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

[Subduction Zone]

Even non-believers view Christ as a great teacher, like Buddhists and Hindus.

Don't forget the FSM.

Ramen.

 

[Skywalker]

It was one of C,S. Lewis's three possibilities. They were Liar, Lord, or Loon. I pointed out that he forgot a fourth L Legend. But since he could not deal with the most likely L he had to deal with one that was never claimed instead..

We see that it makes no sense to think that Jesus was a lunatic, and it makes no sense to think that He was a liar. That leaves only one option: He was telling the truth, and He knew He was telling the truth. That makes him God manifested in a human body, as prophesied in the Bible.

 

[Subduction Zone]

We see that it makes no sense to think that Jesus was a lunatic, and it makes no sense to think that He was a liar. That leaves only one option: He was telling the truth, and He knew He was telling the truth. That makes him God manifested in a human body, as prophesied in the Bible.

You are the only one arguing the lunatic claim. Though it is more reasonable than the Lord one. You cannot deal with the most likely correct answer. Legend.

 

[Skywalker]

You are the only one arguing the lunatic claim. Though it is more reasonable than the Lord one. You cannot deal with the most likely correct answer. Legend.

Zoroaster didn't deliver people from demons. How could that aspect of Jesus have been borrowed from Zoroastrianism scriptures? Jesus Vs Zoroaster – Debunking The Alleged Parallels | Reasons for Jesus

11. He cast out demons and restored the sight to a blind man. “Cast out” is a little vague for a description here — Zoro apparently didn’t like demons, but I find no record saying he cast them out of people as Jesus did: This was one of several abilities Zoro had, including driving out pestilence, witches, and sorcerers. There is a record of Zoroaster healing a blind man, but this comes from a document dated to the tenth century AD — and he did it by dropping juice from a plant into the blind man’s eyes. [Jack.ZP, 94]

 

[Subduction Zone]

Zoroaster didn't deliver people from demons. How could that aspect of Jesus have been borrowed from Zoroastrianism scriptures? Jesus Vs Zoroaster – Debunking The Alleged Parallels | Reasons for Jesus

Neither did Jesus. You can't deliver people from something that does not exist.

 

[Skywalker]

Neither did Jesus. You can't deliver people from something that does not exist.

Whether one believes Jesus delivered people from demons, the fact that Zoroastrianism scriptures don't say Zoroaster did show that the parallels between Jesus and Zoroaster are exaggerated at best. What parallels do you think exist?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Whether one believes Jesus delivered people from demons, the fact that Zoroastrianism scriptures don't say Zoroaster did show that the parallels between Jesus and Zoroaster are exaggerated at best. What parallels do you think exist?

No, no one said that it was a copy of Zoroaster. That is the claim of only those trying to dishonestly argue against stories being borrowed from other myths.

Once again, let's say that you copy from a friends test in school. You only copied half of it. Did you still cheat?

 

[Skywalker]

No, no one said that it was a copy of Zoroaster. That is the claim of only those trying to dishonestly argue against stories being borrowed from other myths.

Once again, let's say that you copy from a friends test in school. You only copied half of it. Did you still cheat?

What did Jesus copy from Zoroaster? The story of Zoroaster healing the blind man came from the 10th century AD, a long time after Zoroaster.

 

[sojourner]

That's why Jesus died to reconcile God and man. Inner separation and self-centeredness goes against God's laws.

Laws are also about being just. That's why God came down to die for our sins. We could never pay the price for our sins as finite beings, and God could never ignore our sin, for the same reason a just judge cannot let a criminal go unpunished.

You’re theologically stuck, aren’t you

 

[sojourner]

Jesus came to teach us how to live and to make a way for us to be reconciled to God, not for social liberation. We need to be reconciled to God, because to God our sin is crooked and twisted.

Hebrew Word Definition: Iniquity | AHRC

Read the gospels again — and the Levitican Law. God is about social justice. There’s a whole legitimate strand of theology called “liberation theology.” Also refer to feminist snd womanist theologies.

 

[Skywalker]

Read the gospels again — and the Levitican Law. God is about social justice. There’s a whole legitimate strand of theology called “liberation theology.” Also refer to feminist snd womanist theologies.

That isn't why Jesus came down, though.

 

[Onoma]

If God had to code the truth to hide it from everybody but a select few then he is not God. He's a made-up god who conforms to the characteristics the people who invented him gave to him.

Weird, because I distinctly recall the Bible saying

" It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings " - Proverbs 25:2

I also didn't propose " a select few ", I proposed one person

 

[Skywalker]

You’re theologically stuck, aren’t you

Judges having a suspended sentence has no theological equivalent because sin leads to separation from God.

