Good video. It just affirms for me that the bible is very confusing and don't see how God can rely on timid corruptible men to bring a message of salvation
I watched the whole video from the Yale Professor. I would like to make one comment, If I might? At 29:50 The Professor states "You could find really really brilliant fundamentalist that can harmonize all of this." Thats what is would take to make Paul's journey and life make sense "God". Well, If it's possible in any way then why are we saying that it's not. God is wiser and more knowledgeable then the brilliant.
@AnglicanApologist72 Troll: Someone who posts off-topic or inflammatory messages. Twit: A person who believes denial and repetition constitute a valid response in a discussion.
@AnglicanApologist72 Believe that if you want, you have no authority to tell people if it's a big deal or not. You have no argument either, just a fantasy you made up to account for the text's short comings. And of course you like everyone else are entitled to your opinion, even if you are an arrogant moron.
@AnglicanApologist72 I give up. You can't even answer a simple question. Any book that has major omissions in it's accounts of an event as important as Paul's conversion is not in any way historical or reliable. The fact is what is actually on the pages are two completely different accounts (A and /A) of the same event. Only a moron could miss that. No one is obligated to believe your BS excuse for why that is and no one needs your approval to declare the text gives different accounts.
@AnglicanApologist72 Why would I need to show that? The text says nothing about Paul in Arabia. You need to show the writer of Acts knew Paul went to Arabia and considered it so unimportant he didn't even need to mention it. Unless you can do that your just engaging in pure speculation and we have two different accounts in the text as to what Paul did after his encounter on the road. Where exactly does Paul say he went to Damascus before Arabia? I can't find that.
@AnglicanApologist72 Friend: He went to France for three years then to England. You: I went immediately to Germany then to France. Is a more accurate analogy IMO. While it's true your friend never said you didn't go to Germany there is no reason to assume he ever knew you where there at all. That is the conflict.
@AnglicanApologist72 The text was cited in the video, why would it need to be repeated? Don't you know what it says? OH, That's right you don't, you can't find the obvious conflict highlighted in the video. Frankly I think quoting an old storybooks is boring. Given that Acts never mentions Paul going to Arabia at all your analogy fails miserably. To continue is useless unless you can demonstrate some difference between your claims and my flying monkey claim.
Very nice summary of the problems reconciling Paul's own account with Luke's. While Paul is not without interest in his own self-promotion, it seems clear that Luke is doing with Paul what he and the other Evangelists did with Jesus - tell the story to serve his theological interests.
@OCaoimhghin It's true that Paul shouldn't necessarily be taken at face value, either, he being the master rhetor of early Christian tradition, after all. Nice parallel, I agree. Additionally, it seems that I've already received good explanations. ;)
I meant Gal 1:16, not 1:17. But regardless, in both verses his argument seems to be be just about the carnal and authority of repute. He seems to be thinking something less worldly and more personally intimate and transcendent, such as God-given enlightenment.
Gal 1:17 says flesh and blood, compare to Matt 16:17.
He says he went to Arabia, and *returned* to Damascus. Acts doesn't include the part about Arabia, and Paul doesn't include any details about it that would clue one in to the relevance of his going to Arabia. Could be just an awkwardly irrelevant detail for Acts.
Luke not including the spat with Cephas in Antioch is not any reason to suspect something diabolical is afoot.
Double-check your chronology on Cath encyclopedia.
@AnglicanApologist72 My goodness why do you keep trying to argue? You've already declared yourself the "winner". Go enjoy the day and have your favorite beverage to celebrate your resounding victory. You can proclaim there is no conflict from now until the Sun goes red giant but as long as people can read it for themselves many will remain unconvinced that your apologetic is anything but desperate conjecture. I am done with this debate, I have more fish to fry so to speak. Have a great day.
@AnglicanApologist72 Can you provide examples of ancient historians accepting, at face value, the historical reliability of texts from antiquity, simply because those texts are not from the New Testament canon? That seems to be what you're implying here.
Where in Acts is it mentioned that Peter and James were, specifically, the only apostles in Jerusalem during the several instances in which Paul was written as being there?
@AnglicanApologist72 So while Acts reads that Paul started preaching immediately in the synagogues after spending several days with the disciples in Damascus, it should read that he started preaching immediately after he went to Arabia, and came back to Damascus? Additionally, Galatians does suggest that Paul stayed in Damascus between the time spent in Arabia, and his first visit to Jerusalem.
@AnglicanApologist72 Sure, If only Acts provided no details of what Paul did while in Damascus and when he left and when he came back and if only Paul had remembered he was blind and spent time preaching in Damascus instead of saying he went to Arabia you'd have a case. But you ignore the provided details to make a case based on what the text doesn't say. It's as valid as my claim Paul turned himself into a flying monkey based on your "evidence" that the text never says he didn't.
@AnglicanApologist72 Go ahead and declare yourself the winner if it feeds your ego. It doesn't bother me in the least. Anyone reading our comments can decide for themselves who had the burden of proof. I guess having to believe there are no conflicts in your perfect text forces one to make irrational assertions. Perhaps Paul convinced people to follow Jesus by turning into a flying monkey. That's not in the text either so I'm sure it must be exactly what happened according to your logic.
@AnglicanApologist72 Well clearly we are at a stalemate. Your original charge was that the creator of this video was being "unfair" to the text. I think we have agreed that the written text presents a conflict which you are saying is not a contradiction on pure speculation based on what the text doesn't explicitly rule out. Given that Acts does give an account of Paul's activities while in Damascus and Paul himself doesn't mention being there I'm calling your speculation highly improbable.
Interesting video VG, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with David. I would have to get back to you on Acts (it's been a while since I've studied it), but based on my recollections, of it, I fail to see how the events depicted in Acts somehow contradict the letters of Paul, particularly in Galatians. None of the verses you cited in this video I saw as contradictory to what was stated in Galatians. Again, interesting video, but I didn't your arguments here persuasive.
@AnglicanApologist72 I'm NOT claiming it. I'm READING it. Get it through your head, what is written is contradictory. I never used the word incompatible so there is no need to defend a statement I never made. You explain away this conflict with an hypothesis based on what the text doesn't say, You speculate that Paul could have gone to Arabia during the time Acts says he was in Damascus. By doing so you offer one tenuous explanation for the conflict but you do not resolve it so why bother?
@AnglicanApologist72 Really the problem is not that I have to prove you wrong, it's that you have to come up with some sort of proof your right. After all I'm not claiming there are omissions from the text, you are. If you take the text to mean what it actually says then there is a conflict. After all isn't it you guys who are fond of saying absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, I guess in Paul's case you don't believe that. :)
@AnglicanApologist72 ?? The conflict is obvious, Paul said he went one place and Acts says he went somewhere else and neither of them seem to know what was important to the others story. Please don't tell me you believe your own fabricated explanations so much you have forgotten what your trying to explain. You demand Acts explicitly say Paul stayed in Damascus, yet Acts clearly is giving an account of Paul's comings and goings without mentioning a trip to Arabia.
@AnglicanApologist72 So we are to assume Paul forgot to mention he went to Damascus and was blind for a few days before taking off for Arabia and Acts forgot to mention that he went to Arabia at all. You take these two omissions and distill a explanation for the apparent conflict out of them. Yet you claim your not reading into the text, I don't think that's the way real historians resolve issues of conflicting texts.
@AnglicanApologist72 If he had, why isn't it mentioned? Was it that unimportant? Paul seems to think it was worth mentioning. :) Sorry but I still see it as nitpicking and improbable, we can agree to disagree as I'm not trying to troll you or anything
@AnglicanApologist72 The confusion comes from the texts not his treatment of them. As an apologist you find convenient if implausible loopholes by nitpicking the text. If you have to read things into the text that aren't there on the page why bother to read it at all? Why not just make up your own version of what you want it to say? Who is being more unfair to the text, a man who takes the text for what it says or the one who adds what is not written to it?
Good video. It just affirms for me that the bible is very confusing and don't see how God can rely on timid corruptible men to bring a message of salvation
DeDona1 2 months ago
I watched the whole video from the Yale Professor. I would like to make one comment, If I might? At 29:50 The Professor states "You could find really really brilliant fundamentalist that can harmonize all of this." Thats what is would take to make Paul's journey and life make sense "God". Well, If it's possible in any way then why are we saying that it's not. God is wiser and more knowledgeable then the brilliant.
GWNow 6 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Troll: Someone who posts off-topic or inflammatory messages. Twit: A person who believes denial and repetition constitute a valid response in a discussion.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Your right I should have said arrogant twit.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Believe that if you want, you have no authority to tell people if it's a big deal or not. You have no argument either, just a fantasy you made up to account for the text's short comings. And of course you like everyone else are entitled to your opinion, even if you are an arrogant moron.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 I give up. You can't even answer a simple question. Any book that has major omissions in it's accounts of an event as important as Paul's conversion is not in any way historical or reliable. The fact is what is actually on the pages are two completely different accounts (A and /A) of the same event. Only a moron could miss that. No one is obligated to believe your BS excuse for why that is and no one needs your approval to declare the text gives different accounts.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Why would I need to show that? The text says nothing about Paul in Arabia. You need to show the writer of Acts knew Paul went to Arabia and considered it so unimportant he didn't even need to mention it. Unless you can do that your just engaging in pure speculation and we have two different accounts in the text as to what Paul did after his encounter on the road. Where exactly does Paul say he went to Damascus before Arabia? I can't find that.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Friend: He went to France for three years then to England. You: I went immediately to Germany then to France. Is a more accurate analogy IMO. While it's true your friend never said you didn't go to Germany there is no reason to assume he ever knew you where there at all. That is the conflict.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 The text was cited in the video, why would it need to be repeated? Don't you know what it says? OH, That's right you don't, you can't find the obvious conflict highlighted in the video. Frankly I think quoting an old storybooks is boring. Given that Acts never mentions Paul going to Arabia at all your analogy fails miserably. To continue is useless unless you can demonstrate some difference between your claims and my flying monkey claim.
milkman5547 9 months ago
BTW, I'm sure there's a very good explanation for all this :)
OCaoimhghin 9 months ago
Very nice summary of the problems reconciling Paul's own account with Luke's. While Paul is not without interest in his own self-promotion, it seems clear that Luke is doing with Paul what he and the other Evangelists did with Jesus - tell the story to serve his theological interests.
OCaoimhghin 9 months ago
@OCaoimhghin It's true that Paul shouldn't necessarily be taken at face value, either, he being the master rhetor of early Christian tradition, after all. Nice parallel, I agree. Additionally, it seems that I've already received good explanations. ;)
violentlygraceful 9 months ago
I meant Gal 1:16, not 1:17. But regardless, in both verses his argument seems to be be just about the carnal and authority of repute. He seems to be thinking something less worldly and more personally intimate and transcendent, such as God-given enlightenment.
nymphrenic 9 months ago
Gal 1:17 says flesh and blood, compare to Matt 16:17.
He says he went to Arabia, and *returned* to Damascus. Acts doesn't include the part about Arabia, and Paul doesn't include any details about it that would clue one in to the relevance of his going to Arabia. Could be just an awkwardly irrelevant detail for Acts.
Luke not including the spat with Cephas in Antioch is not any reason to suspect something diabolical is afoot.
Double-check your chronology on Cath encyclopedia.
nymphrenic 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 My goodness why do you keep trying to argue? You've already declared yourself the "winner". Go enjoy the day and have your favorite beverage to celebrate your resounding victory. You can proclaim there is no conflict from now until the Sun goes red giant but as long as people can read it for themselves many will remain unconvinced that your apologetic is anything but desperate conjecture. I am done with this debate, I have more fish to fry so to speak. Have a great day.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Can you provide examples of ancient historians accepting, at face value, the historical reliability of texts from antiquity, simply because those texts are not from the New Testament canon? That seems to be what you're implying here.
Where in Acts is it mentioned that Peter and James were, specifically, the only apostles in Jerusalem during the several instances in which Paul was written as being there?
violentlygraceful 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 So while Acts reads that Paul started preaching immediately in the synagogues after spending several days with the disciples in Damascus, it should read that he started preaching immediately after he went to Arabia, and came back to Damascus? Additionally, Galatians does suggest that Paul stayed in Damascus between the time spent in Arabia, and his first visit to Jerusalem.
violentlygraceful 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Sure, If only Acts provided no details of what Paul did while in Damascus and when he left and when he came back and if only Paul had remembered he was blind and spent time preaching in Damascus instead of saying he went to Arabia you'd have a case. But you ignore the provided details to make a case based on what the text doesn't say. It's as valid as my claim Paul turned himself into a flying monkey based on your "evidence" that the text never says he didn't.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Go ahead and declare yourself the winner if it feeds your ego. It doesn't bother me in the least. Anyone reading our comments can decide for themselves who had the burden of proof. I guess having to believe there are no conflicts in your perfect text forces one to make irrational assertions. Perhaps Paul convinced people to follow Jesus by turning into a flying monkey. That's not in the text either so I'm sure it must be exactly what happened according to your logic.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Well clearly we are at a stalemate. Your original charge was that the creator of this video was being "unfair" to the text. I think we have agreed that the written text presents a conflict which you are saying is not a contradiction on pure speculation based on what the text doesn't explicitly rule out. Given that Acts does give an account of Paul's activities while in Damascus and Paul himself doesn't mention being there I'm calling your speculation highly improbable.
milkman5547 9 months ago
Interesting video VG, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with David. I would have to get back to you on Acts (it's been a while since I've studied it), but based on my recollections, of it, I fail to see how the events depicted in Acts somehow contradict the letters of Paul, particularly in Galatians. None of the verses you cited in this video I saw as contradictory to what was stated in Galatians. Again, interesting video, but I didn't your arguments here persuasive.
thunderbolt94 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 I'm NOT claiming it. I'm READING it. Get it through your head, what is written is contradictory. I never used the word incompatible so there is no need to defend a statement I never made. You explain away this conflict with an hypothesis based on what the text doesn't say, You speculate that Paul could have gone to Arabia during the time Acts says he was in Damascus. By doing so you offer one tenuous explanation for the conflict but you do not resolve it so why bother?
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 Really the problem is not that I have to prove you wrong, it's that you have to come up with some sort of proof your right. After all I'm not claiming there are omissions from the text, you are. If you take the text to mean what it actually says then there is a conflict. After all isn't it you guys who are fond of saying absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, I guess in Paul's case you don't believe that. :)
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 ?? The conflict is obvious, Paul said he went one place and Acts says he went somewhere else and neither of them seem to know what was important to the others story. Please don't tell me you believe your own fabricated explanations so much you have forgotten what your trying to explain. You demand Acts explicitly say Paul stayed in Damascus, yet Acts clearly is giving an account of Paul's comings and goings without mentioning a trip to Arabia.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 So we are to assume Paul forgot to mention he went to Damascus and was blind for a few days before taking off for Arabia and Acts forgot to mention that he went to Arabia at all. You take these two omissions and distill a explanation for the apparent conflict out of them. Yet you claim your not reading into the text, I don't think that's the way real historians resolve issues of conflicting texts.
milkman5547 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 If he had, why isn't it mentioned? Was it that unimportant? Paul seems to think it was worth mentioning. :) Sorry but I still see it as nitpicking and improbable, we can agree to disagree as I'm not trying to troll you or anything
milkman5547 9 months ago
Very well detailed analysis.
JoeDixon 9 months ago
@AnglicanApologist72 The confusion comes from the texts not his treatment of them. As an apologist you find convenient if implausible loopholes by nitpicking the text. If you have to read things into the text that aren't there on the page why bother to read it at all? Why not just make up your own version of what you want it to say? Who is being more unfair to the text, a man who takes the text for what it says or the one who adds what is not written to it?
milkman5547 9 months ago
This was awesome work!
AgentOfDoubt 9 months ago
Thanks for your analysis as always! Please make a follow up video further highlighting the division between the Jewish Christians & Paul's cult.
thumminxy 9 months ago
As always, a very detailed video.
And dame you - Now I have to read Acts and Galatians :)
Dar0A0Nakk 9 months ago
Wow...the cat isn't sleeping! :P
MausPonticus 9 months ago
hey this was well done! Loved the outline in the description. You put a lot of work into this!
wayman29 9 months ago