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Raf, all he is saying is that some peoples intentions are different. We can be atheist, use observations to form beliefs (or lack of), and help others to understand the world around them better. No matter what the observations point to. There is no need to deny some observations because they don't support underlining intentions. Or, like mord told me, not to be used because theist can use them too.
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!
When someone challenges that which exists, be it literature or archeological evidence they are the one that carries the BOP to show it is in error. They cannot use YOUR standard defense of belief does not need proof, which is exactly what you did throughout the Tacitus debate and you are doing again through the Nazareth debate. Your no different then the fundamentalist who base what they believe on faith. Your whole arguments a faith based as you have NO EVIDENCE for what you believe. Go ahead Raf provide the EVIDENCE that Nazareth did not exist in the time of Jesus, or will you keep maintaining belief requires no proof. Go ahead with your evidence we will all be waiting for it.
When someone challenges that which exists, be it literature or archeological evidence they are the one that carries the BOP to show it is in error. They cannot use YOUR standard defense of belief does not need proof, which is exactly what you did throughout the Tacitus debate and you are doing again through the Nazareth debate. Your no different then the fundamentalist who base what they believe on faith. Your whole arguments a faith based as you have NO EVIDENCE for what you believe. Go ahead Raf provide the EVIDENCE that Nazareth did not exist in the time of Jesus, or will you keep maintaining belief requires no proof. Go ahead with your evidence we will all be waiting for it.
This is the crux of the matter.
I have said it many times now: there are plenty of historical points in the Gospels that can be proven to be in error and false, but Nazareth is not one of them. Those who have tried have failed to show any compelling arguments and yes: the burden of proof does lie with them.
The problem is bad historical method - nothing more. One's personal motivations do not matter, as long as proper historical method is followed and adhered to.
Polis is actually the word for City, an urbanized area...Kome is the word for Village...Nazareth came into existence in the First Century...
I'm not a Biblical Greek speaker, so I must get my information on it from the latest dictionaries and even then I can't say anything authoritatively on it. In those dictionaries, it is pointed out that the two terms are used sometimes in parallelism - the main difference being whether there are walls: a polis appears to have walls or fortifications (but not always) and a kome is more rural. Regardless, a kome is sometimes regarded as a polis in some Greek sources.
But really, it doesn't matter in the end. The fact that Nazareth was a podunk "town" (more akin to a "village") and that the Gospel of Matthew used the term polis does not make a town or village disappear. If we already know there was some sort of "village" or "town" there, it is folly to demand the existence of a "city", as we would understand it today.
Sounds just like someone else I know (not referring to you).
I think you and I have some understanding and respect, while we both probably have our biases. I look to you to point up mine for me. And I'll try to 'correct' for those.
I'll leave it to Raffs to fight the battle of Nazareth. As I say, It doesn't matter too much is it did exist as a sizeable enough place to 'come from' but it does make a difference to the gospel credibility, if it didn't.
True, there is no reason why it shouldn't have existed. I never imagined that Bethlehem didn't in the 1st c. That places like Jericho, Capernaum , Bethlehem and Nazareth may have existed (or not) and Pilate, Caiaphas, James the Just (2) and Joseph of Arimathea may have existed (or not), and indeed a Jesus, Cephas, James and Judas may have existed (or not) is no more the issue about gospel credibility that lists of discrepancies disproving the literal inerrant word of God is the issue with Bible reliability.
The massacre of innocents falls on its own evidence, not on whether Bethlehem existed or not. The killing attempt in Nazareth falls on its own evidence, not on whether the place existed or not (3). That is why I argue from the gospels and that is really in making a case for whether conradictions really undermine the credibility or whether it can be excused as faulty reporting.
I honestly don't think it can be so excused, and I cannot but smile at indicting Luke or ohn's claims to reliability when their unreliability is demonstrable. And we can all do without plonking insistence on Gospels factuality, never mind attempts to drag theological discourse into it. That becomes - intentionally or not - a waste of time. Which is why I suggest - ignore it.
It is because of a silence on the place, and the lack of any substantial archaeology of a town. We have a room or two dug into a hill. We have an archaeologists getting over -excited. We have an inscription referring to priestly courses, and a reference to Nazareth and other Galilean towns in a fragment that was not found in situ but in a rather dubious spoil search (1) and it has now vanished, with is absolutely beyond belief for such a vital piece of evidence.
Pneuma old mate, I am now very doubtful about that 'Nazareth' inscription.
(1) this is a good precaution on rescue digs, but you sieve each spadeful. You don't rummage through the heap in the wheelbarrow.
(2) this is a connection in the Gospel of Thomas, I believe, and also Hegesippus in his story about the death of James. Before our discussion, I had inclined to thinking that James the just was a different James entirely.
