If Christ wasn't the messiah, what was he?

[Colt]

Yes, good point. We know that, in the case of Paul, these appearances were almost certainly a form of transient mystical psychosis, since the language he uses to describe it is the language typically associated with visions and prophetic dreams.

Given how he was accepted as somewhat authoritative in his time, and perhaps even earned the respect of James and Peter, I wonder how much the resurrection could be attributed to bereavement hallucinations that were interpreted through a spiritual or supernatural lens. It's not unheard of for cultists to believe they're still receiving messages from their leader after the leader has passed on, after all, and that's often due to religiously interpreting normal grief experiences.

Supporting this is the fact that we know there was significant disagreement in early Christianity regarding whether Jesus was resurrected in a physical body or a spiritual one, with many Gnostics going so far as to say that Jesus never returned to the material world at all and merely projected himself into the minds of his followers. This was a narrative that was heavily condemned by Christian heresiologists, so most believers today are completely unaware of these groups, but there is some reason to believe that this Gnostic interpretation may predate the gospel accounts.

Personally, I don't believe the Gnostic interpretation is the older one as some historians have argued, but it is pretty clear to anyone who isn't already Christian that there was no resurrection. People don't come back from the dead and myths aren't reliable sources for extraordinary events. As such, there is such an extremely low prior probability of a resurrection that believing these early claims would commit the Base Rate Fallacy.

Figuring out what actually happened requires sifting through quite a large number of unreliable sources and that's part of the reason why historians are still so divided on what the historical Yeshua was like to this day. Obviously, no serious historian gives credit to the resurrection, but the fact that his followers claimed one just demonstrates the low quality of historical evidence we have to work off of.

Due to this, I'm not sure I would assert the above narrative in a debate thread since any position on a historical Yeshua is shrouded in speculation, simply due to the nature of the evidence being interpreted. It's fair to question whether there was a historical Yeshua at all, given that the savior narrative is common to "cargo cults," although I think there is strong evidence that he was real to some degree.

However, as speculation for a Q&A thread and an honest account of what I think is the most plausible alternative, this is far more in accordance with the evidence than Jesus being divine or the messiah, in my opinion. It at least serves as a good enough starting point for understanding the historical Yeshua who inspired the mythical Jesus Christ, so long as one is willing to modify this interpretation further in light of new evidence or superior argumentation.

So, yes, the resurrection is important to note because it shows just how out of touch with reality early Christians were. That seems likely to be caused by the way they were conditioned to interpret the world around them through a religious lens, which seems to have been heavily influenced by their charismatic leader. We would expect followers to attribute extreme feats to their cult leader, since this is incredibly commonplace in cults, so the resurrection fits quite neatly into this interpretation.

Jesus of Nazareth, our Creator Son incarnate, never actually died anyway. It was the temporary mortal flesh that died. The Son of God retuned in the form that all saved people will have on the Mansion Worlds after we leave this world.

So technically it is true that the mortal body of Jesus did NOT return, the person that the apostles and other knew as Jesus DID return before departing earth and returning to his rightful place in heaven.

BTW, Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead.

 

[Ella S.]

I hear it is not likely that a whole group of people at the same time experienced the same hallucinations and especially with the hallucination speaking and giving scriptural evidence that the Messiah was to suffer, die and rise again.

You're absolutely right. It is unlikely that multiple people shared a group hallucination with such specific details and were able to relate them to one another. There is no evidence for such a thing happening, either, in my opinion.

Nor am I asserting that anything remotely similar happened, either.

That sounds like a strange fallacy. So if something is deemed unlikely to have happened, people are said to have committed a logical fallacy if they believe it happened.

Not at all. If there is an extremely low prior probability for something happening, then the evidence must be so strong as to exceed that likelihood, even if the evidence itself makes a strong case.

For example, if you develop a test that can tell you whether someone has disease X with 95% accuracy, but it is only 1% likely for them to have the disease, then you are still more likely to get a false positive than a true positive. Forgetting to apply this is called "base rate neglect."

