Is This Scholar Bonkers?

cvanwey · Nov 16, 2019

*** Not meant to be sent in mockery ***

If you can find a way to watch all of it; with as little bias as possible, to the end, does she make any valid points? Yes, no?

Some unbelievers (like myself), reject the unfalsifiable claims of the Bible, simply because they see errors in claims, from the same collection of books, which may be more falsifiable claims. Now if all natural claims were in fact true, would I automatically believe in the supernatural ones? Not necessary. However, I am not even at that point yet... Her references touch on some of them.

Is she flat out wrong on all accounts? And if she is right, then why might an atheist somehow still believe in a resurrection claim; 'knowing' full well other Biblical assertions are untrue?

Or, can someone successfully compartmentalize the resurrection alone? Meaning, 'yes, all these old stories are just stories, but Jesus did really rise from the dead.'

This post can go in a million directions.... And again, I'm not sending this video to insult believers.

Silmarien · Nov 16, 2019

cvanwey said:
Is she flat out wrong on all accounts? And if she is right, then why might an atheist somehow still believe in a resurrection claim; 'knowing' full well other Biblical assertions are untrue?

It seems like fairly standard biblical scholarship, though some of the statements she makes are fairly bizarre, like the part where she says that the God of the New Testament isn't present and it's all about Jesus. It is odd for a biblical scholar to be oblivious enough to Christian theology to make a statement like that.

I watched most of it, and I largely agreed until she started talking about Paul and the New Testament. I am somewhat more conservative, in that I think Moses being an Egyptian name would suggest that there was in fact an Egyptian named Moses who was remembered by later generations as leading a slave revolt, but I suspect the story itself is legendary rather than historical.

cvanwey said:
Or, can someone successfully compartmentalize the resurrection alone? Meaning, 'yes, all these old stories are just stories, but Jesus did really rise from the dead.'

This is fairly common in Mainline Protestantism, so yes.

There are a number of different ways to view it, though. I see some of the earlier Genesis stories as theological polemics against Sumerian mythology, so I don't think they're "just stories" but I also don't think they're factual.

cvanwey · Nov 16, 2019

Silmarien said:
It seems like fairly standard biblical scholarship, though some of the statements she makes are fairly bizarre, like the part where she says that the God of the New Testament isn't present and it's all about Jesus. It is odd for a biblical scholar to be oblivious enough to Christian theology to make a statement like that.

I watched most of it, and I largely agreed until she started talking about Paul and the New Testament. I am somewhat more conservative, in that I think Moses being an Egyptian name would suggest that there was in fact an Egyptian named Moses who was remembered by later generations as leading a slave revolt, but I suspect the story itself is legendary rather than historical.

This is fairly common in Mainline Protestantism, so yes.

There are a number of different ways to view it, though. I see some of the earlier Genesis stories as theological polemics against Sumerian mythology, so I don't think they're "just stories" but I also don't think they're factual.

Thank you for your response.

This topic came up, after having a deep discussion with my best friend. At the end of it all, I asked him.....

If you 'know' Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, Noah's Ark, etc., are not real events in history, then why do you believe Jesus rose from the dead?

He shrugged his shoulders and stated, 'I just believe He did'. I tried to probe more, but I didn't want to have to leave his house prematurely, and possibly loose a friendship over it

Maybe you can shed some light here?

Monksailor · Nov 16, 2019

I visit some cites linked here ONLY if they have been provided as a secondary supporting resource for the poster's own fully expressed position. I want to dialog with someone who has a mind of their own and not a parrot. Additionally, if one claims only a part, tiny piece, of God's Word is true and the rest false, then they have taken an illogical position. The information given relative to Jesus, the Son of God and God the Son, throughout God's Word integrates Jesus with the majority, if not all, of the rest of God's Word, the Bible. God says in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,..." and Jesus IS the Word made flesh as the progression of John 1: 1-30 reveals and as we read John 14:6 Jesus says He is the Truth. If you choose to believe in Jesus then you must believe all of God's Word is the Truth. It is all or none; not pick and choose like you know better than God and believe yourself better than God. If not, then you can believe such things which require so, so much more faith; additionally, self-deception and intentional ignorance of the truth and science, like faith structures as evolution as the origin of the species.

Monksailor · Nov 16, 2019

Silmarien,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been a member of and participated in many Protestant faiths and what you say is not true about the compartmentalization of the attonement for sins by Jesus, Son of God. WOW. You REALLY need to get out more! You are giving a very inaccurate accounting.

Pavel Mosko · Nov 16, 2019

Yes she is wrong. In the 1800s many academics thought the city of Troy was a completely fictitious myth, but new archaeology has identified it as being most likely in Turkey. The same goes for the Bible, regarding Moses, the Hebrews in Egypt etc.

