What were Jesus and early Christians like?

[Godscreated]

Oh, the question of what Jesus was doing in the days after the baptism is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a reason Christians refer to the first three Gospels as "Synoptic", acknowledging that John sits oddly along side of them.

John's gospel wasn't written as chronology of Christ's life, actually none were intended as a chronology. Each has differences, none disagree with each other over the life of Christ other than when events happened, and as I said, none were intentionally written as a chronological account.

OK, let's assume you're correct that John was telling a retrospective of what happened earlier. This would make Jesus' appearance at least a second one, presumably after the 40 days in the wilderness but before JtB was put into prison. Jesus begins to gather disciples and starts his ministry. Not only does Jesus not wait for JtB to be put away before he starts his ministry, he starts a rival baptism business and beats JtB at his own game.

Let's what? assume, seems to me it's quit clear what was happening in John's account. All the gospel accounts are told somewhat differently, yet nothing is changed among them, they all point man toward salvation through the Christ as the most important thing in one's life.

3:22 After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized.
3:23 And John also was baptizing in Aenon near to Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized.
3:24 For John was not yet cast into prison.
...(JtB speaks about "he must increase but I must decrease")...
4:1 When therefore the LORD knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,

Yet when I read the Synoptic Gospel accounts, Jesus is baptized, Jesus goes into the Wilderness, JtB is thrown into prison, Jesus starts his ministry. He doesn't gather disciples until after JtB was out of the picture.

There is no time designated between the time Jesus starts his ministry and John testifies to his previous encounter with Christ. No designated time is given in any of the other gospels, these writings are not about a minute by minute account of Christ's life nor were they intended to be chronological. You think you can tear down the gospels because they were not put into chronological order, you will and have failed, they are about finding and living a new life, born again into the grace of God our savior, born unto salvation through Christ who came to save us. He did not come to have his story told in a chronological order to satisfy you, He came to offer you salvation through the sinless life He lead and died for and promise you a new resurrected life through his resurrection. The scriptures are not scientific papers written because it needs an orderly presentation to satisfy it's readers and reviewers. Most scientific papers are written to be accepted by peers, carefully constructed to be accepted. The NT wasn't, it was written to tell mankind that salvation is an offering from God, God has no peers to impress, He was giving a gift, you know the one you purposely left out because of the power of conviction it brings. John 3:16, a reminder.

1:13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
1:14 Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, ... 1:16 Now as he walked by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
1:17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.

4:11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. 4:12 Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; ... 4:18 And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
4:19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

4:13 And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.
4:14 And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: and there went out a fame of him through all the region round about.

So in your retcon of John chapter 1, when did JtB have the opportunity to have his second meeting with Jesus when he says "behold the lamb of God"? When did he have the opportunity to baptize along side Jesus at Salim? In the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus gets back from the Wilderness and hears that JtB was put into prison. You'll probably say that some time passed between Jesus' return from the Wilderness and the imprisonment of JtB, long enough to allow for that second meeting, but even so, Jesus in the Synoptics doesn't start his ministry or gather the disciples Simon and Andrew until after JtB was put away.

Your point is taken by telling you that the gospels do not lean on chronology. There are time gaps all through the gospels, they never were meant to be an accurate account of Christ's every movement, they are given for mankind to understand that He came as our only Redeemer. You can not tear them apart because you do not like they were not written chronologically, they stand strong on their own as for what they were intended. True or false many of the old writings outside the scriptures were not written chronologically. Chronology was only very important when generations were given and they were not intended as a time line, but usually to show a line of succession.

Now all of this makes sense if you read the Gospels not as a consistent timeline but a work of fiction that gets better with the telling.

So how do you feel about revising much of ancient history because a timeline was not written into those ancient accounts, do we call all we have fiction because timelines were not established with absolute accuracy as you demand from the Gospels. Don't be so ridiculous. The OT was far from chronologically put together and it was given in part as history. When a chronology was important in the OT we were given generations, and in that it was given to point to a important event or a certain person within a certain time period. None of scripture was given to be a perfect historical account, it was given to give the perfect and absolute need for a Savior.

John was clearly written much later than the other Gospels, evidenced not just by the more theologically advanced Jesus who proclaims himself one with his father but also by how "the Jews" are constantly referred to as a separate and rival religion. The Synoptics write of "the priests", "scribes" or "pharisees", apparently written at a time when the emerging Christian sect had not yet fully split off into its own.

This could only be a true statement if the priest, pharisees and scribes accepted any part of the Christ account, and that then and now is clearly unacceptable to them. All four gospels show the division of Christ and the priest, scribes and pharisees, all laid the blame on them for the crucifying of Christ. Your story holds no water on many accounts.

JtB's nature also changes in John's Gospel. In history, JtB had his own following that clearly dwarfed the one of Jesus, as evident by how his ministry gets a mention in history while Jesus' did not.

