Magus55

The Jews were blinded from the truth for rejecting the Messiah, which enables the Gentiles to be saved, and the Jews will be shown the truth in the end times.

Sven

*yawn*

Gooch's dad

martin,

Less than honorable? You misunderstand what hagiography IS. It was quite common at the time to embroider tales of a person's life, to add fantastic details, and make up stories about the person that the writer thought "could have" happened.

And the gospel writers obviously did just that. The tale in Matthew of Jesus' triumphal entry on TWO donkeys (an ass and a foal) is considered the smoking gun for this. The other is the two conflicting genealogies, which can't even agree on who Joseph's father is.

A great many bible scholars, even the Christian ones, admit that the gospels add details to the story of Jesus, such as the ones I just mentioned. Which means they aren't to be trusted in any way as a record of "fulfilled prophecy".

QED, martin. Care to try again, or provide a sound secular source for any fulfilled prophecies?

Sven

No, not reality but rather ignorance. If your definition of "honorable" is in conflict with "lying for God", then they were indeed not entirely honorable men.

Edited to add: Gooch's dad's answer this far better than mine. He's right, your definition of "honorable" seems to be much to narrow for judging the actions of people 1900 years ago.

Magus55

Hey you asked. If you don't want the answer, why ask the question? I get the picture that atheists could really care less about the truth, or other possibilities. As long as they assume their alternatives and opinions are the only thing right, they will accept it without question.

Magus55

No human is dumb enough to get crucified upside down to support a lie they made up.

Gooch's dad

<bites tongue...MUST resist obvious straight line...>

Magus55, we've told you hundreds of times, the willingness to die for a belief doesn't make the belief true. Peter may have actually *believed* that Jesus was his savior. It doesn't make it true.

Sven

My "yawn" was because you simply state your belief, without anything to substantiate it (this seems to be a common practise of you and other theists).

Mods: There are apparently two identical threads here, I suggest to merge them.

Sven

Apart from that we still have to see evidence that one of the writers of the NT actually was crucified-as far as I know, there is none (but I maybe wrong here).

Mageth

Umm, no. It implies that they were men (and women) who incorporated myths into their accounts of Jesus, not out of dishonesty but because that was the way mythologies and religions worked back then (and still do to some degree today - look at the Book of Mormon, for example). This was done, perhaps, not simply to better "sell" their story, but to highlight aspects of their interpretation of Jesus and his life, and to tie Jesus "the Christ" to Jewish religious tradition (the writers of the NT, with the possible exception of Luke, were all Jews, remember). See my comment on Midrash below.

A mistake that many, like you, make is in forcing a literal interpretation on ancient religious texts, particularly the Bible, including both Old and New Testaments, when many of the writings in the bible were not written as literal accounts - including the Gospels.

I'm reading a book right now that I think all believers should read - particularly literalists - that covers this topic quite well. It is Bishop John Shelby Spong's Resurrection - Myth or Reality?. I've just gotten started, but have been blown away (and enlightened a bit) by the first section, in which he introduces the Jewish method of Midrash, and how that was used by the Gospel writers in "recording" the accounts of Jesus.

If you're not afraid for your literal beliefs (which are no longer tenable in the 21st Century, BTW) to be challenged, I would highly recommend you read Spong's book.

Edited to add: BTW, the Jewish practice of Midrash, evident also in many places in the Old Testament, readily explains the "fulfilled prophecies" of Jesus. Previous Jewish motifs, scriptures, and tales were incorporated into the Gospel accounts of Jesus.