Why Didn't God Leave Huge Quantities of Secular Evidence For Jesus?

Subduction Zone said:

There are far more than 35.

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Subduction Zone said:

You really do not know that. In fact when it comes to the Old Testament the evidence seems to say that is not the case. For example the height of Goliath grew over the years. Stories always grow with the telling. I would find a source to support me, but since you refuse to find valid sources why should I?

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Some “experts” today (who think they're smarter than God) claim that a copy [translation] of God's Word cannot be inspired, but that is untrue. Yes, a translation of the originals can be inspired. “Inspiration” means that God got a hold of the head of those men, the heart of those men, and the hand of those men, and guided them to say what He wanted them to say!

Consider that when Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:23, he alters the text somewhat:

• Isaiah 7:14 — “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
• Matthew 1:23 — “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

Although the wording is different, and a different number of words used, we clearly see that Matthew 1:23 is just as inspired as Isaiah 7:14. Matthew faithfully conveys the meaning of Isaiah 7:14. Likewise, the King James Bible faithfully conveys the meaning of the autographs, and its words are thus inspired.

In Matthew 5:18 Jesus said, “Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” Someone once asked Dr. Jack Hyles (1926-2001), “Brother Hyles, do you believe the Bible is inspired Word-for-Word?” Brother Hyles replied, “I believe in jot and tittle inspiration!” A “jot” and “tittle” are the smallest grammatical marks in the Greek language (similar to the dot above the English letter “i.” It is plain to see from Jesus' Words that the integrity of the Scriptures is a big deal to God. In fact, Psalms 138:2 declares... “for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” The reason WHY is obvious to see, that is, because God's name is only as true as His Word. Philippians 2:9-10 says that there is no name any higher in the universe than the holy and precious name of JESUS; yet Psalms 138:2 says the Words of God are even higher. “for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.”

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night912 said:

According to some early Christian beliefs, neither was Jesus.



So are you saying that Jesus is not a descendant of a god and a woman?

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Resurrected? While most restoration accounts of Dionysus are too ambiguous to matter, there is one story that reads: “Dionysus was deceived by the Titans, and expelled from the throne of Jupiter, and torn in pieces by them, and his remains being afterwards put together again, he returned as it were once more to life, and ascended to heaven.” Pretty close to the story of Jesus. The problem is that this source, Contra Celsum, was written by the early church father Origen in 248AD, over 200 years after the story of Jesus had already been established and circulating. This is a post-Christ resurrection story. If anything, it may have been the Dionysus cults that adopted this idea from Christianity. As historian Gary Habermas has said: “I DON’T KNOW ANYBODY WHO THINKS THAT DIONYSUS IS PRE-CHRISTIAN, NOT THE RESURRECTION PORTION.” (5)

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SeekingAllTruth said:

Why doesn't God give this thing that you have to everyone? I mean if he wants everyone to believe Jesus died for their sins why is he so selective about who he reveals himself to? See, this tells me that belief in Jesus is a purely subjective thing. Some have the capacity to accept something for which there isn't an iota of proof for, while others are simply not that gullible. It's no accident that televangelists are worth hundreds of millions of dollars with all the patsies sending in their gas bill money to them on blind faith that god will reward them with millions too simply because the televangelists say he will. I couldn't fall for a scam like that anymore, but I used to till I wised up.

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night912 said:

Not what your source said.

Dionysus’ mother was named Semele, and she was impregnated by Zeus when that dirty old god pulled one of his usual tricks by taking the form of a lightning bolt.

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Matthew recorded that, definitely understanding that Isaiah intended to predict that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. Jesus used the word parthenos three times in the parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25. Luke used it twice of Mary. Luke used it in Acts 21 of Philip's four virgin daughters. Paul distinguishes between a wife and a virgin in 1 Corinthians 7. And John records the word parthenos as descriptive of men who had no sexual relationship with women and were therefore totally yielded to God. That's used in Revelation 14:14.

