Did anyone exist in the first century? (part 2): Paul

Kenneth Humphreys Is probably the major Paul Myther.I can't find out much about him, but he wrote a Jesus Myth book, The Christos Mythos. See a review by major historian James omerea. His anti-Paul arguments are laid out on a blog: A Fabricated Apostle: Two Different Pauls.

Humphreys has many argumens but I will deal with six, and to summarize them:

(1)Argument from silence on Paul's great acts

(2) Disparities between Epistles and Acts

(3)Conflicts between Paul's Roman citizenship and Jewishness

(4) Paul's conversion story is implausible.

(5)Supposedly parallel passages with Josephus.

(6)No evidence of Paul in Ephesus His First Argument is an Argument from Silence (OF COURSE). There's no record of Paul being assigned to enforce Jewish sanctions against heretics. Moreover, Paul was always meeting Kings and civic dignitaries yet there is no record of it in secular history. "The trail-blazing Christian missionary and apostle, St Paul, appears nowhere in the secular histories of his age (not in Tacitus, not in Pliny, not in Josephus, etc.) Though Paul, we are told, mingled in the company of provincial governors and had audiences before kings and emperors, no scribe thought it worthwhile to record these events."

Humphreys seems to assume that there's some archives to which we can go to look up all that happened in first century Palestine. There is no such place. They did not have a vast governmental achieve, if they did we don't have it now. We have little from the first century. The list of all first century writings that don't mention Jesus (excluding prolific Philo) is so small it's not much bigger than those that do. Any authority granted Paul if even written, would be so totally obscure it's silly to expect to have it.[1] As for meeting with important people a lot of that was due to Paul claiming rights of Roman citizenship when charged with crimes. There's nothing remarkable about that so no reason to expect to find the records. That's like saying "my son [the drug addict] is always talking to layers and judges so he's an important guy." Moreover, Stephan Neil points out that Luke gets the titles of all the functionaries correct in all the different regions.Neil thinks that one of the most impressive aspects of Luke as an historian is that he always gets the titles right. Many of the titles of local officials which Luke provides us with were not validated until modern times. "The writer of Acts knew the correct titles and used them with varying precision. In the words of Ramsey: 'the officials with whom Paul and his companions were brought into contact are those who would be there. Every person is found just where he ought to be; proconsuls in senatorial provinces, asiarchs in Ephesus, strategoi in Philippi, politarchs in Thessolonica, magicians and soothsayers everywhere.' The Most remarkable of these titles is Politarch the ruler of the city used in Acts 17:6...previously this word had been completely unknown except for this passage in Acts. It has now been found in 19 inscriptions dating from he second century..." Neil argues that titles are the hardest things to get right, modern French writers never get English titles right, and this is something that would easily and surely betray an anachronism (147)Historians of the modern day judge Luke a superb historian.This is good evidence that he did make the journey because getting such title's right is very hard to do.[2]It seems the author really was on the trip and thus it's not made up out of whole cloth. He probably knew Paul as well.

His second argumentis that the Pauline Epistles and the book of acts portray widely divergent views of Paul. Paul of the epistles is independent and confident, not intimidated by authority of the Apostles. He confronts Peter (Galatians); the Paul of Acts is cooperative, dedicated to the team, and willing to be commanded and led:

Now part of the brethren ("with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem" - 9.28), he is "managed" by the elders. Disciples "took him" from Damascus (9.25) and Barnabas "brought him" to the apostles (9.27). They "brought him" to Caesarea and then they "sent him" to Tarsus. Barnabas "brought" Paul back to Antioch (11.26) and then with him was "sent" to Jerusalem with famine relief (11.30) – (as it happens, a visit to Jerusalem completely unknown to Paul himself). Eventually the brethren "send" Paul on his first missionary journey (13.4). As a missionary, Paul is very much on the collective message:"And as they went through the cities they delivered them the decrees for to keep that were ordained of the apostles and elders which were at Jerusalem. And so were the churches established." – Acts 16.4,5.

From Thessalonica, Paul is "sent away" to Berea by the brethren (17.10). He is also "sent away" by sea and "brought" to Athens (17.14,15). In Cenchrea, Paul even takes a Jewish vow and shaves his head! (18.18).

On this point there's an ironic but obvious counter. Humphrey's says of the Paul of Acts: "The closest Acts comes to bestowing the title [Apostle] is 14.14 where his name follows Barnabas and the plural is used." Then: "Full of his own importance, in all his letters Paul hammers home the point that he is an apostle and that his appointment comes directly from the divine." Do you see a relationship there? That is certainly not proof that he didn't exist. All it really proves is that once got out on his own he realized how they treated him and decided to do it this own way; more a proof of his historicity because it shows he was human. Moreover the fact of shaving his head means he was in conflict with them. He was commanded to do it, it was a PR move and Paul's own idea. My argument is not that here is no disparity but that Humphreys is making much more out of it than should be made. First you have the difference between Paul's account of himself (ok so he's not Mother Teresa--he has an ego)juxtaposed to Luke's understanding of him. In fact Luke's account might have been recorded and embellished from verbal recollections by a well meaning acolyte. Secondly you have to consider the tine and the on text. Luke is writing to put Paul's life in a light that would flatter him and promote unity, and he was writing in the 80s, 20 years after Paul's death. Paul was writing to churches ad hock about immediate problems confronting. Humprey's argues that Paul, in his letters, doesn't tell them about the things in the book of Acts. Yet he was not writing an auto biography. He also did not tell them about his mother, we can safely assume he had one. At worst all this proves is that the Greek physician was a spin doctor not that Paul did not exist.

In his third argument, implausible and contradictory aspects of Paul's story, Humphrey's real ignorance is showing. He thinks that if Paul was a hotshot student of the major rabbi, there would be some Jewish polemics about it. Then an even more egregious and telling display of how little he really knows: "How likely is it that Paul really studied under the Pharisaic grandee (Acts 22.3)? Paul clearly had difficulty with the Hebrew language: all his scriptural references are taken from the Greek translation of Jewish scripture, the Septuagint." He also compounds the ignorance by questioning if a Roman citizen could have any authority in Judaism and asserts nothing in the texts spell out official authority.

First, Paul's status as a hotshot student. No one ever really said, nor did Paul say, "I was the best student.." He said he learned from Gamaliel he did not say "I was the top student." He said "I was zealous" and he said kept the law he didn't say "I was brilliant I was the best." Of course there is also the possibility that such polemics did exist but are lost to posterity; I've already shown that we have little in the way of documents surviving that era. The Romans may well have destroyed any achieves they had in 70 or in 135. When they destroyed Jerusalem the second time they put Roman temples over Christian and Jewish holy sites such as the site of Jesus' tomb. hy would they not destroy archives?[3]

Secondly, the Septuagint gaff. It is common knowledge that the LXX (Septuagint) was the Bible of the early church. In fact the Jews were so angry that the Christians made so much of the Greek scripture and used it to link Jesus to Messiah that they commissioned a new Greek Translation in 100 AD. Why? Because Palestinian Jews spoke Greek. obviously Paul had no trouble with either language he used LXX because that was the favorite of the people.

This translation became very popular among Jews in the first two centuries before Christ because many Jews in those days did not understand Hebrew. Their ancestors had left Israel centuries before, and generation after generation gradually lost the ability to read the Scriptures in Hebrew.Many of the Jews in Jesus' day used the Septuagint as their Bible. Quite naturally, the early Christians also used the Septuagint in their meetings and for personal reading; and many of the New Testament apostles quoted it when they wrote the Gospels and Epistles in Greek. What is most fascinating is that the order of the books in the Septuagint is the same order in our Bibles today, and not like the Hebrew scrolls....

[4]

As for Roman citizenship in Judaism apparently he doesn't know, what anyone well versed in Paul should know, that the Jews of Asia minor did have Roman citizenship and they were full fledged Jews and had rabbis and everything (Tarsus, where Paul was from, is in Asia minor).[5] The fourth argument with which I will deal is argument from incredulity; has a lot of little parts, part of his spread on implausibility. The doubts the conversion story, saying if Paul was not convinced by Jesus' miracles why would the Damascus road experience.

Perhaps because it happened to him? Let's assume Paul saw Jesus from afar as a member of a huge crowd, a hostile spectator who never said one word tov Jesus. Probably didn't get close. For all we know he could have been back in Cilicia during Jesus ministry, but let's assume he was there. He's watching Jesus surrounded by hundreds, or thousands, of followers what's he going to do attack him? He was smart enough to know he wouldn't get very far. He was a scholar not a son of Hercules. Would he be convinced by Jesus? I imagine he would think of Jesus in the same way that Modern atheists think of faith healers. Having the experience himself could be transformative.

The fifth argument is not one argument but kind of argument he makes many times. He compares passages in Josephus to those in Acts to show that "this is where they got their ideas." This takes an absurd form even counting passages that have nothing more in common than the uses of two names that are the same: John and Silas. Josephus in his Life (auto biography) says (as Humphries summarizes) "Josephus was himself betrayed by 'John', chose an ally named 'Silas', and made a miraculous escape!" While in Acts (16:25-29) Paul sees some reason not to take John and does take Silas. Jo is betrayed by a John, and has an ally named Silas. In a second such example(also from Life but not cited so we don't know where Jo tells Jews not to force circumcision on some gentiles and Paul says the same thing in relation to Timothy.

