who is the founder of christianity Jesus or Paul ?

[jonathan180iq]

You say that the pagan religions affected Judaism but, by and large, have offered no supportive documentation other that simply noting that other religions have similarities which does not mean that it was influenced. It simply states that there are similarities.

What's the earliest physical evidence of Judaism?
I don't want you to cite the time period the Bible suggests certain events happened in. I'm asking for the absolute earliest credible and substantial evidence of Israel or of Judaism in antiquity.

If there is no evidence for something having existed before a certain period, then it is not fair to hold someone's feet to the fire who says absolutely that it was so?

I'll even give you a couple hundred years of leniency even, seeing as how things to evolve and adapt over time and the mention of something somewhat implies that it existed before mention.

Using those guidelines, again, what's the earliest reference to Israel outside of the Bible?

We have a couple of problems here. You say it is a book of mythology but have not proven it, have not given me supportive documentation and have not validated your position but you want me to validate mine. Then there is the issue of whether your personal mythology is better.

My position is simply that many other religions are older than Judaism and have influenced it. In fact, as I have shown you in something as simple as a wiki-link, Judaism evolved out of the religions of Mesopotamia which very obviously predate it. The gods of the surrounding regions were already named so well before the first "Jew" ever claimed allegiance to Yahweh or El or Elohim....

Your claim, on the other hand is that Yahweh pre-existed, as the starter God/religion and this is evidenced by... the Bible. And the Bible is authoritative, you claim, because it's... the Bible... Where is your evidence for the Bible's authority on the topic of historical accuracy? It's filled with supposed Historical events, right? Where's the evidence for those events?

You're free to dance around this question further, or you could just attempt to answer it.

And credible for you, basically means credible for you. Obviously it has been credible for many people over the years.

No. Credible for me simply means supported by evidence.

If I were to say that Noah, for example, had fire-breathing dragons on the Ark, would you not ask for something to substantiate that claim? Would you not ask for evidence that fire-breathing dragons ever even existed? Or would you accept me simply saying "Well, it doesn't say that he didn't!"

My claim of fire breathing dragons would not be credible because there is absolutely nothing to back it up.

If I understand you correctly, how were the others influenced by Adonai? It has been proposed by some that Mesopotamia is the cradle of civilization. With Abraham, Isaac and Jacob living there, interacting and impacting that area in their times, it isn't unusual for the name to be spread throughout. As with so many cultures of that time, if there was a god, many would simply "adopt" the next god that seemed to be important.

First, is Mesopotamia the only cradle of civilization, or are there several completely independent sites all over the globe that began to experience long lasting periods of cultivation and established cultural grown? Within this particular cradle of civilization that you're focusing on, do we or do we not know an awful lot about the people and places that are supposedly contemporary of the claims made in the Bible? Isn't it interesting then that there is this huge blind spot when it comes to evidence for the events that the Bible claims took place, and the events that are their very call to legitimacy?

Second, on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob... You claim of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob living during a specific time period that is quite well-known and understood. We also know, quite well, the history of many of the people and places that surrounded the area that this mystical story supposedly took place. These guys, according to your own source material, are surrounded by civilizations and well-established religious practices that we can trace back nearly to their origin. Yet you would claim that your guys are the genesis of all other religions, and in fact of humanity itself... Yet you see no problem with your that idea?

If you can understand that many people and cultures would adopt the religious influence of those around them, and since it's well established that those cultures and religions predate the birth of Judaism, please explain again how Judaism was not influenced by the surrounding pagan landscape.

Interesting, however, is the fact that you can pawn of your theory as accurate history. Why is that?

It can substantiated. I am not citing or quoting anything to you that is not verifiable.
You can, with a couple of plane tickets and for the cost of admission, go and see the evidence of the things that I am talking about. You can breath the air from the same room as the Merneptah Stele. for example. You can follow the citations and sources from the bibliography on each and every one of those pages, and read about what I'm trying to express to you. You can take a couple of weekends and spend some time on something even more in-depth but still simple, like Google Scholar, and search for those same references, artifacts, and ideas and read about them from their scholarly sources. You can compound on that knowledge by following the citations within the citations...Or you could read just one book that claims itself self-evident.

