Post by throwaway2018 on Jun 24, 2022 14:27:53 GMT
In another thread I recommended reading books by Lee Strobel. The book I read was "A Case for Christ". This book was especially interesting to me because it provided answers to a lot of the most glaring issues I had found while reading books like "Jesus, Interrupted" by Bart Ehrman.
You may be familiar with the issues in the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke. It's one of the referenced issues in "Jesus, Interrupted", and it's often one of the first things that gets mentioned as an example of textual criticism. The issue is regarding the mentions of the census of Quirinius and the murder of children by Herod I. If you are unfamiliar with the issue, you can read more about it here on Wikipedia.
Lee Strobel lists this issue as one that must be resolved to accept that Christ is actually God. Let's set aside that this is a ridiculous claim in the first place - whether or not Matthew and Luke disagree on the nativity story has no bearing on whether or not Jesus existed or whether or not he was divine. To resolve this issue, Lee Strobel references the work of archeologist Jerry Vardaman. Jerry Vardaman claims to have found coins with micrographic lettering mentioning Quirinius, and claims that the existence of that coin provides ample evidence placing a census of Quirinius around 11BC. Jerry also makes a number of other very specific claims, which can be found quite easily through Google if you would like more information.
Micrographic lettering is a pretty astounding claim in the first place; how could it have survived this long, how was it created in the first place, what was the purpose of lettering on coins that could not be seen with the naked eye? It gets better; to back up his claims, Vardaman supplied drawings of these coins, rather than actual coins.
I want to call something out in that second image. In the center of the boxed area, you can make out the letters "REX JESVS". Recall that these coins are supposed to be dated to Jesus time, so according to Vardaman somewhere between 12BC and 20AD. The letter J did not exist until about 1400AD. Further, the lettering on these coins contains a mix of both Greek and Latin words which seems, well, odd.
Lee Strobel has been confronted with this information and informed that his book is incorrect. There is actual video evidence of this floating around somewhere. He knows the information is bad, and yet, when he republished his book, he did not bother retracting his statements or even noting that the evidence has since been debunked. He continues to offer this as a reason to believe that the Matthew and Luke accounts are not in error. This is just one reason why he is an academic fraud, as brought up by PRNoLonger. He has no issue with knowingly lying and deceiving his audience, just to make more money and further his cause.
You may be familiar with the issues in the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke. It's one of the referenced issues in "Jesus, Interrupted", and it's often one of the first things that gets mentioned as an example of textual criticism. The issue is regarding the mentions of the census of Quirinius and the murder of children by Herod I. If you are unfamiliar with the issue, you can read more about it here on Wikipedia.
Lee Strobel lists this issue as one that must be resolved to accept that Christ is actually God. Let's set aside that this is a ridiculous claim in the first place - whether or not Matthew and Luke disagree on the nativity story has no bearing on whether or not Jesus existed or whether or not he was divine. To resolve this issue, Lee Strobel references the work of archeologist Jerry Vardaman. Jerry Vardaman claims to have found coins with micrographic lettering mentioning Quirinius, and claims that the existence of that coin provides ample evidence placing a census of Quirinius around 11BC. Jerry also makes a number of other very specific claims, which can be found quite easily through Google if you would like more information.
Micrographic lettering is a pretty astounding claim in the first place; how could it have survived this long, how was it created in the first place, what was the purpose of lettering on coins that could not be seen with the naked eye? It gets better; to back up his claims, Vardaman supplied drawings of these coins, rather than actual coins.
I want to call something out in that second image. In the center of the boxed area, you can make out the letters "REX JESVS". Recall that these coins are supposed to be dated to Jesus time, so according to Vardaman somewhere between 12BC and 20AD. The letter J did not exist until about 1400AD. Further, the lettering on these coins contains a mix of both Greek and Latin words which seems, well, odd.
Lee Strobel has been confronted with this information and informed that his book is incorrect. There is actual video evidence of this floating around somewhere. He knows the information is bad, and yet, when he republished his book, he did not bother retracting his statements or even noting that the evidence has since been debunked. He continues to offer this as a reason to believe that the Matthew and Luke accounts are not in error. This is just one reason why he is an academic fraud, as brought up by PRNoLonger. He has no issue with knowingly lying and deceiving his audience, just to make more money and further his cause.