It takes no presumptions. It's Hellenism combined with Judaism, originatating at the center of Hellenistic culture.
Hellenistic religion
The
apotheosis of rulers also brought the idea of divinity down to earth.
Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in the
ancient world that combined
Jewish religious tradition with elements of
Greek culture.
The decline of Hellenistic Judaism started in the 2nd century AD, and its causes are still not fully understood. It may be that it was eventually marginalized by, partially absorbed into or became progressively the Koiné-speaking core of
Early Christianity centered on
Antioch and its traditions, such as the
Melkite Catholic Church, and the
Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.
Antioch on the Orontes
The city was also the main center of
Hellenistic Judaism at the end of the
Second Temple period. Antioch was part of the
pentarchy and was called "the cradle of
Christianity" as a result of its longevity and the pivotal role that it played in the emergence of
early Christianity.
[5] The Christian
New Testament asserts that the name "Christian" first emerged in Antioch.
[6]
[5] "The mixture of Roman, Greek, and Jewish elements admirably adapted Antioch for the great part it played in the early history of Christianity. The city was the cradle of the church." — "Antioch,"
Encyclopaedia Biblica, Vol. I, p. 186
Christianity[
edit]
Antioch was a chief center of early Christianity during Roman times.
[26] The city had a large population of Jewish origin in a quarter called the
Kerateion, and so attracted the earliest missionaries.
[27] Evangelized by, among others,
Peter himself, according to the tradition upon which the
Patriarchate of Antioch[28] still rests its claim for primacy,
[29] and later (according to the
Acts of the Apostles) by
Barnabas and
Paul[30][
clarification needed], its converts were the first to be called Christians.
In Mark, the source, Jesus just re-does narratives from Kings, Pauls Letters, follows 20 exact points from Romulus, same from Jesus Ben Ananius, Homer and Psams. Verbatim. There is literally no actual Jesus story left that isn't copied.
Savior demigods are Greek. The baptism in the NT is Greek not Jewish. Logos, is Greek, Communal meal is Greek. Cosmopolitinism, individualism, all from Greek mystery religions. Souls, not in OT, in Greek religion. Redeemed souls going to Heaven, not in OT. In Greek religions. It's a Jewish mystery religion. As mythical as any other folk tale.
They don't have "skeptical "presumptions. They do history the same with everything. For the 100th time. See if you can get it this time. Focus.
The Quran is not the word of God, accepted by all humanity, even thought it has witnesses, even though it has original documents. You need evidence to match such a claim.
SAME goes for Mormonism, Moroni gave important updates, in NY. We have original documents. Witnesses. Bahai also has direct contact with God, original documents, witnesses.
You do not believe any of those . You don't believe in Krishna. You need actual evidence to demonstrate beyond any doubt. The Gospels DO NOT have any such thing. The writing is myth. The theology is a trend. The religion it's from is made up from Mesopotamian and Egyptian myth.
NO historian even saw Jesus. One said he investigated and it's a harmless superstition. You choose to throw away an empirical methodology but there is no actual reason to do this. You do it with Jesus, billions do it with Muhammad, billions do it with Krishna, None of you have real evidence or any probability of it being real. This weird game you play with yourself if anything it's just keeping you from discovering truth.
Truth isn't for everyone.
Maybe God likes to play games and inserts himself into a situation where the evidence is so vast that not one historian finds this to be anything but a folk tale. Probably not.
Ehrman, who spends his life working on learning Christianity and the evidence, in original languages has a far far greater chance of being correct than someone who just bought into a belief, reads english rewrites and speaks with other uneducated people who buy into apologetics demonstrated to be wrong. Or who has to invent a bias that you use freely on every other supernatural folk tale
Why, the Gospel does away with presuppositions on page 1 and you still ignore them?
The specific wording of the Gospel titles also suggests that the portion bearing their names was a later addition. The κατα (“according to”) preposition supplements the word ευαγγελιον (“gospel”). This word for “gospel” was implicitly connected with Jesus, meaning that the full title was το ευαγγελιον Ιησου Χριστου (“The Gospel of Jesus Christ”), with the additional preposition κατα (“according to”) used to distinguish specific gospels by their individual names. Before there were multiple gospels written, however, this addition would have been unnecessary. In fact, many scholars argue that the opening line of the
Gospel of Mark (
1:1) probably functioned as the original title of the text:
The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ…
This original title of
Mark can be compared with those of other ancient texts in which the opening lines served as titles. Herodotus’
Histories (
1.1), for example, begins with the following line which probably served as the title of the text:
This is the exposition of the history of Herodotus…
A major difference between the
Gospel of Mark and Herodotus’
Histories, however, is that opening line of
Mark does not name the text’s author, but instead attributes the gospel to Jesus Christ. This title became insufficient, however, when there were multiple “gospels of Jesus” in circulation, and so, the additional κατα (“according to”) formula was used to distinguish specific gospels by their individual names. This circumstance, however, suggests that the names themselves were a later addition, as there would have been no need for such a distinction before multiple gospels were in circulation.
So, in addition to the problem that the Gospel titles do not even explicitly claim authors, we likewise have strong reason to suspect that these named titles were not even affixed to the first manuscript copies. This absence is important, since (as will be discussed under the “
External Evidence” section below) the first church fathers who alluded to or quoted passages from the Gospels, for nearly a century after their composition, did so anonymously. Since these sources do not refer to the Gospels by their traditional names, this adds further evidence that the titles bearing those names were not added until a later period (probably in the latter half of the 2nd century CE), after these church fathers were writing.
[5] And, if the manuscript titles were added later, and the Gospels themselves were quoted without names, this means that there is no evidence that the Gospels were referred to by their traditional names during the earliest period of their circulation. Instead, the Gospels would have more likely circulated anonymously.
Shows people made stories up about Jesus.
