Raf

"What a dangerous precedent. What if there more heroes like him? What if courage and imagination became everyday mortal qualities? What will become of us?" "We would no longer be needed. But, for the moment, there is sufficient cowardice, sloth and mendacity down there on Earth to last forever."

The Creature Frankenstein Herman Munster

Herman Munster

Steve, your posts sound like you disagree with points you're not making because you actually don't agree with them. ;)

Does this character even HAVE a name? And when did Cumberbatch play him?

Sherlock Holmes?

So he provides a link to a conservative Christian site. Unbelievable. Aesops Fables are god-beathed by the standard you're proposing here. Not literally true, but useful and meaningful, even if the authorship is in question.

Actually, Steve, you've got my position backwards. It's not that scholars who agree with me are unbiased and those who disagree are biased. It's the other way around: I take bias into account when assessing whether to trust a scholar on a particular subject. That is, I agree with scholars who are not connected to a vested interest in whatever conclusions they draw. Thus, when 90 percent of climate scientists say global warming has significant man-made causes, while 90 percent of scientists who work for ExxonMobil say human activity has nothing to do with climate change, I am inclined to trust those scientists who do not have a vested interest in the outcome. Conservative Christian scholars have a vested interest in certain positions, and the authorship of Luke appears to be one of them. I do not trust their judgment on this issue, not because they're Chtistian, but because the evidence shouts against it from the rooftops. So I have repeatedly cited evidence in my explanations about Luke. You, on the other hand, have repeatedly cited conservative Christian scholars. Feel free, but I have made a case for their bias that has nothing to do with whether they agree with me. I agree with those scholars who do not have a vested interest in the answer. Among those scholars, the consensus is that Luke did not write Luke, just like the consensus among scientists who do not work for fossil fuel companies is that human activity contributes to global warming, just like the consensus among doctors who don't work for Phillip Morris is that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer. In every other field, you take bias into account when assessing claims and conclusions. Somehow, when the subject is the Bible, that flies out the window. Here's the key: scholars who don't believe Luke wrote Luke lose absolutely nothing I'd they're wtong. Those who DO believe Luke wrote Luke have as lot riding on that conclusion, because so much of the reliability of the gospel is supposedly tied to it. What do I lose if Luke wrote Luke? Nothing. He's still woefully unreliable as a historian. What do you lose if he didn't? A crucial claim to historical accuracy. Tell me, who is more likely to allow bias to affect judgment here?

There are a couple of verses that come close. If you take that particular verse from Corinthians you have to concede that it's only talking about the things Paul is writing in that particular section of that letter (elsewhere in the SAME letter he FLAT OUT TELLS US) that he's offering his opinion and not a commandment of the Lord. There's the verse that talks about holy men of God speaking as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, but that's not a blanket claim about scripture (and, alas, it's another forgery, a letter claiming to be written by Peter, though Peter didn't write it, dictate it, sign off on it, approve it, endorse it or read it). So God-breathed is in a forged letter, holy men of God spake as they were moved by the holy ghost is in a forged letter, and, oh, "rightly-dividing the word of truth"? Yeah, that too.

I have a hypothesis about that. But before I get to that... Steve, I don't think we're clear yet on why I moved this thread here from Questioning Faith. From the "About this forum" thread on Questioning Faith: I think you can see that this thread does not fit that description (not necessarily anyway). Anyway, you never complained about it, but I wanted to make it a little more clear than I have. In any event: Protestant Christianity started with an exaltation of the Bible over church tradition. Never mind that we don't even HAVE a Bible if not for tradition. The early Protestant churches distinguished themselves from the Catholic Church by placing their doctrinal emphasis on scripture over tradition, and they distinguished themselves from each other by claiming to adhere more closely to scripture than the other guys. Take away the inerrancy of scripture, and it's just a bunch of people wrangling over the words of men. Wierwille asked "why division," answering that it's because of a wrong dividing of The Word. But that's not the case at all. We have division in the church precisely because the doctrine of inerrancy, the refusal to admit these gospels and letters and histories contradict each other worse than the DC Multiverse (yes, I'm exaggerating). Inerrancy breeds inflexibility. If the Bible is always right, and it says what I think it does here, then I'm right, no matter what you think it says somewhere else. Without inerrancy, we can say, "hey, Paul seems to disagree with James. Fascinating. What can we learn from each of them?" WITH inerrancy, we can't stand the thought of Paul disagreeing with James, so we force them to agree with each other. (Yes, I recognize the irony of ME using this example. What can I say? Time has passed). And if I'm right, then YOU ARE WRONG. GET OUT OF MY CHURCH BEFORE YOU POISON EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING WITH YOUR HERESY. I lose my claim to be right if you can be right too. Anyway, that's my thought on Protestant Christianity's vested interest in the inerrancy of scripture. Just a hypothesis.

No No. Closer to sword and sorcery than cop flick, but I've never heard this movie described that way.

The genre is crime. One of the plot devices, a brothel with a particular set of offerings, was actually modeled after a real brothel. But before you insult one of their offerings, it would be wise to make sure she's not really who she claims to be.

