getting dates about a young earth

Dan_473 · Apr 27, 2016

there are several things I would respectfully disagree with you in what you wrote, but I want to focus on just this part at this time, lest our posts become too long.

so, I think your answer is no, you don't really believe that sin entered the world through one man.

would you disagree with Paul's message in 1 cor 15 that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures"?

William86 · Apr 28, 2016

Dan_473 said:

Yes I don't really believe that sin literally entered into the world through one man. It has more to do with seeing Paul's doctrines as a later tradition than how I interpret Genesis. It's very clear this is a central doctrine of Paul and so it's definitely supportable biblically and I'm not disputing that at all. It's also a strange passage, what scriptures he is referring to isn't clear, his writings are the earliest new testament documents we have.

Regarding your question, I would agree with it, though I think it could be this was a later interpretation of christianity which tried to make sense of their messiah being killed, which doesn't seem to be what they expected. I consider the gospel accounts to be our primary source of information about what Jesus was actually like and preached with Paul also being important but offering less information. My idea of Jesus is mostly taken from Mark's gospel, which does explicitly teach that Jesus died for our sins, he was a ransom for many. His central message seems to me to be preparing people for the coming kingdom of god (the good news) which was fast approaching, but there are many messages of course including dying for our sins.

One odd thing to mention though that's related to this. Luke doesn't seem to have this idea at all, there's nowhere in Luke where Jesus's death is correlated with the forgiveness of sin. This does appear to indicate there were very early christians who didn't see Jesus' death as an atonement for sin and it was to some extent controversial in early christianity. I take Mark pretty seriously though as a source and so I accept the doctrine, just not because of Paul's writings.

Dan_473 · Apr 28, 2016

William86 said:

thanks for the respectful repy!

I think that when Paul says that "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures", he means things in the ot.

I appreciate your consistency in that you read the nt with the same "malleability" that you use for genesis.

if you don't believe that Christ died for the humans who were condemned because of the sin of the first human, then I think it's reasonable to say that you don't believe that Christ died according to the Scriptures as Paul uses that phrase.

so, and I want to say this with all respect, it sounds like you're not really into biblical christianity, but more like a "compile your own" form.

William86 · Apr 28, 2016

Dan_473 said:

Yeah I think it is quite likely he was referring to the old testament, it's hard for me to know to what extent I'd agree or disagree with the "according to the scriptures" portion because I'm not sure what verses he's actually referring to. I'd say that's a fair assessment though.

Dan_473 said:

I don't take offense to that at all!

Just to clarify, I am coming to the text from a very different perspective than what most people would be used to. I think the essence of what you're saying is very true though and it's an important point to make. Personally I'd rephrase this as I'm not really into traditional christianity, I deviate pretty far I think from Pauline christianity which is the root of most modern christian sects, though there is still a great deal of overlap. At the same time I don't think it's entirely subjective either, I think people should be able to make up their own minds about the text but should also be able to give reasons for their ideas and defend them.

I specifically use the historical-critical method as much as I can when evaluating the bible, and I realize that probably seems very foreign to the general public. I don't mean by "criticism" that I'm trying to argue against the text however, I mean a different definition "the scholarly investigation of literary or historical texts to determine their origin or intended form." Historical-criticism is specifically an attempt to apply historical criteria to the bible to try to reconstruct the past. This is not to say that other ways of reading it are wrong, taking everything the bible says to be inerrant on faith is another way to read it. A faith based approach is likely how it was intended to be read and that could also reveal things about the text that might not be as apparent to me because I don't have that vantage point.

This is simply the set of criteria I apply because I find it to be useful. I want to know more about the origin of the bible, the history of early christianity and judaism, the historical time period itself, when different parts were written, what can we know about Jesus and his teachings from a historical perspective. This is an interesting field for a variety of reasons, primarily to me the fact that the archaeology of the Levant, linguistics and text criticism have all made considerable progress in recent years and I find the subject to be fascinating. To me that only allows me to appreciate it more, it doesn't subtract from an understanding of the text, it only can add a new perspective that perhaps I hadn't considered before. That doesn't mean of course that I'm going to restrict myself to the result obtained when these criteria are applied. It also doesn't mean that I confuse the "Historical Jesus" with the real person in the past, who we do not have direct access to. I simply acknowledge that the past no longer exists and we can't hold up our reconstruction of him to him to determine what he was actually like. This is only one method among many that biblical scholars use to try to investigate the bible.

