Actually, anyone who has studied Gensis knows that it was written by at least four authors, so that is kind of impossible. (And before you go accusing them of being heathens, I’ll let you know that my Bible knowledge comes from Catholic HS religion classes).

The 4 Source theory no longer holds sway in Biblical textual and critical criticism.

Right now there doesn’t appear to be any one leading theory, although many believe the books had a final Deuteronimistic editing before they came to be in the form we now know them.

Religious_Zealot on December 22, 2008 at 4:52 PM

Again, it makes me believe that she has mounted a manipulative rumor campaign designed to hurt her former church, that the church is simply trying to undo the effects of her malicious rummors, and that the woman has upped the ante by going to the press — thus undermining her original argument that this is about the church violating her privacy. I can’t prove this, but it seems more reasonable than arguing that her church, or the Christians on this site, are calling for her head.

This is what Allah’s post was about. Does anyone want to speak to it?

flicker on December 22, 2008 at 5:27 PM

The woman definitely pulled a bone-headed stunt when she took this issue to the press. That really undermined any/all argument she had about what the church was doing.

THAT SAID…

…it is obvious that the church continued to go after her after she made it abundantly clear she wanted nothing to do with them.

Now, it IS true that we know this only through her word, which may or may not be completely true (let’s face it, if you’re going to the press you’re going to spin the story to make yourself look better).

However, when contacted by the press, the pastor did NOT take that opportunity to state that they were no longer pursuing discipline against her. In fact, the strong implication in the brief statement quoted in the press is that they most definitely ARE pursuing her.

And the church has no business doing anything with someone who is no longer a member.

Religious_Zealot on December 22, 2008 at 5:36 PM

…um, anyone want to take a crack at this?

MadisonConservative on December 22, 2008 at 4:11 PM

Easy answer is – it’s bunk.

The more detailed answer is:

Ben Franklin was known to occasionally attend meetings of the Hellfire Club in England. The Hellfire Club was known for it’s mockery of religion – although there are many who claim this was done for shock value only.

Because of it’s secretive nature, the Hellfire Club was rumored to be a place where orgies and black masses where held (satan worship). However, there is absolutely no evidence that such occurred.

There is no record that Franklin was a member, and many historians believe that he was, in fact, a spy sent to find out what was happening there.

As for the “thousands of dismembered bodies were found in his basement…”, in 1998 workers discovered the remains of TEN (not thousands of) bodies.

It was a bit difficult to find any kind of credible reporting on the issue (most of the google hits were from conspiracy or occult sites), but I did find an article from The Pennsylvania Gazette, the student newspaper for the University of Pennsylvania. The article tells us that the bodies where in all likelihood used for medical practice:

Then we hit pay dirt: “This work, which started in late 1997, has led to the discovery of the remains of 10 bodies hidden beneath the floor of the basement. The remains, 200-year-old bones, were buried at the time Franklin was living in the house. As most of the bones show signs of having been dissected, sawn, or cut with one skull having been drilled with several holes, the supposition is that they were the results of illegal medical experiments.”
Stop the press, indeed. Enter one William Hewson, husband of Mary “Polly” Stevenson, the daughter of Franklin’s landlady. “In the early 1770s, Dr. Hewson was in partnership with William Hunter who, with his brother John, was one of the founders of surgery in England. After a dispute with Hunter was resolved, with the help of Franklin, Hewson is believed to have established a rival school and lecture theatre in the Stevenson house.” And there, in the basement, according to a Westminster coroner, Hewson apparently buried those “anatomical specimens” — a prudent move, since the corpses had undoubtedly been obtained by illegal grave-robbing.
“The discovery is seen as providing an important insight into a time when significant developments were beginning to take place” in surgery, the Web site notes. “As someone who helped Polly and Hewson, Franklin can be seen as part of that history. There is, of course, no suggestion that Franklin was a grave robber or a participant in the lectures.” Whew.

One more point – while I didn’t do an exhaustive search, all of the articles I looked at that painted Franklin as a Satanist used the same external source – an article in Associated Content, which is an open-content web-site. Their motto is: “Associated Content is an Open Content Network.
Anyone can submit content on any subject in any format. ”

In other words, it’s a blog.

So, on the one hand we have an article in the UPenn newspaper documenting that the bodies (10, not thousands) where used for medical reasons.

On the other hand, we have a blog article written by…,well…,by some person with the username MF.

Religious_Zealot on December 22, 2008 at 8:20 PM

Ben Franklin was a known satan worshipper and thousands of dismembered bodies were found in his basement…

SaintOlaf on December 22, 2008 at 4:08 PM

To sum up:
1) Franklin was NOT a satan worshipper.
2) the remains of 10 bodies where found, not thousands (there were 1,200 bones found, but since the human body contains something like 350 bones, there weren’t thousands of bodies)
3) they were found in the basement of the CURRENT structure, but it would have been the GARDEN during Franklin’s lifetime
4) Franklin wasn’t living at the house at the time the remains were buried – it was the home of an anatomy school.

Other than that, there’s nothing wrong with Olaf’s statement.

/sarc

Religious_Zealot on December 22, 2008 at 8:36 PM