[duffyd]

No other sinless life recorded throughout history

Mine isn't over yet, but it will be recorded as sinless, if anyone cares to do so. Get real, Duffy.

As the Roman governor of Bithynia-Pontus (now in modern Turkey) Pliny wrote a letter to Emperor Trajan around 112 AD and asked for counsel on dealing with Christians. In the letter (Epistulae X.96) Pliny detailed an account of how he conducted trials of suspected Christians who appeared before him as a result of anonymous accusations and asked for the Emperor's guidance on how they should be treated. Pliny had never performed a legal investigation of Christians and thus consulted Trajan in order to be on solid ground regarding his actions. Pliny saved his letters and Trajan's replies and these are the earliest surviving Roman documents to refer to early Christians.

[Bored chemist]

Do you realise that it doesn't make any difference?
Imagine some (suitably radiocarbon dated or whatever) document from the first few decades of the first century turns up listing in detail the actions of Jesus and the apostles.
That shows that there was a man.
It does not show that there was a God.

We know that there were  plenty of people claiming to be the "messiah".
The Romans botched an execution and created a sort of martyr- one who was still alive.

That's a damned good selling point for your creed.

No God required.

[duffyd]

It's the "interpretation" bit that invokes contempt. A famous objection to university courses in English literature was "so much bad English has been written about good English". Much the same with Christianity.

How much would you pay for a bowdlerised sketch of a third-hand copy of a painting by an unknown artist of an event that he did not witness? Not a lot, I suspect. So why write pages of nonsense about a wholly unjustified interpretation of an edited collection of quasi-historical and bizarrely mystical texts?

At face value the bible contains some interesting snippets of the history and poetry of the Jews up to about 2000 years ago, with possibly too much emphasis (much of it tediously repeated and over-embellished) about Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth. There's plenty more, some in the Dead Sea Scrolls and more recently in the Encyclopaedia Judaica. 

Little point in anyone else reading it as we don't accept converts easily, nor do we require a detailed knowledge of it - just a broad understanding of the underlying philosophy and acceptance of the rules of behavior. And don't kneel.   

"it's the 'interpretation' bit"
"interesting tidbits"
You are a hundred million generations removed from realizations staring you in the face, Bucko

Ehrman and Metzger state in that book that we can have a high degree of confidence that we can reconstruct the original text of the New Testament, the text that is in the Bibles we use, because of the abundance of textual evidence we have to compare.  The variations are largely minor and don’t obscure our ability to construct an accurate text.  The 4th edition of this work was published in 2005 – the same year Ehrman published Misquoting Jesus, which relies on the same body of information and offers no new or different evidence to state the opposite conclusion.

(In 2005, Ehrman helped Metzger update and revise the classic work on the topic– Metzger’s  The Text of the New Testament.)
 Melinda Penner

Bruce Metzger is one of the great scholars of modern times, and I dedicated the book to him because he was both my inspiration for going into textual criticism and the person who trained me in the field. I have nothing but respect and admiration for him. And even though we may disagree on important religious questions – he is a firmly committed Christian and I am not – we are in complete agreement on a number of very important historical and textual questions. If he and I were put in a room and asked to hammer out a consensus statement on what we think the original text of the New Testament probably looked like, there would be very few points of disagreement – maybe one or two dozen places out of many thousands.  The position I argue for in ‘Misquoting Jesus’ does not actually stand at odds with Prof. Metzger’s position that the essential Christian beliefs are not affected by textual variants in the manuscript tradition of the New Testament.

[duffyd]

Instead of depending on others to form your opinions about the New Testament, you owe it to yourself and your sphere of influence, to get your act together and find out just exactly what we know about the gospels and the epistles. You are an educated individual, obviously, however, you are lost on this topic and your ignorance should embarrass you. It really should. Do you really believe Jewish men and women fell for some kind of huckster? Do you think they would write up HIS story with glaring nonsense filling their accounts? Do you really think they would fail in their quest to ensure the greatest story ever told would be handed down accurately? Do you really think they would sacrifice everything, their families, their religious traditions, their status, their careers, their lives over hogwash? Are you nuts? Have you lost your mind?

[Bored chemist]

Do you think they would write up HIS story with glaring nonsense filling their accounts?

They did.
Have a look at the first page or so of Genesis.

[alancalverd]

you are the one who said JESUS was a Rabbi, a good guy, who got on the nerves of religious leaders and got Himself murdered by the Romans. How the heck did you come to those conclusions,

I read the book. You should try it, with your eyes open.

[Bored chemist]

A Boy Named Sue. I have no bias.

It rather looks as if you have.
You refer to your imaginary friend as male- well, that's traditional.
But it seems that when you have an imaginary adversary, they are female.
https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=79132.msg600192#msg600192

https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=79132.msg600349#msg600349

And again

You sound exactly like her. She's the one who freaks if she's not the center of attention 24/7 in every conversation.
Obviously, whenever facts undermine the silliness you perpetuate, you forget your arguments and become 4 years old, just like her.

[duffyd]

you are the one who said JESUS was a Rabbi, a good guy, who got on the nerves of religious leaders and got Himself murdered by the Romans. How the heck did you come to those conclusions,

I read the book. You should try it, with your eyes open.

See, you sound just like her. You didn't (can't) answer questions I asked which proves you lie and run away and don't have a scientific basis to reject HIM. Don't think no one notices you have nothing to contribute. In fact, because you and others on your side have nothing to add to the debate, many visitors will be drawn closer to HIM. And that is my goal.

