who created christianity

[dqualk]

Christianity is not the fulfillment of Judaism as Christians like to claim. Reading the OT thoroughly reveals as much. The Jews had no concept of Hell (they believed in Sheol or "the grave" which was essentially oblivion) nor a need for an intercessor to Yahweh. Their god was a jealous god who interacted personally with his people and demanded constant undivided attention. He makes is clear in Is. 43:10-12 that he delegates the role of judge and savior to no one. The Messiah was neither a godling nor a lamb of God for all of humanity but a glorious-yet-mortal warlord who would conquer and lead Israel to victory.

Christianity is valid within itself. I'm sure you have read the OT more thoroughly then say St. Paul, or St. Augustine.

The Jews did have a concept of hell. They had not concrete concept of hell. In fact Jesus follows in the tradition of the pharisees of his day by asserting that there is a heaven and a hell.

The earliest book of the NT offers an idea of how the idea of Jesus-the-intercessor-deity came to be. Revelation was actually written before any of the other books in the NT. It features a Jesus who is born in Heaven and reigns on earth (as opposed to the Gospel Jesus were the reverse is true). He leads an army down to earth to defeat Israel's enemies, presumably the Romans at that time. The Jesus character here is far from the gentle-meek-and-mild lamb of God but closer to the warlord idea that the Jews traditionally had about their Messiah-to-be.

I hope you realize that you are in the EXTREME minority when you say this. Scholars are nearely unanimous in their assertion that Revelation was the oldest work to be written. Also, it makes references to the life of Jesus on Earth, as it shares similar symbols and wording with the Gospel of John. For this reason most scholars agree that it did come out of a Johannine School of thought. References to the lamb of God, and to Marry queen of heaven, paralell with John's Gospel and Luke's.

Also, the Gospels all agree that Jesus is coming again to judge the right and wrong and directly rule over His people.

The OT contains no concept of Hell or the need for an intercessor. Such ideas are introduced in the NT. So where did the Christians get their ideas. It just so happens that surrounding "pagan" religions, Egyptian, Greek and Persian, did have ideas about an afterlife, Hell, salvation from it and an intercessor to the divine as well as certain practices like the Eucharist and the dying-and-rising savior. Knowing this, a more compelling scenario to the Christian dreamscape is that a faction of Jews, wondering where their kingdom was, began looking for it in a higher realm. [quote]

Wrong again. The book of Macabees makes very clear assertions of the after life. It is a VERY Jewish book. Also, the protestant OT, or Tanakh, makes vague inconclusive references to an afterlife of sorts. Although their understanding of afterlife for the most part seemed to be a shadowy realm where you sleep, similar to the Hades of the Greeks.

[quote]The amalgamation of Judaism with Pagan ideas is evident not just in the sudden introduction of Hell and a dying-and-rising savior deity to replace the Jewish warlord-messiah. It's also apparent in the taking over of sacred pagan festivals like Easter and Christmas. Ever wonder what wreaths, mistletoe, bunny rabbits and colored eggs have to do with Jesus? Nothing. They're holdovers from the previous pagan celebrations of the winter solstice and spring equinox. This also explains why the sabbath was moved from Saturday to Sunday, in violation of the 4th commandment.

You have clearly demonstrated that you only read minority "scholars" if they can even be called that. Because a lot of what you are saying is second hand propaganda that is dumbed down to feed to the masses.

Easter is actually celebrated on the passover, a Jewish holiday. Christmas was adopted because it served the purpose of Church which wanted to find a suitable day to celebrate the incarnation. They chose Christmas for many reasons, they wanted a solar date rather than a lunar date like easter, they wanted it to be far enough away from easter as to not have the two biggest celebrations back to back, and it was popular at the time to celebrate the birth of the Sun during the winter equinox. This was very helpful as it served as a teaching tool, you could say, the same way the sun is being born and we are celebrating it, so too are we celebrating the birth of the Son. The winter equinox is known as the birth of the sun becasue it is at that point that the days began getting longer rather than shorter. Also, it took attention away from Sol Inviticus, a pagan reaction to Christianity that was popular around the 4th century, when Chrsitianity had argueably transformed the entire idea of religion. The worshipers of Sol Inviticus chose the winter solicistice for the same reason, that is the "brith of the sun" concept.

