(August 21, 2016 at 6:39 pm)PETE_ROSE Wrote: How about God writes a book explaining history, the creation of the world, and informs us what the future will hold.
After that He comes to live with us for 3 decades, models the perfect life and fulfills the prophecies stated in His book.
Sounds slightly more compelling than a giant rock.
A book that explains history but leaves out (and seems utterly ignorant of) the vast majority of people around the world? How parochial of you, God! Don't even get me started on the alleged Exodus.
An explanation of creation that actually explains nothing and manages to get certain things glaringly, laughably wrong? Thanks for the clear insight, God!
Fortune telling? Now that's fun! But then again, figuring out that a couple of relative backwater shitholes like Israel and Judah would come under the thumb of the Assyrians or the Babylonians doesn't strike me as notably prescient. Oh, you mean the Messiah? Talk to the Jews about that one.
As for Jesus, is it really so hard to comprehend the notion of a narrative being retrofitted to "fulfill" some set of alleged prophesies, or are you normally this credulous? Good grief! In any case, as I said, take it up with the Jews. I mean, it was their holy book. Hell, they might actually know which 'prophecies' concerned the Messiah and which didn't. They might even know what the passages meant. The largely Gentile church that co-opted Hebrew scripture for its own purposes was hardly a model of integrity when it came to approaching such things.