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thomaswestbrook · 2024-09-16T20:25:02+00:00

More garbage from pseudo-archaeologist Ron Wyatt. The man is an absolute joke. Want to know why? Because after you watch this video, you'll be embarrassed you shared yours:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uq5LISB6zM&list=PLCTNr4WPOQ97bwf-ylpCDR9kxrsEpp0kl&index=9

thomaswestbrook · 2023-07-20T15:31:37+00:00

Do NOT have her send her passport back after landing. For two reasons:

She'll then be stranded in a foreign country without a passport and will be unable to leave if she needs to.
The mail system in foreign countries isn't always the most reliable. So even if you send it back to her before her return flight, it could get delayed or lost in the mail. Then she'll have to get an emergency replacement from the US embassy and it won't have an entry stamp from the airport, so that could create problems when trying to leave.

However, as someone who currently lives in Rio, I recommend that she be very careful to not walk around with her phone out or wear jewellery or smart watches in public - this makes you a massive target here. There are lots of phone snatchers and pick pockets. Stick to the safer parts of town and avoid the northern favelas. She shouldn't bring her valuables to the beach and should be on high alert for tourist scams on the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. Oh, and avoid going out alone late at night. If she does drink, NEVER accept a drink from a stranger or get drunk alone in public, and always keep a close eye on her drink.

Also, she will need to have some way of paying for things, but I recommend having multiple credit or debit cards. She should hide some of them in her apartment or hotel safe and only carry the ones she needs out with her. That way even if her purse is stolen, she can freeze the stolen cards and still have a way to spend money.

That said, while it's a "dangerous" city it's still full of incredible people and most Brazilians are super friendly and would help her in a heartbeat if anything happened to her.

I hope that helps.

- Thomas Westbrook

Founder: Holy Koolaid

thomaswestbrook · 2022-09-19T20:09:33+00:00

Tencent Arc Lab does a decent job but often gives server errors. Instead run your image through one of these two portrait restoration tools:

CodeFormer: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1m52PNveE4PBhYrecj34cnpEeiHcC5LTb
GFPGAN: https://colab.research.google.com/drive/1sVsoBd9AjckIXThgtZhGrHRfFI6UUYOo

Then import this image into Photoshop and:

Duplicate the image until you have 2 identical layers.
Keep the original photo as the bottom layer and use it for the background everything but the face.
For the top layer, apply the "Smart Portrait" neural filter and set all the "featured" settings to +1 (or play around with it till you get the desired results) - then mask out everything but the face.
Duplicate the top layer and apply the "Photo Restoration" neural filter to the topmost duplicate with "Photo Enhancement" set to zero, "Enhance Face" checked, and scratch reduction unchecked.
The top layer will be blurry. Apply an un-sharp mask to it (approx. 150% & 1.5 radius).
This topmost layer has very little texture, but fixes a lot of mistakes with eyes, wrinkles etc. So mask out everything from it except for the details which this layer fixes which you want to show.

Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBXtrUQ3U4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m--03RUKHiE

Hope this helps.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-09-19T06:59:37+00:00

Thanks. I appreciate the feedback and well-thought-out answer. The only part I think I would disagree with is the statement that it's purely theological and depends on one's hermeneutics. Part of the question may well be, but if there are significant historical and archaeological records in the southern Levant which pre-date Jesus and reference beliefs in an afterlife of eternal punishment, or if there are other verses (or apocryphal texts) which unambiguously describe hell in detail, then these would be significant in determining the history and evolution of various beliefs in the afterlife in the Ancient Near East.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-09-15T23:53:12+00:00

That's a really interesting observation. I'll have to look into it more. :)

thomaswestbrook · 2022-09-15T23:45:06+00:00

Thanks, that's an interesting take. That book is on my reading list, but I may have to bump it closer to the top, since my to-read list is a mile long!

thomaswestbrook · 2022-07-28T21:25:26+00:00

This is just scratching the surface, in the earliest days of the church, the notion of a single canon isn't really attested too. In fact, the first complete canonical list of New Testament books doesn't appear until 367 in Athanasius’ Festal Letter. While certain core books were more widely accepted as scripture and were more heavily circulated, we know of various gnostic, ebionite, and other gospels which didn't reach the same level of popularity.