I think exploring authorship, in and of itself, is off-topic. HOWEVER, it is on-topic if we relate it back to the thread question. So even if we don't come to agreement on who wrote which book, I may still raise points that try to establish the premise, from which we need to answer the question: Is it still God-breathed if it wasn't written by the person we think wrote it? In the case of Matthew, Mark and John, I think the answer is a hypothetical yes. They don't CLAIM to be written by the men whose names they bear. So establishing that Matthew didn't write Matthew does not affect the question. Paul and Luke are somewhat different. If Paul didn't write II Timothy, then we have the problem of the only book of the Bible to posit a "God-breathed Word" being written by a demonstrable liar. So where do we get "God-breathed" from? If Luke-Acts is not written by a companion of Paul (and I have listed some reasons I don't think it was), then can we say it's "God-breathed" even though it was written by someone who is actively misrepresenting himself? You're free to reject my premises on the pastoral epistles and Luke. And you're (of course) free to argue those points. But I don't believe citing a work as proof of itself is valuable. To say "Acts was written by Luke because of the 'we' passages" is to ignore the pervasiveness of forgery in the first century. It was RAMPANT. To say, "Look, the fist verse of this letter identifies its writer as Paul," as if a forger would say otherwise, is to utterly miss the point. The salutations in the pastoral epistles don't prove Paul actually wrote them! The fact that they disagree so radically with the known letters of Paul indicate that they were not written by him (or dictated at his behest). The fact that "Luke" says "we" does not prove he was a companion of Paul -- it only proves he was trying to pass himself off as one. This side issue arose when I said scholars agree with Bart Ehrman that Luke did not write Luke. No, I haven't conducted polls. Neither has anyone else on this thread. I do know that Ehrman has written two books on the subject of forgery in the Bible. One of them, Forged, is written for a lay audience. I've read that one. The other, Forgery and Counterforgery, is a scholarly work, not written for laypeople. I haven't read it. You, Steve, might come across it. It might persuade you. It might not. But you are being taught theology by committed Christians. That is an identifiable bias (as I've noted elsewhere), and I caution you to distinguish between the state of scholarship in the field as opposed to the motives of apologetics. So I actually wrote to Ehrman and asked what the state of scholarly consensus was on the authorship of Luke. His reply: This mirrors what I suspected: Christians, who have a vested interest in the answer, come to one answer. Others, who have no vested interest in the answer, come to a different conclusion. Sorry, it's not a situation where I get to monopolize the time of someone who doesn't know me from Adam, so I can't grill him much further (except at his pleasure). We're not going to resolve it on this thread. I know "appeal to authority" is a fallacy, so take Ehrman's comment with a grain of salt, or a pound. My only question was the state of the scholarly consensus. To prove the case, I'd have to probably buy his book and compare it to others, which is not something I have the time or inclination to do. If Luke wrote Luke, so be it. It doesn't explain why he's calling Paul a liar or why he thinks Herod was alive during the Quirinian census (or that the census required Joseph to leave his home, which is the opposite of what a census does). As many problems are raised by the gospel with Luke as the author as are raised by the gospel with anyone else. But God-breathed? Maybe on issues like what Jesus taught and how Paul's doctrine and practice evolved. But certainly not on history. On history, Luke is demonstrably unreliable.

The epistles to Timothy and Titus were written AFTER Paul's death. He didn't dictate them. He never even READ them, much less wrote them. And Acts was written after Paul's death, too. By someone who disagreed with Paul about Paul's own biography. Which is not an alternative point of view or a different way of looking at things, but one Bible writer actively calling the other a liar. [The remainder of the original post here has been adequately addressed and so is being deleted by me. Thanks].

Dont. Speculation is not a spoiler by definition

Both stars of Moulin Rouge were successful WAY before that movie

Oakspear, Steve and I are no longer assuming God-breathed = inerrant. I'm not sure about Mark. [Deleting a portion of this post that was not necessary. While it is quoted in the next post, I apologize for including it originally. It was inappropriate].

Let me get this straight, Mark. You're using the salutation in a forged document to prove that it wasn't forged, because it was written in Paul's name? And you think I'M the one without sense? WTF do you expect a forger to write? "HI people! I'm not REALLY Paul, but I hope you think I am because I have some really cool ideas about how women should STFU even though the real Paul taught the opposite"? "Hi! I'm Paul! Pay no attention to the man holding the quill"? Of COURSE a forger is going to pretend he's really Paul!

"Guard well this shield, for one day it will guard your life."

Saving Private Ryan ?

