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I like this Jesus guy's ideas, I just don't think he's magic.
I like what this guy named Matthew said Jesus guy's ideas were. Mark and Luke said the same but weren't as good as writers. And another guy named John wrote a fanfic expanding on the original.
And then a guy called Paul (aka Saul) got involved despite never having met the OG crew. And started an expanded universe messing up the canon forever.
See, Evangelicals don't worship Jesus. He's just their mascot. They worship Paul.
Then they should pay their fucking taxes if they do.
I mean that's a different issue but you'll get no argument from me
Well sorta Paul told them to pay their taxes. So if they like this Paul guy so much they should follow him.
I mean, Mark had to go first, so we can give him some slack. And Luke isn't a worse writer, just a bit of a pretentious one. John is definitely the best storyteller, even if he does go...off the rails a bit. And Paul didn't write nearly as much as we give him credit/blame for.
I think it is a mixed bag. The teaching about divorce messed up the lives of a lot of people. Then there was that time he told a guy to abandon his dying father to go preach with him. He called a gentile woman a dog. He said most people will be destroyed. Jesus as chronicled by Matthew seems fond of referring to everlasting fire.
To be clear, I am not saying he didn't say anything good. He said don't be a hypocrite. He said help others and pay your taxes. He said feed the hungry and clothe the naked. But that doesn't erase all the bad things the character of Jesus said.
I do agree that Paul sucks balls though.
Paul predated the Gospel writers and he claims that he met James.
Funny enough you're right. My guess is that, for a while, these stories were transmitted orally.
Like herpes.There is that idea yes, that there was an oral tradition for fifty years until the author of Mark came along. It is also possible the Mark Gospel was two lost written accounts that were merged, meaning the oral tradition was much shorter. About 85% of Matthew is found in Mark and most of the 15% are Greek legends. Luke seems to have had Matthew, Josphius, and Mark. John seems to have had the three plus that weird community that might have existed in Jerusalem. I hate using weasel words but really this is all speculation. Not convinced the M source had to have existed, since you can get there without it.
It is worth mentioning that the story about the adulteress in John was in oral form for a long time before written down. So, yes it is possible that this feat happened more than once. Pity that story is even less likely to have happened compared to the rest of the stories, given how nice it is.
I am aware of the two-source hypothesis. My opinion is that those two sources probably derive from oral tradition, and this oral tradition is also the source material that Paul drew from.
Sure why not? Some Essen community is chilling there with their stories of a Jewish dying and rising God, Paul shows up and takes it seriously.
And then they all died for their faith, bar John who was imprisoned for life, and not once renounced it to save themselves.
The terrorists on 9/11 were just as brave dying for their faith.
American Christo fascists trying to find the differences between the two pictures.
they're the same picture meme
Pretty low to liken the Apostles to terrorists. The difference is that they created the story and witnessed it. The 9/11 terrorists believed Mohammed's lie.
In their minds they were just as virtuous in their fight against adversities and died for their beliefs. My point is that that you can have these great convictions for horribly causes. The great blind conviction isn't a virtue. It doesn't mean that early Christian writers should be respected. Ancient political movements with cults of personality associated telling their followers to die for the cauce is always disgusting.
It wasn't a horrible cause, though.
There's a huge difference between being killed by the authorities for showing disloyalty to an autocratic government and committing an act of terror by killing thousands of random people to make your point.
They had great conviction because they literally witnessed a man's death and resurrection.
None of them were eyewitnesses. The gospels were written decades and Paul old had a vision.
Matthew and John were eyewitnesses. Luke and Mark were second-hand accounts from eyewitnesseses and line up with Matthew and John. Paul claimed to have a vision but whatever happened, definitely changed him.
No. Neither one of them were eyewitnesses.
Matthew would have been an illiterate Aramaic speaker and yet the Gospel is written in highly educated Greek, contains events that hadn't happened yet, contains attributions of events that hadn't happened yet, contains events that the apostle wouldn't have seen, has mistakes about geography and Jewish culture that no Palestinian Jewish person would have made, contains direct word for word quotes from Mark, contains deliberately altered quotes from Mark to get certain results.
John is even in a worse position because he not only makes all the mistakes Matthew made he shows a theology that had not even been developed in the first century.
Luke is not a second hand account. He even admits as much when he talks about various sources. Luke borrowed from everywhere. Josphius, Mark, Matthew, the Letters, probably the Q and L source, and who knows how many oral traditions. He is a second hand account in the sense that if you heard me describe a Wikipedia article I had read 8 years ago would be.
As for Paul sure he had a vision. Dehydration, some bad figs, late onset schizophrenia. Take your pick really.
Matthew would have been an illiterate Aramaic speaker
He was literally a tax collector. He would have been well educated.
contains events that hadn't happened yet, contains attributions of events that hadn't happened yet, contains events that the apostle wouldn't have seen, has mistakes about geography and Jewish culture that no Palestinian Jewish person would have made,
Where?
contains direct word for word quotes from Mark, contains deliberately altered quotes from Mark to get certain results.
Or Mark was quoting Matthew before he wrote it down. It's not that deep. Oral tradition exists.
Luke is not a second hand account. He even admits as much when he talks about various sources. Luke borrowed from everywhere. Josphius, Mark, Matthew,
Matthew was a first-hand source
Q And L sources
So something already happened that caused an oral tradition, which would have led back to first hand accounts.
As for Paul sure he had a vision. Dehydration, some bad figs, late onset schizophrenia. Take your pick really.
His blindness was cured when he was baptised, though. Again, you'd argue that it was a placebo, but the Holy Spirit acted in many people and still does to this day.