This is typical of myther thinking (see part 1). Two stories share the same word so one must have copied the other or must be referring to the other. read the parallels see that the stories are not about the same things it's only veg references like negative about a John and Silas is a friend.[6]

The Sixth Argument no evidence of Paul in Ephesus. He argues that all the legends have John founding the church of Ephesus not Paul. Paul was supposed to have lived there for three years a d founded the church there.

Just left our one little thing, mythers have so thoroughly purged the Bible from their consciousness he doesn't even consider it to exist. So he doesn't dawn on them that the txt is an artifact itself, like pot shard. All he can see is the pastoral epistles not written by Paul. But they were written in Ephesus. So why are people in Ephesus trying to attribute works to Paul? Not just because he was important but, perhaps, because he was in Ephesus. Otherwise why attribute the work to someone who was never in that city. What's really odd is that suddenly we trust these legends. The Bible is rubbish and has no authenticity, full of mythys and copied after pagan religion but in this one area the Christian legends (they are really legends) are right that John started the church in Ephesus. Praise God, We found one historical church figure who actually existed! In reality of course we better reason to think Paul was there than was John. On the other hand there is no reason why they both could not have been there. The most up to date scholarship shows us that there ere many Christian communities in Ephesus. There was no on church community that was the true official church.[7] Some were gnostic some had nothing to do with each other. There could have been a core community started by Paul that eventually merged with the Johanine community, if John was even there. Another possibility is that is that Paul could still exist even if he never went to Ephesus.

Even if we accept his major thesis that Acts is a gloss on Paul for propagandistic purposes, that still doesn't prove there was no historical man who wrote Romans and was named Paul, and was from Tarsus. none of these arguments actually prove there was no Paul. The author of Acts could have propagandized weather Paul existed or not. Just for the record, I can accept that Luke did propagandize or spin or gloss to some extent, but Acts is too well verified by Sir William Ramsey not to be a valuable historical source. But that's another blog. I will do a part 3 giving positive reasons to believe that Paul existed. Remember Paul is a source for proving that Jesus existed. see Cadre blog pieces on historicity of Acts (Nov 4, 2007 by BK and one by me against Richard "Bayes Boy" Carrier's views im marfh of 14).

Sources


[1] E.M. Blaiklock, Jesus Christ: Man or Myth? Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1984.

Non Christian writings of Roman empire (excluding Philo) that don't mention Jesus. This is all of them, the point being we don't have much first century stuff.

* An amateurish history of Rome by Vellius Paterculus, a retired army officer of Tiberius. It was published in 30 A.D., just when Jesus was getting started in His ministry.
* An inscription that mentions Pilate.
* Fables written by Phaedrus, a Macedonian freedman, in the 40s A.D.
* From the 50s and 60s A.D., Blaiklock tells us: "Bookends set a foot apart on this desk where I write would enclose the works from these significant years." Included are philosophical works and letters by Seneca; a poem by his nephew Lucan; a book on agriculture by Columella, a retired soldier; fragments of the novel Satyricon by Gaius Petronius; a few lines from a Roman satirist, Persius; Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis; fragments of a commentary on Cicero by Asconius Pedianus, and finally, a history of Alexander the Great by Quinus Curtius.

Of all these writers, only Seneca may have conceivably had reason to refer to Jesus. But considering his personal troubles with Nero, it is doubtful that he would have had the interest or the time to do any work on the subject.
* From the 70s and 80s A.D., we have some poems and epigrams by Martial, and works by Tacitus (a minor work on oratory) and Josephus (Against Apion, Wars of the Jews). None of these would have offered occasion to mention Jesus.
* From the 90s, we have a poetic work by Statius; twelve books by Quintillian on oratory; Tacitus' biography of his father-in-law Agricola, and his work on Germany. [Blaik.MM, 13-16]

"To this Meier adds [ibid., 23] that in general, knowledge of the vast majority of ancient peoples is "simply not accessible to us today by historical research and never will be." It is just as was said in his earlier comment on Alexander the Great: What we know of most ancient people as individuals could fit on just a few pieces of paper. Thus it is misguided for the skeptic to complain that we know so little about the historical Jesus, and have so little recorded about Him in ancient pagan sources. Compared to most ancient people, we know quite a lot about Jesus, and have quite a lot recorded about Him!"

So there just aren't that many overall sources to go by in the first palce. But why wouldn't more of Jesus' contempoaries write about him?

[2] Stephen Neil, The Interpretation of the New Testament:1861-1961, London: Oxford University press, 1964,143.

[3]G.Cornfeld,Archaeology of The Bible: Book by Book, New York: Harper and Row, 1976, 271-2).

[4] John Barnett, "What Bible Did Jesus Use? "Jesus.org. on line resource URL: http://www.jesus.org/birth-of-jesus/genealogy-and-jewish-heritage/what-bible-did-jesus-use.html

[5] Paul Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus From Paul To Ignatius,Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2007.

article about Tarsus then and now, archeological excavations and pictures.

[6] compare the two passages

" But when John [of Gichala] was come to the city of Tiberias, he persuaded the men to revolt from their fidelity to me ... A messenger had come to me from Silas, whom I had made governor of Tiberias ... Upon the receipt of this letter of Silas, I took two hundred men along with me, and traveled all night ...

"But Paul thought not good to take John with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia ... And Paul chose Silas, and departed, being recommended by the brethren unto the grace of God.– Acts 15.38,40 " And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them " And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.

We can see there is almost nothing parallel about these passages. The names are about all they have in common.

[7] Trebilco, op,cit., 2-4.

Did Anyone Exist in The First Century? (part 1): The Peter Myth

The Jesus myther thing is funny. They wanted to be totally sure they wouldn't go to hell so they convinced themselves Jesus just didn't exist. Actually they got the idea from 18th and 19th century people such as Bruno Bauer who did not have benefit of more recent scholarly developments. It was an age of unbelieving super liberal scholarship where thinkers like Von Harnack were more common and believing scholars like Lightfoot and Wescott were less common. Atheists are already skeptical of any counter evidence and it's really the final solution of atheism to erase Jesus from history. But Paul proves Jesus existed. He met his brother and some of his best friends, and speaks of his fleshly nature and earthly linage. But not to worry, Paul didn't exist. That's right there is actually a big movement (by Jesus myth standards) to say Paul didn't exist. But Paul is proved to have existed because the author of Peter's epistles, whoever he was, said he did. Guess what? There's a group of peter mythyers. Dare I pointed out that Clement of Rome seemed to suggest that he saw both Peter and Paul, what do you think they would say?

The author of There was no historical Paul the Apostle is a brave skeptic who objectively imposes the most demanding standards of skepticism upon all but his own views. When considering the Bible he bravely informs us to be skeptical and critical think. He forgot to do that with his own stuff. I notice he's an Acharya S-ie.(like a "Moonie")he says:

Acharya is operating basically within the right paradigm, in which all the figures are approached as essentially mythological. Like most scholars, she has only a lower type of grasp of esoteric religion, but she knows that whatever esoteric religion, mysticism, and gnosis amounts to, Christianity was that rather than a literalist scenario. She argues that the apostles are all mythic-only, and more notably, argues that Paul is ahistorical.

Who is Ashara S and what is her Paradigm? She's a major Jesus myth person who was given a very important mission, that of destroying Christianity. Who gave her this a mission? Moscow? No. Castro? No. The Underworld? no,. Little gray space aliens*. That being said I think we skip over the paradigm. The myther movement is full of crack pots and non professional scholars. The most scholarly they have are the band of 19th century people. i'm going to lay out the sources that I think are their best and deal withy them. Since most of us have probably heard a lot of Jesus myth stuff I will deal withy only the Paul and Peter myth stuff.

Something like real scholarship on the Peter myther scene is Arthur Drews (1865-1935) author of The Legend of St. Peter. Historian, Philosopher, representative of Monism in Germany. He was at the tail end of that pack of people who denied Jesus[' existence whom Schweitzer debunked and put to flight..[1] That's why Drews has been described as "forgotten." There's an online version of his Witness to the Historicity of Jesus (1912) is online.[2] I will deal with that one soon, but looks pretty standard. A recent translation of his St. Peter books is available on Amazon...[3]

Despite the fact that Drews was areal scholar his information is out of date because we was working a hundred years ago. Every assumption he made and all of his information it's all horribly out of date. His basic working method is a joke today. I respect him greatly for what he did in his day; that was great learning he was very learned. But in this day it's all so anachronistic. I've always observed that atheists on message boards, so many of their arguments are rooted in the 19th century. Allo of Drews's arguments are based upon a kind of associative word play where if two stories use te same word, such ads "stone," one story must come from the other. Every little nuance is jam packed with hundreds of associations like this so that Peter is called Cephus and Mithra was born from rock, therefore, peter is copied after Mithra. This was the kind of methodology that was used back then because they didn't know as much as we do. They made outmoded assumptions like all religioms are mythical, all religions barrow from each other. Barrowing doesn't happens in ideas it happens in imagery and word play from mythological narrative. Akk of his arguments are like this:

Dupuis was the first scholar to identify St. Peter as Janus [the term janitor, originally keyholder, derives from janus]. Janus in turn derives fron Dianus (>> day), a god of the daylight hours, male form of Diana, the famous lunar- and wildlife deity. Janus was considered the god of all doors, especially responsible for the portal to heaven. The month January is named after Janus.

One star in Virgo is called Janus. This implies astromythical imagery. In the old days, Janus was at the Medium Coeli at sunrise around the winter solstice, thus opening a new year. Janus was not only competent for opening and closing days and years, but also war and peace. Janus was here seen as superior to Jupiter, the father of the gods. As Janus leads the annual circle of the zodiacal signs, St. Peter leads the twelve apostles of Roman Christianity.

