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Did Christ really exist ?

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joelr

Well-Known Member
Holy ones, sons of God, heavenly host, refers to angels. During the days of Jesus, the Pharisees believed in Satan as the devil. Satan appeared with angels in Job but that doesn't mean he was part of a divine council. Some people think he didn't appear in heaven either. These details arent important. Regardless of what you believe about those details, everyone knows that evil exists. The age of the earth is not important. Whether dinosaurs existed isnt important. Why do you think that God is made up?

No in early Judaism it was believed there were other Gods.This site mentions the scripture that they are in:
The Divine Council of Yahweh

Evil doesn't exist, it's a label we put on actions. In Hiroshima we thought of dropping the atomic bomb as essential to winning the war. The fishermen and their families in Hiroshima considered it an evil act by Americans.

All cultures going back to Sumer have stories about Gods and then the "one true God" started in Egypt.
They are all myths. Israel came from Cannanite society and even had Canaanite goddess paired up with Yahweh. Both are myths. The stories were taken from other cultures myths and the NT is just another dying/rising savior god myth.
There are no records outside the bible of any Yahweh or Jesus miracles (but plenty in each culture of their Gods miracles) and the gospels are written in a mythical style - ring structure, triadic structure, rather than how histories were written. Jesus even scores higher than King Arthur on the Rank Ragalin mythotype scale. They are made up stories. Highly improbable events. Some of Luke is actually line by line transformation of the Kings narrative to create a Jesus story. This was an updating of the Jewish religion combining it with the popular savior god myth going around the region.

  1. Mother is a royal virgin
  2. Father is a king
  3. Father often a near relative to mother
  4. Unusual conception
  5. Hero reputed to be son of god
  6. Attempt to kill hero as an infant, often by father or maternal grandfather
  7. Hero spirited away as a child
  8. Reared by foster parents in a far country
  9. No details of childhood
  10. Returns or goes to future kingdom
  11. Is victor over king, giant, dragon or wild beast
  12. Marries a princess (often daughter of predecessor)
  13. Becomes king
  14. For a time he reigns uneventfully
  15. He prescribes laws
  16. Later loses favor with gods or his subjects
  17. Driven from throne and city
  18. Meets with mysterious death
  19. Often at the top of a hill
  20. His children, if any, do not succeed him
  21. His body is not buried
  22. Has one or more holy sepulchers or tombs
But this is Jesus, read the Wiki page on Yahweh. Started out as a warrior deity, fought sea monsters and as theology changes we have now added neo-platoism (infinite, all-knowing, and so on) to the concepts. It's man-made.Yahweh - Wikipedia
But God chooses one tribe? Tribalism? Ridiculous.
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
Modern science rules out the possibility of a world flood. Even if true, Gods flooding the Earth to kill everyone (and animals) is a crap myth. A flood also does not mean a sky-God like Zeus caused it. The water would also still be here.



"Modern geology, its sub-disciplines and other scientific disciplines utilize the scientific method to analyze the geology of the earth. The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community.
Erosion
The global flood cannot explain geological formations such as angular unconformities, where sedimentary rocks have been tilted and eroded then more sedimentary layers deposited on top, needing long periods of time for these processes. There is also the time needed for the erosion of valleys in sedimentary rock mountains. In another example, the flood, had it occurred, should also have produced large-scale effects spread throughout the entire world. Erosion should be evenly distributed, yet the levels of erosion in, for example, the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains differ significantly.[112]

Geochronology

The alternation of calcite and aragonite seas through geologic time.[113]
Geochronology is the science of determining the absolute age of rocks, fossils, and sediments by a variety of techniques. These methods indicate that the Earth as a whole is about 4.54 billion years old, and that the strata that, according to flood geology, were laid down during the Flood some 6,000 years ago, were actually deposited gradually over many millions of years.

Paleontology
If the flood were responsible for fossilization, then all the animals now fossilized must have been living together on the Earth just before the flood. Based on estimates of the number of remains buried in the Karoo fossil formation in Africa, this would correspond to an abnormally high density of vertebrates worldwide, close to 2100 per acre.[84] Creationists argue that evidence for the geological column is fragmentary, and all the complex layers of chalk occurred in the approach to the 150th day of Noah's flood.[114][115] However, the entire geologic column is found in several places, and shows multiple features, including evidence of erosion and burrowing through older layers, which are inexplicable on a short timescale. Carbonate hardgrounds and the fossils associated with them show that the so-called flood sediments include evidence of long hiatuses in deposition that are not consistent with flood dynamics or timing.[7]

Geochemistry
Proponents of Flood Geology are also unable to account for the alternation between calcite seas and aragonite seas through the Phanerozoic. The cyclical pattern of carbonate hardgrounds, calcitic and aragonitic ooids, and calcite-shelled fauna has apparently been controlled by seafloor spreading rates and the flushing of seawater through hydrothermal vents which changes its Mg/Ca ratio.[116]

Sedimentary rock features
Phil Senter's 2011 article, "The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology", in the journal Reports of the National Center for Science Education, discusses "sedimentologic and other geologic features that Flood geologists have identified as evidence that particular strata cannot have been deposited during a time when the entire planet was under water ... and distribution of strata that predate the existence of the Ararat mountain chain." These include continental basalts, terrestrial tracks of animals, and marine communities preserving multiple in-situ generations included in the rocks of most or all Phanerozoic periods, and the basalt even in the younger Precambrian rocks. Others, occurring in rocks of several geologic periods, include lake deposits and eolian (wind) deposits. Using their own words, Flood geologists find evidence in every Paleozoic and Mesozoic period, and in every epoch of the Cenozoic period, indicating that a global flood could not have occurred during that interval.[117]
I understand, I cannot account for everything reported in Genesis 9 about the Flood in reference to modern science at this point in my life, but I will not say it's a myth or fable. Clearly something happened in a dire way, otherwise the stories about a gigantic flood would not have been said, as far as I'm concerned. And on the other side, many things science has asserted turn out to be overturned as more experimentation and exploration continues.
 