The dying-and-rising savior was familiar to and no doubt appealing to the pagan converts to Christianity but presented a problem for the strictly monotheistic Jewish traditions. What was Jesus exactly? Was he a human as the Ebionites believed? An angel as the Aryans believed? A higher god as the Marcionites believed? If he was not God, how could he forgive sins? And wasn't praying to him a violation of the 1st commandment? But if Jesus was God, as the Docetics believed, who was Jesus praying to? How could God die on a cross? And how could God be his own intercessor? "No man commeth unto the father but by me" becomes "no man commeth unto me but by me".

The earliest Gospels were the "Synoptic Gospels" or Matthew, Mark and Luke. Reading these Gospels by themselves, ignoring John for a moment, one gets the sense that Jesus is separate from and subordinate to Yahweh. Jesus prays to Yahweh. Yahweh introduces Jesus in the 3rd person and speaks to him in the 2nd person. Jesus proclaims "not my will but thy will be done" suggesting that he is separate from and subordinate to Yahweh. A Christian would be hard pressed to find anything in these three Gospels that even suggests the Trinity. This was an "advanced" theological concept that didn't come along until John was being penned.

The "solution" was the Trinity. When Jesus prays to Yahweh, that's when he's not Yahweh. When Jesus forgives sins, that's when he is Yahweh. He's God and yet also not God at the same time. Three separate persons but one "substance", whatever that's supposed to mean. Three gods and yet they're one. Jesus is the subordinate intercessor to and yet also equal to Yahweh.

That is pretty good lay out, a bit flawed I beleive. First there are references to Jesus diety in all of the Gospels. It is true that John has much stronger emphasis. The Orthodox opinion was ultimately the one that won out, and it is very supported in the Gospels. That is that God is fully man and fully God. When he prays to God as a subordinate it is because he is demonstrating that he is fully man. When he forgives sins he is demonstrating that he is fully God. If you would like to read a good creed that lays this out clearly the Athanasius Creed was created for this purpose. That is not to say that the Orthodox Christians did not struggle to articulate what they believed, as it was difficult, and still is difficult to grasp. But, if natural selection played its part in this area, the Orthodox opinion won out as the legitimate interpretation for the Gospels, and it certainly fits well. I'm not saying you cant make the aryan view fit, but I think it is just a weaker view.

Another point which lends strength to the orthodox opinion is that the Bishops supporting it were in a direct line from the apostles. Peter down to the present Pope, and at the time there was a direct line back to other apostles like John. The people supporting hte other views were novel and independent thinkers. Marcion was clearly a revisionist and independent. Arius had more legitimacy, but he was just a priest, when he convinced the mobs to support his take over, which was resisted by the Church.

Also, the Trinity serves a special function in Theology. It allows for a completely just and loving God. It also allows for a God which is both outside of time and inside of time.

WTF?

Uhh you did not articulate what it is you mean here. I mean do you disagree with that statement, do you want to know what I mean by that statement or what? I'll just assume I know what your vulgarity means. The Theological purpose that made the idea of Trinity popular was that with the Jews, and their monotheism God was anthropomorphically seen as a jealous and self-loving God. This is because they only understood God as being one in person. But with the Christian understanding that God is Trinity the Godhead is now able to be absolutely self less and full of charity. As the Father gives everything He has to the Son and the Son in return empties Himself into the Father. Christ incarnation allowed for man to begin the process of Theosis which allows us through Christ to enter into this Triune love dance justly. As without Christ as our head we would not be worthy to participate in the love of God because we are not worthy of such love, and that would be unjust. But Christ is worthy, and he enterned into man and made us worthy. This is one reason why Trinity, incarnation, and crucifixion are so important in Theology.

It's actually not well articulated in John. Even the Gospel of John contradicts the idea at points.

John 14:28 My father is greater than I.
John 20:17 I ascend unto my father and your father, to my God and your God.

The Epistles are also not entirely clear on this point either

1Cor 11:3 The head of Christ is God
1 Tim 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

I'm keen to know where in the OT you find the Trinity.

