Hey let's face it Jesus is made up. You don't have to look further then your own Bible and Matthew 16:8 where women ran screaming from the tomb in terror, and never told anyone that Jesus had risen is a clever device to explain why no one had ever heard the story before now, decades later when it was written. I also mention this passage because this is THE END of Matthew. Now, if you open your Bible you'll see few more verses (clear amount depends of version you have) which were added centuries later and if you look closer, you may find a footnote or a pair of brackets telling you verses 16:9+ are not found in "some of the oldest manuscripts," and that the translation team (along with most biblical scholars today) believe they were not part of the original text. At least, that's what you'll find if the translators are being honest; and not all of them are.
So since this is clearly a forgery (to something that is already historical forgery) clearly demonstrates that early Christians felt free to doctor manuscripts of the Gospels and also invent the whole thing in the first place without ever having to conspire to do anything. If each independently did what made sense to him, each on his own initiative, the effect on the evidence that survives for us now will have been the same. For example, no one "colluded" to forge an ending to Mark. It was not an order issued from the Pope or some cabal of archbishops. Someone just did it. Any such community will organically produce the same effect as a conspiracy.
And during 1st and 2nd centuries there were not just different Christianities but different Christs. Even Paul in letters complains that his rivals are evil deceivers, with false Christs and false gospels that he accuses them of being agents of Satan and even lays curses and threats upon them.
So since this is clearly a forgery (to something that is already historical forgery) clearly demonstrates that early Christians felt free to doctor manuscripts of the Gospels and also invent the whole thing in the first place without ever having to conspire to do anything. If each independently did what made sense to him, each on his own initiative, the effect on the evidence that survives for us now will have been the same. For example, no one "colluded" to forge an ending to Mark. It was not an order issued from the Pope or some cabal of archbishops. Someone just did it. Any such community will organically produce the same effect as a conspiracy.
And during 1st and 2nd centuries there were not just different Christianities but different Christs. Even Paul in letters complains that his rivals are evil deceivers, with false Christs and false gospels that he accuses them of being agents of Satan and even lays curses and threats upon them.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