It's very simple and you don't have to take my word for it. All you have to do is go and check it out.

When you claim your source material as the Bible, and then make historical assumptions based on the mythologies contained therein, you have no fact checker to help you out. There's nothing, except the Bible itself, to validate those claims. If I were making the argument that I am right because I say I am right, then you have every reason to question that...Surely you see the connection between that example and what you're doing with the Bible as your only source.

Another thing: maybe your conviction that the Bible is 100% accurate and true is really sincere and heartfelt...well that's great. But it doesn't help your argument anymore. You're still left with the burden of proof that your source material is accurate to begin with. Again, I'll reference the fire-breathing dragons analogy. I could believe until I was blue in the face that fire-breathing dragons were on the ark - but does my belief change "reality"? (Note I'm using the Ark as a relatable example to you - not insinuating that there is any validity to the Ark fable.)

If we find something written on the Egyptian pyramids, do we take that as evidence of something? If it mentions a war, do we take that as evidence that they were in a war? So, why would I then reject what was written by the Jews as not a possible historical happening?

Your problem here is primary source versus secondary and even tertiary sources.

A relief inscribed on the wall of a pyramid, using your example, is a primary source. We can date the inscription, not only using what the original writers said was the date of the inscription but by verifying that date using several different methods. We can then look for other evidence of this hypothetical war in the places that the inscription said the war happened. If/when we find those other evidences, then we can accurately postulate that the war actually happened and that the inscription (and in some cases even the writer) is a credible source worth citing.

Here's the flipside of that, and how it relates to the Bible: If this hypothetical inscription that we are talking about made fantastic claims that were not supported anywhere else in history, and if it had no physical evidence to back it up, would you continue to rely on that hypothetical inscription for an accurate depiction of historical events?

Now ask yourself that same question again, remember that there is no primary source for the Bible...
If you think that's a false statement on my part, then please cite the oldest evidence of any part of the Torah, or Talmud.

Or, if you want to attack it another way as people so often do, if The Iliad has some truth in it but it is fiction and therefore the Bible is the same, then should I then say that all historical documents are therefore fiction?

Does anyone read the Iliad to learn about the existence of the Cyclops? Or do we understand it as merely one part of the greater story of Hellenistic culture, giving us little insights into their mythology? See, we can read Homer, and read other contemporaries of Homer, and add those little bits of knowledge to our understanding of ancient Hellenistic culture. We can also read the mythologies and the histories of the cultures leading up Hellenism in order to give us a better understanding of how it developed. We can do that with almost everything so as to understand how one culture incorporated aspects of the cultures that surrounded it and preceded it and turned that into the formation of new cultures... Do you see where I'm going with this. We can do the same thing with Christianity. You'd be incredibly ignorant to claim that Christianity was not an evolution of Judaism, wouldn't you? And you'd have to be incredibly ignorant to claim that Judaism was not an evolution of many aspects of the Mesopotamian cultures and religions that surrounded the people that would come to inhabit Judea and later spread their evolved theologies all over the world.

And if it is historical and each country followed their own god, why would there be evidence of the God of the Jews in the area of the god of the Canaanites?

Because the God of the Jews is an evolution of Canaanite gods, as were their gods an evolution of preceding ideas on the supernatural and so on and so on...

 

[godnotgod]

.. "waves are the ocean" is not more true than "waves are not the ocean." Nor is "a tree is wood" more true than "a tree is not wood."

None of that is what I was implying. Because of the trap of words, we have become accustomed to think of waves as distinct from ocean, and wood as distinct from tree, when, in fact, there is no actual distinction. It's the ocean that is waving and the tree that is wood. 'Wave' is not a thing, but an action. To say that a tree is MADE of wood implies something else entirely. Not playing word games here, just pointing out that we have lulled ourselves into 'meanings' that are not actually true. We say 'It is raining' as a common, everyday expression, but the reality is that there is no such 'it' that rains. We say 'the sun is shining', when 'shining' and 'sun' are one and the same event.

What we mean by the term "weather" isn't identical to what we mean by the term "atmosphere," even if they are related and even mutually dependent concepts. One might as well say that "foot" and "running" are the same thing and that feet require running to exist—and that moreover running is a concept independent of feet (which is where it really goes off the rails). And thus things get really sketchy, since you go well beyond simply mutual dependence and actually posit that one aspect of the allegedly identical pairing is in fact primary and independent of the other. It doesn't work both ways.

Weather cannot manifest as such without atmosphere; running/walking cannot manifest without foot. Weather is a function of atmosphere, whereas atmosphere is a grouping of gaseous molecules. Running/walking is a function of foot, not another thing that can be compared to foot. However, even though weather is atmosphere dependent, and running is foot dependent, atmosphere has a tendency to manifest as weather; foot has a tendency toward running/walking.

But all analogies are limited when relating consciousness to brain, as consciousness is completely in another sphere. It is invisible. So one might ask: how can the invisible world manifest something 'physical' like the brain, or the entire universe, for that matter? But as I pointed out, we now have evidence that all reality is virtual. Of course, the Hindus have told us that the world is maya for centuries, and the Buddha that 'form is emptiness; emptiness is form'. No New Age thinking here.

Meditators aren't more conscious than other beings, by your own admission. For if consciousness is the true cosmological constant and the very ground of being, how can one being have more of it than another?

Consciousness cannot be encapsulated in a manner that says one has more of it than another. It is immeasurable, but is at the same time a matter of degree. In dream-sleep, for example (the second level of conscious awareness) we have less conscious awareness than that in the waking state (the third level of consciousness), but less than in higher states. It's like slowly opening a door to a darkened room; the room becomes filled with more and more light as the door is opened, revealing more and more features in the room, so that at first, what seemed like a snake in the corner, turns out to be only a rope. In the same way, we SEE the illusory nature of the dream state upon waking due to a greater degree of illumination, yet still fail to see the illusory nature of the world until a higher awakening (ie; more illumination) occurs. In our ordinary rational mind, we think the brain creates consciousness, not realizing that everything comes from consciousness itself. A Neanderthal will think the images are in the TV set, when we moderns know they are present even though the TV set is dead.

The point about the meditators is that focused consciousness is shown to actually grow brain material. Beyond that, the meditative process generally leads to more clarity of mind than that of the ordinary mind. More clarity of mind = more accurate view of Reality.

As for the rest, it's simply a matter of redefining "consciousness" to mean whatever one wants it to mean at the moment. For a very long time people have been using the term to refer to an emergent, complex, self-aware form of mental activity. Now some folks want to reduce it to any sort of reaction whatsoever, just so they can say that everything is consciousness, thereby robbing it of any intelligible meaning.

The universal non local THAT which is pure consciousness itself manifests the world on many different levels, in many differing degrees, in many different forms, even though it is a singular consciousness behind all phenomena. That is the nature of the Absolute. We can see that in our own world, where immense variety of form and levels of evolution is the rule.

This also gets into the fallacy of division, which is based on the assumption that if something has a particular characteristic, then all its constituent parts must also have that characteristic. But it's simply not true, as we know from many, many examples in the world. Properties emerge from the confluence of a variety of causes and conditions; they are not essentially inherent in things. Water molecules do not contain the essential characteristic of liquidity within their particles, nor is there essential coldness. Nor does the compound we call table salt reflect the individual characteristics of the highly toxic constituent atoms, nor do sodium or chloride individually possess the quality of saltiness. The atoms and subatomic particles that make up a ripe strawberry are not individually red, nor tart, nor sweet, nor juicy. Nor do they possess even a plant's subtle degree of awareness, which itself does not qualify as sentience, much less as sapience.

And yet, we, as sentient sapiens, cannot even approach the photosynthesis of our own food as green plants can. Again, universal consciousness manifests in countless ways. Why is another question.

The fallacy is based on the failure to acknowledge that properties are emergent and depend on complexity, rather than being infinitely divisible.

But science has yet to explain exactly how non-material consciousness 'emerges' from the material brain. This remains the hard question, 'emergent theory' not being a real scientific theory at all, but a weak hypothesis.

I don't know who "we" is.

Humanity, in general. Most human beings operate under the illusion of 'I'.

Is it a specific New Age movement you identify with?

I wasn't aware that I did.

In any case, you don't have to lecture me on the illusory nature of the self.

I wasn't.

Buddhadharma is the first known system to have worked that one out in a systematic way, around 2500 years ago, and it did so without positing an essential, elemental consciousness as a replacement for the self.

There was no need to do anything but simply realize that the self already is none other than elemental consciousness itself. In fact, he said so:

'Ordinary mind is none other than Buddha Mind; Buddha Mind is none other than ordinary mind.' (paraphrased)

Again, the self is not made of consciousness; the self IS consciousness. IOW, the self is pure consciousness pretending to be something other than pure consciousness. The entire universe, in reality, is none other than pure consciousness pretending to be something other than itself. That is what we call 'maya and 'lila'. The gold chain is, at all times, always made of pure gold. The gold chain does not 'become' gold; it IS gold.

Again, it all looks like New Age appropriation of ancient ideas without understanding the context. When the Yogacarins said "all is Mind," for example, they didn't mean anything like what you're saying and would have found your arguments incoherent. They're the ones I thought of as a possible garbled source for all of this, since they were the original "Mind-only" sect. But it occurs to me that what you're talking about really sounds more like an odd form of neo-Stoicism, only approached from the opposite direction. But most likely it's a case of some people trying to reinvent the wheel without caring much what people who've invented wheels before have had to say on the matter.

Not sure why you insist on superimposing New Age thinking over what I'm saying, but Universal Consciousness (The Absolute) is not something that is subject to fads or even evolution. It is a constant, changeless absolute out of which is manifested as what we see as constantly changing, this 'emergence' being pure illusion. IOW, there is no such thing as anything 'becoming'. Again, the why being another question entirely.

And so.....

'The Universe IS the Absolute, as seen through the glass of Time, Space, and Causation'
Vivekenanda

 

[Kenny]

Find one instance where the Jews performed one ritual human sacrifice. There's your reason to believe it -- there are no instances of ritual human sacrifice.

No, that's commentary -- not the actual textual content. Plus, Targum is hardly an exegetical authority on the Hebrew texts (primarily because it's restricted to the Aramaic translations). That's why you should disagree -- because it's not contained in the texts, themselves.

You are correct in both points. However, just as one man opened the door for Satan to create havoc, likewise it was one man who was needed to place things back in order. My point of Gen 3, the passover, Isaac, Isaiah 53 et al are my points of beliefs.

I'm not saying you have to believe it. However, the Jews of Jesus times did as did so many others.

 

[Kenny]

The gospels aren't witnesses.

I think they are with the exception of Luke who spoke to the eye-witnesses

 

[Kenny]

We don't even know that. The birth narratives are literary constructs whose details are chosen for specific reasons, but factuality isn't one of them

that is your theory. I just don't agree with it.

.

The visitation by the shepherds is part of Luke's kingship narrative, for example, in which he constructs scenes that are reminiscent of Hellenistic kingship and then subverts them in major ways to indicate that Jesus was a different sort of king than the earthly type. And that in turn is part of his thesis that viewing the Messiah as an earthly king figure is wrong and always was, so Jesus's early death shouldn't disqualify him from the position. And that is in fact the main point of his Gospel.

Luke remains in harmony with the other 3 and were taken from eye-witnesses. They also agree with the other three.

The same can be said of the idea that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, which enters the tradition as a way to tie him to David (again, suggests legitimate kingship, justifies the title "Son of God," goes with the competing but equally fictitious genealogies that make him a direct descendant of David through various lines). But otherwise there's no indication that Jesus was from anywhere other than Nazareth, including our earliest sources. Luke's explanation for it is patently absurd—there was no mandate that people return to their hometowns for a Roman census—and his audience would have known that, but he gets away with it in the name of artistic license.

I disagree on multiple points. But as far as the Roman census, it is historically consistent and the possibility is that it did happen:

