(August 31, 2024 at 12:41 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: The scholarly consensus is very trim. It posits a galilean jew in a messianic culture with apocalyptic expectations who was baptized by john and crucified by pilate. That's it.
I don't think there is a consensus on what or who Jesus was. For example, ancient historian, Morton Smith, is known for his book "Jesus the Magician", in which he claims that Jesus was a magician. Which is a charlatan who cast spells, curses, "heals" people - thus comparing his miracles to those that the magicians had performed.
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"