Skywalker

Well-Known Member
No in early Judaism it was believed there were other Gods.This site mentions the scripture that they are in:
The Divine Council of Yahweh

Evil doesn't exist, it's a label we put on actions. In Hiroshima we thought of dropping the atomic bomb as essential to winning the war. The fishermen and their families in Hiroshima considered it an evil act by Americans.

All cultures going back to Sumer have stories about Gods and then the "one true God" started in Egypt.
They are all myths. Israel came from Cannanite society and even had Canaanite goddess paired up with Yahweh. Both are myths. The stories were taken from other cultures myths and the NT is just another dying/rising savior god myth.
There are no records outside the bible of any Yahweh or Jesus miracles (but plenty in each culture of their Gods miracles) and the gospels are written in a mythical style - ring structure, triadic structure, rather than how histories were written. Jesus even scores higher than King Arthur on the Rank Ragalin mythotype scale. They are made up stories. Highly improbable events. Some of Luke is actually line by line transformation of the Kings narrative to create a Jesus story. This was an updating of the Jewish religion combining it with the popular savior god myth going around the region.

  1. Mother is a royal virgin
  2. Father is a king
  3. Father often a near relative to mother
  4. Unusual conception
  5. Hero reputed to be son of god
  6. Attempt to kill hero as an infant, often by father or maternal grandfather
  7. Hero spirited away as a child
  8. Reared by foster parents in a far country
  9. No details of childhood
  10. Returns or goes to future kingdom
  11. Is victor over king, giant, dragon or wild beast
  12. Marries a princess (often daughter of predecessor)
  13. Becomes king
  14. For a time he reigns uneventfully
  15. He prescribes laws
  16. Later loses favor with gods or his subjects
  17. Driven from throne and city
  18. Meets with mysterious death
  19. Often at the top of a hill
  20. His children, if any, do not succeed him
  21. His body is not buried
  22. Has one or more holy sepulchers or tombs
But this is Jesus, read the Wiki page on Yahweh. Started out as a warrior deity, fought sea monsters and as theology changes we have now added neo-platoism (infinite, all-knowing, and so on) to the concepts. It's man-made.Yahweh - Wikipedia
But God chooses one tribe? Tribalism? Ridiculous.


Horus and Mithras arent dying and rising gods. Was Jesus a Copy of Horus, Mithras, Krishna, Dionysus and Other Pagan Gods?

The Zeitgeist film makes a number of wild statements about Horus to attempt to prove that Jesus is a copy. But let’s look at the claims against actual Egyptian mythology:

“Horus was born on December 25th” — According to Egyptian mythological history, Horus’s birthday is celebrated in the season of Khoiak, which runs in the months of October and November, not December 25th. Furthermore, the date of December 25th is never mentioned in the Bible as the date of Jesus’ birth and thus has no relevance to the account of Jesus’ life. So right away, the claims of “plagiarism” look completely baseless.

“Horus was born of a virgin” — There are two accounts of Horus’ birth. The most famous by far, was that Horus was born from his mother Isis, who was not a virgin, but rather a widow of the slain Osiris. Through sorcery, Isis, assembled the body of Osiris and was impregnated with his phallus. Clearly this was a sexual union and not a virgin birth. The “Hymn to Osiris” which records this account states: “[Isis] made to rise up the helpless members [phallus] of him whose heart was at rest, she drew from him his essence [DNA material], and she made therefrom an heir [Horus].” (Source and Source).

“Three Wise Men Came to Adore the New Born Savior”– No source is provided by the documentary for this claim. Additionally, the Bible does not say “three wise men” came to see Jesus. It never tells us the number of wise men. And they did not come at Jesus’ birth in a manger. They came to his family home when he was a toddler.

“Horus was a child prodigy teacher at 12” — The movie offers no pre-New Testament sources that state this.

“Horus had 12 Disciples” — Historian Glen Miller writes: “But again, my research in the academic literature does not surface this fact. I can find references to FOUR “disciples”–variously called the semi-divine HERU-SHEMSU (“Followers of Horus”) [GOE:1.491]. I can find references to SIXTEEN human followers. And I can find reference to an UNNUMBERED group of followers called mesniu/mesnitu (“blacksmiths”) who accompanied Horus in some of his battles [although these might be identified with the HERU-SHEMSU in GOE:1.84]. But I cannot find TWELVE anywhere…]”

Additionally, some of have said the 12 signs of the zodiac are the “disciples” of Horus. Even if this were the case, they are just stars and not actual people who followed Horus, preached about him or recorded his life. This is another empty and false claim.

