I was a fresh Mormon Missionary in Switzerland, when I was asked to prepare a presentation for (adult) Sunday School class on the Christmas Story. Because it was in German, I had to go back to the gospels to put the lesson together. It is a sign of my young age, that I first discovered the contradictions between the gospels. I did what everyone else does, I cobbled them together in a way that barely made sense. I am sure that the class thought I was just having language problems, but it was the story that was messing with me. I came back to that point a decade later, leading to an intense New Testament study, and ultimately my deconstrution from Mormonism and Christianity
I'm sure it's a LOT easier nowadays in the age of Post-It notes and word processors to allow re-stacking a portmanteau plot-line when you try and reconcile the story lines.
there is a problem Louis Segond Bible Micah 5/5 says It is he who will bring peace. When the Assyrian comes into our land and enters our palaces, We will raise up against him seven pastors and eight princes of the people. ??? Assyrians, don't he say Romans? at the time this was Romanesque not Assyrian!!
Wow, you couldn't see the forrest through the trees. If you would have studied and had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, (see 1 Nephi 11 and Alma 7) it put Jesus's birth in Nazareth and "at Jerusalem". The point is Jesus is divine and resurrected. Does Luke's account of the location and events of Jesus' birth change the fact that Christ walked out of that tomb, appeared to Peter, John, Paul, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdary? Come back brother. Jesus has defeated death and is mighty to save you and me.
@@bartdehrman Chris, i have an observation on the whole "Bart Ehrman website" experience (courses, articles, mails, lectures an so on... I know Bart dedication to the web and some donation to charity. **But** all the team that work around (and I guess with his knowledge) performs a very aggressive marketing approach which is very obvious ***and** seems a machine of sales. Too much emphasis in marketing and the web is rather difficult to engage and a sometimes confusing. A little of restrain and a more balanced content (I do not want to feel advertised all the time). This is my overall opinion. Regards
It always amazes me, the great skill that the apologists use to take two stories that have little in common and figure out how to make it one somewhat reasonable story.
This podcast is one of the best and most open I've seen on YT, regarding these subjects. Great work, Megan and Bart, and Happy Christmas/Holiday/whatever!
One irony here is that Luke begins his gospel by dissing Mark and Matthew for being innacurate. He specifically states that his reason for writing it is to correct those inaccuracies. Then he goes and makes up a wildly improbable story....
That's how liars work. To make a lie believable, a good liar (oxymoron) must discredit the truth. I am not saying that whoever wrote the Gospel of Luke was lying, but the three gospel writers are telling different stories. Maybe portions were added after the original writers (or speakers) had delivered their stories. We don't know. We can only surmise … until we unearth more evidence.
This is a trope. I am a medievalist (the period that went for about 1000 years, until about 1400 CE). Practically everytime a text claims to be truthful and correct past mistakes, you can expect the fabrication of a new official truth, the justification of past actions etc. In other words: porkies.
There are immediate problems with the census and taxation. Herod was the client king and the Romans didn’t directly tax the subjects of a client kingdom. Josephus tells of an insurrection/tax revolt in 05 or 06 CE, but that was under a Roman Governor. The writers of Mark, Matthew and Luke were at a period that taxation and that sort of census/tax roll was normal.
@paultimson6674 If you believe the anonymous stories. Something like that in real life would be quite ridiculous as it would shut down commerce in several areas and would be quite the inconvenience to either pay tax in an area you don't live at or a census to find out where people don't live. But in Christianity- check, makes sense.
Yeah it makes so little sense for that to have been the case especially in Roman Empire. So incredibly inefficient but also ridiculous. Why care about ancestry back 1000 years than just where the current people live? Also who is keeping track? @@dirtypickle77
To add an even stronger point to what Bart said concerning not being afraid of contradictions: If you really believe that this is real, then getting it wrong is actually WAY more dangerous than finding a contradiction and proving something false. Believing and speaking something wrong, even if it's written in the bible, would be blasphemy. You'd meet God at the pearly gates, and get grilled on why you intentionally ignored the obvious contradictions and chose to worship falsehood and lead others astray instead of rejecting untruth. You'd be risking your eternal soul by being blasé about what is and isn't true scripture. You can't claim to take the bible seriously, and yet not take it seriously, and still expect to be saved.
Why is the onus on humans to take responsibility for God's apparently lax textual discipline in scripture? A more reasonable reaction is that if we're supposed to take holy texts seriously as the Divine Word of God, then the texts shouldn't contain obvious contradictions, mistakes, or risible implausibilities. If they do contain errors, they're most likely not legitimate. One thing I will grant to biblical literalists is that they realize that allegedly holy scripture shouldn't contain errors. When it obviously does, they invent mental gymnastics to pretend that it doesn't. Like dedicated members of modern fandoms, they'll engage in elaborate retcons and creative textual readings to maintain the fiction of inerrancy.
Professing to believe in the theory of gravity does not prove that you are a shameless sycophant like professing to believe in biblical inerrancy does. It is a signal of blind loyalty to earthly powers (humans in positions of power) and is rewarded here on earth, as such.
The comment that Bart adds in at the end of Megans questions was a really great statement. It's a huge leap for evangelicals towards the right direction
As far as I'm aware there's no independent historical evidence of the slaughter of the innocents. if that's the case, it would suggest this particular Gospel story was just an invention.
That's correct, and if it were true you would expect to see it in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, which is quite unfavourable towards Herod. The fact that he didn't use it to emphasise just how tyrannical Herod was shows that it is a fiction invented later by the author of Matthew.
@@alexcanduci3824 Thanks. Like a lot of Bible stories then, there's no independent verifiable evidence to back them up. One of my favourites is the zombie apocalypse, the raising of the dead with zombies wandering around Jerusalem after the alleged resurrection of Jesus. A remarkable event indeed, but only reported in Matthew and nowhere else!
Yes, it is not recorded in any trustworthy document, but putting it into the gospel was, as B Ehrman says, the author had to align with prophecies. Also, it really makes a point about how hard the road to redemption is.
Bethlehem was a small town. The population of male babies under the age of two that Herod's soldiers would be able to find would've been less than 10. Do you really think an event like this could've make it into historical documents
As to why Matthew and Luke put Jesus's birth at Bethlehem, I was always of the opinion that the infancy narratives were written in response to Jewish critiquing of Christian claims in the 50s-60s CE. If Jesus was the savior prophesized in the Hebrew bible, then why is he from Nazareth and not Bethlehem as the prophets hinted? Lo and behold, out come the infancy narratives...
Here's how I think it went. First, Christians start claiming that Jesus is the Messiah. The Jews disagree since it contradicts traditional Jewish notions of what messiahs are. Christians point out passages in the scriptures to show that there are prophecies about Jesus the Messiah (VERY early apologetics?). The Jews then ask, why isn't he from Bethlehem as prophesized? To which early Christians make up the births narratives that eventually made their way into Matthew and Luke.
Having grown up riding horses and the occasional donkey, and also having had the experience of being heavily pregnant, I can definitely say that Mary would not have been riding far during a day. And just like walking, the pressure of riding would have soon caused the onset of labor. Even if she rode a horse, which I doubt Joseph could have afforded, she would probably not have had a saddle -- again, too expensive. Nor would she have had stirrups, even if she had a rudimentary saddle -- they wouldn't have been in this part of the world yet. So if she even had a donkey, she'd have been essentially riding bareback, mostly over rough terrain, sitting sideways, not astride -- both uncomfortable and risky.
It's an ancient Phoenician Motif and relates to Typhon, E Io, and The Divine Serpent 🐍 Eyore, Yahu and Hehaw are all ways to express jubilation, and revelry, revealing the Jubilee, and Sali Brating An Ass is also found in Uranus, in the Ass of Sagittarius, the Bowed Hunter that hits Orion in his heel, causing Eridanus to flow forth, the Rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland, when she passed through the Mirror 🪞 It's Astrological Allegory for a Lunar Zodiac Calendar
I read a book by Mark Twain about his visit to the holy land. He claimed that while he was there he never saw a woman riding and a man walking even if she was pregnant. That is not how the culture works there . No idea if this is correct. Twain was known to make a thing or two up
One thing I want to know, that nobody has ever answered for me, is: if Herpd was killing all the baby boys under age two, how did Jesus’s cousin John (later known as “the Baptist”) not get killed as a tiny child himself? John the Baptist, after all, was only six months older than Jesus? Also, if Jesus HAD been killed as a baby (if his parents hadn’t moved suddenly to Egypt), would this have counted in Christianity as a “redemptive” death, the way that (according to Christianity) Jesus‘s actual death counted as “redemptive”?
Funnily enough, this was exactly the question that generated the Christian myths about John the Baptist. Christian tradition says that John was indeed hunted down in this massacre, so Zechariah took him to the mountains to escape. When he was ultimately cornered, the rocks of the mountain split open and an angel appeared. Zechariah handed him John, the angel disappeared with the baby, and Zechariah was martyred by Herod's men. This story can be found in the Protoevangelium Jacobii ch. 22.
Heck, I was born in Romania in 1987 - I don't even have a father's name listed or where he was born...great author and scholar, fun hearing him outside of a lecture or academic class
@@danielponder690 that's really cool. I want to try a DNA test one day to find out more about my family line. It's crazy how hard keeping track of family was even without something like a world war. Go back further in time and war was way more common.
@danielponder690 Either you mean semitic or you are talking about faith which isn't in your DNA. Theres no such thing as a jewish race. Palestineans are more semitic than European jewry
I love the idea that someone in the 1st century BC having to travel to where their ancestor lived 1000 years prior. All the Greeks in the Middle East and Anatolia--including the Ionian and Cypriote Greeks--as well as the Southern-Italian and Sicilian Greeks would all have to go back to Hellas. Antioch and Alexandria, for instance, would have a massive drop in population for a year or more. Lets not forget the Romans, who believed themselves descendants of the Trojans, would all end up huddled together in the Troad.
The funniest thing is what this would have done to people who came from outside the Roman Empire. My favorite example is the Hellenized Bactrians living in Syria who would have had to march all the way back to Afghanistan where no Roman authority even exists.
I don't get how Christians could believe that Isaiah 7:14 talks about Jesus. It's clear in the story Isaiah is talking about his own son and calls his wife a young woman, not a virgin, and that the child has been born, not will be born. Baffling.
Many years ago, when I was doing my Scripture Studies, two points were mentioned regarding the Infancy narratives - firstly, we should look at the Resurrection narratives. In Matthew, the Resurrection features an Earthquake - so his Infancy narrative features another celestial occurrence - the Star. Luke's Resurrection account features angels - and so does his Infancy narrative. (BTW, while much of Matthew tells the Disciples to "Go only to the Children of Israel", the Resurrected Jesus tells the Disciples to "Make Disciples in every Nation" - hence the "Foreign" Magi at the Birth). But the second element we were told to watch out for was "Who was Jesus to each of these Gospel writers?" Matthew, clearly sees Jesus as a "New Moses" a Law giver who gives his "New Law" on a Mountain - just like Moses did - and just like Moses, Matthew's Jesus comes out of Egypt. Meanwhile, Luke seems to see Jesus as one of the Humble of the Earth - so at his birth, we have Shepherds, who despite their usage throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as metaphors for "Good Rulers" (especially in Isaiah and Ezekiel) were so despised that they were barred from being witnesses in trials... Thus we get the two different Infancy narratives - Matthew's cosmically important New Moses (complete with yet another "Dreaming Joseph" going to Egypt) and Luke's "Salt of the Earth" Jesus, who's birth, while of enormous importance to Heaven, is only noticed by the Humble and the "Outcast" and who meekly returns home, unnoticed by none of the "Great and Good"... The difference in the two Infancy Narratives is, therefore, solely down to the very different Christologies/Theologies of the two authors...
Passover is not the appropriate Jewish holiday, but it may still have been a fictional detail simply because Passover is known by anyone who read Exodus whereas Yom Kippur may not have been as well known by Greeks who knew a few of the more interesting Torah stories.
In Belém, Brazil? Reminds me of a famous players who was awesome at heading the ball, but not not that good with the inside of his head. In an interview after a match he played in Belém, in Para state, he was asked what he thought about paying in the city, and he answered he was very proud of playing in the city Jesus was born lol.
How about Belém, Lisbon? Vasco da Gama departed there en 1497, to find the maritime rout to India. These places are named after the so called place of birth of Jesus. Very interesting comment.
@@beatriz9676 "These places are named after the so called place of birth of Jesus." Wow, thank you so much for opening my eyes! I would never have guessed! And here I thinking that my funny story about Jardel (who played for Porto FC), including saying he was not very bright of the head, was a clear indication I was perfectly aware of that fact. Btw, if you have seen the video, you know Bethlehem was NOT the birthplace of Jesus, right?
Jesus says He was born in late summer. His earliest years were at Mt. Carmel at the Essene Community where His parents lived. Have you not read THE REMNANT by Mary LaCroix? Fascinating book for sure!
It's interesting to note that Matthew's and Luke's different accounts of Jesus's birth are a strong argument against the mythicists. Had Jesus been entirely fictional, Christians would surely have portrayed him as having lived his whole life in Bethlehem: this would have been a much simpler, neater and more logical way of making his life fit the "salvation shall come from Bethlehem" prophecy. The fact that Matthew and Luke come up with two elaborate and contradictory accounts of the Holy Family travelling between Nazareth and Bethlehem is a clear sign that they are trying to reconcile the prophecy with known facts about a historical figure.
Because Jews were Druis, Iberian Celts. We can say this from the Pomegranate Wine called Soma that they drink, called the Sleeping Fruit. This is how you can trace the origin of Jews to Ireland and why Poms are called Poms Pomegranate comes from Punicum Malum, or Forbidden Carthaginian Wine Apple, drunken alongside the Bull Sacrifice, El, ergo Israel means El Fruit of Isis and Ra Pomegranate has 619 seeds on average, the number of pages in the Torah. It is also the embodiment of the Pillars of the Temple, and El also means Eye, relating to Orion, or Aryan, Iran, Osirian, Assyrian. Ergo the Golden Apple of Apollo, found at the top of the tree of Life The ritual said to not drink the wine, but they did, redemption through Sin, same with eating Pork and Shellfish, in fact Esus is the Celtic God of Death, Ellah the Celtic word for Oak, and Sus is another word for Pig 🐖 The Caledonian Boar From Chaldea, and Calendar Callandais, in Albion, and Avelon, aka England
Jesus was born in the Jewish pantheon' and grew in the minds of the diaspora Greek Jews who liked writing stories to persuade the gullible. And they would be amazed at their success.
