The Mistakes of Mark

Johnny P said...
and if mark is so accurate too, why all these romanesque mistakes?:

mark was written by a roman, and contained errors about jewish literature and so on, because the author did not have good local knowledge. Matthew sets out to correct these. Eg mark 1:2 when not edited in, say, the kjv, incorrectly references malachi 3:1 as Isaiah. Mark 2:7 also says only god can forgive the sins of men, but jewish law says that people can forgive each others’ sins. Mark mentions Gadarenes as being near a large lake. Matthew changes all these points, for example, saying Gadarenes is actually Gergesenes which IS near a lake. Matthew corrects mark’s statement that synagogues had multiple rulers, when there is almost always 1. He changes mark’s having jesus ridiculing jewish food laws set out by moses etc. Mark has jesus misquoting one of the commandments (10:19 defrauding). Mark refers to David as ‘our father’ which is something jews would never do since they are not all descended from david. Matthew corrects this too. Matthew omits mark’s mistake of getting the Passover date wrong. Matthew drops mark’s having a man carry a pitcher of water, as this is clearly woman’s work. Matthew omits mark saying the night before the crucifixion was the night before the Sabbath, because for jews, the night before is actually the start of the Sabbath. Mark has joseph of arimethea buying linen to wrap jesus in on the Sabbath. Matthew drops this as this would be impossible in jewish law. Mark mentions the fourth watch of the night, which is incorrect because jews only had 3 watches in a night. 4 is roman. There are a few more minor ones.

so eyewitness, no. reliable, no.

From Debunking Christianity

More views of Genesis

Interpretations of the fal are a passion of mine. I love them all. At least the well considered ones. This article provides to clues to the rest of Genesis.

it very likely that the biblical Sarah was a high priestess from a disappearing matriarchal culture that still existed in Mesopotamia, alongside an emerging patriarchy.
Ancient Mesopotamian priestesses were highly regarded and their offices were essential to the functioning of society. The priestess was responsible for rituals maintaining the fertility of the land and for decisions on how the stores of grain would be shared. To maintain her impartiality, a priestess was not allowed to bear children of her own, lest she favor her own lineage. Hence all the barren women among the matriarchs of Genesis -- they were priestesses in a new land where their ancient prerogatives were being revoked, systematically, by Yahweh.
The heiros gamos, or sacred marriage, was the supreme fertility ritual performed by a priestess with a king. As the priestess embodied Inanna, Queen of Heaven, she would "take the earth-king into the sweetness of her holy loins, and by her cosmic powers ensure the king's powers of leadership and fertility." This explains the two episodes with Sarah and the kings and another one later between Sarah's daughter-in-law Rebekah and a king. Sarah's first liaison with Pharaoh brings down plague and God makes sure that the second of Sarah's sacred marriages, with King Abimelech, is never consummated. Even the threat of it has made all the women in the kingdom barren and God only restores their fertility after Abimelech sends Sarah back to her husband.
And yet, the repudiation of matriarchal power is not complete. Although multiplying Abraham's seed is the driving thrust of the Genesis story, only the descendents of Sarah's child, Isaac, are counted among the twelve tribes of Israel. Even God backs Sarah up when he lets her banish Abraham's son Ishmael.

What if God Disappeared?

Functional Atheism

Calvin

show me a worm that can understand man...and i will show you a man who can understand God.

- John Calvin

Show me a man that requires worms to worship him. -hickdive

Calvin then followed his own advice, establishing a community where he told everyone exactly what god wanted them to do. -A Pony

Have you ever read The Institutes of Christian Religion? Pretty fascist, actually, no allowances made for freedom of conscience. John Calvin was a seriously nasty piece of work - he once cut a teenagers head off because he was rude to his parents, citing the Commandment "Thou shalt honour thy father and mother" as justification. He also burned heretics (aka people he disagreed with) at the stake for daring to say he wasn't right. And the ironic reason for much of this burning, which was predominantly Roman Catholics, was that they believed the Pope was infallible. As a Catholic friend of mine once put it "We have one infallible church leader, you have dozens". But in Calvins day, basically, he was the infallible one, although he blamed the Bible. Ada-B

Complex Adaptive System

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

supposition

The sheer scale of this god-invention (nb. this is only the christian variations) is, for me, just further proof of the absence of any core god reality to this belief set.

Religion is the only classic Complex Adaptive System based on a life after death belief (that engineers ones behaviour throughout ones life, in obeisance to a promulgated deity's laws).

To me the resultant diversity of belief systems all purportedly describing the same one god/trinity/etc displays classic chaos complexity.

There is no hand of god in this. It is a natural evolution of the initial memes

Given there is no god, no proof of god, no contact with god (outside of personal "faiths") then each personal faith translation is capable of almost infinite variation, and the sheer number of meme variations generated are such as to be classed as effected by chaos theory.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_system


Why so many sects? Because there is no one unifying god, whose real existence would disprove/distinguish/destroy all fake gods ..........as fake.

So an imagination takes flight, and god is given wings ....... The butterfly effect revisited. Very unlucky for the planet.

Ingersoll's Vow

by Robert G. Ingersoll

When I became convinced that the universe is natural-that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world-not even in infinite space.

I was free-free to think, to express my thoughts-free to live to my own ideal-free to use all my faculties, all my senses-free to spread imagination's wings-free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope-free to judge and determine for myself-free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past-free from popes and priests-free from all the "called" and "set apart"-free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies-free from the fear of eternal pain-free from the winged monsters of the night-free from devils, ghosts, and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought-no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings-no chains for my limbs-no lashes for my back-no fires for my flesh-no master's frown or threat-no following another's steps-no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain-for the freedom of labor and thought-to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs-to those whose flesh was scarred and torn-to those by fire consumed-to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.