Hedshaker

See my PM. Hit and hide, how very Christian :devil1:

If you can't take the truth it's your problem!!!!!!!!

Orbit

Eric H

Hello Zeda,
If there is a God powerful enough to create the universe and life, then he would also have the power to have a book written in the way that he wanted.

If Jesus was the Son of God, then he would know that the Bible would be written in the way God intended.

How else could he really know that his actions would inspire so many people to write about him?

peace

Eric

Gawen

Let us keep the 'personals' out of this shall we?

Biff the unclean

So then Jesus knew that for thousands of years Christian would be killing Christian because the Bible was written so poorly that they can't agree on what it says? That intelligent, earnest and honest Christians would break Christianity into tens of thousands of sects because each group disagrees with the others? This is God's intention?

Evoken

That is the fultfillment of the prophecy: I come not to bring peace, but a sword.

Eazy

If Paul the Apostle were alive today, he'd smoke you (and just about every other figure in history) from an intellectual standpoint. Academically, he had the modern-day equivalent of a Ph.D, studied under the greatest and most revered teacher of his day (Gamaliel), was considered to be one the most discerning Jews of his time, spoke and wrote in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek, was studied at the very highest levels of Scriptural and philosophical academia. So I wouldn't quite say that, if I were you.

Oral storytelling was the medium of the time and there were people specifically trained in memorizing stories and history. Some could memorize the entire OT, so their capacity and ability to store information was pretty impeccable.

...and yet this is wholly irrelevant. An HJ never said he was the messiah either. Your counter-example is not valid.

Biff the unclean

Easy, a number of us here are not only the equivalent of a Ph.D. we are Ph.D.s. And we know that Saul AKA Paul never met Jesus.
Or are you saying that Paul was more intelligent than Christ because he sent people letters at least.
Odd, don't ya think, that people would save all the letters they got from Paul but not a single post from Jesus. Not a thank you note, not a birthday card, nothing.

Eazy

SO WHAT?

Thank you for revealing your bias, and that you're not really interested in historicity.

This brings up another question. What is it that would convince you that he existed?

If we were being honest for a second, it seems very unlikely that a piece written by Jesus would have done any good in the way of being any more convincing if the evidence that currently exists is "ineffective" for you.

Let's not forget the rationalizations that would probably be going on. "Jesus was writing legends about himself". "It's a circular argument. Jesus can't show Jesus that he existed." "How can we know that he wrote it?"

Also it's very hard to assess whether someone wrote something or not, let alone if it was the son of God, that did it.

In fact, I would say this would give credance to the fact that the HJ wasn't a fabrication. If it was, The Church, would have written their own "Jesus letters", along with using more famous people(ex:Joseph, Mary, James) to be authors of the gospels instead of unknowns and unpopulars like Mark, Mathew, Luke, and John.

Toto

Hi there Eazy.

In fact, the church did write some "Jesus letters." But they were such obvious forgeries, that they are not often mentioned. Letters between Paul and Seneca were forged. You ask why the church didn't do a better job? Probably because it didn't have to.

I don't know why you think that I am not interested in historicity. I am prepared to admit that the historicity of some legendary figures is problematic, but the question is still interesting.

As to what evidence I would find convincing - any documentary evidence from his contemporaries would be a start.

Eazy

I only said "equivelant" because I wasn't sure if there were PhD's back then or what degrees were available.

But my point was that if he rose to the ranks back then, when literacy wasn't even that common or a requirement, I think he'd be amongst the most prominent today.

It depends on what you mean by "met".

But the reason St.Paul was chosen was that 1)He was previously a persecutor of Christians and 2) He was probably the most brilliant of his time.
Harboring an ability and using that ability are 2 different things. God has the ability to blow up Jupiter. But, just because he has the ability doesn't mean he has to do it.