Ah yes and if we write down that we believe that our SUV's and cars all just appeared in some sort of 'big bang' that should clear everything up and make us look like the true intellectuals that we are.
If I told you my car just appeared out of nothing, or it evolved from a bicycle,or it came from nothing and was a result of a 'big bang' you would think I was nuts. But If it told you it was created by some intelligent beings in another state/country you would say..."No kidding...why are you telling me this?"
Why do people and the Earth work any differently?
But yes, the most important question to settle is whether a "Jesus" actually ever existed in the first place. There's not much evidence for that assertion outside the Bible.
Actually rib periosteum has a remarkable ability to regenerate bone, perhaps more so than any other bone.
Thoracic (chest) surgeons routinely remove ribs, and these often grow back, in whole or in part. A lot depends on the care with which the rib is removed; it needs to be âpeeledâ(TM) out of its periosteum to leave this membrane as intact as possible. A major reason why the rib is the ideal situation for such regeneration is that the attached intercostal muscles provide it with a good blood supply.
So it would actually make sense for God to use a rib bone to create eve.
"But it doesn't matter how many copies there are. There is still no way of knowing what the original text said."
When you have 25,000 copies that are all 99.5% in agreement with eachother, I would say you have a pretty exact idea of what the original text said. If you went to court for a trial and you had 25,000 people write down the same store within 99.5% accuracy between them all you would be hard pressed to say that you have no way of knowing what really happened.
If we are talking of Empirical evidence no one has empirical evidence of anything, and it is impossible to live your life demanding empirical evidence for everything/ anything. You don't have empirical evidence of every portion of your car and if you had to say to yourself every morning before you drove to work " Ok I am not going to believe in this car until I can absolutely comprehend every thing about how it works. The exact bore of the engine, the cam stroke, every intricacy of the ignition and electrical system" If that were the case you wouldn't be going to work any time soon, or driving anywhere else for that fact. Sure Christianity requires faith, but once you objectivly look at the evidence it becomes a much smaller leap of faith. The more evidence you have the smaller and smaller that leap becomes. We all live by faith in something every day. On top of faith once you believe in the Lord and start walking with Him he will do things in your life that will serve as proof to you.
"I remember hearing somewhere that the earliest portions of the original text weren't written till something like 100 years after Jesus. Not sure if this is true or not..."
That is pretty close. The NT was written about A.D. 50 to A.D. 90. The earliest fragment dates about A.D. 120, with about 50 other fragments dating within 150-200 years from the time of composition. This may seem like a long time span, but it is minimal compared to the most ancient works.
The earliest copy of Caesar's The Gallic Wars dates 1,000 years after it was written, and the first complete copy of The Odyssey by Homer dates 2,200 years after it was written. When the interval between the writing of the New Testament and earliest copies is compared to other ancient works, the New Testament proves to be much closer to the time of the original. Not to mention that we have more copies of the ancient Greek NT than any other ancient document. Not to mention we have quotes from the orignial Bible from early church fathers going back to the 1st centry.
Some people state that the claimes made in the New Testament are just legendary. Historians cite that it takes centuries for legends to develop. We don't have a gap of centuries when it comes to the time between the death and resurrection of Christ and the early church fathers writing/ writings of the Apostles (eye witnesses), we have 30-50 years maybe, which is not enough time for a legend to develop. Besides we have the 12 apostles who all died because of what they believed. If you knew something was a lie would you die for it?
The material is out there if you have doubts. I encourage you to look into it. Your eternity depends on it. Don't let the crazy televangelists you see on TV ruin your perception of what Christianity is, and more importantly who Christ is. I don't want your money, I don't want you to joing my church, all I am asking for you to do is take a look at the evidence, an honest look and choose for yourself after that. If you want to chat more about this feel free to hit me up. My email addy is the same as my slashdot name at gmail.
Well your misunderstanding comes in here ( and I think I misworded something, I will reference this in a moment). While the oldest COMPLETE version of the Bible is the Codex Sinaticus, we also have thousands of copies of the New Testament that were spread accross the middle east that A) Agree with eachother and B) Agree with the Codex Sinaticus. Not to mention we have over 32,000 quotes in the early church fathers writings that were quoted out of the original Bible, which also agree with the thousands of other copies that we have.
