The bible

[PostmodernProphet]

salty......you have quoted me three times......perhaps I should tell you I haven't read any of your posts since the first month you joined......

[ExpressLane]

last time I bother responding to you....HIM is the Father.....Him is the Son.....Him is the Holy Spirit....stop wasting my time......

So in the garden Christ said he had a will that the Father clearly did not have. Do you think Christ used his divinity to defeat sin? Interesting. Because in my understanding is that Christ used his manhood to defeat sin so he completed the job that Adam should have done.

[saltydancin]

salty......you have quoted me three times......perhaps I should tell you I haven't read any of your posts since the first month you joined......

So doubt as the national religion of Islamidiotocracy fabricated human reproduction medical pseudoscience misnomer Christiananality pedophilia avoidance - acceptance disorder of suicidal super egos examples are so expressively results of cross conditioning as should be quoted....

[ZenMode]

I know I'm very late to the topic. We don't really know who wrote most of the Bible, with the exception of some books of the New Testament which are most certainly written by Paul. It seems fairly certain that Jesus was a real person, but there's no reason to believe he's divine in any way and there's little reason to believe that many of the stories about him are real.

[Into Тhe Night]

why?......it would be more logical to believe he never mentioned it because he didn't hear about it.....I expect in those days there were many things that people didn't hear about in other lands........for example, the wise men didn't show up in Jerusalem until three years later......strange way to start your attack on the bible......do you have anything with a little more meat on it than your silly assumptions......

So Philo writes about something as mundane as the shield controversy with Pontius Pilate but neglects to mentions the magical Jewish wizard who can walk on water and feeds thousands of people with infinite fish?

Lol. Ok.

[Into Тhe Night]

It's hard to believe you studied to be an Orthodox priest without being aware that the historical books of the Old Testament give some of the best historical information we have about the Near East from the first and second temple periods.

The Pentateuch is obviously primarily mythology and allegory from a much older period of Hebrew culture.

There are no serious scholars of antiquity who doubt Jesus existed and was executed by Roman authorities; whether he was divine or how much of his actions and words were later embellished or exaggerated is open to skepticism.

There are plenty of scholars who doubt Jesus ever existed. The Christ myth theory is really popular among scholars today.

[Into Тhe Night]

Why would a JEW who rejected Christ give credit to Christ. The Jews wanted to ignore Christ and his power. Much like how our news media tends to ignore news that they don't think fits their narrative today. A great example just admitted Hunter's laptop is genuine after over 750 days of ignoring it. A Jew wouldn't recognize things that threatened his personal power as a Jew. Christ's message threatened to dissolve Jewish religion.

Lol. You do know that Christianity comes from Judaism, right? Jesus, if he existed, was a Jew, as were his apostles.

During the first century, there were many Jewish sect leaders claiming to be the messiah. They all had disciples and some were even alleged to have performed miracles. The Jesus story was just the one that happened to catch on.

Have you ever read Philo's writings? Philo was very much interested in finding the messiah. St. Paul was influenced by Philo and much of Philo's theology can be found in Paul's writings. The fact that Philo says nothing about Jesus is telling.

[PostmodernProphet]

So Philo writes about something as mundane as the shield controversy with Pontius Pilate but neglects to mentions the magical Jewish wizard who can walk on water and feeds thousands of people with infinite fish?

Lol. Ok.

are you still around?......I thought you had realized you were outclassed and left town......

[PostmodernProphet]

its even more telling that neither Jesus or Pilate mentions someone as important as Philo.....

[Cypress]

There are plenty of scholars who doubt Jesus ever existed. The Christ myth theory is really popular among scholars today.

None of the Jesus myth authors I am aware of are employed at prestigious American universities.

If you can't get a faculty position at a reputable American university, then you are not a top tier scholar.

Whatever anyone thinks about Jesus' or if stories about him were embellished, the fact is Jesus is the most well attested Palestinian Jew of the first century CE. There are four gospels written about him by independent authors who used different sources, some of whom weren't aware of each other. The Gospels themselves rely on earlier written accounts (Q, L, M), probably written in Aramaic, which no longer exist.

Outside the Four Gospels and even outside the New Testament, several dozen other first century authors wrote letters and epistles attesting to Jesus. The first century Jewish historian Josephus makes reference to Jesus. Paul almost certainly knew Jesus' brother James.

It doesn't pass the laugh test that Mark made up Jesus and all the writers after him just picked up the lie and ran with it.

Christianity was a tiny sect in the first century. There was no reason for the broader Jewish diaspora to pay any attention to it. The Romans just considered Jesus to be one of many apocalyptic Jewish mystics and of no particular importance.

[Into Тhe Night]

are you still around?......I thought you had realized you were outclassed and left town......

1. I don't live here, unlike some people.
2. You clearly can't account for Philo's lack of comment on your magical Jewish wizard.

[Into Тhe Night]

None of the Jesus myth authors I am aware of are employed at prestigious American universities.

If you can't get a faculty position at a reputable American university, then you are not a top tier scholar.

