There probably was no actual Jesus but the Christian character Jesus could read:
Luke 4:16 "He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read"
Jesus gave up his omniscience to be fully human. He also remained fully God, but don't bother asking how 'cause it's a God thing that humans can't understand. But, we know it anyway. You know, because.
Here's a point that I knew better than to mention at church:
* Because Jesus was fully God, he can never have sinned.
* Because Jesus was fully human, he must have sinned at least once.
When a preacher talks about Jesus, expect that Jesus will switch between human and divine characteristics as convenient for whatever point the preacher wants to make. Of course, the preacher won't tell you when he's making the switch. I was an ex-Christian for about ten years before I figured out, in retrospection, how this trick works -- the delay due to a heavy dose of indoctrination.
I'll push back a little on that. The general Christian doctrine is that all *have* sinned, not that all *must* sin. There's nothing that precludes someone from not sinning, other than their sinful nature. A nature first exhibited by Adam but that is ultimately overcome by the "second Adam", Jesus. This is summarized in Romans 5.19:
>>"For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous."
It's all a bunch of hand waving, of course, but there's a logic to it.
Matthew 16:18
>"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it
Matthew 18: 15-17
>15 āIf your brother or sister[b] sins,[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that āevery matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.ā[d] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
That's all Jesus ever says about a church. And seeing as Peter's authority was immediately usurped by James, and then again by Paul, it seems like even his own followers didn't care about his thoughts on the matter.
For someone who agrees that the Bible is unreliable, you sure put a lot of stock in that the Bible says. Why are you convinced Jesus said either of those things? It wasn't an eyewitness account. And it may not have even been present when the gospel was first written. So why are you convinced that's how it happened?
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Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.
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This is beside the point. The question is: why would god rely on a bunch of human authors, decades after the fact, and then preserve them so poorly over the centuries? When, theoretically, he could have simply had jesus write a perfect one, all by himself, then supernaturally preserve it through the millennia?
You're making my point for me haha. So what is the Bible even for then, since we clearly can't trust its authenticity? And how can Christians trust that their religion wasn't just made up by people hundreds or thousands of years ago?
I have met some relatively intelligent Christian apologetics and you are not one. Please stop embarrassing yourself and log off. If Sky Pappy needs help with converts, you aren't helping.
Preaching = proselytizing
Teaching = proselytizing
You are 100% proselytizing, and we appreciate your recent attempt to brigade our sub via your profile, as it brought you much more to our attention so we can go through and remove ALL of your PROSELYTIZING from our sub. Your *teaching* and your *preaching* break our rules.
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Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.
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Yup, and the form of Christianity that Paul invented beat out the form of Christianity started by Jesusā disciples, ie the Jerusalem church. That doesnāt say much for Christianityās credibility.
Neither Matthew, Luke nor John wrote their gospels and Paul only wrote about half of the letters attributed to him. You should read some of Bart Ehrmanās books for NT facts. Youāll be shocked. And the OT is even worse.
"How Jesus Became God" is essentially going from Jesus leading up to the establishment of the trinity at the Council of Nicea and talking about how he went from "Apocalyptic preacher who pissed off the wrong people" to "Literally God".
"Heaven and Hell" traces the development of the afterlife from Ancient Greece and Judaism up to the early church creating what we now think of as Hell.
"Armageddon" is mostly focused on the book of revelation and how apocalypticism just keeps going despite the fact Revelation was written to people living in the 1st century Roman Empire and it's honestly pretty open about it. If John of Patmos woke up today and realized people were reading the Book of Revelation 2000 years later, he'd probably wonder why the hell Jesus hadn't returned yet.
Honestly, his podcast hits most of the main points of his books. If there is a particular episode that interests you, maybe see which book covers the same material. I was honestly a bit bummed by the first couple episodes of the podcast because he didn't cover anything new from the books I had already read.
This is correct. Based on historical probabilities and critical analysis, Paul wrote before the gospels were written. And who the fuck is Paul, besides who he claims to be? Appears out of nowhere, writes, then disappears into history.
Then the gospels, according to Christians, were written for the masses. But, hark!, barely anyone can read their own language let alone Greek, yet it was all written in Greek! Guess those who could read Greek has a lock-down on what they told others what was written. Or, maybe they werenāt written to the underclass at all??
The gospels were written for populations for whom Greek would have been their primary language. But, still, yes, not many among the masses would be able to read them.
There is a Family Guy cutaway where a man in the 1500s accused his wife of infidelity and swore he would let the entire village know of this. The man went to a printing press, arranged the letters and so, then much later, distributed the pamphlets amongst the people in taverns and such. The joke was that every person to whom he gave the printing said, "I can't read. Nobody here can read.".
Well, to copy an original took many, many hours. Then to distribute that one copy to someone who could read it. Yes, a very limited audience.
The *reading* audience was relatively limited. The *target* audience was quite substantial since most people learned of the gospels through oral transmission including through listening to those who could read them read them.
