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The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

kiwihellenist.blogspot.com

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Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#271

Post by gosub100 »

robocat wrote: post #215
deepsquirrelnet wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this direction. But the passage talks about the ease of doing so. I propose something like a wood chipper attached to a conveyor belt that runs through a giant needle and deposits the remains on the other side. You could use an excavator to lift the camel into the chipper just to make sure there’s almost zero effort involved In building such a device, you will have saved all of humanity, rich or poor from the…

Just make it easy: there is an obvious market gap. It should be highly profitable: the market segment is rich old gullible Christians. I can see 3 levels: 1: camel slurry as a service. An Australian company (you get paid to cull feral camels there - extra profit) - paid for at a dedicated website - with a personalized certificate mailed for completion. Easy. 2: personalized. You travel to the machine in a suitable co…

How about a crowdfunded nanomaterial syringe, $666,000 goal. Convince them that vaporizing the camel is a solved problem (such-and-such lasers, plasma cutter, whatever). We just need to prove the feasibility of a non-permeable, non-clogging conduit and this loophole (pardon the pun) will be closed. Then just do a rugpull.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#272

Post by kragen »

Natsu wrote: post #262
angiosperm wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The myth of persecution was always central to the doctrine, but the sheer volume of wholesale fabrication that evidently had to be cooked up in support of it easily demonstrates its falsehood.

That's nonsense. Plenty of persecution is well-documented. Nero had Christians torn apart by dogs (though not in the Coliseum), there was the torture and persecution of the martyrs of Lyon, Diocletian enacted his “Great Persecution” in 303, etc.

yeah but none of those had happened yet at the time that this story is nominally set in

that said, if a dude is going around knocking over tables in the temple, proclaiming himself the king of israel (and in most versions also the sole begotten son of god himself), telling people influential religious authorities have everything backwards, supposedly raising the dead, telling rich people to give away all their possessions to the poor instead of giving their children an inheritance, etc., there's guaranteed to be a fair bit of persecution directed his way

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#273

Post by angiosperm »

singleshot_ wrote: post #269
angiosperm wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use the expression "the language Jesus spoke" is to imply that a Jesus actually existed and said things quoted. But the best current scholarship today demonstrates persuasively that no walking, talking Jesus ever existed (never mind was executed extra-judicially). If any did, nothing he said found its way into the New Testament. Certainly, neither Paul writing in the 50s, nor the Roman church elders who wrote 1 Cl…

Why would someone refute a kooky YouTube video in a peer reviewed medium? This does not seem like a good proof of the factual nature of the YouTube kook. There’s a guy at the end of my street who lives in a culvert and screams obscenities. I never saw him refuted in JAMA, though, so I guess by your logic he must be right? No opinion on whether you’re right about Jesus or the Bible; just saying you might want to think…

[flagged]

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#274

Post by angiosperm »

rom16384 wrote: post #220
DontchaKnowit wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

agreed - although My understanding is that the word Paul uses there is actually not even a real word, and appears nowhere else in literature at the time - so we really have no clue what he means. I always find it interesting that there is at least this one verse where there is some contention as to whether it is an explicit ban on male homosexual relationships - But there is absolutely no argument whatsoever : there…

Arguably there is a reference to female homosexual relationships in Romans 1:26, "For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature."

Could as easily have meant buttplay. We have certain evidence that Roman prostitutes offered that, maybe habitually against contraception.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#275

Post by angiosperm »

gwd wrote: post #165
Jedd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's enough evidence to suggest that whoever the people that wrote Matthew and Luke were, they were capable of introducing their own errors, along with embellishments, from their source material. Given they wrote in Koine, and exhibit some ignorance of the geography of the area, and almost definitely never met anyone that met Jesus, it's reasonable to assume no spoken Aramaic accounts were part of their so…

Can you give me a reference for this? The only evidence I've seen points in the opposite direction; e.g.: - The frequency and granularity of place names mentioned match other documents where we're pretty sure the people actually travelled there; vs other documents where we're sure they never travelled there - The frequency of names and requirements for disambiguation (e.g., Jesus has two disciples named James, but on…

The frequency of personal names demonstrate conclusively that all accounts are wholesale fiction.

Jesus ("Yeshua") was the single most common name among Jews of the time, with numerous examples noted in Josephus. Yet, they have no account of their puppet encountering a single example in a year's wandering the region.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#276

Post by Natsu »

kragen wrote: post #272
Natsu wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's nonsense. Plenty of persecution is well-documented. Nero had Christians torn apart by dogs (though not in the Coliseum), there was the torture and persecution of the martyrs of Lyon, Diocletian enacted his “Great Persecution” in 303, etc.

yeah but none of those had happened yet at the time that this story is nominally set in that said, if a dude is going around knocking over tables in the temple, proclaiming himself the king of israel (and in most versions also the sole begotten son of god himself), telling people influential religious authorities have everything backwards, supposedly raising the dead, telling rich people to give away all their posses…

> yeah but none of those had happened yet at the time that this story is nominally set in

The gospels were written later, by disciples. Of course they would showcase the messages from Jesus that were most relevant to the people then. This doesn't require any backwards causation, or even distorting any messages, they just have to showcase the sayings that are most relevant there & then when they're writing them down.

