Plotinus said:
As far as I can tell, Daniel doesn't say anything about Jesus - he simply refers to a "son of man".
Any Christian theologian will tell you that, in the New Testament, Jesus is the Son of Man. This is a title He used of Himself in humility.
Plotinus said:
Note, in particular, that Jesus does not claim in those quotes that he is "the son of man".
Maybe not in those quotes. But what about this exchange with His disciples? It is clear that Jesus is referring to Himself as the “Son of Man”.
Matthew 16:13-17
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples,
"Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
"But what about you?" he asked.
"Who do you say I am?"
Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."
Jesus replied,
"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”
Notice again the humility of Christ. Though He is the Son of God, he didn’t go around telling people that He was- He let others identify Him.
Plotinus said:
Given that Luke and Matthew simply copied Mark, together they constitute only one source.
Surely you don’t mean that. Mark is 13 chapters long; Luke has 24 chapters and Matthew has 28. If Luke and Matthew simply copied Mark, where did the 11-14 extra chapters come from?
Plotinus said:
Even if they were all independent, that would mean only that we have particularly good reason for supposing that Jesus really said it. But what does that prove? It doesn't mean Jesus was right, does it?
Please cite me a case when Jesus was ever wrong. (I will address the Wailing Wall later).
Plotinus said:
I have already mentioned Jonah's preaching to the people of Nineveh (he said the city would be destroyed, but it wasn't; note that he did not say it would be destroyed unless they repented).
If Jonah’s message was that the city of Nineveh would be destroyed, regardless of the actions of the Ninevites, what then of this?
Jonah 3:10
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.
God said He threatened destruction, not promised it. Obviously, we have only one sentence of Jonah’s message to the Ninevites, "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned." Do you think that is all Jonah said to Nineveh’s inhabitants? Or that based on one sentence, the Ninevites believed the message and repented?
Obviously, Jonah’s entire message was not saved for posterity- just the crux of it.
Interestingly enough, the Gospel of Mark never mentions Jonah and Nineveh- but the Gospels of Matthew and Luke do. If Matthew and Luke simply copied Mark, where did this statement by Jesus come from?
Matthew 12:41
"The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here."
Plotinus said:
And 1 Kings 22, where God instructs his prophets to lie to the king.
Sorry, try again. I will post the text so observers can see if it was really God’s prophets who were told to lie…
1st Kings 22:19-23
Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by, on His right hand and on His left. And the LORD said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ The LORD said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the LORD said, ‘You shall persuade him, and also prevail. Go out and do so.’ Therefore look! The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you.”
First things first. We know that, in times past, demons and Satan himself had access to God’s throne.
Job 1:6-7
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them. And the LORD said to Satan, “From where do you come?”
So Satan answered the LORD and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking back and forth on it.”
The passage from 1st Kings says that the Lord (Jehovah) was sitting on His throne. Did prophets go to Heaven to talk to God while He was seated on His throne? No. And the account clearly states that it was not a prophet that God commissioned. Rather, “a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD”. A spirit in Heaven can be either an angel, or a demon (fallen angel). As soon as the spirit said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets,’ we can identify the spirit as a demon. Demons and even Satan himself have to get God’s permission before they can do certain acts against God’s people. Going back to the book of Job, 1:3-6,
Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause.”
So Satan answered the LORD and said, “Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will surely curse You to Your face!”
And the LORD said to Satan, “Behold, he is in your hand, but spare his life.”
Satan asked permission from Jehovah God to strike Job, and God granted it. Noticed that this played into God’s hands, for Job passed the test!
So the demon went out, and was ‘a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets,’. This is where false prophets get their information from- demons. The question becomes one of, who were the true prophets in Israel at that time, and who among the prophets were false? Earlier in the chapter, we see that 400 prophets were false!
1st Kings 22:6-8
Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Shall I go against Ramoth Gilead to fight, or shall I refrain?”
So they said, “Go up, for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.”
And Jehoshaphat said, “Is there not still a prophet of the LORD here, that we may inquire of Him?”[a]
So the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is still one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the LORD; but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.”
And Jehoshaphat said, “Let not the king say such things!”
Micaiah was the only true prophet identified in Israel at that time. If you go back to the first post from 1 Kings, you will see that it was the prophet Micaiah who relayed the heavenly account of the lying spirit! So, Satan instructed his prophets to lie to the King, and Jehovah God allowed it, for the wicked King Ahab died in battle only hours after this prophecy was issued!
Plotinus said:
I've already mentioned Jesus' prediction of the Temple's destruction in Mark 13:2 - look again and you'll see that he predicts that not one stone will be left on another. Well, there are still stones of that Temple resting on each other - that's what the Wailing Wall is.
The wailing wall was never a part of the temple. The wall was built to help support the temple’s structure; it is a retaining wall. Besides, Jesus' prediction was made in reference to the disciples comments about the grandeur of the temple itself- the subject is the building, not the retaining wall.
Mark 13:2
And Jesus answered and said to him,
“Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”
Plotinus said:
. If it's possible to make accurate predictions but be a false prophet, and possible to make inaccurate predictions but be a true prophet, then what is the criterion?
It’s not possible to be a true prophet and make inaccurate predictions.
Deuteronomy 18:22
If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.
Plotinus said:
Are you saying that everything in the Bible is true because some things are true?
No. I already alluded to that. The Book of Ecclesiastes is mostly one man’s opinion (King Solomon) of how the world operates. Most of that book is simply not God’s view. However, Solomon reached the right conclusion at the end of the book:
Ecclesiastes 12:13
Now all has been heard;
here is the conclusion of the matter:
Fear God and keep his commandments,
for this is the whole duty of man.
And I already mentioned how Satan and other lying spirits have their words recorded in the Bible. One has to have discernment in such matters.
Plotinus said:
But of course, even if you could show the Bible to be completely consistent, it still wouldn't make it true.
Alright, then what criteria do you suggest we use to test the Bible (or Koran or any other holy book) is true or not?
If a book, being a collection of books written by many different writers, in many different countries, using several different languages, across many centuries, were to be found to be entirely consistent; what would that say about the veracity of that book?
Good discussion, by the way.