... against false sophistication of the Robber Baron of Theology

Video commented on:

Fr. Robert Barron on Bill Maher and Biblical Interpretation
Bishop Robert Barron
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGDDKlXl488

I

6:20 "culturally conditioned"

No one pretends Papal infallibility is verbal dictation by Holy Spirit, Pope acting as secretary.

BUT all agree (Catholics, that is) that notwithstanding any cultural conditioning, any Papal statement is free from catastrophic doctrinal error (if it's not the case with Bergoglio, it's because he's not Pope).

Therefore, any cultural conditioning in any way relevant for Hagiographers must have left them free to give an inerrant word which one way or other (sometimes secretarial, sometimes not quite so) God was inspiring them to.

I e, every word of a hagiographer is the word of the all knowing and all wise and all truthful God.

7:20 What's in Dei Verbum and what Dei Verbum teaches?

An idea of genre making a huge difference for literal veracity of parts of Bible which are nevertheless religiously accurate in what ... Robber Baron or sn? ... decides the part of the Bible having such and such a genre, may have been in the intellectual athmosphere of fathers of Vatican II (which is of course not a council, but you take it as such) and might not be what Dei Verbum actually teaches?

Seriously, there is a name for this figure : wax nose. A nose which is so soft anyone can turn it whatever way he likes.

If you want that for Dei Verbum, conciliar document of non-council assembled illegally 1962-1965, fine.

But if you want that applied Verbo Dei quod est Depositum Fidei (Scripturis et Traditionibus non scriptis traditum nobis), no thanks!

II

6:40 You speak of "saga" and "legend" as genres other than truthful history.

They are not. Some Pagan sagas and legends are not completely truthful - as some history by historians is not completely truthful. That is a failure, not a question of genre.

Herodotus has Assyrian army attacking Israel defeated by mice nibbling all bowstrings.

Now, that is not truthful, I'll take book of Kings.

III

7:05 There is no genre in the library which due to its very genre need not be taken literally - except novels and fairy tales.

No part of the Bible is really proven to be such.

At least not in the sense of not being literally true. Except parables. Perhaps.

That parts of Apocalyptic literature are figures of speech, does not preclude they were visions literally seen as such.

That they were visions whose ultimate content is a figure of speech, does not decide whether they were intellectual, phantasmic or even corporeal - like a bodily figure of a beast with ten horn actually standing before Daniel.

In the condemnations of Tempier, we find next to each other:

XVIII Error de raptu
1 (33). Quod raptus et uisiones non fiunt, nisi per naturam.
and
I Errores de Deo sive prima causa:
9 (34). Quod causa prima non posset plures mundos facere.

So, was St John transported to a "world of Pathmos" in which Christ was bodily present like among other things a lamb, like St Paul MAY HAVE been bodily transported to the seventh heaven (or third, can't recall which)?

Or was he given a corporeal vision in this world?

Or was the vision phantasmic?

Or were the different parts of differnet ontological status quoad literam?

That they include figures of speech about inter alia end times does NOT preclude against literal historicity in the lifeline of St John or of prophet Daniel.

God can have created a world to give a background for a vision, just as easily as He can have created bodily beings which were shown or exterior accidents unusual for the substance or sensations without exterior object.

IV

7:47 What the Bible teaches is what God intends us to know, what is inspired by God THROUGH the Bible?

No, what is inspired by God IN the Bible.

Otherwise you get this "wax nose" problem. God will not be mocked. If I cannot stop you from mocking God, I will at least not let you do so without contradiction. As far as I have any possibility of saying anything, that is.

8:00 Patterns, themes and trajectories throughout the whole of the Bible are fine, but they DO very much depend on - what is in the Bible, in actual passages, book by book, chapter by chapter or even verse by verse.

Genesis 3:15 is a great example, along with Gratia Plena in Luke 1, and with the three mentions of Virgin Mary being blessed (angel Gabriel, Elisabeth, Her own Magnificat).

But this does not preclude we owe total confidence to the words in Genesis 3:15 actually being spoken to the serpent in front of actually Adam and Eve, as well as these telling descendants Seth, Enosh, etc. as long as they lived, down to Mahaleel. Seth and his wife transmitting it to Enosh etc. down to Jared. Enosh and his wife transmitting down to Methuselah. Noah learning from all having lived since Mahaleel's generation, except Henoch, who was already raptured (unless he made a descent to converse with Noah too), Noah teaching Shem, Arphaxad (Cainan was a bad pupil, but had a son called) Shelah. Shem teaching to the youth of Eber, Arphaxad to the youth of Peleg, (Cainan was not a reliable teacher), Shelah to the youth of Reu, Eber to youth of Serug, dito for Peleg, Reu to the youth of Nahor, Serug, Nahor and Thera all surviving to the early years of Abram.

And from then on, we basically have "organised religion" as we know it.

Six chapters of Genesis, all the pre-Flood ones, are, in English, in 24 points, 21 pages on word. Five times the Greek version of Creed of Constantinople are, also 24 points, 7 pages on word. So, length in letters and comparably in syllables, a Genesis chapter of the early ones corresponds to 2.5 Creeds.

Can the Creed be orally transmitted correctly through some intermediates who have never seen it in writing?

I think it can, except perhaps for minor errors of wording.

It was years since I read:

Litera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria
Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia.

I misquoted it on only one word to a "Jesuit" deploring the literalism of St Robert Bellarmine (by the way, what St Robert is your patron saint?) and that was "facias" instead of "agas".

I discovered it myself and made a little defense speech in advance if Paul Gabor were to challenge me. He hasn't.

But thing is, the error was bad enough for either hexameter or correct pronunciation of Latin, but totally beside the point for content. I had not meant "facere" as productive activity in the strict sense, but as activity.

So, we who live 70 years or 80 can make use of mnemotechnics, but the earliest fathers knew nothing of them (they come from Barcelona)?

Yes, I but the comment of Father George Leo Haydock that the transmission of factual history was correct from Adam to Abram, and from Abraham to Moses, even though my "minimal intermediates" are a bit more than his list, as I use LXX chronology:

Creation vs. Evolution : Longevity Charts as per LXX
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2015/11/longevity-charts-as-per-lxx.html

Therefore, Moses had access to reliable history. And that is what he wrote Genesis as (if we gloss over transition from "narratives" to "single narrative" which is less essential for question of facthood).

V

8:40 it suffices to assemble all slavery relative verses. Including whole letter to Philemon, including [relevant verses of] Ephesians.

And we can see:

• slave hunt except when extremely provoked by grave offenses, like those of Canaaneans, is a grave offense (Genesis character of Nimrod, the Pauline distinction between "dominus" - who can conditionally get saved - and "plagiarius", slave hunter or slave merchant, manstealer, who, unless repenting, will not see God's Kingdom);
• slavery is licit if slave is: grave offender, born to slavery, selling himself to slavery; * selling oneself to slavery is clearly discouraged (nolite fieri servi hominum) and can certainly be banned in a Christian state, like one can ban vendettas, even though on some conditions per se licit;
• slave owning is not per se an offense, but is a highly delicate position, which can lead to slavation either by very good tact or by freeing slaves. The latter course can be rendered obligatory, just as Ireland can render divorce illegal even for non-baptised;
• slavery and hired labour are in certain ways parallel. A hired labourer is also obliged to respect his paymasters, (etiam dyscolis) and his paymaster has so much of obligations to him that Ephesians clearly applies to him as well. Dito for serfs and landlords, dito for leaseowners and landlords.

