by cameron | Apr 11, 2009 | Christianity
When I asked that question on Twitter today, I had a few people tell me “Wodewick” or “Woger”. Oh and in typical Christian fashion, I was also called “an asshole” by @Griffmiester for asking the question.
But I learned something interesting today, another twist in the New Testament that I wasn’t previously aware of.
Most versions of the NT say that the man that Pilate released (it was apparently a custom for the the praefectus or governor of Judaea to commute one prisoner’s death sentence by popular acclaim) was a criminal called Barabbas.
For example, in the New International Version of the NT, in Matthew 27:16 it reads:
At that time they had a notorious prisoner, called Barabbas. So when the crowd had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Which one do you want me to release to you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?”
HOWEVER…
If we look instead at the Contemporary English Version, the same passage reads:
At that time a well-known terrorist named Jesus Barabbas was in jail. So when the crowd came together, Pilate asked them, “Which prisoner do you want me to set free? Do you want Jesus Barabbas or Jesus who is called the Messiah?”
Apparently some of the oldest versions of the NT, including the Syriac Sinaiticus, have the name of the prisoner as “Yeshua bar Abbas” but the “Yeshua” was dropped from later versions – yet another example of early Christian authorities editing the manuscripts to suit their agenda.
In Amaraic (and in Latin), “bar Abbas” translates as “Son of the Father”.
So the crowd was given a choice of “Jesus, Son Of The Father” or “Jesus, who is called The Messiah”. Don’t they sound like the same person to you?
What was Yeshua bar Abbas’ crime? In the different gospels, he is referred to in a variety of ways: a “notorious prisoner”, a “bandit”, an “insurrectionist” and a “murderer”.
When Pilate asked the crowd which prisoner he should release, they said “bar Abbas!” (The Son of the Father!).
What do you think? Confusing?
by cameron | Apr 9, 2009 | Christianity
I’ve been blocked from commenting on a Christian blog. Was I being a troll? Was I being offensive? No, actually it was the opposite.
Some guy called Nick Norelli writes a blog called “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth –
Study to show thyself approved unto God… (2 Tim. 2:15)”. Apparently Nick is only interested in study if it agrees with his point of view though. On April 6, he wrote a blog post called “Out of Touch with Reality“. Guess who is out of touch with reality? That’s right – me.
Nick wrote a blog post attacking my intelligence. “Mr. Reilly shows himself to be woefully out of touch with reality.” It wasn’t bad enough that he got his argument wrong, claiming that I had, in another discussion on another site (which, by the way, was a very civil debate on both sides) claimed that “all scholars” agreed with my position on the historicity of Jesus, something I had not done.
So I left a comment on Nick post defending myself.
That lead to a discussion with some of the folks who read Nick’s blog and I believe the discussion was civil and honest. True that some of Nick’s readers, like Nick himself, are very dismissive of anyone who disagrees with their position. Instead of debating facts or refuting my position by providing evidence, they prefer to say things like:
“… his arguments reflect a slanted type of scholarship that doesn’t accurately represent the data.”
“… your doubt that Jesus even existed renders you unfit for me to engage in such matters.” (That’s the great Nick himself speaking.)
“… you just don’t know what you’re talking about.” (That’s Nick again.)
“I’m not even willing to discuss your arguments with you let alone debate them.” (Nick, again.)
So, as you can see, typical Christian avoidance and insults. Instead of debating facts, they would rather insult your intelligence, your knowledge or, as Nick did, just end up blocking you from the discussion.
I’d like to remind you again that HE started it by writing a blog post insulting my mental state (“out of touch with reality”).
by cameron | Apr 9, 2009 | Christianity, Podcast, Vanini Day
My guest today is Dr Greg Clarke (PhD), Honorary Associate, Dept of Ancient History, Macquarie University
and Director of the Centre for Public Christianity.
