Raf

you are right

1. The Jefferson Bible is basically the teachings of Jesus stripped of all supernatural inferences and references. Save ypur money. I'm positive it's available online. 2. Why do I need references but the Bible doesn't? Evidence that I am wrong would change my mind. Why declare before researching that it would not change yours?

lol no.

What has Jackman hosted?

ok, now you're in the neighborhood. An awards show host. You've already eliminated one of four awards show hosts known to sing, Jackman. Who are the other 3?

Patrick Stewart was correct

No, it does not. It contains a mythology of the growth of that nation. See, that's the thing. Exodus is not part of Egypt's history. Or Israel's. In the Bible, Joshua is credited with destroying the city of Ai. That city had been destroyed centuries earlier. Conservative, Bible believing archaeologists came to that conclusion reluctantly.

Context: we're talking about religion compelling people to believe the unprovable, not why people read the Bible. Excellent question, OldSkool. The answer is: to an extent. It really depends on the claim being made. It should be noted that historicity is crucial to the truth claims of Christianity. If these things didn't happen, then Christianity is false regardless of the morals and priciples it teaches. Take the good and cherish it. Take the silliness and trash it. Homework: Read the preceding paragraph. Then read the Jefferson Bible. Then read the preceding paragraph again. Repeat until it hits you. Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah: I would not expect independent verification of some things. Others, yeah, there'd better be corroboration. For example, we know King David existed. We also know the size and influence of his kingdom was a wee bit exaggerated. We know Nebuchadnezzar existed. We know Daniel did not. The book of Daniel claims Belshazar was king and that he was Nebuchadnezzar's son. Neither is true. Daniel is no more real than the Kent family in the John Jakes novels: a fictional character interacting with real people from history to tell a compelling tale. Moses? No more real than Perseus. Egypt kept records, man. ... I got interrupted and you posted again while I was writing, so I'll stop here and read and respond if necessary.

For the record, that's not what I said. I said "Most Christians believe the Bible is God-breathed, whatever that means to them (or to you)." I didn't think that statement was remotely controversial. Are you saying most Christians do not believe that? And I am not saying a belief is untrue just because it's mocked. If that were the case, no belief would be true. And Mike's thesis falls under the same protection. It's not false because we mock it [and OH, I do]. The point I am making is simply that it's difficult [I contend impossible] to come up with a reason to reject Mike's arguments that cannot be used to justify a rejection of any flavor of Christianity.

I'll let Bart Ehrman address why we know [to a reasonable degree of certainty] that Pilate did not have a custom of releasing violent insurrectionists at Passover. https://ehrmanblog.org/pilate-released-barabbas-really/ So we have A. no outside evidence Pilate ever had such a custom and B. ample evidence that it was completely outside his character. You may keep this in the category of an unproven story. I mean, ok, fine. Personally, I think it's a disproven story on par with George Washington and the cherry tree. This thread is about religion demanding the acceptance of the unprovable. We can agree this story falls in that category. I would go a step further. You would not. Fine. *** Your summary of my point about Herod was the exact opposite of my point about Herod, which means either you misunderstood me or I mistyped something. I meant to say the slaughter of the innocents was CONSISTENT with his character. It remains unproven, but at least it's not nonsense. The release of Barabbas was nonsense. *** You can probably find tons of evidence of regional floods. None will match the Genesis flood in scope and timing. It didn't happen.. That's not unprovable or unproven. It's disproven. The best you will be able to do is track down an event that might have served as inspiration for the various flood stories throughout cultures. But that's not the same thing. *** My point is that religion expects us to believe not only that which can't be proven, or that which hasn't been proven. It expects us to believe that which is disproven. Like the confusing of languages at Babel. That's not how we got different languages! Or Joseph traveling to Bethlehem to register for the census because he was of the House of David. That's not how censuses work, then or now! But we will twist ourselves into knots trying to explain why these things, that aren't so, are so.

I thought God's ability always equals his willingness [on a related subject, we need a top 5 list of objectively stupid Wierwillisms].

Mike Tyson is actually throwing you off. Don't dwell on him.

Why Alan Thicke? Just curious. You keep correctly identifying the generic when/why without realizing it. If you just settle on that one fact, your pool of potential singers drops to three or four. I never said the music exec got in trouble. And the song wasn't about it. The lyrics just gave it a fleeting mention. Five years is too small a window, but you are on the right track. Alan Thicke and the singer have appeared on screen together, but the singer is not Alan Thicke. The name of the venue is in the song's lyrics. It wouldn't help nearly as much as the when/why. In the middle of the song, the singer performs a fairly impressive magic trick.

Gracious reply. Thank you for understanding.

I do not begrudge you any of the points that you mentioned. And for what it is worth, I think Mike is off his rocker. But are you unable to see how many Jews believe that christians have their scriptural and spiritual systematic theology completely out of whack? Do you have any idea how hard they laugh when you look at their scriptures as prophecies of Christ? "A virgin shall be with child"? "He shall be called a Nazarene"? "Out of Egypt I have called my Son"? Jews laugh their asses off when Christians claim Hebrew scriptures are prophecies of Jesus's life. They know their scriptures. They know it's not true. They look at your theopneustos claims for Paul's letters and Matthew's plagiarized gospel the same way you look at Mike's theopneustos claims for Victor Paul's articles and plagiarized books. Biblical and systematic theology? They think yours is just as goofy as you think Mike's is.

To be clear: The WHEN has already been identified, though only in a general sense, not specific (and the WHEN is inseparable from the WHY). It just wasn't recognized when it was mentioned. Glossed right over it in favor of the wrong answer. Once you identify why/when, you will narrow down the WHO to, at most, three or four people. No one else fits the category of "known to sing but not really known as a singer."

Am I? I was doing so well keeping up, too. * The lead male character wears a hat gifted to the actor by the lead actress. The hat belonged to her late husband. * The only movie in history to win Oscars for a man and his daughter playing a man and his daughter.

I've been asked to clarify the point of this thread. I contend that the only reason I need to is to address the deliberate attempts to derail it from the very first page. But I will back up to add context to the statement made in the opening post. Let me start by saying that for the purpose of this thread, it really doesn't matter what "theopneustos" means. It only matters that it means something to you. If it means nothing to you, then this thread offers you no challenge. That's why I didn't just say "I believe nothing is God-breathed." That's not a statement that challenges people to address how they think about the topic. Yes, it's accurate. May 13, 1986 fell on a Tuesday. That's also accurate, and just as relevant (which is to say, not at all). So, regardless of what I think God-breathed means, and regardless of what you think God-breathed means, let's agree that the word "theopneustos" is, in fact, a word in the Bible that VPW and TWI did not make up, and that it means, literally, "God-breathed," which VPW and TWI did not make up, and that many (most? all?) Christians agree with the statement that the Bible is God-breathed according to scripture. This is not a statement that is peculiar to GSC, TWI, CES, STFI, CFF, or any ministry that can trace itself to a farm in Ohio. If you bother to Google "God-breathed Word," you will find MANY references within the Christian world, only a fraction of which seem to have the remotest thing to do with TWI. All of this is a preface. Most Christians believe the Bible is God-breathed, whatever that means to them (or to you). Along comes Mike. Mike wants us to think PFAL is God-breathed. Nonsense! we say. If PFAL were God-breathed, it would have the characteristics PFAL outlines for the God-breathed Word. It doesn't. It has actual errors and contradictions! Ok, fine, but so does the Bible. Oooooops. Observation: If we use PFAL's defining characteristics of the God-breathed Word to rule itself out as God-breathed, we cannot escape that the Bible does not live up to the same criteria. With me so far? Because so far I have not seen anyone disagree with this. For two decades, Mike has managed to exploit, deliberately or not, the fact that you can't disqualify PFAL from being God-breathed without laying the foundation for the Bible to be disqualified on the same grounds. Wierwille was a womanizer (David, Solomon). He tells fake stories about things that didn't happen (Genesis, Exodus). He claimed God talked to him audibly (Moses).No one can confirm his absurd story of snow on the gas pumps (Jonah). So, to those who believe the Bible is God-breathed, however you define it, how can you argue PFAL is not? My answer is easy: I don't believe EITHER work is God-breathed. Problem solved. But that's not YOUR answer. So what is? My original post anticipates explanations that rule out PFAL as God-breathed and makes a prediction: You cannot rule out PFAL as God-breathed without ruling out the Bible on the same grounds. Much respect for those whose answers implicitly admitted "I'm going on faith and I'm not willing to engage." No problem. Don't. You'll notice I did not argue with you. Maybe go easy on Mike, unless you can tell us all how his leap of faith is so different from yours? Exhale.

I was about to say "Gracie's pregnant." You're up again WW

FYI: I'm not really calling out Josephus for failing to mention Jesus. I would call him out for failing to mention the annual custom of releasing a condemned prisoner on the Passover... IF I had any confidence there ever WAS such a custom. Also calling out the attempts to inject Jesus into the writings of Josephus instead of just accepting the truth you just shared: he just wasn't on Josephus' radar for whatever reason. I'll put an asterisk here... *... for anyone who wants to discuss Josephus' Jesus references further at any point. I'm not going to argue for no reason.

