Archaeology of the New Testament

[Cypress]

You believe it's just a story. Many Christians/Jews believe it's a historical event. Why is that story just a story, but Jesus coming back from the dead is a historical event?

This is basically freshman level literary analysis...
The accounts of Jesus are authored in the mid to late first century by eyewitnesses or people who knew the eyewitnesses. Jesus is a historical person, as confirmed by multiple independent sources from Christian, Roman, Jewish, Greek, Gnostic, and Syrian authors.

The Torah is stories compiled by scribes a thousand years after the events they narrate. There is nothing remotely close to witness testimony/accounts in the Torah.

Why would God allow such claims to be made about him in a book that is supposed to exemplify morality?

God doesn't author or edit books. Humans write stories or narratives that describe their understanding, or lack of understanding, of God. Anyone who is remotely familiar with Job or Ecclesiastes knows that humans thought God was, in some sense, inscrutable, and God that did not give them all the answers.

Irrelevant.

Right. The list of things that don't make sense and that "nobody knows" why God would do it or allow it to happen, is long. It's almost like things just happen, free from any divine intervention, and people arbitrarily attribute divine intervention onto those events.

Irrelevant.

Fine, so you almost exclusively base your animosity about Christianity based on a few cherry picked passages in the Jewish Torah. While stealing Christian ideas about objective morality to express your moral outage about them.

That doesn't strike me as an intellectual or rational critique of Christianity as a whole.

 

[MAGA4Ever]

I never played dodgeball, isn't that a game for girls? You seem intimately familiar with it.

Ever since elementary school, my sports have been baseball, football, basketball, tennis.

What kind of weirdo never played dodgeball?
We used to under-inflate them so you could get a grip and really sling 'em at somebody's face.

 

[Melchizedek=Tecumseh]

This is basically freshman level literary analysis...
The accounts of Jesus are authored in the mid to late first century by eyewitnesses or people who knew the eyewitnesses. Jesus is a historical person, as confirmed by multiple independent sources from Christian, Roman, Jewish, Greek, Gnostic, and Syrian authors.

The Torah is stories compiled by scribes a thousand years after the events they narrate. There is nothing remotely close to witness testimony/accounts in the Torah.


God doesn't author or edit books. Humans write stories or narratives that describe their understanding, or lack of understanding, of God. Anyone who is remotely familiar with Job or Ecclesiastes knows that humans thought God was, in some sense, inscrutable, and God that did not give them all the answers.

Fine, so you almost exclusively base your animosity about Christianity based on a few cherry picked passages in the Jewish Torah. While stealing Christian ideas about objective morality to express your moral outage about them.

That doesn't strike me as an intellectual or rational critique of Christianity as a whole.

You're clueless to Christianity! Morality has nothing to do with Christianity!
Base Christianity is we are all doomed sinners ,who's only chance of Salvation is from the Blood of the Cross!

 

[Guno צְבִי]

The "Josephus forgery" primarily refers to the Testimonium Flavianum, a passage in Flavius Josephus's Jewish Antiquities primarily refers to the Testimonium Flavianum, a passage in Flavius Josephus's Jewish Antiquities (c. 93/94 CE) that mentions Jesus. Scholars widely believe this passage was altered or interpolated by later Christian scribes to sound more pro-Christian.

The text was not quoted by early Christian fathers like Origen, suggesting it may not have existed in its current form in the 2nd or 3rd centuries.

 

[Into the Night]

I don't think a story about leading captive people out of slavery is a monstrous crime. Black American slaves looked at the story of Exodus as a story of liberation and salvation.

The Egyptians were judged for killing the first born of the Israelites, and for repeatedly defying Yahweh's escalating commands to free their slaves.

Under standard Christian theology, innocent children are not judged, and all of them are given grace, salvation, and eternal life. That would include Egyptian children.

As a moral relativist, you have no intellectual or philosophical standard to be morally outraged about Hitler. If we are nothing but material collections of quarks and electrons, there is no such thing as evil, or absolute right and wrong.

Hitler had free will.
If humans are free, that means they have the freedom to be evil.

Buzzword fallacy (moral relativist, material. electron, quark, absolute).

 

[Into the Night]

You're clueless to Christianity! Morality has nothing to do with Christianity!
Base Christianity is we are all doomed sinners ,who's only chance of Salvation is from the Blood of the Cross!

There you go again with your idolatory. Buzzword fallacy (morality).

 

[Into the Night]

This is basically freshman level literary analysis...
The accounts of Jesus are authored in the mid to late first century by eyewitnesses or people who knew the eyewitnesses. Jesus is a historical person, as confirmed by multiple independent sources from Christian, Roman, Jewish, Greek, Gnostic, and Syrian authors.

The Torah is stories compiled by scribes a thousand years after the events they narrate. There is nothing remotely close to witness testimony/accounts in the Torah.


God doesn't author or edit books. Humans write stories or narratives that describe their understanding, or lack of understanding, of God. Anyone who is remotely familiar with Job or Ecclesiastes knows that humans thought God was, in some sense, inscrutable, and God that did not give them all the answers.

Fine, so you almost exclusively base your animosity about Christianity based on a few cherry picked passages in the Jewish Torah. While stealing Christian ideas about objective morality to express your moral outage about them.

That doesn't strike me as an intellectual or rational critique of Christianity as a whole.

Now you claim that Adam, Eve, Noah, Moses, and the Egyptians didn't exist.
You deny the Bible.

 

[Cypress]

Now you claim that Adam, Eve, Noah, Moses, and the Egyptians didn't exist!
You deny the Bible!

Do Methodists have to believe Adam and Eve were real historical persons?​

Methodists do not have to believe Adam and Eve were literal, historical people to be in good standing. Methodism, particularly within the United Methodist Church, emphasizes theological freedom, often interpreting Genesis 1–3 as archetypal, symbolic, or "truthful myth" that explains the human condition, rather than a literal scientific or historical account.

AI summary

 

[Cypress]

"Biochemistry" isn't what you think it is. You're thinking of organic chemistry!!!

Biochemistry is the chemistry of life processes.

The vast majority of organic chemistry in the universe has nothing to do with life. Organic molecules may or may not be associated with life processes.

 

[IBDaMann]

I don't think a story about leading captive people out of slavery is a monstrous crime. Black American slaves looked at the story of Exodus as a story of liberation and salvation.

Nope. Both "blacks" and Jews obviously felt that their respective egresses from slavery were a huge mistake, and rushed to get back into obligatory obedience with the DNC.

Under standard Christian theology, innocent children are not judged,

You do not get to determine what is standard Christian theology.

Standard Christian theology also includes children who are not saved ... not being saved, as cold as that might seem.

Hitler had free will. If humans are free, that means they have the freedom to be evil.

I notice that you made darn sure to include the "if", so that you wouldn't have to logically justify your faith beyond saying "it's just what I believe."