@@Mavors1099 you could address the point instead of spamming emojis. Just saying. If it is as absurd as you seem to be implying it should take little effort to disprove it.
@@Mavors1099 Show me where I said "suppose". If you can not show me where I said that I wonder why you have decided to lie today. What I said was "could" you COULD decide to put the tiniest most insignificant amount of effort into your response. Instead you went with emojis and then with lying. Fascinating choice! You have definitely convinced us all.
@@Mavors1099 >Show me where I said that you said "suppose". >and I am supposed to disprove it What do I win? If you hear someone say "I am supposed to do X" to someone they clearly told them them what they are supposed to do. > wonder why you have decided to lie today. Yes, we all know you are capable of the level of wit of repeating yourself. My 7 year old used to do that, before she grew out of it. Now why not spend time and deal with the issue instead of lying? It is simple, they made a claim you responded with emojis and lies., when all you really have to do is prove the claim wrong.
You know something is suspicious when apologetics lack uniformity and almost always rely on their own commentary rather than just going by what the text itself says.
The gospel of Mark is the only one that makes sense a it starts with Jesus as an adult. The baby stories of virgin birth, angels, dreams, where, how, escape and so on are literature to link with the older stories.
If the Gospel accounts were shaped by theological aims rather than strict historical detail, where do we find a more coherent birth narrative that can illuminate the spiritual truths early believers(Muslims) intended to convey about Jesus?
Also in response to Megan's question at 21:15 - in the Egyptian papyri, we have evidence for women travelling home to give birth, presumably to be around their family members for support during what was a difficult time.
It seems like the nature of religious texts would make it hard to draw any historical conclusions at all. I admire the people who have studied them enough to speculate like Bart does.
When you realise that religion has always concerned itself with the here and now, in a philosophical but also very much in a political way, it makes sense that those texts are open to historical investigation.
@ I understand that. I just mean that the authors of religious texts had other priorities other than historical accuracy. So it would take some work to be able to draw conclusions about historical accuracies.
@@joshuas9236 At that point, their priority was to convert as many people as possible, and it helps when your story is plausible: real people, real places, and a convincing explanation how that guy from Nazareth came to be born in Bethlehem, like the prophecies demand.
@joshuas9236 - Dr Ehrman is a very well-respected New Testament scholar who has thought deeply on these subjects. He has studied the history of the area and speaks Hebrew and Greek, maybe more. He studies other extra-_Biblical_ documents of the time. He is widely published in the popular, scholarly, and academic spheres (he is the author of some texts that used in divinity schools). He's not a speculator.
@ If this isn’t speculation, then why is there a debate around where Jesus was born? Because nobody can prove it and the best anyone can do is speculate. You misunderstood what I was saying I think.
Well, Burlington being close to the Wolf Creek plant could actually lend some credence to radioactive spiders in the area. But since KS already has Clark Kent, I'm not sure if it's fair for us to try to claim Peter Parker too.
I checked this. It's more like 70-to-90 miles. I found various mile statements, but none of them only said eight miles. Where did you get eight miles from - what is your source?
I've debated many Christians online and off. They only care about the belief in Jesus. Truth, logic, and scriptures, lol, they couldn't care less. Whatever they can't explain, they trust god can, so lean not to they own understanding. So logic doesn't work. The other is that they can not even begin to doubt the doctrine in any way, as that would make them feel lukewarm and therefore spewed out. Fear covers the rest, and the fear they think is the beginning of wisdom. In reality, looking at the world and realizing how much you do not know is the beginning of wisdom. Most Christians are screwed and will live out a delusional life while thinking the exact opposite of the world. Quite a mess
@@dirtypickle77 there your mistake. You ought to tell these folk you support their [human] right to practice their faith and raise their families as they choose Nothing pisses them of more
How funny that "at times" they all claim that God is mysterious! Yet every Christian, millions of them are all somehow Qualified to speak for God and on every subject! LOL and also, they are all qualified to tell us all what is from God and what is not. Amazing right? I ask them all the time if they believe God can see the HUGE mess that is the bible? Can God see this mess? How all you can do with the bible is from opinions? How every church has their own opinions? This is how people choose a church! They choose the one that has the same opinions as they have. How embarrassing is that? Even so-called bible scholars often argue and disagree with each other. Shocking but true! Here is what is really funny....in the past 400 years there have been many millions of human beings who have never heard of the bible or seen one. And now that is the same situation Christians have gotten themselves into! When God speaks to us in our day and time Christians are deaf and dumb locked in their tiny box with nothing but their opinions and Ideas (interpretations). Here is another good one....Christians are just now in 2024 starting to talk about Mediation! How funny is that? Yes, they have to, because the whole World is talking about it. Christianity goes back about 700 years but Spiritual knowledge in INDIA goes back over 15,000 years where they have been meditating the whole time. Soon....very soon....Christians will be EXPERTS on meditation.....watch and see! LOL
you will exhaust yourself if you try to prove to them they are wrong. they are psychologically constructed to make this impossible. but what you _can_ do is get them to concede that they cannot prove the thing that they've been told is easy to prove, unless someone already accepts some of their premises. i've seen this happen many times, and they become a lot less obnoxious once they learn that unbelievers aren't wilfully ignoring unavoidable evidence. make this your goal condition and learn to take the W. this concession is the seed of their own destruction. god has no justification torturing someone for ignoring proof that didn't exist
@@2quick24it depends on context, especially location... Last place where I put my comatose body, the Christians are under the thumb of a secular government, they are relatively mellow but also somewhat cultish. But the government liked them more than they liked me and whatever my religion happens to be.
Re Passover: I don't think Paul said Christ was "our Pascha" because it had anything to do with forgiveness, just as the original Passover lamb had nothing to do with forgiveness of sins in the Exodus story. Paul meant belief in Christ is a sign to the new angel of death, coming soon: the belief in Jesus indicates who is to be saved, who are the real children of God. Mark thought it was a good idea to place the death during the Passover festival and the others ran with it.
Thanks for the thought. I submitted that question via the website a long time ago and was glad it was asked. I had to condense my question for character limitations when submitting and also wonder about what you wrote here. In the end though, if I had to bet I'd go with Passover. But I wouldn't bet much!
Also, Micah clearly says that the guy from Betlehem would be a shield against the Assyrians. I don't remember any Assyrian invasion in Jesu's days. Edit: I originally wrote "any Assyrian in Jesu's Days". It was rightly pointed out that Assyrians existed in Roman times. I edited my post to make it clearer what I meant.
Hellow i would like to say if you studied Tibetan Buddhism you would know or understand that the Trinity is a a explanation of 3 layers of the what the physical body represents ( the Nirvanakaya - the sambhogakaya and the dharmakaya which represents the dharmakaya is the physical where it is possible to learn and recieve the teachings the sambhogakaya i think i have forgotten actually but it represents the possibility to transend from physical to spiritual by meditation and spiritual practises ( i think ) and nirvanakaya is having reached the stage of enlightenment so in Christianity Jesus explained how to become an enlightened person and having transcended from the physical to the ultimate goal to enlightenment through using the physical body purification of the physical sambhogakaya and then reaching enlightenment ( nirvanakaya ) that is the meaning of the trinity and Jesus having transended into nirvana had reached enlightenment by the worship of God the father through devotion intense devotion there are 2/3 other ways to attain enlightenment but i have forgotten that as well so iam guessing intense mantra repeating and or study and intense spiritual practise of the initiations one recieves and is taught how to practise these rituals with the daily practice and observations of the master teacher who you promised to do the practice from and to attain enlightenment as quickly as possible to benefit oneself and ultimately every sentient being so that all would be able in be enlightened for the benefit of the whole world Amen these practices come under Tantra practice which is regarded in Tibetan Buddhism as the highest and quickest way to becoming enlightened Amen this represents the trinity nothing to do with 3 separate bodies or Gods the whole thing is misunderstood unless you are on the way of becoming a Saint like ( Padre Pio or St Francis or Saint Charbell the Lebonese Saint monk who cures many beings from all kinds of diseases and illnesses and spiritual challenges but Jesus choose devotion because its at least the easiest to undestand because Tantra is very powerful but difficult and as with me will take a few hundred lifetimes to attain such high levels of spiritual capacity to say the least and these beings who are on those levels are called ( Rinpoche ) in Tibetan Buddhism and other titles to show their status and high level of spiritual knowledge and understanding and strength and attainmens like HH the DaLaiLama who has attained the hiġhest level of spiritual ability and power Has vowed to return again and again till all the sentient beings have or are enlightened Amen 🕉️☸️🛐🕉️☮️💟☮️💟☮️✝️🛐🙏🙏🙏🌏🌍🌎🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🦘🦘🦘😍🥰😇😂
. @@reedcockrell8126 Absolutely. The story of Superman has many points of similarity with jesus and many other heroes. A saviour from above who can enact miracles, also nobody knows who he really is. He sounds like the Jesus in the gospel of Mark but with the placid personality of the jesus in gMatt. Superman even died to save the world in 1994 and then was resurrected the following year!
@@reedcockrell8126 sorry, I posted a reply yesterday, agreeing with you, and saying that superman has many points of similarity with classic hero stories. But youtube has deleted my previous comment, as I suspect happens with quite a lot of comments. It would be great to know what on earth might have been offensive about that sentiment. Let's find out if the same thing happens to this reply.
Matthew even says living in Nazereth was a prophecy though as he repeatedly does it is some sort of confused interpretation: " So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene." Not really, Matt.
My biggest problem with the “was Jesus born in Bethlehem” question is that, when you are (let’s say) filling in missing data in your narrative, you tend to try to *solve* problems, not *invent* problems, with your narrative. The Gospels were not written during the time of Jesus; they weren’t even written the first generation after Jesus. They were written sometime around 80-120 CE, during the period of the Jewish Wars. JW 1 was 66-73 CE, JW2 (also called the Diaspora Revolt) was 116-117, and JW3 (the Bar Kochba Revolt) was 132-136 CE. The most significant (and least known in the broader world) was the Diaspora Revolt of 116-117, because of its timing, breadth, and brutality. The Diaspora Revolt began in Roman Syria/Mesopotamia, in the wake of Trajan’s invasion of Parthia. Very shortly after, possibly by design, there were large uprisings in Libya, Egypt, Cyprus, and the Kitos War in Judaea. Following the collapse of the Diaspora Revolt, Rome responded with basically a program of ethnic cleansing of Jews in Libya, Egypt, and Cyprus that verged on genocide. The archaeological record substantiates the written records, with no evidence of a Jewish presence in any of the three regions between 117 CE and either the 3rd or 4th centuries CE. The proximate causes of the Diaspora Revolt are the Fiscus Iudaicus (a Roman tax on Jews that replaced the Temple Tax, and was used for the upkeep of the Jupiter Optimus Maximus temple in Rome), and a widespread messianic expectation that a descendant of David would bring in transformative change in the world and recreate the Davidic Kingdom of Israel. This is the context of the composition of the Gospels and the New Testament, in general. The task of the New Testament as a whole, and of the individual elements outside of the definitive writings of Paul, was to draw a clear line between the Christian movement and the Jewish community. As a result, inventing reasons to connect the Christian movement with the Jewish community is counterproductive. It creates, rather than solves, problems. As a result of this, it is simpler to presume the presence of a tradition that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, was believed to be of the Davidic line, and subsequently grew up in Nazareth. The stories in Matthew and Luke are thus seen as attempts to incorporate this prior tradition into their narrative that Jesus was philosopher-Messiah who was rejected by the Jewish community and whose teachings found a home with non-Jews. This approach has further support in that it fits in with the other narratives (like those of Marcion and Valentinius) which also portray a Jesus who stands in opposition to the YHVH worship of Second Temple Judaism. However, the proto-Orthodox movement has the virtue of having a simpler narrative than the various “gnostic” theologies, in that it it focuses its argument on “the Jews today are corrupt and rejected what Adonai promised them” or, in simpler terms, “God good, Jews bad”. This approach has the added benefit of explaining the problem of the New Testament appealing to Jewish religion and traditions while also incorporating seeds of antisemitism that grew in later centuries into what we have now. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. It’s drawing a line between Christians and Jews-“please don’t kill us (or, more importantly, tax us)! We’re not them at all!” It’s when we lose the context of the fiscal and political climate that existed when the Gospels and the non-Pauline books of the New Testament were written that the confusion over which elements could have a historical antecedent behind them and which were rhetorical/narrative-driven inventions arises. Sorry for the rant. Happy holidays, all!
@@DneilB007 These dates are really late. There's nothing in Mark to suggest it is after 70 AD, and plenty of evidence that it isn't. For example, Mark 13 doesn't confirm fulfilment of Jesus' prophecy of the Temple's destruction, and the prophecy itself is incorrect. If the prophecy were written after 70 AD, it would have at least been accurate and most likely stated as fulfilled. 80-120 also doesn't provide enough time for Mark to influence Marcion's text of proto-Luke and for that text to then become our Luke.
Could it be that Joseph was born in Bethlehem but moved to Nazareth, that's why he had to return there for the census? Luke might have highlighted that Joseph was of the house of David, but it does not mean that the decree was for people to return to their ancestral home from 1000 years ago. Joseph's family was simply back in Bethlehem.
Oh why go somewhere else for a census... The tax is going to be levied of where folk live. Maybe visiting relatives: but not in the midst of winter. It is bollocks
Aramaic* Greek, Latin Vettori Valentinus transcribed the Vaticanus Graecus in the first century AD and concluded it was a 13 house Lunar Zodiac Vaticanus Graecus means Son of the Divine Serpent Same as Arthur Pendragon And Dracula Modern Hebrew is a provable recreation, as the Gaelic Celts were wiped out, including all their texts. Even today we barely have two texts that can be termed Phoenician And one of them talks of the Widows Scion Aka Dionysis
Not really a triple translation problem. Matthew was using the Greek translation and no one translated Isaiah into Latin until long after the Gospels were written
The term entire world is used a few times that stick out to me. The census for the entire world, Jesus seeing every city in the entire world from one mountain top, and god loves the entire world. It seems that this term “entire world” does not really mean the entire world! The writer’s didn’t even know that the continents of north and South America existed! So how could anyone claim that god loves America when he doesn’t even know this continent exists?!