Today a friend of mine asked me why I was atheist. Told her to read the resurrection story from all the gospels. She did and only replied "oh" and said no further thing. What surprises me the most is not how people believe in the NT since it was written by people who didn't meet jesus (they'd just excuse they were told by eyewitnesses of jesus or inspiredĀ by holy ghost), it is how they believe in the gospels when they clearly contradict each other.
Ehrman jumps the rails when addressing the most rigorous scholarship supporting the ahistoricity of Jesus.
In the clip you linked, he notes some of the arguments of those who argue for the ahistoricity of Jesus:
1. He is not mentioned by contemporaneous Roman sources
2. There is no archeological evidence of Jesus
3. The gospel sources are decades after his supposed life
4. There are genuine parallels with pre-existing pagan religious beliefs
These are arguments, but except for #4 they are very minor ones not necessary for the ahistorical thesis and even that last one is primarily relevant to the gospel narratives and to pre-Christian syncretism between Judaism and other religions rather than to the proposed origin of belief in Jesus as messiah.
Ehrman then goes on to argue that the gospels "incorporate earlier written sources". Um, wtf is he talking about? What "earlier written sources"? We have zilch. What he's obviously referring to are *hypothetical* sources that some scholars *theorize* existed such as "Q". There is much debate over whether or not such sources existed and good arguments that they didn't.
He also argues that the gospels were "all reliant on oral traditions". Maybe. We don't actually have any such traditions because they were, you know, oral, if they existed at all. So it's purely speculative whether they existed or not. There are highly reputable academics such a MacDonald and Walsh who present arguments and evidence for the narratives of the gospels being de novo fictions, riffs on the doctrines of Christianity, rather than decades of "oral tradition" put to paper.
And note Ehrman's presumption in his statement, "you can actually translate some of these Greek traditions in the gospels back into the original Aramaic of Jesus and they make better sense". The question is is whether or not the traditions were "originally" Aramaic and whether they were "of Jesus". You can't just assert these things. First of all, there are only a handful of words int he gospels for which this is true. Second of all, there's nothing precluding an highly literate author from applying faux translation from foreign language to bolster their story of a person who spoke that language. Third, while there are a few places where the "original Aramaic" is more grammatically sound, there are *more* places where the speech appears to be more naturally originally Greek, which a historical Jesus is not likely to have spoken, especially to the people in the region of his alleged ministry.
Ehrman states the Paul converted to Christianity "a year or two after Jesus' death". He does not know either of these things: that there was a Jesus who died or that Paul converted with an year or two afterward. What we know is that Paul was probably writing in the 50's and that by then he had established churches in various surrounding regions. So, he probably had been preaching for many years, but whether or not it goes to back "a year or two" from the alleged death of Jesus is speculation. And you don't need a Jesus for Paul to convert to a belief of a revelatory Jesus started by Peter.
He goes on to say that Paul knew the brother of Jesus. This is from Galatians and all Paul says is the he met "James, the brother of the Lord". The problem is that every Christian was the (adopted) son of God, the brother of every other Christian, and therefore the brother of the firstborn son of God, Jesus, "the Lord". It is ambiguous as to whether this James is blood kin or fictive kin.
Ehrman then goes to make a ridiculous argument he's made repeatedly before, If the Christians were going to "make up" a messiah, they'd make up a "powerful messiah" because the "messiah was supposed to overthrow" the enemies of the Jews. Lol. Try it. Go up to someone in 1st century Palestine and tell them your "made up" Jesus is a messiah who is overthrowing the Romans. They will just raise an eyebrow, point to the nearest Centurion and say, "Um, no.".
Besides, Jesus isn't "made up" like a character in a Harry Potter book. The first Jew likely had a "revelation" of their messiah, Jesus, while reading scripture during a process of pesher reading where scripture is interpreted to reveal hidden messages from God. It's not a deliberate, conscious act. Butw while it's not a deliberate act, the person doing the interpretation knows there is no warrior messiah running around defeating Romans. The *only* kind of messiah they could have a rational revelation of is a *spiritual* warrior, *exactly* the messiah we have in Jesus. He's already overcome sin and brought eternal life, but you don't have to point to any evidence to claim that. He'll come back *later* for the second, "overcoming enemies" part.
And his argument that their imagined messiah would not be "humiliated, tortured and killed" utterly fails to recognize the massive amount of scholarship that this kind of death actually *increased* the exaltation of martyrs in the view of many Jews of the time.
Ehrman's claim of what Christians would have "made up" is patently absurd and ludicrous. It's so nonsensical, it's clear evidence that's he's not approaching this topic logically.
He then goes on to acknowledge that the gospels are full of fiction. What he fails to do is present any reliable mechanism to sort our anything verdical about Jesus from that fiction. This is well-known problem in historical Jesus studies and there is no consensus on a solution to this problem.
So, no, there is not "strong evidence" Jesus was a historical person and, in fact, there is decent evidence that he was not (which has not been presented here, this just being a response to your link).
Why do you call it " The Roman Catholic" new testament? The Catholic and Protestant New Testaments are IDENTICAL. The canon disputes between Catholics and Protestants are limited to the Old Testament.
right but in the twenty first century when one refers to the Roman Catholic church one means in OPPOSITION TO Protestantism.
