[Moparbyfar]

The parts that deal with super natural events and places that didn't exist during the time of it's writing. So most of it.

For example?

[Onan]

For example??

Nazareth is a city no one else mentions until the 4th century.

Nazareth is not mentioned even once in the entire Old Testament. The Book of Joshua 19:10,16 – in what it claims is the process of settlement by the tribe of Zebulon in the area – records twelve towns and six villages and yet omits any 'Nazareth' from its list.

The Talmud, although it names 63 Galilean towns, knows nothing of Nazareth, nor does early rabbinic literature.

St Paul knows nothing of 'Nazareth'. Rabbi Solly's epistles (real and fake) mention Jesus 221 times, Nazareth not at all.

Josephus mentions Nazareth not one time and he even lived by the location for awhile.

In his histories, Josephus has a lot to say about Galilee (an area of barely 900 square miles). During the first Jewish war, in the 60s AD, Josephus led a military campaign back and forth across the tiny province. Josephus mentions 45 cities and villages of Galilee – yet Nazareth not at all.

The city of Nazareth was a fictional place at first brought on by (you guessed it) mistranslation by the gosple writers(mainly matt.).

[0rphan]

Every time I get into a debate with a Christian about the Christian beliefs, the bible is the only source they ever use to back up what they say. I do not know many books that give facts for my arguments for each specific argument; but I do know that to say that the Bible is so factual you can make it the only source for your information is just wrong! Give hard evidence that the men who wrote the Bible did not just write what they believed or thought. We cannot prove that! Religion is made up to explain the unexplainable and to give hope that we do not just live to die. If you contradict that statement then tell me why is there so many different religions? Why is it that the thought of just dieing and being no more bothers so many? I know I got off the subject of proving the Bible to be factual, but I have so many questions and I would like someone who knows real answers besides "Thats called Faith" to answer me.

Hi oxman
It would seem that your head is full of all kinds of questions and arguments wanting answers which are obviously based around the Bible so lets take the Bible out of it for a moment, imagine it doesn't exists, never written.

So here we all are on this beautiful earth still wandering what we're doing here, how we came to be here so on and so forth. We look around, everything is provided for us- food,shelter, medicines in plant form for every illness that may occur throughout our lives, for it is said that on this earth we have the cure for everything we just have to discover it,the sun for light by day and the moon our light by night in fact every basic neccessitie for our survival.( and it doesn't cost a single penny )

So would you not be thinking who put me here and what for and how did I get here? YES of course you would like all of us which is why we progressed and learnt things in an effort to find out, so could it be maybe that we are all here on a sort of learning curve in order to progress even further. Throughout this process and progression in our lives obviously there would have been people who rebelled like today so a list of do's and don'ts could have been written out for day to day living.

I am making a bit of a fist of this because know matter how I try to put this the world is a brilliant place despite the bad(most of which is caused by man) the sheer fact that it is so fantastic and beautiful-the flowers trees etc.- it just says quite clearly to me that a great being had to have been at the beginning of it all, it just did not suddenly appear, you cannot get something from nothing. It doesn't matter what you call him or if there was a book called the bible at the end of the day the fact remains we are here

The good guy upstairs is responsible.

[ordinaryguy]

the sheer fact that it is so fantastic and beautiful-the flowers trees etc.- it just says quite clearly to me that a great being had to have been at the beginning of it all

I agree that the earth is a beautiful place, and I'm thankful for that, even awed by it sometimes. But I just don't see it as evidence that "a great being had to have been at the beginning of it". I'm not necessarily saying that a great being wasn't involved in it, but what would prevent the earth from being beautiful even without that involvement?

it just did not suddenly appear

You're right, it wasn't sudden at all. It has taken the earth about 4.5 billion years to become what it is today.

[Fr_Chuck]

Obviouslly you are looking for some reason to think the bible is wrong, but sadly the city did exist, just because it was too small to really be worth mention does not mean it did not exist, digs and other proofs date it back far before Christ

Nazareth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

InSite Israel Nazareth History

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Nazareth

[laFemme]

wow, amazing how empty people live not knowing the wonders of God....sad to read ...