"First of all, lets look at a few early census accounts taken from history and see how they match up with the Bible.
The following is a record of a census taken in the year 104 A.D. which contains similar wording to that found in the Gospel:
"From the Prefect of Egypt, Gaius Vibius Maximus. Being that the time has come for the house to house census, it is mandatory that all men who are living outside of their districts return to their own homelands, that the census may be carried out . . . "
Another census was uncovered from 48 A.D. which also records a return of the people to their native land for the census. It reads as follows:
"I Thermoutharion along with Apollonius, my guardian, pledge an oath to Tiberius Claudius Caesar that the preceding document gives an accurate account of those returning, who live in my household, and that there is no one else living with me, neither a foreigner, nor an Alexandrian, nor a freedman, nor a Roman citizen, nor an Egyptian. If I am telling the truth, may it be well with me, but if falsely, the reverse. In the ninth year of the reign of Tiberius Claudius Augustus Germanicus Emperor."
It is interesting to note that these two census accounts required a person to return to their homeland to be registered. The same is true of the Gospel account.
Two well-respected leaders from the early church, Justin and Tertullian, also believed that a record of the census, along with the registration of Joseph and Mary, could be found in official documents from the reign of Augustus Caesar...."

Quirinius and the Census at Jesus birth

I believe there is enough evidence, along with the fact that Ceasar had to make up for the wars fought for control of Rome, that a taxing method became imperative.

It's not my personal position; it's the position of mainstream Biblical scholarship. And the eyewitness analogy doesn't work because we have no eyewitnesses to Jesus's life. Paul is the earliest source we have, and he never met Jesus in a corporeal sense, although he claims to have come to know him in a mystical vision. And while Paul does claim to have met Peter and Jesus's brother James, it's also clear that they didn't exactly agree on the subject of the teachings.

You must be reading from mainstream LIBERAL scholars. Peter was an eye witness as were others (we have their epistles too)

I'm not saying we don't have any idea about Jesus's teachings, just that it behooves us to keep in mind that what we have has been filtered through an existing tradition, complete with a certain amount of interpretive work baked in. We don't have it directly from the horse's mouth, so to speak. The same is true of Socrates, for whose teachings we have to rely on his students Plato and Xenophon—who depict him in significantly different ways. And that's a closer relationship than any Biblical author had with Jesus.

I disagree. The letters currently found are within the first generation of eye-witnesses.

 

[Kenny]

Well, there's the problem that the Messiah concept evolved over time and there's no evidence that it existed at all when the texts that became Genesis were composed. Projecting later developments back onto Genesis is the favorite sport of a number of modern laymen, but it's problematic in a whole host of ways, which is why scholars are loath to do it.

As for Hebrews, all it really stands as evidence of is the novel ways in which 1st century Christians reinterpreted scriptures to suit their particular program. No Christian scripture serves as evidence of how ancient Jews understood them. The serpent in the garden is a prime example, as there's no evidence that ancient Jews saw it as symbolic of anything in particular or as anything other than a snake. Christians later rationalized it to accommodate their new mythology about Satan and read that view back into the text, to the point where many today don't even realize it's not actually there unless you put it there. Apparently some people are doing the same with Messiah concepts. Poor snake can't catch a break, I tell you.

We know that Jews can be from atheists to Orthodox Jews and everything in between. Since those who spoke of Jesus were all Jews, and we have the writing of what they believed, I can't subscribe to your position.

Although, I don't have a problem with you believing otherwise.

 

[Kenny]

I can't believe I missed this. Here is where you go off the rails. Genesis contains nothing that qualifies as history by any accepted definition of the word. You're taking one culture's creation myths as evidence of the actual origin of things, including that culture's being of greater antiquity? You might as well be fair and accept the creation myths of all other peoples. You'll find that they make exactly the same claims and that their cultures were also the first ones in existence. In other words, it's not evidence of anything whatsoever, except that Hebrew myths are not actually different from anybody else's.

I think we can agree to disagree. You certainly haven't given me any concrete evidence that it is a myth. Prophetically speaking, it was quite accurate for being a myth.

I happen to work with archaeologists. They would find your assertion amusing for a moment, then shake their fists in the air at the failure of modern education. In short, there is no archaeological evidence for monotheism. That's not how archaeology works at all. There is literary evidence for monotheism in the Exilic period and after, which is when much of the Hebrew Bible was composed and the earlier works redacted. Before that, not so much. We can't even say it for pre-Exilic Judaism, since the only accounts of that period are coming from a later time and are being made to fit with the ideology of that time. And what archaeology there is doesn't support the idea that the pre-Exilic Hebrews were monolatrous, as shrines and idols to other divinities have been found. And that shouldn't surprise us, as the prophets wouldn't have been pushing monolatry so hard if it weren't the case that people were behaving more or less like any other ancient Mediterranean person in that regard.

the fact that we have the Dead Sea Scrolls that say otherwise, I can't agree.

