Is Christianity Illogical?

[FallentoReason]

Agreed about so-called modern miracles. There is much hype, rather than miraculous healing, in some Christian circles.

When it comes to Jesus, however, he appears to be the real deal. Telling a crippled man who has not moved his legs in years to get up and walk and seeing him do so in front of a crowd of skeptics and enemies, and causing a man born blind to see for the first time are two that come to mind. I think it is worth noting that the enemies of Jesus who sought to discredit him never said his miracles were faked. Instead, they accepted the reality of them, but claimed they were caused by demonic powers. This claim is made in both biblical and non-biblical writings.

I think Jesus and the Gospels in general are very much in dispute in this discussion we've been having, so I can't really see much logic in terms of an argument for miracles here. You might as well say because the Bible is supposedly infallible it means God exists. You know what I mean? I understand where you're coming from but it does nothing for the discussion.

What were the non-biblical claims?

I don't follow you, yet. Please explain how Matthew tried to explain away Mark.

So pretty much my take on the Synoptic Gospels in a nutshell is that Mark was writing allegorically about the devastating times the Jews went through. This was done through the use of the OT and also the works of Josephus that were already penned down. Matthew and Luke were then from cults that believed in a physical Jesus as opposed to a spiritual one. What they saw in Mark they took as literal history. I have evidence of this from Matthew of where he completely misunderstands an allegorical interpretation by Mark. Matthew rewrote this section and the link to the OT is completely lost. If you're interested let me know and I'll post that when I'm on the computer (on my phone right now).

Anyways, that's my view. Mark takes priority and it is assumed Matthew and Luke based their Gospels on Mark's and then tweaked certain bits and added new material.

I believe there are two predictions, here. Since the Day of the Lord (or the day of Jesus' return to earth in physical form) has not occurred, Malachi 4:5 has yet to come true. It is entirely possible the Elijah of the Old Testament will return, and there are some Jewish families even today who keep an empty chair for him at their dinner tables during a certain annual Jewish religious observance.

I think you've blurred the line here between a Jewish and a Christian understanding of this passage. To say that Jesus' second coming has yet to occur and that's what the passage refers to is not right because that's a Christian understanding of a Jewish book. Clearly it refers to the coming of the Messiah for the first time because this is in the OT. In saying that, I believe because you call yourself a Christian you have no option but to say this has been fulfilled.

That leaves us with Malachi 3. Are you saying Jesus was mistaken in saying the prediction was of his cousin, who was a type of Elijah?

I believe Matthew was trying to twist what Mark wrote which was an allegorical construct of J.t.B. Matthew used the figure of Jesus to turn the symbolism of the character of J.t.B. into a supposed historical figure. Let me give an example: someone writes a purposely fake account about president Obama talking about his lunch with Luke Skywalker in an attempt to pull Skywalker away from his role (a character in an obviously fictional movie) into the real world.