Robert said
That’s not true at all. Many critical scholars believe in God. I’ve known many personally.
Okay, so a scholar says, “And after the resurrection Jesus appears to his disciples.” I just can’t see that happening – even if we found 100 tons of new manuscripts from ten thousand independent witnesses.
Robert said
That’s not true at all. Many critical scholars believe in God. I’ve known many personally.
Robert I think Poohbear is saying something slightly different.
Poohbear one of the constraints of critical historical inquiry is the assumption of methodological naturalism. Supernatural explanations are necessarily excluded because we simply have no method of investigating them. Was it God’s will that the Allies won WWII? How would you ever verify that? What historians are interested in is what happened on a certain date to cause Eisenhower to make a certain decision he made and the sources we have to verify that. And any form of intellectual investigation depends on continuity of effect, the very thing denied when you believe that at any discreet moment the laws of nature can be upended.
Poohbear how would you historically investigate a miracle? Seems to me the closest you can get is what we find in the New Testament, claims by people who already believed it.
Stephen said
Robert I think Poohbear is saying something slightly different.
Poohbear one of the constraints of critical historical inquiry is the assumption of methodological naturalism. Supernatural explanations are necessarily excluded because we simply have no method of investigating them. Was it God’s will that the Allies won WWII? How would you ever verify that? What historians are interested in is what happened on a certain date to cause Eisenhower to make a certain decision he made and the sources we have to verify that. And any form of intellectual investigation depends on continuity of effect, the very thing denied when you believe that at any discreet moment the laws of nature can be upended.
Poohbear how would you historically investigate a miracle? Seems to me the closest you can get is what we find in the New Testament, claims by people who already believed it.
No true scientist can say the Gospel stories happened or did not happen. They can only say they were unlikely. And yes, a good scholar must exclude the supernatural – but the exclusion implies they did not happen, and that’s the problem. It’s super unlikely that the Jews would coalesce out of all the nations, resurrect their ancient language and take back their ancient homeland. Imagine some so-called Babylonians taking back Iraq, recreating their language and rebuilding Babylon. Unlikely things work both ways. And there’s tons of that, from Josephus onward, concerning these things.
ps long wondered about providence in certain wars. A fluke event changed the Battle of Britain when the UK was weeks from defeat (and thus ending WWII on Hitler’s terms.) That event was a lost bomber dropping ordinance on London one night. But skeptics dismiss this story for various good reasons. Only computer simulations this year show in fact that England had about a 10% chance of holding the Luftwaffe at bay if Hitler changed tactics – and a 40% of winning it was at double Germany’s strength.
Israel’s story in the 20th Century is replete with these strange accounts – reminds me of the negative events in Josephus.
In a contingent and probabilistic universe statistically unlikely events happen all the time. Consider the fact that 66 million years ago a comet or meteor (we’re not sure which) impacted the earth at today’s Yucatan Peninsula, causing worldwide destruction resulting in a mass extinction of fully 75% of all land and marine life. Aside from famously killing the non-avian dinosaurs it also allowed our biological ancestors, small rodents living in the roots of trees, to thrive in the newly cleared out eco-system. The truth is, human beings owe our domination of the earth to the celestial equivalent of a traffic accident. We were far from inevitable.
Robert said
Oh yeah? Well how in the world could that have happened since we know from the Bible that the world is not even 6,000-years-old? As Poohbear has clearly demonstrated, we must reject scientific hypothesis and critical reasoning when they conflict with the Bible.
Never said that.
Robert said
So you have no issues with accepting scientific hypotheses and critical reasoning when they conflict with the Bible?
I live with bible and science and have no problem with that. In the bible there’s issues with symbolic language, translations, understanding what people actually meant by terminology, interpretations and so on. Most of the major issues I had with the conflict I worked out many years ago. I was a science teacher and writer once.
My issue with science is its abuse and entry into realms where science cannot go.
Robert said
Well, why do you consider both Jews and critical scholars intellectually dishonest when they understand the language of a text, the contemporary history of when it was written, and explain what the text meant in its original context?
As always, it comes down to need for specifics. I believe I am more comfortable with the Tanakh than some Orthodox Jews. Why? Because I accept those tracts which speak of the Messiah as Redeemer, not only the Messianic King. And “redeem” means someone pays the price for another – something no king would do. So there’s a mind set in Jewry about this, particularly after Jesus.
As Job said, “I know my Redeemer lives and he shall stand upon the earth in the latter days.” This is someone alive in Job’s day, not of this earth, but one day will come to redeem. This simply isn’t in Judaism, so it’s ignored, downplayed or explained away.
