Christianity not an original religon?

[Deacon]

Recently I've been researching that Christianity may not have original ideas of thier own.

EXAMPLES:

-The Halo is really taken from the Egyptains "Sun Rings"
-Communion is taken from an ancient religon that ate "thier God" too
-Dec 25 Holiday known a Christmas is taken from a pagan religon that celebrated Dec 25 as a holiday marking the beginning of longer days, it is speculated Jesus was born in March, but the reason it is celebrated the date it is, becasue it was easier to convert worshippers if holidays were same dates.
-The symbol and purpose of the cross was taken from the Egyptians as well

I'm sure there are more, I believe this that Christians did not originally had these ideas, and simply took other religous ideas.

Does anyone else agree, or have an arguement?

[AlonzoMourning23]

No religion can truly be considered an original religion. Every religion takes elements from other faiths. Sometimes this is necessary. For example, Judaism evolved out of earlier religions, and itself was not monotheistic from the beginning. Almost all of the most significant stories (great flood, eden etc.) can be traced back to earlier religions. Christianity evolved from that, islam evolved from both of those, and Baha'i evolved primarily from those three, but also incorporated all other faiths that its founder was aware of. These religions directly built on the previous ones and often distinctions in some areas evolved only after the religion was founded, obscuring what was originally something taken from another faith.

Sometimes it is simply cultural. For example, Judaism was influenced by zoroastrianism, Sikhism was influenced by Hinduism and Islam. This isn't usually intentional, but is unavoidable due to cultural contact and the environment which believers existed. Other times it is a reaction against existing issues the founders found problematic.

Religions also will often incorporate things to become more acceptable to the masses. If you can incorporate parts of the local religion, things that are more symbolic, this can provide a sense of familiarity and aid in gaining converts. Converts may also simply bring what they're familiar with, and use the ways they related to their old religion in worshipping their new one. And as you suggested, at least in the case of christianity, it was simply out of competition. Pagans had many festivals and celebrations, christianity incorporated those and similar dates to compete. It would often be difficult to gain converts from groups because christianity offered little in the way of earthly pleasure. Festivals were essentially a way of saying "we're fun too".

[Derwood43]

The heart of Christianity IS original.

No other religion has God stepping down to "take one for the team".

Other ideas can be construed as borrowed. But what separates Christianity is an original idea.

Thoughts?

[Labrocca]

There are things in Christianity which of course resemble or are even borrowed from other religions.Â*Â*Most Christians use the Old Testament which is a Jewish book.Â*Â*Jesus himself was Jewish of course.Â*Â*As Alonzo pointed out there is lots of little things that coincide.Â*Â*I can't dispute anything OP stated.Â*Â*I can only add to the long list.

However as Derwood stated there is lots of originality in Christianity.Â*Â*The focus on love, forgiveness, and helping others is fairly new.Â*Â*Turn the other cheek is really a radical idea. I think before this war over religion was incredibly high.Â*Â*However we all know about the Crusades which of course imho were the black mark on Christianity.

Wiki on the Crusades (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades)

[AlonzoMourning23]

"Turn the other cheek" can be traced back to Hillel, a Jewish leader who lived before jesus. The rest of the concepts can be found to varying degrees in the old testament, religions such as zoroastrianism, and possibly in various other messianic cults that existed around the time of jesus.

I don't think religious wars were very common, especially in the western world, before christianity. The people believed in many gods, and often believed in them in a more regional context. For example, when in rome they would worship the roman gods, but it was not uncommon for them to worship the gods of other lands when they were in those lands.

Even with christians, the problem was not that christians worshipped a different god, it's that they refused to pay homage to the roman gods. They believed this could result in losing the gods favors.

Wars pre-christianity generally weren't so religiously driven. Gods chose sides, but they I'm not aware that the people were actually fighting for their religion. I think only when you get to the evangelical faiths in the west that you see a spike in overtly religious wars.

The heart of Christianity IS original.

No other religion has God stepping down to "take one for the team".

Other ideas can be construed as borrowed. But what separates Christianity is an original idea.

Thoughts?

I think the heart of christianity is jesus being the messiah. That is by no means a unique concept.

I really don't know if there's a similar story from another religion (ie. god or savior being killed on earth). Would be interesting to look into though.

[forest_ranger254]

Recently I've been researching that Christianity may not have original ideas of thier own.

EXAMPLES:

-The Halo is really taken from the Egyptains "Sun Rings"

the halo is not actually even mentione in the Bible. it occasionally mentions an "aura" of light when referring to the angel of the Lord (which is the way the Old Testament refers to the Son of God), but no other angels have been referred to with anythin like that. the halo is just speculation.

-Communion is taken from an ancient religon that ate "thier God" too

we don't actually eat God. our eating communion symbolizes that Jesus's flesh and blood was sacrificed for us.

-Dec 25 Holiday known a Christmas is taken from a pagan religon that celebrated Dec 25 as a holiday marking the beginning of longer days, it is speculated Jesus was born in March, but the reason it is celebrated the date it is, becasue it was easier to convert worshippers if holidays were same dates.

nobody actually knows when Jesus was born or when He died. so in all actuallity, the date is unimportant. the point of Christmas is to celebrate it.

-The symbol and purpose of the cross was taken from the Egyptians as well

how? crucifixion wasn't even begun in Egypt. it was started and finished in the Roman empire. it was actually prophecied in great detail in Psalms and Isaiah many, many years before it started.

I'm sure there are more, I believe this that Christians did not originally had these ideas, and simply took other religous ideas.

well, since Christianity is a fulfillment of prophecies in the Old Testament, couldn't it possibly be that someone borrowed from those prophecies before Christ lived? since most, if not all of, the New Testament's physical beliefs and a lot of the moral teachings are based in the Old Testament (remember, Jesus didn't have the whole Bible when He spoke, only the OT).

I would also answer Alonzo the same way. just because a Jewish leader had the "turn the other cheek" belief claimed doesn't do anything but bolster the defense of Christianity, since it's basis is in Judaism.

the Messiah defense falls at one point. the requirement to be the messiah was to meet all of the messianic prophetic requirements. Jesus is the only one to have done that. the number of prophecies is way too long for me to post, so I will link a few websites

http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/m_prophecies.shtml
http://www.bibleprobe.com/300great.htm
http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/messianicprophecies.html
http://www.bprc.org/topics/fulfill.html

there are (on a conservative number) 300 prophecies fulfilled in Christ's life by Him. big BIG number.

the argument by Alonzo the Judaism is not an original religion can be refuted easily. for one, if the beginning and fall of man is as described in the Bible, then Judaism is the original belief, although it had no Bible. if Judaism had it correct, it was the original faith. since it is the most "comprehensive" collection of beliefs that are found elsewhere is also an argument FOR it being the original one. think of it. if a religion wants to trick those of another belief into joining, they will become like that original religion. well, this involves borrowing elements of that belief for the use of the "parasitic" belief. well, there are hundreds of religions that bits and pieces of Judaism can be found in. matter of fact, it wasn't until after the Jews left Egypt that Amenhotep introduced monotheism into Egypt. it is more possible that HE borrowed from Judaism from them.Â*Â*and, as we all know, he failed.

[AlonzoMourning23]

I would also answer Alonzo the same way. just because a Jewish leader had the "turn the other cheek" belief claimed doesn't do anything but bolster the defense of Christianity, since it's basis is in Judaism.

It is evidence, not proof but evidence, that some of the "radical" teachings of jesus were not so unique. That it is possible that he borrowed these teachings from others, not that they came from him.

Though one major hole in understanding christianity is the lack of knowledge about the cult of john the baptist. The idea of john the baptist as simply preparing the way for jesus is probably not true. It appears that Christians and Jesus made the connection to john the baptist, but it also appears that John the baptist did not have a strong connection with jesus. If anything, John was likely to be the teacher. The only real historical account of john the baptist is that of an independent figure, with no mention of jesus whatsoever, and this account was after jesus's death, when such a connection, if real, would likely have been established. We know that this cult existed long after the formation of christianity, and it did not simply give way to Jesus as the bible suggests.

Also, John the Baptist is viewed as the messiah by Mandaeans, which also supports that his contact with jesus was not one where Jesus was superior. But we really don't know what the historical John the Baptist really taught, or why he gained a reputation for baptism when baptising really was not something unique. It is very possible that john the baptist taught many of the ideas that Jesus went on to teach, but we'll never know barring the discovery or ancient texts.

the Messiah defense falls at one point. the requirement to be the messiah was to meet all of the messianic prophetic requirements. Jesus is the only one to have done that. the number of prophecies is way too long for me to post, so I will link a few websites

http://www.clarifyingchristianity.com/m_prophecies.shtml
http://www.bibleprobe.com/300great.htm
http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/messianicprophecies.html
http://www.bprc.org/topics/fulfill.html

there are (on a conservative number) 300 prophecies fulfilled in Christ's life by Him. big BIG number.

It depends on your source. Historians look at much more than biblical texts when tracing the origins of ideas and stories. And many prophecies are only fulfilled when certain events are interpreted in a certain way, such as his death. Many times we also do not know whether the biblical account is historically accurate, or whether, in the case of events that did happen, whether jesus concsciously did them for the purpose of fulfilling the prophecy. For example, entering Jerusalem on a donkey.

the argument by Alonzo the Judaism is not an original religion can be refuted easily. for one, if the beginning and fall of man is as described in the Bible, then Judaism is the original belief, although it had no Bible. if Judaism had it correct, it was the original faith.

You can't refute my argument by saying "IF genesis is as described in the bible". It's like saying "I'm wrong because if what I say is false then I'm wrong". It doesn't work that way.

But we can trace that story to pre-jewish traditions, such as the sumerian creation myth. And, theoretically, if the creation myth is true in its concepts, it does not necessarily mean our specific account is true. Think of an event in your life that people have many different perspectives on, such as the war in Iraq. If you ask an anti-war liberal to describe the runup to the war you are going to get a very different perspective than if you had asked a vocal supporter of the war from the start. The essence will be true in both cases, but they may have many signficant differences that are mixed in with the similiarities.

since it is the most "comprehensive" collection of beliefs that are found elsewhere is also an argument FOR it being the original one.

No it's not. Being comprehensive can be the result of two things. One, that it was carried directly from the event and the authors had full understanding of what happened. Or, two, the story went throug many versions, each one slightly altering earlier ones, filling in holes and making it more relevant to the society the story tellers were a part of.

think of it. if a religion wants to trick those of another belief into joining, they will become like that original religion.

I'm not sure why any religion wants to trick believers into following them, as all religions believe that got it right.

well, this involves borrowing elements of that belief for the use of the "parasitic" belief. well, there are hundreds of religions that bits and pieces of Judaism can be found in. matter of fact, it wasn't until after the Jews left Egypt that Amenhotep introduced monotheism into Egypt. it is more possible that HE borrowed from Judaism from them.Â*Â*and, as we all know, he failed.[/font][/size]


Monotheism is not necessarily something that must be copied. Focusing on a particular god is very common in polytheistic religions, the only difference is excluding the worship of less important ones. Monotheism is rare (in terms of percentage of religions), but due to the tendency for individuals to focus on particular gods, it is usually possible under the right conditions.

Also, judaism was not always monotheistic. The first major monotheistic religion is largely believed to be zoroastrianism, and even as late as the 8th centure b.c.e. there is no evidence of absolute monotheism in judaism. Many jewish stories originally portrayed a pantheon of gods, with female deities becoming less powerful as time went by, and eventually with the merging of the competing dieties into one.

