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richardbenson
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25 Dec 2009, 3:25 am

:roll:


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richardbenson
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25 Dec 2009, 3:34 am

i think its funny. would the the birth of jesus stand in a court of law? no. thank god. and the reason i ask such a silly question is because most people believe jesus was actually born in bethlehem, on december 25th. when actually nobody knows where/when he was born. this was just the tradition, because early christains wanted him to come out of the house of david wich magically came out of nowhere in the old testament so that it lined up with "old testament prophacy" reguarding the messiah

do you see how this is a lie?


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25 Dec 2009, 3:53 am

I see your points about the December 25 date and the question of the genealogies of Jesus. At the same time, I would not dismiss Jesus as a lie, merely because reasonable minds can disagree about how to interpret certain historical facts or the lack thereof.


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richardbenson
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25 Dec 2009, 3:57 am

thats cool and thanks for your reply. but if you go out in the street of america i can almost garentee you that everybody will say to you if you ask them when was jesus born, they will tell you december 25th. these same people will also use the bible to hate, and persecute others when infact eveything they believe is a lie


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LiberalJustice
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25 Dec 2009, 4:14 am

True, we do not know when he was born. However, the Bible directly states that he was born in Bethlehem. So the question as to where Jesus was born is moot.


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richardbenson
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25 Dec 2009, 4:21 am

and what proof is there that jesus was born in bethlehem? other than tradition? there is none. its like the santa de la rosa or whatever its called. (the place where jesus suposidley carried his cross) if i was all about facts i'd be up in nazareth. thats where jesus was from


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regularguy
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25 Dec 2009, 4:26 am

richardbenson wrote:
thats cool and thanks for your reply. but if you go out in the street of america i can almost garentee you that everybody will say to you if you ask them when was jesus born, they will tell you december 25th. these same people will also use the bible to hate, and persecute others when infact eveything they believe is a lie

I am with you about the hatred and persecution. Those things deeply trouble me. When people become too certain about almost anything, that thing turns into an object of extreme dogma and fanaticism. That's very dangerous stuff.


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richardbenson
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25 Dec 2009, 4:28 am

regularguy wrote:
When people become too certain about almost anything, that thing turns into an object of extreme dogma and fanaticism. That's very dangerous stuff.
you get a :star:


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regularguy
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25 Dec 2009, 5:23 am

richardbenson wrote:
its like the santa de la rosa or whatever its called. (the place where jesus suposidley carried his cross)

This is a minor point, but for the record, I think you mean the Via Dolorosa. That's Latin for the "Way of Suffering" (or perhaps, "Way of Pain").

I've studied a fair amount about the so-called "historical Jesus," so I am acquainted with both the limitations of historical investigation of Jesus and with the tendency many people have to turn much of what's in the Bible into a cause for abusing and oppressing others. That really scares me.

I appreciate that stories need a setting of time and place. Without such basic elements, it would be very hard for people to pass those stories from one group of people, one generation, or people of one place to another such group. That's especially true during periods of time when the stories are passed along through an oral tradition, as in the accounts of Jesus that were shared for a few decades after Jesus' death until someone started writing them down.

Furthermore, the people who wrote the gospels definitely had some ideas about the message they wanted to share. They were looking to share the "good news" about this man, Jesus, who had become so important in their lives; their goal was not to create a perfect historical record. It appears those evangelists wanted to share the "good news" and offer enough information about the times and places of the events so that the story would be coherent and understandable, for the purposes they intended.

To give a modern example of events (of course, events certainly far less significant!) that happened three decades ago (I believe three decades is about the time that passed between the date generally agreed upon for Jesus' death and the appearance of the first written accounts about him), I'm thinking about my participation in intramural sports when I was in high school in 1979. I realize that information about my boyhood recreation activities is extremely obscure, but I think it illustrates my points fairly well and fairly simply.

In 1979, at the all-boys' high school I attended, I won several contests in one-on-one basketball and in boxing. (I also lost some of those games.) I can tell you honestly that I won a one-on-one basketball game against Mark T., and in boxing, I won a match against Tok K., but lost one against Frank P. Can I prove those statements of fact? Probably, if I go to enough time and expense. The records at my school for such minor athletic contests have probably long been discarded. Many of the coaches who ran the intramural sports programs have long since retired or gone to work at other schools. I might be able to track down each of my opponents, and while I think they would remember some of the details, I have no guarantee that they would. (People remember stuff about me that seems consistent with my behavior at various times, but I don't have specific memory of some of the events that were minor.)

I couldn't tell you if my basketball game against Mark T. was in April or May of that year, but I do remember it was in the spring. I can't recall the exact score (it was one of several games for each of us), but I can tell you we played to 21 and the winner had to win by at least 2 points, not 1.

Detailed records are kept for the varsity athletes, such as when our football team won the state championship in 1980. Such records aren't kept for the minor sports, at intramural level, and certainly not for the guys who didn't win championships, but were still active, regular participants.

To me, what is important is that we played, rather than the specific dates of the events or the final scores of the games. While those details are hard to prove with the data that are still available, the events are true and that is what matters to me.

I know my example has plenty of limitations, but I do hope it better explains my point about the truth of the "bigger picture," while agreeing that there would be some problems if I were to insist on the exact factual veracity of all the details.


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regularguy
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25 Dec 2009, 5:41 am

richardbenson wrote:
regularguy wrote:
When people become too certain about almost anything, that thing turns into an object of extreme dogma and fanaticism. That's very dangerous stuff.
you get a :star:

Thanks!

My goal is not to seek praise, but I'll gladly accept it when it comes my way. :)

I'm really concerned with the insistence, with total certainty, of certain historical facts that we can neither prove nor disprove. Some of that comes from my background in elementary school (people outside my family had a lot of influence on my religious upbringing). The unwillingness even to consider questions about some items is really only a few steps away from hatred, censorship, persecution, violence, and killing. (All of that is also contrary to Jesus' teaching and work, but those variances are really the subject of another discussion.)

When people get too intense about religion, it scares me. Sadly, history offers us plenty of examples of individuals and groups who started out as well-meaning people, who then got hold of an idea and turned that idea into a justification for horrendous abuses. Scary stuff.


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Tom
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25 Dec 2009, 6:48 am

I agree with you Steve,

I've never met a Christian who believes that Jesus was born on 25 Dec, every Christian I have ever known is aware that the date comes from the earlier pagan holiday that celebrates Winter. Some choose not to celebrate Christmas because of it, others have no problem with combining the fun aspects of the earlier festival (like trees, food, gifts and family gathering) with an chance to celebrate Jesus' birth.



Oregon
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25 Dec 2009, 7:38 am

I wonder if there was a Jesus, the 1st of the gospels was written around 80 years after his 'death'. There is no real evidence he actually walked this earth. To my knowledge there are no documents written about him during his life. It seems if any of the miracles were true, someone would have written it down shortly after they happened.. not decades later.


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ruveyn
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25 Dec 2009, 8:16 am

Jesus was born in the Bronx to a couple named Jose' and Maria.

ruveyn



Last edited by ruveyn on 25 Dec 2009, 11:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

Tom
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25 Dec 2009, 8:28 am

Oregon wrote:
I wonder if there was a Jesus, the 1st of the gospels was written around 80 years after his 'death'. There is no real evidence he actually walked this earth. To my knowledge there are no documents written about him during his life. It seems if any of the miracles were true, someone would have written it down shortly after they happened.. not decades later.


I guess an apologetic would say they only used word of mouth to spread the story for that long as it was mainly for the common people who were illiterate.



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27 Dec 2009, 9:43 pm

Tom wrote:
Oregon wrote:
I wonder if there was a Jesus, the 1st of the gospels was written around 80 years after his 'death'. There is no real evidence he actually walked this earth. To my knowledge there are no documents written about him during his life. It seems if any of the miracles were true, someone would have written it down shortly after they happened.. not decades later.


I guess an apologetic would say they only used word of mouth to spread the story for that long as it was mainly for the common people who were illiterate.


But what of the Kings that showed up at his birth?? Certainly they had scribes, what happened to those documents?

I don't think it would cut the mustard with MythBusters.


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28 Dec 2009, 12:02 am

Does it matter?

Back then, history was written by learned people about famous people. No one cared what happened to a simple carpenter and his wife, at least until later...a lot of that happens with history, it's going on, and people react to it rather than record it.

It took over 500 years to get Easter figured out, and they had some major knockdown dragouts about that (the Venable Bede talked of little else, if you go by documentation...;)

You have a Jewish offshoot religion that suddenly welcomes Gentiles (thanks, Paul...;), and underground movment, a religion of slaves, and eventually an official Roman Imperial religion. Several books of the New Testament (the Apocrypha) were 'tossed out', not to mention Gnostic gospels, etc....

Even the Quran was memorized for several decades, until a codified version could be put together. Even so, there's a body of works (I think it's called the Hadith) that might be parts of what, when and where


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