 

[Kenny]

That is not true.

Israelites evolved from Canaanites and used the previous Canaanite deities. Yahweh existed before Israelites did. So did El.

That wouldn't be true. Abraham left his fathers gods and followed YHWH.

 

[Kenny]

Because the Egyptians were writing about the present time period.

Israelites wrote pseudo history because they wrote a thousand years in the past, from a time period before they even existed. AND they were beat down so many times by other civilizations, that had no clue what their own origins even were anymore.

This is grade school history 101, not something someone going for a doctorate should be educated on. You cannot pick up a credible book today that does not describe the mythology in these early books YOU refuse credible education and knowledge on.

I didn't see any credible sources.

 

[outhouse]

You certainly haven't given me any concrete evidence that it is a myth.

There is no amount of evidence that would change your mind.


That is called fanaticism and fundamentalism.


If we ask you what 1 + 1 is, you will always say 37 no matter what reality dictates, and no matter how patiently we show you the real answer is 2.


If you keep refusing credible evidence, and tell us your a doctor, how can we believe you ?????????????

 

[outhouse]

I didn't see any credible sources.

You never will no matter how credible. YOU refuse facts, so there is no limit to what you will or will not accept.

 

[outhouse]

That wouldn't be true. Abraham left his fathers gods and followed YHWH.

Abraham factually has no historicity as ever existing. Dr Ken

Abraham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists had "given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible 'historical figures'

Dever, William G. (2002). What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and when Did They Know It?: What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-2126-3.

 

[outhouse]

Peter was an eye witness as were others (we have their epistles too)

No you don't.

His epistle is considered pseudepigrapha.

It was not written by him.

 

[Kenny]

Because the gods of the Canaanites WERE gods of the Israelites.

Not really.

1 Kings 18:21 Then Elijah stood in front of them and said, "How long are you going to waver between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow him! But if Baal is God, then follow him!" But the people were completely silent....
...36 At the customary time for offering the evening sacrifice, Elijah the prophet walked up to the altar and prayed, "O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, prove today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant. Prove that I have done all this at your command.
37 O LORD, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself."
38 Immediately the fire of the LORD flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the ditch!
39 And when the people saw it, they fell on their faces and cried out, "The LORD is God! The LORD is God!"
40 Then Elijah commanded, "Seize all the prophets of Baal. Don't let a single one escape!" So the people seized them all, and Elijah took them down to the Kishon Valley and killed them there.

No... it sounds like they were completely different.

 

[Kenny]

No you don't.

His epistle is considered pseudepigrapha.

It was not written by him.

You are wrong, of course, my dear learned friend.

 

[Kenny]

You never will no matter how credible. YOU refuse facts, so there is no limit to what you will or will not accept.

One will always wonder whose was credible and whose was not. Certainly we have PHD's on both sides of the question.

 

[Kenny]

Abraham factually has no historicity as ever existing. Dr Ken

Abraham - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By the beginning of the 21st century, archaeologists had "given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible 'historical figures'

Dever, William G. (2002). What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and when Did They Know It?: What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-2126-3.

I'm not sure that your presentation is even logical. There are those who believe they found Abraham's tomb. Since no monument was ever raised to honor him, nor was he a god that was worshipped, what evidence did you want? The fact that the lineage is written and we know that King David was in that lineage and there is a people called the Jews, is evidence enough.

 

[sojourner]

You are correct in both points. However, just as one man opened the door for Satan to create havoc, likewise it was one man who was needed to place things back in order. My point of Gen 3, the passover, Isaac, Isaiah 53 et al are my points of beliefs.

I'm not saying you have to believe it. However, the Jews of Jesus times did as did so many others.

But it wasn't blood sacrifice that fixed it.

 

[sojourner]

I think they are with the exception of Luke who spoke to the eye-witnesses

Unlikely, given what we know about the text. Luke probably didn't know any eyewitnesses.

 

[Kenny]

But it wasn't blood sacrifice that fixed it.

That is one position. According to the writers in what we call today, the New Testament, they would disagree. I would agree with their viewpoint.