Hercules is called a mace bearer, but key and mace can be expressed as synonymous in Latin: Hercules is thus a key holder like Janus.

The regions of the near East get most rain in winter. This leads to the picture of Janus as a ferrymen across the invernal flood. Argo, called the ship of Janus, was back then seen in the medium coeli during rain time. Janus as a ferryman again alludes to Peter's activity as a fisherman.

Janus was depicted not only with the key to heaven, but also with a long staff that can be reinterpreted as the shepherd's staff with which St. Peter watches over the 'sheep' of the Catholic church.

Janus was depicted as two-faced, watching both ahead and back, from horizon to horizon.

This is why the Jesus myth crowd are stuck on the dying rising savior thing and the copy cat savior thesis. They respect these guys, they think they are forgotten geniuses, and they are. There' a reason why they were forgotten. They pend all their time reading this stuff and very few Christians know how to answer it. When they hear Christians say these guys aren't scholars they know better. They were scholars they are just outmoded. Schweitzer said Bauer was a genius. But he also said he was wrong. Atheists spend so much energy shouting that theology is stupid they really think that theology is about this stuff they refuse to learn.

Think about all the things that have changed since Drews wrote. First, since they discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls we can see the New Testament is really a lot more Jewish than they thought. My apologist comrades and I have always wondered why they can't see that all the elements of the Jesus story are in Judaism. Because they are reading stuff from a time when scholars thought that the NT was all Greek and gnostic, The assumption of Gnosticism was because they didn't have Naghammadi to compare to. Now that tendency to see Gnosticism in the NT was alive and well as late as the end of the 20th century with Elaine Peaggles book. But what people don't know is that the scholars were cringing at bad the book I was in the classes of some of those scholars.,

Let's look at some of the specifics of his argument. After an absurd land slide of associative connects that human being thinks in, we have two emblems that link Jesus to pagan gods and they all are given by him to Peter (in the quotation of he summary above): the Shepard's staff, and Keys to the kingdom. In addition he's linked to Mithra because they both have some tangential relation to rocks. Mithra was a Shepard, Peter as Shepard of the church is also linked through Janus as Ferryman and Peter as fisherman. They both have boats. No one thinks this way. No one would say "I'm going to make up a Pal for Jesus and Janus reminds me of Shepherds so I'll have him be a bishop of the church." Notice the association is made to Jesus giving Peter a staff but no such thing happened. Jesus tells Peter, "feed my sheep,' but it says nothing about a staff. It's like James Joyce playing charades. A stream of consciousness mae up of Freud-like associations.

Another unknown in the days of Drews was the real belief system of Mithrism. It began in Persia but Mithra is thought to be a mythological figure from India. The Persian cult traveled to Rome. Even in Drews day they knew that they had no written materials from the cult. They were guessing about the importance of sheep and the comic bull. No proof that the Roman cult had Mithra the Shepard Mithra, the links to Jesus and Peter just evaporate. They that solders in Jerusalem took Christianity back to Rome and thus Christianity influenced Mithraism. The most damaging fact is what they did not know because it was discovered by David Ulancy (Mithra scholar par excellence) in the 1980s: The Roman cult was a front for another cult. They weren't even serious the rock or any of it. That sort of cuts down on thye odds that they would be influencing Jews in Palestine. There are two statements that need to be understood concerning Mithrism and Christianity, the totally disprove the idea that Jesus was patterned after Mithra. The first is by David Ulansey the major scholar of Mithrism:

Owing to the cult's secrecy, we possess almost no literary evidence about the beliefs of Mithraism. The few texts that do refer to the cult come not from Mithraic devotees themselves, but rather from outsiders such as early Church fathers, who mentioned Mithraism in order to attack it, and Platonic philosophers, who attempted to find support in Mithraic symbolism for their own philosophical ideas. "At present our knowledge of both general and local cult practice in respect of rites of passage, ceremonial feats and even underlying ideology is based more on conjecture than fact." [5]

Fanz Cumont was a major scholar, he often shows up on the bibliography of every major Jesus myther (he's on Kane's and Frick and Ghandy). He was a real scholar and a major scholar, but the mythers apparently don't read his entire book:

"There is no real evidence for a Persian Cult of Mithras. The cultic and mystery aspect did not exist until after the Roman period, second century to fourth. This means that any similarities to Christianity probably come from Christianity as the Soldiers learned of it during their tours in Palestine. The Great historian of religions, Franz Cumont was able to prove that the earliest datable evidence for the cult came from the Military Garrison at Carnuntum, on the Danube River (modern Hungary). The largest Cache of Mithric artifacts comes form the area between the Danube and Ostia in Italy." [5][6]

" The connections from Mithrism to Jesus evaporate, and thus the connections from Mithrism to Peter as well. This and much more is carefully documented on my Mithrism pages. There are more big surprises there. It also would not hurt to see my Jesus Christ Copy cat savior? pages, In fact here is my whole Jesus myth menu. My historical Jesus Menu.
I don't know much about Janus but I have researched several of the figures used by mythers for the (alleged) patterns of the Jesus figure. They always evaporate when we move out of tye fairyland of myther books and read real mythology books such as Hamilton and Bullfinch. Not Christian apologists. Real secular schools of myth and folklore.

Nex time I'll deal with a couple more writers whom I consider to be challenging and scholarly and the one tangible bit of evidence outside the NT that documents the existence of both Paul and Peter.

Sources

[1] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of The Historical Jesus. [2]Author Drews, Witness to the Historicity of Jesus (Joseph McCabe Trans.) Original publication 1912. online URL:http://www.mountainman.com.au/essenes/Witnesses_to_the_historicity_of%20Jesus_AUTHUR_DREWS_1912.htm accessed 12/1/15Atheist Press 1997 [3]____________,and Frank Zindler The Legend of St. Peter. American Atheist Press(Trans. Frank Zindler) 1997 (original 1910). [4] Klaus Schilling's summary of "Die Petruslegende" by Arthur Drews on Theory of ego website. Online resource URL: http://www.egodeath.com/arthurdrewslegendstpeter.htm#_Toc116703882accessed 12/1/15. Thisi a summary of the book. The whole thing reads like that. [5] David Ulansey, Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. UK:Manchester U. Press, 1975. ,437. [6] (Franz Cumont, The Mysteries of Mithra Chicago: Open Court, 190), 87ff.

* this is from the link to the thing by8 Holding. Radio talk show the subject was extraterrestrials. The calls says clearly he is discussing extra terrestrials. Caller: "Ok Mohammed also met one of them in a cave…a similar type of being. And also in the book of Isaiah, Daniel…all the extra-biblical texts talk of the same type of beings and other cultures talk of the same type of beings. I'm wondering how they all would describe the same thing…"

Acharya: "Well, I can tell you I've had beings around me too and they are telling me to put this information out there. So I'm not disagreeing that there are beings. But it takes a great deal of knowledge and refinement of that knowledge to realize what you're looking at and unfortunately most people don't have the platform from which to be viewing this information necessarily. So they…there's all kinds…The speculation that starts getting in becomes quite tortured…"

see the link at top

Fun virtual tour of Holy land

Church of the Annunciation, Bethlehem.



Excavating Nazareth

"For the purposes of worship, the Jewish-Chrsitians of Palestine availed themselves not only of the synagogues, but also developed their ritual in certain "sacred and mystic grottoes" as reported by the ecclesiastical historian, Eusebius of Caesarea. In Their worship in this "Lord's house" in Bethlehem which was carried on until the fourth century, they celebrated two of three mysteries par excellence: Mary's Virginity and her bringing forth the Christ child; ...Hadrian profaned the site by planting a wood over the grotto, but this helped to maintain the tradition of the birthplace of Jesus." (Cornfeld, Archaeology of The Bible. New York: Harper and Row, 1976,p.2779-280)......

,,,,,,(2) Nazerath.






excavation of house discovered in Naz. 2009

Back around 2001 when I really made a major commitment of my time and resources to internet apologetic, or whatever this is I do, there was a huge presence of an argument that Nazareth was not inhabited in the time of Christ, so Jesus could not have grown up there, therefore, this lends credence to the idea that Jesus didn't exist. I wrote one of the few major responses, a page backed by my actual contact with the major archaeologist who excavated the stie in that in the late 90s or so (there's a new version on Doxa but no new material). With much publicity of my page the issue sort of faded into the background. Now it's back. There is more Jesus myth propaganda being made of this issue than ever before. The issue is still as hallow and the proof of Nazareth's existence still as obvious as ever.

There are three major atheist arguments:

(1) No historical mention of Nazareth.

(2) Tombs near by Preclude Jewish Habitation

(3) The Geography is wrong.

In this first section I will deal with argument one.

The argument always seemed silly to me becuase if you are going to make up a fictional guy and pass him off as historical, why have him come from a fictional town? To this atheists answer, writers always put fictional characters in real places. That's quite common. Exactly! Why invent the place he comes from? They did it with Superman but he's not being passed off as real. What is the major atheist evidence that Nazareth didn't exist? It's based upon argument from silence of course. No, actually there are two major arguments one is based on silence and the other is positive.

(1) no record of Nazareth being inhabited until the middle of the second century.

from a reader to blog "Facing the Challenge:"

To say that there is no proof that something does not exist as a way to support the supposed truth of the bible is misleading. The burden of proof is on you, the believers. You say Jesus and God exist. Show us.