“Horus was crucified. Dead for three days. And Resurrected” — There is no historical record in any credible Egyptian mythology of Horus being crucified. Additionally, crucifixion was a method of execution invented by the Roman Empire thousands of years after the time of the Horus myth. Whereas the accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion exist in thousands of manuscripts from the century after his death. Additionally, as we detailed in our article “Did Jesus Really Exist? Proving Jesus without The Bible” there are many secular historical sources that record His crucifixion as described in the Bible.

If you are wondering how Zeitgeist could make such wild claims, that have no real historical evidence, they benefit from the Skeptic’s Fallacy: in short, when it comes to attacking the credibility of the Bible it is assumed that the skeptic is completely credible. So the Zeitgeist creators know most people will not research their attacks and just take it as factual (just as Dan Brown did with the numerous inaccuracies of the DaVinci Code). If one takes the time, they will also notice that Zeitgeist gets almost all of its information from one source, a book called “The Christ Conspiracy” by a woman named Acharya S. (we will address her later).

Zeitgeist continues as do the skeptics with the idea that Christianity itself is a copy of the cult of Mithras, which was popularized in Rome in the 1st to 4th Century AD (note that it sprung up in Rome after the death of Christ and centuries after the Old Testament prophecies of the Coming Messiah). The movie states:

“Mithras was born of a virgin” — There are almost no early writings about the cult of Mithras and most of what is known is based on artwork (as opposed to Jesus Christ, of whom thousands of ancient manuscripts exist that describe His life, death and resurrection in detail). But according to historians, Mithras was born from a rock, not from a virgin or from a person at all.

“Mithras was born on December 25.” — Once again, the date of December 25th is not mentioned in the Bible and thus holds no significance to the story of Jesus Christ. Additionally, in Mithraism there is no date of Mithras’ birth.

“Mithras was attended to by Shepherds” — This claim is based on the relief above. The earliest existing account of Mithras’ birth is found in a relief depicting him emerging from a rock with the assistance of men who certainly appear to be shepherds (which is interesting considering his birth was supposed to have preceded the creation of humans!). Such a blatant inconsistency should show a serious flaw in Mithraism research, but the Zeitgeist team again overlooks this. Furthermore, this relief dates to 4th century A.D., well after the Gospels had been written and distributed over most of the known world.

“Mithra had 12 disciples.” — This is based on the carving above which shows Mithras surrounded by 12 signs of the Zodiac. There is no reason to conclude that signs of the Zodiac are “disciples.” Remember, there is no written record of Mithra’s existence from the 1st to 4th centuries when the cult thrived. The earliest writings are from outsiders recording their observations. So most of the wild assertions of Zeitgeist are just being based on this piece of art. Franz Cumont, considered the first great researcher of Mithras claimed that the disciples in the relief were actually people dressed up as Zodiac signs, showing how ludicrous the effort to link Mithras to Jesus can get.

“Mithras was crucified. Dead for three days. And then resurrected.” — This charge in particular reveals the insincerity of the claims of plagiarism against Christianity. In Mithraism, Mithras never dies. He completed his earthly mission and returned to the skies in a chariot (ironically similar to the story of the Prophet Elijah in the Bible’s Book of 1 Kings, written 800 years earlier). In Mithraism there is no historical mention of crucifixion, burial or resurrection in any artwork or text. In a critique of this theory, researcher Ronald Nash writes:

“Allegations of an early Christian dependence on Mithraism have been rejected on many grounds. Mithraism had no concept of the death and resurrection of its god and no place for any concept of rebirth—at least during its early stages.” In his book Image and Value in the Greco-Roman World, Richard Gordon writes that there is “no death of Mithras,” and thus there is no resurrection of Mithras.

• Dr. Edwin Yamauchi states: “We don’t know anything about the death of Mithras…We have a lot of monuments, but we have almost no textual evidence, because this was a secret religion. But I know of no references to a supposed death and resurrection.”

It is also important to note that for all of the research Franz Cumont did on Mithras, his overriding conclusion was that unlike Jesus Christ, who was a real person, Mithras did not exist. Thus a basic examination of the factual evidence shows that the Bible did not plagiarize from the story of Mithras.

What about embarrassing testimony? Criterion of embarrassment - Wikipedia
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
No in early Judaism it was believed there were other Gods.This site mentions the scripture that they are in:
The Divine Council of Yahweh

Evil doesn't exist, it's a label we put on actions. In Hiroshima we thought of dropping the atomic bomb as essential to winning the war. The fishermen and their families in Hiroshima considered it an evil act by Americans.

All cultures going back to Sumer have stories about Gods and then the "one true God" started in Egypt.
They are all myths. Israel came from Cannanite society and even had Canaanite goddess paired up with Yahweh. Both are myths. The stories were taken from other cultures myths and the NT is just another dying/rising savior god myth.
There are no records outside the bible of any Yahweh or Jesus miracles (but plenty in each culture of their Gods miracles) and the gospels are written in a mythical style - ring structure, triadic structure, rather than how histories were written. Jesus even scores higher than King Arthur on the Rank Ragalin mythotype scale. They are made up stories. Highly improbable events. Some of Luke is actually line by line transformation of the Kings narrative to create a Jesus story. This was an updating of the Jewish religion combining it with the popular savior god myth going around the region.

