Disastrously, especially with all men together around it.

... Pyramids, Flood, Babel, LXX, Dead Sea Scrolls

Were the Pyramids Built Before the Flood?
NathanH83
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI1yRTC6kGE

Leningrad codex ... now, I am a fairly firm believer in LXX chronology - and in Vulgate except for chronology.

That is, I am not a believer in Leningrad codex. Btw, the part about chronology was wrong already where the Hebrew original for St Jerome's Vulgate was concerned. I have one idea of why this happened : Jews have a way of wanting to make Melchisedec = Shem. That way, Melchisedec would not have been a goy. The LXX chronology makes this impossible, but with Vulgate and Masoretic, it is possible.

[As we shall see, Nathan Hoffman thinks the same, see below]

11:22 Shall we take a non-Ussher, non-Masoretic timeline Ussher style?

You have St Jerome's whose chronology the Catholic Church, at least Latin Rite, uses every Christmas.

Christ born 5199 after Creation, 2957 after Flood, 2015 after Birth of Abraham.

Obviously, it is inspired by LXX, only LXX for Creation to Flood being 2242 years, LXX and Samaritan agreeing with Josephus on longer timespans between post-Flood patriarchs, and St Jerome's timeline agrees perhaps a bit better with Samaritan, by omitting Cainan. This omission is not shared by Syncellus, whose chronology + 8 more years is given each Christmas in Byzantine tradition Churches :

Christ born 5508 after Creation, 3366 after Flood ...

12:50 Now, are the step pyramids at Saqqara in any way carbon dated?

I think they are historically attested as Djoser's, he was probably Joseph's pharao.

And this means that they are reshuffleable like this:

2800 BC = carbon date of Djoser's coffin, contemporary to Saqqara pyramids = 1709 BC, when Joseph was in Egypt about surviving Djoser.

Here is an article where I dealt with that:

Creation vs. Evolution : This Morning I Read it's 77 and 68 Years of Radiocarbon
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2017/02/this-morning-i-read-its-77-and-68-years.html
[short link : http://ppt.li/3sw]

NathanH83

Djoser and Imhotep lived about a thousand years before Joseph was ever in Egypt. Yes, there are lots of similarities between Joseph and Imhotep. But you don't know for a fact that they are the same person. I know that the Step Pyramid was built as a smaller structure at first. But then later on it was expanded. When they found Imhotep's name in the pyramid, I don't necessarily see that as evidence that Imhotep was there are the original building. It could be that the original building was built a thousand years before Joseph, but then a thousand years later, Joseph expanded it. So they might have dated Imhotep incorrectly.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Djoser and Imhotep lived about a thousand years before Joseph was ever in Egypt."

Imhotep is historically dated to Djoser.

Djoser is CARBON DATED to about 1000 years before Joseph was in Egypt.

If Imhotep is really Joseph, this means sth for carbon level in the atmosphere back then, just as I mentioned in article.

With Djoser being grossly misdated, this answers the rest of your points.

"But you don't know for a fact that they are the same person."

I think the Hunger Stele is a good clue. Or even a proof. I take it over carbon date of Djoser anytime!

15:41 - Here I must defend conventional creation scientists.

Even very fast growing populations these days have constraints of economy which were not there in the uncrowded days after the Flood. Citing one:

// From the Flood to the Tower of Babel

The date of the Tower of Babel event is unknown. From context, it appears the timing has something to do with a man named Peleg, whose name means ‘division’ (Gen 10:25).16 He was born c. 101 years after the Flood and lived until c. 340 years after the Flood (Gen 11).17

If the division of people occurred only 100 years after the Flood, there would not be many people in the world. However, the data behind the growth rates calculated in figure 4 indicate that under some scenarios it is possible to obtain a population size greater than 1,000 individuals in that much time. This occurred at all settings of minimum CBA with a minimum child spacing of 1 year, or with small minimum CBA and a minimum child spacing of 2 or 3 years. It is also possible to arrive at over 10,000 individuals with a minimum child spacing of 1 year and a minimum CBA <= 17, and up to 40,000 individuals with a minimum CBA of 14, although these are not likely scenarios.

