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The problem with this, expat, is that all the gospels were written after the fact. The writers had the benefit of hindsight as the temple had already been destroyed and Jerusalem razed by the Romans in 70 AD when any of the gospel accounts came along.
It's interesting that Paul, with his "hot line" to Jesus never once mentions the destruction of Jerusalem coming up or Jesus' words to the apostles about "one stone not being left on another". Don't you find that kind of odd that a statement Jesus made that would have left the apostles thunderstruck--a prophecy of gargantuan proportions--is never once referred to by Paul, yet is mentioned in three out of the four gospels afterwards? Paul had all these conversations with Peter, John and James, possibly others as well, and this greatest of all of Jesus' prophecies is not mentioned once.
The Gospels, except John's, were written before the fall of Jerusalem and Paul died before it, so kinda hard for him to write about it.
John was the only Apostle to live past 70AD that we know of and in his epistles and Revelation he does not mention Jerusalem at all. Kinda a hint it was gone.
Peter who died before the fall of Jerusalem does reference Paul, so his writings were also prior to the fall.
Alas, two different computer hard drive crashes have led to my losing the original links, but I subscribe to the theory that Mark really is the Q document, and was the first.
I suppose the Holy Grail of Gospels nowadays is an authentic Gospel of the Hebrews, which was known to Jerome, but which disappeared off the face of the earth during the Middle Ages. Would that we could see that document!
For those of the conspiracy theory bent, perhaps somewhere in the Vatican archives, there exists just such a thing ...
There are many such beliefs in "Q" documents BUT none exist or have been proven historically to fit the mold. It is a later desire to disregard the writings by those with no belief or who wish to promote their own beliefs. Really hard to be more aware than those who lived then and knew them.
The problem with this, expat, is that all the gospels were written after the fact. The writers had the benefit of hindsight as the temple had already been destroyed and Jerusalem razed by the Romans in 70 AD when any of the gospel accounts came along.
It's interesting that Paul, with his "hot line" to Jesus never once mentions the destruction of Jerusalem coming up or Jesus' words to the apostles about "one stone not being left on another". Don't you find that kind of odd that a statement Jesus made that would have left the apostles thunderstruck--a prophecy of gargantuan proportions--is never once referred to by Paul, yet is mentioned in three out of the four gospels afterwards? Paul had all these conversations with Peter, John and James, possibly others as well, and this greatest of all of Jesus' prophecies is not mentioned once.
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Originally Posted by expatCA
The Gospels, except John's, were written before the fall of Jerusalem and Paul died before it, so kinda hard for him to write about it.
John was the only Apostle to live past 70AD that we know of and in his epistles and Revelation he does not mention Jerusalem at all. Kinda a hint it was gone.
Peter who died before the fall of Jerusalem does reference Paul, so his writings were also prior to the fall.
No hind site at all.
One important piece of information for anyone who is interested is that in 1 Timothy 5:18 Paul quotes Luke 10:7.
1 Tim. 5:18For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer is worthy of his wage.”
Luke 10:7 "Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wage. Do not keep moving from house to house.
1 Tim. 5:18; kai Axios ho ergatés tou misthou autou - and worthy [is] the workman of the wage of him.
Luke 10:7 Axios gar ho ergatés tou misthou autou - for worthy [is] the workman of the wage of him.
Paul writes, 'the Scripture says' and then references Luke 10:7 where the phrase is found. Since 1 Timothy was probably written approximately A.D. 63-66, that means that the Gospel of Luke had to have been written before that.
Of course the skeptic and the liberal will pipe up and say that the authorship of 1 Timothy is disputed, but for the believer who recognizes the inerrancy of the Bible, there is no question that Paul is the author because it says that it is. Luke of course was a close associate of Paul.
Of course the skeptic and the liberal will pipe up and say that the authorship of 1 Timothy is disputed, but for the believer who recognizes the inerrancy of the Bible, there is no question that Paul is the author because it says that it is. Luke of course was a close associate of Paul.
