Jesus Who! (church, Baptists, Abraham, Apostle)

[pladecalvo]

[quote=I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA;663934]

And me too! I believe the Bible and trust it as God's Word.

......and just which of the 53 versions of the bible do you hold to be the 'word' of your god. They are all different so which one is correct? Do you believe that the bible is inerrant because if you do then you must believe that the Earth is flat...do you? Do you believe that the bible is to be used only as a guide and if so, who decides which parts are to be taken as a guide and which parts are to be ignored.

[fromcenFL]

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

It is very unlikely that the Gospels are eye witness accounts. All Gospels are anonymous and were given the present names by Ireneus of Lyon in the mid 2nd century CE. The gospels were unknown, even to Christians, until the mid-second century. The the earliest gospel, that asscribed to Mark, is dated to c70CE which means that if Mark was the same age as JC, he would have been in his 70's when he wrote it. Possible yes but unlikely, as the average life expectency for those days was about 30 years. The last gospel, that of John, would mean that for John to have been an 'eye-witness, he would have to have written his gospel when he was about 110 years old.

Where is the proof of this?? Some scholars date the gospels around the end of the 1st century, but many scholars date the gospels before the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. There is a range of opinion. It is fact that liberal scholars will always date them later because they cannot accept that the Jesus' words in Matt 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 that fortell Jerusalem's impending doom was actually predictive prophecy, rather than merely being written later as revisionist history. And whole volumes have been writen by apologists defending a pre- AD 70 date for the ENTIRE New Testament!
The four Gospels aside, the letter to 1st century Christian churches from the apostle Paul along with his epistles affirm the content of the gospels, and were most definitely known to Christians during the 1st century.

Oh, and as for the gospels being anonymous- Luke wrote his Gospel and the book of Acts as a letter to a friend and adressed them in his name.

[fromcenFL]

[quote=pladecalvo;666317]

Originally Posted by I LOVE NORTH CAROLINA

......and just which of the 53 versions of the bible do you hold to be the 'word' of your god. They are all different so which one is correct? Do you believe that the bible is inerrant because if you do then you must believe that the Earth is flat...do you? Do you believe that the bible is to be used only as a guide and if so, who decides which parts are to be taken as a guide and which parts are to be ignored.

And where in the Bible does it claim that the earth is flat??
The OT in instances refers to the "four corners" of the earth but I hardly think we were intended to believe the earth was a four-sided polygon. Another popular attack I've heard is that the Bible claims the earth was the center of the universe with the stars and planets revolving around it. It was actually Aristotle who believed this, and the Roman Catholic Church adopted his views and unfortunately persecuted dissenters of this view.

[pladecalvo]

[quote=fromcenFL;666390]

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

And where in the Bible does it claim that the earth is flat??
The OT in instances refers to the "four corners" of the earth but I hardly think we were intended to believe the earth was a four-sided polygon. Another popular attack I've heard is that the Bible claims the earth was the center of the universe with the stars and planets revolving around it. It was actually Aristotle who believed this, and the Roman Catholic Church adopted his views and unfortunately persecuted dissenters of this view.

Matthew 4:8 says, “Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world [cosmos] in their glory.” Obviously, this would be possible only if the earth were flat.

[Alpha8207]

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

Alpha, This happens with every debate on JC that I've ever seen or been involved with. Not many posts go by before someone starts to confuse JC 'Son of God' with Jesus 'the man'. I'm not disputing the fact that there may have been some itinerant rabbi called Jesus who built up a bit of a following, upset the Romans and paid the price.....but son of god? No!

Your OP and every one of your posts, save this one, are very clear that you deny the MAN Jesus Christ.

Which one are you now claiming, this one or ALL your others?

[Alpha8207]

[quote=pladecalvo;666405]

Originally Posted by fromcenFL

Matthew 4:8 says, “Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world [cosmos] in their glory.” Obviously, this would be possible only if the earth were flat.

What a rediculous example of 'flat-earth' teaching, If you would use this to 'prove' the Bible teaches a flat earth, then you should have no problem with any of the evidence presented here for a historical Jesus. They are much more sound than this line of thinking. (Nice job taking your own thread off-topic though.)

I'm still in awe of the previous post I responded to though. You realize when presented with the issue of the claims by the Discovery Channel that you COMPLETELY changed your posted view, right?

[pladecalvo]

Originally Posted by Alpha8207

Your OP and every one of your posts, save this one, are very clear that you deny the MAN Jesus Christ.

Which one are you now claiming, this one or ALL your others?

