Why does science always upstage God?

[pocaracas]

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About Peter's Gospel, you don't seem to have ever read it...
Here's a version of it: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/te...brown.html

Here's some more stuff:
The crucifixion takes place in Rome, not Jerusalem.

Wrong.
It has no mention of Rome at all.
It mentions that it was dark in all Judea.... that he was buried in the "Garden of Joseph"...
I'd say it's implicit that it's in Jerusalem.

Joseph of Arimathea is said to be a personal friend of Pontius Pilate.

He is said to be a friend... perhaps on the same level as "the Lord", perhaps not. It is unclear.
"But Joseph, the friend of Pilate and of the Lord, had been standing there"

Jesus is “taken up” from the cross, and His death is not mentioned.

I read that as euphemism.

"And the Lord screamed out, saying: 'My power, O power, you have forsaken me.' And having said this, he was taken up.
[20] And at the same hour the veil of the Jerusalem sanctuary was torn into two. [21] And they drew out the nails from the hands of the Lord and placed him on the earth"

Clearly, he was still attached to the cross after being "taken up".

Two supernatural beings enter the tomb, and three emerge.

And they were seen by the guards who then swore never to tell anyone about it... but somehow the writer knows about that. Curious, huh?

The cross is described as floating out of the tomb and saying “Yes” to a voice from heaven.

No, it is not.
Where did you get this idea?

There is no mention of witnesses seeing Jesus alive after He was dragged out of the tomb.

Oh, shucks... It's like the original gospel of Mark with a bit more, but not the whole story like it then came to be.
Couldn't someone have done to Peter's gospel the same that they did to Mark's?

Also, no one but no one thinks it's authentic. This would fall under scholarly consensus: believers and unbelievers alike think this is a forgery. I don't think you're advocating its authenticity, though.

Are any of them authentic?
At best, you have agreement that some of Paul's letters were written by the same person whom we can call Paul.
Everything else is dubious, at best.

This is where I get most hung up. What about this theory is provable? You're looking back through time and telling me what people 2000 years ago thought without producing evidence, like a letters between Christians that affirm what you're saying. Why would I agree to this over just accepting what's written in the Bible? And I mean that as a real question, not a rhetorical challenge.

I did say explicitly that I was presenting you a guess.
It would be expectable that the religion that ended up prevailing in Turkey+Greece would have ensured that any writing against it would be "lost". So no, I don't have any writing from the period of 60CE to 300CE that attest to anything I guessed.
There are, however, many writings from many times and many places that tell stories that you would not accept as factual. However, you do accept the particular story of the collection that is the bible.
Even though, for those other stories, there are also several versions of the same story written by several people. Let's give you the example of the Epic of Gilgamesh.
For me, both Gilgamesh and the Bible are equally believable. For you, one is more trustworthy. Why?

There is so many assumptions weaved into what you say. This is the most cynical, skeptical, biased way to look at the development of the NT canon.

And yet, it may as well been like I say.

We know, nowadays, that Paul's Christianity is pretty much the one that ended up becoming the Catholic Christianity.
It is explicit that Paul never even met Jesus, so what reason is there to trust his version of things?

From https://www.huffpost.com/entry/christian..._b_2200409:
‘‘The fundamental doctrinal tenets of Christianity, namely that Christ is God "born in the flesh", that his sacrificial death atones for the sins of humankind, and that his resurrection from the dead guarantees eternal life to all who believe, can be traced back to Paul—not to Jesus. Indeed, the spiritual union with Christ through baptism, as well as the "communion" with his body and blood through the sacred meal of bread and wine, also trace back to Paul. This is the Christianity most familiar to us, with the creeds and confessions that separated it from Judaism and put it on the road to becoming a new religion.’’
[...]
‘‘In contrast, the original Christianity before Paul is somewhat difficult to find in the New Testament, since Paul's 13 letters predominate and Paul heavily influences even our four Gospels. Fortunately, in the letter of James, attributed to the brother of Jesus, as well as in a collection of the sayings of Jesus now embedded in the Gospel of Luke (the source scholars call Q), we can still get a glimpse of the original teachings of Jesus. ’’
— Professor James D. Tabor



My cynical view perfectly accounts for this phenomenon.
Your seemingly blind acceptance seems to ignore this crucial detail of history.


