Luke's date for the crucifixion

[Secret Alias]

No but the evidence is what it is. Four gospels can't be all true saying different things first of all. And also the gospels in the past before the victory of orthodoxy. Why should we believe that might triumphing = right triumphing? That's the part I don't get. Let's suppose the first Christians had kept Jesus's body for whatever reason. Let's suppose for arguments sake that like the Copts they revered the bones of saints. If a body came down to us claiming to be Jesus's or Peter's or whomever. What are the odds that body two thousand years later really is Jesus's or Peter's or whomever. Very, very, very low probability. Same with manuscripts. So many factors come into play.

In the case of the Pentateuch there can be no doubt in my mind that the manuscripts were altered. Ancient testimony tells us so. Qumran tells us so. The Samaritans argue that. No doubt. Why shouldn't Christian MSS be different? Just look at the way Homer was altered in the library by Julius Africanus. Life is sleazy. Look at American Christians. Bunch of idiots. Why should ancient Christians or any group (= Jews, Samaritans, worshipers of Isis) be deemed to be any different. Human beings are sleazy idiots. Period.

[Secret Alias]

The idea that the Pentateuch was corrupted was the foundation of the Dosithean sect and hinted at in the letters of Paul. Should be a Christian position. Was a Christian position (cf. Stephen's speech and anti-sacrificial positions in the Pseudo-Clementines). But Christianity was corrupted. No doubt. Away from the 10 commandments = only Torah position. Denied the holiness of 'Moses's commandments.' So if that could be changed why not other things. Since it wasn't pristine so why believe they were less compromised when it came to they're own manuscripts. Humans are sleazy, creepy dishonest shitheads. All humans.

[Secret Alias]

And I've said similar things that I've said about you about famous and wonderfully insightful scholars like Mark Goodacre. How come all his research ends up attacking Q? Surely he's thought about, come up with arguments FOR Q in his own mind. He's a smart guy. Why not publish lots of papers about lots of things. That brilliant mind of his could probably have solved all sorts of mysteries if he wasn't so laser focused on 'being right' on engaging in a stupid selfish war with other scholars. I can see 1 or 2 papers against Q but not wasting a mind as brilliant as his on a monochromatic obsession like this. But that's how we humans are. We don't realize how little time we have. Our routines give us comfort against the raging ocean of chaos and uncertainty.

[Secret Alias]

The hippies were right. Put LSD directly in the drinking water (for adults at least).

[Secret Alias]

Artists operate differently. It would be like DaVinci only painting portraits of Mona Lisa. Yeah, you got that one right Leo, but don't you think there are other subjects you might want to explore?

[Secret Alias]

I always tell my son over and over again with his football - fail SPECTACULARLY. Don't just fuck up. Fuck up BIG TIME. Like a supernova. Not only don't be afraid to fail - embrace failure, almost long for it to (a) remind yourself of your fallibility (and thus your death) and (b) remind yourself that all of this (life whatever) is bullshit. Inerrency isn't just a stupid position, it's a position against God because the Pentateuch is entirely about what a fuck up God is. You could turn around the story line a few degrees and you'd have an Aristophanes comedy. He creates a world and then everything starts to fall apart. He can't do anything right. He doesn't know where Adam is, he's the worst father (as Bill Cosby used to say), can't raise children worth shit, changes his mind about his creation (like a true artist), wrestles with his shortcomings, spends most of the Pentateuch wrestling with his limitations (even to the point of being bossed around by his slaves) in the end finally comes down and makes a magnificent appearance in front of his subjects in the hope of fixing his original error and that too doesn't work - he even tells people that they;re going to fuck up big time in the future (the extended section in Deuteronomy) once again emphasizing to the reader how hopelessly impotent he really is. So how is the Pentateuch a holy and reverential book with this impotent portrayal of the supposedly Almighty? It lays out the truth and the truth is that nothing works here - not even for God. The moral to Israel is 'to err is human to fuck up spectacularly is divine.' That's summed up really by not even Moses getting rewarded for all his efforts. It really is quite a funny book when you think about it. The ending is classic and utterly antithetical to any sort of telos. Nothing happens. Like those movies that end with a freeze frame and all the tension in the movie really being unresolved. Not what you'd expect from what we've been told about 'the Bible.' Basically the lesson is - you can't always get what you want but you get what you need. Hardly the monolithic 'God is all powerful and absolutely holy' message that y'all preach. Even think of Moses smashing the tablets. The way we read it is laughable. The Pentateuch is the furthest thing from being an epitome of inerrancy. Everyone fails in the Pentateuch - even God.