What I misworded before was that out of all of those thousands of copies (19,000-24,000) of the New Testament they are 95.5% in agreement with eachother, and that matches the New Testament that we have today.
Actually after some investigation I found out that ONLY the book of Matthew in the Codex Sinaticus leaves out Matthew's post resurrection account. The other gospels Mark, Luke and John still have it. While the rest of the NT references Jesus's resurrection. So to say that it was left out ENTIRELY is not an accurate statement..as the author of this post put it. Another point to take into consideration is that the 5,000 early manuscripts that were floating around the middle East do include this record. Also the early church father Irenaeus around 180 AD (well before 350AD when the Codex Sinaticus was written)commented on the end of Mark - proving it existed before the Codex Sinaticus was written. Also Hippolytus 190-227 AD quoted from the alleged missing verses well before the Codex Sinaticus was written. The only original Bible is the one the original Hebrews/ early Christians used which we don't have today. However we do have thousands of copies of this (more copies of this than any other ancient manuscript) from these thousands of copies we can compare our current Bible to and know that what we have today agrees with what was circulated in the time period of Jesus' death. And out of all of those thousands of copies they are in 99.5% agreement with eachother.
So the Codex Sinaticus may leave out one of the resurrection witness accounts, but we have the accounts of the other Apostles that are included in this Codex, not to mention other NT passages that reference the resurrection of Christ. In addition to thousands of earlier portions that do include the end of Mark, as well as direct quotes from the text from church fathers that preceded the writing of the Codex Sinaticus by 100-200 years. Another thing to remember is that our Bible today did not come from JUST the Codex Sinaticus, it comes from direct copies of the original Hebrew Bible before the Codex Sinaticus was written. It still is an extremely reliable copy and this can be found out by comparing it to the thousands of other copies and quotes that come directly from the original Bible. Which again are all in 99.5% agreement with each other.
Can you provide your proof that the Codex Sinaiticus doesn't include the resurrection?
The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest COMPLETE Bibles that we have. Noticie it mentions complete. You can look it up for yourself and check the sources. Not to mention we have over 5,300 ancient Greek manuscript copies of the New Testament Greek (these are copies of the actual words penned by the Apostles) We have an additional 10,000 Latin vulgate, and over 9,300 early manuscript versions in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Gothic totaling over 24,000 surviving manuscripts of the New Testament all of them have the resurrection. Also from those thousands of copies 85% show no varience at all. Out of the remaining 15% - 90% have NO impact on the meaning of scripture. The remaining 10% can easily be figured out within the context of the text. Bruce Metzger the worlds leading Greek Scholar ( who Also was a professor at Princeton University for over 40 years) States that the New Testament is 99.5% accurate.
So if you are going to claim that something was taking out of this text you are going to have to provide some evidence. Because there are thousands of texts that seem to disagree with you. You VS. thousands. ? ? ?
"Rock music in the fifies, rap music today, it makes really no difference. Anybody that 'emulates' some figure be it a pop musician, a movie star or a religious figure should learn to think for themselves"
The issue here happens to be when you are a kid or a teen ager you are looking for something, something to "fit in with" something that you can be a part of. In our culture of two working parents/ divorced and broken homes television/ video games/ and music all are quick to fill the void for what kids are looking for. It is not that these kids "cannot think for themselves" it is more that they want something to be associated with, a medium by which they can gain acceptance by peers. Unfortunately our culture makes it all too easy to find poor role models, in fact I would even say we go out of our way to put poor role models on a pedastal.
I wouldn't just limit this to rappers, I would include rock musicians, and athletes as well. Not to mention turn on any realilty TV show on MTV or VH1.
"All these people getting their panties in a twist about some kids being influenced should spend more time educating individuals, not attacking the availability of role models, no matter where you go you'll find good ones and bad ones"
I agree we should be spending more time educating these individuals, but we should also be concerned about the music, video games, and role models that are at such convienient disposal of the youth. You will find good ones and bad ones anywhere, unfortunately we tend to gravitate to , and make hero's of the ones that are bad.