This last point, plus the points "can certainly be banned in a Christian state, like one can ban vendettas, even though on some conditions per se licit;" and "The latter course can be rendered obligatory, just as Ireland can render divorce illegal even for non-baptised;" are the only ones not immediately found in Holy Writte, but are certainly contradicting no verse.

8:57 Actually, Wilberforce - a man much more measured and correct than John Brown or Beecher Stowe, I think - was also a man attentive to inerrancy of each and every verse in the Bible.

His one son became a Catholic convert, there is a Father Wilberforce descending from him, and his other son became the Anglican "bishop" Sam Wilberforce who took exactly the same position on Genesis as Father George Leo Haydock did (whose comment on Genesis 3 I just paraphrased).

VI

9:21 If I had to debate Bill Maher on this one, I would ask him if he considers it a correct slave hunt to try to put an assassin in gaol.

I would furthermore ask if he distanced him from such illicit versions of slave hunt as modern psychiatry has been since at least Nikita Khrushchev and Brock Chisholm and as Norwegian (like Danish and Swedish) child pretective services have been shown to be in the Bodnariu case.

I would also ask if he doesn't feel any inconsistency in the slave hunt of school compulsion (9 years or in some jurisdictions 12 years are more than the seven years in case of a Hebrew selling himself to slavery). I mean, Bill Maher is not world famous for opposing that legal atrocity.

OK, home schooling is technically legal in US, but for many poor and "less qualified" school compulsion is still the reality. Sweden has even homeschooling illegal, like Germany has since 1938 (since Hitler and Bohrmann decided).

VII

9:28 Sophisticated be blown!

Your version of sophisticated is giving an impression of being over the head of such ordinary folk who do not simply see through it as baloney.

... on Details in a Good Video by Hugh Owen

Video commented on

DNA analysis 10
Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPmVsztc9_U

I

bradyspace

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say, the genes go back to Noah? Répondre

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+bradyspace Not all of them. Obviously not for instance mutation 343 which is much more recent. Y chromosome markers all go back to Noah, ultimately, but mitochondrial markers

II

6:17 Michael Oard says Ice Age was 1300 BC? I have a suspicion he might be wrong. You see, Göbekli Tepe is considered "just after Ice Age", and is dated c. 11.000 BC by C14 uniformitarian misdating. BUT it is probably the remains of the Tower of Babel, so ice age occurred between Flood and Babel. On the Christmas proclamation we get 2957 BC for Flood, and as it is based on LXX (St Jerome made the calculations before turning to the Vulgate, one might presume as at least possible, or preferred LXX material over his own Vulgate material, also possible and in keeping with admonitions by St Augustine), I confer with another version of LXX chronology (presumably the one giving Christ born 5508 rather than 5199) to get what that means in centuries: Peleg 529 - 868 (after Flood):

Creation vs. Evolution : Longevity Charts as per LXX
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2015/11/longevity-charts-as-per-lxx.html

One may also state he considers Palaeolithic, not just Neolithic, as post-Babel. I consider Palaeolithic as pre-Babel and humanity as having political and linguistic unity before Babel but with at least occasional geographic spread. I consider the Cro Magnon in Dordogne were a kind of expedition force for pre-Babel or early-Babel humanity. I even consider parts of Neolithic as pre-Babel, Natufian might be such, where agriculture was, not as evolutionists claim "invented", but rather rediscovered with test crops after Flood.

Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Letter A of ex oriente - III - explanation and results
http://filolohika.blogspot.com/2016/02/letter-of-ex-oriente-iii-explanation.html

On the other hand, one can certainly say Oard has a point from Book of Job, which I was not quite duly considering, perhaps.

Job can not be dated pre-Babel, and he seems to have seen ice age while it was expanding. Especially he cannot be dated pre-Babel if he is identic to Jobab in the genealogy of Esau. And even if not, he may have been living in Edom while it was already Esau's territory.

III

6:50 Celtic and Indian society both had wheeled transport as in battle chariots. So had Hittites. How about my hunch that both originated in Hittite area and neighbourhood? A linguist has (been contested for saying and retracted perhaps, but at least) said that Linear A language was Aryan. Mount Ida on Crete was in pre-Greek times "Mount Indra" (only links making now this connection are mine, since the links to that linguist are down). So, Kaphthorim were perhaps the earliest Indo-Aryan language speakers. On the other hand, Gomer has been associated both with Celts (at least P-Celts like the Gauls) and with Cappadocia. So, could Hittite have been original Indo-European common language?

Creation vs. Evolution : Was Proto-Indo-European a Historic Language, like ... Hittite, Imperial Language relevant for Greece and Linear A Crete?
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.fr/2016/03/was-proto-indo-european-historic.html

IV

12:07 C14 dating only accurate to c. 3000 BC? That is overdoing it. Exodus occurred in 1510 BC and thus Moses was born 1590 BC. But the evil Pharao who slew Hebrew boychildren seems to have been Amenemhet III, who is NOT dated to 1590 BC, but earlier. And in the time of Abraham (born a little before 2000 BC), I am not at all sure whether the relevant mis-dated date is 4000 BC for beginning of Woolley's Ur, or even sth like closer to 11.000 BC for Urfa (Edessa) close to Göbekli Tepe, if that was Tower of Babel. 3000 BC we are already pre-Flood, but Carbon dates give this age for early dynastic Egyptian (which we know existed later in the life of Abraham). So, no, carbon dates are not accurate back to 3000 BC, but rather back to sth like 500 BC.

V

Happy and Blessed and Holy Easter to the Kolbe Center and all of you!

... on age and manners and nature of Homo Heidelbergensis, mainly

First of all, I intended to hear the video and refute his refutations of the irrefutable proof for God.

On Nanterre University Library, there are no headphones. On this library I heard all headphones they had before have been stolen. Donations of headphones to Rainer Maria Rilke Public Library (Bibliothèque Municipale Rainer Maria Rilke) at Port Royal in Paris are very much encouraged.

Second, here I link to the video I have as yet not commented directly to, then give a kind of reposting of a comment given in a thread that seems to be deleted, then my answer to it:

Video commented on

Refuting the Irrefutable Proof of God - part I
AronRa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isV9hWXpNjc

Hans-Georg Lundahl

My first question to @AronRa on a thread that seems to be now deleted for some reason or other, was how much there was left of Homo Erectus (other than Heidelbergensis which some consider but AronRa doesn't consider to be Erectus type).

Like what number of bones, how much of a skull, is it still there (I think one skull has disappeared over the XXth C.)and so on.

Now that "first" question, as @TheBelieveit1 put it, was the only real question.

Then we have a rhetorical one, like "you are aware that" ... namely if AronRa was aware we creationists do not consider the "Heidelbergensis" as "intermediate" between sth else and us, but simply as some few more of us.

(If he wants to quip that we creationists are surviving Heidelbergenses, I am not against it, I have no prejudice against the mental or pmoral capacities of the Heidelbergenses - back then, that is, for studies I prefer being Friburgensis to being Heidelbergensis, though I am myself neither but a Lundensis).

And thus lived within the last 7215 years.

Under this, I got a reply, which I see from my inbox, from @TheBelieveit1:

TheBelieveit1

+ Hans-Georg Lundahl Can you rephrase the first question? What exactly are you asking for?

