When was Jesus Really Born? The Quirinius Conundrum (with J Warner Wallace)
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- Опубликовано: 15 окт 2024
- It's a question for the ages... is the Bible right about the timing of Jesus' birth? The gospel of Luke says it was during the time of King Herod, and while Quirinius was the Governor of Syria. But history says that is impossible... those events are 10 years apart. What is to be made of this apparent contradiction?
J Warner Wallace is a homicide detective specialising in cold case murder investigations. In his book Cold Case Christianity he shows how the same tools of investigating evidence can show that the Gospels are trustworthy accounts. Jim addresses how a Christian should look at this supposed contradiction in the gospels.
J Warner Wallace answers sceptics' objections - Unbelievable?
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I feel like traveling back in time to witness the birth of Jesus would be underwhelming at best.
That's assuming that an historic Jesus existed and that you could actually find the guy.
I'd rather show up a couple of years later to see 3 grown men, presumably with other servants, genuinely and un-ironically worshipping a toddler.
@@VicedRhino I think that the Bart Ehrman view of the wandering apocalyptic preacher can't be proved or disproved with the evidence we have. The guy in the gospels, especially the later ones, does look like a mythical construct, a mishmash of other messianic pretenders and perhaps the pre-existent saviour that some early Xtians imagined.
@@VicedRhino I wish I could talk to you for two hours and allay your concerns bout this. The single fact that proves Jesus was a historical person is Paul's meeting with James and Peter described int he genuine Epistles. Who would these people have been if Jesus had not been a real person? Also no one (certainly not that crackpot Carrier) can give an account of the Gospel's genesis without a historical Jesus. Mark and Q, at least, were probably written at a time when the oldest members of some particular congregations (of which the author was the leader; but not necessarily the same community) could still remember having seen Jesus and served the community by telling stories out of their memories, but were beginning to rapidly die off.
If you were to reject a historical Jesus, how would you explain the existence of the Gospels? and how Paul's reference to James and Peter?
I probably don't have a high enough profile in your memory that you recall my earlier reply to your videos and comments, but, just so you know I am an atheist (whether Jesus was god has nothing to do with whether He existed as a human being), and did most of my PhD coursework in the New Testament. I don't like to mention it on RUclips, but perhaps it will incline you to take this brief comment more seriously.
I'd rather show up when he's a teen and tell him "For your own safety, don't piss off the Jews"
Rex Jesus - the fact that the letter "J" would not be invented for another 1500 years is the least of our problems (I choked on a snot bubble)
Multiple accounts only help authenticate a story if they agree. If they disagree, it is *LESS* likely that the story is true.
Even more so when it can be demonstrated believably that the account was doctored to fit a prearranged naarrative (the "messianic prophecy" from the Old Testament, that does only exist in wild religious theories and not in the original text when it was written... How can you trust the gospel text when it consciously was changed to accomodate a couple of hundred quotations from allegedly prescient verses picked randomly out of the Old Testament... Can we even be sure any of the things connected to such a quote ACTUALLY happened or is it all later rewriting to make the prophecy happen and "work out"?
It is easy to make prophecies after the fact.
Eric Taylor And even easier to make up “facts” after the prophecies.
thats the point its a story
Eric Taylor “multiple *independent* accounts”. If multiple accounts originated from the same source or have influenced each other they count as one.
The only thing I'm certain of is that Romans appeared to be more tedious and paid more attention to recording administratrivia than god was about putting his word on paper. Imagine that: the creator of the universe sends his son to earth to save humanity, yet no one can pin down when that happened.
And clearly not everybody got the message. God shirks in mysterious ways.
Even with heavenly inspiration. You would think that visions would be very common for authors of what would become god's holy book.
Paul, Thank you keeping your videos pithy and to the point. Many thanks from one former on-fire believer to another. The work you are doing is greatly appreciated. Specifically so I don't have to. I decided a good while ago to largely leave it all behind and not look back. Hopefully the smart Mike Wingers of this world will eventually figure out that guys like us loved Jesus just as much as he does. We just weren't able to square good epistemology with the multiple conundrums within Christian theology. Thank you again.
Thanks, Joshua!
Very well said!
@@ttthecat much appreciated
All these so called contradictions have been dealt with. People who dont want to believe always take the absurd way out. We dont have a record of all the censuses ever taken. Yet if the gospels claim a census under what circumstances do you disbelieve it? All these so called contradictions could have been removed but they were not. It again supports the truth of the gospels. Change your epistemology. I have no idea if you can return to Christ having been made immune from the real thing.
@@dulls8475 If you're imagining Inspiring Philosophy when you say "dealt with", think again.
A belated “Happy Solstice!” Celebrate the return of the light!
I LOVE this new series. Keep up the great work, Paul!