After 340 years, it is trivial to have 1,000 individuals in the population and most parameter settings produce population sizes many orders of magnitude greater than that. How many people were in existence when the population was divided? Sadly, one cannot determine the number from numerical analyses like these. //

Modelling biblical human population growth
by Robert Carter and Chris Hardy
http://creation.com/biblical-human-population-growth-model

We also do not know how many were needed for the building. A "tower of which the top reaches into heaven" is constructed rather often at NASA or their furnishers. It is called a three step rocket. On Cape Canaveral it looks like a tower before takeoff, and after takeoff only the top reaches physically into heaven, the real heaven well above atmosphere.

So, even 1000 could have been enough, with someone searching for the rocket fuel (I think Nimrod had chosen Uranium for the task and God sent Ice Age to prevent his men from reaching Uranium mines in Canada) somewhere else.

However, I agree with you that LXX chronology is likelier, since at beginning of ice age we don't find anything looking like a rocket ramp, at end of it, Younger Dryas, yes, we do : Göbekli Tepe. I give Peleg a rather later birth, so that Palaeolithic from first Magdalenian cave painting can fit in between Flood and T of B = G T.

NathanH83

There's no possible way the Tower of Babel was only 100 years after the flood. Just to get 30,000 people you'd need a growth rate that is absurd beyond all reason. And surely the Tower of Babel had to be bigger than the Great Pyramid. Otherwise, if the Great Pyramid was bigger than the Tower, then why would God go through the trouble of thwarting the plans of the Tower of Babel, but then allow for the building of an even bigger structure? Why would God allow the bigger one, but not allow the smaller one?That makes no sense! The Tower of Babel was supposed to reach into the heavens. The pyramid is tall, but it's not really all that tall. Even the Eiffel tower is taller. I think the atheists have a really good point on this one. They're absolutely right that you'd need an absurdly high growth rate. It couldn't have happened in only 100 years. And there's no doubt that it occurred at the birth of Peleg. Even Josephus figured that one out.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"There's no possible way the Tower of Babel was only 100 years after the flood."

We'll see.

"Just to get 30,000 people you'd need a growth rate that is absurd beyond all reason."

I probably agree, if only because grandchildren of Noah needed time to be born and grown into puberty.

"And surely the Tower of Babel had to be bigger than the Great Pyramid."

No. Genesis never mentions size.

"Otherwise, if the Great Pyramid was bigger than the Tower, then why would God go through the trouble of thwarting the plans of the Tower of Babel, but then allow for the building of an even bigger structure? Why would God allow the bigger one, but not allow the smaller one?That makes no sense!"

I have even heard like this : why would God thwart Babel but not rockets? It only makes sense of Tower of Babel was itself a rocket, God intended for rockets to succeed, but with a delay.

A salutary delay which allowed for a change of fuel from Uranium to H2 + O2. A much better rocket fuel, than the one I suspect Nimrod was going for!

"The Tower of Babel was supposed to reach into the heavens."

No, only its top was. In a three step rocket only the top reaches into Heaven.

"The pyramid is tall, but it's not really all that tall. Even the Eiffel tower is taller. I think the atheists have a really good point on this one."

Except that tall is not the point. The tops of pyramids, Eiffel tower, up to lately Twin Tower remain at same distance from ground. They are not moving into the heavens, like a three step rocket is.

Which is why I think T o B was meant to be sth like that.

"They're absolutely right that you'd need an absurdly high growth rate. It couldn't have happened in only 100 years."

No, they are not if ToB was a rocket which needed far fewer people than a pyramid, and I don't think even the pyramid needed 30 000 people working full time, I think that is a roll of how many were involved one time or other in the work. If it is at all a figure from back then documentation.

"And there's no doubt that it occurred at the birth of Peleg. Even Josephus figured that one out."

The Bible only says "And to Heber were born two sons: the name of the one was Phaleg, because in his days the earth was divided: and his brother's name Jectan."