Another commenter actually stated the Greek word that it is translated from(sorry I can't write Greek 😅) means "homeland" and not the entire world, just as you suggest!
Actually they did, you're appealing to is ought fallacy Phoenician sites are found worldwide, alongside the Megalithic Culture that uses the same metrics worldwide One Megalithic hour is 240 minutes, or 14,400 seconds (1/4) There are 6 Megalithic hours to the day, each made up of 6 minutes, each of which is 6 seconds long. If the Megalithic hour was divided into 60 minutes, each would be 1,440 of our seconds, times 100 is 144,000. One Megalithic second is 400 of our modern seconds, divided by 60 (to get minutes) is 6.6666666.... 360 ÷ 6.66 is 54 54 x 2 is 108 108 x 2 is 216 To effect this the hands on a clock count out 10 (units of 6) x 10 (units of 6) × 4 (=400 units of 6). Therefore the relationship of the Megalithic second to our current form is mathematically proportional to the ratio between the Sun and Moon. A Megalithic second is 6.66 minutes (400 seconds). A Megalithic Minute is 40 minutes, or 2,400 seconds. 6 x 6 x 6 x 400 = 86,400, the number of seconds in a day. This would mean a clock with 216 seconds would go around 40 times in a day (2160 x 400). This means 1 Megalithic second is 6.66 of our modern minutes, meaning their metric system is based on the Full Moon, of which 360 fit into to the night sky, and 720 will encircle the globe, divided by half gives us the 360 degree circle, and the basis for our present based sixty or seximal system of time. Which is why 1 degree of Arc on the Moon = 100 Megalithic Yards (2700ft). This means the Beast, the hidden hand of the Masonic fraternity, is the Moon; and Time. The white limestone covering of the Pyramids denotes the Pale Moon in Megalithic Ireland, like at New Grange, where Enoch describes a Crystal Palace illuminated by the Full Moon every 19 years. 6 x 6 x 6 is 216, there are 2160 years in an astrological age, and the Moon is 2160 miles in diameter, the solar metonic calendar using 60 6 day weeks produces 1 extra day every 216 years. There are also 216 Megalithic seconds in a day, and 216 letters in the name of the Hebrew God, Just as Solomon has 36 or 72 scrolls, and Muhammed speaks of 72 sects. Enoch also buries 36,525 scrolls, the number of days in a year, times 100. This shows that our current measure of time is based on the principle of 1/6, the basis of an Egyptian Royal Cubit, which effects the arc of a Pendulum like that in a Grandfather Clock, the Sun also does this in the sky over the seasons. But first, they built the first ring at Stonehenge, which is 100 metres (330 ft) wide, with an area of 2160 square feet, a Cube's interior angles also add up to... 2160! This produces a Calendar of 60 6 day weeks plus five. Every 4th year a 366th day makes exactly 61 weeks. This is the basis of the Olympics, to mark a Leap Year, starting with the first Full Moon of the Summer Solstice. This means every 216 years this calendar produces 1 extra day, so after 648 years 3 days must be removed. This is when the Phoenix arrived, and stepped onto the Alter of Ra or Holy Grail, completing the Metonic cycle and bringing the Calendar back into sync with the first New Moon of the Spring equinox. The Capstone of the Pyramid is even called the Benben Stone, the Egyptian Phoenix is called the Bennu. It likely relates to Deneb, in Ophiuchus, the 13th Starsign of the Zodiac. The base of the Pyramid is exactly 13 Acres, as is Teotihuacan, because they share the exact same base dimensions. Such a location would be ideal for calculating the speed of light using the transit of Venus. Incidentally the Great Pyramid's Latitudinal coordinates are the speed of light. 1440 ÷ 108 = 13.333333 11 and 3 are the most sacred Celtic numbers of royalty, and also happen to be the proportions of the Earth to the Moon, and the Great Pyramid. The starsigns also precess 1 degree every 72 years 72 x 3 is 216 2160 ÷ 648 is 3.3333333 The Aztec Calendar also begins with a double transit of Venus, in 3116BC, and ended with one on June 5 2012. The double headed Phoenix. This whole code can be encrypted into a single Pythagorean Triangle of Dimensions 666 by 630, by 216, this is the Key of Solomon, 33 is the inverse of 66. 100 is the "perfect number" because it represents Ten (6 unit) metrics times ten 6 unit metrics: a unit being 6.66 ie 60 x 60 (3600) the number of Arcdegree seconds in a second, or a one second unit on a clock the size of Earth This means seconds represent 10ths of the Moon; 216, or 6 x 6 x 6 (100 ÷ 6 ÷ 6 = 2.7): Euler's number, and the number of feet to a Megalithic Yard, 3/11 is .27 and the number of days in a sidereal month is also 27. 11/3 is 3.66, the number of days in a Canicular leap year, the character of Thoth, Cuchulainn, and Kukulkan, the Dog Star of the Dog days of Sirius, in Assyria, and the star by which the Sothic (Seth) Calendar is determined. Thoth was the Son of Seth, who is portrayed as a Serpent. 3 x 11 is 33, the # of years in a 'Great Solar Return'. As the Sun and Moon inhabit their respective houses of the Zodiac they animate the character within, playing out the dramas and battles we know as myths, for example the Moon traveling through each of the Zodiac houses each month, for a grand total of... 144 (12 x 12) This is why at every Megalithic site we find Theatres, like in "Nazereth" and Gobekli Tepe and Poverty Point, as well as in New Zealand. Metatron/Enoch/Echnaton/Arkenaten's Cube is 13 circles in a Star of David: 13 x 360 is 4680 4680 ÷ 216 is 21.666.. The circumference of the Earth in Nautical Miles is 21,600 This means the basis of the Nautical Mile is the Moon. Calculate the Circumference of the Earth in kms by multiplying the Diameter of the Moon by 18.6, the period of a Metonic Cycle in years to get 40,175.
Alright - they asked one of my questions (the first one about dating the crucifixion to Passover)!!! I think I submitted it over a year ago, and as soon as Bart answered I thought "Why didn't I think of that?" and thought my question was dumb :) I also submitted another one about the influence of Zoroastrianism on Second Temple apocalypticism and the birth of Christianity a few months ago. I'm hopeful it gets asked in 2025! I'll keep watching and listening in any event. Thank you!
So, I noticed the issue with translations. I see that some English translations say Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken of the entire Roman world. Other translations say that Augustus ordered the census for the entire world. I am not sure about which is right. Overall I enjoy this podcast.
I wonder if the Egypt part, perhaps more importantly than quoting Hosea, was a way for Matthew to show that Jesus is the new Moses and embodies all of Jewish history, ergo Christians are the new ‘true Jews’ or something to that effect. On top of all the other parallels, he's even a Jew that comes from Egypt.
Jews are Jews but the rest were also welcomed in the new covenant with Jesus.and the Jews are still his people but lost favor for not believing in his SON JESUS
To know that the adult Jesus 'came from' Nazareth does not mean he was born there, or had always lived there. He may well have been born elsewhere, like Bethlehem. After a time in Egypt his parents returned, but to Nazareth, rather than Bethlehem. Mary visited Elizabeth at a date before John the Baptist's birth. She was family, so such visits did happen. If they fled to Egypt they presumably stayed in the Jewish community there, likely with relatives.
To the census story of Luke one could add that the fact Joseph was a descendant of King David would only be of interest to Jewish people.... with regards to the census that fact would have no meaning or consequences for the Romans.
Another podcast a whlie ago pointed out that the original account of Jesus's birth in Hebrew is that Mary was "a young women" with no mention of being a Virgin. Or is that wrong?
One of the many problems of the Bible are the translations from the original language into the many subsequent languages. Scholars dispute what was originally said and whether or not the translations are accurate. It's holy mess!
There was a time in past whenever Bart referred to places in the bible he would refer to it as Palestine including in his debates, since Oct 2023 he exclusively refers to it as Isreal, it will be very interesting to know why did he now decide to exclusively call the area Isreal when previously he referred to it as Palestine
Here's an interesting thing I just figured out. When Jesus' family returned from Egypt (in Matthew), they avoided the Jerusalem area (where Bethlehem is) and went to Galilee (where Nazareth is) because Herod had authority over the Jerusalem area. At Jesus' trial (in Luke), when Pilate learned Jesus was from Galilee, he sent him to Herod, because Herod had authority over Galilee. I always thought that was a contradiction--at Jesus' birth, Herod controlled Jerusalem but not Galilee, but at Jesus' trial, Herod controlled Galilee but not Jerusalem. It was two different Herods (both of them sons of the original Herod). The Herod who controlled Jerusalem when Jesus' family returned from Egypt didn't last long before the Romans took over (and were still in control during Jesus' trial). It looks like the Herod who ruled Galilee during Jesus' trial also ruled it when Jesus' family returned from Egypt--he ruled Galilee for Jesus' entire life. So I guess when Jesus' family returned from Egypt, they had a choice of two Herods and chose the less evil one?
It's independently attested in the Amidah's Birkat haMinim (the 12th "benediction") that originally contained a curse for the Noztrim (Nazarenes) and came from sometime between 73 and 135 CE (although Rabbinic tradition puts it around 90 CE). Basically, the Pharisaic Community of Yavne established by Yohanan ben Zakkai were already calling proto-Christians with the term Nazarene around the time the gospels started getting circulated and already considered them heretical enough to put upon them a curse that's read as a confession of Jewish faith. The Jerusalem Talmud also confirms the association of the Christian Messiah with Nazareth despite being mostly concerned with James instead of Jesus himself. Since the Yavne community was largely ignorant of the evolution of Greco-Roman Christianity, their naming of the movement indicates widespread knowledge in Jewish circles that proto-Christianity was associated with Nazareth.
The Romans grafted the birth of Jesus onto their pagan celebration of the winter solstice. December 21st is the shortest day of the year, where the sun rises at its lowest point in the sky. For three days it doesn't move. On December 25th, the sun rises higher in the sky. The three kings in antiquity referred to the 3 stars in Orion's belt, which point to the location in the sky where the sun will rise. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky heralds the sun's rising in the constellation of Virgo, known to the Hebrews as Bethlehem, the House of Bread, as Virgo is depicted as holding a sheaf of wheat in her hand. Thus, the sun dies and is reborn after three days, of a virgin. It is a story written in the stars which every ancient culture knew.
I think the Mark's ending is to undermine the women's (Mary Magdalene's) role, or power in the church and elevated the status of Peter. As Burt said somewhere that Mary saw Jesus first, then Peter, this sequence gave Mary greater status over Peter. So Mark tweaked the story very carefully and masterfully implying that Mary was indeed the first to saw Jesus, but it was Peter who announced it first, and Mary told her story after he revealed the truth. Mary was coward, Peter was brave, not fearing accusation and persecution, therefore, Peter (men) held higher status than Mary (women).
I have a question for Bart. Why does he always pronounce the Hebrew word “YOM” (the Hebrew word for “day”, as an “YOM KIPPUR”) as if he thought it was the Hebrew word “YAM” (which is the word for “ocean,” instead) is this a Christian thing that I don’t understand? I’m Jewish, and I speak Hebrew fairly well, so I am struggling to understand why he chooses to change the vowel of “YOM” into the vowel of”YAM.” Please help me understand why he makes this choice.
If Jesus and his family blend in with Egyptians, presumably black people, that says that Jesus wasn't blonde haired and blue eyed like in peoples wall images.
I think if people saw paintings of what a true middle eastern Jesus looked like instead of the Germanic renaissance Jesus, they might not be worshipping him. Our mental images of him are created by inaccurate paintings by artists who’d never been out of their area and painted the folks they lived with.
your premise is wrong. the roman empire of the first century was a lot more racially mixed than modern people think. Egypt probably _did_ have a lot of dark people, but as far as we know, people didn't make a big deal about race in most of the empire. also, the elites in 1st century egypt were greek, for like 400 years. and there was a huge jewish population in Alexandria
I've never thought going to Bethlehem for a census made sense, but a guy taking his seven or eight months pregnant to another town where he has family when they've only been married four months made sense, even the Mrs Grundys of that era who had no education were capable of counting out nine months. The immediate family may have bought the angel story, but the entire town...? If today the fifteen year old unmarried girl down the street claimed to be a virgin and impregnated by G-d while being three or four months pregnant how many would believe her? But IF YOU come to believe her, how many others would? Joseph was a journeyman carpenter, I think he probably had a donkey drawn cart to hold his tools and materials so he could perform his profession that Mary rode upon. That's what makes most sense in my mind for the story.
Only Joseph was in the know. It was a secret. Do you imagine Mary was telling people ? Jesus is entering Satan's kingdom as an infant. He is not advertising it. His ministry of 1260 days is not to go further. and Satan gets his 1260 days soon. You can then vote. Heaven and hell. which place you prefer?
What carpentry was being done in the mud huts these peasants were living in? Wouldn't you make your own crude table, as, say, Egyptian peasants would do today?
@@mountbeckworth1 It is my understanding that what is usually translated as _"carpenter"_ could just as validly be translated as _"builder."_ There is always work for someone who can build, and/or repair, a house or a shed; a barn or an outhouse. Today's equivalent might actually be more like a _"general contractor;"_ he could certainly build a chair or table, but those who had grown beyond their apprenticeship would be knowledgeable about many building materials including wood, brick, stone, {and perhaps some metal work} in that part of the world/ then.
@@sailorbychoice1 thank you for your courteous reply. Most of my comments end up with me being consigned to Hell. On a wider point, if this was the word (whoops, "Word") of god, how did he allow such inconsistencies? Imagine if I had a book that stated Lincoln led the Union army at Gettysburg, and another chapter stated that at the same time he was in Paris with Ben Franklin.
