Malachi151

I agree

aa5874

Are you claiming that atheists wrote the NT?

Amaleq13

In terms of considering all assemblies in Christ to be part of a single whole? Yes. That isn't actually relevant, however, to the geographical and persecution differences indicated by the text. More thin smoke that fails to hide the inadequacies of your position. You were simply and clearly wrong to assert that Paul claims to have harassed messianic groups in Judea.

Malachi151

I think its difficult to say exactly what Paul's concept of Jesus was, but what we do know is that he doesn't demonstrate any knowledge of a real person or any reliance of the words or deeds of a real person.

As for the author of the writing that is called the Gospel of Mark, my view is that the entire Gospel of Mark is symbolic and made up in such a way that the author obvious knew that none of these things really happened.

I don't get the impression that the story was even meant to be taken as literally true, because if you take it as literally true then you miss all of the symbolism that the author intended. Likewise, I think that this person was a "believer in" Jesus, i.e. a follower of some form of Christian movement.

So if the author was writing a fictional story with no intention that it be taken as true, then either he had to have:

A) Known that Jesus was a real person, but had no qualms about totally fabricating a story about a him and mis-portraying the events of this life.

B) Not conceived of Jesus as a real person, but was writing an allegorical story casting his savior figure in an allegorical role.

I generally opt for B.

I think that writing a completely made up story about some figure is more likely if that figure was not a real person.

I go into why I think the Gospel of Mark was made-up here:

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/ar...ospel_mark.htm

aa5874

A brilliant way to describe a weak position.

spin

Whoa there, buddy! You leave out some important grammatical information: they are not just assemblies in christ, but assemblies of Judea in christ, ie they are groups in Judea that are in christ which Paul somehow harassed. You're still leading your data by your conclusions.


spin

Amaleq13

I didn't leave out anything. In fact, I used the exact wording you offer (ie "in Judea") :huh: Paul explicitly connects to the assemblies he did not harass in person to that location. The "somehow" that is confusing only you is quite clearly "by harassing their fellow believers in Christ outside Judea".

jjramsey

Considering that we have had plenty of believers who have lied for the sake of their faith, what is so implausible about choice A?