Peter Kirby wrote:The argument for a historical Moses and the idea that faith must be used to reach any conclusions regarding ancient Judaism or Christianity.
Thank you, Peter, for clarifying your stance on DuvDuv's quote, above.
At the risk of further annoying you, (sorry, if so--not intentional), allow me to elaborate a bit.
First of all, I do not claim any spiritual, emotional, or physical kinship with any other member of this forum. I know no one, except as internet contributors, and that includes you, Peter.
Secondly, if some idea, upon which I have elaborated a couple of sentences, happens to correspond with the thoughts expressed by another forum member, that should be taken as merely indicating a temporary alignment of the sun, moon, and stars, and not some sort of minuscule conspiracy to thwart Peter Kirby.
Finally, the word "idiocy", in my view, is unreasonable, when applied to the honest expression of a sentiment at variance with one or more prominent forum members.
Let us re-examine what DuvDuv wrote:
At least in the case of Jewish history there can be anecdotal references among mutually antagonistic sources about the existence of a particular individual. In the case of Moses, his existence is upheld by Jewish, Samaritan, Muslim, Christian, Roman and Greek sources. This does not exist in the case of Paul.
But ultimately there is no empirical proof there is only FAITH
I express here only my own opinion, not one intended to be in synchrony with that of any other forum member.
I do not agree that this quote indicates that "The argument for a historical Moses and the idea that faith must be used to reach any conclusions regarding ancient Judaism or Christianity."
I interpret this quote as follows:
Moses had been a legendary figure, whose historicity has been suspect for centuries, despite having been claimed as genuinely human, by writers from many different cultures and epochs, just as had been the historicity of Herakles attested to, by none other than Philo of Alexandria. However, the FACT that so many authors, from so many different cultures, writing at so many different periods of human civilization, attested to the veracity of the claim of Moses' existence, in no way mitigates the FACT that Moses' very existence can only be accepted on FAITH, not empirical evidence. A similar situation exists for Paul of Tarsus, about whom, however, there exist even fewer authors attesting to his existence, than for Moses or Herakles. There is no empirical evidence for the legitimate historicity of these characters. By contrast, as Philosopher Jay has noted, there exist at least three different Greek writers attesting to the existence of Socrates and Plato, acknowledging of course, that Moses and Herakles both had been claimed to have lived a millenium before Plato.
Regardless of DuvDuv's position on this matter, in my opinion, any idiot can recognize that FAITH is absolutely required to believe in the divinity of any of these religious figures. There exists no evidence of any kind to support the Mormons, the Jews, the Christians, the 7th day Adventists, the Shiites, the Sunnis, the 29 sects of Hinduism, the 41 sects of Buddhism, the zoroastrians, the last of the Mandaeans, or the last of the Mohicans.
So, YES, FAITH is required, Peter, to reach any conclusions about religious doctrine, for it is, all of it, 100% NONSENSE.