That's why the notion that Jesus is at odds with the Creator is so laughable. The ending of the gospel (or the original ending) is perfect. Nothing happens. It's like a Seinfeld episode. You're expecting all these fireworks at the end and what do you get - failure. You know Jesus is God because he can't do anything right. All all this 'holy, holy, holy' bullshit of course misses the point. You know he's God, you know he's the same guy who said 'where are you Adam' when the lady touches his garment and he isn't sure who it is. He's God alright - because he fails. Think of the cult of the martyrs. But what are the martyrs but failures. But they're revered as images of God. Why's that exactly? Go back to Genesis.

But what would you expect from a book written after the biggest holy fuck up in history - the Jewish revolt? Or maybe the revolt which led to the first captivity was bigger (which led to Ezra's forgery on behalf of Moses). The point is that the story is always the same, the story of Jews 'fucking things up.' They get 'this close' to their goal but always fall short. Made in the image of their God, the god of failure, a divinity from some wretched corner of the world no one ever cared about as Celsus once said. Embrace fucking up big time, failing spectacularly. That's the message. That's a message to believe in because well ... we'z all gonna fuck up at some point. What is life but one big fuck up, one big schmozzle. Embrace life, embrace the (inevitable) fuckup.

[Secret Alias]

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the faith in the Bible is that most of the fundamental beliefs of Jews and Christians today are based on considerations that having nothing to do with the text of the Pentateuch itself. There are two divine names - Elohim and Yahweh. But considerations outside the Bible - i.e. that one is a 'better' number than two - determine that those two names designate the same being. If it were any other book and there were two characters 'Bob' and 'Sue' - no one would think that 'Bob' and 'Sue' are names for the same character (especially if one of the characters routine said 'let us do ...' or 'let us go ...' to the other. Similarly with respect to an unaccomplished god of an otherwise worthless people and his inability to convince his 'slaves to adhere to his commands. Hard to imagine that God was 'Almighty' other than the consideration that the 'Almighty God' sounds real good or is the epithet deserving of the best god and 'we' want to believe or need to believe that our god is better than the god of other people.

[Joseph D. L.]

Another errancy focus based on an ultra-minority scribal error of a bumbling Egyptian, that knew little about the NT, and that worked its way into Vaticanus.

The sky was darkened.

No eclipse.

Lule 23:45 (AV)
And the sun was darkened,
and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst

And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.

And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

Precluding any apriori assumptions regarding the existence or nonexistence of miracles or supernatural events, you should ask yourself what are the only naturally occurring phenomena that can cause such a thing?

A volcanic eruption? That certainly can cause the sky and sun to darken. Never mind the hyperbolic inclusion of "all the earth".

A solar eclipse can, depending on totality and location, cause the sky to turn dark, with stars appearing.

And the veil was torn. This detail is a crucial point that determines what is actually happening. The veil, according to Josephus, was a representation of the sky/firmament. It's being rent apart would be an apocalyptic (revelation) event. And when a particular eclipse occurs it can cause the sky to (metaphorically) unravel, reveling the heavens that is usually hidden.

So the entire passion narrative is nothing but an allegory about an eclipse. And there was an eclipse in which the Son of Man was offered up to the cross as a serpent, with his agent on earth being reborn in heaven.

[Steven Avery]

"you should ask yourself what are the only naturally occurring phenomena that can cause such a thing?"

On a Passover time, of the full moon, only a storm, or volcano.

Or the supernatural, which of course is the very theme of the book.

Steven

[Joseph D. L.]

The theme of he text is that of revelation. That it is set during a Passover goes along with that allegory. It is not historical in that it is describing an actual crucifixion of a Galilean charlatan.