In his days - not necessarily at his birth. And it also does not say whether the division was at the dispersion or an earlier event. Noah or someone dividing up earth juridically, before Babel project braved that. This would mean Peleg could have been born while the earth was being portioned out like Alexander VI did between Spain and Portugal for non-Christian countries.

AND both beginning and end of Babel story happening after Peleg was already named.

15:46 "to build a city with an enormous tower"?

First, city, even in 100 years, one could have had about 1000 people around. Fastest growing populations now are no indicator for back then, since these have economic constraints stopping some early marriages from getting along.

Second, the Bible nowhere says the tower was tall. In length of object. It says its top was meant to reach into heaven, and the tops of three step rockets do that, but we don't find these even with all three steps are extremely tall.

NathanH83

Of course the population grew faster back then. Their death rate wasn't as fast since they lived longer. But the growth rate you're suggesting that women be pregnant for only about 3 weeks. Sorry, but that's not realistic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I said "even in 100 years, one could have had about 1000 people around"

You interpret this as "the growth rate you're suggesting that women be pregnant for only about 3 weeks."

How?

Have you accounted for LARGER families, making Duggars seem a cosy little family?

I'd like to see your calculations for "100 years = 8 - 1000 = 3 weeks pregnancies"!

17:09 Obviously, the population growth was actually slowing down as economic possibilities narrowed.

As said, 8.58 % a year is probably not needed, since I think 1000 people would have been enough for T of B project to start, but if there was such a growth, it would have slowed down after a bit, since after some growth some guys find it is not so ultra easy any more to marry and look for a new piece of land to farm or - just after Flood and well to nearly up to Babel, if Göbekli Tepe - hunt and gather on.

17:29 You cite 30,000 people involved in Cheops pyramid.

Are you sure so many people were actually needed full time, or can they have taken turns, so that 30,000 people were in fact involved at one time or other, but most of them NOT from beginning to end?

18:34 a fullfledged LXX chronology involves Christ being born in 5500 BC, it would seem from Byzantine liturgic or George Syncellus' chronology (5508 / 5500). St Jerome's chronology involves Christ being born 5199 after Creation.

18:40 So I say we are probably in year 7216 after Creation, perhaps even in year 7525.

NathanH83

no, the Greek is not right about everything. The Greek is wrong about the extra Cainan, and it's also wrong about the 5 generations from Adam down to Mahallalel.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

In extra Cainan, you have Byzantine Liturgy with Syncellus against you.

With Adam being 230 years at birth of Seth, and you denying this, you have against you even Roman Latin Liturgy and St Jerome, as well as above.

I cannot say you have nothing for you, since Vulgate supports your view on that.

19:32 "II Cainan" - for time between Flood and Abraham, the difference between Syncellus (LXX only) and St Jerome is about as if St Jerome omitted the years between Cainan's birth and his begetting Salah.

On the other hand, it could be a cultural thing to omit him from a Hebrew style genealogy, I think I read somewhere he was a bad sinner and was therefore omitted. In that case, I cannot just go for St Jerome and just diss Syncellus and Byzantine liturgic tradition.

20:21 There were Levites in each tribe and they intermarried with each tribe, including Judah.

The Jews come from the tribes Judah and Benjamin so today a Cohen or a Levi comes from Levites intermarried with tribes of Judah and Benjamin. A Samaritan levite or cohen would come from Levites intermarried with Ephraim and some other ingredients of Samaritan population.

AND the Blessed Virgin was about first cousin or sth to Elisabeth, the wife of the cohen Zachariah who was father to the prophet St John the Baptist.

That said, Christ is even so neither an Aaronite priest nor quite qualified to be so, neither was, as you are going to say, Melchisedec, fairly obviously a Jebusite, descended very probably from Canaan.

And yes, Masoretic and also Hebrew original for Vulgate allow Melchisedec = Shem, while LXX and Samaritan both exclude this.

23:33 Good detective work, sir!

