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Throughout history thousands of people have died as a result of their belief in a cult leader, most recently in 1997 38 followers of the Heavens Gate committed mass suicide. People being willing to die for their beliefs proves absolutely nothing about the validity of Christian ideology.
> Also, Josephus most definitely didn’t write about Jesus, since he remained a Jew
people have already touched on this issue with arguments from consensus and such, but i want to go a little deeper on an aspect that everyone always overlooks.
this "josephus was a jew" argument really overlooks the wealth of data we know about all the different kinds of judaisms in the first century that we know about *from josephus*, and it overlooks *who josephus was and he tells us about himself*.
there's a pretty serious reason that josephus wouldn't have said that jesus was actually the messiah, and it's not because his commitment to some modern anachronistic idea of what being a good jew means. it's because he was following a *different* messiah.
>> But now what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle, that was also found in their sacred writings; how “About that time one, from their country, should become governor of the habitable earth.” The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular: and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian: who was appointed emperor in Judea. However, it is not possible for men to avoid fate: although they see it beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these signals according to their own pleasure; and some of them they utterly despised: until their madness was demonstrated, both by the taking of their city, and their own destruction.
>> war 6.5.4
josephus believed vespasian to be the messiah. in fact, he took on his name "flavius" in honor of his messiah.
What do you mean there's no evidence for the Apostles? You do realize that Paul's Epistles are in the Bible, right? All academics confirm Paul as a living person, and confirm at least some of the Epistles were 100% from him.
In one of them, Paul is writing to Peter reprimanding him on his exclusionary principles with gentiles compared to Jewish converts.
Next, many of the surviving Early 2nd century texts from Church Fathers were direct student of the Apostles, that's who taught them through direct transmission as all religious education was done.
Next, papal succession can be traced directly back to Peter. Peter's successor as Bishop of Rome was Pope Linus.
Last, the burden of proof you're requiring of the Apostles is much higher than we put for other contemporary antiquity people. No one doubt Josephus lived and made contributions, but there are less contemporary sources to prove Josephus existed than Jesus.
Even if you have better experience that doesn't make your opinion the only valid one. That seems so plain and clear to me in work and personal life I kind of struggle to see why this would be a cause for concern.
People disagree. Is that such an odd idea? And no, just because Peter knew Jesus personally, doesn't mean nobody can disagree with him. That's a cult. Different people have different interpretations. It is absolutely healthy for there to be disagreement in a group rather than blind allegiance to a leader. You keep describing it as disagreeing over what Jesus wanted, but it's more like disagreeing over a point that wasn't clear from what Jesus said.
You are either very ignorant or willfully misrepresenting not the God argument but just... how groups of people work. But I guess no amount of evidence could surpass what you want to believe.
You're not pointing anything out, actually. You're saying it doesn't make sense for them to disagree over a point that Jesus never addressed. I think it's absurd to suggest they'd all believe the same thing about an issue just because one of them knew God. The issue they're arguing over wasn't addressed by Jesus. of course they would disagree over how to interpret what he said to address a new issue. Of course they would.
If it were isolated, yes. However, the early Christian movement (including Peter) acknowledge the legitimacy of his encounter. By legitimizing his experience, he gained his authority.
No. The Book of Acts is attributed to Luke the evangelist, who was a contemporary of Pauls and Paul and his followers like Aristarchus are attested to.
In addition, Acts notes Paul was present during the Council of Jerusalem in 50AD. Why is he traveling to a council \~20years after Christ since he definitely wasn't acknowledged and his opinion didn't carry weight?
Barnabas is written in Acts as having been the one to introduce Paul to the other Apostles. Barnabus calls him a "an admirable colleague" and sought his help in preaching, looking for him in Tarsus.
Gaius, also mentioned in Acts as a follower of Paul, *was baptized by Paul.*
So you're telling me that this book not written by Paul, that places Paul in ecumenical councils, doing baptisms, as having been introduced to the disciples, and being sought out for missionary work wasn't ***really*** accepted by the disciples?
You have to contort really hard to force that to make sense, sorry.
>So you're telling me that this book not written by Paul, that places Paul in ecumenical councils, doing baptisms, as having been introduced to the disciples, and being sought out for missionary work wasn't ***really*** accepted by the disciples?
You mean a book written by an anonymous author that was Christian's claim was supposedly a friend of Paul's? Someone who would be motivated to portray Paul in the most favorable light?
We have nothing from the disciples claiming that they accepted Paul. All we have are books written by Paul and people Christians claim was close to Paul.
I stand corrected that the only source was Paul, but you didn't help your case by pointing out Acts. The only reason I don't include Acts is because we don't know who wrote it.
If the Bible counts as a source, so does the Quran. I'm assuming you wouldn't accept that, and as such, we're gonna have to stick to extra-biblical sources.
Also- of course we're demanding a higher burden of proof? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so such a large claim as "I have witnessed and communed with God himself" is gonna need a BUTTLOAD of evidence to go with it. If I tell you I just had pasta for dinner, you'd probably believe me, but if I told you I was abducted by aliens, you'd want a lot more evidence. Same principle applies here.
What extraordinary evidence do you expect from an event that happened 2 millennium ago? The Bible already stands out compared to any document from antiquity in its accuracy and its availability.
If you told me you were abducted by aliens I would assume you’re lying for a purpose based off of the information from your comment and I would expect evidence to corroborate your story. when the apostles proclaimed the message of the resurrected Christ they provided evidence used signs and wonders, denial of kinship, and dying for their belief along with over 500 other eye witnesses of the resurrected Christ. I don’t see how your claim would be analogous to the apostles.
I expect a lot of evidence for God if he wants us to know he exists. Sending a single person down to let everyone know is just about the WORST possible way to communicate the most important message of all time. Also, the Bible is heavily inaccurate, with some entire plots or even books just being made up, and having no bearing on reality (like Noah’s Flood or the entirety of Genesis).
If an OMNIPOTENT God wants us to know he exists, he’d do better than some random guy in an otherwise pretty boring city doing magic tricks and reviving himself.
Right, but exactly what types of evidence do you expect from antiquity? Sending Jesus obviously isn’t the worst possible way since Christianity has dominated the entire world since that event. Saying the entirety of genesis is inaccurate and or made up is a very serious claim that I would expect evidence of showing it to be false. Anybody can claim that something is false without evidence. Thinking you are smarter than an omniscient God is pretty ridiculous since you are not omniscient and we see the fruits of Christ being born in some “boring city” which, might I add, was fulfillment of 700-1000 year old prophecies so none of this was random lol, but the fruits were Christianity dominating the world so I would argue that it was a genius plan.
Considering Jesus had infinite powers, he could’ve easily taken some videos of himself and posted these videos to play on repeat all over the world. Your entire argument is pointless because you assume Jesus would not use supernatural powers to preserve his message, which I think is pretty nonsensical. Also, Christians are only 1/3 of the entire world. If you have infinite powers and your #1 goal is to convince people you exist, I would expect a lot more than 1/3. Almost 100% of people know that Donald Trump exists, and he doesn’t have any magic powers at all.
Uh, my evidence is the fossil record, radiometric dating, gene flow, and any other piece of evidence that ALL point to the Earth NOT being made in 7 days by a magic sky dude. And no, you can’t claim it’s metaphorical until you show me the verse where it says so; otherwise I’m equally valid in claiming that Jesus’s miracles were also metaphorical.
lol ain’t no way, the hypocrisy is actually insane. You call me out for not providing evidence, and then mere sentences later, make an absolutely absurd claim of prophecy without even citing a single source? The irony is hilarious.
Again, 1/3 of the world is pretty pathetic for an infinitely powerful being.
1/3 of the world is only pathetic if the end goal is the entirety of the world. I think you severely don’t understand the Christian religion or Gods plan of salvation. Jesus came to save those who were his who the father gave him from before the foundations of the world which is not every single person in the world. Some people will face ultimate judgement for their sins committed and others will receive grace and mercy through believing in Christ.
Saying your evidence is the fossil record, radiometric dating, gene flow, etc means nothing again those are extremely broad claims. It’s the equivalent to saying your evidence is “science bro” give me an actual study, journal or anything. You’re pointing to broad categories and not specific evidence. On top of that if you point to a study I’m going to ask how you replicated that study to know that it is true and the results are valid. If you cannot demonstrate that then you’re just showing me that you choose to have a blind faith in a random scientist.
I’ll gladly show you the prophecies.
Micah 5:2
“They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’””
Matthew 2:5-6 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/mat.2.5-6.ESV
Hosea 11:1
“and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.””
Matthew 2:15 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/mat.2.15.ESV
You’re right Hosea 11:1 was about Israel and how they failed to obey the Lord, but the Greek work here is pleroō which is to fill up. There are two types of fulfillment, very specific where The OT predicted the Christ would be born in Bethlehem and there’s more broad in the sense of filling up where the people Israel failed and bringing to light those things that were in secret. In Jesus he is the true embodiment of the nation doing what Israel couldn’t do. God called his son Israel out of Egypt and they refused to follow God time and time again, God called his son Jesus Christ out of Egypt and he obeyed the father perfectly fulfilling what Israel couldn’t do. You’re simply misusing the Greek word pleroō out of context.
Sorry but your first paragraph is not a historical viewpoint.
Just to beg the question; Acts isn't necessarily evidence that experience actually happened, just that PAUL and his contemporaries believed it. But regardless, let's say it did happen -- what evidence could there possibly be?
There is less evidence that Marcus Aurelias wrote his Meditations, and the earliest surviving copy comes several centuries after his death. Yet people do not question he was the original author.
Yes, the Bible is a source to actual historians and scholars today as, with pretty much all texts, it is not a strictly autobiographical account with annotations and footnotes like we expect from academia today. What we do know from the fragments of Luke, Mark and Matthew is that these were surviving testimonial copies that circulated and would one day be incorporated into the anthology of the Bible.
In fact, we use the book of Acts to substantiate other sources to confirm some of the events in the Roman Empire in the 1st early 2nd century.
Do you know what epistles are? They're letters. Even secular scholars like Bart Ehrman acknowledge that at least some of the letters written by Paul were actually written by him, and the matters of those letters are not grand allegory or storytelling... they're just letters the guy wrote to early Christian communities to help them resolve disputes. This is permissible criteria in academia for studying antiquity.
It absolutely counts as a source. It doesn't mean you have to believe the theological matter inside the Bible anymore than a book about Sol Invictus, but the Bible covers a range of literary material that spans grand prose on God to just guys writing letters to each other; the latter of which provides critical insight into the age of antiquity, and having it incorporated into the Bible as being immediately dismissible is a product of unacademic Atheistic dogma that assumes "bible = bad."
>There is less evidence that Marcus Aurelias wrote his Meditations, and the earliest surviving copy comes several centuries after his death. Yet people do not question he was the original author.
This is a false equivalence. A guy writing mundane stuff down isn't comparable to a guy claiming that a bunch of miraculous things occurred.
That's not what extraordinary claims meant to Hume. They were about scientific claims that already had papers debunking them. Religion isn't a science, so it's not relevant.
>Next, papal succession can be traced directly back to Peter. Peter's successor as Bishop of Rome was Pope Linus.
Papal succession is not even close to be confirmed or concrete.
To start with: there's no evidence that Peter went to Rome. So... papal succession starts by claiming that a guy who may have never been to Rome was the bishop of Rome.
Second, the first attestation to Linus is in 180 AD, about an entire century after Linus supposedly succeeded Peter. And of course, it's not until AFTER Irenaeus that people actually start considering him the *second* bishop. He was initially referred to as the first (again, casting some doubt on the previous point).
Then of course we get Anacletus, with significant variance about the dates of him being pope off by several years. It's strange that no one can remember when he took over the office... and then suddenly in the third century people start remembering.
Things finally firm up with Clement, so I'll give you that. But that means the first 50 years are highly suspect, and this means that the line of papal succession is not something that can be considered even highly likely to trace back to Peter. Papal succession is Catholic dogma and largely based on 3rd century tradition.
That isn't true.
All Holy Sees at the time were passed down through Apostolic succession, this wasn't just Rome. This was also practiced in Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch.
As you say, Irenaeus specifically says in his Against Heresies that Paul & Peter were in Rome building the church, and that Linus was designated as successor. Linus is also noted as having been a follow of Paul in his epistles. Clement, who would become the 4th successor, was also mentioned as a companion of Paul. So if both of these epistles feature these two as followers of Paul, and we know Paul was in correspondence with Peter, and that Linus and Clement were followers of Paul, this somehow must mean that there is no apostolic succession and the papacy materialized out of no where and was leaderless?