[duffyd]

I just included valuable information which refutes the other side. They ignore it, add nonsense, and accuse me of spam. As I've said, they already believe. They know HE IS. They pretend they don't until the nonsense they post is proven to be just that. Then, they give up and spam.
Once again, science proves HE IS. Glory

[Bored chemist]

You didn't (can't) answer questions I asked which proves you lie

No; it does not.
I have not refused to answer any question (I may have overlooked some).
However it's well documented that you say things that are not true and that you regularly fail to address major issues with your viewpoint.

See, you sound just like her.

You need to deal with your "imaginary friends" problem.

Don't think no one notices you have nothing to contribute. In fact, because you and others on your side have nothing to add to the debate, many visitors will be drawn closer to HIM. And that is my goal.

And that's another delusion you need to address.
You have yet to put forward anything but the most trivial evidence in support of your view.
You just ignore all the facts.

[Bored chemist]

I just included valuable information which refutes the other side.

Where?

[duffyd]

great answers Al. brilliant. you got nothin.

[Bored chemist]

I just included valuable information which refutes the other side.

Where?

[alancalverd]

You didn't (can't) answer questions I asked which proves you lie

I answered your question precisely. Everyone who ever called me a liar had a very unpleasant death. Be careful what you wish for.

[duffyd]

You didn't (can't) answer questions I asked which proves you lie

I answered your question precisely. Everyone who ever called me a liar had a very unpleasant death. Be careful what you wish for.

the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars--they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death

I wish I could help you

[Bored chemist]

I just included valuable information which refutes the other side.

Where?

[jerrygg38]

Duffy says:
Instead of depending on others to form your opinions about the New Testament, you owe it to yourself and your sphere of influence, to get your act together and find out just exactly what we know about the gospels and the epistles. You are an educated individual, obviously, however, you are lost on this topic and your ignorance should embarrass you. It really should. Do you really believe Jewish men and women fell for some kind of huckster? Do you think they would write up HIS story with glaring nonsense filling their accounts? Do you really think they would fail in their quest to ensure the greatest story ever told would be handed down accurately? Do you really think they would sacrifice everything, their families, their religious traditions, their status, their careers, their lives over hogwash? Are you nuts? Have you lost your mind?
GG: The Bible is a mixture of mythology and spiritual truth.It was written by people who actually believed such things. Why? God has the ability to control one's mind. The mythology enables the believers something to believe in and the non-believers something to dispute. It the Bible was scientifically perfect human freedom would be diminished. In any event God is an evolved entity andwas at the level of man at the time the Bible was written.

[duffyd]

Duffy says:
Instead of depending on others to form your opinions about the New Testament, you owe it to yourself and your sphere of influence, to get your act together and find out just exactly what we know about the gospels and the epistles. You are an educated individual, obviously, however, you are lost on this topic and your ignorance should embarrass you. It really should. Do you really believe Jewish men and women fell for some kind of huckster? Do you think they would write up HIS story with glaring nonsense filling their accounts? Do you really think they would fail in their quest to ensure the greatest story ever told would be handed down accurately? Do you really think they would sacrifice everything, their families, their religious traditions, their status, their careers, their lives over hogwash? Are you nuts? Have you lost your mind?
GG: The Bible is a mixture of mythology and spiritual truth.It was written by people who actually believed such things. Why? God has the ability to control one's mind. The mythology enables the believers something to believe in and the non-believers something to dispute. It the Bible was scientifically perfect human freedom would be diminished. In any event God is an evolved entity andwas at the level of man at the time the Bible was written.

Harold Hughes did not run for a second term, instead announcing he would dedicate his activities to "efforts in alcoholism and drug treatment fields, working for social causes and world peace" through a "spiritual approach". He was a democratic governor of Iowa and a U.S. Senator who became close friends with Chuck Colson. Testimonies declaring HIS love are everywhere.

"The Bible is a mixture of mythology and spiritual truth" for examples? Would you mind filling that in thoroughly? Many say the same thing but are short on follow through.

"It was written by people who actually believed such things." What do you believe about Jesus Christ? Who do you think He was?

[duffyd]

Duffy says:
Instead of depending on others to form your opinions about the New Testament, you owe it to yourself and your sphere of influence, to get your act together and find out just exactly what we know about the gospels and the epistles. You are an educated individual, obviously, however, you are lost on this topic and your ignorance should embarrass you. It really should. Do you really believe Jewish men and women fell for some kind of huckster? Do you think they would write up HIS story with glaring nonsense filling their accounts? Do you really think they would fail in their quest to ensure the greatest story ever told would be handed down accurately? Do you really think they would sacrifice everything, their families, their religious traditions, their status, their careers, their lives over hogwash? Are you nuts? Have you lost your mind?
GG: The Bible is a mixture of mythology and spiritual truth.It was written by people who actually believed such things. Why? God has the ability to control one's mind. The mythology enables the believers something to believe in and the non-believers something to dispute. It the Bible was scientifically perfect human freedom would be diminished. In any event God is an evolved entity andwas at the level of man at the time the Bible was written.

I think it's great that you put forth the effort to address what I wrote for Alan. But, why doesn't Al answer? He blows smoke. He runs away. You see the problem? He wants to come across as someone who knows about the N.T., yet, he cannot participate without becoming juvenile.

[duffyd]

I just included valuable information which refutes the other side. They ignore it, add nonsense, and accuse me of spam. As I've said, they already believe. They know HE IS. They pretend they don't until the nonsense they post is proven to be just that. Then, they give up and spam.
Once again, science proves HE IS. Glory

Mods, Someone answered my question for Alan. She answered in Alan's place, as if she were Alan, as if her answer was Alan's. Would you remind her to respect others who participate here? Thanks