Though there's no evidence that the Israelites were slaves in egypt, that any significant amount of Israelites were ever in egypt, of an exodus, or of the loss of the pharoahs army. The egyptians meticulously recorded significant events and, while they only publicly displayed victories, they kept records of losses as well. And, even if we are to accept that the exodus occured, Akhenatan reigned in the 14th century b.c.e., while the exodus is usually suggested to have occured (among those who hold it did) after his reign. Essentially, akhenatan likely predates exodus, and exodus predated monotheism in judaism. Though virtually everything about exodus is debated since there's no evidence other than scripture. No archeological finds, and no text, religious or not, dating from anywhere near that time period.

[forest_ranger254]

It is evidence, not proof but evidence, that some of the "radical" teachings of jesus were not so unique. That it is possible that he borrowed these teachings from others, not that they came from him.

then the Philistines would have no problems with him. Think of it, every Jewish rabbi then would cite a previous rabbi. Jesus never did this. Jesus spoke with His own authority. He is God, soHe could have given the Jewish rabbi the idea, thus making Himself the perfect authority.

Though one major hole in understanding christianity is the lack of knowledge about the cult of john the baptist. The idea of john the baptist as simply preparing the way for jesus is probably not true. It appears that Christians and Jesus made the connection to john the baptist, but it also appears that John the baptist did not have a strong connection with jesus. If anything, John was likely to be the teacher. The only real historical account of john the baptist is that of an independent figure, with no mention of jesus whatsoever, and this account was after jesus's death, when such a connection, if real, would likely have been established. We know that this cult existed long after the formation of christianity, and it did not simply give way to Jesus as the bible suggests.

Then why would John constantly speak of one who he was not worthy to tie the sandals on his feet? And when Jesus came in the area, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."?

Also, John the Baptist is viewed as the messiah by Mandaeans, which also supports that his contact with jesus was not one where Jesus was superior. But we really don't know what the historical John the Baptist really taught, or why he gained a reputation for baptism when baptising really was not something unique. It is very possible that john the baptist taught many of the ideas that Jesus went on to teach, but we'll never know barring the discovery or ancient texts.

He did not fulfill Psalm 22 or Isaiah 52-53.


It depends on your source. Historians look at much more than biblical texts when tracing the origins of ideas and stories. And many prophecies are only fulfilled when certain events are interpreted in a certain way, such as his death. Many times we also do not know whether the biblical account is historically accurate, or whether, in the case of events that did happen, whether jesus concsciously did them for the purpose of fulfilling the prophecy. For example, entering Jerusalem on a donkey.

Don't even go to the historical accuracy of the Bible with me. I have an entire archaeological concordance listing the places mentioned in the Bible and where they are found. Would you like me to start listing them? you might want to find a Thompson's Chain-reference Study Bible KJV before you start, because that is one of my sources.

You can't refute my argument by saying "IF genesis is as described in the bible". It's like saying "I'm wrong because if what I say is false then I'm wrong". It doesn't work that way.

and you can't refute MY argument by your hypothetical response as well. did you know that Job was written before most written texts on Sumerian beliefs.

But we can trace that story to pre-jewish traditions, such as the sumerian creation myth. And, theoretically, if the creation myth is true in its concepts, it does not necessarily mean our specific account is true. Think of an event in your life that people have many different perspectives on, such as the war in Iraq. If you ask an anti-war liberal to describe the runup to the war you are going to get a very different perspective than if you had asked a vocal supporter of the war from the start. The essence will be true in both cases, but they may have many signficant differences that are mixed in with the similiarities.

Sorry, Job predates those.

No it's not. Being comprehensive can be the result of two things. One, that it was carried directly from the event and the authors had full understanding of what happened. Or, two, the story went throug many versions, each one slightly altering earlier ones, filling in holes and making it more relevant to the society the story tellers were a part of.

Read the bold, case closed.

I'm not sure why any religion wants to trick believers into following them, as all religions believe that got it right.

exhibit A: the countless number of Christian denominations. Some are biblical, some are based on false doctrine where people wanted a piece of the spotlight.

Monotheism is not necessarily something that must be copied. Focusing on a particular god is very common in polytheistic religions, the only difference is excluding the worship of less important ones. Monotheism is rare (in terms of percentage of religions), but due to the tendency for individuals to focus on particular gods, it is usually possible under the right conditions.

Also, judaism was not always monotheistic. The first major monotheistic religion is largely believed to be zoroastrianism, and even as late as the 8th centure b.c.e. there is no evidence of absolute monotheism in judaism. Many jewish stories originally portrayed a pantheon of gods, with female deities becoming less powerful as time went by, and eventually with the merging of the competing dieties into one.

Viable source anyone? what happened to Amenhotep and the fact that Moses existed far prior to the 8th century bc

Sorry I couldn't finish my answer, I will post the finishing tonight. I have a date with my girlfriend.

PS: I give you a plus on your rep. You have some pretty good critical thinking abilities.

[forest_ranger254]

Though there's no evidence that the Israelites were slaves in egypt, that any significant amount of Israelites were ever in egypt, of an exodus, or of the loss of the pharoahs army. The egyptians meticulously recorded significant events and, while they only publicly displayed victories, they kept records of losses as well. And, even if we are to accept that the exodus occured, Akhenatan reigned in the 14th century b.c.e., while the exodus is usually suggested to have occured (among those who hold it did) after his reign. Essentially, akhenatan likely predates exodus, and exodus predated monotheism in judaism. Though virtually everything about exodus is debated since there's no evidence other than scripture. No archeological finds, and no text, religious or not, dating from anywhere near that time period.


To finish the final thing, this is not completely true. Another thing that is true is that they used perishables for losses. Papyrus is not permanent. it tears, fades, and decomposes. Job, as I stated, predates even Sumer.

[AlonzoMourning23]

then the Philistines would have no problems with him. Think of it, every Jewish rabbi then would cite a previous rabbi. Jesus never did this. Jesus spoke with His own authority. He is God, soHe could have given the Jewish rabbi the idea, thus making Himself the perfect authority.

The teaching is on record as existing before jesus. Obviously you can argue that if Jesus is God then, as God, he could have given him the idea before Jesus existed as a human. But the point is that the idea was not unique to the human Jesus.

Your line of reasoning can be used with pretty much anything, but can't be proved or disproved in any way. It's not the type of argument you can make using concrete evidence. It's a faith argument, unconvincing to the unconverted.

Also, people don't cite everything they teach. Peoples ideas overlap, sometimes they both genuinely come up with the same idea on their own but, more often, they pick it up from somewhere. They may not know where it came from though. For example, people hold many culturally specific beliefs (ie. girls wear dresses) but can't explain when they originaly learned them. Or if I were to attend a political speech, I may agree with some of the things said and adopt them as my own, but I may not remember that it wasn't my idea. Then again I might remember. Either way, no teacher gives a source every time they make a statement, regardless of whether they know where it originated from.

Also, although I find it unlikely as most would not do this, theoretically, jesus may very well have stated that he learned X from X source. But he did not write down his own words, and we do not have any direct quotes from him. We don't know how close the bible comes to his original words.

Then why would John constantly speak of one who he was not worthy to tie the sandals on his feet? And when Jesus came in the area, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."?

How do we know he said that? The bible says that, be we don't have any evidence to support that.

The fact that cults of his continued and that he is essential in a religion where Jesus is of no importance (other than it mentioning he was baptised by jon), is evidence that his mission did not end with Jesus. It would be very odd indeed for him to essentially surrender himself to Jesus yet for his followers not to do the same. We know that the Mandaeans, who originate (and exist to this day) in the same time period as christians, are not concerned with jesus. We don't know much about the beliefs of other, now deceased, groups that centered on John the baptist, other than they continued for a significant period after his death. But there's no evidence of any focus on jesus in what little we know.

Also, John the Baptist is viewed as the messiah by Mandaeans, which also supports that his contact with jesus was not one where Jesus was superior. But we really don't know what the historical John the Baptist really taught, or why he gained a reputation for baptism when baptising really was not something unique. It is very possible that john the baptist taught many of the ideas that Jesus went on to teach, but we'll never know barring the discovery or ancient texts.

He did not fulfill Psalm 22 or Isaiah 52-53.[/quote]

What's your point? I'm not really arguing for the validity, or lack there of, of any faith, not judaism, not christianity, not mandaeanism. My point is that history does not seem to back up the bible account of jon. It could be true, it could be false, it could be somewhere in between. The point is it's not definate.



Don't even go to the historical accuracy of the Bible with me. I have an entire archaeological concordance listing the places mentioned in the Bible and where they are found. Would you like me to start listing them? you might want to find a Thompson's Chain-reference Study Bible KJV before you start, because that is one of my sources.

Go right ahead.


and you can't refute MY argument by your hypothetical response as well. did you know that Job was written before most written texts on Sumerian beliefs.

You argued that my point was easily refuted since "if judaism is correct then it's the original faith", that doesn't mean anything if you don't establish judaism as the original faith, something I disputed. You didn't explain why I am wrong, you made a hypothetical argument that, if correct (you did not claim it was), would make me wrong.

But we can trace that story to pre-jewish traditions, such as the sumerian creation myth. And, theoretically, if the creation myth is true in its concepts, it does not necessarily mean our specific account is true. Think of an event in your life that people have many different perspectives on, such as the war in Iraq. If you ask an anti-war liberal to describe the runup to the war you are going to get a very different perspective than if you had asked a vocal supporter of the war from the start. The essence will be true in both cases, but they may have many signficant differences that are mixed in with the similiarities.

Sorry, Job predates those.

While I don't know the origins of Job, primarily because I've never looked into it and the name of the book itself makes it hard to search quickly for it, I find it unlikely that Job predates the summerian creation myth, as we would need evidence that it existed, at the very least, prior to 1700 b.c.e. (the end of sumerian civilization), possibly 3000 b.c.e (the point when it appears the sumerians developed a writing system). Though I can't make any claims about Job, what evidence do you have?

Also, I'm not sure what difference it would make in terms of validating the bible. If Job existed before the creation myth then that seems that it would create a bigger problem for your argument than it solves.

No it's not. Being comprehensive can be the result of two things. One, that it was carried directly from the event and the authors had full understanding of what happened. Or, two, the story went throug many versions, each one slightly altering earlier ones, filling in holes and making it more relevant to the society the story tellers were a part of.

Read the bold, case closed.

You put "or" in bold, is that supposed to mean something?

You also didn't explain why being comprehensive is anything more than accidental evidence of it being the original one, since being comprehensive has plenty of explanations. Look at the roman gods and how comprehensive the explanation for life, death, nature etc. was.

I'm not sure why any religion wants to trick believers into following them, as all religions believe that got it right.

exhibit A: the countless number of Christian denominations. Some are biblical, some are based on false doctrine where people wanted a piece of the spotlight.

That's not evidence of anything other than that there are many different denominations. Unless you have previously unknown evidence of fraud that is.

There are many different ways to interperet the same text.

Viable source anyone? what happened to Amenhotep and the fact that Moses existed far prior to the 8th century bc


Monotheism is not necessarily something that must be copied. Focusing on a particular god is very common in polytheistic religions, the only difference is excluding the worship of less important ones. Monotheism is rare (in terms of percentage of religions), but due to the tendency for individuals to focus on particular gods, it is usually possible under the right conditions.

