How did the myth of Jesus' resurrection originate?

[Aractus]

That agreed Quirinius census was in 6 CE. “Judas of Galilee or Judas of Gamala led a violent resistance to the census imposed for Roman tax purposes by Quirinius in Iudaea Province around AD 6.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judas_of_Galilee

Let me explain again. In Acts, Luke refers to "the time of the census" and the overwhelming majority of scholars agree that this refers to the 6AD census, that we all agree upon. In his gospel, however, he uses very different language and scholars are split on how to interoperates it. Some believe, as you do, that he is talking about the 6AD census - however that is not possible. Also, all the dates that Jesus could have died on - even including Friday and Wednesday crucifixion days - end at 34AD. Therefore, Luke would have known that Christ is crucified in either 31AD, 32AD, 33AD or 34AD - and he probably knew exactly when it was. a 6AD birth would have meant that Jesus (and John the Baptist for that matter) couldn't have begun their ministries until 36AD or later!

I haven't solved it, nor do I claim to have, but I do discount the two possibilities that: 1. Luke was referring to the 6AD census, and 2. that Luke invented the story.

Where is the external evidence of a Quirinius census in Judea prior to 6 CE, and even before Herod’s death in 4 BCE so that Herod had time to meet with the Magi? The context for the Lukan invention is to set the stage for a ridiculous, unnecessary-anyway Bethlehem trip and a birth in the city of David, to justify a baloney prediction. Your “internal evidence” is not proven to be other than a fiction. See also next, which you ignored.

Irrelevant. If I write a computer program, compile it and send it to you, I can then claim to you that it has 1,000 lines of code, or that it has 10,000 lines of code and would not be able to prove whether I'm lying about the number or not, even if you ran it through a dissembler.

I left my whole argument in place (the "RC:" just above) since you failed to comment on it. As for the Magi, who cares in which gospel they only appear?

I did respond to your argument. And as for whether I care about how many books the Magi are in, of course i care because you got your facts wrong. It makes no difference where they visit Jesus because they do not go to the birthplace. They could have visited him on the road to Domascus, they could have visited him at the temple at the time of his anointing, they could have visited him anywhere, at any time, it makes no difference. And by the way:

Finally, the Magi in the other NT Bethlehem story came to a house, not a manger. Where did the house come from, and if it existed why did they stay in a manger?

Why do you keep saying "manger", and why do you claim that they stayed in a "manger"?? Do you use this word in daily life, or are you using it because you don't know what it means?

Of course the Magi didn’t come to the fictional birthplace-in-manger, they came to the fictional house.

Why would someone invent the birth being in a feeding trough?

So, how can the two fictions be reconciled as truth? Is Luke’s contrived Bethlehem/manger story true, or is Matt’s contrived Magi/house story true, or are neither true? Sort of like the two genealogies, in that both cannot be true, at least one is false. What does this say about the truthiness of the gospels?

For a start, they probably only stayed in the barn for a single day. That's right, they stayed in the barn, that had a feeding trough inside it, they didn't stay in the trough!!

You are wrong for the most part. There is a male version of almah, “elem” = "young man", which appears at least twice in Samuel. There is no male equivalent for “betulah”, which is undeniably a physical virgin. That alone should be conclusive. The translation “young woman” proves the only defensible one anyway, see next.

Are you a Hebrew scholar?

Betulah is the Hebrew word for virgin, where the context of youth and maritial status is not appropriate. For instance, if you are talking about if she was a virgin on her wedding night, that's the word you'd use. Almah means young unmarried woman, it doesn't convey the meaning of prostitute, whore etc, and it is used when the context of virginity is appropriate. So, you wouldn't use it for a young unmarried woman who is a whore or a prostitute, or otherwise a non-virgin. Thus, the literal meaning is "young maiden" but the meaning of virginity is implied.

Furthermore, two different translators translate it as virgin - Matthew in his gospel, and whoever wrote the LXX translation of Isaiah. Both were done independently to each other!!

If you are this confident then find me an example of where almah is used without the implied virginity?