Well as I and the Orthodox Christians have pointed out, Jesus at times emphasizes His humanity and at other times emphasizes his Divinity.

There are various verses but I trust you could look them up as easy as I could. For now I'll just post the ones that come my head, and if you absolutely want me to look them up for you I shall.

In Isaiah, I believe its Isaiah, it says that a child will be born and he shall be called Almighty God, there is also the creation account that makes use of the Spirit of God and the Word of God, there is also the interesting grammatical use of the singlue plural within Hebrew, which could be a way of referring to the plurality, yet oneness of God. There is also the reference of Melchezedek to the sacrifice of bread and wine, which seems to not make sense apart from an understanding of the Christian Eucharist, as God does not accept not bloody sacrifices, yet he founds the entire Jewish people on a sacrifice of bread and wine, there is also the sacrifice of Isaac which is really interesting becuase the Bible actually never says taht Isaac was not slayed, so its as if he rose from the dead, but even if he was not slain its still a dang interesting shadow of Jesus. Also, there is also the prophecy of the suffering messiah that of whose stripes we would be healed, but how does one man heal the stripes of all? I suppose God "walking" in the garden could be the second person of the Trinity who is able to interact within the material realm, because the eternal God is outside of the eternal realm.

Apparently John didn't always agree with these "scholars". See the citations above.

I could play Bible ping pong with you all day, but you could just as easily look up High Christology in the Gospels or something, and I'm sure you already know, that John also makes use of a high Christology within his Gospel. And once again I would argue that John held the orthodox opinion that Jesus was fully God and fully man.

By being persecuted out of existence. And their influence can still be felt in Christian theology. Christian sentiments that the material world is evil and the spiritual world is good likely come from Docetic ideas. Matthew is the most Ebionite of the Gospels (and a variant of it was used by them according to Bart Ehrman). That Christians tie Jewish laws like the Ten Commandments into their theology might be their influence. That Christians then feel free to ignore the OT when the like is very Marcionite. I think it's a bit much to rule out any influence by these alternate Christianities that lost at Nicaea.

This is just shoddy history work, as the Church persecuted noone before the 4th century. It was to busy being persecuted. By the time of Nicea the only real threat was the novel threat put forth by Arius that Jesus is God, he is just not as God as the Father. Gnosticism, Marcionism etc. had already lost all influence and became footnotes in history. The Church does not erase heresies from history, she finds them to useful to use as guides on what not to believe and why. This is why we still know about gnosticism, marcionism etc. is because the Church kept them alive in their arguments against them.

The Bible does not. See 1John 4:1-3 and 2John 1:7. In two separate epistles, John rails against a faction of early Christians that didn't believe Jesus had existed as a flesh-and-blood being. Wasn't this recent history for those who would have known better? Why appeal to faith as he did and not dismiss them as crazy for ignoring an obvious reality?

If a real Jesus did exist and Christian mythology was built upon his story, good luck ever knowing what that story was. The only detailed accounts we have, indeed only accounts at all we have of his teachings, are contained only in Christian mythology. Separating fact from fiction will be impossible without some new archeological discovery. If such a man did exist, his story likely bares so little resemblance to the Gospel character that we might as well say that the Gospel character never existed.

Also, if Jesus really existed, it is evident from the dearth of any non-Christian testimony that he was so insignificant that no one ever noticed him (quite to the contrary of Gospel claims that his fame spread far and wide).

That is bad exegesis. John is argueing against the gnositcs and docetists who claimed that Jesus was a historical reality, but that his body was just an illusion as God cannot have a body, because He is so great.

All history is mythology to some sense. And the more ancient you go the more mythology you get. You cannot separeate the Roman wars of Julius Caesar from mythology, yet scholars can, thought analysis discover what is of history, and what is not necessarily of history. Scholars do this with the Bible and conclude that there are certain things that may not be historical. Most scholars agree that a person named Jesus actually lived in Palestine and died there.

Centuries is not "quickly". And again, it was only persecution that ultimately drove them out of existence.

I've already demonstrated why this is not true above.