who created christianity

[DeistPaladin]

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.

Please cite chapter and verse from the OT where the Jews had a concept of Hell.

I, in turn, can direct you to Josh 23:14, Job chapter 14, Psalms 6:5, 88:5, 115:17, Eccl 3:19, 9:5, 9:10, Is 38:18

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.

Wow. That surprises me. I've yet to hear one scholar that says this. Even Christian apologists have admitted this.

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.

Please cite me chapter and verse in the Gospels where Mary is called "queen of Heaven".

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

Yes, within the lifetime of the Disciples. Oops! See Matthew 23:36.

Wrong again. The book of Macabees makes very clear assertions of the after life. It is a VERY Jewish book.

Macabees? Isn't this an apocryphal book?

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.

Damn you! You just overloaded my irony meter!

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.

You just agreed with everything I said about Christmas.

That is pretty good lay out, a bit flawed I beleive. First there are references to Jesus diety in all of the Gospels.

Chapter and verse please!

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

He contradicts himself. Yes. And not just on the point of his divinity but also with his teachings. Sometimes he say "put away the sword" and sometimes "buy a sword". Sometimes he says we must be charitable and other worldly, giving all to the poor. Sometimes he says "screw the poor, live it up while I'm here." Sometimes he preaches peace. Sometimes he preaches war. It depends on which Jesus you're reading about.

See my video "The Flip Flopping Jesus".

In Isaiah, I believe its Isaiah, it says that a child will be born and he shall be called Almighty God,

FAIL! Isaiah 7:14 states that a woman who lived within his lifetime would bear a son and his name shall be called "Emmanuel". This would be the sign to the King Ahaz that he would be triumphant against the Syrians because God is with us. Reading this book in context reveals that Isaiah was speaking of events of his lifetime and NOT the future birth of a Lamb of God for all of humanity.

there is also the creation account that makes use of the Spirit of God and the Word of God,

FAIL! Reference to Yahweh, not supportive of the Trinity.

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.

FAIL! Or it means that the early Hebrews were polytheistic, a hypothesis supported by the absence of the "royal we" in Yahweh's speeches in later books. Or another possibility is that he's referring to himself and the Heavenly host of angels.

There is also the reference of Melchezedek to the sacrifice of bread and wine,

? Chapter and verse?

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,

FAIL!
Genesis 22:12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

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?

Need to look up chapter and verse.

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.

FAIL! The god of the OT was anthropomorphic, who walked, talked, ate lunch with Abraham, wrestled with Jacob, gave a speech to Judea and showed off his loins to Ezekiel.

I could play Bible ping pong with you all day,

I challenge you.

This is just shoddy history work, as the Church persecuted noone before the 4th century.

And these alternate Christianities were powerful until then.

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.

Not according to what I've read. I'd ask you to read "Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman.

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.

Well, that's the typical apologist interpretation but they have nothing to base that on. Regardless, even if it were a reference to the Docetics, the same problem applies. Why did those who lived within the lifetime of Jesus think he was just an illusion? Did Jesus not have a family? Some nephews, nieces or neighbors that could have testified he was born, grew up and was physical? Why does John appeal to faith and denounce them as "antichrists" as opposed to just saying they're crazy?

All history is mythology to some sense.

No. We're able to tell the difference between Hercules and Caesar. Only Christian mythology is offered the special treatment of being taken seriously.

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.

Most scholars are willing to assume Jesus lived and side-step the controversy.

I'm willing to assume Jesus lived and still we can't know anything about this hypothetical rabbi.