Welcome to the new-and-improved KingDavid8.com! While the content of the old site is being added, you may have trouble finding some of the pages you are looking for, and some of the links may be broken. Have no fear - it will all be working properly within a week or two. I hope. My pages also have boxes where readers can leave comments and criticisms, so don't be shy.
This website is mostly aimed at providing arguments and evidence for the non-Christian, the Christian who may be struggling with what he or she believes, or those Christians who are interested in reaching out to others.
My opinions may contradict what other Christians believe, but many of my arguments are also based on arguments given by a variety of Christian sources. I especially owe a debt of gratitude to the writings of Glenn Miller, J.P. Holding, Paul Maier, Grant R. Jeffrey, Lee Strobel, and Gerald Schroeder. Please feel free to borrow ideas or arguments of mine (since many of them were not mine to begin with). I do ask that if you quote from my site directly, to please credit me.
Bart Ehrman's New Book - 'Did Jesus Exist?'
I just finished reading historian Bart Ehrman's latest book, called "Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument For Jesus Of Nazareth". Though most of his recent books have argued against Christian beliefs, since Ehrman is admittedly an agnostic with atheistic leanings, this is one that I believe most Christians with an interest in the mythicism issue would enjoy.
I myself have recently published a book on the mythicism issue, but I'd say Ehrman's book makes a more persuasive case. While I am a Christian and admittedly biased in favor of Jesus, Ehrman has absolutely no reason to believe in a historical Jesus other than having been persuaded by the abundant historical evidence. Though I suppose the same goes for me in some sense, since I am a former atheist who was swayed by the evidence, though not just for Jesus' historicity (as Ehrman was) but for His resurrection and divinity as well.
Erhman does argue against a divine/resurrected Jesus in this boo ... Read Full Article
The good people at FreeThought Nation have agreed to take on my Zeitgeist Challenge! When it's decided exactly where the debate will take place, I'll post the link here, but we're discussing it in this thread
I will post any updates here. ... Read Full Article
I'm back discussing things on the FreeThoughtNation forum (re-joining on page 11 - Here's a link). I'm asking if the people on the forum can meet the Copycat Challenge as it relates to Horus. So far, two of them (FreeThinkaLuva and Tat Tvam Asi) say they can easily meet it, and another one (Voice Of Reason) is calling them "ignorant" and saying they haven't carefully examined my challenge, and is declaring that they will fail if they try. Of course, he seems to think the problem is with my challenge, and not with the evidence.
When I asked FreeThinkaLuva why university-level scholars reject the mythicist case, his response is that they:
1) Aren't required to study it (though that's hardly a good reason, since even those so-called scholars that do study it weren't required to, either, and it ... Read Full Article
Mythicists and 'Crucifixion'
In talking to mythicists in the FreeThought Nation forum, some of them argued that "crucifixion" can mean something more than affixing someone to a cross or tree and them dying on it, as happened to Jesus (and as I take it to mean in my Christ-myther Challenge).
The issue here is that this kind of thing clearly is what people think of when they hear the term "crucifixion. So when someone argues that Horus was crucified, they're expecting their audience to believe that Horus was affixed to a cross or tree and died on it, as happened to Jesus.
One of them pointed out that, in Antiquities 5:3, the historian Josephus refers to the death of the Chief Baker in Genesis 40 as a "crucifixion", even though it was not a case of him being affixed to a cross or tree and dying on it. The Chief Baker had offended the king, and as punishment for the offense, was beheaded and had his dead body impaled on a pole. Josephus here was certainly expanding the definition b ... Read Full Article
Was Jesus A Copycat Savior?
No. The first time I heard this theory, I was in a chat room and a person came in listing "comparisons" between Jesus and the Egyptian god Horus (such as that Horus was also born of a virgin, had 12 disciples, resurrected someone named El-Azarus, was crucified and resurrected, etc.). Wanting to see if this was true, I hit a few websites about Egyptian mythology so I could read the Horus story for myself. None of them gave any such details, and even said things which clearly contradicted this person's claims. I also went to my local library, and even a bookstore, looking at books on Egyptian mythology, and found nothing in the way of comparisons to Jesus. I then went to as many websites as I could find where similar lists were given, and asked the people running the websites to back up their claims. Most didn't respond to me, but I did have a few conversations, the text of which are in the section further down (none were able to g ... Read Full Article
Christ-Myther Challenge. You Could Win $1000!
I have a website that is trying to debunk the claim of the Jesus story being influenced by pre-Christian deities. I've asked several of the websites that are promoting the "Christ-myth" to provide evidence for their claims, and so far none have given me such evidence. You would think that if they had any evidence to support their claims, they'd be parading it for all of the world to see instead of keeping it to themselves. I thought I'd try something a little more radical, and pay them to provide me their evidence, if it exists.