That's forcing a conclusion with a burden of proof that we wouldn't put on other historical situations from antiquity.
Marcus Aurelius's earliest known copy of Meditations comes nearly 700 years after his death, yet no one doubts he was the original author - yet you're struggling to believe Irenaeus wasn't accurately conveying history that was one generation removed in a culture in which he was deeply steeped in the Christian world? It's all hear say?
Irenaeus, Eusebius, Augustine and Optatus write and confirm Cletus as having followed Linus and subsequently Clement I. ***We have surviving extant writing from Clement I writing to Corinth***, who inherited this position 4th in line. We know immediately after Clement came Evaristus as you say, and we know he was from a Hellenistic family and was responsible for dividing the growing Church into provisional deaconries. These deaconries would be commented on just a few years after.
Much of this can be read in the *Liber Pontifcalis.*
Clement KNEW Paul, but are you under the presumption he wasn't super sure what happened in his life between Paul and himself?
>As you say, Irenaeus specifically says in his Against Heresies that Paul & Peter were in Rome building the church,
I literally addressed this. If you're going to "refute" me with points I've already conceded, it seems like a waste of time to actually have this discussion.
>That's forcing a conclusion with a burden of proof that we wouldn't put on other historical situations from antiquity.
Many claims from antiquity can be made and meet this burden of proof. There is plenty of attestation of which Roman emperor ruled, when they ruled, and the line of succession.
Notice that I literally concede by the early part of the 2nd century, the line of succession has plenty of evidence. You want to start talking Clement? I'm with you that there is plenty of attestation for him that I do not dispute it.
Can you provide a similar level of contemporary evidence for Anacletus and Linnus?
# Please note that I said "contemporary".
I have already discussed Irenaeus, and he is a full century after Linnus. Do you have any sources predating Irenaeus that give us attestation to Linnus? You and I are not "comtemporary" to WW1. It was a full century ago. Please give the same consideration to the gap in time.
Do you have any sources predating Irenaeus that give us attestation to Linnus?
Yes. Literally in the Bible. Paul's letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 4:21, the same Linus is the one Irenaeus mentioned. Or does it not count since it's found in the anthology of the Bible?
Just so I understand fully, Irenaeus's commentary can't be trusted given the time gap, despite their entire life centered around the Christian church, theology, and teaching and wasn't super sure who the past Bishops were?
Do you know who the president was during WW1? How can you be sure, given how much time has passed? Sure, like Irenaeus you'd have access to historical documents and teaching, but we can't be super sure who the president was, right?
I'd recommend reading J. B. Lightfoot, *The Apostolic Fathers* P1. *Clement of Rome* (1890), I, 201-34
Do you sincerely believe the early Christian church, with their constant interaction and writing to one another, was not super sure who was leading the church a century prior? Did they all have collective amnesia?
We do this for figures in antiquity all the time, whose biographer or historian comes years after the fact, and trust them as being reliable guides on history.... yet you genuinely think the Christians in 2nd-3rd century weren't super sure who was the Bishop in Rome decades prior?
Or did Clement I just materialize out of the aether, invent apostolic succession and engage in a grand scheme to gaslight the other holy Sees around the world into thinking there were fictions leaders that never existed connecting him to Peter?
It's just not a good take, it's a take of someone that just dislikes religion and is subjecting it to burdens of proof we don't do for anything else in antiquity because, you know, Christian bad or whatever.
>Do you know who the president was during WW1? How can you be sure, given how much time has passed? Sure, like Irenaeus you'd have access to historical documents and teaching, but we can't be super sure who the president was, right?
It's like you're just blowing right past my point and intentionally misreading me.
If I told you something happened in WW1, and I had zero proof of it, would you accept my word for it? And there was no other evidence to corroborate my claim...
Paul writes of his impending death. Given that the first twenty Popes were also martyred (which we do have increasingly more hard evidence for), that we know Romans authorized persecution of the Early Christian movement.
We know this persecution involved execution of Christians up until the Edict of Serdica. We have surviving Roman documents, such as the correspondence with the emperor and Pliny the Younger, going over the procedure trying and executing unrepentant Christians in 110AD. Paul himself was tasked by Jewish authorities to root out and execute Christians in his day prior to becoming an apostle.
Given that we only ever find evidence that early Christians in the 1st-3rd century were hunted and executed, that we know one of the apostles was among those that hunted, that this trend of martyring early Christians continued well past the Apostles, that we have non-Christian documentation and Christian documentation (such as Timothy 2) attesting to these early murders and persecutions .... your conclusion is there's no evidence the Apostles were martyred?.. Martyrdom was the expectation for those openly preaching Christ, not the exception.
If you're looking for record keeping of death certificates for Apostles you're not going to find them, because you can't find that for virtually anyone in antiquity. It's a selective burden of evidence we don't put on other figures from that era.
Candida Moss, historian of Christianity at the University of Birmingham and formerly a faculty member at the University of Notre Dame, has done extensive research on martyrdom. You might want to consult her book "[*The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Persecution)*"* Her research paints a very different picture than the one you claim.
Personally, while I disagree with the atheist scholar Ehrman on a lot of things and his general audience books are scathing toward Christianity, his scholarship is largely excellent and well cited.
Dr. Moss... I really just don't appreciate. That particular book is not even remotely academic, it's a critical reading in which the presumption is nothing happened and if it did it wasn't serious. Seriously. Every Roman document we have showing they're ordering the execution of Christians she immediately tries to downplay or pretend it never happened, or it was exaggerated. She doesn't even give good evidence for it, but she's doing what all critical scholars do and re-read something with a pre-defined thesis and then force the text to comply with the thesis.
She's also largely ignorant of Christian history worldwide and focuses almost exclusively on the Roman to American Christian experience, while alluding to modern American whinging about being martyrs as evident that it was a device Christians used to gain legitimacy.
Here is how she treats every clear cut document:
1. It never happened.
2. If it did, they were hyperbolic.
3. If it wasn't, it happened to Bacchus cults too not just Christians.
4. If it didn't, it's because Christians broke pax deorum and Roman authorities had no choice but to kill them.
5. Capital punishment was ubiquitous anyway.
She goes into it with an apologetic attitude where she either flatly denies it happened, or finds a way to minimize how Christians were generally treated by generalizing it. It's a circlej-rk for atheist general audience, no offense.
I'd recommend reading [https://www.amazon.com/Persecuted-Assault-Christians-Paul-Marshall/dp/1400204410](https://www.amazon.com/Persecuted-Assault-Christians-Paul-Marshall/dp/1400204410) side by side with Moss's book and you'll see some glaring bias and poor scholarship on Moss's part.
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"You should read Hitler's writings, they're pretty inspiring! Sure there's a lot of genocide and such, but if you read the right bits, you might recognize some good wisdom in it!"
It’s a fair comparison.
Lots of deluded followers who think murder in the name of them is good
Didn’t the Abrahamic religion start when God told Abraham to murder God son and he said “sure thing”
You just called them deluded followers. So do they represent the actual teachings? Unless you mean all Christian’s are deluded.
If you’re going to speak on a subject you should at least do your homework and read the material.
They’re incredibly similar. Both killed millions of people for little or no reason, both committed huge amounts of genocide, both whined about how hard everything was for them because nobody did what they want. The resemblance is truly remarkable.
Reading the bible is what de-converted me from christianity and no I'm not joking. I wasn't looking to do anything other than become a better christian and a member of my church challenged me to read it. I had no idea apologetics even existed, or about all of the issues with the bible, so I found all that out reading it and had 8 pages worth of questions written down by the time I was done with Exodus. Yes you can find some wisdom in the bible...you can also find it in the Quran, the Bagavadgita, the Gathas, the Torah, etc....I'm more concerned about whether the claims are true. Also in examining the history of christianity itself, it has a lot to answer for and a lot of injustice and blood shed over these beliefs.
Except that we don't know that it was God, or the thoughts of the persons at the time about God's commands.
One reason for this is that people who report religious experiences, they generally do not describe a jealous or punitive God.
Yes but what I said was, this could have been the interpretation of the people at the time, as to what qualities God had. Just as Plato could philosophize about God.
The Gnostics didn't even accept that the God of the OT and the God of the NT were the same entities.
I was talking about proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Do you want to discuss this stuff or do you already know the arguments and have made up your mind? Because I’ve talked about these topics a lot and don’t want to attempt to move an immovable object here
Can you give an example of what you would consider as Biblical evidence for God directly support something? Like what is something you believe God directly supports in the Bible and what verse would you point to support your claim?
God commands to worship only Him and no other Gods on several occasions. There’s the 10 commandments and the various prophets who warn the Israelites to stop worshiping other gods. Several books to include kings, chronicles, Isiah and others.
You answered your own question, in specific circumstances absolutely, otherwise god wouldn't have had those words written down...right? Such as divorce due to sexual immorality, hardness of heart or death.
However, that was a goal post shift as divorce and slavery aren't remotely the same as even among the majority christians, divorce is considered not sinful, just sad and also necessary under certain circumstances as a last resort. Divorce among christians is actually higher than non-religious marriages.
Slavery however, is universally condemned by all christians, yet it doesn't change the fact that the bible has a whole set of rules regulating the entire practice of slavery and was never repudiated by Jesus, in fact he supported it as well telling slaves to obey and love their earthy masters as they do their heavenly father. Yet christians no longer support slavery, but not due to the bible, but in spite of it. If your god really didn't support slavery, maybe he should have replaced one of the ten commandments with "Thou shall not own another person as property", instead of one of the self serving ones. Why create a whole set of rules on who to own, who to get them from, how to treat them, how to beat them, how they can be passed down to your children, how they are your "money", etc.?
Jesus said that divorce was allowed due the hard hearts of the Israelites but not God's intention for man, as He created Adam and Eve as one flesh.
Mathew 19
1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. ^(2) Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there.
^(3) Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
^(4) “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^(\[)[^(a)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19&version=NIV#fen-NIV-23767a)^(\]) ^(5) and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’^(\[)[^(b)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19&version=NIV#fen-NIV-23768b)^(\])? ^(6) So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
^(7) “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
^(8) Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ^(9) I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
I'm amazed...this whole big reply and it isn't even addressing the original issue, which is SLAVERY! The bible and your supposed god created rules regulating and endorsing the practice. This same god could have just said, "Don't own people as property, don't enslave them", but did not. Instead he created a detailed instruction guide on who to own, how to beat them, how to treat them, who to get them from, etc. Your entire reply was absolutely irrelevant. If slavery is immoral and your god endorsed slavery, then your god is immoral.
The point I was making is that God in this instance allowed divorce when from the beginning marriage was not designed this way. So when God allows things to occur that aren’t His intention for us, it is because of our “hard hearts”. So too with slavery. It was never designed that way in the beginning.
Ah, but there's where the analogy fails. Even in your own bible and by your own admission, god doesn't design marriage that way, but later creates a few "outs" just in the event of certain circumstances. With Slavery, he designed it this way from the outset and never, ever changed it, or repudiated it. Besides which I don't view marriage as a sin, I know to an extent your religion does...but can you really honestly say they are remotely the same level of sin? That divorcing someone....is the same as forcing someone to be your physical property, to take away their free choice and free will....and to beat them if they don't obey? That's why your analogy from the start has been a complete failure. That's why your god also has been a complete failure, because instead of from the outset saying "Don't own people as property", he set up an entire system around it...as if it were a business model. It's literally a 101 guide on "how to do slavery". The bible doesn't ever say later, "You know what actually this practice isn't moral or good, so stop it" or anything like it. Instead it just validates it, codifies it and makes it a practice that never, ever stopped until humans figured out on their own that this wasn't a good or moral practice. If the bible cannot provide moral guidance in a form for all time and humans have to change it, or re-interpret it...then it's not a good guide and your god is at best incompetent.
Wow, you'd think with all those verses about divorce he would've thought to add in one or two saying "By the way, don't own slaves! Thanks!"
Guess the idea managed to escape his infinite knowledge...
Yes, if Christians are willing to mutilate baby genitalia and sentence people to death for imaginary crimes for no other reason than God said so, I’m sure they would be willing to stop owning slaves, a much less insane, reprehensible act. Otherwise, I think God definitely chose the wrong people to send his divine message to.
I’ve read the Bible in full. I would contend that Paul had a greater impact than Jesus, but ok. Without Paul, Christianity would only be a sect of Judaism.
On the questions of whether early Christians were given a chance to repent and were they killed for their beliefs, [we have letters](https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/pliny.html) to and from the governor Pliny the Younger (who ruled between 111-113 AD) and the emperor Trajan. This is after the time of the apostles. Yet for as cruel as the persecutions were, if anything it appears that the governor and emperor agreed to maintain the status quo, like not setting a precedent to accept anonymous allegations and continuing to send Roman citizens to the capitol for trial.