Dan_473 · Apr 29, 2016

William86 said:

do you believe things in the bible can be factually wrong?

for example, isaiah 38 says that God would make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.

or maybe "Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights"?

trofimus · Apr 30, 2016

Dan_473 said:

Depends on the genre. Thats why context and exegesis is very important. Parables, poetry etc can use pictures to illustrate something, but the picture itself can be made up.

valiant · Apr 30, 2016

William86 said:

One odd thing to mention though that's related to this. Luke doesn't seem to have this idea at all, there's nowhere in Luke where Jesus's death is correlated with the forgiveness of sin. This does appear to indicate there were very early christians who didn't see Jesus' death as an atonement for sin and it was to some extent controversial in early christianity. I take Mark pretty seriously though as a source and so I accept the doctrine, just not because of Paul's writings.

Luke 24.45-47?

Dan_473 · Apr 30, 2016

trofimus said:

The two examples in 1785? Did they happen in history?

William86 · Apr 30, 2016

valiant said:

Let me quote this passage first, Luke 24:44-47, NRSV translation:
"[SUP]44 [/SUP]Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” [SUP]45 [/SUP]Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, [SUP]46 [/SUP]and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, [SUP]47 [/SUP]and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. "

The thing is this does not really say that the forgiveness of sins is caused by Jesus dying as a sacrificial offering, just that "repentance and the forgiveness of sin is to be proclaimed" and that " the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day". It could just as easily be read to imply that the forgiveness of sin is a result of repentance or the resurrection itself. It's not a direct link the way it is in the other gospels. Furthermore when Luke is borrowing passages from Mark, he removes the verse of Mark 10:45 "[SUP]45 [/SUP]For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” and this seems to imply that Luke did not see his death as a ransom for many. The most you could say is that this idea is implicit in the passage you're referring to, but I'm not sure even that is true.

William86 · Apr 30, 2016

Dan_473 said:

Yes I do believe that things in the bible can be factually wrong, that is part of why I feel historical critical methods need to be applied.

Dan_473 · Apr 30, 2016

William86 said:

do you believe that God has communicated to humans throughout history in any reliable way? or is it always "iffy", subject to new archeology findings and whatnot?

a similar question, was God interested in communicating with people 1,000 years ago, people who couldn't use historical critical methods?

William86 · Apr 30, 2016

Dan_473 said:

I think God communicated with specific people like prophets throughout history. Whether or not the people the prophets relayed this information to kept good records is another story. I think there is a lot of evidence that later scribes altered these records to suit their own biases. I don't claim to know what God is interested in or why he's chosen to reveal his existence to humans in the way he has. I also don't think people can be held morally accountable for misinterpreting these revelations as a result of historical circumstance they have no control over, so I'd imagine that God would not do this since he is morally just. All knowledge is going to be inherently "iffy" to some degree, absolutely nothing is ever known with absolute certainty, only differing degrees of certainty.

Dan_473 · May 1, 2016

William86 said:

considering the certainty knowledge to be questionable is, imo, an appeal to solipsism... I assume you would say you know for sure that your own consciousness exists. I'm not saying that's right or wrong... as I understand it, there's no logical defeat of solipsism.

so, an odd thing,
"All knowledge is going to be inherently "iffy" to some degree, absolutely nothing is ever known with absolute certainty, only differing degrees of certainty."

are you absolutely certain of that?

valiant · May 1, 2016

William86 said:

Let me quote this passage first, Luke 24:44-47, NRSV translation:
"[SUP]44 [/SUP]Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” [SUP]45 [/SUP]Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, [SUP]46 [/SUP]and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, [SUP]47 [/SUP]and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. "

