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

[Skywalker]

That wasn't God. That was an ordinary human supposedly named Yeshua who was crucified and buried until Paul decided to dig him up and write about him.

You like that catchy metaphor, "dig him up"?

Scholars claim that the early Church literally stole Jesus from his original followers, hijacking his human message, shrouding it in an impenetrable cloak of divinity, and using it to expand their own power, said Dan Brown's character Teabing in the novel The Da Vinci Code. This is a common claim: Jesus was a good but ordinary man who taught wisdom to all who would listen. But after his death his legend grew and, over time, people began to view him as a god, or the Son of God, exalting him in ways he never intended. An interesting theory, but is it true? Consider:

Isaiah predicted the coming of the Messiah some seven hundred years before Jesus came. He described him as "Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). And Isaiah 7:14 predicted, "The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel," which means "God with us." Matthew 1:23 tells us this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus. In the Bible worship is reserved for God and God alone. Yet soon after Jesus' birth, the Magi worshiped him (Matthew 2:11). As an adult, Jesus received worship from his disciples after calming the storm (Matthew 14:32-33).

The religious leaders challenged Jesus concerning Sabbath rules. He defended himself saying, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working" (John 5:17). These leaders, understanding exactly what Jesus meant, were immediately offended and "tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God" (John 5:18).

When Jesus was on trial, the high priest asked him, "Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed one?' 'I am,' said Jesus. 'And you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven'" (Mark 14:61-62). This was an undeniable claim that he was the divine person prophesied in Daniel 7:13. That's why the priest immediately tore his clothes, and the chief priests and the Sanhedrin all "condemned him as worthy of death" (Mark 14:64).

When Thomas, who doubted Jesus' resurrection, realized Jesus had truly risen and was standing in front of him, he exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28). And what was Jesus' response? He blessed Thomas and everyone who would believe as he did.

 

[Skywalker]

Again, you are making stuff up about religions you know nothing about. Hinduism has the same type of connection to it's followers through the love of a demigod:

"Krishna’s mercy is more powerful than all the most powerful tidal waves. So yes, Krishna wants us to be happy. His love is our only qualification, His causeless love. He descends into this world again and again and again to give kindness to those who have offended Him unlimited times. Krishna does not need anything from us. He just wants a genuine and pure expression of love and surrender. Why does He want it? For our sake. That’s all. Because He wants us to be ananda, happy."

Jesus was a savior deity. In Judaism they came up with the concept of original sin and ideas that one cannot get into an afterlife with too much "sin-force". So Jesus gets you into a heaven by erasing sins. All saviors get you into an afterlife by some process. Jesus is the Jewish version of the myth.
It doesn't automatically become true just because there is a Jewish spin on the myths.

If you studied Hinduism that Krishna is associated with you would find there is actually even more emphasis on love between followers and gods. They are less concerned with non-believers going to eternal fire and families being split by belief.

Krishna did not come to save us and teach us how to live. Was Jesus’ Death & Resurrection Copied From Krishna? | Reasons for Jesus

By Mikel Del Rosario| What would you say if someone told you the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ death and resurrection were copied from earlier pagan stories? Over 100 years ago, a guy named Kersey Graves talked about Jesus and Krishna.

He said Jesus wasn’t unique among religious figures. Fans of his work were convinced the Hindu figure Krishna wasn’t just a dying and rising god but a crucified savior, too.

Maybe you haven’t heard this exact challenge about Jesus and Krishna before. But the idea that Jesus’ story was ripped off older pagan myths comes up over and over again in conversations about world religious literature.

I teach a World Religion course at William Jessup University and recently got a chance to collaborate on this topic with my friend Daniel Lee, who is currently studying Christian Apologetics under another friend from my Biola days, Dr. Sean McDowell.

In this post, we’ll show you how comparing the story of Krishna with the biblical accounts of Jesus show that Jesus’ death and resurrection wasn’t copied from Hinduism. First, we’ll compare the story of Jesus’ death to the story of Krishna’s death. Was Jesus’ death copied from Krishna? Then, we’ll compare the idea of resurrection in each of these stories. Was Krishna really a crucified savior?

