I injected the name because I've done the study. Not to put you on the defensive, or be condescending, so get over yourself.
You still jumped to a conclusion that wasn't at all based on what I wrote. Your goal may not have been to be condescending but you definitely achieved it anyways.
Do you have a problem with the women, but not the men of the Bible? How about the fact that King David came from the bloodline of Ruth and Boaz? There is historical evidence of him, is there not? Or do you reject Ruth because she was a Moabite in the pure bloodline, so it's easy to throw her on the woodpile because she was a Gentile?
Nice, you're implying I'm sexist and a bigot. Cute. For the record, I'm an ethnic Jew because my mother was Jewish and that's how the ethnicity is decided. The other side of my family is 100% Gentile and I was raised Christian. Does this mean that for your next trick you'll claim I hate racial minorities? This, by the way, is a tactic used by people to put someone on the defensive--an ad hominem attack, where you imply certain things about me despite my not saying anything of the sort. I said nothing against women and nothing against Gentiles, but you jumped to that anyways. Pretend all you want that it's not what you were doing, but it's what you did. I've seen it enough times to recognize it.
Actually I don't believe in the bloodline laid out in the book of Ruth, which means that I don't buy into Boaz's existence any more than Ruth's. This bloodline question is also mentioned in the Jewish Encyclopedia and has been rejected by Christian scholars such as Julius Wellhausen. So just because King David may have existed doesn't mean that everything written about him or his lineage is absolutely true and needs no further scrutiny.
I used the names of Ruth and Esther because those are the names of the books. It had nothing to do with their gender or ethnicity. If the books were called the Book of Boaz and the Book of Xerxes I would have said they were historical fiction, only that Xerxes is named after someone who probably existed.
Okay, You may not be a practicing Jew. So if your people don't believe in Esther, why celebrate Purim if you rejected her in the early 1099's? And you did say the books of Ruth and Esther are just historical fiction. Those are your words, not mine.
Yes, they are my words, not the official words of the Jewish faith. I'm not a rabbi or any sort of Jewish spokesperson. If you want to learn more exact details about how Jews feel about Esther I suggest you study the issue.
I'm sure you do know your own ethnic history, but that doesn't mean you accept it, which in fact sounds like your doing. Troy? Oh please, while Troy may have existed, Greek mythology loves to spin yarns.
I accept the parts that appear to be historically accurate as historically accurate, and the ones that appear to be folklore as folklore.
Your second sentence is exactly what people say about Christians that gets you upset--that they love to spin yarns, even ones based on people and places that may have existed. That was my whole point, that because people love to "spin yarns" that I don't take everything that gets written down as absolutely true.
Every race has its fiction stories of great conquest, warriors, loves, etc. However, to place the Bible as a book of fiction goes beyond disrespect. It's only your opinion, and say it all you want, but to pick and choose what you want out of the Bible as truth and not truth, shows a double minded person. No, I don't think everybody is as I am. I'd rather someone say they don't believe the Bible, then waffle on it's contents and truths, and call them fiction.
However, your opinion is just that.....your opinion.
What I was saying is that some parts of the Bible may not have even been intended for literal historic interpretation, or that they don't have to be viewed as such to still be useful. They may have been works designed to tell a story and deliver a message, not be perfectly accurate. Regardless of whether Ruth, Boaz or Esther existed the texts can still be studied by everybody based on what their stories teach us. Other books of the Bible are intended to be historical and strive to be completely accurate. The books were written by men across hundreds of years, they were not all motivated by the exact same things, they did not all have access to the exact same information, etc. It's not about picking and choosing what I want, it's about learning the historicity of the writings, and interpreting them from there.
A tangent? All I said was if your going to reject the Bible, reject all of it, instead of calling the people in it fictional, but allowing that it might have some truth to it. What is that?
If you really majored in history then you should recognize "that" as studying history. When studying Greek history you can't assume that everything Herodotus wrote was 100% accurate or when studying Roman history you can't assume that everything Publius wrote was 100% accurate, because it may not have been. Ah, but then the Greeks and Romans just loved to "spin yarns," right? Well, when studying American history you can't take everything Parson Weems wrote down as literally accurate, because it wasn't. The story of George Washington chopping down a cherry tree likely never happened, but Weems wrote it down because he felt it told a valuable lesson about Washington's honesty.
Even when reading the personal journals of historical figures you have to account for the fact that they may be biased or misleading or exaggerating or otherwise misrepresenting what they are recounting--because that is what humans do. Parts may be true, parts may not be, the one thing you can't do is take the "all or nothing" approach. Accepting anything as perfectly accurate without scrutiny or study is as lazy or sloppy a thing you can do as a historian, but rejecting it all could mean you end up rejecting something valuable.
The fact that you could major in history and not recognize that I was doing rather ordinary historical analysis is interesting.
As far as my mention of the Dead Sea Scrolls were to lead credence to the Bible and it's authenticity, but you shot that down also. Me thinks you just don't believe the Bible and leave it at that.
Their existence proves that there were copies of the same text at the same time. It proves that the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves have authenticity, but it doesn't prove that the words on them are 100% accurate, any more than discovering another copy of Gilgamesh or Iliad would prove their stories accurate. It has nothing to do with whether I believe in the Bible or Gilgamesh, your reasoning is just flawed.
You don't believe in Jesus anyway so December 25th to you means nothing....pagan or otherwise. While Dec. 25th may not be his birth date, (there is evidence pointing to that), the Bible doesn't say it is. Your pulling out straws to lend credence to your argument, when I never mentioned these things. What's your point?
Jesus is awesome, and I believe He existed, so don't tell me what I believe in or not. And I celebrate Christmas so don't tell me it means nothing to me, either. And I brought it up because you were talking about Jewish traditions being handed down from beliefs about Esther, and thus Esther and the Bible must be true. So Pagan traditions being handed down through time must, by the logic you presented, mean that Pagan beliefs are true. This isn't my argument, it was yours, I am only laying out the full implication of what you were saying.
Falconer is agnostic, qon is atheist, etc. At least they say who they are.
Why does it matter so much to you what I am? Nothing of what I'm saying is even all that relevant to whatever faith or lack thereof I may have--I'm talking exclusively from the angle of a historian. Nothing of what I have said would be more or less true if I were Christian or atheist or Sikh. You've been making this about me, but it's not about me personally, it's about what the evidence is and I'm giving my opinion of what it suggests.
Community Forum
Topic: I don't believe in the Devil or Hell (Read 64156 times)
September 16, 2010, 03:32:09 pm