Too bad your understanding is wrong because you're off by a factor of about 28-85, meaning you need to multiply your estimate by those numbers as they lived more like 600,000-200,000 years ago given every bit of data we know.

Well it WAS fully "human" because it's part of the same genus as we are. Homo means Human in Latin. So if it's Homo, it's human. The thing is though, it's NOT the same species of human as...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

OK, the bits of data TheBelieveit1 claims we know are diaries and chronicles written over the 400,000 years separating 600,000 BP from 200,000 BP or 598,000 BC from 198,000 BC?

Followed up by comparison with similar chronicles held by the ethnic group or racial group known as Neanderthals from 250,000 BP to 28,000 BP, that is from 248,000 BC to 26,000 BC?

In what terms did the Neanderthal and Heidelberg races describe each other?

You know, for ethnic groups very clearly datable from history, like Celts and Romans, or Greeks too, we have Romans and Greeks describing each other and also describing Celts. Greeks describing Celts may sometimes have included Greeks describing Germans but mistaking them for Celts, but the Roman Tacitus refused to repeat that mistake.

And what were the names of the Heidelberg author describing Neanderthals or of the Neanderthal author describing Heidelbergians?

How did attitudes change over time, if they did?

I mean, 50,000 years is a pretty long time to live together, don't you think, so one would expect some changes and relapses of attitude - and such to be documented by writers.

No, we don't have the data that would REALLY very clearly point to those lengths of history.

We don't have the grammar of Neanderthalian, unless it coincides with the grammar of Hebrew, as universal pre-Flood and universal early post-Flood language.

We don't have the grammar of Heidelbergian language or languages either, unless again it coincides with the grammar of Hebrew, as universal pre-Flood and universal Flood to Babel language.

We don't have access to authors from these times, unless their writings are preserved in Genesis 1 - 11, perhaps Henoch, perhaps Jasher, perhaps Jubiliees, perhaps (via translation to Sanscrit) Mahabharata (if, as I suspect, it reflects pre-Flood civil wars in Nodian "Empire" or World State).

We do have a few skeletons, certainly of Neanderthalians, certainly of Heidelbergians, perhaps of Homo Erectus too. And we have a few datings of them that we Young Earth Creationists very clearly and unanimously reject as spurious, as being flawed in methodology.

Once again, as stated on my earlier comment, sorry for bumping on to a comment thread before actually listening to the video. Will try to make up for it now, asking for headphones, which I can have in this library.

Oh, I did remember there was a second real question or challenge too.

The video has a title which says "Refuting the Irrefutable Proof of God - part I " and I for one thing did not understand how Heidelbergians were relevant to it, and for another thing suspected they would be very much less relevant to it if considered as FULLY human, as people we could (if we had lived then and had had no reason to suspect them of being ancestral in family lineage) could have married, could have raised children with, could have lived in decent societies with (and them perhaps after Flood being grateful for finding wheat AGAIN or for finding copper AGAIN and iron on top of that).

... more on Flood

1) ... on Flood - Dinos on Ark, Young Turks, Featuring Sjordal · 2) ... more on Flood

Under

same video as previous post, under the comment of Paul T Sjordal where I had challenged him to comment under mine.

We do get some other themes beside those given in video. Update on St Joseph's Day: Paul T Sjordal gets involved.

Jean-Marc Cloutier

+kodofile

So whenever logic fails just say god did it, you win, cant debate your logic.

Gerff

+Paul T Sjordal Simply look at the intelligence of them in other parts of life also, they aren't exactly the brightest bulbs in the box.

kodofile

+Ferruzzicati The Noah's story is in the Bible. Nobody made it up. The reference book is the Bible. So if you want proof, read the Bible.

Second, fossils of marsupials have been found in Africa and South America. That alone debunks your theory.

If you take some basic ecology, and human population courses. Using a half log graph paper to plot the human population, and extrapolating back to determine the time when the first human couple came by, you would be very surprised to see an age of less than 7 thousand years. The Bible is true!

A stratigraphist is someone who studies rock layers and layering. Do some researching. Sorry, for mis-putting an o inside. Lol

+Jean-Marc Cloutier You haven't shown any hole yet, maybe you are just too dumb not to realize that things can happen and blow stupid minds!

john pouw

+kodofile you are a hole an asshole bible is a made up fairy tails,from desert tribes

kodofile

+john pouw oops, make it less sensible and redirect it to your idiotic friends

Ferruzzicati

+kodofile "The Noah's story is in the Bible. Nobody made it up. The reference book is the Bible. So if you want proof, read the Bible."

The bible was made up by its authors. Where is your evidence to the contrary? If you follow that line then you'll be telling me that a woman was made by surgically removing a rib from a man, blowing on it and POOF there's a woman. Believe that too do you?

"Second, fossils of marsupials have been found in Africa and South America. That alone debunks your theory."

Wrong. I didn't say "marsupial" did I? There are fossilised remains of marsupials all over the planet. I said, specifically, Australian indigenous species. Where are the fossilised remains of echidna or platypus or kangaroo?

"If you take some basic ecology, and human population courses. Using a half log graph paper to plot the human population, and extrapolating back to determine the time when the first human couple came by, you would be very surprised to see an age of less than 7 thousand years. The Bible is true!"

So you're telling me that the people on your boat got sufficiently jiggy to produce a global population of 20M by 2500BC??? That's your brilliant position? You really have to do better than that shit pal.

I know what a stratigraphist is. So what?

Hans Georg Lundahl

+Ferruzzicati While waiting for kodofile, and leaving some for him:

"The bible was made up by its authors. Where is your evidence to the contrary?"

The fact that we have very many made up by authors books. So far our tradition about them has not veered into taking Lord of the Rings or Narnia or Sherlock Holmes or Tintin for factual history.

It is a very extraordinary claim to say basically "Moses was a scribe with some imagination, he invented a story and a people in that story that didn't exist, and then that people came into existance by reading his story, identifying with it and taking it for their factual past."

Even Fama Societatis by one Rosencreutz is less of such a feat, since so far it has produced no people, only a secret society, and it is no big deal that a secret society consists of initiates who want to be duped by a great past, reaching to Egypt or pre-Flood.

A people can contain such men, but hardly consist entirely of them. And Hebrew literacy is so democratic that it becomes hard to imagine a very close and tightly ruled caste could manipulate all the rest, as in Egypt or Babylon (or, exclude by silence from memory the non-manipulated). It became less democratic and more close and tightly ruled as a Cohen Magol between Crucifixion and Destruction of Jerusalem invented school compulsion.

"If you follow that line then you'll be telling me that a woman was made by surgically removing a rib from a man, blowing on it and POOF there's a woman."

If a man had done it, no he couldn't.

[Except Jesus Christ who previous to being human WAS the one who did it. He is God, not just Man, though He is fully Man too.]

Since God did it, yes, He could and did.

That is what Adam and Eve remembered, after being told so by God, that is what they handed down over ages to Noah, that is what Noah handed down over ages to Abraham, and then to Moses. In each case the number of generations in between was limited and error not very likely. Pre-Flood generations had so much overlap, that, ignoring how many previous descendants had been told so and calculating only the bare minimum of intermediates, eight different people or perhaps twelve (depending on which chronology you accept) are the "telephone game" spread. PLUS the fact that tradition is NOT a telephone game, PLUS the fact that if Adam could talk to Henoch, so could a lot of other people between them (like "yes, that was what he told me too, two hundred years before I'm telling it to you").