Hi, Rick Y. The Ancient Coin Guy here. There were definitely no coins in antiquity with Jesus's name in any shape or form struck anywhere in Judaea, ever. There are very few ancient coins of that period in which inscriptions are not entirely known, and even in those rare occasions, it's only because there are a couple known examples, and they are not in good enough condition. Ancient Jewish coins had inscriptions, for example that would read "Jonathan the High Priest and Friend of the Jews", the letters are really small, but they are legible. There are coins of Herod the Great, and of his sons as well. Coins were struck in Judaea for some five hundred years. That time included the years Jesus was in Judaea. The New Testament mentions a couple, one Jewish coin (called the Widows Mite) and the "Render unto Caesar..." coin, both well known coins that circulated in the first century. This will turn into a book if I don't stop here. If anyone is interested in this kind of stuff, just reply back to ask a question, or check out The Non Sequitur Show I did about biblical coins called "From Brutus to Judas. I think that's the the title.
Micro-letters... totally worth it just for that...
Some interesting tidbits, that I stumbled upon in Burroughs "the Golden Bough". Bethlehem ("the city of bread") was the center of the Adonis-cult, a harvest god. His tenets included death and rebirth after 3 days, in reference to the grain for the second harvest being seeded three days after the first harvest, pretty much around Passah, and signaled by the appearance of the planet Venus as a bright star in the spring sky.
Also there is likely a practice to nail or otherwise affix sacrifices to trees (crucifixion) to sympatheticly improve the steadfastness of the stalks. The word Adonis is probably a greekified version of the Jewish Adonai, master, which appears quite often in the texts that reference Jesus.
Matthew and Luke might have well taken the tenets of the Adonis cult literary.
Cool!
Very interesting!
Don't have time to verify but interesting none the less
Thank you for the research on this! The best in depth presentation I've ever seen, read, or heard. Keep up the good work Paulogia and have a happy new year :)
He’ll straighten all this out when he returns 😂 longest running magic show ever..Happy winter solstice and brighter days ahead.🌞🌞🌞
I used this exact argument in a discussion last weekend with the Seventh-Day-Adventists. Left the poor guy scratching his head. If Jesus was born before the Romans came and took over, that would have been before the time when the Romans took over and instigated a taxation. No matter how you cut it, it's still a contradiction.
Matthew (or whatever the author's name was of that story) was written shortly before the diaspora - probably in the 120s. It basically extended the then ancient and entirely allegorical Mark document (written some time after the destruction of the Temple in the year 70) which supported Paul's teachings about not needing to follow the Torah, and presented the religion as taught by the school Paul describes as that of Peter, James, and John - which required circumcision and following everything in the Torah except the sacrifices. "not one jot or tittle" could only come from the faction of this cult represented by the Matthew document.
Mark (the earliest gospel that everyone else copied) contained no historical account of Jesus. No birth narrative, no resurrection, nothing that wasn't simply allegorical presentation of the celestial deity performing the ultimate sacrifice at the true Temple in the heavens, of which the earthly was only a crude copy. See Hebrews, where this is relatively clearly stated - "if He had been on earth He wouldn't even be a priest..." - a document obviously written before the temple sacrifices stopped - probably prior to 66 (for the Hebrews "gospel"), as it references that continuing practice. Mark is entirely allegorical, and simply places the celestial deity in an earthly context to make the points (extending what was presented in the Hebrews "gospel"). This is why the dialog is completely taken from the Tanakh sources, for instance. Matthew is the first story-attempt to place Jesus physically and intentionally on earth, and needed context for events that transpired at an appropriate time. To this end he used parts of Josephus Antiquities of the Jews (composed in the mid 90s) for his narrative of Herod the Great.
Luke (and Acts) is written to and possibly funded by someone called Theophilus. There are two such named people in the appropriate time, but one is before the writing of Mark (so is logically excluded), and the other is Theophilus of Antioch. This likely places the construction of this document (that was unknown to Justin in the middle of the 2nd Century) to just about the time of Justin Martyr. Luke used Mark and Matthew (evident by him employing the same intercalations and wording), but chose to make Jesus a follower of the Romans who were now clearly in power - the reason for Jesus and his parents obeying the Roman rules for the census, taxes, and such - couldn't have him running off to Egypt, for instance. It's the most Republican of the gospels and was this way to ease their position with the Roman government. This is the reason for the "replacement" birth narrative (obeying the Roman laws), and the resurrection narrative following the ancient Roman story about Romulus.
John (too long to really discuss here) was based on these prior three writings - at least the final version that we have. Its composition must have been primarily 2nd Century.
There are no reputable mentions of these four gospel stories until after Irenaeus in 182. They each provide information for _why_ they were written, which gives us an idea of _when_ they were written. None of them provide any information on _who_ wrote them.
Clear as mud, right?
I'm never knocking on YOUR door...
Just kidding. That was interesting stuff, thanks for the comment.
You know what happens when they take a census?
Do you
A) All travel to places that you have no further connection with
or
B) Stay home and try to hide your wealth for when the census taker arrives to inspect you and your household (as a prelude to taxation).
The idea of people living a hand to mouth existence (like a jobbing carpenter) being able to take lots of time off to wander around the country is patently absurd. People move to where the work is. And what would you do if the village of your birth had become a ghost town?
They come to you.
You try not to murder them and eat them with a nice Chianti and some fava beans.
thanx for that. The comments are sometime more insightfull than the main menu.
Now THIS is HOW you argue against Christianity. Facts NO name calling
I love it when you put your vast knowledge to use like this. There has been a gap between the gospels and genuine history for too long. Serious scholars have either been ready to bend the record to fit the gospel or not well versed in the bible itself. You, uniquely, have everything needed. Thank you.
the Gospels were a part of a polemic going on between the multitude of opinions among the 1st century Christians and although the metaphor of a history tolded was used, probable never intended as recorded history. I wonder how many of those polemic writings excisted and how many are lost.
If Yeshua wanted his audience to take him seriously
he would have written his own autobiography
instead of leaving it to others
who could not agree on dates, names and places
for the greatest story ever told.
Yeh because that is what every historical figure did. Moron.
Another informative and well formed video Paul. Thank you for the continued great content!
Wait, what? Microscopic lettering on ancient coins? Ignoring the question of why they would even do such a thing (and that's no small question in and of itself), *how* would they do that? If it's microscopic, that means it wouldn't be visible to the naked eye. So how exactly would they produce such etchings when they couldn't even see it themselves? It would take a great deal of precision to mass produce coins with microscopic writing on it - writing that literally no one would even know about as they wouldn't be able to see it! And these coins were mass produced (mass production for the era, anyway - it was quite different from mass production now).
I've heard some really out there ideas from Christians before, but this one is ridiculous. Usually they claim some kind of natural phenomenon resembles a cross or something because god hid it there for... reasons? This is claiming Romans that weren't even Christians hid secret codes on coinage with technology they didn't even have. Wow.
Not to mention 2000 years of wear. You can't even see most of the deeply stamped image, let alone this tiny stuff, which by the way is obviously a freshly scratched hoax.
Indeed, granted they don't clarify exactly how much smaller than a millimetre but still, the first documented references to a magnifying apparatus being used in scientific literature seem to be around the late middle ages (13th century). I think it's more than reasonable to assume the glass working techniques necessary to produce such a thing wouldn't date much before that certainly not over 1200 years prior as scientists are hardly known for being slow to take advantage of new technologies to further their research.
He doesn't say anything about the letters being microscopic.
@@freedapeeple4049 If you have to use a microscope to see it, that means it's microscopic.
@@SadisticSenpai61 Yes, but what does that have to do with this video? There is zero mention of anything microscopic in this video.
I had dismissed this topic after an in-depth conversation with an apologist who put Quirinius as a co-legate of Galatia in the time of Herod. But now my doubts have returned. Great video Paul
We have here fan fiction stories with different tones. Fan fiction one presents us Jesus as a new Moses so we need a king hunting after an infant and a return from Egypt. This is why Herod is mentioned.
It's amazing the lack of witnesses that report seeing a star above Bethlehem. Almost no one and no one outside of the ancient book
You did well to refer to the ILS, surely the only RUclips video to do so.
By the Time the Gospel was written, the reign of Herod was something hated in memory in from people's grandparents' time; the census of Quirinius was something hated in memory in from people's grandparents' time; and Jesus's birth would have been born in people's Grandparents' times--Good enough for Luke.
nevertheless the obligate trip from Nazareth to Bethelem is luderous. No Roman taxcollector was interested were the taxpayers originally came from, they were interested what was earned on the spot. Luke mistook the term Nazorear as inhabitant of Nazareth and had to twist the Bethlehem prophesy into the mix. he did a poor job. He just have left the Mathew version while he copied Mathew, but he has to show he knew better then Matthew, who already thought knowing better the Mark.
Happy Hanukkah, kwanzaa, st Lucia day, Saturnalia, Krampusnaugnt, St Nick's, Winter Solstice, Festiveus,Boxing day,Fiesta of Our Lady of Guadalupe,Bodhi day, Advent,St Barbra's day, Feast of immaculate inception,Longest night, st Steven's day, Mother's night,Pancha Ganapati, Malkh, Day of the Birth of the unconcerned sun, Humanlignt,yalda,Koliada, Yule, 3 kings day, St john the evangelicalist day,Hogswatch, St Sylvester's day, holy innocents day, international day of disabled persons, Newtomas, Watch night, Zamenhof day, feast of the winters veil, soyal, life day, Merry Christmas and a happy New year! Paul!