  1. Mother is a royal virgin
  2. Father is a king
  3. Father often a near relative to mother
  4. Unusual conception
  5. Hero reputed to be son of god
  6. Attempt to kill hero as an infant, often by father or maternal grandfather
  7. Hero spirited away as a child
  8. Reared by foster parents in a far country
  9. No details of childhood
  10. Returns or goes to future kingdom
  11. Is victor over king, giant, dragon or wild beast
  12. Marries a princess (often daughter of predecessor)
  13. Becomes king
  14. For a time he reigns uneventfully
  15. He prescribes laws
  16. Later loses favor with gods or his subjects
  17. Driven from throne and city
  18. Meets with mysterious death
  19. Often at the top of a hill
  20. His children, if any, do not succeed him
  21. His body is not buried
  22. Has one or more holy sepulchers or tombs
But this is Jesus, read the Wiki page on Yahweh. Started out as a warrior deity, fought sea monsters and as theology changes we have now added neo-platoism (infinite, all-knowing, and so on) to the concepts. It's man-made.Yahweh - Wikipedia
But God chooses one tribe? Tribalism? Ridiculous.
In reference to evil, the standard was set in the beginning with Adam and Eve. by God They did what they were told not to do. Have you researched what the Tree of Life represented? It is said to be the "knowledge of good and evil." Right? That KNOWLEDGE of good and evil belonged to the One who created them. And yes, I believe God created them, the same one who made the Garden of Eden with the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in it.
Genesis 2: "And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, where He placed the man He had formed. 9Out of the ground the LORD God gave growth to every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." You probably remember they were told not to eat from that tree of knowledge. Not because the LORD God wanted them to be stupid. Or to lack knowledge of "good and evil."
 

Skywalker

Well-Known Member
Modern science rules out the possibility of a world flood. Even if true, Gods flooding the Earth to kill everyone (and animals) is a crap myth. A flood also does not mean a sky-God like Zeus caused it. The water would also still be here.



"Modern geology, its sub-disciplines and other scientific disciplines utilize the scientific method to analyze the geology of the earth. The key tenets of flood geology are refuted by scientific analysis and do not have any standing in the scientific community.
Erosion
The global flood cannot explain geological formations such as angular unconformities, where sedimentary rocks have been tilted and eroded then more sedimentary layers deposited on top, needing long periods of time for these processes. There is also the time needed for the erosion of valleys in sedimentary rock mountains. In another example, the flood, had it occurred, should also have produced large-scale effects spread throughout the entire world. Erosion should be evenly distributed, yet the levels of erosion in, for example, the Appalachians and the Rocky Mountains differ significantly.[112]

Geochronology

The alternation of calcite and aragonite seas through geologic time.[113]
Geochronology is the science of determining the absolute age of rocks, fossils, and sediments by a variety of techniques. These methods indicate that the Earth as a whole is about 4.54 billion years old, and that the strata that, according to flood geology, were laid down during the Flood some 6,000 years ago, were actually deposited gradually over many millions of years.

Paleontology
If the flood were responsible for fossilization, then all the animals now fossilized must have been living together on the Earth just before the flood. Based on estimates of the number of remains buried in the Karoo fossil formation in Africa, this would correspond to an abnormally high density of vertebrates worldwide, close to 2100 per acre.[84] Creationists argue that evidence for the geological column is fragmentary, and all the complex layers of chalk occurred in the approach to the 150th day of Noah's flood.[114][115] However, the entire geologic column is found in several places, and shows multiple features, including evidence of erosion and burrowing through older layers, which are inexplicable on a short timescale. Carbonate hardgrounds and the fossils associated with them show that the so-called flood sediments include evidence of long hiatuses in deposition that are not consistent with flood dynamics or timing.[7]

Geochemistry
Proponents of Flood Geology are also unable to account for the alternation between calcite seas and aragonite seas through the Phanerozoic. The cyclical pattern of carbonate hardgrounds, calcitic and aragonitic ooids, and calcite-shelled fauna has apparently been controlled by seafloor spreading rates and the flushing of seawater through hydrothermal vents which changes its Mg/Ca ratio.[116]

Sedimentary rock features
Phil Senter's 2011 article, "The Defeat of Flood Geology by Flood Geology", in the journal Reports of the National Center for Science Education, discusses "sedimentologic and other geologic features that Flood geologists have identified as evidence that particular strata cannot have been deposited during a time when the entire planet was under water ... and distribution of strata that predate the existence of the Ararat mountain chain." These include continental basalts, terrestrial tracks of animals, and marine communities preserving multiple in-situ generations included in the rocks of most or all Phanerozoic periods, and the basalt even in the younger Precambrian rocks. Others, occurring in rocks of several geologic periods, include lake deposits and eolian (wind) deposits. Using their own words, Flood geologists find evidence in every Paleozoic and Mesozoic period, and in every epoch of the Cenozoic period, indicating that a global flood could not have occurred during that interval.[117]

The flood is similar to the judgements of the Old Testament that have to do with community accountability, like the Caananites and the Midianites and the Moabites and the Amalekites. The Purpose of the Flood

The Purpose of the Flood
Earlier this year I attended a debate between a biblical creationist and a humanist; during the Q&A time, an atheist posed the question: “If God is good, how could He be so capricious as to wipe out all those innocent people in the Flood.”
This is not an uncommon objection raised by people who do not believe in the God of the Bible.