"Believe that too do you?"

For reason just stated, yes.

"So you're telling me that the people on your boat got sufficiently jiggy to produce a global population of 20M by 2500BC??? That's your brilliant position? You really have to do better than that shit pal."

20 million 2500 BC? Where exactly do you get that from?

Jean-Marc Cloutier

telephone game is not a game, its an observation of oral history, but You win, always will, cause when you have no plausible answer all you have to do is... god did it. Really? adam told you.

kodofile

+Ferruzzicati

[Will here divide so as to clarify/HGL]

kodofile 1

"The Noah's story is in the Bible. Nobody made it up. The reference book is the Bible. So if you want proof, read the Bible."

Ferruzzicati

The bible was made up by its authors. Where is your evidence to the contrary? If you follow that line then you'll be telling me that a woman was made by surgically removing a rib from a man, blowing on it and POOF there's a woman. Believe that too do you?

kodofile 2

YES, THE BIBLE PARTICULARLY THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS WAS WRITTEN BY MOSES. IF YOU WANT TO DISPROVE IT, FINE. IT IS NOT EASY TO PROVE SOMETHING, EVEN IN SCIENCE, BUT IT IS ALWAYS EASY TO DISPROVE IT. BE MY GUEST.

SO WHICH ONE EVOLVED FIRST AS OUR RCA A MALE OR A FEMALE? MORE QUESTIONS TO COME AFTER YOU HAVE ANSWERED THAT.

kodofile 1

"Second, fossils of marsupials have been found in Africa and South America. That alone debunks your theory."

Ferruzzicati

Wrong. I didn't say "marsupial" did I? There are fossilised remains of marsupials all over the planet. I said, specifically, Australian indigenous species. Where are the fossilised remains of echidna or platypus or kangaroo?

kodofile 2

LOL!!! SO YOU ARE NOT AGREEABLE TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT THERE COULD BE KANGAROOS AND PLATYPUS IN OTHER CONTINENTS AND MAY HAVE ALL DIED OUT.

kodofile 1

"If you take some basic ecology, and human population courses. Using a half log graph paper to plot the human population, and extrapolating back to determine the time when the first human couple came by, you would be very surprised to see an age of less than 7 thousand years. The Bible is true!"

Ferruzzicati

So you're telling me that the people on your boat got sufficiently jiggy to produce a global population of 20M by 2500BC??? That's your brilliant position? You really have to do better than that shit pal.

kodofile 2

CORRECT, AS OPPOSED TO THE TRILLIONS OF PEOPLE WE EXPECT TO SEE HAD PEOPLE BEEN AROUND FOR THE LAST 2 MILLION YEARS. BUT WHERE IN THE BIBLE DOES IT STATE THEAT THERE WERE 20 MILLION IN 2500 BC

Ferruzzicati

I know what a stratigraphist is. So what?

kodofile 2

YOU WOULD NOT HAVE THOSE LAYERS UNLESS WE HAVE A CATACLYSMIC AND CATASTROPHIC EVENT LIKE THAT OF A WORLD WIDE FLOOD.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+kodofile you answered most on Ferruzzicati, I will just get back to Jean-Marc on "telephone game".

Wait, first this : kangaroos seem to be absent even as fossils from most continents. I think that was his point.

My answer would be they lived on the earth called now Australia before the Flood and came back after it - OR their fossils elsewhere are lost.

+Jean-Marc Cloutier, what did you say about telephone game?

"telephone game is not a game, its an observation of oral history"

It's an extremely bad one.

In telephone game, you get ONLY one transmission from each person, ONLY one transmission to each person, NO repeats.

In oral transmission of history, first observer or observers of a fact can transmit many times over to newer and newer generations, as long as they don't die, the youngest can hear it from dad, mum, granddad and grandmum on pa's side, granddad and grandmum on ma's side, even their eight parents, and so on (ok, for great grandchildren of Adam and Eve, the theoretically eight great grand parent slots are filled by only two persons, and for grandsons and granddaughters of Noah born after Flood, they could ask back no further than grand pa and grand ma).

AND in each case, there will be many repeats. A child repeating a story wrong will be corrected, a child who thinks he knows it will test it and find a lacuna and ask, and maybe even be corrected where he thought he had got it right, and so on.

Telephone game is NOTHING like that.

I was saying that IF it had been a telephone game, so that there had been only one transmitter for each transmitted to and only one transmitted to for each transmitter, which was of course not the case, the least "telephone game distance" between Adam and Moses was of only eight people, according to Vulgate/King James chronology. And according to LXX chronology which allows less overlap, probably no more than twelve people. That is a very good chance for correct transmission, since oral transmission of history is NOT a telephone game.

PLUS the possibility that parts of Genesis could have been already transmitted in writing. Take the chapters of Genesis up to Flood. If they had anything like cuneiform or hieroglyphics pre-Flood, the tablets would very easily have fitted into the Ark.

I just copied them from drbo.org (omitting explanations from Challoner, just text of the chapters), copy-pasted onto a word [=a word document], used 24 typographic points. It came out as 21 A4.

Now, a cuneiform might be more than 24 typographic points, but there were fewer of them than of the letters in English, since writing was syllabic, sometimes even ideographic, and that means we might be speaking of an equal number of great or double number of smaller tablets.

Omitting the intriguing possibility that Hebrew letters on paper might be pre-Flood and thus even older than post-Flood cuneiform writings. Which would have allowed letters at least as small as 24 typographic points, and fewer of them, since Hebrew omits writing out vowels.

In other words, even through Flood, there would have been no big deal keeping the record of pre-Flood events.

From Flood to Abraham, chapters are similarily short and easily transmittable either orally (short enough to learn by heart, if you take one at a time) or by tablets.

As to learning them by heart, 21 pages in English, 24 typographic points = first 6 chapters.

A third of that is 7 pages also 24 typographic points, which very well fit 5 times the Nicene-Constantinopolitan creed in Greek.

So, each chapter is ... 2 and a half Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creeds.

Since an avarage person can easily learn the length of ONE Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed by heart, the patriarchs could certainly have learned TWO and a HALF that length by heart at one text.

And this is the final answer to this stupidity about a "telephone game" being involved in oral transmission of history.

Here

I conflate two comment postings. First contains Ferruzzicati's quotes from kodofile (coded 2 above), with his answers. Second contains my answers to these on top of that. I give it in simplified form. Update, two more. First contains mine from first version of this, with Ferruzzicati's answers, second quotes this and adds my answers to those.

kodofile 2

YES, THE BIBLE PARTICULARLY THE FIRST FIVE BOOKS WAS WRITTEN BY MOSES.

Ferruzzicati 2

I don't have to disprove it. You haven't proved it yet. If you follow that line then I say I have a pet unicorn. Prove i'm wrong.

Hans Georg Lundahl

No one except you is saying you have a pet unicorn.

Christians, Jews, Samaritans all have a millennial tradition that Moses wrote them.

So, you are arguing not against one man's whimsical claim, but against a whole nation of Hebrews which has left three religions and some nations (Palestinians - including both Christians and their national heirs of Muslim confession, Persian Jewry, Palestine Samaritans, Shepharads, Ashkenasim, Falashas, Karaites) as heirs to this claim.

