(February 5, 2015 at 11:28 am)SteveII Wrote: I don't care if you believe the events of Jesus' life actually happened or not. But the consequences of rejecting the gospels is that a significant number of people intentionally lied. Then the question is to what end? This all goes toward the probability assessment of whether the first Christians believed in the actual key events in Jesus' life.
Not at all. You're completely ignoring the fact that the Bible has been massaged for 1700 years, often with an agenda in mind, as anyone who has read Ehrman's work would know. Assuming that what you read today is what was written centuries ago is fatuous and unwarranted.
Just as an aside, let's turn your question on its head: why would the authors of the myriad other religious texts lie? By your logic, shouldn't you invest their claims with the same amount of credulity? I'm told that churchin' is a pretty lucrative business. Even in those times, all money is good money.
And -- if Christ really was Yahweh personified, why would he pick a group of off-the-shelf traits so as to make himself indistinguishable from the myriad other godlings running around in those days? And how can you be sure that those godlings weren't real?