It's a common mistake that people who are unfamiliar with Bayesian reasoning often make. It feels very paradoxical, but the math checks out. There's a whole Wikipedia page on the topic you could check out that goes into further detail about it:

Base rate fallacy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But I guess many skeptics seem not consider believing what they consider to be unlikely (such as the resurrection) and would rather believe that people lied about it, because that is the more logical thing and lies are common.

Even if we are almost certain (95% sure) that someone is not lying when they tell us about an extraordinary event, the likelihood of someone coming back from the dead is roughly 1 to 105 billion. This is the prior probability that someone who dies stays dead, which is 100% of all other known people to have lived, which is around 105 billion.

That's a 0.0000000000095238095% chance that Jesus came back from the dead, which is literally orders of magnitude less likely than that someone lied about it (5%). Yes, that makes the lying a more plausible explanation.

But I don't believe that the early Christians were liars. I also don't believe that everyone who has claimed to be the messiah was lying. I think some of them were honestly mistaken. I just think the historical Yeshua was a cult leader and a liar, not necessarily Peter, James, Paul, etc. That's also a lot more likely than them all being liars.

All sounds a bit safe and bland for me. "I won't believe that because it is unlikely".
If you are a non Christian with that sort of thinking (which may even have infected a whole generation), then your god, if you manage to believe in a god, is going to be one who sticks to your rules of what it can or cannot do I guess.

It is the rational position to take. We should always believe what is most likely and disbelieve what is the least likely. To do otherwise is illogical

Well your mind is made up on the resurrection and what Jesus and His God could do or could not do.

Not really. I came to my position based on analyzing the evidence. Strong evidence or superior argumentation could lead me out of it again.

I personally hate history that brings skeptic presumptions to the Bible and starts off with the idea that it is not true and tries to work out what "really" happened from that point of view.
It is circular reasoning from the start, reasoning based on a preconceived belief. It is never going to say that the supernatural elements in the Bible might be true and is going to put the writing of prophecies to a date past the time that the prophecies were fulfilled.
It's no more than skepticism disguised as history imo.

I am not starting off with "skeptic presumptions," and I'm going to set aside how that's technically an oxymoron for a moment.

I'm starting off with what the data shows and extrapolating based on a rational analysis of the evidence. That's what we should all do. The data does not provide a rational argument for a resurrection, at least as far as I'm aware.

I think, instead of getting frustrated with "skeptic presumptions," you should re-examine your own presumptions that you take to the Bible. Are you presuming the existence of God? Are you presuming the existence of prophecy? Are you presuming the messianic prophecies of the ancient Hebrew religion in particular? Are you presuming a specific interpretation of said prophecies that most Jews would disagree with?

What I'm doing is making a concerted effort to set as many of my presumptions aside as possible and form my conclusions solely based on what I can provide evidence and argumentation for. That means that I can't assume that God could resurrect someone if he really wanted to. I would have to prove that.

That's what rational analysis takes.

I would say that a resurrection in that day and age was equally as unlikely to have happened as it is today, unless of course Jesus had conditioned His followers to think that a resurrection is possible by raising a couple of people from the dead. (The OT resurrections and other supernatural stuff would also help of course) It is just a preconceived belief to say that all this supernatural is BS from the start and I suppose readers of the modern historians who do such things have also been conditioned themselves to think along those lines and so automatically accept what they say without much serious thought.

Well, yeah, all this supernatural stuff is BS from the start and I think that's readily apparent to most people who aren't already believers. I wouldn't have put it like that, but, yes, that is true. It's misinformed at best, fideist magical thinking at worst, in my opinion.

But I think you're forgetting something. I used to believe in all of the supernatural trappings. I did not arrive at my current conclusion due to a presumption against the existence of the supernatural. It was my honest attempt to understand God's creation and my place in it that lead me to deconverting from Christianity and becoming an atheist.

If anything, I had the presumption that Christianity was true. Luckily, if we stick with the rational process, we can eventually figure out which of our presumptions are false through ongoing analysis. I am confident that this is what happened in my case. I discovered that Christianity is false and so I accepted its falsity, since that is what the evidence lead me to.

I could be wrong. I'm open to changing my mind again. It's not like I wanted to lose the belief that I'd get to live on in paradise after I die and see all of the loved ones I've lost. It's not like I wanted to lose the belief that there is an all-powerful father watching me and making sure that my life always goes according to his benevolent plan. But I wanted to believe what's true and I don't think any of this is true anymore.

 

[Colt]

You're absolutely right. It is unlikely that multiple people shared a group hallucination with such specific details and were able to relate them to one another. There is no evidence for such a thing happening, either, in my opinion.

Nor am I asserting that anything remotely similar happened, either.

Not at all. If there is an extremely low prior probability for something happening, then the evidence must be so strong as to exceed that likelihood, even if the evidence itself makes a strong case.

For example, if you develop a test that can tell you whether someone has disease X with 95% accuracy, but it is only 1% likely for them to have the disease, then you are still more likely to get a false positive than a true positive. Forgetting to apply this is called "base rate neglect."

It's a common mistake that people who are unfamiliar with Bayesian reasoning often make. It feels very paradoxical, but the math checks out. There's a whole Wikipedia page on the topic you could check out that goes into further detail about it:

Base rate fallacy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Even if we are almost certain (95% sure) that someone is not lying when they tell us about an extraordinary event, the likelihood of someone coming back from the dead is roughly 1 to 105 billion. This is the prior probability that someone who dies stays dead, which is 100% of all other known people to have lived, which is around 105 billion.

That's a 0.0000000000095238095% chance that Jesus came back from the dead, which is literally orders of magnitude less likely than that someone lied about it (5%). Yes, that makes the lying a more plausible explanation.

But I don't believe that the early Christians were liars. I also don't believe that everyone who has claimed to be the messiah was lying. I think some of them were honestly mistaken. I just think the historical Yeshua was a cult leader and a liar, not necessarily Peter, James, Paul, etc. That's also a lot more likely than them all being liars.

It is the rational position to take. We should always believe what is most likely and disbelieve what is the least likely. To do otherwise is illogical

Not really. I came to my position based on analyzing the evidence. Strong evidence or superior argumentation could lead me out of it again.

I am not starting off with "skeptic presumptions," and I'm going to set aside how that's technically an oxymoron for a moment.

I'm starting off with what the data shows and extrapolating based on a rational analysis of the evidence. That's what we should all do. The data does not provide a rational argument for a resurrection, at least as far as I'm aware.

I think, instead of getting frustrated with "skeptic presumptions," you should re-examine your own presumptions that you take to the Bible. Are you presuming the existence of God? Are you presuming the existence of prophecy? Are you presuming the messianic prophecies of the ancient Hebrew religion in particular? Are you presuming a specific interpretation of said prophecies that most Jews would disagree with?

What I'm doing is making a concerted effort to set as many of my presumptions aside as possible and form my conclusions solely based on what I can provide evidence and argumentation for. That means that I can't assume that God could resurrect someone if he really wanted to. I would have to prove that.

That's what rational analysis takes.

Well, yeah, all this supernatural stuff is BS from the start and I think that's readily apparent to most people who aren't already believers. I wouldn't have put it like that, but, yes, that is true. It's misinformed at best, fideist magical thinking at worst, in my opinion.

But I think you're forgetting something. I used to believe in all of the supernatural trappings. I did not arrive at my current conclusion due to a presumption against the existence of the supernatural. It was my honest attempt to understand God's creation and my place in it that lead me to deconverting from Christianity and becoming an atheist.

If anything, I had the presumption that Christianity was true. Luckily, if we stick with the rational process, we can eventually figure out which of our presumptions are false through ongoing analysis. I am confident that this is what happened in my case. I discovered that Christianity is false and so I accepted its falsity, since that is what the evidence lead me to.

I could be wrong. I'm open to changing my mind again. It's not like I wanted to lose the belief that I'd get to live on in paradise after I die and see all of the loved ones I've lost. It's not like I wanted to lose the belief that there is an all-powerful father watching me and making sure that my life always goes according to his benevolent plan. But I wanted to believe what's true and I don't think any of this is true anymore.