My point of view assumes only people. And we do know quite a great deal about people, here in the very psychological friendly 21st century.
Your point of view assumes that the text is perfectly accurate and represents what really happened. No one embellished it, no one had any ulterior motive when writing it, no one dared go against the will of god for fear they would be stricken from this Earth.

Methinks you trust the wrong people too much.

First, you and I have the benefit of 2000 years of study and debate to rely on. These people didn't. They were hashing out the fundamental truths that we take for granted. And there was a real attack on the church happening. Persecution by the state, theological perversion by the Gnostics, and opportunists profiting off of the early church were all real obstacles. You had people leaving pagan religions trying to reconcile their lives in light of Christ. There was a lot happening and the foundational beliefs had to be defended.

Indeed, wherever you have lots of people, you have lots of things going on.
Why did they have to hash out the fundamentals truths? Wouldn't you expect the son of God to convey them adequately and unequivocally?

When was this attack on the Church happening? This persecution by the state??... which state?

The Gnostics claimed that "the principal element of salvation [is] direct knowledge of the supreme divinity in the form of mystical or esoteric insight." (wiki). Why do you paint this as a perversion?
I'd say it puts the bar to belief a bit higher and could easily lead to many people going astray of religion.... however, it was going strong some 100 years after it surfaced and had to be put out as heresy by the then prevailing Church.

Opportunists would be profiting off of all churches, not just the one that followed Paul's teachings. Such is the nature of opportunists, they strike wherever there is profit to be made.

As for "foundational beliefs"... let them be damned in favour of getting more followers. Even if the cause is a good one, like to make people lead happy fulfilled lives.

Second, you're painting a conspiracy here that texts were rejected purely for not agreeing with Paul. I reject the idea of Pauline Christianity. That's not an accurate way to say it. Paul didn't hijack Christianity. That's just not true. I can harmonize Paul, Peter, John, James, and the rest of the NT scholars no problem.
In fact, the apostles were all working together. Peter references Paul. Luke talks about Paul. Paul references other apostles. This idea that Paul just happened to have the message that stuck is just simply not true. It's unfounded. His ministry was foundational to the church's growth, but he didn't hijack Christianity.

Then how do you explain the fact that several christianities existed in the region of Israel, but the one that becomes prevalent is the one that the Turkish guy spreads in Turkey?
Have fun reading: https://archive.org/details/lostchristianiti00ehrm

Third, I also reject this idea of Pauline Christianity as the canon dividing line. That's just not true. Yes, the message in the other writings was important, as was their theology, authorship, and authenticity. The exact same way any historian today would try to determine the truth an account of a historical event. He has to weigh all of those things to determine if an account is reliable. That's not odd or conspiratorial.

It is widely known that, back then, things were definitely not approached the same way an historian does today. Especially in religious texts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical...e_Apostles

Fourth, because of the way that the NT was spread through multiple lines of independent transmission the idea that there was a governing body that decided what Christians could read was just not true. The canon of scripture was already being organically collected. By the mid 2nd century 22 of the 27 books of the NT were considered the core writings, way before Laodicea.

Yes, I never said otherwise.
It just so happens that Paul's view of Christianity organically became the prevailing one and thus only those texts which aligned themselves with it would become accepted by the followers. All other texts were discarded (if they ever even saw them).

This is secular scholarship 101 and it's not based on any evidence that Christian scholarship isn't looking at. There are two ways to view the same information. Worldview matters.

My worldview sees a world full of people.
My worldview sees a world where these people need to get along.
My worldview sees many historical attempts at getting people to behave decently towards one another and religion as a major player in this arena.
My worldview sees all religions as arbiters of how people should behave.
My worldview sees religions as made up of people.

Do you dispute any of these sentences above?

Well, you have yet to demonstrate that my initial claim is false... sooooooooo?

How about you demonstrate that it is true first? If it is indeed true, it would be far far easier.

Oh, no. No, no, no. Haha. I don't accept an atheist's appeal to logic. We don't have to hash that out, but I also won't just let you start appealing to transcendent, immaterial standards of truth. You don't get to appeal to logic unless you can justify it.

What is your issue with logic, now?

Are you under the impression that humanity requires the divine in order to accept the immaterial mind that emerges from the material brain?