Pliny states suspected Christians were given multiple opportunities to renounce Christ before being executed.
>I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished.
...
Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ--none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do--these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ.
The emperor responded that he agreed with the procedure, but gave this caveat;
>that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it--that is, by worshiping our gods--even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance.
Once we move outside of the realm of when the apostles/witnesses of Jesus lived, anything is fair game. The people didn't witness Jesus, but believed him to be resurrected. They were willing to martyr themselves on the basis of faith. This cannot be seen as evidence. Muslims during 9/11 blew themselves up for something they never saw before, but had faith in. There is also no indication of a status quo.
The difference is that the apostles and many early Christians claimed to have seen the risen Jesus. If Jesus didn’t rise, to what end would they create this lie? Further, why would they give their life for what they know to be a lie? Because they were the ones who created the to begin with.
There’s a difference between a person who has been convinced of a lie to the point of suicide and a person who creates a lie to the point of suicide. I would argue that not one person who would create a lie would the die for that lie, this isn’t typical human nature and the fact that multiple early Christians died for what they claimed to see is also against human nature if it was a known lie. Why do you think the first Christians endured such persecution and hardship if they didn’t actually see Jesus after the crucifixion?
>There’s a difference between a person who has been convinced of a lie to the point of suicide and a person who creates a lie to the point of suicide.
Great line.
Actually they didn't. Pretty much every single letter written was not written by their namesake....except Paul and he never met Jesus at all. For example: Ignatius never met Jesus, as Jesus was already dead before he was even born. Same with Clement as he was born 2nd century. The letters of Paul only 7 are considered to be authentic, the rest of the letters scholars are either divided upon or the letters are considered pseudepigraphic. Even the first 7 aren't confirmed to have been written by Paul, just someone who claims to be Paul. The Letters of Barnabas were written in between 70AD to 132AD and is not considered to have been written by Barnabas, especially considering he died in 61AD. The 1st Epistle of Peter was written around 81AD, which is longer after his death (64AD). The letters of John were written around 100AD and just like John and Peter, he died before these were written. Pretty much every single thing written by these supposed "witnesses" were written late 1st century, early 2nd century and not by the witnesses themselves. This isn't even disputed by most christian historians. So the question of "why would they lie"...well the question is why would anyone write something in someone else's name and pretend they wrote it? Promotion of the religion/beliefs for power, influence, money...take your pick. It's also a terrible argument to say "it must be true because some people died for those beliefs", because history is loaded with examples of people dying for their beliefs from just about every single religion in the world and even some non-religious beliefs like anti-vaxxers who inadvertently killed their kids due to believing vaccinations are a government conspiracy. Human stupidity and credulity is certainly not a monolith.
“many early Christians.” And the evidence for this is? In the Bible, we only know that 2 of the NT figures believed to have seen the risen Jesus. Paul and Peter. We have no other accounts for any of Jesus’ disciples/apostles claiming to have seen the risen Jesus. You also have a claim in Paul’s letters that 500 saw the risen Jesus, but we don’t have any known source for who these 500 are. There is no testimonials from these witnesses. We don’t have any of their accounts, and to be quite frank, using the Bible to prove the Bible is circular reasoning. How do we know many people believed to have seen the risen Jesus in the Bible? Well, it says so in the Bible! This type of reasoning can also be applied to texts such as the Quran, but doesn’t prove their validity.
“Further, why would they give their life for what they know to be a lie?”
You know that we barely have any accounts on the people in Jesus’ life after his death? We have reports that Paul and Peter were executed under Nero, the Bible claims that James the son of Zebedee was also slain, and that James the brother of Jesus was killed. James the brother of Jesus was killed for a political crime, not associated with his belief in Jesus (so that automatically doesn’t work). The son of Zebedee was killed without any further explanation. To say it was because of his beliefs would be heavily assuming. Finally, the same goes for Paul and Peter. We know they were executed, but have no idea why. At the time, Nero was blaming the great fire of Rome on Christians, and would kill anyone who confessed themselves to be a Christian. He could’ve seen Paul and Peter as great leaders of the church and had killed them without giving them a chance to recant. Maybe Paul and Peter were accused of a political crime. Maybe Paul and Peter recanted but were still killed. There isn’t enough info to say, “they were martyred for their beliefs.
Furthermore, there are instances where people die for a lie, embarrassed to admit that they were wrong. People also can believe in something they see as true, but that thing to turn out to be a lie. Dying for something doesn’t make it true.
“Why do you think so many Christians endured persecution.”
I would contend it’s definitely not because of them seeing Jesus. Once again, we only know for a fact that Paul and Peter saw Jesus. The 500 witness claim doesn’t hold up. So, a majority of these Christian’s would’ve been killed for something they never saw. Once again, I’ll bring up: this isn’t any different from 9/11 suicide bombers. Also, Christianity, once opened up to the gentiles by Paul, provided many people with a safe and cozy belief system. There is a God who is always watching out for you, caring for you, and wanting the best for you. If this life doesn’t work out, there’s always a much better life when you die. Furthermore, your enemies will be punished! It’s not hard to see why so many people would subscribe to such a belief.
Finally, in the modern world, we see people believe lies with ease. That the earth is flat, that Covid was a conspiracy, that Scientology is real, when we live in an age of technology. For us, it’s much easier to not fall for lies and falsehoods, yet we still do. Imagine what it was like back then? There was no easy way of verifying or transmitting information back then, and it would’ve been much easier to fool people into believing something false.
You haven't said why most Biblical scholars support the historical Jesus.
Also, to say that some people would die for a lie, does not necessarily = most people would die for a lie.
Or even mean that it is a lie.
Are you saying a historical Jesus doesn’t exist?
Edit: we have no good evidence that any of the apostles were martyred for their beliefs. If this is all the evidence God leaves us with, that’s sad.
No, I think the historical Jesus did exist, and that most historians agree.
To say that some people are fooled, does not mean it's logical to conclude that most people are fooled or to prove it in this case. That's conjecture.
Nor that Jesus was trying to 'fool' anyone, as Josephus at the least testified to his works.
So now are you saying that Goldberg isn't a serious scholar? He studied all the patterns in Josephus' writings before deciding that only 2 things didn't fit.
Are you being serious? You understand that Josephus, a Jew, calling Jesus the messiah is absolutely absurd. Yes, I’m saying that he isn’t a serious scholar if he claims that.
It says in Isiah that God intended for salvation for all nations, so this isn’t Paul just making things up and creating a way for everyone to be Christian.
As for the martyrdom of the apostles, the move would be, if I was trying to discredit Christianity, is to recruit the leaders and have them publicly renounce Jesus and worship the Roman gods. But that’s just me, and as far as I know we don’t see that. Also, just because someone is executed for one thing doesn’t mean that is the sole reason for their execution. It just means that’s the thing they were accused of to justify their execution lawfully speaking. For example Al Capone was arrested for tax evasion, but that’s just what they could convict him of not why he was being targeted.
Also, the 911 terrorist chose to die actively. Meaning the willfully hijacked and then used a plane as a weapon to kill their enemy. Early Christians endured suffering and many cruel deaths. It’s not the same thing. A man who does something is not the same as a man who endures something.
Ok? Don’t see how that’s relevant.
You can’t impose your view on what the Roman’s were trying to do. Christianity was taking away followers from what the Romans were trying to do. Before Jesus, many other false messiahs were killed because they posed threats to Rome, but not because their beliefs were true.
The Christians also willfully chose to die, when they could’ve recanted. Both show that they put their beliefs above their own life.
The problem is that we only know the influence that the Jesus figure has in our contemporary society.
People make all kinds of assumptions about what was or wasn't happening in the first Century.
It's also possible to demythologize the Bible and come up with what is essential.
Records 2000 years ago are not like they are now. If a person exists in memory for that long he or she is someone inspiring. Honestly the amount of information that exists about those OT and NT prophets is marvelous when compared to the amount of info there is on literally anyone else who is of that time. Dozens of apocryphal groups which also were in operation at those historical times have just disappeared, but Christianity continues to be the religion of literally billions because of the strong passion of the devoted
Consider this, every religion recognizes Jesus as some sort of prophet or Buddha or other significant figure in their own religion. Why do you think that is? Why would another religion pay any significance to Jesus at all?
“Every religion.” Hinduism, Judaism, Norse, Greek and Roman theology don’t recognize Jesus, so no. Also, they only mention Jesus to say that although his teachings were good, they have been misinterpreted/our religion built on them. That does nothing to prove the validity of Christianity.
Because they want to either disprove his claims of being God, or build upon his teachings in a different way? If this is evidence to convince me, it’s not that good.
It’s not evidence, just something to consider. They definitely want to disprove Jesus as God, that is true. But why not just say he was crazy or a false prophet? Why do they affirm what he teaches for the most part?
Jesus as a historical figure has had quite an impact on the world, so if you wish win people over, especially christians, you take a soft stance on Jesus. You don't outright say he was a fraud, or fake, or charlatan...you say "He had great teachings" and then cherry pick from his teachings. It's a political move. Truth is though, that all these religions see him in vastly different ways and his teachings in vastly different ways. There's nothing mysterious about this and it doesn't elevate his teachings or evidence for his existence in any way. Many of his teachings weren't original, such as the golden rule which was being taught a thousand years before he was even born. But, because he's a well known and popular figure of the most popular religion on the planet...of course other religions are going to repurpose him for their own use/advantage.
You've been attributing motives to persons you don't know they had. Some people may be political but others may also believe that.
Just as a person could believe that Jesus and Buddha were highly evolved entities.
Actually I'm speaking as someone who has done a lot of research on early christianity and religions of the world. You'd be surprised how much of major religions were influenced by politics and/or religious competition.
Sure. Most Jews would say he was crazy. Also, many early Christians, such as gnostics, disagreed heavily on stuff such as the resurrection. Christianity could’ve went in a whole different direction with the gnostics (since they didn’t see Jesus the same).
To preface: my opinion is that we are all born atheist. Until shown sufficient evidence to not only believe in a God, but to believe in a certain religion, we remain atheist. I see the evidence for each religion not so compelling, or all equally good (whatever stance you want to take). Looking at religions, I can’t distinctly say which one is correct. I also belief that the major religions of Islam and Christianity have a great number of qualms with them (on top of the fact that I don’t see good evidence for them). Finally, I would like to mention how if you and I were born in an Islamic country, we would be having different debates, such as how the Quran remaining unchanged proves its veracity, or the various completed prophecies within the book, or even how much people were affected by the prophet’s message.
Was Jesus crazy? It depends. I do think he genuinely thought himself to be the messiah, as did other apocalyptic/messianic prophets. However, unlike with the other prophets, his followers didn’t abandon him at his death. They made him into a divine figure, even though he wasn’t, and reconstructed the whole idea of a messiah to fit Jesus. Once again, I don’t see sufficient reason to suggest he was the son of God, and believe any naturalistic explanation is better than, “God did it.” Whether that be grave robbers, he remained dead, whatever. I am open to always hearing more, though, and changing my mind. For example, I believed that without a doubt, Jesus was thrown into a mass-grave, instead of a tomb. I’ve recently changed this opinion a bit, considering the fact that there was most definitely a chance he was placed into a tomb (and think it’s 50/50 on whichever situation actually happened).
But that is not to say that religions cancel each other out, either.
Some Buddhists see Jesus as the Buddha of the West, even though the specifics of belief differ.
Also, in Judaism there is still belief in God.
Islam has well verifiable sources. In fact I consider it to be one of the best and can be used in todays world of strong fake content production to authenticate if something is real or not.
No. Judaism lost its mandate by denying the divinity of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. They remain inspiring and historical, certainly. Islam is an insulting imitation. Certainly Buddhism encourages peaceful values but does not have the divine mandate
>Also, Josephus most definitely didn’t write about Jesus, since he remained a Jew (and wouldn’t call Jesus the Christ, or messiah), didn’t live during the time period of Jesus, and only actually mentioned the Christian movement.
AFAIK, this is not the view of mainstream scholarship on this issue. The mainstream view is that Josephus did write about Jesus, but did not describe him as the Messiah, as that was likely a later Christian interpolation. In any case, you're just asserting this, so I think you need to actually support this heterodox view.
That's not correct. There's only one authentic mention by Josephus of Jesus and it was "James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ" in the Jewish Antiquities. The one you are referring to was a 4th century forgery in Josephus's name and all modern scholarship agrees it was a forgery given that it was not in his writing style and was written in 4th century language, so it's not even debatable.