We might call an event a miracle because we don't know how it's done. To God nothing is a miracle, God simply dose things in a natural, logical way. Resurrecting Lazarus from the dead may dazzle humans who are ignorant of how such a thing is carried out, but to the unseen celestial beings who stood ready to do the will of the Son of God, resurrecting a person from death or converting water to wine would be as simple as sending an email!

 

[Ella S.]

We might call an event a miracle because we don't know how it's done. To God nothing is a miracle, God simply dose things in a natural, logical way. Resurrecting Lazarus from the dead may dazzle humans who are ignorant of how such a thing is carried out, but to the unseen celestial beings who stood ready to do the will of the Son of God, resurrecting a person from death or converting water to wine would be as simple as sending an email!

Prove it.

 

[Brian2]

You're absolutely right. It is unlikely that multiple people shared a group hallucination with such specific details and were able to relate them to one another. There is no evidence for such a thing happening, either, in my opinion.

Nor am I asserting that anything remotely similar happened, either.

That would be true, it is not something that would come close to being the most probably explanation so it is rejected.

Not at all. If there is an extremely low prior probability for something happening, then the evidence must be so strong as to exceed that likelihood, even if the evidence itself makes a strong case.

For example, if you develop a test that can tell you whether someone has disease X with 95% accuracy, but it is only 1% likely for them to have the disease, then you are still more likely to get a false positive than a true positive. Forgetting to apply this is called "base rate neglect."

OK, so it can be useful in the right circumstances. In the circumstances of whether God could raise someone from the dead it seems to be not one of those circumatances as all the probabilities are subjective and depend of previous beliefs.

Even if we are almost certain (95% sure) that someone is not lying when they tell us about an extraordinary event, the likelihood of someone coming back from the dead is roughly 1 to 105 billion. This is the prior probability that someone who dies stays dead, which is 100% of all other known people to have lived, which is around 105 billion.

The probabilities are based on prior beliefs about things.

It is the rational position to take. We should always believe what is most likely and disbelieve what is the least likely. To do otherwise is illogical

OK Spock, but as I said, it is based on prior beliefs, subjective probabilities.

I am not starting off with "skeptic presumptions," and I'm going to set aside how that's technically an oxymoron for a moment.

Your probabilites are based on previously held beliefs. What if I asked what the probability is that a God who created the universe and gave us life and is said to have raised people from the dead, could raise Jesus from the dead?
We start with our default positions and work out probabilities from there. The probability for the above scenario is a lot greater than what yours might be.

I'm starting off with what the data shows and extrapolating based on a rational analysis of the evidence. That's what we should all do. The data does not provide a rational argument for a resurrection, at least as far as I'm aware.

Your idea of what the data shows is a subjective one.

What I'm doing is making a concerted effort to set as many of my presumptions aside as possible and form my conclusions solely based on what I can provide evidence and argumentation for. That means that I can't assume that God could resurrect someone if he really wanted to. I would have to prove that.

So your probabilities are skewed because you cannot prove that God could resurrect someone if possible and cannot even prove that a God exists and cannot prove that supernatural things ever happened. So that is skeptical presumptions which skew your whole idea. It is a different take on the same idea that unless the evidence is falsifiable and science friendly then it is not real evidence and should be rejected.

That's what rational analysis takes.

It looks rational on the surface but is not really because you are making up all your data and probabilities and throwing out what it is claimed that witnesses saw and rejecting prophecy fulfilment because mathematics says so based on made up probabilities.

I could be wrong. I'm open to changing my mind again. It's not like I wanted to lose the belief that I'd get to live on in paradise after I die and see all of the loved ones I've lost. It's not like I wanted to lose the belief that there is an all-powerful father watching me and making sure that my life always goes according to his benevolent plan. But I wanted to believe what's true and I don't think any of this is true anymore.

That's the way it goes sometimes, and who am I to judge you.
But I don't like your probability method.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

common sense

 

[Colt]

Prove it.