[michealb]

wow, amazing how empty people live not knowing the wonders of God....sad to read ...

Wow, amazing how empty people live looking for an afterlife not knowing the wonders of their life now... sad to read...

It goes both ways.

[Moparbyfar]

Nazareth is a city no one else mentions until the 4th century.

Nazareth is not mentioned even once in the entire Old Testament. The Book of Joshua 19:10,16 – in what it claims is the process of settlement by the tribe of Zebulon in the area – records twelve towns and six villages and yet omits any 'Nazareth' from its list.

The Talmud, although it names 63 Galilean towns, knows nothing of Nazareth, nor does early rabbinic literature.

St Paul knows nothing of 'Nazareth'. Rabbi Solly's epistles (real and fake) mention Jesus 221 times, Nazareth not at all.

Josephus mentions Nazareth not one time and he even lived by the location for awhile.

In his histories, Josephus has a lot to say about Galilee (an area of barely 900 square miles). During the first Jewish war, in the 60s AD, Josephus led a military campaign back and forth across the tiny province. Josephus mentions 45 cities and villages of Galilee – yet Nazareth not at all.

The city of Nazareth was a fictional place at first brought on by (you guessed it) mistranslation by the gosple writers(mainly matt.).

This in no way proves that the town never existed. By reading comments made by ones such as Nathanael in John 1:46 "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" one would assume that it was quite an insignificant village even looked down on by others.

Of interest Josephus names Japhia, the largest fortified village in Galilee which was near Nazareth but did not name Nazareth itself, telling me that the smaller village was simply overshadowed by its neighbor, 'ignored' so to speak, but gives no proof that it never existed.

[Credendovidis]

Originally Posted by laFemme : wow, amazing how empty people live not knowing the wonders of God... sad to read...

wow, amazing how empty people live looking for an afterlife not knowing the wonders of their life now.... sad to read...
It goes both ways.

Indeed !
;)

[Onan]

Obviouslly you are looking for some reason to think the bible is wrong, but sadly the city did exist, just because it was too small to really be worth mention does not mean it did not exist, digs and other proofs date it back far before Christ

Nazareth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

InSite Israel Nazareth History

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Nazareth

Those are good sites, I actually get a lot of my information from wikipedia and the catholic encyclopedia. I believe The Wik pretty much said exactly what I just said.

Of interest Josephus names Japhia, the largest fortified village in Galilee which was near Nazareth but did not name Nazareth itself, telling me that the smaller village was simply overshadowed by its neighbor, 'ignored' so to speak, but gives no proof that it never existed.

Until the 4th century though? I would think if Such a special person as JC is supposed to have been there would have been some kind of fuss about Nazareth before then.

This in no way proves that the town never existed. By reading comments made by ones such as Nathanael in John 1:46 "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" one would assume that it was quite an insignificant village even looked down on by others.

I actually have an answer for this too but it will have to wait. I just got home from work and have to get the kids fed. I will address it though.

[Onan]

Nathanael in John 1:46 "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" one would assume that it was quite an insignificant village even looked down on by others.

One could assume, but a Jew could have said the same thing about Rome at the time and Rome was not small. Christians only started saying it was an insignificant village when archeology started showing there was no proof of a city. The Bible does however say different.

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a CITY of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
(Luke1.26,27)

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the CITY of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David:
(Luke 2.3,4)

But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea in the room of his father Herod, he was afraid to go thither: notwithstanding, being warned of God in a dream, he turned aside into the parts of Galilee: And he came and dwelt in a CITY called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene.
(Matthew 2.22,23)

And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own CITY Nazareth. And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.
(Luke 2.39,40)

Matthew and Luke apparently were not aware it was only a small village. I'll get back to Matthew in a bit.

