aa5874

The passage by Polycarp appears to be anti-Marcionite. Polycarp's Jesus Christ was the son of a God with flesh and Marcion's Jesus was the son of a God who appeared to have flesh.


Both are MJ. GODS are mythological entities.

Johnny Skeptic

And there was a schism already developing between people who believed that a historical Jesus existed who performed miracles, and people who believed that a historical Jesus existed who did not perform miracles. Obviously, Jesus did not perform miracles. If he did, he would have been unique in human history, and would easily have become the biggest celebrity in the entire Middle East. As even James Holding basically admits, people in the first century were very nosey and inquisitive, and checked things out. If Jesus performed miracles, and if the Ten Plagues occured in Egypt, those claims are the biggest coverups of incredible, unprecedented news stories in history. The question is, who covered up the stories, and why? Or, it is much more likely that the stories are false.

If Jesus did not perform any miracles, that explains the very small size of the Christian church in the first century. During the first century, people who lived in Jerusalem, Syria, and other places where Jesus supposedly performed miracles would have quickly discredited the claims by saying that that did not see Jesus perform any miracles.

It is interesting that no credible first century, non-biblical, non-Christian source claims that Jesus performed miracles. If a God inspired the Bible, rather than use independent, unbiased sources, he chose the much less productive method of making sure to limit evidence to non-independent, biased sources. In addition, he chose to limit all of his prophecies to prophecies that needlessly invite dissent, not inspiring a single one of the quality of a prediction regarding when and where a natural disaster would occur, month, day, and year. The Bible says that God is not the author of confusion. That is actually true since the God of the Bible does not exist, and the Bible writers are authors of confusion. If a God inspired the Bible, then he is the author of confusion.

How do you determine what Jesus probably said, and what Jesus probably did not say?

storytime

"Blessed are they who have not seen and yet believe."

Tidbits like this surely evidence the power of lies.

OT standard of practice was that "eyewitness" of at least two or more witnesses. NT requires NONE.

I could say that Benny Hinn resurrected Jerry Falwell. You should, by NT argument, believe me as an "eyewitness", right?

arnoldo

In a few generations "eyewitnesses" of the 9-11 attacks will be gone, does that mean that it never happened? Already, in this generation the person mentioned in the news story below believes 9-11 was a conspiracy of sorts,

Is a HJ a big lie as well? And if so, when was this lie invented? :huh:

Toto

Please keep current events out of this. The testimony of the eyewitnesses of 9-11 (as well as physical evidence) has been preserved and will not disappear when they die.

I also do not think there is any evidence that the HJ was a lie, or that we need to resort to "lying" to explain the gospel stories, since we don't know the motives of the writers.

Kapyong

Gday,

Yes, but unfortunately,
some people, apparently including you, think this means they must be either :
true
or
"LIES"

As if an untrue book MUST be a "lie".

Which is nonsense - something can be not true without being a lie.

Is Shakespeare a lie?
Is Harry Potter a lie?


K.

mountainman

If a book is presented as "historical truth" and is not
then that book is fictional, and its history is not the
historical truth but a perversion of the truth or a lie.


Is Shakespeare presented as historical truth?
Is Harry Potter presented as historical truth?
Neither are presented as historical truth.
Everyone knows they are simply fables, stories, fabrications, etc


On the contrary the gospels and acts are presented by the church authorities such as Eusebius as "historical truth". As such the new testament may be perceived as a book of historical lies about an imaginary historical figure someone dreamt up called "The Historical Jesus".

Johnny Skeptic

Of course, and they are false. If, as the gospels claim, Jesus performed many miracles in Jerusalem, and throughout all Galilee, and throughout all Syria, he would easily have been a unique person in human history, and would have become the biggest celebrity in the entire Middle East. As non-biblical, non-Christian, first century history shows, that did not happen.

The stories of the miracles of Jesus, and the Ten Plagues in Egypt, if true, would have been unprecedented news stories in all of human history, and yet the only alleged contemporary sources about the stories are the Bible. No rational person would believe that events like those would not have been recorded by any non-biblical or non-Christian writers. What kind of God would inspire a book and make sure that no independent sources would back up a book? That would not make any sense.

You did not get anywhere with your discussions about the book of Daniel last year. Would you like to discuss the book of Daniel some more in a new thread that you could start?

arnoldo

In that case the Gospels could've been some kind of fictional narrative, or play, in which the audience mistook to be a portrayal of historical events. A parallel would be the panic which took place when a fictional newscast was mistaken by people to a description of actual historical events. See below;

If a dramatization of the same kind occurred 2,000 years ago and mistakenly was believed to be historical that would explain a lot of things. For example the following passage is not a lie . .

It is merely poetical writings along the lines of Shakespeare or other works of literature.

Toto

All discussion of Julian and Against the Galileans has been split off here