Prove what? That there is greater intelligence than you in the universe? Prove that you don't know all that is knowable?

Ok, how many other planets are there? How many of them are inhabited by intelligent life? Answer that!

 

[Brian2]

Even if we are almost certain (95% sure) that someone is not lying when they tell us about an extraordinary event, the likelihood of someone coming back from the dead is roughly 1 to 105 billion. This is the prior probability that someone who dies stays dead, which is 100% of all other known people to have lived, which is around 105 billion.

I have heard people speak about the reasonableness that the Bible God is the real God and I can't remeber if it went further than that.
There were no probability figures used, which is silly imo and makes the whole thing subjective in the extreme.
I think it may have begun with the reasonableness of a creator as opposed to everything just making themselves.
Then there is the reasonableness that the God is personal God as opposed to being impersonal and not wanting relationship with it's creation.
Then considering the created universe, there is the reasonableness that the God is united in purpose.
Then there is the reasonableness that the God is going to want to tell us what is going on.
Then there is the reasonableness that any religion this God set up would still be around today.
etc.

 

[Ella S.]

That would be true, it is not something that would come close to being the most probably explanation so it is rejected.



OK, so it can be useful in the right circumstances. In the circumstances of whether God could raise someone from the dead it seems to be not one of those circumatances as all the probabilities are subjective and depend of previous beliefs.



The probabilities are based on prior beliefs about things.



OK Spock, but as I said, it is based on prior beliefs, subjective probabilities.



Your probabilites are based on previously held beliefs. What if I asked what the probability is that a God who created the universe and gave us life and is said to have raised people from the dead, could raise Jesus from the dead?
We start with our default positions and work out probabilities from there. The probability for the above scenario is a lot greater than what yours might be.



Your idea of what the data shows is a subjective one.



So your probabilities are skewed because you cannot prove that God could resurrect someone if possible and cannot even prove that a God exists and cannot prove that supernatural things ever happened. So that is skeptical presumptions which skew your whole idea. It is a different take on the same idea that unless the evidence is falsifiable and science friendly then it is not real evidence and should be rejected.



It looks rational on the surface but is not really because you are making up all your data and probabilities and throwing out what it is claimed that witnesses saw and rejecting prophecy fulfilment because mathematics says so based on made up probabilities.



That's the way it goes sometimes, and who am I to judge you.
But I don't like your probability method.

I don't know how else to tell you that you can't assume that God exists until you've proven it. That's not a presumption, but the absence of one. You're actively misrepresenting what I'm saying and my line of argumentation to try to assert that I'm making assumptions that I haven't made.

There is a reason why historians use methodological naturalism. I advise you to research why that is on your own, because I don't think you're ready to have an honest conversation about this topic yet.

 

[Brian2]

I don't know how else to tell you that you can't assume that God exists until you've proven it. That's not a presumption, but the absence of one. You're actively misrepresenting what I'm saying and my line of argumentation to try to assert that I'm making assumptions that I haven't made.

Sorry, I don't want to misrepresent you, but you will have to be more specific about how I did that. Putting that statement at the end of my post means that you think I did that somewhere in the post, but I don't know where.
But I can have a belief that God exists if it seems reasonable to me to believe that.

There is a reason why historians use methodological naturalism. I advise you to research why that is on your own, because I don't think you're ready to have an honest conversation about this topic yet.

I have had discussions about the use of naturalistic methodology by historians.
The use of it can no doubt be useful in some situations and where other evidence shows that there was not supernaturalism involved.
But that is not the way it is used with the Bible imo and what it ends up doing is giving a pseudo historical basis for a start that the OT and NT scriptures were not written at the times they purport to be written. This ends up making it look like the writings are made up by people who don't know what happened. It makes the stories into lies.
In fact the presumption that the supernatural elements of the Bible are not true is a presumption from the start that the God of the Bible is a lie.
The whole thing cannot tell us that the supernatural elements are real or the Bible God is real even if they might be true.
And the presumption of lies is not even told to the readers, who might think that there are legitimate reasons to think that the synoptic gosepls were written after 70 AD, and not just presumptions about the supernatural.
It could be said also about it's use in other spiritual books if there is no other reason to think that the supernatural elements in those books are not true.