24:45 Both a good detective work on why Jewish identification is wrong, and on why St Paul might be warning Titus!

And excellent detective work up to 28:16, I took a snap shot of that still for my blog!



30:07 The one place where I can't credit you with excellent detective work is accepting Saqqara pyramids as centuries before 2000 BC.

Abraham lived around that time, and we should probably group him with Narmer in time. That is, Narmer, carbon dated raw date to 3400 BC or so, must have lived more like 2000 BC.

Abraham coincides with sth else which requires carbon date 3400 BC, namely chalcolithic of En-Geddi. I failed to properly credit Dr A.J.M. Osgood for his detective work, but it was because I trusted him so much I didn't read all of the article carefully. I didn't even look up whether En-Geddi was mentioned in Genesis 14. Its synonym is:

// As is often the case, the positive clue comes from the most insignificant portion of this passage. In Genesis 14:7 we are told that the kings of Mesapotamia attacked ‘the Amorites who dwelt in Hazezon-tamar’. Now 2 Chronicles 20:2 tells us that Hazezon-tamar is En-gedi, the oasis mentioned in Scripture a number of times on the western shore of the Dead Sea. //

The Times of Abraham
By Dr A.J.M. Osgood
http://creation.com/the-times-of-abraham

Great detective work, Osgood, even if you missed this has an implication for carbon levels - or didn't like the implication it had! In c. 2000 BC, the carbon level was so low that things from back then, if organic then, carbon date to c. 1400 years older than they are, i e to 3400 BC.

A Masoretic reading making Abraham more recent would of course add even more extra years to make same apparent date. This means that Saqqara pyramids are too young to disprove the Masoretic text - but nice try!

(My rise of carbon curve could however be another try against Masoretic text : since the carbon years between 40 000 BC and 9600 BC must fit between Flood and beginning of Babel around birth of Peleg - this is another issue, it was around beginning of Babel, not at its dispersion 40 years later, that Peleg was born, at another division of the Earth - Syncellus does agree with this being made juridically by Noah and Babel project being in rebellion against it, even if in his chronology which I basically agree with, Noah would have been dead already, so it would have to have been someone else).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

For seeing all of my comments in order, see this review of your video:

http://assortedretorts.blogspot.fr/2017/06/pyramids-flood-babel-lxx-dead-sea.html

NathanH83

Thanks! I checked out your blog. I'm glad this information is getting out there, because I think it's important for people to know.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are welcome!

... on PIE

... on Tower of Babel - a Classic (quora) · ... on PIE

Q

Why does reconstructed Proto-Indo-European seem so cumbersome to pronounce?
https://www.quora.com/Why-does-reconstructed-Proto-Indo-European-seem-so-cumbersome-to-pronounce/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl

C on Q

It seems as if there are a lot of unusual phonemes and stranger and more consonant clusters than most modern IE languages have. Also, what do those subscript numbers mean?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I speak two langs, Latin and Germanic. In a few dialects.

Answered just now

H generally comes with subscript 1,2 or 3.

H₁ is the H which becomes (a Continental) E and was probably (an English / German) H.

H₂ becomes A and was presumably Ach-Laut.

H₃ becomes O and also voices some consonants beside it, was probably a voiced counterpart of Ach-Laut a little further back perhaps and with lip rounding.

Then there are b^h, d^h, g^h, g^h(w). Basically taken over from Sanskrit b^h, d^h, j^h, g^h.

Now, the unusual part is this : b^h, d^h, g^h, g^h(w) exist, which is rare outside India (Sanskrit + some Dravidic languages + some Indic languages later than Sanskrit) AND the three H sounds can form the core of a syllable, which is usually reserved for vowels which are voiced sounds.

Also, m and n, l and r exist in syllabic version, but this you can find, at least for r and l in Czech too : vlk meaning wolf and Brno being a city both have this. This means they are not really consonant clusters, since m, n, l, r in this context are functioning as vowels.

But I have only DEFINED the unusual traits of Proto-Indo-European. This is sth other than to EXPLAIN them as you asked me to do.