How about the embarrassing fact that the town now called Nazareth, contains no artifacts to suggest habitation in the area until at least midway through the second century? But wasn't Jesus born and raised there? You'd think we would have found some of their wares lying around. Not only that, but the caves in the area had previously been used as a necropolis, or city of the dead. Jewish law prohibits followers to live adjacent to a necropolis.

David Couchman (facing the challenge)
summarizes atheist argument:

According to the Bible, Jesus grew up in Nazareth. There is no evidence that the town now called Nazareth was inhabited before the middle of the second century - that is, more than a hundred years after Jesus was supposed to live there.

My foil in this discussion shall be one of the major atheist websites on the Issue: Nazareth the Town that Theology Built." The sight is by a Kenneth Humphreys, it's a chapter from his book Jesus Never Existed. His page is par to of the website of the same title and it's basically his book on the web.

Here's where argument from silence comes in:

Humphreys argues that Nazareth is not listed anywhere as a city in that era. As though there could never be a place so small and obscure that there can't be a record of it. Of cosure just as there are millions of people in first century Palestine we will never know existed, there are probably hundreds of villages we will never know existed. To prove this point he quotes (actually just alludes without even footnoting or documenting) (1) Joshua (as though if it wasn't inhabited before the exile it could never be) the (2) The Talmud (he doesn't document that he even looked at the Talmud--of course he can't show evdience that something it's there, without making us read the whole thing, he should at least foot note the source of the Talmud he looked in so we have some idea that he at least got a copy). (3) Paul doesn't mention it. Then he claims (4) No ancient historian mentions it. This is clearly argument from silence because there's no positive reason to think it wasn't inhabited, the only reason is that the sources are silent.

As we will see the summary of those sources is more than just silent it's inaccruate. It is not true that no ancient historian mentions it.

Two mentions in antiquity

"Despite the Hellenization of the general region and the probability that Greek was known to many people it seems likely that Nazareth remained a conservative Jewish village. After the Jewish war with the Romans from AD 66-70 it was necessary to re-settle Jewish priests and their families. Such groups would only settle in unmixed towns, that is towns without Gentile inhabitants. According to an inscription discovered in 1962 in Caesarea Maritima the priests of the order of Elkalir made their home in Nazareth. This, by the way, is the sole known reference to Nazareth in antiquity, apart from written Christian sources... (next paragraph) Some scholars had even believed that Nazareth was a fictitious invention of the early Christians; the inscription from Caesarea Maritima proves otherwise." Paul Barnett[BSNT], Behind the Scenes of the New Testament, IVP:1990, p.42:

Patristic writer Heggespius, a Jewish-Christian writers of the second half of hte second century writes about it:

Patristic Evidence
Franciscan cyerspot
http://christusrex.org/www1/ofm/san/TSnzarc2.html
(this sorce no longer works) (visisted 2001-04)

Even the judeo-christian historian Hegesippus (late second century) gives witness to these next-of-kin of the Lord when speaking about a persecution of the Christians by Emperor Domiziano (81-96 AD) and whose writings are quoted by Eusebius (IV cent. AD) in his History of the Church (III,19.20,1-6). Jiulius the African (250 AD) mentions how the descendents of Jesus were jealous in keeping alive the memory of their forefathers (a passage quoted by Eusebius in his History of the Church I,7,13-14). During the persecution in Asia Minor of Emperor Decius (249-251) a christian maryr, Conon, is brought to trial and he proclaims in judgement: "I am from Nazareth of Galilee, I am descendent of Christ to whom I give worship since my forefathers". The Apochryphal writings too expand this vision about the next-of-kin of the Lord. They gather the oral traditions of the first Church about Jesus' family, especially his childhood years, Mary's and Joseph's daily life with Jesus amongst them.

Notice Humphreys begins dating the habitation of Naz. at late second century. This is in harmony with the standard Myther time table, but it also counters Heggisepius. Although it's not logical to think that the place would have sprang up from nothing in parallel to the life and times of the guy who mentions it.

Now Humphreys demonstrates his incredibly bad logic. He tries to aruge that the NT wirters were somehow biased because they don't mention a major metropolis which is just four miles away (from the PBS website "from Jesus to Christ," linked site by UT professor White discusses the excavations).

Humphreys on website--(link above)

None of this would matter of course if, rather like at the nearby 'pagan' city of Sepphoris, we could stroll through the ruins of 1st century bath houses, villas, theaters etc. Yet no such ruins exist.

caption to picture
reads:

No, not Nazareth but Sepphoris, a 45 minute walk away – and which does not get a mention in the gospels!

[Humphreys continues]

In short order, Christian apologists fall over themselves to explain 'But of course, no one had heard of Nazareth, we're talking of a REALLY small place.' By semantic downsizing, city becomes TOWN, town becomes VILLAGE, and village becomes 'OBSCURE HAMLET'.

Yet if we are speaking of such an obscure hamlet the 'Jesus of Nazareth' story begins to fall apart.

The reasons this is horrible logic, while he's constructing this would be brilliant analysis of the dishonesty of Gospel writers, what he's ignoring is the obvious fact that here is a major city right next to the village, just a few miles away, and there's hardly a mention in history of that era! We didn't' know much about it until we excavated it. He tries to sell it as some kind of plot implying that Jesus grew up in Sepphoris and this was transfomred into tiny Nazareth for some really stupid reason because it just makes it all the more difficult to ground Jesus in fact if his home town is made up too. Why do it? He assumes a place could not be so small on one wants to talk about it. He's also assuming a small place can't be next to a big place. Also notice how whining his arguments are. He's basically just whining because we don't have good ruins to prowl though, as though the fact of Nazareth being small proves it couldn't exist.

My evidence for the recent nature of our knowledge on Sepphoris comes from a site, the URL of which has changed. PBS, Frontline, From Jesus to Christ. I visited their site on this point backin 2006.

From Jesus to Christ: Frontline, PBS

http://www.pbs.org/wghb/pages/frontline/shows/religion/maps/arch/

Tradition pictures the world of Jesus as a peaceful and pastoral place, governed by the ancient rhythms of field and farm. But recent archaeological evidence has revealed a different environment, one influenced by city life and marked by political unrest and protest.
These discoveries began to emerge twenty-five years ago, when a team of archaeologists, including Eric and Carol Meyers, began to excavate a city located less than four miles from Nazareth, easily accessible in an hours walk. The city is Sepphoris. It was destroyed in a political feud in about 4 BCE -- the approximate date of the birth of Jesus -- and it was rebuilt during the time that Jesus was growing up nearby. Known as the "ornament of the Galilee", Sepphoris was wealthy, sophisticated and predominately Jewish. An elaborate system of water works kept residents supplied with fresh water; satellite villages such as Nazareth may have kept it supplied with food.

The quotes are now gone from the site. They do talk about the city, however, Eric Meyers of Duke says he believes it wasn't as developed in Jesus' day. As Jew Jesus would have been excluded from much that the city had to offer. Meyers believes the theater wasn't there and that the city did not reflect a Roman flavor until the time of Herod Antipas, after Jesus.

This is only about half the article
Read More

The Museum at Hierapolis where Philip lived,(The evangelist one of deacons chosen in acts not the Apostle). He provide a historical link to Jesus through Papias and the Apostle John.

The Philip Connection

Papias and The Daughters of Philip

Tomb of Philip at Hierapolis

 Our understanding of Philip comes to us form four major soruces: Papias, Irenaius, Eusebius, and Polycrates. Papias (70?-155?) was Bishop of Hierapolis (in Phrygia, sort mid southwestern Turkey), where Philip lived. Papias knew the daughters of Philip after their father's time. What we know of him comes to us priarily form his student Irenaeus. Irenaeus is important as the connecting link not only to Philip but to Papias and Polycarp. Irenaeus is a major figure in the chain.

 
Papias and The Daughters of Philip

Papias had several important connections to the history of Jesus. He studied with his friend Polycarp and they both studied under the Apostle John. There is a controservy about weather it was the Apostel John or another John, I will deal with that on Papias own page. He lived in Hierapolis where he was Bishop there was also Philip and his four virgin daughters. The daughters of Philip were prophetesses, Paul is said to have met them in Acts (8:5-40; 21:8-9. ), and Papias is said to have met them as well. Eusebius speaks of this in the same passage that he speaks about Papias:

The residence of the Apostle Philip with his daughters in Hierapolis has been mentioned above. We must now point out how Papias, who lived at the same time, relates that he had received a wonderful narrative from the daughters of Philip. For he relates that a dead man was raised to life in his day. He also mentions another miracle relating to Justus, surnamed Barsabas, how he swallowed a deadly poison, and received no harm, on account of the grace of the Lord.[6]

Polycrates testifies (AD 190) to existence of these daughters and their burial and their father's burial at Hierapolis, "Philip of the twelve apostles who sleeps in Hierapolis and his two druthers, elderly virgins, and another of his daughters who after living in the Holy Spirit rests in Ephesos."[7] William Tabbernee documents an inscription from Hierapolis honoring a public figure which links the burial of Philip the apostle with the monument in his honor, the "martyrium." It refers to him as "the glorious Apostle and Theologian Philip.[8]  Of course there are problematic details in these accounts. Other accounts give four daughters, Polycrates seems to only know of there. There is a controversy as weather or not this Philip is the evangelist of Acts (one of the first decons) or the Apostles, one of the twelve who traveld with Jesus. No one really knows. In a famous debate between a Montanist (Prokolos) and an Orthox (Gaius) reference is made to the four daughters of Philip as having resided in that area and being burried there.[9] There is a possiblity that the tomb of Philip has been discovered:

 

Italian professor Francesco D'Andria, the head of the excavation team at the Hierapolis ancient city in Denizli, told reporters on Tuesday that experts had reached the tomb of St. Philip whose name is mentioned in the Bible as one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus.

