Ever the Expert

[Oncedeceived]

But I'm afraid I can't reply to it yet. Because the way we're bouncing around now isn't making for a coherent argument, and there are many important points that that you haven't remarked upon yet, and that I don't want to be missed or forgotten as we continue.
Agreed. Still, before I post my replies to your message #173, I am going to need to see your reply to my messages 120-126 in addition to the points you still have not addressed in message #166. Otherwise, I won't be able to make any progress in this discussion.

Finished.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Of course. In the book of Numbers, chapter 5, verses 11-28, a priest may concoct a vile potion that, (with an added enchantment) may induce an abortion, once he forces the potion down her throat,

Below is the passage. It says nothing about abortion.

Yes it does, although the reference is subtle, and of course it doesn't use that word.

The vile potion of which you speak is Holy water and dust from the temple. I am sure that if mud were to cause an abortion the abortion debate would be null and void, as women would simply go to their back doors and grab some dust mix it with water and wa-la no baby. Unless it is the blessing that causes the abortion but again, it doesn't say anything about abortion.

Yes it does, and we're not talking about mud here, nor dust either, and certainly not 'holy' water. The only way women would be able to go out their back doors and mix this vile potion would be if they kept goats and other barnyard animals back there. The "dust" from the floor of the tabernacle was filth that was tracked in. This may even have included miscroscopic larvae of some of the more horrific parasitic worms of that area. Whatever it was, it was vile, and definitely infectious. The passage indicates this sort of liklihood with the symptoms it describes. If this was not some filthy infectious agent, then how do you think the spell really worked? Was it God's magic that caused all this swelling and distention of what appear by this description to be the female reproductive organs?

Also, I should point out that the abortion debate should still be null and void since it is only supposed to be performed by a priest, and isn't supposed to work without God's immediate involvement and approval.

It also doesn't say anything about a great female infection.

Yes it does, and I'm surprised that you didn't realize it. I thought it was rather blatant. I will explain in a moment.

What it says is that if she has not defiled herself (adultry) then the "spell" will not make her barren but if she has it will and she will suffer exclusion from the community.

Why did you put "spell" in quotations? That's what it is. And what exactly does "barren" mean to you?

But and this is the point that is most important, if she is not defiled (her belly becoming destended then her husband is then ridiculed and faces great mockery from his jealousy. This ritual is sometimes referred to as "the jealousy ritual" for good reason. In that culture a woman didn't have legal standing and a man could accuse her unrightly of adultry and throw her away. This was a safe guard against that action. It was the woman's only protection. Men were unlikely to make unwarrented accusations in fear of the ridicule they might receive should it be proven false against their wives.

Boy did you read that wrong! For one thing, the distended belly doesn't refer to pregnancy. For another, this atrocity occured because women had no safeguards against their safeguards.

11The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: 12Speak to the Israelite people and say to them: If any mans wife has gone astray and broken faith with him 13in that a man has had carnal relations with her unbeknown to her husband, and she keeps secret the fact that she has defiled herself without being forced, and there is no witness against her 14but a fit of jealousy comes over him and he is wrought up about the wife who has defiled herself; or if a fit of jealousy comes over one and he is wrought up about his wife although she has not defiled herself 15the man shall bring his wife to the priest. And he shall bring as an offering for her one-tenth of an ephah of barley flour. No oil shall be poured upon it and no frankincense shall be laid on it, for it is a meal offering of jealousy, a meal offering of remembrance which recalls wrongdoing. 16The priest shall bring her forward and have her stand before the Lord. 17The priest shall take sacral water in an earthen vessel and, taking some of the earth that is on the floor of the Tabernacle, the priest shall put it into the water. 18After he has made the woman stand before the Lord, the priest shall bare the womans head ( See note at Lev. 10.6.) and place upon her hands the meal offering of remembrance, which is a meal offering of jealousy. And in the priests hands shall be the water of bitterness ( Meaning of Heb. uncertain ) that induces the spell. Meaning of Heb. uncertain )

Your copy actually used the word "spell?" Why are you arguing that this is not a spell when your own source says it is one?

19The priest shall adjure the woman, saying to her, If no man has lain with you, if you have not gone astray in defilement while married to your husband, be immune to harm from this water of bitterness that induces the spell. 20But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and have defiled yourself, if a man other than your husband has had carnal relations with you 21here the priest shall administer the curse of adjuration to the woman,

Now its not only a spell, but a curse. I guess that means my point is made.

as the priest goes on to say to the woman may the Lord make you a curse and an imprecation among your people, as the Lord causes your thigh to sag and your belly to distend; ( Meaning of Heb. uncertain )

The "sagging thigh" would be the feminine swelling I was talking about. There are other subtle references to genetalia elsewhere in the Bible, like the "stones" and "tail" that "moveth like a cedar" on Job's 'behemoth' (rhinoceros). Or in Genesis 32 when God cheats at wrestling by "touching" Jacob in the "hollow of the thigh", (translation: "hit him in the nards"). This is the same move Krsna urged Arjuna to use when he cheated in his wrestling match, and he phrased it the same way.

In the Hebrew tradition, the Talmud says that "an embryo is a limb of its mother" [Hulin 58a] "part of the mother...."one of her own limbs". (Gittin 23b). So the sagging "thigh", or more accurately, as in the KJB, a rotting "thigh" refers to a rotting fetus, a miscarriage.

The distended belly did not mean pregnancy, as you thought it did. In this case, the woman in question may or may not be pregnant. Unfaithful women don't get pregnant every time. But if she is pregnant, she likely isn't showing yet. The distended belly goes along with the sagging fetal "thigh" meaning they are both a result of whatever fecal or bacterial infection she may have been forced to ingest.

22may this water that induces the spell enter your body, causing the belly to distend and the thigh to sag. And the woman shall say, Amen, amen! 23The priest shall put these curses down in writing and rub it off into the water of bitterness. 24He is to make the woman drink the water of bitterness that induces the spell, so that the spell-inducing water may enter into her to bring on bitterness.

...meaning infection, parasitic infestation, or possibly even disease.

25Then the priest shall take from the womans hand the meal offering of jealousy, elevate the meal offering before the Lord, and present it on the altar. 26The priest shall scoop out of the meal offering a token part of it and turn it into smoke on the altar. Last, he shall make the woman drink the water.

This part is amusing too, especially in light of your interpretation that this was supposed to be her "safeguard" and "only protection" against these accusations. What is there to protect her from being forced [violently?] to drink infectious filth? What is there to safeguard her from losing her child due to some (obviously undeserving and unloving) sexist jerk's insecurity? You have a very strange interpretation of women's rights. But then, as a Biblical literalist, I guess you would have to.

27Once he has made her drink the water if she has defiled herself by breaking faith with her husband, the spell-inducing water shall enter into her to bring on bitterness, so that her belly shall distend and her thigh shall sag;

That sure sounds like a miscarriage, don't it? The distended belly here may have more to do with the stomache than with the uterus. But I don't know as I can't tell what kind of infection, infestation, or disease she's really getting here. I suppose it could just make her really sick to her stomache, and may never have been able to make her barren in the first place. Maybe the priests just thought it would because they didn't know any better. Who knows? The scientific approach would be to test this spell. But I suspect that even though you consider the Bible to be a scientifically accurate guide to morality, and this hienous act to be a protection of a woman's rights, you'll still refuse to allow anyone to test this on both scientific and moral grounds.

and the woman shall become a curse among her people. 28But if the woman has not defiled herself and is pure, she shall be unharmed and able to retain seed.

But what does it mean if she is not able to "retain seed"? Does that not mean that the pregnancy was aborted? Is there any other way to interpret that? If she cannot "retain" seed, then she already had seed in her, which in this context can only mean that she was pregnant. But now she can't retain that seed, which means the baby was lost, aborted by the priest, and by God, since the priest has to conjure God's blessing for the spell to work. It is a subtle point, but still unmistakably clear that we are definitely talking about an abortion.

This is consistent with much of Hebrew tradition. All through the Bible, we see scenes of parents killing their children, and sometimes even eating them. In both the Torah and the Talmud, we even see children being devalued, abused or used for sex, even by some of God's most favorite characters. Then we see God's "chosen" people deliberately murdering children, sometimes while they're still inside the womb (2 Kings 15:16, Hosea 13:16, Amos 1:13). In Genesis 38, we see that God considers wasted sperm worthy of a death sentence. But in Exodus 21:22, we see again that God values man's seed more than he does any fruit of the womb, and this is particularly true of the yet-unborn. The penalty for causing a miscarriage is slight next to that of taking the life of someone already born. The Talmud says "the embryo is considered to be mere water until the fortieth day." [Yevamot 69b] and is still a sub-human non-entity, a mere extension of the woman, until born. "Once his head has come forth, he may not be harmed." (Sanhedrin 72b, 16) "Once its head (or greater part) has emerged, it may not be touched, for we may not set aside one life [nefesh] for another." Mishna (Oholot 7,6). "If a woman has difficulty in childbirth, the embryo within her must be dismembered limb by limb, because her life [hayyeha] takes precedence over its life [yayyav]. If the child's arm comes out before the head, it is to be amputated. Because the life of the fetus is only potential, and cannot compete with "actual human life". So the Hebrew tradition does condone abortion both in the Talmud and the Torah / Bible.

29This is the ritual in cases of jealousy, when a woman goes astray while married to her husband and defiles herself, 30or when a fit of jealousy comes over a man and he is wrought up over his wife: the woman shall be made to stand before the Lord and the priest shall carry out all this ritual with her. 31The man shall be clear of guilt; but that woman shall suffer for her guilt.

This is one of many examples of sick, barbaric, and sexist society. The only modern comparison I could make would be with the Taliban.

My favorite spell in the Bible is in Leviticus 14. What makes it so amusing to me is that all five of the ancient elements, the points of the pentacle, (air, water, wood, Earth, and life) are included in the ritual, which counts as a black magic spell since it requires the taking of a life in order to work. ...This was elemental witchcraft by definition, hocus pocus sorcery.

Again this is due to a lack of understanding of what this presents. This is as many rituals a symbolic representation of Christ's death and resurrection. This is a interpretation of this ritual below.

http://w3.byuh.edu/academics/religion/muhlestk/leper.htm

This was a surprisingly weak excuse for an explanation, and it demonstrates that I must understand this passage much better than your sources do. What symbolic meaning do they ascribe for the magic wand? Or for why each elemental point of the pentacle should be represented in the spell? Or for what any of this silliness has to do with getting rid of parasites, (which the Bible calls Leprosy)?

Should we test this spell too? No doubt it will work if you include the bit about washing and shaving your subject, and keeping him naked in isolation for a week. But what effect does the rest of the spell have? And would we alter its effectiveness if we used a plastic bowl instead of earthenware? Will tap water count as "running"? What if we released the 2nd bird in a parking lot? Or the woods? What if there was no 2nd bird? What if we never killed the first bird, but simply drew blood from it, and sprinkled that all over everything? What if we used a bat instead? Does it have to be a flying thing? And why?