 

[sojourner]

That isn't why Jesus came down, though.

“I came that they might have life, and have it abundantly.”

The passage references those religious leaders and teachers who came before. Those leaders were unjust.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

Weird, because I distinctly recall the Bible saying

" It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings " - Proverbs 25:2

I also didn't propose " a select few ", I proposed one person

Well, kings are welcome to search out the glory of God's secret matters all they want. For us ordinary folks we want concrete proof of something if we're going to invest our whole lives in it. But finally the Internet is wising people up to this con that it's our job to find out about God's secrets. A good God wouldn't hide valuable info. He'd make it readily available to us. This is what I've learned about how religion sets things up for the sole purpose of hiding God's deficiencies. Here are some notable crocks:

* "God doesn't send you to hell. You send yourself to hell". Like hell I do. God is the one who says, "Go to hell." He sends me to hell. It's on Him, not me.

* "God doesn't want you to see evidence. He wants you to believe with blind faith". Why? Because the church doesn't have any evidence to prove their case. That's why the doctrine of blind faith without seeing was invented.

* "It's the glory of God to hide a matter." Thanks a lot, God. If you're playing a kid's game of hide and seek I'm an adult. I'm not interested.

 

[sojourner]

Judges having a suspended sentence has no theological equivalent because sin leads to separation from God.

Sin is separation from God. That separation is the cause of bad actions — not the other way round. Jesus was killed through bad actions born of hubris, oppression, jealousy, hate, fear, etc.

 

[sojourner]

A good God wouldn't hide valuable info. He'd make it readily available to us

Just as a good teacher teaches, not by giving out answers, but by showing students how to research and think, so God invites us on a spiritual quest (I believe) to answer three basic questions for our spiritual health:
1) Whom does my life serve?
2) Why am I bleeding dry of life?
3) What does my life mean/stand for?

The Bible doesn’t “give us answers to life’s problems,” it invites us to ask pertinent questions. As we seek to ask these questions, we are on a journey toward finding God — a lifelong process.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

We were discussing Jesus having pure motives. If Jesus was motivated by mental illness, that wouldn't have been pure motives. If he was a liar, that wouldn't be pure motives either. It's doubtful that Jesus was legend. Even most atheists don't believe it.

You've got me confused with someone else. I don't even believe in Jesus Christ. I think he was the product of the gospel writers' imaginations based on lots of legends a myths floating around at that time about a dying rising god who got crucified.

"The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors" 1875 book written by Kersey Graves, which asserts that Jesus was not an actual person, but was a creation largely based on earlier stories of deities or god-men saviours who had been crucified and descended to and ascended from the underworld.

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors - Wikipedia

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

We see that it makes no sense to think that Jesus was a lunatic, and it makes no sense to think that He was a liar. That leaves only one option: He was telling the truth, and He knew He was telling the truth. That makes him God manifested in a human body, as prophesied in the Bible.

Noooo, that makes him a legend if there is no historical evidence for him. And the Bible doesn't count as historical evidence.

 

[Skywalker]

Noooo, that makes him a legend if there is no historical evidence for him. And the Bible doesn't count as historical evidence.

The more time it takes for a manuscript to be written, the less likely it is to be accurate. Jesus vs Buddha: Historical Evidence Comparison | Reasons for Jesus

2. Time Gap Between Their Life and Earliest Manuscripts.


For Buddha we have no written records on him from his lifetime, nor in the centuries following his death. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts reported to have been found in eastern Afghanistan. They are in the form of 27 scrolls dating from 100 BC to 200 AD, and that would put them at over 400 years after the life of Buddha (3).

On the other hand, for the historical Jesus, our earliest extant manuscript is a small section of the Gospel of John (P52). P52 is dates to around 130 AD. Maybe even earlier. The first complete copies of single New Testament books comes in at around 200 AD, and the earliest complete copy of the New Testament, the Codex Sinaiticus dates to the 4th century. Many fragments (P1, P19, P21, P25, P37, P45, P53, P64, P67, P70, P77, P101, P103, P104) of Matthew’s Gospel come in around 150–250 AD. The earliest for Mark’s Gospel is dated to 250 AD (P45). Fragments from John’s Gospel also date from 125-250 AD (P5, P6, P22, P28, P39, P45, P52, P66, P75, P80, P90, P95, P106).

The time gap for our earliest extant manuscripts favours the historical Jesus over that of the historical Buddha. Our first entire copy of a New Testament book comes in at 200 AD (+-170 years after Jesus’ life), and our first copied book for Buddha comes in at between 100 BC – 200 AD (300 – 600 years after Buddha’s life).