I’ve read it, but I apologize for jumping to the most obvious assumption based on your vague reference. Secondly, if you’d actually do some research on the origin of your own religion you so passionately defend, you’d find that the gospels are dated as having been originally written between 120-200 CE, with the exception of Saul of Tarsus (Paul), who’s account has been estimated around 60 CE.
There doesn’t seem to be any
actual scholars who agree with you.
Additionally, most early Christians didn’t believe in things like the virgin birth, his divinity or the resurrection; these were added later on during the editing process at the Council of Nicea under Constantine.
. Early non Christians I’m sure didn’t believe in these things, but certainly early Christians did. Logically if they didn’t believe in the resurrection and divinity of Christ why would they call them selves Christians especially in a social climate where such beliefs often caused believers to lose their lives. That’s tantamount to a darwinist claiming to be a darwinist but not believing in natural selection. It’s just absurd. The resurrection was believed by the people who witnessed it and spread immediately from then on.
The image on Juan Diego’s Tilma of Our Lady of Guadalupe has no scientific explanation as to how it was created. The tilma itself is made from cactus fibers and should have decayed centuries ago. In the pupils of Mary in the image can be seen the the reflection and expression of those present who witnessed the miracle.
Our Lady of Zeitun Egypt in the early 1970’s was witnessed by as many as a million people. Mary made of light hovered above a church and was a companied by doves of light in the form of a cross. This was witnessed by atheists, Muslims, Christians, and everyone in between.
The many healing miracles of Lourdes are open to investigation by all. They have a center where anyone can scientifically review those miracles.
The shroud of Turin even if it was a 13th century hoax contains so many things that I won’t go into them here with the exception the image was a negative. It wasn’t until the late 1800’s that the image was seen as a positive with a photographic negative. No one could have possible known what a negative image was 500 years before the invention of photography.
Padre pio’s stigmata has no scientific explanation nor does the gaining of 20/20 vision in Gemma DiGiornio’s eyes without pupils after Padre Pio prayed for her.
There are no gods, flying spaghetti monsters, or fairies at the bottom of the garden that have the weight of incorruptible saints, eucharistic miracles, and Marion apparitions and miracles over 2 millenium to support their existence. There is only one that has all that to support Him and that is Jesus Christ, Lord, God, and Savior.
The whole debate is likely moot, as the odds are that the biblical Jesus never even existed, as no secular record of his existence exists, even where it should. No records, no historians, no other writers in the area around that time make any mention of him, even though they documented much more mundane occurrences.
The existence of Jesus is a moot point as most scholars today believe that Jesus was an actual person.
Now… as far as no records or historians, that’s a giant load of hooey. Josephus wrote about Jesus in his Testimonium Flavianum. We have a pretty good idea today what parts were later edited by Christians about Him being the Messiah, But there is a core that is in his writing style that definitely mentions Jesus.
Philip Burns (
pib@merle.acns.nwu.edu) has provided some of the following material on the following alternate versions or reconstructions of the Testimonium Flavianum.
One possible reconstruction of the Testimonium Flavianum, suggested by James Charlesworth, goes like this, with probably Christian interpolations enclosed in brackets:
About this time there was Jesus, a wise man, [if indeed one ought to call him a man]. For he was one who performed surprising works, and) a teacher of people who with pleasure received the unusual. He stirred up both many Jews and also many of the Greeks. [He was the Christ.] And when Pilate condemned him to the cross, since he was accused by the first-rate men among us, those who had been loving (him from) the first did not cease (to cause trouble), [for he appeared to them on the third day, having life again, as the prophets of God had foretold these and countless other marvelous things about him]. And until now the tribe of Christians, so named from him, is not (yet?) extinct.
Tacitus wrote, “derived their name and origin from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, had suffered death by the sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate” (Annals 15.44) some where between 55 and 120 a.d.
Pliny the younger around 100 a.d. wrote to Trajan about what to do with the problem of the Christians.
I’d love for, just once, a Christian to actually explain why they’re convinced of their religious beliefs in objective terms. Yet the reason they never do is not because they won’t, but because they can’t.
Pontius Pilate the Roman Procurator who over saw the trial of Jesus was an actual historical figure as attested by a recent archeological discovery in a Roman forum with Pilates name inscribed in stone.