Professor D'Andria said archaeologists had been working for years to find the tomb of the Biblical figure, and finally, they had managed to reach the monument while working on the ruins of a newly-unearthed church in Hierapolis.

D'Andria said the structure of the tomb and the writings on it proved that it belonged to St. Philip the Apostle, who is recognized as a martyr in the history of Christianity.[10]

The Tomb is near the "martyrium" a structure put around the fifth century to commemorate the death of Philip. The martyruim is probably where he was crucified and the tomb where he was burred. Or it could just be that they didn't put the monument over his tomb because a chruch was there so they put it near by. It's not proof but it lends credence, it at least establishes that the tradition starches back further toward the actual event of his living there.

F.F. Bruce, an Evangelical Scholar, highly respected in all circles, tells us: "Eusebius tells us on the authority of Papias and other early writers that at a late date Philip's four prophetic daughters were famed in the church for authorities in the history of its earliest days." [11] That's probably exaggeration. As as been seen the only quotations I can find by Eusebius about Philip and his daughters say nothing of the kind. He's probalby basing that upon the miracle stories they told Papias. Yet they do provide a more important link to Papias than has been observed by scholars. These women have been overlooked, relegated to footnotes in the questions about their father's identity. They must have been important in their day, they show up in several sources even long after they were gone (Polycrates wrote in 190 and the report of Gaius and Prockleus was even latter). The site of their tombs was marked. They were prophetesses and that gives a status. Even though tehy were probalby weren't historians per se they surely did pass on stories about the early days as Papias attest. They  knew their father who around in the early days of the faith. Even though the sources may have become confused on points such as which Philip we are dealing with, in my view it must be the evangelist [12] those are not big enough problems to lose the reality of Jesus as a real man in history.

All these connections provide a web of historicity. There are three major trajectories along which the historical evidence is found: the gospels (both canonical and extra canonical), the Pauline corpus, and the apostolic fathers. These form interdependent links that make a big web of historicity. Papias is linked to John or at least disciples of the Lord such as Elder John, and he's also linked to the Pauline corpus through his association with the daughters of Philip, who know Paul. Through Philip he has another link to the early days of the chruch. We have this big web all these groups of people that knew each other as we go more deeply into it the inner circles come close to knowing Jesus. Paul met several such as James and Peter who knew him intimately. He also knew Andronicus and Junia who were around in the early days and Priscilla and Aquila who were first followers of the Baptist. Irenaeus' teacher Polycarp knew Papias and knew he was a follower of eye witness disciples who saw Jesus.  Yet how could it be that the core of the web is fictional?

How absurd to think people in Jerusalem  just a few years after the disciples began preaching would say "my father never heard of this guy, my grandfather never heard of him, his followers say he spoke to throngs of people in the streets of Jerusalem they heralded him, they demanded his release when he was captured but no one has heard of him, no one I know has any memory of those events, I think I'll join his little band of twelve guys."

You might ask how this ties into Jesus, both groups, Paul and his circle and Philip and his circle understood Jesus as a man in history. They all knew people that had seen him. They clealry told Paul about him and no doubt told Philip about him too. There's a a good chance Philip himself saw Jesus as he began his ministry in Jerusalem in the first days of the chruch.


fragments Papias writing form sources other than Eusebius.
http://www.chronicon.net/index.php/papias#Fragments



Sources on Eusbius
[1] "The Apostle Paul," Britannica Encyclopedia (1997) quoted on website "Was the Apostle Paul a Historical Person?" Kevin's Articles on Religion http://www.davnet.org/kevin/articles/paul.html aacessed 11/2/13.
[2] etherial library

[3] Gary R. Habermas Originally published in Dialog: A Journal of Theology, Vol. 45; No. 3 (Fall, 2006), pp. 288-297; published by Blackwell Publishing, UK. on Experinces of Risen Jesus, Website http://www.garyhabermas.com/articles/dialog_rexperience/dialog_rexperiences.htm
 accessed 11/2/13.
Hbermas fn
Michael Martin, The Case Against Christianity (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1991), 81

[4] Ibid. also fn

[7] Ulrich Wilckens, Resurrection: Biblical Testimony to the Resurrection: An Historical Examination and Explanation (Edinburgh: St. Andrew, 1977), 2.

[8] Joachim Jeremias, "Easter: The Earliest Tradition and the Earliest Interpretation," New Testament Theology, trans. John Bowden (N.Y.: Scribner's, 1971), 306.

[9] Walter Kaspar, Jesus the Christ, new ed., trans. V. Green (Mahweh: Paulist, 1976), 125.

[5] Helmutt Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels

[6] Eusebius, Oracles of the Lord op cit.

[7] William Tabbernee, Montanists Inscriptions and Testimonia:Epigraphic Sources Illustrating The History of Montanism.Macan Georgia: Mercer University Press 1997, 504

[8] Tabbernee, op cit 503.

[9] ibid, 505

[10] "Tomb of Philip The Apostle Discovered in Turkey?" News Network Archaeology. website URL:
http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/07/tomb-of-philip-apostle-discovered-in.html#.UI6idmeZhTE

[11] FF Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable,published in USA by Wb Erdeman's Publishing company and Invervarsity press, originally published 1943, 1981 , p.43)

[12] The same quote by Papias about how he always tried to get word from those who had been with the elders, names Philip the Apostle among them. If he lived in Herapolis Papias would hardly need to learn his words form travelers coming in from elsewhere.

Richard Carrier and The Bayes Craze (part 2)

Part 1 to this article)

Richard Carrier wants to indict all historiography not based upon Bayes Theorem. Carrier reasons that we can think of the past as future in those areas where we don't have the info. (see part 1). The problem is past events can't be quantified as to their probability because they happened. We may not know the outcome and we think of the likelihood or unlikelihood of an event, but the more information we get the less probable it becomes, yet I'm talking about events that happened. Events that we know happened are not probable they are done deals. The future is not like that because future events are always probable until they happen. We can wind up thinking event X is not likely to have happened when it did happen. An example, how likely is it that an eye witness to a great battle would get the date wrong? Yet Josephus did. The problem is what assumptions do we make (with Bayes where to set the prior probability). I think that's the real reason historians never put numbers to historical probability.

I base this upon a discussion with my old professor, Church historian William S. Babcock, although he never used Bayes for history but he was a math major at Brown. He says history is always matter of probability but we don't put numbers top historical probability because there is no way to know what numbers to put. In order to start the process of using Bayes you have to know something definite. In dealing with the past one is not dealing with a true probability but with an unkown which is actually happened. If we find it happened it's not probable. Until we do find that we don't know what assumption to make.There are only certain things for which Bayes can be used.

R. Joseph Hoffmann says:

What is known by people who use Bayes’s theorem to advantage is that there are only certain conditions when it is appropriate to use it. Even those conditions can sound a bit onerous: In general, its use is warranted when a problem warrants its use, e.g. when:

•The sample is partitioned into a set of mutually exclusive events { A1, A2, . . . , An }.
•Within the sample space, there exists an event B, for which P(B) > 0.
•The analytical goal is to compute a conditional probability of the form: P ( Ak | B ).
•You know at least one of the two sets of probabilities described below. •P( Ak ∩ B ) for each Ak
•P( Ak ) and P( B | Ak ) for each Ak ...The key to the right use of Bayes is that it can be useful in calculating conditional probabilities: that is, the probability that event A occurs given that event B has occurred. Normally such probabilities are used to forecast whether an event is likely to occur...

So far, you are thinking, this is the kind of thing you would use for weather, rocket launches, roulette tables and divorces since we tend to think of conditional probability as an event that has not happened but can be predicted to happen, or not happen, based on existing, verifiable occurrences. How can it be useful in determining whether events “actually” transpired in the past, that is, when the sample field itself consists of what has already occurred (or not occurred) and when B is the probability of it having happened? Or how it can be useful in dealing with events claimed to be sui generis since the real world conditions would lack both precedence and context?[1]...