... Read Full Article
Response To FreeThoughtNation's Critique Of My Website
Someone pointed out to me that, back in April of 2010, the website Freethough Nation did a "critique" of my website in its forums. I was, at first, surprised that they didn't inform me of the critique, since it would seem the only fair thing to do. But after having read it, I can see why they didn't want me to know about it. The moderator who wrote it, Freethinkaluva22 (henceforth, "Luva" on this page), completely misrepresents myself and my website in his critique, claiming (among other things) that the majority of my website is centered around criticism of Acharya S's works, which anyone who has been to my site would know is not the case.
... Read Full Article
Response To Pendragon's List (Page 1)
A member of the wiccan religion named Pendragon, whose site is here: http://pendragon343.com has made a list of 142 questions for Christians. He has given me permission to post his list, with my answers, on this site. His questions will be in italics, and my answers will be in plain type.
I invite Pendragon, or anyone else, to respond to anything I say on these pages or to ask further questions.
I should also note that J.P. Holding, who runs the Tektonics site, has also answered Pendragon's list here: http://www.tektoonics.com/parody/pendragon142.html. I did read Holding's answers to the list and while I agree with Holding on many points, all of the answers on this site are my own.
Permission to repr ... Read Full Article
Jesus & Adad Parallels - A Christian Response
Also known as Hadad, this is a Sumerian god that critics claim parallels the Jesus story. He was a storm god who both brought rain to feed the crops, and brought droughts and storms to kill his enemies. There are no parallels to Jesus. There is a story about Hadad hiding in a bog for seven years which some critics say corresponds to a death and resurrection, even though there's no death or resurrection in the story.
Links: Myths Encyclopedia: Adad Probert Encyclopedia: Adad
... Read Full Article
Zeitgeist Challenge. You Could Win $1000!
I am convinced that the majority of the claim made about pre-Christian deities in the movie "Zeitgeist" are false. I am offering $1000 to anyone who can provide evidence backing up the claims that Zeitgeist makes. Contact me if you think you have the evidence. I list the 36 claims that Zeitgeist makes about Horus, Attis, Krishna, Dionysus and Mithra. You only have to provide evidence for 18 of them.Here is what I'll accept as evidence.1) Versions of their stories in which we can read about them actually doing these things, provided that the stories are generally agreed-upon by scholars to be pre-Christian. This is the one I'd most like to see. If the deities are truly believed to have done these things, you would think there would be stories somewhere in which they do it.2) Any information coming from scholarly sources who are not specifically trying to prove parallels to Jesus, for example:a) General myth ... Read Full Article
Did God Create The Universe?
Please note that this site is not a defense of Young-Earth Creationism, a belief I do not happen to agree with. This is simply a defense of the idea that our universe was created by an intelligent designer. I would like to note that I used to be a Naturalist (one who believes that the universe had no intelligent creator), so I believe that I understand the arguments for both sides to a fair degree.
There are really three parts to the Creationism question.1) Did the universe begin to exist?2) What can we logically and scientifically conclude about whatever force (if any) caused the universe to exist?3) Does the 'God of the Bible' fit the criteria ... Read Full Article
In What Order Were Man And Beasts Created (Gen 1 vs. Gen 2)
Note: due to the length of the texts, I won't copy it in here.
In Genesis 1, beasts were created before man.
vs
In Genesis 2, man was created before beasts.
---------------------------------
Genesis 1 gives the order of creation chronologically. The wording in Genesis 2 may seem odd, but this is what is suggested by the original Hebrew: In 2:18, God says He will 'make' a help meet for Adam. The word used for 'make' is the Hebrew 'asah', which means 'to appoint'. If He was speaking of creating a help meet for Adam, the word would have been 'banah' (the word used when it says God 'made' Eve). 2:19 says, "And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living ... Read Full Article
This web page is not intended to be a statement of my personal faith, or an argument against the validity of non-Christian religions, or absolute, irrefutable proof of Christ's resurrection. To accept the idea that Jesus Christ was bodily resurrected on the third day after His death is to accept what is impossible in the natural sense, and as such will always require a large degree of faith in that which violates all natural laws and human logic.
Rather, what I am attempting to do with this page is to hopefully enlighten people to some accepted historical facts (that is, facts which are agreed upon by even non-Christian historians) surrounding the resurrection and early Christianity, and provide arguments against many of the prevailing anti-Christian theories about 'what really happened'.
I plan on using some assumptions on which I will base my arguments. These are not statements of faith, but widely accepted historical facts.
1) That Jesus Christ actually li ... Read Full Article
How Do We Know If Our Copies Of The NT Writings Are Accurate?
