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Was Jesus invented through ancient myths?

THINK THIS ARGUMENT WORKS? WELL..NOT REALLY!!

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Part 3 - The Bibles Big Events - The feeding of thousands of people by Jesus using only five loaves of bread and two fishes!

 
The feeding of five thousand + by Jesus using only five loaves of bread and two fishes!

(Mark 6:34-44; see also the parallel accounts in Matthew 14:14-21, Luke 9:12-17, and John 6:1-14)


The problem here for skeptics is HOW could it be done, and IS THERE PROOF it ever happened! 

The problem with their problem is clear, no matter how much proof is presented, no matter how many people saw it happen a skeptic will be skeptical. The issue is simply a straw man set up to divert us from proof that they CAN'T explain away!



Digging Up the Bible: The Stories Behind the Great Archaeological Discoveries in the Holy Land


The Moses Riddle (Thomas McAllister 'Treasure Hunter' Adventure)


The Archaeology of Jerusalem From David to Jesus (Part One, From the Beginning to the Babylonian Destruction, Part Two, From the Return of the Exiles to the World of Jesus)





















Mark 6 says:
34As Jesus landed, He saw a great crowd waiting, and He was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.
    35And when [a]the day was already far gone, His disciples came to Him and said, This is a desolate and isolated place, and the hour is now late.
    36Send the crowds away to go into the country and villages round about and buy themselves something to eat.
    37But He replied to them, Give them something to eat yourselves. And they said to Him, Shall we go and buy 200 [b]denarii [about forty dollars] worth of bread and give it to them to eat? [II Kings 4:42-44.]
    38And He said to them, How many loaves do you have? Go and see. And when they [had looked and] knew, they said, Five [loaves] and two fish.
    39Then He commanded the people all to recline on the green grass by companies.
    40So they threw themselves down in ranks of hundreds and fifties [with the [c]regularity of an arrangement of beds of herbs, looking [d]like so many garden plots].
    41And taking the five loaves and two fish, He looked up to heaven and, praising God, gave thanks and broke the loaves and kept on giving them to the disciples to set before the people; and He [also] divided the two fish among [them] all.
    42And they all ate and were satisfied.
    43And they took up twelve [[e]small hand] baskets full of broken pieces [from the loaves] and of the fish.
    44And those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men. {Add to this the Women and the Children average and the number is staggering}




From the Skeptic's Dictionary:


"A miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent" (Hume, 123n). However, these days people use the term much more loosely to mean something like "against all odds." The rest of this article is not about people who call themselves or their experiences miracles because the odds seemed stacked against them. Here we will discuss miracle in the theological sense."

mir·a·cle  (mr-kl)
n.
1. An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God: "Miracles are spontaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves"(Katherine Anne Porter).

Not everything hard to believe can be quantified as a miracle according to scriptural standards. Miracles are those acts that only God can perform; usually superseding natural laws.  
 
Baker's Dictionary of the Bible defines a miracle as "an event in the external world brought about by the immediate agency or the simple volition of God."
 
It goes on to add that a miracle occurs to show that the power behind it is not limited to the laws of matter or mind as it interrupts fixed natural laws. 
So the term supernatural applies quite accurately.
  It's very interesting that a common word used for miracle in the New Testament can also be translated "sign." A miracle is a sign that God uses to point to Himself, he does nothing off the cuff so to speak, purpose is at the center of every act he accomplishes; there would never be a time where God would do something that would make himself look bad. It is OUR perceptions that are off not his purposes!


 Does something have to break a natural law for it to be a miracle? 
C.S. Lewis defines a "miracle" in his work by the same name as an interference with nature by a supernatural power. 
 
Obviously, to interfere with natural law may not necessarily mean to break the natural law.

Nature and "super-nature" become interlocked after a miracle occurs and nature carries on according to the change wrought by that event, in other words God's creation ALLOWS for Miracles to happen and makes a change to fall into line with God's will. 
 
Look at the law of inertia (Newton's first law of motion) it states that an object will remain in rest until an external force is applied. 
 
Nature can only move from event to event through supernatural intervention, God holds all things together by his Word so all things are at the call of God's voice, and as believers we command by HIS POWER through his word, speaking forth WHAT GOD INTENDS TO HAPPEN by faith.
 
Jesus once said that he only did what he already saw his Father do, so it follows then every Miracle he performed was preordained by God to happen. This makes a Miracle a natural part of Nature as it rearranges nature to perform His will. 
 
No true Miracle will break God's preordained order or Laws, they simply flow into each other like two ENERGIES co-mingling to form a perfect union. The food creation here is not breaking any known law, in fact it is fulfilling the law of multiplication to meet a real need!
 