The real question is was Jesus actually ever born at all, or is it an archetype based on earlier spiritual knowledge? Dionysus has much the same life story, for example.
it's not an important question to most serious scholarship. in general, scholarship tracks the evolution of a relatively unreliable jesus narrative that served various theological and cultural purposes, and a modern sense of careful fact checking was not one of them. the history that scholarship has access to -- a very thin record mostly written decades after jesus -- looks pretty much the same regardless of whether some version of jesus existed or whether he was invented de novo. even when traditional scholars point to common stories in independent sources, they'll tell you the source must be an actual shared event, but all it _absolutely_ proves is an earlier shared story. there's an academic default that you take plausible accounts at face value, but these are probabilistic assumptions required to make research possible, not certainties. imo, you'll be a lot happier if you stop thinking about the issue of whether jesus existed. an awful lot of information is scattered and lost on the winds of time. fwiw, imo, bart's book where he proves the historical jesus is by far his worst book, and generally i am a big fan
"Scholarly consensus" is that there was a historical Jesus, I take issue with that because the secular sources refer to Christians, not the man himself. Imagine talking about Trekkies and somewhere Captain Kirk's name comes up. I remember a meme that mention birth records of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, which would have them in their 30'a when the first comics were written, so we have better evidence for the historical Batman and Superman then Jesus
@@mistersilly9012 In the end, it doesn't matter if Jesus was a real human or not. (I personally know that there was not a Jesus.) The importance of 'Jesus' is the teaching of universal laws. What was historically mystery school knowledge out of Egypt and other societies and reserved for the very few initiated who could understand it, was finally formatted for public consumption. This became 'the holy bible': a book which utilizes ancient mystery school symbolism and allegory to convey deeper universal truths for/to the masses.
In Mathew it says the kings/wise men enter the house. Not stable or manger. Anyway, the 2 gospel birth narratives are literally as different as can be.
When we were kids we had to sing the songs, Holy, holy holy, God in 3 persons, we would add, better call a shrink. As usual this video is fascinating. You’ve got to think of the audience that the gospels were aimed at The obvious is Matthew was aimed at the Jews for their conversion
well, obviously not ... but the question i'm interested in is: _was _*_DAVID_*_ born in bethlehem?_ david, in adulthood, ruled Hebron, much further south, and was a relative outsider to the northern tribes until his military power allowed him to subdue the philistines. it's speculated that military might was also how he ended up with the crown, and the ark and sundry temple loot, and how a bunch of temple priests ended up dead and of course, he conquered jerusalem and moved north to be closer to the northern territories that he sought to control so, for someone seeking israelite credibility, does it not seem like a perfectly normal fictional child narrative to place his birth in bethlehem, just south of jerusalem, and location of ancient patriarchs? we already know his childhood was a blank slate upon which Elhanan's giant-killing story could be repurposed why is nobody talking about this?
I think the story that came with Luke was that Mathew had found some important prophecies but he just made up a story to fulfill them. Luke, the historian, did the research and found the real story and it fulfilled the prophecies, too. Part of the story would have been that Luke had no knowledge of Mathew.
I don't know, the flight to egypt is pretty ridiculous, but so is the supposed census that required you to travel for weeks back to your ancestral land. Like... setting aside the imposssible logistics of it, it kind of defeats the purpose of a census if you are trying to find out how many people live where. Both seem to be making up separate things just to have jesus be born in bethlehem when everybody knew he was from nazareth.
The OT is a record of the Pharoahs of Egypt, kept at Byblos, and the NT was a Curse using a Lunar Zodiac Calendar Noah appears to be the founder of the first Kingdom, Og, or Aegypticus , Khasekhemwy, (YHWY) Vulcan and Narmer. The flood is the Monsoon season that floods the Nile on the Summer Solstice. Moses is Arkenaten, aka Hermes Trismegistis, and Enoch, who found Asylum with the Hyksos in Sidon, who were themselves kicked out of Egypt by Amunhotep I. Joshua is Tutmoses III, and Rameses is David, who married Jezebel, a Hittite Princess and Queen of Sidon, Bethsaida, or Bethesda, I suspect also Bethlehem, as House of Fruit, and Sodom, as home of the Samaritans, and Samothracians, worshippers of Set, Saturnus, Chronos, and Bacchus, Sabazios, the Jewish Jesus. Israel, the Phoenix of the Phoenicians, and Palace Stone, Throne of Palestine Jesus is the Moon, but identified as the Sun in the Third Person. (curse using Accusations in a Mirror) Esus is the Celtic God of Death, Israel to the Canaanites, Saturn or El, Fruit of Isis and Ra Wherever two or three are gathered together Ie Conjunctives, and Occultations of contradictions, Alchemy in it's metaphorical form
Is it true that the text Matthew states that the wise men went to Bethlehem? I find the statement "to where the child was". Matthew does not state where the child was, though the author does give statements that lead Herod to believe the child was or was still in Bethlehem. Possibly a baby was born in Bethlehem (Luke) but there is no mention of how long it was before he was taken back to Nazareth. It is surely not beyond possibility that the child and his parents had returned to a house in Nazareth long before the wise men came to Herod and then went to "were the child was" (in Nazareth) and not beyond possibility that once Herod heard rumours of this that he would continue the search which would lead him to Nazareth. By which time the family may have been in Egypt. I don't follow your reasoning. The texts are not clear enough to me for me to deduce the timing of events to the day or week or even month. It seems to me that those both for and against the traditionally accepted story are reading things in the texts that are not there.
if your interpretation were right, then the text wouldn't make any sense at all. The wise men went to jerusalem to ask for directions, to ask where the messiah is supposed to be born and they were told bethlehem. Why would they then go anywhere else that is not bethlehem? The whole point of that section is that they are asking for directions. The directions were given and then they followed the directions... Like... think about reading this text without knowledge of any other text, does the author give any indication that joseph and Mary may be anywhere else but bethlehem? IF not then... there is no reason to interpret it in that way. Other than purposefully trying to erase contradictions.
@@jakoverslept3096 you'd also have brush up on Ancient Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic as well as Classical Vulgar Latin... I think it's doable but my theory is one has to have some control of the Dark Arts which aren't very dark
Bart is saying the prophecy drove the answer. For Herod's killing of the babies born in the two-year period between the Sign of the Lion of Judah (Genesis 49:10) and the Sign of the Virgin & King (Isaiah 7:14) to destroy the two messsiahs of Deuteronomy 18 and Daniel 9 -- the prophecies of Jeremiah 41, Micah 5 and Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist) would certainly be relevant. However, if you wish to argue with Matthew, Luke and John's placement of Jesus at Bethlehem, you might want to ask the question: Do we know where Mary probably become pregnant? This appears to be Sepphoris. Who do the rabbis calling the 2nd messiah 'Yeshu ben Pantera' suggest "did the deed"? The rabbis blamed a Roman archer and flag bearer of the 1st Sagittarius Cohort named Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, born of Sidon and who died much later in Germany. The Mandaeans, who cover the births of both messiahs of Deuteronomy 18, seem to agree. Calling the archer "a pure eagle" from the nation that had destroyed the Temple and put fire to Jerusalem ... "He came down to her, he flapped his wings, sat by her and spoke to her, and taught her, and loved truth from her. He reached out and strongly embraced her, straightened her out, and put her on the throne. He says to her, 'Meryey, consider me good, and mention me before Life.'" Which seems reasonable. Mary called herself in Luke a "douli Kyriou" or handmaid of the Lord, so she may have been a Temple slave. Sepphoris had been reduced to slavery in the time of Herod for having rebelled. Josephus says the Romans had sent the military there to subdue it. And, in fact, the 1st Sagittarius was stationed in nearby Hama. When Vespasian came to town, the people agreed to steer clear of a current rebellion and to ally themselves with him. And Vespasian is one of Rome's leaders who, for political purposes, embraced the Christ myth.
Prophecy was very very important to the James community and their followers, why? Consider these things... According to the gospels, when Nicodemus came to Jesus secretly, he exclaimed, "We know you are from God, because no one could do the works you do unless God were with him." Signs and wonders were the earmark of the genuine servants of Yahweh, the prophets speaking in his name. Jesus displayed this power, and when Paul had to defend his apostleship from those attacking not only his original gospel, but his very ministry, he proclaimed that in ministering to his communities, all the characteristics of a genuine apostle were evident... complete perseverance and signs and wonders nd works of power, period. He did not have to justify his ministry by twisting and quoting scripture to subtantiate his teachings, like others do, he said. Regardless of their claims, his enemies did not love Jesus and were not faithful to him, and they presented a gospel that was nothing but a perversion of the original gospel of the Way (Jesus's first followers were not called Christians, but followers of the Way... hence, the gospel Jesus would have preached would be the gospel of the Way, the Sacred Way or Holy Way spoken of in Isaiah). For these two transgressions they were twice cursed to destruction by Paul. He must have had spiritual clout with Yahweh, because in62, James was brutally murdered, Nero unleashed a brutal deadly persecution against the Christians in 64 CE, in Rome, Peter was crucified in Rome in 65, and the Christian community was destroyed, along with everything else in Jerusalem, in 70 CE. So, Paul displayed power in his ministry as Jesus did. However his enemies were not from Yahweh and lacked this critical capacity to authenticate their ministry and teachings. This is why there is such a use of scripture in the four gospels/Acts, they had no power and so proclaimed that there was, "nothing but what was written" in their teachings... and they twisted the Hebrew scriptures till they fit their gospel perversion.
I've always assumed that Luke has access to Mathew's account, but thought it too far fetched to be plausible. He decides it is simpler and more plausible for Mary and Joseph to be living in Nazareth, have go to Bethlehem for some purpose, where Jesus is born and then return. In 6 AD, Archelaus got the boot for being a shitty ruler and replaced by a Roman prefect, Coponius. Judea was to now be directly ruled by Rome. A census was needed to determine the tax revenues that could be raised from this territory. Quirinus, governor of Syria, carried it out. Luke uses this census, augmented to a census of the whole world (maybe to explain the curious idea of people returning to their ancestral homes--Joseph was a subject of Herod Antipas, not Coponius so why would he be included?). Anyways, besides the dressed-up census, the rest of the account is pretty pedestrian and nowhere near as outlandish as Mathew's account.
I was a fresh Mormon Missionary in Switzerland, when I was asked to prepare a presentation for (adult) Sunday School class on the Christmas Story. Because it was in German, I had to go back to the gospels to put the lesson together. It is a sign of my young age, that I first discovered the contradictions between the gospels. I did what everyone else does, I cobbled them together in a way that barely made sense. I am sure that the class thought I was just having language problems, but it was the story that was messing with me. I came back to that point a decade later, leading to an intense New Testament study, and ultimately my deconstrution from Mormonism and Christianity
Steven, this is Chris writing on Bart's account. Fantastic story. You'd be a great fit in the Biblical Studies Academy if you're not already a member.
I'm sure it's a LOT easier nowadays in the age of Post-It notes and word processors to allow re-stacking a portmanteau plot-line when you try and reconcile the story lines.
there is a problem Louis Segond Bible Micah 5/5 says
It is he who will bring peace. When the Assyrian comes into our land and enters our palaces, We will raise up against him seven pastors and eight princes of the people. ??? Assyrians, don't he say Romans? at the time this was Romanesque not Assyrian!!
Wow, you couldn't see the forrest through the trees. If you would have studied and had a testimony of the Book of Mormon, (see 1 Nephi 11 and Alma 7) it put Jesus's birth in Nazareth and "at Jerusalem". The point is Jesus is divine and resurrected. Does Luke's account of the location and events of Jesus' birth change the fact that Christ walked out of that tomb, appeared to Peter, John, Paul, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdary? Come back brother. Jesus has defeated death and is mighty to save you and me.
@@bartdehrman Chris, i have an observation on the whole "Bart Ehrman website" experience (courses, articles, mails, lectures an so on... I know Bart dedication to the web and some donation to charity. **But** all the team that work around (and I guess with his knowledge) performs a very aggressive marketing approach which is very obvious ***and** seems a machine of sales. Too much emphasis in marketing and the web is rather difficult to engage and a sometimes confusing. A little of restrain and a more balanced content (I do not want to feel advertised all the time). This is my overall opinion. Regards
It always amazes me, the great skill that the apologists use to take two stories that have little in common and figure out how to make it one somewhat reasonable story.
@quakers200 - "Reasonable" is doing a lot of work in your post. ^_^
Apologists always have pseudo-arguments to justify their premises 😂😂😂. Mischievous atheists call it contradiction management 😂😂😂.
Makes me vomit
with enough motivation and creativity (or ignorance), one can make the bible say whatever one wishes.
This podcast is one of the best and most open I've seen on YT, regarding these subjects. Great work, Megan and Bart, and Happy Christmas/Holiday/whatever!
One irony here is that Luke begins his gospel by dissing Mark and Matthew for being innacurate.
He specifically states that his reason for writing it is to correct those inaccuracies.
Then he goes and makes up a wildly improbable story....
That's how liars work. To make a lie believable, a good liar (oxymoron) must discredit the truth. I am not saying that whoever wrote the Gospel of Luke was lying, but the three gospel writers are telling different stories. Maybe portions were added after the original writers (or speakers) had delivered their stories. We don't know. We can only surmise … until we unearth more evidence.
How does he dis Matthew and Mark ?
This is a trope. I am a medievalist (the period that went for about 1000 years, until about 1400 CE). Practically everytime a text claims to be truthful and correct past mistakes, you can expect the fabrication of a new official truth, the justification of past actions etc. In other words: porkies.
Luck utter crap
@@ashwayn Very obscure post. Do you mean Gospel of LUKE=utter crap?
The census is my favourite plot device ever. Its just so bold to tell people the entire world was to be counted.
I'm counting the whole of time right now.
There are immediate problems with the census and taxation. Herod was the client king and the Romans didn’t directly tax the subjects of a client kingdom. Josephus tells of an insurrection/tax revolt in 05 or 06 CE, but that was under a Roman Governor.
The writers of Mark, Matthew and Luke were at a period that taxation and that sort of census/tax roll was normal.
The census was by Quirinius The Military Governor over that region. He supervised Taxation in the Kingdom of Herod.
@paultimson6674 If you believe the anonymous stories. Something like that in real life would be quite ridiculous as it would shut down commerce in several areas and would be quite the inconvenience to either pay tax in an area you don't live at or a census to find out where people don't live. But in Christianity- check, makes sense.