"If parents can't educate their kids to the point where the kids are so easily influenced then the solution is not to attack the people that are being followed"
Obviously the parents have a responsibility here but parents are up against hard competition like the whole slew of marketing companies using sex, drugs, and crime to sell thier product. Parents can only do so much until they send thier child off to school and they are bombarded with songs about sex, drugs, and crime on the radio, and submerged in billboard advertisement of the same ilk.
"It's not like these rappers have mind control or anything like that"
While they do not have mind control they do have influence, and very heavy influence at that. Let's not limit it to rappers, all musicians, all athletes, everyone has influence on children. The musician that tells you that music doesn't influence people is lying to you and clearly ignoring all the clothing deals, and product endorsements that go along with it. Influence isn't inherantly a bad thing on it's own, that is determined by the message it contains. The question is are we poisoning our own water by letting these people infiltrate the minds of our youth with thier message. Ideas have consequences and if we don't pay attention to what these kids are taking in right now, we will reap the consequences in 10 - 20 years.
I would recommend you check out this link as well to see the other side of the story. Unlike Thunderf00t this guy actually gives you historical facts and verifiable references to his research instead of just calling you "delusional" or making a blanket statement like "there is absolutely no evidence". This video does more than just make "claims" it provides evidence you can inspect for yourself.
I would also find it interesting if you could list exactly how Christianity has changed over the last 100 years, did Christians stop believing in Jesus, stop believing in heaven, stop feeding the poor, and housing the homeless? Exactly what reforms have there been to keep up with the technologically changing world? I will note that because the Bible was written 2000 years ago (un-arguably a time with different technology) that some careful thinking and reflection on what the Bible says may need to be done when bio-ethical questions arise. One thing that hasn't changed in that 2000 years however is human relationships, human actions toward one another, and the condition of the human heart, and those things are well documented in historical Christianity...some details from your point of view would be appreciated to back up your claim.
http://www.leestrobel.com/videoserver/video.php?clip=strobelT1064
______________________________
Let the flaming begin.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah yes and if we write down that we believe that our SUV's and cars all just appeared in some sort of 'big bang' that should clear everything up and make us look like the true intellectuals that we are. If I told you my car just appeared out of nothing, or it evolved from a bicycle,or it came from nothing and was a result of a 'big bang' you would think I was nuts. But If it told you it was created by some intelligent beings in another state/country you would say..."No kidding...why are you telling me this?" Why do people and the Earth work any differently?
But yes, the most important question to settle is whether a "Jesus" actually ever existed in the first place. There's not much evidence for that assertion outside the Bible.
Actually if you look into it there is quite a bit of evidence outside of the Bible that confirms the existence of Jesus of the Bible Here's a quick link if you would like to take some time and check it out: http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=221:do-non-christian-sources-report-aspects-of-jesus-life-video-&catid=62:historical-apologetics&Itemid=62
Actually rib periosteum has a remarkable ability to regenerate bone, perhaps more so than any other bone. Thoracic (chest) surgeons routinely remove ribs, and these often grow back, in whole or in part. A lot depends on the care with which the rib is removed; it needs to be âpeeledâ(TM) out of its periosteum to leave this membrane as intact as possible. A major reason why the rib is the ideal situation for such regeneration is that the attached intercostal muscles provide it with a good blood supply. So it would actually make sense for God to use a rib bone to create eve.