That's where Carrier tries to think of the past like the future."To put it crudely: Not knowing whether something will happen can be treated in the same way as not knowing whether something has happened by jiggering the formula. Managed properly, he is confident that Bayes will sort everything out in short order:"?[2]

Carrier puts it:

If you treat every probability you assign in the Bayesian equation as if it were a syllogism in an argument and defend each premise as sound (as you would for any other syllogism) Bayes’s theorem will solve all the problems that have left [Gerd] Theissen and others confounded when trying to assess questions of historicity. There is really no other method on the table since all the historicity criteria so far have been shown to be flawed to the point of being in effect (or in fact) entirely useless. ).:"?[3]

I may have made this point in part 1, Hoffmann makes it as well: If all the historical works of the past is useless upon what, pray tell, does one set the prior? If t5he data used for Bayes is useless then Bayes is useless as well. More importantly, Hoffmann points out, "Bayes does not generate criteria and method; it depends on them, just as the solution to Marie’s dilemma depends on real world events, not on prophecy."[4]

Hoffmann tells an anecdote that his former student was speaking of Carrierer's assertion thqat Bayes can be used "where no 'real world data and conditions' can be said to apply." The Student remarked, "Is this insistence [Carrier’s] of trying to invoke Bayes’ theorem in such contexts a manifestation of some sort of Math or Physics envy? Or is it due to the fact that forcing mathematics into one’s writings apparently confers on them some form of ‘scientific’ legitimacy?"[5]

At this point Hoffmann backs my assertion that Bayes, when applied to an area of belief for which we have little real data is entirely subjective. It's a matter of guessing and prejudice as to what basic assumptions to make. As he says plug in different values you get different answers. The next point he makes backs up my point about the illusion of technique. That is the point that it's a gimmick, he's trying to lend scientific credibility to his opinions. "Do there exist good reasons to suppose the methods commonly used in different areas that have grown over time are somehow fatally flawed if they are not currently open to some form of mathematization?"(Emphasis mine).[6]

In his review of Carrier's book James McGrath emphasizes applying Bayes to history is just a matter of applying formal logic to historical reasoning."It does not turn history into mathematics, but nor does it guarantee that those who purport to use it will always manage to adequately assess their own blind spots, shortcomings, and clutching at straws in an attempt to reach a desired conclusion."[7]

In one respect I disagree with McGrath. He says that in using Bayes for history, those who do are not being less precise and that Carrier rightly (according to him) points out that numbers lurk behind the assessments of all historians."All probabilities that historians currently use have numbers hidden behind them, as Carrier emphasizes. And so it is useful to be forced to articulate more clearly whether we think that the likelihood is closer to 70% or closer to 90%..."."[8]

There's a lot wrong with this. First, I disagree that they have numbers behind them. What they really have behind them is events that are not probable but have already happened. In trying to attach numbers that can't be there they are merely trying to ad a verification they don't really have and can't have. All the numbers really tell us is what our guesses are. Secondly I don't think we need the pretense of numbers to force u8s to clarify because we choose according to our prejudices so the numbers only serve to reinforce our prejudices. The numbers enable us to rationalize our prejudices and give them the illusion of scientific acuity.

For some reason McGrath tried to be conciliatory to Carrier and it's absurd. He says:

If the internet mythicists of today were to take this advice to heart, they might work on trying to actually publish scholarly works in appropriate venues, instead of complaining about their being dismissed in a manner that Carrier rightly says is appropriate when people without relevant expertise try to bypass peer review and scholarly discussion and promote their ideas directly to a public ill prepared to assess them...."[9]

Carrier has tried to involve some academics in his work but if he has done peer reviewed work in journals I don't see it. I do agree that Carrier has some good pointds but then he ruins it by makes such strident claims. He essentially says he's the nly valid historian. If that's not snearing at peer review I don't know what is. Then I go over to The Secular Outpost to argue with Lowder some more and find someone illustrating the kind of thing I' talking about in the use of Bayes. Those outpost guys are mad for Bayes. The context here is argument over resurrection. One of them says:

Jesus didn't appear to anyone. The dead do not appear. For that matter, many of the followers of Satya Sai Baba (not just some ancient books that claim that the followers claimed that) claim that he appeared to them, etc. - but he didn't; neither did Jesus.One may simply point out that the resurrection did not happen, on account of the astronomically slim prior probability, [emphasis mine] and the lack of any evidence sufficient to overcome that, or even coming close to overcome that, or even to introduce reasonable doubt. The probability that Jesus was never crucified - even if low - is surely much higher than the probability that he resurrected, even if counting all of the evidence or alleged evidence in support of the crucifixion.

I have to wonder if this guy understands the concept of probability. He doesn't understand the concept of miracles. Probability is just odds given the number of chances that a thing will occur. While a miracle is something impossible, that is not supposed to happen; something that left to its own devises nature could never come up with on its own. Miracles have no probability they are impossible. God is either necessary or impossible. God cannot be a maybe God cannot be something that might or might not have existed. If God exists he has to exist and if God does not exist (apologies to Paul Tillich)[10] it's because it's impossible for there to be God. So in setting a prior for God at all one is begging the question. There can't be a probability for something that has to be or that if it is not, cannot be. This just illustrates my point that atheists refuse to study theology or ace the hard issues of theology.

1 R. Joseph Hoffmann, "proving what?," The New Oxonian: Religion and culture for the intellectually impatientPosted on May 29, 2012 Blog, URL:
https://rjosephhoffmann.wordpress.com/2012/05/29/proving-what/ (accessed 10/30/150)

following graduation from Harvard Divinity School and the University of Oxford, R. Joseph Hoffmann was tutor in Greek at Keble College and Senior Scholar at St Cross College, Oxford, and Wissenschaftlicher Assistant in Patristics and Classical Studies at the University of Heidelberg. He's an editor of Sources of the Jesus Tradition, Carrier is a contributor.

2 Ibid.

3 (Carrier, “Bayes Theorem for Beginners,” in Sources of the Jesus Tradition, Amherst NY:Prometheus Books, R. Joseph Hoffman (ed.), 2010 - Religion 107.

4 Hoffmann, Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid..

7 James F. McGrath, "Review of Richard C. Carrier, Proving History."August 7, 2012, Exploring Our Matrix, blog, URL:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/08/review-of-richard-c-carrier-proving-history.html (accessed 10/30/15). 8 Ibid..

9 Ibid.

10 Tillich believed in not using the term "existence" (or exist) in relation to God. Contingent things exist, God is not a thing existing in creation, God is the basis of all that is, being itself. Hartshorne did get him to accept the use of the term exist if it was used metaphorically.
I*'ve written extensively about this on Metacrock's blog, see "God and Being Itself," just one ofr many.

Richard Carrier and The Bayes Craze

The Revd Thomas Bayes, 1701-1761

"The current discussion among Jesus-deniers and mythicists over whether probability in the form of Bayes’s Rule can be used in historical research is more than a little amusing. The current fad is largely the work of atheist blogger and debater Richard Carrier who despite having a PhD in ancient history likes to tout himself as a kind of natural science cum mathematics cum whachagot expert." --Hoffman, The New Oxonian

I've been missing the fun of message boards, those lovable wacy atheists using Bayes as a gimmick to afix the authority of science and mathematics to their subjective opinions. They can have the fun of insults on message boards, I am through with that. I must, however, through in my two cents because this is such a flagrant example of the Illusion of Technique.I allude to the concept by William Barrett in his book of the same name.[1] Technique is the basis of technological manipulation of reality, and the illusion of technique is the illusion that one is manipulating reality by manipulating the facts. The use of Bayes to replace discursive reasoning and so give the atheists and Jesus mythers a sense of victory is the gimmick of Richard Carrier in his book Proving History. I don't know who wrote th book ad but it betrays a certain arrogance:

Carrier's book add

This in-depth discussion of New Testament scholarship and the challenges of history as a whole proposes Bayes’s Theorem, which deals with probabilities under conditions of uncertainty, as a solution to the problem of establishing reliable historical criteria. The author demonstrates that valid historical methods—not only in the study of Christian origins but in any historical study—can be described by, and reduced to, the logic of Bayes’s Theorem. Conversely, he argues that any method that cannot be reduced to this theorem is invalid and should be abandoned.

"Carrier applies his philosophical and historical training to maximum effect in outlining a case for the use of Bayes’s Theorem in evaluating biblical claims. Even biblical scholars, who usually are not mathematically inclined, may never look at the ‘historical Jesus’ the same way again." -Dr. Hector Avalos, Professor of religious studies, Iowa State University, and author of , The End of Biblical Studies

The idea that "any method that cannot be reduced to this theorem is invalid and should be abandoned "may be the publisher's fantasy and not Carrier's idea at all but it is not only completely wrong but also a contradiction to the few historians who support using Bayes. More on that below. I also have to call attention to the blurb. Hector Avelos, my old sparing partner.[2] and poster on Loftus's Debunking Christianity blog, is an atheist activist who once tried to argue for closing down all of Biblical Scholarship. While the publisher Prometheus books is part of the atheist propaganda machine. That is the outfit that launched Loftus's career as an atheist activist when he shamed them itno publishing his book (he told me that story and I talked to his publisher--although they might not say "shamed").

Yet even though Carrier himself did not say that his own words are even more arrogant and strident.

Carrier in pdf

By Richard Carrier, Ph.D.
Visiting Lecturer for the Center for Inquiry Institute
Richmond, CA, USA
April 2012

"Several examinations of the methodologies employed in the study of Jesus have consistently found those methods invalid or defective. Which fact has resulted in the proliferation of endless different conclusions as to the nature of the historical Jesus and the origins of Christianity..." What studies? What is the problem with different views? This is nothing more than an attempt to reduce all knowledge to scientism and to give atheism the illusion of scientific authority. The so called studies he talks about are atheist Jesus myth polemics.[read about this Center for Inquiry Institute].But he gets even more strident:

Every expert who has specialized in examining these methods and published a study of them has come to this conclusion: Stanley Porter,[2] Dale Allison,[3] Hector Avalos,[4] and almost a dozen others[5]; even Gerd Theissen, who describes the common conclusion, that “there are no reliable criteria for separating authentic from inauthentic Jesus tradition,”[6] attempted to resist it, but his own effort to rehabilitate the method ultimately led him to agree with that consensus, concluding that the criteria simply don’t work, and some other method is needed to replace them, something that involves more general evaluations of plausibility, although he confesses he is not certain how to formally do that....