So parthenos means one who has had no sexual relationship at all. Mary was a virgin and that was the intent of Isaiah 7:14. That was a sign. If a girl got pregnant and had a son, that's not a sign, that happened all the time. But when a virgin is pregnant and brings into the world a son, that's a sign, that's a sign.

You know, some of the rabbis, I think, believed that there was going to be something like this. One rabbi wrote, "Messiah is to have no earthly father." Hmm. One ancient rabbi seemed to get the message. Another rabbi wrote, "The birth of Messiah alone shall be without defect." Another rabbi wrote, "His birth shall not be like that of other men." Another wrote, "The birth of Messiah shall be like the dew of the Lord as drops upon the grass without the action of man." There were some rabbis, I'm sure there were some faithful believers, who understood that Messiah would be born of a virgin.

Well that was not the popular view, not at all. And certainly the Jewish leaders never thought that. In fact, John 7:27, they're very upset at Jesus and the question comes up, "Is Jesus the Christ?" And in verse 27 this is the...this is the response, "We know where this man is from, He's from Nazareth. But we know His family up there. But whenever the Christ or Messiah may come, no one knows where He is from." See, they just thought Jesus was just a common, Galilean guy born in the town of Nazareth to Joseph and Mary.

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SeekingAllTruth said:

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The Virgin Birth wasn’t Made up by the Church
Here are three reasons why it doesn’t look like the early church made up the story of Jesus’ virgin birth.

1. The Virgin Birth Raised Suspicions
Making up a fake story about Jesus’ virgin birth wouldn’t make Christianity more attractive to the Jews. It would actually make people suspicious about Jesus. Who was the real dad? Did Mary hook up with a Roman soldier? That kind of thing. Why make it more difficult to accept the Christian message? The ancient church wouldn’t have taught that Jesus was born of a virgin unless they had good reasons for believing he actually was.

2. The Virgin Birth Wasn’t Emphasied

Jesus – A Virgin Birth

But other people say the Virgin Birth story would make Christianity seem more attractive–maybe not to the Jews, but to the to Greeks and Romans. They were into emperor worship. They were cool with thinking of their leaders as gods. But that’s just one part of the story.

When we see the gospel preached in the New Testament, the church doesn’t emphasize the Virgin Birth story at all. Why wouldn’t the earliest Christians make more of Jesus’ virgin birth if they invented it to make the faith seem more attractive to the people who weren’t Jewish? Why wouldn’t they talk it up if the made it up?

3. The Virgin Birth is Different from Myths
People who thought of certain human rulers as gods only thought they were lower gods in the context of polytheism–a belief in many gods. For example, no one thought Caesar Augustus was the one, true God who made the heavens and the earth. More than this, there’s no snake sneaking up on Mary in the gospels accounts. Jesus is just conceived in her womb as miracle of God and the Bible doesn’t say much about how that actually happened.

In the end, it’s pretty unlikely that the first Christians would make up the story of the Virgin Birth because it wouldn’t help advance the Christian cause. If they thought it would help their case, why didn’t they emphasize this story in their preaching? And if the virgin birth was patterned after myths, why doesn’t it look like these myths?

It’s Reasonable to Believe the Virgin Birth Happened
So the church didn’t get the Virgin Birth story from somewhere else and they didn’t create it out of theological reflection; That means—as unusual as it sounds—the Virgin Birth story must have come from a real event. In other words, if the Virgin Birth wasn’t copied from myths and it wasn’t made up, the remaining option is that the Virgin Birth is real.

If there really is a creator God who made the heavens and the earth, and if Jesus left heaven to come to earth, it’s reasonable to believe that the virgin birth happened.

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Skywalker said:

The virgin birth of Jesus is not a church doctrine. The Virgin Birth Of Jesus – Did The Church Make This Up? | Reasons for Jesus

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Skywalker said:

Even a person who is not educated can tell from creation that there is a God who created everything.