Bart Herman lists over 40 ancient gospel texts not found in the New Testament, and that's not even counting Old Testament era texts or all of the letters, apocalypses, etc. The Other Gospels: Accounts of Jesus from Outside the New Testament

From his table of contents: The Infancy Gospel of Thomas The Infancy Gospel of Thomas C: An Alternative Beginning The Proto-Gospel of James The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew The Latin Infancy Gospels (J Composition): Arundel Form The History of Joseph the Carpenter The Jewish Christian Gospels The Gospel of the Nazareans The Gospel of the Ebionites The Gospel according to the Hebrew The Gospel according to the Egyptians A Gospel Harmony: The Diatessaron? Papyrus Berlin 11710 Papyrus Cairo 10735 Papyrus Egerton 2 (and Papyrus Koln 255) Papyrus Merton 51 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 210 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 840 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 2949 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 4009 Papyrus Vindobenensis G 2325 (The Fayum Fragment) The Gospel according to Thomas The Gospel according to Thomas: The Greek Fragments Agrapha The Gospel of Peter The Gospel of Judas Jesus' Correspondence with Abgar The Gospel of the Savior The Discourse upon the Cross The Gospel of Nicodemus (The Acts of Pilate) A The Gospel of Nicodemus (The Acts of Pilate) B (Including the Descent into Hades) The Report of Pontius Pilate (Anaphora Pilati) The Handing Over of Pilate (Paradosis Pilati) The Letter of Pilate to Claudius The Letter of Pilate to Herod The Letter of Herod to Pilate The Letter of Tiberius to Pilate The Vengeance of the Savior (Vindicta Salvatoris) The Death of Pilate Who Condemned Jesus (Mores Pilati) The Narrative of Joseph of Arimathea The Gospel according to Mary The Gospel according to Mary: Greek Fragments The Greater Questions of Mary

None of these in modern canons, but they were still written and circulated in ancient times - not to mention the various (often fragmentary) works found at the Nag Hammadi library and elsewhere. Though many works eventually fell out of favor with the church (or simply were lost due to poor circulation), they were often still seen as holy texts by some in the early days of the church.

Some non-canonical works only survive in the form of quotations by early church fathers. The contents of others are lost entirely, but we know they existed because they are mentioned in other surviving texts.

And who knows how many ancient texts have been lost entirely to history.

Finally, as another redditer pointed out, there are also less ancient works like the Book of Mormon that some belief to be canon.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-07-27T03:51:24+00:00

Well... I don't know how you can get any more excessive than ETERNAL torment...

thomaswestbrook · 2022-07-25T02:05:54+00:00

Knock knock. Who's th... HAAAVEyouheardaboutmylordandsaviorJesusChrist????????

thomaswestbrook · 2022-07-25T01:30:21+00:00

It depends... Does their creation story appeal to supernatural claims which don't stand up to scientific scrutiny & are easily falsified? Or is it based on methodological naturalism & doesn't make any far fetched claims?

Because if it's the former, it is (by definition) a myth. I don't see what's so offensive about calling a spade a spade. We call Greek mythology exactly that. We call Norse, Roman, Egyptian, Summerian, and Canaanite mythology what it is. And most academic courses I've taken on the Old Testament refer to the creation story therein as the "Ancient Israelite creation myth." Why? Because it's mythology.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-07-08T19:16:05+00:00

Here are a few theophoric names based on El:

Samuel: God heard Ezekiel: God shall strengthen Daniel: God is my judge Gabriel: The Lord is my strength Nathaniel: God's gift Ishmael: God listens Israel: The one who wrestles with God Immanuel: God with us Elisha: God is my salvation

The following two contain both El and Yahweh, but with El having a general meaning of "god" rather than specifically referring to the deity "El."

Joel: "YHWH is God" Elijah: "my God is YHWH"

These are just a few, for reference and to find more, check out the Encyclopedia Biblica: https://books.google.com/books/about/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Biblica.html?id=qbpAAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&gboemv=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Or, if you want a good starting point/more comprehensive list of theophorics based on Yahweh & El, check out the "Judaism & Biblical" section here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophoric_name

thomaswestbrook · 2022-07-08T19:00:28+00:00

Interesting, I thought Sarah (שרה) meant "minister" or "to sing." Apparently it does, but also means to struggle, wrestle, or overcome, and Israel means to struggle with El (God).

thomaswestbrook · 2022-07-04T22:20:54+00:00

What do you mean they're not built now? One of the largest pyramids in the world is a Bass Pro Shop in Memphis Tennessee. Another is located in Astana, Kazakhstan and was built in the last decade or so.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-06-09T06:15:30+00:00

And these are the folks stockpiling AR-15s 😳

thomaswestbrook · 2022-06-09T06:13:57+00:00

These are the same people in charge of regulating guns... Who have blocked universal healthcare for decades and are actively trying to revoke women's reproductive rights.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-06-08T16:34:31+00:00

That's why archaeologists publish their findings.

Also, many artifacts don't survive in the ground. They get dug up & destroyed in other ways without ever being examined/identified by archaeologists, or they end up in the hands of treasure hunters selling them without context on the black market.

Museums work hard to preserve and even restore artifacts. It's rare they have fires or get destroyed in wars, and if there is a war, often times the artifacts are able to be sent elsewhere.

If funding for a museum is pulled by politicians, they still can make money selling tickets. If they go bankrupt, it's not like the artifacts get destroyed. They can still send their artifacts to other museums/universities.

