Jesus claimed to be a Jewish Messiah and was later misrepresented to create Christianity

Pro said: I DO appeal to New Testament to find truth about Jesus, but I DON'T consider the entirety of the New Testament to be true. In particular, my claim is that New Testament was possibly tampered with or produced to show misrepresented story of Jesus in the first place. I argue with the presupposition that it is possible to infer the true historical Jesus from a story that intentionally misrepresents him.My response: I really don't know what your criteria is for what is and what is not reliable in the New Testament...it seems to me that you are just cherry picking the New Testament. Everything that supposedly supports your position is fine, everything else has to go, you cannot have your cake and eat it too, if anyone had the authority to cherry pick like you, we could arrive at thousands of different conslusions that the New Testament never meant to communicate.Pro said: I did not establish its veracity in one hundred percent, to find out who historical Jesus was only on the basis of New Testament or the Fathers of the Church (who simply repeat established oral tradition). In fact my opening arguments (both in the Round One and Two) were that of historical evidence versus what the NT claims.My response: If you really did "establish your case from the New Testament" then you wouldn't come to the conclusion that Jesus didn't claim to be God, or that Paul corrupted the message of Jesus, again this goes back to eenie meenie miney mo, i'll use this part of the New Testament, but the rest gotta go. It doesn't work like that. And also, if you really based your contentions on the Church Fathers, then do you believe Ignatius of Antioch who called Jesus Christ God? If not, then you just lied to me.Pro said: Con only made appeals to authority of New Testament to determine who historical Jesus was and did not address my objections to the narration on the grounds of historical plausibility, e.g. that of the reason why Jesus was crucified.My response: Why Jesus was crucified is not the topic of this debate, the only thing that needs to be proved is that Jesus was in fact crucified, which EVERY non-mythicist scholar considers to be the case, let me quote to you New Testament scholar Gerd Lüdemann, an Atheist: "Jesus' death as a consequence of crucifixion is indisputable." [1] You really expect me to doubt the crucifixion of Jesus based on the (ignorant) testimony of a disbeliving Jew like Maccoby over a New Testament specialist on the Crucifixion? Pro said: The problem with arguing about virgin birth that was supposedly prophesized by Isaiah is that a Hebrew word meaning "young girl of marriageable age" was directly translated into Greek Septuagint as "virgin". (1) Whether this translation was permissible or not remains arguable.My response: I am not here to debate whether or not Almah should be translated as "young maiden" or "virgin", that wasn't my point, my point was the early Christians belived it, and that the New Testament Gospels contain the story.Pro said: As to the argument the Con makes in this case, it rests entirely on acceptation of the doctrine of the original sin, which Jews did not believe at the time. Neither I think there is any evidence that Ignatius' epistle gives credence to the argument that "it was necessary for Jesus to be born to a virgin so that he wouldn't inherit the sinful nature passed on through the father". In fact the doctrine of the original sin appeared much later, and Ignatius doesn't attribute the neccesity of virgin birth to sinless nature of Jesus. There can be serious doubt about the origins of this dogma. My response: How exactly is pointing out the fact that Jews didn't believe in original sin relevant to this debate? We aren't debating the theology of Jews and Christians, this debate is on the Historical Jesus and whether or not Jesus actually taught what Christians believe today, so this comment is irrelevant. Secondly, Ignatius most certainly believe in the Virgin Birth, for what reason, again is irrelevant. Again, whether or not the Bible teaches original sin isn't going to work for or against me, so i'll just leave it at that.Pro said: Moreover, curious silence about Jesus' supposed virgin birth in the earliest Christian writings (preceding Ignatius) casts another doubt on the validity of the dogma.My response: Not sure what you mean by silence in Christian writings before Ignatius...Matthew and Luke were written decades before Ignatius even wrote his letter.Pro said: Why would Jesus use third participle, instead of directly forgiving sins? There's one quite good answer: Jesus spoke those words just as if a priest would. I contend that it is not very logical to argue for the "authority" of priests to forgive sins (by God's grace of course, priests being a proxy) and claim at the same time Jesus' authority to do so implies his godly nature. It is not a direct proof of his godhood.My response: Show me anywhere