Jesus the Christ is Probaby the Result of Creative Writing.

Interesting - lets examine some of my opponent's positions... >> "Jesus was by no means presumably able to write." John 8:8 - "And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground." Is there something about this that confuses you? You JUST posted evidence that completely undermines your argument. And the position that Jesus wasn't able to write is completely unsalient. You already undermined your other opposition by providing a verse where Jesus reads. So in other words, you hold that although Jesus could read in the temple, and write on the sand, he did not write anything because he was not presumably able to write? That's nonsense. >> "okay, at least two [Matthew and Luke] could write and they did write." Here's a wonderful link concerning the authorship of the gospels and how contemporary scholars agree that the gospels were not written by the persons that bear those names... (http://www.cygnus-study.com...). Interestingly enough, most of the gospels could not have been written before 70 C.E., because they mention destruction of the temple and other historical events of the time. The Twelve would have been 70 when the first of the Gospels were authored. And John would have been penning his gospel with a very shaky hand in 110 CE... >> "What themes of Middle Eastern mythology? Why could they not be true for both?" That's EXACTLY the point. Jesus the Christ is another Middle Eastern myth. >> "Okay, there is a lot of talk about Jesus rising from the dead, but it never actually states that. He has not come back; all we know is that his body dissapeared. That doesn't mean he has risen and is among us." At least someone has figured this out.... >> "Oh really? Dionysus, God of wine? please don't tell me you made the connection between Dionysus' indulgence and Jesus changing water into wine." Well besides the humorous wine connection... Dionysus and the Egyptian god Osiris have long been equated... since the 5th Century BC in fact... ("The Jesus Mysteries" - Freke & Gandy). Here are some interesting connections between the Osiris-Dionysus character and Jesus... - Born of a God and a mortal woman who was a virgin at the time of conception. - Born in a cave/other humble dwelling around the winter solstice. - Followers should be baptized. - Rides into a city on a donkey/mule/colt celebrated by palms. - Life celebrated by a meal of bread and wine. And there's the interesting and humorous connection between the two gods of wine... >> "All your sources were from Wikipedia." Yes - my all of my three sources on Middle Eastern mythology were from Wikipedia. However, I also extensively referenced the Bible as a source. If you would like, I can go back and visit the extended Wikipedia references... but then again, my opponent didn't actually respond to any of those points. >> "Much of this can be related to the fact that there most likely have been more than one 'messenger from God' and the stories of that time were similar because people were experiencing the same circumstances." Right... that's why Judaism, Jainism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Daoism, Taoism, Confucianism, Greek Gods, and Roman Gods are all so similar... . >> "Practically none of Jesus' life is mentioned in the OT" Your source mentions Ps 22:16, Zec 11:13, Isa 53:7. Did you not read some of these passages: Isa 7:14b - "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Mic 5:2 - "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." Hos 11:1 - "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." Jud 13:5a - "For, lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb" Psa 107:28-29 - "Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still." Jos 4:1-2 - " And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over Jordan, that the LORD spake unto Joshua, saying, Take you twelve men out of the people, out of every tribe a man," It is trivially easy to see how the story of Jesus can be plagiarized from these Old Testament passages. Furthermore, if you read the passages referenced here, you will see that these elements are intended to show commonality with older church leaders, not establish Jesus' divinity. For example, if you examine the transfiguration of Jesus, you will see clear parallels to Moses as he comes down from the mount with the 10 commandments and Daniel as he prays to God and is told that the righteous will shine forever. In the story where Jesus smites the fig tree, it is clearly a parallel to a story from Hosea where God finds the Israelites like "grapes in the wilderness" and the "firstripe on a fig tree" - the story is an allegorical account about how Jesus finds no people ripe for his message, not what actually happened. >> "However, most documents of that age are mistranslated in parts." When you have mistranslations like from Hosea 11:1 to Matthew 2:15. Here are the relevant parts of the two verses: Hosea: When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt Matthew: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my son. However, the passage in Hosea is clearly a reference to Ephraim and the Israelites' exodus from Egypt, NOT a prophecy that the Messiah will go to Egypt and come back. Furthermore, if it IS a prophecy, it stands more to reason that the Messiah would be BORN in Egypt. But then again, that would contradict all the other prophecies about where the Messiah would be born. >> "historically impossible..like the fact that we could have evolved from apes a few years ago, right?" This is not a valid response to the point. This response simply underlines a radical misunderstanding of the science behind evolution. However, evolution is immaterial to this debate. The issues raised above are historically impossible even in the context of the history as presented by the Bible. Regardless of how man evolved, the "history" presented in the gospels contradicts all other historical accounts from the same time. The fact that these "historical" accounts are present in the Old Testament too highly suggests that they are indeed creative writing. >> "He is calling from the same text that he is trying to discredit." This is simply incorrect - I am trying to discredit the Bible as an account of Jesus the CHRIST. I accept that there may have been a Jesus the Nazorean, but the resolution is concerning the creative writing employed by the authors of the gospel to transform this ordinary man into the Messiah. The facts of Jesus the Nazorean being able to read and write are completely immaterial to the notion of whether or not he is the Christ. ****************************** As stated before, the authors of the gospels have simply used extant Old Testament writing to transform an ordinary man into their Messiah... Lacking details of Jesus' life, since none of the gospel authors were actually there (remember there wasn't an Apostle named Mark...) and other early writers like Paul make no mention of the details of Jesus' life, the writers turned to the only place they could get details: Crazed, dehydrated primitives wandering in a desert who talked to burning shrubbery and thought the wheelbarrow and chariot were fantastic pieces of cutting-edge technology. What a wonderful source. AFFIRMED.