Also, judaism was not always monotheistic. The first major monotheistic religion is largely believed to be zoroastrianism, and even as late as the 8th centure b.c.e. there is no evidence of absolute monotheism in judaism. Many jewish stories originally portrayed a pantheon of gods, with female deities becoming less powerful as time went by, and eventually with the merging of the competing dieties into one.

Viable source anyone? what happened to Amenhotep and the fact that Moses existed far prior to the 8th century bc

It is generally acknowledged the judaism was originally polytheistic.

The god of Genesis is bisexual: he/she is often referred to in female as well as male terms. For instance, this god is represented frequently as "mothering" or "giving birth through labor pains" to the world and humans (these passages are universally mistranslated in English as "fathering"—this god is only referred to as a "father" twice in Genesis )....

Early Hebrew religion was polytheistic; the curious plural form of the name of God, Elohim rather than El, leads them to believe that the original Hebrew religion involved several gods. This plural form, however, can be explained as a "royal" plural. Several other aspects of the account of Hebrew religion in Genesis also imply a polytheistic faith.


— The earliest Hebrew religion was animistic, that is, the Hebrews seemed worship forces of nature that dwelled in natural objects.


— As a result, much of early Hebrew religion had a number of practices that fall into the category of magic: scapegoat sacrifice and various forms of imitative magic, all of which are preserved in the text of Genesis .


— Early Hebrew religion eventually became anthropomorphic, that is, god or the gods took human forms; in later Hebrew religion, Yahweh becomes a figure that transcends the human and material worlds. Individual tribes probably worshipped different gods; there is no evidence in Genesis that anything like a national God existed in the time of the patriarchs.


http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/premo.html

Their principal goddess was Asherah, consort of the most senior of the ancient deities of the area. Also in the pantheon of goddesses was Shapsh (Sun), Yarih (Moon), Astarte (androgynous) and Anat (warrior), some of whom were also sometimes identified with Asherah.

The cult of Asherah is confirmed by the archaeological record, which allows us to reinterpret previously incomprehensible passages in ancient texts. These include the Bible itself, which provides ample evidence of attempts to suppress information of the widespread worship of Asherah and other polytheistic practices.

She was a central deity to whom women and men both gave allegiance. Jewish Kabbalistic writings also confirm an early goddess called Shekinah, and testify to the holy act of sexual union between her and Yahweh, sometimes graphically described. Under the matriarchy, sex is not just holy, it is also very sexy; under the patriarchy it is regulated, controlled and, finally, under Paul, barely tolerated...

The figurines invariably depict a nude female figure with large breasts and an often graphically displayed pubic triangle. The Bible refers to the shrines as “high places� characterised by Asherah -- typically translated as “groves� or wooden poles, but now believed to have been symbols of the goddess. Asherah was fully identified with trees -- the embodiment of wisdom in ancient Canaanite religion -- and many depictions show her growing from a tree trunk.



http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=251463&area=/insight/insight__international/

there seems to be decisive evidence that the Israelites worshipped a goddess, a consort of their main deity, right up until their destruction in 722 BC.....

Oddly, it seems that the commonest objects found in Israelite archaeological sites are female figurines - evidently idols. Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Magonet explains that a number of Hebrew words are translated as "God". One such term, the word used in the first sentence of the Book of Genesis, is a plural. Professor William Dever says it is now known that the Israelites worshipped several gods including a goddess, Ashera, and Diana Edelman says that she was a widely worshipped fertility goddess. Dever tells John that when he first discovered an Israelite inscription proving that Ashera was being worshipped he was afraid to publish it, and kept it secret until others found more evidence that the God of the Israelites did have a Goddess as a consort. Visiting the excavation at Tel Rehov, John is shown an Israelite shrine which seems to be a place for worshipping three or four gods and the goddess.....

While the Bible does not conceal the idolatrous aspects of Solomon's Temple, it does seem to conceal the worship of the Goddess. Diana Edelmen argues that this has been done by inserting small grammatical changes - which so mystified the translators of the Authorised Version that the Goddess Ashera became a grove of trees when she was put into English.

The programme then picks up John again at Arad, where he hears how the Temple there was deliberately closed down and put out of use by King Hezekiah at the end of the 8th century BC, as part of a process of centralising all worship in Jerusalem.


http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s766064.htm

To finish the final thing, this is not completely true. Another thing that is true is that they used perishables for losses. Papyrus is not permanent. it tears, fades, and decomposes. Job, as I stated, predates even Sumer.

I'm not sure if your disputing the two things or one.

But, as to the records, while it obviously is true not all the records survived (or that we have discovered all the ones that have), many papyrus documents have survived. Obviously there could be a record of the event in undiscovered documents or documents that have deteriorated or been destroyed in other ways. But we have no reason to believe such documents exist (nothing mentioned in other sources for example), and no archeological evidence suggesting such an event took place. The only evidence is scriptural, which is faith, not science.

[forest_ranger254]

The teaching is on record as existing before jesus. Obviously you can argue that if Jesus is God then, as God, he could have given him the idea before Jesus existed as a human. But the point is that the idea was not unique to the human Jesus.

And your point was? Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews, obviously He would use terms and phrases the audience would be familiar with. If I used Calvinball (a sport from the show Firefly, historically from the past) as an illustration in America, would it be a useful illustration? no, because Americans are unfamiliar with it. Jesus used things the audience would understand, and a previous teaching from another rabbi would be easy to use. consider the context of the Pharisees and Saducees being there. They would understand the saying.

Your line of reasoning can be used with pretty much anything, but can't be proved or disproved in any way. It's not the type of argument you can make using concrete evidence. It's a faith argument, unconvincing to the unconverted.

and neither is yours. I cannot conclusively prove or disprove your view either. Thus, I counter with another argument that, likewise, can't be countered.

Also, people don't cite everything they teach. Peoples ideas overlap, sometimes they both genuinely come up with the same idea on their own but, more often, they pick it up from somewhere. They may not know where it came from though. For example, people hold many culturally specific beliefs (ie. girls wear dresses) but can't explain when they originaly learned them. Or if I were to attend a political speech, I may agree with some of the things said and adopt them as my own, but I may not remember that it wasn't my idea. Then again I might remember. Either way, no teacher gives a source every time they make a statement, regardless of whether they know where it originated from.

Classic example of ethnocentricity right here. Nowadays teachers don't always cite a source. However, back in Jesus' time in Judaea, it was popular to cite a specific popular rabbi to give your teaching credibility. Back then, in the days where everything was word of mouth, people would always cite another teacher. Jesus NEVER cited a source, or at least isn't recorded to have.

Also, although I find it unlikely as most would not do this, theoretically, jesus may very well have stated that he learned X from X source. But he did not write down his own words, and we do not have any direct quotes from him. We don't know how close the bible comes to his original words.

not fully, but the original books were written by contemporaries. John-Mark, for example, the writer of Mark, was alluded to in the gospel as a young man that fled at the garden scene. John was one of Jesus' closest disciples. Matthew was a disciple. the only gospel that wasn't written by a contemporary of Jesus was Luke, and he was a doctor, notorious for over-researching things. He got seemingly small facts like the fact that Jesus sweated blood in the garden, and the fact that blood and water flowed from the spear wound, which happens only when a person is dead because the pericardium fills with water exiting the cells through osmosis.

How do we know he said that? The bible says that, be we don't have any evidence to support that.

all three gospels that mention it agree on that. Three witnesses is enough for me to put a person in jail.

The fact that cults of his continued and that he is essential in a religion where Jesus is of no importance (other than it mentioning he was baptised by jon), is evidence that his mission did not end with Jesus. It would be very odd indeed for him to essentially surrender himself to Jesus yet for his followers not to do the same. We know that the Mandaeans, who originate (and exist to this day) in the same time period as christians, are not concerned with jesus. We don't know much about the beliefs of other, now deceased, groups that centered on John the baptist, other than they continued for a significant period after his death. But there's no evidence of any focus on jesus in what little we know.

His mission never changed. His mission was to continue to prepare people and give out the truth in the scriptures. the Mandaeans still are looking for a messiah who will bring the kingdom to earth. They misunderstood Jesus's statement when they asked if He was really the one they were looking for. The proof that John is not to be the most important one is the ressurection of JESUS, not John.

What's your point? I'm not really arguing for the validity, or lack there of, of any faith, not judaism, not christianity, not mandaeanism. My point is that history does not seem to back up the bible account of jon. It could be true, it could be false, it could be somewhere in between. The point is it's not definate.

is John dead still? then he is not the messiah. did he die on a tree, as the Bible prophecied and was fulfilled by Jesus? no, so he is not the Messiah. Did he rise from the dead and ascend to heaven? no, so he is not the messiah. you put up what they believed and implied the question of "why is this not true?"

You argued that my point was easily refuted since "if judaism is correct then it's the original faith", that doesn't mean anything if you don't establish judaism as the original faith, something I disputed. You didn't explain why I am wrong, you made a hypothetical argument that, if correct (you did not claim it was), would make me wrong.

your argument is the opposite. Your argument is that IF Judaism is not true, then it is not the original belief.

While I don't know the origins of Job, primarily because I've never looked into it and the name of the book itself makes it hard to search quickly for it, I find it unlikely that Job predates the summerian creation myth, as we would need evidence that it existed, at the very least, prior to 1700 b.c.e. (the end of sumerian civilization), possibly 3000 b.c.e (the point when it appears the sumerians developed a writing system). Though I can't make any claims about Job, what evidence do you have?

that comes down to looking at the writing. It is obvious from the writing that people hadn't yet grouped into large cities yet, because no major cities are mentioned. Also, major cities in the Fertile Crescent like Ur aren't mentioned. major Israeli and Canaanite cities aren't mentioned, which rules out that he could have been Jewish. closing the window from the other side, it mentions that a storm had caused the deaths of several of his children, which implies that it was after the flood. that places it between 5000 BC to 3000 BC.

Also, I'm not sure what difference it would make in terms of validating the bible. If Job existed before the creation myth then that seems that it would create a bigger problem for your argument than it solves.

no, because it states that Jehovah created the world ("the circle of the world is in your hands" speaking to the Lord).

No it's not. Being comprehensive can be the result of two things. One, that it was carried directly from the event and the authors had full understanding of what happened. Or, two, the story went throug many versions, each one slightly altering earlier ones, filling in holes and making it more relevant to the society the story tellers were a part of.

Read the bold, case closed.

You put "or" in bold, is that supposed to mean something? [/quote]

check number one.

You also didn't explain why being comprehensive is anything more than accidental evidence of it being the original one, since being comprehensive has plenty of explanations. Look at the roman gods and how comprehensive the explanation for life, death, nature etc. was.

the thing is, by comprehensive, I mean that you can point to multiple other religions and find ideas that are Christian.

That's not evidence of anything other than that there are many different denominations. Unless you have previously unknown evidence of fraud that is.

read 2nd Peter. it is the response to false teaching in the Christian society. some people will lead a group of iignorant people into a different teaching a little at a time. it's like killing a frog by boiling it. you can put it straight into boiling water, and the frog will jump out right then. however, you can put it in room temperature water and bring the temp up slowly and you will slowly boil it to death.

It is generally acknowledged the judaism was originally polytheistic.

not by anything but a historians unbacked assumption.