It is more like saying "George Washington was one of the Founding Fathers, prove I'm wrong".

Hans Georg Lundahl 1
reduced quote from

Christians, Jews, Samaritans all have a millennial tradition that Moses wrote them.

Ferruzzicati 3

They have a tradition that a giant spacemonkey made the universe in 6 days too, it doesn't make it true.

Hans Georg Lundahl 2

First of all, I would neither use "giant" nor "monkey" in the connexion.

Second, we are dealing at best with revelation confirmed through the history if patriarchs and israelites, at worst with myth.

But this is not in the same kind of merely human credibility as traditionas about who wrote what.

You would never dream of denying Confucius wrote analects, as Chinese tradition has it, just because they also have a tradition of - let's vary the genres, take superstition - Feng Shui (supposing it be superstitious).

kodofile 2

SO WHICH ONE EVOLVED FIRST AS OUR RCA A MALE OR A FEMALE? MORE QUESTIONS TO COME AFTER YOU HAVE ANSWERED THAT.

Ferruzzicati 2

As we don't yet have a full understanding of first life, I don't know. We do have plenty of animals which are both male and female.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I think he might be getting at the fact that each mutation must hit one individual first. The one making a very humanlike ape into a man would first have produced a male OR first a female offspring, which would then have had to mate with non-human not really same species individuals.

One of the very yucky facts about "evolution's implications". Really much worse than where Cain got his wife from on our side!

Hans Georg Lundahl 1
reduced quote from above

I think he might be getting at the fact that each mutation must hit one individual first. The one making a very humanlike ape into a man would first have produced a male OR first a female offspring, which would then have had to mate with non-human not really same species individuals.

Ferruzzicati 3

LOL the famous "crocaduck" argument from ignorance. I'm not even going to bother illustrating how moronic that comment is. Learn what evolution is rather than what it isn't.

Hans Georg Lundahl 2

You are missing that human mind is a difference.

Now, it is absurd enough to argue a mutation could bring it about, but even absurder to argue if one did, it wouldn't matter to a marriage if lacking in one of the partners.

kodofile 2

LOL!!! SO YOU ARE NOT AGREEABLE TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT THERE COULD BE KANGAROOS AND PLATYPUS IN OTHER CONTINENTS AND MAY HAVE ALL DIED OUT

Ferruzzicati 2

Why would they have died out in every single country on the planet except for Australia? and where is the evidence that they ever lived in any country other than Australia in the first place? Your argument is non sensical bullshit and you know it.

Hans Georg Lundahl

Here I am waiting for his answer.

[stupid me - I got it, he said they might have died out elsewhere - without leaving fossils]

Mine was, EITHER that OR kangaroos in pre-Flood times also lived on the earth now known as Australia, and settled back to it quickly after the Flood.

Speaking of your criterium, where are all the missing links that are still missing? Where is the evidence that they ever lived in any country AT ALL in the first place? "Your argument is non sensical bullshit and you know it," as you so finely put it!

Hans Georg Lundahl 1
reduced quote from above

Mine was, EITHER that OR kangaroos in pre-Flood times also lived on the earth now known as Australia, and settled back to it quickly after the Flood.

Ferruzzicati 3

We have established that they do not and have not lived anywhere other than Australia. So back to the question, why did they hop all the way to the Asian coastline without stopping off anywhere to breed before catching a plane to Australia and settling there? What's your hypothesis for this amazing feat of travel by 2 kangaroos?

Hans Georg Lundahl 2

They were easy to scare, went off as far as possible and Sunda-Sahul landbridge was conveniently there for them.

kodofile 2

BUT WHERE IN THE BIBLE DOES IT STATE THEAT THERE WERE 20 MILLION IN 2500 BC

Ferruzzicati 2

It doesn't. Why would it? the people who wrote the bible didn't have the technology to calculate those numbers. There's nothing in the bible about light speed or dinosaurs or nuclear fusion or what the Sun is made from or Jupiter or Saturn or anything else that we know now that they didn't know. If your god had written it they would know all about these things. The reason they don't is that it wan't any god it was just dumb, ignorant men, reflecting common knowledge at the time.

Hans Georg Lundahl

And your claim there were 20 million in 2500 BC (a few centuries after Flood, if it was 2957 BC) is not based on God, not on Bible taken as erratic but still history, not on other ancient sources from the time taken as history, but just dumb, ignorant men, reflecting common knowledge at no time, neither then nor now.

In other words, people who prefer the history from their own reconstructions to the history from the sources.

Ferruzzicati 3

The bible is not history. It's fiction.

Hans Georg Lundahl 2

Not what there is a tradition about. No. See above.

kodofile 2

YOU WOULD NOT HAVE THOSE LAYERS UNLESS WE HAVE A CATACLYSMIC AND CATASTROPHIC EVENT LIKE THAT OF A WORLD WIDE FLOOD.

Ferruzzicati 2

Ignorant crap. Go and learn some basic geology.

Hans Georg Lundahl

I think he is in fact talking about very clearly defined layers.

Like x "millions of years" worth of layers all bending same ways - as if all bent at same time when still soft.

I think the one of us three who is ignorant on the real basics of geology is you.

Ferruzzicati 3

See previous on geology. repeating more crap just makes you appear doubly ignorant.

Hans Georg Lundahl 2

Especially in a world where appearance is everything, right?

No, wait ... could it be I actually added a precise argument, and you have no precise answer to it?

End of

this conflation of two comment postings with three layers of comment. Update, four comment postings with five layers, now. AND beginning hereafter is a bit of debate with Sjordal! Yeah! Have fun!

Paul T Sjordal

+Hans-Georg Lundahl
First, the consensus of Bible scholars is that the Pentateuch has something like five authors, none of whom were Moses.

Second, the consensus of archaeologists is that the entire Pentateuch is made up. They can't even prove that the nation of Israel was ever enslaved in Egypt.

Simply saying "Many religious traditions believe the Pentateuch was written by Moses" is an argumentum ad populum fallacy.

So your claim is pretty much wrong every possible way it could be wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

So your claim is pretty much wrong every possible way it could be wrong?

Let's see ...

• "First, the consensus of Bible scholars is that the Pentateuch has something like five authors, none of whom were Moses."
  
  
  • 1) You mean the consensus of PROGRESSIVE Bible scholars. Conservatives obviously refuse to accept it.
    
    
  • 2) You fail to mention what methodology they use.
    
    
  • 3) If methodology had been to accept the traditions, or the best consensus of them, they would never have landed there.
  
  
  
• "Second, the consensus of archaeologists is that the entire Pentateuch is made up. They can't even prove that the nation of Israel was ever enslaved in Egypt."
  
  
  • 1) Near consensus.
    
    You forget people like David Grohl.
    
    
  • 2) With revisions of conventional archaeological chronologies, we can get very good matches.
    
    Obviously this also involves a few percent lower C-14 in athmosphere with a few extra centuries measured by C-14 method as a result.
    
    We are talking things like Amenemhet III being the guy who slaughtered Israelite boychildren. That is about two centuries earlier dating than LXX date for Exodus in 1510 BC (plus add that this happened 80 years before Exodus, thus we are talking of Moses born in 1590 BC = Amenemhet III), and about three in relation to Masoretic or King James dates for Exodus, 1445 BC + 80 = real lifetime of Amenemhet III 1525 BC.
    