But you're disagreeing with my major premise by pointing out factors that don't address it. It is UNPROVEN, for example, that there was a slaughter of the innocents. It is DISPROVEN that Pilate had a custom of releasing condemned men on the Passover. Yes, that's an argument from silence, but it's silence where one would not expect it if the custom were historically true. In other words, if I told you my house burned down yesterday, and you came by today and saw no trace of a house fire, just a perfectly fine house, you would conclude I was mistaken or lying about my statement. The absence of evidence in this case really is evidence of absence. Pilate's custom falls into that category: it is so outside of his character that the best explanation for the failure to mention it is that it wasn't true. Same with Noah's flood. There is no archaeological or geological record of a global flood, nor is there evidence of a regional flood that would cover mountains or move a boat to Mount Ararat. Any flooding at all? Sure. But nothing like Gen 6-9. Exodus of 2 million Hebrews from Egypt? Yeah, never happened. SIT? Unprovable, not disproven. We discussed that. Personally, I think the absence of evidence there is glaring. But not everyone agrees. Ok. So yes, Josephus does VERIFY some things. Pilate existed. But he verifies things that are not in dispute. Ben Franklin was a character in the John Jakes Kent Family Chronicles. He really existed. But his interactions with Phillip Kent were fictional. They never happened [in this case because Phillip Kent didn't exist]. That John Jakes inserted a historical figure into a fictional story does not make his story into history. Same with the gospels. That Herod existed doesn't mean the slaughter of the innocents happened. That Pilate existed doesn't mean Barabbas existed. Or that Arimathea is a real place. Oldies, Nice catch. I would submit that is an argument similar to "Judas went away choked with grief" or "the fross Christ bore in John is metaphorical, Simon only bore the physical cross." But I'll remove the reference from my repertoire.

Sound thinking until you blew it. Songs performed at the Super Bowl have, more often than not, been performed many times before and since. "Bigger" has not. Independently, Eminem is incorrect.

I obviously agree with the opening post. I'd go a little further and say religion demands acceptance of the disproven. Watch how people twist themselves into knots over something they would dismiss coming from any other religion. The Book of Mormon contains a fictional history of the Americas. Anyone in their right mind would know that disqualifies the Book of Mormon as a reliable source of knowledge of history. But the Bible's nonsense about a global flood (and before you go there, the "regional flood" story is just as nonsensical because no such flood ever happened in that part of the world as described. More on that if you need it), nonsense about Israelite slaves in Egypt and a dramatic story about every family losing its firstborn, a story that makes it into not one single historical account from the country where it happened. You think Exodus happened? LOL. Name the Pharoah. What? The story doesn't even name the villain? Ok, that's easy. Just go to Egyptian historical records for who was Pharoah when the Hebrews were expelled and all the firstborn of all the families including livestock died in a single night and... and what do you mean it never happened? Never? Like, under any Pharoah? Well, that must mean... And then Jesus gets baptized and immediately goes fasting for 40 days and gets tempted by the devil, according to Matthew. And then Jesus gets baptized and immediately goes fasting for 40 days and gets tempted by the devil, according to Mark. And then Jesus gets baptized and immediately goes fasting for 40 days and gets tempted by the devil, according to Luke. And then Jesus gets baptized and three days later is at a wedding in Cana and what fasting and temptation in the wilderness according to John. And then Pilate comes up with a new tradition of releasing a condemned criminal on the Passover. We know this is true because we actually know quite a bit from history about Pilate. For example, he never did any such thing. Oops. I mean, come on, he gives the people a choice between Jesus, the Son of the Father, and a criminal named Jesus Barabbas (which means son of the father)? IT'S A MADE UP STORY! But instead of accepting the obvious, most believers try to shift the burden. Well, you can't prove it didn't happen! Fine. I can't prove that ridiculous and obviously contrived BS story didn't happen. But come on. Pilate never had a custom of releasing prisoners. Sheesh. Lo Shanta away!

That's the key. Figure out WHY, and you will have significantly cut down the possibilities on WHO.

Ok, there once was a song called "Bigger." I want you to tell me who sang it. It was co-written by one of the greatest lyricists currently writing and performing today. He's not the one who sang it. The one who sang it is known to sing, but is not known as a singer. The song itself is seven-and-a-half minutes long and features background performances (including but not limited to vocals) by circus-style acrobats, cheerleaders, transvestites, children, a guy in a Spider-Man costume and former boxing heavyweight champion Mike Tyson. Its lyrics featured a crass (but not vulgar or profane) comment on the sexual history of a music producer who was in the audience at the time. There were two rehearsals and one live performance in front of an audience of, depending on how you count, about 6,000 people, or 7.3 million. It received a one-minute standing ovation. And was never performed again. Never released for purchase. Never got any airplay on the radio. Never charted on Billboard. Yet is still regarded as a landmark of its genre. It's success has not been repeated. Who performed lead vocals on "Bigger"? For extra credit, when? And why didn't it get treated like a hit song? But you win the round just by naming the artist.