This small village at least had a synagogue right? Didn't Jesus "blaspheme" in a synagogue where he was rejected in his homeland?

How come Helena was only able to find a well? If you don't know who Helena is Google her, I don't have time to tell her story. The point is, where is the synagogue?

If the chosen virgin really had had a annunciation of messiah birthing from an angel the whole clan would have known about it within ten minutes. Shurly they should have also known of the Jerusalem incident where he supposedly proclaimed his messiahship?

A small village would have known something but yet they were outraged by what Jesus had to say. Did they forget they had a God growing up in the village?

If Nazareth really had been a small village, lost in the hills of Galilee, would not the appellation 'Jesus of Nazareth' have invoked the response 'Jesus of WHERE?'

There are plenty of sites you can read about the archeology aspect of this, I don't have time to get into that right now either, I have to get back to Matthew.

The person who wrote Matthew quoted a lot from the OT. He used anything he could to proclaim prophesy fulfilment.

The expression 'Jesus of Nazareth' is actually a bad translation of the original Greek 'Jesous o Nazoraios'= 'Jesus the Nazarene'. Nazarene has a meaning totally unrelated to a place name.

'The apostles that came before us called him Jesus Nazarene the Christ... "Nazara" is the "Truth". Therefore 'Nazarene' is "The One of the Truth"... '

– Gospel of Philip, 47.

We do know that 'Nazarene' was originally the name of an early Jewish-Christian sect – a faction, or off-shoot, of the Essenes. They had no particular relation to a city of Nazareth. The root of their name may have been 'Truth' or it may have been the Hebrew noun 'netser' ('netzor'), meaning 'branch' or 'flower.' The plural of 'Netzor' becomes 'Netzoreem.' There is no mention of the Nazarenes in any of Paul's writings. The Nazorim emerged towards the end of the 1st century, after a curse had been placed on heretics in Jewish daily prayer.

Three times a day they say: May God curse the Nazarenes'.

– Epiphanius (Panarion 29.9.2).

The Nazarenes may have seen themselves as a 'branch from the stem of Jesse (the legendary King David's father)'. Certainly, they had their own early version of 'Matthew'. This lost text – the Gospel of the Nazarenes – can hardly be regarded as a 'Gospel of the inhabitants of Nazareth'!

It was the later Gospel of Matthew which started the deceit that the title 'Jesus the Nazorene' should in some manner relate to Nazareth, by quoting 'prophecy':

"And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene."

– Matthew 2.23.

With this, Matthew closes his fable of Jesus's early years. Yet Matthew is misquoting – he would surely know that nowhere in Jewish prophetic literature is there any reference to a Nazarene. What is 'foretold' (or at least mentioned several times) in Old Testament scripture is the appearance of a Nazarite. For example:

"For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb: and he shall begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines."

– Judges 13.5.

Matthew substitutes one word for another. By replacing Nazarite ('he who vows to grow long hair and serve god') with a term which appears to imply 'resident of' he is able to fabricate a hometown link for his hero.

Small village, big city, mistranslation, lies, None of it really matters because when it's all said and done Archeology shows that during the first century the place Nazareth became to be was nothing more than a burial ground. In fact no sign of Jewish or Roman use during the time JC was growing up.

This is not the only example of this in the Bible though, There is also the story of Herod having all those kids killed. This is also a story made up.

[rodandy12]

Onan, I think you just made Oxman's point.

[Fr_Chuck]

I am sorry you can not just accept the truth of the bible, you don't have to, but the proofs are there, you are merely to blind with some dislike of Christianity to look and see it.

What is it you have against Christinity, why do you wish to attack it ?

[rodandy12]

Chuck,

All religions up to and including the cult of the flying spaghetti monster could make the same request... just accept my version of truth and the world will be goodness and light. This works fine if one is 3 years old and continues to get the indoctrination for the next 20 or so years. One would know no other truth... have no other truth within the context of one's life... have no other reference.