You forgot Festivus...
@@markwildt5728 It's on the first line, between "Winter Solstice" and "Boxing day".
Can we just simplify things by saying Happy Holiday's?
@@VileMike IKR
@voodootree Happy Holidays except Boxing Day just for you.
This is a very sophisticated argument and I'm sure correct.
My objections to the story are more basic. The purpose of a census is to help with tax collection, the object of ancient tax collection whether done by the state or by private companies (actually the more common form) was to raise as much revenue as possible without inviting insurrection (which would lose so much).
If your tax collection consisted of a massive upheaval of everyone to ancestral lands (without defining which and how many) can you imagine the economic devastation (fields going unploughed, harvests not collected, commerce disrupted), how much more difficult it would be to assess property owned. How large gatherings of people on the thoroughfares of a province would make an insurrection more likely. You wouldn't have hardly anything to tax afterwards, the whole point would be lost. You don't need a deep understanding of history for that.
Even if the time, date and locations matched it'd still be nonsense because no one does a census in such a ludicrous nonsensical manner.
The whole 'microletters' fiasco is a prime example of just how badly things can go when an academic sees fit to operate outside of their area of expertise.
HOW EMBARRASSING.
"Hey, look at this coin that has a letter that didn't exist back then! This is totally proof of Jesus!"
I love the appeal to authority with J Warner Wallace and with wearing his Police badge (retired badge), as to sound so much more authoritative. Maybe I should wear my (retired) Police badge, maybe it would make me sounds more authoritative!
Richunix Unix
J Warner Wallace is a quack.
I will grant him more respect when he should find that killer. But solving a Cold Case isn't finished until somebody goes to jail, so i will not hold my breath, i like breathing too much! :D
Richunix Unix Wear a lab coat, too. For multidisciplinary cred!!
voodootree I’m afraid to ask. And please don’t say just a G string
@voodootree a fig leaf? :)
You're quickly becoming one of my favorite RUclipsrs. I love how you give a shit about the nerdy, scholarship based facts that not a lot of other atheist activists seem to highlight. Your content resonates with my Bible Scholar background man. Keep it up!
This is my favorite video from Paulogia, thanks!
Glad you liked it!
Fascinating stuff. Well done.
🎄Merry Christmas Paul & Family.🎉
Since when does a detective start with a conclusion and look for evidence that suits it, even if he is more honest than others about the problems he finds?
Merry Mythmas.
Fleece Navidad! (I saw it on an ugly sweater.)
I feel like traveling back in time to witness the birth of Jesus would make Christians go mad because, where's Jesus? I'm here on December 25th? WHERE IS HE!?! XD
I still have some fond memories if snuggling close to my Dad on those cold, snowbound winter nights as he read the story from Luke on Christmas Eve. Current understanding doesn’t tarnish those memories, But it does now give a clear insight into our superstitious inclinations as a species and the night terrors that fundamentalism breeds to keep a populace enslaved to a priestly caste that knows no shame.
Those times with your dad were what was important. The rest is quite irrelevant.
my memory is a bit of the same, I was pretty impressed when the story from Luke was read in elementery school, that I asked from which part it was. I got the reference and my mother thought it a good idea I would learn it by heart and recite it at family gatherings. We were not paricular religious but I impressed my family and to this day I need little triggers to recite the part again.
But about 50 years later I don't think there is more historicy in it then in the first chapter of Harry Potter. It is of utter unimportance that the writer of Luke half a century after the supposed event got the numbers wrong, its message had other purpose and heck, JKR herself forgot which London station she had in mind when she wrote Platform 9 3/4. We have Kings Cross now as canon, but she herself was imagining the scenes at St.Pancreas. But did that diminish any part of the story? No. But in about 60 years this will be a hot topic in the fight about the autenticity of the HP stories. Probably boostered with the "archeological evidence" that the wall the students had to pass was not on the platforms but at the side of the station where a trolly is half buried in a wall.
This video is amazingly informational. I love it. My friend now lives your channel bc of it! Yay!
I watch almost everything on youtube at faster than normal speed.
1.25...up to the max 2x. Depends on what is being talked about and the rate of someone's speech.
Most people talk and talk but say nothing of value. I'll spend 4 minutes on a 10 minute video. But not gonna listen to 10 minutes of non information...wasting my time.
You are the only person I've ever slowed it down to .75 speed.
Your statements are so dense with so much info...if I dont slow it down, I cant possibly absorb everything you are saying.
Before I click on your videos I have to ask myself...are you ready to actually listen and absorb? I can't just passively listen...I have to pay attention.
It's mentally exhausting.
Cheers!
Great fun- really enjoyed this. Subscribed
Excellent work Paul!! I love your apologetics deep dives
Maybe there are all these contradictions because Paul made it all up?
Funny how Jesus isn't mentioned anywhere during his life, and not before Paul makes him up?
@@RandomBeing101
I can't miss-read what's not there.......
@@RandomBeing101
You need to do better than that.
How about an explanation? Maybe some examples, a link to sources or citations?
A random statement doesn't explain anything.
Pretty sure there's older christian stuff than Paul. He didn't make it up de novo.
@@twirlipofthemists3201
"Pretty sure there's older christian stuff than Paul. He didn't make it up de novo."
Well cite them then!!
@@kevinshort3943 Not writings but artifacts. I couldn't point you to one though.
When was Mark? Wasn't Mark older?
Paul argues with other Christians with other ideas not his own. He didn't invent the people... IIRC Marcion is older but no writings survive. Not Marcion... I can't remember.
"When was Jesus really born?" He wasn't. Well, more correctly, we have no evidence to suggest that he was.
I think "the impossible time before 4BC and after 6AD" can be an equivalent answer.
@@Paulogia I think the Bible contradicts itself which is obviously impossible. Catch-22
Quirinius *could* have been a legate under a prior governor in Syria, which might resolve the issue. The larger issue is why Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem for the census and tax - that 'practice' had no basis in Roman Law.
It also makes no sense as a census wants to know how much money can be pulled in by tax collectors WHERE PEOPLE WORK. Going back to where granddaddy grew up on a farm or in the sewers of a city, has no logical purpose in any tax related population count. it would also cost a lot just by crippling the economy for week long travelling all over the place... and if Joseph#s connection to Bethlehem really went back to King David who lived about 800 or so years before him.... good grief, Bethlehem must have housed half of the middle East at that time cause most Israelites would have been related to him in some way. With 1000 wives and fuckbunnies Solomon alone would have had hundreds of children
The Jews been contentious about Roman rule since 65 BC when Pompeias conquered their area. They would not chance on having people move for census. Makes no sense at all, that would only create another revolt.
Yes... not only did that _practice_ have no basis in roman law... it had no basis in _any_ law... nobody, in the history of governments, has ever made people _travel_ to their _ancestrial birthplace_ to _count them_ for _tax_ purposes.... especially with the revolt Tom mentioned.
No be couldn't. He was at war from 12BCE-1BCE in Galatia.
@@jtalistair6725 OK. Thanks for the background. Good to know.
Excellent writing , Paul!
Hope you have a lovely Christmas, in whatever way you wish to spend it! X Timon.
Now they're arguing that Luke says it took place BEFORE the Census of Quirinus, saying the word "before" was mistranslated to "first."
I’m reminded of the famous astronomer who made detailed maps of the “canals of Mars”😂
I'm thoroughly upset @Paulogia has such a handy name to pun his videos with. Great content!
Why? Just film "Spud-nicks"
@@Ugly_German_Truths good god you're brilliant. You're hired.
Good rebuttal -- do more J Warner Wallace, if you can :)
Minor editors note. 2:27 The quote reads "...and a man who was extremely distinguished in other respects" on screen while you say "...and a man who was extremely distinguished in all other aspects."
I've noticed people making RUclips videos, when reading a text shown in the video, very often make mistakes like that. The only way to avoid that (apart from years experience doing it) is having someone (someone else, to avoid hearing or reading what you expect instead of what is there) check that you got it right, then re-make everything that has errors, rinse and repeat until done. That's quite a lot of extra work for mistakes that usually don't seriously change the meaning of the text.
@@KaiHenningsen I don't disagree. We can be some of those people who check that you got it right, then annotate what has errors. He has done this for videos in the past. I'm simply leaving him a friendly notice for him if he cares to annotate it. I think he would appreciate it.
Great video, but I have a minor issue. Both Doc Brown's dating and this video show a year zero; that's misleading. The year 1 BC is followed immediately by the year 1 AD; there is no year zero between them. (Most people in the first millennium didn't treat zero as a number, but only as the _lack_ of a number.)
In Doc Brown's case, he can be excused for using year 0 for 1 BC as a mathematical workaround for not having provided an AD/BC button on his home-made time machine input panel.
This video can be excused for using zero as the _dividing_ _line_ between AD/BC -- a point in time of no length between the last second of the last day of 1 BC and the first second of the first day of 1 AD -- but I think this should have been made clear on the timeline.
@Bear Mro - Exactly. I came here to say much the same thing.
It's called the Year Zero because NOTHING HAPPENED THAT YEAR! ;P
Exactly... And this fact is also the reason there was soooooo much kerfuffle as to when the new century began a few years ago with most people wrongly deciding to go with 2000 when in reality it should have been 2001.