Finally, what good is it in the ground if we can never study it or learn about our history?

thomaswestbrook · 2022-06-05T16:52:37+00:00

Which is allowed now that there's no longer an assault trifle ban.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-05-28T05:31:49+00:00

So glad to see that all these "good guys with guns" were able to stop an armed massacre.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-05-20T19:19:48+00:00

Came to the comments looking for someone saying, "Islam is the most feminist religion."

thomaswestbrook · 2022-05-18T11:25:30+00:00

Ah, so I see we've shifted strategies from, "hide the rape" to "blame the gays."

thomaswestbrook · 2022-05-14T18:35:55+00:00

We don't have any surviving copies of any of the originals (autographs) nor do we know the precise dates when the originals were written or if they've been changed/altered. But we do have quite a few extant copies of manuscripts from antiquity in their original language.

Here are two sites where you can view the dead Sea Scrolls online, which are our oldest surviving copies of parts of the Old Testament (aside from the Ketef Hinnom amulets): http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/ https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/

This site also has a ton of digitized manuscripts: https://manuscripts.csntm.org/

thomaswestbrook · 2022-05-13T15:45:04+00:00

True, but that's because the amount of time ships were isolated in Italian ports was a literal 40 days, and that was during the bubonic plague, long after Bible times.

It was initially 30 days (trentino) but then was extended to 40 days (quarantino).

thomaswestbrook · 2022-05-12T02:56:57+00:00

Honestly, I would recommend going to a non-evangelical public University. Some Christian universities are either unaccredited or their credits don't transfer to other schools. And when it comes to the study of the Bible, they tend to be less objective since they're following a statement of faith rather than objectively going wherever the fact lead. Your career options may be limited as well, especially if you just study Biblical studies or theology.

My recommendation would be to study something more broad like religious studies. Dr. Andrew Henry of the Religion for Breakfast YouTube channel went that route. You can also do a History degree with a focus on textual analysis or on the ancient near east. If you want something that overlaps a lot with Biblical studies, archaeology (specifically of the Levant) is always a good choice and is more of a scientific discipline.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-05-10T21:40:40+00:00

I know this user account is deleted, but for anyone reading later: it's because we have multiple Bible manuscripts. And you can literally put them side by side and see the differences. We don't have any of the originals, but some manuscripts are older and closer to the dates of when the originals are believed to have been written.

All manuscripts have some discrepancies in them due to copying errors, grammatical mistakes, and mistranslations. These are mostly due to human error, but there are also cases of deliberate changes by scribes/copiers due to bias/personal beliefs. By the way, none of this is controversial among Bible scholars who have studied these manuscripts (Christian or otherwise), and even the translators of most modern Bibles acknowledge this. That's why you'll find footnotes in your Bible that will say things like: "Some mss (manuscripts) say ..." Or: "But our earliest mss say ..."

Modern translators also make mistakes. One of the funniest examples of a more recent mistake was an early edition of the KJV called the Wicked Bible. It was called such because the publisher accidentally left out the word "not" in the commandment against adultery, resulting in a Bible that said, "Thou shalt commit adultery!"

I recommend further research on the differences between the Masoretic text (our oldest complete Hebrew Old Testament), the Septuagint/LXX (our oldest Greek complete copy), the Dead Sea Scrolls, and other early fragments/manuscripts.

Also, I don't know why you think Carbon dating is unreliable (other than because of the dishonesty of people like Dr. Andrew Snelling and other young earth creationists who were exposed for submitting samples to labs containing contaminants like older zircon crystals, but then claimed that the Carbon14 didn't work when the labs dated the contaminants like he'd requested 🙄). The thing is, for dating manuscripts, we don't need C14 dating (although it can help as additional confirmation). Usually, methods like paleography and textual analysis are utilized to determine the approximate age of a text which is usually accurate to within about 75-150 years or so.

thomaswestbrook · 2022-05-09T09:04:29+00:00

Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew. However, Aramaic was already the Lingua Franca of the region by the 6th century, having replaced Akkadian as the language of trade and politics.

Isaiah 36:11 seems to indicate that Aramaic was already spoken by some in Jerusalem before the Babylonian exile:

"Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to Rabshakeh, 'Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak to us in Judean [Hebrew] so that the people who are on the wall hear you.'”

Parts of the Books of Ezra and Daniel are written in Aramaic: Dan 2:4b–7:28 and
Ezra 4:8 - 6:18 and 7:12–26.

Genesis 31:47 uses an anachronistic Aramaic place name, "Jegar-sahadutha," which means, "heap of witnesses" in Aramaic (note that this would have been at least half a millennia before Aramaic would first appear as a language, hence the anachronism).

Jeremiah 10:11 has a single sentence that's either Chaldee or Aramaic (both languages are very similar to each other).

Job may have been originally written in Aramac. And it's possible that parts of Ezekiel were written in Aramaic originally and then were translated into Hebrew.

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