And persecution happened quite early, Paul himself admits to doing it in his former life, so there are stories already in the Gospel, not to mention Paul's entire appeal to Caesar.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#277

Post by UncleOxidant »

Amezarak wrote: post #267
UncleOxidant wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, this is a major point in the gospels and one of the things that was subversive at the time that's a bit lost on modern audiences. At the time, the prevailing belief was that good things happens to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. And yet, here we are again. The prosperity gospel which a large chunk of not only American but also global evangelicals (specifically the pentecostal subset) subscrib…

Prosperity gospel is a fringe belief, even among evangelicals. It's definitely real, but the amount of attention it gets on the Internet is disproportionate to its real-world influence. From Wikipedia: > Mainstream evangelicalism has consistently opposed prosperity theology as heretical[37] and prosperity ministries have frequently come into conflict with other Christian groups, including those within the Pentecostal…

Most of the growth in evangelicalism is happening in the Charismatic/Pentecostal branches. https://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-future-of-born-again-evan...

Also, Jerry Falwell has been dead for several years, perhaps look to his son Jerry Falwell Jr's practices of flaunting wealth courting the wealthy for a more recent example. Yes, a lot of evangelicals denounce the prosperity gospel, but then they go on to act like it's their vibe. The prosperity gospel has permeated Christian Evangelical culture in the West to a degree that it's hard for the fish to see the water anymore. And in places like Africa it's often the mainstream teaching.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#278

Post by kragen »

Natsu wrote: post #276
kragen wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yeah but none of those had happened yet at the time that this story is nominally set in that said, if a dude is going around knocking over tables in the temple, proclaiming himself the king of israel (and in most versions also the sole begotten son of god himself), telling people influential religious authorities have everything backwards, supposedly raising the dead, telling rich people to give away all their posses…

> yeah but none of those had happened yet at the time that this story is nominally set in The gospels were written later, by disciples. Of course they would showcase the messages from Jesus that were most relevant to the people then. This doesn't require any backwards causation, or even distorting any messages, they just have to showcase the sayings that are most relevant there & then when they're writing them down.…

agreed

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#279

Post by Amezarak »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #277
Amezarak wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prosperity gospel is a fringe belief, even among evangelicals. It's definitely real, but the amount of attention it gets on the Internet is disproportionate to its real-world influence. From Wikipedia: > Mainstream evangelicalism has consistently opposed prosperity theology as heretical[37] and prosperity ministries have frequently come into conflict with other Christian groups, including those within the Pentecostal…

Most of the growth in evangelicalism is happening in the Charismatic/Pentecostal branches. https://www.prri.org/spotlight/the-future-of-born-again-evan... Also, Jerry Falwell has been dead for several years, perhaps look to his son Jerry Falwell Jr's practices of flaunting wealth courting the wealthy for a more recent example. Yes, a lot of evangelicals denounce the prosperity gospel, but then they go on to act like…

Sure. Prosperity gospel is a minority belief even among Pentecostals and other charismatic groups. “Charismatic”, as your article mentions, simply refers to the belief in very free distribution of the specific “charisma”/gifts of the Holy Spirit, most famously speaking in tongues, a very common practice among Pentecostals. This is indeed essentially the only faction that believes it at all, but its still not common and even many of the (alleged) famous adherents, like Joel Osteen, will deny having anything to do with it and condemn it - because they know they’d be deemed heretical for it.

That’s really saying something, when speaking in tongues is sufficient for many orthodox and Catholic figures to suggest charismatics are being influenced by demons.

Re: The camel, the rope, and the needle's eye

#280

Post by Jedd »

gwd wrote: post #270
Jedd wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm afraid this is just not informative at all, and doesn't give me a good impression of the rest of the book. Coincidentally, this fairly describes the reaction of a sceptic reading the book of Mark. Anyway, you quoted entirely the wrong section, given your earlier question. > "“from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis,” a trip 50 miles out of his…

> Are you perhaps strongly invested in a particular position on this subject? I'm strongly enough invested in the truth to ask you for references, read them, and engage critically with them. I can honestly say that if I was wrong, I would want to know. I've even thought carefully about what kind of evidence could be presented to me to convince me that I was wrong. Can you say the same? > Again, you're echoing the sen…

You haven't stated your position, which highlights your side-stepping of revealing what kind of evidence you'd need to change your mind.

You refer to 'Mark' a lot - are you aware we don't know the author's name?

Comparing that work to actual historians of the time does that work no favours at all. Generally (at least the ones we have the most trust in) were identifying themselves, identifying their sources, writing about contemporary events, and so on.

It's unsurprising the mistake in Mark is repeated, slightly modified, in Matthew, given the way the latter lifted much of the former.

You're writing a lot of words to try to rationalise this one fairly trivial mistake. A simpler explanation exists - whoever wrote Mark wasn't familiar with the area, did not have access to maps (unsurprising), was not referring to any earlier source material, etc.

If you're relying on etymologies around via to provide legitimacy to this story, I'd suggest your complaints that I'm not providing substantive evidence in neatly tied up packages are disingenuous.

I don't believe you're sincere in your research, but on the off-chance I'll reiterate my recommendation for Fitzgerald's three-book work, Mything in Action.

If you find the material insufficiently detailed then his bibliography is a good place to pursue your search for points of view orthogonal to your beliefs.

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