The fact is that for practically all ancient writings, we no longer have the original manuscripts. We don't have them for the writings of Homer, for Virgil, or for Plato, either. So should we just give up on all ancient writings, say "we don't know what they originally said, so they're of no value to us"? Of course not. While there is no way to determine with 100% certainty what an ancient writing originally said, there are ways to determine how reliable a copy can be considered to be. When scholars have copies of ancient writings, they can:A) Compare the different copies that they have (if the copies are wildly different, then obviously many changes were made) ... Read Full Article
In the movie "Zeitgeist", Peter Joseph says, "This is Horus. He is the Sun God of Egypt of around 3000 B.C. He is the sun, anthropomorphized and his life is a series of allegorical myths involving the sun's movement in the sky."
Other than the fact that he's from Egypt around 3000 B.C., all of this is false. The Egyptian sun God is Ra, Not Horus. Horus is associated with the sun, as are most Egyptian deities, but he is hardly "the" Sun God.
Joseph then goes on to talk about Horus and his enemy, Set, metaphorically battling every morning, where Horus would win the battle, and every evening, where Set would win the battle, which he says corresponds to the sun rising (Horus winning) and setting (Set winning and sending Horus to the underworld). Except for Horus defeating Set, none of this is part of Egyptian mythology. Set never defeats Horus, Horus never goes ... Read Full Article
Jesus & Adonis Parallels - A Christian Response
There are several different versions of the Adonis legend, but none of them provide any sort of parallel to the story of Jesus. Critics claim that Adonis was born of a virgin, but there are no versions of the story in which he is virgin-born. In the most common versions, his mother (named either Myrrha or Smyrna) conceives Adonis by having sex with her father, the King of Assyria. Ashamed, she hides in the woods and the gods turn her into a Myrrh tree. The tree later bursts open (or is broken open by a wild boar, or struck by an arrow fired by Theias) and Adonis emerges. In other versions, his mother is Queen Metharme of Cyprus or Aephesiboea, but I've found no references to either of them being virgins.
Critics also claim that Adonis died and was resurrected. Adonis is killed by a wild boar which was sent by Artemes (or, in some versions, Ares), and each ... Read Full Article
Response to Kenneth Humphreys' JesusNeverExisted.com (Page 1)
This page is a response to the website www.JesusNeverExisted.com, created by Kenneth Humphreys.
A visitor asked me to look at this site, and I felt it needed a response. The website's text will be italicized. My responses will not be.
Most of this site's texts are on other pages than the main one, so I will respond to each of the other pages individually. Some of the pages deal with arguments other than the one that Jesus never existed. I may add those pages on later, but for now, I'll just respond to those which argue that Jesus never existed.
He has a whole series of pages arguing against the Old Testament (and its heroes such as Abraha ... Read Full Article
Why Believe In God, If God Cannot Be Proven To Exist?
Technically speaking, nothing can be 100% proven. We consider something 'proven' when the evidence favors it more than it opposes it. So the question is not 'can God be proven to exist?', but 'does the evidence favor the existence of God more than it favors the idea that there is no God?'. When dealing with the question of God's existence, we would not only look at the scientific evidence (which alone, I believe, strongly favors God's existence), but also the philosophical and spiritual evidence as well. For example, if someone were to ask you whether or not love existed, I doubt you would deal only with the scientific evidence, but would deal with the questions of why people risk their lives to save others, or why a couple will stay together for many years, forsaking all others. The only way that we can absolutely know something to be true is to experience it ourselves. For example, if you've n ... Read Full Article
Does The Bible Say Pi = 3?
Nope. The relevant passage is 1 Kings 7:23 which says "And he (Hiram) made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about." Critics love to point out that if it was ten cubits across, and thirty cubits around, then this would mean that pi equals three, when it actually equals about 3.14.
First of all, the circumference equally exactly pi times the diameter is only true of perfect circles (which only exist in theory). Try making a circular object yourself, and you'll find that the circumference will only be ... Read Full Article
Jesus & Aeneas Parallals - A Christian Response
Someone wrote me saying that they were told that, in Virgil's pre-Christian text "Aeneid", the hero, Aeneas, was born of a virgin, was the son of God, and was called "savior" and "king of kings". Aeneas was a mythical Trojan warrior who appeared in Homer's "Iliad" (among other texts), but was the central character in Virgil's "Aeneid", which was written between 29 and 19 B.C. I've seached an English translation of the text (first link below) for the words "savior", "son of God", and "king of kings", and none of those phrases appear anywhere in the text. The word "virgin" does appear six times, but never in reference to Aeneas' mother or his birth. Aeneas was, per mythology, the child of the goddess Aphrodite (aka Venus) and a human prince named Anchises. The mythology is specific about the fact that they had sex, since Anchises is afraid that the gods would destroy him for having slept with a goddess (and in some versions, Zeus does ki ... Read Full Article
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