tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post7593626021479405353..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Did the disciples die for a lie?Ryanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-67612757703074648692016-04-13T22:05:13.711-04:002016-04-13T22:05:13.711-04:00When Jesus was ass-fucked by the disciples, did he...When Jesus was ass-fucked by the disciples, did he make Judas go last?<br /><br />Or did Mary Magdalene strap on a dildo and hammer our Savior's asshole one more time as the 13th disciple?<br /><br />Christianity, so many difficult questions.kilo papahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15112057471953902453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-77467880647256983532016-04-12T18:52:17.173-04:002016-04-12T18:52:17.173-04:00Regarding the pastoral epistles, Carrier comments,...Regarding the pastoral epistles, Carrier comments, "Pretty much all non-fundamentalist experts agree those are forgeries." See <a href="http://hypotyposeis.org/weblog/2012/11/the-authenicities-of-the-pauline-corpus.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>, among other sources that could be cited to the contrary.Jason Engwerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-11207744084798675112016-04-12T18:37:54.070-04:002016-04-12T18:37:54.070-04:00It was common for a prisoner in the Roman empire t...It was common for a prisoner in the Roman empire to be allowed access to visitors and thereby receive food, send letters, etc. Those who visited prisoners would give gifts to the guards, and would relieve the guards of the responsibility for providing food and other necessities for the prisoner, thus giving the guards incentive for allowing the visitors access to the person under their watch. (Keep in mind that resources that didn't have to be spent on the prisoner could be used by the guard instead.) Lucian, a second-century pagan critic of Christianity, confirms the historicity of such practices when he describes the behavior and treatment of Christian prisoners (Allen Brent, Ignatius Of Antioch [New York, New York: T & T Clark International, 2009], 49-51, 110).Jason Engwerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-26029351975448030652016-04-12T18:27:06.985-04:002016-04-12T18:27:06.985-04:00Several years ago, I wrote a response to Carrier o...Several years ago, I wrote a response to Carrier on the issue of whether the apostles died for a noble lie. See page 246 <a href="https://calvindude.org/ebooks/stevehays/Infidel-Delusion.pdf" rel="nofollow">here</a>. In a debate with Michael Licona in 2010, Carrier acknowledged that the hypothesis is unlikely. He also said that we have good evidence for the martyrdom of some of the apostles and the sincerity of their belief that they'd seen Jesus risen from the dead. Go to the video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IpKHdVLZb4" rel="nofollow">here</a>, and start watching just before the 1:44:00 point. <br /><br />My article linked above also addresses the recantation issue. As I explain there, we don't need to have accounts of individual resurrection witnesses or groups of them being given an opportunity to recant before they were executed (or were made to suffer for their resurrection belief in some other way). While having such accounts would be helpful, there are lesser types of evidence that are significant, even though they're less significant. For example, we know that it would have been in the interest of Christianity's enemies to give the resurrection witnesses an opportunity to recant, and many early sources tell us that the early Christians who were persecuted often were given a chance to recant. (I provide documentation of some examples in my article linked above.) It's unlikely that even one resurrection witness would have been denied an opportunity to recant if he wanted to. It's even more unlikely that all of them were denied it and that their desire to recant was never reported in a way that left any trace in the historical record. If Peter had denied Christ in an attempt to avoid execution, that probably would have been reported widely, just as his denial around the time of Jesus' arrest was so widely reported and so widely brought up and criticized by the early enemies of Christianity. If somebody like Paul or Thomas had gone the way of Judas or Demas, we'd expect his reputation to go the way of the reputation of Judas or Demas.<br /><br />I addressed issues like these in <a href="http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/03/death-of-apostles.html" rel="nofollow">a series I wrote about the death of the apostles a few years ago</a>. The first two segments address a lot of common objections, like the ones Carrier has raised.Jason Engwerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17031011335190895123noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-70900342802948525432016-04-12T17:26:21.321-04:002016-04-12T17:26:21.321-04:00The debate between Carrier and Bass would have bee...The debate between Carrier and Bass would have been even better if during the Q&A the moderator allowed both of them to get into the deeper details. Instead, he repeatedly interrupted them and kept the discussion dumbed down.<br /><br /><i>One tells us, “Of course I didn’t realize it was Jesus at the time. It only dawned on me later” (so Luke 24:13–32). Another says, “It didn’t really look like him, I admit, but later on I realized it must have been Jesus”</i><br /><br />That doesn't make much sense. If they were hallucinations, then wouldn't their subconscious expectations make the multiple appearances of the figure look like Jesus rather than not look like Jesus? Conversely, if the cause(s) was (were) an external stimulus/i, wouldn't they more likely have concluded that it wasn't Jesus if it didn't look like Jesus?<br /><br /><i>So Carrier doesn't think Romans ever employed house arrest? </i><br /><br />Exactly. Also, I thought Paul wasn't convicted yet. Yes, no? Also, Paul was a Roman citizen, so they would have treated him far better than a non-citizen. Isn't it possible some letters were dictated by Paul to a visitor who was also an amanuensis. What if Paul healed one of the higher ranking prison guards (or one of their relatives, Paul having a reputation for miracles)? Isn't it possible that they might allow a beloved prisoner to have certain special privileges even if they didn't have the authority to let Paul go? Think of the privileges Joseph had in prison, or Andy Dufresne had in the movie The Shawshank Redemption, or Templeton "Faceman" Peck in The A-Team movie (2010).ANNOYED PINOYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00714774340084597206noreply@blogger.com