The Upper Room

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12:24 AM

Major new blog post (7.8k words): What is the Wrath of God? Why was the Old Testament God so Angry, yet Jesus was so Peaceful?

ThaddeusB

@El'endiaStarman @David @waxeagle If you are around, user22946 needs some rapid moderation.

El'endia Starman

@ThaddeusB [checks].....[sighs]

curiousdannii

What fun, we've got an angry ranter on the site

El'endia Starman

...I was about to suspend him, but he's already automatically blocked from asking and answering.

Well then. I'll just go delete his stuff.

curiousdannii

It's great when the system works! :)

El'endia Starman

12:32 AM

Yeah! :D

ThaddeusB

@curiousdannii Indeed

Lee Woofenden

Oh man! I just missed all the fun!!!

El'endia Starman

@LeeWoofenden Two questions, four answers, with either just the first paragraph or the whole of:

Its ridiculous how people downvote questions that someone is asking. Apparently, the question is being asked because obviously one doesnt know! If you know the answer; answer! If you dont; keep your downvotes and negative responses to yourself! Simple.

People here are so pathetic and the guidelines are pathetic!! A question is a question and a answer is an answer!! Did GOD say create a website where only PROPER questions can be asked?? No!! Give me a break!! Its senseless how your questions have to be properly asked in this community!! DOES GOD APPROVE OF THIS COMMUNITY?? DOES GOD APPROVE …

Lee Woofenden

@El'endiaStarman I didn't miss it that much . . . :-P

But, I'm glad someone has a concept of Christianity.SE as "inspired by God" . . . if only in the breach lol

Jack Douglas

1:00 AM

You leap from questioning whether the actual authors of the gospels are those to whom they have been attributed to, to calling them "secondary, unattributed sources, rather than actual historical sources", why? For example, whether or not Luke-Acts was authored by Luke the physician (about which critical opinion is evenly divided), there is strong internal evidence that it is indeed an eye-witness account. Whether you consider that internal evidence… — Jack Douglas 2 mins ago

…compelling or not, the issue of the actual author attributed to Luke-Acts is entirely orthogonal to the issue of whether it is (or is not) an eye-witness account, and you appear to conflate the two in your answer. — Jack Douglas 1 min ago

^^^^ can someone sanity-check what I've written here?

I appreciate Dick's contributions, but it seems to me his logic in this answer at least is very selective…

1 hour later…

curiousdannii

2:06 AM

@JackDouglas Yeah, it's not a great answer. Dick's answers are on the whole on the very critical side of scholarship, which is fine, this site allows answers from all perspectives. But I think that it's hard to present critical evidence against something like the resurrection, it's too much a faith issue

Jack Douglas

@curiousdannii I realised in chat that it boils down to a question of the definition of what is a 'primary' source and what is a 'secondary' source. What we need it a real historian to weigh in and tell us which one is wrong!

ThaddeusB

@JackDouglas Perfectly sane. Dick's perspective is, of course, allowed, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that is annoyed when he posts basically the same answer in every question vaguely asking about history: "Everyone agrees Marks is primary (not true)... blah blah blah ... We can't be sure about the real history."

curiousdannii

@JackDouglas I'd take that sentence from Wikipedia as meaning that the gospels are the chief sources, not actual primary sources

Jack Douglas

@curiousdannii I would too except for the link to the definition of primary sources

but Wikipedia is a bit 'meh' so it's possible that the link isn't really supposed to indicate that

curiousdannii

@JackDouglas Yeah and I doubt any of us can be bothered looking up the references supposedly supporting that

ThaddeusB

2:17 AM

FWIW, I'm pretty sure a historian would consider the gospels primary sources

Jack Douglas

@ThaddeusB I think Dick applies a non-historical framework of logic/proof to the historical evidence context. I do hopw he reads this skeptics link I suggested

curiousdannii

The synoptic gospels are clearly edited collections of stories, which I'd think makes them secondary

Jack Douglas

@curiousdannii I'm going to ask a historian :)

curiousdannii

But the primary/secondary issue isn't really relevant to the question which was asked

ThaddeusB

@curiousdannii Yes, that is certainly true. If secondary sources were somehow invalid, then modern historians' accounts of history would be even more invalid. :)

curiousdannii

2:19 AM

@JackDouglas It would be a good question to ask on History.SE

ThaddeusB

Those that push the "only Mark can contain valid historical info" idea baffle me - they certainly don't think they are incapable of writing better histories 2000 years later, but somehow Luke writing maybe 10 years after Mark (if one subscribes to the common dates supplied by the 2 source theory) must be completely unreliable because it is late.

curiousdannii

Also Paul's letters are primary sources, and contain independent evidence from the gospels

ThaddeusB

@curiousdannii yep

@Jack, BTW I found your answer on Matt 6:22-3 very helpful. I'm sure you gathered as much already, but since I happened to bump into you in that, I thought I'd make it explicit. :) (I was studying that passage today and published commentary wasn't helping resolve my confusion about the strange sounding (to me) analogy, but then checked BH.SE and found your helpful answer waiting.)

Jack Douglas

@ThaddeusB thatks, I appreciate the encouragement!

Ask Elisha

Q: Should Luke-Acts be considered a 'primary' source concerning events in Jesus' life?

Leaving aside questions of authorship and the precise date it was written (i.e. assuming the author was in contact with actual eyewitnesses), would Luke-Acts properly be describe as a 'primary' or 'secondary' source concerning the life of Jesus? By the definition I found here from princeton.edu,...

Jack Douglas

2:33 AM

@ThaddeusB I actually knew about the NIV footnote I think, not sure why I didn't mention it in the answer

3 hours later…

curiousdannii

5:18 AM

@AskElisha Why did it get migrated?? Does History.SE not cover the discipline of history, only its results?

I'm not sure if it's a valid question for BH...

El'endia Starman

5:33 AM

....I now have the opportunity to upvote a question and an answer twice...

@curiousdannii More so, they migrated it to a site where the asker is #9 in reputation.

8 hours later…

curiousdannii

2:00 PM

@ThaddeusB & @Nathaniel Just thought I'd say that it's been fantastic having you both join the site and become such regular contributors!

Only two months and you've contributed dozens of great posts between you

Nathaniel

@curiousdannii Thanks! It's good to be here.

ThaddeusB

2:38 PM

@curiousdannii Thanks. It's my pleasure to contribute.

2 hours later…

Lee Woofenden

4:14 PM

@curiousdannii @ThaddeusB @Nathaniel I'll second that! - even though I haven't been here much longer than you guys have.

2 hours later…

El'endia Starman

6:09 PM

Agreed!

Your editing and flagging work has been very helpful too.

ThaddeusB

@Nathaniel Unfortunately, it's a bit hard to understand Not that I disagree, but, funnily enough, this explanation is actually copied directly from the JW website.

Nathaniel

@ThaddeusB Good catch. It is easier to follow on their site, for sure, but the references are still not clear to me. It looks like there's great source material available for an answer, however.

El'endia Starman

6:24 PM

If I recall correctly, the majority of plagiarized answers on the site are in fact from JWs. Which is annoying - we want to have good answers from JWs, but not if they're plagiarized.

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