Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: 2019

Saturday, December 28, 2019

Sharing

Excommunicated... on Christmas Eve?!
Return To Tradition | 27.XII.2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azJGSS_3W2w

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Paulogia took on the Tower

Debate with Paul Myers · Paulogia also doesn't get what is reasonable evidence for 1st C events · Holy Koolaid attacked Bible History with HolyKoolaid Tries to Back Up his Attack Against Exodus · Paulogia took on the Tower

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Paulogia took on the Tower · Creation vs. Evolution : Changing the Text, NIV? · Durupınar Alternative to Judi? Three Remarks

Is Genesis History, Science? Part 11 - With great Tower comes no responsibility
Paulogia - 5.VI.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0VSuC4ZO9Q

I

1:11 "Southern Mesopotamia and the land of Shinar"

Who says Shinar is limited to Southern Mesopotamia?

As far as I am concerned, Shinar IS Mesopotamia. Or perhaps wider, since Black Sea was filled and limited Euphrates to the South, and Eastern Black Sea had been Northern Mesopotamia before ...

Either way, the idea Shinar is only Southern Mesopotamia = the idea that Shinar is Hebrew for Sumer.

I think the terms rather correlate as America (triangle with Alaska, New Foundland and Tierra del Fuego in the corners) relates to Murrica ("I want to live in Ah Murrica" sung by a Puerto-Rican in West Side Story ... sorry if I bungle the text, it is for the sake of conceptual clarity ... and Puerto Rico is within the triangle America). Murrica is an alias for USA. Canada and Chile are outside Murrica, but not outside America.

II

1:22 Where exactly does the comment consider "Eastward" comes from? Eastward means into the East.

Here is Douay Rheims:

And when they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and dwelt in it.

Here is the Vulgate:

Cumque proficiscerentur de oriente, invenerunt campum in terra Senaar, et habitaverunt in eo.

If you know some Spanish, that might help you with "de oriente".

Eastward would in Latin be "in orientem" and that is not what the Vulgate says.

καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ κινῆσαι αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν, εὗρον πεδίον ἐν γῇ Σενναὰρ καὶ κατῴκησαν ἐκεῖ.

Greek LXX has "apo anatolôn" and "anatolôn" is genitive plural and in Greek whatever the preposition (as far as I recall, but at least all common ones) a genitive signals direction from, not direction to.

"apo anatolôn" however is not so rare a preposition I just have to guess.

Apo can be combined with accusative (direction to) or genitive (direction from).

In itself, "apo" signals downword movement. Opposite "ana" which signals upward movement, similar combinatorial versatility.

In Latin, "de" actually confirms "down from" rather than just "from".

In other words, either the Hebrew text has changed between LXX and Vulgate translated from Hebrew to AD c. 1000 Masoretic Hebrew version, or NIV sucks in relation to Masoretic as well.

III

1:30 It so happens, Vulgate has, in 8:4

Requievitque arca mense septimo, vigesimo septimo die mensis, super montes Armeniae.

As to LXX, it does have Ararat, but in the plural:

καὶ ἐκάθισεν ἡ κιβωτὸς ἐν μηνὶ τῷ ἑβδόμῳ, ἑβδόμῃ καὶ εἰκάδι τοῦ μηνός, ἐπὶ τὰ ὄρη τὰ ᾿Αραράτ.

And it seems Ararat in Hebrew means Urartu - an old term for Armenia.

Now, Mount Djudi near Cizre is certainly neither Greater Ararat nor Lesser Ararat, but it is in the Turkish province of ... Ermeni - Armenia.

And when you go from Mount Djudi to Göbekli Tepe, you actually do go:

nearly duly from East to West (about 300 km if I recall things correctly)
ah, I may have been over optimistic, since Cizre is elevation 380 meters, but Göbekli Tepe is 760 meters.

However, GT is the city, and it is a bit off the plain ... Harran is in the plain.

Harran plain has an elevation of 410 m.

And that is still higher than Cizre, but what about Mount Djudi?

Ah, yes, 2,089 m.

Mount Cudi - > Harran Plain / Göbekli Tepe = down from the East.

If you didn't get it, I checked via google more than once while writing above.

IV

2:19 Eridu ...

No ...

"Located 12 km southwest of Ur, Eridu was the southernmost of a conglomeration of Sumerian cities that grew around temples, almost in sight of one another."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridu

That's part of where "Southern Mesopotamia" comes in ... and I'm cringing as I expect ToB is Ziggurat of Eridu, or so they will claim ....

V

2:31 From Göbekli Tepe we have signs of expansion to Australia and to other parts of Oceania ... there is a bird man in GT you find again in Oceania (NZ? Hawaii? Easter Island ...?) And there is an ornament you find among Australian aborigines ....

VI

4:10 There is a point.

Go to the 32 signs that Genevieve Petzinger finds all over the late Palaeolithic (the hashtag is one of them and has been found with Neanderthals). Or go to the Vinča symbols.

Sure, they could very well be writing ... but we haven't deciphered either. And that way, if it was writing, it could be very early forms of writing the pre-Babel language Hebrew.

When was Eridu founded?

"Founded Approximately 54th century BC"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridu

That would be before syllabic cuneiform, so we would not be totally able to tell that earliest proto-writing if any in very early Eridu was Sumerian rather than Hebrew.

But ... was the building of Eridu abandoned and that after the Tower project?

"Kate Fielden reports "The earliest village settlement (c. 5000 BC) had grown into a substantial city of mudbrick and reed houses by c. 2900 BC, covering 8–10 ha (20–25 acres)". Mallowan writes that by the Ubaid period, it was as an "unusually large city" of an area of approx. 20–25 acres, with a population of "not less than 4000 souls".[13] Jacobsen describes that "Eridu was for all practical purposes abandoned after the Ubaid period",[14] although it had recovered by Early Dynastic II as there was a Massive Early Dynastic II palace (100 m in each direction) partially excavated there.[15]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eridu

It rather seems building of Eridu was actually resumed before the building of a Ziggurat:

"By c. 2050 BC the city had declined; there is little evidence of occupation after that date. Eighteen superimposed mudbrick temples at the site underlie the unfinished Ziggurat of Amar-Sin (c. 2047–2039 BC). The finding of extensive deposits of fishbones associated with the earliest levels also shows a continuity of the Abzu cult associated later with Enki and Ea."

And by archaeological 2047 BC, unfortunately for this theory, we already do have cuneiform which can be pronounced and which is pronounced in Sumerian.

But perhaps, just perhaps, the Ziggurat is not upcoming ...

4:31 @Paulogia "Vinča signs before Earth was created"

Only if you accept the usual calibration of C14 according to which Vinča symbols are on material associated with organic material "8000 years old".

How if C14 calibration should be redone ....?

VII

5:24 I do agree.

If you want a scientific potential falsification of Tower of Babel, you can't.

Precisely as with potential falsifications of Battle of Cannae or Battle of Zama ....

Checking Zama with Reddit:

Reddit : Battlefield artifacts at Zama?
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/ckemao/battlefield_artifacts_at_zama/

So, not finding any battlefield archaeology from Zama doesn't falsify belief in the account of Livy who lived centuries after ...

Cannae, well, it seems they found at least one Roman and one non-Roman sword:

Battles and Book Reviews : The Battlefield of Cannae: a Site Visit
February 29, 2016 by Patrick Shrier
https://www.military-history.us/2016/02/the-battlefield-of-cannae-a-site-visit/

But two swords do not exactly prove Romans were taken in a Kneifzangenmanöver? Pincer move! and thoroughly beaten ....

VIII

5:44 Language splits can't explain why Old Egyptian is different from Sumerian - unless you (without any proof) assume a split occurred ... 20 000 years earlier? Or even more?

Dito for Elamite and Hittite.

Between Old Egyptian and Akkadian, well, some have said both are Afro-Asiatic and both depend on a language split way earlier.

While I cannot linguistically exclude that, more or less like I cannot linguistically exclude German and Sanskrit having a common ancestor (there is some commonality ...) I also cannot linguistically prove it. You know, PIE theory for IE commonalities is not a proven theory.

5:48 Did you mention German among the daughter languages of Latin?

Hello, I can tell you are not in any way, shape or form a linguist ...

5:51 No, God did not cause a second Tower of Babel event.

French is so intimately connected to the mother language Latin, that a French which for the occasion was spelled phonetically for Strasburg Oaths (one which sounds more like Spanish than French, like "ayudhar") would a little earlier and perhaps even then have been routinely dressed up as Latin when you spell it. Check out what Alcuin of York did to Latin pronunciation in Francia back then ... (or a little earlier than Strassburg Oaths ...)

You know, like English pretends to be pronounced in a Medieval way in its current spelling.

And same thing with Spanish and Italian.

Any such intimate connexion or pair of them with a known common mother language is not only lacking for Old Egyptian and Sumerian but even for German and Sanskrit or for Akkadian and Old Egyptian.

IX

6:13 Chinese, Mayan and Egyptian pre-Flood?

No.

Any idea of these being pre-Flood comes from bad calibration of carbon dates.

Btw, Mayan is a mistake on your part. It started in carbon dated 2000 BC.

With Chinese and Egyptian you would also have a conflict between taking their own historiography as correct chronology while at same time using Masoretic timeline for Flood.

X

6:53 They did claim Ziggurat of Eridu was Tower of Babel .... sigh

It so happens, there are two YEC schools except my own on Tower of Babel.

There is the Ziggurat of Eridu school - which poses Tower of Babel into when we already have syllabic cuneiform in the clearly non-Hebrew Sumerian language.

There is another school which claims both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon were post-Babel.

I think the safest tip is Göbekli Tepe, if the starting point for the journey in Genesis 11:2 is not down in Cizre but up on Mount Cudi.

One can add, since Black Sea is post-Babel, GT is not the only tip, somewhere in the Black Sea might do too, but it is less due west-ward from the east compared to Mt Djudi.

XI

7:15 Too bad. The Bible doesn't say the building of the Tower was abandoned.

It says the building of the City was abandoned.

et cessaverunt aedificare civitatem.

Ah, Greek has city and tower:

καὶ ἐπαύσαντο οἰκοδομοῦντες τὴν πόλιν καὶ τὸν πύργον.

Polis means city and in case you don't know Greek purgos / pyrgos (both transscriptions exist) means tower.

Protestant versions like King James at least claim to be translated from Masoretic (with some corrections) and here we have King James:

and they left off to build the city.

Like Douay-Rheims:

and they ceased to build the city.

It can be noted in this context, Göbekli Tepe certainly was abandoned and the original excavator (a German) - who has been contradicted - even claimed the city was deliberately covered in sand.

XII

7:30 "an incomplete structure would be a necessary marker for an actual tower of Babel"

Even if the project was meant to be a rocket and parts were carried away to elsewhere? While it there inspired astronomic research in Stone Henge, Nabta Playa, and a few more places ... (yes, these are in my view post-Babel - to the Eridu Ziggurat school, they would be pre-Babel).

And inspired myths (in the sense of factually untrue myths, no it is not a pleonasm as I use the word) about Perseus being taken up to the stars with Andromeda.

XIII

8:05 When it comes to matching building materials ... here is the so far weakest point with my Göbekli Tepe theory.

Creation vs. Evolution : Is this too modest in my expectations? Bricks revisited
http://creavsevolu.blogspot.com/2019/09/is-this-too-modest-in-my-expectations.html

And here is where I try to find out what leeway I have with the materials:

Correspondence of Hans Georg Lundahl : Me and Roger Pearlman on Genesis 11:3
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2019/10/me-and-roger-pearlman-on-genesis-113.html

I have tried to get confirmation from another Hebraist, but he has a second time noted my email and not answered my question about the Hebrew terms of the building materials.

If you want to put some pressure on him, ask Nanterre University, Theological Faculty, about one who was one year among Dominicans to learn Hebrew ...

XIV

8:35 No, they do not know that Abraham lived in the city of Woolley's Ur.

One city called Edessa has also been called and is now called again Urfa.

Ur-fa, get it?

Now, Urfa is very close to Göbekli Tepe.

"12 km (7 mi) northeast of the city of Şanlıurfa."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe

Note that the city is really called Şanlı Urfa = venerable Urfa in Turkish.

Yes, I know, Turkey is not Iraq. BUT part of Turkey is Northern or North-Western Mesopotamia.

And both Muslims and Jews of that region have tied Abraham to Şanlıurfa.

XV

8:48 They mentioned "third dynasty of Ur"

In my calibration the carbon date conventionally given as ...

"22nd to 21st century BC"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Dynasty_of_Ur

... will not be the actual 22nd to 21st centuries BC, but more recent, since even 18th C. BC (time of Joseph in Egypt) carbon dates to 26 - 28th C. BC if Joseph is Imhotep (check parallels between hunger stele and story of Joseph) and Imhotep's pharao is Djoser.

This means, Third dynasty of Ur is in fact either during the Israelite's stay in Egypt or even (depends on which level of Jericho is relevant) after the Exodus.

XVI

9:00 "None of these things actually corroborate any elements of Abraham's story"

Very little of any story is corroborated by archaeology. Your criterium is fairly wrong.

You cannot corroborate Hannibal marching over the Alps by more than dung which is presumed to come from elephants, but can be identified only as mammalian.

That mammalian dung is from the right period, though ... if tied to another example of dung which has the same bacterial strain.

XVII

9:25 Tradition has it Abraham is actual ancestor to the Hebrew people.

Tradition also has it Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Are you predicting that at some point this tradition will be lost and replaced by one in which Sherlock is historic?

Or are you excluding that on the basis of modern man being presumed to be better and more thorough at separating fact from fiction than those "primitives" (like, was it "mythology of Bronze Age goatherds" someone said?)?

9:33 Same as we have with Spiderman a tradition of his being a fiction created by one Stanley Lieberman better known as Stan Lee ...

Dialogue

involving a statement pinned by Paulogia.

Jonathan Stern

One of the early things that lead me to atheism was language. I took Spanish starting in 7th grade, and I noticed that some words sounded similar in English, Hebrew, and Spanish, though there were more similarities between English and Spanish than there were between either of those langues and Hebrew. This made me wonder how languages develop, since, it seemed clear to me that Hebrew was a much older language than English or Spanish, as I knew that one of my favorite books (Beowulf), was written in a form of English that is no longer in use, but the oldest known documents written in that language are newer than the oldest known documents written in Hebrew.

Anyway, I discovered how languages evolve, and realized that The Tower of Babel story ran completely counter to everything that would have come after it.

Paulogia

Very cool. Pinned!

Larry Daniel Marquez

How old is the manuscript of beowulf? Have you seen the movie?

Marilyn Newman

Actually the Tower of Babel is counter to what came right before it. Gawd tells Noah, that each of his sons will have a great tribe with their own language. PERIOD. Tower of Babel. They really need to edit the dumb book better.

Same with Satan. In Job, Satan & god are best buds, real homies & they make a bet that Satan can get Job to curse god. It also puts the debunk on the snake in the garden of Eden is Satan, because in Job, he's walking around. And friends with god.

KendallChaos

Jonathan Stern exactly and how does written language relate to spoken language because there are languages whose written language is nothing like others (Egyptian hieroglyphs or Japanese writing)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I know very well how "languages evolve" too.

First, I think "evolve" is the wrong term (unless you will claim fashions have "evolved" since 13th C. rather than simply changed).

But second, nowhere in either Bible or Scholastic comment on the Bible does it say all languages known at a specific then point are either strictly identic or separate products of the Babel event.

St. Thomas Aquinas very specifically said that nations (another product of the Babel event) have since then both split and merged. Extrapolate for language ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Someone asked when the manuscript of Beowulf is from. Wiki cited this work :

https://books.google.fr/books/about/Introducing_English_Medieval_Book_Histor.html?id=8XBmLwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y

For this fact : 975–1010 AD.

If the poem is somewhat older than that, it could have been written only shortly before it inspired one Sigfrid to become missionary among the Geats - that is, Swedes of Westrogothia and a bit East-ward from there.

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Two Questions on the Papacy

Q I

Why, with all the historical evidence of the extreme corruption of the papacy, does the church still claim papal infallibility?
https://www.quora.com/Why-with-all-the-historical-evidence-of-the-extreme-corruption-of-the-papacy-does-the-church-still-claim-papal-infallibility/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered 4h ago

According to the actual evidence most of the time papacy was not extremely corrupt or corrupt at all.
A corrupt pope has nothing to do with papacy being fallible or infallible.

Example : it is possible that Savonarola was a saint (St. Filippo Neri thought so). It is possible that it was only by corruption that Alexander VI had him burnt. B U T there was not one single doctrinal statement of Savonarola’s that was condemned, as far as I know, so, Alexander VI did not use any of his infallibility in burning Savonarola.

Inversely, when he promulgated the feast of Immaculate Conception from local to universal, he was not exercising any of his corrupt personal tendencies.

Q II

What are the origins of papal infallibility? How did the rest of Catholicism react to its establishment?
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-origins-of-papal-infallibility-How-did-the-rest-of-Catholicism-react-to-its-establishment/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

Answer requested by

Daniel Hassel

Hans-Georg Lundahl

none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University

Answered Sat

If by "establishment" you mean the dogmatic declaration it is the Vatican Council of 1869-70.

Nearly all bishops world wide supported it at the council, the ones opposing were a tiny minority from mainly Germany and Netherlands (or nearly only these countries), now known as Old Catholics.

If you want earlier origins, the logical origin is, the Church is infallible (Mt 28:16-20) and the Church has St. Peter as its highest chief, along with his successors.

The origin in debates would probably be more like ... Innocent III and Gregory Palamas arguing (at a distance) over whether the Popes of Rome or each bishop in each diocese are the successors of Peter. But Popes had before that been treated in practise as infallible, including by Orthodox.

Hence some Orthodox this day claim to be the "original Sedevacantists" - they adher to the actual line of Popes up to .... at least Leo III in the time of Charlemagne (they celebrate him as a saint!) but consider some later date the Popes became Heretics and Schismatics ... so now they are "rejecting Antipopes."

The actual conflicts had been not over Papal infallibility but over limits to Papal power. Did the popes have power to impose on Emperors of Germany that the archbishop of Salzburg should be elected by a local election? Did they have power to exclude laymen from the election, as these could be influenced by the lord, a vassal of those Emperors? Did they have power to replace the local election by nomination from Rome? The Emperors in the Middle Ages contested each turn of it. The Popes held strong. Hence, there were a lot of conflict between Emperor or Pope loyals.

Ultimately, without Roman Papal nomination, one would in essence have had Imperial German nomination, and one often had that. One can understand why the Emperors wanted that, the Archbishops of Salzburg ruled over lots of land up to 1806. All of what is now Salzburger Land in Austria (not just the city) had this archbishop as secular ruler as well as as pastor. Nevertheless, to the Popes the important thing was his capacity to be loyal to Christ, not his capacity to be loyal to the Emperor.

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Holy Koolaid attacked Bible History

Debate with Paul Myers · Paulogia also doesn't get what is reasonable evidence for 1st C events · Holy Koolaid attacked Bible History with HolyKoolaid Tries to Back Up his Attack Against Exodus · Paulogia took on the Tower

You know, I hope, the procedure, here is the video:

Nothing Fails Like Bible History
Holy Koolaid | 19.XII.2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iep4gnmJeRE

Here are my comments, in this case with some dialogue:

I

0:40 Egyptians were meticulous record keepers?

No, not really - unless by "were" you mean their records are lost. But even then. The preserved king lists (Turin, Abydos) are in conflict.

0:55 Oh wait - statues and temple hierolyphs ... is that your view of "meticulous" record keeping?

unkindestcut

Hans-Georg Lundahl So are the two genealogical accounts given for Jesus. [In conflict, like Turin / Abydos, I presume, HGL]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@unkindestcut Not quite no, since they give two different lines of descent from King David.

St. Joseph's father in St. Matthew's Gospel is his father, his father in St. Luke's is his father in law.

There are earlier crossings of this type once or twice between King David and the parents in the Holy Family, and no one pretended Nathan (ancestor of the Blessed Virgin according to St. Luke) was in office as King after King David.

Being King of a country is a unique office, there is usually one at a time. Being someone's grandfather or greatgrandfather isn't, you usually have 2 grandfathers and 4 greatgrandfathers, and the only quirk which confuses this somewhat is that Hebrews mentioned husbands instead of the women concerned.

Citing the Haydock comment:

Remarks on the two Genealogies of Jesus Christ.

To make some attempt at an elucidation of the present very difficult subject of inquiry, we must carry in our minds, 1. That in the Scripture language the word begat, applies to the remote, as well as the immediate, descendant of the ancestor; so that if Marcus were the son, Titus the grandson, and Caius the great-grandson of Sempronius, it might, in the language of Scripture, be said, that Sempronius begat Caius. This accounts for the omission of several descents in S. Matthew. 2. The word begat, applies not only to the natural offspring, but to the offspring assigned to the ancestor by law. 3. If a man married the daughter and only child of another, he became in the view of the Hebrew law the son of that person, and thus was a son assigned to him by law. The two last positions shew in what sense Zorobabel was the son both of Neri and Salathiel, and Joseph the son both of Jacob and of Heli, or Joachim. — "S. Matthew, in descending from Abraham to Joseph, the spouse of the blessed Virgin, speaks of a son properly so called, and by way of generation, Abraham begot Isaac, &c. But S. Luke in ascending from Jesus to God himself, speaks of a son properly or improperly so called. On this account he make use of an indeterminate expression, in saying, the son of Joseph, who was of Heli. That S. Luke does not always speak of a son properly called, and by way of generation, appears from the first and last he names; for Jesus was only the putative son of Joseph, because Joseph was the spouse of Mary, the mother of Christ; and Adam was only the son of God by creation. This being observed, we must acknowledge in the genealogy in S. Luke, two sons improperly so called, that is, two sons-in-law, instead of sons. As among the Hebrews, the women entered not into the genealogy, when a house finished by a daughter, instead of naming the daughter in the genealogy, they named the son-in-law, who had for father-in-law the father of his wife. The two sons-in-law mentioned in S. Luke are Joseph, the son-in-law of Heli, and Salathiel, the son-in-law of Neri. This remarks clears up the difficulty. Joseph, the son of Jacob, in S. Mat. was the son-in-law of Heli, in S. Luke; and Salathiel, the son of Jechonias, in S. Mat. was the son-in-law of Neri, in S. Luke. Mary was the daughter of Heli, Eliacim, or Joacim, or Joachim. Joseph, the son of Jacob, and Mary, the daughter of Heli, had a common origin; both descending from Zorobabel, Joseph by Abiud the eldest, and Mary by Resa, the younger brother. Joseph descended from the royal branch of David, of which Solomon was the chief; and Mary from the other branch, of which Nathan was the chief. By Salathiel, the father of Zorobabel, and son of Jechonias, Joseph and Mary descended from Solomon, the son and heir of David. And by the wife of Salathiel, the mother of Zorobabel, and daughter of Neri, of which Neri Salathiel was the son-in-law, Joseph and Mary descended from Nathan, the other son of David, so that Joseph and Mary re-united in themselves all the blood of David. S. Mat. carries up the genealogy of Jesus to Abraham; this was the promise of the Messias, made to the Jews; S. Luke carries it up to Adam, the promise of the Messias, made to all men."

Whatever the difficulties attending the genealogies may be, it is evident that they arise from our imperfect knowledge of the laws, usages, and idiom of the Jews, from our ignorance of the true method of reconciling the seeming inconsistencies, or from some corruptions that in process of time may possibly have crept into the text. The silence of the enemies of the gospel, both heathen and Jewish, during even the first century, is itself a sufficient proof, that neither inconsistency nor corruption could be then alleged against this part of the evangelical history. If the lineal descent of Jesus from David were not indisputable, he could not possess the character essential to the Messias, nor any right to the Jewish throne. We may confidently then assert, that his regular lineal descent from David could not be disproved, since it was not even disputed at a time when alone it could have been done so successfully; and by those persons who were so deeply interested in falsifying the first Christian authorities.

Source : Haydock Commentary, Luke chapter 3
https://www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/ntcomment51.shtml

II

"Papyri dating back 4500 years"?

You presumably mean they carbon date that way. They do not give a continuous historic narrative adding up to that.

"Genealogies" while showing not Egyptian but Cuneiform tablets?

Holy Koolaid

Actually, at 1:08, when I mention genealogies, I show a wall of hieroglyphics. That's the king's list in Abydos which lists the names of 76 pharaohs. Perhaps you should do your research before you criticize mine.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Holy Koolaid The subtitles at least came when you showed cuneiform tablets.

Abydos Kinglist and Turin Kinglist show discrepancies between them. Also, a kinglist is not necessarily a genealogy, I don't know how many years and how many so and so was son of so and so either kinglist mentions.

You have one examplar for each, you don't know their Sitz im Leben, you don't know why they differ, you don't know why Manetho differs from both ...

@Holy Koolaid OK, I get it, the wall of hieroglyphics is the Abydos Kinglist and the cuneiform tablets you very quickly switch to are the diplomatic correspondence - with Mesopotamian powers.

Would all of that be Amarna correspondence?

III

1:57 We would expect to find ... very little after so much time.

Egyptian remain may be overwhelming, but they are very little of what was. Nearly all is gone.

How much remains of Roman war elephants?

"At least one elephantine skeleton with flint weapons that has been found in England was initially misidentified as these elephants, but later dating proved it to be a mammoth skeleton from the stone age."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_war_elephants

2:58 "that's just an excuse for they haven't found anything"

As, if so, with most of ancient history.

Holy Koolaid

"Nearly all is gone?" I literally mentioned 907,000 artifacts at just 50 museums, millions of mummies, towns, temples, palaces, etc. And that's your comeback? 🤔

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Holy Koolaid Look, with 907,000 artefacts left, from such a long period in such a big country, that means nearly all is gone.

Do some maths!

IV

2:50 You are quoting partial sources - unbelievers who want to keep up their unbelief.

Israeli archaeologists would be the last to admit an evidence for the OT.

Doc Reasonable

WHY?? The OT is the JEWISH TORAH you slobbering idiot.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Because Israeli archaeologists are not believing Haredi Jews.

Expecting them to believe the Torah is like expecting Anglican liberal theologians to believe the miracles of the NT.

Doc Reasonable

@Hans-Georg Lundahl If they found convincing evidence, they'd believe it. But it's not going to happen.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Like Bishop Robertson for resurrection of Christ, Israeli archaeologists are very definitely not looking for convincing evidence.

Such guys are unbelievers and they bias their research, perhaps consciously, much of the time perhaps by unconscious habit, so as not to find the evidence there is.

Doc Reasonable

@Hans-Georg Lundahl It's pretty obvious that nothing in the Bible is true. If anything ever turns up to prove any of it, it will not just be dismissed out of hand.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"It's pretty obvious that nothing in the Bible is true."

That's your bias about the Bible.

"If anything ever turns up to prove any of it, it will not just be dismissed out of hand."

That's your bias about unbelievers of slightly Jewish or slightly Christian tradition, or your bias about the guys who get research funds. Plus, by people like you, it will.

Either way, it's your bias from your atheist religion, and I have a Christian religion with opposite bias, plus I have taken a close look at that kind of unbelievers (part of why I left Swedish state Church, even if the ones I met perhaps weren't as bad as Bishop Robertson I had known from CSL's description).

V

3:26 Egyptian conquest of Canaan ...

1460 BC to 1125 BC. Carbon dates, I presume?

Now, if the carbon dates are off, this mean that this could well be from the time of the Judges, during which era Israel had to fight and reconquer independence time after time.

In Roman martyrology, Exodus is 1510 BC. That means Moses was born 1590 BC. But Moses could have been born lose to the death of the pharao Sesostris III, whose coffin is carbon dated to c. 1839 BC. 250 years discrepancy.

While going up to times of King David, the discrepancy evens out, as carbon 14 rises to modern level.

Why from Egypt to other Egypt, 3:38?

Perhaps because Holy Land hadn't been Egyptianised yet and perhaps because effective control of Holy Land was going to be an armwrestle between Israelites and neighbours and very little left for Egyptians claiming suzerainty over these neighbours.

Plus, the Bible doesn't actually present it as fleeing ...

Except of course for the brief episode of an Egyptian army which drowned, presumably just before Hyksos conquest.

Yes, 3:50, you have fortresses which can have been manned Egyptian style but by Canaaneans and you have stelae precisely bragging which Orientals sometimes do with not much substance (like you accuse authors of Exodus of doing).

4:14 And Battle of Kadesh would have been during the Judges period, and this is why Israelites were not involved as major participants.

Unless, like King David was involved on either side of Kadesh in I Chronicles 19:

http://drbo.org/chapter/13019.htm

Speaking of which battle:

"As a result of discovery of multiple Kadesh inscriptions and the Egyptian–Hittite peace treaty, it is the best documented battle in all of ancient history."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kadesh

1) so, the best documented battle from then lacks chariots lying around for archaeology?

Should tell you sth about your insistance on finding archaeological confirmation before believing historiographic narrative!
2) If I Chron 19 is involved, King David's time should carbon date to c. 200 years earlier than real time.

In fact, one acquaintance of mine has the invasion in King Solomon's time, by "Shishak" = by Ramses II. Look up Damien Mackey, he'll be happy to give you details.

In the case of Amarna correspondence, David Rohl considers "Labeya" = King Saul ...

Jason Steinway

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Keep it simple. Where ARE the 2 million skeletons of the Israelites and their animals that were NEVER found, despite excavations since the 1800's and the use of ground penetrating radar ?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Keep it simple : where are your similar requests for any other people that area?

With 99 % missing or more - ditch that request.

VI

7:05 On mt. Sinai, God delivered to Moses the essentials of Genesis chapter 1 - the rest from 2 verse 5 on, Moses had from tradition which, inspired by God, he considered as reliable.

7:23 So, Moses wrote about himself in third person .... Julius Caesar imitated the procedure.

7:32 If "humble" simply translates as "bad self confidence" and therefore "socially handicapped", yes, a person who was humble in that sense would write it about himself.

Never mind that Jews later discovered this is a virtue ...

7:39 Last chapter of Deuteronomy was written by Joshua and last chapter of Joshua was written by a scribe who was starting the recording of Judges as well. Judges being, like 2 books of Samuel and 2 books of kings and like parallel work 2 books of chronicles, cumulative work, much like Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

8:05 Moses can have given heirs of Aaron the right to update place names.

This could also explain why Exodus features "Phithom and Ramesses" of which at least the latter could be a name from later times.

Or Dan could have been a parallel name older than Laish.

Paul Gross

Do you have any substantive evidence for your claims ... ?