Indeed, although astronomers (in relatively recent times) do designate the year before 1 AD/CE to be year 0.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_year_numbering
Very true. Even if zero was in common use, why would anyone number a year zero? It makes no sense. Besides, the whole "BC" and "AD" dating system wasn't even in use at the time and was applied retroactively, as I understand it.
This is pretty good. I had actually wanted to try this myself, but I didn't know where to start. But this small contradiction is actually a great starting point and I want to give my input. Having this contradiction actually makes sense for the time period. If the king was trying to find Jesus when he was actually born it would be hard to find him when you have two different dates of the supposed birth.
Great video Paul. Were you even a live in 1977 lol?
No Elvis, Rolling Stones or Beatles no Paul?, in 1977.
In the book Prenicene New Testament by Robert Price, i found that the Nativity story in Matthew was likely not written before 136, and the nativity story in Luke was a later add-on to the previous version of the gospel of Luke. That previous version dating from about 140-150 and the nativity add-on no earlier than the 150s but probably rather 180. So, we are talking really much later than the alleged events. However, both nativity stories show a lot of borrowing from previous texts and a lot of markers of fiction literature, so the probability is much much higher that they were invented as literary creation than that they were meant to describe actuak events. Prices notes that Matthews nativity story is largely based on Josephus Antiquities birth of Moses. Price mentions as major source for Luke s nativity story pseudoPhilo Biblical Antiquities birth of Moses, he also borrows from the Old Testament.
You are misinformed my friend, you have been beguiled into believing that The bible isn't accurate or trustworthy. Luke himself compiled the account of Jesus birth from living eye witnesses . Both The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Holy Spirit were commissioned for a certain Greek dignitary , Theophilus , to verify the things he had heard . Luke wrote his account around 60 and Acts around 61. You can take Gods word as the Gospel Truth, because it is !! Merry Christmas , Jesus any day !!!
Robert Price has a habit of taking the most radical positions as the most obvious solutions to problems. So while I feel he's often times illuminating in that he can make one radically rethink the things one has learned to take for granted, I'm not sure I'd take his alternative datings or interpretations as a benchmark. Within the world of biblical scholarship, he's on the very fringe, and what's more: it's been many years since he put forth any work for peer review, so nothing he puts out is vetted in any way.
@@jwsanders1214
So you admit that luke was written in 60 correct? That's curious because the average lifespan in that time was in the 30s 37 if my memory is correct soo if most of those people would have been dead for 20 years how could luke have gotten eyewitness testimonies again I forget...
@@cptmiller132 Of course you know that "average life span" doesn't mean everybody died young , but most of the Apostles were martyred young, with the exception of John . We don't know when Luke gathered his accounts, only that it was written around 60 AD Mary would have been in her 70's, Jesus' younger brothers and sisters in their 50's and 60's . We don't know who he gathered info from
@@cptmiller132 And thats only your opinion against the witnesses and the word of God. I don't know you , but I do Know Jesus , and I trust the word of the 4 Biographers that he chose to document his life.Think I'll go with The Word of God. But there are hundreds of millions of Christians all over the world in Atheist- communist and muslim nations who will never hold a Bible or read John 3:16 but they have something better than a Bible, they have The Living Christ and Holy Spirit , and so can you, all you need to do is ask Him, Filez Navidad !!!!
How have you not got lots more subscribers!!!!!
Yours is the best channel I watch!
Thanks, Chris. Spread the word.
Even if there was another Quirinius that fit the story, and even if dates are off, THERE WAS NO CENSUS IN JUDEAH WHEN HEROD WAS KING. That alone is a huge problem.
BTW, there is no year zero, so the two events are nine years apart.
@@TedApelt 4 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 10 digits. You need to count 1 BCE and 1CE
"So I've gotta think deeply about what is it that I'm not seeing that they clearly saw" As opposed to the other way around?
The participants in ancient religions around the region had no problem in this regard. Aphrodite was born in multiple cities, but so what? One person celebrated the Aphrodite of X, while another the Aphrodite of Y, and it was all good. The same was true about the many tales of the various gods. Much like the long year that Patrick O'Brian had to insert into his Aubrey/Maturin series, the gospel novels have their own chronology, and I suspect that early Christians were mythically, not historically minded. Modern Christians who insist on biblical literalism have painted themselves into a corner. If they'd just admit that they're doing the same thing as trying to work out how we've gone over two decades without noticing the Eugenics Wars, things would be much easier. But they want to be different categorically from the other cosplayers.
They have to be that way. After all it was the christians who later in the renaissance and the colonial era started to abolish other religions on the grounds that they were "fiction". If they now accept that their religion is no better then based on their so-called "reality adhering" nature they have to abandon their own religion as well(at least for the bible literalists) and they really can't do that now can they ?