Robert said
Nonsense. You don’t even read or speak the language. There are no tracts of the Jewish scripture that you accept and Jews do not. You merely try to impose your Christian interpretation and think that those who do not accept your Christian interpretation are wrong. There’s a word for that: religious intolerance and arrogance.
Thanks. I looked this up in the Interlinear, and to be sure pasted some Hebrew text into Google Translate
גֹּ֣אֲלִי means to Redeem, Deliver, Rescue
I parsed the sentence, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and he shall stand on the earth in the latter day.“
I… not someone else, me
Know… not believe, not think, not suppose, but know
My… not someone else’s, mine
Redeemer… not a king, not a warrior, not a philosopher
Lives … not did live, not will live, but live as in now
He … coming as a man
Shall… not maybe, not possibly
Stand… not recline, lie down – but stand for something
Earth … here, this place
Latter day… in the future – for Job this about 500 to a thousand years before Jesus. Shouldn’t this be marvelous to everybody?
Robert said
OK, now use your critical reasoning skills and tell us what this verse meant in the context of this section of the book of Job.
Skeptics use “context” when it suits them, ignore context when it doesn’t.
The context here is no context. This was something that came to Job, just as it came to Isaiah, Zechariah, David etc.. In his suffering Job had this vision of the suffering Messiah, just as the suffering David saw the same.
Robert said
So much for critical reasoning.
Yes, it leads to insight. The next verse speaks of Job seeing God after he dies. Was it Ehrman on this forum who said the Jews did not believe in an afterlife? I find many ‘scholars’ are clever at DEFENDING THEIR POV’S. Not clever as in self examination or intellectual honesty.
From Robert Alter:
But I know my redeemer lives,
and in the end he will stand upon the earth,
and after they flay my skin,
from my flesh I shall behold God.
-Job 19:25-26
Notes:
I know that my redeemer lives… This famous line, long the subject of Christological interpretation, in fact continues the imagery of a legal trial to which Job reverts so often. The redeemer is someone, usually a family member, who will come forth and bear witness on his behalf, and the use of “stand up” in the second line has precisely that courtroom connotation.
The note to verse 26 is too long and I’m too lazy to reproduce verbatim but the gist is that Job’s wounds are inscriptions in flesh rather than stone that will be used as testimony to justify himself before God. (He still thinks he’s innocent remember.) Alter also notes that the text in v26 is ambiguous and scholars must finally make their best guess.
Poohbear to a critical scholar context is everything because in many cases that’s all we have to determine the meanings of another language. Christians took lines from various sources in the Hebrew Bible and proof texted them to fit their experience of Jesus. But what a critical Hebrew scholar wants to know is what the writer of Job meant.
Robert said
If you will not look at this verse in the context of the book of Job, you will not understand it. And yet you again accuse others of intellectual dishonesty.Ehrman’s points to a couple of passages in the book of Job that clearly expresses the author’s views on the afterlife:
Here’s the first, from Job’s fourth speech (14,1-2.5-12):
A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last. …
Since their days are determined, and the number of their months is known to you, and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass, look away from them, and desist, that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days.
For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease. Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant.
But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they? As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up, so mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep.
So how then to RECONCILE SCRIPTURE, particularly from the same author? It’s that Job in one breath is talking about human existence, and in another he is speaking of the Kingdom to come – where he will be resurrected and see the face of God. This is what Moses meant by the “book of life.”
I know that my redeemer lives… This famous line, long the subject of Christological interpretation, in fact continues the imagery of a legal trial to which Job reverts so often. The redeemer is someone, usually a family member, who will come forth and bear witness on his behalf, and the use of “stand up” in the second line has precisely that courtroom connotation.
The note to verse 26 is too long and I’m too lazy to reproduce verbatim but the gist is that Job’s wounds are inscriptions in flesh rather than stone that will be used as testimony to justify himself before God. (He still thinks he’s innocent remember.) Alter also notes that the text in v26 is ambiguous and scholars must finally make their best guess.
Poohbear to a critical scholar context is everything because in many cases that’s all we have to determine the meanings of another language. Christians took lines from various sources in the Hebrew Bible and proof texted them to fit their experience of Jesus. But what a critical Hebrew scholar wants to know is what the writer of Job meant.
quote – “Poohbear to a critical scholar context is everything”
That’s true. But ‘context’ for a believer and ‘context’ for a skeptic are to be found where they may. In this case the context of the ENTIRE BOOK is the tribulation of life and relationship with God. And Job would see the face of God after he died – that was his consolation.
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