The god of Genesis is bisexual: he/she is often referred to in female as well as male terms. For instance, this god is represented frequently as "mothering" or "giving birth through labor pains" to the world and humans (these passages are universally mistranslated in English as "fathering"—this god is only referred to as a "father" twice in Genesis )....

this source has a lot screwed over in it. the Hebrew word is inherently masculine (citing a Hebrew teacher in Tennessee Temple University). YHWH means, simply, "I Am." that is the word used to refer to God in the entire Old Testament.

Early Hebrew religion was polytheistic; the curious plural form of the name of God, Elohim rather than El, leads them to believe that the original Hebrew religion involved several gods. This plural form, however, can be explained as a "royal" plural. Several other aspects of the account of Hebrew religion in Genesis also imply a polytheistic faith.

Elohim. the reason it is a plural term is referring to the Trinity, the three-in-one God.

— The earliest Hebrew religion was animistic, that is, the Hebrews seemed worship forces of nature that dwelled in natural objects.

once again, they have no viable source. this is based on assumption. That is agreed to across tha board by Jewish rabbis and Christian preachers and historians. this argument is so outdated that it isn't even addressed in the Da Vinci Code and the Jesus Papers and other critiques of Christianity and Judaism.

— As a result, much of early Hebrew religion had a number of practices that fall into the category of magic: scapegoat sacrifice and various forms of imitative magic, all of which are preserved in the text of Genesis .

Read the book of Leviticus. the commandments to do these sacrifices is preceded by "thus saith THE Lord." not Lords, or powers. singular. the scapegoat sacrifice is a metaphor of the sin being paid for and carried away by the scapegoat. it represents the God not only forgives it, but forgets it.

I don't have the time top finish yet. I have class in a little bit, will return to finish.

[forest_ranger254]

— Early Hebrew religion eventually became anthropomorphic, that is, god or the gods took human forms; in later Hebrew religion, Yahweh becomes a figure that transcends the human and material worlds. Individual tribes probably worshipped different gods; there is no evidence in Genesis that anything like a national God existed in the time of the patriarchs.


Wrong word, try metaphorical. you might then get the right word.

Their principal goddess was Asherah, consort of the most senior of the ancient deities of the area. Also in the pantheon of goddesses was Shapsh (Sun), Yarih (Moon), Astarte (androgynous) and Anat (warrior), some of whom were also sometimes identified with Asherah.

Exodus 34:13
But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves:
the Bible defends itself there.

The cult of Asherah is confirmed by the archaeological record, which allows us to reinterpret previously incomprehensible passages in ancient texts. These include the Bible itself, which provides ample evidence of attempts to suppress information of the widespread worship of Asherah and other polytheistic practices.

confirmed by archaeological record and in the Bible is recorded to have been destroyed. Exodus 34:13 NIV says to "cut down their Asherah poles." which is what the groves are.

She was a central deity to whom women and men both gave allegiance. Jewish Kabbalistic writings also confirm an early goddess called Shekinah, and testify to the holy act of sexual union between her and Yahweh, sometimes graphically described. Under the matriarchy, sex is not just holy, it is also very sexy; under the patriarchy it is regulated, controlled and, finally, under Paul, barely tolerated...

Objection is made that the word "Shekinah," is not found in the scripture in its noun form and that it describes a concept that is not scriptural. It is said that the word is coined by Post-biblical Rabbinic scholars. While it is admitted that the Rabbinic concept of God being a hovering non-personal force is an unacceptable extension of meaning, the concept of a physical manifestation of God's localized dwelling is none-the-less scriptural. We have chosen to use the word "Shekinah," (shknh) , to name this "presence" since this meaning is in general distribution among many Christians, albeit ignorant of the origin of the word.

http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/shekinah.htm



The figurines invariably depict a nude female figure with large breasts and an often graphically displayed pubic triangle. The Bible refers to the shrines as “high places� characterised by Asherah -- typically translated as “groves� or wooden poles, but now believed to have been symbols of the goddess. Asherah was fully identified with trees -- the embodiment of wisdom in ancient Canaanite religion -- and many depictions show her growing from a tree trunk.

and every time mentioned it is mentioned as a cult. funny. it still doesn't imply that it preceded Judaism. it actually implies that it was in existence at the same time the Bible was being written and was never mentioned in a good light by the authors

there seems to be decisive evidence that the Israelites worshipped a goddess, a consort of their main deity, right up until their destruction in 722 BC.....

no evidence for this.

Oddly, it seems that the commonest objects found in Israelite archaeological sites are female figurines - evidently idols. Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Magonet explains that a number of Hebrew words are translated as "God". One such term, the word used in the first sentence of the Book of Genesis, is a plural. Professor William Dever says it is now known that the Israelites worshipped several gods including a goddess, Ashera, and Diana Edelman says that she was a widely worshipped fertility goddess. Dever tells John that when he first discovered an Israelite inscription proving that Ashera was being worshipped he was afraid to publish it, and kept it secret until others found more evidence that the God of the Israelites did have a Goddess as a consort. Visiting the excavation at Tel Rehov, John is shown an Israelite shrine which seems to be a place for worshipping three or four gods and the goddess.....

Elohim has plural morphological form in Hebrew, but it is used with singular verbs and adjectives in the Hebrew text when the particular meaning of the God of Israel (a singular deity) is traditionally understood. Thus the very first words of the Bible are breshit bara Elohim, where bara ברא is a verb inflected as third person singular masculine perfect. If Elohim were an ordinary plural word, then the plural verb form bar'u בראו would have been used in this sentence instead. Such plural grammatical forms are in fact found in cases where Elohim has semantically plural reference (not referring to the God of Israel).

In most English translations of the Bible (e.g. the King James Version), the letter G in "god" is capitalized in cases where Elohim refers to the God of Israel, but there is no distinction between upper and lower case in the Hebrew text.

also, if you cared to read the books of first and second kings, you would find out what happened to those figurines. throughout those books the Israelites had a problem with idolatry.



While the Bible does not conceal the idolatrous aspects of Solomon's Temple, it does seem to conceal the worship of the Goddess. Diana Edelmen argues that this has been done by inserting small grammatical changes - which so mystified the translators of the Authorised Version that the Goddess Ashera became a grove of trees when she was put into English.

just because you build a temple to God doesn't mean it has to be ugly.

The programme then picks up John again at Arad, where he hears how the Temple there was deliberately closed down and put out of use by King Hezekiah at the end of the 8th century BC, as part of a process of centralising all worship in Jerusalem.


John?????

I'm not sure if your disputing the two things or one.

Two, rather easy for me to fit multiple lines of thought into one paragraph.

But, as to the records, while it obviously is true not all the records survived (or that we have discovered all the ones that have), many papyrus documents have survived. Obviously there could be a record of the event in undiscovered documents or documents that have deteriorated or been destroyed in other ways. But we have no reason to believe such documents exist (nothing mentioned in other sources for example), and no archeological evidence suggesting such an event took place. The only evidence is scriptural, which is faith, not science.


and thus far, archaeologists who start where the Bible says to start have always, always, always found what they were looking for. the city of Ninevah and the city of Troy. the existence of the Hittites. the existence of Nazereth in Jesus' lifetime. all of these were disputed because of lack of written collaboration.

[AlonzoMourning23]

And your point was? Jesus was a Jew speaking to Jews, obviously He would use terms and phrases the audience would be familiar with. If I used Calvinball (a sport from the show Firefly, historically from the past) as an illustration in America, would it be a useful illustration? no, because Americans are unfamiliar with it. Jesus used things the audience would understand, and a previous teaching from another rabbi would be easy to use. consider the context of the Pharisees and Saducees being there. They would understand the saying.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Some teachings that are attributed to jesus as being unique or revolutionary weren't, they were things he learned from other people.

and neither is yours. I cannot conclusively prove or disprove your view either. Thus, I counter with another argument that, likewise, can't be countered.

You're saying the idea that judaism is not an organized religion is easily refuted. Your argument does no such thing. There is archeological and historical evidence that judaism adopted things from different religions. Instead of arguing why such evidence is wrong, you just made up a reason of why it could be wrong. It doesn't explain why I am wrong.

Classic example of ethnocentricity right here. Nowadays teachers don't always cite a source. However, back in Jesus' time in Judaea, it was popular to cite a specific popular rabbi to give your teaching credibility. Back then, in the days where everything was word of mouth, people would always cite another teacher. Jesus NEVER cited a source, or at least isn't recorded to have.

Obviously people do it sometimes, but not always. Honestly we do not know whether jesus cited a source for some teachings, but citing sources for ever thing you said was not common or possible. You can't possibly cite everything you learned from another source. People then,Â*Â*and now, use respected people to give themselves credibility, but a messianic movement (something that was not unique) would involve placing one individual above others, making them more important than all other teachers.


not fully, but the original books were written by contemporaries. John-Mark, for example, the writer of Mark, was alluded to in the gospel as a young man that fled at the garden scene. John was one of Jesus' closest disciples. Matthew was a disciple. the only gospel that wasn't written by a contemporary of Jesus was Luke, and he was a doctor, notorious for over-researching things. He got seemingly small facts like the fact that Jesus sweated blood in the garden, and the fact that blood and water flowed from the spear wound, which happens only when a person is dead because the pericardium fills with water exiting the cells through osmosis.

If you can actually show those people wrote the gospel then you will answer a question that has confounded historians for centuries. While it is true that some have suggested that those people wrote the gospels, it is highly debatable and by no means an accepted fact. Your argument is favored among conservatives but, and this is in no way saying it's necessarily wrong, it's just that they have more of a desire to show that the gospels are literally true, and that they are first hand accounts. Again, that doesn't mean it's wrong, but the evidence isn't really there to support it and it's usually a red flag when a researcher is personally invested in proving a certain belief.

Though, again, a biblical account is not necessarily a historical fact. It's a claim, but not something that can be proven.


all three gospels that mention it agree on that. Three witnesses is enough for me to put a person in jail.

Are they witnesses? That's highly debatable. And a widely accepted theory (due to the similarities in mathew, luke and mark) is that mathew and luke were heavily influenced by mark and mark (along with the other two) were heavily influenced by a lost source known as Q. The idea that they are independent accounts who just happen to be very similar is not widely accepted among researchers.

The fact that cults of his continued and that he is essential in a religion where Jesus is of no importance (other than it mentioning he was baptised by jon), is evidence that his mission did not end with Jesus. It would be very odd indeed for him to essentially surrender himself to Jesus yet for his followers not to do the same. We know that the Mandaeans, who originate (and exist to this day) in the same time period as christians, are not concerned with jesus. We don't know much about the beliefs of other, now deceased, groups that centered on John the baptist, other than they continued for a significant period after his death. But there's no evidence of any focus on jesus in what little we know.

His mission never changed. His mission was to continue to prepare people and give out the truth in the scriptures. the Mandaeans still are looking for a messiah who will bring the kingdom to earth. They misunderstood Jesus's statement when they asked if He was really the one they were looking for. The proof that John is not to be the most important one is the ressurection of JESUS, not John.[/quote]

But the resurrection of jesus is not proveable, neither is it proveable that there is a specific requirement to fulfill to be a messiah. If different faiths have different definitions then there's no way to determine which, if either, is correct.

The Mandaeans believe jesus was a false prophet, and that john the baptist was the messiah. They intersect somewhat with judaism. For example, they believe noah was a prophet. But, at the same time, they believe others such as Moses were false prophets. There scriptures differ significantly from both judaism and christianity. It is believed that gnosticism did influence it somewhat though.

