lundi 18 avril 2011

What a blooper, Dan Barker from Atheist League!

A What were the texts? 1) somewhere else : The Question of Contemporary Evidence, 2) No, true enough Acharya, Varro did not write about Jesus ..., 3) What a blooper, Dan Barker from Atheist League!, 4) 1st C Historians, Wikipedia Category, 5) HGL's F.B. writings : Critiques of Testimonium Flavianum, 6) Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... on "Contemporary Historians Not Mentioning Jesus" (Answering aekara1987), 7) Φιλολoγικά/Philologica : Challenged Again on Testimonium Flavianum,

B How were they transmitted? 1) somewhere else : Laci Green likes strawmen?, 2) Variation on the Scriptoria Game,

A quote made as exactly as I could, maybe the time given extends before I actually begin quoting: [The very earliest teaching about the Resurrection]

Which was at least 25 years later, b t w written to a group of people who were at least 1500 miles away [unhearable] by land and who would have had no way to verify the story about the 500 and so on ... We find that Paul did not talk about a bodily resurrection (sic!)


From this video, 2:45 - 3:05

Dan Barker vs Dr Chris Forbes (Part 3/11)
Macquarie University Atheist League
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf3ekb1WfZI


Two bloopers actually. 1500 miles away meaning they had no possibility to check the story of the five hundred? Oh boy! Have you ever walked on Roman Roads? They are delicious for the feet, even now, when worn out, and they were obviously much better back then. What do you mean "would have had no possibility to verify"? Pamplona to Santiago is somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of that distance, walking it took me 50 days, and I am not a trained walker, and I was not always well fed. 100 - 150 days, add 50 days on location to hear ten interviews per day, add the journey back, it would have taken 250 - 350 days, less than one year to verify the story.

Ah, that would have been unpractical! A slave would not have been trusted. Freemen would have needed to stay on place in order to keep business going, right? WRONG. St Joseph was away from his carpentry in Galilee for the time of going to Bethlehem and the flight into Egypt from which he returned years later. No trace whatsoever of this having caused him any trouble worth mentioning in resuming his carpentry on place, no hint this was seen as unbelievable either by Gospellers Sts Luke and Matthew or by their audience. The Roman Empire was not all that ridden by Wall Street and bankers, back then. So, a man taking a year off to verify the story was no big deal. Maybe it was done, maybe it was not done, but St Paul must at least have known it could be done. That he was taking a risk making such a claim.

Next blooper is, after admitting St Paul did make such a claim, even if pretending this was a safe way of fooling the guys, he turns all about and says the claims of St Paul are not about a bodily resurrection.

Which is it? Is the claim not about a bodily resurrection, how come he claims 500 people saw it? If he claims 500 people saw it, how is this not a claim, albeit uncheckable (if even that!) of precisely a bodily resurrection?

Interesting this atheist is a former minister, I think he uses the word preacher. That usually means a Protestant. I suspect he fell away from Christianity when finding it involved too much trust in sources specifically Catholic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
18-IV-2011, Monday of
Holy Week
Paris, Georges Pompidou

Update on Tuesday: I said we do not know whether St Paul's risk resulted in someone taking up the challenge, but if I see some Church Historian say St Luke was chosen to go to Palestine for that check-up and the Theophilus he wrote to being among the ones hearing what St Paul said here, and this being the origin of why he wrote the Gospel, I will not be the least surprised./HGL

4 commentaires:

  1. St Luke's day 2011: Defendente Genolini (who is far from always wrong) writes St Luke went to Rome with St Paul before going to Palestine, to meet the Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, write the Gospel and make her portrait.

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  2. Acharya S says that Lockwood states basically: Another motif Lockwood (77) raises in relation to the parables and the Buddhist tactic of "skillful leading by misleading" (upaya-kaushalya) is the appearance in Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians (15:6-7) of 500 "brethren" who supposedly witnessed the resurrected Christ. This motif has been used by Christians as "proof" that Christ was a historical figure, about whom Paul and these hundreds of others clearly knew. However, according to Buddhist scholar Dr. Christian Lindtner, this "historical" episode represents yet another example of "pious fraud" and propaganda:

    …The "more than 500 brethren," "most of whom are still alive," who are among those cited as eyewitnesses to Christ as raised from the dead, were originally the 500 Buddhist monks present at the death of the Buddha, as related in the MPS [Mahā-Parinirvāna-Sūtra ] (part of the MSV [Mūla-Sarvāstivāda-Vinaya]. So, here Paul reveals himself, if we know the original source, as being guilty of a pious fraud, indeed. (Lockwood, 77)

    Coincidence that 500 brethren and 500 buddhists monks were present at major events?

    Plagiarism?

    Or is divine providence making generous use of parallels?

    Witnessing death and witnessing resurrection are hardly the same thing. But the opposite is further brought out if God arranges so that the witnesses are the same number.

    There are other quite opposite things about Buddha and Christ. Both were confronted to a widow calling for the resurrection of a beloved son. Buddha did some reverse psychology to get here feelings on another track. Christ raised the boy.

    But what is certain is that:

    - 500 witnesses to a real event about a person having enjoyed some popularity is not out of reach of the possible;

    - St Paul was not guilty of fraud, since he could very well count on some of the hearers having the freedom of themselves making a journey to check or of sending someone to do so for them.

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  3. After the text in Italics, my own comments resume as the quote from Lockwood/Acharya ends.

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  4. The following URL:

    https://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-blooper-dan-barker-from-atheist.html

    has a length of 93 characters and resulted in the following TinyURL which has a length of 28 characters:

    https://tinyurl.com/y8qusryj

    Congratulations on learning that one by heart ... "why (h)8 questions? r y(ou) j(ust)?"

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