Yeah it makes so little sense for that to have been the case especially in Roman Empire. So incredibly inefficient but also ridiculous. Why care about ancestry back 1000 years than just where the current people live? Also who is keeping track? @@dirtypickle77
I have watched this on Christmas, and found it comforting and intellectually satisfying. Thanks!
To add an even stronger point to what Bart said concerning not being afraid of contradictions: If you really believe that this is real, then getting it wrong is actually WAY more dangerous than finding a contradiction and proving something false. Believing and speaking something wrong, even if it's written in the bible, would be blasphemy. You'd meet God at the pearly gates, and get grilled on why you intentionally ignored the obvious contradictions and chose to worship falsehood and lead others astray instead of rejecting untruth. You'd be risking your eternal soul by being blasé about what is and isn't true scripture. You can't claim to take the bible seriously, and yet not take it seriously, and still expect to be saved.
Why is the onus on humans to take responsibility for God's apparently lax textual discipline in scripture? A more reasonable reaction is that if we're supposed to take holy texts seriously as the Divine Word of God, then the texts shouldn't contain obvious contradictions, mistakes, or risible implausibilities. If they do contain errors, they're most likely not legitimate.
One thing I will grant to biblical literalists is that they realize that allegedly holy scripture shouldn't contain errors. When it obviously does, they invent mental gymnastics to pretend that it doesn't. Like dedicated members of modern fandoms, they'll engage in elaborate retcons and creative textual readings to maintain the fiction of inerrancy.
Professing to believe in the theory of gravity does not prove that you are a shameless sycophant like professing to believe in biblical inerrancy does. It is a signal of blind loyalty to earthly powers (humans in positions of power) and is rewarded here on earth, as such.
The comment that Bart adds in at the end of Megans questions was a really great statement. It's a huge leap for evangelicals towards the right direction
As far as I'm aware there's no independent historical evidence of the slaughter of the innocents.
if that's the case, it would suggest this particular Gospel story was just an invention.
That's correct, and if it were true you would expect to see it in Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews, which is quite unfavourable towards Herod. The fact that he didn't use it to emphasise just how tyrannical Herod was shows that it is a fiction invented later by the author of Matthew.
@@alexcanduci3824 Thanks.
Like a lot of Bible stories then, there's no independent verifiable evidence to back them up.
One of my favourites is the zombie apocalypse, the raising of the dead with zombies wandering around Jerusalem after the alleged resurrection of Jesus.
A remarkable event indeed, but only reported in Matthew and nowhere else!
Yes, it is not recorded in any trustworthy document, but putting it into the gospel was, as B Ehrman says, the author had to align with prophecies. Also, it really makes a point about how hard the road to redemption is.
The story cashes in on the fact that Herod had killed numerous members of his own family - a slaughter of innocents
Bethlehem was a small town. The population of male babies under the age of two that Herod's soldiers would be able to find would've been less than 10. Do you really think an event like this could've make it into historical documents
As to why Matthew and Luke put Jesus's birth at Bethlehem, I was always of the opinion that the infancy narratives were written in response to Jewish critiquing of Christian claims in the 50s-60s CE. If Jesus was the savior prophesized in the Hebrew bible, then why is he from Nazareth and not Bethlehem as the prophets hinted? Lo and behold, out come the infancy narratives...
Here's how I think it went. First, Christians start claiming that Jesus is the Messiah. The Jews disagree since it contradicts traditional Jewish notions of what messiahs are. Christians point out passages in the scriptures to show that there are prophecies about Jesus the Messiah (VERY early apologetics?). The Jews then ask, why isn't he from Bethlehem as prophesized? To which early Christians make up the births narratives that eventually made their way into Matthew and Luke.
@@lazykbysYou know that is the exact thing that happens in John. 7:41-43. It just states he wasn’t of the Davidic line or from Bethlehem.
I only know that Jesus wasn't born in Florida because they couldn't find 3 wise men, or a virgin.
they did however find 3 Wise guys and a yacht named Virginia
Boooo.
We dont know how many magi there was. We assume three because there was three gifts
@@zapkvrdon’t ruin a good joke with facts
Da dum tiss!
The blistering yoke of inerrancy is unforgiving, inspires relentless challenge and always will.
Inerrancy is new. Was created in the 1870s
@@btbingo - Isn't that about the time period when the "rapture" was also invented?
@@simonbattle0001 inspires relentless challenge, eh? Can you prove that? 😉
ALWAYS LOVE this weekly podcast. So incredibly fascinating and thought-provoking. THANK YOU, Bart and Megan, and Merry Christmas!
Having grown up riding horses and the occasional donkey, and also having had the experience of being heavily pregnant, I can definitely say that Mary would not have been riding far during a day. And just like walking, the pressure of riding would have soon caused the onset of labor. Even if she rode a horse, which I doubt Joseph could have afforded, she would probably not have had a saddle -- again, too expensive. Nor would she have had stirrups, even if she had a rudimentary saddle -- they wouldn't have been in this part of the world yet. So if she even had a donkey, she'd have been essentially riding bareback, mostly over rough terrain, sitting sideways, not astride -- both uncomfortable and risky.
It's an ancient Phoenician Motif and relates to Typhon, E Io, and The Divine Serpent 🐍
Eyore, Yahu and Hehaw are all ways to express jubilation, and revelry, revealing the Jubilee, and Sali Brating
An Ass is also found in Uranus, in the Ass of Sagittarius, the Bowed Hunter that hits Orion in his heel, causing Eridanus to flow forth, the Rabbit hole of Alice in Wonderland, when she passed through the Mirror 🪞
It's Astrological Allegory for a Lunar Zodiac Calendar
I read a book by Mark Twain about his visit to the holy land. He claimed that while he was there he never saw a woman riding and a man walking even if she was pregnant. That is not how the culture works there . No idea if this is correct. Twain was known to make a thing or two up
One thing I want to know, that nobody has ever answered for me, is: if Herpd was killing all the baby boys under age two, how did Jesus’s cousin John (later known as “the Baptist”) not get killed as a tiny child himself? John the Baptist, after all, was only six months older than Jesus?
Also, if Jesus HAD been killed as a baby (if his parents hadn’t moved suddenly to Egypt), would this have counted in Christianity as a “redemptive” death, the way that (according to Christianity) Jesus‘s actual death counted as “redemptive”?
Funnily enough, this was exactly the question that generated the Christian myths about John the Baptist. Christian tradition says that John was indeed hunted down in this massacre, so Zechariah took him to the mountains to escape. When he was ultimately cornered, the rocks of the mountain split open and an angel appeared. Zechariah handed him John, the angel disappeared with the baby, and Zechariah was martyred by Herod's men. This story can be found in the Protoevangelium Jacobii ch. 22.
Heck, I was born in Romania in 1987 - I don't even have a father's name listed or where he was born...great author and scholar, fun hearing him outside of a lecture or academic class
You don't understand though. They had amazing record keeping back dozens of generations back then.
Sarcasm.
@@GameTimeWhy hahaha you're right! A DNA test is filling some of the gaps for me and apparently my father was levantine Jewish of some sorts
@@danielponder690 that's really cool. I want to try a DNA test one day to find out more about my family line. It's crazy how hard keeping track of family was even without something like a world war. Go back further in time and war was way more common.
@danielponder690 Either you mean semitic or you are talking about faith which isn't in your DNA. Theres no such thing as a jewish race. Palestineans are more semitic than European jewry
There is no such thing as jewish dna
I love the idea that someone in the 1st century BC having to travel to where their ancestor lived 1000 years prior. All the Greeks in the Middle East and Anatolia--including the Ionian and Cypriote Greeks--as well as the Southern-Italian and Sicilian Greeks would all have to go back to Hellas. Antioch and Alexandria, for instance, would have a massive drop in population for a year or more. Lets not forget the Romans, who believed themselves descendants of the Trojans, would all end up huddled together in the Troad.
The funniest thing is what this would have done to people who came from outside the Roman Empire. My favorite example is the Hellenized Bactrians living in Syria who would have had to march all the way back to Afghanistan where no Roman authority even exists.
So nice to listen to Bart and Megan. Merry Christmas to you!
I don't get how Christians could believe that Isaiah 7:14 talks about Jesus. It's clear in the story Isaiah is talking about his own son and calls his wife a young woman, not a virgin, and that the child has been born, not will be born.
Baffling.
Exciting to find you have a podcast! Professor Harrill assigned your books when I was in college 😀
I was not a Christian, but I thought Bethlehem was filled with snow-covered evergreen trees everywhere in the winter because of Xmas stories. LOL
u must remember in those days there were not 12 months in a year either.
@@mindykatz3651 Beg pardon?
I mean they sorta have evergreen trees if Cyprus trees count lol
That’s what was in the picture books
@@dixonj41Roman and Jewish calendars are wildly different (the Jewish calendar has 354 day per year and leap months).
Many years ago, when I was doing my Scripture Studies, two points were mentioned regarding the Infancy narratives - firstly, we should look at the Resurrection narratives. In Matthew, the Resurrection features an Earthquake - so his Infancy narrative features another celestial occurrence - the Star. Luke's Resurrection account features angels - and so does his Infancy narrative. (BTW, while much of Matthew tells the Disciples to "Go only to the Children of Israel", the Resurrected Jesus tells the Disciples to "Make Disciples in every Nation" - hence the "Foreign" Magi at the Birth).
But the second element we were told to watch out for was "Who was Jesus to each of these Gospel writers?"
Matthew, clearly sees Jesus as a "New Moses" a Law giver who gives his "New Law" on a Mountain - just like Moses did - and just like Moses, Matthew's Jesus comes out of Egypt.
Meanwhile, Luke seems to see Jesus as one of the Humble of the Earth - so at his birth, we have Shepherds, who despite their usage throughout the Hebrew Scriptures as metaphors for "Good Rulers" (especially in Isaiah and Ezekiel) were so despised that they were barred from being witnesses in trials...
Thus we get the two different Infancy narratives - Matthew's cosmically important New Moses (complete with yet another "Dreaming Joseph" going to Egypt) and Luke's "Salt of the Earth" Jesus, who's birth, while of enormous importance to Heaven, is only noticed by the Humble and the "Outcast" and who meekly returns home, unnoticed by none of the "Great and Good"...
The difference in the two Infancy Narratives is, therefore, solely down to the very different Christologies/Theologies of the two authors...
Passover is not the appropriate Jewish holiday, but it may still have been a fictional detail simply because Passover is known by anyone who read Exodus whereas Yom Kippur may not have been as well known by Greeks who knew a few of the more interesting Torah stories.
Bart is always interesting.
Megan's impressive glasses look like a pair that one would buy in the Temple.
In Belém, Brazil?
Reminds me of a famous players who was awesome at heading the ball, but not not that good with the inside of his head.
In an interview after a match he played in Belém, in Para state, he was asked what he thought about paying in the city, and he answered he was very proud of playing in the city Jesus was born lol.
How about Belém, Lisbon? Vasco da Gama departed there en 1497, to find the maritime rout to India. These places are named after the so called place of birth of Jesus. Very interesting comment.
@@beatriz9676 "These places are named after the so called place of birth of Jesus."
Wow, thank you so much for opening my eyes! I would never have guessed!
And here I thinking that my funny story about Jardel (who played for Porto FC), including saying he was not very bright of the head, was a clear indication I was perfectly aware of that fact.
Btw, if you have seen the video, you know Bethlehem was NOT the birthplace of Jesus, right?
Thank you Both. 🙏🙏🙏🙏
So who's a voice of the "jolly english bloke" who does the voice overs? "Welcome to whats going on with Bart..."
What are you talking about.
Jesus says He was born in late summer. His earliest years were at Mt. Carmel at the Essene Community where His parents lived. Have you not read THE REMNANT by Mary LaCroix? Fascinating book for sure!
please do more debates with christian bible scholars, Bart
It's interesting to note that Matthew's and Luke's different accounts of Jesus's birth are a strong argument against the mythicists. Had Jesus been entirely fictional, Christians would surely have portrayed him as having lived his whole life in Bethlehem: this would have been a much simpler, neater and more logical way of making his life fit the "salvation shall come from Bethlehem" prophecy. The fact that Matthew and Luke come up with two elaborate and contradictory accounts of the Holy Family travelling between Nazareth and Bethlehem is a clear sign that they are trying to reconcile the prophecy with known facts about a historical figure.
Bart, some Celticists have said the trinity made a lot of sense to Irish scholars after conversion because they had similar ideas.
Because Jews were Druis, Iberian Celts. We can say this from the Pomegranate Wine called Soma that they drink, called the Sleeping Fruit. This is how you can trace the origin of Jews to Ireland and why Poms are called Poms
Pomegranate comes from Punicum Malum, or Forbidden Carthaginian Wine Apple, drunken alongside the Bull Sacrifice, El, ergo Israel means El Fruit of Isis and Ra
Pomegranate has 619 seeds on average, the number of pages in the Torah. It is also the embodiment of the Pillars of the Temple, and El also means Eye, relating to Orion, or Aryan, Iran, Osirian, Assyrian.
Ergo the Golden Apple of Apollo, found at the top of the tree of Life
The ritual said to not drink the wine, but they did, redemption through Sin, same with eating Pork and Shellfish, in fact Esus is the Celtic God of Death, Ellah the Celtic word for Oak, and Sus is another word for Pig 🐖
The Caledonian Boar
From Chaldea, and Calendar
Callandais, in Albion, and Avelon, aka England
There is a Mary's House AirBnB in Bethlehem so the tale must be true.
Jesus was born in the Jewish pantheon' and grew in the minds of the diaspora Greek Jews who liked writing stories to persuade the gullible.
And they would be amazed at their success.
@@Mavors1099 you could address the point instead of spamming emojis. Just saying. If it is as absurd as you seem to be implying it should take little effort to disprove it.
@@Mavors1099 Show me where I said "suppose". If you can not show me where I said that I wonder why you have decided to lie today.
What I said was "could" you COULD decide to put the tiniest most insignificant amount of effort into your response.
Instead you went with emojis and then with lying. Fascinating choice! You have definitely convinced us all.
@@Mavors1099
>Show me where I said that you said "suppose".