Whatever anyone thinks about Jesus' or if stories about him were embellished, the fact is Jesus is the most well attested Palestinian Jew of the first century CE. There are four gospels written about him by independent authors who used different sources, some of whom weren't aware of each other. The Gospels themselves rely on earlier written accounts (Q, L, M), probably written in Aramaic, which no longer exist.

Outside the Four Gospels and even outside the New Testament, several dozen other first century authors wrote letters and epistles attesting to Jesus. The first century Jewish historian Josephus makes reference to Jesus. Paul almost certainly knew Jesus' brother James.

It doesn't pass the laugh test that Mark made up Jesus and all the writers after him just picked up the lie and ran with it.

Christianity was a tiny sect in the first century. There was no reason for the broader Jewish diaspora to pay any attention to it. The Romans just considered Jesus to be one of many apocalyptic Jewish mystics and of no particular importance.

This is the kind of crap you might find on an evangelical apologetics website.

1. Again, there are plenty of scholars who deny Christ ever existed. You don't have to be employed at a "prestigious American university" to be considered a scholar, or even a good scholar. (And what about universities outside of America? Lol.)

2. The gospels are so full of mythology as to be meaningless. Mark, the earliest, was written about 40 years after Jesus' alleged existence. Matthew and Luke use Mark as a primary source, and both offer plenty of contradictory details. John, written probably in the early second century, is so far removed from the time period in question and so full of its own contradiction as to be meaningless.

3. There were not "several dozen" first-century writers commenting about Jesus. Some of the writers of the New Testament wrote their texts in the later part of the first century, but none of them knew Jesus or were witnesses of his ministry. They were all writing decades after the fact. Josephus' single comment about Jesus, written almost half a century after a fact, has been toyed with over the centuries by Christian copyists. This is an agreed-upon fact among scholars. They fabricated the famous passage in question in an attempt to give an air of credence to the story of Jesus (which actually says a lot about the lack of contemporary witness to Jesus).

The fact is that there isn't one single contemporary writer who wrote about Jesus. Take Philo. He was a prolific writer who lived at the same as Jesus allegedly did and wrote extensively on life and current events in Jerusalem, yet he writes absolutely nothing about a magical Jewish wizard performing miracles for the three years before crowds of people. If the gospels are to be believed, Jesus was practically a celebrity and people would pour out of cities to see him. Yet Philo, who writes about Pilate and mundane politics in Jerusalem, is quiet on the subject. If Jesus caused such a ruckus for three years and was the equivalent of a movie star (at one point, the gospels tell us, the crowd was so large that Jesus had to get on a boat to preach), then why does nobody who was alive at the time write about him? Why are the earliest writings about him decades later from the hands of pious believers? Why is there no secular eyewitness account of the magical Jewish wizard celebrity? (The answer is painfully obvious, but religious faith has a way of blinding people.)

4. Yes. I agree that Christianity was just one of many messianic sects. Messianism was popular in first-century Palestine. The Jews wanted the Romans gone and people wanted a messiah to free Israel from outside rule. The fact that the Jesus sect got popular and none of the others did is due to random circumstances. Many of the Christian rituals, like baptism and the eucharist, actually come from the so-called "mystery religions" that existed in the empire at the time and they have no Jewish origin whatsoever.

5. I never claimed that Mark made up Jesus. But there is a clear evolution in the Jesus story. Mark, the earliest gospel, makes no mention of the virgin birth. Mark's version of Mary also depicts her as being embarrassed when Jesus begins his ministry and wondering if he is out of his mind. Mark also depicts Jesus as having brothers who attempt to get him to stop preaching so he doesn't embarrass the family.

None of that jives with the virgin birth stories of Luke and Matthew, which were written decades after Mark. I mean, how can a rational believer reconcile those two very different depictions of Mary? Why would she be embarrassed of Jesus' ministry if she she had been visited by angels thirty years prior and told that her baby was the son of God?

Clearly, the virgin birth story is bullshit. It was extremely popular in ancient times to claim that someone was born of a virgin as a means of giving that person credibility. The claim was made of Alexander the Great. It was even made of Hercules (lol). Most likely, as the Jesus story evolved, people began adding the virgin birth nonsense as a way to give him more credibility.

So, again, I don't claim that Mark simply "made up" Jesus. But there is clearly an evolution of the story.

[PostmodernProphet]

The fact is that there isn't one single contemporary writer who wrote about Jesus.

the fact is, all four of the gospel authors were contemporaries of Jesus......Matthew and John were of the 12 disciples......Luke was a follower of Jesus and accompanied Paul on many of his journeys......Mark was a disciple to the Apostle Peter and often carried messages between Peter and Paul.......

[PostmodernProphet]

Again, there are plenty of scholars who deny Christ ever existed.

of course......there are atheists everywhere.....but, the issue is whether they are scholars trained in biblical research who have evidence to support their denials......the vast majority of those who have actually studied the issue of the authenticity of the scriptures agree that the gospels were written by those they were named for.....

[PostmodernProphet]

Clearly, the virgin birth story is bullshit.

every atheist is entitled to his beliefs......just realize we have equal proof that your story is bullshit........you know it all boils down to faith, not reason....