On Sun, 2004-04-18 at 01:18, Scott K wrote: > Let's be honest here. Everyone has an agenda. Just because FARMS doesn't > fabricate it's own research, doesn't make them any less objective than > somebody else. I can't say I've read much from FARMS, so I won't make > the judgement call. However historians in general will give no credence > to anything remotely spiritual or mythical. Scholars date most new > testament works after 70 CE* , the destruction of the Jewish temple, > because Christ prophesied about it in Mark. Many other NT works appear > to be textual derivatives thereof (Mathew, Luke, James, etc.), so they > must have been written later, and not by the original eyewitnesses whose > names they bear. They don't date them c. 70 CE because they have > evidence that puts authorship there, but because they cannot appear to > accept any of the spiritual evidence provided by the text. It's all a > matter of where your bias lies.
I don't think much of my post is particularly relevant to anything, but I do find these things interesting to me, at least intellectually. In fairness, I believe there is evidence that some books (including parts of the 4 gospels) were in fact written after 70 CE. Not that that matters nor does it really effect whether or not the writings are authentic or true. I think there is nothing wrong with faith-promoting research into events and places associated with scripture and particularly LDS beliefs. The only thing one must be cautious about is placing too much emphasis on such things to the point that when that some prevalent theory is proven false that it doesn't effect my testimony. An example of this was early speculation about the Dead Sea Scrolls that has proven false. There is a lot of historical revisionism going on in academia especially with regards to Christian history (history is, after all, written by the conquerors). Some of it is bad, some of it is actually good. I think there's nothing wrong with challenging many of the long-cherished (even by LDS) traditions. For example, our view of how the Jews and Romans viewed each other during the time of Christ is completely wrong. Even during that time which included Pontias Pilate, Jews pretty much ran their own affairs including enforcing Jewish law which included capital punishment. The old idea that The Jews did not have the power to put people to death and thus had to ask the Romans to crucify Jesus for them is just not true. They did have the power and would have used it against Jesus were it not for the Passover. No one really knows who actually crucified Christ (and it does not matter), but it could have been either the Roman soldiers or Jewish soldiers. Anyway. All I'm trying to say is what I believe isn't dependent on any particular set of dogma, and that when things are really important to know, we receive them from an authoritative source directly. > > * CE, common era, is not a term I generally use, but I was describing > their viewpoint as accurately as I could. Personally I prefer anno > domini for the same reason Elder Nelson and other inspired people. I don't much care if it's AD or CE, because the calendar is not accurate anyway. The birth of Christ is anywhere from 6 BCE to 2 BCE depending on who you talk to. In the interest of fostering good will amongst my many non-Christian friends, I generally use BCE and CE in anything other than a Church context. Michael > > > > Daniel Crookston wrote: > > >All I remember is that someone asked about FARMS and he guffawed and said > >that they don't do any "real" archaeology and then moved on. I haven't read > >anything from them, but it seems like they're scientists with an agenda, and > >any scientist with an agenda is going to produce shoddy (though possibly > >objective-seeming) results. > > > > > > > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list -- Michael Torrie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
