I know the Bible is True (page 10)

donkey

William,

I just know the Green Gnome loves me!!

pseudoxristos

gumby,

Was the idea of a LITERAL messiah, a historical person made up in the minds of men?
Is it possible this man never existed?
I'll recommend a book that has all the documents and sources from which this information comes from. The book is called "The Jesus Mysteries". This is one book of MANY books that will verify what EXACTLY was the historical SETTING when Christianity arose.
When you learn of what the gnostics believed about Jesus, and how the "literalist" imposed a contrary belief, and see how the literalist COPIED an existing belif.....you will be impressed.
It also documents other writers of that time who told their opinions of those Christians who " literalized " Jesus.
There is much on this subject that by far MOST are not familiar with.

I vaguely remember coming across an idea such as this.

If I remember correctly, Paul's writings preceded the Gospels. Paul's writings alone did not provide sufficient biographical information. The Gospels were written to fill the void, adding flesh and bone to what Paul had originally started. This is supported by the fact that Paul never directly quotes the Gospels and some other facts that I have long forgotten.

I am wondering, is this the basis of the book you recommend?

pseudo

rem

pseudo,

Yes, that is the basic premise of the book. It is very well documented, though I didn't take the time to go back and verify the references, so I can't really vouch for it's veracity. It seemed to make pretty good sense and made some interesting points. I'm not sure that it completely convinced me that a historical Jesus didn't exist, but it certainly made me question it. I can see how the Jesus myth could have started with or without a literal Jesus.

rem

Sangdigger

Feelings come and feelings go, and feelings are decieving. I stand upon the word of God, nothing else is worth believing. I thought this was a cool poem. I heard from a pastor friend of mine..

pseudoxristos

Rem,

Thanks, for the info. Much like you, I was not completely convinced, but did find it an interesting possiblity. I hadn't seen how the gnostics beliefs could be tied in with this. I do plan on getting a copy of the book, it looks interesting.

pseudo

gumby

I'm not sure that it completely convinced me that a historical Jesus didn't exist, but it certainly made me question it. I can see how the Jesus myth could have started with or without a literal Jesus.

Hi Rem,

I was wondering if you remembered the part in the book which explains that dionysis myths were prevalent throughout asia. The Jesus story is an exact COPY of these earlier mystery godmen. Identical! What are the chances a man comes along who,

.......is God/man, walks on water, raises the dead, dies and comes alive after 3 days, has sacraments of bread and wine, is born of a virgin, turns water into wine, is visited by three wise men at his birth, rides into town on a donkey while people wave pom branches, and a host of other things,

and is the real deal, and had all these traits like the pagan God?

rem

Gumby,

It's been a long time since I've read the book, but I do remember the part about the similarities between Jesus and the other pagan god-men. How anyone can believe in Christianity, or even say that it has more evidence than other faiths is beyond me.

rem

gumby

Rem,

How anyone can believe in Christianity, or even say that it has more evidence than other faiths is beyond me.

I guess the fact that we are a product of our enviroment really shows it's colors with religion. How many people would come up with the ideas there are had not it been passed down? Muslims believe what they "know". At least we can believe as we wish however and that's good.

William Penwell

Copied from another post but I thought it was relevant to our discussion here;

Gumby said:

Many many scholars believe there were many additions such as Paul's "letters", and the "Acts", to give creedence to an Organised Church. There is much written about this if a person would take the time and study it. Most do not want to as they WANT to believe the bible as the infallable Word of God.

You are correct on your observations. The earlier church is suspected of adding or erasing text from the New Testament in order to support their ideologies. From the book Honest to Jesus:

Which is the Inspired Text!

The original manuscripts of the books of the New Testament have disappeared. The earliest fragments of any part of the New Testament is a scrap from a papyrus codex of the Gospel of John. It has been variously dated from 125 to 160 C.E., roughly one hundred years after the death of Jesus.More substantial pieces of papyrus manuscripts have survived from the end of the second century, but the earliest surviving copies of complete gospels come from the third century. And we have no copies of the complete Christian Bible that can be dated earlier than the fourth century. To put the situation in a nutshell, we can say that, in all probability, only a very few ever read the original of one of Pauls letters or of one of the gospels - copies were made almost immediately as the letters and gospels were circulated among congregations; meanwhile, the originals wore out or were lost.

To add to the problem, no two copies of any of the books of the New Testament are exactly alike, since they were all handmade. It has been estimated that there are over seventy thousand meaningful variants in the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament itself. That mountain of variants has been reduced to a manageable number by modern critical editions that sort, evaluate, and choose among the myriad of possibilities. The critical editions of the Greek New Testament used by scholars are in fact the creations of textual critics and editors. They are a composite of many variant versions. Specialists select the best reading from among variants and print that as the main text. They also list important alternative readings the best text. It is unlikely, of course, that any surviving ancient manuscript is identical with the autographs the originalsof the books, or portions of books, that it contains. Translators and interpreters are thus twice removed from the originals.

We are fairly confident, for example that the scribes who made copies of the New Testament (the gospels in particular) tended to modify the Greek text to match the orthodox views that were emerging. The opening line of the Gospel of Mark, to cite one example, reads "the good news of Jesus Christ" in several ancient manuscripts. Other manuscripts have amended this to "Jesus Christ, son of God". The tendency of scribes was to expand titles and labels in accordance with the practice current in their times. Those expansions, while of interest to historians, also obscure earlier practice and usage. And historians have an interest in those earlier traditions as well. Indeed, there remains a strong interest in establishing the text at every stage of its history.

So how confident can we be of the accuracy of the bible?

Why than even discuss points of interpretation as far as this book is concerned?

Will

gumby

Why then even discuss points of interpretation as far as this book is concerned?

Because they say religion is as good as Opium...people like what they like....wheather it's bad/ false, whatever.

Nice post WP

I know the Bible is True

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