However, this objection does not take time to consider the biblical context of the Flood or to think about one’s own presuppositions. For example, atheists have no basis with which to question the character of God, given that they have no objective moral foundation on which to do so. Morality for an atheist is just a matter of opinion. It is also important to remember that, when atheists read the text of Scripture, they do not believe that God exists or that He reveals Himself to people. The people in the biblical narrative then are judged by the atheists as if God has not revealed Himself. Ultimately, atheists are not critiquing what the Bible says, but rather they are critiquing a misrepresentation of the biblical event.

As Christians we need to consider the account of the Flood (and other judgement passages) in light of what the Bible states about God and humanity:

The Reason for the Flood
In Genesis 6 God gives the reason for His judgement of the world in the days of Noah:

Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. . . . The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. (Genesis 6:5, 11–12)
The judgement at the time of the Flood was not a result of God’s supposed capriciousness; rather He had several reasons for His judgement:

  1. The wickedness of man.
  2. Every intent of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually.
  3. The earth was corrupt.
  4. The earth was filled with violence.
  5. All flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.
Despite man’s wickedness, God showed Himself to be gracious in that He patiently waited, presumably for people to repent, while the Ark was being prepared (1 Peter 3:20). Unfortunately, despite the testimony of Noah, a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter 2:5, Hebrews 11:7), the people went about their daily affairs, unconcerned and unsuspecting of the Flood that came and destroyed them (Matthew 24:39).

The Coming Judgement
We need to remember that just as God judged the whole world in the days of Noah, He has also promised to do so again (Matthew 24:37–39, 25:31–32; 2 Peter 3:3–7). The good news is that, just as God provided a means of salvation (the Ark) in the days of Noah, He has provided a means of salvation from the future judgement through the Lord Jesus Christ (John 14:6; Acts 4:12, 17:30–31; Romans 10:9).

God was patient in the days of Noah, and He is patient today. The fact that Jesus has not already returned means salvation is still available to people (2 Corinthians. 6:2; 2 Peter 3:15), which should be a reminder to us as Christians to make the most of every opportunity to witness about our Saviour.
 

Skywalker

Well-Known Member
From Archaeology we know there was a polytheist movement is early Israel and eventually the monotheistic version won out, which is similar to the Persian myths.
Then the Israelites took concepts from the Persians and the modern Judaism emerged.



Christianity has Satan? Angra Mainyu is exactly where they got the idea for the modern version of Satan as an adversary of God. In the early OT Satan was more of an agent of God. Torturing Job, Yahweh sending Satan to inflict a plague and so on.
Both religions are monolatric. You have Satan, angels and other divine beings. Why would you bring up Angra Mainyu when Satan is a direct analog in the Christian myth?

The Pharisees believed in the existence of the devil.
 

Skywalker

Well-Known Member
Ok, so you don't care. To each his own. The site you linked to translates it as "My Lord is Yahweh", they just made that up. And you didn't even blink. They also say Rihanna is an Illuminati Satan agenda pushing evil person. DO you see a problem here? Do you care AT ALL about what it true. No, you do not.

actual sites translate:
Adoniyahu Asher Al Habayit,” which literally translates as “Adoniyahu, who is over the house.” The term, which means “royal steward,” is used throughout the Bible to describe the most senior official serving under a king of Judea or Israel.




Paul is historical. 7 of his letters are authentic the rest scholarship believes to be forgeries added by later Christians.
Jesus is only historical as a man who was later mythicized as a demi god. No scholarship thinks he was really a son of God. That is a myth, same as all myths. Dying , rising savior gods were all over that region, before Jesus.

what PhD historians think:

"
When the question of the historicity of Jesus comes up in an honest professional context, we are not asking whether the Gospel Jesus existed. All non-fundamentalist scholars agree that that Jesus never did exist. Christian apologetics is pseudo-history. No different than defending Atlantis. Or Moroni. Or women descending from Adam’s rib.

No. We aren’t interested in that.

When it comes to Jesus, just as with anyone else, real history is about trying to figure out what, if anything, we can really know about the man depicted in the New Testament (his actual life and teachings), through untold layers of distortion and mythmaking; and what, if anything, we can know about his role in starting the Christian movement that spread after his death."

I dont agree with their conspiracy theories about the Illuminati. i dont take anything anyone says to the most minute detail. Nothing is certain except God.

What letters of Paul do you believe in?
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
What method/technique does one use to know right from wrong and or good from evil, please?
Did Jesus and Mary use the same method/technique, please?
If yes, please quote from them in this connection and the reason given by Jesus and Mary, please?

Regards
You are so kind. :) Jesus and Mary were both under the law of Moses. And Jesus went back to the beginning of the scriptural testimony when he referred to Adam and Eve being created by God -- one man and one woman. The law of Moses did not exist from the beginning, but the Jews were sworn by consent to be under it, and Jehovah (YHWH) was their God.
Also, it is helpful to know that the tree of knowledge of Good and Evil was forbidden to eat from. Do you remember what the penalty was for eating from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, according to what the Bible says?
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
I understand, I cannot account for everything reported in Genesis 9 about the Flood in reference to modern science at this point in my life, but I will not say it's a myth or fable. Clearly something happened in a dire way, otherwise the stories about a gigantic flood would not have been said, as far as I'm concerned.
Well that is honest. However, it is myth. I'm not saying your version has to be myth but comparative mytholgy reveals the flood myth to be one of the most common myths among different cultures. But so are giants, dragons, axis mundi (a center of the world), humans being made from clay, the universe being created by dying God, old Gods vs new Gods, humans stealing fire and a world serpent/Ouroboros. The idea of a flood just happens to be a myth that isn't completely ridiculous and clearly representing something metaphorical as the others.
When ancient cultures passed on myths they had no idea that thousands of years later humans would have books and computers and comparative mythology was easily accessible for a large part of humanity.