What about the other version of this spell, which is also used to rid a house of "leprosy"? [mold?] What effect does these herbs and string have against mold? Or leprosy, since this is the same "law" whether it is leprosy of the skin or leprosy of plaster walls. Were these people suffering from some fungal infection that caused scabs in the skin and spread across walls and other things?

I know that you'll never admit to this, (if only because you're not permitted to) but these spells and hexes and ritual killings are naught but superstition perpetuated by primitives who didn't know what they were doing, and didn't know how anything really works. And none of it in any way indicates Jesus. But since both versions of this spell are entirely elemental, (or talisminal) and neither require any incantation, and the Bible says it applies in all cases, then we should certainly be able to test it, right? Or you could just concede that I was right, and that the Bible really does include magic spells that don't work.

 

[Aron-Ra]

in the context of the rest of their works, as well as the works of thers, there is no reason to believe your comment is true. You have just made a false claim where I still have not.

It is supported by the authors themselves. Many times they claim that they did not understand the information that they were given. Revelation comes to mind with John giving his discriptions of what he sees. Daniel is another. So my claim is supported.

Not in the case of Genesis. The only thing to indicate that they didn't understand the information they recorded is the fact that they got virtually everything wrong.

If they base thier conclusions on evidence, then they are based on logic and reason, and their positions will be tentative based on reason also. If they base their positions on faith instead, then they will do as you, and rationalize as desperately as they need to without ever considering that they should change their mind on anything. They will even lie to themselves and others if they have to, because faith is defined as a position that will not change no matter what the facts are.

Okay, so now you are saying that if the experts are not agreeing with your viewpoint that it must mean they are refusing to use logic or reason. They are lying to themselves.

You're putting words into my mouth that I did not say, and distorting the words that I did say. First of all, the experts don't disagree with what I'm saying. Second, if they base their conclusions on reason, then their position will be tentative, according to whatever the evidence implies. But a faith-based position is defined as one that will not change regardless what any amount of evidence demands.

For example, A friend of mine is the principle of a fundamentalist Southern Baptist Christian school, and their motto "stresses the Word of God as the only source of truth in our world. With the Bible as our foundation." That of course means that anything from the natural world of scientific evidence must be discarded or ignored as a lie, again, automatically, and without any objective consideration even permitted.

Our own HuManiTeE has autonomically parroted this same literally thoughtless dogmatism earlier in this very thread.

In fact, objective consideration is expressly forbidden! One of the tenets of the oath of compliance which each of the "scientists" at the Institute for Creation Research must take is as follows: "2) The Bible, consisting of the thirty-nine canonical books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven canonical books of the New Testament, is the divinely-inspired revelation of the Creator to man. Its unique, plenary, verbal inspiration guarantees that these writings, as originally and miraculously given, are infallible and completely authoritative on all matters with which they deal, free from error of any sort, scientific[sic] and historical as well as moral and theological."

Here they state that their position must not change. No matter what new information may come to light, it cannot be allowed to call their assumed authority into question. This is already an inheritently dishonest position.

AnswersInGenesis.org does much the same thing: 'By definition, no apparent, perceived, or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record."

What they're saying here is that no matter how solidly they are proven wrong on any point, they are forbidden by thier oath to accept it, and are required to deny any weakness in any of their tenets, and to rationalize away all the evidence from every relevant field aligned against their priori conclusions. And considering the claims they make, this position is such that it cannot be maintained without deliberately lying and/or misrepresenting something.

For example, the next line of their motto: "Of primary importance is the fact that evidence is always subject to interpretation by fallible people who do not possess all information.' This is a grotesquest attempt at misrepresentation/deception as the Bible is also interpreted by fallible people who clearly don't possess enough information, and the Bible was also written by fallible people who clearly possessed even less. More importantly, creationism doesn't interpret evidence, it only ignores or denies it, or changes the subject, often with emotional pleas. And the supposedly "fallible people" who do evaluate the evidence posses a whole lot more information than anyone who was ever involved with the ICR or AIG.

And as I said, faith is defined in most dictionaries as a position that isn't based on evidence to begin with, and is often maintained despite all evidence to the contrary. It is a firm, stoic position that must not be allowed to change, even if it is proven to be wrong. In other words, it is a state of dishonest denial.

Now compare that to the position of real scientists, which (I think) is best explained by the ingenius, professor Stephen Hawking;
"a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model that contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations. ...Any physical theory is always provisional, in the sense that it is only a hypothesis; you can never prove it. No matter how many times the results of experiments agree with some theory, you can never be sure that the next time the result will not contradict the theory. On the other hand, you can disprove a theory by finding even a single observation that disagrees with the predictions of the theory."
--A Brief History of Time

And by the late, great, Carl Sagan:
"We humans long to be connected with our origins so we create rituals. Science is another way to experience this longing. It also connects us with our origins, and it too has its rituals and its commandments. Its only sacred truth is that there are no sacred truths. All assumptions must be critically examined. Arguments from authority are worthless. Whatever is inconsistent with the facts -- no matter how fond of it we are -- must be discarded or revised."
--COSMOS

So a scientific position is tentative. There is (basically) no such thing as an "absolute" [unquestionable] truth. Logically, you can't even seek the truth if you won't admit that you don't already know it. Science is a self-correcting process winnowing reality out of falsity, and therefore continuously improving our understanding, usually with practical applications which creation science has never, (and can never) provide. Science also subjects itself to the peer-review process, -something creationism will not permit- in which conclusions and proposals are tested for accuracy, something that isn't possible when you've previously refused to change your mind no matter what you may find out later.

Now look at the very definition of the scientific method:

1. Observe some aspect of the universe.

2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.

3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.

4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

Creationism is completely the reverse of this. They've made their final conclusion right at the onset where science never makes a final conclusion at all. Creation "scientists" don't observe anything, since they can only believe their position on faith, and they will not test any of their concepts. Nor do they ever accept any means of potential falsification, since they've sworn an oath to be unreasonable. They don't make any testible hypotheses, ever. And every time they actually publish a valid prediction about what they expect to see, assuming they're right, the opposite is always discovered, and they just pretend they never made that prediction.

"No one's ever seen one species turn into another, and no one ever will."
"No transitional species will ever be found."
"Evolution is losing support in the scientific community."
"Archaeopteryx was a one-of-a-kind, a freak.fraud/forgery."
"No one will ever discover a feathered dinosaur."
"No one will ever discover any fish with feet."
"Genetics will refute the common ancestry model."
"They'll never find any 'missing links' or ape-men"

Each of these have been disproved a dozen times at least. We don't have any links in the hominine chain that are still missing. Yet they keep saying that we'll never find what we just keep on finding.

These people are lying just by calling themselves scientists because they're opposed to the method itself. They are the antithesis of science, and their own oaths of their priori conclusion of what they will or won't accept proves that.

But a source that you used yourself cites this information as well. Are you then saying that the source is honest and forthright when you feel it supports your viewpoint and then turns around and lies when it supports mine?

Of course not. But you've yet to post anything (in this entire conversation) which either supports your position or challenges mine.

This from your source:

This website is dedicated to amassing information on and stimulating a greater understanding of Roman Mithraism, one of the most successful Mystery Religions of Late Antiquity. Because the relationship between Roman Mithraism and Mithraism as found in Zoroastrianism are no longer held as being intimately along the same continuum of religious evolution, as was held a century ago by the illustrious Belgian archaeologist and scholar, Franz Cumont, this site does not intend to present nearly as much information on Mithraic worship in Zoroastrianism. Having originally started here, (which, incidentally was far more focused on the cult within Zoroastrianism) this site aims at completely supplanting the previous one.

Yes I read this when I first visited this site. But I am at a loss as to why you quoted it here. What point are you trying to make? How did you imagine this should comprimise my position? Or why did you think it supported yours?

 

[Aron-Ra]

The date Gluadys gave for Psalms is more recent than the Avestas, and both are more recent than the Vedic origins of that god. Mitra is first mentioned in the Rg Veda, which is even older than the book of Job. So no, Mithra is definitely older than any part of the Old Testament, and even the Persian version of that is older than Psalms. Even in the movie, there are characters talking about Ahura Mazda, and that movie claims to be researched for accuracy.

The Avestas were first written down in 224-640 AD although it was probably from earlier materials but the Dead Sea Scrolls are between 130 BC and AD 70. So as you can see, the Avestas were later by far than the OT writings.

I was surprised when I saw that date, and wondered where you found it. Then I realized that it came from my own source. I thought it said BCE. I figured it must be a typo, because if Zarathustra wrote the Avesta, as all my sources said he did, then that date should have ended in BCE, not CE, and certainly not AD. So I looked into the history of the Yashts to confirm my suspicion. Sure enough, the Yashts of Mithra are among the writings attributed to Zarathustra, and "redacted" into "younger Avestan" during the dates you suggest. Some of the poems contained in this part of the Avesta present themselves as though written by him. Other evidence suggests it is likely that he did write some of these other Yashts, as the Zoroastrians claim he did. And if he did, then they are as much as 1200 years older than this passage implies, and would still pre-date Isaiah by centuries.

It doesn't help that Roman Mithraists tried to obscure all evidence of their Persian origins, (again, according to these same sources). And that makes it impossible to present a conclusive argument on their history. That's the problem with archaeology. Unlike paleontology, there are no absolute dating methods. Everything is contextual. The Zoroastrians believe that the Mithraic tradition is 1200 years older than you say they are, because you're basing your conclusion on the archaeological date. But you say that your god was worshipped 1500 years before the very earliest archaeological record of that deity, so you're both in the same boat. If I accept the contextual and circumstantial evidence for your position, then you should accept the same for the Mithraic position.

As far as a movie is concerned, I don't know who may have researched it nor do I count a movie as a good resource for information.

Nor do I. The point is that this movie was part of a series of pro-Biblical films claiming to be supported by expert or authority opinion, and designed to promote belief in the Bible stories. So these movies were made by believers like yourself. And their dialogue still presented Uhura-Mazda as being worshipped before the time of Solomon. This is consistent with some of the comments on the Avesta, as some of the worship of Mazda is said to pre-date Zarathustra. But again, exact or invariable dates aren't available.

So there are also many claiming authority in the field who believe that Solomon's contemporaries already worshipped some variant of the Zoroastrian god, centuries before Zarathustra.

Logic would tell you that the Moses who lived around 1500-1400 BC and if it is true that he compiled earlier writings from the time of Abraham which is around 1900 BC then Zoroastrism is not contemporary but actually later.