From Steve: This is crucial to what we're discussing. Serious issues are raised by the authorship of the pastoral epistles (I Timothy, II Timothy, Titus). One thing most modern scholars agree on: whoever wrote these letters, it wasn't Paul. What does that tell us? For one thing, it tells us that people were writing things while claiming to have authority they did not have. They wanted their words to count, not just get lost in the sea of ridiculous letters and gospels that were being circulated at the time. How do you do that? Well, you pretend to be Paul! What? Who would do that? No one for centuries implied that the author of the epistles to Timothy and Titus was anyone but Paul. No alternatives were ever presented. Not one. [This is being stated ironically: The fact that no one presented an alternative does not validate Paul as the author]. In fact, there are good reasons to doubt Paul wrote I and II Timothy. For one thing, the letters assume a church hierarchy that was not in place at the time Paul lived and wrote. That's why Corinthians is written to the Corinthians, as opposed to the bishop at Corinth. We have a serious problem if Paul didn't write II Timothy, though. Because then we have no idea who wrote it. We only know one thing about this person: He's a liar. He's pretending to be Paul writing to Timothy, knowing full well he is not. And this is the only book of the Bible that says scripture is "God-breathed." What are the implications of that? We take the very concept of "God-breathed" scripture from a forgery. Without it, you have some concepts that come close, but nothing that outright says scripture has this quality. P.S. The same motive -- artifically bolstering credibility -- that led a forger to claim he was really Paul, knowing he wasn't, could easily lead someone who wasn't traveling WITH Paul to claim that he was. How would we know? Easy: Compare what that person says happened to what Paul says happened. If they don't agree, you have very valid reasons to doubt the pretender. The writer of Luke, whoever he was, pretends to be a companion of Paul, but disagrees with Paul about Paul's own biography. Now, what was his source for Paul's life, if not Paul himself? Paul is pretty clear about what happened after Jesus knocked him off his horse: Go ahead. Now read Acts 9. I'll wait. Back already? Note how quickly Paul's "I did not go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was" gets translated by his faithful and accurate companion Luke to "I went to Jerusalem and met with the apostles there." They can't both be right. Paul DID have a companion named Luke. Whether he was a physician or a Gentile is in question: that comes from another FORGED letter, Colossians. Maybe Luke was a Gentile physician and maybe he wasn't. Not really much way of knowing, but I wouldn't bank on it from a letter written by someone claiming to be someone he isn't. Nonetheless, if Acts were written by someone who knew Paul, then we have a big problem. Because that person would have known the letter to Galatians. Thus, when he writes that Paul went to Jerusalem and met with the apostles, plural, he knows full well that he is calling Paul a liar. If "Luke" is right, Paul IS a liar. If "Luke" is wrong, then "Luke" is a liar. Or at least unreliable. One thing he's not, by even the most lenient standard, is God-breathed. This is not metaphor. This is not symbolism. This is one Bible writer flat-out calling the other a liar. The writer of Luke pretends to be a companion of Paul for a few select passages, but a real companion of Paul would not call Paul a liar about what happened after his conversion. Just like someone who really interviewed Mary would not have botched the Nativity story. Just like someone who interviewed eyewitnesses would not, ahem, borrow so heavily from someone who did not. Writing in the year 150 or so, Justin Martyr quoted the gospels numerous times. He never called them by name. Just "The Memoirs of the Apostles." Luke was not an apostle. Justin Martyr did not know who wrote the gospels. Nor did he appear to care very much. It wasn't until 20 years later that Iraneus (spell check, please) is the first person we know of to give the gospels their current names. And why? To argue against heresies. THAT is a motive to reinforce the legitimacy of the gospels by attaching them to real people. Why Matthew and Mark? Because Papias hinted that gospels written by Matthew and Mark should exist, though the descriptions he gives don't match the gospels we have. Why Luke and John? Because the writer of Luke pretended to be a companion of Paul, and Luke was the best match. Why John? Because John was mistakenly believed to be the Beloved Disciple AND the author of the gospel. Careful reading should have shown that the Beloved Disciple is explicitly NOT the author of John, but oh well. No other names have been attached to the gospels, but that absolutely positively does not prove they were written by the people they are attributed to. The evidence is SQUARELY against those attributions. So if Matthew didn't write Matthew, Mark didn't write Mark, Luke didn't write Luke and John didn't write John, does that mean it's not God-breathed? To me, that question is secondary. How can ANYTHING be "God-breathed" if the concept of "God-breathed" itself comes from a fraud (a writer pretending to be Paul who knew full well he was not)?

He got it

I posted already I posted already

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Alone. Oops. Wrong thread Don't make me hungry. You wouldn't like me when I'm hungry. Wait, that's not right.

The only thing I will say about Supergirl is that they aired last week's episode out of order. It was supposed to air this week. But the episode slated to air LAST week hit a little too close to home after the Paris massacre. So Thanksgiving came a little early to National City. Also, HELEN SLATER! She's so pretty. Anyway, anything else would be a spoiler. I'm ALMOST caught up on Arrow, and while I appreciate that they have to expand their universe after introducing the Flash, I do miss the gritty "this can happen in the real world" tone of the first season. Now we have the Lazarus Pit and the creepy corpse thing (which we knew had to happen because, crap, she's in Legends of Tomorrow). In the most recent episode I saw, Felicity is getting text messages she can't explain (with hit-me-over-the-head-with-it hints that the messages are coming from a still very much alive Ray Palmer, who also HAS to come back because Legends of Tomorrow). I like Brandon Routh. I think his Ray Palmer is loads of fun. Expect to be caught up in a couple of weeks, but not in time for next week's crossovers.