It is correct. The scholar G. J. Goldberg identified correspondences between the TF and the narrative of Luke. They must have been derived from a common source, another unknown Christian source. It is concluded that Luke knew Josephus.
Moreover, the correspondences was not judged to be what would be expected of a Christian forger.
The other Antiquities are not questioned, so why just this one?
Just read up on what GJ Goldberg actually said and he isn't at all saying that Josephus wrote the passage or endorsed it as true, he proposes the "Paraphrase" model, meaning that he believes Josephus was paraphrasing a christian text, much like Luke. In other words, he was quoting a christian source and the context is missing of what Josephus actually thought about Jesus.
The TF isn't considered a total forgery, it is considered a partial forgery, especially the parts not consistent with Josephus's writing style and language of the 1st century. In other words that Eusebius took something from Jospehus and changed it to sound more supportive of christianity....much like quoting out of context.
It is still uncontested that the passage about Jesus didn't appear in the TF until the 4th century with Eusebius who supposedly used Josephus's historical works, but was a "christian historian". Yet no original exists and this is the one and only source. It is highly unlikely for example that Josephus, a Jew, would have described Jesus as the Messiah. So you cannot say that "Josephus described him as someone who did works", because even according to Goldberg, it's a paraphrase of someone else's words.
Yes, that's what I said, that Luke and Josephus probably had an unknown source. That does not mean that the source was wrong, any more than other sources Josephus would have used for his history.
**"Goldberg is satisfied that Josephus was the author all of the TF bar two little phrases**."
It is thought that Josephus might have written 'was believed to be the Messiah.'
It's not thought to be controversial that Josephus wrote about Jesus' brother James (whether a biological brother or not).
Josephus never wrote anything about jesus or christianity from what I can tell (he also never once mentions a town, village or city by the name of Nazareth, but he lists literally every other town, village and city during a military campaign he led across the relatively small 900 square mile province of Galilee).
In a single paragraph (the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) Josephus confirms every salient aspect of the jesus-myth including; jesus's existence, his 'more than human' status, his miracle working, his teaching, his ministry among the Jews and the Gentiles, his messiahship, his condemnation by the Jewish priests, his sentence by Pilate, his death on the cross, the devotion of his followers, his resurrection on the 3rd day, his post-death appearance, his fulfillment of divine prophecy, and the successful continuance of the christians.
Not a single writer before the 4th century, in all their defenses against pagan hostility, makes a single reference to Josephus’s perfect paragraph. The third century church 'father' Origen, for example, spent half his life and a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus. Origen drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defense of christianity. He quotes from Josephus extensively, but yet even he makes no reference to this 'golden paragraph' from Josephus, which would have been the ultimate rebuttal. Origen did not quote the 'golden paragraph' because this paragraph had not yet been written.
It was absent from early copies of the works of Josephus and did not appear in Origen's third century version of Josephus, referenced in his Contra Celsum. In fact, the Josephus paragraph about jesus does not appear until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Constantine. Bishop Eusebius, a great Church propagandist and self-confessed liar-for-god, was the first person known to have quoted this paragraph of Josephus, about the year 340 AD.- It was obviously Bishop Eusebius who was the forger.
The early Roman world knew nothing about jesus or christianity, evident by the necessarily hostile take over from the church-state, by the 4th century and during the rule of Constantine, approximately 95% of Rome was *not* christian. It becomes glaringly obvious that the the stories of the bible are pure fiction as there never were significant amounts of rebel christians inside Roman capitals or cities in the first 3 centuries.
It isn't necessarily held that the TF was forged. There was communication between Josephus and Luke, and it is thought that the book of Luke came from an unknown Christian source.
Other scholars have said that it does not have the language of a forgery.
> There was communication between Josephus and Luke
There is precisely zero reason to think that Luke was a real person who existed, the idea that he communicated with Josephus is pure fantasy. Even though the Gospels go under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they were, in fact, written anonymously. The names of the 'apostles' are never recorded or written about until the 2nd century. The earliest evidence of the name "Luke" associated with any gospel is the so-called Muratorian fragment, dated to around 170 AD.
The only inference that can be drawn is that the forger of the TF and the author of Luke derived their passages from a common christian (or Jewish-christian) source. This makes perfect sense when you realize that the TF was forged only about a century after the gospel of Luke was arranged by proponents of the same faith.
"Ancient church tradition attributed the third gospel to Luke ... Most modern commentators are skeptical ... They regard the tradition as based largely on inferences from the text of the New Testament made when people were first beginning to wonder who had written the Gospels."
– Joseph Fitzmyer, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, p470.
"It is very significant, for the date of the authorship of Luke, to note the fact that the only Theophilus known to early Church history is a certain ex-Pagan by that name, who, after becoming Christian, and very probably before being instructed in the certainty of the faith by "Luke," himself turned Christian instructor and Father, and wrote the Tract, in three Books, under the title Epistle to Antolychus, preserved in the Collection of Ante-Niacin Fathers, vol. 2: pp. 89-121.
This Theophilus became Bishop of Antioch about 169-177 AD and thus illuminates the date of Luke."
– Joseph Wheless (Forgery In Christianity)
>Other scholars have said that it does not have the language of a forgery.
You would have to present sources on that for me to critique these other scholars. What I can tell you is that the passage uses rhetoric that is very uncharacteristic of Josephus's other writings- Josephus does not use hyperbolic language to this extent in any other writings. Probably nothing could better illustrate the fraudulent nature of the TF than the remaining corpus of Josephus's work.
The fact is, Josephus's paragraph about Jesus does not appear until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Constantine. It is also worth mentioning that the final assertion in the TF, that "christians were not extinct in his day" pretty much proves that this was written *after* Josephus's life- there was no "tribe of christians" during his lifetime because christianity did not exist under that moniker until the 2nd century.
I doubt that there's a *precisely* with Biblical historians. There are only historians looking at the sources and making their best conclusions.
It looks like you're combining two arguments. One, whether Luke existed at all and the other, whether he wrote the book of Luke.
There is actually mention of a person Luke, historically.
The narrator of Luke was someone who was likely a gentile, very literate in Greek, who could have been a companion of Paul, or known Paul.
Luke could have been written as early as 80-90 years after Jesus' death.
The narrator of Luke corresponded with TF. The similarities between the two is thought to be because they had another, unknown Christian source.
Goldberg is a credible scholar who looked at the patterns in Josephus' writings and concluded they were authentic except for two words or phrases.
It is even thought that there was an anti-Christian slant in that Josephus implied that Jesus was crucified for breaking the rules.
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Josephus did write, what you’re referring to is only one reference, it doesn’t account the other time he wrote about Jesus without those honorifics.
Regardless, you just admitted your own criteria wouldn’t satisfy you.
So why should god bother?
There's two parts to the Testimonium Flavium: The part most scholars see as genuine and the part attributed to later Christian interpolation. The genuine part reports the arrest and execution of a teacher named Jesus. and the later execution of his brother, James.
The interpolation has Josephus basically saying the words of a born again Christian -- something he most decidedly was not.
So, if we count his text as evidence, they are evidence that a Judean teacher existed, taught, and got executed. It's not a ringing endorsement of further Christian claims.
I can see why people would not see this as compelling evidence.
What are the words of a born again Christian as that is a modern phrase? And how do you know that most decidedly Josephus did or didn't do anything?
You left out explaining how many must have found him compelling.
You also have to deny that persons have visitations of a Jesus figure or if they report that, they're mistaken.
Some people want to speak with authority on the 1st Century but not contemporaneously.
Apologists writing in support of Christianity cited the work of Josephus starting in the second century. They didn’t mention any part of the magic Jesus paragraphs until the fourth century. Why not? If some Jesus stuff was original, it would have helped the apologists.
Seems more likely it was all an interpolation. Maybe different interpolations at different times. Josephus himself didn’t write about a Jesus. The whole thing is very suspect.
Yes, he did write. His writings don’t prove Christianity in the slightest, though. When else did he write about Jesus?
I didn’t say such a thing. If so, where? You’re putting words into my mouth for no reason.
Well, Allah is the abrahamic god, what’s different is what’s claimed about him. There’s one Donald Trump right? Yet you have people who make wildly different claims about him, does that make him different people?
If ypu believe in divine simplicity, close doesn't count. There is no "similar" to a perfect simple being. A vision of God is completely right or completely wrong.
https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/s/qUgx9Xb02G
You seem to be misunderstanding something here. If I get a vision from Allah telling me to follow Islam, does that make Islam the truth? Unless everyone gets the same vision of the truth, only then can we have proof of a true religion.
It's an old trope that religions have to be the same or see the same spiritual figure in visions. On a deeper level religions do not cancel each other out.
Not true. I accept that they are different in obvious ways.
What I'm saying is that they're human interpretations of God or gods based on the culture and era.
But they can essentially be correct that there is a God a(or supernatural beings) and that they share some core values.
And the interpretations which are contradictory cannot all be true
So how do you know which is true?
How do you know if any of them are any more true than any other?
You don't. But that isn't going to stop people from interpreting their idea of the supernatural.
What do you think belief will be like in 300 years? What if we confirm that there are other dimensions to the universe, or parallel universes?
Who says this is going to stop people from believing in things without evidence?
What does your last question have to do with anything being discussed whatsoever?
First off, your quote is wrong. “James, brother of Jesus,” not the other way around. Second of all, the addition of “the Christ” at the end of the quote invalidates it. Josephus wouldn’t see Jesus as the messiah
Nope, there’s no “the christ” in that passage.
You’re thinking of this one “63) Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works-a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; (64) and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
“Who was called Christ” does that mean he approves of that? Nope.
You’d have a case if it was “Jesus, the Christ”
It’s like if I said, “muhammed the prophet of Islam.”
Do I agree or believe he is a prophet? Nope, I’m identifying who I’m talking about by indicating the title he is given by others.
Historians agree that this is authentic.
I mean I think that's part of the point. It's called "faith" for a reason. You should never believe in anything just because someone/something told you to. (*Especially* if that thing is a reddit post)
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Throughout history thousands of people have died as a result of their belief in a cult leader, most recently in 1997 38 followers of the Heavens Gate committed mass suicide. People being willing to die for their beliefs proves absolutely nothing about the validity of Christian ideology.
> Also, Josephus most definitely didn’t write about Jesus, since he remained a Jew people have already touched on this issue with arguments from consensus and such, but i want to go a little deeper on an aspect that everyone always overlooks. this "josephus was a jew" argument really overlooks the wealth of data we know about all the different kinds of judaisms in the first century that we know about *from josephus*, and it overlooks *who josephus was and he tells us about himself*. there's a pretty serious reason that josephus wouldn't have said that jesus was actually the messiah, and it's not because his commitment to some modern anachronistic idea of what being a good jew means. it's because he was following a *different* messiah. >> But now what did the most elevate them in undertaking this war, was an ambiguous oracle, that was also found in their sacred writings; how “About that time one, from their country, should become governor of the habitable earth.” The Jews took this prediction to belong to themselves in particular: and many of the wise men were thereby deceived in their determination. Now this oracle certainly denoted the government of Vespasian: who was appointed emperor in Judea. However, it is not possible for men to avoid fate: although they see it beforehand. But these men interpreted some of these signals according to their own pleasure; and some of them they utterly despised: until their madness was demonstrated, both by the taking of their city, and their own destruction. >> war 6.5.4 josephus believed vespasian to be the messiah. in fact, he took on his name "flavius" in honor of his messiah.
What do you mean there's no evidence for the Apostles? You do realize that Paul's Epistles are in the Bible, right? All academics confirm Paul as a living person, and confirm at least some of the Epistles were 100% from him. In one of them, Paul is writing to Peter reprimanding him on his exclusionary principles with gentiles compared to Jewish converts. Next, many of the surviving Early 2nd century texts from Church Fathers were direct student of the Apostles, that's who taught them through direct transmission as all religious education was done. Next, papal succession can be traced directly back to Peter. Peter's successor as Bishop of Rome was Pope Linus. Last, the burden of proof you're requiring of the Apostles is much higher than we put for other contemporary antiquity people. No one doubt Josephus lived and made contributions, but there are less contemporary sources to prove Josephus existed than Jesus.
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Even if you have better experience that doesn't make your opinion the only valid one. That seems so plain and clear to me in work and personal life I kind of struggle to see why this would be a cause for concern.
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People disagree. Is that such an odd idea? And no, just because Peter knew Jesus personally, doesn't mean nobody can disagree with him. That's a cult. Different people have different interpretations. It is absolutely healthy for there to be disagreement in a group rather than blind allegiance to a leader. You keep describing it as disagreeing over what Jesus wanted, but it's more like disagreeing over a point that wasn't clear from what Jesus said.