    
  • 3) Slavery in Egypt, quoting CMI here:
    
    "In the traditional chronology, the Egyptian oppression of Hebrew slaves would have occurred in the 18th dynasty. The problem is there is little to no historical evidence of Hebrew slaves in Egypt at this time. However, when placed in the 12th dynasty under a revised chronology, there is substantial evidence for Israelite slave laborers in Egypt."
    
    So, as many other times in Creationist debates, the problem which with a right solution solves the other ones is chronology. At least many of the other ones.
  
  
  
• [Implied third:] "Simply saying 'Many religious traditions believe the Pentateuch was written by Moses' is an argumentum ad populum fallacy."
  
  
  • I was not saying that.
    
    I was saying : these exact religious traditions, known to be interrelated, first split among which occurred in c. 900 BC (between Judea and Samaria), incorporate"d in such and such ethnicities and therefore to begin with national traditions (like the US national tradition of George Washington being a Founding Father or the Danish one of Kings being basically same dynasty since Gorm the Old) not only claim to believe THAT Moses wrote Pentateuch, but claim to reach back to WHEN he did so and therefore to be a kind of independent evidence on his writing it as history rather than as fiction. AND of this history being convincing to the people concerned by that history.
    
    THAT is a very substantial argument in the discipline called history.
    
    And even greater one is got by adding to it : these tradition parallels are NOT even rivalled by any tradition giving any other author or any other circumstances for Moses' authorship.
    
    The closest that people somewhat acquainted with Moses and as Pagans not accepting him as what he was came to that was to paint Moses as an incarnation of Dionysus, unless of course much of the Dionysus legend (that about Dionysus' earthly dealings, like with Pentheus) really goes back to Pagan versions of the Moses legend, originally demonising him, before "correcting" it to deifying him - with remaining demonic traits from early calumnies.
    
    That is NOT a sober alternative version about who wrote Pentateuch.
    
    And if anything is at all a "fallacy" of "argumentum ad populum" it is rather saying "_anyone will tell_ you that Biblical scholars agree that ... etc".
    
    Though the second half of the statement, if true, would have been an "argumentum ad clerum". Not less fallacious, always.

I forgot to link to my source for 18th -> 12th dynasty being relevant chronology adjustment, here:

CMI : Egyptian history and the biblical record: a perfect match?
By Daniel Anderson
Published: 23 January 2007 (GMT+10)
http://creation.com/egyptian-history-and-the-biblical-record-a-perfect-match

Lemming Herder

it's called faith, not brains.

+Hans-Georg Lundahl it's not just him, all atheists have pet unicorns. didn't you know? so do Hindus, Buddhists, and taoists. and there are more of us than you.

+Hans-Georg Lundahl there are conservatives scholars? I don't believe you. every conservative I've ever met is brain dead. conservatives believe what others write. why would they need to write the same thing they just read? they don't believe in anything new, they only believe things if they were written before they were born. so no, just scholars, not progressive scholars. that's redundant.

notyourname777

+Wildcard120 Haven't been hear since Feb 13th. You said I mean millions. Don't see what you're talking about. I could guess I believe the earth is billions old & dinosaurs died out 65 million> What did I say billion there? I'm a Christian & do not believe in evolution.

Ferruzzicati

+notyourname777 How can you not believe in evolution? That's like saying you don't believe in gravity. Evolution is a fully tested, observed, proven natural process. You can't just choose not to believe in something that has been demonstrated. That's ridiculous.

Wildcard120

+notyourname777 I was quite doubtful of it myself at one time. However, with new discoveries like DNA, I was forced to conclude that Evolution is a compelling theory that has elements of fact. On the flip side, people should not be so condescending and insulting to people who disagree. Keep watching! 

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Lemming Herder
scholarship is not just about finidng out new knowneldge, but also about not losing the knowledge you already have, including if someone else wnats to throw it out.

+Ferruzzicati
"Evolution is a fully tested, observed, proven natural process."

Except on that point about mutations leading to gain of information.

Pesky detail which lacks confirmation.

+Wildcard120
"However, with new discoveries like DNA, I was forced to conclude that Evolution is a compelling theory that has elements of fact."

Actually, with chromosomes, I think evolution, at any rate of all mammals from common ancestor might be doomed as refuted.

Ferruzzicati

+Hans-Georg Lundahl Please don't post random lines as if you know what you're talking about. You wouldn't know what "mutations leading to gain of information." even means let alone what the scientific significance is. If it was that easy to dismiss evolution I think it would have been done by now and whoever did it would be in line for a Nobel prize.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It has been done, several times over by now.

By Creation scientists, including the biochemical Ph D Jonathan Sarfati.

For Nobel Prizes, he has a severe handicap : he is Creationist.

Nobel Prize committee is in Sweden, a country which is mine, but which I left because it is so HEAVILY biassed in favour of Evolutionism.

Ferruzzicati

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You're a deluded fool making up garbage to support your psychosis. Go away idiot.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are a lout and you are polluting a debate by your lies and bad manners.

I know Sweden, it is HEAVILY Evolutionist.

You may be aware there is a creationist argument about carbon 14 levels rising, and my science teacher in one class would NOT allow me that debate. As said, HEAVILY evolutionist.

As a result of such silencing, one man who wanted to refute me was asking whether I believed the decay rate had changed, even if that is not at all necessary for a YEC. Simply does NOT know our arguments, and Sweden has not allowed him to learn them.

If YOU think the Swedish Nobel committee would reward a Creationist argument, YOU are pretty off target on this one.

kodofile

+Ferruzzicati "How can you not believe in evolution? That's like saying you don't believe in gravity. Evolution is a fully tested, observed, proven natural process. You can't just choose not to believe in something that has been demonstrated. That's ridiculous."

GRAVITY HAS MANY FACTS THAT ARE TESTABLE, DEMONSTRABLE AND REPEATABLE. JUST JUMP FROM YOUR ROOF TOP. JUST GOT TO SHOW THAT IT IS TESTABLE, DEMONSTRABLE AND REPEATABLE.

EVOLUTION CANNOT EVEN BE TESTED, LET ALONE DEMONSTRATED THEN LAST REPEATED TO BE CONSIDERED SCIENCE

Julio Urbina

+Paul T Sjordal im a child and i can poke gaping holes in that paddle boat!

kodofile

+Julio Urbina First seal this hole, idiot. Which inverterbrate organism gave rise to the chordates. And that is very big hole.

+Ferruzzicati You have been weighed, and found lacking.

Ferruzzicati

+kodofile Of course it can be tested you fucking imbecile. Just because you don't want to understand the science doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Has been tested" ...

Except on that point about mutations leading to gain of information.

Pesky detail which lacks confirmation.

Actually, with chromosomes, I think evolution, at any rate of all mammals from common ancestor might be doomed as refuted.

Any answer to the topic, this time?

Oh, I might also add that millions of years, billions of years is another thing which has not been tested.

Ferruzzicati

+Hans-Georg Lundahl You're repeating crap you don't understand again. Go away moron.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are polluting a debate with personal insult, once again to cover your lack of actual responses to what I had to say.

I cannot call you "moron", your tactics are actually all you have got.

kodofile

+Ferruzzicati"Of course it can be tested you fucking imbecile. Just because you don't want to understand the science doesn't mean that it doesn't exist."

