Facing the Morally Bad Future

[Godscreated]

we are essentially discussing the meaning of the Gospels from the perspective of the authors which means that saying 'no Christian would agree with that today' holds absolutely no weight. My whole point in this discussion is that we, believer and non-believer alike, do not know the true meaning of these manuscripts.

The believer who searches the Gospels are shown the truth about them by the Holy Spirit. What makes you believe that the Gospels are not understandable, and if you can not understand them then how is it you can say they are allegory?

Josephus stated that Jesus was killed by Pilot, how do you crucify a allegory. Josephus was speaking of a real persons in Pilot and Jesus. This statement by Josephus is accepted as one written by him. He also said Jesus was the brother of Jude (do I have the correct name). So how does an allegory need a brother, especially when you refer to a spiritual Christ, this would mean God had more than one Son.

You're referencing the bit that Eusebius added on. Nothing to be seen here.

No I'm referencing what most believe to be penned by Josephus.

Did you read the entire Psalm, you should and carefully, even if you do not think it's a prophecy and the Jews did not we know that, they would have never believed in a suffering Messiah, who is the Psalm about?

I gather it is about a Jew who is 'suffering'. This is rather reassuring of my view because Mark never claims that Jesus was divine. He suffered, died and stayed dead seeing as though it ends at 16:8. Therefore this parallel with Psalms is actually in my favour.

You speak as if Mark's gospel is the only one written or matters, what's up with that? Mark did speak of Jesus as Christ, thus His divinity. Now a suffering Jew, why, why would there be a Psalm about some suffering Jew, that makes no sense, you're grabbing at straws, straws that do not exist. This Psalm is not in your favor, it works completely against you, you can not explain it's purpose.

Hosea 9 is about God scattering the nation of Israel, punishment for turning away from Him, the One who made them a nation. I really can not see how you got anything about Christ from it.

You're looking at it in the wrong direction. I didn't go from NT to OT and ask 'how does this parallel relate to Christ'? I've realised that the OT gave the NT authors the material that would become the fictional character of Jesus. Christ is an allegory.

The 9th chapter of Hosea has nothing to do with Christ period, there's no way you can get anything from it to relate to Christ allegorically or other wise. Did you read this chapter, if so please show me how it relates to Christ.

There are many prophecies about Jesus in the OT, Hosea 9 is not one of them, How is it you say I identified specific prophecy, I never gave any specific prophecies. What I did say was that the Apostles used these OT prophecies to preach about Jesus. I have a question for you, why would the Jews ever claim that Jesus was the Messiah, that is the One written about in the NT, this Messiah would have been a failure according to the Jewish belief, the Messiah would not be in conflict with the priest and other religious leaders according to their belief.

I'm actually not too sure. I think this is a question for an observant Jew.

What I do know is that it's perfectly fine to call Jesus the Messiah if all he is is an allegory. There was a different purpose to Mark than record the apparent history of a failed Messiah, which according to you is unacceptable.

You need to find out and it's actually a question that an unbeliever should answer, there's no way a self respecting Jew is going to write about the Messiah as the NT portrays Him, unless he knows the truth of Christ as a real person. No one would open themselves up to the kind of ridicule and pressures the Apostles did unless they knew that Jesus was a real person.

Pretty sure the pharisees looked up to Josephus, as described in his biography:

Moreover, when I was a child, about fourteen years of age, I was commended by all for the love I had for learning; on which account the high priests and principle men of the city came then frequently to me together, in order to know my opinion about the accurate understanding of points of the law.

Any proof of this other than what the man said about himself, you can not use the man's own writings to prove who he is. I think they saw him as a traitor, he sold out his own people to get into the graces of the Romans.

Given all the parallels between Josephus' life and Mark, I'm very tempted to say the proof is overwhelming.

What parallels, give some examples, please.

For Mark to have compared Christ to Josephus would be an insult to even a lesser god.

Or maybe Christ wasn't real but an allegory.

Even if Mark and the others wrote about Christ as an allegory, would they not have put Him in the best possible light. To do other wise would be to undermine their own desires to have a great Messiah, agree or disagree and why?