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If Christianity finds itself in dire straits these days with Christians tuning out and churches boarding up their doors it's only because all the lies and disinformation it has been spreading for the last 2000 years are finally catching up with it thanks to the Internet's ability to educate people to the real truth about Christianity's dirty dealings.
Christianity has nowhere to hide these days, at least on 1st World educated continents where education systems enable people to read and learn about Christianity's nefarious history. If it is finding new converts in 3rd World backwater stink holes it is only because education and Internet resources there are non-existent, making it simple for crooked televangelists to fool these simple-minded folk into believing their lies about Jesus being their savior and condemnation in hell and all that nonsense.
Here is an unassailable fact:
Atheists and skeptics have the truth on their side. Christians do not.
Christianity has been skirting by on untruths, half-truths, fabrications, document-tampering, political machinations, speculations, and exaggerations for millennia but all that is ending now as atheists and skeptics put forth the real truth about Christianity.
Truth No 1: there is NO historical evidence for Jesus son of God or the apostles, period. Despite all the lies Christians put forth about there being so much evidence for Jesus in the historical record it is just more lies and half-truths disguised as truth to keep the Big Lie afloat. The truth is there simply is no historical evidence a god man named Jesus as described in the gospels ever lived nor did the 12 men he supposedly gathered around him and walked with them for 3 years before being crucified. NONE of this is supported by historical fact. No historian mentions all the supernatural events that the gospels claim occurred after Christ's supposed crucifixion, even though the Gospels claim Jesus' fame spread far beyond the borders of Israel. There may be a possibility an ordinary man who was a Jewish zealot was crucified by the Romans for sedition against Rome but again no historian mentions one.
TRUTH NO 2: the two passages by Josephus so often cited by Christians as mentioning Jesus are so mired in controversy that they are dismissed by mainstream historians as having so little to no value in trying to prove Jesus was the Messiah. Here are some pertinent facts that Christians should consider before they try to pass off these passages as proof of Jesus:
* The Testimonium Flavianum is never quoted by anyone until the 4th century (c. 324), when Bishop Eusebius begins quoting it. Scholars believe it was Eusebius who doctored the passage with references to Jesus' supernatural nature.
* It is impossible that this passage is entirely genuine. It is highly unlikely that Josephus, a believing Jew working under Romans, would have written, "He was the Messiah." This would make him suspect of treason, but nowhere else is there an indication that he was a Christian. Indeed, in Wars of the Jews, Josephus declares that Vespasian fulfilled the messianic oracles. Furthermore, Origen, writing about a century before Eusebius, says twice that Josephus "did not believe in Jesus as the Christ."
* Josephus is on record that the Emperor Vespasian was the messiah and had fulfilled prophecy.
* The second passage of Josephus, "The brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James.” is a scribal interpolation. There are several indications that the sentence fragment “who was called Christ” was not original to the text.
Truth No 3: the gospels were NOT written by the apostles or anyone connected to Jesus or the apostle. The gospels were written 50-100 years after Jesus purportedly was crucified in 30 AD by anonymous Greek scholars who couldn't have known Jesus and certainly were not familiar with Israel's geographic terrain as evidenced by the numerous errors they made about towns' proximity to each other and to other natural terrain. The Romans were excellent record keepers of their trials but a trial of Jesus ben Joseph or similar name who was crucified under Pilate's order simply doesn't exist. The name Yeshua ben Joseph or Yeshua Moshiach (Jesus Christ) doesn't appear anywhere in the historical record. A few historians like Tacitus made reference to a man referred to as "Chrestus" but we have no idea who that is nor can we know or reasonably ascertain if they were referring to Jesus, the son of God or another Chrestus who had a following.
Truth No 4: if God had wanted us to believe Jesus is his divine son sent to earth to die for our sins, God would have left a mountain of evidence proving this that would be so compelling that no one in their right mind could argue otherwise. But God left no such compelling evidence. The proof for this fact is truth No 1 above. That would mean the Christian god, if he even exists, doesn't give a tinker's damn whether or not we believe in Jesus.
Truth No 5: God, if he exists, does not interfere or participate in human affairs. Science has never been able to demonstrate there has been any supernatural being performing what we would by definition call a miracle. There has never been any occurrence of anything outside the natural laws that govern this earth. An unassailable truth: prayers do not get answered. Millions upon millions of people pray every day for their sick loved ones to get well and their loved ones do not recover. If a person recovers it is usually on the order of 10% and here is the key thing: it occurs across all demographics with the SAME rate of frequency. Thus, a small percentage of Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and atheists all recover from serious illness at exactly the same rate. This proves without a doubt that praying to God has nothing to do with it; some humans are going to recover from their illness but ALL terminally ill people are going to die at some point in the near future. No one is cured as a result of prayer. Study after study has borne this fact out.