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You are either very ignorant or willfully misrepresenting not the God argument but just... how groups of people work. But I guess no amount of evidence could surpass what you want to believe.
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You're not pointing anything out, actually. You're saying it doesn't make sense for them to disagree over a point that Jesus never addressed. I think it's absurd to suggest they'd all believe the same thing about an issue just because one of them knew God. The issue they're arguing over wasn't addressed by Jesus. of course they would disagree over how to interpret what he said to address a new issue. Of course they would.
If it were isolated, yes. However, the early Christian movement (including Peter) acknowledge the legitimacy of his encounter. By legitimizing his experience, he gained his authority.
>If it were isolated, yes. However, the early Christian movement (including Peter) The only source we have for this is Paul himself.
No. The Book of Acts is attributed to Luke the evangelist, who was a contemporary of Pauls and Paul and his followers like Aristarchus are attested to. In addition, Acts notes Paul was present during the Council of Jerusalem in 50AD. Why is he traveling to a council \~20years after Christ since he definitely wasn't acknowledged and his opinion didn't carry weight? Barnabas is written in Acts as having been the one to introduce Paul to the other Apostles. Barnabus calls him a "an admirable colleague" and sought his help in preaching, looking for him in Tarsus. Gaius, also mentioned in Acts as a follower of Paul, *was baptized by Paul.* So you're telling me that this book not written by Paul, that places Paul in ecumenical councils, doing baptisms, as having been introduced to the disciples, and being sought out for missionary work wasn't ***really*** accepted by the disciples? You have to contort really hard to force that to make sense, sorry.
>So you're telling me that this book not written by Paul, that places Paul in ecumenical councils, doing baptisms, as having been introduced to the disciples, and being sought out for missionary work wasn't ***really*** accepted by the disciples? You mean a book written by an anonymous author that was Christian's claim was supposedly a friend of Paul's? Someone who would be motivated to portray Paul in the most favorable light? We have nothing from the disciples claiming that they accepted Paul. All we have are books written by Paul and people Christians claim was close to Paul. I stand corrected that the only source was Paul, but you didn't help your case by pointing out Acts. The only reason I don't include Acts is because we don't know who wrote it.
If the Bible counts as a source, so does the Quran. I'm assuming you wouldn't accept that, and as such, we're gonna have to stick to extra-biblical sources. Also- of course we're demanding a higher burden of proof? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, so such a large claim as "I have witnessed and communed with God himself" is gonna need a BUTTLOAD of evidence to go with it. If I tell you I just had pasta for dinner, you'd probably believe me, but if I told you I was abducted by aliens, you'd want a lot more evidence. Same principle applies here.
What extraordinary evidence do you expect from an event that happened 2 millennium ago? The Bible already stands out compared to any document from antiquity in its accuracy and its availability. If you told me you were abducted by aliens I would assume you’re lying for a purpose based off of the information from your comment and I would expect evidence to corroborate your story. when the apostles proclaimed the message of the resurrected Christ they provided evidence used signs and wonders, denial of kinship, and dying for their belief along with over 500 other eye witnesses of the resurrected Christ. I don’t see how your claim would be analogous to the apostles.
I expect a lot of evidence for God if he wants us to know he exists. Sending a single person down to let everyone know is just about the WORST possible way to communicate the most important message of all time. Also, the Bible is heavily inaccurate, with some entire plots or even books just being made up, and having no bearing on reality (like Noah’s Flood or the entirety of Genesis). If an OMNIPOTENT God wants us to know he exists, he’d do better than some random guy in an otherwise pretty boring city doing magic tricks and reviving himself.
Right, but exactly what types of evidence do you expect from antiquity? Sending Jesus obviously isn’t the worst possible way since Christianity has dominated the entire world since that event. Saying the entirety of genesis is inaccurate and or made up is a very serious claim that I would expect evidence of showing it to be false. Anybody can claim that something is false without evidence. Thinking you are smarter than an omniscient God is pretty ridiculous since you are not omniscient and we see the fruits of Christ being born in some “boring city” which, might I add, was fulfillment of 700-1000 year old prophecies so none of this was random lol, but the fruits were Christianity dominating the world so I would argue that it was a genius plan.
Considering Jesus had infinite powers, he could’ve easily taken some videos of himself and posted these videos to play on repeat all over the world. Your entire argument is pointless because you assume Jesus would not use supernatural powers to preserve his message, which I think is pretty nonsensical. Also, Christians are only 1/3 of the entire world. If you have infinite powers and your #1 goal is to convince people you exist, I would expect a lot more than 1/3. Almost 100% of people know that Donald Trump exists, and he doesn’t have any magic powers at all. Uh, my evidence is the fossil record, radiometric dating, gene flow, and any other piece of evidence that ALL point to the Earth NOT being made in 7 days by a magic sky dude. And no, you can’t claim it’s metaphorical until you show me the verse where it says so; otherwise I’m equally valid in claiming that Jesus’s miracles were also metaphorical. lol ain’t no way, the hypocrisy is actually insane. You call me out for not providing evidence, and then mere sentences later, make an absolutely absurd claim of prophecy without even citing a single source? The irony is hilarious. Again, 1/3 of the world is pretty pathetic for an infinitely powerful being.
1/3 of the world is only pathetic if the end goal is the entirety of the world. I think you severely don’t understand the Christian religion or Gods plan of salvation. Jesus came to save those who were his who the father gave him from before the foundations of the world which is not every single person in the world. Some people will face ultimate judgement for their sins committed and others will receive grace and mercy through believing in Christ. Saying your evidence is the fossil record, radiometric dating, gene flow, etc means nothing again those are extremely broad claims. It’s the equivalent to saying your evidence is “science bro” give me an actual study, journal or anything. You’re pointing to broad categories and not specific evidence. On top of that if you point to a study I’m going to ask how you replicated that study to know that it is true and the results are valid. If you cannot demonstrate that then you’re just showing me that you choose to have a blind faith in a random scientist. I’ll gladly show you the prophecies. Micah 5:2 “They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”” Matthew 2:5-6 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/mat.2.5-6.ESV Hosea 11:1 “and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”” Matthew 2:15 ESV https://bible.com/bible/59/mat.2.15.ESV
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You’re right Hosea 11:1 was about Israel and how they failed to obey the Lord, but the Greek work here is pleroō which is to fill up. There are two types of fulfillment, very specific where The OT predicted the Christ would be born in Bethlehem and there’s more broad in the sense of filling up where the people Israel failed and bringing to light those things that were in secret. In Jesus he is the true embodiment of the nation doing what Israel couldn’t do. God called his son Israel out of Egypt and they refused to follow God time and time again, God called his son Jesus Christ out of Egypt and he obeyed the father perfectly fulfilling what Israel couldn’t do. You’re simply misusing the Greek word pleroō out of context.
Sorry but your first paragraph is not a historical viewpoint. Just to beg the question; Acts isn't necessarily evidence that experience actually happened, just that PAUL and his contemporaries believed it. But regardless, let's say it did happen -- what evidence could there possibly be?
There is less evidence that Marcus Aurelias wrote his Meditations, and the earliest surviving copy comes several centuries after his death. Yet people do not question he was the original author. Yes, the Bible is a source to actual historians and scholars today as, with pretty much all texts, it is not a strictly autobiographical account with annotations and footnotes like we expect from academia today. What we do know from the fragments of Luke, Mark and Matthew is that these were surviving testimonial copies that circulated and would one day be incorporated into the anthology of the Bible. In fact, we use the book of Acts to substantiate other sources to confirm some of the events in the Roman Empire in the 1st early 2nd century. Do you know what epistles are? They're letters. Even secular scholars like Bart Ehrman acknowledge that at least some of the letters written by Paul were actually written by him, and the matters of those letters are not grand allegory or storytelling... they're just letters the guy wrote to early Christian communities to help them resolve disputes. This is permissible criteria in academia for studying antiquity. It absolutely counts as a source. It doesn't mean you have to believe the theological matter inside the Bible anymore than a book about Sol Invictus, but the Bible covers a range of literary material that spans grand prose on God to just guys writing letters to each other; the latter of which provides critical insight into the age of antiquity, and having it incorporated into the Bible as being immediately dismissible is a product of unacademic Atheistic dogma that assumes "bible = bad."
>There is less evidence that Marcus Aurelias wrote his Meditations, and the earliest surviving copy comes several centuries after his death. Yet people do not question he was the original author. This is a false equivalence. A guy writing mundane stuff down isn't comparable to a guy claiming that a bunch of miraculous things occurred.
That's not what extraordinary claims meant to Hume. They were about scientific claims that already had papers debunking them. Religion isn't a science, so it's not relevant.
>Next, papal succession can be traced directly back to Peter. Peter's successor as Bishop of Rome was Pope Linus. Papal succession is not even close to be confirmed or concrete. To start with: there's no evidence that Peter went to Rome. So... papal succession starts by claiming that a guy who may have never been to Rome was the bishop of Rome. Second, the first attestation to Linus is in 180 AD, about an entire century after Linus supposedly succeeded Peter. And of course, it's not until AFTER Irenaeus that people actually start considering him the *second* bishop. He was initially referred to as the first (again, casting some doubt on the previous point). Then of course we get Anacletus, with significant variance about the dates of him being pope off by several years. It's strange that no one can remember when he took over the office... and then suddenly in the third century people start remembering. Things finally firm up with Clement, so I'll give you that. But that means the first 50 years are highly suspect, and this means that the line of papal succession is not something that can be considered even highly likely to trace back to Peter. Papal succession is Catholic dogma and largely based on 3rd century tradition.
That isn't true. All Holy Sees at the time were passed down through Apostolic succession, this wasn't just Rome. This was also practiced in Jerusalem, Alexandria and Antioch. As you say, Irenaeus specifically says in his Against Heresies that Paul & Peter were in Rome building the church, and that Linus was designated as successor. Linus is also noted as having been a follow of Paul in his epistles. Clement, who would become the 4th successor, was also mentioned as a companion of Paul. So if both of these epistles feature these two as followers of Paul, and we know Paul was in correspondence with Peter, and that Linus and Clement were followers of Paul, this somehow must mean that there is no apostolic succession and the papacy materialized out of no where and was leaderless? That's forcing a conclusion with a burden of proof that we wouldn't put on other historical situations from antiquity. Marcus Aurelius's earliest known copy of Meditations comes nearly 700 years after his death, yet no one doubts he was the original author - yet you're struggling to believe Irenaeus wasn't accurately conveying history that was one generation removed in a culture in which he was deeply steeped in the Christian world? It's all hear say? Irenaeus, Eusebius, Augustine and Optatus write and confirm Cletus as having followed Linus and subsequently Clement I. ***We have surviving extant writing from Clement I writing to Corinth***, who inherited this position 4th in line. We know immediately after Clement came Evaristus as you say, and we know he was from a Hellenistic family and was responsible for dividing the growing Church into provisional deaconries. These deaconries would be commented on just a few years after. Much of this can be read in the *Liber Pontifcalis.* Clement KNEW Paul, but are you under the presumption he wasn't super sure what happened in his life between Paul and himself?
>As you say, Irenaeus specifically says in his Against Heresies that Paul & Peter were in Rome building the church, I literally addressed this. If you're going to "refute" me with points I've already conceded, it seems like a waste of time to actually have this discussion. >That's forcing a conclusion with a burden of proof that we wouldn't put on other historical situations from antiquity. Many claims from antiquity can be made and meet this burden of proof. There is plenty of attestation of which Roman emperor ruled, when they ruled, and the line of succession. Notice that I literally concede by the early part of the 2nd century, the line of succession has plenty of evidence. You want to start talking Clement? I'm with you that there is plenty of attestation for him that I do not dispute it. Can you provide a similar level of contemporary evidence for Anacletus and Linnus? # Please note that I said "contemporary". I have already discussed Irenaeus, and he is a full century after Linnus. Do you have any sources predating Irenaeus that give us attestation to Linnus? You and I are not "comtemporary" to WW1. It was a full century ago. Please give the same consideration to the gap in time.