This is text-mining, taking snippets out of context. Also shows that you apparently do not know Hebrew. The context is clear if you read the whole section, not just your snippet. The prophet is talking about an upcoming invasion, doom, to the king. The transliteration of the mistranslated Hebrew is “hineh ha’almah harah”. The translation unquestionably (given the context) is “Here is a young woman, [she is] pregnant”. If it were future tense, “she will become pregnant”, the Hebrew should be something like “ye’hareh”.

No, I can't read Hebrew. And as for your claim, if you really know Hebrew then you'd have no problem translating this entire page into Hebrew, correct?

Now you do: [David’s] reign over Judah c. 1010–1002 BC, and his reign over the United Kingdom of Israel c. 1002–970 BC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David

Pfft, you like to pick-and choose your facts, don't you? David lived at least 1,000 years prior to Christ, that much we'll agree upon.

RC: I got numbers only from external, independent history and the phony NT genealogies as-written, not from any bodily orifice of mine. I did have to infer a value for standard deviation, but it seems reasonable; if you don’t like it, choose another when you calculate your own t-statistic and refer to your own table of t-values. I am proving the NT is not reliable as a source of the genealogical information that you insist elsewhere (without proof, as always) was readily available. The gospeler’s fact-checker went to sleep? That’s not a way to gain credence if the other story can recall and relate 50 generations.

Let me re-state. You are assuming that both genealogies are complete, and you are assuming that neither could represent Mary.

What benefit is there to relating but 25 of 50? If skipping is allowed, why did he not simply say, “David begat Solomon, and then there were a bunch of others, and then somebody begat Joseph, the father of Jesus”? Skipping a few or skipping all have exactly the same value in conveying the story, and the latter wastes less parchment.

Because Matthew organizes his into categories. Therefore, he had to have skipped generations. Also, from Abraham to David both are identical.

Even if neither represents Mary, the two different genealogies are still possible. It would simply mean that given the correct time-frame, say 2,000 years not 1,000, that Matthew and Luke skipped over generations that the other didn't, and one of them may have done so intentionally to make theirs different. Eg, Luke may have researched it himself, written it down differently to prove that he didn't simply copy from Matthew.

I'm sorry, but your lack of compelling evidence isn't in your favour.

Please tell me which “key facts” I needed to ignore. Your reply is void of specifics.

All you've been doing, the entire time, is assuming that all the gospel writers are willingly lying about the death of Jesus - why would they lie about it? I'm not talking about the resurrection, I'm talking about the death with all the non-supernatural facts that were recorded - why would they be invented? Did they know the specific questions that would be asked 1,800-2,000 years later? That in itself would be quite miraculous!

What is your source for the above? I have participated in seders (pl. sedarim), as you might imagine. Have you ever read through a Hagadah? For centuries, if not millennia, there has been a great deal more to the seder than lamb. Seder means “order”, and it is a ceremonial comprised of symbols/meal/prayer/Exodus-story-relating. I’d be curious to know where you obtained accurate information about the seder meal and related activities at the time of Jesus or close to it. For one thing, I’m not aware that blood was put on any doorpost then; rather, the mezuzah with its Torah quotes is the symbolic replacement of that blood, still used today. The NT is of course not acceptable as such a source.

See what I mean about the assumptions you make? Where in the Gospels does it say that Jesus had a Lamb at their "passover" meal? It also doesn't say that he didn't - so either is possible, and then with John pinning down the date, we have to accept from the written records that Jesus eats the meal, referred to as a passover meal, in the evening on the 14th, which precludes the possibility that there would have been a lamb.

A further theological-contrivance note: … [U]nder Jewish law the lambs sacrificed at Passover had nothing to do with atonement for sin, but were in remembrance of the Exodus … The sin-atonement with which this [was] conflated was at the Day of Atonement, … one goat was loaded up with the sins of the people (the “scapegoat”) and sent into the wilderness.

You're only half-right about that, and I don't have time to explain it to you. There were two sacrificial lambs - one that each family would sacrifice, and then the one that would be the atonement and sent to the wilderness for the whole of Israel. The unleavened bread represents both the freedom from slavery and atonement for sin during the period.