(3) and a big enough town to have its own synagogue (5 or 600 people, I believe, is the required number)
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 10-18-2016 at 07:21 AM..
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.
And yet there are aspects that demand that they be regarded as factual. A made up story would have had Jesus a Judean, not a Galilean, stoned, not crucified, and by Jews, no by Romans.
Paul really looks convincing (convincingly flawed ) to me, not a made up figure by Marcion (who would never have argued from OT quotes anyway), and thus the apostles existed and thus Jesus existed. Add to that Tacitus, and you have a Real Jesus.
But, as you say, the polemic of the gospels is evidence (to anyone without a mind welded shut by Faith) And how do we tell fact from fiction? I propose what seems to me a pretty productive method.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whoppers
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.
But there may be some basic misconceptions, as happen too often with the Authorities. Too often they take it for granted that the Gospels are more or less a reliable record. That the Christiaity of the Apostles was, more or less, in line with Pauline Christianity and that the 'Nazareth' tradition ( and I reiterate that the OT never mentions the place and nor does Paul - for all I can see) and the error here perhaps is to assume that the Nazareth tradition necessarily means a decent- sized town.
Polis is actually the word for City, an urbanized area...Kome is the word for Village...Nazareth came into existence in the First Century...
Good point. I'm following this as, even if the place existed, how the gospel writers described it and what they thought it was, reflects on their credibility. Matthew is the only one who seems to avoid the mistakes that suggest that Mark and Luke had no idea where anything was. Which is perhaps why Luke never saw the absurdity of his ridiculous journey to Bethlehem to sign on for the Tax.
Quote:
Originally Posted by whoppers
I'm not a Biblical Greek speaker, so I must get my information on it from the latest dictionaries and even then I can't say anything authoritatively on it. In those dictionaries, it is pointed out that the two terms are used sometimes in parallelism - the main difference being whether there are walls: a polis appears to have walls or fortifications (but not always) and a kome is more rural. Regardless, a kome is sometimes regarded as a polis in some Greek sources.
But really, it doesn't matter in the end. The fact that Nazareth was a podunk "town" (more akin to a "village") and that the Gospel of Matthew used the term polis does not make a town or village disappear. If we already know there was some sort of "village" or "town" there, it is folly to demand the existence of a "city", as we would understand it today.
As I say, it could have a knock -on effect on showing whether the writers knew anything about 1st Galilee if they use term applied to a walled city (e.g Jericho which had gates for Bar -Timaeus to sit outside) for a place which was as you say 'a podunk village'. It does not make Nazareth appear nor disappear.
The lack of reference outside the gospels, in fact does make us look very hard at the tradition - or rather the gospel claim that links the tradition with a town. The archeology is significant and all the claims but the courtyard house and the Caesarea inscription seem to have collapsed.
The house has questions about it as the siting seems not very Urban. And am I the only one who sees anything Fishy about that vanished fragment "C"?
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 10-18-2016 at 08:35 AM..
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.
Thanks for putting your towering bias on display. The burden of proof probably should have nothing to do with 'beliefs' (which nobody but you mentioned) and where it lies in this debate is debatable . but One thing is for sure, I think weight of evidence counts and lack of evidence counts against. And evidence from absence of evidence where it by all reason ought to be, Is valid Evidence; and appeal to deprecation of argument from silence can be as dodgy as appeal to undisproven possibilities as being as valid as what the evidence points to - which is, very much a case of ignoring who has the burden of proof.
One sign of a reversal is where someone presenting 'evidence' then tries to explain it away when it turns and becomes evidence against. That is so easy to miss. I'll look out for an example if I see one.
When someone challenges that which exists, be it literature or archeological evidence they are the one that carries the BOP to show it is in error. They cannot use YOUR standard defense of belief does not need proof, which is exactly what you did throughout the Tacitus debate and you are doing again through the Nazareth debate. Your no different then the fundamentalist who base what they believe on faith. Your whole arguments a faith based as you have NO EVIDENCE for what you believe. Go ahead Raf provide the EVIDENCE that Nazareth did not exist in the time of Jesus, or will you keep maintaining belief requires no proof. Go ahead with your evidence we will all be waiting for it.
Read it folks. You shouldn't need any more evidence to show you that he doesn't have a clue of what the BoP is.
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As I say, It doesn't matter too much is it did exist as a sizeable enough place to 'come from' but it does make a difference to the gospel credibility, if it didn't. 
) to me, not a made up figure by Marcion (who would never have argued from OT quotes anyway), and thus the apostles existed and thus Jesus existed. Add to that Tacitus, and you have a Real Jesus. 
The burden of proof probably should have nothing to do with 'beliefs' (which nobody but you mentioned) and where it lies in this debate is debatable 