Go back through my posts and you will see that I refer to the biblical Jesus as JC i.e. Jesus Christ, 'Son of god'. The 'man' Jesus, if he existed was nothing more than an itinerant rabbi rabble - rouser and I have refered to him as Jesus...NOT JC.

This from my opening post:

I contend that JC, Son of God is a myth!

Do you see it....... SON OF GOD

[pladecalvo]

[quote=Alpha8207;666506]

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

What a rediculous example of 'flat-earth' teaching, If you would use this to 'prove' the Bible teaches a flat earth, then you should have no problem with any of the evidence presented here for a historical Jesus. They are much more sound than this line of thinking. (Nice job taking your own thread off-topic though.)

I'm still in awe of the previous post I responded to though. You realize when presented with the issue of the claims by the Discovery Channel that you COMPLETELY changed your posted view, right?

Wrong! I have not changed my posted view at all. Read back through the thread and you will see that I am discussing JC, Son of God and NOT Jesus the man. Which part of JC Son of God are you having difficulty understanding? If you want it put more simply........did the BIBLICAL Jesus exist? Is that easier for you to understand? Most other posters on this thread seem to understand what we are discussing. To avoid you being confused further I shall refer to Jesus the man as 'Brian' and the BIBLICAL Jesus as JC

As for taking the thread off topic, it was actually you and burdell that did that when you were discussing the difference between Islam, Judaism and Christianity. You then went on to discuss religious holidays.

[Alpha8207]

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

Wrong! I have not changed my posted view at all. Read back through the thread and you will see that I am discussing JC, Son of God and NOT Jesus the man. Which part of JC Son of God are you having difficulty understanding? If you want it put more simply........did the BIBLICAL Jesus exist? Is that easier for you to understand? Most other posters on this thread seem to understand what we are discussing. To avoid you being confused further I shall refer to Jesus the man as 'Brian' and the BIBLICAL Jesus as JC

As for taking the thread off topic, it was actually you and burdell that did that when you were discussing the difference between Islam, Judaism and Christianity. You then went on to discuss religious holidays.

Thank you for clarifying!

I did go back and look through your threads. The OP, does say that, in your opinion, Jesus Christ the Son of god is a myth.

I clearly misunderstood amidst all that banter about the historical evidence for Jesus Christ the Man.

Since you seem to be willing to conceed the MAN Jesus, that's all I was trying to say (and everybody else as well...burdell, irishmom, even GCSTroop, and others) was that thinking Jesus Christ the Man never existed puts one in a fairly small boat, if you will.

I didn't see you sticking to the "Son of God" theme in these posts of yours....

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

Well the mention of Jesus in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews is pretty well accepted as being a Christian forgery from about the 4th century. Both theist and non-theist appear to agree with this. There is no record in the Roman archives of JC being crucified.

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

I agree stretch..........also, there is a lot of speculation as to whether the mention of JC by Tacitus has been tampered with. Tacitus uses the term "procurator" for Pilate which is not correct for the actual period, when "prefect" was used. Tacitus names the person as "Christ", when Roman records could not possibly have used this name. The passage is paraphrased by Sulpicius Severus in the 5th century without attributing it to Tacitus, and may have been inserted back into Tacitus from this work.

This evidence speaks AGAINST it being based on any Roman records -
but merely a few details which Tacitus gathered from Christian stories circulating in his time. So, this passage is NOT evidence for Jesus, it's just evidence for 2nd century Christian stories about Jesus.

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

Oh come on Irishmom! "More evidence of Jesus than Alexander et al!!!!! Where have you ever seen a bust or statue (outside Christianity) of JC? How many cities are there named after JC? How many coins have you seen with the head of JC on them? Evidence for Alexander, Ceasar et al abound in all these things.......there is none for JC.

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

Josh McDowell is not 'secular'. He is a bible apologist.

Tacitus has already been covered in earlier posts and..........it's 80 years after the alleged events. Stories and Hearsay!

Nearly one-and-a-half CENTURIES after the alleged events, Lucian satirised Christians, but this was several generations later, Lucian does NOT even mention Jesus or Christ by name. So, Lucian is no evidence for a historical Jesus, merely late 2nd century lampooning of Christians

Roughly 80-90 years after the alleged Gospel events, Suetonius refers to a "Chrestus" who stirred the Jews to trouble in Rome during Claudius' time, but this "Chrestus" is a Greek name (from "useful"), and is also a mystic name for an initiate, it is not the same as "Christos" This Chrestus was apparently active in Rome, JC never was. So, this passage is not evidence for Jesus, it's nothing to do with Jesus, it's evidence for Christians grasping at straws.