I partially agree. The apostles did create the story. Bunch of local legends and grifts. The only thing they witnessed were the bags of money Paul raised for them.
Paul only wrote half the letters attributed to him, John didn't write John, Mark didn't write Mark, Matthew didn't write Matthew, and Luke didn't write Luke. Of the 27 books of the NT only 8 are attributed correctly.
As for their supposed dying for their faith we don't actually know that. That is all later church traditions. It's certainly possible since pretty much everyone got murdered who the Romans noticed but we don't have evidence that it happened to them and there was plenty of reason to lie about it.
Paul only wrote half the letters attributed to him, John didn't write John, Mark didn't write Mark, Matthew didn't write Matthew, and Luke didn't write Luke.
Source?
We are talking about 27 books here, this would take me pages to go through. You got to work with me a bit. Give me one book/letter in particular that you really think was written by the person it was attributed to that isn't the Apocalypse by John or the 7 undisputed of Paul. Want to start with Mark?
Matthew.
Fine.
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Apostle Matthew would have been an illiterate Aramaic speaker. Yet the Gospel is written in educated Greek.
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Apostle Matthew would have been Jewish and at least somewhat familiar with the Hebrew Bible. And yet the Gospel only shows references to the Septuagint Bible. Check it yourself, not a single reference to Purim or the book of Easter.
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apostle Matthew would have recognized the poetic structure of Hebrew where the last sentence is repeated in slightly different ways. Example "and he went to the city. To the city he traveled". The Gospel writer didn't recognize it which is why he doubles stuff, hence Jesus riding a donkey and a colt.
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apostle Matthew would not have had access to the Gospel of Mark as it came out decades later in a totally different part of the empire. And yet the Gospel writer copied whole passages word for word out of Mark.
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apostle Matthew would have been about the same age as Jesus and from Galliee not the Bethlehem or Nazare and yet the Gospel writer claims to know about events going on prior to Jesus' birth including events with Mary and Joseph with no eyewitnesses
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apostle Matthew would only have had access at best to stories from Jesus while the Gospel writer shows stories that were retroconned. This is why you have a scene where Mary calls Joseph the father that later translations tried to surpress.
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apostle Matthew would have had no details about the events around the death of Jesus. How does he know what happens when Jesus is praying in private? How does he know about the trial with Pilot and what was said? And yet the Gospel writer did.
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apostle Matthew would have had little to know knowledge about Greco-Roman or Persian or Indian myths and yet the Gospel writer did and borrowed extensively.
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apostle Matthew would not have known Paul's letters and yet the Gospel writer references them.
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apostle Matthew would never have seen the events of 70 AD and yet foreshadowing of those events is found
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apostle Matthew would not have had any clue about the proto-Trinity debate of when Jesus was elevated and yet the Gospel writer takes a firm stand on that issue
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the whole attribution to him was made two hundred years later and not from even church tradition.
Let me know if you need more.
- Matthew was a Tax Collector working for Rome. He would have most likely been literate and well educated. To second on that, why would the early Christians falsely attribute the Gospel to a tax collector out of all of the 12? Didn't the Jews hate the tax collectors?
- Argument from silence. Also, the Septuagint was based on the interpretation of scripture of the time, hence, the word for Virgin being used. Matthew also translated from the
- No, the double donkey isn't a repetition. There were two donkeys. There was a mother donkey and a young donkey, the Mother was there to keep the young one calm. Jesus was on the young donkey.
- that proves there was an oral tradition (as to be expected) and it doesn't undermine eyewitness testimony. Matthew did record some things before Luke did, such as the Sermon on the Mount which was told in greatest detail in Matthew. Mark doesn't have as much detail as Matthew has.
- I know things about my older siblings and about my parents that occured before my birth. Doesn't mean I am not an eyewitness testimony to my Parent's and siblings life.
- What passage?
- Jesus spent forty days on earth after death. Plausible Matthew asked "what were you doing then".
- What myths?
- Matthew referencing letters? Where?
- Thanks for affirming that prophecy is real.
- He just affirmed the trinity.
- Not from church tradition? How do you know? I know stories from my family that are over 100 years old but not written down anywhere, so it's plausible that all of these inevitably scattered Churches in 200ad agree that it was written by Matthew. There is no record of anyone disputing the authorship of the gospels back then. And they would have likely known who wrote them as well.
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There was no such requirement to work as a tax collector. You don't need to be an expert of literature techniques to knock on a door. Also it was Christian tradition.
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Which is a very good argument. Why didn't your god know what local illiterates knew?
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Learn Greek or at least copy from an apologetics writer who knows it. Matthew doubled all over the place the donkey and the horse being the worst incident of his lies.
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There is no evidence of an oral tradition. Mark copied Paul, Greek Hebrew-Bible, and some Greco-Roman traditions. Matthew copied him and added some more Greek stuff. Luke copied Matthew and Josphius. John copied them all.
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Really? So you know you know your coworker's mom said while praying 33 years ago one time with no eyewitnesses? Answer the question, yes or no.
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Full sentences please.
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Prove it.
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Dying and rising God. The idea of a god coming down, raping a girl, the child being a powerful figure who dies and becomes celestial is not original. Christian schools tend to avoid teaching this.
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Every fact about Jesus stated by Paul is found in Matthew, every interpretation of the facts Matthew disagrees with. What happened to the law? Paul said it no longer applied. Matthew said it did. When did Jesus become celestial? Paul said at the resurrection Matthew at conception.
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Prophecy is as fake as the hair of your prot. Pope.
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The Trinity wasn't invented yet.
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Right so if you could just show the evidence of your assertion that would be swell. I don't really give a shit about some story your grandma told you.
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