(October 1, 2016 at 5:07 am)Firefighter01 Wrote: Faith healings and exorsisms would not not get him converts if they didn't work.
How do you know? They only had to be perceived to work in the first place, and even then only some of them needed to be perceived to work.
(October 1, 2016 at 5:07 am)Firefighter01 Wrote: The last supper, the Lord's supper or sacred meal was well known and copied from Greek and Egyptian religions including Mithraism. Paul, if he existed may have got the idea when he was in Tarsus. New Testament scholar Dr. Jonathan A. Draper wrote:
Quote:"The first mention we have of the Mithraic cult in the Roman Orient is in Tarsus (Cilicia), the home of a number of Stoic philosophers and of the worshiping of Herakles Sandan, the bull-killer, and also the place where Saul of Tarsus started his strange path. (Draper, Orality, Literacy and Colonialism in Antiquity, Brill, 2004, p. 104)"
Right, again that's just a minority view. A very minority view. Why would Christians borrow from the Mithraic cult? How exactly did Paul borrow from beliefs of theirs that were not even in existence until after he died?
(October 1, 2016 at 5:07 am)Firefighter01 Wrote: The Sermon on The Mount was way too complex and lengthy to be recited to a crowd of multitudes, let alone recorded by anyone, was composed originally in Greek and speaks of the death of the temple cult. So Jesus could not have given it and most NT scholars agree on this.
No they don't. And as to whether it was spoken in Greek or Aramaic, Hebrew, or some other ancient Canaanite language no one knows the answer to that.
For Religion & Health see:[/b][/size] Williams & Sternthal. (2007). Spirituality, religion and health: Evidence and research directions. Med. J. Aust., 186(10), S47-S50. -LINK
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke
The WIN/Gallup End of Year Survey 2013 found the US was perceived to be the greatest threat to world peace by a huge margin, with 24% of respondents fearful of the US followed by: 8% for Pakistan, and 6% for China. This was followed by 5% each for: Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, North Korea. -LINK
"That's disgusting. There were clean athletes out there that have had their whole careers ruined by people like Lance Armstrong who just bended thoughts to fit their circumstances. He didn't look up cheating because he wanted to stop, he wanted to justify what he was doing and to keep that continuing on." - Nicole Cooke