The backbreaker

[athrock]

I've never read any of the authors you mention, except for Dawkins' The God Delusion (I've also read The Selfish Gene, but it's not the type of book I'm describing), and I found that book to be awful in places, and to contain even some arguments I don't accept. I have, however, read G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy.

Props for that. Orthodoxy is on my shelf awaiting its turn. Mere Christianity is a good read as is Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed. You will do well in your discussions with Christians if you have books like those under your belt.

I strongly disagree with most of Carrier's assertions (except the stuff about the Heavenly Host, which rings true to me based on other things I've read about ancient Judaism) although any honest person will admit that our evidence for an historical Jesus is spotty at best... the passages in James containing elements of the Sermon on the Mount seems to me to be the best evidence pointing to someone who actually knew the man, but the arguments made via Tacitus and Josephus are easily refuted. They suggest, only, and only if you read the passage a certain way. But of course, to people already predisposed to believe it, you can't show them that, because they cannot be honest. As an honest skeptic, I admit that the weight of the evidence seems to point to an historical Essene Rabbi named Yeshua ben Yosef, who preached a peaceful and then later apocalyptic message during the initial Roman occupation of Judea.

Your comment about James is on the mark and important. Some in this forum are fond of saying that none of the NT epistle writers seem to have known much if anything about Jesus' teachings, but James clearly does as you point out. Paul has quite a bit of biographical data about Jesus scattered about in his letters.

Oh, and I've only ever watched Krauss on YouTube, via this board.

You haven't missed much.  

You yourself say no one understands the Trinity, and yet blame me for "failing" to do so? Can it simply be that it's a man-made concept as a slapdash attempt to cover Paul's new concept of god-as-man, and it simply doesn't make sense in light of the rest of the writings about him?

I'm not blaming you for not understanding...but can I fault you for trying and failing to get right what we can know?  

Seriously, if Jesus praying for the cup to pass him by is a sticking point for you, then do some homework. It doesn't bother those who have delved into it.

I'm 39 years old, so maybe you have been a believer longer than I've been alive. And?

And I was right. But you're no spring chicken yourself!

As for the prayers in the garden, the Lord's Prayer is a good example of "teaching others how to pray". But saying that he was begging himself, in man-form, to his god-form, to do something he wanted done, implies either schizophrenia or a man who didn't actually think he was God, but only an example of the Path to God, modified later into "well, when he said 'who do other say I am', he was really trying to say he was God Incarnate. I also point to the horrible translation of Isaiah's "alma" into "virgin", when bethula means virgin, and alma is used in other places to describe a slut...not to mention that the passage in Isaiah clearly involves a prophecy that is for the King, and is meant to happen during his lifetime. 

The seemingly-obvious (to non-cultists) answer is that Paul didn't have a good grasp of Hebrew, but was trying to reconcile his upbringing as a Roman Jew in Greek (modern) Turkey into a theology with which he could be comfortable, and succeeding only enough to convince people who don't think too much about it.

I'll pass over these points because we already have so many others to pursue which are more significant for now.