We talk about the survey that the CPX has recently sponsored that finds that 55 per cent of Australians don’t believe that Jesus rose from the dead but only 11 per cent doubt that Jesus was a real historical figure. As you know, I am one of those 11 per cent. So Greg and I also had a chat about the lack of evidence (as I see it) for the existence of Jesus. As Greg works in the Dept of Ancient History I thought he could confirm for me that my basic facts are correct. As you’ll hear, that was like drawing blood from a stone. 🙂
Here are the census stats for religion in Australia.
If you want to join me in celebrating
Vanini Day, then join the club.
If you want to listen to some of my other podcasts on the history of Jesus, see this page.
And finally, please support TPN’s April drive! We need your support!
If you want to keep TPN on the air, please show your support. If just the listeners of this show contributed $20 a month, I could fund TPN indefinitely! Is the information and entertainment you get from TPN worth a bottle of cheap wine?
http://widget.chipin.com/widget/id/d3b7a44909380763
by cameron | Apr 8, 2009 | capitalism, Podcast
OMFG. Last night I did a live show with my most-excellent co-host Mr Nick Hodge and WE TALKED FOR FOUR HOURS. I kid you not. I only recorded the first THREE HOURS and I present them to you here (well the audio version anyway – to see the video you have to turn up on the night). Oh and this audio recording only has two of the five live numbers I performed during the show. One was in the pre-show festivities (“Come On Eileen”) and there were a couple during the post-show wind-down (including “Ship Song”by Nick Cave).
During this four hour marathon, Nick and I discussed:
Australia’s National Broadband Network
America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Whether or not Nick is an atheist or an agnostic
The financial crisis scam and what we might replace capitalism with
The ethics of veganism
The Church of LOTU
The historicity of Jesus (or lack thereof)
And much, much more.
Listen to the full three hours – if you dare.
Tune in to future live shows every Tuesday night at 8pm here.
by cameron | Feb 24, 2009 | science, Uncategorized
My project with my kids this month is to teach them the scientific method. I think that this is perhaps one of the most important things we can teach our kids. They obviously aren’t doing a good enough job of it in the schools. If they did, I wouldn’t have so many bozos say to me “science doesn’t know everything” when trying to justify their irrational belief in Jesus or crystal healing or Mayan predictions of the end of the world. So it’s up to us to teach our kids why the scientific method is the best way that humans have so-far devised to work out what is likely to be true when it comes to working out how the universe works. It’s not just important for sorting out fact from fiction when it comes to things like religion, either. Having a solid evidential view of things is important when politicians tell you things such as “Saddam has WMD – believe me.” As a society we need to start asking “show me the evidence” to our religious, political, military and corporate leaders on a more regular basis.
So on the weekend I set my kids a project to give me a 5 minute presentation on the scientific method before they could turn the XBOX on. They knew nothing about it before they started. So I told them to Google it and to specifically look for sites that explained it in kid-friendly terms (bonus lesson contained within – how to create good search terms in Google). I told them to answer four questions in their presentation:
1. What is it?
2. Why is it important?
3. What is the process?
4. Who invented it and when? (trick question but worth asking so they get some perspective on the history)
They came out after about 30 minutes and presented what they had. It was about one minute long. They basically just wrote down a one line answer to each question which they had copied and pasted from different sites. When I did the Q&A they failed. So I sent them back to expand on it a bit. This process went on about 3 or 4 times until they were finally able to present on it credibly for 5 minutes including a Q&A.
Later that day I re-inforced their understanding and ability to communicate it in the pool when we played “science swim”. This is a variation on a game I often play with them in the pool, the other variants being “spell swim” and “maths swim”. The basic idea is that I ask them both a question. In this case “What’s the first step in the scientific method?”. The first person to answer it correctly gets a pass. The one who either gets it wrong or is too slow, has to swim two laps (bonus lesson contained within – improves their swimming ability).
I’ve kept it up over the last couple of days while walking them to school, asking them to explain, in their own words, why the scientific method is the best way to determine fact from fiction. They are getting pretty good at it. I’ll keep this up for the next few weeks until it’s drilled into them. Then we’ll start on the theory of evolution.
