The Nativity: A Critical Examination

A collection of 70 posts

Biblical Exegesis

Returning to Debunking the Nativity: A Christmas Round-Up

[caption id="attachment_6023" align="alignleft" width="113"] My book. Dig it.[/caption] I have, at different Christmases, run some series debunking the historical claims within the Bible (specifically the Gospels of Matthew and Luke) to show them as wanting, running alongside my book

Biblical Exegesis

(The Worst) Quote of the Day (Ever): JohnM on Probability and Whatnot.

Holy cow. Get ready for this. I am not trying to be rhetorical here, but these are corkers, and none of them in a good way. The total lack of understanding is almost embarrassing. Should I waste my time dealing with these comments? Probably not. It gets frustrating when an

nativity

Conflicting Genealogies of Jesus and JohnM's Thesis of a Matrilineal Bloodline Refuted. Again.

It's all so painful, watching apologists insist and insist on a thesis in light of it being thoroughly refuted. So here I go again, in some kind of masochistic use of my time. I will say this again, as I did a few years ago, because the same

Biblical Exegesis

Debunking the Nativity: Ancestral Maths

As I have pointed out numerous times, the census as claimed in the Gospel of Luke, is simply incoherent.  I have given out a challenge to one of the commenters here. Here is my challenge in the form of statements that the apologist has to address: 1. A client kingdom

Biblical Exegesis

The Nativity Census Challenge: Update

For any of you who haven't been reading the threads on the census, a challenge that I set to See Noevo to answer, I would like to update you on what he has delivered by way of riposte: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIIuR-HjFho For longtime readers

Biblical Exegesis

The Nativity Census Challenge: Possibiliter ergo Probabiliter

Let us recap on the Nativity Census Challenge posed to a Christian commenter here. Here is my challenge in the form of statements that he has to address: 1. A client kingdom has never been taxed directly or had such censuses in the history of the Roman Empire. 2. When

Biblical Exegesis

The Nativity Census Challenge: Answer This.

My Christmas goodwill and patience has evaporated like a week-old pan of mulled wine left on the slow-burning hob. Infamous commenter here, See Noevo, most of the time just has no ability to see his own comments and behaviour in an objective light. He suffers very much from the Dunning-Kruger

Biblical Exegesis

Nativity Plays, Epistemology and Censuses

I recently had the twee pleasure of seeing my twins in their annual Nativity play at their primary school. This is something that goes on in every single primary school up and down the nation, almost without fail. As I point out in my book on the Nativity accounts and

Biblical Exegesis

Debunking the Nativity: A Christmas Round-Up

[caption id="attachment_6023" align="alignleft" width="113"] My book. Dig it.[/caption] I have, at different Christmases, run some series debunking the historical claims within the Bible (specifically the Gospels of Matthew and Luke) to show them as wanting, running alongside my book

Biblical Exegesis

Christmas Crackers: To Bethlehem or Not to Bethlehem

This came up in conversation and so I will present the issues concerning Bethlehem in the nativity accounts in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. These posts concerning the nativity sit alongside my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination. Bethlehem is a very important place for the average Christian. It

Biblical Exegesis

Christmas Crackers: Why Return to an Ancestral Town for a Census?

Since this has come up in a recent thread, where Christian commenter and biblical accuracy asserter See Noevo has been defending it, I thought I'd run through some of the many myriad issues with the Lukan census. This excerpt is taken from my book, The Nativity: A Critical

Jesus

Casting Doubt on the Nativity of Jesus again

My usual seasonal spiel goes something like this... Holidays are coming, holidays are coming... It's that time of year, you know, the interminable run-up to Christmas when big corporations vie for your hard-earned cash in an attempt to exploit the seasonal goodwill brought on by the imaginary birth

Biblical Exegesis

Merry Christmas Everybody, but It Never Happened Though...

Christmas is upon us; the season of joy and merriment. I have a book called The Nativity: A Critical Examination, which is a topical read, methinks. Given the time of year, let us look at the claims of the (only two) Gospels that actually mention the birth of Jesus. Which

Biblical Exegesis

Responding to Criticism on the Herod/Census Problem

This is my second rebuttal to the efforts Dave Armstrong is putting in to trying to debunk my claims of contradictions in the Bible. The first rebuttal, completed yesterday, looked at his criticisms of my case that there are contradictions involved in the accounts of Jesus alighting on the shore

Biblical Exegesis

Debunking the Nativity: Boney M

[caption id="attachment_6023" align="alignleft" width="113"] My book. Dig it.[/caption] I have recently been running a series debunking the historical claims within the Bible (specifically the Gospels of Matthew and Luke) to show them as wanting, running alongside my book The

Biblical Exegesis

Conflicting Genealogies of Jesus and the Thesis of a Matrilineal Bloodline Refuted

In one of my recent (indeed, the last) posts about the Nativity, it has been pointed out that some Christians defend a particular harmonisation of a biblical difference. I would like to set it out here in order to show that his epistemological approach is somewhat dodgy and that the

Biblical Exegesis

Debunking the Nativity: Contradictory Genealogies

This is the fourth instalment in the "Debunking the Nativity" series and I will concentrate on the genealogies of Jesus. These posts sit alongside my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination. Both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew contain genealogies which look to trace Jesus’

Biblical Exegesis

Debunking the Nativity: The Male Genome

This is the third instalment in the "Debunking the Nativity" series and I will concentrate on the virgin birth. These posts sit alongside my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination. Continuing along the theme of the conception of Jesus, let us look at biological problems that have theological

Biblical Exegesis

Debunking the Nativity: The Mistranslation of "Virgin"

This is the third instalment in the "Debunking the Nativity" series and I will concentrate on the virgin birth. These posts sit alongside my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination. Remaining on the subject of the virgin birth, it is worth noting the issue involving the mistranslation of

Biblical Exegesis

Debunking the Nativity: The Virgin Birth

This is the second instalment in the "Debunking the Nativity" series and I will concentrate on the virgin birth. These posts sit alongside my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination. The first thing to note is that the Gospel authors had an agenda. They were pro-Jesus non-eyewitnesses who

Biblical Exegesis

Summing up the Nativity as Concisely as Possible.

I'm going to work on this, but here it is, so far. Joseph ended up taking his 9 month pregnant partner (impregnated without anyone’s permission) on an 80 mile journey on donkey-back on unmettaled roads to a census that, as a woman, his wife did not need

Biblical Exegesis

Casting Doubt on the Nativity of Jesus

As I have said before, Holidays are coming, holidays are coming... It's that  time of year, you know, the interminable run-up to Christmas when big corporations vie for your hard-earned cash in an attempt to exploit the seasonal goodwill brought on by the imaginary birth of a godmanspirit.

Biblical Exegesis

Herod Has Problems

Over on a previous post and thread from a long time ago, one (Christian) commenter declared that the likes of JP Holding and Jason Engwer had basically dealt with all of the harmonisation issues within the context of the historical problems in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew and their

Speaking Engagements

#CrackingNight

I had the absolute pleasure of talking to Barnsley Skeptics in the Pub last night in their "Skeptic Dungeon" - a lovely cellar bar venue below a pub in Barnsley city centre. The topic for the night was The Nativity (about which I have written a book and

Aaron Adair

Response to Triablogue's Jason Engwer on Nativity Accounts (Part 1)

Triablogue's Jason Engwer has written a criticism of some of my recent posts (as well as my book The Nativity: A Critical Examination) on the Nativity accounts in Matthew (and Luke). Here, I will respond to him and his points.