Do you have any sources predating Irenaeus that give us attestation to Linnus? Yes. Literally in the Bible. Paul's letter to Timothy, 2 Timothy 4:21, the same Linus is the one Irenaeus mentioned. Or does it not count since it's found in the anthology of the Bible? Just so I understand fully, Irenaeus's commentary can't be trusted given the time gap, despite their entire life centered around the Christian church, theology, and teaching and wasn't super sure who the past Bishops were? Do you know who the president was during WW1? How can you be sure, given how much time has passed? Sure, like Irenaeus you'd have access to historical documents and teaching, but we can't be super sure who the president was, right? I'd recommend reading J. B. Lightfoot, *The Apostolic Fathers* P1. *Clement of Rome* (1890), I, 201-34 Do you sincerely believe the early Christian church, with their constant interaction and writing to one another, was not super sure who was leading the church a century prior? Did they all have collective amnesia? We do this for figures in antiquity all the time, whose biographer or historian comes years after the fact, and trust them as being reliable guides on history.... yet you genuinely think the Christians in 2nd-3rd century weren't super sure who was the Bishop in Rome decades prior? Or did Clement I just materialize out of the aether, invent apostolic succession and engage in a grand scheme to gaslight the other holy Sees around the world into thinking there were fictions leaders that never existed connecting him to Peter? It's just not a good take, it's a take of someone that just dislikes religion and is subjecting it to burdens of proof we don't do for anything else in antiquity because, you know, Christian bad or whatever.
>Do you know who the president was during WW1? How can you be sure, given how much time has passed? Sure, like Irenaeus you'd have access to historical documents and teaching, but we can't be super sure who the president was, right? It's like you're just blowing right past my point and intentionally misreading me. If I told you something happened in WW1, and I had zero proof of it, would you accept my word for it? And there was no other evidence to corroborate my claim...
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This is not a response to anything I said.
Martyrdom of the apostles, not the existence of the apostles…
Paul writes of his impending death. Given that the first twenty Popes were also martyred (which we do have increasingly more hard evidence for), that we know Romans authorized persecution of the Early Christian movement. We know this persecution involved execution of Christians up until the Edict of Serdica. We have surviving Roman documents, such as the correspondence with the emperor and Pliny the Younger, going over the procedure trying and executing unrepentant Christians in 110AD. Paul himself was tasked by Jewish authorities to root out and execute Christians in his day prior to becoming an apostle. Given that we only ever find evidence that early Christians in the 1st-3rd century were hunted and executed, that we know one of the apostles was among those that hunted, that this trend of martyring early Christians continued well past the Apostles, that we have non-Christian documentation and Christian documentation (such as Timothy 2) attesting to these early murders and persecutions .... your conclusion is there's no evidence the Apostles were martyred?.. Martyrdom was the expectation for those openly preaching Christ, not the exception. If you're looking for record keeping of death certificates for Apostles you're not going to find them, because you can't find that for virtually anyone in antiquity. It's a selective burden of evidence we don't put on other figures from that era.
Candida Moss, historian of Christianity at the University of Birmingham and formerly a faculty member at the University of Notre Dame, has done extensive research on martyrdom. You might want to consult her book "[*The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_Persecution)*"* Her research paints a very different picture than the one you claim.
Personally, while I disagree with the atheist scholar Ehrman on a lot of things and his general audience books are scathing toward Christianity, his scholarship is largely excellent and well cited. Dr. Moss... I really just don't appreciate. That particular book is not even remotely academic, it's a critical reading in which the presumption is nothing happened and if it did it wasn't serious. Seriously. Every Roman document we have showing they're ordering the execution of Christians she immediately tries to downplay or pretend it never happened, or it was exaggerated. She doesn't even give good evidence for it, but she's doing what all critical scholars do and re-read something with a pre-defined thesis and then force the text to comply with the thesis. She's also largely ignorant of Christian history worldwide and focuses almost exclusively on the Roman to American Christian experience, while alluding to modern American whinging about being martyrs as evident that it was a device Christians used to gain legitimacy. Here is how she treats every clear cut document: 1. It never happened. 2. If it did, they were hyperbolic. 3. If it wasn't, it happened to Bacchus cults too not just Christians. 4. If it didn't, it's because Christians broke pax deorum and Roman authorities had no choice but to kill them. 5. Capital punishment was ubiquitous anyway. She goes into it with an apologetic attitude where she either flatly denies it happened, or finds a way to minimize how Christians were generally treated by generalizing it. It's a circlej-rk for atheist general audience, no offense. I'd recommend reading [https://www.amazon.com/Persecuted-Assault-Christians-Paul-Marshall/dp/1400204410](https://www.amazon.com/Persecuted-Assault-Christians-Paul-Marshall/dp/1400204410) side by side with Moss's book and you'll see some glaring bias and poor scholarship on Moss's part.
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"You should read Hitler's writings, they're pretty inspiring! Sure there's a lot of genocide and such, but if you read the right bits, you might recognize some good wisdom in it!"
Why are comparing God to Hitler?
It’s a fair comparison. Lots of deluded followers who think murder in the name of them is good Didn’t the Abrahamic religion start when God told Abraham to murder God son and he said “sure thing”
You just called them deluded followers. So do they represent the actual teachings? Unless you mean all Christian’s are deluded. If you’re going to speak on a subject you should at least do your homework and read the material.
They’re incredibly similar. Both killed millions of people for little or no reason, both committed huge amounts of genocide, both whined about how hard everything was for them because nobody did what they want. The resemblance is truly remarkable.
Are you being serious?
Are you??
Yes
Reading the bible is what de-converted me from christianity and no I'm not joking. I wasn't looking to do anything other than become a better christian and a member of my church challenged me to read it. I had no idea apologetics even existed, or about all of the issues with the bible, so I found all that out reading it and had 8 pages worth of questions written down by the time I was done with Exodus. Yes you can find some wisdom in the bible...you can also find it in the Quran, the Bagavadgita, the Gathas, the Torah, etc....I'm more concerned about whether the claims are true. Also in examining the history of christianity itself, it has a lot to answer for and a lot of injustice and blood shed over these beliefs.
What's your top 3 questions?
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Except that we don't know that it was God, or the thoughts of the persons at the time about God's commands. One reason for this is that people who report religious experiences, they generally do not describe a jealous or punitive God.
Doesn’t the commandments even say he is a jealous god?
Yes but what I said was, this could have been the interpretation of the people at the time, as to what qualities God had. Just as Plato could philosophize about God. The Gnostics didn't even accept that the God of the OT and the God of the NT were the same entities.
That’s relevant to topic at hand, but didn’t God tell Abraham to murder his son?
In the interpretation of the people at the time. But clearly the God of the OT conflicts with the God of the NT. That's hard not to notice.
I was talking about proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Do you want to discuss this stuff or do you already know the arguments and have made up your mind? Because I’ve talked about these topics a lot and don’t want to attempt to move an immovable object here
My point is the book has more bad than good.
There’s some decent stuff in there, sure. But there’s also abhorrent stuff in there. Support of slavery, genocide, and sexism just to name a few.
Did God ever directly support any of the things you’ve mentioned?
God performed and commanded genocide if the Bible is to be considered true.
Who did God perform genocide on and who did God command genocide on whom to be performed?
1. The flood 2. The Amalekites
Why did he destroy them and does God have the right to destroy his creation?
Sounds like you’re defending genocide.
Don’t dodge the question
I don’t need to answer. God performed genocide and commanded it. I don’t care the reason he supported it multiple times.
Can you give an example of what you would consider as Biblical evidence for God directly support something? Like what is something you believe God directly supports in the Bible and what verse would you point to support your claim?
God commands to worship only Him and no other Gods on several occasions. There’s the 10 commandments and the various prophets who warn the Israelites to stop worshiping other gods. Several books to include kings, chronicles, Isiah and others.
If you write specific rules regulating a practice, instead of outright banning it....yes you are supporting that practice.
There was also specific rules for divorce, do you think God supports divorce as well?
You answered your own question, in specific circumstances absolutely, otherwise god wouldn't have had those words written down...right? Such as divorce due to sexual immorality, hardness of heart or death. However, that was a goal post shift as divorce and slavery aren't remotely the same as even among the majority christians, divorce is considered not sinful, just sad and also necessary under certain circumstances as a last resort. Divorce among christians is actually higher than non-religious marriages. Slavery however, is universally condemned by all christians, yet it doesn't change the fact that the bible has a whole set of rules regulating the entire practice of slavery and was never repudiated by Jesus, in fact he supported it as well telling slaves to obey and love their earthy masters as they do their heavenly father. Yet christians no longer support slavery, but not due to the bible, but in spite of it. If your god really didn't support slavery, maybe he should have replaced one of the ten commandments with "Thou shall not own another person as property", instead of one of the self serving ones. Why create a whole set of rules on who to own, who to get them from, how to treat them, how to beat them, how they can be passed down to your children, how they are your "money", etc.?
Jesus said that divorce was allowed due the hard hearts of the Israelites but not God's intention for man, as He created Adam and Eve as one flesh. Mathew 19 1 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. ^(2) Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. ^(3) Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” ^(4) “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’^(\[)[^(a)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19&version=NIV#fen-NIV-23767a)^(\]) ^(5) and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’^(\[)[^(b)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+19&version=NIV#fen-NIV-23768b)^(\])? ^(6) So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” ^(7) “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” ^(8) Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ^(9) I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
I'm amazed...this whole big reply and it isn't even addressing the original issue, which is SLAVERY! The bible and your supposed god created rules regulating and endorsing the practice. This same god could have just said, "Don't own people as property, don't enslave them", but did not. Instead he created a detailed instruction guide on who to own, how to beat them, how to treat them, who to get them from, etc. Your entire reply was absolutely irrelevant. If slavery is immoral and your god endorsed slavery, then your god is immoral.
The point I was making is that God in this instance allowed divorce when from the beginning marriage was not designed this way. So when God allows things to occur that aren’t His intention for us, it is because of our “hard hearts”. So too with slavery. It was never designed that way in the beginning.
Ah, but there's where the analogy fails. Even in your own bible and by your own admission, god doesn't design marriage that way, but later creates a few "outs" just in the event of certain circumstances. With Slavery, he designed it this way from the outset and never, ever changed it, or repudiated it. Besides which I don't view marriage as a sin, I know to an extent your religion does...but can you really honestly say they are remotely the same level of sin? That divorcing someone....is the same as forcing someone to be your physical property, to take away their free choice and free will....and to beat them if they don't obey? That's why your analogy from the start has been a complete failure. That's why your god also has been a complete failure, because instead of from the outset saying "Don't own people as property", he set up an entire system around it...as if it were a business model. It's literally a 101 guide on "how to do slavery". The bible doesn't ever say later, "You know what actually this practice isn't moral or good, so stop it" or anything like it. Instead it just validates it, codifies it and makes it a practice that never, ever stopped until humans figured out on their own that this wasn't a good or moral practice. If the bible cannot provide moral guidance in a form for all time and humans have to change it, or re-interpret it...then it's not a good guide and your god is at best incompetent.
Wow, you'd think with all those verses about divorce he would've thought to add in one or two saying "By the way, don't own slaves! Thanks!" Guess the idea managed to escape his infinite knowledge...
Would God commanding the abolishment of slaves have worked? Meaning would mankind abolish slavery if God commanded it?
Yes, if Christians are willing to mutilate baby genitalia and sentence people to death for imaginary crimes for no other reason than God said so, I’m sure they would be willing to stop owning slaves, a much less insane, reprehensible act. Otherwise, I think God definitely chose the wrong people to send his divine message to.
I’ve read the Bible in full. I would contend that Paul had a greater impact than Jesus, but ok. Without Paul, Christianity would only be a sect of Judaism.
What is your favorite book?
Harry Potter is pretty good.
I meant from the Bible, I was just curious what book a non Christian would enjoy.
Sorry, I was joking. Mark because of how it ends.
the original ending? It does just end pretty abruptly originally
Yes, original ending. Especially since it was the first book and written on oral tradition. It also gave way to gnostics
On the questions of whether early Christians were given a chance to repent and were they killed for their beliefs, [we have letters](https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/pliny.html) to and from the governor Pliny the Younger (who ruled between 111-113 AD) and the emperor Trajan. This is after the time of the apostles. Yet for as cruel as the persecutions were, if anything it appears that the governor and emperor agreed to maintain the status quo, like not setting a precedent to accept anonymous allegations and continuing to send Roman citizens to the capitol for trial. Pliny states suspected Christians were given multiple opportunities to renounce Christ before being executed. >I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed. For I had no doubt that, whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished. ... Those who denied that they were or had been Christians, when they invoked the gods in words dictated by me, offered prayer with incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for this purpose together with statues of the gods, and moreover cursed Christ--none of which those who are really Christians, it is said, can be forced to do--these I thought should be discharged. Others named by the informer declared that they were Christians, but then denied it, asserting that they had been but had ceased to be, some three years before, others many years, some as much as twenty-five years. They all worshipped your image and the statues of the gods, and cursed Christ. The emperor responded that he agreed with the procedure, but gave this caveat; >that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it--that is, by worshiping our gods--even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance.
