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The wise men meeting a child in a house vs Jesus in a manger
- Thread starter excreationist
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DrZoidberg
Contributor
It's not hell he has in mind, since that idea was born 500 years later. It's something else.What about this:The version of hell you are describing is an idea that came long after Christian and Zoroastrian religious texts had been nailed down. So isn't in those texts.
Zoroastrianism - Wikipedia
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This talks about "judgement after death". I'm talking about a hell that bad people go to, not sheol that everyone would go to... perhaps the Old Testament didn't involve that but the NT did.
Matthew 25:32-33, 46:
At this point they don't believe in life after death in Heaven. They believed in life after death on Earth. That the corpses will rise up. Egyptian mummy style. So the eternal punishment will be on Earth after kingdom of heaven (on Earth) has been established. They will be separated somewhere on Earth.
Christian concepts was a missmash of earlier ideas. 300 - 0 BC the Cult of Isis was very popular in the Roman empire. It's beliefs and teachings are identical to what later became Christianity. But all the symbols are Egyptian, rather than Jewish. I'm pretty sure this is the reason early Christians believed kingdom of heaven is on Earth. It's just lifted in straight from Egyptian religion.
Only much much later did they switch to the Babylonian concept of a celestial heaven your soul goes to, after separating from your body. The writers of the Bible didn't believe your soul could leave your physical body.
excreationist
Married mouth-breather
What about verse 41:It's not hell he has in mind, since that idea was born 500 years later. It's something else.What about this:The version of hell you are describing is an idea that came long after Christian and Zoroastrian religious texts had been nailed down. So isn't in those texts.Zoroastrianism - Wikipedia
This talks about "judgement after death". I'm talking about a hell that bad people go to, not sheol that everyone would go to... perhaps the Old Testament didn't involve that but the NT did.
Matthew 25:32-33, 46:
At this point they don't believe in life after death in Heaven. They believed in life after death on Earth. That the corpses will rise up. Egyptian mummy style. So the eternal punishment will be on Earth after kingdom of heaven (on Earth) has been established. They will be separated somewhere on Earth.
Is that fire on earth somewhere? BTW some people who believe in "Conditional Immortality" believe that the fallen angels could suffer there forever but humans won't.
So are there popular books that argue that?
DrZoidberg
Contributor
What about verse 41:It's not hell he has in mind, since that idea was born 500 years later. It's something else.What about this:The version of hell you are describing is an idea that came long after Christian and Zoroastrian religious texts had been nailed down. So isn't in those texts.Zoroastrianism - Wikipedia
This talks about "judgement after death". I'm talking about a hell that bad people go to, not sheol that everyone would go to... perhaps the Old Testament didn't involve that but the NT did.
Matthew 25:32-33, 46:
At this point they don't believe in life after death in Heaven. They believed in life after death on Earth. That the corpses will rise up. Egyptian mummy style. So the eternal punishment will be on Earth after kingdom of heaven (on Earth) has been established. They will be separated somewhere on Earth.
Is that fire on earth somewhere? BTW some people who believe in "Conditional Immortality" believe that the fallen angels could suffer there forever but humans won't.
The Greek word they use in the Bible is "Gehenna". It's a reference to Gehenna, the municipal garbage dump outside Jerusalem. Where garbage was burned. I'm pretty sure that's supposed to be a metaphor. I don't think they literally thought sinners would go there after death.
Christianity has references to frost as punishment as well as burning. That's why hell is frozen in Dante's Inferno.
I'm not sure. But it's pretty well accepted. I think I have read it in every scholarly book on the Bible. I can't think of any specifics. I like Bart Ehrman's books. Karen Armstrong's is also good.
Just make sure you read works with a historicist approach. There's loads of works written on the Bible that just assume that the ideas and words came directly from God. I just find that approach unconvincing, since that's not how any other ideas have developed.