And on the other side, many things science has asserted turn out to be overturned as more experimentation and exploration continues.
Did you really read that list? Science rarely overturns theories. What happens is they add more detail to them. General relativity is a more modern theory of Newtonian gravity. But the tensor equations will still produce Newtonian solutions to large things like the motion of planets. It just has the ability to go into finer detail.
Geology can easily account for the last 100,000 years which is how long humans were around. Cities have been around for far less, 5-6 thousand years. No chance they missed a world flood that recent.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
https://beginningandend.com/jesus-copy-horus-mithras-dionysis-pagan-gods/
Really? This is an apologetics article. The author has no name and gives no sources. There is a entire PhD historicity field where a strict peer-review system is in place. They don't run around preaching their consensus but it's there for people who care about our best attempts at truth.
This article is literally, boldface lying to you. There are zero accounts of the crucifixion outside of the gospels. Any mention by whomever was describing there was a religion and they had beliefs written in gospels. Every one.

It is true Mithras and Horus were not dying/rising Gods. Many PhD's mention that D.M. Murdock and Zeitgiest is crank.

"Other savior gods within this context experienced “passions” that did not involve a death. For instance, Mithras underwent some great suffering and struggle (we don’t have many details), through which he acquired his power over death that he then shares with initiates in his cult, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t a death. Mentions of resurrection as a teaching in Mithraism appear to have been about the future fate of his followers (in accordance with the Persian Zoroastrian notion of a general resurrection later borrowed by the Jews). So all those internet memes listing Mithras as a dying-and-rising god? Not true. So do please stop repeating that claim. Likewise, so far as we can tell Attis didn’t become a rising god until well after Christianity began (and even then his myth only barely equated to a resurrection; previous authors have over-interpreted evidence to the contrary). Most others, however, we have pretty solid evidence for as actually dying, and actually rising savior gods."

Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier

But dying/rising savior Gods, sons/daughters of a main God, baptism, undergoing a passion, followers gain entry into the afterlife were a main part of mystery religions in that time and location. Osirus was one and PhD Carrier has sourced the Pyramid text as well as stone tablets for any example he uses.
as he points out, 1st century apologist Justin Myrter was already admitting Jesus was just like the other demigods people were familiar with at that time. He just claims his version is the best version.
Later the church used the excuse "the devil implanted these historical demigods to trick Christians" thing. That has fallen out of favor for modern apologetics articles which just say whatever they want.



What about embarrassing testimony? Criterion of embarrassment - Wikipedia
It isn't embarrassing because the myth is about a demigod who undergoes some type of passion or struggle, is killed and defeats death by rising. That started as a Hellenistic idea and moved through various nations.

Carrier's blog article is very to the point. He doesn't care about who he upsets and has no university position to be used to control what he says. The Wiki article outlines some push back (for obvious reasons) with lumping Christianity in with mystery religions. So it gives a wide perspective of views. Although Carrier has already said this is mainly because in academia you have to be weary of upsetting tradition and those who are large contributors and so on.
Dying-and-rising deity - Wikipedia
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
Well that is honest. However, it is myth. I'm not saying your version has to be myth but comparative mytholgy reveals the flood myth to be one of the most common myths among different cultures. But so are giants, dragons, axis mundi (a center of the world), humans being made from clay, the universe being created by dying God, old Gods vs new Gods, humans stealing fire and a world serpent/Ouroboros. The idea of a flood just happens to be a myth that isn't completely ridiculous and clearly representing something metaphorical as the others.
When ancient cultures passed on myths they had no idea that thousands of years later humans would have books and computers and comparative mythology was easily accessible for a large part of humanity.




Did you really read that list? Science rarely overturns theories. What happens is they add more detail to them. General relativity is a more modern theory of Newtonian gravity. But the tensor equations will still produce Newtonian solutions to large things like the motion of planets. It just has the ability to go into finer detail.
Geology can easily account for the last 100,000 years which is how long humans were around. .Cities have been around for far less, 5-6 thousand years. No chance they missed a world flood that recent.
Again -- the earth was in existence before life was put on it. Each day of creation, while it is contested by many religious people, was clearly very long. Not 24 hours. But that's the way I see it.
The Bible says only Noah and his family among humans survived the Flood. I don't believe that humans were around for 100,000+ years or so. I can't account for everything, but I will say that according to the Bible, humans multiplied (and still can) at a pretty rapid rate. Thus the formation of cities for trade does not seem unusual to me. And as I said, I can't account for everything.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
In reference to evil, the standard was set in the beginning with Adam and Eve. by God They did what they were told not to do. Have you researched what the Tree of Life represented? It is said to be the "knowledge of good and evil." Right? That KNOWLEDGE of good and evil belonged to the One who created them. And yes, I believe God created them, the same one who made the Garden of Eden with the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in it.
Genesis 2: "And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, where He placed the man He had formed. 9Out of the ground the LORD God gave growth to every tree that is pleasing to the eye and good for food. And in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." You probably remember they were told not to eat from that tree of knowledge. Not because the LORD God wanted them to be stupid. Or to lack knowledge of "good and evil."
I don't know why anyone would take such an obvious piece of mythology and read it as literal?