Though John (Yahya) was killed by the angel of death. The angel came to him as a young child to be baptized. He knew that he would die if he touched the child, but he baptized him. His soul did rise according to their beliefs:

The child said, 'I am Manda-t-Haiy and I have come to take your soul above.'

The child took the hand of Yahya in his, and the soul of Yahya left him and his body died in the river.

The king departed, having seen all, and been enlightened, he went, and spoke to all he met of what he had seen and heard.

Now, when he had left his body Yahya looked down and saw his corpse in the water. The birds descended uopn it and began to peck at it, for it began to decay. The vulture flew down, and began to pluck out the eyes.

Yahya gazed at it, and Manda-t-Haiy said, 'Why gaze on that? That is a corrupt thing, of the earth!' And Manda-t-Haiy seized earth and buried it. Yahya was glad, for he had loved his earthly body, which we call paghra or ostuna, and did not wish it harmed. And the grave still appears above the Jordan like a mound, and the Mandai know it for Yahya's grave.

But he was taken and borne to the Realm of Light, and to Shamish and the Lord of Radiance, and joined in the perpetual worship of the Light King.

http://www.mandaeanworld.com/oral_folklore4.html


is John dead still? then he is not the messiah. did he die on a tree, as the Bible prophecied and was fulfilled by Jesus? no, so he is not the Messiah. Did he rise from the dead and ascend to heaven? no, so he is not the messiah. you put up what they believed and implied the question of "why is this not true?"

According the mandaean view he ascended to heaven. But you did nothing to refute their beliefs. You argued he's not the messiah according to christian beliefs, but that is all. You assume one belief is true and all things must conform to that, but you didn't show the christian interpretation to be the correct one.

You also cannot prove that jesus ascended to heaven, or that jesus did not simply remain dead upon his death. These are claims, not proveable facts. Even what Jesus supposedly did cannot be proven. Did jesus rise from the dead? Did Jesus die for our sins? You can believe what you want, but you can't prove he did those things and fulfilled those prophecies. It's how you interperet the events, and whether you view certain scriptures as credible or not.


your argument is the opposite. Your argument is that IF Judaism is not true, then it is not the original belief.

My argument is that stories from judaism predate judaism, I did not argue that validity of anything. My argument presented evidence, not just a hypothetical response claiming to show I'm wrong.


that comes down to looking at the writing. It is obvious from the writing that people hadn't yet grouped into large cities yet, because no major cities are mentioned. Also, major cities in the Fertile Crescent like Ur aren't mentioned. major Israeli and Canaanite cities aren't mentioned, which rules out that he could have been Jewish. closing the window from the other side, it mentions that a storm had caused the deaths of several of his children, which implies that it was after the flood. that places it between 5000 BC to 3000 BC.

The bible is not evidence of itself. Just because the bible says X happened on X date or X place means nothing in terms of hard evidence. There is no archeological evidence of a worldwide flood and, even if there was, that doesn't show that the biblical account is accurate.

Of course the biblical story of creation took place before the biblical story of job, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of archeological evidence. Your argument is only true if the bible is accepted as literally true, something that is not done in archeological research, which is what this debate is about. You can't really claim the story of Job predates the sumerian creation myth unless you have non scripture evidence to that effect.

But even if you had evidence that Job was older than the sumerian creation myth, that doesn't mean anything other than simply that. It doesn't make the theory that the biblical creation myth is based on the sumerian one incorrect, as there is no assumption that any of the myths are true to begin with. If Job predates the creation myth it could simply mean that the jews incorporated the story of Job from source A and the creation myth from source B, and A had simply existed for a longer time than B. They may even have been incorporated at the same time period.


no, because it states that Jehovah created the world ("the circle of the world is in your hands" speaking to the Lord).

How do we know that's true?


check number one.

Can you prove it was taken from the actual event and the authors fully understood it? And, if it was taken from the actual event, can you show that it was passed down through generations unaltered?


the thing is, by comprehensive, I mean that you can point to multiple other religions and find ideas that are Christian.

Because people in close contact influence each other. If I were to start my own religion it would be influenced by the society I live in, and it could be argued that I borrowed many arguments from religions I was familiar with, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.


read 2nd Peter. it is the response to false teaching in the Christian society. some people will lead a group of iignorant people into a different teaching a little at a time. it's like killing a frog by boiling it. you can put it straight into boiling water, and the frog will jump out right then. however, you can put it in room temperature water and bring the temp up slowly and you will slowly boil it to death.

Again, the bible is not evidence of itself. Even if it was true, then it by no means tells you which group got it right. Different groups formed over various conflicts over how to truly be christians, there's no definitive test for which one is right and, even if there was, that says nothing about whether the people are trying to "trick" anyone.


this source has a lot screwed over in it. the Hebrew word is inherently masculine (citing a Hebrew teacher in Tennessee Temple University). YHWH means, simply, "I Am." that is the word used to refer to God in the entire Old Testament.


Elohim. the reason it is a plural term is referring to the Trinity, the three-in-one God.


once again, they have no viable source. this is based on assumption. That is agreed to across tha board by Jewish rabbis and Christian preachers and historians. this argument is so outdated that it isn't even addressed in the Da Vinci Code and the Jesus Papers and other critiques of Christianity and Judaism.

Last time I checked a fiction novel is not a serious critique of anything. Though I'm not sure why the opinion of a preacher or religious leader is more important than archeological evidence, since we are dealing with archeological research and ancient historical accounts.


Read the book of Leviticus. the commandments to do these sacrifices is preceded by "thus saith THE Lord." not Lords, or powers. singular. the scapegoat sacrifice is a metaphor of the sin being paid for and carried away by the scapegoat. it represents the God not only forgives it, but forgets it.

The bible is not evidence of itself. And you'd be hard pressed to argue that all the stories have passed to our generation unaltered, especially when contemporary bible have multiple translations, of varying quality, to begin with.

While your free to believe in what you want, I'm not sure why you are disputing an argument based on secular archeology and historical views with scripture and religious interpretations. They are two entirely different arguments. You wouldn't argue about the nature of god (in the divine sense) through secular evidence, and you can't dispute archeological evidence with the bible. Probably the only exception would be if someone says "X can't have happened since there is no evidence" and the bible says there shouldn't be evidence to begin with.

It's not really worth me responding to each individual comment about the sources if you are simply going to respond to archeological and historical data with arguments based on modern scripture. They're simply different debates.

Again, I don't have a problem with any of your arguments, even if I don't necessarily agree with all of your interpretations of scripture. It's just your arguing something different than I am. Your arguing about what scripture says, I'm not.

and thus far, archaeologists who start where the Bible says to start have always, always, always found what they were looking for. the city of Ninevah and the city of Troy. the existence of the Hittites. the existence of Nazereth in Jesus' lifetime. all of these were disputed because of lack of written collaboration.

Worldwide flood- no evidence. Exodus- no evidence. Israelite slaves in egypt- no evidence. There have always been a few people who claimed to have evidence that supports such and such event, but they generally have been, more or less, grasping at straws and their evidence hasn't been accepted by practically anyone else in their field. These things happen all the time in every field, it's nothing unique to biblical archeology. They may be right, it's just that they haven't found evidence to show that.

Many biblical places we know existed. We have written accounts of nazareth being in existence at the time of jesus, and you can go to israel and visit it. You can go to palestine and visit bethlehem and jericho. Anyone can go and see them. For other places we have evidence that they may have existed. We have uncovered what some archeologists believe to be sodom and gomorrah, though it's disputed and they aren't believed to have been actually called that. But, there is a significant difference between showing a place existed and showing that particular events occured. Or, if such events occured (ie. a flood or earthquake), showing that they were caused by divine forces as opposed to natural reasons.

[forest_ranger254]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Some teachings that are attributed to jesus as being unique or revolutionary weren't, they were things he learned from other people.

Thus far you have quoted a single one. It still does nothing to bolster your argument that Christianity is not an original religion, since it just proves even more that Christianity was based in Judaism.

You're saying the idea that judaism is not an organized religion is easily refuted. Your argument does no such thing. There is archeological and historical evidence that judaism adopted things from different religions. Instead of arguing why such evidence is wrong, you just made up a reason of why it could be wrong. It doesn't explain why I am wrong.

no, there is evidence of similarities. NOT that they stole.

Obviously people do it sometimes, but not always. Honestly we do not know whether jesus cited a source for some teachings, but citing sources for ever thing you said was not common or possible. You can't possibly cite everything you learned from another source. People then, and now, use respected people to give themselves credibility, but a messianic movement (something that was not unique) would involve placing one individual above others, making them more important than all other teachers.

Jesus NEVER cited a single thing. You are arguing in circles. Jesus refuted most of what the Pharisees and Saducees said, quoting from the Old Testament, saying that the one that is without sin should cast the first stone, etc.

If you can actually show those people wrote the gospel then you will answer a question that has confounded historians for centuries. While it is true that some have suggested that those people wrote the gospels, it is highly debatable and by no means an accepted fact. Your argument is favored among conservatives but, and this is in no way saying it's necessarily wrong, it's just that they have more of a desire to show that the gospels are literally true, and that they are first hand accounts. Again, that doesn't mean it's wrong, but the evidence isn't really there to support it and it's usually a red flag when a researcher is personally invested in proving a certain belief.

Luke stated that he wrote his gospel in the book of Acts, which bears his name in the writing itself. There are no competitors for the books of Matthew and Mark, and John is close enough in writing style to the books of First, Second, and Third John and Revelation to easily identify him.

Though, again, a biblical account is not necessarily a historical fact. It's a claim, but not something that can be proven.

Ok, DISPROVE IT THEN. If it is not historical that Jesus existed, why the books. Historians accept that Buddha existed based on papers written years after he died by his followers. The Koran never names Muhammed, and his biography was written 100 years after he died, obviously not a contemporary. You accept that they exist, based, again, on his followers. why the dichotomy?

Are they witnesses? That's highly debatable. And a widely accepted theory (due to the similarities in mathew, luke and mark) is that mathew and luke were heavily influenced by mark and mark (along with the other two) were heavily influenced by a lost source known as Q. The idea that they are independent accounts who just happen to be very similar is not widely accepted among researchers.

John-Mark was a contemporary of Jesus and His disciples. He mentions it in the garden scene as a "young man" that fled with the disciples. Q is a source that is highly debatable existence-wise, considering that we have no proof it existed excepting the gnostic non-existents.

But the resurrection of jesus is not proveable, neither is it proveable that there is a specific requirement to fulfill to be a messiah. If different faiths have different definitions then there's no way to determine which, if either, is correct.

300 prophecies that ANY Jewish rabbi will point out to you. ALL fulfilled by Jesus. why do you not accept his contemporaries, but accept Buddha's biography which was written at least 70 years after he died? every book in the Bible was written within 70 years of his death. most of the epistles were written before 70 AD.

The Mandaeans believe jesus was a false prophet, and that john the baptist was the messiah. They intersect somewhat with judaism. For example, they believe noah was a prophet. But, at the same time, they believe others such as Moses were false prophets. There scriptures differ significantly from both judaism and christianity. It is believed that gnosticism did influence it somewhat though.

Hence the reason they don't accept Jesus as God. Read First John to get the Christian response to gnosticism.

Though John (Yahya) was killed by the angel of death. The angel came to him as a young child to be baptized. He knew that he would die if he touched the child, but he baptized him. His soul did rise according to their beliefs:

His soul rose, as written in the Bible. However, to be the Messiah, his body had to rise under his own power.

According the mandaean view he ascended to heaven. But you did nothing to refute their beliefs. You argued he's not the messiah according to christian beliefs, but that is all. You assume one belief is true and all things must conform to that, but you didn't show the christian interpretation to be the correct one.

I argued it according to JEWISH beliefs. I based every prophecy on the Old Testament. for example, He did not fulfill the following OT prophecies:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

here is the full list:

Born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2, Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4-7)
Born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:21-23) as a descendant of Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 22:18; Matthew 1:1; Galatians 3:16), of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10; Luke 3:23, 33; Hebrews 7:14), and of the house of David (2 Samuel 7:12-16; Matthew 1:1)
Herod killing the infants (Jeremiah 31:15; Matthew 2:16-18)
Taken to Egypt (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:14-15)
Heralded by the messenger of the Lord (John the Baptist) (Isaiah 40:3-5; Malachi 3:1; Matthew 3:1-3)
Anointed by the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2; Matthew 3:16-17)
Preached good news (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:14-21)
Performed miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6; Matthew 9:35)
Cleansed the Temple (Malachi 3:1; Matthew 21:12-13)
Ministered in Galilee (Isaiah 9:1; Matthew 4:12-16)
Entered Jerusalem as a king on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:4-9)
First presented Himself as King 173,880 days from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25; Matthew 21:4-11)
Rejected by Jews (Psalm 118:22; 1 Peter 2:7)
Died a humiliating death (Psalm 22; Isaiah 53)
involving:
rejection (Isaiah 53:3; John 1:10-11; 7:5,48),
betrayal by a friend (Psalm 41:9; Luke 22:3-4; John 13:18),
sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12; Matthew 26:14-15), silence before His accusers (Isaiah 53:7; Matthew 27:12-14),
being mocked (Psalm 22: 7-8; Matthew 27:31),
beaten (Isaiah 52:14; Matthew 27:26),
spit upon (Isaiah 50:6; Matthew 27:30),
piercing His hands and feet (Psalm 22:16; Matthew 27:31),
being crucified with thieves (Isaiah 53:12; Matthew 27:38),
praying for His persecutors (Isaiah 53:12; Luke 23:34),
piercing His side (Zechariah 12:10; John 19:34),
given gall and vinegar to drink (Psalm 69:21, Matthew 27:34, Luke 23:36),
no broken bones (Psalm 34:20; John 19:32-36),
buried in a rich man's tomb (Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:57-60),
casting lots for His garments (Psalm 22:18; John 19:23-24).
Rose from the dead! (Psalm 16:10; Mark 16:6; Acts 2:31)
Ascended into Heaven (Psalm 68:18; Acts 1:9)
Sat down at the right hand of God (Psalm 110:1; Hebrews 1:3)


You also cannot prove that jesus ascended to heaven, or that jesus did not simply remain dead upon his death. These are claims, not proveable facts. Even what Jesus supposedly did cannot be proven. Did jesus rise from the dead? Did Jesus die for our sins? You can believe what you want, but you can't prove he did those things and fulfilled those prophecies. It's how you interperet the events, and whether you view certain scriptures as credible or not.

The evidence was enough to lead Dr Gary Habermas to say, "...People just grasp at straws trying to account for the appearances. But nothing fits all the evidence better than the explanation that Jesus was alive."
Michael Green said, "The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity...There can be no rational doubt that they occurred, and that the main reason why Christians became sure of the ressurection in the earliest days was just this. They could say with assurance, 'We have seen the Lord.' They knew it was he."

My argument is that stories from judaism predate judaism, I did not argue that validity of anything. My argument presented evidence, not just a hypothetical response claiming to show I'm wrong.

and I need more than the fact that there are similarities between it and many, many other religions in areas that are remote from it.

The bible is not evidence of itself. Just because the bible says X happened on X date or X place means nothing in terms of hard evidence. There is no archeological evidence of a worldwide flood and, even if there was, that doesn't show that the biblical account is accurate.

I am narrowing it down by seeing places it mentions in the book. They have figured out many, many book settings by seeing what places were mentioned. It's like assuming that I am from Florida if I mention small cities like Stark and Ft Lauderdale.

Of course the biblical story of creation took place before the biblical story of job, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of archeological evidence. Your argument is only true if the bible is accepted as literally true, something that is not done in archeological research, which is what this debate is about. You can't really claim the story of Job predates the sumerian creation myth unless you have non scripture evidence to that effect.

you can't claim that the Sumerian creation myth predated the Biblical version without non-Sumerian evidence either. you are using the myth to date it. I am doing a scholarly analysis of the book's content to find out the setting and thus, the dating. they have used things even more tangentary to date books. they assume that Homer's works were written in 1000 BC based on a copy of a copy of a copy that was written over 1000 years after Homer died. you know how? By seing the content. I am using the same things they used. If you want to say it isn't evidence, you might want to refute Darwin's works as being his, Muhhammed's, Buddha's, and almost every book written before the innovation of the printing press.

But even if you had evidence that Job was older than the sumerian creation myth, that doesn't mean anything other than simply that. It doesn't make the theory that the biblical creation myth is based on the sumerian one incorrect, as there is no assumption that any of the myths are true to begin with. If Job predates the creation myth it could simply mean that the jews incorporated the story of Job from source A and the creation myth from source B, and A had simply existed for a longer time than B. They may even have been incorporated at the same time period.

it makes it older than Sumer. Job mentions the creation.

How do we know that's true?

you ever read the book?

Can you prove it was taken from the actual event and the authors fully understood it? And, if it was taken from the actual event, can you show that it was passed down through generations unaltered?

why is it here and why did it end up in the Bible if the Jews originally wanted to cut it out?

Because people in close contact influence each other. If I were to start my own religion it would be influenced by the society I live in, and it could be argued that I borrowed many arguments from religions I was familiar with, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.

and likewise, a huge religion could influence the society around it.

Again, the bible is not evidence of itself. Even if it was true, then it by no means tells you which group got it right. Different groups formed over various conflicts over how to truly be christians, there's no definitive test for which one is right and, even if there was, that says nothing about whether the people are trying to "trick" anyone.

you are NEVER going to accept ANYTHING as truly existing. every belief is based on itself.

Last time I checked a fiction novel is not a serious critique of anything. Though I'm not sure why the opinion of a preacher or religious leader is more important than archeological evidence, since we are dealing with archeological research and ancient historical accounts.

check the evidence. there is more evidence of Jesus' existence than any religious leader.

The bible is not evidence of itself. And you'd be hard pressed to argue that all the stories have passed to our generation unaltered, especially when contemporary bible have multiple translations, of varying quality, to begin with.

if you want to REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT...
goes over and hits the record player.
...the same argument you won't get anywhere. Because of the FACT that the original religion will base itself on itself is proof that it is the original religion. and secondly, God would make sure the original religion survived. the mere fact that every prophecy leading up to the upcoming war between Israel and Iran (Gog of Magog, Ezekiel 32), means that something more than man is behind it.

Worldwide flood- no evidence. Exodus- no evidence. Israelite slaves in egypt- no evidence. There have always been a few people who claimed to have evidence that supports such and such event, but they generally have been, more or less, grasping at straws and their evidence hasn't been accepted by practically anyone else in their field. These things happen all the time in every field, it's nothing unique to biblical archeology. They may be right, it's just that they haven't found evidence to show that.

worldwide flood evidence twisted to support the ice age
exodus evidence is the Bible. it being the only source on it, there is NOTHING to refute it. the argument of lack of evidence is a logical fallacy.

Many biblical places we know existed. We have written accounts of nazareth being in existence at the time of jesus, and you can go to israel and visit it. You can go to palestine and visit bethlehem and jericho. Anyone can go and see them. For other places we have evidence that they may have existed. We have uncovered what some archeologists believe to be sodom and gomorrah, though it's disputed and they aren't believed to have been actually called that. But, there is a significant difference between showing a place existed and showing that particular events occured. Or, if such events occured (ie. a flood or earthquake), showing that they were caused by divine forces as opposed to natural reasons.

and you expect God to work in supernatural way every time? He usually works in seemingly natural ways. one of my friends went in for cancer surgery to get it cut out. it was going to be a series of three surgeries. they went in the first time, observing and cutting out part of the cancer. they had him come in two weeks later and gave a CAT scan to see how to go on. they saw the cancer, made their game plans, and had him come in the next day. they cut in, and found no cancer, despite the visual and electrical knowledge that it was there. they sewed him up and told him he was cured with NO MEDICAL REASON. that isn't a supernatural raising from the dead, but you can't disprove it happened.

[AlonzoMourning23]

[quote=alonzomourning23]Yes, that's what I'm saying. Some teachings that are attributed to jesus as being unique or revolutionary weren't, they were things he learned from other people.

Thus far you have quoted a single one. It still does nothing to bolster your argument that Christianity is not an original religion, since it just proves even more that Christianity was based in Judaism.

And nowhere did I suggest it did. Repeatedly I've stated that it related to how revolutionary jesus teachings were. If you look early into this topic a claim was made that that teaching was revolutionary. It had nothing to do with the issue of judaism being original or not.

And I'm not sure why you are even trying to prove christianity was based on judaism, since that wasn't challenged and I even used that as an example of the origins of religions.

You're saying the idea that judaism is not an organized religion is easily refuted. Your argument does no such thing. There is archeological and historical evidence that judaism adopted things from different religions. Instead of arguing why such evidence is wrong, you just made up a reason of why it could be wrong. It doesn't explain why I am wrong.

no, there is evidence of similarities. NOT that they stole.

Stole is not really the correct word. But, in terms of archeological and historical evidence, there is reason to believe that judaism, like practically all religions,did not arise from a vacuum. It's origins and history are the result of the environments it found itself in, and those environments eventually lead to modern day judaism.

Archeological and historical evidence is completely distinct from scripture. Scripture simply provides claims and places to look, but its claims aren't given authority in areas of secular research. The bible is treated, as it should be, as any other religious text. It's claims acquire a level of validity only when other evidence supports them.

Obviously people do it sometimes, but not always. Honestly we do not know whether jesus cited a source for some teachings, but citing sources for ever thing you said was not common or possible. You can't possibly cite everything you learned from another source. People then,Â*Â*and now, use respected people to give themselves credibility, but a messianic movement (something that was not unique) would involve placing one individual above others, making them more important than all other teachers.

Jesus NEVER cited a single thing. You are arguing in circles. Jesus refuted most of what the Pharisees and Saducees said, quoting from the Old Testament, saying that the one that is without sin should cast the first stone, etc.

Again, you are basing that claim on what scripture states. That's fine, but that is not an argument in the realm of archeological and historical evidence.

It would not be in the interest of early christians, and would be counter to their worldview, to show jesus as a product of his environment. He was unique to them, he was divine, and that's how they saw him.

If you can actually show those people wrote the gospel then you will answer a question that has confounded historians for centuries. While it is true that some have suggested that those people wrote the gospels, it is highly debatable and by no means an accepted fact. Your argument is favored among conservatives but, and this is in no way saying it's necessarily wrong, it's just that they have more of a desire to show that the gospels are literally true, and that they are first hand accounts. Again, that doesn't mean it's wrong, but the evidence isn't really there to support it and it's usually a red flag when a researcher is personally invested in proving a certain belief.