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Skywalker said:

None of those denominations existed during the time of Christ. Denominations have nothing to do with following the teachings of Christ.

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SeekingAllTruth said:

I'm the first to admit that it's likely all of this didn't simply appear by chance. The idea of computer language at the molecular level of humans just boggles my mind. I'm not adverse to believing that there is something out there that is bigger than we are. But I am 1000% sure that something is NOT the Christian god.

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Skywalker said:

Why do you believe that God isn't the Christian God? The Christian God died for the sins of his creation. That is the deepest expression of love that God has for his creation. The Christian God is the God that wants all of his creation saved.

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SeekingAllTruth said:

The Christian god as exemplified in the OT is the most horribly flawed god in all of fiction. He displays the very worst human qualities man possess over and over and over again and again.

Completely destroy them--the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites--as the LORD your God has commanded you. Deuteronomy 20:17

God is a mass-murderer.

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KEEPING THE SLAUGHTER OF CANAAN IN CONTEXT
By Shannon Byrd

Are the conquest narratives in the Old Testament any different from what we are currently viewing with ISIS throughout the Middle East and Europe? Questions like this often come up in discussing the existence of objective moral values and duties and their proper grounding. When God is posited as the grounding of morality, the objector usually brings up some obscure OT text that he or she thinks will demonstrate that God has a warped sense of morality and it is usually in this context that the conquest narratives are brought up.



False Distinction

One reason this problem has persisted is that many Christians aren’t comfortable with God judging people; they draw a distinction in their minds between the God of the OT and the non-violent, peaceful Jesus of the NT. However, this distinction is an artificial one, Jesus regularly denounced others and threatened judgment. He took a whip and drove moneychangers out of the temple (Jn 2:15). Never mind what he said in Matthew 18, “. . . whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” So this distinction between God in the OT and Christ in the NT falls flat on death ears. Christ didn’t downplay the texts depicting judgment and for modern Christians doing so actually skews the image of Christ.



The Bible is Literally True

We’ve all hear this before, “Either the bible is literally true, or it’s literally false.” I remember agreeing with statements like this as a kid growing up in church; it sounded pious, but I didn’t know any better at the time. Many critics of Christianity as well as pastors have little to no understanding of biblical hermeneutics. Just because everything in Scripture is true, does not mean it is literally true. What am I saying? If we take everything in Scripture to be literally true, then tree’s sing,(1 Chr 16:33; Ps 96:12), Christ is a door (Jn 10:7), YahWeh flies in the sky on Cherubs (2 Sam 22:11), and Elihu’s heart jumped out of his chest (Job 37:1). Clearly everyone understands these texts to be figures of speech and aren’t to be taken literally; they were consciously exaggerated by the author for the sake of effect. Taken literally, these passages sound like a Harry Potter novel.

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Skywalker said:

The Bible, like other books, uses hyperbole. https://crossexamined.org/keeping-the-slaughter-of-canaan-in-context/

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SeekingAllTruth said:

I'll go back to what I've said on other occasions: if every Christians needs a PhD in religion to properly interpret the Bible then the problem lies with the Bible, not people.

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SeekingAllTruth said:

I'll go back to what I've said on other occasions: if every Christians needs a PhD in religion to properly interpret the Bible then the problem lies with the Bible, not people.

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And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

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Skywalker said:

The Bible doesn't have to explain everything for everyone. The Bible says that those who seek God will find God. God isn't our butler.

Jeremiah 29:13

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SeekingAllTruth said:

Let God seek and find us. That's what any good father would do for a child.

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Skywalker said:

Who are we that God has to introduce himself to us? He died for us He doesn't have to introduce Himself to us.

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SeekingAllTruth said:

Let God seek and find us. That's what any good father would do for a child.

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Skywalker said:

God did introduce himself to us. He came to earth and died for our sins.

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