What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[dyresand]

The fact being the bible is too contradictory and the only way to make it comprehend able is to cherry pick it to hell. The original writers and the people who wrote in the bible contradicted one another's stories. Even still one would think not to take it literal in the first place. Because really 2 of every animal on a boat for a year with no explanation of how they would eat same goes with the people. Also the animals willing getting on the ark and also crap loads of crap they would need to clean out every pen the animals had. Then the other part with the firmament okay the water came from the sky flooded everything they are on a boat i am no scientist when i say its complete bullshit for all that water to evaporate in a year. And the boat is physically impossible to build because Bill said it best and even ship wrights the boat would have broken apart because of its massive size. So the water, food, shit, boat and the only answer is magic...

I am aware of the absurdities of biblical claims. I'm asking how you know that the creators of the bible didn't intend for their words to be read literally, when in the bible it claims that it is the inspired word of God.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2...hat-haunt/
and
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats...94018.html

[FatAndFaithless]

I am aware of the absurdities of biblical claims. I'm asking how you know that the creators of the bible didn't intend for their words to be read literally, when in the bible it claims that it is the inspired word of God.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tonyjones/2...hat-haunt/
and
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/01/02/thats...94018.html

Sorry, I'm not going to take that as fact just because two people think 'it just doesn't make sense to take the Bible literally'.

Plenty of other Christians do claim that the writers of the Bible meant for it to be taken literally.

[Minimalist]

You have two (very bad) examples of xtian shitheds who insist that their silly shit is real...no matter how fucked up it is shown to be.

There is no hope for morons like drippy and G-C. We have to hope they die out like the rest of the jesus freak crowd so this country can finally grow up without being constrained by childish fairy tales.

Stupid fucks.

[dyresand]

You have two (very bad) examples of xtian shitheds who insist that their silly shit is real...no matter how fucked up it is shown to be.

There is no hope for morons like drippy and G-C. We have to hope they die out like the rest of the jesus freak crowd so this country can finally grow up without being constrained by childish fairy tales.

Stupid fucks.

I hope one day America ends up like the EU and religion is more of an laughing stock than something to be taken literal. But the fact being its so engraved into tradition it isn't even funny. The other thing being that people force it onto their children and they wonder why they turn into atheists.

[Drich]

Drich's Authority comes in the way of the reference material he quotes. This is in contrast to your basless dismissals.

Yeah, sorry for not posting my library and my university degree in history.

Wikipedia and the bible are far more reliable, I'm sure.

Your degree means donk, without reference material. If you did indeed get a degree you should know that.

You should also know that at the bottom of every wiki page their is a list of reference material, in which the on page material is sourced. If you cared anything about the topic at hand you could easily trace back what was said to it's core source.

This makes wiki tertiary source, which again if you indeed have a degree in history you should know that as a tertiary source it carries far more intelectual weight than your personal word on this subject.

[Godscreated]

Wait a minute why are you jumping around, from v. 31 and then go back to verse 27 and then quote v. 29 as if it took place after v. 31.

It's called "explaining the context". I refer to something that happened later to explain what he meant by what he said earlier.

On your part it's called manipulation to support what you want to believe, many reasonable people have read the same Gospels and not drawn your conclusion. You've completely ignored the fact no baptism took place in those verses, John was answering questions that happened earlier.

The next verses are told by John as the events that had happened at an earlier meeting.

Aside from your fevered imagination, what, if anything, do you base that assertion on.

It's not me with the fevered imagination, I seek the truth for scripture, I've even questioned God about scripture, yet kept searching them until I was able to see the truth, without manipulating them, you blatantly took the verses out of order to make them say what you wanted them to. Go back and look at every scripture I've discussed here and you'll see I do not use such tactics

John's gospel is not about a specific time line

Really? Let's go to the tape.

John 1:29 The next day...
1:35 Again the next day after...
1:43 The day following...
2:1 And the third day ...

Sounds pretty specific about both time and order of events to me.

What events, you've pulled up a few verses and not even used a context with them. poor on your part.

You couldn't prove anything to me,

So it is with people who don't listen, don't want to be bothered with the facts and don't want to ever consider they might be wrong.

Why would I listen to someone who blatantly and poorly manipulates the scriptures. I study scripture, not just read it and when there is a specific statement all the rest of scripture has to fit. Yes there are a couple places I'm still working on and I'm sure that one day they will all fit.

I do not buy crap from anyone,

You bought into the Bible.

The greatest book man has ever received.

I've dismissed nothing and it's rude that you presumed I would.

I didn't presume. That's what you did.

You assumed I would try and justify scripture like people you supposedly have talked to, and I didn't and wouldn't have, I understand what I'm reading and do not always accept what other Christians have to say, my pastor taught me this, even about himself. He said go search, make sure.

I explained to you how the gospel's account for what seems like a controversy isn't one, unless someone does like you and twist the verses around in John's gospel to seem like they are say something they do not.

I'm not "twisting". I'm reading what's there. You're the one inventing obtuse "interpretations" to try to make the square round. Skepticism isn't an agenda. Skepticism is just reading one holy scripture with the same critical thinking you would with anyone else's. Apologetics is an agenda. It starts with the conclusion and tries to find (or invent) reasons to believe it.

Yeah, you read it alright, then you started placing verses out of order to prove a conclusion you drew before trying to understand what was actually said. You have no skepticism, but you are critical of scriptures because you have a disdain for them, that is not an honest way to approach them.

The fact that you would obviously disagree with other Christian apologists who have used the "two temple cleansings" argument only underscores how muddled and confusing your book is. Even those explaining away the contradictions can't get their story straight among them.

