Also under the video with GMS and Leo Yohansen

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Bart answered ... · Continuing with Leo Yohansen · With Leo Yohensen, Snappy Version · Leo Yohansen is Back · somewhere else : Apostles and St. Irenaeus · Where is the First Person if Moses and some Disciples wrote Torah and Gospels? · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : Also under the video with GMS and Leo Yohansen

Caroline Clements

Like the time Jesus was in the wilderness - alone - with God. So who was there writing it down, including Jesus's thoughts and the words God spoke to him?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Caroline Clements How much was Jesus alone in the wilderness?

You mean the 40 days? All we are told is what He would have told His disciples, namely that Satan tempted Him with three temptations.

Caroline Clements

@Omnitroph How on earth could you possibly know that? You are assuming things and making stuff up. Personally it is a mystery how any sane person can believe such utter rubbish!

Caroline Clements

@Hans-Georg Lundahl What he 'would' have told his disciples. But you don't know. You can't just make things up to suit what you want to believe. Whoever wrote the gospels - we don't know who. Even biblical scholars admit to that plus it was written in Greek and the disciples spoke Aramaic and were probably illiterate. Peter was actually described as illiterate. Anyway, whoever wrote the bible, probably several unknown persons, made a pretty poor job of it.

Caroline Clements

@Avant Gourd the gospel according to Mark not of Mark - a huge difference. If I wrote a book say 'The Dinner Party' I wouldn't describe my authorship as according to Caroline Clements.

Omnitroph

@Caroline Clements How could I know that? By reading the actual text of the Bible and picking up on the clear implications...

Caroline Clements

@Omnitroph You are kidding me. Implications are open to interpretation, hence all the religious wars, the suffering, the destruction of people's lives. Your God is a monster for not making things clear and, supposedly omniscient, making him even more of a monster, for knowing what will happen and doing nothing about it. I don't believe in him of course or any God. Religion is an evil invention of humans.

Knock knock
Who's there?
Jesus Christ.
What do you want?
I want to come in?
Why?
I want to save you.
Save me from what?
From what I'll do to you if you don't let me come in.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Caroline Clements When we study historic documents, the hypothesis that the writer could know trumps the one that he couldn't.

@Caroline Clements "plus it was written in Greek and the disciples spoke Aramaic and were probably illiterate. Peter was actually described as illiterate."

If they lived in Galilee, being illiterate was no obstacle to knowing Greek. It's more probably they were illiterate as to Torahic Hebrew - St. Peter is described as "Kephas" and not as "Kaiaphas".

St. Peter was not one of the Gospellers.

St. Matthew, the first Gospeller, wrote first in "Hebrew" (which might mean Aramaic) and then himself translated it to Greek. As he was a Levite by training, he was not illiterate.

Caroline Clements

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Setting aside the laughable notion that the Bible is historical except in the most superficial of ways, when Herodedus writes the history of the Trojan Wars we should accept Zeus and a multitude of other Gods! And of course the Koran, the Vedas, Joseph Smith's Mormon Bible, Beowulf and many others. It is quite ridiculous! I think you're a troll and just winding me up, do I'm going to block you now.

@Hans-Georg Lundahl Do you know what illiterate means? It means you can neither read nor write and the gospels were written in polished Greek by persons unknown, at least 30 to 60 years after the fact and altered over the age. All Biblical scholars accept this. Plus they are full to the brim with contradictions. In any case if I had written one of the gospels, I would not describe my authorship as 'according to Caroline Clements' The whole thing is a fake and has brought unimaginable suffering to millions of people throughout the ages whilst the various churches with differing interpretations waged wars and enriched themselves to grotesque extremes. Thankfully Christianity, in particular, the nastiest of the religions in my view, is dying out fast.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Caroline Clements "Setting aside the laughable notion that the Bible is historical except in the most superficial of ways, when Herodedus writes the history of the Trojan Wars we should accept Zeus and a multitude of other Gods!"

Not necessarily. Btw, I do accept that Apollon was a manifestation of the demon Apollyon.

There is a very marked difference between the kind of events for which the NT invoked God and those for which Homer invokes the gods. A man born lame, medically speaking, won't get well spontaneously - either there is surgery, or there is a miracle. But Greek or Trojan hero so and so getting confused because Apollo plays a trick on him, well, there are perfectly natural instances of warriors getting confused in battle.

"And of course the Koran,"

The Bible has 1184 chapters in Vulgate or Douay Rheims. Of these I have counted 680 as being history. The Koran has 114 Surahs and the genre is in each case sermons.

"the Vedas,"

Part of the Vedas is about things purportedly done between gods, no human witnesses. Basically corresponding part of Bible? Genesis 1, no more.

"Joseph Smith's Mormon Bible,"

You may have missed that Mormons don't claim it has been normally transmitted as history. They claim the last part of book of Mormon was written c. 400 or 450 AD and that Joseph Smith very miraculously recovered it by being given golden plates.

"Beowulf"

I count Beowulf as historic, and as historic evidence a pterosaur survived to close on modern times.

"and many others. It is quite ridiculous!"

Feel free to laugh, you may be better at that than at arguing.

"I think you're a troll and just winding me up, do I'm going to block you now."

Your choice.

"Do you know what illiterate means? It means you can neither read nor write"

In 20th C. contexts of literacy being mostly about reading and writing your native or national language, it tends to mean that. Add 19th C to this, if you like. It does not mean that in texts from 1st C. AD, necessarily.

"and the gospels were written in polished Greek"

Some would disagree on "polished" - it was not Attic.

"by persons unknown,"

On the contrary known to tradition.

"at least 30 to 60 years after the fact"

According to modern reconstructions, centuries after both fact and books.

"and altered over the age."

If you mean minor spelling and word choice variants, sure.

"All Biblical scholars accept this."

No, just all "Biblical scholars" of a certain school, the one Bart Ehrman belongs to.

"Plus they are full to the brim with contradictions."

Yeah, when did you name one?

"In any case if I had written one of the gospels, I would not describe my authorship as 'according to Caroline Clements' "

Perhaps because you have a different culture from them? Perhaps because the Church which ratified Gospels made a uniform way of referring to the authorships when it came to books treating many different ones (not all were kept, see prologue to Luke) the same subject?

"The whole thing is a fake and has brought unimaginable suffering to millions of people throughout the ages"

Like European countries abolishing slavery between St. Bathilde as queen of Franks (she died 680) and Ragusa in 14th or 15th C.? With England at Norman Conquest in or after 1066 and with Sweden in 1351?

Like Constantine forbidding abortion, setting out of infants, installing orphanages, hospitals, homes for elderly an strangers?

Like St. Louis IX making sure poor were judged with as much equity as the rich?

"whilst the various churches with differing interpretations waged wars and enriched themselves to grotesque extremes."

Would you mind telling me more about that? You are not very specific, I can't recognise any bit of genuine historic scholarship here ...

"Thankfully Christianity, in particular, the nastiest of the religions in my view, is dying out fast."

You are at least showing where your bias is ... are you Jewish?

@Caroline Clements "If I wrote a book say 'The Dinner Party' I wouldn't describe my authorship as according to Caroline Clements."

There is a book basically called that. Or two.

One according to Plato, one according to Xenophon, both of whom had studied some time under Socrates.

It is Ash Wednesday, 2.III.2022, but I publish it 24.II to keep it below my share./HGL