What if the Romans hadn't killed Jesus?

[Mark Fulton]

The funny thing about this "prophecy" is that it literally came true...but not in 70. The ruins of the city were left as burned out hulks except for what the Romans leveled to build a new base camp for the 10th Legion which was stationed in the city.

It came true in the aftermath of Hadrian's urban renewal project c 135 AD when the ruins were leveled and the new Roman town of Aelia Capitolina was built on the site. Not so coincidentally, it is this time period when xtianity seems to get going. Marcion, for example, was active around 140 AD and a generation later was being denounced by the proto-orthodox for "heresy."

But the story seems to be second century... not first.

The prophecy may have been completed in 135 AD, but the process begain in 70 AD. The meaningful event would be the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, ending the Jewish sacrificial worship system. Jesus' prophecy was to be fufilled within the lifetime of the current generation. If it was fufilled in 135 AD, the writers after that time wouldn't include that prophecy because it would show that it was false. And saying that Matthew and Luke were written after 135 AD is quite a stretch. Christianity started getting going shortly after Jesus' death, with the apostles converting thousands in a day. Though Marcion was influential in establishing the canon of scripture, that doesn't attest to when the scriptures were written.

"Christianity started getting going shortly after Jesus' death, with the apostles converting thousands in a day."

Oh dear! That's from the book of Acts! Surely you don't believe anything that's in Acts… Do you?

None of the apostles were Christians. They were dyed in the wool Jews. Of course I'm not including Paul as an apostle.

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Source?

The Book of Acts, which you will immediately dismiss, although that doesn't make it any less valid, states that about 3,000 were added to their number on Pentecost and that the church continued to grow in large numbers. Also the secular website below shows most opinions of the dates of composition of the gospels at no later than 100 AD, but possibly as early as soon after Jesus' death. Although I will add, that some think it was as late as the end of the second century. In other words, we don't really know for sure when they were written, which points out that you (and Minimalist) have no grounds for stating with surety that the gospels or any other books of the bible were written later that the first century. http://www.stellarhousepublishing.com/gospel-dates.html

There was no such thing as a printing press, so in the first few hundred years of each Gospel’s existence, translators, editors, inter- preters, and interpolators altered the original writings by adding or subtracting whatever they thought might be useful. So the dates that are commonly given for the authorship of each Gospel (ranging from 70 CE to 180 CE) are only of limited usefulness, as they can only be thought of only as when the first drafts were composed. (http://www.maplenet.net/~trowbridge/NT_Hist.htm). It was only in the later fourth century that the Gospels finished evolving.

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Lek, objective non evangelical scholars never take the book of Acts seriously.

Have a watch of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5MUUP4l6l4

It only begins to dismantle the nonsense in Acts.

I once spent about a month getting my head around Acts. I'll share more with you if you're interested.