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James Brown
Veteran Member
Your illustrations suggest that it would be possible to re-create the scenario under controlled conditions. To wit: Locate a single house within a community using nothing but a single star for navigation.
I predict that it can't be done.
I predict that it can't be done.
DrZoidberg
Contributor
"Following a star" could also be following the astrological interpretation following the appearance of a specific shooting star. And those instructions could be very detailed and specific.
In the pagan tradition shooting stars at the time of birth was seen as a fortuitus sign of an important person. Which I assume is why the Biblical authors inserted it.
It was pretty standard at the time, to insert it for propaganda texts.
I think that entire section is just to describe a normal and expected birth for a king. I think that's the point. To make it clear that Jesus is the king of the Jews. I think that is the only meaningful interpretation of Jesus' birth story.
James Brown
Veteran Member
But there's a difference between seeing something in the night sky (a shooting star, a comet, a planetary conjunction, etc.) during a significant event, versus using it for navigation to a specific location within a few square meters hundreds of kilometers away.
When a cousin of mine was married, they walked out of the church to see a rainbow in the sky. Her mother took it as good sign for the marriage (it wasn't--she divorced him two years later.) But no one followed the rainbow to find where the reception was being held.
When a cousin of mine was married, they walked out of the church to see a rainbow in the sky. Her mother took it as good sign for the marriage (it wasn't--she divorced him two years later.) But no one followed the rainbow to find where the reception was being held.
DrZoidberg
Contributor
So what you are saying is that there could have been a reception there. You just don't know, because you didn't check?
Dude, astrological interpretations is just making after the fact justifications to connect a vague prophecy with whatever outcome actually happened. You can’t disprove it because the woo airhead can insist it's what was meant all along.
Me personaly, I'm pretty sure the shooting star, wise men and the gifts are 100% literary conventions. Why do I say that? Because its standard in the ancient world to describe auspicious births of anyone who later becomes famous.
It would be weird if an ancient famous person hadn't had this kind of birth described.
James Brown
Veteran Member
I have no disagreement. People attach all sorts of signs and portents to the events of their choosing.
What I'm baffled by is excreationist's 'illustrations' showing a star singling out a single house. By necessity they have to be illustrations, because it would be impossible to demonstrate such an event in reality.
Nor do I understand waving the story away as just one more example of people thinking that a celestial object overhead means that something significant is happening somewhere. Matthew's story of people navigating by a single star to a single house seems to be a difference in kind, not degree.
What I'm baffled by is excreationist's 'illustrations' showing a star singling out a single house. By necessity they have to be illustrations, because it would be impossible to demonstrate such an event in reality.
Nor do I understand waving the story away as just one more example of people thinking that a celestial object overhead means that something significant is happening somewhere. Matthew's story of people navigating by a single star to a single house seems to be a difference in kind, not degree.
bilby
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Like the popular Christmas card image of the stable covered in snow, the image of the star hovering a few feet above the building is a result of people trying to shoehorn a story they don't understand into their own very limited experience.
They know December 25 is in winter, so they assume it was snowy. In Bethlehem.
They heard that the magi followed a star, and assumed that they literally did so - presumably because they know bugger all about astrological handwavium, and just as little about what stars actually are, or where they might be located.
excreationist
Married mouth-breather
Perhaps the "star" at that stage was very close... anyway I believe the Christmas stories were basically all invented - most of the only things they have in common are the prophecies the stories fulfil.
DrZoidberg
Contributor
Religious people have always taken a mythical story, out if it's original context and inserted it into their own. Because they're retelling the story in a way that is more relevant to contemporary audiences.
I have no problem with this. Religious stories are parables. They're not at any point intended to be interpreted litterally.
You're the one reading this as a fundamentalist, more extreme than any religious person would
DrZoidberg
Contributor
What do you mean? It's a comet. It would move fast over the sky. Comets don't hover in place over extended periods of time. It would take months to travel from Persia to Betlehem. Weeks if the magi are supposed to be Herod’s advisors in Jerusalem.
excreationist
Married mouth-breather
How can you insist that it must have been a comet?
