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So to expect evidence of a massive city is clearly an error - as I have pointed out numerous times in this thread. The evidence we have points to a podunk village or town - no matter how you translate πόλις .
Talking of straw men. nodody is expecting evidence of a massive city. We are looking for what the gospels said was there...a city with a synagogue. It was late in coming but the trusted old stalwart of 'translation error' raises its head at last.
As for your mentioning that the evidence points to a village or town. I say that the LACK of evidence points to a house/farm or two.
You should, otherwise the whole "Nazareth not existing" would not even be a poor argument. Most of the arguments you are using come straight from websites that are influenced by Salm.
God forbid you rely on experts. Are you one of those people that tell a Nuclear Scientist they are doing it all wrong, and then get mad when they laugh at you? Do you mock computer engineers and suggest they build their computers with playdoh instead?
That reminds me of Fundamentalists who try to tell me that they don't need to know Hebrew, and can understand all the details of the Bible from an English translation - and then completely try to argue against someone who knows Biblical Hebrew. I see it all the time on this forum. It's nuts.
Do you even read what I post? It was more of a village, a podunk village - NOT a city. The Gospels themselves state this.
Nah, job not done. You're playing semantic games. You're focusing on "city with a synagogue" when that is not the picture of the Gospels. A story may be wrong on some details, but this does not mean the story never happened. Do you think the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib never happened - simply because we have discrepancies in the two accounts we have of the siege, from both sides of the conflict? That's pretty bad historical method. A siege happened - the different details of the accounts don't remove that fact. Nazareth existed - the different details of the accounts don't remove that fact. Do you think Jesus never existed, because we can't "prove" he did miracles? Buddha? Mohammed? Again, you're insisting the ENTIRE story be correct, or none of it happened. That's just bad historical method - well, terrible historical method.
Show me ONE credible historian who agrees with you - Biblical scholar or not Biblical scholar. ONE.
Whoppers Raf simply denies any evidence that is contrary to his belief. He bring nothing more then his opinion and seems to believe his opinion trumps actual evidence.
That's funny. I likened his belief system to that of fundamentalist also. He believe in things without evidence, which is faith. Thus his own belief system fall in the same category as the fundamentalist belief, which is faith based on ones own belief.
He is a frustrating guy to deal with as he does not believe that what he believes requires any evidence, making such statements like belief requires no proof. In other words he does not have to provide evidence for what he believe, his opponent has to provide evidence to prove what he believes is not correct. He is an atheist fundamentalist, go figure.
This fellow is best ignored. You nailed it - there is no desire to get at the truth. Provide evidence in spades, he waves it away and claims later there isn't any. But I do agree with his last post - Christianity stands or falls on the credibility off the gospels. That is why to me it is the nub of the whole debate - the rest of the arguments are almost academic.
Sounds just like someone else I know (not referring to you).
Whoppers Raf simply denies any evidence that is contrary to his belief. He bring nothing more then his opinion and seems to believe his opinion trumps actual evidence.
That's funny. I likened his belief system to that of fundamentalist also. He believe in things without evidence, which is faith. Thus his own belief system fall in the same category as the fundamentalist belief, which is faith based on ones own belief.
He is a frustrating guy to deal with as he does not believe that what he believes requires any evidence, making such statements like belief requires no proof. In other words he does not have to provide evidence for what he believe, his opponent has to provide evidence to prove what he believes is not correct. He is an atheist fundamentalist, go figure.
I wish he would see that there are sound arguments and weak arguments. The arguments against the "Slaughter of the Innocents", the Census, and the Bethlehem Tradition are all sound: the majority of Biblical scholars readily admit the unhistoricity of these claims. That Nazareth never existed as a polis in the time of Jesus is a weak argument. The Nazareth tradition must be true if the Bethlehem Tradition is false. It is part of the so-called Criterion of Dissimilarity, if I recall the term. The early Christians would not have made such a tradition up, and then had to squeeze Bethlehem in at the same time. It would have much easier to just omit the Nazareth tradition. But they couldn't - probably because it was too factual to omit.
Bart Ehrman (and others) have handily answered all the mythicist claims that Nazareth didn't exist at that time. I feel there's no more need for me to try to do so. There are better historical problems that could be dealt with.
The Gospels for the most part function as an elaborate deux ex machina. The story told in the Gospels had to tie Jesus to the old prophecies in order to bolster the claim that he was the Messiah. It didn't matter if any of the story was true as long as it worked to push their agenda and create market share for a fledgling religion.
The Gospels are more marketing pitch than historical document. They are as likely to be accurate as any of the things Hubbard wrote when creating Scientology.
You're using an English translation which describes Nazareth as a "city", which is giving you the false impression that it was some big metropolis. As I said previously:
I've already pointed out that the English translation "city" is very misleading, and that in all actuality:
Even the author of the Gospel of John knew it to be a small crappy place:
"Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?"
(Gospel of John 1:46)
A perfectly fine translation of "city" in our references would also be "town" or "village", as the Greek term polis (πόλις ) can take those meanings. The word used is not the exact same as our "city".
So... this is why you find some English translations of these passages that read thus:
Being warned in a dream he withdrew into Galilean territory and went to live in a TOWN called Nazareth.
(Gospel of Matthew 2:22-23 AB Albright & Mann)
This is a good example of why you shouldn't rely on English translations for exegesis. Our concept of "CITY" in English does not exactly match the same semantic meanings found in the Greek polis (πόλις ). Nazareth was not a sprawling metropolis.
So to expect evidence of a massive city is clearly an error - as I have pointed out numerous times in this thread. The evidence we have points to a podunk village or town - no matter how you translate πόλις .
Polis is actually the word for City, an urbanized area...Kome is the word for Village...Nazareth came into existence in the First Century...
Whoppers Raf simply denies any evidence that is contrary to his belief. He bring nothing more then his opinion and seems to believe his opinion trumps actual evidence.
That's funny. I likened his belief system to that of fundamentalist also. He believe in things without evidence, which is faith. Thus his own belief system fall in the same category as the fundamentalist belief, which is faith based on ones own belief.
He is a frustrating guy to deal with as he does not believe that what he believes requires any evidence, making such statements like belief requires no proof. In other words he does not have to provide evidence for what he believe, his opponent has to provide evidence to prove what he believes is not correct. He is an atheist fundamentalist, go figure.
This poster does not understand what the BoP is or what it says. I have tried to explain it to him and even supplied articles explaining it but he still doesn't get it. Oh well!
We've figured you already thanks. You do not understand what the BoP is or what it says. That is patently obvious. I have even supplied you with articles explaining it but you still do not get it. That is your problem not mine.
BoP has nothing to do with beliefs, not yours nor anyone else's. You just insist that your beliefs must be the default which is just arrogance. It seems to be an atheist disease.
Polis is actually the word for City, an urbanized area...Kome is the word for Village...Nazareth came into existence in the First Century...
So there you go whoppers...and that is from someone that speaks the language not from Bible apologist websites.
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nodody is expecting evidence of a massive city. We are looking for what the gospels said was there...a city with a synagogue. It was late in coming but the trusted old stalwart of 'translation error' raises its head at last.