"The story of the fall of Adam is often considered to be an allegory. Findings in population genetics, particularly those concerning Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve, indicate that a single first "Adam and Eve" pair of human beings never existed."

"modern scholars consider the Genesis creation narrative as one of various ancient origin myths.

Analysis like the documentary hypothesis also suggests that the text is a result of the compilation of multiple previous traditions, explaining apparent contradictions. Other stories of the same canonical book, like the Genesis flood narrative, are also understood as having been influenced by older literature, with parallels in the older Epic of Gilgamesh.

With scientific developments in paleontology, geology, biology and other disciplines, it was discovered that humans, and all other living things, share the same common ancestor which evolved through natural processes, over billions of years to form the life we see today.

In biology the most recent common ancestors, when traced back using the Y-chromosome for the male lineage and mitochondrial DNA for the female lineage, are commonly called the Y-chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve, respectively. These do not fork from a single couple at the same epoch even if the names were borrowed from the Tanakh"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve

But forgetting all that, if you say evil is doing what God told you not to then we can now easily pin down what some forms of evil are:
Graven images
freedom of religion
keeping a holy day "holy"
having any other God
coveting others things (capitalism)
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
Well that is honest. However, it is myth. I'm not saying your version has to be myth but comparative mytholgy reveals the flood myth to be one of the most common myths among different cultures. But so are giants, dragons, axis mundi (a center of the world), humans being made from clay, the universe being created by dying God, old Gods vs new Gods, humans stealing fire and a world serpent/Ouroboros. The idea of a flood just happens to be a myth that isn't completely ridiculous and clearly representing something metaphorical as the others.
When ancient cultures passed on myths they had no idea that thousands of years later humans would have books and computers and comparative mythology was easily accessible for a large part of humanity.




Did you really read that list? Science rarely overturns theories. What happens is they add more detail to them. General relativity is a more modern theory of Newtonian gravity. But the tensor equations will still produce Newtonian solutions to large things like the motion of planets. It just has the ability to go into finer detail.
Geology can easily account for the last 100,000 years which is how long humans were around. Cities have been around for far less, 5-6 thousand years. No chance they missed a world flood that recent.
Now that I'm thinking about it, do geologists figure how, for instance, the Grand Canyon came about? I realize that planets and heavenly bodies like the sun and moon have different topography, but the Bible says that God separated the waters. I realize that some conjecture that "life" somehow can be on other planets, areas of the universe, but it's all playtools to think that. Because -- there is absolutely no proof.
Genesis 1 says that God made the earth habitable.
Oh, ok, I know geologists have their answers. But as I said, different planets, moons, stars, have different landscapes. :) And while sometimes a scientist may say that there is water in them there planets, no telescope sees life on them there planets. Lifeless and void. Again -- the odds are: zero to zero that life just came about by itself. As far as the Flood, however, I believe Noah had advance notice, built an ark, told others about why he was building it, and a gigantic flood happened. My hope is that I live to hear an eyewitness account from Noah and his family.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
The flood is similar to the judgements of the Old Testament that have to do with community accountability, like the Caananites and the Midianites and the Moabites and the Amalekites. The Purpose of the Flood
That is some serious apologetics. The entire earth, including animals went "evil"?
Besides that science has shown a world flood did not happen, using multiple lines of evidence and the story is copied from older myths, papers on the Canaanites using archaeology and what information remains shows they were just like the Israelites. Animal sacrifice (no child sacrifice), religious, prayed to family who passed on, Gods and demigods, respect for parents and were simple farmers and traders.
So none of that tracks.
There just wasn't a flood. Kind of strange that the Israelites God used the same method of world-destroying that was very popular already with every culture when he could have just snapped his fingers and started over. That is an ancient idea of God, a natural disaster machine, pre-science when we began to understand natural disasters. Back then all disasters were the act of a God so it seemed logical to make a story about Gods and floods.
Now it reads like Lord of the Rings.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
The Pharisees believed in the existence of the devil.
The Pharisees came about in 70CE. Far after the Persian period which influenced the beliefs on things like Satan vs God.

"In 539 BCE the Persians conquered Babylon, and in 537 BCE Cyrus the Great allowed Jews to return to Judea and rebuild the Temple. He did not, however, allow the restoration of the Judean monarchy, which left the Judean priests as the dominant authority. Without the constraining power of the monarchy, the authority of the Temple in civic life was amplified. It was around this time that the Sadducee party emerged as the party of priests and allied elites. However, the Second Temple, which was completed in 515 BCE, had been constructed under the auspices of a foreign power, and there were lingering questions about its legitimacy. This provided the condition for the development of various sects or "schools of thought," each of which claimed exclusive authority to represent "Judaism," and which typically shunned social intercourse, especially marriage, with members of other sects. In the same period, the council of sages known as the Sanhedrin may have codified and canonized the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), from which, following the return from Babylon, the Torah was read publicly on market-days."
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
I dont agree with their conspiracy theories about the Illuminati. i dont take anything anyone says to the most minute detail. Nothing is certain except God.

