was the "new testament" actually finished around 400 AD?

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norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
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I know you are new, so I am going to help you out a bit.

Telling us to "look something up" or "watch something" doesn't go over well here. Most of us are at work and don't really have time to do 3 hours of research before we post. In general we post from our previous knowledge and our hearts.

If you would like to post interesting or relevant information from those sources, it would be much appreciated. Otherwise 99% of us will never have a clue what you are referring to.

Welcome to AT!

i know that. i figured that if i posted a link people might be more likely to look at it, but the last post i put links in needed to be approved by a moderator, so i figured it might be protection against bad links. maybe it was too long of a quick reply.

as far as the video goes it covors exactly what they are talking about very heavily from a eastern prospective so talking about ignorant abrahamics does not totally apply.
 

norseamd

Lifer
Dec 13, 2013
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also i noticed that the original topic was a fair amount more spicific than the back and forth that it turned into. as far as the original question, it was romans not germanics that were the original christians. it started out as a underground religion, so asking when the roman church proper was founded might not be the best answer. some people think that the elysian mysteries are involved but that is kind of hard to find out.
 
Nov 30, 2006
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I don't think you have any idea what I'm asking you. I'm not talking about belief in a god, I'm talking about belief in YOUR god. You're trying to say that I'm wrong because 98% of the world disagrees with me. So again, what percentage of the the Human population over the course of history has believed in YOUR god?
I don't think you understand what I'm telling you. 98% if current percentages hold up historically.

Human beings innately understand the existence of God...to frame this as my God vs. your God is wrong thinking...I'm talking about everyone's God...one that doesn't fit into a box fabricated by 3 pounds of brain.
 

JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
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I don't think you understand what I'm telling you. 98% if current percentages hold up historically.

Human beings innately understand the existence of God...to frame this as my God vs. your God is wrong thinking...I'm talking about everyone's God...one that doesn't fit into a box fabricated by 3 pounds of brain.

Yes, I understand that. I'm trying to show you that the percentage of people that believe in something is irrelevant. I'm sure a similar percentage of people over the course of history disagree with your belief in your specific god. Belief is not evidence.
 
Nov 30, 2006
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I'm sure a similar percentage of people over the course of history disagree with your belief in your specific god. Belief is not evidence.
On what basis can you make such a statement? Have you read any history which supports this perception?
 

JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
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On what basis can you make such a statement? Have you read any history which supports this perception?

I'm taking a wild ass guess, since even right now the majority of the world is not Christian. I don't think it's too much to assume that over the course of humanity Christianity (or any specific religion) makes up a small percentage of religious beliefs.

The actual numbers are irrelevant anyways, which is why I'm not questioning where you got your information from. Just because a majority of people believe something does not make it true. Do we really need to go back and look at what the majority of people have wrongly believed throughout human history?
 

bshole

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2013
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Do you have any other proof that virgin birth is possible without the use of modern medicine other than 2,000 year old "eyewitness" testimony?

What "eyewitness" testimony? The authorship of the 4 books of the Bible that speak of the virgin birth is UNKOWN. The oldest extant copies of these books are from the 4th century... hundreds of years AFTER the purported events. Literally anybody could have written them at any time during that time period. This is nowhere near "eyewitness" testimony. If Santa's Elves say Santa exists in a book, does that constitute "eyewitness" testimony?

There is not a single contemporaneous secular historic reference to any miracle. The historians (like Josephus) recorded all kinds of historical happenings, how could they be ignorant of somebody performing all of these miracles? It beggars the mind that happenings so monumental would be so completely absent from the historical record.

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.c...arliest-dated-syriac-manuscripts-of-the-bible
 
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JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
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What "eyewitness" testimony? The authorship of the 4 books of the Bible that speak of the virgin birth is UNKOWN. The oldest extant copies of these books are from the 4th century... hundreds of years AFTER the purported events. Literally anybody could have written them at any time during that time period. This is nowhere near "eyewitness" testimony. If Santa's Elves say Santa exists in a book, does that constitute "eyewitness" testimony?

There is not a single contemporaneous secular historic reference to any miracle. The historians (like Josephus) recorded all kinds of historical happenings, how could they be ignorant of somebody performing all of these miracles? It beggars the mind that happenings so monumental would be so completely absent from the historical record.

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.c...arliest-dated-syriac-manuscripts-of-the-bible

Yes, but now you're opening the door for Rob and others to start nitpicking details when it's not even necessary. I've seen it happen countless times with him, that's why I'm not even going down that road.

Even if he were able to come up with some sort of 2000 year old eyewitness testimony of a virgin birth (not sure exactly how you can witness such a thing) it doesn't prove anything. No more than someone claiming to see bigfoot proves that bigfoot exists.

Which is funny because when it comes to something like Evolution, he refuses to believe the mountain of evidence that supports it.
 

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
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What "eyewitness" testimony? The authorship of the 4 books of the Bible that speak of the virgin birth is UNKOWN. The oldest extant copies of these books are from the 4th century... hundreds of years AFTER the purported events. Literally anybody could have written them at any time during that time period. This is nowhere near "eyewitness" testimony. If Santa's Elves say Santa exists in a book, does that constitute "eyewitness" testimony?

There is not a single contemporaneous secular historic reference to any miracle. The historians (like Josephus) recorded all kinds of historical happenings, how could they be ignorant of somebody performing all of these miracles? It beggars the mind that happenings so monumental would be so completely absent from the historical record.

http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.c...arliest-dated-syriac-manuscripts-of-the-bible

This is a huge problem and its a problem I have a lot: people confuse The Bible with the start of Christianity. In the time of the New Testament, there weren't newspapers, websites, blogs or even books as we know them today. Most historical events were simply told by word of mouth. Granted not every person told the story the exact same but the critical parts were always the same. This is just how things were done back then. The virgin birth was not a huge festival type event. By all accounts it was a very low key event. Very few even knew of it, so I am not sure how Josephus would have known? And lets not forget that the first reliable translation of his work didn't come about until the 16th century.
 

