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

[stvdv]

It's interesting that Christians can be very skeptical of worldly things like me trying to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge without a deed ownership, but they are ready to sign onto anything televangelists say God told them to say without the slightest hesitancy. If Bishop Jakes or Creflo Dollar Signs tells his flock, "Jesus told me He wants you all to write a check to me for $1000 so I can by a Lear Jet to do God's work and God will reward you a hundredfold for your gift" people will forego paying their rent and buying food for their families to give him the grand. This is all made possible by the "gift" of blind faith. Don't question Creflo--that's doubt and God doesn't like doubt. He wants you to believe His servant Creflo is asking because God is answering his prayer for a jet. Very fishy that God answers Creflo's prayer but not the prayers of millions of Christians who have children dying of cancer or who are homeless and unemployed

IMO: Don't trust all people is a good start, and even better to seek God within. But the Path is narrow, hence people who don't know the Path end up trusting those types in your examples. To blame God for the things you describe makes no sense to me. God's Flaws are in the eye of the beholder.

 

[stvdv]

Why didn't God leave behind a huge trove of secular evidence for Jesus having lived on earth, dying on the cross and all the supernatural events accompanying

That is like asking "why don't they make university degrees easier to get?"
University degree is for those who really want to know, same with spiritual life

I hope you consider all this when you suggest that blind faith is something we have to work toward like a college degree

I hope, for your sake, that next time you don't misinterpret my words. This I did NOT say. Talking about "blind faith" ... in your own interpretation of my words

 

[Eddi]

but I don't think it speaks very highly of God, do you?

Simply not liking a fact does not make it untrue

 

[Eddi]

This is what Total hyper-Calvinism says, that God, being the Supreme ruler of the universe, can pick and choose who He wants to save and who He wants to send to hell. Doesn't matter that the not-chosen were never given the Holy Spirit to believe, it was purely God's prerogative to not choose them. Paul said this in Romans 9:20:

"But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "

Seems like a pretty rotten thing for God to do to people that He claims to love, but then hyper-Calvinism says that God can love people even as He predestines them for eternal suffering in hell. Funny way to show love, if you ask me.

It solves your conundrum though, does it not?

 

[stvdv]

Perhaps you're looking at it the wrong way round?

Maybe those of us who are Christians have been selected by God to be Christians, whereas those of us who aren't have not been selected?
What if Christians are God's elect?

What if being a Christian is really something that is pre-ordained? As opposed to something one comes to independently, e.g. by accepting the evidence or argument?
I don't know whether I believe this or not but I think this is one way of looking at your question

I like that way of looking at it. Takes out the problem of religious wars IF people just can accept it was God who preordained all of this.

It may well be one way to look at the question -- but I don't think it speaks very highly of God, do you?

I don't see why you think that

Unless @Eddi meant "What if Christians are God's ONLY elect" with his quote "What if Christians are God's elect"
But @Eddi did not say "ONLY" or "Christians are more special"

I read it as "Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, Zoroaster, Humanist, Satanist" are all God's "elect".
But writing it down in this way, I do understand why you got this feeling "I don't think it speaks very highly of God, do you?"

Question @Eddi: In what way did you mean "Christians are God's elect?" ... that Atheist for example are not God's elect?

 

[Eddi]

Question @Eddi: In what way did you mean "Christians are God's elect?" ... that Atheist for example are not God's elect?

I was entertaining the notion that:

Not all God's elect are Christians

And not all Christians are God's elect

 

[McBell]

What if being a Christian is really something that is pre-ordained? As opposed to something one comes to independently, e.g. by accepting the evidence or argument?

Would that not make Jesus a liar?
John 3:16

 

[Kenny]

So the story invented by scribes after the fact goes.


Ah so you have the tall claims of one scribe.

Yes! We shouldn't take eye witnesses as fact. Got it!

 

[Kenny]

Paul is relaying what he heard. And he claims to have a "vision". This is not evidence for anything except that people had some religious beliefs.
Paul did not speak on any empty tomb. That story came a lifetime later and is written as what we would now understand to be a myth from the literary style and analysis. So as evidence it isn't good.

Paul knew Peter and the Apostles. Plus, seeing a light that blinded him as he heard the voice of Jesus isn't a "vision". Even those around him heard things.

 

[Kenny]

Putting aside the Bible, which scholars readily say is not recorded history but rather declarations of faith, how do you know there was an empty tomb or even a tomb, period? How do you know there were 500 witnesses of the resurrection? Convenient round number, don't you think? How do you know there were miracles?

Why would I put aside accounts that were recorded? Which scholars are you quoting? The ones I read say it was history. As a matter of fact, Acts is so full of verified statements, people, places, traveling times, historical names et al it can only be historical and not declarations of faith.

Tombs have been around way before the time period. And they still are discovering them.

The number could have been rounded off... at some point after 100, why would exact numbers be that important?

Besides it being recorded? They still happen.

 

[stvdv]

I was entertaining the notion that:

Not all God's elect are Christians

And not all Christians are God's elect

Thanks, well put. So, my initial feeling was correct

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Simply not liking a fact does not make it untrue

I didn't say it did. I merely pointed out that it would make the god in question unworthy of worship -- in my opinion.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Unless @Eddi meant "What if Christians are God's ONLY elect" with his quote "What if Christians are God's elect"
But @Eddi did not say "ONLY" or "Christians are more special"

But in the context in which he wrote it, that is certainly what it implied, quite strongly.

 

[Eddi]

But in the context in which he wrote it, that is certainly what it implied, quite strongly.

I was only coming up with an answer for the OP

I don't actually believe in "the elect" but the concept helps come up with an answer for the OP, so I offered it up

 

[stvdv]

But in the context in which he wrote it, that is certainly what it implied, quite strongly.

Hence I wrote to you that I understand why you got that feeling

I recently read quite a few of @Eddi his posts, hence I read his words the positive way

In general when a Christian writes such lines, my first thought probably will be the same as yours

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Suetonius Tranquillus
Pliny the Younger
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Dio Chrysostom
Valerius Maximus
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder
Quintus Asconius Pedianus

Thank you. It is an interesting list, a model of selection bias turned comical. I think it near inconceivable that you are actually familiar with their works, and I would encourage anyone interested to submit each name to Wikipedia come to their own conclusions.

All lived during Jesus time but none mention him. One mentions "Chrestus".

All?

Pliny the Younger (61 CE -- c. 113 CE)
Dio Chrysostom (c, 40 CE -- c. 115 CE)
Quintus Curtius Rufus (unknown)​

I guess, to be fair, we should give you the latter. On the other hand, according to Wikipedia:

Quintus Curtius Rufus (/ˈkwɪntəs ˈkɜːrʃiəs ˈruːfəs/) was a Roman historian, probably of the 1st century, author of his only known and only surviving work, Historiae Alexandri Magni, "Histories of Alexander the Great", or more fully Historiarum Alexandri Magni Macedonis Libri Qui Supersunt, ...​

Alexander the Great reigned 335 -- 323 BCE and the Quintus Curtius Rufus Historiae is unlikely to have a great deal to say about Jesus. That you would cherry-pick this historian and dismiss Josephus pretty much tells us everything we need to know.

BTW, the historicity of Jesus has been discussed ad nauseam here at RF. The search function is your friend.

 

[capumetu]

Why didn't God leave behind a huge trove of secular evidence for Jesus having lived on earth, dying on the cross and all the supernatural events accompanying the crucifixion like dead bodies rising from the grave and walking around Jerusalem? If God really wanted us all to believe Jesus is His son who was born into this world for the sole purpose of dying for our sins--and that it was absolutely vital for us to believe Jesus died for our sins in order for God to keep from having to send us to hell for not believing in him, then wouldn't He have done everything in His power to leave behind secular evidence so overwhelming that only a fool or a madman would deny Jesus was divine? Wouldn't God have made sure that every historian in Jesus' time had heard of or witnessed Jesus' death and resurrection and ascension and then written about it? Wouldn't God have made sure that these accounts were perfectly preserved like Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars? Wouldn't God have made absolutely certain that the original gospel accounts from the apostles had been perfectly preserved for future generations so that we had first-hand testimony of what Jesus said and did?

I think he is pretty much a historical fact, even the calendar the entire world goes off of is based upon his existence. There is much evidence secularly as well as scripturally to support the historicity of Jesus. Faith as well has a big role in Christianity.

Why instead did God allow whatever might have been written about Jesus by a known historian to be completely lost or destroyed? Why did 50-100 years have to transpire before someone finally decided to write the gospels, and these weren't even from eyewitnesses--they were Greek Christian scholars writing in perfect Koine Greek? And if they had no eyewitnesses or written testimonies to get their information from then how did they know the incredible minute details that appear in their accounts? How, for example did Luke know that an angel appeared to Jesus to comfort him in the Garden of Gethsemane when there were no witnesses to this miraculous event? Further, no manuscripts of any of the New Testament writings surface until the middle/late part of the 2nd Century. Why is that if God was divinely guiding the transmission of information about Jesus?

I can' seem to find answers for these questions that constantly pop into my mind. I lost my Christian faith because of the complete lack of evidence for Jesus outside the Bible.

 

[stvdv]

Suetonius Tranquillus
Pliny the Younger
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Dio Chrysostom
Valerius Maximus
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Elder
Quintus Asconius Pedianus

All lived during Jesus time but none mention him. One mentions "Chrestus".

Those names seems to be Roman names, I think they were not too keen to write about Jesus ... I mean, Jesus got crucified

So, to me, that seems not a reason to make assumptions about Jesus; the Emperor might not have liked Jesus too much

Some Emperors rather have people see them as God than having others claim that they are God, it seems

Even Emperor Trump shows signs of this on occasion, I have witnessed

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

IMO: Don't trust all people is a good start, and even better to seek God within. But the Path is narrow, hence people who don't know the Path end up trusting those types in your examples. To blame God for the things you describe makes no sense to me. God's Flaws are in the eye of the beholder.

Yes, but isn't it God's job to show us the path and make sure we stay on it? I mean who's the parent here, God or his child????????? When we get onto the wrong path we don't hear, "Boo!" from God. He's totally silent--totally absent from the scene. Christians like to say "He tells us what to do in His word, the Bible" but come on, folks. That 3,000 year old musty relic is so out of touch with today's modern world it's not even funny. I mean it says we must stone to death homosexuals, blasphemers and even people who work on Sundays and who disobey their parents. Ridiculous! If God is going to be AWOL in people's lives what good is He? Might as well just write Him off and go about your life doing what you know is best for you. You're certainly not going to get any advice or guidance from God.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

Simply not liking a fact does not make it untrue

Well, look, Eddi--what you call a fact and what I call a fact may be two entirely different things. IF you say "It's a fact Jesus rose from the dead" that's not really a fact, is it?