Debates under That Video

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Paulogia Starting Christianity Without Resurrection (OR trying To) · Debates under That Video · Φιλολoγικά / Philologica: Is Vyasa Proof Anonymous Works Can Easily Get Authors? · back to Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Paulogia Attacked Tradition

I

Hans-Georg Lundahl

4:10 No, Mark doesn't show a very low profile about the supernatural. Healing of the paralytic with power to forgive sins. I'll give the due credit to Karlo Broussard, even if he's a Vatican II-er. Here's his essay:

https://catholicexchange.com/the-divinity-of-jesus-according-to-mark

Frank Beans

Stop embarrassing yourself.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Frank Beans If you wanted Paulogia to do so, you should have commented under video itself, not under my comment.

II

Hans-Georg Lundahl

5:31 It is in fact not consistent with the spread of all other world religions.

Would you pretend for a moment an equally central claim to Islam, namely God speaking to Mohammed, was one he never actually made and arose only decades later?

Would you pretend that Islam was not organised on June 8th 632, and that the Caliphate only later developed sayings into Surats, and only later claimed the Surats were direct revelations from God?

On the contrary, you admit very readily that the Ummah was sufficiently organised on June 8th 632 to already get a Caliph within days or weeks and to clearly remember very well what Mohammed's life was all about.

So, why don't you admit the same about the Church? Well, because the self documentation given by it involves facts which your philosophy won't accept as even possible.

It is not consistent with human nature that a very loose movement reinvents its historic origin making it look as a very well established and organised one from day 1.

Abandoned Void

Islam did indeed likely exist prior to Mohammad, and much of the Quranic texts and hadiths were written long after he supposedly lived. So your point here is moot, but it doesn't really matter for the sake of the video, anyway

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Abandoned Void Written down is one thing.

Oral tradition can more or less faithfully take a text from oral redaction to later writing down even centuries later (like from Homer to Peisistratus) and therefore obviously also decades later (like from Mohammed to Omar, or whoever it was who made the writing down from seven copies).

A group like Islam is actually not known from pre-Islamic Arabian peninsular history. Your "likely" is simply a likelihood of pure ignorance.

Frank Beans

@Hans-Georg Lundahl You claiming others ignorant is so ironic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Frank Beans Except, about pre-Islamic Arabia, he is.

I suppose your "non-ignorance" is not about history.

III

Hans-Georg Lundahl

5:55 You are making the word "legend" a magical, cover all, explanation.

Real texts actually marked out as actual "legends", ecclesiastic or popular, seem to have a far firmer grasp on factual realities than what you are proposing for the rise of Christian Story. But your problem would partly be, you have a very loose grasp on what legend is supposed to mean outside the contexts when you find it useful.

6:06 I suppose the lives of the apostles are also in the genre you dismiss as "legend" (and they are in a book called "legenda aurea").

The thing is, what the actual use of that word is, most of history is in fact legend more than your pretended requirements of proven historicity.

Frank Beans

@Hans-Georg Lundahl You are the one reinterpreting the meaning of legend to cover up the fact your belief system is fictional.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Frank Beans No, I am dismissing the modern meaning of "legend" as a hotchpotch of half thoughts and of ignorance about actual ones.

Legend doesn't mean fiction. When it's not accurate history it's fraudulent or misunderstood history.

IV

Hans-Georg Lundahl

6:17 "Gospels are anonymous"

No, the fact remains, the Church has accepted them as coming from:

• Matthew, one of the twelve
• Mark, a disciple of Peter who was one of the twelve
• Luke, a disciple of Paul and a researcher among eyewitnesses
• John, a disciple, often identified with one of the twelve, certainly either way some eyewitness.

How many other anonymous works on your view have acquired full authorship status?

Mahabharata's Vyasa would be a case in point, but that's a totally other culture, less good on documentation.

Abandoned Void

The Church is, and this might shock you, completely wrong and at odds with history. The gospels don't even claim to be written by those figures, and they were written long after these people would have been alive. They're absolutely anonymous accounts. And they're competing accounts of different traditions within early Christianity, no less, with gospels like Luke outright claiming to be the only true gospel. That isn't getting into how our oldest copies of each show some quite extreme textual variances, implying that they were being constantly rewritten in earlier traditions and likely the composed work of several different authors building on the original stories.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Abandoned Void "The Church is, and this might shock you,"

A fact if I accepted it like that might shock me, but a claim I do not accept ... I've heard it since I was 1/4 of my now age.

"completely wrong and at odds with history."

Where do you claim to get your historic knowledge from? I claim to get it from a community called Church, what community back then do you get yours from?

Reconstructions from now don't arbitrarily trump knowledge from back in the relevant days, even if a host of academic institutions were to give them more creedence.

"The gospels don't even claim to be written by those figures,"

No, but Papias, an early Church Father, claims it for them.

"and they were written long after these people would have been alive."

That amounts to an alternative claim about authorship. Did you live closer to the relevant people's lifetime than Papias did? He wrote the claim c. 150 AD.

"They're absolutely anonymous accounts."

This is however incompatible with any alternative claim of authorship.

"with gospels like Luke outright claiming to be the only true gospel."

It actually doesn't. Here is the relevant text, Luke 1:

[1] Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a narration of the things that have been accomplished among us; [2] According as they have delivered them unto us, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word: [3] It seemed good to me also, having diligently attained to all things from the beginning, to write to thee in order, most excellent Theophilus, [4] That thou mayest know the verity of those words in which thou hast been instructed.

• It doesn't state that these "many" were doing a bad job, Luke doesn't claim to do an "I'm better" just a "me too";
• He doesn't mention who the other ones were, and the tradition by Clement the Stromatist implies he was ignorant of Matthew, while both Mark and John were later than he.

"That isn't getting into how our oldest copies of each show some quite extreme textual variances,"

The oldest copies aren't necessarily the best ones. Sinaiticus (probably not what you meant, but one of the earlier codices of whole Bible) is one of the older ones, uniquely or nearly preserved from back then - but probably so because it was rejected for reading and yet not burnt as an Arian pseudo-copy. You forgot to mention what you count as "quite extreme" textual variances ...

Frank Beans

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Use that one functional brain cell you have, bub. Who benefits from the gospels being legitimate? Only the church, who takes in billions of dollars per year. Are you so inept to think that the church is right and all other scholarly work is wrong? You are why atheists ridicule theists. You don’t want the truth. You only want confirmation of your ridiculous fantasy.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Frank Beans "Only the church, who takes in billions of dollars per year."

Nope. Lots of faithful too, like getting a better outlook on their lives than the likes of Simon Sinek can provide.

Plus, the one you are thinking of probably would prefer to ditch some of the Gospels.

Mainstream "Catholicism" already ditches historicity of Genesis ...

"You don’t want the truth. You only want confirmation of your ridiculous fantasy."

With such an outlook (not too unlike Simon Sinek but ruder even than Jordan Peterson), and no specific arguments to the actual topic (a so called "ad hominem"), you are not a good publicity for Atheism.

"Are you so inept to think that the church is right and all other scholarly work is wrong?"

Church isn't in it as a modern scholar (already said what I think of mainstream "Catholics"), but as a historical community (existing way before the dollar and way before being safe and rich), and as giving a testimony very early on (150 AD, Papias, as said, way before Constantine and 313) to the Gospels.