 

[Ella S.]

I have heard people speak about the reasonableness that the Bible God is the real God and I can't remeber if it went further than that.
There were no probability figures used, which is silly imo and makes the whole thing subjective in the extreme.
I think it may have begun with the reasonableness of a creator as opposed to everything just making themselves.
Then there is the reasonableness that the God is personal God as opposed to being impersonal and not wanting relationship with it's creation.
Then considering the created universe, there is the reasonableness that the God is united in purpose.
Then there is the reasonableness that the God is going to want to tell us what is going on.
Then there is the reasonableness that any religion this God set up would still be around today.
etc.

Alright, let's take this line of reasoning and quantify what is being said so that we can perform objective analysis on it. I will be as charitable as possible and give every statement the greatest reasonable prior probability, 95% or almost certain.

Now, the numbers are a bit subjective, but I am intentionally steel-manning your argument by giving you the best numbers I can in order to demonstrate an underlying principle. So please bear with it for a moment, even if you think it is "silly." It's necessary to put numbers to our intuitions sometimes to make sure that we're making rational arguments.

"I think it may have begun with the reasonableness of a creator as opposed to everything just making themselves." 95% likely.

"Then there is the reasonableness that the God is personal God as opposed to being impersonal and not wanting relationship with it's creation." 95% likely that it is a personal rather than an impersonal God, given that God exists. Since there is a prior probability of God existing of 95%, that means that the existence of a personal God here is actually 95% of 95% or 90.25%.

"Then considering the created universe, there is the reasonableness that the God is united in purpose." 95% likely that God is united in purpose. 95% of the prior probability of 90.25% is 85.7375%.

"Then there is the reasonableness that the God is going to want to tell us what is going on." Now at 81.450625%.

"Then there is the reasonableness that any religion this God set up would still be around today." 77.3780937%.

Do you see how, for each additional proposition, the likelihood continues to decrease? Now let's run through the argument with an honest prior probability, which is used as the default in Bayesian analysis. Every option is given equal weight to begin with. So if there are two possibilities, both are given a 50% likelihood.

"I think it may have begun with the reasonableness of a creator as opposed to everything just making themselves." 50% likely that God exists.

"Then there is the reasonableness that the God is personal God as opposed to being impersonal and not wanting relationship with it's creation." 50% likely that God is personal rather than impersonal. That's 25% likely that a personal God exists and already 75% likely that one doesn't.

"Then considering the created universe, there is the reasonableness that the God is united in purpose." Down to 12.5%.

"Then there is the reasonableness that the God is going to want to tell us what is going on." Now 6.25%

"Then there is the reasonableness that any religion this God set up would still be around today." 3.125%

So the likelihood that there is a personal God around today who wants to tell us what's going on is 3.125%, lower than the 50% likelihood that God doesn't exist at all. And that's using your own argument. This is a demonstration of what we call "Occam's Razor," which generally states that the argument which makes fewer assumptions is more likely to be true.

From an honest assessment of your own position, logic dictates that you admit that it is more likely that God does not exist than that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

This is a problem with my speculation about the nature of a historical Yeshua as well, which is why I said that it's an unlikely assessment and not one that I would seriously debate. You disrespected my wishes and, without any understanding of inductive reasoning (in fact, calling any attempt at inductive reasoning "silly"), attacked my intellectual character by accusing me of motivated reasoning.

I think we're done here.

 

[rubi]

Oh I agree, he came down from Heven and returned to heaven. Like the "Son of man" in Enoch which was the tittle that Jesus chose, but the story of the immaculate conception out of wedlock was added latter.

as I said here before, Christians believe in this theology because they grew into it. to me as a jew, it makes my head hurt. my point was that you brought up a quote that contradicts your claim.

The agreement with Abraham was to live on in his descendants and missionaries of monotheism to all people, not a self described "chosen people" and a nationalist political ideology.