>and I am supposed to disprove it
What do I win?
If you hear someone say "I am supposed to do X" to someone they clearly told them them what they are supposed to do.
> wonder why you have decided to lie today.
Yes, we all know you are capable of the level of wit of repeating yourself. My 7 year old used to do that, before she grew out of it. Now why not spend time and deal with the issue instead of lying? It is simple, they made a claim you responded with emojis and lies., when all you really have to do is prove the claim wrong.
@@Mavors1099
>Show me where I said you said "suppose"
>And I am supposed to disprove it
I win 🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@Mavors1099 nope, I did.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
You know something is suspicious when apologetics lack uniformity and almost always rely on their own commentary rather than just going by what the text itself says.
The gospel of Mark is the only one that makes sense a it starts with Jesus as an adult. The baby stories of virgin birth, angels, dreams, where, how, escape and so on are literature to link with the older stories.
If the Gospel accounts were shaped by theological aims rather than strict historical detail, where do we find a more coherent birth narrative that can illuminate the spiritual truths early believers(Muslims) intended to convey about Jesus?
Also in response to Megan's question at 21:15 - in the Egyptian papyri, we have evidence for women travelling home to give birth, presumably to be around their family members for support during what was a difficult time.
It seems like the nature of religious texts would make it hard to draw any historical conclusions at all. I admire the people who have studied them enough to speculate like Bart does.
When you realise that religion has always concerned itself with the here and now, in a philosophical but also very much in a political way, it makes sense that those texts are open to historical investigation.
@ I understand that. I just mean that the authors of religious texts had other priorities other than historical accuracy. So it would take some work to be able to draw conclusions about historical accuracies.
@@joshuas9236 At that point, their priority was to convert as many people as possible, and it helps when your story is plausible: real people, real places, and a convincing explanation how that guy from Nazareth came to be born in Bethlehem, like the prophecies demand.
@joshuas9236 - Dr Ehrman is a very well-respected New Testament scholar who has thought deeply on these subjects. He has studied the history of the area and speaks Hebrew and Greek, maybe more. He studies other extra-_Biblical_ documents of the time. He is widely published in the popular, scholarly, and academic spheres (he is the author of some texts that used in divinity schools). He's not a speculator.
@ If this isn’t speculation, then why is there a debate around where Jesus was born? Because nobody can prove it and the best anyone can do is speculate.
You misunderstood what I was saying I think.
Well, Burlington being close to the Wolf Creek plant could actually lend some credence to radioactive spiders in the area. But since KS already has Clark Kent, I'm not sure if it's fair for us to try to claim Peter Parker too.
thx for Megan's experiences
Really guys… I have to wait a whole week for AJ Levine’s interview..?! So cruel.. looking forward impatiently to it! Great episode as always!
Yes, he was born in Bethlehem of the Galilee, where his grandparents lived, eight miles from Nazareth.
I checked this. It's more like 70-to-90 miles. I found various mile statements, but none of them only said eight miles. Where did you get eight miles from - what is your source?
Galilee is much more up north
I've debated many Christians online and off. They only care about the belief in Jesus. Truth, logic, and scriptures, lol, they couldn't care less. Whatever they can't explain, they trust god can, so lean not to they own understanding. So logic doesn't work. The other is that they can not even begin to doubt the doctrine in any way, as that would make them feel lukewarm and therefore spewed out. Fear covers the rest, and the fear they think is the beginning of wisdom. In reality, looking at the world and realizing how much you do not know is the beginning of wisdom. Most Christians are screwed and will live out a delusional life while thinking the exact opposite of the world. Quite a mess
@@dirtypickle77 there your mistake. You ought to tell these folk you support their [human] right to practice their faith and raise their families as they choose
Nothing pisses them of more
How funny that "at times" they all claim that God is mysterious! Yet every Christian, millions of them are all somehow Qualified to speak for God and on every subject! LOL and also, they are all qualified to tell us all what is from God and what is not. Amazing right? I ask them all the time if they believe God can see the HUGE mess that is the bible? Can God see this mess? How all you can do with the bible is from opinions? How every church has their own opinions? This is how people choose a church! They choose the one that has the same opinions as they have. How embarrassing is that? Even so-called bible scholars often argue and disagree with each other. Shocking but true! Here is what is really funny....in the past 400 years there have been many millions of human beings who have never heard of the bible or seen one. And now that is the same situation Christians have gotten themselves into! When God speaks to us in our day and time Christians are deaf and dumb locked in their tiny box with nothing but their opinions and Ideas (interpretations). Here is another good one....Christians are just now in 2024 starting to talk about Mediation! How funny is that? Yes, they have to, because the whole World is talking about it. Christianity goes back about 700 years but Spiritual knowledge in INDIA goes back over 15,000 years where they have been meditating the whole time. Soon....very soon....Christians will be EXPERTS on meditation.....watch and see! LOL
Thou shalt not take thy Lord's name Jesus Christ in Vain
Christians: Whot?
you will exhaust yourself if you try to prove to them they are wrong. they are psychologically constructed to make this impossible. but what you _can_ do is get them to concede that they cannot prove the thing that they've been told is easy to prove, unless someone already accepts some of their premises. i've seen this happen many times, and they become a lot less obnoxious once they learn that unbelievers aren't wilfully ignoring unavoidable evidence. make this your goal condition and learn to take the W. this concession is the seed of their own destruction. god has no justification torturing someone for ignoring proof that didn't exist
@@2quick24it depends on context, especially location... Last place where I put my comatose body, the Christians are under the thumb of a secular government, they are relatively mellow but also somewhat cultish. But the government liked them more than they liked me and whatever my religion happens to be.
Re Passover: I don't think Paul said Christ was "our Pascha" because it had anything to do with forgiveness, just as the original Passover lamb had nothing to do with forgiveness of sins in the Exodus story. Paul meant belief in Christ is a sign to the new angel of death, coming soon: the belief in Jesus indicates who is to be saved, who are the real children of God. Mark thought it was a good idea to place the death during the Passover festival and the others ran with it.
The theology of Jesus redemptive death was based on Day of Atonement, they made a mess compounding Day of Atonement with Passover
Thanks for the thought. I submitted that question via the website a long time ago and was glad it was asked. I had to condense my question for character limitations when submitting and also wonder about what you wrote here. In the end though, if I had to bet I'd go with Passover. But I wouldn't bet much!
Also, Micah clearly says that the guy from Betlehem would be a shield against the Assyrians. I don't remember any Assyrian invasion in Jesu's days.
Edit: I originally wrote "any Assyrian in Jesu's Days". It was rightly pointed out that Assyrians existed in Roman times. I edited my post to make it clearer what I meant.
Assyrians actually were around in Jesus' day. They also used the Pompeiian calendar
@@jayasuryangoral-maanyan3901 Ok, I don't remember any Assyrian invasions.
@@Valdagast are you that petty that you edited the comment to refer to an invasion instead of the existence of the people? Bruh
@@jayasuryangoral-maanyan3901What does shield imply?
@@jayasuryangoral-maanyan3901 I edited to make it clearer what I meant
There was a theory that only Joseph as family head had to travel down to Bethlehem for the census
Hellow i would like to say if you studied Tibetan Buddhism you would know or understand that the Trinity is a a explanation of 3 layers of the what the physical body represents ( the Nirvanakaya - the sambhogakaya and the dharmakaya which represents the dharmakaya is the physical where it is possible to learn and recieve the teachings the sambhogakaya i think i have forgotten actually but it represents the possibility to transend from physical to spiritual by meditation and spiritual practises ( i think ) and nirvanakaya is having reached the stage of enlightenment so in Christianity Jesus explained how to become an enlightened person and having transcended from the physical to the ultimate goal to enlightenment through using the physical body purification of the physical sambhogakaya and then reaching enlightenment ( nirvanakaya ) that is the meaning of the trinity and Jesus having transended into nirvana had reached enlightenment by the worship of God the father through devotion intense devotion there are 2/3 other ways to attain enlightenment but i have forgotten that as well so iam guessing intense mantra repeating and or study and intense spiritual practise of the initiations one recieves and is taught how to practise these rituals with the daily practice and observations of the master teacher who you promised to do the practice from and to attain enlightenment as quickly as possible to benefit oneself and ultimately every sentient being so that all would be able in be enlightened for the benefit of the whole world Amen these practices come under Tantra practice which is regarded in Tibetan Buddhism as the highest and quickest way to becoming enlightened Amen this represents the trinity nothing to do with 3 separate bodies or Gods the whole thing is misunderstood unless you are on the way of becoming a Saint like ( Padre Pio or St Francis or Saint Charbell the Lebonese Saint monk who cures many beings from all kinds of diseases and illnesses and spiritual challenges but Jesus choose devotion because its at least the easiest to undestand because Tantra is very powerful but difficult and as with me will take a few hundred lifetimes to attain such high levels of spiritual capacity to say the least and these beings who are on those levels are called ( Rinpoche ) in Tibetan Buddhism and other titles to show their status and high level of spiritual knowledge and understanding and strength and attainmens like HH the DaLaiLama who has attained the hiġhest level of spiritual ability and power Has vowed to return again and again till all the sentient beings have or are enlightened Amen 🕉️☸️🛐🕉️☮️💟☮️💟☮️✝️🛐🙏🙏🙏🌏🌍🌎🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🦘🦘🦘😍🥰😇😂
23:13 - absolutely right. Spider-man would never be born in Kansas. That's where Superman comes from!
Superman had his own fantastic explanatory journey as well ("Krypton, or Smallville Kansas?").
. @@reedcockrell8126 Absolutely. The story of Superman has many points of similarity with jesus and many other heroes. A saviour from above who can enact miracles, also nobody knows who he really is. He sounds like the Jesus in the gospel of Mark but with the placid personality of the jesus in gMatt.
Superman even died to save the world in 1994 and then was resurrected the following year!
Well, both have Jewish inventors. Who'd have thunk that?
@@reedcockrell8126 sorry, I posted a reply yesterday, agreeing with you, and saying that superman has many points of similarity with classic hero stories.
But youtube has deleted my previous comment, as I suspect happens with quite a lot of comments.
It would be great to know what on earth might have been offensive about that sentiment. Let's find out if the same thing happens to this reply.
Thank you.
Matthew even says living in Nazereth was a prophecy though as he repeatedly does it is some sort of confused interpretation: " So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene." Not really, Matt.
My biggest problem with the “was Jesus born in Bethlehem” question is that, when you are (let’s say) filling in missing data in your narrative, you tend to try to *solve* problems, not *invent* problems, with your narrative.
The Gospels were not written during the time of Jesus; they weren’t even written the first generation after Jesus. They were written sometime around 80-120 CE, during the period of the Jewish Wars. JW 1 was 66-73 CE, JW2 (also called the Diaspora Revolt) was 116-117, and JW3 (the Bar Kochba Revolt) was 132-136 CE. The most significant (and least known in the broader world) was the Diaspora Revolt of 116-117, because of its timing, breadth, and brutality.
The Diaspora Revolt began in Roman Syria/Mesopotamia, in the wake of Trajan’s invasion of Parthia. Very shortly after, possibly by design, there were large uprisings in Libya, Egypt, Cyprus, and the Kitos War in Judaea. Following the collapse of the Diaspora Revolt, Rome responded with basically a program of ethnic cleansing of Jews in Libya, Egypt, and Cyprus that verged on genocide. The archaeological record substantiates the written records, with no evidence of a Jewish presence in any of the three regions between 117 CE and either the 3rd or 4th centuries CE. The proximate causes of the Diaspora Revolt are the Fiscus Iudaicus (a Roman tax on Jews that replaced the Temple Tax, and was used for the upkeep of the Jupiter Optimus Maximus temple in Rome), and a widespread messianic expectation that a descendant of David would bring in transformative change in the world and recreate the Davidic Kingdom of Israel.
This is the context of the composition of the Gospels and the New Testament, in general.
The task of the New Testament as a whole, and of the individual elements outside of the definitive writings of Paul, was to draw a clear line between the Christian movement and the Jewish community. As a result, inventing reasons to connect the Christian movement with the Jewish community is counterproductive.
It creates, rather than solves, problems.
As a result of this, it is simpler to presume the presence of a tradition that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, was believed to be of the Davidic line, and subsequently grew up in Nazareth. The stories in Matthew and Luke are thus seen as attempts to incorporate this prior tradition into their narrative that Jesus was philosopher-Messiah who was rejected by the Jewish community and whose teachings found a home with non-Jews. This approach has further support in that it fits in with the other narratives (like those of Marcion and Valentinius) which also portray a Jesus who stands in opposition to the YHVH worship of Second Temple Judaism. However, the proto-Orthodox movement has the virtue of having a simpler narrative than the various “gnostic” theologies, in that it it focuses its argument on “the Jews today are corrupt and rejected what Adonai promised them” or, in simpler terms, “God good, Jews bad”.
This approach has the added benefit of explaining the problem of the New Testament appealing to Jewish religion and traditions while also incorporating seeds of antisemitism that grew in later centuries into what we have now. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. It’s drawing a line between Christians and Jews-“please don’t kill us (or, more importantly, tax us)! We’re not them at all!”
It’s when we lose the context of the fiscal and political climate that existed when the Gospels and the non-Pauline books of the New Testament were written that the confusion over which elements could have a historical antecedent behind them and which were rhetorical/narrative-driven inventions arises.
Sorry for the rant. Happy holidays, all!
@@DneilB007 These dates are really late. There's nothing in Mark to suggest it is after 70 AD, and plenty of evidence that it isn't. For example, Mark 13 doesn't confirm fulfilment of Jesus' prophecy of the Temple's destruction, and the prophecy itself is incorrect. If the prophecy were written after 70 AD, it would have at least been accurate and most likely stated as fulfilled.
80-120 also doesn't provide enough time for Mark to influence Marcion's text of proto-Luke and for that text to then become our Luke.
Could it be that Joseph was born in Bethlehem but moved to Nazareth, that's why he had to return there for the census? Luke might have highlighted that Joseph was of the house of David, but it does not mean that the decree was for people to return to their ancestral home from 1000 years ago. Joseph's family was simply back in Bethlehem.
Oh why go somewhere else for a census... The tax is going to be levied of where folk live.