Satanic false miracles leave a mark on nature, because they break fundamental laws as they rape nature to appear, and while they may look like something of God they lack his creative knowledge! 
 
SO WHAT ABOUT THIS MIRACLE? OVER 5,000 PEOPLE SAW IT HAPPEN, BUT WHAT ABOUT OUTSIDE SOURCES AS WITNESSES after all over 10,000 people witnessed this event didn't they?
Extra-biblical literature comprises  Jewish writers (Josephus, the Rabbinics, and other Jewish traditions embedded in non-Jewish lit) and Greco-Roman writers (most of whom were hostile to Christianity at the time they wrote). [We generally exclude from our consideration here "Christian" sources, such as Church Fathers  and NT Apocrypha, except where there is some warrant for believing the data was not derived from the canonical tradition.] 
 
One common word translated miracle is the Greek word dunamis- or explosive power.

 Could the feeding of the 5000 be JUST a parable?
 
Remember that a parable is a story that teaches a truth but is not itself an actual historical event. Since the feeding of the 5,000 was an actual event recorded in all four gospels of the New Testament , it is not a parable, and therefore not just a story.

"Were the Miracles of Jesus invented by the Disciples/Evangelists?" CLICK HERE!
 
"Did the NT author's invent the miracle stories in the gospels?" CLICK HERE!




















 
 
 
 
 
 








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Part 2 - The Bibles BIG Events - The stopping of the sun in Joshua and The reversal of the sun's course in Isaiah!

The parting of the sea by Moses (Exodus 14:21-31) 

The following Answer may not be to the liking of most skeptics, but honesty is preferred to outlandish interpretations..........It must be understood that scripture states the exact reactions of Ancient people who understood their surroundings differently than we can sometimes comprehend from our standpoint. 

The words used in scripture must be understood from their original intent when used by the author, so it is not acceptable for skeptics to take the words a little too literal in the wrong direction.  

These verses literally mean what they were intended to mean and not what we would like to superimpose upon them, no matter how we need to impress the world.


The stopping of the sun in Joshua (Joshua 10:12-14)



11As they fled before Israel, while they were descending [the pass] to Beth-horon, the Lord cast great stones from the heavens on them as far as Azekah, killing them. More died because of the hailstones than the Israelites slew with the sword.
 
12Then Joshua spoke to the Lord on the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, be silent and stand still at Gibeon, and you, moon, in the Valley of Ajalon!
    13And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed [ dm[ , aw-mad': a primitive root; to stand, in various relations (literal and figurative, intransitive and transitive):--abide (behind), appoint, arise, cease, confirm, continue, dwell, be employed, endure, establish, leave, make, ordain, be (over), place, (be) present (self), raise up, remain, repair, + serve, set (forth, over, -tle, up), (make to, make to be at a, with-)stand (by, fast, firm, still, up), (be at a) stay (up), tarry. ], until the nation took vengeance upon their enemies. Is not this written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still [ ~md , daw-man': a prim root (compare 01724, 01820); to be dumb; by implication, to be astonished, to stop; also to perish:--cease, be cut down (off), forbear, hold peace, quiet self, rest, be silent, keep (put to) silence, be (stand) still, tarry, wait. ] in the midst [ ycx , khay-tsee': from 02673; the half or middle:--half, middle, mid(-night), midst, part, two parts. ] of the heavens and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.
    14There was no day like it before or since, when the Lord heeded the voice of a man. For the Lord fought for Israel.

What is the Book of Jasher?

Since the “then” introducing verse 12 does not necessarily indicate temporal sequence, notice that it says Joshua prayed the DAY OF this happening; it is possible that the hailstorm of verse 11 was actually the answer to Joshua’s prayer. The Hebrew words translated “stood still” and “stopped” may refer to the cessation of brightness, rather than the cessation of movement (cf. Hab 3:11), thus an extension of night not daytime was the miracle. 

The language of verse 13 is phenomenal 'And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed' could simply mean that the sun was not seen to traverse the sky as usual because of the darkness of the sudden almost instant storm that lasted 23 hours and 20 min. Having traveled through the night in order to catch the enemy by surprise (v. 9), Joshua commanded an extension of the darkness rather than light.  This storm probably was the largest hailstorm these people had ever seen, possibly the largest hail recorded up to that time and Joshua's prayer brought it down on their enemies heads, giving the needed rest to God's army!

As John Rea observes, “God answered above all that Joshua could ask or think by sending not only the desired shade {from the hot sun} to refresh His army but also a devastating hailstorm to crush and delay His enemies” (p. 218). 