To me De Lorean (back to the future car guy) did a study of air bags by examining all the data from scientific tests. I know Dale Allison did not have any data to study from scientific tests examining the validity of Jesus' historicity. He says every expert has come to the same conclusion I know that's just BS because Luke Timothy Johnson wrote a book debunking the Jesus seminar and used the methods they are against. They are against those methods because they negate their assertion about Jesus existing in history. Or again:

Chris Keith and Anthony LeDonne, titled Jesus, Criteria, and the Demise of Authenticity(T & T Clark, 2012), and featuring such luminaries as Mark Goodacre and Morna Hooker, all coming to the same conclusion: the method of criteria is simply not logically viable. This leaves the field of Jesus studies with no valid method, and puts into question all consensus positions in the field, insofar as they have all been based, to one extent or another, on these logically invalid methods.

It's not as though no historians support him. There are a few, but only a handful. Neil Godfry).[3] talks about Aviezer Tucker‘s Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography(2004).[4]

That’s the subject of Aviezer Tucker‘s Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of Historiography (2004). Tucker’s interest is the relationship between the writing of history (historiography) and evidence (p. 8). It is written for audiences interested in philosophy, history, biblical criticism, the classics, comparative linguistics and evolutionary biology (p. 22).

Godfry goes on:

...the application of Bayes’ Theorem merely expresses in symbolic terms the way historians evaluate the nature of evidence and test hypotheses to explain evidence for certain events and artefacts. Some fearful critics have objected to the application of Bayes because they have never understood this fact...All Bayes’ theorem does is help us clarify our thinking. Bayes theorem is simply a symbolic way of expressing how we do our best thinking when seeking explanations for evidence or evaluating hypotheses against the evidence. The more complex the factors that need to be considered in addressing a problem the easier it is for us to overlook a critical point or draw invalid comparisons. Bayes’ helps us to clarify thinking about the most complex of issues, including those in the social sciences and history

There's the rube. It's doing what historians do anyway, but Dr. Carrier tells us what they do is useless unless they use Bayes, this is rather circular. If what they do is useless (ad above) and all Bayes does is clarify what they are doing then is just helping clarify the useless.

He gives an example

"The probability of the hypothesis that George Washington was the first president of the United States, given the massive amount of documentary evidence for it and background knowledge of the causal chains that led to this evidence, is almost 1. We are almost certain that George Washington was the first president.
Contrast this:

The probability of the hypothesis that Jesus was the founder of what became the Christian Church, given the massive documentary evidence for it and background knowledge of the causal chains that led to this evidence, is . . . ?

historians. (p. 96)

The Theorem

Tucker sets out Bayes’ Theorem thus:

Pr(H|E & B) = [Pr(E|H & B) x Pr(H|B)]:Pr(E|B)

Pr — the Probability of. . .

H — the Hypothesis, or any historical proposition about past events

E — the Evidence (often this means similarities between two or more independent sources)

B — the Background knowledge of theories, methods, other hypotheses

The vertical line | should be read as “given”. So the first part of the equation expresses:

The Probability of the Hypothesis being true given the evidence and background information.

Pr(H|E & B) translated into words:

The probability of the hypothesis that George Washington was the first president of the United States, given the massive amount of documentary evidence for it and background knowledge of the causal chains that led to this evidence, is almost 1. We are almost certain that George Washington was the first president.

Contrast this:

The probability of the hypothesis that Jesus was the founder of what became the Christian Church, given the massive documentary evidence for it and background knowledge of the causal chains that led to this evidence, is . . . ?

Unfortunately we have no background knowledge of the causal chains that led to the Gospels and writings of Paul. We only have other hypotheses (e.g. oral tradition) to fill in these gaps.

)[5]

Now h will have to prove that that's not enough. Atheists are always trying to hold believers to a standard to certain proof while they themselves never claim to meet such a standard. Bayes is certainly not going to give it to them.

Another example: early Christian studies example,

"If our evidence is Christian apologetic writings that claim to quote a letter from Jesus to the king of Edessa, it can be dismissed as a fabrication given all we know. If, however, we found the letter in scientifically verifiable archives of King Abgar of Edessa, it would be very surprising and lead to a serious rethink about Jesus and Christian origins."

I need this mathematical gimmick to tell me this? I have been aware of such letters and Gospels for 40 years and I've never given them credit. Those are not major sources for Jesus' historicity, we can do a lot better than that. For that matter we don't need a mathematician to notice that this same method that supposed to offer great objectivity and real historical proof is used to "prove" diametrically opposing views, Carrier says it disproves the existence of Jesus of Nazareth as a man in history; William Lane Craig says it proves he rose from the dead.[5] Neither Craig nor Carrier is an idiot. They both have advanced degrees from major universities, neither of them is in the dark about how Bayes works. Why the difference? Because they makes different assumptions as befits their ideologies, their beliefs, their biases. The initial problem is that the assumptions they make are made in the absence of real data, Bayes wont work in that space.

So there are two problems here when it comes to trying to apply Bayes Theorem to history: (1) Carrier and Craig need to treat questions of what happened in the past as the same species of uncertainty as what may happen in the future and (2) historical questions are uncertain precisely because we don't have defined and certain data to feed into the equation. Bayes Theorem only works in cases where we can apply known information. So, in the example above, we know how often it rains in a year and we know when the weather forecast is and isn't correct. So by inputting this meaningful data, we can get a meaningful result out the other end of the equation....Bayes Theorem's application depends entirely on how precisely the parameters and values of our theoretical reconstruction of a real world approximate reality. With a historical question, Carrier is forced to think up probabilities for each parameter he put into the equation. This is a purely subjective process - he determines how likely or unlikely a parameter in the question is and then decides what value to give that parameter. So the result he gets at the end is purely a function of these subjective choices...[7]

. I'm not even to the good criticisms yet. Stay tuned for next time (Monday?)



Sources

1 William Barrett, The Illusion of Technique: The Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization, New York:Anchor, 1979, no page indicated.

2 Avalos is author of the book The End of Biblical Studies he is a professor of religious studies and teaches at University of Iowa. I had my own series of exchanges with him, challenged him to formal debate and he would not do it; he tried to answer me once I think he wished he had not.
see (all on Metacrock) Atheist Thought Police, Response to Avelos," Jan 17, 2008

"Critique of Hector Avelos's End of Biblical Criticism,"Feb 10, 2008

see Metacrock's blog, "Christianity, Force For Liberation," April 8, 2010,URL:
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2010/04/christianity-force-for-liberation.html
I comment on Avelos's rhubarb with Helmutt Koester in "Hector Avelos Takes on Helmutt Koster," Metacrock's Blog, July 21, 20 10. http://metacrock.blogspot.com/2010/07/hector-avelos-takes-on-helmutt-koester.html

3 Neil Godfry,"real Historians do Bayes" Virdar, blog (July, 18, 2013) URL: http://vridar.org/2013/07/18/real-historians-do-bayes/ accessed 10, 29, 15.

4 Aviezer Tucker, Our Knowledge of the Past: A Philosophy of HistoriographyCambridge, London: Cambridge University Press (2004), no page indicated.

5 Godfry quoting Tucker, Ibid., in Tucker, 97.

6 Tim O'Neill, "what is your opinion on the use of Bayes Theorem to discover the best historical explanation for data we have as outlined by Richard Carrier?" Quora, blog, (17 Aug 2014) URL: https://www.quora.com/What-is-your-opinion-on-the-use-of-Bayes-theorem-as-a-tool-to-discover-the-best-historical-explanation-for-the-data-we-have-as-outlined-by-Richard-Carrier

7 Ibid.

Page 2 of argument

FFF:Klatoo Nicto Acharya: Fun with Jesus mythers

Thank God it's Fun Filled Friday! what could be more fun than the loveable antics of the Jesus myth crowd?

Acharya S: "Well, I can tell you I've had beings around me too and they are telling me to put this information out there.

J.P. Holding sent me this file on Acharya S, Jesus myth apologist, based upon his own experiences in dealing with her.

When, I first came across the work of Acharya S in an article by Glenn Miller that dealt with the assertion that the Gospels borrow from pre-Christian pagan mythology (http://www.christian-thinktank.com/copycat.html), it was already under heavy fire. Glenn pointed out that Acharya does not use any recent scholarly works or deal with the primary sources on the lives of the god-men that allegedly provided the framework for the story of Christ. He went on to investigate the Acharya's list of similarities, and came to the conclusion that her work was extremely erroneous.

I followed the link to her site that he provided, and came across her e-mail address so I decided to send her a letter. After stating that her work was "interesting", and that I had a few questions concerning some of it that I'd like her to address point-by-point, I sent her an excerpt from and a link to Glenn's site. I received no response from Acharya S. I did however receive this letter from a friend of Acharya named Lee, insisting that I disregard Glenn's work because Glenn is a Christian:

Acharya sent me the following question of yours. She is quite busy.

What else do you expect a Christian to say? Beliefs need to be justified, don't they. Use your head.

If you are trying to decide whether to buy a Honda or A Buick, do you go to the Honda dealer and ask him about Buicks, or vice versa?

No way, Jose, not unless you are braindead and stupid.

I do a lot of research on the Old Testament, and New Testament, especially the definitions of the Hebrew words and the transliterations into Greek. I will never go to a Christian or Jewish source for definitions, never that is the road to stupidity. I really solely on secular academic sources, because they are the least biased.
However if you have a need to believe, in anything, then you will believe and all you will look for and acknowledge are arguments which will salvage your beliefs. On the other hand if you know that we live in a world of Borg or Serpents People (groups of people controlled by words) then you know instinctively that you can't trust the words of Word Controlled Humans, or the Borg.The question is then personal to you. Are you an individually sovereign person, who is in charge of your own personal cosmology, your own identity, your own thoughts, your own ability to reason or think, or are you a braindead part of a hive, a collective of Borg.