See:
In Matthew it says the star stopped over their house. If that isn't compatible with a comet then it couldn't have been a comet.
DrZoidberg
Contributor
How can you insist that it must have been a comet?
See:
In Matthew it says the star stopped over their house. If that isn't compatible with a comet then it couldn't have been a comet.
Ok, fine. It still can't alone point to a specific location on Earth. That would require it being filtered through the interpretations of an astrologer = you can make up absolutely anything
James Brown
Veteran Member
You and I didn't attend the same church, obviously. You're not an American, so I can understand. I can assure you, there is a wide swath of Americans who take this story--and every other story in the Bible--literally. They believe, without a shred of doubt, that three "Wise Men" somewhere in the East saw something in the sky, knew exactly what it meant, mounted up their camels, and walked as fast as they could, first to Jerusalem, then to Bethlehem, where the star stopped over the exact house where J, M, and JC lived.
To suggest otherwise--it's just a fable, a metaphor, mere legend-making--is to suggest that Bible is not trustworthy and that God does not exist, and we can't have that, can we?
I know such people exist because I was raised by two of them, attended church and school with a large number of them, and was in fact one of them until my early-thirties. So when ex-creationist goes to the trouble of illustrating what this story "might" have looked like, I may have assumed my default position was in play.
Perhaps Matthew was merely tossing signs into the sky in order to bolster his claim that here was born the King of the Jews. But it doesn't read like that. I agree with you that there are often descriptions of heavenly events coinciding with the birth of great personages. But do any of these other tales involve the heavenly sign leading people around like a GPS app?
DrZoidberg
Contributor
I wasn't talking about contemporary reading of the story. I was talking about the intention of the writers. We have a good handle on how wisdom litterature was written and compiled. As well as read. Pre-printing press societies had a loose relationship with the truth. And people knew that. There was no ultimate authority readily available. So people didn't stop thinking for themselves.
Having easy access to books where every edition reads the same has made us gullible and stupid. I think.
excreationist
Married mouth-breather
DrZoidberg
Contributor
If we aren't using a historicistic approach, we can just make up anything.Says "Maybe it was simply a miracle". There are lots of miracles in the Bible especially if you take it literally... like lots of angels, etc.
The moment we start accepting that miracles can happen we can stop discussing the Bible. Any theory becomes equally plausible.
The Bible also says that the disciples performed miracles. Faith healings and such. Is that plausible?
In Star Wars whenever George Lucas couldn't make the script work he inserted "the force".
In Star Trek whenever the writers got stuck they inserted a "tricorder" that would provide whatever information was needed at that time to make the story progress.
Miracles have always been handy for script writers. People love a plot twist.
So we're better off assuming natural explanations for everything in the Bible. Which makes sense since miracles stopped happening when technology progressed to the point where we could record them.
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excreationist
Married mouth-breather
Are you saying that there literally was a comet and that was historical? What comet was it then? If the part about a star being on top of the house isn't historical then why not just assume that everything about the star was made up?If we aren't using a historicistic approach, we can just make up anything.Says "Maybe it was simply a miracle". There are lots of miracles in the Bible especially if you take it literally... like lots of angels, etc.
The moment we start accepting that miracles can happen we can stop discussing the Bible. Any theory becomes equally plausible.
The Bible also says that the disciples performed miracles. Faith healings and such. Is that plausible?
In Star Wars whenever George Lucas couldn't make the script work he inserted "the force".
In Star Trek whenever the writers got stuck they inserted a "tricorder" that would provide whatever information was needed at that time to make the story progress.
Miracles have always been handy for script writers. People love a plot twist.
So we're better off assuming natural explanations for everything in the Bible. Which makes sense since miracles stopped happening when technology progressed to the point where we could record them.