RE: Quick Poll - Do you believe in God?
January 18, 2012 at 2:00 am
(This post was last modified: January 18, 2012 at 2:06 am by Undeceived.)
(January 17, 2012 at 10:00 pm)thesummerqueen Wrote: That's ridiculous.I'd like a source for Judaism's 'sects.' To my knowledge, most of Israel was united under the same Law. The Samaritans were different, not believing the temple was required for sacrifice, and within the Jews were the Pharisees and Sadducees. But they all still followed Moses' Law, which Jesus fulfilled, and in their minds, repeatedly broke. He wasn't just a messiah. He claimed to be God-- blasphemy. He also did work on the Sabbath and told everyone that nearly all of their traditions were worthless. He said that you cannot be saved by your own actions after all, but have to believe in Him. The method of salvation was turned upside down. Nothing they did--tithing, circumcision, sacrifice--mattered any more. Social standings were destroyed. Judaism is night to Christianity's day.
Around that time there were many sects of Judaism, not just the four main observance levels that you see today. Christianity wasn't contradictory except for the fact that they were following a messiah that the rest of Judaism didn't follow - and there were a few of those jerk-offs running around at the time.
And legends can spread quickly, even in a time before the internet. And if you've got a martyr complex as large as the Jews did even 2000 years ago, believe me it can happen.
You're savvy. I doubt you really believe a legend can form in five years. Thousands of people saw Jesus on Passover week (when all of Israel went to Jerusalem). If they were one of the few who didn't, they could talk to His disciples themselves or Mary. If you're to undergo a change in lifestyle (perhaps life-threatening) you're not going to make that decision on circumstantial evidence. They had the same skepticism and human psychology we have today. These people were so convinced they would die for Jesus. A.N. Sherwin-White of Oxford did a study of the rate at which legend accrued in the ancient world and concluded that not even two full generations was enough time for legend to develop and to wipe out a solid core of historical truth. Now compare the Bible to other historical documents. The earliest histories of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than four hundred years after his death. Yet they are still considered to be generally trustworthy, as are all of Plato's and Aristotle's works on similar time frames. People can be so quick to judge a book as fiction if they want it to be fiction, even though they have no evidence for their claim.