Christinaty is based on only 5 of the 25 fan fiction stories we know of.
Well worth watching , as is usual for a Paulogia video.
You’re awesome Paul. Glad to be a Patreon. 👍🏼
You're the best, IV
Happy Holidays bud and keep bringing the heat in 2019!
💚 *quality content* 💚
Finally, finally! Someone finally acknowledges the role of oral tradition in the composition of the Bible!
Excellent homework. Of course Luke's story fails for other reasons. One huge one is that censuses count people where they live. Not where they come from. During the U.S. census all people are counted in a state. It does not matter if they are citizens or not. Or if they are not citizens it does not matter whether they are legal visitors or not. They all get counted towards a state's population. If the census was done so that people could be taxed one would tax them where they lived and worked and where one could get hold of them. Not based upon where they came from.
That sort of demand was impossible to carry out in our last census when traveling was much easier. At the time of Jesus's birth it would have been all but impossible.
Just a nitpick, but your year meter shouldn't have a 0 mark on it. Year 1 BC was followed immediately by year 1 CE. There was no year 0.I
Merry Christmyth. 😂😂😂
That's my new reply when someone wishes merry x-mas. They'll just think I developed a lisp. lol
you pagan
Thanks for using BC and AD unlike most secular creators. Even though I am an atheist I don't like usage BCE and CE.
Good video thanks for sharing it with us and keep up the great work.
About 2 in the morning. Fortunately, everyone had the day off because it was Christmas.
Merry Christmas Paul! Have a happy safe holiday!
Also, assuming he was real, he would have been born in the spring time in the Northern hemisphere.
Yes, because that is when shepherds watch over their flocks by night--because of ewes giving birth might need help.
To my knowledge the census by Augustus mentioned didn’t took place. The Roman administration was quite meticulous but there are no documents about the census. If somebody has a (Roman) source showing the contrary I’d be very happy to look into it
Good video thanks for sharing it with us
One can pick any birthday date for a fictional character.
DB Cisco lol true ... can I get an amen
@@vivahernando1 As soon as I get A Woman ! lol
Yeah, Horus and Mithras were pretty badass.
Needs to correspond to a "ritually significant" date though.
For Christmas all I want is a Paulgia video that has Ken Ham being completely set straight with facts. For Christmas I can only give you the gift of praise and admriation.
For new year's ok?
Great work, as always.
Thanks!
No one can even show that Jesus actually existed, so wondering about when he was born is sort of pointless.
Well, the point here is to show that the alleged birth can't have happened as described.
That's the point though.
For all the passion in the myth v man (both good secular positions) there's not going to be any evidence to prove either way (I.e. mythicists will say there is no evidence for a historical jesus, but then the response would be, do you expect evidence for one given it'd have been a small time rabbi from hicksville and there's no sources of any kind from the first century Judea. It can't be proven to anyone's satisfaction either way.
Conversely specific claims are made by Christians which can be disproven better use of effort.
Before Rome took over direct rule of the province, there would have been no reason for a census. When a client king ruled a province, Rome just told him how much tribute to send, and it was up to him to collect it. So there would have been no Roman census until after they deposed Archelaus.
Love the Pacman/Elvis experiment ... bravo!
Thou it is a bit shy on godly intervention to insure accuracy.
Seems obvious to me, that "take a census of ALL of Rome is quite different then "take a sensus of one part of the empire that changed". To extrapolate that Quirinus"became governor" when he was sent to take a census of archelaus territory is streching it a bit to far.
We know that Herod "the great" died in 4 B.C. and the "slaughter of the innocent" ordered by Herod was said to have happened two years after the birth of Christ so the birth of Christ couldn't have been any later than 6 B.C. and was more likely 9-11 B.C. so, yes, there is a bit of a gap there!
I’m so glad you get ads from PureFlix, I hope their money somehow goes to you. I seriously love the idea of Christian money going to someone who is using reason to get them out of it.
Yup... I'll take their money.
Lets also remember that the number of people who could read and write at the time these stories were collected was a tiny fraction of the total population. It would take a scholar (who was very likely a member of the clergy) years to travel the area searching for multiple sources for documents which he would be quite certain would only and could only corroborate one another.
It would take an incredibly brave and incredibly stupid man to come out an say "these documents actually contradict one another" when the organisation which provided all the documents already had the power to have him very messily put to death for blasphemy
Paulogia, happy yule, solstice, christmas, etc! Happy is the important part. Love to you and yours. Love and Peace
Very interesting and informative.
Where does dan wallace admit the contradiction regarding this?
Merry Christmas all.
Happy Festivus!!!!
I love that intro of the Highlands ! There can be only one ! :D
Isn't that Canada, because he's Canadian?