Well, actually logic tells me that Abraham shouldn't precede the beginning of the Hebrew oral tradition by 400 years, and that Moses wouldn't have come along before Akenaten. But the point is that Zarathustra's Avesta was the first mention of several concepts that hadn't yet been adopted by Semitic monotheism; one of them being the dichotomy the wise lord of the Kingdom of Justice and Truth or the Kingdom of the Lie under the Opposer of Faith. The books Moses allegedly compiled didn't include any such concept. And the first books that did weren't written until almost Jesus' time.

I am proposing something that perhaps you're not getting because of our respective mindsets at the onset. Being a creationist, you probably imagine everything poofing into existence, as it is now, all at once, and that may include your Bible. After all, I remember tele-evangelist, Kevin Copeland claiming that the entirety of the Bible had already been written, by God, before he ever created light. So you believe something similar. I don't know. Its an absurd concept to me, but I know there are people who believe this.

Obviously, as an "evolutionist", I don't see it that way. What I propose is that your belief system was slowly molded into its current form by adopting and adapting various concepts over many generations, the same way you might say that all the other religions formed except yours. I suggest that none of your Biblical authors, nor the Hebrew religious tradition itself included any mention of posthumous judgements for the option of Heaven or Hell until after the influence of Zarathustra's religion. Before that time, everyone believed that everyone went to the same realm of the dead regardless how they lived their lives, except, as I said, for a few really evil souls in Egypt who would be devoured by a great beast, putting them out of everyone else's eternal misery.

I don't know if you read this link but the whole section is citing the fact that Roman Mithraism and the Eastern are different. This particular inscription is not earlier evidence of Roman Mithraism as you claim

I didn't claim that. You said that Roman Mithraism wasn't based on any earlier representation of Mithra from Persia, based (I suspect) on your position that the "Younger Avestas" came along after the Roman version. All I said about this inscription was just what this site said it was; archaeological evidence of a transition from Eastern influence which already existed, which was later modified into Roman Mithraism.

but when you read the whole thing you will understand:

I did read it, all the way through, before I posted anything about it. And I did understand it, or I wouldn't have done so. But it seems that you did not understand it.

There was a rich intermingling of religious systems that came together in Asia Minor. That Mithraic worship was present in Asia Minor from ancient times is evident through the great number of theophorous names of rulers to be found in the region, such as Mithridates Eupator, the last ruler of Pontus.1 One possible explanation for why the name of Mithra was chosen is that it had particular appeal to the militaristic mentality on account of the ancient Iranian recognition of Mithra as a protector of kings and warrior-defender of truth. Beskow suggests that the presence of peculiar private societies that existed in Bosporan cities, that were since 110 B.C.E. under the control of Mithridates Eupator, indicate a prototype for later Roman Mithraism.2 He explains that the societies were concerned with the worship of Oriental deities, were headed by a leader termed Pater, excluded women, were composed primarily of aristocratic soldiers, and were limited to groups of 15-20 persons.3 The size of the societal groups suggests a striking parallel to the Mithraea found later throughout the Roman Empire, the largest of which could only accommodate roughly 40 persons and most accommodated roughly between one and two dozen.4 Also, plaques with a tauroctone (That is, just the bull-slaying, to differentiate from the more complex "Tauroctony" of later Roman Mithraism that involved additional complex astrological allusions and figures.) image have been found in Crimea (which was absorbed into the Pontic kingdom in 110. B.C.E). Beskow writes:

Another possible piece of evidence is offered by five terracotta plaques with a tauroctone, found in Crimea and taken into the records of Mithraic monuments by Cumont and Vermaseren. If they are Mithraic, they are certainly the oldest known representations of Mithras tauroctone; the somewhat varying dates given by Russian archaeologists will set the beginning of the first century C.E. as a terminus ad quem, which is also said to have been confirmed by the stratigraphic conditions.5

Also some evidence suggests that the original prototypes of Roman Mithraism may have had more Iranian influence in their character.6 It is clear that when it was adopted into the Roman culture, obvious Iranian vestiges were dropped, attested by the fact that all Roman Mithraic inscriptions are in either Greek or Latin.7 Finally, the oldest inscription that is agreed by consensus to be Roman Mithraic was found in Asia Minor, dating to 77-78 C.E, by a Roman prefect.8

Not far from the region, in ancient Armenia, a strong echo of Persian influence had been solidly established through the conservative character of the Zoroastrianism practiced there, indicating the great expanse of territory that was put under Persian influence, and therefore, exposed to Mithraic cults.9 Although, from this one can not argue that particular tenets governing the worship of Mithra survived transition from East to Asia Minor to West, we can at least thus clearly indicate a line of migration in the recognition of the god and his status. Certainly, a great deal of fusion among religion systems occurred in Asia Minor, where the ancient traditions of Mesopotamia and Greece met and embraced in some of the most interesting ways.

Also, it seems to be the case that the type of Mithraism that, for instance, offers a potential precedent for Roman Mithraea in the private societies noted above also wasn't a standard Zoroastrian cultic recognition of Mithra. Indeed, private (secret?) societies surrounding the recognition and worship of a deity other than Ahura-Mazda could easily constitute a heretical movement. Such a theoretical heretical Mithraism may entertain alternate versions of the creation story and so to an extent bridge the gap between the Mithras (sic) and Tauroctony in the Roman Empire and earlier Zoroastrian recognition of Mithra. Along with the private societies in Bosporan cities, a revealing inscription dating much earlier to c. 358 B.C.E. from the region of Caria, in southern Asia Minor, suggests that there was a syncretic movement between Hellenistic and Persian/Medean divinities in the region. In this particular Aramaic inscription, the epithet ksathrapati is identified with Apollo, which for Iranians would correspond to Mithra.10 Further evidence that this inscription was not the product of Zoroastrian belief is that the Old Persian term krp', a cognate of karapan, is used to designate the cult. The latter is a term used by Zoroaster in the Gathas to denote non-Zoroastrian priests.11

They're saying that this inscription is earlier evidence of Mithraism, at least 600 years older than the Younger Avestas, implying that Zarathustra probably did write them after all, centuries earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls. What this last passage is telling you is that the latter Mithraism, adapted for Rome, arose out of traditional Zoroastrianism as an unwelcome heretical cult, the same way Christianity rose out of Judaism. Hence all the secrecy. Get it?

As you can see the oldest evidence of Roman Mithraism is 77-78 CE.

Didn't you read the whole link? It said the first of Rome's tauroctonies were from about that time, but were based on earlier prototypes from the 1st Century BCE, which in turn were based on a transitional variant from Asia-Minor a couple hundred years before that, and that was based on the Zorastrian Avestas which were written a couple centuries before that.

 

[Aron-Ra]

So if we go only by what we can support with archaeology, then Isaiah was written within a couple hundred years of Jesus' birth. Mithra's influence on Rome would still have begun at least a couple centuries earlier than the Hebrew's Isaiah, and some four centuries before the Christian edition of it. But if we go with what we can tell from historical context, then Isaiah moves back to around 600 BCE, (contemporary with Zarathustra). But the Persian's Mithra moves back also, and still much further, so that Mithra and Mazda still predate Isaiah no matter what angle you want to take. And of course the Vedic origin of that god predates Judaism entirely, since the Rig Veda is estimated to be at least as old as even the oral tradition of Job, or even as much as 300 years older.

You are mixing here the oral traditions and the written.

I've kept them straight in my head though.

So lets let the dates of the religions themselves go for a moment and consider content. Why don't you give me the verses that you feel were copied by the Old Testament from the Zorastraism belief system. Then we can go from there.

I already did. But I'm not talking about verses, I'm talking about concepts. In this case, Mithras is a parallel for Jesus because (a) He was the physical representative of the sun-god, (b) his "father", Ahura-Mazda is believed to have created the world. (c) He later created Mithras to be an equal [in worship] to himself, the father god's representative on Earth, something the Hebrew god never admitted, but Christians believe of him none the less. (d) Mithras was associated with a divine trinity, (e) His father is the Lord of the Kingdom of Justice and Truth, (f) Mithras and Jesus performed some of the same miracles, (g) both were said to have travelled with twelve companions, (h) both were conceived without intercourse, (i) both were the "judge of souls", (j) and both contested Ahriman "the Opposer" who's name is Shai'tan [Satan] in Hebrew. Then of course there is the concept of posthumous judgement to the earliest mentions of any Heaven or Hell.

It doesn't much matter if Zoroastraism or Judaism was earlier or contemporary unless you can show that there is compelling evidence of one or the other "borrowing" from the other. So why don't you give me the evidence that you feel supports this view with the dates of those items.

Parallels to Hebrew beliefs which predate the documents in which those beliefs are detailed is evidence of probable borrowing. Parallels to the Christ figure which precede Jesus are especially significant. However, since in this case we have some issues with both the exact content and dates of some of these documents, I suggest you concentrate only on the references to the two kingdoms of posthumous judgement I mentioned before.

Not only that, but as a Biblical literalist, do you really want to defend the idea that the Earth is really covered by the giant crystal dome, or that night is brought about by some god's clothes being draped over it? Well, I guess as a Biblical literalist, you would have to.

I have already addressed this.

Yes, but while the poetic approach the Bible takes help account for some of the errors, it does so at the expense of a literal interpretation. And the parables and simile still can't account for all the errors.

Not quite. Zoroastrianism is often credited with being the first "revealed" religion, or the first monotheistic religion, although Amenhotep's worship of Aten really came first, and both beliefs are technically henotheistic. Regardless, among specialists in this area, it is the professional opinion of many theologians, and even the majority of historians, and of course archaeologists as well, -that Zoroastrianism has been a profound influence over western monotheism, more so than any other formal belief system we know of, except of course for the Mesopotamian lore on which Judaism is based.

First really is meaningless without proof. Anyone can profess that it is the first revealed religion but it must be proven. Please give me some of the names of these theologians, historians and archaelolgists.

I thought I already did. I've already presented you with some historical/education sources, and I could certainly present you with a lot more. But obviously I can't give you every name for every expert. In this case, (if your contention were correct) it should be easier for you to provide 1 archaeologist and one historian who disagreed with that statement. If neither of them are theologians at the same time, and have no apparent religious bias, they'll be acceptible.

the point remains that the first mentions of Hell come from Semitic ancestry, from Nergal, a character closely-related to Mithraism/Zoroastrianism, and specifically Ahriman. The Egyptians had only a Heaven for all of their dead except the really evil ones, who's souls would be devoured by a great beast, so that they couldn't continue to annoy anyone in the afterworld. But there was no eternal alternative for good vs evil souls until Zarathustra's explanation of the Kingdom of Justice and Truth under Ahura-Mazda, and the Kingdom of the Lie under Ahriman, HaShai'tan, "the opposer" of faith. This was doubtless the origin of the Hebrew's classic concept of "the devil" ruling in Hell, where the typical [current] Christian belief has changed, so that Jesus rules over Hell, and Satan now walks the Earth.

Again, the dating of this is unkown. It still had to be after Zoroastra's death which was considered around 551 BC and we know that the writings were centuries later.