Was Jesus’ death copied from Krishna?
Let’s compare Jesus and Krishna. In The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors, Graves wrote that Krishna was crucified between two thieves (p. 140). But no Hindu text says Krishna was crucified at all! Still, some wonder if there’s a parallel between the way Jesus and Krishna died. They’ve heard that long before Jesus’ death, there was an old Indian myth about the Hindu god Krishna being pierced and resurrected. Really?

It does sound curious when you put it that way. After all, Christians link Isaiah 53:5to Jesus’ death by crucifixion: “But he was pierced for our transgressions…with his wounds we are healed” (Compare this with 1 Peter 2:24). But here’s the thing: All things can seem similar if you ignore the differences!

Read for yourself what the Indian epic-poem called the Mahabharata (Book 16: Mausala Parva) says about Krishna. He wasn’t crucified. Instead, he got shot in a hunting accident!

“The hunter, mistaking [Krishna]…for a deer, pierced him at the heel with a shaft and quickly came to that spot for capturing his prey. Coming up, Jara [the hunter] beheld a man dressed in yellow robes, rapt in Yoga and endued with many arms. Regarding himself an offender, and filled with fear, he touched the feet of [Krishna, who] comforted him and then ascended upwards…When he reached Heaven [he] met the deities…”

Yes, Krishna was pierced. But he was pierced by an arrow when he got shot in the foot! Krishna wasn’t crucified. And he certainly wasn’t crucified between two thieves!

So was Jesus’ death by crucifixion copied from Krishna? Nope. Turns out, there’s no crucifixion in the Krishna story at all. We just don’t see a meaningful parallel between Jesus and Krishna in this regard. What about Graves’ idea that Krishna was a resurrected savior?

Was Jesus’ resurrection copied from Krishna?
We could be wrong about this, but it’s not clear that Krishna actually died when Jara shot him in the foot. If he didn’t really die, he couldn’t have been raised from the dead. But let’s give Graves the benefit of the doubt and say Krishna died when he got shot in the foot and somehow came back to life right after getting shot.

There’s still no meaningful parallel with Jesus’ resurrection. According to the earliest Christian sources, Jesus was buried and his tomb was discovered empty by his women followers three days later. Over a period of 40 days, he convinced individuals and groups that God raised him from the dead before ascending to heaven. This is totally different from the Krishna story.

But more importantly, Christians link Jesus’ death and resurrection with the possibility of forgiveness of sin and eternal life. In contrast, no Hindu text links the Krishna scene to the possibility of human beings attaining forgiveness of sins or attaining eternal life. In what sense, then, was Krishna a savior?

So was Jesus’ resurrection copied from Krishna? No. It’s not clear that Krishna was resurrected in the myth and no Hindus link Krishna’s hunting accident with forgiveness of sins or eternal life.

 

[whosetosay...]

What is fact is that the Persian religion had a prediction of a world savior who would be virgin born and come to save humanity. The oldest version of this belief is from 6BC. That is a messianic prophecy.
It is extremely likely this influences Judaism.


[1]"

Please check your prophet time lines from before the birth of Christ. Over 2,000 BC is the Messiah known.Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 estimated BC. As a Prophet he spoke about Christ.

Deuteronomy 18.
15 The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.


19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Isaiah spoke of Christ too. The time and age of each prophet would have to be estimated. But Christ was the Prophet like Moses.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

Please check your prophet time lines from before the birth of Christ. Over 2,000 BC is the Messiah known.Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 estimated BC. As a Prophet he spoke about Christ.

Deuteronomy 18.
15 The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.


19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Isaiah spoke of Christ too. The time and age of each prophet would have to be estimated. But Christ was the Prophet like Moses.

How do you know for certain this is about Jesus since no names are mentioned. It could be about Haggai or Zechariah or Obadiah for all we know.

 

[whosetosay...]

How do you know for certain this is about Jesus since no names are mentioned. It could be about Haggai or Zechariah or Obadiah for all we know.

Tell me what tribes they came from and what Covenant they all made with God after Moses and how they were given words everyone must obey. Today, how would you find the 12 tribes of Israel so as to select the Messiah today if not Christ? We see a clear pathway of God protecting the 12 tribes of Israel to continue his promise and hope till the coming of his Messiah.