Now, PIE is reconstructed and this is how linguists finally agreed to reconstruct it. I just saw a version with only one laryngal (or two, counting voiceless and voiced), which was much closer to Hittite - by another linguist, proposing his reconstruction.

And one possible explanation why the reconstruction of a proto-language seems so odd (laryngals, b^h, d^h, g^h, g^h(w), m and n, l and r in syllabic version, all at the same time) may be in my view because the premiss behind the reconstruction, namely existence of a proto-language (like Latin is to the Romance languages) is the wrong explanation for Indo-European communalities. As it happens, that is my view.

pH₂tH₁r = pronounce pkht-hr … would you call your dad such a sound?

... on St. Basil

HGL's F.B. writings : What St Basil Was and What he Was Not Against · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on St. Basil

i

Who was Basil?
Reasons to Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02e8_IvBaPs

I

Dr. Zweerink, while giving lip service to the credentials of St Basil, how about accepting with him that the six days were calendar days?

"Not so fast, he's just a doctor of the Church, that is just a RC title ..."

Lip service, as said ... not sure you will even admit it as candidly as I just put it for you!

II

COMB0RICO

1) The language in this video sounds supportive of Catholicism. Is this a Catholic channel? Let us know, so the knowledgeable ones can move along and not waste our time on the heretical Catholic Church. Besides, the mother church is above scripture, right? Who needs to follow scripture with that kind of logic?

2) Saints are not people "The Church" elects to be special people. There is no Bible for this practice.

Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;

Ephesians 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:

Here, we see contextual evidence that "saints" are not a specially elected people, but another name for "believers".

If one does a search of all instances where "saints" appears in the N.T., the overwhelming context points to this. Saint is another term for believer.

3) There is no Bible for the concept of "The Church":

Acts 9:31 Then had the CHURCHES rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria

Romans 16:4 Who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the CHURCHES of the Gentiles.

1 Corinthians 7:17 But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all CHURCHES.

Galatians 1:2 And all the brethren which are with me, unto the CHURCHES of Galatia:

1 Thessalonians 2:14 For ye, brethren, became followers of the CHURCHES of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus

And on, and on...

Noble LaRocco Masi

+COMB0RICO Hey dude, here are some answers
1. This is not a Catholic Channel actually protestant, but dealing with pre-15th century church = Catholic Church

2. Of Course, but some were named Saints officially by the Catholic Church in the old days. When talking about history you inevitably have to talk about the Catholic Church

3. Actually, The Church is the Bride of Christ, look at Revelations!!! R

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Catholic answers:

"Ephesians 4:11 And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;"

Indeed, saint is not a title you can have while you live on earth, unlike above list (some of them you can no longer have, evangelist refers to four people who are all in Heaven now). One can say the above list has mainly been simplified to the Catholic title "bishop". All or most of above had episcopal consecration, and the diversifications like being an original disciple for "apostle" or writing a Gospel for "evangelist" are gone.

Or if evangelist was one who brought the Gospel to any people who had not yet received it, that means an overlap with apostles (which you have in the other option too) and the modern term is "missionary bishop".

"Ephesians 4:12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:"

The saints refer to all of the Church collectively.

But on earth, we don't know who is going to persevere. Therefore we don't refer to people alive as saints, since they may not be among the finally elect. In theory, someone in Purgatory would be as much as saint as someone in Heaven, but in practise not all particulars who are either placed are down here known as saints, and those who are are basically those who made it to Heaven immediately - one exception of a saint who prayed to be in Purgatory and was there three days - because those are the people God singles out as models for us, by working miracles in connection with their names, asked for intercessions, relics.

This means a declaration of the Church someone is a saint is very different from an ordination of a living person to an office. The office can be abused, the office can be lost. What God guarantees by miracles cannot be either. And, yes, this means the Catholic Church is able to discern true miracles from God from the false miracles worked with the power of Satan.

"Here, we see contextual evidence that "saints" are not a specially elected people, but another name for "believers". If one does a search of all instances where "saints" appears in the N.T., the overwhelming context points to this. Saint is another term for believer."

