(October 12, 2023 at 9:26 pm)LinuxGal Wrote: The author of Matthew (the actual Matthew was a tax collector, which means he went around breaking legs if you owed money) was an amateur theologian. He had a Greek copy of Isaiah that rendered almah in 7:14 as "parthenos" which he took to mean virgin, but the whole prophesy was about events in the reign of King Ahaz way back when anyway. Hijinks ensued.
So it seems like it is a case of theologians thinking that they know more about Jesus than the gospel writers.
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"