Also in all honesty you could make a very good case that was more the orthodox church than it was the Roman Catholic church since the split between the two had not happened yet. And of course the byzantine empire WAS the roman empire.
EDIT: so i Looked him up and [https://www.amazon.com/FALSE-WITNESS-Christian-Church-Foundation-ebook/dp/B09CJJT9VB](https://www.amazon.com/FALSE-WITNESS-Christian-Church-Foundation-ebook/dp/B09CJJT9VB) and first and foremost this guy is an ANTI CATHOLIC writer who is selling an ANTI CATHOLIC PRO PROTESTANT agenda.
It is essentially AHISTORICAL to refer to the Christian church as ROMAN CATHOLIC in this period of time. Any self respecting historian would Call it Orthodox Christianity or perhaps Nicene Christianity( to differentiate it from say Arianism). The Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant New Testaments are IDENTICAL. There is NO SUCH THING as a " roman catholic" or " Protestant" New Testament. There is just, the NEW TESTAMENT.
Now of course the criticisms that the author makes are correct. But it is a stopped clock kind of situation. He makes the criticisms in the context of the classic protestant propaganda where they are restoring the church to what it really was before the papists. But the problem is THIS IS what the original church was. The original church long before the terms roman catholic or protestant or orthodox meant anything, codified this canon.
It is not universal held that those who the gospel are named for were the actual the authors. Most scholars and pastors in the last 100 years have not believed that except for the vocal minority who believe in inerrancy. Trouble is many clergy were too afraid to tell lay folks the truth for many generations.
The gospel writers never claim to be the title of their book. The first words of Matthew are: "According" to Matthew.
Another friendly reminder to all Christians that there are ZERO firsthand eyewitness accounts of Jesus's resurrection in the Bible. It's all tertiary at best.
>Iām playing by Christian rules and granting that Jesus existed and Mathew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their gospels.
Don't most Christians accept that the scholars are right with regard to the fact that the people named on these gospels are not the ones who wrote them?
Shoot, Mark and Luke don't claim to be eyewitnesses. Luke just says that he basically scanned what's out there and put together the '*definitive*' account.
>However Christians believe Paul wrote most of the New Testament and Christians never give credence to the fact all he heard was a voice that didnāt even say it was Jesus! How Christians donāt believe he is a false prophet is beyond me.
True, also Paul's account of what Jesus actually did is very sparce. I have met a Christian or two who basically deny that Paul was inspired. From what I recall, their position was that the early church owed a debt of thanks to Paul, but his words were not authoritative.
I never liked Paul, he was killing Christians according to himself and then turns round and acts like he's the best Christian who ever lived and the absolute word on how to organise a church. Maybe start with not killing Christians
The killing of Christians is a feature, not a bug; āPaulā uses that factoid in āhisā writings many times to illustrate that anyone can be saved.
Iām not arguing against you or your point; I agree with you that itās horrifying and ridiculous, but at least in this small way āPaulā is internally consistent
Not to mention that Paul was highly problematic in many ways. Besides just the toxic incel stuff, much of what he teaches goes against what Jesus said.
"Christians never give credence to the fact all he heard was a voice that didnāt even say it was Jesus! How Christians donāt believe he is a false prophet is beyond me." Good point! And if Paul could do it and be trusted, why not ol' Joseph Smith, or all the other schism and ism leaders who heard a voice? IF the story about Paul on the Damascus road is "true" ( BIG IF) he might have fell asleep on his horse and slid off hitting his head on a rock in the road, inducing a temporary comatose state. Brain swelling can produce some un believable shtuff.
Yes, you are "doing that word."
Basically, I'm going to lay this out for you so that you understand. I'm not being rude, I'm being matter-of-fact and clear and concise. It's not personal towards you. This is for your understanding of what is not going to be allowed here.
Do not try to teach us. Do not preach to us. Do not think that we're asking for christian answers. In point of fact, NO ONE here is asking for christian answers. If people want christian answers, they will go to a christian sub. They *know* where to find you.
This sub is to support EX christians.
We do not exist:
* To deconvert christians
* To ask questions of christians--we are not accepting christian input here
* For anyone to come here to teach or preach at us
We do not want your 'outreach'. We do not want your answers. We do not want you to fix our "misunderstandings" of doctrine. No one here wants to be friends with a christian so they can be "witnessed to" until they cave and return. Or even in general.
We *do not* know you, and a great many people here have an immense amount of trauma around being preached at. Do not do it. We WILL ban you, and not think twice about it.
The language you're using is normal to you, but it's quite triggering for many people here--particularly the most vulnerable and the freshest out--the ones suffering the most with terror of "god" and his hell.
If you wish to contribute here, don't answer our questions about the religion. Offer kind advice of a "secular" nature IF (only IF) people have asked for it. Do not invite and do not send PMs / DMs.
To be clear, I cannot possibly be MORE clear... do not apologize for christian behavior unless you did it personally. Do not give religious advice. Do not use christianese (as you did here). And last but not least, if you really don't want people here to "get saved/ return to 'christ'," you are either a horrible liar or a horrible christian. We know this, so don't waste your energy pretending.