Quote:Originally Posted by thrillobyte
think it's odd, and I may do a separate thread on this, that God gave the atheists and Jesus doubtersSO much evidence to doubt the existence of Jesus. Their arsenal of historic proof is breathtaking. I've been reading it and I can see why people are leaving Christianity by the millions as they discover the shaky ground upon which Christianity was built.
Why didn't He give the world indisputable proof that Jesus lived, died, arose and ascended? You can say, "He did. In the gospels" all you want but given the gospel's checkered origins this does not constitute indisputable empirical proof. Frankly, the atheists are winning the war
And yet here we are nearly 2000 years later with billions of people both Christians and non Christians recognizing Jesus as a real person. What is breathtaking is the hubris in thinking Jesus a hoax... must have been a moment of monumental genius to have fooled everyone..especially perpetrated by men considered unlettered and ordinary.
So the "atheists are winning the war." With who? the insane (see Bart's article below)
Quote:
Originally Posted by thrillobyte
Oh sure, I know of Bart Ehrman and read portions of his books on Amazon. He was the one in "Misquoting Jesus" that first got me thinking seriously about all these discrepancies I kept reading in the New Testament. I've watched his debates on YouTube against William Lane Craig, Mike Licona, James White and a few others. He's the man.
"One may well choose to resonate with the concerns of our modern and post-modern cultural despisers of established religion (or not). But surely the best way to promote any such agenda is not to deny what virtually every sane historian on the planet -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, agnostic, atheist, what have you -- has come to conclude based on a range of compelling historical evidence....
Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed."
"One may well choose to resonate with the concerns of our modern and post-modern cultural despisers of established religion (or not). But surely the best way to promote any such agenda is not to deny what virtually every sane historian on the planet -- Christian, Jewish, Muslim, pagan, agnostic, atheist, what have you -- has come to conclude based on a range of compelling historical evidence....
Whether we like it or not, Jesus certainly existed."
And yet here we are nearly 2000 years later with billions of people both Christians and non Christians recognizing Jesus as a real person. What is breathtaking is the hubris in thinking Jesus a hoax... must have been a moment of monumental genius to have fooled everyone..especially perpetrated by men considered unlettered and ordinary.
Now, hd, please--for once in your life, just listen and consider--to what I am about to tell you, if you are really and truly interested in what it's really like out there:
The average Christian with blinders:
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The Christian Church is doing quite well, thank you!"
But is it really? A noted Christian theologian observes:
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As the reply above indicates that I frequently get from Christian leaders whenever I point out the declines within Christianity and the Church in America, many of them live in a perpetual state of denial. I’m not making this up.
They're in denial, like you are.
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What I have observed first-hand myselfand what all studies show us, like those in the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the Church, whether Evangelical, Protestant, or Roman Catholic, has been experiencing steep declines in the last three decades.
So those "billions" of Christians you talk of are mostly nothing more than "zombie Christians" walking around in a shell that resembles Christianity, but spiritually is dead.
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Scores of churches close every year. In other words, the Christian Church is dying. It is spirituality that is thriving instead, at least in the US.
I could quote from dozens of articles and studies citing the exact same conclusion, but that would take too much space.
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When church leaders are honest, and many of them are not, they will acknowledge the two contributing factors to the emptying of their pews – the “graying” of the church and the “going” [leaving] from the church.
Are you getting the picture, yet, hd. Deny all you want, but the hard reality is what I have been saying all along: Christianity as we know it IS DYING! Millions of Christians desert Christianity and go to a variety of other faiths or become agnostic or atheist as they research the lies foisted upon them for centuries by the Christian leadership since the Dark Ages. Don't believe me. I am showing it to you in black and white.
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Those who leave almost never return. So, a new term has been coined to describe this departure group and that term is - "Nones" – now, one of every five Americans. They are called "Nones" because, when asked which organized religion they support, they responded with “None.”