If an adult (without the indoctrination) decides something is needed in his/her life and begins to search the various notions of God, it is not unreasonable to ask for some justification for choosing one over another. Seeking this is not an indictment of a religion. It is going to come down to "This I decide to believe"... better known as faith.

What you argue is illogical... accept my belief structure and you will understand. It is not unreasonable to ask why or to ask for a basis on which to believe this. Your answer would be "The Bible". His response is "How do I know it is true?" Your response is "Because it says it is." Logical fallacy.

You are really saying, "have faith." He is saying "in what?"

I don't know why Christians are so paranoid about this. Why is it an attack on Christianity to ask why one should believe or to ask a Christian to justify what they believe?

[Fr_Chuck]

No, but why do you wish to come to a religious board, if you are not religious and hate religion to such a level, why not stay over in the electric or dating or atheist boards and enjoy.

But there has to be some either evil or some longing to know the real truth of God, I just don't know which it is.

And the truth of the bible is proven by digs, by history and by facts all the time, it is merely those that want not to believe it, that refuse to see the facts. You have provided no proof at all that this is not true,

And they can justify it by knowing Jesus as their personal lLord and Savior by knowing the feeling of him in their heart, by seeing miricles he does in peoples life. It is only if you are blind to or just don't want to accept that you can't see God's works

[Fr_Chuck]

No, but why do you wish to come to a religious board, if you are not religious and hate religion to such a level, why not stay over in the electric or dating or atheist boards and enjoy.

But there has to be some either evil or some longing to know the real truth of God, I just don't know which it is.

And the truth of the bible is proven by digs, by history and by facts all the time, it is merely those that want not to believe it, that refuse to see the facts. You have provided no proof at all that this is not true,

And they can justify it by knowing Jesus as their personal lLord and Savior by knowing the feeling of him in their heart, by seeing miricles he does in peoples life. It is only if you are blind to or just don't want to accept that you can't see God's works

And not paranoid, but I would wonder why you will not merely state your motive, why do you have a need to come to religious areas and challenge people if you don't care. You obviously have some reason to do this,

I would say you have an empty place in your heart, you know the real truth but can't bring yourself to believe, and want some science answer to help you believe

[teresa obst]

I have one for you. Genetics. Genetics prove that the bible is fact. Go read about the national genographics program and you will see that we all came from two people. Our genes say so!

[rodandy12]

Wow.

Chuck,

You ought to get some counseling.

1. How do you get from an attempt to focus on the questioner's question to an assumption that someone hates religion?

2. I thought these boards were open to all comers. I didn't know this one belonged only to individuals who were "true believers" in christianity. You probably ought to list it that way.

3. Questioning you is either evil or longing to know the real truth? I would have thought everyone wanted to know the real truth. That's why we study and debate. Your issue is that everyone doesn't accept YOUR view.

4. I don't know of a Dig that turned up a holy ghost or a burning bush or any dry land under the red sea. By the way, there is a very large amount of Egyptian history and there is no mention in it of jews. It ought to have been mentioned somewhere since around 1 million of them walked out on the pharaoh. That would have been around 2/3rds of the population of Egypt at that time.

5. Isn't everyone's motive to get good answers to the questions posed? Isn't the best way to do that getting opinions from all sides? The best minister I ever knew taught that a believer needed to be able to debate anyone over issues of faith without sounding whacked out. He felt it was the best thing that could be done to coax non-believers into the fold.

I think your reply made my point on being paranoid.

[Moparbyfar]

Sorry Onan, you still haven't managed to convince me that the bible is nothing more than a drawn-out novel. I had a chuckle at the vision of your fingers smokin after that post lol!

Eccl 12:12 "As regards anything besides these, my son, take warning: To the making of many books there is no end, and much devotion [to them] is wearisome to the flesh."

Don't wear yourself out mate! :D

[Credendovidis]

How can we prove the Bible is factual

You can't. Because although the Bible may contain items that can be factual, the Bible as book is NOT FACTUAL ! It is based on BELIEF !
:rolleyes: