Kapyong

Gday,

Pardon me,
but that's just a common urban legend, but not true.

In fact, the Council of Nicea had nothing to do with choosing the books of the NT.

But nowadays, this error is endlessly repeated on the web.
I blame Dan Brown :-)


K.

avi

Thanks for the reference. I found another site, also excellent. I appreciate your input.

I don't observe the word "mashiach" anywhere. Here, it is "a righteous Branch".

Come on, folks. this is silly. WHERE DOES THE WORD, "mashiach" appear in the old, Hebrew testament? Not the LXX. The real McCoy. Where is it?

These guys are just repeating interpretations of interpretations. Where's the ORIGINAL data? Show me the word "mashiach" in the Hebrew old testament.

avi

Kapyong

Gday,

Pardon?
No mention of Jesus there.
The Prologue of John is probably the least historical part of the whole NT.
And it's the ONLY passage you quoted - totally unconvincing.



Are you actually claiming that no Christian writing before 4th century mentions the cross?

So you're claiming the Gospels were written in 4th century?


K.

Kapyong

Gday,

I feel comfortable in saying that that is completely wrong.


K.

Atheos

Okay, well the rest of my point still stands. The differences in the early documents (canonical and non-canonical) tell tales about differences in traditions that existed during the developmental decades of these religious beliefs.

However, I think it can be safely stated that the Nicean Creed had a profound effect on subsequent acceptance / rejection of various documents.

Little Dot

New Testament stories do not show signs of being mythological.The accounts are straightforward, unembellished records, written in artless, historical fashions by narrow, unattractive Jews who were blind to the mythical wealth of the pagan world around them (Lewis, Miracles, 236). "All I am in private life is a literary critic and historian, that's my job," said Lewis. "And I'm prepared to say on that basis if anyone thinks the Gospels are either legends of novels, then that person is simply is showing his incompetence as a literary critic. I've read a great many novels and I know a fair amount about the legands that grew up among early people, and I know perfectly well the Gospels are not that kind of stuff" (Christian Refelctions, 209)

Given that the significant parts of the Gospels and other crucial New Testament books were written before 70, there is no time or way for a legend to develop while the eyewitnesses were still alive to refute the story. A legend takes time and/or remoteness to develop, neither of which were available.

Roman historian A.N. Sherwin-White calls the mythilogical view of the New Testament "unbelieveable" (Sherwin-White, 189) others ahve noted that the writings of Herodotus enable us to dtermine the rate at which legends develop. Two generations is too short a period for legendary tendencies to wipe out historical fact (Craig, 101)

Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics

spin

This "written before 70" is unsupportable rubbish, given by christians talking to willing believers. The gospels are anonymous, undated and unprovenanced. No-one knows when they were written exactly nor is there any strong reason to believe that they were written before say 100.

How many generation did it take for Joseph Smith's followers to believe what he "translated" was historical fact? Or the follows of L.Ron Hubbard? The religion that Paul taught shows little sign of historical knowledge. He never met Jesus and his were the earliest christian writings. Why are these people talking about "historical fact"? It's just waffle. There are no pointers from the period to say how long it would take to develop religious traditions, but we can see there is no need for it to take very long going on Smith and Hubbard. These people can believe their own conjectures. We need the evidence here.

Evad

Thus the social impact. Thousands of people have similar experiences, and speak out against the Bible because they were mislead by religious belief.

When I was growing up I was never taught about Santa Clause, the Easter bunny or God as anything other than whimsical fancy. But, the kids I grew up with who were taught about Santa Clause are not posting vehement denunciations on message boards about Santa.

The myth which the modern atheist believes God and the Bible to be, like Santa Clause, isn't the real issue. The real issue is the political and social aspects of a growing minority in the society in which we live.

Toto

CS Lewis was just wrong on this point. He had studied classical Greek, but the Koine Greek of the New Testament is a different language. More modern scholars see classical references in the gospels as well as literary references to the Hebrew scriptures, and treat the Book of Acts as essentially a Hellenistic novel.

This is also just wrong and outdated. It is now generally agreed that the gospels were written after 70 CE. We have no indication that the writers of the gospels intended to write a historical narrative, as opposed to a theological story. There is no independent evidence of these alleged historical facts in the gospels about Jesus. And we have examples of almost instantaneous development of legends, especially around the time of war, such as the Jewish Wars.

It's time to update your library.

KeepTalking

It may have a social impact to speak out against religious belief, however, your contention was that it is social and political motivation that is the basis of my skepticism. That is clearly false.

No one pressured them to continue their belief in Santa Claus after they became adults, either. I experience this pressure to return to a belief in God on nearly a daily basis.

That may be true, but it has no bearing on what led me to skepticism, and the rejection of my God belief in the first place.