Why Didn't God Leave Huge Quantities of Secular Evidence For Jesus?

[sojourner]

God is against sin because it separates his creation from Him and it causes confusion.

Again: not germane.

 

[Skywalker]

Evil Animals in the Zoroastrian Religion on JSTOR

this book speaks on exorcisms from the Persian religion. Hmm, looks like they did copy


Why can you not understand they didn't borrow every single aspect of Jesus from the Persians?
They used OT stories of exorcism, they used all sorts of sources, there were many Jewish religious text not in the OT?
What was borrowed was already discussed. The authors filled in the rest. Why do you think they have to copy every single thing?

Dc and Marvel copy each other like crazy but they also make changes so each character is a bit unique.

Zoraster did things similar to exorcisms but not actual exorcisms. Jesus Vs Zoroaster – Debunking The Alleged Parallels | Reasons for Jesus

11. He cast out demons and restored the sight to a blind man. “Cast out” is a little vague for a description here — Zoro apparently didn’t like demons, but I find no record saying he cast them out of people as Jesus did: This was one of several abilities Zoro had, including driving out pestilence, witches, and sorcerers.

 

[Skywalker]

Your point?

We were talking about orality in relation to accurate sources.

 

[Skywalker]

This list covers all mythology. Clearly that the gospel writers who used these traits they were writing just another myth. All of them are saviors in some sense. All myth.

I meant that the existence of those traits could be a coincidence. The people who wrote mythology stories intending to have savior traits in them doesn't mean that there isn't a real savior.

 

[sojourner]

We were talking about orality in relation to accurate sources.

And you’ll remember I said that picayune factual accuracies were unimportant to the ancients — sources or otherwise. Why is it so important to you?

 

[Skywalker]

And you’ll remember I said that picayune factual accuracies were unimportant to the ancients — sources or otherwise. Why is it so important to you?

Oral tradition was important to be ancients. Notebooks that were too detailed weren't considered accurate to them. Why Oral Tradition Was Reliable In The Writing Of The Gospels | Reasons for Jesus

Why we don’t value oral tradition anymore
Why has this aspect been neglected? It is rather hard for us, in our day of computers that save data and yellow post-it notes pasted everywhere to remind us to do difficult-to-remember things, to imagine the capacity of the oriental memory. Many studies show that modern adults only use listening skills sparingly, with as little as 25% accuracy.

In my own experience, I have memorized nothing longer than a Shakespearian sonnet and doubt if I could do better, although personally, I do much better recalling things that are set to music.

Lentz, commenting on similar lack of regard for oral transmission in classical studies, laments [Lent.OLHG, 2]:

“Western academic measurement of success by literary and printed research colored the expectation of classical scholars as they considered writing in ancient culture. Writing was so important to their world that they assumed it was the key to the growth of ancient culture.”

And Samuel Byrskog in Story as History [116] comments:

“Writing was usually seen as supplementary to the oral discourse. Orators should avoid note-books that were too detailed. One is reminded of Quintillian’s criticism of Laenas’ dependence on such notes and his clear-cut advice: “For my own part, however, I think we should not write anything which we do not intend to commit to memory.” Writing was not avoided, as such, but functioned mainly as a memorandum of what the person already should remember from oral communication — not the other way around!”

 

[rational experiences]

Stories written after the fact

Fact human machine design caused vacuum to change.

Science studied earth moved away from other galaxies by data.

Vacuum effect.

Days sun reaction big bang blast changed cold clear gas in the vacuum.

Set it alight.

Design pi he says burning gases shifting moving awAy from set cold clear gas.

Burns mineral to get machine built. Design his machine owns no reaction.

Machine with no reaction he thinks as a God equal

Then he destroys

Said if a sun burnt coldest gas a sun has to be removed by the equating.

The reacting body.

Why Orion sun and Sirius is inferred in reference to detail what science caused to earth universe by reacting pyramid.

Nose point Sus.

Sacrificed our life.

What the story detailed. As you don't own natural history.

You can talk about it but don't own it.

Science blamed God natural for life attack.

Science however changed God.

 

[Skywalker]

Jesus is far lower. He preaches eternal hellfire, families splitting apart and hates non-believers. Zero religious freedom. Bad role model. Always pissed about non-belief.

Scholarship knows the Septuigant was written using the Greek OT. No man actually spoke all those words and people remembered them. It was written down as part of a fictional narrative and copied from the Greek OT.
All of that wisdom is actually in the OT.

Jesus was talking about how belief in the gospel can divide people and how following Jesus isn't without cost. Jesus never forced anyone to believe. Religious freedom is not against Christianity. Jesus got angry at the money chargers at the temple, not at unbelievers. How was Jesus a bad role model? He taught love your enemies.

Hell is not fire. Hell is eternal separation from God. How can a loving God send people to hell?

Hell is not a torture chamber. Hell honors God's creation. And third, hell honors God. Hell honors God's love , because it gives a person what they want, a place to go where God is not. Hell honors God's justice, because it gives a person what they deserve. One of God's good attributes is his justice. God is perfectly fair. If he wasn't, then he wouldn't be loving.

Timothy McVeigh, who has admitted to killing 168 people in the Oklahoma bombing tragedy, needs to be punished. Justice demands it. And tomorrow he'll die. But we wouldn't think too much of a judge who would let him off the hook. And say, "That's okay, boys will be boys." That wouldn't be fair to those who were killed. And it wouldn't be loving to their families who will grieve the rest of their lives. To be a loving God, God must also be just. And hell is an expression of both God's love and God's justice.

 

[Skywalker]

Had the apologetics lier read Mary Boyce's book he would be clear.

The differences do not matter. Jesus is a Judaized version with Jewish differences. All religious syncretism shows differences like this. But the similarities - world savior, born virgin, defeats death, world ends, members get resurrected in new body, world ends in fire. This all happens when the savior shows up.
Heaven and Hell?? There was no heaven even before the Perisian period? Face it. Christianity is Jewish and Persian myths combined.

Heaven doesn't have the same meaning in Zoroastrianism that it does in Christianity. Jesus Vs Zoroaster – Debunking The Alleged Parallels | Reasons for Jesus

5. He taught about heaven and hell, and revealed mysteries, including resurrection, judgment, salvation and the apocalypse. As this goes, it is true, but not all of these terms have the same meaning in Zoroastrianism that they do in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Only “resurrection” is a good match here — Zoroaster’s faith taught that after judgment, the “dead will rise up” and men will become “not-aging, not-dying, not-decaying, not-rotting” [Herz.ZW, 299]. It’s resurrection, it sounds like, though described by negatives.In terms of the other stuff, there aren’t a lot of similarities [Wat.Z, 95, 96, 98, 102].Salvation was by works alone; there was “practically no place for repentance or pardon:” and “no doctrine of atonement.”

 

[Skywalker]

CC Lewis forgot to mention he was probably neither. Everything written about him was a fictionalized mythical narrative taken from Homer, the OT and other fiction.

Jesus is very different from pagan gods. Quetzalcoatl was not born of a virgin. and white or light skin is different from white robes. Jesus Vs Quetzacoatl – Debunking The Alleged Parallels | Reasons for Jesus

1. Were born of virgins.I and a research associate find no verification at all for this. The account of Quetz’s birth that we find is that a goddess named Coatlicue saw one evening a feather of many colors flying down from the sky. She picked it up to keep; later it disappeared and she became very upset. Soon she realized that she was pregnant. Coatlicue gave birth to the sun (and war) god, Huitzilopoachitli.
   This is as much “virginal” as Zeus leaving his seed in a pomegranate a woman puts in her lap. (See on this pp. 492-497 of World Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics by Donna Rosenberg.) Carrasco reports a pre-Columbian story of Quetz being born from a stone knife, followed by 16 of his guises and powers. Florescano [39] reports a story of Quetz being engendered when his mother swallowed a green stone.
   
   
2. Are described as wearing white or a white robe; Q is described as a white, bearded man.Rosenberg says: “Quetzalcoatl was a large man. He often wore a conical cap made from the skin of the jaguar and a cloak made from the feathers of the quetzal bird. He wore a chain of seashells around his neck and a chain of rattles around his ankles. His voice was so strong that it could be heard for thirty miles.” A quetzal is of course a very colorful bird, a rare, green-feathered bird found in the land of the Maya, particularly in Guatemala. Quetz wore the feathers of the queztal bird which are green, not white.
   Quetz, however, did have white or light skin in one scenario; that is one reason why the Aztecs believed that Cortez was Quetz. But according to Diaz and Rodgers, the “white Quetzalcoatl” also had red dots! Moreover, it appears that these Aztec gods were often color-coordinated. Diaz and Rodgers also report a “Black Tezcatlipoca,” a “Red Tezcatlipoca,” and a “blue Xochipilli.” [xxv] A Mesoamerican specialist has advised us that these colors are a sort of “yin yang” thing with four colors.

