Atheism As A REJECTION OF--Not Disbelief In--An Evil God (Jehovah, disciples, churches)
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We have the Church which has already defined what Scripture is.
What trouble? The Church compiled the documents over the course of centuries and definitively pronounced once and for all what is Scripture and what isn't around the end of the 4th century. The books could have been altered to make them more correct all the way up until then.
I'm just trying to explain to you that "altering the text" is not the scary bogeyman you think it is.
There you go again bringing up the NT. I'm not talking about it at all. I'm talking about the decades between the Resurrection of Christ and the Gospels being written down.
During that time, you have disciples traveling around and establishing churches, teaching doctrine, devising liturgies. These churches still exist today.
Where do you think they came from?
What I'm specifically asking about is the chain of transmission. How would the writers of Matthew know that Mark's passage was inaccurate since the writers were writing in a totally different place and time relative to the event? Who told them, "You know that passage in Mark? It's inaccurate and this is what really happened. The women at the tomb actually did go and tell the apostles that Jesus rose. And the women weren't fearful and trembling, they were joyful and excited." The writers of Matthew were writing a minimum of 40 years after the supposed resurrection. The women who supposedly went to the tomb likely would have been dead by that time since the average life expectancy was about 50 years old for women back then. They would have been dead 20 years before the writers of Mark even started writing their account. You won't address this. You just makes hypotheses and suppositions without any basis in fact because you don't like any analysis that makes the church look bad.
If the text is being altered in order to make it more accurate, then what's the problem?
You are presuming that is the reason why it is being changed. But we know from Matthew that he changes Mark because he does not like what Mark's allegorical fiction of Paul's teachings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
What I have repeated ad nauseum yet you continue to either purposefully ignore or not comprehend is that the Apostles and disciples were already going around establishing churches and teaching doctrine - including the Resurrection - for a full generation or more before the Gospel accounts were written down.
What we have repeated ad nauseum is you have no evidence this claim is actually true, and we have evidence it is not.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
If Mark wrote something down, and an eyewitness or a disciple of an eyewitness read it and realized it wasn't quite accurate, why could he not alter it?
Because we have no evidence for your ad hoc excuse.
I'm just trying to explain to you that "altering the text" is not the scary bogeyman you think it is.
It may not be the scary bogeyman, but it is evidence you have to account for. Simply inventing ad hoc excuses is not sufficient.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
There you go again bringing up the NT. I'm not talking about it at all. I'm talking about the decades between the Resurrection of Christ and the Gospels being written down.
During that time, you have disciples traveling around and establishing churches, teaching doctrine, devising liturgies. These churches still exist today.
So if you did not get your information from the NT, where did you get it from? The stories of the 2nd century AD and later Christians? Ad hoc guesses from modern historians?
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
Where do you think they came from?
Mark invents the disciples to mock the Jewish, anti-Pauline church, and the stories grow from there.
What I'm specifically asking about is the chain of transmission. How would the writers of Matthew know that Mark's passage was inaccurate since the writers were writing in a totally different place and time relative to the event? Who told them, "You know that passage in Mark? It's inaccurate and this is what really happened. The women at the tomb actually did go and tell the apostles that Jesus rose. And the women weren't fearful and trembling, they were joyful and excited." The writers of Matthew were writing a minimum of 40 years after the supposed resurrection. The women who supposedly went to the tomb likely would have been dead by that time since the average life expectancy was about 50 years old for women back then. They would have been dead 20 years before the writers of Mark even started writing their account. You won't address this. You just makes hypotheses and suppositions without any basis in fact because you don't like any analysis that makes the church look bad.
Those who lived and walked with Jesus (the disciples) went out into the world and taught the life and message of Jesus. They took on disciples of their own and established churches, devised liturgies, and taught doctrine.
Even granting a later date of the Gospels being written, those writing them would have had access to those who learned directly from the disciples. Those who learned directly from the disciples would have had access to reading the Gospel accounts and even critiquing them for accuracy.
If an insignificant detail was overlooked (were the women fearful or joyful, for instance - maybe they were both...), I don't understand why that is a make-or-break issue for you unless you're just looking for an excuse in your desperation. Jesus still rose from the dead either way.
During that time, you have disciples traveling around and establishing churches, teaching doctrine, devising liturgies. These churches still exist today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
So if you did not get your information from the NT, where did you get it from? The stories of the 2nd century AD and later Christians? Ad hoc guesses from modern historians?
I got it from the same place the writers of the New Testament got their information from - from the disciples of Jesus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
Mark invents the disciples to mock the Jewish, anti-Pauline church, and the stories grow from there.
That's quite a conspiracy theory you've got cooking there.
Those who lived and walked with Jesus (the disciples) went out into the world and taught the life and message of Jesus. They took on disciples of their own and established churches, devised liturgies, and taught doctrine.
Even granting a later date of the Gospels being written, those writing them would have had access to those who learned directly from the disciples. Those who learned directly from the disciples would have had access to reading the Gospel accounts and even critiquing them for accuracy.
If an insignificant detail was overlooked (were the women fearful or joyful, for instance - maybe they were both...), I don't understand why that is a make-or-break issue for you unless you're just looking for an excuse in your desperation. Jesus still rose from the dead either way.
That's what many of us do not accept just because a few people said it was so.
I got it from the same place the writers of the New Testament got their information from - from the disciples of Jesus.
Again, we have no evidence for this. And naturally you can provide this evidence if it is not in the NT?
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
That's quite a conspiracy theory you've got cooking there.
Dismissing the evidence as a conspiracy theory is your usual MO, but the evidence is there. The relevant peer reviewed historians could explain this better than I, so you will need to do a Google search.
We "know" this? You guys and your double standards are hilarious.
Smoke and mirrors.
Well, we do HAVE Matthew. And he definitely DOES change what Mark writes. Of course, you have your ad hoc excuse that Matthew was written for the Jews, because for some reason they could not follow the new covenant.
You do not have sources for your claims until 100 years or more later.
We do not have the double standard, and it is you with the smoke and mirrors.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
Evolution and grand conspiracies, all for the purpose of dispensing of the need for God.
Christianity and well poisoning fallacies, all for the purpose of dispensing of the need for the true god.
Do you see the problem with that argument, yet?
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
The truth is much simpler than the lies.
Indeed. The gospels are fiction, or your god became a man and sacrificed himself to himself to atone for the stupid mistake of putting an allegorical tree in reach of the allegorical innocent Adam and Eve.
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