@@HConstantine : ah ? i went for the feel, i didn't search for where that landscape actually was. I probably should have. :-°
I really like the theme song. What is it called?
It's an arrangement of the hymn "In Christ Alone"
When we get a time machine to go and actually check, I'm putting my bet on his birth being about 20 years after his "death."
3:32 9 years. There is no year 0 in the historical calendar.
There is in the astronomical calendar. Yet the year -3 would be used for 4BC.
An arbitrary measurement based on a Roman calendar that back-dated to when they thought Jesus was born.
Without supporting evidence, none of the words, or deeds, claimed to be those of Jesus Christ are provable. As these only exist as written assertions, there is no reason to accept the Jesus Christ story as anything more than a fiction.
Honestly, seeing a video on this topic takes me back to the days when ProfMTH was still active.
The real question is if should you be using the year 0 if you're using BC and AD? The year 0 does not exist in the Gregorian calendar, only in the Astronomical where 0 is 1BC
We could check out the Hebrew calendar This is the year 5778 , But if we use the solar Roman Calendar, then he was most likely born in 3 BC because he was 33 years old when he was crucified . Jerusalem was destroyed for the second time on the 9th day of Ab , 70 AD just as Jesus had foretold in 30 AD. 70 years is a Biblical generation. Israel was reborn on May 14 , 1948 ; 70 years from May 14, 1948 to May 14 , 2018, 70 years to the day that Israel made Jerusalem her capitol , and The U.S. moved its Embassy to Jerusalem. " And Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the Gentiles until the Times of The Gentiles are completed " Luke 21 : 24; We are living in the times of fulfillment , Jesus any day !
J W Sanders 😡 Play as many games of numerology as you wish, it is still only a party trick. Those assembling the early scriptures were dealing with several calendars at the same time. Much as some in Europe used the Julian calendar whilst others used the Gregorian version. When Britain adopted the latter calendar, people thought that they had been robbed of a number of days, rioting in protest!
@@sirmeowthelibrarycat Yes, I've heard that. and we use the Names of Roman gods every day of the week. There is another way to narrow down the year that Christ was born , he was 33 years old when he was crucified . He was crucified 40 years before Jerusalem was destroyed by Titus in 70 AD on the 9th day of Ab on the Hebrew Calendar . Interestingly enough , this is the same calendar day as the Babylonians leveled her in 586 BC., COINCIDENCE ? Jesus tells us in Luke 21 : 24 " And Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the Times of the Gentiles are completed. " The nation of Israel was dead for nearly 2000 years , but on May 14 , 1948 she was resurrected. 70 years later on May 14 , 2018 The Times of The Gentiles were completed when Israel moved her capitol to Jerusalem and The USA moved its embassy to Jerusalem. 70 years is a biblical generation. We are living in the times of fulfillment my friend. Jesus any day, Feliz Navidad !!!
@@jwsanders1214
We have on way whatsoever to narrow down when the supposed Jesus existed. Literally none.
Because we have no reliable historical records of when he lived, what he did, when/how/why he died... let alone when he was born. We got nothing. You can cite the bible... but you may as well be citing The Silmarillion as proof that Sauron existed.
@@jwsanders1214 no, he was born in 4 bc and 6 ad
A suggestion. If you gave a complete list of sources in the video description, the video could be shared and opponents would not have a right to refuse data without checking first.
They have the "right" to refuse the data either way. It is just dishonest, intellectually at the least, to do so without checking the data first.
Are there any other sources for when the census was taken?
I know you get tired of hearing this but ...great video !
Among the many problems with the three synoptic Gospels in terms of their historicity are the following. The authors do not identify themselves, they do not claim to be eyewitnesses,, and they do not source their material - for example, they never say, "X or Y told me these things" or "These are the stories that were abroad in the land". Nor do they claim that God told them what to write. The non-synoptic Gospel of John (21:24) states that John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, is the author, but this claim is dubious given that the gospel was originally written in Greek and is dated to no earlier than 90 CE. John, the beloved disciple, did not know Greek, was most likely illiterate, and would have died well before 90 CE.
If you have two witnesses who claim they saw the culprit and one describes him as tall and slim and the other one describes him as short and stocky, what's more likely?
1. Both are right and the suspect is at the same time tall, short, slim and stocky.
2. Both are making stuff up.
well when you put it that way....
I honestly think the author of Luke and Acts used Josephus as a source during the time they were written (circa. 95 CE). I mean, think about it, how else would the author have known about the Census?
Yes material from Josphus was used so it is past 95 gospel fan fiction.
Fantastic content!!!
Brilliant, I'd never noticed that. :)
What are you talking about Paul? I just played Pac-Man WITH Elvis last week!
Awesome video!
5:40 I heard “1980” and I almost spat coffe all over my TV.
Now that's what I call good news!