Facing the Morally Bad Future

[Godscreated]

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?

One man, one idea, and an idea that was against most of Jewish thought, I thought you were interested in the history and not one person's philosophy.

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

I did take those references out, not before I read them. Also I'm not sure what you mean I'm catching on.
Paul never taught about a spiritual Christ as you state, Paul started out persecuting Christians that believed in the physical Christ, he was part of those who stoned Stephen to death. Why do you think he persecuted these Christians, because he was part of the Temple crowd, those who also believed there would be a physical Christ, just not this One. Paul writes many times about being with the disciples, those who were there with Christ while He was on earth. He refers to the resurrection as a physical event. There is so much Paul has to say about a physical Christ, I can not understand how it's possible that you see he teaches of an allegorical Christ. Paul was always speaking of literal events. Most people who get confused about Paul's writings are the ones who question that he did not write about the life of Christ. Paul knew others had already accomplished this and had no need to repeat it. He also was preaching to the Gentiles who would not necessarily need to know the daily details of His life.

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.

Yes we are still talking about historical events, you are the one who said that it was historical events that caused your unbelief. Paul never writes about anyone he associated with who had an allegorical-philosophical idea of Christ. He never lived his life in a manner that would speak of that kind of idea.

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.

That statement you will have to prove, Philo is a man that believed his way and it did not speak to the way the Jewish people believed, they always believed in a physical Messiah, never a spiritual One, they believed Christ would come and restore the throne of David and free them from the slavery-captives they lived as so many times.
Let me ask you this how do you fit John the Baptist into a philosophical Christ. This is one of the purposes of John and he gave his life for it.

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.

That is a copy we do not know that the original did not contain the resurrection. We see the copy of Mark as the earliest, this doesn't mean his was the first account written. Without the originals, which we will never have, we can only speculate about who's first and who's last.