The Bible belongs to everyone whither they believe it or not and just because there are two interpretations of the same verses only shows the fallacy of man.
I've also noticed you did nothing to defend your position, other than try and call me anything but honest.

GC

[Mudhammam]

If we start with a Celestial Christ that only later becomes grounded in a historical context by way of an oral tradition and, later still, the Synoptic Gospels, would you say that 'John's' Jesus -- pre-existing Logos and earthly ministry -- represents a sort of compromise meant perhaps to resolve the tensions between those earlier traditions? Or do you think the Johannine view is another strand entirely in this tangled braid?

To some extent, sure. I see the Johannine material as refuting Gnosticism by affirming the ethereal, deified Christ to be the flesh and blood Galilean Jesus of the Synoptics, whereas those Gospels drop hints at his divinity but seem content to imagine Jesus as a human prophet who becomes elevated to a position somewhere between God and the angels, at his baptism in Mark, and perhaps at his birth or resurrection in the others.

The difficulty is that even the pre-Gospel letters, at their core of the Christ idea, contain the notion of a Jewish man who died and in some sense was bodily resurrected, even if their mentions are oddly scarce and vague. But without a doubt the foundation of Paul's Christianity is the much older Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead, a process which Paul interprets Jesus as having begun. Why did he think that? What were other contemporary Jewish beliefs about that apocalyptic event? We know the Pharisees anticipated it while the Sadducees did not.

Could Jesus have lived much earlier than the typically ascribed period, already mythologized by the time the epistles were written and then revised by the Gospels to fit into a more recent and relevant setting?

Could Jesus have simply died at some arbitrary point in the past and then been conceived many decades later as a resurrected Messiah due to a newly discovered revelation, whether through "eyes being opened" to the scriptures or hallucinatory visions and dreams? Was "speaking in tongues" a sort of Bacchic frenzy in which people thought they could communicate to, for, and as Jesus, even "seeing" and "hearing" him in a way they believed ensured their specialized resurrection of the dead doctrine? What would Paul have thought of the Gospels? Would he have approved or been aghast?

How did Christianity begin and why does it make the claims it does is a puzzle and anyone who thinks any solution is going to be easy or make perfect sense to our modern intuitions hasn't considered all of the evidence. As Bart Ehrman wrote, and I can understand why, "The real problem with Jesus is not that he is a myth invented by early Christians—that is, that he never appeared as a real figure on the stage of history. The problem with Jesus is just the opposite. As Albert Schweitzer realized long ago, the problem with the historical Jesus is that he was far too historical."

[dyresand]

The Bible belongs to everyone whither they believe it or not and just because there are two interpretations of the same verses only shows the fallacy of man.
I've also noticed you did nothing to defend your position, other than try and call me anything but honest.

GC

Let's be honest here GC christianity already fucked up too many people's traditions and societies as it has speaking for the third world countries. And no the bible doesn't belong to everyone what if a Buddhist says he doesn't believe what's in the bible and its all made up because well it pretty much is.

[abaris]

You should also know that at the bottom of every wiki page their is a list of reference material, in which the on page material is sourced. If you cared anything about the topic at hand you could easily trace back what was said to it's core source.

You could shorten that debate by sharing your fundamental knowledge about Roman trial procedures. Then you could enlighten us about the role and the powers of the jewish priesthood at the time of Pilate. And then let's see how facts meet fiction.

How about that?

[DeistPaladin]

On your part it's called manipulation to support what you want to believe,

Says the Christian apologist, who, by definition, begins with the conclusion and looks for reasons to believe it.

You've completely ignored the fact no baptism took place in those verses,

In fact, I pointed that out. He completely glossed over the baptism because JtB had, by that point, sunk so far onto his knees that the Christians didn't even want to give him credit for that.

John does mention the dove, though, which tells us that he was talking about the events around the baptism.

John was answering questions that happened earlier.

Prove it.

It's not me with the fevered imagination, I seek the truth for scripture, I've even questioned God about scripture, yet kept searching them until I was able to see the truth, without manipulating them,

You didn't answer my question.

To repeat, what do you base your assertions on aside from your imagination?

you blatantly took the verses out of order to make them say what you wanted them to.

No, I quoted the entire passage and then said, "OK, here he said this and there he said that." The entire passage is quoted for everyone to read and review for themselves.

Go back and look at every scripture I've discussed here and you'll see I do not use such tactics

But you do. You say, (paraphrase) "well, John wasn't giving us an order of events". You're making excuses for blatant contradictions rather than admit the contradictions exist.

What events, you've pulled up a few verses and not even used a context with them. poor on your part.

Oh sweet reason, you're going to make me read your Bible to you?

1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
1:30 This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.
1:31 And I knew him not: but that he should be made manifest to Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water.
1:32 And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him.
1:33 And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
1:34 And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.
1:35 Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples;
1:36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
1:37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
1:38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?
1:39 He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.
1:40 One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother.
1:41 He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.
1:42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.
1:43 The day following Jesus would go forth into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Follow me.
1:44 Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter.
1:45 Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
1:46 And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and see.
1:47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and saith of him, Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!
1:48 Nathanael saith unto him, Whence knowest thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee.
1:49 Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel.
1:50 Jesus answered and said unto him, Because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the fig tree, believest thou? thou shalt see greater things than these.
1:51 And he saith unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.
2:1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:

I could go on but suffice to say, this is not only a timeline but one detailed enough that we get a day-by-day account.

The [Bible is the] greatest book man has ever received.

Read more.