 

[Skywalker]

If Jesus was an actual man it doesn't matter what he did in life. When Mark wrote his gospel he didn't use Jesus' life as a guide he used the prophecies to construct a fiction.
His sources are believed to be:

"Mark is a counter-narrative to the myth of Imperial rule crafted by Vespasian.[73] In 1901 William Wrede demonstrated that Mark was not a simple historical account of the life of Jesus but a work of theology compiled by an author who was a creative artist.[74] There has been little interest in his sources until recently, but candidates include the Elijah-Elisha narrative in the Book of Kings and the Pauline letters, notably 1 Corinthians, and even Homer.[75]

Jesus was written in part to be an updated Moses. The stories were 2000 years old and needed to be updated for a modern audience.

Mark used the teachings of Jesus as a guide. The Sermon on the Mount says to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. What evidence is there that Mark wrote the life of Jesus to fulfill Tanakh prophecies?

The terms theology and creative do not address the historical merits of what he said. What evidence in there is the text that Imperial rule or Elijah in the Old Testament, the Book of Kings, Pauline letters, or Homer inspired Mark? Deuteronomy 18:15 says "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet likeme from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen" but that doesn't mean that Jesus was meant to be a copycat of Moses.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Jesus is very different from pagan gods. Quetzalcoatl was not born of a virgin. and white or light skin is different from white robes. Jesus Vs Quetzacoatl – Debunking The Alleged Parallels | Reasons for Jesus

This is not the best of arguments to use since it is rather clear that Jesus was not born of a virgin either.

 

[Skywalker]

I don't think anyone is reading those crank JP Holding articles at this point.
The gospels are not considered historically reliable among scholars. Even Christian scholars constantly debate them.
And the fact that they all just copy Mark has become fact. They won't announce it in church but the facts remain for those who want to know truth.

"It is commonly thought that the writers of the Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke used Mark as a source, with changes and improvement to peculiarities and crudities in Mark.["

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Bible

Jp Holding does not care about scholarship, he does not care about evidence he just wants to make his religion true using confirmation bias and half-truths or lies. That site is for people who do not want to challenge their beliefs and have ways to be re-assured their fantasy beliefs are true.
On a debate forum that fluff doesn't stand up.

The four gospels are considered reliable, but the gnostic gospels aren't. Why The Gnostic Gospels Aren’t Reliable Sources | Reasons for Jesus

Late Date and Legendary Embellishment

Perhaps the strongest reason to adopt a perspective of caution is that we are unfortunately not dealing with early sources when it comes to the Gnostic texts. Most of these texts were composed between the second and fourth centuries CE, roughly one to two hundred years and more post the death of Christ. A gap this length is not uncommon for historical figures, especially ancient founders of religions, and it allows much time for legend to develop and for embellishment to rework the original narratives.

As some theologians have observed, clear signs of embellishment can be seen in the exaggerated events narrated by the Gnostic texts, which is an exaggeration largely absent from the original canonical gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. The argument is that the canonical gospels on the surface read much more like one would expect of accounts retelling actual history whereas the Gnostic texts do not.

For example, one might compare the Gnostic Gospel of Peter’s narration of Christ’s so-called triumphal exit from the burial tomb when God raised him from the dead to the version in the New Testament Gospel of John. In Peter, Christ exits the tomb accompanied by angels, followed by a talking cross, heralded by a voice from heaven, and this is all witnessed by a Roman guard, the Jewish leaders, and a multitude of spectators

 

[Subduction Zone]

The four gospels are considered reliable, but the gnostic gospels aren't. Why The Gnostic Gospels Aren’t Reliable Sources | Reasons for Jesus

Not really. Most of the world would disagree with you on this claim. You are making a logical error. Just because the gnostic gospels may be untrustworthy does not mean that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are trustworthy.

 

[Skywalker]

As I have shown Edon is no longer "smoking forever" and there are 12 cities along rt 95.
It did not happen.

The thing about messianic prophecies is the NT writers likely wrote the fiction as if a prophecy in older fiction came true. So you cannot say "wow look, here is proof". The gospels are considered fictional stories by historians and secular people believe this as well. The are simply not history any more than stories of Krishna are history.