Rather, the saintS (plural) is another term for the Church - believers and sanctified such as to the living members.

The one usage does not prove the other usage wrong.

"There is no Bible for the concept of "The Church":"

Matthew 16.

It is also a synonym for "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of Heaven".

Christ said "on this rock, I will build my Church" - not "my Churches".

"Acts 9:31 Then had the CHURCHES rest throughout all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria"

Refers to sees, each with its bishop (except Jerusalem where the Apostles were a college of bishops).

They are parts of the Church as well as images of Her.

"Romans 16:4 Who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the CHURCHES of the Gentiles."

Same here.

" 1 Corinthians 7:17 But as God hath distributed to every man, as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. And so ordain I in all CHURCHES."

So, both Peter and Paul commanded in all sees - not just one or two. And guess where both died? Rome.

"Galatians 1:2 And all the brethren which are with me, unto the CHURCHES of Galatia: 1 Thessalonians 2:14 For ye, brethren, became followers of the CHURCHES of God which in Judaea are in Christ Jesus"

Sees.

"When talking about history you inevitably have to talk about the Catholic Church"

Yep. "To be deep in history is to cease to be a Protestant" John Henry Cardinal Newman. Forgot exact reference.

ij

The Writings of Basil
Reasons to Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-1vDoYpPbg

I

Yes, as a Catholic I cannot consider original carnivorousness outright heretical, I can just consider it less probable.

However, not sure if St Basil can be cited as authority for original carnivorousness, unlike St Augustine and St Bede, who may have misundestood him.

The context in which he says those teeth he doesn't deem were created for nothing ... I recall he may have been doing an excursion mentally to some post-Fall conditions, but let's see.

Note, there are other Church Fathers more clearly against original carnivorousness : Sts Justin and Irenee.

Looking at text now : it seems he is taking modern zoological observations as proof that original creation was very good - which it was and which those denying original carnivorousness agree on.

So, while you can cite Sts Ausgustine and Bede more directly for your purpose, you cannot do so with St Basil.

NOW, if you go to St Augustine, his view on original carnivorousness clearly excludes any unnecessary suffering before Adam fell. Adam would order a rabbit to go to the mouth of a wolf who would thankfully to Adam and mercifully to the rabbit go about and kill it swiftly (while its vain struggle to preserve life remains a good thing) and then eat all, letting nothing go to waste.

NOT exactly what you find if you go to rock records of carnivorous dinos, do you?

So, even on the view of St Augustine, who believed in original carnivorousness, you can't say the fossil record is older than Adam's sin - even theologically, ignoring the chronological implications for Biblical history.

II

"To carnivorous animals He has given pointed teeth which their nature requires for their support. Those that are only half furnished with teeth have received several distinct receptacles for their food."

Actually a vegetarian lion (yes, there are examples) had another digestion than a ruminant. So, the observation remains essentially true if in transposing it back to Eden we take away the element of carnivorousness.

III

2:20 "designed to be carnivores in the first place"

It is not a mere chance which animal is a carnivore after the fall and which isn't. Certain ones were at least designed to become carnivores quicker than others.

There is a deer somewhere in Asia which is a carnivore, even if deers in general aren't. Modern city conditions push doves to eat chicken meat and pork - more often at least than earlier conditions where the near exclusive diet would be bread crumbs and worms.

Or one could say, God had already designed the processes by which carnivorousness would begin, when and if it did.

I actually did look further down, and here is what I find:

"And let nobody accuse the Creator of having produced venomous animals, destroyers and enemies of our life. Else let them consider it a crime in the schoolmaster when he disciplines the restlessness of youth by the use of the rod and whip to maintain order."

In other words, like St Augustine's view of thorns and certain insects, certain things would have remained dormant if God had had no sin to punish.

They were there as potentialities in the original creation, but would not have come to fruition.

IV

Psalm 103:21 is even a parallel to 144:15, which is part of monastic saying grace before meals.