"Biologists are simply naive when they talk about experiments designed to test the theory of evolution. It is not testable. They may happen to stumble across facts which would seem to conflict with its predictions. These facts will invariably be ignored and their discoverers will undoubtedly be deprived of continuing research grants." Professor Whitten (Professor of Genetics, University of Melbourne, Australia), Assembly Week address.

Who do we take, a professor of Genetics or an imbecile like you?

... on Flood - Dinos on Ark, Young Turks, Featuring Sjordal

1) ... on Flood - Dinos on Ark, Young Turks, Featuring Sjordal · 2) ... more on Flood

Video commented on

Atheists React To Creationist Saying Dinosaurs Were On Noah's Ark
The Young Turks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6EQGRpuqPg

I

First an ethical discussion about creationist parents brought up towards the end of video, before returning to the discussion of the Flood.

i

7:17 you have SO much compassion for someone else raising his children different from how you raise yours, if you have any, but do you have the same compassion for either children taken away from such parents in Norway or murdered in abortion clinics across the globe?

ij

7:25 "their whole life is just filled with that ignorance"?

I was raised, not atheist, but evolutionist, for quite a while in my childhood. No, that ignorance willing to accept millions of year and billions of years has NOT filled my whole life since. Apart from the fact you get wrong WHAT is ignorance and what is on the contrary good reason.

iij

7:32 "you just know their WHOLE LIFE is going to be like that" ...

I hope for them they do remain creationists, but in more general terms, once again apart from who is right and who is giving his children misinformation, you have a HUGE problem of PREDICTION ... the kind of predictions (coupled with false empathy seeing sadness in creationism) which both Norwegian Child Welfare and Planned Parenthood use to excuse their crimes.

II

Now to the main discussion, mid video after clips with a creationist + end of video.

i

4:42 we obviously do NOT give credence to the 65 million years ago figure!

(if you ever see ùillion instead of million, it's a French keyboard, I corrected it this time, but ù is next to m).

Paul T Sjordal said sth interesting:

"Any child can poke holes in the Noah story. I have a hard time understanding how any adult could take that story literally."

I couldn't, I hadn't heard of it at age six. I was about age ten when I read Genesis. And I could not pick holes in it.

(if you ever see îck instead of pick ... etc, see above).

ij

4:58 Millions of species?

• 1) only vertebrates, land or air, count (insects and fish could survive the Flood in other ways);
  
  
• 2) and of course using kinds instead of modern biology species reduces the number of animals a lot (like are there 600 + dino species known? Or are there just 55 dino kinds known? Are brontosaurus and diplodocus different species or same kind?)

5:05 30.000 doesn't get you through the beatles - no, but they could survive outside ark (plus some inside as food for birds).

iij

5:14 ships like that after that? The ark was not built for navigation. Ships that navigate have to be smaller. But ship building has been rather great after as well.

5:22 Titanic was built to navigate - and got sunk. Ark was built to get navigat-ED by God's hand - and it stayed afloat as long as needed.

5:39 the sinking ships were, which was the problem, ships - built not just for floating whereever God wanted them to drift, but navigation. That means they were having forms ill fitted for such big wood structures and also they had to go across the drift of waves, and that conflict and tension was not there for the Ark.

iu

5:48 (where one proposes to know answer: "God built the Ark")

Actually not. God gave instructions for the ship, but it took 100 years to build.

u

5:57 how did animals get to Australia? Same way they got there on your reckoning, just that land bridge Sunda-Sahul (see Australian geology) is post Flood instead of x million years ago. Another problem which is only one due to the "millions of years, billions of years" ideology (nicknamed moyboy as acronym). Which means that here is another way in which the MAIN problem isn't Flood, but conflict of chronologies.

6:09 You are yourself a believer in scientists who themselves believe in the land bridge. The problem is just WHEN there was one between Sunda and Sahul : after a Flood 2957 BC (Protestants would usually say some centuries more recent) or, quoting wiki:

"When sea levels fell during the Pleistocene ice age, including the last glacial maximum about 18,000 years ago, the Sahul Shelf was exposed as dry land."

From : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahul_Shelf

Well, obviously I was wrong on calling out millions of years as your explanation, but still the main problem remains a conflict of chronologies.

uj

6:34 what post-Flood dinosaurs have been sighted as dragons in the Americas? Sauropods are sighted in Africa, as mokele mbembe, as serpopards of Narmer palette, probably also as Behemoth of book of Job - but hardly in Americas. And the dino fossils you find in Americas would probably be those which drowned in the Flood. However, pterodactyls would have flown across, they would be what some Indians record as "thunderbirds".

uij

8:09 (Where it is asked why animals had to be saved and God almighty didn't start creating over again after Flood).

Because creation week was over. God was saving some, while saving those who were killed from what HE (accurately) "conditionally predicted" WOULD HAVE been a fate worse than just dying in huge pains and anguish.

III

With Sjordal (if debates follow under above I and II, I hope to make them accessible in a new post).

Paul T Sjordal

Any child can poke holes in the Noah story. I have a hard time understanding how any adult could take that story literally.

Omitting

171 responses previous to mine.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

+Paul T Sjordal, there are already 171 responses, if after these you stick to your story, why not start a new debate under my very fresh words?

Renewing invitation:

+Paul T Sjordal I mean under the video, if you use latest comments, and mainly perhaps second from top, but if you want, first from top will do as well. You used to enjoy trying to poke holes in my arguments, earlier!

... to Bart D. Ehrman

1) somewhere else : Answering Barbara Smoker's Path from Rome, 2) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... to Bart D. Ehrman, 3) somewhere else : Answering Barbara Smoker, Part II

Video commented on:

Top Bible scholar leaves Christianity
Islam Truth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6PWFvzKl3I

1:00

OK, what exact mistakes?

1:55

Oh, they are later developments, divinity of Christ and Trinity of God ... wait, you aren't going to tell me they came about just in time for Nicea, are you?

So, what exact dates and what exact methods for ascertaining these dates do you have for that assertion?

Christian tradition says Gospel of St John was written by one of the original apostles, one of the twelve. Its textus receptus has a clear reference to Trinity, like in the first Gospel in Matth 28.

ALL known variants with some completeness, as far as I know (you could tell me if there is an exception) have "before Abraham was, I am".

So, suppose the doctrine was later "developed" and then carried out among Christians - how? It was certainly believed they had believed it from the first. How do you bamboozle ANY man into believing he had believed something yesterday on the very day you are making him believe it?

Pagan religions change, and ONE of the methods was "new revelations" - like that of the Sibyl of Odin or like that of Hesiod, for divinatory arts (lost, thank God) that given by a nymph to Numa Pompilius.

What I can't see is how the Theogony or the Valuspa /Voluspa could suddenly change text among Pagans even without them noticing a hundred to two hunded years after it was written.

Now, among Pagans, the text could still have been changed, because consensus would have approved of changes, but Christians were given a religion which clearly excluded later additions. Supposing the Gospels were written later and then handed out among Christians as originally older - how?

If Hesiod wrote Theogony, how could he have attempted to attribute it to Orpheus? If some Alexandrian wrote Theogony, how did he get all the world into believing it was already by Hesiod? But such a scenario is basically what you - Bart D. Ehrman - is buying about the Gospels.