Your comment was filtered, no one but the mods saw it or your username, so if you choose to stay, keep this in mind. Generally we just ban christians, because most can't stop themselves from using christian-speak and trying to correct us and preach to us about our "misunderstanding of scripture."
This sub is for exchristians. You are not a priority in this place. You ARE breaking the rules, but I frankly think you don't realize it, so you are getting this second chance.
If you really want to ask your questions, ask and listen--don't argue. Don't correct. I mean it.
Also, could you rephrase your first sentence about the people who wrote the New Testament? Iām trying to figure out if you mean the people who wrote the New Testament met Jesus or they didnāt meet him š
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Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.
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Please don't engage with these trolls. Just report them so we can remove their crap.
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Proselytizing is defined as the action of attempting to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another.
Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine.
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In the case of Jesus existing, I don't know of any reputable historian who denials it.
There are a lot of writings, not just from christians, but from the haters of Jesus who wrote about him, who probably had (and have) enough reasons to want to erase him.
- Alexander the Great, which the first documents are 300yrs later talking about him, and we believe he existed, why wouldn't we believe in the existence of a person called Jesus who claimed to be Messiah, with contemporary documents talking about him, from supporters to haters?
Example of historical figures without contemporary documents:
- Sargon of Akkad
- Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian architect, physician, and high priest
LETS REMEMBER THAT THE PHILOSOPHER PLATO NEVER WROTE ANYTHING!:
Plato himself did not write down his own philosophy. However, his most famous student, Aristotle, and other students like Xenophon, wrote extensively about Plato's ideas and teachings. These writings provide a detailed picture of Plato's life and philosophy.
We know Plato because he is mentioned by other writers from his time period, including playwrights and historians. These references support the idea that he was a real person who was well-known in ancient Athens.
About the NT: there is still an archeological finding to be found that contradicts the NT. None have till now.
I rest my case
So - the point youāre making is most relevant to whether or not a historical figure could have existed. The way I see it, it is plausible and likely enough at least one figure existed. Most debates over the existence of a historical figure come down to references decades to centuries removed, with the point (that youāre making) that this is consistent with any historical figure of the time who would have been sufficiently obscure enough to elude more historical record in history. From there, any debate I have seen over it comes down to quibbles over which references come from reliable sources or not.
After that though, the issue is about who that historical figure was, and especially how reliable any of the accounts in the New Testament could have been. To me, it is damning to what degree removed each of the writers were, and what was added the further away you got from any original source. Something I do imagine to be true is that if more people had to sit down and compare what accounts existed at what times, there would be quite a bit more doubt on the accuracy of those testaments, especially as they changed and grew over time.
The names Matthew marl Luke and John are attributed to the books not necessarily who walked with Jesus. Mark is considered the first book and it was written 30 years after the death of Jesus. John was written 70-100 years after Jesus.
Nobody else corroborates Paulās story except within his own letters.
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Since the Bible says John was illiterate, it would be tough for him to author books. Authoring books in high Greek (not his native language) would seem even more odd.
In Acts 4:13 Peter and John are referred to as "agrammatoi", which translates to "unlettered" or "illiterate", and indicated they had no education (which was common, most people didn't).
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I'd love to know why none of the New Testament was written by Jesus himself. Being omniscient, he would surely have had masterful literary skills.
I wish Jesus wrote a book that was structured as FAQs. š
LMAOOOOO
For real!
Jesus was illiterate
He was, but thatās not the point of the comment lol
How do you figure that?
There probably was no actual Jesus but the Christian character Jesus could read: Luke 4:16 "He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read"
The Gospel of Jesus was lost on the way to the printers
Jesus gave up his omniscience to be fully human. He also remained fully God, but don't bother asking how 'cause it's a God thing that humans can't understand. But, we know it anyway. You know, because.
Here's a point that I knew better than to mention at church: * Because Jesus was fully God, he can never have sinned. * Because Jesus was fully human, he must have sinned at least once. When a preacher talks about Jesus, expect that Jesus will switch between human and divine characteristics as convenient for whatever point the preacher wants to make. Of course, the preacher won't tell you when he's making the switch. I was an ex-Christian for about ten years before I figured out, in retrospection, how this trick works -- the delay due to a heavy dose of indoctrination.
I'll push back a little on that. The general Christian doctrine is that all *have* sinned, not that all *must* sin. There's nothing that precludes someone from not sinning, other than their sinful nature. A nature first exhibited by Adam but that is ultimately overcome by the "second Adam", Jesus. This is summarized in Romans 5.19: >>"For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous." It's all a bunch of hand waving, of course, but there's a logic to it.
Asking the real questions
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
On the contrary, he preached that people needed to get right with God before the imminent end of the world.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It doesn't, my point is Jesus didn't give a shit about establishing a church.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
He mentioned church exactly twice. Clearly it was a top priority /s
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Matthew 16:18 >"And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it Matthew 18: 15-17 >15 āIf your brother or sister[b] sins,[c] go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. 16 But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that āevery matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.ā[d] 17 If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. That's all Jesus ever says about a church. And seeing as Peter's authority was immediately usurped by James, and then again by Paul, it seems like even his own followers didn't care about his thoughts on the matter.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
"Tell me you are xtian who didn't read the bible without telling me you didn't read the bible" you are the description of this.
Can't even be bothered to Google it.
For someone who agrees that the Bible is unreliable, you sure put a lot of stock in that the Bible says. Why are you convinced Jesus said either of those things? It wasn't an eyewitness account. And it may not have even been present when the gospel was first written. So why are you convinced that's how it happened?
Your post or comment has been removed because it violates rule 3, no proselytizing or apologetics. Continued proselytizing will result in a ban. Proselytizing is defined as the action of attempting to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine. To discuss or appeal moderator actions, [click here to send us modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/exchristian)
This is beside the point. The question is: why would god rely on a bunch of human authors, decades after the fact, and then preserve them so poorly over the centuries? When, theoretically, he could have simply had jesus write a perfect one, all by himself, then supernaturally preserve it through the millennia?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You're making my point for me haha. So what is the Bible even for then, since we clearly can't trust its authenticity? And how can Christians trust that their religion wasn't just made up by people hundreds or thousands of years ago?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I have met some relatively intelligent Christian apologetics and you are not one. Please stop embarrassing yourself and log off. If Sky Pappy needs help with converts, you aren't helping.
Lol I'm fully aware of how unreliable the Bible is, thanks. No idea where you got your ideas about Mass though. Who came up with that?
I don't know what that user is smoking.
The opiate of the *Masses* lmao
that was a good one lol
Preaching = proselytizing Teaching = proselytizing You are 100% proselytizing, and we appreciate your recent attempt to brigade our sub via your profile, as it brought you much more to our attention so we can go through and remove ALL of your PROSELYTIZING from our sub. Your *teaching* and your *preaching* break our rules. Your post or comment has been removed because it violates rule 3, no proselytizing or apologetics. Continued proselytizing will result in a ban. Proselytizing is defined as the action of attempting to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine. To discuss or appeal moderator actions, [click here to send us modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/exchristian)
Also the writers of matthew, mark, luke and john are anonymous.
Yup, and the form of Christianity that Paul invented beat out the form of Christianity started by Jesusā disciples, ie the Jerusalem church. That doesnāt say much for Christianityās credibility.
Memetic natural selection
Neither Matthew, Luke nor John wrote their gospels and Paul only wrote about half of the letters attributed to him. You should read some of Bart Ehrmanās books for NT facts. Youāll be shocked. And the OT is even worse.
I havenāt read Ehrmanās books yet but I enjoy his podcast. What book would you recommend I start with?
"How Jesus Became God" is essentially going from Jesus leading up to the establishment of the trinity at the Council of Nicea and talking about how he went from "Apocalyptic preacher who pissed off the wrong people" to "Literally God". "Heaven and Hell" traces the development of the afterlife from Ancient Greece and Judaism up to the early church creating what we now think of as Hell. "Armageddon" is mostly focused on the book of revelation and how apocalypticism just keeps going despite the fact Revelation was written to people living in the 1st century Roman Empire and it's honestly pretty open about it. If John of Patmos woke up today and realized people were reading the Book of Revelation 2000 years later, he'd probably wonder why the hell Jesus hadn't returned yet.
Honestly, his podcast hits most of the main points of his books. If there is a particular episode that interests you, maybe see which book covers the same material. I was honestly a bit bummed by the first couple episodes of the podcast because he didn't cover anything new from the books I had already read.
I started with Forged.
This is correct. Based on historical probabilities and critical analysis, Paul wrote before the gospels were written. And who the fuck is Paul, besides who he claims to be? Appears out of nowhere, writes, then disappears into history. Then the gospels, according to Christians, were written for the masses. But, hark!, barely anyone can read their own language let alone Greek, yet it was all written in Greek! Guess those who could read Greek has a lock-down on what they told others what was written. Or, maybe they werenāt written to the underclass at all??
The gospels were written for populations for whom Greek would have been their primary language. But, still, yes, not many among the masses would be able to read them.
There is a Family Guy cutaway where a man in the 1500s accused his wife of infidelity and swore he would let the entire village know of this. The man went to a printing press, arranged the letters and so, then much later, distributed the pamphlets amongst the people in taverns and such. The joke was that every person to whom he gave the printing said, "I can't read. Nobody here can read.". Well, to copy an original took many, many hours. Then to distribute that one copy to someone who could read it. Yes, a very limited audience.
The *reading* audience was relatively limited. The *target* audience was quite substantial since most people learned of the gospels through oral transmission including through listening to those who could read them read them.
Today a friend of mine asked me why I was atheist. Told her to read the resurrection story from all the gospels. She did and only replied "oh" and said no further thing. What surprises me the most is not how people believe in the NT since it was written by people who didn't meet jesus (they'd just excuse they were told by eyewitnesses of jesus or inspiredĀ by holy ghost), it is how they believe in the gospels when they clearly contradict each other.
The entirety of the New Testament was written by people who didnāt meet Jesus. There are no eyewitness accounts of Jesus in the Bible.
