Quote from jem:
You sort of said Jesus was not likely a historical figure and yet you could state that Paul was the start of Christianity.
Being that historical records from the time were scarce I wondered if you saw the flaw in your statement. I still ask how could you know much about the very early church?
Did you examine Jim Walker's site? There are plenty of records of when Jesus suppossedly lived. The only problem is that there are no records in Jesus' time pointing to a Jesus as defined in the Gospels. There are no written eyewitness accounts or records. All the records are based on hearsay.
How is that possible if he achieved such fame according to the Christian testament in his time?
I see you enjoy speculation about the Jewish religion at the time. Did you take into account all the different sects at the time?
That is exactly what we are talking about here. The Christians in the first century C.E. were nothing more than a heretical sect of Judaism, and Jesus real or not would be the equivalent of a reform rabbi today.
Your point seems to be the Jews would not accept or expect a divine Messiah.
The messiah is divine in the sense that he was chosen by God like Moses was chosen to take the Hebrews out of Egyptian bondage by God. It doesn't mean that the messiah is God or a part of God. The messiah is a creation of God just like any other creation of God. The bottom line is that the messiah is a human being. Why do you think that no one knows where Moses is really buried?
Moses was a messiah. It means savior. He was God's instrument on Earth to save the Jews from certain annihilation in Egypt through miraculous means.
Had his burial place been known gullible and naive people would have made him divine, and Jesus fact or fiction would have been about 13 hundred years too late to claim the position of a divine messiah.
From chapter one of the "Old" testament- God refers to himself as WE.
This is the royal We. It doesn't mean that God is indicating that He is a plurality, and God is including the heavenly familia with it i.e., the angels (natural forces) that He created as well.
We also know through metaphysics that a Perfect Being can not be a plurality. A Perfect Being has to be perfectly simple. A plurality indicates lack of perfection. You can explore this area in depth in books on metaphysics if it doesn't make obvious sense to you.
The famous cry in the old testament...
"Hear all Isreal the Lord God is One." Do you know the definition of that word "one'? You can check the argument but the word used for "One" is the is the hebrew word for a compound unity. It is used that way in other places in the bible - for instance when branch is grafted to a tree.
Who told you this nonsense Jem? Ehad means one -- not one compound unity. Look it up in any reliable Hebrew dictionary.
Judaism came about because God felt that his Word was going to get lost again because the fools among humankind started to believe again that there existed many gods so He would have to destroy the world again as he did in Noah's time. Billions of people in our time believe in all kinds of nonsense when it comes to the Divine? Why doesn't God destroy the world now?
Because with the selection of the Patriachs and finally the Jewish nation his Word was sealed in humanity forever. Why do you think that the Jews are a constant target for destruction in every generation since they existed. It is not the Jews that the enemies of the Jews are really trying to destroy, but the Word of God because without the Jews the Word of God will disappear from the world.
The "Hitler Youth" sang this song:
We are the joyous Hitler Youth,
We have no need for Christian virtue.
Our leader is our savior;
The pope and rabbi shall
be gone. We shall be pagans once again.
Hitler told his people:
Providence has ordained that I should be the greatest liberator of humanity. I am freeing man from the restraints of an intelligence that has taken charge, from the dirty and degrading self-mortifications of a false vision known as conscience and morality, and from the demands of a freedom and personal independence which only a very few can bear.
Regarding the Bible's influence on culture, Hitler said, "The Ten Commandments have lost their vitality. Conscience is a Jewish invention; it is a blemish, like circumcision."
Herman Rauchning had been Hitlerâs personal confidante, but he abandoned Nazism and attempted to alert the free world to the scope and danger of the Nazi threat. He wrote:
It is against their own insoluble problem of being human that the dull and base in humanity are in revolt in anti-Semitism. Nevertheless Judaism, together with Hellenism and Christianity, is an inalienable component of our Christian Western Civilization â the eternal "call to Sinai," against which humanity again and again rebels.
[from: The Beast From the Abyss, by Hermann Rauchning]
Now were you also aware of the fact that there have either been revisions to the Jewish bible or at least disputes as to which books were in the bible prior to Christ. Would it surprise you that some of the predictions of the divine messiah were in those books which are no longer in the Jewish bible.
You may also wish to learn about the alterations to Isaiah.
What I am aware of is that those that are into replacement theology are frauds, charlatans, and knaves. First we had the Christian Fathers that claimed that now Christianity has replaced Judaism, and then we had Mohammed seven centuries later who claimed that Islam has now replaced Christianity and Judaism.
regarding Joesepheus. Why would use such a slanted argument. Were you aware that scholars almost universally agree the statements about Jesus divinity were added to the record, but that there were original references to Jesus and Christians.
Note Josepheus reference to the Christian community is virtually unchallenged.
Anybody that has studied early Christian history or for that matter the history of the destruction 2nd Temple knows that Josephus is an unrealiable historian. He was imprisoned by the Romans and then his patrons were Romans. He did not write freely!
In short - there are scarce records of the times. One of the best does reference Jesus. So Jesus was probably a historical figure.
And your speculations regarding Paul creating Christianity out of nothing are simply not supported by the scarce records we have of the time.
Which is pretty much why I challenged your statement.
Whether I believe in Christ or not is off point. The point was you have no basis for your speculation. And I simply questioned your sources.
I was right about you. It is impossible to debate with a dogmatist or sophistrist. I gave you a whole site
http://nobeliefs.com/exist.htm "Did a Historical Jesus Exist?" which gives citation after citation indicating as to the impossibility of a historical Jesus as described in the Gospels as having ever existed, and here you are telling me that I have provided you no sources, and my conclusion is totally baseless.
I'm not sure if you are misguided Jem or if you have an ax to grind, but if it is the former then I suggest you read A History of Christianity, and A History of the Jews by the eminent English historian Paul Johnson who happens to be a true contemporary historical authority on these subjects, and he also happens to be a practicing Roman Catholic so you don't have to be afraid that I am taking you into heretical waters.
This is not going to take 10 years. They are only 2 books of about 500 pages each, and it says in your profile that you like to read so you should be able to get them under your belt in no time.
When you finish reading them, and if you are so inclined to engage me in a discussion then we should be able to have a productive discussion.
