RE: Why are Paul's writings in the Bible?
October 8, 2023 at 6:08 am
(This post was last modified: October 8, 2023 at 6:10 am by Fake Messiah.)
Here are some of my further thoughts on why “brother of Christ” in TF2 is a forgery, and tell me what you think.
“Brother of Christ” seems a very vague description that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone. As more than one scholar has noted, Monty Python's Life of Brian was quite historically accurate in that it pointed out there was a messiah on every street corner. As was name Jesus (Josephus alone mentions over 20 different Jesuses).
So how would “brother of Jesus messiah” mean anything valuable to any reader in a book that was written at least 50 years after the events? Not even Josephus could have met Jesus since he was born afterward. Readers would be like “Who?”
True, the “brother of Christ” could have meant something even to people living 50 years after the events if that Jesus was very famous, but there are no indications that he was. Already in the late 19th century, John Remsburg lists 42 ancient writers who did not mention Jesus from that time and place but who collectively documented every significant event from that century that's known.
And even if Josephus wrote “brother of Jesus messiah” where is the evidence that it’s that Jesus from the Gospels? Especially since the gospels claim that Jesus’ brothers did not believe him, John 7:5 For even his brothers did not believe in him. And Mark 3:31-35.
“Brother of Christ” seems a very vague description that wouldn’t mean anything to anyone. As more than one scholar has noted, Monty Python's Life of Brian was quite historically accurate in that it pointed out there was a messiah on every street corner. As was name Jesus (Josephus alone mentions over 20 different Jesuses).
So how would “brother of Jesus messiah” mean anything valuable to any reader in a book that was written at least 50 years after the events? Not even Josephus could have met Jesus since he was born afterward. Readers would be like “Who?”
True, the “brother of Christ” could have meant something even to people living 50 years after the events if that Jesus was very famous, but there are no indications that he was. Already in the late 19th century, John Remsburg lists 42 ancient writers who did not mention Jesus from that time and place but who collectively documented every significant event from that century that's known.
And even if Josephus wrote “brother of Jesus messiah” where is the evidence that it’s that Jesus from the Gospels? Especially since the gospels claim that Jesus’ brothers did not believe him, John 7:5 For even his brothers did not believe in him. And Mark 3:31-35.
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"