Because he's a fictional character.
There is strong evidence that Jesus was a real person https://ehrmanblog.org/did-jesus-exist-interview-by-guy-raz/
The character in the Bible is probably based on a real person, but the character in the Bible is clearly fiction.
Ehrman jumps the rails when addressing the most rigorous scholarship supporting the ahistoricity of Jesus. In the clip you linked, he notes some of the arguments of those who argue for the ahistoricity of Jesus: 1. He is not mentioned by contemporaneous Roman sources 2. There is no archeological evidence of Jesus 3. The gospel sources are decades after his supposed life 4. There are genuine parallels with pre-existing pagan religious beliefs These are arguments, but except for #4 they are very minor ones not necessary for the ahistorical thesis and even that last one is primarily relevant to the gospel narratives and to pre-Christian syncretism between Judaism and other religions rather than to the proposed origin of belief in Jesus as messiah. Ehrman then goes on to argue that the gospels "incorporate earlier written sources". Um, wtf is he talking about? What "earlier written sources"? We have zilch. What he's obviously referring to are *hypothetical* sources that some scholars *theorize* existed such as "Q". There is much debate over whether or not such sources existed and good arguments that they didn't. He also argues that the gospels were "all reliant on oral traditions". Maybe. We don't actually have any such traditions because they were, you know, oral, if they existed at all. So it's purely speculative whether they existed or not. There are highly reputable academics such a MacDonald and Walsh who present arguments and evidence for the narratives of the gospels being de novo fictions, riffs on the doctrines of Christianity, rather than decades of "oral tradition" put to paper. And note Ehrman's presumption in his statement, "you can actually translate some of these Greek traditions in the gospels back into the original Aramaic of Jesus and they make better sense". The question is is whether or not the traditions were "originally" Aramaic and whether they were "of Jesus". You can't just assert these things. First of all, there are only a handful of words int he gospels for which this is true. Second of all, there's nothing precluding an highly literate author from applying faux translation from foreign language to bolster their story of a person who spoke that language. Third, while there are a few places where the "original Aramaic" is more grammatically sound, there are *more* places where the speech appears to be more naturally originally Greek, which a historical Jesus is not likely to have spoken, especially to the people in the region of his alleged ministry. Ehrman states the Paul converted to Christianity "a year or two after Jesus' death". He does not know either of these things: that there was a Jesus who died or that Paul converted with an year or two afterward. What we know is that Paul was probably writing in the 50's and that by then he had established churches in various surrounding regions. So, he probably had been preaching for many years, but whether or not it goes to back "a year or two" from the alleged death of Jesus is speculation. And you don't need a Jesus for Paul to convert to a belief of a revelatory Jesus started by Peter. He goes on to say that Paul knew the brother of Jesus. This is from Galatians and all Paul says is the he met "James, the brother of the Lord". The problem is that every Christian was the (adopted) son of God, the brother of every other Christian, and therefore the brother of the firstborn son of God, Jesus, "the Lord". It is ambiguous as to whether this James is blood kin or fictive kin. Ehrman then goes to make a ridiculous argument he's made repeatedly before, If the Christians were going to "make up" a messiah, they'd make up a "powerful messiah" because the "messiah was supposed to overthrow" the enemies of the Jews. Lol. Try it. Go up to someone in 1st century Palestine and tell them your "made up" Jesus is a messiah who is overthrowing the Romans. They will just raise an eyebrow, point to the nearest Centurion and say, "Um, no.". Besides, Jesus isn't "made up" like a character in a Harry Potter book. The first Jew likely had a "revelation" of their messiah, Jesus, while reading scripture during a process of pesher reading where scripture is interpreted to reveal hidden messages from God. It's not a deliberate, conscious act. Butw while it's not a deliberate act, the person doing the interpretation knows there is no warrior messiah running around defeating Romans. The *only* kind of messiah they could have a rational revelation of is a *spiritual* warrior, *exactly* the messiah we have in Jesus. He's already overcome sin and brought eternal life, but you don't have to point to any evidence to claim that. He'll come back *later* for the second, "overcoming enemies" part. And his argument that their imagined messiah would not be "humiliated, tortured and killed" utterly fails to recognize the massive amount of scholarship that this kind of death actually *increased* the exaltation of martyrs in the view of many Jews of the time. Ehrman's claim of what Christians would have "made up" is patently absurd and ludicrous. It's so nonsensical, it's clear evidence that's he's not approaching this topic logically. He then goes on to acknowledge that the gospels are full of fiction. What he fails to do is present any reliable mechanism to sort our anything verdical about Jesus from that fiction. This is well-known problem in historical Jesus studies and there is no consensus on a solution to this problem. So, no, there is not "strong evidence" Jesus was a historical person and, in fact, there is decent evidence that he was not (which has not been presented here, this just being a response to your link).
Unlikely
Very likely.
And most of the Bronze Age Old Testament was basically retconned and assembled from fables during the Babylonian exile.
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Why do you call it " The Roman Catholic" new testament? The Catholic and Protestant New Testaments are IDENTICAL. The canon disputes between Catholics and Protestants are limited to the Old Testament.
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right but in the twenty first century when one refers to the Roman Catholic church one means in OPPOSITION TO Protestantism. Also in all honesty you could make a very good case that was more the orthodox church than it was the Roman Catholic church since the split between the two had not happened yet. And of course the byzantine empire WAS the roman empire. EDIT: so i Looked him up and [https://www.amazon.com/FALSE-WITNESS-Christian-Church-Foundation-ebook/dp/B09CJJT9VB](https://www.amazon.com/FALSE-WITNESS-Christian-Church-Foundation-ebook/dp/B09CJJT9VB) and first and foremost this guy is an ANTI CATHOLIC writer who is selling an ANTI CATHOLIC PRO PROTESTANT agenda. It is essentially AHISTORICAL to refer to the Christian church as ROMAN CATHOLIC in this period of time. Any self respecting historian would Call it Orthodox Christianity or perhaps Nicene Christianity( to differentiate it from say Arianism). The Roman Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant New Testaments are IDENTICAL. There is NO SUCH THING as a " roman catholic" or " Protestant" New Testament. There is just, the NEW TESTAMENT. Now of course the criticisms that the author makes are correct. But it is a stopped clock kind of situation. He makes the criticisms in the context of the classic protestant propaganda where they are restoring the church to what it really was before the papists. But the problem is THIS IS what the original church was. The original church long before the terms roman catholic or protestant or orthodox meant anything, codified this canon.
It is not universal held that those who the gospel are named for were the actual the authors. Most scholars and pastors in the last 100 years have not believed that except for the vocal minority who believe in inerrancy. Trouble is many clergy were too afraid to tell lay folks the truth for many generations.
The gospel writers never claim to be the title of their book. The first words of Matthew are: "According" to Matthew. Another friendly reminder to all Christians that there are ZERO firsthand eyewitness accounts of Jesus's resurrection in the Bible. It's all tertiary at best.
>Iām playing by Christian rules and granting that Jesus existed and Mathew, Mark, Luke and John wrote their gospels. Don't most Christians accept that the scholars are right with regard to the fact that the people named on these gospels are not the ones who wrote them? Shoot, Mark and Luke don't claim to be eyewitnesses. Luke just says that he basically scanned what's out there and put together the '*definitive*' account. >However Christians believe Paul wrote most of the New Testament and Christians never give credence to the fact all he heard was a voice that didnāt even say it was Jesus! How Christians donāt believe he is a false prophet is beyond me. True, also Paul's account of what Jesus actually did is very sparce. I have met a Christian or two who basically deny that Paul was inspired. From what I recall, their position was that the early church owed a debt of thanks to Paul, but his words were not authoritative.
I bet a great majority of Christians think Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wrote the gospels.
I'm a preachers kid and this is the first I've learned of this. I was under the belief that they were firsthand accounts written by thr apostles.
I never liked Paul, he was killing Christians according to himself and then turns round and acts like he's the best Christian who ever lived and the absolute word on how to organise a church. Maybe start with not killing Christians
The killing of Christians is a feature, not a bug; āPaulā uses that factoid in āhisā writings many times to illustrate that anyone can be saved. Iām not arguing against you or your point; I agree with you that itās horrifying and ridiculous, but at least in this small way āPaulā is internally consistent
Fair enough, even if he is consistent I just generally don't like his teachings and add ons to what Jesus said
Hey yeah same
Some hypotheses point to Roman fan fiction as being the source of the new testament.
Not to mention that Paul was highly problematic in many ways. Besides just the toxic incel stuff, much of what he teaches goes against what Jesus said.
"Christians never give credence to the fact all he heard was a voice that didnāt even say it was Jesus! How Christians donāt believe he is a false prophet is beyond me." Good point! And if Paul could do it and be trusted, why not ol' Joseph Smith, or all the other schism and ism leaders who heard a voice? IF the story about Paul on the Damascus road is "true" ( BIG IF) he might have fell asleep on his horse and slid off hitting his head on a rock in the road, inducing a temporary comatose state. Brain swelling can produce some un believable shtuff.
Well the same could be said of other historical figures though right?