Here is but one example among thousands of how Christianity has lied and use gross exaggerations to perpetuate their religion:
Lie: Jesus Christ was prophesied in the Old Testament, proving he is the Messiah.
Truth: No he wasn't. The name Jesus or Yeshua never appears in the Old Testament, certainly not as a savior. What early church men did, in a dishonest attempt to legitimize their man-god as their religion's savior god was to take disjointed verses scattered across the Old Testament that had nothing to do with each other, string them together and manipulate and color them to give them meanings completely different from what they were originally intended to mean. This "doctoring" of the verses made them appear to be related to each other so they would have as their central theme a man prophesied to be a Messiah who would appear at some future date to save all mankind from their sins. Secular Bible scholars readily acknowledge that all of this is one giant fraud.
"Christian readers typically misunderstand prophecy in the Bible because they assume that its primary intent is to foretell the future. The intent of the genre of prophecy in the Hebrew Bible was NOT primarily to predict the future—certainly not hundreds of years in advance—but rather to address specific social, political, and religious circumstances in ancient Israel and Judah. This means that there is no prediction of Christ in the Hebrew Bible. The writers of the New Testament and later Christian literature reinterpreted or reapplied the Hebrew prophecies."
These five truths prove without a doubt that Christian churchmen have been lying to people for centuries about Jesus being a real man who was the son of God and then savior of man, all for their own selfish gains.
You are throwing down the gauntlet in a religious forum, is that because you need to vent or you want to fight? I am not disputing what you post, but what use is it in this forum except maybe for you to get something off your chest and get a lot of people's hackles up? I hope you can resolve the anger and betrayal, a lot of us have experienced it from the christian religion. It is not a fun place to be in with impotent anger that you have to resolve yourself.
And yet your link explains the Romans did have freedom of religion. Also, one needs to take the idea of Nero persecuting Christians with a pinch of salt, that may be a later Christian invention added to Tacitus (who in his letters to Pliny, does not appear to know who the Christians were).
As for the Edict of Milan, yes, there was later persecution of Christians, but that does not mean Rome was not tolerant of other religions for most of it's existence.
My apologies, as a Greek speaking German, I sometimes forget English often behaves different to other languages.
Many European languages change the endings of words so one can see what role the word is playing in the sentence. Koine Greek, modern Greek, German, French, Russian,and from what I can remember of Latin, that does as well.
So Chrestus is a man's name, Chresta (with a different ending) is the female version of the name, often used for slaves, in it's original Greek it meant good or useful. But Christus is a Greek title that means anointed, and is a different word. And although Tacitus wrote in Latin, he would have used the Greek names and titles.
The earliest copy of Tacitus we have uses Chrestianos. One can not derive Chrestianos from Christus, so Tacitus would have needed to explain to his readers how Chrestianos could be derived from Christus. This is one reason to suspect the passage in Tacitus was changed from the original.
"To all its subject peoples, Rome granted religious toleration as long as they also honored Roman gods."
How is that religious freedom?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Diogenes
This is one reason to suspect the passage in Tacitus was changed from the original.
But not 'interpreted' from the original, Codex Sinaiticus.
You are making a naturalist presumption here, to which we Christians do not concede.
But more to your thread title; we Christians believe that Truth is a Person -- namely, Jesus Christ who was crucified. Since atheists and skeptics reject Jesus as worthy of worship, they cannot be said to have "the Truth" in any meaningful way.
Luke used Josephus lol....okay..idk who's still claiming that today. Theirs many but here's a few quotes:
After examining the texts myself, I must conclude with the majority of scholars that it is impossible to establish the dependence of Luke-Acts on the Antiquitates. What is clear is that Luke-Acts and Josephos shared some common traditions about the recent history of Palestine.’, Sterling, ‘Historiography and Self-Definition: Josephos, Luke-Acts, and Apologetic Historiography’, Supplements to Novum Testamentum, pp. 365-366 (1992).
Some attempt to argue a literary dependence on Josephus, and date Luke-Acts after 93CE. But, without a doubt, Luke’s theology is of an earlier type than Justin.’, Hear, ‘Simon Magus: the first gnostic?’, p. 71 (2003).
Neither position has much of a following today, because of the significant differences between the two works in their accounts of the same events.’, Mason, ‘Josephus and the New Testament’, p. 185 (1992).
Except the many similarities are too common to dismiss as coincidence.
Quote:
Originally Posted by quoting2400
An John the Elder wasn't one of the twelve but he was a disciple.
Not a disciple of Jesus, according to Papias himself.
"To all its subject peoples, Rome granted religious toleration as long as they also honored Roman gods."
How is that religious freedom?