Really, (I know you want hold to the scriptures as recording history that didn't make it into accounts by secular writers), but I do not see where John had thousands following him, nor does the historical accounts you rely on say he had a huge following. John himself says, as you noted above, he was sent to introduce Christ as the Savoir.

Strangely, there was no mention of JtB being a warm-up act for anyone to come and his followers continued to be rivals to the early Christians. The first three Gospels were written to assimilate JtB, have him kneel before Jesus and then get out of the way so Jesus could take center stage. However, in John's Gospel, JtB is so insignificant and submissive that there is no need for him to get out of the way. He remains on the stage so Jesus can show how awesome he his by beating him at his own game, racking up more baptisms with JtB as his cheer leader.

I've heard some tales before but this is as ridiculous as it gets. All four gospels tell of John being the messenger to announce Christ, it's made very clear in each one. John nor Jesus could help that some men would not listen to the message given that Jesus was the Christ. The Jews who believed they should follow after John's name were doing so because he was dead and he certainly had no resurrection. Jesus also called John the greatest ever born by a women, meaning through a sexual act, just so you'll understand. Remember this, Jesus never baptized with water.

So even granting your whole apology that JtB was offering testimony of an earlier meeting, the Synoptic Gospels don't allow for Jesus to start his ministry or gather disciples prior to JtB's arrest and hence, the two different stories still fail to mesh.

The gospels were not written to mesh together perfectly, they were written to give a message to the world, all four gospels address this. Also John's following was of Jewish decent only, Jesus came to save the world and Jesus interacted with non Jews as His disciples did later. So John's followers made a mistake in following him. The small and few historical accounts you accept about John do not tell of a mass following. Tell me if Christ was so insignificant how is it that Christianity ever made it, it over took the Roman empire and then the world, this happened through a handful of believers. With a world full of other gods to choose from and the carnal pleasures afforded people through them, Christianity shouldn't have stood a chance, yet it raced to the forefront in short order.

This is a show of your intellect. Prove I started from a conclusion, I like all others was not born a believer.

Correct. You were indoctrinated to believe. Apologetics, by definition, is the art of defending the faith. Faith, by definition, is belief without evidence and against all evidence. You start with the faith, meaning you have no evidence, and then practice apologetics, which is looking for reasons to believe the things you already believe by a process of faith. And the great thing about this fallacious approach to defending the faith is no matter what you believe, you can always find reasons to believe it by selectively looking.
This is not just my opinion. This is the definition of faith and the definition of apologetics, the defense of the faith.
So it is pure psychological projection when you accuse skeptics who simply pick up the Bible and read what is there with a critical mind (the same critical mind by which you would read anyone else's sacred scriptures) of reading the Bible with an agenda. Skepticism is not an agenda. Apologetics, by definition, is.

An absolute perfect description of all the other religions, however not Christianity. You see when one picks up the Bible and uses the critical thinking you profess to, you miss the whole teaching of the Scriptures. By the way to read anything with critical thinking at the forefront means one is looking to dismiss it before one begins, so sure the message is lost on the reader, bias has that tendency and/or result. So call it what you desire skepticism or critical thinking, the approach is to dismantle the material before a full understanding even begins, this by definition is an agenda.
The NT teaches we come to Christ through faith and then through our living the life He prescribes (believing) and the study of scriptures we will come to a knowledge of God, meaning we can know Him without doubt. So you see I do not have to defend a faith because I know God is real, what I do is show people that the Bible tells us how we can receive this knowledge of God and that I received this knowledge through the same way. Now if you decide for your personal belief not to accept it, that's on you and your God given right, IMHO you are making an eternal mistake and I feel bad about it, but what can I do other than show the truth of scripture.

GC

---

Discussion of John the Baptist made me look-up Mandaeism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandaeism

Apparently there is a backlash against connecting Mandaeism with early Christianity, but there are a lot of parallels.
- way of light and darkness (like Dead Sea Scrolls)
- cross as their symbol
- John the Baptist
- theology in the language of parables
- gnostic
- sometimes called "Nasoreans" (similar to Nazarenes)

It makes me wonder if Nazareth was the name of a religious center (like Qumran) for followers of John the Baptist. Jesus tried to take over after John the Baptist was imprisoned or executed. Then Jesus was executed too. James the brother of Jesus took over and the early Christians began rationalizing and mythologizing the failure of Jesus to deliver Israel?

As a side note, as far as I know, no archaeological finds locate Nazareth as an inhabited village until many years until after Jesus is said to have lived. It may not prove that Nazareth didn't exist (even if no writer mentions it until the Gospels---not even Josephus, who mentions a number of insignificant towns in the vicinity) but mythicists have made something of it nonetheless.

There are thousands of unidentified towns lost to history, if we had never learned to survive a couple of hours under water there would be many more things lost to history that are mentioned in ancient writings. Who knows what's waiting to be found.

GC