About 80 years after the alleged events, Pliny referred to Christians who worshipped a "Christ" as a god, but there is no reference to a historical Jesus or Gospel events. So, Pliny is not evidence for a historical JC, just evidence for 2nd century Christians who worshipped a Christ.

We have NO certain evidence when Thallus lived or wrote, there are NONE of Thallus' works extant. What we DO have is a 9th century reference by George Syncellus who quotes the 3rd century Julianus Africanus, who, speaking of the darkness at the crucifixion, wrote: "Thallus calls this darkness an eclipse". But, there is NO evidence Thallus made specific reference to Jesus or the Gospel events at all, as there WAS an eclipse in 29. This suggests he merely referred to a known eclipse, but that LATER Christians MIS-interpreted his comment to mean their darkness.

Phlegon wrote during the 140s - his works are lost. Later, Origen, Eusebius, and Julianus Africanus (as quoted by George Syncellus) refer to him, but quote differently his reference to an eclipse. There is no evidence Phlegon actually said anything about Gospel events, he was merely talking about an eclipse (they DO happen) which LATER Christians argued was the "darkness" in their stories. So, Phlegon is no evidence for Jesus at all - merely evidence for Christian wishful thinking.

A fragment of this 'letter' includes -
"... What advantage did the Jews gain from executing their wise King?", It is NOT at all clear WHEN this manuscript was written, nor exactly who it is referring too, but there is no evidence it is JC.

........and before the other old Christian stalwarts of Ignatius, Galen, Valentinus, Polycarp and the Talmud are wheeled out.....they are all written too long after the alleged events. Stories and Hearsay!

As I said, McDowell is a bible apologist.

It is very unlikely that the Gospels are eye witness accounts. All Gospels are anonymous and were given the present names by Ireneus of Lyon in the mid 2nd century CE. The gospels were unknown, even to Christians, until the mid-second century. The the earliest gospel, that asscribed to Mark, is dated to c70CE which means that if Mark was the same age as JC, he would have been in his 70's when he wrote it. Possible yes but unlikely, as the average life expectency for those days was about 30 years. The last gospel, that of John, would mean that for John to have been an 'eye-witness, he would have to have written his gospel when he was about 110 years old.

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

......and just which of the 53 versions of the bible do you hold to be the 'word' of your god. They are all different so which one is correct? Do you believe that the bible is inerrant because if you do then you must believe that the Earth is flat...do you? Do you believe that the bible is to be used only as a guide and if so, who decides which parts are to be taken as a guide and which parts are to be ignored.

All those rebuttals to your OP were regarding the topic of Jesus the MAN, which apparently put us all off-topic right out of the gate since we weren't trying to convince you of anything else but a historical Jesus. I wish you would have cleared this up earlier, but the fault clearly lies on all of us who misread your OP. I, for one, am truly sorry.

I'm glad we seem to all be in agreement regarding Jesus the Man. Jesus the Son of God, well....none of us can PROVE that......yet....

[dncngrl1964]

Originally Posted by pladecalvo

I think you are missing the point here! We are talking about someone who (allegedly) walked on water, raised people from the dead, fed thousands with hardly any food and performed countless other 'miracles'. Now don't you think that such a persons fame would have spread like wildfire? Yet nobody but nobody wrote about it within his lifetime. What about the time when he was supposed to have ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey (or even TWO donkeys, depending on which version of the bible you read) and the whole city came out to greet him, yet nobody at the time seemed to have thought such an event was important enough to be recorded! Jerusalem at the time was an important seat of learing and there were many scholars there who wrote about far less importants events.

It seems YOU are missing the point yes he did all those things but look at the land and the time period he was in the threat of death by the Romans was so great that even his apostle, Peter, denied him 3 times. Finally all the apostles were hunted down and killed(save John) as they tried to spread the word of Jesus' love So do you really think that they were in a hurry to make coins or statues(which again would be breaking the 2nd commandment) thats could probably get the killed

Would you???

The scholars were the Jews that were trying to get him crucified in the first place do you think they were going to write a story about how they murdered the Messiah?

And your sentence about why didnt it spread during his lifetime is because the apostles were being hunted down for telling the story do you think that just a regular Joe on the street is going to say that they just learned the word of Christ

Or do you think they did kinda like an underground railroad thing. but during the reformatiom all these people who knew the Lords word started popping out of the woodwork and IT DID SPREAD LIKE WILDFIRE.