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You have not thought this through or you would not be using the above as an illustration of the gospel's validity.
In Mathew, immediately after he laboriously traces Joseph back through 25 generations of begats until reaching King David, he then relates the story of the virgin birth.
Now clearly both of these things cannot be true. If Jesus was descended from Joseph in order to be connected to the House of David, then Joseph had to be his father and there was no virgin birth.
If it was a virgin birth, then Joseph had no involvement and Jesus is not connected to the House of David, and thus by scripture, disqualified as the messiah.
This contradiction was never apparent to you?
Mary was of the seed of Abraham, not Joseph. Mary could have married any man. The seed was from God.
It had to be planted into a virgin who was from the line of Abraham...Mary. Joseph had nothing to do with it.
The seed of Jesus birth had to be sinless...it had to come from God. Mary did not have to be perfect, only the seed.
Three years after Jesus death, Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans.
Well, okay I feel a bit foolish making such a big deal out of your simple calculating mistake but I committed myself so here goes:
If Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and three years before that Jesus was crucified then that would place Jesus' crucifixion in 67 AD. That would be 37 years give or take after we know Jesus was crucified, which was 30-33 AD.
Like I said no big deal. Simple calculating error, I realize.
Well, okay I feel a bit foolish making such a big deal out of your simple calculating mistake but I committed myself so here goes:
If Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and three years before that Jesus was crucified then that would place Jesus' crucifixion in 67 AD. That would be 37 years give or take after we know Jesus was crucified, which was 30-33 AD.
Like I said no big deal. Simple calculating error, I realize.
You are correct. thank you for the correction. And yes, it is a big deal.
Mary was of the seed of Abraham, not Joseph. Mary could have married any man. The seed was from God.
It had to be planted into a virgin who was from the line of Abraham...Mary. Joseph had nothing to do with it.
The seed of Jesus birth had to be sinless...it had to come from God. Mary did not have to be perfect, only the seed.
The Hebrews were a patriarchal society. All ancestry was calculated through the males. Look at the list in Mathew tracing the Joseph connection to David...all male, every name listed. Mary's ancestry would have absolutely nothing to do with any messiah links and connecting Mary to David would not have satisfied scripture, so your above thought does nothing to rectify the mistake.
And it was a mistake, you need to reconcile yourself to that, the great infallible book is littered with such errors. And that means exactly what it suggests, the Bible is the product of error prone human beings, not the inerrant word of a divinity.
Upon having these errors pointed out, the believer's first instinct is to do what you do above, look for any sort of wild explanation which would redeem the mess rather than reach the rational and obvious conclusion. That is the fate of a faith based belief, that even when it is proven to be false, it still gets defended regardless of how preposterous or illogical that defense must be.
As I have numerous times in the past, I reference you to Carl Sagan's "Dragon in my garage" argument, see if you do not recognize yourself in the thinking of the dragon claimant. The Dragon In My Garage
I do not know that we may have a meaningful discussion of this because as closely as I can tell, you do not follow the rules of normal logic. Why would you think a quotation from the gospels would represent any sort of evidence of the secular fame enjoyed by Jesus during his lifetime? That would be like me "proving" there was a Robin Hood by showing you the Kevin Costner movie.
You are arguing from a position of the assumed legitimacy of the gospels and there is no basis for that assumption except faith based ones. There is no point in arguing against something believed because of faith because the faith serves as a substitute for evidence, logic, or any other normal standard of proof.
But...so you know specifically where the objection lies...you cannot use the internal logic of a story as proof of the story's legitimacy. "If there was no King Arthur, then why did he have a round table built?....doesn't wash.
You can't discount the fact that the entire New Testament are of historical documents. Therefore, any quotation from the gospel accounts are from historical documents. Today we take those statements made in the NT by faith.
At least Kevin Costner's movie was base on an historic person.
The Hebrews were a patriarchal society. All ancestry was calculated through the males. Look at the list in Mathew tracing the Joseph connection to David...all male, every name listed. Mary's ancestry would have absolutely nothing to do with any messiah links and connecting Mary to David would not have satisfied scripture, so your above thought does nothing to rectify the mistake.
And it was a mistake, you need to reconcile yourself to that, the great infallible book is littered with such errors. And that means exactly what it suggests, the Bible is the product of error prone human beings, not the inerrant word of a divinity.
Upon having these errors pointed out, the believer's first instinct is to do what you do above, look for any sort of wild explanation which would redeem the mess rather than reach the rational and obvious conclusion. That is the fate of a faith based belief, that even when it is proven to be false, it still gets defended regardless of how preposterous or illogical that defense must be.
You can't discount the fact that the entire New Testament are of historical documents. Therefore, any quotation from the gospel accounts are from historical documents. Today we take those statements made in the NT by faith.
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The gospel accounts are historical documents, but that does not mean that they are accurate historical documents. The Book of Mormon is a historical document, so is the Koran. Are they automatically true because they are historical documents? The Iliad is a historical document, do you believe in the Greek gods because of this?
The gospel accounts are historical documents, but that does not mean that they are accurate historical documents. The Book of Mormon is a historical document, so is the Koran. Are they automatically true because they are historical documents? The Iliad is a historical document, do you believe in the Greek gods because of this?
I didn't know the Book fo Mormon was an historical document. Maybe to the Mormons it is.
But we know for a fact that the New Testament is a collection of Historic accounts, some of which are eyewitness accounts
I think it bears repeating that there may have at one time been lots of documents concerning Jesus but which were destroyed through time, wars, plagues, fires, earthquakes etc.
I didn't know the Book fo Mormon was an historical document. Maybe to the Mormons it is.
But we know for a fact that the New Testament is a collection of Historic accounts, some of which are eyewitness accounts
I think it bears repeating that there may have at one time been lots of documents concerning Jesus but which were destroyed through time, wars, plagues, fires, earthquakes etc.
Your post fails to address the central point...that simply being a historical document does not mean the contents are true.
As I noted, Homer's "The Iliad" is just as much a historical document as anything in the Bible. Does that mean that you believe in Cyclops and multi headed talking snakes?
You've been sold a bill of good, Eusebius, and here you are defending the validity of that fraud. You are a con artist's dream.
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to all the above.