Mr. Benner's translation of the Ancient Menorah Rock Inscription | AHRC

Silmarien · Nov 16, 2019

cvanwey said:
Thank you for your response.

This topic came up, after having a deep discussion with my best friend. At the end of it all, I asked him.....

If you 'know' Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, Noah's Ark, etc., are not real events in history, then why do you believe Jesus rose from the dead?

He shrugged his shoulders and stated, 'I just believe He did'. I tried to probe more, but I didn't want to have to leave his house prematurely, and possibly loose a friendship over it

Maybe you can shed some light here?

Because the New Testament was written in the classical period by the first generation Christian community. It wasn't the result of centuries of oral tradition. The most extravagant claim is the Resurrection itself, which we do know arose soon after the Crucifixion simply because Paul's story is documented. If it wasn't, I think Christianity would be in terrible shape as far as historicity is concerned, but the Pauline Epistles are game-changing. There are several elements in the Gospels that I find deeply intriguing as well and have difficulty viewing as later traditions (the Denial of Peter, the women at the tomb), but the key is still Paul.

I accept Christianity on theological rather than historical grounds, though. I am an existentialist, and my interest in alienation has ended up leading me straight to Saint Augustine.

Silmarien · Nov 16, 2019

Monksailor said:
Silmarien,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have been a member of and participated in many Protestant faiths and what you say is not true about the compartmentalization of the attonement for sins by Jesus, Son of God. WOW. You REALLY need to get out more! You are giving a very inaccurate accounting.

What compartmentalization of the atonement for sins? The question was how you could reconcile belief in the Resurrection with skepticism concerning aspects of the Old Testament, and the answer is: very easily. It's pretty common in the liberal churches, and I've even seen theological conservatives refer to early stories in Genesis as corrections to pagan mythology.

hedrick · Nov 16, 2019

Most of what she said about history is well accepted, but the overall impression is misleading.

In the OT, it’s pretty clear that up to about Joshua there’s not a lot of historical content, though I suspect Moses actually did exist. That’s the period she talks about in the beginning as not happening. However starting with David, and probably Judges, it’s more plausible. The destruction of Jerusalem and the exile did happen, and she implicitly acknowledges it. While she doesn’t say anything specific that’s false, she gives the false impression that none of the Bible is historically true.

It also doesn’t discuss the historicity of the NT, though listeners probably assume it’s included in the judgement that the Bible isn’t historically true. I think what she does say is misleading. God is not absent from the NT. Jesus’ teachings are mostly about what he’s like and what he wants from us. While Paul talks a lot about Christ, his emphasis is on God's plan involving Christ, so God is at the center there as well. That's true whether you agree with her judgement about Paul or not. It's obvious that she is an OT scholar, since the terms in which she discusses Paul seem divorced from current Pauline scholarship (though it also doesn't seem that she was all that interested in informing people about current Biblical scholarship -- despite her claim to respect religious people it seemed more like making fun of the Bible than informing people about scholarship).

The thing at the end wasn’t intended as serious, I guess, but just because the people who made the toy he showed can’t tell male and female lions apart doesn’t mean that God or the Bible couldn’t.

com7fy8 · Nov 16, 2019

cvanwey said:
If you 'know' Adam and Eve, the Tower of Babel, Noah's Ark, etc., are not real events in history, then why do you believe Jesus rose from the dead?

To me, the accounts are historical in context. And the fact that Jesus rose from the dead demonstrates how God is able to work major events in moments . . . or less. So, the resurrection confirms the possibility of the earlier historical events.

So . . . to your question about how someone might be able to accept the resurrection but not accept the earlier events which include supernatural action >

One possible thing is people can go along with their group and not realize what are the motives behind what is influencing them. For example, they don't see the strategy of the people who want to throw out Biblical morals. Certain individuals claim that a number of historical reports in the Bible are not really true, and so, they claim, therefore the moral teachings also are not necessarily true. So, their questioning the miraculous can be a back-door attack on the morals.

2PhiloVoid · Nov 16, 2019

cvanwey said:
*** Not meant to be sent in mockery ***

If you can find a way to watch all of it; with as little bias as possible, to the end, does she make any valid points? Yes, no?

Some unbelievers (like myself), reject the unfalsifiable claims of the Bible, simply because they see errors in claims, from the same collection of books, which may be more falsifiable claims. Now if all natural claims were in fact true, would I automatically believe in the supernatural ones? Not necessary. However, I am not even at that point yet... Her references touch on some of them.

Is she flat out wrong on all accounts? And if she is right, then why might an atheist somehow still believe in a resurrection claim; 'knowing' full well other Biblical assertions are untrue?