Maybe visiting relatives: but not in the midst of winter.
It is bollocks
I was taught that one of the issues with the Isaiah “virgin” “prophecy” is a triple translation - Hebrew / Greek / Latin
Aramaic* Greek, Latin
Vettori Valentinus transcribed the Vaticanus Graecus in the first century AD and concluded it was a 13 house Lunar Zodiac
Vaticanus Graecus means Son of the Divine Serpent
Same as Arthur Pendragon
And Dracula
Modern Hebrew is a provable recreation, as the Gaelic Celts were wiped out, including all their texts. Even today we barely have two texts that can be termed Phoenician
And one of them talks of the Widows Scion
Aka Dionysis
This is common knowledge round our way. No one seriously thinks that Mary had a hymen intact
@@zapkvr All that hymen business is not exactly how human physiology works 😂 It is wild how overblown it’s been in history
@@zapkvr And she needed 4 witnesses to prove it, (3 wise men, and her Husband) sounds like a Muslim thing, if you ask me.
Not really a triple translation problem. Matthew was using the Greek translation and no one translated Isaiah into Latin until long after the Gospels were written
The term entire world is used a few times that stick out to me. The census for the entire world, Jesus seeing every city in the entire world from one mountain top, and god loves the entire world.
It seems that this term “entire world” does not really mean the entire world! The writer’s didn’t even know that the continents of north and South America existed!
So how could anyone claim that god loves America when he doesn’t even know this continent exists?!
Another commenter actually stated the Greek word that it is translated from(sorry I can't write Greek 😅) means "homeland" and not the entire world, just as you suggest!
Actually they did, you're appealing to is ought fallacy
Phoenician sites are found worldwide, alongside the Megalithic Culture that uses the same metrics worldwide
One Megalithic hour is 240 minutes, or 14,400 seconds (1/4)
There are 6 Megalithic hours to the day, each made up of 6 minutes, each of which is 6 seconds long. If the Megalithic hour was divided into 60 minutes, each would be 1,440 of our seconds, times 100 is 144,000.
One Megalithic second is 400 of our modern seconds, divided by 60 (to get minutes) is 6.6666666....
360 ÷ 6.66 is 54
54 x 2 is 108
108 x 2 is 216
To effect this the hands on a clock count out 10 (units of 6) x 10 (units of 6) × 4 (=400 units of 6). Therefore the relationship of the Megalithic second to our current form is mathematically proportional to the ratio between the Sun and Moon. A Megalithic second is 6.66 minutes (400 seconds). A Megalithic Minute is 40 minutes, or 2,400 seconds. 6 x 6 x 6 x 400 = 86,400, the number of seconds in a day. This would mean a clock with 216 seconds would go around 40 times in a day (2160 x 400).
This means 1 Megalithic second is 6.66 of our modern minutes, meaning their metric system is based on the Full Moon, of which 360 fit into to the night sky, and 720 will encircle the globe, divided by half gives us the 360 degree circle, and the basis for our present based sixty or seximal system of time. Which is why 1 degree of Arc on the Moon = 100 Megalithic Yards (2700ft). This means the Beast, the hidden hand of the Masonic fraternity, is the Moon; and Time. The white limestone covering of the Pyramids denotes the Pale Moon in Megalithic Ireland, like at New Grange, where Enoch describes a Crystal Palace illuminated by the Full Moon every 19 years.
6 x 6 x 6 is 216, there are 2160 years in an astrological age, and the Moon is 2160 miles in diameter, the solar metonic calendar using 60 6 day weeks produces 1 extra day every 216 years. There are also 216 Megalithic seconds in a day, and 216 letters in the name of the Hebrew God, Just as Solomon has 36 or 72 scrolls, and Muhammed speaks of 72 sects.
Enoch also buries 36,525 scrolls, the number of days in a year, times 100. This shows that our current measure of time is based on the principle of 1/6, the basis of an Egyptian Royal Cubit, which effects the arc of a Pendulum like that in a Grandfather Clock, the Sun also does this in the sky over the seasons.
But first, they built the first ring at Stonehenge, which is 100 metres (330 ft) wide, with an area of 2160 square feet, a Cube's interior angles also add up to... 2160!
This produces a Calendar of 60 6 day weeks plus five. Every 4th year a 366th day makes exactly 61 weeks. This is the basis of the Olympics, to mark a Leap Year, starting with the first Full Moon of the Summer Solstice.
This means every 216 years this calendar produces 1 extra day, so after 648 years 3 days must be removed. This is when the Phoenix arrived, and stepped onto the Alter of Ra or Holy Grail, completing the Metonic cycle and bringing the Calendar back into sync with the first New Moon of the Spring equinox. The Capstone of the Pyramid is even called the Benben Stone, the Egyptian Phoenix is called the Bennu. It likely relates to Deneb, in Ophiuchus, the 13th Starsign of the Zodiac. The base of the Pyramid is exactly 13 Acres, as is Teotihuacan, because they share the exact same base dimensions.
Such a location would be ideal for calculating the speed of light using the transit of Venus. Incidentally the Great Pyramid's Latitudinal coordinates are the speed of light.
1440 ÷ 108 = 13.333333
11 and 3 are the most sacred Celtic numbers of royalty, and also happen to be the proportions of the Earth to the Moon, and the Great Pyramid.
The starsigns also precess 1 degree every 72 years
72 x 3 is 216
2160 ÷ 648 is 3.3333333
The Aztec Calendar also begins with a double transit of Venus, in 3116BC, and ended with one on June 5 2012. The double headed Phoenix.
This whole code can be encrypted into a single Pythagorean Triangle of Dimensions 666 by 630, by 216, this is the Key of Solomon, 33 is the inverse of 66.
100 is the "perfect number" because it represents Ten (6 unit) metrics times ten 6 unit metrics: a unit being 6.66
ie 60 x 60 (3600) the number of Arcdegree seconds in a second, or a one second unit on a clock the size of Earth
This means seconds represent 10ths of the Moon; 216, or 6 x 6 x 6 (100 ÷ 6 ÷ 6 = 2.7): Euler's number, and the number of feet to a Megalithic Yard, 3/11 is .27 and the number of days in a sidereal month is also 27.
11/3 is 3.66, the number of days in a Canicular leap year, the character of Thoth, Cuchulainn, and Kukulkan, the Dog Star of the Dog days of Sirius, in Assyria, and the star by which the Sothic (Seth) Calendar is determined. Thoth was the Son of Seth, who is portrayed as a Serpent. 3 x 11 is 33, the # of years in a 'Great Solar Return'. As the Sun and Moon inhabit their respective houses of the Zodiac they animate the character within, playing out the dramas and battles we know as myths, for example the Moon traveling through each of the Zodiac houses each month, for a grand total of... 144 (12 x 12) This is why at every Megalithic site we find Theatres, like in "Nazereth" and Gobekli Tepe and Poverty Point, as well as in New Zealand.
Metatron/Enoch/Echnaton/Arkenaten's Cube is 13 circles in a Star of David:
13 x 360 is 4680
4680 ÷ 216 is 21.666..
The circumference of the Earth in Nautical Miles is 21,600
This means the basis of the Nautical Mile is the Moon.
Calculate the Circumference of the Earth in kms by multiplying the Diameter of the Moon by 18.6, the period of a Metonic Cycle in years to get 40,175.
@@Uncanny_Mountain Seek help
@@juanausensi499 what for Princess?
@@Uncanny_Mountain Your mental health, honey
Nice Q and A about the beginning of the great story. I guess Bart is a god because he successfully resurrects these stories back to real life.
Alright - they asked one of my questions (the first one about dating the crucifixion to Passover)!!! I think I submitted it over a year ago, and as soon as Bart answered I thought "Why didn't I think of that?" and thought my question was dumb :) I also submitted another one about the influence of Zoroastrianism on Second Temple apocalypticism and the birth of Christianity a few months ago. I'm hopeful it gets asked in 2025! I'll keep watching and listening in any event. Thank you!
So, I noticed the issue with translations. I see that some English translations say Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken of the entire Roman world. Other translations say that Augustus ordered the census for the entire world. I am not sure about which is right.
Overall I enjoy this podcast.
I wonder if the Egypt part, perhaps more importantly than quoting Hosea, was a way for Matthew to show that Jesus is the new Moses and embodies all of Jewish history, ergo Christians are the new ‘true Jews’ or something to that effect. On top of all the other parallels, he's even a Jew that comes from Egypt.
Jews are Jews but the rest were also welcomed in the new covenant with Jesus.and the Jews are still his people but lost favor for not believing in his SON JESUS
To know that the adult Jesus 'came from' Nazareth does not mean he was born there, or had always lived there. He may well have been born elsewhere, like Bethlehem.
After a time in Egypt his parents returned, but to Nazareth, rather than Bethlehem. Mary visited Elizabeth at a date before John the Baptist's birth.
She was family, so such visits did happen. If they fled to Egypt they presumably stayed in the Jewish community there, likely with relatives.
Apologists are happy with articulate replies to a question. They REALLY don't care if it's a credible answer
I love you guys.
To the census story of Luke one could add that the fact Joseph was a descendant of King David would only be of interest to Jewish people.... with regards to the census that fact would have no meaning or consequences for the Romans.
There is a hypothesis there was a hamlet called Bethlehem about 4km west of Nazareth. What are Barts thoughts about his?
Another podcast a whlie ago pointed out that the original account of Jesus's birth in Hebrew is that Mary was "a young women" with no mention of being a Virgin. Or is that wrong?
One of the many problems of the Bible are the translations from the original language into the many subsequent languages. Scholars dispute what was originally said and whether or not the translations are accurate.
It's holy mess!
Spiderman had to be in NYC so he would have tall buildings to swing around on. In Kansas he would have had to walk...🤣🤣🤣
But he had Jim Lee as father so...
There was a time in past whenever Bart referred to places in the bible he would refer to it as Palestine including in his debates, since Oct 2023 he exclusively refers to it as Isreal, it will be very interesting to know why did he now decide to exclusively call the area Isreal when previously he referred to it as Palestine
Here's an interesting thing I just figured out. When Jesus' family returned from Egypt (in Matthew), they avoided the Jerusalem area (where Bethlehem is) and went to Galilee (where Nazareth is) because Herod had authority over the Jerusalem area. At Jesus' trial (in Luke), when Pilate learned Jesus was from Galilee, he sent him to Herod, because Herod had authority over Galilee. I always thought that was a contradiction--at Jesus' birth, Herod controlled Jerusalem but not Galilee, but at Jesus' trial, Herod controlled Galilee but not Jerusalem. It was two different Herods (both of them sons of the original Herod). The Herod who controlled Jerusalem when Jesus' family returned from Egypt didn't last long before the Romans took over (and were still in control during Jesus' trial). It looks like the Herod who ruled Galilee during Jesus' trial also ruled it when Jesus' family returned from Egypt--he ruled Galilee for Jesus' entire life. So I guess when Jesus' family returned from Egypt, they had a choice of two Herods and chose the less evil one?
Fantastic summary, Bart. Thank you
Joseph was from the Bethlehem area hence why Joseph had to return to Bethlehem for the census
As explained in the video, whether there was actually such a census is dubious indeed.
So fun episode! Thank you very much! ❤
How would you ever really know? No one ever thought to write down important events at the time they were happening.
How do we know that "everybody" knew he was from Nazareth? It wasn't mentioned until "Marc" was written.
It's independently attested in the Amidah's Birkat haMinim (the 12th "benediction") that originally contained a curse for the Noztrim (Nazarenes) and came from sometime between 73 and 135 CE (although Rabbinic tradition puts it around 90 CE). Basically, the Pharisaic Community of Yavne established by Yohanan ben Zakkai were already calling proto-Christians with the term Nazarene around the time the gospels started getting circulated and already considered them heretical enough to put upon them a curse that's read as a confession of Jewish faith. The Jerusalem Talmud also confirms the association of the Christian Messiah with Nazareth despite being mostly concerned with James instead of Jesus himself. Since the Yavne community was largely ignorant of the evolution of Greco-Roman Christianity, their naming of the movement indicates widespread knowledge in Jewish circles that proto-Christianity was associated with Nazareth.
The Romans grafted the birth of Jesus onto their pagan celebration of the winter solstice. December 21st is the shortest day of the year, where the sun rises at its lowest point in the sky. For three days it doesn't move. On December 25th, the sun rises higher in the sky. The three kings in antiquity referred to the 3 stars in Orion's belt, which point to the location in the sky where the sun will rise. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky heralds the sun's rising in the constellation of Virgo, known to the Hebrews as Bethlehem, the House of Bread, as Virgo is depicted as holding a sheaf of wheat in her hand. Thus, the sun dies and is reborn after three days, of a virgin. It is a story written in the stars which every ancient culture knew.
Most people believe Jesus was born in Nazareth.
Bethlehem means “ the small and lowly village”
The great Messiah will come from low and poor status.
Bet Leḥem in Hebrew : בֵּית לֶחֶם , literally "house of bread" or "house of food." [Arabic: بيت لحم], literally meaning "house of meat",
I think the Mark's ending is to undermine the women's (Mary Magdalene's) role, or power in the church and elevated the status of Peter.
As Burt said somewhere that Mary saw Jesus first, then Peter, this sequence gave Mary greater status over Peter. So Mark tweaked the story very carefully and masterfully implying that Mary was indeed the first to saw Jesus, but it was Peter who announced it first, and Mary told her story after he revealed the truth. Mary was coward, Peter was brave, not fearing accusation and persecution, therefore, Peter (men) held higher status than Mary (women).
I have a question for Bart. Why does he always pronounce the Hebrew word “YOM” (the Hebrew word for “day”, as an “YOM KIPPUR”) as if he thought it was the Hebrew word “YAM” (which is the word for “ocean,” instead) is this a Christian thing that I don’t understand? I’m Jewish, and I speak Hebrew fairly well, so I am struggling to understand why he chooses to change the vowel of “YOM” into the vowel of”YAM.” Please help me understand why he makes this choice.
Coz he's born in Kansas. 🤣They literally can't make a "yom" sound.
That's like asking if Luke Skywalker was really born on Poliss Massa ? Yeah, in the movie.
"Contradictory" is not the same as "inconsistent". Jus' sayin'.
