Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

The funny thing about the James ossuary was that the engraving was in Greek. Anyone knowledgeable about the period knows that the Jews hated the Greek-Syrians. Josephus, an educated Priest, had to learn Greek just to write his books in the accepted intellectual language of the day, Greek, when he w...

I agree that there has to be some core, but all that is required is agreement on what that core is. Bernard gave some examples that IMO would have worked. What makes sense to me is you start with the core definition, and then adjust it as needed...I don't see why some seem to think it is difficult t...

meaningless? Seriously?

See where that got us? :) The notion of what a messiah for the Jews was -- from my way of looking at it -- was potentially variable. Any definition is subject to change/modification over time as people change and have new interpretation of things come about either through innovative thinkers or real...

All I asked was for you to clarify what you mean by "Jews" and what period you are referring to, and to justify the assumptions in your question: e.g. that somehow the issue is over a "dead messiah" and that there was some sort of "messianic idea" at the time in questi...

I supplied the reasoning in the following sentence. The messiah has a role to carry out, which can't be done if he is dead. For those of us who are slow in understanding, could you explain to us why Christians preach that Jesus is dead? I don't understand your question. The term messiah is Jewish. ...

When you engage in the comparison of names across linguistic barriers (Semitic to Greek to Latin to English), what you're doing is attempting to force an ambiguous detail through several filters and expect a level of precision in the result that no longer exists. I am very suspicious of attempts to...

Geez, Mental. Get a grip. DCHindley just demonstrated that it is the SAME NAME. What don't you get about that? And I just demonstrated how far you have to distort Luke's gospel in order to force Cyrenius into the text. Not really. What you are claiming is distorted is the the idea that Luke was ref...

Geez, Mental. Get a grip. DCHindley just demonstrated that it is the SAME NAME. What don't you get about that? If you're right, the preponderance of evidence suggests Luke named the wrong census in Luke and the correct one in Acts. No, the evidence would suggest that Luke thought the census happened...

Is it absurd to require a return to one's 'homeland' to register for a census? I can see a scenario in which this is not absurd: 1. The journeys aren't that far. 2. It is easier on the Romans..why go to them when you can make them come to you? 3. It would work if the Jews kept meticulous records of...