You know you're back home when... (casual racism)

And yet when you look at the historical, geological and archaeological context a lot of it checks out. I'm an agnositic with no religious bone to grind but the Bible and those scrolls are some of the best contemporary documents we have. As reliable as hieroglyphs which we consider relibale sources of information about the Egyptian pharoahs.

Back on subject, it's worth thinking about casual xenophobia as well as racism and if you check out definitions some xenophobia is racism. Skin colour isn't the only consideration.

Did anyone score cheap eggs today?

Apparently lucky shoppers in Morrisons and Tesco have:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/27074454/discounted-easter-eggs-cadbury-lindt-morrisons/

But unfortunately foreigners in East Cleveland are apparently keeping chocolate egg prices high.

It really doesn't Educator.   I have seen various academic studies of this and loads of what is in biblical stories is historically false   ie the roman census was not 0bc ( there are historical records) and you went to your residence not birthplace so joeseph did not have to go to Bethlehem.

All the religious stuff including dates was decided hundreds of years later.

The general background may be reasonably accurate but the soecifics?  All made up hundreds of years later

I recall reading an article that seemed quite plausibly authoritative, that said that the whole virgin birth story was co-opted from Roman(?) mythology, long after the supposed events took place, with the aim of luring them into the religion.

My understanding - which may be wrong - is the term translated into English as "virgin" doesn't actually mean what it means today. Rather it just means pure or virtuous.

I’m an agnositic with no religious bone to grind but the Bible and those scrolls are some of the best contemporary documents we have. As reliable as hieroglyphs which we consider relibale sources of information about the Egyptian pharoahs.

Do we though?

Interpretation of hieroglyphics is subjective to a degree, our scholars are still trying to work it out.  As far as we know the Egyptians of the time mostly didn't understand it even, it was the language of priests.

Even if we assume for the sake of argument that our interpretation is correct, there's no guarantee that it's factually accurate rather than the musings or beliefs of the writer.  Cross-referencing discrete works can help, but if they're using the same primary source then of course they're going to agree to a large extent.

They may well be the "best contemporary documents we have" in both cases, but that's a pretty hollow statement if by "best" you really mean "only."

deleted as misunderstood point being made

I said "some of the best"

I didn't say only because there are others if you can be bothered to look. I said some "some of the best" because they are until you come up with significantly better.

I make one of the least controversial statements I have on STW and come under attack because the documents form the basis of a religion and some people on STW have levels of religious intollerance that blind them to useful sources.

I make one of the least controversial statements I have on STW and come under attack because the documents form the basis of a religion and some people on STW have levels of religious intollerance that blind them to useful sources.

Stating "a lot of it" is rather controversial.
A small part checks out but then that can be applied to a lot of historical fiction. As a random example Bernard Cornwell Sharpe is broadly historically correct at a campaign level but as Cornwell happily admits in his historical notes if the real world timeline didnt suit the story it got changed until it did.
The bible has the additional problem that its not a single book. Some books do seem fairly historically accurate, some are mixed and some pure fantasy.

Isaiah prophesized the virgin birth about 700 years before Christ, so unlikely.

No he didn't, it's (yet another) mistranslation of the original Hebrew.

("Almah", can refer to a virgin but really just means young woman of childbearing age. The actual word for virgin would be "betulah")

(“Almah”, can refer to a virgin but really just means young woman of childbearing age. The actual word for virgin would be “betulah”)

Well I am not going to argue with an expert on classical Hebrew translations but this involves a debate which has been going on for over two thousand years - long before the creation of STW or even the internet.

Christians and Muslims have always accepted the Isaiah prophesized the virgin birth. Jews on the other hand dispute this, but then mainstream Jews  also dispute that Christ was even a prophet, never mind Son of God (although local me there is a messianic Jewish synagogue) so no great surprise really.

I assume that Muslims only accept the virgin birth because of what Isaiah prophesized to 800 years before Christ, after all they don't accept the alledged divinity of Christ.

I have never heard of this weird theory in which you claim that the virgin birth angle was only mentioned much later in an attempt to entice Romans to become Christians. It sounds extraordinarily unfeasible that it was the clincher which converted the Romans to Christianity - why on earth would it? There were many aspects of paganism and I doubt that virgin births was at the top of the list.

In the New Testament Matthew also mentions the virgin birth. The gospel according to Matthew was written about three hundred years before Roman converted to Christianity, so the Romans obviously needed a very long time to think about it! 😉

How's the hunt for cheap Easter eggs in East Cleveland going?

Mattyfez casts doubt on the reliability of the Bible as a historical document.

Come on. It's not a document, it's a collection of documents - they are even called 'books' to help you.  They cover loads of different topics.  As a collection of writings it's very interesting historically, IMO.

All made up hundreds of years later

There was a Jewish author, Falvius Josephus  writing at the time 37CE-100CE about Jesus and James who he describes as his brother, he confirms that Jews and Gentiles followed him, and that Pilate had him killed. Tacitus 56-120CE mentions Jesus as a God in his book Annals, who's followers worship his death, and mentions specifically that he was crucified. Tacitus also wrote about Alexander the Great, so if we're to take what he says about him at face value (which historians do) there's no reason to set aside what he says about Jesus either.

Writing this old that's being written "hundreds" of years later is for the most part, the gold standard if your looking for veracity.  Like the Easter/Eostre thing. There's precisely one source; Bede, writing in the 8thC who mentions it

It’s a story that includes magic not an historical document.