"But it doesn't matter how many copies there are. There is still no way of knowing what the original text said." When you have 25,000 copies that are all 99.5% in agreement with eachother, I would say you have a pretty exact idea of what the original text said. If you went to court for a trial and you had 25,000 people write down the same store within 99.5% accuracy between them all you would be hard pressed to say that you have no way of knowing what really happened. If we are talking of Empirical evidence no one has empirical evidence of anything, and it is impossible to live your life demanding empirical evidence for everything/ anything. You don't have empirical evidence of every portion of your car and if you had to say to yourself every morning before you drove to work " Ok I am not going to believe in this car until I can absolutely comprehend every thing about how it works. The exact bore of the engine, the cam stroke, every intricacy of the ignition and electrical system" If that were the case you wouldn't be going to work any time soon, or driving anywhere else for that fact. Sure Christianity requires faith, but once you objectivly look at the evidence it becomes a much smaller leap of faith. The more evidence you have the smaller and smaller that leap becomes. We all live by faith in something every day. On top of faith once you believe in the Lord and start walking with Him he will do things in your life that will serve as proof to you. "I remember hearing somewhere that the earliest portions of the original text weren't written till something like 100 years after Jesus. Not sure if this is true or not..." That is pretty close. The NT was written about A.D. 50 to A.D. 90. The earliest fragment dates about A.D. 120, with about 50 other fragments dating within 150-200 years from the time of composition. This may seem like a long time span, but it is minimal compared to the most ancient works. The earliest copy of Caesar's The Gallic Wars dates 1,000 years after it was written, and the first complete copy of The Odyssey by Homer dates 2,200 years after it was written. When the interval between the writing of the New Testament and earliest copies is compared to other ancient works, the New Testament proves to be much closer to the time of the original. Not to mention that we have more copies of the ancient Greek NT than any other ancient document. Not to mention we have quotes from the orignial Bible from early church fathers going back to the 1st centry. Some people state that the claimes made in the New Testament are just legendary. Historians cite that it takes centuries for legends to develop. We don't have a gap of centuries when it comes to the time between the death and resurrection of Christ and the early church fathers writing/ writings of the Apostles (eye witnesses), we have 30-50 years maybe, which is not enough time for a legend to develop. Besides we have the 12 apostles who all died because of what they believed. If you knew something was a lie would you die for it? The material is out there if you have doubts. I encourage you to look into it. Your eternity depends on it. Don't let the crazy televangelists you see on TV ruin your perception of what Christianity is, and more importantly who Christ is. I don't want your money, I don't want you to joing my church, all I am asking for you to do is take a look at the evidence, an honest look and choose for yourself after that. If you want to chat more about this feel free to hit me up. My email addy is the same as my slashdot name at gmail.
I agree with you. Thank you. The point being that the author of this article clearly did not know what he was speaking of.
Well your misunderstanding comes in here ( and I think I misworded something, I will reference this in a moment). While the oldest COMPLETE version of the Bible is the Codex Sinaticus, we also have thousands of copies of the New Testament that were spread accross the middle east that A) Agree with eachother and B) Agree with the Codex Sinaticus. Not to mention we have over 32,000 quotes in the early church fathers writings that were quoted out of the original Bible, which also agree with the thousands of other copies that we have. What I misworded before was that out of all of those thousands of copies (19,000-24,000) of the New Testament they are 95.5% in agreement with eachother, and that matches the New Testament that we have today. Actually after some investigation I found out that ONLY the book of Matthew in the Codex Sinaticus leaves out Matthew's post resurrection account. The other gospels Mark, Luke and John still have it. While the rest of the NT references Jesus's resurrection. So to say that it was left out ENTIRELY is not an accurate statement..as the author of this post put it. Another point to take into consideration is that the 5,000 early manuscripts that were floating around the middle East do include this record. Also the early church father Irenaeus around 180 AD (well before 350AD when the Codex Sinaticus was written)commented on the end of Mark - proving it existed before the Codex Sinaticus was written. Also Hippolytus 190-227 AD quoted from the alleged missing verses well before the Codex Sinaticus was written. The only original Bible is the one the original Hebrews/ early Christians used which we don't have today. However we do have thousands of copies of this (more copies of this than any other ancient manuscript) from these thousands of copies we can compare our current Bible to and know that what we have today agrees with what was circulated in the time period of Jesus' death. And out of all of those thousands of copies they are in 99.5% agreement with eachother. So the Codex Sinaticus may leave out one of the resurrection witness accounts, but we have the accounts of the other Apostles that are included in this Codex, not to mention other NT passages that reference the resurrection of Christ. In addition to thousands of earlier portions that do include the end of Mark, as well as direct quotes from the text from church fathers that preceded the writing of the Codex Sinaticus by 100-200 years. Another thing to remember is that our Bible today did not come from JUST the Codex Sinaticus, it comes from direct copies of the original Hebrew Bible before the Codex Sinaticus was written. It still is an extremely reliable copy and this can be found out by comparing it to the thousands of other copies and quotes that come directly from the original Bible. Which again are all in 99.5% agreement with each other.
