Take your time.
Ok, I swear I have answered this post already but could not find it so in case I am misremembering I will do so again.
Well it is far more important what is true than the way we see things. I did not like God, Christianity, or Christians at one time and saw everything exactly backwards from the way I eventually found it actually to be.
The divine implies necessary perfection and a logical maximum.
If you consider everything as divine then everything must be perfect.
The natural is not perfect. In fact it appears to have gone horribly wrong.
Conclusion: The natural is not divine.
Regardless heaven would not be heaven if it contains sin. We contain sin. We cannot go to heaven if we contain sin and rebellion. Therefor something external to us must remedy what we cannot. There for you get the salvation model I supplied earlier. If the natural is divine then the divine has no meaning.
He did make us as intended. His desire is love. Love is not love if it is not freely given. We cannot freely give anything unless we have freewill. Freewill cannot exist unless it is free to choose wrongly. Choosing wrongly necessitates bad outcomes. We were built perfectly in line with his purposes. That is why it is said we are the image of God. We are not perfect or a maximum but we are
personal and free moral agents. We are exactly as his purpose mandates we must be.
Current models kill children in the womb by the millions while protecting the lives of convicted murders. The moral code given to Moses was it's superior. However there are no universal moral codes today. Stalin killed 20 million of his own people legally. Muslims restrict freedoms of every kind legally. China controls it's citizens ability to reproduce legally. There is no universal moral code in the form of law and there exists no moral code superior to the one laid out in the Bible.
For example: The US has had a strong Christian moral tradition until about 1960 when secularism started supplanting it by legal fiat. Since then virtually every moral statistic has gotten worse. School shootings, abortion, one parent households, drug use, gang activity, random shootings, gambling debts, spousal abuse, rape, murder rates, etc...... Not to mention our brave new world has enough weapons pointing at our brothers to eradicate all life as we know it and the moral insanity to have almost done so twice. This is not progress it is moral absurdity. No other book or person has been associated with moral perfection and virtue than the Bible and Christ.
"The character of Jesus has not only been the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice, and has exerted so deep an influence, that it may be truly said, that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind, than all the disquisitions of philosophers and than all the exhortations of moralists."
William Lecky One of Britain’s greatest secular historians.
He was the meekest and lowliest of all the sons of men, yet he spoke of coming on the clouds of heaven with the glory of God. He was so austere that evil spirits and demons cried out in terror at his coming, yet he was so genial and winsome and approachable that the children loved to play with him, and the little ones nestled in his arms. His presence at the innocent gaiety of a village wedding was like the presence of sunshine. No one was half so compassionate to sinners, yet no one ever spoke such red hot scorching words about sin. A bruised reed he would not break, his whole life was love, yet on one occasion he demanded of the Pharisees how they ever expected to escape the damnation of hell. He was a dreamer of dreams and a seer of visions, yet for sheer stark realism He has all of our stark realists soundly beaten. He was a servant of all, washing the disciples feet, yet masterfully He strode into the temple, and the hucksters and moneychangers fell over one another to get away from the mad rush and the fire they saw blazing in His eyes. He saved others, yet at the last Himself He did not save. There is nothing in history like the union of contrasts which confronts us in the gospels. The mystery of Jesus is the mystery of divine personality.
Scottish Theologian James Stuart
How do you misinterpret the claim that the messiah must be David's seed with legal title to kingship. Christ had such ironclad claims to kingship based on geologies from both sides that not even the Jews that arrested him ever made a single charge of his not having clear title to the throne. I was going to give examples that have no potential to have been mistakenly translated but I think it easier for you to go to this link and look at all 350 of them and tell me if you think misinterpretation will even account for a small fraction of the total.
http://www.accordingtothescriptures.org/prophecy/353prophecies.html
Your going to need several dozen reasons on top of misinterpretation and must then prove they are more likely than their being true to do anything with 350 prophecies that only fit one man in history. Keep in mind these are multiplicative and contingent, they are not merely cumulative.
Which ones?
Four out of many historical claims are agreed to be accurate by most NT scholars regardless of what side they are on.
1. Christ existed and came on the scene with unprecedented divine authority (or claims to such).
2. He was crucified by the Romans encouraged by the Sanhedrin.
3. His tomb was found empty.
4. He was claimed to have appeared to many people after death including people neutral or even hostile to his message.
Now there is a consensus those events occurred among those best disposed to know. You must provide a better explanation for them than the Gospels do.
I do not see how that is possible. However he is recognized as a very competent scholar and sits of several prestigious boards. If you reject him I offered you two of the greatest legal minds in history as well. I notice you suspiciously did not take up a single offer for scholarship made. Why not?