 

[joelr]

Krishna did not come to save us and teach us how to live. Was Jesus’ Death & Resurrection Copied From Krishna? | Reasons for Jesus

I suggested you stop making claims about religions you clearly don't know about and your response is to make another claim about a religion you don't know about?
And at the same time strawman my position which you do almost every response. That means you fail to respond to the point and respond to some other point that I never made and isn't even correct?

Of course Krishna came to teach followers how to live? That's what every God does?????
https://metrosaga.com/5-rules-by-lo...-us-strength-to-live-in-this-lockdown-period/

I never said Krishna was a dying/rising savior god? No scholar says Krishna was a dying/rising savior god. Yet somehow here you are again with an article debunking something no one ever claimed? Do you even read posts or just write random replies?

 

[joelr]

Please check your prophet time lines from before the birth of Christ. Over 2,000 BC is the Messiah known.Moses corresponding to 1391–1271 estimated BC. As a Prophet he spoke about Christ.

Deuteronomy 18.
15 The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
18 I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.


19 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.

Isaiah spoke of Christ too. The time and age of each prophet would have to be estimated. But Christ was the Prophet like Moses.

"Most scholars believe that the Deuteronomic Code was composed during the late monarchic period, around the time of King Josiah (late 7th century BCE), although some scholars have argued for a later date, either during the Babylonian captivity (597–539 BCE) or during the Persian period (539–332 BCE)."


The bible is mythology and the dates cannot be confirmed. If we look at archeology we get the earliest possible dates of any mention of Israelites at 1200 BC.
The Deuteronical text was likely reworked during the Persian period.

Archeologist William Denver:
"
Evidence of the early Israelites
The Bible chronology puts Moses much later in time, around 1450 B.C.E. Is there archeological evidence for Moses and the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of Israelites described in the Bible?
We have no direct archeological evidence. "Moses" is an Egyptian name. Some of the other names in the narratives are Egyptian, and there are genuine Egyptian elements. But no one has found a text or an artifact in Egypt itself or even in the Sinai that has any direct connection. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. But I think it does mean what happened was rather more modest. And the biblical writers have enlarged the story.


Is there mention of the Israelites anywhere in ancient Egyptian records?
No Egyptian text mentions the Israelites except the famous inscription of Merneptah dated to about 1206 B.C.E. But those Israelites were in Canaan; they are not in Egypt, and nothing is said about them escaping from Egypt."

We also know the Israelites emerged from the Canaanite society which is left out of biblical text.

 

[joelr]

Even without the Bible people know that the devil is real. If there is good, there is evil. Even if Satan is not clearly described as the devil in the Old Testament, people know that evil exists. People who read the Bible over and over again will notice things that they didn't notice earlier.

And people know that Hela and hundreds of other demonic entities in each religion exists. Except they don't and there isn't any evidence for any of them.
It doesn't matter how you spin it. Heaven, God vs Satan, resurrection at the end of the world and souls belonging in the afterlife were not part of Israelite myths. Then they were occupied by a culture who did have those myths and over a few hundred years they showed up in scripture.

 

[joelr]

Truth and lies are always mixed. Regarding there being a world savior, everyone knows that only God saves.

Going on a rant about what your personal beliefs are doesn't make them real. Framing them as if "everyone knows" doesn't make them real. You are demonstrably wrong because many people know those are just ancient myths.

If I said that a doctor saved my life, that would be giving him credit that only God deserves. Everyone knows that if God came in human form, he would be born of a virgin.

No, people who are in a religion that finds sexuality somehow disgusting cannot allow normal sexual union to produce a deity. If you want to give credit to an imaginary deity then great, but the topic here is about providing evidence? Soapboxing your beliefs isn't evidence.

Good prevailing over evil makes sense because evil exists because of people's free will, and it isn't how things are meant to be. Since God doesn't create sinners, the world was initially good and we corrupted it. You don't need Zoroastrianism to know that God will eventually restore all things to how they are supposed to be.