Luke stated that he wrote his gospel in the book of Acts, which bears his name in the writing itself. There are no competitors for the books of Matthew and Mark, and John is close enough in writing style to the books of First, Second, and Third John and Revelation to easily identify him.

All those gospels may have been written by the people you cited, that is a view held by many conservative christians and theologians. But many do challenge those views stating the lack of non scriptural evidence to support them, and argue that the authors are unknown or were multiple authors, as in the case of john. Though some suggest Luke was written by a woman, due to the extra amphasis on mary in the beginning. Though this could simply be due to mary playing a stronger role in early christianity and the probability that women were very powerful in the early church, as some evidence suggests.Â*Â*

Though, again, a biblical account is not necessarily a historical fact. It's a claim, but not something that can be proven.

Ok, DISPROVE IT THEN. If it is not historical that Jesus existed, why the books. Historians accept that Buddha existed based on papers written years after he died by his followers. The Koran never names Muhammed, and his biography was written 100 years after he died, obviously not a contemporary. You accept that they exist, based, again, on his followers. why the dichotomy?

First off, you don't know if I believe buddha, muhammend etc. existed. You also don't know if I believe jesus existed, as I have not made any claims suggesting he did or did not exist.

Second, I do not have to disprove scripture to say there is no evidence to support such a claim and that we don't know if it occured. In fact, if I did disprove it, then my claim would be incorrect. You want to argue that scripture presents historical facts, you are arguing some did happen, and that archeological and historical evidence supports it. I'm arguing that there isn't real evidence to support it and that we have no idea if these events happen.

If I were to claim they definately did not happen then I must present evidence to show that and prove I'm correct. Since I'm not making such a strong claim, but you are, you need to show that A. archeological and historical evidence supports your view and B. that your view can be proven. I'd never claim these events definately did not happen, as that would be foolish. By their very nature they don't transfer well to evidence.

Though the quran does name muhammed:

[33:40] Muhammad was not the father of any man among you. He was a messenger of GOD and the final prophet. GOD is fully aware of all things........

[47:2] Those who believe and work righteousness, and believe in what was sent down to Muhammad - which is the truth from their Lord - He remits their sins, and blesses them with contentment......[quote]

Those are two of the passages where muhammed is mentioned by name in the quran.

Though there is some dispute over who wrote the quran. Most historians believe either muhammed recited it and scribes wrote it (he's believed to have been illiterate), or at that he recited the bulk of the ideas and others pieced it together. One less accepted theory though holds that it was partially written during his life, and was heavily expanded and reformed in the following decades or so after his death.Â*Â*

Though other sources, such as Hadith (containing sayings of muhammed), are essential in islam and complement the qu'ran. Biographies of muhammed, like biographies of jesus, are distinct from the central religious texts, which also make claims about those peoples lives.

There is plenty of debate over whether scriptural texts where directly from Buddha or not. Buddha is mentioned by hindu's, which gives some credibility to his existence. Though there's about a 200 year period where he could have been born in.

Though there isn't much reason to think buddha, muhammed, jesus etc. did not exist. At these points in history there is existing evidence from other sources of their existence. There is dispute over whether religious figures such as Moses, Zoroaster etc. existed, but there is little over the 3 you mentioned.

[quote]Are they witnesses? That's highly debatable. And a widely accepted theory (due to the similarities in mathew, luke and mark) is that mathew and luke were heavily influenced by mark and mark (along with the other two) were heavily influenced by a lost source known as Q. The idea that they are independent accounts who just happen to be very similar is not widely accepted among researchers.

John-Mark was a contemporary of Jesus and His disciples. He mentions it in the garden scene as a "young man" that fled with the disciples. Q is a source that is highly debatable existence-wise, considering that we have no proof it existed excepting the gnostic non-existents.

It's a theory, as I stated, but a widely accepted one. My whole point, as I repeatedly have stated over and over, is that we really don't know much conclusively. Most of it what we know is highly debatable. Many of the sides you've argued for are popular among conservative theologians, but hold little support outside of that. They could be right or they could be wrong, but they aren't the strong, conclusive claims you suggest they are.

But the resurrection of jesus is not proveable, neither is it proveable that there is a specific requirement to fulfill to be a messiah. If different faiths have different definitions then there's no way to determine which, if either, is correct.

300 prophecies that ANY Jewish rabbi will point out to you. ALL fulfilled by Jesus.

Their fulfillment is what's debatable. For example, suggesting jesus died for our sins is based on the interpretation of events. There's also the issue that jesus, being knowledgable of judaism, would have been aware of many prophecies and know how a messiah should behave. His understanding of messianic prophecies would influence his behavior.

But, there's no way to prove the bible is superior to any other religious text. It's just as likely that the bible is the work of man as it is that the qu'ran, guru granth sahib, veda's etc. are the work of mere men. There's no way to prove that biblical scripture is any different in it's relation to the divine. The prophecies in the bible may simply be the creation of men, or they could be divinely inspired. The same goes for virtually every other religious text.

Most religions believe they posses a truth that other religions do not (though a few, like sikhism, maintain that all religions posses truth).

why do you not accept his contemporaries, but accept Buddha's biography which was written at least 70 years after he died? every book in the Bible was written within 70 years of his death. most of the epistles were written before 70 AD.

I think it's foolish to assume that I believe any book written about a religious figure is completely accurate. I'm not sure what would give the impression that I would assume that.

The Mandaeans believe jesus was a false prophet, and that john the baptist was the messiah. They intersect somewhat with judaism. For example, they believe noah was a prophet. But, at the same time, they believe others such as Moses were false prophets. There scriptures differ significantly from both judaism and christianity. It is believed that gnosticism did influence it somewhat though.

Hence the reason they don't accept Jesus as God. Read First John to get the Christian response to gnosticism.

Mandaens are not gnostic christians. But, even if they were, first john shows one side of the dispute. It does not prove or disprove anything.

Though John (Yahya) was killed by the angel of death. The angel came to him as a young child to be baptized. He knew that he would die if he touched the child, but he baptized him. His soul did rise according to their beliefs:

His soul rose, as written in the Bible. However, to be the Messiah, his body had to rise under his own power.

That's according to your beliefs. There are many ways to be a messiah. It all depends on your theological viewpoint.

According the mandaean view he ascended to heaven. But you did nothing to refute their beliefs. You argued he's not the messiah according to christian beliefs, but that is all. You assume one belief is true and all things must conform to that, but you didn't show the christian interpretation to be the correct one.

I argued it according to JEWISH beliefs. I based every prophecy on the Old Testament. for example, He did not fulfill the following OT prophecies:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

here is the full list:

Born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2, Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4-7)
Born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:21-23) as a descendant of Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 22:18; Matthew 1:1; Galatians 3:16), of the tribe of Judah (Genesis 49:10; Luke 3:23, 33; Hebrews 7:14), and of the house of David (2 Samuel 7:12-16; Matthew 1:1)
Herod killing the infants (Jeremiah 31:15; Matthew 2:16-18)
Taken to Egypt (Hosea 11:1; Matthew 2:14-15)
Heralded by the messenger of the Lord (John the Baptist) (Isaiah 40:3-5; Malachi 3:1; Matthew 3:1-3)
Anointed by the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 11:2; Matthew 3:16-17)
Preached good news (Isaiah 61:1; Luke 4:14-21)
Performed miracles (Isaiah 35:5-6; Matthew 9:35)
Cleansed the Temple (Malachi 3:1; Matthew 21:12-13)
Ministered in Galilee (Isaiah 9:1; Matthew 4:12-16)
Entered Jerusalem as a king on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9; Matthew 21:4-9)
First presented Himself as King 173,880 days from the decree to rebuild Jerusalem (Daniel 9:25; Matthew 21:4-11)
Rejected by Jews (Psalm 118:22; 1 Peter 2:7)
Died a humiliating death (Psalm 22; Isaiah 53)
involving:
rejection (Isaiah 53:3; John 1:10-11; 7:5,48),
betrayal by a friend (Psalm 41:9; Luke 22:3-4; John 13:18),
sold for 30 pieces of silver (Zechariah 11:12; Matthew 26:14-15), silence before His accusers (Isaiah 53:7; Matthew 27:12-14),
being mocked (Psalm 22: 7-8; Matthew 27:31),
beaten (Isaiah 52:14; Matthew 27:26),
spit upon (Isaiah 50:6; Matthew 27:30),
piercing His hands and feet (Psalm 22:16; Matthew 27:31),
being crucified with thieves (Isaiah 53:12; Matthew 27:38),
praying for His persecutors (Isaiah 53:12; Luke 23:34),
piercing His side (Zechariah 12:10; John 19:34),
given gall and vinegar to drink (Psalm 69:21, Matthew 27:34, Luke 23:36),
no broken bones (Psalm 34:20; John 19:32-36),
buried in a rich man's tomb (Isaiah 53:9; Matthew 27:57-60),
casting lots for His garments (Psalm 22:18; John 19:23-24).
Rose from the dead! (Psalm 16:10; Mark 16:6; Acts 2:31)
Ascended into Heaven (Psalm 68:18; Acts 1:9)
Sat down at the right hand of God (Psalm 110:1; Hebrews 1:3)

But those prophecies only need fullfilment if you have a certain view of religion. And many aren't very precise.


You also cannot prove that jesus ascended to heaven, or that jesus did not simply remain dead upon his death. These are claims, not proveable facts. Even what Jesus supposedly did cannot be proven. Did jesus rise from the dead? Did Jesus die for our sins? You can believe what you want, but you can't prove he did those things and fulfilled those prophecies. It's how you interperet the events, and whether you view certain scriptures as credible or not.

The evidence was enough to lead Dr Gary Habermas to say, "...People just grasp at straws trying to account for the appearances. But nothing fits all the evidence better than the explanation that Jesus was alive."

Extremely flawed logic, as it assumed that those things occured. It would be like a biologist saying to a creationist "those people grasp at straws trying to explain evolution". Only one is claiming jesus appeared after his death, just as only one is claiming evolution occurs. Simply put, if an event didn't occur, or there's no reason to believe it did (not necessarily that it's wrong, just there's no evidence supporting it) then no explanation for it can be provided. The best that can be done is to refute the available evidence but, when that's virtually nonexistent, you can't do much of anything.

There is no non scriptural evidence of such events, and there's no need to explain things that evidence does not support. Such issues as the resurrection are purely faith based. There's no evidence, nor reason why there should be evidence.

Though ask any muslim and they'll tell you that Jesus did not die on the cross. In their view he became unconscious(the bible states he was given vinegar, but some believe it was poison) and was taken down from the cross, and was placed in the tomb to both decieve authorities and recover from his wounds. He appeared to his followers when he was still alive, and that the wounds they saw were the wounds of a living man recovering from crucifixion. Though there is a minority that argue that Judas, instead of Jesus, was mistakenly crucified by the romans. Those in Islam jesus never died, he was raised to heaven while still alive.

A smaller islamic sect, called Ahmadi, holds a very unique view of jesus. They believe he not only survived the crucifixion, but lived to the age of 120. He continued to preach and travelled to india, and died in Kashmir of old age while searching for the lost tribes of Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadi. The tomb were they believe he is buried can still be visited. It's obviously impossible to verify any of these claims (personally I don't think they're true). Jesus is believed to have adopted the name Yuz Asaf and was buried there. This tomb has been venerated, to varying degrees, since that time and taken care of by his descendents. Some ancient person is buried there and there's evidence to suggest that it may very well be the person known as Yuz Asaf. There's no way to know if Yuz Asaf is jesus though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuz_Asaf. I don't think he is, but it can't be proven one way or the other.