Of course I know that scenario is current at universities - that is why I avoided taking Theology at Lund, I took Latin and Greek. But your swallowing it, isn't it just believing too much in your professors a bit like you overdid believing in your pastors before? As they were Protestant, they were certainly wrong on some things which you easily found out. (By "Protestant" I am here not referring to Modernist Protestant, I am referring to things like either Evangelical or Conservative Calvinist or Gnesio-Lutheran or "non-broad and non-Anglo-Catholic Anglican"). Or were you dropping belief in the Bible because continuing to believe it would have meant starting to believe the Catholic Tradition (by which I obviously don't mean Bergoglio or even Ratzinger) is reliable, which back as a Protestant you had been taught it wasn't?

2:19

"We Don't have the Original Bible" We don't have - most of us - the original manuscript of LotR, but were it lost (completely, even to editors), we would not start treating Tolkien as non-author, or novel as non-fiction, because we would still have the tradition. What criteria are you using to deny that certainty to these ancient authorships?

C. 3:00

and when scribes make intelligent mistakes, aren't they ore likely to be deliberate omissions of things thought spurious? Isn't the textus receptus likely to correct such mistakes?

To expound on previous, let me share sth by a wikia article along with my comments:

// Sensible people who understand History realize that older versions of the Bible that archaeologists have found are closer to the original texts. It's obvious isn't it? //

He basically agrees with Bart Ehrmann, and even if he says it in a naive way, I don't know if Bart Ehrmann saying it in sophisticated ways would have a better argument than this one. And here is my counterargument:

// But no, it is NOT obvious that a different text found in a very old copy is closer to the original. When people copy by hand (and that still happens, before any printing which isn't a reprint) one can fiddle with the text. But if very many different copies (made by different copiers!) are there, the odd one out can be corrected - or if it is too late, laid aside and not read. As you know, reading books will tear and wear them. With paper backs that have no binding, it happens very quickly, even, with such old books less quickly. BUT it certainly happened quicker with copies that were read than with copies that were laid aside. Which means that it is the odd one out which will be found more than thousand years later. The Sinaiticus was found in the Sinai monastery. The researchers asked "what is this?" and the monastics answered "we don't know". The researchers thought it meant they couldn't recognise a Bible as such. I think it meant they weren't sure whether to call it a Bible or not, considering it had been laid aside due to scribal errors. Some of which favour Watchtower Society and other sects denying the divinity of Christ - by missing one extra clear verse. They forget to mention that Arians also had Bibles and may have left out that verse on purpose. //

Liberapaedia article linked in within my response which I link to here, if you want to read it in full:

Creation vs. Evolution : A Pretty Vile Attack on "Christian Fundamentalists" - but a Parodic One
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-pretty-vile-attack-on-christian.html

Note, I am not saying Bart Ehrmann is in any way attacking fundies in such vile or virulent or parodic a way. I am citing that article just because I think one argument is the same as Ehrmann's.

4:27

Bart Ehrman presumes the last twelve verses were added after one old manuscript, why could they not have been omitted in that one?

Obviously, if for instance a Jew got hold of a Gospel and wanted to tell other Jews about the content, he would probably pick out Mark AND in copying leave out the last 12 verses. If someone then reads this, converts, gets to Christians with this manuscript, he is also likely to hand it over and if they did not burn it, they would lay it aside and it would not wear as much as used copies and that is why it is preserved to this day. Relying on the Bible means relying on the tradition - including the one of all lost and worn out manuscripts through which we have a textus receptus.

4:48

• deadly snakes - verified in St Paul on Malta
• drink (non-aorist form, which may mean "begin to drink"?) poison - verified in St Benedict, who was "going to drink" from a poisoned cup, which burst when he made the sign of the cross over it
• speak foreign tongues - most famously verified in St Francis Xaver, who also raised dead
• casting out devils and curing sick - verified in very many over the centuries.

5:22

Matthew and Luke actually copied some of their stories from Mark?

From the Fourth Century, you have the other way round : Mark copying Matthew and Luke. YOUR version is a late perversion of this idea. St Matthew wrote first Gospel. St Luke wrote but didn't publish his Gospel. He offered it to St Peter, in presence of St Mark, in Rome. St Peter was impressed and made a speech which essentially was a cento of Matthean and Lucan Gospels - or more likely a series of speeches? - and St Mark took it down, published his Gospel which now had explicit Petrine authority, after which St Luke published his, which was what the Petrine authority was about. St John wrote his Gospel last, as last surving of the Twelve Disciples and explicitly against a sect denying Divinity of Christ while pretending to accept the Synoptics. THAT is the traditional solution.

Sorry, I gave the Stromatist solution, which is earlier. The one of St Augustine, fourth century, is that St Mark could copy St Matthew, and St Luke could copy both St Matthew and St Mark.

5:47

Yes, there are a variety of 5000 separate sects now, and there was a variety then. But ONE Church was there then and is there now : the Catholic Church (and I don't mean Bergoglio or Vatican II, which I consider attempts of taking over, resulting in foundation of sth subtly and sometimes not subtly at all different from it).

5:58

"There were battles about who would establish what the standard view would be"?

No, not really. Gnostics and Ebionites were not trying to influence the Catholic standard, the Catholics were not trying to influence their standards, there was a competition between confessions, not competing attempts to form the teaching of one of them. It was not like in Anglican Church, one communion but Dean Inge and C. S. Lewis competing with very different views. It was more like Catholics versus Mormons - separate views, but these in separate communions too. And Matthew 28:18-20 tells us the right view must come in the community which survived these competitions.

[Not trying to influence? Or, not for long, since Ehrman's "proto-Orthodox" that is simply the CHristian Church was not late in expelling them.]

6:42

I don't know why you consider the Orthodox had a period "before they went out". What is your argument there was ever even a decade in which the "proto-Orthodox" had obliged themselves to communion with either Ebionites or Gnostics? You can talk of a period before they gained the upper hand over these two, but that is like talking about a period before Catholicism had safely won over Huguenots in France. You cannot say there were "proto-Catholics" who had pledged communion with Protestants and later bailed out of it. Protestants are claimed and even claim themselves to have gone out from Catholics. And "proto-Orthodox" claimed other groups had gone out from them (in the Bible, notably, Epistles of St John).

6:58

I disagree about what manuscripts were destroyed. If a heretic made up a Gospel beside the canonical ones, yes, that manuscript was very likely to be destroyed. But if a heretic copied St John and left out a few verses, I think what happened is that the manuscript was laid aside as too dangerous to use, but too pure in what it had to be burned. Hence Sinaiticus.

7:16

You are referring to debates between the Christian Church vs Ebionites and Gnostics as if they were debates within one communion. No, when a Catholic and a 7 th Day Adventist debate, that is NOT like when Bishop Robertson / Dean Inge on the one hand debate with Bishop Gore / C. S. Lewis on the other hand within the Anglicans. You are misconstruing the relation between the debating parties.

7:50

It turns out the passage where Christ sweats blood was not originally in the Gospel of Luke? How could a physician NOT write about such a thing if it happened? Textus receptus argues the passage was originally there. The early manuscripts which leave it out are probably written either by Gnostics/Manichaeans or other Docetistic sects OR left out individually by a doctrinally weak scribe who is tempted by Docetism. THEN they were laid aside by more competent superiors, THEN found. By often enough less competent, both doctrinally and logically so, researchers.