I will wait patiently ....

Hans-Georg Lundahl

1) "claims" - most of what I said was possibilities countering HolyKoolaid's claims.
2) substansive evidence for Moses seeing precisely creation days on Mt Sinai is tradition.

And that's as substansive as it gets for most of ancient history.

Paul Gross

Hans-Georg Lundahl - then you are not just wrong, but very dishonest too.

Until now, you have never called your claims mere 'possibilities', and you must explain exactly that if you are discussing mere possibilities. Not to qualify your claims as mere possibilities is dishonest.

And, of course, unlike the claims about Moses, much of ancient history is backed up by archeological discoveries, and this substantive evidence far exceeds the zero archeological evidence for Moses - so you are plainly wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Moses can have given heirs of Aaron the right to update place names."

Note the word "can"?

"unlike the claims about Moses, much of ancient history is backed up by archeological discoveries"

No, it is not if by history you mean the sequence of events.

If you mean existence of such and such a culture, at such and such a time in such and such an area, yes, much is backed up, but much is lost. But when it comes to single events or men living, nearly all is lost.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

after some more thought

In the case of updates of place names, I mentioned this as a possibility, since if so it was done too discretely to leave traces in Hebrew tradition. I also mentioned another possibility.

But in the case of Moses writing in third person (like Caesar), using "humble" as we would use "socially awkward", last chapter of Deuteronomy (like last book of Caesar's Gallic Wars) being by someone else despite general rule of Moses being the author, while I don't take them for mere possibilities, to my opponents, these are possibilities they need to exclude before using the arguments Holy Koolaid just used against Moses being (with exception for updates in geographic terminology or last chapter) the author of all of the Torah. In the case of Genesis, final compiler.

Paul Gross

Hans-Georg Lundahl - you wrote: "Last chapter of Deuteronomy was written by Joshua ...".

Note the word 'was', because you are being dishonest.

And regardless of whatever is lost of ancient history, there is still plenty of archeological evidence as backup, so when compared to the zero for Mouses, is necessarily ahead. ... so, again, you are wrong.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

As I just mentioned, I am giving the response from my perspective as a fact, however, the point is, even the possibility is enough to dismiss HolyKoolaid's argument.

"regardless of whatever is lost of ancient history, there is still plenty of archeological evidence as backup"

No, not for most events, not for most known persons, unless they had faces on coins or statues, not for even very important events and very important persons.

You can back up Caesar by statues - but you can't back up Vercingetorix that way, nor that he was beaten by Caesar, nor that he came to Rome as a prisoner, was led in triumph, was strangled. Same for Baodicaea. Same for Orgetorix and Ambiorix. Every opponent of Caesar is gone. Except for his texts.

Conjuration of Catiline? Find me archaeological back up for that one, and I'll be impressed. Sextus Calvinus conquering Provence and founding Aix? You do get first Roman remnants at Aix at the right period, but that's it. Equally, if you can archaeologically prove Alexander the Great was born in Pella in Macedon ... have your go.

These are the kind of things that actually make up history in the usual sense of the word. You know, like not just knowing 20th C. commodities, but knowing who Hitler, Churchill and Stalin were. For 20th C. AD you can back up those things archaeologically, for 20th C. BC, you usually can't.

The one who's wrong is you.

Paul Gross

@Hans-Georg Lundahl - a 'response from your perspective' is not an established fact - and you know this as well as anyone else.

So you have just added stupidity to your dishonesty. Well done!

And both Vercingetorix and Caesar are better attested than both Moses and Joshua - because at least Vercingetorix had a well-attested contemporary - Caesar - who wrote about him.

No purported contemporary of either Joshua or Moses ever wrote a word about them.

Which only emphasizes how wrong you are.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Paul Gross Moses wrote about himself and Joshua wrote about his death.

We know this because of tradition.

We know tradition because people remembering a book was written jesterday won't jump and conclude it was written hundreds of years ago.

And people recalling a book was written by Moses won't recall it was written by Aaron.

Exactly the same way we know Caesar wrote Bellum Gallicum.

Sorry to have to schoolmaster you about ancient history, but that's part of my subject at university - Latin.

In case you say we have no manuscripts of Moses from his time, neither do we have any of Caesar from his time. Tradition, not surviving contemporary manuscripts, is the key to establishing authorship in ancient texts.

"a 'response from your perspective' is not an established fact"

It is an established fact in my school of thought if not in yours.

"So you have just added stupidity to your dishonesty."

And it so happens, if we were working at the same place, I'd consider quitting it or suing you over harrassment.

How about learning to use some manners in debate?

VII

9:06 Yeah, misinformation and pseudo-science ... that's what I face when watching this.

Holy Koolaid

Says the guy who was accusing me if showing cuneiform writing when I showed the hieroglyphic Kings list at Abydos. 😆😆

Jason Steinway

When you find the 2 million skeletons of the Israelites AND their animals that were NEVER found, despite excavations since the 1800's, and the use of ground penetrating radar, I might believe you.

All major Universities and the Israeli gov't gave up looking many decades ago.

Jewish theologians no longer accept the Exodus as fact

https://medium.com/@mattsamberg/what-if-we-weren-t-slaves-8f92dd6eac01

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You know, there are lots more than just 2 million Egyptians missing.

In Egypt you have found over one million animal mummies, most of which were cats.

The human mummies are lots less numerous in finding, despite an estimate 70 millions were mummified. Not to speak of the rest of Egyptians who weren't.

The criterium is flawed. Most of Ancient history is found only in texts. Battle of Kadesh is found in more than one text, from the time, but not in battle field archaeology - and it's more recent than the Exodus.

"Jewish theologians"

Jewish apostate "theologians" ...

Hans-Georg Lundahl

added (to video)

9:18 "Promoting science and critical thinking."

Biassed science and one sided criticism ... a little earlier you mentioned "regligious dogma" : in fact you are promoting an anti-religious dogma to counter tradition universal among Jews, Samarians and Christians (and to some extent Muslims).

It's anti-religious dogma [that] traditions of a religious type need to be challenged on historic claims.

It's biassed science to exact more archaeological evidence for Exodus than you would for nearly any other event in Ancient History.

Monday, December 16, 2019

Reason over Protestants

Protestants vs Reason
Brian Holdsworth | 13.XII.2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyLm7OHaOaw

I: You are aware some of them will link this to the Galileo case?

The Church "was wrong" they will say, because over relying on Aristotelic reason ...
II: 3:25 Prima Via and Scripture : Romans 1.

You will often get that the "human philosophy" mentioned in Colossians 2:8 is Aristotelic, since Aristotle believed in "four elements" ...this is missing that "elements" actually refer to letters (hence elementary school, where you learn to piece together letters to words) and that this was one of the ways in which Democritus and Epicure referred to atoms.

But one more : St Thomas is giving an Aristotelic proof of God (through God moving heaven around us each day) which is actually alluded to in Romans 1.

What exact visible things are showing forth the invisible things of God? Well, His power is shown forth, for one, in His moving the Sun, Moon and Stars around Earth each day.
III: 5:45 rock paraphernalia ... you have heard of Kim Clement?
IV: 8:32 I searched "reason" in Douay Rheims and found lots of "by reason of" = because.

But I then searched "understanding".

Exodus 35:31 has And hath filled him with the spirit of God, with wisdom and understanding and knowledge and all learning.

In other words, reason as such is not an external good from surrounding culture.
V: 8:47 In fact, Luther was not a reactionary, he was an innovator.

"by allowing Plato"

What had Philo Judaeus been doing perhaps even before the Church?
VI: Just to give the Protestants some leeway from St. Peter's words ...

But sanctify the Lord Christ in your hearts, being ready always to satisfy every one that asketh you a reason of that hope which is in you.

Does it say to be ready to satisfy them in the precise kind they ask? No.

That, however, is for Solescriptureans ... in historic context, it arguably very much does mean what you say.
VII: Finally, would you agree that is one hadn't abandoned scholasticism too much in Enlightenment era, one would have been better equipped to keep up Geocentrism and Young Earth Creationism, which are part of a reasonable case for the God of Christianity?

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Are the Rites of the RC Mass Biblical? An Anti-Catholic Answer With my Comments

As I am a Catholic, I obviously do not believe the stance of Dean Cooper is correct. I give it first in order then to give my refuations.

Q: Are the rituals of a Catholic Mass biblical?
https://www.quora.com/Are-the-rituals-of-a-Catholic-Mass-biblical/answer/Dean-Cooper-21
Answer requested by: Miguel Camino
Dean Cooper: Spent a decade researching true Mormonism and JW's
Answered Sat: No.

The mass is unbiblical.

Most Roman Catholics would be shocked to learn where the Mass originated. The proposal of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice was first made by a Benedictine monk, Radbertus, in the ninth century and was the subject of many fierce verbal battles by the bishops until Pope Innocent III declared it an official Roman doctrine in 1215 AD. Rome dominates and controls…is that what Jesus taught and wanted? Again think about it people.

There was no mass at all for the first one thousand years of the church. Not until the second millennium do we see the ritual of the Roman mass. Christ instituted the sacrament of the Lords Supper as spiritual food for our soul, Rome took it and made it into to a sacrificial meal where the supposed actual body and blood of Christ is re-sacrificed by the saying of magic words by her priest on an altar and turning bread and wine into the actual Jesus who is with the Father in heaven. That also is a violation of Chalcedon.

"The Sacrifice that is offered on the altar, says the Council of Trent, "is the same sacrifice that was offered in Calvary; it is the same Priest, the same Victim." "The lifting up of the victim as an offering to God," says Bossuet, "was formerly 1 of the ceremonies of sacrifice. "The Body & Blood are now lifted up in the same spirit, these being really & truly our Victim." The Mass therefore is a true sacrifice in which the Victim of Calvary is offered to God with all His infinite merits.

Just prior to the consecration of the mass, if someone added arsenic to the elements of bread and wine, would the poison within those elements be changed and made harmless after the consecration was finished, and would the priest and the people now partake of these changed substances, if not why not?

"Indeed, it is greater even than the power of the virgin Mary. While the blessed virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven and renders him present on our altar as the eternal victim for the sins of man not once, but a thousand times." "The priest speaks and lo, Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows his head in humble obedience to the priest's command." He has the power to go to heaven and pull Christ down, and sacrifice him again on the altar of the church.". - Faith of Millions APPROVED by the RCC and carrying the nihil obstat and imprimatur.

Jesus, after saying "this is my blood" in Matthew26:28 also said "I will not drink henceforth of this FRUIT OF THE VINE" in Matthew26:29, showing that the grapejuice was STILL wine and had NOT been changed into blood.

There is another good argument against the Roman Catholic idea that Christ was speaking literally when He said, **"And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me." **

Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say Christ was speaking literally in that statement. If this is true then who was He refering to when He said, "given for **you**?" Who are the '**you**'?** If He is to be taken literally, then the '**you**' are only those in the room at that time. Not me, not you, not Mary or anyone else. We weren't there so clearly He wasn't speaking to any of us. He didn't say "given for **everyone***". If the Roman Catholics want to argue and say that '**you**' represents all of us, then they are saying '**you**' is symbolic of all of us. So they are admitting that Christ spoke figuratively in that verse. If I give one of my kids some money and say "this is for you" does that include everyone on the planet?

" Power of Consecrating: The supreme power of the priestly office is the power of consecrating. 'No act is greater,' says St. Thomas, 'than the consecration of the body of Christ.' In this essential phase of the sacred ministry, the power of the priest is not surpassed by that of the bishop, the archbishop, the cardinal or the pope. Indeed it is equal to that of Jesus Christ. For in this role the priest speaks with the voice and the authority of God Himself. WHEN THE PRIEST PRONOUNCES THE TREMENDOUS WORDS OF CONSECRATION, HE REACHES UP INTO HEAVENS, BRINGS CHRIST DOWN FROM HIS THRONE, AND PLACES HIM UPON OUR ALTAR TO BE OFFERED UP AGAIN AS THE VICTIM FOR THE SINS OF MAN." - Faith of Millions APPROVED by the RCC and carrying the nihil obstat and imprimatur.

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=O-kj_LncEjAC&pg=PA256&lpg=PA256&dq=faith+of+millions+Of+what+sublime+dignity+is+the+office+of+the+Christian+priest+who+is+thus+privileged+to+act+as+the+ambassador+and+the+vicegerent+of+Christ+on+earth!&source=bl&ots=AZ5scJbMVK&sig=sSkNDpK60ud5zGYSSuJF97ADzFY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=m8YaUeqzHKn5igLrooGACA&ved=0CD0Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q&f=false

Must Christ be continually sacrificed in the mass, or was His blood sacrifice on the cross 100% sufficient to pay for all our sins for ever? In John19:30 Jesus said, "IT IS FINISHED", which in the Greek is "Tetelestai" meaning "to make an END, to ACCOMPLISH, to COMPLETE something, not mearly to end it, but to bring it to perfection or its intended goal."

The rcc says "Christ...commanded that his bloody sacrifice on the Cross should be daily renewed by an unbloody sacrifice of his body and blood in the Mass under the simple elements of bread and wine." (The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 10, Pg. 13, Article: "Mass, Sacrifice of"). Jesus NEVER made such a command. If you'll check the references in Matthew 26 and I Corinthians 11, you'll see for yourself that the Lord's Supper is a MEMORIAL and a SHOWING of Christ's death until He comes again. It is not a sacrifice

Rome teaches that the Mass is a continual "sacrifice" of Jesus Christ, but God's word states that Jesus made the FINAL sacrifice on Calvary! This is made perfectly clear in Hebrews 10:10-12:"By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God." The mass is unnecessary and unscriptural.

The very record of history, (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian and Hippolytus) which the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches love to quote as authority, proves that before 200 AD, the church viewed the bread and juice as symbols. Conversely, the earliest historical hint of transubstantiation was in the 4th century.

1 Corinthians 10:3,4 "All ate the same SPIRITUAL food, and all drank the same SPIRITUAL drink. For they drank of that SPIRITUAL Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ." It doesn't get much easier to understand than that.

In John chapter 6 Christ is speaking about eating His flesh. Then He goes on to explain what He meant....."63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." He is clearly speaking figuratively when he says to 'eat His body and drink His blood'.

In JN 6:63 He even told us the words are SPIRITUAL! Jesus SAID the words are SPIRITUAL the FLESH profits NOTHING!

Ratranmus (sic) wrote: "The bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ in a FIGURATIVE sense" (De corpore et sanguine Christi)

Bread and wine are offered, being the FIGURE of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. They who participate in this visible bread eat, SPIRITUALLY, the flesh of the Lord. (Macarius, Homily xxvii.) Macarius of Egypt (ca. 300-391)

For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, CALLED Himself a vine, dignified the visible SYMBOLS by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had CHANGED their NATURE, but because to their nature He had added grace. (Theodoret, Diologue I, Eranistes and Orthodoxus.) Theodoret, known as Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus, 393--457

The mass is a re-sacrificing of Christ. "And since in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the Mass, the same Christ who offered himself once in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross is contained and is offered in an unbloody manner," (CCC, 1367). What does the Catechism mean here?

Heb.7:27 "Who needeth NOT daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did ONCE, when he offered up himself."

Transubstantiation is a false doctrine because Jesus is not a liar: In Mt 26:29 after Jesus had said, "this is my blood" and prayed, he still referred to the contents as, "fruit of the vine". If transubstantiation of the juice into blood had occurred, as both Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches say it was at this time, then Jesus would never have referred to it as "fruit of the vine' but rather "blood"...

This proves that when Jesus said "take eat & drink" he LITERALLY gave them bread and juice. In like manner, Paul also refers to the elements of the Lord's Supper as "eat this bread and drink the cup" in 1 Cor 11:26 after they should be transubstantiated.

Here's one paragraph from the catechism. "The sacrifice of Christ and the sacrifice of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice. The victim is one and the same. The same now offers through the ministry of priests who then offered Himself on the cross only the manner of offering is different."

As far as the New Testament is concerned, Jesus didn't pluck part of His flesh out to be eaten by His disciples at the Last Supper, which should be the primary example of celebrating the Lord's Supper afterwards. Where does the Bible say that the bread actually turns into Christ's flesh? The Last Supper was also symbolic, the Lord's supper is symbolic. Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross was the one true real thing.

When Christ said to eat His body and drink His blood He was speaking figuratively, not literally. The Book of John also says "unless a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Does this mean we need to be pushed out of our mother's womb again? Of course not. That would be impossible. Christ offered His body and blood on the cross for us. He wants us to accept His body and blood sacrifice for the atonement of our sins.

Transubstantiation is a false doctrine because Jesus instituted Lord’s Supper before his blood was shed and body broken! He spoke of His blood being shed, which was still yet future. This proves it was a symbol.

Obviously Jesus words, "this is my body" should be taken symbolically because it falls within a long list of symbolic statements Christ said: "I am the bread," (John 6:41), "I am the vine," (John 15:5), "I am the door," (John 10:7,9), "I am the good shepherd,"(John 10:11,12), "You are the world the salt, (Matthew 5:13), "You are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: Obviously Jesus words, "this is my body" should be taken symbolically because it falls within a long list of symbolic statements Christ said: "I am the bread," (John 6:41), "I am the vine," (John 15:5), "I am the door," (John 10:7,9), "I am the good shepherd,"(John 10:11,12), "You are the world the salt, (Matthew 5:13), "You are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)

The three first of these are not purely symbolic, but the second two refer to the Eucharist as truly Christ’s presence, exactly like the first one.
Dean Cooper: Original Author
14h ago: No, it doesnt.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “ The proposal of the Lord’s Supper as a sacrifice was first made by a Benedictine monk, Radbertus, in the ninth century and was the subject of many fierce verbal battles by the bishops until Pope Innocent III declared it an official Roman doctrine in 1215 AD.”

Why then to Orthodox (split off before 1215), Copts (split off before 800), Armenians (split off before 800) and Nestorians (split off before 800) all agree with Radbertus and Innocent III?

“There was no mass at all for the first one thousand years of the church.”

False. For the reasons stated.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “That also is a violation of Chalcedon.”

No, but how do you figure it is?
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “Just prior to the consecration of the mass, if someone added arsenic to the elements of bread and wine, would the poison within those elements be changed and made harmless after the consecration was finished, and would the priest and the people now partake of these changed substances, if not why not?”

If arsenic were added, the poison would not be changed, since it is neither bread nor wine but quite another substance, and the elements changed would be adored, but not consumed.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “Jesus, after saying "this is my blood" in Matthew26:28 also said "I will not drink henceforth of this FRUIT OF THE VINE" in Matthew26:29, showing that the grapejuice was STILL wine and had NOT been changed into blood.”

Overinterpretation. Only necessary interpretation is His referring to it still looks like wine and is consumed like wine.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “There is another good argument against the Roman Catholic idea that Christ was speaking literally when He said, **"And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake [it], and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me." **

“Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say Christ was speaking literally in that statement. If this is true then who was He refering to when He said, "given for **you**?" Who are the '**you**'?** If He is to be taken literally, then the '**you**' are only those in the room at that time. Not me, not you, not Mary or anyone else.”

The full actual words would (as in the Mass) be “for you and for many”.

And he said to them: This is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many.

Mark 14:24

We are included, since we are among the “many” He mentioned.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “Must Christ be continually sacrificed in the mass, or was His blood sacrifice on the cross 100% sufficient to pay for all our sins for ever?”

Both.

It was finished as to the payment, and the payment is there through the Mass.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “a SHOWING of Christ's death”

Well, if the bread really becomes His Flesh, the wine really becomes His Blood, then His death - which is a sacrificial death - really is shown.

Because on the altar His Flesh and Blood are made present as if separated on the Cross. They are no longer separate, but they are shown separate.

Ergo : His death is shown. Ergo : His sacrifice is shown.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “Rome teaches that the Mass is a continual "sacrifice" of Jesus Christ, but God's word states that Jesus made the FINAL sacrifice on Calvary!”

Where is your problem?

The sacrifice is final, so now no cohanic or pagan sacrifice will avail. It is continuous, and therefore “we have an altar” as it is said in Hebrews 13:10.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.

Yes, and He is making His sacrifice available to us by being at the same time on the altar. Confer also this description of Christ in Heaven:

and in the midst of the ancients, a Lamb standing as it were slain,
Apocalypse 5:6

For Mass to be truly His Flesh, truly His Blood, and truly His Sacrifice on Calvary, all He needs to do is make His Flesh and Blood present on altars on Earth as well.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “In John chapter 6 Christ is speaking about eating His flesh. Then He goes on to explain what He meant....."63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." He is clearly speaking figuratively when he says to 'eat His body and drink His blood'.”

He said nothing of the kind.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “The very record of history, (Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian and Hippolytus) which the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches love to quote as authority, proves that before 200 AD, the church viewed the bread and juice as symbols.”

I don’t think this is the case.

“Conversely, the earliest historical hint of transubstantiation was in the 4th century.”

I very much don’t think this is the case.

I am not taking the word or the learning of a Protestant for it.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “Ratramnus wrote: "The bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ in a FIGURATIVE sense" (De corpore et sanguine Christi)”

Sure, but his abbot and superior was Radbertus.

And the decision was in favour of Radbertus, not Ratramnus.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: Bread and wine are offered, being the FIGURE of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. They who participate in this visible bread eat, SPIRITUALLY, the flesh of the Lord. (Macarius, Homily xxvii.) Macarius of Egypt (ca. 300-391)

“Bread and wine are offered, being the FIGURE of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ.”

Up to consecration, they are really still only the figure.

“They who participate in this visible bread eat, SPIRITUALLY, the flesh of the Lord.”

Yes, while the eating is spiritual, it really is (after consecration) the flesh of the Lord.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as corn and bread, and, again, CALLED Himself a vine, dignified the visible SYMBOLS by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had CHANGED their NATURE, but because to their nature He had added grace. (Theodoret, Diologue I, Eranistes and Orthodoxus.) Theodoret, known as Theodoret of Cyrus or Cyrrhus, 393--457

It would appear then that Theodoret favoured the idea of Consubstantiation rather than Transsubstantiation.

He is one Church Father, not a consensus of all of them.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “As far as the New Testament is concerned, Jesus didn't pluck part of His flesh out to be eaten by His disciples at the Last Supper, which should be the primary example of celebrating the Lord's Supper afterwards.”

No Catholic says He did.

Rather we say all of His flesh was present under all of the quantitive dimension and other appearance of the bread.

The Flesh, while still Flesh, is present in a very spiritual way.

“Where does the Bible say that the bread actually turns into Christ's flesh?”

If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is my flesh, for the life of the world. John 6:52

The Book of John also says "unless a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Does this mean we need to be pushed out of our mother's womb again? Of course not. That would be impossible.

However, the second time He really is born again (made a new creature) from another water than that of the womb : baptism.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Sat: “Transubstantiation is a false doctrine because Jesus instituted Lord’s Supper before his blood was shed and body broken!”

At the supper, the Blood was in His veins and present in the chalice as such.

On Calvary, it was physically shed.

In a Eucharist after this, it is again the Blood in His veins, since He resurrected.

But the separate consecration of the Blood constitutes a symbolic shedding of it. A showing forth of what happened on Calvary.

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Sharing

The Amazing and Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe (2nd edition)
vaticancatholic.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds7nD_QNeKA

Christ on YEC

Q: Did Jesus believe the world was only a few thousand years old?
https://www.quora.com/Did-Jesus-believe-the-world-was-only-a-few-thousand-years-old/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1

50 so that this generation may be charged with the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be charged against this generation.

Luke 11:50-51 (NRSV)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+11%3A50-51&version=NRSV
Hans-Georg Lundahl: none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University
Answered Thu: Apparently yes, and this means, as He is God Omniscient, that the world only was a few thousand years old and now only is that age plus another 2000 years old.

Other answers with my comments
https://www.quora.com/Did-Jesus-believe-the-world-was-only-a-few-thousand-years-old
I
Alan Graffin: Environmental and Pollution Ins. Mgr. & Director
Answered Wed: In that he was purportedly omniscient, Jesus therefore had to know that the Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years old (although he would surely have known the exact figure).

The Young Earth is a fabrication of a 19th Century American who was an amateur theologian and a worse mathematician. Besides being wholly contrary to observed fact, his calculations and theorizing do not hold up to even the most cursory examination, even on their own terms. Of course, examination of received “truth,” cursory or otherwise, is the one thing Evangelicals will never do.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Thu: “The Young Earth is a fabrication of a 19th Century American who was an amateur theologian and a worse mathematician.”

Would you mind telling me his name and how everyone was old earth before that?

“Besides being wholly contrary to observed fact,”

Like what facts you observe? Note, I underline observe.

“his calculations and theorizing do not hold up to even the most cursory examination, even on their own terms.”

Would you mind detailing his blunders?

“Of course, examination of received “truth,” cursory or otherwise, is the one thing Evangelicals will never do.”

Would you mind telling me if the 19th C. American you refer to is an Evangelical and if you presume all Young Earth Creationists are Evangelical?

By the way, while we are at it, check out the comment of Fr George Leo Haydock to Genesis 3.

// Concerning the transactions of these early times, parents would no doubt be careful to instruct their children, by word of mouth, before any of the Scriptures were written; and Moses might derive much information from the same source, as a very few persons formed the chain of tradition, when they lived so many hundred years. Adam would converse with Mathusalem, who knew Sem, as the latter lived in the days of Abram. Isaac, Joseph, and Amram, the father of Moses, were contemporaries: so that seven persons might keep up the memory of things which had happened 2500 years before. But to entitle these accounts to absolute authority, the inspiration of God intervenes; and thus we are convinced, that no word of sacred writers can be questioned. H. //

Genesis 3, Haydock comment
https://www.ecatholic2000.com/haydock/untitled-05.shtml#navPoint_6

Haydock lived in England and he started printing his “Haydock Bible” (Douay Rheims in Challoner revision, with comments he compiled and sometimes authored) in 1811.

George Leo Haydock - Wikipedia : The Haydock Bible
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Leo_Haydock#The_Haydock_Bible
II
Edward Creazzo: Follower of Jesus over 40 years
Answered Wed: Jesus did not need to “believe” anything since He was the creator of all things. Time is totally irrelevant in Heaven. If the Earth is 6,000 years old or 500,000 years old, Jesus would know. It is written that a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day. The Earth can be very, very old or very young. No one can possibly comprehend a timeless world or a life with no time. We need to put a time on everything from 10 minutes to eons. We can never understand a life with no time.

While we are busy debating over how old the Earth is, we are forgetting to thank the One who gave us the “time” to enjoy His creation, and family and friends. Life is too short to worry about how old the Earth is when we are here just a short time.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Thu: The thing is, Jesus needed to express Himself according to what He knew and not contrary to it, since He is not only Creator and Omniscient, but also totally truthful.

“While we are busy debating over how old the Earth is, we are forgetting to thank the One who gave us the “time” to enjoy His creation, and family and friends.”

Not necessarily.
III
Sheila Davis
Answered Wed: Jesus said “before Abraham was, I am” -claiming his Godhood, claiming he is the creator.

Jesus said I beheld Satan fall from Heaven as Lightning - claiming he was there at the fall of Lucifer when the violent take it by force - when there was a war in heaven and Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels -the dragon and his angels lost the war and was cast down to earth - which took place before man.

No Jesus did not believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old. The Earth was God's Garden before he put men here - the Earth is old very, very old.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Thu: “No Jesus did not believe the Earth is only a few thousand years old.”

Meaning He knew it was and “believe” is the wrong verb?

Or meaning He lied?

If you pick “very, very old” as in billions of years, you pick Christ being a liar.
Sheila Davis: Original Author
22h ago: I answered the question as it was asked.

“If you pick “very, very old” as in billions of years, you pick Christ being a liar” - an analogy that would suit only you and maybe the few that think like you.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Just now
= > 17h ago: Where exactly would you classify that as an “analogy”?

The “few” who think like me (comparatively yes), we think so because we refuse to call Christ a liar. And have sufficient sense of words having meanings and implications to know that is one implication of world being billions of years is precisely that Christ would be a liar or a non-God.
Sheila Davis: Original Author
10h ago: Definition of analogy: a comparison between two things typically for explanation or clarification — your way of thinking and mine.

I have never called Christ a liar and because I used the word believe because it was used in the question is your analogy of what I said.

The Earth is billions of years old and no where in the Bible does it say it's 6000. Christ was here before time began - he is eternal - trillions zillions and more years.

No where in the Bible does it give the year Adam ate from the Tree of knowledge but it does indicate that Adam had immortality before he ate that fruit. Genesis 3:22 Man has become one of us - to know good and evil and now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the *tree of life* and eat and *live forever.* God barred man from the garden. Whatever -you are free to think what you want to think. I will not read a reply from you or answer again.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Just now: “I have never called Christ a liar”

Fine, but if you claim Jesus knew the world was much older than the time of Abel, you are implying He is a liar or not God.

This isn’t about an analogy between our two ways of thinking, it is because thought as such has certain analogies.

Earth 4 - 5 billion years - Christ knew - Christ liar.
Earth 4 - 5 billion years - Christ didn’t know - Christ is not God.
Earth 6 - 7 thousand years - Christ knew AND spoke truth.

“No where in the Bible does it give the year Adam ate from the Tree of knowledge but it does indicate that Adam had immortality before he ate that fruit.”

Whether he ate of it in the first or the third or whatever year, his overall years were 930. His age when begetting Seth was 130 or 230 according to versions.

“I will not read a reply from you or answer again.”

Up to you.
IV
Bill Puka: psychologist/philosophy prof (also teaches scriptures)
Answered Wed: I get the sense that though he made statements of “fact,” mostly apocalyptic prophecy, he was most concerned with ethical devotion and liefstyle, including a more spiritual, not ritualistic devotion to Abba.
Hans-Georg Lundahl
Thu: I get the sense that you prefer “getting the sense” over actually reading what the text says.

Perhaps your profession as psychologist would suffer from your actually becoming a Christian?

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Karnerfors won't get what I disliked about living in Scandinavia

Karnerfors won't get what I disliked about living in Scandinavia · Another Swede is Annoying on Quora

Q: Are Scandinavian countries becoming less religious?
https://www.quora.com/Are-Scandinavian-countries-becoming-less-religious/answer/Hans-Georg-Lundahl-1
Hans-Georg Lundahl: none/ apprx Masters Latin & Greek, Lund University
Answered 3h ago: These last two decades? I don’t know.

Up to then? Very certainly yes. There is a reason why I left them.
Michael Karnerfors
3h ago: You left Scandinavia because Scandinavia was not religious enough for you?
Hans-Georg Lundahl: Original Author
3h ago: I left Scandinavia because Scandinavia was too actively antireligious for me.
Michael Karnerfors
3h ago: How so? In what way?
Hans-Georg Lundahl: Original Author
1h ago: Be a Young Earth Creationist in Paris, people will guess what sect you are.

Be a Young Earth Creationist in Malmö, people will guess what diagnosis you are.

THAT’S Antireligious.
Michael Karnerfors
1h ago: Let me verify that I have understood you correctly…

Are you saying that if you — openly — profess belief in claims that are abject nonsense — such as the claim that the entire Earth is younger than the very ground you stand on — then you expect people to not have opinions about your stance, just because it is religious?

And if people do have opinions, then you uproot yourself and move somewhere else and call them “anti-religious”, as if that was a bad thing?
Hans-Georg Lundahl: Original Author
1h ago: Mr. Karnerfors, I think you are a Scandinavian, and your “claims that are abject nonsense” is precisely what I mean by an Antireligious attitude.

It can also be described as religious adherence to Old Earth and Evolution paradigm, which exists here too.

But in Paris it is more like asking what sect I am or was raised in, in Malmö it risked becoming what diagnosis I had.

“then you expect people to not have opinions about your stance, just because it is religious?”

Absolutely not, but I prefer people who can recognise I have another religion than they over people who see my religion as insanity.

I actually prefer people who are up for a debate, that’s a sport I prefer over “pajkastning”.

Guessing about a diagnosis is not an opinion, it is an insult. It is a calumny. Insult if to my face, calumny if behind my back. Either way a threat to my liberties.

And how that is not a bad thing is a mystery.

It seems, Karnerfors was not up for debate. I haven't seen him defend millions of years or ground I walk on being older than the entire earth or universe. He preferred throwing a custard pie to my face about my sensibility over the type of custard pie throwing (pajkastning) I had to deal with instead of debate in Sweden.

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Paulogia also doesn't get what is reasonable evidence for 1st C events

Debate with Paul Myers · Paulogia also doesn't get what is reasonable evidence for 1st C events · Holy Koolaid attacked Bible History with HolyKoolaid Tries to Back Up his Attack Against Exodus · Paulogia took on the Tower

Here is his video:

Are there authentic secular writings about Jesus? - Creation Today Claims
Paulogia | 20.XI.2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duawfXONl34

Here are my comments:

I: 4:33 "in that time period virtually noone knew who Jesus was"

Up to what exact year?

Among what exact non-Christian sources, and how likely would their topic have been to include Him if they knew of Him?

Varro and Velleius Paterculus didn't know who Jesus was. But Varro died (as I recall, it was ten years or so since I took this) 4 AD, and Velleius Paterculus finishes his Roman History in 16th year of Tiberius, and the last chapters are just very sketchy praise of Tiberius' excellent judgement (it involves praise of Seianus, whose protégé Pilate was, a praise which was soon to be very untimely). And this is AD 30, exactly when Our Lord started gathering disciples.

How likely is Pliny the Elder to include a reference? He did write a history too, and coud have included one there, but it's lost. Perhaps it's lost bc of such a reference, or perhaps simply bc some non flattered Emperor was still around to arrange a book burning. His Naturalis Historia does include contemporary historic references, but on a gossip press level, and when it suits another subject. Such and such a tree has an excellent platform for building a platform in ... and guess if Caligula enjoyed tree house squatting while already an adult ... such and such a fish can stop a boat (normally it can't) and guess if Caligula pardoned the rowers when he found out they were being stopped by it .... (and guess why Pliny claimed it could stop a boat).
II: 5:44 Wow! A sceptic who says sceptics don't need to watch Zeitgeist either!

Hood down (which I had anyway, but as I wear a hoodie, "hat off" would be inappropriate to my situation)!
III: 6:43 The question is posed in a way so as to make the criteria for a yes just larger than those which would admit a yes, a few.

It also presumes there were lots of historians.

After the taking of Jerusalem you have Josephus, a little later you have Tacitus, Dio Cassius and Sueton. Every one of them mentions Jesus in some way, Josephus mentions some considering Him as the Messiah (note, he doesn't say he agrees!) and the other three mention him as founder of the Christian community. This Christian community is also mentioned in Pliny the Younger who corresponds with Trajan or Hadrian (forget which of them) on the criteria for prosecuting them.

Livy can be left out, since for one thing his history only goes into the reign of Augustus and for another the last books of his history are all lost. He cannot even serve to corroborate Caesar's conquest of Gaul, what's left of him now.

Philo gives a parallel to Josephus' Antiquities (hence we have his comments on Genesis 1:1 which have some notoriety in our internal YEC debate, some old earthers like to cite him as giving an alternative to YEC, though "not in time" doesn't suggest "over long periods to me"), but no parallel to Josephus' On the Jewish War.

A Samarian historian has his text lacking and so do a few Roman ones, who are cited by Tacitus, Dio and Sueton - in scarce excerpt. These excerpts would not give us enugh to go on whether they included any reference.

Seneca the Elder was a rhetor : he wrote speeches between Agamemnon and Clytaemnestra about how to deal with Iphigeneia, as this was a fairly safe waty to train rhetoric compared to doing law cases based on contemporary stories. Seneca the Younger was a Stoic who believed everything is one and who gave small tweets of advice on how to be moral (notably in immoral surroundings, which he and Burrus would have been fairly expert on, if we trust Tacitus on their fate). I forget which of them was also a tragedian playwright and unlike Aeschylus Persians, Roman tragedy then did NOT do contemporary news stories.

So, exactly how can one subscribe to the premiss there were "several historians"?

There were few, those who do contemporary after AD 30 and who are preserved to a man mention him, but the mentions are too short to fulfill the specifics of the supposed straightforward question. So, I would say there went some bias into formulating it. One framed it so as to give an impressive no, when asked with an alternative specific - Jesus founder of Christian community - you get the answer at least four non-Christians. Or at least three, I forget if there were references in Dio too.

Wait, I copy paste from google hit 1:

// Never rely only on a source [overall when the source is generalist and it's about a very wide corpus of works, like the one written by Cassius Dio].

First of all, his background of Roman citizen of the high society [Senator, console] probably carried him to ignore a young and odd cult like the Christian one [not "embedded" in the Roman Civitas]. And his approach to history was not that sociological.

Then, Cassius mentions the Christians

Check book 70, 3.

He mentions Antonino and his good policy also towards Christians. //

Next commenter says this is not from the preserved original text, but from an epitomiser.

I checked Philo, was partly wrong. There are two works dealing with contemporary matters:

// "In Flaccum" and "De Legatione ad Caium," an account of the Alexandrian persecution of the Jews under Caligula. This account, consisting originally of five books, has been preserved in fragments only (see Schürer, l.c. pp. 525 et seq.).[15] Philo intended to show the fearful punishment meted out by God to the persecutors of the Jews (on Philo's predilection for similar discussions see Siegfried, "Philo von Alexandria," p. 157). //

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo%27s_works

But the context makes these two works too narrow in scope to mention Jesus, so they are no test on whether he knew of Him. And the other ones are too remote in scope.

Plus, he could have a strong bias for not mentioning Him:

// It was either his father or paternal grandfather who was granted Roman citizenship from Roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar. Jerome wrote that Philo came "de genere sacerdotum" (from a priestly family).[8][9] His ancestors and family had social ties and connections to the priesthood in Judea, the Hasmonean dynasty, the Herodian dynasty and the Julio-Claudian dynasty in Rome. //

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philo
IV: 7:13 "Gospels are anonymous"

Not according to Papias.
V: 7:47 Where are the contemporary sources for the life of Jesus?

Well, where are the contemporary sources for the LIFE of Caligula?

There aren't any either. Pliny the Elder, as mentioned, gives lots of episodes - uniformly introduced in relation to other topics. But only in Tacitus, Sueton and Dio Cassius do we find a beginning to end account of his carreer.

The questioner likes to take "contemporary" very strictly, like not even one generation delay, and he excludes the Gospels which on our view do fulfill the criterium. But there are no authors contemporary to that generation which do narrative history of contemporary events and are preserved to us.

If Tacitus is good enough evidence why Labienus wrote in Nero's time (even if Labienus, nicknamed Rabienus, is lost), why is Papias not good evidence about the Four Gospels (which are btw preserved)?
VI: 8:11 I am sorry, but when you say "lifetimes after the events they describe" you are not only flouting Church Tradition about authorship, you are even flouting Bible scholars of a less conservative type (like guys who do Markan priority). You are basically repeating the idiocies of Voltaire, which were only his wishful thinking.
VII: 8:40 You showed Carrier as a "credentialled scholar" ... how about checking the exact nature of his credentials?

"In 2008, Carrier received a doctorate in ancient history from Columbia University, where he studied the history of science in antiquity. His thesis was entitled "Attitudes Towards the Natural Philosopher in the Early Roman Empire (100 B.C. to 313 A.D.)."[8] He has published several articles and chapters in books on the subject of history and philosophy."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carrier

I don't think this is directly per se credentialling his ability to assess historic facts about antiquity. What did his subject take? A deep dive into Catilinarian conjuration and assessing how do we know Catilina existed? No, simply looking up author after author through the 4 centuries mentioned and see what each had to say about "the natural philosopher".

So, if I really want to know what Cicero thought of astronomy, fine, Carrier can tell if I lack access to Cicero or find it daunting to search him, but this has no bearing on his ability to assess what authors can be consulted on Catilina.

Or in a sense he arguably would know as a side point, that Catilina is mentioned and adressed in speeches by Cicero

quousque tandem abutere Catilina patientia nostra? quem ad finem sese effreneta iactabit audacia?

(A very biassed source, by the way, like Churchill is a very biassed one about Hitler)

Then you have Sallust and you have - but not for Catilina! - Caesar also writing about the end of what we call the Republic.

Like, for the years 30 to 33 and ensuing years to captivity of St Paul, you have also three authors from the actual time doing full length narrative accounts : Matthew, Mark, Luke. Their contemporary colleagues between Velleius and Josephus are lost.
VIII: 9:23 Did Caesar identify himself in the text of Bellum Gallicum? If not, does that make the work an anonymous source?

No.

You are playing around with criteria for dismissal which would dismiss normal, all sides agreeing, history as well.

9:35 How if it was instead Mark who copied Matthew?

St. Clement the Stromatist gives this account. St. Luke decided to write a Gospel. He knew of many attempts (many is more than 3, so he can't mean just the other three!) and thought he could do better. He did a work. Then he went to St. Peter in Rome to get authorisation for his work to be actually read in Church. St. Peter had a copy of St. Matthew's Gospel (the earliest!) lying around, and he started reading from both Matthew and Luke jumping between them, but his secretary Mark thought he was dictating a Gospel (he must have been good ad Tironian notes, the then sthenography) and started to write down what he said.

Note very well, the traditional view of authorships is St. Mark depending on St. Matthew (and perhaps St. Luke too) and not other way round.
IX: 11:03 Forgery or interpolation?

How about Josephus simply being concise in giving the report he had heard from someone else and his perhaps not sharing the view?

How about not bringing up the Jewish taboo, as if we know Josephus was all his life in good standing with the Jews, when in fact at one time he had to ask the Emperor for help against Jews excommunicating him?

How about acknowledging the Jewish attitude was only being crystallised about that time, so one could expect ... shall we say "outliers" or am I misusing this English word?
X: 12:23 "startling deeds"

Need not have referred to miracles, per se, though I think Josephus believed them (certainly some later Jews did, when considering he was "Yeshu" come back from Alexandria with magic tattoos - but the Yeshu in question if not totally a lampoon on Him, was a generation or two earlier).

Could have been about things like driving traders from Temple or roaming the countryside with disciples or eating bread with no washing of hands first ... things to which he could be attaching some meaning. The one of the Temple being obvious, and highly to the point in the time when he wrote after its destruction.
XI: 12:25 "textual discrepancies"

Only a question of divergent translations from the Greek.

Teacher of "men" or of "people"? Greek has "anthropon" which translates men = human beings, but not men = adult males. So, one would be traditionally translating "men" and the other would think "that sounds too much adult males, I'll take people instead". In German it would be Menschen, in Swedish menniskor ...
XII: 14:08 Rather than events that are historically verified?

I am sorry, but the main historical verification for most events is precisely what people believed.

Sure, some affairs we also have narratives from participants, unfiltered, but usually we have what people around believed to have happened. For battle of Crécy, I can see a list of the primary sources we have, these being Medieval ...

The Anonimalle Chronicle, 1333–1381. Edited by V.H. Galbraith. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1927.
Avesbury, Robert of. De gestis mirabilibus regis Edwardi Tertii. Edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. London: Rolls Series, 1889.
Dene, William of. Historia Roffensis. British Library, London.
French Chronicle of London. Edited by G.J. Aungier. Camden Series XXVIII, 1844.
Froissart, Jean. Chronicles. Edited and Translated by Geoffrey Brereton. London: Penguin Books, 1978.
Grandes chroniques de France. Edited by Jules Viard. Paris: Société de l'histoire de France, 1920–53.
Gray, Sir Thomas. Scalacronica. Edited and Translated by Sir Herbert Maxwell. Edinburgh: Maclehose, 1907.
Le Baker, Geoffrey. Chronicles in English Historical Documents. Edited by David C Douglas. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Le Bel, Jean. Chronique de Jean le Bel. Edited by Eugene Deprez and Jules Viard. Paris: Honore Champion, 1977.
Rotuli Parliamentorum. Edited by J. Strachey et al., 6 vols. London: 1767–83.
St. Omers Chronicle. Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, MS 693, fos. 248–279v. (Currently being edited and translated into English by Clifford J. Rogers)
Venette, Jean. The Chronicle of Jean de Venette. Edited and Translated by Jean Birdsall. New York: Columbia University Press, 1953.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Froissart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Le_Bel

Only one of them [I haven't checked Venette, I missed him], cited by Froissard, is scrupulous to write only what he had witnessed or people he cites had witnessed. But even Jean Le Bel then does cite things he had not witnessed himself on trust of others who had done so.

It does not mention if Crécy is among the things Jean Le Bel had seen or among the things he had heard reports of ...
XIII: 14:51 There is no reasonable doubt Eusebius was quoting Africanus correctly. There is no reasonable doubt Africanus was quoting Thallus correctly - precisely as there is no reasonable doubt Tacitus was quoting Labienus correctly on something that Nero did.

There is a very huge difference between citing what you heard in a whisper and citing what you have read. Telephone game exits from comparisons.

Again, your criterium is such we cannot properly know Nero was suspected at the time of plotting to have his mother killed.

15:26 There was a fearful darkness on the land.

This much is clear from Thallus being quoted in the context.

You ask Carrier how likely Thallus was of being good at astronomy. Bc a mid Jewish calendar month eclipse is physically impossible.

Here is the deal. When Africanus wrote, Thallus was still around. Otherwise he couldn't have quoted him.

OK, just possibly he could have made up an author and a quote and then told people it seems no one can find Thallus "any more" ... but if so, he would have been up against questions like "where did you read him?"

Again, it is just possible he attribued to a then extant Thallus whom others could consult a passage about a darkness which wasn't in the text at all, or wasn't the right year or wasn't the right land (i e wasn't Holy Land). But if so people would have asked Africanus things like "wait, were you saying this was during the Crucifixion of a man in Palestine?" and added "I had heard there was a very visible eclipse in the 23 year of Tiberius, but it was in Rome, my grandfather saw it".

Again, it is just possible Thallus didn't explain it as an eclipse, but then Africanus would have been answering charges of strawmanning ....

It is however, for the right time, namely on a 14th Nisan, which is uniformly always at or near full moon (precisely as a 14th Ramadan with Muslims!) impossible it was an actual eclipse of the Sun by the Moon. At full moon, as Thallus may have ignored and as Africanus would not have ignored, Sun and Moon are opposite sides of Earth.

So here is an alternative view on why we don't have Thallus : Africanus won the day. He discredited Thallus and those interested in that question would prefer Africanus over Thallus, those who weren't would shun both. Later, Africanus is cited at a time when he is losing ground (people like Rob Skiba would really like it to be over his theology being anti-Nicene, not just his writings ante-Nicene). So, now we know of him through Eusebius.
XIV: 16:20 "if so, this passage" [Pliny the Younger, I think] "merely tells us that"

You are depending heavily on Carrier's views against Euhemerism.

Euhemerism in general means, like Hercules and Romulus were men who were then taken to be gods, even Athena, Zeus, Saturn had been men and had been mistaken for gods.

Carrier's view is the opposite, namely that something called Euhemerisation happens to gods like Hercules. First Hercules was worshipped as a god, then this god for some - to me not very explicable - reason is projected onto the streets of Tiryns and Mycenae ...

So, Carrier says, Christians first worshipped Jesus as a "heavenly being" and then "euhemerised" Him in this sense : projecting Him to the streets of Jerusalem and Kapharnaum and to the country roads between Galilee and Judaea.

This is not very likely ... religious cults may add layers of divinity to a gone leader, they are not likely to add layers of humanity to a pure divinity. And yes, I think Hercules and Romulus existed. As people.

Let's continue with Tacitus:

Tacitus would not have called Christianity a superstition for making supernatural claims, he doesn't use that word about omens at the death of Agrippina.

To Tacitus, a "superstition" is not "making a supernatural claim" but "living by absurd observances" (most michieveously not sacrificing to the emperor's genius). Example : Horace speaks of sabbaths and new moons as Jewish superstitions. Those were the ones relevant for his excuse against testifying in court as cited (Ibam forte via sacra).

It's like calling kosher food a "superstition" because it allows the Beth Din to give authorisations that the department of health cannot give to a butchery.
XV: 18:26 You are missing that Greg and Craig are pronounced differently.

Christós and Chrestós (differing with iota vs eta) were definitely spelled differently and at this time already pronounced the same. The Greg / Craig parallel would have done if we were speaking of 300 BC Athens. Newsflash, we aren't. Aristoteles Savalas is nicknamed Telly, not Tellay. And the date for this transition is known.
XVI: 18:45 Now, the evidence about a historic character existing are usually what people believed.

How do I know Jules Verne existed?

Novels attributed to him are there, but you are on record as a sceptic about authorships.

People believe he existed ... but you just now make a distinction between evidence for a belief about historic fact and evidence for a historic fact itself. Some can visit his tomb .... can you spell Holy Sepulchre?

Everyone I spoke to believes Hitler (at least to all appearances) lost in 1945 and Germany was invaded by three powers from the West and Soviets from the East. This belief is my best clue to Germany actually losing independence for a while in 1945.

The thing is, Sueton is not saying what Christians believed in his time, but what Christians believed back in the time of Emperor Claudius.

The further back a belief about a fact can be traced, the more likely it is to actually reflect the fact itself.
XVII: 18:52 Neither Pliny the Younger, nor Tacitus, nor Sueton are discussing whether the supernatural events happened or didn't happen. When they speak of "mischievous religious belief" or "pernicious superstition" it is simply a question of this belief separating Christians from the common hum drum life of a well integrated Roman.

Les Éblouis by Sarah Suco is not discussing whether Christianity is true or false, just saying that this charismatic resident group was committing "child abuse" by asking the children to have a prayer life. (I haven't seen it, it seems to involve some now populistic charge about child abuse in the sexual sense too).

And that is the precise level of these critiques given against Christianity, therefore it cannot be used to dismiss historicity of miracles.

A very curious fact is, Sarah Suco lived from 8 to 18 within a community, she is now 35 and is making the movie AND she says in an interview it took her years to identify what happened as a sect.

In the movie, it ends with the main character contacting the police.

Obviously, that part is not based on her own memories from the experience ...
XVIII: 20:15 As a parallel to your request for non-Christian confirmation of miracles, how about non-Roman confirmation Julius Caesar conquered Gaul, from 1st C. BC?

Velleius Paterculus covers it, in or a bit before AD 30, but he is very clearly subservient to the Caesar family which is in power.

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere

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Saturday, December 28, 2019

Sharing

Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Paulogia took on the Tower

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Two Questions on the Papacy

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Holy Koolaid attacked Bible History

Monday, December 16, 2019

Reason over Protestants

Sunday, December 15, 2019

Are the Rites of the RC Mass Biblical? An Anti-Catholic Answer With my Comments

Saturday, December 14, 2019

Sharing

Christ on YEC

Thursday, December 12, 2019

Karnerfors won't get what I disliked about living in Scandinavia

Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Paulogia also doesn't get what is reasonable evidence for 1st C events

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