If Jesus and his family blend in with Egyptians, presumably black people, that says that Jesus wasn't blonde haired and blue eyed like in peoples wall images.
I think if people saw paintings of what a true middle eastern Jesus looked like instead of the Germanic renaissance Jesus, they might not be worshipping him. Our mental images of him are created by inaccurate paintings by artists who’d never been out of their area and painted the folks they lived with.
your premise is wrong. the roman empire of the first century was a lot more racially mixed than modern people think. Egypt probably _did_ have a lot of dark people, but as far as we know, people didn't make a big deal about race in most of the empire. also, the elites in 1st century egypt were greek, for like 400 years. and there was a huge jewish population in Alexandria
I've never thought going to Bethlehem for a census made sense, but a guy taking his seven or eight months pregnant to another town where he has family when they've only been married four months made sense, even the Mrs Grundys of that era who had no education were capable of counting out nine months.
The immediate family may have bought the angel story, but the entire town...?
If today the fifteen year old unmarried girl down the street claimed to be a virgin and impregnated by G-d while being three or four months pregnant how many would believe her?
But IF YOU come to believe her, how many others would?
Joseph was a journeyman carpenter, I think he probably had a donkey drawn cart to hold his tools and materials so he could perform his profession that Mary rode upon.
That's what makes most sense in my mind for the story.
Only Joseph was in the know. It was a secret. Do you imagine Mary was telling people ? Jesus is entering Satan's kingdom as an infant. He is not advertising it. His ministry of 1260 days is not to go further. and Satan gets his 1260 days soon. You can then vote. Heaven and hell. which place you prefer?
Cart with a ladder rack.😂😂😂
What carpentry was being done in the mud huts these peasants were living in? Wouldn't you make your own crude table, as, say, Egyptian peasants would do today?
@@mountbeckworth1 It is my understanding that what is usually translated as _"carpenter"_ could just as validly be translated as _"builder."_ There is always work for someone who can build, and/or repair, a house or a shed; a barn or an outhouse.
Today's equivalent might actually be more like a _"general contractor;"_ he could certainly build a chair or table, but those who had grown beyond their apprenticeship would be knowledgeable about many building materials including wood, brick, stone, {and perhaps some metal work} in that part of the world/ then.
@@sailorbychoice1 thank you for your courteous reply. Most of my comments end up with me being consigned to Hell. On a wider point, if this was the word (whoops, "Word") of god, how did he allow such inconsistencies? Imagine if I had a book that stated Lincoln led the Union army at Gettysburg, and another chapter stated that at the same time he was in Paris with Ben Franklin.
The real question is was Jesus actually ever born at all, or is it an archetype based on earlier spiritual knowledge? Dionysus has much the same life story, for example.
it's not an important question to most serious scholarship. in general, scholarship tracks the evolution of a relatively unreliable jesus narrative that served various theological and cultural purposes, and a modern sense of careful fact checking was not one of them. the history that scholarship has access to -- a very thin record mostly written decades after jesus -- looks pretty much the same regardless of whether some version of jesus existed or whether he was invented de novo. even when traditional scholars point to common stories in independent sources, they'll tell you the source must be an actual shared event, but all it _absolutely_ proves is an earlier shared story. there's an academic default that you take plausible accounts at face value, but these are probabilistic assumptions required to make research possible, not certainties. imo, you'll be a lot happier if you stop thinking about the issue of whether jesus existed. an awful lot of information is scattered and lost on the winds of time. fwiw, imo, bart's book where he proves the historical jesus is by far his worst book, and generally i am a big fan
"Scholarly consensus" is that there was a historical Jesus, I take issue with that because the secular sources refer to Christians, not the man himself. Imagine talking about Trekkies and somewhere Captain Kirk's name comes up.
I remember a meme that mention birth records of Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, which would have them in their 30'a when the first comics were written, so we have better evidence for the historical Batman and Superman then Jesus
@@mistersilly9012 In the end, it doesn't matter if Jesus was a real human or not. (I personally know that there was not a Jesus.) The importance of 'Jesus' is the teaching of universal laws. What was historically mystery school knowledge out of Egypt and other societies and reserved for the very few initiated who could understand it, was finally formatted for public consumption. This became 'the holy bible': a book which utilizes ancient mystery school symbolism and allegory to convey deeper universal truths for/to the masses.
As does Hercules. It’s the same general storyline.
In Mathew it says the kings/wise men enter the house. Not stable or manger. Anyway, the 2 gospel birth narratives are literally as different as can be.
When we were kids we had to sing the songs, Holy, holy holy, God in 3 persons, we would add, better call a shrink. As usual this video is fascinating. You’ve got to think of the audience that the gospels were aimed at The obvious is Matthew was aimed at the Jews for their conversion
I wonder what Dr Bart thinks of doing a video on Shia Islam's possible connection to Gnosticism. The Twelver creed sounds very like it.
Some says 'Egypt' is a code name for Qumran
well, obviously not ... but the question i'm interested in is: _was _*_DAVID_*_ born in bethlehem?_
david, in adulthood, ruled Hebron, much further south, and was a relative outsider to the northern tribes until his military power allowed him to subdue the philistines. it's speculated that military might was also how he ended up with the crown, and the ark and sundry temple loot, and how a bunch of temple priests ended up dead
and of course, he conquered jerusalem and moved north to be closer to the northern territories that he sought to control
so, for someone seeking israelite credibility, does it not seem like a perfectly normal fictional child narrative to place his birth in bethlehem, just south of jerusalem, and location of ancient patriarchs? we already know his childhood was a blank slate upon which Elhanan's giant-killing story could be repurposed
why is nobody talking about this?
Looks like we'll have to rewrite some of our favourite Christmas carols 😁
Question did any of you guys watch the debate with Billy Carson and we’d huff ?
share your thoughts on the film christpiracy, you could even have the director on possibly !
29:13 that somebody would be Paulogia - a former Christian, who looks at the *claims* of Christians.
Beth lee hem...😊
I love her accent. She's absolutely perfect for this gig. 😎
...and Professor Ehrman no slouch either. 😏
I think the story that came with Luke was that Mathew had found some important prophecies but he just made up a story to fulfill them. Luke, the historian, did the research and found the real story and it fulfilled the prophecies, too. Part of the story would have been that Luke had no knowledge of Mathew.
John 7:41-43 says otherwise
I don't know, the flight to egypt is pretty ridiculous, but so is the supposed census that required you to travel for weeks back to your ancestral land.
Like... setting aside the imposssible logistics of it, it kind of defeats the purpose of a census if you are trying to find out how many people live where.
Both seem to be making up separate things just to have jesus be born in bethlehem when everybody knew he was from nazareth.
The OT is a record of the Pharoahs of Egypt, kept at Byblos, and the NT was a Curse using a Lunar Zodiac Calendar
Noah appears to be the founder of the first Kingdom, Og, or Aegypticus , Khasekhemwy, (YHWY) Vulcan and Narmer. The flood is the Monsoon season that floods the Nile on the Summer Solstice. Moses is Arkenaten, aka Hermes Trismegistis, and Enoch, who found Asylum with the Hyksos in Sidon, who were themselves kicked out of Egypt by Amunhotep I. Joshua is Tutmoses III, and Rameses is David, who married Jezebel, a Hittite Princess and Queen of Sidon, Bethsaida, or Bethesda, I suspect also Bethlehem, as House of Fruit, and Sodom, as home of the Samaritans, and Samothracians, worshippers of Set, Saturnus, Chronos, and Bacchus, Sabazios, the Jewish Jesus. Israel, the Phoenix of the Phoenicians, and Palace Stone, Throne of Palestine
Jesus is the Moon, but identified as the Sun in the Third Person. (curse using Accusations in a Mirror)
Esus is the Celtic God of Death, Israel to the Canaanites, Saturn or El, Fruit of Isis and Ra
Wherever two or three are gathered together
Ie Conjunctives, and Occultations of contradictions, Alchemy in it's metaphorical form
@@diegog1853 It made it into the Bible. It was not judged by your criteria.
@@davidwimp701 yeah well... Plenty of stuff that most likely never happened made it into the bible.
I'm actually curious where Barth's enormous drive to debunk everything that is in the Bible comes from?
Is it true that the text Matthew states that the wise men went to Bethlehem? I find the statement "to where the child was". Matthew does not state where the child was, though the author does give statements that lead Herod to believe the child was or was still in Bethlehem. Possibly a baby was born in Bethlehem (Luke) but there is no mention of how long it was before he was taken back to Nazareth. It is surely not beyond possibility that the child and his parents had returned to a house in Nazareth long before the wise men came to Herod and then went to "were the child was" (in Nazareth) and not beyond possibility that once Herod heard rumours of this that he would continue the search which would lead him to Nazareth. By which time the family may have been in Egypt. I don't follow your reasoning. The texts are not clear enough to me for me to deduce the timing of events to the day or week or even month. It seems to me that those both for and against the traditionally accepted story are reading things in the texts that are not there.
if your interpretation were right, then the text wouldn't make any sense at all.
The wise men went to jerusalem to ask for directions, to ask where the messiah is supposed to be born and they were told bethlehem.
Why would they then go anywhere else that is not bethlehem?
The whole point of that section is that they are asking for directions. The directions were given and then they followed the directions...
Like... think about reading this text without knowledge of any other text, does the author give any indication that joseph and Mary may be anywhere else but bethlehem? IF not then... there is no reason to interpret it in that way. Other than purposefully trying to erase contradictions.
I wish we had a time machine sometimes.
The crono visor 😅 apparently it's stored in the Vatican
Oh Lazarus in John is said to be immortal@@jakoverslept3096 can just ask him. I believe he hangs at beach in Arotora these days.
@@jakoverslept3096 you'd also have brush up on Ancient Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic as well as Classical Vulgar Latin... I think it's doable but my theory is one has to have some control of the Dark Arts which aren't very dark
Was Batman born in Gotham City? Same concept.
Bart is saying the prophecy drove the answer. For Herod's killing of the babies born in the two-year period between the Sign of the Lion of Judah (Genesis 49:10) and the Sign of the Virgin & King (Isaiah 7:14) to destroy the two messsiahs of Deuteronomy 18 and Daniel 9 -- the prophecies of Jeremiah 41, Micah 5 and Zechariah (the father of John the Baptist) would certainly be relevant. However, if you wish to argue with Matthew, Luke and John's placement of Jesus at Bethlehem, you might want to ask the question: Do we know where Mary probably become pregnant? This appears to be Sepphoris.
Who do the rabbis calling the 2nd messiah 'Yeshu ben Pantera' suggest "did the deed"? The rabbis blamed a Roman archer and flag bearer of the 1st Sagittarius Cohort named Tiberius Julius Abdes Pantera, born of Sidon and who died much later in Germany. The Mandaeans, who cover the births of both messiahs of Deuteronomy 18, seem to agree. Calling the archer "a pure eagle" from the nation that had destroyed the Temple and put fire to Jerusalem ... "He came down to her, he flapped his wings, sat by her and spoke to her, and taught her, and loved truth from her. He reached out and strongly embraced her, straightened her out, and put her on the throne. He says to her, 'Meryey, consider me good, and mention me before Life.'"
Which seems reasonable. Mary called herself in Luke a "douli Kyriou" or handmaid of the Lord, so she may have been a Temple slave. Sepphoris had been reduced to slavery in the time of Herod for having rebelled. Josephus says the Romans had sent the military there to subdue it. And, in fact, the 1st Sagittarius was stationed in nearby Hama. When Vespasian came to town, the people agreed to steer clear of a current rebellion and to ally themselves with him. And Vespasian is one of Rome's leaders who, for political purposes, embraced the Christ myth.
Prophecy was very very important to the James community and their followers, why? Consider these things...
According to the gospels, when Nicodemus came to Jesus secretly, he exclaimed, "We know you are from God, because no one could do the works you do unless God were with him." Signs and wonders were the earmark of the genuine servants of Yahweh, the prophets speaking in his name. Jesus displayed this power, and when Paul had to defend his apostleship from those attacking not only his original gospel, but his very ministry, he proclaimed that in ministering to his communities, all the characteristics of a genuine apostle were evident... complete perseverance and signs and wonders nd works of power, period. He did not have to justify his ministry by twisting and quoting scripture to subtantiate his teachings, like others do, he said. Regardless of their claims, his enemies did not love Jesus and were not faithful to him, and they presented a gospel that was nothing but a perversion of the original gospel of the Way (Jesus's first followers were not called Christians, but followers of the Way... hence, the gospel Jesus would have preached would be the gospel of the Way, the Sacred Way or Holy Way spoken of in Isaiah).
For these two transgressions they were twice cursed to destruction by Paul.
He must have had spiritual clout with Yahweh, because in62, James was brutally murdered, Nero unleashed a brutal deadly persecution against the Christians in 64 CE, in Rome, Peter was crucified in Rome in 65, and the Christian community was destroyed, along with everything else in Jerusalem, in 70 CE.
So, Paul displayed power in his ministry as Jesus did. However his enemies were not from Yahweh and lacked this critical capacity to authenticate their ministry and teachings. This is why there is such a use of scripture in the four gospels/Acts, they had no power and so proclaimed that there was, "nothing but what was written" in their teachings... and they twisted the Hebrew scriptures till they fit their gospel perversion.
Please provide independent verifiable evidence ''For Herod's killing of the babies.''
I've always assumed that Luke has access to Mathew's account, but thought it too far fetched to be plausible. He decides it is simpler and more plausible for Mary and Joseph to be living in Nazareth, have go to Bethlehem for some purpose, where Jesus is born and then return. In 6 AD, Archelaus got the boot for being a shitty ruler and replaced by a Roman prefect, Coponius. Judea was to now be directly ruled by Rome. A census was needed to determine the tax revenues that could be raised from this territory. Quirinus, governor of Syria, carried it out. Luke uses this census, augmented to a census of the whole world (maybe to explain the curious idea of people returning to their ancestral homes--Joseph was a subject of Herod Antipas, not Coponius so why would he be included?). Anyways, besides the dressed-up census, the rest of the account is pretty pedestrian and nowhere near as outlandish as Mathew's account.
Hey Megan! Spiderman would have come from Glen Burnie, not Hagerstown! 🤣