Genesis 15:13-21
Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 Now as for you, you shall [d]go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:

“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girga****es, and the Jebusites.”

The so-called Israelites intermarried with the Canaanites; a detail left in the edited scripture books. The priest class would later claim that their writings were Gods Word

It means you don't believe it is the word of God. I understand why you would say that, in light of that the New Testament is edited from 5700 manuscripts and there are some basic differences between them. click here but for me, saying there is more than one version of the Tanach is nonsense. there are claims coming from Christians implying that the dead sea scrolls are another version, but if you read them and take under considiration that people didn't have paper back then, so there were scrolls that people trained on writing the Tanach.
my point is that:

1. having a sexual relationship with a non-jew is a sin for Jews.​

2. if you believe that the book of Joshua is edited, what does it mean about the rule of God at that time? he had prophets living regularly among the people. like Elija and the Baal prophets​

 

[rubi]

Well I listen to what other spiritual masters and higher sources have to say too. I am not very reliant on the Bible only.

I think those type of questions are not very important in the end . What matters is the quality of our hearts to find peace and love in this life and the next.

my point is that every time I talk with a Christian, I don't really know what he thinks about Christ

 

[rubi]

Because he was Jewish? Or some other reason?
There is a notion of karet, as you probably know; being cut off entirely. I'll take you to another extreme: I don't think any rational religious Jew honestly believes that a year after Hitler committed suicide he found his way to heaven. So why do you think that Jesus did, given the way he is viewed in Judaism?

the sentence of the wicked is 12 months, which is why we say Kadish only 11 months after his death.
sanhedrin 10:1 All of the Jewish people, have a share in the World-to-Come, as it is stated: “And your people also shall be all righteous, they shall inherit the land forever; the branch of My planting, the work of My hands, for My name to be glorified”

all I know about issues that involve the afterlife is constricted to Jews. I know nothing about the afterlife that comes to non-Jews

 

[George-ananda]

my point is that every time I talk with a Christian, I don't really know what he thinks about Christ

That's because most people identifying as 'Christian' today do not have a full, clear and complete understanding of that themselves.

 

[rubi]

the 70 descendants and their families of Jacob that came to Egypt must have talked Hebrew (Rashi Genesis 42:23). later the people that came out of Egypt talked Hebrew because it was their tribal language and it was 80 years after Josef died. Skipping to the time we were occupied in our land, why would it matter when a foreign country ruled over us especially if there is a mitzvah to read the Torah which is written in the holy language?

 

[rubi]

That's because most people identifying as 'Christian' today do not have a full, clear and complete understanding of that themselves.

I totally agree

 

[Colt]

as I said here before, Christians believe in this theology because they grew into it. to me as a jew, it makes my head hurt. my point was that you brought up a quote that contradicts your claim.

Genesis 15:13-21
Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 Now as for you, you shall [d]go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

17 And it came to pass, when the sun went down and it was dark, that behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. 18 On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying:

“To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates— 19 the Kenites, the Kenezzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girga****es, and the Jebusites.”

It means you don't believe it is the word of God. I understand why you would say that, in light of that the New Testament is edited from 5700 manuscripts and there are some basic differences between them. click here but for me, saying there is more than one version of the Tanach is nonsense. there are claims coming from Christians implying that the dead sea scrolls are another version, but if you read them and take under considiration that people didn't have paper back then, so there were scrolls that people trained on writing the Tanach.
my point is that:

1. having a sexual relationship with a non-jew is a sin for Jews.​

2. if you believe that the book of Joshua is edited, what does it mean about the rule of God at that time? he had prophets living regularly among the people. like Elija and the Baal prophets​

Thats correct, I believe its the word of the Israelites who were on a nationalist ego trip.

 

[rubi]

Thats correct, I believe its the word of the Israelites who were on a nationalist ego trip.

so, you don't believe in God as written in the Tanach? are you an Atheist?

 

[Colt]

so, you don't believe in God as written in the Tanach? are you an Atheist?

No, i think holy men write scripture and claim God wrote it in order to control the flock.