All nonsense. You have offered no proof of any God? How are things "supposed to be"? What exactly is "evil"? Conflict and things being labeled as evil is not because of "sin". That is a lie told by a story. Do you imagine there was no possibility ever of a culture running out of food because of some climate change and watching their loved ones starve? So they invade another culture to get food for their children. To the group being invaded the others are evil. The Israelites had myths that claimed their God wanted them to destroy all living things in 6 cities if they invaded. So why can't other cultures also have the same laws about another 6 cities? Competition for food and stories about messages from Gods are just 2 reasons conflict was unlikely to be avoided in ancient times. The oversimplification these religious myths put on it is ridiculous.
Never mind sickness and natural disasters. So most cultures create stories about a time or place where none of this happens. Makes sense.
The emergence of monotheism in Judaism emerged in the 2nd temple period as a result of being invaded over and over. The religious leaders decided they were being punished for not following only Yahweh.
Anyway there is still no good evidence for any of this and plenty of evidence of how the stories came about.

That Zoroastrianism mentions salvation shows that we need a Savior, but it also teaches that we can save ourselves. That is contrary to what the Bible teaches. If someone commits a crime, no good deed can erase that fact. If that was the case, there would be no prisons. Zoroastrianism mentioning salvation shows that we all know that we are separated from God by sin and need a redeemer to reconcile use to God.

No it shows that those myths came from the Persians and Greeks. This is more evidence you are fooling yourself. Now you are taking elements of Zoroastrianism that align with your religion and claiming it shows your concepts are true. Meanwhile all the other ideas that do not match you ignore as misinformation? In fact this is the best proof yet. You claim we all know we need a savior yet the ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD didn't get the message??? Just the people directly in contact with savior cults are the ones who "knew we needed a savior"??? Nowhere in Asia or any other region did we find these myths. This is direct evidence that the concepts were not dictated by some God but were taken from stories written by men who were close enough to influence each other.



The fact that the Jewish Greek writers made changes doesn't mean it's any more true?
In fact in the Thomas gospel the writers even had Jesus teaching we can save ourselves. It just didn't make the cut.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

I suggested you stop making claims about religions you clearly don't know about and your response is to make another claim about a religion you don't know about?
And at the same time strawman my position which you do almost every response. That means you fail to respond to the point and respond to some other point that I never made and isn't even correct?

Of course Krishna came to teach followers how to live? That's what every God does?????
https://metrosaga.com/5-rules-by-lo...-us-strength-to-live-in-this-lockdown-period/

I never said Krishna was a dying/rising savior god? No scholar says Krishna was a dying/rising savior god. Yet somehow here you are again with an article debunking something no one ever claimed? Do you even read posts or just write random replies?

I think the point is that dying/rising gods is a universal concept and certainly it was present when Christian leaders were formulating their characteristics of Jesus depending on how they wanted him presented. Here's what Wiki says about Dionysus:

In Greek mythology, Dionysus, the son of Zeus, was a horned child who was torn to pieces by Titans who lured him with toys. However, Dionysus' grandmother Rhea managed to put some of his pieces back together (principally from his heart that was spared) and brought him back to life.

Dying-and-rising deity - Wikipedia

Bottom line, there isn't a single attribute of Jesus that cannot be traced back to a political motivation for why Jesus is presented the way he is. Died for our sins? Simple. The church wanted to be the mediator between Jesus granting the forgiveness to the sinner. Ever hear of the confessional booth? for the first 1500 years It was only the priests on up who had the power to forgive your sins. It wasn't until the Reformation in the 16th century that confessing ones sins directly to God and eliminating the RCC became popular, thus cutting legs out from underneath their power.

 

[Skywalker]

Going on a rant about what your personal beliefs are doesn't make them real. Framing them as if "everyone knows" doesn't make them real. You are demonstrably wrong because many people know those are just ancient myths.




No, people who are in a religion that finds sexuality somehow disgusting cannot allow normal sexual union to produce a deity. If you want to give credit to an imaginary deity then great, but the topic here is about providing evidence? Soapboxing your beliefs isn't evidence.





