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James Randi Speaks: Questioning the Bible
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hello whoever and wherever you may be
I'm James
Randy or did you
guess there are well accepted accounts
from the Bible that Christians and
others never question events and
locations that are part of the story
told of Christ and his history one such
is the account in John 1 of the birth of
Christ in the lower Galilee town of
Nazareth this town is not mentioned at
all in the Old Testament nor in any of
the extensive rabinal literature and the
only established site there is the
ancient Town Waterwell now referred to
No Surprise as Mar's well the modern
town is covered with churches also no
surprise and though archaeology offers
no support at all for them the nazarin
can point out sites such as Joseph's
carpentry shop and the spot where Mary
received the Annunciation the message
from the angel Gabriel that she was
pregnant with Jesus as well as the exact
location of menac Christi the table
where Jesus died with his Apostles after
his resurrection and the sight of the
synagogue where Jesus preached as a lad
but Nazareth may be overrated as an
historical site that proves the
inherency of the Bible author Rene somm
has written The Myth of Nazareth the
Invented Town of Jesus a book that
effectively demonstrates the
controversial archaeology of the town
where the Bible has Jesus Christ being
born of course the religious faction has
reacted furiously to the book
specifically in the bulletin of the
Anglo Israeli archaeological Society B A
IAS which devotes some 47 pages to five
angry rebuttal there is we are told an
ambitious commercial Enterprise
presently under construction in Nazareth
to rescue the facts about jesus'
Hometown it's a resort known as Nazareth
Village
it is designed to eventually contain
streets and several dozen ston houses
inhabited by actors and storytellers in
authentic Garb who will illuminate the
life and teachings of Jesus a notion
perhaps inspired by the phenomenal
success of Disneyland where Tinkerbell
and Mickey Mouse are seen flitting and
strolling about also in authentic Garb
as of 10 years ago an international
Consortium of Christian groups called
The Miracle of Nazareth International
Foundation had raised some $60 million
for the project with contributors in the
US such as former President Jimmy Carter
Pat Boone and Reverend Reggie White
formerly a Green Bay Packer football
star Scholars associated with the
Nazareth Village project Steven fan
Yehuda rapuano and Ross Voss none of
them
archeologists now say that evidence has
been discovered there for a town that
existed at the time time of Jesus a
settlement before the first Jewish war
that took place in 70
CE this evidence was simply lying on the
open surface of the site they say this
claim author Psalm shows is bogus and it
results from misdating mislabeling
misinterpreting and from Pure invention
these artifacts and facts were somehow
missed by the previous crowds of
professional archaeologists who have
been digging on that site for the last
century the Nazareth Village Resort lies
on a 15 acre plot of land called the
Nazareth Village Farm the
mvf the scholars under discussion
surveyed the farm dug on it and
published a lengthy report in the 2007
issue of the B AAS Journal there is
little difficulty to show that there
evidence for a town there 11 small
pieces of pottery shards actually dates
as late as the 2 Century CE and Psalms
research shows that the rest of the
material from the Nazareth site dates
well after the time of Jesus
Christ there simply is no demonstrable
evidence from the Nazareth site that
dates to the time of Jesus Christ and to
helenistic times in fact one awkward
fact after the other stands in the way
of such a claim for example the Church
of the enunciation at Nazareth the
largest Christian structure in the
Middle East is a primary destination of
Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land of
course it is there that the faithful
believe Mary received the Annunciation
from the Archangel Gabriel at her home
but the existence of a number of tombs
directly under the structure firmly
established by archaeologists is just
impossible since for the faithful tombs
have no place under such a structure
according to Jewish religious law Jews
can not live in the vicinity of tombs
which are a prime source of ritual
impurity so the ancient commentary on
Jewish law mandates that tombs must be
located outside of the Village proper
thus tombs under the house of Mary are
denied by the tradition these post Iron
Age tombs are also post Jesus middle
Roman and later and the wealth of
pottery found in them is also later
consider continuing pilgrimage to
Nazareth which fortifies the convictions
of the True Believer while supporting
the community financially depends on the
sanctity and the reputation of the site
as author Psalm points out perhaps the
entire Jesus story depends on it too he
also tells us not to be too surprised if
remarkable finds at Nazareth
conveniently appear in the next few
years finds that substantiate a
settlement there at the time of Christ
to fit the demands of the Christian
tradition the upcoming material will
have to be early and non- funeral and
just recently as if PM himself had
prophetic Powers the nvf now reports
that a cach of helenistic and early
Roman coins has recently been found at
Mary's well at the Northern end of the
Nazareth Basin but strangely nothing
even remotely similar had ever been
found there before in the entire Cent of
professional digging about a cache of
helenistic and early Roman coins a
bonanza for any archaeologist is exactly
the sort of evidence which the Believers
need in order to decide the matter in
their favor but the earliest coin found
there dates to about 350 CE in fact a
2006 report from the Israeli Antiquities
Authority signed by the archaeologist
who dug at the Mary's Well site mentions
no early coins at all when coins found
in Wells are very frequent discoveries
the only datable coins she found there
were from the 14th and 15th centuy after
Jesus the facts are that no demonstrable
evidence dating either to the time of
Jesus or to earlier helenistic times has
been found at Nazareth it is a late
Roman Byzantine Village not a mythical
settlement at the turn of the era as
author PM says that question has has
already been answered and answered
convincingly here we have a parallel
with the situation re evidence for the
parapsychological Miracles for
Generations the Believers who support
the Nazareth myth had been defending
their case by demanding prove me wrong
when empiricists come up with the
required facts they discovered that the
facts don't seem to matter to those
people they also know that there's no
way to disprove a myth Psalm notes as I
have that no one can prove that Santa
Claus doesn't exist for example we can
go to the North Pole we can dig up there
all we want and we can find absolutely
no evidence for his gift manufacturing
facility nor for his team of flying
reindeer all the believer has to say
under those circumstances is well you
just didn't look in the right places or
he's hiding or even he's invisible ooh
measuring chimneys tracing gifts back to
the factories and China where they were
made and discovering that the serial
numbers on watches were stamped there in
a little Swiss Town those things prove
nothing to the True Believer the
mythology of Jesus is every bit as weird
oh one additional fact there are the
so-called venerated sites at which the
various Franciscan pseudo archaeologists
have been digging for the last century
or so they were situated where they are
to make them fit as much as could be
done the require requirements of the
gospel's description for example
according to Luke 4: 16-30 quote he came
to Nazareth where he had been brought up
and as his custom was he went into the
synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood
up to read he spoke some controversial
words and all they in the synagogue when
they heard these things were filled with
wrath and Rose up and thrust him out of
the city and led him onto the brow of
the Hill whereupon their City was built
that they might cast him down headlong
end of quote by the way Jesus escaped by
some sort of subterfuge but we don't
have to get into that but let's examine
these infallible facts shall we
according to these holy words said to be
written by St Luke himself there was a
synagogue at Nazareth but extensive
archaeological excavation over a century
remember has only found the city well
nothing else not one one stone of
construction remaining from this Temple
anywhere in the vicinity also there is
no Nazareth Hill thus no brow of the
Hill nor Cliff exists or existed within
the last 100,000 years there is no such
elevation or is there any reasonable
place where such a cliff could have
existed the bare fact is that no
evidence of buildings or Cliffs of any
kind dating to the turn of the era has
has ever been found at these venerated
sites the tourists are barking up the
wrong tree St Luke and thus the inherent
Bible was plainly demonstrably dead
wrong shall we also question the rest of
the Holy Bible H yes I think so we thank
you for watching this latest episode of
James Randy speaks for more of James
Randy and the Educational Foundation
make sure you visit randy. org
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