I find that most authors do their writing while they're still alive. So let's look at a window from 551 BCE to 600 BCE.

Not only that, one point I have neglected in this whole thread is that the very nature of Judaism was that they were to stay true to their religion and that any borrowing of other religions or cultures was prohibited.

And yet we know that it happened anyway, as it does with all religions.

The Mormons and the Muslims both say the New Testament was a foundation for their beliefs, and you would probably deny both of their claims with the same motivation that prompts the Jews to contest your claim.

The fact that the Jews do consider Christianity a cult from their foundations is proving my point. They didn't allow anything other than the Old Testament passed down from Abraham. I don't find it unusual or problematic that the Jews do not accept Christianity because the is exactly what the Bible said would be the case.

As far as Mormons, the Bible is the sole determining factor for any branch or division in Christianity.

That's why the Book of Mormon is based on the Bible.

Muslims do not cite the New Testament as the foundation of their belief. The Abrahamic geneology is what they claim.

That may be, but they still accept Jesus as the 4th prophet of God, none the less.

there is not one passage from the OT that implicates Jesus specifically, or else the Jews would be Christian too, and so would the Muslims. There is a passage in Isaiah that names the expected Messiah, but his name was supposed to be Immanuel, a name which doesn't even have a similar meaning to Y'shua, and so can't be said to implicate Jesus.

Immanuel means God with us. Which of course was Christ in human form. So actually, you are asking me to defend Christianity which claims that Christ was Messiah and in doing so Messiah as mentioned in the OT is referring to Christ. The fact that Jews do not accept this does not make it less true nor does it prove it false.

Yes it does, or else it can't be demonstrated that it refers to Jesus specifically. Your prophesy is literally saying that our eventual savior will be some guy who's name could be anything. Because whoever he is, we're going to call him God-with-us. But we'll still say that his name will be Immanuel, even though we don't really mean that literally. This is not a prophesy, and it can't be said to refer to Jesus specifically. I suggest that we look at the deeds this prophesied savior was supposed to perform, and see if Jesus managed to fit their description that way. Then we'll know if he was the prophesied messiah or not.

But no matter which version of the Mithraic religion you're looking at, Mithraism still predates Christianity, and most of the Mithraic traditions even predate the Bible. It began with the Rig Veda in about the 15th Century BCE, was then adopted and modernized in the Persian Avestas in the 7th Century BCE, and then adapted for Romans by at least the 1st Century BCE, all prior to Jesus, all PRE-Christian.

As I have shown, it is not considered probable that the Mithraic traditions were begun with the Rig Veda.

But your sources for that claim said they did.

Regardless, those traditions that you claim as proof for borrowing are dated later than the references in the Bible.

Not according to the extra-scriptural evidence I've already listed.

And again, the Old Testament is the foundation for the New and they are taken together.

Except that any Jew will tell you they're not.

The references that mark a simularity to Christ are dated after Christ's death.

Not in any of the cases I've mentioned so far.

For one thing, we know that Mithras, like Dionysus, Buddha, and so many others, was born miraculously, not through intercourse. He was also closely-associated with astrological symbols, and with Sol, (Helios) who toted the sun across the sky in a golden chariot just as Apollo did, which is also reminiscent of Genesis 32. This is according to stone reliefs and painted scenes inside many Mithraeum. But all of the earliest depictions of your god were the same, showing Jesus in a golden carriage, carting the sun across the Zodiac just like all the other sun-gods had done before.

Mithra came out of a rock so it is ridiculous to claim he was born at all.

Its still immaculate conception, ain't it?

I have never seen a depicition of Christ like you describe. Please give show me the pictures.

I already did. Are you able to see linked photos and phrases in these posts?


(click to enlarge)

Duc deBerry commissioned a whole series with this particular depiction in the 14th Century, and they're easy to find online. But there other, similar depictions much further back, including one on a tomb beneath Vatican City which is said to be that of St. Peter. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the link to that discovery, which is too bad because you would really have liked that one.

We also know that Mithras was worshipped by various denominations in many different lands, and that he was created to be equal in worship to the supreme god as part of a trinity, a triunal god, just as Krsna was as well. In that sense also, your christ was still not an original idea.

Please give me the source of this information.

I already did, both for Mithras and Krsna.

My first reference for this was Kersey Grave's "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviours". But I found that Graves was mistaken in many of his claims. There never was a 'Crite of Chaldea' for example. And sadly, a lot of people do base their conclusions on his (or similar) claims, however faulty, or unverifiable.

Exactly.

That bothers me more than it does you. I mean, here I am exposing the dishonesty of creationism when people professing to be rationalists are posting this kind of tripe! Then because we know one side is known for their lies, we assume the other never does. But every time I have ever put my faith into anything, this is what happens. And its disgusting to me how often I've been deceived in my life. Its the reason I am the way I am.

I originally quoted this list of parallels on Talk.Origins, seeking to verify their accuracy. I have since had to discover on my own which ones were correct, and which were unreliable. On my own, I have also found a number of parallels in the old pantheons that no one had ever noted before, like the link between Enki and "the fall",

Sorry to disappoint you but there are numerous sites that talk about this.

I've seen a few recently, but most of them were quoting me.

or the history of Amen-Ra implying him to be a likely foundation of much of the evolution of the concept of YVWH. And I'm pretty sure none of these other people ever noticed the parallel in the Mahabharata with Jacob's wresting match against the sun-god in Genesis 32.

Sorry but they have.

That's OK. I would probably be disappointed in archaeology altogether if I made more profound discoveries in the small amount of research I've done than all the world's experts in the field.

 

[Aron-Ra]

among all the world's flood stories, the only ones that match each other are the ones from that area; the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Akkadians all had similar versions of it, that were all echoed in the Bible.

That is not true, there are similiar flood stories in Austrailian aboriginal culture and as many as 200 to 300 different cultures have flood stories that share at least two to three aspects of the flood.

OK.
(1.) There was a flood, usually, (but not always) associated with a lot of rain.
(2) The water (usually) covered almost everything around.
(3.) Almost everyone in the area was killed.
There. Those are the only three common aspects of your 300 global flood myths.

As for the Australian flood myths, most of them involve a pair of sisters, magical people, or a great beast on whom the flood is blamed. Only one of them bears any resemblance to the Christian version, and that one is the Christian version, one that was introduced by white settlers in the last few hundred years, and which was deliberately changed since then to place the landing of the ark in Australia, and also claimed that the aborigines were the grandfathers of every other race.

I know that what I said is true, and I don't appreciate the tone of your allegation. So I think the only way to settle this is to take a look at these less than 300 flood myths and see how they compare to each other, shall we? Compare the three, nearly-identical versions from the near-east with any of the other options from around the world. Very quickly you'll see that everywhere else has a much different version, and usually one that couldn't possibly have been distorted out of the Biblical version over any amount of time. There are no significant differences between the Mesopotamian collection, and there are no significant similarities in any of the flood myths from other cultures. Of course the only explanation for this is that the Mesopotamian versions are talking about the same event the Bible is, but the other cultures definitely aren't, and couldn't be.

And lest we forget, it is an absolute certainty that this world-wide flood of yours never happened, and couldn't have, even with God singing a string of incantations to account for all the impossibilities that arise with every new miracle needed. But there are very strong indications from geologists and archaeologists, as well as extra-Biblical documentation that the city of Shurippak was flooded in a manner matching most of the details in all the Mesopotamian accounts (including the one in the Bible) at some time in the 29th Century BCE. We also know that most of the cultural demes around the world today were already dispersed to all the major continents thousands of years before then. So they couldn't possibly be talking about the same event.

If you want to discuss the global flood myth by itself, we can. Because its probably the easiest thing in the whole Bible to disprove, and I know several creationists who would agree with me on that.

Me personally, I haven't an informed opinion and lack sufficient knowledge on the subject to discuss it.

Would that you had admitted this earlier, before telling me "that is not true".

 

[Aron-Ra]

Yes. I thought I made it clear that the firmament/expanse being a giant dome or vault in the sky was a common belief at the time, not just with the Hebrews but even with some of their distant neighbors as far away as China.

A common belief is not what we are discussing,

Yes it is. That's really the point of this whole conversation. We are discussing beliefs that were held in common by the Biblical authors as well as many of their neighbors and contemporaries and even their ancestors.

we are discussing what the Bible says and it does not say anywhere "a crystal dome". You read it yourself.

I did, and it does.

The image of a crystal dome may be expressed in your interpretation but regardless, it is not stated as such in the Bible.

Yes it is, as I have already shown you.

"And the likeness of the firmament [Greek word for "bowl", "solid structure" or "domicile"] upon the heads of the living creature [was] as the colour of the terrible crystal, stretched forth over their heads above."
--Ezekiel 1:22

But there are several places in the Bible where words are translated for their flow in prose more than their actual meaning. So these should be considered (and reconsidered) when trying to understand the original intent.

When determining intent we come into the realm of interpretation. So if you want to claim that there was an interpretation of the universe being a "crystal dome" then you may be correct but to claim the Bible claims this is wrong.

But it does say that. To claim that it does, I need only quote the Bible directly. And as demonstrated by the surreal depictions of the 15th Century monk, Hieronymus Bosch, (among others) it obviously isn't just my interpretation, but one that was once shared by Christians as well. And they found that description in the same places in the Bible that I did. So they must really be there.

Because the expanse mentioned here also has not only the clouds in it, but the sun, the moon, and the stars also. Then above the sun and the stars is the barrier of the "expanse", and above that is water. Anyone who understood the cosmos or the sky as they really were wouldn't have explained these this way.

Considering that we do not know what lies outside our universe, we have no idea whether this description is accurate or not.

Yes we do. Even you do. First of all, we're not talking about anything outside of this universe. The universe is the entirety of every perceptible thing that exists. And we don't need to exceed that perception to know that the concept depicted in the Bible, and in the image below, is wrong.

We do know what lies outside our atmosphere. And that proves that there is no water above where the firmament isn't, [Genesis 1:6-7] and no windows to let it drain in if there was any there [Genesis 7:11]. It also proves that the veil of night cannot be spread over the missing firmament like a curtain [Psalms 104:2] or a tent, [Isaiah 40:22]. We also know that the stars are not made to stand in the span of this expanse [Isaiah 48:13] because they are not "high" in the firmament, [Job 22:12]. They are so far beyond our puny world that "height" is meaningless and inapplicable. They are much too far away to be blown out of place by any storm [2 Esdras 15:34-35] and they couldn't be taken "down" by anything at all. We've also proven that the illusive heavenly firmament has no foundations either [2 Samuel 22:8] and neither does the Earth [Job 38:4-6]. There are no pillars [1 Samuel 2:8] holding the Earth above the deep, [Genesis 1:2] because there is no deep. Outer space is not full of water!

