h311inac311 Wrote:But the eye-witness accounts might also be true, good thing we have 4 early accounts from 4 early journalists that pass every archeological test we can currently throw at them.
We do not have four independent eyewitness accounts, or even four independent historical reports because all four stem from the first, what we call Mark’s Gospel.
What we have is a single religious document, written at least a generation after the time it portrays, by an anonymous author far away from the setting of the story for purely theological purposes. And every subsequent Gospel writer simply copied Mark and added more stuff - like Matthew added sermon on the mount where Jesus quotes stuff from the Old Testament.
In every new gospel, Jesus becomes more impressive, more perfect, more divine; his career and miracles grow more spectacular and earth-shaking; and by the time John’s story is written, Jesus has become a cosmic deity from the very creation of the universe who strides around Judea fearlessly declaring to all that he is God almighty made flesh.
There is no archeological evidence that Jesus existed nor the apostles. There is no evidence that even the most spectacular miracles happened like darkness that spread around the world, that hundreds of people rose from the graves and walked into Jerusalem, nor is the place of crucifixion known or Jesus tomb.
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"