Yes, after the fall, when carnivorousness is condition of many animals, God earns glory for giving them their prey. But any way, God earns glory for giving anyone the food they need when they need it.

Btw, Ps 103 contradicts the idea of "survival of the fittest", since it teaches "survival by Providence".

It also contradicts a few other modern scientific ideas. Like rejection of "animism". Like rejection of geostationary cosmology - both of which are taught here:

[4] qui facis angelos tuos spiritus, et ministros tuos ignem urentem.
[5] Qui fundasti terram super stabilitatem suam, non inclinabitur in saeculum saeculi.



... on Carbon dating

Creation v. Evolution: How Carbon Dating Works
Seeker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54e5Bz7m3do

1:02 Creationists, including Ken Ham, are not carbon dating denialists, or not all of us.

Ken Ham is in ICR which also involves RATE project in which people are involved looking for creationist calibrations of the carbon dating.

I'm outside that project, but heavily implied in that part, sir!

Now, Libby won a Nobel prize is not a scientific argument, precisely as Carducci won a Nobel prize is not a literary argument.

His half life is no longer used today. This means that half life estimates as such have changed due to a calibration undertaken from considerations other than Libby's discovery.

My calibration is also undertaken from considerations other than Libby's discovery.

I am using the now commonly accepted half life, the Cambridge halflife.

I am using a Biblical chronology based on LXX, shifting between St Jerome's and George Syncellus' Ussher type calculations, from one of my tables to the next. 50 000 or 51 000 BP sounds like pre-Flood. C. 3400 BC.

What gets dated as 3400 BC (like crude dating of Narmer) is more like 2000 BC. This means the carbon 14 level back then was low enough to correspond to the decay from 100 percent modern carbon that is to be expected for c 1400 years - in Abraham's day (yes, Abraham was contemporary with Narmer and probably his successor too) the pmc in atmosphere would have been c. 83.5 - 86.5 (depending on which chronology I use for Abraham).

3400 BC for real, the level would be at c. 1 pmc or somewhat lower. Which accounts for the 46 000 extra years. Actually as low as 0.383 pmc, according to this calculator:

https://www.math.upenn.edu/~deturck/m170/c14/carbdate.html

By Flood, the level was roughly 1.5 pmc, corresponding to 40 000 BP, chosen for European end of Neanderthals and beginning of Noah's family a k a Cro Magnon.

1:36 "it's a constant" - only as constant as the carbon 14 levels in the atmosphere.

Which is where Creationists at a somewhat finer level of argumentation than in oral debate with Bill Nye get our wedge from.

Btw, you said 5730 years, which means you disagree with Libby on the exact halflife.

And the discoveries of the calibration which leads to this new one were obviously not made by JUST carbon dating things, but by taking into account things outside carbon dating.

Major difference : we take the Bible into account too, as reliable history.

2:08 tree rings, ice cores, corals - subject to so much variation as to be unreliable. Tree rings are not always annual. Ice cores need not be annual at all.

2:40 Libby measured even half life of C14 a bit wrong. How do you accurately measure a halflife like that of Uranium? Unlike C14, you cannot calibrate after historically dated objects.

A piece of coin with the image of KAICAP TIBHPIOC or CAESAR TIBERIUS can have blood sweat or tears on it and be carbon datable - and we know (probably) how along ago Tiberius ruled.

But you cannot calibrate any Uranium Lead half life in that precise way, because the halflife is too long.

Unlike and like the problem with a rising C14-level - you have a problem with knowing if all the lead (even of a particular isotope) was originally Uranium. In Potassium Argon you have a problem with "excessive argon" - an explanation invoked by people yourself about lava from Mount St Helen's explosion 37 years (and not half a million or two million years) ago. We just take excessive argon a bit further than you do.

3:43 Since 800 000 or 1.5 million years were, as you say, dated by a method we find disproven by Mount St Helen's, the data need not even be taken into account. I suppose your set never tried to make a parallel carbon dating ...

