Jesus' Sacrifice

[robvalue]

I'm very interested now to find out more about the history of the jesus story, what it was originally like and how it got defiled from a nice story about human sacrifice into a stupid nonsensical story about human sacrifice.

Anyone have a good resource for this?

Here is a link to a hypothesized passion narrative that may have been an earlier source utilized by the writers of Mark. Scholars think the passion narrative existed, because the ways characters and locations are named doesn't make sense unless the narrative was written in an earlier political climate for people familiar with the geography around Jerusalem. Mark was written later for Gentile Christians.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/passion.html

Great, thank you

[Minimalist]

Oh, great. We can put this in the fiction section too...along with the rest of the fucking bible.

As Bart Ehrman notes:

http://ehrmanblog.org/first-century-copy...rk-part-1/

In the debate I pointed out that our earliest copy of the Gospel of Mark was P45 (called this because it is the 45th Papyrus [hence “P”] manuscript to be catalogued), which dates to around the year 200 CE – i.e., 140 years after Mark was first written. That’s our earliest copy. Between the original of Mark and our earliest copy there were something like fourteen decades of copying, and recopying, and recopying of Mark. Year after year it was copied. And the copies were being changed at every point. And then later copies were copies of the earlier changed copies. Then those earlier changed copies were lost; as were the copies based on them; and the copies based on them. Until our earliest surviving copy, P45 – which itself is not a complete copy of Mark, but highly fragmentary. Our first complete copy of Mark dates to around the year 360 – nearly three hundred years (count them 300 years) after the “original” of Mark.

Ehrman can't prove this bullshit was written in 70 AD either meaning that there could be far fewer generations of scribal changes but there have to be some. Irenaeus mentions mark in 185 so it surely existed by then and we don't even have that one.

So these people are looking over edited and mistake-ridden copies and trying to figure out where they originally came from and what they said.
No wonder they call it apologetics.

[robvalue]

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. The "Mark" we have is not what was written in the first place. Quite possibly nothing much like it at all.

[Pizza]

So these people are looking over edited and mistake-ridden copies and trying to figure out where they originally came from and what they said.
No wonder they call it apologetics.

At best it's a historical guessing game, but that doesn't sound good as a sound bite in a debate if you are an apologist.

[Cato]

Ok, clato. In your opinion what is God trying to communicate with Christ on the cross, that could have been done another way?

It's like a used car salesman telling you that when the car breaks down he will personally come and restore it to a pristine condition and guarantees from that moment forward the car will flawlessly run forever with no fuel. All that's asked of you is that you suck his dick every day until the car breaks down.

[FatAndFaithless]

Another question is..why would Jesus ask if his Father had forsaken him...if he is his Father. It's like Gollum arguing with Smeagol, it's insane.

[robvalue]

Could it be...

They didn't have very good editors in those days? Haha. When massive changes to the stories were made, no one had the sense to go through and remove references which were now contradictory.

That "conversation" certainly got missed with the retcon.

It wouldn't even make any sense for any jesus story where he knew he was meant to die for a purpose.

[Nope]

Drich wrote:


But we don't need to see blood and suffering to know someone made a sacrifice for us. The sacrificing person doesn't even have to die. For example, when parents work two jobs so their child can go to college we know that the parent has sacrificed for their child. Jewish people didn't believe that their was only one way to gain god's forgiveness and they are the ones who wrote the rules in the Old Testament.

The Christian story makes god seem like Ramsey Snow torturing Theon from Game of Thrones or Jigsaw from the Saw movies. Bible god decided to set up a weird game system with rules he created just so he could eventually torture himself for a few hours so humans could tell him how great he is.

In the op you said christ could have suffered more, and now you say he suffered too much...

Christ suffered and died to illustrate the pain and suffering/cost of salvation. These illustrations help us understand the very high price attonement cost God.

You are misreading me. If your god had to suffer for us to gain forgiveness then why is a six hour crucifixion enough compared to the eternity of hell we get for not kissing his ass for that unasked for 'sacrifice". But why suffer at all? That is silly. And no, humans do not need pain and suffering to illustrate the cost of a sacrifice. You are married, Drich. When your wife takes time to do something for you does she also have to physically hurt herself to gain your gratitude?

[Drich]

Ok, clato. In your opinion what is God trying to communicate with Christ on the cross, that could have been done another way?

It's like a used car salesman telling you that when the car breaks down he will personally come and restore it to a pristine condition and guarantees from that moment forward the car will flawlessly run forever with no fuel. All that's asked of you is that you suck his dick every day until the car breaks down.

See how confused you are about the strong message that is being relayed from the cross? what weaker method could have been used to give you clarity about the freedom we have found in Christ?

[Nope]

Another question is..why would Jesus ask if his Father had forsaken him...if he is his Father. It's like Gollum arguing with Smeagol, it's insane.

Some Christians think that Jesus actually became sin or somehow took on our literal sin while on the cross. I had a pastor who claimed that god could not look on sin so he could no longer see Jesus. At least, I think that was his explanation. The pastor's explanation countered the idea of an omnipotent god so completely that I felt my former religious brain begin to explode.