Facing the Morally Bad Future

[FallentoReason]

You do realize who your talking about as authors, Jewish men who did not believe in a crucified Messiah.

Agreed. What are your thoughts on the Jew by the name of Philo, the philosopher who saw the OT as allegory?

A lot of people will tell you that the Gospels were written much later than Paul's writings, if this were true then where did Paul hear about Christ, and we know his writings started around 50 AD.

Now you're starting to catch on. 3 of Paul's authentic letters were indeed written before the Gospels. Now, if Paul only every preached about a spiritual Christ, does this seem to be contradictory with the fact that he wrote before the time of the Gospels? Furthermore, he was telling early Christians to ignore the heretics of the time. Well, if he was preaching about a spiritual Christ and if you believe Paul was a 'true Christian', then who is he telling us to watch out for? The ones that speak of a physical Christ. This is the range of beliefs within the early Christians (I posted this somewhere else):

Marcionism – Christ was a purely spiritual entity
Nestorianism – Jesus and Christ were two different entities
Docetism – Jesus appeared physical, but he was really incorporeal
Apollinarism – Jesus had a human body and human soul, but a divine mind
Arianism- Jesus was the son of God, not God himself
Catholicism – Jesus was fully human and fully divine, both God and the son of God

As you can see, Paul understood the allegorical teachings of those Jews like Philo. They weren't speaking of literal events.

If Paul heard about it by word of mouth, it still came through the same Jewish people that would not have told of a crucified Messiah, unless they knew these events to be true.

Agreed. Understandably you're still in 'historical mode' though. It came through those Jewish people that wouldn't believe the Messiah physically came, but again consider people like Philo: he saw the OT as allegory and philosophy. We aren't talking history here.

The one thing most people do not consider, the Jewish people were fervent in there beliefs of the OT, if something had not convinced them they would not dare go against their strong belief in the OT.

Agreed. Philosophical minds had already been around for 500 years prior to Christ though. Philo is a testimony to how Jews transformed their view of the OT under the light of philosophy and allegory.

Why do you think Thomas doubted, all the disciples doubted tell they saw Jesus. They were not completely sure what to make of the empty tomb, they had hope until His appearance. Why don't you read the OT again and see if you can see it as a writing of prophecy, just sayin'.

Well if we're explicitly talking the resurrection accounts now then I have to disagree. Mark being the first Gospel written didn't have resurrection accounts. Just an ending with an empty tomb.