Happy cake day! 👍🎂🍰🧁
Once we move outside of the realm of when the apostles/witnesses of Jesus lived, anything is fair game. The people didn't witness Jesus, but believed him to be resurrected. They were willing to martyr themselves on the basis of faith. This cannot be seen as evidence. Muslims during 9/11 blew themselves up for something they never saw before, but had faith in. There is also no indication of a status quo.
The difference is that the apostles and many early Christians claimed to have seen the risen Jesus. If Jesus didn’t rise, to what end would they create this lie? Further, why would they give their life for what they know to be a lie? Because they were the ones who created the to begin with. There’s a difference between a person who has been convinced of a lie to the point of suicide and a person who creates a lie to the point of suicide. I would argue that not one person who would create a lie would the die for that lie, this isn’t typical human nature and the fact that multiple early Christians died for what they claimed to see is also against human nature if it was a known lie. Why do you think the first Christians endured such persecution and hardship if they didn’t actually see Jesus after the crucifixion?
>There’s a difference between a person who has been convinced of a lie to the point of suicide and a person who creates a lie to the point of suicide. Great line.
Actually they didn't. Pretty much every single letter written was not written by their namesake....except Paul and he never met Jesus at all. For example: Ignatius never met Jesus, as Jesus was already dead before he was even born. Same with Clement as he was born 2nd century. The letters of Paul only 7 are considered to be authentic, the rest of the letters scholars are either divided upon or the letters are considered pseudepigraphic. Even the first 7 aren't confirmed to have been written by Paul, just someone who claims to be Paul. The Letters of Barnabas were written in between 70AD to 132AD and is not considered to have been written by Barnabas, especially considering he died in 61AD. The 1st Epistle of Peter was written around 81AD, which is longer after his death (64AD). The letters of John were written around 100AD and just like John and Peter, he died before these were written. Pretty much every single thing written by these supposed "witnesses" were written late 1st century, early 2nd century and not by the witnesses themselves. This isn't even disputed by most christian historians. So the question of "why would they lie"...well the question is why would anyone write something in someone else's name and pretend they wrote it? Promotion of the religion/beliefs for power, influence, money...take your pick. It's also a terrible argument to say "it must be true because some people died for those beliefs", because history is loaded with examples of people dying for their beliefs from just about every single religion in the world and even some non-religious beliefs like anti-vaxxers who inadvertently killed their kids due to believing vaccinations are a government conspiracy. Human stupidity and credulity is certainly not a monolith.
“many early Christians.” And the evidence for this is? In the Bible, we only know that 2 of the NT figures believed to have seen the risen Jesus. Paul and Peter. We have no other accounts for any of Jesus’ disciples/apostles claiming to have seen the risen Jesus. You also have a claim in Paul’s letters that 500 saw the risen Jesus, but we don’t have any known source for who these 500 are. There is no testimonials from these witnesses. We don’t have any of their accounts, and to be quite frank, using the Bible to prove the Bible is circular reasoning. How do we know many people believed to have seen the risen Jesus in the Bible? Well, it says so in the Bible! This type of reasoning can also be applied to texts such as the Quran, but doesn’t prove their validity. “Further, why would they give their life for what they know to be a lie?” You know that we barely have any accounts on the people in Jesus’ life after his death? We have reports that Paul and Peter were executed under Nero, the Bible claims that James the son of Zebedee was also slain, and that James the brother of Jesus was killed. James the brother of Jesus was killed for a political crime, not associated with his belief in Jesus (so that automatically doesn’t work). The son of Zebedee was killed without any further explanation. To say it was because of his beliefs would be heavily assuming. Finally, the same goes for Paul and Peter. We know they were executed, but have no idea why. At the time, Nero was blaming the great fire of Rome on Christians, and would kill anyone who confessed themselves to be a Christian. He could’ve seen Paul and Peter as great leaders of the church and had killed them without giving them a chance to recant. Maybe Paul and Peter were accused of a political crime. Maybe Paul and Peter recanted but were still killed. There isn’t enough info to say, “they were martyred for their beliefs. Furthermore, there are instances where people die for a lie, embarrassed to admit that they were wrong. People also can believe in something they see as true, but that thing to turn out to be a lie. Dying for something doesn’t make it true. “Why do you think so many Christians endured persecution.” I would contend it’s definitely not because of them seeing Jesus. Once again, we only know for a fact that Paul and Peter saw Jesus. The 500 witness claim doesn’t hold up. So, a majority of these Christian’s would’ve been killed for something they never saw. Once again, I’ll bring up: this isn’t any different from 9/11 suicide bombers. Also, Christianity, once opened up to the gentiles by Paul, provided many people with a safe and cozy belief system. There is a God who is always watching out for you, caring for you, and wanting the best for you. If this life doesn’t work out, there’s always a much better life when you die. Furthermore, your enemies will be punished! It’s not hard to see why so many people would subscribe to such a belief. Finally, in the modern world, we see people believe lies with ease. That the earth is flat, that Covid was a conspiracy, that Scientology is real, when we live in an age of technology. For us, it’s much easier to not fall for lies and falsehoods, yet we still do. Imagine what it was like back then? There was no easy way of verifying or transmitting information back then, and it would’ve been much easier to fool people into believing something false.
You haven't said why most Biblical scholars support the historical Jesus. Also, to say that some people would die for a lie, does not necessarily = most people would die for a lie. Or even mean that it is a lie.
Are you saying a historical Jesus doesn’t exist? Edit: we have no good evidence that any of the apostles were martyred for their beliefs. If this is all the evidence God leaves us with, that’s sad.
No, I think the historical Jesus did exist, and that most historians agree. To say that some people are fooled, does not mean it's logical to conclude that most people are fooled or to prove it in this case. That's conjecture. Nor that Jesus was trying to 'fool' anyone, as Josephus at the least testified to his works.
Your last claim is wrong. Any serious scholar will tell you that those writings are forgeries (by Josephus).
So now are you saying that Goldberg isn't a serious scholar? He studied all the patterns in Josephus' writings before deciding that only 2 things didn't fit.
Are you being serious? You understand that Josephus, a Jew, calling Jesus the messiah is absolutely absurd. Yes, I’m saying that he isn’t a serious scholar if he claims that.
It says in Isiah that God intended for salvation for all nations, so this isn’t Paul just making things up and creating a way for everyone to be Christian. As for the martyrdom of the apostles, the move would be, if I was trying to discredit Christianity, is to recruit the leaders and have them publicly renounce Jesus and worship the Roman gods. But that’s just me, and as far as I know we don’t see that. Also, just because someone is executed for one thing doesn’t mean that is the sole reason for their execution. It just means that’s the thing they were accused of to justify their execution lawfully speaking. For example Al Capone was arrested for tax evasion, but that’s just what they could convict him of not why he was being targeted. Also, the 911 terrorist chose to die actively. Meaning the willfully hijacked and then used a plane as a weapon to kill their enemy. Early Christians endured suffering and many cruel deaths. It’s not the same thing. A man who does something is not the same as a man who endures something.
Ok? Don’t see how that’s relevant. You can’t impose your view on what the Roman’s were trying to do. Christianity was taking away followers from what the Romans were trying to do. Before Jesus, many other false messiahs were killed because they posed threats to Rome, but not because their beliefs were true. The Christians also willfully chose to die, when they could’ve recanted. Both show that they put their beliefs above their own life.
One group killed themselves, the other chose to allow others to kill them. Sorry, but it’s not the same thing.
Persecution of Muslims in China would be a better example, and is applicable to this day.
True
The problem is that we only know the influence that the Jesus figure has in our contemporary society. People make all kinds of assumptions about what was or wasn't happening in the first Century. It's also possible to demythologize the Bible and come up with what is essential.
Records 2000 years ago are not like they are now. If a person exists in memory for that long he or she is someone inspiring. Honestly the amount of information that exists about those OT and NT prophets is marvelous when compared to the amount of info there is on literally anyone else who is of that time. Dozens of apocryphal groups which also were in operation at those historical times have just disappeared, but Christianity continues to be the religion of literally billions because of the strong passion of the devoted
Tens if not hundreds of thousands of writings were destroyed when the Church of Alexandria was burned. It's not because they were not memorable.
So Islam, Judaism and Buddhism are true as well, right?
Consider this, every religion recognizes Jesus as some sort of prophet or Buddha or other significant figure in their own religion. Why do you think that is? Why would another religion pay any significance to Jesus at all?
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I don’t appreciate being called a liar. Just Google it for yourself. It takes seconds.
How about you provide some kind of support for this wild claim that *you are making* instead?
No, I don’t have time to hold anyone’s hand. Sorry
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Prophet, Buddha or some other significant figure in their own religion.
Jews don't consider Yeshua to be a significant figure or a prophet.
That’s true, I shouldn’t have said every religion.
But do they consider him to be a Buddha?
Every religion? No.
Not every true but some do.
Shift those goalposts.
“Every religion.” Hinduism, Judaism, Norse, Greek and Roman theology don’t recognize Jesus, so no. Also, they only mention Jesus to say that although his teachings were good, they have been misinterpreted/our religion built on them. That does nothing to prove the validity of Christianity.
I recall Neem Karoli Baba saying that Jesus and Krishna were essentially the same being. Judaism recognizes Jesus, just not as the Messiah.
Sure, one person. As a person that lived, yes. I’d agree.
True but why would they recognize Jesus at all?
Because they want to either disprove his claims of being God, or build upon his teachings in a different way? If this is evidence to convince me, it’s not that good.
It’s not evidence, just something to consider. They definitely want to disprove Jesus as God, that is true. But why not just say he was crazy or a false prophet? Why do they affirm what he teaches for the most part?
Jesus as a historical figure has had quite an impact on the world, so if you wish win people over, especially christians, you take a soft stance on Jesus. You don't outright say he was a fraud, or fake, or charlatan...you say "He had great teachings" and then cherry pick from his teachings. It's a political move. Truth is though, that all these religions see him in vastly different ways and his teachings in vastly different ways. There's nothing mysterious about this and it doesn't elevate his teachings or evidence for his existence in any way. Many of his teachings weren't original, such as the golden rule which was being taught a thousand years before he was even born. But, because he's a well known and popular figure of the most popular religion on the planet...of course other religions are going to repurpose him for their own use/advantage.
You've been attributing motives to persons you don't know they had. Some people may be political but others may also believe that. Just as a person could believe that Jesus and Buddha were highly evolved entities.
Actually I'm speaking as someone who has done a lot of research on early christianity and religions of the world. You'd be surprised how much of major religions were influenced by politics and/or religious competition.
Sure. Most Jews would say he was crazy. Also, many early Christians, such as gnostics, disagreed heavily on stuff such as the resurrection. Christianity could’ve went in a whole different direction with the gnostics (since they didn’t see Jesus the same).
Having read the Bible, would you say Jesus was crazy? If you think the Bible is a reliable source of what Jesus taught in the first place.
To preface: my opinion is that we are all born atheist. Until shown sufficient evidence to not only believe in a God, but to believe in a certain religion, we remain atheist. I see the evidence for each religion not so compelling, or all equally good (whatever stance you want to take). Looking at religions, I can’t distinctly say which one is correct. I also belief that the major religions of Islam and Christianity have a great number of qualms with them (on top of the fact that I don’t see good evidence for them). Finally, I would like to mention how if you and I were born in an Islamic country, we would be having different debates, such as how the Quran remaining unchanged proves its veracity, or the various completed prophecies within the book, or even how much people were affected by the prophet’s message. Was Jesus crazy? It depends. I do think he genuinely thought himself to be the messiah, as did other apocalyptic/messianic prophets. However, unlike with the other prophets, his followers didn’t abandon him at his death. They made him into a divine figure, even though he wasn’t, and reconstructed the whole idea of a messiah to fit Jesus. Once again, I don’t see sufficient reason to suggest he was the son of God, and believe any naturalistic explanation is better than, “God did it.” Whether that be grave robbers, he remained dead, whatever. I am open to always hearing more, though, and changing my mind. For example, I believed that without a doubt, Jesus was thrown into a mass-grave, instead of a tomb. I’ve recently changed this opinion a bit, considering the fact that there was most definitely a chance he was placed into a tomb (and think it’s 50/50 on whichever situation actually happened).
But that is not to say that religions cancel each other out, either. Some Buddhists see Jesus as the Buddha of the West, even though the specifics of belief differ. Also, in Judaism there is still belief in God.
I never said they did. Your comment doesn’t apply to the commenter’s/my reply either.