We also know what lies outside our gravitational field. And that proves that you can't have any passage of days and nights without a sun to measure them [Genesis 1:13-14] against an Earth which constantly moves [Psalms 104:5]. We also know that the sun cannot be made to set at noon, [Amos 8:9] and that neither the sun nor the moon can be stopped in the sky [Joshua 10:12-13].

We also know what is beyond our solar system. And that proves that the stars can't fall from the sky [Matthew 24:29] and even if they did, we still couldn't stomp on them [Daniel 8:10] because they're each millions of miles around. Which makes it a bit silly to imagine a whole group of them in combat with a mere human being [Judges 5:20].

We know what lies beyond our galaxy. And that proves that nothing or no one could ever "seal up the stars" [Job 9:7]. We also know that the Earth with its fictitious firmament didn't predate the "lights in the heavens" by any amount of time [Genesis 1:17-19] and that the stars weren't "set" specifically to light the Earth. Because the Earth is not at the center, -or the beginning- [Genesis 1:1] of the universe in any respect. The way the Bible depicts the Earth in relation to the rest of the universe is wrong and has been wrong for thousands of years.

It is an illustration of the way the Bible describes the expanse you're talking about. And when you read the Bible, you find that it really does support this image, and never contradicts it.

No, I do not.

Alright then. Where is the passage which contradicts this image?

That image, (the painting in the Mithraeum) was just barely more recent than Jesus. But the belief was not, as I have already shown you. And it wouldn't matter if it was, because the night sky is still not spread out like a curtain or a tent.

You have not shown me that there was a belief such as the one shown by the painting prior to this. The reason is that there is none. As far as it not a matter in conjunction with your argument that is not true. You cited this painting as proof of borrowing and when that was proven false you then say it doesn't matter.

But it wasn't proven false! And I did show you that such beliefs predated Jesus. But you ignored that saying that the Old Testament still predated them, as if that mattered to the point I was making. A Christ figure prior to Jesus need not also exist prior to Judaism, (though a couple of them did). And not being able to prove that every aspect of the Roman variant of Mithraism predated Jesus does not prove that it didn't. I think you need to reconsider your understanding of the word, proof.

Similarly, our combined inability to fix any certain date to the crucified Orpheus artifact didn't prove it was younger than Jesus either, especially since it was dated solely on the biased assumption that was the first crucified god, an assumption I proved was false.

[Snip Isiah 40] :

As you can see there is poetic renderings in this sequence. That does not mean it is entirely literal for I doubt that the author thought people were grass or that they would sprout eagle wings. That does not mean that there is no literal meaning to the chapter's verses. So it doesn't prove that the Bible claims that the sky is a crystal dome or a tent. It means that in this verse that the author is using poetry to convey a message.

Granted. However, the point remains that the depiction is still inaccurate to say the very least. The Bible does not ever depict the Earth, or the rest of the universe as it really is. Seriously, with everything being written in parables, prose, and simile, with nothing noted anywhere that is both accurate and beyond the wisdom of other cultures of that time, how can a literal reading of the Bible be of any value?

 

[Aron-Ra]

I did not in anyway suggest that the Bible passages were due to the authors ignorance or misunderstanding. I said that interpretations of the Bible were. The Bible stands alone as far as I am concerned. When I said that sometimes the authors didn't understand, I didn't mean that the Bible account was in error. I was commenting that sometimes the authors interpretations may be eskewed but that the Bible is what I am concerned with. I am not making excuses at all.

The author's interpretations were in error while they were writing it, and somehow the Bible still isn't wrong. But since its all written in parables, prose, and simile, by people who interpreted their own writing incorrectly, then it can't be right right either, especially if read literally.

Any excuse will work as long as you can avoid the inevitable admission that many of their claims were wrong, and based on the limited knowledge and common beliefs of the Bronze age.

SEE above.

But many of the Bible's claims are wrong, and are based on the limited knowledge and common beliefs of the Bronze age. Nowhere does it demonstrate any wisdom beyond that.

I don't even think that is your real opinion. Because the Bible's descriptions certainly don't fit anything we find in the real universe.

So now you are telling me what "my real opinion" is? LOL. You are wrong. They fit very well. We can go there at a later time perhaps.

We'll have to, because the Biblical account doesn't match anything we see in the real world.

I said this passage described a circumstance which would be impossible on a globe, and could only occur on a flat surface. And Daniel's dream does that, which can only imply that Daniel believed the Earth to be flat, as everyone else did at the time.

I am sorry but I do not see where this dream exemplifies this point.

OK, Daniel believes that if he could find a tree tall enough, he could see every kingdom at once. That wouldn't be possible unless the Earth was flat, so its obvious he thought it was, as did Matthew, Isaiah, Job, and whoever wrote Genesis.

But they did believe that it was possible to view all of the kingdoms of the Earth from a great height. Since no one then ever thought man could fly, then the only way to convey this image was with a mountain of great height. But God's countanance over the map of the world, the compass of the Earth was clearly expressed also.

How do you know that they really believed that you could see all the kingdoms of the earth from a great height?

Because they said so.

What a silly thing to say! We don't 'know' any such thing.

I meant according to the Bible. I don't presume to believe that you agree.

One of the problems I have with creationists is that they seldom know the difference in meaning between the words, "know" and "believe", and are always using the former when they mean the latter. If they could just correct that one thing, it would solve most of my problems with their position.

Neither do we have any reason to believe that. In fact, I would say that we have a lot of good reasons to believe that isn't true at all.

Really? Why is that?

Such a big question to be asked in so few words!

First of all, we have no reason to believe that such a thing even exists, and that's already a good reason to believe it doesn't. But in addition, there is also the fact that such a notion doesn't make any sense on any level. Then there is the fact that the strongest advocates for "the devil", (Christians) commonly cite this or that passage which they think is referring to him, but usually aren't. Whatever you're referring to now probably isn't either. Many Christians have built up this complicated concept of their devil based on a complete misunderstanding of Biblical passages that were actually talking about four completely different, and unrelated characters.

Then from a faith-based perspective; At least a third of the global population doesn't even believe in your devil. Some of them have their own devils to believe in. Some don't. Even among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Baha'i, there are many who don't believe in the devil component, and certainly not in the Zoroastrian sense that Christians do. And even among those who do believe in him, there is no consensus for who or what he is, what he really does, or why. Muslims represent him as a genie. Jews tend to see him as still in service to the lord, enforcing damnation, persecuting sinners on God's command, and earning some kind of commission for how many souls he gets. Christians often say he walks the Earth for whatever reason, I don't know. What is his motivation? As far as I can see, he doesn't have any. But Christians blame him for everything bad as if God's autocracy was a dichotomy. But Isaiah 45 4-7, which I quoted to you before, proves it is not, and it proves that this devil of yours does not rule the natural world. He could only if both he and God exist, (compounded improbability) and only if God appointed him lordship over our planet.

What's really sad here is what is going on in this story is missed by all the believers. What evil has Satan really done? Especially compared to the evils God has done! All Satan did, his only crime, was to try to reason with Jesus. That's it. That's why he is Ahriman the opposer, HaShai'tan, the opposer of faith. He is trying to reason with believers, and that is a capitol crime in the mind that is based on faith.

But you don't believe in Satan, and you are not a believer.

So? Does that mean I am unable to discuss the interactions and motivations of the characters in this fable?

Satan wanted to be God, that is His crime and that he will do what ever he can to achieve that is the crime.

I think you're confusing Satan with "Lucifer, son-of-the-dawn", also known as prince Helel ben Shahar. Its a common mistake. Helel (the light bringer), son of Shahar (who's name means "dawn") wanted to be king of Babylon. He rose against his father, but was defeated. Then his story was translated in astrological terms where Lucifer was Venus, the morning star, who is dominated by the moon, (Shahar) and last to diminish when Shahar's father, El (the sun) draws near. Isaiah is not talking about Satan. He's ridiculing Babylonian mythology.

Reason with Jesus? I think not.

What would you call it? Admittedly, he didn't do a very good job. If it had really happened, then I doubt the details of the conversation made it into the scriptures accurately. Because any "opposer of faith" who tried to question Jesus' faith-based assertions would have used logical arguments instead of rewards of riches. That part of the story is too silly to believe that any djinn (such as your concept of the devil) would ever have thought that feeble idea could work! If your devil is no smarter than that, then he can't be the "lord of lies", now can he?

Incidentally, it seems to me very obvious that this whole notion of a "lord of lies" is a fabrication built up in the mind of the believer to protect his faith against any assault of logical reason. That's how I see it anyway.

"He’s a liar. The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse use us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, and powerful. So don’t listen. Remember that. Do not listen!"
--Father Lancaster Merrin; The Exorcist

I've had many believers react the same way to me, and all I said was the truth.

None of you even realize who your devil was supposed to be. Anyone who tries to reason with believers is said to be Satan, including me.

No, not you.

I get that a lot, actually. You'd be surprised how often Christians associate me with Satan.

I really don't think that you are in the position to tell anyone what to believe or realize about the devil if you don't even believe. That is silly to me.

Just because I'm not gullible doesn't mean I can't understand what your books say.

It must be so convenient to dismiss line after line as "poetic" whenever they don't make sense in context.

Oh please, tell me you are above this sort of thing.

I'll follow your lead.

If I can make a logical argument for this I think it is valid and reasonable to accept as such.

I would agree. But I haven't seen a logical argument for it yet.

But this passage does not and cannot refer to a sphere either, since God is now able to view the whole of the Earth from his great height.

What passage was this in reference to?

Isaiah 40:22. But the same image is rendered in Job 26:7-11.

This image was popularly believed at one time, as illustrated by the 15th Century monk, Hieronymus Bosch. On the cover panels of the Garden of Earthly Delights, Bosch painted the world as a flat disk, beneath a glass firmament, with God sitting in countenance above it all, just as is described in Isaiah.

Can't you grasp my point? You don't have to agree but at least try to understand what I am saying. Again, it does not matter who thinks what, all that matter is what the Bible says. Bosch, interpreted and then painted that does not mean that the Bible claims his interpretation. Do you see that?

Yes, and if it were only his interpretation, you would have a valid point. But it is not only his interpretation. It is shared by many others including the Flat Earth Society of course, but also Muhammad, who included impressions of a flat Earth into the Qur'an based on the Old Testament imagery.

"The earth is flat. Whoever claims it is round is an atheist deserving of punishment."
--Sheik Abdel-Aziz ibn Baaz, Supreme Religious Authority of Saudi Arabia
[1993, quoted by Yousef M. Ibrahim, The New York Times, 12 February 1995]
Yes, 1993 CE, not BCE.

"Koranic teaching still insists that the sun moves around the earth. [as the Bible does also] How can we advance when they teach things like that?"
--Taslima Nasrin [Time, 31 January 1994]

I don't mean to be rude but I have tried to explain this to you countless times and you seem to go right back to the same thing again and again.

Believe me, I know exactly what you mean.