Or, can someone successfully compartmentalize the resurrection alone? Meaning, 'yes, all these old stories are just stories, but Jesus did really rise from the dead.'

This post can go in a million directions.... And again, I'm not sending this video to insult believers.

I saw this video a few years ago and I still just kind of think it's ...... "meh." I've already answered you in the past about this kind of literary pitting device which you just keep bring up and attempt to show how the O.T. supposedly is compartmentalized by some Christians in contrast to their adherence to the N.T.

You didn't listen then, and I'm still skeptical you'll listen now. So, as I've also said before, I'll just keep praying for you rather than continue to banter back and forth with you.

cvanwey · Nov 16, 2019

Pavel Mosko said:
Yes she is wrong. In the 1800s many academics thought the city of Troy was a completely fictitious myth, but new archaeology has identified it as being most likely in Turkey. The same goes for the Bible, regarding Moses, the Hebrews in Egypt etc.

Mr. Benner's translation of the Ancient Menorah Rock Inscription | AHRC

Are you also saying you believe all the stories from the Bible are factual?

Pavel Mosko · Nov 16, 2019

cvanwey said:
Are you also saying you believe all the stories from the Bible are factual?

Yes I believe there is something there. Now how much is literal vs. allegorical or idiomatic remains to be seen, but I notice how you overlook the main point of my post....

You atheists, skeptics etc. always act like you got all the answers, and everything is cut and dried, but the basis of knowledge and epistemology etc. is always changing. Many things are not just black or white, true or false and when it comes to science many things boil down to how you frame the particular investigation by defining the criteria etc.

cvanwey · Nov 16, 2019

Monksailor said:
I visit some cites linked here ONLY if they have been provided as a secondary supporting resource for the poster's own fully expressed position. I want to dialog with someone who has a mind of their own and not a parrot. Additionally, if one claims only a part, tiny piece, of God's Word is true and the rest false, then they have taken an illogical position. The information given relative to Jesus, the Son of God and God the Son, throughout God's Word integrates Jesus with the majority, if not all, of the rest of God's Word, the Bible. God says in 2 Timothy 3:16, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,..." and Jesus IS the Word made flesh as the progression of John 1: 1-30 reveals and as we read John 14:6 Jesus says He is the Truth. If you choose to believe in Jesus then you must believe all of God's Word is the Truth. It is all or none; not pick and choose like you know better than God and believe yourself better than God. If not, then you can believe such things which require so, so much more faith; additionally, self-deception and intentional ignorance of the truth and science, like faith structures as evolution as the origin of the species.

Would this mean that if one Bible story was demonstrated false, to your acknowledgement, then you would have to renounce all the rest?

Or would you maybe just instead assume that it must still be right, and the evidence leads humans to a mistake?

cvanwey · Nov 16, 2019

2PhiloVoid said:
I'm still skeptical you'll listen.

Try me

2PhiloVoid · Nov 16, 2019

cvanwey said:
Try me

For starters, Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's basic position on the existence of Moses may seem valid from a secularized historical vantage point, and from that singular perspective, her assertion may even "be" valid, but I don't think it is sound. It's valid because the main reason she can't say she thinks that Moses has existed is because from a Secular, non-religious point of view, there is no extra-biblical literary or archaeological evidence of him, and as Adam Kirsch (2018) explains, the kind of view that scholars like her have 'requires' certain kinds of evidence...and only that evidence:

...neither Abraham nor Moses is available as a starting point for a modern historian, for the simple reason that neither of them can be proved to have existed. Indeed, for a scholar who subscribes to critical and scientific canons of evidence, it is quite certain that they did not exist, since their stories are full of things that could not possibly have happened: the voices from Heaven, the burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea. Instead, the secular historian must find a starting point that is well attested in non-Biblical evidence, and work forward from there. Already, in this decision, Jewish memory is separated from Jewish history; the latter must study the former, but must not rely on it.

I might add that I think she's alluding to the fact that there are also the intricate cob-webs of the Documentary Hypothesis we probably have to recognize and sort through, if that's even possible on the whole. So, it's no wonder she starts her chat in the video by saying with an air of hilarity and confidence, "Moses didn't exist!"

However, the problem here is that a lack of extra-biblical archaeological or literary evidence can't be counted upon to give us "the whole story" since archaeology is fraught with its own hermeneutical problems as well as being subject to the contingencies of the limitations we all face with handling anything from the past, particularly the ancient past that was prior to the onset of the Roman Empire.

More can be said, and these are just my initial comments on the first two-minutes of the OP video ...