OverVolt

Lifer
Aug 31, 2002
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This is a huge problem and its a problem I have a lot: people confuse The Bible with the start of Christianity. In the time of the New Testament, there weren't newspapers, websites, blogs or even books as we know them today. Most historical events were simply told by word of mouth. Granted not every person told the story the exact same but the critical parts were always the same. This is just how things were done back then. The virgin birth was not a huge festival type event. By all accounts it was a very low key event. Very few even knew of it, so I am not sure how Josephus would have known? And lets not forget that the first reliable translation of his work didn't come about until the 16th century.

Yup.
 

JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
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2,000 year old "miracle" that is only recently possible with modern medicine, witnessed only by a few (how exactly do you witness a virgin birth again?), passed on by word of mouth.

Sounds legit.

Seriously guys, this is your rock solid evidence?
 

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
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2,000 year old "miracle" that is only recently possible with modern medicine, witnessed only by a few (how exactly do you witness a virgin birth again?), passed on by word of mouth.

Sounds legit.

Seriously guys, this is your rock solid evidence?

You are the one asking for rock solid evidence.

Here is the debate on the virgin birth in a nutshell:

I say it happened.
You say it didn't.

Neither one of us has evidence to contradict the other, other than I have a book that has been around for almost 2000 years that says it did happen.

Its not going to be figured out in a debate. Same as if I demanded you explain to me why water is wet. You would do your best but in the end it comes down to you just know that water is wet.
 

z1ggy

Lifer
May 17, 2008
10,010
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2,000 year old "miracle" that is only recently possible with modern medicine, witnessed only by a few (how exactly do you witness a virgin birth again?), passed on by word of mouth.

Sounds legit.

Seriously guys, this is your rock solid evidence?

ox4fbf052b.jpg
 

JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
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You are the one asking for rock solid evidence.

Here is the debate on the virgin birth in a nutshell:

I say it happened.
You say it didn't.

Neither one of us has evidence to contradict the other, other than I have a book that has been around for almost 2000 years that says it did happen.

Its not going to be figured out in a debate. Same as if I demanded you explain to me why water is wet. You would do your best but in the end it comes down to you just know that water is wet.

Yes, that's how the world works. You make an extraordinary claim, others want evidence to verify this claim.
 

JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
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OK.

Prove to me that the tree outside my work is brown.

I've claimed nothing about a tree outside of your work and I'm not coming to your work to conduct a scientific experiment. If you're interested in how colors work, google it.

You consider "A tree is brown" an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence? wow...
 

HumblePie

Lifer
Oct 30, 2000
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OK.

Prove to me that the tree outside my work is brown.

Bad logic fallacy. But all he would have to do is drive over to where you are located. Pull out a light measuring device and find out which spectrum of the light that specific tree is reflecting back into the visible wave length.

Science is about observation and recording of observation through objective peer review. Then making sure the observable event can be reproduced any number of times.
 

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
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Bad logic fallacy. But all he would have to do is drive over to where you are located. Pull out a light measuring device and find out which spectrum of the light that specific tree is reflecting back into the visible wave length.

Science is about observation and recording of observation through objective peer review. Then making sure the observable event can be reproduced any number of times.

Thank you.

No one is saying that anyone capable of recording the birth observed it. It was recorded by people who were able to afterwards.
 

Retro Rob

Diamond Member
Apr 22, 2012
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2,000 year old "miracle" that is only recently possible with modern medicine, witnessed only by a few (how exactly do you witness a virgin birth again?), passed on by word of mouth.

Sounds legit.

Seriously guys, this is your rock solid evidence?

Did you read anything I've been saying? I said I cannot prove it, which means I cannot provide "rock-solid" evidence, yet you continue to misrepresent what's been said.

You can either believe it, or not. If you don't, fine, if you do, fine....but I suspect you don't want that, you'd want people to not believe it.
 

rudeguy

Lifer
Dec 27, 2001
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You realize that weakens your evidence right?

No. It really doesn't. The evidence is the same as it was and the same as it will be.

I just checked the bible app on my phone and none of the text change and no footnotes were added because of this argument.
 

JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
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Did you read anything I've been saying? I said I cannot prove it, which means I cannot provide "rock-solid" evidence, yet you continue to misrepresent what's been said.

You can either believe it, or not. If you don't, fine, if you do, fine....but I suspect you don't want that, you'd want people to not believe it.

Yes, I realize you've given up, I wasn't responding to you.
 

Retro Rob

Diamond Member
Apr 22, 2012
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Yes, I realize you've given up, I wasn't responding to you.

Yep, I do give up on things I cannot prove. That's what honest people do.

Maybe you should do the same...you can't disprove it,...oh right, it's not your job, but you still keep posting here.

Virgin births can happen, thanks to science. We have science because of the unique configuration of our planet and solar system...we own the existence of science to the Creator of this Universe.

We have plenty of evidence of pro-creation without the need for sex. Maybe you need to let that sink in a bit, but you're too stubborn to.
 

JD50

Lifer
Sep 4, 2005
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No. It really doesn't. The evidence is the same as it was and the same as it will be.

I just checked the bible app on my phone and none of the text change and no footnotes were added because of this argument.

A basic understanding of the scientific method is clearly over your head.