The thing is this does not really say that the forgiveness of sins is caused by Jesus dying as a sacrificial offering, just that "repentance and the forgiveness of sin is to be proclaimed" and that " the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day". It could just as easily be read to imply that the forgiveness of sin is a result of repentance or the resurrection itself. It's not a direct link the way it is in the other gospels. Furthermore when Luke is borrowing passages from Mark, he removes the verse of Mark 10:45 "[SUP]45 [/SUP]For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.” and this seems to imply that Luke did not see his death as a ransom for many. The most you could say is that this idea is implicit in the passage you're referring to, but I'm not sure even that is true.

firstly Luke did not copy from Mark. That is no longer accepted. So luke did not remove anything

secondly luke could not be clearer except to an obtuse person who did not want to believe,

William86 · May 1, 2016

Dan_473 said:

I am hardly advocating solipsism, I am saying that the best we can do is offer tentative hypotheses to explain the world we experience. Starting from the assumption that "all knowledge is inherently uncertain to some degree," which is also not absolutely certain, and that there exists an "objective reality we experience" are axioms that I am willing to take on faith. If it turns out after continuing along this line of reasoning that I discover that absolute certainty is possible somehow, then that axiom can be disregarded, so far I have not been convinced this is the case.

We can then distinguish between different types of knowledge and decide which kinds of knowledge we are most certain of. I would submit that the most certain kind of knowledge is sensory experience, which is a continuation of the argument that we live in an objective reality we experience. At that point I am willing to take another assumption on faith, for the purposes of moving forward towards an understanding of this objective reality, that of sense certainty which amounts to I can be reasonably certain that my senses can be trusted. If I later come across evidence that this is not true then this axiom also can be dismissed, but it seems to me a justified position. I don't seriously believe that you are doubting this either, but that is another assumption I am taking on faith I suppose.

[video=youtube;X8aWBcPVPMo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8aWBcPVPMo[/video]

William86 · May 1, 2016

valiant said:

Luke explicitly says he is using other sources in his account, what reason do you have to believe Mark could not be one of these sources? Also by far the dominant view among biblical scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be written, are you disputing this and if so what evidence do you offer against this view? What evidence do you have that the idea that Luke used Mark as a source and directly copied from him is "no longer accepted" as you suggest? What do you even mean by this, no longer accepted by who? Religious fundamentalists or the majority of biblical scholars? Your second claim is nothing more than an ad hominem fallacy, it is not an argument for your position, which you have in no way supported.

valiant · May 1, 2016

William86 said:

Luke explicitly says he is using other sources in his account, what reason do you have to believe Mark could not be one of these sources? Also by far the dominant view among biblical scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be written, are you disputing this and if so what evidence do you offer against this view? What evidence do you have that the idea that Luke used Mark as a source and directly copied from him is "no longer accepted" as you suggest? What do you even mean by this, no longer accepted by who? Religious fundamentalists or the majority of biblical scholars? Your second claim is nothing more than an ad hominem fallacy, it is not an argument for your position, which you have in no way supported.

luke did not say he used other sources

but you are deliberately blind so you may remain so

roaringkitten · May 1, 2016

William86 said:

Luke explicitly says he is using other sources in his account, what reason do you have to believe Mark could not be one of these sources? Also by far the dominant view among biblical scholars is that Mark was the first gospel to be written, are you disputing this and if so what evidence do you offer against this view? What evidence do you have that the idea that Luke used Mark as a source and directly copied from him is "no longer accepted" as you suggest? What do you even mean by this, no longer accepted by who? Religious fundamentalists or the majority of biblical scholars? Your second claim is nothing more than an ad hominem fallacy, it is not an argument for your position, which you have in no way supported.

Another "Hath God said" moment......sigh*

William86 · May 1, 2016

valiant said:

Luke 1:1-4
"1 Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the events that have been fulfilled among us, [SUP]2 [/SUP]just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, [SUP]3 [/SUP]I too decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first,[SUP][a][/SUP] to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, [SUP]4 [/SUP]so that you may know the truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed."

This means that:
1) Luke is aware of other oral and written sources that he is drawing information from
2) Luke does not claim to be an eyewitness but is claiming at least some of his sources were

William86 · May 1, 2016

roaringkitten said:

ad hominem...

getting dates about a young earth

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