"Gospel Quest" (or The Jesus Timeline)

[DeistPaladin]

When an astrophysicist publishes an article, is it a straight line of facts, or is it an interpretation of the facts? For example, when they observe a star's "wobble" do they merely publish the sky coordinates on a timeline, or do they add their own hypothesis, namely that the "star" is actually a planet? In order to get anywhere in science, interpretations must be made, right?

Even when interpretations are made, the scientist must justify their beliefs with evidence or be, metaphorically, crucified by their peers.

During Christ's trial, the chief priests ask Him point blank, "Tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God." And He said,

"The Christ" means "The Anointed One" or "The Messiah". It does not mean "God incarnate".

"Son of God" does not mean "God incarnate". You'll notice I included "demigod offspring of Yahweh" in my list of things you might call Jesus if you only read Matt, Mark and Luke.

Nice try, though.

In Mark 2:1-12, Jesus heals a paralytic. He had authority to forgive sins, which is something only God Himself can do. Then, to authenticate His claim, He demonstrated His power by healing the paralytic.

He articulates that he'd been given the authority, calling himself "the Son of man".

Also, in Matthew 2:11; 14:33; 28:9, 17 and Luke 24:52 He accepts worship.

As the son of and intercessor for Yahweh.

Matthew 1:23 "Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.'”

This quote refers to Isaiah 7 which refers to a child who will be born to show the king of Judea that God is with him and he would prevail against the Syrians. Isaiah was not speaking of a future messiah nor of any son of God and certainly not of God incarnate.

And then there's all the prophecies He fulfilled, something the synoptics authors could not have missed when they wrote:

I'll review this website later but I've seen this argument in the past. The "prophecies fulfilled" are either lies about the OT scripture or unverifiable claims by the story.

Moreover, Luke and Matthew make it clear the Jesus could not have been a demigod, since he was virgin-born.

So was Perseus, the son of Zeus.

The website makes the case that Herod died in 1 BC.

That's a pretty fringy claim to say the least. Will review that website later.

their contemporaries were well aware of recent events, a preliminary block of evidence would have served little purpose.

First of all, there was little agreement in the first few centuries of Christianity about the details of Jesus. There was a wild variety of different stories told which included even whether or not he lived as a physical being or merely was an apparition that seemed to exist. That last opinion I mentioned was held by the Docetic Christians and they were a serious problem for what became the Orthodox view if the Bible is any indication. There are not one but two condemnations of the Docetics in scripture and these condemnations are not made, as one would expect, by referring them to recent history but rather in the language of faith.

1John 4:3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

Additionally, this apology would seem to rely upon the assumption that the ancient world was populated by commando fact checkers that would descend upon the authors like a team of ninjas to cry "false" if there was any rabbinic scribbling that was not so.

The reality is that the path from myth to urban legend is a short one and even today, with fact checking just a Google search away, people get confused about recent history. Ronald Reagan was president within my lifetime and yet his character has been completely re-written to suit Republican adoration. Few in the GOP seem to be aware he raised taxes, cut an ran in Lebanon and made deals with Democrats.

Finally, Christianity had its critics but their works are lost to us. We only know of them as they were quoted by Christian theologians for refutation.