All nonsense. You have offered no proof of any God? How are things "supposed to be"? What exactly is "evil"? Conflict and things being labeled as evil is not because of "sin". That is a lie told by a story. Do you imagine there was no possibility ever of a culture running out of food because of some climate change and watching their loved ones starve? So they invade another culture to get food for their children. To the group being invaded the others are evil. The Israelites had myths that claimed their God wanted them to destroy all living things in 6 cities if they invaded. So why can't other cultures also have the same laws about another 6 cities? Competition for food and stories about messages from Gods are just 2 reasons conflict was unlikely to be avoided in ancient times. The oversimplification these religious myths put on it is ridiculous.
Never mind sickness and natural disasters. So most cultures create stories about a time or place where none of this happens. Makes sense.
The emergence of monotheism in Judaism emerged in the 2nd temple period as a result of being invaded over and over. The religious leaders decided they were being punished for not following only Yahweh.
Anyway there is still no good evidence for any of this and plenty of evidence of how the stories came about.





No it shows that those myths came from the Persians and Greeks. This is more evidence you are fooling yourself. Now you are taking elements of Zoroastrianism that align with your religion and claiming it shows your concepts are true. Meanwhile all the other ideas that do not match you ignore as misinformation? In fact this is the best proof yet. You claim we all know we need a savior yet the ENTIRE REST OF THE WORLD didn't get the message??? Just the people directly in contact with savior cults are the ones who "knew we needed a savior"??? Nowhere in Asia or any other region did we find these myths. This is direct evidence that the concepts were not dictated by some God but were taken from stories written by men who were close enough to influence each other.



The fact that the Jewish Greek writers made changes doesn't mean it's any more true?
In fact in the Thomas gospel the writers even had Jesus teaching we can save ourselves. It just didn't make the cut.

Everyone knows there is a God. We don't see God, but we see his creation all around us. The heavens declare the glory of God. We were created to know God and we became separated from God through sin entering the world. Sin is behavior that goes against respecting oneself and others.

The Caananites were driven out of the land, not wiped out. It was a judgement on their nations so they wouldn't lead Israel astray into sin. It was in the context of the coming of the Savior. The “Slaughter” of the Canaanites Re-visited | Reasonable Faith

I find it ironic that atheists should often express such indignation at God’s commands, since on naturalism there’s no basis for thinking that objective moral values and duties exist at all and so no basis for regarding the Canaanite slaughter as wrong. As Doug Wilson has aptly said of the Canaanite slaughter from a naturalistic point of view, “The universe doesn’t care.” So at most the non-theist can be alleging that biblical theists have a sort of inconsistency in affirming both the goodness of God and the historicity of the conquest of Canaan. It’s an internal problem for biblical theists, which is hardly grounds for moral outrage on the part of non-theists. If there is an inconsistency on our part, then we’ll just have to give up the historicity of the narratives, taking them as either legends or else misinterpretations by Israel of God’s will. The existence of God and the soundness of the moral argument for His existence don’t even come into play.

The topic of God’s command to destroy the Canaanites was the subject of a very interesting exchange at the Evangelical Philosophical Society session last November at the Society of Biblical Literature Convention in Atlanta. Matt Flannagan defended the view put forward by Paul Copan in his Is God a Moral Monster? that such commands represent hyperbole typical of Ancient Near Eastern accounts of military conquests. Obviously, if Paul is right about this, then the whole problem just evaporates. But this answer doesn’t seem to me to do justice to the biblical text, which seems to say that if the Israeli soldiers were to encounter Canaanite women and children, they should kill them (cf. Samuel’s rebuke of Saul in I Sam. 15.10-16).

Old Testament scholar Richard Hess took a different line in his paper: he construes the commands literally but thinks that no women and children were actually killed. All the battles were with military outposts and soldiers, where women and children would not have been present. It is, in fact, a striking feature of these narratives that there is no record whatsoever that women or children were actually killed by anyone. Still, even if Hess is right, the ethical question remains of how God could command such things, even if the commands weren’t actually carried out. Whether anyone was actually killed is irrelevant to the ethical question, as the story of Abraham and Isaac illustrates.

So even if Copan is right, I’m still willing to bite the bullet and tackle the tougher question of how an all-good, all-loving God could issue such horrendous commands. My argument in Question of the Week #16 is that God has the moral right to issue such commands and that He wronged no one in doing so. I want to challenge those who decry my answer to explain whom God wronged and why we should think so. As I explained, the most plausible candidate is, ironically, the soldiers themselves, but I think that morally sufficient reasons can be provided for giving them so gruesome a task.

There is one important aspect of my answer that I would change, however. I have come to appreciate as a result of a closer reading of the biblical text that God’s command to Israel was not primarily to exterminate the Canaanites but to drive them out of the land. It was the land that was (and remains today!) paramount in the minds of these Ancient Near Eastern peoples. The Canaanite tribal kingdoms which occupied the land were to be destroyed as nation states, not as individuals. The judgment of God upon these tribal groups, which had become so incredibly debauched by that time, is that they were being divested of their land. Canaan was being given over to Israel, whom God had now brought out of Egypt. If the Canaanite tribes, seeing the armies of Israel, had simply chosen to flee, no one would have been killed at all. There was no command to pursue and hunt down the Canaanite peoples.

 

[joelr]

I think the point is that dying/rising gods is a universal concept and certainly it was present when Christian leaders were formulating their characteristics of Jesus depending on how they wanted him presented. Here's what Wiki says about Dionysus:

In Greek mythology, Dionysus, the son of Zeus, was a horned child who was torn to pieces by Titans who lured him with toys. However, Dionysus' grandmother Rhea managed to put some of his pieces back together (principally from his heart that was spared) and brought him back to life.

Dying-and-rising deity - Wikipedia

Bottom line, there isn't a single attribute of Jesus that cannot be traced back to a political motivation for why Jesus is presented the way he is. Died for our sins? Simple. The church wanted to be the mediator between Jesus granting the forgiveness to the sinner. Ever hear of the confessional booth? for the first 1500 years It was only the priests on up who had the power to forgive your sins. It wasn't until the Reformation in the 16th century that confessing ones sins directly to God and eliminating the RCC became popular, thus cutting legs out from underneath their power.

Yes the gospel authors were definitely trained in writing myth and were familiar with savior gods and similar stories. Christianity is the Jewish version of a savior religion.

 

[joelr]

Everyone knows there is a God. We don't see God, but we see his creation all around us. The heavens declare the glory of God. We were created to know God and we became separated from God through sin entering the world. Sin is behavior that goes against respecting oneself and others.

The statement everyone believes in God isn't true and even if it were they don't agree on what God is. Next you're just going ahead and doing more preaching of your doctrine. I could read from Lord of the Rings, doesn't make it true.
Explaining what ancient people believed about sin is pointless?
Focus. The thread is evidence....?

The Caananites were driven out of the land, not wiped out. It was a judgement on their nations so they wouldn't lead Israel astray into sin. It was in the context of the coming of the Savior. The “Slaughter” of the Canaanites Re-visited | Reasonable Faith

Sorry, again your book had lied to you. Scholars do not consider the accounts of Joshua to be anything but myth.
Archeologists now know the Israelites came from the Canaanites and there was no armed conflict. Exodus is a national foundation myth rather than a literal event.


"
The origins of Israel
What have archeologists learned from these settlements about the early Israelites? Are there signs that the Israelites came in conquest, taking over the land from Canaanites?
The settlements were founded not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite towns but rather on bedrock or on virgin soil. There was no evidence of armed conflict in most of these sites. Archeologists also have discovered that most of the large Canaanite towns that were supposedly destroyed by invading Israelites were either not destroyed at all or destroyed by "Sea People"—Philistines, or others.

So gradually the old conquest model [based on the accounts of Joshua's conquests in the Bible] began to lose favor amongst scholars. Many scholars now think that most of the early Israelites were originally Canaanites, displaced Canaanites, displaced from the lowlands, from the river valleys, displaced geographically and then displaced ideologically.

So what we are dealing with is a movement of peoples but not an invasion of an armed corps from the outside. A social and economic revolution, if you will, rather than a military revolution. And it begins a slow process in which the Israelites distinguish themselves from their Canaanite ancestors, particularly in religion—with a new deity, new religious laws and customs, new ethnic markers, as we would call them today."

 

[Skywalker]

Yes the gospel authors were definitely trained in writing myth and were familiar with savior gods and similar stories. Christianity is the Jewish version of a savior religion.

Replacement theology is a myth. God has only had one people-those who live by faith.

 

[SeekingAllTruth]

Replacement theology is a myth. God has only had one people-those who live by faith.

"The just shall live by faith" Why? Because we don't have any evidence for it, silly!

 

[Skywalker]

"The just shall live by faith" Why? Because we don't have any evidence for it, silly!

We don't see God but we see His creation.

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (Psalms 19:1).

 

[joelr]

Replacement theology is a myth.

Again, stating beliefs doesn't make them real. Stating beliefs in a thread about evidence meanas you have no evidence.

We have seen many several lines of evidence that scripture is no different than all other mythology. Even more specific is we know Christianity is the Judaized version of the popular savior religion which started as a Hellenistic concept.
Judaism didn't even have an afterlife or souls until they encountered the concepts from other cultures (who just happened to be invading Israel???) then suddenly they know all about souls and that they definitely belong in heaven?
No chance. It's mythology.

But feel free to present evidence. Or amateur articles by apologists with no training in the history they write about.

God has only had one people-those who live by faith.

That isn't true at all. The people in the Bible were witness to Gods in the sky literally speaking to them and appearing as fire and smoke. As well as seeing Yahweh fight sea monsters and all sorts of sky-father activity.
Then the early Christian stories tell of people who witnessed all sorts of supernatural events.
So faith wasn't a thing to any of those people. Faith became a thing later when it became obvious there were no Gods to demonstrate their powers so they feed you ridiculous lines about having to have faith. That just means they have no evidence.
Every religion claims you have to have faith but this does not mean the stories are true.


"According to the Bhagavad Gita, faith is all about having complete trust in God and his will. ... It was the win of good over evil, dharma over adharma, and it was possible through complete faith and trust in the God. Arjuna, along with other Pandavas, had complete faith in Lord Krishna."

 

[joelr]

We don't see God but we see His creation.

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. (Psalms 19:1).

All stories of Gods say things like that. Yet they are still just stories.


The Supreme Lord said:
"Of all creations I am the beginning and the end and also the middle, O Arjuna. Of all sciences I am the spiritual science of the Self, and among logicians I am the conclusive truth."
"I am the Self, O Gudakesa, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle and the end of all beings."
Know that all beautiful, glorious, and mighty creations spring from but a spark of My splendor.

 

[Skywalker]

All stories of Gods say things like that. Yet they are still just stories.


The Supreme Lord said:
"Of all creations I am the beginning and the end and also the middle, O Arjuna. Of all sciences I am the spiritual science of the Self, and among logicians I am the conclusive truth."
"I am the Self, O Gudakesa, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle and the end of all beings."
Know that all beautiful, glorious, and mighty creations spring from but a spark of My splendor.

When you look at the sky, don't you wonder, who made this? The creation declares the glory of God. People who don't believe in the Bible saying the same thing doesn't put the Bible on the same level as those books. I think that probably most of these legends and beliefs come from the fact that everyone had a common beginning and at one time everyone knew God. These accounts were passed down and developed (and became corrupted in some ways) into the stories and traditions that these cultures have today. I think it is just the nature of man to forget and fall away from the truth. I do think the messianic expectation was there from the very beginning ever since the fall, because I think they realized, perhaps more than most people think, that they needed a redeemer in order to be restored to the fellowship and oneness with God that was experienced in Eden. So I don't think it's surprising that that concept was there, people just took it and it became changed into various forms as the cultures developed, and even though they may have held onto the idea, the addition of other gods or pagan practices corrupted it, so that's I think why the gospel was needed, to bring people back to seeking God.

Native american christian pow wows?

