Posted: Sep 06, 2019 8:49 pm
Thank you for the responses. I just want to clarify something. I wasn't arguing in any way about the existence of JOG, it honestly doesn't factor in to the reason I'm an atheist. My particular point was that:
A) None authors of the Bible had ever met Jesus and therefore had to rely essentially on rumor (Jesus and his followers were likel illiterate?). I have a hard time understanding how anything Jesus may have said was recorded with any fidelity. Especially when we consider how fundies tend to parse "every" "single" "word" to try and find the true meaning.
B) "the gap" of a few decades between the death of Jesus and the estimated date of first writing or Q (I guess) must have also resulted in a significant loss of information. Even in today's age where everything is available verbatim online - we still get folks that are more likely to believe and spread the rumor. I can't imagine is was any better in 10 AD, and suspect it was orders of magnitude worse.
So when we hear believers discussing Jesus said this about X, they actually really have no idea what Jesus said. If the Bible was an accurate accounting of what came out of Jesus's mouth - you think there would be more people than just apologists and theologians that would agree (i.e., those folks without a vested interest in showing that the Bible portrays Jesus accurately). Let me know if there is flaw someplace in my reasoning.
A) None authors of the Bible had ever met Jesus and therefore had to rely essentially on rumor (Jesus and his followers were likel illiterate?). I have a hard time understanding how anything Jesus may have said was recorded with any fidelity. Especially when we consider how fundies tend to parse "every" "single" "word" to try and find the true meaning.
B) "the gap" of a few decades between the death of Jesus and the estimated date of first writing or Q (I guess) must have also resulted in a significant loss of information. Even in today's age where everything is available verbatim online - we still get folks that are more likely to believe and spread the rumor. I can't imagine is was any better in 10 AD, and suspect it was orders of magnitude worse.
So when we hear believers discussing Jesus said this about X, they actually really have no idea what Jesus said. If the Bible was an accurate accounting of what came out of Jesus's mouth - you think there would be more people than just apologists and theologians that would agree (i.e., those folks without a vested interest in showing that the Bible portrays Jesus accurately). Let me know if there is flaw someplace in my reasoning.