So the impression given by the wording of the Bible has lead Christians to this same impression, which is another reason to believe that it is not the wording of God, but of men who (as you say) didn't know any better when they wrote it.

No it doesn't.

I think it is an inescapable conclusion. It is also difficult for me to imagine believing in a god of such creative engineering intelligence as to be the supreme original author of the entire universe, if I am expected to believe that the incomparable mind who designed and composed the staggering intracasies of cellular biology which I have just studied this semester, -is supposed to be the same petty, ridiculous, sexist, racist, raving, self-conflicting lunatic who fowled up on the Bible. How could God have created anything in the real world if he couldn't even write a simple book any better than he did that one? Even if God exists, which he might for all I know, the Bible would still be wrong, and there is just no way the same creative comprehension who composed life also wrote that compilation of contradictions and nonsense. Whether God exists or not, the Bible is not his word.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Jesus did the same thing Akenaten did, promoting himself as the sole prophet of the sun-god. He even said that no one could get to God but through him, just like Akenaten did. Once it is even suggested in Revelations that Jesus, (like Krsna) was "the alpha and omega" because of that. But even in this passage, Jesus is called "prince of kings", not "king of kings". It is meant to be "his father", "the Lord" talking, not Jesus.

Yes, He did.

Fine. Give me the chapter verse where he did. Because if I haven't already addressed it, then I must have missed something. Because all I found are passages where he speaks of God as being a separate person entirely.

In fact it was due to His claiming this that He was put to death.

I wasn't even able to find where Jesus admitted to claiming himself the king of the Jews, much less their god. So what passage(s) are you talking about?

That He was so vehemently apposed by the Jews of the time also shows that He considered Himself equal with God.

He considered himself superior to other Jews, because he was the son of God. But I can't find anywhere he ever claimed to be equal with God.

Here is a good link that talks about it.

http://www.apuritansmind.com/Apologetics/McMahonJesusIsGod.htm

Please understand that I will not debate links, but only intend to address your own words. However, the errors in this article are such that I can't resist pointing them out. For one thing, it says that Jesus' role as an avatar of God is unique, where I have already shown that it isn't without precedent.

"Yes, there were the various mystery-religions of old which, in some form or another, emphasized a deity or a Demi-god who comes to save men, or to help men in some fashion or another – but none of them emphasized the supreme Godhead of one all powerful God who took upon the form of humanity to save some of those dead in sin from the horror of His own wrath. In this, Jesus Christ stands alone. "

Not quite. Krsna did it too, and he did it first.

"Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna, and the like, all laid claims to being more enlightened than others, or divinely touched, but never that they were God."

Obviously, this author has some reading to do. Because Krsna definitely did claim to be God himself, the whole of the trinity in one human avatar.

"How could they? How could they make good on their claims? Could they raise the dead? Could they change water to wine? Could they walk on the sea? No. Only Jesus Christ, and Christ alone, claimed He was God."

Krsna had all living things which did not achieve divine consciousness reincarnated to live again. Dionysus, Hercules and Asclepius, (son of Apollo) all raised the dead from their graves. Dionysus turned water to wine, and declared himself to be a god. Indra could walk on water. And as I have already shown, Krsna declared himself to be God in the flesh. Not only that, but he revealed his true form to King Arjuna, making good on his claim in a way that Jesus never did.



"it is important to remember that the finite cannot contain the infinite. Human beings do not share in the incommunicable attributes of God in any fashion. Human beings cannot be infinite, everlasting, aseic, immutable, etc. They are limited creatures and cannot become God or take on attributes of God."

Beings with unlimited and absolute magic powers can do anything they want, can't they? So if they want to use a human body as a handpuppet, so be it.

I'll ignore the rest of the article as it amounts to some severe rationalizing of verses that actually disprove the desired point. Jesus never explained any role as an avatar of God, which is what this article is trying to assert. But Krsna did, and he did so very clearly so that there could be no dispute of his position such as there is with Jesus.

The Trinity is present in Old Testament books and the symbolism of it goes as far back as Abraham.

This is news to me. I think it would be news to a few Jews, Muslims and even Christians of my acquaintance as well, some of whom are very serious scholars of scripture. So do please point out the chapter and verse for this also.

"Behold my extraordinary and unparalleled majestic opulence; My omniscient self is the maintainer of all living entities and the protector of all living entities but never influenced by them or by the material nature."
"Understand just as the mighty wind blowing everywhere is always situated within space, similarly all created beings are situated in Me. O Arjuna, all created beings enter into My nature at the end of a four billion, 320 million year cycle; and after another four billion, 320 million year cycle, I regenerate them all again."
"Fools deride Me in My divine human form, unable to comprehend My supreme nature as the Ultimate Controller of all living entities. These bewildered fools of futile desires, futile endeavours, futile knowledge and futile understanding certainly assume the nature of the atheistic and demoniac. But the great souls having taken refuge of the divine nature, O Arjuna, render devotional service unto Me with undeviated mind knowing Me as the Imperishable origin of all creation."
"I am the father of this universe, the mother, the grandfather, the projenitor, the essence to be known, the purifying transcendental sound vibration of Om; also the Rg Veda, the Sama Veda, and the Yajur Veda. I am the goal, the sustainer, the master, the witness, the refuge, the guardian, the well-wisher, the creation, the dissolution, the preservation, the reservoir and the imperishable cause."
"Those who desire My eternal association precluding all else meditate on Me with exclusive devotion; those persons, I insure the uniting of their individual consciousness with the Ultimate Consciousness perpetually."
--Confidential Knowledge of the Ultimate Truth; 5-7, 11-13, 17-18, 22

"Neither the demigods nor the great sages understand My transcendental appearance because I am the original source of the demigods and of the great sages in every respect. One who knows Me as birthless, beginningless, and the supreme controller of all the worlds, he being undeluded among mortals is delivered from all sins. Spiritual intelligence, knowledge, freedom from false perception, compassion, truthfullness, control of the senses, control of the mind, happiness, unhappiness, birth, death, fear and fearlessness, nonviolence, equanimity, contentment, austerity, charity, fame, infamy, all the varieagated diverse qualities of all living entities originate from Me alone".
"I am the Ultimate Consciousness situated within the heart of all living entities and I am the beginning, the middle, and the end as well [the Alpha and Omega] of all living entities."
(Elsewhere Krsna/Brahma is/are declared to have no beginning, middle, or end.)
"Certainly wherever and whatever is majestic, beautiful or magnificent; you must certainly know that all these manifestations arise from but a fraction of My glory."
--The Infinite Glories of the Ultimate Truth; 2-5, 20, 41

"If the effulgence of a thousand suns simultaneously were to blaze forth in the firmament; then that might be comparable with the effulgence of the Ultimate Personalities universal form. Then and there Arjuna son of Pandu could see the complete universe, variously divided, situated in one place within the universal form of Lord Krsna the Lord of all Lords."
--The Vision of the Universal Form; 11:12-13

Now, can you find anything Jesus ever said along these lines? Because when I read the Bible, it seems very clear that Jesus is only claiming to be a middle-man, or perhaps an ambassador for God, and even very closely-associated with God, but definitely not God himself.

.

I would like an answer to this, please.

The age of the complication of the Gita is between the 5th and 2nd BC.

BC, to you, means "before Christ", right? This is why I say that your god was neither unique nor original. Krsna made the blind see. Did the Old Testament predict that Jesus would perform the same miracles that had already been done by other gods?

The Bible as shown is considered to be first written down in Moses time which is 1400 to 1500 BC.

Actually, the first of the oral traditions are said to have begun, (with Job) in about 1500 BCE. Moses' time would been around 1250 BCE, and no part of the Bible is considered to have been written down until about 300 years later. Not that it matters, because (except for Genesis 32:24-32) we're not talking about any parallels between Krsna and the god of Judaism, only those between Krsna and the son of the Christian god, and those are only to be found in the New Testament.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Prometheus and Alcestis were both definitely crucified, centuries before Jesus, and the reasons for that are very similar to the Jesus story. Alcestis willingly sacrificed her own life, on a cross, to save that of her man. She was brought back from the dead, resurrected, after three days.

I would like the source for Alcestis which shows that she was crucified and rose again in three days.

Alcestis is best-known from a Greek playwright named Euripides in the 5th Century BCE. She freely sacrificed her own life to atone for her husband's inequity.

Her body was burnt, and then buried. But her soul was brought back from the land of the dead by Hercules. Her resurrection took three days.

"You may not hear her voice until she is purified from her consecration to the Lower Gods, and until the third dawn has risen."
--Hercules to Admetus, husband of Alcestis

But I am forced to eat some crow here. It had been several years since I read Alcestis, and my interpretation was that she was bound by a goddess, and left suspended in crucifixion, already gasping by the opening of the play, already nearly dead. She was upright, and in agony as she bade farewell to her children. Then she became delirious and began hallucinating that death was dragging down to the styx. At last, she begged to be loosed, where she fell back and died in her husband's arms. This is how I remembered the story.

But now that you asked for the exact phrases, I was forced to read the whole thing again, and I found that the method of death was never actually described. She was already gasping at death's door from the play's beginning, and most of those other lines are written as I remember them. But when she asked to be loosed, she was actually pleading with her hallucination of death, asking him to let her go. She wasn't actually crucified because she wasn't tied to and hung from anything. There are still significant parallels to the Christian sacrifice and atonement, but I must admit that crucifixion isn't one of them despite what so many other sources I've read have said, which led me to believe I'd misunderstood what I had read.

Prometheus was shackled to a rock face and stayed there tortured forever due to his immortality. Far cry from being crucified.

Actually, that's exactly what crucifixion is: being bound, arms outstretched, preferably suspended in agony until death, unless you're immortal of course. Prometheus was still crucified, and more important here is the reason why.

Dionysus, also commonly known by his Roman name Bacchus, appears to be a god who has two distinct origins. On the one hand, Dionysus was the god of wine, agriculture, and fertility of nature, who is also the patron god of the Greek stage. On the other hand, Dionysus also represents the outstanding features of mystery religions, such as those practiced at Eleusis: ecstasy, personal delivery from the daily world through physical or spiritual intoxication, and initiation into secret rites. Scholars have long suspected that the god known as Dionysus is in fact a fusion of a local Greek nature god, and another more potent god imported rather late in Greek pre-history from Phrygia (the central area of modern day Turkey) or Thrace.

What I said about Dionysus was [1.] that he was born miraculously, [2.] the son a mortal woman and the king of the gods, [3.] that he created wine miraculously, [4.] that he made natural springs in the Earth flow with wine, [5.] that he raised the dead, and [6.] that he himself died and was/is resurrected to live again, (as Dionysus 2) before dying again, only to be re-resurrected annually as a season. Also there does appear to be a eucharist consumption in his following in that wine was said to be the blood of Dionysus. Jesus said something similar, but without the supportive mythology. Dionysus was credited with the introduction of vine cultivation, and the invention of wine. Later, Jesus claimed to be the "true vine" (John 15,1), also conjured wine miraculously, and asked his disciples to remember him by drinking wine, his blood, another analogy originally attributed to Dionysus.

In the stories of Zeus, there is an epic flood very like Ziusudra's. And there is a tale of Pandora's box, which is reminiscent of the Christian fable of a woman bringing sin into the world. Both of these could have been influenced by the Hebrew mythos, sure. And as far as I'm concerned, they probably were.

Of course if you put Christian imagery in place of what it actually says.

That is what it actually says. I do not alter anything. Nor am I aware of any terminology which is exclusively Christian.

But the story of Prometheus could not have been based on the New Testament. So would you concede that the New Testament could have been influenced by the much earlier crucifixion of Prometheus to atone for man's forbidden knowledge?

None of the sources I have seen show this to be the case so I guess you need to cite your source.

I'm surprised. I have already cited Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, which so far has been the only one of the Prometheus myths I've been able to find online. Everything else is commentary.

In the Greek mythos, there is also the story of the creation of the first man and woman. In this one, the god, Prometheus gave them knowledge of fire, knowledge that was forbidden to them by Zeus. This is another variant of the story of original sin.

Knowledge of fire equals knowledge of good and evil in what way?

Both were forbidden by vain god(s) for no good reason other than to protect the uniquely superior nature of their divinity. And both were taken as 'sins' for which all of mankind was punished. Both were provided by an outside agent who was also punished, and both required atonement, redemption, by a crucifixion of an immortal god. More importantly, both were claimed to be "the" defining aspect of humanity which separated us from the other animals.

In one such tale, Prometheus and his brother, Epimetheus were given the task of creating life on Earth. Epimetheus first created all kinds of animals, and bestowed upon them strength, skills, and endurance beyond that which Prometheus gave to humans. Like the Semitic creation myths (including Genesis) the creator fashioned man out of clay, (in the gods' own image) which was then magically-animated with "the breath of life." But he gave us an intelligence beyond that of any of his brother's animals, and (contrary to Zeus' decree) believed that we needed fire to set us apart from his brother's creations. And in both this tale, and the account in Genesis, acheiving this knowledge elevated us above the other animals, and included us in the same realm as the gods, albeit still in a lesser position to them.

Like the Genesis version, the first woman was created separately, and she is blamed for releasing sin into the world. And just like Genesis, she did so by doing the very thing she was told not to do, but that the gods fully expected, and planned, for her to do anyway. She was given the box of sin and told not to open it, just like Eve was forbidden to eat from the tree that was placed right in front of her. Your god even added a talking snake to make sure she fulfilled his plan, which is what it had to be since he was omniscient, and omnipotent, and both knew what would happen, and how to prevent it, but didn't.

You are placing Christian terminology on the face of other stories and claiming that they are the same. They are not.

They are not exactly identical, but they are not significantly different either. Most importantly, both stories should only have been read as parables who's only real truth was in their symbolism.

And Prometheus was condemned to be crucified to atone for man's sin in what is an obvious prequel to the story of Jesus' crucifixion for a similar sin, again one of forbidden knowledge.

(Need the source.)

Aeschylus also wrote the prequel to Prometheus Bound, that being Prometheus the Fire-giver, which I have not yet found available online, so it will take a visit to the library for that one. But there are plenty of evaluations of that available from edu websites.

Like Alcestis' story, this is very much "Christian terminology" that can be verified to have been used more than 400 years prior to Jesus.

Unfortunately for you, it doesn't matter because the Old Testament speaks about the redemption and sin of mankind prior to these stories and as I have said before, the sources I have seen do not have the crucifiction of either of these stories.

But some of these myths also speak of redemption, a couple of them even before your Isaiah ever postulated his version of the redeemer. Its another repeated theme that was carried over from Prometheus to Dionysus.

"Hear, O blessed son of Zeus and of two mothers, Bacchos of the vintage, unforgettable seed, many-named and redeeming daimon, holy offspring of the gods born in secrecy, reveling Bacchos plump giver of the many joys of fruits which grow well. Mighty and many-shaped god, from the earth you burst forth to reach the wine-press and there become a remedy for man's pain, O sacred blossom! A sorrow-hating joy to mortals, O lovely-haired Epaphian, you are a redeemer and a reveler whose thyrsus drives to frenzy and who is kind-hearted to all, gods and mortals, who see his light."
--From the Orphic Hymns, translated by Athanassakis

In your first post to this thread, you've already shown more accountability than I think Mark Kennedy ever will. As for the references to Alcestis, Prometheus, Nergal, Ahriman, and Krsna, mentioned so far in this post, I have read each of these for myself, from English translations of the original fables or scriptures, not someone else's interpretation of them. So I can verify these similarities directly.

I am sure that those stories are translated on the net somewhere as well. I would hope that you could give me those as I do not find them as depicted by you in this thread. So if you can't find it on the net maybe you could scan the information from those translations that you have read.

We've already covered the source material for Alcestis, Prometheus, Ahriman, and Krsna. All that remains from this list is Nergal, and I doubt you're interested in him, since we're not currently talking about the origin of the character of Satan.

Everything I have ever read regarding history, archaeology, theology, mythology, or even sociology, -indicates that all these neighboring religions are interrelated, and are all based on each other, and that the Hebrew tradition is no different. But that the Bible is a relatively recent compilation that can't possibly be the original belief for many reasons. Yahweh wasn't the first god worshipped according to any source I can find. He simply came to eventually replace the elder gods as the supposed creator of the universe.

Well I happen to have researched it as well and I think as I have shown in these posts that I have support for my position.

I mean no offense, but you didn't. And looking over the course of this whole conversation so far, it is surprising to me that you could have thought you did.

 

[Aron-Ra]

As I said, I expected the whole of the OT to exist by the time of the Dead Sea scrolls. But the fact remains that Akenaten's monotheism still precedes the projected time of Moses, as do the legends of Hammurabi's receipt of the Law code, given to him on a mountain by the sun-god, Shamash. This is another parallel that definitely precedes the legends of Moses, again by several centuries, and still written by the same culture, by the ancestors of the Biblical authors. So Moses' version cannot be the original.

But you and I both know that Moses wrote down the belief system that had been in place and stories thereinof since Abraham's time of around 1900 BC or earlier.

You and I don't both know that. In fact, I know differenty. Moses did not write the Pentateuch, though believers wish to say he did. I don't know when Abraham was supposed to have lived. I don't think anyone does. But it is doubtful that he would have lived before the 17th Century BCE as the Chaldeans were still a literate people by that time, and the daughter belief of the Hebrew hadn't yet begun. The stories in Genesis came from multiple sources, and many of them were previously polytheistic. Like Genesis, the Bhagavad-Gita, and the Book of Mormon, the rest of the Pentateuch was composed centuries after the "fact", and what would become the Hebrew belief was still evolving into its current form for many centuries after the time attributed to Moses. And Moses' time was after Akenaten's monotheism, after Seneferu's parting of the Red Sea, and after Hammurabi's meeting with Shamash. This parallel definitely precedes the legends of Moses by several centuries, and was still written by the same culture, by the ancestors of the Biblical authors. So Moses' version still cannot be the original.

There were several codes of law written in the time frame of Moses I know of another that is similiar to the Mosesic and the hammurabi's but each have distinct differences which would have been unecessary if they were just copys of the other ones.

But Hammurabi gets the credit for being the first to establish any code of law. He received his law code on a visit with the sun-god, on a mountain, in a definite parallel to the story of the Ten Commandments. And Hammurabi's version was writ by the same culture as would conceive of Moses some 500 years later.

But speaking of these several other codes, aren't there two just in the Bible, both claiming to be the same document, even though they both list different laws? Wouldn't that have been unecessary in any case?

You might find this interesting:
The whole article can be read Here:
http://www.consciousevolution.com/Rennes/pyramidchapter4.htm

I might have, if it had been legitimate. Don't forget that I am a geology student myself. And as such, I can tell you there is no evidence of any deluge more global than that of the Tigris-Euphrates, which is detailed in the stories of Utna-Pishtim, Zuisudra, and Atrahasis. And that was a little over 300 years prior to the end of the 3rd Dynasty in Egypt, which by the way is when the Pharoah Seneferu ruled. Seneferu couldn't be a "contemporary with the exodus" (as your website claims) if he died more than 1,200 years earlier. (not 700, but 1200).

The article also cites Immanuel Velikovsky, as if he were a reliable authority on anything. Velokovsky was a psychiatrist who proposed that Venus jumped out of Jupiter by some unexplained means, and somehow criss-crossed Earth's orbit a number of times, each time near enough to us to cause virtually all of the calamities in the Bible. I read Velikovsky years ago, long before I knew pretty much anything, and was open to believe just about everything. But I also read Sagan, and in one of the COSMOS episodes, Sagan delved into Velikovsky's claims soundly and profoundly disproving each one of them. Then he said:

"The worst aspect of the Velikovsky affair is not that many of his ideas were wrong, or silly, or in gross contradiction of the facts, [which they were] rather, the worst aspect is that some scientists tried to surpress Velikovsky's ideas. The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion or politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, and there's no place for it in science."

However, I should also point out that to my experience, only misinformed or uneducated crackpots cite Velikovsky. And while you're asking me for reliable resources, you probably shouldn't try to counter what I find in college archeaology and geology course material with a website peddling astrology and Tarot readings on their home page. Try to find sites with some credibility.

Christianity is founded upon Judaism, as Islam and Baha'i are also. But Judaism is a distinctly separate belief system from any of the offshoots based on it, just as Zoroastrianism is distinctly different from Vedic belief even though they both employ some of the same terms, concepts, or even gods. And since Judaism is itself evidently based on the ancient pagan religions of the Bronze-age Near East, so Christianity, Islam and Baha'i must be as well.

I think that I have shown evidence that supports the opposite.

You haven't yet, and I don't think you can.

"The truth is virtually every modern archaeologist who has investigated the story of the Exodus, with very few exceptions, agrees that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way it happened, if it happened at all."
--Senior Rabbi David Wolpe, Sinai Temple, Westwood, California
http://www.interfaithfamily.com/article/issue106/mann.phtml

I should note that in the Bacchae, Dionysus didn't just make wine flow instead of water, but also white milk as well, both at the same time. He had the land saturated with it, so that both flowed from natural springs. At the same time he also had ivy vines dripping with honey. Now where else have we heard of this land of milk and honey? And when again would we hear of someone conjuring wine in this way?

Dionysus was after the Gospels were written.

I'm pretty sure the Gospels weren't written 400 years before Jesus was born.

Not only that there is no mention of Dionysus making water into wine as in the event of Jesus.

The details are different, I grant you. But the Bacchae from 404 BCE shows that both men used sorcery to conjure wine where only water flowed before.

Milk and honey was Old Testament written long before this.

I don't think you're paying attention. Read on.

The former concept could have could from the Old Testament, of course. But the latter one now found in the New Testament was not an original concept as it had already been attributed to a different resurrected god more than 400 years earlier.

But the Old Testament precedes that.

But that doesn't matter because were talking about pagan parallels with the New Testament, details that weren't prophesied in the Old Testament, and so shouldn't exist if the story of Jesus were an original concept.

 

[Aron-Ra]

but I also showed that to be the correct, (and only possible) interpretation. It doesn't say "he created the Heaven, waited a while, and then created the Earth." It says "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth".Everything else he did after "the beginning", including sculpting details into the formless mass of Earth on Day Two that he had already created, (poofed out of nothing) on Day One.

I disagree and felt that gave you a very logical response at the time. Again, the Beginning is the preface so to speak for the following description.

But grammatically, it can't be interpreted the way you suggest.

Even looking at the most recent estimates for either work, they are still at least 800 years to 1000 years older than Saul, and 300 to 500 years older than Job, which (as Gluadys pointed out) was the beginning of the oral tradition of the Hebrews.

Gluadys didn't say that the oral tradition began with Job. Look again.

I did. She said Job was not the oldest book in the Bible, and that the version of the story that was finally written down was recorded in the 6th to 3rd century BCE. But she said that it was the oldest story in the Bible in the sense that parallels have been found in ancient Sumerian texts, and the Job personnage is a stock proverbial figure in Mesopotamian texts. Being the oldest verbally-recited story in the entire collective library makes it the beginning of the oral tradition.

This doesn't compute either for several reasons. One being that the Chaldean ancestors of the Hebrews were still a literate people in 1900 BCE. There would be no need of an oral tradition at all in that case. They didn't resort to oral traditions until the fall of the Mesopotamian empires which began, but never completed, your tower of Babel. Obviously, the oral traditions of the Hebrew could not have preceded that project, which was indefinitely postponed around 1700 BCE.

What? This just doesn't make any sense to me.

The only truth in the story of the Tower of Babel is this: The monument was still incomplete when the Mesopotamian empires began to collapse. As a result, the very people who had invented syllabic texts were reduced to illiterate nomads, in some cases, in as few as a couple generations. Some of the ancient texts were preserved. But the people could no longer read them, because the written word had become like a different language even when it was written in their own ancestral tongue.

Eventually, these ancient tablets found their way into Ashurbanipal's possession, where they remained buried for 2,500 years.

In the 50 some-odd generations between about 1700 BCE, and the time when the Hebrew traditions were once again written down, by the Phoenicians and the Greeks, and "caste in stone" so-to-speak, there had been many noticeable alterations to the various stories. Some of the events were re-cast for different character names; YVWH replaced Gilgamesh. Parts of Hammurabi and Seneferu's legends were later attributed to Moses. (Enki + Adamah) + Ninti + (the Serpent - Lilith) = Adam & Eve, and so on.

As the Hebrew culture emerged from the pagan ruins of Chaldea, at some point, possibly during the brutally intolerant theocracy of Moses, their increasingly complex traditions became sacred. But they had not always been. And upon the re-opening of Ashurbanipal's tomb, we discovered that the song did not remain the same.

Yes I see. But if I remember correctly, you said that Moses wrote the Pentateuch, right? That's the common belief anyway. Now while most archaeologists and even some rabbinical scholars have recently conceded that the exodus never happened the way the Bible said, (if it ever happened at all) the most probable estimates are that this event was supposed to have occurred during the reign of Pharaoh Rameses II.

Moses compiled the Pentateuch but there was earlier material included in his writings.

He collected some traditions, and he served as the central figure of at least a couple of them. He may even have put the final revisions on the Genesis collection. But he never wrote any of them. He never wrote anything.

I believe he did exist. Many aspects of his story are obviously borrowed from some volcanic event which seems never to have occurred in Egypt. And Moses' character seems like a combination of four or five different people. But I believe there was a real Moses, and that he lead a band of fanatical desert bandits who were less like "God's chosen people" and more like the Taliban. Although the figures recorded in the Bible are impossible exaggerations, there are still too many grisly accounts of inhuman genocide hamstrung cattle, and slaves being dragged from smoldering villages en route to the promised land to believe that none of it ever really happened.

That would have put Moses and his Pentateuch at around 1250 BCE, a quarter millennia after the estimated origin of the Hebrew tradition with Job and again, much more recent than Gilgamesh, Atrahasis, or Enuma Elish. That also makes the Pentateuch younger than the religions dedicated to Marduk, Ba'al, Amen-Ra, and everyone in the Hindu trinity.

Even if that is true which may be and may not be, it really doesn't matter to the whole scenerio. It is perfectly understandable that the flood would be told in other cultures.

How would they have found out about it? The Indo-Aryan linguistic and cultural division between what would become the Indian and Iranian nations began at about that time. But their (many) flood myths don't remotely match.

The 1st through 4th Dynasties of Egypt continued right along, building pyramids requiring the assistance of hundreds of workers each. This immediately after everyone in the world had drowned? And at the same time, more pyramids were going up in China. The Egyptians recorded all manner of minor trivialities, but they missed the day that everyone died? And somehow picked up again immediately afterward, still with hundreds of laborers as if nothing had ever happened? Where did they get these hundreds of workers from? And why does their flood myth credit Atum and Osiris?

Sumer kept their records continuously up to, and after the flood. Yet in the first century after that event, they also recorded a series of civil wars. How could they have had enough people left to have even one war? Perhaps the same way the Greeks did, since their myth had many survivors on high ground.

Recent discoveries in archaeology and geology have revealed that the Black sea flooded, destroying a whole village some 7,000 years ago. The Sea of Galilee also flooded, destroying another shore-side village some 15,000 years ago. In the time since then, many lakes and rivers have come and gone in North America, fed or drained by the events of the ice age, often with profound effects that are undeniable to the observer as to what they are, and how they occured.

At the time of the Tigris-Euphrates flood of Noah, (2900-3000 BCE) there were already civilizations emerging as far west as Ireland, and as far east as Japan. We've had Asiatic immigrants, becoming native tribes in the Americas for at least 12,000-15,000 years. The Australoid and Oceanic peoples have been where they are for at least 45,000 years. Since all of them are still there, and they obviously never experienced this flood of yours, how would it be reasonable that they could have told that story?

I don't take issue enough of this to put forth the effort today for it. I have a cold and feel miserable and I have a rather no give a &*%&^ attitude.

Hopefully you feel well enough now. All I want to know is this: Is there any quality or quantity of evidence you would or could accept to prove that the global flood never really happened, and that the men who fashioned the stories in the Bible merely exaggerated the details?

 

[JohnR7]

But speaking of these several other codes, aren't there two just in the Bible, both claiming to be the same document, even though they both list different laws? .

There are two covenants, one at the mountain and that covered man's relationship with God. The second was right before the Hebrew children entered into the promised land and that covered their relationship with each other. This is why I beleive in a two fold atonement. Jesus died to not only reconcil us with the father, but also to restore us to a right relationship with each other.

 

[Aron-Ra]

Fine. What is it?

There are archeological evidences for Jesus and evidences that support certain aspects of the Bible such as materials outside of the Bible that support it.

Fine. What is it?

I remember when the news broke about James' ossuary. The news stories all said that if it could be confirmed to be legitimate, it would be big news, because it could be the first and only archaeological evidence of Jesus. Now, since that particular artifact is no longer considered legitimate, we're back to not having no archaeological evidence for Jesus at all. But, like Randall McNally, I too am very curious as to what evidence you're talking about.

And why is this the second time I've had to ask this question?

A common ancestor does not conflict with the Bible.[Aron-Ra]Now its your turn to explain. How does it not?

Through evolutionary processes in which God created. All things created by God would have the same "material" so to speak and would carry this common factor.

Then obviously you don't understand the concept of common ancestry, which is that all life is biologically-related. Not magically-created separately, and accidentally similar. But a traceable lineage of superficial differences built upon teirs of fundamental similarities, each in a succession of clades, descendant groups within ancestral groups. Its the explanation of why chimpanzees, humans, and all the other apes are all part of the taxonomic family, Hominidae. And why all hominids are part of the order of primates, and why all primates are eutherian mammals, and why all mammals are vertebrate tetrapods, etc. etc. What you're describing is nothing like common ancestry.

Check this link.
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Homo%20sapiens
Click the "containing group" link on each page, and you'll see which parent family each of these daughter clades belongs to/descended from.

Finished.

Well, there were two posts you've yet to answer. Message #s 125 & 126. But I don't really expect you to answer them and all these at the same time.

 

[JohnR7]

we're back to not having no archaeological evidence for Jesus at all.

There is evidence, perhaps it is not indisputable. For example it is believed that they have the house that Mary lived in after Jesus departed. If you accept it's validity or not, there are lots of people that do.

 

[Aron-Ra]

There are two covenants, one at the mountain and that covered man's relationship with God. The second was right before the Hebrew children entered into the promised land and that covered their relationship with each other. This is why I beleive in a two fold atonement. Jesus died to not only reconcil us with the father, but also to restore us to a right relationship with each other.

And the law against boiling a goat in his mother's milk satisfies which of these?

 

[awstar]

And the law against boiling a goat in his mother's milk satisfies which of these?

That one was probably some practical advice to avoid some strange chemical or physical reaction that would ultimately harm His chosen people. Much like the law against homosexual behavior, which results in physical harm to the participants.

 

[Jet Black]

That one was probably some practical advice to avoid some strange chemical or physical reaction that would ultimately harm His chosen people.

well why not just say "this is dangerous because....."

Much like the law against homosexual behavior, which results in physical harm to the participants.

all references to homosexual issues should be backed up with evidence, and to be honest, are not even supposed to appear outside certain selected fora.

 

[Aron-Ra]

That one was probably some practical advice to avoid some strange chemical or physical reaction that would ultimately harm His chosen people. Much like the law against homosexual behavior, which results in physical harm to the participants.

But how is this reaction going to occur only with his mother's milk, and not his aunt's milk?

 

[awstar]

But how is this reaction going to occur only with his mother's milk, and not his aunt's milk?

Of course I'm way out in left field here, but I was trying to show that a human explanation might exist for something that is unknowable until Christ comes again. In my radical explanation, I could see some restrictions placed on the people chosen by God through whom the Messiah would be born. The forbidding of eating pork and "unclean" animals, draining the blood from meat, and this requirement MIGHT have to do with keeping certain proteins and other genetic structures from being ingested, and eventually incorporated in their genetic make-up.

Again, I'm just speculating. The best reason for obeying God in these matters is because He said so, so we trust His heart and do what He says.

Fortunately these strange commands were only temporary until the Messiah was born a perfect man and died for the forgiveness of sin, thereby making the law obsolete with the perfect sacrifice of God's perfect lamb. Just as foretold in the scriptures -- God's Holy Word.