Reference
Why Jewish History Is So Hard to Write

cvanwey · Nov 17, 2019

This could be very long. So for now, I only want to tackle the first part

2PhiloVoid said:
For starters, Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's basic position on the existence of Moses may seem valid from a secularized historical vantage point, and from that singular perspective, her assertion may even "be" valid, but I don't think it is sound. It's valid because the main reason she can't say she thinks that Moses has existed is because from a Secular, non-religious point of view, there is no extra-biblical literary or archaeological evidence of him, and as Adam Kirsch (2018) explains, the kind of view that scholars like her have 'requires' certain kinds of evidence...and only that evidence:

...neither Abraham nor Moses is available as a starting point for a modern historian, for the simple reason that neither of them can be proved to have existed. Indeed, for a scholar who subscribes to critical and scientific canons of evidence, it is quite certain that they did not exist, since their stories are full of things that could not possibly have happened: the voices from Heaven, the burning bush, the parting of the Red Sea. Instead, the secular historian must find a starting point that is well attested in non-Biblical evidence, and work forward from there. Already, in this decision, Jewish memory is separated from Jewish history; the latter must study the former, but must not rely on it.

One Example: She explained how when these writings were produced, camels were not in that region at the time. She does not elaborate. But I'm already aware she's there to entertain a crowd, and not to list a bunch of dry evidence(s). Nor, is she in a debate environment to plea her case to an opponent, or the audience.

In regards to Moses, it would seem that (maybe) her criteria for thinking Moses did not exist, was not merely/only that it was produced exclusively from the Bible, but that there looks to possibly be physical attributes, which do not lend the 'possibility' to the said story?

hedrick · Nov 17, 2019

The problem with Moses is that the stories involving him aren't consistent with what is known of history and archaeology, except special evangelical versions. However that doesn't mean that Moses didn't exist. It simply means that the stories told about him aren't entirely accurate. It's perfectly possible that someone called Moses existed and was responsible for some people leaving Egypt. However it doesn't appear that this could have been the major source of the people of Israel.

2PhiloVoid · Nov 17, 2019

cvanwey said:
This could be very long. So for now, I only want to tackle the first part

One Example: She explained how when these writings were produced, camels were not in that region at the time. She does not elaborate.

You are correct. She doesn't really elaborate, maybe because she knows everyone can just google the biblical literary 'camel issue' and find out the details on their own, both pro and con.

But I'm already aware she's there to entertain a crowd, and not to list a bunch of dry evidence(s). Nor, is she in a debate environment to plea her case to an opponent, or the audience.

In regards to Moses, it would seem that (maybe) her criteria for thinking Moses did not exist, was not merely/only that it was produced exclusively from the Bible, but that there looks to possibly be physical attributes, which do not lend the 'possibility' to the said story?

Right. That's more or less what I was attempting to get at in my post above. And in minutes 2:00 to 7:09, she also posits and focuses upon the now not uncommon theory that what we think we read in the 'historical books' and prophetic books of the Old Testament are the products of Israelite authors who lived in and through the Exile in Babylon.

When there's little to no archaeological evidence [or we ignore that there might be at least some but not seeing any of it as such ... ?] for what is supposedly the earlier presence of Moses or for the activity surrounding the Exodus, and we see the Chaos-monster motifs of Babylonian-esque myth sporadically showing up in some of the O.T. texts, and if we believe, like she does, that there is evidence for Nebuchadnezzar's invasion and his hauling off of the Israelite people into Babylon, we might, like her, remain under the [secular and atheistic] assumption that where this evidence seems to show up most, then that and only that provides the criteria by which we are to construct our most "rational" understanding about the nature of the Biblical literature. This isn't to say she's completely off her rocker since some Christian biblical scholars like Kenton L. Sparks (2007) will say something similar to her, even if not to the same extent.

Of course, then again, in the OP video, she asserts a bit more than all of this after *minute-mark 7:10*, doesn't she?

Reference
Sparks, Kenton L. (2007). God's word in human words: An evangelical appropriation of critical biblical scholarship. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.

cloudyday2 · Nov 17, 2019

Silmarien said:
I am somewhat more conservative, in that I think Moses being an Egyptian name would suggest that there was in fact an Egyptian named Moses who was remembered by later generations as leading a slave revolt, but I suspect the story itself is legendary rather than historical.

The traditional rabbinic explanation for the name "Moses" is its similar sound to water (in Hebrew), but I suspect that "Moses" mean "son of <blank>" as was common for pharaohs where the <blank> was left unsaid because it was the tetragrammaton. Some scholars think that Moses was originally more like a demigod who parted the Red Sea using his own innate magical powers and ascended to heaven much like Elijah. They suspect that the feats of Elijah were meant to parallel the feats of the original demigod-like Moses, so Elijah gives insight into the original form of the Exodus. I guess this is a bit off-topic LOL

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