Caesar (Gaius Julius, that one) believed in magic in an absolutely fundamental way the same that you believe in the mathematics of the universal principles that make up Newtonian physics. Before he crossed the channel to come to Briton he did all sorts of [made up horse-shit] to make sure the omens were good. The first person written diaries and accounts that historian use now as primary source are held to be (more or less) a true account of his life.

No religious text can be described as a reliable historical document with a straight face.

A good portion of the historical evidence we have for life (for example) in Levantine pre-history was written by, for, or from priests, as they're one of the few groups who can write. Nearly every early document that exists now, is a religious tract of some sort. Most writers of history and religion [at the time] wouldn't have been able to separate one from the other.

I am not going to argue with an expert on classical Hebrew translations but this involves a debate which has been going on for over two thousand years – long before the creation of STW or even the internet

Yeah , but now it's really getting going and looks to be good for a few thousand yet.

"I have never heard of this weird theory in which you claim that the virgin birth angle was only mentioned much later in an attempt to entice Romans to become Christians. "

That was me who said that, and in fairness I did say it was a vague recollection of an article I'd read several decades ago! However it does seem that the whole virgin birth thing was common in other mythologies, and was a later addition to christianity that didn't feature in the original texts, and the supposed support of Isaiah is based on mistranslation, whether accidental or deliberate.

“I have never heard of this weird theory in which you claim that the virgin birth angle was only mentioned much later in an attempt to entice Romans to become Christians. ”

.

That was me who said that, and in fairness I did say it was a vague recollection of an article I’d read several decades ago

And here we have an excellent example of how (intentional or innocent!) text (even in the same language) can be mis-interpreted in a matter of hours, rather than centuries!

We've got no chance with older stuff... to deny that is to deny logic, wholesale!

And here we have an excellent example of how (intentional or innocent!) text (even in the same language) can be mis-interpreted in a matter of hours, rather than centuries!

We’ve got no chance with older stuff… to deny that is to deny logic, wholesale!

We must be slacking. I thought the STW standard was to misinterpret and then deny logic within mere minutes? 🤣

The roofer working on my house got all enthusiastic about this the other day and pulled a bible out of his van to show me Isaiah 53, which supposedly prophesied Jesus as the messiah.

I couldn't really comment much at the time except to make the (obvious to me) point that it's easy to assign prophecies to events after the fact, and the fact that [can't remember which gospel] says this chapter refers to Jesus proves nothing at all.

Looking it up afterwards I found this: https://jewsforjudaism.org/knowledge/articles/isaiah-53-a-jewish-perspective/

Which I haven't yet shown him, but plan to, wonder what he'll say.

And here we have an excellent example of how (intentional or innocent!) text (even in the same language) can be mis-interpreted in a matter of hours, rather than centuries!

We’ve got no chance with older stuff… to deny that is to deny logic, wholesale!

One of my daughters got very frustrated when doing some family tree work, ranting about the fact that none of her parents/aunts/grandparents could give her much information about their own family. If you ask about your own family from 50-100 years ago you will get a mix of untruth and family legends - he was a war hero because he got a medal in The Somme (no, he never fought in the Somme, he was a miner...), she's related to Scott of the Antarctic (no, she was from the same village as Edgar Evans...), why didn't you tell me that you had three half-brothers (umm, I never knew that Grandad had several 'relationships'...). Names change or are mis-spelled, places of birth are wrong and remembered incorrectly, and important dates not recorded even in an age when most things are recorded.

All of this is in the same time-span that passed before Jesus started being written about.

 roofer working on my house got all enthusiastic

It's good to know that there's someone up there after all, looking down on us,

Isaiah prophesized the virgin birth about 700 years before Christ, so unlikely.
No he didn’t, it’s (yet another) mistranslation of the original Hebrew.

And even if it wasn't a mistranslation, virgin birth wasn't exactly unheard in other contemporary cultures. It's passed down to us in many well-known stories which pre-date Jesus.

How’s the hunt for cheap Easter eggs in East Cleveland going?

OP I can inform you that Sainsbury's in Saltburn had reduced price Lindt gold bunnies this afternoon. Not may left mind and may be a bit of a trek down the hill!

Haha! Good to know Slowol 🤣

Got back to Scotland Monday, so I'll never know if the Easter eggs in the village shop were reduced on Tuesday!

That was me who said that

Ah thanks, apologies, I wasn't a hundred percent certain who said it and couldn't be arsed to trawling back through the thread.

I agree that translations have always posed a problem in both the Old and New Testaments. I believe that in the case of the New Testament it can go from Aramaic/Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. Among just the English bibles there can be a multitude of different translations. The wording for the same events can vary significantly between the four authors of the gospel.

But I remain very unconvinced that the gospel was tailored to appeal to Roman pagans. The Christians at the time of pagan Rome were extraordinarily committed to their beliefs and were often prepared to die for them.

were extraordinarily committed to their beliefs and were often prepared to die for them.

It's a common problem, even today!

Didn't the Romans pinch a load of gods from the Greeks in order to assimilate the society?, or was it the other way a round? I can never remember 😉

And then we have Cleopatra trying to make all the Egyptians Greek, or something...

I mean, if you look at organised religion in any sort of pragmatic sense, it's ALWAYS used as a tool of control to coerce or assimilate one group of people into the prefered way of thinking of another group...all the romantic scriptures and scrolls, or whatever, are just fluff.

I mean, just look at Scientology...that's as bona fide a religon as any other, despite the fact that we know for a fact, this time, that Hubbard literally sat down and invented it in 1954, for a laugh or a social experiment, maybe a bit of both? who knows?