Lee Markland who is not a drone.

After weeks of arguing with Lee, I decided to end the correspondence due to her inability to directly address any of the points Glenn had made. She apparently thought it was enough to plagiarize anti-Christian rants from skeptical web-sites and tell pornographic jokes about Jesus. I e-mailed Acharya, informing her of the red herrings and intemperate remarks made by her friend, but received no response. Having lost all hope of communicating with Acharya, I decided to buy her book, The Christ Conspiracy, to see if maybe there she could support any of the claims made on her web-site. Her book, especially the list of "savior gods", was not even as well documented as her web-site and I found the majority of the information to be either ridiculously out of date or just plain ridiculous. After running into several skeptics who described her as "brilliant" and her book as "the truth about Christianity", I decided to beg JP Holding to put her up in the Rogue's Gallery. Though he felt Acharya's work was not even worthy of a response, I mailed him the book and told him about all of the skeptics I had come across who were buying into it. He agreed to rogue her, even if just for the sake of humor.

A few weeks later, a friend of mine sent me the following link to an audio file of Acharya's appearance on the show "Sightings" hosted by Jeff Rense. This can be found at

http://www.audionet.com/shows/endoft...05/end0527.ram

Towards the last quarter of the show, a caller is discussing the existence of "alien beings", and Acharya makes what I thought were some rather interesting admissions. The conversation is as follows:

Caller: "I wanna tell the lady that I think there's a heavy..uh…extraterrestrial connection..ummm…involved with a lot of our ancient activities. Um, I believe a lot of its missed...um…in relation to missing information or information they just weren't given but but you can't deny the fact of...um…eyewitness accounts throughout the Bible and extra-biblical texts…especially uh, the apocryphal texts…involved with beings who have hair white like wool and eyes like flames, because um…eh…they are throughout our history and um, they have some integral part they're playing…involved with various different religions. Uh, there's too much of them seen…and uh um…involved with the high priests of various different religions, to be just a myth, because um…uh…if you read the Jewish Kabballah…uh, it talks of seven planets with seven cultures there. One of em called Thebel (sp?), which is a sun in our solar system…far away from the sun. Uh, all these things are written down and somebody had to give them the information. There's just too many eyewitness accounts that there's definitely a connection there!"

Acharya S: "Well, I don't know what you mean by eyewitness accounts but uh…quite a few of the artifacts that people are taking to be…um…alien visitation…uh…legends, like for example there's the story of Ezekiel. He's describing…when he talks about the wheel within the wheel…he's talking about the zodiac. Ok, so if you're gonna be looking for characters, the first thing you have to realize however is that many of the myths that we're discussing do record astronomy and astrology. Now as far as other influences upon those stories, that's another factor. I have not denied that there have been contact with strange entities. I think there's definitely been so. In the Tibetan world, they claim on-going contact with people who live inside Venus…Venusians."

Caller: "What about the…even if you look at the book of Revelation the first chapter there…as John turns around, and he knows its, for instance Jesus, he says 'Aha'…and the being says 'Aha, its me…yes I am, the one…the hair white like wool and the eyes like flames'..The same thing with the book of Enoch, when Noah was born…"

Acharya: "Ok the eyes of flame and the white wool is the sun, itself. So the whole book of Revelation is basically Zoroastrian and its astronomical. Much of what's being described in there is interplayed in the heavens."

Caller: "Ok Mohammed also met one of them in a cave…a similar type of being. And also in the book of Isaiah, Daniel…all the extra-biblical texts talk of the same type of beings and other cultures talk of the same type of beings. I'm wondering how they all would describe the same thing…"

Acharya: "Well, I can tell you I've had beings around me too and they are telling me to put this information out there. So I'm not disagreeing that there are beings. But it takes a great deal of knowledge and refinement of that knowledge to realize what you're looking at and unfortunately most people don't have the platform from which to be viewing this information necessarily. So they…there's all kinds…The speculation that starts getting in becomes quite tortured…"

Caller: "Can I say one more thing?"

Host: "Sure"

Caller: "Um…I have a…um…family history of…a very interesting family background and um… uh, my biological mother had an actual contact with one of these beings and the information she was giving was quite astounding. So..in my…the only thing coming from is I absolutely know that they're real. So, anybody can take that for what it's worth. What I'm telling you…as far as I'm concerned, I know they're absolutely real and the things that I know of are absolutely astounding…so we should uh…There may be myth…There may be myth in everything else but I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'm…that I can tell you….that they are absolutely real."

Acharya: "Well, I think I just said that I have also experienced many beings, many many times."

It seemed to me that Acharya was speaking about alien "beings" here, as was the caller. I provided the link, and showed the transcript to a fan of hers, and he immediately ran back to her asking what she had meant. He first reported that Acharya claims she was just joking about the "beings", but when I questioned him about the fact that no one else on the show seemed to think so, he claimed that the "beings" she was referring to are human "beings", i.e., her friends. Somehow, the new explanation just didn't square with the language she uses in the interview so I decided to e-mail her anonymously and ask her myself. This was her response:

…concerning the "beings" business. I've gotten a few messages concerning the idiotic and retarded claims of my detractors, who have no credibility. Nor do they have any true spirituality or empathy. That comment was made on Jeff Rense's show, "Sightings." It is truly pitiful that these morons could listen to that interview and remain fixated on that one comment, entirely unaffected by all the profound information I relayed. They are really sick. My point was that I could feel the suffering of all those who were hideously tortured and murdered in the name of this disgusting ideology and its repulsive godman. I spent the first decade of my life literally barfing over man's inhumanity to man and other creatures. That is the reason why I do what I do: I am extremely empathetic, and I feel for people all over the world, as well as for those who have died horribly. Such is a true spiritual experience, which these chowderheads think they're having with their garbagey cartoon character god. In any case, I don't believe in anything, including that there are only three dimensions. I've had many experiences in other dimensions, which is why I am not a hardcore skeptic.

First of all, Acharya didn't relay any "profound information" on this show. She simply read the same old erroneous list of god-men and their alleged attributes out of her book. Secondly, this explanation is extremely hard to swallow, as it would be completely out of context in the conversation with the caller. Regardless of what it was she actually meant, from the quality of her work and statements like those above, it seems obvious that we are not dealing with a "scholar", as she refers to herself, but someone who has spent too much time in the New Age section at her local bookstore. I'm not sure what kind of scholarly standards exist in the other realms Acharya visits. But here in this dimension, its necessary that she provide the primary sources that predate Christianity to establish the alleged borrowing she insists the early Christians engaged in to create their "garbagey cartoon character god."

Bottom line: Though I feel like I'm (pick one) a) calling in the Air Force to take out a fly; b) using Excalibur to lance a boil on the face of modern Biblical Scholarship; c) using a shotgun to break a pinata, I leave it to my friend, J.P. Holding, to reduce Acharya's laughable theories to rubble, and her mindless fans to the quivering amoeba they are. Of course, she'll never know it happened. This is the same woman who accused Glenn Miller of "turning wheels" in response to his devastating refutation of her work on the dying and rising gods. Needless to say, the S doesn't stand for Smart. I will thoroughly enjoy watching Acharya's wacky would-be scholarship get thrown to the lions of Tekton Apologetics.

Shooting in San Bernadino

I think the whole country is stunned. We are all really tired of it. My heart really does go out to the victims and their survivors.

It would be an even greter tragedy if we did any gun control. Guns are sacrosanct. Next to money guns are the most sacred thing, especially in Texas (high school football being close second).

A lot of shootings are cause3d by mental illness, alienation, and disgruntlement. The solution is obvious: ban mental illness, feeling alienated, and being disgruntled.

some one say something!!!

I need evidence that someone sees this sight. are you all spam bots? someone say something!!!

The Real Battle Is not With Isis, but With Ousrelves

James 1:27New International Version (NIV)

27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

New International Version (NIV)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Luke 6:31New International Version (NIV)

31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Matthew 25:31-46New International Version (NIV)

The Sheep and the Goats



31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

New International Version (NIV)

Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Leviticus 19:34

The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

It's funy I can't find the passage that says don't help people if it's risky and only help Christians. Otherrs must know so please tell me.

Ben Carson has shifted slightly with respect to his position on refugees. He still doesn't want to take them in but now he's emphasizing helping them without letting them in. We could help Europe pay for their upkeep. He's not specific but does say "we need to be doing more to help." That would be better than doing nothing, but I think we should let them in. Carson argues that letting in a measly to,000 would be a band aid. True, I think we should take in 200,000. What about Terrorism? We should not worry. O it's going to happen, but there's no point in keeping the refugees out.

I don't mean we should just give up, but we should focus upon fighting them from the interior and online. They can get in anyway. There are lots of ways they can get in. The boarder with Canada is unguarded and ungaurdable. They could sneak in through the south, it's been done. They can get Americans who can enter legally. It's not a matter of, "if it keeps one out it will be worth it." That one has too many more options; they will get in.

We can stop them from inside we of course we can go over there and stop the day lights out of them, I am totally up for that. I agree with the President we need to lay the proper ground work.

We need to help the refuges. The thing about terrorism is it's more than making you afraid. It seeks to change our values by making our fear lead us to abandon what we know is right, At this time when opportunistic politicians per saber rattling to real solutions it's easy to let fear talk us into giving away the store, trading what we know we should do for security.