in the Bible except for in the case of Jesus that anyone OTHER than Yahweh forgives sins, its one thing to forgive someone for something they did against you, it's another thing to say that you can forgive sins committed against God, according to Micah 7:18-19, only God has that authority.Pro said: Jesus even makes extraordinary claim of 'having been before Abraham was'. The important problem considered here is that God did take his prophets to heavens (Genesis 5:24, Second Kings 2:11) to stay in there, and sometimes to descend back to earthly world.My response: This response is just pure desperation...Jesus didn't merely say that he used to be Jesus at some point in the past, went to heaven, then came back, he himself said that he existed eternally, that is what "I AM" means, which is where the tetragrammaton YHWH (the divine name) comes from, it means self existent, which in turn proves that Jesus claims to be uncreated.Pro said: Jesus' claim was after resurrection and may as well have been interpolated. Judeochristians did also believe in his resurrection and ascension, but not in his godhood.My response: Merely making the accusation that it was interpolated is not an argument against my position, provide me with your evidence if you are truthful, show me that earlier version don't contain the sayings and that later versions do, if you can't, then you have no evidence for your claim, and any claim without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.Pro said: Even in the Gospel of Mark itself it is inadvertly implied Jesus was a very important figure to the God, but not God himself, which would be a blasphemy to the JewsMy response: Mark didn't think Jesus was God, are you serious? The author of Mark based his Gospel on the memoirs of the Apostle of Peter, Mark also knew Paul and was a cousin of Barnabas, an early Apostle. Peter taught the deity of Christ, Paul taught the deity of Christ, are you saying that Mark came up to them and said "wait a minute guys, Jesus is not God". This is simply absurd. Mark presents a divine Jesus in the very first chapter:"As it is written in the Prophets:“Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,Who will prepare Your way before You.”“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:'Prepare the way of the Lord;'Make His paths straight.’”" (Mark 1:2-3)Here the author of Mark takes Malachi 3:1 and Isaiah 40:3 that talks about a prophet preparing the way of The LORD (the divine name) and applies this passage to John the Baptist as the prophet preparing the way for Jesus. So right from the start, Jesus is identified as YHWH, the tetragrammton by Mark's Gospel.Pro said: The most obvious quote used by Jesus to deny his godhood is in the story of rich man: "And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone."My response: Again read the passage carefully, Jesus never denied that he was good, he was simply asking the man a question, "why do you call me good?" No denial of being good by Jesus, he simply asked the question to make a point to someone who didn't believe he was God, continue reading and Jesus says if you want eternal life, be ready to die and follow me, showing you that Jesus thought he was the standard of good.Pro said: The story of Thomas in particular may have been interpolated.My response: I'm beginning to notice a pattern with Pro, anytime a Gospel passage presents Jesus as divine he simply says "well it may have been a later addition". Classical case of cherry picking. I will ask you again, show me the evidence that it is a later interpolation.Pro said: Here I reject authority of the Gospels on the issue of Jesus "predicting his death" and purporting to die on the cross.Maccoby claimsMy response: Did you even bother reading the evidences that I provided as well as Michael Licona's evidence? This isn't something only believing scholars believe, unbelieving scholars believe it as well, simply basing your entire case on the works of an unbelieving Jew who isn't even a New Testmament scholar in the first place is irrational.Pro said: Why would Jesus buy swords? The standard counterargument is that just two are not enough to fight Romans.My response: Jesus makes it clear why he ordered his disciples to buy swords, not so that they would actually fight, but Jesus says "For that which is written must be accomplished by me..." and quotes Isaiah 53:12. As far as Jesus saying "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me" he didn't say it because God has forsaken him, he simply said it to point his audeince to the 22nd Psalm. This is an example of a typological fulfillment, meaning that the Psalm may be referring to the one writing it, in this case David, in poetic terms, but ultimately find its literal fulfillment in the Messiah. I'll respond to whatever I didn't get to in this rebuttal in my next rebuttal, as I am running out of room.Sources:[1] Gerd Lüdemann. The Resurrection of Christ (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2004), p. 50