Because it is false, the Jews were allowed to follow their religion without honoring Roman gods. Even Tertullian said not to honor Roman gods around 200 AD. To avoid this, he warned Christians not to go to Pagan birth celebrations, weddings and funerals, nor to go to theaters or to get involved in politics, because any votive offerings was allowing Satan in to their lives.
It was not until later that Roman gods must be honored.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ellis Bell
But not 'interpreted' from the original, Codex Sinaiticus.
Nowhere is the claim that Chrestianos is derived from Christus in the Codex Sinaiticus.
Because it is false, the Jews were allowed to follow their religion without honoring Roman gods. Even Tertullian said not to honor Roman gods around 200 AD. To avoid this, he warned Christians not to go to Pagan birth celebrations, weddings and funerals, nor to go to theaters or to get involved in politics, because any votive offerings was allowing Satan in to their lives.
It was not until later that Roman gods must be honored.
Nowhere is the claim that Chrestianos is derived from Christus in the Codex Sinaiticus.
Each Codex is an interpretation from the source language. (when my great, great, great arrived in the new world on Ellis Island from Czechoslovakia, their last name was spelled with a k, but it was recorded 'ck'.)
χρηστιανος: The disciples were first called Chrestians in Antioch: the scribe of the Codex Sinaiticus wrote the word chrestianos in the three New Testament passages where that word occurs (Acts 11:26, 26:28 and 1 Pet 4:16).
Because it is false, the Jews were allowed to follow their religion without honoring Roman gods.
That's great then if everyone in the land were Jewish, then they would all have freedom of religion. btw: Jews were still persecuted you know that right? "But Rome viewed the Jews with suspicion and persecuted them on several occasions."
Except the many similarities are too common to dismiss as coincidence.
Not a disciple of Jesus, according to Papias himself.
Might wanna read this quote from Papias:
I will not hesitate to add also for you to my interpretations what I formerly learned with care from the elders and have carefully stored in memory, giving assurance of its truth. For I did not take pleasure as the many do in those who speak much, but in those who teach what is true, nor in those who relate foreign precepts, but in those who relate the precepts which were given by the Lord to the faith and came down from the Truth itself. And also if any follower of the elders happened to come, I would inquire for the sayings of the elders, what Andrew said, or what Peter said, or what Philip or what Thomas or James or what John or Matthew or any other of the Lord's disciples, and whatever Aristion and the elder John, the disciples of the Lord, were saying. For I considered that I should not get so much advantage from matter in books as from the voice which yet lives and remains.
Each Codex is an interpretation from the source language. (when my great, great, great arrived in the new world on Ellis Island from Czechoslovakia, their last name was spelled with a k, but it was recorded 'ck'.)
χρηστιανος: The disciples were first called Chrestians in Antioch: the scribe of the Codex Sinaiticus wrote the word chrestianos in the three New Testament passages where that word occurs (Acts 11:26, 26:28 and 1 Pet 4:16).
That's great then if everyone in the land were Jewish, then they would all have freedom of religion. btw: Jews were still persecuted you know that right? "But Rome viewed the Jews with suspicion and persecuted them on several occasions."
Some freedom eh?
That would have been Paul and Luke...the self proclaimed Apostle and HIS disciple.
Jesus was Jewish and the Apostles were Jewish...they wouldn't have renamed themselves.
Each Codex is an interpretation from the source language. (when my great, great, great arrived in the new world on Ellis Island from Czechoslovakia, their last name was spelled with a k, but it was recorded 'ck'.)
χρηστιανος: The disciples were first called Chrestians in Antioch: the scribe of the Codex Sinaiticus wrote the word chrestianos in the three New Testament passages where that word occurs (Acts 11:26, 26:28 and 1 Pet 4:16).
That's great then if everyone in the land were Jewish, then they would all have freedom of religion. btw: Jews were still persecuted you know that right? "But Rome viewed the Jews with suspicion and persecuted them on several occasions."
Some freedom eh?
Quote:
Originally Posted by TMSRetired
That would have been Paul and Luke...the self proclaimed Apostle and HIS disciple.
Jesus was Jewish and the Apostles were Jewish...they wouldn't have renamed themselves.
Language changed, not their names; scribes would interpret from a source papyrus or cuneiform tablet. The explanation is given on mountainman's website. Which imo, he has too much time on his hands, but he seems to have completed his homework.
After making my post I went to the homepage and there one will find an array of information, about all kinds of literature antiquity, and others not so antique.
You are throwing down the gauntlet in a religious forum, is that because you need to vent or you want to fight? I am not disputing what you post, but what use is it in this forum except maybe for you to get something off your chest and get a lot of people's hackles up? I hope you can resolve the anger and betrayal, a lot of us have experienced it from the christian religion. It is not a fun place to be in with impotent anger that you have to resolve yourself.
He is just proving that he has taken a leap of faith and blindly believes his atheistic creed. There is nothing in his post that is truth. Its all opinions.
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