Michael Green said, "The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity...There can be no rational doubt that they occurred, and that the main reason why Christians became sure of the ressurection in the earliest days was just this. They could say with assurance, 'We have seen the Lord.' They knew it was he."

You can state opinions of conflicting sides quite easily, and walk into any university and you will have PHD's various conflicting opinions on any subject. Theologians are people who study religion, this does not indicate their comman of archeological data. Without presenting evidence their opinion is simply that. Considering his absolute opinion is not shared by those who focus on actual, non scripture evidence, and in fact there is not non scriputure evidence supporting it, his opinion is an overstatement at best.

If you want to present a view as credible you present the evidence. The final viewpoint is meaningless without it.

My argument is that stories from judaism predate judaism, I did not argue that validity of anything. My argument presented evidence, not just a hypothetical response claiming to show I'm wrong.

and I need more than the fact that there are similarities between it and many, many other religions in areas that are remote from it.

Well, summerians weren't isolated from the israelites. Their story of gilgamesh (noah) and their creation myths though are the most cited examples of cases where it's believed some jewish traditions originated.

But no one is suggesting that judaism is entirely dependent on other faiths, some stories do originate with judaism, or at least there's no evidence otherwise. But all archeologists and historians have to work with is evidence of similarities, and unearthed evidence (ie. for the widely accepted theory that they weren't originally monotheists) and it gets attention when those similarities existed before judaism in nearby regions. Accepting religious scripture as accurate with archeological evidence would be unscientific.

The bible is not evidence of itself. Just because the bible says X happened on X date or X place means nothing in terms of hard evidence. There is no archeological evidence of a worldwide flood and, even if there was, that doesn't show that the biblical account is accurate.

I am narrowing it down by seeing places it mentions in the book. They have figured out many, many book settings by seeing what places were mentioned. It's like assuming that I am from Florida if I mention small cities like Stark and Ft Lauderdale.

Again, showing a place exists and a specific event occured are very different things. It's like someone 3000 years from now saying "We know Martin Luther King made the "I have a dream" speech because we found the remains of Washington D.C.".

Of course the biblical story of creation took place before the biblical story of job, but that doesn't mean anything in terms of archeological evidence. Your argument is only true if the bible is accepted as literally true, something that is not done in archeological research, which is what this debate is about. You can't really claim the story of Job predates the sumerian creation myth unless you have non scripture evidence to that effect.

you can't claim that the Sumerian creation myth predated the Biblical version without non-Sumerian evidence either. you are using the myth to date it. I am doing a scholarly analysis of the book's content to find out the setting and thus, the dating. they have used things even more tangentary to date books. they assume that Homer's works were written in 1000 BC based on a copy of a copy of a copy that was written over 1000 years after Homer died. you know how? By seing the content. I am using the same things they used.

Not quite. We know summerian myths date from the period that summerian culture existed. It's not being dated any more precise than that. No one is using their scripture to date anything, no one is giving any credibility to their scriptural claims. What is being done is simply looking at when the culture existed. We know when they first started writing, so all we are saying that the myth was created no later than about 2000-1800 b.c.e. It could go back to 3,000 b.c.e., but since they only began writing at that point you can't really speculate beyond that.

Also, no one knows for certain whether Homer existed. It is believed, if he did live, it was during the 8th-11th century b.c.e.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer). But there are no existing accounts of him during his life and known accounts are centuries after his death. Attempts to date the work are based partly on oral tradition and other writers (for example, we know his work was written before other commented on it), and also the style. There are certain styles of writing that were used in different time periods. It would be if someone showed you an 18th century novel and a modern one, you could tell, often very roughly, when it was written. There the knowledge base is also important. Someone isn't going to write about things that were unknown until 100 years after them. Hypothetically, if a God or Goddess is not present in a culture until 500 b.c.e, no one in 800 b.c.e. can write about them. If they are present in a work then we know with reasonable evidence that it can't have been written until at least 500 b.c.e.

Essentially, no one is giving any credibility to the works themselves. No assumptions are made that the claims themselves are correct. They are dating them by the existance of cultures, by writing styles, and by the knowledge contained in the writing. On the other hand, you are giving credibility to the actual scripture. You are assuming an essential validity is held by the bible. No one is doing that with the other works you mentioned.

You are dating events by when the bible says they should have occured. The other sources are dated by structure, references to other things etc., but are not dated by the claims themselves. The validity of the claims is completely unimportant.

If you want to say it isn't evidence, you might want to refute Darwin's works as being his, Muhhammed's, Buddha's, and almost every book written before the innovation of the printing press.

Darwin's work was written in the 19th century. We know his work was his own with about as much authority as we know stephen hawking's work is his own.

Though the printing press simply made books cheaper and easier to produce, books existed long before the printing press. I'm not really sure why you'd think the printing press made books more valid.

But even if you had evidence that Job was older than the sumerian creation myth, that doesn't mean anything other than simply that. It doesn't make the theory that the biblical creation myth is based on the sumerian one incorrect, as there is no assumption that any of the myths are true to begin with. If Job predates the creation myth it could simply mean that the jews incorporated the story of Job from source A and the creation myth from source B, and A had simply existed for a longer time than B. They may even have been incorporated at the same time period.Â*Â*

it makes it older than Sumer. Job mentions the creation.

That's only evidence if you assume Job, or any other biblical story, is accurate. You are giving validity to a biblical timeline that is only supported by the bible itself. If you can show that Job existed before the summerian creation myth existed, and that the references to the biblical creation myth were in the book of Job at that time, then that's evidence. It does not prove much, but at least it's evidence. I don't see how that's possible to prove, considering the age of the texts you'd have to be working with.

How do we know that's true?

you ever read the book?

Yes, just as I have read many other creation myths. Simply being in the bible does not make it true. Your argument is only valid if it is assumed that the bible is true, that's not an assumption that can be made from an archeological standpoint.

Can you prove it was taken from the actual event and the authors fully understood it? And, if it was taken from the actual event, can you show that it was passed down through generations unaltered?

why is it here and why did it end up in the Bible if the Jews originally wanted to cut it out?

Who's to say anyone wanted it cut out? And who's to say that less desirable parts weren't altered?

Because people in close contact influence each other. If I were to start my own religion it would be influenced by the society I live in, and it could be argued that I borrowed many arguments from religions I was familiar with, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.

and likewise, a huge religion could influence the society around it.

Of course. It's foolish to think they are not influenced by each other.

Again, the bible is not evidence of itself. Even if it was true, then it by no means tells you which group got it right. Different groups formed over various conflicts over how to truly be christians, there's no definitive test for which one is right and, even if there was, that says nothing about whether the people are trying to "trick" anyone.

you are NEVER going to accept ANYTHING as truly existing. every belief is based on itself.

We have innumerable claims made by thousands of different religions. There's no reason to just assume that one is more valid than the other. The bible makes one claim, the veda's make one claim, buddhist scripture makes another claim. I can't accept any scripture simply because the scripture states it's true. I have no reason to conclude one is correct while the other are all wrong, and I would have to do so if I were to say that the bible is accurate simply because it states that it is. You seem to think that I should, and if you want to explain why I should believe on religions scripture, the bible, over every other religions scripture then go right ahead.

Very few things are absolute, but if you want to argue that they are likely to have occured, then you need evidence to support that. Without evidence you can't get to that point.

Last time I checked a fiction novel is not a serious critique of anything. Though I'm not sure why the opinion of a preacher or religious leader is more important than archeological evidence, since we are dealing with archeological research and ancient historical accounts.

check the evidence. there is more evidence of Jesus' existence than any religious leader.

Again, I didn't argue this point. But there are multiple religious leaders that have more evidence to support their existence, but that doesn't necessarily mean the evidence for jesus living is lacking. It's just the difference between having 2 non scripture sources and 20. You have strong evidence either way.

The bible is not evidence of itself. And you'd be hard pressed to argue that all the stories have passed to our generation unaltered, especially when contemporary bible have multiple translations, of varying quality, to begin with.

if you want to REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT...
goes over and hits the record player.
...the same argument you won't get anywhere. Because of the FACT that the original religion will base itself on itself is proof that it is the original religion.

Many religions base themselves on themselves. In the minds of their followers hinduism, jainism, zoroastrianism, ancient egyptian beliefs etc. based themselves on themselves, they are the original faith, or at least the modern form of it. Some religions are conscious that they arose and where influenced by other beliefs, such as sikhism, and others are conscious that they directly evolved from other beliefs, such as christianity, islam, baha'i, mandaenism etc.

The original religion would base itself on itself, but that is by no means proof that any religion that bases itself on itself is the original religion, and that isn't proof that it truly does base itself on itself. All it means is that it has lost the connection to previous beliefs. That they are no longer aware of where those beliefs came from. The fact that more than one religion believes they have existed since the dawn of time proves that simply believing that doesn't mean they truly are the original religion.

I would argue that there is no true original religion, that religion likely even predates homosapiens. Obviously I know you don't agree and likely don't believe any human species predated homosapiens, but my point is that an actual original religion doesn't necessarily have to exist from a secular viewpoint, unless you believe god created the world, and created humans as fully modern humans. The original religion simply would have been a fluke (in terms of the time it was created), multiple religions would have arisen in various groups around the same time, as soon as humans were biologically capable of it. I don't mean to spark an argument about this, but I'm simply explaining my own viewpoint, as this is important in understanding my view of religion.

and secondly, God would make sure the original religion survived. the mere fact that every prophecy leading up to the upcoming war between Israel and Iran (Gog of Magog, Ezekiel 32), means that something more than man is behind it.

That's only a fact if A. the original religion truly comes from God and B. that God took an active role in preserving that religion.

And biblical prophecies are often sketchy as it is, you can't claim one that hasn't even occured yet. It also wouldn't be the first time that the Gog and Magog war was supposed to occur, or was occuring.

Worldwide flood- no evidence. Exodus- no evidence. Israelite slaves in egypt- no evidence. There have always been a few people who claimed to have evidence that supports such and such event, but they generally have been, more or less, grasping at straws and their evidence hasn't been accepted by practically anyone else in their field. These things happen all the time in every field, it's nothing unique to biblical archeology. They may be right, it's just that they haven't found evidence to show that.

worldwide flood evidence twisted to support the ice age
exodus evidence is the Bible. it being the only source on it, there is NOTHING to refute it. the argument of lack of evidence is a logical fallacy.

Requesting evidence for a belief is hardly a logical fallacy. It's absurd that you think requiring evidence to support a claim is a logical fallacy. And a total lack of evidence counters the belief that it definately occured. You can't ever completely refute an idea such as this, as you can't prove a negative. It's laughable to suggest that something must be true because you can't conclusively refute it. As it stands it is simply a claim made a religious scripture. It doesn't stand out from any other claim made by any other religion.

On the evidence alone you would never arrive at the conclusion the worldwide flood occured. You have to do a lot of twisting, and disregarding, of evidence to support such a thing.

Many biblical places we know existed. We have written accounts of nazareth being in existence at the time of jesus, and you can go to israel and visit it. You can go to palestine and visit bethlehem and jericho. Anyone can go and see them. For other places we have evidence that they may have existed. We have uncovered what some archeologists believe to be sodom and gomorrah, though it's disputed and they aren't believed to have been actually called that. But, there is a significant difference between showing a p