Ecclesiastes 3:11

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" Romans 1:20

In addition to these two scriptures think about this concept; all people on this Earth descend from Noah and his wife and kids, we also all descend from Adam and Eve further back. NOah, Adam, and Eve are all recorded to have a personal relationship with God and it only makes sense that they passed on knowledge of God to their offsprings who passed it to their offspring, etc. Over time, almost any story spread by word of mouth will change at least a little. and when there is a real enemy with his dark warriors constantly spreading lies about God on the Earth, there are bound to be people who end up changing stories of God. Even in native culture you can find stories of the creation and the flood that are similar to Biblical accounts but have been corrupted. With an understanding of God's love and the fact that He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9b) and think it only makes sense that He would give the Native AMerican people and all people a chance to know Him even if the Bible and the gospel message have not yet been brought to them.

Let me tell you just a couple examples from Native cultures to help further answer this. I know a Lakota Sioux man who has told me that in his people's language there was a concept of the Creator being triune before any European got here. THey had a word for the Creator being Father, Son, and Spirit three in one before the Bible was ever brought to them. they also understood that the Son had come to Earth to be a sacrifice for the people and was killed on a tree by the people of a strange shaped star (The star of David/Jewish people). I also have Apache friends who tell me that their language also already had a name for each member of the Trinity before the Bible was brought here.

One of the greatest examples comes from the Aztec people. see there was a time when the Aztec people were a small nomadic tribe wandering the Sonoran Desert. At this time they served only one God named Cenhuelitini (All-Powerful One). All-Powerful One told them of a certain tree that they were not to cut down. One day, somebody cut down this tree and they were made to wander away from the Sonoran Desert that they called Aztlan. THey were given a vision of an Eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its mouth. THey were to wander until they found this vision and then tell the people in that area of Him. For two hundred years they wandered as a people and none of the original wanderers still lived. THey found the vision, settled, and grew into a strong empire; but their hearts forgot All-Powerful One's condition that they tell their new neighbors of Him. So instead they took on the false gods of the Mayan, Zapotec, Chichimec, and other nearby tribes.

there is a book called "Eternity in Their HEarts" by Don Richardson. He goes through many different people groups historically and today who have Biblical concepts of God in their belief system without ever reading a Bible or speaking with a Christian. The book includes several Native American tribes. I would recommend this book if you still are wondering about Natives or any tribal peoples and their historic relationship with the God of the Bible.

 

[Skywalker]

Again, stating beliefs doesn't make them real. Stating beliefs in a thread about evidence meanas you have no evidence.

We have seen many several lines of evidence that scripture is no different than all other mythology. Even more specific is we know Christianity is the Judaized version of the popular savior religion which started as a Hellenistic concept.
Judaism didn't even have an afterlife or souls until they encountered the concepts from other cultures (who just happened to be invading Israel???) then suddenly they know all about souls and that they definitely belong in heaven?
No chance. It's mythology.

But feel free to present evidence. Or amateur articles by apologists with no training in the history they write about.



That isn't true at all. The people in the Bible were witness to Gods in the sky literally speaking to them and appearing as fire and smoke. As well as seeing Yahweh fight sea monsters and all sorts of sky-father activity.
Then the early Christian stories tell of people who witnessed all sorts of supernatural events.
So faith wasn't a thing to any of those people. Faith became a thing later when it became obvious there were no Gods to demonstrate their powers so they feed you ridiculous lines about having to have faith. That just means they have no evidence.
Every religion claims you have to have faith but this does not mean the stories are true.


"According to the Bhagavad Gita, faith is all about having complete trust in God and his will. ... It was the win of good over evil, dharma over adharma, and it was possible through complete faith and trust in the God. Arjuna, along with other Pandavas, had complete faith in Lord Krishna."

66 books by 40 different authors (kings, doctors, priests, fishermen, tax collectors, farmers, shepherds & more...), written in 3 different languages, on 3 different continents, over a period of 1,500 years. (Most of the authors never met each other). Yet one constant theme, and mathematically cohesive. God did it this way to prove it's integrated message system is from outside our time domain. Then in 1947 all but one of the scrolls of the Old Testament was found in a cave in Israel dating to 100BC to prove to a 'scientific' and doubting generation that the text has remain unchanged. Evidence that demands a verdict by every person who has heard of it.

Psalm 23:6 mentions the afterlife in the Old Testament and it was written before the Persian invasion. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever."