Pete Enns on Challenging Old Assumptions

[disrxt]

Apologist and their incessant patter to excuse the faults in their preferred holy scripture. Nothing is easy or clear, their Gods made a skeptical analysis of His (rarely Her) word impossible, leading to interpretations that span the spectrum, from unconditional love to the most grotesque abuse of human rights. The most common way in history to solve these conflicts, even between co-religionists, is to kill the other . Such is the error of reliance on 'revealed' truth.

[berettaNZ]

@disrxt "Nothing is easy or clear, their Gods made a skeptical analysis of His (rarely Her) word impossible" - Interesting. So learning about ancient literature before criticising it is "impossible" for a skeptic. What a frank and disarming admission!

[disrxt]

@berettaNZ You misunderstood. If you read the works with a skeptical attitude you will not believe since they contradict reason, logic and science. Only by suspending disbelief and accepting uncritically the authority of the writers can you possibly think these books are the revealed word of God.

[berettaNZ]

@disrxt No, I don't misunderstand. I think you just don't see the implications of your previous comment. You've said that because of the complexities that Ens talks about, this makes it impossible to skeptically analyse Scripture. I'm not surprised to hear it. I constantly find that skeptics want quick, easy, scoffing dismissals that they can throw out, and get impatient when they are told that things just aren't that simple.

[disrxt]

@berettaNZ You misrepresent my view to make your specious point. A concrete example, two geneologies for Jesus. From Joseph back to David they do not agree on a single ancestor. A skeptic looks at this self evident fact and determines that their is an error that precludes divine authorship (nevermind the fact that Joseph contributed no genetic information to the virgin birth). The apologist will jump through any number of hoops to maintain there is no contradiction, becoming a pious liars.

[berettaNZ]

@disrxt Oh no, there's no misrepresentation. It's very simple. If someone says "But there's an explanation that flies in the face of modern practice" or "but in ancient literature they..." your eyes glaze over. Your fun quick knock down has been stolen. Not fair! Why do people who actually study ancient literature have to be such killjoys?

[disrxt]

@berettaNZ I study ancient books and its the apologists who fabricate and ignore facts in the support their predetermined views. They reject scholorly study into the subject preferring the lies that support their prejudice. The Testimonium Flavianum being a famous example, debunked 500 years ago but routinely cited as proof of a historical Jesus.

[Coveredingrace777]

@disrxt

Actually I have heard the complete opposite. In fact I have seen more atheist reject scholarly study about the historical Jesus. In fact one of the most famous that I have seen is Richard Dawkins in his book the god delusion. He quotes and professor saying there is no concrete proof of Jesus. The funny thing about it is, the professor he quoted from is a math professor not in the right field to be saying anything about that.

[disrxt]

@Coveredingrace777 Where is this evidence for a historic Jesus? Why was none of it ever mentioned by 1st or 2nd Century church fathers? The specious evidence started to show up in the 3rd century as the Christian Church was adopted and absorbed by the Roman Empire and political needs led pious liars to fabricate the referances to Jesus in the historical record. Show me the historical analysis, not from apologists, that proves Jesus was a historical personage.

[disrxt]

@Coveredingrace777 Where is the historical record of Herod's slaughter of the innocents or Ceasar's census? Show me where the worldwide darkness reported in the New Testament at the time of Christ's death is recorded, from anywhere on the planet. Is the opening of the graves of the saints and their wandering around Jerusalem recordred anywhere? How about a Jewish record of the rending of the Temlpe veil? Not one mention of any of these events out side the Bible. Not one!

[Coveredingrace777]

@disrxt

There is a debate over the historical Jesus but to act like it is a known that he didn't exist is simply not true. There are many historians that agree he did exist and in fact many populer atheist are not using that he didn't exist as a core argument.

[disrxt]

@Coveredingrace777 I don't know if Jesus existed or not, I do know the historical record contains no evidence. What is claimed about him and the miraculous events surrounding his birth and death can be discounted as ravings of partisans with a stake in promoting the story. No contemporary neutral party mentions anything about him.

[jshjamaarify]

@disrxt You are very uneducated then.



[LetReasonPrevail1]

Short answer: Because the bible wasn't authored by a god b/c no god or god's exist.

The bible was written by and for bronze-age humans, thus it includes all their superstitions, biases, and incorrect understandings of the world. As such, it is a book of and for that time, and it does not transcend the time it was written as a godly-inspired book should in fact do.

In this repect, the bible is historically interesting, but labeling it as divinely-inspired is laughable & absurd on its face

[LetReasonPrevail1]

He says, "God is not afraid to speak in a way that people understand", which he implies is an explanation for why the bible doesn't make sense to modern humans (i.e. b/c god wrote the bible to speak to people from antiquity.

However, this raises the unanswered question, "Then why doesn't god give modern humans a new / updated scripture that is consistent with our better understanding of things?"

[MrFF39]

@LetReasonPrevail1 Because death and resurrection of Jesus has completed all that we need to know about God's plan of salvation. There is nothing new to add. Most people don't have any problems understanding the main message. Historians can help us understand the main message more deeply by explaining the impact of context and genre on interpretation if that is required.