(October 7, 2021 at 3:54 pm)ayost Wrote: Everything you said is demonstrably false. Like untrue and easily shown to be untrue.
not written by the people who it is said to have written it
Unprovable and these ideas don't come from any new manuscripts or archeological evidence.
nothing but a collection of disparate religious manifestos authored over decades if not centuries
You don't even know if its decades or centuries. That shows at least some ignorance on your part. You didn't even bother to Google which one it is.
Biblical stories and anecdotes are borrowed from previous religions, such as Zoroastrianism and previous cultures, such as Kemet
Only in the MOST superficial and anecdotal ways. Not in a deep, meaningful way. Nether one of those religions tell the story of God entering into His creation to save it.
dead sea scrolls which contain contradictory religious stories
The Old Testament texts that were found in the Dead Sea scrolls were 1000 years older than any manuscripts we had, plus they only strengthened the reliability of the transmission of the Old Testament.
possibly thousands more were buried and/or destroyed by the early Christians in an attempt to curate a religion of their liking
I can't speculate on phantom texts that may have existed and may have been destroyed or the motivations of the people that destroyed them. Good theory. Good luck proving it.
The Jewish scripture cannon was well established before the Dead Sea scrolls were gathered.
the trajectory that Paul sent Christianity on that simply did not exist before
I am familiar with unbelieving liberal scholarship but these ideas just aren't grounded in anything solid. Paul basically formed the early church. You can read 1st century Christians and see the same things in their writings.
many borrowed concepts from older religions that were clearly adapted for Christian purposes
Again, I know what you're talking about. This is speculation on motivations and in ancient religions when there are similarities they are only very, very surface, they are not deep.
I pulled this from a website that was dogging Christianity for copying Kemet and their Trinity of Asar, Aset, and Heru:
"Like many Egyptian gods, these divine beings started out as humans. Asar was a revered king who was murdered by a usurper but became king of the afterlife, or spiritual realm. His wife, Aset, took their son, Heru, into hiding, and Heru eventually returned to reclaim the earthly throne."
I'm sorry, that is absolutely nothing like the eternal triune God of the Bible. Accusing Christians for stealing this and changing it is just speculation. Pure speculation.
It's sad that you are so poorly informed of the religion that you've dedicated your life to. But sorry, facts are facts and even Biblical scholars don't disagree on most of what I posted. If you've never read about the dead sea scrolls, then you wouldn't understand these things. You won't ever learn anything if you just reject everything you hear and clearly you have had zero time to verify anything I posted; you just rejected it, which is exactly what I would expect from someone like you.
Here's a place to start learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUYRoYl7i6U
Why is it so?
~Julius Sumner Miller
~Julius Sumner Miller