What evidence is there that they wrote the Old Testament to fit those prophecies? Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey doesn't have a lot of contrasting evidence.

 

[Subduction Zone]

What evidence is there that they wrote the Old Testament to fit those prophecies? Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey doesn't have a lot of contrasting evidence.

You have it backwards. They did not write the Old Testament to fit the stories. The stories in the New Testament were written to match the Old Testament. Did Jesus ride into town on a donkey" Or two donkeys depending on which gospel you go with. There are claims in the New Testament that appear to have never occurred, such as Luke's version of the Nativity.

 

[Skywalker]

I have zero idea why youy are bringing up Jesus and his parents?
My quote was from a NT scholars explaining that scholars in hhis field are not interested in the gospel Jesus, that is a work of fiction. They are trying to establish if a man named Jesus was really teaching around that tie.
The gospel stories are wildly fictionalized accounts of what happened and not supported by outside sources in any way. It is religious fiction.

You quoted Wikipedia's quote of. ""There is widespread disagreement among scholars on the historicity of specific episodes described in the biblical accounts of Jesus,[ the details of the life of Jesus mentioned in the gospel narratives." Historicity of Jesus - Wikipedia

6. The Day Jesus Went AWOL (Luke 2:39-52) | Bible.org

Jesus was not discovered to be missing immediately. This was probably for several reasons. First, Jesus was an absolutely trustworthy and reliable child. As the Son of God, He was without sin, and thus His parents did not have the same concerns other parents might have. Also, the men and the women may have traveled in groupings which were separate. We are told that the women and children were often in front, with the men at the rear. Each of the parents might therefore have assumed that Jesus was with the other parent. Eventually, Jesus’ absence was noted, and after searching among those in the caravan and finding Him missing entirely, Mary and Joseph went back to Jerusalem, which may have been a day’s travel.

Third, I believe that Jesus remained on in Jerusalem because He would not have been given permission to stay there. Think about it for a moment. What do you think Mary and Joseph would have said in response to this request: “Can I stay on in Jerusalem for a few days to discuss the Old Testament and theology with the leading teachers of Israel?” More than now, children were to be seen and not heard. I can’t imagine our Lord’s earthly parents giving Him permission to do what He needed to do. Thus, He did not ask them.

Finally, and most importantly, Jesus did not ask permission to stay on in Jerusalem because He was God. On one level, the level from which Mary and Joseph saw it, Jesus was but a young boy, a boy incapable of making such critical decisions, a boy who was not old enough to stay by Himself in Jerusalem, a boy who was too young to be discussing the Scriptures with the finest teachers in Israel. But while He was a human being, a 12 year-old boy, He was also God incarnate, just as the angel had said to Mary and Joseph years before (Matt. 1:20-25; Luke 1:32, 35). On the divine level, God did not need to have man’s permission to act any way He saw fit, nor was it required of God to explain His actions to man. Indeed, God is even free to do those things which cause men pain and consternation. It is only the fact that Jesus was fully God (as well as fully man) that explains how He could act as He did and not be wrong for so doing. If it were any other child, we would have sided with the parents, but since the child is the Son of God, we quickly acknowledge that He was right. Jesus, unlike any other 12 year-old in history, was God.

 

[Skywalker]

Did Jesus ride into town on a donkey" Or two donkeys depending on which gospel you go with. There are claims in the New Testament that appear to have never occurred, such as Luke's version of the Nativity.

The amount of donkeys is a minor detail. It wasn't a major life event.

 

[Skywalker]

This is not the best of arguments to use since it is rather clear that Jesus was not born of a virgin either.

The New Testament says that Jesus was born of a virgin. Virgin birth of Jesus - Wikipedia

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke agree that Mary's husband was named Joseph, that he was of the Davidic line, and that he played no role in Jesus's divine conception, but beyond this they are very different.[6][7] Matthew underlines the virginity of Mary by references to the Book of Isaiah (using the Greek translation in the Septuagint, rather than the mostly Hebrew Masoretic Text) and by his narrative statement that Joseph had no sexual relations with her until after the birth (a choice of words which leaves open the possibility that they did have relations after that).[8]

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,"
which means, "God is with us." 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

— Matthew 1:18-25

 

[Subduction Zone]

The amount of donkeys is a minor detail. It wasn't a major life event.

Sorry, I rewrote that post. I left off a very important part. Please reread.