What letters of Paul do you believe in?
Uh...forget the Illuminati, they literally LIED TO YOU and said something meant "I serve Yahweh" and it basically says "lives in this house"???
I don't "believe in" letters of Paul, scholarship recognized that some are authentic and some are later additions by the church.
Acts has been shown to be a fiction using the Oddessy and other fiction as it's guide. It's a "travel narrative" a common form of fiction. Shipwrecked, percieved as Gods, there are like 50 characteristics that fit the genre.
There are 7 authentic letters. All Paul knows is a vision of a risen Jesus and information he got from some scripture.

"Thirteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to Paul.[13] Seven of the Pauline epistles are undisputed by scholars as being authentic, with varying degrees of argument about the remainder. Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is not asserted in the Epistle itself and was already doubted in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.[note 2] It was almost unquestioningly accepted from the 5th to the 16th centuries that Paul was the author of Hebrews,[15] but that view is now almost universally rejected by scholars.[15][16] The other six are believed by some scholars to have come from followers writing in his name, using material from Paul's surviving letters and letters written by him that no longer survive.[8][7][note 3] Other scholars argue that the idea of a pseudonymous author for the disputed epistles raises many problems."
 

YoursTrue

Faith-confidence in what we hope for (Hebrews 11)
Uh...forget the Illuminati, they literally LIED TO YOU and said something meant "I serve Yahweh" and it basically says "lives in this house"???
I don't "believe in" letters of Paul, scholarship recognized that some are authentic and some are later additions by the church.
Acts has been shown to be a fiction using the Oddessy and other fiction as it's guide. It's a "travel narrative" a common form of fiction. Shipwrecked, percieved as Gods, there are like 50 characteristics that fit the genre.
There are 7 authentic letters. All Paul knows is a vision of a risen Jesus and information he got from some scripture.

"Thirteen of the twenty-seven books in the New Testament have traditionally been attributed to Paul.[13] Seven of the Pauline epistles are undisputed by scholars as being authentic, with varying degrees of argument about the remainder. Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews is not asserted in the Epistle itself and was already doubted in the 2nd and 3rd centuries.[note 2] It was almost unquestioningly accepted from the 5th to the 16th centuries that Paul was the author of Hebrews,[15] but that view is now almost universally rejected by scholars.[15][16] The other six are believed by some scholars to have come from followers writing in his name, using material from Paul's surviving letters and letters written by him that no longer survive.[8][7][note 3] Other scholars argue that the idea of a pseudonymous author for the disputed epistles raises many problems."
So they argue. Paul knew more than a vision, since he realized what he was doing was wrong. His reasoning was turned around.
 

Skywalker

Well-Known Member
That is some serious apologetics. The entire earth, including animals went "evil"?
Besides that science has shown a world flood did not happen, using multiple lines of evidence and the story is copied from older myths, papers on the Canaanites using archaeology and what information remains shows they were just like the Israelites. Animal sacrifice (no child sacrifice), religious, prayed to family who passed on, Gods and demigods, respect for parents and were simple farmers and traders.
So none of that tracks.
There just wasn't a flood. Kind of strange that the Israelites God used the same method of world-destroying that was very popular already with every culture when he could have just snapped his fingers and started over. That is an ancient idea of God, a natural disaster machine, pre-science when we began to understand natural disasters. Back then all disasters were the act of a God so it seemed logical to make a story about Gods and floods.
Now it reads like Lord of the Rings.

The Caananites practiced child sacrifice. Secular history and archaeology agrees with the Bible. Moloch - Wikipedia

Did The Canaanites Really Sacrifice Their Children?

The idea of the flood existing in other cultures could also support that it actually happened and different people having different beliefs about it shows that the details changed over time.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
Again -- the earth was in existence before life was put on it. Each day of creation, while it is contested by many religious people, was clearly very long. Not 24 hours. But that's the way I see it.
The Bible says only Noah and his family among humans survived the Flood. I don't believe that humans were around for 100,000+ years or so. I can't account for everything, but I will say that according to the Bible, humans multiplied (and still can) at a pretty rapid rate. Thus the formation of cities for trade does not seem unusual to me. And as I said, I can't account for everything.

Everything can be accounted for when one realizes the creation myths are just that. The Epic of Gilamesh is far older but Noah's Ark clearly copies ideas from it. But geology has ruled out a world flood so even if a God just made the water disappear it still wouldn't work. Noah's Ark was written around 1000 BC. It seems to be trying to co-opt the older versions? Yet the older versions had no concept of Yahweh, Israel or anything Jewish?
Also the myth that the Earth went "evil" and the God had to kill all life, but performed animal pairing magic for these people, it's just such an obvious made-up story? And there was literally one really good family and everyone else was evil? All the thousands of other mothers and babies, evil. Farmers, evil. The entire human and animal population on Earth, just one family was good. And one pair of animals. Even as a movie it was ridiculous.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
So they argue. Paul knew more than a vision, since he realized what he was doing was wrong. His reasoning was turned around.

No the PhD historicity scholars all agree on Paul. Actually most all Christian scholars also agree with that. The writing styles, theology, use of words, everything is wrong in the later letters. They also contradict Pauls earlier theology. They were church additions, they wanted Paul to have said this or that so they made stuff up. Like the apologetics site you sourced. They wanted the coin to say Yahweh so they lied. Same thing.

Paul was a Jew and he converted to a different sect of Judaism. People convert to religions every day. As far as truth Paul knew nothing except a "vision" and scripture.
 
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