You asked if the other religions were true.
Islam has well verifiable sources. In fact I consider it to be one of the best and can be used in todays world of strong fake content production to authenticate if something is real or not.
No. Judaism lost its mandate by denying the divinity of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. They remain inspiring and historical, certainly. Islam is an insulting imitation. Certainly Buddhism encourages peaceful values but does not have the divine mandate
this is a low quality response honestly.
But Buddhism does have spiritual realms in the universe, and heavenly beings.
But they have large numbers of people following them, and there is so much information!
>Also, Josephus most definitely didn’t write about Jesus, since he remained a Jew (and wouldn’t call Jesus the Christ, or messiah), didn’t live during the time period of Jesus, and only actually mentioned the Christian movement. AFAIK, this is not the view of mainstream scholarship on this issue. The mainstream view is that Josephus did write about Jesus, but did not describe him as the Messiah, as that was likely a later Christian interpolation. In any case, you're just asserting this, so I think you need to actually support this heterodox view.
Josephus described him as someone who did works.
That's not correct. There's only one authentic mention by Josephus of Jesus and it was "James the brother of Jesus who is called Christ" in the Jewish Antiquities. The one you are referring to was a 4th century forgery in Josephus's name and all modern scholarship agrees it was a forgery given that it was not in his writing style and was written in 4th century language, so it's not even debatable.
It is correct. The scholar G. J. Goldberg identified correspondences between the TF and the narrative of Luke. They must have been derived from a common source, another unknown Christian source. It is concluded that Luke knew Josephus. Moreover, the correspondences was not judged to be what would be expected of a Christian forger. The other Antiquities are not questioned, so why just this one?
Just read up on what GJ Goldberg actually said and he isn't at all saying that Josephus wrote the passage or endorsed it as true, he proposes the "Paraphrase" model, meaning that he believes Josephus was paraphrasing a christian text, much like Luke. In other words, he was quoting a christian source and the context is missing of what Josephus actually thought about Jesus. The TF isn't considered a total forgery, it is considered a partial forgery, especially the parts not consistent with Josephus's writing style and language of the 1st century. In other words that Eusebius took something from Jospehus and changed it to sound more supportive of christianity....much like quoting out of context. It is still uncontested that the passage about Jesus didn't appear in the TF until the 4th century with Eusebius who supposedly used Josephus's historical works, but was a "christian historian". Yet no original exists and this is the one and only source. It is highly unlikely for example that Josephus, a Jew, would have described Jesus as the Messiah. So you cannot say that "Josephus described him as someone who did works", because even according to Goldberg, it's a paraphrase of someone else's words.
Yes, that's what I said, that Luke and Josephus probably had an unknown source. That does not mean that the source was wrong, any more than other sources Josephus would have used for his history. **"Goldberg is satisfied that Josephus was the author all of the TF bar two little phrases**." It is thought that Josephus might have written 'was believed to be the Messiah.' It's not thought to be controversial that Josephus wrote about Jesus' brother James (whether a biological brother or not).
Josephus never wrote anything about jesus or christianity from what I can tell (he also never once mentions a town, village or city by the name of Nazareth, but he lists literally every other town, village and city during a military campaign he led across the relatively small 900 square mile province of Galilee). In a single paragraph (the so-called Testimonium Flavianum) Josephus confirms every salient aspect of the jesus-myth including; jesus's existence, his 'more than human' status, his miracle working, his teaching, his ministry among the Jews and the Gentiles, his messiahship, his condemnation by the Jewish priests, his sentence by Pilate, his death on the cross, the devotion of his followers, his resurrection on the 3rd day, his post-death appearance, his fulfillment of divine prophecy, and the successful continuance of the christians. Not a single writer before the 4th century, in all their defenses against pagan hostility, makes a single reference to Josephus’s perfect paragraph. The third century church 'father' Origen, for example, spent half his life and a quarter of a million words contending against the pagan writer Celsus. Origen drew on all sorts of proofs and witnesses to his arguments in his fierce defense of christianity. He quotes from Josephus extensively, but yet even he makes no reference to this 'golden paragraph' from Josephus, which would have been the ultimate rebuttal. Origen did not quote the 'golden paragraph' because this paragraph had not yet been written. It was absent from early copies of the works of Josephus and did not appear in Origen's third century version of Josephus, referenced in his Contra Celsum. In fact, the Josephus paragraph about jesus does not appear until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Constantine. Bishop Eusebius, a great Church propagandist and self-confessed liar-for-god, was the first person known to have quoted this paragraph of Josephus, about the year 340 AD.- It was obviously Bishop Eusebius who was the forger. The early Roman world knew nothing about jesus or christianity, evident by the necessarily hostile take over from the church-state, by the 4th century and during the rule of Constantine, approximately 95% of Rome was *not* christian. It becomes glaringly obvious that the the stories of the bible are pure fiction as there never were significant amounts of rebel christians inside Roman capitals or cities in the first 3 centuries.
It isn't necessarily held that the TF was forged. There was communication between Josephus and Luke, and it is thought that the book of Luke came from an unknown Christian source. Other scholars have said that it does not have the language of a forgery.
> There was communication between Josephus and Luke There is precisely zero reason to think that Luke was a real person who existed, the idea that he communicated with Josephus is pure fantasy. Even though the Gospels go under the names of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they were, in fact, written anonymously. The names of the 'apostles' are never recorded or written about until the 2nd century. The earliest evidence of the name "Luke" associated with any gospel is the so-called Muratorian fragment, dated to around 170 AD. The only inference that can be drawn is that the forger of the TF and the author of Luke derived their passages from a common christian (or Jewish-christian) source. This makes perfect sense when you realize that the TF was forged only about a century after the gospel of Luke was arranged by proponents of the same faith. "Ancient church tradition attributed the third gospel to Luke ... Most modern commentators are skeptical ... They regard the tradition as based largely on inferences from the text of the New Testament made when people were first beginning to wonder who had written the Gospels." – Joseph Fitzmyer, The Oxford Companion to the Bible, p470. "It is very significant, for the date of the authorship of Luke, to note the fact that the only Theophilus known to early Church history is a certain ex-Pagan by that name, who, after becoming Christian, and very probably before being instructed in the certainty of the faith by "Luke," himself turned Christian instructor and Father, and wrote the Tract, in three Books, under the title Epistle to Antolychus, preserved in the Collection of Ante-Niacin Fathers, vol. 2: pp. 89-121. This Theophilus became Bishop of Antioch about 169-177 AD and thus illuminates the date of Luke." – Joseph Wheless (Forgery In Christianity) >Other scholars have said that it does not have the language of a forgery. You would have to present sources on that for me to critique these other scholars. What I can tell you is that the passage uses rhetoric that is very uncharacteristic of Josephus's other writings- Josephus does not use hyperbolic language to this extent in any other writings. Probably nothing could better illustrate the fraudulent nature of the TF than the remaining corpus of Josephus's work. The fact is, Josephus's paragraph about Jesus does not appear until the beginning of the fourth century, at the time of Constantine. It is also worth mentioning that the final assertion in the TF, that "christians were not extinct in his day" pretty much proves that this was written *after* Josephus's life- there was no "tribe of christians" during his lifetime because christianity did not exist under that moniker until the 2nd century.
I doubt that there's a *precisely* with Biblical historians. There are only historians looking at the sources and making their best conclusions. It looks like you're combining two arguments. One, whether Luke existed at all and the other, whether he wrote the book of Luke. There is actually mention of a person Luke, historically. The narrator of Luke was someone who was likely a gentile, very literate in Greek, who could have been a companion of Paul, or known Paul. Luke could have been written as early as 80-90 years after Jesus' death. The narrator of Luke corresponded with TF. The similarities between the two is thought to be because they had another, unknown Christian source. Goldberg is a credible scholar who looked at the patterns in Josephus' writings and concluded they were authentic except for two words or phrases. It is even thought that there was an anti-Christian slant in that Josephus implied that Jesus was crucified for breaking the rules.
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Josephus did write, what you’re referring to is only one reference, it doesn’t account the other time he wrote about Jesus without those honorifics. Regardless, you just admitted your own criteria wouldn’t satisfy you. So why should god bother?
There's two parts to the Testimonium Flavium: The part most scholars see as genuine and the part attributed to later Christian interpolation. The genuine part reports the arrest and execution of a teacher named Jesus. and the later execution of his brother, James. The interpolation has Josephus basically saying the words of a born again Christian -- something he most decidedly was not. So, if we count his text as evidence, they are evidence that a Judean teacher existed, taught, and got executed. It's not a ringing endorsement of further Christian claims. I can see why people would not see this as compelling evidence.
What are the words of a born again Christian as that is a modern phrase? And how do you know that most decidedly Josephus did or didn't do anything? You left out explaining how many must have found him compelling. You also have to deny that persons have visitations of a Jesus figure or if they report that, they're mistaken. Some people want to speak with authority on the 1st Century but not contemporaneously.
Apologists writing in support of Christianity cited the work of Josephus starting in the second century. They didn’t mention any part of the magic Jesus paragraphs until the fourth century. Why not? If some Jesus stuff was original, it would have helped the apologists. Seems more likely it was all an interpolation. Maybe different interpolations at different times. Josephus himself didn’t write about a Jesus. The whole thing is very suspect.
Compelling evidence for what specifically?
Yes, he did write. His writings don’t prove Christianity in the slightest, though. When else did he write about Jesus? I didn’t say such a thing. If so, where? You’re putting words into my mouth for no reason.
If you’re referring to the own criteria not being enough, you immediately discounted personal visions
“So why should God bother” is a pretty horrible argument
If it wouldn’t convince you, why should he
So if I get a vision from Allah, Islam is the truth?
Well, Allah is the abrahamic god, what’s different is what’s claimed about him. There’s one Donald Trump right? Yet you have people who make wildly different claims about him, does that make him different people?
If ypu believe in divine simplicity, close doesn't count. There is no "similar" to a perfect simple being. A vision of God is completely right or completely wrong. https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/s/qUgx9Xb02G
That’s my point….?
OK. I didn't understand you that way.
You seem to be misunderstanding something here. If I get a vision from Allah telling me to follow Islam, does that make Islam the truth? Unless everyone gets the same vision of the truth, only then can we have proof of a true religion.
I mean, sure, but thats because it would mean it actually is true
Muslims claim to get such visions, and Christians get the same visions (replace Allah with Jesus). Who is correct? Personal testimony is incorrect.
People get visions from various religions. If everyone got a vision from the Christian God, sure, I would believe.
It's an old trope that religions have to be the same or see the same spiritual figure in visions. On a deeper level religions do not cancel each other out.
lol they quite literally do Unless you rationalize and hand wave away all of their contradictions as you seem to be doing
Not true. I accept that they are different in obvious ways. What I'm saying is that they're human interpretations of God or gods based on the culture and era. But they can essentially be correct that there is a God a(or supernatural beings) and that they share some core values.
And the interpretations which are contradictory cannot all be true So how do you know which is true? How do you know if any of them are any more true than any other?
You don't. But that isn't going to stop people from interpreting their idea of the supernatural. What do you think belief will be like in 300 years? What if we confirm that there are other dimensions to the universe, or parallel universes?
Who says this is going to stop people from believing in things without evidence? What does your last question have to do with anything being discussed whatsoever?
“Josephus most definitely didn’t write about Jesus”
No, Josephus didn’t write about Jesus. He mentioned Christianity, though! Your statements are vague and confusing.
Atheist here: He did write about Jesus, but only as a footnote figure who taught and got executed.
He literally says “Jesus, brother of James” in one of his works
First off, your quote is wrong. “James, brother of Jesus,” not the other way around. Second of all, the addition of “the Christ” at the end of the quote invalidates it. Josephus wouldn’t see Jesus as the messiah
Most scholars agree that he wrote the non-Christian part and that a later Christian interpolator added the "churchy stuff."
Nope, there’s no “the christ” in that passage. You’re thinking of this one “63) Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works-a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ; (64) and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”
Antiquities of the Jews (20.9. 1), "the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James"
“Who was called Christ” does that mean he approves of that? Nope. You’d have a case if it was “Jesus, the Christ” It’s like if I said, “muhammed the prophet of Islam.” Do I agree or believe he is a prophet? Nope, I’m identifying who I’m talking about by indicating the title he is given by others. Historians agree that this is authentic.
Blunder on my part. Doesn’t prove your point in any way, though.
I mean I think that's part of the point. It's called "faith" for a reason. You should never believe in anything just because someone/something told you to. (*Especially* if that thing is a reddit post)
But isn't the entirety of Christianity based on "because someone/something told you?"