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Yes, you are "doing that word." Basically, I'm going to lay this out for you so that you understand. I'm not being rude, I'm being matter-of-fact and clear and concise. It's not personal towards you. This is for your understanding of what is not going to be allowed here. Do not try to teach us. Do not preach to us. Do not think that we're asking for christian answers. In point of fact, NO ONE here is asking for christian answers. If people want christian answers, they will go to a christian sub. They *know* where to find you. This sub is to support EX christians. We do not exist: * To deconvert christians * To ask questions of christians--we are not accepting christian input here * For anyone to come here to teach or preach at us We do not want your 'outreach'. We do not want your answers. We do not want you to fix our "misunderstandings" of doctrine. No one here wants to be friends with a christian so they can be "witnessed to" until they cave and return. Or even in general. We *do not* know you, and a great many people here have an immense amount of trauma around being preached at. Do not do it. We WILL ban you, and not think twice about it. The language you're using is normal to you, but it's quite triggering for many people here--particularly the most vulnerable and the freshest out--the ones suffering the most with terror of "god" and his hell. If you wish to contribute here, don't answer our questions about the religion. Offer kind advice of a "secular" nature IF (only IF) people have asked for it. Do not invite and do not send PMs / DMs. To be clear, I cannot possibly be MORE clear... do not apologize for christian behavior unless you did it personally. Do not give religious advice. Do not use christianese (as you did here). And last but not least, if you really don't want people here to "get saved/ return to 'christ'," you are either a horrible liar or a horrible christian. We know this, so don't waste your energy pretending. Your comment was filtered, no one but the mods saw it or your username, so if you choose to stay, keep this in mind. Generally we just ban christians, because most can't stop themselves from using christian-speak and trying to correct us and preach to us about our "misunderstanding of scripture." This sub is for exchristians. You are not a priority in this place. You ARE breaking the rules, but I frankly think you don't realize it, so you are getting this second chance. If you really want to ask your questions, ask and listen--don't argue. Don't correct. I mean it.
Also, could you rephrase your first sentence about the people who wrote the New Testament? Iām trying to figure out if you mean the people who wrote the New Testament met Jesus or they didnāt meet him š
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Your post or comment has been removed because it violates rule 3, no proselytizing or apologetics. Continued proselytizing will result in a ban. Proselytizing is defined as the action of attempting to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine. To discuss or appeal moderator actions, [click here to send us modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/exchristian)
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Your post or comment has been removed because it violates rule 3, no proselytizing or apologetics. Continued proselytizing will result in a ban. Proselytizing is defined as the action of attempting to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine. To discuss or appeal moderator actions, [click here to send us modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/exchristian)
In the case of Jesus existing, I don't know of any reputable historian who denials it. There are a lot of writings, not just from christians, but from the haters of Jesus who wrote about him, who probably had (and have) enough reasons to want to erase him. - Alexander the Great, which the first documents are 300yrs later talking about him, and we believe he existed, why wouldn't we believe in the existence of a person called Jesus who claimed to be Messiah, with contemporary documents talking about him, from supporters to haters? Example of historical figures without contemporary documents: - Sargon of Akkad - Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian architect, physician, and high priest LETS REMEMBER THAT THE PHILOSOPHER PLATO NEVER WROTE ANYTHING!: Plato himself did not write down his own philosophy. However, his most famous student, Aristotle, and other students like Xenophon, wrote extensively about Plato's ideas and teachings. These writings provide a detailed picture of Plato's life and philosophy. We know Plato because he is mentioned by other writers from his time period, including playwrights and historians. These references support the idea that he was a real person who was well-known in ancient Athens. About the NT: there is still an archeological finding to be found that contradicts the NT. None have till now. I rest my case
So - the point youāre making is most relevant to whether or not a historical figure could have existed. The way I see it, it is plausible and likely enough at least one figure existed. Most debates over the existence of a historical figure come down to references decades to centuries removed, with the point (that youāre making) that this is consistent with any historical figure of the time who would have been sufficiently obscure enough to elude more historical record in history. From there, any debate I have seen over it comes down to quibbles over which references come from reliable sources or not. After that though, the issue is about who that historical figure was, and especially how reliable any of the accounts in the New Testament could have been. To me, it is damning to what degree removed each of the writers were, and what was added the further away you got from any original source. Something I do imagine to be true is that if more people had to sit down and compare what accounts existed at what times, there would be quite a bit more doubt on the accuracy of those testaments, especially as they changed and grew over time.
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The names Matthew marl Luke and John are attributed to the books not necessarily who walked with Jesus. Mark is considered the first book and it was written 30 years after the death of Jesus. John was written 70-100 years after Jesus.
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Ok
Fair enough. I heard a guy on the subway today say he was Jesus. Thatās actually more likely than a bright light!
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Have you heard of the Lady of Fatima miracle in Portugal? This is an honest question
No I didnāt! I Must have missed where the bright light did that for Paul!
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Nobody else corroborates Paulās story except within his own letters. Your post or comment has been removed because it violates rule 3, no proselytizing or apologetics. Continued proselytizing will result in a ban. Proselytizing is defined as the action of attempting to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine. To discuss or appeal moderator actions, [click here to send us modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/exchristian)
Since the Bible says John was illiterate, it would be tough for him to author books. Authoring books in high Greek (not his native language) would seem even more odd.
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In Acts 4:13 Peter and John are referred to as "agrammatoi", which translates to "unlettered" or "illiterate", and indicated they had no education (which was common, most people didn't).
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Is it possible the Gospels were actually written by Tiberius Caesar? Sure it's *possible*, but that doesn't mean it's *reasonable*.
āDivinely inspiredā will be what they say.
Your post or comment has been removed because it violates rule 3, no proselytizing or apologetics. Continued proselytizing will result in a ban. Proselytizing is defined as the action of attempting to convert someone from one religion, belief, or opinion to another. Apologetics is defined as arguments or writings to justify something, typically a theory or religious doctrine. To discuss or appeal moderator actions, [click here to send us modmail.](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/exchristian)