As older traditional Christians gray and die off and very few young people replace them, the Christian Church as we know it today will shrink to a renegade band of malcontents pocketing small portions of the country until in the next 50-100 years it will die off completely--unless it changes and "modernizes" it archaic stand on certain issues.
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Three things are interesting about the Nones.
First, most of the “Nones” are leaving a Christian background.
Second, although they’ve left the church, the majority have not left their faith. They are still very interested in spiritual things.
Third, many of them are thinking and writing outside the theological box. They are talking and writing about what the church should be.
Those who are interested in this phenomenon should read this article:
You're strangely silent, hd4me. Don't tell me my post left you speechless!
No, just returned from a day trip to Lake Tahoe (gotta love God's handy work!)
Your attacks on traditional Christianity, are for the most part, irrelevant (for me anyway) because not all Christian faiths are the same nor experiencing the turmoil you mention. Therefore your issues with traditional Christianity are best left for others to defend. Some faiths are experiencing an increase in activity but more importantly some Christians individually and as a group are earnestly seeking to put into practice what Jesus taught and they do it day in and day out.
However, to stay on track the subject of my reply was your attempt to cast doubt on Jesus's existence. This is something that as far as I'm aware of every Christian sect/church whatever has in common...that he was real. Moreover Muslims also believe Jesus was real as taught in the Qu'ran. Lastly traditionally many Jews believed Jesus was a real person. Thus even non Christians consider him a real person.
Note what well known Bible Scholar Bart Ehrman, whom you appear to respect, says about those who deny the existence of Jesus:
"That is the claim made by a small but growing cadre of (published ) writers, bloggers and Internet junkies who call themselves mythicists. This unusually vociferous group of nay-sayers maintains that Jesus is a myth invented for nefarious (or altruistic) purposes by the early Christians who modeled their savior along the lines of pagan divine men who, it is alleged, were also born of a virgin on Dec. 25, who also did miracles, who also died as an atonement for sin and were then raised from the dead. Few of these mythicists are actually scholars trained in ancient history, religion, biblical studies or any cognate field, let alone in the ancient languages generally thought to matter for those who want to say something with any degree of authority about a Jewish teacher who (allegedly) lived in first-century Palestine. There are a couple of exceptions: of the hundreds -- thousands? -- of mythicists, two (to my knowledge) actually have Ph.D. credentials in relevant fields of study. But even taking these into account, there is not a single mythicist who teaches New Testament or Early Christianity or even Classics at any accredited institution of higher learning in the Western world. And it is no wonder why. These views are so extreme and so unconvincing to 99.99 percent of the real experts that anyone holding them is as likely to get a teaching job in an established department of religion as a six-day creationist is likely to land on in a bona fide department of biology."
It is my sincere hope that you will reexamine your belief system and provide yourself the opportunity to learn from what Jesus taught.
One important piece of information for anyone who is interested is that in 1 Timothy 5:18 Paul quotes Luke 10:7.
1 Tim. 5:18For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer is worthy of his wage.”
Luke 10:7 "Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they give you; for the laborer is worthy of his wage. Do not keep moving from house to house.
1 Tim. 5:18; kai Axios ho ergatés tou misthou autou - and worthy [is] the workman of the wage of him.
Luke 10:7 Axios gar ho ergatés tou misthou autou - for worthy [is] the workman of the wage of him.
Paul writes, 'the Scripture says' and then references Luke 10:7 where the phrase is found. Since 1 Timothy was probably written approximately A.D. 63-66, that means that the Gospel of Luke had to have been written before that.
Of course the skeptic and the liberal will pipe up and say that the authorship of 1 Timothy is disputed, but for the believer who recognizes the inerrancy of the Bible, there is no question that Paul is the author because it says that it is. Luke of course was a close associate of Paul.
Well. since 97% of biblical scholars place the date of Luke in the neighborhood 80-90 AD it settled science and you cannot argue otherwise!
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What is breathtaking is the hubris in thinking Jesus a hoax... must have been a moment of monumental genius to have fooled everyone..especially perpetrated by men considered unlettered and ordinary.