... on Old Earth Creationist Takes on Age of Humanity

Age of Humanity
Reasons to Believe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kauvReDuQjY

0:46 Fossil and archaeology are two techniques which both depend on the further technique (mainly) of radiocarbon dating and, even worse in some cases, K-Ar (Potassium-Argon, does "excess argon" ring a bell?).

The technique using genealogy is for one thing a fuzzy one, it is parallel to a similar one in sound changes which leads to results that a linguist could easily discredit.

Radiocarbon is actually the least unreliable of the two or three and it can be explained from the view of Biblical chronology by a very low carbon 14 level back at Flood and a slow rise since then.

I did some mathematical models on this topic, here is my last one:

Creation vs. Evolution : Interim III, Flood to Abraham with Syncellus
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2017/05/interim-iii-flood-to-abraham-with.html

Notice, that the percent modern carbon (14) as compared to present level was at most 86.572 is basically a given for Abraham in En Geddi. Genesis 14.

Here we have a fairly long Biblical chronology, not just LXX based, but a longer calculation in it, for instance than the Roman Martyrology which is also LXX based but would give a date more recent than 2000 BC for Abraham in En Geddi.

A shorter Biblical chronology means that carbon dated objects to 3200 - 3400 BC need even lower carbon 14 levels back when this happened. And you do need this dating, if En Geddi was inhabited then - and also because Elam is mentioned as a power. An alternative dating for En Geddi could be the neolithic instead of the chalcolithic, and this yields an even lower pmc level in the then atmosphere.

So, if you insist, as I hope you do, that Abraham in En Geddi and facing Elamites is historical, and insist the generations from Abraham to Christ are correct, not including any random gaps, you need between then and now, probably between then and Babylonian captivity, a rise in carbon 14 levels at least from 86.572 pmc to around 100 pmc.

With this need for a rise, which would not be cautioned by secular users of C-14, by secular archaeologists, why are you so eager to avoid the rise in C-14 levels which make other aspects of carbon dated archaeology and fossils fit into the Biblical chronology?

0:56 100,000 - 200,000 years ago ... not even carbon dated, at best K-Ar.

You know, how NOT to date a NZ volcano, if you catch the CMI reference ...

1:01 "at least 50,000 years ago"

That would be a bit before the Flood.

I take Europe's population was mainly replaced from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon (with some Neanderthal admixture) at the Flood, Neanderthals being a separate line from Adam as compared to Noah's.

This replacement is dated to 40,000 BP, or 38,000 BC, so that would be the carbon date for the Flood year. The Biblical one.

I explain the admixture by Japheth's wife, saved on board Ark, having some Neanderthal ancestry, though her mother probably wasn't : Neanderthals have another form of mitochondrial DNA not found in modern humanity, which we are seeing after the Flood, so I presume there is no undue rashness in guessing she had no Neanderthal mother and the last pure Neanderthals were killed in the Flood.

1:21 symbolism : 70 - 80,000 years? That would be pre-Flood. If carbon dated.

And unlike the "100 - 200,000 years" this may be a dating with some relative value, as to sequence, even if its absolute one as to dates is off.

Where would you have this presumably pre-Flood symbolism? ... ah yes, coming.

1:29 caves in South Africa ... OK.

2:26 swiftness or slowness of change in markers is for one thing a fuzzy technique, but for another it has its basic calibration based on other false dates of how long ago certain populations emerged separate from each other and common ancestry.

So, clearly NOT a reliable argument against the Biblical timescale.

3:09 You can't talk of DNA "clock" as converging unless you have evidence it is clearly independent all the way through from for instance C-14.

On the contrary, its speeds are calibrated partly precisely from C-14 dates of past archaeological events. Like, say, landbridge of Siberia to Americas or earliest American human remains after that.

You presumably date that to 20,000 BP, that would be, in my table:

X 2988 BC
15.616 pmc 18 338 BC

3:54 giving data for Adam's like his being 230 when Seth was born and his living 700 years after that seems very superfluous if the genealogies are just theological constructs.

Fuzz, you need to ditch THOSE Biblical scholars, quicker than fast!