Can you provide your proof that the Codex Sinaiticus doesn't include the resurrection? The Codex Sinaiticus is the oldest COMPLETE Bibles that we have. Noticie it mentions complete. You can look it up for yourself and check the sources. Not to mention we have over 5,300 ancient Greek manuscript copies of the New Testament Greek (these are copies of the actual words penned by the Apostles) We have an additional 10,000 Latin vulgate, and over 9,300 early manuscript versions in Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, and Gothic totaling over 24,000 surviving manuscripts of the New Testament all of them have the resurrection. Also from those thousands of copies 85% show no varience at all. Out of the remaining 15% - 90% have NO impact on the meaning of scripture. The remaining 10% can easily be figured out within the context of the text. Bruce Metzger the worlds leading Greek Scholar ( who Also was a professor at Princeton University for over 40 years) States that the New Testament is 99.5% accurate. So if you are going to claim that something was taking out of this text you are going to have to provide some evidence. Because there are thousands of texts that seem to disagree with you. You VS. thousands. ? ? ?
"Rock music in the fifies, rap music today, it makes really no difference. Anybody that 'emulates' some figure be it a pop musician, a movie star or a religious figure should learn to think for themselves" The issue here happens to be when you are a kid or a teen ager you are looking for something, something to "fit in with" something that you can be a part of. In our culture of two working parents/ divorced and broken homes television/ video games/ and music all are quick to fill the void for what kids are looking for. It is not that these kids "cannot think for themselves" it is more that they want something to be associated with, a medium by which they can gain acceptance by peers. Unfortunately our culture makes it all too easy to find poor role models, in fact I would even say we go out of our way to put poor role models on a pedastal. I wouldn't just limit this to rappers, I would include rock musicians, and athletes as well. Not to mention turn on any realilty TV show on MTV or VH1. "All these people getting their panties in a twist about some kids being influenced should spend more time educating individuals, not attacking the availability of role models, no matter where you go you'll find good ones and bad ones" I agree we should be spending more time educating these individuals, but we should also be concerned about the music, video games, and role models that are at such convienient disposal of the youth. You will find good ones and bad ones anywhere, unfortunately we tend to gravitate to , and make hero's of the ones that are bad. "If parents can't educate their kids to the point where the kids are so easily influenced then the solution is not to attack the people that are being followed" Obviously the parents have a responsibility here but parents are up against hard competition like the whole slew of marketing companies using sex, drugs, and crime to sell thier product. Parents can only do so much until they send thier child off to school and they are bombarded with songs about sex, drugs, and crime on the radio, and submerged in billboard advertisement of the same ilk. "It's not like these rappers have mind control or anything like that" While they do not have mind control they do have influence, and very heavy influence at that. Let's not limit it to rappers, all musicians, all athletes, everyone has influence on children. The musician that tells you that music doesn't influence people is lying to you and clearly ignoring all the clothing deals, and product endorsements that go along with it. Influence isn't inherantly a bad thing on it's own, that is determined by the message it contains. The question is are we poisoning our own water by letting these people infiltrate the minds of our youth with thier message. Ideas have consequences and if we don't pay attention to what these kids are taking in right now, we will reap the consequences in 10 - 20 years.
http://www.tektonics.org/gk/jesussayshate.html
I would recommend you check out this link as well to see the other side of the story. Unlike Thunderf00t this guy actually gives you historical facts and verifiable references to his research instead of just calling you "delusional" or making a blanket statement like "there is absolutely no evidence". This video does more than just make "claims" it provides evidence you can inspect for yourself. I would also find it interesting if you could list exactly how Christianity has changed over the last 100 years, did Christians stop believing in Jesus, stop believing in heaven, stop feeding the poor, and housing the homeless? Exactly what reforms have there been to keep up with the technologically changing world? I will note that because the Bible was written 2000 years ago (un-arguably a time with different technology) that some careful thinking and reflection on what the Bible says may need to be done when bio-ethical questions arise. One thing that hasn't changed in that 2000 years however is human relationships, human actions toward one another, and the condition of the human heart, and those things are well documented in historical Christianity ...some details from your point of view would be appreciated to back up your claim.
http://www.leestrobel.com/videoserver/video.php?clip=strobelT1064
______________________________
Let the flaming begin.