So, as Maunders argues, the real miracle “was that Joshua had spoken, not in prayer or supplication, but in command, as if all Nature was at his disposal; and the Lord had hearkened and had, as it were, obeyed a human voice: an anticipation of the time when a greater Joshua should command even the winds and the sea, and they should obey Him (Mt 8:23-27).” (Maunders, p. 448). 


Has NASA Discovered Joshua's "Lost Day"?

A false story.....

by  Bert Thompson, Ph.D.







It is more likely that the Supernatural Hailstorm in the text was the miracle God used to cause Joshua's Victory and not 'stopping the earth's rotation', and yes God could completely reverse physics if he choose to do so but more likely he did not endanger the solar system to beat an army on earth!

I'm not saying that it was a small miracle it wasn't but the scale required by the false assumption was FAR in excess of what was needed to defeat mere men. 

Think about it for a moment physical Laws that God himself put into effect on the days of creation would have had to be usurped completely, this goes against God's promises when he made the world in the first place!


The reversal of the sun's course in Isaiah (Isaiah 38:7-8)





7And this will be the sign to you from the Lord that the Lord will do this thing that He has spoken:
    8Behold, I will turn the shadow [denoting the time of day] on the steps or degrees, which has gone down on the steps or sundial of Ahaz, backward ten steps or degrees. And the sunlight turned back ten steps on the steps on which it had gone down.

The Hebrew is maalah, which denotes an ascent by means of steps or stages, and is used for “steps” or “stairs” in the Old Testament. 


 "It is known that one such staircase descended the slope from the King’s Palace eastward down to the Horse Gate in the city wall (Neh.3.28; 2 Chron.23.15; Jer.31.40) and another ascended from the Horse Gate up to the south side of the Temple. 
By means of these two stairways the King possessed what amounted to a private way to the Temple, and there is one rather obscure passage in 2 Kings 16.18 which indicates that Ahaz made some alteration to one of these stairways. 
It seems then that the stairs leading down from the Palace to the Horse Gate are those to which reference is made in Isaiah.
Is there then another possible means by which the miracle could have been performed, more in keeping with the majesty and power of God and more indisputably attributable to Him?




The fact that as Hezekiah looked down his staircase, the Temple of the Lord was in full view upon his left, at the summit of Mount Moriah, suggests that there is.

The shadow of the palace lay ten steps down the staircase. 

Only the return of the sunlight could remove it – or a light brighter than sunlight. Every Israelite knew that there was such a light; the holy ‘Shekinah’, that supernatural light that shone from between the cherubim in the Most Holy, that had been the guide of Israel in the wilderness in those long ago Exodus days, a “fire by night,” one that had been seen on rare occasions when God had cause to manifest His majesty and power in visible form. 

That fierce light, brighter than the sun at noonday, had flashed out from the Tabernacle to slay Nadab and Abihu when they offered “strange fire” before the Lord (Lev.10.2); it had flooded the camp at the time of Korah’s rebellion (Num.16. 42-45); it had filled Solomon’s Temple at its dedication. Isaiah saw it once in vision when he received his commission of service (Isa.6.1).

Is it possible that as Hezekiah gazed still upon the staircase, waiting for the sign that the Lord had promised him, the wondrous glory of the Shekinah did indeed blaze out from that sanctuary on the hill, blotting out the brightness of the sun itself, lighting all Jerusalem with its radiance? 

The shadow on the steps would have vanished in an instant. The whole scene, the Palace Gardens, the stairs themselves, the city wall and the Horse Gate far below, and the Mount of Olives on the opposite side of the valley, stand out in sharp relief vividly delineated in that blinding white light.

If this is indeed what happened on that memorable day, what possible doubt could remain in Hezekiah’s mind? More convincing by far than any natural celestial phenomenon, this message from the sanctuary was as the appearance of God Himself.

All Jerusalem must have seen it. All Jerusalem must have interpreted it aright. The Shekinah came forth only for destruction or blessing. Hezekiah was a good king, a God-fearing man.

It could only mean that he would recover, that he would live to play his part in the fulfilment of Divine promise, that there would yet be a son to sit upon the throne of the Lord after him, that the destiny of Israel would yet be achieved. 

The news would travel quickly, and before long all Judea would know what had happened, and that the king’s life had been prolonged for fifteen years." From
http://www.biblefellowshipunion.co.uk/2008/May_Jun/Sundial.htm

Again, there is no reason for God to break his set Laws to keep a promise, he simply shone his holy light from the ark upon the steps as a sign.

I'm not saying this is a DEFINITE HAPPENING but it sure makes more logical sense than God putting the solar system in danger just to give a sign to one man, don't you think? STILL A MIRACLE BUT ONE THAT FITS THE SIGN EVEN BETTER!















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